How great a debt we owe to valiant women of the past, who strained against conventional rules to expand a woman’s ability to be independent and direct her own life! In honor of the recent trend to offer valentines to our BFFs, this month we look at stories about three real and one fictional woman who pushed the boundaries of their eras. We begin chronologically with MONTICELLO by Sally Cabot Gunning.  Gunning’s story focuses on the relationship between Jefferson and his eldest daughter, Martha. After her mother’s death, young Martha accompanied the father she idolizes on his diplomatic posting in France. Returning to Monticello at age seventeen, she is married a year later to Thomas Randolph, a charming but difficult man. Though both Martha and her father have anti-slavery leanings, Jefferson ultimately decides emancipation is not politically possible and Martha, charged with running both her husband’s properties and Monticello while her father pursues his political career, finds she cannot make a plantation function without slave labor. Even with her best efforts, the Jeffersons and Randolphs fall farther into debt.  Often working almost independently to manage family property while giving birth to eleven children, intelligent, competent Martha, like most women of…

1–What is the title of your latest release? MURDER ON AN IRISH FARM (February 22, 2022) How is that for a lucky number?! 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? What could be more exciting than a wedding, a skeleton in a slurry pit, and a fresh body on top? 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? That’s an easy one, all my mysteries are set in Ireland. It all started eight years ago with a call from my editor. He asked if I would be willing to write a mystery series set in England. I told him I didn’t know England well enough to do that. I paused, then said: “But I could set it in Ireland.” I was standing in a parking lot of a grocery store. One of those moments where you remember every detail. It was the start of The Irish Village Mysteries, Home to Ireland series, and the upcoming County Kerry Mysteries. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Absolutely! Oddly, the thing I worry most about is– would Siobhan O’Sullivan like me? I think she would even though she’s twenty-some years younger. She’s an old…

1–What is the title of your latest release? CLAIMED BY THE DEMON ALIEN 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? The Persephone and Hades myth meets Beauty and the Beast where a human scientist falls through a crack in the surface of a distant planet only to find a demon alien living with an immortal curse. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I was really inspired by a virtual reality workout program I use called Supernatural, where the workout settings are either real-life locations or a made-up fantasy land. One workout takes place on this ash-covered planet with these nearby broken sphere moons, and that’s what I based Planet Ell on. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Yes! She’s daring, bold, and smart. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Angry, Possessive, Loyal 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I really challenged myself with this one, and I learned that I can write a really banging ending when I want to! 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? I edit a bit as I go and then do a big…

You’re coming out with your fourteenth and fifteenth book in the “Wilde Ways” series. When you came out with the first book, did you ever think you would continue this far with it? No, I absolutely did not think I would be on book 15! I’m super surprised, truth be told. The first book was PROTECTING PIPER, and actually, when I began it, I didn’t have a series in mind at all.  But as the story developed, there were so many secondary characters who pulled at me, so I thought—you know what? Let’s do a bit more. And that more kept going… The wonderful thing (for me) about the Wilde series—well, it’s that I can develop so many different story ideas that all fall under the Wilde umbrella (so to speak!). Because Wilde is an elite security and protection firm, the characters have assorted backgrounds, and their pasts often pull them into different directions.  I’ve been able to write stories about spies, celebrities, SEALs—each book focuses on different characters, so I have been able to explore and just have fun with the stories. Authors usually say that their favorite characters are the ones they are currently writing about. Who have…

Alanna Morgan is no stranger to being in the news. As a former kidnap victim who turned in the “parents” who’d kidnapped her – and raised her from the ages of five to nineteen – she’s also no stranger to conflict. When she decided to turn in two people who’d loved her – and who she’d loved in return – it meant she’d be going home to a family she barely remembered. A brother and sister who had grown up without her. Parents who had given up hope that she was still alive. For the heroine of Alaska Mountain Rescue, it wasn’t easy to transition back into a life she’d been taken from when she was only five years old. Even harder was trying to reconcile the feelings of love she still had for the “parents” who had kidnapped her, for the “siblings” she’d grown up with, and the fact that she’d decided to break up that “family.” Since returning from an isolated cabin in remote Alaska to Chicago, she’s worked hard to rebuild her relationships with the family who thought they’d lost her forever. She’s also tried to maintain long-distance relationships with the “siblings” she’d grown up with. But…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE VIOLENCE 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Three generations of women escape the cycle of abuse during a pandemic that causes random bouts of animalist violence. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I was living in Tampa at the time, and mosquitoes were a constant annoyance. It made perfect sense to create a disease spread by mosquitoes and set it in my sunny suburb. Once I started writing, I felt a wave of paranoia every time a mosquito landed on me… which was often! 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? There are three POVs: Chelsea, her daughter Ella, and her mother, Patricia. Chelsea and I don’t have much in common, and Patricia and I would hate each other, but I would’ve been friends with Ella when I was in high school. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? For Chelsea—victim (at the beginning), mother, fighter (at the end) 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I grew up with the kind of domestic violence Chelsea and Ella experience in the beginning of the book. Writing it was…

I’ve only read your paranormal romance. Tell me about this suspense anthology you’ve done with Lisa Jackson and Lisa Childs. How did this collaboration come about? It was a suggestion from my editor at Kensington. Lisa Jackson wrote the first story and created the St. Cecilia’s School for Girls in Salzburg, Austria. The school is the connecting point for the three stories. I wrote the second story and then Lisa Childs did the third.   How does this work differ from writing your other types of stories? This one is more of a thriller. My full-length stories are romantic suspense that are heavy on the mystery. A shorter format makes it hard to do a mystery.   Do you enjoy doing an anthology? It was so much fun. Usually, writers work in solitude so when I get a chance to collaborate, I’m always excited. The short format is a challenge, but it’s always a creative way to write a story I’ve wanted to do, but didn’t feel as if it had enough to become a full-length novel.   It seems like each story has the past haunting the present. What do you find compelling about that theme? You’re right! I…

“That arrogant sonofabitch! That voicemail… How dare he? Picking up my phone, I typed out a text in response. Because let’s face it. I wasn’t calling him back and risking him pulling me over to the dark side.   Olive: Don’t flatter yourself, Walker! You weren’t a good lay in college, the only way for you to go was up. I’m guessing you peaked at average.   Oh, sure, it was a boldfaced lie. Hayes had been a great lay. If he’d gotten better? Oophf, the thought made me rub my thighs together. I wasn’t stupid, I knew he’d used the voicemail to bait me into exactly this situation. But what really irked me was that he knew I was making excuses to avoid seeing him, and he was busting my balls about it. I didn’t dodge the hard stuff. Hard stuff was my bread and butter. Yet that was exactly what I’d been doing. If he left me a voicemail, I emailed him back because even just his voice on the messages had been enough to make my nipples pearl. Truthfully, I knew spending any time at all with Hayes could be a slippery slope. There would be no…

Jennifer Vido: How did your admiration for The Great Gatsby inspire your new release, BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOLS?    Jillian Cantor: I’ve long been a fan of The Great Gatsby as a reader, but I’ve also always felt there was more to the women’s stories beneath the surface. Daisy says in the original that the best thing a girl can be is “a beautiful little fool.” But I always felt certain she was so much more than that! My novel explores Daisy’s story, as well as Jordan’s, Myrtle’s, and Myrtle’s sister, Catherine’s. What happens during the investigation of Jay Gatsby’s death that sends the police in a tailspin? In the original novel, Jay Gatsby is murdered, and George Wilson is found shot dead nearby, and the police wrap up the case as a murder-suicide. In my novel, one detective finds a diamond hairpin in the bushes by Jay Gatsby’s pool, and that leads him to start looking closer at the women in Gatsby’s orbit. Let’s talk about the three suspects, starting with Daisy Buchanan. How is she connected to the murder victim? Well, as we know from the original novel, Daisy and Jay met and dated in 1917 in Louisville, where…

1–What is the title of your latest release? WINNING NIA 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? WINNING NIA is a steamy second chance rock star romance following a struggling music photographer and the guitarist who broke her heart ten years ago determined to win her back. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I’ve never read a romance book set in Wales – they’re all either England or Scotland if not only the US – and being Welsh and living here, I wanted to read stories set here. Thus far all of my books are set in Wales and my cast of characters in my rock star books are all Welsh, making the most of Wales’s rich musical history. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Definitely. Nia’s ambitious and focused. She’s also a great, ride or die friend. I’d love to be able to surround myself with people like her. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Determined. Organized. Gregarious. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Lighthouses in the UK are remote operated. In the book there’s a storyline where they’re trying to raise money for…