My new novel THE CHRISTMAS LAYOVER is about friendship among strangers. While the terms friendship and stranger seem more like antonyms than synonyms, that is (happily) not always the case. In my book, a small town opens its arms to an airliner full of strangers at Christmastime, and, in my own life, I’ve had similar experiences. On more than one occasion, those that didn’t know me from Adam reached out with the hand of friendship and drew me into their lives just when I most needed to feel included. One such occurrence happened long ago in a college town called Athens, Georgia. I’d like to share it with you.  I’d seen her around campus long before I pledged the Kappa Sigma fraternity the winter of my sophomore year. I’d admired her from afar—the epitome of the untouchable college beauty. I’d decided that if I were forced to choose one perfect girl, she would be the one. Even though our paths crossed several times a day, I felt as if she lived in some remote corner of a distant universe. I was sure she had no clue I existed. She was there the night, several weeks into my pledgeship, when I was invited…

Before KNOCKED-UP CINDERELLA, I published four YA novels, three of them rom-coms. I’d always seen myself as a young adult writer, because I’d always idealized teen romance, with the heady, all-encompassing first loves and epic mistakes. Teenagers are blessed with time–time to obsess over minutiae, whether that means longing looks from a hot guy in calc class, perceived slights from a best friend, or every lyric from their favorite band’s new album. For most of my twenties and thirties, I continued to romanticize teen love, probably because, for me personally, those decades were not about looking for romance and dating, but marriage and parenthood. And most of my circle of friends were in the same place. But now that I’m approaching forty (in a little over a month *cough*), I’ve started to focus more on mature romances. I have friends who’ve found love after thirty-five–after they’ve settled into careers and their single lifestyles. They’re learning how to let a new person–with their own careers and baggage–into their already established existences. I know people who have divorced and found themselves single for the first time in two decades. They have to figure out the dating game in a whole new millennium….

Please welcome Fresh Fiction reviewer Debbie Wiley, who is discussing military heroes! Everyone loves a good hero with a happily-ever-after, but what happens to the heroes who experience debilitating injuries or disabilities while doing their heroic deeds? As a social worker for over twenty years, I love when authors tackle social issues in a rewarding way. I’d like to share a few books and authors I’ve discovered along the way who address heroes with disabilities in ways that showcases their strengths without discounting the challenges the characters have faced. J.R. Ward originally started me thinking about this theme as I was reading her new and powerfully intense romantic suspense novel, CONSUMED. Anne Ashburn is a firefighter, a woman who has dedicated her entire life to her career. All it takes is one fire and suddenly Anne can no longer do her job. One of the things I love most about CONSUMED is that we see a heroic woman in an unconventional job role facing her most difficult moments with honesty and strength. Anne struggles to adjust to her new reality as she deals with such a life-altering disability and J.R. Ward doesn’t flinch away from showing us just how potentially…

In the vanity mirror of her old bathroom, Helena caught sight of her naked torso and wished she hadn’t. She’d known her body looked bad. But it was so much worse than she’d imagined. Water rained from the showerhead, ringing against the old claw-foot tub, a sound that should’ve comforted her for its familiarity, but it didn’t. Not now. Not staring at the disaster that was her body. Her skin bore witness to the brutality she’d suffered at the hands of the Sisters. Thick scars. Jagged scars. Smooth scars. Sunken-in hollows. Disfiguring and ghastly to look upon. The top of her left breast had a fat, puckered mark from one of the Sisters trying to bury a screwdriver in her heart. Dizziness came over her. The world distorted, fading out of focus until the only thing visible was the mess of her flesh. Every damaged piece of skin flamed to life, burning and itching in an I-won’t-ever-let-you-forget of epic proportions. She turned and looked over her shoulder at her back in the mirror. The ability to breathe stopped. Both sides bore dozens, maybe hundreds, of scars from the gang shanking she’d endured. The raised, angry skin looked like a grotesque…

One question I get asked the most is, “Why of all the genres did you choose to write a fantasy series?” I have always loved the fantastical. Epic adventures captured my imagination. Impossible magic enthralled me. Dragons, mermaids, fairies, and monsters thrilled every time I met them. One of my earliest book-specific memories is my father reading The Hobbit to me and my younger sister chapter by chapter every night, beginning to end. Twice. My first favorite author—at least the first I discovered for myself—was Tamora Pierce who gave children of the 80s and 90s female knights, demigods, and heroes, and from her, I branched deeper into the science fiction and fantasy section of the library and the bookstore. It was basically a given that when I committed myself to write a book, I wanted to create a fantasy world. It took me about fifteen years between the first attempt and first published fantasy novel. It took me a little longer than that to truly understand all the reasons why writing the book was so hard as well as why I loved fantasy for far more than the layer of magic on its surface. Speculative fiction—which includes fantasy, science fiction,…

Please welcome New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Grace Burrowes! MY ONE AND ONLY DUKE, the first book in her new series, Rogues to Riches, is available now!  1. This is the start of a new series for you, Rogues to Riches. What’s it like starting a new series from scratch? Have any of these characters popped up in previous books/series? Quinn Wentworth, our hero from My One and Only Duke, took Grinch honors in a short story published in Tis the Season, a multi-author holiday anthology, but other than that… He makes his debut in My One and Only Duke. In a long-running series, an author has to strike a balance between allowing each book to serve as a portal to the series, and not boring faithful readers with a rehash of who is married to whom and how they met. A new series has none of those constraints. We’re all meeting the characters for the first time, and that gives the project freshness. I will always enjoy revisiting my foundation families, and eventually, the Wentworths will join their ranks. For now, though, I’m having great time with a very different sort of duke and duchess. 2….

My name is Evangeline Fontenot but everyone calls me Evie except my papá, he calls me ’tit ange. Little angel. I have people in my life who love me, but what I really want is a mother. I’m in the second grade and our class just got a new teacher. Her name is Miz Honeycutt and I decided she’d make a great mom. She’s real pretty, loves kids and she has a big orange cat named Henry. I know because she has a picture of Henry on her desk. I haven’t met Henry yet, but I’m sure he’s real nice too. I’ve been telling Papá about Henry and Miz Honeycutt every night at supper, but he still hasn’t gone to meet her. Bobby, a boy in my class, says he got a bad grade on his spelling test and his mom had to come to talk to Miz Honeycutt. It worked for him so I decided it might work for me. It did, but now I have to make sure Miz Honeycutt doesn’t decide she likes my uncle or anyone else better than my papá. Who knew getting a mom with a cat was this hard! Excerpt from The Sheriff’s…

All year long I search for new and interesting stories.  Each year, they seem more elusive. November 1st, WAIT UNTIL DARK, a digital novella was released.  It’s a prequel, and introduction to my Maximum Security series that starts with THE CONSPIRACY, out January 22nd.   As I worked to come up with a plot, the only thing I knew was that Jonah Wolfe and April Vale would be thrown together in a tale of greed and murder.  I had no idea how the story would play out. Or who, exactly, would wind up being the villain. I knew the setting.  Maximum Security is the Dallas security company where Cassidy Jones, the heroine of Beyond Danger, worked as a private detective.  I wanted to introduce some of the other men and women who worked at The Max, and WAIT UNTIL DARK gave me the perfect opportunity.   I wasn’t sure how I was going to put Jonah and April together, but little by little, a plot began to unfold in my head.  Since the book is a novella, I thought I’d start right off with the action. A bloody murder? Humm…why not? Halfway through, I was still finding my way, trying…

In this excerpt from Burning Ridge, Deputy Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner Robo search for the body of an unknown victim. Prior to this excerpt, veterinarian Cole Walker’s Doberman pinscher, Bruno, had found a charred boot containing partial human remains. Mattie has used the boot as a scent article to see if Robo can find the missing corpse while her colleague, Chief Deputy Ken Brody, provides backup… *** Robo entered the forest with her not far behind. She could still see him as he slipped through the sparse pine, but lost sight of him where the evergreens grew dense. When the footing became less soggy, she pushed herself into a sprint. Sunlight dimmed as the forest closed around her. Mattie pressed forward, searching for Robo as her eyes adjusted to less light. She spotted him about thirty yards ahead following a faint trail, his nose in the air. She raced after him, using the firmer footing to catch up. A Steller’s jay, its blue feathers iridescent in the filtered sunlight, flashed ahead and then landed high in a pine to scold her, its chirrup echoing in the stillness. Too still? When they’d reached the meadow, they’d ridden out of…

We are so happy to feature an interview with USA Today bestselling author, Jasmine Guillory, author of THE PROPOSAL and THE WEDDING DATE!  1. I love how the setting is so important to your books – the neighborhoods, restaurants, cities, and homes all feel real. What made you choose LA as the setting for The Proposal? Are any of the places in the book based on real places?I knew THE PROPOSAL was about Carlos, and I knew Carlos grew up in LA and had a strong connection with the city and that his family was there, so the book had to be set there too! And probably about half of the places in the book are based on real places; I did some scouting trips to LA while I wrote the book, and I have a bunch of friends in LA who helped me a lot! The bookstore, in particular, is a great bookstore in LA: Skylight Books. 2. Family, both biological and found, are important support systems for your main characters, Nik and Carlos. How do their friends and family shape some of the decisions they make throughout the novel? Friends and family are very important to both Nik…