What is the title of your latest release?BLUE JEAN SUMMER What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?A down-on-her-luck pageant queen strikes a deal with a reluctant cowboy where he’ll pay her debts as long as she marries him to save the land his parents are buried on. Now, they must convince the town – and his brother – that they’re in love for real. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?BLUE JEAN SUMMER takes place on the Wilder Estate in the fictional town of Honey Hollow, Virginia – a small town nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. It is loosely based on my late great-grandmother’s farm in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where I spent many summers running through the pastures, exploring her expansive flower gardens, and watching movies projected on the side of the barn. Winters were spent making hot chocolate on the wood stove and sledding the “big hill” while trying to avoid the cows that wandered over to see what we were doing. When I sat down to plot the world that would hold all the stories of the Wilder Estate, I could not think of a more picturesque setting that would give…

Excerpt from LUCKY 22 by Ashley Eckstein and Samantha Chase: “I can’t believe you finally broke up with Jim. Yay, you!” she says, raising her glass of water to me. I raise mine right back. “Thanks. It was time. We could have kept going, but…” I shrug. “It just wasn’t there. We went to a baseball game, and when he took me home, I knew it was time.” “Wait, you went to a baseball game? I thought sports weren’t really your thing.” I shrug. “I mean, I enjoy going to games. I just don’t follow sports. Jim had some complimentary tickets from work for the Magic game, and a bunch of us went.” I take a sip of my water, thinking about that night. I glance at Whitney, and before I can stop myself, I blurt out the whole eye-contact thing with Christian Lucas. “I know it’s crazy, but it felt really intense,” I tell her. “Like it was an important moment. And his number is twenty-two! Don’t you think that’s crazy? What are the odds that he’s the one I made eye contact with?” “Were you trying to make eye contact with him?” she says with a suspicious laugh….

What is the title of your latest release?THE REFUGE What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?It seems like any normal day on The Amarant, a luxury hotel in Montana where the rich pay to commune with nature. But when an abandoned child is discovered on the grounds, the staff quickly learn how far some locals will go to keep the truth about the girl’s past buried… How did you decide where your book was going to take place?THE REFUGE is set in paradise. That was where I started, before toying around with where exactly to place that paradise. And ultimately, for me, paradise looked like Montana, just north of Yellowstone. I wanted it to feel lush and green and pulsing with animal life. I wanted the people to love the land and feel like keepers of it, rather than owners. I think that in America, that idea of stewardship grows more and more the closer you get to the National Parks, where people see themselves as protectors, guardians, or lucky beneficiaries of this world. Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?Yes! It feels like I have already spent years “hanging out” with her while writing her…

What is the title of your latest release?THE DATING GAME What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?Unlucky in life and love board games designer Tilda decides to structure her own life according to a set of rules. With everything turned into a game, and a rulebook she can understand, perhaps she can finally win at life. The only problem? The other players don’t know that they’re playing… How did you decide where your book was going to take place?THE DATING GAME is set in Monaco, which is where I currently live. It’s such a famous place but one that few people know beyond the glamour. I wanted to bring life to the ordinary in this extraordinary place. Also, the idea of placing a crime novel in one of the safest countries in the world, where violent crime is virtually zero, excited me. Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?I’m not going to lie, I’d be scared to! However, Tilda is very loyal to her friends… What are three words that describe your hero?Fair, driven and unhinged. What’s something you learned while writing this book?I loved learning all there is about board games! There are online forums…

There’s an elementary school at the end of my block. School had started, but all the buses were still lined up in front. That can only mean thing: field trip. Zoo? Nature trail? Museum? Play? Time to collect everybody’s lunches and hit the road. Do they still sing, Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall? Probably not, but hopefully something fun has replaced it. As I drove to work, I thought adults need field trips too. During the summer, my employer has a barbeque and our annual meeting. Not the same as traveling together to learn about native plants or exotic animals. My family never went to the zoo or museums. All those sights and smells, I’m looking at you monkey house, come from my school sponsored trips. Being in clubs or extracurricular activities brings even more travel and fun. Then you become an adult, and you go to work. Maybe take a vacation or two, super book yourself for activities, and come home exhausted. A field trip is planned by someone else, and you go along to all the events. Pay a flat fee and everything has been thought of and covered. I know the over sixty-five crowd has…

Each Monday the Smashwords store lists the top ten most highly anticipated indie fiction ebooks based on the previous week’s preorder accumulations. Each title on the list is scheduled to release within the next week. To help the talented authors on this list accumulate even more preorders, click the title of the book. The hyperlink will bring you to a Books2Read page where you can order from your preferred ebook retailer. If the preorder is part of a series, click the hyperlinked series title to learn about the other books in the series. Be sure to check back Friday for a list of the Top 25 Bestselling Indie Ebooks.

Each Friday the Smashwords store reports the bestselling indie fiction titles based on the previous week’s sales. If an author has more than one title eligible for the list, only the highest performing title will be included. This ensures high-performing titles receive the accolades they deserve, while providing up-and-coming authors the visibility they have earned. Don’t miss Monday’s Top 10 Hot Preorders List, where Smashwords will provide a list of the most highly anticipated ebook preorders.

Welcome back to Jen’s Jewels, your go-to column for the hottest reads available now! This week, I’m shining the spotlight on MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER by Hank Phillippi Ryan—a gripping thriller about two sisters, one devastating secret, and a shocking truth. Add this one to your TBR! Read more… LIGHTNING ROUND What’s your favorite way to spend a crisp September afternoon?So funny that you asked that, because my first moment of my first day in Boston, almost 40 years ago, was a crisp September afternoon. I looked up into that perfectly blue Boston sky, saw the sun shimmer through the trees of the public garden, heard the sound of gulls over Boston Harbor, and smelled that briny fragrance of the sea. I thought wow, we don’t have this back home in Indiana! I got the job as investigative reporter at Boston’s Channel 7 that day, and have been here ever since. Years later, my husband and I were married on a crisp September afternoon, and our wedding photo was taken in that same public garden. Some of the fondest moments of my life took place on a crisp September afternoon. So a walk through the public garden, with the swan…

Book Title: GOODNIGHT MONSTERSCharacter Name: Lia Montgomery How would you describe your family or your childhood?My childhood was picture perfect—a patient mother who had her quasi-healthy chocolate chip cookies at the ready each day after school, a permanent imprint on the edge of my sister’s bed for how often we played Uno while talking about boys, and a dad who let me help drive the tractor and feed the goats and asked me for a dress-up date every month, just the two of us, to talk about my future hopes and dreams. Picture perfect, right? Until it wasn’t. What was your greatest talent?My ability to imagine, to create stories in my mind. Is that a talent? I know it doesn’t translate to anything tangible, not something I can quite share with others, but it feels like a skill, a talent for sure. I have this strong capacity to imagine something so vivid I often forget it’s not real. Maybe one day I’ll write these stories down. Into a novel or something. Significant other?Evan? My husband? He’s pretty significant. Evan saved me from a Freudian relationship I was dabbling in, literally grabbed my hand and dragged me away. Not forcefully; he’s…

What is the title of your latest release?A TIME OF WITCHES, which releases on September 1 – it’s perfect for lovers of dual-timeline historical fiction with magical realism and female empowerment What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?Lilith Legare has spent years dreaming she is being burned alive at the stake. Fate brings her to an abandoned manor in England where she discovers that the woman in her dreams was real, and the past is not finished with either of them. In 1645 England, another woman is fighting to survive one of the country’s most notorious witch hunts. Bound across centuries by blood, betrayal, and a magic that refuses to remain silent, these two women have one chance to rewrite history before they are both erased. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?Bury St. Edmunds, England, because it was the site of one of the largest witch trial executions in English history under the self-proclaimed Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins. I wanted to tell the story of the women whose voices were silenced during that time. For the contemporary timeline, I set it in Savannah, Georgia. I love how much history is there and how…