Excerpted from HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE MELTDOWN, by Sheila Roberts: Things hadn’t always been awkward between Jordan and Charles. He’d been her buddy in high school, sitting behind her in honors English and History. She’d bake him chocolate chip cookies and he’d critique her short stories. They were regulars at The Cutting Room Floor, the town’s old movie theater that showed classic movies. At Halloween she always booed him, leaving bags of his favorite candies on his family’s front porch. Charles had become a regular visitor at her house, almost like a member of the family. And members of the family had roped him into more than one escapade. It was Charles who’d noticed the rash forming on her face the time she’d used the skin cream Aunt Samantha had concocted for her to get rid of zits. By lunch, Jordan’s face had looked like a mask leftover from Halloween, and it had been Charles who had driven her home from school. Mom had ignored Aunt Samantha’s dire warnings about toxins, taken Jordan to the doctor and gotten a prescription for a different cream, which cleared up the mess in a few days. It had been Charles who brought…

Exclusive excerpt from BAD LIKE ME by Louise Griffin: Rachel stumbled, almost on automatic pilot, back to the pumpkin carving station with the bag of fresh supplies she’d gone out to grab from her car. Sam wasn’t there, but Rachel couldn’t even worry about that now. There was no misinterpreting what she had just witnessed. Lucy, sitting in her husband’s car, for entirely too long. Her brain sputtered, thoughts jagged and clipped. Something was going on with them. Between them. Something private. On this day, of all days. Her day. The Fall Fair. Lucy and Elliot. Together. First, Rachel felt the prickle and sting of tears, like nettles. But quickly, she turned the tears into her own tempest. The rage blew through her, like a gale she had no control over, and before she really understood where she was going, she was on her way. She knew what she had to do. She walked out of the Fall Fair. She found Lucy looking flustered, like she’d forgotten who she was and where she was supposed to be. “Come with me,” Rachel snapped at her. “But the cider . . .” Lucy started. “I have a different job for you. We’re…

Excerpt from FALLING INTO US by Denise Hunter: Chapter 1 Gabrielle Donaldson was surprised the unopened letter hadn’t burned a hole through her purse. It had been casually resting inside her leather hobo bag since she’d left Indianapolis this morning. But now that she’d finally arrived in Gibson, a gust of dread swept through her. She’d planned to arrive before sunset, but a series of traffic and construction issues delayed her arrival. The sun had slipped below the horizon long ago, and now she crept along the hairpin turns in her yellow Volkswagen Beetle. She took her eyes off the road long enough to glare at the headlights in her rearview mirror. “Seriously? I’m new here, people, and I’d rather not slip off the mountainside.” A few minutes later she breathed a sigh of relief when the tailgater turned into a drive just in time for the road to level out. She stifled a yawn. She was normally a night owl, but she’d been driving all day and wasn’t used to these mountain roads. “In half a mile your destination is on the right,” the male GPS voice said in a British accent because everything sounded better in a British…

There’s a sentence I can’t stop thinking about lately. It’s only six words long, and it’s one of those things that just makes you stop and say, Ohhh. Yes. That.  I was at Hank Phillippi Ryan’s book launch recently, a lovely evening full of people celebrating a writer who has earned every bit of her success. During her remarks, she told a story about the early days when she was halfway through her very first novel and not at all sure she could finish it. She confessed this to her mother, probably hoping for reassurance. Her mother said, “Well, dear, if you want to, you will.” That was it. No pep talk, no “of course you can.” Just a simple statement that put the whole thing back in her hands. She didn’t start writing fiction until her mid-fifties. Twenty years and seventeen books later, she obviously finished that first book, and many more. She’s still going strong, still improving, still competing only with the version of herself from yesterday. Clearly, she wanted to. I’ve been reflecting on that sentence ever since, because I know how many roadblocks I put in my own way. They tend to sound like this: I don’t…

What is the title of your latest release?MOTHSBLOOD What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?An ambitious alchemist attending a secret university in Paris must confront her shadowed past after the impossible murder of her immortal professor. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I moved to France after graduating high school, and my experiences running around Paris inspired me to set MOTHSBLOOD in the same city. Paris’ long history, as well as the fact that it was home to the real-life Flamels, made it the perfect city for a fake alchemy university. Thematically, I also think of Paris as a city that feels like a dream to outsiders, but in actuality is a very real place with many of the same problems and shadows as anywhere else in the world. I love Paris, but I’m very aware that it’s a living city, not a fairy tale – and I wanted to reflect that in MOTHSBLOOD. Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?I would probably try to mother her honestly, like give her a blanket and a nice meal and some tea, but otherwise she’d be pretty difficult to be around. The character…

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.

Book Title: BLACKOUT – A JAKE BENDEL THRILLER Character Name: Kristi Konnors How would you describe your family or your childhood?  Overall, pretty good, two loving parents, no siblings to get in my way. Often called a Tom-boy. Enjoyed riding BMX bikes with my fellow seventh and eighth graders back in the early 2000s. What was your greatest talent?  Figuring out solutions to problems nobody else could. Like using a mini-EMP to save a woman’s life by . . . wait, hold on, I’m not supposed to share those details yet . . .   Significant other?  Not right now. No way my heart could handle another failure. Biggest challenge in relationships?  During mandatory therapy two years ago after I shot a drug dealer—he didn’t die, but he’s paralyzed from the waist down—I apparently have abandonment issues. So, there’s that. Where do you live?  Grew up in Nebraska, but moved to New York to get my dual major criminal justice and electrical engineering bachelor’s degrees at NYU. Currently living in a dumpy apartment in Washington D.C. Do you have any enemies?  Anyone who does not comply with the law. How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is…

Welcome back to Jen’s Jewels, your go-to destination for discovering your next great read. This week, I’m shining a spotlight on POSTMARKED DECEMBER by USA Today bestselling author Jenny Hale. It’s officially the season for Christmas romance, and few authors capture the magic of the holidays quite like Jenny. So grab a cozy cup of cocoa, settle in, and get to know the author behind your next holiday favorite! LIGHTNING ROUND What’s your go-to fall drink, snack, or sweet treat while writing?I’m a PSL (Pumpkin Spice Latte) girl all the way. I adore them. I make mine at home with homemade cashew milk, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, and cinnamon. If your main character could plan the perfect early autumn getaway, where would they go?She’d probably have a blackberry dessert wine, wrapped in a thick-knit cardigan at a winery with a view of the mountains, so she could glimpse the fall foliage. What simple ritual helps you settle into a productive writing day?One word: Coffee. Always hot (never iced for the purpose of writing), latte. THE FALL INSPIRATION What was the very first spark that inspired this story?The title came first for me. I went back and forth with Postmarked Christmas…

What is the title of your latest release?ENGINEERING A LOVE STORY What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?ENGINEERING A LOVE STORY is an upmarket romance about a divorcing software developer in the year 2000 whose hopes for a bigger life are tested by a workplace affair that threatens her career, her newfound independence, and her heart. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the late nineties and early 2000s, the setting for this novel. This was a transformative time for me personally, but also for Cambridge, which was in the midst of transitioning to the world-class tech/bio-tech/business center that it is today. The year 2000 in particular a fascinating, as there was all the dot-com enthusiasm and the optimism of a new millennium, but the stock market was also tanking, and we endured a tumultuous presidential election. I was excited to set my first novel in this turbulent place and time. Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?Totally. Chelsea Lefevre, my main character, is not me, though we share some personality traits and background details. Like me, Chelsea grew up in a beleaguered factory town in…

As part of my story development process, I create a playlist of songs that mean something to the main characters or that capture a certain theme or emotion of the story. Music enlivens my imagination, allowing me to experience the characters’ fictional world in a real, sense-based way. These songs were among these most heavily rotated as I wrote and edited THE SISTERHOOD OF UNLIKELY FRIENDS. Greater Than All My Regrets by Tenth Avenue North – Jess, the main character, is starting over after years of poor choices have left her life in ruins. Though she is trying to step as far away from her old life as possible, her regrets haunt her. This contributes to her belief that if others knew the real her, they would reject her too. She is slowly unlearning this lie and starting to see herself as more than the sum of her mistakes. This song captures that sentiment perfectly. Narrow Road by Josh Baldwin – Despite its angsty tone, this ballad is filled with hope that something stronger can sustain us through the hardest days when we seem to be completely on our own. As I was drawing Jess’s journey, which is wrought with…