Excerpt from HOW SIMI GOT HER GROOM BACK by Sonali Dev: Chapter 4 – RUMI The bus jerks to a stop with a giant mechanical sigh of relief, and I jolt awake. The first thing that strikes me is the missing weight of my backpack on my chest. I sit up and search the seat next to me, then bend over and look under my seat. No! The world stops. Everything stops. My heart hammers in my ears. This can’t be happening. The bus is completely, eerily empty. Not another soul on board, except for the driver. I jump up and grab the overhead luggage rack with both hands and pull myself up, getting a foothold on the seat. My eyes search up and down the empty racks. Rising panic makes it impossible to process what I’m seeing. Emptiness. Nothing but emptiness on either side. Shit shit shit. Over the past year, I’ve slept on a lot of public transport. After I left LA, I spent six months going from place to place on trains and buses before I found my way to Chicago. I also grew up in Mumbai. Clutching my belongings for dear life is coded into my…

What is the title of your latest release?THE SECRET LIVES OF MURDERERS’ WIVES What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?Beverley, Elsie and Margot are three friends with a shared secret – they are all ex-wives of serial killers. When a string of murders hits their pretty, white-picket-fence neighborhood, the three get to work, because who better to catch a murderer than those who have shared a bed, and a life, with one? How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I’m a Brit but I knew this story wasn’t going to take place in the grey, rainy UK. I wanted a murder story you could read by the pool – so sun-smattered LA was the perfect setting. California is a very large state, obviously, so there’s the geographical plausibility of multiple serial killers operating at any particular time. Oh, and the Hollywood connections were irresistible. I wouldn’t have wanted to set it anywhere else! Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?I think anyone who’s been through what these women have been through is incredible. I would be proud to sip on a margarita by the pool with them. What are three words that…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Dana Mentink! Writes:Dana Mentink writes both romantic suspense and cozy mystery. She delivers stories that stir your soul, keep you at the edge of your seat, and leave you feeling a bit better about the world. No spice or profanity in her novels, but you’ll find warmth for your soul and tingles for your spine. Want laughs, small town hijinks, and a fun mystery to solve? Check out her cozies. Enjoy running for your life stories that will keep you awake at night? Her suspense delivers. About:Dana Mentink is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller as well as a two-time American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award winner, and the recipient of a Holt Medallion for excellence in mystery/suspense. She was honored to receive the Author of the Year award from West Coast Christian Writers. A California native, she’s written over fifty titles for the general and Christian markets in the suspense, and mystery genres. She is pleased to write for Harlequin’s Love…

She stole the words right out of my mouth. Not literally, there’s just no better description for the stories of today’s author other than to call them, THE FULL MONTY! When you pick the latest release by Laura Childs you will get a grade A mystery, a world you want to escape to, you will learn cultural aspects of tea parties and tasting, experience the charm of southern living, and you will make friends with her characters who you will want to keep for life! On top of that, her mysteries are always 300 plus pages – thank you! Plus she’s just a wonderful person to sit down and talk to, so get cozy with a glass of tea and enjoy. Kym: Welcome to The Cozy Corner on Fresh Fiction, Laura!Laura: Delighted to be here! Kym: March 10th marks the day of your 30th Tea Shop Mystery release with DEATH AT A FIREFLY TEA. That is an amazing feat and you continue to write 300 plus pages of well-written mysteries that deliver every single time. What keeps the series fresh for you as a writer?Laura: This might sound a little quirky and irreverent, but I believe it’s because there are…

Since Spring is about month away, it’s time to start planning for next winter. Although March has every known weather occurrence and some inventive combinations, I do remember thunder snow. I love winter, but this one is testing me. It’s brought too much Arctic air, but I do like snow. Spring is a time of rebirth. Flowers, trees and plants are back bringing all their greenery, plus pollen, ragweed, and all my other allergy agents. Winter is cold, dark and wonderfully still. January is fifty percent of the year. It drags along, where February is a blink of time. A quick breather before everyone schedules well into December. It’s time to treat winter the way it makes me feel: the dwarf I can relate to, sleepy. Grab a pillow, a blanket, and curl up.  Bears have winter figured out.  Hibernation is looking better every day, put on an extra hundred pounds, find a comfy cave, pack a massive TBR pile, and snooze for a few months. I’m in. About Mary Jo Burke Mary Jo is a USA Today bestselling author and 2014 WRWDC Marlene Award winner. She writes whatever pops into her head including paranormal, fantasy, romance, and mystery stories. Being…

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.

Romance novels are my jam. However, every time I think I’ve heard about all the different subgenres and variants, another one pops up to knock me for a loop. The first time I heard of “dark romance”, I was happily browsing Etsy for all things romance when I stumbled upon some dark romance themed swag. I didn’t understand what that was or what the various key phrases meant. I have since been educated. Per Google: “Dark romance is a subgenre of romance fiction that explores intense, often taboo, and emotionally charged relationships, featuring morally ambiguous characters, themes of danger, crime, dubious consent, and power dynamics (e.g., kidnapping, stalking, mafia). Unlike traditional romance, it focuses on high-stakes emotional intensity, often resulting in complex, positive, or sometimes tragic, conclusions.” One thing about dark romances that I really appreciate is a list of potential trigger warnings provided by the author. I appreciate it when an author includes them in the front of a book, but some authors will just say to check their website to see the associated trigger warnings associated with each of their books. For example, an author might warn readers that there are scenes or sections that mention animal abuse…

In this week’s Jen’s Jewels, I’m featuring PINKY SWEAR by Danielle Girard, a riveting thriller about a woman whose surrogate vanishes just days before her baby is due. If you’re craving a compulsively suspenseful read that will keep you turning pages long past bedtime, this one absolutely delivers. LIGHTNING ROUND In three words, describe the vibe of your book.Intimate, haunting, emotional. What’s your ideal writing fuel: coffee, tea, wine, or chaos?Black coffee, side of chaos. Plotter, pantser, or “organized mess”?An organized mess – I write a draft without a road map and then (hopefully!) revise my way into clarity. If your book had a theme song, what would it be?Ha. Maybe something like I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. This book went through a lot of iterations. What time of day does your creativity peak?I used to be a night owl. I’d start after the kids were in bed and write until the wee hours. These days, I love to write from about 10 am to 4 pm. I’d say those first two or three hours are peak performance, but sometimes I still surprise myself with a late-night session. THE DEEP DIVE Every book has an origin story. What was…

Music has slowly become more and more central to my writing journey. While I can’t write at all unless I am surrounded by complete silence (or the odd white noise), I have found now that I love connecting to my stories through music. For my debut novel DAUGHTER OF FIRE, I didn’t make a playlist until I was finished writing the book, and the purpose was to complement a list of book club questions and make it more immersive to the readers. I didn’t expect to fall in love with the process of matching songs to the themes, plot and characters. That is why I began my playlist for THE OTHER MOCTEZUMA GIRLS a lot earlier, probably halfway through writing the book (which took many years). I found that music helped me to figure things out when I was feeling stuck, which happened all the time! The novel has two points of view. There’s the perspective of Tecuichpoch, who was the last empress of the Mexica at the time of the Spanish Conquest and is writing down her memoirs before her death, and also the perspective from her daughter Isabel Cano, who embarks on a quest to find the hidden…

Hello, I’m Caitlin, here to usher you into the twisty, magical world of my dark academia fantasy debut: THE FOX HUNT it, shy student Emma Curran discovers that a circle of privileged students have been entering into a dark pagan ritual – one that holds tantalizing power and comes at a terrible price. T is for tradition. At England’s most ancient university, rituals run deep…and some of them are bound up with real magic. H is for hunt. A shocking night at university into something far more sinister, when a group of powerful young men decide that they are hunters, and young women are the prey. E is for enchantment. Magical libraries, strange creatures, and a hidden world are waiting to be discovered…   F is for fox. This story reverses Beauty and the Beast tropes: our heroine Emma finds strength in her savagery and beauty in the beastly O is for otherworldly. Emma is drawn into a shadowy realm full of magic, adventure and strange encounters X is for exclusivity. The wealthy, privileged boys of the University’s elite secret society, The Turnbull Club,  live by the code that power belongs to a chosen few.   H is for hierarchy….