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 Lindsey Kelk!   Writes: Romcoms that are as heavy on the rom as they are on the com, like THE CHRISTMAS WISH, an adorable and hilarious romcom about Gwen, a recently single London lawyer who returns to her family home in the English countryside and finds herself stuck in a never-ending Christmas.   About: I’m a Brit living in Los Angeles, so my sense of humor is definitely my strongest attribute. When I’m not writing romcoms, I’m probably watching movies with my husband, taking endless photos of my two cats, or recording one of my podcasts – Full Coverage, an award-winning beauty podcast, or Tights and Fights, a podcast all about pro-wrestling. No, really. I’m obsessed with wrestling, ask me anything.   What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: Someone who loves to laugh Someone who knows all the words to All I Want For Christmas Is You Someone with a soft spot for a sexy English hero and quirky British family…

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 Jennifer Bonds!   Writes: Jennifer Bonds is the USA Today bestselling author of sizzling contemporary romance with sassy heroines, sexy alphas, and a whole lot of mischief. She’s a sucker for enemies-to-lovers stories, laugh-out-loud banter, and over-the-top grand gestures, all of which you can find in her books!   About: Jennifer lives in Pennsylvania, where her overactive imagination and weakness for reality TV keep life interesting. She’s lucky enough to live with her own real-life hero, two adorable (and sometimes crazy) children, and one rambunctious K9. Loves Buffy, Mexican food, a solid Netflix binge, the Winchester brothers, cupcakes, and all things zombie. Sings off-key.   My ideal reader match loves: Sassy heroines who speak their minds and throw snark around like confetti. Alpharoll heroes who aren’t afraid to grovel. (See: over-the-top grand gestures.) Hilarious animal sidekicks who occasionally steal the scene. Forced proximity, only one bed, boss/employee, grumpy/sunshine, hilarious road trip adventures, high stakes bets, and opposites attract. (IE- All the tropey goodness.) Feel-good romance that is light…

1–What is the title of your latest release? BEFORE YOU KNEW MY NAME 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Before You Knew My Name is about the connection formed between a young murder victim, and the woman who finds her body – as told by the dead girl herself. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The story takes place in New York. As a setting, the city provided the perfect mix of anonymity and possibility that I needed for Alice and Ruby’s trajectory, both separately and together. It also meant I had an excuse to live there for a few months under the guise of research! 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? I’d drink a Manhattan with Alice, and some Grey Goose with Ruby, for sure. And I can definitely see myself joining Lennie’s Death Club. 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Alice is curious, vulnerable, and brave. Ruby is contradictory, vulnerable, and loyal. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Oddly, the thing that seemed to take up the most time was researching how to work a vintage Leica camera, like the one Alice…

1–What is the title of your latest release? A DOGGONE DEATH 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Samantha Davies and her dachshund, Porkchop can’t seem to help to stumble upon dead bodies. This time it’s a fellow hooker, rug hooker that is. What should be a friendly event, a hook-in, turns deadly. Sam, her cousin Candie, with Porkchop in tow, has to wade through suspects to make sure their good friend Lucy doesn’t wind up behind bars. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I wanted a small-town atmosphere and I’m lucky to live in upstate New York surrounded by some very beautiful small towns. They were the inspiration for my setting. 4–Would you hang out with your sleuth in real life? Absolutely. I love her fun personality and loyalty to her friends and family. 5–What are three words that describe your sleuth? Caring, loyalty, and independence 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? To relax and enjoy the process. The writing community is a very giving and encouraging group of people. 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? I try to wait until the end,…

What makes us want to read a story about a young nurse trying to survive the ugly inner workings of an emergency department and her soulmate soldier trying to survive the jungles of Vietnam? Or, for that matter, what makes us want to read anything? According to reviewer Lee Ambrose, it may be something called word painting.   Word painting is the use of strategic words to trigger specific emotional responses in people. Musicians have used this technique for centuries to add meaning and emotion to their music. If a musical score is happy and lite, then they’ll select lyrics to match. They’ll do the same for music that is wistful, sad, angry, excited, hopeful, and so on. Think of the sad lyrics in Elton John’s Candle in the Wind or the happy and exciting lyrics in ABBA’s Dancing Queen. These two songs played back-to-back can put us on an emotional rollercoaster in minutes.   Novelists also use word painting to elicit emotional responses, and they have more tools to use than musicians. For example, they can evoke emotions through their characters’ facial expressions, body language, actions, and interactions. The settings for each scene can also pull the reader into…

Author Lyssa Kay Adams picks which “bro” from her Bromance Book Club series is The Character Most Likely.   Most likely to know his daughter’s high school dance routine Mack, for sure. He’s got “Girl Dad” vibes in his DNA. Not only would he know the entire routine, he’d do the routine right along with the dance squad in the stands. And Liv would want to hide in embarrassment (though she’d secretly love it). UNDERCOVER BROMANCE Most likely to volunteer to foster kittens Vlad, obviously. All the neighborhood animals have adopted him and show up unannounced at his house. The hardest part would be returning them to the cat rescue or Humane Society when they’re old enough. He would want to keep them all. ISN’T IT BROMANTIC? Most likely to dress up as a Disney Princess for Halloween Gavin. He will do anything for his twin girls and his wife, Thea. Even if it means playing the part of Elsa in the family “Frozen” costume. THE BROMANCE BOOK CLUB Most likely to become a viral Tik-Tok star Noah. It would be an accident, too. Colton would talk him into start a Tik-tok account to offer cyber security tips to promote…

Hibernation season is fast approaching.  Cool nights, crisp breezes, dramatic skies, and homes with windows, golden with the glow of warmth inside.  Though I’m here in the sunshine of Palm Springs, California, in my heart the very word “October” calls to my eastern shore heart the memory of cozy winters past and the realization that my closest and most comforting friends have always been books.  We moved here two and a half years ago and, though I love it, I get a bit nostalgic for cold cloudy days by the fireplace with a good book. Any book lover who has ever moved house knows the heaviest, hardest things to move are the books.  Large boxes of them are too heavy, and small boxes of them are too many, a friend recommended toting them in trash bags, but while that works to get from point A to the moving truck, trash bags full of books are not an easy thing to stack. Almost inevitably, the book lover then must re-visit every tome and decide, Marie Kondo style, if it still speaks to them.  If it matters enough to move or if it’s time to donate to someone new.  One might even…

Excerpt from SUNDOWN published by arrangement with Revell. Copyright © 2022 by Susan May Warren   Maybe it was instinct, maybe he spotted something – a glimmer out on the water – maybe it was simply years of training but as she opened her mouth, every muscle tightened. “Get down!” He launched himself at her, pushing her down and covering her body with his just as the glass wall shattered over them. The glass pelleted them, but he was already scooping her up and pulling her behind the sofa with him. Bullets chewed up her furniture, as a semiautomatic peppered the boat. “Get behind the island!” He practically pushed her along the wood floor. Her island, too, was taking damage. And he, without a weapon. She had curled into a ball behind the island, but a stray bullet could find her spine, her head. He put an arm around her and pulled her hard against himself, shielding her. “Just stay down while I think!” “We need to get off the boat!” Yes. Given. “You got a car?” “Yes. In the garage across the street.” “Keys?” “In the car. The garage is locked.” “C’mon.” The shots had decimated the furniture, her…

I’m usually a sucker for second chance-at-love stories and I loved RESTING WITCH FACE. What made you decide to have it come out later in the series? Was it to deliberately build tension for readers? Yes, for a couple of reasons. Of course, I wanted to build tension, but also the characters needed to be seen “apart” before you could see them “together.” After you read RWF, you understand why they couldn’t stay together. And if you read closely the books that come before it, you’ll see how Ruben and Jules have both changed. It also makes their final reunion that much sweeter when you’ve seen them apart in other books but sense their obvious chemistry still sparking between them.   I liked both of the main characters in RESTING WITCH FACE – especially your vampire hero. I confess that – even when the book description doesn’t match – I sometimes visualize the paranormal hero looking a little like Jack Skellington from THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Are there any traits – either physical or personality-wise – that you like giving your heroes? I tend to like all my heroes tall. Lol. I simply like tall men, like my husband, so…

1–What is the title of your latest release? HOW TO KISS YOUR GRUMPY BOSS 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? A grumpy-sunshine romcom with small-town vibes, a farm you’ll want to visit in real life, and four very sexy brothers you’ll love to root for. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? This is book two in my How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother series, so the setting was already established for me! I first wrote about Stonebrook Farm in book three of my Some Kind of Love series, LOVE OFF-LIMITS. The heroine in that book had four older brothers, and as I got to know them and the apple farm where they grew up, I knew I had to create a spin-off series so each brother could have his own book! 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Absolutely. Lila is maybe the most like me out of all the heroines I’ve written, so I like to think we would get along really well! 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Grumpy. Exacting. Loyal. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? So, I grew up in Western…