1–What is the title of your latest release? DEATH BY SPICED CHAI 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Krissy Hancock has a history getting involved in every bad thing that takes place in Pine Hills. She often tries to avoid it, but always seems to find herself dragged into it (though it doesn’t take much to get her involved!) This time, there’s no avoiding the case because everything is being blamed on her—including a murder. And not only that, but it appears that every crime, every insult attributed to Krissy, ties back to previously solved murders that’s she’s been involved in. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? Because (almost) all of the Bookstore Café novels take place in Pine Hills! The individual locations in town (the library, the church, and so on) varies depending on what characters appear. 4–Would you hang out with your sleuth in real life? Probably not, but that’s because I don’t hang out with anyone, really. So, that’s on me more than Krissy, who’d likely only come knocking if someone I knew was found murdered. 5–What are three words that describe your sleuth? Nosy. Inquisitive. Socially anxious. (Yes,…

1–What is the title of your latest release? PHOTO FINISHED (Book 1, Snapshot of NYC Mysteries)   2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Have you ever landed your dream job, attended a black-tie ball, met some millionaires, popped a button, and found a murdered person, all on the same day? Wait until you meet Liv Spyers!   3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? PHOTO FINISHED is my cozy mystery love letter to New York City, the town in which I was born, raised, and still reside.  I loved visiting the city as if I were a tourist while writing the book, seeing the streets through my photographer sleuth’s eyes.   4–Would you hang out with your sleuth in real life? Absolutely!  I love how this young photographer, Liv Spyers, keeps her humor and wits about her while jumping out of her comfort zone to solve the case of billionaire Charlie Archibald’s murder.   5–What are three words that describe your sleuth? “Snappy”, loyal, hard working   6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I have a dear friend who is a professional photographer and kindly read my first draft.  She was…

When I was in second grade, and it was my turn to choose the book from which our teacher would read aloud, I chose The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. And when she started to read it, I recited the opening lines aloud, along with her. Mom got a note. I’ve never been anybody’s definition of normal and my love for the macabre is family legend. But I have been around for a while. Nobody was publishing vampire romances when I started writing Twilight Phantasies (currently FREE in E.) Anne Rice was publishing her lush, vivid, passionate Vampire Chronicles outside the romance genre, and I was devouring them, but there was nothing within. The newborn genre of paranormal romance hadn’t even been named yet. Yet here I was, writing something that had very little hope of being published. I took my novel’s title from Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by Percy Bysshe Shelley. That’s why phantasies is spelled with a ph as it was in the piece’s thirteenth stanza, which is, I think, the most beautiful. There were no vampire novels with “twilight” in the title at that time. In fact, I had published ten…

1–What is the title of your latest release? ANYWHERE YOU RUN which releases on October 25th 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Two sisters run to different parts of the country to escape secrets they left behind. What they don’t realize is that a man with dark secrets of his own is hot on their trail with an unusual motive for finding the women. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The book deals with the horror and traumatic effect of living under the oppression of segregation in 1964 so it was necessary that the story take place in the Jim Crow south. More specifically, it takes place in Mississippi, a state widely known for having some of the most racist and segregationist policies during that time. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? I’d love to hang out with my protagonist. I just don’t know if she’d want to hang out with me because I’m not as outgoing as she is. 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Feisty, smart, and loving. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? How women had so few rights and were…

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 Wren Michaels! Writes: Paranormal Romance BLOOD AND THUNDER, Book 2 in The Thunderbird Brotherhood Series   Rowtag Aktoon is about to die. He doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t know when. All he knows is it’s coming. After his cousin shares a vision and part of it comes true, the reality creeps in that his end could very well be imminent. His family convinces him to seek the help of a witch who could provide answers. He only hopes that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Everleigh Ulric isn’t what she seems. Hiding from a father who wants to exploit her and an immortal witch out for vengeance, she’s built a life of anonymity hidden away at Cirque de Mystique – a paranormal circus. When Tag discovers Everleigh is his mate, life takes on new meaning, however short theirs may be, and he plans to make sure neither he nor his new mate end up six feet under. But dying may just be…

1–What is the title of your latest release? DEMON’S OBSESSION 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? What would you do if you found out you are Lucifer’s fated mate? 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I love demon romances, but I felt that I couldn’t write a Lucifer book because I didn’t have any story to tell. And then one night I had a dream about a demon with large horns walking through a forest getting bigger and being watched by a woman who loved him. When I woke up all the other pieces fell into place. I also watched the new Hocus Pocus the night before, so I was like Salem! Yes! 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Yes. I never write a heroine I don’t like, and I usually give them some of my traits. Sophia has lost her Dad like I have and she’s a great best friend. We could definitely hang out. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Emperor, god, villain. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I learned to stop waiting for a week to my deadline to start…

Excerpt from THE STARS IN THEIR EYES. Copyright © 2022 by Kristy Gardner with permission from City Owl Press   As books piled off shelves, and the meager amount of dishes they owned smashed onto the kitchen floor, sending shards of razor-sharp glass throughout the apartment, Calay had grasped for Tess. The bed rolled on its side, sending the two lovers onto the floor, clinging to each other with their eyes sealed tight. Furniture tumbled around them. They screamed, but beneath the noise of bursting pipes, breaking gas lines, and layers upon layers of crumbling drywall, their cries went unheard. “Tess?” Calay choked out, her hands feeling their way through the chaos, “Tess!” No reply. Panic rose in her throat once again. “TESS!” She slid from beneath fragments of their splintered dresser and pulled herself up on the plasterboard that used to be their bedroom wall. “What the fuck is happening?” Surveying the apartment that was no longer an apartment, she coughed and choked back a sob. Beams of morning light fought through the wreckage, casting shadows over what was left of their home and deep within her mind. If anything has happened to Tess–she pushed the thoughts out of…

1–What is the title of your latest release? DUCHESS OF SIN – it’s the second in my Daughters of Erin trilogy, about the beautiful, rebellious Anna Blacknall, and the handsome, mysterious, dangerous Duke of Adair! 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Blonde and beautiful Lady Anna Blacknall is in the mood for mischief. Entering Dublin’s most notorious den of vice, she finds herself in the arms of a mysterious, emerald-eyed Irishman. And although he is masked, his tender kiss is hauntingly familiar. Conlan McTeer, Duke of Adair, has come to Dublin to fight for a free Ireland. But he’s suddenly reunited with the young Englishwoman who had once claimed his heart, and his passion turns from politics to pleasure. When their sizzling encounter brings danger to Anna’s door, she must decide where her loyalties lie and quickly. For someone will do whatever it takes to destroy Conlan and anyone he dares to love. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I’ve always wanted to do stories set in Ireland; it just took a while for the right characters to appear to me!  The Daughters of Erin books, set in and around the upheaval…

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 Krista & Becca Ritchie!   Writes: We write edgy contemporary romances with lots of heart and a good dose of drama. The Addicted series is our most beloved romance series to date, and the second novel, RICOCHET, continues Lily & Lo’s soul-deep and emotional romance. They’re childhood friends who’ve been pretending to be in a relationship, just to keep a big secret from their families. In Ricochet, Lily is trying to be celibate for 90 days, and for a sex addict, this is anything but easy. When Lily has to chaperone her little sister’s birthday trip, she signs up for more than she might be ready for.   About: Identical twin sisters: one a science nerd, the other a comic book geek—you can catch us geeking-out over X-Men, all things Marvel, classic WB television shows (One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, Charmed, Roswell), and the kind of soul mate romance you wistfully dream of at any age. As Italian-American gals—pasta is everything—we…

Lois Wilson, Betty Field, Carey Mulligan, Mia Farrow, and Mira Sorvino—what do these actors have in common? They have all played Daisy Buchanan on the silver screen, the heroine of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Mulligan starred in Baz Luhrmann’s colorful 2013 adaptation, Sorvino in a 2000 iteration that aired on BBC and A&E, and Farrow in the 1974 film with a script by Francis Ford Coppola. Lois Wilson played Daisy in the 1926 movie, and Betty Field in the 1949 version opposite Alan Ladd as Jay Gatsby. The most recent film iterations of Gatsby are the ones we all likely remember best, but does Daisy’s character stay with us? I remember loving Mia Farrow’s light and breezy, slightly melancholy interpretation of the heroine, but didn’t get much but “beautiful woman in love” from Mulligan’s. I was stunned, in fact, to discover she also played Edith Petty in The Dig, the story of the 1939 archaeological excavation of Sutton Hoo, a deeper and more complex characterization. Maybe that’s because the character of Daisy is something of a light and breezy, unrealized woman. Who is she really? She is charming and funny, ready with an insightful quip. But she often…