One of my favorite movies is a British romantic comedy called About Time. Here’s the plot: When the males in a certain family reach the age of twenty-one, they’re given the special ability to travel through time and re-set the clock. They get a free pass, a re-do. Doesn’t that sound awesome? To erase the effect of a sharp word, a joke that fell flat, or avoid a misunderstanding. If I had that special time-travel ability, I’d be revising and editing my life a dozen times a day. Have you ever wished you could turn back the clock and have a second chance at something? Luke Schrock in Mending Fences sure did. He’s back in Stoney Ridge after a long stint in rehab, coming face to face with all the poor choices he’d made before he left. Bishop David Stoltzfus wants Luke to make a list of all those he harmed so he can make amends. They’re step 8 and 9 of the Twelve Steps Program, he told Luke, as he handed him a paper and pen. Reluctantly, Luke wrote down four names and put down the pen. “There. Done.” David pointed to the paper. “Keep going, Luke,” he said….

When you get right down to it, most stories in the romance genre are fated pairings. The hero and heroine either “meet cute” or “meet against all odds,” often disliking one another in the beginning. The romance in Mystic is not only a fated pairing, but it is also against all odds. Aidan Banadänsk finds Sula Enduran as the result of a recurring vision, although the romance isn’t even hinted at in his vision. He only knows she is in danger and he must rescue her. What he doesn’t realize is that the rescue is only the beginning of their story.   Most of my stories involve pairings that seem fated, beginning with Slave, the first book in the original Cat Star Chronicles series. In her quest to rescue her kidnapped sister, Captain Jacinth “Jack” Rutland needs a man to pose as her master on a planet where all women are enslaved, so she buys a male slave whom she dubs Cat. The attraction between Cat and Jack is immediate and strong, despite the fact that she is human and he is Zetithian. Moreover, she had to travel halfway across the galaxy to find him in the slave market on…

I’m so excited to launch the first book of Outlaw Mail Order Brides, THE OUTLAW’S MAIL ORDER BRIDE. I’ve wanted to tell these stories ever since I wrote Tally Shannon and her band of fugitive women into To Love a Texas Ranger (Men of Legend, Book #1).  Tally Shannon’s stepmother put her into an asylum to get rid of her following the death of her father. A year later she escapes along with other women in the same situation and they take refuge in Deliverance Canyon. Each wears a tattoo on her cheek, put there by the warden for identifying purposes which makes going into town impossible. In addition, Tally has a price on her head. The warden is desperate to get her back. After a year of living in hiding, Tally yearns for a better life for her and her women. Luke Legend and his wife Josie have started a private bride service for people like her who are living in the shadows and she starts corresponding with outlaw Clay Colby. Only another fugitive will know what it’s like to be hunted. Clay is also desperate for change and has decided to make a town out of the hideout where he’s been…

Grabbing his coffee mug—because cutting coffee out of his diet was not going to happen—he walked out onto the deck and sat down. This was something that really did relax him, and he had to admit, it was nice to be able to stay out here and linger rather than rushing inside to get ready for work. Except…every time he came out here, he looked for Sophie. He was still kicking himself for the way they’d ended things when she was here. It wasn’t his intention to make her feel bad or for her to leave the way she had. But in that moment, he was feeling a little overwhelmed and he knew he hadn’t handled things well. And in the process, he’d hurt her feelings. While he wanted to apologize to her, he wasn’t sure how. Sure, he could’ve gone to the water every time he saw her, but every time he was about to step off the deck, he chickened out. Partly because he wasn’t really sure what to say, and partly because he was afraid he had misread the situation and maybe she was only interested in him as…you know, a patient. And man, would that suck….

Many of my writer friends long for the day they can quit their day jobs to write full time. When people ask if that’s my plan, too, they’re often surprised when I say, “Oh, no. I love my ‘other’ job!” I’m a USCG-licensed boat captain and have been working for our local school system for almost 11 years. Several days a week, I take 5th graders out on Central Florida’s Silver River in a 33-foot pontoon boat and get to show many of them their very first alligator. It is such a fun job! (Well, except when it’s 38 degrees out and misty and windy. Then, not so much.) Is it a challenge to juggle two very different careers? No question. But over the years, I’ve realized that my captaining brings a balance to my life that would be missing if I was home all the time. Here’s what I mean: It Forces me Out of my Writing Cave Writers often tend toward introversion. Somehow, I’m a hybrid–an extroverted introvert, meaning, I need my alone time, but I also crave time with people. If I’m alone in my house for too long…well, let’s just say the places my unsupervised brain…

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 as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Cassie Graham!  WRITES: I write a range of contemporary romance. Feel-good to paranormal. Suspense to angsty. I guarantee to give you a case of the ‘feels’ while possibly wanting to throw your Kindle out the window. While I write flawed characters who don’t always act perfectly while exploring real situations, holding them accountable for their actions. I write witty banter with a side of snark, so if you like to laugh and snicker at characters while simultaneously swooning, you’ve met your match. ABOUT AUTHOR: Sassy redhead seeks readers with big hearts who love clever heroines and heroes who unapologetically embrace their emotions. With eight books under her belt, Cassie lives in the hot Arizona desert with her husband of thirteen years. She’s living insta-love and isn’t afraid to explore all sides of a good story. WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR IN MY IDEAL READER MATCH: – Knows that the way to any heroine’s heart is through her stomach. – Can laugh at…

As a Canadian, I love snow. I grew up with the white stuff and remember fondly going out for Halloween with my costume on over my snowsuit, carrying my goodie bag through the show. So, when I was imagining a place forWarrior Nights, my thoughts went to a small town that would be snowed in at least once a year. Just imagine—the perfect little town in the mountains, a lovely place that happened to get snowed in for a few days. Nothing big to worry about, right? You snuggle in, stay warm and read those books on your TBR pile, maybe binge on holiday movies until the plows come in from the Big City to re-establish communication… There’s a certain beauty about small towns. I grew up in Toronto, so I was a classic city girl—mass transit right outside the front door, a corner store within a few minutes walking and shopping… well, let’s just say that my credit card never had a chance to catch his breath. Add in an amazing number of food choices, most of them within walking range and you can’t beat a large city for making it easy to spend money! But there’s something to…

California Code of Cupid Regulations (CCR) § 100.01. (a) For purposes of this Act, the term “love” shall mean the sufferance by one person of affection for and attachment to another person or persons for any period, however brief. For more than twenty years, Eliza had been working on a list of things she hated more than Valentine’s Day. And finally, after decades of hard work and dedication, she’d narrowed it to the following: ? ?? ??? Okay, so it was still a work in progress. But to be fair, she had yet to encounter anything she despised as much as the onslaught of pink and red hearts that appeared each February. Not to mention, if your birthday happened to fall on Valentine’s Day, avoiding the slew of cutesy cards and pictures of diapered, armed babies was nearly impossible. And if you were a Descendant of Eros with the misfortune of being born on February fourteenth? Forget it. Everyone everywhere commented on how cute and coincidental it was that a “Cupid” had been born on love’s holiest of holidays. Eliza ducked her head as she made her way through Red Clover. Leaving her apartment always made her anxiety flare, but…

Today, we have a great interview between Fresh Fiction reviewer Teresa Cross and thriller author Andrew Grant, about his latest release, INVISIBLE! You can read Teresa’s review of INVISIBLE here. Enjoy! Teresa: Your latest book is about a character, Paul McGrath, an Army Intelligence who comes home to find his father had passed away which was a big surprise for him. Then he goes undercover as a janitor at the courthouse. Where did you get the idea or concept for the storyline for INVISIBLE? Andrew: It came about as the combination of two strands of thought: one new, and one old. Over the last couple of years, I’ve felt a change in the mood of the country, a growing sense of unease as inequality has grown more pronounced and injustice more rife, so it seemed like it was time for a different kind of hero: One who would stand up for the 99%. Added to that I’ve been fascinated since I was a little kid by characters like the Scarlet Pimpernel – heroes who are driven by what’s right, not by the desire for fame or reward, and consequently work in the shadows where their true identities are never revealed….

When I first started writing Bound by Danger, the story started out as a flirty rom-com about a flight attendant who hurries off the plane to meet a blind date. She rushed to the restaurant only to discover the man she’s meeting had been on her flight, and she’d forced him from the bathroom with a woman he was on the verge of joining the mile-high club with. Enter the weak excuse, add a desperate man needing a date for a wedding, and the first half of the book was complete. But something was off. My hero had engaged in very unheroic behavior. How could I give him a plausible reason for his actions at the beginning of the book and still make him worthy of my heroine? Turns out I couldn’t. I could, however, give him a reason for being on that same plane. Instead of him chasing after a girl, he could chase a bad guy who tried to take over the plane. Then he and my heroine could meet under fast-paced, exciting circumstances that throw them together…leaving both a little shell-shocked and dripping with attraction. Wait a minute, I write sweet contemporary romance. Not fast-paced, sexy suspense…