What do you wish for most this holiday season? Leigh Greenwood: I’m seventy-five so a year with no health issues would be wonderful. Rosanne Bittner: What I wish for most this season is health and happiness for my entire family. Linda Broday: For me—good health and the ability to keep writing all the stories that are in my head. For the world, I wish for peace and precious harmony. People need to learn how to get along and treat each other with respect and dignity. There are so many homeless people and children in orphanages and foster care who need a warm smile—to know they matter to someone. Margaret Brownley: I wish a Christmas miracle for every person who suffered a loss during the hurricanes. Anna Schmidt: Peace and genuine kindness to all…so very weary of the in-fighting and need to win at any cost. Amy Sandas: This holiday, my biggest wish would be to spend time with my sister and her family. She lives across the country from me and we rarely have an opportunity to get together at all let alone to celebrate the holidays. It would be pretty great if we could find a way to bring…

My YA fantasy novel, THE UNCROSSING, is a retelling of Rapunzel, set in a mafia-like underworld of magic. Of course, retellings can cover a wide swath of storytelling methods, from point-by-point reworkings of a plot to brand-new stories filled with winking references. Retelling a fairy tale, specifically, requires a lot of new twists. They’re often short and don’t have much plot—but they’re also deeply allegorical and can reveal meaningful new facets in all kinds of settings. So, while the Rapunzel story gave me a premise and a few big turning points to work with, I also had a lot of room to have fun with it. I created a new magical system in an amplified, action-movie version of the contemporary world. I threw in every fairy tale reference—classic to Disney and everything in between—that I could think of. Finally, I shook it all up with my favorite romantic tropes and lots of kissing. To me, this is the true magic of supernatural stories. Fantasy isn’t just make-believe—it’s us, but more. More extreme, more monstrous, more dreamlike. These stories, especially the ones we tell over and over in new ways, make perfect mirrors. About Melissa Eastlake Melissa Eastlake’s debut novel, The…

I started out as a new adult romance writer, and have veered off into young adult romance lately. While I still love writing NA, I really do love writing YA romances, too, and SAVING IT was no exception. I loved creating Josh and Eden’s story, and I think both YA and NA readers will enjoy it. Here are the top reasons why: For a YA romance, it’s pretty sexy. Josh and Eden are best friends, and he wants to lose his virginity before he graduates high school. So Josh enlists Eden to help him find a girl he can lose it with. Basically, this book is about sex. The first time, specifically. He’s so funny and cute and real. At least, I think he is. I just adored him, and I believe readers will too. It’s all about the hero, right? And Josh is most definitely a hero—especially to Eden. He’s always running to her rescue, even though that irritates her sometimes. And speaking of Eden… Eden is another reason NA readers hopefully enjoy Saving It. She’s sweet, she’s funny, she’s practical, she’s in love with her best friend, and she really didn’t even know it until she started thinking…

Interview with Mr. Rook on PAWN (Part Two, Mr. Rook’s Island Series) My name is Gracie Heart, reporter for Exotic Travels Magazine. And I recently had the privilege of interviewing the infamous, Mr. Rook, who runs an exclusive resort for women, where “Your fantasy is our business.” It is said that they can make your wildest fantasies come to life and that the island is so private, no one knows its exact location. To book a trip, you have to know someone who knows someone. It just so happens that I am close friends with a recent guest who put me in touch with Mr. Rook during his layover at JFK. INTERVIEWER: Hello, Mr. Rook. Thank you for agreeing to our interview today. I know you are a very secretive man and don’t grant many of these. ROOK: Yes, yes. Fine. Let’s move this along. I have much to do and the clock is ticking. INTERVIEWER: Ticking? Wow. You sound like you’re in a big hurry. Is something the matter? ROOK: We will be shutting down the island. Hopefully, it will be temporary, but this remains to be seen. INTERVIEWER: Shutting down the island? But then where will women go…

During a recent conversation with one of my beta readers after she read my latest book, THE MORAL COMPASS, she asked me a question that gave me one of the biggest boosts I’ve had so far as a writer. Without giving away too much of the plot, she told me that at first she’d desperately wanted one of the characters to succeed, but by the end, she wanted them to fail. She explained that the transformation of her feelings, which had been so strongly in favour of this character at the start, had occurred subtly over the course of the book. By the end, she felt as strongly negative about the character as she had felt positive about them three-hundred or so pages earlier. She then asked me, “How did you manipulate my emotions like that?” The shift in her feelings was no accident and the fact that she had been on this journey, meant that I’d succeeded in my job as a writer. I’m kind of like an evil puppet master, toying with my characters, putting them through all sorts of terrible trials, and in the process taking my readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride. There are a variety…

As part of our countdown to Readers & ‘ritas 2017, our Meet the Author interview series helps you get to know the authors joining us in Texas on November 10-12. Read on to get acquainted with Mika Jolie, and purchase your tickets to meet her in person at Readers & ‘ritas! What book made you fall in love with the genre you write? It was The Passionate Lover by Carole Mortimer under Harlequin Presents. I found it at used bookstore, and from that moment, I was hooked. I’d count the day for her releases and stay up all night and read. For me, the contemporary romance genre tackles a myriad of relatable issues that women deal with on this beautiful journey called life. But also, at the heart of those novels is learning to forgive, discovering something new, and loving the men in our lives, our families, and our friends. If a movie were made of your most recent book, who would you cast in the lead and why? Lance Parker is my Dean. He was my muse while I was writing THE BOY FRIEND. I actually have a whole page on my website dedicated to my muses. What was…

I chose the word obstacles for our letter today, because let’s face it, we all encounter our fair share of obstacles. Whether it’s an issue with our kid’s homework or teacher, an issue on the job, a family issue, a spiritual issue–life is full of issues and obstacles, but it’s how we react to the obstacles that matters. It’s a great idea to just weave around the obstacle and smile about it, and honestly I hope that’s my attitude the majority of the time, but often the obstacles are so big and heavy that instead of swerving around them, we’re forced to climb them. To sweat it out. To scramble our way up with God’s help. I love this verse from Isaiah: “For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” ~Isaiah 41:13 No matter what obstacle we may be facing, and it may be a brutal one, we can rest assured God is right there with us. Holding us by His right hand and guiding us along the way. I love Alistair Begg. He’s an amazingly gifted preacher from Parkside Church in Cleveland,…

Last year, my family spontaneously decided to take a cruise over Christmas. With six of us – including a married daughter and son-in-law who live in another state – it can be tough to juggle schedules in order to find a time when we can vacation together. Christmas break is usually the only time that consistently works, so we decided to take advantage of the chance. This was a celebration trip to honor several momentous event in our lives – our daughter was graduating from college with a teaching degree, our middle son graduated from high school earlier in the year and my book SNOWFALL ON HAVEN POINT hit #5 on the New York Times bestseller list. We opted to leave on a 7-day cruise out of New Orleans for the Western Caribbean, leaving two days before Christmas and returning two days before New Year’s. It was surreal being on a ship with 3500 strangers over Christmas, but the vacation had its unforgettable moments, too. On the morning of Christmas Eve, I woke up early and walked out to our fore-facing balcony and for nearly an hour I watched the sun rise over the vast ocean, feeling as if I…

Alpha. We all see this word when looking for romance novels to read, but what does it mean? According to the dictionary, the word has numerous meaning, from chemical compounds, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, beginnings, or the most dominant animal in a pack. Hmmm, I suppose for romance authors we take the last meaning for our descriptive word. I describe my heroes as sweet alphas which, I hope, delineates them from what I read in so many other books. My alphas do not grunt their responses, order everyone around, nor expect the woman to sit down and be quiet while the male goes off to save the day. So, what do I mean when I say I write sweet alphas? A sweet alpha is a man unafraid to take charge when the situation calls for it. For many authors, this includes literally telling the woman to sit down and shut up. Not for my books! My heroes respect their women, but also have an innate desire to protect and have no problem stepping up as the situations calls and placing themselves in front to face the danger. A sweet alpha is a faithful to the woman they…

When I was thinking about what to write about, it was easy. You see, we all love our heroes to be a certain way. Looks can change and occupations, but the core of the men will be the same. We all want our heroes to be men we can fall in love with time and time again. The ones we can escape with, for a little while and pretend we’re the heroines being made love to. That’s my goal when I sit down to write, creating characters my readers fall in love with, even if in previous books they may have hated him or her. To me, that is the ultimate challenge. I love to write romance, and my heroes tend to be strong, dominate men who put their loved ones, especially their women first, but my heroines are every bit as amazing. However, sometimes life gets in the way as it does in real life and things don’t always go according to plan. I kinda like to torture my characters before the HEA. I like the saying “You’ll appreciate it more if you have to work for it,” and definitely put it to the test between the pages of…