1–What is the title of your latest release? A COWBOY CHRISTMAS LEGEND  2–What is it about? Once a former Texas Ranger, Sam Legend has retreated from family, friends–and life–and settled in the northernmost reaches of the Texas Panhandle. He’s unable to come to terms over the loss of his young wife and throws himself into a new venture of forging knives. All he wants is to be left alone and forget all about any happy celebration, most of all Christmas. But Cheyenne Ronan refuses to let him. She sees his wounded soul and is driven to try to help him. Christmas is no time to be alone, wallowing in misery. Beneath his long hair and unkept appearance is a man worth saving and she’s just the woman to do that. But she has secrets of her own. As Christmas approaches, they have to work together to put another broken family back together and find Christmas is filled with miracles and unexpected love. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  The starkness of the Panhandle with it’s harsh winters and heavy snows seemed the perfect place for a man to disappear into. It has high mesas, sweeping vistas, and is filled with deep ravines and gullies. I lived there for a…

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 Jennifer Snow! Writes: USA Today Bestselling Author of fast-paced, sweet, and sexy contemporary romance set in small towns with quirky characters and snappy dialogue. About: Jennifer enjoys writing books that have humor, heart and heat! She loves to write dialogue and the witty banter between her hero and heroine is her favorite. She likes to populate her small towns with a quirky, lovable cast of characters that readers like to revisit. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: -Likes fast-paced, low drama romances with open door sex scenes -Prefers a Beta to an Alpha male lead -Has a slightly sarcastic and dry sense of humor -Must not require much sleep because once they start reading, it’s impossible to put the book down. What to expect if we’re compatible: -More book releases than you can keep track of (I have a similar *problem*) -A guaranteed HEA in every romance. -To be introduced to my dark alter-ego, J.M. Winchester who prefers…

Danielle: Welcome back to Fresh Fiction, Annabeth! Congrats on your new release, SAILOR PROOF. Can you give us the quick elevator pitch for this book?  Annabeth:  This is my new military romance LGBTQ+ series. Readers who loved my Out of Uniform series will love this best friend’s little brother romance which has a heaping helping of fake dating, close proximity, only one bed, and big feels in a low-angst package! This is the start of a new series for you! What do you like about starting new series? What are some of the challenges?   I love getting to explore a new universe, discover interesting side characters and places, and I actually love the research aspect. Here, I got to research Navy subs, Seattle, and the Olympic Peninsula. It was hard because of COVID-19 because I couldn’t actually go places and had to rely a lot on memories as well as tons of pictures, videos, documentaries, blogs and more.  To make his ex jealous, Naval Chief Derrick Fox wants to return home with what appears to be a new boyfriend. But his plan goes awry when he and the fake BF, Arthur, start to have very real feelings. Fake dating…

CHAPTER SIX San Francisco On Monday, Hannah made the biggest decision of her life. In response, her mother called a man named Dayo. And a day later, Dayo emailed Hannah a business class plane ticket. Destination: Lagos, Nigeria. On Thursday, a day before her departure, Hannah pushed a fork through bits of kale and tried to ignore the anxiety that had given her a sleepless night and an unproductive morning in the office. Despite her attempt, the nerves were impossible to disregard. She tossed the fork on the plate and huffed. “Not hungry?” Flo said, pulling round sunglasses from the crown of her head and over her narrowed eyes. “You’ve hardly eaten a thing.” “I don’t have much of an appetite today.” A fly buzzed above Hannah’s head. She swatted it and protected her drink with one hand over the rim. The salad, she didn’t bother to guard. She had given up on it, her growling stomach be damned. “Maybe we should have gotten a table inside.” Flo dipped sweet potato fries into a glop of ketchup. “It’s so damn hot today.” And the massive umbrella wedged in the middle of the round table did very little to ease their…

New series are always a delight to find. When it’s written by a tried and true mystery author, it’s like finding unexpected money in the laundry. Not a one-dollar bill or even a five, but a twenty—crisp and clean—the perfect, unexpected treasure that you want to tell everyone about, yet keep it for yourself. After all, you never know what kind of castle doors that treasure could open;) Even better when it’s the gateway to Castle Dark:) I was lucky enough to chat about those wonderous doorways and the new Dinner and a Murder Mystery series with ever-talented, Julia Buckley writing under the pseudonymVeronica Bond. Kym: Hi Veronica, thank you for joining us at the Cozy Corner on Fresh Fiction! Veronica: Thank you for inviting me!  When I read the premise of your new series, Dinner and a Murder Mystery, I was hooked. I’ve only gone to one of our local murder mystery dinner theater, but thoroughly loved the experience. How were you inspired? Did you visit a local theater in Chicago, or go on a weekend trip to an enchanting Castle Dark? I used to go to a wonderful dinner theater called the Candlelight Dinner theater (alas, now closed), but…

“I guess that officially makes us neighbors, then.” He smiled. “Nick Silva. I live at the end of the street. The only house that isn’t the color of an Easter egg, by the way.” Jess was tempted to smile back, but something told her it would only encourage him to linger. Not that Nick needed encouragement. He extended his hand. “And you are…” “Jessica Keaton.” Jess recreated Nita Warrior Princess’s brisk handshake. The rosebush tried to hinder Jess’s final quickstep to the patio, but she made it. Nick followed, Chuck Taylor high-tops trampling violas left and right. “Does that Buick out front belong to you?” Without thinking, Jess shook her head. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t a lie. The Buick belonged to Jessie Keaton, an eighteen-year-old escapee from a small town much like Winsome Lake. The car had aided and abetted her flight to freedom a decade ago until it eventually made its way to an outbuilding on the Donovan estate. Safely locked away. Like everything else in Jess’s past. But as much as she wished a tow truck would haul the thing to the nearest scrapyard, Jess doubted a vehicle was part of her new benefit…

Jen: What inspired you to write OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS? Kerry: Get ready for a two-part answer! The first hit of inspiration is thanks to the wonderful people who come in and clean my house every other week. I hate cleaning, so this is a little gift I give myself. The Viking and I go out for breakfast, and when we come home it’s like the magical elves have been there. Anyway. This one morning as I was putting my key in the lock and thinking about the cleaners, this little blip of an idea flitted through my brain: What if there was a cleaning person who could read the energy on objects in a person’s house that let her know things about the people who lived there? So I sort of filed that away somewhere in my brain. Much later, I was ready to start writing a new book but didn’t really have any good ideas. So I sat down, opened my journal, and wrote on a blank page: Auditioning for New Ideas. And then I started scribbling and Nickle, the main character in OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS, showed up and started talking to me. Not that she told me much…

It was quitting time, and Bridgette was shutting down her office when Wade appeared in the doorway. “Hey, darlin’. Wanna go with me to get a Christmas tree for the store? I’ll throw in a snow cone for your trouble.” “Oooh, yes!” Bridgette said. “Do you want to take your car home first, or leave it here and I bring you back to get it later?” “Are you going to bring the tree back here to the store?” He nodded. “Then I’ll leave it here.” She grabbed her jacket and purse and followed him through the store as he locked up access doors and made sure the security cameras were working. Wade noticed the pensive look on her face and stopped long enough to give her a quick hug. “This was a weird day, wasn’t it, honey? Are you okay about everything that happened?” She sighed. “Yes. Just sorry for Josh’s family. I know LaJune and the kids well enough to visit with them when I see them around. This makes me sad for them.” Wade pushed a curl from her forehead, then brushed a kiss across her lips. “I think Uncle Dub was feeling the same. He called me…

Danielle: Hi, Roan! Welcome back to Fresh Fiction. For readers who might not be familiar, can you give us a little rundown about your Garnet Run series?   Roan:  Totally! The Garnet Run series is what I’d call cozy romance. It’s set in the small town of Garnet Run, Wyoming where (in my head canon, at least) everyone is queer unless explicitly stated. We start with Better Than People, in which Jack, a grouchy and antisocial artist, breaks his leg and can no longer walk his pack of rescue animals. Enter Simon, a super-shy, virgin animal lover who takes over the task. As they get to know each other, Simon falls in love with Jack’s menagerie—and then with Jack himself. Jack, of course, is already smitten. We also meet Jack’s older brother, Charlie, who raised him after their parents died when they were teenagers. The second book, Best Laid Plans, is Charlie’s love story. Forced to grow up at 18, when he had to raise Jack, run the family business, and pay the rent, Charlie missed out on the whole self-discovery part of being young. Now in his thirties, he’s never had a relationship—he doesn’t even know if he has…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE STOLEN LADY: A Novel of WWII & the Mona Lisa  2–What is it about? Two women, separated by 500 years, hide the Mona Lisa—with unintended consequences. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  In a year when no one could leave home, traveling vicariously by writing THE STOLEN LADY truly kept me sane. In my imagination, I whisked myself away to Renaissance Florence, over the Alps to the Louvre, to the breathtaking châteaux of the Loire Valley, and to the hulking medieval abbeys of southern France. What an incredible imaginary journey during the strangest of times! 4–How did your main character(s) surprise you?  As a novelist, I have long wanted to explore the mind of someone who threw a treasured possession onto the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence in February 1497. But building out the mindset and background of such a character (Bellina—a servant in Lisa Gherardini’s house) made me ask so many questions and then rethink them all. 5–Why will readers relate to your characters?  Bellina (at the turn of the 16th-century) and Anne (in the 1940s) are average women facing extraordinary circumstances. I think we’ve…