“Why did you marry me, Maggie?” His voice was gritty and dripped with raw vulnerability. She whipped around to face him. He stood just out of reach with arms splayed gently to his sides. Sweat and sawdust glistened on his skin and thin lines of wet dampened his shirt where it clung against the curves of his chest. “It was the first thing I ever did for myself,” she whispered to him. Her honesty hit her in the gut. Her only taste of freedom had been with him. Free to make her own choices and to love unequivocally, even in the most profound ways. “Love” was a strong word. But so was “forever.” She stepped forward. The harsh light made the edges of his face sharp and distorted, and she found herself reaching up to brush away the hard shadow from his chin with the tips of her fingers. He caught them with his own and held them for a moment, pressing them against the angle of his jaw. The hair there prickled the tender skin of her wrist and she pulled back slightly, unsure as to why she’d done that in the first place. “I’d never pushed boundaries like…

“Life is like an ice-cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time.”-Charles M. Schulz We all scream for it, don’t we? Yep! Ice cream is that universal crowd-pleaser that makes us think of celebrations and summer days. So what better way to indulge in that sweetness than a mystery series centered around an ice cream shop in the wacky little town of Upper Sprocket? To whip up a sweet mystery series, we’ll have to have an interesting protagonist. How about, Trinidad Jones, a woman who lands in the same hometown as her two ex-sisters-in-law and finds out the police chief is her felonious ex-hubby’s sister? How is she going to keep her Shimmy and Shake Shop going when there’s a murderer on the loose? And any worthy cozy will need an animal sidekick, of course. Trinidad’s faithful friend is Noodles, the aged labrador, who flunked out of service-dog school due to his myriad of quirky behaviors. He’s been known to hoard the mail and activate the car’s turn signal upon occasion. Okay! We’ve got the protagonist, the fuzzy sidekick, and the town. On to the good stuff! Writing a series of this kind necessitates LOTS of…

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Boston. Please tell us about yourself and a little about your new book, TWO BOYS AT BREAKWATER.   A writer should never tell you a little about their own book. It might tend to sound too much like a waiter reading off to you the night’s specials. Set against the backdrop of New York in the 1950s and 60s, TWO BOYS AT BREAKWATER is about two young men growing up and learning about who they truly are, and the love they find in each other. Where did the idea for this novel originate?   I collect incidents. I listen and I watch. And what I sense will take me somewhere else I write down. I sat at my desk for a generation And watching the Bronx rain one night I recalled A moment in a drinking dive not unlike The one Gary Snyder wrote about in I Went into the Maverick Bar That too was on a rainy night Coming down hard on a tin roof. Above the room  Where a pool table reigned supreme. And where two rough type western drunks Shot eight ball and the breeze. “This is gonna come across as strange,” one said. “But…

I fell in love with mysteries at an early age. Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and the Hardy Boys were my first foray into the genre. Then I discovered Phyllis Whitney’s young adult mysteries, Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries changed my world. Hercule Poirot bragged about using “the little gray cells” while both he and Sherlock Holmes carefully observed the tiniest details and made brilliant observations around those details. Miss Marple, on the other hand, listened to town gossip and used her years of wisdom about human nature to deduce what others missed. All three of them shrewdly found the solutions to murders that stumped even the cleverest of inspectors. I devoured all sorts of mysteries and thrillers, trying to astutely deduce the murderer just as my fictional favorites of Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Sherlock Holmes had done. Recently, while driving back and forth to South Carolina, I listened to several of Agatha Christie’s stories as produced by the BBC, including POIROT’S FINEST CASES and MORE FROM MISS MARPLE’S CASEBOOK. My love for all things Agatha Christie re-ignited, and what a joy for me to…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE WEIGHT OF MEMORY 2–What is it about? Paul Elias receives a terminal diagnosis so he decides to take his granddaughter, Pearl, who he is raising, back to the isolated lakeside area where he grew up. But when they get there, Pearl begins having visions of things that relate to Paul’s teenage years and the mysterious death of his wife forty years ago.  3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  It’s eerie and isolated and really gives the two main characters the chance to work through the situation presented to them: trying to figure out what happened forty years ago, trying to figure out what is real. 4–How did your main character(s) surprise you?  Pearl became very dedicated to the idea of helping this mysterious person she meets in the woods—her courage and determination surprised me.  5–Why will readers relate to your characters?  I think we all want to know what’s waiting for us on the other side of death, and I think we all want to somehow make up for the mistakes we’ve made in the past.  6–What was one of your biggest challenges while writing this book…

I’m Lisa Harris, and I’m so excited to introduce you to my new novel, THE CHASE, which hits bookstores July 6th. Here’s a sneak peek at what to expect! US Marshal Madison James may not be sure who shot her three months ago, but she does know one thing–it’s time to get back out into the field. When her partner, Jonas Quinn, receives a message that a federal warrant just came in on a man connected to a string of bank robberies, Madison jumps at the chance to get back to work. What she and Jonas find is a bank robbery in progress that’s gone wrong–and things are about to get worse. T—T is for Twists. Get ready to embark on a nonstop chase, full of twists and turns, where failure isn’t an option. H—H is for the Hunt. The US Marshals service is the government’s primary agency to hunt down fugitives. E—E is for Escape. When their suspects escape, Madison and Jonas must find them and bring them to justice before someone else–someone close to them–gets hurt . . . or worse. * C—C is for Complicated. What happens when two deputy Marshals discover more than their fugitives? Is…

Jen: What inspired you to write LADY SUNSHINE? Amy: One of my favorite albums is “Mermaid Avenue,” a project between the folk singer Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora, and modern singers Wilco, Billy Bragg, and Natalie Merchant. Nora Guthrie found a trove of her father’s unrecorded lyrics and worked with these artists to set them to music. I’ve been intrigued by that project for decades. In LADY SUNSHINE, my main character, Jackie, inherits a gorgeous piece of land in California called The Sandcastle—as well as the recording studio in the home’s basement. We know that she spent one life-changing summer there with her cousin Willa as a teen in 1979, when it was a mecca for musicians, artists, and free spirits who’d descend on it every summer to bask in the glow of her musician uncle. But we don’t know what happened to make her run away. In 1999, she reluctantly agrees to host musicians for the summer so they can record a tribute album to her late uncle. The place comes to life again and she’s drawn into their world…and forced to confront the truth of her 1979 summer. Another major inspiration was the setting of The Sandcastle. I’ve always…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE NATURE OF SMALL BIRDS 2–What is it about? In 1975, 3,000 children were airlifted out of Vietnam to be adopted into families in Australia, Canada, and the United States in what was known as Operation Babylift. This is a story of a family who adopted one of these little girls.  3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  This story is set in a fictional town in Northern Michigan. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to do my home state justice, but I really love living here. That’s why I love writing stories about people who are fellow Michiganders.  4–How did your main character(s) surprise you?  This is the kind of book that needed more than one main character. That certainly surprised me while I was writing it! Bruce has the 2013 timeline, Sonny narrates 1988, and Linda is the main character in 1975. But, really, all of their stories point to Minh, the daughter who was adopted from Vietnam.  5–Why will readers relate to your characters?  You know, in a lot of ways this is a story about letting go. Letting go of long-held wishes in…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE QUEEN WILL BETRAY YOU (Tor Teen, July 6, 2021). It is the sequel to THE PRINCESS WILL SAVE YOU. 2–What is it about? After a thousand years of political stability, the realm of The Sand and Sky is up for grabs. Four kingdoms, four rulers vying for the ultimate prize, sovereignty over the entire continent: A ruthless old king spinning webs, whose schemes encompass generations. A widowed queen whose only credo is all kings must die. A runaway queen whose unexpected return upends everyone’s plans. And a prince-in-waiting determined to wait no more. Standing against them are a dispossessed princess and her stable boy love with a surprising claim of his own. Their only hope in the face of unspeakable betrayals, enemies hidden in the shadows, and insurmountable odds is the power of true love… 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  I love that the continent of partner kingdoms I have set up feel both real and like a fairytale. The world is somewhat based on the Iberian Peninsula because I studied abroad in college in Spain and loved it—it was really fun to create a world…

She runs to the car. When she reaches Josh, she grabs his elbow, startling him. He takes a swing at her. The back of his hand connects with her cheekbone. She rears back, palm cupped over her cheek. “Ow.” She rubs the burn from her face. “What was that for?”  Josh points at the car. “Go.”  “I’m not leaving you.” He’s scared and confused, she won’t walk away from him.  “Go.” He reaches for the passenger door, and she realizes he’s telling her he wants them to leave.  “All right, we’ll go.” He opens the door again and drops into the passenger seat.  She starts to close his door and stops. “That man in the picture, you sure you’ve seen him before?” she asks with trepidation, hoping she’s wrong. That he’s wrong, and he’s mistaking Dwight for someone else. Josh nods. “He’s my dad, your grandfather.”  A tear rolls down his face. “I know.”  Olivia feels a sting in her eyes. It hurts to breathe, like she’s cracked a rib. “When did you meet him?”  “Before.” He touches the spot on his hat that covers his scar.  Before his head injury.  Olivia glances away. Oh. God. She takes a breath….