1–What is the title of your latest release? WAITING FOR A SCOT LIKE YOU 2–What is it about? Major Duncan McCameron is struggling to adjust to life in peacetime, so as a favor to a friend he agrees to escort a widowed countess on a trip north. He didn’t anticipate that Lady Faris would be a vibrant woman eager to explore all of life’s experiences. They clash at first, but as their journey turns into a wild ride, they can’t deny the explosive attraction between them. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  I love road stories because they’re always full of adventure, and this book is no different! 4–How did your heroine surprise you?  Beatrice’s zest for living comes from the fact that she’s spent most of her life in an unsatisfying, confining marriage, and I loved learning how determined she is to finally break free. 5–Why will readers love your hero?  Three words: grumpy Scot Dom. Okay, two more words: younger man. 6–What was one of your biggest challenges while writing this book (spoiler-free, of course!)?  Making sure that Duncan and Beatrice challenge but also complement each other on their emotional as well as physical…

The month of romance conjures up thoughts of candy, cards, sweethearts, and gifts.  But for women who have historically struggled to make a place for themselves that isn’t defined or restricted by men, a truly sweet treat is to read uplifting stories of women who struggled–and succeeded–in expanding the narrow roles thrust upon them, striking out to master new ventures. In Karen J. Hasley’s WAITING FOR HOPE, a girl from a San Francisco brothel escapes the past to establish a new life and a new identity in the beauty of the wilderness.  After inheriting land and a cabin, Hope Birdwell sets off for 1905 Wyoming Territory, determined to succeed as a homesteader.  There she meets the Davis family, who offer her friendship and assistance, and John Thomas, a man in whom she might just be able to believe.  But when a brutish man from her past tracks her down, threatening all she’s grown to love, it will require all her courage and ingenuity to defeat his menace and emerge victorious. We meet another strong heroine determined to create a new life for herself in LOVE OF FINISHED YEARS by Gregory Erich Phillips.  After arriving at Ellis Island in 1905, German…

It’s still early enough in 2021 that I’m still mulling over my goals and intentions for the year. Drink more water. Write more. Move (with intent) for at least 30 minutes a day. Read more. This last one is always on my list. READ MORE. Is it truly possible? There are so many uncertainties right now, it’s hard to carve out dedicated time to really read. But one thing I do have control over is what I read and every year, I try to push myself to read things that I might not normally gravitate toward. I chose a few recent reads I’ve enjoyed that have been squarely outside of my comfort zone and that I really enjoyed. *** SCIENCE FICTION Look, I love Star Wars a whole bunch, but I’ve never been able to get into “Science Fiction” the “genre.” I stumble over worldbuilding that relies on a ton of explaining, but when it is done well and woven into the fabric of the narrative, I can relax and fully enmesh myself in the setting and the story. WINTER’S ORBIT by Everina Maxwell – What starts out as an arranged marriage to keep political alliances in line turns into…

What inspired you to write DO NO HARM? I’ve spent much of my adult life watching my brother’s addiction to opioids. Watching someone you love go to war with themselves is a special level of hell. The experience profoundly changed me and my view of addiction and opioids. So I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to write a thriller set against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic. Then one day I saw a news story about a podiatrist who’d been arrested for starting an opioid ring and it got me thinking: why do people start selling drugs? Is it money, power, status? What would drive someone to do that? The only thing I believed I could ever understand, given that I’d watched my brother’s descent into addiction, was love. My children. I would do anything for them. And that was the moment I first thought of the story for Do No Harm. When Emma’s son is diagnosed with a rare cancer, how does her life change? After a troubled and lonely past in which her parents were killed in a car accident and she was raised in foster care, Emma has finally found the happiness and belonging…

1–What is the title of your latest release? DARE TO BE A DUCHESS 2–What is it about? It’s an enemies-to-lovers historical romance between a mixed heritage girl from India and a duke. 3–What do you love about the setup of your book?  I love the slow burn romance between the hero and the heroine. They didn’t set out to fall in love. In fact, they both knew that their love was forbidden. They waged a daily battle within themselves to forget the other and that internal conflict is what I loved the most. 4–How did your heroine surprise you?  When I was writing Lara’s character, I wanted her to be brave, wild, and rebellious, and while I hope to have achieved that, what I think also came across is how loyal she is, how fiercely she loves, and how vulnerable she feels when she falls in love. 5–Why will readers love your hero?  Wolf is a proper Duke. At the beginning of the book he’s stiff, broody, and moody, but all that changes once he starts to fall in love. Readers will enjoy how his character transforms across the book and how he breaks all the rules of society and…

Thank you SO much for celebrating Valentine’s Day with us this week! We hope you discovered some great new books and will try a recipe or two that have been shared. Don’t forget to leave comments on the posts for chances to win amazing books by these wonderful authors. Today, Roan Parrish brings this roundup to a close with more about her book, BEST LAID PLANS and a recipe for decadent truffles! Best Laid Plans is the second book in my Garnet Run series, which features cozy, queer romances that take place in a beautiful small town. We met Charlie Matheson briefly in Better Than People, the first book in the series, which featured his brother, grouchy children’s book illustrator Jack. When Charlie Matheson’s parents died just days before his eighteenth birthday, he learned to fend for himself and take care of his younger brother, Jack. That included learning how to cook. He was always competent, but he never saw food as anything more than fuel to get him through the day, repeating the same five meals every week for the last fifteen years. When tattooed new arrival, Rye Janssen, inherits a house in Garnet Run, Wyoming, he brings much-needed…

by Debbie Wiley I miss attending book conventions. I’ve been lucky enough to attend quite a few in Orlando, Florida over the years, including Romantic Times (now known as the Booklovers Convention), RWA, and the Shameless Book Con. Memories of attending RT and RWA with my mom often pop in my head when reading certain authors because some of those authors are ones my mom introduced me to  their books when I was a teenager. Nora Roberts and Jayne Ann Krentz will always be loved by me not only for their books, but for the memories Mom and I are even now still making as we share a love for their writing.  Just this morning, Mom and I were chatting about the time she met Nora Roberts at RT. Her hands were shaking as she clenched a book in her hands hoping to meet Nora Roberts and get a signature- and she did, making a memory that lasts even now when she’s not as mobile and Covid has her stuck in her home most of the time. Books can tie us together in more ways than stories, but here are a few recent books from authors Mom and I have…

In the narrow streets of Solus, the soldiers in red made their assault on the Harkan kingsguard, hurling spears, pressing forward, arrows raining down from every direction. The soldiers in black did their best to arrest the charge of the red army. Shield pressed shield. Shoulders butted. Iron screamed against bronze. The kingsguard fought back against their attackers, but there were simply too many soldiers in red and not enough in black. Hands flailed and shields crumpled. “We’re digging in our heels,” said Gneuss. He huddled alongside Ren, keeping his head low. “But we can’t hold out for long. Sooner or later these sons of bitches are going to break through our wall. So when the boys in red make their push, we’re going to give them a surprise. They’ll expect us to hit back. Instead, we’ll retreat into that open space, the one up there,” he said, pointing to the place where the street emptied out into a wide plaza. “It’ll look like chaos when we hit the clearing.” Gneuss wrapped his fingers around the neckline of Ren’s tunic. “They’ll expect us to fan out like a bunch of fools, but we’re going to do the opposite. The men’ll…

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Janet! Congrats on your new novel, THE JUICE. Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your book?  Thank you so much for featuring me! I’m thrill-honored. I kind of live a double life. On the one hand, I’m a longtime journalist who fell into writing about media companies a long time ago. They are constantly changing, and utterly fascinating to me. On the other hand, I have been a teller of fictional tales ever since I was a little girl in a tiny upstate New York village called Franklin. (Now I live in the Bronx, and I can pull out the attitude to prove it!) I like to write fantasy and sci-fi stories that take conditions present in the world today and play them forward, into another space and time. That’s what I did with THE JUICE, which is a cyberpunk sci-fi tale about a secret substance that makes people incredibly charismatic, with god-like abilities. They are “used” by a media company to bend public thought to its will. Three unlikely allies try to stop this: a dirt-poor, homely teen who becomes a sort of Cinderella when she takes the Juice; a…

Today’s recipe is perfect for a date-night-in! While the characters in TO LOVE AND TO LOATHE by Martha Waters have known each other for years and spent most of that time arguing, they are about to spend a ton of time together at a country house party—the perfect place for shenanigans… Tomorrow is the last day of the Valentine’s Day Recipe Roundup! Come back for one more day of fun! Jeremy, the Marquess of Willingham, and Diana, Lady Templeton, have known each other for years, and have spent much of that time at each other’s throats. They are famed among their friends for their bickering, and no one is surprised when they agree to an impetuous bet: Jeremy will be married within the year, or Diana owes him one hundred pounds. What is a surprise is when Jeremy, after receiving some unflattering commentary on his bedroom skills, proposes a no-strings-attached affair with Diana for the duration of a country house party—both to get feedback on his performance, and to dispel the inconvenient attraction that has plagued them for years. This frenemies-with-benefits arrangement quickly becomes more complicated, and both Diana and Jeremy drink a good deal of wine over the course…