Excerpted from SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU SOONER by Jane Ward: Chapter 7 The Disco, November 1990 The dance beat pounded, steady and unvaried. At the song’s chorus, the press of people on the disco floor raised their arms into the air in unison while colored lights strobed, illuminating the floors and walls and bodies. “Take me dancing naked in the rain!”             Noel stood apart from the scene, looking down from the balcony where the drinks were sold. She nursed a gin and tonic; she couldn’t stand the sweet, yeasty smell of ales or cider. Discotheques were unfamiliar to her and she was too self-conscious for dancing. Alone up here, she felt out of place and conspicuous. She had come at Calum’s urging but knew no one in the crowd well except for him, and he was currently one of the arm wavers down in the crush of moving bodies. As she watched them, her overactive imagination conjured a fire breaking out, a stampede that might block a mass exit from the disco, the newspaper story she might not live to see the next day: Death, Disaster at the Disco.             “I should go home,” she whispered to herself.            …

Excerpt from GODS BENEATH THE ICE by Alexandra Kennington: Revna I looked out at the crowd of exhausted soldiers, tense Nilurae, and scowling citizens and clenched my jaw as my thoughts told me again what I already knew to be true: every person here today hates you. My eyes caught Freja’s where she stood, just in front of the temple steps. Her foot tapped a steady, anxious rhythm against the cobblestones and she tried to muster a smile. It was a poor attempt-the result was far more grimace than anything else. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and tried not to think about how much more she would hate me tomorrow, when the treaty with Kryllian was officially signed and I told her the full truth of everything I’d been hiding. The thought was another chip out of my carefully constructed, utterly porcelain armor. I winced as the slipup of my thoughts avalanched into something far worse. Music. My mother’s lullaby was never far from the surface, but today, I’d shoved it down as far as possible. Now, of all times, was not an option for breaking. It was too late, though. The thud of my own heartbeat…

Book Title: SUBATOMIC LOVECharacter Name: Dr. Vienna Sevelier (known as Dr. Cecilia Ribold in former life) How would you describe your family or your childhood?In my current life (it being 2022 for me), my family has been, and thus my childhood was, marked by exceptional generational wealth. My grandfather, a copper magnate and also my best friend, has always been larger than life, which is partly why I chose this family when reincarnating after my last death in 1971. That larger-than-life aura has pervaded our entire family, my upbringing, our family today, with excessive connection and love, in lavish settings, either in my Victorian on the sea, his eight-chimney mansion on the sea, my parents’ (mother and stepfather) colonial on the sea, my sister’s cottage – on the sea. There is no struggle, no conflict, within my current-life family, which is, again, why I chose this family, and not my birth father, who came as an unfortunately necessary biological donor (which is the nicest way I can characterize him, without devolving myself into violent emotions and expletives). For the most part, the struggles and conflicts of my life come from sources outside our lavish family homes, sources that have chased…

Azgard Outcast Faces Deadly Retribution (Below is brief excerpt from Stoneslayer Book Three PAYBACK, just published and available at all online retailers.) “Bring the nahazi bastard to me,” Malachi said. Helen’s bowels turned to ice. Although she knew it was pointless, she resisted. She twisted, turned, bucked, and tried to dig her heels into the smooth floor. She threw her weight backward or to the side, whatever she could think of to impede her captors’ forward progress. While she was fighting them, another altercation broke out at the South Doors. The acting Lord Protector burst into the inner chamber, running down the center aisle, followed by three King’s Guards. Orlando did not hesitate to plunge straight into the group of priests tussling with Helen. He peeled them off her, wrenching and shoving anyone he could get his hands on to the side, away from her. The guards dared not treat any of the Brotherhood of Kronos so disrespectfully, and refused to pursue Orlando further. Freed temporarily, Helen backed away from the melee until she was pressed against the paneling that formed the first row of the elevated benches for the lords of the Great Houses. “Stop!” Malachi roared. “On pain…

For the month of Valentines, we’ll look at stories about pioneering women we’d be proud to call our Galentine’s. Warriors, artists, scientists and experimenters, all were unique talents who, though living in the nineteenth century, would have been exceptional in any era. We begin with Vanessa Riley’s SISTER MOTHER WARRIOR which features two little-known women who played important parts in the largest slave revolt since Spartacus–and unlike that revolt, one that led to freedom and independence for the people of Haiti. The French colony of St. Dominigue was the richest in the Western Caribbean, and like all those European colonies, its wealth was based on a brutal system of slavery. Riley’s novel provides an excellent picture of a complex, highly stratified society made up of upper and lower-class whites, mulatoes, free people of color, island-born enslaved blacks and (because of the high mortality rate among the slaves) successive waves of African-born blacks. Her two main characters, Duchess Gran Toya and Empress Marie-Claire Bonheur, are drawn from two different ranks: Toya, an enslaved, West African-born warrior and Marie-Claire, island-born of free black parents. When repeated efforts by the French government to abolish slavery or at least ameliorate some of its harshest…

One of the joys of miserable weather is the extra bit of guilt-free reading/listening time I can rationalize after battling mountains of concrete (i.e. ice) encased snow. The cruel grip of winter has loosened, at least where I live, (and I wish all who are reading a gentle spring or fall), so now all my attention can return to a deeply seated (pun intended!) addiction I know I share with millions: figure skating. By the time you read these words, the Olympics ice competitions will be over, but lucky for us, authors have been crafting addictive stories about skating for years. First up: Mariana Zapata introduced readers to Ivan Lukov and Jasmine Santos years ago, but the magic of her slow-burn romance, FROM LUKOV WITH LOVE, remains intoxicating. Wonder how “pairs” couples manage to make it look so effortless? Read Jasmine’s accounts of her 20-hour days of practice (falls), ballet, Pilates, running, more practice (more falls), and like me, you’ll appreciate your comfy reading chair more than ever! Jasmine has more prickly determination (and a tendency toward self-flagellation) than any other character I’ve come to love, and Ivan is truly swoon-worthy, on or off the ice. This book has stood…

Recently, we endured difficult winter weather as we were staying in Kentucky near family while waiting for our motorhome to be repaired. Ice, snow, power outages, and many things breaking tested our patience and resilience. Yet even after facing all of that, nothing compared to the biting cold at the top of Pikes Peak. Three years ago, in April 2023, my husband and I boarded the Pikes Peak Cog Railway in Colorado, expecting beautiful scenery and a memorable day in the mountains. As a romantic suspense author, I’m drawn to places where beauty and danger exist side by side, settings that feel both breathtaking and unpredictable. Pikes Peak, rising 14,115 feet into the Colorado sky, promised exactly that. From the moment the train began its steady climb, I felt the quiet stirring that happens when a place begins to feel like a story. The Slow Build of Anticipation The ascent unfolded like a carefully paced novel. Dense forests gradually thinned into rugged rock and open sky. Snow clung to the mountainsides in patches, and each turn revealed wider horizons. On the way up, I found myself watching ahead, thinking about how suspense builds slowly, before revealing the true intensity waiting…

What is the title of your latest release?A WOMAN IN PINK What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?When she meets Dutch, she believes that he is her Johnny Cash, that she is his June Carter, and that theirs is a great love story. As the novel progresses, it tells a different story, one of addiction and the chaos it creates. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?Location is never named in A WOMAN IN PINK, but I wanted it to feel like home. In my case, that is the Midwest, specifically Metro Detroit, and I used it as the model for my setting. Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?Absolutely! I’d have to give her some tough love, but I’d also have her back. She’s my little sister. What are three words that describe your hero?Hopeful, fragile, torn What’s something you learned while writing this book?I learned that tidily resolved fiction doesn’t work for me. I like some ambiguity and room for interpretation. At the conclusion of A WOMAN IN PINK, I wanted to leave different doors open or at least cracked. Do you edit as you draft or wait until…

Every story starts, at least for me, with music. Songs inspire themes, a scene, a character’s journey… that first breathtaking kiss. I can never begin to craft a book without first knowing its soundtrack. These five songs (among many) helped to shape the swoony – and sexy – second chance, slow burn romance between Jordan and Jamie in LAST FIRST KISS: “Fallingforyou” by The 1975 One of my favorite parts of a second chance romance is getting a glimpse at who the characters were to each other before the start of a novel. With Jordan and Jamie, it’s a flashback scene where Jamie gives Jordan his first kiss. As practice, of course! This changes everything for Jordan. He slowly starts to realize he’s not straight and Jamie is more than just a friend. These lyrics really hit home at what Jordan feels: I don’t wanna be your friend/I wanna kiss your neck “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran This is the song Jordan and Jamie slow dance to in a greenhouse – which is captured so iconically on the cover. It’s also the moment that reignites the spark they’ve been avoiding since Jamie broke Jordan’s heart. I love it because…

Excerpt from A LITTLE BUZZED by Alys Murray: Hudson Bailey was as useless as my vibrator. I’m sure that was just the sexual frustration talking. However, as I lay back against the headrest of my Cleveland Airport Ramada bed, that was all I could think. Take the new guy to the sex toy convention, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. “They” were Clara Mason. As my boss at BuzzCorp, a rising star in the sex toy industry, Clara was thoughtful, ambitious, open-minded, hardworking, understanding, insightful, and sharp-elbowed. On the Hudson Bailey issue, she was also very, very wrong. It hadn’t been fun at all. Hudson was new to BuzzCorp. A contractor, he was brought in on a short-term deal to create the software for our latest, greatest, and completely top-secret sex toy-The Fantasy. According to Clara, he was at the top of his field when it came to, I don’t know, numbers or The Matrix or binary or whatever it was he did at his laptop all day. The problem was that he didn’t know anything about the industry. When I explained to Clara that he was unsuitable for the job on every level but the most basic, she…