1–What’s the name of your latest release? THE MAIL ORDER BRIDE’S SECRET 2–What is it about? An outlaw with a large bounty on his head becomes sole guardian of twin nephews and a niece. He quickly sends for a mail order bride to help with the kids only she’s come looking to find his loot and facilitate his arrest. 3–What word best describes your heroine? Desperate 4–What makes your hero irresistible? The love he shows these kids who have no one else. 5–Who are the people your main characters turn to when they need help? Friends in the outlaw town of Hope’s Crossing. 6–What do you love about the setting of your book? It’s wild and desolate—the perfect place for outlaws 7–Are you a plotter or a pantster? I’m a true panster. I don’t outline at all and want my story to unfold through the characters as I go and not through any preconceived plan. 8–What is an ideal writing day for you? An ideal day is when the story flows through my fingertips and I can easily get 5k words. 9–Do you listen to music while you write, need total silence, or have the TV on? I need total…

We asked the authors of the 425 Madison Ave series about their favorite parts of the 425 Madison world. Join the group during each release about the best parts of the series! My next release is a sweet but emotional best friends to lovers! Here’s a little to expect from Must Love Forever: An Irish hottie – CHECK New York – CHECK Lover of all things pink – CHECK Suspense – CHECK Crazy funny side characters – CHECK Bianca and Mick will grab your hearts with both the history they share and the love they build! My favorite 425 Madison neighbor is: I love Mallory Greer. She is seen in both Must Love Coffee as Gwen’s close friend and as a true confidant to Bianca Rodriquez. The 425 Madison favorite mode of transport: I love the subway. There are so many cool things about the subway, but the coolest is to be able to people watch. And Bianca loves to take it because it means she’s not walking around in her pink heels. My Must see NYC landmark: I personally love Central Park because there are so many fun things to do there. In Must Love Coffee, they go to…

Even poodles didn’t have an endless enthusiasm for dog parks. Now on their fifth stop of the day, Caleb and Riley sank onto a dog bone shaped bench in Hollywood, Florida’s recently renovated Hollywoof park and surveyed the weaving poles, the separate sections for large and small dogs, and the mushroom like platforms at different heights for what Caleb could only guess was for doggy step classes. LouLou didn’t stray too far from them, exhausted from a frenzy of running at Snyder Park when she’d spotted turtles in the lake. She hadn’t gone in after them, but she’d run the shore in anxious back-and-forths until Riley’d finally scooped her up and hosed her off. He’d watched as Riley added hoses to her dog park wish list. He noticed that she didn’t add lake or turtles. She’d been awfully worried that LouLou would catch a turtle, even though the poodle was never closer to one than ten feet. “What would you even do with a turtle, LouLou?” she’d asked while hosing mud out of her curly coat. LouLou’s response had been enthusiastic tail whumping and a roll in the soft grass as soon as Riley loosened her hold on the dog….

Welcome back to Fresh Fiction, Adriana! Please tell us about your new series, Survival Instincts, and the first book, WHITEOUT. Thank you so much for having me! It’s a pleasure, as always! My new Romantic Suspense series, Survival Instincts, pits my heroines and heroes against nature and a group of big baddies who want to change the face of the planet. I’m calling the subgenre Survival Romance, because each book follows a specific couple into extreme run or die situations. WHITEOUT, the first in the series takes us to Antarctica, at the cusp of the long, dark winter.  Angel Smith is a chef at a research facility in Antarctica – and she has her own reasons for finding a job at the edge of the world – but aside from dealing with the cold temps, she doesn’t think her job will be all that difficult. . .  until she finds herself on the run across the frozen landscape from a killer. Tell us more about Angel’s character development, and how she deals with this intense situation! From the start, Angel is a strong person, both mentally and physically–she’s a woman who climbed the ladder and held her own as a chef in…

Kym: I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming back one of my favorite mystery writers. Darcie Wilde has written under several names and several genres, but her Rosalind Thorne Mysteries are as delightful as they are intriguing. Welcome back to the Cozy Corner, Darcie! Darcie: So nice to be back with you and your readers! I was thrilled to see your Rosalind Thorne Mysteries continue! Congratulations on your continued success with this lovely series. Has the experience of changing publishing houses effected Rosalind’s direction for the future?  Actually, there’s been very little change in direction.  Since I changed publishers, I am once again working with the series’s original editor, the fabulous Wendy McCurdy.  Wendy was the one who had the idea to create a mystery series for Rosalind rather than just a straight set of romances. Go Wendy! In your latest Rosalind Thorne Mystery, And Dangerous to Know, you open each chapter with a small clip of written correspondences that tell a large part of the story all by themselves. Did you write the clips first, last, or did they develop with each chapter? I keep a running list of possibilities as I research, and I’m generally researching and rewriting…

I don’t know about you, but I love a good book series. When I began writing my debut novel, Inherent Truth, I didn’t originally plan for it to become a series. However, as things progressed and the characters revealed themselves, it became clear–this book was meant to be the kick-starter for a far more complex story than could be told within the confines of one novel. And so, Blood Secrets was born. I’ve thought about that a lot as I’ve navigated this journey, and after talking with some friends I’ve come up with what I consider the top five reasons why we love book series so much. I can’t wait to see if you agree. Reason #1: Characters become friends. Come on, don’t act like you’ve never closed a book and felt like you suddenly lost your best friend. We’ve all been there, and series have a way of roping us in, wrapping us up in these fictional lives so that we begin to feel like family. Most series provide a diverse cast of characters so that almost any reader can find a favorite, providing enough common ground that each turn of the page feels like a chat with a…

Suzanne was fed up. Ready to throw in the towel and give up on the Neanderthal on her couch. The only prob­lem with that plan? It didn’t get him off her couch or out of her cottage, or get her out of the position of car­ing for him. So giving up was not an option—not be­cause she was determined or noble but simply because she was stuck. So as the early darkness of winter fell over Summer Island, she did two things. First, she texted Dahlia, irate. Look, I don’t know where you are or why you’re not answering Zack, but he’s had a major mental setback. I accept that you’re not here, physically—but I need you to be present with him, Dahlia. He’s officially despondent now, and I’m not sure what to do. Please call him as soon as you see this. Second, she made a delicious dinner. Remembering that Dahlia had once mentioned Zack loved her meat­balls, Suzanne got out the recipe, which Dahlia had given her along with others, and started squishing ground beef into a mixture of bread crumbs, minced onion, Parme­san cheese, an egg, and some spices. She took her time, since he clearly needed…

Thank you, Fresh Fiction, for hosting me on your blog. While coming up with a topic for this blog, I asked myself what is it about books that captivate me. The answer is Characters. So often when I think about books I’ve read and loved, I remember the characters. When I first started writing I had no clue what I was doing. I didn’t understand craft, but I knew I had stories to tell. My mother-in-law encouraged me to ‘just’ start writing. I did, but my characters were flat. It took me many sets of revisions to the stories before I was really able to know and understand my characters. It was painstaking work, hence why it took me ten years to sell my first full-length novel to Harlequin. Now, nearly three decades since writing that first story, I finally feel like I have a grasp on characterization. But it required many classes and workshops, learning from authors whose work I admired and wanted to emulate. As authors, we want our characters to be likable, relatable, sympathetic and fictional people the reader can root for from page one to the end. I embarked all those years ago on a quest…

1) What’s the name of your latest release?  Losing You.   2) What is it about?  A teenage girl goes missing and her mother has one short and terrifying day to find her. 3) What word best describes your heroine?  Unstoppable. 4) What makes your hero irresistible?  There is no hero. The heroine has to save her daughter by herself. That’s what makes her irresistible: she is like a tigress. 5) Who are the people your main characters turn to when they need help?  Nina turns to the police but the police don’t believe her. One of the themes that repeats in our novels is that people have to save themselves… 6) What do you love about the setting of your book?  Sandling Island is inspired by an island near where we live in South East England. It’s swept by the wind off the north Sea, it’s linked to the mainland by a causeway that is covered by the tide once a day and it produces the best oysters in the world. 7) Are you a plotter (follow an outline) or a pantster (write by the seat of your pants)? Every book is a bit different. But this book is…

My Dark Desires series takes place around a thousand years from now, in the year 3048, in a distant star system, and follows the adventures, romantic and otherwise, of the crew of the space cruiser, the Blood Hunter. It was my favorite series to write, so when my publisher asked if I would be interested in writing a Dark Desires Origins series, I jumped at the chance. The new series takes place five hundred years before the original Dark Desires books, when the fleet of ships carrying the last of humanity, first reach their new home. What most of the fleet don’t realize is that it’s not only humans who escaped the destruction of Earth. One of the ships carries a cargo of supernatural beings, captained by a thousand year old vampire. (Ricardo Sanchez, hero of Break Out, book 1 in my Dark Desires series.) Malfunction, book one in the new series tells the story of Katia, a werecat, and Logan, a human, as they fall in love while investigating a series of murders and trying to stay alive. Both series are a blend of science fiction and fantasy—which have been favorite genres of mine for many years. So I…