Today, senior reviewer Teresa Cross is sharing her top reads of 2019!  As a first-grade teacher in North Carolina Public Schools, my favorite past time is to read. After reading children books all day I love to snug up under a blanket with a great author and I have exceeded my goal of 50 novels this year. I love reading mysteries and thrillers with a lot of suspense. Even cozy mysteries are fun to read. This year started out with a lot of great novels and is ending with some that are just as amazing! After reviewing for Fresh Fiction since 2014, I have to say this year had the best novels. I will run down some of my favorite that I have reviewed.  I will start with my favorites first. BREWED AWAKENING written by Cleo Coyle is the top of all my novels that I read this year! Coyle has the greatest series, The Coffeehouse Mysteries and this is the 18th one. I started reading this author years ago when I picked up her fourth one in the series not realizing it was not the beginning of the story. Before I could read anymore, I had to get the…

1) What’s the name of your latest release? Christmas Angels. 2) What is it about? Growing up, Liz Westmoreland dreamed of taking over her grandparents inn located in the small mountain town of Angels Creek only for it to be sold before she ever got the chance. While browsing the internet, she stumbles upon a listing for what looks to be the picturesque inn and it’s set to go to auction. Liz places a bid, and by a miracle, wins the auction. But when she gets there, she finds the property in significant disrepair. When Matt Hardy narrowly lost the inn and property that butted his land, he just hoped it wasn’t another city slicker coming to make matters worse after the previous owners gutted the place for an art gallery. But the minute he recognized the sweet, freckle-faced girl from his childhood and heard her plans to reopen the inn, he jumps at the chance to help his childhood crush restore a place where he made so many fond memories. While working on repairs, Liz and Matt discover her grandmother’s collection of angels in one of the cabins. When the angels start mysteriously showing up all over the inn,…

In a Title Challenge, authors are tasked with coming up with words starting with each letter of their title that relater to their book. Today is Melody Carlson’s turn for her festive holiday romance!  C is for Christmas, and plays a big part. H is for heroine and a hurting heart. R is for risk, Krista leaves in late fall. I is for ideals, a better life for all. S is for surprise, nothing feels right. T is for tomorrow, and hoping it’s bright. M is for mom, Krista hopes to do good. A is for angst, doesn’t go as it should. S is for sweetness, her dear little girl. A is for amazed, Emily loves their new world. T is for thanks to friends who help out. W is for woes that make Krista shout. I is for interest from a wonderful guy. N is for night and lights in the sky. T is for troubles, should she run away? E is for Emily, begs Mom to stay. R is for reasons, Krista has many. H is for hope, is there reason for any? I is for impossible, can this be real! L is for laughter, the best way…

Our reviewer retrospective continues with Miranda Owen‘s favorite books of this year!  I love making lists. At the end of a year, friends and fellow readers will post about their top favorite five or ten books of the year. I’m not configured that way. Trying to pick only five or ten favorite books out of the hundred or so I’ve read over the course of a year is unfathomable to me. Instead, I’ve picked about five or so titles in four different categories. Many of these selections fit a few of different categories listed here. I mostly read and review romances, but cozy mysteries are my jam too. Christmas-themed Romance Picks THE MATCHMAKER’S MISTLETOE MISSION by Jaci Burton A COWBOY UNDER THE MISTLETOE by Jessica Clare ONE HOT HOLIDAY by Cynthia Eden MEET ME UNDER THE MISTLETOE by Stacey Kennedy ONE CHRISTMAS EVE by Shannon Stacey There was a ridiculous amount of amazing Christmas-themed romances that came out this year, many of which came out at the end of October. The ones I’m discussing were my absolute favorites, but there were a bunch more that put a smile on my face. THE MATCHMAKER’S MISTLETOE MISSION by Jaci Burton and A…

Our Year in Review continues with one of our newest reviewers, Jessica Grogan, sharing her top historical romance reads of 2019! 2019 was a fantastic year for books, especially in my preferred genre of historical romance. There were so many great titles that it was often difficult to choose what to read next! With that in mind, here is a quick rundown of 4 of my favorite reads for 2019. My most anticipated read of this year was easily Vivienne Lorret’s THE ROGUE TO RUIN. The third in the Misadventures in Matchmaking series, this title features Ainsley Bourne and Reed Sterling. Ainsley determines that Reed’s gaming hell is keeping her family’s matchmaking business from being respectable and therefore profitable and begins a war with Reed in an attempt to close him down. This was a fantastic enemies-to-lovers tale where the hero and heroine take their time getting to know each other rather than falling into insta-lust. The villain plot added just enough action to the story without being cheesy or ridiculous. This title helped solidify Vivienne Lorret as one of my favorite authors!! A close second for my most anticipated title this year was Eva Leigh’s MY FAKE RAKE. The…

When I sat down to write my first book as an adult, I had no idea what I was doing or where it would lead. I ended up with a hot mess of a young adult romance mixed with a dash of dystopian. Since then I’ve gone on to write roughly twenty books, ten of them published, and none of them YA. My first series (The Broadway Series) follows a group of thirty-somethings as they fall in love and start families. My second series (The Shores) is a pair of best friends, starting their lives after college and falling for the last men they’d ever expect.  I love to read stories like this, but there is still something that pulls me back to the young adult genre every time.  There is something nostalgic about young love that I just can’t get enough of. Recipe for Disaster has it all when it comes to a YA romance. Whether I’m reading or writing, there are so many reasons to love a good YA romance: All the firsts. YA romance often features first loves, first kisses, first dates, and all the other first that come with being a teen. In Recipe for Disaster,…

Christmas—the time for exchanging gifts with those we love.  But sometimes, the greatest gift we can give is to ourselves, sorting through the clutter of everyday life and conventional expectations to discover who we really are—and having the courage to pursue that.  In this month’s selections, we look at four women who manage just that. We begin chronologically with ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS by Jennifer Chiaverini.  Ada Byron Lovelace was the famed Romantic poet’s only legitimate child, who grew up estranged from the father her bitter mother thought deranged.  Because of her mother’s fears that she might inherit her father’s “insanity,” Ada was from childhood kept away from tales of fantasy and make-believe and led to pursue mathematical and scientific studies, subjects in which she excelled.  Though she debuts and makes the expected society marriage, she never gives up her intellectual pursuits, maintaining contacts with a number of leading scientists and philosophers. Through one of her former tutors, she meets inventor Charles Babbage and becomes fascinated by his “Difference Engine,” one of the earliest versions of a computer.  She will eventually write for Burbage’s machine an algorithm that some consider the first true computer program.  Before her tragic early death, she…

As a fantasy writer, people often ask me where I find my inspiration. So, here is a list of my Top 5 influences. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I am hardly the first author to be inspired by these amazing novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. I first read The Hobbit when I was a child, and I can still remember getting lost in the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and company. I quickly moved onto The Lord of the Rings trilogy and was completely hooked. To this day, I am amazed by the artistry and breadth of this series. And, of course, I feel challenged by it, to write something that might measure up to its greatness. Star Wars. I was seven years old when the first movie (A New Hope) first arrived in theaters. I saw it seventeen times with my father that year. It was truly a magical experience; unlike anything I had seen before. The adventure, the heroism, the battles, and the dynamic conflict between good and evil for the fate of the galaxy. Years later, when I began to experiment with writing my own stories, Star Wars was never far from my mind. Not the…

A Must for Christmas is a short holiday read about newlyweds Greg and Faith Mallory, who first appeared in Must Have Faith, Darling Cove, Book 2. Greg and Faith are thirty days away from having twins but days away from an explosive argument. Greg, who’s very old-fashioned wants Faith to be a stay-at-home mom. Faith wants to keep doing the job she loves and knows she can be an effective working mother. No one’s budging. Have you ever been in a situation where you know you have to have a difficult conversation, but it’s the holiday season and you have to put up a brave face and get through it? Don’t get me wrong, Greg and Faith are passionately in love. They’re childhood sweethearts and crawled over broken glass to be together, after a wild, out-of-nowhere break up days before their wedding ten years earlier. This couple got to me while writing Must Have Faith. I could feel their longing for each other and while not much of it ended up on the page, they had a rich history. They really deserved a happy-ever-after. When I tried to insert many flashbacks into this book, my critique coach had said I’d…

1–How much my series would change because of readers. A lot of authors will tell you not to read reviews. Dental surgery and spinal taps are more preferable than risking the maelstrom of reader opinions on Amazon or Goodreads. And that makes sense, to a degree. Nothing has ever been published that everyone loves. You’re going to get negative reviews, and some of those negative reviewers are going to tell you what they hated with zest & passion. Me? I’ve read every word people wrote about THE LAST SUN. And the thing that amazes me? How much insight there was in those reviews. How many fair criticism were filled with support, but also guidance for immediate course correction. For instance: many readers who really, really liked my book also faulted it for having few positive female characters. (I’ve written about this before – it’s part of my Journey as a writer, learning that having a book filled with gay white men isn’t as diverse as I’d once imagined it to be.) And so in THE HANGED MAN, you have Lady Death. And Anna Dawncreek. I am so excited where these new characters will take me. I am half in love…