Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present AUBREE VALENTINE! What I Write About: Heartwarming contemporary romance with laugh out loud moments. My current release, while not about those striking hot cops – does feature a cameo by one of NYPD’s finest AND guarantees to tug at your heartstrings. About Me: Thirty-something woman, living in the suburbs and dreaming about small-town life seeks fans of real-life love stories with all the feels. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: Someone who doesn’t mind head-strong (and sometimes a little damaged) leading characters. Must love sexy and sassy banter Enjoys books where friendships and family are just as important as the romance Appreciates everyday heroes and those men/women in uniform What to expect: Sometimes adorkable declarations of love Swoon-worthy alphas who still believe in opening up doors A HEA that will keep you believing in love. LOVE UNDER CONSTRUCTION by Aubree Valentine 425 Madison Avenue Book 6 Jameson She hates me. I can’t say I blame her, in fact, I…

My top five favorite workplace romances? The author who immediately comes to mind on workplace romances is Jayne Ann Krentz. Most of her early heroes felt like cowboys in the boardroom. I used to eat up her contemporary romances like they were going out of style. So I’d have to put an oldie but a goodie, Sweet Fortune by Jayne Ann Krentz, on my list. And if she’s there, then I have to also add Susan Elizabeth Phillips and the first in her Chicago Stars books, It Had to Be You, about a woman who inherits a football team yet knows nothing about the sport. The humor and conflict between the hero and heroine are laugh-out-loud funny. And the steam factor is high! On a less contemporary note, I’m a huge Shelly Laurenston fan, and she’s known for writing zany paranormal romances. But one workplace romance that’s stayed with me is Big, Bad Beast, which pits wolf shifter and former Marine sniper Dee-Ann Smith up against Ric Van Holtz, her boss. I laugh and flip page after page whenever I’m reading Shelly Laurenston’s books. Staying in the paranormal lane, I’d have to go with Thea Harrison’s The Elder Races series,…

Shakespeare, hot Brits, and aspiring author advice – enjoy Danielle Dresser’s chat with award-winning romance author Melonie Johnson! Welcome to Fresh Fiction! Please introduce us to your Sometimes in Love series, and tell us more about book two, Smitten by the Brit, out next week! Hi! The Sometimes in Love series centers on a group of five best friends, and their friendship plays a strong role in all of the stories, but each book also focuses on one of the girls going after her goals, chasing her dreams, and finding her HEA. Of course, sometimes, the road to a happily ever after isn’t so smooth, so get ready for some bumps along the way. Smitten by the Brit is the second book in the series, and features Bonnie and Theo, the best friends of the hero and heroine in book 1, Getting Hot with the Scot. And speaking of bumps, this book opens with a pretty big one.  Bonnie Blythe is smart, hardworking, and fiercely loyal to the people she cares about – even though in the case of her fiance, he doesn’t deserve it. What did you love about creating Bonnie? What surprised you about her as she developed…

The importance of family, however the characters choose to define that term, forms the core of my Where the Wild Hearts Are series.  In some form or another, each main character is searching for a place to belong—even if they outwardly resist the idea.  Older generations play a significant role. Lou Warrenton, the eighty-year-old veterinarian in Wild on My Mind, gave the hero a family when Bowie was kicked out of foster care on his eighteenth birthday and helped him develop into an amazing single father.  Although Bowie now has taken over running the Sagebrush Zoo that Lou used to own, the older man still shows up to work every day and forms a significant part of both Bowie and his daughter’s lives.  Lou was based on my grandfather, who at the age of ninety-four, still went to work three days a week at the same company where he’d worked for over seventy years. Like Bowie, I still turned to him for advice.  Although Lou may be unsteady on his feet and require more naps than he had as a young man, he is still a vibrant part of his family and the zoo. In the second book, Sweet Wild…

My newest book, THE DARK BONES, is about a cop who learns that her father—a retired police officer—has killed himself. My heroine, Detective Rebecca North, cannot believe it. But in order to prove it Rebecca must return to her small and rural home town where she will be forced to face a lot of dark things she’s been running from, including Ash Haugen, the man she left behind long ago, and a cold case everyone thought long buried. At the heart, THE DARK BONES is about second chances, about being forced to revisit mistakes from the past, and then digging deep in an effort to set things right, and heal. It’s about the cold case wounds I suspect we all have buried in our subconscious somewhere, in one way or another, those unhappy events that have helped shape everything we do, and everything we have become. In Rebecca and Ash’s case, it’s also about being able to love again once they’ve addressed the reasons underpinning their old mistakes and lies. I’m a plotter for the most part. I go into a new story knowing who my protagonists are. I know what their big ‘wounds’ are, and I know what they…

“To bask in passion’s glow. To bathe in love’s fountain. To swim in the rivers of Eros.” “It sounds quite vile. No thank you.” It was very difficult not to laugh. She managed it, just. MUCH ADO ABOUT DUTTON by Claudia Dain The other day one of the authors in one of the many online reading groups I’m in posted a question asking readers how many love scenes they demanded in a romance. I get why authors ask this, but I feel like it’s a difficult thing for readers to answer. I know there has been a lot of debate and general discussion about how many love scenes/sex scenes put in romances, and over how the quantity and quality of love scenes in a book should be advertised to readers. I remember reading a few years ago that a favorite romance author of mine felt pressured by her publisher to include a specific number of sex scenes in her book. I felt that was unfair; not just because I think that she should be allowed complete freedom in her creative process, but also because those scenes weren’t what I found most enjoyable about her books. In the end, I took…

We’re chatting about high school, house renovations, and of course, new books with bestselling author Julia London and Editorial Manager Danielle Dresser! Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Julia! Please tell us about your brand-new series, the Princes of Texas, and book 1, The Charmer in Chaps. It’s about the Prince family, which is a happy cross between the Ewings of Dallas and maybe the Clampetts of Beverly Hillbillies (I think we need a reboot of that one). Anyway, the Prince family is legendary in Texas with an enormous ranch along the lines of the King Ranch. But they fall on hard times, no thanks to Dad’s horrible big-stakes gambling problem, and suddenly find themselves having to figure out life without all the trappings of wealth. In The Charmer in Chaps, Luca is the one they call a bunny hugger. He wants to preserve some of the land before they strip it of all the character it had. But he’s going to have to figure it out on his own, and without any help from his family. And he’s got some personal issues that are going to make figuring it out on his own especially difficult. It’s the sort of issue that…

I live in Colorado, so I’ve done a lot of hiking in the woods.  The only dangers I have to deal with are black bears and panthers, neither of which will bother you if you’re making plenty of noise and minding your own business.  Folks in Montana, where Sullivan’s Promise is set, are facing something far more frightening—grizzly bears. My heroine, Victoria Grayhawk, is committed to protecting endangered species, like the grizzly, while my hero, Ryan Sullivan, is a rancher who would just as soon not have the enormous bears making a meal of his newborn calves. You can imagine the conflict between them when Ryan’s brother is attacked and mauled by a grizzly, which has to been hunted down and killed. I learned a lot about grizzly attacks on humans while doing my research for this book, and I have to admit, I may have scared myself out of the woods, the way Jaws scared me out of the water.  Grizzly attacks are few and far between, but they’re pretty horrific when they happen, which is a lot more often as humans encroach on areas previously left to the bears in Montana.  So hike with bear spray, stay on…

CW/TW: In this article, senior reviewer Debbie Wiley discusses mental health awareness, recommending young adult titles that have depression, suicide, and other mental health topics. If you are anyone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts or behaviors, please call 1-800-273-8255 or text RISE to 741741 to speak/text with a counselor.  As a teenager, I remember being fascinated by mental health issues, not knowing at that age that I was shaping my life’s work as a social worker. I devoured books like THE BELL JAR and GO ASK ALICE, but it was I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN that really touched a chord in me. Not only was the main character named Deborah, but she had a fantasy world not completely unlike many of the fantasy novels I read. Even better, she had a psychiatrist who listened and helped her journey back to sanity. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the importance of this has perhaps never been greater. Whether it’s the seemingly daily reports of bullying, suicides, school shootings, or other horrors, society is starting to recognize that mental health awareness is imperative. Slowly but surely the stigma against getting help is being erased. The young adult book market…

Japan is famous for the ornamental cherry trees whose blossoms—known as sakura—transform the country’s mountains, parks, and rivers with spectacular pink and white blossoms every spring. The delicate sakura are an iconic symbol of Japan, and with good reason. For thousands of years, Japanese people from all walks of life have enjoyed and celebrated these lovely blooms Cherry blossoms typically bloom and die within just a few days, making them an enduring symbol of the transience and fragility of life. During the few short weeks of the sakura season, people flock to parks for hanami (flower viewing) parties beneath the trees. The sakura may be the most famous Japanese blossom, but it’s far from the only flower celebrated in Japan. In fact, flower festivals occur across Japan in every season of the year. December and January mark the blooming season for camellias (tsubaki, in Japanese), and many people visit the island of Oshima, which rises from the sea about 120-km south of Tokyo, in the Izu archipelago, to experience the hundreds of varieties of vibrant camellias growing there. In addition to their beauty, the camellia seeds produce an oil that’s used as a skin care aid as well as for…