Editorial Manager Danielle Dresser had the chance to chat with Sophie Barnes about her latest book, THE INFAMOUS DUCHESS! This is the fourth book in your Diamonds in the Rough series. For readers who may not know, can you tell us a little bit about this series, and the latest release, THE INFAMOUS DUCHESS? Sure. This story features Viola Cartwright, Duchess of Tremaine and Henry Lowell, heir to Viscount Armswell and eventually the Earl of Scranton. As the daughter of a physician, Viola has come from the working class and has risen swiftly through the ranks of Society by marrying the Duke of Tremaine. He was an ailing man who proposed marriage in order to pay a debt he owed her father, but most consider her a scheming money-grabbing opportunist who took advantage of the old duke. Determined to avoid those who judge her, Viola has dedicated herself to creating a hospital with free care for the poor. Here she works stalwartly with some of the best physician’s London has to offer, including Henry’s brother, Florian (The Illegitimate Duke). She is happy with the choices she has made and has no need for anything else, least of all a romantic attachment….

Family secrets play a big role in A Lord Apart. The hero and heroine discover a connection from the past that they had no idea existed. I’ve found some family secrets of my own through genealogy research, which can turn up unexpected information about our forebears. Census data may be particularly interesting, though sometimes you have to you read between the lines. For example, my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side reported his job as “photographic artist” in the 1870 US census. I’ve always been delighted by this unapologetic claim. Here’s a man who saw himself as not simply a photographer, but as an artist. He was in his twenties at the time. I “picture” him responding to the census taker with pride. Maybe making sure the person wrote what he said, exactly. This ancestor named his daughter “Vida Delight.” I can almost hear him saying it. The census says his wife was “keeping house,” and it appears that her parents lived next door. Her father, fifty, is listed as a shoemaker. I begin to wonder how the artist and the craftsman got along. Friction? Admiration? Mutual incomprehension? Pictures of shoes? On the other side of my family, I discovered through…

Fresh Fiction Senior Reviewer Miranda Owen loves a contemporary gothic story! The atmosphere, the moody settings, and the thought-provoking plotlines… The de Vincent estate was one of the most haunted locations in the entire state of Louisiana. –MOONLIGHT SCANDALS by Jennifer L. Armentrout I have been fascinated by gothic tales of romance and danger since I read my first Dorothy Daniels book in junior high. It had a predictably historical setting, with a dash of the paranormal, and a hint of romance. For a long time, I only connected gothics with a historical setting, and never imagined that there were such things as contemporary gothics. I recently discovered Jennifer L. Armentrout’s spectacular “de Vincent” series and was immediately sucked into her world of danger, mystery, and eroticism with a decidedly gothic edge. All of the authors discussed in this article utilize a few classic elements of a gothic novel but throw them in a story with a contemporary setting. She felt…God, this sounded insane, she felt watched. Obviously, she wasn’t being watched unless it was by a ghost. There were no windows and no one else was in here. –MOONLIGHT SINS by Jennifer L. Armentrout Location is everything. Authors who…

A knock on the door interrupted Molly’s perusal of the Colorado criminal statutes. Completely caught up in the sentencing guidelines that may be her mom’s future, she jumped at the sound. Warrant, on the other hand, didn’t even lift his head off the floor where he was sprawled out over an air-conditioning vent. Instead, his tail thumped lazily a few times before he fell back asleep. The dog’s reaction made Molly fairly certain of who was at the door. As she stood up, she swallowed a groan at the feel of her spine popping back into place. Glancing at the clock, she saw that she’d been hunched over her laptop for most of the afternoon. It was no wonder her body was protesting. After peeking through the peephole in the front door, she unlocked it and swung it open. “This is becoming a habit.” “What is?” John slipped past her, striding into the house as if he owned the place. Making a face and pretending that she wasn’t glad to see him, she closed and relocked the door. “You showing up on our doorstep uninvited.” “If you want me to leave, I can take this very valuable information and go.”…

Hello, all, Stephanie Marie Thornton here! My latest historical novel, AMERICAN PRINCESS, reimagines the 96-year life of Alice Roosevelt, eldest daughter of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and owner of the famous needlepoint pillow that proclaimed, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.” Obviously, Alice Roosevelt didn’t mind breaking a rule or two. In fact, she rather reveled in shattering every rule she ever encountered! Here’s a list of the Top 10 Rules Alice Roosevelt Broke with Gusto… Rather than calling cards or lace fans, Alice was renowned for carrying in her silk purse a little garter snake named Emily Spinach. (She named her pet Emily for an aunt, Spinach for the snake’s green color.) Sometimes Alice let the snake slither free during state dinners at the White House, which certainly caused a ruckus! Alice sometimes received a dressing down from her parents for her lack of manners and decorum, including when she refused to remove her gloves to eat asparagus at dinner parties and also after she hunted down serving trays to help her younger siblings slide down the stairs of the White House. In a time when Edwardian young ladies were expected to…

Fake marriages are so fun to read (and write!). I love it when characters are caught off guard, and when they are forced to be in each other’s company on a continual basis, lots of unexpected things happen. Especially when they’re going places and doing things where they’re supposed to act like a couple. It’s easy for the lines to blur at that point. My characters always have huge barriers in place to ward off the opposite gender, but when it’s all fake, they can pretend without violating their own personal no-dating rules. Cue the fireworks. It’s even better when one of the characters has a secret crush on the other. So then they’re doubly pretending, desperately hoping the other doesn’t figure out that they’re not really faking it… Another aspect I love about fake marriages is the implied intimacy that goes along with being a permanent couple—and I don’t mean what happens in the bedroom! I’m talking about the real magic of being a couple. Sharing a sink while brushing your teeth. Making your spouse a cup of coffee in the morning. Wearing a ring that declares you married. All of these things having this underlying romance that can’t…

The Detroit Grizzlies are back and ready to end the plague that has been killing humans and shifters alike. TAMING HER MATE was born March 19, and I couldn’t be prouder. This is a really great book and I hope you feel as excited about it as I do, because this book…well, it was born of something really amazing. Guess what it was… A. A contract. I’m a working writer. If I don’t write, I don’t pay my bills. The amazing part? Just that. I write the weird things in my head, and I get paid. Which means I get paid for what I love doing the most in the world. Pretty cool, huh? B. Bad seafood. I ate something not so fresh at a restaurant, and while I was bowing to the porcelain altar, I thought, what if I’m changing into a shifter right now? I mean, look in the mirror. I could be a mangy bear. What if shifting worked really well for some and not so well for others? Would I survive? (I decided probably not, so it would be best if my heroes and heroines saved everyone, including me.) C. A bad shifter book. Yes, we’ve…

Things can go south really quickly when you’re a wolf. The wolves of the Great North Pack cannot pass as human, or at least not for long because for three days out of thirty, during what they call the Iron Moon, the Pack must be wild. With no fingers or words to protect themselves, they are simply wolves—large and self-reflective wolves—but still, a nuisance species easily killed by a bullet or a bolt or a Buick. Since settling in the Adirondacks, the Great North has survived by a combination of secrecy and careful application of human laws and human money. It worked well and they flourished over the 350 years, but then the Pack was discovered by Shifters, ancient enemies who can change but don’t have to be. The Shifters knew not only what the Pack was, but also when they were at their most vulnerable. The Pack fought back but still lost several of its most powerful wolves, a prescription for chaos in a close-knit community tied by bounds of hierarchy. Varya Timursdottir knows the price of chaos. The last of a once-great Russian pack from the rocky, wind-scoured island between the Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean, she…

A question I get asked from time to time is where (or when) would I live, if I could choose a place and time from one of my books. That’s a very hard question. After 36 years of writing and 69 published books, I have a really wide range of places and time periods to choose from. However, I write mostly the “Old West” and mid to late 1800’s. Since that is my favorite genre/location/time period, I would have to say that if I could pick one place, it would be Colorado – any place in the foothills of the Rockies. I love the American West and its history with a passion that shows in my books, and a great many of my westerns are set in Colorado and Wyoming. You can’t beat the breath-taking landscapes. You also can’t beat the excitement of the gold rushes, so I would likely pick the 1850’s – 1860’s, the time period most gold rushes occurred. Imagine whole towns of 1,000 or more people springing up (literally) overnight, and the wild excitement that entailed – people from all walks of life, all forms of businesses, criminals and honest people, wild saloons but churches at the end…

For March, where can we look to for inspiring historical fiction but Ireland?  And as might be expected in a land of poets, leprechauns, fairies and tragic history, Ireland’s story lends itself to passionate sagas.  The first of the two series we’ll look at in honor of this St. Patrick’s Day is a three-book historical fiction epic featuring real Irish revolutionaries Robert Emmet and Michael Dwyer. In TREAD SOFTLY ON MY DREAMS, the first volume of the Liberty Trilogy, Gretta Curran Browne introduces Robert Emmet, born of the Protestant elite who rule Ireland.  But though, as the son of the State Physician of Ireland, his place is among the privileged, he also grows up imbued with a deep love of the land and a strong commitment to justice.  Troubled by the inequities and repression he sees around him, he sacrifices his brilliant scientific future and his standing among the elite by joining the United Irishman, a society which advocates the union of Catholic and Protestant.  Deemed a traitor to his class and religion, he is forced to flee to France, leaving behind Sarah Curran, the girl with whom he’s fallen in love. He returns five years later to begin his…