This is my first amateur sleuth novel, though I’ve written mysteries into romance novels. But Bailey Burke, home stager extraordinaire, is the first heroine I’ve actually thrust into the role of having to solve crimes, and she’s inconveniently afraid of blood, but at least she’s always dressed to the nines. I like to think that given my interest (hubby would call obsession) with crime TV, I would be able to figure out the clues and solve a crime or two. But you never know until you’re in the situation and I’ll stick to fiction, thanks. No true crime for me. So what are the rookie mistakes Bailey makes? Wrong uniform. It’s a bitch to run from the bad guy in heels. Not spotting a liar from twenty feet. Sure, we have to trust someone but not every cockamamie story she’s told. A genuine people pleaser, she is worried about hurting the detective’s feelings by prying. Growing up reading Agatha Christie novels, which I loved, I had this idea the sleuths intrinsically have information we the readers did not. I wanted a heroine more like a Stephanie Plum character, who stumbles from situation to situation, but somehow manages to hold her…

Meet Brett Westerly: Interviewer: Are you comfortable? Brett Westerly: Does it matter? My grandmother wants this interview for her memories, so ask away. Interviewer: You and your grandmother have always been close, haven’t you? Brett: Yes, she essentially raised me. Interviewer: Do you support her offer to give any of her grandchild their inheritance early as long as they marry and invite all of your immediate family to the wedding? Brett (squares his broad shoulders): My grandmother has the best of intentions even if her chosen method is misguided. Interviewer: Your younger brother, Spencer, jumped at the idea and is already engaged. Brett: I am painfully aware of that. Interviewer: What do you think of his fiancée? Brett: What I think of her doesn’t matter because it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let him do anything as stupid as getting married for money. Interviewer: So, you don’t approve of Alisha Coventry? Do you feel that she isn’t good enough for your brother? Brett: My brother’s head is so far up his own ass lately that he won’t realize that he’ll never find better until after he breaks her heart. She beautiful, loyal, intelligent. She came into my…

Cranberry Cove is a small fictional town in western Michigan located right on the shores of Lake Michigan where the influence of the Dutch settlers is still strong to this day. By 1900, one third of the Dutch in America had settled in West Michigan. The Dutch were known for their frugality, industry and hospitality. Many were farmers and today many of the area’s family farms still bear Dutch surnames. Others were skilled craftsman, carvers and furniture designers who came to work in the furniture industry that at the time was booming in West Michigan. Many of the characters I’ve created for Cranberry Cove are of Dutch origin—the VanVelsen sisters who own Gumdrops, the candy store; Bart Dykema the butcher and Phyllis Bouma, the local librarian. Gumdrops carries many Dutch treats including Droste pastilles, Van Melle fruit toffees and Katjes winegums and the Van Velsen sisters always have a pot of erwtensoep—Dutch pea soup—on the stove. Ollie bollen—fried doughnuts—are a huge treat and are the precursor of the doughnuts we eat today. There are a small handful of cranberry farms in Michigan. Most of the nation’s cranberries come from Wisconsin with Massachusetts and New Jersey not far behind, while the…

(Keep reading for the giveaway at the end.) A lot of times people ask me where I find inspiration to write my books. Of course it comes from many places, but a couple of times I have ended up writing about a trope of a movie I really love. Want to know a secret? Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! indirectly inspired me to write BRAZILIAN CAPTURE. I love books where either the heroine or hero is kidnapped. It gives us a lot to work with as authors, like how the relationship between captor and captive change and grow. In case you haven’t seen, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! features a young Antonio Banderas. He’s just released from a mental institution and kidnaps the woman he’s obsessed with—a jaded porn star—because he wants to convince her to marry him. Before you throw tomatoes at me, understand this movie was written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, therefore political correctness is not an option. Controversial or not, it’s a movie about two lost souls who end up finding and choosing each other. So as you see, when you take the general idea—finding love despite the circumstances— it’s easy to relate it…

Hello, I’m Diane Alberts, though I also write as Jen McLaughlin, and I’m excited to be here today to chat with you all! Thanks so much for having me here today! <3 This might (or might not) surprise some of you who have met me at signings, but I am an extremely, extremely shy person. Like, I can meet a person three times, eat meals and have detailed conversations with them those three times, and I’ll pretty much assume that they will not remember me every time I come across them. I will, hands down, wait for the other person to come up to me before I say hello, just in case they did, indeed forget me. For this very reason, I love to write heroines and heroes who are the complete opposite of me. I love writing people who are confident, outgoing, and who will walk into a room and completely own the place without so much as batting an eye. As it so happens, one of my besties in the author world is this exact type of person, and I love her because she’s so frigging awesome like that. To be able to walk in a room with…

Win a copy of KILLER CHARACTERS Take a trip south to Oyster Bay, North Carolina and meet the members of Bayside Book Writers group. When one of their members is suspected of murder it dividese the group and it’s up to Olivia to find out the truth before it’s too late! Just leave a comment below to be entered to win a copy of KILLER CHARACTERS. KILLER CHARACTERS by Ellery Adams Books by the Bay #8 From the New York Times bestselling author of Writing All Wrongs, it’s a rotten state of affairs in Oyster Bay, and the Bayside Book Writers are out to end a nasty plot… Restaurant owner and aspiring novelist Olivia Limoges is happily enjoying her new marriage. Sadly, the same doesn’t hold true for Laurel, a fellow Bayside Book Writer. While struggling with a demanding job, twin boys, and a terminally ill mother-in-law, Laurel learns that her perfect marriage is mostly fictional. When she catches her husband fooling around with his mother’s hospice nurse, she issues impassioned threats that will later come back to haunt her. After the nurse meets a deadly denouement, Chief Rawlings is forced to take Laurel into custody. While Olivia protests the…

What makes a swoony book boyfriend? Is it the way he talks? His many talents? The way he looks at his girl? Or just the way he looks? Ana Brassfield, the leading lady of my debut novel, A SEASON TO DANCE, struggles to make her dreams come true, but has a lovely problem: two dreamy men fighting for her love and attention. Meet the guys: #TeamPeter: Peter is Ana’s fiancé. They first met online, soon after his divorce. He’s a landscape artist, a Blake Shelton look-alike, and is ten years older than Ana. Excerpt: He stood on the bridge looking out at the lake. He was cuter than I’d imagined, and anything resembling quiet reverence departed from me fast. I just wanted to go behind an azalea bush and squeal. I started walking toward him. He turned to me and smiled. The scruff on his face and his tan made him look surprisingly boyish, and his dark blue eyes were even bluer than in the pictures from his profile. “Hi.” I reached out for the metal rail to steady myself and breathed in his soapy smell. Everything about him was warm and inviting. He wore a crisp blue-and-white plaid shirt,…

Hey, I’m Cindi Madsen and I’m here celebrating the release of CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER PUCK BUNNY. I’ve written four hockey players so far & I love sports romances, so I figured I’d talk about why athletes make such great romance heroes. Ripped bodies from hours of training. Shallow, maybe. But what’s a good fictional escape without a hero with a drool-worthy body? Smooth moves. They’ve got great coordination and know how to push their bodies to the limit. Enough said. Turning sports terms into innuendos is almost too easy. I’d like to check out that tight end. I’m down for some pucking. Penetration is also occasionally thrown out during sports announcing—penetrate the backfield, penetrate the defense. (Does anyone else hear Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect saying “Not a good enough reason to use the word ‘penetrate.’” Just me?) I’d like to sack him. He can sack me anytime… My, that’s a big hockey stick you have… Want me to hold your stick? First base, second base, third base, sliding into home… You can illegally touch me anytime… I’d totally be down for some double-team action. Rear naked choke anyone? (I think you get the point. And are now either…

Let the countdown commence to Boas and Tiaras 2017! Fresh Fiction’s annual afternoon tea at the Adolphus is on Saturday, June 10, only one month away. From now until tea time, join us online every week for Fun Facts about all things Boas and Tiaras. Since this is our fanciest afternoon tea of the year (no offense to our lovely monthly afternoon teas ), our events committee decided the best place to start is with tea time trivia! We shall begin with a bit of history. Afternoon tea as we know it was first popularized by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in the 1840s, when breakfast and dinner were the only main meals of the day. The Duchess was known to enjoy hot tea and a light snack in the afternoon to lift her spirits. This practice progressed into a social event when the Duchess began inviting friends to enjoy afternoon tea with her, sparking a trend and tradition that carries on to this day. If you are an avid historical romance reader, then you are probably familiar with the do and do not guidelines of afternoon tea. But if this is your first experience with the time-honored tradition,…

I’m so excited to finally share AUTUMN’S HEALING. It’s a bit of a departure for me, dabbling in the paranormal genre. Mikaylah MacDonough is dealing with an empty nest for the first time and when I started writing this story, so was I. It was a difficult topic for me to tackle. Normally writing is therapeutic and often helps me through life’s hurdles. But not this time. This was one of those stories I began, then had to put away for a while, until I was certain I was ready to face my own fears, as I’d found the worst of them wending their way into the plot. Though Mikaylah and I are both moms, I am the proud mama of three and married to my high school sweetheart for… well… what seems like ever — Kaylah is a single-mom of an only child and about to jump back into the dating game, at the urging of her teenage daughter. That’s about where the similarities end. This too is where I get to live vicariously through my characters, as Kaylah opens up to former serviceman, the scrumptious, Jerusalem Aames. A man who is struggling with reacclimating to civilian life with…