Thank you, Fresh Fiction, for hosting me and my new series today! SOMETHING OLD is the first in a series about four college friends who reunite for the wedding of one of the girls, five years after college. Most of them haven’t seen each other due to life and other circumstances and so, when the bride planned her wedding, she decided to through in some matchmaking of her own, reuniting her bridesmaids with the men she thought they should have been with all along. Weddings kind of freak me out honestly. So much pomp and circumstance. So many ways things can go wrong and yes, if I’m in the wedding, things will go wrong. You can trip walking down the aisle. You can spill something on your bridesmaid’s gown. You can mess up the dance. But the worst part about being in a wedding (or even attending one) is being the lone single person in the bridal party when everyone is drunk on love. The bride is seeing hearts everywhere. The attendees all have advice for when you can find your true love. And everyone tries to matchmake with a groomsman, or their single nephew/cousin/friend. Haven’t we all sat at…

Several years ago, TIME MAGAZINE’s cover story asked the question “Is God Dead?” in our society. While it is generally believed today that somewhere between 75% and 85% (depending upon which poll one reads) of the people in America believe in a supreme being, the belief is trending down, and those beliefs that do exist are varied, from those who say they believe, yet don’t practice any faith, to those who are daily practitioners of their faith, and every combination in between. In the early years of this great country, if polls on the subject had been taken, the likelihood is that the believers would have reached percentages exceeding 99.99% of the population, and the vast majority would have been regular practitioners. The purpose of this post is not to consider the reasons for this decline in belief and what effect that has had on our society. Each of us our own opinion on these questions, and each opinion has a germ of truth to it. The question here is what would happen if there were actually concrete proof of the existence of God? What would that do for our society? Until 1988, most people who knew about the existence…

Weddings. They bring out the crazy in a person, don’t they? I’ve done more tours of duty as a bridesmaid and maid of honor than I can count on two hands, and it never ceases to amaze me how a seemingly normal woman, a person I’ve known for years, through acne, braces, thin letters from our dream schools, first boyfriends, bad breakups, and finding true love, can suddenly morph into a flower, dress, and cake obsessed zombie swathed in organza and tulle with a tiara on her head. I believe we call her bridezilla. I’m not really sure how it starts. The guy proposes and everything is all happy and sparkling and look-at-the-ring-bling and then, about when the couple sets the date, the whole thing turns into a carnival of curiosities. Brides wearing aptly named bridal diapers (no, I’m not kidding). Apparently, this is a thing now so that the bride doesn’t have to use the restroom on her special day. Ew. Then there are the bridesmaids getting plastic surgery so they are perfect looking for the bride’s wedding photo op (oh, horror!). And lastly, my personal favorite, the bride having a life-sized cake replica of herself in all of…

Not long ago I was at a book signing for my latest novel, OPERATION SCORPION, and a reader asked me the question – why do you write so much about cops and terrorists? I looked up, smiled and said that was what I knew. We then had a wonderful conversation about the genre of police thrillers, which I actually believe are more psychological thrillers since I always delve into the minds of the characters. What is the protagonist thinking, feeling, experiencing? What is the antagonist also thinking, feeling, experiencing? The concept of writing one dimensional characters never crosses my mind as I sit behind the key board. People have breadth, depth, needs, desires (both good and bad), but mostly they are human. They may be fictional characters but they are real to me and hopefully to my readers. Why would someone believe it is the correct thing to do to murder someone? Why is that? As a person with a background in psychology, this ultimate betrayal of human life has always fascinated me. As an ex-cop it sometimes was part of my duty to investigate homicides – too many it seems – but to write about what is in a…

I’ve been writing a long time. I won’t tell you how long, because I’d give away my age – but long enough to not care to admit it. J And over the years I attended many, many, many conferences, workshops, signings and speaking events where other authors, successful authors, authors I admired and read and adored talked about how they did this mystical, mysterious art known as crafting a novel. Oh, boy, did I absorb every. Single. Word. I took notes. Lots of notes. Notebooks FULL of notes. I paid hundreds of dollars in membership dues, class fees, and bought books on writing. I joined clubs, went to monthly meetings (Thank You RWA!) and still struggled. Thoughts chased themselves around in my head like a constantly beating drum. How was I supposed to do this? Why wasn’t I getting published? What was I supposed to do? How did I get good enough to be legit? To be worthy. Then self-publishing rose as an option, and I wrote, and I published, and I didn’t SELL. No one cared. So I took more classes. Read more books on writing. Listened to more talks and speeches and took more notes. What a load…

Korean– I went with my mother to Korea in 2015 and had home cooked meals. We didn’t eat in restaurants (OK, a few), but mostly church suppers. Yum! I had no idea what I was eating and I didn’t ask, but it was all fabulous. I love cucumber kimchi and something called Shabu Shabu. Southern cooking– If it wasn’t going to give me a coronary, I’d eat it every day. I went to school in Savannah, Georgia and spent four years gobbling up hush puppies and biscuits, grits and sweet tea. And everything had ham in it—which makes complete sense to me. I love it so much I’m going on a road trip in June with my father across Mississippi to find the best fried chicken! Seafood– The corny saying is true- I’m on a sea food diet. Growing up on the Chesapeake Bay, crabs were king. I love a good steamed crab. But salmon fishing in Alaska has me hankering for some wild caught silvers. Of course, I was the one who caught a halibut by mistake (a BIG mistake!) and it was yummy! Italian– I would be getting a divorce if I didn’t put this on the list…

Hey-oh, everyone! So happy to be back on Fresh Fiction talking about my newest release, WILD RIDE! The book follows Ethan “Ozzie” Sykes on his twisty, turny, suspenseful journey to finding happily-ever-after. I can promise car chases, shoot outs, a rogue motorcycle club, mistaken identities, steamy hot sex scenes and so much more. But for today’s post, I want to focus on the book’s setting. Chicago, the Windy City, the City of Broad Shoulders. My home. Sit back, relax, and let me take you on a journey of locations found between the pages of WILD RIDE. If you’ve been to Chicago, hopefully you haven’t missed these fun Chi-Town destinations. If you haven’t been to Chicago, then be sure to put these spots on your list of must-sees when you do get a chance to visit my City by the Lake! The Magnificent Mile: A mile of shopping, restaurants, and people-watching unlike anything you’ve ever seen. You’ll find everything from Payless Shoes to Sax Fifth Avenue on the Mag Mile. Coffee shops. Street performers. Garrett’s Popcorn, which is a Windy City staple. (Hint: Get the Chicago Mix while you’re there. It’s cheddar cheese popcorn mixed with caramel popcorn. Sounds gross, right?…

In SOMEBODY’S BABY, veterinarian and neat-freak Rory Gallagher is faced with the knowledge that Oaklee Collier, his best friend’s little sister, has grown up to be not only beautiful but fun to be with. There’s just one problem: way back in high school, Cam Collier let Rory know that it was strictly hands-off. But what’s a man to do when love comes knocking? He makes a list, of course! Rory Gallagher’s Top Five Reasons to Not Date His Best Friend’s Little Sister The bro code. Bro says hands off my sister, he means it. And when you agree, you mean it back. YOU DON’T BREAK THE BRO CODE. She was a complete pain in the ass in high school, always following us around like a little puppy dog. And that’s not even touching on the awkward flirting and obvious bra-stuffing to get attention – though the stuffing wasn’t necessary. I noticed. She doesn’t like animals. What the hell? Who doesn’t like puppies and kittens? How can you not be a “pet person”? Her apartment is a disaster zone. There’s untidy and then there’s… OMG. Her place looks like a bomb went off inside. How hard is it to run a…

It Must be March in New England What would a big stack of Maine blueberry pancakes be without fresh maple syrup poured over the top? We’re talking real maple syrup, not the type of artificial “pancake syrup” you find in grocery stores. That’s made from flavored corn syrup, and it’s not maple syrup! But what’s the difference between the two, and how is maple syrup made, anyway? You’ll find out in the pages of TOWN IN A MAPLE MADNESS, the eighth book in the Candy Holliday Murder Mystery series, due out April 4th. As we once again join the friendly and busy villagers of the coastal community of Cape Willington, Maine, it’s late March, which means it’s maple sugaring season. But it’s also the time of year when snow and ice are starting to melt, which means it’s mud season. Two big events, one sweet, one not so sweet, and they both play a prominent role in our story. Cape Willington has two “sugar shacks”—one at Crawford’s Berry Farm, owned by Neil Crawford, and the other at Sugar Hill Farm, owned by Hutch and Ginny Milbright. As the story opens, both sugar shacks are in full operation, with their evaporators…

This year marks the publication of the 25th China Bayles mystery, THE LAST CHANCE OLIVE RANCH. Gosh—it seems like yesterday when the first book, THYME OF DEATH, came out. But that was way back in 1992, the same year that Bill Clinton became president, Hurricane Andrew bulldozed across South Florida, and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven cleaned up at the Oscars. To tell the truth, I never imagined that China and Ruby would be still be sleuthing, 25 books later. But I’m glad they are, for they’ve given me, as their partner-in-crime, many wonderful (and challenging) hours of writing fun. Back in the day, those early China Bayles mysteries broke some new ground. For one thing, regional mysteries were fairly new to readers, and I was a little worried that a small town in the Texas Hill Country might not be appealing. What’s more, China was a shop owner, an herbalist, and a gardener, the first of her kind in the U.S. (British mystery author John Sherwood had already written several books in his Celia Grant horticultural series but there were none in America.) China’s mysteries were also among the first to feature recipes (Diane Mott Davidson began doing this at about…