The surest way to lift an author’s spirit (can’t resist) is to receive an e-mail from a Hollywood producer inquiring if the rights are available to the Bailey Ruth Raeburn series. Yes, indeed they are. And Bailey Ruth’s new adventure, GHOST TIMES TWO, is a love story and a mystery that would make a GREAT movie. As is often the case with Hollywood queries, nothing has come of it to date, but I’ve had great fun picking out a superb cast and I want to invite readers to offer their choices. In GHOST TIMES TWO, Bailey Ruth returns to earth to encourage Jimmy Taylor, an engaging fun madly-in-love ghost, to climb the Golden Stairs to Heaven. The object of Jimmy’s affections is Megan Wynn, a young lawyer. She is beginning to recover from his untimely death in a kayak accident in the rapids. A fellow lawyer Blaine Smith would like for her to join his law firm and be his partner in both law and love. Jimmy is doing his best to thwart the romance. Megan quarrels with a partner in her present firm who blocks her plan to leave. When Megan is found at the scene of his murder,…

Paris is always the perfect idea. The French capital has long led the way in fashion, culture and art-but during the late nineteenth century, Paris was something else. The city of love resonated with everything modern and luxuriant and uproarious and risqué-Paris was, quite simply the epicentre of the Belle Époque. In FROM A PARIS BALCONY, we meet the Parisian courtesan Marthe de Florian-inspired by the real life demimondaine, whose real abandoned apartment in Paris was rediscovered in 2010 after being locked up for seventy years. I wanted to delve into both Marthe’s world and her feelings, but first, what was the scene in Paris when she was young? Three world fairs, in 1878, 1889 and 1900 contributed to Paris being the leading cultural capital in the world. Life in the city was an intertwine, an entanglement of burgeoning industry, artistic modernity and the pursuit of pleasure. The Third Republic, starting in 1870, is considered the Golden Era of the highest class of prostitutes, Parisian ‘It girls’ now known as ‘demimondaines.’ A generation of young men from all over Europe came to France’s capital to play with the forbidden fruits. Enter one of my characters, the charming heir to one…

By the time you read this, my sophomore novel, “>Can’t Help Falling, will have just been released. Coming just under six months from the release of my debut novel, Close To You, has made for a busy year! Before I was published I remember hearing a few times that your second novel is scarier than your debut. As I prepared for the release of my first book, I couldn’t understand how that was possible. Your debut is the first of everything! First time working with a publishing house, first time navigating cover and title selection, first one-star reviews, first readers letting you know what they didn’t like about your book or what you got wrong. You’re (Usually) Writing Under Contract For the First Time When I wrote Close To You it was the crazy story that I genuinely believed no publisher would be interested in. Who would want a romantic comedy set in New Zealand about a Lord of the Rings tour of all things? I had no expectations and no deadlines beyond the (moveable) ones that I set for myself. If life got in the way of writing it wasn’t a big deal. When I signed my publishing contract…

I’m all taken up with Christmas this month. It’s always this way for me. I get two Christmas’. One the first weekend in November and the other in December with the rest of the world. My November Christmas is really my mother’s bash and the month of October is consumed with last minute preparations. When I was kid Mom would take me around to boutiques and would show me things that she thought were beautiful. I remember how excited she felt. I wasn’t sure about all the stuff, but because she was excited, I was happy, too. I loved those times. They were like the official start of the holiday season for me. She used to tell me that someday she’d like to run her own holiday boutique. And now she does. Because when you want something badly enough, if you keep the dream alive and work hard for it, dreams really do come true. Mom has a group of crafting ladies who meet at her house all year long. They donate talent and many of the supplies and make gorgeous things. They work at home, too. And then, for two days, they sell their wares at Mom’s church. All…

To celebrate this week’s release of the third book in my paranormal romance series, REVENGE OF THE WRONGED, I’m excited to share with Fresh Fiction readers a very popular paleo recipe from the first book in the series, SLIP OF FATE. I received so many emails from my readers who tried this recipe at home after reading the chapter in which our big, scary, bad-boy supernatural Alpha dons a tall white chef hat and apron and pan sears rib-eyes for our very confused and reluctant vegetarian heroine, Milena. In the book, Alex prepares the steaks following a slight variation on the recipe provided below, which has been taken from PaleoFoodieKitchen.com. I hope you enjoy it as much as Milena ends up loving it in SLIP OF FATE! Recipe: Pan Seared Rib-eye Steaks (Recipe credit: PaleoFoodieKitchen.com) INGREDIENTS 2 grass fed ribeye steaks (about 1″ thick and 10 oz each) 1 tsp sea salt (preferably Himalayan or Celtic) 1 tsp black pepper ½ tsp paprika ¼ tsp onion powder ¼ tsp garlic powder 2 tbsp grass fed butter 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary cloves from 1 head of garlic, peeled coconut oil INSTRUCTIONS To make the dry rub, combine salt, pepper, paprika,…

I woke to the familiar shadows of gray and black blanketing our room, but for some inexplicable reason I felt afraid. Almost like I’d just had a nightmare. I faced the edge of the bed, my husband spooning me, his arm around my waist, his head behind mine on the pillow. There was something off about his breathing. It wasn’t the calm, slow breathing of someone asleep. No. It was the kind of breathing that came from great exertion. Or fear. When my husband spoke it was more breath than sound and meant only for me to hear. “Someone’s in here.” My heart exploded. My body tensed. His arm tightened around me, telling me with his action that we should lie there unmoving, pretending to be asleep, and hope the intruder wouldn’t bother with us. My gaze ping ponged around the room, searching for the man. At first I didn’t see anyone. Then I spotted him. He crawled on his hands and knees along the side of the bed toward me. I thought I had known fear. I hadn’t known fear until I knew he was going to kill me. Kill us. Then I woke up. Yep. That was one…

Organization makes life easier. Four words I’ve been told again and again as a writer. Four words I simply can’t live by. I’m always jealous of the people I meet who are able to write lists and structure their days in a way that allows them to move seamlessly from task to task. When I first started joining writing groups, many of the people I met fit this picture. They created detailed plots and planned out every aspect of the epic growth and transformation of their characters. They could pull out journals and bits of paper from their purse where they jotted down every idea to flit through their incredible brains and created a road map of exactly where they wanted to go. I, on the other hand, live in a constant state of chaos. Seriously, you should see my home. I’m of the opinion that if I put something away I’ll forget it forever. Out of sight, out of mind. So when I tried to learn from my peers about their writing styles, I quickly learned what worked for them didn’t work for me. When I write, I don’t do so in order. I write the big, important scenes…

Luke’s leg brushed against hers, triggering an immediate response from her overactive hormones. Just being near him turned her on. He held himself differently now than at the club. Tension coiled in his muscles like he was prepared for an imminent attack. “You seem very familiar with military terminology,” Astrid said, keeping her tone casual. He shrugged. “I served for a while.” She’d bet it was for more than “a while,” judging by how quickly his mind had snapped into strategic planning. It would have been a career. “What branch?” “The Marines, of course. There is no other worth joining.” Holden fired one of his grins at her. She wasn’t overly familiar with the different branches of the U.S. military, but she did know that the marines were elite soldiers. She and her battle brothers and sisters were einherjar, Odin’s and Freya’s elite soldiers. She wondered if Holden’s training had been similar to theirs but doubted his had included how to kill supernatural creatures like Loki’s wolverines. “What about you?” Holden asked. Startled from her thoughts, she didn’t know what he meant. “What about me?” “You obviously know something about the military. Did you serve?” Talk about a loaded question….

Seven years ago, I was just starting out on my writer’s journey. I’d written a couple of historical novels which I was enthusiastically peddling to agents and was keen to keep writing. Part of that was due to the fact that my job situation wasn’t the greatest, and I’d just survived a tussle with US Immigration. I was living in a small town in south-central Arizona, and wanted to escape the stress. So, when a fellow writer challenged me to take part in NaNoWriMo—the annual writing fest where you hammer out 50,000 words in the month of November—I couldn’t resist. But, what to write? I stared out of my office window at the railway tracks, the desert and the Pinal Mountains, and came up with an idea. The story fell together fairly quickly. I’d set it in a small town in south-central Arizona, in the near future, when the tanking economy had left the place half-deserted and dying. It didn’t seem too unfeasible. The town I worked in was surrounded by big, new housing developments, partly-finished and forlornly dotted with ‘for sale’ signs. Banks had been repossessing deserted homes and I hadn’t signed off on any new housing permits for…

About Heather Blake Heather Blake grew up in a suburb of Boston, and enjoys going “home” in her novels. As a young mother, she tried her hand at writing novels and hasn’t looked back. Currently, Heather lives in the Cincinnati area with her family, and is currently hard at work on her next novel. Magic Potion | A Wishcraft Mystery WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | PINTEREST THE WITCH AND THE DEAD by Heather Blake Wishcraft #7 The national bestselling author of Gone with the Witch returns as wish-granting witch Darcy Merriweather uncovers dangerous skeletons in the closet—and the garage…. When Darcy moved to Salem, Massachusetts, she never expected her life to change as drastically as it did. But within a short time, the Enchanted Village has become her home, its mystical residents have become her family, and As You Wish, the personal concierge business formerly run by her Aunt Ve, has become her calling. Still, the time has come for change—and for Darcy to move out of Aunt Ve’s house. Darcy’s belongings are stashed in Aunt Ve’s garage, alongside a mess of memories, forgotten possessions, and, to both Ve and Darcy’s horror, a pile of old bones. It turns…