Have you ever searched for books with the word wedding in the title? On Amazon alone, there are over 22,000. Add in bride, and you’ll have a mini-explosion on your screen. We have runaway brides, mail-order brides, princess brides, virgin brides, substitute brides, pretend brides, and, yes, bridezillas! There are right at 29,000 book titles that include the word bride. Groom? Another 2,000. I know. A lot less. Sorry, guys, but it’s best you understand right now that it’s all about the bride. Why so many books about weddings? Because we love to read them! We get to vicariously share that magic moment with the bride and groom, their families and friends. The reader is given a front row seat at the affair…and through all the ups and downs it takes to reach that moment. In Magnolia Brides, my new series, we’re right there when wedding planner Jenni Beth Beaumont (THE BEST LAID WEDDING PLANS) and florist Cricket O’Malley (EVERY BRIDE HAS HER DAY) meet their brides and plan that perfect-for-her event…and smile when, along the way, each finds her own special someone. We love the little pink purses bursting with sweetheart roses, calla lilies, Bells of Ireland, and strands…

There’s something ’bout the bad boys that makes the good girls fall in love. ~ Zara Larsson It isn’t just Zara who sings about good girls falling for the wrong boys, we hear it all over the radio, we see it in books and movies, as well as every day in real life. In THE SOCIETY, Sam definitely found herself pulled toward a “bad boy.” He was hot, rode a motorcycle, and had that almost indefinable edge of danger about him from the first time they met. One sexy grin and she was hooked. So what exactly is the allure of bad boys that makes so many girls, especially teens, lose their heads and hearts chasing after them? One surface answer might be that some girls love the bad boy image—that kind of wild, devil-may-care attitude coupled with a sexy grin can leave a girl weak in the knees. Most of us have been there at one time or another. I know I have, especially as a teenager and in my early twenties. On one hand, you might have a perfectly nice guy who your mother would adore, and on the other? The rebel without a cause. How many of…

I love a good sandwich – some amazing French bread, ham, roast beef…a bit of provolone or cheddar…oh, it makes my tummy happy! But grilled cheese – in all its varieties – is my absolute favorite sandwich to make. I think it’s my favorite because of all the variety: I can go kiddish with straight-up American and white bread or take it on a bit of a grown up turn with some broccoli and mushrooms. One of my favorite recipes is for Double Bacon Grilled Cheese – it’s a recipe the characters in PROTECTING THE QUARTERBACK, Jonas and Brooks, sample. Here’s how to make it: Ingredients: 8 slices bacon – we prefer thick cut, but use your favorite Some chopped red onion (to taste and totally optional) 4 slices Cheddar cheese, 3 ounce slices 4 slices mozzarella cheese, 3 ounce slices 8 slices sourdough bread, medium (1/2″) slices Cook It Up: You can use a flat skillet or a closed contact grill, I prefer the closed contact grill, but both make yummy sandwiches. Either way, heat the pan/grill for 5 minutes. Skillet Method: Cook the bacon until lightly crisp, and remove from heat. Sautee the onion in the bacon grease…

Exclusive Excerpt: About DARE TO TAKE A one-night stand. A secret. A mistake they tried to forget. On leave from the army, Tyler Dare is just looking for a little fun, but his best friend’s sister is off limits. Yet unable to deny how sexy and alluring she is, he finds it all too easy to succumb to a night of passion and heat that ends the next morning in the worst way possible. There are just some guys you don’t touch–even someone as innocent and inexperienced as Ella Shaw knows that. But when her brother’s best friend is up for grabs and willing, she can’t resist. After all, she’s wanted him for years… Now, Ella is stranded on a tropical island with a hurricane bearing down, and only Tyler can save her. It’s his chance to make amends for the past and show the woman he’s never forgotten that he’s coming after her . . . in more ways than one. Buy DARE TO TAKE: Kindle | BN.com | iTunes/iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR Tyler had been standing in the hallway for a good half hour…

Where does an author come up with her stories? Sometimes from watching a movie or reading a book or news article that piques her interest and gets her thinking “What if this happened next… And sometimes, when a secondary character sticks in her head and refuses to be dislodged until she agrees to tell his story. Such was the impetus for my new Hadley’s Hellions series, which begins this month with FORBIDDEN NIGHTS WITH THE VISCOUNT. The character in question was a key player in rescuing the heroine in FROM WAIF TO GENTLEMAN’S WIFE, a story set more than ten years earlier, when farmer’s orphan David Tanner Smith was still a boy. But a sharp, intelligent, resourceful boy who so impresses hero Sir Edward Greaves that he decides to sponsor the lad at Oxford. Davie has great ideas and a dream of reforming England so that commoners like himself have a voice in government. But power is wielded by those of birth and wealth, so I knew to implement those plans, Davie would need to link up with men of like ideas and better connections. Men who had compelling reasons to be estranged from others of their birth and class….

I don’t enjoying looking at rich people’s art and old furniture, so I’m not a fan of most house museum tours. There’s only one exception: Fort Lauderdale’s Bonnet House Museum & Gardens. I can’t wait for you to read THE ART OF MURDER, my May Dead-End Job mystery. THE ART OF MURDER opens at Bonnet House, where I worked as a volunteer greeter. Bonnet House was the colorful home of artists Evelyn and Frederic Clay Bartlett. Evelyn took up collecting miniature orchids at age 101, and lived to be 109. Their house was filled with light, life and color. Bonnet House was Frederic’s idea of a Caribbean plantation house. It’s built around a courtyard sheltered by feathery palms and bright with flowers. The house has whimsical touches: gilded baroque columns swirl around the drawing room doors, balconies are frosted with New Orleans wrought iron, and Evelyn’s collection of brightly painted wooden animals, including giraffes and ostriches, are everywhere. Evelyn loved animals, and Bonnet House still has swans and a troupe of adorable monkeys living on the grounds. The monkeys, the last of Evelyn’s pets, escaped from a bar. Frederic built Evelyn the charming Bamboo Bar and Shell Museum as a…

A Day in the Life of Sarah Brandt Malloy… Malloy and I have been back from our honeymoon for several weeks now, and we’re both very grateful that my nursemaid, Maeve, and Malloy’s friend from the New York City Police Department, Gino Donatelli, started a detective agency while we were away. Without it, Malloy would’ve been bored to death, since he’d had to resign from the Police Department. Their first really interesting case after officially setting up an office turned out to be one they needed my help on, too. Thank heaven, because quite frankly, I was feeling a little bored myself. A young woman who was teaching at the Normal School had been murdered. The Normal School is a college for women that trains them to become teachers, and it should be the safest place in the world. Abigail Northrup’s parents had thought so when they agreed to let her work there, especially when she moved in with two of the other female professors. Malloy asked for my help because he thought I’d know more about college than he did because I was raised in a wealthy family. The truth is that the girls I’d grown up with hadn’t…

Instead of writing a blog about my new book SEAMS LIKE MURDER, the 10th in the Crochet series, I thought I’d offer you a chance to play something Molly Pink and her best friend Dinah Lyons call the Sherlock Holmes game. What it amounts to is listening, observing and then deducing the facts. The names have been removed to protect the innocent and to make it less confusing. Recently, I helped give a surprise party for a friend’s birthday. My job was to be the greeter and deal with the gifts. Guest 1 was the first to arrive and she handed me a rectangular package wrapped in silver paper with a silver bow. I put it on the dining room table and told her everyone was to hide in the den. Guest 2 came in with guest 3. The first one had a yellow shopping bag with orange tissue paper poking out of the top and placed it on the table and guest 3 added a small box in turquoise wrapping paper. “I hope she likes this shade,” guest 4 said as I took her gift. “I know she likes the color.” The array of packages grew as guest 5…

No, this is not about the presidential primary campaigns. I just realized that, with CATCH AS CAT CAN, I’ve devoted more than a third of a million words to the adventures of Sunny and Shadow, and that it might be interesting to discuss some of the most important of those words – the names of the characters. The first to get christened were Sunny and Shadow – for some reason the title of the series was one of the first inspirations to come from brainstorming a cat mystery. A neighbor had a cat named Shadow, although I honestly don’t recall hearing the name before I worked up the series. Shadow didn’t need a last name, but Sunny did. I’d been asked to set the series in Maine, but the names famously associated with the state – Gorgas, Muskie – didn’t match well with Sunny. The best was Pepperell, which always makes me think of towels. Casting my net farther around New England’s past, I got lucky in nearby Vermont, who had a native son make it to the White House – Calvin Coolidge. Sunny Coolidge sounded good to me. Problem almost solved, except I didn’t want Sunny to be a…

Hello, my name is Darcie Wilde, and I write mysteries. Specifically, mysteries set during the English Regency. I got my introduction to the Regency the way most people do; via the work and world of Jane Austen. From the Incomparable Jane, I discovered the warm, witty, wonderful works of the great Georgette Heyer. Between the two of them, they kindled a fascination in me for all things Regency — the dances! The genteel manners, the snobbery, and the witty banter! And, oh! Those clothes! I mean, what’s not to love? It’s a lush, intricate and magnificent time period. But the more I read about the history, the more I came to realize it was a deeply complicated time as well. Not only was Napoleon running roughshod across the Continent, at home, the royal family which was still very much the heart and center of government, was falling apart in all sorts of interesting ways. The banks and the stock market were careening along full tilt in the modern boom-and-bust cycle. Drinking and gambling were epidemic among the upper classes. The middling and lower classes were agitating for better and fairer living conditions, and a debt of as little as five…