Have you ever visited Ohio? Some people think the entire state is flat. It’s not. Holmes County, which is situated above Columbus, consists of beautiful rolling hills Have you ever stayed a bed-and-breakfast and awakened to the sound of chickens and cows? It’s serene, idyllic, and delicious. I stayed at an inn at the south portion of Holmes County years ago. The next day, I got lost while driving around. What a fabulous experience that was! Truly. I discovered all sorts of little towns and treasures. Right now, in my latest release FOR CHEDDAR OR WORSE, it’s time for the first-ever Cheese Festival in Providence, Ohio. Charlotte Bessette, the protagonist, is a cheese monger, and she and her new husband, Jordan, have been invited to stay at nearby Emerald Pastures Inn to participate in a brain trust. What’s a brain trust? It’s an event where marketers, cheese makers, cheese authors, and journalists will taste, make, and talk all things “cheese.” Charlotte and Jordan can’t wait. But there will be others at the brain trust plus one surprise guest from the past—Lara Berry, pretentious cheese whiz, pompous bestselling author, and pungent critic whose extra sharp tongue can crumble a reputation. Charlotte…

When Fresh Fiction asked me to share some of my favorite things, I sat right down and started a list. Saturday mornings at Starbucks with my own leading man. Spending time with my extended family. Performing in community musical theater productions. Baking fattening desserts. Playing in my garden. But there’s no time to talk about all those in this short column, so I’ll focus on just one of my favorites. Long, spectacular hikes while on vacation. Now, before you get the wrong idea, I’m not one of those people who straps 50 pounds of stuff on her back and disappears into the wilderness. I’m a day hiker. My husband didn’t discover this until after we were married. But he quickly learned that it’s not a vacation for me if I don’t log some serious hiking miles in God’s country. Don’t get me wrong. He’d done some hiking before we married, too. But it was not on his list of favorite things. However, he humored me—and through the years, some of our treks have been both easy and amazing. Hiking down from the Gornergrat in Switzerland on a smooth, well-marked trail with clear views of the Matterhorn all the way is…

What are you passionate about? Perhaps you love to cook, sew or paint. Maybe you’re passionate about your family. As an author, I’m passionate about what I do. Just ask anyone who has made the mistake of asking me about my writing. Passion is a boundless enthusiasm for something Enthusiasm for something drives us to want to know more about the object of our passion, whether it’s a person, place or thing. Julia Child was passionate about French cooking. However, she did not will herself to become one of the world’s greatest chefs. She had to learn and practice. When I started writing, all I knew was that I wanted to write and that, someday, I wanted to be published. But to make that dream come true, I had to learn the craft of writing. I bought books, attended writers’ conferences and honed my craft for nearly a decade before ever seeing that dream of being published come true. Never stop learning Julia Child may have written MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING, but she still continued to learn. How do I know this? Because I’ve watched her shows, In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs and Julia Child & Jacques…

I have been a fan of ABC’s Scandal from day one. Why? Because it is one of the few books or films that combines swoon-worthy assassins and wine into a lovely, entertaining cinematic package. I love books and films that incorporate espionage and political intrigue into the plot, throw in one of my favorite cities – Washington DC and a protagonist who is always working it… and I am hooked. The fact that the heroine of the television show, Olivia Pope is masterfully and flawlessly portrayed by the gorgeous Kerry Washington is a boon. Most television shows and films in this genre usually feature a man and completely gloss over stuff like fierce hair, gorgeous clothes and the romance lives of the characters – and that is why I love Scandal. While men obviously enjoy the show, this is espionage and political intrigue by women and for women It’s exactly like the fiction genre, romantic suspense – you know, books that usually feature a gorgeous Navy Seal, a tall dark and handsome FBI agent or maybe a dreamy CIA operative… and the women that love them? There is usually lots of action, danger and steamy love scenes…. Read more… About…

Can’t wait until April? We can’t either because it’s when Samantha Chase’s new book releases! You can pre-order LOVE WALKS IN now, which we highly recommend, and as a treat–don’t we all deserve one in February–here is an exclusive sneak peek! It took a full minute for Hugh to realize he was staring at nothing but his window before he shook his head to clear it and made his move. In a flash he was silently through the window, and his sexy intruder hadn’t noticed. She was looking around the dimly lit room and unfortunately, he couldn’t get a good look at her. Standing in the corner, he continued to observe. If she was going to try and steal something, he wanted to be certain to catch her in the act. In a perfect world, he’d hit the lights as soon as she took something that clearly didn’t belong to her so he could press charges. He hated people touching his belongings—especially when they so blatantly held such little regard for his privacy. But who was she? Why was she here in his office? “Finally,” he heard her mutter. Stepping closer to his desk, he reached for the small lamp…

Dear Readers, I’m so excited to be on Fresh Fiction today celebrating my new release, BORROWING TROUBLE. Brady Benson, BORROWING TROUBLE’s hero, first appeared in the fourth book of my Nugget Romance series, STARTING OVER. I liked him so much that I wanted to give him a book of his own. That’s the thing about writing minor characters. You never know when he or she will worm their way into your heart and beg you for their own happily ever after. I’ve had some secondary characters who would’ve taken over an entire book if I’d let them. Brady’s a chef and I’m a former food writer so already we were a match made in heaven. He was also mysterious. In Starting Over he’d arrived in Nugget running from a secret. The honest truth: I hadn’t worked out his secret yet. For that book the important thing was to give him an air of intrigue and if I never used him again—or continued using him only as a minor character–so be it. I like writing character-driven stories and I like writing stories where traditional rolls are flip flopped. For instance, Brady spends his days in a kitchen and the heroine, Sloane…

We all know about Colin Firth emerging from the lake. (Right???? If not, here’s a little primer on “the scene that changed everything.”) Mr. Darcy and his soggy shirt are the stars of what is probably the most popular Jane Austen adaptation out there, the 1995 miniseries that also starred Jennifer Ehle as Lizzy Bennet. And, hey, you’ll get no argument from me. That series is a delight from start to finish. But how about some lesser-known Austen adaptations and Austen-inspired movies and TV shows? Without further ado, I give you my four favorites. The 2007 version of Persuasion, starring Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliot and Rupert Penry-Jones as Captain Wentworth. Interestingly, PERSUASION isn’t my favorite Austen novel. But this adaptation! It is glorious. I’m particularly fond of the last scene, where Anne goes running after Captain Wentworth, tearing though the streets of Bath in a most unladylike manner as the camera jiggles around like crazy. Oh, my heart! The Jane Austen Book Club, a 2007 Hollywood movie about a group of friends who start a Jane Austen-reading book club to cheer up one of their members, who has just been dumped by her husband. If I recall correctly, this…

One of the first historical romance novels I ever read was LOVESONG by Valerie Sherwood, when I was about fifteen. There’s an early scene featuring the heroine sneaking out of her London boarding school to meet up with her elusive beau at an 18th century gaming hell (spoiler alert: he’s not the hero and this doesn’t end well for her). Her friends help her dress in disguise as a young man, so she can prowl the streets of London at night alone. One provides a pale green satin men’s suit with silver metallic embroidery, made for her brother. She wears her own clocked stockings and garters. Another friend styles the heroine’s platinum blonde hair into something resembling a powdered wig. It’s been thirty years and I can still remember that dress up scene and still recall small details of her outfit. I couldn’t recall the heroine’s name, or the shady beau’s, or the eventual hero’s. But that green satin suit? It stayed with me forever! That was probably my first indication that my future lay in costume design. I ended up getting a master’s degree in costume design, and I’ve spent twenty years in New York working in the industry….

I confess I have no answer to that. My debut novel was birthed from blood, pain, tears and tantrums. Don’t get me wrong. It’s all worth it. When you’ve done as much research as your weary brain can take; you’ve had the mother of ideas at 2 am in the morning (on more than one occasion) and you HAVE to get it down on your laptop; you’ve coped with the hiccups and glitches of your pc and you’ve recovered from all the trauma of thinking that your manuscript has disappeared into the ether; you’ve edited, edited and edited it for what you pray is the final time and there’s an “oops, I need to check that”, or, “have I done this, that or the other?”, it’s finished! A huge sigh of relief, throw your hands in the air and do a little cha-cha around the living room before falling exhausted into bed. So, after all that, why, oh why, did I choose to right a sequel? I will truthfully say, with some embarrassment, that I had totally and utterly fallen in love with my characters, Joe and Katie. I missed them, their love for each other and their struggles and…

As I grew up, my family had any number of cats. I also had a horse, as did one of my brothers. The occasional hamster came along, a few parakeets, even a couple of goats, but no dogs. Was that a deprived upbringing or what? When my daughter reached latchkey age, I saw an opportunity to remedy my doggy-deficit at last, for what kid can feel lonely at home with a dog on the premises? I left the choice of breed up to her, and she chose…a mastiff. OK… So we answered an ad, and picked up a cute little guy who looked sorta like… well, as the weeks went by, that puppy looked less and less like a mastiff, and more like a bull mastiff. Hmm. “Mom, you SAID I could have a mastiff.” A stout backyard fence was already in our future, and dogs are pack animals, right? If one is lovely, then two would be twice as delightful. This time, we bought from a reputable breeder nearby, and by gum, we got a mastiff… a fuzzy mastiff, that is. Both dogs outlived their breed life expectancies by many years, and they were purely wonderful additions to the…