Being new to the job of a published writer, I thought I’d share the top five most exciting moments of my journey from the time I began chapter one of that very first story. Writing romance is something I’d dreamed of doing for so many years, but it was about eight years ago I sat down and seriously started to pursue that dream. It’s been a long road, with lots of highs and plenty of lows, too. One piece of advice I was given was to enjoy writing and the journey chasing that dream would take me on – and I did! 1. The first time I wrote “the end” – It’s a major milestone and should be marked accordingly. Whether that story makes it into print or not, you are a writer, so go and crack open a bottle of bubbly, or at the very least, give yourself a pat on the back. 2. There are other writers out there? – When I started writing it felt like I was the only unpublished writer out there, but as soon as I joined The Romantic Novelists’ Association I began meeting lots of women just like me, who were hooked on…

One of the great gifts I receive as a writer are the messages from readers who say they never truly understood the situation in Tibet or life on the colonial frontier –the settings of my two series—until they read my novels. It highlights an aspect of writing that we too often ignore. Good fiction can, and should, help us understand our world more effectively than nonfiction. Historians deal with sterile facts, on a macro, societal level—and our collective understanding of history slips lower every year. Skilled novelists translate those facts into personal human experience, providing the reader with an opportunity to viscerally connect with another time and place. Your mind may grasp the dreadful statistics of China’s occupation of Tibet but if you truly want to understand that world, your heart needs to grasp the anguish of the gentle lama who is tormented for sitting at an altar with his Buddha. You can find plenty of timelines and bodycounts reflecting life in the American colonies but they pale beside experiencing the power of an Iroquois shaman through the eyes of an exiled Scot sitting at his campfire. “Fiction,” Emerson wrote, “reveals truth that reality obscures.” For those of us who…

So…I have my own laptop. It’s where all the writing happens naturally. However, I forget that surfing the web comes with mapping and tracking your computer history. Not that it really matters…until you go on someone else’s computer. Let’s say, for example, my husbands. Surfing the web for “hot shirtless guys with tattoos” may be a normal thing in my world (because hey, a girl needs to have inspiration when writing about a ripped, sexy hero!) but when my laptop was out of commission for a couple days, I used my husband’s desktop computer. When I finally got through the week and was back to my precious, the hubby had some questions about the browser history I’d left behind. “Um, J?” he asks as he scrolls through his computer. “Why am I getting pop ups of…” tilts his head, “half naked dudes?” He clicks through to get to his Amazon account. “And why is Amazon recommending erotic novels based on a book ‘Owned By Fate’ to me?” Looks closer at the screen. “Is that woman on the cover naked? With a blind fold over her eyes?” Oh, I forgot to mention I ordered some E-books through his Amazon account. But!…

When I write a book, it’s pretty much as though I’m trying to describe the movie that’s playing in my head, so when Fresh Fiction asked what the dream cast of the movie version of BOUND TO THE BACHELOR would look like, I was ready to roll. Sort of. I’m not one of those writers who does story boards and collages and collects images to inspire me as I write, mostly because I can’t find images of men or women who fit the idea in my head, I guess. But! I do have a few go-to inspirations that get me started on my writing journey, and in the case of BOUND TO THE BACHELOR, those two starting points were people who just happened to be actors. How convenient! First up, a confession: I’ve always been a tall, dark and handsome kind of girl. Not sure why, but I just love a dark-headed man. There are, however, a couple of blond men that I think are just STUNNING. Paul Newman is absolutely at the head of that list. And since this is dream casting, I would totally want him to play the role of Beau Bennet. He’s got Beau’s essential qualities:…

One of the things I loved doing when my girls were small was making treats for class parties. I nearly always did something or other; my favorite thing to do for Valentine’s Day was little cookies that melt in your mouth. When I was writing THE COWBOY’S VALENTINE, I had my heroine do the same thing for Amber, who is the hero’s daughter. I thought I’d share both an excerpt and a recipe with you today – these can be made for any occasion and in any shape. But I love them as little hearts. Chocolate Shortbread Valentine Hearts ½ cup butter at room temp 1 ½ tbsp. cocoa ½ cup powdered sugar, sifted ½ tsp vanilla 1 cup flour (unsifted) Cream the butter. Cream in the powdered sugar, the cocoa, and then the vanilla. Then work in the flour, using your hands. Knead until the dough is smooth and forms a ball. Lightly dust your surface with flour and roll out your dough to between ¼ and ½ an inch thick. Cut with a small heart-shaped cookie cutter (mine is about an inch and a half across). Place on a greased cookie sheet (or on parchment paper) and bake…

New York Times bestselling author Hazel Gaynor stops by to discuss her latest work of historical fiction with Fresh Fiction Features Editor Pasha Carlisle. Pasha: Welcome, Hazel! Your novel A MEMORY OF VIOLETS centers around the young orphaned girls who sold flowers on the streets of early 1900’s London. What first inspired you to write about the plight of the flower sellers? Hazel: The novel was first inspired by my love of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady (I played the role of Eliza Doolittle in the school musical when I was seventeen). I wanted to understand more about the real Elizas – the young women who sold flowers and watercress on the streets of Victorian and Edwardian-era London. I’d also spent many years living in London and always loved the atmospheric cobbled streets of Covent Garden where the flower markets were originally based. During the early phase of my research, I discovered the work of a Victorian philanthropist, John Groom, who took many of the orphaned, blind and physically disabled flower sellers (young children and women) off the streets and taught them how to make artificial flowers in a workroom of his chapel. Their work became widely known in London and eventually reached…

Fresh Fiction is pleased to welcome international bestselling author Belinda Alexandra to discuss with Features Editor Pasha Carlisle the sweeping journey of WHITE GARDENIA. Pasha: Welcome, Belinda! From Russia to Shanghai to Australia, WHITE GARDENIA sweeps readers all across the world. How have your own travels influenced the globe-trotting background of this novel? Belinda: For me, travel has always been an enriching experience. Understanding other cultures, languages and history adds so many layers to my own experience of life. But no matter where I travel, I’m always struck by how much the human race has in common – especially in regards to our basic desires to love, to grow, to create and to connect. I’ve always found travel a pleasure because it’s been a matter of choice for me. But for many people who have had to flee their homes because of wars and revolutions and have had to adapt to another culture, the journey has been one of culture shock and resilience. The way these people survive and adapt fascinates me. Pasha: WHITE GARDENIA begins in the city of Harbin near the end of World War II. Could you tell us a bit about the city and why you chose…

My name is Marina Myles and I’m the author of the Cursed Princes romance series with Kensington. My fairy tale retellings are hot, a bit twisted, and feature immortal Prince Charmings who aren’t always “good”! During this interview, you’ll meet le vicomte Jean-Daniel Girard, hero of my fourth novel CINDERELLA AND THE GHOST. He’s a mysterious ghost who can beguile and hypnotize all kinds of women with one stare. Ironically, he wants only one girl…Ella Benoit. They met long ago, when Jean-Daniel wasn’t trapped inside his portrait and Ella wasn’t the orphaned inheritor of Château de Maincy, Jean-Daniel’s sprawling, French estate. Interview with the Ghost Q: I’ve never held a Q & A with a ghost. What do you want to tell us about being an apparition, Monsieur Girard? A. It is a very lonely existence. With nothing to do but pass the time, a ghost dwells on what used to be. Personally, I fixate on Ella. With her golden hair, firm curves, and lapis-blue eyes, she is gorgeous. Yet, her heart is kind and true. That makes her my dream girl. Q: Since you two were connected in the past, would you like to be reunited in present day? A:…

For those of us who live in Northern climates, cold winter weather is just a part of life. Dealing with ice and snow is the price we pay for the privilege of watching leaves turn vibrant colors in the fall, and waiting expectantly for those first, brave little crocuses to peek out in the spring. (I have a friend in Atlanta who boasts her crocus are already blooming. This is not fair.) But being from the frozen tundra (okay, Michigan is not really tundra but it does get really, really cold here) one does learn clever ways to keep oneself warm on those burrrrrrzy nights. In my latest book, LOVE ME SWEET, California girl Delaney Masterson is on the run from scandal – and her escape leads her to Bell Harbor during the worst winter in fifty years. As the adult daughter of an 80’s rocker icon and a past-her-prime supermodel, she’s accustomed to the downside of fame. But when an old boyfriend releases a very private tape, suddenly she’s front and center in the news. Desperate to evade the media, she plans to hide out for a bit until the story… blows over. But what she finds in Bell…

Heroes – what do we all want in a hero? Let’s face it, psychologists tell us the first thing that attracts a woman to a man is what she sees when her hero appears on the horizon. Is he tall, dark and handsome? Or does he have that indefinable something that sucks her in? Maybe she responds to a man who’s assertive, strong, and quick to figure out how to push her buttons. You know what I mean. This first meeting is the bread and butter of how an author’s romantic tale begins. The additional ingredients we carefully sprinkle into our hero guide the rest of the story. Does he have a brooding secret? Does he carry a heavy family burden that prevents him from committing to the heroine? In my first two novels coming out this year, my heroes are entirely different. In FORTUNE’S HORIZON, Captain Jack Roberts is well above six feet tall and uses his height to intimidate the heroine, as well as any of his crew crazy enough to hesitate to obey an order. His icy blue eyes and long, silver blond hair complete the forbidding look he presents to the outside world. My heroine, Lillie,…