Just off the coast of Cornwall lies the most gorgeous, welcoming holiday destination you’ve probably never heard of: the Isles of Scilly, a place of puffins and palm trees, flower fields and harbor seals. The North Atlantic Current bathes the islands in such warmth that it rarely snows there. Designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the islands are famous for flowers, bird watching, stargazing, and hospitality. What better place to fall in love? Not that Michelle Cole was looking for love when she went there. Her trip to the island of St. Mary’s was mostly a favor to her best friend, who’d just inherited a bed and breakfast called Valhalla’s Rest. As a former B and B owner, Michelle went there to survey the property and the island, to see if Vicky should keep the property or sell it. Really, it was supposed to be a quiet two-week vacation… Until ex-Royal Marine Ray Powell showed up on her doorstep, battered and bruised from a rescue mission in the desert, seeking a refuge from the stresses of his job as a military security consultant. Valhalla’s Rest had been his haven since childhood, the place where he could go to…

It’s hard to believe that MURDER, SERVED SIMPLY is my eighth book featuring Amish characters. Throughout those eight novels, I’ve stuck my Amish characters in many funny and even dangerous situations and have loved every minute of it. When I write about the Amish I focus on the interaction between the Amish and English in Ohio where I live. In some counties in Ohio, including Holmes County where the Amish Quilt Shop Mystery Series is set, the Amish and English interact every day. No English (non-Amish) person living in those counties thinks much about passing an Amish person on the street. The Amish are just neighbors. Yes, they dress different, but they are a part of everyday rural Ohio life. Some of my novels focus on how Amish people leave their communities to become English but still interact with their Amish families. Some relationships are broken when this happens, and most relationships between former Amish and their Amish families remain tense. Because I have written on this topic a lot, I thought what if an Amish man left his community but remained Amish in his own way? What if he went rogue? I suspect that there must be a rogue…

SUSPICION AT SEVEN is the latest in my Lois Meade Mystery series, and involves another murder hunt alongside Detective Inspector Hunter Cowgill. The inspiration for this story came to me one day when I was lunching in a restaurant in a converted water mill. I remembered as a child seeing the mill and all its workings and work people were covered with a layer of white. It looked then as if a gigantic flour sprinkler had dusted it ready for the oven! During lunch, I watched the huge millwheel, glassed in for safety, an attraction for customers, going heavily round and round, dripping slimy green weed ….. A plot, surely? One for Lois Meade, who has become friendly with Aurora Black, an attractive baker from her shop opposite the mill, and it is on a pleasant summer day that the pair decide on lunch after a walk with Jemima, Lois`s small terrier, across the water meadows. Aurora is not entirely happily married to her husband Donald, since he has a wandering eye, and a mistress who helps him with his pyramid jewellery selling and other less innocent occupations. Aurora is also part of the business, and they have one precious…

For the last three years, I’ve been writing about navy SEALs, and I’ve been reading about them for a lot longer than that. Biographies, true accounts of their missions, and novels. I’m not picky about format, I’m just fascinated by these men who serve America with such excellence. Not only are SEALs great warriors, they also make excellent romance heroes. Here are five reasons I love writing them. 1. Determination. In order to become a SEAL, they have to survive the most grueling training known to mankind. I’m not talking about just an unpleasant experience. This training is designed to push every limit—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. The ones who make it, the men who call themselves SEALs, have mastered every challenge thrown at them and never given up. That’s months of jumping into the freezing Pacific Ocean, rolling around in the sand, and then running miles. That’s carrying boats over their heads and running endlessly across the sand. That’s jumping in deep pools, hands and feet bound. It’s training designed to weed out the weak. SEALs are anything but weak. So when they face a hard times, when relationships are tough, they don’t give up. They know how to fight…

I don’t know about you, but I totally love a good second chance romance. In a second chance romance, love, once lost, is eventually found and oftentimes it is more real and poignant than ever. And there’s something about second chance romances set around the holidays that really does it for me. For many, the holidays are filled with love, and the traditions associated with the season invite reminiscing about our pasts—of loves once had—maybe even about the one that got away. There’s also an urgency that goes along with an old year ending and a new one beginning—that love must happen before it’s too late…before another Thanksgiving, another Christmas, another season, another New Year’s Eve passes us by. So finding love during this season, especially a long-lost love, just packs maximum impact. It’s this exact situation that takes place in New Year’s in Napa. Two years ago, out of guilt, brilliant scientist Mandy Aligheri gave up on a chance for love with winemaker Liam Flynn. Hurt and disappointed, they both went their separate ways. When she runs into him again, not much has changed—she’s still as beautiful, intelligent and stubborn as ever and he still has the same easy…

Dear Reader At last, my next Wyoming series book! Starting in 2015, I will have two Wyoming series books in a row coming out, and then two Shadow Warrior books coming out in a row. All via HQN. I love Iris Mason and her Elk Horn Ranch family as much as you do. And I love having Gus Hunter and her family from the Bar H, in the Wyoming series books, as well. In this story, you’ll get to catch up with Iris and all the expansion that’s going on at her dude ranch. Iris is one of those people where grass will never grow under her feet! She has a strong loyalty to ecology and saving the environment. And to that end, she has created a huge wildlife center on the ranch. Primarily to be a place for the local wolf population out of Yellowstone and Grand Tetons Parks that butt up against one another. She loves wolves and is lucky enough to snag Navy ex-SEAL, Grayson McCoy, to manage the facility. His mother is a world expert on wolves and he grew up with a lot of different wild animals in his house. A lot of her knowledge,…

Happy Thanksgiving It’s the day of thanks and reflection on those people and things I’m most happy to have in my life. This year, I decided to make a list. It may not be complete but it’s a great start to a day filled with all the people I love and some great food. I’m thankful for lessons learned: Sometimes life hands me challenges, usually I think in retrospect to see if I can grow stronger, if I’ve learned how to deal with obstacles, if I can pivot. So far this year, my challenges included family health scares, business burps and successes, Did you ever know success has a lesson? I’m thankful for people who love me: It’s always surprising when you realize who steps up when lemons are being handed out. And this year I found a slew of them. From my enforced stay in Florida to coming home to Texas I have a bounty of friends and I’m so very grateful for each one of them. I know I’m a prickly pear at times so when they rally around I can be nothing but eternally grateful. THANK YOU EVERYONE! I’m thankful for family: Without my family I wouldn’t…

First of all, I want to say thank you to the Fresh Fiction crowd for having me today!  I absolutely adore these people and am so thankful that I have them in my life!!!!!  I love to read and the Fresh Fiction team always has a million reviews and recommendations on what I should be reading—something I really appreciate now that my crazy writing schedule doesn’t let me read quite as much as I used to. That’s one of the reasons I’m so looking forward to Thanksgiving this year.  I’m usually a mess when it comes to planning (anyone who knows me can attest to this), but something about the holidays brings out the compulsive planner in me—which means that once the turkey is on for Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve got everything else done.  All I need to do is kick back, watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade with my kids and start on my #bingereading (which, let’s face it, is one of the best parts of the holiday season). This year, I’ve already got three books on my Nook just waiting to be binge read—Sylvia Day’s CAPTIVATED BY YOU, Jandy Nelson’s I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN and Patricia Cornwell’s FLESH AND…

1 Swoon-Worthy Hero That pretty much goes unsaid I guess, but it is one of the most important ingredients. In AN OFFICER AND A REBEL, we have Nate Walsh. He shows up right after former town-rebel Kelsey wrecks her car dodging a deer on the snowy road. He’s a cop, but he’s also the kind of guy who would stop to help anyone. He looks good in his uniform, and the hours he spends helping his dad on the farm on top of his job means he’s good with his hands, too. A Heavy Dusting of Snow I suppose you could have a holiday story without it, but there’s something about snow and the white wonderland it leaves behind that says Christmas. Plus it’s a good reason to stay inside & cuddle in front of a warm fireplace. See what other sparks you can get going 🙂 Holiday Treats (Use generously) Whether you’re a fan of fudge, caramel popcorn, cookies, eggnog, or all of the above, the holidays are a good time to indulge in eating. Kelsey believes all cookies should involve chocolate, and when Nate helps her out, the oven isn’t the only thing heating up the kitchen. They…

Tomorrow, all over America, families will convene to celebrate Thanksgiving. There will be cooks in the kitchen making old family favorites. There will be football, family gossip, and getting down on the floor playing with the grandkids. There will be family togetherness and family drama too. And most of us wouldn’t miss it for the world. At its best, Thanksgiving reconnects us to the people we love. We celebrate our blessing and all the ties that bind us together at this season of the year. This kind of traditional family get-together is something that Mike Taggart, the hero of LAST CHANCE FAMILY has never known. Mike’s early years were painful. He left home at seventeen and became a successful professional gambler living in Las Vegas – not particularly the most family-oriented locale. He’s never had anywhere to go or be on Thanksgiving. There are no ties that pull him home because he has no real home. And then his estranged half-sister passes away, leaving him with legal custody of her five-year-old daughter, Rainbow. Mike knows he will never be the father Rainbow needs. So he sets off to find his other half-sibling, Tim, who is now a Methodist minister serving…