When I began to think about the title for the third book of my medieval serial novel, Time Enough to Love, I had a rather difficult time coming up with one that continued in line with the first two novellas, BETROTHAL and BETRAYAL.  Those titles came immediately to mind because the words exactly explained the plots of the books. The final installment, however, was more complex, with more complications. So trying to find a word that began with “Be” became rather daunting. I grabbed a dictionary and went down the columns of “be” words.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience, because the longer I looked, the more I believed I would never come up with a title that would continue the alliteration of the first two and reflect the meaning of the book itself.  When I arrived at “beleaguered” it took me a second to think about it.  It was longer than the other two, it didn’t roll off the tongue as easily as they did, and it didn’t really scream romance novel.  But it did begin with “be” and the definition fit the book perfectly. Beleaguered, according to the Oxford Dictionaries, means “besieged, lay siege to, under attack,” and “hard…

Thanks so much to Fresh Fiction for hosting me on the tour for RUNNING WILD: Havoc Book 1.  This is the start of a brand new series, with different heroes for each book and HEAs at the end of each book.  Sean Rush and Ryker stole my heart a long time ago, and I’m excited for you guys to meet all of them. *** So today, I wanted to talk about Sean and Ryker from RUNNING WILD. I keep saying that Sean is Blue-ish (from FREE FALLING)…they’re still alphas but a different, quieter kind of alpha.  A complete wiseass, hopeless when it comes to understanding the basic tenets of love and romance, I feel like Sean was raised by wolves. And I mean really, he was.  He’s the son of a thief—a murderer—so Sean’s got stealing in his blood, but he doesn’t have the violence he tells us his parents had.  Yes, Sean will always fight for survival (his and those closest to him) by whatever means necessary, but even in his stealing, he only takes the more expensive cars.  He’s found a way to justify his addictions. Ryker is the most patient man in the world.  And he’s not…

I’ll start at the beginning. Before you can get a reader on the edge of their seats, the reader must get to know, like, and sympathize with your character. Let’s face it a nameless, faceless woman running from a killer sort of bores us.  It reaches high up there in the “so what?” category. Therefore step one in writing suspense is to  get the reader involved and invested in the character. What if our story starts out with Marcy a single mom with 5 kids who recently left her abusive husband and is working three jobs to make enough money to save up for a small home of her very own where her kids can grow up safe. Already we know there is tension for this woman. She had an abusive husband. She has five kids. She is working three jobs which likely means they are not high paying jobs. As a reader we know that any one of these things could go seriously wrong. We are now invested in this woman. Can she continue to work three jobs? That leaves her about 4 hours of sleep a night and who is watching the kids?  If her parents are watching…

Combatting the heat and staying cool in July can be tough, but a great book can do the trick. Do you like to sit by the swimming pool, soak up the sun, and devour the latest mystery on your list? Or do you stretch out on the sofa, air conditioning blowing, and get sucked into your favorite cozy worlds? Either way, this July I have some awesome cozy recommendations for you. Get your buying finger ready, because good reads are coming your way… First up are two of my favorite writer people, Juliet Blackwell and Heather Blake/Heather Webber. Both Juliet and Heather have books out this week! That’s awesome for a mystery fan like me! UNDENIABLY YOURS UNDENIABLY YOURS UNDENIABLY YOURS by Heather Webber (who also writes as Heather Blake) is available now! It’s the fifth book in the Lucy Valentine series. Lucy is a psychic investigator and when a TV journalist disappears, she has to use her abilities to figure out what happened…before it’s too late. Heather took a few minutes to answer a few pressing questions about the popular Lucy Valentine series. 1. In the movie or TV version of your series, who would play your sleuth? Go ahead…

The “Topic of Choice” option for a guest post during a blog tour can be a tough one for a writer. Discovering the seed of an idea seldom occurs instantaneously, and sometimes you have to fiddle around a bit before you find it. Since I’m obviously here to promote my latest release, REBEL (book ten of The Cat Star Chronicles), I should probably talk about that. But would that be too pushy, too mercenary, too self-serving? Who knows? Guess I’ll just start typing and let my fingers take me wherever they want to go, which is the best way I’ve found to overcome writer’s block. See? I’ve already written over a hundred words! Whoo hoo! That being said, writing is not an easy job. The amount of time it takes to write a book is incredible—REBEL weighs in at a little over 99,000 words—and when you factor in the necessary research, editing, and critiquing, the hours required to finish a book increase exponentially. I’m very thankful I wasn’t published prior to the advent of the word processing computer because I’m a terrible typist. In the previous sentence alone, I made three mistakes that were easily corrected and some that my…

Why do I write about shape-shifting dragons? I love all the possibilities involved with supernatural/paranormal worlds. In GOING DOWN IN FLAMES, Bryn learns she’s a shape- shifting dragon when flames shoot out of her mouth for the first time. She’s immediately thrust into a new world she doesn’t understand. Since I’m creating the world, I gave her a couple of perks to balance out the bad stuff. Due to her new faster shape-shifting dragon metabolism, she can eat whatever she wants and not gain weight. I think that’s a common female fantasy. I’ve never said, “I’ve had enough double stuffed Oreo’s, I’ll stop now.” It’s always more like, “I need to stop eating the double stuffed Oreo’s while my butt still fits in my jeans.” I also wanted to create a world where males and females were equal physically in power and strength when they were in their supernatural forms. As a small woman, I’ve had to ask people to carry heavy things for me most of my life. I hate not being able to finish a project because I can’t move something where I need it to go. When I’m really happy, I dream that I can fly. To…

What does the future hold for mankind? With the fear of a world-wide pandemic, World-War III, and the effects of climate change, it’s no wonder why Doomsday Preppers is a popular show on the National Geographic Channel. MIRROR X takes the reader into a world 1,003 years from now. The main character, Cassie, died during our century and is “awakened” into a world still suffering from a plague that affected the world’s population. But there’s something about Cassie that makes her different from anybody else (I can’t tell you what that is, or it will give away an important twist J). In a way, this makes her supernatural. Cassie is invaluable to this world and in being so, is manipulated and lied to by the government of this so-called Utopian society. At seventeen, Cassie has some very important decisions to make. She is incredibly intelligent and worldly, due to traveling the world with her paleontologist mother to accompany her on digs. But being homeschooled, she is also naïve and has never had a real boyfriend. This makes her even more vulnerable, especially when it comes to Michael, the hot, young geneticist who “awakened” her from death. I love Cassie! Being…

Picking a favorite scene is almost as daunting as picking a favorite character but If I must then I must. Maya and Shane’s story is one of the most emotional that I’ve written and I sure hope that translates to the reader. More than one reader who’d read TALL, DARK, AND VAMPIRE (Dead in the City #1) was scratching their head when they heard Maya was the heroine of VAMPIRE TROUBLE. I get it. She was a spoiled brat in that book and seemed about as deep as a puddle. How could you possibly root for her? Well, as with most people, there’s much more to Maya than meets the eye. There’s a reason why she’s always hunting human men and toying with them like a cat does with a mouse. I can’t tell you what it is because I don’t want to post any spoilers but let’s just say she’s got a lot going on behind those big blue eyes. Shane Quesada is a four hundred year old vampire sentry and most readers thought he had the emotional range of a gnat. However, just like Maya, he’s more than he seems. He’s not just a big, hot, sexy, killing…

We at Fresh Fiction are thrilled to host Kristi Belcamino, author of  BLESSED ARE THE DEAD, which is her first novel to feature San Francisco Bay Area newspaper reporter and crime-solver Gabriella Giovanni. The second book in the series, BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, releases at the end of July, so Kristi is here to talk to us about this series and how her career as a crime reporter has influenced her writing. What first drew you to the field of crime reporting? During my first newspaper job at a small weekly newspaper in Minnesota, a big story, a heartbreaking story, broke on my beat. A young woman from the town I covered was kidnapped off a Texas military base. Traci McBride had been on the payphone on the base talking to someone back home when the line went dead. I met her family and later grieved with them when her body was found. I attended her funeral. The emotional weight and gravity of reporting and writing about something so tragic did not escape me. I realized that I had a knack for writing these stories that other reporters shied away from. I felt a sacred duty to write about tragedy…

The internet has been buzzing this week about the return of Harry Potter! On July 8, 2014, J.K. Rowling released a new short story on the extensive Pottermore website that offers a glimpse into Harry’s life as he attends the Quidditch World Cup with his family. He’s 34, has a few gray hairs, still wears his signature glasses, and of course, he’s an Auror, but I can’t help but wonder if this is a return fans really want. Should Harry’s story have been finished at the end of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (without the epilogue, thank you very much) or do new short stories about a different chapter in Harry’s life add to the original joy of the series? There’s really no wrong or right answer. Revisiting familiar characters is often one of the most enjoyable and imaginative forms of storytelling. Sometimes the visit takes us to the same story-world like the new Harry Potter short story. Sometimes the visit offers us a new world for familiar characters to navigate. Characters like Batman, Robin Hood, Captain Kirk, and Sherlock Holmes have all been re-imagined and adapted to fit modern society. The trick is to remain true to the nature of the…