When a true story holds both impossible mystery and romance … The heart of mystery is perfection. The writer needs to find the perfect ‘crime’ with which to begin. The reader should not be able to work it out. If you committed it, you could … get away with it. As a writer you need to force yourself into becoming a master detective, into solving the mystery in a way in which you outsmart yourself. You need to discover the flaw in what you thought was perfect. But what if you discover a true story that not only holds all of these elements, but is also set in the most romantic city in the world, and encompasses a secret love story from the past, its ghost-like images captivating not only you, but also thousands of bloggers all over the world? This was what happened to me. I was writing a mystery surrounding valuable art. It involved a love affair from the past and I was working with an agency in London. The novel was almost ready. But then, I read about THE PARIS TIME CAPSULE. Now, you see, I adore France. I speak French, and I love history. I have…

Jill Gardner, my heroine in GUIDEBOOK TO MURDER quit her job at the law office, picked up her life, and bought a coffeehouse/book store in a small coastal California tourist town. Risky you say? I don’t think so. We are drawn to actions that at the time seem foolish to those around us. But maybe, just maybe, it’s a life path correction that needed to be taken. Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken has always been my favorite poem. What would happen if we did take the less traveled road, the one that called to our soul? Some people are better at listening to the universe and choose well the first time. I, on the other hand, have always been one who learns from experience. Like my first marriage. Or a failed business. Thomas Edison said a failed light bulb is one less way it wouldn’t work. Sales courses tell you it takes 25 no’s to get a yes. Twenty-five rejections. Now that’s persistence. I’m on a second career path right now. I built my work experience in a large social service agency. When I left, I tried to run my own business but realized I didn’t like marketing. Funny…

Hello, my name is Rachel, and I’m addicted to romance. But when it comes to addictions, I happen to think mine’s a pretty good one. Reading and writing romance stories reminds me of the good in the world. The power of love and personal connection to overcome hardship and struggle. The need we all have to be truly understood by another. How despite our various backgrounds, social status, and nationality, at our core we’re all the same. We all love to swoon. We all love to see the growth that results from a true love journey. And we all love to believe that in the end, everyone has a perfect match. I don’t know the first romance novel I read, but I can tell you it had a red spine, and was swiped from my mama’s bookshelf. I remember bringing similar books to school and hiding them inside other books so I can read them at recess and not get in trouble at my Catholic school. Soap operas were also favorites, and fan fiction about a super couple gave me my first full-length foray into writing. Romantic comedies and dramas line my DVD shelf. But there’s just something about crawling…

“Kid appeal” is a term primarily used in the children’s market for books that kids can’t get enough of. There’s a kind of magic that makes them memorable. I’d like to suggest the same thing happens in the adult market. It’s the reason I have a manuscript being held for consideration with a publisher who isn’t crazy about my writing. She said the story offers “a fresh and engaging idea… though the writing is not as strong as I would like.” Ouch, right? I’ve obviously got some work to do. But hey, my kid appeal is influential enough that this editor just might take a risk on me anyway. I’d say it was kid appeal that made Nora Roberts and Debbie Macomber stand out back when they were published alongside all the other Harlequin authors. Nora Roberts had a character who joked about naming her unborn child “Butch,” and Debbie Macomber had her character cry in the neighbor’s arms because she couldn’t bake cookies. These are the books I can’t forget, and neither could their millions of fans. They are the reason I have my personal trainer in LIGHTEN UP gain weight and bust a seam in her pants when…

Hi Fresh Fiction readers! I’m so excited to be here today to chat with you about my newest release, A BROKEN KIND OF BEAUTIFUL. Parents are not supposed to pick a favorite child. I know this. But does that same rule apply to authors and their paperback children? I hope not, because I can’t help myself. Of all the novels I’ve written, this one is my favorite. Not only did I have an incredibly fun time writing the romance between my hero and heroine, I am passionate about the book’s underlying message. You see, I’ve worked with young women for five years now. And as a semi young woman myself (does 32 still fit into the young woman category?), I know just how inundated we are with messages about beauty. So often, those messages aren’t healthy ones. So often, we are led to feel “less than”. So often, we find ourselves looking at the glittery, sparkly world of high-fashion—a world filled with flawless women and perfect clothes—and we think we’re missing something. Maybe if we change ourselves somehow, we’ll look more like that pretty woman on the cover of the Victoria’s Secret magazine. But what if that pretty woman on…

Kick-Ass heroines and Alpha heroes take on outlaws, gunfights, crooked card games . . . and the supernatural with rockin’ love scenes, rowdy bad boys and good girls gone bad. That’s my Gone Bad Series set in Texas and Indian Territory. How did I get there? I combined Native American Old West with American New West. Old World beliefs, such as Epona, Celtic Goddess of Horses, were brought to the New World. Native Nation mysticism and empowered women shared similarities with Victorian Spiritualism’s belief in free love, abolition, suffrage and ghosts. (Journals). All came together in the ancient land of Turtle Island. As the United States rolled relentlessly westward gobbling up nation after nation, the remnants of sixty-seven sovereign states were stuffed into Indian Territory (Indian Territory) with Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Colorado and New Mexico Territory as borders. By the 1880s, I.T. was an outlaw’s paradise due to U.S. legal jurisdictional nightmares. Deputy U.S. Marshals, Indian Lighthorsemen), bounty hunters and Anti-Horse Thief Association Detectives put their lives on the line to bring justice to Indian Territory. In Lady Gone Bad (Amazon), a saloon singer called Lady hears Epona’s warning cries when she’s in danger. Rafe, Deputy U.S. Marshal, tries…

I’m so glad to be back at Fresh Fiction celebrating the release of my fourteenth book, EAST OF ECSTASY! This is the final book in my Greek-mythology-inspired Hearts of the Anemoi series, which includes: NORTH OF NEED, WEST OF WANT, and SOUTH OF SURRENDER. The Anemoi were wind gods the Greek associated with controlling the wind, weather, and seasons. In EAST OF ECSTASY, hero Devlin Eston is the heir to the East Wind which has long been associated with unluckiness, misfortune, and, thanks to Devlin’s father, even evil. Devlin himself has been the victim of father’s evil, and thereby finds himself an outcast among his own divine family. Devlin is the epitome of the tortured, bad boy hero, and he was incredibly fun and heartbreaking to write. Today, I wanted to talk about what I learned from finishing my first fiction series. I currently have four series underway, but the Hearts of the Anemoi is the first of them that I’ve seen all the way through to the publication of the final book. Here are the things I learned from that experience: 1. Finishing a series is scary. This might be a funny place to start, but I cannot exaggerate…

I’m sure, that like me, you probably do. How else could it be possible that out of 7 billion people in the world, you could manage to meet your soul mate? And how else would you explain the birth of a child? It might even be a miracle that you managed to get to work on time today. Or find a parking space up close at the grocery store, when you least expected to. Except…those aren’t really miracles, are they? They might restore our hope in humanity and warm even the coldest of hearts, but if we can be honest with ourselves, those kinds of things happen all the time to all kinds of people, don’t they? Miracles, by definition, are special. They are physical manifestations of divine intervention. To believe in real, honest-to-goodness miracles, you have to believe that the rules of physics and the laws of science can be altered and you also have to believe in God. Both are concepts that our modern age sometimes–many times–finds laughable. Except that it would be rather sad to believe they ever couldn’t happen. It would feel like slamming the door on the bedrock beliefs that were incorporated into…well…much of the…

Monday, April 28th (9am to 11am) Marie will be co-hosting (not just doing a segment) on The Broadcast on KTXD-TV in Dallas. This will be prior to her”Cobbled Court Quiltapalooza Book Bash Road Show” event that same evening at the Books-A-Million in Grapevine. We’ll also be having dinner with Marie at Love And War In Texas at 5pm (Grapevine) And don’t miss the other “Quiltapalooza” events in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Arkansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Details at Quiltapalooza

Imagine my utter surprise when my husband came home from work one day and told me we were going to Switzerland. Switzerland! He’d been invited to give a keynote address, and I’d won the vacation lottery! Needless to say, we had the time of our lives in the land of watches, army knives and chocolate. But there’s way more to Switzerland than that. Here are ten things we enjoyed most, so be sure to include them in your plans when you go. Strolling through the charming narrow streets of old town Lucerne, admiring the still-intact medieval city walls with their fairy-tale towers. Countless clocks chime on the hour, but the oldest clock in the city does the honors. It’s allowed to chime a minute before all the others! Visiting the Engelberg Benedictine Monastery and meeting real-life monks. Engelberg means angel mountain, and the monastery got its name when two monks saw a host of angels while they were walking in the nearby meadows. The monastery gave its name to the village that grew up around it, and an angel is the symbol of the idyllic town. Learning the ancient art of cheese making at the Engelberg Monastery Cheese Factory. Cheese…