Have you seen the new book by Lauren Dane? LUSH is the third book in the Delicious series, about a group of friends and their sexual adventures. Set in Bainbridge Island, Washington, you get to meet each of them and their lovers. Our review of LUSH by Annie Tegelan Bon appétit, readers! Lauren Dane has delivered yet another sizzling installment in the Delicious series. LUSH is an exquisite blend of sweet and sexy, making it a dessert that readers will devour! Mary Hurley is a busy body. With running her catering business, she hardly has any time to indulge in things like relationships. However, at her friend’s engagement party, she meets Damien Hurley, a rock star who has all the right moves. Their chemistry is explosive and Dane heavily explores that chemistry in a series of trysts that are super nova hot! It was so easy to fall for a hero like Damien Hurley. He’s got the looks and the swagger of a rock star, but isn’t cocky or arrogant. But perhaps the sexiest thing about Damien is his willingness to pursue something more with Mary. His life has been pretty fast and furious, but Damien wishes for something more…

I had my “coming of age” right when chick-lit and chick flicks were at the fore. I went from a teen to a twenty-something during the late nineties to early noughties. I’ve just written a book, SECOND CHANCE, involving time-travel to the summer of 1998, and I’ve realised that year (and the surrounding ones) defined me – and my writing. So here’s a list of some of my favourite reads from “way back when”. Hope you spot a few of your faves in there too!… · BRIDGET JONES. London writer Helen Fielding’s fictionalised newspaper columns about a thirty-something single woman were turned into a novel in ‘96 (and later another book and two films). They centred on a lass trying to make sense of life and love with the help of a surrogate “urban family” of pals – very much a theme of the nineties (think Friends and Sex and the City). · SEX AND THE CITY. Before Sarah Jessica Parker became “Carrie” was the anthology of New York newspaper columns by Candace Bushnell, based on her and her friends’ lives, published in ‘97. The phenomenon spawned a TV series and movies – plus, the current Carrie Diaries prequel novels…

Hi, Fresh Fiction-ers! I’m Macy Beckett, author of the Sultry Springs series: where first loves find second chances. Today I want to dish about romantic gift-giving—you know, a gift that goes above and beyond the ol’ flowers and candy routine. Something with sentiment behind it. In my newest release, A SHOT OF SULTRY, Trey Lewis (who you met in book one) gives Bobbi a seemingly trivial gift that touches her deeply…a handheld Tetris game.  Why does the present resonate with her? Because she’s a slightly-neurotic control freak who likes to put everything in its place. Here’s an excerpt that explains how Bobbi feels: As she topped her own high score for the fourth time, she reflected that while Tetris wasn’t the most expensive gift she’d ever received, it was—hands down—the most thoughtful, because it showed that Trey knew her. He’d seen this game displayed by a cash register and had thought of her, and that was the real reward. This wasn’t some token present from the jewelry store like the hastily purchased white gold earrings her ex had given her for Christmas a couple of years ago. Lovely hoops, to be sure, but she must’ve mentioned half a dozen times…

I’ve always been passionate about art and intrigued by art forgery. I decided to put years of study and research to good use by including both in my romantic suspense, IDENTITY CRISIS. As a writer, it’s great to be able to incorporate a personal interest into a novel. One item on my bucket list is to visit the top ten art museums in the world. I have six down and four to go. The first time I admired the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, I couldn’t believe how small the painting is for being the most famous painting in history. But like everyone, I was curious about her enigmatic smile and I wondered what she was thinking while posing for Leonardo da Vinci. What I didn’t wonder was, Is this painting real? The painting was stolen in 1911 and was found two years later, which has caused some debate over the years as to whether the original or a forgery was returned to the museum. It’s estimated that 20-25 percent of all artwork in museums are forgeries. Thomas Hoving, a former director at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, stated that 40 percent of the artwork…

While I was in college, I had the opportunity to intern in Kiev, Ukraine. Days before the internship began, a few other interns and I flew into the London Heathrow airport to catch our connecting flight to Moscow and then on to Kiev. But when we reached London, there was a problem. Russia had changed their Visa laws a few days before, and now, even though we were never leaving the Moscow airport, we needed Russian visas…which we did not have. We managed to be bumped to a flight leaving the next day, so the next morning, we rushed to the American embassy and shelled out big bucks for expedited visas and returned to the airport…only to discover that our flight out of Russia no longer existed on the airlines records. And the next flight they did have wasn’t scheduled until the next week—long after our new visas expired. We were left with two options, cross out the dates on our visas and write in a new date accompanied by mysterious initials or fly to Russia pretending we didn’t know our next flight had vanished and hope the airline took care of it. (There was one other option that involved…

Our guest today is Barbara Taylor Sissel, an author, freelance writer, book reviewer, and editor. She lives and writes in The Woodlands of Texas. Her latest book from MIRA is EVIDENCE OF LIFE. To commemorate the book she had wine bottled and labels made from her cover. Here is what she has to say about why she did it. You had wine bottled and gorgeous labels made from your book cover image. What was the inspiration behind this wonderful idea? Celebration! I work with four critique partners. In addition to the diligent vetting of each other’s work, we’re each other’s cheerleaders. That support is really invaluable, because writing is mostly done alone; there’s a lot of waiting: to hear whether something has sold, and once it has, and it’s published, then you wait for reviews, and after it’s been out a while, you wait to hear about sales. By the time I signed my contract with MIRA for EVIDENCE OF LIFE, and a second novel, I’d been sending my manuscripts around for a while, a long, waiting while, and my partners were with me every step of the way keeping the faith and ladling on the encouragement. It took so…

I’m a firm believer in angels. Why you might ask? Because I’ve faced death in the face and felt the comforting arms and whispered words in my mind, “It’s going to be okay. This is not your time.” Now that might sound fictional but it’s not. I was 16 on my way to pick up a friend to go skiing and hit black ice. I had the choice of the lake, the car coming head-on or the embankment. I turned the wheel fast and chose the embankment, which meant my car rolled three times and at one point I even remember it standing on end until it luckily landed on its wheels. What did I learn? Life does flash before your eyes. What else did I learn? Comfort. I felt the presence of three beings in the car cocoon me and honestly those whispered words I wrote above. To this day I truly believe one of those beings was my best friend Sissy, who died of cancer when she was 12. I’m not sure who the other two angels where but I truly felt their love. It was like their arms had wrapped around me to save me that day….

Giving birth is really hard, but we forget the pain in the joy of the new baby. Writing a book is a little like giving birth as well, sometimes painful, mostly joyful. Rereleasing a book is like going through childbirth all over again. I’m joyful to see my novels coming out as ebooks, but suffering the pains that go with it. Old covers disappear like old friends, and I have to make friends with the new ones. How do you feel about covers? Do they make you want to buy a book? I’m a sucker for a great half-naked man but also for a misty Scottish coast with a castle in the background. My LORD OF THE KEEP is now available in ebook with a new cover. LORD OF THE MIST is coming this April. I received more mail on LORD OF THE MIST‘s cover than on any other. The artist, Jon Paul Ferrara, did a gorgeous job, and I have that cover framed over my desk. But I wonder . . . does the cover matter so much? My friends and I debate this all the time. One friend I’ll call Mr. SAMPLER, may pick up a book for…

It took me a long time to decide to write a second mystery series. I’d heard that although readers want their favorite authors to produce more books, they also tended to be very upset with the author if her new series was too different from her previous one. I’d also been told that some readers might feel that if an author writes more than one book a year, she was just being greedy and “cranking” them out. So I used these fears as an excuse I to stick to what I was comfortable doing—writing one Scumble River mystery every twelve months. But then a character named Devereaux Sinclair popped into my head and started telling me about her life. Dev, which she assured me was what most people call her, was a financial advisor for six years before buying her hometown dime store. Her boss viewed the glass ceiling as a protective barrier and her colleagues committed most of the seven deadly sins before their first coffee break. She lives in the fictional town of Shadow Bend, Missouri with her grandmother, Birdie. Her father is in jail for vehicular manslaughter and her mother is hiding from the shame in California….

Shadows and Strongholds is largely set in a part of England very close to the Welsh border, in a beautiful county called Shropshire.  Much of the story takes place at Ludlow Castle which was once a great medieval fortress and still consists of substantial ruins today in the town centre.   It was begun in the late 11th century by the de Lacy family and continued to be built upon and maintained until the 16th century. The de Lacy family rebelled against the king and Ludlow castle was taken away from the male line and given  instead to a lady of the de Lacy bloodline called Sybilla Talbot.  King Henry I married her to one of his own men, Payn FitzJohn.  She bore  Payn two daughter, Cecily and Agnes. Payn was killed by Welsh raiders in 1137, leaving Sybilla a widow still of child-bearing age and in possession of a major Welsh border fortress.   At this time, old King Henry had died and the throne had been taken by his nephew, Stephen.  However, Henry’s daughter, Matilda also felt she had a right to the crown and set out to try and topple  Stephen from his throne.  The disinherited male de Lacy…