They always say, “Write about what you know’, so I made the heroine of DEATH ON A LONGSHIP, Cass Lynch, a keen sailor. Well, more like obsessive – she ran away from home and education to join a three-masted sailing ship, and pursue a career on the water: teaching children in dinghies on the beaches of the Mediterranean, going to night school to learn navigation, sailing across the Atlantic, and living aboard her own boat. I’ve not quite done all of those. I grew up with boats, in holidays on the glorious west coast of Scotland, in a cottage three miles by sea from the end of the road. There were badgers, foxes, otters, seals, weird spiky caterpillars and double-winged dragonflies, a blow-up canoe for pottering round the rocks and our family’s twelve-foot wooden rowing boat. I still have her, and I can hardly believe two adults, three children and a Siamese cat really went for miles in anything so small. According to my mum, she was my first playpen: ‘I put you in the boat with a book, and you were perfectly happy.’ As the child starts, so she’ll grow! The first time I was in a sailing dinghy…

There’s a special closeness involved in “small town” books. When I set out to write LUCKY BREAK, I knew I wanted to write about a small town—but with big people. What I mean by that is characters you’re able to get close to. Characters who are full of personality and easy to relate to. First, I needed the perfect town. I thought and thought and nothing came to me. That’s when Sidney popped into my head. No, she wasn’t the town I needed, but I loved her character right off the bat. What’s more fun than a down-on-her-luck actress…wait…luck? Hmm, that was something to work with. I played around with the word “luck,” but nothing jumped out at me and said, “I’M YOUR TOWN!” What ways could I tie luck into it? Oh! Shamrocks are cool. I like them (I secretly want a shamrock tattoo). From there I played around with shamrock until Shamrock Falls was born and I KNEW that was my town. You see, I grew up in a small town. I became best friends with a great boy in our small town high school, and we fell in love. I wanted to recreate some of that in…

Have you been to a coffee shop lately? Sometimes I know exactly what I want. Salted caramel, light, no whip. But sometimes, if it’s really hot I’m in the mood for a frappacino. But which one? There are so many choices. Recently, I took my kids to a smoothie shop. We had never been there before, and it took us thirty minutes to decide what to get. How do you choose from strawberry mango madness and peachy keen? It reminded me of when we went to Baskin Robbins recently. Thirty-one flavors and counting. Not to mention all the shakes and stuff on the menu board. What happened to chocolate and vanilla, with an occasional strawberry thrown in? Could we ever go back to those simpler times? I don’t think so. And I’m not sure we would want to. I like my buttered pecan. So what about the book market? The choices are astronomical and often overwhelming. So do we really need another Vampire story? My hope was to create a vampire story that wasn’t like any other vampire story out there. And the wonderful RT Book Reviews review I received attests I have done exactly that! 🙂 Really, who would…

I knew that title would grab your attention! Before you read further, let me assure you that I do not intend to describe intimate details of the Amish or any other people group in this article. I’m going to talk about some of the interesting practices and beliefs I discovered while researching the books in the Amish of Apple Grove series, THE HEART’S FRONTIER and A PLAIN AND SIMPLE HEART, which I co-authored with the fantastic, the awesome, the incredibly talented Lori Copeland. When an author performs research for a story, she unearths all sorts of facts and fascinating details, most of which never make it into the book. That’s because a good novel focuses on characters and action, with just enough historical detail to lend a sense of realism. But some things are just so much fun to talk about! Here are a few tidbits I found interesting that didn’t make it into A PLAIN AND SIMPLE HEART: Amish People Don’t Drive Cars Amish people travel from place to place in a horse and buggy. Some communities are permitted to own bicycles, though not all of them. None are permitted to own or drive cars. For longer trips that…

Hi, thanks for having me today. I’m so glad to tell you a bit about my new book, and how it’s gotten me out of a tough spot with a few of my old professors (well, maybe). You see, I graduated Journalism School from the University of Missouri. It was one of the first journalism schools in the country and let’s just say they take the news very seriously. Whenever I go back to visit, some of my professors like to tease me about how I don’t really use my degree. I spent all those years learning how to present news facts, only to turn around and make things up for a living. Of course, I like to remind them that they actually have to wear shoes to work. Flash forward to this new series. I hadn’t planned to use my degree (why start now?) But as I was writing IMMORTALLY YOURS, it hit me. The book takes place in a paranormal MASH camp during the middle of a centuries-long supernatural war. And while the hero is a tough-as-nails wounded warrior and the heroine is the doctor who saves him (in more ways than one), we still need coverage of…

I’m thrilled to be back at Fresh Fiction to celebrate my birthday! Woohoo! I’ve got a fun post and a great giveaway just for you! Read on… In any romance, the hero and heroine are the main event, of course. And I love a good romance where I can route for them to get together and find their happily ever after. But I also really love those stories where the romance also has an awesome bromance – a long-standing, tight friendship between two or more of the male characters. There are a lot of reasons I enjoy these male friendships. First, the men in these relationships usually don’t pull punches—they tell it like it is, don’t let each other get away with anything, and give each other the swift kick in the butt that’s sometimes needed to make them man up. Second, bromantic relationships often offer great moments of comedic relief. The banter and good-natured ribbing between these characters is sometimes biting, sometimes witty, but always worth a good laugh. Third, bromances often further endear us to the hero—you get to see what a good friend he is, what he’s willing to sacrifice for a friend, and how much his…

When I started planning out my FIRST RESPONDERS series, I knew that the first book was going to feature a sexy paramedic, the second would have a cop, and the third a fireman. What I didn’t know was that when it came time to write IN THE LINE OF DUTY, that cop would end up being the heroine rather than the hero. This was a big surprise for me. When I thought about a series for “Men in Uniform” it was always men. I mean, the whole idea was that I find a man in uniform uber-sexy! But no matter how I tried to work a plot, a character arc, anything to do with this story, it wasn’t a man I saw. It was a very fit, very determined, very guarded female RCMP officer. So a girl Mountie named Kendra Givens was it. She makes a small appearance in OFF THE CLOCK, the first book in the series, but IN THE LINE OF DUTY is really her story.  She’s a good cop, but she’s got some baggage of her own.  The story opens with her responding to a break and enter call at Jake’s Pub. And she really has a…

New York Times bestseller Dianna Love once dangled over a hundred feet in the air to create unusual marketing projects for Fortune 500 companies. She now writes high-octane thrillers and urban fantasy, including a best selling collaborative series with #1 NYT bestseller Sherrilyn Kenyon.  In early 2013, Dianna will release a new romantic thriller series – Slye Temp.  When not touring the country on her motorcycle, Dianna lives in the Atlanta, GA area with her motorcycle instructor husband and a tank full of unruly saltwater critters. Visit her at her website and Facebook.   Dianna’s latest book is THE CURSE, Belador Book 3, September 18, 2012.  

I love category romance (or series romance as some readers call it.) I love the tightness of the stories (having to pack so much into fifty thousand words), the glamorous settings and the guaranteed happily ever afters. So imagine my excitement when I heard about Entangled Publishing’s Indulgence series, featuring the type of category romances I love to write and read.  Fun. Flirty. Contemporary. After writing 32 romances for Harlequin, I tried my hand at an Indulgence and once I started the story flew from my fingertips. I love taking tropes (eg. Marriage of convenience) that readers love and putting a modern spin on it. That’s what I’ve done in NOT THE MARRYING KIND.  Matched an independent, brazen LA party planner who specializes in divorce parties with a reformed Vegas bad boy and made them marry for convenience.  Or inconvenience as I like to put it. I hope readers have as much fun with Poppy and Beck as I did creating them! USA TODAY bestselling author Nicola Marsh writes flirty fiction with flair. She’s had 32 books published with Harlequin Romance and Presents series, a fun, flirty contemporary mainstream romance BUSTED IN BOLLYWOOD with Entangled Publishing (nominated for Romantic Book…

Give me a story in a contemporary setting, with a sexy man whose life is turned upside down by a strong woman, and I can lose hours of time reading the story. When the Indulgence line at Entangled Publishing announced they were going to be releasing trope driven category romance books with new voices, fresh dialogue, all for the price of $2.99, they filled a need for my budget and book buying habits. I’ve watched the Indulgence books release each month with excitement. Jennifer Probst, author of THE MARRIAGE BARGAIN, sailed to the top of the charts with every Indulgence author cheering her on. Such exciting times, and proves that category romance books are alive and needed. You can imagine my happiness when my book, RODEO REBEL, book 4 of the Sisters of McDougal Ranch series was offered a contract with Indulgence. I can tell you that the editing was top notch, the support from my publicist very much appreciated, and the continual support from the authors at Entangled Publishing continues to astound me. And, every month I’m first in line to buy every single Indulgence book that’s released. Then I promptly lose hours of time while I read them!…