Excerpt from THE MEANING OF MURDER. Text copyright © 2025 by Walter B. Levis. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. Not raindrops—blood. Blood falls from the black sky. Head back, neck craning, she strains to see, wincing as the drops hit her face. Thick red drops, pasty, mixed with white dust, the pulverized concrete of the fallen towers. This blood-and-dust mush—it swirls. Fat flakes swirling over the street, over the rubble, over the New York harbor, swirling like a shaken snow-globe model of lower Manhattan, sticking to the strange grotesque almost-unrecognizable human body parts that hang in the air: a blown-off hand, a stump of leg, a headless torso oozing a gelatinous trail of red-and-grey. Cheshire-style, the parts drift past, a floating parade. She feels nauseous and her throat hurts and she wonders why she must watch this—why? Why her? The thick dust gleams red-and-white and the sheer size weight and volume of it—a crazy, blood-streaked fog, it so attenuates the sunlight that she stands in utter darkness. Like inside a movie theater before the show starts, but darker. No faint glow from the screen, no emergency lights from under the seats, nothing. Where are all the people? There should…

It’s not always easy to say where the idea for a book came from. Sometimes it’s as nebulous as an overheard conversation or a fleeting feeling. But for my new book, MRS. ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE, I do know what created the spark for the idea. I have always drooled over villas in Europe. My husband and I have stayed several times on the French Riviera, and I’ve gazed with envy at those pastel-colored buildings amid their lush grounds, sometimes overlooking the blue Mediterranean Sea. How much I’d love to come out onto a terrace like that and stare down the coastline, watching the yachts sail past. Sigh. All a lovely dream until I was on Lake Maggiore in the north of Italy, actually researching another book, called On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service. It is a beautiful area of small lakeside towns, and the hills are dotted with magnificent villas. In the years before WWII these would have been populated by rich people, some of them British aristocrats. People who didn’t have to work for a living and who could spend time admiring the lake scenery. As we walked along the lake shore we came to an abandoned villa. It…

Excerpt from BAD GIRL PIE by Marilyn Horowitz Chapter 1 I stopped talk therapy when Aunt Cindy fell and broke her hip last year. She’s my mother’s sister and my godmother. She’s tall and slim, with stormy ocean eyes, and wears her silver hair in a flapper-style bob with bangs. In the ambulance, I asked her, “What happened?” She looked at me in disgust and said, “You’re always so effing morbid. Just like your mother, may she rest in peace. If you want the gory details, go read the report. If I repeat it, I’m making it happen again.” After that, I stopped talking about my own past and asking people for details about their current tragedies. Soon, my tendency to create a worst-case scenario out of every event dwindled and I began to sleep more. But between me and myself, I clung to my story like it was a life preserver, because if I didn’t, I’d lose my identity, such as it was. Why we had to begin life in this format of birth had always baffled me. Where was the upside? Why not just be born later in the first place, maybe at eighteen, so that there was…

Excerpt from LIKENESS by Samsun Knight April 11th Trying to figure out on the day after whether you did something accidentally humiliating the night before has to be the worst feeling in the history of human emotion. Possibly it’s wrong to call it a feeling. The worst constellation of feelings, the worst spiritual condition. The worst kind of thought to hear echoing over and over and over inside your head. Of course it’s not truly the worst. But part of the feeling, the constellation, the condition, is this sense that it is. The dinner was really nice, to start with. Sebastian showed up only a few minutes after I got in from work and I was still nursing Bobby when I opened the door for him, so he took it upon himself to do pretty much everything: he unpacked the groceries he’d brought, cleared off and wiped down the kitchen counters, chopped up a tomato and a red onion and a head of broccoli and a ball of mozzarella and arranged it all on the pizza crust he’d picked up from the store and then he did the dishes and asked interesting questions while the pizza cooked. It took real…

What is the title of your latest release?THE ALCHEMY OF FLOWERS What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?When Eloise Bourne finds a mysterious job as a gardener at a chateau in Provence, she hopes to escape reminders of children, but soon discovers an enigmatic little girl who needs her help. This debut adult novel is an enchanting, modern-day take on The Secret Garden, sprinkled with magic. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I had the joy of living in Provence for a year in college. I’ve stayed close with my wonderful French host family—I go back for visits every chance I get. I find this region to be a magical, sensual delight in all ways, and I wanted to transport readers there. Within Provence, I imagined a mysterious refuge of healing gardens within locked castle walls… paradise with a deliciously eerie edge. Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?Yes—Eloise and I would make flower potions together! We have lots in common since her journey was inspired by my own. I understand her fears and insecurities inside and out—and I’d love to give her a big hug! In creating her character, I…

What is the title of your latest release?ASYLUM HOTEL What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?Aubry, a photographer, meets a fellow trespasser while exploring an abandoned hotel; when he’s found dead the next morning, Aubry feels compelled to find out whether his death could have been caused by the hotel’s alleged “curse” – and if she might be next. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I spend a lot of time in a small town called Gualala, a former Russian fishing village about three hours north of San Francisco. The area is truly beautiful, with a rugged, wild coastline on one side and redwood groves and cow-dotted meadows on the other. It’s a remote area, accessed by a very windy highway which is often closed due to dramatic weather, so the locals tend to be self-sufficient, and have a culture of helping their neighbors. There’s a historic hotel in Gualala, and I often wondered what life must have been like back in the 1920s and 30s…and then I dreamed up a big old hotel up on the mountainside! Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?Oh, definitely! I’d love to see Aubrey’s…

What is the title of your latest release?THE MARSHAL & MRS. MORGAN What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?Tresia Morgan has a plan, and it doesn’t include falling in love with Serenity’s new Marshal, but that’s only until Lucy Hart practices her Matchmaker Mischief. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?THE MARSHAL & MRS. MORGAN is the second book in the Matchmaker Mischief series, so I made up a town in the first story. It’s called Serenity and it’s somewhere that I would like to live. It’s just full of interesting people who are looking for love (although they might not realize it). Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?Yes, I most definitely would. Devlin Goodrich is a very good man. I’d hang out with Tresia Morgan, too! They make the sweetest couple. What are three words that describe your protagonist?Honest. Kind (kindness is a really big thing for me). Loving. What’s something you learned while writing this book?What did I learn? That sometimes you have to let the characters take the lead. They know where they’re going and sometimes, it’s a surprise to me (in the best way possible). I…

I’m going to be so honest with you: my drafting process is so chaotic that I absolutely will not be sharing too much about it publicly. But creating a playlist is a foundational piece, and I can share some of the songs that inspired my upcoming romance debut, WE ARE THE MATCH (more info on that below). While WE ARE THE MATCH is a romance, it’s on the darker side, and features a true enemies-to-lovers romance, which is reflected in this playlist. You Mean the World to Me, by Freya RidingsThis song was such a cornerstone of Paris’s character, and sometimes I played it on repeat while drafting in her POV. She’s been alone for so long, and carried the devastating loss of the girls she grew up with—all of them, in one tragic night—that she really believes at her core that there’s nobody left on earth who can understand her. While this certainly proves a barrier to her developing, fiery relationship with Helen, it’s also an obstacle in her friendships, notably with Thea, who left the group home they grew up in before the tragic loss of the other girls. This song helped push me to understand Paris’s softer…

From Road Trip With a Rogue by Kate Bateman. Copyright © 2025 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Chapter Thirty-Five Daisy sank onto the bed next to Ellie and drew up her knees. “First of all, tell me exactly what rumors you’ve heard concerning myself and Vaughan.” “There were a score of them flying around Cecelia Lambert’s card party last night,” Tess said. “You’re either his mistress, his fiancée, or his wife, depending on who you ask. Everyone kept asking Ellie and me to confirm something, but of course we pleaded ignorance.” Daisy groaned. It was as bad as she’d feared. “Thank you. But I’m afraid there’s no stopping this now. You’ve already seen the happy couple, Peregrine and Violet, downstairs, so you know I failed to catch them before they tied the knot at Gretna Green.” Tess shrugged. “Who cares about them? We care about you. What’s going on? Are you having a torrid affair with Vaughan? Please say yes. That man is glorious.” Heat warmed Daisy’s cheeks. “Not exactly. I mean, I did allow him to seduce me. Just once—I mean, on just the one occasion—one night—” Ellie’s mouth opened as if…

What is the title of your latest release?GIVE ME A REASON What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?In this modern retelling of Jane Austen’s PERSUASION, a K-drama actress gets her second chance at love with the man she left to save her family, if only she can work up the courage to risk her heart on forever…one last time. How did you decide where your book was going to take place?I wanted to focus on faithfully retelling PERSUASION, so I chose places that I am already familiar with, mainly in the Los Angeles area. Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?Absolutely! What are three words that describe your protagonist?Quiet, strong, loyal What’s something you learned while writing this book?Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that it was okay to put myself last for those I love the most. But I learned that you can’t truly love another, without resentment, unless you love yourself too. Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?I wait until I’m totally done. But sometimes, when something is woefully wrong (and I don’t know what it is), the words won’t come until I read the manuscript…