“Takotsubo cardiomyopathy…in which there is a sudden temporary weakening of the myocardium (the muscle of the heart). Because this weakening can be triggered by emotional stress, such as the death of a loved one, a break-up, or constant rejection, the condition is also known as broken heart syndrome… a well-recognized cause of acute heart failure.” – Wikipedia Yes, folks. You CAN die of a broken heart. I KNEW IT! You shout. That’s why I love romance. I’m addicted to the highs and willing to take the lows, because I BELIEVE IN TRUE LOVE, in a love so strong, I might just die if that person was to leave. Furthermore, I demand a happy ending! And that’s why I write and read romantic fiction. When I’m writing a love story I dredge up memories of what it is to be broken-hearted—that crappy, life-destroying, gut-wrenching, body-weakening level of misery. Then I go backwards. How did I first meet THE ONE? When did I first know how he felt? When did we first touch? I recall the dramatic beauty of that romance and the tragedy of it not working out. Then I add (fiction) a happy ending…and voila. A romance novella. Ah, if…

Vampires, vampires, all over the place.  These days you can’t walk into a bookstore, pick up a magazine, flip through the TV guide, or watch movie previews without being reminded that the vampire trend (“trend” going back over a hundred years to Bram Stoker) is still chugging full-bore ahead.  Vampires, I’ve decided, are like roaches.  Sexy roaches!  (Good thing that didn’t sound weird.) Which is great by me and better than great, since thanks to the fictional undead I’m now a full-time writer who occasionally sees my name on the New York Times best-seller list.  Thanks, hordes of fictional blood-sucking spawn!  No, really, vampires, thank you.  I owe you a solid. Not only is the trend letting me write what I love, it’s letting me talk about it on national television, newspapers, and magazine and blog interviews.  Which brings me to the Twilight series and how it relates to Queen Betsy and the gang.  Because what people don’t know is that Twilight is my stalker.  Twilight is the guy who breaks into my house when nobody’s home and sniffs my dryer lint.  Twilight’s gonna hound me to my grave.  I’m probably going to have to get a restraining order against…

Top Ten Reasons why readers will fall in love with Jarvis Swain, the hero of TOUCH IF YOU DARE. 10) He wears leather & carries a sword. A black leather jacket stretched across broad shoulders, worn from years and years of battle, his scent tangled deep inside those soft fibers, mixed with the smell of leather and soap. His hand fisted around the hand of a jeweled sword with a deadly blade. That flexed forearm as he readies the weapon. The creak of the leather as he raises his arm to defend the woman he loves…Um, yeah. Leather and sword. Always a good thing. 9) He’s the Guardian of Hate. Think of this way: this immortal warrior is keeping the most awful, most destructive emotion in the world bottled up inside him to protect all of humanity from it. It’s been eating away at him for 150 years, and eventually it will destroy him, and yet he will give his soul and his life for his duty. 8) He’s loyal to his team. You gotta love a man who will sacrifice himself for his teammates. Through torture, through death, through all the worst that life has to offer, it’s an…

I have always wanted to be a seal. During family holidays on the chilly English coast my childhood dream was to walk into the sea, magically become a seal and swim to the horizon  without  a backward glance at family and friends left on the beach.  My pale, thin skin had gone to be replaced by a grey pelt lined with thick blubber. My hands had become flippers and my legs had fused into a powerful tail. That small, round, funny face of mine had turned into a long sleek snout bristling with whiskers and capped with beautiful dark eyes. And I would be happy. I would have the freedom of the seas, the freedom to slide through the waves, hunt fish and frolic for the amusement of passengers on passing ships. This escapist fantasy has endured and led me to write my first novel, THE LANGUAGE OF THE SEA. It is set in Cape Cod where Leo Kemp loses both his job as marine biologist and his 10 year-old son in a boating accident. He takes his students on a last field trip at sea and is swept overboard in a sudden storm. He finds himself in the water…

More than once we’ve had a character who walked on to the page – the brother of the hero, a neighbor, an old friend – only to steal the scene and make readers want to know more about them. And they’re not alone. We want to know more about them too. In fact, the drive to know them better usually results in us writing an entire book to figure them out.  THE WOLF NEXT DOOR with hero Lord William Westfield and his neighbor Prisca Hawthorne is one example. THE TAMING OF THE WOLF with heroine Caitrin Macleod and previous book villain Dashiel Thorpe, the Earl of Brimsworth, is another. Matthew Halkett, the Earl of Blodswell – the vampyre hero of our current release IN THE HEAT OF THE BITE made his debut in an earlier book and played a fairly important role in It Happened One Bite. While Rhiannon Sinclair – the magical heroine has been around since our second book Tall, Dark and Wolfish and has patiently waited her turn through book after book to finally get a happy ever after of her own. But not all secondary characters are potential heroes or heroines. Some are too old, some…

Hi everyone – I’m excited to be on the Fresh Fiction blog today! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live forever?  I think my fascination with immortals started with Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, carried into the Highlander movies and tv series, and finally culminated for me with my Night series. I’m intrigued to understand how a person (or being) can keep their lives relevant when the world around them is constantly changing, and they’re not. Anne Rice’s Lestat searched for pleasure and entertainment, but eventually found himself aching for meaning and redemption. In the Highlander television series, Duncan MacLeod, engrossed himself in learning languages and fighting styles while continuing on his “There can be only one” path in The Game. My hero, Calisto Terana, has walked the earth for over 200 years hoping for another chance at love and redemption. After his love was murdered in 1775, he gave up his soul to the night for a second chance to love her.  He had no idea he would wait centuries for her to live again, to see her face one more time. As the world around him changed, he amassed wealth and power, but his heart…

I’m sure someone out there will say I’m a Potterhead, I’m not sure it’s true but I do know I’ve enjoyed the last twelve years or so in the world of Harry Potter. I didn’t read the first book, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERERS’ STONE as HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE, the UK title) although I did become aware of the book after reading about it in Time or Newsweek when it first was being issued in the US after a phenomenal run in the UK. It sounded intriguing but not enough that I’d pay import prices for the book. I waited until it came out in trade paper at the my local Waldenbooks. (NOTE sad so many things mentioned no longer exist except in my memory: Newsweek, Time, Waldenbooks). And if I remember buying the first book followed closely by HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS. But I do remember I was hooked and quite excited because it seemed J.K. Rowling was a prolific and timely author, one book a year is a nice clip. I tried to get my children to read the books, they were both in the teens, one 19 the other 11, but…

Thanks for inviting me to guest blog here at Fresh Fiction, I am so thrilled to be here! I decided to talk about my inspiration today. Where does it come from? When does inspiration hit me? I tell ya, it’s a lot simpler than people think. I tend to creep people out. I don’t set out to do it, and I certainly don’t mean to come across as creepy…but I think I do. You see, I have this fascination with asking people inappropriate details about their relationships. Where did they meet? How did they know their significant other was “the one”? What was their first kiss like? What was their first time like? Where was the craziest place they were hit by the mood? My close friends know to expect these kinds of questions from me, but newer acquaintances are usually put off by my strange curiosity. It usually leads people to believe that I am a strange, mildly perverted woman with no life. And, well, the strange and no life part are correct. But perverted? No! I’m just a writer. You see, as an author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction, I seek out little romantic details in everyday…

Hello Fresh Fiction Fans! My name is Wendy S. Marcus. Thank you for joining me at the 19th stop on my blog tour to promote my debut Harlequin Medical Romance, WHEN ONE NIGHT ISN’T ENOUGH. Today I’ve chosen to share with you a day in the life of a crazily obsessed, easily distracted, newly published author. (That would be me.) 7:15 a.m. I roll out of bed, make sure my youngest daughter is up and getting ready for school, and head downstairs to turn on my computer. Then I check my personal and professional e-mail accounts, answer what needs answering and delete what needs deleting. 7:30 a.m. I hand my daughter her lunch, kiss her good bye, and, as she walks to the bus, yell motherly things like “Work hard.” “I love you.” And “Don’t walk through the grass. Your feet are going to get all wet.” (She doesn’t listen – at least to the walking through the grass part.) 7:35 a.m. The crazy obsession begins. You see, to a new author, (well, to me in particular) it’s all about the numbers. Sales rankings on Amazon. Likes on Facebook. Followers on Twitter. Friends on Goodreads. Stars on reviews. Words written…

I went on a mini-book tour last month, visiting middle school classrooms to talk about my new book, being an author, and writing as a hobby and career.  Sure, I am there to promote my books, but more importantly, at least to me as an author of middle grade fiction, I get to hear their stories.  I find that strange, wonderful, awkward, exciting time of life I call tweenagehood endlessly fascinating and inevitably complicated.  Middle graders hover uncertainly between childhood and becoming a young adult, and it ain’t easy! I think back to my own years as a tweenager, I have such clear memories of sixth and seventh grades, and I believe I became me during those years.  I decided I was good at English and bad at math.  That I wasn’t pretty, but I could be smart.  I decided I would be funny, and that I would develop a signature that was totally illegible and therefore exotic and mysterious.  Adult.  I decided I was not a patient person.   All those choices, that self-defining that went on in middle school, charted my course in high school, college, and beyond.  I avoided taking challenging math and science classes, felt sure I…