Life has a way of teaching me lessons. I’m thankful for that. I love to learn. I remember sitting in a religious gathering once where someone was talking about life after death. The speaker described paradise. In detail. Minutes and minutes of minute detail. Clearly he was intending to create an image of a place so fantastic, so magnificent, that anyone sitting in his audience would do whatever it took to be able to spend eternity in such a place. I sat there feeling more and more trapped. Because while I pictured myself in this magnificent place, floating, or whatever, in paradise, encased in love, living in a world without pain, I saw a major flaw. If I had all knowledge and understood all secrets as the man promised, I was going to be bored stiff! What was I going to do all day in paradise if I couldn’t keep learning? I crave learning more than I crave food. So, yes, I’m thankful for life’s lessons. I’m thankful I seem to be served them in abundance. It just takes me a little longer sometimes to feel the gratitude – and sometimes to get the message. I’m on a three month…

I began reading romance novels when I was young.  Hot, steamy Jude Deveraux historical novels from the hardcover section of my local library.  My mother had no idea they were romances; if she had, she wouldn’t have approved.  When I tried buying romance novels with my allowance from Wal-Mart, she would judge the cover as to whether or not it could be deemed acceptable reading material for me (not realizing the excerpt inside would have been a much better clue).  Years passed by, and friends would tease me about reading romances.  Store clerks would give me “the look” when the book I wanted to buy featured a half-naked man and woman locked in a torrid embrace on the cover.  I learned from all these experiences to only buy historical romance novels with pretty covers on them—you know, the ones with flowers or necklaces, or a picture of a manor house.  Or, if I really wanted one that had a sexy cover, I would turn it upside down in public, trying my best to hide everything with my hand. It took me a while to get over this.  But the older I got, the more I realized that I really didn’t…

Evangeline Mayer is a songwriter, former party girl, newly Made immortal, and woman in love. In love with two men, that is. Many people believe you can only love one person at a time, but with this much testosterone and rippling abs so near, how could she resist? Her longtime mortal boyfriend Sean Livingston is ruggedly handsome with a protective nature. He’s a kick-ass martial artist and the deejay every woman in the club wants to sink her nails into. He’s a family man and longs for a commitment with Evangeline, but he’s willing to take it slow for her. And the fact that he can make a mean cup of coffee doesn’t hurt. Evangeline’s immortal mate Will Cochran’s chocolate brown eyes are yummier than cake batter, and his absolute devotion to making her happy is the icing in the bowl. Beneath his cool demeanor lies a man who’s passionate about all things Jim Morrison and hitting the powdery slopes. And with a direct link to Evangeline’s mind, he knows exactly what pleasures drive her over the edge. With needs as big as hers, she needs two alpha males to satisfy her. If you could choose two mates, what traits…

It’s such a pleasure to guest blog here at Fresh Fiction today! Thanks so much to everyone for having me. As an author of contemporary women’s fiction, I think the most intriguing &mquot;what ifs&mquot; in writing a new story have to do with delving into the hearts and minds of the women who’ve embarked on a big emotional journey, particularly when that journey makes them rethink their past and re-imagine their future: In some cases—as in the still untitled book I have coming out next fall—the journey is a literal adventure. My heroine gets a month-long European vacation as her 30th birthday present from her eccentric aunt and heads overseas for a summer of new experiences…and some romance! But it’s also an internal voyage, requiring a dive deep into the well of her passions and her fears. In my debut novel, ACCORDING TO JANE, it took my heroine two decades to resolve one important thread on her path toward greater self understanding. Even with the assistance of the spirit of Jane Austen, whose ghost whispered dating advice only she could hear, my heroine still needed to learn to listen to the voice of her own heart before she could come…

I love writing. I love creating characters with nothing more than a blank page and an active imagination, then breathing life into those characters with my words and emotions. When I worked in corporate America, writing was my hobby and my lifeline. I spent far too many hours each day lost in the maze of cubicles, but because writing was my hobby, I could escape that gray world every time I thought about the story I was writing at the time. Now I’m blessed with the opportunity to write for a living. THE SPY WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS is my twenty-third book with Harlequin Intrigue, a number that astonishes and humbles me. I still love writing as much as I ever did, and I know how lucky I am to have the freedom to do something professionally that gives me so much pleasure personally. But… You knew a “but” was coming, didn’t you? But once I began to sell my books, I no longer had a hobby. I couldn’t exactly just switch my former vocation and avocation. Well, I could, but who wants to create spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations in their free time? So I decided that I needed a new…

Thank you for having me here at Fresh Fiction! I’m so happy to be here on my launch day, celebrating the release of my new novella Building Magic from Red Sage Publishing. This book is very different from my previous stories, and that’s what I’m here to talk about today, about changing the subgenre’s we write in or what I call ‘Flipping the Pancake’. My first book was Dark Harmony a full length dark, erotic, action adventure romance with vampires and martial arts action. Lots of blood, some great spooky scenes and steamy sex scenes, of course. It took lots of research, and some great goth music to keep me in the mood as I wrote about the shadows in this story. When it was complete and it was time for me to work on a new story, I wanted something completely different. Time to flip. My second story was Alien Revealed a sci-fi erotic novella complete with an alien spy, a starship military hero, out of this world technology and of course, a conspiracy, all topped off with more hot luscious sex. Lots of sci-fi movies, some great comic books and popping mood music kept me going. And when…

Recently I had a chance to chat with a charming book club in Ohio about my last novel, The Dead Travel Fast. They mentioned that they love to extend their reading experiences by taking field trips that somehow relate to their book club selections. They talked about visiting Washington DC after reading Night, and I jokingly asked them if they were planning a trip to Transylvania after reading my book. (I would not have been at all surprised if they said yes. They were one of the most dynamic groups I’ve chatted with, and if any club organizes a trek to the Carpathians, it will be them!) I also had a lovely tweet this week from a reader who is planning an entire dinner party around the release of my newest book, Dark Road to Darjeeling. She’s inspired by the Himalayan setting, and I made her promise to send details of every course—I only wish I could be there too. (It is always a good idea to feed a writer. We sometimes forget to forage for ourselves.) But my intrepid book group and my gourmet reader got me pondering all the different ways you might celebrate a book. I usually…

After years of never remembering my dreams, recently I have been recalling a lot of them when I wake in the morning. I’ll leave it to the dream specialists and psychologists explain why this change has happened. I am just happy to have those vivid images in my head again, and glad for the evidence that I did not stop dreaming entirely. Since they are so vivid, and I remember them in detail, I have discovered something I had not realized before. Sometimes when I dream, I am me. And sometimes I am someone else. And sometimes I am me, but I am in someone else’s head, experiencing what they do even though I am still me. Just like when I read a novel. In a recent dream this happened, and it was so notable that, right there in my dream, the “me” in that dream noticed it and even commented on it. A woman in my dream was climbing up a metal ladder, through a building, the sort of ladder you see in stairwells or utility rooms to permit access to other floors and the guts of a building. All kinds of other things happened, but it was this…

My parents introduced me to books and reading at a young age. As kids, my brother, sister and I knew our nursery rhymes off by heart and loved our parents reading to us. As we grew older, our love for books continued and we branched out, reading by ourselves. I distinctly remember receiving a copy of Enid Blyton’s FIVE ON A TREASURE ISLAND, book one in the Famous Five series, in my Christmas stocking. This was my introduction to mysteries. I devoured this book, reading it many times, along with the other Famous Five adventures. I was hooked, graduating to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mysteries, along with anything else that contained mystery and suspense. During my teenage years, on a beach holiday, I ran out of books to read. Disaster! In desperation, and to keep the peace, my mother gave me one of her Mills & Boon romances. They were pretty tame in those days and the hero and heroine were lucky to actually kiss during the course of the book. I enjoyed the book and read several more during the course of our holiday. Back at school again, my friends and I discovered Victoria Holt. (Wikipedia) A combination…

Maybe it’s part of being a writer, but story ideas always seem to be popping up—sometimes under the oddest of circumstances. We’ve just moved, and story ideas are running rampant. For example, our new house is on a culdesac, which means that there’s a circle of concrete in front of the house, and several neighbors both on the sides and behind us. Having moved from a house on 1.5 acres, this is new to me…and my mind is whirring! Anyone see The Stepford Wives? I’m thinking I need to write The Culdesac Husbands? All the suburban moms get together and decide they need the perfect off-to-work, lawn-trimming, BBQ grilling, backyard mowing husbands? (Already I can tell that would be nice, LOL). Or a culdesac version of Rear Window? After all, I can see what my across the backyard neighbor is watching on television through the kitchen window. So what else could I see if dastardly deeds were done? And who’s to say what could come of the fact that we’re a two-story house but most of our neighbors are one story? The possibilities are endless…. It’s that “What If” mentality that marks writers, I think. I know my current series,…