You’re Invited to an … Afternoon Tea with Susan Elizabeth Phillips Susan Elizabeth Phillips on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011! We’ll be gathering in the famed French Room at The Adolphus Hotel with one of the funniest and beloved women romance authors! This is an event you do NOT want to miss! Price $75 and includes a copy CALL ME IRRESISTIBLE to be autographed by SEP. Additional books by Susan Elizabeth Phillips will be available for purchase, portion of sales benefits Plano Family Literacy Purchase Tickets RSVP TO THE MOST RIOTOUS WEDDING OF THE YEAR! Lucy Jorik is the daughter of the former President of the United States. Meg Koranda is the offspring of legends. One of them is about to marry Mr. Irresistible—Ted Beaudine—the favorite son of Wynette, Texas. The other is not happy about it. Not happy at all…. But even though Meg knows breaking up her best friend’s wedding is the right thing to do, no one else seems to agree. Faster than Lucy can say, “I don’t,” Meg becomes the most hated woman in town. A town where she’s stuck with a dead car, an empty wallet, and a very angry bridegroom. Broke, stranded, and without her…

MARY BURTON CELEBRATES 2011 WITH  BACK-TO-BACK ROMANTIC SUSPENSE New York Times best selling author Mary Burton unleashes a memorable cast of characters in her back-to-back romantic suspense novels SENSELESS (just published) and MERCILESS (arriving January 25th). They include Homicide Detectives Deacon Garrison and Malcolm Kier(DYING SCREAM), convicted felon Eva Rayburn, and her half-sister, attorney Angie Carlson. And, as always, Burton’s signature attention to forensic detail and law enforcement procedure are in evidence. In SENSELESS, Eva’s part-time job at a shelter brings her to the attention of Deacon Garrison when an explosion destroys the building. The search for evidence uncovers the body of a woman who has been tortured, murdered and branded. Enter journalist Connor Donovan. He’s desperate to resuscitate his flagging career when he gets a tip about the case and its similarities to the Sorority House Murder, the investigation that brought him fame and sent Eva to prison. As Donovan drags Eva back into the media spotlight, Garrison, certain she’s connected to  the murder, is determined to find out how. In MERCILESS Burton ratchets the suspense up even higher when Kier and Angie come up against a psychopath who leaves behind the perfectly preserved bones of his victims. Kier—and…

UNDERTOW Sets A Dangerous Course Into Unchartered Waters Hi, I’m delighted to introduce my brand new Cutter Cay series, launching, with a splash, (sorry couldn’t help myself) with Zane “Casanova of the Caribbean” Cutter in UNDERTOW. I fell in love with the youngest Cutter brother the moment I met him. For years Zane has been searching for a little known Dutch frigate blown off course centuries earlier. A ship filled with a wealth of emeralds and gold which he believes sank somewhere in the water’s near his home base in the Caribbean. Zane is smart enough to know that when he finds the Vrijheid, he doesn’t want anything, or anyone, distracting him. And women, happy-go-lucky, never-make-a-commitment Zane Cutter knows, are always a distraction. Before starting UNDERTOW – or as I like to think of it – before Zane gave me dictation – I considered throwing a leggy blonde his way. Knowing she’d be a big distraction on the dive. But he adores all blonds, and I knew he’d see through me, so that wasn’t going to work. I considered for a moment introducing a hot redhead, but he likes redheads almost as much as he does blondes. I made several…

Dear Reader Friends: Now that the shopping and the wrapping and the decorating are behind you, it’s time to spoil yourself. Time to kick back, relax and read a good book. And have I got a book for you! In PROMISE CANYON, which goes on sale tomorrow, December 28, you’ll return to Virgin River, the town built deep in California’s redwood forests by men of honor for the women they love. This first book in my 2011 trilogy introduces you to Navajo horse whisperer, Clay Tahoma, the sexy new veterinarian’s assistant, a new addition to Nate Jensen’s clinic. Clay’s the polar opposite of independent Hopi beauty Lily Yazhi, who meets him when she delivers feed from her grandfather’s store. Lily has encountered her share of strong, silent, traditional men and isn’t eager for more. But as she and Clay work to gentle a traumatized stallion, a new romance begins to sizzle, giving the Virgin River regulars like Jack and Mel a lot to talk about! A fun factoid: While I was visiting friends in Arizona, we visited an art gallery in a small town in the mountains. There I was stunned by a photo image of a Native American man…

Dear Friends, REDEMPTION. The dictionary defines it as “atonement for guilt; deliverance from sin.”  That somehow seems an appropriate way to describe Jesse Bradford’s challenge in STRONGER THAN SIN. Can Jesse redeem himself for his past actions?  Is love powerful enough motivation for Jesse to become a better man? In STRONGER THAN SIN, Jesse’s sinful ways came about as a result of his losing his way to the cult of celebrity after becoming a superstar football player.  Sadly, this is something with which we can all identify since it seems that all too often we hear a news report about a professional athlete who has gotten in trouble. Despite his faults, however, Jesse is a man capable of great love who just needs to find the hero within him once more. From the moment that Mick’s sister, Dr. Liliana Carrera, walked onto the scene in SINS OF THE FLESH, I knew she had to get her own story. I fell in love with her caring, loyalty to her brother and her inner strength. There was no doubt in my mind that any story where she was the heroine would be emotionally compelling and filled with passion.  And there was no…

The Day My Guardian Spirit Saved My Life Have you ever experienced a moment of premonition or a time that something unexplained intervened in your life?  I’ve had quite a few of those moments, but the one which really stands out is the day my guardian angel saved me when I would have died. Many years ago, I’d had a bad day in business.  I’ll spare you the details about that, but I ended up sitting in a restaurant in Marietta, Georgia, until very late, talking to a business associate I’d known for years.  My home was on the opposite side of Atlanta in the Stone Mountain area. I finally had to make that long drive home, which meant traveling on Interstate 285 after midnight.  I was drained from the bad day and I’d been up since 4:00 am. When I pulled onto the interstate it was in an area that had little commerce, so everything was pitch black around me.  The only thing I could see was whatever my headlights touched.  Back then, there were almost no cars on the road during the week at that time of night.  The speed limit was 65 and the weather was clear,…

The Morning a Ghost Climbed Into Bed With Me My husband and I built a house in northwest Atlanta in 1989.  You’d think I’d be safe from ghosts in a new house, right? That’s what I once believed, too. About six months into living there, my husband got up one Saturday morning at 2:30 AM to go fish a bass tournament.  I sat that one out because I had a wall mural to paint that day (this was back before I ever thought of writing a book).   He was great about being quiet while he got ready, even though he knew I always woke up the minute he got out of the bed.  I remember him kissing me goodbye and shutting the bedroom door on his way out as if I wouldn’t hear him opening cabinets in the kitchen to get what he needed for a day on the lake. I lay there in the middle of the bed where I’d stretched out on my stomach, thinking about what I had to do that day.  I heard the garage door groan its way up, then back down five minutes later after he pulled the boat out and left. It was…

RT Gives Aching for Always 4 1/2 Stars! Enter to Win a Kate Spade Bag. Vengeance has driven naval captain Hugh Hawksmoor from his eighteenth century ship to a gleaming future of skyscrapers and cell phones, but will it drive him out of the arms of the woman he loves? “Cready builds on her reputation for writing sensuous, romantic time-travel books. This delightful story is passionate, suspenseful, adventurous and highly entertaining. Readers will find themselves constantly smiling and wonder where the time went when they come to the end.” — Romantic Times on Aching for Always, 4 1/2 stars Message from RITA® Award-winning novelist and author of Aching for Always, Gwyn Cready: I hope you love romance because Aching for Always (Pocket Books, $7.99, available in stores and online today) is the best I’ve ever written. Here’s the story: Eighteenth century naval captain, Hugh Hawksmoor, is determined to avenge his brother’s death. His quest takes him into the future, a world he doesn’t know or understand. There he meets Joss O’Malley, a scrappy young woman determined to save the map-making company her mother founded. One map will change both of their lives. Hugh’s deft touch and Old World charm stir…

Murder with Recipes: the national bestselling author brews up a hot new culinary mystery… Most of the world knows about the bravery of New York City’s fire department on 9/11. For ROAST MORTEM, I wanted to go deeper. Almost every day I see these hunky, heroic guys in my Queens’ neighborhood. So I decided to research how they work and live and layer this background into my new Coffeehouse Mystery. At the start of ROAST MORTEM, an unknown arsonist begins torching cafés around the city. When firefighters come to the rescue of Clare Cosi, manager of the landmark Village Blend, she returns the favor by rescuing these fearless few from some seriously bad coffee. Then her new firemen friends begin to die in suspicious ways, and Clare finds reason to believe their deaths are connected to the serial arsonist. A single mom in her forties, Clare has a passion for cooking, coffee, and sleuthing. While tracking down this killer, she continually faces off with an overly-flirtatious fire captain who won’t stop putting the moves on her. But she doubts his motives are pure. This strapping firefighter obviously has something to hide, and as Clare starts to dig deeper, someone threatens…

Intangible Evidence of MAGIC by NYT best seller Dianna Love Have you ever experienced something you can’t easily explain? INTANGIBLE EVIDENCE is actually the title of a book I read back in the late 80’s that was fascinating.  Authors Bernard Gittelson and Laura Torbet documented accounts of the strange and unusual, but qualified everything as having no hard evidence, thus the title. I’ve had quite a few unusual things happen in my life since my childhood, but like many other people, I realized at a young age to keep odd things to myself.  Still, the supernatural always fascinated me.  Here’s an example: I’ll admit to being absent minded, an inconvenient and frustrating trait many artists have.  I developed ways to work around it so it didn’t drive me and everyone around me crazy.  I especially hate to lose my keys (you know THE keys to your life – car, house, whatever).  I had just moved into a house back in the early 80s during a very stressful time.   I wanted my recently-booted boyfriend out of my life (this was right before I met my terrific husband) and had agreed to meet so we could discuss how to divide up some…