1–What is the title of your latest release? NICK AND NOEL’S CHRISTMAS PLAYLIST 2–What is it about? Two lifelong friends falling in love over the course of a holiday season. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  The small town of Mistletoe, Idaho is set in the mountains above Fairfield. The area is gorgeous and the close-knit, mountain town backdrop always makes me feel at home because it’s a homage to the towns I grew up in. 4–How did your heroine surprise you?  Her ability to say exactly what’s on her mind with no qualms. Sometimes, I wish I had that skill. 5–Why will readers love your hero?  Nick is such a genuinely good guy and funny to boot! Who doesn’t love a good sense of humor and a heart of gold? 6–What was one of your biggest challenges while writing this book (spoiler-free, of course!)?  Balancing the weight of Noel’s past with the hopeful joy the holiday season brings. 7–Do you look forward to or do you dread the revision process?  I shine during edits. First drafts are torture. My version of hell is writing a first draft over and over with no input and relying…

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Avery! We are happy to have you here. Please tell us about yourself and your new book, MAMA’S BOY.  Thank you so much for having me! Love getting to hang out with fellow Fresh Fiction book nerds. I have the absolute best memories of FF get-togethers and how nice everyone was and how fun it was to get to talk books with everyone. So. Much. Fun. Speaking of fun, that’s pretty much what you get with MAMA’S BOY. It’s the first book in the Last Man Standing series all coming out together on August 30 (my birthday!). It has Dixon (a billionaire mama’s boy control freak determined to win a bet), Fiona (a Hartigan and a woman on a mission to put this billionaire in his place), attack geese, a hidden room in a library scene that is HOT, and a ghost dog that isn’t a ghost but is most definitely a dog. Basically, it’s a good time in book form.  MAMA’S BOY is the first book in the Last Man Standing series, with NEANDERTHAL and MANSPLAINER are coming soon. I have to admit, the titles are very intriguing, but perhaps more than what they seem on…

1–What is the title of your latest release? A COWBOY CHRISTMAS LEGEND  2–What is it about? Once a former Texas Ranger, Sam Legend has retreated from family, friends–and life–and settled in the northernmost reaches of the Texas Panhandle. He’s unable to come to terms over the loss of his young wife and throws himself into a new venture of forging knives. All he wants is to be left alone and forget all about any happy celebration, most of all Christmas. But Cheyenne Ronan refuses to let him. She sees his wounded soul and is driven to try to help him. Christmas is no time to be alone, wallowing in misery. Beneath his long hair and unkept appearance is a man worth saving and she’s just the woman to do that. But she has secrets of her own. As Christmas approaches, they have to work together to put another broken family back together and find Christmas is filled with miracles and unexpected love. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  The starkness of the Panhandle with it’s harsh winters and heavy snows seemed the perfect place for a man to disappear into. It has high mesas, sweeping vistas, and is filled with deep ravines and gullies. I lived there for a…

Danielle: Welcome back to Fresh Fiction, Annabeth! Congrats on your new release, SAILOR PROOF. Can you give us the quick elevator pitch for this book?  Annabeth:  This is my new military romance LGBTQ+ series. Readers who loved my Out of Uniform series will love this best friend’s little brother romance which has a heaping helping of fake dating, close proximity, only one bed, and big feels in a low-angst package! This is the start of a new series for you! What do you like about starting new series? What are some of the challenges?   I love getting to explore a new universe, discover interesting side characters and places, and I actually love the research aspect. Here, I got to research Navy subs, Seattle, and the Olympic Peninsula. It was hard because of COVID-19 because I couldn’t actually go places and had to rely a lot on memories as well as tons of pictures, videos, documentaries, blogs and more.  To make his ex jealous, Naval Chief Derrick Fox wants to return home with what appears to be a new boyfriend. But his plan goes awry when he and the fake BF, Arthur, start to have very real feelings. Fake dating…

Jen: What inspired you to write OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS? Kerry: Get ready for a two-part answer! The first hit of inspiration is thanks to the wonderful people who come in and clean my house every other week. I hate cleaning, so this is a little gift I give myself. The Viking and I go out for breakfast, and when we come home it’s like the magical elves have been there. Anyway. This one morning as I was putting my key in the lock and thinking about the cleaners, this little blip of an idea flitted through my brain: What if there was a cleaning person who could read the energy on objects in a person’s house that let her know things about the people who lived there? So I sort of filed that away somewhere in my brain. Much later, I was ready to start writing a new book but didn’t really have any good ideas. So I sat down, opened my journal, and wrote on a blank page: Auditioning for New Ideas. And then I started scribbling and Nickle, the main character in OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS, showed up and started talking to me. Not that she told me much…

Danielle: Hi, Roan! Welcome back to Fresh Fiction. For readers who might not be familiar, can you give us a little rundown about your Garnet Run series?   Roan:  Totally! The Garnet Run series is what I’d call cozy romance. It’s set in the small town of Garnet Run, Wyoming where (in my head canon, at least) everyone is queer unless explicitly stated. We start with Better Than People, in which Jack, a grouchy and antisocial artist, breaks his leg and can no longer walk his pack of rescue animals. Enter Simon, a super-shy, virgin animal lover who takes over the task. As they get to know each other, Simon falls in love with Jack’s menagerie—and then with Jack himself. Jack, of course, is already smitten. We also meet Jack’s older brother, Charlie, who raised him after their parents died when they were teenagers. The second book, Best Laid Plans, is Charlie’s love story. Forced to grow up at 18, when he had to raise Jack, run the family business, and pay the rent, Charlie missed out on the whole self-discovery part of being young. Now in his thirties, he’s never had a relationship—he doesn’t even know if he has…

1–What is the title of your latest release? ON LOCATION 2–What is it about? It’s a multicultural romcom between Alia and Drew, two crew members on an outdoor TV show. They have a VERY interesting meet-cute which results in them disliking each other, but then they have to work together on a series about the national parks in Utah. The host of the show is a D-list celebrity who is monumentally difficult, so Alia and Drew have to overcome their messy history—and budding attraction—in order to save the show. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  The book takes place in southern Utah, which is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s probably my ultimate hiking destination—I can’t think of a more beautiful landscape with the red rock landscape that goes on for miles and miles. I wrote ON LOCATION during quarantine/pandemic when I was stuck in my house dreaming about escaping to a gorgeous destination. Writing it was such a wonderful escape and gave me all the happy feels. 4–How did your heroine surprise you?  I set out to write Alia as a tenacious and hardworking woman in the television industry who’s been through…

Danielle: Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Ann! We’re so excited to chat with you today. Can you call us a bit about your new book WITCH PLEASE?   Ann: WITCH PLEASE is a delicious cupcake of a book. It’s just enough to heat, sweet and lovely, with a bit of creamy goodness to make it go down smooth. But if you want more story details, I’d say it’s a forbidden love romance with lots of sisterhood, family complications, and tons of heart and humor. I adore that your heroine, Danica, works as a magical tech “fixer!” What are some of the magical “rules” you have in place in your story that readers should know about?  Magic is low-key in this world. There are no demons being summoned or fireballs being cast. Think along the lines of charms and hexes, illusions, repair work. It’s small, subtle magic generally, though there are some powerful implications in being a tech witch. A tech witch could make a machine malfunction at the wrong time, which would be incredibly dangerous. In terms of rules, mundanes can’t know about the existence of witches due to earlier witch hunts. It’s to keep witches safe from persecution but it…

1–What is the title of your latest release? A SPOT OF TROUBLE 2–What is it about? A SPOT OF TROUBLE is a sweet 101-Dalmatians-inspired romantic comedy about a cupcake baker and a new-to-town firefighter who both have two very opposite pet Dalmatians. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  The setting of this book is a fictional, small North Carolina beach town called Turtle Beach, and it’s actually very near and dear to my heart, because it’s based on a real place called Topsail Island, NC. My family has been visiting Topsail nearly every summer for more than twenty-five years.  4–How did your heroine surprise you?  By listening to her own heart from the very beginning of the book, in spite of her family’s efforts to protect her from getting hurt.  5–Why will readers love your hero?  Readers will love Sam because he’s swoony and stoic and loves Violet just as she is. 6–What was one of your biggest challenges while writing this book (spoiler-free, of course!)?  Not going out and adopting a Dalmatian! Ha! (For real, though.) 7–Do you look forward to or do you dread the revision process?  Revisions are actually my favorite part. I…

Jen: What inspired you to write PAPER DOLL LINA? Robyn: After Charlottesville in 2017, I pulled back from social media and the news because it was such a horrible event to witness. I had a difficult time reconciling the fact that something like that was happening in 2017 vs 1950. In unplugging, I turned to writing and quickly discovered these characters. I didn’t realize what I was writing about until I was well into revisions. Please describe Lina Henry and the life she leads. Lina Henry is a forty-something at-home mom who lives a Pinterest-perfect life. To the outside world, she and her family are #familygoals. When we meet Lina in the first chapter, she feels one-dimensional and likens herself to a paper doll— something to be dressed up and seen, not heard. Lina spends the novel learning how to breathe life into her paper doll existence to where she is a multi-dimensional, fully formed person who thrives. What happens to Lina that causes her to take matters into her own hands? Lina’s children develop a website that goes viral. Through their handwork and determination, Lina begins to fight for them and eventually for herself. She also reconnects with her…