Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Sara Desai! Writes: Books. Romance books Romance books that are funny. One romantic comedy book in particular: The Marriage Game, a sexy enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy about a grumpy downsizing consultant and a hopelessly romantic personnel recruiter who battle to secure office space as they interview the ten suitors her father has selected for her to marry. About: Island-dwelling extroverted introvert with a passion for trapping grouchy alpha males and sunshiny heroines in close quarters and pitting them against each other in a battle of wills seeks laugh-loving reader who loves scrumptious Indian food, crazy characters, big loud families, and heroes who know how to grovel. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: Loves cute, fluffy Westies who have a weakness for pakoras Will not start dancing during an interview Agrees that extreme pogo should not be an Olympic sport Hates any food that is deconstructed, foraged at dawn, curated, bespoke, or can’t be seen with the naked eye. Knows instantly that…

It was then that Kerry walked by the back kitchen opening, and she paused at the doorway. “Errol! What are you doing here?” she said, stepping into the main lounge. The boy brightened at the sight of Kerry, his entire face opening up and his demeanor changing as he smiled at her. But then, as if remembering his mission, he quickly sobered. “Hi, Miss Kerry. I just wanted to come by to say how sorry I am about Ms. Joy.” Kerry stepped forward and took the boy into her arms in a hug. “Oh, Errol. Thank you so much. That is so kind of you.” Errol pulled back and unclenched his fists from the bag he was holding. He looked up at Kerry with a sad longing in his eyes and Jesse could see he was debating a question. “Will the shop be open again for us kids to come in for a lesson?” Kerry looked around at Jesse and his brothers, then back at Errol. “Errol, I’m not sure. The family has to do some figuring out about that.” Errol let out a breath and looked at Jesse. The boy nodded soberly as if he fully understood, despite his…

Jen: What inspired you to write The Closer You Get? Mary: A friend told me about a single woman we knew who was having an affair with a married man. He left his wife and went to live with her, but the relationship didn’t last long and he went straight back to his wife. It made me wonder what would happen if both affair partners were married to other people and decided to be together; who would dare to take that first step towards their new life? How could you trust anyone enough to do that? If you were in that position and left your marriage and the other person didn’t leave, you would have burned all your bridges. So that became the start of the idea, that a married woman leaves home to be with a married man, but he doesn’t show up. What draws coworkers Ruby and Harry into having an extramarital affair? I think Ruby is a classic case of a woman who’s very unhappy at home and falls for the first person to show her some kindness and interest. On the other hand, Harry’s actually always been happy at home. His reasons for having an affair…

Our first foster dog came into our home at an embarrassingly late stage in my dog training career. I’d been talking and writing about fostering for years but hadn’t made the leap to actually doing it for reasons (excuses?) that might sound familiar to you; I was busy, my resident dogs might not enjoy it, and I’d have a hard time saying goodbye to my new best friend. But when the heartbreaking photos of dogs in need on my feed got to be too much for me, I finally decided it was time to stop talking and start doing. We welcomed an adorable pitbull named Freddy and that dude helped us kick off our fostering journey. Since then my husband and I have gone on to foster a bunch of other dogs with more on the horizon. My initial concerns about fostering didn’t really matter when I saw the happy endings that happened once our fosters found their forevers. There are so many compelling reasons why fostering is important, but the following are a few of my favorites. Fostering Saves Two Lives Any time you bring in a foster you’re saving an additional life along with the temporary one under…

1–What’s the name of your latest release?  A MURDEROUS RELATION, the fifth Veronica Speedwell mystery. 2–What is it about?  My Victorian butterfly hunting sleuth, Veronica Speedwell, joins with her detecting partner, Stoker, to investigate a potential royal scandal during Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror in London. 3–What word best describes your heroine?  Intrepid. Veronica has a zero-tolerance policy for other people’s nonsense and she is never afraid to seize an opportunity or take on a foe. 4–What makes your hero irresistible?  Stoker is a walking contradiction; he’s big and fit and dangerous, but he’s also the guy who needs a constant supply of candy and who reads French romance novels and cuddles stray dogs. 5–Who are the people your main characters turn to when they need help?  My characters are always adding to their found family. They have a mentor–an elderly noblewoman who is the power behind the English throne–as well as a resourceful female reporter, a Black master pastry chef from Martinique, and a police detective who is just as likely to arrest them as take a bullet for them. But, always and above all, they turn to each other. 6–What do you love about the setting of…

1–What’s the name of your latest release?  Red Letter Days 2–What is it about?  Two American women escape the Hollywood blacklist for England, where they are able to continue working and remain free, but find that they still aren’t as safe as they hope. It’s also very much about love, passion for work, resilience, friendship, and maintaining a sense of self and humour in the face of adversity. 3–What word best describes your main character(s)?  Plucky. 4–What makes your story relatable?  To my vexation, it is getting more relatable by the day, what with accusations of “communist”, right-wing attacks on the arts, and attempts to purge anyone who doesn’t tow the party line from the government. Also attempts to sequester passports from citizens, deny citizenship – you get the idea. But what matters is that then, as now, more people are pushing back and standing up for what is right. The political parallels aside, the story will also speak to anyone who has had a passion and pursued it; or found themselves alone and reached out to find friends they might not have expected to become part of their lives. And anyone who has ever fallen in love and found…

1–What’s the name of your latest release? The Antidote for Everything 2–What is it about?  It tells the story of what goes spectacularly wrong in the deep friendship between a woman named Georgia (a urologist) and a man named Jonah (a family medicine doctor) after one of them is unjustly fired. 3–What word best describes your main character(s)?  Bullheaded 4–What makes your story relatable? I think we are all tuned in to the concept of friendship as a fundamental human relationship, maybe even more so than family in certain ways, since friendships are voluntary and self-selected. But also the novel poses the question of who should get to make medical decisions: politicians? Administrators? Or doctors and patients? And what is a justifiable response to injustice? 5–Who are the people your main characters turn to when they need help?  I have two main characters and there is no question: they turn to one another. Neither of them has close family and they have the magical kind of friendship where they are completely comfortable with each other. There’s no artifice, no self-censoring, no fear of abandonment between them. 6–What do you love about the setting of your book? It’s set in Charleston…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-ReaderMatch” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present MILLA VANE! Writes: Epic fantasy romance, featuring surly barbarian heroes who don’t quite know what to do with the women who cross their path (or, in the case of A HEART OF BLOOD AND ASHES, what to do with a princess whom the hero intends to kill in revenge for the death of his parents, but who somehow persuades him to marry her, instead.) Includes sword fights, dinosaurs, chases and escapes, true love, miracles…! And yes, these are kissing books. (The hero kisses the heroine in a LOT of places. For a long time.) About: Dorky, shy author who spent her childhood immersed in fantasy movies, comic books, and fairy tales has channeled all of that into emotional, epic romances. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: I’m looking for readers who love to lose themselves in another world, and who are eager to take an epic and emotional journey with my characters. Must appreciate alpha warriors who sometimes make huge…

Jen: What inspired you to write Meg & Jo, a contemporary retelling of Little Women? Virginia: I think we need stories about strong women and families pulling together in tough times. There’s so much warmth and joy in Little Women! When I first read the book—my grandmother gave a copy to my sister and me when I was about ten—I wanted to go live with the March family and act in plays and write a newspaper and all the rest of it. But as I grew up, things I’d sort of skipped over in the story struck me for the first time or in a different way. And I wanted to tell Meg and Jo (and Beth and Amy) in a way that reflected that perspective. As the author of over thirty novels, how did writing your first women’s fiction book differ from your previous works? I’m still writing about families and relationships. I’m still drawing on classic stories of my childhood for inspiration (I always imagined Sea Witch as a sexy, feminist version of The Little Mermaid). But the emphasis in this story is very different. Meg and Jo isn’t so much about if or who the sisters will…

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Nalini! Can you tell us a little bit about your latest novel, A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE?  A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE is my debut thriller. Set in an isolated town on New Zealand’s rugged and stunningly beautiful West Coast, it’s about all the different faces people wear, all the secrets we keep, and how well we ever know one another. The New Zealand landscape is an integral character in the book, a place that’ll take your breath away…and a place so wild and empty that bodies could disappear without a trace. A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE marks a change of genre for you! What inspired this change to write a thriller? Did you find anything surprisingly different than writing paranormal romance? I’ve always enjoyed mysteries and thrillers, and many of my paranormal romances have a mystery element or subplot. So it wasn’t a huge shift to write a pure mystery – it was more a case of having the right story and the right setting. Anahera Rawiri left her small New Zealand hometown of Golden Cove eight years ago, but returns to find things similar, but with some frustrating differences. What does her return home mean to Anahera?…