From crepes to ramen, Winnipeg offers delicious menus to satisfy your cravings. Here are the food spots I love to visit: Kawaii Crepe You feel the fun and youthful vibe the minute you step inside. A classic breakfast of egg, bacon and ooey gooey cheese crepe, try the Morning Sunshine if you want something filling. Something sweet and decadent? Sweet Tooth is your best friend—Nutella, ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and your choice of fruit (I always pick strawberries and bananas). Enough said. Yujiro Tender meat and mushrooms, hearty broth, perfect noodles—they serve one of the best ramen in the city. Hands down. Sargent Sundae Conveniently located across Assiniboine Park, it’s a perfect place to grab ice cream before or after a stroll. They have soft serve and hard ice cream with a wide range of luscious flavors. La Belle Baguette Croissants, pretzels, cinnamon buns, pastries, breads, cookies and more—served fresh and scrumptious. I recommend the chocolate and lemon tart. Oh Doughnuts Oh yes, please! Pretty and tasty, you’ll be craving these like crazy. They also offer vegan and gluten-free options and their flavor selection changes daily. Try the crOHnuts and Everything Bagel. SPITFIRE IN LOVE by Isabelle Ronin…

We all know and love the classic meet-cute, but let’s be honest. Sometimes things completely go to hell. So what happens when the first meeting between hero and heroine isn’t so much cute as a total mess? What about the meet-disaster? In Wrong Bed, Right Girl, Special Agent Reed Bishop is pursuing a lead on a case when he heads to the apartment of the woman he thinks is his informant. Only it turns out she’s skipped town and sublet her apartment to none other than our heroine, who’s curled up in bed sleeping as peacefully as can be. That is, until a giant slab of man muscle stubs his toe on her suitcase and comes crashing down on her in the dark. So, yeah. The first words our heroine says (er, shouts) to the hero involve a few choice words I can’t publish here, and a threat to stab him in…a sensitive area. The stuff of great romantic memories, right? They might have to leave out some of the details when they’re reminiscing to their kids about how they met. And yet, it really is the start of something special. Talia, a ballet dancer prepping for a make-or-break role,…

Have you ever opened a book and found yourself walking the streets of your favorite city? I have. I’ve been transported to real-life places like New York, Atlanta, and Miami, and found myself yearning for imaginary worlds like the dangerous island cliffs of Thisby. It’s my favorite part of writing and reading—watching a setting become alive. Books, where setting and atmosphere created a significant dynamic between characters, is what inspired me to become a more atmospheric writer. Thankfully, my co-writer, Jude Sierra, is well known for using personal backdrops to amplify her characters, especially in her critically acclaimed Idlewild and well-loved new release A Tiny Piece of Something Greater. A love for setting and mood was one of the core concepts Jude and I used for building Shadows You Left. Gray, storm soaked skies, Seattle’s height, and sea-side scents, and the forest spanning the outskirts of the city were all used as parallels to mimic emotions and conflict between our two leads, Erik and River. As challenging as it might be, creating a character out of your setting is an intimate and poignant way to inject personality into the fringes of your story. We used this technique as we navigated…

In my newest book, His Second Chance at Forever, (Book #1 in the Santa Barbara Sunsets trilogy) I write about a nurse practitioner who has different ideas from her brooding doc boss. In fact, it’s a main source of conflict between them right off. One of the fun things I included in a small secondary thread was how Claire Albright believes in alternative approaches to medical care for all-around wellbeing. She also believes in the calming effect of certain essential oils. Jason his clueless, and at first, more than a little skeptical. For those who aren’t familiar with essential oils, they are concentrated forms of plants and flowers that are often used in massage therapy and aromatherapy. From my perspective, they are heavenly.  More and more people are discovering them, too. What about you? FYI: Breathing in essential oils goes to the part of the brain that is linked to emotions. Good ones. The soothing scents tend to cause a positive reaction in mood, blood pressure, and heart rate to name a few. If you suffer from white coat syndrome (fear of seeing your doctor) you might appreciate how Claire set up soothing aromatherapy in the office waiting room without…

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 AUBREE VALENTINE! What I Write About: Heartwarming contemporary romance with laugh out loud moments. My current release, while not about those striking hot cops – does feature a cameo by one of NYPD’s finest AND guarantees to tug at your heartstrings. About Me: Thirty-something woman, living in the suburbs and dreaming about small-town life seeks fans of real-life love stories with all the feels. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: Someone who doesn’t mind head-strong (and sometimes a little damaged) leading characters. Must love sexy and sassy banter Enjoys books where friendships and family are just as important as the romance Appreciates everyday heroes and those men/women in uniform What to expect: Sometimes adorkable declarations of love Swoon-worthy alphas who still believe in opening up doors A HEA that will keep you believing in love. LOVE UNDER CONSTRUCTION by Aubree Valentine 425 Madison Avenue Book 6 Jameson She hates me. I can’t say I blame her, in fact, I…

My top five favorite workplace romances? The author who immediately comes to mind on workplace romances is Jayne Ann Krentz. Most of her early heroes felt like cowboys in the boardroom. I used to eat up her contemporary romances like they were going out of style. So I’d have to put an oldie but a goodie, Sweet Fortune by Jayne Ann Krentz, on my list. And if she’s there, then I have to also add Susan Elizabeth Phillips and the first in her Chicago Stars books, It Had to Be You, about a woman who inherits a football team yet knows nothing about the sport. The humor and conflict between the hero and heroine are laugh-out-loud funny. And the steam factor is high! On a less contemporary note, I’m a huge Shelly Laurenston fan, and she’s known for writing zany paranormal romances. But one workplace romance that’s stayed with me is Big, Bad Beast, which pits wolf shifter and former Marine sniper Dee-Ann Smith up against Ric Van Holtz, her boss. I laugh and flip page after page whenever I’m reading Shelly Laurenston’s books. Staying in the paranormal lane, I’d have to go with Thea Harrison’s The Elder Races series,…

The importance of family, however the characters choose to define that term, forms the core of my Where the Wild Hearts Are series.  In some form or another, each main character is searching for a place to belong—even if they outwardly resist the idea.  Older generations play a significant role. Lou Warrenton, the eighty-year-old veterinarian in Wild on My Mind, gave the hero a family when Bowie was kicked out of foster care on his eighteenth birthday and helped him develop into an amazing single father.  Although Bowie now has taken over running the Sagebrush Zoo that Lou used to own, the older man still shows up to work every day and forms a significant part of both Bowie and his daughter’s lives.  Lou was based on my grandfather, who at the age of ninety-four, still went to work three days a week at the same company where he’d worked for over seventy years. Like Bowie, I still turned to him for advice.  Although Lou may be unsteady on his feet and require more naps than he had as a young man, he is still a vibrant part of his family and the zoo. In the second book, Sweet Wild…

We’re chatting about high school, house renovations, and of course, new books with bestselling author Julia London and Editorial Manager Danielle Dresser! Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Julia! Please tell us about your brand-new series, the Princes of Texas, and book 1, The Charmer in Chaps. It’s about the Prince family, which is a happy cross between the Ewings of Dallas and maybe the Clampetts of Beverly Hillbillies (I think we need a reboot of that one). Anyway, the Prince family is legendary in Texas with an enormous ranch along the lines of the King Ranch. But they fall on hard times, no thanks to Dad’s horrible big-stakes gambling problem, and suddenly find themselves having to figure out life without all the trappings of wealth. In The Charmer in Chaps, Luca is the one they call a bunny hugger. He wants to preserve some of the land before they strip it of all the character it had. But he’s going to have to figure it out on his own, and without any help from his family. And he’s got some personal issues that are going to make figuring it out on his own especially difficult. It’s the sort of issue that…

I live in Colorado, so I’ve done a lot of hiking in the woods.  The only dangers I have to deal with are black bears and panthers, neither of which will bother you if you’re making plenty of noise and minding your own business.  Folks in Montana, where Sullivan’s Promise is set, are facing something far more frightening—grizzly bears. My heroine, Victoria Grayhawk, is committed to protecting endangered species, like the grizzly, while my hero, Ryan Sullivan, is a rancher who would just as soon not have the enormous bears making a meal of his newborn calves. You can imagine the conflict between them when Ryan’s brother is attacked and mauled by a grizzly, which has to been hunted down and killed. I learned a lot about grizzly attacks on humans while doing my research for this book, and I have to admit, I may have scared myself out of the woods, the way Jaws scared me out of the water.  Grizzly attacks are few and far between, but they’re pretty horrific when they happen, which is a lot more often as humans encroach on areas previously left to the bears in Montana.  So hike with bear spray, stay on…

Thanks so much for chatting with us today! Can you tell us a bit about your new novel, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors?      Thanks so much for having me! Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors is a gender swapped reimagining of the Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice, where she’s the Mr. Darcy and he’s the Lizzie Bennet. It launches a new series about the Rajes, an Indian American family descended from royalty (think the Indian Kennedys) who have built their lives in San Francisco. It’s the story of two strangers from completely different worlds that explores cultural assimilation, identity, and the meaning of the word home. Dr. Trisha Raje is an accomplished brain surgeon, working on the forefront of cutting edge medicine in her field, and yet, her family’s perception of her is still her biggest weakness. How did Trisha’s need for her family’s acceptance change throughout the novel? I believe that for all of us, our need to be accepted by those who make up our world follows our journey of self acceptance. How much you care about what those around you think of you is directly proportional to how much you accept yourself for who you are….