A warm holiday welcome to Fresh Fiction Reviewer, Miranda Owen, who is here to discuss some of her favorite holiday-themed romances! If this post doesn’t get you in the holiday spirit, we don’t know what will. Without further ado… I love a fun holiday-themed romance. Admittedly, my favorite holiday-themed romances involve Halloween, but I enjoy Christmas ones too. Some of my favorite books by Carolyn Brown and Terry Spear are centered on Christmas and family. The Christmas romances I’ve read this year – by old favorites and new-to-me authors – have had dual themes of “family” and “Christmas” with delightful results. The one story featured here that’s not set during Christmas is a paranormal romance by Cynthia Eden that opens with a catastrophic blind date on New Year’s Eve, but that story also has a lot to do with family. In SOMEONE TO TRUST by Mary Balogh and THE CHRISTMAS KEY by Lori Wilde, the heroes are both drawn to women with big hearts and loving families. SOMEONE TO TRUST opens with an idyllic Christmas house party with the Westcott family and their assorted friends and relations. Colin Handrich, Lord Hodges can’t help but be charmed by these people because…

As I’m about to read SERPENTINE – the latest book in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series – and dive into a world of vampires, hunters, and wereleopards, it got me thinking about my love of romances featuring animal shifters. I enjoy a good vampire story, but in the age-old debate over blood suckers vs furry warriors – I’m Team Werewolf. I love werewolves, werebears, werehoney badgers, and everything in between. And how amazing are heroes who also happen to turn into dragons? Recently I’ve read a bunch of fabulous new releases with shape shifters of all sorts as main characters – MIDNIGHT WOLF by Jennifer Ashley, HOT AND BADGERED by Shelly Laurenston, ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND WOLF by Terry Spear, WICKED AND WILD by Cynthia Eden, and the anthology THE BIG ALPHA IN TOWN with stories by Eve Langais, Millie Taiden, and Kate Baxter. MIDNIGHT WOLF by Jennifer Ashley Shifters Unbound #11 Angus Murray, bouncer for a New Orleans Shifter bar, is sent to round up an elusive, Collar-less Shifter woman, Tamsin Calloway, who is causing trouble for Shifter Bureau, and possesses information they want. If Angus refuses, he risks losing his cub. He finds Tamsin but she’s…

Hi, everyone! It’s great to be blogging at Fresh Fiction today. I have a secret to confess.  I have a dark side. Very dark.  When folks look at me, I’ve often been told I look (at least) semi-sweet and fairly innocent.  Ha. Such a lie. Maybe it’s the soccer mom persona that fools them. When I’m alone and I’m writing, that sweet act vanishes.  Instead, I let the darkness out.  That darkness really came out when I wrote my “Deadly” romantic suspense series for Grand Central Publishing. In those books, I jumped right into the minds of serial killers. My husband worried that I was a bit too comfortable writing from the killer’s perspective. Actually, I still think he worries that—I’ve seen the suspicious glances that he gives to me. However, it’s not just my villains who have such a lethal edge. Instead, my heroes and heroines often have some rather lethal characteristics, too.  In DEADLY HEAT, my heroine is a fire fighter. Lora can’t be afraid of death—she faces it every day.  But when her lover is killed in a blaze, the desire for vengeance consumes her, and it’s that lust for revenge that creates the shadows that surround…

Deadly #1 August 2010 On Sale: August 1, 2010 384 pages ISBN: 0446559245 EAN: 9780446559249 Mass Market Paperback $6.99 Add to Wish List Romance Suspense Buy at Amazon.com Deadly Fear by Cynthia Eden TWO BRILLIANT AGENTS FBI Special Agent Monica Davenport has made a career out of profiling serial killers. But getting inside the twisted minds of the cruel and the sadistic has taken its toll: She’s walled herself off from the world. Yet Monica can’t ignore fellow agent Luke Dante, the only man who ever broke through her defenses. ONE DREAM TEAM Luke has the unique ability to put victims at ease…professionally, he and Monica made a perfect team. Now they’re reunited to catch a murderer who uses his victims’ deepest, darkest fears for sport – but their investigative skills aren’t enough. Luke and Monica will have to face the secrets from their past, the ones that terrify them the most, if they are to have a future together. But can they catch a killer whose weapon is…DEADLY FEAR Fast-paced, action- packed romantic suspense that will leave you breathless with anticipation. Previous Picks

There are all kinds of monsters to be found within the pages of romance novels these days. You can find sexy vampires, wild (and hot) werewolves, and dangerous demons. I love these monsters, and I usually have a wonderful time writing about them. Sometimes, though, readers have asked me if it is hard to create a character that is more “monster” than man. And, honestly, it’s not. You see…with every monster that I create (whether I am creating a succubus heroine or a vampire hero), I make sure that I always give these paranormal beings human traits and characteristics. After all, they are monsters, but they aren’t perfect. So my monsters have fears, they have bad habits, and they have weaknesses…just like humans. I’ve found that when you give paranormal characters human flaws, well, then it is much easier for readers to identify with those supernatural beings. But, now, let me mix things up a bit. ? For a while, I only wrote about my paranormal heroes and heroines, but last month, I released my first romantic suspense novel with Grand Central Publishing’s Forever line. DEADLY FEAR follows two FBI agents as they track a sadistic serial killer. With this…

My birthday falls at the end of August. When I was a kid I hated the fact that my birthday was during summer break because I never got to celebrate with cupcakes or cookies in class. Now that I work at a University, I find that my birthday falls on, or shortly after, the first day of school which means birthday celebrations come second to the start-of-semester madness. This year my birthday falls on a Sunday so I’ll have the day off. I think I’ll make it a “lazy day” and spend the day reading some romantic suspense. August has some great selections, which book should I choose? Hmmm. DESPERATE DEEDS Dee Davis A-Tac #3 Grand Central Publishing; $6.99 A-Tac, an elite CIA unit masquerading as faculty at an Ivy League college, is back. When a thieves steal a shipment of thermonuclear detonators, Commander Solomon has reason to suspect that information from inside A-Tac facilitated the heist. He instructs his team to set up a sting to recover the detonators and to trap the traitor. Operative Tyler Hanson is skeptical when Solomon appoints renowned physicist and Nobel Prize winner Owen Wakefield to head the team. Sparks fly as they work…

“Let your inner demon out”—That’s what Cara Maloan, the heroine from my new Kensington Brava release, MIDNIGHT SINS, would really like to encourage all women to do. Cara thinks ladies should start living for themselves, doing what they want—and having one heck of a good time. Something you should probably know…Cara’s a succubus. Yep, she’s an immortal demon who gains power from sneaking into a man’s dreams and stealing his sensual energy. Hey—it’s a job, someone has to do it. 🙂 Cara is absolutely one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of writing. She was fun—definitely fun—but, the lady also had her hang-ups. You see, she’s a sex demon at heart, but Cara wants more than fleeting pleasure from a man. She wants love, and love isn’t something that a succubus usually gets to experience. Ah, such is the twisted fate of my characters. When I write about my characters, I love to think in terms of opposites for them. Vampires with blood phobias…sex demons who want love…a vampire hunter who finds her perfect lover in—ahem—a vampire. Opposites. But don’t worry too much about Cara…I gave her a good hero. She just has to get him…

I love to get lost in a good book. Love to let the hours slip away as I become drawn into a great read. I love to laugh and cry and have my husband look at me like I’m crazy. Oh, yeah, sometimes getting lost in a book can be a wonderful thing. When I’m reading—I want to get so drawn into a story that I consider myself lost. But, when I’m writing a book, well, getting lost can have a whole new meaning for me… I’m finishing up work on my latest novel, part of my “Midnight” paranormal series for Kensington Brava. And I have to say—I think I’ve gotten lost in this book—but not necessarily lost in the good way. You see, all of my free time is consumed by this book. I’m so deeply into my demon story that all my energy is consumed by the tale. So that means the rest of my life is getting a bit lost, too. I walked into my dining room earlier and wondered when all of the lights in the chandelier (there are twelve of them) had stopped working. Surely not all at once. This had to be a gradual…

Have you ever gotten this question before? Have you been asked just why you decided to write in the romance genre? There are so many different areas out there…why romance? Well, for me, the answer is simple: I love romance. I’ve been addicted to romance novels since I read my first story almost twenty years ago. (I was twelve, for anyone curious about the math!) I love romances because I like to escape from the real world—I like to sink myself into a story that I know will give me thrills…and a happy ending. I love romances because the romance genre—it’s huge! I can read historicals, futuristics, romantic suspenses, or contemporaries. With romance, cross-over is welcome. My upcoming Kensington Brava release, HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT, is probably best described as a paranormal romantic suspense. My heroine, Dr. Emily Drake, is a psychologist who only treats paranormal patients. She gets pulled into a murder investigation as a profiler—and teamed up with sexy wolf shifter, Detective Colin Gyth. I loved being able to add darker elements to this tale. Romance, a serial killer, wolf shifters and psychics—lucky for me, the romance genre is so broad and so wonderfully accepting. I feel like writers…