Who knew that Drakons, the descendants of dragons, from N.J. Walters’ paranormal romance, DRAKON’S KNIGHT, love pasta salad as much as everyone else? This side dish will make the perfect addition to your next Summer BBQ! And make sure you take a look at all of the books in N.J.’s Blood of the Drakon series, too. Be sure to check out our other Summer BBQ Recipe Roundup posts all week! Day 1: http://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=10089 Day 2: http://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=10090 Day 3: http://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=10091 *** I write about drakons. You might be wondering: What’s a drakon? Well, about 4000 years ago, dragons came to our world, mated with human woman, and fathered sons. Then the dragons returned to their own dimension, abandoning their offspring. Feared and shunned, the drakons–or sons of the dragons—have existed among us all this time. They have the cunning, strength, preternatural abilities, and instincts of their dragon sires, along with the intellect and emotions of their human mothers. A deadly combination. The stories about them have become myth and legend. Their existence unknown to all but a select few. But there is a secret group of men and women—The Knights of the Dragon—who are working to capture and cage them. For…

I’m a mom of 3 teenagers. I’ve taught middle school and high school English. I have experience with kids. As a writer, I’ve written some romances where the heroine gets pregnant or wants to. Babies are part of life. However, I know a lot of readers don’t like kids in romance. I’ll be the first to admit, kids can totally kill romance buzz. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books even coined the phrase plot moppet to refer to small children in novels who have no purpose other than to drive the plot forward. They’re not fully fleshed out characters. They do cute things and the adults around them react. I’ve had friends suggest that I write YA (young adult) because I know kids – I must understand them and what they like, right? Therefore, writing YA should be a breeze. I’m not going to tackle the whole “writing should be a breeze” aspect. But part of my reasoning for not even considering writing YA is that my experience with my kids would read like something fictional. My kids are snarky and irreverent and pretty open about what they think and feel. They have awesome vocabularies (hello, English teacher mom). I’ve always felt…

Thank you for hosting me for a guest post on Fresh Fiction to celebrate my new release, Vow of Silence. I’ve been fortunate for the opportunity to write a few different genre’s, but hands-down my favorite and the most difficult to craft is romantic suspense. I akin writing romantic suspense to putting together a mental jig-saw puzzle. Every piece needs to fit just perfectly, or the picture won’t come out right. For a pantser like myself, this is an especially difficult task, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. When I wrote Vow of Silence, I didn’t even know who the killer was until I was 2/3 done with the book. Sometimes I’m just as surprised as my readers at how a story evolves itself. Most of all, I think my favorite part of writing romantic suspense is the thrills and chills. For me, a great book is one that gives the reader goosebumps—both the good kind and the bad. Vow of Silence delivers both. Readers who are familiar with my work would agree that I’m known for writing the thrills. Who doesn’t love a good, steamy sex scene? But today, I want to focus on the chills. My favorite part of…

R.C. Alvarez here, the paranormal romance writing team of Storm Navarro and Jolie de la Cruz! Picking a location for the setting of our book was not a difficult choice. We chose what we knew best: Texas. Growing up here, we’ve seen all sorts of people and creatures. Big and small. Loud and quiet. A certain respect for others and nature is bred into you. Everybody knows Texas is sweet small towns and rich southern culture, but it’s also wild landscapes and even wilder animals. From salamanders, frogs, and toads to all the different kind of birds. You can hardly drive down a winding back road without spotting a deer or two any time of the year. Cows and horses and sheep are cute in their pastures, but don’t let the quaintness fool you. In the wide expanse of Texas wilderness, there can be dangerous things too. Scorpions, wild hogs, large spiders, venomous snakes, coyotes, bobcats, and mysterious mountain lions. There even used to be wolves that roamed the arid lands of West Texas before they were nearly wiped out about 50 years ago. Neither of us has ever seen a wolf in person or a mountain lion for that…

It’s so fun to be back on the Fresh Fiction Blog! If we haven’t met before, I’m Lisa Kessler and I write paranormal romances that have plenty of twists and turns, danger and adventure, and sexy romance that will curl your toes. I love writing paranormals, but I don’t stop with vampires and shifters. In the Sentinels of Savannah series, I’ve got a sexy crew of immortal pirates, but they’re not vampires. Their final plunder as mortals turned out not to be gold, but the Holy Grail. They’ve been immortal ever since, living and working at their favorite port city, Savannah Georgia! My new release, Pirate’s Pleasure, is book 3 in my new Sentinels of Savannah Series but it can be read as a standalone. Why pirates in Savannah? My grandmother was born and raised just outside of Savannah in Darien, so I’d visited America’s Most Haunted City before and pirates are a big part of their history. I’ve wanted to write a pirate series since the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out, but I didn’t want to write a historical soooo… One day it hit me! What if the pirates were still here, today? Immortal. They all have…

Research has a way of pulling us historical authors down into a never-ending spiral of, oooh, I must know more. For some of us, it’s the most fascinating part of our job and for even more of us history geeks, it’s like catnip. We’ve always been infatuated with those who came before us. But that must be the reason we love the genre to begin with. Recently, I was listening to a YouTube video of the song, The Massacre at Glencoe, sung by John McDermott. I found this ballad on a previous trip down the research rabbit hole and I’m still occasionally haunted by it, so when the mood strikes, I pull it up and listen again. The song is about the true story that inspired the “Red Wedding” in Game of Thrones. It’s the tale of the slaughter of innocent members of clan MacDonald by Campbells, who were under the MacDonald roof as guests and it has always touched me emotionally. This particular day, I started bawling. That’s when I decided to go on a quest. There must be something about me that makes this reach into my soul the way it does. I suddenly remembered the magazine I’d…

Usually, the books I love make me laugh. But…the books I love most make me cry. Anyone else out there love a good cry? I still tear up just thinking about the on-page death of Snape and how Harry names a child after him in the Harry Potter series. Or when they have to put the dog down in Marley and Me (especially since my dog was exactly that crazy). Actually, now that I think on it, it’s true of movies as well. I can’t stand cheating stories, but the scene in The English Patient where he carries her body out of the cave still makes me sob. Or (SPOILER ALERT) Hodor holding the door in Game of Thrones. I can tell you right now that writing a scene with that kind of emotional gut punch is difficult. I have one in my new release, The Rookie that took a lot out of me to do. My editor said, “I don’t want to see tears on page. Make the reader cry all the tears.” What I did with that advice was reach into moments I usually prefer not to visit. I’ve been to my fair share of funerals over the…

Alpha, beta, cinnamon roll; which is best? It’s a subject about which many readers have strong opinions. But in case anyone’s confused, what do these terms actually mean? Well, the alphas are the leaders, the CEOs, the warriors, the head of the shifter pack. They don’t have to be cruel or controlling, though sometimes they are. On the other hand, the betas and cinnamon rolls are perhaps best defined by their supportiveness. They don’t want to conquer the heroine but they’ll be there for her no matter what. They’re dudes and they abide. Alphas will annihilate your enemies, but betas will help you move house. Personally, I see the appeal of both. For alphas, think Christian Grey from Fifty Shades of Grey or Sebastian from Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels. For betas, almost any Talia Hibbert hero or Winter Makepeace from Elizabeth Hoyt’s Thief of Shadows. I could do a whole post on the wonderfulness of Winter Makepeace. With The Madness of Miss Grey, I didn’t set out with a particular archetype in mind. But I knew my heroine Helen was the tortured one. As a sane woman incarcerated in a lunatic asylum, how could she not be? The hero,…

I’d love to hear about your wildest weekend away with your friends. Where did you go, what did you do, what silly things happen, and does somebody need bail money? LOL just kidding. My time away with friends are usually twofold. The rowdiest times are usually with my friends when we are conferences, we have the absolute best times! Dancing, partying, eating, drinking, laughing, just being silly and having a blast. A few years ago in NYC, a bunch of us were headed to lunch and came across a fire station. One of the firemen was changing, so of course, I had to get his photo and then wrangled everyone up for a photo op. Conferences are such a great way to see my friends that are scattered across the globe when we all congregate in one place. For when I go away with my girlfriends, a weekend away at a house, cottage, or an overnight stay at a hotel, where we all meet up and have fun. Sometimes just a night in with a glass of wine and nibblies or simply going out for dinner is such a great way to reconnect. I realize how important girlfriends were to…

I like to read the dedications in novels. It feels like the author is sharing a tiny personal connection. I dedicated Saving the Scot to all the men, women, and animals who risk their lives to save others. I hope people will read it and remember all the unsung heroes and heroines who put on gear and walk in when others run away. I was delighted when one lovely reader made mention of the dedication in her review. So, I thought I’d talk a little bit about why I chose the dedication, pose some ways we can actively recognize their courage, and hopefully generate more ideas from you. Last October, Hurricane Michael caused death and destruction in the Florida Panhandle like the US has never seen. One of my writer friends, April Moran, had just released her second Regency novel when the hurricane destroyed her house and leveled all the trees in her yard. Nearly six months later, she and her husband are still living in a trailer while they rebuild. But rather than post about her new novel or her losses, she posted about the EMTs, the overworked powerline repair guys, the neighbors helping neighbors, the people rescuing animals,…