Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Samantha! Please tell us about yourself and your new book, HE STARTED IT. Thank you so much! My new book, HE STARTED IT, is about three siblings (and two spouses) who have to go on a road trip in order to get an inheritance from their grandfather. Along the way, they have to deal with old grudges, family secrets, and a lot of scores to settle. This is a family road trip novel gone wrong–three siblings with strained relationships have to travel across the country per their grandfather’s will in order to receive a hefty inheritance. The route they are taking is the same road trip they took years ago with their grandfather, and they each have their own reasons for despising that trip. What is it about familial relationships, particularly sibling relationships, that you find fascinating? Sibling relationships are really complicated. If they grow up in the same house, they have a shared history during their formative years–something that can’t be repeated later in life. Siblings know your past, and you know theirs. And typically, they know exactly how to push each other’s buttons. Better than anyone else, in my experience. That makes siblings a…

Miranda: The first of your books I read were in the Fusion series. I loved it because it had friendships and realistically strong yet flawed female characters. How important is it for you to write strong female characters and friendships? Does the dialogue flow easily? Kristen: Thank you! I’m absolutely a dialogue-driven author. I also love to read dialogue. I think it moves the story along at a fast pace. Friendships are integral to every book I write. None of us just fall in love and have no one else in our lives. I think it’s important to show a character’s community, her family and friends, and their reactions to the character falling in love. One of the things I enjoy so much about your Romancing Manhattan series, as well as many of your other books, is the balance between romance, character development, and conflict. Do you consciously try and maintain balance in your books or does it just evolve organically? The books evolve organically, as I write them. As a huge fan of the series, I’m thrilled about your new Romancing Manhattan book AFTER ALL! But are there any supporting characters in any of your series that you’ve toyed…

Hi, Elise! Welcome to Fresh Fiction. Please tell us about yourself and your new book, FAST GIRLS. Fast Girls is historical fiction about three trailblazing American women track stars of the 1930s who come together to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Berlin, and it’s inspired by a true story. The summer Olympics, which so many people look forward to, have been postponed this year for the safety of athletes and spectators during the global pandemic. I know I will miss watching them! Do you have a favorite Olympic sport to watch? I love both the winter and summer Games and pretty much watch everything! From swimming to synchronized swimming to track and field, I want it all! FAST GIRLS tells the story of three women athletes at the tumultuous 1936 Olympics in Germany. What drew you to this time in history? What was something you learned that completely surprised you? The 1930s are such an interesting time from a political, social, and economic standpoint, and I hadn’t realized how close the U.S. came to boycotting the 1936 Games. It’s fascinating to contemplate how history could have played out differently if Hitler hadn’t been given the world stage to…

Hi, Jayci! Welcome to Fresh Fiction. Please tell us about yourself and your new book, A SWEET MESS! I’m a fresh, new author and everything still feels surreal to me. This interview for example. I can’t believe I’m being interviewed by Fresh Fiction! So exciting! When I’m not caught up in the awe of being a published author, I write sweet, sensual, and laugh out loud contemporary romance and romantic comedy. I used to be an attorney, but I like my new job quite a bit better. It’s probably because I’m a lover, not a fighter. A SWEET MESS is my rom-com debut, and it has a special place in my heart because it’s the first novel I ever wrote. This story is about Korean-American main characters excelling in non-stereotypical professions, overcoming obstacles, and falling in love. I hope it shows that Asian-Americans make damn good heroes and heroines in romance. I love the set-up of this novel! It’s too funny and all the right (or wrong!) pieces fall into place to create a hilarious reason for Aubrey and Landon to end up spending time together and falling in love. What sparked the idea for this novel? I know something can’t come…

Hi, Susan! Welcome to Fresh Fiction! Please tell us about yourself and your new book, THE LOST AND FOUND BOOKSHOP. First of all, thank you for making this a fun conversation. You’re the first real person I’ve talked to all day, since I’m deep into my book-in progress. This is my favorite moment in the life cycle of a book–the moment it finds its way into readers’ hands. Suddenly it’s not my baby anymore. It belongs to the readers, the reviewers, the book groups, the librarians, and I can’t wait for them to read it. I wrote this book during a momentous year in my life. It reflects one of my sweetest fantasies–owning an independent bookshop. Even when I was a little girl, I used to imagine what it would be like to live in the garret of a creaky old building, above a bookstore that is a vibrant community center. The fantasy comes to life on Perdita Street in San Francisco’s historic district. Natalie Harper is a wine exec in Archangel, California (shout out to readers of The Apple Orchard and The Beekeeper’s Ball). She never planned on taking over her mother’s beloved but struggling bookshop. She never planned…

Hi, Angelina! Thanks for stopping by Fresh Fiction. Can you tell us about yourself and your new book, HATE CRUSH? I’m a lifelong writer and romance fan. I started writing romance when I was working as a newspaper journalist in the late-90s. My debut book, LUSH MONEY, came out October of last year, so let’s just say that my newspaper stories came out much quicker than my books did. 😉 I think the long road to publishing was very worthwhile–I learned so much about the craft, the industry, and myself as a writer along the way. It made me much more confident in the things I wanted to say because I’d worked so long at saying them! HATE CRUSH, my second book in the Filthy Rich series–about powerful, wealthy women who get what they want because they’ve earned it–is about Princesa Sofia, a millionaire winemaking princess whose about-to-launch winery is struggling to get attention, and fallen rock star Aish Salinger, whose career is in the dumpster. A fake relationship between the two of them could save her winery and struggling kingdom, and his faltering music career. Only problem: She hates him more than any other person on the planet. Ten…

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Ian! Please introduce yourself and tell us about your latest sci-fi novel, ALIEN SECRETS. Well, I’m Ian Douglas, also known as William H. Keith, H. Jay Riker, and a few other names. Alien Secrets is the first book in the Solar Warden series.  Solar Warden, in real life, is a conspiracy theory about a top secret US government program of the same name, involving our government back-engineering crashed flying saucers, trading abductees for advanced technology, working with various alien species, and keeping it all hidden from the public. This is the first book in your new series, Solar Warden. What do you enjoy about starting a new series? What will readers find within the world you’ve built in ALIEN SECRETS? Unlike much of my SF writing, the Solar Warden series is set pretty much in the present day. While I get to imagine the various alien technologies available, I can also reference recent world events without having the characters think of them as ancient history.    There’s quite a bit of history throughout ALIEN SECRETS. Did you initially intend for this? Where did the idea come from? I’m a history buff anyway, and much of the current conspiracy…

Hi, Julie! Thanks for stopping by Fresh Fiction. Please tell us about yourself and your new book, THE LAST FLIGHT. Thanks for having me! THE LAST FLIGHT is the story of two women, both desperate to escape their lives. A chance encounter in an airport bar presents the two women with a crazy solution: switch plane tickets, then drop off the grid when they land. But one woman will never reach her destination. On the surface, both Claire and Eva have led inspired lives. Claire is a socialite and married into a powerful pollical family, but there are painful secrets she’s tired of hiding. Eva was raised in the foster system, and had a pretty good life going until she met the wrong guy. Even though their lives are different, they are quite similar in many aspects. . . How did you develop these two women while writing THE LAST FLIGHT? It took a lot of brainstorming, drafting, and revising to fully flesh these two women out. I wanted to make sure they were fundamentally different, and yet I wanted the core of them to be the same–two women, each fighting to get the life she wants. It took me about two years…

Hi, Abigail! Welcome back to Fresh Fiction. Please tell us about your latest book, BAIT N’ WITCH. Thank you so much for having me back. I always love to visit with Fresh Fiction! 🙂   Can you give our readers a “primer” of your paranormal world? Do you find creating supernatural settings difficult or easy? My paranormal world is set in the real world, but technically apart. They don’t interact with humans unless they have to, and humans don’t know of the existence of these supernatural creatures. While the dragon shifters are the focus of my Inferno Rising & Fire’s Edge series, in Brimstone Inc., we get to see other paranormal creatures in the same world and what’s going on with them. World building is one of my favorite parts of writing paranormal romance. Thinking of the powers and the world in which they would exist. Thinking of how they’d interact with others. Which would be dangerous, which benevolent, all the possibilities. It’s the best time!     What do you think people love about paranormal romance? What do you love about writing it? I can only say what I love personally. I love the escape. The real world sometimes is just a…

Hi, Chanel! Welcome to Fresh Fiction! Please tell us about yourself and your new book, THE LAST TRAIN TO KEY WEST. Thank you so much for having me! I write historical fiction that focuses on women’s stories throughout history. My first two historical fiction releases, Next Year in Havana and When We Left Cuba, were largely inspired by my Cuban heritage and my family’s love for their homeland. My new book, The Last Train to Key West, is set decades earlier in 1935 when the Labor Day Hurricane struck the Florida Keys. The Last Train to Key West follows three heroines as their paths cross in unexpected and dangerous ways, and readers of my earlier books will recognize a familiar last name as I follow Beatriz and Elisa’s aunt through history. I love the different formats you’ve used for setting the scene of the historical stories you’ve told so far. In Next Year in Havana there were dual timelines, When We Left Cuba was set entirely in the past from one point of view, and in THE LAST TRAIN TO KEY WEST there are three women’s stories set over Labor Day Weekend in Key West.  How do you decide to…