We thought it would be fun to give our 20 Questions interview to the incomparable writing team of LINDA HOWARD and LINDA JONES and see their separate responses. Enjoy! LINDA JONES: 1–What’s the name of your latest release?  After Sundown 2–What is it about?  When a natural disaster hits, taking down the grid and bringing the world to a standstill, the community of Wears Valley comes together to survive. Sela and Ben are reluctant leaders who do what they can to in order to make it through the aftermath of a catastrophic solar storm. 3–What word best describes your heroine?  Introverted. Maybe cautious is a better word for her. 4–What makes your hero irresistible?  The shallow woman in me says, “His arms.” My more introspective self admires the way he gives in to his instinct to protect, even if he does so reluctantly. 5–Who are the people your main characters turn to when they need help?  Ben turns to no one, at least in the beginning. Sela has friends and family to turn to, most specifically her Aunt Carol and her fifteen-year-old cousin, Olivia. 6–What do you love about the setting of your book?  I’ve been in love with Wears…

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…

Book SigningOriginally uploaded by freshfiction This week’s guest blogger, Susan Wiggs, had a post about the most horrible signings she’s ever been on. And I found it interesting reading. I also thought about the comments. I haven’t always been so lucky to live in an area where authors come every week to sign their books. When I was younger, in the sixties and 70s I lived in a very rural area and don’t remember ever visiting a real “book store” that wasn’t run by the Mennonite Church. Which trust me had a very small fiction section. And that store was 40 miles away and we only went once a year to pick up grandmother’s materials. Our reading time was spent reading a chapter every day from the Bible and reading through the World Craft Encyclopedia. Our local library was located over the one engine firehouse. It was a small room with about 1,000 books in it. I did learn to love Zane Grey and Elswyth Thane. But it wasn’t somewhere we visited often. Then I went to college and oh, what a world there was! Books were sold in stores like the downtown Philadelphia Woolworth which I haunted every Saturday…

The other day I found myself thinking about people I’ve known in my life and haven’t seen for awhile. I got to wondering what they were doing now, and how their lives have changed, and whether or not we would still enjoy spending time together. Taking that thought and extending it to the books I’ve read over the years I’m wondering what might have happened to the Mackenzie family from Linda Howard, or the MacGregor Family from Nora Roberts. Both these families have older generations who if they were to be continued today would have to have died off. How would we as readers feel about losing a beloved character? Probably not very happy, which is why we don’t have updates, but like finding out a once dear friend has passed away wouldn’t we grieve and move on in order to find out what newer generations of these families are doing? I know I’ve mentioned two much loved families, but who are some characters that made an impression on you that you would like to see today and see if as your life has changed, and their lives have changed would you still love them? Until next week happy page…

Last week we talked about books that we had heard a lot of hype about and that disappointed us, so I thought this week we’d discuss the books that got a lot of hype and we loved! A few years back I was seeing a lot of stuff about Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard. Everyone was just raving about it, and it was in my TBR so I decided to go for it. Well, I absolutely loved it! If I were a keeper I would have kept Mr. Perfect. All these years later I can’t tell you anything specific about Mr. Perfect, but I do remember thinking it had the perfect combination of suspense, romance, and humor. There are of course other books I’ve read because of the hype and loved but Mr. Perfect is the one that sticks in my mind because it’s one of the rare books that the DFW Readers all agree on. So what book did you read and enjoy because of the hype? Until next week happy page turning! Sandi Shilhanek DFW Tea ReadersReaders ‘n ‘ritas… celebrating literary obsessions Click here to read more… Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

This last Wednesday our book dinner group got together. As always is there any better way to forget the horrors of the day job than by getting together with some of your closest friends to discuss not only the book or author of the night, but also what made the day so horrific. This time our author of the hour was Linda Howard. Of course who can resist Linda Howard and the chance to visit with her even if it’s over the phone, so we had new members to join our group for dinner. Overall the group tried really hard to be on their best behavior so that the newbies wouldn’t be scared off. I would say that for the most part we were very well behaved, though I can only behave for so long before I just have to blurt something! O.K. I digress Linda Howard was awesome. How could she not have been? I think it’s really hard to find an author who really appeals to a group as diverse as ours, and if I remember correctly everyone in the group had something they wanted to ask or just tell Linda. Every time I leave the book dinner…