1–What is the title of your latest release? MURDER AT PRIMROSE COTTAGE 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? When Flora Steele sets off for a peaceful vacation, the last thing she expects to find is a body in her cottage garden, or to feel her safety threatened as she uncovers long-hidden secrets from the wartime past. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? Flora owns a bookshop in a small Sussex village called Abbeymead in the south of England, and most of her adventures take place in that area. In this third book in the mystery series, though, she is on holiday in Cornwall, a county I know well. It’s a magical place, with magnificent landscape and a stunning coastline. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? I would! Flora is a feisty girl, courageous and hardworking, who confronts the barriers facing women in the 1950s with energy and humor. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Lanky, laconic, caring. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? How involved Cornwall was in the Second World War, particularly in preparations for the D-Day invasion. 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait…

The month of romance conjures up thoughts of candy, cards, sweethearts, and gifts.  But for women who have historically struggled to make a place for themselves that isn’t defined or restricted by men, a truly sweet treat is to read uplifting stories of women who struggled–and succeeded–in expanding the narrow roles thrust upon them, striking out to master new ventures. In Karen J. Hasley’s WAITING FOR HOPE, a girl from a San Francisco brothel escapes the past to establish a new life and a new identity in the beauty of the wilderness.  After inheriting land and a cabin, Hope Birdwell sets off for 1905 Wyoming Territory, determined to succeed as a homesteader.  There she meets the Davis family, who offer her friendship and assistance, and John Thomas, a man in whom she might just be able to believe.  But when a brutish man from her past tracks her down, threatening all she’s grown to love, it will require all her courage and ingenuity to defeat his menace and emerge victorious. We meet another strong heroine determined to create a new life for herself in LOVE OF FINISHED YEARS by Gregory Erich Phillips.  After arriving at Ellis Island in 1905, German…