Excerpt from Archangel’s Lineage by Nalini Singh   The pathways were filled with angels and senior vampires dressed with immortal grandeur. The sumptuous beauty of it was undeniable. More than one person shot a glance their way, but no one approached them. “Naasir, are you glaring at people?” A silver-eyed look over his shoulder, his expression so austere you’d never know that beneath his skin lurked a playfulness feral and unique. “I’m just looking extremely serious.” Andi, her arm tucked into his, glanced back at them. “He’s being his most grim-faced self.” A whisper. “I am terrified.” Leaning down, Naasir nipped at the tip of her ear with sharp tiger-creature teeth. Andi yelped, then hit him on the chest with no force at all before leaning into him, her hand curled around his biceps. The two were ridiculously adorable, even if Naasir still refused to tell Elena his exact species. Oh, and everyone else thought it was just hilarious that she didn’t know. Ha! “Ellie! Ellie! Up here!” The hail came from one of the houses that lined the edge of the gorge, the voice small and bright. “Teacher Jessamy! You look pretty!” When Elena glanced up to the second…

(Author’s note: As the scene begins, the characters are about to go through a previously concealed door at the back of the pitch-black room in which they’re standing. The only light comes from two flashlights.) Unlike Aaron, I wasn’t so sure that I could trust all of my friends. Poor Grace. She didn’t even know most of us that well, and she was now stuck with us in a house straight out of a gothic novel. Wanting to hurry this up for her and for myself, I flashed the beam of my light at the spot I thought I’d seen a door. Air rushed out of me. “There it is.” “Did you see these bookshelves?” Grace said from my right at the same time. She pulled out a slim volume as Aaron went to check the door handle. “It’s in Latin,” she muttered, sliding it back while I was still digesting the fact that she could make out anything in this light. “I think I recognized the word ‘demon’ from school.” I wanted to ask what kind of school taught Latin in this day and age, then remembered that she’d been educated at boarding schools in Europe. Answer had to…

Exclusive Excerpt from RESONANCE SURGE by Nalini Singh   Yakov stepped back. “Guess I’m jumping the gate after all.” Theo’s entire body tensed, her gaze jerking to the spikes, then back to him. Her hand lifted on the instinctive urge to grab him, stop him. “Hey.” Eyes kissed by amber meeting Theo’s. “Bears aren’t as clumsy as we look. We only run into things fifty percent of the time.” “Be careful of the spikes.” Theo didn’t realize she’d risen onto her toes until she settled back down. “They aren’t decoration and you are a bear. My source on changelings states that bears constantly overestimate their ability to be graceful.” He didn’t need to know that her source was Wild Woman magazine. A sudden grin from Yakov that made her stomach clench. “Watch this,” he said, then jogged back several meters before running full tilt at the gate. Her mouth fell open as he hauled himself up with a power and speed she’d never have expected from a bear changeling. Close to the top, he all but vaulted over the spikes and came to a firm landing on both feet on the grassy and cracked drive on the other side. Wild…

Excerpt from Archangel’s Resurrection by Nalini Singh Copyright © 2022   Alexander was already a seasoned member of a junior squadron under Akhia-Solay when he graduated to adulthood at a hundred years of age. Callie, having hit the century milestone before him, was also well established—as an angelic courier for another court. Not Rumaia’s, for Callie was too clever not to see the fetid corrosion of that court. No, she flew under the banner of Archangel Sha-yi, she who was old enough to be termed an Ancient, and who had eyes so deep and wise that even Alexander found himself unsettled around her. “You’re not in a squadron?” he’d asked when Callie first told him of her position. “Every fledgling warrior that joins my sire’s court must first serve a decade as a courier alongside our usual physical training,” she’d explained. “It’s to ensure that we know all flight paths inside out, and have scouted our own emergency landing sites when it comes to the longer flights over water.” Struck by the importance of both pieces of knowledge, Alexander made sure to volunteer as a courier for his court when the call went out. And he didn’t only take from…

1–What is the title of your latest release? STORM ECHO 2–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The Psy-Changeling series encompasses multiple settings. This time around, I knew we were heading into the territory of the DarkRiver leopard changelings: San Francisco and the surrounding area. The series hasn’t been back in San Francisco for some time, so it was wonderful to return and see glimpses of several familiar characters. I originally chose SF (and more widely, California) as a setting because I’d recently traveled through it, and it just felt right for this series. It has sprawling landscapes, big cities, rivers, mountains, deserts, everything you need for both the shapeshifting changelings as well as the more city-based humans and Psy. I also particularly loved the energy of SF’s Chinatown, and it just worked its way seamlessly into the series – which it does this time around too, with a major scene taking place in the heart of Chinatown. 3–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Absolutely! She’s fun, deeply caring, a loyal friend, and has a wildly colorful style. 4–What are three words that describe your hero? Cool, controlled, devoted. 5–Do you…

by Debbie Wiley I miss attending book conventions. I’ve been lucky enough to attend quite a few in Orlando, Florida over the years, including Romantic Times (now known as the Booklovers Convention), RWA, and the Shameless Book Con. Memories of attending RT and RWA with my mom often pop in my head when reading certain authors because some of those authors are ones my mom introduced me to  their books when I was a teenager. Nora Roberts and Jayne Ann Krentz will always be loved by me not only for their books, but for the memories Mom and I are even now still making as we share a love for their writing.  Just this morning, Mom and I were chatting about the time she met Nora Roberts at RT. Her hands were shaking as she clenched a book in her hands hoping to meet Nora Roberts and get a signature- and she did, making a memory that lasts even now when she’s not as mobile and Covid has her stuck in her home most of the time. Books can tie us together in more ways than stories, but here are a few recent books from authors Mom and I have…

“I’ve never known why he did it,” Sharine said, and right then, she was magnificent in her cold anger. “If I ever see him again, I will ask him—if I can stop myself from first stabbing out his eyes.” Titus approved of her bloodthirsty need for vengeance. “I think at times, that I should release the anger,” she said, “that my vengeance should be to erase him from my thoughts.” “You can erase his face and his eyes instead,” Titus muttered. “And release your anger in his flesh.” It would still not be enough. An unexpected burst of that astonishing laughter that was sunshine falling in a rain over him. He clenched his gut against the glory of it. If he’d thought her beautiful before. . . well, if the Hummingbird was beautiful, Sharine with her blade of a tongue and golden laughter was extraordinary. Fighting the urge to touch her, this being beyond his reach, he said, “Am I to take it that you have no more feelings for the blue-green donkey?” He had to break the moment, break his entrancement. “If you are pining for him, admit it now so that I can smite you for bad taste.” “Smite me?”…

I love a magical first meeting between a hero and heroine in romance, but there’s a lot to be said for a story with two main characters with a shared history together. I’m always intrigued by these kinds of stories but I’m very particular. Some readers love an abundance of drama and angst. I usually prefer lighter fare with a minimum of angst. Of course, there are always exceptions that prove the rule. One of my favorite authors is Lorraine Heath and her stories are often littered with characters who have tangled and passion-filled histories together and a few bad decisions under their belts. However, Heath masterfully and almost inexplicably wraps things up and any angst is deliciously painful rather than tedious. If I can’t root for a couple to iron out their issues and get together, I give up on the story. In this article, I discuss some books with characters who have a past, but who don’t let their past determine their future. In SHE LOVES ME by Melissa Foster, Piper Dalton and Harley Dutch are BFFs who are thrown together when Harley is injured and Piper comes to look after him. Melissa Foster dispenses with typical gender…

Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Nalini! Can you tell us a little bit about your latest novel, A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE?  A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE is my debut thriller. Set in an isolated town on New Zealand’s rugged and stunningly beautiful West Coast, it’s about all the different faces people wear, all the secrets we keep, and how well we ever know one another. The New Zealand landscape is an integral character in the book, a place that’ll take your breath away…and a place so wild and empty that bodies could disappear without a trace. A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE marks a change of genre for you! What inspired this change to write a thriller? Did you find anything surprisingly different than writing paranormal romance? I’ve always enjoyed mysteries and thrillers, and many of my paranormal romances have a mystery element or subplot. So it wasn’t a huge shift to write a pure mystery – it was more a case of having the right story and the right setting. Anahera Rawiri left her small New Zealand hometown of Golden Cove eight years ago, but returns to find things similar, but with some frustrating differences. What does her return home mean to Anahera?…

I blame Fred Astaire. Years of listening to records entranced by the sublime staccato of his tap dancing made me naturally inclined toward a hero who can keep a good beat. There are a lot of romance novels featuring rock stars of every type. While reading Brooklyn Ann‘s recent book TEMPTING BEAT, I began thinking about just how many of my favorite books have diverting and delicious drummer heroes. “For life can be delish With a sunny disposish” Ira Gershwin “You know, you can be kind of intense sometimes, Malcolm Ericson. You come across as this happy-go-lucky-type dude most of the time, but you are in fact a man of many layers.” —PLAY by Kylie Scott I love a charming and witty hero. Mal Ericson, from Kylie Scott’s Stage Dive series, is the first drummer hero I read about. It’s easy to see immediately why Mal, a fan favorite, is still talked about years after his book PLAY came out. Mal’s manic energy, good humor, and highly amusing sexual confidence is vastly entertaining. Anne Rollins is fighting a losing battle trying to resist Mal’s charm once he picks her to be his fake girlfriend. Over the course of PLAY, Anne…