Hello dear readers and thank you for joining me on Fresh Fiction. Today I’d like to introduce you to the five siblings at Calhouns Customs Garage. Nurturing this family to life on the page has been an exciting and frustrating journey. They’re a sexy, moody, complicated and daring bunch. Poor dad, Marty, had his hands full raising them. But here they are, all grown up. He has one last parental responsibility as Parkinson’s Disease begins to steal his independence. Ex-Nascar race king, Marty Calhoun, has built a legacy for his family, and now it’s time to round them up and bring them home to claim it.  Each of his five children have hearts in need of overhauling. They all have hard lessons to learn. The one thing Marty wants most is to see his children find happiness and love at Calhoun Customs Garage. Chase Chase stars in book 1, Overdrive. He’s the eldest. This hero had to grow up fast. With five kids under ten and having lost his wife in childbirth, Marty needed help. Chase stepped up to the plate, earning himself the nickname of ‘Mother’. He cares for his siblings, watches over them, and runs the family garage…

Well, finally, the village is assembled! Is my shopping done? No. How about baking/cooking? Ah, no. Do I have any idea what I’m wearing to the holiday parties this weekend? Definitely not. But the village–the porcelain, hand-painted, Victorian-era, more-expensive-every-year, oversized project is up, so Christmas is officially here. Wendy’s Christmas Village I’m not one of those people who are constantly evaluating and redoing my house. I know those who strive to have every stick of furniture and accessory in place, whose homes are showplaces of decorating magnificence. They’re proud–and have every right to be–of their talents in coordination, cutting-edge style and color. Me? I move in, scatter stuff around and nod. That’ll work for a good decade. So Christmas is the only time I putter and angst over coordinating colors, greenery, ornaments, lights, hiding electrical cords and, ah yes, that crazy, precious village. Like all loyal children, I blame my mother. She started my collection when my husband and I were first married over seventeen years ago. When my kids were little, I let them hang whatever ornaments they wanted on the tree any which way. They shook packages with glee. But touch Mama’s village? That was a line nobody…

To celebrate the release of The Marriage Recipe, out this month from Harlequin American Romance, I’m celebrating a month of home cooking and made-from-scratch recipes. My heroine is a chef and the hero a lawyer (and also a single-engine pilot). Toss in falling in love with the boy-next-door and the girl who longs to return to the bright lights of the big city, you have a recipe for some craziness, kisses, and love. Writing The Marriage Recipe was a lot of fun. One of the most important areas of character development is what the characters eat and drink. Seriously. If I’m writing a character who’s from New Orleans, I bet he or she has had crawfish. If not, what does that say about him or her? My characters located in St. Louis eat toasted ravioli and gooey butter cake; while in Morrisville, where my characters live, they would drink “pop,” not soda. Knowing regional food tastes and verbiage helps build a character in subtle ways. This is why I always set my books in places I’ve lived or visited. That way they come across as real. Setting is also another character—could you imagine Pretty Woman taking place in Chicago instead…