Must-Haves for Writing a Book by Allison B. Hanson An idea. Prepare for all the ways the ideas will come to you so you’re prepared. Ideas never come when you’re ready for them. Four o’clock in the morning ideas: Keep a tablet next to bed so you can jot down these gems. Note: the recording device on your phone might also work if you are especially good at translating Drunken Wookie. Shower ideas: Keep a washable marker in the shower. Note: do not use red. When the water makes it bleed down the shower it might scare other family members. At work ideas: Send the idea to yourself in the form of an email while also trying to pay attention to the meeting. Note: do not offer anything in the meeting, just nod and hope for the best. Dinner with friends ideas: Make sure to keep your voice low in the restaurant so other diners do not think you are really planning a murder in the next booth. Snacks. Nutritional snacks: to fuel you when you’re deep into an idea and don’t have time for actual meals. Candy: just because. You should never pass up a chance to eat candy….

WRITES: I write psychological thrillers that include romance (is romantic psychological thrillers a thing? If it is, that’s what I’m writing) plus a dash of paranormal. Basically what I love to explore is the idea of “things are not as they seem.” Is it a haunting? Or is there something else going on? Or … could it be both? My latest book IT BEGAN WITH A LIE is a perfect example of a few of my fave things coming together as it includes a haunted house (that may not be haunted) in a creepy “Twins Peak” like town with a love triangle just to spice things up. ABOUT AUTHOR: I taught myself to read at 3 years old because I wanted to write stories so badly. I’m a voracious reader of all types of genres (which is likely why I love nothing more then genre bending in my own books). I grew up in Wisconsin (and, so far, all of my books have take place there) but now live in the mountains of Arizona (and one day I hope to have a book take place here) with my hubby of twenty-plus years (!) and southern squirrel hunter, Cassie. WHAT I’M…

by Annetta Sweetko Nora Roberts’ SHELTER IN PLACE will pull out every emotion inside you and leave you speechless. That is precisely what happened to me. Very rarely does a book hold me in its spell like this one did and even fewer keep me reading until 3 a.m. SHELTER IN PLACE is divided into three parts with the first taking place 14 years prior with “Innocence Lost.” In this part we begin with three girlfriends at the mall going to the movies, though Simone Knox’s heart isn’t into it as her boyfriend of seven months had just dumped her. Simone had no idea what true devastation really meant until that night. Reed Quartermaine worked at the mall, but at the time was currently trying to get Angie to go on a date with him. He receives a maybe for the late movie, so he is happy and then it happens. Gunfire, people screaming, running. Simone in the bathroom hides and calls 911, Reed going back to work is in the midst of the chaos and finds himself inside of a kiosk with a lost little boy and calling 911 with Angie’s blood on his shoes. Life changes for so…

This summer, my publisher, MIRA, put out my new trilogy—Red Hot Lies, Red Blooded Murder, and Red, White & Dead—back to back to back. Meaning, the first one came out in June, the second in July and the third on August 1. It’s tricky enough to promote one book (in a market where book reviews and articles are declining), so we assumed it would be even trickier to try and promote three. Actually the opposite has been true. My publicist, Tom, is a former newspaper man with a southern drawl that drips over his always-kind words. When a magazine tells him, “Oh, sorry, we won’t be able to cover Red Hot Lies in our July magazine. We already put the issue to bed,” he says in that sweet voice, “Ah, don’t worry about it. We’ve got two more books in the series. I’ll send ‘em out to you.” Another amazing thing about a quick release trilogy is reader feedback. I get to hear what readers think about the love interests in the book. I get to find out whether they’re satisfied with the ending, what they’d like to see in the next book and the next. And I get to…

At the 2008 Romance Writers of America conference, a talented and prolific author entertained and informed attendees as a luncheon keynote speaker. We delighted in her anecdote concerning her husband. Relating that he had never read a single one of her impressive body of published novels, she declared that she always made a point to kill somebody in each of her books with her husband’s first name. The moral of her story for us is: real men should read romance for their overall health, oh yes, and enjoyment. Our contention is not as tongue in cheek as it sounds. Men are, of course, half the equation in the yin and yang of traditional romance genres. Our heroes yearn for equal measures of romantic fulfillment and personal happily ever after conclusions as do our heroines. Sensuality, present in varying degrees in romance, isn’t as tantalizing and stimulating to the…imagination…for men? Our virile husbands are delighted (forced) to read our books. In fact one of our husbands brought our latest release on a men only long weekend in the deep woods. By day, he and his friends blazed trails on ATV’s, fished and threw their catches back in the lake, canoed, hiked,…

Thanks so much for inviting me to blog! I have to tell you that this is my first time. Yes, (blush), I’m a blog virgin. But I’m so excited about the books I have coming out this month that I jumped at the chance to write about them. First up, on March 24th, is my hardcover romantic thriller, Pursuit, which Booklist said was “tense and erotic” (I love that: erotic!). PW described Pursuit as “exciting…action-packed…and sure to please” and RTBookReviews called it “red-hot.” Then, on March 31st, the paperback edition of my previous hardcover, Guilty, which Booklist called “truly a pleasure” hits the bookstores. If you like my books, I think you’ll love these. I know I loved writing them. Oh, and I have a great new contest on my web-site. Enter and win a free signed book! Click to read the rest of Karen’s blog and to leave a comment. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

Have you ever been caught by the scent of something that takes you immediately back to a particular time or place in your memory? Roasted marshmallows. Zing! You’re ten years old at summer camp. Did you know that baby powder is one of the all-time favorite scents, which is why it’s been made into a perfume? Our sense of smell is the only one of our senses that bypasses the conscious part of our brain and connects directly with our primitive emotional region. The place where our sexual feelings emerge. And our sense of danger. This is a key issue in APHRODISIAC, the first book in our romantic suspense series featuring Brooklyn sex therapist, Saylor Oz. Along with the idea that most people have a deep down secret wish to experience what it is like to be irresistible to the opposite sex. None of us is perfect, and in a society inundated with super-gorgeous media celebrities, that idea can plague even the most sensible, intelligent men and women (especially if you add in some major disses form high school). Enter our height-challenged heroine, Saylor Oz, who grew up with the revolting nickname, “the munchkin.” She may be small, but don’t…

I’m delighted to be a guest on the Fresh Fiction blog today and appreciate the chance to tell y’all about my latest romantic suspense novel from Zebra. COLD HEARTED, which hits the shelves tomorrow, actually began with a comment my editor made. “Have you ever thought about writing a book with a black widow heroine?” No, I hadn’t; but the idea intrigued me so much that I could think of little else. However, Jordan Price is no ordinary black widow. Her late husband’s brother hires a private detective, Rick Carson, to prove Senator Dan Price did not commit suicide. Rick immediately assumes Jordan is a cold hearted bitch who is capable of murder; but he soon realizes that those who know her best think of her as a saint. Rick, who works for the Powell Agency, headed by Nic and Griff Powell (THE MURDER GAME), is torn between his physical attraction to the lovely, young widow and his suspicion that she is a clever, ruthless murderer. The deeper he digs into Jordan’s past, the more dead bodies show up – a first husband, a former fiancé, and an old boss, to name a few. Jordan had profited handsomely from each…

People ask me why I decided to set a new series in Montana. After all, I’ve pretty much settled into New Orleans. Well, the truth of the matter was that I wanted a new, fresh extremely different locale for LEFT TO DIE and the books that follow in the series. I figured a small podunk fictional town like Grizzly Falls was nearly a one-eighty in atmosphere from the French Quarter or Garden District of the Crescent City. I wanted away from the southern bayous and into the mountains of the west. What I didn’t expect was the new characters and how I’d come to love them. I’m a small town girl at heart–born and raised in a tiny timber town in Oregon–and so the back-woodsy rural part was natural. But the characters, wow. First of all the heroine, Jillian Rivers is on the warpath, trying to find out if her first husband, the one whom she thought died in the jungles of South American, the jerk who left her holding the bag when he disappeared and owed tons of investors money, might be alive. Then there’s the hero, Zane MacGregor, a loner’s loner, sexy as hell and once charged with…