Hi, Ann Marie! Welcome to Fresh Fiction and congrats on the release of your new book, HAPPY SINGLES DAY. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.   Hi, and thanks for having me! As for a little bit about me, I live in Chicago, have four kids and a Morkie named Chewbacca. I love cocktails that, as my daughter said, taste like Sour Patch Kids and I would pretty much walk through fire for chocolate. Can you set up the Hashtag Holidays series for us? This is such a fun concept!  Basically, it’s a series of standalone novels that all center around those fun hashtag holidays we always see on social media. #SinglesDay, #LeapDay, and #BoyfriendDay are the ones I chose for the first three novels. I love that Paige and Lucas have such niche jobs—she’s a professional organizer and he owns a B&B. What inspired these occupation choices?   For Lucas, his occupation was dictated by the story. I needed a destination for Paige’s Singles Day vacation and what could be better than a beachfront B&B run by a Ryan Reynolds look-a-like? Except he’s become a bit of a slob since his wife passed away, which is how…

Strange Holidays This is an unprecedented year, isn’t it? Here in London, we are in a newly declared complete shutdown. The streets have gone silent under the strings of Christmas lights.  We had tickets for a Pantomime performance, which is a big English thing that I do not understand and so thought we would explore. But, cancelled. We were going to take a drive in the country around Christmas and enjoy the traditional landscape. But we’re not supposed to leave the area. No farflung trips either, obviously. So it’s really home for the holidays this year! Our neighborhood is fairly empty and feels safe. Also we have food and warmth and lots of stuff to watch on various streaming platforms. Thank you, Roku! I’ve had Zoom visits with friends. Ebooks are a blessing. A few keystrokes, and there’s a new story ready to carry me away. What would we do without those? (I really don’t know!) We feel healthy and are grateful. Still, it seems like time to consider all the ways to be cozy and festive while staying in. The Spanish heroine of my new book EARL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is comforted and reminded of her lost homeland by familiar…

Hi all! I’m Eliza Knight and I’m so thrilled to be here with you all sharing a wee bit about my new book TRULY MADLY PLAID with the Title Challenge. When Annie is tasked with healing her brother’s best friend of his wounds, she knows it’s a forbidden love she should not want… Yet she cannot stop the deep yearning for the man she knows she could never have… T is for true love of course <3 What romance is complete without it? But also, for temptation for Annie is the forbidden fruit Craig cannot want to have… R is for romance, sigh… And the happily ever after that comes from it. U is for Up-all-night, which is what every writer secretly hopes their books keep you, lol L is for loyalty, which Annie and Craig hold to a high standard. They are in this fight for their country and intend to win. Y is for YES, as in Craig knowing he shouldn’t want his best friend’s sister, but oh yes does he want her… * M is for MacLean, as in Craig MacLean, Highland hottie and hero of this book! A is for Annie, our badass heroine who is…

1–What’s the name of your latest release?  THE STORMBRINGER What is it about? A fantasy world that’s rebuilt after an apocalypse and is now in danger again, three people trying to reconcile the past with their current situation, and the value of standing together against oncoming threats. What word best describes your heroine?  Pragmatic. What makes your hero irresistible?  Amris combines a slightly old-fashioned formality with the ability to accept people for who they are–and blends a sense of honor with a sense of humor. Who are the people your main characters turn to when they need help? That’s a good question! Both Darya and Amris are fairly isolated: Darya by her role as a Sentinel, Amris by not being in his own time any longer. Darya has Emeth and Katrine, as well as other Sentinels that she’s friends with, but they aren’t in the same place most of the time. She and Amris both are generally closest to Gerant, which makes their relationship very awkward.  What do you love about the setting of your book?  The mythology is near and dear to my heart: a good spider goddess, a good goddess of death and vengeance as well as love…

Hi, Sue! Welcome to Fresh Fiction. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your new romantic suspense novel, WALKING THE EDGE.   Thank you for the welcome. I’ve written romance a very long time and have always loved mystery and suspense and New Orleans, starting when I attended kindergarten at a historical mansion on the edge of the French Quarter. After college (in New Orleans) and eight months’ reprieve (in Greece) I worked at various, assorted careers until retirement. Finally, I’m able to devote all my time to writing, and it’s heaven.      In WALKING THE EDGE a handsome, ex-army sniper turned bail recovery agent must trust a beautiful ghost tour guide to find his fugitive, the beauty’s younger brother—before the clock strikes midnight on Mardi Gras. Where did the idea for the Danger in the Big Easy series come from? What kind of research did you do for this first book?  I liked the idea of a group of brothers all fighting for justice. As for research, I drew on a lifetime of living and working in New Orleans. I often fantasized about the old houses near Bayou St. John and reworked one to be the hero’s home. When I…

Hi, Julie Ann! Welcome back to Fresh Fiction. Please tell us about yourself and your new book, RIDE THE TIDE.  Holla Fresh Fictioners! It’s so good to be back! My name is Julie Ann Walker, I’m the NYT and USA Today bestselling author of steamy, sexy romantic suspense novels and epic love stories that will melt your heart. (Or at least that’s what I TRY to write. Ha! I guess I’ll leave it up to you guys to determine whether or not I hit my mark.) I have a mutt named Conan who suffers from allergies, howls at sirens, and would love to FINALLY catch a squirrel. And I’ve travelled to over 50 countries because I suffer from more than my fair share of wanderlust. For readers who aren’t familiar with the Deep Six series, can you catch us up to speed on what’s been going on?  Deep Six is a romantic suspense and adventure series set on a fictional island in the Gulf of Mexico. It follows six “retired” Navy SEALs as they hunt for the lost treasure of the world’s holy grail of sunken shipwrecks, the Santa Cristina. The series tagline is: Six men. One sunken Spanish galleon….

Each time I come to the last book of a series I’m overcome with sadness. I’ve spent a long while with these characters, and in this case, the fictional town I built from an outlaw hideout. I’m one of them. I know their deepest desires and what they dream of. Over the many months, they burrowed into my soul and became a part of my fabric. In a way it’s as though family members have died, leaving behind nothing but cherished memories. After four books in the Outlaw Mail Order Brides series, there are a lot of small details and threads to wrap up, details readers will get perturbed at if I leave something hanging. The story has to end in a totally believable way which means nothing so far out it seems beyond the realm of reason. It has to be plausible and it has to be filled with deep emotion. Some things I can tie off during the writing of the last book but others that can only be done with an epilogue, especially if it involves the future. In ONCE UPON A MAIL ORDER BRIDE, I wrote an epilogue because that seemed the best way to complete the…

1–What’s the name of your latest release?  Wolf Untamed 2–What is it about?  Wolf Untamed is the 11th book in the Special Wolf Alpha Team series. In this story, Officer Diego Miguel Martinez and his SWAT team of werewolves have been dealing with a city gone mad. People are behaving strangely, committing violent crimes out of the blue, without even remembering it. Is it delirium–a new drug supposedly flooding the streets–or is it something much more terrifying? Bree Harlow is dealing with issues of her own. Her ex-husband was sent to prison and her son, Brandon, has been struggling. He’s been acting out and getting into more and more trouble, and Bree has no clue what to do next. When she takes him out for breakfast at their favorite diner, hoping to get him to open up about what’s wrong, the situation takes a drastic turn after someone walks into the place with a gun. As Diego and some of the other members of the SWAT team show up to help, Bree’s life is sent careening down a completely unexpected path. Bree’s son is definitely dealing with some big issues, just not the issues she assumed. 3–What word best describes…

Hi, Sarah! Welcome back to Fresh Fiction. Please tell us about yourself and your new book, MISTLETOE AND MR. RIGHT. Thanks for having me back! My name’s Sarah Morgenthaler, and I write romantic comedy and contemporary romance. MISTLETOE AND MR. RIGHT is my Alaskan Christmas romcom set in the fictional town of Moose Springs.     This is the second book in the Moose Springs, Alaska series. What do you love about creating this town and its inhabitants?   I’ve had a blast creating Moose Springs. The residents are so quirky and fun to write. They’re very loyal to each other, and even more loyal to the land and to the wildlife in their community. It’s a close-knit place full of love. (They just don’t love all the tourists coming to town!)       What did you do to get into the holiday spirit while writing this novel, even when it wasn’t the holidays?   One of my good writer friends suggested I buy a Christmas-themed candle. Burning that while writing worked great for setting the scene! I also played lots of Christmas music while writing and looked at pictures of winter scenes.     Lana Montgomery has big plans to improve…

I love fall, though in coastal Texas the fall isn’t as grand as it is in other areas of the States. Still, I photograph leaves that have turned wherever I can find them. And when I went to Omaha in October, I was able to photograph fall colors too. Even in Central Texas at the zoo, the colorful leaves reflected in the water in November. I can pull up pictures I’ve taken in Scotland in September and Minnesota in the fall too and enjoy them when I can’t see them here. I love the fall colors. They make me feel good when the heat can still hang around for quite a while where I live, and I’m looking so forward to getting some cool-downs at least at night and in the mornings. When we lived in Oklahoma, we used to drive along the Talimena National Scenic Byway in fall where the leaves were gorgeous. But when I lived in New Jersey, after having lived in Texas and Florida, I was astounded by the brilliance of the autumn foliage. I love to decorate with fall leaves and fall items–like a sign that says, “Fall in Love.” It has fall leaves on…