1–What is the title of your latest release? JANE AND THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Jane Austen stumbles over a body while vacationing in the spa town of Cheltenham, and solves the murder with the help of dishy painter Raphael West. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? This is the 14th book in the long-running Jane Austen Mystery Series, which follows the famous author’s life. We’ve reached 1816, which has gone down in history as the Year Without a Summer, because a volcanic eruption in Indonesia had a global impact on climate that caused relentless rain and worldwide famine. Eeek! It’s the same summer that Mary Shelley famously wrote Frankenstein because she was stuck indoors with Lord Byron, telling ghost stories around the fire in wretched July weather. Jane took a trip to the party town of Cheltenham in late May, 1816, so I set the book there. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Absolutely. I’ve been hanging with Jane for 26 years, now, sending her on all sorts of bloody and intriguing adventures. I love her viciously funny way with words,…

For your Valentine gift this year, I’m offering up an in-depth fictional look at four fascinating women who defied the rules of their time to live life on their own terms, bringing them fame, notoriety, love, and heartbreak. Moving chronologically, we begin with THAT CHURCHILL WOMAN by Stephanie Barron.  When beautiful, willful, wealthy Jennie Jerome, who grew up in Gilded Age Newport and Second Empire Paris, agrees to marry the son of a duke she’s known for just three days, she’s thrust into the maelstrom of British politics and society. The husband of the new Lady Randolph Churchill is a member of the Marlborough House Set, well-born men seeking political rank and fortune.  As a charming but free-thinking American skeptical of British social rules, Jennie quickly wins both admirers—and enemies.  Mother of one of the twentieth century’s most important men, she works to further her husband’s Parliamentary career while remaining true to herself.  And when, as tragic illness loosens her husband’s grip on sanity, she falls in love with compelling diplomat Count Charles Kinsky, she must decide how much destruction she’s willing to risk to follow her heart. The Churchill story continues with LADY CLEMENTINE by Marie Benedict, which gives…