Check out all the books in September’s Fresh Fiction Box Not to Miss. Every box included SOMETHING LIKE HAPPY by Eva Woods. Selection Something Like Happy by Eva Woods With wry wit and boundless heart, Eva Woods delivers an unforgettable tale of celebrating triumphs great and small, seizing the day, and always remembering to live in the moment. “It’s simple, really. You’re just meant to do one thing every day that makes you happy. Could be Read More »   Selection Fault Lines by Thomas Locke Security expert Charlie Hazard is rarely thrown off balance until he meets an experimental psychologist who convinces him to join her research team on a thrill ride that will test him to the limit–and leave him wondering if any of them will survive. As a security expert, Charlie Hazard Read More »   Selection Chasing Secrets by Lynette Eason Elite Guardians bodyguard Haley Callaghan may be in South Carolina, but when a photo leads investigators in West Ireland to open a twenty-five-year-old cold case, her life is suddenly in danger. Haley knows how to take care of herself; after all, she’s made a career out Read More » A Riveting, Intense, and Thought-provoking Murder Mystery   Selection…

How do you measure that which is not quantitative?  My husband, Tim Barney, and I are on tour with our new book, IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET.  We were here at Fresh Fiction last month.  And last week, a ‘tour mate’ asked if there was a way for us to know if we’re doing what we set out to do.  Is the tour working?  Is the book working? It’s not a question I’ve ever heard from a reader before.  As a reader, I’ve never once wondered such a thing. As an author, I ask that question every single time I put words to paper.  My editors and the marketing and sales and art departments that all have a hand in the creation of my books never stop asking that question.  For the publishing professionals, there is a quantitative answer.  For a lot of them, there is only one scale upon which they judge — did the book sell well?  For them, it’s all about the numbers. For my editors it’s more than that, of course, but ultimately, they, too care if the book sells well or not.  The sales of a book they’ve purchased and worked on reflect on them…

I’m so glad to be back with Sara and Gwen and Faye and everyone here at Fresh Fiction.  My husband, Tim Barney, and I are on a fifty stop original post blog tour, and a physical tour as well for our new book, IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET.  We’re having all kinds of new experiences and are very grateful for every one of them, but it just plain feels good to be someplace familiar!  In celebration of our return to Fresh Fiction, we’re giving away a copy of IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET to one of today’s commenters. IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET is a very unique book.  It’s marketed as romance fiction.  And it’s a true story.  I am a romance writer.  And I wrote my true life story in the form of one of my fiction novels.  As we travel, we’re hearing some of the same questions over and over and today I’m going to answer the three at the top of the list! First:  How much of the story is true? Almost all of it.  As in with films based on true stories, some of the names and circumstances have been changed, but not many of them. …

Tim Barney was the first boy I ever dated. The first boy I ever kissed. I met him when I was eighteen — a freshman in college. I’d never been on a date. Didn’t go to high school proms or dances or hang out at parties. I read Harlequin romances. I worked. I wrote. And then, in geology class in 1977, I met Tim. I fell so hard and so fast and had so little experience, I was completely out of my element. Tim broke my heart. Twenty-seven years later, when I was living in emotional isolation, Tim sent me an email. He wondered if I remembered him. He claimed that I broke his heart back in college. Did I remember him? A girl doesn’t forget her first kiss. Or her only true love. And as for breaking his heart, I didn’t think so. But twenty seven years had passed. Life had taken its toll. For me, the price had been heavy. I’d been attacked by darkness. Lived in darkness. I wasn’t the same naïve young girl Tim had held in his arms all those years ago. HCI books heard about our story from an author friend of mine. This…

As I started this I was reflecting on the first day of Readers ‘n ‘ritas 2010. It was a rather full day that started at home. with attempts at prepping my home and family for a weekend without me. The dogs I think understood fairly well what was happening, but my son said, “you didn’t tell me you were going away for the weekend.” My response…”what do you think I’ve been talking about for the last several months?” Oh well! Got to the hotel and finished prep work for the actual convention. Finally the convention started, and while I worked registration it sounded like the party in the room behind me was in full swing. Thanks to a great team I was able to sneak in for a few minutes here and there, and got hugged by Dakota Cassidy, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Dianna Love. Could it get better than that? Well, for me it could. For several years now I’ve been fascinated with the works of Tara Taylor Quinn. Her current work is a four book series titled The Chapman Files. When Tara arrived I was pretty excited to be the first to greet her. I got a few minutes…

There are times in life when things happen that we couldn’t possible orchestrate. Things that take extraordinary circumstances to come to be. My father told me when I was little, and during all of my growing up years, that I could do anything I wanted to do, I could be anyone I wanted to be, as long as I put my mind to it and kept it there. And I have always believed that if I do all I can do, and keep my mind on what matters, then everything will fall into place as it needs to do. Not necessarily how I envisioned it, but as it needs to do. Right now, this fall, I am a living example of all of this. Circumstances were put into place, starting thirty years ago, and have culminated in a huge way. I couldn’t possibly have envisioned, or constructed the things that have come together, but I am accepting them and running with them just as fast as I can because I recognize that forces stronger than I am are at work here. From the time I was fourteen I knew that I had to write for Harlequin Books. I put my…

Life has a way of teaching me lessons. I’m thankful for that. I love to learn. I remember sitting in a religious gathering once where someone was talking about life after death. The speaker described paradise. In detail. Minutes and minutes of minute detail. Clearly he was intending to create an image of a place so fantastic, so magnificent, that anyone sitting in his audience would do whatever it took to be able to spend eternity in such a place. I sat there feeling more and more trapped. Because while I pictured myself in this magnificent place, floating, or whatever, in paradise, encased in love, living in a world without pain, I saw a major flaw. If I had all knowledge and understood all secrets as the man promised, I was going to be bored stiff! What was I going to do all day in paradise if I couldn’t keep learning? I crave learning more than I crave food. So, yes, I’m thankful for life’s lessons. I’m thankful I seem to be served them in abundance. It just takes me a little longer sometimes to feel the gratitude – and sometimes to get the message. I’m on a three month…

I love October. The summer heat is mostly gone. I no longer have to be up by 6:00am to take the dogs for a walk. The new TV season has started. I’ve been back at work for about 6 weeks, so everything has settled into a routine. I work in academia so I get to take some time off in the summer, something for which I am very appreciative. I must say, though, the transition back can be a little rough. “Meetings? I have to go to meetings? Really?” fades to “So, when’s the next meeting?” by October. The resentment I feel over the fact that work seriously cuts into my reading time has also eased by now. In the summer I like to beat the heat by lying in bed and reading. By October, I’ve relearned how to prioritize my reading, since I’m lucky to get time to read over lunch or before going to sleep. I made a point to take a sneak peak at two of this month’s new releases. THE 2nd LIE is the second book in The Chapman Files by Tara Taylor Quinn. The lynch pin of the series is psychologist Kelly Chapman, whose cases…

People always ask me where I get my ideas for stories. The second most asked question is ‘where do I get my characters?’ Generally the questions instill a measure of discomfort within me. Because the truth is hard to explain. Or maybe, I just don’t have enough faith that the answer will be well accepted. Or believed. And, after all, they’re aren’t many of us who want people to think we’re weird. My answer to both questions is usually some sort of vague ‘Oh, they’re just there.’ Not much of an answer, I know. And yet, it’s the complete truth. I don’t have a trunk in my attic filled with ideas, or people, or even costumes for people to wear. I don’t have a diary, or a ledger, where I make lists. I don’t go anywhere or look anyplace for the stories that fill my pages, or for the people who live and breath between the covers of my books. They’re just there. They always have been. I believe that the ideas, and the people who fulfill them, are given to me by a source that is greater than I am as an individual – given to me as a…

I’m currently living in a small town in the Midwest. I’m not really a small town girl. I have nothing against small towns; I’ve just always lived in cities. I feel at home in the city. I like having a lot of things going on around me. I like choices. Lots of choices. I’m a shopper and need the stimulation of many different stores within a short distance from me that I can wander into on the spur of the moment just to see and touch pretty things. I’m a people watcher and love knowing that every day when I go out into my world there will be many new people to observe, in many different walks of life, doing many different things. I need an international airport nearby so I can fly off to exotic places. And I like city living because of the anonymity. I can be out in the city and never be seen. Never be noticed. I can live in the city and not have anyone else in my business. You can imagine then, my culture shock, when I find myself living in my husband’s hometown, population 12,000. I’ve learned to love many things about small…