Hello everyone and thank you to Fresh Fiction for having me on their blog! I’m Ella Quinn and I write fun, smart, spicy Regencies. Normally, I’d talk about travel, but with the year we’ve had that would just be cruel. Here in Europe, even the vaccinated have to follow all the mask and social distancing mandates. So, let’s discuss research. As you can imagine, writing historical novels requires a great deal of research. Fortunately, I love it. Years and years ago, I’d get lost in the library stacks. I was majoring in Political Science, and I remember one time I found the letters of James Joyce to his wife just down the aisle from what I was researching at the time. My husband-to-be was in the Army and deployed, and for whatever reason Joyce influenced my letters (this was pre-email) to the man who has been my husband for thirty-seven years. But I digress, which in itself is part of doing research. For example, I write with the Oxford English Dictionary online open so that I can make sure that the words I use were used at that time and in the right context. Recently, I discovered that eyeglasses were…

It’s the final day of our Fall Recipe Potluck–we hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have, and you’ve learned about some great new books and collected all of these delicious recipes. Don’t forget! You can check back on the week’s posts for chances to win books by these awesome authors. Thanks for joining our potluck! We’ll be back with another recipe round-up soon. . . Day 1: SECOND CHANCE ON CYPRESS LAND by Reese Ryan Day 2: THE SECRET FRENCH RECIPES OF SOPHIE VALROUX by Samantha Verant Day 3: SIMMER DOWN by Sarah Smith Day 4: THE SECRET INGREDIENT by K.D. Fisher Day 5: AN AMISH COOKIE CLUB COURTSHIP by Sarah Price — The Sentimental Nostalgia of Amish Sweets! For most of us, September marks the end of summer. In general, life slows down from the chaotic schedule of shuffling children to camp, arranging family vacations, and coordinating neighborhood barbeques. Community pools close, local schools reopen (typically…although COVID has thrown us all for a loop), and the warm days give way to cooler nights. For the Amish, however, September brings a different change and faster pace of life into their daily routine. The advent of autumn brings…

My upcoming release, PIVOT, began with a novella I wrote sometime back, a Romantic Suspense titled Against the Heart.  Ian Brodie is the owner of the BOSS Inc. security firm, a tall, good-looking man, one of the Brodie cousins. In PIVOT, the adventure continues with novellas by bestselling Romantic Suspense authors, Alexandra Ivy and Rebecca Zanetti.  Alexandra and Rebecca tell the stories of teenage girls who became friends during their tough years in foster care. Now as women, they’re fighting for their lives again. When Meriwether Jones and her young daughter run from trouble, that trouble follows.  Her prayers are answered when ex-cop Ian Brodie hires her to help his aging father.  But Meri is keeping dangerous secrets–and Ian is in danger of losing his heart. Melanie Cassidy finds trouble when she tries to save a young boy from being kidnapped.  Working the case, former love-of-her-life, Detective Gray Hawkins, appears and rescues them both.  But her good-Samaritan efforts pull her and Gray into a world of drug dealers and dirty cops–and forces them to examine the relationship they’d abandoned. Michelle Peach is one of Meri’s closet friends.  Trouble arrives when two rough men in search of Meri break into her…

I’m a sucker for holiday stories. Movies, books, music…if it tells a story set around the holidays, I want to know more! Being a romance writer who celebrates hope and love with every book she writes, the happier the story the better. So I was thrilled when I was asked to write my first holiday novella back…oh, let’s just say a few years (okay, okay, fifteen years) ago. What could be more fun than getting to tell my very own holiday story? Well, it turns out that while it was a blast getting to dream up a fun little holiday adventure, writing a satisfying story when you only have one hundred pages to tell that holiday tale is a wee bit of a challenge! I’m used to having four times that many pages, and even then, there are always parts that I have to trim down or leave out altogether. How in the world was I going to pull this off?  Suddenly this Christmas present was starting to feel a bit more like a trick from the Grinch. With the help of a few brainstorming author pals and possibly munching my way through far more Christmas cookies than was wise…

Let’s talk about Expletives. “God’s Hooks””’Ods toes”“Piss ‘n nettles”“Christ-all-bleeding-mighty!” Little curses and habitual ticks can bring a character to life. As an author writing in the Medieval time period, I chose the above expletives for my debut book, HER ONE DESIRE. Let’s start with the first one: GOD’S HOOKS: Derived from the hooks (or nails) used to fasten Christ to the cross. This particular expletive later evolved into “Gadzooks”. Many of these “God’s”expressions were reduced to ‘od’s or odds as in “‘ods toes”. Of course, part of the fun is making up expletives. I used ‘Piss ‘n nettles’ for one of the secondary characters in HER ONE DESIRE. I tossed words around for days trying to fit ‘John’ with the perfect expression. Not only does a character tend to use a favorite expression, but also favorite sayings, like: “Are ye wowf, man?” Simply from the way it’s written, the reader might be able to guess its meaning. ‘Wowf’ was Scottish slang used to describe someone who might be insane, crazy, mentally ill or deranged. Along with researching forms of speech, I often mull over a character’s nervous tick before I ever start a book. (Sometimes for days at a time)…