Sara Reyes | Author Signings...My First Real and Virtual

Book Signing
Originally uploaded by freshfiction

This week's guest blogger, Susan Wiggs, had a post about the most horrible signings she's ever been on. And I found it interesting reading. I also thought about the comments. I haven't always been so lucky to live in an area where authors come every week to sign their books. When I was younger, in the sixties and 70s I lived in a very rural area and don't remember ever visiting a real "book store" that wasn't run by the Mennonite Church. Which trust me had a very small fiction section. And that store was 40 miles away and we only went once a year to pick up grandmother's materials. Our reading time was spent reading a chapter every day from the Bible and reading through the World Craft Encyclopedia. Our local library was located over the one engine firehouse. It was a small room with about 1,000 books in it. I did learn to love Zane Grey and Elswyth Thane. But it wasn't somewhere we visited often. Then I went to college and oh, what a world there was! Books were sold in stores like the downtown Philadelphia Woolworth which I haunted every Saturday morning to buy a book. My money was very tight, so fiction reading was my guilty pleasure and let me tell you, it was a very delicious guilty pleasure!

After college it was off to Germany to live with my husband on a military base. The library was limited, to be kind, again I honed up on my Louis l'Amour and Zane Grey until one day someone dumped off a grocery sack of Harlequin Romances and Presents. My eyes were opened. I was desperate and read anything. I also made friends with the bookseller at the base, a little building next to the PX where I worked as assistant manager. As long as I finished a book over night and it was still in perfect condition, she'd let me take a book to read for every book I bought. She was the first fellow reader I ever knew. We talked every day about books and I read my way steadily through the Woodiwiss and Rogers and the Regencies that were beginning to dominate the shelves. Then the Germany days were over and it was back to the States to a new world for me. Not only did I land in the suburbs of Philadelphia but they had bookstores in every mall, at least TWO, and used book stores. I never knew about these places before. As a young mother, we didn't have lots of money so the used bookstores became my friend. Every day after dropping the kiddo off at kindergarten and first grade, I'd go to the used book store and I started at the beginning of the category romances and buy through. I never knew about subscriptions, I just knew these books were mostly delightful, and got me through the day. After my son was in second grade, I also started at a job. In the mall, near a Waldenbooks. Ah, heaven. The 80s were a drifting decade for me. And when my collection of books really took off.

Curious, read the rest and learn how to win some books...

Fresh Pick | BREATH OF FIRE by Tammy Kane

July 2009
On Sale: June 30, 2009
304 pages
ISBN: 0505528169
EAN: 9780505528162
Mass Market Paperback
$6.99

Fantasy Historical, Romance Paranormal

Buy at Amazon.com

Breath of Fire
by Tammy Kane

When the dragon came to claim him, Karl knew his great plan had gone horribly wrong. If he had known the creature was real, he wouldn’t have scoffed at the villagers…and he certainly wouldn’t have been so quick to let them chain him to a rock. Mattaen Initiates trained as warriors, but no man could defeat a dragon.

She had vanquished the beast and named her price: one night with the virgin sacrifice she’d saved. He’d taken a vow of chastity, but Karl still had a man’s needs—and Elera’s sultry curves made him ache to taste his first woman. With a scorching kiss she shattered his defenses…and led him into a world of deception and seduction, where he’d be forced to choose between the brotherhood that had raised him and the woman whose courage set his heart on fire.

An exciting and unique twist on the fantasy world of dragons.

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Susan Wiggs | The Worst Booksigning Ever

When you first sell a book, did you dream about going on tour? Did you imagine yourself putting on grown-up clothes, lipstick and new shoes to sally forth to meet your adoring public? Maybe you pictured yourself with a slick-looking Moonsus business tote slung jauntily over your shoulder, dashing from one bookstore to the next, leaving a trail of avid readers in your wake.

Then one day-be careful what you wish for-you find yourself on a book tour. You’re going to bookstores and big-box stores, doing signing after signing. And grim reality sets in-the inhuman hour you have to get up to get to the airport in time for your flight. The soul-sucking lines and security measures at the airport. The dearth of media coverage, forcing you to confront the reality that no, the publication of a novel about a woman’s emotional journey to self-actualization is not exactly the news hook the papers have been looking for. Then there are the events themselves-the frighteningly empty seats at the readings, the painful absence of book-buying fans. The oh-shit expression on the bookseller’s face when she realizes no one is coming to buy a book. You’re asked where the bathrooms are, where the Twilight books are, and would you mind holding this 16-foot boa constrictor?* By the end of the first leg of the tour, you’ve cycled through the stages of grief-denial, anger, bargaining and bleak resignation.


To read more about Susan's experiences with book signings please click here.

Angelica Hart | Writers Are Students Of People

When at a party where there are people I don't know, I am in an element that instigates my imagination.  What to say becomes the direct pay-off of how people I meet make me feel or the situation of the moment.  It can be like an improv class.  Of course it is appropriate but unexpected by most.  But does it start out that way?  Nope!  I sit back and study the group.  I ask myself questions.  Why are those two together?  What is she wearing beneath that dress... what could she  possibly be wearing... it is too sheer... could she be... naked?  She has to be naked.  I know I could tell if she hadn't bikini waxed.

I see a couple.  I figure that they are young and in love.  So what is the truth of their youth?  What does he smell like?  What does she?  How long did they spend getting ready?  What does she taste like when they kiss?  Does she taste different in public then in private?  Who is alpha?  Would she ask?  Beg?  Take?  Would he?  Have they ever danced nude... at night... and in the rain... why... why not?  Does he naturally take her hand when people encroach?  Does she find protection from him?  Does she glow?  Does he?  But do they glow apart?  Is there a kinetic attraction that is felt when they are separated?  Could anyone sense their affinity for each other? 

One of the greatest quotes that I heard uttered, moved me.  "I saw her across the room (at a party) and the only voice I heard was hers.  Heard her all night.  So I had to meet her."  Ten years later they are together.  I find myself compelled to understand attraction.  I am drawn to that allure. 

Curious, read more by clicking here

Fresh Pick | THE DRAGON MASTER by Allyson James

Dragon #3

November 2008
On Sale: November 4, 2008
Featuring: Seth; Carol Juan
304 pages
ISBN: 0425224716
EAN: 9780425224717
Mass Market Paperback
$6.99

Paranormal, Romance Paranormal

Buy at Amazon.com

The Dragon Master
by Allyson James

The power is aroused. The passion burns.

He’s big, hot, and not of this world. The third in this erotic paranormal series.

A Fire Dragon summoned here by a dangerous mage inflames the passion in the human female he has chosen to become his mate.

Will the Fire Dragon find his human mate in time to thwart an evil mage who's after his powers?

Excerpt

Chapter One

He didn’t know where he was, or who he was, or why he was. He stood upright in a naked human body in a dark, cold place that smelled metallic, damp, and oily.

The only light came from a crude lamp set high on a wall, a flickering orb surrounded by insects craving brightness. He didn’t blame them. A few moments ago, his world had been one of heat and light and now he stood in terrifying cold and darkness.

The dim light showed dirty walls and hard stones with letters scrawled beside a solid door. For some reason he could read the letters, though they made no sense to him.

Ming Ue’s Dim Sum.

He went toward the windowless door, the dragon magic tangled across it making him nauseous. He Read More...

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Fresh Pick | DRAGONS PREFER BLONDES by Candace Havens

Caruthers Sisters #2
July 2009
On Sale: July 7, 2009
Featuring: Alex Caruthers; Ginjin; Jake
304 pages
ISBN: 0425227804
EAN: 9780425227800
Trade Size
$14.00

Fantasy Urban, Romance Paranormal

Buy at Amazon.com

Dragons Prefer Blondes
by Candace Havens

Fighting evil in four-inch Pradas...

Second in the paranormal series featuring the Caruthers sisters, party girls who save the world—between cocktails.

Alex Caruthers is a sassy socialite who knows when it’s time to turn in her dancing shoes and kick some serious dragon booty. But when Ginjin—the dragon warrior who’s tried to kill her numerous times—chooses her as his mate, Alex finds herself in a situation that’s too hot to handle.

For help she turns to Jake, head of Caruthers security—and a total hottie in a suit—and asks him to pose as her boyfriend. Their relationship might be fake, but Alex can’t deny that one touch from Jake makes her burn hotter than any dragon could.

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Rowan Coleman | Life in the Fast Lane

Saturday 19th September 11.30 a.m

Shhhh....my month old baby boy, Freddie, is asleep. As blissful as it is to see him snoozing, content after a feed, this poses something of a problem for me.

All the experts agree that when your new baby sleeps you should sleep, but as delightful as the prospect of a few snatched minutes of dreamless oblivion seems, were I to doze off now then all the million things that need to be done - a mountain of baby clothes laundry, a month's worth of house work, a guest blog for Fresh Fiction and not to mention the beginings of a new novel - will not get done. Again. And the sun will set on another day when I consider myself a high achiever for having got myself dressed in time to get my eight year old daughter to school and back again whilst remembering to brush my hair - a consideration that is probably not that accurate now that the world now seems to be entirely populated by women (Yummy Mummies, as they are known in the UK) who emerge half an hour after childbirth, with a washboard stomach, hair perfect, on trend outfit color co-ordinated and accessorised to within an inch of their life. What happened to the grace period of unwashed hair, elasticated waistbands and a little extra padding on the hips? Or maybe its just me, perhaps I am the only mother of an infant in the whole world who still blinks her way blearily through the daylight hours with her shirt on inside out.

The truth is, I need to take a well pressed leaf out of the books of these super efficient paragons of new motherhood and get my act together. I have a new book to write. My month off is nearly up, and its time to start forming the idea that I have had kicking around my head for the last few months into a proper structure, work on bringing the characters to life, outline the plot and get started writing. I need to find where ever it is I left my brain (ironically, I can't remember...) pop it back in and start working at full speed again.

This is not the first time that I have written a book with a new baby. I wrote my second novel, After Ever After soon after the birth of my little girl, Lily. It's a hazy period of my life, I don't remember writing anything at all, but I must have done somehow because the evidence is there it is sitting on the shelf in my office, a solid 300 pages of words, bound together in a jacket. It is however, the only one of my books that I have never re-read since completing. I'm more than a little worried that it won't make any sense at all.

So where to start....oh hang on. He's woken up again. Back soon.

Sunday 20th September 9.41a.m

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Fresh Pick | THE TREASURE KEEPER by Shana Abe

Drakon #4

April 2009
On Sale: March 24, 2009
Featuring: Lord Rhys Langford; Zoe Cyprienne Lane
320 pages
ISBN: 0553806858
EAN: 9780553806854
Hardcover
$22.00

Fantasy, Romance Paranormal, Romance Historical

Buy at Amazon.com

The Treasure Keeper
by Shana Abe

Theirs was a legacy of power and sensuality beyond imagining

With such novels as Queen of Dragons and The Dream Thief, Shana Abé has created a unique and vividly imagined world that exists side by side with our own—a realm populated by a race of supersensual men and women whose power to change shape permits them unlimited acts of pleasure…and ever-present danger. Now the survival of the drákon rests in the hands of a young woman with untried and unexpected powers—and the powerful Alpha male she must break every drákon law to save.

The drákon are at war, surrounded by an enemy they have every reason to fear. The sanf inimicus are no ordinary human beings but the most dangerous of hunters. They’ve sworn to exterminate the shape-shifters whose presence they now can detect, and they’ve already claimed a prize prisoner: Lord Rhys Langford.

It’s a blow the drákon clans feel from Darkfrith, England, all the way to the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. But it strikes no one harder than Zoe Cyprienne Lane. A mere seamstress’s daughter, Zoe isn’t even in the same league as Rhys. In fact, as an unwed male in the Alpha line, according to drákon custom, he owns her. So nothing could be more outrageous—or personally ruinous—than the mere notion that she might set out on her own to find her childhood friend...and first true love.

But the unexpected is exactly what Zoe intends to do. For years she’s been hiding two extraordinary Gifts that have set her apart from other drákon females: the power to become invisible and the power to feel others’ emotions. Now, guided by a link to Rhys—his presence and touch as electric as if he were beside her in the flesh—Zoe uses both Gifts to infiltrate the sanf inimicus. And for Rhys, whose time is running out, Zoe is his last lifeline to a world—and a love—he never thought he’d regain. Only together again, hunter and huntress, can they save the drákon from the traitor in their midst who would destroy them all.

Return to the wondrous world of the Drákon in this fourth thrilling shapeshifter adventure.

Excerpt

September, 1782

The candlelight lent a soft-shadowed clarity to the musicians before him. He admired their satin jackets and their old-fashioned rolled wigs, their hands moving over bows and valves and strings in effortless harmony. Rhys didn’t know the piece they were performing, but it illumed
his surroundings as much as the chandeliers did. It was light and loud and complex and simple and...blissful. He could lounge in the satinwood chair all night, hearing it.

It wasn’t particularly bothersome that he seemed to be the only member of the audience in attendance. He thought that perhaps this might be a final rehearsal, something of that sort. He was, after all, a lord; rules were bent all the time for the ton. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t appreciate the artistry, the splendor, of their

Read More...

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Fresh Pick | DRAGONBOUND by Jade Lee

Dragons #2

April 2009
On Sale: April 1, 2009
Featuring: Sabina
336 pages
ISBN: 0843960477
EAN: 9780843960471
Mass Market Paperback
$7.99

Romance Paranormal, Fantasy

Buy at Amazon.com

Dragonbound
by Jade Lee

Horrific are a dragon’s claws, its fiery breath and buffeting wings. Potent is its body, fraught with magic down to the very last glistening scale. But most fearsome of all is a dragon’s cunning —- and the soul that allows it to bond with humans.

Sabina was the one girl of her generation chosen as Dragonmaid, friend and caregiver to the copper dragon of her nation’s tyrant king. There she witnessed the greed, lust and rage such a beast could incite—and acquired her own very dark secret.

Excerpt

The Negotiation

Now

Dragon fire burned people alive. It boiled the skin, seared the bones, and left nothing behind but a charred smear of hot grease. But if Sabina stood away from the plume, just three handspans aside, then all her clothes were burned away, her skin took on a rosy blush, and she would end up flushed and naked before the most exquisite creature in the world.

Sabina stared at the fire in the inn’s hearth and remembered her past. She recalled the scorched smell of burning hair; the rough, abrading caress of scales on skin; the feel of a mouth so dry that her tongue could not even wet her teeth, much less her chapped and bleeding lips.

Dragon fire, dragon scales, and dragon love—she had known them all, and all she had to Read More...


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Emily Bryan | A Question And Answer With Her Co-Authors

Merry Christmas! Ok, ok, it’s early, but today at FreshFiction we have the authors from the upcoming holiday anthology A Christmas Ball. USA Today Bestselling Jennifer Ashley,Emily Bryan and Alissa Johnson got together over a cup of wassail to talk about celebrating Christmas.


To read the questions and the answers and to comment for a chance to win please click here.

Gyles Brandreth | Wilde's Celebrity Never Dies...

Oscar Wilde's grave
Originally uploaded by Andifeelfine

The other Sunday I made a pilgrimage to the Père Lachaise cemetery, in the northeast of Paris, France, to pay my respects to the shade of Oscar Wilde. I found I was not alone.

The great man's grave was surrounded by quite a crowd, including a party of Japanese students, a family of Germans (the father was wearing lederhosen) and an assortment of young people in their twenties: French, Italian, British and American.

As I arrived, one of the young women was planting a kiss on the huge Jacob Epstein angel that surmounts the poet's grave. She was kissing the marble deliberately, to leave the lipstick impression of her mouth on the monument. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Because I love him," she replied. "We all do," added another of the girls (she was from Baltimore). "He's one of us."

Wilde, it seems, is our contemporary. He died in Paris 109 years ago, a near-friendless exile, impoverished, shunned, disgraced. Today, he is world-famous and universally admired. There are 1,000 lipstick impressions on his tomb. He would not have quarrelled with the attention: he was a pioneer of celebrity culture. "If you wish for reputation and fame in the world," he advised, "take every opportunity of advertising yourself. Remember the Latin saying, 'Fame springs from one's own house.' " At theatrical first nights, as a matter of policy, during the 10 minutes before the curtain was due to rise, he would make a series of brief appearances around the auditorium - in the dress circle, in the stalls, in the boxes on either side of the stage. He wore outlandish clothes; he said outrageous things. He set out to get himself noticed. He was.

And he is. I am writing a series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Wilde as my detective, and, as my publishers take me about the world, I am discovering that my hero's fan base extends way beyond Europe and North America. He has a substantial following in South America, the Middle East, India and - wait for it - Korea. Other Victorian writers may be more widely read (Dickens and Conan Doyle, for example), but I reckon that no other individual Victorian, however eminent (no, not Queen Victoria herself), lives on as a personality in quite the way that Wilde does.

click to read the rest...

Sandi Shilhanek | Why Can't I Dejunk My TBR Pile?

This weekend the weather has finally cooled in my neck of the woods. It’s the first day in a little over a week without rain, and why I did have an appointment on Saturday afternoon I really had nothing planned. I decided it was a good time to get a start on cleaning and dejunking my home, so that my husband could begin his annual decorating for Halloween.

The entry
Originally uploaded by freshfiction

In this vein I was able to make several bags of garbage, and to sort my dresser and make not one, but three bags of clothing I haven’t worn in forever for the charity coming next week. I also managed to guilt my husband into making two bags of various items from his stash of treasures. When my youngest came home from bowling I attempted to guilt him into sorting and dejunking as well, but thus far little success there, and my oldest is hopeless, but he wasn’t home this weekend to guilt.

To read more about Sandi's dejunking experience and to comment please click here.