Gwen Reyes | Conferences, Learning and... PARTIES!

I love March. It’s a month I spend 11 other months looking forward to, and the reason has nothing to do with my birthday—since my birthday is in September. It’s a month that kicks off everything I love: spring, new OPI nail polish, and conference season! There are few things I love more than traveling across the region and joining fellow book, movie, and creative geeks as they discuss their passions. As you're reading this, Sara is sleeping in the bed next to me because she is presenting a workshop on author marketing for attendees of the Nola Romance Writer’s annual conference in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Next week the Fresh Fiction team is making the trek from our cushy Dallas headquarters to the raucousness of Austin for South By Southwest (SXSW). SXSW is the one festival and conference I look forward to the most. I'm ready, credit card in hand, to purchase my badge for the annual film, music, and interactive festival in August and I spend the remaining months planning my assault on the city of Austin. 2010 will be my sixth year in attendance, and I have never looked forward to a SXSW as much as I do this year’s.

The activities are amazing; SXSW will have over a thousand panels for the Interactive portion alone, and dozens of world, national, and regional film premieres. It’s also one of the major stops for up and coming musicians before they head out for their summer concert tours. I have met so many talented and inspiring designers, creatives (including authors) and filmmakers attending SXSW over the years, and it is one event Fresh Fiction jumps through hoops to attend. All around, SXSW is a little paradise for geeks of all types and means, and it’s a prolific organization that aims to boost the exposure of arts and creativity in the Southwest region. What’s presented here is trending six to eight months later!

SXSW is always a lot of work, but it’s fun and so worth it. The designers and filmmakers we meet, both fresh and established, inspire us to return to HQ with plans to continue Fresh Fiction’s evolution for years to come. It’s a great feeling when you know that what you are doing is special and other people are willing to share their own stories and information to help you out. That’s the camaraderie you feel throughout the festival.

Oh, and I'm going to party for six nights straight, because these people know how to bring it—thank God there is a free coffee bar two blocks from our hotel!

Gwen Reyes

Readers 'n 'ritas

Comment and be entered in this weekend's blog contest

Fresh Pick | DEGREES OF SEPARATION by Sue Henry

A Jessie Arnold Mystery #12
April 2009
On Sale: April 7, 2009
Featuring: Jessie Arnold; Alex Jensen
288 pages
ISBN: 0451223705
EAN: 9780451223708
Paperback
$6.99
Mystery Woman Sleuth
Buy at Amazon.com

Degrees Of Separation
by Sue Henry

Champion musher Jessie Arnold has been out of racing for a number of years, ever since she incurred a devastating knee injury. Now she's ready to get back into shape for this year's Iditarod. While taking her team on a practice run down a local trail she takes a snowy bump that's never been there before. It turns out to be a snow-shrouded body.

Now, Jessie and her boyfriend, Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen, are back chasing criminals. And the hunt is on for the killer of a supposed earthquake victim—whose death turns out to actually be a murder.


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Mary Margret Daughtridge | Shall we…um…dance?

For the past week or so I’ve driven around with a brown paper grocery bag stacked with books riding shotgun. I’m taking author’s copies of SEALED WITH A RING my March release, to friends who have aided my research. It’s my version of Christmas. I’m celebrating the birth of a new work by making a present of it to all who have helped to bring it into the world.

Last Tuesday, my rounds took me to a ballroom dance studio.

Several years ago I began work on a third SEAL story in which the hero learns ballroom. My problem was that while I had researched SEALs out the wazoo, I didn’t know beans about ballroom. It was a watershed moment. Reading ten or twenty books wasn’t going to cut it. I needed lessons and they don’t come cheap.

There was no external evidence then that I was an author. I knew how dismal my chances of being published were. How silly would I feel if I poured money and effort into learning how an imaginary person feels, if nothing ever came of it?

My heart pounded and sweat made my fingers slip on the computer keys.

That’s when I realized I wasn’t being honest with myself. It went deeper than taking a chance writing would pay off. I had wanted to learn ballroom for a long time, but stopped because I was afraid a woman my age would look silly.

Sometimes I think fear of looking like a fool is the most handicapping fear there is. No matter how unlikely it is that we’re in danger from snakes, spiders and elevators, they are real. Fear of foolishness protects only the ego but makes us avoid being led by the heart.  For years I had let it stop me, but this time I was determined to listen to my heart and my heart was saying, “If not now, when?” Right then, I called and made an appointment for lessons.

As it turned out, I never finished the book. The dancer’s character just wouldn’t jell. However, as it also turned out, I loved ballroom, and my instructor was one of the most positive, supportive people I’ve ever met. I studied for a couple of years. He was the first person I told when I was offered a book contract.

I never wrote that book, but having see how much strength, flexibility, and stamina ballroom dancing builds, I visualized what a SEAL and someone with a dancing hobby could do with, say, a rumba, if fueled by desire and set free by the imagination of an author such as moi.  I knew I would write dancing into a book someday.

All of which is how it came about that the other day I dashed into Fred Astaire of North Greensboro: “The friendliest place in town,” with an inscribed author’s copy of SEALED WITH A RING to present to Alyosha Anatolly. (Many ballroom dance instructors are Russian, and Alyosha would tell you all the best ones are.)

Instructors crowded around to look over Alyosha’s shoulder. “Is this the book about the dancer?”

“Yes and no. It’s about a Navy SEAL who only wants to get his life back and a woman who needs to get a life period. Her only outlet is ballroom.”

“And do they dance?” they persisted.

“Oh yes. He seduces her with a rumba—” Heads nodded wisely. Unlike the flirty, playful cha-cha, the rumba openly celebrates the body language of sexual interest. “When they…um…dance, it is—” I paused for effect and grinned.“—HOT!”

SEALED WITH A RING
by MARY MARGRET DAUGHTRIDGE—IN STORES MARCH 2010

She’s got it all…except the one thing she needs most

Smart, successful businesswoman JJ Caruthers has a year to land a husband or lose the empire she’s worked so hard to build. With time running out, romance is not an option, and a military husband who is always on the road begins to look like the perfect solution…

He’s a wounded hero with an agenda of his own

Even with the scars of battle, Navy SEAL medic Davy Graziano is gorgeous enough to land any woman he wants, and he’s never wanted to be tied down. Now Davy has ulterior motives for accepting JJ’s outrageous proposal of marriage, but he only has so long to figure out what JJ doesn’t want him to know…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARY MARGRET DAUGHTRIDGE has been a grade school teacher, speech therapist, family educator, biofeedback therapist, and Transpersonal Hypnotherapist. She is a member of Heart of Carolina Romance Writers, Romance Writers of America, and Romancing the Military Soul, and is a sought-after judge in writing contests. She resides in Greensboro, North Carolina. For more information, please visit http://marymargretdaughtridge.com/.

Leave a comment to be entered into our one day blog contest sponsored by MARY MARGRET DAUGHTRIDGE and Sourcebooks! Two winners!

Fresh Pick | WHERE HEAVEN BEGINS by Rosanne Bittner

April 2007
On Sale: April 1, 2007
Featuring: Elizabeth Breckenridge; Clint Brady

384 pages
ISBN: 037378595X
EAN: 9780373785957
Paperback
$6.99


Religious Fiction Romance, Religious Fiction Historical
Buy at Amazon.com

Where Heaven Begins

by Rosanne Bittner

With rough miners for shipmates, Elizabeth Breckenridge
sets sail to search for her brother in Alaska, wild with the 1890s gold rush. When she falls overboard midjourney, she is rescued by a man very unlike her minister brother— Clint Brady, a cynical bounty hunter who shoots to kill.

Together, this unlikely couple struggles to survive the rugged dangers of the beautiful Alaskan frontier. Unexpectedly, Clint comes to love her, and proposes.
Elizabeth returns his love, but unless she can help Clint see that heaven is no abstraction in the sky, the grip of the past could cost them a future together….

Excerpt

Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause;
And deceive not with thy lips.
—Proverbs 24:28
San Francisco, August 4, 1898
"We've taken a vote, Elizabeth. We understand you will need to find a job and a place to live, and we are ready to help you there, but you will have to leave Reverend Selby's residence."

Elizabeth Breckenridge felt as though the blood was leaving her body, beginning with her head and draining down toward her feet. She had no doubt what had caused this meeting of church deacons who sat circled around her with looks of condemnation on their faces.

"May I have an explanation?, she asked, fighting not to cry. Elizabeth always cried when Read More...


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Jennie Bentley | History Mystery : Truth or Fiction?

It’s the kind of coincidence that, if I’d put it into a book, nobody would believe.

Picture this: it’s sometime in late 2008, and I’m sitting in front of my computer, getting ready to start writing the third book in my Do-It-Yourself mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime, featuring textile-designer-turned-home-renovator Avery Baker and her boyfriend, hunky handyman Derek Ellis. (Remember those names. There’ll be a quiz later.)

Each book in the series details the renovation of a decrepit house, and each book includes a few fresh murders and some sort of history mystery. In book 1,
Fatal Fixer-Upper Avery inherited her Aunt Inga’s Second Empire Victorian cottage and hooked up with Derek, the handyman she hired to help her renovate it. In book 2,Spackled and Spooked the two of them bought and renovated their first project together: a low-slung mid-century brick ranch, rumored to be haunted because of a tragedy that took place some seventeen or eighteen years ago.

I had already decided that in book 3, Avery and Derek would be taking on the renovation of an old carriage house at the back of their friend Kate McGillicutty’s property. They’re broke, since they haven’t sold the house from book 2 yet, and turning Kate’s carriage house from decrepit garden shed into romantic retreat for two in time for Kate’s New Year’s Eve wedding to the man of her dreams, police chief Wayne Rasmussen, would be just the thing to tie them over. I knew who the murder victim would be--someone from Kate’s past--I knew who killed him and why, and all that was left was to figure out the historical connection.

Kate’s house, the Waterfield Inn, is a big 1896 Queen Anne, with turrets and towers and every Victorian excess imaginable. World War One was looming on the horizon at that time, and I thought a war story might make for an interesting tie-in. I hadn’t done one yet, and the timing was right. The quaint and fictitious town of Waterfield is located on the coast of Maine, and there used to be a navy base at Elliott, just up the road apiece. And that’s how I came to be scanning lists of navy casualties during The Great War.

9.7 million military personnel died in WWI. 116,708 of those were Americans. Quite a few were enlisted in the navy. The names went on forever, and it wasn’t long before my eyes glazed over as my finger got heavier and heavier on the mouse and the scroll bar slid down at breakneck speed. Until something jumped out at me and jerked me out of my stupor.

Yes, it sounds crazy, but it’s the only way I can explain it. Some sort of almost-subliminal message that my brain picked up, that went by too fast for my eyes to see clearly. I had to backtrack to look for what I thought I’d seen, just to be sure I’d really seen it.

And lo, there it was: the kind of coincidence that nobody would believe if it happened in a book or a movie. I’m not sure I would have believed it myself, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Yet there was no doubt. On the list of the fallen was a young fireman third class, from a small town called Chandler, Texas, by the name of William Avery Ellis.

(You remember those names I told you to remember earlier, don’t you? If not, go back and read them again.)

If that wasn’t coincidence enough, William had joined the navy on June 3rd 1917. He died three days later, still on the navy base in Dallas. From strychnine poisoning.

It’s enough to make any crime writer’s heart beat faster. And I hope I’m not the only one getting chills.

Unfortunately, those tidbits are all I ever managed to learn about William. He lived, he died, and that’s all I know. I don’t know who killed him, or why, or if whoever did it was caught and punished. I don’t think it was an accident, because other accidental deaths on the same list were noted as such, while this wasn’t. I’m pretty sure someone killed poor William, but as for why, I have no idea.

In lieu of having the facts, I came up with my own story, rife with adultery, illegitimacy, murder, betrayal and a bunch of other things. I changed William’s middle name from Avery to Aaron--the coincidence of Avery Ellis was just too much, even for me; plus, no one would have believed it--but I used whatever other details I could. Instead of Chandler, Texas, my William lived on Chandler Street in Waterfield, and just like the real William, his mother’s name was Mallessa. I turned him into a relative of Derek’s a few generations back, and carved his initials in a heart inside Kate’s carriage house. And then I set Avery on the trail, and sat back to see what she’d find out.

The result is Plaster and Poison, book 3 in the Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation mysteries. It was released on March 2nd. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, please check it out. And if by chance you know anything about William Avery Ellis of Chandler, Texas, I’d love to hear from you. You can find me here: www.jenniebentley.com


To comment on History Mystery: Truth or Fiction please click here.

Fresh Pick | BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE by Cindi Myers, Jennifer Greene, Merline Lovelace

January 2010
On Sale: January 12, 2010
320 pages
ISBN: 0373837399
EAN: 9780373837397
Mass Market Paperback
$7.99

Romance Anthology
Buy at Amazon.com

Baby, It's Cold Outside
by Cindi Myers, Jennifer Greene, Merline Lovelace

The best way to keep warm…when the weather turns cold:

1) Seek shelter

Opting to spend the holidays in solitude, Emilie Bartlett has found the perfect place: a hunting lodge in Alaska! But when a hunky stranger comes seeking shelter during a blizzard, Emilie wonders if maybe isolation is overrated, after all….

2) Build a cozy fire

Nothing ruins an adventure to Antarctica like being stranded on a lifeboat! But when a hot Air Force pilot rescues Mia Harrelson, she wonders if she's escaped the danger of freezing only to lose herself in the sexy fire of his eyes….

3) Curl up with a nice, hot male…

She is a consummate professional. Until Stacy Bristol finds herself working on a series of photo shoots with a gorgeous Viking—er, Olympic skier. But the minute his shirt comes off, Stacy is torn between icy professional resolve…and her melting knees!

MELTING POINT by Cindi Myers
Kristjan Gunnarson is Iceland's first ever Olympic medalist. Coloradoan Stacy Bristol thinks he'll be the perfect model for her new advertising campaign, but she isn't prepared for the impact handsome Kristjan has on her. As she supervises filming around Iceland, Stacy fights her attraction to Kristjan. Can a down-to-business American and a footloose Icelander find love in the land of ice and fire?

Excerpt

When Emilie Bartlett heard the battering thuds below—it sounded as if someone's fist was pounding on the front door—she burrowed under the heap of blankets without bothering to open her eyes.

She wasn't sleeping.

She hadn't slept since she could remember.

But there was no one at the front door. There couldn't be. When the seaplane brought her in two days before, the blizzard had been predicted. The pilot had argued and protested about leaving her, but Emilie knew what she was getting into.

She hadn't spent time in her family's Alaskan lodge in years, but the week before Christmas, the weather was predictable. The snow had started yesterday, silent and soft. Then the wind began—tufty and capricious at first.

By midyesterday, the view from Read More...

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Fresh Pick | CHILL by Stephanie Rowe

Alaskan Pilots #2

December 2009
On Sale: November 24, 2009
Featuring: Isabella Kpoas; Luke Webber
336 pages
ISBN: 0505527766
EAN: 9780505527769
Mass Market Paperback
$7.99

Romance Suspense
Buy at Amazon.com

Chill
by Stephanie Rowe

A MAN WITH NO PAST

Luke Webber thinks he’s erased his entire history. New name, new life, no paper trail. He thinks that up in the wilds of Alaska no one will find him. He’s wrong.

A WOMAN WITH NO FUTURE

When Isabella shows up on his doorstep, she’s got a bullet in her shoulder and all that Luke’s been trying to avoid is hot on her trail. Without his help, she’ll die. But helping her will mean surrendering everything—his body, his heart...and quite possibly his life.

A fast-paced tale of adventure, suspense and romance set in the Alaska wilderness.

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Heather Webber | Do You Believe In Love at First Sight?

Years ago when my daughter was born, a family friend sent a congratulatory card. It had the image of a sweet-faced baby wrapped in a pink blanket nestled in a tiny cradle. Underneath it read Who says there’s no such thing as love at first sight?

It was a card that resonated with me so much that I framed it and hung it in her room. And now, almost fifteen years later, it’s still in there. Love at first sight is never truer than when you meet your child for the first time. It’s an instant kind of love, rather shocking with its fierceness. Kind of a slap upside the head—and the heart. There is no preparing for it, and there is no going back. It is a forever kind of love. It makes even the most hardened cynic realize true love does exist... At least between a parent and child.

But what about romantic love?  Do you believe in love at first sight? Is there such a thing as soul mates? Underneath the humor, the murder, and the family secrets, these questions are at the heart of TRULY, MADLY, the first of my Lucy Valentine novels. Lucy is the black sheep of her psychic family who is forced into taking over her father’s matchmaking business when he leaves town after a scandal. Thanks to an electrical surge, Lucy can no longer see the auras that make finding true love for clients so easy for her father. And thanks to a family curse, Lucy doesn’t believe she’ll ever be able to find true love for herself. So when she meets Sean Donahue, a private eye who has his own secrets, and feels that slap upside her head and her heart, she’s thrown for quite a loop. Not only must she figure if one of her clients is guilty of murder, or if she can use her unique psychic abilities to find a lost little boy, but also why she keeps having visions of her and Sean together… Can she can put her fears aside and trust that love at first sight might just be real?

I met my husband on a summer night a bit over twenty years ago. It was a first date that included a walk on a beach and a long talk while sitting on a jetty with gentle waves slapping at the rocks beneath us. As we sat and talked and laughed, I looked at him and I knew he was the man I was going to marry.

It didn’t matter one bit that I was only sixteen years old.

There was no preparing for it, and there was no going back. And it still is a forever kind of love. So yes, I believe in love at first sight. Do you?

~Heather

Heather Webber is a former Agatha Award nominee and author of three historical romances and five mystery novels. She learned early on that she had trouble keeping mystery out of her romances and romance out of her mysteries, so decided not to fight it anymore. Enter the Lucy Valentine novels— romantic, paranormal mysteries. The first book in the series, TRULY, MADLY debuted in February  and the second, DEEPLY, DESPERATELY, will be released in August  2010 from St. Martin's Press. For more info, check www.heatherwebber.com

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Kimberly Fisk | The Power of a Dream…

Like so many others, I’ve been caught by the Olympic fever.  Each night my family and I sit in our living room and watch athletes do the impossible.  I gasp in amazement as they fly down the slopes…dance on the ice…flip and twirl through the air.  But as much as their individual performances captivate me, I find myself wondering about when they dared to dream of becoming an Olympic athlete.  And, more importantly, when they dared to voice that dream.

Dreaming is easy.  Safe.  In our minds we can envision ourselves doing anything, being anyone.  But when you dare to voice your dream...oh, man.  Scary stuff indeed.

I still remember the moment I discovered my first romance novel.  I was at my Aunt Patsy’s house and a copy of The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss was on the nightstand next to the guest bed.  That night, while everyone else was sleeping, I sat in the window seat and with lightning illuminating the dark sky, I devoured that book.  The passion, the heartache, the longing…  When I reached the end, I realized my life would never be the same.  Now, I not only knew what genre I wanted to read, but I also knew what I wanted to write.

But knowing and believing are two different things.

So I shelved my dream.  Went to school, got married, had three wonderful children.  And in between a demanding job and mommy duties, I read.  And read and read and read.  I read every romance novel I could find.  But I never let myself dare to dream I could become a published author.  That dream seemed better suited to someone else.  So I kept my fading dream close, only sharing it with my husband.  And thank goodness I did!

One day while I was chasing toddlers and changing diapers, he handed me an article from our hometown paper highlighting the local Romance Writers of America chapter. A whole world of romance writers and readers? Heaven!!  Right then I knew I had a decision to make:  was I willing to put voice to my long held desire?

Was I willing to publicly fail?  Because really, that was what I was afraid of.

It took me six years to complete my first book.  It then took the prodding of my amazingly supportive friends to convince me to enter RWA's Golden Heart contest. When they announced that I had won, I wish I could say I was speechless. Surprised? Yes! Shocked? Yes! Yes!! But speechless? How I wish.  No.  I cried.  Like a baby.

While that manuscript did not find a publisher, it did land me the world’s best agent.  And when I sat down to write my second novel, I channeled all of my long held dreams, all of those longings, into my hero and heroine.  Jenny is a strong woman, shattered by her past, who is afraid to believe in love…until she meets Jared, a hardened flyboy who lives in a closed world where hopes and dreams do not exist.

While my road to publication has been a long one, I’ve learned that each dream begins with a single, small step.  And while I’m no Olympic athlete, I am glad I finally dared to voice my dream and let it take flight.  How about you?  Have you taken that first step toward fulfilling your dream?  Did you, like me, read a book that changed your life?  Or did your dream take a different path?  Do you remember the first romance novel you read?  Please share with me on this my first blogging experience!!  Everyone who comments will be included in a drawing for an autographed copy of my first novel, LAKE MAGIC, and a $20.00 Barnes and Noble gift certificate.

Warmly,
~Kimberly

Leave a comment for Kimberly and be entered to win a $20 Barnes and Noble gift certificate as well as a copy of LAKE MAGIC

Fresh Pick | WHISPER TO THE BLOOD by Dana Stabenow

Kate Shugak

December 2009
On Sale: December 1, 2009
Featuring: Kate Shugak
352 pages
ISBN: 0312944071
EAN: 9780312944070
Paperback (reprint)
$7.99

Mystery Woman Sleuth
Buy at Amazon.com

Whisper to the Blood
by Dana Stabenow

Inside Alaska’s biggest national park, around the town of Niniltna, a gold mining company has started buying up land. The residents of the Park are uneasy. “But gold is up to nine hundred dollars an ounce” is the refrain of Talia Macleod, the popular Alaskan skiing champ hired by the company to improve relations with the locals, and pave the way for the mine’s expansion…

Then, just as Talia is ready to present her case at town meetings and village breakfasts, there are two brutal murders, including that of a long-standing mine opponent. The investigation falls to Trooper Jim Chopin and, as usual, he could use some help from newly elected Niniltna Native Association chairman and part-time P.I. Kate Shugak. But Kate already has her hands full with a series of attacks on snowmobilers up the Kanuyaq River and the homicide of Park villain Louis Deem. With both cases on the verge of going cold, can Kate take the heat?

Excerpt

“Grin bought out Mac Devlin.”

“Grin?”

“Global Harvest Resources Inc. GHRIn. That’s what we’re calling them around the Park, hadn’t you heard?”

“No. Appropriate, though. They have to be grinning from ear to ear.”

“To be fair, everyone is—fed, state, local.”

“Not everyone local is,” Kate said.

“Yeah.” Jim slung his jacket around a chair and pulled off the ball cap with the Alaska State Trooper insignia, running a .lant against hat hair. “And not Mac Devlin anymore, either. He’s been operating on a shoestring for years, waiting on the big strike that never came. Last fall he had to sell off all his heavy equipment to pay his outstanding bills. Well, just to gild the lily, whoever his bank is got hit hard Read More...

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Pamela Clare | How Should One Get To Happily Ever After?

If you’re a single adult in the early 21st century, chances are you’ve tried some kind of online dating service. Hey, if I can admit to having tried it, you can, too.

You know the process--you sign up, answer a zillion really dumb questions about your interests, inclinations and preferences. Then the computer plays cupid and matches you up with potential dates whose answers most closely match your own. And then...

Well, if finding your soul mate were that easy, there’d be significantly fewer single people in the world and a lot more "happily ever afters," wouldn’t there? Besides, how exciting can it be going to dinner with someone who agrees with you about everything?

"You say potato; I say potato, too/You say tomato; I say tomato, too."

It doesn’t even make a good song.

Maybe we’ve got it backwards. Remember the old adage "Opposites attract"? Maybe online dating services should get a clue from romantic fiction and bring people together whose backgrounds, interests and preferences are very different.

Do opposites really attract?

For Kat James and Gabe Rossiter, the hero and heroine of
Naked Edge, the next book in my I-Team series, that’s certainly the case. Yes, he’s male -- six-foot-four of dark-haired, blue-eyed male, to be precise -- and she’s female. But it’s more than that.

Kat is Navajo. Gabe is white.

Kat is deeply spiritual. Gabe believes in nothing -- and no one.

Kat is saving her virginity for one man; she wants marriage and lots of children. Gabe drifts from one emotionless sexual relationship to the next, with no interest in being a husband or father.

Kat is thoughtful and a bit introverted. Gabe’s idea of a good time is rock climbing without ropes and skiing off cliffs.

Kat gives selflessly to her friends. Gabe has no close friends.

Deep down, Kat has an unshakable but quiet self-respect. She makes no apologies for her choices in life. Gabe behaves as if he’s the only center in his universe, but in reality he can’t stand himself.

These two never would have connected on Match.com or eHarmony.

But connect they do. When Kat is caught in a rockslide while hiking and is badly injured, Gabe, a park ranger who just happens to be rock climbing nearby, rushes to help her. This chance meeting, brought about by near tragedy, will change their lives in ways neither of them can imagine. The result?

Tension? Yes. Misunderstandings? Some. But also heat. Passion. And a "happily ever after" -- for both of them.

He saves her life; she saves the soul he didn’t know he had.

One of the great pleasures of writing this story was watching two people--both of whom had been deeply hurt--as they worked through differences to a deep and abiding love. In fact, it’s these differences that helped them to overcome the past. That’s something they never would have found with a partner who was their mirror image.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading Kat and Gabe’s love story as much as I enjoyed writing it. You can read more about it here on Fresh Fiction, including a look at the real events in my own life that inspired the story, including a near-fatal mountain climbing fall.

In the meantime, what do you think? Do opposites truly attract? Should online dating services start giving clients the option of being connected with people who are their opposites?

Cat people dating dog people. Pepsi people dating Coke people. Single football dads dating single soccer moms.

It might work.


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Fresh Pick | ALASKAN RENEGADE by Kate Bridges

November 2009
On Sale: November 1, 2009
Featuring: Victoria Windhaven; Brant MacQuaid
288 pages
ISBN: 0373295685
EAN: 9780373295685
Mass Market Paperback
$5.99

Romance Historical
Buy at Amazon.com

Alaskan Renegade
by Kate Bridges

Her bounty hunter protector

In need of a bodyguard on her mission into the Alaskan wilderness, nurse Victoria Windhaven is shocked to recognize the hired gun as none other than Brant MacQuaid—a man she had thought never to see again! Brant, now a notorious bounty hunter with a burning passion for justice, had once betrayed her.
But closely confined in the stagecoach by day, and even more closely combined under the stars by night, Victoria can't help but dream of turning this renegade into ideal husband material….

Life and loving means taking chances facing insurmountable odds

Excerpt

Skagway, District of Alaska, late August 1899

That familiar and arrogant way he moved captured her attention. Wearing a tan leather vest and black shirt that barely spanned his wide shoulders, Brant MacQuaid strode down the path as though he still thought he could part the Red Sea. His granite eyes flickered at the stagecoach driver, then he turned and headed straight for her. Her heart leaped. He'd changed a great deal in the five years since Victoria Windhaven had last laid eyes on him.

He was more of a man.

I don't care, she told herself. He was one of three men who'd deserted her at a time when she'd needed him to stay. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing how devastated she'd been.

With her pulse rushing, Victoria shuffled beneath

Read More...

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Sandi Shilhanek | FAREWELL FEBRUARY

As promised in January it’s my monthly update about what I read this month. I managed ten (10) print books, and five (5) audio books. I read one new author for sure, and possibly a second, but I would have to check my reading logs from years past to be sure.

I succeeded in reading the challenge word from one of my yahoo groups which for the month of February was red. I read Seeing Red by Susan Crandall. It’s a romantic suspense one that started out making me wish I had even more time to read that day than I did. With the conclusion of Seeing Red I’m keeping my goal of reading a book a month for this group’s word challenge.

However, the same group is also doing a TBR challenge. Last month I read two titles from my tbr and was so excited! This month I got to pick new titles because you have to always have three titles to choose from. I unfortunately only read one of my TBR challenge books. I read It Happened One Night by Lisa Dale who was a new to me author. Wish I could say I was just wowed and couldn’t wait to read another book by Ms. Dale, but unfortunately I wasn’t. I have her debut release Simple Wishes on my kindle and I shall read it...in fact now that I think about it, I think I’ll use that as my March replacement title...what great incentive!

Did I have a favorite read? That’s a really tough question, and I would have to say it’s a three way tie between One of a Kind Family by Holly Jacobs, Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah, and Honeysuckle Summer by Sherryl Woods.

As for the audios...I got really lucky and enjoyed them all! How I ever survived a long commute before audio books is beyond me! If I have to pick one I’m going to pick Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs because the narrator does a great job in changing voices and some of the characters have accents, so I’m sure that couldn’t have been easy!

Your turn! How was your February? Did you complete a goal you had set for yourself? Did you read a great new author? Perhaps a fantastic new story by an old favorite? Help me add to my TBR!

Until next week happy page turning.

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Fresh Pick | DOWN RIVER by Karen Harper

February 2010
On Sale: January 26, 2010
Featuring: Mitch Braxton; Lisa Vaughn
400 pages
ISBN: 0778327477
EAN: 9780778327479
Mass Market Paperback
$7.99

Romance Suspense
Buy at Amazon.com

Down River
by Karen Harper

In the churning water, she felt her future slipping away...

Attending a corporate retreat at a remote resort in Alaska, Lisa Vaughn is plunged into the frigid rapids of the Wild River. Swept away, battered and alone, she has been left for dead. But lodge owner Mitch Braxton knows something is terribly wrong when Lisa fails to turn up for a private meeting to clear the air and close the book on their broken engagement.

Embarking on a heroic search that takes him miles down river, he saves Lisa from the deadly water, but not before they've been swept deep into the wilderness. Far from civilization, the former lovers must put aside their hurt feelings and find the will to survive. There's a killer on the loose and, for now, they must measure their future together in days instead of years.

Fast-paced and full of suspense, but will the renewed relationship end in romance?

Excerpt

Duck Lake Lodge
Near Bear Bones, Alaska
August 20, 2008

Despite the calm beauty of Duck Lake ten feet below the pine-tree-lined path, Lisa Vaughn felt compelled to watch the Wild River on the other side of the low ridge where she stood. Because the summer sun had warmed the snow-tipped Talkeetna Mountains for hours, the snowmelt river roared. When the temperature dropped at night, despite the fact the skies barely darkened, the river rumbled like distant thunder. She was amazed by the reddish-colored salmon as they battled the fierce current on their long journey upriver to their breeding grounds. It almost looked as if the river was bleeding.

But mostly the river awed Lisa because, exactly twenty-six years ago, she'd seen her mother and baby sister drown in the turbulent, foaming Read More...

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