Coral Cafe’s Vegetarian Supreme Pizza Recipe

on October 20, 2022

In Coral Cafe, the second novel in my Coral Cottage beach series, Marina Moore creates a vegetarian pizza for her new beach cafe. Readers often ask me to include recipes for the dishes I write about. You’ll find some, including this one, in the back of my books, and I’m posting others here on the blog…. Read More

Jan Moran

Jan Moran

Jan Moran is a USA Today bestselling author of heartwarming fiction, including the feel-good, contemporary beach series of Summer Beach, Coral Cottage, and Love California. Her riveting, immersive historical family sagas include Hepburn's Necklace, The Chocolatier, The Winemakers, and The Perfumer. St. Martin's Press, Goldmann/Penguin Random, and Newton Compton have published her novels, along with her imprint, Sunny Palms Press. Jan's books are also available in large print and audiobook editions. Her work is translated into German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Lithuanian, Polish, Bulgarian, and other languages. At present, Jan is working on the next books in her series, adapting The Winemakers for a dramatic television series, expanding her catalog of books and screenplays, and forming partnerships for film and television projects. She has been featured in numerous publications and on television and radio, including CNN, Women's Wear Daily, Allure, InStyle, and O Magazine. As an editor and writer, she has covered fragrance, beauty, and spa travel for various publications from Cosmopolitan to the Costco Connection. Jan is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and the University of Texas at Austin. As an entrepreneur and former CEO and board member, she speaks on entrepreneurship, the business of writing, women in business, and other topics. In her former life, Jan was the founder and creator of Scentsa, a touch-screen software program for retailers and brands. The fragrance and skincare programs (FragranceIQ, SkinIQ) are at Sephora stores in the US, Canada, France, Mexico, Brazil, and Denmark. The Scentsa program was sold to Sephora. As a speaker, consultant, and major brand/retailer spokesperson, Jan has spoken before numerous groups such as libraries, the San Diego State University Writer's Conference, Fashion Group International, The Fragrance Foundation, and The American Society of Perfumers. She has represented brands and retailers in media for several major PR companies, including Edelman and DeVries. Jan lives in San Diego County and is available for select in-person or online consulting, training, and speaking engagements.

https://www.janmoran.com

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS…OR IS IT?

on August 12, 2015

by Elizabeth Lowell I loved the idea so much I once used it for a book title.  I’d insert a shameless plug here, but this blog is supposed to talk about my newest novel, Perfect Touch.   While this latest romantic suspense has plenty of the action and thrills I love to write, it also deals… Read More

Elizabeth Lowell

Elizabeth Lowell

Individually and with co-author/husband Evan, Ann Maxwell has written seventy novels and one work of non-fiction. There are 30 million copies of these books in print, as well as reprints in 30 foreign languages. These novels range from science fiction to historical fiction, from romance to mystery to suspense. Writing as Ann Maxwell, she began her career in 1975 with a science fiction novel, Change. Since then, seven of her nine science fiction novels have been recommended for the Science Fiction Writers of America Nebula Award; A Dead God Dancing was nominated for what was then-called TABA (The American Book Award). In 1976 Ann and Evan (as A. E. Maxwell) collaborated with a Norwegian hunter and photographer, Ivar Ruud, on The Year-Long Day, a nonfiction work about Ruud's life as a trapper and hunter in the Arctic Circle. The book was later condensed in Reader's Digest and published in four foreign editions and three book club editions. In 1985, Just Another Day in Paradise, was published by Doubleday. It was the first of eight A. E. Maxwell crime novels, featuring couple Fiddler and Fiora faced with mysteries in the shade of sunny southern California. The second book, The Frog and the Scorpion, received a creative writing award from the University of California. The fourth book in the series, Just Enough Light to Kill, was named by Time Magazine as one of the best crime novels of 1988. Ann and Evan (writing as Ann Maxwell) have published four suspense novels, the most recent of which is Shadow and Silk. These novels appeared on nation-wide bestseller lists and are considered groundbreaking in the field of romantic suspense, which she helped innovate. In 1982, Ann began publishing romance novels as Elizabeth Lowell. Under that name she has received numerous professional awards in the romance field, including a Lifetime Achievement award from the Romance Writers of America in 1994. She has written both contemporary and historical romances as well as western romance. Since July of 1992, she has had more than thirty novels on the New York Times bestseller list, as well as other national and international bestseller lists. The series of novels featuring the unforgettable Donovan family---Amber Beach, Jade Island, Pearl Cove and Midnight in Ruby Bayou have won acclaim as some of her best romance novels. Her most recent romantic suspense is Night Diver. Her newest romance novel is Perfect Touch. You can connect with Ann on Facebook or Google+.

https://www.elizabethlowell.com

Jeanne Devlin

Jeanne Devlin

Jeanne Devlin is editor of The RoadRunner Press, an award-winning traditional publishing house based in the American West. An editor of newspapers, magazines, and books for more than thirty years, she has also worked on national marketing and publicity campaigns with such publishers as Simon and Schuster and St. Martin's and for a number of New York Times bestselling authors, including Robyn Carr, Sabrina Jeffries, Debbie Macomber, Linda Lael Miller, and Wendy Corsi Staub. A graduate of the Stanford University Publishing Course, Jeanne is a member of the Children's Book Council, the National Book Critics Circle, and the Oklahoma Center for the Book of the Library of Congress. She also consults with boutique publishers.

http://www.theroadrunnerpress.com

There are Plenty of Treats for You to Read This October

on September 30, 2014

by Jaycie Cash October can be scary, but don’t worry there are plenty of great books for you to enjoy this month. Check out these great reads being released by Writerspace Top Shelf Authors: Perfect Timing “A Harrigan Family Novel” By Catherine Anderson Mass Market Paperback and eBook Published by Signet Released Sept. 30, 2014,… Read More

Why Not Fill Your 30 Days in September with Some Great Books

on September 9, 2014

By Jaycie Cash School is back in session and we’re heading full steam towards fall. While not fill all 30 days of September with some great reads by Writerspace Top Shelf Authors, like: The Homecoming A Thunder Point Novel #6 By Robyn Carr Mass Market Paperback and eBook Published by MIRA Released August 26, 2014… Read More

A Hot Talking Carny

on May 28, 2014

Usually picking a favorite scene in a book is like picking my favorite chocolate from one of those Valentine’s Day boxes—I like them all! I have a ton of scenes that I love in This Year’s Black. There’s the makeover. Sex in a tent (trust me, it’s better than it sounds). The won’t-give-an-inch flirting/bickering. But… Read More

Avery Flynn

Avery Flynn

Avery Flynn, author of UP A DRY CREEK, her first published novel and the debut title for her Dry Creek series set in Nebraska, grew up in a small town in the western part of that state, a far cry from her present day home just outside of Washington, D.C. It was no accident that she went back to her roots for the small town setting for her romantic suspense.

“When I graduated high school,” she says, “I couldn’t cross the state line fast enough. The older I got and the farther I moved away, the more I realized what a wonderful place Nebraska had been to live. I swore I’d set a novel there as a way to give people a look into the amazing folks that live in my home state.”

The name Avery Flynn is a pseudonym for the author who, at least for now, prefers to remain behind the scenes. She believes having Avery as her alter ego is a very good thing because, as she says, “Pen name Avery is way cooler than me. Her favorite color is hot pink. She drinks single malt scotch on the rocks. She loves the Argentinean tango and stays at Iceland’s Ice Hotel.”

Author Avery has been writing since she was a child and her father gave her a baby blue Brother typewriter. She couldn’t read but nonetheless wrote numerous stories about her stuffed animals in gibberish. She hasn’t stopped since, though she maintains that her spelling has gotten much better and she now prefers to write in English.

Today she’s enjoying her own happily ever after with her dashing husband, three crazy kids and two arthritic dogs. She dreams of one day having a floor-to-ceiling library à la Beauty and the Beast and is working to perfect the coffee IV drip. For right now, however, she’s happy to have her first book published and to have finished the second, A Dry Creek Bed, which is expected to be published by the end of 2011.

http://www.averyflynn.com

What I Know About Women

on May 23, 2014

Like most writers, I also had a day job, because one does acquire a certain taste for the luxuries of life, such as shelter and food.  I wound up, largely by chance, as a college professor, reading specialist type, working with teachers. So, at the ripe old age of thirty, I looked up to find… Read More

Sheldon Russell

Sheldon Russell

Dr. Russell published his first novel, Empire, in 1993 with Evans Publications, Inc. He followed that suspense novel with two historic frontier titles—The Savage Trail (Pinnacle Books, 1993) and Requiem at Dawn (Pinnacle Books, 2000). Requiem at Dawn was a finalist for Best Original Paperback in the 2001 Western Writers of America, Inc., Spur Awards competition.

In 2006, the University of Oklahoma Press released Dreams to Dust: A Tale of the Oklahoma Land Rush, which was selected as an Official Oklahoma Centennial Project. It won both the Oklahoma Book Award for fiction and the Langum Prize for Historical Literature. With The Yard Dog: A Mystery (Minotaur Books, September 2009), Russell introduces the Hook Runyon series. The first book finds Hook investigating a murder at an Oklahoma railroad yard near a German POW camp during WWII. The Insane Train, second in the series, was selected as one of the six best mysteries of 2010 by Publishers Weekly.

http://www.sheldonrussell.com

Lure of the Medieval

on May 22, 2014

I had a friend suggest that maybe writers were drawn to the time period where they have the most memorable past lives. If this is the case, clearly I had a blast during my time as a medieval lady because I can’t seem to get enough of the time period. Some people look at the… Read More

Joanne Rock

Joanne Rock

Four-time RITA finalist Joanne Rock has never met a romance sub-genre she didn't like. The USA Today bestselling author of over eighty books enjoys writing a wide range of stories, most recently focusing on sexy contemporaries and small-town family sagas. An optimist by nature and perpetual seeker of silver linings, Joanne finds romance fits her life outlook perfectly---love is worth fighting for. A frequent speaker at regional and national writing conferences she enjoys giving back to the writing community that nurtured and inspired her early career. She has a Masters degree in Literature from the University of Louisville but credits her fiction writing skills to her intensive study with friend and fellow author Catherine Mann. When she's not writing, Joanne enjoys travel to gather new ideas.

https://www.Joannerock.com

Joanne Rock Contest

Joanne Rock is giving away the first three books in her Single in South Beach series-- SEX & THE SINGLE GIRL, GIRL'S GUIDE TO HUNTING AND KISSING, and ONE NAUGHTY NIGHT, to one winner. Open INTL. Winner will receive digital editions.

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Do You Like this Likeability Study?

on May 15, 2014

A short video I saw a few minutes ago on msn.com provided info from a study about what makes people immediately likeable. You know, that all-important first impression that takes place within the first one-tenth of a second of encountering someone. I was surprised by the results. According to the video, the part of our… Read More

The Things I Do for Research

on May 8, 2014

When I wrote The Protectors Series (Dangerous Pursuit, Dangerous Interlude and Dangerous Paradise), I wanted to showcase places I had been to in a story. I love traveling and using tidbits I’ve learned in my travels. In Dangerous Pursuit, my husband and I visited several different jungles so I could experience what it felt like… Read More

Margaret Daley

Margaret Daley

Margaret Daley is an award winning, multi-published author in the romance genre. One of her romantic suspense books, Hearts on the Line, won the American Christian Fiction Writers' Book of the Year Contest. Recently she has won the Golden Quill Contest, FHL's Inspirational Readers' Choice Contest, Winter Rose Contest, Holt Medallion and the Barclay Gold Contest. She wrote for various secular publishers before the Lord led her to the Christian romance market. She currently writes inspirational romance and romantic suspense books for the Steeple Hill Love Inspired lines, romantic suspense for Abingdon Press and historical romance for Summerside Press. She has sold ninety-two books to date. Margaret was the President for American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), an organization of over 2600 members. She was one of the founding members of the first ACFW local chapter, WIN in Oklahoma. She has taught numerous classes for online groups, ACFW and RWA chapters. She enjoys mentoring other authors. Until she retired a few years ago, she was a teacher of students with special needs for twenty-seven years and volunteered with Special Olympics as a coach. She currently is on the Outreach committee at her church, working on several projects in her community as well as serving on her church's vestry. On a more personal note, she has been married for over forty years to Mike and has one son and four granddaughters. She treasures her time with her family and friends.

https://www.margaretdaley.com

Fiction on Ice

on May 1, 2014

In THE APPLE ORCHARD, Tess, an art provenance expert, keeps her handwritten notes in the freezer. Our dashing hero, Dominic, discovers this habit of hers (along with her other less-than-attractive habits, such as drying her undies by draping them over lampshades, and subsisting on Red Bull and microwave burritos, when he visits her apartment. I… Read More

Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs

Using blunt scissors, pages from a Big Chief tablet, a borrowed stapler and a Number Two pencil, Susan Wiggs self-published her first novel at the age of eight. A Book About Some Bad Kids was based on the true-life adventures of Susan and her siblings, and the first printing of one copy was a complete sell-out.

Due to her brother's extreme reaction to that first prodigious effort, Susan went underground with her craft, entertaining her friends and offending her siblings with anonymously-written stories of virtuous sisters and the brothers who torment them. The first romance she ever read was Shanna by the incomparable Kathleen Woodiwiss, which she devoured while slumped behind a college vector analysis textbook. Armed with degrees from SFA and Harvard, and toting a crate of "keeper" books by Woodiwiss, Roberta Gellis, Laurie McBain, Rosemary Rodgers, Jennifer Blake, Bertrice Small and anything with the words "flaming" and "ecstasy" in the title, she became a math teacher, just to prove to the world that she did have a left brain.

Late one night, she finished the book she was reading and was confronted with a reader's worst nightmare--She was wide awake, and there wasn''t a thing in the house she wanted to read. Figuring this was the universe''s way of taking away her excuses, she picked up a Big Chief tablet and a Number Two pencil, and began writing her novel with the working title, A Book About Some Bad Adults. Actually, that was a bad book about some adults, but Susan persevered, learning her craft the way skydiving is learned--by taking a blind leap and hoping the chute will open.

Her first book was published (without the use of blunt scissors and a stapler) by Zebra in 1987, and since then she has been published by Avon, Tor, HarperCollins, Harlequin, Mira and Warner Books. Unable to completely abandon her beloved teaching profession, Susan is a frequent workshop leader and speaker at writers' conferences, including the Romance Writers of America conference, the PNWA and Maui Writers Conference. She won a RITA award in 1994, and her recent novel The Charm School was voted one of RWA's Favorite Books of the Year. She is the proud recipient of several RT awards, the Peninsula RWA's Blue Boa, the Holt Medallion and the Colorado Award of Excellence.

Susan enjoys many hobbies, including sitting in the hot tub while talking to her mother on the phone, kickboxing, cleaning the can opener, sculpting with butter and growing her hair. She lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Jay, her daughter, Elizabeth, and an Airedale that hasn't been groomed since 1994.

http://www.susanwiggs.com

Wielding Procrastination as a Weapon

on March 28, 2014

I was going to talk about procrastination as a weapon—like Thor’s Mjölnir!–but that sounds like a LOT of effort, doesn’t it? Maybe I should just call it a tool—although even that word makes me want to go take a nap. Writers, at least some of us, are fond friends with procrastination. It’s the pal that… Read More

Deanna Raybourn

Deanna Raybourn

New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist Deanna Raybourn is a 6th generation native Texan. She graduated with a double major in English and history from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of one, Raybourn makes her home in Virginia. Her novels have been nominated for numerous awards including the Edgar, the Macavity, and the Agatha. She launched a new Victorian mystery series with the 2015 release of A CURIOUS BEGINNING, featuring intrepid butterfly-hunter and amateur sleuth, Veronica Speedwell. Veronica's third adventure, A TREACHEROUS CURSE, was published in 2018 and nominated for the Edgar Award. The eighth book in the series, A SINISTER REVENGE, published in March 2023, with further books to come. Deanna's first contemporary thriller, featuring four female assassins who must band together to take out their nemesis as they prepare for retirement---KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE---published in September of 2022 at #9 on the New York Times bestseller list. KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE won the 2022 Barry Award for Best Thriller.

https://www.deannaraybourn.com

Deanna Raybourn Contest

Deanna Raybourn is giving away a grab bag book club set! TWO winners will each receive twelve copies of a Veronica Speedwell title or KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE. Copies may be any combination of hardcover or trade paperback, but all will be signed.

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