Summer is Heating Up...

All I can say is it is going to be one hot summer, and I’m not talking about the
weather. You will not lack for reading material that sizzles and I’m excited
that so many of my friends have books out this month.

First up is my fellow witchychick Yasmine Galenorn's Demon Mistress. Yasmine has a way of mixing magic, mystery and some laughs, like no one I know. “When I was writing the book, it quickly became apparent that my tag line for it was going to be both awesome and bizarre. I told my editor it would be ‘Revenge of the Nerds meets Hell Boy, meets Lovecraft,” she laughs. “There wasn’t much she could say to that unitl arrived on her desk and she read. Then, she understood, and she loved it. I had a lot of fun with this book.” My friend Catherine Spangler’s Touched By Light is out this month. “I have never been able to control my secondary Characters – a dangerous flaw,” she laughs. “This is very evident in Touched by Light, with Julia and Adam. They were never intended to be more than bit players in the previous book, Touched by Fire. But they pitched a fit until they got their own story. Okay, so I’m weak where my characters are concerned…” Alyssa Day is living proof that sometimes the trauma in life can make for really good writing. "Atlantis Unleashed is the book that carried me through a very tough health crisis," she says. “Knowing that I had to rescue Lord Justice from the terrible place I’d left him in the previous book kept me going on some days when I didn’t think I’d ever write again. I truly believe it’s the most emotional book I’ve ever written so far in the series because of that.” The lovely Linda Castillo is getting rave reviews for her first hardcover Sworn to Silence. “My heroine, Katie Burkholder, was a young Amish girl who survived the terror of he Slaughterhouse Murders. She went off to the big city and became involved in law enforcement,” she says. “When she returns home she comes to terms with her past – until the first body is discovered in a snow-covered field.” Okay, so I have to admit I’d buy Judi Fennell’s new In Over Her Head, just for the cover. Hotness. But it sounds like a cool book. “Before writing In Over Her Head, I was working on a series of modern-day paranormal twists to fairy tales,” she says. “When it was time for the next story, I decided to twist The Little Mermaid. The easiest way to do this was to make him the Mer. Coincidentally, I saw the movie Failure to Launch, which, aside from the blatantly nautical tie-in, had a hero that spoke to me (and Matthew McConaughey can speak to me any time he wants...) Put the two together, and voila! Reel Tritone, devil-may-care, ne'er-do-well with a heart of gold. Who happens to be a merman. When Sarah Parr received the call that she’d sold Renegade she couldn’t believe it. “It was raining, country music was blaring and I was in the barn cleaning stalls,” she says. “The phone ran and after she told me she wanted a two book deal I was in shock. When I hung up the phone I just stood there until my horse Tahoma finally whickered and I jumped.” If you need a laugh, pick up Christie Craig’s Gotcha. Pizza delivery girl Macy Tucker knows she cannot depend on a man and that's why dating is off the menu,” says Craig. “But when crazy circumstances force her to work with detective Jake Baldwin, Macy wonders if she shouldn't expand the menu selection to include one sexy detective.” Stephanie Julian really turns up the heat with her new release, The Magical Seduction, Seduced by Two. One woman. Two brothers. It was supposed to be one night only-an escape into pleasure – a night for Nica to forget her obligations and her secrets. Through hours filled with sensually wicked exploration, an emotional connection develops with the two gorgeous brothers she had no way of anticipating. But a stranger with an ultimatum and a dangerous power forces her to reveal her own magic to save her new lovers. Until next time... Candy

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Candy is a nationally syndicated entertainment columnist, who has interviewed just about every celebrity there is in Hollywood and written thousands of articles. She is the author of the Charmed & Dangerous series including Charmed & Ready Charmed & Dangerous, Charmed & Deadly, and Like A Charm. Her latest book The Demon King and I is available now!

Her non-fiction prose includes Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy, and essays in Alias Assumed: Sex, Lies and SD-6, and Five Seasons of Angel. She's also the entertainment critic providing the latest on TV, film and celebs for the radio station 96.3 KSCS. And she's the managing editor for FYI Television.

You can visit Candy daily at her blog or her website