A Plethora of Spring Releases

This spring is turning out to be full of surprises when it comes to new releases. I’m going straight to the fun this month, because I have so much to talk about.

I’m especially proud of Christy Reece’s new book Rescue Me, because I feel like I had a small hand in it. Christy told me, “I took your Dream Big online class in January 2007, and I was able to finish my manuscript in two weeks, secure an agent a few months later, who sold it to Ballantine. My first sale!” How cool is that? This is the first book in a back-to-back trilogy centering around Last Chance Rescue, an organization of highly trained mercenaries with only one priority and purpose, to rescue victims. With worldwide connections and a phenomenal success rate, LCR operatives find and rescue victims when all other avenues have been tried and failed. They do whatever it takes, no matter the risk, to rescue the innocent.

I absolutely adore Tricia Mills and I’m so excited about her first Young Adult book Heartbreak River about Alexandra Landon, whose father dies in a rafting accident, and she questions whether she can recapture her love of rafting, and her former boyfriend Sean Kenley. One way or the other, this summer will change her life. “I got part of the idea for writing this book while riding Amtrak’s California Zephyr train through Colorado,” Trish says. “For about 200 miles, it meanders along the Colorado River, where lots of people raft. I wondered what it would be like to run one of those businesses.

Allison Brennan’s Sudden Death is about “burn the book” mercenary Jack Kincaid who is forced to team with "by the book" FBI Agent Megan Elliott to stop a homicidal duo targeting former soldiers with ties to Jack's mysterious past. “Dark and sexy soldier-for-hire Jack Kincaid first appeared in Fear No Evil, resulting in hundreds of reader letters asking when his book would come out,” says Allison. “This is it! ‘Sudden Death’ launches the FBI Trilogy, Sacramento-set romantic thrillers.”

Vanessa Kelly has a new Regency, Mastering the Marquess, out this month. “I spent several years in grad school studying the topic of madness in the novels of women writers in Regency England,” she says. “When I decided to write my own book, I had so much info knocking about in my head about this particular topic that it began to find it's way into the story. It became more and more gothic, with some really evil villains and the climax taking place in a madhouse. I put my poor heroine through hell and back, but it sure was fun to channel a bit of the Bronte sisters!”

Denise Swanson says that her cousin’s tales of extreme prom moms inspired her new book, Murder of a Royal Pain. When school psychologist Skye Denison stumbles over the body of pushy "Promfest" chairperson Annette Paine during a Halloween fundraiser, it looks like a clear-cut case of promicide. But nothing is as clear-cut as it seems, and Skye’s life may also be in danger.

When tough cop Maya Black is transformed into a vampire, her new motto becomes "Once bitten, twice the bitch," and the creatures of the night learn to be very afraid when she hunts. Adam Brody needs her help--and he'll bleed for her, but he won't trust her in Cynthia Eden 's new paranormal romance, Immortal Danger. Good stuff.

Bella Andre’s Wild Heat is one sexy book about a hotshot firefighter and a sexy arson investigator, who definitely spark. The firefighter is her No. 1 suspect in some wildfires. I have to say it, hot stuff! (Smile)

Miranda French is on her honeymoon when she stumbles onto a body in Marie-Nicole Ryan’s One Too Many. Her husband happens to be Det. David French, and now he has his hands full with an overly helpful wife and way too many suspects.

“In Cleopatra's Perfume I wanted to create the journey of a woman's sensory experience that had its own personal chemistry that, like a good perfume, would blend well with historical references,” says author Jina Bacarr. “I've always been a fan of the film, Casablanca (Bogie, Ingrid and the crowd sweating out the war in Rick’s Café), but what if Casablanca was erotic? And what if instead of letters of transit, the main characters in the story were under the spell of a mysterious ancient perfume said to have belonged to Cleopatra?”

The Secret Mistress Arrangement by Kimberly Lang is the story of a one-night stand that gets completely out of hand when a commitment-phobic control freak meets the one man she’s willing to break all her rules for. I can’t wait to read this one!

Until next time... Candy

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