Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

The Duke Knows Best comes out next Tuesday, December 5. This final book in the Duke’s Sons series follows the story of Randolph, the clerical brother, and his romance with a young lady determined not to marry a clergyman. Verity Sinclair has grown up surrounded by churchmen, and she wants an adventurer instead. It takes a while for her to see that there are all kinds of adventures. I was happy to include some Gresham family drama in this last volume. It seemed the duke and duchess hadn’t had enough to do up to now. They are powerful personalities and a pleasure to watch. Booklist said: "With her usual flair for subtle characterization and polished writing expertly leavened with dry wit, Ashford delivers another superbly crafted addition to her Duke’s Sons series, all of which are required reading for fans of cleverly conceived, smartly written Regency historical romances." I hope you'll give it a try!     

Writing and books are without doubt my first love and ultimate passion. I love nothing more than hanging around bookstores or visiting famous writer's houses. But a close second for me has to be art. I’m very lucky to have visited some of the biggest galleries in the world, including the Met in New York City and the Louvre in Paris. A few weeks ago, I went up to London for Halloween. London is an amazing place for many reasons, but one of the best things is that all of its museums are free to enter. So while we waited for our ghost bus tour, we went to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery (two separate museums next door to each other). Below are some of the paintings I saw and why they are so special to me. The Virgin of the rocks by Da Vinci. There are two versions of this and I’m lucky enough to have seen them both. The other is at the Louvre in Paris. This painting makes me very emotional. The original famous painting of Jane Austen by her...

HI, everyone, This is a repost from an interview written for another blog dated 4/2015. The info is still good. (It's nice to know some things don't change!) HOW DID YOU START YOUR STREET TEAM? I put out a call on my facebook fan page as well as my yahoo fan group. My original intention was to have 50 members, one in each state. Well, I have 50 members and about 45 states represented. A few states have 2 members. I just couldn’t find a fan in the Dakotas, Montana, Minnesota, or New Mexico. *Update--I still don't have anyone in those states. Buler? Buler?) WHAT IS YOUR STREET TEAM CALLED? Ashlyn Chase Champions WHAT DO YOU DO FOR YOUR STREET TEAM? I send them physical promos to hand out and books to review (if they’re willing.) I hold a contest during promo heavy months on the 10 th of that month for a $10 gift card. I also send each member a holiday card and gift each year. WHAT DOES YOUR STREET TEAM DO FOR YOU? ...

 Picture I took of a nutcracker in the German shop at Disney World, one of the table setting for Christmas last year, and the old rocking horse and decorated tree this year. I'm ready. Are you? Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! And if you need a little Christmas: Excerpt from Dreaming of a White Wolf Christmas Owen couldn’t believe his luck. Candice Mayfair was the beautiful white wolf he’d seen that day so long ago. Not that she looked like a wolf right now. He only knew she was the wolf, unequivocally, because he recognized her scent. After the initial shock of seeing an unfamiliar and intriguing Arctic she-wolf, he’d gone after her. The whole pack had gone on a run that night, but they knew to stay far away from any campsite. He and the other guys had swum across the river to explore a bit. Cameron and his mate had stayed on the other side with the kids. He’d even swum back across the river to find her and discovered her scent had led right to one...

Happy Thanksgiving! I love, love this time of year. One special treat will be hosting my sister and her two daughters. We've made our plans, which includes a baking day. My sister, Jodi, will make a cherry pie (she's famous for them). I plan to experiment with more Georgian era recipes with the help of my nieces. We're going the old fashioned route and baking our pumpkins (as opposed to using canned stuff for pumpkin desserts). It's a noticeable difference in flavor. From my family to yours, we wish you a Happy, Wonderful Thanksgiving!      ~ Gina Conkle At Thanksgiving time I often think of my mother's mother, whose house we visited for so many holidays. She always made sure each family member had their favorite food at the feast. Mine was a "salad" made with lime jello, crushed pineapple, and cottage cheese. I don't know if I could face it now, but I loved it as a child. And it sure seemed a better choice then my brother's g...

Although this is technically a book blog, and I’m supposed to be writing about all the glamorous bookish things in my life right now, I’m going to give you a puppy instead. (Sorry not sorry.) For my birthday a few weeks ago, my husband and daughter decided that the perfect gift would be a wriggling, messy, rambunctious puppy…and they weren’t wrong. Duke is the newest addition to our family, and we couldn’t be happier about him. He’s an Akita/Lab mix, and he’s already assimilated himself into the writer lifestyle by lounging on the couch with me for hours at a time while I work. He’s also a dog after my own heart because the only thing he wants to do (besides nap) is eat. In fact, he's quickly learned to carry around his bowl and look sad, because nothing is more effective in getting snacks than this face. Seriously, you guys. He's so hungry. The vet says he's likely to grow to 100+ pounds, so he has some serious growing to do. My real-life advent...

My debut book, Highland Promise, came out recently, and its book birthday was the same day as my puppy Jasper's first birthday! So I thought it would be fun to do several promo pics featuring my birthday boy with my birthday book. Jasper would cooperate and pretend to read and love Highland Promise.  Right?!! As you can imagine, it was a long day—hair and make-up, costumes, props, a wee prima puppy tantrum, and a big, exhausted sleep when the shoot was done. We started out looking at Highland Promise and deciding how best we wanted to feature the book. After a minute of just staring at it, we sighed, wiped up the drool, and decided full frontal would be best…I meant the cover, of course! Next we delivered Jasper to our hair and make-up peeps, Maddie and Cooper, to make sure he looked snazzy, then we looked at various options for costume, deciding that because Jasper was orally fixated and liked to eat things, simpler would be better. All wa...