The Fresh Fiction Podcast
Conversations about what you’re reading, what you’re watching, and what you’re listening to
Episodes
Bestselling historical romance author Cathy Maxwell joins Fresh Fiction to talk about her first indie release, Curves for the Rakish Duke, and her first-ever author collaboration with the Busty Bodice Club series. Cathy opens up about the surprising generosity of indie readers, the creative freedom of publishing without gatekeepers, and why she is finally revisiting an old favorite novella with fresh eyes.
Before Christine Gunderson became an Amazon bestselling author, she was a TV reporter, a Capitol Hill press secretary, and a stay-at-home mom who wrote her first novel in stolen minutes at school pickup. In this Fresh Fiction Video Book Club conversation with host Samantha Tennant, Christine talks about the long, twisty road to publication, the real women who inspired the 1965 storyline in her new novel Behind White Picket Fences, ...
This episode centers on the Fresh Fiction team's weekend at Kiss and Tell, a local romance author book signing event in Grapevine, Texas. The team attended alongside book club members, meeting favorite authors, discovering new-to-them authors, and connecting with fellow readers.
Bestselling author Jayne Castle joins Fresh Fiction's Podcast to talk about ENTER THE NIGHTMARE, book nineteen in her Harmony series. She traces the real government psychic research that inspired her world building, introduces Sebastian, the reader-made dust bunny that inspired her mascot, and shares stories from a Cotswolds hiking trip with fellow authors Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Christina Dodd. Jayne also talks about writing ...
Romance author Amy Award joins Samantha Tennant to talk about THE COCKY KINGMANS, her football-playing family of brothers, and why every heroine, no matter her size, deserves a happy ending.
Four award-winning authors — Nina Crespo, Misty Urban, Carrie Schaffer, and Debra Parmley — join host Samantha Tennant to pick their best summer reads, talk travel tropes, and reveal what makes their characters impossible to put down.
USA Today bestselling author Sheila Roberts joins Fresh Fiction's Samantha Tennant to talk about her latest novel, Love on the Shelf — a bookshop-set enemies-to-lovers story that's anything but your typical rom-com. Sheila opens up about the real cultural moment that inspired Parker Black (yes, the man everyone loves to hate), why she believes love always wins, and how the romance genre is finally getting the respect it deser...
Samantha Tennant sits down with Andrea Hairston — novelist, playwright, Afrofuturist, and self-described "scientist, artiste, and hoodoo conjurer" — to talk about her latest novel, THE REDEMPTION CENTER IS CLOSED ON SUNDAYS, a genre-defying extra-dimensional murder mystery anchored by a Saint Bernardoodle dog detective named Una.
Andrea draws on her decades in theater — as director, playwright, and professor &mdas...
Samantha Tennant sits down with New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Mary Ellen Taylor to talk about her newest women's fiction novel, The Sky Beneath Her. Set on North Carolina's Outer Banks — nicknamed the Graveyard of the Atlantic — the book weaves between 1942, when a ship full of desperate passengers crosses U-boat-patrolled waters knowing they may not survive, and the present day, where a scuba diver wh...
Bestselling Regency and Victorian romance author Kathleen Ayers joins Samantha Tennant to talk about leaving a 30-year career in media sales to follow a dare from her best friend — and ending up with a romance career she never saw coming. Kathleen shares how classic gateway novels like SWEET SAVAGE LOVE and THIS LOVING TORMENT shaped her love of historical fiction, why morally gray men are still the most irresistible heroes i...
Ivy Cassidy — national bestselling author of more than 40 novels — joins Samantha Tennant to talk about her most ambitious book yet: House of Spells and Secrets, a sweeping historical fantasy rooted in the real legend of Biddy Early, the last woman tried for witchcraft in Ireland. Ivy shares how she balanced research with storytelling, why she set the book in 1971, and what it finally felt like to write completely outsi...
The line that launched the entire Orphan X series — and Gregg Hurwitz joined us on the Fresh Fiction Video Book Club to talk about what it means, 12 books in. From mind control cult research to his debut novella The Delivery, this is a conversation you don't want to miss. Link in bio.
Janna MacGregor joins Samantha Tennant to discuss her story in the Busty Bodice Club anthology, The Curves for the Secret Duke — a Regency romance with fake marriage, friends to lovers, and a secret-duke twist she rewrote from the ground up. They also talk about the anthology's collaborative process, writing full-figured heroines in the Regency era, and how Janna's legal training shaped her approach to craft.
200: 14 Readers, 40+ Books, and One Missing CIA Novelist Episode 200 of the Fresh Fiction Podcast is here. 200 episodes. Evolving from chat, to film and television, to books and authors. Hundreds of author conversations. Thousands of book recommendations. And one community that shows up, week after week, for the love of reading. Thank you for being part of this. Here’s to the next 200. → freshfiction.com/ne...
Julianne MacLean has been writing heartbreak and hope for 25 years — and she's just getting started. Host Samantha Tennant sits down with the USA Today bestselling author of What Tomorrow Will Be to talk about first loves, falling down and getting back up, and a brand-new chapter she wasn't supposed to announce yet. Plus Jane Eyre, Skittles, and a rescue dog named Rosie.
What happens when three celebrities land in the same ultra-exclusive rehab — and someone ends up dead? That's the opening of Such Sheltered Lives, the electric adult debut from New York Times bestselling author Alyssa Sheinmel.
Host Samantha Tennant sits down with Alyssa for a wide-ranging conversation about the leap from YA to adult fiction, the joys and challenges of writing multiple narrators, and how she crafts twists tha...
Romance author Annabelle Anders joins Samantha Tennant to talk about her unlikely path to publishing, the Regency series that almost never was, and why she finally wrote the curvy heroine she had long avoided — and what that choice taught her about herself.
Candace Lynn Talmadge didn’t just imagine the Stone Slayer series — she believes she lived it. A former business journalist turned dark high fantasy author, Candace joins Samantha Tennant on the Fresh Fiction Video Book Club to talk about the obsession that’s driven her since childhood, the literal demon she had to add to her nine-book-and-counting series, and why the fictional society of Asgard feels uncomfortabl...
USA Today bestselling author Naima Simone joins Samantha Tennant to talk about her journey from writing New Edition fan fiction in seventh grade to crafting some of the most emotionally layered romance series in the genre today. From the beloved Rose Bend small-town series to her boldly dark Huntsman fairytale reimaginings, Naima shares what drives her to write complex, unforgettable characters — and why fear is never a good ...
Bestselling author Kirsten Pursell joins Samantha Tennant to talk about THE UNABRIDGED LIFE OF MISSY KINCAID — an emotionally raw, ultimately uplifting novel about a woman who rises from her lowest point. Kirsten opens up about the real heartbreak and grief that shaped Missy's story, why she writes imperfect women who refuse to quit, and what's coming next in the Scarlet's Harlots trilogy.
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