Our FCRW Authors

Abigail is a Boston-bred Yankee now eating grits and saying “y’all” in North Central Florida. She dreamed more of being a stage actress or joining the CIA than being an author. While she still enjoys participating in community theater productions and singing karaoke, the secret-agent career was replaced by hours at her computer, writing stories of love and laughter and happily ever after. Abigail lives with her husband, two kids, and one crazy princess puppy.

Author Website: http://www.abigailsharpe.com/
Author's Email: Abigail.writes@yahoo.com

Alyssa Day is the pen name (and dark and tortured alter ego) of author Alesia Holliday. As Alyssa, she is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author with more than a million books sold, and she writes the Vampire Motorcycle Club, Warriors of Poseidon and Cardinal Witches paranormal romance series and the Tiger’s Eye Mysteries, a paranormal mystery series. As Alesia, she writes comedies that make readers snort things out of their noses, and is the author of the award-winning memoir about military families during war-time deployments: Email to the Front. She has won many awards for her writing, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award for outstanding romance fiction and the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal Romance novel of 2012.

Author's Website: https://alyssaday.com/

Amanda, (Amanda Ward, Amanda Warden, AC Ward) started reading romance before she probably should have. Before long, she was anticipating the steamy scenes and soon skipping past the description of sweeping hills to the good parts. Still dreaming about Mr. Right-Forever, she lives out her fantasies in her stories. Her main hope is for those reading to take away the feeling that they are more than enough for anyone. She'd love to hear from her readers.

Author Website: https://amberwardenauthor.mailerpage.com
Author Email's: amberwardenauthor@gmail.com

Ann began life in Florida but was raised in Charleston, SC, and went to college in Atlanta, GA. She landed in Pennsylvania where she raised her 4 children before migrating back to her native Florida. Since she was in school, Ann has always been involved in volunteer efforts beginning with tutoring, volunteering in her children's classroom, then Ronald McDonald House and running a local networking group called Women on the Move for ladies who were looking to network to grow both their personal and professional lives.

Working on being published

Email: awrighter4@comcast.net

Ashli Hays a.k.a. Halsey Shay (Urban Fantasy and Sci-Fi)

Bio: pending

Website: https://halseyshay.com/ - "in Progress"

Growing up in a small Tennessee town, where everyone knew everyone and most people could claim some kinship if you went back far enough, Barbara developed a strong connection to place and to those who came before her. Her mother told them family stories and local tales she had heard over the years. A simple Sunday drive became a running dialog with a story for every point along the way. This oral history combined with a small-town, Southern upbringing molded her sense of history and fed her imagination. Reading novels and watching old movies provided an escape from her busy life.

After compiling the genealogical information gathered by her mother and writing down many of those family stories to share with the next generation, She decided to try putting the stories in her head down on paper. Her own fictional stories and characters emerged. And, although she loved all historical time periods, the Second World War held her attention longer than any other and connected her to her family’s stories and her small hometown’s stories. Barbara's historical fiction novels focus on love stories in the World War II era.

Author's Website: https://www.barbarawhitaker.com
Author's Email: bkwhitaker13@yahoo.com

C. L. Hart is a multi-genre author living in a remote town in northeastern Colorado. She primarily writes Lovecraftian fantasy and horror with the occasional sweet romance thrown in to upset the cosmic apple cart. She is also a professional editor. When not cooking up plots or rehabilitating eldritch horrors, she may be found baking things that will hopefully be found tasty by someone besides the eldritch horrors.

Author's Website: http://www.naughtynetherworldpress.com
Pagimate: https://bit.ly/NNPBooks
Substack: https://naughtynetherworldpress.substack.com

Charlee is a long time fan of love, adventure, and happily-ever-after. She grew up in Florida where a huge fallen oak tree in the swampy woods near her home served as her very own Star Ship Enterprise. Luckily the alligators were almost never a problem on her spaceship as the flight-deck was several feet above the muddy ground. She did lose a few tennis shoes on away missions, though.

Author Website: https://www.charleeallden.com/
Author Email: Charleeallden@gmail.com

Curtis began his interest in reading as a child, thanks to his mother who read to him, and in 7th grade he was honored by his school as the recipient of the Dolfinger-McMahon Book Award. His first novel was published in 2012. Between 2011 and 2013, while attending college full time two of those years, he penned 16 novels of various genres, while graduating with honors from the University of North Florida. To date, he has penned 30 thirty full length books, 24 which are currently published.

Email Author: csbennett55@ilj.com

Working on being published.

Debby writes contemporary romance with elements of suspense and sometimes ghosts or witches. She lives on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, with her husband, David. Besides writing, she enjoys biking, walking on the beach, and a glass of wine at sunset. Her favorite places to visit are New Orleans, New York City, Captiva Island in Florida, the Cotswolds of England, and her home state of Michigan. She is a history buff who also enjoys reading murder mysteries, time travel, and, of course, romance. Visually impaired since childhood by Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), she uses screen-reading software to research and write her books.

Author's Website: https://www.debbygrahl.com
Author's Email: authordebbygrahl@gmail.com
Author's UBL: https://books2read.com/ap/8G6zJW/Debby-Grahl

Elizabeth Edgar was born in Massachusetts and is a direct descendant of Pilgrims and three Salem witches, which explains her penchant for stirring up trouble at work. She was raised in a small town in northeastern Colorado. Growing up, she was fascinated by travel and excelled in academics and orchestra. She loves to tell stories, which resulted in many trips to the principal’s office. If she isn’t working on her four-and-a-half-acre property in northern Florida, she is cuddling one of her many rescue dogs or texting with her stepdaughters.

Author's Website: https://elizabethedgar.com/
Author's Email: elizabethedgarbooks@gmail.com

Growing up, Erika Kilmer Freidly never enjoyed reading, but the stories in her imagination lulled her to sleep. When she wasn’t told what to read, her interest in books kindled. As her TBR list grew, so did the stories in her head. One day, she decided that her idea was too good to keep to herself, so she asked her family what they thought and the desire to publish her stories emerged.

She is always down for adventures. She moved a thousand miles away from her birthplace to start a new life with only the things she could fit in two cars. Now, she is starting a new adventure with writing.

When she’s not chasing her dreams, she is spending time with her family and friends as the only extrovert in a sea of introverts. When her energy tires one person out, she always has someone else to annoy with her love.

Author's Website: https://erikakilmerfreidly.com/
Author Email: efkilmer912@gmail.com

I hail from the snow-belt of northeast Ohio and after my Kent State graduation, I headed to the Caribbean island of Aruba to live and work for a subsidiary of Exxon, teaching children of ex-pats. What could be better than sand, surf, and stunning sunsets? After my tropical makeover, I jetted to central Florida to teach music in the public schools and raise my son. I now live in northeast Florida. I love Nature and wildlife, like the turkeys and deer that roam my backyard. And I love traveling to locales to observe how other writers lived, worked, and played. Writing is not only my passion, but a vocation worth the time and effort to pursue.

Author's Website: https://gloriaferguson.com/
Author's Email: gloriafergusonauthor@gmail.com

She lives in Florida with her computer programming genius husband, three children, and four outrageously spoiled cats. She is a first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Past President of First Coast Romance Writers), and fitness instructor. When not writing, she can be found reading, teaching spinning, Body Pump, or collapsed in front of her giant HDTV, covered in cats.

Author's Website: https://janjackson.net/
Author's Email: janwriter2@gmail.com

Jolene is a non-fiction published author, website design, digital marketer and a handcrafted bead and wire jewelry maker. She enjoys reading, writing blog articles, traveling, helping other authors to self-publish, as well as getting lost in creating bead and wire jewelry and accessories. She has her own online bookstore which she hopes to expand to a real “Sticks N’ Bricks” place sometime in the future. She is a freelancer through her Southern Dragon Publishing website helping writers with various writing business services.

Author's Website: https://jolenesbooksandmore.com
Author's Email: jolene.macfadden@jolenesbooksandmore.com
Author's Online Bookstore: https://bookstore.jolenesbooksandmore.com
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jolenethewriter.bsky.social
Author's Link Tree: https://jolenetheauthor.my.canva.site/
Southern Dragon Publishing: https://southerndragonpublishing.com

Multiple Personalities in Romance Fiction Author Julia Talbot (LGBTQA+ Historical and Paranormal Romance) and Minerva Howe (MPREG and MM Romance).

Julia Talbot lives in the great Southwest with her wife and three basset hounds. A full-time author, Julia writes paranormals and more with lots of love and action and, as her alter ego Minerva Howe, she writes mpreg and alpha/omega stories. She believes that everyone deserves a happy ending, so she writes about love without limits, where all of her stories leave a mark.

Email: juliatalbot@gmail.com
Website: https://www.juliatalbot.com
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/julia-talbot

Minerva Howe is a lover of books, movies, and music, and she loves to tell stories. She lives in central New Mexico with her wife, a pack of dogs, and a sprawling yard full of cactus. She writes love stories about Alphas and Omegas, mpreg, and quite simply, love.

Website: https://www.minervahowe.com/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/minervahowe.bsky.social
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/minerva-howe

Karen lives an idyllic island life and her goal is to share her happy place with readers one book at a time. She lives in Florida with her husband and rescue pup.

Authors Website: https://karenandover.com/
Email Author: karen@karenandover.com

Karen Renee is the author of the Riot Motorcycle Club, Beta, and O-Town series of books. She once crunched Nielsen ratings data but these days she brings her imagination to life by writing books. She has wanted to be a writer since she was very young, but it’s taken the last twenty plus years for her to amass enough courage and overall life experience to bring that dream to life. Some of those life experiences came from the wonderful world of advertising, banking, and local television media research. She is a proud wife and mother, and a Jacksonville native. When she’s not at the soccer field or cooking, you can find her at her local library, the grocery store, in her car jamming out to some tunes, or hibernating while she writes and/or reads books.

Author's Website: https://AuthorKarenRenee.com
Author's Email: authorkarenrenee@gmail.com
Author's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3VJbsAS

Kari Lemor has always been a voracious reader. One of those kids who had the book under the covers or under the desk at school. Even now she has been known to stay up until the wee hours finishing a good book. Romance has always been her favorite, stories of people fighting through conflict to reach their happily ever after. Writing wasn't something she enjoyed when young and only in the last few years began putting the stories that ran rampant in her head, down on paper.

Now that her kids are all grown and have moved out, she uses her spare time to create character driven stories of love and hope. She lives with her husband and they split their time between a small town in New England and beautiful St. Augustine. Being near the ocean is her dream location. 

Author's Website: https://www.karilemor.com/

A former Golden Heart Finalist. She is the past program chair and popular speaker for the Chattanooga Writer's Guild, a member of Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers’ of America and various local chapters. When not writing, she can be found pursuing passions such as being a self defense instructor, a Master Gardener, and a full time chemist with numerous professional publications and U.S. patents.

Author's Website: https://www.kellezriley.net/

L.J. Green is a historical mystery steampunk romance author whose debut series is inspired by the captivating diaries of her late great aunt and cousin. Green enjoys researching her family's past and others families throughout the turbulent times from 1900 to 1940s. She incorporates real life people in whatever city she is writing about with her fictional characters as a remembrance to their contribution to our history.

Her upcoming series was inspired by a summer spent in the family's attic where she stumbled upon a hidden treasure trove: a steamer trunk filled with timeworn diaries. These intimate accounts, preserved for decades, offered a glimpse into a world she had never imagined.

Intrigued by the stories within, Green embarked on a personal quest to bring these forgotten tales to life. With a touch of creative flair, she transformed the diaries into a series of historical mysteries, blending elements of steampunk and romance. The result is a captivating narrative that transports readers to a bygone era, filled with adventure, intrigue, and unforgettable characters.

Author's Email: lillianJGreen1900s@gmail.com
Author's UBL: https://ljgreenauthor.my.canva.site/

LaTisha Redding is the author of the middle-grade novel Leelee the Imposter. She made her picture book debut with Calling the Water Drum, which received a 5-star Kirkus Review. She attributes her love of storytelling to her parents gifting her with a book every Friday. She writes stories to entertain, to inspire, to encourage and to fuel the imagination. LaTisha lives in Florida, and when she’s not wilting from the humidity, she writes!"

Author Website: https://ltredding.com/
Author's Email: Lmredding@gmail.com

Leah Miles is the ultimate bookworm, devouring stories in any genre. Currently, she's creating a contemporary series, where each story stands alone, yet shares characters, all wrapped up in a thrilling blend of suspense and military romance. She is the First and Third Place winner for the 2024 Maggie Awards given out by the Georgia Romance Writers.

With her keyboard gets a break, she is off exploring new destinations or enjoying quality time with her hubby and their rambunctious cocker spaniel pup. She was born and raised in Georgia and works full-time managing an insurance office. She has three adult children, who all live in Georgia but don't visit often enough.

Author's Website: https://leahmilesauthor.com/
Author's Email: Leahmilesauthor@gmail.com

Leatha Koehler Sweat - Mystery and Romance Reader.

Married country girl from North Florida with a little boy who likes reading mystery and romance.

Lia Davis is the USA Today bestselling author of more than forty books, including her fan favorite Ashwood Falls Series. A lifelong fan of magic, mystery, romance and adventure, Lia’s novels feature compassionate alpha heroes and strong leading ladies, plenty of heat, and happily-ever-afters.  

Lia makes her home in Northeast Florida where she battles hurricanes and humidity like one of her heroines. When she’s not writing, she loves to spend time with her family, travel, read, enjoy nature, and spoil her kitties.

Author's Website: https://www.authorliadavis.com

Loryn Moore lives in North Florida with her husband and two young sons. She and her husband are avid DIYers, backyard gardeners, and devoted beach bums, when they can help it. The three men in her life are the inspiration behind everything that she does.

Loryn loves to read and write fantasy and paranormal romance/mystery stories because they take her into another place or time entirely. The idea of a secret world within our own, one filled with magic, makes her all warm and fuzzy inside. Add to that little splash of forbidden love or just romance, period, and that is her happy place.

Author's Website: https://www.lorynmoore.com
Author's Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Lorynmooreauthor

Lusine (Loretta) Torossian fell in love with storytelling in first grade when she wrote her first story. It was a five-page saga written entirely in Armenian about a pelican saving her babies from a burning tree. She and her family moved to the United States when she was nine, but the love she felt for words as a child stayed with her even as English became her primary language. Her enjoyment of writing stems from her early years in Armenia where her teachers and grandmother read her fairy tales and encouraged her to create her own fanciful stories and paintings. She is currently working on several epic fantasy novels inspired by Armenian mythology and folklore. She is influenced by the writings of Anne McCaffrey, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Terry Goodkind, Juliet Marillier, David Farland, and the countless Armenian and Russian fairy tales she grew up on.

Author Website: https://lusinetorossian.com/
Author Email: ltorossian@gmail.com
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/lusinetorossian.bsky.social

PREORDER - May 28, 2025

M.J. Gates (a.k.a Joseph Michael Kiel) grew up alongside one of the Great Lakes where the water left its mark on him forever. Military service called and he spent twenty-four years in postings throughout the U.S. and abroad. Active duty was interspersed with education at Texas A&M University, first as an English major and then completing a degree in veterinary medicine. The water has always been his compass rose so living and traveling on boats from the Caribbean to Glacier Bay in Alaska has been a way of life. He currently divides his time between a home on an island in the Pacific Northwest and a boat based out of Florida. A contemporary romance novel, Sailing Into Christmas, will be published soon."

Author Email: mjgatesauthor@gmail.com

Maggie is a former journalist and magazine and newspaper editor with a bachelor’s degree in history from Ursinus College and a master’s degree in education from the University of Virginia. A lifelong, avid reader of fiction and nonfiction, she loves creating historical romances that sweep the reader into the past—where love is an adventure.

Author's Website: https://maggiefitzroy.com
Author's Email: maggiefitzroy@bellsouth.net

Marie Morton is a life-long lover of stories and reading. Her love for storytelling was nurtured among the sun-drenched beaches of her native St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Now living in Florida, she continues to weave tales that transport readers into vivid worlds of romance and adventure.

A firm believer in the power of love, Marie crafts stories that explore the journey of two souls finding each other amidst life's challenges and personal struggles. Her talent for bringing characters to life has earned her accolades in romance writing contests, cementing her place in the genre. When not penning her next novel, Marie can be found curled up on her sofa, lost in a good book, or planning her annual book festival. She particularly savors rainy days, which provide the perfect excuse to stay in and enjoy her guilty pleasure—a decadent turtle sundae. Through her stories, Marie invites readers to experience the magic of falling in love, one page at a time. Hearing from fans and fellow authors makes her day check out her email above.

Author's Email: authormariemorton@gmail.com

Melody Johnson is the author of the gritty, paranormal romance Night Blood series set in New York City. The first installment, The City Beneath, was a finalist in several Romance Writers of America contests, including the “Cleveland Rocks” and “Fool For Love” contests. Melody graduated magna cum laude from Lycoming College with her B.A. in creative writing and psychology, and after moving from her northeast Pennsylvania hometown for some much needed Southern sunshine, she now works as a digital media coordinator for Southeast Georgia Health System’s marketing department. When she isn’t working or writing her next Night Blood novel, Melody can be found swimming at the beach, honing her newfound volleyball skills, and exploring her new home in southeast Georgia.

Author's Website: http://www.authormelodyjohnson.com
Sign Up for Author's Newsletter: http://authormelodyjohnson.com/newsletter
Author's Email: melody.johnson0510@gmail.com

Author Merrie Angel - also known as Joan Lange - A self professed mermaid, who actually lives by the sea, Merrie Angel is an award winning author, artist & powerful public speaker on every day kindness & love towards each other, and towards ourselves.

“A national treasure whose message must be heard by everyone!” Joan is a near-death survivor, lifelong environmentalist and an advocate for all life on Earth. She has given inspirational talks in front of thousands, intimate podcasts, and been featured in, and authored, pivotal, many must read books on timely topics such as trauma, grief, healing and hope.

Website: https://authormerrieangel.com/

Paul Wollan is husband to author Vickey Wollan. Technical Assistance with Monthly Newsletter and most recently with setting up the National Excellence in Romance Cover Contest website with all of its forms, auto emails, voting functions, etc.

Email: pvwollan@gmail.com

Working on being published

Sally Ann Murphy is a writer, reader, artist, and mother who lives in Ohio with her beloved husband of twenty-five years, her beautiful, talented daughter, and her Great Pyrenees rescue, Agnes. Hearing from fans and fellow authors makes her day. You can email her at the address above.

Author's Website: https://sallyannmurphy.com
Author's Email: sallyannmurphyauthor@gmail.com

A seasoned puppeteer and dramatic storyteller, Sara appreciates both spoken and written narratives. She prefers reading Christian Historical Romance, but she enjoys a variety of genres. Especially the stories written by her fellow First Coast Romance Writers. Sara and her husband of sixty years live in a town many consider the Blueberry capital of Georgia. Their house was built by her grandfather and is filled with sweet memories of family.

Her creative flair shines through her contributions to the First Coast Writers anthologies. She has been published in all three Romancing the Holidays and Romancing the Tropics. On December 6th, her fifth story will be released in the newest anthology collection, For the Love of Winter. Sara has published the first of a three-book series set in rural Georgia in the early 1900s entitled, ""The Grumpy Guardian's Redemption."" These three books are about a family of characters inspired by her own family tree.

Author's Website: https://sarajwalker.com/
Author's Email: sarajwalkerauthor@gmail.com

After working in health care delivery for years, Sharon Buchbinder became an association executive, a health care researcher, and an academic in higher education. She had it all--a terrific, supportive husband, an amazing son and a wonderful job. But that itch to write (some call it an obsession) kept beckoning her to ""come on back"" to writing fiction. Thanks to the kindness of family, friends, critique partners, and beta readers, she is published in contemporary, erotic, paranormal, and romantic suspense--as well as textbooks! When not attempting to make students, colleagues, and babies laugh, she can be found herding cats, walking her dogs, fishing, cooking, dining, and laughing with family and friends, or writing.

Author's Website: https://sharonbuchbinder.com/
Author's Newsletter: https://sharonbuchbinder.com/contact.html#newsletter

Shayne Huxtable (Medieval Romance Author) is a Kiwi, born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand. She grew up obsessed with horses. Every year she'd ask Santa to bring her a pony. He never did. So around eleven she marched up the road to a house straddling two paddocks and asked the owner of a huge bay gelding if he’d allow her to exercise his horse. He looked her over, asked if she knew anything about horses to which she replied, “Yes lots.” Honestly, how hard could riding a horse be?, she pondered. ‘Henry’ bucked her off as many times as she climbed on his back, but when he saw her tramp across his paddocks in her gumboots, rain or shine, he trotted to her like he was her best friend. Shayne shares that she loves writing romance, creating and exploring characters who struggle, push back, grow, and fall in love. She is working hard to bring you "The Dragon and The Viper".

Website: https://www.shaynehuxtable.com/
Email: ShayneHuxtable@gmail.com

Tia Rebman is a returning member who is working on her writing.

Website: in progress
Email: Tiareneewrites@gmail.com

V. L. CZERNY is a writer of fiction and poetry, scholar, storyteller, professor of English, and an avid reader and interpreter of classical children’s stories and fairy tales. She has recently written novellas and short stories for both adults and children with fictional plots placed in colonial America and in biblical settings. She is working on a romantic short story for an upcoming First Coast Romance Writers’ anthology, as well as on a novel for children and young adults that relates ten-year-old Penny’s adventure as she is recruited to maneuver into the dark dominion of the trees with the assistance of a fox, burrowing owl, dragonfly, alligator, bear, her own cat, and other animals on a heroine’s journey to upset the applecart in a restrictive world.

Val was recognized by John Hamant, the Director of the “Legends” storytelling program at Colonial Williamsburg, as the best female creative writer/embellisher and storyteller, has performed at local venues, libraries and schools, has traveled to Paris to present her interpretations about Mary Poppins at the conference of “Children’s Literature in the Interwar Period” at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, and has presented papers at conferences throughout America. She also produced and edited a college journal, Essays: The Journey of the Mind.

Author's website: https://vlczernyauthor.com
Author's Email: vlczernyauthor@gmail.com

Vanessa Victoria Kilmer told her first story to an angel who visited her when she was locked in a dark, medieval attic at the age of four. She grew up surrounded by fortified castles, primal salt mines, and the drama of ancient places. Her fiction teems with murder, magic, and madness. She explores the abuse inflicted by those closest to us and the various ways people deal with the damage. Between writing novels, she blogs, paints, and takes pictures with her white camera named Traitor and embroiders tapestries

Author's Website: https://www.vanessavictoriakilmer.com/
Author's Email: vanessavkilmer@gmail.com
Author's BlueSky Profile: https://bsky.app/profile/vanessavkilmer.bsky.social

Vickey Wollan has written for business publications, but is excited to embark on her long-awaited romance writing journey. Having a good run in the corporate world prepared her to become an entrepreneur in creativity and relaxation. Her stories are designed to transport readers to a less stressful portion of their day and leave them with a feeling of awe. She has published eight stories so far and is working on more.

Originally from Ohio, she moved to Florida in the late Eighties. Central Florida is sometimes called Hollywood East where the waves and palm trees are amazing. But, there’s something about a white Christmas that fills her heart with joy. The use of imagination surrounds her and she will draw from it as her characters come to life in plots that will keep readers guessing, but leave them with a happily ever after.

Author's Website: https://vickeywollanauthor.com
Author's Email: vickeywollanauthor@yahoo.com
Author's Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/g8Oxmn
Author on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/vickeywollanauthor.bsky.social