MJ Fredrick’s Home Page

I am so excited to announce that Beneath the Surface is now available in print! I got my author copies a couple of weeks ago and now it feels real! I am so excited to see this book out. I started writing it in 2004, and it was a Golden Heart finalist in 2007 and an Emily winner. I hope you check out the romantic adventure with two estranged archaeologists who have to trust each other to find the treasure and defeat the bad guy. It’s available at Samhain Publishing, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
My other very exciting news is that I contracted my first historical romance with Carina Press. Sunrise Over Texas will be released on September 6, 2010. Here’s the official blurb:
Texas Frontier, 1826
Kit Barclay followed her husband into the wilds of Texas only to be widowed. Stranded with her mother- and sister-in-law to care for, with no hope of rescue before winter sets in, Kit has only one goal: survival. So when a lone horseman appears on the horizon, and then falls from his mount in fever, Kit must weigh the safety of her family against offering aid and shelter to the handsome stranger.
Trace Watson has lost everything that ever mattered to him. Trying to forget, he heads to the frontier colony of San Felipe, not caring if he lives or dies. But when he wakes to discover he’s being nursed back to health by a brave young widow, he vows to repay her kindness by guiding the three women back to civilization, no matter what the cost.
Soon, Kit and Trace are fighting the elements, Indian attacks, and outlaws—as well as feelings they both thought were long buried…
The Wild Rose Press picked up my 2006 Golden Heart finalist, Don’t Look Back, which will release September 10, 2010. Yes, I will have two different books from two different genres and two different publishers out the same week! Here’s the unofficial blurb:
If you were kidnapped and brutalized in a country on the other side of the world, could you go back to save a friend? If you were charged with rescuing hostages and the mission failed, could you forgive yourself for all those lost lives? These are the types of gut-wrenching questions Dr. Liv Olney and Lt. Gerard “Del” Delaney must answer when another hostage situation causes their paths cross a second time and propels them back into the harsh and dangerous heart of Africa.
When her best friend is kidnapped Liv must return to the scene of her own horrific captivity. The only man she trusts with her friend’s life is former Army Lt. Gerard Delaney, the man who rescued her. But even with him, she can’t let go of the tight control on her emotions – a control that keeps the pain of the memories at bay.
Del has always taken honor seriously, but sometimes neither honor nor humanity are found in the orders he receives. In exile due to a court martial that stripped him of everything he’d worked toward, he misses his son and his country. When Liv approaches him to lead another rescue, he wants to turn away, but he remembers Liv’s courage as a hostage and cannot turn his back on her need to help her friend. And she promises him that in return for his help, she can help clear his name and he can go home.
Together they travel to Africa, where, between dealing with warlords and monsoons, they gradually learn to trust each other, learn to hope that, together, they can find a normal life.
This summer I wrote a short story for The Wild Rose Press’s Class of ’85 reunion series. Star Power was contracted, and I have a lovely cover for it, but not sure of the release date yet.
Going to the Summerville High reunion isn’t Sam Justiss’s idea. He’s an action movie hero. He doesn’t need to reconnect with those who shunned him in high school. But his mother still teaches there and wants there. She’s sacrificed so much for him, he can’t refuse. He drags his assistant Lorelei Dormer along.
Lorelei has been Sam’s assistant for three years, and in love with him approximately two years, eleven months and twenty-nine days. When he asks her to act as his girlfriend, hoping to deter his flirtier former classmates, Lorelei resists. She’s no actress. She must guard her heart. But he promises a vacation abroad with her down-on-her-luck sister. Lorelei can’t refuse. These things always end well, right?
The intimacy she’s thrust into destroys the crumbly wall she’s built around her heart. Is she willing to risk everything to tell him how she feels?

AND I signed a contract with Lyrical Press for The Book That I Love, aka Something to Talk About. No idea about release date or any of that, but I’ll keep you up to date. The unofficial blurb for that one:
When you’re trying to stay below the radar in a small town that thrives on gossip, you probably don’t want to break up with your football coach boyfriend and fall in love with your best friend’s widower within the same month. And heaven help you if you befriend the psychic who’s just moved nearby and your AWOL mother returns after a fourteen-year absence.
Ellie Morgan is tired of playing second string to the football team coached by her boyfriend of three years. She ends their relationship, much to the dismay of the town’s citizens, who worry a heartbroken coach will ruin their chance for a championship team. Rumors of a romance with Noah Weston, her best friend’s widower, buzz when an accident on the beach causes him to bring her to the local clinic in his arms. The rumors disturb her, but also make her think about Noah in a way she hasn’t before. Even comments that she’s trying to slide into the void left by her best friend’s death can’t kill her fantasies, now as rampant as the rumor mill.
Noah Weston is emerging from his grief a year and a half after his wife’s death. Ellie Morgan draws him with her energy and positive attitude. As their friendship progresses, though, he wonders if he can risk loving and losing everything again, and she wonders if she can handle taking second place, this time to a ghost.
Breaking Daylight, which released in January from Samhain, will be in print in November. I love this book about an Army Ranger who has to help a drug lord’s mistress escape from the man who held her prisoner for four years. Alex is as alpha as they come, and he’s not a fan of Isabella, though he learns to respect her, and then to love her, as she determinedly keeps up with him.
My first book, Where There’s Smoke, is still available from The Wild Rose Press, is about a city fireman who falls in love with his best friend. My second book, Hot Shot, from Samhain Publishing, is about a wildland fire fighter and a reporter, both damaged, who have to find the courage to love again. Hot Shot won the Epic Award in March 2009.
I love the high action stories, but enjoy writing the more emotional romances, too. My novella with the Wayback Rodeo series, Bull by the Horns, was released through The Wild Rose Press! Yee-haw! Can you believe I’ve lived in Texas all my life and this is my first cowboy book?
In the Hunt by Benbella Books released with my essay about Supernatural’s real star, the 1967 Impala.