Mary Paine Susan has some amazing fantasies about Dr. Brad Conway. Unfortunately, when she’s anywhere near the handsome surgeon, she’s a tongue-tied catastrophe. Along comes Brad’s friend Alicia, a horse trainer with a talent for magic and matchmaking. Trapped at Alicia’s home during an ice storm, Susan is thrilled to be on the receiving end of some fascinating, sensual advances from Brad.

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But when she keeps encountering magical occurrences like a wolf-whistling cabinet, spoons stirring by themselves and a cat with an unerring ability to appear and disappear, not to mention change its own collar, she must decide if she believes in magic. But believing has a downside, however, because now she has a new problem to consider. Is Brad’s passion for her real or is it part of a spell? Read an excerpt from Never Trust a Matchmaking Witch Visit Mary Paine's web site About Mary Paine Books and horses have been among Mary's great loves from an early age. As a child she would arrive at the local library with grocery bags to haul home all the books she wanted to read that week. She would then balance her time between reading and hanging out at the local barn with her similarly horse-crazy friends. Thus, it was only natural that she chose the world of horse show jumping as the setting for her books, including her current release Never Trust a Matchmaking Witch, which combines her love of horses with the fascinating world of magic. Mary is currently working on the sequel to Never Trust A Matchmaking Witch, Never Steal from a Leprechaun, which is filled with magic, comedy and of course, romance. Mary earned a Bachelor's degree in Nursing from Georgetown University and a Master's degree in Epidemiology from Yale University. She has held senior management positions in the public health and medical communications industries. Her career has spanned work in clinical trials research, medical writing, editing, and informatics. Mary lives in the Midwest with her husband and three children. It's a wild and crazy household full of love, laughter and plenty of material for stories. Back list: A Dangerous Dream, an equestrian romantic mystery, was published January, 2008. An excerpt is available at www.marypaine.com. A note from Mary... I'd like to invite everyone to stop by my web site at www.marypaine.com for information on my current and upcoming releases! An Interview with Mary Paine By Holly Hewson for The Romance Studio HH: Mary, thank you for talking with us at TRS. Please tell us about your latest release, Never Trust A Matchmaking Witch. MP: Thanks for inviting me to talk with you at TRS! In Never Trust A Matchmaking Witch a group of fun-loving witches’ favorite hobby is matchmaking for their mortal friends, including Susan and Brad. But when Susan first encounters their powers, including a wolf-whistling cabinet and a disappearing cat, she begins to wonder if Brad’s passion for her is real or part of a spell. I had a wonderful time writing this romantic comedy novella with a good dose of magic added! Never Trust A Matchmaking Witch is with a terrific publisher, Siren-BookStrand, at http://www.bookstrand.com/authors/marypaine/ HH: Your heroine finally has a shot at the man she's always wanted. But is it real? Where did you get the idea for this enchanting tale of magic and love? MP: I wanted to write about a heroine we all could identify with. Susan is shy and doesn’t even realize all the good qualities she has (and she has no idea a tall, handsome surgeon like Brad is really interested in her). She’s so quiet most people don’t try to approach her, so I needed something really special to bring her out of her shell. A funny, eccentric group of matchmakers with the extra spice of magic did the trick. HH: What do you like best about Susan and how do you relate to her? MP: Well, in my youth I was as shy as could be. Looking back with the wisdom of many (many) years, I see opportunities I had from really nice people (and some cute guys0 that I didn’t take advantage of because I was just too shy to talk to people. I could have used a little magic myself, so I gave Susan a good dose of it. Of course, my own Prince Charming (my brave husband) did come along and break through my wall of shyness. He had his own brand of magic. HH: How did you approach creating the magical world that's Alicia's home? MP: I’ve done a lot of research in witchcraft and mythology, but for this novella I just let my imagination take flight. I wanted Susan’s adventures to be lighthearted and romantic, so I had her reeling from one hilarious moment to the next. HH: You're currently working on a sequel to this story, Never Steal from a Leprechaun. What can you tell us about this story? MP: Flush with success, our magical matchmakers decide to try their hand again. Gathered in an English castle owned by one of their members, they invite a college professor and former jewel thief (think Indiana Jones) to do some research at the castle. Then they invite their niece, a young witch they consider too levelheaded by far, and get to work. While she’s trying to keep him from finding out about magic and he’s reluctantly trying to steal a famous jewel to pay back a debt to a friend, the matchmakers are pulling the strings to get these two together. The result is a hilarious romp filled with magic and irresistible romance. HH: Will there be any more books in this series? MP: Absolutely. I love this variety of characters too much to stop writing about them. Eamonn, a witch who is part leprechaun, is one of my favorites. It’s his niece who is my heroine in Never Trust A Matchmaking Witch and he’s the one who spearheads the matchmaking for the third installment. In this book, there will be two couples they need to get together. One is a witch and a mortal, and the other is a pair of ghosts who are exactly right for each other! HH: What do you enjoy most about creating your stories? MP: I love outlining the story and winding plot twists and turns into it to keep the reader turning pages. Then once I see the story coming together I get really excited about it and can’t wait to start writing manuscript. HH: What do you find particularly challenging in your writing? MP: Finding good size blocks of time to write is an endless challenge. When I get my head inside the story it’s hard to pull out of it and back in. My solution when a story is really cooking is to get up around four or five and get a good chunk of writing time in before my family wakes up. I grab my laptop and sneak off to a different part of the house so my pounding away on the keys doesn’t wake everybody up! HH: What would you most like to accomplish in your writing career in the New Year? MP: I really love the characters in Never Trust A Matchmaking Witch and I hope my readers fall in love with them, too. HH: What would you like to say to readers out there? MP: I blog with a wonderful group of authors at Equestrian Ink (http://www.questrianink.blogspot.com) including Michele Scott, Laura Crum, Jami Davenport, Laura Crum, Kit Ehrman, and Jody Jaffe. Our theme is books about horses and it’s a great blog for book lovers and horse lovers alike. Please stop by and visit us! HH: Thank you! Top