#FridayReads - Breaking the Rules

This is possibly my favorite category romance/romantic suspense of all time. Breaking the Rules from 1994 by the fabulous Barbara Samuel/Barbara O'Neal AKA Ruth Wind.

(Yes, that's my review right at the top of the Amazon page. And yes, I really did buy this book new, off the shelf in Kroger, in 1994 and still have it. The pages are yellow by now.)

Anyone who likes Rafe Collier will probably enjoy Zeke. There are some similarities there. :) And Zeke, in addition to being quite the hottie, is a very well developed character, and very real, unlike many of the millionaire-types you find in category romance.

The ebook is $2.99 on Amazon, if anyone's interested. The cover looks different now, though. This is the one that's on my shelf. The new one has a lake, a dock, and mountains on it.

In other news, the Cutthroat Business mysteries ebook bundle 1-3, consisting of A Cutthroat Business, Hot Property, and Contract Pending, squeaked onto the USA Today list this week, in #149 out of 150. :) So I am now a USA Today bestselling author. Yay, me!

And if Breaking the Rules doesn't float your boat, you could check out this webpage I've started with some friends who write in the same genres I do, in case something there blows your skirt up.

Until next time!

#SampleSunday - Fortune's Hero

The print and digital versions of Fortune's Hero are now available for purchase online and - hopefully - in a store near you, and for the occasion, here is a teaser you won't find anywhere else on the internet. It's from somewhere in chapter 3 or 4, IIRC.

Quinn wrenched himself out of the memory, grimacing, just in time to see the Rhenian med tech drop the gray dress on the ground. There was no red lace here; she wore simple white synthetics under her clothes; what Josie used to call granny-wear.

 He made sure his grin was as offensive as he could make it when he addressed her. “Keep going, sweetheart. It all has to come off. Every stitch. Even the shoes. And toss those over here while you’re at it.”

 He used the pistol to point to the lab coat and dress on the ground.

 Her eyes flew to his, and he could see the consternation in their depths. Maybe the tracker was in the pocket of the coat. Or somewhere in that sorry excuse for a dress. If so, he could make her stop now. Save them both from this uncomfortable parody of a striptease that neither of them enjoyed.

 He lowered the pistol to his lap. “Tell you what. You tell me where the tracker is, and I won’t make you take off any more. Just give it to me, and you can put your clothes back on.”

 Her gaze flickered. Surprise? Or fear?

 For a second, he thought it might be easy. Then—

 “There is no tracker.” The med tech’s voice was low, and those green eyes he’d thought were devoid of feeling, were filled with resignation. Quinn felt himself waver—just give her her damn clothes back and let her get dressed again!—but then he hardened his resolve. He’d been fooled before; that’s what had gotten him into this fix in the first place. You just couldn’t trust a woman, especially a beautiful one.

 “Guess you’ll just have to take off the rest then, sweetheart. And toss’em to me as you go. Starting with those.”

 She hesitated before bending to pick up the lab coat and gray dress lying on the ground. Then she hesitated again, holding them.

 “Coat first.”

 She threw it from a few feet away, and it landed in a puddle at his feet. Quinn picked it up, noticing in passing the stiffness of the sleeve, where the guard’s blood had dried during their walk. There was a corresponding stain on her forearm, bright against the pale skin. The coat had shiny metal buttons, and he’d have to smash each one of those to make sure something small wasn’t hidden inside. There was also a patch of some sort sewn to the breast pocket, that he’d have to investigate further.

 “Now the dress.”

 She didn’t want to give it to him, that much was clear. She was clutching it, but not—he thought—to cover herself. There wasn’t anything to cover. The underpants left everything to the imagination, while the top—a camisole?—covered her from hips to shoulders.

 He laced his voice with amused contempt. “C’mon, sweetheart. You’re making it harder than it has to be. Ain’t like I’m enjoying the show, you know.”

 Her hands fumbled with the gray fabric. A moment later, the dress came flying at his face.

 He got his hand up in time to bat it away, at the same time as he braced himself for the expected attack.

 When it didn’t come, he focused his eyes on her again, and saw why. She hadn’t moved from her place on the dusty ground, but now she was clutching a knife, one she must have had in the pocket of the gray dress.

 No wonder she hadn’t wanted to let go of it.

 

* * *

 

 

There you have it. A tiny tidbit of Fortune's Hero. The book is available through Amazon and BN right now, at a slight discount off the sales price of $5.99. Amazon had it at $4.99 the last time I looked, and BN at $5.09. The print version, at least on Amazon, is $9.19; 39% off the cover price of $14.99. And the print book is gorgeous! Either way, not a bad deal for 95,000 words of action-adventure and romance in a galaxy far, far away. 

In the city of roses and ruins...

Remember that book I was writing back in the spring, about the timid librarian and the dashing FBI agent? The play-with-it-for-10-days-to-see-how-it-goes-book?

To refresh your memory, I wrote about it HERE and HERE.

Well, it's come full circle, back to me, and now it's coming to you!

Here's the lovely cover:

(And yes, I do think it's lovely. Some folks apparently feel the young man is a little "stiff" - someone even used the word "wooden," I'm sure quite innocently and with no intention of sexual innuendo - but I like it.)

As an aside, it can be very hard to find a royalty-free stock photo with two people who both look reasonably like the people in the book... because I do want them to look reasonably like the characters. It doesn't have to be exact, but if the girl's a blonde and the guy's dark-haired, I do prefer a blonde and a guy with dark hair on the cover. Maybe that's just me.

Carrying on: it's hard enough to find two people of the right age, with roughly the right attributes, but then they have to wear roughly the right clothes too - or clothes at all, really, since you'd be surprised how easy it is to find stock photos of naked people. This isn't that kind of book, though. There's a naked scene, sure, but it's really more a mystery or a suspense than it is a romance.

So they have to look right, they have to be dressed, and the whole atmosphere of the photograph has to be right. In this case, he's an FBI agent - hence the crisp white shirt and business slacks - and she's a librarian (with glasses), hence the timid look on her face. Finding stock photos of girls with glasses in the company of good-looking men is darn near impossible, FYI, so she's not wearing glasses, but they're in her hand. I swear.

And of course it's purple, and I love purple, so as far as I'm concerned, it's all good.

As for the story, it's 62,000 words of mystery, romance, and suspense. Here's the blurb:

A shy librarian and a dashing FBI agent must work together to catch a killer and recover a priceless silver treasure in this light and sweetly romantic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Do It Yourself Home Renovation mysteries and the Cutthroat Business mysteries.

On the island of roses and ruins, love awaits and danger lurks.

When Annika Holst's father dies, it's up to the young librarian to carry out his last will: to take his ashes back to his hometown, medieval Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

But no sooner does the plane touch down in Stockholm, than the bag with the cremains goes missing. A young American named Nick Costa comes to Annika's aid... but can she trust the handsome stranger? And what of Curt Gardiner, another young man from “back home,” also visiting his mother’s native Sweden?

To catch a murderer, recover her father’s ashes, and find a missing Viking treasure, Annika has to put her trust in one of them. But the wrong choice could mean not only the loss of her heart... but of her life as well.

Sounds good, yeah?

Just so you know, the FBI's Art Crime Team is real. This is their logo; innit pretty?

I'd have cribbed it if I could, and put it on the cover, but I didn't dare. I mean, they are the FBI, right? They probably wouldn't appreciate it. Bad enough that I've appropriated their organization; I don't have to appropriate their logo too. But this is the reason for the title, and also the series title, up there in the corner of the cover. ACT-1.

(Yes, there's a chance - a good chance - there'll be more than one ACT book. I just have to square away a few other commitments first. Like the second SFR, the seventh DIY mystery, and the sixth Cutthroat Business mystery, in roughly that order. Talk to me again in the spring.)

In the meantime, if you want to give Act of Redemption a try, you can get an eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, or Kobo. Sony and the iBookstore will take a little longer, since they'll go through Smashwords and it can take a couple of weeks. But the book is coming there too. It's $2.99, FYI, and totally worth it, if I do say so myself.

(And yes, if enough people ask for a print version, I will absolutely put one together. Just as soon as I have a chance to breathe.)

Anyway, there you have it. If this sounds like something you'd enjoy, go forth and buy. I hope you'll like Nick and Annika!
 

Just for fun... another taste of the WIP

Since you guys seemed to like the first couple of pages of ACT of Redemption - working title - I thought I'd make your Friday a little better by sharing another tidbit. This is still from chapter 1, so I'm not giving too much away, but someone said, "I want to know how she loses the ashes," and this should give you a pretty good idea.

Without further ado:

The baggage carousel was mobbed, but eventually she found an open spot in the back, close to where the suitcases disappeared back into the bowels of the airport. And there she stood, watching as suitcase after suitcase swirled by, many of them black cloth with wheels, just like hers. She should have tied a ribbon or something to the handle before she left home, so it would have been easier to pick out. Or instead of something staid and boring, like black cloth, maybe she should have splurged on something hot pink with polkadots instead, like the suitcase just now moving past. No chance of anyone picking that up by mistake.

She tried to picture herself wheeling a pink suitcase with polkadots, but couldn’t. Pink polkadots belonged to long-legged nymphs with flowing, wheat-blonde hair and skimpy shorts, like the one who just now leaned over to snag it. The James Bond type from earlier was standing nearby, and Annika couldn’t help but notice that his attention—and eyes—lingered for a second on the girl’s upturned rear.

She didn’t miss it, either, and when she turned to sashay off, polkadotted suitcase in tow, she flashed him a smile, one he returned with interest.

Figures.

Annika turned back to the carousel, watching for her own suitcase. There were several black ones on the band, and more coming all the time. That one coming her way—with the tiny nick at the corner—looked somewhat familiar. If she could just get a look at the tag...

She took two steps forward and leaned in, just as the suitcase came within view.

The next second, the world turned upside down, quite literally. Someone bumped into her, and she found herself sprawling beside the suitcase, legs waving in the air, with her skirt bunched around her hips and her thighs on display. She was stunned, unable to move for a second, unable to do anything but watch as surprised faces flashes by, their eyes wide and their mouths open. If they were talking to her, she couldn’t hear them. The noises seemed distant, like the buzzing of a bumblebee in a jar, a sort of dull background hum.

And then a pair of strong hands grabbed her and she was unceremoniously yanked off the luggage carousel and to her feet, and the noises became voices, babbling in a lot of different languages. People crowded around, jostling her. Arms reached past her to grab their suitcases and bags off the belt. Eyes stared, mentally stripping her down, and she could feel her face flush. As reality came back, she realized her knees hurt, and she wobbled again. The hands on her arms tightened.

“You’d better come over here and sit down.”

The voice was male, deep and smooth. And American. Annika looked up, and found herself staring into those same chocolate brown eyes as earlier.

Great. She’d made a fool of herself in front of the same guy twice.

Up close he was even better looking than from a distance. Handsome enough to make her forget the stinging in her knees for a moment as she stared into that perfect face.

And then he opened his mouth. “Did you have a little too much to drink on the plane?”

Annika stiffened. What a jerk! “I don’t drink.”

“Of course you don’t.” He kept pushing her toward a bench a few yards away.

She tried to slow down, glancing over her shoulder. “My bag...”

“We’ll see it go by. I’ll grab it for you.”

That wasn’t the bag she meant, but he wouldn’t allow her to turn back. Instead he deposited her on the bench and squatted in front of her. “You banged yourself up pretty good, didn’t you?”

She had?

Annika followed his gaze and saw that sure enough, the ride on the carousel had shredded her nylons and left her knees a bloody mess. She hadn’t had scrapes like those since she was five years old and was learning to ride a bike. “Oww!”

“Right.” He glanced around. “You’re gonna need bandages for those. Let me grab the bags and I’ll help you find someone.” He got to his feet.

“I really don’t need...” Annika tried, tilting her neck back to look up at him. He quirked a brow, clearly not convinced, and why would he be? Of course she needed him. Her knees were hurting more and more with every second that passed, and she had zero desire to go near the baggage carousel again. Easier just to let him do what he wanted. “I have a black cloth suitcase with wheels, and a black carry-on bag. It’s over there.” She pointed to the other side of the baggage carousel, where she’d been standing when she took her undignified tumble. “I put it down when I went to grab my suitcase. The tags say Annika Holst.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Nick Costa.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Excuse me. I think I see my bag. I’ll be back.”

He headed toward the carousel, leaving her sitting there. Annika watched him for a second, as he threaded his way between the other travelers still waiting for their suitcases, and bent to check the tag on a piece of luggage making its way past. His posterior in the black slacks was every bit as nice as she’d expected.

* * *

So what do you think? Still like it?

A Done Deal

It's official: A Done Deal, the last - at least so far - book in the Cutthroat Business romantic mystery series, has entered the world.

You can find it for sale from these fine etailers:

AMAZON

BARNES and NOBLE

SMASHWORDS


The iBook version, along with Kobo and Sony and Diesel and a few others, goes through Smashwords, so it'll be a week or so until it's available there, but in the meantime, if you have an ereader that isn't a Kindle or a Nook, Smashwords should have a format you can use.

Here's a taste of Chapter 1:

Todd looked coy.“What would you like Santa to bring you, Savannah?”

Rafe, I though, and immediately chastised myself. He was gone, he wasn’t coming back, he didn’t want me. I smiled. “Nothing. I have everything I need.”

“Diamonds?” Todd suggested.

“God, no.” That brought to mind engagement rings, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to turn down another proposal in front of my entire family on Christmas Eve.

“A puppy?”

From his expression, it was almost as if he thought a puppy would make up for the baby I’d lost. My baby had been barely bigger than a blueberry when I miscarried, but after all the agonizing I’d done over whether or not to keep it, it had become very real to me. And as much as I like puppies, it wasn’t the same.

“I live in an apartment,”I said. “With a no-pets policy.”

“I guess a kitten is out of the question too, then.”

“You could get me a goldfish. I’m allowed to have those.”

Todd’s expression lightened. “Do you want a goldfish?”

“Not really,” I said apologetically. “I was joking. I don’t really need a Christmas present.”There was nothing anyone could give me that I wanted. Especially Todd.

I wondered if I ought to ask him what he wanted for Christmas, but I was afraid of what the answer would be. And I’d bought him a sweater in any case.

I speared a mushroom with my fork and lifted it to my mouth.

“Isn’t that Collier?” Todd said, looking over my shoulder.

For a second, my heart skipped a beat and I almost choked. Then I realized two things: 1) he’d probably only said it to get a reaction from me—Todd was suspicious of my feelings for Rafe long before there were any feelings to speak of—and 2) there was no way he could be right.

I swallowed the mushroom and made sure my voice was steady. “I doubt it. If he were back in town, I’m sure someone would have told me.”

And it probably wouldn’t have been Rafe himself. If he hadn’t stuck around when I lost the baby, and he didn’t get in touch after I was shot, he wouldn’t bother to call to tell me he was back in Nashville, either.

I had, however, become friendly with Tamara Grimaldi, homicide detective with the Nashville PD, and she knew Rafe too, and kept tabs on him through her contact in the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations. I trusted her to let me know if anything important happened. Like, if he died. Or if he’d been shot or hospitalized.

Or if he’d come back to Nashville.

Todd nodded, reassured by my lack of interest, and forked up another piece of veal.

I continued my internal monologue while I chased mushrooms around my plate. Even if Rafe was back in town and nobody had bothered to tell me, he wouldn’t be here at Fidelio’s. He despises the place. I’ve had dinner with him here twice, and both times he treated the fancy cuisine and snobbish waiters with irreverent amusement. He wouldn’t choose to come here unless it was with me. And since we were over and done, he had no business being here. It was probably just someone with a passing resemblance to Rafe. Todd was a little bit paranoid on the subject; he was probably just seeing things.

“Are you sure he’s not back in Nashville?”Todd said. “Because that really looks like him. Just the kind of woman I’d expect him to be with, too.”

Woman?

I twisted on my chair. “Where? I really don’t think...”

And then my breath went when I saw that yes, it was indeed Rafael Collier on the other side of the restaurant, just sitting down at a romantic table for two. A table I had once shared with him, as it happened. Behind a pygmy date palm. And the woman he was with was exactly the kind of woman I would expect him to be with, too.

A woman very much not like me, I might add.

Like Rafe, she looked like she might be of mixed race. Long, dark hair fell straight like a waterfall down her back, and she had exotic almond-shaped eyes in a stunning face with flawless caramel skin and red lacquered lips. She was shorter than me, and even in four inch heels she barely came up to his shoulder. Granted, he’s tall—six three, give or take—but she was still on the petite side. And she was poured into a short, tight, Christmas-red dress that clung to every curve she had, and his hand was right there, on the exposed skin of her back. That, more than anything else, hurt. He was touching her. In a sort of intimate way. Skin to skin. The same way he’d touched me.

I own a red dress too. I’d bought it to coax a proposal from Todd, back when I thought being engaged to Todd would make me less likely to indulge in my feelings for Rafe. Instead, it had been Rafe who peeled it off me at the end of the night.

My dress isn’t as short or as tight—hers looked like lycra; mine’s satin—but it’s also backless, and I could remember disconcertingly well the feeling of his hands on my back, warm and hard and a little rough. I could remember what happened afterwards too, and the thought that they’d be leaving Fidelio’s and going home to make love in his bed—the bed where he’d made love to me—was enough to turn the Chicken Marsala to sawdust in my mouth.

# # #

Space guys are hot

A couple weeks ago was invited to contribute to an article someone was writing on - I quote - "the duality of Science Fiction and Romance that makes SFR such a great mixed genre."
 

Since I've started writing SFR - science fiction romance, what I've been calling my futuristic science fiction space opera romance thingy - I couldn't resist.

The article is HERE, including a quote from me - in the same paragraph as the fabulous Linnea Sinclair (who's so much more eloquent than me, and who's also been writing this thing called SFR for years).

But I had a lot more to say about the duality of SF & R than what made it into the article, and I thought I'd put it all here, since it makes me sound slightly less shallow than the reference to hot space guys may make you think I am.

Here's my quote - the entire thing - as sent to Heidi:

The way I see it, science fiction has traditionally been a male genre, with more male writers and more male readers. (Please note that I'm not saying "only," because there are certainly some fantastic female science fiction writers out there, and quite a few female science fiction readers too. But the genre is more heavily weighed toward men, I think, probably because of the science aspect. And the weapons. Boys like their weapons. )

By the same token, romance is traditionally a female genre. Some men write romance, and some men read it, but primarily, it appeals more to women.

SFR, then, becomes a fusion of the two, with - one hopes - appeal to both. It's equally balanced between the traditionally male interests - science, weapons, military - and the female - love and relationships. Science fiction is kind of like the old-fashioned western. SFR is the futuristic western romance, only without the horses. You have the traditional outlaw hero, larger than life, gun on his hip, chasing down the bad guys and able to - quite literally - change worlds.

 

Except the damsel in distress, tied to the railroad tracks, isn't always in distress in SFR; sometimes she's the hero. It's the future, after all, and women don't have to abide by 19th century rules for proper behavior. And let's face it: space guys are hot, you know? Han Solo? Mal Reynolds?

 

So what do you think? Do you see any similarities between science fiction and westerns, or for that matter between SFR and western romance? And most importantly, do you think space guys are hot? 

Getting my feet wet

As most of you probably know, I've signed a contract to write a series of science fiction romance for Entangled Publishing.

I had no plans of ever writing science fiction, and I can't really explain how it happened. The character was just there one day, insisting on having his story told, and that was it.

Romance, though, is a genre I'm familiar with. Back in the late 1990s, when I first thought it might be fun to write, I joined the fabulous Music City Romance Writers, and even entered - and won - their annual contest, the Melody of Love, in what I think was its inaugural year, 1998. My entry was the first chapter of a story called A Fine Romance, which is lost in the ether, for which I think we should all be grateful.

No, it wasn't bad. It won, after all. But it's been twelve or thirteen years. I'm a better writer now.

Anyway, I started having kids after that, and five years later, when I went back to writing, murder mysteries came more easily to me. I'm not saying there's a correlation, just stating a fact.

Since 2005, I've written twelve mysteries. The fact that I now have to go back to writing romance, a very different discipline, is a little scary to me.

So to ease into things I posted a romantic short story on Smashwords last night. (I posted it on Amazon and B&N too, but I have to charge for it there. And since it's only 3,400 words, I'm not expecting anything big to happen. But on Smashwords it's free.) And so far, in just over 24 hours, it's had more than 130 downloads. Which may not amount to a hill of beans by some people's standards. I'm pretty sure I sell a lot more than that of the DIY mysteries, actually. But in just a day, it's my biggest "selling" title.

Which I guess bodes pretty well for the science fiction mysteries.

At any rate, if anyone is interested in reading a short, sexy story about a desk clerk in an upscale hotel, and the two guests who arrive and check into adjoining rooms, feel free to download a copy HERE.

Enjoy!

A new frontier

Some of you may remember having heard me yap on about what I call my "science fiction futuristic romance space opera thingy" ... for lack of a more focused term.

I developed the idea more than a year ago: first in a piece of flash fiction my Working Stiffs blog buddy Wilfred Bereswill challenged me to write, after I told him I can't write anything short; and secondly in a class I took with the fabulous Heather Graham last fall. I was told by a lot of people it would be a hard sell, and that I probably shouldn't put too much effort into it... but to be honest, I had a hard time letting it go. Characters sometimes dig into your brain and refuse to give up, even when you know you should push them outta there and let them shrivel and die in the harsh light of real life.

In this case I didn't even try. Quinn's just one of those special people. I did my best to ignore him when I had other things to do, but I never made a concerted effort to get rid of him. Once in a while I'd even let him come out and play for a while.

Fast forward about a year: a month or so ago, I was yapping to another friend about it - the wonderful Misa Ramirez, author of the Lola Cruz mysteries from St. Martin's Minotaur and the Enchanted Dressmaking mysteries from NAL, as well as the marketing director for a new boutique publisher called Entangled Publishing ... and long story short, Misa asked to see the outline for the book. Then she asked if she could show it to one of the editors. And then she said the editor wanted a formal proposal for the series.

(Yes, in playing with the idea, it had morphed into a series. I told you I can't write anything short.)

And now I am extremely excited to be able to report that I have signed a four book contract for a series of sci fi romances about the crew of a space freighter called the Good Fortune. There'll be adventure, there'll be sex, there might be a little mystery and definitely some suspense, and hopefully some of you who read my mysteries will give these books a try as well. They're not very science fiction-y, I promise. They just happen to be set in a galaxy far, far away, but for all intents and purposes, they could take place right here on our own planet, as well. They're character books, just like the rest of what I write. Only, instead of - say - five mysteries making up one long romance, like the Cutthroat Business books, this is four romances making up one long adventure.

Check out the short outline for book 1, Fortune's Hero, scheduled for release sometime in 2012:

 To ensure their survival on a hostile planet, an escaped prisoner and his hostage must forge a partnership that changes them from enemies to reluctant allies and – eventually – to lovers.

Last year, space smuggler Quinn Conlan was on top of the world. He had everything a man could want: a fast ship, a great crew, a gorgeous girlfriend, lots of money, and adventure and excitement around every corner.

That all changed when he agreed to ferry a shipload of weapons to the beleaguered planet Marica, currently under siege by Rhenian forces. Now he’s stuck in a prison camp on the moon Marica-3, subjected to weekly sessions with the camp’s “medical team,” and praying for a quick death before he breaks under the torture and spills everything he knows about the Marican resistance.

When the opportunity presents itself, Quinn takes a Rhenian med tech hostage and heads into the inhospitable interior of the small moon. There, he has to keep himself and Doctor Elsa Brandeis safe from the deadly flora and fauna, as well as hidden from the prison guards searching for them, all while formulating a plan for getting his crew out of prison, his ship out of impound, and everyone out of orbit.

But when Elsa professes her love, can Quinn take the beautiful doctor at her word, or will trusting her—and his heart—condemn him and his crew to an eternity on Marica-3?

All that's left now is to write the book... after I finish the revisions on DIY-6 and the last half of A Done Deal. :-)