Darkest Caress: The Empowered Series

I promised I'd post the cover and blurb for Darkest Caress, which is due out April 23rd from Carina Press. This book is a bit of a departure for me, since it's a paranormal romance, and many readers have asked me why I chose to write something outside of romantic suspense. 

The short answer is, I wanted to find an agent to represent me, and since the few military romantic suspense titles I'd submitted to agents didn't get me anywhere, I thought I'd try a "hotter" genre and see if that helped. At the time paranormal romance was very hot, and after taking a trip to the Baltic States, some folklore I learned about in Lithuania piqued my interest enough that it inspired an idea for a new series. Hence, the idea for the Empowered was born, and Darkest Caress is the first installment. The manuscript did not garner me an agent after all, but I was lucky enough that my current publisher wanted to acquire it.

I don't plan to stop writing military romance, though I'm not sure yet whether I'll write the remaining books in the Empowered series. I intend to finish Danger Close (2nd Bagram Special Ops book, Ace and Ryan's story) as soon as possible, then simultaneously work on book three of that series, along with the 2nd Empowered book (Cade's story). Right now it's a case of wait and see on the paranormal stories, to find out if there's even any reader interest for more Empowered books.

For those of you waiting for word on Ace and Ryan's story, I hope to have news about Danger Close within the next few months. Fingers crossed! In the meantime, here's what Darkest Caress is all about. The story is dark and the hero extremely yummy, but the Baltic mythology woven into the book is what inspired me to write it in the first place.

Blurb: Two-hundred-year-old Daegan Blackwell is one of the last remaining Empowered, an ancient magical race. Daegan’s duty is to lead and protect his remaining Brethren in the coming war foretold by prophecy. The last thing he expects is to meet the one woman who will either save or destroy him—his destined mate. Fiercely independent Realtor Olivia Farrell believes darkly handsome Daegan is simply a prospective client. Until she’s attacked by a man with a strange aura—and Daegan fights him off, taking away her pain with just his touch. At first, Olivia refuses to believe she’s part of a magical race, yet mounting evidence and her powerful chemistry with Daegan are too strong to deny.
But as Daegan’s partner, Olivia becomes a target in the battle between good and evil that threatens her life, as well as the very existence of the Empowered. And the only one who can save her is the man claiming to be her destiny…

Luke Won!!!

I'm so excited to announce that Absolution has won the EPIC Award for best romantic suspense of 2011!

I actually found out by accident while I was on holiday. I happened to be on Twitter, checking to see if I had any messages, and saw my name mentioned with the EPIC convention. No one sent me an email or anything, so I had to check on my own to see if I really had won, and indeed I had! I had a mojito to celebrate at dinner that night :)

You all know how much I adore Luke, so this win really tickled me. I think it's my best book (along with Relentless), although I heartily agree it's not a stand alone book. Without reading at least a few other books in the series, Absolution won't have nearly the same emotional impact for the reader. At least in my opinion.

I also just found out that Deadly Descent is a finalist in the New England Romance Writer's published contest, though it didn't final in the RITA Awards (aww...). Fingers crossed that Dev and Cam place in the top three.

That's my news for now; I'll post the cover for Darkest Caress next week. Have a great weekend!

Get Ready To Meet the Heroes of AFSOC

I feel like I've been waiting for this forever, but on Monday Deadly Descent is finally "out" in the world. I'm so excited for you all to meet Air Force Tech Sgt Cam Munro, my delicious PJ hero. I cannot tell you how much I admire and respect these men and what they do.

Blurb: Devon Crawford is an officer; Air Force Pararescueman Cam Munro is enlisted. Dev flies medical evacuations; Cam jumps into danger zones to save lives. Dev wants to return home from Afghanistan with her heart untouched; Cam will do anything to win the woman he loves.

Reaching for happiness in a war zone is the last thing Captain Devon Crawford plans, but she can't ignore the feelings she's hidden for so long. Cam's sexy charm and wicked kisses weaken her resistance, but she's too afraid of losing him to give in.

When Dev's helicopter and crew are shot down and set up as bait by a notorious warlord, Cam risks all to save the team. What he doesn't know is that the trap is set for him.

This week is nuts for me (in a good way), so here's a list of places and dates where you can find me if you'd like to try and win a copy of Deadly Descent.

Monday, September 5th: Fresh Fiction
Tuesday, September 6th: Carina Press blog, SOS Aloha blog
Wednesday, September 7th: Smexy Books, Writers Gone Wild
Friday, September 9th: Cynthia Eden's blog
Monday, September 12th: Book Lovers Inc.

Whew! That's a lot, huh? Plus both my kids are starting school Tuesday, and I have another set of edits due back by the end of next week.

I hope you'll enjoy Cam and Dev's story. PJs truly are amazing. They live and die by their motto "That Others May Live", and deserve our respect and our gratitude.

Reinforcements

Know what those are? Those are reinforcements, but today I'm talking about reinforcements of a different sort. It's week two of summer vacation, and I've finally caved and called in backup. Her name is Meaghan, and she lives across the street. She's coming twice this week for a couple hours in the afternoon to give me time to write. Five to six hours total, which might not sound like a whole lot, but it's a lot more than I've carved out since school finished. Don't get me wrong--I love my kids, and I want to spend lots of time with them this summer, but I also need time to get some writing done for me to feel good about myself. The mom guilt complex is a very tricky business, and it cripples my muse.

The weasels are in swimming lessons and a morning bike camp next week, so I'll take my computer with me and hopefully get something done while I'm waiting for them. With my other pen name dominating most of my writing time right now, I haven't written anything for Kaylea Cross in a long, long while. This means there will most likely be a long gap between Deadly Descent and the next release, but it's not for lack of effort in trying to get another book published!

I didn't make it to RWA Nationals in NYC, and neither Cover of Darkness nor No Turning Back won the awards they were nominated for, but I hear my name was mentioned at least a couple times in public, so that's pretty neat :)

I've got a blog tour set up for early September when Deadly Descent comes out, and it looks like my first release under my alter ego will be out August 26th, followed by another November 21st.

Over at Writers Gone Wild we're having a hero party in the middle of July, and I'll be featuring some very cool guests there as well in August/September, including Roxanne St. Claire, Anne Calhoun and Denise A. Agnew. I'll be sure to post the dates so you can come by and say hello and ask questions.

Hope everyone is having a safe and happy summer so far!

Fingers Crossed...

Yesterday was one of those rare days when everything went right. I sent off edits to my Carina Press editor in the morning, and got an e-mail just over an hour later saying that not only had she read and approved all my changes, but she was going to send it straight to copy editing. In the publishing world, that's light speed fast. I'm kind of proud that we didn't need to do a second round of edits.

Later on I came home after running errands to find two more e-mails from my editors, both asking for new stories from me. That tickled me immensely. I even received the preliminary cover for Deadly Descent yesterday. It's very hot, and I'll show it to you as soon as it's approved.

Last but certainly not least, I found a message on my answering machine from the coordinator of the Kiss of Death RWA chapter's Daphne du Maurier Award contest. This is pretty cool, because she was actually my cabin mate last year at the Wild Rose Press's retreat in Texas.

Anyway, she'd personally called me to say that Cover of Darkness was a finalist! The winner will be announced at RWA Nationals in NYC later this month, just like the National Readers Choice Award winner will be. Had I known I would final in these prestigious contests, I would for sure have attended Nationals! I'm so bummed. To think I could have sat with Roxanne St. Claire and Brenda Novak--twice--and schmoozed with NY Times bestselling authors.

I'm thrilled by this, and sales have been going very well for my little series this past month (truly, ever since Osama bin Laden was killed), especially Cover of Darkness. I assume it's because my hero is a SEAL, but maybe word of mouth has spread from readers who judged my entries for the Daphne? Not really sure, but I'm loving it!

Gotta Love the Internet: More Research Connections!

This past week I've been dying of a flu/strep throat/sinus infection I came down with two weeks ago when we got back from our trip. Today is the first morning I woke up and thought I'm actually going to live. I can almost breathe through one side of my nose, and though my head and face feel like they might explode if I bend over, things are looking up.

Right now I'm working on the dedication and acknowledgements for Deadly Descent. As you know I got in touch with some really cool inside sources for research on this one, and had a ball talking with them. When I e-mailed my recently retired PJ contact and asked what official title to call him in the dedication, I got a response that so typically embodies these men that I could only smile and shake my head. I'm paraphrasing, but basically his answer was, "No thanks are necessary. We're just ordinary guys, and I'm glad I could help."

If that doesn't encapsulate their humility and heroism, I don't know what does. So Weaver, if you're ever reading this, just know you're a hero to me and always will be no matter how much you try to downplay your years in Pararescue. So there.

Another cool thing happened too. I don't even know how he found out about me (must have been through this blog, but I never asked him), but a retired Air Force Combat Controller (CCT) contacted me to ask how the heck a young woman from Canada became interested in CCTs. He said some people in the Air Force don't even know about them--which I hope isn't true--so he was curious about me. I joked that I'm a little odd, and that on top of being a Civil War superfreak, I love learning about Spec Ops stuff. I love it even more when I can put what I've learned into my writing and give it more realism.

Wait--what? You don't know what a CCT is either? Not to worry, there's a picture of one at the top of this post. Deadly Descent will introduce you to Ryan, a CCT embedded with a SEAL team out of Bagram. You'll learn plenty about why these guys are damn handy to have with you out in hostile territory. Or in any combat mission, for that matter. At the most basic level, they're Special Ops trained air traffic controllers that go out into harm's way and bring a lot of firepower with them. They bring the rain. Heavy ordinance from bombers, missiles from fighter jets, or close air support from gunships, just to name a few. And that's merely a part of their job description. I'll be highlighting the hellish ordeal they undergo just to earn the right to be called a CCT in a later post, so stay tuned.

Anyway, this retired CCT and I chatted back and forth a few times, and I assured him that while my books are steamy romantic suspense, I make an effort to research my heroes' line of work and add a level of detail that readers won't find in other books of the genre. His response surprised me. He said he's actually proud that I'm taking the time to learn about his CCT brothers and bring them into the spotlight. Even if it's only a small spotlight.

He also said he sincerely hopes my hero gets to spend the night with a belly dancer at some point in the upcoming book :) He wants to read the book, but I told him it's pretty steamy and he probably wouldn't like it. "Are you kidding? I love steamy!" was his reply.

He's in his early sixties now and has been out of the game for a long while, but he offered to put me in touch with a recently retired CCT while I'm writing the draft of Crash and Burn. And he's sending me a DVD on CCTs and a couple trinkets, just because he's a nice guy. How awesome is that? And to think this connection literally landed in my lap (er, inbox) last Monday. Gotta love the Internet! As soon as I'm finished this latest novella, I'm back into Ryan's book, and I'm looking forward to writing it more than ever.

So, Mr. A.L., if you're reading this, thank you so much for taking the time to contact me. Very cool getting to "meet" you.

Damn I love what I do :)

Plugging Away

Got some more good news to share this past week, and thank goodness for that because the week before that wasn't great. My Carina editor sent back the first round of edits for Deadly Descent, and my laptop died the very next day. Seriously! You have no idea how frustrating that was, but at least I'd thought to save a backup version on a flash drive. It took the better part of a week to get a new laptop up and running with what they could salvage from my old hard drive. I wound up losing all my e-mails and I didn't get any work done at all for those four days. But since then, things have perked up for me.

A couple days after I sent back my first round of edits, Angela James of Carina Press contacted me (by e-mail this time, though I still have her voice message saved on my machine from November, and I don't care if that's pathetic) to say she'd read and loved the short erotic romance I'd subbed to them. After she passed it onto another editor who loved it too, they offered me a contract! It's tentatively called No Holds Barred, but it might be changed somewhere down the line and I'll keep you posted. I had so much fun writing it and finished it within a week. It's short and hot and will probably release sometime in late summer or early fall. My erotic romance editor over there seems like a lot of fun with a great sense of humor, so I'm looking forward to working with her.

The picture above is blurry, but it's the new journal I bought myself on Etsy, my new favorite place to shop because everything there is made by artisans. Like it? It's handmade, and ultra French-girly, which is right up my alley, with a big satin ribbon rose and vintage pearls in the center. So pretty! Oh, the things I've bought there... The accounting department is less than thrilled :)

I always treat myself to a new journal before I begin plotting a new project, and this one is sure to keep my muse inspired. I'm currently plotting out a new hot short story and then I'm going to dive into Deadly Descent's sequel, tentatively called Crash and Burn.

Also, next week I'm blogging with Kim at SOS Aloha on the 15th, and the awesome Katie Reus on the 17th. Oh, and I guess I didn't tell you, but I'm biting the bullet and flying to Hawaii with my family for a couple weeks in early March, so I'll be sure to ask you all for more arm flapping.