More promo!

I'm over at Writers Gone Wild today, introducing that crew to Cover of Darkness. Love to see you if you get a chance to pop over.

Guest blogging

I'm over at Karly Blakemore-Mowle's blog today because she was a sweetie and interviewed me about my romantic suspense series. And about my odd obsession with researching special ops (which she thinks is cool by the way! I love you Karly!). Come over and say hi if you get the chance.

Kaylea at Naughty Author Chicks

I'm over at Naughty Author Chicks today talking about my latest release, Cover of Darkness (have I mentioned how much I love this story?). I'm giving away a digital copy to one commenter, so stop by if you're interested in entering the contest.

I'll be checking in periodically, but less so between the hours of noon to 4 pm PST, because we've got a very important hockey game going on here in Vancouver today (a little match for the gold medal between our boys and the Americans). GO CANADA!!!

Release Day!!!

Today is the official release date for Cover of Darkness! It's available in both digital and print formats from my publisher. Hope everyone loves Bryn and Dec's story as much as I do, and I hope it keeps them up late turning the pages because they just have to find out what happens next.

Blurb:Targeted by a terrorist cell, Bryn McAllister survives a bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut only to be left to die in a desert cellar. When she is rescued by Navy SEAL Lieutenant Declan McCabe and his team, Bryn must rely on the handsome officer to get her to safety. But just when she thinks the nightmare is over, family friend and legendary CIA operative Luke Hutchinson recruits her and McCabe to help track down the terrorist mastermind responsible for the attack.

With Bryn determined to see the terrorist brought to justice, Dec joins up to protect her, prepared to do whatever it takes to keep her safe during their dangerous mission. Battling the explosive attraction between them, Dec fights to keep his distance from her so he can do his job and keep her alive. But when plans falls apart and Bryn is captured, he must make the agonizing choice between his duty as a SEAL and the life of the woman he loves.

Excerpt:
We’re not going to make it.
Instantly Dec grabbed her and pushed her into a darkened doorway, shoved his gun in his waistband and lifted her leg to wrap it around his hip. She gasped, grabbing his leather jacket to steady herself, staring up into his shadowed eyes. What was he doing?
They waited, listening, their bodies pressed so closely together she could feel his chest move as he breathed. His body heat warmed her, his fresh scent enveloping her. A minute ticked by. Two. He didn’t ease up from her. She quivered against him, part fear, part arousal, and his body responded.
She held her breath and stared into his face, their gazes locking.
A muted voice floated through the darkness. “A woman…dressed in a dance costume. Did you see her running this way?”
Arabic. A muttered reply followed, then the footsteps resumed. Closer with each passing second. What were they going to do? She tightened her fingers on his shoulders.
“Bryn?”
She swallowed, afraid even though he was protecting her with his body. Or rather, because of it. “What?”
“Go with this, okay?”
He didn’t give her a chance to reply, just took her face in his hands and leaned down to cover her mouth with his. She gasped, and he took advantage by angling his head, sliding his tongue along her lower lip before stealing inside.
Her fingers clenched as she arched upward, a moan of confusion escaping as he explored her mouth with skill. Shouldn’t they be running?
His mouth was so warm, and he was so good her eyelids fluttered down. A thumb swept over her cheekbone. His other hand trailed down her throat and over her shoulder, sparking electricity in its wake. She made a murmur of protest, not understanding how she could be responding to him, under the circumstances.
The treads on the sidewalk grew louder, but he continued to kiss and caress her as though they were about to fall onto a bed somewhere, as though they weren’t in mortal danger. She shook in his embrace, torn between wanting him and the fear they would be shot dead any second.
When his hand slid down over the curve of her breast, she gasped into his mouth, eyes flying wide as those footfalls grew louder and louder while her body trembled under his touch.
“Shhh,” he murmured against her lips. “Kiss me back.”
Footsteps echoed. Their pursuer was almost on top of them now.

Happy reading!
Kaylea :)

The Good Old Hockey Game

Went to the men's quarter final Olympic hockey game last night featuring Sweden vs Slovakia. I wasn't thrilled about the prospect initially, since hockey's really not my thing (OMG, don't tell anyone!), but we started out the night at La Terrazza, a fancy Italian place downtown that my dad loves. The food is amazing, and I actually set a scene from Relentless there.

Had an awesome meal with great company, and as we left Wayne Gretzky (yeah, The Great One himself) walked in. My husband's eyes just about popped out of his head, and then Chad Kroeger (lead singer of Nickelback) came in. There were all sorts of hockey legends in the place last night, and hubby grinned like a little kid all night.

The atmosphere downtown was really cool, because a lot of the core is closed to traffic and there are tons of people walking around. 'Course it might have had something to do with the fact the Canadian men's team trounced Russia to move onto the next round as we were eating dinner :) There were a lot of happy Canada fans out last night, and once again the patriotic fever sweeping the city was neat to see. At every corner, blue jacketed volunteers (lovingly nicknamed Smurfs) were there to guide the crowds, offering a smile and a helping hand. Where the heck are they during the rest of the year? It was so nice to see so many smiling, happy people out.

And we topped all this off by watching the game from a private box suite, complete with all the food and bevvies we could have wanted. The crowd was friendly, hubby thought he'd died and gone to heaven, and I have to admit I wouldn't mind seeing another hockey game that way :) All in all, a great evening and I'm glad I got the chance to experience it.

And now, because I couldn't resist, here's a clip from an old beer commercial that was really popular a few years back.Go Canada!!!

Savannah Stuart: Worth The Risk

If you like smoking hot paranormals, check out the second book of Savannah Stuart's Miami Scorcher series, Worth the Risk, now available from Ellora's Cave. I swear, the cover Gods love her :)


Werewolf Marisol Cabrera has one goal in life: to kill the man who murdered her entire pack. When she meets alpha werewolf Stephan and realizes he’s her mate, all her carefully laid plans dissipate in seconds. By all accounts, she should hate Stephan and everything he stands for. After all, he’s a dirty arms dealer doing business with her mortal enemy. Unfortunately, every time the dominating wolf gets near her, she can’t deny her growing attraction for the last man in the world she expected to want.

Undercover DEA agent Stephan Lazos is about to make the biggest bust of his career, but everything that can go wrong, does. Considering he’d given up hope of finding his mate decades ago, he never expected to discover her in a Miami nightclub while on the job no less. She saves his life and his cover when he almost changes in the middle of a crowded room, but that doesn’t mean he trusts her. The clock is ticking and if he doesn’t figure out what secrets the sexy vixen is keeping from him, he might not just lose his job, but his life in the process.

Karlene Blakemore-Mowle: Fallout

Please welcome fellow TWRP author Karlene Blakemore-Mowle, here to talk about her first release, Fallout. She's a ball of fire with a super friendly personality, and I hope you'll check out her work once you get to know her a bit better. From the land down under (lucky thing), here she is!

KC: Tell us a bit about yourself.

KBM: I live in Australia on the Mid North Coast of NSW…for those of you who aren’t familiar with Australian geography, it’s on the east coast half way between Brisbane and Sydney.
I’ve lived all over the place. From the outback, in mining towns, to the coast and on The Great Barrier Reef. I have been incredibly lucky to see so many special places in Australia.
As a child, I moved a lot with my Dad’s work, averaging about three years a town, and remember vowing I would never move once I was married and had my own kids! Ahemmm… Not sure what happened, but I ended up moving about every eighteen months!!! Now I am back living in a small rural town on the river where both my parents were born and bred, and loving that I am a part of a place my own parents grew up in. I’ve always loved history and there’s something about knowing an old building in town was where my parents used to attend Saturday night dances as teenagers, or driving past a house that my Grandparents used to live in, that really intrigues me.

KC: I love that you're so close to your roots there. How long have you been writing? What have you learned along the way?

KBM: I started writing when I found myself newly married and stuck at home. I used to devour Mills and Boons by the shopping bag full and eventually became frustrated by never seeming to get enough of the kind of books I enjoyed—you guessed it, involving military men! So decided to write my own. Unfortunately Mr Mills and Boon didn’t share my opinion of my story being the greatest story ever told (I don’t understand why? I mean, I had absolutely NO clue what I was doing!!) I then decided to do a correspondence writing course before having children, which effectively put an end to my writing… Children apparently need feeding at all times of the night and day and demand your full attention – something that could have been pointed out to me BEFORE I thought it was such a great idea to do!!!!
Turns out, I was much better at being a mum than I was at romance writing and I went on to have three more…I’m a good breeder.

KC: *snort* :)

KBM: I did eventually go back to my writing on and off for a few more years, until about three years ago I got serious just after my fourth child and sat down to produce five manuscripts!
What I have learnt along the way is… NEVER give up- it gets damn depressing when you keep having rejection slips posted back, but I think I reached a point where I knew deep down in my heart, my stories were good. Then I just decided if they made me smile- then that was an achievement. I mean lets face it, we’re all readers first and foremost or we wouldn’t be writing, and if I couldn’t stand reading something I wrote, why on earth would anyone else?! It was icing on the cake that the editor I now have picked up Fallout and agreed with me!

KC: I need to know for my own sanity, because now I feel really lame--how is it possible that you're a wife and working mother of four, and still find time to write books?

KBM: See there’s your problem! Sanity. It helps if your children have sucked all the sanity from your life!!!!
The ability to block the sound of children strangling the life from each other while one is whining that they’re hungry and another is complaining that their mother is ruining their life- is an asset…More often than not, I just take what ever opportunity I’m given- childless-- to write. I can do five minute sprints if I have to, and then wait until everyone else is in bed and write at my leisure…. I usually just get up at 5am and write while it’s nice and peaceful.

KC: How did Fallout come to be written?

KBM: Fallout was one of the newer books I’d written and seemed to just come out of nowhere!
I have a very good friend who is a police officer and he had been telling me of a really close call at work when he walked into a house and found himself, quite literally, staring down the barrel of a gun. This got me thinking. I usually write about military and most of my previous hero’s have been military men and yet here was a police officer who faced almost identical dangers in their daily life…in our own country! This too got me thinking (I sometimes think quite a lot!) What if I had a military man, who meets his equal in a police officer? We’d have two very disciplined people, both very capable and highly trained, who dealt with life and death situations in their careers. How would they react to each other? Who would be the more dominant personality? Would it make the sparks fly if they were forced to depend on each other in order to survive?

KC: Tell us the story about how Fallout became contracted with The Wild Rose Press.

KBM: I sent it to The Wild Rose Press on a last ditch effort to see what happened after it was rejected by a leading romance publisher…AGAIN! And found an email in my inbox from my now editor, who did something amazing- she actually took the time to tell me where this story was going wrong and better yet—what I should look at to fix it! I sat down immediately, took her suggestions and from then on- after a few more emails back and forth she emailed me and announced we had a contract!
I am still overwhelmed by this woman’s generosity, and patience to take a few minutes of her time to make her suggestions, it was all the help I needed to finally make my writing click and it still brings a lump to my throat when ever I think about it.

KC: I loved how edgy and confident Tully was, right from the opening page. How did you develop her as a character?

KBM: She was a very different character for me to write. Usually I have…not sissy heroines, but softer? I guess the opposite to my hero’s in order to bring out the hero’s softer side they may not usually show to anyone else. With Tully it all came back to that original idea of having two strong personalities who did the same demanding, dangerous work together. She developed along the way. I had to go back after I finished the story to give her a bit of history, an explanation of why she is the way she is- otherwise I think she could be received as a little cold, but I hope that I’ve given her enough depth to be likeable even if she is a very strong character.

KC: Jake is a former military man (which I love, but you know that already). Tell us a little about your uh..."unusual" (but totally cool) interest in the military.

KBM: Isn’t it funny how people sometimes question this? I’ve always had a soft spot for the military- I think it was my upbringing. My Dad and one of my brothers have been in the Army and I guess some of my Dad’s most admiral qualities have been things he’s acquired from his Army training. He has a confidence and a discipline- a very solid, dependable quality about him that I naturally relate to military men. Of course having lived in a military town, I’ve also realised they are just men, and there are the good, bad and dickheads in every society!
I have a deep respect for our military, and other armed forces around the world, as well as the police. I’ve been raised to respect and appreciate what these people do for us and how much they sacrifice in doing so.
What’s not to love about them?!

KC: I love that you kept an Aussie flavor in your writing, with the spelling and some of the phrasing. Did your editor ever ask you to change any of it? I kept imagining Jake speaking with that awesome accent that all us North American girls go crazy over.

KBM: LOL I love Accents- and isn’t it funny how no one ever thinks of their native accent as being sexy!
When I realised The Wild Rose Press was an American company, I did expect there would be some changes. I was waiting for it! But I was surprised when it was decided to leave a lot of it in there- surprised and pleased, it’s nice to not have to adapt everything to the US markets! In Australia, we have pretty much everything you guys over that way have- the TV shows the movies, the sitcoms- there’s not a lot we can’t relate socially-wise to North America, but it is surprising that for English speaking countries who share a common ancestry even- there can be so many differences in so many other ways! Australian’s seem to remain a bit of a puzzle, and by leaving a lot of the phrasing and things in there, I hoped it might go a small way to allowing people to become familiar with Australianisms.

KC: Tell us about your newest work, Summer Storm.

KBM: Ahhhh Summer Storm!
This is my favourite book! I’ve had this baby for ten years. It’s undergone more transformations than Michael Jackson’s had plastic surgery! But the core thing that has always stayed true has been the characters, and I just adore them.
Tate Maddox is a Force Recon Marine and he’s on the run for a crime he didn’t commit. Summer Sheldon is an Australian ER Nurse and is blackmailing Tate to rescue her sister, a photojournalist who has been kidnapped in Cambodia!
If I never had another thing published ever again- I can rest easy knowing this was the one that I always dreamed of seeing in print. It’s my pride and joy and I just love it.
I’ll fill you in on all the details once I know more- all I received from my editor was- “It’s a contract- go and celebrate!”... So I am!

KC: As you should! So what are you working on right now, and what are your writing plans for the future?

KBM: At the moment, I’m working on a single title Australian rural romance. It’s a little different to what I’ve been writing, this one centring on a family in rural Australia but it has romance and suspense as elements…and a policeman as the love interest (I know, I can’t help it! There’s always a uniform involved.)
In the future, now that Summer Storm is being published I have a linked series connected to this being, Willow Quest— Summer’s sisters story and another hunka-spunk Marine, Peter Delaware. A third book is also started, centring on a third member of Tate’s unit, but I’m not sure if that will eventuate. My editor may have cracked under the pressure of correcting my horrendous punctuation by the time Summer Storm and Willow Quest have landed on her desk and may actually threaten me with physical harm if I try to plonk another book on her desk!

Thank you so much for having me here and letting me ramble on about my writing.

KC: I was glad to have you! Best of luck with this release and I hope we get to see many more works from you in the future :)

To purchase Fallout, click here.
Karly would love to hear from you, so check out her website and drop her a line to say hello.