Pamela Clare's Blog - Posts Tagged "i-team"

Happy Friday, everyone!

So, how is your read through the I-Team stories going?

Some of you have checked in via Facebook or on the original blog post to tell me how you're doing, and I know a number of you are already done. That amazes me. I sat down to "re-read" Surrender right before Christmas — for research purposes for Defiant — and I haven't made it 50 pages into the book yet.

I thought it might be fun to start with Extreme Exposure and have an informal chat about the story. I can answer questions — for example, "I heard that the scene in the Rio really happened. Do you really talk like that when you're hammered?" — and you can share favorite scenes and quotes.

I'll start...

So, as some of you already know, the stories in the I-Team series are fictionalized versions of investigations I really did. Extreme Exposure is close to me — and Kara, the heroine — because I am a single mom just like she is. Trying to balance work and motherhood when you have a high-impact job isn't easy. My kids spent a portion of their lives coming to the newspaper after work, doing homework and eating TV dinners in a special kids room (complete with VCR), while I finished putting the paper to bed. I'm sure I'll be able to make up for it by paying their therapy bills later...

Particularly precious in this novel for me are the scenes with Kara's son, some of which grew out of my own experience of being a mother to two boys and being asked silly-sweet questions like, "Mommy, what does frog poop smell like?"

One of my favorite scenes is when Reece talks Connor into coming out from under the bed. I think it shows the kind of man Reece is. The woman he loves is in bad shape in the next room, but he's focusing on her son, showing Connor strength and offering him security and comfort.

And I'll just confess right now... "Jiggle stick" is a word my older son made up.

Yes, that really happened. More than being embarrassed, I found it funny and shared it with everyone in the newsroom. It became part of a running joke that lasted for years.

Now I'll get on with writing the other Connor's book and leave the conversation to you. Is there anything you want to ask? What are your favorite scenes? And, for those of you re-reading the book, did anything strike you differently in Extreme Exposure this time around?

Breaking Point is out!

Today is the day! It’s here at last. Yes, it’s Release Day for Breaking Point, my 10th novel and the fifth novel in the I-Team series. Uncork the champagne!

There’s a lot going on today with lots of chances to win books. Here are some of the highlights.

First, you might want to follow me on Twitter. I’ll be announcing any special giveaways or other fun events there.

Also, be sure to stop by my Facebook fan page. We’ll be having some fun there. A few other authors will be stopping by to talk about their books and hold giveaways. Plus, I’ll be holding a drawing for Amazon gift cards and signed copies of Breaking Point. To be entered, you’ll need to comment, and to comment, you’ll need to “Like” me. But you already like me, right?

I’m the guest author today at Seductive Musings, where Booklover has outdone herself in a post that includes a little guest piece by me, as well as the MP3 playlist from Breaking Point, a collection of links to Breaking Point excerpts scattered across the web, links to all kinds of I-Team extras — and some super-sexy photos of the I-Team heroes. It really is quite the I-Team extravaganza, almost an I-Team wiki, so even if you already have a copy of Breaking Point, you’re going to have a lot of fun.

There’s a fun chat between me and Marie Force on her blog today. Yes, two author/journalists dishing about dishy heroes and some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the I-Team series — including the scarier parts of my life that have gone into the books. It took us about a week to have this conversation via email because we’re both so busy. She would ask a question... And 12 hours later I would answer. But stop by, tell us which I-Team hero you wouldn’t kick out of bed, and be entered to win a signed copy of Breaking Point.

Reviews are popping up all over the Internet. I shared a few links to reviews in my last post, including this one by Kristin and Jess that was lots of fun. I also shared the first two chapters of the book. So if you want to peruse that, it’s still waiting for you, together with images that come out of the story.

If you want to help me spread the word, here’s what you can do:

Post about Breaking Point in your Facebook status, linking to my Facebook page or to an excerpt — whatever you believe your friends would love to know about the book.

Tweet and retweet, sharing links and updates about where you are in the story, what you enjoyed, where you saw the book on display. And don’t forget to use the hashtag #BreakingPoint.

Update your status in Goodreads to let people know where you are in the book.

Take photos with your cellphone of displays of the book or of you reading the book and email them to me (my email is listed in my info on Facebook). I might just post your photo on my blog.

Post honest reviews after you read the book, sharing your feelings about the stories strengths and weakness (as if!). Don’t try to sell people. Just tell them, reader to reader, what you liked (or didn’t like — ha!) about the book.

Mention what you’re reading in your readers groups, in chats, in threads on discussion boards.

Fricking get a megaphone and stand inside your local book store shouting, “You haven’t read the I-Team? What the bleep is wrong with you?”


On May 12, I’ll be participating in the Berkley/Jove Author Chat on Writerspace.com. The fun starts at 9 PM EST. I will be giving away a signed copy of the book to one participant in that chat. To be a part of it, click here and sign yourself in. It’s easy. Other Berkley/Jove authors will be there, as well. These chats sometimes get a bit bawdy. A bunch of romance authors and readers chatting semi-anonymously? You bet they get bawdy. I once taught a group of women how to say “big, wonderful cock” in Danish during one of these chats, and you know what? They still know how to say it. They say it every time I run into them online, in fact. And my Danish friends wonder what the hell...

Ahem. Anyway, there will be other events coming up through the month, so stay tuned! I still hope to get a former U.S. Marshal in here to talk with you, as well as the I-Team heroes, which now number five strong. And by strong I mean ripped.

Wow. Ten novels. I know some authors have written more than 100. But to write those 10 novels while working full-time and raising kids... It truly feels like a day worth celebrating.

But the most wonderful part of being an author and writing these books has been sharing them with all of you. I really do read all of your e-mails. I read your Facebook posts and tweets. And on days when I’m struggling, you really keep me going. When a book is done and it reaches your hands — that’s the best moment for me. Characters I love and have lived with for months become characters we share. Their stories become shared adventures.

So thank you to all of my readers and posters, my friends and family, for your support and for sharing this great adventure with me.

Enjoy Breaking Point!

And then come back to chat with me about it!

Contest #1: Really want to help me spread the word? Join my Fan Page on Facebook, and get your romance-reading friends to join, too. The person who brings the most new people to my Facebook Fan Page wins a signed copy of Breaking Point for herself — and one for one of her friends chosen through a random drawing. So that I can keep track, be sure to have your friends tell me you sent them.

Contest #2: Tweet your heart out. How creative are your tweets? How many times can you get yourself retweeted? The person who generates the most tweets and retweets with the hashtag #BreakingPoint will win a signed copy of the book. All I have to do to determine the winner is click on the hashtag and count.

And because these two contests might not work for people in other time zones or those who have to work all day — some bosses are total asshats when it comes to letting their employees goof off online during working hours — here’s Contest #3: Post a comment here about your favorite I-Team moment and be entered into a random drawing for a signed copy of the book.

(I can tell you right now, Breaking Point has an I-Team moment you won’t soon forget. Almost everyone who’s read the story has mentioned it.)

That’s three contests and four winners.

As for my part, I took the day off so that I could hang with you all day!

Now go get him. Zach in all of his Navy SEAL/Deputy U.S. Marshal glory is yours!

First, the bad news — I bumped the release date for First Strike back to Oct. 22 after some people expressed concerns about the month-long wait between the prequel and Striking Distance . There is a significant cliffhanger at the end of First Strike . With the Oct. 22 release date, there will be only two weeks between the two stories.

For those of you who missed it — this novella was kind of a surprise to everyone, including me — here’s the scoop on how this story came about:


By the time I finished Striking Distance , I had perhaps two discarded pages of text for every manuscript page I sent to my editor. While some of the material is going to find its way here as little blog extras, some will never see the light of day. The story’s original prologue, however, has been transformed into an erotic novella.
First Strike tells the story of how Laura Nilsson and Javier Corbray meet in Dubai City—and lose themselves in a weekend of no-strings-attached sex. Since unmarried sex is illegal in Dubai, their time together comes at a risk. But the bigger risk may come in the form of feelings they didn’t expect.
Here’s the book’s blurb:

Just a weekend…
Laura Nilsson knows what she wants: a successful career as a broadcast journalist—and a little fun between the sheets now and again. What she doesn’t want is marriage or kids. When a ripped and sexy stranger intervenes to stop a couple of drunks from harassing her in a hotel bar in Dubai City, all she can think about is spending the rest of the weekend with him—in her bed. There’s just one little problem. Unmarried sex is illegal in Dubai.
… of no-strings sex …
Navy SEAL Javier “Cobra” Corbray is on his way home from a rough deployment in Afghanistan when he finds himself having dinner with “the Baghdad Babe.” What she wants from him—sex with no strings—could land them both in prison. Still, he’s more than happy to oblige her. She’s confident and sexually assertive, and he’s secure enough to lie back and let her make the first strike. But, as she’s about to find out, he’s more than her match.
… or the beginning of something more?
Yet, neither Laura nor Javier has any idea what lies ahead—or how this weekend of mind-blowing sex will impact their emotions. Will they act on their new-found feelings in time, or will they let something special slip away… perhaps forever?


First Strike will be available as an ebook only through the usual ebook retailers. At 17,000 words, it’s too short to justify publication in print. The cost to readers would truly be unfair. Fortunately, both Amazon and Nook have downloadable applications that enable people without e-readers to read stories on their computers. 

Now how about an excerpt? 
I thought you’d never ask! Here you go.


From Chapter 1 of First Strike: The Erotic Prequel to Striking Distance




What was it about men who gave off that “don’t fuck with me” vibe that made Laura want to do just that?
“You didn’t like Jumeirah Beach?” For a man who’d come to Dubai City to see the sights, he didn’t seem very impressed.
“Nah, not really.” He raised his beer mug and finished the glass, Laura’s gaze drawn first to his flexing bicep, then to his moist lips. “Growing up, I spent summers at my grandmother’s place in Humacao. You want to see a beach, come to Puerto Rico.”
So he was Puerto Rican—probably a mix of Taíno Indian, African, and Spanish.
“I’m sure it’s beautiful.”
He nodded, smiled, looking into her eyes. “A lover’s paradise.”
A bolt of heat shot through her belly, her pulse skipping.
He made the words sound erotic, pronouncing every syllable slowly, the warmth in his eyes signaling that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
Surprised by the intensity of her own physical reaction, she raised her glass to her lips, only to find it empty.
“Let me buy you another.”
She set the glass down. “I’d like that. Thanks.”
She watched as he made his way through the crowded restaurant toward the bar to get another glass of wine for her and another beer for himself, his perfect, muscular ass shifting beneath the denim of his jeans as he walked, his movements sleek, confident.
People stepped aside for him, as if they knew instinctively that they shouldn’t cross him.
But he wasn’t arrogant. Most men who were ripped and sexy like Javier had egos to match, standing at the center of their own vain little worlds. But Javier hadn’t shown a hint of swagger. Instead, he’d asked her a half-dozen questions about her job, seeming genuinely interested in her answers. He even knew about some of her bigger stories—her exposé on the Pentagon’s failure to supply soldiers with body armor, her investigation into the group of servicemen who’d been running a protection racket in Baghdad. She sensed something deeper in Javier, something that went beyond his good looks and charm, something real.
God, he turned her on.
From the moment he’d sat at her table, her mind had begun spinning sexual fantasies of the two of them together. Everything about him seemed to draw her in—his smooth skin, his voice, the stubble on his square jaw, his clean scent, those full lips. What would they feel like when he kissed her, tasted her, went down on her?
The very thought made her wet.
She’d always been careful about the men she allowed into her bed, sometimes going months and even years between lovers. Her job put her in the public eye, and the last thing she wanted was to leave a trail of men who would watch the news, point to her, and say to their buddies, “Yeah, I slept with her. I fucked the Baghdad Babe.”
Her career didn’t leave a lot of time for men, anyway. She had dreams of one day being a news anchor or perhaps even hosting an evening news program. She had no desire to get married, settle down, and have kids, and that meant she needed to steer clear of men who might mistake her interest for something more than sexual.
 She watched as he paid for the drinks and then started back toward the table, another glass of chardonnay in one hand, a mug of beer in the other.
Would he be good in bed?
Pondering that question made her ache inside.
Oh, yes, he would be.
She couldn’t say what made her so sure of that. Maybe it was the way he paid attention to every word she said. Maybe it was the way he moved, so in control of his own body. Maybe it was the heat in his eyes when he looked at her. But she had a feeling that if she ended up in bed with him, he would make it well worth her while.
She crossed her legs, squeezed, trying to appease the ache, but that only made it worse, the feeling of arousal between her thighs impossible to ignore.
Pull it together, Nilsson.
Of course, there was no way for them to hook up—not here. Unmarried sex was illegal in Dubai. It was even illegal for unrelated men and women to be alone together. They couldn’t just get into the elevator, head to her room, and get it on. If they were caught, they’d go to jail, maybe even be flogged.
And wouldn’t that make for a nice news teaser?
Laura Nilsson arrested in Dubai for illicit sex with man she barely knew. Hormones to blame. Film at eleven.
She ran the words through her mind and found herself wondering again what Javier did for a living. Was he Delta Force? An Army Ranger? A Green Beret?
Most U.S. servicemen trusted her enough to tell her what they did for a living, but Javier wasn’t one of them. That meant the work he did was highly classified—or that he worked for a private contractor that specialized in covert ops.
He could be an arms dealer for all you know.
There was no doubt. He was dangerous.
Somehow that thought left her feeling even more aroused.
You need to buy a battery-operated boyfriend.
Even if she’d had one, she wouldn’t have been able to bring it along on her travels. She was pretty sure she’d get into less trouble if she were caught smuggling an AK-47 into Dubai than if she were found in possession of a vibrator.
Javier handed her the wine glass, his warm fingers grazing hers, striking sparks off her skin. He slid into the seat across from her. “This place gets crowded.”
She glanced around them. “It’s Friday night. Most of the city is shut down. Expats have to do something with themselves.”
“Cheers.” He raised his beer glass and drank.
Her gaze locked with his, desire for him driving all other thoughts from her mind.
She set her glass aside, leaned toward him, lowering her voice to a whisper, her pulse spiking as she shared what she was thinking. “Will this conversation get awkward if I tell you how very much I want to fuck you?”

(c) copyright Pamela Clare 2013All rights reserved

Things have been pretty crazy at Casa Clare. Let’s see...

I had a major book release, a MacKinnon’s Rangers Christmas novella deadline, and got a lot of really fabulous news. My sister, who is a dual US/Swedish citizen, arrived from Stockholm to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday and spend Thanksgiving with us. And in the middle of all of this, my poor blog went without an update for a very long time.

Sorry about that!

I’ll start with the good news.

I learned the Unlawful Contact has been picked up by J’ai Lu and will finally be published in French. This comes as good news to my French readers, who’ve been waiting forever for the I-Team.

Also, BookPages, a national publication for librarians and booksellers, featured Striking Distance (I-Team 6) as Christie Ridgeway’s top romance pick for November. That was a huge honor.

Publishers Weekly featured Striking Distance in its article about the popularity of military romance. (I’d post a link, but unless you have a subscription, it wouldn’t do you any good.)

Close on the heels of that announcement, I found out that Striking Distance was nominated by the reviewers at RT Book Reviews for Best Romantic Suspense of 2013. RT had given Striking Distance a 4.5-star Top Pick review in its November edition, and I was thrilled to see the story in such fabulous company.

And then today, I learned that   Striking Distance  made the USA Today Bestseller list!



As Javier would say, “¡Wepa!”

I got the news from New York Times bestselling author and friend Thea Harrison, whose book Kinked , also made the list. She tweeted me, beating my editor and agent to the punch. Within seconds author superstar and friend Jill Shalvis, whose novel Rumor Has It hit both USA Today and the NYT, sent me the link. Then author/photographer Jenn LeBlanc, my bestie, posted on Facebook, and I knew it was real.

I was, of course, ecstatic. Squealing may or may not have occurred.

I immediately tried to call the two people who’ve done the most to support me — my sister, Michelle, and my younger son, Benjamin — but couldn’t get a hold of either of them. That’s exactly how it would work out, right? I had always imagined telling them to their faces. In the end, Benjamin, who is in Europe, saw it on Facebook before I could reach him. I did manage to tell my older son over the phone and then caught my sister later in the afternoon.

It means so much to me to hit the list with this novel. As most of you know, this story was very personal for me and took pretty much everything I had. It’s the first time I really explored the inner landscape of surviving trauma, in particular sexual assault. Sometimes we choose which stories we want to write, and sometimes those stories choose us. This was definitely the latter. It wasn’t easy to write, forcing me to dig deeper into myself than perhaps any other book I’ve written.

Ultimately I wrote something that I, as a survivor of childhood sexual assault, physical violence, and PTSD know to be real — while doing my best to give both Laura and Javier all the love and happiness they deserve.


I feel incredibly grateful to have had the chance—and to have had so much support along the way.


Thanks to my sister, Michelle, and my son Benjamin, for their encouragement, weeks of handholding and long hours of listening me bounce the story off them.

Thank you to Arlene and Beatrice Rios and Wilson Cruz for the 15 months they spent working with me to help me get the Puerto Rican aspect of Javier’s character right. Any time they swear in their mother tongue, they will think of me.

Thank you to Officer Bryan Bartnes of the Loveland Police Department for his help in understanding explosives, the work of EOD teams, and the way authorities investigate bombings. Is it wrong that I was amused by people’s nervous glances as we talked about how to blow stuff up?

Thanks to Diane Grimaldi Whiting for walking me through the world of broadcast journalism. I’ve been interviewed on television, but I’ve never been on the other side of the camera. She helped me understand how a studio operates, essential information for a key scene in the story.

My heartfelt thanks to the active-duty SEAL who spent time between work-ups and deployments helping me understand the work and life of a special operator. His input and perspective over a period of almost two years were so essential to Javier’s part of the story. How he found time to answer all my questions and read the manuscript, I don’t know. But I am so very grateful both for his help and his service. I dedicate the book to him and feel honored to know he has a copy.

And, of course, a huge weepy  thank you  to the wonderful members of the I-Team Facebook group and all of my fabulous reader friends who have sent emails, posted on Facebook and tweeted to let me know how much Laura and Javier’s story mean to them. You make it all worthwhile!

I celebrated this evening by watching Raylan Givens get into trouble in Justified and enjoying some European chocolate with my dear sister — truly precious time for me.

As for that novella...

I hope to have a sweet MacKinnon’s Rangers Christmas story ready for you by the day before Thanksgiving. But more on that in my next post.

Soul Deep is finished!

Right now, I’m working hard to edit it and get it out to you by next week. This is an indie novella, meaning I’m publishing it myself. But at 50,000 words, it’s as long as some books being sold as novels these days.

I don’t have preorder links for it yet, because I don’t have a clone and can’t seem to get it all done at once.

I realized as I was editing that I haven’t shared any excerpts from this story yet, so I thought I should get in here and change that.

Soul Deep takes place a few weeks after Javier and Laura’s wedding in Puerto Rico ( Striking Distance ). We meet up with Janet Killeen, the FBI agent who spearheaded Laura’s protection detail, as she tries to pull her life together following the serious gunshot wound she sustained helping Laura. She's about to have an unwanted reunion with a man she despises...

CHAPTER ONE
September 28

Janet Killeen gripped the steering wheel of her Toyota Corolla, snow falling so thick and heavy that she couldn’t see the side of the highway. Her windshield wipers were clumped with ice and snow, the rubber blades no longer making contact with the glass. She would need to pull over soon to clean the ice off—if only she could see the shoulder so that she could pull over.
Leaving Denver had been a mistake.
She rolled down her window and scooted forward in her seat, ignoring the sharp pain that shot through her hip and pelvis at the motion. Reaching outside, she grabbed the bottom of the wiper blade. Icy flakes hit her face, the cold almost taking her breath away as she raised the blade and dropped it against her windshield once, twice, three times. The thick crust of ice and snow broke off.
She rolled up the window, turned her heater up a notch.
She’d left the city first thing this morning, hoping to make it to the mountain town of Scarlet Springs before the storm hit. She’d booked a room for a week at Forest Creek Inn, a family-run bed and breakfast, and had been looking forward to seeing the aspens and maybe even sitting on a horse again. It was part of a promise she’d made herself, her way of celebrating her survival and the end of rehab.
Having grown up in Hudson Falls in upstate New York, she always yearned for fall color, and the only place a person could find that in Colorado was in the high country during that brief couple of weeks when the aspens turned. It had become her yearly ritual, the one time of the year she put aside her badge and her duties as an FBI special agent and let herself go.
Forecasters had predicted up to eighteen inches in Denver and a good few feet in the mountains, but when were the forecasters ever right about Colorado’s weather? Last week, they’d predicted snow, and Denver had gotten hail and funnel clouds instead. Of course, they’d just had to be right this time.
You should have turned back.
Yes, well, it was too late for that now. She needed to reach Scarlet Springs—or find someplace she could pull off the highway and wait for a break in the storm.
She glanced down at the speedometer. Ten MPH. At this rate she’d get there faster if she got out of the car and ran. Except that she couldn’t run. She would probably never run again. She was lucky to be able to walk.
You’re lucky to be alive.
Last February, a sniper bullet intended for journalist Laura Nilsson, whose protection detail Janet had managed, had ripped through Janet’s left hip, shattering the joint, breaking her pelvis, severing her sciatic nerve, and damaging her vaginal muscles before exiting through the front. Doctors had replaced her hip, used plates to put her pelvis back together, reconnected the severed nerve, and stitched her vagina, but her body would never be the same.
Gone were the days of running daily 10Ks and rock climbing on the weekends. Though she had learned to walk with a cane instead of a walker, her left foot still dragged. She didn’t know whether she’d ever be able to ski or ride a horse or even enjoy sex again. Little things she’d always taken for granted were difficult now—grocery shopping, keeping a clean house, getting a full night of pain-free sleep.
And then there were the nightmares.
Gun shots. Screams. Pain.
That single bullet hadn’t just ripped through her body. It had torn a path through her life. Byron, the skier she’d been dating, had ended things during her second month of rehab. He’d said that he’d changed and needed to move on, but she’d known he was turned off by her lack of mobility and had run out of patience waiting for them to have a sex life. But that wasn’t all of it. When she returned from this little vacation, she would be going back to work, but not to the position she’d held before the shooting. She’d be taking a desk job instead. An agent who couldn’t run or stomach the thought of holding a firearm was an agent who couldn’t leave the office.
The life she’d known had vanished in a split second, and she missed it, even grieved for it, crying tears she didn’t share with anyone.
Melodie, her younger sister, saw this as a sign that Janet should leave the FBI, find a husband, and start a family before it was too late. Setting aside the fact that Janet’s biological clock seemed to have wound down, her injuries would likely make sex and pregnancy difficult even if by some miracle she could get pregnant.
Janet and Melodie were very different people. Melodie had always wanted to be a mother, and Janet had always wanted to be a superhero and save the world. It wasn’t that Janet didn’t want a husband or kids, but her life as a special agent had been busy and fulfilling enough without them.
Besides, finding a husband wasn’t like shopping for patio furniture. A woman could spend years looking for the right man and still not find him. Janet had had her share of boyfriends and lovers, but after Byron, it seemed to her that a woman might be better off on her own.
Despite whatever her sister might think, Janet didn’t regret her choices, not even her decision to volunteer for Laura’s protection detail. She had always admired Laura and was proud to have played a role in saving her life. Laura had just married Javier Corbray, that sexy SEAL lover of hers. Seeing her move on from the hell that had been her life to claim some happiness had been the best reward Janet could have received.
She would adapt and find a way to do the things she loved again. That’s exactly why she’d made this trip—to reclaim some part of her life for herself.
Snow had begun to build up on the wipers again, the tail lights of the truck that was at most ten feet in front of her barely visible. Janet rolled down her window once more, scooted forward, then grabbed the wiper blade and tapped it against the glass, dislodging the snow and ice.
It seemed to be coming down even harder now, the wind driving the snow straight into her windshield. How could the driver in front of her even see where he or she was going? Were they blindly following someone else’s tail lights like she was? If so, what was guiding the person in front?
She needed to get off the road. She tried to remember if there were any gas stations or small towns between here and Scarlet Springs. She didn’t think so. The only place she knew of for certain was the Cimarron Ranch, but she wouldn’t stop there even if she knew where it was. Jack West, the man who owned it, was as big a jerk as he was handsome. She’d had a less-than-pleasant exchange with him when she’d gone there as part of Laura’s protection detail to make certain the place was secured.
I know every man, woman, and child on my land, SA Killeen. I don’t need you checking IDs or running background on my people. I understand you want to protect Ms. Nilsson. So do I. But I’ve got twenty men here, every single one of whom knows how to use a firearm. They’ve all been made aware of the situation. Laura is safe under my roof. I guarantee you that. Now, either come inside for a bite to eat, or get the hell off my property.
She’d only been trying to do her job, and West had ordered her off his land as if she’d been nothing more than a trespasser. She’d been furious at—
Ahead of her, the red tail lights swerved. The highway seemed to vanish from beneath her tires, the car sliding sideways down a steep embankment, coming to a rest with a sickening crunch.
Janet found herself holding the steering wheel in a death grip, her heart slamming in her chest. She took a few deep breaths, tried to dial back on the adrenaline.
Way to go, Killeen. This was one way to get off the highway.
She wasn’t hurt, and the car was no longer moving—two reasons to be grateful. The car had come to rest at close to a forty-five-degree angle, what looked like a fence post pressing against her crumpled passenger side door.
She knew there was no way for her to get back onto the road, not without trading her Corolla for, say, a M1 Abrams tank. She would have to call for help. The tow would probably cost a small fortune, to say nothing of the damage to her car and the fence.
Consider it all a tax on stupid.
She turned off the vehicle, took off her seat belt, and bent down to retrieve her handbag off the floor. She pulled out her cell phone. No bars. “Damn it!”
She had no choice but to climb back up to the road. She might be able to flag down a trucker with a radio who could call for help on her behalf. Or maybe someone would come along who was willing to give her a ride to Scarlet Springs.
She grabbed her cane and pulled up the hood on her parka, determined not to be one of those drivers who wandered from their vehicles high in the mountains and froze to death. She pushed the door open—lifted it, really—then turned in her seat and tried to step out of the car into the snow. Her feet slipped, and she fell, instinctively reaching out with her hands to stop herself, her legs sliding beneath the car. The door swung down, almost hitting her in the face before she caught it.
Using her cane to steady herself and support her weight, she crawled out and got to her feet again, sidestepping the door and letting it slam behind her. Then she began to climb the embankment.
There couldn’t be more than twenty feet between her and the highway, but it might as well have been a mile. Last winter, she would have been able to do this without difficulty, but now it was a struggle. Again and again she slipped, gaining only a few feet despite intense effort, her thigh and hip aching, sharp flakes of snow biting her face.
Swoosh!
A wave of white billowed down on her from above, knocking her backward down the embankment, losing her all the ground she’d gained.
Snow from a Colorado Department of Transportation snowplow.
Thanks a lot, CDOT.
Chilled to the bone, she shook off the snow, climbed to her feet, and tried again, this time setting her cane aside and attempting to crawl up the slope, dragging her left leg behind her. But the snow was too deep, and she was soon out of breath and badly chilled.
If she didn’t stop, she’d soon be hypothermic.
By the time she was back in the car, she was exhausted, freezing, and in pain. She would have to wait here until the storm let up. When the snow stopped, she would wave out the window at passing drivers. Someone would see her and call for help. In the meantime, she had a space blanket, water, ibuprofen, her Kindle, and chocolate covered almonds. It wasn’t the Forest Creek Inn, but it would do.
# # #
Jack tossed the last bale into the bed of his Ford F-250 pickup, the cold biting his nose, the air fresh with the scent of new snow. A good four feet had fallen overnight, and the National Weather Service was saying the mountains could expect more this afternoon. He needed to get hay up to the herd in the high pasture before the flakes began to fly again.
He’d been working since before dawn, plowing the road to the ranch’s front gate then seeing to the horses. His son, Nate, normally took care of these things, but he’d stayed at the family townhome in Denver, not wanting to drive up the canyon with Megan, his wife, and Emily, their daughter, in the middle of a blizzard. Jack supported that decision. He didn’t like taking chances with the lives of those he loved.
Chuck, the ranch’s foreman, stepped out of the barn. “Want me to come along?”
Jack frowned. “Is that your way of saying you think I’m too old for this shit?”
“You kidding, boss?” Chuck laughed. “You’re in better shape than most of the younger guys.”
“If that’s true, I ought to fire the lot of you.” Jack grinned, opened the cab door, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Say, did you get the last of this business with Kip resolved? I don’t think ill of the man, but I don’t want him having the keys to the bunk house now that he’s no longer an employee.”
Jack had been left with no choice but to fire the man. Kip Henderson was a great cattleman, skilled with steers and horses, but he was also a slave to the bottle.
“I took care of it yesterday. I’ve got his key on my desk.”
Jack shut the door, buckled the seatbelt. “I appreciate that.”
Chuck stepped back to give the truck room. “See you when you get back.”
Jack turned the key in the ignition, the 385-horsepower engine roaring to life. He headed down the road toward the main gate, his gaze traveling over the valley. Apart from his time in the army, he’d lived his entire life here, the third generation to call this mountain valley home. His family had done well, running black angus and breeding quarter horses, managing to hang on through thick and thin to a way of life that had largely vanished from the state.
The Cimarron had been transformed overnight into a landscape of white, ribbons of golden aspen, dark patches of evergreens, and crags of red rock adding color to the mountainsides. The beauty of it was enough to take a man’s breath away. Then the sun peered through the clouds on the eastern horizon, sending a shaft of pink light across the snow, making it sparkle.
Theresa, you would love this.
Whether Theresa could hear his thoughts, Jack couldn’t say, but after almost forty years of being married to her, it was hard to experience life and not want to share it with her. She’d died seven years ago of an aneurism, and Jack had never stopped missing her. One moment she’d been inside making lunch, and the next she’d been gone. He’d found her lying on the kitchen floor, and his world had come crashing down.
Still, life went on, and Jack had had no choice but to go on with it. When Nate had been wounded in Afghanistan, badly burned in an IED explosion, Jack had devoted himself to helping his son heal and regain his strength. Now Nate was happily married, his wife Megan and their little Emily bringing joy back into the house.
And if there were days—and nights especially—when Jack felt lonely, well, that was just the price he paid for the privilege of having lived so damned long.
Nate had given him his blessing to remarry and wanted him to join some online dating service, but Jack couldn’t see how any good could come of that. Not that he didn’t have anything to offer a woman. There was the ranch, of course, and he had money. And, unlike a lot of men his age, he didn’t need a pill to get an erection. But he hadn’t dated in forty years and wasn’t sure he’d even know what to say to a woman.
Hell, no, that wasn’t for him. He’d been married once and knew what it was to love a woman and be loved in return. He and Theresa had made a good life together, and they’d had a son. Now, she was gone, and Jack’s job, as he saw it, was to be there for her son and his family.
He reached the main gate, which he had already opened, and turned onto the highway. The road was slick and snow-packed—not surprising given how much snow had fallen. It was unusual for the state to get a blizzard this early in the fall, but this was Colorado. He’d seen it snow on the Fourth of July.
He was about a mile east of the turnoff to the high pasture when he saw a fence post out of alignment with the others. It took a moment longer before he realized why the post had been knocked to the side. A car had slid off the road, down the embankment, and struck the fence. The car itself was all but concealed by a big snowdrift, just a bit of tail light and rear bumper showing. CDOT plows must have buried it during the course of the night, concealing it under a few feet of snow and slush.
Someone was going to have a fun time digging that out.
He continued on to the access road and turned off the highway, stopping to lower the snowplow. It was slow going the rest of the way as he cleared the road. By the time he reached the pasture, the cattle were waiting for him.
He parked the truck, got out, and climbed up into the bed, cutting the cords that bound the bales and tossing hay over the fence to the hungry animals, mostly pregnant cows. They jostled against one another, lowing, their breath sending up clouds of condensation.
“Mind your manners, ladies. Someone might think you were raised in a barn.”
When he’d spread the hay out over the snow, he got back into his truck and headed home, his mind on a hot shower and strong coffee.
Bitch and moan though he might, he loved this life. Other people were out there right now fighting traffic on the highway so they could sit in offices all day doing bullshit work for other people, and he was out here, breathing mountain air, being his own boss, and doing the kind of work that left a man’s body tired but filled his soul.
Back on the highway, he made a mental note to repair that fence post once the owner of the car had their vehicle towed. As he passed the car, he saw that the headlights were on. Was someone down there?
He pulled off onto the shoulder, parked, then called Chuck on his sat phone. “Hey, I’m on my way back. There’s a car off the road just past mile marker one-thirty-three. I think someone’s still in the vehicle. I’m going to check it out.”
He turned on the truck’s hazard lights and pocketed his keys, then climbed out of the pickup. Why anyone had gone out in yesterday’s blizzard without all-wheel drive was beyond him. Didn’t they realize they were in Colorado?
He grabbed a snow shovel out of the back, then crossed the road, snow squeaking under his boots. The slope was steep, and he slipped and slid his way down to the vehicle. A few minutes of shoveling, and he’d managed to unbury the driver’s side window.
Through the frost-covered glass, he could just make out a woman’s face.
She rolled down the window. “Jack West?”
He found himself looking into a pair of familiar green eyes. Her dark hair was a longer than the last time he’d seen her, and there were lines of weariness on her face. Still, he recognized her immediately.
“Well, hello, there, SA Killeen. It seems you’ve run into a little trouble.”

I’m back! After a year of hell, I finally have a new story to share with you. I couldn’t be more thrilled. Already, the story has seven five-star reviews on Amazon. And, no, they’re not sock puppet reviews or paid reviews. I have no sock-puppets, and I’ve never paid for a review.

Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

Rancher Jack West knows what it means to love a woman with all his heart and to lose her far too soon. A widower for seven long years, he thinks love and romance are a thing of the past, nothing more than cherished memories. He devotes himself to his grown son and his family, the horses they raise, and the land that has been theirs for three generations. He doesn’t know that life has a surprise in store for him in the form of Janet Killeen, the lovely FBI agent he threw off his land last winter.

The bullet that left Janet Killeen seriously wounded also tore a hole through her life. All she wants is a little peace and quiet in the mountains, a chance to feel like herself again. That chance comes to an abrupt end when she goes off the road in a snowstorm and winds up stranded alone in a ditch. The last person on earth she wants to see is that arrogant jerk Jack West, no matter how handsome he is. But from the moment Jack finds her and offers her his hand, she realizes there’s far more to this gruff cowboy than she had imagined.

But trouble is brewing at Cimarron Ranch. A deranged man with an inscrutable motive is moving in for the kill, threatening to end Jack and Janet’s romance before they can claim a love that is … Soul Deep.

Soul Deep is out in Kindle worldwide and in all ebook formats on Smashwords.com.

Kindle: http://amzn.to/1HuxiQj
Kindle AU: http://bit.ly/1Kq18pz
Kindle UK: http://amzn.to/1eWgZzs
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1IpcqJa
iTunes: http://apple.co/1C6Db4c
Nook: http://bit.ly/1ING1rq

We have a couple of steps left before it will be available in paperback, but we’re working hard on making that happen. It is obviously a more involved process, but we’re on top of it. I’ll let you know the moment it’s available.

Soul Deep is available for those reviewers who have accounts with NetGalley. Head to this link to request your review copy: https://s2.netgalley.com/catalog/book...

Thanks to everyone for sharing their excitement and enthusiasm with me. It feels SO good to be writing again. I hope you’ll love Jack and Janet’s story as much as I do.

Also, here are some answers to FAQs about Seduction Game, Holly’s story.

1. It is coming out in ebook format in the US and the UK/Commonwealth countries on Oct. 20.
2. Yes, it will come out in paperback, too, but the release date for the mass market paperback is March 2016. It’s obviously much easier to publish an ebook than a print book, so that accounts for the time difference. They split the pub dates in order to get the ebook out to readers as soon as possible.
3. I don’t have an audiobook date yet for Seduction Game, and I haven’t had time to work on ebook plans for Soul Deep. I own the audiobook rights to it and will be handling it myself, but I’m one person and can’t write it, publish it and handle the audiobook all at the same time. Penguin owns the audiobook rights to Seduction Game, and I expect Tantor will be producing it soon. I don’t yet know whether they’ll match the October or March release date.

As more news becomes available, I'll share it on my Facebook page, via Twitter, on my website, and here on this blog. Stay tuned!

Deadly Intent (I-Team #8), the first I-Team full-length I-Team story since Seduction Game in 2015, is out! It tells the story of Pulitzer Prize-winning I-Team photographer Joaquin Ramirez and former US Army Captain Mia Starr, whose paths cross one night at a crime scene, changing their lives forever.

Here’s the blurb:


Secrets buried in the sand…

Former US Army Captain Mia Starr has built a new life for herself in Denver, far away from camel spiders and sand—and the terrible secrets of her first deployment to Iraq. She isn’t looking for a relationship, especially not with an intrusive photojournalist. Joaquin Ramirez might be sexy, but in her experience, photojournalists only want to make a buck off other people’s suffering. Still, the universe must have a sick sense of humor because it keeps throwing her together with Joaquin, making the desire she feels for him harder and harder to resist.

An undeniable attraction…

As a Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographer, Joaquin has everything a single straight guy could want—except the right woman. When he meets Mia while shooting a crime scene, he immediately sees beyond her cold exterior to the vulnerable woman beneath. Though the police consider her a suspect, he’s sure she’s innocent. Someone is killing soldiers—and trying to pin the blame on her. Unable to resist the pull between them, Joaquin stands by her only to find himself snared in the killer’s net as well. 


A twisted soul hungry for revenge…

Mia can’t help it when the heat between her and Joaquin melts away her preconceptions. As their passion explodes, danger draws ever closer. When it becomes clear that Mia is the killer’s true target, she must trust Joaquin with a secret that could ruin her … or risk losing the love of a lifetime.


The story is available at all major ebook retailers. It will be out in print next week. At this time, I have no plans in motion for an audiobook.


Kinde: http://amzn.to/2FhEfWS

Kindle UK http://amzn.to/2C9EX9Z

Kindle CA http://amzn.to/2okk02C

Kindle AU http://amzn.to/2GsViEP

Kindle DR http://amzn.to/2BE8wPB

Nook: http://bit.ly/2C9Lfq4

iBooks: https://apple.co/2C9RmdJ

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2sIq1LP

Smashwords: http://bit.ly/2ETVcso




Q: I thought you said Dead By Midnight was the I-Team finale. 
A: At the time, I thought it was. I was unable to write romantic suspense because of contractual limitations. I terminated my contract last year, leaving me free to write romantic suspense again. Joaquin's story hadn't been told, and there were so many I-Team fans who wanted him to get his HEA that I knew I had to give him a story. 
Q: Does that mean the I-Team series is going to continue?
A: Yes, though I'm not sure how many more books there will be. I have several novellas in my head, and then there's Matt Harker. He needs a story. Alex Carmichael, too. And now there's a new I-Team member, introduced in this story, Anna Hughes, who will need an HEA as well.
I will be launching a spinoff series this year focused on Cobra International Solutions, Javier Corbray (Striking Distance, I-Team #6) and Derek Tower’s security and black ops business. Derek will get his story first. We'll see beloved I-Team characters in that series. Holly and Nick (Seduction Game) work there now. There is a major shake-up coming in the life of one I-Team hero, and he might end up there, too.
Q: Oh, a new romantic suspense series!
A: Yes! I can't wait to sink my teeth into it.
Q: What can you tell us about Joaquin’s story?
A: Joaquin has changed tremendously from the first book. By the time we get to Breaking Point (I-Team #5), he's already starting to go through some big transitions. The Joaquin we meet in Deadly Intent is the Joaquin who survived the cartel attack and the hostage crisis in Dead By Midnight. In real life, you don't go through violent, traumatic events without changing. He is not the kid brother kind of character any longer. Also, we learn things about him we didn’t know before.
Qualities he has always had — the ability to see deeper into people, empathy, etc. — become clearer in this story. We know where they come from.
He is the perfect man for Mia, who doesn't like him at first. She has a hard-earned grudge against photojournalists from her time serving in Iraq.
Q: Are characters from the other I-Team stories in the book?
A: Yes. We see everyone, even if some of the appearances are more like cameos. It's hard with such a big cast of characters to have everyone play a meaningful role in every story. I try to make the connections realistic. We are not in touch with all of our good friends or family every day. We move in circles that overlap. Today, we're in this circle. Tomorrow, we shift to that circle. I try very hard to make any appearance by a character from a previous book meaningful, and not just “fan service.” 
The couple known as Marcangelo have prominent roles in the story, as does Holly, and the entire West clan at the Cimarron. (If you don’t know what the Cimarron is, you've missed the I-Team After Hours novellas — Skin Deep and Soul Deep — and need to catch up!)
Q: Can this book be read out of order?
A: Yes, this can be read as a stand-alone. But I highly recommend you read Seduction Game and Dead By Midnight first. There are events and characters in this story whose lives are deeply impacted by those two books. If you haven't read them, Deadly Intent will be full of spoilers.
Q: What about your straight contemporary series — the Colorado High Country series?
A: I’m going to keep writing that series. There are so many characters whose stories we haven’t heard. I can’t just drop them and leave them behind. Writing straight contemporary has been a challenge for me. My heart is more romantic suspense. But there are some suspense elements that leak into these stories. (I can't seem to help it.) So we'll be back in Scarlet Springs soon! 
In fact, I have a novella planned for this year that will bring some of our favorite I-Team heroes together with the Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue Team crew and Hawke’s crew of firefighters. That's going to be a very high-octane story.
Q: That sounds exciting! So, what's next?
A: I'll be starting the next Colorado High Country story next. I need to bring poor Conrad home from Nepal, where he lost his climbing partners in a summit bid for Mt. Everest. Megs is going after him. He will connect with search-dog trainer Kenzie Morgan, who will wisely give him a puppy to train. That puppy, and Kenzie's love, will ultimately save our hero from his crushing grief.
After that, probably the novella, and then Derek’s book in the new Cobra series.
Q: That's a busy year you have planned for yourself.
A: Yes, it is, but also exciting. I love these characters as much or more than my readers do. 
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add about Deadly Intent?
A: I think Joaquin will surprise you. He is one of my most sensual heroes. Anyone who thinks he isn’t really hero material is in for a shock.

I had hoped Deadly Intent would be out in paperback within a week of the ebook release, but that didn't happen. It is finally out as of this afternoon and available on Amazon.

So what happened?

I had to prove to Amazon that I am Pamela Clare and that I wrote this book and that I have the right to publish it.

I'd heard of this happening to other authors. Amazon suppresses a release until they are satisfied that the book hasn't been stolen and that the author is who she says she is. I had gotten my documentation together — the registration I file with the Colorado Secretary of State to use my name as a business and the signed document proving that I had terminated my contract with Penguin Books.

And that's where the efficiency ended.

I was told in an email that it would take three to five business days for Amazon to review my documentation and reach a decision. When I asked whether they would keep my materials on file under my account so that I wouldn't have to do this again, they told me they would not. Which is just stooopid! A company as tech-saving and cutting edge as Amazon ought to have a system for retaining this information and attaching it to our author accounts so that we don't have to lose momentum on a book release.

Finally, about an hour after cc-ing Jeff Bezos on my reply email, I got a message from Executive Customer Service telling me that my documentation was good and that the book would go through content review (again!). That took about 24 hours. Then I clicked the button to make the book go live.

So, rest easy, readers of the world. I am Pamela Clare, and I wrote this book. And now — finally! — it's out in paperback, as well as ebook. (I'm not planning an audiobook this year.)

Here are the links:

Amazon print: http://amzn.to/2HiBwMAKindle: http://amzn.to/2FhEfWSKindle UK http://amzn.to/2C9EX9ZKindle CA http://amzn.to/2okk02CKindle AU http://amzn.to/2GsViEPKindle DR http://amzn.to/2BE8wPBNook: http://bit.ly/2C9Lfq4iBooks: https://apple.co/2C9RmdJKobo: http://bit.ly/2sIq1LPSmashwords: http://bit.ly/2ETVcso


Thank you to those of you who helped to spread the word, posting reviews and sharing tweets and Facebook posts. I'm grateful for your support. It’s unbelievably gratifying to see how very much you love the I-Team characters. 


What's next, you ask?



I've started working on an outline for Conrad’s story (Colorado High Country #6). We know he gets together with the search-and-rescue dog trainer, Kenzie Morgan. But first I have to bring him home from the Buddhist monastery in Nepal where he has been holed up since every member of his climbing team was killed in an accident on Everest. 




Last week, I met with a deputy who trains S&R dogs. SHE answered my many questions and has invited me to watch a training this Sunday, where the dogs will be practicing their skill at finding human remains. 

“What do you use for the human remains?” I asked.
“Human remains,” she said.


Oookay....


An image of people dragging a severed head out of vehicle and hiding it in the bushes popped into my head. Instead, they take a vial that has a small amount of decomposing human flesh in it — donated by a deceased person for the training of S&R dogs — and hide that. No body parts in bags. 
I will do my best not to smell this vial, I assure you. I'll leave sniffing to the dogs. It ought to be interesting to watch. 


Stay tuned for more I-Team and Scarlet Springs news!

Sorry to have been MIA again for so long. I have a good excuse this time.

Much has happened here at Casa Clare since my last blog post. We're deep into the gardening season with lots of landscape projects. I had emergency gallbladder surgery. Barely Breathing (Colorado High Country #1) got a brand new sexy cover that brings it into alignment with the rest of the series. And Conrad and Kenzie’s story (Colorado High Country #6) is in progress and due for release late this month.




Life on the Urban Farm






As some of you know, I love to garden and have completed some of the coursework toward a master gardener certification. We have a large rose garden that is a few days away from being in full bloom. We have lots of wildflowers for bees, along with herbs and lavender for sensory enjoyment. Last year, we put in an orchard of eight fruit trees.

We had a beautiful and unusually rainy spring. The trees—apart from the Honeycrisp apple and peach tree which wore themselves out fruiting last year—flowered and began to set fruit. Then we had a bad hail storm that tore most of the pears from one of our pear trees and took off a lot of leaves. We thought we'd gotten off okay — still lots of pears, still some apples, some plums, and lots of cherries— when we noticed that the Fireside apple tree and Bartlett pear tree had fireblight.

Heartbreak! Lamentation!

The wet spring and the hail damage combined to help the bacteria that causes this deadly tree disease to flourish. We've trimmed diseased branches off both trees, caring to dip the pruners in bleach between cuts, and more twigs die off. First the fruit withers and dies, and then the leaves die. I'm not at all certain we'll be able to save either tree.

Unless we want to break out toxic chemicals we're not really equipped to use, we really have no options besides doing our best to give the tree what it needs and hoping it fights off the disease.

Our strawberries got nicked by hail, but we've had our first few bowls for breakfast. There's nothing like homegrown strawberries. Our raspberries are thriving, too. So there are lots of things to be grateful for.

We planted a lot of potatoes, and those didn't seem to notice the hail. I expect a record spud harvest late this summer.

New cover for Barely BreathingI’m sure Colorado High Country/Scarlet Springs fans noticed that the series changed its look between the first book ( Barely Breathing , Lexi and Austin) and the second book ( Slow Burn , Hawke and Victoria). Between those two releases, I’d done some research that showed that solo hero covers sell much better than couples. I made the change for the second book, but that left the first looking like it wasn't really part of the series.

I finally had time to do something about it, and I love the new look.

Conrad and Kenzie get their storyThe last we heard about Harrison Conrad, the alpinist on the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team, he had almost died in a catastrophe while attempting to summit Mt. Everest for the third time. His team, including his best buddy, were killed. He was the only one to survive. Rather than coming back to Scarlet, we heard that he was in Nepal.

Well, Megs has had enough of this, and she goes after him, finding him at a Buddhist monastery.

In Barely Breathing , you got the hint that Conrad and Kenzie, the search-and-rescue dog trainer, liked each other. It’s Kenzie — and a sweet little golden retriever puppy named Gabby — that help Conrad pull his life back together in the wake of tragedy.

Watch for an excerpt soon!




Take my gallbladder — please



In early April, I had what I thought was a terrible bout of heartburn. It was agony for more than two hours — and then it stopped. I stopped taking NSAIDs for my arthritis (misery) and tried to eat better. My doc at Kaiser ordered an ultrasound to check for gallbladder trouble, and it came back normal.



Then on May 17, it happened again. Agony.



This time I went to the ER. I was there at 6 a.m., and they could tell from blood work and my blood pressure (which was sky high) that something was wrong and that I was in a serious amount of pain. An ultrasound showed that my gallbladder was full of gallstones, even impacted gallstones, and was distended, i.e., not too far from rupturing. I was in the OR by noon. The post-op pain wasn't as bad as the gallbladder attack itself.



Side note: I wanted to see the gallstones, but they wouldn't save them for me. Not very nice.



I'm doing fine now and am very grateful that the ER radiologist was better than the guy at Kaiser, who clearly misread the original ultrasound.

Enough medical drama!



Many thanks to my sons, Alec and Benjamin, who stayed by my side at the hospital, and to my parents who welcomed me into their home for a couple of days where I could recuperate without cats trying to jump on my abdomen.

Needless to say, work on Conrad’s book came to a screeching halt for a couple of weeks.



What’s next in fiction?

 Conrad and Kenzie’s book — still no title! — will be out at the end of this month.

Then, in August, I’m bringing the I-Team heroes and the Scarlet Springs heroes together for an action-packed novella in the vein of every I-Team fan's favorite novella Dead by Midnight (which still has a 5-star rating on Amazon after 2.5 years). This time, the enemy will be wildland fire, not terrorists. Expect the heroes you love and the women they love to have to give their all to survive and save others.

Stay tuned for Conrad and Kenzie’s excerpt! Or join the I-Team or Scarlet Springs readers groups on Facebook and get excerpts and news before anyone else.

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For a limited time, BARELY BREATHING (Colorado High Country #1) is free in ebook everywhere my books are sold — and, yes, that includes Australia and New Zealand.

BARELY BREATHING is the first of six books in my ongoing series about the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. It's straight contemporary romance with elements of adventure and suspense, NOT romantic suspense like the I-Team series. If you haven't yet given the series a try, now is your chance to get caught up while saving a little money.

Lexi Jewell left Scarlet Springs twelve years ago, vowing never to return to the small Colorado mountain town where she grew up. Now, here she is—over thirty, out of a job and with little choice but to move back in with her eccentric father. Lexi knows it’s just a matter of time before she runs into Austin Taylor, her first boyfriend and her first heartbreak. She’s determined to show him she’s over him—until he steps out of a pickup truck and back into her life, looking sexy as hell in his mountain ranger uniform.

As far as Austin is concerned, Lexi can turn her snazzy little convertible around and drive back to Chicago. After all, she ripped his teenage heart to pieces and turned her back on the town he loves. But from the moment he sees her again, he can’t get her out of his mind. Even her smile messes with his head.

When an evening of conversation turns into something else, Lexi and Austin agree to be friends—with benefits. But as Lexi starts making plans to return to the big city, Austin realizes he’ll lose her a second time unless he can show her that what she’s searching for has been right here all along.

Kindle US
Kindle UK
Kindle AU
Kindle CA
iBooks
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords

The other books in the series are only $4.99 each — a $4-per-book savings over typical New York ebook prices.The series includes (in order SLOW BURN, FALLING HARD, TEMPTING FATE, CLOSE TO HEAVEN: A Scarlet Springs Christmas, and my new release HOLDING ON.

Now is your chance to catch up with the series before the release of Book 7, which brings the I-Team heroes together with Scarlet Springs heroes in a struggle for survival.

Other book news

The audiobook of DEADLY INTENT is currently in production with Kaleo Griffith narrating as always. I have no word yet on a release date, but I promise to keep you posted.

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Happy reading!