After over seventy books featuring hot heroes and courageous heroines, you’d think it would be difficult to pick favorite couple. Nope. Not me. While readers rally behind team Max Savoie and Charlotte Caissie, the main characters in my “By Moonlight” series, I embraced a more unusual choice. I LOVE an underdog, the one struggling against a fate denied them and in BETRAYED BY SHADOWS, Book 7 of 15, I found the perfect pair: A good man drowning in bad deeds and a bad girl denying a good heart. For reluctant hero, Giles St. Clair, a man denied his own aspirations to pay his family’s debt to a devil, that first glimpse of Brigit MacCreedy reminds him of everything now beyond his reach . . . You’ll meet Brigit next week.
“Sorry, what?”Giles turned to the woman standing at his side to find Charlotte Caissie regarding him with an all too insightful smile.“If you stare any harder, you’re going to knock her over.”He grinned, not bothering to deny it, and continued his rapt perusal of Brigit MacCreedy as she descended the stairs.By all the saints, who’d have guessed the bedraggled female who’d collapsed in his backseat would clean up to such an eyeful!With her pale porcelain skin and blazing red hair, she was smoldering sex appeal in a curvy bottle-green dress, and the way she moved said she knew it. Brigit MacCreedy was a woman who could work an entrance.Giles had a healthy appreciation for all things fine and female. His admiration for the NOPD detective currently busting his chops was a prime example. The image of her flashing his boss in lusty Big Easy fashion was burned in a favorite part of his memory. He viewed women the way a connoisseur valued art, noting textures, exquisite lines, and technique—with an eye for the beauty of things he could never possess.( . . . and a bit more . . .)Brigit MacCreedy was worthy of her own special showing. She had a rare, almost mythical appeal, so earthy in her sexuality yet unblemished in her perfection. The impossibly red hair blazed like a setting sun searing water. The tempting curve of her cheek and long, graceful neck, the artfully rouged lips with their pouty upper peaks and luscious lower swell, the arch of her brows so descriptively beckoning and yet disdainful. The way the sinuous drape of her dress cupped full breasts, showed off a tiny waist, and flared over sassy hips, leaving delicious legs bare all the way down to the kind of sexy shoes worn to get a lover all juiced up. The fact that she was an unnatural creature, like her brother, only heightened the appeal.Because looking was stirring a need for some forbidden touching, Giles was wise enough to direct his stare elsewhere.“What’s her story?”
BETRAYED BY SHADOWS came with a lot of firsts. It was a launch title for Pocket Star, Simon & Schuster’s e-exclusive line, when e-books were a brand-new thing. To celebrate that fact, I jump at another cutting-edge way to promote by putting together a play list and producing a book trailer. It was a fun but tedious learning experience for both me and my virtual assistant, My Girl Friday. Lunch hours in the office where I was a legal assistant were spent scrolling through images of “Bare Male Torsos” (who’da thought you could get sick of that!?) and listening to music clips. When I found all the desired ingredients, MGF put them together into this wonderful book trailer (one of the first to include a video stream!).
Now that I have the rights back to those two e-only titles, BETRAYED BY SHADOWS and PRINCE OF SHADOWS, I’m so excited at the thought of getting them into my hot little hands in paperback for the first time! But first, to finish my contemporary romantic suspense, A RISK-TAKING RANGER, now at 60K!We’ve gotten a brief break from the heat here in Michigan, but the pressure cooker is screwing back down. So I’ll be at my desk under the whir of the ceiling fan while following a dangerous trail with my hero and heroine through the arid wastelands of West Texas. Yee Ha! Get that sun tea a-brewing!
Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Visit other participants on the list and read, critique, and comment on their #8sunday posts.
As though the tagline wasn't great enough, that music on the video--perfect.
ReplyDeleteIt was a time consuming search through clips but that one had just the right tone . . . and length! An exhaustingly process.
DeleteShe sounds like BAD wrapped up with a bow! Great description. No wonder he's smitten! Tweeted.
ReplyDeleteNo escape for him, poor guy.
DeleteI love this line: “If you stare any harder, you’re going to knock her over.”
ReplyDeleteI can picture the look on his face.
As usual, smooth as silk writing. Your snippets always leave me wanting more.
ReplyDeleteAnd, lol, I am a Max and Charlotte team member. But I think I need to read more of your westerns. Can't resist a tortured cowboy. I could be lured away... :-)
Historical or modern day . . . nothing like a cowboy!!
DeleteI remember Giles and Birgit well. They made a great impression on me, just as this snippet does. The heat in his description made me reach for some ice water! You do have a way with words, lady!
ReplyDeleteYou should try writing those scene prior to A/C!
DeleteOh, the poor guy's got it bad, LOL.
ReplyDeleteSo bad it's good!
DeleteI really like the line that Kate mentioned too. I really enjoyed your snippet. LIke you, I'm going to be staying in to beat the heat.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh out loud in some spot rereading it myself!
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