The Unveiling

What I'm reading: The Oilman's Baby Bargain, by Michelle Celmer; Taken by Moonlight, by Dorothy McFalls

First, the 'official' unveiling of the cover for my next Five Star release, WHERE DANGER HIDES. The release date isn't until May, but since I turned in my last round of edits several months ago, it's nice to get a reminder that the book working its way through the system.



The publishing industry moves very slowly, so every step needs to be celebrated (So slowly that I had to go back to the manuscript to confirm what my characters looked like. Turns out the eye colors on the initial cover weren't what I'd described, and I'm fortunate the publisher was willing to make the swap. I also asked for confirmation that the flowers on the cover actually grew where the book was set, just to make sure.

WHERE DANGER HIDES picks up one of the secondary characters from WHEN DANGER CALLS. Those of you who have read the first book will recognize Dalton, Ryan's former partner. But I'm sure there are a lot more of you who haven't read the first book (and why not?).

To make it easy, you can find WHEN DANGER CALLS in digital formats just about everywhere—Kindle Store, the iBookstore, and Smashwords has links to just about every other digital format, so if you have any kind of a reader, it should be available.

When I wrote WHERE DANGER HIDES, I had no guarantee it would sell, so I wrote it to stand alone. If you've read the first, you'll know Ryan and (I hope) feel like an insider when he appears in the sequel. But if you haven't, I'm hoping I've walked that tightrope between back story dumping and having the reader wonder what I'm talking about.

What do you think? This is one of the scenes that reintroduces Ryan. As a bit of a setup, Dalton is in his car outside Miri (the heroine's) apartment after a tension-filled evening.



[Dalton's] cell rang as he pulled it from his belt.

“Hey, Dalt.”

Ryan Harper. His ex-partner’s voice jump-started Dalton’s adrenaline.
Dalton rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “Hey, pard. Thought you were enjoying some R&R. What pulls you away from that woman of yours?”

“Frankie? She’s . . . uh, taking a spa break. Figured I’d check in while she’s getting her toenails painted.”

“Bullshit. You don’t check in from Hawaii when you’re on R&R with a gorgeous woman. Who called you? Who do I kill?” Dalton waited out a long silence. A shadow floated across Miri’s window as she moved through the room.

Dalton growled into the phone. “Come on, Harper. Was it Fozzie?” Blackie would never say anything. But sometimes Fozzie couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Cool it. I got a standby alert, might have to cut my R&R short. I called Fozz, okay? To see if he had any more scuttlebutt about why they’d call me since the boss had been damn insistent I take this time off after the Montana op. Fozz said they were short a man, that you’re working a domestic investigation.”

“What of it?” Dalton reflexively rubbed his arm where he’d been creased by a bullet on that op.

Are you confused? Do you have enough information to know 'something' happened in Montana, but that it's not important to know exactly what at this point? Do you assume Frankie is Ryan's girlfriend? And better yet, are you the least bit enticed to pick up the first book?

May I remind you that hard cover books make great gifts, and I've got WHEN DANGER CALLS priced at under $7 for a holiday special at the Amazon store, (interesting note: you'll have to scroll down, because when I lowered the price, 3 other sellers immediately undercut my price by a few cents.)It's $2.99 at the digital outlets.