Men in Uniform by Sara Humphreys

Who loves a man in uniform? ME!!!  I also love a band of brothers and that’s why I simply had to write The McGuire Brothers series. These five sexy bros are all men in uniform and they are as devoted to each other as they are to their jobs.  When the guys introduced themselves to me (I know that sounds weird but that’s kind of how it feels when the characters come to life in my head) one of the first things they told me about themselves was which uniform they wore.

Gavin, the hero in Brave the Heat is the oldest and the fire chief in their hometown. Ronan, the second born, is a K9 officer in New York City and a die-hard ladies man. His longest relationship, outside of his family, is with his partner, a bloodhound named Bowser. Tristan is the middle son, and admitted bad-boy. A former Navy SEAL, he is now freelancing as a gun for hire and bodyguard. The twins, Finn and Dillon, are the youngest of the bunch. Finn is an armed first responder in Miami and Dillon is an Air Force pilot but is on leave due to PTSD.

What I love most about these heroes—and all men in uniform—is their unwavering commitment, fiercely protective nature, and a clear sense of right and wrong. They are devoted to family and their mission—whatever that may be. All uniforms are sexy, except for maybe the UPS or mailman gear. If you find a hot mailman or UPS guy…please share.

To celebrate the release of my McGuire Brother series, I’m here to count down my some of my fave men in uniform from movies and television:

1.       Ryan Kwanten in True Blood: I know his character was a hapless dope and the fact that he became a Deputy was...ironic. BUT he did look great in his cop uniform. And out of it.

2.       George Clooney in ER: Scrubs are a uniform of sorts and a doctor is certainly an everyday hero.

3.       Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves: I know it’s a Civil War uniform but he still looked great. Even when he was bleeding profusely. That scene when he rides the horse into the field to try and kill himself? Love.

4.       Jimmy Smitts in NYPD Blue: Quiet confidence can be just as alluring as the guy who is outright cocky. Smitts’ drew me in with those eyes and that sidelong smile.

5.       Bradley Cooper in American Sniper: Not only an incredible performance but he filled out those fatigues nicely.

6.       Chris Kyle in real life. A true American hero. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.

Gavin, and all of the McGuire brothers, wear their uniforms proudly and like most men in service, they are as devoted to their families as they are to their duties. I think it’s that quality which stands out above all the rest—devotion. Isn’t that what all of us want? We want to be loved, cherished, and protected and no one does that better than a man in uniform.

Sara Humphreys is the award winning author of the Amoveo Legend series. The third book in the series, UNTAMED, won two PRISM awards--Dark Paranormal and Best of the Best. The first two novels from her Dead in the City series have been nominated for the National Readers Choice Award. Sara was also a professional actress. Some of her television credits include, A&E Biography, Guiding Light, Another World, As the World Turns and Rescue Me.

She loves writing hot heroes and heroines with moxie but above all, Sara adores a satisfying happily-ever-after. She lives in New York with Mr. H., their four amazing sons, and two adorable pups. When she's not writing or hanging out with the men in her life, she can be found working out with Shaun T in her living room or chatting with readers on Facebook.

Connect with Sara via Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

About the Book

The only fire he can't put out...

Jordan McKenna is back in town, and Fire Chief Gavin Maguire's feelings when he sees her after all these years are as raw as the day she left. Then he was just a kid wearing his heart on his sleeve. Now he spends every day trying to atone for the tragedy he couldn't prevent.

Is the torch he carries for her

Jordan's life has not exactly worked out the way she expected. A divorced mother of two with a failed acting career, Jordan's biggest concern about coming back to Old Brookfield was seeing her first love. But when a series of suspicious fires breaks out, Jordan and Gavin realize that dealing with the sparks between them may be the least dangerous of their problems.

Life As an Adoptee: My Search for My Birth Parents by Jeannie Lachman

I am an adoptee.  This was a fact of my life that I have always known.  I grew up in the Bronx, NY and I had wonderful and loving parents but something was missing.  I have always wondered who, out there, was connected to me.  

When I gave birth to my first child I felt the burning desire to find out who gave birth to me.  At first it was for the sake of my beautiful baby girl.  She really should know her medical history.  Later it was the need of filling a hole in my life that left me feeling alone.  

My search was long and hard.  I would get a piece of information and my adrenaline would rise.  When that piece of information got me only so far, I would feel depressed.  But the need was so strong that I just couldn’t stop looking.  

After 8 years of searching I finally received the name and phone number of the woman that gave birth to me.  

I picked up the phone and started to dial and then slammed it down.  My hands shaking, I would repeat this several times.  Finally I got myself together, collected my thoughts and dialed the number.  It was now ringing and my breathing got heavier.  

She answered the phone.  “Hello?”  

I said “Hello Rhea.  My name is Jeannie Lachman and I am your daughter.”  The phone was silent for a moment or two but felt like several minutes. 

 She said “No”.  I thought, What??? I took a breath and said,  “I know this must be a shock to you as I had time to prepare for this call and you have not.  Would you like me to give you time and call you back tomorrow or next week, whatever is best of you?”

She said yes and asked me to call back the next day.  

I waited 24 hours.  It felt like an eternity.  Would she deny me?  Would she be angry with me for calling?  Did I even have the right person?  

I called back the next day and she apologized for what she said and would love to get to know me.  I was elated.  I told her that she didn’t have to tell anyone I contacted her as I truly didn’t want to disrupt her life.  She told me she had a daughter and was going to tell her.  She would not reveal the name of my birth father nor the circumstances behind the relationship with him.

I soon received a letter in the mail from Carole, my birth sister.  How sweet of her to write me.  

We corresponded through mail and through the computer.  

I also phoned Rhea every other Sunday for a year before Carole suggested we reunite at her house.  

My husband and I drove seven hours to Toronto.  When we arrived at the hotel I was feeling very nervous.  We called Carole and told her we were on our way to her house.  

We pulled into the driveway and I knew this was it. A moment I had waited for all my life.  We knocked on the door and when it opened I saw Carole’s husband and standing behind him was my mother.  She was a small frail woman with a beautiful smile on her face and we embraced.  

Our visit was a whirlwind.  There was so much to take in.  But nice as the visit was, my birth mother still would not give me any information on my birth father.  

Carole and I built a great relationship over the years.  We visited each other from time to time.  

Through the years my birth mother would still not speak about who my father was.   

As I lost both of my adoptive parents to cancer 4 years apart I realized how quickly you can lose a loved one so I wrote my birth mother a letter asking for information.  

She told me she would think about it.  

One year went by and Rhea was diagnosed with cancer. I was told by Carole that the family discussed it and thought I would be nice if I could visit her in the hospital.  

My husband and I dropped everything and traveled to northern Canada to visit her in the hospital.  

She held my hand and smiled.  She was so happy I was there.  

Even on her deathbed she would not tell me who my dad was.  

I left feeling empty.  I was sad this would be the last time I would see or hear from her.  It broke my heart.  But at the same time I was angry at her for keeping this secret I desperately wanted to know.  

While I was back in New York, Carole overheard a key piece of information regarding my dad.  

After worrying about disobeying her family’s wishes she finally told me.  I now had a name!  

When Rhea passed away my husband and I went to the funeral.  I did not tell people who I was.  Only close family knew about me.  

If I had any advice for adoptees searching, it would be to have patience.   It is a long, hard road.  It is an emotional roller coaster.  Be persistent.  

I joined support groups.  I was told that you can write to the adoption agency you were adopted through requesting non identifying information.  Even though it is non-identifying it still tells you things you may need in your search.  There are many more resources out there now than there was when I was searching.  

When telling people about their story, people always seemed to say it should be a book.  Carole Sanguedolce, a bookkeeper, is a wife and a mother of a daughter.  Jeannie Lachman, a homemaker, is a wife, mother of two daughters and grandmother.  Finding each other was a blessing. 

You can connect with them via Facebook

About the Book

Two Peas In A Separated Pod is a true story. Take a journey with two women on the road to discoveries and realizations. Jeannie and Carole write about their lives growing up. Each is unaware of the other. Jeannie is raised in the Bronx, New York. She grows up knowing that she is adopted and loved. She feels connected, yet there is a void. Carole grows up an only child in a small rural community in Northern Ontario, Canada. When their worlds collide, the book is written in each woman's version of events. After years of searching Jeannie discovers who her birth mother is and makes contact. She wonders if she is doing the right thing by disrupting other people's lives. Carole is shocked to learn she has a sister but stands by her mother's side. The two families meet and relationships develop quickly. There is still a lingering question. Who is Jeannie's birth father? Jeannie tries desperately to get information on her birth father but it seems to be a taboo subject. Even on her deathbed her birth mother is unwilling to reveal who he is. While visiting her mom in the hospital Carole stumbles on a key clue. It seemed that fate intervened. With this discovery Carole must choose whether to keep the secret that has stayed hidden for so many years or tell Jeannie who her father is. The decision Carole makes reflects the true bonds of sisterhood.

Alexander Hamilton Has Been In My Life Since I Was Ten by Juliet Waldron

Alexander Hamilton has been in my life since I was ten, with his rags to respectability—never riches—tale. He came to America, like so many others, with nothing but the head on his shoulders. As a teen, he’d fought for freedom. He’d won the respect of the commanding general and gained the hand of a lady. He fought tirelessly to get his brilliant—but far-less well-informed colleagues—to understand and accept his financial plans. If Alexander Hamilton hadn’t created a system to unite those thirteen colonies by getting them to agree to pay the debts incurred to our fighting men—and to the businessmen who’d backed the War of Independence—the United States as we know it would have never happened. 

But Hamilton was an immigrant, a fact his enemies never forgot or forgave. Worse, he was born illegitimate, and arrived on these shores through the charity of the planters of St. Croix. He was called slightingly, “Creole,” or, with frank hostility by John Adams, “the bastard brat of a Scots peddler.”  

Recently, these themes moved Hamilton back into public consciousness. A few years after Ron Chernow wrote his exceptional biography, Lin-Manuel Miranda, a multi-talented first generation American, had his original hip-hop “Hamilton” storm onto Broadway.  I’m just a country girl, so I didn’t know that until I’d just finished editing an old in-the-drawer story, A Master Passion. 

Frankly, as a long time Hamiltonian, Lin-Manuel’s show cheers me. Here in the 21st Century, while McLuhan’s medium works a sea change upon us, it’s probably the perfect way to communicate the story of this extraordinary man, one we were lucky to have had present at America’s founding.  

We all work in the medium with which we’re familiar. The one I know best is that of an aged and hybrid genre—the historical novel. I’ve written about another great man’s spouse in “Mozart’s Wife” and so naturally Hamilton’s Betsy became a large part of A Master Passion as well. Her life, as well as his, sometimes reads like fiction. Study of the “founding mothers” is (and will probably remain) a minor specialty, simply from a lack of material. 18th Century women hoped to preserve their privacy by destroying personal letters, so very often I’ve had to infer what might have been going on in someone’s head, or elaborate and fictionalize from tidbits of information gleaned during the long time of research.   

Hamilton is such a protean character that in order to produce a coherent whole I’ve had to omit whole episodes—important people and places—or conflate events, which I hope readers will forgive. I wanted to focus on the relationship. 

Sadly, Hamilton was scarred by childhood violence, poverty and humiliation. He could be vain and brash, impatient with slower minds. He injured his friends and family with a sordid love-affair. His insecurity and his rage toward the enemies who dragged his good name through the mud caused the political missteps which destroyed the Federalist Party. He might even be seen as the engineer of his own death. 

So that’s my subject: a great man with Shakespearean fatal flaws. I’ve tried to I tackle these his and hers blockbuster of a lives in my own way, often through the POV of his loving and occasionally dismayed wife and the medium of an old-fashioned historical novel.  

Juliet Waldron has lived in many US states, in the UK and the West Indies. She earned a B. A. in English, but has worked at jobs ranging from artist’s model to brokerage. Thirty years ago, after her sons left home, she dropped out of 9-5 and began to write, hoping to create a genuine time travel experience for her readers. Juliet’s a grandmother, a cat person, and fascinated by reading history and archeology. Juliet spends a lot of time visiting other centuries, but she’s also certain she doesn’t want to live there.

Juliet gardens, bicycles and is involved in local advocacy groups. She and her husband of fifty years enjoy the winding backroads of PA aboard their Hayabusa superbike.

For more information visit Juliet Waldron’s website. Juliet also blogs at Possum Tracks and Crone Henge, and you can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Goodreads

About the Book

THE MASTER PASSION is the story of the marriage of our brilliant first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, and his courageous wife, Elizabeth Schuyler. It begins with a whirlwind Revolutionary War courtship at Washington’s headquarters. Conflict, however, is built into this marriage.

Betsy’s passion is Alexander. While Hamilton adores his wife and children, there are times when he loves America more.

“…And hence one Master Passion in the breast
Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up all the rest…” ~~Alexander Pope

Words and Peace by Donald Michael Platt

On Ascension Day May 22, 838, Bishop Bodo, chaplain, confessor, and favorite of both his kin, Emperor Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, and Empress Judith, caused the greatest scandal of the Carolingian Empire and the 9th century Roman Church. 

Bodo, the novel, dramatizes the causes, motivations, and aftermath of Bodo’s astonishing cause célèbre that took place during an age of superstitions, a confused Roman Church, heterodoxies, lingering paganism, broken oaths, rebellions, and dissolution of the Carolingian Empire.

Why did I write a novel about Bodo-Eleazar? Little-known historical individuals who led interesting lives arouse my interest. Sparse documentation about them gives me more freedom to create character motivation and an entertaining story line that fills the lacunae of their lives. 

Available on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

When I researched the life of Vicente-Isaac de Rocamora, the historical protagonist of my published novels, Rocamora and House of Rocamora, I came across the story of Bodo, the Apostate. Despite different origins and centuries, their lives had striking similarities, which motivated me to write this Historical novel.

Separated by eight centuries, documents confirm Bodo and Rocamora came from noble families. Both were educated to serve the Church. Both lived at their respective Courts. Each became close to the royal family. Each was a spiritual advisor to a royal personage. Both defected from Christianity and converted to Judaism. Both chose Hebrew names. Bodo became Bodo-Eleazar bar Israel, and Rocamora chose Isaac bar Israel. 

Bodo-Eleazar and Vicente-Isaac de Rocamora have differences. Church documents, which appeared in the last chapters of Bodo and in Latin at the end, detail the effects of the scandal caused by Bodo’s apostasy, whereas the Spanish Church is silent about Rocamora’s conversion to the Law of Moses. Another is that Rocamora’s life is relatively well documented after he converted in Amsterdam, but very little is known about him earlier in Spain. Much less is known about Bodo before and after his conversion.

The motives given by scholars for Bodo’s apostasy fall into two camps of speculation: either he was influenced by contact with the Jews over many years, or he decided to convert to Judaism on his way to Rome. My description of Bodo-Eleazar’s journey from Christianity to Judaism may have value no more or less than theirs, but perhaps as the result of a novelist’s instinct, it may well be the most accurate and definitive, until and unless proven otherwise.

Author of four other novels, ROCAMORA, HOUSE OF ROCAMORA, A GATHERING OF VULTURES, and CLOSE TO THE SUN, Donald Michael Platt was born and raised in San Francisco. Donald graduated from Lowell High School and received his B.A. in History from the University of California at Berkeley. After two years in the Army, Donald attended graduate school at San Jose State where he won a batch of literary awards in the annual SENATOR PHELAN LITERARY CONTEST.

Donald moved to southern California to begin his professional writing career. He sold to the TV series, MR. NOVAK, ghosted for health food guru, Dan Dale Alexander, and wrote for and with diverse producers, among them as Harry Joe Brown, Sig Schlager, Albert J. Cohen, Al Ruddy plus Paul Stader Sr, Hollywood stuntman and stunt/2nd unit director. While in Hollywood, Donald taught Creative Writing and Advanced Placement European History at Fairfax High School where he was Social Studies Department Chairman.

After living in Florianópolis, Brazil, setting of his horror novel A GATHERING OF VULTURES, pub. 2007 & 2011, he moved to Florida where he wrote as a with: VITAMIN ENRICHED, pub.1999, for Carl DeSantis, founder of Rexall Sundown Vitamins; and THE COUPLE’S DISEASE, Finding a Cure for Your Lost “Love” Life, pub. 2002, for Lawrence S. Hakim, MD, FACS, Head of Sexual Dysfunction Unit at the Cleveland Clinic.

Currently, Donald resides in Winter Haven, Florida where he is polishing a dark novel and preparing to write a sequel to CLOSE TO THE SUN.

For more information please visit Donald Michael Platt’s website. You can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

And It Started With a Bus Trip by Kim Boykin

Last year, I was having a glass of wine with my editor who wanted to know what was next for me.  I told her, I’d thought about writing a sequel to The Wisdom of Hair, but I wasn’t thrilled with the storyline that had my protagonist barefoot and pregnant when the first novel had ended when she’d just had her first child. “So, what else do you have?” my editor asked.

I wanted to wow her with another quirky tale and a great original title, so I pitched a story I’d started several years ago about two elderly spinster sisters called A Peach of a Pair. The idea for the story came from my great great aunt who traveled from the bottom of southwest Georgia to Arkansas to see a faith healer in the late 1940’s. Women didn’t travel alone, and there weren’t a lot of women on the busses. So, to be on the safe side, she rode the whole way to Little Rock with her arms crossed and a hatpin under each arm. If a man got too close to her or fell asleep and his head flopped onto her shoulder, she’d jab him with the pin. Unfortunately, when she got to her destination, she found out the faith healer had been run out of the state, and she got back on the bus and went home.

While the hatpin incident isn’t in A Peach of a Pair, the idea of traveling a great distance for healing is. I loved the idea of setting out on an arduous journey full of hope and faith that there is healing on the other end. That’s what happens to poor Lurleen, the eldest sister, who is dying of congestive heart failure, but not because she wants to go on this trip. Her sister Emily, took something from her when they were barely twenty. 

As Emily says, “What happened to Teddy was Emily’s fault, and she’d paid for it a thousand times over, losing her mother to a broken heart. And the seven years Lurleen lived in the same house as Emily but didn’t speak to her, didn’t take anything from her hand. The shunning wasn’t a religious edict. Goodness no, they were raised Presbyterian. But Lurleen had taken right to the practice. Even with the gravity of events, Emily was sure it couldn’t last, but she’d been wrong.” Even fifty years later, Emily wants to right the scales so badly, she badgers poor Lurleen into getting on a Greyhound bus and riding all the way from Camden, South Carolina to Palestine, Texas to see a faith healer.

My editor loved the title, loved the story so much, I thought she would buy it on the spot, but then she said, “Where’s your young protagonist?” The truth is, when you publish you’re put into a box. All authors are because it’s easier for publishers to sell us that way. We can’t just be storytellers, which is what I wanted to be. I was so excited about my pitch to her, I’d forgotten Penguin put me in the sweet Southern box complete with a young protagonist.

So I did what every author does; I made her up on the fly. “Uh. Her name is Nettie Gilbert and she’s a ‘Bama belle in her last semester at Columbia College, and, uh, she receives an invitation to her baby sister’s wedding back home. BUT her own fiancé is the groom. So she quits school and goes to work for two old maids in Camden, South Carolina and the bus trip for healing ensues.”  

The interesting thing about this is, in the original version of the story, Nettie was a young girl on the bus, but she was also a plot device to hear the sister’s stories, to understand the riff, and their complex sisterhood. When I started to write, I was a little concerned that Nettie would be overpowered by Emily and Lurleen’s great big voices, but it turned out Nettie held her own and then some, even though Emily and Lurleen do hijack the story from time to time. But the story worked and turned out to be an examination of an indestructible sisterhood and a wild ride to forgiveness.

Kim Boykin was raised in her South Carolina home with two girly sisters and great parents. She had a happy, boring childhood, which sucks if you’re a writer because you have to create your own crazy. PLUS after you’re published and you’re being interviewed, it’s very appealing when the author actually lived in Crazy Town or somewhere in the general vicinity.

Almost everything she learned about writing, she learned from her grandpa, an oral storyteller, who was a master teacher of pacing and sensory detail. He held court under an old mimosa tree on the family farm, and people used to come from all around to hear him tell stories about growing up in rural Georgia and share his unique take on the world.

As a stay-at-home mom, Kim started writing, grabbing snip-its of time in the car rider line or on the bleachers at swim practice. After her kids left the nest, she started submitting her work, sold her first novel at 53, and has been writing like crazy ever since.

Thanks to the lessons she learned under that mimosa tree, her books are well reviewed and, according to RT Book Reviews, feel like they’re being told across a kitchen table. She is the author of A Peach of a Pair, Palmetto Moon and The Wisdom of Hair from Berkley/NAL/Penguin; Flirting with Forever, She’s the One, Just in Time for Christmas, Steal Me, Cowboy and Sweet Home Carolina from Tule. While her heart is always in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, she lives in Charlotte and has a heart for hairstylist, librarians, and book junkies like herself.

Connect with Kim via Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

About A Peach of a Pair

"Palmetto Moon" inspired "The Huffington Post" to rave, It is always nice to discover a new talented author and Kim Boykin is quite a find. Now, she delivers a novel of a woman picking up the pieces of her life with the help of two spirited, elderly sisters in South Carolina. 

April, 1953. Nettie Gilbert has cherished her time studying to be a music teacher at Columbia College in South Carolina, but as graduation approaches, she can’t wait to return to her family and her childhood sweetheart, Brooks, in Alabama. But just days before her senior recital, she gets a letter from her mama telling her that Brooks is getting married . . . to her own sister. 

Devastated, Nettie drops out of school and takes a job as live-in help for two old-maid sisters, Emily and Lurleen Eldridge. Emily is fiercely protective of the ailing Lurleen, but their sisterhood has weathered many storms. And as Nettie learns more about their lives on a trip to see a faith healer halfway across the country, she’ll discover that love and forgiveness will one day lead her home.

Book Excerpt

Dear Nettie,

It might seem cruel to send this letter along with a proper invitation, but I couldn’t bring myself to call you, and I wasn’t given much notice regarding this matter. I also know you well enough to know you would have to see the invitation to truly believe it. Although I do regret not having enough time to have them engraved.

I’m sorry to be the one to give you the news about Brooks and Sissy. I love you, Nettie, and I love your sister. I’m not condoning her behavior or the fact that she is in the family way, but you are blood. You are sisters. No man can break that bond, not even Brooks.

There’s money and a bus ticket paper-clipped to the invitation. I’ve checked the schedules. You should be able to leave Columbia on Thursday the week of the wedding after your morning classes and get back by Sunday night. I know how you hate to miss class, and if you are also missing some wonderful end-of-the-year party, I’m sorry. So very sorry.

But the milk has been spilled, Nettie. Come home and stand up with your sister. She needs you. She’s a wreck, and it makes me worry about the baby.

Just come home.

Love,
Mother

Q&A with Jennifer Morey

Can you fill us in on the characters in A Wanted Man, Kadin Tandy and Penny Dardin?

Kadin is a man who once had it all, a wife and daughter, good job as a rising detective. Family. Love. Success. Tragedy took all of that away from him when his daughter was kidnapped and murdered. Heavy stuff, but all backstory when chapter one opens. His loss is the driving force behind Dark Alley Investigations and what makes it so great. 

Penny, prior to meeting Kadin, was career-driven and on her way to becoming her loner-mother. Her conflicts or inner flaws pale in comparison to Kadin’s, but she’s the grounding ingredient that brings him out of his grief.

What inspired you to start writing the Cold Case Detectives series?

I love murder mysteries. I didn’t always love them, I just started to. Maybe it’s my mom talking to me from the grave. She used to love murder mysteries, too. I don’t know. DNA? 

Seriously, though, it’s not the actual crime I love, it’s the way the crimes are solved. Good making evil pay. Brains and brawn tracking and catching the suspect. Ever see the show Longmire? His brain makes him sexy. Another good one is the Stone Cold series with Tom Sellick. I guess I like my heroes dark—and I don’t mean hair and eyes!

Do you have the series planned out or do you come up with ideas book by book?

I did not have my series planned. I write like that anyway. A story idea hits me and away I go. I am loving coming up with new story ideas as I get used to this new type of story line for Harlequin Romantic Suspense. Just the other day I came up with a story that I absolutely cannot wait to write. It will be book number 3 in the Cold Case Detectives series. Tall, dark and…you’ll have to wait for the rest!

What cold case television and radio shows inspire you?

Almost everything on ID Discovery. Forensic Files. Snapped (love the narrator’s voice—and the title!). I listen to Forensic Files on Sirius radio. Yeah, I can be a junky sometimes. But it gets my imagination rolling. Ah, to be a writer (winking).

Without giving away too much, do you have a favorite scene in the book?

Do I have to pick just one? All of the scenes where Penny pushes him toward love I have to say are my favorite. She tells him he’s safe with her, but really she’s gambling on love. He needs large doses of it and I am a believer that love can heal anyone. Love is the key to a happy life, the power over all else. 

Are you attending any writer’s conferences or book signings in the near future?

No, unfortunately I don’t have time due to other obligations, but I do have a stash of giveaways I can send to readers who contact me. I’ve done that several times in the past. I love to hear from readers. It’s my way of saying thank you.

What’s the greatest response that you’ve ever gotten from a fan?

"...full of suspense, threats, action, and romance." - Amazon Reader

I’ve also gotten personal emails from several others telling me they love one of my series or a certain book. Another said my character, Odie Frank’s character from All McQueen’s Men read like he belonged in a single title.

What would you fan cast as Kadin and Penny?

Maybe Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl (with auburn hair) in the movie Killers.

What one thing do you absolutely need while writing?

No distractions and my dog nearby. She waits patiently for me to finish because she knows her attention is coming soon!

What are you working on next?

Why, Book 3 of my Cold Case Detective series, of course. And a great new book that is part of a 2-part, 12 book Coltons of Texas continuity. I write book 6 of part 1. Awesome story! Loving writing it!

Book 2 in Cold Case Detectives comes out in September 2015 – Justice Hunter. Don’t miss that one!

JENNIFER MOREY’S first stories were inspired by her childhood love of Man o' War, Secretariat and The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. Bubbles of dialogue above cartoon drawings of horses led to hand-written tales of adolescent love. Years later, and two months after graduating from Colorado State University with a B.S. in geology, her mother died suddenly and the course of her life changed. The writer in her resurfaced, and she pursued a serious career. As Associate Project Manager for the Spacecraft Systems Segment of a satellite imagery and information company, Jennifer works with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. A finalist in more than 20 contests, Jennifer has received several awards for her writing, one of which led to the publication of her debut novel, The Secret Soldier. 

Visit her at: http://www.jenniferamorey.com/