My Print Cover!!!! It's Here, It's Here!!!

 

This is the cover for my 3 Honor Guard novella anthology. Her Highland Champion, Fractured Paradise and Simple Treasures will be released as one PRINT book. Isn't this cover AWESOME???? That's Castle Stalker in the upper right hand corner and the Wearmouth Bridge in Sunderland, England in the lower left corner. That bridge is the bridge my mom used to walk across as a kid and she and I have walked across it together as well. I am in awe of this cover and I cannot WAIT to hold the book in my hands! It also makes me want to write more stories set in England and Scotland.

And just to tempt you, here's the unofficial back cover blurb:

The International Protective Network hires the most efficient operatives to protect their clients, but what happens when those employees need to face their personal demons in order to get the job done?

A broken-down bodyguard with no confidence...an American lass with no memory...a technical analyst more confident with computers than people...a lad living in the past...a new operative with something to prove...a former soldier struggling with her war scars.

In the cozy communities of the British Isles, three couples charge through the dangers confronting them in order to find truth, justice and the love they deserve.

Release Party Day 5- What's Next For Lexi?

First, thanks so much for celebrating all week with me. You've made my release so much more fun, and your presence means a lot. But, the party must end and I've got to get back to work.

At the moment, I'm busy writing a short story. Later in November, I plan to draft my next Honor Guard book. Also, I'm waiting to hear the official word so I can share some exciting news I've had to sit on for a while.

 BUT.....

In just a few weeks, you can meet another IPN Honor Guard. Well, Colin Munro wants to be an operative of International Protective Network, but one woman may get in the way.

Here's the unofficial blurb for Simple Treasures:

Take-charge bodyguard, Colin Munro believes working for the International Protective Network will be the perfect occupation for him. Unfortunately, his trial assignment is protecting a woman who has no intention of blindly following orders. Aye, he’ll bring the bonnie lass in line because there’s no way he’ll allow her to ruin his chance of securing his dream job.
 
Physically and emotionally scarred during her stint as a US soldier, Joanna Grainger wants nothing more than to enjoy life. New Year's Eve in Edinburgh marks the beginning of her transformation. But when she witnesses a crime no one believes occurred, her plans come to a screeching halt. To make matters worse, her sexy but headstrong bodyguard has no compassion for her or the victim.

As danger hunts them during one of the busiest time of the year, Joanna must convince Colin she's a worthy partner. But first, can she convince herself?

 

Want an unofficial peek? Shhhh. Don't tell, but here's the opening of Simple Treasures, which will be coming to you soon!

CHAPTER ONE

Colin Munro didn’t know which knife to worry about more, the one pointed at his throat or the one at his crotch.

“You’ve got ten seconds to tell me who the hell you are, or I start slicing,” the woman threatened.

He glanced into her stormy dark eyes. Joanna Grainger. The lass he’d been sent to keep safe.

Aye, but who would protect him?

“Take care where you move those blades.” Of course, he wasn’t terribly worried. If he needed to, he could easily disarm her. She stood about five-foot-six without the high heels she’d been wearing when she first entered her flat.

“I’m the one giving orders here.” The steel at his neck pushed a bit closer to his Adam’s apple.

“I don’t think so.” Colin smacked her arms at the same moment, snatched the blades from her fingers with one hand, and pushed her back to the wall. The picture frame close to her head shook, but he hadn’t shoved with nearly as much force as he could have. He pinned both her wrists to the wall above her head. “I’m Colin Munro, and I’m here to protect you.”

“I don’t remember asking anyone for help.” She brought her knee up for a perfect shot to his groin, but he shifted in time to get his family jewels out of the way.

“You didn’t, but Heather Winchester did.” He imagined she could be quite bonnie when she wasn’t scowling or threatening him.

The name of her university mate drew her big, brown eyes wide for a moment. “Heather?” She dropped her leg, leaving her navy skirt sitting crooked on her slim hips.

“Aye. Heather called Russell MacLeod of the International Protective Network this morning, explained you’d witnessed a crime, and she was worried about you. She thought you might need protection. They gave the job to me.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because if I were here to kill you, you’d already be dead.” Taking a step back, he tossed the blades to the coffee table. The sound of the metal scattering across the wood charged into the silence of the room. Her back, he noticed, stayed against the wall.

So what do you think? I have to admit, I didn't really love Colin at first, but he totally grew on me as I wrote the story! Be sure to keep in touch with me because I'll be doing another party when this story comes out as well.

Remember to leave your comments to be in the running for the last day of PRIZES AND the grand prize, which will both be announced tomorrow!

THANK YOU!!!


 

Release Party Day 4- What Did You Say????

Welcome back to the 2nd half of my Sunderland Dialect Game for the Fractured Paradise Release Party! Did you get a chance to play this morning? If so, have you checked the answers?

The directions are the same as before. I've given you words or phrases from my Sunderland relatives as they speak them. Your job is to "translate" them to American English. You can translate as many or as few as you wish. Just leave your guesses in the comments section. I'll give you the answers around midnight!
THANKS FOR PLAYING!

11. "Wee said that, like?"
WHO SAID THAT?

12. "Where yae gawn tee?"
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

13. carnt- In American English, this word has an apostrophe in it and fewer letters
CAN'T

14. hinny- My grandfather often called my grandmother this.
SWEETHEART/LOVE/A TERM OF ENDEARMENT

15. canny lass- Girls, we'd all be happy with this description of us.
GOOD LASS

(This is Penshaw Monument, Sunderland)

16. chatties- A food I LOVE
POTATOES

17. "Shut your gob."
SHUT YOUR MOUTH

18. bullets- Most of the time you can't get these out of a little kid's hand.
SWEETS/HARD CANDY

19. lugholes- We all, men, women and children, have two of them.
EARS

20. claes- Most of us wouldn't be caught dead out in public without them.
CLOTHES

Okay, there you go! I look forward to your translations!

Remember to leave comments on any posts this week! Saturday I'll be choosing the winner from all the comments from the week. And tonight I'll choose today's winner from everyone who plays the game!

Release Party Day 4-What Did You Say????

Good morning! Welcome to Day 4 of my Fractured Paradise release party! Today, we're going to play a game using the dialect of my Sunderland relatives (past and present). I don't really use these words much in my stories, but I often hear this dialect in my head as I'm writing.

Okay! Are you ready?

DIRECTIONS: I'm going to give you a set of words this morning and then another this afternoon and it's your job to try to figure out what each one means. You can make a guess about as many of them as you wish. For this morning's words, I'll give you the answers around noon. For the afternoon's words, I'll leave the answers up after midnight!

So for example, if I were playing and writing answers:

1. "She could talk the head off a wooden donkey."
In the comments section, I would put
1. Someone who talks too much.
2. (Whatever you think it means)
And if I skipped 3 & 4
5. (Whatever you think it means)


THANKS TO AL WHO PLAYED THIS MORNING. I ENJOYED READING YOUR COMMENTS! HERE ARE THE ANSWERS:

1. "Me mam nicked me sweets."
MY MOM TOOK MY CANDY.

2. deed- None of us want to be this anytime soon!
DEAD

3. "Watch how you go."
BE CAREFUL/WATCH YOURSELF/TAKE CARE

(This is Roker Pier Lighthouse, Sunderland)

 

4. "I'm gannin yem."
I'M GOING HOME.

5. "Why aye, man!"
OF COURSE!

6. pet- And I don't mean the furry creatures we have as part of our families.
IT'S A TERM OF ENDEARMENT. MY ENGLISH AUNTS ALL CALLED ME THIS.

7. ower- A direction (a preposition)
OVER

8. lang- An amount of time.
LONG

All right, participants. Good luck!

Remember to leave your guesses (and comments for other days) to be in the running for the PRIZES!

Release Party Day 3- What Is The IPN?

 

And we're back for more partying! Fractured Paradise is the 2nd book that discusses the International Protective Network, or IPN. Because this fictional organization is so important to me and my Honor Guard stories, I thought I'd share a bit about it. 

(Released March, 2012)                                                       

 



HOW IT CAME ABOUT

I've always been interested in reading books and seeing TV shows and movies that deal with justice organizations such as the FBI, CIA, soldiers, police, detectives. I wrote a few stories before with characters in each of these organizations, but getting the details right is difficult if all you have to go on is Hollywood. So, when I had the opportunity to write for Decadent Publishing, I decided to create my own business.

 

Creating my own business has been very interesting. Coming up with the name and what they did wasn't too difficult, but when I started having to figure out where its headquarters were and the company's background....wow! It suddenly became just like creating a "real" business. I had to know who opened the company and why. I had to know who worked in the technical side of the business and who they helped. I had to figure out what the lobby looked like and what hours the head office was open. At times, it's still overwhelming, but for the most part it's exciting because it's all from my own head!

 

 

THE ORGANIZATION

The International Protective Network is a world-wide organization of bodyguards. When other legal agencies can't guarantee a person's safety, the IPN can get the job done. The headquarters are located
in Edinburgh, Scotland. A Scottish couple, Russell and Mary MacLeod, started the agency after their youngest daughter testified against a criminal even after she was threatened. The police couldn't protect her and the criminal's friends eventually found and killed her. Russell, Mary and their remaining children opened the IPN soon after.

The IPN protects everyone from foreign dignitaries, to politicians, to Hollywood celebrities and even ordinary folks who can't get help anywhere else. They operate officially within the law, as true bodyguards, but they also have a more clandestine branch for more difficult and dangerous jobs. The men and women hired by the IPN come from all walks of life. At the moment, the company is still fairly new. So they only have offices in Edinburgh and Boston. But the agents will go wherever they're needed because in the end, justice must win.

 

THE IPN OPERATIVE OF FRACTURED PARADISE

In Fractured Paradise, the IPN operative is Rachel. She is a senior technical analyst. She's been known to get information on just about anyone and honestly, no one asks how she gets it. She worked for a computer company in the States until Russell and Mary MacLeod contacted her and asked her to join their company. Knowing exactly what it was like to feel all alone, as many of the IPN clients feel, Rachel accepted the job offer in hopes of helping people fight for justice. She moved to Edinburgh the week after her online interview.

 

Although Rachel's on vacation in this book, her IPN skills come in handy when someone tries to scare her away from her grandmother's cottage. Too, she calls her best IPN friend for advice.

 

AND NEXT....

I'm already hard at work planning 3 new IPN stories for next year (one in Scotland, one in Thailand and one in Mexico)! Plus, you've got Simple Treasures coming out next month with a Scotsman who hopes to join the ranks of IPN operatives.



Remember to comment on any of the posts this week to be in the running for the PRIZES!

Release Party Day 3-Fun Facts

Good morning! Welcome to DAY 3 of the Fractured Paradise release party. This morning I'm sharing FUN FACTS about me, the characters and the making of Fractured Paradise. Some of the facts you may already know. Hopefully some will be new to you as well.

Ready? Here we go!

About Alexa:
*I'm a HUGE sports fan. I grew up watching my brother play baseball, watching football with my father and keeping score for my high school basketball team. I'm a die-hard Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots fan, and the family all loved Rocky. BUT if I could only watch one sport for the rest of my life it would be soccer. (Of course my favorite soccer teams are English. Liverpool, Chelsea and Sunderland!)

*I would pack up and move anywhere in Great Britain without a second thought if I had some way to support myself. (Anybody got any ideas???)

*I have a REALLY bad habit of writing a story and then thinking of connecting stories for all the secondary characters. Yes, it means I'll always have stories to write, but I don't mean just one or two secondary characters here and there. I mean ALL.


About Rachel Grant, the heroine:
*Rachel got picked on as a kid. A teacher in her grade school took her under her wing and introduced her to the "beautiful world" of computers. Rachel stayed in touch with that teacher, but by the time she was in middle school she was a well-known hacker.

*Rachel was approached by Interpol, the FBI and the CIA for her computer skills before she took the job at the International Protective Network.

*Rachel gets annoyed when people doubt her technical abilities and she's not above hacking into someone's personal accounts to prove it!

*Rachel was "dumped on" her grandparents as a child while her mother traveled with Rachel's beauty pageant contestant sister, Vicki.

About Aidan Camden, the hero:
*I tried to make Aidan a Scotsman, with the story set in Edinburgh, but Aidan wouldn't hear of it. He's a Sunderland lad through and through.

*Aidan wanted to work in a big city and so he went to London, where he worked several jobs in tourism before landing a gig as a tour guide.

*Aidan always had big dreams and always felt living in Sunderland was holding him back. He left at 18.


Miscellaneous Facts:
*All of the secondary characters in this story have the names of my young relatives in Sunderland.

*Although she's only on the phone, Rachel also makes an appearance in my December Honor Guard story, Simple Treasures.

*Gemma Barnes works in the hotel Rachel uses and becomes an instant friend.

*Adam McAndrew, a secondary character here, affected me so much I'm pretty sure I'll be writing his story one of these days.

*At one point, Rachel contacts her best IPN friend, Ian MacKenzie. Ian made his first appearance in Her Highland Champion.



So, what did you already know and what did you learn? What surprised or intrigued you most?

Stay tuned to the party, folks! Remember to comment to be in the running for PRIZES and this afternoon I'll be sharing the deets on my fictional company that each of my Honor Guard stories includes.

FRACTURED PARADISE RELEASES TODAY!

 

IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE! Break open the champagne and chocolate! My Sunderland story officially releases today!

 

I have to share this with you. As I mentioned yesterday, I first worked on this story several years ago. I submitted it to a lovely Harlequin editor who was kind enough to give me a long rejection (which is a good thing!). She pointed out what she liked, what needed work and offered to read something else. I also submitted the opening to a wonderful agent (who is no longer an agent) who traded emails with me, pointed out what worked and what needed work. She also gave me GREAT encouragement. Without these two women, this story never would've gotten published.

 

NOW....

Technical analyst Rachel Grant arrives in Sunderland intent on tidying up her grandmother’s cottage, but the disaster she discovers requires more than a gentle sweep of a dust rag. Determined to please the most important person in her life, she trades her computer keyboard for a hammer and nails to make the repairs. She doesn’t count on the chilly reception from the locals who want to claim Nan’s home as their own.

Tour guide Aidan Camden wants to buy the cottage. He’s determined to acquire the property no matter how attractive he finds the current occupant. However, when tragedy strikes, throwing them both into a tailspin, he discovers he wants more than the house. He longs for the sexy American as well. Can Aidan put his own ghosts to rest in time to save the woman who’s claimed his heart?

Excerpt:

Chapter One
In a perfect world, Rachel Grant would be sitting on the back porch of her grandmother’s English cottage sipping a pint of lager while watching the boats ferry tourists across the North Sea.

But this wasn’t a perfect world.

The small cottage she’d been sent to "tidy-up" stared at her with broken windows, exterior walls missing wooden slats and stone, and a thousand years of neglect. Uncontrolled grasses choked the once vibrant and sweet-smelling gardens. Her sanctuary, Nan had called it? Maybe sometime in the last century.

She dropped her suitcases and flexed her fingers. She’d come to do a little dusting, a little washing, and poof, she would have the cottage ready for her grandmother’s return. But this eyesore required extensive renovations. As a technical analyst for the International Protective Network, Rachel worked with computers and digital research. Manual labor was way out of her comfort zone.

Thunder crackled above, and she squinted up to the sky. An impending storm prepared to drench her at any moment—not that it would make much difference. When she’d rowed out to this isolated, pathetic piece of dirt, she’d soaked herself through. She shivered against the cursed wind, ran her fingers through her hair, and blew out a slow breath. Now what?

She’d given up her seat in front of a flat screen and a keyboard back in Edinburgh to execute her nana’s fanciful ideas of returning to Sunderland. Rachel had agreed only because it was for Nan, but….
 
"This, I did not sign up for." Tears pricked at the corners of her wind-burned eyes, threatening to rip her resolve to shreds. Getting here had been hard enough. It wasn’t fair that her island of paradise looked like the summer cottage from a teenage horror movie.

She took a cleansing breath. No panicking allowed. Solving problems was her specialty, after all. "Well, computer problems, anyway," she mumbled.

"A bit of a disappointment, I expect." A rich, deep voice with a twinge of an English accent drifted from behind her.She whirled around. Her hair whipped against her cheeks and made her wish for the hundredth time she hadn’t packed all her hair clips.

"Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you."

The stranger paused beside the edge of the clearing, and her heart stuttered. Although no one would mistake him for a Hollywood leading man, the guy could command attention by stepping into a room. Or onto an island.

 

So, are you intrigued? Well, then get thee to Decadent Publishing or Amazon to get the story immediately delievered to your e-reader!

Remember to leave comments so you'll be in the running for PRIZES!!

Release Party Day 1- The Story Behind The Story

Welcome back to Day 1 of my week-long release party for Fractured Paradise! This afternoon I'm sharing with you the story behind the story. Here, you'll find out how this book came into being, why I wanted to write it, and why I chose the dedication I did. 

Fractured Paradise started out as a way for me to get over my British grandmother's death back in 2003. She had been sick for quite a while and I'd said my final goodbye, but I was not with her when she died. At the time, I needed comfort and turning to my happy place (the UK), I was able to get through my emotions as I wrote the book. The story has Rachel's grandmother in it, so I was able to honor my grandmother as well.

As a granddaughter, I managed to get through my grief by doing the physical writing and working through my emotions in the story. As a writer, I revised the manuscript, which started out as a 250-page contemporary romance (no suspense), and submitted it to contests (in which it finaled and won a couple) and a lovely editor rejected it but gave me some great feedback. I then put it aside for a few years and wrote other contemporary and romantic suspense stories. It was last year, when I signed my first contract with Decadent Publishing, that I started to think about revising Fractured Paradise for the Honor Guard line. I cut it down, added in a suspense element (and an International Protective Network employee) and submitted it earlier this year. In my mind, the book had become a way for me to honor not only my grandmother, but also my British heritage in general. When it came time to write the dedication for the book, choosing my grandparents was not even a question.

You see, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother as I grew up. Because she worked in a school, she had the same vacations as me so she babysat quite a bit. Sometimes she came to our house and sometimes I went to her house. My grandfather worked a lot so I only saw him at night and on the weekends. But I remember very vividly sitting on their living room floor while music played, with my notebook in my lap and a pen in my hands. My grandfather would come in from work and ask, "Are you not done with that book yet?" (My usual response was, "No, I started a new one!") I always remember them being supportive of my fanciful career plans. They were both very proud of me and my push to get published, to see my dream come true. Sadly, my grandfather died in 2009 and so he wasn't around for my first book to come out either, but I hope I've honored them both in my attempt to bring all that I love about Britain, and especially Sunderland, to readers everywhere. 

For Mary L. Martin (1922-2003)

And Jimmie Martin (1919-2009)

Nan and Granda, I did it!

Okay, remember to leave comments on the blog ALL week long for your chance to win prizes, including a FREE copy of Fractured Paradise! I'll choose today's winner after midnight!

LET THE RELEASE PARTY BEGIN!!!!

WELCOME TO MY RELEASE PARTY FOR FRACTURED PARADISE!

First off, I'm so thrilled you're here. Thank you for sharing this event with me. Fractured Paradise is my second Honor Guard story with Decadent Publishing. It's a contemporary romantic suspense novella set in the UK.

I'm so excited to share this book with the world. It will be available tomorrow, but I wanted to start the party early. I'll be here all week sharing stories, facts and details about this book and the process it took to get published. I'll also be giving away prizes to commenters and followers. So be sure to visit, share your thoughts and get in the running!

What's on tap for the week?

Monday: (2 posts) Introduction, & the Story Behind the Story
Tuesday: (1 post) Official Release Day!
Wednesday: (2 posts) Fun Facts of Fractured Paradise, & What's this IPN?
Thursday: (2 posts) Sunderland Dialect game!
Friday: (1 post) What's Next For Lexi?

I'll be choosing WINNERS from the comments this week to receive UK treats! There will be one winner a day AND one lucky commenter will win a FREE copy of the book at the end of the party! (Winners will be chosen and announced after midnight each day. Grand prize winner will be chosen from all commenters all week and announced Saturday.)

PLUS, you can have an extra chance to win a copy of the book if you visit my 2-day release party on the Get Lost in a Story blog. Tomorrow is the official release, with an excerpt, and then Wednesday on there I'll be interviewing Rachel Grant, the heroine from Fractured Paradise. From the commenters on that blog, I'll be choosing 1 winner for a copy of the book too!

Okay, later today I'll be sharing the story behind the story for you!

(In the meantime, feel free to visit the Celtic Hearts blog, where I'm blogging about Thurso, Scotland today.)

Six Sentence Sunday- Fractured Paradise

Good morning! Welcome back for another Six Sentence Sunday. I am still bringing you snippets from my upcoming release, Fractured Paradise. So far, the snippets have been more romance oriented. This week I'm switching to more of the suspense angle.

In this six sentences, Rachel and the hero, Aidan, have been out together and are arriving back at her grandmother's cottage. She's been cleaning it up for her grandmother's return. They've just walked inside the front door and....

Her insides curdled more with each step she took into the home. All her work was ruined. Dirt and trash littered the floor. The rocking chair her grandfather had made lay in pieces. In large letters, spray painted on the wall opposite the fireplace was a clear message: Yank, Go Home.

Rachel's knees buckled.

Thanks for stopping by to read my six! Feel free to leave a comment. For more snippets from other fantabulous authors, visit www.sixsunday.com.

 

1st Review For Fractured Paradise!

Of course I'm interested in people's opinions of my books, right? I'm especially interested in hearing what Brits have to say since my books so far have been set in Great Britain, and I hope to honor my heritage with my stories and characters. So imagine how tickled I was when I received this review from an Englishwoman for Fractured Paradise, coming out November 6th!

"A good novella is the equivalent of haute cuisine – fantastic quality that leaves you satisfied yet wanting more. That is how I would describe Fractured Paradise – a well written story, with be...

lievable characters that I wanted to get to know even better.

I was intrigued by the conflict between protagonists Rachel Grant, who has gone to Sunderland to honour her grandmother’s wish of repairing her old cottage home and Englishman Aiden Camden who wants to buy the cottage to honour his dead wife’s dreams.

This conflict is as real as the intense longing the pair feel towards each other, but must fight for fear of abandoning their promises. The language Alexa Bourne uses is rich and sensual, creating realistic scenes of love and lust, which only added to the story and were never thrown in for affect or for the sake of it.

But Fractured Paradise is not solely a love story but a suspense, which entraps the reader into devouring the whole story in one sitting as I did. My only disappointment was that it finished all too quickly.

A very enjoyable read."

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome back to another edition of Six Sentence Sunday! Today, we're still on the 1st page of my book Fractured Paradise, which is due out November 6th.

She’d given up her seat in front of a flat screen and a keyboard back in Edinburgh to execute her nana’s fanciful ideas of returning to Sunderland. Rachel had agreed only because it was for Nan, but….

"This, I did not sign up for." Tears pricked at the corners of her wind-burned eyes, threatening to rip her resolve to shreds. Getting here had been hard enough. It wasn’t fair that her island of paradise looked like the summer cottage from a teenage horror movie.

Well? What do you think? Let me know and check out some of the other Six Sentence Sunday authors on this site. Have a great day!

Fractured Paradise Gets A Release Date!

Mark your calendars! My next Honor Guard romantic suspense novella, set in Sunderland, England, will be released NOVEMBER 6TH! Fractured Paradise is near and dear to my heart since it's set in my Mom's hometown and many of my relatives still live there. I'm hard at work making plans for a release party, so stay tuned for those. In the meantime, you can keep reading snippets from this story on Six Sentence Sundays, BUT.....shhhhhhh, don't tell. I'm going to share the opening excerpt with you here and now. Please let me know what you think! (Pls ignore the rough formatting here.)

“A bit of a disappointment, I expect.” A rich, deep voice with a twinge of an English accent drifted from behind her.
She whirled around. Her hair whipped against her cheeks and made her wish for the hundredth time today she hadn’t packed all her hair clips.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
The stranger paused beside the edge of the clearing, and her heart stuttered. Although no one would mistake him for a Hollywood leading man, this guy could command attention by stepping into a room. Or onto an island.
“That’s okay. You didn’t.” She permitted her gaze to wander over him.
He kept his hands stuffed into the front pockets of faded jeans. The wind tore at his gray long-sleeved shirt, outlining the contours of a well-defined chest. Unruly light brown hair touched his collar. High cheekbones accented his deep-set eyes. Not friendly eyes, but no threat lay behind them either, at least none she could uncover.
He pulled a hand from his pocket and held it out. “Aidan Camden of Dawson Tours, your neighbor from across the water.” He tipped his head toward the way he’d come. Camden. His name sounded familiar, but why? She shook his hand with a hint of hesitation. “Rachel Grant.”
His fingers warmed her skin, his grip strong and confident. Awareness trailed along her arm. Then again, it could be the accent that made her skin tingle. British accents never failed to stir her emotions.
A trace of a smile danced on his lips. “Aye, the American.”
Huh. “You know of me?”
A low rumble of laughter slipped from his mouth, the sound relaxing her from deep within. “Word travels fast here. I saw you paddling your way out.”
Paddling? No, he’d seen her fighting with the oars. Until today, she’d never set foot on a boat, much less held an oar. But she would consider swimming across the Atlantic Ocean if it would make Nan happy.
“Tell me, Mr. Camden, are you in the habit of following foreigners?”
“No, lass, but you’re all the talk of the Roker area. The mighty Grant descendant, come to see about selling the family cottage.”
Selling?

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome back for another Six Sentence Sunday! Today, I'm sharing another snippet from my soon-to-be-released book, Fractured Paradise. This is later in the story than last week's snippet. I don't want to share too much about this scene in case you decide to buy the book when it comes out, but I will tell you that the heroine, Rachel, has just gone through something frightening, and of course the hero, Aidan, is by her side. Enjoy!

“Your lips are trembling.”
 

Slowly, he eased his hold on her, but he did not release her completely. His fingers remained at her waist. The intimate touch unleashed a wave of desire within her. This man became more of a temptation to her with every encounter.
 

“Maybe I’m a little scared, too,” she admitted.

Find more Six Sentence Sunday authors using this website. And feel free to leave a comment here or on any Six Sunday site you visit. Authors LOVE comments!

Six Sentence Sunday-Fractured Paradise

Hello again! Welcome back for another snippet of Fractured Paradise, my romantic suspense novella coming to you soon! This week's snippet picks up right from last week's. You can reread last week's here. Hope you enjoy!

Aidan closed his eyes and pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead.

“Hey, are you all right?” she asked.

The gentle caress of her voice was almost as deadly as the fair touch of her fingertips to his wrist. His blood steamed under his skin, tinder threatening to burn with an ache so deep he’d forgotten what it felt like. So long he’d gone without a woman in his life, in his bed. Perhaps this was his body’s way of saying 'get on with it'.


So? What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know! And if you have more time on your hands, find more Six Sentence Sunday participants here.

Six Sentence Sunday

Good morning and welcome to my next installment of Fractured Paradise! This is my next book, which should be released soon. This is the story of an American woman trying to do something special for her grandmother and the Englishman who is determined to thwart her plans. Last week Rachel was walking down the street and caught up to Aidan coming out of a store. This week we're in Aidan's point-of-view while he's with her. (Brooke was his wife in the past.) I hope you like it!

 

Okay, here you go!
 

What was it about this woman that prompted him into action, into banter he’d never been comfortable sharing with Brooke? With his free hand, he reached up and caught the loose strands of her hair in his fingers and tucked them behind her ear, his fingertips lingering against the shell.
 

“Thank you.” She allowed that tongue to swish over her lips, moistening them, taunting him, all but begging him to taste them for himself.

He snatched his hand away and stepped back. Where had those thoughts come from?

To read more entries, visit the Six Sentence Sunday website here! And don't forget to leave comments! Authors LOVE comments!

Six Sentence Sunday

Good morning and welcome to my next installment of Fractured Paradise! This is my next book, which should be released sometime in the next couple of months. This is the story of an American woman trying to do something special for her grandmother and the Englishman who is determined to thwart her plans. Funny thing, though. They're kind of attracted to each other!

Okay, here you go:

As Rachel passed the Roker Pier Lighthouse, she spotted her rival exiting the grocery store a few blocks away. He carried a brown paper bag.

Her stomach curled. Tingles sparked behind her breasts and shot right into her abdomen. Damn it, why did her body react every time she ran into this man? E-n-e-m-y.

To read more entries, visit the Six Sentence Sunday website here! And don't forget to leave comments! Authors LOVE comments!