Book Releases

Holding On (Colorado High Country #6) —
The Colorado High Country series returns with Conrad and Kenzie's story.

A hero barely holding on…

Harrison Conrad returned to Scarlet Springs from Nepal, the sole survivor of a freak accident on Mt. Everest. Shattered and grieving for his friends, he vows never to climb again and retreats into a bottle of whiskey—until Kenzie Morgan shows up at his door with a tiny puppy asking for his help. He’s the last person in the world she should ask to foster this little furball. He’s barely capable of managing his own life right now, let alone caring for a helpless, adorable, fluffy puppy. But Conrad has always had a thing for Kenzie with her bright smile and sweet curves. One look into her pleading blue eyes, and he can’t say no.

The woman who won’t let him fall…

Kenzie Morgan’s life went to the dogs years ago. A successful search dog trainer and kennel owner, she gets her fill of adventure volunteering for the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. The only thing missing from her busy life is love. It’s not easy finding Mr. Right in a small mountain town, especially when she’s unwilling to date climbers. She long ago swore never again to fall for a guy who might one day leave her for a rock. When Conrad returns from a climbing trip haunted by the catastrophe that killed his best friend, Kenzie can see he’s hurting and wants to help. She just might have the perfect way to bring him back to the world of the living. But friendship quickly turns into something more—and now she’s risking her heart to heal his.

In ebook and soon in print!


About Me

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I grew up in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, then lived in Denmark and traveled throughout Europe before coming back to Colorado. I have two adult sons, whom I cherish. I started my writing career as a columnist and investigative reporter and eventually became the first woman editor of two different papers. Along the way, my team and I won numerous state and several national awards, including the National Journalism Award for Public Service. In 2011, I was awarded the Keeper of the Flame Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism. Now I write historical romance and contemporary romantic suspense.

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Seductive Musings

Sunday, September 29, 2013

FIRST STRIKE excerpt



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 2013
All rights reserved


Friday, September 27, 2013

Flash floods, farewells, and First Strike

Pella Crossing/Fall 2012

What a crazy time it’s been since my last blog update. In that span of time I’ve finished and edited a novella — First Strike: The Erotic Prequel to Striking Distance — been through the biggest flood in the state of Colorado’s recorded history, and helped my younger son pack up and head off for eight months as a teaching assistant in France.

Not exactly a dull time.

Let’s start with the floods.

You probably all saw it on television — massive flash floods caused by a period of heavy rain along Colorado’s Front Range. I just happen to live in Boulder County which is next to Larimer County. Those two counties were the worst hit in the state. My home was not flooded, but the destruction around us was unbelievable, truly staggering.

This used to be a parking lot. The structure toward the center is the restroom facility.
This ravine, carved by floodwater, is probably 15 feet deep.


The Rocky Mountains aren't really equipped to deal with lots of rain. We get heavy snows in the high country, but snow melts slowly, feeding the creeks and streams, seeping into the thin, rocky soil, soaking the forest duff. Rain, on the other hand, runs off the soil, taking the path of least resistance downhill. The foothills along the Front Range contain a series of canyons, each with its own stream or river, that funnel runoff from rain and snow out to the plains. When too much water runs into those streams at once, we can get flash floods, where high walls of water rip down from the mountains and tear apart anything in their paths.

The flooding washed down the earthen walls that held Webster Lake, pushing that
water through Heron Lake and out through a farmer's field.
All of the cities along these natural floodplains prepare for potential flash floods. In Boulder, our emergency sirens aren’t for tornadoes; they were put in as a warning system for flash floods. Every city has its own emergency plan for how to deal with a major flood, and floods have occurred in the past.

In July 1976, for example, a rainstorm in the mountains to the west of Loveland sent a torrent of water down the Big Thompson Canyon, which most of the time looks like an unimpressive creek, and killed 143 people, five of whom were never found but were probably buried in rock and mud. The terrible death toll and the devastation spurred all of the cities along the Front Range to prepare for flash floods because all of them have little rivers, creeks and streams capable of doing with the Big Thompson River did.

Sunset Lake, Pella Crossing, the day after the flood
A flash flood in Fort Collins killed five in July 1997 when Spring Creek sent water pouring through the city. Fort Collins went to major effort to do all it could to prevent fatalities.

But no one, not even city planners, could have imagined what happened a couple of weeks ago, when the entire Front Range flooded at once, ever creek, river, stream, and ditch between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs flooding at once. The fact that only seven people died instead of hundreds is proof that the work the cities all did to prepare paid off.

Grandmother Cottonwood, which Benjy and I have said hello to on our walks since he
was a little boy, survived the flood. The trail did not.
Benjamin was still working as a Ranger then. He was told to stay home for a couple of days — which was fine because there wasn’t really a way to get out of our neighborhood. Although we were high and dry, we were surrounded by flood zones. As I posted on Facebook, I have always wanted to live the island life, but I had been expecting palm trees and rum.

When Benjamin went back to work, he helped assist in the rescues, carrying things off helicopters that the National Guard was using to bring people down from the mountains. It was an unforgettable and very sobering experience for him, I’m sure.

Two mangled vehicles lie completely buried in sand and muck.

Seven people lost their lives. Thousands lost their homes. And we all lost some of the infrastructure of our state and our cities with highways washed out, open space areas destroyed, trails washed away. Our most personal lost came in the form of Pella Crossing, which I often referred to on Facebook and Twitter as “the lakes.” It’s a place I love, and it will be a very long time before it’s open to the public again.

I’ve posted a lot of photos of the place here over the years. It’s where I used to go for walks and where I took Benjamin for walks when he was a kid. The top photo shows Pella roughly a year ago. The remaining photos show what it is today. To get some sense of scale, look at the restroom facilities, tossed aside like a doll house. Those doors are big enough for people to walk through.

The St. Vrain carved a new path through Pella and through a farmer’s field.
Cars are buried in the sand. One lake got washed away. The St. Vrain River, which turned into an almost mile-wide torrent, flooded farms, killed livestock, ripped out the trails, washed away one lake and carved a new bed for itself through a farmer’s field adjacent to Pella. There’s a mobile home sitting in the middle of one lake. For those of us who went there every day, the damage is simply unfathomable.

The flood brought sewage from Lyons into the area. It killed fish by washing them out of the lakes and leaving them high and dry. There are dead chickens and geese lying around. It has been hard for all of us who saw these places on a daily basis to grasp what has happened.

Anyone missing a pickup or a mobile home? Here they are. 


But that’s only one tiny piece of it. The water that shredded Pella almost wiped the town of Lyons, only 10 minutes down the road from me, off the map. The highways we drove on this summer when Benjamin and I went to Mud Lake and Nederland and Estes Park were destroyed.

While all this was going on, I was trying to finish First Strike while Chinook helicopters flew overhead. Perhaps because I couldn’t really go anywhere, I succeeded. The novella, which is about 17,000 words long, will be out on October 22. Watch for an excerpt soon!

Benjamin at the airport about to leave for France

And no sooner had I finished editing it — and I really do mean that — it was time to take Benjamin to the airport. He left his Ranger job temporarily to go to France for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work as a teaching assistant at a public school 35 minutes south of Paris. Saying good-bye to him was hard because I’m going to miss him so much. But I know he’s going to have the time of his life.

So it was writing, writing, writing, rain, floods, editing, driving to the airport to say good-bye to my youngest for eight months.

Can you say whirlwind?

So that’s where I’ve been. I am very grateful that my entire family was spared damage to our health and our property. We all live in either Boulder or Larimer county, right in the heart of the flooding. Not everyone was so lucky, and I feel deep sadness for those who lost their lives, their livelihoods, and their homes.

Right now, with First Strike about to come out (Oct. 22) and Striking Distance right behind it (Nov. 5), I’m turning my attention to a possible Christmas novella and plotting the next full-length I-Team novel. But give me a second to catch my breath here.

Coming next: An excerpt from my sexiest novel yet, First Strike.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

STRIKING DISTANCE gets a Top Pick from RT




Hey, everyone!

Just back from a whirlwind tour of Bent’s Fort near La Junta, Colorado, to find that RT Book Reviews gave Striking Distance a 4.5-star Top Pick review. This made my day!


Here’s the heart of their review:


“This sixth I-Team installment sees Clare at her very best, combining scorching desire with a gripping, often painful, exploration of healing and redemption. The plot's mystery and suspense elements are exceptionally well researched and expertly plotted, but the real achievement lies in her beautifully crafted main couple. Her heroine’s ordeal is unspeakably painful, but her strength never wavers. The chemistry with her steadfast hero never lacks for sizzle, but the emotional bond they share allows them to go beyond the physical to a profound, unforgettable love.”

—RT Book Reviews

As many of you know, I worked so very hard on this book. I feel like I almost killed myself writing it, and I’m not exaggerating. This is such a sweet reward. I really hope you all enjoy it!

I’m working hard on First Strike now, and so I won’t be posting as much until I’m done. 


In the meantime, Striking Distance is still on sale for pre-orders on Amazon, both in mass market paperback and in Kindle formats. Not sure why they put it on sale, but it will save you a couple of bucks.

And here is a link to some of the photos from our tour at Bent’s Fort. It was scorching hot down there, but I learned so much and came back feeling so inspired by the history of that place. 

I’ll be back soon with excerpts and fun!





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"I am an artist. I am here to live out loud."
—Emile Zola

"I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day."
—James Joyce

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery."
—Jane Austen

"Writers are those for whom writing is more difficult that it is for others."
—Ernest Hemingway

"When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth."
—Kurt Vonnegut

"The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar is the test of their power."
—Toni Morrison

"No tears in the author, no tears in the reader."
—Robert Frost.

"I'm a writer. I give the truth scope."
—the character of Chaucer in
A Knight's Tale