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

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

SEDUCTION GAME is out!



CIA officer Nick Andris wants revenge. His last mission failed after a Georgian arms smuggler killed his lover. He’s been tailing a woman for three weeks hoping she will lead him to his target. But there’s a problem with the intel. Holly Elise Bradshaw is nothing more than an entertainment writer with a love for sex and designer clothes. Clearly someone at Langley made a mistake . . .
When Holly finds herself in trouble, the only weapons at her disposal are her brains and her body. But they won’t be enough to handle the man who’s following her. He’s going to turn her world upside-down.
For an author, every book is a journey. It starts with an idea, takes shape in the writers mind, sends her off to do research, and ends in places she couldn’t imagine.
But Seduction Game
I started it in January 2014. While I was writing the first chapter, I got the news that my former mother-in-law and friend had been in a terrible car accident. She died a few days later.
I was a few chapters in when I got the devastating news that I had invasive ductal carcinoma, a form of breast cancer. I had no choice but to set the book aside while I underwent a bilateral mastectomy, three months of chemotherapy, and five weeks of daily radiation treatments. I was too sick even to imagine writing. It seemed to me that months of sickness, pain, and fear had destroyed my creativity. I told those closest to me that I was afraid I’d never write again.
And then another January came. I was able to stop using morphine. And to my surprise, a book exploded out of my soul.
I started at the beginning, rewrote what I’d written. I wrote faster than I’ve written since the early days of my fiction career, and I loved every moment of it. I laughed, got teary-eyed, and reveled in the feeling of writing again. Holly came to be my favorite heroine ever as her story unfolded on the page. And I felt alive again.
Seduction Game isn’t just a book to me. It’s my literary fist held high in the air. It’s my way of showing the world that I am still here, still on my feet, still creating despite the horrors of cancer.
Cancer is behind me. And now I have a new full-length novel out. That thought made me burst into tears when I woke up this morning. Yes, all books are journeys, but I feel like I traveled through hellfire to bring you this one.
Seduction Game is available at e-book retailers in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia and is coming soon to Kobo and audiobook. It will be available in mass market paperback in March 2016.
I hope with all my heart that you enjoy Nick and Holly’s story. And remember — KEEP THE SECRET! :-)
Also, watch for my novella An I-Team Christmas, coming on Nov. 17! Join your favorite I-Team characters for a suspenseful, action-packed December night.
Thanks for your continued support!
All my best,
Pamela
Saturday, October 17, 2015

SEDUCTION GAME Giveaway!




We are just THREE days away from the release of Seduction Game in ebook and audiobook, three days away from you getting Nick and Holly’s story. I can’t wait to share it with you!

For some of you, the wait will end soon. Yesterday, I got a little surprise when FedEx dropped off a box of bound galleys. Those are bound copies of the book without the sexy cover and without the last round of copy edits. Most often, they’re sent to reviewers.


This time, because the print release isn’t until March, my publisher sent them so that I could give away a few print copies in contests. Because snail mail is slow, winners won’t get their copies until after Tuesday’s release date.

Without further ado, let’s give away some autographed galleys!

CONTEST RULES—
1. Comment directly on my blog (pamelaclare.blogspot.com), not Facebook or Goodreads.
2. Tell me your favorite Holly Bradshaw moment in the I-Team series.
3. Leave an email address or twitter name or some way for me to contact you. If you don't, you are ineligible to win because I can’t notify winners via telepathy.
4. Post BEFORE 11:59 Sunday night.
5. Cross your fingers!
7. This contest is open to US readers only due to copyright issues. The edition of the story being given away here is the US edition.
8. Mothers and sisters of the author are ineligible to enter.
9. FIVE winners will be chosen through a contest randomizer.
10. Any blogger who shares the Seduction Game .gif at right by copying the code and posting it on their blog through release week next week, gets entered twice. Just share the link to your blog where the .gif is running.

This is a quick and dirty drawing — Holly would like that — so winners will be announced on MONDAY, and prizes will go out that same day to reach you as soon as the United States Postal Service can get them to you.

Also, take the time now to sign up for my newsletter. It’s the best way to stay on top of all the latest news from Casa Clare. Just follow the link, add your email address, then watch for a confirmation email in your Inbox or spam folder.

Good luck!







Monday, October 12, 2015

SEDUCTION GAME Q&A with Author Pamela Clare

We’re a week and a day away from the release of Seduction Game (I-Team #7), which tells Holly Bradshaw’s story. Here’s a short Q&A about the book and about my writing plans for the rest of the year.

Q. Is it true your editor once told you she didn’t want to Holly to get her own book?

A. Yes, that is true. Back when Extreme Exposure was release, she mentioned to me that she felt Holly just wasn't heroine material. I told her that was fine, but I felt pretty certain that Horny Holly would win her over. My editor eventually asked me to write Holly’s story. When I reminded her what she’d said about Holly initially, we both got a good laugh out of it.


Feel free to download or share!

Q. Holly is a different sort of heroine, not what we’re used to from your books or in romance generally speaking. What made you so certain you wanted to give her a story?

A: Well, it’s no secret that finding a romance hero who hasn’t had sex with lots of women is like finding a four-leaf clover. They’re rare. At the same time, we find a surprisingly high number of virgin heroines in contemporary romance. I guess our culture romanticizes the notion of experienced men leading less experienced women through the wild world of sexuality.

But reality is very different than that. The last study I read found that the average number of sexual partners a US woman has had by the time she turns 40 is 12. That’s the average. All of my other heroines have fallen far short of that average, except perhaps Laura Nilsson from Striking Distance. I actually never asked her for a tally.

My point is that our fantasies about sexuality and the reality we all know and live are very different. I suspect slut-shaming plays a role in pushing heroines to the less sexually active side in romance. And that comes from the bad old double standard that has done so much to hurt women.

I consciously chose for Holly to be a more sexually expressive character 11 years ago when I started writing this series. Through the years, I’ve gotten suggestions from fans that she really hasn't slept with those men, that she’s actually a virgin and just making it up and so forth. No, no, no. She is who she is without apology. As a writer, I found that fun.


Feel free to download or share!

Q: Tell us about Nick.

A: Nick is a good guy who is going to seem an awful lot like a bad guy. He lost the woman he loved in an operation that went south, and he’s been looking to even the score with the man who murdered her. He comes from a big family. His parents immigrated to the US from the Georgia when it was still part of the USSR. Nick was born into the US and served in Delta Force before being recruited into the Special Activities Division (SAD) of the CIA. He is tough, serious about serving his country, and in some ways very alone.

Q: He sounds yummy! What’s different about Holly and Nick’s story? You’ve said in some of your comments about it that it’s lighter than the other I-Team books.

A. It is lighter. After last year’s cancer battle and after Striking Distance, which dealt with some very heavy emotional issues, I needed something lighter. I think it’s the funniest I-Team story, because, well, Holly. It’s also pretty hot—again, Holly. What else could we expect? That isn’t to say it’s just humor and sex. There is some darkness in the story, starting with the way Nick and Holly come to know one another. But Holly has a way of seeing the world that brings lightness to dark moments, as Kat once observed about her.

We see most of the other I-Team members. We learn some new things about Laura and Javier’s story. We get to know Derek Tower better. Darcangelo and Hunter are still at it with the bromance and the banter. It’s getting harder and harder to fit all the couples in as the series progresses, but most of them are represented.


Feel free to download or share!


Q: Rumor has it that Seduction Game is the last I-Team novel and that the series is over.

A. That depends on how you define “last.” I am determined to give Joaquin his own story. I love him, and so do a lot of my readers. But after that, there will probably be a few more novellas to wrap up some plots for secondary characters and then the I-Team will head into the sunset. I don’t want to continue the series to the point where it grows stale. I’d rather end on a high note.

Right now, I’m working on An I-Team Christmas, which is proving to be a really interesting experience. That will be coming out on Nov. 17, in time for some fun holiday reading. But this isn’t your average heartwarming holiday tale. Think Die Hard meets the I-Team. There will be pretty Christmas trees and lights and lots of bullets.

Also in time for the holidays, I’ll have an I-Team shop set up at Café Press, featuring T-shirts and other things with the official I-Team logo. This is really important to me because the logo was originally designed by a close friend of mine, Lynsey Marion, who died suddenly and unexpectedly last March. She made them as a gift for me but hadn’t yet sent me the final files before she passed on. Carrie at Seductive Designs has been recreating them so that I’ll be able to use them. Keeping the logo alive and putting it to use is one way of keeping her with me.






Q. What’s after the I-Team?

A. Good question! Do you have a crystal ball? I have a handful of historical romances I’d love to write. There are a couple of spinoff series that I’d love to do, one featuring Javier and Derek’s black ops firm and the other set in Scarlet Springs, which is mentioned in Soul Deep for the first time. Scarlet Springs is a Colorado mountain town but unlike the idyllic mountain towns in so many romances, it’s a real Colorado mountain town with three marijuana shops and lots of eccentric residents. That series will include Gabe Rossiter from Naked Edge (and possibly other I-Team characters) as cross-over characters and will focus on the work of the county’s Alpine Rescue Team—the men and women who  save people’s lives day in and day out in the high country. There will be hard-core climbers, skiers, helo pilots, rescue dog trainers, wildland fire fighters, paramedics, avalanche rescue people and more. I’ll be publishing the Scarlet Springs series independently.

Also, I may have a secret project up my sleeves.


Q. How fast can you write?

A. Not fast enough, though to have written a full-length novel and two novellas in a single year after the year I had last year feels pretty incredible to me.

Q: Speaking of last year, how are you doing health-wise?

A. I’m doing pretty darned well. I haven’t yet had reconstruction, and I have short hair. Those are the two things that bother me most. But I am trying to focus on things I enjoy and moving forward with life. I’m taking a painting class and have gotten started with aqua fitness classes, which I really like.

All of the test so far show no sign of cancer. I was diagnosed as stage 1c, and I've got less than a 10 percent chance of recurrence. I’m actually surprised at how well I’m living with the fear of recurrence. I simply don’t think about it, except when it’s time for my next bunch of tests. Then I get a little nervous—butterflies in the tummy, that sort of thing.

I will never say that I’m grateful for the experience, because I wasn’t. If there are survivors who feel that way, that’s fine. But I could have lived my entire life without going through chemo or radiation or losing my breasts and hair and been just fine.

The truth is that we have very little control over how and when we die, as my friend Lynsey’s sudden death proves, but we do have control over how we live our lives. I’m trying to put 100 percent of my energy into living, into writing, into joyous things so that when the day comes I’ll be able to feel I lived the best life I could live.




Pre-order your copy of Holly and Nick’s story now! Available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kindle UK, and in audiobook . (The print version will be out in March 2016.)
Thursday, October 01, 2015

Countdown to SEDUCTION GAME! EXCERPT


US cover
UK cover

 It’s been roughly a century since I last posted. Sorry about that!

This past summer was crazy busy. We took an unexpected vacation thanks to a friend, had friends visiting from France, enjoyed a few weeks with my sister here from Sweden.

And suddenly it’s October????

That’s okay with me because it means an end to 95-degree days (35 C) and it brings us closer to the ebook and audiobook release of Seduction Game. It’s my first full-length book since my cancer battle, and I’m super-excited to share it with you.

Waaaaay back when Extreme Exposure was first released, my editor at Penguin told me she hoped I wasn’t planning on having a book for Holly. She just didn’t see Holly as heroine material.

I kept my thoughts to myself, because of course I planned on Holly getting her own story. I understood where my editor was coming from. Holly isn’t your typical romance heroine, that’s for sure, and 10 years ago it wasn’t common to see a heroine with a lot of sexual experience outside of erotica.

Fast forward about eight years, and my editor asked me if I planned on having a story for Holly. I most certainly did have a story for her. I reminded my editor what she’d said back when the I-Team series was new, and we laughed about it.

Seduction Game is the lightest, funniest, and, some reviewers say, sexiest, I-Team story to date. It has to be, right? This is Holly we’re talking about.

Here are some spoiler-free quotes from early reviews off Goodreads:

Sunny wrote: “Perfect romantic suspense. I had no idea where Pamela Clare was going to go with Holly’s story, but she made it BRILLIANT.” 

Danielle wrote: “This is only the second book I have read from Clare and the I team and wow I seriously loved it! Clare delivers another fast paced story that kept me up until the early morning hours.”

Kame wrote: “You will LOVE Nick and Holly. Their love story is one of my ALL-TIME favorite books – and you know I read a lot of books. She is now my favorite heroine – not just ITeam heroine.”

I really love that because Holly is my favorite I-Team heroine, too.

The research for this story included interviewing a former CIA officer — Nick is a CIA paramilitary officer— as well as a forensic computer expert. I really enjoyed learning more about both fields. For example, did you know that federal agencies use Twitter and Facebook a lot? I didn’t. It enables them to communicate while hiding in plain sight. I had a lot of fun with that in the story.

The book will be out on Oct. 20 both in the US and in the UK, with the mass market paperback release slated for March. You can preorder now for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and audiobook. It’s also available for Kindle in the UK.

Also, the audiobook is being narrated by the amazing Kaleo Griffith once again. He sent me a snippet just as a treat, and I loved it.

If you haven’t tried the I-Team or haven’t stayed current with the series, that gives you almost three weeks to get caught up.

I’ve been cautioning I-Team fans against reading reviews. Apart from a couple of reviews on Goodreads, most contain serious spoilers that will take away a lot of the fun of the story.

Let’s get this final countdown underway. How better to do that than with an excerpt? Here’s snippet that includes Marcangelo — that’s Julian and Marc — meeting Nick for the first time under rather ... awkward ... circumstances.


Nick and Holly the morning after....

Nick awoke the next morning to the sound of someone pounding on his door.

“Holly, are you there?”

What the hell?

A man’s voice. More pounding.

He came fully alert, found Holly still asleep in his arms, lashes dark on her cheeks. “Wake up, honey. I think we’ve got company.”

“Holly, it’s Julian!”

Her eyes flew open, and she sat bolt upright. “What time is it?” 

Nick glanced at his alarm clock. “A little after nine.”

“Nine? Oh, shit!” She tried to get out of bed, but they were tangled together with the sheet, and she would have pitched headlong onto the floor if he hadn’t caught her.

“Holly! Open up!” a second male voice demanded.

Nick kicked away the sheet, stood, and went in search of a means to cover his bare ass, finding his jeans at the foot of the bed where he’d dropped them. “Don’t they know it’s Sunday morning? People sleep on Sunday morning.”

Especially people who’d been fucking all night Saturday.

“They’re taking me to the police range to teach me how to shoot my new handgun, and I forgot,” she said, darting around his room as if searching for something—her clothes. “Well, I didn’t forget, exactly, I just didn’t think I’d still be here. I was supposed to be dressed and ready to go.” 

Nick ought to have remembered this himself. He knew about the 9mm Glock 19 Gen 4 she’d bought, knew her cop friends had agreed to take her to the police range this morning to teach her to shoot.

You’re slipping, Andris—in more ways than one.

He didn’t want to think about that just now.

He stepped into his jeans, found her panties, and tossed them to her.

“Where’s my bra?” she glanced around.

He tried to remember. “I think it’s back in the living room.”

“Oh. Right.” She darted out of the bedroom, putting on her panties as she went, a sight that was both amusing and arousing. 

He didn’t know a person could do that while running.

She found her bra, and quickly put it on, then retrieved her dress, which was now wrinkled from a night on his floor. She drew it over her head then went in search of her shoes and purse. 

He bit his lower lip. “Holly, honey, your dress is inside out.”

More pounding on the door.

“Holly, it’s Marc! Open up!”

Nick shouted back. “Shut the hell up! We’re coming!”

Poor choice of words.

They both laughed. 

“It’s not funny.” Holly struggled out her dress, turned it right side out and shimmied back into it. “They’re going to know.”

“I hate to break it to you, honey, but I bet they already know, given that they’re knocking on my door and not yours.”

A look of comprehension dawned on her face, followed by one of resignation. “That’s freaking fantastic. I’m going to get lectured. You don’t know these guys.”

Actually, he knew a lot about these guys—probably more than she did.

“Hey, you’re over eighteen. It’s your life.” He walked to the door, hoping to open it before the two men beat it down with their fists. “You ready?”

She grabbed her purse, slipped her feet into her sandals, and nodded.

Nick didn’t have the heart to tell her that her hair was a tousled mess—or that she smelled like sex. 

He opened the door to find Darcangelo and Hunter on his doorstep. They glared at him, their gazes softening when Holly stepped into view.

“Sorry! I—”

“I kept her up all night watching old movies,” Nick said.

He knew neither man would buy it, but if it saved Holly embarrassment and kept them from beating his face in…

“How fast can you get ready to go?” Darcangelo said. “We don’t want to lose our range time.”

“Just give me five minutes.” Holly dug in her purse for her keys then turned back to Nick, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Tonight?”

“Yeah.” He caught her and kissed her, nice and slow, just to piss off the two men.

Then Holly unlocked her door and disappeared inside her own home, and Nick found himself, alone and shirtless, facing two big guys who looked like they wanted to deck him. 

“Nick Andrews.” He held out a hand, and they shook.

“Marc Hunter.”

“Julian Darcangelo.”

“So… You guys part of Holly’s security team?”

Hunter nodded yes. 

Darcangelo shook his head no. 

Then the two of them looked at each other.


It was Hunter who finally spoke. “We’re the guys you’ll get to know really well if you do anything to hurt her.”

Stay tuned for release-day celebrations and giveaways!

(c) 2015 Pamela Clare

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Favorite Writing Quotes


"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