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

Wednesday, March 06, 2019

COVER REVEAL! All about HARD TARGET



Here it is — the sexy new cover for my sexy COBRA ELITE series. Yes, I’m back to writing romantic suspense, and HARD TARGET is the first book in my new I-Team spinoff.

The hero of the story is Derek Tower, who first made his appearance in the I-Team series in Striking Distance as the owner of a black-ops company that had gone into bankruptcy after the kidnapping of Laura Nilsson. He was a JERK — at first. As the story moved on, he discovers that Laura isn’t to blame for her kidnapping and the deaths of his men and does all he can to make up for the way he intimidated her.

We see him again in Seduction Game when the new black-ops company he and Javier Corbray (Striking Distance) have created get involved to recover Holly Bradshaw after a rogue CIA agent abducts her. Here’s the logo of Cobra International Security.


Basically, if you’re a terrorist or drug smuggler or asshole and you see this, you are probably well on your way to being trussed up in the back of a truck or dead.

Hard Target is Derek’s story. A former Green Beret, he is compelled to accept an assignment that lands him in Afghanistan’s Balkh Province playing bodyguard to the younger sister of special forces buddy who gave his life to save Derek’s.

Jenna Hamilton, the heroine, is a nurse midwife. She’s gone over as an aid worker to help save the lives of women and babies in a country where women have a 1-in-8 risk of dying of pregnancy-related causes in their lifetimes. That part is not fiction, sadly. Neither is the fact that the Taliban, which forbids the education of women, deliberately targets and executes midwives. Last year, they attacked the city of Ghazni, occupied a midwifery school, and murdered one of the midwives while the others hid in a safe room.

Caught in political the political machinations of militias, warlords, and Talibs, they find themselves on the run, relying on Derek’s skills (and at times Jenna’s) to survive.

Derek has no intention of getting involved with Jenna. He owes her brother a life debt, something he can’t repay by getting in bed with her. But sometimes adrenaline and primal attraction can overcome even the strongest will.

Where did I get the idea for this story? I’m so glad you asked.

The groundwork for aspects of it was laid in Striking Distance and Seduction Game. Javier and Derek’s company — Cobra International Security — was already established.

But the setting and especially the heroine come from a story I reported on long ago when I was a journalist. I'd heard of a local midwife who had set up a midwifery school and hospital out of her living room in Boulder County. She went over to Bamiyan and worked with the Afghan government to develop a curriculum to train one of the first groups of midwives in the new Afghanistan. She saved lives every day. She had the honor—I think it IS an honor—of receiving death threats from the Taliban, which promised to put a bullet in her head.

Screw those guys. (Or not.)

The organization she founded is a nonprofit that now operates in Afghanistan, Uganda, and Haiti, helping local women give birth safely. Through her efforts and those of others who joined in to help, these clinics have surpassed UN goals for maternal and infant safety. The organization is one I am proud to support — International Midwife Assistance. You can read about their work at www.midwifeassist.org.

She and I met over coffee a few weeks ago, and I told her that I’m working on a story with an American midwife working in Afghanistan—and she literally squealed. Immediately, she began making suggestions for how to make the story real, offering me a wealth of first-hand experience that I couldn’t have unless I, too, worked as a midwife in Afghanistan.

The Cobra Elite series is going to be a fast-paced, action-packed romantic suspense series with all the realism of the I-Team series. At this point, I’m planning for a trilogy, all of which will be published in 2019. So hang onto your panties — if you can.

Hard Target will be out in mid-April. Watch for an excerpt with pre-order links soon! If you haven’t signed up for my newsletter, click here. It’s the best way to stay on top of new releases. I won‘t spam you or share your email information. Just be sure to check your inbox for a confirmation email.


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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