At Home with Pamela Clare

DEFIANT is done!

2012-01-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

Done!

It’s more than 129,000 words and 467 pages long.

I am now going to take some time to myself and will be back soon with lots of books to give away and lots of fun.

See you soon!

Finishing touches on DEFIANT

2012-01-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

Writer at work

Sorry if I haven’t been around a lot lately. My head is firmly in the 18th century.

I’m down to my last three days of polishing Defiant. Almost all of that will probably be spent working on the denouement and epilogue. They’re already written, but I want them to be perfect. That means adding one more scene, revising a couple of existing scenes, then working through every word to make them sing.

I turn it in on Friday, probably in the wee hours of the morning. And then I’m going to take some time for myself. I am determined to make the most of my new freedom for taking care of myself — that’s my New Year’s resolution — and for enjoying life again, something I’ve lost track of in all the craziness of working full time, being a mom and trying to write decent books.

I will be bringing you some Ranger-related fun in the coming weeks as we get closer to the release of Defiant in July, including contests, book giveaways, and interviews. And once I’m rested up and in a good and healthy routine, I’ll be working on a trailer for Defiant, a couple of I-Team related novellas and the next I-Team novel.

In the meantime, I’ll be savoring these next few days as special time finishing a series that has meant so incredibly much to me.

Special Guest Blogger — Elisabeth Naughton

2012-01-13T10:10:00.005-07:00

Hi, all

First, an update on Defiant. I’m deep into polishing the manuscript and working out all the kinks. I’ve been very focused on it at the expense of many things, but I am enjoying it, which is wonderful. I’m very excited to share this book with all of you.

In the meantime, I’ve asked author Elisabeth Naughton to come talk with us about her latest release, Wait for Me, and her love of reunion stories. I’ve written only one reunion story — Unlawful Contact — but that seems to be a favorite. So what is it about lovers getting a second chance that we cherish so much?

Here is Elisabeth to share her thoughts...

Thanks so much to Pamela for having me here today!

I have been a fan of reunion stories as long as I can remember. My very favorite is Paradise, by Judith McNaught. For those that haven’t read it (and you should!) it’s a book about a man and woman who meet when the heroine is still a teenager. They have an intense fling, get married on a whim and find their relationship torn apart by time and distance. Years later, they meet up again, and that’s when the real story starts—as the lies and betrayals they each thought were true in the past are seen in a whole new light.

While I love reading reunion stories, writing them is an entirely different story. The toughest books I’ve ever written have been reunion stories—STOLEN HEAT, ENTWINED, ENRAPTURED—primarily because there’s so much angst from the past an author has to convey to the reader in order to make them work. Every time I write one, I complain to my critique partner and make her promise to slap me upside the head if I start to write another. She agrees. Then forgets. And months later I find myself ready to tear my eyelashes out as I’m stuck in the middle of yet another one. It really is like a sickness – I love them so much I can’t stop writing them. But at the same time they test my writing patience and push me to the limit. The only consolation is that at the end—when it’s all said and done—those reunion stories are my favorite books that I’ve written to date.

WAIT FOR ME is one such book. It’s a romantic suspense about a happily married man—Ryan Harrison—whose life is torn apart when his wife is killed in an accident. The book opens five years later with Ryan’s life being turned upside down—yet again—when a woman who looks just like his deceased wife shows up on his doorstep. It’s angsty, it’s emotional, and it’s filled with romance and mystery as the two work together to find answers as to what really happened five years before. And even though it was a very hard book for me to write, it is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorites.

Are you a fan of reunion stories? What do you like about them? I’m giving away a copy of WAIT FOR ME to one lucky commenter today!

***

A woman without a past…  

After a tragic accident left her with no memory, Kate Alexander struggled to fit in with a husband and world that didn’t feel right. She’s had no reason to question what friends and family have told her, not until her husband is suddenly killed and she finds a photo of a young girl in his office. A girl who can’t be anyone but a daughter Kate didn’t know she had.  

A man desperate for a reason to live…  

Ryan Harrison lost his wife in a plane crash five years ago. To cope with the pain of her loss, he dedicated himself to his job and to raising their daughter. Now a successful pharmaceutical executive, Ryan has everything a man could want—money, fame and power—but he’d give it all up in a heartbeat for just one more day with the woman he still loves.  

Two lives about to converge.  

As Kate begins to dig into a past she doesn’t remember, evidence leads her to San Francisco and puts her on the path toward Ryan, a man who sees in her the woman he loved and lost. Kate feels a draw to Ryan, one she can’t explain, but is that feeling enough to convince her this is where she’s supposed to be? As Ryan and Kate search for answers, they uncover lies long buried, a passion hotter than either expected and a danger that threatens…even now…when the second chance they’ve both been searching for is finally within reach.

“Full of twists and turns, lies and deception, and the ultimate revenge, WAIT FOR ME is a great romantic suspense read.”
—Night Owl Reviews, Top Pick

***

A former junior high science teacher, Elisabeth Naughton traded in her red pen and test tube set for a laptop and research books. She now writes sexy romantic adventure and paranormal novels full time from her home in western Oregon where she lives with her husband and three children. Her work has been nominated for numerous awards including the prestigious RITA® awards by Romance Writers of America, the Australian Romance Reader Awards, The Golden Leaf and the Golden Heart. When not writing, Elisabeth can be found running, hanging out at the ballpark or dreaming up new and exciting adventures. Visit her at www.elisabethnaughton.com to learn more about her and her books.

Why I Write About the French & Indian War

2012-01-06T13:54:00.001-07:00

A view of Lake Champlain from the walls of Fort Ticonderoga

First for the really exciting news: Connor’s book is written! Yes, Defiant is written. Right now I’m revising it and polishing it — my favorite part of writing. Writing is not getting any easier for me, but rather seems to get harder. Perhaps my expectations for myself are getting higher, or maybe I just keep biting off more in my mind than I can manage in words.

Indian writer Anita Desai said, “Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes motivation to write the next book.”

I have that same experience.

The beautiful Eileen Hannay and I standing on Rogers Island across from the site of Fort Edward

What’s in my mind is a shadow of some greater, more profound reality that I want to share. What ends up on the page is a shadow of what was in my mind. It can be very frustrating.

However, I’m almost 100 pages in and pleased with the those 100 pages.

I wanted to muse a bit about why I write about Colonial America and particularly the French & Indian War. A reader on Goodreads asked why I would set a book during a period of history that was so horrendously violent and brutal. I’m taking the question seriously and want to answer, because there is a reason. Or rather there are many reasons.

Romantic fiction has a long tradition that goes back long before Jane Austen. Although many credit her with inventing the romance genre, in truth there were romances in the 16th and 17th centuries that were very popular and available to those who could afford them. Still, the fact remains that much of historical romance focuses on the Regency period, a reader favorite.

A powder horn, rifled muskets and leg irons from the French & Indian war

Many readers enjoy escaping into the beauty of the idealized Regency world. For them, romantic fiction is synonymous with beautiful people, opulence, beautiful clothing, romantic adventures, witty banter, comedy of manners, and so on.

So why would I write historical romance that lacks most of those elements? And why would I choose to set a historical romance at what was arguably THE most violent period in North American history?

The easy answer is this: These are the stories that are in my heart to tell.

The waterfall where Amalie and Morgan make love for the first time (son Benjamin is guarding it)

The more complicated answer starts with my own interests and life experience.

As an investigative reporter, I saw and experienced a lot of things people do not see. I met people who were downright evil. I also met saints. I saw violence. I saw dead bodies. I saw a kid with his head shot off. Yes, off. I know what happens to human brains when they dry. I know the hollow look in a rape victim’s eyes and the hate-filled look in the rapist’s. I’ve had two stalkers, gotten death threats, and survived sexual assault as a child.

Sorry, but I can’t even fantasize about an idealized world of beautiful people. For me to believe a story, it has to begin in the world I know — the imperfect world of strife, poverty, and violence. That’s true for my I-Team stories, too. (Side note: I think this is true for a lot of paranormal writers and urban fantasy authors, too. The darkness of the paranormal/fantasy world is a kind of metaphor for the evil in our own.)

The fantasy for me is taking that world — and healing it. In real life, I have very little control over the terrible things that happen. The bad guy often gets away. The innocent are often the ones who suffer. The poor get poorer. The rich get richer. Women and children take the brunt of the world’s brutality. But in fiction, I can have control of that outcome and make the right thing happen.

That’s part of it.

But I also love this period of history. So many cultures are coming together. An English family on the frontier would have neighbors from Ulster, Germany, Holland, not to mention American Indian nations. The cultural clash and mixing fascinates me as a student of history — my degree and graduate work was in archaeology — and as a lover of languages.

As an archaeology student, I found the golden troves of treasure from the graves of kings and pharaohs to be only of passing interest. What fascinated me most were everyday objects used by everyday people. I fell in love with archaeology as a kid when someone handed me a potsherd from ancient Athens. And there on the ancient clay I could just make out the potter’s thumb print.

I felt connected across centuries to a human being who’d devoted a small portion of his/her life to crafting that very pot. The thought stole my breath. I was completely carried away, connected to a sense of humanity that sprawls millennia. It’s really hard to explain what that feels like, but it ignited a love in me for the ordinary human being through history.

So many novels, not just in romance, focus on the doings of the wealthy and famous. What about the ordinary people? What about the farm wife and the shopkeeper and the blacksmith? I love the details or everyday people’s lives, and I enjoy putting them into stories.

Also, I love nature, and the forests of New York, Pennsylvania, the Ohio Country, and the New England states were vast on a scale that we can’t really imagine. Nature, therefore, becomes its own character in the stories.

The eastern shore of Lake George, well known to the Rangers

All of this rolls together with a specific interest in — no, a passion for — this time period. Life was raw. It hung by a thread. The French & Indian War has been called the First World War by many scholars. And although people didn’t realize it at the time, it was also the war that led to the American Revolution. The latter is unthinkable without the divisions and strife of the former. I could go on forever. I’ll stop there.

This all fascinates me, and, yes, I find aspects of it romantic, just as other aspects are tragic and terrifying.

I find that great adversity makes for the creation of strong heroes. Think about World War II movies and the way that era is romanticized. And yet the violence of that war and the events that went with it, such as the Holocaust, is some of the most appalling ever to take place on this planet.

Great heroes arose from that time, men and women who were equal to the challenge of that war, who rose above their own imperfection to make great sacrifices for the sake of others.

The darker the night, the more horrendous the evil, the brighter the dawn, the more heroic the hero. That’s how it feels for me, at any rate.

William Falkner once said there were only three kinds of stories worth telling: man vs. man, man vs. nature or man vs. himself. Setting aside his sexist language, I guess I agree.

I find that mixing those three up in a single story — nature, war, internal conflict — makes it challenging to write and worth my time. If I can add a love story to that — and some hot sex — then I feel like it’s a book I would want to read.

The site of Fort Edward looking across the Hudson River to Rogers Island (Ranger Island)

I’ve always said that one thing that makes romantic fiction great is variety. People who enjoy light, breezy reads have plenty to choose from, as do people who enjoy cowboys, vampires, shape shifters, firemen, Amish tales, futuristic romance, other worlds and so on. And every romance writer makes her contribution to that variety, adding her own bit of color to the rainbow, so to speak.

My contribution thus far has been Colonial American romance, focusing largely on the French & Indian War and the American frontier, and the I-Team, stories based on my own work as a reporter. I also have some medieval stories in my head that need to come out at some point, as well as some set during the Dickensian period.

I write these books because the stories are in my heart. I write these books because I want to write them. I can’t fathom trying to write 120,000 words that weren’t really in me. Talk about difficult!

My hope for every romance reader is that you find lots of books this year that satisfy your heart.

Happy Reading!

Coming soon:
An interview with Eileen Hannay, an expert on Rogers Island
More contests
The MacKinnon’s Rangers Reading Challenge

Untamed 2.0 is out today! CONTEST

2012-01-03T10:42:00.001-07:00

I’ve been so busy working on Defiant, that it completely slipped my mind that today is RELEASE DAY for Untamed 2.0.

I’ve blogged lots about it, and there are excerpts below and on my website, so if you want a sneak peek you’ve got it.

This version has all the cut pages restored and the original death scene for the villain which was cut from the first published edition of the novel and happened “offstage” and in a very different way. The original way I wrote it was much more satisfying.

I’m very excited to find out what readers who read the original version think of the new version, particularly that death scene.

Untamed is available at Amazon.com in print and on Kindle, on BarnesandNoble.com both in print and for Nook and at bookstores.

To celebrate the book’s release — and to celebrate having finished Connor’s story at 1:04 AM — I’m giving away three signed copies of the book.

Just comment below to be added to the drawing.

Untamed Reissue — EXCERPT

2011-12-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

Out on January 2

The year 2011 is coming to a close — yes, another year has whizzed by — and I’m going to spend every waking moment between now and Jan. 1 finishing Defiant. Then I’ll ring in the New Year by celebrating the reissue of Untamed on Jan. 2.

As far as Defiant goes, I’ve got 30 chapters written — about 390 manuscript pages — and have about two chapters plus the epilogue left to write. That’s about 9,000 more words or so, depending on how quickly I can wrap it up. I hate to rush endings, so it might be more than that.

I was on such a roll the other night but had to stop because it was 3 AM, and I needed to pick my younger son up at the airport. So I had to stop writing because driving is dangerous with your eyes closed. But before I stopped, I wrote a two-page sketch of all the remaining scenes in the story.

Wish me luck! I am excited to finish the story, after which I hope to take a bit of time off. There are a lot of things I want to change about myself and my life, and I need to put some focus on that as the new year begins. I have high hopes for 2012 — I will, after all, turn 12, or, rather, celebrate my 12th real birthday. It seems there ought to be something especially lucky about turning 12 in 2012.

In the meantime, I believe I promised you the original first chapter of Untamed — and by original I mean “as written.” As followers of this blog know, about twenty-five manuscript pages were cut from the story before it was published the first time. It is being reissued with all of the original material intact, including a major plot change in how the villain is dispatched.

When I get author copies, we’ll have a fresh round of contests to get copies of Morgan’s story in your hot little hands.

While I finish Defiant, I’ll leave you with a taste of the restored first chapter of Untamed.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

April 19, 1759
Ticonderoga
New York frontier

Major Morgan MacKinnon lay on his belly, looking down from the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain to the French fort at Ticonderoga below. He held up his brother Iain’s spying glass—nay, it was now his spying glass—and watched as French soldiers unloaded kegs of gunpowder from the hold of a small ship.

Clearly, Bourlamaque was preparing to defend the fort again. But if Morgan and his men succeeded in their mission tonight, that powder would never see the inside of a French musket.

Connor stretched out beside him and spoke in a whisper. “I cannae look down upon this place without thinkin’ of that bastard Abercrombie and the good men we lost.”

Morgan lowered the spying glass and met his younger brother’s gaze. “Nor can I, but we didna come here to grieve.”

“Nay.” Connor’s gaze hardened. “We’ve come for vengeance.”

Last summer, they’d had no choice but to follow Abercrombie—or Nanny Crombie as the men had called him—to a terrible defeat. An arrogant bastard who paid no heed to the counsel of mere provincials, Abercrombie had ignored their warnings that Ticonderoga could not be taken without artillery. He hadn’t believed that the hastily built abatis—the barrier of felled trees and branches that had been piled afore the walls—could hinder trained British Regulars and had ordered his men against the French breastworks with naught but muskets. Soldiers had become ensnared like rabbits, cut down by French marksmen afore they could reach the walls, victims of their own loyalty and Abercrombie’s overweening pride.

On that terrible day, the Rangers, then under the command of Morgan’s older brother Iain, had taken position to the northwest together with Captain Joseph’s Muhheconneok warriors and had fired endlessly at the French marksmen, trying to dislodge them. But the French had turned cannon upon them and pounded them into the ground. So many had been lost—good men and true, men with families, men who’d fought beside them from the beginning.

’Twas here they’d lost Cam—and dozens more. Dead for naught.

When Abercrombie had finally sounded the retreat and the smoke had cleared, the fort had stood just as it had afore.

Never had Morgan seen such senseless death—and at the age of seven and twenty he’d seen death enough to sicken a man’s soul. For nigh on four years, he and his brothers had lived and breathed war. Forced by that whoreson Wentworth to choose between fighting for Britain or being hanged for a crime they had not committed, they’d taken up arms against the French and their Indian allies, harrying them with ambuscades, seizing their supplies, fighting them in forest and fen. They’d slain fellow Catholic and heathen alike, burying their own dead along the way.

Morgan had never imagined that he, as a MacKinnon, would fight the French, traditional allies of all Scotsmen still faithful to Church and Crown. During the Forty- Five, the French had aided the Highland clans, including Morgan’s grandfather—Iain Og MacKinnon, laird of Clan MacKinnon—in their vain struggle to drive the German Protestant from the throne. Then, after the disastrous defeat at Culloden, the French had given refuge to many an exiled Scot, saving countless lives from the wrath of Cumberland.

Even now France sheltered the rightful heir to the throne, bonnie Charles Stuart. Every true Scotsman owed the French a debt. Aye, it was a devil’s bargain that had spared Morgan and his brothers the gallows. Father Delavay, the French priest Iain had kidnapped last year when he’d had need of a priest to marry him and Annie, said the sin was not theirs but Wentworth’s. And yet absolution stuck in Morgan’s throat, for it was not bloody Wentworth who pulled the trigger on his rifle, but he himself. If anything gave him peace, it was knowing that Iain was now out of the fray, settled on the MacKinnon farm with Annie and little Iain, the firstborn of a new generation of MacKinnons.

Wentworth had released Iain from service, not because he’d wished to spare Iain, but because he was besotted with Annie. Whatever the cause for Wentworth’s mercy, Morgan was grateful. He’d never have found the courage to face Annie had Iain been slain in battle—or worse—taken captive.

Morgan saw something move in the dark forest below, heard the slow click of rifles being cocked around him, and felt a warm swell of pride. He rarely needed to give orders. Having fought side by side for so long, the Rangers thought and moved as one. There were no better fighters in the colonies, no men better suited to the hardship of this war. ’Twas an honor to lead them, as Iain had done afore him.

Morgan closed the spying glass, raised his rifle, cocked it. But it was not French scouts who emerged from the green wall of forest, but Captain Joseph’s warriors, eighty men in black and white war paint moving swiftly and silently through the shadows.

They’d been watching the Rangers’ west flank on the long march northward and had gone on to scout out the French sentries while Morgan and his men surveyed the fort from above.

Morgan lowered his rifle and whispered to Joseph in the Muhheconneok tongue. “You thrash about like a randy bull moose. We heard you coming from a league away. You might have been shot.”

Joseph grinned. “There is more to fear in a bee’s sting than in your muskets. My blind granny has better aim.”

Bonded by blood to Morgan and his brothers, Joseph Aupauteunk was the son of a Muhheconneok chief and a fearsome warrior. He and his father had come to the MacKinnon farm, bringing gifts of dried corn and venison that had helped Morgan and his family survive their first bitter winter of exile in the colonies.

Though Morgan’s mother—God rest her soul—had at first been terrified of Indians, a lasting friendship had grown between Morgan’s family and the Mahicans of Stockbridge. ’Twas Joseph and his uncles who’d taught Morgan and his brothers to track, to fight, to survive in the wild. As for what Joseph’s sisters had taught them, Morgan was too much of a gentleman to say—without a gill or two of whiskey in his belly.

Morgan switched to English so that those amongst his men who did not speak Muhheconneok could understand. “What does Bourlamaque have waitin’ for us?”

It was time to plan their strategy.

# # #

Amalie picked at her dinner, her appetite lost to talk of war. She did her best to listen politely, no matter how dismayed she felt at the thought of another British attack. Monsieur de Bourlamaque was commander of a garrison in the midst of conflict. It was right that he and his trusted officers should discuss the war as they dined. She did not wish to distract them with childish sentiments, nor was she so selfish that she required diversion.

And if, at times, she wished her guardian would ask to hear her thoughts . . .

Her father was the only person who’d ever done that, and he was gone. And so Amalie passed the meal in silence much as she’d done at the abbey.

“We must not let last summer’s victory lull us into becoming overconfident.” Bourlamaque dabbed his lips with a white linen serviette. His blue uniform, with its decorations and the red sash, set him apart from his officers, who wore gray. “Amherst is not a fool like Abercrombie. He would never have attacked without artillery.”

Lieutenant Fouchet looked doubtful. “Surely he will think twice before attempting to take us again. The British lost so many men!”

Amalie had heard that British losses exceeded fifteen hundred men. She could not imagine so many deaths. In all, the French had lost a hundred with another three hundred wounded, and that had seemed devastating. And yet, Amalie had overheard Bourlamaque call those casualties light.

Lieutenant Durand took a sip of wine. “How can they dare to plan another attack after having been defeated so resoundingly?”

“That resounding defeat is exactly why Amherst will attack.” Bourlamaque fixed both Fouchet and Durand with a grave eye. “For the sake of British pride, he will try to capture the fort this summer.”

Lieutenant Rillieux leaned back in his chair, his face a wide grin. Alone amongst the younger officers, who favored their natural hair, he wore a powdered wig, the white a marked contrast to his olive skin and dark brows. “Let him do his worst.”

Amalie stifled a gasp. How could he tempt fate in such a way when it meant the deaths of his own men? He’d do far better to pray for peace!

But Lieutenant Rillieux didn’t seem to realize he’d said something thoughtless. “We shall drive Amherst back into the forest just as we did his predecessor. My men are ready.”

“Were they ready when MacKinnon and his men attacked that last supply train?” Bourlamaque raised an eyebrow in clear disapproval. “We lost a fortune in rifled muskets—not to mention several cases of my favorite wine. No matter how well you prepare, the Rangers seem to stay one step ahead of you.”

Amalie’s belly knotted, as it did anytime she heard mention of MacKinnon’s Rangers. They seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, these men who had killed her father. Although Papa had reassured her that there was no such thing as chi bai, she’d begun to wonder if her cousins were right. Perhaps the Rangers weren’t men after all.

Lieutenant Rillieux’s nostrils flared, and he bowed his head in apology. “My regrets once more for your loss, monsieur. The MacKinnon brothers are formidable adversaries, but we will break them.”

“Let us hope so. Perhaps now that the eldest MacKinnon has been released from service, the Rangers will fall under poor leadership.”

“I doubt that, monsieur. Morgan MacKinnon is every bit the woodsman, marksman, and leader that Iain MacKinnon was. It would be foolish to underestimate him. But arrangements have been made. As I said, my men are ready.

Amalie wasn’t ready. She hadn’t forgotten last summer’s battle and feared the prospect of renewed bloodshed. Her grief for her father was still keen, her dreams filled with musket fire and the cries of dying men.

If only the accursed war would end! Life would be free to blossom again in New France. Sails would fill the harbors, bringing not soldiers but men and women who wanted to build homes and raise families here. The towns would bustle with hay wagons and apple carts instead of cannon and marching soldiers.

Farmers would return to their fields and orchards, trappers to their forest trails, wives to their gardens and their weaving.

And what will you do, Amalie? Where will you go when the war is won?

Bourlamaque, who was now her guardian, believed that it was past time for her either to take vows and serve Christ or to marry and serve a husband.

“I would see you safely settled,” he often reminded her. “It is my duty to your father, whom I greatly admired, despite his politics.”

But Amalie had no desire to return to the dreary life of the abbey. It seemed to her that she’d drawn her first real breath when, after sixteen years, she’d left its walls. There she’d felt listless, as if some part of her were trapped in slumber. Here at Fort Carillon, in her father’s company, she’d been truly happy. She’d felt alive.

She supposed she ought to marry, and yet in her grief she had not the heart for it. Bourlamaque assured her that a husband and children were the answer to her sorrow, and she knew he believed a swift marriage would be best for her. Still, she had hoped to make a love match as her parents had done. Women were expected to perform certain duties in marriage—to lie near their husbands and to bear their children—and Amalie knew from Sister Marie Louise, who’d taken vows after her husband and children had died of smallpox, that these wifely duties—did a man really mount his wife as a ram mounted a ewe?—were onerous even when one felt affection for one’s mate. To hear the good sister speak of it, childbirth was akin to the tortures of hell.

“I’d rather spend my life kneeling on a cold stone floor than suffer such agony again,” she’d whispered one afternoon as they’d tended the herb garden together. “God demands far less of a woman than does a husband.”

What little Amalie knew of birth seemed to prove Sister Marie Louise’s words true. It was not uncommon for a young girl to be left at the convent to bear a child in shame, and more than once Amalie had been awoken by the piteous cries that marked the throes of labor. Hadn’t her own mother perished in childbed? If Amalie were ever to suffer so, it would be on behalf of a man she loved. She wanted a husband who cherished her and whom she cherished in return, a man who, like her father, would value her opinions more than her obedience, who would see her as more than a helpmeet and the mother of his children, who would truly see her.

Certainly, Lieutenant Rillieux, while possessed of many admirable qualities, was not such a man. After her father’s death, he had begun to show an interest in her, pressing his suit with her guardian despite her insistence that she did not wish to be his wife. He did not seem to understand that his disregard for her opinions was the very proof she needed that they would not make a suitable match. And so she had pleaded bereavement, feigning confusion over which path to take—that of a novice or that of a wife—and Bourlamaque had relented in his efforts to find her a husband.

Yet she knew her reprieve wouldn’t last. Neither Monsieur le Marquis de Montcalm nor Monsieur de Bourlamaque wished her to remain at Fort Carillon any longer than was necessary, insisting that the frontier was no place for a woman without a husband.

If it hadn’t been for MacKinnon’s Rangers, whose lurking presence made the forest around Fort Carillon perilous, Bourlamaque would have sent her back to Trois Rivières when Montcalm had traveled north to Montréal. But the destruction of several supply trains and the loss of almost thirty soldiers to the horrid Scotsmen had convinced him that she was safer for the moment staying at the fort.

What will you do if the British prevail and the war is lost, Amalie?

She could not journey to France, for she knew no one there.

Nor would she seek out her mother’s kin, whose customs and language were strange to her. From two different worlds, she seemed to belong in neither.

The thought doused her last spark of appetite. She set her silverware aside.

“You haven’t eaten a bite, Amalie.” Bourlamaque frowned. “Are you feeling ill?”

Amalie had come to feel affection for Bourlamaque, the sort of affection one might feel for a favorite uncle. She did not wish to seem spiteful. “I fear talk of another battle has ruined my appetite, monsieur. Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive.” He smiled indulgently. “We soldiers must do better to govern our tongues in your company.”

Lieutenant Rillieux took her hand, stroked his thumb over her knuckles. “You have nothing to fear, mademoiselle. There is not a soldier at Fort Carillon who would not fight to protect you. Is that not true, messieurs?”

“But of course!” Fouchet and Durand insisted, almost in unison.

Amalie pulled her hand free, tucked it in her lap. “I am not afraid for myself, messieurs, but for the soldiers. Almost two hundred have perished since I arrived last spring. I would hate to see more crosses planted in the earth.”

Lieutenant Rillieux chuckled. “Your concern is to be commended, Amalie, but they were soldiers. It was their honor and privilege to die for France.”

Amalie felt heat rush into her face, and the words were out before she could stop them. “That does not mean France should be wasteful with their lives.”

Lieutenant Rillieux’s smile faded, his gaze boring through her. “And what can a young mademoiselle who was raised in an abbey tell us about the complexities of war? Do go on, for I am most eager to hear.”

She lifted her chin, was about to speak, when Bourlamaque held up his hand.

“Your point is well taken, mon cher lieutenant,” he said, “but let us speak of something else. In Paris, we would never be forgiven if we were to persist in speaking of so dismal a topic in the presence of ladies.”

Lieutenant Rillieux bowed his head again. “Ah, quite right, monsieur. I do apologize.”

But Amalie did not miss the flush beneath his olive skin, or the angry press of his lips.

It was Bourlamaque who spoke next. “Père François tells me the medicinal herbs you planted in the garden are thriving, Amalie.”

And so they passed the remainder of the meal in polite but forced conversation, Amalie regretting her temper if not the words themselves. Bourlamaque, Fouchet, and Durand spoke on topics they seemed to think might interest a woman—the uses of herbs, the new vestments Amalie had sewn for Père François, the weather—while Lieutenant Rillieux looked bored. The last course had just been cleared away when she heard it.

The sharp retort of musket fire.

Then the front door flew open and a young sergeant dashed inside, a look of excitement on his face. He stopped when he saw Bourlamaque and saluted smartly. “It is MacKinnon’s Rangers, monsieur! We have them!”

# # #

Morgan knew it was a trap the moment the first powder keg failed to explode.

He’d waited until it was dark. Then with Connor and Joseph to guard the retreat, he’d crept along the riverbank with a small force of Rangers to fi re upon the kegs and ignite them. But, though he knew for certain he’d hit his mark and the others theirs, not a single keg had gone up. Now the French were alerted to their presence, and with no explosions or fire to distract them, they would come after the Rangers with their full strength.

“Fall back!”

Even as he shouted the command, the French opened fire—but not only from the walls. At least twenty infantrymen stood on the deck of the ship moored behind them, muskets aimed at the pier below. ’Twas like shooting ducks on a pond.

Morgan and his men were trapped in a cross fire.

“To the river!” He drew his pistol, felt a ball whiz past his cheek, crouched down to make himself a smaller target, peering through the darkness to account for his men.

Killy. McHugh. Brendan. Forbes. All running back to the riverbank.

Where was Dougie?

Then the forest behind them erupted with musket fire as the combined forces of the Rangers and the Muhheconneok—almost two hundred men—returned fire. They staggered their fire, giving the enemy no chance to breathe, sowing panic amongst the French, particularly those on the ship who seemed to realize all at once that they were far outside the fort’s walls.

That’s the way, boys!

Morgan took cover behind a battered hogshead, aimed his rifle at one of the soldiers on the ship, and fired, watching out of the corner of his eye as, one by one, his men reached the riverbank and dropped out of sight, Killy cursing all the way.

“Bastard sons of whores!”

But where was Dougie?

And then he saw.

Dougie lay on his back near the stack of kegs, reloading his rifle, a strip of white tied around his thigh. “Go on! Go!”

But Morgan wasn’t about to leave without him. He’d led his men into this trap. He would bloody well get them out— all of them.

He glanced toward the riverbank, saw McHugh, Killy, Brendan, and Forbes nose their rifles over the top of the bank and take aim, ready to cover him. He hurled his rifle, his claidheamh mòr, and his tumpline pack to Killy and got ready to run.

And then it came—the Muhheconneok war cry. It rose out of the forest, primal and raw, terrifying the French, turning their attention away from the pier and giving Morgan the chance he needed.

Blood thrumming, he drew in a breath, dashed out from behind the hogshead, and ran a jagged path toward Dougie, barely feeling the ball that burnt a path across his forearm or the one that creased his hip.

“A fine time to get shot this is!”

But Dougie was ready for him, crouching on one knee, his injured leg stretched out beside him. “You’re daft, MacKinnon!”

Morgan dropped down, took Dougie onto his back, and forced himself to his feet. “Och, you’re heavy as an ox! And you stink!”

His gaze fixed on the riverbank a hundred feet away, Morgan ran, Dougie’s added weight pounding through the straining muscles of his thighs to the soles of his moccasins, his heart slamming in his chest.

“You run like a lass!” Dougie shouted in his ear. “Can you no’ go faster?”

But Morgan didn’t have the breath to do more than curse. “Mac-dìolain!” Whoreson!

Sixty feet. Fifty. Forty.

A roar of cannon erupted behind him, the French firing their twelve-pounders at the forest just as they had last summer, trying to turn the shelter of the trees into a charnel pit. Jeers coming from the trees told him balls had fallen short of the mark—this time.

Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten.

Morgan sucked breath into his aching lungs, drove himself forward, hurling both of them over the edge. They tumbled, arse over elbow, down the embankment to the sand below. No sooner had they landed than McHugh and Forbes took Dougie between them and hurried him along the river toward the forest beyond.

Young Brendan clasped Morgan’s forearm, helped him back to his feet, then hurried after McHugh and Forbes, already reloading.

Killy held out Morgan’s rifle and his pack, a smile on his scarred Irish face. “You bloody daft Scot.”

Another blast of cannon.

Morgan slipped the tumpline over his head, tucked his sword into place, grabbed his rifle, and then began to reload, shouting over the din. “Help McHugh and Forbes! I’ll cover our backs in case those bastards on the ship try to follow!”

“Aye.” Killy turned and was gone.

Morgan got into position, peeked over the edge of the riverbank, picked a target on the darkened deck of the ship, and fired.

Reloading quickly, he kept up a rapid fi re, glancing over to watch his men’s progress until they disappeared amongst the trees.

Then, feeling a rush of relief, he cast one last glance at the fort walls— and felt something strike him in the right shoulder. Instantly, his right arm went numb, falling useless to his side. Something warm and wet trickled down his chest.
Blood.

He’d been shot.

It was then the pain struck, forcing the breath from his lungs, driving him to his knees. He heard a shout of victory and looked up to see a French soldier high in the ship’s rigging, musket raised over his head.

So this is how it ends.

The thought ran through Morgan’s mind, detached from any fear.

But no’ just yet.

Unable to load and fi re his heavy rifle with one hand, he dropped it to the sand, withdrew his pistol, aimed, and fi red, ending the soldier’s celebration. But several other soldiers had climbed and before Morgan could take cover, they fired.

A ball ripped through his right thigh, the shock of it like fire and ice.

And Morgan knew it was over.

He fell onto his side, forced himself onto his belly, and tried to crawl for cover, gritting his teeth against the pain.

“Morgan!”

He recognized Connor’s voice and saw his brother emerge from the forest at a run, Killy, Forbes, and McHugh behind him.

“No, Connor! Stop!” From somewhere nearby Morgan heard the tromp of hundreds of boots and knew the gates of the fort had been thrown open. Were the French planning a counterattack? “I am lost already! Get the men out of here!”

Even in the dark, he could see the anguish and horror on his brother’s face as Connor realized he would not be able to reach him in time to keep him from the swarming French.

His strength all but spent, Morgan met Connor’s tormented gaze, his chest swelling with regret, grief, love. So long they’d been together, the four of them— Morgan, Iain, Connor, Joseph.
And now . . .

Gathering all his breath, Morgan shouted. “Beannachd leat!”

Blessings go with you, brother! And dinnae mourn me overlong. Tell little Iain—

But Morgan never finished the thought.

The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was Connor’s anguished cry.

(C) Copyright 2011 Pamela Clare

Decorating Christmas Cookies with the I-Team Guys

2011-12-22T01:16:00.000-07:00

The snow is falling outside. There’s a warm fire in the woodstove and wood piled high outside the door. And Christmas is only a few days away.

Believe it or not, I haven’t done one bit of shopping this year so far. Nothing. Nada. I’ve been working so hard to get Defiant done before the holiday that there really hasn’t been time for anything else.

I haven’t done any baking either, and holiday treats are one of the things that makes Christmas special.

At my house, there are a few things that we have only during the holidays. Natalie helped me with the pecan pie. But we also have fudge, and we have Christmas cookies. And those cookies are really a very dear Christmas tradition.

Since I’ve fallen behind, I decided to get some help and decided to bring in the best emergency team I know — the I-Team guys.

I think that’s them at the door now...

Pamela: Hey! Come on in! I really appreciate you coming out tonight. I know the roads are pretty bad.

Gabe: [Shrugs, then gives me a kiss on the cheek (not the lips! Dang!)] The roads aren’t that bad. Just a bunch of out-of-state drivers who freak out when they see a flake. They ought to require snow driving classes before giving a driver’s license to flatlanders.

Marc: You sound like a grumpy old man, Rossiter. [Kicks the snow off his boots, hugs me, gives me a kiss on the cheek. I try not to let go.] We heard you needed us. A few inches of white stuff isn’t going to stop us.

Julian: [Gives me a big hug. Again, I cling, smelling man and leather.] How you been? We heard things have been pretty tough lately. Tessa sends her love.

Zach: Good to see you, Pamela. [Gives me a hug, lifting me almost off my feet. I feel hard body. Damn.] So what’s going on?

Reece: [Kicks the snow off his boots, brushes it off his wool coat.] Hey, sweetheart. Kara says to say hello. She hopes the writing is going well.

I shut the door and take their coats, then gather them in the living room.

Pamela: Here’s the deal. I’ve been working really hard on a book and have gotten very behind on all the holiday stuff — decorating, baking, shopping. I was hoping you could help me.

Gabe: So you want some lights on the house? The roof will be a little slick, but I think I can handle it.

Marc: [Rolls eyes.] You just want an excuse to play in the snow, Rossiter.

Pamela: I was actually hoping you all would help me decorate Christmas cookies.

Five men stare at me with blank faces. Julian raises one dark eyebrow, and Reece grins.

Zach: [Laughs] You called us over because you want help decorating Christmas cookies?

Pamela: [I shrug, smile.] When it’s December 21 and you haven’t done a single thing for Christmas but are trying to catch up, doesn’t that qualify as a special operation?

Marc: In Candyland, maybe.

Julian: [Nods.] Sure, yeah — at the North Pole.

Reece: Come on, guys, or are you all afraid of the Gingerbread Man?

Gabe: Seriously, I can get some strands of lights up on your house in no time. You got outdoor lights somewhere.

Julian: I’ll help.

Marc: You got a problem with your hearing? She wants help decorating cookies. Put on an apron, Dickangelo, and get your ass in the kitchen.

I lead the guys into my kitchen, where baked and cooled cookies sit on a tray, bowls of homemade butter cream frosting in blue, green, red and blue sitting on the table. Little bottles of red and green sparkles, cinnamon red-hots, silver sugar balls, and multi-colored sprinkles stand here and there. I ask them all to wash their hands — this is food we’ll be handling, after all — and then I sit at one of the six chairs at my table and demonstrate.

Pamela: So you take a cookie, choose what color frosting you want it to have, spread the frosting on and then decorate it with this stuff. [Point to bottles of decorations.]

For a moment, they stand there looking at the table and everything on it as if they’ve never seen or heard of Christmas cookies before. Then Reece sits, followed by Julian, Marc and Gabe. They each take up a cookie, Marc and Julian both reaching for the bowl of blue frosting.

Julian: Tessa’s about to have a boy, so I should get to use blue first.

Marc: Well, I sure as hell am not using pink.

Reece: Guys, we’re decorating cookies, not putting your masculinity to the test.

Julian: Your dick won’t fall off, Hunter. Go with it. Express your pinkness.

Marc glares at Julian, reaches for green, which Gabe is already spreading on a Christmas tree-shaped cookie.

Zach remains standing, and I know why. He hasn’t decorated cookies since he was a little boy, and it makes him think of his mother, who died some years past. I reach out, take his hand and give it a squeeze.

Pamela: Holidays are hard sometimes, aren’t they?

Zach: [Nods, sits.] Yeah.

I try to keep the topic light. I grab a star-shaped cookie and begin to paint it blue, dropping a silver sugar ball on each of its points.

Pamela: So what's been going on? It’s been a while since I checked in with you all.

Gabe: Kat and I are getting ready to head to the rez. She’s due in three weeks. As you probably know, if the baby isn’t born on the reservation, it won’t be eligible for membership in the Navajo nation.

Pamela: Yes, I’ve heard that. Do you know whether it’s a boy or a girl yet?

Gabe: [Shakes his head.] Kat wants to be surprised.

Julian: How about you, McBride? You and Natalie planning on starting a brood?

Zach: [Concentrating on putting red hots as eyes on a snowman cookie]. Nope. I’m not ready to share yet. I want more time with her before we do the family thing.

Marc: How does Natalie feel about that?

Zach: She’s fine with waiting. She started writing a book — a romance novel. She says she’s seen and heard too many unhappy things and wants to just write happy things now.

Marc: [Grins.] You going to help her with the research for the sex scenes?

Zach grins.

Zach: You better damned well believe it.

Gabe: Hunter, what the hell ... ?

Julian: [Looks over at what Marc is doing.] Dude, you are sick. That’s just wrong.

Pamela: You put a dick and silver balls on Santa — and sprinkle pubes? [I look Marc straight in the eye.]

Marc: [Shrugs.] What?

Reece: You know, high school was a couple of decades ago, buddy.

Pamela: My kids are going to be eating these. And their grandparents.

Marc pops the cookie in his mouth and chews, a strange expression coming over his face.

Marc: Damn, that frosting is good!

All of the guys take one of the cookies they decorated and eat them.

Gabe: Got milk?

They all laugh.

Pamela: [Stands, goes to fridge, gets out the milk and goes to the cupboard for five glasses.] Okay, you can each have two. The frosting recipe is one that I learned from my mother. Actually, there’s no recipe. We just do it by taste. My kids love it. Their friends love it. Their friends even remember it from birthdays and such. It’s basically just a butter cream frosting.

Julian: You taking notes, Hunter? You can start your own TV chef show — Cooking with an Ex-Con. [Chuckles.]

Pamela: [Ignoring them.] You take a stick of softened butter, not margarine, and mix it with powdered sugar, a 1/2 teaspoon or so of vanilla and a little bit of milk. I usually put about a half a bag of powdered sugar in to start, mix it in, add a tiny bit of milk and the vanilla and then see how that is. If the balance of the taste is too buttery, I add more powdered sugar. If I want it to be chocolate, I add a bit of cocoa powder. It’s really the best frosting ever.

Marc: Can you email that to Sophie?

Pamela: Don’t you ever do the cooking, Marc?

Marc: [Looking kind of sheepish.] No, not really. I mean... if she's sick or just had a baby or something... Sure.

Julian: You’re such a Neanderthal, Hunter.

Zach: He’s probably doing her a favor by not cooking. Aw, damn! This one broke. Guess I better eat it, too. I’d hate to see it go to waste. [Pops cookie in mouth, chews.]

We work our way through the pile, with the guys catching me up on their lives. Reece and Kara’s oldest wants a mountain bike for Christmas, but Reece isn’t excited about the broken bones that will go with it. Julian, Reece, and Marc talk about how fun it is to experience Christmas through their kids' eyes. Zach tells us it’s his first Christmas as a married man and the first Christmas he’ll have spent with his father in more than a decade. And slowly the cookies are decorated.

I do notice, however, that a high percentage of them seem to break and require immediate eating.

Then the frosting is gone, and the cookies are done.

Gabe takes Marc aside for a moment, the guys seem to share a glance, and the next thing I know they’re in my garage.

Pamela: Uh... guys? Thanks for your help on the cookies. They look great.

Gabe: [Grins and grabs a ladder] You’re welcome.

Each of them offers some variation on that, but they’re very busy now, dragging out extension cords, a timer, and long strands of white lights. Zach is working a bulb tester like he’s diffusing bombs or something.

I know what they’re doing, and it leaves me feeling deeply touched. I make a pot of hot cocoa and some real whipped cream (not the canned stuff), checking periodically, the footsteps I hear on my roof definitely not reindeer.

Julian opens the door, ducks his head inside and tells me to get my coat.

I pour hot cocoa into six cups, put a dollop of whipped cream on top, then grab my coat and head outside into the snowy night.

Gabe’s voice comes from somewhere on the side of the house: Ready?

And the house lights up, looking beautiful.

Pamela: Thanks, guys. Really. You all know what’s been going on in my life. I wasn’t expecting much of a holiday this year. You’ve really made it bright.

They each take a cup of cocoa, and we stand there and appreciate the sight.

Then it’s time for them to go. They carry their mugs inside, each sneaking a cookie or two. One by one, they give me hugs and wish me a Merry Christmas.

Zach is last, staying behind to shovel my walk.

Zach: Merry Christmas, Pamela. It’s going to be a fantastic new year.

Happy Hanukkah!

2011-12-20T09:15:00.001-07:00

Happy Hanukkah!

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, a holiday I’ve celebrated with Jewish friends. When my kids were little, we often went to Hanukkah celebrations or even lit a menorah at home. Why? Because of what the holiday celebrates — religious freedom.

I’m not the church-going type. But I strongly support tolerance and freedom of religion, which is at the heart of the Hanukkah story.

So Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends and readers. And please share with us your family’s Hanukkah traditions!

Countdown to UNTAMED

2011-12-17T08:50:00.001-07:00

Coming on Jan. 2

We’re 16 days away from the reissue of the second book in the MacKinnon’s Ranger series, Untamed. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, it tells Morgan’s story. The middle son of the three exiled MacKinnon brothers, Morgan has always felt his duty was to serve his older brother, who, by rights, would be The MacKinnon if the family hadn’t been sent into exile.

Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

In the tradition of The Last of the Mohicans... and honoring the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Ticonderoga...

The sequel to SurrenderUntamed

MacKinnon’s Rangers

They were a band of brothers, their loyalty to one another forged by hardship and battle, the bond between these Highland warriors, rugged colonials, and fierce Native Americans stronger even than blood ties. Untamed

Though forced to fight for the hated British, Morgan MacKinnon would no more betray the men he leads than slit his own throat—not even when he was captured by the French and threatened with an agonizing death by fire at the hands of their Abenaki allies. Only the look of innocent longing in the eyes of a convent-bred French lass could make him question his vow to escape and return to the Rangers. And soon the sweet passion he awoke in Amalie had him cursing the war that forced him to choose between upholding his honor and pledging himself to the woman he loves.

The cool thing about the book’s original release was that it happened during the 250th anniversary year of the Battle of Ticonderoga, which is the battle that ends Surrender and serves as the genesis for Untamed. I felt that very keenly as I wrote the story.

Here I am standing at the gate at Fort Ticonderoga.

I was lucky enough to pay a visit to Fort Ti shortly after completing the story and was given a very personalize tour by the curator of the museum there, where I got to see real Ranger gear including Robert Rogers’ powderhorn, which made me burst into tears. (Rather embarrassing.) Rogers was the father of the Rangers. Though there were other Ranger units, he codified their method of warfare into Rogers Rules of Ranging, which are still standing orders (slightly modified) for the U.S. Army Rangers today. The Rangers were the original special operations forces in North America.

I love the cover of the new version of Untamed, and I thought I’d share with you what’s different. With Surrender, I added new scenes, decompressing the book somewhat, but the plot didn’t change. That’s not the case with Untamed.

When I originally finished writing the book, I got the news that the original publisher had AGAIN decreased the maximum page size of their novels. They wanted to cut 100 pages. I told them they couldn’t do that. Period. No. So they played with fonts and page design and told me that I had to cut 25 pages.

A chunk was cut from the beginning of the first chapter. A chunk was cut from the epilogue. There were other bits and pieces sliced out. And then the final confrontation between Morgan, our hero, and the villain of the story was also cut.

In the version of Untamed that all of you have read, the villain dies in different way that what I originally wrote. That’s a huge change, in my opinion, because readers (and authors!) look forward to the villain getting his comeuppance. When it happens in an unsatisfactory way, well, it’s just not as fulfilling.

The whittled version of the story still received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which was nice. Given how popular Surrender had been, I was horribly afraid of disappointing readers. (I’m feeling the same way about Defiant now.) But I really hated the changes, especially given that they weren’t part of an effort to improve the storytelling, but an effort to trim expenses.

The reissued version of Untamed not only includes the best historical cover I’ve ever had, with a bit of Fort Ti in the background, but it also has all the cut scenes restored including the original villain death scene.

Some people have said the cover isn’t romantic enough. I think the man’s body makes it pretty sexy. But you all secretly suspect that deep inside I’m a historical fiction author — and it’s true. To have the actual site depicted on the cover, to have a hero wearing period attire, carrying a musket... I love it. I really love it.

There’s so much more I could say about this story and the history behind it. The period of the French and Indian War is a deep passion for me. I could sit and talk with you about it for hours non-stop, as the poor curator from Fort Ti discovered, after I asked questions for probably four or five hours.

There is so much drama, so much conflict in this period that it’s a fiction writer’s dream.

But for today I wanted to share with you what’s new in the story. Unlike Surrender, there is one major plot change in Untamed 2.0 — the way the villain dies. You’ll enjoy this a hell of a lot more!

Have a great weekend, everyone! I’m staying offline to battle my way through the ending of Defiant. I want it done by Christmas.

OK, so to make this fun, I’ll give away a signed copy of Surrender to one commenter. To be entered for the drawing, post below and tell me the your most hated romance villain ever.

Coming soon:

The restored prologue and first chapter of Untamed
Decorating Christmas cookies with the I-Team guys

Baking holiday pies with Natalie Benoit McBride

2011-12-13T00:02:00.001-07:00

Today, I’m excited to have a special guest visiting us. Natalie Benoit McBride and I have been trying for quite a while to get together to talk about baking pies, but we haven’t been able to work it out until today. But finally we’ve managed it, and she’s going to share a recipe with us.

As you all know, Natalie left the I-Team and stayed home, hoping to help build stability into her life as a newlywed, rather than having two people with stressful jobs coming home exhausted and hungry five days a week. Part of what she wanted to do was to bake pies. I thought we’d look in on Natalie and see how she’s doing and what she’s baking for Christmas this year.

Pamela: It’s been a long time since we last spoke. How are you doing? How is married life these days?

Natalie: I’m doing really well, thank you. It was a bit of an adjustment to leave the paper, but it’s working out well for us. We have good days and bad days, but when I think about what Zach and I have been through together, I’m just grateful for every moment, even the tough ones.

Overall, we’re very happy. Zach is loving his new job with the U.S. Marshal’s office in Denver, and I’ve learned so much about managing a household. I’ve developed a whole new level of respect for stay-at-home moms. I’m busy all day every day, and I don’t have kids.

Pamela: Are you and Zach thinking of starting a family soon?

Natalie: Not yet. We’re really enjoying what we have right now — time for each other, time for friends, time for new experiences in our lives. Parenthood can wait for a while.

[Back door opens. Zach walks in wearing jeans, a black sports jacket, and a gray T-shirt, beneath which I can see body armor. I can tell he's wearing a sidearm in a shoulder holster, too. And those jeans look good on him. He walks to Natalie, kisses her on the cheek.]

Zach: Hey, angel. Hey, Pamela. Good to see you!

Pamela: Good to see you, too.

[Zach walks off to change out of his work clothes.]

Natalie: You were staring at my husband’s ass.

Pamela: You bet I was. Okay, so let’s talk pies.

Natalie: I’m going to be baking a pecan pie for Christmas Eve. My mother always made a pecan pie during the holiday season, and it was my favorite. But I think I’ve improved upon my mother’s pecan pie.

Pamela: Did you add maple syrup to the pecan mixture?

Natalie: I bet that would taste delicious, but, no, that’s not what I did. During the months that I’ve been learning about baking, I got tired of those prefabricated pie crusts you find at the supermarket. I’m not too wild about most pie crusts in general. Rather than being part of what’s delicious, they seem like they’re just there to hold the pie’s innards together.

Pamela: I certainly agree about the pre-fab pie crusts. I think those are made of flour and Elmer’s glue.

Natalie: I bet you’re right. So what I did was stop using those entirely and begin using shortbread crust. It’s delicious all by itself and it’s very easy to make. Plus, if you use a shortbread crust with a pecan pie, all the yummy pecan goo kind of bakes into the crust. It’s perfect.

Pamela: What recipe do you use for a shortbread crust?

Natalie: It’s so easy! You just cream a cup of softened butter — don’t substitute margarine — together with one half cup of powdered sugar until it’s light and fluffy. Stir two cups of all-purpose flour together with one-quarter teaspoon baking powder, then stir that into the butter/sugar mixture. There’s no kneading or rolling it out. You just take this mixture — it will be very soft — and press it into a deep dish pie plate. I say deep dish because this recipe makes a lot of crust and you want to leave room for the pie filling.

Just press this evenly into the pie plate, remembering to press it against the sides. It won’t look sexy, but it will taste delicious.

If you’re using the shortbread crust for a no-bake pie, like a maple cream pie, you’ll need to bake it in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about 12 to 15 minutes. I sometimes take it out halfway through and press the crust down again, because it tends to rise a bit.

But with a pecan pie, the pie itself has to bake. So once the shortbread mixture is in the deep-dish pie plate, I make the pecan mixture and pour it straight into the crust. Then I bake it according to the directions for the pecan pie recipe. The crust bakes with the pie.

I’ve tried making it with whole wheat, and you can do that, but it will be drier and more difficult to work with.

Pamela: I think it’s a great idea. You turn the crust into something worth eating by itself. Who doesn’t love shortbread? But what about the pecan part?

Natalie: There are lots of different recipes for the pecan filling. It’s pretty simple to make. Here’s the one I use.

Ingredients

    •    3 eggs
    •    1 cup brown sugar
    •    1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
    •    1 cup corn syrup
    •    2 tablespoons butter
    •    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    •    1-1/2 cups pecans
    ~~•    1 (9 inch) unbaked pie shell~~ (Ick! Use these as litter boxes if you want, but don’t bake with them.)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place pie shell in a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan. (A regular pie pan can do in a pinch.)
2. In a medium bowl, gently beat eggs. Stir in sugar and flour, then the syrup, butter and vanilla. Fold in pecans. Pour mixture into pie shell. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. A knife inserted in center of pie should come out clean.

Pamela: Thanks for sharing that, Natalie. It looks delicious!

Natalie: It is! I got to test the recipe for Thanksgiving. I loved it, and so did the rest of the gang. I made two pies, thinking that would be enough, together with the pumpkin pies Kara brought and the apple pie Sophie brought. But every crumb, every sliver of pecan, was gone.

Pamela: So you got everyone together for Thanksgiving?

Natalie: Not everyone. Tom wasn’t here. Syd wasn’t here. Matt and his wife went to her parents’ place for the holiday. But Kara and Reece, and Marc and Sophie, and Julian and Tessa were here, along with Kat and Gabe. They all brought their kids. Holly came, too, and Joaquin. It was a full house, but lots of fun.

Pamela: What are your plans for Christmas? Isn’t this your first Christmas together?

Natalie: Yes, it is. We’re having Zach’s father over for dinner and gift-giving on Christmas Eve, then it will just be the two of us for Christmas Day. Gabe wanted to get us all into the mountains for a bit of skiing that weekend, but we’re staying home. I’m really excited for the chance to start our own traditions.

[Zach walks into the kitchen wearing jeans — and nothing else.]

Zach: So are you making pies or just talking pies? ’Cause I’m hungry.

Natalie: We’re talking about them. Go put on a shirt.

Zach: What? Why?

Natalie: Because our guest can’t quit staring at you.

Zach: [Shrugs] Hasn’t she seen it all already?

Natalie: No, of course she hasn’t! Go put on a shirt.

[Zach grabs a beer from the fridge and leaves the room.]

Natalie: You haven't seen it all, have you? When you wrote those scenes, you didn't describe—

Pamela: No, no, I didn’t. Ahem. Well, um, thanks for having me over. I know I’m dying to try this recipe for pecs... er, pecan pie. If we get time, maybe I’ll share with you the recipe I’ve used for almost 30 years for Christmas cookies. My kids and I decorate them together each year, and then we fight over them.

Natalie: I would love that! And you’re welcome! It was good to see you again.

Pamela: It’s good to see the two of you, too. I’ve missed you.

Okay, there you have it. I highly recommend you try this recipe. The shortbread crust is delicious!

Meanwhile in France...

2011-12-12T00:10:00.001-07:00

I'm in the home stretch on Defiant — good news for those of you who’ve been waiting since 2008 for Connor’s story. I need to make myself a bit scarce online so that I can use that time and mental energy to write.

But I did want to share some fun news.

It seems my historicals are become very popular in France. What you see at the top is a bookstore shelf crammed with copies of the French translations of Sweet Release, Carnal Gift and Ride the Fire. Here's the cool news: Those three books have spent a combined 402 days in the top 100 on Amazon.fr.

Ride the Fire was No. 1 on Amazon.fr for romantic fiction for a couple of weeks. It’s now No. 6 and has been in the top 100 for 114 days.

Carnal Gift is No. 26 and has been in the top 100 for 26 days.

Sweet Release is now No. 30 and has been in the top 100 for 163 days.

I asked a French friend why these books might have done so much better in France than in the U.S., and she pointed to the covers. She doesn’t think the original clinch covers would have sold well at all in France. But I wonder if it isn’t a greater interest in history. Or whether French woman, not having gone to grade school in the U.S., aren’t sick of U.S. history like some American readers.

If any of my French readers are reading this, feel free to post your thoughts, even if you have to do it in French.

What’s kind of funny is that the MacKinnon’s Rangers series was published there first. It did very well and so the publisher came back for this series. When Defiant comes out, I’m guessing the French publisher will be very interested.

And that is very good news!

Have a lovely Monday!

Coming soon:
—Baking holiday pies with Natalie Benoit
—More Surrender giveaways
—A look at what’s new in Untamed

What is it about Scottish heroes?

2011-12-08T10:14:00.001-07:00

While doing research for Defiant, book three in my MacKinnon’s Rangers series, I came across this historic cartoon, a drawing someone made and published long ago, decrying women’s curiosity about what is under a Scotsman’s kilt.

After laughing out loud, I thought, “Not much has changed in the past 200 years.”

It’s almost 2012, and “what’s under the kilt?” is still a question women ask — at least when speaking with one another or perhaps a solitary, kilted Scotsman, which most of us are not fortunate enough to encounter.

But here’s another thing about Scottish men that never got as much attention as it should have. A worldwide survey was done in which men were asked how much time they devoted to foreplay — a stupid term which seems to suggest that foreplay and sex are two different things. Guess which group of men reported spending the most time titillating their women? And who lasts longest when they do eventually get around to coitus?

Scotsmen.

It must be the romantic side of their culture. But add the kilt, a broadsword, a bit of swagger, and the accent — which I’ve always said renders foreplay unnecessary — and you have a man who is very near irresistible.

Maybe that’s why they play such a dominant role in romantic fiction.

So what do you like about Scottish heroes — particularly those Hielan’ men, aye?

Answer that question, and you could win a signed copy of Surrender.

Thanks to all of you who tweeted, posted on Facebook and otherwise helped spread the word about the reissue of the book. I really appreciate it! And here’s a wee excerpt of a favorite scene from Surrender to celebrate.

From Surrender:

Iain tried to ignore the ache he felt at the thought of leaving her and watched her as she went about the wifely duty of shaving him. It stirred him in a way he could not describe, the tender intimacy of this act, and he felt a kind of satisfaction he’d rarely known to think there would be other mornings like this—the scent of breakfast in the air, the fire burned to embers, perhaps a bairn or two sitting sleepy-eyed on the bearskin. And Annie.

Her brow was knit with attentiveness. Her breasts swayed enticingly beneath her shift, their crests dark against the white cloth. Her hair hung to her hips, a river of silk and sunlight. Unable to resist, he reached out, cupped a soft breast through linen, and brushed her nipple with his thumb. He heard her breath catch, felt her nipple tighten, saw the pulse at her throat leap.

Her hands stilled. “The sun is already up, Iain. We cannae—no’ now.”

“Is that so?” He did not relent, flicking the eager bud, shaping her breast, feeling it grow heavy in his hand.

He could tell she was trying to ignore her body’s response. She lifted his chin, shaved the right side of his throat, one stroke at a time, stopping to rinse the blade in a bowl of hot water. But her breathing was unsteady, and when he shifted his hand to cup her other breast, her lashes drifted to her cheeks, her head fell back and the razor clattered to the table.

His face still half-covered with shaving soap, his blood burning, Iain pulled her against him and closed his mouth over hers. She pressed herself hard against him, her hot little tongue twisting with his, her fingers curling in his hair. When at long last he broke the kiss, he couldn’t help but chuckle. She had shaving soap on her face.

She smiled and wiped the soap away with the back of her hand, her laughter like the sweet fall of water. “So it’s my beard you’ll be shavin’ now? You daftie!”

The idea struck him hard, made his blood run thick and hot. For a moment, all he could do was look down at her, staggered by the thrum of his own lust. Ignoring her surprised gasp, he lifted her, turned her, laid her back on the table, following her down to kiss a trail along the soft skin of her throat. Drawing up her shift in impatient fistfuls, his tore his lips from her skin, lifted the vexing garment over her head, and tossed it onto the bed behind him. Then he stood between her thighs, parting them, forcing her knees to bend.

She opened for him like a flower, her sex rosy, her scent wild and sweet—a blushing musk rose wreathed in golden curls. He savored the sight of her, the scent of her, his cock painfully hard and pushing eagerly against the leather of his breeches.

“Iain, wh-what—?

“I find I want you even more when the sun is up, a leannan.”

Annie felt his big hands close over hers, felt him draw her hands to her own thighs, forcing her to hold them back and apart. Heat suffused her cheeks as his gaze fixed upon her most intimate flesh and his eyes grew dark. His fingers ran lightly over her, parting her, brushing her most sensitive spot, the tip of one slipping inside her, making her moan.

Then he reached for the shaving soap.

It was then she realized what he was about. It shocked her to her soul, drove the breath from her lungs, excited her beyond reason. “Nay, Iain! You cannae mean to—!”

“Aye, I do.”

-----

And, as those of you who’ve read the book know, he does.

If anyone knows Patti P who posted an won a copy of Surrender last week, I haven’t heard from her. I’d hate for her to miss her prize.

Have a great day, everyone!

Remembering the original 9/11 — Pearl Harbor

2011-12-07T08:39:00.001-07:00

Uncle Joe Conner

Lillian Conner

Thanks so all of you who helped celebrate the reissue of Surrender yesterday. There will be more chances to win. Lady Jayne’s Reading Den is holding its own international drawing for the book. Click here to go there.

I'd like to invite you all today to join me at SOS Aloha, where I am guest blogging and remember America's original 9/11 — Pearl Harbor — from a very personal point of view.

Just click here.

SURRENDER 2.0 is out today!

2011-12-06T08:14:00.001-07:00

Today is the day! Iain and Annie are back!

After thinking the MacKinnon’s Rangers series was dead, lost to the chaos of the publishing industry, I am so happy that Surrender is available again.

A couple of you have asked me in emails what it was like to get a second chance to write a book I’d already written, and one person was afraid I had changed the book so much that it would no longer be the story she loved.

I will say that working on a book was published in 2006 was strange at first. My first objective was to decompress parts of it by taking scenes out of memories or flashbacks and making them real and present scenes. That was actually harder to do than I imagined. If thinking back to something that happened earlier in the day had been woven into Annie’s or Iain’s thoughts in a scene, and I removed that and put it in the present tense on stage, then what happened to the original scene?

I gained an appreciation for how tightly written the story was. Still, I found ways to make it work that I really liked and which solved a couple of problems that had been there before.

As for changing the story too much, I am not George Lucas. I did not take Surrender and fill it with stuff that just didn't need to be there. (I am so a fan of the original Star Wars films and so not a fan of the redone ones with their endless unnecessary CG creatures.) No CG creatures in Surrender!

It is the same story with the same plot. The only difference is that there are a few new scenes, an extended scene — and the entire thing has been re-edited. I’m a better writer than I was today. When I found ways to make the prose tighter or to eliminate a repetitive word or change something that could have sounded better, then I did it.

One big change, from my perspective, was changing the name of the fort from Fort Elizabeth, which it was in the original published edition, to Fort Edward, the name of the real fort where the Rangers, the country’s original special ops team, encamped.

Fort Edward is now a town, and the good people of Fort Edward were less than enthusiastic about their town disappearing from its own history. I can’t blame them. The third largest city in the Colonies during the French & Indian War, it is now a very tiny town the significance of which is almost forgotten. I didn’t want to be a part of helping the nation to forget Fort Edward. So now it’s Fort Edward and Ranger Island. (See recent blog post for sat images of both.)

Rather than sharing an excerpt, which I’ve already done, I wanted to share the dedication and acknowledgments because they’re really important this time around.

DEDICATION

Withlove for my sons, Alec and Benjamin. You will always be the best and mostimportant thing I have ever done.

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Withspecial thanks to Catrìona Mary Mac Kirnan for giving Iain and his brotherstheir Scottish Gaelic voice; Gary Zaboly for his meticulous drawings andresearch; Eileen Hannay for answering ten thousand questions and sharing themagic of Rogers Island with me; and Timothy Todish for his work on RobertRogers’ journals. This series would not be the same without you.

I’dlike to thank Natasha Kern for her tireless support, and Cindy Hwang, myeditor, for giving me the chance to revisit this series and breathe new lifeinto its pages. I truly couldn’t bear to leave these characters behind, andbecause of you, I don’t have to. Additional thanks go to Leis Pederson for her kindnessand help through the years.

I’dalso like to offer heartfelt and lasting thanks to you, my readers, who’veclamored to see the MacKinnon’s Rangers series continue. Your enthusiasm forIain, Morgan, Connor and the men—yes, even Lord William—means so very much tome.

Personalthanks to: Michelle White, Mary White, Sue Zimmerman, Kristi Ross, LibbyMurphy, Ronlyn Howe, Jennifer Johnson, Suzanne Warren, Sara Megibow, and thewild women of RBL Romantica and Rebel Writers Refuge.

Thanksmost of all to Robert Rogers and his Rangers, men who did the impossible backwhen doing the impossible was harder than it is today. They suffered unimaginablehardship on behalf of a people who have largely forgotten them.

Tolearn more about Robert Rogers and Rogers Rangers, visit the Rogers IslandVisitor Center at www.rogersisland.org, or visit Rogers Island (Ranger Island)in Fort Edward, N.Y., a forgotten historical treasure.

So happy re-issue day to all of us who have supported and loved this series! To celebrate I’m giving away three copies of the book! To be entered, comment below and tell me what period of history is your favorite.

Behind the scenes at the cover photo shoot

2011-12-04T11:11:00.001-07:00

I’m probably going to get in trouble for this, but what’s life without a little risk?

I thought I’d share with you this fun and scrumptious photo from the photo shoot for the covers of Surrender and Untamed. I know from reading comments in Amazon.com’s discussion forums that not everyone loves the new covers for these two books. Some say they don’t look enough like romance. But that doesn’t really bother me because we know they’re romance.

Call me a geek, but what I love is the effort Penguin put into creating historically accurate art. In that very sexy man’s hands is a real musket. That’s a powderhorn over his shoulder. He’s got moccasins on his feet, breeches and the appearance of leggings — think of them as 18th-century leather leg warmers meant to protect your legs and your clothes from being scratched and torn by branches. The shirt... well, they’ve taken liberties with that for the sake of our viewing pleasure.

And what pleasure it is!

I don’t know who the model is, but they used photos from this shoot for both Surrender and Untamed. You’ll recognize what he’s wearing in this shot — there were hundreds — on the cover of Untamed, which is my fave of the series so far.

I haven’t gotten my author copies yet, so my three prize-winners are still waiting for me to make that trek to the post office. But don’t worry, Elizabeth, Landin and Patti! It will happen. In the meantime, there are only two days until Surrender is out and 29 days until Untamed is out again. There will be more contests and more fun.

And then the countdown to Defiant — due for release on July 3 — begins!

Countdown to SURRENDER — Four days!

2011-12-03T08:09:00.004-07:00

We’re now four measly days away from the reissue of Surrender, the first book in the MacKinnon’s Rangers series. I’m so happy the story is going to be back in print. That means no more emails from people asking me when it’s going to be available again.

I’ve had a number of emails from readers wanting to know what new material exists in the story. I don’t want to run any of the new stuff as excerpts because that really gives it away. For readers who are familiar with the story, that ruins the fun.

But I will say there are a few new scenes that were originally presented as past-tense recollections in order to save room. The original publisher had very strict and ever-shrinking maximum page sizes for their books, and I kept pushing right up against that. I’d had 100 pages cut out of Carnal Gift, and I didn’t want to go through that again. As a result, I kept finding ways to take parts of the story and cram them into the characters’ memories, rather than having the action of those scenes appear “on stage.”

When I re-edited Surrender for this reissue, I scooped out the most important of those scenes and actually wrote them out, rather than having them just be brief recollections. I also added something that had never been in the book before involving Lord William, and extended a few scenes. The result is a re-edited, decompressed version of the story.

Writers should never have to spend their writing time trying to think of how not to write the scenes they need to write, you know?

About Ride the Fire: This week someone asked me when it will be in ebook format again. That’s up to Penguin, which owns the rights to the story now. Eventually — I wish it were tomorrow — the book will be reissued like Surrender and Untamed, with new material. In this case, it will be the epilogue. But I have no control over when that will happen!

Surrender, however, and Untamed are almost out again. Surrender will be available on Tuesday, Dec. 6. Untamed will be out one month later, on Jan. 2.

And then we’ll begin the countdown to Defiant.

I’m off to write. Have a lovely weekend, everyone! Join me on Monday and Tuesday for some release day celebrating, including contests and giveaways!

A Tour of Ranger Island — CONTEST! UPDATED

2011-12-01T12:22:00.008-07:00

Who wants to go with me to visit Fort Elizabeth/Fort Edward and Ranger Island? Grab your soft drinks and Doritos because today we’re taking a MacKinnon’s Rangers road trip!

OK, really we’re just taking advantage of Google Earth. I wanted to share with you a bird’s eye view of this part of New York that has become so special to me through the years — Fort Edward and Rogers Island. It occurs to me that this is kind of silly because I have actually on-the-ground images of all of these things taken from my trips to Fort Edward. But somehow it felt like I was taking you there with me when I discovered last night that I could actually look at Rogers Island via Google.

In the original published versions of Surrender and Untamed, I changed their names to Fort Elizabeth and Ranger Island. In the new author’s cut of Surrender and Untamed — Surrender is out in five days!!! — I’ve changed Fort Elizabeth to Fort Edward but left Ranger Island because then everyone just wonders who Rogers is (a good thing to wonder, by the way). This made some folks in Fort Edward happy, because they live in one of the most important historic places in the United States — and no one has ever heard of them. And then a novelist writes a story about them, but calls them something else...

You can see how they might not like that so very much.

Without further ado, let’s rev the engine and hit the highway.

At top, you get a good overview of Ranger Island/Rogers Island. It sits in the middle of the Hudson River near the Great Carrying Place where Native people had to get out of their canoes and portage for a time. Fort Edward stood to the right of Rogers Island. The whole area is now the town of Fort Edward, but the fort itself stood not where the red dot is, but more where Highway 4 jogs to the right across from the island.

Think of the fort with a wide open plain in front of it used for drills. Beyond that on all sides is forest. Off to the left of the island and to the northeast stood a royal block house, completed in 1758 — I am winging the history, by the way, but I think that’s right — which made this spot the most heavily fortified British military position in North America.

In other words, what you are looking at is arguably the most important spot for the British during the French and Indian War. (Fort Pitt, featured in Ride the Fire, and Fort Detroit were also important).

But let’s move in closer and let the veil of history rise, giving us a peek back at the world of Iain, Morgan and Connor MacKinnon, and their adversary, Lord William Wentworth...

We come in from Albany, a port city that until recently belonged to the Dutch. We see mighty Fort Edward standing near that dark patch (center right) with the Union Flag flying from one of the fort’s bastions. There, in the river we see a long, narrow island, Ranger Island, that bustles with activity.

Ranger Island is connected to the fort by a bateau bridge that stands about in the middle of the photo there. Made of small boats, or bateaux, that have been lashed together and covered with planks that are also lashed together, it gives the Rangers a way to get to the plain north of the fort to practice shooting at marks, which they do frequently.

In the winter, ice floes sometimes clog the Hudson, and the bridge would have been relatively easy to remove to prevent the floes from crushing it or damming the river and flooding the island (which happened often anyway).

Let’s move in closer...

Here you can see the actual site of the Rangers’ encampment. The three white squares are excavated Ranger cabins that would have been used by enlisted men. They stood in rows, sharing walls with one another. The two larger white squares are covered excavations of officers’ cabins. In one, a brass compass was found. I have a replica of that compass, which I purchased at the Rogers Island Visitor Center.

If you look to the upper left, you'll see a square marked out with a low wall of stone. That is a cemetery for fallen Rangers.

A moment of silence please...

Let’s take a walk south, past fields where Rangers grew their food, great piles of wood used for cooking and heating, and pens and paddocks of animals used for food to a sad place, a place where there is much suffering — the smallpox hospital. It is believed to have stood near that pine tree in the center of the image.

Smallpox was still a deadly scourge in those days with very few people being inoculated against it, inoculation being something relatively new and deadly in and of itself at times.

Soldiers from the fort and Rangers found to have smallpox were placed in the smallpox hospital, isolated from the rest of the fort — except that their friends could come and visit. Not exactly quarantine by modern standards, which demonstrates a lack of understanding when it comes to infection control.

Here’s one last glimpse down at Ranger camp. The whipping post stood on the western edge of the island, toward your left, not far from the cabins. The small parade where the rangers mustered must have been near the cemetery. The officers’ necessaries were on the eastern edge of the island, the enlisted men’s on the right.

Think about this for a moment. Think 253 years ago when this would have been one of the most dangerous places on earth.

Now imagine rows of cabins, men busy repairing and caring for their gear, a great forest all around them. Tomorrow they leave on a mission. Major Iain MacKinnon is leading them northward to spy on Fort Carillon and see what Montcalm is doing. The men, all sons of Culloden or stubborn Irish, trust him. They’ve fought with him since ’55 when Wentworth forced him to choose between being hanged or fighting for Britain.

They know from experience that anything could happen — ambuscade, sickness, injury, dangerous shifts in the weather. Some will not return alive.

On the way back, something unexpected will happen that will change Iain MacKinnon’s life forever.

EXCITING UPDATE: Eileen Hannay of the Rogers Island Visitor Center posted a link on my Facebook page. I encourage everyone to read this. You’ll get a quick overview of the real history of this site as well as some very exciting news pertaining to archaeological excavations on the island. Click here to read all about it, and come back and chat with me.

To see images from the ground, look for the In Search of MacKinnon’s Rangers slide show on my blog down on the right-hand side.

Now for the contest:

Comment below on my blog and your name will be entered to win a signed copy of the new reissued version of Surrender, in stores on Tuesday. And if you care to share any Ranger lore, please feel free! I’ll be giving away two books on Friday. (The author copies aren’t actually here yet, but I’ll save your addresses until they are. Not my fault!)

The Best of Iain MacKinnon

2011-11-28T00:14:00.005-07:00

While we’re all enduring the countdown to the release of the author’s cut of Surrender, I thought I would share with you my favorite quotes from the story.

Sometimes when I’m writing, I find myself putting words on the page that make me laugh or touch me or that seem like the kind of think readers will remember even after they finished the book. And then I wonder if readers actually do notice and appreciate the things I think are special in a story.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share with you my 10 favorite quotes from Surrender. Those of you who’ve read the book can tell me whether they resonate with your favorite quotes, while those of you who haven’t can just endure the torment of being teased in tiny tidbits.

I’ve excluded favorite quotes that would give away plot, so there are other quotes not included here. Also, in a couple of instances, I’ve had to include the set-up so that Iain’s words are presented in context and make sense.

Ready?

Here are my favorite quotes from Iain MacKinnon in the order they appear in the story:

“Your men will no’ strike him again, or I’ll show you just how much barbarian blood runs in my veins!”

~~~

“Kickin’ a man in the stones is a strange way to thank him for savin’ your life, lass.”

~~~

“’Tis a remedy made by the old grannies of the Muhheconneok people. Try though I might to get those old women to yield their secrets, they tell me I am only a man and that I should fetch more meat and ask fewer questions.”

~~~

“If they didna shoot us outright, they’d have taken us prisoner and interrogated us both. If their captain were an honorable man, he’d have protected you from his men until you could be traded back to the redcoats for a French prisoner. If no’, I suspect they’d have passed you around like a flask of rum. After that, lass, I dinnae think it would much have mattered.”

~~~

“When a man looks into a woman’s eyes, lass, he doesna want to see the horrors he has kent written there. He wants to see joy and warmth and some measure of innocence. ’Tis the natural duty and desire of a man to protect his woman and children from the world’s bitterness.”

~~~

“You’d tempt a saint, lass. But I am no’ a saint.”

~~~

“I ken why they died!” Iain’s temper snapped. “I will live wi’ that anguish for the rest of my life. But you were no’ there. You didna see her spill out of the forest at my feet. You didna watch her fightin’ wi’ all she had to stay alive. If I’d have left her to be raped and murdered, I’d no’ be able to live wi’ myself.”

[And a couple of lines later]

“Dinnae try to tell me the cost of war, pretty wee prince! While you sit in here wi’ your brandy and warm fire, my men and I live and breathe war. Hang me if you wish. Flay the skin off my back. But I could no more have left her to be murdered than I could have killed her myself.”

~~~

“You tell them I’ll slit any man who dishonors her from brow to balls, and that includes Wentworth. While she is here, she is under my protection.”

~~~

Iain spoke to his men, a grin on his face. “Morn’, boys. I heard you had a bit of a collieshangie in the night. Sorry to wake you so early.”

~~~

“You are far more than your maidenhead, Annie, but you dinnae need to explain. I have nothin’ to offer a woman, and you deserve the love and protection of a husband. I wouldna send you to your marriage bed feelin’ shame.”

~~~

"That’s the sixth kiss you’ve stolen from me!”

“So you’re keepin’ a tally, are you, lass?” Iain grinned. “Forgi’e me for sayin’ so, but it seems to me you stole that one right back. Or was that someone else’s tongue in my mouth?”

~~~

“Nay, Annie. You’re right about me. I am a barbarian. If you stay, ’tis only a matter of time before I come to your bed and steal far more than a kiss. You ken it as well as I. Aye, I can feel it in the way your heart is beatin’. If you stay here, you and I will lie together — as sure as the sun rises.”

~~~

She reached up, held his face between her palms. "How can I help but fret? You live wi' death on your heels."

 "For your sake, lass, I promise to stay one step ahead.”

~~~

“Forgi’e me, Father, for I’m about to sin.”

~~~

“You think to judge me, MacKinnon? I’ve littered the ground wi’ the corpses of men like you.”

Iain raised his blade and smiled. “You’ve never met a man like me.”

For me, that last line has always summed up Iain and his brothers — that new breed of men created by life on the frontier. Born in Scotland, raised to manhood among the Mahican, they are a mix of Highlander and Indian warrior. I’ve loved writing this series, and I’m so glad so many of you have loved it, too.

I hope you enjoyed the quotes!

Only 9 days until Iain and Annie story starts again!

Lady Anne's World — A MacKinnon’s Rangers special

2011-11-25T00:00:00.001-07:00

With the reissue of Surrender only 12 days away, I thought I would share with you a little bit about the world of Lady Anne, the book’s heroine. She's one of my favorite heroines, in part because of how strong she is and how determined she is to survive. So here’s a look at the world of Lady Anne.... Enjoy!

Lady Anne Burness Campbell was born in 1740 to the Earl of Rothesay and his wife, Lady Mara, in her father’s halls in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. The youngest child and only daughter born into the family she endured the loss of her father and brothers — Robert, William and Charles — at a young age when they were slain fighting for the British against Jacobites at the Battle of Prestonpans.

She and her bereaved mother were taken in by her father’s elder brother, Lord Bute. Lady Anne grew up amidst comforts, pampered by her uncle, living in her uncle’s halls as if she were his own daughter. Surrounded by the beauty of Bute and the Firth of Clyde, she has as happy, though she misses her brothers and father.

But the events of a single night change everything. Lady Anne, with the help of her lady’s maid, Betsy, dresses in servant’s clothing steals away, fleeing for her life, desperate to reach Glasgow to seek the help of her father’s old factor.

She never makes it.

Placed in a rat-infested cell in the gaol at Inverary and accused by her uncle of thievery, she waits in the dark for help that never comes, surrounded by the stench, screams, and suffering of others prisoners.

Innocent but forsaken, Lady Anne faces branding and a long journey over the sea on a convict ship to America, where she will be sold into fourteen years indentured servitude to a frontier family.

But Lady Anne is stronger than she knows. She will meet horrors she never could have imagined, and she will conquer her fears. And she won't do it alone.

In her future is a man like no man she’s ever known before. Armed with a claymore like the ones that killed her brothers and father, with the combined fighting skill of his Highland ancestors and the American Indians who adopted him, Iain MacKinnon will find her at her darkest moment, and nothing in her life will be the same.

The author’s cut of Surrender hits bookstores on Dec. 6!

Click here for an excerpt.

Those of you who’ve read the story have extra scenes and an extended scene to look forward to, while those of you who are new to the MacKinnon’s Rangers have a second chance to get in at the beginning of the series.

To get warmed up for the reissue of Surrender and Untamed, let’s have a contest. Just post below, and you’ll be entered to win a signed copy of Surrender!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T00:44:00.003-07:00

Sending warm wishes from my house to yours.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Menu

2011-11-17T10:16:00.004-07:00

Rockwell’s idea of Thanksgiving

Somehow it’s November, and Thanksgiving is exactly one week away. As is typical for me, I have done nothing to plan or prepare for this event, even though it looks like I’ll be so lucky as to have both of my sons, Alec and Benjamin, home for the holiday.

Benjy arrives on Sunday, which just happens to be his birthday. He’ll be 22. So we have that to celebrate.

But when it comes to Thanksgiving, plans are still in the works.

Although I love a traditional Thanksgiving spread, I’ve started to change what I’m cooking based on — wait for it — what we actually eat. Whoa! What a concept!

I used to get a 12-pound turkey for the three of us. We would fight over the breast meat and then kind of work our way through the rest. Rather than buy a whole turkey, I started buying just a turkey breast. It eliminates waste and leaves more room in the fridge. The only trouble with this is that most turkey breasts are about 7 pounds, and part of that is bone. That doesn’t leave much in the way of leftovers.

I thought I’d be clever this year and order a big, fat turkey breast, but the woman at the butcher shop told me that turkey breasts only come in 7- to 8-pound sizes. Frustrated, I explained the situation to her, and she came up with this groundbreaking solution: buy TWO!

My family at Thanksgiving when I was about 9 years old.

So this year, I’m going to buy and brine two turkey breasts so that we’ll have lots of leftovers. Here’s what’s on the rest of our menu:

Tray of munchables, like olives, radishes, celery sticks, Italian peppers — This keeps hungry young men from bugging the cook.

Mashed potatoes — Greatest food invention ever.

Stuffing — Not inside the bird, obviously. With potatoes, we don’t really need it, but what is Thanksgiving without stuffing?

Some kind of squash — I have acorn and delicatta left from my garden. I steam delicatta but bake acorn squash.

Green Beans — I usually just steam them but this year I might mix them with steamed golden beats.

Broccoli or Brussel sprouts — We love both in this house, and I saw a cool recipe for oven roasting Brussel sprout halves after stirring them in a mix of apple cider vinegar, olive oil and spices.

Cranberry sauce — Nothing from a can, thank you. I make my own from fresh berries. It’s easy and tastes so much better. Plus, you can cut back on the sugar.

And for the grand finale, a homemade Pecan Pie and my first attempt ever at Maple Cream Pie, something Benjy learned to love from his years in college in upstate New York.

I’m going to be back, probably this weekend, to discuss pie-making with Natalie Benoit McBride — the heroine from Breaking Point. This is her first Thanksgiving as a married woman, and she’s pulling out the stops to make it special and romantic for herself and her husband, Zach McBride. They definitely have a lot to be thankful for this year. I had hoped to bring Dessert Diva in from the newspaper to make pies with Natalie, but that never worked out, so you’re stuck with me.

Speaking of Breaking Point, it was named one of the top 10 romances both under books and Kindle romance of 2011 by Amazon.com — a huge honor and a thrill. Right now, you can vote for Breaking Point in the Goodreads Choice Awards, where it has made the semifinal rounds and faces some amazing competition. Click here to vote, and thank you so much for your support!

10 Things I Love About Writing Colonial History

2011-11-15T09:59:00.008-07:00

This year, it’s a Colonial Christmas for me. Not only is Surrender being reissued a few weeks before Christmas, but I’ll be finishing Defiant right around the holiday. I’ll do a post soon about Colonial Christmas traditions. But for today, I thought I’d share with you why I love writing Colonial American romance.

And I do love it.

Although I do intend to try my hand at a few other periods of history, the one I enjoy most is America’s colonial history. Here’s are 10 reasons why:

10. There was no television. People turned to one another for entertainment, reading aloud, telling stories from memory, playing music, singing songs together at night.

9. It was the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, with science supplanting religious hatreds, Church control and medievalism. People were free to think for themselves, challenge old institutions, and create new ones.

8. The romance of old technology was still there — the chandler, the cheeser, the seamstress, the vintner, the milliner, the butcher, the rope maker, the sawyer, the blacksmith, the baker, the fish monger, the cooper, the poulterer and on and on.

7. The mix of cultures is fascinating, though often tragic. I’m not just talking about American Indians and whites. I’m also talking about the mix of Europeans, too — English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, German, French, Scandinavian, Dutch and so on. They had their own religions, their own customs. And somehow this mix of Europeans — often enemies back in the old country — managed to create communities and, eventually, build a nation.

6. The class conflict. That’s a strange thing to like, I guess, but that’s always something I include in my writing. Despite how it may seem in Romancelandia, most people were not nobility. Lords and ladies made up a tiny segment of society. The stratification was very strong in Europe. It was strong, too, in the Colonies, but the frontier eroded those boundaries, including the boundaries between men and women.

5. The clothes. They weren’t as absurd as the clothing from earlier in the 18th century, nor as ridiculous and comical as 17th-century attire. There’s something about a man with a queue and a tricorn that I find really sexy. Women’s gowns ranged from functional to works of art.

4. The women were strong, brave and skilled. They had to make clothing, cook, can, garden, treat all sicknesses — and give birth to many children at home, often without help.

3. The men were tough, skilled, and strong. They had to farm, care for animals, chop firewood, hunt and fight to keep their families alive.

2. The landscape was true wilderness, giving my characters something else to overcome besides the machinations of mere mortals. The wilderness is like another character in the story.

1. Men with muskets! Need I say more?

Only 21 days till MacKinnon’s Rangers muster once again and Surrender is back on bookshelves!

WHISPERING ROCK by Robyn Carr

2011-11-13T22:10:00.001-07:00

Whispering Rock by Robyn Carr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I hate it when I buy a book and then discover I already have it. Such was the case with Robyn Carr's WHISPERING ROCK. I owned it — and then spent $23+ to buy it for my iPod. Oh, well. I should check Goodreads more often to see what I already own. But I digress...

WHISPERING ROCK was a delight and helped me make it through a difficult weekend when I need escape more than anything else. As I told my mother, the VIRGIN RIVER SERIES is “comfort romance” at its best, featuring a town of heroic men and women who are thoughtful, resourceful and care about others more than themselves.

This is the third book in the series and tells the story of Brie, a tough assistant district attorney, who has just been the victim of a brutal rape, and Mike (Miguel), a friend of Brie's older brother Jack and retired cop who is himself a survivor of violent crime — and deeply attracted to Brie.

As with all the Virgin River books, readers are brought up to date on the other characters' lives. Carr has a gift for involving us in multiple story lines involving primary, secondary and even tertiary characters without losing the readers' interest. This gives Virgin River the feeling of being a real town (though I have to say its residents are a lot nicer than the residents of my town).

While Jack and Mel and Paige and Preacher — characters from the first two books — deal with their own challenges, Mike slowly helps Brie back from the brink, offering her an understanding that no one else can. Having been shot and almost killed, he knows what it's like to survive trauma. Because one of the bullets struck his groin, robbing him of his ability to get an erection, he also understands what it is to be robbed of one's sexuality, something that's very real for Brie in the wake of this terrible rape.

As a rape survivor, I guess I'm drawn to stories about healing from sexual assault because it resonates. Mike was a true hero for Brie, putting her needs before his own on every single page. And although a few times — the initial sex scene between them, for example — I felt Brie's healing was a little too miraculous, lacking the darker edges of reality, I realize there's only so much an author or a reader wants to dwell on that in a novel with a happy ending.

Overall, I felt Carr did an amazing job of crafting a trauma victim's sense of reality, showing the way post-traumatic stress takes over a person's life. (I dealt with that for five long horrible years.) In one scene, Brie faces her first night in a house alone, and I felt every moment of it with her. I have lived that night many, many times — holding the gun, staying awake almost all night long, heart racing, stomach sick, every noise making me jump. Even the thoughts Brie had were familiar to me. Carr really did her research here — or perhaps has had experiences of her own.

Fortunately for Brie, there is Mike, who provides her with the healing that many rape victims never receive. The result is a poignant, beautiful romance that left me smiling.

For those who love babies in romance, the Virgin River series delivers... no pun intended. I happen to love babies and have a real interest in midwifery and home birth, so I love it.

It's the third book in the series, and I've enjoyed them all so far. Listening to it on audiobook as opposed to reading it forced me to slow down and appreciate Carr's use of language more. She has a very smooth, silky style that seems very simple but which, in truth, requires some serious skill.

When it comes to steam, I was satisfied. I'm more interested in story than sex. I'd rather feel connected to the characters than watch them do gymnastics on the bed. There is romantic, touching sex in this story, and I think most readers of contemporary romance will enjoy it.

As a P.S., just let me add that Audible.com really ought to make certain that its narrators and voice actors can actually speak the languages they’re speaking. Mike is Latino and spoke Spanish as his first language. The narrator, bless her heart, couldn’t speak Spanish at all, and her abysmal accent made me, a multi-lingual person, cringe.

View all my reviews

Countdown to SURRENDER

2011-11-04T14:46:00.002-06:00

Time flies when you’re writing a novel. Now, suddenly, summer is over. Several inches of snow lie on the ground outside, with more snow on the way. Breaking Point is six months behind me, and Defiant is 10 chapters plus an epilogue away from being done.

And suddenly, without any warning, I find myself a month away from the reissue of Surrender, the first book in the MacKinnon’s Rangers series. How can that be? Surrender wasn’t slated for release until...

December 6!

Well, now that’s just a month away.

I haven’t had a historical romance out since Untamed was released in 2008. My historical readers — bless them! — are the most patient people in the world. They’ve put up with this long wait while I’ve worked on I-Team books. And now finally they’re going to get some attention.

So here’s a big ((((((((((((Hug)))))))))))) from me to those of you who consider yourselves to be fans primarily of my historical novels. Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long! Thank you so much for your patience!

For those of you who’ve never read one of my historical novels, let me introduce you to the MacKinnon's Rangers series:

Set in far upstate Colonial New York during the tumult of the French and Indian War, it tells the stories of three brothers — Iain, Morgan and Connor — exiled from the Scottish Highlands as adolescent boys who grew up alongside the Mahican Indians. Forced by an unscrupulous British officer, Lord William Wentworth, to fight in the French and Indian War against the French, who are the traditional allies of the Catholic Scottish Highlanders, they forge a new breed of warrior.

The series grew out of research I did for the third Blakewell/Kenleigh book, Ride the Fire. I had come across references to Robert Rogers and Rogers' Rangers in the course of my work on that novel, and I decided to dig deeper. Robert Rogers is considered to be the father of the U.S. Army Rangers. He combined American Indian woodcraft and fighting techniques with European techniques and created a new kind of warfare Without him — without his contributions — the French might have well won the French and Indian War.

Rogers created this new kind of warfare, establishing what was the first special forces. The Rangers were the special ops teams of their day. They fought by rules that other units knew nothing about, accomplishing deeds wearing wool, carrying awkward tumpline packs and heavy rifled muskets, and using nothing but compasses and the stars to guide them that would push today’s special forces equipped with polypro, GPS, sat phones, and modern weaponry. You’ll find no greater fans of the Rangers than among U.S. Army Rangers, who revere them.

I found this fascinating and thought I would create a series out of this concept. I love the time period and the history, so it really came together for me as a writer. I have loved writing MacKinnon’s Rangers series.

The first book in the series is titled Surrender. It sets up the series and tells the story of the eldest brother, Iain, and Lady Anne Burness Campbell, who is betrayed by her uncle and sold into indentured servitude in the Colonies. Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

A hand-picked cadre of warriors, they had the fierce courage of their Scots forefathers, combined with the stealth and cunning of the Indians who lived beside them in the wilderness. Battling the French in no-holds-barred combat, they forged a new brand of honor, became a new breed of men…

MacKinnon’s Rangers

Iain MacKinnon had been forced to serve the British crown, but compassion urged him to save the lovely lass facing certain death at the hands of the Abenaki. He’d defied his orders, endangered his brothers, his men and his mission, all for a woman. But when he held Annie’s sweet body in his arms, he could feel no regret. Though he sensed she was hiding something from him, it was too late to hold back his heart. In love and war, there are times when the only course of action is… Surrender.

The first time Surrender was released, it had a gawdawful cover. The initial rejected version (at top) showed a guy who looked like Daniel Boone standing in the distance in front of a village of tipis. There are no Native cultures in New York that lived in Plains Indian-style tipis. And what’s with those mountains? Is this the Alps? It’s certainly not the Adirondacks.

The version that was part of the books first release, above, features the same image, but with the model’s shirt removed — and his sexy chesticles hidden behind what I call a modesty plaid. Why in the world did the publisher do this? I believe the distributor was pushing them to create “family values” covers or some other nonsense. Sadly, the tipis remained. It was a terrible cover, and a lot of readers bypassed the book for that reason, which left me very sad.

The book might not have captured the attention of readers who didn’t know my name, but it did get fantastic reviews and was a RITA Finalist, which was very exciting. This inspired the initial publisher to reissue the book with a new and improved cover (below).

This version was released just before Untamed, Morgan’s book, came out. Ride the Fire was reissued at the same time with a similar cover.

But then the publisher started having trouble. Before I could start the third book in the series, Connor’s story, my editor left, and the publisher quit publishing books in print. Which meant no book for Connor. I was so afraid the series was dead, and that broke my heart.

Fortunately, my editor at Penguin, which publishes my I-Team series, was pleased enough with the I-Team to be curious about my historicals. She read them and decided she wanted the series. Keep in mind that it’s almost unheard of for a publishing company to buy a series mid-stream. But that’s what Penguin did.

Rather than just putting out Connor’s book, which is titled Defiant, they decided to buy the rights to the entire series and start over. This past summer I got the chance to so something an author rarely gets a chance to do — revisit a story and make changes.

I gave Surrender a fresh edit, changing the way some parts were written to improve them. I also added some new scenes. A few of them are events that happened “off stage” in the original version of the story but now happen on stage where the reader can experience the full scene and not just a brief recap. One of the scenes is from scratch and shares a key Lord William moment toward the end of the book.

The new cover is historically accurate in every detail — the leggings, the rifled musket, the Mahican lodge, the New York forest, the strip of MacKinnon plaid, the hero’s hair. Does it scream romance? No. But I hope it’s appealing.

I like the shiny, gold medallion that screams, “Includes New Material.”

I want to make it clear that this is a reissue, so if you’ve read Surrender, you know what happens in this book. The plot doesn’t change. But the writing is re-edited, and there are a handful of new scenes. A reader emailed to ask me whether I felt the new scenes made the new book worth buying. I can’t answer that question.

But for those of you who didn’t catch MacKinnon’s Rangers the first time around, now is your chance to get in on the ground floor before Untamed comes out in January and Defiant, Connor’s book is finally, finally released in July 2012.

Only one month to go before Iain and Annie’s story is available again!

So which version of the cover do you all like the most?

Marie Force talks about the book of her heart

2011-10-30T19:01:00.002-06:00

Happy Monday, everyone! I’ve asked Marie Force to join us today to talk about her new release TREADING WATER. During the months that I’ve known Marie, she’s talked repeatedly about this book and how it is the book of her life. I found her journey from writing the first page to the books release to be very moving. I thought you’d find it moving as well.

So please welcome Marie Force.

Marie Force: Thanks so much for having me, Pamela! I always love visiting with you and your readers.

Pamela Clare: I’m so glad you could make time to stop by and answer some questions. Tell us about the plot of your latest book.

MF: Sure, here is the brief synopsis for Treading Water:

Love is the last thing on Jack Harrington’s mind when he sets out to meet Andi Walsh’s flight. Recently back to work after spending more than a year tending to his comatose wife, Jack is focused on getting through each day and caring for his three daughters. However, the moment he sets eyes on Andrea Walsh, the interior designer who has come to decorate the hotel his company is building in Newport, Rhode Island, Jack begins to wonder if Andi might be his second chance.

After a disastrous marriage, Andi, single mom to a hearing-impaired son, isn’t exactly looking for love, either, but that’s what she finds with Jack. The two embark on a long-distance relationship fraught with challenges as they balance the needs of their children and dueling careers while Jack continues to care for his wife, Clare. Just when Jack thinks his life is once again settled, he is confronted with a new challenge that tests him in ways he never could’ve imagined, leaving him to wonder if “happily ever after” is in the cards for him.

PC: You’ve told me this is the book of your heart and shared journey behind this book with me. Can you share it with my readers?

MF: It is most definitely the book of my heart, Pamela! Treading Water was the first book I wrote, way back in 2005. Jack Harrington was the first character to show up fully formed in my imagination around 2002. We had a long flirtation until I finally put fingers to keys to write his story. It’s been a long journey since the day I wrote “the end” in May 2005 to last week when Treading Water was finally available for sale. I laugh all the time at how I totally overwrote the first draft of TW. It’s now 60,000 words “slimmer” than that initial version. However, I learned from that experience and it hasn’t happened again. Two sequels to TW are coming soon, Marking Time (Nov. 29) and Starting Over (Dec. 27). These three books are my favorites of all my books, so this is a very exciting time for me!

PC: I think your books are a clear example of outstanding writing and storytelling that just doesn't fit in the NY box, for example, the hero and heroine being relationships with other people at the beginning of Love at First Flight. What advice do you have for other writers whose work likewise challenges some of those rigid rules of romance?

MF: I definitely don’t fit in the NY box. That used to bother me, but it doesn’t anymore. Now that I’ve had a taste of indie publishing and enjoyed full control over every aspect of the process and made a lot of money doing it, I’m grateful for all the rejections I received over the years. Every one of them led me to the place where I am now, and I’m in a very happy, indeed. As for those rigid rules you mentioned, I refer to Treading Water, Marking Time and Starting Over as the books I wrote before I “knew better.” I believe my ignorance made them better books than they would’ve been if I wrote them today with all my knowledge of “the rules.” I strongly advocate that authors write books they are passionate about. If we don’t love our own books how can we expect that anyone else will? The good news is that if your square-peg book doesn’t fit into traditional publishing’s round hole, you have many options you wouldn’t have had even a couple of years ago. (I didn’t intend for that metaphor to get dirty, but hey, I’m a romance writer!)

PC: Much has been made (and justifiably so) of your success as a self-published author. Certainly, you've been a huge help and inspiration for me and others. Where do you see publishing a year or two down the road?

MF: Oh boy, that’s a loaded question! In light of economic realities, I think traditional publishing will have no choice but to focus on their bestselling name-brand authors. I predict a long, cold winter ahead for mid-list and debut authors who are hoping to break out or break in. I’m not sure where this strategy will leave publishing in the long run as the name-brand authors won’t be writing forever, and with little attention given to their successors a vacuum of sorts will be created.

I’ve noticed hardly any new romance deals are being reported to Publisher’s Marketplace these days. I’m not sure if that’s because no one is reporting them or because there’re none to report, but that’s an interesting and worrisome development. Authors looking to break into publishing may have to try alternative routes to find their footing, and I think more and more new authors will skip the query stage to strike out on their own as independent publishers.

That said, I don’t think anyone should put the first book they write up for sale and expect it to jump-start a career. Authors far more successful than me who’ve been leaders in self-publishing recommend that you write two to three books before you even CONSIDER self-publishing. I agree with that advice. I also believe that quantity and momentum are as important to an indie author as quality writing and editing. Just like in traditional publishing, the more books you have for sale the better your chances are of breaking out. However, be very, very careful posting a book that’s not ready for prime time. You can do so much more harm than good to your career by posting a book before its time.

PC: So if a traditional publisher came a’calling next week and offered you a million dollars for your next book, what would you do?

MF: LOL! Another loaded question! My response to an offer like that would depend ENTIRELY on ebook royalties and whether there would be a time limit on how long the publisher would own my ebook rights. I’d be very wary of signing any contract that would more or less ensure that even my grandchildren wouldn’t be able to get the rights back to my books. Back in the day, books went out of print and rights reverted back to authors rather neatly (well, sometimes it was neat). Ebooks never go “out of print,” so as long as they’re still selling in reasonable numbers, an author has no hope of ever again owning the rights to her work. To make a long answer longer, like anyone I could be seduced by the lure of big money, but I’m far more concerned these days about royalties and rights reversion than I am about a big advance.

PC: What's your next project?

MF: I expect to spend much of 2012 working on the McCarthys of Gansett Island series that began last June with Maid for Love and continued with Fool for Love and Ready for Love. I’m working on Book 4, Falling for Love, now and hope to have it out early next year. I have at least three more books in mind for that series, maybe more. I’m also looking forward to getting to work on the next Fatal Series book, tentatively titled Fatal Attack, which would follow book 4, Fatal Flaw, which is due out February 6.

PC: How does a busy working mom find time to write?

MF: Ummm….well, nights, weekends, holidays, vacations, before work… It’s a tough balancing act, especially now that I’m running a growing business as a writer. With a busy day job and two teenagers to supervise, I find myself juggling a lot of balls all the time, but somehow it all gets done. I keep waiting for my head to explode! LOL! I’m also in favor of any legislative measure that would add a few more hours to the day!

Thanks again for having me and for the great questions!

Thank you, Marie! And best of luck with Treading Water, as well as your writing.

Now, Marie is exceedingly busy. However, if you have questions for her, feel free to post them. She’ll be checking back to answer as she has time.

DEFIANT update — Prologue and Chapter 1

2011-10-24T09:06:00.006-06:00

Hi!

Remember me?

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve last updated this blog. I’ve been busy writing, trying to get Defiant written by Christmas for its slated July release.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook know that I took a week’s vacation, planning on epic writing, only to have a glitch in MS Word for Mac 2011 destroy two chapters I’d written. I lost some very nuanced writing, which I then had to recreate, losing most of my vacation to that. But the book is moving forward again.

Deadline is definitely curtailing the time I have to spend on social media, though I have been able to pop in on Facebook and Twitter now and then. I really ought to be staying offline altogether. (See image above.)

I can’t believe we’re already at the end of October! In less than two months, Surrender, the first book in the MacKinnon’s Rangers series, will be reissued with new material, followed by Untamed in January.

I had hoped to get an I-Team Christmas novella written by mid-November, but those plans have probably been obliterated. Anyone feel like celebrating an I-Team Christmas in March? Oh, well.

Please know how much your emails and messages of support mean to me.

And now, just for fun, here’s the Prologue and Chapter 1 of Defiant. Those of you who are familiar with the first two books will recognize the prologue. Defiant takes us back to the beginning of the MacKinnon brother’s relationship with Lord William Wentworth, but this time we get that experience from Connor’s point of view. As the youngest MacKinnon brother, nicknamed “Cub,” he has always been the hot head of the group.

I started the series trying to make the heroine a tribute to Mary Jameson, who was taken by the Shawnee as a teenager and who suffered the unimaginable horror of having her entire family slaughtered behind her back. Some of the lines of dialogue are taken straight from Mary’s life, including her mother’s last words to her: “Don’t forget your English tongue.”

But it just didn’t work to have a young frontier lass in the heroine’s role — in part because Lord William wouldn’t give a fig about her — I needed to adapt Mary’s story for another heroine. And so Lady Sarah Woodville was born.

Right now, I’m loving writing this story, so much so that stopping to do anything — cook, shower, work — is a huge source of aggravation. I love the history of this time period more than words can convey. It’s visceral for me. I want to float away in it and just feel it surrounding me. I hope it comes through in the stories.

So travel with me back through the centuries to the primordial forest of the great Northwestern Wilderness, as it was known, to Albany on the Hudson...

PROLOGUE

July 28, 1755

Albany, on the Hudson River

His Majesty’s Colony of New York

“I didna kill anyone.” Connor MacKinnon met his older brothers’ gazes, heavy fetters biting into his wrists and ankles, the iron cold and hard. “I swear it!”

Iain, the oldest, frowned. “Morgan and I bided the night at Oldiah Cooper’s tavern, and many saw us there. But you left and didna come back till the morn. Where did you go?”

Connor hated that look on his brother’s face — the one that said Iain believed he’d been up to some mischief. “I bided the night wi’ Mistress Vandall.”

Morgan, who at four-and-twenty was just a year older than Connor, shook his head. “Her good man is but two days in the grave.”

“Aye, and I went to console her.”

Morgan gave a snort. “You’re a bloody saint.”

Connor grinned. “She felt much recovered when I left her side, I promise you that.”

Poor Kally had been married off to a man so old and infirm that he’d been unable to get a rising with any strength to it and had given his young wife neither pleasure nor children. So hungry had she been for a man’s touch that she’d all but come apart in Connor’s arms. Aye, he’d bedded her well — and left her with a smile on her pretty face.

“Did anybody see you there?”

“Nay, I was cannie.” Connor couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “But Kally willna soon forget who was wi’ her last even.”

Iain glared at him, his voice dropping to an angry hiss as a guard passed their door. “Think, Connor! Would you ask the lass to tell all of Albany that you were in her bed? Are you after seein’ her branded a fornicator and flogged?”

“Nay.” He wished no harm to come to her on his account.

Morgan turned to Iain. “What are we goin’ to do?”

Connor gave the fusty straw an angry kick, his chains rattling. “We should have fought our way free when we had the chance!”

They’d been near the edge of town when a dozen redcoats had fallen on them and arrested them for murder. Connor had drawn his blade, as had Morgan beside him, both ready to fight, but Iain had stopped them.

“There’s no sense dyin’ over what is surely a mistake, lads,” he’d said as redcoats put irons around his wrists.

They’d been marched through the streets of Albany, past milling townsfolk who’d stared at them with suspicion, to the stockade that stood atop the hill, where they’d been thrown in leg irons and left to bide in this close and dank cell. And still they didn’t know whom they were supposed to have murdered.

Connor found himself on the sharp end of Iain’s gaze.

“What we’re goin’ to do is use our minds.” Iain raised his shackled wrists and tapped a finger to his temple. “Fightin’ would only serve to get us all killed. We didna murder anyone. All shall be set right.”

Connor did not share Iain’s sudden trust in English notions of justice. It was English justice that had put a German on the throne, stealing the crown from its true heir. It was English justice that had seen their elderly grandfather Iain Og MacKinnon, chieftain of Clan MacKinnon, chained aboard a prison barge for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape after Culloden. Aye, and it was English justice that had sent their father and mother with their three young sons away from their ancestral lands on the Isle of Skye and into exile.

But Connor would not gainsay his brother. Iain had always done right by his brothers, getting them out of difficulties every bit as bad as this one. As the eldest male in the family, Iain was by right The MacKinnon, their father having died more than three years past. Connor owed Iain respect — and obedience when he could manage it.

One hour went by. Two. Then three.

Connor dozed only to be awakened by the sound of a guard’s voice.

“On yer feet! There’s a gentleman what wishes to speak with ye.”

Connor looked to his brothers and saw by their faces that they, too, were confused.

“Come, lads.” Iain stood. “We’ll soon put an end to this matter and be on our way.”

Connor got to his feet and followed his brothers, chains clinking, out the open door. There stood five redcoats with fixed bayonets flanking a young, bewigged British officer — a lieutenant by his uniform. His gaze fixed on Iain, then Morgan, then Connor, as if he were taking their measure, his lips pressing together in a disapproving line when he spied the bit of MacKinnon plaidie tied at Connor’s waist.

He spoke to the redcoats behind him. “Remove the clan colors.”

Connor stepped back, tried to block the advancing redcoats with raised hands. “Keep your bloody English—”

“Connor!” Iain’s shout stopped him. “’Tis just a bit of cloth.”

Connor gaped at his brother. MacKinnon colors just a bit of cloth? Had Iain gone daft?

Nay, this was about Jeanie Grant. Iain was besotted with her and determined to take her to wife. They’d come to Albany so that Iain could have their mother’s wedding ring made to fit Jeannie’s smaller finger. Old Man Grant had showed favor to Iain over her other suitors, but that favor would pass to another if it were known that Iain had found trouble with the English.

For his brother’s sake, Connor gritted his teeth and willed himself to stand still as the bit of plaidie was torn from him, crumpled in a redcoat’s fist, then tossed to the filthy gaol floor.

Iain addressed the officer. “There’s been some misunder—”

“The prisoners will not speak.” The lieutenant turned his back to Iain. “Bring them.”

Connor shared a glance with his brothers, the simmering anger in their eyes reflecting his own seething rage. Then a beefy hand shoved him from behind.

“Get moving, you!”

He stumbled forward, chains dragging at his feet as they were marched back outside, down the hill toward the river and into the heart of town, crowds gathering as they passed.

“Damn the Scotch!” someone muttered.

Then out of the corner of his eye, Connor spotted Kally. He met her worried gaze, warning her away with a slight shake of his head when she started toward him, distress on her bonnie face.

No’ now, lass.

Around the corner from the public square, they came to a grand, big house with tall glass windows, the Union Flag flying from a staff above its wide front doors. The place had a familiar look about it, though Connor could not place it. He followed his brothers inside and up a flight of stairs, a sense of misgiving coming over him that grew with each awkward step. How could they be in this bloody predicament when they were innocent?

“We didna do it.” His words were answered with silence.

At the top of the stairs, the young lieutenant turned to the right and led them down a short hallway to a closed door. He knocked.

A deep and very English voice answered. “Enter.”

Connor found himself being shoved through the doorway after his brothers, the redcoats with the bayonets pressing in behind. There in the center of the room sat a foppish Sassenach officer playing chess, his bronze gorget shining, fine lace at his throat and wrists, his fingertips pressed together as he considered his next move. He took no notice of them, his gaze fixed on the checked board with its small marble figures.

Overcome with contempt, Connor opened his mouth to speak, but held his tongue at a warning glance from Iain.

Och, bloody hell!

The lieutenant who’d brought them bowed. “They are here, my lord.”

So the fop was not only an officer, but also a lairdie.

His Worshipful Lordship raised a finger for silence and continued to study the chessboard, giving Connor time to study him. His brows were dark, his features manly, his jaw cleanly shaven. But his skin was pale like a woman’s, his hands free of calluses—proof that he’d never done a lick of honest work in his accursed life.

Connor’s gaze wandered over the portraits on the papered walls, the bookcase with its leather-bound tomes, the writing table with its lavish quill, ink pot, and silver candelabra.

Then at last, the Sassenach laird picked up a black pawn and moved it forward one space.

He stood, turned to face them. He was of a goodly height, almost as tall as Connor, though Connor was certain he and his brothers outweighed the bastard by a good two stone. Through cold gray eyes he gazed first at Connor, then Morgan. Then at last his gaze fixed on Iain and remained.

“I am Iain MacKinnon. These are my—”

A redcoat drove the butt of his musket into Iain’s gut, forcing the breath from his lungs and doubling him over.

Connor took a step toward him, fists clenched, his face hot with rage.

“You’ll speak when spoken to!” The younger officer shouted in Iain’s face.

“That’s enough, Lieutenant.” His Lordship dismissed his underling with a flick of his wrist, then turned and poured himself a brandy. “I know much about you, Iain MacKinnon. These two men beside you are your brothers, Morgan and Connor. You arrived in New York as boys and grew up on the frontier, where you spent time amongst the heathen and learned to speak several Indian tongues. Your father, Lachlan MacKinnon, died three winters past, your mother, Elasaid Cameron, several years earlier. Your grandsire was Iain Og MacKinnon, barbarian lord of the MacKinnon Clan and the Catholic traitor who helped the Young Pretender escape justice after my uncle’s victory at Culloden.”

At those words, Connor’s blood went cold. There wasn’t a loyal Highlander alive who didn’t loathe Butcher Cumberland to his very soul. Son of the Sassenach king, the bastard had broken the Clans at Culloden, then ravaged the Highlands, slaughtering all who were loyal to Prince Charlie, burning villages to ground, destroying crops, and leaving the survivors to starve. His men had been about to slay Iain though he was no more than a lad, when their grandfather had come down to face them, giving himself into captivity in exchange for Iain’s life.

If His Lordship was the Butcher’s nephew…

Connor’s heart began to pound, his chest tight.

As if from a distance, he heard Iain’s voice. “Then you are—”

The neach dìolain smiled, brandy still in hand. “Lord William Wentworth, third son of Robert Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham, who is consort to Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia Sophia. My grandsire — well, no doubt you can deduce who he is.”

A man would have to be a halfwit not to work it out.

His grandsire was the wee German lairdie whose arse befouled the throne.

Somehow — Connor couldn’t fathom it — Iain kept his tongue in check. “Why have you brought us here?”

Wentworth sipped his brandy, taking a good long time to answer. “From what I understand, you’re soon to be hanged for murder.”

Connor looked to Morgan and Iain, saw stunned surprise on their faces.

“We’ve no’ been convicted, nor has there yet been a trial.” How could Iain sound so calm when it was clear that the Sassenach had already judged them guilty? “The accusation is false. There’s been some kind of mistake.”

Connor could hold back no longer. “What evidence do you have against us?”

Wentworth set his drink aside and met Connor’s gaze. “Sometime during the night, the three of you encountered and killed Henry Walsh — the man you grappled with yesterday afternoon outside my window.”

That’s why this house seemed familiar. They had passed it yesterday on their way into town. Walking by, they’d come across a man beating a woman — a whore he’d used and wished to cheat of her fee — and had intervened, forcing him to pay. But the man had been alive and well when they’d left him.

“That’s a bloody lie! We didna—” Connor’s words were cut off as a musket butt struck him in the ribs once, twice, breath leaving his lungs in a rush of pain. Doubled over, he clutched his side, struggling to breathe.

When Iain spoke next, his voice was tight with rage. “Your men will no’ strike him again, or I’ll show you just how much barbarian blood runs in my veins!”

Wentworth’s reply was cool. “I’ve already seen you fight. In fact, it’s because of your barbarian blood, as you put it, that I’m prepared to offer you an … arrangement.”

Still holding his side against the pain, Connor glanced back and forth between Iain and Wentworth, knowing that nothing good could come of an agreement with so despicable a man.

“What kind of arrangement?” Iain didn’t trust the bastard either. Connor could hear the misgiving and hesitation in his voice.

“I’ll see to it personally that all charges against you and your brothers are suspended. In exchange, you’ll take up the leadership of a ranger unit under my command and fight for your Sovereign against the French and their Indian allies.”

Connor opened his mouth to shout the bastard down.

But Iain laughed. “You’re daft!”

“Am I? His Majesty needs men who know the land and the ways of the Indians if he is to successfully pursue his interests on this continent. And without my help, you and your brothers will surely be hanged.”

Iain wasn’t laughing now. “What proof do you have against us?”

“Why, in addition to the dead body, any I choose to offer, of course.”

And then it was clear.

This Sassenach lordling had contrived all of this to press Iain into service. He’d watched Iain struggle with this Henry Walsh yesterday, had seen he was good in a fight, and wanted Iain’s sword. And unless Iain agreed to fight for the British, the three of them would hang.

Connor’s pulse pounded in his ears, his heart thrumming with rage.

“’Tis slavery!” Iain shouted, his face unnaturally pale.

Wentworth voice dripped with icy arrogance. “’Tis your duty to serve your King, whether by your free will or not.”

When Iain spoke next, his voice quavered with suppressed fury. “If I accept, what will become of my brothers?”

Och, for the love of God! Was Iain truly considering the whoreson’s offer? ’Twould be better to die at the end of a rope!

“Your brothers will be free to go as they please, while you will be given beating orders and funds sufficient to piece together and outfit a company of one-hundred-fifty men such as you judge fit for ranging service. You will report to me at Fort Edward by August the twenty-first and serve me until death release you or this war is ended. If you fail to appear or abandon your post, you will be shot for desertion and your brothers will be hanged for murder.”

“Dinnae do it, Iain! Curse him!” Morgan shouted, before switching to Gaelic. “Let the Devil take him and the whore of a mother who bore him!”

“I’m no’ afraid to die.” Connor met Iain’s gaze, saw the anguish in Iain’s eyes, and spoke in English so the lordling could hear. He would not let his life be used against his brother. “Let them hang us! We willna be the first Highlanders murdered by English lies, nor the last.”

Wentworth watched Iain through cold eyes. “What say you?”

“Bugger him, Iain!” Connor shouted.

“Dinnae do it!” Morgan urged. “Let them hang us!”

Iain looked over at Morgan and Connor, resignation on his face. He closed his eyes for a moment, drew a breath. “I accept.”

Connor watched the joy and youth drain from Iain’s face, saw the astonishment on Morgan’s. Then he looked over at the bastard mac an uilc who had brought this down upon them. And in that moment he made a silent vow.

One day, Lord William Wentworth would die at his hand.

CHAPTER 1

March 20, 1760

Northwest of Albany

Lady Sarah Woodville struggled to keep up with her captor, her lungs aching for breath, a dagger-sharp stitch in her side. Taking no pity on her, he drew her onward, holding fast to the leather cord that bit into her wrists. Her toes and fingers were pinched from cold, her thighs burning from the steep uphill climb. Each step was agony, her feet blistered raw by the wet leather of her new shoes. And yet she dared not ask him to stop nor even slow him.

She knew he would kill her.

She’d been sailing with Mrs. Price, her chaperone, and, Jane, her lady’s maid, from New York up the Hudson River toward Albany, where she was to visit her uncle William Wentworth ere the summer campaigns called him away, when the captain had encountered ice floes that all but blocked the river. He’d tried to navigate his way around them, but he’d run the ship aground on a sandbar just off the western bank. Apologizing profusely for his error in judgment, he’d sent straight away for help, assuring Sarah that Albany was not far upriver.

But Mrs. Price’s stomach had been unable to tolerate the awkward tilt and rocking of the stranded ship. To help ease her mal de mer, the captain had rowed her, Sarah, and Jane ashore, together with a few other passengers who likewise felt queasy. But they’d no sooner set foot on the embankment than she’d heard a musket fire and the captain had fallen dead.

Then the most terrible screams that could be conceived had come out of the forest, followed by painted men with muskets, knives and hatchets. And within a matter of moments, everyone who’d left the ship, apart from Sarah, Jane, and a young boy, had been slain, their bloody scalps hanging from beaded belts.

Uncle William will send soldiers. He might even send his Rangers.

Sarah had counted eight attackers, but she could only see three now—her captor and the two who held Jane and the boy. Only rarely did the Indians look back at their prisoners, and then never with concern, their faces terrible to behold, painted in shades of red and black, their heads shaved bare apart from a single lock of hair that hung from each man’s scalp, their bodies clothed in tanned and painted hides.

And to think that only yesterday she’d told Jane she hoped to see an Indian.

How long they walked Sarah could not say. The pain in her feet became unbearable, and yet she had no choice but to bear it, following where she was led. The Indians picked a path through towering pines, avoiding the snow whenever they could, the ground slanting upward, dark forest all around them. And then in the distance, Sarah heard it — the distant tattoo of military drums.

Soldiers!

The Indians heard it, too. They stopped, spoke to one another in hushed words Sarah could not understand. Jane leaned against a tree, trying to catch her breath, her thick red hair having fallen from its pins to hang down her back in a long braid. The boy looked up at Sarah, fear in his green eyes, his face smattered with freckles. Dressed in homespun, he had the look of the frontier about him. How old was he? Nine? Ten? Had his family been amongst those slain?

The poor child!

Sarah’s mind drifted to thoughts of her own family. What would they do when they got word she’d been taken by Indians? Would Papa and Mother regret sending her away, or would they blame her again for having left New York? If only she’d been the daughter Mother had wanted her to be and not so bent upon her music. There would have been no scandal, and she would be safely at home in London, far from this wild and terrible place.

The boy moved closer to her, as if seeking a mother’s comfort.

Do not think only of yourself, Sarah, for shame!

She smiled, offering him silent encouragement.

Then their captors turned and looked down at them as if noticing them for the first time. The one who held her tether reached out, took a lock of her hair between his fingers and rubbed it, his dark eyes boring into hers. She felt her heart shrink under his cold stare, but willed herself to meet his gaze unflinching, refusing to let him see how deeply he frightened her.

Never show your true self to those who do not truly love you.

Lady Margaret’s words came to her, an echo from long ago and far away.

Then again she heard it — the beating of drums.

As abruptly as they had stopped, the Indians began to move again, dragging Sarah and the others along, faster this time, first uphill, then down, until the pain in Sarah’s feet was so excruciating it brought tears to her eyes. Then, at last, the Indians stopped, giving them leave to rest near a frozen stream at the base of the hill, even releasing their bonds, as if they knew their captives were too exhausted to escape.

One of the Indians handed Sarah a water skin and motioned for her to drink. This she did and gratefully. But when she reached to hand the skin to Jane, it was yanked from her grasp.

Her captor knelt down before her, a pair of moccasins in his hands, and she watched, astonished, as he discarded her tattered shoes and torn stockings, bathed her blisters in water from the water skin, then slipped soft, warm moccasins over her feet. His face a mask of cold indifference, he stood and strode off to talk with the others.

And for a moment Sarah was alone with Jane and the boy. She met the boy’s gaze. “You’re a very brave young man. What is your name?”

“Thomas Wilkins, miss.” Thomas gave her a sad smile, his gaze dropping to her moccasins. “I think they’re goin’ to keep you alive at least.”

His words caught her by surprise. “Wh-whatever do you mean?”

“They gave you water and moccasins, but not us.” His gaze dropped to her feet again. “They think our soldiers can’t track you if you’ve got moccasins on your feet.”

“But what about you, Thomas, and you, my sweet Jane?”

Not much older than she, Jane had been Sarah’s most faithful companion since she’d been sent to New York to stay with Governor DeLancey. Jane hadn’t turned up her nose at Sarah like the others, but had shown her sympathy and understanding despite the scandal. Since Lady Margaret’s death, she had been Sarah’s only friend.

She gave Sarah a tremulous smile. “You shall go on, I think, my lady. But I fear we two shall be tomahawked in this lonely place.”

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold slid down Sarah’s spine. “No! Do not say such a thing! They gave me moccasins only because my feet were blistered.”

But a glance told her Jane’s feet were blistered, too.

Then the Indians returned. One hauled Sarah to her feet, while the other two went to stand behind Jane and Thomas. Jane met Sarah’s gaze, reaching with bound wrists to clutch the boy’s hands between hers. “We shall be brave, shall we not, Thomas?”

“No!” Sarah cried, panic like ice in her blood, her knees going weak. “Please—”

A rough hand closed over her mouth, strong arms lifting her off the ground, forcing her to turn away as Jane’s voice called after her.

“God bless you, my lady! Don’t forget your English tongue!”

# # #

For hours, they walked through endless stretches of darkening forest, Sarah struggling to keep up, the soldiers’ drums no longer to be heard, wolves howling in the distance. But as they went on a strange thing happened. She became less afraid, as if the bonds on her wrists — and the men who held her captive — were nothing more than a dream.

Surely, Jane and young Thomas would be along soon. Perhaps they were being taken through the forest by a different path. Or perhaps the soldiers had found and freed them. Surely, those same soldiers would find her at any moment and free her, too.

But night fell, and still she saw no glimpse of Jane or Thomas.

Then, through the dark, she could just make out the flickering light of a campfire. As they drew closer, she realized it was the Indians’ encampment. Surely, Jane and Thomas were waiting there for her. New vigor filled her weary limbs, and she hurried forward, eager for the fire’s warmth and some sign of her companions. But they were nowhere to be seen.

Confused, fighting despair and exhaustion, she sat before the fire, shivering, her woolen traveling cloak offering little protection against the cold, her gown tattered and damp. She drank when she was made to drink and ate when food was placed in her hands. Once, she started to hum without realizing it — the air from Master Handel’s keyboard suite in E major — only to be struck across the face.

She gasped, held her cheek, fighting tears, part of her still unable to believe this wasn’t just a nightmare. Until this morning, her biggest fear had been being forced to marry a man she could not love — or living the rest of her life alone in shameful spinsterhood, so tainted by the scandal that even her family’s wealth could not procure a desirable match. How insignificant those troubles now seemed! Now it seemed she might die ere either fate could befall her.

Her captor draped an animal fur around her shoulders and motioned toward a blanket he’d placed on the ground near the fire and indicating that she should lie down on the ground beside him. But she would not lie with him.

And then she saw.

At the edge of the firelight, an Indian sat stitching upon a fresh scalp. Attached to it was a long, red braid.

# # #

Major Connor MacKinnon gently turned the bodies over — one of the lasses and the lad, both tomahawked, both scalped.

Och, Christ!

He’d warned that arrogant bastard Haviland that sending redcoats after them had been a mistake. War parties often killed captives if pressed. But Haviland, who didn’t know his head from his arse, hadn’t listened. And now two of the three who’d been taken were lost.

And so young.

Connor crossed himself and whispered a prayer for them, then looked more closely at the lass’s face, her features hard to see in the gloaming. But it was not she.

It was not Wentworth’s niece. He’d stake his life on it.

Wentworth had showed him a likeness of her. A small locket painting, it had revealed a beautiful young girl with hair the color of honey and bright blue eyes, her cheeks pink, a playful smile on her rosy lips. The poor lass lying here on the cold ground was far plainer with bright red hair. Connor gave her cold, lifeless hand a squeeze, then turned away.

There was nothing he could do for her or the lad now.

Nearer to the frozen stream, Joseph held up a pair of battered shoes and torn stockings.

Connor reached out, touched them. The ties on the shoes were of lace, the shoes themselves of finest leather, the stockings silk. “They must be hers. Such frippery takes coin.”

Joseph set the shoes and stockings aside. “The Shawnee think to confuse us by putting her in moccasins.”

The trick might have worked had he and Joseph been redcoats or even unseasoned farmers new to the frontier. But Joseph was war chief of the Muhheconneok people, and Connor had grown up beside him, adopted together with his brothers by the Mahican when he was but a stripling lad. They had learned to track, hunt and fight together, earning their warrior marks under the stern headship of Joseph’s father. They knew this land every bit as well as the Shawnee and could not be fooled by such attempts at cunning.

“She’ll be movin’ faster wi’ moccasins on her feet.”

They pressed on, eager to make up for lost time by covering as much ground as possible before darkness fell, following a trail that most others would have missed — a few bent stalks of dried grass, a thread from the lass’s skirts caught on a sedge, an overturned rock. They did not need to speak, each anticipating the other’s actions, enabling them to move quickly and silently.

For five years they and their men had fought and bled together — MacKinnon’s Rangers and Captain Joseph’s Mahican warriors. They’d hounded the French and their Indian allies, fighting them in forest and field, ambushing their supply trains, distressing them to the very walls of their own forts and towns. The Rangers depended on Joseph and his men every bit as much as the Mahican depended on the Rangers.

If only their men were with them tonight.

But the winter had been long and cold, and the Rangers had not yet mustered. Most of Connor’s men were still wintering with their wives and bairns, growing fat and lazy, and Joseph’s warriors were warm in their lodges in Stockbridge. None of them were due to report to Fort Edward for a fortnight. Still, Connor and Joseph had each dispatched a runner with orders that any man who could should make haste to Albany and track them.

Connor and Joseph had been in Albany to drum up recruits for spring when a company of grenadiers had marched out of the stockade and down toward the river as if the town were under attack. Connor had learned that Indians had attacked a stranded ship about three miles downriver and taken two women and a boy. He and Joseph had gone straight to the stockade to urge Colonel Haviland to call back the grenadiers and send the two of them instead, only to meet with Colonel Haviland’s scorn.

“Do you expect me to believe, major, that a rustic and an Indian can succeed where His Majesty’s trained grenadiers cannot?”

Then the wee German lairdie had arrived.

In a cold fury, Wentworth had upbraided Haviland, ordering him to recall the grenadiers. Then he’d dispatched Connor and Joseph. “Do whatever you must, Major MacKinnon, but bring the captives back safely.”

Connor had never seen Wentworth in such a state, nor had he known Wentworth to show concern for captives before. And there’d been something on Wentworth’s face Connor had never seen — fear.

“One of the women is my niece,” Wentworth had confessed, his mask of ice cracking. “Lady Sarah Woodville — she is young and gently bred. I would not see her suffer harm. Do whatever you must to protect her and return her to me. Do you understand?”

“Aye.” Connor understood only too well. Wentworth cared about these captives only because one of them was kin. “All this concern for a few captives — for a moment, I thought you’d grown a heart.”

Wentworth’s eyes had narrowed. “Do not think to seek redress of your grievances against me by neglecting or harming my niece. Stray but a little, and I shall recall your eldest brother into His Majesty’s service.”

Connor ignored the threat—the same threat that had hung over his head these past months. “If you believe me capable of such a thing, then why send me?”

“I send you because I have no choice!” Wentworth had hissed the words from between clenched teeth. Then some of the rage had left him “I send you because you are the best, and I want my niece back whole and unharmed.”

Connor and Joseph had gathered their gear and set out straight away, but precious hours — and two innocent lives — had been lost thanks to Haviland and his fecklessness.

Haviland is no’ the only man wi’ innocent blood on his hands, is he, laddie?

Nay, he wasn’t.

In the distance, a wolf howled, its call answered by another, a cold wind moving like a whisper through the tall pines as darkness fell.

Daylight gone, they had no choice but to stop for the night. They could not track what they could not see, and if they should miss something and lose the trail, they would waste hours finding it again in the morning.

Without a word, they began to make camp.

# # #

Lord William stood at his window staring into the darkness, the fingers of his left hand worrying the cracked marble chess piece he always kept in his vest pocket—the black king Lady Anne had broken two summers past.

This was his fault.

When Sarah had written to him begging him to let her leave the dreary isolation of Governor DeLancey’s home, he’d had misgivings, but he’d ignored them. At the time, he’d been worried about smallpox and measles, both of which had hit Albany hard this winter. He hadn’t imagined it possible that Indians would dare strike so close to town with the war all but won and a thousand of His Majesty’s troops billeted here.

He’d been wrong.

How he wished now that he had denied her request and admonished her to bear out her exile with fortitude and grace. But the thought of seeing his niece again had appealed to him, so he had relented, arranging for her passage northward. Bright-eyed, inquisitive, and talented beyond measure upon the harpsichord, she was the only member of his rather large and unpleasant family about whom he gave a damn.

The last time he’d seen her had been six years ago just prior to his voyage to the Colonies. She’d been but twelve years old and still very much a child. Though her body had showed no sign of approaching womanhood, it had been clear to all that she would grow to become a woman of surpassing beauty. William’s sister, secretly a severe Lutheran, had restricted her daughters to long hours of daily Bible study and needlework to prepare them for marriage and motherhood. She’d been openly distressed by her youngest child’s beauty and passion for music, deeming both dangerous to Sarah’s immortal soul.

But William had found Sarah refreshing and had indulged her when occasion allowed, secretly taking her to hear chamber music and lending her books about history, art, and music theory. He’d even let her play privately on the harpsichord before His Majesty, her skill astounding and delighting the old man. But perhaps his sister had been right to restrict Sarah. Perhaps she’d seen something in her daughter that William had not.

Last summer, Sarah had caused such a scandal that her father had sent her away, depositing her not in the family’s estates to the north, but on the other side of the world in New York with Governor DeLancey, an old family friend. When William had inquired as to the nature of the scandal, his sister had written to say that decency forbade her even to mention it. Even knowing his sister’s penchant for exaggeration when it came to matters of sin, William had been intrigued by this, but the summer campaigns had prevented him from inquiring further. He’d hoped to hear the unspeakable truth of it from Sarah on this visit.

But now she was out there somewhere, a captive of men who would not hesitate to do unimaginably cruel things to her.

As second in command of His Majesty’s forces in the Colonies, William had heard all the tales — accounts of cruelest torture, maiming, rape. They’d always just been words on parchment to him, nothing more than the cost of war. This one burnt alive, that one beaten and sold, this one adopted and forced into heathen marriage.

But the thought of Sarah enduring such a fate…

In truth, William didn’t give one whit what happened to the other two captives so long as Sarah was returned to him alive and unscathed. MacKinnon had probably guessed as much. He’d seen the disgust on MacKinnon’s face when MacKinnon had heard that one of the captives was William’s niece.

For a moment, I thought you’d grown a heart.

How could William expect a man like MacKinnon to understand that Sarah was worth more than a thousand common colonial women?

“Pardon me, my lord.” Lieutenant Cooke’s voice came from the doorway.

William turned to face him. “Yes, lieutenant.”

Cooke bowed neatly. “I asked local churches to hold observances this evening so that prayers might be said for your niece. Services at St. Peter’s begin in a half hour.”

“Well done. Thank you.” It was then William remembered he was in a state of undress, his wig sitting forgotten on his desk, his coat draped over a chair with his cravat.

“If I may be of any assistance, my lord… ”

William gave a consenting nod, his gaze drawn back to the window.

“Don’t worry, my lord. Major MacKinnon will bring her safely home.”

# # #

Connor took a sip of rum, trying to read Morgan’s letter by firelight. He knew what it said by heart, but still he cherished each word, the news it held warming him more than the fire. Morgan was now a father twice over. His bonnie wife, Amalie, had come safely through a difficult travail and borne him twin sons. They had named one of the wee bairns Connor Joseph in honor of Connor. Och, aye, and Joseph, too.

“His mother is Indian.” Joseph smiled and puffed out his chest like a tom turkey, feathers and all. “He’ll be a warrior like me.”

“She’s only part Indian. The rest of her is French, aye?” Connor grinned. “He’s a MacKinnon. He’ll be bonnie and braw — like me.”

They’d been having this wee argie-bargie since Morgan’s letter had arrived two days ago and were clearly no nearer to resolving their difference of opinion.

“It is good to see you smile again, brother.” Joseph sat on the bed of hemlock boughs beside him. “It has been too long.”

Connor ignored Joseph’s words and the worried look he knew he’d find in Joseph’s eyes, folding the parchment and tucking the letter carefully away. Joseph was as bad as Iain, fussing over him like an old fishwife.

“I cannae help but worry,” Iain had said when Connor had seen him just after Christmas. “You’ve no’ been yourself since last summer. This war has changed you.”

Of course the bloody war had changed him! Hadn’t it changed them all?

Connor had been a lad of but three-and-twenty when he and Morgan had followed Iain to war, his thought given only to food, drink and bed sport. War had seemed an adventure to him in those early days — drumming up recruits, shooting at marks, camping with two hundred men on Ranger Island. But soon those men had started dying, cut down by muskets, bayonets, and tomahawks, carried away by swift rivers, frozen to death in deep snows.

He had buried so many friends, so many good men.

When Wentworth had released Iain from duty, Connor had felt a kind of peace, knowing that his eldest brother was out of harm’s way and settled with his wife on the farm, where the next generation of MacKinnons would grow up, kept safe by the battles the Rangers fought and won. But then Morgan had been lost, taken captive by the French and declared dead by their lying commander. What Connor had done after …

Nay, he would not think on it.

He was not the only one changed by this war. Didn’t they all bear scars, Iain, Morgan and Joseph every bit as much as Connor? Aye, they did. There was no reason for Iain and Joseph to fash themselves over him. Connor knew that Iain blamed himself that Connor was still at war — and for the fact that the MacKinnon name still lay in taint of murder. But that blame lay solely with Wentworth.

Aye, Wentworth was a bastard, a true son of evil.

Never mind that the whoreson had, upon occasion, aided Iain and Morgan. Soon the war would be won, and Connor would keep the vow he’d made, settling the score with the wee German lairdie who had forced this upon them. And then …

And then what, laddie? If you live to see that day, what will you do besides drink rum every night to keep the ghosts at bay?

Perhaps he would serve as a scout for the British, who would surely have need of someone to help them make peace with the Indians and explore their new claims. Or perhaps he would go to live with Joseph, helping to train their warriors to fight. Whatever he did, he did not think he could return to farming with his brothers.

The last time he’d stayed at the farm, he’d felt such restlessness that it had nearly consumed him. Unable to sleep without rum in his belly, feeling closed in by the walls of the farmhouse he’d helped build, he’d felt out of place amid the easy rhythms of farm life and in the gentle company of Annie and Amalie. He’d cut his long-awaited Christmas leave short by two days, strangely eager to return to Fort Edward and war.

“What do you expect she’s like?” Joseph asked, cutting across Connor’s thoughts.

“Who?”

“Lady Sarah Woodville. Wentworth showed you a likeness of her.”

“She looked like a spoiled princess, unable to do a thing for herself. She’ll likely be after us to serve her tea and crumpets on the way back to Albany.” Connor lay down, his feet toward the fire, the frustration he’d felt all through the day spilling out. “I cannae fathom what she was doin’ on her way to Albany — a lass wi’ royal blood on the frontier alone in wartime?”

“Perhaps she missed her uncle.” Joseph shrugged, not seeming troubled. “Perhaps she has an adventuresome spirit.”

But the more Connor thought on it, the stranger it seemed. What was such a highborn lass doing traveling about the colonies without her kin? What kind of father would permit an unmarried daughter to travel halfway around the world alone? The sea was wide and perilous, and many who set sail died ere they reached these shores. Those who survived the voyage arrived to find a land at war. Though towns far from the frontier were safe, Albany was not. It was the last outpost of civilization on a blood-soaked landscape.

Her father might be a nobleman, but he was also a fool. Unless…

Had the lass been caught up in some kind of scandal?

The thought gave Connor pause. “Do you suppose she’s here because she’s wi’ child?”

“We’ll know soon enough.” Joseph lay down on the bed of boughs beside Connor. “I cannot recall ever seeing Wentworth so distressed.”

“Wentworth never gave a damn when other women were taken. He had Iain nearly flayed alive for savin’ Annie. But when his niece is stolen... ”

Connor let the thought go unfinished. There was no need to explain.

“She is not to blame.” Joseph drew the bearskin up over both of them, his body pressed against Connor’s for warmth. “Whatever Wentworth has done — she is innocent.”

Connor closed his eyes. “Hold your whist, and let a man sleep!”

A vague sense of guilt stirred in his chest. He quashed it.

The lass’s kin had taken the throne from its true heir. They’d laid waste to the Highlands, shedding MacKinnon blood. Her uncle had enslaved Connor and his brothers through deceit. What kind of woman could spring from the loins of a clan such as that? She was probably here because she’d bedded half the lads in her father’s stables and now had a big belly.

Whatever else she might be, she surely wasn’t innocent.

But the image of Lady Sarah, young and beautiful, was there before him and would not leave his mind. And in his dreams she was weeping.

DEFIANT update — 2nd excerpt!

2011-09-18T19:35:00.004-06:00

A few quick things...

YES, I do have a newsletter. The post below resulted in several inquiries from regular readers of this blog. You can sign up for it by signing the Guestbook on my website. Just click here.

Also, my son still has several copies of each of my out-of-print historicals for anyone who wants a signed copy. This is the last time I know of that Sweet Release or Carnal Gift will be available in print. Click here for links to the books on eBay. (Both are available as “author’s cuts” in ebook format on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and elsewhere, but not in print. There’s more on that in previous posts. Just search by topic.)

And now for news I wish I could change...

Defiant, the third book in the MacKinnon’s Rangers trilogy, won’t be out till next July. As I was trying to move heaven and earth to meet the mid-October deadline, I realized only one thing would be finished by then — me. My body let me know in a very no-nonsense fashion that coffee-fueled all-nighters and deadline stress were no longer permissable. I haven’t had coffee for a week — a real shock to my system — and I still have a long way to go to feel like myself again.

Hoping to survive my own career — and to write a book worth reading — I asked for an extension, and the deadline is now moved back to the end of December. I hope to beat that, which may mean the release date gets bumped forward a bit again.

If I didn’t work at the paper, you’d see a lot more books from me. When I was home recovering from surgery, I was able to write almost a chapter a day because I was so in touch with the story. There was no office drama, no special edition deadlines or other writing projects to distract me. But at this point, I still work at the paper, and working full time takes just enough out of me that every Friday I feel like I have to get reacquainted with my novel again. It’s really a drag.

My two main concerns are: taking care of myself and producing a book that’s worth the money you spend. And if that means you wait a bit longer, I hope you're okay with that. I’d rather have you ask me why this took so long than have you tell me that the book was a letdown.

I won’t be online much, and for that reason I also want to list those release dates again:

Surrender (reissued with new material) — Dec. 6
Untamed (reissued with 25 previously cut pages restored) — Jan. 3, 2012

To help take some of the sting out of this news, I’m here with the second (and final?) excerpt from Defiant. Enjoy!

When Connor met Sarah

From Chapter 2 of Defiant

Connor knew the war party had arrived and that she was with them. A murmur of anticipation passed through the village, excited voices penetrating the log walls of the council house, where Connor and Joseph sat, having just smoked the pipe with the village chief, an old woman called Grannie Clear Water.

Grannie had welcomed Joseph like a son, her manner toward Connor somewhat less cordial. Still, she’d fed them both at her fire, accepting tobacco and wampum as gifts from them. She’d listened patiently while Joseph had explained their reason for coming, then had insisted on the Pipe Ceremony. And yet beneath the acts of friendship, Connor sensed the old woman’s mistrust of him. She’d called him a brave warrior, but the word she’d used often meant “enemy,” as well. There was no doubt in Connor’s mind that she considered him to be the latter.

She had refused to speak a word on the matter of Wentworth’s niece yet. And there was no rushing her. To bring up the subject again would be rude. She would answer them in her own good time, for she had much to consider. If she yielded too easily to Joseph and Connor’s claim, she would anger her people, perhaps even lose headship of the village. Yet she could not ignore the threat of the British or the bonds between her people and Joseph’s.

“They have returned!” a boy called in excited Shawnee.

“Katakwa is back!” shouted another.

Connor willed himself to sit impassively, as did Joseph beside him, betraying no interest in the goings on outside the council house.

But Grannie Clear Water met their gazes, then nodded, clearly not fooled. She got to her feet with the help of one of her daughters. “Let us go see the cause for all this noise.”

Connor followed her outside, Joseph behind him. They walked to the southern edge of the village, where a crowd had gathered, elders, women, and children shouting at someone, while the warriors of the village stood back and watched in amusement. Connor knew they were yelling at Wentworth’s niece, pouring out the rage they felt about the war on her, putting the weight of their grief and hatred upon her shoulders.

It was a common enough custom — this harrying of newcomers and captives. Connor and Joseph had faced it themselves when they’d arrived this afternoon, though not to such an extreme, for they had entered the village as free men and warriors. When their names had been recognized — the name MacKinnon, it seemed, was well known to them — every man, woman, and child had fallen silent. But Wentworth’s niece was a captive, and as such she would bear far worse, no matter that she was young and a woman.

“If this doesna humble her, I cannae say what will.” But even as he made light of her predicament, Connor didn’t like what he saw. He’d been raised to show women gentleness, not to stand idly by while they were treated ill, even if they were haughty and spoiled.

Then the crowd shifted, and he saw her.

So young and fragile she seemed, and yet also defiant. She walked with her head high, neither shrinking from the blows and jabs that were heaped upon her, nor weeping. But he could see she was sore afraid, her eyes wide, her gaze darting here and there, her breathing rapid and shallow. The violence she’d endured was written on her pretty face, a fresh bruise on her cheek, dark circles beneath her eyes, her skin pale. Her honey-colored hair hung in tangled waves almost to her waist, her cloak and gown tattered and dirty.

“So that’s Wentworth’s spoiled princess,” Joseph said.

But Connor didn’t hear him. He forgot the lassie was kin to Wentworth. He forgot he was a guest in this village, bound by custom not to interfere. He forgot everything except the fact that he’d come for her — and she needed his help.

He took a step in her direction, Joseph’s muttered warning calling him back to himself. “If you want to help her, stay where you are and hold your tongue.”

Connor swore under his breath, forcing himself to do nothing but watch while a tall warrior, his face painted in black and red, led her through the throng, his control over her assured by a leather cord he’d bound tightly around her wrists. He gave a tug, jerking her forward as if she were an animal.

Connor wanted to kill him.

Then the warriors of the village began to form two opposing rows, clubs in hand, a sea of onlookers gathering around them.

They were going to make the lass run the gauntlet.

Connor started forward, rage drumming in his chest, only to be stopped by Joseph’s iron grip on his arm.

“You know they will not seriously hurt her.” Joseph’s voice was a whisper. “Do not forget, brother, that we are outnumbered.”

The man who held her bonds — the one they called Katakwa — made her stand at one end of the two opposing rows, then removed the leather cords and left her there alone, dark bruises around her wrists where she’d been bound.

She seemed to realize what they meant to do, her panicked gaze darting among the warriors, taking in the grim looks on their faces and the weapons in their hands, her breathing erratic, her fingers clenched in her skirts.

Be strong, lass.

Apparently impatient, Katakwa gave her a shove, knocking her to her knees between the first two men, who struck her repeatedly on the back with their clubs, hitting her hard enough to cause her pain, but not hard enough to wound her. She struggled to stand, only to be struck by the next two men the moment she reached her feet, their war whoops and the shouts of the crowd all but drowning out her frightened cries.

Connor gritted his teeth. It took every bit of will he possessed to stand there and do nothing. His father had taught him that God had given men strength so that they could protect women and children, not so they could harm them. To watch while grown men beat a defenseless woman…

The bastard sons of whores!

She stumbled forward, holding her arms up to her head to ward off their blows, buffeted back and forth as the men struck her. But it was clear she understood now that her suffering would end once she reached the end of the line. Her gaze fixed on that spot, and she tried to run, struggling to stay on her feet as she was struck again and again, until at last she pitched forward and broke free, landing on her hands and knees in the mud.

It was over.

Connor let out a breath, willing himself to stand rooted where he was.

Breathing hard, her body trembling, she slowly lifted her gaze, looking about as if to see what lay in store for her next, fear, shock, and pain mingled on her face, tears sliding down her cheeks. It was then she saw him, her gaze locking with his. And the plea in her eyes was as clear as is she’d cried the words aloud.

Help me!

* * *

Her back and arms still stinging from the sharp blows, Sarah stared up at the man, her gaze taking in the sight of him all at once. Though his skin was brown from the sun, his features were clearly European. His eyes were a deep shade of blue, his hair long and dark, braids at each temple. Unlike the Indian men who had no beards, his jaw was dark with stubble. He wore leather leggings and moccasins like an Indian, but his shirt was of blue-checked homespun, the cloth of it all but concealed beneath a shaggy bearskin coat.

Was he French? He must be. Who else would live among Indians hostile to the Crown?

She met his gaze, saw an emotion in his eyes she could not read. “Aidez-moi, monsieur! S’il vous plaît aidez-moi!” Help me, sir! Please help me!

Whether he’d understood her, she couldn’t tell, for in that moment her view of him was blocked by beaded skirts and leggings. Gentle hands drew her to her feet, and two gray-haired women guided her away from the crowd, one at each arm, speaking to her softly, like a mother speaking to a frightened child, their words foreign.

When Sarah looked over her shoulder, the man was gone.

As the women led her though the village, it seemed to Sarah that she had passed into another world. Small, round lodges clustered together looking much like a village of large gray beehives. Men and women went about their work, the men dressed much like Katakwa, the women wearing shirts with leggings and beaded skirts, their hair braided. A butchered deer hung from a wooden frame, its head sitting on a bed of dried reeds. Children ran through the maze of lodges, shouting and laughing, dogs nosing for scraps in the mud.

But, although people stared at her as she passed, there were no more shouts, and no one hit her, pinched her, or pulled her hair. Had the beating she’d just endured been some kind of initiation rite? If so, perhaps the worst of it was over.

She prayed with all her heart it was.

They came to a small lodge, its walls made like the others — great mats of tree bark held in place by twined ropes and rocks. The women pushed aside a door cover of woven grasses and went inside, motioning for Sarah to follow. She ducked down and entered, the door falling into place behind her.

The lodge was dimly lit but warm, a fire burning it its center, smoke curling out through a small flap in the roof that was propped open by a long stick. Mats of woven grasses covered the earthen floor and adorned the walls like tapestries, designs painted on them in shades of red, yellow and blue. Dried herbs, antlers, feathers, and what looked like a the talons of a large bird of prey hung from the poles that made up the lodge’s frame, empty wooden bowls stacked along the wall beside woven baskets filled with acorns, seeds, strips of dried meat. Raised platforms stood against the other walls. Covered with furs and blankets, they must have been beds.

Two other women sat inside tending a kettle on the fire. Both were older than Sarah, one heavy with child, her big belly protruding above her skirt, her breasts bare. And though Sarah knew she should avert her gaze, she’d never before seen the bare belly of a woman who was increasing, nor had she ever seen another woman’s naked breasts. She could not help but notice how full and dark the woman’s nipples were compared to her own.

The women who’d brought her here sat on mats and motioned for her to do the same. Feeling sorely unnerved to be near a woman who was all but naked, she settled her skirts around her and was made to listen, while each of them took turns speaking to her with foreign words, smiles on their faces. Unable to understand them, and keen to avoid seeing things she should not see, she focused instead on their faces.

Like Katakwa, they had lines and dots etched into their skin, but none of them were pierced through the nose. Strings of beads and polished shell were tied around their braids and hung through loops in their earlobes, bands of purple and white shell at their throats. One reached out, tenderly touching the bruise on Sarah’s cheek, another stroking her hair, as if they regretted her suffering.

And her hope rekindled.

“Parlez-vous français?” Sarah asked, eager to understand them—and to make herself understood. Perhaps they might be persuaded to let her go. “Do you speak English? Loquerisne linguam latinam?”

But they looked at her with blank faces, clearly not comprehending what she’d said.

They stood as one and drew her to her feet. Then the one who was with child took up a small knife Sarah had not noticed before and moved toward her.

Sarah’s heart gave a hard thud. She jumped to her feet and backed away. “N-no! Don’t!”

But the other women rose to their feet and held her.

“No! Please!” She squeezed her eyes shut as the blade arced through the air toward her chest, the strength all but leaving her legs as she whispered what she thought would be her last words. “Lord have mercy upon—”

Then she felt a tug and heard a tearing sound.

She opened her eyes to find her clothes being cut from her body, the knife slicing cleanly through her gown, her silk stays, her chemise. Fear became rage, and she fought to free herself. “Stop! Why are you doing this?”

But they were stronger than they seemed, their hold on her like iron.

Someone patted her on the arm, the women speaking in soothing tones as the blade cut through her petticoats and drawers, and her clothes fell to the floor, leaving her completely naked. The garments were tossed aside, and the women moved around in front of her, their gazes passing over her body as if they were examining a mare.

Sarah covered herself and looked away, her face burning. No one had seen her naked since she was a very little girl, not even her mother. To be exposed like this…

Then hands guided her nearer to the fire and the women sat on their heels, motioning once more for her to do the same. One arm across her breasts, the other covering her most private flesh, she sat, unable to meet the women’s gazes. She heard water being ladled from the kettle, heard something splash, and then felt the press of a warm wet cloth against tender bruises on her back as they began to bathe her.

Was this their intent? Did they simply mean to bathe her? What did they mean for her to wear afterward? Did they hope to dress her as they dressed?

Sarah had so many questions, but no one to answer them.

Gently, they washed her back, her face, her neck and throat, her shoulders and her arms, spreading some kind of soap across her skin, then rinsing it away, the warm water and the fine leather cloth soothing her sore muscles and bruised flesh. Wherever they washed her, they also applied a honey-scented oil, kneading it into her skin. And as they cared for her, their hands gentle, their voices calming, Sarah felt herself begin to quieten, some of her fear edging away.

Being attended in this manner was not altogether unfamiliar to her, though her lady’s maids never bathed her, nor did they see her naked. They brushed her hair and…

Jane.

Sarah felt a stab of pain behind her breastbone, tears blurring her vision. Only yesterday morning Jane had helped her with her toilette, brushing and styling her hair, helping her with her petticoats and stays. And now sweet Jane was—

One of the Indian women began to wash Sarah’s breasts, the startling sensation drawing her back to the moment, making her gasp.

“No, please don’t!” She tried to push the woman’s hands away, but the other women restrained her, speaking soothingly to her. She was given no choice but to endure it — the rasp of the cloth across her nipples, the slickness of the soap, the heat of the water, the silky warmth of the oil. It felt so strange and unsettling, her face hot with shame.

If Mother could see this… If Mother should learn of this…

And Sarah feared she might be sick.

They washed and oiled her breasts, her belly, her hips, her legs and her feet, which they gave extra care, clucking and frowning over the blisters as if truly distressed to see that she’d been hurt. When this was done, they bent her over a deep bowl of heated water and washed her hair, then brushed away the tangles with a bundle of stiff grasses, smiling and speaking in approving tones about her hair. And as they brushed her hair with gentle strokes, the sensation familiar and pleasing, Sarah began to feel unbearably sleepy, exhaustion taking hold at last.

Then the one who was with child draped a fur around Sarah’s shoulders and motioned her toward the bed. Thinking they wanted her to sleep, she gratefully crossed the lodge and lay down, but when she made to draw up the blankets, they stopped her, one of the women approaching the foot of the bed with what looked like small clamshells in her hands.

With no warning, three of the women pinned Sarah to the bed, spreading her legs far apart and holding them there, pinning her with their weight.

“What are you doing? No! Stop!” She tried to twist away, but the three of them together were far stronger than she alone.

Then the one with the clamshells settled herself between Sarah’s thighs and, using the edge of the shells, began to pluck away the hair that covered Sarah in that place.

“Oh!” It was terrible and indecent, and it hurt more than Sarah expected.

But far worse than the physical pain — or the deep humiliation of knowing that they were looking at that most secret part of her — was the shock that came when she realized why they were doing this. They hadn’t simply bathed her so that she could feel clean again. They were preparing her body for a man’s use.

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, turned her face away, and prayed.

(c) Copyright Pamela Clare 2011

Newsletter contest winner

2011-09-15T18:24:00.002-06:00

Congratulations to

Maude Allen!

She is the winner of the signed copy of Breaking Point!

Thanks to all of you on my newsletter list who took the time to write back. There was no way I could answer all of your emails, but I did read each and everyone.

Thanks so much! Please stay in touch and watch for news here on my blog.

An Interview with Christy Reece by Ronlyn Howe

2011-09-11T21:48:00.002-06:00

This week, I turn things over to Ronlyn Howe for an interview with the talented and wonderful Christy Reece. Ronlyn, take it away...

Meet Christy Reece, the creator of Last Chance Rescue, a highly trained group of mercenaries with one priority and purpose, to rescue victims. With worldwide connections and a phenomenal success rate, LCR operatives find and rescue victims when all other avenues have been tried and failed. They do whatever it takes, no matter the risk, to rescue the innocent. (description of LCR taken from Christy’s website www.christyreece.com ) I was lucky enough to get to know Christy shortly after the first LCR book (RESCUE ME) hit the stands and I instantly wanted more. Lucky for me and all her other fans, she’s delivered one book after another of the LCR gang and their exciting rescues. And, I was also lucky enough to be able to interview Christy on her newest release as well as try to weasel some details of her next book out of her.

SWEET JUSTICE is the seventh installment of the LAST CHANCE RESUCE series. Did you ever imagine it would come to nine books?

No, I never anticipated when I was writing RESCUE ME that this would be a nine book series. However, each time I wrote a book, I'd become interested in a secondary character, so I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to write eight more books about characters that I fell in love with in previous LCR books.

Since we're on Pamela's blog, the home of MTM, did you have any specific men (celebrities or civilians) in mind for the physical characteristics of any of your characters as you were writing them?

I rarely have celebrities in mind when I'm writing. My book characters are real to me, so putting a famous face on any of them just wouldn't work. There was a commercial a couple of years ago with a tall, extremely handsome man with smoky blue eyes that could have been Cole Mathison, but I haven't seen him in anything else. And when I was writing NO CHANCE, I saw a model in a magazine that to me was Skylar James, but that's as famous as I usually get in imagining my characters.

However, I often have Gerard Butler's face in my mind because...well, you know. (:

SWEET JUSTICE is a reunion romance between Honor Stone (who we first met in SECOND CHANCE) and Seth Cavanaugh, the man who broke her heart. Was it difficult to have the past baggage of their previous relationship and work in the forgiveness aspect?

I knew how much they loved each other from the beginning, so bringing them back together and having them deal with their pain just added another dimension to the story. And with them needing to focus on the case but battling their feelings created even more conflict.

Speaking of the case, we meet your most vile villain to date (IMO) in SWEET JUSTICE, and that's saying something because you have had some really nasty bad guys in your previous books. Dare I ask how you're so good at creating these monsters? ;-)

LOL Alden Pike is awful, isn't he.

One thing I like to do is make the mission of bringing down the villain personal to my hero and heroine. And that means, having some sort of connection to them. In all my LCR books, the villain has some sort of relationship to either the hero or heroine or in the case of RESCUE ME, my heroine just wants to keep young girls from experiencing what she went through. Using that criteria--which ups the stakes considerably--I also want to match him/her up with my hero and heroine. The villain must be a worthy opponent in strength or intelligence or both. Then I build my villain. Each time the reader sees the villain, I want something new about him/her revealed and I want the reader to be a little bit more determined to continue to read in hopes of seeing the creep get his just deserts. (:

Can you tell us an "inside scoop" on the next book, SWEET REVENGE, which is coming out on October 6^th?

(Editor's note: These are some hot covers! Love the colors, too!)

SWEET REVENGE is the story of LCR operative Dylan Savage and Jamie Kendrick. The book begins with Dylan rescuing Jamie from Stanford Reddington's house. She was actually rescued near the end of LAST CHANCE, but the reader only saw what happened outside the house. This time, we get to see what happened inside, in Dylan's perspective.

When it's clear that Reddington isn't going to be prosecuted and that he's involved with even more heinous things than what he did to her, Jamie devises a way to get to him and asks LCR to train her. Dylan trains her but his intent is to gain her trust so she'll tell him how she plans to get to Reddington.

In the midst of their training, they fall in love. Then, everything comes to a head and Jamie storms out the door. A couple of months later, they both get a shock. (:

Jamie is probably the most tenacious heroine I've ever written. She just would not stop or back down. Dylan might have surprised me even more than Jamie. So totally hot and heroic but with a SWEETness that made me smile.

What type of surprises have you run into while writing the LCR gang?

And oh wow, that's the hardest question for me to answer. There's not an LCR book that hasn't surprised me numerous times. Since I write only by a loose outline, I rarely know what's going to happen until it appears on my computer screen. I guess the best surprise was that Eden St. Claire worked for an organization called Last Chance Rescue. I was in the middle of writing RESCUE ME when I learned she worked for a rescue organization. From there, it developed and the LCR series was launched.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer all my questions! Is there any other little tid bits or gems that you'd like to share with us?

Just want to thank everyone who buys and reads my books. Being a published author is a dream come true for me but wouldn't mean near as much if there weren't readers who enjoy my books!

Once again, many thanks to Christy Reece for taking the time to answer my questions. If I know Christy, she’ll be popping in to say hi here as well, so if you have questions please don’t hesitate to ask away.

DEFIANT — The first-ever excerpt

2011-09-05T18:09:00.004-06:00

I won’t be around much between now and the end of October because I’m working as hard as I can to finish Defiant by a dropdead deadline of mid-October. I’ve never written as much in this short a period of time in my life, and I’m trying new writing techniques to make it work. But one thing is for certain — I can’t hang out online.

You can watch the little graphic above to see how I’m doing. I’ll update it every Monday. And feel free to send good vibes, positive writing energy and any spare muses you have stuck in your pockets.

In the meantime, I thought I’d leave you with something to tide you over.

Defiant, the third book in the MacKinnon’s Ranger series, will hopefully be out in March. It tells the story of Connor MacKinnon, the youngest MacKinnon brother, and Lady Sarah Woodville, who is Lord William Wentworth’s niece. Taken captive while on her way to visit with Lord William, Sarah disappears into the wilderness, and Connor and Joseph, Connor’s Mahican brother, are sent alone to find her. When they do, they learn that she is to be made the unwilling wife of one of an Indian warrior whose wife was killed by British soldiers. The only way Connor can win her freedom is to risk his life in a battle to the death — and claim her as his own.

And now, without further ado, an excerpt from Defiant.

From Chapter 6

Sarah was still lying down, facing away from the door, when she heard him enter. She lay there unmoving, childishly feigning sleep, as if refusing to open her eyes would somehow keep the world at bay.

Major MacKinnon called to her softly. “My lady?”

Do not behave like a witless girl, Sarah. Where is your courage?

She wiped the tears off her cheeks, then slowly sat up, the dread in her heart seeming to weigh her down. “Major MacKinnon.”

“’Tis sorry I am to disturb your sleep, but I must speak wi’ you.”

She stood, turned to face him, whatever she’d been about to say momentarily forgotten as she took in the sight of him. His jaw was clean-shaven, his face startlingly handsome. His chest and belly were smooth now, the dark curls she’d seen before gone, his skin oiled to a fine sheen, the cut she’d stitched and the other smaller cuts he’d gotten during the fight giving him a dangerous air. His hair was damp, a striped brown feather tied at the end of one of his braids. His leather breeches rode low on his hips, a knife sheathed at his side.

But what she noticed most was the anguish in his eyes. It was a match for the anguish she’d heard in his voice when he’d spoke to Joseph outside.

“Please… Please sit, major.” She sat, reaching down out of habit to shift her skirts before she sat, only to feel doeskin against her hands. “I wish to apologize for my fit of temper earlier. You have risked much for me. It was wrong of me to—”

“Shhh, lady.” He pressed a finger to her lips and sat facing her. “You’re far beyond the world you ken, aye? ’Tis natural for you to be feelin’ afraid and angry about what has befallen you, but you must trust me if we’re to reach Albany alive.”

He looked away for a moment, his face growing more troubled as he seemed to consider what to say next, his brow furrowed. “I fear I have failed you, for it is on that same troublin’ matter that we must speak.”

She watched him struggle to find the words to tell her what he’d just told Joseph, something inside her touched by his obvious turmoil. “I… I overheard you speaking with Joseph just now.”

His head came up, surprise written on his face, his gaze meeting hers, seeming to study her face. “That’s why you’ve been weepin’. I see the tearstains on your cheeks.”

She raised her palms to her face to wipe the telltale sign of weakness away.

“You understand the choice that lies before you, aye?”

She nodded, folding her hands in her lap. “I must decide whether to chance escape, knowing that you and Joseph will die terribly should we fail, or whether to marry you after the Indian fashion and spend tonight as … as your wife.”

“Aye, that’s the way of it. ’Tis a hard choice you’re bein’ asked to make, but life is no’ always fair.”

Sarah knew that only too well.

Major MacKinnon went on. “Is there augh’ you would ask me afore you decide? There is little time, I fear.”

She shook her head. “No, sir.”

She’d made up her mind before he’d entered the lodge.

She met his gaze, tried to keep the fear from her voice. “I cannot ask you to chance being burnt at the stake, major. You’ve already risked your life once for my sake. As highly as I value my virtue, it is not worth two men’s lives.”

What an irony that her father’s decision to send her away had led her to this — her true undoing. No doubt there were many in London who believed she had no virtue, yet she had left London as a virgin. She would not return as one.

He watched her through dark eyes. “Are you certain, my lady? For I willna take you by force. You must come to me as willingly as I come to you — each of us for the sake of the other.”

She hadn’t thought about it in quite that way, but when he spoke the words, some of the dread lifted from her heart. “Aye, major, I am certain. But…”

“You’re afraid.” He closed one big hand over both of hers, his thumb stroking her knuckles. “I promise I shall treat you this night wi’ the same care and devotion I would if you truly were my bride.”

Then to her astonishment, he cupped her cheek, lowered his lips to hers — and kissed her.

Softly, so softly he kissed her, brushing her lips with his again and again, the mere whisper of a touch making her shiver. She might have objected had the sensation not been so… enthralling. Slowly, his touch became more insistent, his lips caressing hers, nibbling them, her lips tingling, going pliant, yielding to his exploration, her eyes drifting shut. Then his tongue traced the outline of her lower lip.

Startled, she gasped, and her eyes flew open.

He was watching her, his blue eyes dark, his voice a whisper. “My lady.”

And she thought it was over.

But then one big hand slid into her hair to cradle her head, and he drew her against his bare chest, his mouth closing over hers. There were almost too many new sensations to take in all at once, her girlish notions of what it would feel like to be kissed by a man vanishing in a heartbeat. The iron-hard feel of his body surrounding her. The warm scent of his oiled skin. The firm pressure of his lips against hers as he tasted her, his tongue teasing its way inside her mouth with silken strokes.

Then his tongue touched hers, his lungs stealing her surprised intake of breath as he sealed her mouth with his. Her body seemed to melt, and she sank boneless against him, her hands sliding up the smooth skin of his chest, her lips parting to accommodate him, her tongue meeting his. She felt something pound against her palm, and realized that his heart was beating every bit as hard as hers.

Slowly, his kiss stilled, his lips brushing her cheek, her temple. “My lady.”

Breathless and amazed, she looked up into his eyes.

He drew back slightly, his arm still encircling her. “Now you ken the taste of my kiss. Think on that, and dinnae be afraid of what is to come, aye?”

(c) copyright 2011 Pamela Clare

-------

I hope you enjoyed that. Connor and Sarah have a big adventure ahead of them, that’s for certain. And finishing this book is going to be an adventure for me.

In the meantime, here’s a look at the schedule for my historicals for those of you who are interested.

Sweet Release (Kenleigh-Blakewell Family Saga, Book I) — available now as an ebook on Amazon.com, B&N, iTunes and Smashwords

Carnal Gift (Kenleigh-Blakewell Family Saga, Book II) — full-length author’s cut available now as an ebook on Amazon.com, B&N, iTunes and Smashwords. This is the first time this has been available. More than 100 manuscript pages were cut from the story as it was first published. This is the book as I intended it to be. The book contains a pronunciation guide for those Gaelic names.

Surrender (MacKinnon’s Rangers, Book I) — To be reissued on Dec. 6 with new material and a new cover. Iain and Annie got a facelift and about 20 manuscript pages of new material.

Untamed (MacKinnon’s Rangers, Book II) — To be reissued on Jan. 3, 2012, with a gorgeous new cover and 25 previously deleted pages restored. This is the book as I wrote it.

Enjoy!

I’ll see you in about two months...

Happy Birthday, little sister!

2011-08-26T23:02:00.008-06:00

One of the luckiest days of my life was August 27, 1966. That’s the day my baby sister was born. She was my baby sister and no one else’s baby sister.

I cherished her, played with her, cut all her hair off. I did my best to help take care of her. She was so important to me that I had nightmares about her getting hurt or getting lost. I remember one night waking up in tears and screaming because I dreamed she’d chased a ball into the street and a car had come. My mother had to wake Michelle up and show me that she was okay to stop my crying.

I was 4.

She and I shared a bedroom until I was about 10. We shared lots of toys and a love of plants and animals, too. We had guinea pigs, a hamster, a cat and mice. I named my mouse Rush, after the rock band and the fact that it ran very fast, she named hers Mousie. Then there was the time she brought home a white kitten and kept it hidden in her bedroom closet. She named it White Kitty. When the kitten finally came out of the closet, we renamed it Noël, because it was white and it was almost Christmastime.

Of the two of us, I have the flare for naming things.

We played outside all the time during the summer, swinging on our swing set, making up games in the back yard, sneaking off to a candy store called The Strawberry Pony — which I accidentally called The Pink Horse many times — for ice cream.

We were inseparable.

If I could tell you all one thing about my sister it is that her disposition has always been sweet. You can see it in her lovely face in these photos — a genuine sweetness. When I had nightmares, I would crawl in bed with her and feel safer even though I was older and bigger than she was.

In the summers, we watched re-runs on TV, and I can remember a time when we sincerely wanted to be genies as in I Dream of Jeannie. We talked about our bottles — how they looked, what was in them. We did our best to blink spells. Nothing happened.

We both loved Star Trek, too, and together with our two brothers watched it every day, acting out the episode afterward. To this day, we are a family of Trekkies.

Michelle had a talent for gymnastics that I as a klutzy left-handed person simply did not share. I remember watching her do walk-overs and wishing I could do them, too. I had to be content with cartwheels.

We both had stick-straight hair as little girls. Then around the age of 10, our hair got curly. In the age of straight hair and feathered bangs, this was agonizing. Now, however, we have gotten the last laugh, as other women spend hundreds for spiral curl and we just wash, rinse, comb.

I have no idea what this photo is from. Choir? Marching band? Concert band? We shared a love of music, as well. We still do. Rock. Classical. Celtic. We both love to sing, and when we're together we inevitably end up singing along to whatever happens to be playing.

Sometimes one of us gets the lyrics wrong. This has been the source of much hilarity. I mean what is a “studded sharfore” anyway? If the lyric describes something that does not exist, shouldn’t that be a clue that you’ve got it wrong?

I wasn’t around when Michelle went to prom. I was in Europe, but she soon followed me over there, living in Sweden while I was in Denmark. I think her date here is a Finn kid named Pekka. Many Finns are named Pekka.

Michelle was a beautiful baby, and she grew up to be a beautiful woman. Her sense of humor is sharp and can be very cutting at times. Like me, she discovered her temper later in life. But even when she’s really pissed off, she makes me laugh.

But we never spent enough time together as adults. For a while I was in Europe. During our college years, I had babies, while she had a social life. She moved to California for a while, and that was probably the time when we had the least contact.

From there, she went back to Sweden, where she now has citizenship. I had two kids to raise and couldn’t leave the United States. (That’s ironic because I was the one who’d wanted so badly to settle in Scandinavia and live the rest of my life there. Life is not without a sense of humor.)

She was my maid of honor at my mountain wedding (I’m in the poofy white Princess Di knock-off, and she’s standing behind me). And although the wedding should never have happened — women, just throw yourselves a fancy party with a beautiful dress, an elaborate cake and gifts, then get artificially inseminated — we had fun getting dressed up and playing with the flowers and our hair.

We talk on Skype almost every weekend. Sometimes she calls me at work — always a welcome interruption. And she always comes home for Christmas. But I miss her every day.

We never run out of things to talk about. There’s True Blood and Game of Thrones and Spartacus and Jack Bauer. And there are my books.

I cannot begin to tell you the number of hours Michelle has spent with me on the phone or on Skype talking about whatever novel I’m writing, reassuring me, supporting me, letting me “talk” the story out. Without her, I don’t know whether I’d have nearly as many novels written or whether any of them would be any good.

No one lifts my spirits when I’m down the way she does. My boys tell me that she and I are always laughing when we’re together, and that’s true. We’re both single and talk about living together again. To end my days living in a flat in Stockholm with my sister and a bunch of cats would be just fine with me because I know I’d die with a smile on my face.

I don’t know that I’ve been as good a sister to her as she has been to me, but I have loved her every day of her life.

Happy Birthday, Michelle!

Sisters and friends forever.

Presenting the ‘author’s cut’ of CARNAL GIFT

2011-08-24T20:27:00.005-06:00

You can’t imagine how exciting this is for me.

Back in 2003, as my first novel, Sweet Release, was hitting bookstore shelves, I was hard at work on my second novel, Carnal Gift. This one told the story of Jamie, the little brother of the heroine from Sweet Release. All grown up, he’s in Ireland and Britain on behalf of the colony of Virginia to get the British to take seriously the conflict against the French and their Indian allies in North America.

Why does he do this? Because his nephew, his sister’s firstborn son, Nicholas Kenleigh, was taken in a skirmish with the Indians and burnt to death. (Nicholas makes an appearance, alive but changed, in the epilogue. That was cut from the original version.)

This deep personal incentive is what drives him throughout the book. But, if you read the version that was published, you never knew this because this entire thread — what happened to Nicholas, Jamie’s guilt over being unable to save his nephew, his efforts to win the support of Parliament for a fleet of ships and more soldiers — was cut from the book because the book was too long.

Yes, the book was too long.

I cried for a month when I was told by my editor that they didn’t make any exceptions when it came to their maximum number of pages. The weight/thickness of the books determined how many could fit in a box and how much it would cost to ship them. Fewer books per box and heavier boxes means higher shipping costs. And so Jamie’s story landed on the cutting room floor in pieces.

When I got the rights back to Carnal Gift last October, I was so excited because it meant that for the first time I would be able to share with you the story I had written. The story that was published has never felt like my books. How could it with more than 20 percent of the pages gone?

And now the full story is available at last. Jamie and Brighíd finally get their full story told. The copy on the back of the book is the same:

“I expect you to show my friend just how grateful you are. Your willingness is everything.”

With those harsh words, the hated Sasanach earl decided Bríghid's fate: Her body and her virginity were to be offered to a stranger in exchange for her brother’s life. Possessing nothing but her innocence and her fierce Irish pride, she had no choice but to comply.

But the handsome man she faced in the darkened bedchamber was not at all the monster she expected. His green eyes seemed to see inside her. His tender touch calmed his fears while he swore he would protect her by merely pretending to claim her. And as the long hours of the night passed by, as her senses ignited at the heat of their naked flesh, she made a startling discovery: Sometimes the line between hate and love is dangerously thin.

But what’s inside includes those 100 pages, re-edited by me. When I got the chance to go through the book again, I was blown away by how much better my writing had gotten between Sweet Release and Carnal Gift. Also, I’d forgotten the story, partly out of a desire not to think about the fact that the book I’d written had been butchered. Reading it for the first time in eight years, I fell in love with the characters all over again and found myself really wanting to get to Ruaidhrí's story as soon as possible. (Those of you who’ve read the book know that Ruaidhrí is the heroine’s smart-mouthed 16-year-old little brother who almost gets himself hanged.)

Set in Penal Era Ireland, it tells of a history that is largely forgotten over here, when Catholicism was outlawed and priests could be hanged for performing mass. Jamie, our Tide Water plantation hero, sees the world with very different eyes than average subject of His Majesty King George. Taking a look at the biases of Britain through Colonial eyes was fun for me.

The plot remains unchanged. Jamie is given a sex toy by his friend Lord Byerly, but that toy is a terrified young woman whom Jamie is expected to force into sex in front of Byerly. Brighíd expects to be raped, but the man to whom she is given is, unbeknownst to her, trying to do all he can to spare her that fate. What follows is a serious falling out between Jamie and Byerly, with the earl holding all the power — and Jamie having all the balls.

Here’s an excerpt taking from material cut from the book:

“You’re talking about starting a war, Master Blakewell.” William Pitt grimaced, adjusted his swollen foot where it rested, covered in foul-smelling compresses, on a cushioned footstool. “Damned gout!”

“I’m talking about winning a war, Sir, for the war has already begun.”

Pitt seemed to consider this, his forehead bent in a pensive frown beneath his powdered wig. His large, almond eyes, set in a pale oval face, gave him an intelligent, slightly melancholy appearance, and Jamie knew the man’s hard-won political successes had come through wit and oratory. Of all the members of Commons, he was Jamie’s best hope — and the most influential.

“What do you suggest?”

“A fleet of ships designed to fight in the lakes and rivers of the north — and well-trained sailors to man them. Attack the French where they’re most vulnerable — their supply lines, their own towns. Draw them away from English families on the frontier.” Jamie returned Pitt’s steady gaze, waited.

“That’s a bold plan. It would inevitably force them to fight on two fronts or abandon the frontier.” Pitt reached for his teacup, took a sip.

“There’s more to it than that, Sir.”

Pitt raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

“The French have allied themselves with numerous Indian nations — foremost the Huron, Ottawa, Potawatomi and Ojibwa. Most are led by Obwandiyag, whom some call Pontiac. His intelligence and influence should not be underestimated. Not only is he capable of leading his men in battle, but he could easily win more tribes to the side of the French. He is metai, a spiritual leader, and his words carry great meaning for many.” Jamie took a sip of tea, let his words sink in, trying not to overwhelm Pitt.

“Go on.”

“If we shift the battle to the great lakes and rivers, the French lose whatever advantage they’ve gained through such alliances. While Pontiac’s men are more than capable of defeating British troops on land, they have no means to counter English warships.”

Pitt brow furrowed. “What makes you so certain Indians can defeat trained English soldiers?”

“The Indian way of warfare is not the English way. They attack through ambush, not from battle lines drawn up in the open. The French have largely adopted their techniques. At Fort Necessity, they fired at us from high in the surrounding trees. Good Englishmen died, shot down by an enemy they could not see.”

Pitt’s upper lip curled in disgust. “That’s barbaric.”

“Perhaps, Sir.” Jamie wouldn’t bother trying to explain to Pitt the Indian point of view on warfare. What warrior in his right mind stood out in the open in front of enemies who were firing at him? “Still, that’s the way it is. An English regiment might easily wander into such an ambush — on a road through the forest or on the banks of a river — and lose every man. To win this war, Britain must adapt, Sir, or British claims along the Ohio will be lost.”

And Nicholas’s terrible death will have been for naught.

For a moment, Pitt said nothing but gazed broodingly into the distance.

“Very well, Master Blakewell, I see the point you’re trying to make.” Pitt wiggled his swollen toes, winced. “But tell me—who would supply such ships?”

“My brother-in-law, Alec Kenleigh, has already drawn up plans for a small fleet of warships specially designed to navigate the northern waterways.”

“Of course.” Pitt smiled. “War is a bloody profitable business.”

Jamie refused to let the comment bait him. “Aye, it can be, Sir. However, Alec is willing to build these ships at no profit to himself.”

Both of Pitt’s eyebrows shot upward. “At cost? Remarkable.”

“My brother-in-law lost his eldest son at Fort Necessity.” The pain, the guilt welled up inside Jamie. “He was taken captive and later … burnt alive.”

Pitt’s eyebrows shot up, before his face shifted into a scowl of outrage. “I do say—how unfortunate and appalling.”

Jamie beat back his grief. “It is war, Sir.”

“My condolences on your family’s loss.” Pitt took another sip of tea. “I’ve heard nothing but good things about your brother-in-law. I’m sorry he should suffer such tragedy.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Jamie decided to press his point. “The longer Britain delays in meeting the French threat, the greater that threat becomes. English families are dying on the frontier — men, women and children — and the French are working hard to persuade Britain’s Indian allies to switch sides. We dare not dally, Sir.”

For a moment, the two men sat, gazes locked.

“Very well, Master Blakewell, I shall represent the Colonial cause in Commons. But I warn you, it won’t be easy. Most Englishmen are more concerned with events on the Continent, as the results will have very real consequences here in Britain. Most believe the Crown can force concessions from the French with regard to the American frontier by dominating them in Europe.”

“They are blind.” Jamie stood abruptly, walked to the nearby window. “They would not tolerate the slaughter of English families on British soil here on this island, but the slaughter of British families—”

“Colonists.”

Jamie spun to face him. “—British families on the American frontier means nothing to them. For are the colonists not also subjects of His Majesty, equally deserving of his protection and consideration? And what will happen if colonists begin to feel Britain has turned her back on them? It shouldn’t surprise me that many would turn their backs on Britain.”

“I admire your passion, Master Blakewell, and I agree with you. But it will be an uphill battle, all the more so thanks to your friend.” He pinned Jamie with his gaze. “Or should I say erstwhile friend?”

“Lord Byerly.”

“He’s spreading some rather distressing rumors about you, rumors of collusion with traitorous Irish Catholics. I need to know what truth lies behind these rumors so that I can prepare a proper response.”

Jamie had known this would happen. “Of course.”

As you may be guessing, this was my first contact with research on the French & Indian War (Seven Years War) and led not only to Ride the Fire, in which Nicholas gets his own story, but the MacKinnon’s Rangers series, too.

The book is up and available on Amazon.com, on Barnes and Noble’s website, and at Smashwords. It takes forever to get things up on the Apple store for iPads and pods and such, but it will eventually make it there, too, as will Sweet Release.

I would appreciate anything you can do to help me spread the word, including posting reviews after you’ve read the story if you feel so inclined.

Thanks to Jennifer Johnson of Sapphire Dreams for the lovely cover.

I would love to hear what those of you who’ve read the original published version think of the difference between the two books. Although some people loved Carnal Gift, some feel it’s my weakest book. But they haven’t read this version...

To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of the ebook. To be entered, simply post something nice about Ireland below.

Enjoy!

Something for history geeks

2011-08-23T21:20:00.006-06:00

(The brave souls of The Edwardian Farm together with a randy ram and one of their
big shire horses used for plowing and pulling wagons.)

I don’t watch television. I don’t have cable, and in Colorado if you don’t have cable you can’t watch TV. The mountains block signal. I remember growing up how irritated I was by this. Even with an antenna, the picture was always fuzzy and prone to disturbance.

But I do love a good documentary. If our local cable providers would permit it, I would order the History and Discovery channels a la carte. But they don’t. So about six or so years ago, I told them to take their converter box and shove it. I haven’t missed television (which I rarely watched even when I had cable) at all.

When I do watch television programs, it’s usually a DVD I’ve bought or sometimes a program on Hulu, such as Castle, which I love. (The writer jokes crack me up.)

But my sister knows me very well. She sent me a link to a new program that I've absolutely fallen in love with and which I want to share with the other history geeks out there. Of course, there’s every chance you’ve already discovered it. I’m a bit slow.

The name of it is The Edwardian Farm. It’s a BBC program that shows life on an Edwardian farm as lived through two archaeologists and one historian who move into an Edwardian farmhouse and begin living the way people lived in that area back around 1900. My degree is in archaeology, and the daily lives of ordinary people is one thing that draws me to writing fiction. No detail is too small. I find everything utterly fascinating.

(Here, they’re working a cider press on cider apples. That pile of straw in the middle is actually layer upon layer of crushed apples with the straw folded over and laid on top. It's called a “cheese.”)

And this program goes into great detail. How do you clean germs out of an outdoor privy in that time period? How do you maintain the hedgerows that keep your livestock from running off or getting into your crops? How do you plow a field with horses? How do you make quicklime? How do you preserve food without refrigerators? How do you clean a stopped chimney?

I have loved every episode I’ve watched — all of them on YouTube — and I can’t recommend it enough.

As some of you know, I’m very involved in urban farming and what’s called the “localization” movement. Localization is the reverse of globalization. It’s about making sure that your community produces what it uses, especially where food is concerned. The idea is to prevent unnecessary pollution and to make your community secure in case of a catastrophe. If you grow your own food and your community produces almost all of the food and goods and services humans need to live and thrive, then the global economy can go to hell without your family being hurt.

On a personal level, it means learning skills your grandparents knew — knitting, quilting, sewing, canning, growing gardens, having orchards, keeping chickens and bees. A person on an ordinary lot can do most of these things (depending on climate), and so provide most of the food their family needs. My grandfather built his own house and fed his six children on an orchard, grape arbor and vegetable garden that he cultivated in their backyard. They also had pigeons, rabbits and a goat (for milk).

We outsource most of that nowadays. Rather than doing these things ourselves, we’ve grown dependent on others to do them for us. That gives us more time, but what do people do with that time that really counts? Not only are we less connected to our own lives, we are at the mercy of the entire chain of people who supply the goods and the labor. This fact was driven home to me in December 2006 when six feet of snow fell in four weeks in my front yard and the grocery store shelves became empty. Empty. You couldn’t even buy sugar.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be dependent on an entire global mechanism for feeding my family. I don’t want to “outsource” my life. I’m trying very hard to “insource” it. (I invented that word, by the way, as far as I know. I’m involved in the localization movement here in the county and was trying to find a term for what we’re doing.)

This topic fascinates me, so if any of you are interested in the “transition movement,” which got its start in Great Britain and is also called localization, let me know. I may start a separate blog about that.

I enjoy being able to do things for myself and being reconnected with my own life in that way, rather than simply working for a paycheck and spending all that money on things I can learn to do myself. I find it very wholesome and appealing somehow, even if it is a lot of work. And this program, The Edwardian Farm, is basically about these three people learning the skills their great-grandparents had — i.e., reskilling themselves — and learning to be self-sufficient again.

So how do you clean a stopped up chimney back in the day? One option was to stuff a chicken down your chimney. It would flap and claw and break the soot free. But it was also kind of mean to the chicken — something that probably didn’t matter back in 1900. Another less chicken-y option was to take branches from a holly bush, bind them together and shove them up the chimney. Fascinating!

Apparently, prior to this, these three had a program called The Victorian Farm, which is equally fascinating. During the Edwardian period, technological advances included combustion-engine plows, indoor plumbing, gas ranges and so forth. When I’m done watching these episodes, I’m going to dive into The Victorian Farm and see what things were like back then.

Update: I’m still going to have the Dessert Diva as a guest together with Natalie. The two will be baking pies. I intended it to be a summer blog, but I have been so, so, so busy that it’s now going to preview holiday recipes.

Also, Carnal Gift will be live any day now on Amazon.com. It’s been edited and uploaded, and now I’m just waiting. This will be a very special release for me because finally — finally! — the book will be available as I wrote it, instead of missing 100 key pages.

It has taken a lot of time and effort to get the books online. Fortunately, my son Benjamin has handled a lot of it. I’ve been working on Defiant and trying very hard to stay off the Internet, which has a huge impact on my ability to focus and get work done. So if I’m not around, please forgive me. I need to write!

I’ll be back soon to announce the winner of the e-book copy of Sweet Release.

Thanks for being so patient! I owe it to you to put my time into my books and to make them the best they can be.

Sweet Release available as an ebook! EXCERPT

2011-08-12T09:49:00.004-06:00

Sorry I’ve been away so long. RomCon took up last weekend, and work has been so incredibly busy that I’ve barely had time to breathe. I had a wonderful time meeting readers — thank you, Batbabes for my lovely bracelet! — and other authors. I met Julie James in person. She’s gorgeous and smart as a whip. I got to spend more time with Tara Janzen and Cindy Gerard, the dynamic duo. Loretta Chase got my bracelet untangled from my hair. Good times!

And now... I have an announcement.

It took much more time than I thought it would, but Sweet Release, my very first novel, is available again. For the past year, the only place readers have been able to find it is in used book stores. Even the ebook versions were taken down after I got my rights to the novel back from the original publisher.

Now, Sweet Release is available for download on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com and a bunch of other formats.

What a strange experience it was to go back to this book, which I hadn’t read since it was published in 2003! As I read it, I decided that my writing has improved dramatically since I wrote that first book. Some things actually made me cringe.

But the story is still incredibly precious to me. It took me seven years to write, a year to edit and then I had to find an agent…

In all a decade of my life went in to Alec and Cassie’s story. I started writing it when Alec was 7 and Benjy was 4. Benjy’s fascination with pirates folded into the story in Jamie’s character, which was created with him in mind.

The book doesn’t contain new material, but it is freshly edited. I took the published version of the manuscript and edited it line by line, removing all the cringe-worthy bits and improving the actual writing without changing the story.

For those of you who haven’t tried my historicals or haven’t tried this series, here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

For five pounds in sterling, the convict was hers. Though Cassie hated the slave trade, her Virginia plantation demanded the labor, and she knew this fevered man would surely die if she left him. But as his wounds healed and his muscled chest bronzed in the sun, Cassie realized Cole Braden was far more dangerous than his papers had indicated—for he could steal her breath with a glance and lay siege to her senses with a touch.

Abducted, beaten, and given a new name, Alec went from master of an English shipbuilding empire to fourteen years of indentured servitude in the American colonies. There, he was known as Cole Braden, a convicted ravisher and defiler of women. And while he longed to ravish the auburn-haired beauty who owned him, he knew his one hope of earning her love—and his freedom—was to prove his true identity. Only then could he turn the tables and attain his ... Sweet Release.

And here is an excerpt from the “shackling scene” that everyone loved when Cassie decides to play a game with the convict she owns and loves:

“You’re on time, convict.” It took every ounce of determination she had not to smile or giggle. “That’s good. It will go easier on you.”

Cassie could see in his eyes the moment he understood her game. His look of confusion was replaced by surprise and then amusement before his gaze grew cold and hard. “I’m to be punished, then?”

“I can no longer tolerate your insolence, convict. I mean to teach you a lesson.” It was good she had rehearsed her lines. It would have been impossible to say them else.
Was she really going through with this?

He leaned against her bedpost nonchalantly, crossing his arms. Defiant and confident, he reminded her so much of the man he’d been when she’d first purchased his indenture. “And what makes you think I’ll cooperate, mistress, when I could just as easily break your pretty neck?”

“You’ll find what I have in mind far more pleasant than what you’ll receive if you disobey.”

“I see.” His gaze raked over her body in blatant sexual appraisal, and she shivered in anticipation. “And just what do you have in mind?”

“Undress—slowly.”

He raised an eyebrow, then untied his shirt and slowly pulled it over his head. It fell, forgotten, at his feet. Candlelight cast the bronzed muscles of his arms, chest, and abdomen in glorious high relief. He reached for the opening of his breeches and began to untie them, his muscles shifting beneath sun-bronzed skin.

Cassie felt desire flow like warm brandy through her veins. “Slowly, convict.”

His gaze locked with hers again as ever so slowly he pulled on the ties, undid his breeches, and let them drop to the floor. He was rock hard, his sex thick and heavy.

She found she could scarcely breathe. “Your hair. Remove the thong.”

Not breaking eye contact, he reached back with one hand, and his dark hair slid free, falling just below his shoulders. He looked untamed, fiercely male, and, with his lash scars, not a little dangerous. He stepped toward her.

She stepped back and pointed to the bed. “Stop! The shackles. Lock one end around your right wrist, then pass the chain behind the bedpost, lie down, and lock the other end around your left wrist.”

He looked at the bed and saw the shackles. She heard his quick intake of breath and saw a shadow pass over his face. Then it was gone.

“Don’t you trust me, fair mistress?” His voice was dark as sin and soft as velvet. His eyes held the allure of every man who’d ever tried to beguile a woman into a false sense of sexual safety.

“Never.” She smiled and spoke in a rich, seductive voice she didn’t know she had. “But I will have your complete cooperation.”

“I see.” Naked, he walked to the bed, picked up the shackles, and closed one end around his right wrist. It locked with a click. He sat and moved backward across the bed, then reached behind his head and passed the chain behind one of the bedposts. “What makes you think these chains will protect you?”

“Do it, convict.”

He lay down, then reached back to cuff his left wrist. Click. He lay diagonally across the bed, completely vulnerable. His arms were stretched over his head. His chest rose and fell with each breath. His rigid sex stood defiantly against his abdomen. His legs, spread slightly, stretched the length of the bed, his feet hanging just over the edge. A tremor passed from Cassie’s belly to her sex.

His gaze, cold and menacing, bored through her. “Do you like what you see?”

“Aye, convict. And it’s good for you that I do.” Almost trembling with excitement, she loosened her bodice until her breasts were visible. Then she moved to the bed and began to caress him, first his feet, then his ankles and calves. Where her hands touched, her lips and tongue soon followed. She heard his breath quicken, felt his muscles tense, and reveled in his response. She worked her way up his muscular legs and over his powerful thighs, but, although she touched the sac that carried his seed, she did not touch his shaft. “You’ve a remarkable cock, convict.”

He groaned in frustration. The chains caught on the bedpost, clinking as he strained against them. “Is this to be my punishment then? To be tortured with kisses, soft hands and words?”

Some part of her she’d never known awoke within her, and she felt herself grow more daring. Like a cat toying with its prey, she stretched across the bed beside him. She ran her fingers teasingly on his abdomen, outlining his erection.

“Your punishment is that you shall see, but you shall not touch. You shall want, but you shall not receive—not until it pleases me.”

Coming soon... Carnal Gift.

This is Jamie’s story. All grown up and off to Britain to ask Parliament for help at the beginning of the French and Indian War, he visits a friend of his, a nobleman, Lord Byerly, to ask for his support in Lords. But Byerly is a changed man, and offers him a poor Irish girl as a gift to warm his bed.

That’s how the story begins, but this won’t be Carnal Gift as you all know it. More than 100 pages were cut from the story before it was published, changing the book entirely. I finished writing it after covers were printed, and it was simply too long. On top of that, the original publisher had a limit on how many pages they would publish. They didn’t bother to tell me that. So I had to endure the distress of seeing an entire subplot disappear from eh story and then watch as a book I hadn’t written was released with my name on it.

But now the book will be published as I wrote it with all 100 pages restored. Not only that, but I gave it a re-edit, as well. I have to say the writing here was light years ahead of Sweet Release, but it was still good to clean it up and update it a bit.

Carnal Gift isn’t up yet, but it will be sometime next week. I’ll let you know when it is available. It’s a long, meaty read now. I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally have the book I wrote available for you to enjoy.

Please help me get out the word about these two stories through Twitter, Facebook, reviews, blogs, etc. Thank you!

To celebrate the re-release of my first novel, I’m giving away an ebook copy of Sweet Release. To be included in the drawing, all you need to do is post below.

Have a great weekend!

It's RomCon time again!

2011-08-03T19:53:00.003-06:00

It’s RomCon time again!

This weekend, I’ll be hanging in A-Town — that’s Aurora for those who haven’t read Hard Evidence — and spending some time with other romance novelists and, best of all, romance readers.

I wanted to share my schedule for those of you who plan to attend RomCon so that we can make sure to hook up somewhere during the course of the weekend. I’m not staying at the hotel — I just don’t feel like it — so connecting with me will only happen before/during/after these events.

Thursday

8:30-9:30 PM, RomCon Social — I think this is in the Vail room. This is where RomCon “buddies” meet up. This pairs experienced RomCon people with newbies and authors with readers.

Friday

11:10 AM-12:05 AM — Contemporary Author Panel. I’ll be on the panel with a wonderful group of authors: Carly Phillips, Dee Davis, Meg Benjamin, Pamela Clare, Shayla Black, Sherrill Bodine. Some of us are bringing books to give away. I’ll have copies of Breaking Point with me.

6:30-10:30 PM, Wild West Night Dinner — I hope to saddle me a cowboy. (Unlikely since mostly women attend this conference, but one can hope.)

Saturday

10:10-11:05 AM — Pamela Clare’s True Stories Behind the I-Team — Featuring special guest Vince Darcangelo. (Does anything about that name sound familiar?) I’ll be bringing actual copies of newspaper articles, photographs and maybe video (if I can figure that out). Vince, who worked with me for three years, will help me share details about the investigations that eventually fused with my imagination to create the I-Team series. This should be a lot of fun. I just hope someone attends! If not, I guess Vince and I can do a lot of catching up.

11:20 AM-12:15 PM — Intimate Chat /BatBabes Reader Group & Pamela Clare. Who are the BatBabes? I guess I’ll find out, won’t I? Vince Darcangelo might also attend this event.

Sunday

9-9:55 AM — RomCon Readers' Crown Social. Breaking Point was a finalist for the Readers Crown for Romantic Suspense. It didn’t win, but, hey, it was a finalist, right? This is a pre-brunch social for finalists, readers and winners. It’s very early in the morning, so I can’t guarantee I’ll be there.

10:10 AM-11:30 AM — READERS CROWN Awards Brunch. Last year, I sat with Tara Janzen and Cindy Gerard. We were like this Romantic Suspense power table or something. They wonderful, and I adore them both. The food was quite good for a breakfast brunch buffet. I had a custom-made omelet.

12-2 PM — RomCon® Rumble. I have no idea what this is, but apparently I signed up to participate. Yeeha!

This is the only conference I’m attending in 2011 due to the demands of my job and of my writing schedule. I’ll be meeting with authors who are old friends and some, like Julie James, who is a wonderful new friend. Jenn LeBlanc will be there with her cover model. I’m hoping to get some MTM action at the conference.

If you’re at RomCon, be sure to track me down to say hello!

In the meantime, I’ve been very busy trying to get Sweet Release and Carnal Gift, my first two books, re-edited and up as ebooks. Sweet Release will have a fresh edit but no new material. Carnal Gift, however, will have 100 previously unpublished pages, and I can’t wait to have it up. But I’ll share more on this next week.

I am also working on Defiant, of course, and eager to finish it and get Connor into your waiting arms.

Also, those of you who want to hang out and have some I-Team fun — okay, so it’s mostly hot chesticles — should join the new private Pamela Clare’s I-Team on Facebook. I decided to start a new group and set it up as private so that our posts are visible only to members and not all of the Facebook universe.

Have a good second half of the week, everyone. I haven’t been around a lot lately, but I’m still here.

MTM — A search for chesticles with Jenn LeBlanc

2011-08-01T06:44:00.009-06:00

Editor’s note: Welcome back to MTM. Sorry I didn’t get this up on time. I have been incredibly busy trying to get books ready for you, so I hope you’ll forgive me. This week, photographer, journalist and author Jenn LeBlanc returns to share with us some of the male beauty she finds as she tries to cast models for the role of her heroes for her illustrated romances. Enjoy!

Helllooo ladies, and possibly gentlemen. I am so excited to be back here for another guest Man Titty Monday post. Last time I was here, I brought my own personal collection of Man Titty from my novel. Images I photographed during my day job as a professional photographer.

I am a lucky, lucky girl. That benefits you because I like to share.

My novel The Rake And The Recluse has been very popular. What does this mean for you? It means I’m working on the sequel to the novel. It means, dear readers, that I need to find more chesticles. It means I have been spending an inordinate amount of time looking at beautiful men, for my day job. And I brought some of them with me today.

My twitter followers love the days and nights I spend casting, they follow my model surfing with the hashtag #castingPerry , and they recently convinced me to start tumbling these lovely models as well. Oh dirty bird, on Tumblr.

I have brought some of my favorites for you, right here, right now.

Man Titty Monday meets Casting Perry.

Th beautiful man at the top of this blog was one of my first choices for Perry, and I know you know who he is if you are on this website. He is a little bit more bulky than what I want for Perry, and he has been building more muscle lately, so he ahs fallen a bit off the radar, but the fact that I found him laying on a large black horse made me very happy.

Say hello to Jed Hill photographed by Michael Downs.

Quickly while we are on the subject of larg black horses and beautiful men how about Chad White and his Friesian. Friesian’s have a very special role in my novel, the hero breeds them. Why? Look at that horse. What horse you say? Oh sorry, it is behind the naked man. (so sorry - there are no chesticles here.)

So moving on back to casting. This image. THIS IMAGE. Which I loved so hard I even shared with Pamela and the gang on Facebook, killed me. Dead. Why? The saddle is On him. On. Him.

This man’s name is Steve Boyd and I am enamoured with him. I need to sell a WHOLE lot more books to be able to afford him in my studio, but as of this moment, he is my ultimate Perry. But let me show you why:

Sun God

Sassy beach bum

Brazen beach bum

Just plain raunchy.

Attitude. He brings it in spades. Some models are kinda…blah. This guy has personality. I know that’s what you’re looking at right now, his personality. Right?

Anywhoo, because Mr. Boyd is so popular for (DUH) reasons, I continue to look for Perry. Starting with the saddle, I decided to see who else tried that bad boy on and OH MY. This was sent to me by Kati over at Romancing Rakes , who loves to help me with my casting via twitter.

Yeah. Oh my.

Then there was this guy and his sexy boots. Do you love boots like I do? Because I love boots.

Say hello to Bryce Thompson

Well. That’s an awful lot of chesticle for one post isn’t it? I suppose I should save some for another time.

Catch up with me anywhere. I’m around and love to talk Man Titty.

Enjoy

DEFIANT — Here's the cover

2011-07-20T10:02:00.003-06:00

Here it is — the final cover for Defiant.

I got it yesterday afternoon but was too busy to be able to post it. I guess I shouldn’t be doing it now, either, given that we’re on deadline with a big paper, one new staff member and one newsroom staffer on vacation. (I got to the office at 7:30 to try to get a jump on things.)

Even so, I couldn’t resist. I wanted to post it and share it with you!

I love the fact that my name is slowly getting larger than the title. I love that I’ll have enough books and reissues out by the time this book releases that they feel the need to put “Never Before Published” on the cover.

The details are pretty specific — the MacKinnon plaid, the wooden cross, the hunting knife (can’t call it a claymore because it isn’t.

Here’s a bit of trivia: I drew the tattoos myself and sent them to NY. There’s more to Connor’s “warrior marks” than the artists chose to put on the cover, probably because they felt it would make the image too busy. The one I miss the most is my drawing of a bear claw, which I thought was pretty cool. Oh, well. I agree with their decision, for what it’s worth.

I also like the font they chose for the title of the book. It has a nice frontier-ish feeling to it somehow.

So what do you all think?

Coming soon: We’re going to have a visit from the Dessert Diva. A columnist for my paper and a star of local TV, Danette specializes in making the yummiest desserts, pioneering recipes that make me really hungry each week when I’m editing our food section. Danette will be joining together with Natalie Benoit, the heroine from Breaking Point, to talk about baking pies — sharing pie-making tips, as well as recipes.

Danette is a lot of fun, so I know she and Natalie will make an entertaining duo.

If you’re wondering whether this is a response to those who disdain Natalie’s decision to stay home and bake pies for Zach, you’re absolutely right on. Why not have fun with it?

MTM — Get to the Root of It Edition

2011-07-17T22:11:00.003-06:00

Happy Monday!

Welcome to another edition of Man-Titty Monday. This week’s theme is “Get to the Root of It.” And by root, we man “manroot.”

Anyone remember the old romances of the ’70s? That was a favorite euphemism for “penis,” though I always found it absurd. Manroot? Seriously? No way.

The word popped into our heads as we perused this selection of photos, as you will no doubt understand, as they all have one thing in common: you almost get to see the model’s junk, and sometimes you catch just a glimpse of the root of it...

Some women don’t like it all hanging out, but we think these photos are a good compromise between those of us who do like it all hanging out and those of you who want just a hint.

The model at the top is about to lose his swim trunks. The very thought makes us hope for a really big wave. Come on, Mother Ocean! Help us out here. No wave? Bummer. All we get is that tasty hint — the dark thatch of hair and a tiny, tiny glimpse of manroot.

Whoever cropped this photo deserves time in prison. Not even a glimpse of manroot here. But this torso is so hot we just had to share. And, yes, there are veins. You vein-a-holics should be sated for a while.

This gentleman is having some kind of conflict with his underwear. Is it on inside out? Or is it right side out? He’s not sure. He can’t tell. He’s upset about it, too. As a result, we get a tantalizing view of some serious man business — or almost.

Now this gentleman somehow wore his underwear into the shower. But this isn’t a bad thing. Did you ever wonder why those idiot guys in college liked wet T-shirt contests? Now you know. Wet underwear contests seem to be more our thing here at MTM.

Someone recently shared this pic on the Facebook I-Team page. Somehow looking at this, the term “manroot” doesn’t seem quite as silly. Something’s definitely rooted right there on that man, and it’s not a zucchini. We’re not sure who this fellow is, but we’d be happy to help him finish undressing if he’d just send us his address.

We root a lot for David Gandy on this blog. Well, here he’s rooting for us. That body. Those killer blue eyes. That dark hair. Those lips. That... manroot.

Go ahead. Take your time. You can stare all you like, and we know you will. Scroll through the photos again, as many times as you like. We’ll be here for another few days.

Have a great day! We hope your ovaries are warmed up and your day is a bright one.

Coming up next: Inconspicuous vibrators for the workplace...

Just joking.

Happy Monday, everyone!

(Want to host an edition of MTM? Just let us know.)

Fun with Foreign Covers

2011-07-15T15:08:00.004-06:00

Every once in a while, I find it fun to share with you the covers of my books as they appear in translations. Often the concepts are very different. Sometimes they’re very old school, using images that seem to belong to the ’80s or even earlier. And the translations of the titles are fun to learn, too.

As some of you know, I love language. Period. I love learning new languages and have never felt shy about trying to pronounce things I cannot yet say. To me, it’s just fun. It’s been interesting to me to try to interact with readers from around the world, despite the language barriers we face. In the age of Google translate, it’s not impossible for me to communicate with readers whose languages are utterly foreign to me. Right now, my books are in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish, Thai, Japanese, Portuguese and Norwegian.

At the top is the Norwegian cover for Untamed, titled Svikefulle Hjerte, or Deceitful Heart, in Norwegian. I speak fluent Danish, and Norwegian is kind of like misspelled Danish with some words that are strange to me. So I can pretty much read the Norwegian translations.

The same cannot be said for Thai, which must be one of the prettiest written languages in the world. I looks like a bunch of artful loops and curves. I can’t read a word of it, but it’s fun to post messages to my Thai readers on Facebook using Google translate.

Here’s an example:

ฉันชอบที่จะเยือนประเทศไทย

That says, “I would love to visit Thailand.” Is that just freaking cool or what? It’s art.

The Thai publisher has done a fantastic job with these stories, which seem to be fairly popular in Thailand. They can’t have the sexy covers that they have here in the U.S., but the series has a unique look to it that’s a bit mysterious and culturally appropriate. And all the books come with plastic covers.

I have learned that they take books very seriously throughout Asia. Books are shown great respect and are treated like important property. As an author, I like that.

Here is the Japanese cover for Untamed, titled Loyalty to the Maiden’s Prayer, in Japanese. I’ve learned to recognize my name in Japanese — that’s something, anyway — but I need to learn more than that, as I hope to travel there one day. I have two good friends who live there — one a journalist from the Dream Team days and one a journalist who worked with me until Monday. (Not sure what it is about journalists who work for me, then go to Japan...)

Apparently, my books are fairly popular there, too, especially my MacKinnon’s Rangers series. Readers are reportedly waiting desperately for Lord William’s story. Yes, he is the fan fave. Apparently, Japanese readers enjoy characters with more shades of gray.

I was very fortunate to connect with Kyoko Nakai, the talented Japanese writer who translated my Ranger series into Japanese. Warm and gracious, she contacted me to ask if I’d like to write a special message to my Japanese readers for the release of Untamed earlier this month, which I was delighted to do. And she translated that, as well, sending me a copy of the published book when it came out. It hit No. 2 on Amazon.jp for mass market paperback.

(Incidentally, Nakai is a surname in Navajo, too. I find that interesting.)

One of these days, I plan to visit Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia to meet my readers and fellow authors there, as well as catching up with two wayward reporters and meeting Kyoko. Can’t wait!

In the meantime, I’m back to working on Connor’s book. I’ll be finishing Chapter 12 today. I thought I was working on Chapter 13 last weekend. Then I discovered it was actually Chapter 12 — and that half of a chapter had already been written weeks ago and that it was completely different from what I’d just written.

This was frustrating, as both versions had things I liked and didn’t want to lose. After much swearing — I was so angry at myself — I finally took the stuff I absolutely had to keep out of the first version and put it in the second version. I’m finishing that today if it kills me. And then on to Chapter 13 for real.

That’s what happens when you don’t have an outline and just write from the heart. One day I write it this way; a month later, I write a completely different chapter, although the gist is the same.

On to other things...

We had some big rain pass through here that set off flash flood sirens, as a four-foot wall of water moved down one of the canyons. Kind of exciting for an adrenaline junkie like me. Fortunately, damage has been fairly minimal, and all that free water falling from the sky has done wonders for our veggie garden and lawn. We’ve harvested lots of greens, broccoli, tomatoes and squash already. Much, much more to come. I love cooking and eating food that we grow ourselves. I’ll share some photos soon!

I do plan to get Tina Lewis Rowe, the former U.S. Marshal for Colorado, in here for an interview soon, as promised. She and I keep missing each other. Not sure what’s up with that. You think maybe we’re busy? We almost pulled off lunch and window shopping just prior to Christmas. And then...

Also, I’m inviting the dessert columnist from our paper — known as Dessert Diva — to join Natalie Benoit from Breaking Point here on my blog for a post devoted to baking pies and sharing pie recipes. I think the title of that blog post will be, “How to bake good pies for your husband.” (That really cracks me up — it made the entire all-male staff of the newsroom laugh out loud — but if you don’t get the joke, don’t worry about it.)

Benjy says he still has some of each of my five historicals in case anyone is interested in buying an autographed copy straight from him via eBay. These are the original versions. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Sweet Release and Carnal Gift are not being rereleased in print in any version, and I think he said he has about a dozen of each remaining.

And one last bit...

The new cover for Surrender is up on Amazon, and the book is now available for pre-order. This is the “author’s cut” of the book, what I’ve been calling Surrender 2.0. I need to find a way to let readers know that it’s not a brand-new book. I’m hoping the gold medallion on the front that says,“Includes New Material,” will be enough to tip them off. Inevitably, someone will send me an angry email accusing me of trying personally to dupe them into buying a book they already have. But you can serve as my witnesses that I am 100 percent open and honest about these things.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Now, back to Connor...

MTM — Hot Men in Jeans with guest blogger Alyson

2011-07-10T22:12:00.005-06:00

(Editor’s note: This week we continue with another in a series of guest MTM blogs, this one from the lovely Alyson Hacket. Thank you, Alyson!)

I tend to be the odd woman out when it comes to pictures of men for MTM. Not that I mind the almost nekkid pictures or the ones of their tushies but I much prefer to leave lots to the imagination. As a matter of fact, I think the peenie is an ugly thing rather than a beautiful thing — shhhhh! Don't tell my husband that! So hints of it rather than it out there for all to see is what I find HOT!!!

Therefore I have chosen men in jeans! I mean how many of us have read books where the hero is wearing a worn pair of jeans with the button undone. It is written so often because it is HOT!!! So here for your viewing pleasure are a few men in jeans :)

At top is Mr. Jeans #1. I love him because he has a fabulous “V,” a happy trail, and he isn’t overly muscled.

Mr. Jeans #2 looks to be saying, “You think this is hot? Just wait until you get me into bed!!” I am not sure how many of us would kick him out!

Poor guy! Mr. Jeans #3 is overwrought with desire for us. We are driving him out of his mind without our sex appeal!!

This is how Mr. Jeans #4 will great you when you come home from work. This so says "Come and get me baby!!"

I think that Mr. Jeans #5 needs a little help getting dressed — or undressed for that matter! Anyone willing to volunteer for that task?

And last but certainly not least, I couldn't leave you ladies without any hint of what is hiding in those jeans! Mr. Jeans #6 wants you to know exactly what you are getting when you unwrap him from his jeans!

Home improvement

2011-07-09T13:30:00.003-06:00

It’s been a busy week around here. After 13 years of having the same faded, worn, chipped paint and crumbling siding on my house, I took the plunge (i.e., broke out the credit card) and got my house restored and painted.

It used to be dingy yellow. Now it is a very sweet shade of blue with bright white trim. It’s not quite finished yet — the trim above the upstairs window needs to be reconstructed and most of the trim still needs to be painted or given a second coat — but we’re so close! There’s a big redwood deck in back that will soon be refinished and stained, but you can’t see that in this photo.

Of course, it’s only natural that when I decided to put myself into debt for restoration on the house that other stuff would break down. Last weekend, right after the painting work began, my dishwasher gave up the ghost. It was eight years old. Unwilling to spend time doing dishes by hand, we got a new one. Another blow to the credit card. And the blinds I ordered to replace broken ones in my bedroom and in the kitchen before my Danish friends arrived— they left my house on June 27 — will finally be installed on Monday — also on credit.

Bottom line: nicer house, but bigger bills!

For the record, I don’t believe in using credit cards. But there are some times where you just get sick of finding pieces of your walls on the grass, you know? I guess I need to get writing!

In this photo, you get a glimpse of my flower garden, which brings me so much joy, in this photo. The veggie garden is off to the right behind that little wooden fence. The roses badly need to be deadheaded, but some are still in bloom. That’s butterfly bush in the foreground (purple) with hollyhocks lower right. The roses are kind of little puffs of pink around the place.

Just wanted to share the photo with you all.

Upcoming stuff —

An interview with Tina Lewis Rowe, the former U.S. Marshal who was a source for me for Breaking Point and who got a walk-on part in the book because she rocks so much.

A look at the reissue of Sweet Release and Carnal Gift, which will be available as self-published eBooks by August 1. I’ll tell you how they’re different.

Other stuff —

Those of you who haven’t joined the fun on the I-Team group page are missing out. Every day is MTM there, thanks to the fun women who share photos of super-hot men from around the universe. Click here to join.

Also, my website has been updated. There are links to the limited supply of autographed books my son Benjamin is selling through eBay, as well as some fun new foreign covers, including the Japanese release of Untamed, translated by the wonderful and gracious Kyoko Nakai.

I’m off to work on Connor’s book. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Signed books and heatwaves

2011-07-05T21:26:00.007-06:00

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. In the time I haven’t been blogging, I’ve... had a family of Danish friends visiting, given a 25-minute speech at SlutWalk Denver, put out two issues of the paper, finished editing Untamed for it’s grand re-issue in January, dealt with a broken dishwasher (the new one won’t be here till Friday), fractured a small bone in my wrist falling off the fit ball that I sit on at work, washed umpteen loads of laundry, replanted spinach and green beans, got the process moving to have my house painted, re-read Defiant so I could get back to it again, and begun the process of getting some books online as eBooks... not necessarily in that order.

In short, life has been crazy-busy. And there's lot’s of news.

The first bit of news isn’t news to those of you who are BFFs with me on Facebook. For a limited time, my son Benjamin is selling new, signed copies of my out-of-print historicals: Sweet Release, Carnal Gift, Ride the Fire, Surrender and Untamed. These are copies I bought from my the original publisher when they quit selling print books. I just couldn’t bear the thought of them being pulped — pulp Iain? I think not! — so I rescued a case of each. Poor little orphans!

I think at this point there are about 22 copies of each book left. Benjy is selling them for the sticker price (that’s $4.99 plus shipping for everything except for Untamed, which is $7.99 plus shipping). Although he originally posted that he would only sell to U.S. addresses, the demand from Australia and Canada has been such that he’s making it work. Every night, he brings down books for me to sign. I personalize them, and then he packages them for me to ship.

This is the only way, apart from used copies or new copies from private sellers, to get print copies of these books at this point. Ride the Fire will be reissued with its epilogue some time in 2012, while Surrender and Untamed will be out in their uncut, original form with hot new covers in December 2011 and January 2012.

But Sweet Release and Carnal Gift are not being reissued in print. This is it for them. I hope to make them available in various eBook formats by the end of summer through self-publishing.

Given how few copies there are and the fact that I am signing them, I wanted to let you all know because I figure it matters more to you than anyone else. For more info or to check them out, just click on the titles you’re interested in above. Some people are ordering all five, while others are just getting signed copies of their favorite.

I’ll keep you up to date about Sweet Release and Carnal Gift and let you know when they’re up as eBooks.

And now, given that I was awake until after 2 AM last night due to the heat (100F!) and up by 5:30 AM, I’m putting my sleepy, grumpy self to bed.

We were supposed to get rain but, as usual... No.

In the meantime, stay cool, and happy reading! And have a happy Hump Day!

An MTM Fourth of July salute to military men

2011-07-04T06:42:00.004-06:00

(This week we bring another guest MTM. Ronlyn has stepped up to the plate to provide a different kind of fireworks in honor of the holiday. Enjoy! I wish my U.S. readers all a safe and happy Fourth of July.)

First of all we have to raise the flag to give a good old fashioned salute

As we in the U.S. celebrate our Independence Day, I set out to find some perfect specimen of our Armed Forces. This was a more daunting a difficult task than I'd anticipated. I mean, ALL the men are worthy of our admiration and praise, right? (In reality, the women too, but I'm focusing on the men here for MTM.)

So, first we have the ARMY. You know, “Be all you can be.” And boy oh boy, these soldiers are being all they can be. As long as being hot and relaxing on what looks like a beach is being all they can be.

Next we have the MARINES. The few, the proud. I admit to having an affinity for jarheads since my father was one. Marines are actually part of the Navy and can be stationed on ships along with the saliors as well as on Naval bases. Their moto is “Semper Fidelis,” which means “Always Faithful.”

The AIR FORCE is next and they are of course known for their fly boys. Okay, I know I’m making light of all the hundreds of other jobs in the Air Force, but who can blame me? I mean, look at the flyboys!

And finally we have the Navy, with their big ships strong swimmers. Really, you can't go wrong with a sailor. On land or on sea he's gonna have you covered.

We’ve all seen and salivated over the final photo I’m going to share: A photo of a Navy SEAL which was first published a few years ago in Newsweek (I think it was Newsweek) when they did an article on SEALs.

A real life hero who would put his life on the line for us and does every day when he goes to work. This image has gone viral since the SEALs were back in the news for taking down the USA's most wanted terrorist a couple of months ago. And yes, without a doubt, this man represents everything that sends our romance reading hearts a flutter. Most of all though this guy and every other man and woman who puts on the uniform and steps to the front lines deserve our gratitude and respect. I mean, I’m sure he appreciates the fact that we all find him hot, but I somehow think he’d find the fact that we find him capable and recognize his sacrifice just as appealing.

This just in: The new cover for UNTAMED 2.0

2011-06-22T18:20:00.004-06:00

I am in love!

I just got this cover from my editor at Berkley Sensation (Penguin USA). As you can see, it’s for the re-released version of Untamed. And I shrieked when I saw it because, there in the background, are the ramparts of Fort Ticonderoga (Fort Carillon), where much of the story takes place.

I am so happy I could sprout wings and fly!

This editor is the same one who brought you Jed Hill on the cover of Breaking Point and who went out of her way to make sure the new covers for the MacKinnon’s Rangers series were historically accurate (no tipis!). Her name is Cindy, and she flat-out freaking rocks.

Say it with me: Thank you, Cindy!!!

Thanks to the production team at Berkley, too. I owe them all a beer. Maybe one of these days I’ll get to New York and be able to deliver on that promise.

I turned the edited version of Untamed in this morning, together with “The Ballad of Morgan MacKinnon,” which will go in the book this time. As some of you know — and some of you don’t — Untamed had 25 pages of content cut out to fit the original publisher’s arbitrary maximum page count. They kept shrinking the size of their books — smaller books = more books per box = lower paper, printing and shipping costs — and I kept paying the price for that because I write long stories. (My contracts say the books need to be no fewer than 90,000 words; almost all of my books exceed 115,000 words, which is one reason it takes me longer to write them. There are more pages.)

For the re-released version, which will be out in January, we went back to the original untouched manuscript. Those 25 pages are in the book, which has a different edit this time, too. I’d forgotten until I was doing copy edits on the manuscript this weekend that the villain dies in a completely different way in the original version. (Talk about making huge changes to a story! Ouch!) I was so excited, because I much prefer it.

Untamed got a starred review from Publishers Weekly when it first came out, but it’s never quite had the buzz that Surrender did, and I think that’s in part because those 25 pages were cut. I have discovered in editing my older manuscripts that I don’t put unnecessary stuff in, so when you take stuff out, you’re changing the emotional tone of the story. As I read Untamed, I actually really liked it. And, as my Home Team can attest, I don’t say that very often.

So I feel very good about Surrender 2.0 and Untamed 2.0 and can’t wait to share them with you! Today, at least, I get to share this freaking awesome cover.

And here’s some photos from Fort Ticonderoga that my son and mother took when we visited for research purposed back in Autumn 2008.

You can still see the remnant of the French lines in the forest around the fort.

Here’s a view from the upper level of the fort looking down toward Lake Champlain with the La Chute River (plays a role in the story) and Rattlesnake Mountain (where the Rangers spy on the French) just out of the photo to the viewer’s right.

This is close to the view from the cover of the book. To your right would be the lake (and ahead of you, as well, because Fort Ti is on a peninsula) and Rattlesnake Mountain. The other photos of the lake were taken from up there.

A closeup of a cannon with Rattlesnake Mountain in the back. Up there, hidden among the trees, the MacKinnon Brothers are spyin’ on the French with their Mahican brother beside them....

Thanks for reading! I just wanted to share my excitement.

(P.S. Who has figured out that I’m just a big history nerd masquerading as a romance novelist?)

MTM — The Eyes Have It with Guest Ronlyn Howe

2011-06-19T23:01:00.003-06:00

It’s said that the eyes are the window to the soul. They show us the needs and desires of the person, all the secrets that that person holds dear can be seen if you look deeply enough. They can reflect joy, pain, need ... anything we desire it’s all right there.

This first guy (above) has lovely eyes. They’re bright and smiling. I’d imagine he's got a good sense of humor...but do you notice the little spark of devilment in there? That spark that says, “I know what you want and I’d have a great time getting you there.”

Our second eye guy doesn’t have quite the same youthful twinkle, but paired with the sly grin his eyes say he’s been there, done that... and if you play your cards right he might just take you with him. And, if those little smile lines are anything to go by, he can guarantee you’ll have a great time on the ride.

Eye guy number three is completely engrossed in whatever it is he’s watching. With the slight parting of those full lips I’m thinking he’s watching someone trying to entice him. A slow sultry strip tease, maybe?

Guy No. Four has an intense stare that dares anyone to cross him. And he’s got the muscles to back up his stance. And he’s wet. And ripped. And hot.

Guy No. 5 captured my eye the second I saw the photo. Look at that intense look in his eye, along with the determined set of his jaw and compressed lips. He’s being pulled through the ringer and he’s determined to make it through. If you can’t keep up, just get out of his way. This Warrior Man has work to do.

And finally, a look that says it all, along with the reaching hand. I know you girls know what he’s asking.

[Editor’s note: Yes, we do. And my answer is, “Yes!”]

Thanks, Ronlyn, for this sexy MTM treat. As much as we go on about pecs, abs, glutes and biceps, there’s a lot to be said about a strong gaze, a sexy glint, and beautiful eyes.

Have a great Monday, everyone!

Got a concept for MTM or some super-hot pics you’d like to share? Just e-mail us at MTM HQ and arrange for a guest slot.