Book Releases
Holding On (Colorado High Country #6) —
The Colorado High Country series returns with Conrad and Kenzie's story.
A hero barely holding on…
Harrison Conrad returned to Scarlet Springs from Nepal, the sole survivor of a freak accident on Mt. Everest. Shattered and grieving for his friends, he vows never to climb again and retreats into a bottle of whiskey—until Kenzie Morgan shows up at his door with a tiny puppy asking for his help. He’s the last person in the world she should ask to foster this little furball. He’s barely capable of managing his own life right now, let alone caring for a helpless, adorable, fluffy puppy. But Conrad has always had a thing for Kenzie with her bright smile and sweet curves. One look into her pleading blue eyes, and he can’t say no.
The woman who won’t let him fall…
Kenzie Morgan’s life went to the dogs years ago. A successful search dog trainer and kennel owner, she gets her fill of adventure volunteering for the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. The only thing missing from her busy life is love. It’s not easy finding Mr. Right in a small mountain town, especially when she’s unwilling to date climbers. She long ago swore never again to fall for a guy who might one day leave her for a rock. When Conrad returns from a climbing trip haunted by the catastrophe that killed his best friend, Kenzie can see he’s hurting and wants to help. She just might have the perfect way to bring him back to the world of the living. But friendship quickly turns into something more—and now she’s risking her heart to heal his.
A hero barely holding on…
Harrison Conrad returned to Scarlet Springs from Nepal, the sole survivor of a freak accident on Mt. Everest. Shattered and grieving for his friends, he vows never to climb again and retreats into a bottle of whiskey—until Kenzie Morgan shows up at his door with a tiny puppy asking for his help. He’s the last person in the world she should ask to foster this little furball. He’s barely capable of managing his own life right now, let alone caring for a helpless, adorable, fluffy puppy. But Conrad has always had a thing for Kenzie with her bright smile and sweet curves. One look into her pleading blue eyes, and he can’t say no.
The woman who won’t let him fall…
Kenzie Morgan’s life went to the dogs years ago. A successful search dog trainer and kennel owner, she gets her fill of adventure volunteering for the Rocky Mountain Search & Rescue Team. The only thing missing from her busy life is love. It’s not easy finding Mr. Right in a small mountain town, especially when she’s unwilling to date climbers. She long ago swore never again to fall for a guy who might one day leave her for a rock. When Conrad returns from a climbing trip haunted by the catastrophe that killed his best friend, Kenzie can see he’s hurting and wants to help. She just might have the perfect way to bring him back to the world of the living. But friendship quickly turns into something more—and now she’s risking her heart to heal his.
In ebook and soon in print!
About Me
- Pamela Clare
- I grew up in Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, then lived in Denmark and traveled throughout Europe before coming back to Colorado. I have two adult sons, whom I cherish. I started my writing career as a columnist and investigative reporter and eventually became the first woman editor of two different papers. Along the way, my team and I won numerous state and several national awards, including the National Journalism Award for Public Service. In 2011, I was awarded the Keeper of the Flame Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalism. Now I write historical romance and contemporary romantic suspense.
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Friday, January 09, 2009
Naked Edge — An excerpt!
I hope you all like the new design of my blog. Barbara at Happily Ever After has such an amazing blog that I asked her to help me do something different with my darn Blogger account. I was suffering from a really bad case of Widget Envy and couldn't make my blog do a darned thing. It turns out that part of my problem was having the old Blogger template from just after the dinosaurs went extinct. Blogger 10,000 B.C. or something like that.
So thanks, Barbara!
Anyway, I thought I'd share something with you all, a little sneak peek at Naked Edge, which finally seems to be moving in the right direction after a rewrite or two...
In this scene from Chapter 10, Gabe is having a hard time, grappling with his ghosts and with the emotional turmoil Kat has brought to his life. Enjoy!
Not far from a certain butte outside Boulder...
Gabe turned onto his side, rearranged the pillow beneath his head, jerked the blanket up to his chin, willing himself to sleep. It didn’t work. The arm of the couch bent his neck at an unnatural angle. His feet hung off the other end. Worse, the seam of his boxer briefs cut into his nuts like piano wire.
He rolled onto his back, adjusted himself, his hand closing around his cock. And for a moment he considered jacking off. He could kill two birds with one stone — relieve the tension roiling inside him and make himself fall asleep. There was only one catch: what he wanted was in his bedroom, lying in his bed, wearing one of his T-shirts. Touching himself seemed pretty lame when compared to touching her.
What would she do if he went to her, if he stretched himself out beside her and started kissing her? Would she tell him to get out, or would she kiss him back? And what the hell was wrong with him that he was even considering it?
He closed his eyes again, his head crowded by thoughts, images, memories. Jill lying dead at the morgue. Two Crows lying dead at Mesa Butte. Kat crawling, dragging her broken leg behind her. Kat being dragged out of the sweat lodge by her hair. Her tears as she’d knelt at Two Crows’s side. Her whimpers as Gabe kissed and sucked her nipples. Falling at the rock gym. Almost falling outside his own damn door, drunk on his ass.
Somehow it all came down to one thing: he wanted Kat.
He shoved the blanket aside and stood, glancing down at the Glock and deciding to leave it by the couch. The alarm would give him plenty of time to retrieve it if he needed it. Before he could think too hard about what he was doing, he crossed the room, walked down the hallway, and silently opened his bedroom door.
She lay on her side facing the door, her hair a dark halo against the white pillowcases. He moved closer and saw that she was sound asleep, her face relaxed, her breathing deep and even, her lips slightly parted. Her arm rested on top the comforter, his T-shirt slipping to reveal the soft curve of her shoulder.
For a moment, he stood there, watching her sleep, feeling oddly like a trespasser in his own bedroom. Then he reached out, brushed a lock of hair from her cheek, rubbed the strands between his fingers, feeling their softness.
What was it about her that got to him? If only he knew, he’d get vaccinated, find a cure, look for some way to stop it. Hell, he’d wear a rope of garlic around his neck if he thought that would do the trick. He didn’t want to want her, didn’t want to get any more tangled up in her than he already was, didn’t want to feel.
As if to prove to him how impossible that would be, she sighed in her sleep and nuzzled deeper into her pillow, and the same feeling of protectiveness he always seemed to feel for her growing inside him.
Then something slipped from her hand onto the sheet.
Her cell phone.
The damned thing was still on.
He picked it up. Letting his gaze linger on her face for a second longer, he turned, walked out of his room, and closed the door behind him. When he was sure the sound wouldn’t wake her, he flipped the little device open and turned it off. He’d be damned if anyone was going to scare her again tonight. Then, setting the phone beside the Glock, he lay down, stared up at the ceiling, and waited for morning.
So thanks, Barbara!
Anyway, I thought I'd share something with you all, a little sneak peek at Naked Edge, which finally seems to be moving in the right direction after a rewrite or two...
In this scene from Chapter 10, Gabe is having a hard time, grappling with his ghosts and with the emotional turmoil Kat has brought to his life. Enjoy!
Not far from a certain butte outside Boulder...
Gabe turned onto his side, rearranged the pillow beneath his head, jerked the blanket up to his chin, willing himself to sleep. It didn’t work. The arm of the couch bent his neck at an unnatural angle. His feet hung off the other end. Worse, the seam of his boxer briefs cut into his nuts like piano wire.
He rolled onto his back, adjusted himself, his hand closing around his cock. And for a moment he considered jacking off. He could kill two birds with one stone — relieve the tension roiling inside him and make himself fall asleep. There was only one catch: what he wanted was in his bedroom, lying in his bed, wearing one of his T-shirts. Touching himself seemed pretty lame when compared to touching her.
What would she do if he went to her, if he stretched himself out beside her and started kissing her? Would she tell him to get out, or would she kiss him back? And what the hell was wrong with him that he was even considering it?
He closed his eyes again, his head crowded by thoughts, images, memories. Jill lying dead at the morgue. Two Crows lying dead at Mesa Butte. Kat crawling, dragging her broken leg behind her. Kat being dragged out of the sweat lodge by her hair. Her tears as she’d knelt at Two Crows’s side. Her whimpers as Gabe kissed and sucked her nipples. Falling at the rock gym. Almost falling outside his own damn door, drunk on his ass.
Somehow it all came down to one thing: he wanted Kat.
He shoved the blanket aside and stood, glancing down at the Glock and deciding to leave it by the couch. The alarm would give him plenty of time to retrieve it if he needed it. Before he could think too hard about what he was doing, he crossed the room, walked down the hallway, and silently opened his bedroom door.
She lay on her side facing the door, her hair a dark halo against the white pillowcases. He moved closer and saw that she was sound asleep, her face relaxed, her breathing deep and even, her lips slightly parted. Her arm rested on top the comforter, his T-shirt slipping to reveal the soft curve of her shoulder.
For a moment, he stood there, watching her sleep, feeling oddly like a trespasser in his own bedroom. Then he reached out, brushed a lock of hair from her cheek, rubbed the strands between his fingers, feeling their softness.
What was it about her that got to him? If only he knew, he’d get vaccinated, find a cure, look for some way to stop it. Hell, he’d wear a rope of garlic around his neck if he thought that would do the trick. He didn’t want to want her, didn’t want to get any more tangled up in her than he already was, didn’t want to feel.
As if to prove to him how impossible that would be, she sighed in her sleep and nuzzled deeper into her pillow, and the same feeling of protectiveness he always seemed to feel for her growing inside him.
Then something slipped from her hand onto the sheet.
Her cell phone.
The damned thing was still on.
He picked it up. Letting his gaze linger on her face for a second longer, he turned, walked out of his room, and closed the door behind him. When he was sure the sound wouldn’t wake her, he flipped the little device open and turned it off. He’d be damned if anyone was going to scare her again tonight. Then, setting the phone beside the Glock, he lay down, stared up at the ceiling, and waited for morning.
Labels:Excerpts/Naked Edge
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Favorite Writing Quotes
—Emile Zola
"I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day."
—James Joyce
"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery."
—Jane Austen
"Writers are those for whom writing is more difficult that it is for others."
—Ernest Hemingway
"When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth."
—Kurt Vonnegut
"The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar is the test of their power."
—Toni Morrison
"No tears in the author, no tears in the reader."
—Robert Frost.
"I'm a writer. I give the truth scope."
—the character of Chaucer in A Knight's Tale
15 comments:
You're welcome, Pamela! And remember if you want to change colors or anything just let me know.
I loved the excerpt! I haven't read any of your contemporaries yet but I will, I promise :) I actually just joined a contemporary reading challenge because I've been reading historicals for so long. A change will be good! I have to read ten this year, and yours are going to give me a great head start!!
Oooh, I like the new look.
And I love the excerpt. Barbara, you have to read the contemps. They are every bit as good as the historicals!
Leave you for a couple of days and look what happened! I love the change! I'll have to go explore later.
Wow, what an excerpt! I am now antsy for the rest of it! Too, many questions!
I love the new look. Kudos to Barbara. Thanks for the sneak peek. Looking forward to the release of the next book in the I-Team series.
Hi, Barbara — Thanks again! I can't wait to go widget hunting.
I'm glad you enjoyed the excerpt. Fun to join a reading challenge. Do you find yourself more drawn to historicals in general? I never read contemps until I started writing them. I still prefer historicals. :-)
Hi, Lori — Good to see you! And thanks! I always worry a bit that the grittiness of the contemps will turn off readers who've only read the historicals. I'm glad you've enjoyed both.
Hi, Debbie — I'm glad you enjoyed the excerpt. I'll keep writing as fast as I can. I hope you're doing well. How are the grandbabies?
Hi, Jane — You're welcome! I'll have more excerpts as I finish writing the book. Good to see you!
I looooove the excerpt! You are so good to us Pamela, thank you.
Love the change and the new widgets!
Hope all is well with you
Love the excerpt of course. I need to see more of those. ;-)
Oh my I love the blog Barabra did a wonderful job and I loved what I read on your new book I can't wait to read it it sounds soooo goooood hope things are going good with you talk to you later God Bless
oh wow this is so pretty I cant wait either to read you new book it sounds great
Really nice change, Pamela. And I loved the exceprt from NE. Can't wait til August :)
Didn't think I was at the right page for a second there.
Just wanted to say I've finished the third book of yours that I've read. I just love them and can't wait to find more. It's really refreshing to read a historical romance and not have it set in Regency era England. Plus it helps that Last of the Mohicans was one of my favorite movies.
OOOh, I can't wait for Naked Edge! Absolutely loved the excerpt Pam! Espeically the couple of paragraphs. Wow, what an image I have of Gabe!
And eyeful really. *sigh* I love the I-team books!
The new re-vamped blog is awesome Pam! Great job Barbara!
Hi, Amanda — Thanks! Sorry to be so far behind in responding!
Hi, Ronlyn — Hmmm. Could that be a hint? LOL!
Hi, Tena — Thanks! Barbara really helped. I'm so rushed all the time and never really have time to sit down and figure things out. I'm glad you enjoyed the excerpt.
Hi, Shirley — thanks so much! I hope to finish it on time. Ha. No, really, I do hope that.
Hi, Lucy — Thanks so much. It's November now, though. That's my fault. I'm really trying hard to get it on time so that it won't fall into 2010.
Hi, Eugenia — I'm glad you're here again. Which book did you finish? I've always loved LAST OF THE MOHICANS, too. A wonderful film! Now that I've been to the places in the movie, I love it even more.
Hi, Christie — So glad to see you! I'm glad you enjoyed the excerpt. Which couple of paragraphs??? How is your writing going? I hope to have more excerpts soon. I, um, need to write more first, though. D'oh!
Im not sure if I got to vote Im so busy with a 4month old but Id have to say I too would choose all of them they are so wonderful to hear what kind of love they put out for the one they have falling in love with
I can't wait, I've been dying to read this story!