Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and readers! I have so many reasons to be grateful, and I count you all among them. I wish you a peace-filled, fun holiday with your families.



5. While you're off shopping, your relatives will eat the rest of the pumpkin pie.

4. The best way to save money is to NOT buy stuff, rather than buying it on sale — 20 percent off is still 80 percent on.

3. Thanksgiving is about gratitude for what we have, not scrambling to buy things we don't have and don't need.

2. Black Friday is bad enough. Don't let commercialism encroach on yet another holiday.

1. Would you want to leave your family to go to work after Thanksgiving dinner? People with retail jobs need a holiday, too! Their bosses will only get that message if no one shows up tonight to spend money.
 
Please, respect the holiday! Shop at locally owned businesses on Saturday!

On Monday, Hard Evidence (I-Team #2) was released on audiobook by Tantor Audio, and I was too busy doing other things to celebrate the moment. So let’s make up for that now!

For readers who are new to the I-Team, Hard Evidence tells the story of undercover FBI operative Julian Darcangelo and Tessa Novak, the reporter who unintentionally comes close to blowing his cover. It’s a gritty book that deals with a difficult topic, one I investigated during my years as an investigative journalist.

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

After the murder of a teenage girl, a mysterious man in a black leather jacket was seen lurking near the crime scene. Investigative reporter Tessa Novak has him in her sights as the culprit…

 That man was Julian Darcangelo—an undercover FBI agent working with the Denver police. He’s closing in on the trail of a human trafficker and killer. Tessa’s accusations could blow his cover—and he wants her off the investigation.

But just as Tessa has made Julian a target of interest, she is now a target—of the killer. And as they are forced to trust each other, their physical attraction escalates as intensely as the threat from a ruthless murderer who wants to see both of them dead…

Readers familiar with the series know that Julian is a favorite. In fact, he is the only I-Team hero after whom multiple Kindles and iPads have been named. His name is also part of one reader’s tattoo. What makes him so special?

He’s a tortured alpha male, a man with a good heart who has taken a bad childhood, locked down his emotions, and used his knowledge of crime and his skill with fighting as a weapon.

I’ve always had a very soft spot for him. And that soft spot got softer after listening to talented actor and voice artist Kaleo Griffith narrate his lines in a deep, dark, silky voice for 11.5 hours. As one readers said (hi, Pat!), she’d listen to Kaleo narrate the phone book. He could probably make it sound sexy, too.

To celebrate the release of Hard Evidence, I’m giving away THREE copies of Extreme Exposure, the first book in the series.

All you have to do to be entered to win is to comment below AND leave a contact email address so that I can more easily reach winners. This contest will continue through Thanksgiving to Sunday.

I’ll draw winners on Monday morning.

In the meantime, Unlawful Contact is just around the corner with a Dec. 3 release date. I can’t wait to see what Kaleo will do with bad boy Marc Hunter!

I’m turning my blog over to Julieanne Reeves, a talented new writer whose debut novel, RAZING KAYNE, is about to be released. I’ve gotten to know Julieanne through the Facebook I-Team group, and I was impressed by some of the stories she shared about her life. A person who has lived through a lot generally has a lot of material to draw on for fiction. 

Without further ado, I give you Julieanne.


It’s almost here; launch day for RAZING KAYNE. I’m about to join the ranks of published authors. I’m excited and quite frankly scared. Publishing my book, sending it out into the world feels a lot like the first day I had to put my children in daycare. I bawled having to leave them that day. They, however, barely spared a wave goodbye; they were too excited to meet and play with their new friends.

The road to publication:
I took a creative writing class in high school in lieu of a traditional English course, and discovered that while I struggled with the mechanics of writing — grammar and punctuation — I flat out loved getting all the thoughts and emotions that swirled inside my head onto paper. So I wrote. For year and years after that class I continued to put stories on paper — well computer — that no one would ever see.

Not even my family or closest friends knew I wrote.

Then a few years ago I ended up spending weeks in the hospital with a systemic staph infection from a spider bite that went south on me. (Sorry Pamela, I know I used the S word, but that is what bit me) I of course had waited until my temp was nearly 105* F before I went to the hospital, which made recovering that much worse.

Laying there, miserable and sick, missing my kids like crazy, I started making a list of all the things I was going to do when I got out of the hospital. Most of that list involved my children and making special memories. But the one that was wholly just for me was a goal to be published before I turned 40. As of Tuesday I will have met that goal with months to spare. I’m still working on those goals with my children. They’re going to take a lifetime to complete.

It was also during that time in the hospital that RAZING KAYNE. That high school creative writing teacher drilled into us that you should “write what you know and do it from the heart.” Up to that point my writing has been fantasy and paranormal and I’d never dared share it with anyone. Honestly it was crap.

Searching for inspiration:
I took a long look at myself. I was a 30-something year old adult, I’d worked for years in law enforcement as a police/fire/911 dispatcher who’d been trained and certified in hostage negotiation and suicide intervention. Working in a small agency allowed me the opportunity to work closely with the Special Response Team, Narcotics Task Force officers and Property and Person’s detectives.
Heck, I’d even applied and been accepted to test for the police academy. I passed the testing though never went through the academy. Experiences I never would have had working in a big agency.

As far as my personal life, I’d adopted two children from foster care as a single mother. Up until going into the hospital I had been a full time stay at home foster mom. This meant that I usually had four kids in the house at any given time. Between special education issues, counseling and doctor’s appointments, and life in general I stayed busy. But, oh, how rewarding — and heartbreaking — it was.

Looking at all my experience — personal and professional — and thinking through the cases I’d been involved with, and remembering the ones I’d heard about, I realized I had a treasure trove of inspiration. So, I did what that creative writing teacher taught me; I wrote what I knew and did it from the heart. I spent three weeks in the hospital and several more at home on IV antibiotics, and by the time I was done, so was my rough draft of RAZING KAYNE.

Publication:
It would take two more years and lots of encouragement from my online friends before I finally got up the nerve to publish it.

Now that moment is here, and I’m on a roller coaster of emotions. I think the only thing that makes this easier is that I know I haven’t seen the last of Kayne and Jessica and their wonderful children. In Razing Kayne we met some awesome supporting Heroes: Officer Nick Astenbeck, Detectives Trace St.Moritz and Rafe Chatham, Dr. Mark Oberly, and Fire-medic Joe Sutton. They will be getting their own stories over the next couple years. Payson, Arizona is a small town in real life and in fiction so I know we’ll be seeing the whole gang around from time to time.

I hope you enjoy RAZING KAYNE as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Blurb:
For two years, State Trooper Kayne Dobrescu has wanted only one thing: to understand why his wife inexplicably killed their children and then herself. Memories haunt his days and lay siege to his nights, leaving him questioning his reasons for living.

Jessica Hallstatt became a window and single mother the night her firefighter husband died in a fiery explosion at an accident scene. While her husband may have died a hero, he left Jessica with deep emotional scars that haven’t begun to heal.

When Kayne accepted a transfer to the mountain town of Payson, Arizona, he never expected to meet anyone like Jessica. From the moment he pulled her over for speeding, he was drawn in by her whiskey-colored eyes and sassy dimple. He knows she and her children are a forever type package, and he’s vowed never to give anyone the power to destroy him again. Yet fate has other ideas, throwing Kayne and Jessica together in a fight against an unknown enemy to save the life of a child — and hopefully one another.

Release date: 
Nov. 20. (Paperback through Amazon.com, E-book available through all major distributors. Pre-order NOT available.)

Leave a comment below and be entered to win an e-copy of RAZING KAYNE. One lucky winner – worldwide – will be randomly drawn on or about Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. Winner will be announced in the comments so please be sure to check back. 

Excerpt:
Want to read an excerpt? Go to http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3252957-razing-kayne-uncorrected-excerpt for the Prologue and first two chapters.

Pamela thanks for hosting me, and to all her wonderful readers, thanks for taking the time to stop by. I hope you enjoy the upcoming holiday weekend. 

Julieanne Reeves

Welcome to my blog, blog hoppers! I’d like to introduce you to Nate West, the hero of my I-Team After Hours Novella, Skin Deep.






Nate fought with a Marine Special Operations Team in Afganistan, serving as backup for Navy SEALs on hazardous missions involving high-value targets. During the return trip from one of those missions, the transportation truck carrying him and some of his buddies was hit by an IED, and Nate was severely burned over the right side of his body. He has spent years recovering, and is now living on his family’s ranch high in the Colorado mountains.

What makes Nate special? There are so many things, but among them is the fact that he doesn’t feel sorry for himself, but focuses on getting strong again, being as supportive of the other survivors from his team as he can be. But at the same time, he doesn’t believe he stands much of a chance of finding a woman with him he can share his life.

It’s a good thing for Nate that fate has the perfect woman in mind, a woman who understands scars.  But her scars on are on the inside...

 Here’s an excerpt:

Though Nate tried hard to hide it, Megan knew it wasn’t easy for him to share himself in this way. He didn’t seem to understand that she found him attractive—even downright sexy. His scars were a part of the attraction because they were a part of him.

She ran her hand slowly over his right cheek, trailed her fingers down the scarred side of his neck to his chest. The muscles on the left side were firm, his skin soft and bronzed, coarse curls tickling her palm. His dark nipple was flat and smooth like satin, its center a hard little pebble. The hairless right side of his chest had no nipple, his skin pinched, puckered and creased, some of it almost white, some of it darkly pigmented, some of it with an underlying diamond pattern as if it had once been held in place by mesh. It was harder and stiffer than normal skin, too. But it was his skin.

She could see now that the burns went all the way around his right side to his back, dipping below the waistline of his briefs, stretching down his right leg to just above his knee. He’d been burned, front and back, from his cheek to his right thigh.

And beneath his boxer briefs? Was he scarred there, too?

His left thigh also bore a large scar, but it was different, not puckers and creases, but a large, pale rectangle that wrapped around his heavy quadriceps. Was that where they’d taken skin for his skin grafts?

So much pain.

And so much courage.

Other than that first night when he told her how he’d been burned, he hadn’t spoken of his service with the Marines, keeping all the horrors he’d seen, all the things he’d done, all he’d suffered quietly to himself. He didn’t complain. He didn’t show self-pity. He simply endured.

She traced a finger down the uneven line roughly in the center of his torso, where scars met normal skin. She couldn’t imagine how much he had suffered, couldn’t imagine how any woman could have turned her back on him and left him to face the agony of recovery alone. She felt a sharp surge of protectiveness, wishing she could take all of this away from him.

“There are no nerve endings. I can’t feel anything beyond pressure. You don’t have to touch—”

“Shhh.” She lowered her head, pressed her lips firmly to the place where his right nipple ought to have been, wanting to touch him everywhere, to know all of him, wanting to show him that every inch of him, scarred or not, was precious to her.

He sucked in a breath, tensed, his fingers sliding into her hair. “Megan, I…”

His voice faded as she kissed her way down the taut, scarred skin of his belly, her hands sliding down his sides to his hips, his muscles jerking every time her mouth touched him. But if he couldn’t feel her, then why… ?

She glanced up, saw him watching her, a look like pain on his face. And she understood. It wasn’t so much that he could feel her kisses, but rather just the fact that she was kissing this part of him that made him react.

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away, swallowing the lump in her throat as she lowered her lips to him again, the sympathy she felt for him warming to desire as she indulged herself, kissing, licking and nibbling her way back up his belly, across his chest, to his neck. Then she did what he’d done to her so many times today, teasing the sensitive skin beneath his left ear, delighting in the way he shivered.

“Oh, Megan.” His hands sought out her breasts, his thumbs flicking their tips, making it terribly hard for her to concentrate. Then one big hand slid down her back and beneath her pajama bottoms to grasp and squeeze her bottom. “When are you going to take these damned things off?”

“Later.” She was too busy for that right now—and too nervous.

It was so much easier, so much less frightening, to concentrate on him.

She nipped his earlobe, sucked it into her mouth, bit down, the natural scent of his skin filling her head. It was a warm scent, unmistakably masculine, arousing her even more, an intoxicated feeling swelling inside her. She was drunk on him, his taste, the male feel of him. She wanted to kiss him and touch him—everywhere. She wanted to chase away his pain with pleasure. And—oh, yes!—she wanted him to keep doing whatever he was doing with his hands, his touch sending shivers of bliss straight from her aching nipples to her womb.

Had she ever felt anything like this?

No, never.

She stretched out on top him, seeking his mouth, her moan mingling with his groan of satisfaction as their lips were reunited in a deep, hard kiss, his head rising off the pillow to meet her, his right arm encircling her to draw her closer, his left hand still busy with her breast. They devoured each other, tongues tasting with slick strokes, teeth nipping, lips teasing. And still it wasn’t enough.

But Megan wasn’t sure she was ready for what came next.


* * *

 I hope you enjoyed that! One lucky winner will get an ebook copy of Skin Deep and will be able read all of Nate and Megan’s story.

Thanks for participating, and have fun on the rest of the blog hop!

Kris Kennedy	Bonnie Vanak	Erin Kellison
Sharon Page	Lila DiPasqua	Elisabeth Naughton
Norah Wilson	Jennifer Lyon	Monica Burns
Vanessa Kelly	Mia Marlowe	Joan Swan
Pamela Clare	Margo Maguire	Rock*It Reads