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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Sunday, September 29, 2013
FIRST STRIKE excerpt
First, the bad news — I bumped the release date for First Strike back to Oct. 22 after some people expressed concerns about the month-long wait between the prequel and Striking Distance. There is a significant cliffhanger at the end of First Strike. With the Oct. 22 release date, there will be only two weeks between the two stories.
For those of you who missed it — this novella was kind of a surprise to everyone, including me — here’s the scoop on how this story came about:
By the time I finished Striking
Distance, I had perhaps two discarded pages of text for every manuscript
page I sent to my editor. While some of the material is going to find its way
here as little blog extras, some will never see the light of day. The
story’s original prologue, however, has been transformed into an erotic novella.
First Strike tells
the story of how Laura Nilsson and Javier Corbray meet in Dubai City—and lose themselves
in a weekend of no-strings-attached sex. Since unmarried sex is illegal in
Dubai, their time together comes at a risk. But the bigger risk may come in the
form of feelings they didn’t expect.
Here’s the book’s blurb:
Just a weekend…
Laura Nilsson knows what she wants: a successful career as a
broadcast journalist—and a little fun between the sheets now and again. What
she doesn’t want is marriage or kids. When a ripped and sexy stranger intervenes
to stop a couple of drunks from harassing her in a hotel bar in Dubai City, all
she can think about is spending the rest of the weekend with him—in her bed.
There’s just one little problem. Unmarried sex is illegal in Dubai.
… of no-strings sex …
Navy SEAL Javier “Cobra” Corbray is on his way home from a
rough deployment in Afghanistan when he finds himself having dinner with “the Baghdad
Babe.” What she wants from him—sex with no strings—could land them both in
prison. Still, he’s more than happy to oblige her. She’s confident and sexually
assertive, and he’s secure enough to lie back and let her make the first
strike. But, as she’s about to find out, he’s more than her match.
… or the beginning of
something more?
Yet, neither Laura nor Javier has any idea what lies
ahead—or how this weekend of mind-blowing sex will impact their emotions. Will
they act on their new-found feelings in time, or will they let something
special slip away… perhaps forever?
First Strike will
be available as an ebook only through the usual ebook retailers. At 17,000 words, it’s too short to justify publication in
print. The cost to readers would truly be unfair. Fortunately, both Amazon and
Nook have downloadable applications that enable people without e-readers to
read stories on their computers.
Now how about an excerpt?
I thought you’d never ask! Here you go.
From Chapter 1 of First Strike: The Erotic Prequel to Striking Distance
What was it about men who gave off
that “don’t fuck with me” vibe that made Laura want to do just that?
“You didn’t like Jumeirah Beach?” For a man who’d come to
Dubai City to see the sights, he didn’t seem very impressed.
“Nah, not really.” He raised his beer mug and finished the glass, Laura’s
gaze drawn first to his flexing bicep, then to his moist lips. “Growing up, I
spent summers at my grandmother’s place in Humacao. You want to see a beach,
come to Puerto Rico.”
So he was Puerto Rican—probably a mix of Taíno Indian, African, and
Spanish.
“I’m sure it’s beautiful.”
He nodded, smiled, looking into her eyes. “A lover’s paradise.”
A bolt of heat shot through her belly, her pulse skipping.
He made the words sound erotic, pronouncing every syllable slowly, the
warmth in his eyes signaling that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
Surprised by the intensity of her own physical reaction, she raised her
glass to her lips, only to find it empty.
“Let me buy you another.”
She set the glass down. “I’d like that. Thanks.”
She watched as he made his way
through the crowded restaurant toward the bar to get another glass of wine for
her and another beer for himself, his perfect, muscular ass shifting beneath
the denim of his jeans as he walked, his movements sleek, confident.
People stepped aside for him, as if
they knew instinctively that they shouldn’t cross him.
But he wasn’t arrogant. Most men who were ripped and sexy like Javier had
egos to match, standing at the center of their own vain little worlds. But
Javier hadn’t shown a hint of swagger. Instead, he’d asked her a half-dozen
questions about her job, seeming genuinely interested in her answers. He even
knew about some of her bigger stories—her exposé on the Pentagon’s failure to
supply soldiers with body armor, her investigation into the group of servicemen
who’d been running a protection racket in Baghdad. She sensed something deeper
in Javier, something that went beyond his good looks and charm, something real.
God, he turned her on.
From the moment he’d sat at her
table, her mind had begun spinning sexual fantasies of the two of them
together. Everything about him seemed to draw her in—his smooth skin, his
voice, the stubble on his square jaw, his clean scent, those full lips. What
would they feel like when he kissed her, tasted her, went down on her?
The very thought made her wet.
She’d always been careful about the
men she allowed into her bed, sometimes going months and even years between
lovers. Her job put her in the public eye, and the last thing she wanted was to
leave a trail of men who would watch the news, point to her, and say to their
buddies, “Yeah, I slept with her. I fucked the Baghdad Babe.”
Her career didn’t leave a lot of
time for men, anyway. She had dreams of one day being a news anchor or perhaps
even hosting an evening news program. She had no desire to get married, settle
down, and have kids, and that meant she needed to steer clear of men who might
mistake her interest for something more than sexual.
She watched as he paid for the drinks and then
started back toward the table, another glass of chardonnay in one hand, a mug
of beer in the other.
Would he be good in bed?
Pondering that question made her
ache inside.
Oh, yes, he would be.
She couldn’t say what made her so
sure of that. Maybe it was the way he paid attention to every word she said.
Maybe it was the way he moved, so in control of his own body. Maybe it was the
heat in his eyes when he looked at her. But she had a feeling that if she ended
up in bed with him, he would make it well worth her while.
She crossed her legs, squeezed,
trying to appease the ache, but that only made it worse, the feeling of arousal
between her thighs impossible to ignore.
Pull
it together, Nilsson.
Of course, there was no way for
them to hook up—not here. Unmarried sex was illegal in Dubai. It was even
illegal for unrelated men and women to be alone together. They couldn’t just
get into the elevator, head to her room, and get it on. If they were caught,
they’d go to jail, maybe even be flogged.
And wouldn’t that make for a nice news
teaser?
Laura
Nilsson arrested in Dubai for illicit sex with man she barely knew. Hormones to
blame. Film at eleven.
She ran the words through her mind
and found herself wondering again what Javier did for a living. Was he Delta
Force? An Army Ranger? A Green Beret?
Most U.S. servicemen trusted her
enough to tell her what they did for a living, but Javier wasn’t one of them.
That meant the work he did was highly classified—or that he worked for a
private contractor that specialized in covert ops.
He
could be an arms dealer for all you know.
There was no doubt. He was dangerous.
Somehow that thought left her
feeling even more aroused.
You
need to buy a battery-operated boyfriend.
Even if she’d had one, she wouldn’t
have been able to bring it along on her travels. She was pretty sure she’d get
into less trouble if she were caught smuggling an AK-47 into Dubai than if she
were found in possession of a vibrator.
Javier handed her the wine glass,
his warm fingers grazing hers, striking sparks off her skin. He slid into the
seat across from her. “This place gets crowded.”
She glanced around them. “It’s
Friday night. Most of the city is shut down. Expats have to do something with
themselves.”
“Cheers.” He raised his beer glass
and drank.
Her gaze locked with his, desire
for him driving all other thoughts from her mind.
She set her glass aside, leaned
toward him, lowering her voice to a whisper, her pulse spiking as she shared
what she was thinking. “Will this conversation get awkward if I tell you how
very much I want to fuck you?”
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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
1 comments:
Oh Pamela!!! I can almost hear Kaleo saying those words!
( fingers crossed). I love this excerpt, thanks. Convinced me more I want to read this first!