A year ago, I had no hair. I was three weeks out of radiation treatment for breast cancer, but I was still using morphine to help me cope with the pain of radiation burns. I wasn’t sure what lay ahead of me. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to write again. There was simply nothing left inside me.

A few weeks went by. I quit needing morphine. And then the words just exploded out of me.

What a year 2015 was!

In 2014, thanks to breast cancer, I wrote zero published words. In 2015, I wrote more than 230,000 published words. It felt and still feels like a major accomplishment.

First came Seduction Game, which was released in ebook and audiobook formats on Oct. 20. (The book hits bookstore shelves in paperback on Jan. 5!) The story is the lightest of the seven full-length I-Team books and was so much fun to write. Most readers really enjoyed the story — and getting to know Holly a lot better.



Then I started Soul Deep, part of the I-Team series and a follow-up to Skin Deep. I had a lot of fun telling the story of an older hero and heroin. Jack and Janet showed a lot less ego and made more mature choices. That was refreshing for me as an author. Love knows no age limit, after all.

But halfway through writing this book, I got slammed by the emotionl aftermath of cancer treatment. I spent most of a week crying, unable to write, uninterested in doing anything, mourning the life that had been mine, a life that ended when I heard the diagnosis.

“I wish I could tell you it gets better,” said a friend of mine who has faced his own battle with prostate cancer. “It doesn’t. I just gets different.”

I found myself in a new, uncertain life, the landscape of my world permanently altered, and just facing that every day felt like more than I could take for much of the summer.

Even so — I’m not sure how — I managed to finish Soul Deep. Most I-Team fans enjoyed seeing Jack get his own unexpected HEA, though for some the idea of an older hero was too much. That's okay. Not every book is for every reader.



A caring friend sent me to San Diego for an all-expenses paid week of recuperation with my younger son, Benjamin, and my friend, Jackie. I met my assistant Shell Ryan, who lives there, for the first time, and was reunited with my true love — the ocean.

I cannot say how much this trip helped to lift my spirits. We told the hotel staff that we were there to celebrate the end of cancer treatment, and they really got into the spirit of that, sending a congratulatory bowl of fruit and a card to my room and saying “Congratulations!” and offering me good wishes whenever we bumped into anyone.




Other highlights included having friends from France come to visit. Showing them around Rocky Mountain National Park was a lot of fun.

In August, I was blessed to be present at the birth of my first grandchild. Little Oliver Harrison Patarino was born at 11:10 AM on Aug. 10, and my heart has never been the same. I adore this little boy and have savored every moment I’ve spent with him and my other grandkids — Wesley (9) and Mallory (7). Angela, my daughter-in-law, had such a rough pregnancy, but it came with a very happy ending.




Over a very busy summer, we adopted another kitten so that Tazzy, our woodpile kitty, would have a friend. Willy, a rescue, came to live with us at 8 weeks old. A big, fluffy lover boy, he is now easily twice Tazzy’s size. He is very easy-going and has helped Tazzy, who was likely born feral, be less afraid of people.




We also had wonderful visit with Sebastian and, friends of ours from France. It is always a joy to share the natural beauty of Colorado with people we care about.

Then in September, Benjamin left for eight months in France — a great opportunity, but hard for me. I miss him, of course, and eight months feels like a very long time. He is doing well, however, and making the most of his time there, which is exactly what he should be doing. I enjoy his photos and stories about his experiences in Picardy, which is where he is living this time around — a very different world from Paris.

In October, my Danish niece Claudia came to stay and work as my intern for a few weeks. It was great to get to spend time with her and to show her around Boulder and the mountains. Her mother, Christina, my Danish sister from my days as an exchange student, arrived for that last week, and the three of us had a great time. It was truly hard to see them leave, too.

After that, I poured myself into writing Dead By Midnight: An I-Team Christmas, the finale of the I-Team series. A short novel, it brings most of the I-Team couples and characters together for one terrible night in Denver. Terrorists take over a historic Denver hotel, where a couple of Christmas parties are taking place, not knowing that they’ve just taken the wrong bunch hostage. What follows is as tense a story as I’ve ever written. I poured all my love for the I-Team heroes and heroines into every page. Perhaps as result, reader response to Dead By Midnight has been overwhelming. The last page brings the I-Team series to an end — at least for now.



Yes, what a year it has been!

Last January, I sat in my oncologist’s office, asking him about my recurrence risk. It felt so important for me to know whether that risk was 10 percent in five years or 8 percent in 10 years. He turned to me and said, “Quit reading about breat cancer, and start writing again.”

Something in his words made me realize that the recurrence risk doesn’t really matter. What mattered was living the life I have. In that moment, I was able to set aside most of my fear and to pour myself into my daily living. I thank God for that gift.

None of us knows how much time we have. No one knows what the new year will bring. The only thing we can do is to cherish the time we have with the people we love and do our very best to make each day count, putting to work the gifts that we’ve been given. That’s what I tried to do in 2015, and it’s what I'll continue to strive to do in 2016.

I do have hopes and plans. I’d love to make it to France in February to keep the promise I made to Benjamin in 2014 to join him there for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Verdun on Feb. 21.  I've got a real birthday in 2016, so that will be fun. I want to see my Danish friends and family again, not to mention Copenhagen, my favorite city on earth.

I’ve started a new contemporary romance series that I hope you’ll all enjoy, featuring members of an alpine search and rescue team. Set in a small mountain town modeled after Nederland, this is Colorado small mountain town romance with lots of authentic Colorado flavor.

I plan to start every day by reading a poem, to do more to help those who have nothing, to take better care of myself, tpaint and find new ways of creating, and to spend more time with my grandkids, niece and nephews.

Thank you to all of you who continue to support my work as an author and me as the human being behind the books. Your support day in and day out means so very much.

I wish you and your families a very happy, healthy and peace-filled New Year.

My Christmas shopping is done. Last night’s snow is shoveled. The gifts are wrapped — or at least stuffed artfully into pretty gift bags. (Am I the only one who prefers bags to the misery of wrapping presents?) The Christmas cards are written and mailed. The groceries are packed into the fridge and the cupboards.

Christmas is almost here! My very favorite time of year.


Before I vanish to celebrate my first Christmas with my new baby grandson Oliver, I wanted to make sure you all knew that Seduction Game, which had been slated for a March 2016 release, has been bumped up to Jan. 5.

That’s right around the corner. You won’t even have time to work off the egg nog — to say nothing of the turkey, stuffing, chocolate, Christmas cookies, and fudge — before Seduction Game hits bookstore shelves. Jot it down on your calendar before you forget — January 5.

This is the first time the book is out in paperback. It was released in ebook and audiobook formats in October, a kind gesture from my publisher, who wanted to help me get back on my feet financially after last year’s health struggles.

If you missed the ebook release, you can grab it for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play and in audiobook formats. It’s also available in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia in ebook and soon in print.

Seduction Game marks the last long novel in the series, with Dead By Midnight: An I-Team Christmas marking the series grand finale. Like the big burst of fireworks at the end of a Fourth of July celebration, Dead By Midnight, a short novel, pulls out all the stops, bringing the I-Team cast together in a fight for their lives.

The story features cameos by the men from the FBI Hostage Rescue Series by New York Times Bestselling author Kaylea Cross. And what fun that was! (Tip: Marked, the first book in that series is FREE right now for ebooks!)

One thing is for certain: The bad guys in this story have no idea what they’ve set in motion. You might say — and Tuck does — that they took the wrong damned group of people hostage. Too bad for them.

Reviewer Blithley Bookish called Dead By Midnight “hands down the best holiday read of the season,” which made my day, of course.

Dead By Midnight: An I-Team Christmas is available in paperback and around the world in ebook for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and Kobo. It’s also available in all ebook formats at Smashwords.

The great thing about these two stories is how much fun I had writing them. I hope you’ll check them out!

Now, back to baking and wrapping and last-minute shopping!

Merry Christmas to all my friends readers around the world who celebrate! I wish you and your families every happiness this holiday season and in the new year ahead.

Just a quick and dirty update to let you know TWO things.

1. Berkley is doing a giveaway of 15 **PRINT** copies of Seduction Game (I-Team #7) on Goodreads. If you’ve got a Goodreads account, click here to enter. I didn’t know about the drawing until I saw a tweet about it, or I would have let you know sooner. Deadline to enter is TODAY.

2. The print edition of Nick and Holly’s story will be out on January 5, not in March. It got bumped up, apparently. Those of you who’ve been waiting for the paperback got two whole months cut off your wait time. Surprise! It was a surprise to me, too.

The ebook edition and audiobook editions are available at these retailers:

Kindle
iBooks
Nook
Google
Kobo
Amazon UK
Amazon AU
Amazon CA
Audible (audiobook)


Okay, I have three things to share.

3. Anyone who wants to experience Dead By Midnight: An I-Team Christmas in real time should start reading the story at 16:10  — that’s 4:10 PM — on Dec. 19. That’s the day the story takes place, and, yes, that’s tomorrow. The story is written in real time, so you can follow along. Just make sure you finish BY MIDNIGHT!

So far enthusiasm for this story has been overwhelming. It’s been called “hands down the best holiday read of the season” and “the best romantic suspense of 2015,” which is huge for me, given that it’s the last I-Team story, at least for now.

Don’t miss out on the fun! Join me tomorrow for a live tweet real-time reading of the story.

Dead by Midnight is available in paperback and ebook.

Kindle
Paperback
Amazon UK
Amazon AU
Amazon CA
Nook
Kobo
iBooks
Smashwords
CreateSpace


I hope everyone’s holiday season has been bright so far. Christmas is just around the corner!

You’ve been emailing me and asking me about T-shirts and I-Team schwag for years. I finally had time to do something about it.

Today, I’m announcing the opening of the I-Team Shop at Cafe Press. There you’ll find everything from T-shirts and hoodies to canvas bags and keychains to shower curtains and iPhone cases—all featuring the official I-Team logo.

But first, the background and why these logos mean so much to me.

My friend Lynsey Marion designed the logos for me a couple of years ago with a Cafe Press shop in mind. I was diganosed with breast cancer before I got a chance to do anything with them, and the logos sat unused (apart from the banner on the Facebook I-Team group page). Then real tragedy struck, and Lysey died suddenly.

She and I had worked at the newspaper together in Boulder and had become good friends. I was heartbroken. She was only 41.



I had drafts of the logos, but not the final files. The images she’d sent had been for me to proof and weren’t large enough to use on T-shirts or anything else. I contacted Carrie Divine of Seductive Designs and asked her whether she thought she’d be able to rebuild the logos so that I could use them. She went to work on it—a very special project—and she was able to do it.

A HUGE thanks to Carrie for that.

Another huge thank you to Sara Jackson, who stepped in when I was pulling my hair out to design and set up the Cafe Press shop, giving it a nice store front and figuring out how to get the logos on various products.

Thanks to their help and kindness, Lynsey’s designs live on—a way of keeping my friend with me.

And although the I-Team series is over—for now—you can keep it with you, too, on a water bottle or coffee mug.  A portion of the proceeds goes to me, which will be a big help in getting me back on my financial feet again after the disaster that was 2014.

Click here to check it out!




Many thanks to those of you who’ve read Dead by Midnight: An I-Team Christmas. The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. One reader called the short novel “a love letter to your readers, those who have been loyal to the I-Team for so long. A Christmas gift. Emotionally satisfying.” Another called it the best end to a series she’d ever read.

If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you can get it in ebook on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks and Smashwords, or in paperback.

I strongly recommend you read Seduction Game first because Dead By Midnight takes place after that story and contains spoilers.

Thanks to everyone who has read both books and posted reviews. I really appreciate your support!

Happy Holidays!

In a nutshell: After a crazy writing marathon that has left my house looking like a tornado went through it, I finished DEAD BY MIDNIGHT: AN I-TEAM CHRISTMAS, edited it, and, with my son Benjamin’s help, got it uploaded.

I love the cover, by the way. There’s been some debate about who this is on the cover. It’s Marc. But if you’re Team Gabe, you could think of him as Gabe. (It’s Marc!)

I had planned on Tuesday, Nov. 17, being release day, but Amazon got the book up within hours. So if you’re a Kindle reader, there’s no waiting. If you prefer Nook or iBooks, it should be out right on time. Kobo and paperback might take a while.

Click here for Amazon UK, Amazon AU, and Amazon CA.

What can I tell you about this book? It’s not even up on my website yet. I was too busy writing it to spend time writing about it.

One reader who just finished it wrote to me to say, “Pamela, this was an amazing, gut-wrenching, crying, scared spitless thriller.” And that about sums it up. It tells the story of one night that brings all of our favorite I-Team couples together in a fight for survival.

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

Marc and Sophie Hunter, Gabe and Kat Rossiter, Holly Andris and the rest of the I-Team gang find themselves in the same historic Denver hotel celebrating the approach of Christmas at different holiday parties. What starts out as a fun winter evening with friends soon becomes a brutal fight to survive when the hotel is taken over by a group of ruthless narcoterrorists who will stop at nothing to get what they want. 

On the outside, Julian Darcangelo, Zach McBride, Nick Andris, and others join together with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team in a desperate bid to free their friends, knowing that if they fail, the people they love will be… 

Dead by Midnight. 

Featuring cameo appearances by the men of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, a series by New York Times bestselling author Kaylea Cross.

Yes, DeLuca, Tuck, Evers, Vance, Cruz, Bauer, Schroder, and Blackwell spend some time with my I-Team guys, trying to save lives. It was a fun cross-pollination, and I hope it encourages my readers to try Kaylea Cross's Hostage Rescue Team series.

How about an excerpt?

________________________

From DEAD BY MIDNIGHT: AN I-TEAM CHRISTMAS

Marc stopped, fought to catch his breath, pressing a hand against the painful graze on his ribs. His fingers came away bloody. There was nothing he could do about that now. He had bigger problems. He could just hear the bad guys talking to one another somewhere on the roof above. He wouldn’t be able to sneak up on them breathing like he’d just run up seven flights of stairs.

That’s why they call it FAT Tire, Hunter.

Yeah, too much beer—and too little time in the gym.

He’d ditched the idea of taking an elevator when the doors had opened with a loud ding that had made every asshole in the lobby look up. The fuckers had started shooting. He’d been lucky to get out of there alive.

He’d had to take off his fancy dress shoes because the soles made so much noise, every step he took echoing in the stairwell. Now he was running around with a pistol in his hand and wearing nothing but socks, tuxedo pants, a starched white shirt stained red with his own blood—and a fine black tie.

Just like James fucking Bond.

His heartbeat and respiration slowed, Sophie’s lingering scent reminding him with every breath exactly what was at stake tonight. He did his best to put her out of his mind. He wouldn’t be able to help her or anyone else if he didn’t focus.

Sheridan will keep her safe. She’ll be okay.

So now what?

He leaned back against the cold concrete wall, mulled over the possibilities.
 
There were four of them, and he had four bullets. Even if he snuck up on them, he doubted he’d be able to squeeze off four rounds with absolute accuracy using only a pistol before one of them lit him up. What he needed was a way to eliminate all four of them at once without giving himself away.

Dream on, buddy.

He slowly climbed the last flight of stairs, stopping to the left of the open door, frigid night air pouring in from the darkness. He glanced around the corner.

Nothing.

He stepped outside. It wasn’t as dark as he’d thought it would be, security lights on the parapets casting an eerie yellow glow. He glanced around, pistol raised, finger on the trigger. The hotel’s triangular roof was a maze of external ductwork, enormous ventilation and air conditioning units, what looked like a greenhouse and…

Beehives?

Keeping low, he made his way around the bulkhead and along a long line of ductwork. A movement in the darkness. Voices.

He froze.

All four of them were gathered at the south end of the building, near its prow where The Palace overlooked the star-shaped intersection of Broadway, Seventeenth, and Court Place, with its public park and bus stops. They were bent over something with flashlights. One of them moved, giving Marc a glance.

A Ma Deuce.

The bastards had a fucking Ma Deuce—a Browning M2 machine gun. If they managed to get that thing up and running, they would have enough firepower to take down targets up to two thousand yards away.

Marc’s SWAT team would be fish in a barrel.

He took a moment to think, trying to ignore the fact that he was fucking freezing, the frigid wind cutting right through him. He made his way back along the ductwork to a place he felt was secure, then pulled out his cell phone and sent Irving a quick text.

Four perps on roof setting up a Browning M2 .50 cal. May have RPGs, etc. I’m going to try to take them out.

If he failed, at least Irving and Marc’s teams would be warned.

Quickly and quietly, he retraced his path along the ductwork, moving in closer this time, trying to make up for the limited range of his pistol. He tried to line up a shot, felt himself shivering.

Get a grip, Hunter!

He willed his body to relax, surrendered to the cold, then set it out of his mind.

He lined up his shot and … squeezed the trigger.

Bam!

One down.

Shouting at one another, the others grabbed their weapons, one aiming into the darkness and spraying bullets in Marc’s general direction, rounds slamming into the ductwork around him with a dull thwack thwack thwack thwack thwack.

Bent low, he ran, taking cover behind some AC vents and peering out at the three men, ignoring the vibration of his cell phone. Two perps had gone back to work on the M2, while the third stood sentry, rifle in his hands, cell phone in his hand, thumb moving over the keys. He was probably calling for backup.

Well, Marc couldn’t let him get away with that. He took aim, fired again.

Bam!

Another one down.

The others had laid their weapons aside to work on the Ma Deuce.

Marc saw his chance.

He rushed them, stopping to fire at the first one to aim a rifle at him.

Bam!

A miss.

Shit!

Fueled by a surge of adrenaline, Marc dove for cover.

(c) 2015 Pamela Clare

Thanks to all of you who helped make the launch of Seduction Game such a great success. No author can please everyone all of the time, but the reviews from readers for this story have been overwhelmingly positive. The book has a 4.9 average on Amazon after 87 reviews and a 4.44 average at Goodreads with more than 300 reviews.

The audiobook should be out soon. There were unavoidable production delays, but things are on track now. For a quick fix of Kaleo Griffith voicing Nick Andris, click here. I expect it will be available before the end of the month. The audiobook cover is quite sexy. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s out.



In other news, Kaleo is busy recording Soul Deep right now for audiobook. It is slated for release on Dec. 29.

After Seduction Game launched, I got focused on AN I-TEAM CHRISTMAS, which brings most of the I-Team gang together to fight a madman intent on taking revenge against the US government and freeing his cousin—a convicted killer—from ADX, i.e., Supermax, in Colorado.

As I was working on an outline of the action for the story—that’s being generous, really, because I never outline—I realized the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) would be involved. I mentally tucked that away and focused on writing.

As scenes with the HRT drew closer, I started doing a research, watching documentaries, reading what I could find online. Then, the night before I was supposed to write my first HRT scene, an idea hit me out of the blue. Truly, it was like a lightning strike to the brain.

“Kaylea Cross has an HRT series full of super-sexy alpha males. Wouldn’t it be fun if they got to play with my I-Team heroes?”

I was so freaking excited that I ran down the stairs to email Kaylea that very minute. She responded right away with a “Yes!”

I’m thrilled to be working with Kaylea, whom I consider a fabulous author, and I’m thrilled that her sexy HRT heroes are going to be a part of the action in this novella. Marked, the first book in her HRT series, is currently available for FREE from all ebook retailers, so this is a great chance to get introduced to her writing and her heroes if you’re not familiar with her.

I don’t have a cover for this novella yet, and I’m not even sure about the title. But I do know that AN I-TEAM CHRISTMAS will be longer than the average novella, and that it will be out on Nov. 17 in ebook and in print.

Mark your calendars, because this is one installment of the I-Team you won’t want to miss. It’s our farewell to the I-Team—for now at least. And you know they have to go out with a bang.

Seduction Game trivia: I thought I’d share an image of the Clock Tower in Denver (image at top). That’s where Holly and Nick got married at the end of the epilogue. This is how it looks at Christmas. In the story, they got married on the floor with the clock faces, which are huge and which shine both inside and out.

If you haven’t downloaded your copy of Seduction Game, it’s available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as Kindle UK, Kindle AU, and Kindle CA.  It will be available in mass market paperback in March 2016.

We are just THREE days away from the release of Seduction Game in ebook and audiobook, three days away from you getting Nick and Holly’s story. I can’t wait to share it with you!

For some of you, the wait will end soon. Yesterday, I got a little surprise when FedEx dropped off a box of bound galleys. Those are bound copies of the book without the sexy cover and without the last round of copy edits. Most often, they’re sent to reviewers.


This time, because the print release isn’t until March, my publisher sent them so that I could give away a few print copies in contests. Because snail mail is slow, winners won’t get their copies until after Tuesday’s release date.

Without further ado, let’s give away some autographed galleys!

CONTEST RULES—
1. Comment directly on my blog (pamelaclare.blogspot.com), not Facebook or Goodreads.
2. Tell me your favorite Holly Bradshaw moment in the I-Team series.
3. Leave an email address or twitter name or some way for me to contact you. If you don't, you are ineligible to win because I can’t notify winners via telepathy.
4. Post BEFORE 11:59 Sunday night.
5. Cross your fingers!
7. This contest is open to US readers only due to copyright issues. The edition of the story being given away here is the US edition.
8. Mothers and sisters of the author are ineligible to enter.
9. FIVE winners will be chosen through a contest randomizer.
10. Any blogger who shares the Seduction Game .gif at right by copying the code and posting it on their blog through release week next week, gets entered twice. Just share the link to your blog where the .gif is running.

This is a quick and dirty drawing — Holly would like that — so winners will be announced on MONDAY, and prizes will go out that same day to reach you as soon as the United States Postal Service can get them to you.

Also, take the time now to sign up for my newsletter. It’s the best way to stay on top of all the latest news from Casa Clare. Just follow the link, add your email address, then watch for a confirmation email in your Inbox or spam folder.

Good luck!

We’re a week and a day away from the release of Seduction Game (I-Team #7), which tells Holly Bradshaw’s story. Here’s a short Q&A about the book and about my writing plans for the rest of the year.

Q. Is it true your editor once told you she didn’t want to Holly to get her own book?

US cover

UK cover

 It’s been roughly a century since I last posted. Sorry about that!

This past summer was crazy busy. We took an unexpected vacation thanks to a friend, had friends visiting from France, enjoyed a few weeks with my sister here from Sweden.

And suddenly it’s October????

That’s okay with me because it means an end to 95-degree days (35 C) and it brings us closer to the ebook and audiobook release of Seduction Game. It’s my first full-length book since my cancer battle, and I’m super-excited to share it with you.

Waaaaay back when Extreme Exposure was first released, my editor at Penguin told me she hoped I wasn’t planning on having a book for Holly. She just didn’t see Holly as heroine material.

I kept my thoughts to myself, because of course I planned on Holly getting her own story. I understood where my editor was coming from. Holly isn’t your typical romance heroine, that’s for sure, and 10 years ago it wasn’t common to see a heroine with a lot of sexual experience outside of erotica.

Fast forward about eight years, and my editor asked me if I planned on having a story for Holly. I most certainly did have a story for her. I reminded my editor what she’d said back when the I-Team series was new, and we laughed about it.

Seduction Game is the lightest, funniest, and, some reviewers say, sexiest, I-Team story to date. It has to be, right? This is Holly we’re talking about.

Here are some spoiler-free quotes from early reviews off Goodreads:

Sunny wrote: “Perfect romantic suspense. I had no idea where Pamela Clare was going to go with Holly’s story, but she made it BRILLIANT.” 

Danielle wrote: “This is only the second book I have read from Clare and the I team and wow I seriously loved it! Clare delivers another fast paced story that kept me up until the early morning hours.”

Kame wrote: “You will LOVE Nick and Holly. Their love story is one of my ALL-TIME favorite books – and you know I read a lot of books. She is now my favorite heroine – not just ITeam heroine.”

I really love that because Holly is my favorite I-Team heroine, too.

The research for this story included interviewing a former CIA officer — Nick is a CIA paramilitary officer— as well as a forensic computer expert. I really enjoyed learning more about both fields. For example, did you know that federal agencies use Twitter and Facebook a lot? I didn’t. It enables them to communicate while hiding in plain sight. I had a lot of fun with that in the story.

The book will be out on Oct. 20 both in the US and in the UK, with the mass market paperback release slated for March. You can preorder now for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and audiobook. It’s also available for Kindle in the UK.

Also, the audiobook is being narrated by the amazing Kaleo Griffith once again. He sent me a snippet just as a treat, and I loved it.

If you haven’t tried the I-Team or haven’t stayed current with the series, that gives you almost three weeks to get caught up.

I’ve been cautioning I-Team fans against reading reviews. Apart from a couple of reviews on Goodreads, most contain serious spoilers that will take away a lot of the fun of the story.

Let’s get this final countdown underway. How better to do that than with an excerpt? Here’s snippet that includes Marcangelo — that’s Julian and Marc — meeting Nick for the first time under rather ... awkward ... circumstances.


Nick and Holly the morning after....


Stay tuned for release-day celebrations and giveaways!

(c) 2015 Pamela Clare

The Goodreads contest has closed, and ten lucky people are about to find out they won the entire I-Team series. The contest on this blog ends tonight at midnight, with winners being announced tomorrow. But there is still one more chance to win I-Team prizes.

Berkley/NAL is hosting a US-only giveaway of an I-Team prize package that includes a bound advance review copy of Seduction Game. Be the first of your friends to have Holly’s story, and replace those dog-eared copies of the first six books with fresh, new copies. Or, if you haven’t read the series, get ready for some sleepless nights.

To enter, follow the links below. Good luck!

In the meantime, Seduction Game is available for preorder in ebook for Kindle, Amazon UK, Nook, and iBooks and audiobook via Amazon. You can read an excerpt on my website. The mass market paperback will be released in March. 

Also, click here to sign up for my newsletter to stay on top of all my book-related news. Be sure to watch for the confirmation email and click the link in the email to complete signup.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

It started with a conversation with my agent.

“A state health official called to say he thinks my whistle-blower and I might be in danger. He saw the supervisor at the cement plant whipping up his employees and telling them that if this ‘lady journalist’ doesn’t back off, they might all lose their jobs. “They’re not going to write you letters to the editor,’ he told me. 'They’re going to beat the shit out of you with baseball bats.”

I wasn’t afraid. I’d gotten more serious threats in the past, including one lunatic who told me he was going to shoot me with his AK-47.

My agent was quiet for a moment. “You ought to write romantic suspense because you live it.”

“Yeah,” said I, “except for the ‘romantic’ part.”

Out of that conversation, the I-Team series was born.



Ten years ago today, Extreme Exposure, the first I-Team novel, was published. I had no idea on Aug. 2, 2005, where the I-Team series would take me or how much my readers would embrace the series and love the characters. I only knew I'd had a great time writing that story, putting the world of investigative journalism and elements of my own life on the page.

Extreme Exposure was followed by Hard Evidence and then Unlawful Contact. Somewhere in there, I realized I had created something special with characters that my readers and I adored. Now, the series includes seven full-length novels with Seduction Game coming out on Oct. 20, and four novellas, including Soul Deep, which was just released on June 28.


To celebrate, I’m giving away signed books in all languages in which the I-Team series is published.

Also, Berkley/NAL is giving away 10 sets of I-Team books on Goodreads. Click here to enter. (US only).

Later this week, I’ll be launching a Rafflecopter giveaway that will include a bound manuscript of Seduction Game. So there are lots of ways to win, lots of fun to be had. Stay tuned to make sure you’re part of all of it.

On this blog post, you can enter to win a signed copy of an I-Team book. Winners will receive a signed I-Team book in their language (UK winners will get the UK edition published by Eternal Romance). All you have to do to is post your favorite I-Team moment in the comments below. If you’ve never read one of the books, tell me you’re an I-Team virgin. The I-Team heroes will take care of that for you.

If you’re already an I-Team fan, you might be able to replace a dog-eared copy of one of your books with a shiny, new signed copy. If you’re new to the series, you’ll have a chance to catch up before Seduction Game is released.

Happy Birthday, I-Team!

And many thanks to the thousands of wonderful readers who have been so passionate about these stories and made this past decade such a joy!

Now, where’s the birthday cake?

Rules
Anyone on Planet Earth may enter. (My apologies to those who live elsewhere.)
This contest takes place on my regular blog, not on the Goodreads reprint of my blog, so Goodreads readers will need to make their way to my actual blog.
The deadline to enter is 11:59 on Aug. 8.
To enter, you must include contact info and your country in your post. You can breakup email addresses to avoid your email being lifted by spambots. Posters who leave no way for me to reach them will not be entered.
Only one prize per winner.
Winners will be chosen on Aug. 9 at random and notified by me.
Winners who fail to respond with their mailing info within 48 hours forfeit their prize, which will then go to another winner.
Winners in any given language are limited to the available number of prizes I have on hand.
These rules apply to this contest only and not the Goodreads or Rafflecopter giveaways.