Only six days and 12 hours to go until May 3 — and Breaking Point’s official release. I’m so excited to share this book with you!

I want to take a moment here to thank those of you who sneaked around behind my back to gather donations for International Midwife Assistance: Ronlyn, Mary G, Hope, Kris, Alyson, Kara, Jackie, Anne, Alison, Crystal, Christy Reece and Marie Force. I got the card yesterday with the check inside. And there on the check it said “in honor of Pamela Clare.” (Sorry, Ronlyn and Mary G! Not sure how your names got left off except that I did this either really late or really early and screwed up! My bad!)

I burst into tears! It’s the best release day surprise ever. The check is on its way already to IMA, where it will be used to save the lives of women and babies.

Back to Breaking Point: Some of you have already gotten your hands on Zach and read his story, either because you got the book as a prize or ordered it from Barnes & Noble, which has already released it. It’s been a lot of fun following along with you as you read through the story, sharing your reactions with me.


Here’s a photo I got today from Kristin, who is waiting till her lunch hour to finish the book. Want to know the really cool thing about this photo? The book — a story about the I-Team, a bunch of journalists — is sitting on top of Kristin’s AP Stylebook. The stylebook is every journalist’s bible. In fact, I’ve owned more copies of the stylebook than I’ve owned Bibles. (Someone stole mine. I suspect it was an intern.) At any rate, this just seemed so incredibly fitting, and I had a good laugh about it and pointed this out to Kristin, who happens to be a journalist, as well. She didn’t do this on purpose. She just wanted to show me she had the book with her at work.

Speaking of work...

I’m doing something I’ve never done before. I’m taking Release Day off so I can be at home, chatting with you all about it online. Are any of you taking the day off, perhaps calling in sick to stay home and hang out with Zach? If so, we should make something fun out of that in a chatroom or on Facebook (wherever your boss won’t read about it).

Watch Twitter and Facebook for interviews and book giveaways around the blogosphere in the coming few weeks.

Interviews and give-aways are already posted at Happily Ever After and Shameless Reviews. I’ll be at SOS Aloha on Thursday. I’ll post a list of events for May soon.

There will be several chances to win the book here or on other blogs during the month of May, but you might not want to wait, as I am holding another After the Epilogue chat on May 20 for people who’ve already read the story. The last time I held one of these chats, it was a crazy free-for-all of comment and discussion and turned out to be a lot of fun.

In honor of being down to only one week — and in gratitude for all you’re doing to help me get the word out about this book — I’m going to share another excerpt with you. It’s the final excerpt you’re going to see until the book is out. It’s short and sweet, but it tells you so much about Zach, my most heroic hero.

From Chapter of Breaking Point:

Zach hung limply from the manacles, unable even to hold up his head. His shoulders ached from supporting his dead weight, manacles biting into his bloody wrists. But none of that could compare to the residual pain of that last electro-shock. His muscles seized in sharp spasms, his heart slamming erratically in his chest, his body shaking, his mouth filled with the coppery taste of his own blood.

Don’t give in to the pain. Adjust for it.

He willed himself to relax, slowed his breathing.

Cold water splashed over his chest, making him jerk. It wasn’t to revive him, he knew, but to make his skin more conductive to electricity. He waited for the next blast of agony, but instead felt a glass bottle against his lips. A hand fisted in his hair, tilting his head back, and he swallowed, warm cola sliding down his raw, parched throat.

Electrolytes. Caffeine. Calories.

All would help him stay alive.

Then his tormenter spoke to him, as always in Spanish. “You are dying, cuñado. And for what? You are alone now, forgotten, left without even a dog to bark at you. Tell us who has the cocaine and where we can find them. Then your torment will end. There will be no more pain, only sleep.”

Zach fought off a wave of despair. “¡Vete a la verga!” Fuck off!

The bastard chuckled, but Zach knew he wasn’t really amused. They’d tried to break him and had failed. There’d be a price to pay when Cárdenas got the news.

Creaking hinges. Footsteps.

And Zach knew she was there. He could feel her presence, hear her rapid breathing. Hell, he could even smell her, something sweet in a world of filth.

Natalie.

“Tráela aquí.” Bring her over here.

What the hell?

Zach’s head came up. Somehow, he drew himself to his feet, his hands clenched around the chains for support, his heart thudding hard in his chest. Why had they brought her in here? Were they going to torture her to get to him?

Over my dead body.


P.S. “¡Vete a la verga!” literally means “go to the dick.” A lot of people translate that as “Go to hell.” But the specific sexual aspect of it leaves that translation flat. I think mine is more accurate. Not that you were particularly worried about this... It’s just the language nerd in me that wanted to point that out.

A few weeks back during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I invited you to join me in raising money for my favorite nonprofit, International Midwife Assistance. (The website is www.midwifeassist.org.) IMA, founded and operated by a friend of mine, midwife Jennifer Braun, went into Afghanistan and started a midwifery school in Bamiyan, where there were no midwives and where women died in childbirth every day. (To read my original post, which contains more information, click here.)

After helping to train many young women as midwives and after saving many lives and delivering hundreds of babies, the volunteer midwives of IMA had to leave Bamiyan, famous for the statues of the Buddha that were blown to smithereens by the Taliban.

They found new purpose in Uganda, where disease, poverty and decades of violence leave too many women to give birth on the mud floors of their huts with only their friends and mothers to help them. The maternal and infant death rate is staggering there.

I don’t know about you, but I found childbirth to be the worst pain I’ve ever felt. I cannot imagine being in labor for three or four days until I died. Or giving birth repeatedly to babies that die from preventable infections, such as tetanus, within weeks of being born.

IMA began to provide supplies and midwives to a clinic they helped get up and running and which is named the Teso Safe Motherhood Clinic. Women from three nearby IDP (internally displaced persons) camps come to the clinic for lifesaving health care. Not only do they receive prenatal and birthing care there, but they also get anti-malarial drugs, antibiotics for infections, screening for HIV and vaccinations for themselves and their children. Clinic staff also hand out a miraculous lifesaving device known as a “mosquito net.” In other words, they try to do all they medically can to help these women and children, many of whom are victims of rape and other violence.

In addition, they go out to areas with no medical care, places where an ear infection or strep throat or a broken bone might mean death, and they offer care there, too, not only to women and children, but to anyone who needs it.


The work that Jennifer and the other IMA staff and volunteers do in Uganda amazes me. Imagine getting an idea one day that saves hundreds of lives. That’s what they’ve done.

Well, some of you took me up on my idea for fundraising, each of you offering a modest sum that, when put together, adds up to a solid donation. You didn’t have to do this, but you did, and I am so very grateful.

My deepest thanks and heartfelt appreciation go to:




These wonderful women put together a donation of $115 that will go toward helping to save the lives of pregnant women and their babies. I am giving the check, which arrived in today’s mail with a very sweet card, to Jennifer this week, along with the $100 I promised to donate personally.

I called Jennifer to let her know, and she was thrilled. She sends her thanks. She has worked in conditions where there weren’t even sterile gloves and babies had to be caught with gloves that were washed in a sink and hung to dry. She told me that even modest amounts of money go far in these parts of the world. After all, in Uganda $115/US is equal to about $250,000 schillings.

Each of us has the chance to change the lives of others, even people we don’t know. And you nine special women have done just that. You’ll each be getting an advance copy of Breaking Point. So e-mail me your addresses (or send them to Ronlyn to forward to me), and I’ll get your books in the mail when I get them in April. Or I can send you e-ARCs if you prefer that — and you can have that right now, tonight, instantaneously.

Thanks again!

Yes, together romance authors and readers can change the world. Take that, you anti-romance novel snobs!

Update: Somehow, I left poor Anne Woodall out of the original post. Anne, I’m so sorry! Thanks so much for your contribution. It will make a difference to some young mother in Uganda. I really deeply appreciate it.

You’re nine months pregnant. You live with other women and children in a hut with a dirt floor. You spend your days digging for firewood — using sticks to dig in the deforested earth for dead, dry tree roots — and growing food in a small garden. It’s not enough to feed you and your other children, let alone sustain a pregnancy, but that’s what you have.

Around you danger is very real. You know of women who’ve disappeared, had their children stolen or been raped when they went to dig for firewood. You, yourself, are as likely as not a victim of rape. And that baby in your belly? It’s going to be born onto the dirt floor of your hut while other mothers in your same situation attend you. None of them have medical training. They don’t necessarily even know to wash their hands.

You’re afraid, though you don’t talk about it. You know women who died giving birth. You remember their faces. Maybe you even remember their screams as they labored for three days without help, without any hope of relief, before they bled to death. You don’t want to die like that. Nor do you want your baby to die, but so many babies do.

Childbirth isn’t the only risk you’re facing. Malaria is one mosquito bite away. In the camps, tuberculosis is rampant. And HIV? You pray that you’re not part of the 25 percent of the population suffering from that terrible disease.

Who are you?

You’re a woman living in a camp for internally displaced persons in Uganda. And this is your life today, tomorrow and tomorrow.

Into this bleak picture came an enterprising group of Colorado women, led by Jennifer Braun, a midwife. Braun created a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization called International Midwife Assistance (IMA) the purpose of which is bringing midwifery care to women in parts of the world where pregnancy is often a death sentence.


IMA first went into Afghanistan, where women were dying in droves. After the horror of Taliban rule, which prohibited women from becoming educated and even prevented women from coming to hospitals, there were vast stretches of the country that lacked birth attendants. Women knew nothing about their own bodies or how to safely give birth. Maternal and infant mortality rates were staggering.

Braun and IMA worked with the new Afghan government to create a midwifery school in Bamiyan, training young women to be skilled birth attendants, visiting villages to talk to women about reproductive health and delivering hundreds of babies safely. Low on supplies, unable even to take a warm bath, Braun spent months in Afghanistan.


Sadly, IMA had to leave Afghanistan because the Taliban reasserted itself in many places, often killing midwives (none from IMA, thank God!) because they believed they were handing out condoms.

So IMA diverted its energies to Uganda.


Working with the Ugandan government, Braun and IMA helped to establish and fund a clinic where women from the surrounding community and the neighboring IDP camps can give birth safely. Women and their children also receive basic health care from vaccinations to drugs to fight HIV and malaria.

So that's what they do every day now — they save lives. Women walk sometimes for three days to reach the clinic. With the recent addition of motorbikes, women in labor can now ride on the back of a motorcycle and reach the clinic much more quickly. This has enhanced the clinic's outreach substantially.

Women labor among the trees of an orange grove beside the clinic, then come indoors to push their babies out. They’re able to stay for the immediate postpartum recovery period so that the midwives can make sure they don’t hemorrhage. While there, they'll be tested for HIV and given other necessary medical help.



Those who need emergency C-sections are taken to a nearby hospital, but the midwives at the clinic handle vaginal deliveries that many doctors here would not — breech births, for example, and twins. Many times twins are a surprise because many women who come to the clinic have had no prenatal care.

Braun and the other midwives take turns working in Uganda together with Ugandan nurses, providing prenatal care, delivery, basic medical care, basic family planning and postpartum care. Braun coordinates the program out of her home — a normal single-family home not far from mine. I’ve seen her office. Last time I was there, a pair of scissors for cutting umbilical cords was sitting on her kitchen counter, left over from a recent birth she’d attended in Boulder. I thought that was funny. Dirty coffee cups, saucers, umbilical cord scissors...

Many of the women Braun and the others care for are victims of rape. Many have lost children to the violence that has devastated Uganda. A great many are raising children alone.


The camps themselves present severe challenges for hygiene, as animals and people crowd into close quarters without clean, running water or sewer systems or any of the things you and I take for granted.

Beyond the camps are remote villages where there are no doctors, no nurses, no clinics. The residents there simply live — and die — without medical care. Braun and other health-care providers from the clinic began doing outreach, taking medical supplies to remove areas, where literally hundreds of people would gather, waiting for hours to be seen and treated. Ear infections, appendicitis, skin rashes, TB, HIV — you name it, they see it. And they treat it.



I was one of the first journalists — perhaps the first? — to report on IMA’s work in Afghanistan. Having given birth to two babies, I cannot imagine the horror of dying in labor. The pain of a normal labor is excruciating. To spend three or four days in unceasing agony before dying — no one in the world deserves that. But pregnancy truly is a death sentence far too often.

Over the years, I’ve watched as IMA moved to Uganda, expanding its program as its resources allowed, and I’ve done my best to support Braun’s efforts. But I want to do more.

So I’m asking those of you who’d like to help to join me in putting our money together to support IMA. I will donate $100 and am looking for 1,000 romance readers — those of us who believe in happy endings — to likewise donate $100, or 10,000 to donate $10 each — so that together we can make a $10,000 donation to IMA. That’s 10 percent of its annual budget.

All of the money they raise goes to their programs. All of the midwives who participate are volunteers. No one is sitting on a fat salary. IMA is a true blue nonprofit designed for one purpose — to save the lives of women and their babies. So those of you who are afraid to donate because you think most of it’s going to go for commercials or swag or some fat cat in a suit needn’t fear. Because I reported on IMA, I know where the money is going.

Here’s how it works:

1. I will donate $100.
2. Those who can afford it also donate $100.
3. Others decide how much they can afford and gather a group of friends together so that their group’s total donation equals $100. So two friends could donate $50 each. Or four could donate $25 each or 10 could donate $10 each. Donate online by clicking here.
4. E-mail me and tell me how much you/your group donated.
5. Help me spread the word via blogs, Twitter, etc., until the total donation value from all individuals and groups equals $10,000.
5. We sit back and know that we helped to save lives. No maybes about it. We saved lives.

I will blog about those who contribute, and I will give away some unknown number of copies of Breaking Point as random prizes for those who’ve contributed. Also, I’ll hold a phone chat with any readers group that donates together, calling you and chatting on the phone at my own expense. I wish I could offer big prizes, but I can’t. Maybe next year, I’ll organize an auction with other authors. But for now, this is what I have.

So get the women in your readers group together. Or call a group of friend at your church. Then donate online and tell me what you did. I’ll keep records and help track our progress at reaching that $10,000 mark.

It’s rare in the world of today’s corporate nonprofits to be able to donate and make such a direct contribution to saving the lives of others. From HIV meds to prenatal care to catching babies, IMA makes a difference in real women’s lives. At a time of year when many of us are celebrating the birth of a child, this nonprofit feels like the perfect fit.

To read more about their operation and to see more photographs, click here for their website.

And from the bottom of my heart, thank you!