It has been a very long time since I’ve updated my blog. I would apologize except that I’m pretty sure you’d rather have me working on Striking Distance (I-Team 6) than blog posts. Just a guess, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about that!

The good news is that Striking Distance is moving along, slowly but surely, and I’m doing all I can to meet my May 31 deadline so that you’ll have the book by November.

I’ve also been busy shopping for a gown to wear to the 2013 RITA Awards, where Defiant (MacKinnon’s Rangers 3) is a finalist. I’ve never had any fashion sense or skill with this sort of thing, so I expect I’ll end up looking like Björk or something.

In the meantime, Nate and Megan have made it onto audiobook.  Their novella, Skin Deep, is now available on Audible.com, on iTunes and on Tantor Audio’s website.

I’ve had time to listen to only about half of it so far, and having Kaleo Griffith bringing these characters to life, some for the first time, some for the fourth or fifth time, is such a delight! Those of you who suffer from OKD — that’d Obsessive Kaleo Disorder — will get a fix here that will hopefully hold you over until November. I especially love his portrayal of old-time Colorado rancher Jack West, the former Army Ranger who happens to be Nate’s father. As Benjy joked as we listened in the car, “And now for the real romance of this story — the relationship between Jack and Emily.”


Of course, Jack is 63 and Emily is 4, but theirs is a love story of a different kind.

The audiobook includes the I-Team short, “Marc and Julian Make a Beer Run,” which I wrote in response to a joke that someone made on the I-Team Facebook group page. “I’d read anything you wrote about the I-Team heroes, even if it was just Marc and Julian making a beer run.’

Her words percolated in my imagination, and the result is hopefully something you will enjoy, written as a thank you to the I-Team Facebook group members, one of whom created the little e-card you see above here. Fun!



In other audiobook news, I do know for certain now that the MacKinnon’s Rangers series will begin its release in July with Surrender coming out on July 15 and Untamed and Defiant slated for release in August.

To celebrate the release of Skin Deep and the crazy “Beer Run,” I’m giving away one signed copy of the full CD set to a lucky winner. To enter, just post below and tell me what you love most about the I-Team series. And remember to leave your contact information so that I can reach you if you win! If you want to tweet about the audiobook or share your love of the I-Team on Facebook or Twitter, I’d be grateful, but it's not necessary.

Now back to Javier and Laura. Things are heating up for those two...

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks for audiobook news her at Casa Clare.

As I announced on Facebook and mentioned here, Tantor Audio bought the rights to Skin Deep and “Marc and Julian Make a Beer Run.” The stories, which Kaleo Griffith has already finished recording, will be available on April 29 — just a few weeks away!

The email in my inbox from Kaleo telling me that he’d had fun bringing the characters to life hadn’t yet cooled when I heard from my editor at Penguin that Tantor had purchased the audiobook rights for the MacKinnon’s Rangers series — Surrender, Untamed and Defiant.

I’m not sure what the time frame is for voicing the series and release it, but Tantor moves quickly, so I don’t thing we’re in for an overly long wait.

Of course, readers and listeners began asking immediately whether Kaleo would be brought onboard to voice Iain, Morgan, Connor, Lord William and the Rangers. I don’t have the answer to that question yet. I do know, however, that Kaleo did voice a book that was done entirely in Scottish brogue, so clearly he has the accent down.

I guess we’ll wait with baited breath to see. As one listener said, “Kaleo gives great aural.” And, indeed, he does!

In the meantime, Skin Deep is already available for pre-order on Audible.com, Amazon, and soon iTunes, too, as well as Tantor Audio’s own website.

With the release of the MacKinnon’s Rangers series in audiobook, that leaves only one I-Team novella and three historicals that aren’t yet in audiobook, and I know Tantor has expressed some interest in the I-Team novella. Eventually perhaps those of you who prefer to listen to books will have everything I’ve written at your auditory beck and call.

I’m still busy working on Striking Distance. I’m halfway done with the story. The past couple of weeks derailed me a bit, but I’m doing all I can to get back on track this week. When I have a lot of interruptions — such as hearing that one of my books is a RITA finalist or writing and posting a long piece about sexual assault on Facebook, like I did last week (which got 23,000+ reads on my fan page alone) — it tends to break the thread of the story. I end up having to read from the beginning to get my mind back in the right groove again.

Have a great week, everyone!

And stay tuned for big news about a fan get-together in Atlanta in on July 19-20! Guess who’s joining me there to sign books and audiobooks? If you guess Kaleo, you’re right.

Here at Casa Clare, 2013 is already off to a crazy busy start. I’ve begun working on Striking Distance again, after taking a hiatus. I’ve never struggled with a book so much before, but I’m finally moving forward and very happy with what I have now.

Meanwhile, we’re less than a month away from the big reissue of Ride the Fire (Kenleigh-Blakewell Family Saga, Book 3). The book will be released on Feb. 5 with a new cover, a fresh edit and the long-awaited epilogue... I can’t wait!

As many of you know, Ride the Fire was a very special book for me. The inspiration for the story came while I was writing Carnal Gift. Jamie was sent to England to win the support of Parliament in fighting the French (a trip undertaken in real life by Benjamin Franklin). I researched a bit about the war so that I could have Jamie say something more articulate than, “No, seriously, you all really need to help us. Bad things are happening!”

And that magic moment happened that authors wait for... Zing. The story for Ride the Fire fell pretty much fully formed into my head, along with the delicious hero.

But the story broke so many rules. A heroine who is pregnant by a man who isn’t the hero? Extremely graphic violence? A hero with serious physical scars? The Colonial American frontier? A heroine who had been sexually violated as a child?

I think my editor at the time had some doubts, but I didn’t. I was so driven to write this story that nothing else mattered. Somewhere along the way, I discovered my true voice as a writer.

The book was all-consuming for me. I didn’t clean the house. I didn’t give a damn about my job at the paper and dropped to part time. I didn’t do anything in my spare time but write and drink coffee. This resulted in the Infamous Coffee Shop Incident, which no doubt led to some people’s thinking I was crazy. (Characters should know better than to talk to their writers in public!)

Most of you know that I was sexually assaulted when I was 10. It’s something I’ve been open about for several years now. Ride the Fire became the book into which I poured all of my own personal pain, an experience that was emotionally draining in ways I never would have imagined.

When I finished the book after five short months — a record for me for a historical — I was a wreck. I could do nothing but cry. And cry. And cry. I had intended for the book to have an epilogue, but I couldn’t write it. Could. Not.

My editor read it and was over the moon. She did’t think the book suffered for lack of an epilogue, and so I was official done with it. When it was released, it got rave reviews pretty much across the board, becoming one of my best-selling books.

As a side note, Ride the Fire launched my obsession with the French and Indian War, inspiring the MacKinnon’s Rangers series.

The book has been out of print for ages, but will be back on Feb. 5, polished and preened. I hope you enjoy it!

To celebrate the release of Ride the Fire, we’re hard at work getting new covers made for Sweet Release (Kenleigh-Blakwell series Book 1) and Carnal Gift (Kenleigh-Blakwell series Book 2) and formatting them for publication in print. They’ll be available through CreateSpace, Amazon.com and some other booksellers in copies you can hold. Watch for news about the release dates!

Right now, the first two books in the series are available in a boxed ebook set for $6.99, while the ebooks individually are $3.99.

Other news: Speaking of print releases, we’re almost done putting together the print version of Skin Deep (I-Team After Hours Novella, #1). It’s going to be more expensive than the average paperback by about a dollar, but I can’t help that. I originally didn’t plan to release it in print for that reason. Self-publishing fiction doesn’t make it cheaper. I hate asking people to pay a lot of money for my books, and $8.99 seems like a lot for 200 pages. Besides, everyone has ereaders now, right? Apparently not. I had so many requests for this book in print, that I’m going ahead with a print release. I got a proof copy the other day, and it was wonderful to hold the story in my hands.

Other, other news: While the holidays were happening, Breaking Point (I-Team #5) was released on audiobook by Tantor Audio. The entire series, minus the novellas, is now available in audiobook format. I’ve listened to the first four and loved what the talented Kaleo Griffith has done with the narration. Right now, I’m about an hour into Breaking Point and enjoying that as well.

So that’s the book news for the moment. A reissue for Ride the Fire just around the corner. Print versions of Skin Deep, Sweet Release, and Carnal Gift. The I-Team on audiobook. And Striking Distance is finally moving forward.

One last note: I won’t be online as much as I have been the past year. I just need to pull my attention inward and focus on Javier and Laura’s story. But I will pop in when I can, and when I do, I’ll share excerpts!

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Things got busy around here with my sister’s arrival from Sweden, and now suddenly it’s December.

Lots of things are going on, so I thought I’d give you all a quick update.

First, as many of you know, there’s been a delay in getting Unlawful Contact out. The book was available in audio CDs as of this past Tuesday. It isn’t yet available on Audible.com or iTunes for download, but I know it will be soon.

I haven’t listened to the book yet, so I’m feeling just as impatient as everyone else. I am dying to hear what Kaleo Griffith did with Marc Hunter, and I know many of you, especially those of you suffering from OKD — Obsessive Kaleo Disorder — are, too!  Click here for the audio sample.




 Naked Edge is on schedule for a Dec. 17 release date, and there is a audio sample available on Tantor Audio’s website. I was really impressed with the way Kaleo voiced Grandma Alice and Grandpa Red Crow in this scene, excerpted from the beginning of the book.


And just today I received the unfinished cover image for Breaking Point, which Kaleo is recording right this very minute and which is slated for a Dec. 31 release.


No word yet whether the I-Team novellas will eventually be a part of the audiobook series. Because I own the rights to Skin Deep myself, I hope to get that novella published as an audiobook, too.




But I’ve got more going on that I want to share.

Right now, I’m working to get the first two books in the Kenleigh-Blakewell Family Saga — that’s Sweet Release and Carnal Gift — put together as a boxed set. The set should be available around Dec. 12 on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble’s website for download to Kindle and Nook at a special discounted price for the holidays.

AND... I’m working to get Skin Deep published in print. Yes, print! I’ve gotten so many messages from readers who don’t have ereaders and who don’t want to read the book in the cloud or on their computers. SO... my goal is to have Skin Deep available in print before the end of the year!

I took most of the month of November off from writing. I’ve been working on different aspects of Striking Distance with a goal of taking up the pen again next week. The book got bumped back to a Nov. 5, 2013, release date. I wasn’t happy with what I had so far and knew I’d have to rush to finish it on time. I just couldn’t do that. My editor was very understanding and said she’d rather have a good book than a quick book. As sorry as I am to make you all wait, I think you’ll appreciate it in the end.

My sister is spending the weekend with me, which means we’ll be decorating, listening to lots of music, talking until late at night. She is the soul I am closest to on this earth apart from my sons, and each and every minute I spend with her is precious.

Let’s all enjoy the approaching holidays with those we love!

As of the moment I write this, we’re only 35 days away from the release of Defiant, the long-awaited third book in my MacKinnon’s Rangers series. Since Untamed was released in 2008, I’ve gotten daily emails asking me when Connor’s story would be released.

Now, that day is just around the corner.

To prep for it, I’m asking those of you who read the first two books to reread them with me so the details are fresh in your mind. I challenge those of you who already have Surrender and Untamed in your TBR to take this as the Sign You’ve Been Waiting For to take them out, dust them off, and read them at last.

Surrender tells the story of Iain MacKinnon, the eldest MacKinnon brother, and Lady Anne Burness Campbell, or Annie Burns. It picks up in the early spring of 1758 after the British have suffered years of disappointments in the war against France.

Forced to start a company of Rangers and to fight for the British, Iain is on a mission with his two younger brothers, Morgan and Connor, when he sees the lone survivor of a French and Indian raid on a homestead fighting for her life. Despite orders to stick with his mission and not interfere, Iain cannot let her be slain. He turns command of the Rangers over to Morgan and saves Annie’s life — at a very high cost to himself. Thus begins his adventure with the woman who will bring beauty and gentleness back into his war-weary life.

Untamed, Morgan’s story, picks up a couple of weeks after Surrender ends. In command of the Rangers, Morgan is taken captive by the French after he is badly wounded in an ambush at Fort Carillon/Ticonderoga. A high price rests on his head, and the French are eager to interrogate and  him, which means they must save his life. The commander puts a young convent-raised French woman, Amalie, to the task of caring for him night and day, unknowingly building a bond between Amalie and Morgan that will change all of their lives forever. 

Amalie’s father was killed by a Ranger, and it takes great heart for her to overcome her anger and grief so that she can care for Morgan. But Amalie is all heart. And soon Morgan means far more to her than she imagined. She knows the plan is to hand him over to the MacKinnon brothers’ mortal enemies, the Abenaki, once he has recovered, and she knows the Abenaki will burn him to death. She cannot bear the thought of him suffering so terribly, and looks for a way to save his life.

Defiant begins about two weeks after Untamed ends in March of 1760.  And to celebrate my good news (below), I will share an excerpt that features Lord William. I had a special request for just such an excerpt, and I aim to please.

First my two bits of exciting news:

Skin Deep has been in the top 100 for contemporary romance, both Kindle and general, since it’s release. That’s your doing. Thank you!

The reviews for Skin Deep have been overwhelmingly positive, which is encouraging. I know novellas can be a big disappointment. It’s very difficult to fit significant character development and plot into such a small amount of space. I tried very hard, and given the number of you who loved Nate and Megan’s story — and who are now demanding a story for Jack West — I feel like I succeeded at least a little.

I hope to have another I-Team After Hours novella written for you by this fall. But first I’m going to finish the next full-length I-Team novel because I heard a rumor that some of you would like that. I don’t have a title yet, but I will soon.


Second, Sweet Release, my first novel and the first book in the Kenleigh-Blakewell Family Saga, is at this moment the No. 1 FREE download for Kindle. It was the No. 1 FREE download for iTunes, too, but is now No. 2 there. Carnal Gift, Book 2 in that series, has risen to the No. 4 spot for historicals on iTunes and was #37 on Kindle historical romance this morning. So thank you again!

Here are the links. It won’t be free much longer. This is part of a special promotion and will end soon.

Kindle — http://amzn.to/LtiwpS
iBooks — http://bit.ly/Jv8h5u
Kobo & others — http://bit.ly/Jg2b7H

I’ve had a lot of inquiries about Ride the Fire. It is currently out of print, but is being reissued in February 2013 by Berkley. The reissue will feature the never-before-published (and as-yet-unwritten) epilogue. As many of you know, Ride the Fire has long been a reader favorite. I also consider it to be the book where I found my true voice as an author of historical romance. I cannot wait to share it with you all!

And now without further ado, I bring you a man you love to hate — Lord William Wentworth.

~ ~ ~

“My dearest Uncle, I most humbly beseech Your Lordship that you forgive my Boldness and make haste to aide me.  Such Affronts and Sorrows have I faced of late, that I must plead for Your Lordship’s Protection.  I dare write nothing that other Eyes might behold, so I shall say no more.  I humbly beseech Your Lordship to grant me Permission to travel to Albany that I might lay bare my Plight to you in person.  Please, I pray you, Uncle, if ever Your Lordship held me in Affection, help me now.

“Yours most bound and forever,

Sarah Woodville.”

Lord William looked up from the letter and stared out the window into the darkness, the fingers of his left worrying the cracked marble chess piece he always kept in his vest pocket—the black king Lady Anne had broken two summers past.

This was his fault. 

When Sarah had written to him pleading for his help, he’d had misgivings, but he’d ignored them.  At the time, he’d been worried about smallpox and measles, both of which had hit Albany hard this winter.  He hadn’t imagined it possible that Indians would dare strike so close to town with the war all but won and three thousand of His Majesty’s troops billeted here.

He’d been wrong.

How he wished now that he had denied her request and employed some other means of learning the truth of her situation, but the thought that she might truly need his help had overthrown all else, so he’d relented, arranging for her passage northward.  Bright-eyed, inquisitive, and talented beyond measure upon the harpsichord, she was the only member of his rather large and unpleasant family about whom he gave a damn. 

The last time he’d seen her had been six years ago just prior to his voyage to the Colonies.  She’d been but twelve years old and still very much a child.  Though her body had only begun to show signs of approaching womanhood, it had been clear to all that she would grow to become a woman of surpassing beauty.  William’s sister, secretly a severe Lutheran, had restricted her daughters to long hours of daily Bible study and needlework to prepare them for marriage and motherhood.  She’d been openly distressed by her youngest child’s beauty and passion for music, deeming both dangerous to Sarah’s immortal soul. 

But William had found Sarah refreshing and had indulged her when occasion allowed, secretly taking her to hear chamber music and lending her books about history, art, and music theory.  He’d even let her play privately on the harpsichord before His Majesty, her skill astounding and delighting the old man.  But perhaps his sister had been right to restrict Sarah.  Perhaps she’d seen something in her daughter that William had not.

Last summer, Sarah had caused such a scandal that her father had sent her away, depositing her not in the family’s estates to the north, but on the other side of the world in New York with Governor DeLancey, an old family friend.  When William had inquired as to the nature of the scandal, his sister had written to say that decency forbade her even to mention it.  Even knowing his sister’s penchant for exaggeration when it came to matters of sin, William had been intrigued by this, but the summer campaigns had prevented him from inquiring further.  He’d hoped to hear the unspeakable truth of it from Sarah on this visit.

But now she was out there somewhere, a captive of men who would not hesitate to do unimaginably cruel things to her.

As second in command of His Majesty’s forces in the Colonies, William had heard all the tales—accounts of cruelest torture, maiming, rape.  They’d always just been words on parchment to him, nothing more than the cost of war.  This one burnt alive, that one beaten and sold, this one adopted and forced into heathen marriage. 

But the thought of Sarah enduring such a fate…

In truth, William didn’t give one whit what happened to the other two captives so long as Sarah was returned to him alive and unscathed.  MacKinnon had probably guessed as much.  He’d seen the disgust on MacKinnon’s face when MacKinnon had heard that one of the captives was William’s niece. 

For a moment, I thought you’d grown a heart.

How could William expect an uncultured brute like MacKinnon to understand that Sarah was worth more than a thousand common colonial women?

“Pardon me, my lord.”  Lieutenant Cooke’s voice came from the doorway.

William turned to face him.  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

Cooke bowed neatly.  “I asked local churches to hold observances this evening so that prayers might be said for your niece.  Services at St. Peter’s begin in a half hour.”

“Well done.  Thank you.”  It was then William remembered he was in a state of undress, his wig sitting forgotten on his desk, his coat draped over a chair with his cravat.

“If I may be of any assistance, my lord… ”

William gave a consenting nod, his gaze drawn back to the window.

“Don’t worry, my lord.  Major MacKinnon will bring her safely home.”

~ ~ ~


I tried to find an excerpt that wasn't available anywhere else, but all other scenes with Lord William contained enormous spoilers, and I couldn’t do that to you.

I promise you that you will see Lord William as you’ve never seen him before in this story. His beloved niece, Lady Sarah, falling in love with Connor MacKinnon?

To launch the MacKinnon’s Rangers Re-Read and ‘Get ’em out of your TBR’ Challenge, I’m giving away one signed copy each of Surrender and Untamed for those who want to participate but don’t yet have the books. To be entered to win, just comment below.

And thanks for reading!

I would like to thank all of you who helped make the release of Skin Deep so much fun. It seemed like the book had been available for all of two hours by the time people were posting reviews. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, both for the main story and for the short story “Marc & Julian Make a Beer Run.”

This is my first 100-percent self-published book, so I was thrilled to see the response. I was away at my younger son’s college graduation last weekend, but I found myself laughing every time I logged on because so many readers flipped straight to the back to read the short story.

Thanks to everyone helped push Skin Deep up to No. 18 on B&N and into the low 200s on Amazon.com. And huge thanks to all of you who tweeted and posted on Facebook and your blogs. I announced the contest winners for the three free copies of Skin Deep in the last comment on my previous blog, so if you posted and were hoping to win, please check. Maybe you did. I’ve only heard from one of the prize-winners so far.

 It’s available right now on Amazon.com for Kindle, B&N for Nook, and Smashwords for everything else. It’s not yet available in iBook format because it takes such an extraordinarily long time for ebooks to get through the system and up on iTunes. I’ll let you know when it’s posted there. Some readers download the free Kindle app to their iPads so they can read Kindle versions and not wait for iTunes.

If you haven’t yet read Skin Deep, I hope you’ll give it a try. If you enjoyed it, I hope you’ll share that with your reader friends.

Other news:

Benjamin and his girlfriend Lucy pose for the parental paparazzi immediately after the ceremony.

Benjamin graduated Summa Cum Laude from Ithaca College last Sunday in a ceremony that had me in tears several times. I was so proud of him and his friends — Lucy, his girlfriend, and Del, his wonderful roommate from freshman year. Benjamin now has a B.S. in Cinema and Photography and already has a job in his field, working as an assistant editor for Sender Films in Boulder. They do climbing porn — rock, alpine, ice — which is fun for him, given that he comes from a climbing family. He pulled his first all-nighter this week, helping them get a film ready for a festival and sleeping on the couch after crashing at 4 AM.

Our flower garden is in full bloom at the height of its beauty, and it really is spectacular this year. Everything is about a month ahead of schedule, with white irises already past their bloom and my rose bushes exploding with scenterrific color. All you have to do to be wafted in the scent of roses is stand on my porch. We’ll be sharing photos soon!



The countdown to the release of Defiant, the third book in my MacKinnon’s Rangers series is about to begin. The book — the longest story I’ve ever written — will be out on July 2, so we’ve got a lot of fun and celebration ahead. I’m so excited to be sharing Connor’s story with you! I cannot tell you want this book means to me.

I’m working on the next I-Team novel now — that’s the as-of-yet untitled I-Team Book 6.

Stay tuned!

My first goal was to have Skin Deep up by the end of March. But I had pneumonia all February and couldn’t write. Then I planned to have it up by mid-April. Well, here we are, and I’m probably four chapters away from the end.

Sorry it’s taking forever. I really care about what I write. I don’t want to give you anything less than the best story I can write, and I don’t want to give Megan, who has had such a hard life, anything less than the happy ending she deserves.

Since I’ve kept you waiting so long, I think you all deserve an excerpt. Don’t you agree?

I knew you would.

For those of you familiar with the I-Team series, Megan is a character who tugged at your heartstrings. For those of you who haven’t read the series, I suggest you read Unlawful Contact before reading Skin Deep. You’ll understand the relationship between Megan and her brother, Marc, much better if you do. And the difference could mean crying your way through a few tissues — or wiping out the box.

Before I commence with the excerpt, I’ll just point out the sexy little Rock*It Reads logo on the cover of Skin Deep. Thanks to all of you who celebrated the launch of Rock*It Reads brand with us. And watch for more events on the Rock*It Reads Facebook page and our website.

From Chapter 9 of Skin Deep:

“Be careful.  It’s hot.”

“Thanks.”  Megan took the mug of steaming chamomile tea from Nate, a part of her craving something stronger.

While he put more wood on the fire, she sipped, struggling to pull the pieces of herself back together.  She felt drained, weak, ragged.  It seemed unreal to her that she’d just bared the darkest side of her soul to a man she’d known only for a week, but she had.  She’d told him everything. 

More than that, she’d buried her face in his shirt and sobbed while he’d held her.  The only other men she’d let touch her like that were Marc and Julian, but that was different.  Marc was her brother, and Julian… Well, he was like a brother. 

What she felt for Nate was very different.

She couldn’t deny that she was attracted to him.  Usually that meant she’d want to get as far away from him as she could, and yet something about him set her at ease. 

He poured himself another drink and sat on the sofa.  “Are you warm?”

She nodded, grateful for the blanket he’d wrapped around her shoulders.

He leaned back into the cushions, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her.  “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.  Why not?”  She no longer had any secrets where he was concerned.

“That reporter your brother took hostage when he broke out of prison—he got her pregnant while they were on the run, and she married him, didn’t she?”

Nate’s question, as blunt as it was, wasn’t what Megan had been expecting.

She laughed.  “He and Sophie have been married for almost four years now, and they have two kids—Chase and Addison.”

Nate shook his head, a bemused expression on his face.  “That’s … interesting.”

Megan smiled.  “Believe it or not, Marc can be very sweet.  You haven’t exactly seen his soft side.”

“No I suppose, I haven’t.”  Nate chuckled.  “I don’t blame him for watching over you the way he does.  If I were in his shoes and spotted some strange guy walking up to my little sister’s front door after she’d been attacked, I probably would have done the same thing.” 

“Marc knows I get … uncomfortable around men, and I guess he does his best to make certain I feel safe.”  Megan looked away, took a sip of tea.

“Do you feel uncomfortable around me?”  It was a sincere question, no defensiveness in his voice, no hint that she needed to lie to protect his ego.

Megan found herself studying him from his short sandy brown hair to his deep set blue eyes to the tanned skin on the left side of his face to the scars on the right.  “No—which is kind of strange.” 

It was both fascinating—and frightening.

“Well, that’s good—I think.”  The smile lines around his eyes crinkled, a hint of humor in his voice. 

And she knew she would never get a better time than now to let him know where she stood.  “I’m never going to be with a man, Nate.  I’m telling you this now because … because I don’t want to mislead you.  I don’t like being touched.  I don’t like sex.  I’ve never once enjoyed it.”

“Never?”  His brows bent in a frown.

“Never.”  She glanced away for a moment, unable to bear the scrutiny of his gaze.  “When a man touches me, I feel … revulsion.  I instantly feel sick to my stomach.  It’s all I can do not to shove him away.  What those men did to me—it’s in my DNA.”

Even years of therapy hadn’t changed that.  A hug from a male acquaintance, a man’s arm around her shoulders, an overly long handshake—they all made her want to pull away and run.  She couldn’t even go to a male doctor.

“I’m sorry.  If I’d known… ”  Nate’s frown deepened.  “Did I make you feel that way just now when I held you?”

“N-no.”  Warmth rushed to Megan’s cheeks. 

“I’m glad to hear that.”  His forehead furrowed, and he seemed to think about this for a moment as if it were a puzzle he needed to solve.  “How about when I caught you when you fell getting off the horse?”

“No.”  Her cheeks burned hotter.

“What about the times I’ve held your hand?”

Could he see that she was blushing?  God, she hoped not!  “No, not then either.”

His gaze locked with hers.  “And last night—when I kissed you?”

“No.”  She rushed to explain.  “But we were interrupted, and I… I think maybe there just wasn’t time for me to react.”

Nate set his drink down on the coffee table.  “Do you want to test that theory?”

Megan’s heart took off at a sprint.  “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I could kiss you again just like I did last night—soft and easy—and since we’re not going to be interrupted this time, you’ll be able to see whether that sense of revulsion kicks in.  If it does, we stop.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

He gave her a lopsided grin.  “We’ll know you’ve been kissing the wrong men.”

She felt that flutter in her belly again, and time was measured in heartbeats as he watched her, waiting for her answer.  Some part of her was afraid their little experiment would fail.  Some part of her was afraid it would succeed.

There’s no point in trying.  You know how this will end, girl.

But did she?  Everything had been different with Nate so far.

She drew a steadying breath.  “How would we do it?”

“We could do it like we did last night.”  He spoke matter-of-factly, as if they were discussing how to change a tire.  “I’ll sit close to you and kiss you nice and slow, and we can see where that takes us.”

She nodded.  “O-okay.”

In a single slow motion, he shifted so that he sat beside her, his face inches from hers, his arm stretched out on the back of the leather sofa behind her.  “You tell me if you start to feel queasy or repulsed, alright?”

It was hard to think with him sitting so close.  “All right.”

“Ready?”  He reached out, stroked her cheek with the knuckles of his right hand.

“Uh-huh.”

Without closing his eyes, he leaned in, brushed his lips over hers once, twice, three times, the feather-light contact sending shivers through her. 

“How are we doing so far?”  His eyes looked straight into hers, his voice husky.

“Good.”  She didn’t wait for him this time, but rested her palms against the hard wall of his chest, rose up on one knee, and caressed his lips with hers, increasing the pressure.

More shivers.

His eyes drifted shut, his lashes long and dark.  One big hand came to rest on her hip as he steadied her.  He caught her lower lip between his, and gave it a soft tug.

Belly flutters.

Her eyes drifted shut, her hands finding their way up his chest and over his shoulders as she drew herself against him, needing to be closer to him, her arms locking behind his neck.  She tilted her head, kissed his upper lip, then his lower lip, then the corners of his mouth, her tongue tracing the outline of his lips, her senses stirred by the taste of him, by his masculine scent, by the hard feel of him.

And Megan forgot she’d always been repulsed by this.  All she knew was that she wanted more.

Excerpt (c) copyright Pamela Clare 2012

 I hope you enjoyed that little sneak peek. Chapter 9 is where we get to turn on the sexy. Because this won’t be up on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Smashwords before it’s actually available — no pre-orders on indie published books, unfortunately — I’ll be sending out an email blast to let people know when it’s done. So if you don’t receive my newsletter, be sure to click here to sign up.

My current target date is early May.

And now I need to get offline and write!

P.S. I have been going to the gym five days a week. Yeah. I rock.

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks since my last blog post. I’ve been working on Skin Deep, but I’ve also been taking time to go to the gym and to stay on top of things around the house. With all the unseasonably warm weather we’re having, I’ve also needed to spend time outside watering my rose bushes, my flower beds and our trees and shrubs. Between all of that, my column for the paper, my work for the Happy Ever After blog, and getting a new endeavor off the ground — you’ll hear about that soon — there hasn’t been much time for blogging.

So it’s time for a Project: Happiness update.
Last time I talked about body, not only my own experience with my physical self, but also that of women in general and the ways that society influences how we live our lives in our bodies. This week I thought I’d talk about the mind.

Way back when — it really does seem ages ago now — I explained how I viewed the human experience as being comprised of three elements: body, mind, and spirit. Mind being in the middle  is kind of appropriate because I think it links the three together. Our spiritual self starts in the mind, and mind has a powerful influence over body, too. The brain, the organ that houses the mind, is a bodily organ.

So what does it mean to have a healthy mind? It’s not about being intelligent or educated. I’ve always been very confident of my intellectual abilities. My brain comes with some unique talents — a facility for foreign languages, for example.

A healthy mind is more about how you think about life. Maybe because of this, most people associate the mind closely with happiness.


Of course, we know that body influences mind. The intense spinal pain I endured from January 2008 through August 2010 proved that to me. I went from optimism to frustration to despair. Chronic pain can have a real impact on how a person thinks. That was true for me.

Physical pain and lost sleep tends to bring out the worst in me in terms of my mental attitude. So doing whatever I can to decrease spinal pain is very important. I had a bad week last week and into this week, and I got a refresher course in how much it sucks not to be able to sleep.

But I really realized I needed to re-vision my life was when my own “inner monologue” became darkly negative. And that had very little to do with pain and everything to do with writing. Writing is a very stressful activity at times, and writing under the conditions I faced toward the end of Defiant resulted in my feeling extremely depressed and negative.

My sister was here at that time, and thanks to her, I caught of glimpse of how my self-talk, if you want to call it that, looked from the outside. It wasn’t good.

I had to be honest and realize that I often get that way while writing. It wasn’t just Defiant. I very often reach a point of self-loathing when I’m writing because I just can’t accomplish on the page what I’m trying to accomplish. What I feel inside about a story so rarely makes it into a book. And the frustration that causes is overwhelming at times.

“You need a new routine,” Benjy told me after Defiant was done.

By that, he meant that there has to be a happier way to write books. Project: Happiness grew out of my desire to create this new routine.

I knew my new approach could not include the positive self-talk modeled by Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live: “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me!”

Puhleaze!!! I’m too cynical for daily affirmations, even ones that aren’t silly.  A good Buddhist koan or a line of poetry, sure. Affirmations? No.

So what is my new routine?


No more self-hatred. If I start getting into that mode, then it’s time to do something else no matter how much writing I got done.

Get enough sleep. A mind can’t work well without rest. The book deadline isn’t as important as a full night’s rest.

Get exercise. It has been proven to help mental function and mood. The brain and the mind it contains are part of the body, after all.


Accept that nothing I write will be perfect. This is really, really hard, because I am a perfectionist. I want to write something perfect. So even as I try to accept this, I’m still fighting like hell to achieve it.

Do nice things for myself—things that are healthy. A nap, a trip to the theater to see a film, a bit of Angry Birds — try to incorporate fun, not just work, in to every day. All work and no play makes Pamela a bitch. But I think a lot of people do things to be “nice” to themselves that aren’t good for them in the long run. That chocolate bar. Spending too much money on clothes. Sitting in front of the TV too often and for too long. Food has long been the “nice” thing that I do.

So far, the first three and the last one are moving along pretty well. But accepting that I will make mistakes and fail at my goals to one degree or another is very, very hard for me.

I will persevere. 

In other news:  

Skin Deep is moving along. I’m more than 25,000 words into the story. I ran into a really tough scene, which I wrote and now must rewrite. I anticipate two more weeks of writing, a week of editing and then a few days to get it uploaded and see it go live. So probably the end of April. Sorry! It’s that perfectionism problem I mentioned.

I will be certain to make a big announcement about it — you can read more about the story in the blog post below this one — and send out a newsletter so that no one misses the release of the novella. You can also stay in touch by joining my Facebook page.  If you want to sign up for my newsletters, click here. I only send them out when I have news, and I don’t share the info with anyone.

The copy-edited pages of Defiant are on my computer. I need to proofread them one last time and get them back to New York. So advance review copies will be going out probably at the end of the month. I’m putting together a list of events and fun ways to celebrate the release of Connor’s story, so stay tuned for that.

The Defiant discussion group has launched. Today’s chat about Surrender was a lot of fun for me. We continue through July, working our way one by one through the books in the series and ending with Defiant.  Thanks to Jenn LeBlanc for setting this up!

On Tuesday, April 3, I’ll be receiving the Colorado Coalition for Sexual Assault’s Excellence in Media award for my work on the issue of sexual assault. This is an amazing honor, given my own background and the fact that I went into journalism almost entirely because I wanted to be a voice for women. The ceremony will be held on the steps of the state capitol in Denver. I am deeply touched and honored by this.

Also, I’ll have an announcement possibly this week, maybe next, of a new endeavor that I am a part of and very excited about. If you read the article in RT, you might already know what I’m talking about. If not, expect an announcement shortly.

Last but not least, it will soon be planting time on the urban farm. We’ve got most of the prep work done. Depending on the weather, we’ll be planting our crops soon. We try as much as we can to eat food we grow because it doesn’t come with e coli or listeria or pesticides/herbicides. The new studies that showed a strong tie between certain cancers and common pesticides/herbicides really strengthened my resolve to have as much control over our food supply as possible. We rarely eat anything that isn’t organic.

Last year we grew: arugula, kale, swiss chard, romaine lettuce, onions (red and yellow), green beans, broccoli, acorn squash, delicata squash, zucchini, summer squash, radishes, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. We lost a lot of the broccoli to some damned egg-laying creature — white flies, I expect. So this year, I may get floating row cover to protect everything.

Growing food is such intensely difficult work requiring a lot of attention and time. But the result — being able to grab dinner out of the garden and know it’s good for you — is wonderful. As much as I think, “Maybe I’ll just join a CSA (community supported agriculture) this year and let someone else do the work,” there’s something about this time of year that calls me back to the dirt.

Have a lovely week, everyone!

Cover image by Jenn LeBlanc/Text design by Jennifer Johnson

Remember I was going to write a Christmas novella? And then I somehow couldn’t get Defiant done to my satisfaction until January 20, making a Christmas novella a bit untimely?  And then I got pneumonia so I didn’t write a damned thing for the entire month of February?

Good times! Not.

Well, I got to work the moment I started feeling better, opening the novella I had started, setting aside the Christmas theme and just working on a straight novella — my very first I-Team After Hours novella.

I’m using I-Team After Hours to brand these I-Team spin-off stories as being somewhat different than a regular I-Team novella and also shorter. My average novel is about 120,000 words. These novellas will come close to 40,000 words, making them about one-third the size of an I-Team novel. Accordingly, they’ll be priced at about one-third the cost of an I-Team novel — $2.99.  I’m self-publishing them straight to ebook through Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Smashwords. It will be available in all ebook formats, including Kobo (Smashwords) and Apple. If you don’t have an ereader, you’ll still be able to enjoy the story by downloading a free ereader application from Amazon or B&N that will enable you to read the story on whatever computer you’re using right now to read this blog post.

The first novella is titled Skin Deep. No doubt you’ve already noticed the delicious cover image provided by friend and fellow Colorado journalist Jenn LeBlanc, who is also a romance author. Jennifer Johnson of Sapphire Dreams did the text design. But what we all notice are the abs, the muscles in the arms, the veins. Yes, the veins... Ahem.

Skin Deep is about half finished and will be available as soon as I can have it edited, formatted and uploaded — perhaps before the end of the month, but definitely by early April. Make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter if you want to make certain you are notified when the book is released. To be added to the newsletter, click here.

This is a new venture for me and a way to give stories to characters in the I-Team series that would otherwise not get a story.

I’m starting with Megan Rawlings, Marc Hunter’s little sister. Those of you who’ve read Unlawful Contact know what a terrible life Megan has had. I won’t elaborate in order to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t read the book.

Here’s the blurb that would go on the back cover of the book (if it had a cover):




Broken on the inside

Megan Hunter has worked hard to get back on her feet, leaving the nightmare of her teenage years behind. The last thing she wants or needs in her life is a man. But when she is attacked by someone from her past, a scarred stranger intervenes, saving her life and that of her little girl. Looks can be deceiving, for despite the man’s rough appearance, she feels safe with him. And for the first time in her life, she knows the stirrings of desire.

Broken on the outside

Nathaniel West paid a high price serving with the Marines in Afghanistan. He returned to his family’s ranch in the Colorado mountains to heal—and be alone.  Disfigured as he is, he has put all thoughts of sex and romance aside. But something about Megan brings him back to life, heats his blood, makes him feel like a man again. As danger pursues her, and the truth about her past is revealed, he vows to protect her—and to heal her wounded spirit.

But confronting the past is never easy—especially when it’s carrying a gun. Megan will have to learn to trust Nate to survive and to claim a passion that is much more than …  Skin Deep.

That gives you a quick overview. I’ll be posting an excerpt soon! Stay tuned for more!



MacKinnon’s Rangers news:  Jenn LeBlanc just finished reading Surrender and Untamed and loved them so much she decided on her own to start a closed Facebook discussion group for anyone interested in reading the series and discussion the stories in preparation for the release of Defiant.

Anyone who wants to read and discuss the stories can ask to join. Jenn’s plan is to start reading the books on April 1, I believe. If you’re on Facebook and are interested in joining, click here.



Project: Happiness Update: I continue to improve my eating and to go to the gym, though I find it difficult to write, keep a clean house, be on the Internet, go the gym, cook healthful meals and write. My instinct when the story stalls is to drop everything — good eating habits, the gym, getting enough sleep — just to get the story back on track.

But that’s what I can’t do. That’s what I’ve always done, and in the end it doesn’t do me any good. So, despite feeling stressed about finishing the story, I did go to the gym, cussing all the way. I wasn’t cussing when I came home, however. The moral of this story? Go to the damned gym.