Blitz: Danger and Desire Boxed Set

Publication date: September 15th 2014

Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense

 

 Goodreads Book Page

~ What's It About? ~

Danger and Desire: Ten Steamy Romantic Suspense Novels

Hold on tight for ten tales of intrigue and passion from New York Times Bestselling and award-winning authors. Men in uniform, sexy spies and pulse-pounding action fill over 650,000 words of this limited edition boxed set.

New York Times Bestseller Katie Reus – Sensual Surrender
RITA Award Winning Author Carolyn Crane – Against the Dark
USA Today Bestseller Pamela Clare – Skin Deep
New York Times Bestseller Dianna Love
Dee J. Adams – Against the Wall
USA Today Bestseller Norah Wilson
USA Today Bestseller VK Sykes – Lethal Confessions
Amber Lin
USA Today Bestseller Misty Evans
New York Times Bestseller Kaylea Cross

The individual novels cost over $35 in total and have more than 2,000 5-star reviews on Goodreads. This set is only available for one month, so grab your copy now!

 

 

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~ Interviews with Authors & Excerpts ~

 

Katie Reus

1. Ebook or print? And why?
I’m going to take the easy way out and say both, lol! I actually prefer print for my non-fiction books. I read a lot of books for research; in psychology or criminal justice text books and autobiography type books and find them much easier to read in print because they’re usually trade size or huge textbooks. And some non-fiction books I read I actually can’t find in ebook for whatever reason so print is the only option. For my romance books, however, I prefer ebooks because those often come in mass market size (which I hate trying to keep those pages open!) and it’s just easier to carry around 100+ romance books on my kindle instead of in my purse.

2. What are your favorite TV shows?
I’m going to sound like a total TV junkie but here goes… Castle, The Strain, Major Crimes, Rizzoli and Isles, the older Supernatural seasons (I haven’t seen the last two b/c I lost interest), Burn Notice before it went off the air and Game of Thrones all the way!
 

3. What is your favorite meal?
I really love eggplant parmesan. Seriously, I could eat it all the time!
 

4. What makes you happy?
A quiet Saturday morning with a full pot of coffee, an empty house and hours to work on my computer with no interruptions. On the flip side, I love it when my boys (my husband and son) are infiltrating the house with their natural loudness and my little one is saying ‘mommy, mommy’ every two seconds because he doesn’t want me to miss a single second of the important things he’s doing like kicking a soccer ball in the kitchen or doing backflips off the couch.
 

5. If you could have one paranormal ability, what would it be?
To fly because come on, that’s pretty freaking awesome.
 

6. What is a talent you wish you had, but don't?
I wish I had a scrap of artistic talent. I can write a 100K book in 30 days but ask me to draw anything other than a stick person and it’s not happening. And even my stick people are pretty embarrassing. My husband is amazingly gifted when it comes to drawing and it makes me crazy because he rarely does it. It’s like he’s just sitting on all this talent. And the other day my 3 year old drew a cat better than I could ever could… and laughed at me when I tried to draw Mickey Mouse for him. Getting mocked by a 3 year old = awesome.
 

7. Favorite place to read?
A year ago we moved and got all new furniture and one of the purchases was for me alone. I got a leather chair-and-a-half because they’re freaking huge and cushy along with an ottoman and I absolutely love it. I love curling up in it with a mug of hot tea or a glass of wine and just reading in silence. It doesn’t happen often so I savor that time in my chair!
 

8. Favorite non-alcoholic drink.
I live in the country so Starbucks is a pretty rare thing (heh, I have to drive two towns over to get to one), but I love their chai tea lattes. Love, love, love them!
 

9. What is your work schedule like when you are writing?
Ha, when am I not writing? Writing is my full time job and I work between 40-60 hours a week, depending on things. This summer has been a little crazy but my ‘normal-ish’ schedule during the school year: I wake up early before my son gets up so I can sneak in an hour or two of catching up on emails and social media time. Then after dropping him off at pre-school, I chug a couple cups of coffee and try to knock out 3K words before noon. When working on a project, which lately is pretty much *always*, I tend to write 3K words a day, 5 days a week no matter what. It usually ends up being more, but that’s my goal and anything else is just cake. Then in the afternoons if I’ve met my word count goal I get caught up on other things like print book formatting, promo stuff, website updates… and a billion tiny things that just need to get done during the week. Other than actual writing, the stuff I do changes week to week. Luckily I get to be pretty flexible with my schedule. The only thing I’m not flexible with is my word count. No matter what, I try to write 15-20K a week.
 

10. If you had to do your journey to getting published all over again, what would you do differently?
I wouldn’t be so eager to sign with a publisher that I wouldn’t do my homework. Early on in my career I signed with a small publisher (and have since gotten all my rights back) for three books. I should have waited and honed my craft more and learned more about contract negotiations. Basically, I would have had more patience, done a lot more research and talked to other authors about their experience with that house. It’s hard to regret that decision though, because by signing with them I ended up meeting someone who is now my best friend and the best critique partner I could ask for.

BIO:
Katie Reus is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Red Stone Security series, the Moon Shifter series and the Deadly Ops series. She fell in love with romance at a young age thanks to books she pilfered from her mom's stash. Years later she loves reading romance almost as much as she loves writing it. However, she didn't always know she wanted to be a writer. After changing majors many times, she finally graduated with a degree in psychology. Not long after that she discovered a new love. Writing. She now spends her days writing dark paranormal romance and sexy romantic suspense.

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Excerpt from Singed by Kaylea Cross

He leaned even closer, placed his hands on the counter on either side of her to cage her in, all the while holding her gaze. “No,” he said again, softer this time.
A spurt of panic flickered in her eyes. She tried to duck out from under his arm but he blocked her easily, pinning her hips with his own. Her head snapped up, those wide gray eyes filled with shock as she felt his erection pressing into her belly. She jerked her eyes away, swallowed again. “Let me go. Right now, Gage, I mean it.”
She was strung so tight she was on the verge of shattering. A volcano about to erupt. And God, he’d love nothing more than to incinerate in the ensuing explosion with her. He wasn’t worried about her hurting him. Whatever she could dish out, he could take it and more. “No.”
His calm tone acted like a trigger. With an inarticulate sound of rage, she twisted and shoved at his shoulders. Gage caught her wrists and quickly shifted her away from the counter, backed her up against the kitchen wall and pinned her there with his weight. He had only a moment for his brain to register the feel of her soft curves molded to him before she began struggling, trying to shove him away. Not happening.
He held her there, refusing to back down. Her teeth were bared, eyes narrowed, breath coming in short gasps. Low, animal sounds came from her throat as she fought and got nowhere. He could tell it infuriated her more that he’d subdued her so easily, overpowered her with his greater strength. Recognizing she couldn’t win, after a minute or two she stilled, quivering with fury, every line of her luscious body rigid with anger and outrage. With him so close she was forced to tilt her head back to look into his face. The warm puffs of her uneven breaths bathed his skin.
“Fuck you, let me go,” she snapped, her voice ragged, tight with emotion.
Hands holding her wrists on either side of her head, he waited for her to calm down and meet his gaze. At last she did and he could see the turmoil written there. All the anger and pain, the physical need she was trying to hide from him. Her sweet citrus scent, intensified by her increased body heat, swirled around him. He could get drunk on her so easily. Just lean down and put his mouth to the rapidly thrumming pulse in her neck, taste that soft, fragrant skin.
Holding her gaze, he let one heartbeat of charged silence spread between them. Another. Letting her know without words that he was fully capable of keeping her like this for as long as he wanted. His body was primed, begging him to grab her, tear that tight black skirt and top off her and force her to vent everything that was eating at her from the inside, replace it with white-hot sexual release.
The throb between his legs bordered on painful. He shifted his hips against her and bit back a moan at the feel of her against his erection, noting the way her pupils expanded and her nostrils flared. The evidence of her arousal kicked his lust into high gear. Gage forced himself to take a single, calming breath, waited until the roar in his ears subsided. If this was the last time he got to have her, he was going to make it one hell of a goodbye.
Staring straight into her eyes, he released her wrists and murmured, “Turn it loose.”

Interview Carolyn Crane

Who is your favorite author and why?

My favorite author is definitely Anne Stuart, especially her Ice series, though I love many of her historicals, too. But I feel like she really punched through the wall of how dark a hero can be with that Ice series, and I just love it. I love how complete those heroes seem in their darkness, and how they make sense. They’re not just dark as a feature like hair color, or in some actions that surprise you, but they’re dark clear through in a primal way that makes sense and drives everything about them. It’s a way she builds her heroes that I greatly admire. She walks this very tricky line and even edges into dubious consent and really makes it work.

I know there are a lot of dark erotica romances coming out with super dark heroes, and I really enjoy those, but Anne feels like her own breed, in a way. Maybe it’s because she was the first (for me, anyway). I don’t know. I also crazy love secret agents (obviously) and that’s what the Ice guys are. Her  Ice books are wedged into my mind like these perfect things. 

What is the most surprising thing you discovered while writing your book(s)?

My heroine in Against the Dark is a retired safecracker – she’s been out of the game for years, but she’s pulled back by her girl gang for one last job for a good cause. (And you know it’s always that one last job that gets characters in trouble!) Anyway, I really had to research safecracking and lock picking for it, just to get the details right, and I found out two things that were very interesting.

First, there is this whole scene devoted to picking locks. I had no idea of this, but there’s a scene for My Little Pony, so why not? They have conventions and things, and competitions where people sit at a long table and race to pick locks. (And open them really fast. **Eyes front door lock**). The combination lock is apparently still the best kind of lock, and did you know you actually need two tools to open a lock? Not just one like Hollywood makes you think?

Also, I was coming into romantic suspense from urban fantasy. Here’s the thing about urban fantasy: it’s really just romantic suspense with some magic and shifters and vampires (or disillusionists!) thrown in. I’m always kind of surprised the audiences don’t cross over more, but that’s another post.

But one big difference: I could make up all the shit I wanted with urban fantasy. Romantic suspense, not so much!! So I was a little bit grumbly about having to research things for RS. I saw it as kind of a holdup to writing. The surprise was that it was the opposite: research takes time, yeah, but it gives you awesome information you can’t make up. Stuff you can work with and exploit. With the safe cracking, the more I got into how it works, the more I realized how the entire art of it related to my heroine in really interesting ways. For example, she likes to stay in the background, hidden, and has a lot of guilt issues, and safecrackers have to be good at feeling and visualizing the insides of safes—it’s like a mini world you have to sink into, and it felt like a natural escape for my heroine, into this dark interior, into the shadows, in a way. It really made things nice for me as a writer to have those two things link up like that.

What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?

I have noticed that there are two dispositions writers can fall into. It’s kind of a spectrum and in my mind, it makes all the difference to whether somebody will succeed or not. On one side is “Please admire my talent.” On the other side is, let’s say, “I’m a fierce learning and growing machine.” I have noticed that the “admire me” ones wash out pretty quickly. Because they don’t get good at learning, and being good at learning is soooo critical.

So my best advice is to be a fierce and mercenary learning machine. Take everything as an opportunity to learn, but most especially feedback. Even negative feedback is a gift that you can seize and use if you can learn not to react to it or let it get you down. “Please admire my talent” is such dangerous territory for a writer to live in. Yes, all writers want praise, and every human being wants love, but you can’t grow and evolve if you fixate on getting praise. And it takes vigilance.

With a newer writer stuck in “Please Admire My Talent” if you point out a problem, they’ll explain why they did what they did it, or they’ll feel bad or angry, and it’s no way to grow.

The fierce learning machine side is taking risks and being okay with failure and trying new things and having flaws pointed out. The learning machine writer doesn’t bother to explain when something isn’t working—you have given her something she can use by telling her that something isn’t working. That scene isn’t clear. That character isn’t working for at least one reader. Whatever. That is useful stuff even if it sucks. As a writer, you absolutely shouldn’t take every bit of feedback to heart—not all readers will give you value. Some will be completely wrong, but if you have that learning machine disposition, you get better at assessing and using feedback in general, and it’s just such a key skill.

What is the hardest part about writing for you?

I am trying so hard to learn to write faster. I have so many books I want to write, and a limited amount of time in a day, obviously, so I’ve really been thinking about it and reading books about it. There’s this one called “2K to 10K a day” that’s really good. I’m still at 2k, but still.

I think I daydream a lot, and fuss a lot with sentences that I later cut. So, I’ve changed my style to not polish much as I go, and that has helped.

My third Undercover Associates book, Into the Shadows, features a spy who is super into Bruce Lee, who has all this martial arts advice about getting out of your own way and letting go of structure and being totally responsive.

I’ve been thinking lately that some of that advice Bruce Lee gives martial artists would be good for somebody trying to learn how to write fast. I’m in my own way a lot, and I think I don’t sink as deeply into the material as I could. I think sometimes my fixation on where I want the material to go stops me from following it where it wants to go. Well, we’ll see if that advice helps when I start drafting my next book.

Where are you from and what do you love best about your hometown?

I’m from a smallish lake town in Wisconsin, and it’s a totally quirky place. I think I would never be able to write about it because people would think I was making it all up. There was the rich end of the lake and the poor, swampy end of the lake, and people would drive around in boats, like along the shore, with drinks—we’re talking coolers here--and yell to the people on shore or talk about them and tell elaborate stories about them. And tell the same stories over the over. The people in this house did this or that. When I moved away, every time I went back home there would have to be this boat ride where I learned about all the latest on the lake. Everybody was out there doing that.

Once I got married, even my poor husband ended up having to take the drunk boat rides and getting all the stories, many of which I’m sure he can repeat. In fact, the entire culture kind of revolved around being drunk in boats. There would be drunken boat parades, too, and of course, the races. I’m kind of amazed there weren’t more accidents. And then there were these lovely rituals, like, the boat lift parties, where dozens of families would band together and the guys would take the boat lifts off the shore and stick them in the water and set them up and position them in spring, or pull them out in the fall. Boat lifts are super heavy, so it takes a group of guys to deal with them. It’s kind of like the Amish, like a barn raising. Except drunk. God, maybe I do need to put this stuff in a story!

Do you use a pen name? If so, how did you come up with it?

Carolyn Crane is a pen name. It’s a lot like my real name, I’m really Carolyn C., but my day job is freelance advertising writer, and it’s a competitive field, and while most of my clients are super cool, I don’t need them googling me and getting to a hot secret agent with a stocking fetish giving oral sex to a hotel singer in Bangkok, and certainly not to my pen name Annika, with her erotic “Taken Hostage by Hunky Bank Robbers” series. Because, let’s face it, it’s not the sort of thing that would fill a client with confidence when they’re thinking about paying me to write about their banking services or whatever.

When I first started out writing urban fantasy for Random House, I wanted a super goth name and I told my agent and editor I wanted to be Carolyn von Krüik. Don’t you think that’s kind of cool? Well, they didn’t. They were like, if you get really famous, we’ll want to make your last name huge, and von Krüik is too weird. I think maybe they just secretly hated it and were trying to be nice about it. Anyway, I tossed it out. Then I couldn’t decide between Carolyn Crane and Carolyn Crowe (because I like birds, and Russell Crowe!). Crane won out in the end. I guess it just felt more right. And, now I'm glad I didn’t go with the funky name.

Excerpt from Deadly Pursuit by Misty Evans

Taking two steps back, she pointed the gun at his chest. “Emilio Paloma-Londano, you are under arrest by the United States government for charges relating to the organization and running of the San Diego Mafia.” She took a deep breath and one more step back as she watched Emilio’s face transform from utter confusion to pure anger. “Drop to your stomach and put your hands behind your head.”
He stood stock still, effectively refusing to lie down on the ground, but all hell broke loose around them. FBI, DEA, and local police officers emerged from the nearby lifeguard house and descended from the boardwalk. Spotlights came on, illuminating Emilio, still standing, and Celina, who managed to return her dress straps to her shoulders while never moving the gun sight from Emilio’s heart. Their eyes locked on each other and though he didn’t move or say a word, Celina felt the intensity of his hatred penetrating every cell of her body.
Special Agent Quarters came up beside her and took the Glock from her grip while she watched two police officers force Emilio face down in the sand. Within seconds, his hands were cuffed and his rights read. She stood there shaking, teeth chattering, arms crossed over her very wet, cold breasts. The officers raised Emilio back to a standing position, and again the dark eyes she knew well snapped to hers. Again she saw the depth of his anger. And then he took her by surprise.
He ignored Quarters and spoke to someone behind Celina. “Give her my jacket so she can cover herself.”
As Celina watched Emilio be led away, a soft warmth fell over her shoulders and enveloped her. Instinctively she pulled it closer, stuffed her arms into the sleeves. It was not Emilio’s jacket, but a red Billabong sweatshirt.
She smiled as she turned to face Cooper. “Thank you,” she said, forgetting the past few months of fear and manipulation the moment she saw his face.
It was a beautiful face. Not in the pretty L.A. boy actor way. Those types of faces she saw all the time and they were fake. No, Cooper’s was a rugged beauty, deeply tanned and handsome. It was the controlled face of a man who lived with danger every day for several decades.
His gaze was as serious as always as he stared down at her. “You all right?”
“Better than fine.” Now that you’re here. Every time she stood next to the DEA agent, she felt like she’d just downed a triple mocha latte with whipped cream. Warm, buzzed, and ready for seconds. “How’d I do?”
He was silent for a moment, studying her. “You went off the rez and we need to talk about that, but…you did okay, kid.”
Celina’s smile faltered. Kid? Kid? “I’m not a kid, Cooper. I’m twenty-four years old.” She held his stern gaze. “I did better than okay and you know it. I just nailed Emilio Londano.”
Said out loud, those words seemed to vibrate in the air. The moon smiled down at her and she drew her first fearless breath in months. She felt a sudden hot rush in her veins, a tingling sensation shooting through every cell of her body.
Letting her head fall back on her shoulders, she let it come, this rush of accomplishment instead of fear. It roared through her.
Laughing up at the sky, she sang out, “I did it! I arrested the Lord of the Cartel World!” She took a few steps back, staring at the sky, and held out her arms. Twirling, she let her herself enjoy the sweet tingle of relief and success racing through her body.