Well, I’m just a tad nutty in real life. A bit scattered, a bit of a dreamer, never together. I wanted to originally create a character based upon myself, because I felt that people could relate to somebody who is decidedly imperfect. And have her get the dreamboat man, because, let’s face it, we all want that, right ladies? That was my inspiration for the story of Iris and Ryan in my Illusions books. Those novels were so well-received, that I just decided to keep on keeping on. Scotty, the current heroine in my Broken novels, is so much more together than myself. So it’s been fun to write her. And Nick has turned into a revelation – he seems to be a bit of a tough guy who is nothing but a womanizer, but I’ve found his soft side. I’m a little bit, ok a lot, in love with Nick and Ryan myself, and who wouldn’t be? I’m having the time of my life writing these books, and I want to keep on writing them until my fans decide that they’ve had enough!
My books all have things in common: they all combine a touch of mystery and intrigue with drama, love, and lots of hot sex. Some of the books have action and even some criminal elements in them. My current book, in fact, is my first book that would be classified as straight romantic suspense, although it also combines definite elements of the thriller genre! If you’re in the market for a book that is fast-paced, where the heroes are beautiful and wealthy, and the heroines are strong, vulnerable and flawed, then try these books out!
What was your inpiration for writing Exposure?
I’ve always been attracted to romances that have some kind of darkness attached to them, because that’s life. Sometimes people experience unimaginable tragedies and have to keep going and have some hope that things will get better. That’s why all of my books focus upon people who are dealing with big things that affect their lives.
In the case of Exposure, I remembered a story from my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. It was a huge story – a mother left her child in the car with the car running, the doors unlocked and the windows down. She only went into a sandwich shop for a minute to get her child a soda to drink. In the meantime, a guy who was out on parole and looking for a car to steal, stole her car, with her child in it. She attempted to get the child out of the car, but he was dragged and was killed. That story always stuck with me, and I thought about “what if?” How would a person react to something like that happening? How do you get over it? What kind of mental issues would come with something like that happening? And, I wanted to give the whole story a happy ending – that you go through it, you suffer, and you get through it with the help of somebody who loves you.
As for Asher’s story, I really wanted him to be a good guy with a slightly shady background. I wanted him to have all kinds of skills that would help him protect CJ from harm, yet I didn’t necessarily want him to be ex-military. So, I wanted him to have a background as a criminal, but not just any criminal – somebody who is from organized crime. Because in the second book, I want him to use his skills to combat the bad guys who take CJ, and be a real hero.
How many books will be in this series?
Right now, I’m planning a trilogy + prequel. I’ll see how it goes. I usually always put out a trilogy, but I just tried my hand at a prequel. I want to see how the prequel that I currently have for my Illusions Series sells before I commit to one for the Exposure series. I like doing prequels, though, because I enjoy getting to the root of a character. What made him the way he was.
What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?
Everything! I love to know that I have the freedom to explore my imagination and put it on paper. I love the process of writing, and of creating characters. I love falling in love with my leading men, because I do – I fall in love with every one of them. I love being able to create a leading man and give him all the characteristics that I want in a man in real life. I love hearing from fans! Sometimes I get letter where a fan tells me that I helped her because she suffers from chronic pain, and reading helps her forget the pain, and my book helped her through the night. I love hearing that my characters touched somebody’s life. I love it when I get fan letters where it’s obvious that the person found my characters so real that she’s angry at somebody in my book, and has sympathy for somebody else. And when a fan tells me that I helped her overcome her issues, because she has the same issues as my heroine, and it made her see that there is hope that she can overcome the issue as well.
What’s the weirdest thing you had to research for your writing?
I had to research the effects of heroin on the body, and what happens in withdrawal because my female character in Deeper Illusion went through addiction briefly.
What are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading books about the Russian Mafia for research, and am about to start reading the last book in the Deborah Bladon series Ruin.
Can you tell us what you are currently working on?
Book Two in the Exposure series. It’s called Focus, and the inspiration for this book is the movie Taken. It’s going to be pretty exciting, and the closest thing I’ve done that resembles romantic suspense.
What author (past or present) would you want to work with?
Colleen McCullough, who, unfortunately, just passed away. I have been obsessed with the book The Thornbirds ever since I’ve been a kid. I love, love, love that book. I couldn’t help it – that romance swept me away like none other. I guess it was because it was so unattainable.
Anything else we should know about you?
I’m kinda obsessed The Bachelor. I know, I know, it’s not real most of the time, but I love it anyhow. I always think that they’re going to make it work in the real world. I’m kind of a goof that way. And I own the entire series of Sex and the City and Six Feet Under. I was a total HBOaholic back in the late 90s, early 2000s. But I don’t really get into the hot shows of today, because I don’t like a lot of darkness in my television series. I need humor and angst, but when it comes to gore and body counts, I just can’t do it. I’m waiting for the television hot shows to swing away from shows like The Walking Dead and back towards the dramas and comedies that everyone can relate to.
Attorney Iris Snowe drinks too much, eats too much, and spends too much. Her sex life has been as spectacularly unsuccessful as her law practice, so she spends her evenings in her tiny apartment watching bad TV, talking to her cat, and rescuing pit bulls.
And her name might be Iris, but it should be Jade. As in jaded, which is how she feels about romance and men in general.
So, when a gorgeous and sexy stranger appears in her law office on Monday morning, after a one-night stand the previous Saturday, she doesn’t think that he is coming to see her because he is interested. She just figures that she left something behind in the room and he is enough of a gentleman to deliver it to her.
How wrong she is.
As it turns out, Ryan Gallagher not only looks like a Ralph Lauren model come to life, but is also fabulously wealthy, as he is the son of a prominent billionaire.
In other words, light years out of Iris’ league.
And completely into her, in more ways than one.
And so begins the erotic Cinderella romance of her life, with a man who truly loves her. And oh, if it could just be that simple. But, of course, it’s not -the fairy tale is fractured, as it is marred by obsession, jealousy, and dark secrets that Ryan has desperately sought to conceal and repress. It turns out that, behind those magnificent green eyes, lies the memories of a past that nobody should ever have to experience. Nobody.
But when his past becomes his present, his secrets come to light.
And one of those secrets just might be deadly…
Iris and her beautiful Prince Charming, Ryan, are now married. But the issues facing the two only get more complicated and dark. Iris is finding that being married to a man with such a dark past keeps threatening her present and the couple’s future.
But the issues from the past do not compare to the devastating issues in the present. A tragic chain of events leads to a possible end of the fairytale…
This is a continuation of Beautiful Illusions.
Although Ryan Gallagher survived being shot, it does not mean that he is out of the woods. The life that he lived when he was a drug addict was not a pretty one, and he hurt many people along the way. He has lived with these regrets, and the near-death experience has brought them back up for him in ways that he hadn’t contemplated in many years.
As Ryan enters a dark place, Iris desperately tries to reach him. But he is unreachable. At the end of her rope, Iris turns to Ryan’s best friend, Nick, for solace. Nick is literally the only person who understands Ryan and what he is going through, so Iris clings to him like a lifeline.
What happens next is something that none of them could have ever imagined.
Nick O’Hara is a veritable womanizer. The only qualifications that he looks for in a romantic connection is that the person is hot and breathing. Mainly hot. He has no desire for an emotional connection with another person, and that’s the way he lives his life. He has his fabulous wealth and his reputation as a premiere architect, and that’s enough for him.
Until Scotty James.
Scotty is a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City. She’s broken from traumatic experiences from her years in foster care and homelessness. She has a vulnerability that is intoxicating to Nick, because, deep down, he knows that he is as broken as she.
When Nick pursues Scotty, it seems that she is the only woman who doesn’t want to be with him. At first she’s a challenge, but Nick soon finds himself falling in love for the first time in his life. With a woman who wants nothing to do with him.
Can Scotty overcome her trust issues and fear to let Nick in? Or will she prove to be too broken to trust?
Scotty is sure that she was betrayed by Nick, so she wants nothing more to do with him. Unfortunately, her life is endangered by Mr. Lucas, as she is abducted by him and spirited away to an island far away from New York City.
Nick begins a desperate search for Scotty, knowing that every minute that Scotty is in the hands of Mr. Lucas is another minute that she is horribly suffering. But can he find her before too much damage is done? And can he convince her, once and for all, that he did not betray her?
And, in the end, can he finally convince her to truly trust him? Or is she still just too broken?
Scotty is determined that she is going to bring down the evil Mr. Lucas. But that proves to be easier said than done. Prosecuting a wealthy man is never an easy task, as the increasingly disillusioned Scotty soon finds out first-hand.
However, Nick has a back-up plan that comes into play, as the situation increasingly gets out of control. This plan is risky and dangerous.
And Nick is just the man to pull it off.
But is it too late? Will Scotty finally get the justice and closure that she deserves?
Or will she continue her life feeling broken?
*Warning* Strong language and sexual situations. Ends in MAJOR cliffhanger. Not for the faint of heart. 🙂
Beautiful heiress Dalilah Gallagher, a former child art prodigy, has lost her way. Harsh criticism in her formative years has left her floundering and without the artistic voice that once centered her life. Now, at the age of 20, she has spent the last nine years trying to reclaim what she lost.
Her struggles lead her to the nude-modeling world in New York City, where she hopes she will find her passion for art again. What she finds is surprising: Her artistic voice isn’t gone, merely misplaced.
Luke Roberts has a different problem. Raised by a solid, working-class fisherman in Maine, Luke is a gifted artist struggling to get a foothold in the busy New York City art scene. His gifts attract the attention of a wealthy benefactor, Blake Nottingham, who finds himself fascinated with Dalilah. Nottingham commissions Luke to provide him with a piece of art: A painting of Dalilah.
As the two young artists fall in love, Dalilah finds her artistic voice once more, so she’ll do anything to help Luke find the prominence he deserves. This leads to a dangerous game of deceit that puts Dalilah in Nottingham’s clutches when she tries to manipulate him into helping Luke.
Nottingham isn’t easily manipulated, though, and things go seriously awry for Dalilah. What happens when the manipulated becomes the manipulator?
Will Dalilah’s lies cause her to lose the one person that means everything her?
Dalilah Gallagher had to make the hardest decision of her life – leave behind the man that she loves, Luke Roberts, so that he could have the career of his dreams. And, as part of the bargain, she must marry and sleep with a man that she loathes.
What she doesn’t realize is that this is the wrong decision for all involved. But she soon realizes something else – no matter what she does, she may never truly escape the clutches of Nottingham. His obsession with Dalilah means that he will stop at nothing to have her, and, if he can’t have her, he will make her life hell. And Luke’s as well.
Will Dalilah finally be able to cut her ties with Nottingham cleanly, and have the love that she deserves?
Dalilah Gallagher has, once again, gotten herself into a tight spot with the devious Nottingham. Her unexpected pregnancy, while still married to Nottingham, put her into a position where she feel that she is trapped. For Nottingham is presumed the father of the unborn child.
But, if there is one thing that Dalilah knows, it is that Nottingham will never get his hands on this child.
Can Dalilah find a way out of her impossible situation?
Or has Nottingham trapped her, once and for all?
Photographer CJ Parker is a woman who has literally not gone outside for the past six months. She’s been hiding from the world, and from life, ever since an unimaginable tragedy forced her into seclusion.
On the one day where she decides to finally venture outside, she meets the mysterious billionaire, Asher Sloane. Dark-headed, magnetic, and gorgeous, Asher drips sex and animal magnetism. He draws CJ out of her shell and into the world, while showing her things that she never knew existed.
What CJ doesn’t know is that Asher has a dangerous past. Behind his beautiful blue eyes and confident demeanor lies dark secrets that, if they are brought to light, could mean the end of CJ and Asher’s relationship.
Will the exposure of Asher’s past destroy them?
Sarah’s Review: This book had me very interested from page one. I found CJ’s whole situation very interesting and I wanted to know more about how she got to this point in her life. It was sad and understandable over the whole thing. I wanted to reach in the book and give her a hug. That’s how much my heart went out to her character. Can Asher Sloane come pick me up in his limo and have his way with me? I was really glad to see there was more to him than just another rich guy. I’m interested in his past and I can’t wait to read the next book to see how his past helps him in this major situation.
CJ Parker is in a desperate situation, as she is kidnapped by Albanian gangsters who want her dead. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time when she took a picture of something that she shouldn’t have. And now she has 72 hours before these mobsters make her pay the ultimate price for her intrusion into their business.
Asher Sloane is the right man to save CJ. He has the cunning instincts and intelligence of a killer, honed during his teenage years growing up in Russia. He knows that he can find her, and he knows that he will make these gangsters pay for kidnapping CJ.
What he doesn’t know is if he can do all this during the 72 hour window of time.
Asher has a laser-beam focus on what he has to do. Can he do it on time?
If you are the winner you will win these books in the MP3 Audio Book format…
Illusions Series: Beautiful Illusions, Deeper Illusions and End of Illusions.
Broken series: Broken, Saving Scotty and Ever After.
If you don’t want that prize Annie Jocoby has offered a signed copy of her book Exposure.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
thanks for the awesome giveaway!!!! TGIF!!!!