So I decided to put RETRIBUTION back up on Booksprouts for 2 weeks so those of you who haven’t read it can do so for free. The only stipulation? You must write and publish a review once you are finished.
6 teenage girls have been kidnapped, brutalized, and murdered in the Washington DC area and the FBI’s SPCD Unit – the Sexual Predators of Children Profilers – are nowhere close to finding the monster responsible. How are the victims chosen? How does the killer find them, contact them, lure them into his sick web? Questions the team has no answers for.
When a high-ranking US Senator’s daughter is the next victim, SPCD team leader, Tucker Petrie, is forced to call upon retired profiler — and his last partner — Kella O’Brien for help. Kella’s been out of the game for 10 years, but her expertise and insights into a serial killer’s mind are unparalleled. If anyone can discover who this madman is, it’s Kella.
But as the team rushes to prevent another young girl’s death, clues the killer leaves behind have Kella wondering if his endgame is all about…her.
Hotshot movie director Wilton June is in pre-production for a new movie. The moment he sees Maison Toussaint, he decides it’s the perfect setting for the film and wants to rent it. The one stumbling block? The owner isn’t sure she can let her ancestral home be used in a movie.
Botanist Jerica Toussaint needs cash – a lot of it – to keep her home up to code and her herbal healing business alive. June’s financial offer is oh-so-tempting, as is the director himself. But the house has a secret Jerica’s guarded her entire life. Can she, in good conscience, rent it to a man who may expose it?
Convincing Jerica to trust him with her home – and her secret – is no easy feat and after a time Will realizes he needs to convince her to trust him with one more thing: her heart.
So I’m gonna be day-traveling for a few weekends in October.
On 10/17, I’ll be at the Manchester Mall from 12 -4 at another fabulous Manchester Craft Fair Author event. The last one was so fabulous, I had to sign up for this one as well. And hey – you can preorder books from me if you’re coming to the event. I’ll be bringing a limited supply, so if you want one of the books listed, preordering is better.
Since it’s Spooky Season, I figured I’d let you know I wrote a few witches and ghosts books back in the day, lol
“A well-tailored, bespoke suit in a power color shows them you mean business, Nera,” Gigi Gordon said as she removed the said item from her spacious wardrobe, “and this red is certainly a powerful color, isn’t it?”
Twenty years ago, Barstone bad-boy Declan Wolffe, rode out of town on his motorcycle leaving the town that looked down on his family, and the only girl he’d ever loved, in his rearview mirror.
But now he’s back. Rich, successful, and determined, he’s got plans for the town. And for the girl he left behind.
Gigi Gordon has made a successful life for herself in Barstone as a real estate agent. No one but those closest to her knows she’s a 10th-generation witch and she wants to keep it that way. Her life is disrupted, though, when the boy who stole her heart rides back into town with a plan to shake things up.
Declan may have plans, but Gigi has a few of her own. The biggest one? Protecting her heart.
This past weekend I was radio silence on all my social sites because I was attending a family wedding out of town. Three days of events, food, laughter, and so much love.
My niece, who also happens to be my husband’s goddaughter, got married to her soulmate this weekend, and I don’t use that term lightly. These two 30 somethings were destined to be together for life. Just watching them state their vows to one another – which they wrote ( love that!) and you could tell they were fated mates. From their origin story to how they each helped the other grow and learn as human beings, to what they promised to do – and not do – for one another, and you just know these two are in it for the long run.
In a time when new marriage stats are showing a decline and people are choosing to stay single and unfettered, seeing these two renewed my faith in everlasting love.
And it made me remember why I got married 39 years ago.
My husband and I are total opposites in almost every single way, from our political stands to how we approach problems, to how we deal with the world: he, logically; me, emotionally.
But there are three things we have always agreed on and which I knew would help see us through any issues, concerns, problems, or disasters that would befall us in life: faith, family, and finances.
We were both raised Catholic, although I will admit I have moved slightly away from the patriarchal doctrine of its teachings and am more in step with the actual teachings and actions of Jesus Christ.
Having been raised an only, depressed child, and my husband the oldest of six, I always knew family was the most important thing, and I married a man who is devoted, unquestionably, to his family.
When two people are on the same track financially, fights and resentments about spending habits, saving needs, and differentiating between wants and needs are a non-issue. We have always been aligned in how to use our money.
Those 3 alignments have seen us through some horrible times, both physically and emotionally. We have weathered the worst in our lives and come through it still committed and on the same page.
I feel my neice and our new nephew are the same, so I know they will make it.
I love love.
Everything about love.
Probably why I write romantic fiction.
Tell the person in your life that you love them today and then show it.
Seated in the deckchair, Chase stared out at the calm ocean, a cup of black coffee grasped in his hands.
When writer and paranormal investigator Chase Seacort comes to spend a few weeks at a friend’s Hampton getaway, all he wants is to be alone, finish his current book about East Coast hauntings, and try to put the horrid events of his past year behind him.
All thoughts about a quiet respite alone vanish when he meets his quirky, gorgeous neighbor. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty captivates him with her perpetual smile and free and easy personality.
Merry June lives a quiet life in her beach house, devoting herself to her two loves – art and photography. Once she discovers Chase’s identity, she can’t wait to introduce him to her great-grandaunt Davinia. But Davinia rarely shows herself to others.
You wouldn’t either if you were a ghost trapped between this world and the next.
With Chase’s help, he and Merry investigate the mystery that’s kept Davinia’s spirit prisoner in the house for over 100 years, and in so doing discover a history of infidelity, heartache, and murder.
When a face from Chase’s recent past puts Merry’s life in danger, he must fight two battles for the woman he’s come to love – one on the spiritual plane and one in the physical world.
“Do you think the Valentino gold will look better, Maeve, or the Versace green?”
Waking up each day is a gift….
On her 21st birthday, someone slipped a potent drug combination into socialite Aurora Brightwell’s champagne, putting her in a coma for the next ten years. It’s been a long road back, and it’s time to reclaim the life she lost and find out exactly what happened on that fateful night.
Financier Kincade Enright has his own reason for helping Aurora discover who poisoned her, but for the time being he’s keeping that – and his true identity – to himself. What he can’t keep hidden, though, are his growing feelings for the one-time paparazzi darling and party-girl.
When this prince of finance joins forces with the former sleeping beauty, nothing can stop them from finding the answers they seek…or prevent the powerful emotions developing between them as they search for the truth.
I can remember vividly the day he was born and the first time I held him in my arms as if it were just moments ago. This tiny, sleeping bundle of love touched my soul and made me remember what it was like the first time I held my daughter, his mother.
I know the experts will tell you the euphoria we feel when we hold a child or grandchild is just a rush of endorphins and dopamine flooding your system, jolting your happy centers. Okay, that could explain the physical joy we experience.
But the spiritual joy is inexplicable.
I remember the way I instantly fell in love with him. Somewhere, deep inside me, I remember pledging to always, always, protect him; do anything in my power to make sure he had a good life; a happy life; a protected life.
I vowed to ensure he would never know poverty; hunger; cruelty; harm.
I cried when I realized I could never protect him from everything that would come into his life that may hurt him, but I would do everything in my power to make sure he knew he was loved and cherished with everything in my being.
Every year I have watched him grow and mature; learn new things and turn into the person he will be in the future.
He is not perfect – no one is – and that is okay. Perfection is overrated and boring.
I had a reader ask me once why I don’t post pictures of my grandchildren online, especially when I talk about them so much.
The answer is simple.
My daughter and her family are private people. I am not.
I have a public persona because of my writing career and that brings along with it strangers who think they know you just because they read your books or follow you on social media. In this day and age of child abductions, craycray creepy people, and people who would use children for a bad means to an end, I am protecting their privacy and their presence by not posting pictures. Plus, the kids have no say in how their images are used, and I will not exploit them for likes and clicks.
I would hope no grandparent would.
Today, my little man turns 5. Impossible, but true,
5.
Goodness. How much change he has already seen in himself and the world around him.
Grandparenting brings a special kind of love with it. It’s the feeling you had when your own babies were born. It’s the remembrance of all the wonderful emotions from a time that was fresh and new, filled with hope for the future. It’s a sense that all could be right with the world just because this little one arrived.
Being a parent holds a great deal of responsibility, and sometimes, as parents, we deal more with managing our children than simply just loving them. But with grandparenting, that responsibility to manage and dictate and teach is – in my opinion – lessened, allowing us to simply love. Don’t get me wrong: we still have a responsibility to ensure no harm comes to them, that they are kept safe, and that they learn. But the pressure of being the one who has to teach and guide and protect is lessened, and you can just pour all the love into them every single day.
Plus, when they misbehave, you can give them back to their parents! Couldn’t do that with your own! LOL
Today, my little man is 5.
Happy Birthday, darling boy. Grandma loves you to the moon and back, to the stars and heavens, and all the places in between.
On a beautiful Tuesday morning 25 years ago, I went to work after dropping my daughter off at school.
My morning schedule was full with six patient appointments back to back. I was between patients when I went out to the staff desk to find one of the techs watching something live on the computer.
“A plane just hit one of the World Trade Towers,” he said.
“Get out! That never happens,” I responded. “The airspace around it is protected.”
I’d grown up in NYC and, as a child, had watched the construction of the towers. I’d even had my 21st birthday dinner at Windows on the World. As I started to tell him that, the second plane hit.
The rest of the staff who were free, gathered around the desk now. I remember vividly saying, without even thinking about what I was saying, “We just got into a war with someone.”
Truer words.
Three of my patients canceled that day, so upset; all they wanted to do was watch the live coverage. Then the planes at the Pentagon and then Shanksville crashed; the mood in the clinic turned from stunned to frightened. When I told my husband the North Tower had just disintegrated, he didn’t believe me, thinking I was exaggerating the situation. When the second tower fell, he turned speechless.
When I picked my daughter up from school that day and told her what happened, her first thought was of all her aunts and uncles who lived in New York.
As a family, my husband, daughter, and I went to church that evening at an impromptu Mass. The priest said something that made me so angry to this day I get pissed repeating it. He said, because we were Catholics, and forgiveness was a cornerstone of our religion, we should forgive the evil people who did this and pray for them and the survivors.
I wanted to scream so loudly that I chose to be catholic; I was not born one. But was born an AMERICAN and would not, could not forgive the people responsible for this.
I was 41 years old on 9/11/01, and my life, and everyone else’s that I knew, changed forever.
America had always been this bigger-than-life, cock-sure, entity. I’d never known a time when people weren’t proud to say they were Americans. As a country, we had a big ego, but it was richly deserved. We thought we were indomitable; indestructible; unable to be hurt.
All that changed in a matter of hours on a beautiful Tuesday morning.
Everyone I knew who still lived in New York lost someone that day. My husband lost a guy he’d gone all through school with – an NYC transit officer who’d responded to the callout. My step-mother still worked in Manhattan in Times Square. Living in New Jersey, she had no way to get home that day because all transit was shut down and the city was closed to incoming traffic.
Two of my sisters-in-law lived in Garden City, a town in Long Island where a majority of the employees of Cantor Fitzgerald lived. CF lost hundreds of employees when the plane hit the first tower.
But it didn’t matter if you knew someone who’d perished that day or not. We were all sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers that day.
And we all suffered.
The NYC firefighters and police officers who ran into those burning towers were, and still are, heroes. The hospital workers and EMS crews who flew to the area when the buildings were still burning to aid the afflicted were, and still are, heroes. The thousands of New Yorkers who helped one another that day, total strangers, all are heroes.
I watched, as did the world, when both towers came down.
I watched, as did the world, when the cleanup began, and the search for survivors turned to a retrieval of bodies.
I watched, as did the world, when funeral after funeral, tribute after tribute, and story after story of survival and loss and kinde4ss to strangers played across the media for months.
And I watched, as did the rest of the world, as these brave heroes did this:
That day, America lost so much more than two steel towers that formed the landscape of New York.
Wives lost husbands and husbands lost wives; brothers lost sisters; mothers lost children; friends were gone in an instant. Children lost parents.
And America, for just a moment, lost its indestructibility.
It’s hard to believe 25 years have gone by since that day because it is still etched so clearly in my mind. Every single moment of that day, every sound I heard broadcast on the news; the roar of the buildings coming down; the screech of the EMS vans and fire trucks. Every single sound and image is burned in my memory forever.
And I am still affected by it.
And I will be for the rest of my life.
Today, remember the fallen, pray for those who survived, and maybe do a random act of kindness for someone you don’t know, like all those New Yorkers did for strangers 25 years ago.
Today’s first line comes from the third book in my NYC Socialties series, Balance.
While waiting for a manicure the other day, I took one of those rate your life tests you find in old editions of Elle or Cosmo; you know – your overall score gives you an empirical view of how your life’s going at the moment?
She’s a wealthy socialite who survived an abusive marriage. He’s a hardworking guy raising his son and caring for his widowed father. They come from different worlds, but it’s said…opposites attract. Can they find the balance between their two lifestyles to make their love work? Or will their differences tear them apart?
