Fight or Flight by Natalie J. Damschroder

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Regan Miller has been trying to protect her daughter Kelsey since even before Kelsey was born. Eighteen years ago, a pregnant Regan’s boyfriend was murdered. He lived just long enough to warn her to run and protect the child. But now, Kelsey is grown and has gone off to college. Just when Regan thinks she might be able to relax her insane vigilence, the attack she’s always feared comes. They’ve finally found her! From that point on, it’s an adrenaline-spiking thrill ride. Regan is a kick-ass heroine, and she taught her daughter well, but this time, no matter how far and fast they run, they can’t escape. Regan is forced to trust her charming, handsome neighbor Tyler Sloan, who turns out to be much more than he seemed. But when the bad guys seem to anticipate their every move, she begins to think she was wrong to trust Tyler.

Damschroder keeps us on the edge of our seats with the mystery (who wants Kelsey and why?) and with the thrilling action/fight scenes. My absolute favorite scene in the book – actually, maybe the best scene I’ve read in a while -takes place in a men’s bathroom. It was killer!

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a romantic suspense with lots of action/adventure. It’s all there in spades!

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Living in Color by Trish Milburn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just finished this book last night with a sigh of happiness (though not without a few Kleenexes en route). 

In the wake of her father’s death, Sabrina is in the small Tennessee town of Grainger to help her 65-year-old mother take care of details and get resettled in town. Though Sabrina loves her mom, she can’t say the same about her dad, whom she hated. She has a lot of bottled up anger about her mother spending all those years under her father’s ruthless control, ruled by his fists. You feel like you’re in Sabrina’s skin when she chafes at the way her mother grieves for her father and still bows to his authority.

Instead of exploding at her mother, Sabrina persuades her that the two of them should go on a road trip together. And oh boy, what a trip it turns out to be! It’s a voyage of self-discovery for both women. Powerful, moving, inspiring. I loved it!

This author also writes wonderful sweet romance and YA, but I’m hoping she’ll try her hand at women’s fiction again.

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Breaking Point by Pamela Clare

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, where to start? This book had everything I love. A thrilling action adventure plot, an amazing larger-than-life hero in Zach (former Navy SEAL turned Deputy US Marshal), a smart, courageous heroine in journalist Natalie Benoit, and a scorching-hot romance. Pamela Clare gives both Zach and Natalie a ton of baggage – some very bad stuff has already happened to these very good people – and then she heaps more bad stuff onto them. But they come through the ordeal stronger, each helping the other to heal the grievous emotional wounds of the past.

Oh, and bromance! (Sigh) This book gives us a reunion of some of my favorite heroes from Clare’s previous novels, who come together to help protect Natalie. I especially loved revisiting Julian Darcangelo and Marc Hunter. Much as I adored Zach and Gabe, I’m still hung up on Julian & Marc. The story line in BREAKING POINT could not have been tailored better for me, though I had some rough moments….

A gritty, sexy, emotionally rewarding read! I can’t recommend it highly enough.

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I love reading other people’s six-sentence writing samples on Twitter. It’s a great way to get an idea of a writer’s voice, or at least their character’s voice. Today, I’m joining in the fun by posting the first six sentences from a new book I just published. It’s a little different (okay, a lot different) from my usual offering, so I’ve gone with the name N.L. Wilson instead of Norah Wilson, to try to signal to readers that this is definitely not serious romantic suspense. Rather, it’s very light, funny mystery, featuring a female sleuth. This series, like it’s protagonist Dix Dodd, private investigator, will never be accused of taking itself too seriously!

Okay, without further ado, the six sentences:

If you have a toothache you go to the dentist, not the doctor (unless he’s a really hot doctor and then you go there first). If you need a new roof, call the roofer. You wouldn’t go to a mechanic for your annual pap smear, nor have your OB-GYN under the hood of your … um … car. Okay, bad analogy, but you see where I’m going, right?

The point is, when you have a special job in mind, you call a specialist. And if you live in Marport City and need someone to get to the truth of a matter – and when the matter is private and dear to your heart – you call me.

The book is called The Case of The Flashing Fashion Queen: A Dix Dodd Mystery, and it’s available now on Smashwords (and will be available momentarily at Amazon’s Kindle Store) for the introductory price of just $0.99.

I think I’ve forgotten how to blog. Seriously. I think all my news, all my Aha! thoughts about writing, all my failures and triumphs, my loves and hates, I’m tweeting. Or Facebooking. What’s left to blog about?

Oh, yeah. Deeper issues…

Okay, here’s something that’ll take longer than 140 characters to explore – my love of Justified. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a television show based on Elmore Leonard’s character Raylan Givens, a US Marshall, who appears – according to Wikipedia – in Leonard’s novels Pronto and Riding the Rap and his short story “Fire in the Hole”  Can I just say, frickin’ brilliant writing!

Trailer for Justified

Also, brilliant casting. Timothy Olyphant as Raylan was pure genius. I gather that Leonard’s material has not always been successfully adapted to the screen, but this seems to be a notable exception. And the fantastic casting doesn’t stop with the lead. I just finished Season 1, and there’s not a soft spot anywhere. Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder is a particular standout. He was brilliant in The Shield, where he played Shane Vendrell, the character I most loved to hate. But somehow I segued into just loving him. As one of my writer friends (MJ Frederick) said, it’s hard to take your eyes off him (Goggins) when he’s on the screen. But the whole cast is amazing. Raylan’s boss, his disreputable father, his Aunt Helen, the whole Crowder clan. Top to bottom, it’s amazing.

I also love the fact that it’s set in Kentucky (and doesn’t Raylan stick out like a sore thumb with that cowboy hat, cowboy boots and gunslinger swagger!).

As for the finale for Season 1 – Oh. My. God. My tastes tend toward the dark and violent when it comes to TV. I loved The Wire (I can still hear the sawed-off shotgun wielding Omar saying, “You come at the King, you best not miss” after the would-be assassin missed). I was spellbound by The Shield. Absolutely love Sons of Anarchy. I’m totally down with True Blood. I also have a lot of room for the quirky (Terriers, anyone?). But it’s pretty hard to top what Justified did with Season 1. Shows like this renew my faith in television.

Now, if we could only get Firefly back….

In the wake of a spate of tragic suicides by young gays, this campaign started by writer Dan Savage warms my heart. I hope it succeeds in reach GBLT teens out there who are considering suicide and helps them go on in the knowledge that the cruelty they experience is not their fault, and that they are not unlovable freaks. I’ve watched a bunch of these messages and find them so incredibly heartening.

I was really thrilled to see this message from Sarah Frantz (reader, scholar and reviewer of romance, academic, mother, wife, former soldier). I am not a member of the GBLT community, and I don’t write for it. But as a writer of romance, I understand its powerful message. I was cheering for Sarah as she championed the value of romance, whether the couple be heterosexual or homosexual. Check it out.

Sarah Frantz – It Gets Better

I love me an ambiguous hero. If he starts out heroic and ends up heroic, where’s the fun in that? I like characters with a certain degree of darkness and moral complexity. Heck, make him dangerous, debauched, menacing. Because in a romance, I know there’s going to be a happily-ever-after, and I know I’m in for a hell of a ride as the hero is transformed into someone I can call heroic. Anne Stuart does this better than anyone else, in my opinion.

Why is she so successful at it? I think because she doesn’t let you see too much of her hero’s innate capacity for goodness – that tiny, buried kernel – too soon. She keeps you on the knife edge of indecision about his true character, right along with the heroine. She masterfully dispenses dribs and drabs of backstory in a way that allows us to only gradually appreciate how he came to be who he is. We have a front row seat as Stuart puts our guy through tests and trials, giving him plenty of opportunities to fail. But when the chips are down and he mans up and does the heroic thing, we’re cheering like crazy for him (and yes, probably crying). We know that our heroine’s leap of faith was rewarded, because when he’s tested, he proves himself to be a hero. In the words of screenwriting guru Robert McKee, “True CHARACTER is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure – the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.”

Not that I always require quite that much ambiguity in a character. I’ve read and loved plenty of books where the hero isn’t necessarily mad, bad and dangerous to know. Heck, I’ve written them! But when I’m reading back cover copy, it’s definitely an element that revs my engines.

What about you? What’s your favorite kind of character to read?