Today I’m on the Sisterhood of Suspense blog talking about my new release . . . a week later.
It’s been a week since EVERY DEEP DESIRE entered the world, and I’m back at work revising book 2 in the Deadly Force series, ONE DARK WISH and writing book 3. And I’m exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that comes after having a baby or moving to another country (both of which I’ve done). It’s not just a lack of sleep kind of tired, but an emotional withdrawal. After so many wonderful notes, emails, tweets, etc., I feel this intense need to crawl into bed and hide under the covers.
I wrote for a long time (14 years) before seeing my book on a bookshelf in a store, and I thought I understood all that would mean. But I’ve realized in the last week that the writing and getting published–while hard–isn’t the hardest part. The hardest part is letting go.
This book is no longer mine. This book now belongs to the world. This book now belongs to the reader. And how the reader interprets the characters, and brings the world of this series into their mind and heart, is an intensely personal experience. An experience that allows no room for the author.
And somehow my heart missed the message. Yet, as a long-time reader and librarian, it makes perfect sense. The story was only mine while I was crafting it, and now it’s yours to interpret as you wish.
That’s the incredible thing about the imagination: I write something and someone else feels something. Yet, while I can control (somewhat) what I write, I can’t control how anyone else feels. And, as an author, that’s hard. I want everyone to feel sad during the “sad scenes” and happy at the end, but that’s not my job. Nor should it be. My job as the author is to present the story with all of its beauty and warts (because there are always warts) and let you, the reader, do with it what you will.
Which means it’s time for me to take a deep breath, take a long walk, and hope that you enjoy this story as much as I loved writing it.
So now I’d like to introduce the Deadly Force series: Where ex-Green Berets and their smart, sexy heroines redeem Shakespeare’s greatest love stories.
The series is about a team of ex-Special Forces soldiers, accused of vicious war crimes, who are desperate to prove their innocence and find their enemies before they attack again. As these men struggle to rebuild their lives and redeem their honor, it’s the women they love who teach these alpha males that Grace always defeats Reckoning.
EVERY DEEP DESIRE , the first book in the series, is a contemporary retelling of Romeo and Juliet that takes place in Savannah, GA. The story answers the question of what kind of marriage the lovers would’ve had if they’d won their happy ending.
My main characters, Rafe and Juliet, were married young until Rafe abandoned Juliet and deserted his Green Beret unit to work for a secretive army known as the Fianna. Now, eight years later, he’s been released from prison and needs to win Juliet’s trust if he’s to save everyone he loves. He knows she’ll never forgive him—or love him again—but he’ll do everything in his power to protect her.
After eight years away, Rafe returns and Juliet learns that Rafe went AWOL and abandoned her to work for the Fianna—a mysterious group of assassins who trace their lineage back to pagan Ireland. Now, one of Rafe’s old enemies wants something hidden on Juliet’s land or bad things will happen.
Except Rafe has been gone a long time and Juliet, who’s rebuilt her life, has no interest in having her heart broken again. No matter that he’s returned a fully-grown, sexy man who still loves her. What she doesn’t realize is that if she helps him, and if they succeed, they won’t just save those they love—they’ll be separated forever.
Thank you for taking this journey with me, and hopefully sticking with me as I continue. There will be fumbles and missteps, but also love and laughter. Which pretty much describes all of our lives!
To read more on the Sisterhood of Suspense blog, please click here:
