With: Rosalind James
When I told Montlake I wanted to move
from my sweet, sexy New Zealand rugby players to romantic suspense set in
small-town Idaho, I couldn't believe they said yes. For that matter, I couldn’t
believe I’d thought I could do it! But it turned out to be so much fun to
write. Zoe's got plenty of backbone, Cal's got a heaping helping of alpha male,
and the two of them made me laugh over and over while I wrote their book. Plus,
I love a protective man, don’t you?
On a more serious note: I wanted to
write about the issue of campus rape and the struggle to get universities to
take it seriously and address it—including placing the blame for it where it
belongs, on the perpetrators. These young men generally don’t view themselves
as rapists, even though that’s exactly what they are. According to a 2014 study
reported by Newsweek on December 14, 2014,
“Nearly one-third of college men admit they might rape a woman if they could get
away with it, a new study on campus sexual assault claims. Of those men,
however, far fewer will admit this if the word rape
is actually used during the course of questioning.” That’s one of many shocking
and disturbing statistics around this topic. But when I shared them in
disbelief with my twenty-something sons, they both said, “That sounds about
right.”
My challenge in writing romantic
suspense is: How do you write a fun, funny, sexy book—a feel-good book, which
is what I’m known for—about such a disturbing topic? My answer came from my
characters. Zoe and Cal are both strong personalities, none of the women in my
story behaves like a victim, and the bad guy doesn’t win. That’s what makes
suspense fiction so satisfying, I believe: we want to see the good guys win and
the bad guys lose. We want to see them go down.
And if it’s satisfying to read, it’s even more satisfying to write. I love
making real life come out the way it should.
Take one cowboy with a slow, sweet,
sexy smile, add one buttoned-down, walled-off geology professor with sass to
spare, toss in a campus stalker with other plans...and you've got Paradise,
Idaho.
For newly minted professor Zoe Santangelo, Paradise, Idaho is just the first
step on the path to the Ivy League. She'll do what it takes to move up, to
protect her students from a creepy campus stalker--and to protect her heart
from Cal Jackson, the hot, hunky cowboy who keeps coming to her rescue.
After a career-ending injury, Cal has left professional football behind and
come home to work the family farm. He's determined not to get mixed up with any
more city girls who don't want to settle down with a country boy. But you can’t
always reason with your heart.
And
here’s an excerpt:
Right now, one seriously hot farmer had his hand around hers
again, was looking at her with something in his eyes, something in his
smile . . .
What white teeth you have, she
thought. And the big bad wolf said, “The better to eat you
with, my dear.” She couldn’t help the delicious shiver that went down
her spine at the thought.
He pulled her out onto the floor, set his right hand on her
shoulder blade, the fingertips just kissing bare skin, and that shiver was
coming from more than her thoughts. He wasn’t trying to do anything else, but
she was as aware of those fingers as if he’d been touching her someplace else. Someplace
really good. He was looking down at her, those blue eyes holding hers, and the
band was playing again. The drums and the bass starting it, a steady, slow
beat, the lead guitar kicking in, and the singer crooning low and deep, an
incongruously smooth sound coming from his scrawny body.
“Okay. Two-step. First thing you do,” he told her as the
music filled her, swept her up in its insistent throb, “is put your hand on me.
Right up here,” he said, patting his right shoulder. “And then you hang on for
the ride.”
She set her hand tentatively where he indicated, felt the
ridge of muscle rising under his black T-shirt, and very nearly took it right
off him again.
He felt the hesitation, smiled a little. “Feels kinda close,
huh? Not the way you dance with some guy you just met, back in California?”
“Sort of.” Well, not “sort of” at all, but he didn’t need to
know that.
“You’ve got a secret weapon here, darlin’,” he said. “Called
your thumb.” He took his hand off her back, put it over hers, maneuvered her
thumb so it was resting on his collarbone. “You give this arm a little muscle,”
he told her. “Give me some tension, push back a little. Not a bad thing at all.
Where we go is up to me, but how close we dance? That’s entirely up to you.”
“I like that part,” she said. “And you know that thing I
said about darlin’?”
“I’m going to keep forgetting,” he said, “because I can’t
seem to help myself. So maybe you could pretend it’s all right, this one time.
Pretend you’re a pretty girl in a bar, dancing with a man who thinks you’re the
sweetest thing he’s seen in months, and that he’s mighty lucky to be the one
holding you. Just for tonight.”
Her eyes widened, and he smiled, a little crookedly. “Just
pretend,” he said. “I’ll never tell.”
About Rosalind:
Yes, ALL the books are stand-alones except JUST ONCE MORE. NO cliffhangers!
Rosalind James, a publishing industry veteran and former marketing executive, is an author of Contemporary Romance and Romantic Suspense novels published both independently and through Montlake Romance. She and her husband live in Berkeley, California with a Labrador Retriever named Charlie. Rosalind attributes her surprising success to the fact that "lots of people would like to escape to New Zealand! I know I did!"
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Thanks for sharing. Im looking forward to checking it out.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that Rosalind James was now writing romantic suspense. I have several of her New Zealand romances and now I will definitely be adding her new books to my list as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for featuring me today!
ReplyDelete