Good morning from Colorado.

For those of you following me since my first release, it's been a VERY long time since I've done any promo. Check below the name block for exciting news about upcoming Team Fear releases.

As a thank you for your patience, I am offering a free e-book copy of Live by the Team. If you haven't purchased it yet, subscribe to the newsletter for your free ebook.
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I love my military guys, but before I started the Team Fear series, I wrote FBI/Mafia Romantic Suspense. It all started with Sofia Capri, the former wife of an infamous crime boss who teams up with an FBI agent to find a kidnapped child.

As a surprise bonus, my publisher has placed this first in series on sale for $.99 this week only.

UNTOUCHABLE
Sofia Capri is untouchable. She exists outside of the law...and outside of the criminal world. When her son is kidnapped, Sofia will do anything to find him. Lie. Cheat. Steal.Anything but trust. But as the stakes rise, will she learn to trust FBI agent Logan Stone? Because he's the only chance she has to get her baby back...

Now the heat is turning up...and time is running out...for everyone.

GET Untouchable on Kindle
Google Play and Barnes & Noble.

Happy reading!
Cindy

PS. I'm super stoked that Entangled picked my cover of An Untouchable Christmas for their promo (cuz that book cover rocked!).

PPS. For those of you (im)patiently waiting for the next Team Fear book, it's in the hands of the editor now and I anticipate a November 2018 release for Team Fear 4. Who do you think (hope) is the next hero? Tell me what you think on my Facebook page.​

​Dating when you have children is like having an overprotective older brother.  A friend of mine had her son (aged 9) stare down a man at the pool for daring to look at his mom.  I could see the writing on the wall with my son. He had a significant laundry list of “musts” for a potential step-dad. 
 
The top three items on my son’s list were that the man play basketball, be independently wealthy, and have children, hopefully a boy my son’s age.  My daughter’s list included the idea that a potential mate not have children.
 
As a consequence, when my kids were younger, I never let them know I was dating.  They’d get a bonus trip to Parents Night Out, and think it was all for their enjoyment, so I could “sneak out” on a date.
 
The older they get, however, the harder it is to “sneak out.”  Surprisingly, many men embrace the midday while-the-kids-are-in-school date because it’s low pressure.  Equally surprising are how many times my children bought the lie that I was meeting friends for coffee.  How much coffee do they think I drink?
 
But no matter how many times you meet for coffee or a late lunch, sooner or later you find yourself with the dreaded Saturday night date.  Once you have kids, Saturday night requires some logistical maneuvers.
 
 At 13 and 15, the kids are too old for Parents Night Out.  They have to be fed, and possibly bribed to behave (pizza acts as both food and bribe).  Plus there’s the fact that I haven’t told them I’m dating again.
 
My daughter figured things out pretty quickly, and her only concern was that I still have time for her.  That’s an easy thing to promise.  My son, however, was a different challenge.  He’s protective in the extreme and has been known to get abrasive and verbally abusive to boys who get too close to my daughter (a habit I may or may not encourage).  What would he think about me dating?
 
“So,” I say across the kitchen as I put away the dishes.  “I have a date tonight.”
 
The third degree begins:  what does he do, how many kids does he have, does he have pets, how did we meet.  This inquisition continues long after the dishes are put away and the dishwasher reloaded.  I answer them all and lean against the counter facing my son.
 
“That’s fine,” he finally says, “as long as he treats you right.”
 
Aw, how can I not love this kid?  But before I get too happy, my son wags his finger at me.  “But I get to meet him after three dates.”
 
I smile and think to myself, not going to happen.  My friend Dan’s rule is that he has to be in a monogamous relationship for six months before he introduces a love interest to his daughter.  I’m not sure I’d go with six months, but three dates is too soon.  I’m sure there’s a happy middle ground.

What writers do to relax. Create a book trailer. :)

On Sundays I run a novel writing group at the local library. They're a diverse group of male and female writers of all ages, although there is a heavy slant toward the fantasy realm. And we're lucky enough that everyone clicks. Our novel writing goals unite us.

Yesterday we talked about character development and then we continued to create a class character named Harriet Crawford, whose name we chose from a website called Random Name Generator. Over the course of the last couple weeks, I've grown rather fond of Harriet. We created her as a group, so she has some surprising traits, like playing piano as a child and now she only plays piano when she's had too much gin. That's the kind of detail the class has given to developing her, and then we move on to group-brainstorm the protagonists for other members of the group.

It's been an engaging and stimulating process, and we all take home the knowledge and the energy.
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Weird crimes are the source of infinite story ideas for writers. Take this story about a taxi driver who drugged female passengers so they would pee in the backseat. Seriously. Weird.

As I said in the post earlier this week where I detailed the weird crime that inspired the opening of Unstoppable,  truth is just as strange as fiction and we writers dig that stuff.

​In Unstoppable: 

Sunday, I detailed the first true crime story that inspired the opening of Unstoppable. The second story will be posted on Entangled's blog once the book releases (yep, I'm a tease). :) But, if you read the original post, you know that my Mayberry-like suburban neighborhood wasn't exactly as perfect as it seems from the outside. In fact, I remember hearing the shots fired, but in my head, I thought: "No way, not this neighborhood." Although police still haven't released the cause of this shootout, the idea sparked this scene:

Multiple pops sounded like firecrackers through the radio, but the double tap pattern was unique to guns, not fireworks. The wheels of her car squealed as she took the corner faster than planned. She stopped in the middle of the road as she approached the target house. A sedan was parked on the street in front of the house. The driveway was clear. A narrow front porch was barely big enough for the body crumpled near the open door. The face was turned toward the house, but she recognized Agent Summerfield’s bald head.

“Officer down,” she said over the radio. “Repeat. Officer down. Requesting backup.” Heart pounding, the echo of gunfire fading, Dez scanned the neighborhood for the source and found a man on the roof of the two-story across the street. She couldn’t leave the family unprotected, but she had no clue what she was walking into. The glint of early morning sun caught the flash of metal as the suspect lifted a rifle. Either he was gunning for her or he was going to make sure Summerfield was dead.
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“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered under her breath. Anger rose inside her chest, covering the fear and adrenaline. This was the kind of crap that went down when you didn’t stick to the plan. When you didn’t wait for backup. Now she was sitting in the middle of the suburbs with some nutjob taking aim and had about two seconds to decide on a course of action. 

To celebrate the release of the new cover, I've got a giveaway going through Rafflecopter. Be sure to add Unstoppable to your Goodreads TBR list. The prize is a list of romantic suspense titles that are on *my* TBR list! One winner walks away with 5 ebook titles.

Unstoppable releases 5/1/17.

Weird crimes are the source of infinite story ideas for writers. There isn't enough time in the world to write about all the crazy stuff that happens in our mixed up world. Take this story about a murder attempt and a Ouija board where the writer of the article says things went from "buddy to bloody." Sometimes, truth is just as strange as fiction and we writers dig that stuff.

Unstoppable, the next in my Untouchables series, is no exception. While it is fiction, the real world does provide plenty of inspiration. There were two real world crimes, plus my Police Informant, that added realism to Dez and Mick's story. The first weird crime aspect relates to something absolutely unheard of in our neighborhood. We live in a very suburban suburb, the kind where people walk their kids to school. After dinner they walk their dogs or a baby stroller through the neighborhood. We're Mayberry normal in the middle of a midsize city.

What isn't normal is guns in the street, but that's literally what happened. Twice.

The second incident I'll post next month, but the first instance was just bizarre. My daughter the ballerina came home to say she had to drive the long way around because the police had blocked off an entire street. Because this is abnormal, we hit the Internet to figure out what the heck was going on. Turns out, this suburban street wasn't Mayberry after all.

Witnesses said that they heard gunfire first. Moments later, two guys ran out of a house and into a newer red pickup truck. Another man chased after them firing a handgun. The pickup goes tearing off and the man who had chased them sat down on his front porch holding his gun. This happened just before 4:30 in the afternoon. People were outside doing yard work and kids were playing. What the heck?

The original scenario in itself is bizarre, but what happened next is even stranger. The truck was found at a stoplight less than two miles away. One person was dead at the scene and the second was in critical condition. Had they driven out of the neighborhood the other direction, they would have been at a major hospital, but that wrong turn caused at least one death.

Police aren't saying what incited the incident, but that just makes it more interesting for my writer mind. So of course, I had to put the puzzles together in a way that made sense for me.

Unstoppable opens in what Dez considers a sickeningly sweet suburb where things immediately escalate. Gunshots fired and... well, the AND is what happens next in Unstoppable. :) I'll post that opening scene later this week.

To celebrate the release of the new cover, I've got a giveaway going through Rafflecopter. Be sure to add Unstoppable to your Goodreads TBR list. The prize is a list of romantic suspense titles that are on *my* TBR list! One winner walks away with 5 ebook titles.

Unstoppable releases 5/1/17.

Memory is a tricky thing. Bad memories filter to the top while good memories settle to the bottom of a very deep well and we struggle to keep them alive. The key is to replace the bad memories with good—or drown the bad in that well, whichever works. I’m a violent sort, so I’ll be drowning those suckers. 

Holidays in our house growing up were mostly good, but that means I have only this vague recollection and warm, fuzzy feelings for Christmas. Well, all but one. The year I turned five, my father was recovering from a major car accident. Money was tight and we ultimately lost the house and Dad’s business to medical expenses.

That was the year someone adopted us. Just for Christmas presents that is. We were the little angels on a Giving Tree. The night before Christmas, a group of men brought what seemed like a truckload of presents for four kids and two adults. They deposited them under the empty tree just like Santa. I bounced on my toes in sheer joy at the mass of goodies. Too young to read, I didn’t know which presents were mine, but my older brother pointed out a ginormous and awkwardly wrapped present labeled “girl, aged 5.” It was bigger than me and taller than my teenage brother. It was mine, mine, mine!

As the men left to bring another load of goodies, I scooted closer to that funny shaped present. I may have poked the side and heard the wrapping crinkle. The finger may have—accidentally of course—punched through a spot in the wrapper. Come on, I was five. What would you do? I looked.

Inside was something soft, brown, and fuzzy. Fur! I couldn’t see the face, but I pictured a smiling bear face on this wonderfully massive gift. After the elves disappeared, Mom noticed a trail of white stuff all over the family room floor. Not just a few drops, but copious amounts of tiny white Styrofoam balls. Everywhere. She followed the trail to that awkwardly wrapped gift where, sure enough, a hole in the toe and wrapping caused it to bleed all over the house.

She didn’t know I had seen and loved and coveted that fluffy, loveable, stuffed bear, because that would have meant admitting that I had peeked. So she did what any mother would do. She waited until I went to bed.

Come Christmas morning, there was no awkwardly wrapped giant bear to unwrap. It had disappeared overnight. There were other presents under the tree for “girl, aged 5;” hats and gloves and girlie things, but what I remember most is that giant bear that could have been mine if he hadn’t leaked a trail of stuffing all over the family room floor.

That long ago Christmas may be why I’m a bit fanatical about making Christmas special for my kids. And why I wrote the not-quite-perfect Christmas story for Sofia and Logan. Don’t get me wrong, Logan’s trying to create good memories to drown out the bad of Sofia’s former life, so when the presentfest begins, Eli is in for a giant surprise:

Excerpt:
With a squeal, Eli leaped from the table and ran for the tree. Wrapping paper flew as he shredded into the first present, a plastic dinosaur the size of a football. Holding her phone out, Sofia hunkered on the floor and snapped pictures. Dumbfounded by the wild activity, Logan perched on the floor against the sofa. Eli unwrapped several dinos before hitting the jackpot with a dinosaur sanctuary straight from the movies. The delight in his screams lit the house more than the Christmas lights. “Mom.”

“That one is all Logan.”

The boy’s eyes grew larger. “Thanks, Logan.”

“Couldn’t you find something bigger?” Sofia mocked.

“No.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Eli’s joyful face. “But I did try.”

“How long did you spend in the toy store?”

This time, he did turn to her. The teasing glint in her eyes and the lightness on her face hadn’t always been there. He’d done that, he thought, and it was a gold-medal moment. Making Sofia smile was his new goal in life. She deserved all the smiles she could get. “Blake and I might have spent two or three hours in the toy store,” he admitted. He pointed to Eli trying, and failing, to open the sanctuary box. “It was worth it.”

Christmas morning starts off perfect-ish in their house, but a mysterious phone call before dinner threatens more than their holiday celebrations. One thing is for certain. This holiday is one she’ll never forget.**

Now it’s your turn. Post in the comments about the one Christmas you can’t forget and why it’s so memorable.
**reposted from my original article on Ever After Romance

In the spring of my seventh grade school year, I wanted a yearbook so bad I could taste it, but my family lived on a necessity-only budget.  Yearbooks fell under the category of luxury, so I didn’t even ask.  But I still wanted one.  We played cards and board games frequently, because that was free, so one night, I asked my dad to play poker with me, something we did for nickels and dimes.  I played that night until I’d earned my yearbook money and then I quit, just like that.  Dad was mystified by my sudden departure.  Mom teased me for years that my father would have given me the money if I’d asked, but I had an independent streak.  Somehow, asking seemed like a sign of weakness.

The independent streak that some might call stubborn was a character trait that started young, and continued through most of my life.  It’s the reason I found a job working in a distant mountain town for two consecutive summers of high school.  I lived and worked there, several hours from family.  I wanted to do it on my own.  It’s likely the same independent streak that had me joining the Air Force before I was wise enough to know better.

Like me, Sofia--the heroine in Untouchable--is one of those people who won’t ask for help, even when she needs it.  Asking for help is a sign of weakness to Sofia, but it’s more than stubbornness.  She wouldn’t know who to ask even if she tried. She’s caught between her mob boss ex-husband and the law which considers her a conduit into the family.  When her son is kidnapped, she doesn’t look for help.  She starts looking for answers.

Now it's your turn. How independent (aka stubborn) are you? Do you ask for help or do it yourself?
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This is a repost from Untouchable release in 2015.