Review: Split Second by Catherine Coulter

Split Second by Catherine Coulter is a landslide of suspense and heart stopping complications.  Program 911 into your speed-dial as Coulter reveals an astounding and frightening FBI thriller where the action may be right outside your door.

Scattered over the U.S. women are getting murdered.  Ted Bundy did it before and the FBI came out the winner.  Agents Cooper McKnight and Lucy Carlyle have their doubts on who will win this new game.

Ted Bundy has a daughter, Kerstin.  She murders women and enjoys it.  And she does little to hide her identity.  After she follows a pattern of killings and gets the attention of the FBI, she tosses her common procedure and kills anyone in her way.  In any manner.

Lucy inherits a deadly chunk of jewelry.  She has a split second to think and use it to save lives.  Which lives does she save?  Which lives can’t she or won’t she save?  It’s all in the timing.

Lucy and Cooper are partners in this deadly game and honesty is integral in staying alive.  Yet Lucy won’t reveal the special quality of the ugly jewelry, which may cause a rift in the simmering romance Cooper provokes.  

And Kerstin keeps killing.

The characters came to life and I urged them to get ahead of the incessant killer as I watched them pursue her in the United States capital and surrounding areas.  Numerous subplots tangle the clues and the clock winds down as the clues need to be tied in order to stop the murders. 

The seventeenth addition to Coulter’s series of FBI thrillers is a masterpiece of chills.

Dawn         

Guest Author Interview: Josee Renard

Alexis: Hi Josee. Welcome to Happily Ever After Thoughts.  Thank you so much for coming.  Wow, you've had 8 books published in the last two years!  Are you a very disciplined writer or do you write nonstop when the muse takes you?

Josee: I’m a little bit of both – when I have a deadline I can (and notice I emphasize the can) be very disciplined but I actually never write non-stop and I try not to wait for the muse. I’m lucky that when I’m about two-thirds or three-quarters finished a book, the first line or title of the next one simply appears in my head. That’s the muse for me – that moment when I know the beginning of the next book. But with deadlines to meet, you really can’t wait for the muse. As for writing non-stop, when I first started writing, I was working full-time and going to university full-time so I wrote in half hour blocks. I left for work 30 minutes early and wrote in a coffee shop; at lunch I wrote for another 30 minutes; after work I either stayed at work or went to a coffee shop and wrote for another 30 minutes. Because of that, I still tend to write in half hour blocks – and I use a kitchen timer. I often stop in the middle of a sentence!

Alexis: What a unique writing habit, 30 minute blocks. I don’t think I could stop in the middle of a sentence.  That is discipline! 

Your newest release is What’s New, Pussycat? which I admit is one of my favorite old Tom Jones’ songs :-) Can you tell us a little about it?

Josee: It’s one of my favorite Tom Jones’ songs as well and of course, every single time I read the title I’m singing that song. So I’ve been singing it a whole lot in the last while. This book is about one of my favorite fantasies – the RenoGuy. I think I must watch a little too much Home and Garden TV!

Theo the RenoGuy has been renovating the house next door to Versa for most of the summer but now the work was almost done. Versa lives next door and she’s been watching him – and drooling over him – the whole time he’s been there. She doesn’t see as much of him now that he’s doing the finishing inside and she misses his great smile and the wave he sends when he sees her on the back porch. She misses watching him turn on the hose, take off his shirt and spray himself down, the cold water running down his chest. God, she wanted to get her hands on that body in the worst way. But she’d spent the past two years in a relationship that had bored her to tears and the previous two getting out of a miserable marriage. Theo has plans for the girl next door. In one more week the renovation would be done and he’ll move on to another project. He’d spent all summer dreaming about her creamy skin and voluptuous body. He’d spent all summer with a hard on. Time to make his move.

Alexis: Okay, I’m drooling over Theo already :-) Where did you get the idea for this story?

Josee: It started, as my stories often do, with a song title. I’m not sure why that is but I heard What’s New, Pussycat? on the radio, started singing it and combined it with all those hot shirtless RenoGuys on TV. What can I say? They’re gorgeous!

Alexis: Yes, and they make for some great inspiration! What are your favorite character traits of Theo and Versa?

Josee: I especially like Versa’s willingness to open herself up to the possibility of another relationship after she’d been in two such bad relationships before this summer. I like the courage it took her to wander over to RenoGuy and take a chance. Theo? He’s patient and he’s smart. He spends all summer singing What’s New, Pussycat? to her – tempting her, serenading her, showing off for her. He doesn’t push, he just waits her out.

Alexis: What a nice guy. He wouldn’t have to wait long if it was me. ;-) Why did you choose to write erotic romance as opposed to another sub-genre?

Josee: Actually, I write a whole bunch of genres (women’s fiction, paranormal romance, historical fiction amongst others) but I chose to write erotic romance (or erotica) because I love the sensuality of it. I’m always conscious of using all five sentences in my writing and so erotica or erotic romance made a lot of sense for me because sex is about way more than sight. 

Alexis: I’ll second that! Now, you also write as Kate Austin.  How are the stories you write under that name different?

Josee: The stories I write as Kate Austin tend to be more what I like to call coming of age stories. I think women tend to come of age twice – once in their teens or early twenties and again, and more importantly, in their forties or fifties or sixties. That second coming of age is when women really come into their own – she becomes the woman she was always made to be. So I love to write about the transition.

Alexis: Those sound fascinating. Hmm, maybe I’m showing my age here. What can we expect next from you? Do you have any new releases coming or works in progress?

Josee: I’m so glad you asked me this because I’ve got this exciting project coming in August – a project that makes me feel like Dickens. I’m writing a serial – ten linked stories being released every second Friday between the middle of August and the middle of December. The overall series is called Part Time Lovers and it’s about friends – Jules and Mercy – who basically grew up together. Jules and Mercy are part-time lovers and full-time business partners. Their website– Part Time Lovers – isn’t meant to be the equivalent of all those relationship websites, it’s really all about finding the right person (or persons) for right now. It’s a whole lot of fun to write because I can do ten different types of relationships. 

Alexis: Wow, that is exciting!  I haven’t heard of a serial romance before.  Ten relationships should be fun and your fans will be so happy :-)   

Thank you for visiting Happily Ever After Thoughts. We really enjoyed learning more about you and your work.

Josee: Thanks so much, Alexis, for having me. I love writing about writing and thinking about writing, so doing this interview allows me to do one of the things I love.

Alexis: For a chance to win Josee’s Working It be sure to leave a comment for her.  Winner will be announced on Wednesday. Check the side column for your name.

To learn more about Josee and her books, go to http://www.joseerenard.com/ 

Loving the Western

I love westerns. Out of all the historical romance I read (and write), westerns seem to touch me more than any other. Give me a no nonsense lawman rushing in to save the day or a misunderstood cowboy, and I’m happy.

           

Perhaps it’s not so much the setting but the hero.

           

I’m fond of Civil war heroes, ne’er-do- well peers of the realm who have been redeemed by the love of a good woman, pirates who were someone else in another life, but I always seem to come back to those cowboys. Perhaps it’s the hat, or the spurs on the boots my heroes wear, or the fact that most remain as untamed as the Wild West.  

I’ve always been a big fan of John Wayne so maybe that’s why I love westerns so much. Perhaps it’s because I live in Arizona, where just seeing the landscape can bring those images to life. All I know is that reading a good western satisfies something in my soul.

             

What about you? Are you fascinated with cowboys? Or pirates? Southern gentlemen who are not always so gentlemanly?  The Lord who must choose a wife though he doesn’t want to marry until he finds that perfect someone? Whatever your choice, there’s plenty to choose from lining the shelves of your local bookstore. Take your pick and….dream.

Happy reading!

Marie

You Live Where?

You Live Where? This was a question I received many times while at the National RWA Conference, so I thought I should take the opportunity on the Happily Ever After Thoughts blog to explain exactly where here is. 

Here is St. Croix, an island in the Caribbean that is one of the three U.S. Virgin Islands.  Yes, I am still in the United States :-) The other two major islands that make up this territory are St. Thomas (a regular stop on Caribbean cruises) and St. John (which is predominantly a nature reserve donated by Rockefeller).

St. Croix is what I call a “livable” island.  It has some tourism including cruise ships (though only 3 or 4 a week in winter) and vacation hotels and condos. It also has an oil refinery, a Rum factory, the University of the Virgin Islands and many government offices which make up the major employers.

Of course, the best part about St. Croix is the weather and the beach :-) The temperatures are between 80 and 90 degrees year-round with lovely tropical breezes and the sunsets over the aqua blue Caribbean waters cannot be beat!

Do I actually get any writing done here?  Yes, I do. But it is much more fun to be sipping a cocktail on the beach with a good romance book in hand. The only thing missing from this paradise is a few writing friends to share it with :-)

Enjoy the photos of here.

Alexis