This is me, screwing up my courage.
*pause to admire the image this presents*
So far in my backlist ebook efforts, I’ve put out just that–reverted, out-of-print books. Stories that have already been vetted by editors, approved by readers.
This time, not so much. But sort of.
(In writing, clarity is everything. The above words illustrate this rather well, don’t you think?)
When I was writing for the Silhouette Bombshell line, I had a loosely defined series I call the Hunter Agency Series. They weren’t really marketed as such, but I built a number of books around the same little agency, and in 2005 or so, had two of those in the works with a brand-new contract.
Ohh, how I loved the Bombshell line…
Two of the already published books featured the irascible Kimmer Reed and her newly found partner, Rio Carlsen. And, as it happens, the very week I turned their third story in to my editor, the line was cancelled.
Many Bombshell books found new homes–Hidden Steel, for instance, went to Five Star, while other authors were able to massage their stories to fit other lines.
I couldn’t; the Bombshells were about kick-ass female characters and the guys who were strong enough to be with them, and mine all drove their stories to the extent that changing that foundation piece would collapse the story.
So Making the Rules (which I called Basque to the Rules for so long that I pretty much forgot it had a real title) waited for some clever idea/opportunity to come along.
Oh, look. Suddenly I’m putting out Backlist Ebooks. So why not take it one step further–?
It took some doing–I did a scorchingly thorough second and final draft process, sent it out to readers, and found someone to do CE/proofing on it.
And then there was the part about screwing up my courage.
But hey, I can’t let my kick-ass character down, can I?
So, la! Here it is! My orphaned Bombshell, finding a home…
MAKING THE RULES
Smashwords
Kindle
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Kimmer Reed is a Hunter Agency operative, a street foundling escaped from an abusive family and raised to be code-name Chimera–a fierce, savvy loner with a natural gift for reading people. Now on her first assignment with the one man she trusts–the one man she can’t read–she finds herself overseas in the Basque countryside, framed for the theft of the very antiquity she has been sent to guard and doubting her ability to work with a partner at all–never mind the man she loves.
Rio Carlsen, former CIA field officer who left the agency with scars both physical and emotional, joins Hunter Agency field operations with reservations–and only because his partner is Kimmer. Now he’s caught in the schemes of a woman from Kimmer’s past. Political terrorism, antiquities theft, and revenge–this woman wants it all, and she’s on her way to getting it.
Framed, cut off from the agency, and tangled in Basque Nationalist splinter terrorist groups, the biggest challenge Kimmer and Rio face is coming to terms with their pasts and with each other–so they can live through the day on the way to saving it.
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We’ve been made.
Caught under the bright light of the power station floods on a crisp spring midnight with the grinding hum of power lines crawling over the air and the big tricky spy deal about to go down, and Hunter agents Kimmer Reed and Rio Carlsen had been made.
Chimera and her newly code-named Phoenix, finally back into the game—and yeah…already made.
Kimmer saw it on the face of the man across from them—the flicker of disdain and anger, there and then gone again. Oh, he tried to hide it, but no. Not from Kimmer.
Does Rio see it? She had no idea, not while he stood there with his Phoenix persona in place—the only man she couldn’t read with her uncanny knack of seeing truth, simply because she loved him.
That left nothing to do but play it through. She gave the man a good hard eye and demanded, “You have it?”
Only the faintest of hesitations. “Yours was the highest bid,” the man finally said—a dull little man, habitually bartering in national secrets: this time, a computer key that would give the bearer access to U.S. weapons in development. A key that Kimmer’s supposed masters in North Korea were eager to obtain.
But the man was stalling. Waiting for his people to move in from the darkness that surrounded the eye-searing light of this stark meeting ground. Asphalt and steel and humming wires, all lit into harsh detail against blackest shadow.
We need that key.
And Kimmer didn’t know if both she and Rio had been made…or if one of them could still bluff. And if so, which one…
Rio gestured his own impatience—moving closer, an unspoken threat. “If you have it, let’s see it.”
The man looked up—up at Rio, taller than tall, wheat-blond hair slicked back for the op. He smiled, tense and mean. “Yes, you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
Rio. It was Rio. Cover blown.
