Release week is nearly upon us, so it's time to share some of my thoughts about writing the Samantha Owens series, and about the newest book EDGE OF BLACK. This is the first installment.

But first - here's a special Sneak Peek inside the book. Just click on the BROWSE button below to read the first chapter! And then, you know, feel free to meander further down to that pretty little three letter word..... ; )

 

Starting a new series is scary. But it’s an exhilarating kind of scary, like riding a roller coaster in the dark. You know you’re going to be thrown about, you just can’t see what turn is coming next.

Dr. Samantha Owens played a role in my Nashville-based Taylor Jackson series. As Taylor’s best friend, she was the cast of characters’ lodestone, the moral compass of the books. Sam could always see the shades of gray Taylor missed. So when it was time to take her out for a spin in her own book, I figured it would be easy. She was already a real person in my mind, fully formed.

Best laid plans. When I started to write her, she became an enigma. Her voice wasn’t the same when she was the one calling the shots. It took weeks for her to start speaking to me in a language I could understand. The language of loss.

At the beginning of the first book in the series, A DEEPER DARKNESS, she’s broken, practically disabled by the deaths of her family, and barely has the will to live. By the end of the book she’s crossed a threshold into a new world, one that includes the love of a man named Xander, a former Army Ranger who has had his share of trauma and heartache and is slowing trying to mend himself in the Maryland woods.

Love at first sight. People scoff, but it happens. It happened to me, (twenty years and counting) and it happens to Sam. Something about Xander draws her in, literally starts her heart beating again. Even though he’s a murder suspect, she’s intrigued. Careless, even.

And Alexander Whitfield is such a classic hero: so self-contained he’s simmering, really. Simmering for her.

They belonged together, that was clear to me from the moment Xander entered the scene. I had to do a bit of editorial scrambling when I realized it, too, because I wasn’t planning to hook Sam up with a man so soon.
But what could be better for a series than two broken souls joining to make a whole?

With that intensity comes a multitude of opportunities, the first of which you’ll see in EDGE OF BLACK. Sam and Xander have a bright future together, if they can learn to work together instead of striking off alone. And I think they’ll find a way to make it work.

EDGE OF BLACK is on sale November 13, 2012, and is available for Pre-Order Now

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