A few months ago – it seems like yesterday – I was given the opportunity to submit a story to the proposed new Wild Rose Press series.I do like a challenge
. I’ve never written for a series before, although I’ve toyed with several series ideas that I hope you’ll get to see at a later date. In fact, I liked Lobster Cove so much that I’ve submitted another book to the series. Fingers crossed!The Lobster Cove series is quite special in a number of ways. One is that it is multi-genre – romance, romantic suspense, mystery, erotica, paranormal, fairies, sprites, ghosts and mythological beings were all welcome story lines.
The books were also set in different time spans – different historic periods, current day, mythical and I believe some futuristic as well.
Another difference for me, at least, was that all the books were co-ordinated. This means that each book must fit in various ways to the characters and events in other books that were set in the same time period.
Well, no-one has ever accused me of being a team player, so this last was a whole new ballgame for me. In Another Man’s Son, my hero is an FBI agent who is working undercover. I started out with the existing sheriff being asked to take a leave of absence for (fictional) health reasons.
But another book had been contracted where there was a newly elected, female sheriff.. Fortunately for my hero, the new sheriff had just got married and was planning to take time off for her honeymoon, so things worked out well. Now my character had to step into her place and interact briefly with her before she left. Which meant rewriting or adapting all the scenes that involved the sheriff. Whew!
I grew to admire my fellow series writers who took such care to meticulously match their work so that it wove nicely into the other books in progress. Not only that, but they were wonderfully generous in giving information to help make sure everyone was, to coin a phrase, on the same page.
In the weeks to come, I hope to bring you some snippets from other books in the Lobster Cove series. For now, here’s an excerpt from Another Man’s Son, which is now available in print and ebook from The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, and other book stores.
ANOTHER MAN’S SON
There he was. Without conscious thought her feet found a path through the crowd towards him and then he stood before her. She saw immediately that while he looked the same, there were subtle differences beyond the seven years that had passed since they’d last met. Back then, he’d still had the gawkiness of youth with the foreshadowing strength of the man he might become.
And now – now he’d fulfilled that promise of manhood - the veiled glances of every woman in the room were testament to that. But there was the stamp of hard experience on his face, lines around his beautiful brown eyes. Ben Asher. The man she'd once loved so deeply that she thought she’d die when he boarded the bus bound for the military training camp.
Mesmerized, Kathryn moved into his arms as naturally as if she'd never been out of them, and he hugged her to him in a reflex action that spoke volumes about his feelings. They swayed to the slow and sentimental tune the band now played, neither of them speaking, neither of them surprised that their dancing steps carried them through the big French doors and out onto the shadowed terrace. No surprise, either, as their lips met and melded in remembered passion.
She clung to him, her mouth drinking him in as all her other senses sang with the feel and scent of the man she'd loved so long ago – and came alive again with loving now. He groaned softly as her fingers smoothed the thick dark hair at the nape of his neck and then touched warm flesh beneath his shirt collar.
Her own flesh burned with desire at his touch as long ago dreams began to stir and awaken. Dreams that were even more impossible now than they'd been when she was young and deliriously in love.
The dream was broken when an icy voice spoke from the doorway: “Well, Asher, I see you've met my wife."
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