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Saturday, June 24, 2017

When Beauty Meets the Beast


The second instalment of my Wild Warriners series comes out in a few days, this story belongs to the second eldest, Jamie Warriner, the gruff and wounded former soldier. A Warriner to Rescue Her was positive joy to write because I already knew Jamie pretty well from the first book. In fact, as soon as I wrote the words The End on A Warriner to Protect Her, I started this straight after and from the outset it just flowed.

Initially, I had lofty plans to write a story filled with intrigue, using Jamie’s background as a highly skilled officer in covert recognisance. However, as so often happens in my odd head, my characters led me on a completely different path. Instead of going off on an adventure away from home, Jamie stays put. He’s still tortured by his demons, scared of the latent, dangerous violence within him and believes that his life is over after accepting the damage to his leg and broken mind will never heal. While feeling a little bit sorry for himself, he meets the woman of his dreams under quite unusual circumstances.

‘Hello!’ A slightly panicked woman’s voice came from above. ‘Is somebody there?’

‘Hello?’ He hadn’t been expecting to address the sky. The sun pierced Jamie’s eyes to such an extent he could not see a thing except blinding yellow light. The woman’s exact location remained a mystery. Unless she was an angel sent to fetch him and drag him off to heaven, which he sincerely doubted. They had had their chance and failed miserably and if he was bound for anywhere it was probably hell. ‘I can’t see you!’

‘I am in the tree… I wonder if you would be so good as to assist me, sir. I appear to be stuck.’

Surreal words, again unexpected. How did a woman come to be stuck in an apple tree? Jamie did his best to shield the worst of the glare with his hand and squinted through the tangled branches. Two wiggling feet dangled nearly six feet above his head. They were encased in half-boots and were attached to a very shapely pair of female legs, clad in fine silk stockings which were held up with rather saucy pink garters. His eyes widened at the garters. From this perspective they appeared to be completely festooned with flowers. Above them, about an inch or two of creamy thigh was also on display. The rest of the woman was hidden by leaves.


From then on, Cassie Reeves- the effervescent vicar’s daughter with secrets of her own- brings some much-needed chaos and purpose to Jamie’s life. Cassie writes children’s stories involving her horse Orange Blossom, and against his better judgement, Jamie gets dragged into illustrating them. They are an unlikely pair- think Beatrix Potter meeting the Incredible Hulk- but they are made for each other.

Perfect soulmates.

Something everyone else works out very quickly. Everyone else accept for Jamie, of course…


You can read a sneak peak of the first chapter HERE

1 comment:

dstoutholcomb said...

congratulations on your upcoming release


denise