ANNE STUART, Day 21, Month of Romantic Suspense [ Edited ]

[becke_davis]

Anne Stuart was scheduled to visit with us on Sunday, but she has had a family emergency arise today and she's got to focus on that.

I've invited Anne to come back whenever it is convenient for her, even if it's after the Month of Romantic Suspense is over. 

I'm going to go ahead and post Anne's intro, because you won't want to miss her books!

Anne Stuart's website is here: http://www.anne-stuart.com/

NOW AVAILABLE

Now in stores, Anne’s first and only stand-alone book in the last five years, SILVER FALLS, the chilling story of a serial killer and the innocent woman caught in his web. There’s a riveting hero as well, but this is a different sort of Anne Stuart – one you’ll learn to love.Preview Silver Falls by reading an excerpt now.

DOGS AND GODDESSES is officially in stores. Anne’s collaboration with Jennifer Crusie and Lani Diane Webb comes with starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Take a look at the office website, www.dogsandgoddesses.com, for the full story.

On March 1st, a reprint of one of Anne’s most beloved books, TANGLED LIES, was released as part of Harlequin’s Famous First series to celebrate the company’s 60th anniversary. TANGLIED LIES was one of Anne’s early Harleqins and one of the first of the Intrigue line, and it’s always held a special place in her heart. She’s utterly delighted that it’s being offered again, this time at a bargain price.

IN PROGRESS

Anne’s now busy writing a delicious historical trilogy about the decadent and delicious Rohan family. The first book of the trilogy will be coming out in the latter part of 2010.

MEANWHILE

You can still catch up on an Anne Stuart Out-Of-Print Gems eBook bundle. The bundle includes: Night of the Phantom, One More Valentine, Cinderman, The Soldier and the Baby, and Wild Thing. It was inspired by our Out Of Print Gems page here on the site where Anne has added comments to share why each book was, and still is, important to her.

And on iTunes you can download unabridged versions of ICE STORM and ICE BLUE, plus abridged versions of SHADOWS AT SUNSET and THE WIDOW.

And look for a new contest coming next month, as SILVER FALLS draws closer.

You can receive email updates on Anne's work by signing up for her private mailing list and catch up with the author herself in her online journal, Notes from a Drama Queen.

[becke_davis]

Anne Stuart's bio:

Anne Stuart is a grandmaster of the genre, winner of Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, survivor of thirty-five years in the romance business, and still just keeps getting better.

Her first novel was Barrett’s Hill, a gothic romance published by Ballantine in 1974 when Anne had just turned 25. Since then she’s written more gothics, regencies, romantic suspense, romantic adventure, series romance, suspense, historical romance, and mainstream contemporary romance for publishers such as Doubleday, Harlequin, Silhouette, Avon, Zebra, St. Martins Press, Berkley, Dell, Pocket Books and Fawcett.

She’s currently under contract with Mira for romantic suspense and historical romances.

She’s won numerous awards, appeared on most bestseller lists, and speaks all over the country. Her general outrageousness has gotten her on Entertainment Tonight, as well as in Vogue, People, USA Today, Women’s Day and countless other national newspapers and magazines.

When she’s not traveling, she’s at home in Northern Vermont with her luscious husband of thirty years, an empty nest, three cats and one Springer Spaniel, and when she’s not working she’s watching movies, listening to rock and roll (preferably Japanese) and spending far too much time quilting.

[becke_davis]

From Anne's blog, NOTES FROM A DRAMA QUEEN:   http://annestuart.blogspot.com/

Cabbages and Kings

Monday, January 11, 2010

Occasionally, just occasionally, really good things happen. We had one of those things happen this weekend, when my darling son had the great wisdom to ask his girlfriend of a year and a half to marry him. Erin is a fabulous girl (woman) and hey, she comes complete with the most adorable baby who already calls me Grandma Krissie. 
So we're happy campers here at the Castello del Ohlroggio. Such a fabulous way to start a new year.

And I've got my Zoji bread machine, thanks to my darling niece Jenny. I've made fabulous whole wheat bread, whole wheat apple bread, and I'm finishing up some white bread for Tim (my son) to take with him. It's magic -- no more failed breads!

I finished the revisions on RUTHLESS (the first historical) and it's even better than I thought. And I'm just diving into BREATHLESS (the third) and loving it. 

I'm about to get a clean bill of health, so Richie and I can plan a trip for this spring.

It looks like I really will make progress decluttering, thanks to my BFF Sally.

And really, it's starting to look like 2010 is going to be a totally fabulous year. Which we more than deserve, after the total hideousness of last year. Now all we have to do is get our tax situation cleared up and life will be good indeed.

The good thing is, all I really want to do is write. And I've got a lot of writing to do.

First off, I need to write the third historical for Mira, the third part of the series, RUTHLESS, RECKLESS and BREATHLESS. They'll be published in the summer and fall, and so far they're delicious. The third should be the best of all.

And Kristina Douglas has finished her first book of THE FALLEN series, tentatively entitled RAZIEL. She has a second to write this spring, which she's really looking forward to. 

Now after that, I'm desperate desperate desperate to write at least one more ICE book. I've already started it -- maybe I'll upload it as a present. So far Mira's been uninterested, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed they'll change their minds.

Plus I have a delectable new romantic suspense series in mind, one that I really want to write, so I'm going to need a contract for those.

Plus, more historicals. I love them, they're what I usually read for pleasure, and I have so many more stories to tell.

And Kristina Douglas has a number of Fallen Angels to take care of.

So ... I've got so much to write that I'll simply have to live forever. Which is fine with me, particularly now that I've got an instant grandson.

In the meantime, I'm desperate to move out of this %#$@@%^%! town (I temper my language in honor of the nuns among us). We'll simply take it bird by bird, because, as Crusie always says ...

Nothing but good times ahead.

[becke_davis]

Here's Anne's Wikipedia page, which notes that she has written over 60 novels and was the recipient of the Romance Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Stuart

Anne is on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1238930996&ref=ts

I love her profile picture: 

[becke_davis]

Ice Storm 

Ice Blue 

Black Ice 

Fire and Ice 

Cold as Ice

 

[becke_davis]

Synopsis

Living paycheck to paycheck in Paris, American book translator Chloe Underwood would give anything for some excitement and passion--even a little danger. So when she's offered a lucrative weekend gig translating at a business conference in a remote château, she jumps at the chance to shake things up.

Then by chance Chloe discovers her employers are anything but the entrepreneurs they appear, and suddenly she knows far too much. Her clients are illegal arms dealers, and one of them is ordered to kill her. But instead, Bastien Toussaint drags Chloe away, and the next thing she knows she's on the run with the most terrifying and seductive man she's ever met. What were his motives--and would she live long enough to find out?

Publishers Weekly

This taut romantic suspense novel from RITA Award-winner Stuart (The Widow) delivers deliciously evil baddies and the type of disturbing male protagonist that only she can transform into a convincing love interest. Chloe Underwood, a 23-year-old American who regards herself as a disappointment to her high-achieving family, makes a meager living in Paris by translating children's books into English. After accepting a last-minute translating job in the French countryside, she discovers that rather than working for a consortium of food executives, she's stumbled upon a group of sadistic international arms dealers. Cold-blooded assassin Bastian Touissant, who was sent a year earlier by a nebulous "the ends justify the means" agency to infiltrate this shady group and try to stop its illegal activity, seems to blend right in. On meeting Chloe, Bastian isn't sure whether she's a spy, perhaps sent to kill him, or the innocent she appears to be. Despite his ruthlessness, Bastian can't resist saving Chloe's life (on multiple, graphic occasions) and attempting to send her back to her family in the U.S. Brilliant characterizations and a suitably moody ambience drive this dark tale of unlikely love. Agent, Jane Dystel. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

More Reviews and Recommendations

Biography

Anne Stuart loves Japanese rock and roll, wearable art, Spike, her two kids, Clairefontaine paper, her springer spaniel Rosie, her delicious husband of over thirty years, fellow writers, her two cats, telling stories and living in Vermont. She's not too crazy about politics and diets and a winter that never ends, but then, life's always a trade-off.

[becke_davis]

Black Ice

---

By Anne Stuart

MIRA

Copyright © 2005 Anne Stuart
All right reserved. 
ISBN: 0778321711 

---

People might go on and on about springtime in Paris, Chloe Underwood thought as she walked down the street huddled in her coat, but there was really nothing to compare to winter in the City of Lights. By early December the leaves were gone, the air was crisp and cool and enough of the tourists had left to make life bearable. In August she always wondered why on earth she'd chosen to pull up stakes and move three thousand miles away from her family. But then winter came, and she remembered all too well.

It might have helped if she could have abandoned the city to the tourists every August, as all the French did, but she'd yet to find a job that included such luxuries as vacations, health care or a living wage. She was lucky she'd managed to find work at all. As it was, her presence in France was quasi-legal, and most days she decided just being there was blessing enough, even if she shared a tiny walk-up flat with a fellow expatriate who seemed to have very little sense of responsibility. Sylvia barely remembered to pay her half of the rent, she'd never swept a floor in her life and she considered any piece of furniture or flat surface a place to leave her astonishingly large wardrobe. On the other hand, she wore the same size eight that Chloe did, and she was not averse to sharing. She was also single-mindedly determined to marry a wealthy Frenchman, and in pursuit of that goal she spent most nights away from their cramped quarters, leaving Chloe with a little more breathing room.

In fact, it was Sylvia who'd found Chloe her current job translating children's books. Sylvia had worked at Les Freres Laurent for two years, and she'd slept with all three of the middle-aged freres, ensuring job tenure and a decent salary for translating spy novels and thrillers for the small publisher. Children's books were less of a moneymaker, and Chloe was paid accordingly, but at least she didn't have to ask her family for money or touch the trust fund her grandparents had left her. Not that her parents would encourage her. That money was earmarked for her education, and working a menial job in Paris hardly constituted advanced learning.

If she weren't hamstrung by job requirements she could have found something a bit more challenging. While her French was excellent, she was also fluent in Italian, Spanish and German, with a healthy smattering of Swedish and Russian, and even a few bits of Arabic and Japanese. She loved words, almost as much as she loved cooking, but she seemed to have a greater talent out of the kitchen. At least, that's what she'd been told when she was dismissed from the famous Cordon Bleu halfway into the program. Too much imagination for a beginner, they'd said. Not enough respect for tradition.

Chloe had never been particularly respectful of tradition, including her family tradition of medicine. She'd left all five of the Underwoods back in the mountains of North Carolina. Her parents were internists, her two older brothers were surgeons, and her older sister was an anesthesiologist. And they still couldn't believe Chloe wasn't dying to enter medical school, ignoring the fact that there was no one in this world more squeamish at the sight of blood than the youngest member of the Underwood family.

No, Chloe wasn't going to get to touch that nice little chunk of money until she gave in and went to medical school. And it was going to be a cold day in hell before she did.

In the meantime, she could do amazing things with pasta and fresh vegetables, and all the walking she did kept the carbohydrates from gathering in force, though they seemed to have developed a fondness for her rear. At twenty-three she couldn't still be built like a coltish teenager, and she was never going to look like a French-woman. She just lacked the style even her roommate Sylvia, an Englishwoman, had in abundance. She could wear Sylvia's clothes, but she never could master that faintly arrogant, slightly amused mien that she longed for. She might as well have a big butt, too.

Les Freres Laurent was on the third floor of an older building near Montmartre. Chloe was the first one in, as always, and she put on a pot of the strong coffee that she loved, cradling a cup in her chilled hands as she looked out into the busy street below. The brothers kept the heat off at night, and as a junior employee she wasn't allowed to touch the thermostat, so she'd learned to keep an extra sweater in the tiny cubicle she'd been allotted. She wasn't in the mood for working -- it was a gorgeous day, with the sky a bright azure above the old buildings that surrounded them, and for some reason the adventures of Flora the plucky little ferret didn't call to her. Not enough sex and violence, she thought wistfully. Just moral lessons in a heavy-handed lecture, given by a skinny rodent in a pink tutu and the smug values of an American Republican. Just once she wished Flora would yank off her tutu and jump the rascally weasel who'd been giving her the eye. But Flora would never stoop so low.

Chloe took a sip of her coffee. Strong as faith, sweet as love, black as sin. She wouldn't be a real Parisian until she started smoking, but even to annoy her parents she couldn't go that far. Besides, the farther away her parents were, the less annoying they became.

It was another hour before anyone else would arrive at the office, and she told herself that no one would know or care if she wasted a few precious minutes before turning to the boring Flora. It was no wonder she was so irritated with the fictional character. What she needed was a little more sex and violence in her own life.

Be careful what you wish for, a little voice murmured in her head, but Chloe shook it off, draining her coffee. Sex had been notable by its total absence for the past ten months, and her last affair was so lack-luster that she hadn't been energized enough to look for a replacement. It wasn't that Claude had been a bad lover. He prided himself on his skills, and expected the gauche Americain to be suitably dazzled. She wasn't.

Continues... 

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Excerpted from Black Ice by Anne Stuart Copyright © 2005 by Anne Stuart. Excerpted by permission. 
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. 
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

[becke_davis]

Silver Falls 

Synopsis

Rachel is finally getting it right. After years of wandering, she's married the perfect man and settled into the ideal life. But as her sleepy little town turns into a killing ground, she realizes that this new life might come at too high a price.

Caleb Middleton says he's returned home to set things right. But as her husband's dangerous brother circles like a hungry wolf, poking holes in her perfect world, Rachel draws her young daughter in close. The rain and violence keep coming, and Rachel must decide whether to trust her dream life or her instincts...before the town of Silver Falls becomes her grave.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Stuart (Tangled Lies) delivers fast-paced, dark thrills in this straightforward suspense novel. Professor David Middleton has whisked traveling photographer Rachel Chapman off to sleepy Silver Falls, a small college town in the Pacific Northwest, promising stability for her and her teen daughter, Sophie. Newlywed Rachel soon starts to feel smothered by the gloomy weather and David's repressive personality, which Sophie finds creepy and disturbing. Then David's incredibly sexy brother, Caleb, comes home, and young blonde women who resemble Sophie start turning up dead. Rachel is torn between irresistible attraction to her brother-in-law and impatience when he tries to warn her about the serial killer. Stuart breaks little new ground, and readers may be slightly annoyed by the early revelation of the murderer's identity as well as by Sophie outclassing ostensible protagonist Rachel in both brains and sass. (May)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[becke_davis]

Silver Falls

Read an Excerpt

It was raining again. Of course it was, Rachel thought, peering up through the window at the gray, listless sky as her husband's black BMW pulled into their driveway. In Silver Falls, Washington, it was either raining, about to rain or just had finished raining. Even on an otherwise still night you could hear the rush of the thundering falls up on Silver Mountain, the roar of the water leaching into your brain until you felt as if you were drowning.

It was little wonder she had this sense of impending doom. There were any number of scientific studies proving the depressing effect of sunless days on human nature. She was used to the hot, sunny climates where she and her daughter had lived during the past ten years. She was simply having a hard time with rain, and gloom and shadows. She'd adapt. Everyone was moving to the Pacific Northwest—she'd grow to love it sooner or later.

She smoothed the discreet black shift down over her full hips, her hands restless. David wasn't going to be happy with her—she'd missed another appointment with the lawyer, she'd failed to meet him at his office and she'd let Sophie spend the night with friends on a school night rather than attend Stephen Henry's reading. David wouldn't argue with her, of course. Not David. He would look terribly disappointed, and that was far more effective than any number of screaming tantrums.

The thought of mild-mannered David throwing a tantrum was enough to make her grin. He pulled the BMW to a stop exactly two and a half feet from the garage, opened the door and stuck out his black umbrella, unfurling it before he stepped out of the car into the light mist. He caught Rachel's smile, and he smiled back,though his expression was tinged with that damnable, omnipresent disappointment.

"You missed our three-o'clock meeting at the lawyer's," he greeted her, clinking cheekbones with her in a ritual sign of affection. "I thought you were going to make sure you got there."

Guilt annoyed her, but she felt it anyway. "I'm so sorry, David," she said, trying to sound penitent. "I just got caught up in work." Which was a lie. She'd looked up at the faint glow of her watch in the darkroom, saw that she had plenty of time to get to their appointment and then promptly ignored it.

"This is the third time, Rachel," he said with utmost patience. "Are you having second thoughts about letting me adopt Sophie? It was your idea in the first place."

That wasn't exactly how Rachel remembered it, but she didn't bother correcting him. Being married meant making compromises, being tactful, something she could always work on.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "There's nothing I want more than for us to be a family. I just get…distracted."

He reached out and brushed an affectionate hand through her tangled red hair. "Always a dreamer, aren't you, Rachel?" he said, some of the disapproval vanishing. "Your daughter's more responsible than you are."

She took an instinctive step backward, trying to push her wild hair back into a semblance of order. David was a lovely man, but he had an unfortunate tendency to be ever so slightly patronizing. "I'm perfectly responsible when it's important," she said, keeping the edge out of her voice.

"And my adopting Sophie isn't important?" The disappointment was back in full, and Rachel bit back an instinctive retort. He hated it when she was bitchy, and she hated it as well. For Sophie's sake, most of all.

But then, Sophie wasn't there at the moment.

"You know it is, David. But there isn't any hurry, is there? We've only been married four months, and I don't know about you but I'm planning to stay married for the next fifty years. There's no need to rush into anything." She tried her most winning smile, the smile that had first caught his eyes six months ago in San Francisco, even if it was a little tight around the edges.

"Of course not," David said easily. That was what she'd first loved about him. His ability to take things in stride, including her temper. "Are you ready to go? We're running late as it is. You know how my father likes to have his audience gathered before he launches into a reading."

"I know," she said, glumly, unable to summon up much more enthusiasm. David's father, Stephen Henry Middleton, professor emeritus of Silver Falls College, self-styled poet laureate of the Pacific Northwest, should have been a welcome part of the package. She hadn't known any kind of father for the past thirteen years, not since she'd been kicked out of the house for being seventeen and pregnant, and Stephen Henry was born to be a patriarch. He doted on an unappreciative Sophie and managed just the right amount of decorous flirting with his daughter-in-law. Maybe it was Sophie's hidden dislike that tipped her off. Her daughter always had had far better instincts than she had.

"I'm ready," she said, plastering on her best smile.

David took a spotless white linen handkerchief from his elegant suit, reached up and wiped her lipstick off her mouth. "There," he said with a sigh of satisfaction. "That's much better. Aren't you going to change your shoes?"

She'd loved that bright slash of color on her mouth, but marriage was give and take, and she knew David didn't like makeup. She must have done it subconsciously, just to annoy him. She really had to stop doing things like that or she'd never settle in.

She looked down at her shoes. She was still wearing the two-inch heels that put her a good three inches taller than David's blond head. They were the brightly colored espadrilles she'd picked up in Mexico, with straps around the ankles that made her strong legs look sexy. She sighed. "Sorry, I forget," she said, kicking them off and going in search of the ballet slippers he preferred. He followed her, shoes in his hand. "Sorry," she said again, grabbing the plain black flats. She had a weakness for shoes, and she always left them all over the place, and David was always picking them up. He moved past her, placing them in the labeled cubby hole of the custom closet that both delighted and intimidated her with its strict organization, then held out his arm.

"Where's Sophie?"

"I told her she could spend the night at Kristen Bannister's. You know what a math wonk she is— she promised to help Kristen understand the bizarre properties of God knows what, and I knew we wouldn't want to be late."

Just the faintest flash of impatience on David's handsome face, gone almost as it appeared. "There are times I think you married me for the math program here in town."

"Of course not. Just because her gift for math makes me feel like the village idiot doesn't mean I'd run off with the first man who had access to an accelerated math program. I had no idea the local high school was so good."

"I told you," he pointed out. "When you were having trouble helping her. Homeschooling can only take you so far."

"I married you for you, David," she said firmly. "How can you doubt it?"

"I don't," he said, looking happier. "It's just that my father adores Sophie and he doesn't see her often enough."

But Sophie didn't adore his father. "Schoolwork comes first, don't you agree?"

"Of course." As a college professor he couldn't very well say anything else. "We'll have to bring her over for dinner some time this week to make up for it."

"Of course," Rachel said. Sophie would go if she asked her to. But Rachel hadn't lived thirty years, half of them on her own, without learning how to get what she wanted. After all, she was doing this for Sophie, giving her a sane life away from the nomadic travels that had suddenly turned tragic, giving her access to the kind of school that would nurture her extraordinary gift. Sophie had better things to do than cater to the overweening vanity of an aging academic.

Then again, Rachel had better things to do herself, and yet she was going off, the perfect faculty wife in the perfect little college town where it never stopped raining and she felt like she was slowly suffocating….

"Are you all right?" David said, his voice soft with concern. "You clutched my arm."

"Just a hand cramp, darling. I've been working too hard."

He smiled at her fondly. "I love it that you've kept up with your photography, but you know you don't have to. I make more than enough for both of us."

They'd had this discussion before, and they'd probably be still arguing about it on their deathbeds, seventy happy years from now. She shoved her hair back from her face. "It's not about the money, David. It's who I am."

[becke_davis]

Silver Falls Excerpt, continued: 

He led her out into the damp night, closing the door of the house behind him and double locking the door. He'd left no lights on—he was religious about saving electricity. "And what you are is perfect," he said. "Do you mind us taking your car? Mine still smells from that run-in with a dead deer."

"Of course. Do you want me to take your car and get it washed tomorrow?"

He shook his head. "You know how silly I am… It's my baby, and I hate to have anyone else touch it, even you, darling. I'll see to it. I can use the Range Rover until then."

David loved his Range Rover with an Anglophile's passion, andit seldom saw the lightof day. It usually sat in state in David's immaculate garage.

She said nothing. David had his life arranged to perfection, and who was she to argue? So she merely smiled indulgently, tucked her perfect little evening bag under her perfect arm, and got in the car with her perfect husband. It was going to be a long night.

Caleb Middleton ducked beneath the tarp that covered what should have been the hallway in his house and headed into the half-finished bathroom. He expected that the plumbing would have died, but he turned the faucet and rust-colored water dribbled out, slowly at first, then turning into a steady stream. He turned on the shower—no hot water, of course, but the gravity-fed pump was working—and he stripped off his muddy clothes and shoes and stepped in.

He didn't close his eyes. He could still see her body, trapped in the branches. He'd called the police, anonymously, but Maggie Bannister wouldn't have any trouble tracking his cell phone. And then the questions would begin, and he'd lie, and no one would believe him. Maggie had always kept a distrustful eye on him when she was a simple beat cop—now that she was the sheriff she'd be even more likely to think the worst of him.

There was even a musty towel in the open shelves under the sink. He pulled it out, to find that something had eaten a large hole in it. It didn't matter. He dried himself and pulled on clean clothes, then picked up the muddy ones and wrapped them in the towel. If it ever stopped raining long enough he'd burn them. Otherwise he'd bury them and forget about it. If he could.

In the years he'd been gone his half-finished house hadn't been abandoned—there was a pile of firewood and kindling by the woodstove, dozens of empty beer bottles and an ashtray full of roaches. Teenagers must have used the place for a makeout spot. He didn't mind—he would have done the same. Had done the same.

He walked across the rough floors to the front of the living room and looked down over the town of Silver Falls. The clouds hung low, but he could see the outlines of the college campus where his brother and father worked, the streets of the small town laid out in perfect order. The waterfall was up behind him, and he could hear it roaring down over the steady sound of rain. After years in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan he should have welcomed the rain.

It smelled like death to him. Death and decay and despair. They were part of his everyday life, and yet here, in a peaceful little town, death was stronger than in the war zones where he worked.

He was here to face death, and the questions that had always plagued him, questions that he'd avoided finding the answers to. But that had changed—he couldn't hide from the ugly truth any more. Starting with the dead woman caught in the branches at the bottom of the falls.

Maybe he shouldn't have called the cops, but he couldn't just leave her there. He stared out at the curtain of rain that separated his half-finished house from the rest of the world. He'd need to get his generator up and running, he'd need to replace the wind-shredded tarp that flapped in the wind. He'd need to do any number of things before he headed back down the mountain to find his father and brother.

And this time he wasn't going to leave until he found the truth. Even if it was as bad as it could possibly be, as horrifying as he'd always feared, he'd face it. You could only run for so long, and now that there was a new member in his happy little family, he couldn't wait any longer. David had done the unthinkable and gotten married. His father had written him in one of his cryptic letters.

And Caleb could no longer pretend that something very bad wasn't going on in this gloomy, tight-assed little town.

Sophie Chapman shoved her blond hair back and made a face at her best friend Kristen. At least there were a few good things about this rain-soaked, godforsaken place, and Kristen was right there at the top of the list. In her thirteen years, Sophie had been in more countries than most people saw in a lifetime, and she had an easy time of making friends. She and Kristen had been soul mates from the moment they met at Silver Falls Union High School, and they'd been almost inseparable ever since. Sophie was the math whiz, Kristen was the brilliant writer—they complemented each other's skills perfectly. Kristen's mother, the sheriff of this gloomy town, was down-to-earth, no-nonsense and surprisingly easygoing, and she got along very well with Sophie's mother.

FOLLOW THIS LINK AND SCROLL DOWN TO READ A SAMPLE CHAPTER:http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Silver-Falls/Anne-Stuart/e/9780778325970/?itm=1&usri=silver+falls

[becke_davis]

My camera didn't work when I tried to take pictures at RWA National's book signing event last July, but I have some pictures from when I first met Anne/Krissie at Jenny Crusie's Cherry Con in 2007. These aren't the greatest pictures - please forgive my poor photography skills.

The bottom picture, L to R (with the fabulous Jill P in the center wearing the tiara):

Authors: Christine Merrill, Jennifer Crusie, (Barbara) Caridad Ferrer, Alesia Holliday/Alyssa Day, Anne Stuart, Lani Diane Rich.

[becke_davis]

Sisters and Secrets 

Shadow Lover 

Ritual Sins 

The Right Man 

Prince of Swords 

Prince of Magic 

One Night with a Rogue 

One More Valentine One More Valentine 

Now or Never 

Nightfall 

Night and Day 

New Year's Resolution 

Moonrise 

The Masqueraders 

Lost in the Night 

Lord of Danger 

Looking for Trouble 

Lazarus Rising 

Lady Fortune 

Kissing Frosty/The Boss, the Baby and the Bride 

Hot Pursuit 

Hidden Honor 

Heat Lightning 

Glass Houses 

Date with a Devil 

A Dark and Stormy Night, Vol. 702 

Dangerous Desires 

Crazy like a Fox 

Burning Bright 

Blue Sage 

Angels Wings 

American Romance 

Against the Wind 

Christmas Getaway 

The Devil's Waltz 

Silver Falls 

Tangled Lies 

Unfortunate Miss Fortunes 

Dogs and Goddesses

 

[becke_davis]

Winter's Edge 

Wild Thing 

The Widow 

What Lies Beneath 

Valentine Babies 

Undercover Summer 

Summer Lovers 

Summer Love 

Summer Dreams 

A Stranger's Kiss 

Still Lake