Guest Post by Cynthia Justlin

We’ve all heard the adage, “It’s not if you win or lose it’s how you play the game.” If you were anything like me as a child, that saying did NOT bring you comfort. Because you cared if you won or lost. And no amount of telling yourself otherwise made you feel any better.

But does losing REALLY amount to failure?

If you’re Cameron Scott, security specialist and hero of my latest romantic suspense, INTRUSION, it does. Cam grew up learning that love was dependent on winning. If he wasn’t winning, he wasn’t worthy. (Anyone else have a picture of Charlie Sheen in their head going, “Winning!”? Obviously, Charlie suffers from a similar ailment.) After a mission gone wrong leaves Cam with a blown-out knee and a discharge from the Special Forces, he is even more determined to prove that he’s a winner.

It isn’t until he must work with a feisty Nanotechnologist who refuses to be impressed by his “stats”, that he begins to realize that maybe winning isn’t everything after all. Maybe it’s more important to stick around when the going gets tough. The only true way to fail is to give up.

Home. Family. Friendship. Love. These are what make us worthy. Without them to fulfill us, all the wins in the world don’t mean a thing. I may not ever make the New York Times’ Bestsellers Lists (although nothing can—or should—stop me from reaching for that goal if that’s what I want) but I consider myself a successful writer. I’m learning and growing and pursuing my passion with every sentence I put on the page. I’m a success every time my children smile at me, every time my husband gives me that look that shows me he loves me, every time I laugh with a friend.

No, success isn’t about winning or losing. It’s about putting ourselves out there each and every day and not being afraid to pursue our dreams to the best of our ability. But, most of all, it’s about love. Doing what you love. Loving who you are. Putting love first in your life each and every day.

So, next time someone asks you, “How do you spell success?” Make sure you give them the correct answer: L-O-V-E.

Tell me how you define success and one lucky commenter will win an e-copy of INTRUSION so you can see for yourselves if Cam learns this valuable lesson.

Nanotechnologist Dr. Audra McCain has spent years hiding behind her research, shielding herself from hurt much like the dynamic armor prototype she’s worked so hard to build. When she is framed for its theft, she suddenly finds herself on the run with a man whose talent lies in hacking through the toughest of defenses.

Ever since a shattered knee ended his career in the Special Forces, Cameron Scott has felt like an intruder in his own life. Hiding his discontent behind a need-to-win mentality, he earns his living testing security systems by breaking them. When Nanodyne hires him to evaluate their system, Cam discovers someone has already breached the company at the highest level.

As Audra and Cam play cat and mouse with a ruthless thief out to use the prototype for his own sinister cause, they’ll have to break rules, violate security, and fight their growing attraction. But when love makes an unauthorized attack, Cam realizes he may have finally found the one firewall he can’t breach: Audra’s heart.

Intrusion was a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Finalist

Available at: Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Intrusion-Remnants-Book-2-ebook/dp/B005Y485Y0) | B&N (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/intrusion-cynthia-justlin/1106850346) | Apple (http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/intrusion/id478045784)

With her B.S. in the chemical sciences and her love of the periodic table (yes, she’s a geek and proud of it!) she’s finally found the perfect mix of romance and danger writing in the thriller genre. Cynthia enjoys music, movies and hanging out with her family. She lives in Arizona with her husband and two sons.

Look for EDGE OF LIGHT, a dark romantic thriller, coming from Carina Press May 2012.

Visit her website, http://www.cynthiajustlin.com, follow her on twitter, http://www.twitter.com/cynthiajustlin or “Like” her on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/CynthiaJustlinAuthor.

Guest post by Christi Barth

We’re a society who likes to judge others.  First impressions pack a punch that can linger forever.  You might hit it off with a co-worker, until you see them lunching with the office schlub.  Gossip – true or not – can permanently taint an image.  We seek acceptance from others, and often find our worth in what others may think of us.  This can be good…and bad.

Often in books, this theme revolves around the classic bad boy.  He screwed up in his youth, was vilified by the town, or somehow unforgivably hurt the heroine.  Perhaps that has led him to a crossroads: should he live down to everyone’s expectations, or try to surpass them?

In my book Act Like We’re In Love, the Hollywood hunk of a hero has a reputation of treating women as disposable.  So when Luke asks Linnea to meet his mother, she dismisses his request.

“Luke, I’m having the time of my life, but we both know the expiration date on this relationship is closing night. Your suitcases will be packed and ready to go as soon as that final curtain hits the stage. There’s no need to pretend otherwise.”

Linnea’s words were matter of fact, and her tone light and upbeat. Not what he’d expected. Her offer verged on a friendly business arrangement. It seemed perfect. And yet, like a collar a half size too tight, it didn’t quite fit. Chafed parts of him he couldn’t name.

More uncomfortable with every passing minute, every perfectly reasonable statement she made, he lashed out. “Don’t assume you know everything about me. My reality doesn’t have to conform to anyone’s expectations.”

“Forgive me for being rational,” she said, exasperation pitching her voice louder and higher. “We’re not joined at the hip. You’re under no obligation to introduce me to your mother.”

He picked up the pace, his long legs eating up the pavement. Temper pushed him faster till Linnea practically trotted beside him to keep from being dragged along. She flat-out pissed him off. Couldn’t she see how difficult this was for him? Did he really have to spell it out?

“Listen to me. I don’t care whether Mom wants to see you—which, by the way, she does. Don’t you get it? I want her to meet you. It’s important. Not to be polite. Not to torture you as payback for your parents breathing down my neck every day. But because you both matter to me, damn it!”

Linnea didn’t ask for any ties, had no expectations, and had gone above and beyond in the understanding department. Any man on the planet would do cartwheels in his shoes. Instead, her lack of outrage at his lack of commitment annoyed him to no end. If only he could figure out why.

No outraged father wielding a shotgun demands he commit.  Linnea doesn’t ask him to give up his job and stay with her.  Public perception is that, just like always, he’ll walk away from her in a matter of weeks.  Heck, he’s downright famous for the way he cycles through women.  Half of his career depends on his playboy image.  It would be so easy for Luke to be defined by the public’s perception.  And yet, how much richer could his life be if he put in the effort to rise above what little is expected of him?  Spoiler alert – he does decide to knuckle down and work toward true love.

So many great stories abound that harken back to this theme.  If Frodo had eschewed adventure to live the life of a typical Hobbit, all of Middle Earth would be overrun with Orcs by now.  Scarlett O’Hara put aside society’s perception of her as a simpering debutante and not only brought her family back from the brink of starvation, but opened a thriving business.  What are some of your favorite character’s that surpassed the world’s expectations of them?

Christi Barth spent years performing in musicals, singing about love and giving people a happy ending in every performance.  Then as a wedding planner she spent every day immersed in romance.  Now she writes it!  It is exciting to share her love of the theatre with the world through Act Like We’re In Love.  For all her fellow Broadway fans, favorite shows include Guys & Dolls, Phantom, and The Most Happy Fella.  A special curtain call for Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers, the show where she met and first starred opposite the love of her life.  She lives in Maryland with the absolutely best husband in the world (sorry ladies, but it’s true!).

Guest Post by J.K. Coi

What makes a monster? Is it scaly green skin, yellow eyes, and a forked tongue (or does that just make a lizard?)

Can a heartbroken, mutilated prima ballerina become a monster? Because the heroine of FAR FROM BROKEN, my holiday release from Carina Press sure believes that this is what she’s become.

After suffering a violent attack which left her at death’s door, Callie was saved only by the mechanical implants that replaced her legs, her hand, and an eye. She can’t bear to look at herself now, more iron and gears than flesh and blood, and she’ll definitely never dance again. She’s gone from graceful and pretty and talented, to a clumsy, ungainly shell of a person who feels nothing but anger and pain. Who believes herself of no use to anyone.

She hasn’t cried though. Even when Jasper shows up and starts fighting to pull her out of the dark, safe place she’s been hiding.

Jasper himself believes he’s a monster, because only a monster would lie to his wife and put her in danger the way he did. And perhaps it took a monster to insist on doing whatever was necessary to save her life…even if that meant dangerous surgery and artificial limbs. And only a monster would return to her after all she’d been through and ask her to take him back.

Two monsters who refuse to cry, but it will take a lot of tears before either of them can find out whether even monsters deserve a happily ever after.

Soldier. Spymaster. Husband.

Colonel Jasper Carlisle was defined by his work until he met his wife. When the prima ballerina swept into his life with her affection, bright laughter and graceful movements, he knew that she was the reason for his existence, and that their love would be forever.

But their world is shattered when Callie is kidnapped and brutally tortured by the foes Jasper has been hunting. Mechanical parts have replaced her legs, her hand, her eye…and possibly her heart. Though she survived, her anger at Jasper consumes her, while Jasper’s guilt drives him from the woman he loves. He longs for the chance to show her their love can withstand anything…including her new clockwork parts.

As the holiday season approaches, Jasper realizes he must fight not just for his wife’s love and forgiveness…but also her life, as his enemy once again attempts to tear them apart.

Far From Broken is available separately or in the anthology entitled “A Clockwork Christmas”

Guest post by Jami Gray

I have always loved the darker fairy tales, not the Disney kind they’re just too…bright and shiny.  The real Brother Grimm stories, now those were exciting.  Their monsters were scarier because they hid behind masks of normality, think the woodcutter’s wife in Hansel and Gretel.

When I write, I tend to develop my characters first and then their world opens up and away we go.  For Raine McCord, the heroine of Shadow’s Edge, her first spark came when I was listening to a favorite group (which I’ll keep nameless for now) and heard the following lyric:

See the animal in his cage that you built
Are you sure what side you’re on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?

This started me down the spiral of questions and answers until Raine starting haunting me from dark corners.  When she finally cornered me in a rain drenched alley in Portland, I just couldn’t refuse her request and Shadow’s Edge was born.

A common theme found in Urban Fantasy is that your hero or heroine have to be tough.  Otherwise all the creatures out there prowling around (vamps, weres, zombies, demons, feral slugs, etc.) will tear them to pieces.  Between the magic screwing things up and the massive amounts of supernatural creatures strolling around, their lives are never boring.  It’s what makes UF stories great.

For Raine, she has quite a few things to overcome. Some are external –human scientists, a twisted killer, a sexy partner, the rain.  Those she can deal with, one way or the other.  It’s the internal factors that make her who she is.  She’s  Kyn, the race of supernatural beings fairy tales all came from, and she’s a feared warrior known as a Wraith.  She’s tough, no arguing that.  Yet, thanks to some creative experiments when she was a teen-ager she’s not just Kyn, but something more, something frightening, even to her.

Shadow’s Edge follows Raine down a bloody trail of bodies into the shadowy world of power plays and half-truths, while forcing her to face the monster crouched inside.  Now it’s her turn to decide who’s really the monster–the one destroying the ones around them or the one who’s hunting them?

I warned you, I like my fairy tales dark and twisted!
Happy Holidays!

It takes a monster to hunt one, and for Raine McCord, forged in the maelstrom of magic and science, she’s the one for the job. In a world where the supernatural live in a shadowy existence with the mundane, a series of disappearances and deaths threatens the secrecy of her kind and indicates someone knows the monsters are alive and kicking.  Partnering up with the sexy and tantalizing Gavin Durand proves to be a challenge as dangerous as the prey she hunts.

When the trail points back to the foundation which warped Raine’s magic as a child, her torturous past raises its ugly head.  Gavin and Raine sift through a maze of lies, murder and betrayal to discover not only each other, but the emerging threat to them and the entire magical community.

Growing up on the Arizona-Mexico border, Jami Gray was adopted at the age of 14 and suddenly became the fifth eldest of 37 children. She graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor’s in Journalism and three minors-History, English, and Theater.  Shortly after marrying her techie-geek hubby (who moonlighted as her best friend in high school) she completed a Masters in Organizational Management from University of Phoenix Oregon.

Now, years later, she’s back in the Southwest where  she’s outnumbered in her own home by two Star Wars obsessed boys, one Star Wars obsessed husband, and an overly-friendly, 105-pound male lab.  Writing is what saves her sanity.

Buy Link:    www.BlackOpalBooks.com

Website:     www.JamiGray.com

Blogs:          www.7EvilDwarves.wordpress.com or www.JamiGray.wordpress.com

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