I'm so happy to have my friend Melissa Cutler back on the blog today! She's got a new series, and the first book has just been released. Let's get to the good stuff!
Risky
Business (Bomb Squad Hockey #1)
Publisher:
Berkley InterMix
Buy
Links:
The Blurb:
A heated match-up begins…
Welcome to Destiny Falls,
New York, home of Bomb Squad—an ice hockey team full of rugged military heroes.
But the season’s biggest match-up isn’t on the ice as one of their own prepares
to go head to head with his new boss…
Allison Whitely’s ex left
her with a mountain of debt and Cloud Nine, a struggling boat rental business.
With zero job skills, her only hope of getting back in the black lies in a
brooding ex-soldier who has her seeing red…
Theo Lacroix’s teammates
are counting on their star player to help them win an upcoming high profile
hockey game. But when a sexy tornado of a woman sweeps into town and expects
him to help her with Cloud Nine, Theo is tempted to skate away from it
all.
Theo vowed to never again
be someone’s knight in shining armor, but his feelings—and desire—for Allison
are becoming harder to ignore. He longs to save her, but to win Allison’s love,
he’ll have to throw out his old playbook and take the ultimate risk…playing
from the heart.
The Teaser: (From the first two paragraphs of the book!)
Of course, being that it was Allison Whitley’s lot in life to suffer the
presence of water, it was pouring rain the night the Buffalo police marched her
husband down the front walk of Pinky Rae’s Gentleman’s Club, right past Allison
and into one of four idling patrol cars.
From her birth, Allison’s world had been saturated with
water. It flooded her waking hours with rain, snow, swift rivers, and
waterfalls, and her nightly dreams with crashing waves and the insidious menace
of backyard swimming pools…
You can read the rest of Chapter One and Chapter Two in
an extended excerpt on my website
Meet Melissa!
Melissa Cutler
knows she has the best job in the world writing sexy contemporary romances and
romantic suspense. She was struck at an early age by an unrelenting travel bug
and is probably planning her next vacation as you read this. When she's not
globetrotting, she's enjoying Southern California's flip-flop wearing weather
and wrangling two rambunctious kids.
The Interview:
Lara: Tell us about
your new series. What are these books
about?
Melissa: I’m so
excited about this series. Bomb Squad is the name of the men’s league ice hockey
team that the wounded veteran heroes of the books belong to. The series concept
came to me in a dream. That sounds like a cliché, but, hey, it isn’t every
night that my dreams are invaded by a brooding, testosterone dripping,
motorcycle riding French guy. (I wish!) So I did what any self-respecting
writer would: I leapt out of bed shouting for a pen and paper. Mr. Cutler
happens to be used to this kind of craziness, so he just rolled over and went
back to sleep after a muttered “have fun, dear” while I got to work on what
would become Risky Business. [Lara: LOL!]
That brooding French guy ended
up being Theo Lacroix, the soldier hero of my first Bomb Squad hockey romance.
With Risky Business, Undefeated, and Game Changer, I wanted to explore the lives of combat wounded vets
after the dust settled. After they re-harnessed their power and their peace of
mind, after rehab was over, and they’d gotten back to the business of living.
And I wanted to pair each of them with a woman who’d challenge them, but also
love them fiercely.
Lara: What’s your
favorite hockey team/player?
Melissa: I was
just starting high school when the Pond was built in Anaheim, California, to
house the Mighty Ducks, which was about 30 minutes from my house. Along with my
best friend’s family, I was a season ticket holder until I moved to San Diego.
I’m still a rabid fan. I was so sad when they were knocked out of the playoffs
this year, and even sadder to see Teemu Selanne retire, since he’d been with
the team since that first season the team was formed and I got my first season
tickets. [Lara: Even though I am a die-hard Dallas Stars fan, I always enjoyed watching him play against us!]
Lara: You write several different types of books (Bomb
Squad series, Cowboys, and romantic suspense).
Do you work on one book at a time, or are you writing several books at
once?
Melissa: Well, my writing schedule is a bit more complicated than that because,
typically, I write the first few chapters of a book and an in-depth synopsis,
which becomes a proposal that gets pitched to my editor. Then, while the
editorial staff is trying to decide whether to buy the book/series—which can
take up to a few months, depending—I start working on a book that’s already
under contract, picking up with the next chapter where that proposal left off.
And, usually in the middle of writing that manuscript, one of my other books
will come back from the editor with revision or copy edit notes, so I take a
break from writing the manuscript and tackle those revisions. It’s a very fluid
process and I love that I write in several different sub-genres of romance
because it keeps my workdays fresh and fun.
Lara: Is there a playlist you’d recommend for reading your latest release?
Melissa: What a great question! I do create playlists for nearly every book I
write, including sometimes having specific songs attached to each character’s
journey. Sometimes, the songs are only connected through mood, even when the
lyrics don’t apply, and some songs are more about a single line in the song
that sparks my muse.
For RISKY
BUSINESS, I listened to Paramore’s “The Only Exception” a lot. And I frequently
listened to the album These Times by
SafetySuit. The mood I wanted to create was hopeful and buoyant, with touches
of people making wonderful self-discoveries and joyous discoveries about life
and the people around them, if that makes any sense.
Lara: What is your hero’s “kryptonite” – in other words, what will bring him
instantly to his knees?
Melissa: He hates being thought of as heroic and does everything possible to
avoid being put in situations where others’ safety, livelihood, or future hinge
on him.
Lara: What one thing about your hero drives his heroine crazy? And what one
thing about your heroine drives her hero nuts?
Melissa: Both Allison and Theo in RISKY BUSINESS spend the first half of the
book driving each other bonkers. Yeah, they don’t get along so well to begin
with. One thing that Theo does that drives Allison nuts is that, because of the
hearing loss he suffered during a traumatic brain injury, he has the ability to
“mute” the world by running loud appliances or starting his motorcycle or
turning the radio up. Allison HATES IT when he “mutes” her. [Lara: That would be annoying!]
As for what
Allison does to drive Theo crazy, her very presence at the boat rental company
they’re both vying for ownership of is a worst case scenario in Theo’s world.
That, and her fear of water that she just can’t seem to overcome.
Lara: What’s the first thing you do when you finish writing a book?
Melissa: I love this question. Not sure I’ve ever been asked that before. I
usually have a good cry, honestly. It’s like an adrenaline crash to finish a
book and my body lets it all out by crying. When that’s done, I head straight
for the kitchen and rummage for chocolate.
Lara’s GOTTA ASK: What are the next
five books on your ‘to be read’ pile?
Melissa’s GOTTA ANSWER: The second In Death book by JD
Robb, Sharla Lovelace’s Stay With Me,
Tracy Solheim’s Risky Game, Against the Cage by Sidney Halston, and Reaper’s Legacy by Joanna Wilde.
Where can you find Melissa?
What's next?
THE MISTLETOE EFFECT, which is a Christmas-set “Marriage of
Convenience” story, cowboy style. You can learn more about it on my website
CONTEST ALERT!
I’ve got a special treat for one lucky commenter.
A $10 Starbucks e-gift card. For a chance to win, please comment on this post
and let me know what some of the books on your “To Be Read” list are. Good
luck! (North America only)
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