September 2013 eBook Releases

Where Enchantment Lies (now published with Harlequin as A Chance Encounter)

Taylor Grant, burned-out big-city reporter, can’t believe his eyes.  The gypsy sprite kneeling beside him, as fresh and winsome as a child, has healed a heart attack victim simply by touching him!  It’s a terrific story–but Katie Riordan’s not talking.  She’s incensed when he publishes the incident any way, attracting to her hordes of curiosity seeks …And one threatening phone caller.

Appalled because he’s just hurt her, Taylor offers help and finds enchantment in her arms.  Exotically endearing, demurely provocative, Katie brings new life to his weary world.  He hungers for what she possesses, while doubting it even exists and fights to protect her from a dark, encroaching danger.

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: Originally, this was entitled Where Enchantment Lies.  It was the fourth and last book that I wrote for Second Chance At Love/Berkeley.  I wrote it under my Beth Brookes pseudonym.  I took from the life of my psychic and clairvoyant friends who had gifts of strong intuition and precognition.  People were forever calling them crazy, weird or worse because they didn’t understand the quality of their unique sixth sense gifts.  

I wrote this book because I wanted to explore what happens when your cover is blown and people actually see you perform a “miracle.”  And we all know that most people think they’re seeing things or it can’t be possible. What are the stresses and strains put on the person who has such a gift, say, of healing?  If a person gets better because you laid hands on them, everyone should be happy.  Right?  No.  Because there are always a "Doubting Thomas" hidden around every street corner.  

I happen to be clairvoyant myself and won’t go into my psychic gifts I inherited from my family tree, but I can tell you, I stay out of the public when I utilize them.  Most people do not understand simply because they are not educated.  It’s not a matter of believing or not believing.  It’s simply that the world is much grander and fascinating than most ever thought it could be. Enjoy Katie and Taylor’s story!  And maybe a little magic will happen!

Back To Top of Page

Beginnings (now published with Harlequin as Beginning With You)

To Soar as a pilot.  To love as a woman.

Dedicated to serving the public when emergency strikes, never hesitating to risk their own lives in heart-racing rescue missions, Search and Rescue is an elite corps of helicopter pilots of the United States Coast Guard.  Joining their ranks is proud and beautiful Rook Caldwell, a woman who audaciously breaks her way into the close-knit, all-male preserve that jealously guards its privileges against all intruders.

Rook hopes to make the Coast Guard her future as well as her family.  Soon, however, she must not only fight to win the respect of her fellow flyers, but come to grips with her unexpected feelings for Jim Barton, a wealthy businessman whose brilliant smile disarms her and make her fear for her heart.  To allow their growing intimacy to triumph as it should, to realize all she has sought so hard to achieve as a pilot, Rook will need both a woman’s strength–and a woman’s tenderness.

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: Originally, this was titled Beginnings and I sold it to Popular Library/Warner.  I wrote it under my ‘real’ name, Eileen Nauman.  I spent seven days at US Coast Guard station Port Angeles researching this book. Captain Bud Breault, the skipper of the base, made sure my husband David and I had access to every part and nuance of the station.  This meant interviewing the SAR (search and rescue) pilots, the enlisted men and women who flew with them on a rescue, the mechanics who kept these helicopters flying as well as the CO himself.  It was an eye opening experience and Captain Breault was kind enough, patient enough, to answer all my questions.  Things like hove-out-of-ground effect was completely lost on me!  I flew fixed wing aircraft and never flown a helicopter, and this was a special danger to the helos, so my understanding of it was key.  And he gave plenty of examples of how it worked, and how a helicopter would literally fall out of the sky if it didn’t have enough air beneath the blades.  You’ll find it plays a part in the the novel.

I loved this book for other reasons.  That Rook and Noah Caldwell came out of a torn, dysfunctional family.  How they ended up at the same Coast Guard station and was forced to start coming to terms with it and with one another.  That Rook, a woman, was one of the first women pilots in the USCG and had her own pitch battles to fight with not only pilots, but a chief in maintenance who wanted to see her fail.  There’s a lot of excitement, adventure and tension in this book.  Most of all, I liked the hero, Jim Barton, who saw through Rook’s defensive nature, saw the good person beneath and gently coaxed her out so that they could have a real shot at a relationship with one another.  Only, a major disaster occurs and Jim isn’t sure any of them are going to survive it.

Valkyrie (now published with Harlequin as Danger Close)

New York Times bestselling author Lindsay McKenna brings us the exciting beginning of her Shadow Warriors series…

Placing women in ground combat is only a test for Congress, but for volunteer Corporal Cathy Fremont it’s life…and probably death. In the exotic jungles of Thailand, she’s trapped in a hotbed of deception and abuse because the enemy she can’t escape is on her side of the battle line. One risk she doesn’t need is an alliance with a marine, but trusting intense Captain Jim Boland might be her only chance of survival.

Caught in the crosshairs of danger and political intrigue, Jim must sacrifice his hidden agenda to protect the woman who reawakens the passion inside him. But deadly corruption is closer than they think, and may destroy them both.

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: This is going to be available ONLY in ebook from Harlequin. Valkyrie was my first ebook and it came out in 1999. In 2000, it won Romantic Times Magazine eBook of the Year award… a huge surprise for me and vindication that eBooks were going to be a major tour-de-force to come.

And yes, I was right about that! It’s 2013 and eBooks are a used by 52% of the USA population! I had originally created this book because I felt, even back then, that eventually, women would be allowed in combat. This story is fiction, of course, but the trials and challenges the heroine, Cathy Fremont, as a US Marine Corps corporal goes through, are as real as it is today and tomorrow. Leon Panetta, in March 2013, opened up all combat slots to women in all military branches, so it is another vindication of my vision that this would someday happen.

Captain Jim Boland, USMC, black ops Marine Force Recon officer, is pulled into a
diabolical political plot, used as a pawn to get Corporal Cathy Fremont’s trust. In doing so, he falls in love with the courageous, caring woman who puts her team ahead of her own needs. This is a powerful, gritty, visceral love story. And it is a prequel to Down Range, HQN, December 2013.

Back To Top of Page

Hostage Heart(now published with Harlequin) Historical

An Enemy’s Love

With both her parents dead, Lark Gallagher was a woman alone in a harsh world that scorned her–daughter of a white man an an Apache woman.  But she was determined to survive and to save the ranch that been her father’s dream.

Matt Kincaid was also a man with a mission — to avenge the Apache murder of his wife and child. Yet when he was wounded and near death, it was the gentle hands of the wildly beautiful Lark that nursed him back to life and made desire rage in his heart.  As the cruel vengeance of their two words threatened their very lives, they clung to each other until the past’s bitter memories were lost in the magnificent fires of all–consuming love.

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: I loved writing this historical book for Avon.  It takes place in the late 1800’s as the settlers were pressing West. Native Americans were seen as useless vermin to be destroyed, their land taken and put on reservations. My heroine is a half breed, half Apache and half White. She lives in a netherworld where the Whites spurn her bloodlines. I loved her spunk and her ability to move forward despite all the challenges. And my hero, Matt Kincaid, was a man with prejudice toward Indians. Imagine his surprise when Lark saves him from dying?

Night Flight (now published with Harlequin)

Where the Brave go, and lovers dare to dream.

The last thing Megan Roberts needed was an affair with a jet jockey.  For Megan, coming home to Edwards Air Force Base meant facing up to her childhood with her risk-taking father and an alcoholic mother, and finding her own path in the world of handsome test pilots, Officer Club groupies, and Air Force wives.

Yet there is something about the tall, confident fighter in cowboy boots and jeans that said he was a breed apart. Coming up the hard way,  honing his flying skills, and pushing himself to his limits, Sam Holt was fighting a bitter rivalry and desperately trying to escape the memory of tragedy.  When Sam urged Megan to follow her heart’s instincts, a dangerous intrigue of jealousy and scandal started to swirl about them like a hot desert storm, threatening his career and her peace of mind.  But Meagan knew she was facing her best chance for the most daring act of all–to love.

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: I had spent five days out at Edwards Air Force Base, deep in the Mojave desert near Lancaster, California.  I’d interviewed test pilots, flown in a T-38 jet as a chase plane on a real test flight above the base.  We would zoom up to forty-thousand feet and the test pilots would kick the plane into tests as our chase plane circle a mile around it, watching for any leaks or something flying off the test plane.  We did that at least five times.  By that time, wearing a G-suit and oxygen mask, my legs were bruised and tender.  The G-suit inflates more and more as the G’s grow higher.  And let me tell you, we were pulling four to five G’s.  And few realize this by the oxygen mask system is one where you have to forcefully exhale in order to get the O2 into your body….so you really can’t, as things are going on, forget to breath.  Some people tend to hold their breaths when they’re in a crisis or stress situation, and this was both as far as I was concerned.  But I wasn’t going to do that and really concentrated throughout the flight to not pass out due to lack of oxygen.  Which can happen real easy at the altitudes were were zooming up and down at.  

Night Flight is a story about two test pilots at Edwards Air Force base.  I saw a lot of things while I was there…both official and unofficial.  The competition between these test pilots was pretty savage, although low key to an outside observer. Being a writer, I’m a little more sensitive to nuances, looks, gestures, voice tone and body language where how a person really feels, comes across.  The story is about competition, but it’s also about finding love and the pressures and stresses on the women and wives who love these daring men. 

Back To Top of Page

On Wings of Passion (now published with Harlequin)

Fiery journalist Erin Quinlan doesn’t want to write the military expose assigned to her. But the job will give her a chance to hurt the Air Force as it hurt her. Revenge will be sweet — even if it can’t bring back her husband.

Captain Ty Phillips obviously doesn’t relish playing host to hostile Erin, and their tempers clash like steel on steel. But Ty’s cool control in the cockpit earns Erin’s deep respect… just as his powerful embrace sends her spinning into the stratosphere. Then their professional commitments force them to separate… and, heartbroken, Erin faces a bleak future without the man she loves.

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: This book was originally published with Second Chance At Love, Berkeley and under my Beth Brookes pseudonym.

I called the Pentagon and told them I wanted to do a positive book on the B-52 crews who were a part of SAC, the Strategic Air Command. They arranged for me to go up to K.I. Sawyer AFB up in the UP (upper peninsula) of Michigan. I was given DV (distinguished visitor’s) quarters, a house on the base as well as an Air Force officer who was a SAC pilot, to take me around the base. I had five days at the base and got to interview SAC pilots on alert, where the B-52’s are parked out in front of their concrete bunkers where they stay while on duty, and saw the nuclear warheads beneath each of their wings. It was a chilling reminder that although 99.9% of the U.S. Population goes about their daily lives, that there are men and women in the trenches ready to sacrifice their lives for their country and us.

I flew two flights in a B-52 bomber. The first flight was a twelve hour day mission. We left Michigan, wheels up at dawn and flew to Nellis AFB area in the desert of Nevada. There, the gunner scored electronic bomb hits on targets below. We flew low and it was exciting to say the least. Then, we swung around and went over Texas to Florida where we became “enemy” targets of the Air Force jets scrambling from bases and again, pilots were being trained to hit the ‘enemy.’ Turning around after being the rabbit chased by the foxes, we landed at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. The pilot, knows a “Silver Fox” (every pilot has a handle or moniker) took us off base to what he said was the best barbecue in the world. It was. Then, that evening, we flew out just before dusk, was at five hundred feet through the Shenandoah Valley area and finally, six hours later, landed back at K.I. Sawyer AFB. I was whipped. I didn’t see how these men could do this kind of sheer, tense work, all the time at their stations. But they did.

My book comes out of a lot of experience at K.I. Sawyer, but also, having to go to Wright AFB in Dayton, Ohio, to get my high altitude flight card that would allow me to fly in military aircraft. My one day hyperbaric chamber experience was interesting and I leaned what my hypoxia symptoms were. There were times when our B-52 was flying at forty-thousand feet and as low as five-hundred feet. And anyone in a B-52 had a pressurized cabin, but if there was ever a leak, the whole six-man crew could develop hypoxia symptoms. The pilot and copilot, when making bomb runs or working with other military aircraft, however, always wore oxygen masks. That is a smart thing to do. We had no problems in our cabin. The B-52 are over seventy-five years old and the backbone of our bomber fleet. One of the best designed aircraft in the world.

Torrid Nights (now published with Harlequin)

Mackenna Scott has build roads and bridges throughout wild, lush Indonesia, proving unquestionably her ability as an engineer.  But when her new project lags, her boss Brock Hampton, dares to challenge her as a professional — and as a woman.

They clash inevitably and repeatedly.  Yet Brock’s raw power inflames Mackenna’s senses.  His work-roughened hands sear her flesh.  As they forge a tempestuous union in teeming Asian jungles and, later on the dazzling Australian beaches, Mackenna strives to tame this tiger of a man.  Then, abruptly, Brock vanishes from her life, leaving her angry and bereft.  Is his departure the betrayal it seems…or a final proof of his love?

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: Second Chance Was originally written for Love and Berkeley Publishing.  I had written it under my pseudonym, Beth Brookes.  And interestingly enough, I chose Mackenna as the first name of my heroine for this book.  I wonder if it was a foreshadowing of things to come?  This was the third book written for SCAL.  And later, I wrote Captive of Fate, my first military romance, and SCAL turned it down, saying it was too serious a book, too realistic.  I turned around and sold it to Silhouette Special Editions and the book changed the market insofar as going from light, fluffy, humorous books to gritty, realistic romances.  Who knew?  Anyway, I ended up, once selling that book to Silhouette, using the pseudonym, Lindsay McKenna.  Kind of a neat dovetail that I really didn’t see until just recently.

Torrid Nights is about a woman civil engineer in Indonesia, putting in a road with her construction company she works for.  I had a lot of help from my husband on this one, insofar as technical help.  He is a civil engineer and added his knowledge to the book so that it was authentic.  This was a deeply intense, emotional book with both characters wounded and still churning in the pit of them.  And the hero doesn’t have trust in women, anyway, due to his destructive marriage and ensuing divorce.  By the time these two meet in the hot, humid Indonesian jungle, they are both projecting upon one another.  Add to that a construction schedule that’s already behind and you have a lot of pressure and stress.  I loved this book and it was one of my first ‘serious’ books because I was not a “fluff” writer. Which is why I departed from SCAL, who wanted only fluff.  One cannot write what they are not.  

Back To Top of Page

Untamed Desire (now published with Harlequin)

Beautiful, tempestuous and newly-divorced, Storm Reynolds is determined to succeed as a bush pilot in Alaska.  The sportsmen she flies into the wild are a lusty lot, but she can handle any situation–and any man, except Jim Talbot, her lean, brooding boss.  Jim wants her fired!  But why?

On a night of tender sorrow, the desire they have refused to admit bursts into soaring passion.  But in the frozen wilderness they face a final, brutal tests that threatens their love and their lives.

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: This book was originally with Second Chance at Love and written under my Beth Brookes pseudonym.  It was the second book I’d published.  Because I was not a “fluff and stuff” author who could write “light” books, I stayed true to my “serious” and “reality-based” writing style.  And because my first book had good sales numbers, despite the fact I was “different” in the publishing genre, the editor took book number 2, which was Untamed Desire.

This book encapsulates my knowledge and experience as a pilot flying fixed wing aircraft.  It is a story of a woman pilot, Storm Reynolds, who is bucking the good-ole-boy system up in Alaska and is a darned good bush pilot.  These are the pilots who fly the back country of Alaska’s wilds, dropping off fishermen and hunters into remote places they can’t get too except by bush plane.  

The challenge and friction in the story comes from her boss who owns a bush pilot company in Anchorage, Alaska.  Jim Talbot has his own prejudices, among them, that women can fly as bush pilots.  Storm is bucking the system, bucking him and it’s going to take all her resolve and courage to force him to overcome his belief she’s not a good enough pilot.  I loved this book because in the 1980’s women were fighting to be recognized that they were far more than just housewives and mothers; that they had intelligence, had dreams that they wanted to fulfill outside the home (and still have a family, if they wanted too).  The book was a protest and a microcosm of what was reflected out there for every woman wanting to carve a career niche out there for herself.

Hold Fast ‘Til Morning (now published with Harlequin as When Tomorrow Comes)

By day, dark-haired engineer Cait Monahan was the only woman for the job — troubleshoot a behind-schedule pipeline in Argentina.  By night, she was a woman alone, tormented by dreams of her husband’s tragic death.

In her need, she reached out to Dominic Tobbar, whose kisses inflamed her senses and melted the barrier of the past.  Cait was tough on the outside, but vulnerable underneath.  Could she ever learn to love again?

PURCHASE eBOOK

Author Comment: This was my FIRST book I ever got published!  I can’t tell you the thrill after working at my writing for 22 years, to have this book bought by Second Chance at Love/Berkeley Publishing.  To say I was over the moon that it was bought can’t even begin to put into words! And SCAL demanded that I have a pseudonym, so I chose Beth Brookes.  Publishing company’s at that time, wanted to “own” your name so that they would enforce you staying with them to publish. That has changed a lot since 1980 when I entered the book publishing arena. I ended up with Beth Brookes for  SCAL, Lindsay McKenna for Silhouette/Harlequin, wrote under my ‘real name’ of Eileen Nauman for Popular Library/Warner and a couple of books for Harlequin early in my career.  

I had made my hero in When Tomorrow Comes, a civil engineer.  And my heroine was one as well.  She is an American woman coming down to Argentina to build a pipeline and bridge across a river.  And of course, in Latin American, women are seen not as professionals having a career.  Keeping in mind I wrote this in 1980 when women down there really didn’t have the opportunities for a career like a man did.  The friction between the hero who is Italian heritage but his family comes from Argentina, is pretty obvious–he doesn’t think any woman could handle an engineering project.  Never mind that Kate, the heroine, has built structures, bridges and pipelines all over the world.  

It was a fun book to write and was “serious” versus the “fluff and humor” that was being sold at that time.  I’ve never been a fluff writer…just don’t have it in me this lifetime.  I’ve always written serious, realistic books because I feel real life is a friction and great challenge in a person’s life–whether in real life or in a story like this.

Back To Top of Page