Later this month, my husband and I are going to New Orleans. I've been there before, but it was more than 3 decades ago. We have a bunch of historic sites we want to see, and my list of restaurants is, admittedly, already long. But I'd love to hear from readers - what is, in your opinion, the one place that is not to be missed in NOLA? I can't promise to reply to every email I get, but know that every recommendation is appreciated! And I will be sure to share my favorites after the trip. đ In other fun news...I have an AMAZING shout out from The Inner Circle for my books. As a thank you, I'm offering an exclusive giveaway just for readers who visit The Inner Circle's website. Click on the image to pop on over and see which book you can get from me for FREE! â 3 April Kindle Deals - only $1.99 each!Get THE BURIED HOURS, DANGEROUS GROUND, and CRASH SITE for only $1.99 for the month of April! Buy the kindle version and get the audiobook for only $1.99. The Buried HoursIs she following a path of redemption or an enemyâs revenge? A crime reporterâs traumatic past comes back to haunt her in a twisting novel of lies, betrayals, and killer secrets. âAn intensely emotional ride, dark yet so very satisfying... I couldn't put it down!â - Karen Rose, NYT Bestselling author âR.S. Grant puts the reader right on the trail in Yosemite with this dark thriller, and itâs a journey that will keep you reading all night.â - Victoria Helen Stone, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
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Dangerous GroundIn the remote and unpredictable Aleutians, danger comes without warning in an adrenaline rush of a novel by USA Today bestselling author Rachel Grant. âThis page-turning romance is headed for many a keeper shelf.â âPublishers Weekly (starred review)
Crash SiteFor archaeologist Fiona Carver, the Caribbean glistens with untold menace in a heart-racing novel by Rachel Grant âRachel Grant does it again! Engaging characters, gripping suspense, and steamy romance. Crash Site starts with a bang and delivers non-stop action.â âLaura Griffin, New York Times bestselling author Daphne du Maurier Award Finalist
Just a few more days to enter the Bookish Bracket giveaway. Fill out your bracket for a chance to win $900+ in prizes!đ a Kindle Paperwhite đ° $100 to BookShop.orgâ đŤ (3) month Box of Books subscription box đŻď¸ (2) bookish candles from Plume Goods And these books:
It might be spring, but we're still having some chilly weather where I live. If you also need something to heat up your nights, I recommend BROKEN FALCON - in which Chase gets his well-deserved and scorchingly hot happily ever after. Keep scrolling down to read and excerpt! From USA Today bestselling author Rachel Grant comes a sizzling romantic suspense where a damaged heroâs search for missing girls endangers the one woman he canât live without. Chase Johnston is leading a double life. After two years of psychological torment, the quiet, highly skilled Raptor operative now has a darker side, and heâs hellbent on bringing human-traffickers to justiceâusing any means necessary. The only relief he finds for his troubled mind is a woman heâll never meet in person. â Chapter OneWashington DC, September The five-inch blade glinted in the light as the girlâwho was only fifteen and looked even youngerâbrandished it in front of Chaseâs face. âWho are you?â she demanded. He was glad to see she was prepared for danger, but a knife wouldnât do her much good with the guys she was supposed to meet tonight. âIâm here to help you.â He paused, then added, âJessica.â The girl was tinyâfive-three at most and skinny as a rail. Her pale face had deep hollows under her eyes, which widened at his use of her real name. The hand holding the knife shook. âWho are you?â she asked again. This time, her voice was softer, suspicious, but less angry. âSomeone who knows the guys youâre here to meet are bad news. The job theyâre offering you isnât online.â âHowâŚhow do you know about that? Are you one of them?â He shook his head. âIâm not, but I know who you are because Iâm watching them. When I see a young woman is taking their bait, I intervene before itâs too late.â âYouâyou watched my audition?â Chase shook his head. There were many things he wouldnât do for this sideline of his, and watching child pornography pretty much topped the list. âNo. I read your reply to the ad and saw the selfie you sent. I have access to missing kids databases and ran your image. You ran away six weeks ago, so you were pretty easy to identify.â She still looked suspicious, and he didnât blame her. He could hardly tell her he worked for a large private security company that employed a hacker who could find his way into anything once he knew where to look. And Chase had made it his lifeâs mission to figure out where to look. He was haunted by a face he couldnât even be certain was real. Heâd given up on finding her, but he would find the people whoâd hurt her. Whoâd hurt him. And in the meantime, heâd use his dark hobby to find girls like Jessica and intercept them before they were taken in by CamDames, a legal online camgirl operation that had branched off into sex trafficking underage girls on the side. Jessica was their favorite kind of target. Young, homeless, and on the run. No money and out of options. This gig was her last shot, but she couldnât walk in the front door to apply because she was underage. On the legitimate side of the organization, CamDames offered a room to perform eight-hour shifts in front of the camera and maintained a dormitory-type living situation until each new recruit had earned enough tips to afford their own place. The backdoor portal made the same promises to underage girls. But none of the underage girls who answered the ad went to the official dormitory with the legal hires. No. Girls like Jessica found themselves imprisoned and forced into prostitution with offline clientele. The girls never received payment for the sex acts they were forced to perform. It was sexual enslavement, but Chaseâs only evidence of this wouldnât stand up in a court of law. CamDames had a squeaky-clean, legitimate setup on the outside, but someone in the organization was making a lot of money by trapping girls who applied for the job using a back door that had been set up just for the purpose of luring runaways like Jessica. Because Jessica couldnât be seen entering the premises, they arranged for a street-side pickup, and this was their favorite location. Out in the open, so it was supposed to feel safe for the girl. But it was a side street with less traffic and there were no cameras to capture a young girl waiting on the sidewalk in between two buildings with a dark, narrow alley at her back. Just up the street was a coffee shop that had security cameras, but Chase knew from experience the cameras were for show. They hadnât worked for months. If Jessica balked at getting in the car, there would be no witnesses. And she was already a runaway, so no one to report her missing. He nodded to the coffee shop on the corner. âTheyâre going to be here soon. Go inside Vivace Coffee. Now. Before they see you. Thereâs a blue-haired Black woman with a redheaded white woman sitting at the corner table. Theyâll help you.â The girlâs eyes flitted to the shop, then returned to his face. âWhy should I trust you?â âThese men arenât safe, Jessica. Theyâre going to sell your body, and youâll have no say. Talk to the women in the shop. Theyâll show you their IDs and take you to a safe place.â âIâI canât go back to my parents. My stepdadââ Chase nodded. âI know. We found your social media posts. They wonât send you home. Theyâll help get a guardian ad litem appointed so youâll have an advocate to get you into a safe living situation until youâre eighteen.â Chase and Tricia had done a lot of digging the moment they identified the girl this morning. Jessicaâs eyes narrowed. âI donât believe you.â She lifted the blade higher, as her hold had drooped as they talked in the darkened section of sidewalk. âIâm glad youâre prepared to defend yourself, but Iâm not the enemy. Please, go to the coffee shop.â Triciaâs voice came through his earpiece. âA dark cargo van is heading for the intersection.â Shit. He turned to the girl. âGo inside. Hear them out. Tricia and Isabel will help you. Itâs a public place. You can walk right out the door if you donât trust them.â She looked at him warily, then her gaze landed on the lit coffee shop. There were people inside. Witnesses who would remember her. âThey chose this spot because there are no cameras nearby and less traffic on this side street. You need to hurry. Go where people will see you and ask for help, so the guys in the van canât risk taking you.â Chase pulled a ski mask over his face. âTuck the knife away and get inside.â Her eyes went wide with alarm at the sight of the mask. âWhat are you going to do?â âMake sure they donât go after you.â Chase slipped into the alley as the girl turned and ran. The van rounded the corner as Jessica neared the crosswalk on the opposite side of the street. The light changed just in time, and she darted across the intersection. The driver stopped the van and called out the window, âHey! Jasmine! Come back!â Chase knew these guys always gave their marks names of animated princesses to use as an alias. They seemed to think it made the girls feel safe. And maybe it did, because girls like Jessica kept showing up. But then, Jessica was homeless and hungry and running out of options. Maybe the name Jasmine was the comfort of an old friend. And a promise of a happy ending. Chase stepped out of the shadows when the passenger, a thickly-muscled white man, opened his door and jumped out, prepared to run after the escaping girl. âForget it. You canât have her.â The guy whirled around. âWho the fuck are you?â âHer fairy godfather.â The guy whipped out a knife lightning fast and lunged forward. Chase had been expecting it, and this was his absolute specialty. Part of him wondered if heâd cut the meet time so closeâchanging the message the girl received so he could meet her a mere five minutes before these assholes showed upâbecause heâd been spoiling for a fight tonight. He wanted to see the face of this monster, to add him and the driver to his memory bank. To see if any fresh memories were triggered. But most importantly, because he wanted to beat the crap out of someone, and child traffickers were the ideal target for his rage. Plus, if he could send one of these guys to a hospital, maybe heâd get a name from a police report. Chase blocked the guyâs knife strike and followed with a jab to the sternum. The blade swooped down again. Chase met his wrist with a roundhouse kick that sent the weapon flying. The guy wasnât ready to give up, though, and came at Chase with fists. In seconds, it was over. The guy lay on the sidewalk cradling his arm with a snapped radius and ulna. He met the gaze of the chickenshit driver whoâd stayed in the car while his buddy was getting his ass kicked. âI suggest you get him to a hospital. The arm will need setting.â âShoot the motherfucker, Terry,â the wounded man said. âNo gunshots. Theyâve got the girl. Itâs too late.â âShoot him!â âGet in the fucking car,â Terry said. At least Terry was smart enough to know the score. A gunshot would draw too many witnesses. If the goons were identified, the girls whoâd been taken already might be found and rescued. Plus Jessica could testify and connect the dots. Jessica would be believed because her statement would be backed up by her two current companionsâa former DC police officer and a US senatorâs wife. Of course, these guys didnât know who was in the coffee shop, but they knew to cut their losses and get out if things went south. Coming after Chase with a knife could be the trigger that took down the whole operation. Which was sort of Chaseâs plan. He definitely wanted to take down the operation, but it would be a long, slow process if he was going to uncover the top dog. In the meantime, Chase got a chance to take out his burning aggression in a knife fight. Well, the other guy had a blade. Chase believed in fighting fair, so heâd been unarmed. The injured guy cursed and groaned as he got to his feet and lurched into the open passenger door. He wasnât fully inside before the van tore away from the curb. Chase snapped a photo of the license plate as the van raced down the street and slipped into traffic. The license plate would go nowhere, he knew, but still, he had to try. Once the van was long gone, he pulled off the ski mask and tucked it in his pocket, then headed the opposite direction from the coffee shop. Some would see his role here as that of a vigilante, so he didnât associate with Tricia and Isabel in front of witnesses. He reached his SUV and climbed inside, then pulled out the one-way earpieceâTricia hadnât been privy to his conversation with the goons, plausible deniability and all thatâand donned his Raptor headset to check in. âAll clear on my end. How is Jessica?â âScared, but sheâs willing to come with us to the shelter once she looked up who Isabel is on her phone.â âGlad to hear it.â Last fall, after a chip had been removed from just behind Chaseâs ear and his memories started coming back, heâd confided to Isabel some of what he knewâŚand some of what he feared. Sheâd been tortured with similar methods years ago, and theyâd long shared a bond because of it. Heâd known she would understand. Wouldnât judge. Would listen. She was the friend heâd needed and never really knew he had. And heâd desperately needed friends after the chip was removed. He had a lot of damage to work through, and it wasnât like he could see a therapist. It was a bitch of a therapist whoâd abused and tortured him in the first place. Over the course of their conversations, Isabel had formed a plan to fund a shelter for runaways, especially ones like Jessica, who faced abuse if they returned home. Within weeks, Isabel had quit her job at Talon & Drake so she could devote herself to the endeavor full-time. Her husband, Chaseâs former boss, Senator Alec Ravissant, set up an endowment to fund the home, and it was off and running by mid-March. Isabelâs work was kept from the press because the shelter was confidentially locatedânot even Chase knew where it wasâand her involvement could bring unwanted attention. She was a high-profile senatorâs wife whoâd been the target of scrutiny twice already, the last being nearly a year ago when Rav had received threats that might have been intended for her, followed by an explosion at their Maryland estate. At the shelter, Jessica would get the help she needed, including an advocate who would help her legally separate from her parents. It wasnât a permanent home, but theyâd do everything they could to get her placed in a safe foster home with ongoing support and supervision from the advocates at the shelter. There were no guarantees given that she was a minor, but she also hadnât just handed herself over to sex traffickers to escape her sexually abusive stepfather, so it was a win for now and hopefully forever. He cracked his neck and took a deep breath. He was wound up from the fight, and adrenaline coursed through him. He put his SUV in gear and set out for home sweet home, Raptorâs Virginia compound. Maybe the company gym would help him work off this energy, but then, it never had before. The last time heâd felt this way had been in Portland, six weeks ago, when a group of white supremacists abducted Raptor operative Josh Warnerâs girlfriend, Maddie, and his teenaged niece, Ava. Chase had a rousing fight with the prick whoâd threatened to cut Ava. Heâd needed a few dozen stitches after Chase turned the guyâs own knife against him. It had been scary how good that fight had felt. The exhilaration of releasing his rage on a nasty target. Heâd been craving it like a drug ever since. Even better, this time he didnât have to sit down for hours of debriefing with federal, state, and local cops and prosecutors in the aftermath. He needed to figure out how to better channel this energy. How to deal with this flood of emotions. Because it was all new since the chip was taken away. For two years, the chip had spoken to him with silent words, controlling his actions, his memories, his emotions. Eleven months after the chip was removed, the range of emotions he was able to feel once again remained both terrifying and exhilarating. He hadnât known thereâd been a mute on his feelings until it was stripped away, and the first thing he felt was horror over what had been done to him, followed by earth-shaking rage. Two yearsâ worth of banked rage meant he had a mountain of it inside him. Rage heâd let loose tonight when he snapped a guyâs arm like it was a popsicle stick. He wanted to do it again. He breathed through the ferocious urge as he navigated the busy city streets. He tried to exhale the fury, as if that was a thing. This wasnât who Chase was. The violent vigilante was who theyâd made him into. He didnât want to be a man who craved violence. A weapon theyâd wielded like he was some sort of monster. Wake the sleeping monster with the ring of a silent bell. Heâd seen the note. Knew what it meant. When he tapped into the rage, was he waking the monster? Or was he merely releasing the demons that haunted him? He reached the compound and parked in the fleet garage. He nodded to the guard at the front desk as he passed and made his way to his quarters. Thankfully, he didnât have a scratch on him from the fight, or heâd find himself facing questions he didnât want to answer. The only compound residents who knew about this extracurricular sideline were Tricia Rooks and the tech wizard who insisted everyone call him Mothman. Isabel hadnât even told her husband about the vigilante aspect, and he owned the company. The hacking they were doing was illegal, but then, the business they were going after wasnât legal, and they werenât looking to gather evidence for arrests and convictions. They were trying to save kids from being trafficked. Chase could be fired for using company computers this way, so he only used a personal computer, as did Mothman and Tricia. They used the company network, but there was no way around that. Mothman had set up firewalls and VPNs to prevent anyone from following their trail into Raptorâs system, and the company had their own internal setup for MothmanâsâŚsometimes questionable security work. Chase wasnât really worried about getting fired, not after what had been done to himâall because he worked for Raptorâbut still, if he were, so be it. He was doing what needed to be done in a feeble attempt to save his sanity along with the lives of runaway teens. And one thing was certain, without this workâthis lifeline Isabel had thrown him last winterâhe might well have given in to his demons months ago. One foot in front of the other. It was how he made it through each day and how he made it to his quarters now. He was on the first floor and had a two-room suite with a window in deference to his status as a member of Falcon team but also because heâd been to hell and backâtwiceâthanks to Raptor. Heâd play that card if he had to with the company CEO, Keith Hatcher, but he had a hard time believing it would ever come to that. Not when the ownerâs wife was working with him and using the manâs money to rescue teens at risk of being trafficked. The majority of the runaways they rescued identified as female, but there were a growing number of trans and nonbinary kids who were unsafe at home, and they were especially vulnerable and targeted by predators. He punched his code into his door and pressed his thumb to the reader. He trusted everyone who lived in the compoundâa year ago, heâd been the threat withinâbut he would never leave his quarters unlocked. Aside from not wanting his extracurriculars found out, deep down, he wondered if there could be another like him. Another sleeper. But eleven months ago, every single Raptor operative had shaved the spot behind their ear in solidarity and to submit to inspection. Plus, Dr. Parks was in prison. There werenât others like him. There couldnât be. And yet the fear was there. Deep inside. With nowhere to go. He locked the door and leaned against it. He radioed to Tricia that he was back, then signed off. He was alone. Safe. He remembered everything. No blackouts. No glitches. Tricia would have told him if there was a gap in time. He hadnât had a gap since October, but still, he tracked his movements every time he left the compound. The lock on his door was his time stamp. If he left in the middle of the night, Mothman would alert him and ask why. Heâd built this structure of check-ins and tracking to keep himself sane. After his cabin burned down, heâd tried to rent a few for away time, but quickly realized he needed others available to track him one way or another. The five weeks heâd spent in Oregon had been fine because heâd been with Josh, Ava, and Maddie. Josh knew his concerns. Now he was back and pumped with adrenaline, and there was only one thing that appealed, and it wasnât the gym. No. The thing he wanted most right now was what heâd promised himself he wouldnât do again when he returned to Virginia. Heâd also promised himself heâd never go there when pumped on adrenaline like this. Was it dangerous to mix the two? Would the adrenaline heighten his reaction? Would it become another drug? Would violence and Desiree become the hit he needed to keep going? He hadnât logged in to that account in six weeks. Since before Portland. He was done. He didnât need her. Well, he did. But he didnât want to. He wanted to be normal. He wanted to be attracted to women who werenât pixels on a screen. He wanted to walk into a bar and see an attractive woman and feel something, even if it was nothing but a mild attraction to a pretty face. But out in the world, he was numb. It was only here, in this private room, and only Desiree who made him feel. He was so utterly broken. He hated that the only time he felt strong emotions was when the violence was triggered. Sure, he laughed. He cared. He had spent many hours enjoying being in Portland with Josh and his family. But right now, he was in his skin, feeling in a way he couldnât process. And he wanted to see Desiree when he was feeling like this. He needed to see her. He sat down in front of his laptop and logged in, hoping she was online tonight and looking to earn a little money.
Hope your April is off to a good start and happy reading! â |
USA Today bestselling romantic thriller author and former archaeologist.
I'm thrilled to announce that DON'T LOOK BACK is now with my editor and the release date is now set for July 19th! I am totally in love with the characters and setting for this book and can't wait to share it with you all. Would you like to join my review team? I have a few spots available and am now opening up applications again--the last time I had spots available was 2 years ago, so now is your chance if you didn't make it on the team then. If you want to be considered for the team, click...
My trip to NOLA last week was a blast! In addition to getting to see a bunch of archaeologist friends who were in town for meetings, I also got to visit Alabama for the first time ever to see author pals Cynthia Eden and Manda Collins! đ Manda did me the huge favor of being the first reader for DON'T LOOK BACK and gave me great feedback. I'm now excited to say that Rand and Kira's story is going to be sent to my editor very soon and while I haven't finalized the exact date, I can say the book...
In honor of Women's History Month, I've teamed up with some AMAZING writers to bring you a HUGE, super fun giveaway. You've heard of the March Madness basketball brackets. Now, you can play Bookish Brackets: Readers Favorite Heroines! Katniss Everdeen? Nancy Drew? Vote for your favorite heroines and be entered to win:đ a Kindle Paperwhite đ° $100 to BookShop.org đŤ (3) month Box of Books subscription box đŻď¸ (2) bookish candles from Plume Goods AND books from NY Times & USA Best Selling...