The promised winter storm arrived in Georgia last Sunday and us Atlantans have been iced in for almost a week.  Iced in and snowed in are two different animals and I hope you never have an encounter with black ice.  He is a deceptively mean SOB who lurks in the dark of the night to steal your traction right out from under your wheels and sends you spinning out of control.  I, myself, did a 180 in the middle of a five lane highway at midnight on Friday going to pick my son up from work.   I count it a complete miracle that I and my car did not suffer damage.  When I came to a stop, I didn’t even have room to open my car door, the bridge’s guardrail was so close.  There was a reason no one was out.  The South is uniquely cursed.  Whenever we get a snowfall, because it almost always warms up just enough then freezes again to form a hard ice on top of everything.  And it is slick.  But enough about me…

This week I introduce you to the heroine of Collateral Damage, Lauren Collins, a mother of six year old twins who lives in suburban Atlanta.   In the middle of the night she gets a call from an American Embassy in Brazil.  Her soon to be ex’s body, Bill Collins, was found floating in the lake of a five star resort.  She hangs up the phone stunned and…

Suddenly glass shattered and Sasha and Sam started barking. Fearing the boys were up and in the kitchen, Lauren ran down the hall.
A quick glance in their room brought her racing heart to a stop before it thundered painfully harder. Both Matt and Mitch were asleep in their beds. Then who was downstairs? Had Sasha and Sam broken something? Halfway down the steps she caught sight of a black clad hulking figure standing just inside the kitchen French doors.

From this point on everything that Lauren believes about her life and the world around her starts to unravel.  She and her sons run for their lives.  One man puts himself between her family and a killer.  That man is Jack Hunter, a wounded soldier with blood on his hands.  Jack is determined to find the truth.  He killed Bill Collins two weeks ago in Lebanon, so how did the man’s body end up in Brazil reportedly murdered just yesterday?  What he discovers could not only destroy the world as we know it, but could cost him everything.  What does a man do when he falls in love with the woman whose husband he killed?

For those of you who tuned in last week, I was in the middle of writing the dreaded synopsis for book two of my Silent Warrior Series, titled Tactical Deception.  I am happy to say that Tactical Deception will be released in the Fall of 2011, provided that everything goes well.  This is the story of Lt. Col. Roger Weston and Mari Dalton who are secondary characters in Collateral Damage.

Here is a taste of their story in Collateral Damage

Now that Neil was gone, had fate landed her back into the death that she had escaped? For once again, Mari was imprisoned in a windowless room, and death was banging on her door.

She told the emergency operator where she was located streetwise, but couldn’t remember the name of the food mart. After hanging up, she began to wonder what would happen when the police did come. She hadn’t thought about anything but her grief and the baby since Neil was killed. Was she even allowed to remain in the United States now? Her application for citizenship hadn’t been approved yet. Would the police lock her behind bars and accuse her of wrongdoing? She had hit the man with the door first.

Heart pounding impossibly faster, she searched through her incoming calls, found the one number she swore she would never use and hit the send button, and prayed Lt. Col Roger Weston answered.  She was out of time and as good as dead.

Stay tuned for more.  As soon as I get my dreaded taxes done I will be writing Tactical Deception and giving you a taste of that as well.

Go forth and be thankful for every blessed moment that you are alive!

P.S. The Golden Globes are on tonight and a very special lady will be the Golden Globe lady!  Gia Mantegna!  Check her out!

J.L. Saint, aka Jennifer St. Giles, aka Jennifer Saints.

The post Week Two: Suspenseful Seven Sentence Sunday appeared first on USA Today Bestselling Author Jennifer St. Giles.

It’s cold out.  The sun is shining brightly, and I woke up this morning determined to finish the dreaded synopsis for Book 2 of my Silent Warrior Series, titled TACTICAL DECEPTION!  More about this in a moment.  First let me give you the SEVEN SUSPENSEFUL SENTENCES FROM COLLATERAL DAMAGE.  Then I will address something that everyone both loves and hates this time of year…The NEW YEAR RESOLUTION and end up with TACTICAL DECEPTION.

Meet Sergent First Class, Jack “DT” Hunter from COLLATERAL DAMAGE

“Shorter of breath and one day closer to death…

Pink Floyd’s “Time” hammered through Sergeant First Class Jack Hunter’s brain as he tightened his grip on the treadmill and ran harder, his heart pounding, his lungs burning. Rage tinged with fear made for a potent Power Bar that fueled his drive. Sweat poured from his brow and his body screamed for relief, but he couldn’t stop. Not yet.

His vision dimmed, and President Anderson’s address on the overhead TV calling for a swift but rational retaliation to al-Qaeda’s latest attack became nothing but a blur in his mind.

Life often hinged on the details, those seemingly insignificant microscopic events that most people trampled over obliviously.”

That is the beginning paragraph of the book.  Jack has no other choice but to damn the consequences and move full speed ahead when news reports of an American Businessman killed yesterday in Brazil surface.  Jack knows without a doubt that he killed the man two weeks ago on a FUBAR mission in Lebanon.  Nobody believed him because the body disappeared.  Now Jack goes AWOL from the hospital, determined to uncover the truth and gets more than he bargains for when he meets up with the businessman’s widow and two small sons.  They end up running for their lives from assassins as they unravel a global terrorist plot and Jack loses more to the family of the man he killed than he ever thought he had–his heart.

Read the full excerpt of COLLATERAL DAMAGE Here.

Now the dreaded New Years Resolutions…

Those one sentence killers that everyone painfully utters with their hearts full of hope that this year they can turn the tides in their life and accomplish their heart’s desire.  I took the plunge and made two myself.  I had meant not to make any, so that I wouldn’t have to face myself in the mirror when I failed to carry through with my self-promises.  But then I heard two, one from my son and one from a radio talk show host and I thought.  You know what?  That’s exactly what I am going to do.

New Year’s Resolution number One.  JUST DO IT DAMN IT.  This one came from my son.  A very simple motto with which to face the mountains of little things that never get done year after year.  A simple motto to face that nagging mess on my desk.  A simple motto to face writing the next book, or blogging on my thoughts.  Writers are extremely good at procrastination.  It is a job requirement meant to keep our souls in a state of torment because we are compelled by forces beyond our control to write, and yet abhor the discipline of having to sit before a blank computer screen until inspiration strikes.  But then when inspiration finally does hit us, writing a story is like soaring through the air with the wind beneath our wings and the sun bright and warm upon our faces.

New Year’s Resolution number Two.  MAKE EVERY CHOICE A WISE ONE.  A very simple motto to face everyday and every decision that comes your way.   Before you decide, before you speak, before you act, take half a second and ask yourself IS THIS CHOICE A WISE ONE.  Would that we all do it.  For now I am seriously going to do a New Year’s resolution trade with my youngest son.  I’ll tell myself every day to just do it damn it.  If he’ll ask himself at every choice if it is a wise choice or not.  Considering he just turned eighteen, maybe I will avert some of the angst of being a mom.

Now about TACTICAL DECEPTION..

This will be Lt. Col. Roger Weston and Mari Dalton’s story.  For those of you who have read COLLATERAL DAMAGE, then you will already know who the hero and heroine are.  At this point I can tell you that Roger is willing to put everything on the line to save Mari and her unborn child, but between Mari’s radical family, a plot to kill the president, and a extremist out to kill them both, it might not be enough to save them.  But then perhaps Mari has a surprise that will turn the tide.  Well keep you posted on the details of the book and what is happening in my life here!

There are  a host of great authors participating in the SUSPENSEFUL 7 SENTENCE SUNDAY.  Please go check them out here.

Good Morning, Go Forth and choose Wisely!

Jenni

The post Suspenseful Seven Sentence Sunday!!! appeared first on USA Today Bestselling Author Jennifer St. Giles.