Guest Post: Rebecca Grant

Everyone, we are joined today on this 30th Day of March by the wonderful, Rebecca Grant, women's fiction and romance author. Welcome, Rebecca, please make yourself a home and tell us about you and your work.

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It’s a pleasure to be a guest here today. Many thanks to Julieanne for having me! 

 I've always believed that writing women’s fiction and romance is a little like cooking. First, I like to lay my hero and heroine out gently on a well-oiled surface, take some seasoning up in my hands and smooth it into them until they’re so flavorful they’re ready to pop. Then I let them steep awhile in a nice marinade. When they're at their most succulent, sometimes I'll put them in a slow-cooking oven and turn them over and over, and other times I'll toss them on a blazing grill to sizzle. Either way, at some point in the story, they are going to devour each other… because love is unstoppable. And that’s why I adopted ‘love is unstoppable’ as my brand phrase!

My romantic suspense, CRADLE OF LIES, which releases April 1, is the story of Cord Archer, the son of a renown psychopathic serial murderer who must overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

We first meet Cord at sixteen. He’s as trapped as the six women his daddy has kidnapped… and is about to systematically dismember… and then murder… when suddenly… Cord sees an opportunity to escape.

The only problem is… Cord has been kept so isolated and ignorant, he has no idea how to escape, or where he might go for help.

And what about the six women? If he’s able to escape, he can’t risk taking them with, can he? One lone boy might escape the diabolical reach of his psycho daddy… but the women will just slow him down, won’t they?

When I first sat down to write this story, I intended to write about the glorious west. The immense Montana sky. The courageous, driving predilection the American cowboy has for the open-range. Yet, what came out was a gritty, teeth-clenching, dark story about a man who was so abused for the first sixteen years of his life, I almost stopped writing… until I realized this story epitomizes the unstoppable nature of love, and underscores our phenomenally remarkable ability as human beings to overcome any obstacle.

Here is the back cover blurb:

Forced to spend the first sixteen years of his life witnessing some of the most epic murders ever committed, what kind of a life can Cord hope for?

When Cord Archer first meets Mattie Rayne, her incandescent smile heats him like the summer sun, bleaching him clean. Nothing else matters except making her his. Before he can do that, his conscience compels him to explain why he entered an institution at age sixteen and spent five years learning to read, write and function in mainstream society.

Upon learning that Cord is the son of a notorious psychopathic serial-killer, Mattie realizes what a monumental effort it took for him to survive, much less make it all the way back from crazy. Knowing this only makes her love him more.

Just when it would seem Cord is finally about to know love, two phenomenally staggering events irrevocably change the course of his life. First, a sociopath becomes fixated on him. Next, his daddy escapes from prison with the sole intent of tracking him down.

Without giving too much of the story away, Cord is haunted by the possibility that he might have inherited the ‘psycho gene’. Although there is a great deal of disagreement among experts about whether a ‘psycho gene’ actually exists, there is evidence to link psychopathology to genetics.

Cord’s greatest fear is that although he’s managed to escape his father, he may not have escaped his father’s legacy. What if, one day, he wakes up with the desire to kill and maim, the way he watched his father for the first sixteen years of his life?

What if he has a child, who also inherits the psycho gene?

And what about Mattie Rayne? Even if she’s willing to take this risk, can he live with the possibility?

Before Cord is able to answer these questions for himself, he finds himself being stalked by a female sociopath… a woman whose plans for Cord are possibly even more twisted than what he experienced growing up with his father.

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CRADLE OF LIES twists and turns through the story of Cord at age sixteen as he fights to escape his father, Cord at age twenty-one when he falls in love with Mattie, and Cord at age thirty-six when he resigns from the FBI and returns home to Cradle, Montana, his only thought to find some kind of peace, knowing he can never be close to the one woman he loves, or any woman, because of his DNA.

Now that you know a little about the story, I’m curious…

1.       Do you believe that the ‘psycho gene’ exists?

2.       If you fell desperately in love with someone, would you marry him, even though you knew he might one day turn into a diabolical murderer, just like his daddy?

3.       Would you have children with a man who might pass on the ‘psycho gene’?

4.       And finally… do you believe that love is unstoppable? Have a brief example you’d like to share about the unstoppable nature of love?

Thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoyed reading about CRADLE OF LIES. Come by and visit me any time.

Rebecca E. Grant

Love is Unstoppable

Books by Rebecca E. Grant

CRADLE OF LIES is available April 1 through the publisher Red Sage, or from your favorite online bookseller. Read an excerpt.

Also available is LIBERTY STARR, my first contemporary western romance, available through Carina Press or your favorite online bookseller. Read an excerpt.

Soon to be released is my contemporary romance NAKED HOPE, available through The Wild Rose Press. Read an excerpt.

Here are some links of interest:

Author website

Blog

Facebook Author Page

Twitter

Goodreads

LinkedIn

Cradle of Lies 

Cradle of Lies - excerpt

Liberty Starr - Carina Press

Liberty Starr - excerpt

Naked Hope - excerpt

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Thanks, Rebecca for stopping by.

Now be sure to stop by the links and grab yourself a copy or two for yourself.