First of all, I don’t tell people what I do for a living, mostly because I don’t like talking about myself. I don’t even tell my neighbors, and I’m pretty sure a lot of them think I’m unemployed. At least one, though, thinks I’m a drug dealer because he, in a moment when his own dealer’s supply ran low, inquired if I’d be willing to sell him a dime-bag of marijuana. I declined the transaction. My morning begins the same as most people’s. My wonderful, beautiful wife gently wakes me up at 8:15AM when she goes to work, and then my infant son ensures that I stay awake by screaming at the top of his lungs from the room next door. As I swing my legs off the bed, I look at the mirror, where, taped to the upper right corner, is a hand written sign that says, “You wanted kids, too.” After I get up, my son and I play for a few hours in the living room. In that time, I’m usually vomited upon at least once. There’s also a fair chance that I will be kicked in the wedding vegetables as well. My friends with older children…

When I sat down to write HELL ON WHEELS, the debut title in my Black Knights Inc. series, I knew there would be a long list of spec-ops/custom motorcycle mash-up books to follow. Why? Well, because like many romance readers, I absolutely lurv a good series. I delight in watching secondary and tertiary characters develop from one book to the next. I adore revisiting previous heroes and heroines and seeing where they are in their life’s journey. I yearn to return to familiar places and reconnect with familiar faces. Basically, I want to read more and more and more about these characters who have come to feel like… well… family. And in honor of the release of HELL FOR LEATHER, book number six in the Black Knights‘ continuing saga, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite series. Yay! Jaci Burton’s Play-by-Play Series THE PERFECT PLAY The last thing event planner Tara Lincoln needs is the jet-set lifestyle of a football pro like Mick Riley; even though their steamy and passionate one-night stand proved that Mick is an all-star—both on the field and in the bedroom.Tara played the game of love once and lost big, and she doesn’t…

Every moment we can’t be sure the next moment will come. Life is a battlefield no one survives; death is the midnight prowler who gets us all in the end. So we love suspense literature because it reminds us of this while reassuring us it’s happening to someone else. The same reason we slow down to see the bodies of a car wreck: horror and obsession. Trying to understand death. Hoping, perhaps, for a clue that something survives. And so we love risk. We climb cliffs and jump from airplanes, drive too fast, live as dangerously as we dare, and sometimes kill ourselves in the process. Why? Because risk and suspense are living deeply. At times when my own life has been most in danger, although terrifying, are among those I’ve lived most deeply and instinctively. Danger brought me back to my primeval bones, an atavistic hunger to survive. Suspense reminds us of our mortality and deepens our hunger for life. And a good novel can put us so deeply into its suspense that we become silent characters – terrified, loving, joyous or sad – just like the others. Begging for one outcome yet dreading the worst. As if it…

Readers may know, years back, I cut my teeth co-authoring several thrillers with James Patterson. Judge and Jury, Lifeguard, the Jester, and the early Women’s Murder Cub series. I always refer to it as a combination MFA/MBA in Thriller Management.   That was many books ago. I just published my eighth solo thriller, Everything to Lose, the story of a determined mother who is lured to do something wrong, indeed criminal, to protect her challenged son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, and then her world caves in.   I never set out to write Patterson-clones. What I have always wanted to do was to keep the pages turning. And to write twisty, plot-centric thrillers with lots of reversals and surprises, but about recognizable, every day heros and families with emotionally resonant endings. My first book, The Blue Zone, was probably pretty Pattersonian at that. With a hundred chapters, lots of unexpected twists and turns; lots of italics and exclamations. Then I was pushed to write frenetic thrillers like 15 Seconds and No Way Back, putting likeable people in situations that spiral out of control from the opening pages. This book I just took my time and let the reader live in…

Good guys chasing bad guys. Bad guys chasing good guys. They’re all armed with pistols, rifles and knives while sporting devil-may-care attitudes. Throw in the ladies doing their own chasing and saving lives while wearing (attractive) skirts and matching (lethal) accessories. Mix all this with lawless Delaware Bend, Texas, and even more lawless Indian Territory in the 1880s and you’ve got suspense, mystery and heightened emotions. Romance ups the ante. LADY GONE BAD LADY GONE BAD In LADY GONE BAD, a saloon singer called Lady consorts with outlaws to get a lead on her parents’ murderers. Rafe, Deputy U.S. Marshal, arrives in town to arrest her. Instead, his name ends up on a Wanted Poster. Together, they escape into Indian Territory to clear their names and hunt down murderous desperados. ANGEL GONE BAD ANGEL GONE BAD In ANGEL GONE BAD, Angel is a dime novelist determined to save a friend kidnapped by outlaws. She enlists the help of Rune, an Anti-Horse Thief Detective (http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AN012.html), hot on the trail of a notorious bandit. They brave the wilds of Indian Territory and an outlaw gang’s hideout for justice. BRIDE GONE BAD BRIDE GONE BAD In BRIDE GONE BAD, Tempest is after her…