Sultry Suspense Showcase – Cara Marsi

Win a copy of Logan’s Redemption.  

Each author participating in the Sultry Suspense Showcase will be giving away a prize to a lucky commenter on their post.

ESCAPE INTO ROMANCE AND DANGER

Did you ever have one of those days? Or a lot of those days? Days when you thought your head would explode at the monotony of your life? You rise at the same time each day, go through the same morning ritual, then it’s onto your job. Maybe you’re a corporate drone and cubicle dweller as I was. Mind-numbing. Boring.

Many a morning as I drove to work, I’d fantasize about something extraordinary happening to relieve the boredom of my existence. I didn’t mean any earth-shattering event, or anyone’s getting hurt. Just something different. Like I’d come upon a bank robbery in progress and be taken hostage by one of the robbers. I’d get a few days off work and a little excitement. Oh, wait, I could get hurt. I didn’t want to escape my cubicle-dwelling world that badly.

But maybe the robber is really a sexy undercover FBI agent. That led to other kinds of fantasies I won’t go into. But you get my drift. Escape. Romance. Danger. Romantic suspense stories have them all. If I couldn’t have the real thing, I’d write about it. And that’s how I came to write romantic suspense.

I love reunion stories. And secret baby stories. And stories about people who aren’t what they seem. Throw a little suspense and danger into the mix, and you’ve got a romantic suspense.

In my effort to escape into romance and danger, I came up with a story about a corporate executive, Doriana, and the temp worker, Logan, who is her assistant. But this temp worker is also the father of her teenage son. Only he doesn’t know he has a son. Okay, standard secret baby story, which is fine. But like my cubicle escape fantasies, I wanted something a little bit different, something dark, edgy, and dangerous. I wanted to make things hard for my characters, give them something to worry about, give them secrets. Make them fight for their lives.

Doriana, my heroine in “Logan’s Redemption,” is like many women–a single parent who works long hours. But unlike most of us, she has secrets that threaten to explode when her past and present collide. Doriana and Logan were teen-age lovers, but because of a horrific incident,Loganwas forced to run before Doriana could tell him she was pregnant. Now, he’s back, working as her temp. To her anguish, she realizes she still loves him. But there are too many unanswered questions. Why did he leave, and why is he back now? Does he know about his son, and will he leave again?

Logantoo has his secrets. Doriana and Logan find their worlds unraveling, their routine lives turned upside down by emotional travails that threaten their hearts, their trust, their very souls. But in suspense, you need more, much more. I had to up the stakes. Danger. Excitement. Violence.

So, I began the “what-ifs.”

What if someone is sabotaging Doriana’s father’s company, where she’s a vice-president? What if her son is rebelling, staying out late, hanging out with bad elements, and what if he is asking questions about his father? And what if he has his own secrets? Now, our heroine has a demanding job, a rebellious son, and worry over her father’s company. And throw into the jumble of her life the guy she loved, the man who abandoned her, who suddenly reappears. But he’s not the teen she once knew. He’s darker, more dangerous. And he’s hiding something.

Doriana needed more trouble. Pile it on her, I thought. What if someone is stalking her and wants to kill her? Is it the same person who is threatening her father’s company? And what ifLoganis the only person who can help her, and to protect her he has to move in with her and the son he doesn’t know about? What’s our girl to do? The thing I love about writing suspense is I get to heap problems and dangers onto my characters.

Doriana may be an ordinary corporate worker, thrust into extraordinary circumstances, but she meets the threats head-on. She’s no damsel in distress waiting for a man to save her. She finds her strength and refuses to show weakness to the person who stalks her. When she’s attacked, she fights back. Like a cornered mother lion, she’ll kill to protect her own.

I love the twists and turns of a good mystery filled with danger, tension, and romance. The love story is central to anything I write, but suspense allows me to think outside the romance, to conceive of plot devices that I hope keep the readers turning the pages. In a romantic suspense, the hero and heroine have to fight against danger to themselves and their hearts. This gives depth to the characters and the story.

Doriana and Logan have to fight the villain to save their lives. They have to fight their past to save their future.

I love writing romantic suspense so much that I decided, with prompting from a reader, to write a sequel to “Logan’s Redemption.” The sequel, “Franco’s Fortune,” involving Doriana’s playboy brother and a female bodyguard, will be released early in 2013.

Thank you for having me today at Guilty Pleasures.

You can read an excerpt from “Logan’s Redemption” and all my books at my website: www.caramarsi.com

CONTEST TIME

Leave a question or comment for Cara. One lucky commenter will win a copy of Logan’s Redemption, winner’s choice print or digital.  Winner will be selected using random.org on 10/7/12.

 

Logan’s Redemption Blurb:
Doriana Callahan’s life is unraveling. Someone is stalking her and sabotaging her father’s company; her teenage son is rebelling; and Logan Tanner is back in town. For sixteen years she’s kept an explosive secret from Logan, a secret he soon discovers.Logan never belonged in Doriana’s world, but a long time ago he allowed himself to dream of a future with her, until the awful night he was forced to run. Now he’s back and he needs her forgiveness, but first he must forgive himself.Despite the fact that Doriana kept the existence of his son from him, Logan vows to protect her. He races against time to stop the culprit threatening Doriana and works to forge a bond with his son. Can the love and passion that still burn between Doriana and Logan overcome old lies and new dangers? The clock is ticking on a second chance at love.