Prize Draw and Celebration at NYUS - Sharon Calvin

The authors of Not Your Usual Suspects thank you for following the blog, and celebrate 250,000 hits!

This week we'll be featuring a selection of delicious and delightful excerpts from our books. A lucky commenter at the end of the week will win a set of books from ALL the authors in e-format.

Just leave your email in the RAFFLECOPTER draw below - and you can earn extra entries by leaving a comment on the blogpost, too.

Today's featured author is SHARON CALVIN and her book A DANGEROUS LEAP.. Please enjoy the excerpt, pop the book on your wishlist if you're tempted, and don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter draw below.

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Book one of Gulf Coast Rescue

Raised by navy parents, Kelly Bishop learned how to pack light and say goodbye at an early age. She's earned her Coast Guard rescue swimmer stripes in some of the toughest waters out there, outperforming men along the way. Now she's ready for a new start in Florida, eager to prove herself as the best of the best.

What she isn't ready for is the spark between her and fellow Coastie Ian Razzamenti.

Ian knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. And what he's always wanted is a stay-at-home wife—someone who can take care of their children while he's out on missions. The attraction he feels for Kelly is intense, but is it worth giving up his big-family dreams?

Life-or-death situations leave little time for distraction—or doubt. When a tropical storm becomes a hurricane and a dangerous enemy reveals himself, their air station springs into action, and Kelly and Ian may not have the chance to decide whether they want to take the leap…

BUY LINKS: AMAZON / IBOOKS / KOBO / NOOK

Kelly brought up the last man from the RIB using the quick strop in a tandem hoist. She stayed on board to help Ian while the captain reeled the inflatable back to the sailboat for the last four survivors.

“Jesus!”

Joe’s shout spun Ian around in time to see Kelly launch herself out of the open doorway.

“Shit, shit, shit! Swimmer in the water, swimmer in the water!” Joe shouted to Caitlyn.

It took a moment for Ian to register that Kelly hadn’t been attached to the cable. She’d done a free fall at night? He scrambled to the doorway as Joe shouted directions to Cait over the headset.

“Back thirty. Over sixty. Shit, we’ve got a child in the water. Ryan, radio the boat’s captain. Get everyone below. Repeat, get them off that fucking deck!”

Ian squinted into the driving rain. He could barely make out the sailboat wallowing in the brutal waves. Nothing showed in the water except white-capped foam. Cold fear squeezed blood from his heart and kicked him in the gut. Kelly was in the belly of that black, frothing monster.

Instinct more than training took over when Kelly saw the wave’s backlash suck the child from the sailboat’s deck. One moment the four survivors had been holding on to the railing ready to board the RIB, in the next second only three clung to the listing deck.

As she leaped into the storm’s fury, she assumed a defensive position, anticipating a long drop to the water’s rock-hard surface. Thankfully, another monster wave came up to greet her, and she rode it down into the trough. The wind and waves should bring the child around the boat—if it didn’t crush her against the hull first.

Kelly banished all such negative thoughts from her mind. Instead, she concentrated on establishing a rhythm that matched the ocean’s. The first lesson of open water: don’t fight it, work with it. Become the water.

Breathe when the opportunity presented itself, otherwise hold, kick, glide. She moved at an angle she hoped would intercept the child’s path around the grounded boat. Whenever possible, she swam beneath the violent, churning surface.

And prayed.

Her lungs burned and she swallowed, stalling the urge to breathe a little longer. She kicked to the surface, sucked oxygen in along with more than a mouthful of saltwater, and searched for any sign of movement. Without divine intervention, finding an object as small as a bobbing child would be—

There, something reflective moved on top of the wave. Another precious “bite” of air and Kelly dove beneath the surface, kicking hard, willing the child to be near, to be alive. She forced her strokes to slow, to be more powerful, more definite, to not fight the waves, but to once again find their rhythm.

Unable to hold her breath any longer, she fought her way to the surface. Breathe, dive, kick. She repeated it over and over again, losing track of time and space, driven forward by teasing glimpses of that elusive something in the black distance.

 

Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway HERE

Readers, Writers, and Easter Eggs

As a reader, I love discovering “Easter eggs” and as a writer I’m challenge to come up with meaningful ones for my readers. And if you are wondering what the heck I am talking about, read on.

According to Wikipedia, “An Easter egg is an intentional inside joke, hidden message, or feature in a work such as a computer program, video game, movie, book, or crossword.”

I learned about this concept in software, when sneaky programmers liked to insert hidden gems like images of butterflies that took flight when you rolled your mouse over a spot on the screen or undocumented features that you stumbled over while trying something else. Recently, this concept in writing was highlighted when I was re-reading a long series that had several Easter eggs sprinkled throughout.

Now on the first read, did I recognize all of these little sly reminders from earlier books? Nope. Oh, one or two seemed vaguely familiar, but I think real recognition happens at the subliminal level. It was that wonderful sense of coming home, a familiarity that draws me back to characters and stories that I will read over and over again. And in the process of re-reading these books, I was able to consciously see the connections the author had created over multiple books that spanned several years (probably why some seemed familiar, but not readily remembered).

I want to write books that readers return to again and again. I want to sprinkle in Easter eggs that reward those repeat readers but also resonate on a subliminal level the first time through. These little gems are not the important clues in a murder mystery or the red herrings we use to misdirect the reader.

No, they are the characters that drift in and out of our stories that amplify our protagonists. The characters that provide our heroes and heroines with what the late Blake Snyder called a “save the cat” moment. A scene that shows the kind of man, or woman, your protagonist really is. And in doing so, endear them to the reader—even, maybe especially, when our heroes and heroines are not acting particularly heroic.

Or maybe it is a location that your chracters return to periodically. A building under construction in one book is complete and visited in another. Or a background eyesore that is renovated over several books becomes a focal scene in a later book. All of these instances help ground your characters in a real world.

So the next time you are plotting a multibook story arc, be sure and include some Easter eggs. Reward your readers with a little brightly colored jewel burried in the black and white print and help your characters remain memorable book after book, read after read.

(by Sharon Calvin)