I am so excited to have A.B. Michaels here at Mystery Thrillers and Romantic Suspense Reviews with a Spotlight and Excerpt.
Thanks A.B. and Tasty Book Tours for allowing me to join The Lair Blog Tour!
Please take it away, A.B.!
The Lair
A Sinner’s Grove Novel
By: A.B. Michaels
Released June 16, 2015
Red Trumpet Press
Blurb
Author's Note: THE LAIR deals with a very real, but sensitive subject, human trafficking. It may be disturbing to some readers.
The Lair follows on the heels of Sinner’s Grove, a contemporary suspense novel centered around the fictional artists’ retreat on the northern California coast known as “The Grove.”
Dani Dunn, the local innkeeper, has just learned of her famous father’s death and must travel back to her home country of Italy to attend the funeral. To say she’s not looking forward to it is an understatement. In fact, she’s petrified. The estate she grew up in holds terrifying memories that she knows she’ll have to confront if she’s ever to get on with her life.
Complicating matters is the fact that her flirtatious friend, Detective Gabe de la Torre, is coming along for the ride – without being asked. However, as Dani discovers the true evil that awaits her, Gabe proves he’s much more than a friend – he’s a sworn protector who may lose his own life in the process of saving hers.
Link to Follow Tour: http://www.tastybooktours.com/2015/08/the-lair-sinners-grove-novel-by-ab.html
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25735641-the-lair
Buy Links: Amazon
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Lair-Sinners-Grove-Novel-ebook/dp/B00YYJT2G6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Author Info
Born and raised in northern California, A.B. Michaels holds master's degrees in history and broadcasting, and worked for many years in the public relations and marketing fields. An avid quilter and bocce player, she currently lives in Boise, Idaho with her husband and two furry "sons" who don't seem to realize they're just dogs.
Author Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads
Website: http://abmichaels.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abmichaelsauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/abmichaelsbooks
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8189786.A_B_Michaels
A.B. Michaels' dual-genre series "Sinner's Grove" follows the family, friends and associates connected to a world-famous artists' retreat on the California coast. While The Lair is a contemporary novel of romantic suspense, The Depth of Beauty(soon to be published) is historical fiction, set at the turn of the twentieth century. Both San Francisco and the retreat of Sinner's Grove are featured in the story.
To read a free sample of The Depth of Beauty, please visit https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3MTD47701RSD4. If you enjoy the sample, please nominate it for Kindle Press; if it's accepted, you'll receive a free download of the entire book.
The nerve of Gabriele. For the past fourteen months, ever since he’d joined the Marin County Investigation Division, Detective de la Torre had made it his life’s work to get under Dani’s skin. Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but still. First he’d tried to come on to her, using their shared heritage as a line. They were both from northern Italy; surely they could get together some evening and talk over their shared cultural roots? Fortunately she’d put a stop to that pretty quickly. In no uncertain terms she’d told Mr. Dolce & Gabbana that although he seemed like a nice enough man, he held no physical attraction for her whatsoever. It was a lie, of course, but she wasn’t about to share why they couldn’t make a go of it.
Her brush-off was a gamble. Gabe was single and didn’t like eating by himself, so he was a regular at her restaurant, part of the inn she owned in Little Eden. She didn’t want to lose his business, so she had tried to be firm but not rude. It appeared to be working. He still ate at her place without seeming to harbor any bad feelings.
Oh, who was she kidding? Gabe had dropped any romantic interest in Dani in a flash—so quickly that she wondered if she’d imagined his interest all along. He still flirted with her, but there was a slightly mocking tone to it, as if he dared her to take him seriously. Of course, she didn’t. She couldn’t. Now he was simply a friend who liked to tease her — a good friend most of the time, and a meddling friend at times like these.
Dani glanced at the businessman, who had asked the flight attendant if she had any Italian newspapers. She came back with a copy of Corriere della Sera. As Don Juan leafed through it, a photo on page three caught Dani’s eye; it was a stock shot of her father, Armando Forcelli. The headline read, drug use suspected in fatal joyride of hotel heir. Immediately, tears began to well up and Dani quickly fumbled in her bag for some tissue, hoping neither of her seat-mates would notice.
Several days earlier she’d learned that her father, the son of one of Italy’s most famous hoteliers, had died in a boating accident. As his sole beneficiary, she was in fact headed to the Forcelli family compound in Verona to attend her father’s funeral and sign some papers pertaining to his estate. She told herself there was no logical reason to feel so emotionally vulnerable. She’d seen her father only a handful of times over the past dozen years, ever since ever since she left Italy. Yet it was as if her feelings had climbed aboard a roller coaster and wouldn’t get off the tracks. She’d be fine for a while and then a memory would skirt by of her babbo carrying her on his shoulders down the long picture gallery or taking her to a special place in the old city he said had the best gelato in all of Italy. She’d remember the scent of his cologne, just a hint of lemons and spice and the feel of her small hand encased in his big warm one. Then the tears would start to flow and she’d wonder, panicked, if they would ever stop.
Where the Heck is Sinner’s Grove?
Although I live in Idaho today, I grew up in northern California and have many friends and relatives there. Several years ago my sister-in-law and I were poking around the little towns in coastal Marin County, “far from the madding crowds” of the Bay Area. We talked about how fun it would be to live in a charming bayside fishing village, and one of us dubbed it “Little Eden.”
Oh, the stories I started spinning in my head about that place! I’ve always enjoyed reading about communities in which I get to meet the residents and feel invested in how their lives turn out (e.g. Robyn Carr’s “Virgin River” series). I love it when a character I got to know in one story is mentioned in another; it’s like keeping up with a dear friend.
In addition to Little Eden, I imagined a magnificent redwood grove up the hill from the village, a place where artists would live and create using all kinds of media, including painting, sculpting, glassblowing, jewelry-making, weaving, photography—you name it.
But who would build such a place? I solved that problem in my first book, The Art of Love. http://amzn.to/12qWCDj It’s set at the end of the 19th century and follows the hero from the frozen gold fields of the Yukon to the boom town of early San Francisco and eventually out to Marin. August Wolff meets his soul mate, the artist Lia Starling, and after they work through some serious issues, they decide to build the estate they call The Grove.
The retreat gains worldwide fame and stays open for forty years before closing. My second book, Sinner’s Grove, http://amzn.to/1s4hzjh picks up the thread of the story in modern day as the descendants of Gus and Lia and their colleagues strive to re-open the estate. Two of the characters introduced in that novel in fact become the hero and heroine of The Lair.
While the official name of the renovated retreat is The Grove Center for American Art, Little Eden residents still refer to it as “Sinner’s Grove” – a nickname earned long before the retreat was ever built. It seems there was a young man of the cloth, a village girl and … suffice to say those near-magical redwoods provide the perfect setting for my upcoming novella about how “Sinner’s Grove” came to be!
Giveaway
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/NTIxYWM0YzhjYmFkNDc1MDkxYzA3ZDNmMjhhM2RjOjc4Mw==/?
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