Amelia's post was initially scheduled for earlier in the week, but due to a family emergency, I am posting it now. Thanks for understanding, and be sure to scroll all the way down for some fun giveaways!
Black Ops Warrior
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
THE
STORY BLURB
AN ALPHA HERO FALLS FOR THE WOMAN HE’S SWORN
TO TAKE DOWN IN AMELIA AUTIN’S LATEST MAN ON A MISSION ROMANCE!
Help
her. That’s all Niall Jones can think to do when his target almost panics.
Undercover operative Niall is tracking suspected traitor Dr. Savannah Whitman,
but when she comes under threat, he can’t help but swoop in to save her. And
the sparks that fly between the secret agent and Savannah are anything but
covert.
After
a personal tragedy, Savannah decided to depart her high-security defense job to
live life to the fullest. But she never expected to meet a sexy, mysterious
stranger—or for her very safety to be under siege…and enigmatic Niall is the
only one who can protect her!
READ A LITTLE, BUY THE BOOK—link to read an excerpt
and/or purchase
Amelia is a
long-time member of Romance Writers of America (RWA), and served three years as
its treasurer. She currently resides with her Ph.D. engineer husband in quiet
Vail, Arizona, where they can see the stars at night and have a “million dollar
view” of the Rincon Mountains from their back yard.
BLOG POST
Hey there! Since I’ve been a guest on the Get Lost in a Story blog
several times now, instead of the usual question and answer blog post, I
thought I’d tell you the genesis of Black Ops Warrior. (I can’t think of
a better example of Getting Lost in a Story than talking about the story behind
the story, can you?)
It all started in 2013, when I began writing fiction again after eons
away from it (two romances published in the 90s and then nothing…for years). But
as I stated in the Dear Reader letter prefacing Black Ops Warrior,
When I
wrote Cody Walker’s Woman, I gave my heroine, Keira Jones, four
brothers—all older, all former US Marines, and all playing a role (good and
bad) in shaping the woman she was.
The only reason I gave Keira four older brothers was to explain what
drove her. To explain why respect was her mantra. I had no intention of
writing her brothers’ stories. Truly. I didn’t even name them in Cody
Walker’s Woman.
Once that book was finished, however, Keira’s partner, Trace McKinnon,
demanded I tell his story, which I did in McKinnon’s Royal Mission. Lo
and behold, Keira’s two youngest brothers suddenly appeared as secondary
characters in that book. One thing led to another. Then another. And…well…Alec’s
Royal Assignment and Liam’s Witness Protection soon followed.
Now the
stories of three of the five Jones siblings had been written, leaving only Shane
and Niall. Piece of cake, right? Not so fast! A personal family crisis
precipitated the start of Shane’s story (Keira’s oldest brother), which
eventually became Killer Countdown. Eventually. Not right away, you
understand. Pantser that I am (as opposed to being a plotter), I had no idea
how Killer Countdown would evolve. I had no clue about Niall, either. I’ll
let the Dear Reader letter explain my dilemma.
…Niall—the
second child of five, like me—was elusive. All I really knew about him at that
point was how Liam described his brother in Liam’s Witness Protection—a
one-time US Marine and now a black ops warrior. But that description alone
captivated readers, who begged me for his story.
Then Niall
showed up out of the blue to help his older brother, Shane, as I was writing Killer
Countdown. And suddenly I knew him. Knew what motivated him. Knew almost
everything there was to know about him…except for one thing. Here was a man who
loved women, and whom women adored. But Niall was still alone at age 40. Why
was that? Shane had a tragedy in his past to account for the lack of a woman in
his life in Killer Countdown, until Carly showed up and blew his
solitary life to pieces. But not Niall Jones (aka Niall Johnson, the name he
uses when he introduces himself to the heroine). His job as a black ops warrior
had isolated him, but this is a romance. Which means—(waggles eyebrows)—something
had to give. Pulling from the Dear Reader letter again,
…I needed a
woman to match him. All the Jones brothers except Niall had found exceptional
women to love—Angelina, Cate, and Carly. How could Niall settle for anything
less?
I was racking my brain. Racking my brain. Then I looked up and saw a brilliant
someone sitting a few feet away from me. Someone whose character and avocation
I’d “borrowed” for another heroine, Dr. Mara Marianescu, in McKinnon’s Royal
Mission. All at once I knew I’d found the exceptional woman for
Niall—intellectually, emotionally, and in every way except gender.
How much did Bodyguard (as he’s known on Facebook) influence the
character of Dr. Savannah Whitman in Black Ops Warrior? PhD in
mechanical engineering? Check. Missile Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC)
engineer for an international defense contractor (before he retired)? Check.
Three patents? Check. Quietly patriotic? Check. A frighteningly powerful
intellect? Check. Loving and fiercely determined? Check. Quick-witted, with a
droll sense of humor? Check. (Don’t let Bodyguard know, okay? Let this be our
little secret, or he might want royalties, lol).
I had my hero and heroine now, but I needed a setting. A conflict. A
story arc. And since this was a romantic suspense, I needed some suspenseful
elements as well. Yikes!
Then in October 2015 Bodyguard and I embarked on a land tour / river
cruise through northern China to fulfill bucket list items for both of us,
including visits to the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City in Beijing,
and the Terracotta Warrior Army in Xi’an.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
I mined that trip for all it was worth, and I think I was successful. As
Susan Kyser Frank, an ARC reviewer, wrote on Susan’s 2017 Reading Blog,
“I loved
how the setting was as much a part of the story as any of the characters. The
descriptions of the various sights were vivid and made me feel as though I was
right there with Niall and Savannah. I especially liked the description of
Savannah's combination of awe and disappointment at the Great Wall, as she had
to deal with the effects of the crowds on her joy of being there. Having had
similar feelings at other places, it made Savannah that much more of a real
person to me.”
Another ARC reviewer, Amelia Richards, made me smile when she wrote on
her AlwaysReviewing blog,
“Much of
the story takes place in China, and Amelia Autin certainly took me on a
colorful trip around this country. As Savannah and Niall take in the sights, I
also got to “see” the many unique wonders that can only be found there.”
Bodyguard played a crucial role in the story once again, not only because
photography is his hobby and he took thousands of photos on that trip (another
trait I gave my heroine), but also because of his insistence on cameras that
embed GPS coordinates in the digital jpg files. These things became key
elements of the plot (I won’t tell you how—you’ll have to read the book!)
Suffice it to say those photos were extremely helpful after the fact as I
was writing Black Ops Warrior, reminding me of places we’d been and
things we’d seen. So I was able to craft realistic and unusual settings for
everything that occurs in the story. Of course, no one was trying to kidnap me
or kill Bodyguard on that trip, unlike Savannah and Shane, thank goodness!
Writing is hard work, but once I had all the critical elements the story
flowed in a steady stream. Only the necessity of going to the day job kept me
from writing non-stop (umm…did I happen to mention I work at the same
international defense contractor Savannah and Bodyguard once worked for?) I
turned the completed manuscript in on time at the end of 2016, and here we are
a year later.
One last thing before I go. Readers have written to me about the unusual
middle names two of the Jones siblings have (Liam and Shane). That really
wasn’t planned. In fact, it didn’t even show up until almost the end of book
three (Liam’s Witness Protection) of the five-book family saga. If
you’re interested in learning how this all played out, click on the following
link:
Thanks for reading about the genesis of Black Ops Warrior. Be sure
to keep scrolling down for a couple of giveaways (books and SWAG!)
FIND AMELIA AUTIN:
Previous GLIAS interviews:
UP NEXT:
Nothing scheduled for publication at this point. I’m working on several
ideas, and not only romantic suspense. They include:
1)
A romantic suspense story
for Trevor Garrett, who was a secondary character in Rescued by the Billionaire CEO. No title in mind yet (I’m lousy at
catchy titles), but I’m more than half done and really excited about it.
2)
A romantic suspense story
for Cam Mackenzie, another secondary character from Rescued by the Billionaire CEO. Again, no title, merely the
beginnings of a story ARC and a killer opening “hook.”
3)
A story for his Royal
Highness, Colonel Xavier Gabriel Dominic Marianescu (Zax to his intimates), who
was a secondary character in King’s
Ransom and Alec’s Royal Assignment.
It’s not a romantic suspense though; somehow when the idea occurred to me it
was a regular romance—no suspense in sight!
PREVIOUS RELEASES:
Man on a
Mission miniseries
Rescued by the
Billionaire CEO (HRS August 2017)
Check it out on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRtJQaxYbew
The
Bodyguard’s Bride-To-Be (HRS November 2016)
Killer
Countdown (HRS August 2016), a 2017 RITA finalist (the Academy Awards of
romance!)
A Father’s
Desperate Rescue (HRS April 2016)
Liam’s Witness
Protection (HRS October 2015)
Alec’s Royal
Assignment (HRS August 2015)
King’s Ransom (HRS June
2015)
McKinnon’s
Royal Mission (HRS April 2015)
Cody Walker’s
Woman (HRS October 2014)
Coltons of
Texas miniseries
Her Colton
P.I. (HRS May 2015)
GIVEAWAY FUN!
SWAG! I have
SWAG from the RWA 2017 conference! (In the interest of full disclosure I’ll
volunteer that these darling cosmetics bags were leftovers and were going to be
discarded on the last day of the conference; we were told to take whatever we
wanted. So of course I immediately thought of my readers, most of whom love
SWAG!)
To win one
(smaller than a football, by the way, no matter how big it looks in the
pictures) all you have to do is be one of the first five US residents to email
me the correct answers to the Scavenger Hunt questions at AmeliaAutin@aol.com. Please
don’t comment the answers—that would spoil the game!
If you’re not
a US resident but you still want to play, the prize for being one of the first
five with the correct answers will be an emailed ebook of Black Ops Warrior
for Kindle, Nook, or iPad.
Scavenger Hunt
Questions
Eight is a
lucky number in Chinese numerology, so there are eight scavenger hunt
questions.
All revolve
around the Jones family. Some are easy, some are a little harder, but the answers
to most of them can be found in this blog post, on my website (www.AmeliaAutin.com),
or by consulting Google Maps. A couple will require a little deductive
reasoning on your part.
1) There are
five books starring the Jones siblings (one heroine and four heroes). In
publication order, they are:
Cody
Walker’s Woman, 10/2014 (Keira Sedona Jones, youngest child)
Alec’s
Royal Assignment, 08/2015 (Alec Loveland
Jones, middle child)
Liam’s
Witness Protection, 10/2015 (Liam Thermopolis
Jones, fourth child)
Killer
Countdown, 08/2016 (Shane Breckenridge Jones, oldest child)
Black Ops
Warrior, 12/2017 (Niall Aspen Jones, second child—like
me!)
Name the three
states where the five cities in their names are located.
2) What’s the “hook”
opening sentence from Liam’s Witness Protection?
3) Where did I
get the idea for Alec’s Royal Assignment?
4) What is
Keira’s one-word mantra in Cody Walker’s Woman?
5) The opening
scene of Killer Countdown takes place in what city and state?
6) My
hyper-secret federal “agency” (a cross between the FBI and the CIA, but authorized
by Congress to act both within and outside US borders) appears in six books.
Name them.
7) All the
Joneses have unusual occupations: Keira works for the “agency,” Alec and Liam
work for the Diplomatic Security Service (the DSS), Shane is a US senator, and
Niall is a black ops warrior for an unnamed federal agency. But that’s now.
Every one of them—not to mention a few other heroes, including Reilly O’Neill (aka
Ryan Callahan), Cody Walker, and Trace McKinnon—also served in one particular
branch of the Armed Forces (Shane had even intended to make it his career, as
his father did). Which branch is it?
8) This
secondary character first appeared in a cameo role in Reilly’s Return back
in November 1997, and has featured to a lesser or greater extent in more of my
books (including all five in the Jones family saga) than any other character. Who
is he?
(Author’s side
note: Readers have asked for his story and I pitched it at one point, but it
was shot down. So it’s not happening any time soon even though I adore his
character and would love to write about him and his beloved wife, Lorena.)
Thanks for
playing the Scavenger Hunt game. Giveaway ends at midnight, Vail, AZ time (aka
MST), on Friday, 12/15/2017. If no one answers all eight questions correctly,
the winning entries will be chosen in descending order (seven correct, six
correct, etc.). Winners will be notified by email no later than Saturday, 12/16/2017.
I’d also love
to give away two autographed copies of Black Ops Warrior (sorry, US only
for the autographed paperbacks). For international entries (including Canada
and Mexico), I can email an ebook for Kindle, Nook, or iPad.
To enter the
drawing all you have to do is comment below, either in response to my question
or anything you’d like to say. Giveaway ends at midnight, Vail, AZ time (aka
MST), on Friday, 12/15/2017. Winners will be posted on Saturday, 12/16/2017, so
be sure to check back!
GOT A QUESTION YOU’D LIKE TO ASK YOUR FANS?
Absolutely! Niall
and Savannah fall in love while on a fifteen-day land tour / river cruise
through northern China. Except for the beginning and a brief period in the
middle, they’re with each other 24/7. Night and day. And as Niall tells
Savannah at one point, “We’re way past dating.” But they sleep together early
on. In fact, in the very first chapter Savannah’s thinking:
This whole
tour and cruise was a dream come true. Why couldn’t Niall Johnson be part of
it?
She wasn’t
crazy enough to believe in love at first sight. And she wasn’t having rosy
visions of happily-ever-after. But no man had ever, ever made her body meltingly aware of every breath he drew the way
Niall Johnson did. And she decided then and there that if he planned to seduce
her into his bed, she was totally on board with that idea.
What do you
think about this? Is it a problem for you? Keep in mind they’re not hurting
anyone by being together—neither is involved with anyone else. Yes? No? Does it
bother you they slept together before admitting to themselves and each other
they’d fallen in love?