A Canadian Romance for Canada Day

It’s Canada Day, sorry.  (Eh!)

The original cover for Fatal Wild Child. Dar Albert, my cover artist, hand painted the heroine’s hair to make her a strawberry blonde….

I’ve written a few books set in Canada.  Not nearly as many as are set everywhere but Canada, though.  In fact, I’m in the middle of writing one set mostly in Canada right now. Kiss Across the Universe — which is blowing out my usual word count.  It’s going to come in loooooong.

But I digress.  One of the earliest books I’ve written, set in Canada, is Fatal Wild Child, which is part of the Romantic Thrillers collection.

I originally wrote the book intending to pitch it to Harlequin Suspense, but I seem to be categorically unable to write “to market” — to make a book conform with the tropes, the expected scenes, etc.  My stories always take on a life of their own, once the characters start talking at me, instead of saying what I want them to say.

And category romances like Harlequin Suspense are charted out with mathematical precision.  The meet-cute must start on page 2, there must be exactly 200 pages, the first kiss must be on page xx.  Etc.

I don’t know for sure that these are the expectations.  They’re just examples I made up.  But the writing of category romances is a specialized art that includes structured requirements like these, and that I am completely unable to, well, conform to.

So Fatal Wild Child ended up as a stand-alone romantic suspense set in my home province of Alberta, which meant that any mainstream romance publisher would also be completely disinterested in it.  Around that time, USA or “exotic” settings in Europe — as long as both hero and heroine were American — were the only romances the publishers would consider.  And forget about making one of them famous;  that was a huge no-no.

Of course, this was back in the day when Amazon’s Kindle wasn’t even a thought in an IT geek’s head (I have been publishing since 1999).  Traditional, NY-based publishers were my only publishing option.  I tried a couple of them and, as expected, was flatly turned down.

Fast forward to 2011, when indie publishing was four years old, and I switched over to 100% indie overnight.

The current cover of Fatal Wild Child. Often, I can’t advertise this book because of his bare chest and the “sexually suggestive” implications of them in a clinch. But I really like him, and I really like the cover, so for now, I’m sticking with it.

As soon as I realized the freedom and opportunity to chart my own course that came with indie publishing, I blew the dust off a lot of novels that were sitting around unpublished because New York had stringent ideas about what a romance should be.

Fatal Wild Child was the second indie title I published, in April 2011.  It’s had a change of covers since then.  The original cover is at the top of the post, and the current cover, which matches the rest of the Romantic Thrillers Collection, is here.

Today, and for the rest of the week, to mark Canada Day, I’m offering Fatal Wild Child at a 40% discount.

Here’s the coupon:  5W8HNYTC  (Copy it before you head over to SRP!)

  • Valid until midnight, MDT, Friday July 7th, 2023.
  • Coupon valid only at Stories Rule Press.
  • You can use the coupon in conjunction with other discounts, coupons, and your reward points.

Not all armor is visible. Can he win through hers?

When Seth O’Connor pulls Gabrielle Sherborne out from under her wrecked car in the middle of an icy river high in the Canadian Rockies just before Christmas, he never thought someone might actually be gunning for the infamous wild child of the famous Hollywood director, Cameron MacKenzie Sherborne III, and the family that puts up with her antics.

Told by his superiors to insert himself into the Sherborne family and protect Gabrielle, Seth learns that the former film star is anything but a brat. She’s all woman, incredibly sexy and smart, with a vulnerability that eats right through the armor over his heart. That makes doing his job suddenly very tough for Captain Seth O’Connor, for the unfriendlies are closing in….

This story is part of the Romantic Thrillers Collection.
Dead Again
Deadweight (A free story on the author page)
Dead End (A free story available at the end of Deadweight)
Dead Drop
Dead Double
Fatal Wild Child
Terror Stash

Thrilling Affair (Boxed Set)

A Romantic Suspense Thriller Novel


Buy From Me @ SRP!


Enjoy!

Tracy

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