Michelle Alger flees when her secretly recorded tryst winds up on the internet. She has no option but to hide. Her one-night stand—the son of a powerful US senator—was murdered. Learning she’s the prime suspect is traumatizing. Already a member of witness protection thanks to a Colombian drug lord kidnapping her in college, she now has to run from the senator and law enforcement. To make matters worse, the drug lord finally knows her location and is hot on her trail. There’s only one man she trusts. He saved her once, can he do it again six years later?

Captain Jeremy Malone no longer wears a Green Beret. He’s traded in his fatigues for a new life leading Delta Squad, a covert unit within SweetBriar Group. His latest orders from the senator: find the unknown woman and bring her to me. But Jeremy knows her identity. He once rescued her from a Colombian cartel, and has never forgotten her. He assigns his squad a new mission: find Michelle first and learn the real story.

Michelle and Jeremy can’t deny their explosive chemistry. But, with every new piece of evidence, Jeremy’s faith in Michelle’s innocence is questioned. Is her plea for help a ruse…or a trap set by a beautiful woman determined to expose Jeremy’s own secrets…

This is the second book in the SweetBriar Group (SBG) series and can be read as a standalone. 

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Author Bio:

P. A. DePaul is a Publishers Weekly Bestselling and award-winning author.Her books are full of action, suspense, and romance.

As a hybrid author, she has books traditionally and independently published. Her traditional publishers include Berkley, a Penguin Random House imprint, and Harlequin Books. 

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A Key Element of Romantic Suspense That Keeps the Pages Turning

I absolutely love it when a book has me sitting on the edge of my seat with my heart pounding and pages turning so fast, I risk a papercut or dead battery. As a reader, I get to enjoy the ride, as an author it’s my job to transport someone else into that adrenaline space. Oh, excuse me, I should introduce myself. My name is P.A. DePaul and I write Romantic Suspense. I’ve had books traditionally published with Penguin and Harlequin, and I’ve indie published a romantic suspense series. 

Writing Romantic Suspense is a lot of fun, but like any genre it has rules. Since no one wants me to go on forever, I’ll talk about one of my favorite components with examples from my latest release, Shadow of Doubt.  

Golden Rule: Increase suspense through the use of High Action. This is the fun stuff. The heart-pounding, pulse-racing, page-turning situations the hero and heroine have to accomplish/escape/evade/stop/hurdle before something really bad happens. But, as the story progresses the stakes must rise or the story falls flat.  

In Shadow of Doubt, the heroine finds out someone filmed her drunken escapade with a senator’s son and posted it on YouTube. Normally that’d be embarrassing but nothing noteworthy. But when you pair that film with the next day’s headlines that the son was found dead in his hotel room, now you’ve got an attention getting opening. Now, I need to raise the stakes. So, add in her being wanted by the FBI, getting kicked out of Witness Protection which puts her back into a drug cartel’s sights, and I’ve raised the stakes. But we can’t stop there. We need the hero involved and he can’t just be a boy scout. Let’s make him wonder if she truly did murder the senator’s son and what he has to do about it in his investigation. Hopefully the readers’ heartbeats are thumping as they are turning the pages. 

In each High Action sequence, (think washed out smuggled plane rides, daring escapes, and cat-and-mouse with a villain just to name a few) I consistently increase the suspense. The risk-level of the outcomes affect the group if the hero/heroine fails. Putting more and more at stake in each action sequence keeps readers hooked until the very end. 

Are you hooked? I’m hoping you’re at least curious. You can pick up a digital or paperback copy of Shadow of Doubt, at your favorite retailer.

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Extract from Chapter One

Cappy was going to hell.

The sight of Michelle’s perfect ass disappearing out the window was now permanently burned into his brain. He was such a bastard for avidly watching it wiggle as she forced her body through the tight opening.

Every nerve ending north of his toes still vibrated from touching her. Though he had sounded like a bumbling idiot earlier, he’d meant it when he’d blurted how amazing she looked, so healthy and whole. The antithesis of the bloody, broken woman damaged by the Osvaldo Cartel in that shithole room six years ago. This beautiful, vibrant, sexy woman surged his blood and overloaded his fantasies. God built her body for a man like him. Built her for deep, hard sex, be it up against a wall or bent over a chair . . . Goddammit.

Straight. To. Hell.

Remember the mission. He couldn’t think of her in any terms other than professional. For Christ’s sake, he had to find out if she killed the senator’s son. Not have her starring in his latest mental porno.

He pulled a disposable phone from his leg pocket and dropped it inside her overlarge bag. Once he zipped the thing closed, he called, “Heads up. Purse coming through.”

He gave it a little nudge over the sill, hearing it thud into her hands before he yanked the battery out of the back of her cell phone. Now no one could trace her from the GPS in the device—which had been his plan if she hadn’t called him.

He dropped the pieces into his leg pocket for later disposal. Putting on his sunglasses, he ensured his gun holster wouldn’t knock into the frame’s edges, and slid soundlessly through the small opening, then closed the window. Turning, he half expected to find her gone, but she stood just to the left, chewing on her lip with fear lacing through her irises.

“This way,” he whispered, grabbing her hand and motioning toward a grungy building next door.

The electricity from the contact instantly had him hard. He grunted and urged her forward. He pulled her around the back corner of a convenience store and stopped, shifting his hips to relieve the pressure.

“Cutting it too close, Cappy,” Talon admonished softly. Michelle jumped, squealed, then slapped a hand over her mouth.

Yeah. Talon had that effect on people. He was so damn good at blending into the background, he caught most by surprise.

Cappy seized Michelle’s hand to stop her from inching backward. “Relax.”

Her eyes were as large as her face, and she didn’t seem able to look away from his teammate. A sudden shot of jealousy spiked through his veins. Stow that shit. He had no time for the destructive emotion, and it was wrong on so many levels.

“Where’s the car?” he barked, jolting them all. Christ.

Engines raced into the parking lot next door and instantly shut off. Car doors opened, then slammed shut.

Cappy didn’t need to see his teammate’s eyes to know they were both thinking about how they had just barely made it. Michelle trembled underneath his palm.

“Car’s on the other side of the dry cleaners, as commanded.” Talon pointed to a building that had seen better days adjacent to the convenience store.

* * *

Dear God, who is this guy? Michelle couldn’t stop staring at the wicked knife with the onyx blade still protruding from SCK’s [Stone Cold Killer’s] fist.

She shivered.

A male voice yelled from the hotel’s parking lot, “You two cover the back. White, start peering in windows. I’ll talk to the desk clerk.”

“Our signal to move,” Jeremy whispered, jerking her arm as he pulled her forward.

She ran as fast as possible but knew she wasn’t close to the speed both men wanted. Tough darts. She didn’t live in a gym like them.

Had she done the right thing, calling Jeremy? She trailed behind the two men, still rattled by his apparent connection to the FBI’s investigation. He saved you before. Yeah, he did. Was he doing that now? Every TV show, movie, and book she’d ever read clearly pointed out how only those closely connected to a case were privy to details like a raid on a hotel room. Did that mean Jeremy saw the YouTube video?

Talon glanced over his shoulder. His dark shades had slid down and the cold light in his eyes sent fear racing down her spine. No. No! She pulled against Jeremy’s grip, her mind plunging back into Colombia without warning. Cold steel bit into her skin while the man with a pair of emotionless yet fanatical eyes stared at her. “You going to talk now, puta?”

“Michelle,” Jeremey snapped. “Stay with me.”

She blinked away the vision, disoriented at being ripped back into the present so fast. Jeremy tightened his grip and dragged her against his side. For a brief moment, she allowed her head to fall against his meaty shoulder. She inhaled his addictive scent and instantly felt better.

“Eyes front, Talon.” Jeremy flattened her body against the side of the dry cleaners. “We clear to make a break for the car on the other side?”

From beyond the hotel and as far as Michelle could glimpse in the other direction, the backs of the buildings were relatively flush with each other. Some had blacktop as if for additional parking while others had large dumpsters filling the space.

“O Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Talon crooned softly.

What the heck?

Jeremy flashed SCK a grin and placed his lips next to her earlobe. She shivered at the faint breath and almost missed his command. “Keep low but run as fast as you can. Don’t stop or slow down. Once you clear the corner, wait for us.” Her mind turned to mush at his whispered words. “We’ll use our bodies to block the view if someone should glance this way.”

It took everything she had not to giggle and lift her shoulder. Get it together, Michelle. This is serious.

He placed a large hand at the small of her back. “Go.” He gave her a little push.

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My thoughts: want an action packed, thrill filled read with sexy secret agents, a damsel in distress and plots galore? Here you go!

Michelle went through hell aged 19 after being kidnapped and tortured by a Colombian cartel. She was rescued but left with more than physical scars. When she’s set up to look like the killer of a senator’s son, she calls the one person she thinks can help her.

Cappy – once Captain Jeremy Malone, is now the leader of a black ops squad, and he and his team leap into action. The senator is technically their boss, so it’s in their best interests to solve the case before any law enforcement anyway. Their former employer is in prison and out for revenge. As is an old friend of Cappy’s.

As all hell breaks loose and they hunt the killer, Michelle is also being stalked by a man with a grudge over what happened in the Colombian jungle. Can the team stop all these dangerous figures in their tracks and save the day? Can Cappy and Michelle out their mutual attraction to one side so they can survive long enough?

The team still find time to crack jokes (the ongoing hat gag had me smiling) and tease each other, the code names are amusing, and it’s easy to warm to them, even grumpy Talon. Highly enjoyable and entertaining, like an episode of your favourite cop/spy show.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.