Take an $0.89 Trip to the Beach Between the Pages of LOVE AT HIGH TIDE

The summer fling is a storyline revisited in movies all the time, guaranteed to instill vacation lust as well as the old-fashioned sexy kind. Remember the sweeping lake views in Dirty Dancing, the careening scooter ride past ruins and statues in Roman Holiday, and of course, Grease, which kicked off with a great beach montage? To me, a big part of the allure of summer fling stories is that they give you a mini-vacation from the squishy comfort of your couch. And they only cost five dollars, as opposed to nearly a thousand dollars once you add up the flight, hotel, and three meals a day.

Don’t get me wrong—anyplace a hot guy flashes a smile is a good enough place to have a fling. In fact, I once had a delightfully sweet summer fling that consisted solely of days in the crowded commissary and asphalt parking lot of Universal Studios. But to my mind, the absolute best place for a summer fling is a beach. The whole point of a beach is to walk around nearly naked all day and have people rub lotion/oil on you. It is sooo inherently sexy it is like a writer taking creativity-laced candy from a baby half-buried in the sand.

Love At High Tide isn’t just a love story. It is a story that share my absolute idolization of a spending a week at the beach. My husband prefers the mountains—and they’re lovely, too—but for me, nothing says summer like sand between my toes and an umbrella overhead. My heroine agrees:

Finally. Since time immemorial humanity had been searching for it, and she, Darcy Trent, had finally found Eden. This wasn’t merely an educated guess on her part. Raised by an archeologist and an ancient worlds specialist, she’d quite literally cut her teeth (to her parents’ shock and dismay at her reckless disregard for leaving drool on antique texts) on all things dusty, old and priceless. With two degrees in cultural anthropology under her belt—soon to be followed by the coveted third, which would enable her to precede her name forever with the all-important title of doctor—Darcy could quite rightly claim decades of study and research had led her to this all-important, incontrovertible discovery. She closed her eyes to savor the moment.

“A seagull just pooped on my toe.”

Darcy’s eyes popped back open. Trina, her best friend since their matching-pigtail days, sat on a watermelon pink and green towel, surveying the toe in question with a glum look.

Darcy slid a little lower in her beach chair and sighed. “Trina, I’m having a moment here.”

“And you can go back to your magic moment once I rinse off my toe. Come with me.”

Yup, reality had a perfect track record for slapping Darcy in the face the second she let her guard down. Evidently Ocean City, Maryland wasn’t cut out to be Eden after all. But it sure felt like it.

The beach is all about sensuous feelings; silken sand underfoot, a warm breeze, sun baking into your skin, water swirling around you. Add a hot guy to that mix and you have the basic ingredients for a great summer fling. And from now through August 10, it is only $0.89 - so click here to grab your copy!

$0.99 #Sale On The Ultimate Sassy & Sexy Beach Read!

Summer - if you don't actually go to the beach, you sure wish you could. I've got the ultimate beach read for you. Love At High Tide is short, sexy, sassy, hilarious, and best of all, actually takes place AT the beach! Plus, you're going to want to grab it now because the sequel, Love On The Boardwalk, comes out in September.

Darcy Trent is lucky Cooper Hudson is on hand to sweep her off her feet—literally—when she nearly drowns while swimming in the ocean. But life-saving aside, Mr. Perfect's timing stinks: Darcy's career is about to take her to the complete opposite side of the Atlantic. Still, a little summer loving with the tall, blond and sexy former cop is far too tempting to pass up.

When his plans to enter the Secret Service went south thanks to a bum knee, Coop retreated to the family beach house to mull his future. Romance is the last thing on his mind, until he fishes a curvy brunette out of the sea. Now, spending time in Darcy's arms seems like the ideal distraction, even if it is just for a week.

But with Darcy's departure date fast approaching and their careers on the line, can they realize in time that their beach fling might become the real thing?

Get your feet wet with this snippet:

“Thanks for the rescue. If you hadn’t grabbed me, I’d still be doing somersaults underwater. In my book, that qualifies you for hero status.”

An unreadable emotion flickered across his eyes so fast she almost missed it. In a low mutter, he said, “Don’t call me a hero.” He hit the hard-packed sand at the edge of the water and stopped walking.

Modest, heroic and gorgeous. And it didn’t take even a fraction of her eight years of training in cultural anthropology to figure out he was attracted to her. They’d long since hit land, and yet he made no move to put her down. Not that she was complaining. She’d happily continue to sit cradled in his arms. It gave her an up-close view of his chiseled cheekbones, sharp enough to etch glass. Her fingers brushed through the salt-spiked tips of his blond hair. No doubt about it: she’d found the man candy Trina had promised. One bite of him would be as sinful and addictive as a chocolate honey truffle.

“Well, I can’t call you Mr. In-The-Right-Place-At-The-Right-Time.” When his lips curled up showing off his dimple, Darcy’s interest kicked up a notch.

“Good point. I’m Cooper Hudson. Coop, to my friends.”

“Darcy Trent.”

“It’s been a long time since I met an ocean virgin.”

“Oh, but only in the aquatic sense, I assure you.” What? Why wave her long-vanished virginity under his nose? Now he probably thought she had the morals of an alley cat. But hearing the hottest man she’d ever seen use the word virgin threw her for a loop. Not the standard nice-to-meet-you conversation, by a long shot.

He flashed an easy smile. “Don’t worry. I hadn’t planned on delivering you as a virgin sacrifice to appease the volcano gods over at the mini-golf course.”

Okay, now Darcy could add funny to the list of his overwhelming awesomeness. Maybe she really had blacked out and was hallucinating her ideal man while unconscious, underwater. What else could explain such perfection?

“Darcy, what happened?” Trina’s yell preceded her appearance in front of them. After a quick yank upward to her scrap of a top, she rested her hand on Darcy’s leg. “Why’s he carrying you? Did you get stung in the foot by a jellyfish? ’Cause if you did, I’ll pee on it. That’ll take the sting away.”

That certainly settled the whole am-I-hallucinating question. Never, ever would Darcy fantasize about her best friend peeing on her. The situation had to be real. And if Trina in all her adorable annoyingness was real, then her hot hero hunk had to be real, too.

To her dismay, Cooper lowered her to the ground.

“Your friend’s fine,” Cooper announced. “A wave almost rolled her, so she’s a little shaken up, but uninjured.”

“You keep your distance,” Darcy warned with a hand raised to keep Trina at arm’s length. “Don’t even think about peeing on me. Not even if I get attacked by an entire school of jellyfish.”

Trina wrinkled her nose. “Okay, but if the situation arises, just remember that I would be willing to make that sacrifice.”

“Friendship is a beautiful thing.” Cooper’s sardonic tone belied the sincerity of his expression.

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Release day for the FANTASTIC, Must-Read-Immediately PROTOTYPE!!!!!!

Did you ever stay up more than an hour too late because you just COULDN'T stop reading? That's what happened to me with Archetype by M.D. Waters....and the sequel Prototype, which releases today! Seriously, this is one of my favorite series of the year.

Emma looks forward to the day when she can let go of her past—both of them. After more than a year on the run, with clues to her parents’ whereabouts within her grasp, she may finally find a place to settle down. Start a new life. Maybe even create new memories with a new family.

But the past rises to haunt her and to make sure there’s nowhere on the planet she can hide. Declan Burke wants his wife back, and with a little manipulation and a lot of reward money, he’s got the entire world on his side. Except for the one man she dreads confronting the most: Noah Tucker.

Emma returns to face what she’s done but finds that the past isn’t the problem. It’s the present—and the future it represents. Noah has moved on and another woman is raising their daughter.

In the shocking conclusion to M.D. Waters’s spectacular debut, Emma battles for her life and her freedom, tearing down walls and ripping off masks to reveal the truth. She’s decided to play their game and prove she isn’t the woman they thought she was. Even if it means she winds up dead. Or worse, reborn.

Here's your first sneak peek (one of my favorite scenes!):

Noah crouches and charges out of the hallway, gun raised. It takes me a moment to gather the courage to follow. This is a far different situation than the simulation. That was a room full of harmless cats compared to this hungry lions’ den.
Noah and I duck behind columns and large cracked plant pots. We are trapped. Declan took no chances with this capture attempt. His men fire from several levels of glass balconies. Resistance fighters either take cover or lie prone on the expansive glass floor, where the ocean sways in a calm juxtaposition to the room above.
Then I hear it. The unmistakable pitched slice of a hairline break zigzagging across the thick glass bottom. In the chaos of the room, no one else has noticed. A crack starts and stops, angling in several directions into the room. The imbalance of temperatures must be creating thermal stress. The ocean too cold. The plasma fire too hot. Not every shot from above has met with a target, and I know personally just how hot they are.
I elbow Noah and nod at the new danger. He curses under his breath and taps the com in his ear. “The floor is breaking. Everyone out.”
The second he finishes speaking, the crack darts into the center of the room. On closer inspection, this flaw in the glass is not the only one. More spiderweb into the middle and meet. The entire room watches in abject horror.
Noah takes my hand and we sprint into the open. Plasma fire rains down on the unstable floor. We are nearing the hallway, with its nonglass floor, when a massive splash fills the room. The floor collapses and I drop into the ice-cold sea.
The saltwater burns my open wound. Noah, already having made it to the stable floor, never releases my hand, and falls. He lands on his chest with his arm sunk into the ocean. His grip around my wrist is so tight I think he might break the bones.
I tuck the gun—how I managed to hold on to it is a miracle—into the back of my jeans and kick. My boots are heavy, making the process hard, and I am grateful Noah has not let me go. I could very well sink under their weight.
In my frenzied paddle to the surface, my ankle gets tangled in the steadfast grip of seaweed. Not two seconds later, Noah yanks my injured arm, and I yelp reflexively in shock and pain. I lose what little air is left in my lungs. Bubbles sneak through my clenched teeth and pop on the undulating surface. Black spots fill my vision and my lungs burn.
I am going to drown, which is ridiculous considering Noah is right there. I cannot even call for help.
Noah twists aside as the blue shots of plasma fire seek him out. He releases my hand in the process, and I immediately begin sinking into the obsidian depths. 

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Bromance Alert-Cause Who Doesn't Love Hot Guys Trying To NOT Talk About Anything Serious?

Can you believe Up To Me has been out for a month? I've been having the best time hearing comments from readers. One big one is that everyone is loving the bromance in this book. So here's a glimpse of my hot hero with his new BFF:

A horn honked. Son of a bitch. Gray lost his footing and stumbled into a bush. A large bush with needle-sharp thorns to help break his fall. He wrenched his back to avoid going any deeper into it and landed on his ass in the mud. Next to a frog. Or a toad. Something small, green and slimy-looking Gray was glad his hand hadn’t landed on.

The door slam coincided with a deep roar of laughter. “Nice moves,” said Ward as he came around the front of a shiny black truck.

“Did you honk at me?”

“Yeah.”

Gray looked down at his right arm, now streaked with thin red cuts to resemble a Picasso-esque version of a tic-tac-toe board. “Why the hell would you do that?”

He scratched at his beard with one hand. “To say hi.”

“Next time, use words. A word. A one-syllable word. Hi. Is that so damn hard?”

“What crawled up your ass?” Ward snarled.

“Half of this damn bush, apparently,” he yelled back. The frog ribbited at him, hopped right across his thighs and into the lush tumble of vegetation. The absurdity of the whole damn thing hit Gray and he laughed. He laughed so hard he wheezed. It didn’t take long before Ward joined him. Just in the laughing, not in the mud.

When Gray finally caught his breath, he said, “Sorry. For biting your head off.”

“Sorry I tried to be neighborly. Should’ve known a big-city type like yourself wouldn’t take kindly to it.” Still chuckling, Ward extended a hand to pull Gray up.

He grabbed on right below the frayed cuff of the red and black plaid flannel shirt. And said, “Bite me,” as he rose from the mud puddle with a squishing, squelching sound.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Stupid to run on a road and not pay attention. Lucky I didn’t run right into a deer or something.” Gray shook out each leg and ankle carefully, checking to be sure he hadn’t twisted anything with his idiocy.

“Want a lift back to the Manor?”

“No!” The word came out too fast, too harsh.

Sure enough, Ward’s eyebrows shot up. “Want a lift anywhere but the Manor?”

This was where guys excelled. They caught a whiff of a sticky situation and provided immediate action to get as far away from it as possible. No stupid talking things to death. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

Ward rummaged in the bed of the truck, and then threw a trash bag at him. “You’re a mess. Sit on that.”

Well, shit. Just when Gray thought he couldn’t feel any worse, any dumber. He climbed into the cab of the truck, wincing at every crinkle of the plastic beneath his ass like he was an incontinent geyser. This was definitely a low point.

“You and Ella have a fight?” Ward asked as he accelerated back onto the road.

“Not yet.”

Another few miles sped by. Neat rows of vineyards, bracketed by a squat winery and wide pasture land with horses, in an endless loop on one side. On the other stretched the lake, a deep Prussian blue he remembered from the single semester of art he’d taken as an elective in college. Staring at it soothed him. Just enough to take the edge off his temper. Enough to keep him from pounding his fist against the window.

“You piss Ella off, that’s your business.” Ward said it straight and simple, like he was recounting box scores. “You hurt her, I come after you.”

“Noted.” And more than fair. Gray would do the same. That is, if he had any long-term friends to go to bat for. Guess if his mom ever started dating again he could roll out a similar threat. Although he’d be so happy for his mom he’d be more inclined to buy the guy the biggest steak on the planet.

“Is this bad enough I should beat you up pre-emptively?”

Gray shifted, rustling the plastic. Thought about it. About how much it would hurt Ella to know he’d lied to her. How angry she’d be to discover his real reason for being here. Then an even scarier thought hammered into him. What if she thought it was all a sham? That he’d gotten close to her, that he’d bared himself like never before, just to insinuate himself into her life? That she was a task on his to-do list to assemble his report?

“Might be a good idea,” he said in a low monotone.

Another few miles of beautiful sameness sped by. Ward reached back between the seats then handed Gray a six-pack of soda. Grateful, he snapped two out of the rings, opened them, and set one in the cup holder for Ward. The fizz of the carbonation was the only thing that broke the silence for another five minutes.

Then, when they stopped at a winery entrance to let a party bus slowly back out into traffic, Ward thumped his hands against the steering wheel. “You’re gonna have to tell me.”

“What?”

“What you were running from. Or how you’re about to fuck things up with Ella. Take your pick.”

Gray watched an already-wasted-before-noon woman flash him a hit of tangerine bra from the party bus, then sink back into her seat, laughing maniacally. “I pick anything but those two topics. I’d rather talk about ways to get rid of skunk stink. Or even describe the Technicolor misery of when I got food poisoning from a street vendor taco in Mexico.”

“Well, I pick anything but those two topics. Talk about god-awful. You must be conversation constipation at dinner parties.”

“Only if people try to peek at my emotional tighty-whities.” Gray gave the woman a polite thumbs-up as they drove away. He hoped she’d make it to lunch without throwing up. And doubted she’d last that long if they hit even one more winery.

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