Cindy Gerard – From first sale to Last Man Standing

A deadly mission.
A thirst for revenge.
One headstrong alpha hero
and one daring woman will
settle the score.

Special operative Joe Green has gone vigilante.  His mission, avenge his Black Ops.,Inc. brother’s death during a bloody ambush years ago in Sierra Leone.  He refuses to drag the BOI team or his lover, Stephanie Tompkins, into the hunt for the man responsible, so when he finds himself beaten, starving, and alone after being falsely imprisoned for the murder of a Freetown priest, he knows he’s as good as dead.

Joe meant to protect Stephanie when he walked out on their relationship, but he can’t stop her now from executing his escape.  Breaking him out of prison is the easy part.  After Joe’s explosive theory pans out and his cunning enemy emerges as the front runner for a high level presidential appointment, he and Stephanie must race to derail the traitor’s conspiracy if they are to save their loved ones, the nation and each other.

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

I’m always being asked about my first sale so I thought I’d share the story with you at Novel thoughts today.

My first sale story probably mirrors a lot of authors.  The truth is, it falls into the ‘if I knew then what I know now’ category, I probably wouldn’t be published.  I was so naïve.  Such a baby – rhetorically speaking – and so ignorant of the business.  Long story short, I was in love with LaVryle Spencer’s work – who among us doesn’t love and miss LaVyrle??  Anyway, I’d exhausted her complete library – or so I thought until I discovered there were some older titles that I’d missed.  When I couldn’t get a hold of them, I wrote to her.  That was before the days of e-mail AND e-books (yes, Virginia, there is a pre-web era many of us survived, but just barely).  But I digress. She wrote back.  Told me she wrote to me personally because my letter was so articulate.  In my mind that equated to:  “LaVryle Spencer thinks I’m articulate.  I bet I could write a book.”

You laugh but that’s just how it all started.  I sat down with a portable manual typewriter with a sticky E and set out to write the great American novel.  From that moment on I was a gonner.  Bitten bad by the writing bug.  That manuscript was rejected by the best editors in the business (many of whom I enjoy seeing at RWA nationals these days) but the rejection letters were very encouraging so I kept at it.  I wrote two more books.  Farmed them all over NYC and finally got the call one pretty fall afternoon from an editor with Bantam Doubleday Dell’s now defunct Loveswept line.  My hubby was helping a farmer friend of his in the field so I was home alone.  I was screaming and buzzed with excitement so I hopped in the car, drove out to the farm, bounced across a fall plowed field or two until I found Tom behind the wheel of a HUGE combine picking corn.  He saw me coming, jumped out of the cab and ran to the car.  “Who died?”  he asked frantically.   In his mind, nothing else warranted the beating my poor car was taking.

We still laugh about that day but MAVERICK was my very first title and came out in July of 1991.  Now, wow, 20 years and 46 books later, I still get a little tickle of excitement when I think about that first sale.

And speaking of sales 🙂  LAST MAN STANDING, my January 31, 2012 release will be on the shelves tomorrow!  LMS is the 7^th and final book of my Black Ops Inc series and while I’m sad to see the series end, I’m so excited that I got to tell this story that features Joe Green, a strong, enigmatic alpha male, but even better, it features the most transformative heroine I’ve ever written.   Stephanie Tompkins has always wanted to be something she wasn’t.  Had never had the courage to pursue her dreams but then a set of circumstances force her to become the woman she had always hoped she could be.  Here’s a little snippet of Stephanie’s journey to her true self.

…Talk about defining moments.  Talk about revelations.  Now that she had a moment to take a deep breath, sit back and assess, she was seeing herself in a whole new light – both literally and figuratively when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a wavy, dust-streaked window pane.

Her hand flew to her throat and she leaned in, looked deeper.  It was her alright.  But a high octane version.  A messy one.  Her clothes were rumpled and damp.  Her usually tidy hair was a wild tumble of damp waves around her shoulders.  And her face … her facial appearance even seemed to have altered.  What she’d always seen as soft, unremarkable features had transformed somehow.  She looked … edgy, she finally decided.  Decisive.  Experienced and lean.

Kick ass, she thought with a ridiculous little smile and embraced the idea.

And she looked, she told herself, like a woman who did not need a man like Joe Green to complete her life, but like a woman who could damn well complete his.

They were getting out of this mess.  She was going to make it happen.  And when they did, Joe Green was going to find out that Stephanie Tompkins was a force to be reckoned with….

There you have it.  A little taste of the new improved Stephanie 🙂 .  I think you’re really going to like Stephanie’s journey.  And I KNOW you’re going to love her and Joe together.

Have questions? I’d love to hear from you.  I’m an open book so ask away to be eligible for a drawing to win an autographed book from my backlist.  BTW: Today is my birthday and I’m delighted to be sharing it with you!

Bio: Cindy Gerard

In addition to numerous industry awards, among them RT’s Reviewer’s Choice award for best Romantic Intrigue and 2 Reader’s Crowns for best Romantic Suspense, New York Times best-selling author Cindy Gerard is also a 5 time Daphne finalist, a 6 time Romance Writers of America Rita finalist and a 2 time RITA winner.

 

She’s currently writing book 1 of her new One-Eyed Jacks series, a spin-off of her NYT best-selling Black Ops, Inc. series for Pocket Books.

 

You can catch up on her news at www.cindygerard.com or on facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cindy-Gerard-New-York-Times-Best-selling-author/167877057439

 

Also available:

All Bodyguard and Black Ops Inc titles

SEAL of My Dreams – a collection of 18 Navy SEAL stories written by some of the hottest romantic suspense authors in the business.  All proceeds from the sale of SEAL of MY Dreams are pledged to Veteran’s Research Corp, a non profit organization supporting medical research for our returning military heroes. Cindy’s story – SEALed With A Kiss – features two Black Ops characters, Luke Coulter and his wife Valentina.

Cindy also contributed a BOI short story (Dying to Score) to the upcoming ITW Thriller 3 collection, Love Is Murder, edited by Sandra Brown and featuring contributions by Lee Child, Allison Brennan and many more.

*Giveaway sponsored by the author