The Kill Club Blog Tour: Excerpt

The Kill Club
Author: Wendy Heard
Genre: Thrillers/Psychological 
Release Date: December 17, 2019
Trade Paperback
$15.99 USD, $19.99 CAD
368 pages
 
Summary:
 
A haunting thriller about a woman who attempts to save her brother's life by making a dangerous pact with a network of vigilantes who've been hunting down the predators of Los Angeles.

Jazz can’t let her younger brother die.
 
Their foster mother Carol has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the
house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and
over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.
 
Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her, people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to murder the abuser of another. They're taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los Angeles—dubbed the Blackbird Killings. If Jazz joins them, they’ll take care of Carol for good.
 
All she has to do is kill a stranger.
 
Jazz soon learns there's more to fear than getting caught carrying out her assignment. The
leader of the club has a zero tolerance policy for mistakes.
 
And the punishment for disobeying orders is death.

THE CEILING ABOVE the crowd sparkles with strings of golden lights. They twinkle just bright enough to illuminate the faces. I adjust a microscopic issue with my toms and run my fingers through my bangs, straightening them over my eyes. The guys are tuning up, creating a clatter of discordant notes in the monitors. When they’re done, they approach my kit for our usual last-minute debate about the set list. Dao humps his bass in his ready-to-play dance, black hair swishing around his shoulders. “Dude, stop,” Matt groans and readjusts the cable that connects his Telecaster to his pedal board.
 
“Your mom loves my dancing,” Dao says.
 
“You dance like Napoleon Dynamite,” Matt retorts.
 
“Your mom dances like Napoleon Dynamite.”
 
Andre raises his hands. “Y’all both dance like Napoleon Dynamite, and so do both your moms, so let’s just—”
 
I wave a stick at them. “Guys. Focus. The sound guy is watching. We’re three minutes behind.” I have no patience for this shit tonight. This all feels extra and stupid. I should be doing something to help Joaquin. His dwindling supply of insulin sits at the front of my brain like a ticking clock.
 
The guys get into their spots, the distance between them set by muscle memory. Andre leans forward into the mic and drawls, “Arright DTLA, lez get a little dirty in here.” His New Orleans accent trickles off his tongue like honey.
 
The room inhales, anticipates, a sphere of silence.
 
“Two three four,” I yell. I clack my sticks together and we let loose, four on the floor and loud as hell. I’m hitting hard tonight. It feels great. I need to hit things. My heart beats in tempo. My arms fly through the air, the impact of the drums sharp in my joints, in my muscles, the kick drum a pulse keeping the audience alive. This is what I love about drumming, this forcing of myself into the crowd, making their hearts pound in time to my beat.
 
Dao fucks up the bridge of “Down With Me” and Andre gives him some vicious side-eye. The crowd is pressed tight up against the stage. A pair of hipsters in cowboy hats grabs a corresponding pair of girls and starts dancing with them. I cast Dao an eye-rolling look referring to the cowboy hats and he wiggles his eyebrows at me. I stomp my kick drum harder, pretending it’s Carol’s face.
 
The crowd surges back. Arms fly. A guy in the front staggers, falls. A pair of hands grips the
stage, and a girl tries to pull herself up onto it.
 
Matt and Dao stop playing. The music screeches to a halt.
 
“What’s going on?” I yell.
 
“Something in the pit,” Dao calls back.
 
Andre drops his mic and hops down into the crowd. Dao and Matt cast their instruments aside and close the distance to the edge of the stage. I get up and join them. Together, we look down into the pit.

A clearing has formed around a brown-haired guy lying on the floor. Andre and the bouncer squat by him as he squirms and thrashes, his arms and legs a tangle of movement. Andre’s got his phone pressed to his ear and is talking into it urgently. The bouncer is trying to hold the flailing man still, but the man’s body is rigid, shuddering out of the bouncer’s grip. He flops onto his back, and I get a good look at his face.
 
Oh, shit, I know this guy. He’s a regular at our shows. He whines and pants, muffled words
gargling from his throat. Some of the bystanders have their phones out and are recording this. Assholes.
 
The man shrieks like a bird of prey. The crowd sucks its whispers back into itself, and the air
hangs heavy and hushed under the ceiling twinkle lights.
 
Andre is still talking into his phone. The bouncer lifts helpless hands over the seizing man,
obviously not sure what to do.
 
I should see if Andre wants help. I hop down off the stage and push through the crowd. “Excuse me. Can you let me through? Can you stop recording this and let me through?”
 
I’m suddenly face-to-face with a man who is trying to get out of the crowd as hard as I’m trying to get into it. His face is red and sweaty, his eyes wild. “Move,” he orders me.
 
Dick. “You fucking move.”
 
“Bitch, move.” He slams me with his shoulder, knocking me into a pair of girls who cry out in protest. I spin, full of rage, and reverse direction to follow him.
 
“Hey, fucker,” I scream. He casts a glance over his shoulder. “Yeah, you! Get the fuck back
here!”
 
He escalates his mission to get out of the crowd, elbowing people out of his way twice as fast. I’m smaller and faster, and I slip through the opening he leaves in his wake. Just before he makes it to the side exit, I grab his flannel shirt and give him a hard yank backward. “Get the fuck back here!” I’m loose, all the rage and pain from earlier channeling into my hatred for this entitled, pompous asshole.
 
I know I should rein it in, but he spins to face me and says, “What is your problem, bitch?” And that’s it. I haul back and punch him full in the jaw.
 
He stumbles, trips over someone’s foot and lands on his ass on the cement floor. His phone goes clattering out of his hand, skidding to a stop by someone’s foot. “The hell!”
 
“Oh, shit,” cries a nearby guy in a delighted voice.
 
“Fucking bitch,” the guy says, and this is the last time he’s calling me a bitch. I go down on top of him, a knee in his chest. I swing wild, hit him in the jaw, the forehead, the neck. He throws an elbow; it catches me in the boob and I flop back off him with a grunt of pain. He sits up, a hand on his face, and opens his mouth to say something, but I launch myself off the ground again, half-conscious of a chorus of whoops and howls around us. I throw a solid punch. His nose cracks. Satisfaction. I almost smile. Blood streams down his face.
 
“That’s what you get,” I pant. He crab-shuffles back, pushes off the ground and sprints for the exit. I let him go.

My chest is heaving, and I have the guy’s blood on my hand, which is already starting to ache
and swell. I wipe my knuckles on my jeans.
 
His phone lights up and starts buzzing on the floor. I pick it up and turn it over in my hand. It’s an old flip phone, the kind I haven’t seen in years. The bright green display says Blocked.
 
Back in the pit, the man having a seizure shrieks again, and then his screams gurgle to a stop. I put the phone in my pocket and push through the onlookers. I watch as his back convulses like he’s going to throw up, and then he goes limp. A thin river of blood snakes out of his open mouth and trails along the cement floor.
 
The room echoes with silence where the screams had been. A trio of girls stands motionless,
eyes huge, hands pressed to mouths.
 
The flip phone in my pocket buzzes. I pull it out, snap it open and press it to my ear. “Hello?”
 
A pause.
 
“Hello?” I repeat.
 
A click. The line goes dead.
 
A set of paramedics slams the stage door open, stretcher between them. “Coming through!”
They kneel down and start prodding at the man curled up on the concrete. His head flops back. His eyes are stretched wide and unseeing, focused on some point far beyond the twinkling ceiling lights.
 
Next to him on the concrete lies something… What is it? It’s rectangular and has red and—
 
It’s a playing card.

Excerpted from The Kill Club by Wendy Heard, Copyright © 2019 by Wendy Heard. Published by MIRA Books.

Wendy Heard, author of Hunting Annabelle, was born in San Francisco and has lived most of her life in Los Angeles. When not writing, she can be found hiking the Griffith Park trails, taking the Metro and then questioning this decision, and haunting local bookstores.



Social Links:
Author website
Twitter: @wendydheard
Instagram: @wendydheard
Facebook: @wendydheard

Buy Links:
Harlequin
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble
Books-a-Million
Google Play
Indie Bound
 

Excerpt Reveal: I Invited Her In by Adele Parks

I Invited Her In
Author: Adele Parks
Genre: Adult Thriller
Release Date: February 5, 2019
Publisher: MIRA/Harlequin

Description:

Imagine the worst thing a friend could ever do.
This is worse.
When Mel receives an unexpected email from her oldest friend Abi, it brings back memories she thought she had buried forever. Their friendship belonged in the past. To those carefree days at university.
But Abi is in trouble and needs Mel’s help, and she wants a place to stay. Just for a few days, while she sorts things out. It’s the least Mel can do.
After all, friends look out for each other, don’t they?
I Invited Her In is a blistering tale of wanting what you can’t have, jealousy and revenge from Sunday Times bestseller Adele Parks.

I run out of paint halfway through the second coat. I’m a little snow-blind anyway. It’s late, there’s no natural light and in the electric light it’s hard to see where I have layered the second coat and where I haven’t.

I admit as much to Ben and he comments, “That suggests a second coat is unnecessary. Come on, love. I’ve made you a cheese and pickle sandwich. You should eat something. Come and sit down for five minutes and tell me what the rush is.”

It’s too welcome an invite to resist. I collapse into a kitchen chair. Ben squeezes my shoulder and I lay my cheek on his hand. He feels warm, smooth, comfortable. “We’re expecting a guest,” I explain.

“We are?”

“Yes.”

“My mother?” He looks a bit aghast as he places the sandwich in front of me.

“No.”

“Who then?”

“My friend, Abigail Curtiz.”

He sits opposite me, scrunches up his eyes the way he always does when he’s trying to recall someone. “Oh, the woman who emailed this morning?”

“Yes.”

“When is she coming?”

“Thursday.”

“This Thursday?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re redecorating because someone is coming to dinner?”

“She’s staying with us for a few days.”

“How long is a few days?” he asks suspiciously. Ben is a social man, he’ll accept pretty much any invite that comes our way and we reciprocate, too. However, he has his limits. He likes waking up in his own bed and he doesn’t like entertaining before breakfast, so he’s not a big fan of stayovers.

“I’m not sure. As long as she needs,” I reply, vaguely.

“But why?”

“I told you, she’s getting a divorce.” I realise this doesn’t address the question he is asking. Why would I invite someone he’s never heard of until today to stay with us? We rarely have house guests. Theoretically we have a spare room but it’s incredibly small and currently stacked with boxes full of Christmas decorations, old clothes, files and photo albums, as well as unused gym equipment and the ironing board. “I think it will be nice,” I say breezily.

“How will it be nice? It will be cramped.”

“Cosy,” I insist. I start to devour my sandwich. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until I stopped painting. Besides, with my mouth full I can’t answer any difficult questions.

Ben studies me. “Will it be OK, her staying here for a few days?”

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t it be OK?”

“It’s just I haven’t heard you talk much about this Abigail Curtiz over the years. At all, actually. I didn’t realise she was a particular friend, not the sort you offer our spare room to indefinitely. I mean, who is she?”

“Well, we were once very close. People lose touch.” I hope Ben won’t push. I can’t bring myself to articulate exactly why we had to go our separate ways. Why me having Liam made it impossible for me to continue to be her friend. He must understand our lives went in very different directions.

While I was trying to secure a place for Liam at nursery, Abi was stepping onto the stage to receive her certificate that confirmed her first-class honours degree. While I was spooning goop into Liam’s mouth, Abi was being interviewed for her first job in TV as the assistant to Piers Morgan’s assistant.

“No big thing. We just drifted,” I say with a shrug. “You’ll like her. I promise. Everyone does.” I stand up, lean across the table and kiss him briefly on the lips. He stands, too, and puts his hand on the back of my head, kisses me hard and long. Even after all these years, that particular manoeuvre makes me melt.

“I have cleaning to get on with,” I mumble, breaking away.

“We’ll be quick.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “Liam’s out and the girls are asleep. Why wouldn’t we?” He’s kissing my neck now.

“What’s got into you?” I ask, giggling. “It’s a Monday night.”

“It must be the paint fumes,” he replies. He slips his hand up my T-shirt and works his thumbs under my bra strap. My body leans into his; instinct, habit, pleasure. I’m aching from painting and tidying all day but suddenly I realise this is what I need, what I want. It delights me that Ben knew as much before I did.

“You are not suggesting doing it on the kitchen table, are you?”

“I thought that was why you cleared the clutter.”

“Are you mad?” I ask, laughing.

“About you,” he replies cheesily.

We compromise and do it on the sofa in the sitting room. 

Connect with Adele

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Introducing: Park Row Books

INTRODUCING PARK ROW BOOKS
A New Literary Fiction Imprint from MIRA Books

New York, NY, July 1, 2016—MIRA Books announced today the official launch of Park Row Books, an exclusive line of thought-provoking and voice-driven novels by both celebrated and new authors. Park Row Books will be led by Margaret Marbury, Vice President, General Fiction Editorial, and Erika Imranyi, Executive Editor. Park Row Books will publish unique voices and powerful stories that inspire discussion. Inaugural titles are slated for release in summer 2017.

“With the success of MIRA’s rapidly expanding literary fiction program, we decided to establish a dedicated imprint that focuses on the incredible novels we are publishing,” said Marbury. “Park Row Books allows us to create new opportunities for talented literary writers who want a boutique publishing experience with the support of a powerhouse commercial publisher.”

“We are aggressively growing our imprints that publish hardcover and trade paper original fiction,” said Loriana Sacilotto, Executive Vice-President, Global Publishing and Strategy at Harlequin. “Park Row Books is acquiring powerful and compelling novels by talented writers who are looking for a house that will shine a spotlight on their titles.”

The name Park Row Books was inspired by the landmark street that runs through downtown Manhattan and ends at the Woolworth Building, the former home of Harlequin’s New York office for many years. Once known as “Printing House Square” and the location of many of New York’s major newspapers, Park Row has a rich heritage of fostering free expression, creative ideas and important voices.

“MIRA Books has a long history as an industry leader when it comes to publishing commercial fiction,” said Imranyi. “The passion and innovation of the MIRA team is second to none and we have seamlessly parlayed our strengths as a commercial publisher into our literary fiction program. It is a great privilege to be spearheading the expansion of MIRA’s powerful list with the launch of Park Row Books, which will be an exciting destination for talented literary voices whose books have broad mainstream appeal.”

The launch title for Park Row Books is the blockbuster debut novel The Improbable Flight of Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig, which Park Row acquired in a significant preemptive deal. The highly anticipated novel follows a recently adopted teenager with autism who is desperately plotting to get herself kidnapped by her birth mother. Told in an extraordinarily fresh and wholly unique voice, The Improbable Flight of Ginny Moon is a compulsively readable and unforgettable story about finding a place to belong in a world that doesn’t always add up. It will be published around the world in 11 territories and counting.

Park Row Books will also be home to the much-buzzed-about new novels by New York Times bestselling authors Mary Kubica and Heather Gudenkauf. Kubica’s book, a psychological thriller about a young widow’s pursuit of the truth in the wake of the devastating crash that took the life of her husband, takes readers inside the dark, twisted corners of a psyche plagued by grief. Her first novel, The Good Girl, has sold over half a million copies and has been published in two dozen territories worldwide. Gudenkauf’s next book, a high-concept crime thriller about a protagonist with profound hearing loss, features the bestselling author’s most compelling heroine to date. Gudenkauf’s first novel, The Weight of Silence, was an instant New York Times bestseller, spending 22 weeks on the list.

Other exciting titles forthcoming from Park Row Books include When I Think of You, from award-winning journalist and bestselling author Karma Brown, exploring how a woman’s life falls apart over a random act of courtesy; Hanna Who Fell from the Sky, a breakout literary novel set in the fascinating and unknown world of a polygamist society from award-winning Canadian author Christopher Meades; Undertow, by British journalist Elizabeth Heathcote, the much-buzzed-about debut domestic thriller in the vein of The Widow; and a new novel from Phaedra Patrick, the author of wildly acclaimed The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, that follows a down-on-his-luck jeweler whose life is changed when his estranged teenage niece makes a surprise visit to his quiet village.

Agents with manuscripts that feature strong, unique voices and groundbreaking content with mainstream appeal may send material to Erika Imranyi or Park Row Books editor Liz Stein.

About MIRA Books:

MIRA Books is an imprint of Harlequin and features a lineup of some of the bestselling authors across North America as well as industry-anticipated debut authors. MIRA Books is committed to publishing the very best in commercial fiction, including women’s fiction, suspense and psychological thrillers, literary bestsellers, and historical. In 2015, 24 MIRA Books titles placed on bestseller lists (New York Times, USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly) for a total of 194 weeks. MIRA publishes approximately 100 books per year in hardcover, mass-market and trade paperback formats. 

About Harlequin:

Harlequin (Harlequin.com) is one of the world’s leading publishers of books for women, with titles issued worldwide in as many as 34 languages and sold in up to 102 international markets. The company publishes more than 110 titles monthly and more than 1,300 authors from around the world. Harlequin is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world, and has operations in 11 countries. For more information, please visit Harlequin.com and Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks. Follow Harlequin on Twitter: @HarlequinBooks.

Harbor Island Blog Tour: Excerpt

Welcome to my stop on the HARBOR ISLAND blog tour! Today I have a great excerpt from the book to share with you!

Harbor Island (Sharpe & Donovan #4)

Author: Carla Neggers

Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Romance

Release Date: August 26, 2014

Publisher: Harlequin MIRA

Description:

In this vivid and suspenseful addition to her widely acclaimed Sharpe & Donovan series, New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers takes readers on a heart-stopping journey from Boston to Ireland to the rocky coast of Maine...

Emma Sharpe, former nun and granddaughter of world-renowned art detective Wendell Sharpe, is a handpicked member of a small Boston-based FBI team. For the past decade Emma and her grandfather have been trailing an elusive serial art thief. The first heist was in Ireland, where an ancient Celtic cross was stolen. Now the Sharpes receive a replica of the cross after every new theft—reminding them of their continued failure to capture their prey.

When Emma receives a message that leads her to the body of a woman on a frozen island in Boston Harbor, she finds the victim holding a small, cross-inscribed stone—one she recognizes all too well. Emma's fiancé, FBI deep-cover agent Colin Donovan, is troubled that she's gone off to the island alone, especially given the deadly turn the thief has taken. But as they dig deeper they are certain there is more to this murder than meets the eye.

As the danger escalates, Emma and Colin must also face do-or-die questions about their relationship. While there's no doubt they are in love, can they give their hearts and souls to their work and have anything left for each other? There's one thing Emma and Colin definitely agree on: before they can focus on their future, they must outwit one of the smartest, most ruthless killers they've ever encountered. 

Boston, Massachusetts

As she wound down her run on the Boston waterfront, Emma Sharpe could feel the effects of jet lag in every stride. Three days home from Dublin, she was still partly on Irish time and had awakened early on the cool November Saturday. She’d strapped her snub-nosed .38 onto her hip, slipped into her worn-out running shoes and was off. With less than a half mile left in her five-mile route, she was confident she hadn’t been followed. Not that as an art-crimes specialist she was an expert at spotting a tail, but she was an FBI agent and knew the basics.

Matt Yankowski, the special agent in charge of the small Boston-based unit Emma had joined in March, hadn’t minced words when he’d addressed his agents yesterday on a video conference call. “This Sharpe thief knows who we are. He knows where we work. It’s also possible he knows where we live. If he doesn’t, he could be trying to find out. Be extra vigilant.” Yank had looked straight at Emma. “Especially you, Emma.”

Yes. Especially her.

This Sharpe thief.

Well, it was true. She was, after all, the granddaughter of Wendell Sharpe, the octogenarian private art detective who had been on the trail of this particular serial art thief for a decade. Her brother, Lucas, now at the helm of Sharpe Fine Art Recovery, was also deeply involved in the stepped-up search for their thief, a clever, brazen individual—probably a man—who had managed to elude capture since his first heist in a small village on the south Irish coast.

Emma slowed her pace and turned onto the wharf where she had a small, ground-level apartment in a three-story brick building that had once been a produce warehouse. Her front windows looked out on a marina that shared the wharf. A nice view, but people passing by to get to their boats would often stop outside her windows for a chat, a cigarette, a phone call. Although she’d grown up on the water in southern Maine, she hadn’t expected her Boston apartment to be such a fishbowl when she’d snapped it up in March, weeks before the boating season.

Had the thief peeked in her windows one day?

She ducked into her apartment, expecting to find Colin still in bed or on the sofa drinking coffee. Special Agent Colin Donovan. A deep-cover agent, another Mainer and her fiancé as of four days ago. He’d proposed to her in a Dublin pub. “Emma Sharpe, I’m madly in love with you, and I want to be with you forever.”

She smiled at the memory as she checked the cozy living area, bedroom and bathroom. Colin wasn’t anywhere in the 300-square-foot apartment they now more or less shared. Then she found the note he’d scrawled on the back of an envelope and left on the counter next to the coffee press in the galley kitchen. “Back soon.”

Not a man to waste words.

He’d filled the kettle and scooped coffee into the press, and he’d taken her favorite Maine wild-blueberry jam out of the refrigerator.

Still smiling, Emma headed for the shower. She was wide awake after her run, early even by her standards. After three weeks in Ireland, she and Colin had thoroughly adapted to the five-hour time difference. Their stay started with a blissful couple of weeks in an isolated cottage, getting to know each other better. Then they got caught up in the disappearance and murder of an American diver and dolphin-and-whale enthusiast named Lindsey Hargreaves. Now, back home in Boston, Emma was reacquainting herself with Eastern Standard Time.

Making love with Colin last night had helped keep her from falling asleep at eight o’clock—one in the morning in Ireland. He seemed impervious to jet lag. His undercover work with its constant dangers and frequent time-zone changes no doubt had helped, but Emma also suspected he was just like that.

Colin would know if someone tried to follow him. No question.

She pulled on a bathrobe and headed back to the kitchen. She made coffee and toast and took them to her inexpensive downsize couch, which was pushed up against an exposed-brick wall and perpendicular to the windows overlooking the marina. She collected up a stack of photographs she and Colin had pulled out last night, including one of herself as a novice at twenty-one. Colin had put it under the light and commented on her short hair and “sensible” shoes. She wore her hair longer now, and although she would never be one for four-inch heels, her shoes and boots were more fashionable than the ones she’d worn at the convent.

Colin had peered closer at the photo. “Ah, but look at that cute smile and the spark in your green eyes.” He’d grinned at her. “Sister Brigid was just waiting for a rugged lobsterman to wander into her convent.”

Emma had gone by the name Brigid during her short time as a novice with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart, a small order on a quiet peninsula not far from her hometown on the southern Maine coast. In September, a longtime member of the convent and Emma’s former mentor, an expert in art conservation, was murdered. Yank had dispatched Colin to keep an eye on her. He’d tried to pass himself off as a lobsterman—he’d been one before joining the Maine marine patrol and then the FBI—but Emma had quickly realized what he was up to.

“I bet you were wearing red lace undies,” he’d said as he’d set the photo back on the table.

Emma had felt herself flush. “I don’t wear red undies now.”

He’d given her one of his sexy, blue-eyed winks. “Wait until Valentine’s Day.”

They’d abandoned the photos and had ended up in bed, making love until she’d finally collapsed in his arms. He was dark-haired, broad-shouldered and scarred, a man who relied on his natural instincts and experience to size up a situation instantly. He didn’t ruminate, and he wasn’t one to sit at a desk for more than twenty
minutes at a time. She was more analytical, more likely to see all the ins and outs and possibilities—and she was a ruminator.

As different as they were, Emma thought, she and Colin also had similarities. The FBI, their Maine upbringings, their strong families, their love of Ireland. Their whirlwind romance wasn’t all an “opposites attract” phenomenon, a case of forbidden love that had come on fast and hard. They hadn’t told anyone yet of their engagement. On Monday night in Dublin, Colin had presented her with a beautiful diamond ring, handmade by a jeweler on the southwest Irish coast. She’d reluctantly slipped the ring off her finger when they’d arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport from Dublin late Tuesday.

Emma was so lost in thought, she jumped when her cell phone vibrated on the table. She scooped it up, expecting to see Co-lin’s name on the screen. Instead, it was a number she didn’t recognize. A wrong number? She clicked to answer, but before she could say anything, a woman spoke. “Is this Emma Sharpe? Agent Sharpe with the FBI?”

“Yes, it is. Who are you?”

“What? Oh. My name’s Rachel Bristol. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

“All right. Please go ahead.”

“Not on the phone. In person. Meet me on Bristol Island. It’s in Boston Harbor. There’s a bridge. You don’t have to take a boat.”

“Ms. Bristol, what’s this about?”

“It’s about your art thief. Bristol Island, Agent Sharpe. Be at the white cottage in thirty minutes or less. There’s a trail by the marina.” She paused. “Come alone. Please. I will talk only to you.”

Rachel Bristol—or whoever she was—disconnected. Emma sprang to her feet. Thirty minutes didn’t give her much time.

She ran to her bedroom and dressed in dark jeans, a dark blue sweater, a leather jacket and boots. She grabbed her credentials and strapped on her service pistol. She didn’t leave a note for Colin. She would text him on the way.

Meeting confidential informants was a tricky business even with protocols, training and experience. But it didn’t matter. Not this time.

Her thief.


Her problem.

Excerpted from the book HARBOR ISLAND by Carla Neggers. Copyright © 2014 by Carla Neggers. Reprinted with permission of Harlequin Mira. All rights reserved 

New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers is always plotting her next adventure—whether in life or for one of her novels. She wrote her first stories when she climbed her favorite sugar maple with pad and pen at age eleven. Now she is the author of more than sixty novels of romantic suspense and contemporary romance, including her acclaimed Sharpe & Donovan and Swift River Valley series. Her books have sold in over thirty countries, with translations in two-dozen languages, and have earned awards, rave reviews and the loyalty of readers. 

Growing up in rural western Massachusetts with three brothers and three sisters, Carla developed an eye for detail and an enduring love for a good story. “My parents moved to New England just before I was born,” says the author. “My father was a Dutch sailor and my mother is from the South. We kids learned about Holland and the Florida Panhandle—faraway places to us—through stories our parents told on walks in the woods or sitting by the fire.”

Carla’s curiosity and vivid imagination are key to creating the complex relationships and deep sense of place in her books. At the core of every novel she writes is what Publishers Weekly has called her “flair for creating likable, believable characters and her keen recognition of the obstacles that can muddle relationships.”

Carla sold her first book not long after graduating magna cum laude from Boston University with a degree in journalism. An accomplished musician, she studied with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and freelanced as an arts-and-entertainment reporter—always with a novel in the works. After the birth of her first child, Carla finally worked up the courage to submit a manuscript to an agent. “I would type with my daughter on the blotter next to me,” says Carla. “Then she learned to roll over, and I put her on a blanket on the floor!”

When she isn’t writing, Carla loves to read, travel, hike, garden and spend time with her large family. Get-togethers at her family’s tree farm on the western edge of the Quabbin Reservoir are a favorite. She and her husband, Joe, a native of middle Tennessee, have two grown children and two adorable grandchildren. They are frequent travelers to Ireland and divide their time between Boston and their hilltop home in Vermont, not far from picturesque Quechee Gorge.

For more information please visit her at CarlaNeggers.com.

(Image taken from Goodreads)