by Ann Swann
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Romantic Suspense
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Senior
prom is the happiest night of Gabi’s life. Her crush has just revealed that he
is every bit as infatuated with her as she is with him. When he has a car wreck
and is transported to the hospital in a coma, Gabi feels as if she’s taken a
knife to the heart. But his jealous cousin, Rose, sees her chance to give the
knife an even harder twist. She convinces Gabi to meet her at a local parking
spot outside town. It's a night that will change several lives forever. One of
the girls will return, and one will become known as the remains in the pond.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
He grinned and picked me up the way he’d done the night he
proposed on the beach. Only this time, he laid me gently on the huge white bed.
Honeymoon suite, all the way, someone had scattered rose petals here, too.
They’d even copied our sunset wedding colors.
Reece undressed first, slowly. With great relish I sipped my
champagne, nibbled my crackers, and watched him in the softly muted light from
the rose-shaded bedside lamp. I’ll never get tired of this, I thought. He is
every sculptor’s dream model, long and lean, all corded abs and thighs.
He removed his glasses and crawled up the bed to lie beside
me. Taking my champagne glass from my hand, he tipped the remaining few drops
onto my lips and kissed it away. Then he removed my glasses and laid them on
the bedside table next to his. Our poor children will have severe myopia, I thought,
but the idea was cut short as he began unbuttoning my blouse and shorts.
When I was naked he reached for the champagne bottle and
rolled its chilled glass surface up the inside of my thigh making me close my
eyes and grip the sheets with both hands. I opened my eyes as he dribbled a
stream of bubbles onto my belly and breasts before slowly licking it all away.
After that, things moved quickly to the incredible climax. Our pleasure lasted
longer every time we made love. I vowed to myself to always be as generous in
bed as he had proved to be.
“Husband,” I breathed.
“Wife,” he replied.
We fell asleep in a puddle of dampness only partially caused
by spilled champagne.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ann has been a
writer since junior high school, but to pay the bills she’s waited tables,
delivered
newspapers, cleaned other people's houses, taught school, and even had a short
stint as a
secretary in a rock-n-roll radio station. She also worked as a 911 operator and
a
police
dispatcher.
Ann’s stories
began to win awards in her college days. Since then she’s published novels,
novellas, and
short stories. But even if no one ever bought another book, Ann wouldn’t stop
writing. For
her it’s the cathartic pause in a sometimes-crazy world. Most of the time, it
even
keeps her sane.
Blog:
www.annswann.blogspot.com
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/annswann.books
Goodreads:
http://tinyurl.com/6vuw7vl
Twitter:
@ann_swann
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-swann
Blog Post by Ann Swann
Why I Write
Several
years ago I was fortunate to see Stephen King receive The Mason Award at George
Mason University and he regaled us with stories from his younger days. He said
he loved getting questions from readers and someone invariably asked him why he
writes horror.
His
response was, “What makes you think I have a choice?”
That made
me question why I write the things I write. I call it romantic suspense, but to
be honest, most critics call my novels suspense, thrillers, or even horror.
Everything I write seems to have a kernel of darkness at its core.
With this
latest book—and with the one I’m writing now—I’ve consciously tried to include
more romance, less terror. I’m not certain why my characters always find
themselves in life or death situations, but when I tell you about my childhood,
maybe we will both understand.
I was a
baby when my father was sentenced to prison for robbing banks. Mom divorced him
while he was in prison, but he never gave up on us, his girls, my mom, my
sister, and me. Although he only made 12¢ an hour making license plates (yeah,
for reals, I still have the bike plate he made for me with my name on it), he
never missed our birthdays or Christmas. Our presents always included books
that he ordered from mail order catalogs. That’s where I got my love of
reading.
When my dad
got out on parole, he came home to get us. But mom had moved on. She’d married
my stepdad and we were living the good life. My stepdad was a super hardworker,
not only did he give us a home and everything we needed, he also gave us stability
and everything we wanted right down to a little pug he brought home in the cab
of his Mac truck. He named the pug A.E. after a co-worker.
My “real” dad
wasn’t having it. He convinced mom to take us out of school and run away with
him. He was very handsome and apparently very persuasive.
The
relationship didn’t last.
After a
couple of months, things fell apart and we started back home. We’d been living
in Dallas but now we were headed back to West Texas. All the way home, he was
still trying to convince Mom to stay. At one point he turned to my sister and
me, in the back seat, and asked us if we wanted to live with him, or our
stepdad. I was seven. My sister was nine.
Sis buried
her head in her comic book and remained silent. I took the coward’s way out and
said that I missed A.E. We’d had to leave him behind. Truthfully, I wanted to
stay with him, our real dad, but I didn’t want Mom unhappy, and I couldn’t come
right out and say I didn’t want my stepdad. After all, he’d given us
everything.
Dad took us
home.
My stepdad
welcomed us back.
My “real”
dad drove away. Somewhere in Kansas he pulled over onto the shoulder of the
road and shot himself with a .45 caliber handgun.
As I got
older, the guilt wrapped me up in a tight cocoon. I don’t want to say I wore it
like a straitjacket, but for a while I wore it like a cloak of invisibility. I
didn’t want to interact with people. I just wanted to be left alone.
That’s when
I began to write.
Years
later, I won my first short story contest in college. The story was about a
little girl whose father comes to visit her out of the blue. Until then, she
hadn’t known he existed. They had a strange visit near the empty community
swimming pool, and then he went away and committed suicide. Art imitating life?
I also
wrote some poetry. Some of the poems won prizes, too. The one I recall right
off hand was titled, “John G. Doe, On Parole.” Yeah, you guessed it. My dad’s
name started with G. The poem imagined the highway patrol trooper who had found
my father beside the road. I made myself imagine the smell inside the car, the
blood-splattered window, the gun lying near his hand. It was a form of therapy.
In the poem I asked the question, “How could you drape this mantel of guilt
around your scared little kid,” but of course I now know that anyone desperate
enough to pull the trigger is not thinking straight. Certainly not thinking of
the repercussions of their actions.
My sister
told me that he almost drove us off an overpass on the way home from Dallas.
Said Mom fought him for control of the wheel. I don’t remember that. Apparently
I’ve blocked a few things out. It’s a self-defense mechanism. Just like my
writing.
So if you
ask me why I write, or even why I write the things I write, I would have to quote Stephen King and ask what
makes you think I have a choice?
But I would
carry it even farther and tell you that for me, writing is much more than
putting words on paper. Writing is my sanity, my twelve-step program, my
lifesaver.
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