DEEP TROUBLE - Mary Connealy - Free Book

I always love having this author come to my blog. She's a barrel of laughs. Welcome, Mary. You have a lot of books out now. What is your favorite setting to use in your books?

When an author writes westerns she has to fight the need to put the book in Texas. I found out I love mountains and bitter cold. These make great settings that can challenge a character, built in drama, great changes for cliffhangers if you’ve got real cliffs. With Deep Trouble though, I decided to set the book somewhere spectacular, a character in itself, the Grand Canyon. I loved researching it and using all the challenging things about it.

What do you look for when you’re shopping for a book to buy for yourself?

I shop almost exclusively by author. I have authors I love and I am ready when they have a new book release. Though lately, for some odd reason, I have been on a binge of regency romances. I’m not sure why? So I’ve been shopping a bit by genre in this particular instance.

Give us a little tour of the setting for this book.

The book starts in Mesa Verde (somewhat fictionalized ‘cliff dwellings’) and ends in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The heights, when we begin my heroine is being attacked and left in a high cliff, the only ladder she and her companions have is one rickety ladder they find laying in the dust, probably hundreds if not thousands of years old. So, in a bout of cruelty, these villains, rather than kill her, strand her in that high, unreachable(without the ladder) cave and the hero comes along to save her.

The depths, my heroine is searching for the lost Kingdom of Quivera and she has a treasure map. She believes she’ll find a city of gold in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The skeptical hero, who saves her from the heights, comes along to the depths, figuring she’ll need to be rescued again.

What other books do you have coming out soon?

In August I begin a new series that I’m really excited about. The Kincaid Brides, Book #1 Out of Control. This is a book I’ve wanted to write for years. Of course I’ve had a LOT of books I’ve wanted to write for years, but now it’s time for this one. Much like the Grand Canyon journey in Deep Trouble, I’ve picked a fantastic setting for Out of Control. A cavern. Not unlike Carlsbad Cavern, where three young boys find beauty and danger and ultimately a tragedy that nearly destroys them all. As adults they are still haunted by that tragedy and now each must face peril in that cavern to protect the woman he loves and save their own lives. I just had a ridiculous amount of fun with these books.

Please give us a glimpse inside your home.

WHAT?????????? Are you crazy, Lena? A glimpse inside my home? Okay, I’m not dusting, so by glimpse you mean, I can DESCRIBE IT? Okay. I live in a large, three-floored central block with two smaller flanking service wings. The external facade was designed in the French neo-classical influence. The principal rooms of the palace are contained behind the west-facing garden facade at the rear of the house. The centre of this ornate suite of state rooms is the Music Room, its large bow the dominant feature of the facade. Flanking the Music Room are the Blue and the White Drawing rooms. At the centre of the suite, serving as a corridor to link the state rooms, is the Picture Gallery, which is top-lit.

Oh, oops, sorry, Lena. My fingers slipped on the mouse and I accidentally cut and pasted a description of Buckingham Palace into this answer. My house is pretty much the same though, ‘cept for the mold and rodents in my basement…and who’s to say Buckingham Palace doesn’t have mold and rodents in its basement, huh?

Mary, you had me laughing out loud with that one. Is this novel part of a series or a stand-alone book?

Deep Trouble is connected to Cowboy Christmas, but both novels stand alone, the plots aren’t interwoven at all. But a strong secondary character in Cowboy Christmas, Gabe Lasley, is the hero in Deep Trouble. I fell in love with Gabe while writing Cowboy Christmas and wanted to give him his own happily ever after.

I know what you mean. My second book in my second series for Charisma House will actually tell the story of a character in a former book, but I had to change his name, because it's a different publisher. Tell us about your story.

Shannon Dysart is searching for a city of gold, the lost city of Quivera, which she believes is in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Gabe Lasley is trying to keep her alive until she comes to her senses. The only way he can figure to prove to her there’s no city of gold down there is to show her. And he needs to keep her alive until she admits she’s a lunatic. At which point she’ll come to her senses (he hopes) and then he plans on marrying her.

This is a plan that has Gabe a little nervous, what with him planning to marry a crazy woman, but there aren’t that many women around and he’s lonely.

Gabe has left his ranch in Wyoming because of his strong feelings for a married woman. He finds Shannon stranded in a mountaintop cave and saves her. She is on a quest to prove her father’s research isn’t the work of a madman, that he really did find a treasure in the wild west.

With trouble on their back trail from the villains who still want Shannon’s map, the dream of gold coloring every decision Shannon makes, and Gabe’s surprising need to protect her, they sets out to find a city of gold.
Along the way they find that true treasure is rooted in love. And that was within their reach all along.

I know I'm going to love it. Please give us the first page of the book.

Chapter One

“Where’s the gold!”

Shannon Dysart fell back a step in the face of her guide’s fury then squared her shoulders. Showing weakness to Lobo Cutter was a mistake. Hiring him was a mistake. Leaving St. Louis was a mistake.

“Mr. Cutter, I employed you to help me find an ancient city. We’ve done that. It’s spectacular. Imagine the research—”

Cutter stormed right up to Shannon’s face. The spurs on his boots made an ugly metallic ring with every step. “A city of gold, them was your own words when you asked me to sign aboard this trip into the west.”

His fists clenched and moved too close to the Colt six shooter in his holster. He was a brute of a man brought along mainly to handle the pack animals. But once they’d found this place he’d worked as hard as any of the six people in their expedition searching these ruins.

But he’d finally faced the same fact Shannon just had—after three days of searching this ancient cliff city. There was no gold.

            “I wasn’t searching for this city to make myself rich, Mr. Cutter. My father’s research was—”

“Your father was an old fool.”

Yeah, I need to read it soon. How can readers find you on the Internet?

Seekerville
Petticoats and Pistols
My Blog
My Website

You always give me a lot of fun when you drop by, Mary. I'm looking forward to the next time.

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