Dear Readers, Anne is
one of my favorite authors and a dear friend. We’ve been featured in some
novella collections together.
Welcome back, Anne. As
an author, I know it takes a lot of people to birth each book. Who were the
people involved in the birthing of this book, and what were their
contributions?
My editor is Cynthia Hickey of Forget Me Not Romances, a
Division of Winged Publications. My dear husband always proofreads my books.
If you teach or
speak. What’s coming up on your calendar?
I do book signings, blog interviews, and telephone
interviews. I’m thinking of authoring a book on How To Write An Excellent Novel, but my contracts are keeping me
too busy this year.
When that book
releases, I want to feature it on my blog, too. If you had to completely start
over in another place, where would you move, and why?
I love to live by the ocean, but in the middle of Texas that’s not possible, so I dream of starting over
somewhere on the Texas
coast. I don’t want to leave Texas
because my children and grandchildren are proud Texans and never plan to move.
I love Galveston so if I ever leave this highly-populated, congested-traffic Metroplex
of Dallas/Ft. Worth, I would start anew in Galveston
which is right on the southern coast of Texas.
People here are fine, loving, neighborly as in helpful, and conservative. Texans
are great people.
If you could only
tell aspiring novelists one thing, what would it be?
Forget about writing
what you know and write about what interests you.
That’s good advice. You’ve
been asked to be in charge of a celebrity cruise. Who would you ask to take
part, and why? (AS in what program, singers, etc. [it doesn’t have to be
writing related])
I’m a fan of Dancing
With the Stars. I would have the dance contest motif with great bands of
different generations from Big Band to Rock and Roll to Hip Hop to the latest Contemporary
Dance bands and feature contests with all the different types of dances from
each era starting with the 1940s Big Bands. As a change of pace, I would add
Murder Mystery dinners and Learn To Cook Your Own Weight Loss Dinners.
Sounds like a fun
cruise. I’d love to be on it. Tell us about the featured book.
Hatteras Island Mystery is the first novella presented in the
ROMANCING THE BILLIONAIRE Anthology.
HATTERAS
ISLAND MYSTERY
Wedding photographer, Misty Gordon, photographs a man at a
late December wedding. He disappears before she can discover his name. Next
morning as she walks the beach, she discovers his body floating in the ocean.
As Misty summons EMT, the man wakes but has no memory. After he disappears from
the hospital, Misty discovers him aboard a million-dollar yacht. As she talks
with him, two assassins try to kill them both.
Is this a murder for hire, a revenge killing, or a political
assassination? Is the man with no memory a drug dealer, an FBI agent, or a
billionaire?
Can Misty solve the mystery before they both end in the
morgue?
Sounds like a
wonderful read. Please give us the first page of the book.
Misty Gordon dug her toes into the cool sand to steady the
shot. Sunrays filtered through the light fog and touched her arms with gold.
She adjusted her camera until she captured the bride and
groom with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the background.
She finished the photo array with a view of the couple in
front of the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
This early morning series marked her as unique among the photographers on the
island.
She bid goodbye to the bride and groom, stowed her camera in
its bag, and took off across the sand to clear her thoughts.
Her business, Lighthouse Photography, made a comfortable
living, and she loved her town, Hatteras, located on the Outer Banks of North
Carolina, especially in December when most tourists had long departed.
Though she also offered an amazing portfolio of landscapes
and portraits, most of her pictorial art revolved around weddings. She enjoyed
photographing brides in flowing white gowns coupled with smiling grooms sporting
tuxes. Her most popular pose featured the groom’s hand cupping the bride’s
chin, kissing her, the wind nestling her long gown around his legs, his
polished wingtips and her spiked heels sinking into the sand with the sparkling
Atlantic as their background.
Each bride and groom Misty photographed started their
journey of life together expecting a happily-ever-after lifetime. Misty, a born
romantic, did her utmost to record their happiness with her photographs.
Until last summer, when taking posed and candid shots of
love-in-bloom had become bittersweet. The last of her three best friends had
tread the sand aisle behind the most beautiful church on the island.
As life-long friends, since their teens, she and her three
besties had planned weddings-to-die-for on the sands of the Outer Banks as the
sun rose in a glorious blaze of color over the Atlantic.
She’d been thrilled to photograph each one’s wedding as each friend saw her
dream blossom into reality. But she, Misty Gordon, was the last bridesmaid standing.
Misty frowned and wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t getting any
younger. But the men in her photos were.
With December’s arrival, Christmas in Hatteras threatened
yet another sparse-in-the-single-male-department. She could look forward to
fighting a bout of the holiday blues. That pending holiday probably explained
why at the last wedding she’d photographed, she’d snapped so many digital
pictures of the one man in the Hamiltons’
wedding who appeared to be single. Misty kicked her bare toes at the firm wet
sand along the water’s edge. Why hadn’t she asked the unattached male his name?
She’d always been a sucker for a man with a beard. The
stranger’s dark hair and beard framed an attractive face, neither too handsome
nor too rugged. Quite a photogenic face…with a tall, athletic body to showcase
the fine head. If she’d obtained a release, she might have sold his pictures to
one of the men’s clothing businesses and made a bundle. The man was a natural
model with his relaxed manner and easy smile. She could have offered him that
new career. And learned his name.
But the dreamy guy exited the wedding before she could ask
him to sign a photography release. Her rainbow disappeared from arching over
her pot of gold. She’d failed to get his name.
When the Hamiltons
viewed their album, the new Mr. and Mrs. hadn’t appreciated her photographic
pictorial of their wedding journey. They’d wanted more pictures of themselves
and claimed the man wasn’t a close family member, and they didn’t like so many
shots of him.
She only taken four shots of the GQ man, but she’d returned
the deposit money to her first dissatisfied customers. Even then, the couple
refused to reveal the GQ model’s name. If he lived on Hatteras, he wasn’t a
celebrity, but her label for the stranger stuck in her mind.
That day, she’d gone so far as to haunt the Hatteras Coast
Guard substation sector field office, pretending to take pictures for an imaginary
magazine, but hadn’t seen the extra-broad shoulders, tall athletic form, nor
his easy-on-the-eyes features.
She should have realized the Coast Guard didn’t accept
beards. The guys stationed there all wore dark blue, short-sleeved uniforms
with their name ribbons on the right side of their chests and the Coast Guard
ribbon on the left. Some had looked appealing but worn already-taken-rings on
their left-hand finger. She’d never appreciated a military haircut anyway. She
liked abundant locks on a man’s head.
She gazed at the waves rolling and frothing on the sand. Her
thoughts weren’t clearing. Nevertheless, she bent, dug up a perfect sand dollar
and flicked off the clinging sand. Brides adored their invitations photographed
with these delicate shells, so this morning she could replenish her stock.
The risen sun painted the stark white shell pink, much like
her rosy romantic dreams had been. She heaved a deep sigh. Naïve to think she
could restart a new life in Hatteras. Find a new love, one who wouldn’t betray
her. Of course, the years had sped by, and she hadn’t. In her field of work,
she met only already-spoken-for bachelors. Would her time to walk the aisle
ever come?
Cool water washed over her feet. She slung her camera bag
over her shoulder.
Something bumped her ankle. She jumped. Her breath drained
from her lungs.
Something large. Heavens, a body! Flat on his back, hair
plastered over his face, navy slacks shredded, a ripped white long-sleeved
shirt clung to his torso, feet bare, a man floated in the surf. Pushed one way
and then another, the body undulated with the waves. She touched the wet shoulder.
His eyes were closed, but the slight rise and fall of his
chest showed he was alive.
She reached into her pocket, pulled out her cell and dialed
911.
“Come on, answer, answer!” How much longer would this man
breathe?
She knelt in the surf beside him, her knees sinking into the
shifting sand, the sun warming her back, strands of her long, blond hair blowing
into her eyes as she touched his carotid artery.
A stammering pulse beat erratic, but strong.
He looked to be in top physical shape. Had he been washed
off a fishing vessel? Sand-matted dark hair plastered his forehead. A purple
bruise marred his left temple and spread below his eye. A crease between his
dark, straight brows showed the pain he must have endured when whatever injured
him had hurled him into the sea.
She glanced out at Diamond Shoals, known for years as the
Graveyard of the Atlantic. No wrecked vessel.
Normally she charged into situations before she considered
the consequences. But this breathtakingly handsome man, rocking in the surf at
her feet, left her panting like a tourist trying to climb the lighthouse stairs.
She glanced up. “Where is that medical help? I can’t let this man to die.”
His limp fingers bobbed in the water, long and graceful and
empty of rings.
Shame on her for thinking of his marital status at a time
like this.
She grasped his shoulders and tugged and strained until she
dragged him out of the cool water and up onto dry sand. Beneath his tattered
shirt, his skin felt cold.
A siren in the distance shrilled louder. She turned. “Hurry!
Hurry! Hurry!” She spun back toward the unconscious man and plunked in the sand
beside him. Why hadn’t she learned CPR?
His eyes were open. Dark but blank.
She half-lifted him and turned his torso to the side.
“Cough! Breathe! Sputter! Anything!” She bent him over and pounded his back.
He choked, his shoulders heaved, and water spurted from his
mouth.
He looked familiar. Where had she seen him? She shook her
head. He was a stranger.
“Where am I?” His voice sounded strangled, weak.
She massaged his back. “Near the Hatteras Lighthouse. What
happened to you?”
He leaned against her, his upper body, wet, heavy and
chilled. He moved his hand to his forehead and blinked. “Who are you?”
The sirens squealed louder and louder.
“I found you. What happened to you?”
He frowned. Shaded his eyes with his hand. “I don’t know.”
His words slurred, and he coughed.
Paramedics ran toward them. One carried a stretcher, the
other a large white bag.
“Were you fishing? Sailing?” She helped him sit up.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes with both fists. “I don’t
know.”
One paramedic knelt beside her. The second ran to the
injured man’s other side, his shoes spraying globs of sand and water over her.
“What’s your name?”
The man shook his head, ruffling the sand from his hair like
water shaken from a dog. He blinked and kneaded his eyes with his fingers.
The paramedic gazed across the stricken man at her. “What’s
his name?”
“I have no idea. I found him here. Like this.” She dug her
camera out of her bag.
The first responder leaned over the man. “How many fingers
do you see?” He held up three.
“Three.”
Misty snapped his picture.
“Give me your name, sir.”
“I…I don’t remember.”
Where can we find you
on the Internet?
I love chatting with my readers.
Thanks so much for having me on your excellent blog, Lena. You are a fine fellow author and I appreciate you.
Thank you, Anne, for
sharing your book with us today. I’m eager to read the rest of your story.
Readers, here are links to the book.
Hatteras Island Mystery - Paperback
Hatteras Island Mystery
- Kindle
Romancing the Billionaire: 5 Rich Romances
- Kindle
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