Virtual Book Tour w/Giveaway: Collateral Damage by Gwenan Haines

Collateral Damage

by Gwenan Haines

GENRE: Romantic suspense

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Gwenan Haines will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tou. Please visit GoddessFish.com to follow the tour, remember the more you comment better your chances on winning.

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BLURB:

For three years Laura Drake has watched Senator Pete Worthington promote a series of gorgeous women while she sits in a forgotten corner answering constituent letters on an outdated computer. When Worthington asks her to find an elusive file one Friday night he sets off a series of events that brands her as a killer and puts her life in jeopardy. The path she sets out on forces her to confront not only the nature of evil but the ghosts from her past that have never been set to rest.FBI Agent Dalton Ross transferred from Chicago to Washington to escape his own ghosts. When his investigation leads him to Laura he's torn between his desire to keep her safe and the need to protect his own heart. As the mystery that surrounds them deepens, Laura and Dalton race to save themselves and the nation from someone willing to sacrifice anything to protect a secret.

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Excerpt:

“I need you, Laura.”

The voice was masculine as hell and it demanded compliance.

Laura Drake sighed and pushed herself back from a desk sandwiched between an overstuffed file cabinet and a door that didn’t open. Nine o’clock on a sultry Friday night in the nation’s capital and here she was, smack in the middle of a big, fat cliché. Dashing senator smitten with beautiful young assistant. Even worse, it wasn’t her cliché. That belonged to Paige Neverett. Blonde. Big-chested. Bombshell.

She on the other hand was just the mousy aide designated to pick up the shrapnel.

Paige was long gone, of course. The gorgeous videographer had departed hours earlier, as had most of Senator Pete Worthington’s staff. As she hurried down the corridor toward his plush office Laura could still picture the curvaceous twenty-something woman as she stood poised in the doorway, face raised to receive a clandestine goodbye kiss from her boss.

“Laura!”

“Coming!” she shouted, breaking a heel on the carpeted hallway in her rush to reach him. She swore under her breath and hobbled the rest of the way, heel in hand.

Worthington sat behind an enormous desk covered with papers. Files and flash drives were scattered across the floor as well, nearly obscuring the royal blue carpet. Clearly, the senator had been looking for something. Either that or he’d gotten into cleaning mode for the first time since she’d known him. Laura braced herself for an order to start alphabetizing.

The order didn’t come.

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Interview with Gwenan Haine

What books/authors have influenced your writing?

There are so many authors I love, it’s just about impossible to narrow it down. I’d like to think I unconsciously take different elements from each and blend them to create something new. One of my favorite authors in recent years Is Stieg Larsson. I loved the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Lisbeth Salander as a smart kickass heroine. For romantic suspense, I’ve read a ton of Lisa Jackson and like her work a lot. Recently I’ve been reading Tami Hoag, Karen White, Iris Johansen, Laura Griffin, Lisa Unger, J.D. Robb and Tess Gerritsen. There are very few books I don’t get something out of. I went to a writing conference last year and one of the speakers said she never read “low art” and I had to stop myself from hurling my program at her. To make those kind of black-and-white distinctions seems ridiculous to me.

Share a funny incident in your life.

This is sort of darkly funny – or at least I hope you think so and aren’t completely offended. Not too long ago a friend of mine kept going on about how she wanted to set me up with one of her brothers. I kept putting it off (being a bit of a recluse) and fell out of touch until I saw her at family wake several months later. When I got up to the front of the line, she leaned forward and gestured toward the man in the casket. “That’s the one I was going to set you up with,” she whispered. She’s from a huge family of 12 and I had no idea the sibling who’d died was the same guy she’d been trying to set me up with. I couldn’t think of anything to say and finally mumbled, “Oh, he looks really cute.” Sad as it was, we both burst into laughter. Anyway, that pretty much sums up my luck when it comes to men.

If a genie granted you three wishes, what would they be? (can't ask for wishes)

No wishing for wishes? Shoot. I have so many wishes – too many. I hope I’d be altruistic and wish for universal peace, especially considering everything happening in the world right now. Or a happy life for my daughter. But if we’re talking about wishes specifically related to my own life, I guess I’d say I’d love to have more time for writing and reading so I wouldn’t have to squeeze them in all the time. If we’re talking about fantasy, I’d like the ability to travel back and forth through time. Or maybe just to be able to eat all the ice cream I want and still look hot in a bikini? And then there’s the tall dark stranger wish. But I think I’m way over three so I’ll stop.

Tell us about a unique or quirky habit of yours.

I’m going to take the Fifth on that one! But I will admit I have a quasi-obsession with fire and a weakness for Key Lime cookies.

When you are in writer mode, music or no music? If music do you have a playlist

Definitely no music! I wish I could listen to music but I can’t write unless I’ve got utter silence (well, as close to it as I get with a teenage daughter and a Siberian husky in the house). When I’m not actually writing I do listen to a lot of music and believe it’s part of the creative process. I don’t have a playlist handy but I’m pretty eclectic. I’ll listen to rock or indie music or blues or whatever, depending on my mood. Sometimes I’m totally into old music – Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, Joni Mitchell – but other times I’ll listen to newer groups. My daughter’s been getting me into Fall Out Boy and Bastille and Lana Del Ray, stuff like that. If I finish something I’ll crank up the tunes and dance around my living room (though I’m pretty sure I look like Elaine in that Seinfeld episode). If I hit a writing snag, sometimes I’ll take a break and listen to something mellow until I work through it.

Thanks for having me!

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I live in an old Cape house with my daughter, too many books, and a red-and-white Siberian husky born on Halloween. After working in Washington, D.C. for several years and traveling to Russia, Europe and Pakistan, I moved back to New England. I’m the author of the romantic suspense novel Vertigo, which is available as an E-book from Amazon Encore and in paperback from Wild Rose Press. Collateral Risk, the follow-up novel to Collateral Damage (which features Dalton’s boss Nick Doyle and scientist Mia Lindgren), is forthcoming from Wild Rose Press. When I’m not working on fiction, I write poetry, teach literature and am still trying to learn how to cook.

www.gwenanhaines.blogspot.com

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Collateral-Damage-Gwenan-Haines-ebook/dp/B01A9PUSMA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1452257140&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Gwenan-Haines/e/B005WEXWRW

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/gwenan.haines

Author Page

https://www.facebook.com/Gwenan-Haines-271101656263836/

Goodreads

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5278329.Gwenan_Haines

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