Note: Kat is giving away an autographed copy of Against the Odds. Please post a comment to be entered.
When I come up with a story idea, one of the most import
things to do and sometimes the hardest is to find the right romantic match for
the hero or heroine. It was easier in AGAINST
THE ODDS because I got to meet Alex and Sabrina in Against the Sun, where they
showed up as friends of Jake Cantrell and Sage Dumont.
I liked both characters right away, but it wasn’t until
SUN was well underway that I realized Sabrina and Alex just had to have their
own story. They were both larger than
life people and their attraction to each other sizzled through the pages.
As AGAINST THE ODDS begins, Sabrina receives an
inheritance from her uncle--an abandoned silver mine in the West Texas desert. Running out of money, Rina is determined to
find the mine and make it productive, even if it means putting up with the
cocky jet jockey she is determined to dislike but finds ridiculously
attractive.
G.Q. handsome and obscenely wealthy, Alex is a private
investigator and an ex-Navy pilot. Alex
is just the man Rina needs to fly her safely into the desert in search of her
late uncle’s property. I knew the
characters, but I struggled with the story.
Even half way through, I was still finding my way, trying to figure out
who the real bad guy was.
The best part was the story gave me a chance to get to
know Ben Slocum (Ben’s the hero in Against the Edge), another character I fell
in love with as I was writing Against the Sun.
I hope you’ll watch for Alex and Sabrina in AGAINST THE
ODDS. It’s a sexy tale of survival,
murder, betrayal, and intrigue that kept me writing far longer than I should
have been. The book is out December 18th,
just in time for Christmas shopping.
So how did you find your perfect match and are the two
of you still together?
Have a wonderful holiday, Kat
Blurb:THIS CASE MAY PROVE TO BE TOO HOT TO
HANDLE
There's silver out there: Sabrina Eckhart is sure
of it. And when she finds the hidden mine on that big piece of West Texas
desert, all of her financial problems are solved. That is, if she can find it.
The man with the skills she needs is private investigator Alex Justice─a former
navy fighter pilot and a current pain in the neck.
When mysterious "accidents" start to plague their
search, it seems Rina's multi-acre inheritance might be more of a curse than a
blessing. And yet, there's still something sensual about the heat...his
arrogance...her stubbornness...being thrust into each other's arms by
danger...But the vultures are circling, and if they don't watch their backs, the
relentless desert sun could be the last thing they ever see.
Paragraph from author about the
book:
The book was interesting to write, a different kind
of story that deals with survival in the harsh, inhospitable desert, family
betrayal, and long-buried secrets. The characters had to overcome stereotypes
and learn to trust and love.Alex and Rina are two of my favorite characters, so
different on the surface, yet oddly suited. Though it takes a life-and-death
struggle before they begin to see the truth.
Purchase
Links:
Bn.com
Amazon.com
Indiebound.org
Reader to Reader Review
AGAINST
THE ODDS by Kat Martin
LONG
EXCERPT (1536 words)
Rina’s
adrenaline was pumping. The thrill of
being so high in an open-air helicopter was a rush unlike anything she had ever
felt before. Add to that, flying with
Alex Justice, watching his long-fingered hands work the controls, seeing the
capable way he handled the machine, made her heart rate soar even higher. There was something about a man taking
charge, a man who was good at what he did, that turned her on.
Not that
she would ever admit it.
Alex
wasn’t her type and she wasn’t his and both of them knew it. Still, she wasn’t dead and Alex was
definitely eye candy and more.
She
forced herself to concentrate on the search they were making. They’d been flying for more than an hour, had
located the property but not the mine itself--assuming there was one. There’d been nothing in the will to indicate
its location or anything about it. Just
the legal description of the land itself, three-thousand acres, five-square
miles, of what appeared to be dirt, rocks, and cactus.
Her gaze
followed the contours of the property.
Ravines scarred the landscape, and ridges of granite rose out of the
sloping desert floor. Chaparral,
mesquite, and scrub brush dotted endless stretches of rocks and sand.
“Not
much out there,” Alex said above the whip, whip, whip of the rotors.
“We
haven’t covered that much area yet.
Maybe we’ll find something that marks the mine.”
“If
there is one,” Alex said, reminding her there might not be anything more than
exactly what they were seeing--miles and miles of vast, empty desert.
The
hours began to blur together. Once they
had reached the property location, Alex had begun searching in a grid pattern
to cover as much of the area as possible.
The temperature was rising, the heat building inside the chopper, the
afternoon slipping away. Rina yawned and
rubbed her eyes, which felt gritty from the wind and heat.
An odd
noise caught her attention. The whop,
whop, whop had been so regular she’d been trying not to fall asleep. This sound was different, a kind of grinding
that had her gaze shooting to Alex, who features suddenly looked grim.
Sabrina’s
heart stalled and a few seconds later, so did the engine.
“Alex,
what’s happening?”
Alex
heard the fear in Sabrina’s voice. There
wasn’t time to answer. Instead, his
years of training and experience kicked in and he did what he had been trained
to do--slamming the collective down to neutral, taking the pitch out of the
blade. The chopper fell like a stone.
“Oh, my
God!” Sabrina’s voice rose even higher
as she realized they were in trouble.
The
blades were flat now, the wind whistling up between them, making them spin even
faster than the engine, which had gone deadly silent.
“Just
hold on!” he shouted. “We’ll auto-rotate
down! We’ll be fine!” He’d done it dozens of times, knew without
thinking exactly how to make it happen.
As the inertia built, he began to search the ground for a place to land,
but something didn’t feel right, something was altering their approach while
they were still too high to make a safe landing.
It was
the blades, he realized. Instead of
moving at the speed they should have, they were sticking and slowing, jerking
instead of spinning smoothly. They were
going to hit the ground hard. Way too
hard.
At the
last minute, he flared the chopper, hoping to slow it as much as possible, hit
a little softer, keep the helo in one piece, but the chopper was coming in too
fast and the ground rushed up.
Sabrina
screamed as the windshield shattered and he leaned over her, tried to cover her
as much as he could with his body. The
rotor blades tore free and spun away, shattering into jagged pieces that flew
like deadly knives into the desert.
The
chopper shook and continued to disintegrate.
After what seemed like minutes but was only seconds, the machine finally
started to settle. Alex popped his
seatbelt and reached for Sabrina, eased her back in the seat and saw blood
trickling down her forehead. She was
moaning, conscious, but barely. From the
corner of his eye, he spotted the lick of orange flames behind them, rushing up
from what was left of the engine.
The fuel
tank was going to blow. They had to get
out and fast. Reaching behind his seat,
he grabbed his emergency gear bag, slung the strap over his shoulder, then
reached for Sabrina, popped her belt and started to pull her out of the chopper
from the pilot’s side.
The
effort had him hissing in pain, his body telling him he had injured a couple of
ribs, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now. Ignoring the sharp stab in his side, he
pulled Sabrina free of the wreckage, half dragged, half carried her over to an
outcropping of rock, settled her behind it.
There
was just enough time to throw himself over her, protecting her as much as he
could, before the helo exploded into a ball of thick black smoke and searing
flames. The blazing inferno shot into
the sky, and a barrage of shrapnel sliced through the air around them.
Alex
felt a sharp sting as a jagged piece of metal cut through his shirt and sliced
into his back. A second explosion ripped
through the air, then the only sound he heard was the crackle of flames.
He took
a quick look over the rock to make sure it was safe, then turned his attention
to the woman on the ground. Her face was
as pale as the sand under her head, and a thin line of blood trickled from her
forehead to her left temple.
She
moved her head a little and groaned.
Then her pretty blue eyes cracked open and she looked up at him. “Alex...?”
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