Please help me welcome two-time RITA nominee Scarlett Cole to GraveTells!!

DaVinciKittie (DVK): Scarlett, welcome to GraveTells! Thanks so much for joining us today to tell your deepest, dirtiest secrets about your new book, Under Fire. (Just kidding about the deepest and dirtiest… maybe)

Scarlett Cole (SC): Thank you so much for letting me swing by today. I am super excited to be here to talk about UNDER FIRE, the steamy first book in my new series, LOVE OVER DUTY, which features three former Navy SEALs who set up their own special ops for hire company. This book focuses on sniper Sixton “Six” Rapp and Dr. Louisa North. Louisa is a medical researcher who has created a drug powerful enough to be considered a chemical weapon and somebody wants it, and her. Six isn’t going to let that happen, but his judgement is clouded when his feelings for Louisa start to challenge his duty to her as his client. I loved his conflict, and his inability to stay away from Lou as the story progresses. I’ll keep the dirty and deepest secrets in the book, but when they finally fall into bed together, it’s seriously hot.

DVK: Under Fire is the first story in your new Love Over Duty series, and it’s already garnering some phenomenal praise. You must be super psyched about this release!

SC: I am totally thrilled by readers’ reactions to it. I love that people are really taking Six and Louisa to their hearts. Especially Louisa. One reviewer said that Louisa is the heroine that other heroines should aspire to, and I thought that was the greatest comment. No running down dark alleys or ignoring people who know better for Louisa. She is solid and strong, despite her shyness. It’s a bit of a departure from my other series. It has the same character-driven story feel, but is firmly romantic suspense. I really hope my readers will give it a try, and from the comments and reviews I’ve had so far, they have. This is also my first mass market paperback release, so this is a very special moment in my writing career.

One reviewer said that Louisa is the heroine that other heroines should aspire to, and I thought that was the greatest comment.

DVK: What makes the Love Over Duty story world special? What excites you the most about it?

SC: SEALs. Should I just leave the answer there?
It is classic romantic suspense at its best, which I love. I adore authors like HelenKay Dimon, Laura Kaye, and Julie Ann Walker so writing something like this was a dream come true. And building a world where bad things could happen with really high stakes was really interesting. High octane adventure is such fun to read and provides a wonderful back-drop for relationships. And yes! SEALs. What’s not to love about a capable, charismatic man who uses humor to resolve tension.

DVK: What was your Inspiration for the story or characters? More specifically, why a SEAL? Not that I’m complaining, because… seriously, SEALs. 😉

SC: LOL. We could leave it at SEALs for sure! A couple of years ago, I was asked by Kathryn Le Veque to write a novella for her kindle world. The novel on which the world was built, The Wolfe, had a contemporary epilogue, and Kathryn asked me if I would write the novella for the couple who featured in it. The hero was a SEAL. I always do a lot of research when I write, and speaking to a SEAL about his life (no top security secrets were revealed!!), made me think about doing a bigger series. Writing this book was incredible because I was graciously able to meet and talk to a retired naval commander and several active-duty and former SEALs. With their help, I was able to take a peek into this world of courage and ultimate sacrifice. Some of the lines in the book come from them. There is a scene where Louisa asks Six what the difference between a Bronze and Silver Star is, and the response I wrote in the story came straight from one of the wonderful men I got to spend time with. And the final scene was enacted for me over Skype by one of my experts while wearing board shorts in his girlfriend’s condo!

DVK: Okay, that is seriously cool! 

DVK: What romantic suspense books, series, or authors inspire you? Which ones leave you on the edge of your seat or melted into a puddle of romantic goo? What elements really drag you into a story and keep you reading after bedtime?

SC: I mentioned a handful of authors above that I love. I couldn’t put HelenKay Dimon’s Mr. and Mr. Smith down. Fisher and Zach were great and the plot so twisty and turny it completely held my interest. I love Julie Ann Walker for making us wait for Ozzie’s story in Wild Ride, the ninth book in the Black Knights series… I stayed up until two in the morning finishing that one, trying to figure out how they were going to get around the fact the heroine was trying to expose Ozzie’s company. I’ve read and re-read Laura Kaye’s Hard Ink series. I keep going back for the characters. She writes phenomenal couples.

DVK: Thanks so much for chatting with us on GraveTells today! Can’t wait for everyone to get their hands on this sexy new romantic suspense!

SC: Thank you so much for letting me stop by. It was so much fun! I can’t wait to hear what your readers and followers think of UNDER FIRE.

Intrigued? Read an excerpt from Under Fire!

2-time RITA nominee Scarlett Cole’s UNDER FIRE pairs a hot Navy SEAL with a medical researcher who finds herself in too deep. Can Sixten Rapp take the heat and Dr. Louisa North handle the flames? Fans of Laura Kaye’s HARD INK series and Julie Ann Walker’s BLACK KNIGHTS INC. series will devour Cole’s hot military hero in this opposites attract, romantic suspense.

We are excited to celebrate the release of UNDER FIRE, Scarlett Cole’s new romantic suspense! Follow the tour and enter to win a brand new Kindle Fire 7!

Copyright © 2017 Scarlett Cole

Six looked tortured. Common sense was telling her that it was best to just go back to her room and let him work through it, which totally lined up with her usual MO of avoiding, well, life. But for once she held her ground. “Okay, first please quit the martyr act. We are grown-ups who had consensual sex. I’m sure you’ve done that before, so don’t start getting weird just because it was me. Second, I’ll look at you any way I damn well please. You didn’t care how I looked at you when I was riding . . . well . . . you know,” she said, gesturing toward his shorts. “Third. If the only difference between you tugging at the corner of this towel to do something . . . urgh . . . hot, or sexual, or something and you walking out of the bathroom without kissing me good morning is the fact that I gave your company a check, I’ll cancel it. I’d rather pay you to help me, but I’m sure I can find somebody else if it’s the difference between us doing this or not.” Her knees were shaking and her voice was loud enough that she suddenly realized if any of Six’s team were still in the house, they’d likely heard her stumbled words. She felt pink spread to her cheeks.

She stepped toward the bathroom door, feeling like she was going to pass out before she made it to her own room. Her heart was pounding, and her head was spinning.

“Lou,” Six said quietly, his hand looping her wrist. “You like your lists? Fine. I’ll give you mine. First, I’m not being a martyr. We can’t build a reputation as a professional firm if I hook up with one of our first clients. Professionally, you must see how weird that looks, no matter how badly I want to. And what kind of message does it send to the guys who work for me? And yes. I have had sex before, lots of it, but what we did was much more than that. So please, for both our sakes, don’t minimize it. Just because I shouldn’t have done it doesn’t mean it wasn’t perfect. And for the record, how you looked riding my cock—and yes, you can say that word because, as you mentioned, we’re both grown-ups—was burned into my memory. And third, if it was as simple as just giving into this, you’d have been out of that towel and up on the counter with my face between your legs before you could cry out my name. It’s just . . . Shit, Lou. I’m trying to figure out what the right thing to do here is, and my duty wins out every time.”

Praise for UNDER FIRE…

“Fantastic characters, scorching sexual tension, and non-stop action make this one of my favorite reads this year! Highly recommend!” —New York Times bestselling author Laura Kaye

“Scarlett Cole’s characters pull you in from the very first page with real emotion and sizzling chemistry. Don’t miss this action packed thrill ride.”—Cherry Adair, New York Times bestselling author

“Non-stop action and heart-pounding romance…a must-read for romantic suspense fans!” —Cynthia Eden, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author

“Cole has done a wonderful job of giving her characters depth and unique personality traits. She has a way of drawing a reader into a story with interesting descriptions, and the sizzling-hot romance is a huge draw. This series looks to be a good one that readers will anxiously want to get their hands on.” —RT Book Reviews

Buy or reserve your copy online at*: Amazon (Kindle) | Amazon (Paperback) | B&N | iBooks

RITA nominee Scarlett Cole’s Under Fire pairs a hot Navy SEAL with a medical researcher who finds herself in too deep.

Hot, hard-bodied Sixton Rapp is a former SEAL who’s raring to begin his brand-new civilian life. He and his Navy “brothers” start a security firm that offers the kind of services only a team of military-trained professionals can provide. But nothing prepared Six for his new client: an innocent woman on a mission to improve thousands of lives. . . unless someone takes hers first.

Dr. Louisa North knows time is against her as she tries to create a “miracle” medical treatment for a disease with no known cure, until she creates a sample so powerful that the wrong people want to use it as a chemical weapon. At first, Six is unwilling to accept Louisa as his client. But soon he realizes that the danger is real and that there’s much more to this plain-Jane scientist...including a burning passion between them that neither of them can resist. And now that an enemy is on Louisa’s trail, Six will do whatever it takes to protect her—or die trying.

*This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

About Scarlett Cole

The tattoo across my right hip says it all really. A Life Less Ordinary. Inked by the amazingly talented Luke Wessman at the Wooster Street Social Club (a.k.a. New York Ink). Why is it important? Well, it sums up my view on life. That we should all aspire to live a life that is less boring, less predictable. Be bold, and do something amazing. I’ve made some crazy choices. I’ve been a car maker, a consultant, and even a senior executive at a large retailer running strategy. Born in England, spent time in the U.S. and Japan, before ending up in Canada were I met my own, personal hero – all six and a half feet of him. Both of us are scorpios! Yeah, I know! Should have checked the astrological signs earlier, but somehow it works for us. We have two amazing kids, who I either could never part with or could easily be convinced to sell on e-bay.

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a really long time. Check through my office cupboards or my computer and you’ll find half written stories and character descriptions everywhere. Now I'm getting the chance to follow that dream.

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