I can remember the exact moment I thought up the idea of Quick & Dirty.
I was walking my dog up Rainbow Road on the south facing slope of Christmas Hill in Victoria and texting with some friends asking for heroine name suggestions.
One of them suggested Parker Ryan and I absolutely loved it.
I also knew that I wanted the tagline to be The best way to get over a millionaire is to get over a billionaire.
I’d already “created” Tate McAllister, mysterious billionaire philanthropist and introduced him to the “world” in Hot & Filthy, but I hadn’t really planned to give him his own love story, let alone turn it all into a series.
I joined a boxed set and needed a story to contribute, so I “whipped up” Quick & Dirty as my contribution. However, I never felt like I had truly “finished” the story arc of how Tate got his seed money to buy the resort. Too much was left unanswered about Tate’s dead, estranged father.
The world needed more answers. I needed more answers.
Quick & Easy was written more on a dare than anything else. Two of my very close friends, who also happen to be incredibly talented authors (Jeanne St. James and Erica Lynn) used to tease me over the fact that all my books were long, and just kept getting longer. Meanwhile, they had no problem whipping up 20-45K word novellas. But I just couldn’t do anything under 50K.
So to prove them that I in fact COULD write a novella, I set aside two weeks to write Quick & Easy. I wanted to outdo my own challenge and said I would keep Quick & Easy at 20K words. Well, of course, you know I did it!
But that just fed the flames of this series even more and I needed to add more brothers. More billionaires. The mystery behind the rich deadbeat dad still burned inside of me.
Quick & Reckless came about because I wanted to challenge myself once again. I wanted to write two tropes I’d never attempted before: secret baby and step-sibling.
I get a little squirmy at the idea of hooking up with a step-sibling, to be honest. I don’t have any step-siblings, but if its someone you’ve grown up with and in any way shape or form have called “a brother” or “a sister” it just feels too taboo for me to write. No judgement if you write or love to read step romance. I don’t judge. I just didn’t want to write too far out of my comfort zone, otherwise you as the reader would have known and felt that lack of sincerity and the characters and story would have been wooden.
So I put a twist on the step romance. A twist that didn’t have me stepping too far out of my comfort zone, but enough so that my toes got wet and I’d like to think I can now add that trope to my list of “I’ve gone there” tropes.
But of course, three books wasn’t enough. I still hadn’t answered the mystery of the dad.
We needed a sister.
Cue, Skyler and her story, Quick & Dangerous. We met Roberto “Rob” Cahill in Lust Abroad, and a lot of readers asked me if he was going to get his own story, since they loved him in Lust Abroad. So I figured, why not give him his HEA and pair him up with the fiery Skyler who is running from the mafia? A match made in romantic suspense heaven.
I honestly can’t tell you WHY I decided to make mention of a fifth sibling at the very end of Quick & Dangerous, but I did. It was my subconscious telling me that I wasn’t done with this series. That I needed to delve deeper into the mystery of Randall McAllister–
…deadbeat dad extraordinaire–and introduce one more McAllister sibling into the mix.
But, of course, I also wanted to bring us back to Canada and give the family a big, noisy, snowy Christmas.
I’m loving the direction that Quick & Snowy is going. It’s a slower burn than the rest of the books, and the heroine (Brier), although strong and brilliant, also suffers from crippling social anxiety and is terrified to meet her intimidating, billionaire siblings. Barnes is a former SEAL and an amputee, and he’s been tasked with finding Brier. Only when he finds her in sunny, beachy and beautiful Albufeira, Portugal she’s not exactly hopping on the next plane to go and meet her family.
He has a bit of a challenge on his hands, convincing her to leave with him. Because if there is anything this former SEAL does is finish the job he started.
I can’t wait for you to read this book and let me know what you think. I plan to wrap up all loose ends and any unsolved mystery pieces. This will be the FINAL Quick Billionaires book. I have way too many other things planned and on the TBW (to be written) pile to think about working another Quick Billionaire book into the mix.
But I think the reason why I did keep adding more books to the series is because just like the Hart family (The Harty Boys Series) I just love this family and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
COMING NOVEMBER 13, 2021
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER
Here’s an excerpt of Quick & Snowy for you.
“You’re welcome to tickle my nuts and sniff my ass crack, but I know damn well I don’t have to remove my leg. Try again …” Barnes Wark leaned forward over the rolling belt in airport security and squinted at the nametag on the baby-faced TSA agent.
Oden.
He resisted the urge to sneer at the name since he, too, had an unusual name that often garnered some quirked eyebrows. Instead, he felt half an ounce of sympathy for the kid.
But it wasn’t enough o save him from Barnes’s impatience. Oh no.
The barely-legal kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed hard in his throat and his brown eyes shifted from Barnes’s to his supervisor who was standing in the corner.
“Don’t look at her, look at me,” Barnes continued. “I’m the person you’re dealing with right now. You saw my prosthetic after I took off my shoes and thought, hey, let’s make the cripple take off his leg. I’ve never seen that before.”
The kid’s face was turning the shade of an over ripe tomato. He shook his head as if Barnes hadn’t just dived into his sick subconscious and read his mind.
Barnes ignored the man’s silent, but colorful denial. “And you’re not going to see it today. But I am going to give you a second chance to speak to me like human being with the same rights as every other person in here. So tell me again exactly what I need to remove.”
The kid’s eyes found Barnes’s once more, he swallowed again and nodded. “Belt, shoes, all electronics, all liquids and anything metal. But I don’t need you to remove your prosthetic, sir. A pat-down will be necessary, though.”
Barnes nodded and chucked his wallet, watch, belt and carryon into the bin, then walked to wait for another TSA agent to wave him through the metal-detector. Of course, it beeped.
He always forgot his dog tags. They were an extension of who he was—just like his leg—so it skipped his mind that they would need to be removed before proceeding through the detector.
Stepping back through, he lifted his tags out from under his black T-shirt and tossed them in with his belt and wallet.
The moment they were off, he felt exposed. Vulnerable.
A piece of himself was missing.
He needed them back.
Calmly, with a hard swallow, he stepped back through the detector.
It beeped again.
He rolled his eyes. It would beep until the day he died.
He’d been through this scenario hundreds possibly thousands of times. But once in a while he encountered a wet-behind the ears greenhorn who had either skipped the page on amputees in the TSA training handbook, or had some secret fetish or overwhelming curiosity that made them break protocol.
He NEVER indulged them.
Sure, he didn’t give two shits that one of his legs was made of titanium. He’d come to terms with that part long ago. But he did give two shits, probably more than just two about being made a spectacle or having his rights violated.
He was waved over to the side where two male TSA agents approached him.
He didn’t say a word. Just spread his legs and let them do their thing.
They wouldn’t find anything.
He was one of the good guys.
Or at least he tried to be.
The TSA agent who was sliding his hands up Barnes’s thigh was busy explaining what he was doing and why. Barnes tuned him out. The other agent had Barnes’s passport. He glanced into the bin of Barnes’s stuff and his brows lifted.
Barnes waited.
Five …
Four …
Three …
Two …
One …
“Thank you for your service, sir.”
As predictable as the tides.
“My father served as well. We appreciate everything you’ve done to keep our country safe.”
Barnes nodded at the man and accepted his passport back. If only this thirty-something guy with the wedding band and baby spit up on his collar knew the kinds of things Barnes had done to keep this man and his family safe.
It would give the average person nightmares.
Fuck, it gave Barnes nightmares.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” the other man said, standing back up.
Barnes grunted, then continued on to gather his stuff.
He was almost home.
One more flight, Houston to Portland and then he could hunker down until the new year.
With his dog tags securely back in place, he released the breath that had been burning his lungs. He finished putting on his belt and shoes, slung his rucksack over his back and headed toward his gate.
His sister had offered for him to come and spend Christmas with her family in Maine. His nieces and nephew were dying to see their uncle Barney, but he just didn’t have it in him to do the big family Christmas thing.
COMING NOVEMBER 13, 2021
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER