Why Danny? Well, in STRONGER THAN SIN the hero, Jesse Bradford, is a football player and Danny is a wide receiver for the New England Patriots. Danny was an undrafted free agent when the Dallas Cowboys picked him up. He then went to the Philadelphia Eagles before being signed by the Patriots.
Gotta love that smile, that face and those muscles! Sigh. I hope I took a little bit of the chill away from you with today’s Man Candy.
Can you tell it’s football season in my house? LOL! Of course, I think you knew I loved football when I made Jesse Bradford from STRONGER THAN SIN a football player.
Today’s Man Candy Monday is LA RAMS wide receiver Danny Amendola. Danny caught my eye in this week’s game and I had to share him with you today! Danny was originally signed by the Cowboys and then spent some time with the Eagles. He’s now playing with the Rams and have a good season. Entering Week 5, Amendola was second in the NFL for receptions, amazing considering he suffered a freak collarbone injury which might have killed him.
At 5’10”, 185 pounds, Danny is a lean, mean catching machine. I could just picture him playing Jesse Bradford in a movie (although Jesse was a few inches taller).
This Wicked Wednesday I’m offering up an excerpt from STRONGER THAN SIN that I’ve titled “Awakenings” because as Jesse and Liliana are thrust together, understanding awakens desire, especially in Jesse. He’s been alone for so long that Liliana’s caring and compassion are almost overwhelming.
If you cannot see the excerpt below, you can click here. Don’t have the time to read it now or want a more private moment? You can click on download to save it to your electronic reading device.
There’s an interesting discussion by Keri Stevens over at the Carina Press blog. Keri is talking about her latest release, STONE KISSED, and what she does with those scenes that need to get cut.
It’s just part of the revision process that sometimes you, or more often an editor, chops scenes from a book. In STRONGER THAN SIN I dropped a number of scenes which showed Liliana interacting with the Carrera family even though I hated to do that. I loved Mick and Cat from SINS OF THE FLESH and thought you might like to see what was happening with them as well as the other Carrera family members. Unfortunately, as much as you love those scenes you need to understand that you have to focus on the main characters and not distract readers with old characters.
But I do know that many of you asked about the other Carreras and I appreciate that you grew that attached to them that you didn’t want to see them go. Believe me, I didn’t either and that’s why I’m going to be offering up a number of deleted bits featuring the Carrera family from the various SINS books
So here goes! This scene was originally in STRONGER THAN SIN, but it really didn’t portray Liliana as a woman capable of making her own decisions although it reinforced the importance of family to Liliana. To add action, I replaced it with a scene where Liliana and Mick are jogging and Liliana realizes she is being followed. In the new scene, although Mick offers his help, Liliana decides to go it alone to avoid bringing any more trouble into her brother’s already complicated life.
Imagine it’s the day after Christmas in the Carrera-Bradford household (Yes, Liliana is too modern to just drop her family name). After days of visits to their Irish and Mexican families and celebrations packed with food, Jesse has to work off a few of those pounds. Since he’s still in Santa mode, why not a little red to keep the holiday cheer going and share his gifts with Liliana?
Now I don’t know about you, but this Naughty Santa can come visit any day and not just on Guilty Pleasures Monday!
But it’s a double day of fun here since I’m also taking a trip down under to visit my friend and fellow author Jenny Schwartz at her wonderful blog. Take the trip with me and find out what inspired AZTEC GOLD, my vampire E-novella from Carina Press which will be available online on January 3 and also available as an audio book (more on that as soon as I know the release date).
Today I am sharing with you…Jesse’s back! What a gorgeous back and shoulders!
Wait no excerpt? Okay, so I’m also sharing with you an excerpt from STRONGER THAN SIN. This excerpt is the first scene in the book where Jesse meets Liliana, but where you also find out that the two have crossed paths before and not necessarily in a nice way.
Hope you enjoy today’s wicked excerpt! If you cannot see the excerpt below, you can also click here or cut and paste this link into your browser:
If you know even a little bit about STRONGER THAN SIN, you know I’m a football fan in addition to being a baseball fan. I root for the JETS and GIANTS and hope that one day New Jersey will have its own football team. It’s why I invented the New Jersey MARAUDERS as Jesse Bradford’s team in the book.
My family and I were watching the Colts-Eagles game yesterday when one of the young players – Austin Collie – took a punishing hit. We held our breaths as he went down and prayed he would be okay since he was clearly injured. We learned later on that he suffered a concussion. So today is dedicated to this young man. Everything I’ve read about him indicates that he is an outstanding individual and I hope he heals quickly. (Photo Credit: BYU Cougars Football)
Today begins the ARE YOU STRONG ENOUGH Blog tour! Stop by one of the blogs to find out more about me and my books and to possibly win a prize as some of the blogs are hosting giveaways.
There’s an interesting discussion by 
Today I am sharing with you…Jesse’s back! What a gorgeous back and shoulders!