#WriteWed Inspiration for the Sin Hunters Series

AlphaImmortalsWow! I can’t believe that it’s been five years since the first release in the SIN HUNTER series and now I’ve re-released both SINS OF THE FLESH and STRONGER THAN SIN.

Not to mention that THE LOST will be part of the fabulous ALPHA IMMORTALS box set which will be available in early October.

So what inspired the series? For starters, my love of science. I was, and still am, a science nerd. I love watching all those shows on the Discovery Channel and reading about what’s happening, especially with genetics. It’s what led me to use genetic engineering gone wrong as the basis for the first two books.

My love of history combined with my love of science inspired the next two books, THE LOST and THE CLAIMED.

As a kid I avidly read all kinds of history books, especially ones dealing with the history of the Americas. It’s how I got the idea to incorporate Mayan practices and the Quechan language to create the otherwordly Hunters like Adam and Christopher.

What’s going to inspire the next one, THE SHATTERED? Yes, I do plan on writing another one. So many of you have been writing to ask about what happens to Sammie and Ryan and they will get their story. Plus, you’ll get to see more of the Carrera clan and find out how they are all doing.

Back to what will inspire it: I don’t know. It’ll definitely be a meld of the first two in the series with the last two. Genetic engineering meets Hunters with special powers. I’ve just got to figure out how who is going to be the ultimate villain and what they want with the Carreras and the Hunters!

Wicked Wednesday – When Jesse Meets Liliana

Jesse's Back on STRONGER THAN SIN Paranormal RomanceToday 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:

http://www.scribd.com/full/44895991?access_key=key-1cp9uzv5yubl1fdl8u2s

Stronger Than Sin Jesse Meets Liliana Excerpt

Kiss Me, Kill Me Tuesday – A Writer’s Inspiration

One of the things that has been coming up often on the ARE YOU STRONG ENOUGH blog tour are questions about how I get the inspirations for the books that I write.

Which makes me vaguely remember a quote somewhere about writers being able to talk to themselves without being labeled crazy (or at least not at first) and some very popular writer kinds of T-shirt quotes, such as:

    Watch out or you’ll end up in my novel.
    I kill off my enemies in my book. You’re on page 12.

Truthfully, those quotes are accurate. For example, a very nice waiter was the inspiration for the Ryder name. Roman mythology helped create Ryder’s lover, Diana. I confess to killing off at least one person who truly pissed me off in very gruesome fashion. Last, but not least, the names of friends and family have graced characters that I like, sometimes more than once.

But beyond that, where the ideas originate is difficult to say, although it is safe to say that a writer’s mind never stops observing and recording those things around them in order to use those observations in a story. Whether it’s a meal that you savor or where you eat it, a walk along a street with a different vibe, a new city that you visit… Any and all of those life experiences may germinate the kernel of an idea that takes root and grows into a story.

STRONGER THAN SINTake STRONGER THAN SIN for instance. You may have heard me mention on other blogs that the idea for the genetic engineering came about as a result of my science major geekdom. But my love of sports was what influenced the hero’s occupation. Rather than choosing baseball, which is more a game of physics and strategy, I needed the hero to suffer serious physical injury in a bone-crushing collision. Bazinga-he had to be a football player. Someone big and powerful cut down in the prime of his life.

Enter the heroine who I had already introduced in SINS OF THE FLESH, but who I came to love and needed her own big story. Was it coincidence that she was a doctor in book one? No because I needed someone who could offer medical assistance on the sly in that book. Was it coincidence that she was training to be an orthopedic surgeon? Not really either since I knew even then the second story was going to be about someone with a bone disease and I also had a friend with that profession who I could ask questions about treatments, etc.

My life experiences and influences eventually led to ex-football player Jesse Bradford and Dr. Liliana Carrera and their story.

Other life experiences, namely my love of history and travel, are what helped set up the evolution of the SINS series for books 3 and 4 – THE LOST and THE CLAIMED as well as the two books coming out from Carina – AZTEC GOLD and THE FIFTH KINGDOM. Although I’m a little crazed right now with trying to finish THE CLAIMED, I’m going to dig through some photos and get them scanned so you can see what inspired some of the story elements and locations that I chose for those books!

I guess what I’m trying to say in a very long way is that a writer’s inspiration comes from everything around them and in particular, from those things about which they find interesting or about which they are passionate. Why are those last two things so important? Because when a writer is interested or passionate about something, it shows in the words that they put on the page and bring the story alive for readers.

Thanks for dropping by today’s Kiss Me, Kill Tuesday. Don’t forget to visit the various stops on the ARE YOU STRONG ENOUGH blog tour to learn more about STRONGER THAN SIN and also, to possibly win of the giveaways.

Also take a moment to visit with my very good friend and fellow author Mary Kennedy at SOS Aloha today! Mary is chatting about Sherlock Holmes which is thoroughly appropriate since she has the wonderful Talk Radio Mysteries out on shelves. Just click here to visit!

The Passion in SINS OF THE FLESH

SINS OF THE FLESH by Caridad Pineiro November 2009 Grand Central PublishingI know we’ve had a fun time chatting about the real science in SINS OF THE FLESH — okay so maybe it’s just me whose had fun with that — but without passion, the science is meaningless isn’t it?

For me, the greater enjoyment in SINS OF THE FLESH came from taking two people who had externalized their passion – Caterina with her music and Mick with his family – and placing them in a situation where they had to acknowledge a different kind of desire. Both Caterina and Mick had been avoiding their own needs for love for a variety of reasons, but when brought together by Fate, they can only deny what they both need for only so long.

Today’s Wicked Wednesday is an excerpt from SINS where Mick and Caterina are finally admitting that there is something growing between them. Something neither of them has experienced before.

In this scene, Mick has just returned home from a visit to the laboratories where Caterina had been genetically engineered against her will. He has gone there to try and get more information on what was done to Caterina. While heading to the building, he runs into an old adversary – Mad Dog Donnelly. Mad Dog has been hired by the scientists to eliminate any loose ends, namely Mick and Caterina.

Mick arrives at home, bloodied and injured and Caterina takes charge, determined to help Mick with the injuries he has suffered on her behalf. Along the way, passion builds . . .

Excerpt from SINS OF THE FLESH

Carefully she tended to the cuts and scrapes on his face, the look on her face intense as she worked. Concerned and guilt-ridden.

He tried to reassure her as she cleaned a scrape on his chin with light strokes. “Like I said, the other guy looks worse. Besides, the fight had little to do with you.”

“I don’t understand,” she said and leaned one hip against the edge of the table as she worked.

“The guy I fought has a problem with me. We used to work together.”

“In the Army?” she questioned as she started to pick up the dirty swabs and remnants of gauze and tape, shooting him a half-glance as she waited for his answer.

“They’d never take a psycho like him into the Army.”

He rose from the chair and the motion brought him close to her. Too close. Her shoulder brushed against the wall of his chest, creating that skitter of reaction once more.

Her head snapped up. Her eyes were that intense ocean blue once more, the pupils wide. The blush even stronger across the high slashes of her cheekbones. She licked her lips in a nervous gesture and the moisture glistened on her lips.

Very luscious womanly lips.

He dipped his head down, hesitating when he was about an inch away. Warning himself that if he took a taste . . .

He did, barely brushing his lips against hers. Experiencing the hitch in her breath that spoke of surprise. Shocked at the moment where surprise became acceptance.

Caterina joined her lips to his, the need for human contact overwhelming any caution about the logic of what she was doing.

His lips were warm and surprisingly soft beneath hers. Mobile as they gently explored hers, pizzicato plucks playing at her heart strings.

She laid her hand against his chest to steady herself. That rock hard chest. Too warm beneath her hand. The skin smooth.

So smooth, she thought as she skimmed her fingers down the length of his body.

He ripped away, toppling the kitchen chair behind him in his haste to be away from her.

Raising his hands, he said, “That should not have happened. I’m sorry.”

She hated that he was right. It shouldn’t have happened. “I’m sorry as well, it was just . . .”

“The satisfaction of surviving. I’ve been through it before. It’s a natural reaction after a battle,” he said and she imagined that he had experienced this same feeling before. The conquering hero coming home to whatever woman awaited him in that place. Celebrating the victory over an opponent. Thumbing his nose at Death.

She understood. Her father had been a warrior in a suit, vanquishing opponents in the marketplace. He would come home, drunk with victory and liquor. Beating his chest and belittling her mother’s accomplishments and joys. Diminishing them to aggrandize himself until her mother had stopped believing in herself.

Until her mother had ceased to exit.

“I understand,” she said, not that she approved. But she couldn’t control herself from reaching up and running her fingers across her lips to savor the lingering feel of him.

His gaze tracked that motion too intently, but then he shuttered that gaze. His face turned stony and his lips thinned into a tight line as he reined himself in.

“I’m going to go get changed,” he said and left the room.

She watched his retreating back, wondering about the kind of man he really was. If there was anything to him other than the warrior who lived only for his own gain and success.

A gain that had to be substantial, she assumed, thinking that Edwards would be willing to pay a great deal to get her back. Would Mick tire of the challenge she seemed to be presenting and turn her over to Edwards for that bounty?

Or was he a man of honor beneath the dangerous and hard persona he insisted on displaying to others?

As she stood there, considering it, she realized either scenario was risky for her. And she realized that just like she had refused to let her father determine where her life would go, she couldn’t just rely on him to get her life back for her.

She had to find a way to take care of it herself.

*****

I hope you enjoyed that little teaser! If you’d like to read more, check out the chapters with this cool widget from Grand Central Publishing. For those of you who cannot see the widget, you can click on this link for some more free reads of SINS OF THE FLESH.

Mix-It-Up Friday Contest!

mixWe’re having a spontaneous contest today! Leave your mixed up version of an old adage here by midnight EST on Saturday, November 14, for a chance to win a copy of FURY CALLS and a SINS OF THE FLESH T-shirt!

So how does this mix-it-up Friday contest work – here’s a sample:

    Old adage: A good man is hard to find.
    Mix-it-up Version: A hard man is good to find.

Also, don’t forget there are only two more weeks to the SINFUL THINGS contest. For a chance to win, or increase your chances of winning, please do the following by midnight EST November 30:

On Twitter please Tweet/Retweet (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):

Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! RT for a chance 2 win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC

On Facebook please post to your profile (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):

Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! Post this link to your profile for a chance to win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC

Guilty Pleasures Monday – Joshua Jackson

I always thought Pacey made the wrong choice and should have gone with Joshua Jackson! There has always been something just endearing and sexy about him from Dawson’s Creek to his role now in the very interesting Fox show Fringe. For those of you who live a mix of paranormal with suspense, this is a great show. I call it The X-Files on steroids because it really is the next generation of FBI science thriller shows.

Joshua is great in it as the son of a mad scientist type who has to deal with old dysfunctional family issues as well as a truly unusual bunch of cases every week. If you get a chance, try it out.

Also, wanted to announce the winner of my friend Kathye Quick’s quest blog contest – JeanP. If you’re JeanP, please send an e-mail with your postal address to [email protected] to claim your CALLING T-shirt.

Thanks to all of you who dropped by and left comments!