Tuesday Wrap-up!

Today is one of those days where I just need to take a breath and catch up on all that’s been going on!

For starters, I’m hard at work on THE PRINCE’S GAMBLE, a romantic suspense novel for Entangled Publishing‘s DEAD SEXY line. If you liked MORE THAN A MISSION or SECRET AGENT REUNION, I think you will really enjoy this story about a Russian prince who owns a casino in Atlantic City and has to deal with the prickly FBI Agent sent to help him ferret out a money laundering scheme and find one of his missing employees.

THE PRINCE’S GAMBLE will be out in July 2013.

Also got the good news on the release dates for THE CALLING Vampire Novels that are being REBORN in 2013 with Entangled Publishing. Look for Diana and Ryder to return in a series of stories beginning in February 2013! The first story, BORN TO SERVE, explores where Diana and Ryder are after nearly four years in their complex relationship. BORN TO SERVE will also set the tone for the novels to come as Diana and Ryder deal with Diana’s declining health and the possibility that death may call for her soon.

The second novel, BORN TO LOVE, will be out in May 2013 and will feature Diana’s ex-partner, David Harris, and Diana’s best friend, Maggie Gonzalez. I know so many of you have been asking about David and Maggie and you will finally get to see their story wrapped up in the longer story arc of what’s happening with Diana and Ryder.

The third story, BORN TO DIE, will feature Michaela and Jesus (Jay) from HONOR CALLS. I absolutely loved the combination of the very kick-ass, break-the-rules Michaela finally meeting her match with the very by-the-book FBI Director.

SO EXCITED GUYS! THE CALLING/THE REBORN Vampire novels are a series of my heart and I am sooo sooo happy to be able to continue this series.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. Just wanted to keep you posted on what’s in the works that’s new. For those of you who’ve gotten the newsletter, you know we’ve got another party coming up in March to celebrate a bunch of things. One of the grand prizes will be this memory box I made. It’s made with some shells and other items I found along the shore along with beads and other items.

The photos inside and out were ones I snapped off doing research for the SIN HUNTER series. The memory box took quite a few days to make and I hope you’ll like it as a giveaway. I’ve also donated one along with other goodies for the Brenda Novak auction.

Kiss Me, Kill Me – Spies, Treason, Wikileaks and Worms

As a romantic suspense writer, spies and secret missions are sometimes a part of what we do, like in MORE THAN A MISSION or SECRET AGENT REUNION. The plots boil down to fairly simple terms: Find out what happened, who did it, restore order and eliminate the threat.

Watching this Wikileaks debacle unfold, it’s almost like reading a bad suspense plot, because I keep on asking myself, “Really? You let them do that? And you haven’t done anything about it?”

Write a book like that and it will end up in the circular file of the editor or agent. But, of course, truth is stranger than fiction and you can’t get away with things in fiction which actually happen. For example:

How did they get the information?: It is alleged that information provided to WikiLeaks came from an Army PFC (Private First Class) who used his “Top Secret/SCI” clearance to download sensitive documents. Scary to think how many others have this kind of clearance.

Put that in a book and an editor/agent might say – Seriously? A private has access to these kinds of documents? Not believable.

Let’s say you’re lucky enough to get past that part of the plot and move onto the second question: Who has the information? Cue the Internet. Despite shutting down the U.S. domain for Wikileaks, it moved to a site at Wikileaks.ch. Even when it was shut down there, information continued to be mirrored at various sites and the equivalent of an Internet war has begun with groups launching distributed denial of service attacks in retaliation for actions taken against Wikileaks’s founder.

But I digress. Imagine this scenario in your suspense novel. A site has sensitive information on servers with a known location. What to do? Infiltrate the area. Physically knock out the servers. Obvious, but effective.

How about something more interesting? Develop something like the Stuxnet worm to shut down the site and have it feed back to the computers where the information originated.

Now that might pass muster with an editor/agent. Having your spies/political types sit around and seemingly do nothing for months – back into the circular file for that story.

But what about the real life implications of something like Wikileaks? There are those who are touting the First Amendment and others screaming “Treason”. Let’s start with the easy one: Treason.

Treason involves betraying one’s one nation and so Assange’s actions are not treason against the U.S. Not so with any other U.S. citizen involved with the dissemination of the information. For those who betray the U.S., there is possibly an argument for treason.

What about the First Amendment? Too complicated to discuss, but you can read some more about here at the Wall Street Journal.

There are those that think this is a good thing – all this information going public. Expose the U.S. and its corruption. It won’t damage diplomatic ties, etc.

Let’s really simplify this and see what you think. Let me know how you feel about what’s going on and the actions that are being taken to stop it.

On the release of all this information in general: You safeguard your identity carefully. Shred documents. Put your info on the Internet on select sites, like your health insurance company website or through online banking. Someone gets all that information and decides to go public. Now the world knows where you live, that you really don’t like your neighbor Bill, that you’re being treated for an STD and have since developed ED that not even Cialis will cure, are broke and have creditors knocking on your door and by the way, using all that info, someone just hacked into your bank account and wiped you out.

On the problems with diplomatic ties: You tell your best friend a very sensitive secret. She tells someone else which is bad enough, but while she is telling someone else, a third person intercepts the message and puts in on Facebook or tweets it. Will you ever tell that best friend a secret again? Probably not for a very long time.

So sound off today! Please tell me what you think about this and whether a story like this would make a good book or an unbelievable one!