Deadly Double-Cross by Sherry Roseberry Genre: Romantic Suspense
Crystal James operates Gemstone, a skiing resort her father owns, settled at the base of the Grand Tetons. She can survive in the wilds of the jagged range even if they are covered in snow. Lukas Guarrad, a Los Angeles detective, knows his way around the big city but is at a loss in the mountains. Especially when he’s afraid of heights. He’s trailing a cat burglar named Panther, who uses Gemstone to fence his stolen goods, because the thief murdered Luke’s partner. Crystal witnesses a homicide meant to look like a heart attack. Later she inadvertently hears a death warrant taken out on her life. All other avenues blocked, she strikes out for the Tetons and stumbles across Luke who has sprained his ankle. Is he the assassin? If not, his life is in danger as well. Plus in his condition he’s no match for the elements. She is forced to haul him along. There is a growing attraction between them. But can she trust him? Luke tries to protect Crystal from Panther, but in the end will she be able to overcome her paralyzing fear of guns to pick one up and save them both? Goodreads * Amazon
Love Only Once by Sherry Roseberry Genre: Historical Romance
Does love come again? Granger Hawks firmly believes he can love only once. Not wanting a wife, but needing a woman who could educate and be a mother figure for his daughter, he answers an ad for a mail-ordered bride, requesting someone plain and unassuming, someone he wouldn’t become emotionally involved with. Without love, emotions fade, leaving festering sores. Tired of living off charity, Falisha Harrington travels to New Mexico in answer to Mr. Hawks’s petition. Positive he doesn’t need a wife, but a governess for his daughter, she’s determined to convince him of that fact. The woman with large slate-blue eyes and platinum-blond hair is not what Granger had expected, and he’s dead set on sending the beautiful Miss Harrington back to St Lewis. But a deserter kidnaps Falisha for the money she’ll bring South of the border. It’s one thing for Granger to rescue Falisha from white slavery. It’s another for him to admit he can find love more than once. Goodreads * Amazon
Tender Deceptions by Sherry Roseberry Genre: Romantic Suspense
For all outward purposes, Michelle Grant is a sophisticated, San Francisco, society girl. But beneath her exotic beauty lies a daring spirit that leads her into the dark, perilous streets of Chinatown. Masked as a Chinese man, but named Mei Hwa, she’s part of a secret alliance that rescues innocent young girls from the brothel cribs. Dirk Andrews is out for revenge. His younger brother died at the hands of Celeste Grant, and he means to make her pay. He’s found that the woman has made her fortune on coolie trade, opium, and brothel slavery. Going undercover, he works his way into Celeste’s confidence. From the first time Dirk met her, Mei Hwa intrigued him. Why her deception? Why walk the streets at night dressed as a Chinese man? And why was she so intent on rescuing girls from the brothel cribs? It was dangerous work, and not fit for a woman. As Mei Hwa and Dirk work together fighting the slave girl trade, their feelings for each other grow. And he professes his love. One morning Michelle hears a familiar laugh. With trepidation she glances into the drawing room to find her Aunt Celeste with her arms around Dirk. How could he? How could he hold that woman? Had she surrendered her heart to a traitor? Goodreads * Amazon
Sherry Roseberry was born and raised in a small town in Idaho. There were two things she wanted to be when she grew up, a mother and an actress. From middle school to college her focus was drama. While in a seventh-grade class her English teacher said that if they ever wanted to write for magazines like The Readers Digest the articles had to be perfect in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. She admonished the students to take English classes seriously Roseberry remembers thinking that advice didn’t pertain to her because she wasn’t going to be a writer. She was going to be an actress. Little did she know she would end up being an award-winning author. Her drama training hasn’t been wasted, though. She’s been in several community productions and written, acted in, and sold four plays to Eldridge Play Company. Three are still in print. She has adapted the acting methods she’s learned to accentuate her writing, and she’s given numerous workshops teaching others the same techniques. But, she still remembers her seventh grade English teacher. She wishes she’d paid more attention. Website * Facebook * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads
Los Angeles
December
Who would have thought Lucas Guarrad, of all people, would be looking forward to a toddler’s birthday party? Not anyone
down at LAPD headquarters, that’s for sure.
With a blue tank engine secured under one arm, a yellow stuffed bear pressed against his chest, and a grin edging his
mouth, Luke stepped from his black sixty‐seven Thunderbird onto the curbed lawn. He would have spent more on little
Nicky, but he’d been asked correction … ordered, to keep the cost in a reasonable range.
Well, so much for seats on the fifty‐yard line at the Super Bowl.
Luke glanced up and, through the picture window of his partner’s enormous fixer-upper, he spied the birthday boy as the
two-year-old popped above the high‐backed couch. It took only a moment before Nicky spotted him. A luminous smile
spread across the child’s cherubic face.
The excited toddler made a trampoline of the cushions and waved his chubby arms. Luke could almost hear the tyke give
his usual greeting, “Unka Ouke. Unka Ouke!” Then the little guy jumped down from the sofa.
Chuckling, Luke’s grin widened. It felt good to be wanted. Real good. He loved the boy and his five‐year‐old sister,
Rachael, as if they were his own. They made him, a professed bachelor, think about the possibility that a cop could have it
all … career, spouse, and children.
A real family life.
Somehow, against all odds, his partner, Detective Nicholas McCammon, made it work. A feat Luke swore a policeman
could never do.
The outside light flicked on, and Nick stepped onto the porch. He smiled. “You’re late.”
“Only by thirty‐seven minutes and….” Pushing the car door shut with the heel of his Wellington boot, he made a great
production of raising his arm to look at his watch. “Fifteen seconds. I couldn’t decide on the tank engine, or … the stuffed
toy.” He nodded to each in turn.
“So, you got both.”
Luke shrugged. “What can I say?”
McCammon shook his head. “Party’s out in the gazebo. Justine’s setting it….”
Glancing at his feet, he paused and picked up what appeared to be a small piece of paper. Brow puckered, he held it up to
the light. All at once he staggered back a step and jerked his attention to the opened garage. A wrapped, glossy blue present
sat on his gas heater. A visible shudder passed through his now rigid body.
Just as he turned his horror‐stricken expression to Luke, an abrupt explosion reverberated through the air. The blast
torpedoed Nick off the stoop as if his body were made of so many goose feathers.
Stunned, Luke froze in place. His heart stopped. His mind blanked out, and his blood turned to ice.
In shocked disbelief, he took a stumbling gait forward, a cry escaping his constricted throat. The bomb ignited the living
room curtains, growing, consuming.
Justine. Rachael. Little Nicholas.
Did they make it to the gazebo? Or were they still inside?
With a guttural scream, Luke dropped the presents and bolted toward the house. He refused to admit it was already too late.
The gas pipes detonated. In the next instant, subsequent explosions worked their way through the home. Like deadly
dominoes, a wave of air pressure crumpled the ranch‐style structure as if it were fashioned from graham crackers.
Glass splintered from window frames. Smoke billowed from the foundation. Fire spurted into the pewter sky. Blinding light
chased away shadows hovering around the tops of nearby palm trees. Resembling a colony of ravenous termites, flames ate
at the wood frame. The roaring noises had to be there.
But Luke couldn’t hear them. Instead, a deafening quiet rang in his ears.
Jetted debris knocked him flat on his back. The impact punched the air from his lungs. Fighting for oxygen, he covered his
face with his arms and rolled onto his stomach. He knew shrapnel struck him, although, like the thunderous clamor, shock
sedated any pain.
Warm blood ran from his brow and trickled down the side of his nose. It dripped onto his eyelid, and he scrubbed his face
against his shirt sleeve.
He scanned the yard for Nick, barely making out the man’s inert form among the rubble. Digging his fingernails into the
sandy earth, he dragged himself over to his friend and managed to pull himself to his knees.
“Nick? Nick, can you hear me?”
No answer.
Luke placed the pads of two fingers at the side of the man’s burned neck, trying to find a heartbeat. It was faint, but there.
He positioned an ear to his mouth and a hand on his chest.
Nothing.
With his pulse throbbing in his temples, he tilted Nick’s chin, pinched the man’s nose and, with his mouth over Nick’s,
administered two slow breaths. He watched his chest rise and fall. Again, he checked for any sign of breathing.
Still nothing.
“McCammon, don’t cut out on me now.”
Over and over Luke gently blew air into Nick’s lungs, while silently vowing to never give up. He rechecked for a heartbeat
and drew strength in finding a steady thump.
Yet the man would not breathe on his own.
“Come on … come on! You can’t….” He choked on the words.
For the third sequence, he breathed for his friend. All of a sudden, Nick gasped. He drew in a shuddering breath … then
another.
Relief washed over Luke. Salty tears stung the gashes on his face. Grasping his partner’s lacerated hand, he found the paper
Nick had been examining moments before the first explosion.
Luke didn’t have to look at it to know what it was. Shaking, he withdrew the business card and stared transfixed at a glossy
insignia.
In gradual succession, he became conscious of shouts from somewhere down the street, a siren howling in the distance, and
a relay of barking dogs. Pain crawled into his being, consumed his mind. But it failed to match the burning ache in his
heart. A gathering blackness tunneled his vision.
As he caught the flash of the blue engine and the yellow bear heaped by the bumper of his car, he slumped over Nick’s
body; the card clenched in his fist.
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I like the excerpt.