Welcome Author Desiree Holt

Why don't you start us off by telling us how you discovered/decided you wanted to become a writer?

I think it was always dancing around in the back of my mind, lots of ideas collecting just waiting to come out. But it wasn't until I retired that I actually had the time. Finally one day I just said to myself, "Self, if you're going to do it, do it. So I sat down, having not one clue about what I was doing, and wrote. I've always been an avid reader so I tried to follow the basic concepts of books I liked. Boy, did I have a lot to learn!

 

Do you have a favorite TV show you can't miss?

It used to be "24". Now? it's a tossup between Blue Bloods and Army Wives.

 

What is your writing process? Do you outline, fly by the seat of your pants or a combination of both?

Oh, I'd say a combination of both. I used to totally fly by the seat of my pants. I'd start with an idea and just kind of roll with it. But with so many books out now it's really important to keep my characters straight and my plots. So now I actually start with a one age outline and a list of my characters so I don't repeat names. But nothing is rally hatred and fast. My stories are character drive, my characters talk to me so many times my plots take a ninety degree turn or moon character or another will pop up with a new name.

So what is your latest or upcoming book about? Give us all the details behind this masterpiece.

This month Book Two in The Phoenix agency will be released. It's called Extrasensory. Book One: Jungle Inferno, released last month. The Phoenix Agency is run by five partners, all former military, who do security work for both the government and private contractors. Each of the women they meet and fall in love with has some special psychic gift. Extrasensory is the story of the CEO, Dan Romeo, and psychic Mia Fleming who has visions of people and things. In  this story she sees a vision of a local company and a top secret project it's working goon, and indications that someone is going to steal it. She tries to contact them anonymously to tell them to be careful but Dan is a personal friend of the owner and has been brought in to beef up security. When he and Mia meet of course the chemistry is explosive, but they have to battle a lot of bad guys, including killers and a helicopter attack before they can get to their HEA.

What are your thoughts on love scenes in romance novels, do you find them difficult to write?

OH, no, I love my love scenes! LOL! I just put myself in the heads of the heroine first then the hero and roll with it. I try to use the five senses because I'v found that they are what love scenes are all about- what do the h/h see? fee? smell? hear? All those good things. That what makes a love scene emotional rather than mechanical. I love to read love scenes so for sure I love writing about them.

Who are some of your favorite authors, and if we were to visit your home, what books would we find on your bookshelf, end table, floor or e-reader?

Oh, wow, that's a very long list. And I'm all over the map. Cerise DEland, Joey Hill, Regina CArlysle, Allie Standifer, Sherryl Woods, Linda Lael Miller, Nora Roberts, Brad Thor, Vince Flynn, Janet Chapman, Cherise Sinclair, Kele Moon, Annabel Joseph, Kaily Hart…How much time do we have here? LOL!

If you could date any character from any book, who would it be and why?

Can I choose two? Either Noah Cantrell from Where Danger Hides, totally alpha part Native American, and Dallas Creed from Downstroke, a tortured hero who has aged well and closet  none of his sex appeal. They both have anguished pasts, both have dealt with tragedy of some kind and both have been battered by life. And they are sooo sexy.

 

Could you tell us about any work-in-progress, current projects, what we can expect from you in the future?

This month Until Twilight, Nemesis: Book Three with Cerise Deland will be out from Ellora's Cave as well as Slapping Leather, Book Two: Rawhide from The Wild Rose Press.August will see the release of Delicious Danger, Book Three: The Phoenix Agency from Ellora's Cave, and Night Mission, a 1 Night Stand release from Decadent Publishing. And upcoming is another Sentinels Release from Total-e-bound plus a book from Decadent I'm really excited about. Based on my experiences in the music industry and with a hero based on an actual musician I met in LA, Joy Ride a love story, about an ordinary woman and a bass player in a rock band. "Emma was the good girl poster child until she met Marc, who took her on the Joy Ride of her life.

 

Have you ever found that you didn’t like your Hero or your Heroine? If so, what did you do to change that?

A few times I've discovered my here wasn't quite as heroic as I wanted him to be. Actually a couple acted like jerks. So I went back to b sic, figured out what I myself would want from him as a hero and reshaped the character.  Gave him some positive values, some more emotional connections.

What do you do to unwind and relax?  

Read. Read, read, read. Hang out with my friends at the local wine bar. And for six months of the year watch every football game on television.

Is there a genre you haven’t done that you would like to explore in the future?

Not really. I write cross genre a lot. I'm pretty fortunate in that my publishers pretty much give me free reign.

 

Tell us about your favorite restaurant. 

Maison Europa in San Antonio where my late husband and I celebrated our anniversary every year. The waiters wear tuxes, their wine cellar is excellent and they fare one of the few restaurants left that make tableside Caesar Salad.

If you could spend the night anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Believe it or not, Alaska. It's on my Bucket List.

Please tell us where to find you on the internet?

www.desireeholt.com'

www.desireeholttellsall.com'

www.facebook.com/desireeholt

www.twitter.com/desireeholt

Also check me out on the following blogs:

Wild and Wicked Cowboys

1-800-DOMHelp

TRS Blue

 Extrasensory

Book 2 in Phoenix Agency Series

Desiree Holt

Ellora's Cave

Buy E-book HERE

Mia is skeptical about her precognitive skills, but her visions about Carpenter Techtronics are so vivid, she resorts to sending anonymous emails to the company. She’s also having visions of a gorgeous man who arouses her so badly, she’s satisfying herself just to get some relief. She’s shocked when the man shows up in her office, sending her silent erotic messages.

Dan is helping his friend track down the person threatening his company. When he meets Mia, he has a hard time thinking about anything but indulging in off-the-charts sex with the intriguing woman—until bodies begin falling. As Mia’s visions escalate, so does the explosive sex between her and Dan, as well as an unexpected emotional connection. When Mia is almost killed, Dan and his team must race to find the culprits before they can strike again—or put Mia down for good.

Publisher’s Note: You just can’t keep a good story down. Previously published as Visions of Darkness with The Lotus Circle and then Cerridwen Press, this book has been revised and the bedroom door opened for Ellora’s Cave.

Sneak Peek Excerpt:

Where was the damn helicopter? They couldn’t hold these bastards off much longer.

Dante “Dan” Romeo wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his camo shirt and slammed another magazine into his rifle. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to turn out, although they always had to prepare for it. A sign over his desk back in Baltimore read, “Nothing in life is ever simple.” In his business, Dan Romeo considered it a motto.

He was so sure their mission had been successful. Five days ago Drummond Laboratories had placed an emergency call to Phoenix, the agency in which Dan was the senior partner. Drummond’s CEO, Hank Nolan, had been captured by guerillas in Mexico, the kidnap capital of the world. They’d snatched him right off the street in Acapulco where he’d been vacationing with his family.

The people from Drummond made sure Phoenix understood the feds could not be involved. The guerilla group had threatened to cut off Nolan’s head if the feds were contacted. Cut their losses, so to speak. These kidnap-for-ransom groups were getting bolder every day, especially in Mexico.

Drummond didn’t balk for an instant at the fee Dan quoted him.

So Dan had put the team together and using bribes, snitches and other sources of information, they’d found the location of the guerilla camp. They’d suited up and Mike D’Antoni, pilot extraordinaire and another of the partners, dropped them into the humid, insect-infested Mexican jungle. Where they were going was definitely not a vacation spot.

They hiked to the camp location in stealth mode, using the sounds of the jungle animals as cover for their movements as often as they could. Then they concealed themselves in the surrounding jungle. Watching. Waiting. Timing the guards. Identifying where Nolan was being held. Learning the rhythm of the camp. For Dan, a former Force Recon Marine, jobs like this were no different from the missions he’d led in Afghanistan and Iraq. The same methods applied.

At last, when they’d gathered sufficient information, the men put their plan together. Waiting until full dark and with the covertness they’d learned from years in the military, they made their way to the rear of the camp. Silently, the team working like a well-oiled piece of machinery, all the parts moving as designed, they took out the two guards in front of the shack where Nolan was being held. Then, moving swiftly, they backed out of the camp, half-carrying Nolan, until they reached the safety of the surrounding flora and fauna.

As soon as they were far enough away to use the satellite radio safely, Dan had called in for extraction and Mike radioed he was on his way to get them. The two men set their coordinates and the team took off to meet the chopper. But Nolan had been tied up for two weeks and half-starved. In his deteriorated condition he had trouble keeping up, so they finally had to carry him. That delayed them and gave the kidnappers, when they realized their prize was gone, time to take off after the rescue team with AK-47s and other assorted weapons.

Now Dan and his group were pinned down at the extraction point and the guerillas were moving closer. Machine-gun bullets rained everywhere, punctuated by the screech of the howler monkeys and the squawking of tropical birds. Dan could only pray the kidnappers didn’t have rocket-propelled grenades with them. That could take down not just the team but the helicopter too. Disaster didn’t begin to describe what that outcome would be.

Then, at last, he heard the distinctive slap! slap! slap! of the helicopter blades and his comm unit crackled in his ear.

“I am above you and ready to extract,” Mike said. “Looks like you need a little covering fire.”

“No shit,” Dan answered. “Get that ladder down and have the shotgun riders start peppering these bastards.”

The chopper now hovered directly over them. Someone pitched the rope ladder from the open cabin door and it hung tantalizingly in the air. Two Phoenix men were balanced on the chopper skids, spraying the area around them with machine-gun fire. The occasional shrieks let everyone know that at least some of the bullets had found a target.

Dan hoisted Nolan onto the ladder and motioned for one of the guys in the cabin above just to pull the damn thing up. In seconds the man was inside the chopper and the ladder dropped again. Firing into the surrounding area as they climbed, aided by the gunners above them, each man scrambled up to the helo’s cabin, then reached to help the one behind him.

Dan was last, as usual, holding to the ladder with one hand and his machine-gun with the other. He was gratified to hear more screams of pain as hands pulled him through the opening to safety.

“Go now,” he shouted to Mike, who needed no urging to pull away and up. As they lifted into the sky, the two Phoenix gunners continued to fire until the chopper reached a safe altitude.

“Sorry to cut it so close, Danny boy,” Mike yelled at him. “We had to wait for some other air traffic to clear. They didn’t look like they wanted to invite us for afternoon cocktails.”

“These damn thugs are getting better equipped all the time,” Dan cursed. “We’re having to run our asses off just to stay ahead of them.”

He looked around him and studied the activity. The men were all checking their guns, making sure they had full clips just in case a surprise awaited them somewhere along the line. The medic on their team was attending to Hank Nolan, expertly starting an IV even under the extreme conditions and then cleaning his wounds.

“Mostly malnutrition,” he told Dan over the roar of the chopper’s blades. “And shock. He’ll be a long time forgetting this little trip.”

Dan leaned back against the cabin wall, regulating his breathing, checking again to make sure everyone else was okay.

“You earned yourself a little downtime after this,” Mike yelled from the cockpit. “Don’t you think? A break from the office? Maybe a little R and R?”

Dan gave his partner a lopsided grin. He knew what that meant. Get your ass out of town and get some rest before taking on another mission. Give your body some rest. He had to agree that Mike was right. At forty-three years old, he was getting a little past the age for this kind of activity.

“Chase Carpenter invited me to come to San Antonio,” he replied. “His company has created a sophisticated new robot that supposedly is undetectable and can do everything but sing and dance. He’s having a big unveiling next Friday, with lots of military brass, top cops and international corporations. He thought it might be something the agency could use.”

Mike grinned. “Knowing Chase it’s a high ticket item. Do we get a discount for being friends?”

Dan laughed. “I’ll ask him.”

“You ought to take him up on it,” Mike insisted. “And while you’re there, you could see Mark and Faith.” Mike chuckled. “And interrupt his vacation.”

Mark Halloran was the newest partner in Phoenix. He and his wife, a best-selling author of political thrillers, were both telepaths, and that psychic ability  had been the single reason for Mark’s own rescue from terrorists in Peru. At the time he’d been a Delta Force team leader. A highly-placed defense department official, taking payoffs from the arms dealer Mark’s team was sent to take out, had blown the whistle on the mission. Only Mark and one member of his team survived the ambush they walked into.

Joey Latrobe, whose brother was a Phoenix partner, had managed to hide himself from the terrorists even though he was seriously wounded. The details of his rescue were yet another story.

Mark had been held in the terrorist camp and his only communication with the outside world had been the telepathic messages he exchanged with Faith. Like a raging virago, she’d taken on Washington and the Pentagon and when no one else would help her, had turned to Phoenix, even going along on the rescue mission.

Dan had to smile now when he thought of her courage. It would be nice to see her again.

“Maybe I’ll do that,” he said. “But not before taking the world’s longest shower and eating the biggest steak I can find.”