THE BOOKS
Bullets & Tiaras
Anxious to escape the vicious gossip and painful memories surrounding her beloved husband’s sudden death, former Miss Texas, Victoria Dixon Hughes, abandons her home in Austin for the relative peace and anonymity of Los Angeles. But it doesn’t take long before the wealthy widow is up to her tiaras in trouble.
Within weeks of her arrival, Tori is trolling the streets of L.A.’s Garment District, looking for a sadistic rapist who preys on illegal immigrants working in the local sweatshops. When she finds the bastard, Tori baits him into attacking her, but the rapist is in for a surprise – despite the deceptively lean physique which makes her appear to be an easy target – Tori is a master practitioner of Escrima, an esoteric, but deadly, martial art.
Tori disarms the villain – killing him with his own switchblade.
She has no regrets. As her late husband, Bull, would’ve said: “There was a man who needed killing.”
The next day two LAPD detectives arrive at Tori’s penthouse to determine if this incident was a case of self-defense. Tori is impressed with the friendly, diminutive female detective, Stephanie Cho, and thoroughly annoyed by Cho’s partner, the sarcastic, sanctimonious and too-gorgeous-for-words detective, Harsh Connolly.
Tori’s conscience is clear, but her calm, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth demeanor leaves Detective Connolly with a bur under his saddle regarding the Widow Hughes.
Despite his disapproval of her “Texas-style justice,” Detective Connolly finds himself irresistibly drawn to the exasperating redhead. Tori’s annoyance with Harsh’s smug superiority does nothing to diminish the mutual attraction.
The fledgling romance between these antagonists must take a backseat to their personal and professional obligations. While Harsh and Stephanie hunt for a serial killer, Tori launches a hunting expedition of her own; she’s searching for the murdering son-of-a-bitch who turned a young mother into an unwilling drug mule.
INTUITION : A Kylie Anderson Vacation
…a decade ago, American heiress Kylie Anderson changed her name and abandoned her life as a carefree debutante in order to find purpose (and anonymity) as a Federal Agent with the DEA.
But Kylie’s family ties continue to bind, and an impromptu dinner with her great-uncle, Archibald Anderson, places Kylie in the right place at the right time to foil an assassination attempt against the President.
Kylie finds the resulting media spotlight almost as painful as the gunshot wound to her shoulder. Desperate to escape the unwanted attention, Kylie reluctantly agrees to join her socialite mother and wheelchair-bound father, along with her beloved Uncle Arch, on a three-week cruise aboard Anderson Cruise Lines’ newest luxury liner, the Morning Glory.
For a few fun-and-sun-filled days Kylie enjoys a lighthearted shipboard romance while working diligently on her physical therapy. However, her vacation-cum-disability-leave soon becomes a battle for survival when hijackers board the cruise ship, murdering the head of security and holding the wealthiest passengers for ransom.
Kylie must outwit and outmaneuver the hijackers as she seeks to help the hostages escape while trying to determine if one of her fellow captives is actually the mastermind behind their high stakes, high seas kidnapping.