Today's Special - - Kat Martin

We're delighted to welcome back Kat Martin today!  The newest book in Kat's romantic suspense The Raines of Wind Canyon series, Against the Night was released February 28th and is already gathering terrific reviews. You can find more information about Kat and her books at her website.  She's on facebook too.  "Like" her page here.   Take it away, Kat...

Do you love to travel?

Blog by Kat Martin

I’ve always loved to travel.  I was fortunate to marry a man who enjoyed seeing the world as much as I did...or maybe being adventurous was an unspoken quality I was looking for in a man. 

I especially love Europe.  I’ve been to England, of course, since back then I was writing historicals set in the Regency and Victorian periods.  I’ve also been to France, Spain, Austria, Germany, Italy, the Chech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Scotland, the Caribbean, and miscellaneous places I can barely recall.

On a cruise we took to Mexico a few years back with twenty-five other authors and six hundred and fifty readers (Wow! Was that fun!), one of the stops we made was in Belize.

I mention this particularly because I used my experiences in Belize when I was writing AGAINST THE NIGHT, my newest AGAINST novel, released the end of February. 

Our ship anchored offshore and we took a launch boat to the mainland.  We spent the hundred degree, ninety percent humidity day with a couple of our favorite friends, Kathleen and Michael Gear, the anthropologist/archeologists who write the PEOPLE books set 10,000 years ago.

The heat was unbelievable!  And unbearable!  I had never experienced anything like it and hope I never do again.  But the tropical landscape and the people who live there left a lasting imprint on my mind that I was able to use when I was writing AGAINST THE NIGHT. 

I did, however, leave out the part about our trip to a non-tourist, locals restaurant where we ordered native food (the Gears insisted, though there was no air conditioning and it must have been a hundred and twenty degrees inside!  I’ll pay them back for that someday.)

At any rate, we wanted to eat local cooking so we ordered capybara, a meat and rice dish that tasted pretty good but was spicy and hot, like everything else.  The bad news was, it turns out a capybara is the largest rodent in the world!  A rat about two feet long!

Oh, yeah.  We ate it and never forgot the experience.

So you can see where the adventures you have in life make great fodder for stories. 

Lots of authors use a journal.  I think it’s a great idea.  Or just keep a few photos, anything that reminds you of the experiences you had when you were there.  And it doesn’t really matter where you go.  Anyplace can bring you excitement, adventure, or just simple insight into a place different from where you live.    

Along with the memories I had of Belize, I did research on the country, even used Google Earth to give me a fresh look at the tropical landscape I describe in AGAINST THE NIGHT. 

It’s Johnnie Riggs’ story, an ex-Army Ranger turn P.I whose specialty is the underbelly of the city.  In a place called the Kitty Cat Club where he’s working on an assignment, Johnnie first spots Angel Fontaine, a petite blond exotic dancer. 

From the moment he sees her, Johnnie wants her in his bed.  The problem is that Angel Fontaine is really Amy Brewer, a kindergarten teacher from Michigan, a young woman risking her life to find her missing sister, whose job she has taken in the club.

I hope you’ll watch for AGAINST THE NIGHT and that you enjoy it.  After that, AGAINST THE SUN, with Jake Cantrell and Sage Dumont, will be out the end of May. 

Till then, all best and happy reading.  

Warmest, Kat    

AGAINST THE NIGHT

Back cover copy

He knows what goes on in the dark.

She’s got the face of an angel and the body of…well, isn’t that what he’d expect from an exotic dancer? But there’s something about this girl that Johnnie Riggs can’t shake. The former army ranger is hot on the trail of an elusive drug lord—and suddenly very hot under the collar, as well.

Amy’s got her own agenda to pursue: her sister is missing and Amy seems to be the only one who cares. She’ll enlist Johnnie's help and do her best to ignore her growing attraction to finally get some answers. But when the two trails begin to converge and reveal something even more sinister than they imagined, their mutual desire is the least of their problems. They’ll bring the truth to light…or die trying.