Wednesday, October 28, 2015

NoQS Minion 18: BAD THINGS COME IN THREES, Adult Romantic Suspense

Title: BAD THINGS COME IN THREES
Genre: Adult Romantic Suspense
Word Count: 102,000

My Main Character's Most Fearsome Obsession is:

My main character’s most fearsome obsession is with hands. It’s the first thing Gray notices about a man. Unfortunately for her, the soldier who rescues her has nice ones. A strong grip, long fingers, and dry palms, she has to keep those hands off her if she is to stick to her no falling for military men rule. The problem is, she can’t help but recall his touch. It makes her tingle in all the right places, for all the wrong reasons. Worse still, Commando Happy Hands has no intention of letting her get away.

Query:

Dear Nightmare on Query Street Agents,

Semi-sober combat photographer, Gray Emerson, has lost everyone she’s ever cared about. All she wants now is to be left the hell alone, preferably with an expensive bottle of vodka and her camera for company.

For the past two years, Gray’s work – coupled with her lack of self-preservation instincts – has landed her in the middle of every major conflict zone on the planet. Mali, Syria, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, you name the shithole; she’s been there. When her next assignment takes her into the heart of the Canadian wilderness, the last thing she expects is to be caught in the crossfire of an arms trafficking deal gone wrong.

Injured and out of options, Gray is forced to accept help from Sergeant Chase Mackenzie. He has his own gravitational pull. She’s attracted to it. It’s a problem. 

Gray has rules when it comes to men. No Type A control freaks, no cheating bastards, and no married-to-the-military fuckers. Based on her limited exposure to Mackenzie, he is all three. 

After the terrorist Mackenzie is targeting abducts her best friend and embroils Gray in his plot to secure the U.S. presidential election, she must decide what’s more important. Stopping the revenge-seeking madman from killing the few loved ones she has left. Or protecting her heart by running as fast and as far from Chase Mackenzie as she can get. 

Lives are at stake. Quite possibly his. Most definitely hers.

First 250 words:

You can’t find comfort in a bottle of vodka. Courage, absolutely. Comfort, not so much. At least, not in Gray Emerson’s experience, and she’d had lots of it. Experience that is…vodka, too. 

Stashed in her bra, her phone vibrated for the fourth time as the door of her three-by-five toilet stall shook again.

“Let’s go already!”

Gray ignored the woman’s plea for access to the porcelain throne she was monopolizing and downed the first of two doubles. Grey Goose with a splash of Red Bull made her heart trip wildly and her head spin. 

Thank God she was sitting down. Not that she was doing any business, besides drinking that is. Basically, she was hiding out and drowning her sorrows. It was an evasive technique she used often to avoid the desperate closing time offers of strangers hoping to rock her world for a minute or two.

So not interested in that crap. Easier just to avoid it altogether, especially tonight. For whatever reason, her hole-in-the-wall neighborhood pub was packed with America’s fighting finest, and she did not do that breed of man. 

Not now…not ever.

“Making a freaking career out of it,” the door banger mumbled as the stall next to her came available.

The constant vibration of the phone against her breast forced Gray to answer. “What the fuck, Jackson?”

“I need you on a plane, cranky pants.”

“I just got off a plane, asshole.”

“Great, so your bag’s still packed. And Gray…”

“What?”

“Bring your climbing gear.”

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