I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!

Rie McGaha, Author

Welcome to Rie McGaha, our guest author for today. Rie is a wife, mother, and grandmother who lives in Southeast Oklahoma and writes for Champagne Books and for Silver Publishing. She's the author of several books in various genres. Here's her post:

             I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!

On July 18, 2010 our house burned down reducing everything in it to ashes. After nearly two months, the insurance company finally settled with us and we have been trying to get our lives together, the house rebuilt, and get back on track. In July our youngest daughter, Rocky, went into labor at twenty-eight weeks. She spent the next couple of months in the hospital while the doctors tried to stave off labor until the baby was big enough to survive on his own without medical intervention. She delivered a baby boy she named Cruz on September 6, 2010 at thirty-four weeks. Cruz is small but healthy and went home just four days later. We are still working on the house. On September 20, 2010 a family friend, Kori, whom we have known for nearly fifteen years and has been my daughter Lisa's best friend since they first met, lost her seven-year-old daughter to Rhett's Syndrome. We are still working on the house.


But such is life, I suppose. No matter what is going on in your life that is stressful, life rolls on for everyone else as if your little problem doesn't even exist. That is both the beauty and the dark side of life. No matter what you're going through it can always get worse. And it usually does. I spent quite a while being upset that my whole summer was ruined. I was supposed to pick up several of my grandchildren and bring them out to our house in Oklahoma for a couple of weeks and we were going to hit all the water parks and amusement parks. Then life got in the way and just upended all my well-laid plans.

Really the only way to deal with life's ups and downs is to be flexible and willing to change, make a new plan and move on. So that is what I have done. And I try to see the good things in spite of the bad. My grandson is healthy. Kori is going to survive and Maybl is free of a body that refused to obey her commands. My grandchildren managed to have a great summer without me and we have time planned in November to be together. And all this happened while we were still working on the house…which might actually get finished after all!

And now a blurb from CLOSURE:

From Champagne Books
A Spicy Romantic
Thriller!

High in the hills above Albuquerque, New Mexico Detective Zachariah Ellison arrives at the scene of a murder, and not just any murder, but one that definitely falls into the “gruesome” category even for a seasoned cop like Zach. When another body is found murdered in much the same fashion, Zach knows he’s got a serial killer on his hands, and to top it off he’s got an assistant district attorney hounding him about the case. As Zach tries to investigate the crimes while sidestepping nosey Amy Logan, a third body is found and Zach hasn’t a clue as to whom the perpetrator might be.


Amy Logan has worked hard to put herself through school and pay for law school on her own and now that she’s secured a position as assistant district attorney in Albuquerque, she’s determined to do everything she can to be the best prosecutor this office has ever seen. And as if luck was following her, she’s been assigned to the biggest homicide case the city has ever seen. The only problem she’s having is the homicide detective who’s leading the investigation—Zach Ellison.


And here's an excerpt:


She tilted her head back, looked up at him, felt her heart thud in her chest, and then his mouth was on hers and she was climbing all over him. All those years alone, all those nights of wishing she had someone to hold her, all those weeks working with Zach. The wanting of him, the needing of him, the denying of what she had been feeling—it all came pouring out of her at that moment of contact.

Her arms wound around his neck, her fingers worked furiously through his hair, over his shoulders, kneading his neck. She could feel his hands on her face, his fingers burning into her skin, his lips sizzling against hers as his tongue probed deep inside her mouth, encouraging her to take more of him, to give more to him.


She couldn't think for the blood pounding in her head, couldn't breathe because her breath had caught in her chest.


She could only feel. She could feel his hands moving from her face, trailing down her neck, felt them move over her shoulders and down her back. She could feel her body pressed against his, and then was suddenly very aware of the size of her breasts, aware that they were crushed against him. She had never been so aware of her own body in her life, had never been so aware of another person.


Then he was pulling away from her, took a step back from her, and dropped his hands to his sides. He was panting, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.


They stood there looking at each other for a long moment, neither speaking. Zach raked his hands through his hair, took a deep breath and blew it out. He stepped toward her, took her hands in his and brought them both to his mouth, and kissed them gently.


“I—” He paused and took another breath. “I haven't been with a woman since my wife died. I haven't wanted a woman since my wife died. Not until I met you. Still, I didn't expect to feel what I just felt when we kissed. So I'm going to give you the chance right now, Amy. If you don't plan on staying, tell me now and I'll take you home. But if you come back inside with me, don't ask me to stop and don't ask me to take you home, because I won't.”


He dropped her hands and looked into her eyes and waited.


She took a deep breath, fixed her gaze on a distant spot in the semi-darkness, chewed on her bottom lip as both fear and desire warred within her. Then she took his hand in hers and led him back to the house.

From Silver Publishing

Whew! Rie, what a great excerpt and blurb! I can hardly wait to read CLOSURE. And COMES AND OUTLAW soungs very good, too. Excerpts of all of Rie's books are available on her website http://www.riemcgaha.com/.


For more stops on Rie's book release blog tour, check out her schedule at  www.godessfish.com

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