Interview: Pamela Clare, 'Striking Distance'
The awesomest of the awesome Pamela Clare has a new I-Team book out today: Striking Distance. Can all her fans breathe a great big ol' squee of excitement? 1 … 2 … 3 … SQUEE!!!
OK, now that that's out of the way … HEA got to corner Pamela … I mean, chat with her about Striking Distance; its sizzling prequel novella, First Strike; how she takes a deeper look at sexual assault in her new book; and what we can look forward to seeing from her next.
Joyce: Welcome back to HEA, Pamela! Your heroes run the gamut of professions: teachers, FBI agents, snipers, park rangers and U.S. Marshals. Your most current hero, Javier Corbray, who stars in Striking Distance, is a Navy SEAL. What other professions do you see on the horizon for your heroes?
Pamela: Thanks for having me! I love HEA!
The constant in my I-Team series are the heroines who are all reporters on a fictional newspaper's elite Investigative Team. The kind of hero the heroines come into contact with depends on what they're investigating. That has been one of the fun things about the series for me. I've enjoyed looking into these different branches of law enforcement and the military.
I know I have a news photographer on the horizon. I'm not sure many people realize how physical that job is or the kinds of risks photojournalists take. I'm looking forward to writing that.
Beyond that I'm potentially looking at an undercover federal operative and a county sheriff. I really enjoy writing about men of action.
After the I-Team series, I hope to have a spinoff series that features heroes who work for a private security/black ops contractor. I think that would be a lot of fun.
Joyce: Heroine Laura in Striking Distance has had a very hard time of it after being kidnapped and held captive for 18 months in the Middle East. How difficult was it to write a heroine who has such a dark and painful past?
Pamela: That was very hard, in part because it touched on some very painful personal terrain. I've been open about the fact that I'm a survivor of childhood sexual assault. I was assaulted by the father of a playmate when I was 10. Years later when I was 23, I was attacked by two men with switchblades who broke into my home one night when I was home alone with my 9-month-old baby. I was able to get a call off to the police and was saved from being raped (again) at knifepoint by a margin of seconds. So, although I've never been kidnapped by terrorists, I do know what trauma does to a person and how that can play out over the course of one's life. I spent five long, terrible years grappling with PTSD, so I have some real experience with that and tried to keep the story real.
I've written about sexual assault in my books before, but this time I really took a deeper look at how rape impacts a woman's soul. That made it tough at times, and I would find myself wanting to do anything but write. Clean toilets? Yes, please! Oh, look, lint on my carpet. Squirrel!
But ultimately the story is about overcoming that kind of trauma and finding lasting love. Laura, the heroine, is an incredibly strong woman, more than capable of living a good and happy life despite what has happened to her. And her triumph, made possible in part by Javier, one of my favorite heroes in the I-Team series, is what makes the story powerful and sweet.
Joyce: You pulled it off big-time, Pamela! Striking Distance stayed with me a LONG time after I read it.
You've compared Breaking Point hero Zach McBride with Raylan Givens from the awesome-squared TV show Justified. What kind of comparison would you make for Javier?
Pamela: I love Raylan! He is so incredibly sexy! No one banters with the bad guys quite like he does. The comparison came after Breaking Point came out. Sadly, I didn't discover Justified till this year. Seriously, what's wrong with me?
Javier Corbray is a combination of so many different things. I wanted an enlisted man, not an officer, for this story. I made him Puerto Rican to reflect the fact that minorities make up a huge percentage of our enlisted ranks.
I named him Javier after Jon Huertas' character, Javier, on Castle. I love Javier! I've thought Castle should feature at least one scene in every episode where Javier gets really angry because Huertas does angry in a very sexy, masculine way. Wait, what were we talking about?
Oh, yes!
My Javier also contains bits and pieces of the real active-duty SEAL who helped me with research for the story, a man who worked his way up through the enlisted ranks and has served since long before 9/11. I can't say a lot about him, except that he is amazing. I dedicated the book to him.
Joyce: You also have an erotic novella that's a prequel for Striking Distance, called First Strike. What can you tell us about that?
Pamela: When I finished writing Striking Distance, a literary odyssey that took more than 15 months, I had a page of cut material for every page that made it into the book. Among the things I cut was the original prologue, which showed us how Laura and Javier met in a crazy weekend of no-strings-attached sex in Dubai, a country where extramarital sex is illegal. There just wasn't room for it in the story, especially because I really needed another prologue to move the story to its starting place. How many prologues can one book have?
I really loved what I'd written in that first original prologue, however, so I decided after finishing Striking Distance to take those pages, expand them, and tell the story of that weekend in Dubai. It's the first time I've written erotica, and I really had a lot of fun with it. But it was also poignant for me, because I knew what lay ahead for both of them.
First Strike ends with a big cliffhanger that prepares the reader for the action that begins Striking Distance.
I'm so glad I took the time to do this because readers are really loving it!
Joyce: I think I speak for many of your readers when I ask, "When the heck are we going to see I-Team photographer Joaquin's story?!?!"
Pamela: I'm so glad to hear you feel that way! He's the photographer I was mentioning. I wish I had an answer! I'm not certain. I adore Joaquin, and I have much of his story banked away in my brain. I hope to write his book in 2014 and get it to you as soon as I can.
He's a bit of a departure from the law enforcement/military model, but I adore his character and have some very compelling things in mind for him.
Joyce: OK, I suppose we can wait. : )
Please tell us more about Striking Distance.
Pamela: Striking Distance tells the story of TV reporter Laura Nilsson and Javier Corbray, an active-duty Navy SEAL she met while in Dubai. After she is kidnapped on live television and reported dead by her al-Qaeda captors, Javier vows to bring down the man responsible, only to discover when his team raids the terrorist's compound that Laura is actually alive.
We jump forward in time and watch Laura as she slowly reclaims her life. But that journey isn't an easy one. The one thing she has going for her besides her own inner strength is Javier, who loves her so much that he will put everything on the line to keep her safe when there seems to be a new terrorist threat against her.
Here's the blurb from the back of the book:
Her past is a secret—even to her.
Discovering it will be the most dangerous move of her life.
TV reporter Laura Nilsson, known as the "Baghdad Babe," spent eighteen months in an Al-Qaeda compound after being kidnapped live on the air. Two years later, she's still wondering why.
No mission in Javier Corbray's fourteen years as a Navy SEAL affected him the way Laura's rescue did. No woman had stirred his protective instincts the way she did. And he wants her more than he's ever wanted anyone.
As Laura and Javier's passion ignites, so does Laura's need to discover the mystery of her past. Especially when she learns that her abduction was not random—and that she's still a target for a killer with an impenetrable motive. Now Javier will have to rely on his skills to keep the woman he loves from being struck down before she dares uncover the truth.
The story was a Top Pick for reviewers at RT Book Reviews and Night Owl Reviews and is a Dear Author recommended read for November, so I'm pretty excited about that!
Joyce: What can readers expect to see from you next?
Pamela: In the short term, I have a MacKinnon's Rangers Christmas novella that will be out in time for Easter, I'm sure. Actually, I'm hoping to finish it quickly. It picks up where Defiant left off, just one week before Christmas 1760. In classic Pamela Clare style, it has no title yet.
In 2014, I'll have another full-length I-Team novel — either Joaquin's story or Holly's story — and a longish I-Team After Hours novella that tells Jack West's story. Jack, a rancher and former Army Ranger, is the father of Nate West, the hero from Skin Deep. He's an older hero, but an amazing man who lost his wife and lives with a loneliness he keeps hidden. His story will have some connections to Striking Distance, especially with regard to the new love who enters his life. I'm looking forward to writing about two people who aren't in their late 20s/early 30s for a change!
I also hope to write the next book in my MacKinnon's Rangers series, this one telling the story of Joseph, Mahican blood brother to the MacKinnons. I think there are readers hanging in my trees outside waiting for that book.
Joyce: Is there anything you'd like to add?
Pamela: Laura and Javier are new to the I-Team series. It was fun bringing them into the fold of the other I-Team characters. And, of course, it's always fun catching up with the couples from the previous I-Team books. Zach and Natalie from Breaking Point, Nate and Megan from Skin Deep, Julian from Extreme Exposure and Marc from Unlawful Contact play especially important roles in this story. It wouldn't be an I-Team story without a little Julian/Marc bromance, would it?
Joyce: No, it wouldn't!
Thanks, Pamela!
Pamela: Thank you! It's always a big pleasure to talk with you, Joyce!
To find out more about Pamela and her books, visit pamelaclare.com.
Award-winning author Joyce Lamb curates and writes for HEA when she's not plotting her own romantic suspense novels. Of the eight she's had published, three have been RITA finalists. You can contact her at HappyEverAfterUSAT@gmail.com or connect with her on Facebook and Twitter (@JoyceLamb).