Good interview on Writerspace

I recently did an interview with Logan Mosby with Writerspace, and I think she did a pretty good job of compiling my answers into a revealing interview.

So, if you'd like to know a little more about me, check it out.

Major Nanny Now Available for Preorder

My October book, Major Nanny, is now available for preorder on Amazon.com.

So hop to it!

Major Nanny is part of the Daddy Corps continuity, but it should work fine as a stand-alone, so feel free to buy it even if you're not reading the other books.

But I've gotta say, you should be reading the others, because the authors are some of Intrigue's best!

Here's the line-up:

April - GI Cowboy by Delores Fossen
May - Baby Bootcamp by Mallory Kane
June - Cowboy Brigade by Elle James
October - Major Nanny by Paula Graves
November - Camouflage Cowboy by Jan Hambright

There's also a book in December, but I don't know what the title is. I'll update when I get it.

I just finished the final edits on Major Nanny this weekend, and I've got to say, I really think y'all will enjoy it. There's plenty of action, romance and intrigue to go around.

Q & A with Jake and Mariah Cooper on Intrigue Blog

I posted a little Q & A with the hero and heroine of Hitched and Hunted, my book that's currently on the bookshelves. (Have you bought your copy yet? Let me know what you think of it!)

I try not to spoil the book too much, but hopefully the Q & A will give you a little extra insight into the characters and help you enjoy the story that much more.

Also, you can ask them some questions of your own, if you're interested in doing so. I'd love to have a few more comments on the post!

RT Book Reviews - 4 1/2 Star for Cooper Vengeance

RT Book Reviews gave Cooper Vengeance, my June Intrigue, 4/12 stars and a lovely review:

COOPER VENGEANCE (4.5) by Paula Graves: It’s been 12 years since his wife was raped and murdered, but J.D. Cooper hasn’t stopped investigating the cold case. When Deputy Natalie Becker’s sister is murdered in the same small town where his wife grew up, evidence leads him to believe he’s closing in on the killer. Natalie suspects her brother-in-law, but she’s willing to join forces with J.D. to get their man. After years of working alone, J.D. finds himself distracted by his partner — which turns dangerous when the murderer starts targeting her. The final installment of the Cold Case miniseries neatly ties up all the loose ends and delivers a shattering, blood-drenched conclusion.

Cooper Vengeance is the final book of the Cooper Justice series, and the final book of the miniseries Cooper Justice: Cold Case Investigation. And don't let the "blood-drenched" conclusion worry you—the right guys do the bleeding. ;)

It's possible, I suppose, that my new Cooper series, coming in 2012, may end up going under a variation of Cooper Justice, since the Cooper cousins are also deeply involved in matters of justice. So perhaps I've spoken too soon when I say the series is over. We'll see.

Guest Blogging on Get Lost in a Story

The fine folks at Get Lost in a Story have interviewed me for their blog. You can find the post here. Drop by there and give me a little comment love!

Friday's Winner

And the winner of Friday's giveaway is.... :::drum roll::: Nas Dean! Email me (click the home button on this blog, then click the contact button on my website) and we'll get together on the prize and how I'll get it to you. And thanks you to everyone else who participated. Stay tuned---I'll be doing more giveaways over the next three months as I celebrate the publications of my Cooper Justice: Cold Case Investigation trilogy.

Blogging on the Writerspace Blog

Be sure to check out my blog post up now on the Writerspace blog. I'm talking about motives for marriage, which is especially significant to the hero and heroine of my April 2011 Intrigue, Hitched and Hunted. And don't forget, it you haven't picked up your copy of Hitched and Hunted yet, it should be available today anywhere you can purchase Intrigues. It's the first of three connected books that solve an over-arching mystery, so you don't want to miss a one of the books! It's also available online, of course, and if you shop at eHarlequin.com, you can pick up a copy of my May 2011 book, The Man from Gossamer Ridge, right now.

Want a preview of Hitched and Hunted?

My April Intrigue, Hitched and Hunted, hits the shelves tomorrow, so how about a preview? Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book:

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Mariah Cooper had imagined her death a thousand times in the past four years, but never had she thought she'd be crouched in a motel room bathtub when it finally happened.

"It's going to be okay." Jake's calm voice barely rose above the wind gusts rattling the windows and howling around the corner eaves just outside the motel room. Across the tub, he locked his hands with hers, his blue eyes meeting hers with steady assurance. "Just another tornado warning, right?"

Mariah nodded. Having spent her whole life in tornado-prone areas, she'd responded to hundreds of tornado siren warnings with actions drummed into her head over the years—go to the basement or an interior room, put as many walls between you and the exterior as possible, get beneath something sturdy if possible. Right now, they were on the bottom floor of the two-story motel, and the bathroom was the only place in the room that didn't have an exterior window. The tub had a long steel handle set into the wall to hold on to if things got hairy.

But she couldn't remember ever hearing the wind howl so loudly or feeling the walls shake with each gust.

"It's close," she said, pressure rising in her ears.

Jake's gaze held hers. "It may not even touch down."

On the counter across from the tub, a battery-powered radio kept up a steady stream of chatter from a local station carrying wall-to-wall weather coverage from a television station out of Meridian, Mississippi. The meteorologist was warning people in the Buckley area to get to their places of safety immediately.

"I love you." The warmth of Jake's voice wrapped around Mariah's shivering body. She held his gaze, her heart sinking under the weight of the truth. Jake didn't really love her. He couldn't. He didn't know who she really was.

A crackling boom shook the motel room. The lights surged, then died, plunging the bathroom into utter blackness. Mariah gasped, her fingers tightening over his.

"A transformer blew. That's all." Jake shifted, turning her until she was cradled between his knees, her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, his breath hot against her neck. "Just a few more minutes and it'll be over."

The roar of the wind rose. Cracks and thuds filled Mariah's ears, frighteningly close. Though she closed her eyes against the darkness, as if she could shut it out somehow, the blackness pursued her relentlessly, carried on a sea of destruction encroaching from somewhere outside.

She repeated Jake's promise in her head. A few more minutes and it'll be over. It'll be over. It'll be over.

Then, suddenly, it was. The roar of wind fell quickly before dying away altogether, replaced by a steady drumbeat of rain against the windows. Jake began to stir, but Mariah clutched his arms, holding him in place behind her in the tub. They sat quietly, listening to the radio. Only when the weatherman started talking about storm damage reports trickling in from Buckley did Mariah finally move.

"We should see if the truck and boat made it," she murmured, struggling to compose herself.

Jake muttered a soft oath. "Didn't think about the boat."

The power was still out, so Mariah had to feel her way out of the tub and into the main part of the motel room. She'd spotted candles and matches in the drawer of the bureau when she was putting away their clothes a couple of days earlier, so she made her way there and opened the drawer, groping inside until she felt the smooth, cool wax of a candle beneath her fingers. A little more searching garnered the small box of matches as well. She struck a match and touched the tip to the candle's wick. The candle sizzled to life, casting a warm, flickering glow across the motel room.

Mariah turned and found her husband gazing at her, his expression tense but confident.

"Told you we'd make it through." He brushed her arm with his fingertips as he passed her on the way to the front window. He moved the curtain aside and peered out through the rain-mottled windows. His back stiffening, he spoke in a raspy voice. "Good news is the truck and boat are still there. But the shopping strip next door is gone."

Her knees buckling, Mariah stumbled to the end of the bed and sat heavily, her heart pounding wildly. There had been fifteen stores in that strip center. They'd shopped at the drugstore there just that morning. And now it was gone?

She'd known it was a bad idea to come back to Buckley.

THE BAD WEATHER THE NIGHT before had bypassed Victor Logan for the most part. A few trees had fallen in the woods surrounding his house, a shanty of a place that was the most he could afford to rent with the little bit of money he'd had left after his legal fees. But he'd seen nothing but a little wind and rain where he lived, despite the tornado siren. And as his old box set television couldn't pick up any channels since the conversion to digital, he hadn't watched the morning news before gassing up his van and driving to town to look for work.

So it was with some surprise that he saw the utter devastation wrought across the small town of Buckley, Mississippi, in the early hours of the morning. Houses with roofs damaged or missing completely. Vehicles upside down, including an eighteen-wheeler wrapped around the concrete piling of an overpass, the trailer split in two, spilling its payload of fresh strawberries onto the roadway. Birds swarmed like winged piranhas, pecking bits of flesh from the berries until the roadside bled red with their juices.

Bodies of farm animals dotted the highway into Buckley, buzzards circling overhead. As he neared town, traffic slowed to a grind due to a roadblock on the highway ahead. The cops must be screening people to be sure they had legitimate business in the storm zone, he realized with a grimace.

He didn't want to talk to the cops, so he turned off as soon as he could, parking in front of a small diner. He'd eaten there a few times. Good food, low prices, and the staff mostly left you alone. Inside, he sat at the counter and ordered the breakfast special—eggs, sausage and a gravy biscuit.

Nearby, a half dozen fellow customers huddled around the diner's small television, murmuring in low tones of horror and concern. Victor could see part of the television screen between their bodies, enough that he got a good look at the devastation in downtown Buckley and on the south side, where the road toward Flint Creek Reservoir had taken a hard hit, wiping out a shopping strip center and several dozen residences.

Victor watched for a moment, his only emotion curiosity. The destruction might open up the job market for him. He was a good mechanic. He could also do construction work if necessary. He just needed someone to look past the black marks on his record. He was starting to get anxious—he'd never been a thief, and he didn't want to become one now just to keep his head above water. Theft was Marisol's crime, not his.

Treacherous bitch.

As he started to look away from the television screen, a face in the crowd behind the male reporter caught his eye. Dropping his fork, he walked closer to the television screen, edging another man out of the way to get a better look.

Marisol. As if his thoughts had conjured her up.

Four years later, she'd changed little, her hair still long and coal black, her eyes so light they looked like pools of silver against the dusky olive of her skin. She gazed straight into the camera, as if looking right at him, and his heart beat a thunderous cadence in his ears.

Her eyes widened and she looked away quickly, as if she'd seen him watching her through the television screen, and turned to speak to a tall, dark-haired man standing beside her. He put his arm around her shoulder and they walked out of the frame.

Victor stared at the screen, barely breathing. He forced himself to listen to the reporter's drivel. The talking head was near a residential subdivision the tornado had nearly wiped out. The people behind the guy were volunteers for the rescue and recovery efforts. More volunteers were needed.

Victor returned to the counter and wolfed down his breakfast. He was on the road within a few minutes.

He bypassed the main highway into Buckley, taking side roads that snaked through the forest and farmlands hemming in the town on all sides. A policeman flagged him down as he entered the affected area.

Victor willed himself to remain calm. He'd done his time. He'd gotten out on good behavior. Seeing his parole officer weekly, as required, and still looking for a job. Plus, he had skills the rescuers could use, didn't he?

He said as much to the policeman who rapped on the driver's side window of his van to ask what business he had in the area.

The cop eyed him a moment before giving a nod. He told him where to park the van and where to find the fire department officer who was coordinating volunteers.

Victor parked where directed and walked to the staging area, a pavilion tent set up in the middle of the road near the tornado strike zone. Inside, volunteers were taking names and handing out bottles of water to those who'd come to support the first responders.

Hers was the first face he saw.

Victor's heart jumped. Marisol was only a few feet away, bending to open another crate of water bottles. She pulled several bottles from the package and set them on a collapsible card table set up in the middle of the staging tent.

She was as beautiful as ever, though time had blessed her, at twenty-five, with a more womanly shape and a leaner, more mature face than she'd possessed at twenty-one. Her dark hair was twisted into a careless braid down her back, humidity giving it a hint of curl in the tendrils around her face. She smiled as she handed a volunteer a bottle, and Victor saw she'd fixed the upper left bicuspid she'd broken as a child.

The man he'd seen her with on TV was nowhere around.

Victor slipped from the tent, not yet ready to be seen. He needed to know why she was here. Was she still living in the Buckley area? Surely not. He'd looked for her in vain as soon as he got out of jail.

Who was the man she'd been with, who'd put his arm around her and led her away from the reporter? Her new lover?

Victor wasn't jealous—he'd never consider sullying himself with her. She'd been an intellectual passion, not an object of sexual desire.

But he hadn't plucked her out of filth to watch her whore her way around Mississippi, either. He hadn't schooled her in the classics, filled her formerly dull mind with the precisions of science and the exquisite mysteries of mathematics to watch her throw her knowledge away on frivolous, romantic dreams of marriage and maternity.

She was supposed to be a different sort of creature, dedicated to knowledge and beauty, not a slave to her baser drives and emotions.

Marisol Mendez had been a great disappointment to him.

Text Copyright © 2011 by Paula Graves. Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books.

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If Hitched and Hunted sounds interesting to you, please visit your nearest bookstore tomorrow or head online and purchase a copy! It's also available on Kindle and other ebook formats. I'd love to hear what you think of it after you've read it. If you click the links to the right on this blog, you'll be able to purchase not only Hitched and Hunted but also the second book in the trilogy, The Man from Gossamer Ridge, available right now from eHarlequin.com.

And how about a little contest to celebrate the release? In the comments, answer one of three questions for me:

1. Do you like books where the main couple are already involved?

2. Do you like books where the hero or heroine has a hidden identity?

3. Have you ever been through a natural disaster like a tornado, hurricane or earthquake? If so, can you tell us what it was like?

I'll pick a commenter from random to win a $25 eGiftcard from the online bookstore of your choosing.

Spring is Here—Let the Sneezing Commence

Beautiful weekend here in north central Alabama. How about some pictures? (Click on the photos for a larger version of the image)

Dogwoods are blooming in my side yard. So beautiful! Plus, it means the bluegills are on their beds—time to go fishing!

See our little fig tree in the side yard? You'd be surprised by how many figs the tree produces for its size. It cross pollinates with a larger tree that's kind of hidden behind it in this photo.

We recently had a lot of repair work done on our back deck, including the addition of this gate, which blocks passage down the steps to the yard. Our cats are indoor cats, but we wanted to be able to let them come out on the deck with us when we start container gardening there, or when we're just outside enjoying the day. You can see Tempe, our little black female cat, sitting by the gate. But we can't close it in, because that's how the dogs get from inside to the yard outside. Hence the gate. Open for dogs, closed for cats.

Here's another view of the deck repairs. We had the lattice added to make the area more contained than it was before, which will make it easier to keep the cats on the deck. Also, our handyman built us this bench that extends the width of the deck and down one side to the house. It'll be good for both sitting and for placing our container garden containers.

What about y'all? Has spring arrived where you are? What are your favorite signs of the new season? I love all the colors—green leaves, blooming azaleas, daffodils, dogwoods, redbuds, pear trees, magnolias, tulips. But I sure don't love the pollen, which makes me miserable all season.

Forbidden Territory Now Available as an Ebook

Finally, Harlequin has released my first Harlequin Intrigue, Forbidden Territory, as an ebook. You should be able to purchase the book in the ebook format of your choice. It's available right now on eHarlequin, Amazon.com, Mobipocket, Sony, Barnes and Noble and more.

Why is this a big deal this late in the game? Because now people can buy Forbidden Territory new--which means I can start earning royalties on it again. When it was out of print, any copy that people purchased was used and therefore didn't earn me any cash at all.

Also, for people who read exclusively on Kindle or Nook or Sony Reader, you can have the whole Forbidden trilogy for your connection instead of just the second and third books.

So, please, if you know anyone who likes my books and would like to have an ebook version of my first book, help me get the word out!