Guest Post & Giveaway: Vicki's Key by p.m. terrell

Vicki's Key

Vicki's Key
Black Swamp Mysteries, Book 1
p.m. terrell

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Drake Valley Press

Date of Publication: March 17, 2012

Number of pages: 324
Word Count: ~93,280

Available at the following retailers:
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Following a failed mission, Vicki Boyd leaves her job as a psychic spy with the CIA, determined to start her life over in a small town assisting an elderly lady. But when she arrives, she finds that Laurel Maguire has suffered a stroke and is confined to the third floor of her home and her nephew Dylan has recently arrived from Ireland to care for her. Vicki very quickly falls in love with the charming, handsome Irishman. But all is not what it seems in Aunt Laurel’s old, rambling home. And when the CIA arrive on her doorstep to convince her to accept one last mission, she finds her past and her future are about to collide… In murder.

Excerpt: 

Vicki let the end of the towel drop so it brushed against her knees as she held the top against her breastbone. With one hand, she pulled the shower curtain back.

Dylan stood barefoot in the doorway, his back against the doorframe, his long legs stretching toward the opposite side, one hand planted against the opposite doorframe as though he’d been semi-reclining there for some time.

She gasped instinctively.

He returned her stare silently.

“How long have you been there?” she asked, tugging the towel to cover her breasts.

“Long enough.”

She felt exposed, though the towel was doing an adequate job of covering the front of her body. But his eyes didn’t waver from her face while his own remained entirely expressionless. The rage he’d displayed earlier was gone, and so was his broad smile. He simply looked at her impassively as though he was immersed in his private thoughts.

“What are you doin’ here?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

She clasped the towel to her. “I—I was taking a shower.”

“No,” he said, his voice measured, “what are you doin’ in here?”

She thought of the shower in her own private bathroom, and how insensitive she must appear to have let herself into his private space without asking. She opened her mouth to respond but the words would not come. “I—I” was all she could manage.

He dropped his hand from the doorframe. Without taking his eyes off hers, he moved deliberately across the bathroom until he stood in front of her. His eyes wandered to her hair, and Vicki realized she was trembling from the air conditioning against her wet skin. Without speaking, he took her towel and wrapped it around her. As the bath sheet was draped around her slender body, he took the corner and began to gently rub her hair with it. He stopped after a moment, his hand against her face and gazed at her cheek as he brushed it with his thumb.

“What were you cryin’ for, Woman?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“‘I don’t know,’ she says. Same thin’ me mum used to say. ‘What are you cryin’ for, Mum?’ I’d say. ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Well, you do it every night. Seems like you’d have figured it out by now.’”

Guest Post: 

I always wanted to be a writer and wrote my first novel—all thirteen pages of it—when I was nine years old. But Life sometimes serves up some curve balls and in the late 1970’s I found myself on the ground floor of the personal computer industry.

I fell into computers while working as a temporary employee to put myself through college. I was trained on the job on mini-computers and mainframes and was working with an IBM subsidiary when they were asked to evaluate a computer that sat on a desktop. Most of the evaluators considered it a toy and a fad that would go nowhere. But when I discovered the spreadsheet software they’d bundled with it, I was hooked. We had nothing like it on either the mini or mainframe platforms. That personal computer would become known as the Apple.

It was just a few years later when I left IBM and started my first computer company. By that time IBM had developed their own IBM PC, which was making its way into government agencies for the first time. I began with Department of Defense contracts and soon expanded into working with the Secret Service, the CIA and federal and local law enforcement.

I loved the combination of criminal investigations coupled with computer technology. My favorite assignment was working on Medicare fraud and abuse. I sat around with several auditors, thinking of ways to defraud the government. Once we hit on some good ideas, I went about writing programs to see if anyone was doing that. The result: we recovered millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money by catching fraudulent activities.

The experience would lead to writing suspense that often uses computers to commit crimes. As I delved deeper into discovering what cybercriminals were capable of performing, my plots seemed all too real: rigging elections through touch-screen voting machines (The China Conspiracy), trucking industry kickback schemes (Kickback), the use of stolen identities for illegal immigrants (Ricochet), driving oil and gasoline prices artificially high (Exit 22), and selling insider secrets on politicians to the highest bidder (Secrets of a Dangerous Woman), to name a few.

It would also lead to founding the Book ‘Em Foundation, a joint effort between law enforcement and authors, to highlight the correlation between high illiteracy rates and high crime rates. The annual Book ‘Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair is now held annually in Lumberton, North Carolina to raise funds for increasing literacy rates and reducing crime.

Giveaway: 

p.m. will award one randomly drawn commenter a Celtic Shamrock Necklace.

So follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning.

Book Tour Info: 
Don't forget to check out the other stops on the Book Tour:

July 8:
Full Moon Dreaming

July 15:
Musings and Ramblings
Tina Donahue Presents

July 22:
A Writer's Life

July 29:
Writing into the Sunset


Author Bio:

p.m. terrell is the award-winning, internationally acclaimed author of more than 18 books in 4 genres. A full-time author since 2002, she previously opened and operated two computer companies in the Washington, DC area. Her specialties were in the areas of computer crime and computer intelligence and her clients included the Secret Service, CIA and Department of Defense as well as local law enforcement. Computer and spy technology are two themes that recur throughout her books. She is the co-founder of The Book 'Em Foundation, whose mission is to raise awareness of the link between high illiteracy rates and high crime rates. And she founded the annual Book 'Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair which takes place each February.

To connect with the author online:

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