Chris’ desire to become a published writer began at an early age. When she received her first A on a story she wrote in fifth grade, Chris knew she wanted to be an author. However, writing romance fiction books didn’t enter the picture until later in her life. She didn’t read many romance books growing up, but after college, discovered the genre fictions of mystery and romance. Her favorite authors are Suzanne Brockmann and Lisa Gardner, both of whom she has had the pleasure of meeting. After the birth of her second child, Chris was ready to take her writing to the next level and joined Romance Writers of America and her local RWA chapter. There she embarked on learning the real craft and business of writing.
Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog and three rabbits. She graduated from PennState with a degree in journalism. When she isn’t writing, she works part time for her local hospital teaching CPR.
I’m a word nerd. Not surprising since I am a writer. Once had a boss who would engage me in wordplay. He really thought he’d win, but he never did. So here are two words for you today.
resplendent\rih-SPLEN-duhnt\, adjective:very bright or shining; splendid
This is one of those words that I think sounds like what it means. It’s not a word I would use in my writing, but if I were writing an historical, I would probably use it more. To me it seems like an old word.
We don’t have things that are resplendent anymore. The world makes me think of Versailles or BuckinghamPalace. You wouldn’t say a Yugo is resplendent. You wouldn’t even say a BMW is nor a Merecedes. It’s an old word for old fancy things.
Have you used it in your writing?
intimation \in-tuh-MAY-shuhn\, noun: an indirect or slight suggestion; hint
I often use this word. It’s one that when I do use it around non-writers they ask me what it means. Some words people can figure out in context. I guess this isn’t one of them. I’m also asked to spell it by some wiseacres. I can. I can spell lots of words.
I’ve found in dealing with men, you don’t intimate. You tell them directly. Other women will pick up hints. Men will not. After I’ve been with women for a few hours, I go home and talk that way to the men in my house. Often my husband will just ask me what I want him to do. It’s a good strategy on his part. I then get back to man-speak and we all can understand each other.
This is one of those words that sound dirty, but isn’t. Though an intimation can be for something dirty.
What was the last thing you intimated?
Chris's latest release Blonde Demolition is available now. Get your copy today!
Mallory Sage lives in a small, idyllic town where nothing ever happens. Just the kind of life she has always wanted. No one, not even her fellow volunteer firefighters, knows about her past life as an agent for Homeland Security.
Former partner and lover, Trey McCrane, comes back into Mallory's life. He believes they made a great team once, and that they can do so again. Besides, they don't have much choice. Paul Stanley, a twisted killer and their old nemesis, is back.
Framed for a bombing and drawn together by necessity, Mallory and Trey go on the run and must learn to trust each other again―if they hope to survive. But Mallory has been hiding another secret, one that could destroy their relationship. And time is running out.
Haven't we all had that fantasy? What would you do if you had that chance? I had just such an experience and it didn't work out as both of us had hoped at the time, but in the end, it worked out the way it was supposed to and I got to meet my Muse and soul mate.
Today I am very happy to welcome author Amber Easton to Not Enough Time in the Day as she shares her own experience with getting the do over, and her latest release Kiss Me Slowly.
There are moments when I find myself sitting quietly with a secret smile thinking about a boy who loved me with the reckless abandonment of youth. We met at the movie theatre when I was sixteen, he tore tickets and I sold popcorn. We fell in love when we were seventeen, I sold the tickets that he tore. We had it all then--the feeling of immortality that all teenagers have, the romantic ideal of “us against the world”. Making out in back seats, sneaking in through windows, walking for hours just to spend time together...ah, those were the days.
Then I went to college and thought I needed “no strings”. I guess I had grand illusions of the kind of player I was gonna be. (Didn’t happen--I’d seen too many movies! Stupid, naive me.)
A few years ago, after going on with my life, getting married, having kids, and burying my husband, I met that first love again via Facebook. Surprisingly, our lives had moved parallel to one another--at one point, we had lived in the same neighborhood in Denver without ever meeting. His wife had also passed away. So we talked...we flirted...we even had an argument about “the break up” that happened over twenty years ago.
He still had that “take-me-to-bed-and-strip-me-naked” smile, that generous heart that I’d fallen for back in the day, but our grief for our spouses stood in our way of anything developing in the here and now.
Do you have that “first love” that sometimes creeps into your thoughts and makes you smile? Even if you’re blissfully happy now, are there moments when you’re sitting at a stoplight and an image of that “one who got away” drifts into focus and you think...what if?
In my romantic suspense novel, Grace Dupont is reunited with her first love thirteen years after their break up, but he’s in trouble and needs her genius brain to save him. Set up to take a fall for embezzling millions of dollars from the family company and with diamond smugglers aching to see him go down, they don’t have time for a leisurely trip down memory lane. Trapped in a whirlwind of conspiracy and murder, they find themselves on the run together, with time working against them and love rekindling beneath Florida Key sunshine.
An excerpt of Kiss Me Slowly:
She didn’t know if she was angry or frightened, but aiming a gun at his head felt pretty damn good. “What are you staring at? Get out of there.”
She motioned for him to exit the guest room and enter the main cabin. He looked like hell. Scratches ripped up his chest, blood darkened the once white bandage on his shoulder, soggy pajama pants were stained and ripped at the knees and his feet, and it looked as if he had walked for miles barefoot. He limped to the curving white leather sofa and fell against the cushions.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked.
“Would you please put the gun down? You’re terrifying.” He slurred his words as he dropped his arms against the table as if they weighed a thousand pounds.
“Terrifying is my current goal. Tell me what happened.” She scrambled to lock the hatch overhead before sinking on the edge of the sofa a few feet away from him. She kept a firm hold on the gun. “Talk to me, Jon.”
His hands shook as he held them to his forehead. He looked like a shadow of the man she had encountered forty-eight hours ago. That man had owned the world and knew it. This one looked like the world was against him and knew it.
“How did you get here?” She bit her lip. She needed to get away from here.
“Someone took me from the house, dropped me on the street. I walked. Jumped the sea wall. No one is following me.” His gaze pierced into hers. “How did you know I was here?”
“I notice details, and you did a lousy job smearing your tracks.” She noticed the bulge in his waistband and realized he had a gun of his own. “What the hell is that? Take it out.”
His hands shook so violently when he laid the gun on the table that she worried he might shoot a hole in the hull.
“For God’s sake, just leave it alone,” she ordered. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you found that.”
“It’s not mine.” His eyes glazed over as he stared at the gun on the table. “It’s not mine,” he repeated.
“David said Ashley was murdered. The news thinks you may have been kidnapped. David brought it up because he thought my Jon Ryan resembled the infamous Jonathan Alexander. I swear, it’s one thing after another with you. Murder? What’s next? What can be worse than murder? Is that the house you’re talking about? Someone took you from Ashley’s?” Her own hands shook as she moved his gun further away from his trembling hands. “What happened? What have you done?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head and stared at the gun. Defeat swirled around him like a swarm of mosquitoes.
