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Profound thanks to all who serve, have served, and will serve.

Nothing like hearing your characters’ voices, and I mean outside your mind. Coming November 14th, my latest erotic romance, To the Edge is also out as an audio-book from Audible.com. Listen to the first chapter here.

 

 

 

I’m not counting or anything, but in exactly SEVEN days, To the Edge is coming out, from Carina Press.

Learn more about To the Edge here!

Pre-order here!

 

Hello there,

As you know, I have a tradition of posting the first ARC review of a new release here. To the Edge, coming November 14^th, was posted on NetGalley last week. I don’t know this reader, but I want to thank Ayekah for posting this first, AMAZING, Five Star review of To the Edge on Goodreads.

It’s always wonderful to hear from readers who enjoy what I write. I cherish the personal connection a novel creates between the reader and the writer, you and me. A new release always entails a great amount of nail biting over here. This review had me nearly crying from joy!

Thanks again to Ayekah for kicking off the launch of To the Edge with her review and thanks to all of you who previewed or are currently previewing To the Edge’s ARC. Yes, it is my sexiest, kinkiest, most explicit erotic romance yet and I love it like that.  As always, especial thanks to all of you who choose to read and support my books. I wake up thinking about you every morning, plotting about ways to make you smile at the end of a satisfying read.

Hugs,

AdM

From Goodreads:                 

Ayekah rated it: It was amazing Five Stars!

Shelves: arc, alpha, panty-melting, suspense, dominant, make-mine-a-seal, sexual-tension, bdsm, explicit-sex, serious-steam, smoking-hot, ptsd, war-related, second-chance, military, the-book-has-it-all

Mind blowing. Captivating. Erotic. Mind bending. Suspenseful. Flammable. It’s so freaking hot!

What the hell did I just read? Seriously, I am still recovering from this one. Anna just goes over the top and runs with this story.

We have Noah, ex SEAL now living on Avalon an island in the Chesapeake Bay where he first met Clara Luz his first love. Noah has bought a house there and still works special ops with his team from his home. Noah suffers from severe PTSD and cannot leave the house. Although he’s got a little green bottle of “rescue” that in dire times he can drink a sip and manage to get out, problem is it makes him sick as a dog afterwards. His heart rests with Clara.

Meet Clara Luz, love of Noah’s young life. They meet here on the island one summer, he’s set to go to the Naval Academy, he just needs a letter of recommendation from Clara’s power hungry Senator Mother. That he gets. And a very unfriendly push off the island and a warning. None of which Clara is aware of, she only knows Noah left her and she still misses him.

A little backstory on Clara which was interesting. Clara was a sperm donor baby, her all mighty powerful mother chose the donor carefully and was a single Mom. Mother is a word I use loosely. She’s cruel, has ridiculous expectations and Clara feels like she’s been nothing but a disappointment to her. Clara runs her mother’s foundation which relies on heavy hitter donors and funds many social programs some near and dear to Clara’s heart. Clara also writes a blog, in secret. It’s a sex advice blog and is very popular.

When she’s approached by an old mentor who wants to merge with her and also wants her do to a story on BDSM 101, Clara reluctantly agrees. Old mentor fixes her up with a “Dom”, Clara’s rules are very clear. They meet at the house on Avalon. He puts her in a cage, handcuffed and leaves the house to get coffee. Clara, blindfolded smells something and it’s smoke. She can’t see. After she manages to free her feet, she then hears a male voice. That would be Noah.

He frees her, gets sick from drinking the “remedy” and she stays at his place and takes care of him. They work out a lot of their past misinformation and miscommunication. Noah’s out of it for a couple days. Clara comes up with the idea that Noah can help her with this article because he has some experience in the arena, so he agrees. She’s clueless about sex much less BDSM and her sass makes her a delightful sub. Dom Noah is one powerful man and the smoke and flame comes right off the pages in this book. He takes Clara to places that she would have never gone. He’s fair but cuts her no slack- at all. Add to that their relationship is developing and Noah is still involved with taking down a lead terrorist who has been evasive. Clara hooks him up with her Dr who has helped her, there is a new program for PTSD so he spends his time doing that online also. He demands from Clara at his beck and call. She’s the match to his gasoline.

It’s one hell of a story. There’s so much subterfuge, the backstories are so involved yet so clear, there are secondary characters that all snap into place. We see Josh again from the previous book who is still having Lily trouble. I had to put this down for an hour. I really did. There are several twists in the subplot that keep you on edge, couple that with the expectation of what Noah is going to bring to the attic next. Whew! Intense. It’s intense. I loved it. Anna never ceases to amaze me, her stories capture the PTSD element so very well, and her characters are larger than life. This is her edgiest book thus far and man does she nail it. It’s a must read. Noah and Clara, trust me. No, trust Noah.

I hated to see this end, but I look forward to the next book in the series.

**arc from NetGalley and Publisher Carina Press** in exchange for an honest review.

 

First off, thank you for your wonderful messages, emails and reviews of The Stranger. I love hearing from you and I’m thrilled that you’ve enjoyed the novel. A few of you wrote to ask about the twist at the beginning of The Stranger. I thought the answers would make for an interesting blog post. But–SPOILER ALERT–If you haven’t read The Stranger and you’d like to be surprised upfront, stop right now and don’t read this blog.

On the other hand, if you’ve already read The Stranger, I’m happy to share.  Now, folks, here’s my disclaimer upfront: I write fiction, which means that my characters are not based on any one real person and my stories are total and complete figments of my imagination. That’s absolutely true for The Stranger. But it doesn’t mean that everyday life doesn’t influence what I write. The truth is that my first inspiration for making the heroine of The Stranger, Summer Silva, a sleepwalker came from…Are you ready for this? Family lore.

My mother, the greatest storyteller in our family, often talks about her great-aunt Julita, who was a severe parasomniac. Apparently, the woman regularly attempted to fly in her sleep and was often found perched on high ledges and dangerous places. If this reminds you a certain scene in The Stranger, you might be onto something. Despite her sleeping disorder, Julita lived a long and happy life under the nocturnal supervision of the love of her life, great-uncle Jose who kept a ladder nearby. But her antics fired my imagination. If you have a legendary sleepwalker in your family, Summer’s story? Totally plausible.

And then, as I began to research the basics for The Stranger, I came across headlines like these:

Sleepwalking Woman had sex with Strangers

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6540-sleepwalking-woman-had-sex-with-strangers/

and

http://www.cracked.com/article/145_the-7-most-insane-things-people-have-done-while-sleepwalking/

I was totally intrigued.

I moved away from headlines and began to research the scientific literature. There’s lots of information about sleepwalkers working, eating, driving and having sex in their sleep. There are also many attempts at scientifically explaining the rare condition, all of which I found fascinating. I won’t bore you with the long list of sources and references I used to research themes like sleepwalking, parasomnia, somnambulism, sleeping disorders, sleep sex and other related conditions, but I think it’s pretty cool that every sleepwalking scene in The Stranger is based on documented cases. Summer Silva is not alone in this.

It all goes to show that reality and fiction sometimes piggy back on each other.

A.

PS: For those of you who wrote to tell me how interested you were in the subject, I’m including a few general links that can serve as jumping off points to learn more about Summer’s condition and the sort of behaviors that it can cause.

Sleep Sex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_sex

What is sexsomnia?

http://www.everydayhealth.com/sleep/what-is-sexsomnia.aspx

SLEEP: Sex While Sleeping Is Real, and May Be No Joke

http://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/sleepdisorders/3568?np=1&xid=ob_pcp

Sleep-related Eating Disorders

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sleep-related-eating-disorder/basics/definition/con-20037290

Sleep-related Eating Disorders

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/services/neurological_institute/sleep-disorders-center/disorders-conditions/hic-sleep-related-eating-disorders

Sleep Sex

http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/sleep-sex-unromantic-even-dangerous?page=2

Mathematician solves problem while sleepwalking

 

https://denisegaskins.com/2008/10/20/math-history-agnesi-euler-china/

I’m so happy to share the cover for To the Edge, my next release, coming November 14^th, 2016, from Carina Press. Following on the heels of At the Brink, To the Edge is the second chance story of lovers who reunite in an erotic journey brimming with hope, passion and scorching hot sex.

The story goes something like this: To learn about kink, Clara Luz had to learn the ropes, but she never expected to be so compromised she’d need rescuing by none other than Noah Blake, the first man she ever loved, the ex-Navy SEAL who almost destroyed her, the wounded warrior determined to reclaim Clara’s heart and fight for redemption to the very edge of sexual obsession.

I want to thank the amazing team at Carina Press for their work in designing this beautiful cover, especially my editor, Kerri Buckley, and the amazing Heather Goldberg who walked me through this one with such patience and grace.

I’m excited to introduce my readers to Clara and Noah. I can’t wait!

For more about To the Edge

It’s launch day for The Stranger and now that the novel is live on Amazon and all other major online sellers, I’m celebrating. You know that my favorite way of celebrating is gratitude. Writing a novel and getting it published is a lot like childbirth: wonderful, painful, frightening and exhilarating all at the same time. I want to thank all of the folks who’ve put so much love, work and enthusiasm into The Stranger, beginning with my kids, who dragged me out to Alaska, where I fell in love with the place.

Huge thanks to my extraordinary editor at Carina Press, Kerri Buckley, for her brilliant editing work on The Stranger. She made sure the voices in my head matched the voices on the page. I’m so lucky I get to work with her.

Thanks to each and every one at Carina Press who contributed to The Stranger, especially to Angela James, who’s assembled such a talented team at Carina, and the amazing Heather Goldberg—what a gem. I don’t know how she does it, but Heather sure knows how to keep her authors deliriously happy.

My thanks also to Nancy Cassidy, who trudges through my manuscripts with such wisdom and patience and to Aileen Aroma and her fabulous team, who work so hard to promote my novels and manage my online efforts. A special shout out to my incredible alpha readers and to the awesome bloggers and reviewers who encourage me by reading and posting reviews of my novels. You rock!

Gratitude to my family who support me with their love and special thanks to my hubby, who puts up with me, even when my mind is thousands of miles away.

Finally, thank you, the reader. We writers are an odd breed. We work long hours to tell our stories to folks we’ll seldom get to meet. And yet the reader is always with us, a welcomed companion on a thrilling journey. The mere idea of you on your e-reader enjoying a single word I write, smiling at a line, or lifting an eyebrow at the end of a paragraph fuels and rewards my best efforts. So thank you for coming along on this adventure and thank you especially for giving The Stranger a chance.

I’m so pleased to introduce you to The Stranger, my newest romantic suspense, the second book of the Wounded Warrior Series, coming on the heel of the Amazon bestseller, The Asset.

Like The Asset, The stranger is also about a strong heroine trying to find her place in the world and a brave, hot alpha fighting his own demons who will stop at nothing to protect the woman he loves.

One cool aspect of the Wounded Warrior Series is that you can read these novels in whichever order you prefer. The books are interrelated but each story stands on its own.

I also want all of you to know that I strive to make each novel unique, each character different, each setting distinct, and each journey an exceptional romantic suspense adventure that leads to evolving, meaningful, heart-warming relationships and yes, true and forever love.

So while The Asset and The Stranger are both romantic suspense and share in theme, style and level of heat—read hot! here—these two are bound to be very different novels. Don’t ever expect the same from me!

While I’m at it, this differentiation also holds true for the novels of my erotic romance series. If you’ve read At the Brink, then you know what I mean. My romantic suspense novels are different from my erotic romances, which are written at an even higher level of heat, meaning hot + edgy + most definitively naughty.

Having said all of that, I can’t wait for you to meet the main characters of The Stranger, Seth Erickson and Summer Silva. Seth Erickson is a powerful Alaskan tycoon dealing with a quarreling family and a hostile takeover attempt. He’s also a helicopter pilot, a wounded warrior struggling to recover from injuries he sustained while serving in Afghanistan, a man haunted by his past and fighting his own demons. Seth is blunt, systematic and precise, always cool and in command, a man who despises emotion and sticks to his icy logic… most of the time.

When Seth comes across a beautiful stranger stranded in a desolate Alaskan road, he’s aggravated. He’s got no time for a lady in distress and he suspects she’s a trap from his ruthless enemies. Imagine his surprise as he realizes she really does need his help. Imagine how he feels when he meets fire in the flesh, Summer Silva.

Summer Silva is a warmth-loving Miami architect who has come to Alaska chasing after her reckless sibling, who ran away with a guy she met on the internet. Summer is bright, curious, hard-working and dutiful. She’s essentially a tropical being with a fiery attitude and a heart of gold. Alaska had never been on her list of places to visit, but here she is, off-grid, having just survived an inexplicable murder attempt, with a Bering Sea superstorm bearing down on her. Because of her past, she doesn’t trust anyone outside her family and that includes the cantankerous, irritating stranger who is also her only hope for rescue.

Seth has no choice. He can’t very well leave the woman to freeze in the Alaskan wilderness. So he takes Summer to his high-tech cabin for the night. But Summer has a secret. Dream chasing, the Native Athabaskans call it. I’m afraid I can’t give up the twist here—you know me and my twists—but you’ll find out what that’s all about when you read the story. And yes, I’m grinning.

Suffice is to say that when Summer’s secret acts up, she ends up in Seth’s bed, where he embraces her sweet seduction and discovers the heat of Summer’s flame. Entwined in her arms, Summer becomes the superstorm of Seth’s lifetime.

As you may suspect, the morning after is quite a mess. Ice and fire meet and sparks fly. But Seth is determined to keep Summer safe from her foes and also from her nightmares. And now two strangers from different worlds and opposite spectrums of the thermometer are caught in a vortex of passion that defies their differences and enrages their enemies. To survive, they must unravel the intrigues that threaten their lives and chase after a new dream in spectacular Alaska.

I’m really excited about The Stranger. I can’t wait to share it with you.  Here’s a first review of The Stranger. I’m so lucky. It’s an awesome one!

http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooksreview.php?bookid=22690

Check out The Stranger on Amazon

 

 

Hello everyone,

The Stranger, the next novel of my Wounded Warrior Series is going on Virtual Book Tour, beginning August 22^nd.  In the vein of The Asset, The Stranger is my newest romantic suspense. If you’re a blogger or a reviewer and you are interested in obtaining an advance review copy and participating in the VBT, we’d love to have you!

Please Contact: http://kismetbooktours.com/2016/07/the-stranger-by-anna-del-mar/

 

Coming, August 22nd!