Guest Blogger: Pamela Clare

Pamela Clare's latest romantic suspense novel.
Hi everyone! Sorry we’re late posting this morning.
Today I’m happy to introduce a guest blogger, Pamela Clare. Pamela is the extremely talented author of a kick butt romantic suspense series as well as mouth-watering historical romance. She creates multi-dimensional characters, wonderful plots, and edge-of-the-seat thrills in her romantic suspense and her historicals. Today Pamela is giving away a paperback of one of her books, so be sure to comment. She’ll be back later today to pick a winner. .:) Without further hesitation, I introduce one of my favorite authors, Pamela Clare.
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For two years, I’ve gotten daily e-mails from readers anxious to know when my next I-Team book would be out. That day came last Tuesday. After two long years, my I-Team series continues with Naked Edge. A contemporary romantic suspense novel set in the Colorado Rockies, Naked Edge tells the story of Navajo journalist Kat James and Gabe Rossiter, the park ranger who saves her life when she’s injured in the mountains.
The story is was inspired by my own near-fatal climbing accident in 1994 and the years I spent reporting on events in Indian Country — two completely unrelated things that I drew together to tell Kat and Gabe’s story.
Write what you know, they say, and I know what it’s like to fall 40 feet and almost die in the mountains. I know what it feels like to slip and know that you might well have taken your last breath. I know what sounds like when your own bones break. And I know how desperate a person can feel when they realize that they are almost completely helpless.
I was backpacking with my father, a lifelong climber, when it happened. We came to a cornice of snow and ice that we hadn’t anticipated. Lacking the right gear for climbing ice, we decided to give it a go anyway. It was no problem for my father, who simply kicked footholds in the ice and climbed 20 feet down to the steep slope of talus and boulders below. But it didn’t go so well for me.
I slipped from the top, and the game was over. I remember hearing my father shout for me and thinking I might die. I remember hitting rock over and over again and knowing that I was being hurt, but not feeling a thing.
In the hours that followed, I went from being barely coherent and in shock to realizing I had no choice but to keep climbing, even though I couldn’t stand. Readers will recognize Kat’s attempt to crawl to a trail where help could find her with my own effort to crawl, dragging a broken leg through the snow, to a safe place where I could rest while my father went for help. Fortunately, both Kat and I were rescued by a ranger on his day off who just happened to be nearby.
In my case, the ranger was named Rick. I haven’t seen him since. In Kat’s case, the ranger is Gabe, and meeting him changes both of their lives.
Kat’s Navajo heritage is drawn from more than a decade of reporting on news from Indian Country. The Navajo reservation is a 12-hour drive from my house, and it’s a drive I’ve made countless times over the years, hoping to bring awareness about Native concerns to a mainstream audience.
I was hesitant to write a Native heroine because I feel there’s a great responsibility that comes with depicting someone from another culture. I didn’t want to resort to stereotypes, nor did I wish to portray Navajo culture inaccurately. And let’s face it — no amount of time on the rez can make up for the fact that I am was not born and raised Navajo.
Still, the character of Kat came to me, and I was committed. I drew on my own memories of events and ceremonies, using as the outline for the story actual events that I reported on, including the desecration of a sweat lodge ceremony in which Native people from several Indian nations were participating together.
You’d think that, with all of this real-life experience in my mind, I’d have written Naked Edge quickly. Wrong! Somehow the fact that it felt so real to me made the writing an even slower process than usual. I felt so strongly that the details needed to be correct and that the characters, especially Kat and Gabe, had to embody the world I’d seen.
I doubt any of this will really matter for readers. What matters to them is being able to pick up the book and lose themselves in a love story. And Naked Edge is a love story. It’s a story about two people who meet under strained conditions and go on to mean more to one another than they could possibly imagine. With the Rockies as the backdrop it tells the story of one man’s courage as he puts his life on the line to protect an innocent woman from killers — and one woman’s selfless fight against the past to save the soul of the man she loves.
Written with real sweat and blood, I hope it’s a story that will stay with readers for a long time.
Here’s the cover blurb:
What do you do when desire drives you to the very brink?
The day Navajo journalist Katherine James met Gabriel Rossiter, the earth literally moved beneath her feet. Nearly killed in a rockslide while hiking, she found her life in the tall park ranger’s hands. Although she can’t forget him she thinks she’ll never see him again. She is crushed when she recognizes her rescuer among the law enforcement officers raiding a sweat lodge ceremony one night, throwing her and her friends off Mesa Butte, land they consider sacred.
Gabe long ago swore he would never again lose himself to a woman — not even one with long dark hair and big eyes that seem to see right through him. But from the moment he first sees Kat, the attraction he feels is undeniable. Appalled by what he has been ordered to do, he’s determined to get to the bottom of recent events at Mesa Butte and to keep Kat safe.
But asking questions can be dangerous — almost as dangerous as risking one’s heart. And soon Kat and Gabe’s passion for the truth — and each other — makes them targets for those who would do anything, even kill, to keep Native Americans off their sacred land.
For excerpts, go to www.pamelaclare.com and blogspot.pamelaclare.com.
I’ll be giving away a signed copy of Naked Edge today to one lucky person who posts. And although I’ll be at work, I’ll do my best to answer any questions anyone might have.
And thanks to Denise and the Bradford Bunch for letting me blog with you today!

Pamela Clare
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Thank you Pamela! It’s a pleasure having you with us today.











You don’t have to be a writer to participate. A disappointment is a disappointment. Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered to win 1 of 2 copies of my vamplicious book, Seducing St. Nic. 
