April 29th, 2009
Book of the Day: Dangerous Grounds, by Shelli Stevens

dangerousground

Madison’s needs are simple. All she wants are two things: Make Ooo La Latté the newest trend in espresso, and seduce the sexiest cop in Seattle. But things aren’t going exactly as planned.

First, Gabe’s a little hung up on the fact that she’s his best friend’s little sister, and he’s determined to keep his hands off. Second, her shop gets robbed by the increasingly violent Espresso Bandit, and now she’s the only one who can identify him.

Gabe whisks her into hiding for her own protection, but soon finds his heart is under assault by the luscious—and persistent—Madison. But no matter where they hide, danger follows.

On such dangerous grounds, the trick will be to live long enough to keep the flame alive.

You can find Shelli:

Web Site

Author Bio:Shelli read her first romance novel when she snuck it off her mother’s bookshelf when she was eleven. One taste and she was forever hooked on romance novels. It wasn’t until many years later that she decided to pursue writing stories of her own. By then she acknowledged the voices in her head didn’t make her crazy, they made her a writer. Shelli currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her young daughter, where she is President of her local RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter. When not writing, Shelli enjoy music, reading, being outdoors, exercising, and spending time with her family and friends.

Interview Questions:

1.) How did you get started in writing and how long have you been doing it? I’ve always been a writer. Even as a kid when I would write my own versions of Sweet Valley High. Granted they were a lot sexier.  I only became serious about writing in my early twenties though. I sought out advice from my dad’s cousin who wrote regencies, joined the RWA, and the rest is history.

2.) What genres/subgenres are your favorites to write within and do you have any aspirations to write outside your current genres/subgenres. Try something new? Gosh, I’m already a bit of a genre hopper. I’ve done contemporary, romantic suspense, paranormal, and futuristic. All pretty spicy/erotic. I love to write any story and have a suspense hook. So some day, I can see myself really going hardcore into a spicy romantic suspense. I love a good suspense thread. Action stuff.

3.) What are you working on now and what releases do you have coming up? I’m working on a proposal for my option book with the Kensington Aphrodisia line. It’s a hot shifter story that shows what happens with two side characters I introduce in my novella in the Sexy Beast VII anthology.

Readers, here is the contest part. Answer this question in the comments to be entered in a drawing for a copy of DANGEROUS GROUNDS. Check back to tomorrow for the announcement of the winner. The winner will have until May 5th (that’s the last day of the contest) to contact me in order to collect the prize. This contest IS open to non-US entrants.

Name a favorite author, living or dead. If you went to lunch with him/her, what burning question would you ask?:

Shelli says: Hmmm. I’d do lunch with Lora Leigh and ask her how she makes her heroes so damn yummy.

70 comments to “Book of the Day: Dangerous Grounds, by Shelli Stevens”

  1. Stephenie Meyer – What’s the next thing you are going to write/publish?


  2. I’m with Shelli on this one. I would want to lunch w/ Lora Leigh and find out what her inspiration is for her books (completely fictional or based on people she knows). Coming in at a closed second would be Jane Austen. I know it sounds like an odd combo, but she remains an alltime fav of mine.


  3. I’d love to meet J.K. Rowling, and ask how good it feels to go from being a single mom on social assistance to being one of the wealthiest women- and wealthiest author, in the world. She really is an inspiration to mothers everywhere!


  4. Laurell K. Hamilton. What the heck happened to the plot in Anita Blake?! 🙁


  5. I’d love to speak with John Grisham and ask if he plans on doing anymore non-fiction books in the future. Have a great day.


  6. I once asked Lora Leigh where she gets her inspiration and she said from the mountains of Kentucky!

    I would ask Nora Roberts/JD Robb how she has time to have a life when she has so many books out each year.


  7. I’d ask Karen Marie Moning why she can’t publishe her books faster!? It kills me when authors only publish 1 book a year! Her Fever Series is amazing and I can’t wait til August to read Dreamfever!


  8. I’d love to meet Nalini Singh and ask about her Psy/Changeling world


  9. Nora Roberts. How do you come up with so mnay different plot lines and every one is better than the next and never stale or tired.


  10. Neil Gaiman. How he comes up with his Graphic Novel pitches so quickly!!


  11. Laurell K Hamilton…what is the hardest thing for you about being a writer?


  12. I’m going old school on this one and saying Laura Ingalls Wilder! I’d ask her if modern technology made her life easier or more complicated.


  13. Jennifer Crusie. I would just want a chance to see what she’s like in person and would likely be so tongue-tied, I’d forget all the questions on my list!


  14. Linda Lael Miller. I’d ask her if we could go horseback riding. 😀


  15. At the moment I have a lot of questions for Mark del Franco about his Detective Grey stories but I have a whole lot of authors in line behind him!


  16. I would choose Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) and ask why she never wrote anything else.


  17. I would ask Julia Quinn. Which heroine most resembles the author herself?


  18. I would love to meet Kresley Cole and ask her how she got her idea to do all of the different supernaturals beings instead of just a couple. And how she keeps the books so humorous.


  19. I would love to meet J. R. Ward to find out how she can keep such a large world alive in her head.


  20. I would love to have lunch with Alyssa Day and ask her, If the real Atlantis turned out to be completely different to how we think people had lived (society/there wayof living). Would she change her storyline to include the new differences or would her storyline stay the same? :question:


  21. Wow there are so many I would love to meet but I’ll go with Karen Marie Moning and I ask her how she came up with her AWESOME highlanders and I’d bug her about writing more of them…..just a little!! :mrgreen:


  22. Obscure answer: I would ask Maurice Leblanc for the full backstory and true identity of Arsène Lupin, his gentleman thief 😀


  23. Really hard one…but Jane Austen, and I would want to know if she based Darcy on someone


  24. I agree with Blanche. I’d like to ask Karen Marie Moning to write one more Highlander book. Yummy


  25. I would ask Keri Arthur who her inspiration for Riley Jenson was.


  26. I would have love to have lunch with Kathleen E. Woodiwiss(dead) and would have asked her what inspired her to start writing.


  27. I would ask Anya Bast,

    how did you come up with the witch line and what do you have planned for the future.


  28. I would ask J.R. Ward, why the switch to UF over romance?


  29. Hardest question ever! I love so many authors, that it’s really hard to pick just one. I would probably ask Karen Marie Moning how she got the idea for her Fever series.


  30. I would love to have lunch with Maggie Stiefvater and ask her how she manages to juggle so many balls in the air – writer, mother, wife, cook, artist, musician etc – without breaking down!


  31. I would ask Kim Harrison if she could introduce me to Rachel Morgan.


  32. I’d love to be able to meet Stephen King. I’d ask him if he has weird nightmares and if any of his reads have come from them!


  33. Sherrilyn Kenyon – Only so I can ask her to make me Dev Peltier’s bearswain. Hehe


  34. Alexandra Ripley… what made her decide to write a sequel to GONE WITH THE WIND and why she took the route she did?


  35. humm thats a toss up Vc andrews for one and id ask how flowers in the attic really effected her if it was as prifound of an effect as she had on her readers

    and

    Edgar Allan Poe and id ask if his writings were from pure genious or ravings of the liquore im leaning more towards neither but others assume so id just want to know


  36. Oh gosh – favorite/famous author? NO idea right now. But for some reason I keep thinking Alexander Dumas. :X I’d probably ask how he managed to write so much – but that’d be iffy since there were rumors he didn’t…


  37. I would choose Gena Showalter – so I could make a case for being Torin’s heroine. 🙂


  38. It would be Johnanna Lindsey and I would love to know if she’s going to write anymore scifi romances. I have been extremely fortunate to meet most of my favorite authors but do have a few I need to stalk I mean track down lol.


  39. Alive or dead……Georgette Heyer and I would ask her whether she knew that she would create an entire genre and classic novels.


  40. It’s hard to choose just one. I’d have to ask Jack Higgins what Sean Dillon and Billy Salter will be up to next.


  41. I would ask Jennifer Crusie what the difference is collaborating with a man as opposed to a woman.


  42. I would ask Lora Lieigh if the research she does for her stories gets her as hot as her stories gets us


  43. I would ask Agatha Christie what she thought would the perfect murder/crime.


  44. Oh, wow! It would either be Lora Leigh, Lori Foster, Lorelei James, or Shelly Laurenston.

    The question would be, “Are your characters based on people you know or have met, and where can I meet them, too?!”


  45. ‘K, so I ordered the book, sounds awesome, lol.
    And I’ve met alot of the authors listed, so I’ve been really, really lucky. But someone I’ve always wanted to meet, and just grill her about where the heck she get her ideas and strength of charachter is Linda Howard.


  46. Oh, and every time I’ve met JR, she has these charachters alive in her head.
    It’s great!! It’s like she’s always talking with them, know what they’re doing and thinking………..love it.


  47. Kresley Cole…I would ask her to adopted me so that I can read her books as she types them out.


  48. Oh there are soo many! I guess i have three…Christine Warren, Ilona Andrews and Nalini Singh. My burnig question, beside the obivous why cant u write faster, lol would be…if there are paranormal things out there, do you think the world would ever adapt to the shifters and vamps and psy and all the other things? Would they ever accept them into society?


  49. This is a hard one. I have to many favorite authors to decide from. I would love to have lunch with Diana Palmer and ask her how invove she is with the different organizations that she belongs too. I would also ask her if she has ever been to any archaeology digs.


  50. I would love to have lunch with Cynthia Eden and ask her how what new and exciting stories you has in store for us 😀


  51. I would have loved to have lunch with Kathleen Woodiwiss. I would ask her how she wrote so many fantastic romances.

    Rhonda 😉


  52. My fav author to meet would have to be J.R. Ward b/c I just have sooo many questions about what will happen with each character.

    I also would like to meet Lora Leigh and ask about the background of her Breeds’ Series 🙂


  53. That’s a hard one. I have so many I’d love to meet.

    Nora Roberts: how do you come up with all the story lines? I have meet a few authors and get really tongue tied! 😮


  54. wOULD LOVE 2 meet Erin Mccarthy and ask her about her Nascar Characters…Such a fabulous new series!! 😀

    lyoness2009 AT hotmail.com


  55. I’d love to go to lunch with JD Robb/Nora Roberts and ask her how she got the idea for her In Death Series.


  56. I’d want to have lunch with Christine Feehan and ask her where she came up with the idea of the Carpathians. It’s a twist on vampires I haven’t found anywhere else. That and I’d have to tell her that I love her books and await anxiously for her new ones to come out.


  57. OK I’d love to meet Linda Howard and I would ask her why she still doesn’t have a website where we can find previews, lists of all her books etc.


  58. I would ask the Amanda Quick part if she could go back and writer her historicals like she used to. I loved them


  59. I would go to lunch with Lora Leigh and ask her how she comes up with her series and how can she write such great books with heat and intensity like she does.


  60. I’d choose Jane Austen. I would want to ask her if there was any particular person who inspired the character of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.


  61. I would choose Charlotte Featherstone. I would ask her what her motivation was when she wrote Addicted. I absolutely loved that book.


  62. that’s tough. Because I’ve gone to lunch with some of my favorite authors.

    I hear the worst question to ask is :where do you get your inspiration. So I guess I would ask what they would do in the case of a zombie emergency 🙂


  63. I would ask J R Ward which hero is her favorite.
    AND
    I’d love to ask Lora Leigh which one of her heroes she likes the best.


  64. Ahh, that’s hard! I’ve been so fortunate to ask many of my favorite authors those burning questions I have, and I would most want to have a conversation with Jane Austen since she’s the most brilliant mastermind I’ve ever read. But I would ask Stephenie Meyer why she wrote the Bella/Edward/Jacob triangle like she did.

    I have a huge thing for best friend/little sister stories right now, and this one sounds SO good! I’m looking forward to it.


  65. I think I would like to ask Deborah Cooke where she gets her inspiration for her dragon shifters. :mrgreen:


  66. I would like to have lunch whit Christine Feehan and ask her how she came up whit the Carpathian’s.
    sasluvbooks@yahoo.com


  67. Anne Franks’ ghost – when did you realize you weren’t going to make it?


  68. i hve to say leslie kelly
    love her books

    where do get all yoru steamy stories ideas


  69. I would love to have lunch with JR Ward and ask her what she is going to do now that the Brotherhood books are done.


  70. Since I’ve been re-reading Jane Austen, I would want to ask her more about Darcy. If there was anyone who inspired him for her to write him!




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