Countdown to

FORCE OF NATURE

8/9/07

5 days and counting....

to FORCE OF NATURE, in stores on August 14, 2007

Romance Novel TV

Remember to click the above link to see today's video clip from Romance Novel TV!  There's a new video clip over at Romance Novel TV for every day of the Countdown to FORCE OF NATURE!  

New:  Click here for a FORCE OF NATURE e-card, from Ballantine Books!

Note from Suz:  We're in single digits now, gang!

The winner of our Two Truths and a Lie Contest is....

Ann Russell!

Ann has won a Navy SEAL five-pack of Tall, Dark & Dangerous books, including IDENTITY: UNKNOWN; GET LUCKY; TAYLOR'S TEMPTATION and NIGHT WATCH.  (These, by the way, are the TDD books that are hardest to find.  I've tossed EVERYDAY, AVERAGE JONES in with the others, because Brittany, the heroine of NIGHT WATCH is in that book, too.  (She's one of my personal favs among my heroines.)  

A lot of people entered the contest -- thanks for playing!  But even more of you, I'm sure, are dying to know exactly which of Tom's statements are truths and which are lies.  

Without further ado, here are the answers:  

Two Truths and a Lie with Tom Rancich

Statement One:

a)  Tom was nailed to a workbench by his brother.  True.
b) Tom was punished with push-ups by his father.  LIE!
c)  Tom had his face dunked in hot oatmeal by his sister.  True.

Statement Two:

a) Tom was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale for hitchhiking and spent the night in jail.  True.
b) Tom left the college of Worcester (whoops, I misspelled it.  Should be Wooster, so if you picked this one, it counts as a lie, too! <g>)  because it was too small for his personality.  True.
c) Tom wrecked his first car when he was 15.  LIE!  He wrecked his first car when he was five (5).

Statement Three:

a) Tom graduated OCS (Officer Candidate School) with the most demerits ever.  True.
b) Tom still holds swimming records from his town pool from 1975.  True
c) In the first Gulf War, Tom disposed of chemical weapons as an EOD guy.  LIE!

Statement Four:

a) Tom once had a total malfunction on a static line jump.  LIE!
b) Tom's nickname in dive school was "Ensign Biker."  True.
c) Tom painted his rabbits green and they died.  True.

FORCE OF NATURE Countdown bonus:  

Watch today's YouTube video clip of Tom telling tales about some of these truths and lies:  149 Demerits (and other true stories from Tom Rancich)

(URL to 149 Demerits YouTube video clip is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8YGQaPTtZg )

Special thanks to Navy SEAL Tom Rancich for being such a good sport -- for playing our game.

Photo:  Tom being a good sport and playing the part of Navy SEAL Tom Rancich in The Official Troubleshooters Skit at our Atlanta Reader Event, July 2006. Pictured left to right:  Eric Ruben, Tom Rancich, Alesia Holliday and Suz Brockmann

Find out more about Tom -- visit his website at www.TomRancich.com 

Thanks to Laura Luke for the Two Truths game idea.  
Thanks also to all of the amazing Agents of Doom, who volunteer at all my reader events.

Countdown Flashback of the Day:  
Ric Alvarado Wins My Heart
From GONE TOO FAR:

Note From Suz:  Every now and then a secondary character makes me go "Hmmm."  When I wrote the following scene, in GONE TOO FAR, I knew right then that someday I'd bring Ric back and write his book.

          "You don't have a car here, do you?" Ric asked Gina. "Because, as a police officer, I really can't let you drive home."

          It was the moment of truth.

          Gina had said her farewells to the guys in the band. She'd thanked the wait staff and the bartender, and she'd gathered up her jacket and her leather bag with her sticks and brushes.

          The drum kit belonged to the drummer she'd replaced, and he was coming by the club to pick it up some time next week.

          It was, without a doubt, the easiest gig she'd ever done.

          As well as the hardest.

          The shadow had been back again, in the dark corner by the restrooms, for the last set of the evening.

          It had been Max. She was sure of it.

          And knowing him, he was probably still watching her right now.

          As she was talking to Ric Alvarado in the parking lot.

          "I'm walking back to my motel," she told Ric. "It's not far."

          He had his key ring on his finger, and he flipped it so that his keys landed in the palm of his hand with a smack. "Can I give you a lift?"

          He was a nice guy. He was an incredibly nice guy. In a different lifetime, Gina would have really liked him.

          "Or, if you want, I could walk you," he said. He was trying so hard to be casual about the fact that he was hoping to go home with her.

          "How much did Max tell you?" she asked.

          "How much did... what?" He pretended not to know what she was talking about. It was an Oscar worthy performance.

          "Max," she said, resisting the urge to applaud. "He asked you to come here tonight, right?"

          "Max Bhagat?" Ric said. "From the FBI?" He shook his head. "No. Are you... Is he..." He stopped and started over. "Did I make a mistake, Gina? I thought maybe there was something going on with you two the other night, but then he wasn't here at the club, and you were being so, um, friendly..."

          Oh, he was good. "Max didn't call you and ask you to let me pick you up here tonight?"

          Ric laughed. "Did you pick me up? Because I thought I was trying to pick you up."

          "Is that what he told you to do?" Gina asked.

          "Nobody called me and told me to do anything." He was definitely getting uncomfortable with this conversation. "I came here because it was my night off and I sometimes come here on my nights off, because I love jazz. Do you have something kinky going with this guy? Because I'm absolutely not into that."

          "No!" Gina said. "God, no!"

          Ric was serious and had been from the start. Max hadn't contacted him.

          But that still didn't mean that Max hadn't somehow manipulated him into being here tonight.

          Gina caught herself. Come on. Max was powerful and an extremely magnetic leader, but he wasn't Obi wan Kenobi. He couldn't use mind control or the Force or whatever to make Ric bend to his will. You want to go to Fandangos... That was ridiculous.

          Wasn't it?

          She sat down on the curb, definitely feeling every ounce of wine she'd had tonight. "Max saved my life a couple years ago. I was on a plane that was hijacked by terrorists and..." She shrugged.

          "Oh, man. Really?" He sat down next to her.

          "Really." She sighed, chin on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs. "I'm in love with him." She turned her head so that she could look up at him. "Want to sleep with me?"

          Ric laughed. But then he looked at her closely. "Are you really drunk?"

          Gina sighed again. "No."

          "Did you maybe take something mind altering tonight that I don't know about?"

          She sat up straight, indignant. "No!"

          Ric held up both hands in a gesture that said easy there. "Hey, I'm not asking you this as Detective Alvarado. I'm asking as a man who likes you. You're not going to get in trouble or anything. I just want to know the truth."

          "The truth is I don't do drugs," Gina told him. "And I'm really not drunk. I'm just..." She rolled her eyes. "Pathetic."

          "I don't think you're pathetic," he said. "I think you're really hot and... yeah, I really want to sleep with you. Your being in love with this other guy is probably going to make it suck, but, you know, I'll suffer through somehow."

          Gina looked up at him and laughed.

          He was looking at her with half-closed eyes and a crooked smile on his handsome face. He reached up to push her hair back, and his fingers were warm against her face. "I bet I can make you forget about him tonight."

          Wouldn't that be nice--if she really could forget everything. Max, the airplane, the way it had felt to be so certain she was going to die...

          Ric leaned toward her as he pulled her chin up to meet him, and...

          His lips were soft and his mouth tasted sweet, like Fandangos' coffee, rich and strong and laced with cinnamon.

          His hand was in her hair. Gina closed her eyes and let him kiss her and tried to imagine his hands all over her, his body on top of hers and...

          She pulled away, scrambling to her feet.

          "Hey!" He followed, catching her as she tripped in her haste to get away. "Whoa, whoa! You okay?"

          "I can't do this," she said. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry.” She tried to pull free. “Please let go of me."

          He didn't. "Gina--"

          "I said, let go of me!"

          He let her go, both hands in the air. "Okay, now you're really freaking me out."

          She walked away from him, toward her motel, as fast as she could without it being called running. But when she got to the corner, she stopped. And turned, and went back. Because she owed him at least an explanation.

          He was still standing there looking at her as if she was insane.

          She was. She was definitely insane.

          "You don't really want to sleep with me," she told him, trying her hardest not to cry. "You don't know this yet, but I do. So I'm just skipping ahead to the part where you say, 'Oh, gee, Gina, all your baggage is a little too heavy for me. I mean, wow, the responsibility's just too intense. I think we should just be friends.'"

          "All what baggage?" he asked. His eyes were open a little wider now, and his smile was gone.

          Gina couldn't bear to watch his warm brown eyes change from wary to horrified to filled with embarrassed discomfort. So she closed her own eyes and told him. "I haven't had sex since before I was gang-raped on that hijacked plane."

          "Oh, shit, you were...?" Like most people, he couldn't say the R-word. "Oh, Gina, oh, baby..."

          Ric put his arms around her and held her tightly, but it wasn't with passion anymore, it was only with kindness, and she wanted to cry.

          "I wasn't going to tell you," she said, "but that's not fair to you, because I really don't know if I'm going to flip out, or if I'm going to need to slow down or even stop, and it's just not fair not to tell, but as soon as I tell, no one wants to touch me!"

          "Shh," he said. "It's all right. It's okay, baby. It's going to be okay."

          She smacked his arms, pushing him away from her. "That's such a stupid thing to say! Maybe it's going to be okay for you, but it's not going to be okay for me!"

          He took a step toward her. "Gina--"

          She took a step back. "Just go home!"

          He kept coming. "I'd rather go with you. Back to your place."

          Yeah, right.

          "Don't touch me," she warned him. He probably thought she wouldn't know that he was lying.

          He held out his hand to her. "Come on. I'll drive."

          Gina looked at him. It had finally happened. She'd finally met a guy who was too nice to say no.

          But she suddenly knew that rejection really hadn't been her problem for all these months. She had actually been relieved that Elliot hadn't wanted to sleep with her.

          Because she wasn't ready for this. It was possible that she'd never be ready for this kind of casual 'I like you, let's do it' sex again.

          Her body had been used. Viciously, brutally. Sex had been forced on her as an expression of terrible violence and hatred.

          She'd told Max that she wanted that part of her life back, but she really didn't.

          She didn't want to experience sex ever again as anything less than a meaningful demonstration of real, deep love.

          And as nice as Ric was, she didn't love him.

          "I'm sorry," she said, "I really am," and turned and ran away.

From the book GONE TOO FAR
By Suzanne Brockmann
A Ballantine Book
Copyright 2003 by Suzanne Brockmann

That's all for now!  Be sure to come back for tomorrow's installment in the 
Countdown to FORCE OF NATURE!

Note from Suz:  I'm going to try to post each new day's countdown page before noon eastern time.  Please be patient if I'm a little late...

See you tomorrow!

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