Please welcome Mal as she shares her new release with us as well as an awesome excerpt. Be sure to enter the rafflecopter to win 1 of 3 eBook copies of “Shadow of Deceit” from Mal Olson. Contest ends July 21. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
Anguished over his father’s lack of morals, Deputy Blade Beringer struggles to conquer self-doubts. When he and his K9 partner Rambo arrive in the mountains of northern Idaho, Blade is faced with a band of white supremacists, a homicide investigation, and a murder cold case, not to mention the task of training a gorgeous blond rookie.
Trainee Brandy Wilcox is bent on clearing her mother’s name of a wrongful murder conviction. While working the homicide investigation with her sexy new training officer, she discovers a connection between the victim and her mother’s case. The two deputies struggle to resist their mutual attraction and abide by the no-fraternizing rules, but passion blazes and teeters on the brink of love. With a killer targeting them and danger lurking at every turn, Brandy doubts their love can blossom, especially when she puts Officer Skip Coogan—Blade’s best friend and father figure—at the top of her suspect list.
Warning: This title is intended for readers over the age of 18 as it contains adult sexual situations and/or adult language, and may be considered offensive to some readers.
Purchase from Amazon.
Purchase from Amazon.
Brandy’s trigger finger twitched. A bead of sweat tickled its way down her backbone. She was inexperienced, off duty, and miles from her truck, which sat near a trailhead in the mountainous wilderness of northern Idaho, and the intruder she held at gunpoint probably had seventy muscled pounds on her.
She studied the cowboy’s sweet-as-honey, wicked-as-sin smile through the sights of her department-issued Remington semiautomatic rifle. From his pose on the rickety porch of the old log cabin, he assessed her right back. His full lips tugged across Crest-white teeth, exposing a small but sexy gap between his central incisors.
He tipped his head toward the jimmied-open window. “I know this looks bad, Ma’am, but I can explain,” he drawled out “Ma’am” again.
“Deputy Sheriff Brandy Wilcox. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Brandy?” Impervious to the deputy sheriff title, he straightened and angled his dusty black Stetson over his forehead so the brim shadowed his cool-water eyes. “Name like that could make a man real thirsty.”
Brandy had heard just about every come-on in the book, but never from a trespasser on the business end of her rifle. She calculated his over-confident grin, the twinkle in his eyes, the tilt of his head—blond curly hair no less. A sensual package that promised a ride on the wild side—if one was so inclined. Which she was not.
Yet something primal tugged deep in her stomach.
Bracing the Remington more firmly against her shoulder, she steadied her aim and revved up her grit. This guy was banking on his wild smile a little too heavily. What he needed was some taming.
“Okay, drop ‘em.”
When he lowered his arms, she said, “Not your hands, your pants.”
For several beats, he stared at her like he hadn’t heard.
“Lose your Levis,” she urged again. She had no desire to shoot him, but she didn’t have handcuffs on her and she wasn’t about to chance his getting away. If it came to a footrace, his long muscular legs could outrun her in a heartbeat. But he couldn’t get far stomping barefoot in his skivvies through the mountainous shale-scabbed terrain. Not that making a break for it was something she intended to let him try.
“Excuse me? You want me to strip?” A trill of elation noticeably brightened his whisky-smooth voice. His expression bounced between “this is my lucky day” and disbelief.
“You got it. And while you’re at it, you can get rid of the shirt too.”
The fine lines defining his too-blue eyes crinkled as his expression turned sultry, and charisma dripped off his broad shoulders like summer rain over mountain granite.
Charisma, hell. That would get him exactly nowhere with her. “Necessary precaution. I wouldn’t want you trying to mosey off.” Not before she could engage an on-duty deputy to make an arrest.
She may have looked as young and inexperienced as she was, but she was physically and mentally tougher than her feminine five-foot-four frame suggested. She could outshoot and outthink every cadet in her graduating class at the police academy.
Revenge had a way of empowering a woman.
Despite her upbringing, she’d beaten the odds. She was making something of herself, and she wasn’t about to be intimidated by this guy and his toothpaste poster-boy smile, nor the blond, sweat-soaked curls straggling across his collar. Or the pumped biceps stretching the fabric of his shirtsleeves.
“I’m still waiting.”
“You’re serious?” He eyed the lettering on her I’m a Redneck Woman T-shirt, a fifty-cent find at Goodwill. “I usually like to get to know a woman a little before taking my clothes off and having a good time.” The dazzle of his smile cranked the charisma meter several notches higher.
“I can assure you, you won’t be having a good time.” Smart ass.
“That’s debatable. I’m already enjoying this more than you can imagine.”
Too eagerly, his fingers began tugging open his shirt buttons, revealing a deep triangle of bronzed skin dusted with tawny chest hair. More sun-kissed eye candy than she was ready to cope with.
As he slid buttons through buttonholes, her gaze skidded to a stop on abs honed like corrugated steel. She tore her glance upward only to meet those unnerving eyes, speckles of light glinting in the azure pools.
As he reached for the fastener on the waistband of his slim-fit 510’s, the heat blooming on Brandy’s cheeks slid south. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Still, he couldn’t run far in his underwear. Seconds ticked by. Golden sunbeams gleamed off beads of sweat on muscles she didn’t really want to notice, but her attention was completely captured by the liquid heat trickling down his chest. She worked harder to convince herself the quiver in her gut came from adrenaline not feminine hormones. At any moment, her survival instincts and training would take over and stop this ridiculous sensual reaction to him. “Turn around and take off your boots.”
“My boots?” The first sign of indignation crept into his voice. “Brandy, Honey, I think you’re making a big mistake. Did you ever hear of fairness in apprehension?”
“You sound experienced.” Obviously, this wasn’t his first tangle with the law. “Have you heard of justification of lethal force? Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Now turn around and get to work on those boots.”
“What about my Miranda rights? Or the proposition that a man’s innocent until proven guilty?” he asked even as he followed orders and pivoted, presenting her with a view of his equally impressive backside.
But rather than shucking off his well-worn snakeskin Justins, he removed his shirt and slowly slid his belt through the loops, making a sensual striptease out of the movements.
Award winning author, Mal Olson, writes adrenaline kicked romantic suspense. She enjoys skydiving, ski jumping, SCUBA, hang gliding, big wave surfing, car racing, mountain climbing—that is, vicariously through her characters, who are always kick-ass, and often boss her around rather than allowing her to spin her stories the way she intends. (She did, however, personally engage in zip lining this past summer.)
Her debut novel Shadow of Deceit, released by The Wild Rose Press in 2012, is an edge of the seat romantic suspense-thriller set in Milwaukee and parts of northern Wisconsin. Shadow of Deceit earned Mal a spot as finalist in WisRWA’s 2013 Write Touch Reader’s Award contest for published authors.
A couple of her favorite reviews came from Beverly at The Wormhole, who said, “Wow! This one has it all! Non-stop action, hot and sexy characters, betrayal, smokin’ romance, and a thrilling plot–” and Gothic Mom’s Book Review, which stated, “In the 150+ books that I read per year, there are very few that receive a five star rating. Shadow of Deceit did just that. Non stop action, sexual tension, an adventure that had me on the edge of my seat…A fantastic book that had me from page one…”
Too Sexy For His Stetson is another romantic suspense-thriller. This time Olson’s bossy characters lead her to the mountains of Northern Idaho, where a deputy sheriff and his female rookie deal with menacing white supremacists, a homicide, a murder cold case, and a threat to a nearby dam—all while trying to keep their hands off each other. Meanwhile, Rambo, the hero’s retired K-9, quietly steals the show.
Olson also offers two short stories. Danger Zone, which has spent months in the Kindle top 100 free romantic suspense category, is a guaranteed fifteen minute pulse pounder where two strangers survive a rock ‘n roll landing on an icy Milwaukee runway and chase a could-be terrorist into the danger zone. Me and Brad, a feel good romance, features an irresistible K-9 and was ranked in the Kindle free top 100 list for months in the Contemporary Romance category.
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