Help me write a kicking thriller!!! Oh and more release party prizes and winners

Thanks for making Luv Day (as Michelle Buonfiglio from romancebytheblog.com calls it) special yesterday. And thanks for heading over there to keep me company as I guest blogged. Check back over there today to see who won yesterday's special prizes...you just might see a familiar face or two ;o)

Yesterday's winner here is, of course, listed below. Here's the silver/black Nine West shoulder bag that everyone's been drooling over--that's our blog prize today!!! It's the sister of the tote I'm giving away in my website contest.

Here's a pic of another great XOXO purse set that I'll be giving away during my 9:00 p.m. Noveltalk.com chat. Don't miss your chance to win.

Okay--we're going to get off the love stuff today and talk excitement and thrills of another kind. February is my month to, amidst the promotion of The Perfect Daughter and pulling together a pitch for my 2008 Mother's Day anthology, to get serious about the paranormal suspense/thriller series I've had on the back burner for quite a while. They will be mainstream stories with romantic elements, but the action and adventure and dynamics between the twin sisters who will be my heroines will lead.

To gear up, I've been watching fast-paced dramas on TV like The Unit (well, I'm watching Season 1 DVDs) and so forth, and I'm reading things like Elizabeth Lowell's Always Time to Die). I want relationships (family dynamics) to drive the book along with the action, and Elizabeth Lowell does relationships better than anyone I know. I'm really enjoying her mainstream voice.

I can't reveal too much about my story line until I get a go ahead from my agent that she think's the chapters I'm working on will be sellable. But from a high-level, I can tell you my paranormal elements will be pyschic, and my twin sisters are tortured by a shared destiny and family secrets that have driven the "bad" sister seemingly insane and are scaring the "good" twin into believing she's next. Meanwhile... people they care about are dying, and before long people they mearly come into contact with are at risk--innocents that don't deserve to die because the sisters won't embrace their joined destinies...

So, today's a bit of a reserch/fact-finding party. What do you love about what I just wrote? What doesn't work for you? What's your favorite kind of thriller? I want the family bond and dynamics so strong in these stories that I can write further into the series. I have so many ideas!!! What kind of "community" hooks have grabbed you in books and the movies/tv you watch outside of the romance genre? That's what i'm loving about The Unit--the community bond between the families locked together in the special forces community. I'm going for a flavor of that. Tell me what you like, my friends. Help me write something you'll never want to put down, even when you're done.

As a reward, I'm fast-forwarding a few scenes in The Perfect Daughter to take us to where Matt has gone since we last saw him... Things are going well for him at all, I'm afraid... I'd forgotten how wonderful the pacing is in this story. I promise, you won't be disappointed ;o)

Oh! Can't forget yesterday's winner!!! The new owner of the gorgeous pink Guess evening purse is... Beth, who posted at 5:25... send me your snail mail addie, Beth. That amazing bag needs a new mommy ;o)

Excerpt away!!!

*****

"Lebretti!" Someone shouted over the thud of Matt's fist striking flesh and bone. "Turn him loose, Detective.

Captain Sanders.

A second's hesitation gave the half-conscious gangster kicking and cursing beneath Matt enough time to drive his fist into the ribs Matt had bruised taking him down.

"Come on!" Matt snarled in Flores' face. "Is that all you got?"

Screw Sanders.

Screw them all.

Matt's next punch shattered Flores' jaw. The drug-peddling, gun-smuggling weasel groaned, his eyes rolling back. Then the bastard had the nerve to pass out.

"Wake up!" Matt struck again, not carrying where the blows landed. "Wake up, you coward."

The piece of shit had been holed up in a rancid corner of the alley for over an hour, his semi-automatic raining a random arc of death at Matt's men. When the bullets ran out, Matt had charged from their secure perimeter.

Flores was his.

"Enough!" A set of hands grabbed Matt's swinging arm.

A brawny forearm wrapped around his neck, cutting off air and yanking him away from the gangster's battered body.

"Get the paramedics over here," Sanders barked into his com unit. He glowered down to where two uniformed officers held Matt pinned to the filthy pavement. "And get Lebretti's ass into the back of a squad car."

"No!" Matt swallowed the vile mixture of adrenaline and rage. The blood on his face, his hands, slowly registered, along with the ramifications of what he'd done. "I'm fine."

Sanders shook his head, his expression disgusted--not by a punk like Flores getting beat-down, but by the career one of his lead detectives had just thrown away in as public a way as possible.

"You're suspended," he said. "Get checked out by the EMTs, then get your butt back to the station. I want your badge and weapon on my desk."

The officers turned him loose, leaving him sprawled in the muck as they hustled back to their assigned duties. The scene crawled with cops and medical personnel. Thanks to Matt's contacts and endless nights on stake-out, they'd finally brought down the local MS leadership. At least until tomorrow, when a new set of soulless criminals took their place. But instead of congratulating Matt for his part, officers and detectives avoided eye contact, intentionally not passing too close, as if being a burn-out was contagious.

Just a week ago, Sanders had all but ordered Matt to take time off. Matt had been walking a razors' edge since the funeral, dealing with the punks his team hauled in, one armed robbery and drive-by at a time, then spending every off hour tracking the MS 13s. But downtime hadn't been an option. Being away from the job, the hunt, hadn't been possible. Having hours full of nothing but thinking about what he hadn't been able to do, for Bill or for Maggie, wasn't going to happen.

Getting Flores had been the only thing he could focus on and not hurt. The only thing he could still do a damn thing about.

Except now that he'd brought the man down, there was no Bill to help him dig his ass out of the trouble he'd just signed up for. And there was no Maggie waiting for him at home, making him feel clean and new just because she was there...