Rhode Island Author Expo Spotlight – Christine DePetrillo

This post was originally posted on Martha Reynold’s blog and has been reposted here with author permission, minor revisions have been made.

Fall into Danger

I live a pretty safe life. My neighborhood is located in Suburbia, USA where getting my mail at 4:30 instead of 4:00 is the biggest danger I face. Police sirens are rarely heard, criminals don’t run rampant in the streets, and my super huge German Shepherd, aka The Werewolf, has only squirrels to scare away. I can walk The Werewolf at midnight on the streets surrounding my home if I want to and not worry that I’ll be abducted or something equally as heinous.

I work in a safe school in a safe town, surrounded by safe colleagues and safe students.

Bottom line? My life is basically populated with fuzzy pink bunnies. For the most part I like it that way. I do.

But…

I am a writer, you know. Sometimes I fantasize about danger. It’s kind of my job to do so as a fiction author. I imagine scenarios that are jam-packed with suspense, action, life-and-death decisions, and of course gorgeous men that are at the center of it all.

That last part is my favorite. I’ll admit it.

I can be engaged in a mundane task like weeding my yard. A truck will drive by and even though I know exactly which neighbor is in that truck and that it drives by at precisely the same time every single weekday, I’ll pretend the driver is a 6’4” ex-Marine dressed in all black. He’s wearing dark sunglasses covering sharp, blue eyes. A scant beard circles his full lips, and he’s got a gun on the passenger seat. A gun he plans to use. He peels around the corner in front of my house, screeches to a stop, and jumps out of his truck. And it’s a big manly truck. Black. Tinted windows. An engine that growls. Angry rock music fills the cab. In three long strides, he is standing beside me, the tips of his black combat boots touching my pile of yanked dandelions.

“Let’s go,” he says.

I look up with a you-talking-to-me expression on my face… and streaks of sweat and dirt no doubt from my toiling in the yard.

“There isn’t much time. They’ll be here any minute. I’m your only chance.” He extends a big, sturdy-looking hand to me.

I gape at it, mesmerized by the size of his fingers and the calluses on his palm. Man hands. Oh, boy, do I love some man hands.

Sliding my soil-covered hand into his, I let him pull me to my feet. I’m wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, but somehow I’m pulling off a cute, girl-next-door look and not the sloppy gardening dork look I’m usually sporting.

He whisks me into his truck, hops into the driver’s seat, and we’re off.

Away from danger.

Or perhaps into it.

Either way, I’ll be on an adventure—if only in my mind—until my weeding task is done. Then I’ll most likely be attacked by fictional ninjas while I’m folding the laundry.

Danger. It’s nowhere… and everywhere.

For more fictional danger, try my Maple Leaf Series. Each contemporary romance has a dash of suspense to take you out of your everyday world. My upcoming release in this series is More ThanCocoa in which Boston Detective Rachel Lorensen and ex-con Harris Wilder team up to save seventeen abducted women… well, actually it’s eighteen women when Rachel becomes one of them.

More Than Cocoa is available for pre-order right now! I will also be selling and signing print copies of it, along with print copies of all my other books, at the 3rd Annual Rhode Island Author Expo on December 5, 2015 at Lincoln Mall. Check my website for more details on this spectacular chance to meet Rhode Island authors.

Book One in my Maple Leaf Series, More Than Pancakes, is always FREE in ebook. It costs you nothing to give it a try. Enjoy, and try not to get too hungry or thirsty with this series.

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Christine DePetrillo writes stories to make you laugh, cry, possibly sweat, and definitely make you believe in the power of love. She’s tried not being a writer several times, but the Voices won’t leave her alone. They insist that she tell their stories, and so she does. 

You can find out more about her other books at her author website and follow her at her Facebook author page. She also blogs on the 4th and 14th of each month at The Roses of Prose blog.