Title: Always a Suspect
Author: Susan Vaughan
Genre: Romantic Suspense/Mystery/Thriller
Book Blurb:
After the deaths of two husbands and a fiancé, Claire Saint-Ange is branded the Widow Spider in her coastal Maine town. Tormented by threatening phone calls and desperate to prove her innocence, Claire hires a P.I. But her attraction to the rugged investigator poses an even greater threat. She can’t risk losing someone she cares about… not again. Never again.
Two tragic losses cause federal agent Michael Quinn to submit his resignation, but he’s forced into one last gig—investigate the widow’s connection to her last husband’s drug smuggling. Uncovering this lovely, mysterious woman’s darkest secrets should be just an assignment, but her gentle soul and passion make him long to believe in her innocence.
The frozen Maine landscape, deadly attacks, and shocking revelations test Claire and Michael at every turn—but it's the blazing desire between them that threatens their very lives.
Excerpt:
MARIE CLAIRE SAINT-ANGE didn’t look like a woman who could murder three men.
None of the articles Michael Quinn had read prepared him for his first glimpse of the woman the Weymouth, Maine, newspaper called the Widow Spider.
Although she had an oversize black cardigan wrapped around her tall slender form, his gaze browsed sweetly rounded curves. Her black pants and turtleneck looked expensive. Wing-like waves of dark brown hair framed a sensuous face with big doe eyes and full lips.
His breath lodged somewhere south of his throat and his blood, south of his belt. Even on this winter day, his blood burned.
A man would have to be dead not to react to her sultry beauty. Was hers a face from heaven, as her name suggested? Or of a siren?
Of course neither Lizzie Borden nor Ted Bundy had looked like butchers. If facial features could label killers, who would need cops like him?
He mentally kicked himself in the butt. He would keep as distant from that female as possible. He’d come on business. Anything else could be a hell of a lot more dangerous. For him.
Talking to a bearded old man in a tattered parka, Saint-Ange stood in a cleared space on her snow-covered side porch. Michael closed the door of his SUV, parked behind a new black luxury one. Sweet wheels. The widow was doing all right.
She sketched a wave of greeting. He gave a nod of acknowledgment, and she continued her conversation.
He scanned the two-story white Victorian. Simple green wreaths with crimson bows on the door. Classy but not ostentatious. Not unlike the decorations on all the other large frame houses on the quiet street.
How did they feel at the Weymouth town office about their sleepy little Portland suburb harboring a sexy serial killer?
After watching the man’s old truck chug away, Michael frowned and turned, only to be struck dumb by eyes the color of dark chocolate. The intensity of her stare unnerved yet aroused him. Did she have any idea of the impact of that liquid gaze? Sure as hell, a woman like that was born knowing her power over men.
In the set of her shoulders he saw self-assurance and determination, and in her eyes intelligence and…vulnerability that woke the protective instincts he damn well thought he’d buried. The Widow Spider’s confidence hung by a single strand.
“I assume you’re the private investigator?”
He shook off his unwanted thoughts. “Yeah. Michael Quinn. Mr. Cunningham said you were expecting me.”
“Come in, then. It’s too cold to stand out here any longer.” She opened the carved oak door. “Unless you’re afraid. Did he tell you about me?”
Michael scowled. “I know who you are. Cunningham gave me the newspaper clippings. After you.”
Spine rigid as an icicle, she preceded him into the wide foyer. After setting two locks on the heavy door, she hung his coat and her sweater on a brass tree. To his left spread a gracious parlor bigger than his entire apartment, but she led him to a smaller living room on the right.
Close behind her, Michael inhaled a light herbal scent. Shampoo or lotion, not perfume, but just as arousing. He noted that her haughty rigidity didn’t extend to her hips, which swayed with each step. Deliberate or she couldn’t help it?
“Sit down, Mr. Quinn. This room will warm up in a bit.” She lifted a log from the wood box beside the hearth and fed it into the small high-tech wood stove set in the fireplace.
A partially decorated balsam fir that brushed the ceiling and neatly stacked boxes of ornaments filled the large front window. Unusual that a rich widow like her didn’t have the Christmas decorations done professionally.
He eased into a green wing chair near the hearth.
She sat opposite him in a twin of his chair.
She wore little or no makeup, no adornments of any kind. He wouldn’t mind tasting the natural red of her lips. In the warmth of the lamplight, her dewy skin, like that of a young girl, belied the thirty odd years he knew to be her age. Hands itching to touch her, he clasped his fingers on his knees.
He didn’t want to be here, didn’t like the feel of this case, didn’t like coming into it less prepared than usual. From the onset, something about it had sent cold tingles to the base of his skull. He sure as hell didn’t want a case about a woman whose mere presence stirred everything male in him. But he had no choice.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
Amazon Kindle: $4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1GLSRY/thewildrosepr-20
BN Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/always-a-suspect-susan-vaughan/1145014787?ean=2940186042181
Share a holiday family tradition:
Our traditional Christmas breakfast is popovers with butter and my homemade jam made from our own raspberries the previous summer. The popover recipe comes from the Jordan Pond House in Acadia National Park farther north from where I live in Maine. The aroma of the baking popovers is hard to resist while we open a few gifts.
Why is your featured book perfect to get readers in the holiday mood?
Although Always a Suspect is a romantic suspense, much of the story revolves around holiday traditions and Claire’s giving nature despite the danger she is in.
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $100 Amazon gift card.
Open internationally.
Runs December 1 – 31, 2024
Drawing will be held on January 2, 2025.
Author Biography:
Susan Vaughan loves throwing her hero and heroine together under extraordinary circumstances and pitting them against a clever villain. Her books have won the Golden Leaf, More Than Magic, and Write Touch Readers’ Award and been a finalist for the Booksellers’ Best and Daphne du Maurier awards. A former teacher, she’s a West Virginia native, but she has lived in the Mid-Coast area of Maine for many years. She is the author of 16 novels and 2 children’s books.
Social Media Links:
Twitter: @shvaughan or https://twitter.com/SHVaughan
Instagram: www.instagram.com/shvaughan.author/
Goodreads Author page: http://bit.ly/1gUmLug