Julie Ann Walker is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of award-winning romantic suspense. She has won the Book Buyers Best Award, been nominated for the National Readers Choice Award, the Australian Romance Reader Awards, and the Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA award. Her latest release was named a Top Ten Romance of 2014 by Booklist. Her books have been described as "alpha, edgy, and downright hot." Most days you can find her on her bicycle along the lake shore in Chicago or blasting away at her keyboard, trying to wrangle her capricious imagination into submission.
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Hi everyone! My name is Julie Ann Walker and I'm
tickled pink to be here today talking about my BRAND SPANKING NEW
romantic suspense series,
Deep Six! It revolves around six newly retired Navy SEALs who
just can't seem to shake their past and the Navy SEAL motto that "the
only easy day was yesterday." Set in the Florida Keys, the series is
filled with sun, sand, danger, intrigue, adventure,
and plenty of half-dressed alpha hotties. LOL! Sound like a good
time? I guarantee it is! And I guarantee you're going to fall in love
with these six men.
Take Leo "The Lion" Anderson. With his
sun-streaked, sandy blond hair and perpetual tan -- not to mention those
hazel eyes and beard stubble -- he's sure to win your heart. And
that's before you get to his no-bullshit, take-command-of-any-situation
attitude and the fact that he's trying to fulfill his father's dying
wish.
Then there's Brando "Bran" Pallidino. A native New
Jerseyan, Bran grew up on the mean streets of Newark. He's rough.
He's tough. And his Italian-American heritage means he comes complete
with soulful brown eyes, a face that belongs
on billboards, and a love for good food and good wine. (That last part
means his beer-loving teammates give him a lot of grief. *wink*)
You won't be able to resist Mason "Monet"
McCarthy. As a boy from Beantown, Mason learned to use the F-bomb in
really colorful ways. He's big. He's burly. He's not the kind of guy
you'd like to meet in a dark alley. Yet his thick black
hair and crystal blue eyes soften what would otherwise be an entirely
intimidating appearance.
Who doesn't love a country boy? Dalton "Doc"
Simmons was born and raised in Montana. He's a lean, mean, fighting
machine, with a face that's all angles as if it's been carved down to
its barest essentials by a hot, stinging prairie wind.
Doc has a tragic past. And he's fighting to come to terms with it.
Next up is Ray "Wolf" Roanhorse. Wolf's Cherokee
heritage makes him strikingly handsome, with a blade of a nose, high
cheekbones, flashing black eyes, and a lush, beautifully-shaped mouth.
Born into poverty on a reservation in Oklahoma,
Wolf has more than himself to worry about. He has his whole family
depending on him. But if anyone can shoulder that burden, it's Wolf.
And last but certainly not least, we have Spiro
"Romeo" Delgado. Romeo likes to play up that whole Latin-lover thing.
And with his swarthy skin, precisely trimmed goatee, and honed physique,
he does a pretty good job of it. But that's
just what's on the surface. Underneath it all, Romeo is desperately
trying to make up for the mistakes of his past.
HELL OR HIGH WATER Bonus Scene
Family isn’t only determined by blood, but by those who stand by you, fightin’ for you. By those you stand beside and fight for…
That was the thought that drifted through Leo “The
Lion” Anderson’s head when he looked around the warped wooden table at
his men. Correction—the minute those five wild-ass SEALs snapped their
final salute to the Navy and followed him to
the Florida Keys to join him on his quest for high seas adventure and
the hunt for untold riches, they stopped being his
men. But they would never stop being his family. If they
all lived for a hundred years, the bonds of the blood, sweat, and tears
they’d shed together would never come unbound. They were too strong,
forged in the fiery crucible of too many wars
and missions to count.
“Yo, man!” Brando “Bran” Pallidino leaned close to
be heard above the twanging voice and guitar licks of the singer on the
stage. The six of them had spent the day in Key West, gathering supplies
and finishing up some repairs on
Wayfarer I—the leaking, rusty salvage boat Leo had inherited from
his father. And now they were enjoying beers and dinner at Schooner
Wharf bar, the open-air establishment that saw more than its fair share
of revelers, crusty sea captains, and miscreants
who’d come to the end of the road in a bid to fall off the map
completely. “That brunette in the yellow bikini top and flowery skirt
over by the taps keeps giving you come-and-get-me-big-boy looks.”
Leo glanced at the woman and sure enough. Slam! Her
gaze collided with his and there was a definite suggestion glowing in
her big, dark eyes. “I think she wants you to poke her hontas,” Bran
concluded.
Leo scowled at his best friend as a subtle breeze
drifted in from the water, mixing the smells of fish and marine fuel
with the sweeter aromas of boat drinks and barley hops that continuously
flowed from behind the bar. “How long have you
been keeping that little gem in your pocket?” he asked Bran.
“Came up with it just this minute.” Bran grinned,
wiggling his eyebrows. “My mind,” he continued, “is as nimble and as
fertile as a…”
Leo held up a hand. “Don’t finish that analogy. I can already
guess what your mind is as nimble and as fertile as.”
“Personally,” Doc said from Leo’s opposite side,
twirling the ever-present toothpick in his mouth in a wide circle, “I
would have gone with, ‘I think she wants you to engage her in a little
gland-to-gland combat.’” Dalton “Doc” Simmons
had one of those tough Midwestern faces. But right now it was split in a
gleeful grin that made him look almost boyish. It was damn good to see
Doc smiling. For too many years he hadn’t.
“She wants you to rock her casbah!” Spiro “Romeo”
Delgado piped up from across the table, never one to miss an opportunity
to toss in his two bits.
“Churn her butter,” Ray “Wolf” Roanhorse added
after plunking his Budweiser bottle down on the table. He turned and
slow-winked at the bird in the yellow bikini. Leo watched the brunette’s
eyes widen, her head cocking like a cat considering
a canary. With his Cherokee heritage, Wolf was the embodiment of the
original American warrior. His visage equally fierce and—according to
the lady at the hardware store this morning—beautiful.
She’d breathed the word while staring all googly-eyed at Wolf.
“And you?” Leo turned to the last remaining man at the table. “What ridiculous euphemism have
you come up with tonight?”
Mason “Monet” McCarthy was as big as a mountain, and just as silent. Usually. But even
he couldn’t resist joining in. “She wants you to rumble in her jungle,” he said. His south Boston accent making it sound more like
rahmble inna jahngle.
And that’s the thing about family, Leo
thought with a shake of his head as he slid on his aviator sunglasses
despite the fact that the sun had slipped beneath the western horizon. One minute they’re standin’ with you against the
world. The next minute they’re bustin’ your balls.
And he wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially
since the good-natured ribbing, immature as it might be, was proof
positive they were all slowly crawling out from under the thick blanket
of mourning that had descended over them, heavy
as a death shroud when—
“Yo, man,” Bran interrupted his thoughts. “You better stake your claim. If you don’t, Wolf’s gonna stake his.”
“He’s welcome to it,” Leo said, leaning back in his
chair and picking at the label on his Budweiser with the edge of his
thumbnail. “’Cause I’m takin’ a pass on this one.”
Bran groaned and took a long slug of his beer.
“What?” Leo demanded, frowning. “What’s that uuuugh for?”
“Just that I coulda guessed as much.” Bran shrugged
a shoulder, his holey tank-top accentuating the strength and sinew of
his bare arms. According to Bran,
if the sun’s out, the guns are out. Bran’s unending supply of
tank tops had become a running joke between all of them. Leo’s balls
weren’t the only ones that received a regular busting. Every man’s in
the group were fair game.
“And why would you have guessed as much?” he raised a brow.
Bran leveled him with a look that called into question the validity of his IQ tests. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No,” Leo shook his head, feeling his temper
flicker to life. What the hell was Bran getting at? Luckily—or
unluckily?—he didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“It’s just that this seems to be your new modus operandus,” Bran said.
“What does?”
“Eschewing the soft ministration and willing company of bar bunnies,” Doc interjected.
Leo scowled over at him, then swung his gaze around to each man at the table. They all wore the same expression of agreement.
Okay, and this is one of those times I wish these assholes
weren’t my family. Because he could certainly do without them being all up in his goddamn business.
“First off,” he said in his own defense, “after all
that runnin’ around today, I’m too tired to sweat, much less do
anything else. Secondly, when you start talkin’ bar bunnies, I only have
one thought.”
“What’s that?” Wolf asked, only giving him half his
attention. The other half was securely focused on Miss Yellow Bikini
Top who, having quickly picked up the disinterest Leo was laying down,
was now giving Wolf all her come-and-get-me-big-boy
looks.
“Hippety hoppety herpes is on its way,” Leo said,
his lips twitching when Wolf blanched and swung around to attempt to fry
his eyebrows off with a look.
“You really know how to spoil it for those of us not currently hung up on…” Wolf trailed to a stop.
The hair on Leo’s head tried to crawl off his
scalp. Wolf didn’t need to finish. Leo knew where he was heading. “I’m
not hung up on anyone,” he insisted, disgusted to realize he was trying
to convince himself more than the guys. An image
of Special Agent Olivia Mortier flashed before his eyes. Black hair.
Blue eyes. A slightly crooked front tooth that never failed to make his
dick twitch. There was just something about that tooth. That tiny
imperfection amidst so much beauty only seemed to
enhance her appeal. Maybe because it made her real. A real, live, hot-blooded woman with a mind like a steel trap, a wit that was as sharp as a tack and—
Fuck. Maybe he was hung up on her.
The wall he’d built up in his mind, the one that was supposed to keep
memories of her at bay, was proving frustratingly weak.
“If that’s what you have to tell yourself, cabron,” Romeo said.
Leo sat there, a muscle twitching in his jaw. He
refused to respond for nearly thirty seconds. He knew it was thirty
seconds because he calculated that for every two seconds that passed he
came up with a new way to assassinate the men at
the table. He’d totaled out at fifteen.
“You should see your face,” Doc said, the salty sea
breeze causing the ends of his shaggy hair to riot. “You look like
someone shoved a cactus up your ass.”
“And yo, man,” Bran slung an arm around his shoulders, “there’s no reason to get all hot under the collar.”
“The only reason my collar is hot is ’cause your
sweaty arm is around it,” Leo grumbled, shrugging off Bran’s brotherly
embrace and taking a hasty swig of beer. Thoughts of Olivia always made
him feel punchy.
Talking about her, even obliquely, made him feel…something. It was like if
horny and confused got together with uncomfortable and had a threesome his current emotional state would be the unholy offspring of the encounter.
“I was born on a farm where we used lots of fertilizer,” Doc said, seemingly apropos of nothing.
Leo turned to him. “And that’s relevant to this because…?” He made a rolling motion with his hand.
“Because it means I know bullshit when I smell it.”
Bran grabbed his belly, crowing like the idiot he was. “You shoulda known better than to ask, bro.”
Leo was considering the most painful way to wipe
the grin from Bran’s face when Mason said, “You fuckers need to back the
fuck off and leave him the fuck alone.” The man rarely spoke, but when
he did his sentences were littered with F-bombs.
Mason once told them that was the Southie way. The word fuck could be used as every part of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs…
“Of course you’re the one to jump to his defense when it comes to rebuffing the babes,” Bran scoffed.
“Now what the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Mason demanded, the vein running up the center of his forehead beginning to pulse.
“How long has it been since—”
Leo figured he better cut Bran off before he went
any further. Number one, because Leo could see the bull’s eye was about
to slide off his chest and attach itself to Mason’s. And since Mason had
come to his rescue…well, then turn about
was fair play. And number two, because Leo knew just how much talk of
Mason’s past—and the effect Mason’s past was still having on his
present—bothered him. “Gentleman,” he said, “I think it’s best of we
table this topic of conversation.”
To his great delight, right at that moment their
waitress appeared with a tray laden with chicken wings and conch
fritters, two of Key West’s official delicacies. “And speakin’ of
tables, wait ’til you see what’s about to be laid on ours.”
With a flourish the waitress unloaded the tray.
She’d barely stepped back before the feeding frenzy began. As the flavor
of buffalo sauce mixed with hops and barley on Leo’s tongue, he once
again looked around at the five men who’d been
with him through thick and thin. The five men who’d bugged out of the
Navy with him after they all made that soul-shaking promise to a dying
brother to start living life.
Ones that weren’t filled with death and
destruction. These meatheads might be a constant pain in Leo’s ass, but
they also happened to be a constant comfort and an unending source of
entertainment.
Like family, his mind circled back to its original topic. And it gave him a sense of peace. A sense of contentment. A sense of…urgency.
Because they were all depending on him to come through with the big
score. He felt the weight of that responsibility as surely as an anchor
chain around his shoulders. They’d all made that promise, and now it was
up to him to help them make good on it.
Letting his gaze skim out over the marina, he
watched as the boats bobbed gently with the tide. Their metal fittings
caught the rays of the full moon and glinted as sweetly as the treasure
Leo and the guys were ready to start hunting. The
Santa Cristina, that legendary ghost galleon, the holy grail of sunken Spanish shipwrecks…she was out there. Somewhere.
**************************************
Only two things could make former Navy SEAL Leo Anderson return to the world of weapons and warfare. First, a capsule of chemical weapons lost on the ocean floor, and second, a plea for assistance from the one woman he can't seem to forget-CIA Agent Olivia Mortier.
Now, working together to race against the clock and a deadly terrorist faction, Leo and Olivia must find the missing capsule, all the while battling the intense desire burning between them. If they can survive, can their growing attraction become more than just a momentary flare?
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Series: Deep Six #1
Format: paperback, ebook, audio
Release Date: July 7, 2015
Buying Links: Amazon* | ARe* | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble | iBooks* | IndieBound
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.
The publisher is giving away a bundle of Julie Ann's romantic suspense books. No purchase necessary. VOID where prohibited.
oh I so have to get a hold of this one. so many aspects of it I would love!!
ReplyDeleteIt is appealing, isn't it? That cover alone, sigh.
DeleteWow...this sounds like an appealing read!!!
ReplyDeleteI know, right?
DeleteSounds good! Like you I can't resist a man in uniform or romantic suspense so put them together and I'm definitely hooked!
ReplyDeleteMine! I saw him first. :P
DeleteWhat a lovely introduction to the heroes! I'm looking forward to reading this one!
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoy it!
Delete