Spy Betrayed:

Celesta Whitestone, MI-6 super spy, daughter of a British marquess, must get the secret packet to headquarters.  A plot against Britain is afoot, a secret plot, and only she can stop it.

Mark Santini, U.S. Marshal, must get Celesta Whitestone back in his life.  He loves the damned stubborn spy, despite her cold, icy façade, despite her job that he hates.  On leave in England, he’s determined to track her down.

But an MI-6 traitor knows about Celesta’s mission.  Knows about the plot.  Injured and on the run, Celesta turns to Mark for help.

Can she overcome the dark, brutal secrets of her past that stand between her and the traitor and the safety of her country?  Can she and Mark find love?

Betrayed.  Where there had once been trust…

Click here to read an excerpt

Spy Betrayed, a romantic suspense novel and the second book in the Santini family series.  Approximately 127,000 words.  Copyright © 2012 by Sharon Louise

Available at these online retailers:

Amazon.com (Kindle Book Store)

Barnesandnoble.com (Nook Book Store)

Smashwords.com (epub format, mobi [Kindle], and PDF formats)

Apple iBookstore

Sony Reader Store

Kobo Bookstore

Coming soon:

Diesel ebook Store (epub format)

Sharon Louise is a world-traveling hiker, a spy story and romance novel fanatic, and the author of the romantic suspense novels Spy Babe and Spy Betrayed, in which MI-6 agents and U.S. Marshals fall in love while battling the bad guys.

I thought I’d tweet the Dalai Lama.

Did you know he’s on Twitter?  He tweets about love and compassion and peace.

It seemed like a good place to start.  So I went to @DalaiLama.

Oh, my gosh, a gazillion people were sending him messages.  As much as I wanted to dip my toe into the Twitter stream, it was moving too fast for newbie me.  I chickened out and didn’t start tweeting until a month later when my online friends surrounded me with so much encouragement that I finally took the plunge.

Still, I got to read great messages of kindness and love from His Holiness.

Thank you, Dalai Lama.

Maybe it’s an assistant that does the actual tweeting, but I like to think of the Dalai Lama sitting out in the sun on the temple steps, that twinkle in his eyes, his iPad on his knee, thinking ‘Hmm, I’ll just see what my Tweeps are up to,’ just before he goes inside to meditate.

So if you find Twitter intimidating, check out the messages from the Dalai Lama, and maybe even tweet him.  You may not get an answer, but it’s likely you’ll get a little peace.

How did you first approach Twitter?  Dive right in?  Sit back and scope things out first?  Surround yourself with friends?  Read a manual?  Close your eyes?  What new things have you tried lately?  A triple chocolate mocha caramel iced cappuccino?  Raspberry dark chocolate give-me-all-the-sugar-and-cream-you’ve-got ice cream?  A new-to-you author’s latest book?  A new-to-you rock band’s latest single?  Who was your first tweet?  Your second?  How do you approach new things?  What do you really, really want to do but haven’t yet?

Sharon Louise is a world-traveling hiker, a spy story and romance novel fanatic, and the author of the romantic suspense novel Spy Babe, in which MI-6 agents and U.S. Marshals fall in love while battling the bad guys.

So I asked myself, what makes a man sexy?

Broad shoulders.  Muscled body.  Faded, fitted jeans.

Well, yeah, that’s a given.  So much so, it’s a romance novel standard.  But there’s only so many times you can discuss a man’s physical attributes in a novel before you need to move on.  You have to show he’s sexy, not just say he is with muscles.

So with the goal to see how sexy men moved and behaved, what they said and did, I watched a lot of TV shows and movies, and the answer surprised me.

The sexy guys are the guys who are good at what they do.

Take spies, for example.  Spies and sexy go hand-in-hand, and they need every ounce of intelligence, every ounce of physical strength and agility, every ounce of people smarts and charm they’ve got to survive.  Even Steve Carell’s character Maxwell Smart in the Get Smart movie, who starts out as a bumbling newbie, became sexier as he became more competent, finally outwitting the bad guys.

It doesn’t hurt for a guy to be drop-dead gorgeous.  It doesn’t hurt if he moves like an agile athlete.  But if that’s all he’s got, if he’s not smart or funny or fun to be with, if he’s not competent at what he’s chosen to do and be in life, he’s not going to be a keeper.

Because a competent man is a confident man, and a confident man will let himself be vulnerable to the right woman.

And that kind of man is sexy forever.

What makes a guy sexy for you?  His sense of humor?  His intelligence?  The way he moves?  His voice?  If a handsome guy boasts about being sexy, does he become less sexy to you?  Who’s sexier?  Bad boys?  Spock or Kirk?  James Bond or Jason Bourne?  Heathcliff, Darcy, or Mr. Rochester?  McGarrett, Chin Ho, or Danno?

Sharon Louise is a world-traveling hiker, a spy story and romance novel fanatic, and the author of the romantic suspense novel Spy Babe, in which MI-6 agents and U.S. Marshals fall in love while battling the bad guys.

I was traveling without a boyfriend, and not being a woman who’s comfortable picking up men, I had to do my most-romantic-city-in-the-world research as a platonic tourist.

Paris did not disappoint.

I lucked out being there on the first day of summer.

In the U.S., the official first day of summer, in June, is three weeks already into the summer season that kicks off on Memorial Day weekend, so except for those who celebrate the summer solstice or Midsummer, the day passes away without special notice.

In Paris, it is a day of music.

Music among the statuary in the Tuileries Gardens.  Music on the Pont Saint-Louis.

Music in Notre Dame.

There’s something magical to being in an eight-hundred-year-old cathedral, with sunlight streaming through gorgeous stained-glass windows, and incense wafting through the air, while soloists sing arias on the first day of summer.

Magical.  Soul-touching.

Romantic.

What’s your favorite romantic place?

Sharon Louise is a world-traveling hiker, a spy story and romance novel fanatic, and the author of the romantic suspense novel Spy Babe, in which MI-6 agents and U.S. Marshals fall in love while battling the bad guys.

Photographs of the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, and the South Rose Window of the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral Copyright © 2009 by Sharon Louise

I’m a huge fan of all three, and I’m excited to chat about them with you.

Mondays will be Travel Mondays, going to my favorite places, many which are settings to my novels.

Undercover Wednesdays will focus on Spies & Sexy Guys, especially in romance and suspense novels, including my own, plus TV and movies.

Digital Thursdays will be about ebooks, ereaders, and my adventures in the vast New Territories (new to me!) of Twitter and Facebook.

And Fun Fridays will cover everything else, though I’ll warn you in advance I’m partial to writing about puppies, cookies, and pirates.

Thanks for coming by.  I hope you visit again and chat awhile.

Sharon Louise is a world-traveling hiker, a spy story and romance novel fanatic, and the author of the romantic suspense novel Spy Babe, in which MI-6 agents and U.S. Marshals fall in love while battling the bad guys.

I’m excited to announce the release of my new romantic suspense novel Spy Babe. Here’s more:

Bold

When sheltered American grad student Danni Santini arrives in Boston’s Federal Plaza for her job interview, the last thing she expects is an attack by terrorists.  All she wants is to join the CIA, but the terrorists want her.  And her locket.

Sexy

When sexy, rogue MI-6 agent Alex Daimond arrives in Boston’s Federal Plaza at the unofficial orders of his MI-6 mentor, the last thing he expects is a young woman the image of Britain’s top super spy, surrounded by terrorists who want the same thing he does.  Her locket.

Deadly

Danni discovers she’s the daughter of Britain’s top super spy.  On the run from her birth father’s terrorist enemies, who need her locket to decode the formula to a deadly virus, she draws on her secret fantasy of Spy Babe–sexy, bold, and deadly–to survive.  Can she and her father’s MI-6 protégé Alex stop the terrorists in their deadly quest to unleash a fatal virus on the U.K.?  Can they find love?

Published March, 2010.  Spy Babe is a romantic suspense novel, approximately 125,000 words.

Available at Amazon.com (Kindle Store), Barnesandnoble.com (for the Nook and Color Nook), and Smashwords.com (epub, Kindle [mobi], and PDF formats).

Tempest In A Pear Tree, my new short Christmas novel, is now available on Kindle through amazon.com.  Here’s more:

When Tempest Gardiner averts Armageddon by destroying the Amulet of the End of Days, sending Evil back to Hell, little does she expect to end up in Heaven fashioning Christmas wreaths for the biggest birthday party of the year.  An utter failure at fitting into the Heavenly crowd, and tormented by the presence of her former lover Jareth, the man–now angel–she loves and with whom she can no longer have the kind of Earthly relationship she desires, Tempest wants nothing more than to return to Earth.

Salvation comes in the form of a scar-faced angel, who brings Tempest onto the Soul Squad, her ticket to Earth to help a young woman whose husband and child were killed by the Devil’s hordes.  But membership on the squad means forfeiting contact with all other angels.  Can Tempest let go of her dreams of a life with Jareth?  Can she save a young woman’s soul?

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