The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance
by Shannon K. Butcher, Cheyenne McCray, Marliss Melton, Sydney Croft, Laura Griffin
Running Press
May 11, 2010
Available in: e-Book, Trade Size
Twenty-three passionate, adventurous stories of hard-hitting love. Stirring romance featuring the heroes of the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Air Force Pararescue, the Green Berets, the Army Rangers and other special forces: men and women who live and fight in extreme danger to preserve our freedoms, defenders and protectors of all we hold dear. This collection includes the work of bestselling romance writers such as Laura Griffin, Marliss Melton, Cheyenne McCray, Shannon K. Butcher, Stephanie Tyler, and Larissa Ione (writing as Sydney Croft).
A lot of authors knew they wanted to write books from the time they were little. Their heads were full of fanciful stories that they yearned to commit to paper with a passion that only grew as they did. They spent hours reading fiction, voraciously absorbing every kind of story they could get their hands on.
I’m not one of them.
When I was little, I wanted to be a daddy. When I learned the anatomical improbability of that happening, I decided instead to become what my dad was: an Industrial Engineer. So that’s what I did. I never once changed majors or veered from my path. After I graduated, I went to work for a big telecom company earning a steady paycheck while my husband pursued his dream to become a published author.
For those of you who might not know, my husband is Jim Butcher, fantasy and sci-fi author extraordinaire. I learned to write in an effort to help him improve his own work and as soon as I discovered that writing was more a learned skill than a natural talent I knew I had to give it a try. I couldn’t resist the challenge of taking the pieces of a story apart and putting them back together again. It’s the kind of puzzle that made me want to be an engineer to begin with—to learn how things work and why. I thought I’d write the same kind of thing Jim did, but then I picked up my first romance in 1998 and was hooked. Somehow, stories about how two people come to love each other made everything else seem shallow in comparison. Maybe it was just my hormones talking, but whatever it was, it was loud, so I listened and I started writing romances. I wrote great heaping piles of suckfulness—like most new writers—but eventually my work sucked less and hopefully that trend will continue as I learn more. Heaven knows I have a great teacher. Thanks, Jim.
A family of geeks to the core, we live in Independence, Missouri with our teenage son and a dog who is only one four-foot stick away from being a dust mop.