Morgan Malone is the pen name of a retired lawyer who turned
in her judicial robes to write romantic memoir and sexy contemporary romance,
which always features silver foxes and the independent women who tame them.
Morgan fell in love with romantic heroes after reading her mother’s first
edition of “Gone with the Wind” when she was 12 years old. Rhett Butler became
the standard by which she measured all men. Some have met the mark, most have
failed to even come close and one or two surpassed even Rhett’s dark and
dangerous allure.
Morgan lives near Saratoga Springs, NY
with her beloved chocolate Lab. She can be found on occasion drinking
margaritas and dancing at local hostelries, but look for her most often in
independent book stores and the library, searching for her next great love in
tales of romance, history, adventure and lust. When she can’t find the perfect
man, she retreats to her upstairs office and creates him, body and soul, for
her pleasure and for yours. Remember: love, like wine, gets better with age.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
About the Book:
Title: TAKING CONTROL: RICK’S STORY
Author: Morgan Malone
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 170
Genre: Contemporary Romance
BOOK BLURB:
Summer on the Jersey
Shore and all Rick Sheridan wants
is some solitude at his beach house. Then he spots a lean, leggy blonde coming
out of the surf and his plans are shot to hell. And the dangerous looking knife
strapped to her arm tells him this is no damsel in distress. As a not-so
retired Marine, at 51, Rick’s learned that nothing is for certain, plans can
spin out of control and shit happens.
Wounded and weary from one too many wars, Britt Capshaw thought a summer at the
Shore, hanging out in her family’s beach cottage, would help her heal. And
figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Out of the military, disillusioned
and distrustful of any two-legged male, Britt’s one love is Alex, the yellow
Labrador retriever she rescued from Afghanistan.
Rick and Britt are immediately attracted to one another, but after years in
combat, they are wary of letting down their guard, of giving up control. The
summer heats up and fireworks are flying between them even after the Fourth of
July. But, ghosts from their pasts haunt them and finally bring them face to
face with some dark secrets that may destroy the fragile trust they’ve built.
Can Britt trust Rick with her dangerous past? Will Rick be able to let go of
the rigid control he needs to keep Britt and himself safe from more heartbreak?
These two brave souls fight against surrendering their hearts and finally
finding love. Who will win?
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Thanks for this interview, Morgan. Can we begin by having you tell us about
yourself from a writer’s standpoint?
Thank you so much for letting me join you. I’ve been writing
romance for ten years, since I retired from a thirty-year career as a judge and
attorney. I write “Seasoned Romance”- my main characters are all over 35 and
some are in their forties and fifties. My stories are steamy, contemporary,
second chance romances about mature, men and women. I am both traditionally and
indie published.
When not writing, what do you like to do for relaxation
and/or fun?
I’m an avid reader – of all genres of romance and I also
love spy thrillers! I also love painting with watercolors. The most fun I have
these days is chasing my two-year old grandson around – then I take a nap!
Congratulations on your new book! Can you give us the very
first page of your book so that we can get a glimpse inside?
Chapter One
The tang of the
salt air hit Rick before he saw or even heard the Atlantic Ocean.
He rolled down the window of his battered green Jeep and took a deep, cleansing
breath. A calm he hadn’t felt in months began to spread through him—almost, but
not quite, reaching his troubled soul. Nine months since he had been down the
Shore. Nine months of running away, nine months of searching.
Springsteen was
singing about glory days on the radio. Rick sang along for a few bars then
abruptly switched off the radio. His glory days were long behind him. Not that any of my days were glory days.
Hard to glorify any of the campaigns, missions and damn stupid forays the
government had sent him on over the last twenty-five years. Mud, dust, dirt and
blood comprised most of his memories. The silence in the Jeep was filled by the
crashing of waves and the ocean breeze. Cool air flowed through the window,
blowing away the heat and humidity of the July evening, washing some of the
bitter regret from Rick’s face. He glanced in the rearview mirror before he put
on his turn signal to leave the highway and cut toward the shore. The man who
stared back at him looked weary and old. The highlights in his strawberry blond
hair appeared golden in the light but he guessed it was probably just more gray
hair. His dark tan seemed to emphasize the wrinkles that creased his forehead
and fanned out from the corners of his eyes. Years of facing bright sun and
fierce winds were embedded in those lines.
Zipping down Long
Beach Boulevard, Rick caught a few glimpses of the
water between the houses. The moon hung low in the summer sky, casting a
glittering path across the waves and brightening the road ahead of him. With a
great sigh of relief, Rick turned down First Street,
then pulled the dusty Jeep into the sand-covered drive of a three-story house
facing the Atlantic. Built into the dune, the garage
faced the street; access to the front of the house was up a flight of wooden
stairs. Rick swung his long, jean-clad legs out of the Jeep. With dusty cowboy
boots planted in the drifting beach sand, he paused for a moment. Home. Reaching into the back seat, he
pulled a worn green canvas bag out and slung a leather computer case over his
shoulder. Traveling light meant only one trip up the long flight of stairs to
the ocean-facing deck. He paused by a loose brick to feel around under it for
his spare key. Hmmm, not precisely where
I left it the last time. What’s up?
Would you say it’s been a rocky road for you in regards to
getting your book written and published or pretty much smooth sailing? Can you tell us about your journey?
The journey has been long and full of detours. Taking Control: Rick’s Story is a sequel
to my first full-length romance novel, Out
of Control: Kat’s Story. I had not intended to write a sequel to Out of Control; once it was published in
2015, I immediately moved into another, stand-alone, full-length romance. But,
Rick, one of Kat’s romantic interests, the one “who got away” kept popping up
in my head while I was crafting other heroes. And readers continued to ask me
when Rick was going to get his own HEA. The problem was that I could not
imagine the woman who could breach Rick’s defenses. My “adopted” son, who
served in Iraq
and Afghanistan,
gave me Britt, the heroine of Taking
Control, when he told me about an Army nurse who he knew when he served in Kandahar.
That led me to a lot of research into women serving in combat. In the meantime,
the original publisher of Out of Control
went out of business and the rights reverted to me. So, I decided to re-issue
Kat’s story (originally titled Katarina:
Out of Control) with a new title and a new cover, to be followed by Taking Control: Rick’s Story. Trust me,
I made my editor and my cover artist crazy for months!
If you had to summarize your book in one sentence, what
would that be?
Two wounded warriors finally let down their defenses and
risk broken hearts and more to find the love that will save them both…and there
is a yellow Labrador Retriever.
What makes your book stand out from the rest?
It is a contemporary romance about a man who is 51 and a
woman who is 42. Most romances today feature main characters in their twenties.
Both my hero and heroine are veterans with visible and invisible battle scars.
There’s lots of hot romance and some humor, and as I just mentioned, a
wonderful yellow Lab who steals every scene he’s in. But, what I love most
about Taking Control is how my main
characters struggle against the attraction they feel for each and then how they
both surrender, gracefully and grudgingly, to love. It took me a long time to
figure out how they would overcome the trauma they had suffered in war, the
after-effects of which were keeping them apart. Then I discovered an amazing
organization virtually in my own backyard: Saratoga WarHorse Foundation. The
Foundation matches veterans suffering from PTSD with retired thoroughbred race
horses in a unique program that has helped 1000 veterans. Britt’s experience
with Saratoga WarHorse provides the pivotal point in my book. I am so grateful
for the help with my research that I received from the Foundation and for the
incredible work they do with veterans that I am donating 25% of my proceeds
from the sale of Taking Control to
the Foundation.
If your book was put in the holiday section of the store,
what holiday would that be and why?
Independence Day. The book opens on the eve of the Fourth of
July, the hero’s birthday. Freedom and the price our veterans pay for us to
enjoy that freedom is a central theme of Taking
Control. My book is definitely a summer on the Shore and end of summer
story and I feel summer really begins on the Fourth of July.
Would you consider turning your book into a series or has
that already been done?
Taking Control: Rick’s
Story is the second book in what has become my Love in Control series. Out
of Control: Kat’s Story is a stand-alone story and so is Taking Control: Rick’s Story. But, while
writing Taking Control, a secondary
character who I had not plotted when I outlined the book appeared out of
nowhere. I just love him - his name is Mick and he’s Rick’s friend and former
comrade-in arms. So, I have to give him his own book. Losing Control: Mick’s Story should be ready for publication in the
spring or summer of 2019. And that is how a series is created: the characters
in your books just demand it!
What’s next for you?
I also write romantic memoir. My first published book was Cocktales: An After-50 Dating Memoir. I
was widowed at 35 and did not date until I turned 50. Cocktales was about my adventures in online dating. I just finished
editing the memoir I’ve written about my late husband’s valiant struggle to
survive a fatal accident. It’s based on the letters I wrote him each night he
was in the hospital. It’s called The
Dance and it is the prequel to Cocktales.
And I just started writing Treasure, the first of four books in a series about pirates off the
coast of Maine and Florida
in the years following the American Revolution. I hope readers will not mind
too much that I am veering off from contemporary romance for awhile to give
them some sexy pirates who are looking to retire...I’m just bringing seasoned
romance to the 1800’s.
Remember: Love, like wine, gets better with age!
