Sample Sunday - The Last Resort

Writing The Last Resort was such a strange and wonderful experience. It's very loosely based on real events and some real people (names changed to protect the guilty). A part of me is curious if readers will be able to tell which is which, some of the characters definitely felt as real to me as their living counterparts. 
It's also the only one of my books written in the first person and of all my characters, Carrie is the closest to me as a person. And, strangely, it's been a bridge between the past and the present - the description of the character of Drew, based on a real person I never met, closely resembles my husband in a lot of ways. Who I didn't meet until after I wrote it.
A mix of thriller, mystery and romance, despite that at its core it has a lighter heart than many of my other books. A missing coed, a group of people dedicated to helping people escape domestic violence, and a budding romance between two people who haven't have much luck at love. All that's about to change. 


The Last Resort
When Jack Spencer, the Head of Security for Fairview Mountain Resort calls to ask her to find a missing coed, computer tech and sometimes troubleshooter Carrie Anderson answers. The last thing the resort needs is bad publicity. Jack knows that on the side, Carrie is part of a team that help domestic violence victims escape their homes and abusers. Complicating things is the handsome new attorney that just joined the team.
What she finds though will test all her skills at making people disappear and put all their lives in danger.



Excerpt:
(My name is Carrie Anderson and this was a helluva first rescue for Drew...)

There was banging on the doors above us.
“Can you hear him?” I asked the 911 operator.
“Yes, ma'am. I heard that. Officers are on their way.” “How long?”
In rural areas like ours, it could be as short as twenty minutes - too long - or even longer, before help arrived.
She hesitated. “They’re coming as quickly as they can.”
In other words, too long. Okay. Back to Plan A.
I peeked out the window. He was standing out there pacing in agitation, pulling on his hair. He kicked the door, pulled something big, shiny, and metallic out of his pocket, and pointed it at the door. He thought about it. Now I could clearly see it. Definitely a gun. Abruptly, he turned and started across the parking lot. I hit mute.
“Everyone up the stairs,” I said.
I led the way. “I go first. If I yell ‘back’, get back inside the door, lock it, and go back downstairs into the bathroom. Okay? Don’t argue, don’t stop, just go. Got it?”
They nodded. Sandy looked very shaky.
“Don’t fall apart on me now,” I cautioned. “Remember the children.”
Her eyes widened, but she seemed to steady.
No window in the door. Take a chance, unlock it, and look? I had to.
Easing back the lock, I pulled open the door a crack and peeked out.
He was standing at the edge of the parking lot by the road, irresolutely. He glanced back and I prayed he couldn’t tell the door was ajar. I held up a hand to the others. Wait.
Turning, he looked both ways and trotted down the road with determination. It made sense. If no one was here, the most likely place the Pastor would have taken them would have been the parsonage. His home. I wanted Miller on the porch. The parsonage was an old forties style two-story, with a wide porch that wrapped around one side. Two windows overlooked the porch and the door into the house was along the side. For thirty seconds or so we’d be out of view. Please.
The wait seemed interminable. I kept praying for sirens, but I didn’t hear them yet. Come on, come on. Down the road, Miller was trotting now, in a hurry. If he heard sirens, he’d turn around, make a run for his car. In his state of mind, he’d be almost sure they were coming for him. I wasn’t sure which to root for. Go, just please go.
He was up on the porch. Please let the Pastor’s wife be gone, or let him be on good behavior. Then he was around the corner.
“Now.” I sprinted out the door and hit the remote lock release on my car. “Drew, front seat. Pastor and Sandy, back. Dog and kids on the floor.”
Doors flew open as I rammed the key into the ignition and started the car. Doors slammed.
“Seatbelts,” I shouted, ramming mine into place before throwing the car in gear. My eyes were glued to the rearview mirror.
The slamming doors on a quiet Thursday afternoon had gotten his attention. I could see his tiny figure come flying off the porch at a dead run.
I hit the gas and shot the car toward the dirt road. Dust plumed behind us. I heard a noise, a bang, something. Please let it be too far away. Drew had a hand braced on the dashboard of the car, the other cradling a child’s head against his knee to keep it from bouncing off the bottom of the dash. Good man. The child looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes.

The Last Resort - available through Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/62262, 
Barnes & Noble http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Last-Resort/Valerie-Douglas/e/2940012614605
and Amazon.com

Does anyone else miss Heroic Fantasy?

Just a great story with great characters about people fighting nearly impossible odds to try to do what's right? With good guys, and bad guys, and characters who want to do good, and some who think they are but aren't? I know I do and did. That's part of the reason I write them...

Setting Boundaries - After centuries of war an uneasy peace has finally been negotiated between Elves, Dwarves and Men, thanks to Elon of Aerilann, Elven councilor to the High King. One final task yet remains, one last bone of contention - to set the boundaries between their lands. It's a task that will be easier said than done. Although the lesser Kings signed the Alliance not all of them wish to see it succeed, and some are willing to oppose it. Violently.
For journeyman wizard Jareth it's the opportunity of a lifetime. Unlike many he's long admired the calm, seemingly aloof Elves, especially Elon of Aerilann and his paxman Colath.
What he doesn't know is that the journey they will share will test him to his limits and forge friendships that will last for centuries. 


Kindle http://www.amazon.co.uk/Setting-Boundaries-novella-Coming-ebook/dp/B004RJ7X50/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1308485473&sr=1-3

Smashwords
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/43794

Cooking Class

I had two great reviews for Cooking Class this week, from opposite ends of the erotica readers spectrum - someone who has never read one and someone who loves them - both gave it five stars. 

wistfulskimmie on Jun. 15, 2011 :

This was my first introduction into reviewing an erotic book. Boy what an introduction it was! It was sort of Hell's Kitchen meets Kitchen Nightmares with a whole load of sauce added.
That being said, all the steamy scenes (and wow were they steamy!) were very tastefully done. I never felt they were gratuitous and they fitted in with the story.
I would be interested to read more from this author as I feel she writes from a woman's point of view...for women. A classy novel that I very much enjoyed.

5.0 out of 5 stars ;0), June 16, 2011
Lady Raven "Raven Rave" I'm speechless, I had to give myself a minute before I reviewed. When I first picked up the book I thought it was something else completely, as much as I love hardcore erotica I never really got into the menage romances, I felt it was too much for me with 3 different emotions. This was my first and I have to admit WOW what a read, by the third chapter alone ok what they did and what they did with the sauce *blushing* might have to look at sauces differently for awhile. It did remind me of the tv show Hell's Kitchen that I am a fan of with Evan's temper that people seem to be afraid of, Dylan very sexy and Lily I'm jealous of her lol.

This book literally had steam coming from it Double your Pleasure Double your Fun with this book, it has the sexy guys, and lovable female and sex, sex, sex and more hot sex. So be warn ahead of time if all these things are not on your checklist of things you like in a book then I don't know what to tell you but I surely enjoy the read.

Thanks ladies!

Cooking Class - 

Lily Cavanaugh did it the hard way. She'd apprenticed under Master Chef Evan Taylor until he threw one temper tantrum too many. She was madly in love with him but so was every other woman who worked for him. So she walked away and built her own restaurant. Then Evan and the director of his new TV show, Dylan Bryant, walk into her restaurant to offer her an intriguing proposition...

Nook

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cooking-class-v-j-devereaux/1031109509?ean=2940012407986&itm=1&usri=cooking%2bclass

Holding out for a hero

I miss heroes. The real ones, not the surly, lip-curling badass on a motorcycle, the alpha male who treats a woman like a helpless idiot, but the real ones. You know, the good old-fashioned kind of hero, the average guy just trying to do what's right, or who finds himself caught up in a situation he can't turn his back on.
What brought this up? Someone mentioned the difference between the (relatively) new Cape Fear movie with Nick Nolte and Robert DeNiro and the old version with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum.
In the new version, under the frequently misguided decision to add 'flaws' to the lead character, they made Nolte a shadier character than Peck was in the original and that took some of the edge away for me right off the bat. In the original, Peck is a lawyer trying to do a decent job but Mitchum blames him for not getting him off. Right away, you're rooting for Peck. And the burly Mitchum is clearly a tough guy, while Peck isn't. The odds are clearly stacked against him, setting up the ending.
There are some who would argue that heroes should have flaws and I couldn't agree more. But most of the true life heroes you see aren't six foot six biker type dudes in leather. In most cases, those are the bad guys. The real heroes are the firefighters, the policemen, the citizen soldiers. If you look at them, they come in all shapes and sizes. All of them have problems and issues, the same kind many of the antiheroes do.
Our society sometimes almost seems to encourage our helplessness - you can't fight city hall, don't get involved.
There's a TV show out of Canada, called Flashpoint, that epitomizes what I'm talking about. Oh they've got a pretty guy, but the two leads Enrico Colantani and Hugh Dillon aren't your classic hero types. Both are follically challenged *grins* but Hugh could park his shoes under my bed any day. Just don't tell my husband that - although to tell the truth what got me a little about him was his slight resemblance to another 'everyday' hero - Michael Biehn from Terminator.
I think of the volunteer firefighters in most communities, who risk their lives to save those in burning homes. And I think of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan or the men who ran INTO the Towers that day. You look at their pictures and you see extra-ordinary men - who put their lives on the line every day. We should celebrate, and write about, those heroes. And remember the ones who inspired them.

Sample Sunday - The Coming Storm

From Donna K. Fitch's Blog - What I'm Reading http://www.donnakfitch.com/index.php
(Since she did such a great job, I thought I'd let her do my talking for me!)


The Coming Storm came as a gust of fresh air to me. I support independent e-books, but the last two I read were not to my taste for various reasons. I haven't read epic fantasy in a long time, but picked this one up because of Valerie's appealing and helpful personality on the Indie Authors Group on Facebook. I was immediately struck by the carefully crafted writing of a skilled author and a well-edited work. The descriptions are lovingly detailed and vividly portrayed. Races that often seem hackneyed through overuse, such as Elves, are given fresh life by Ms. Douglas, preventing them from being Tolkien clones. The characters are likeable but dimensional, with their flaws and foibles.


Description: 
Elon of Aerilann, Elven advisor to the High King of Men, helped to negotiate the treaty between Elves, Dwarves and men. That treaty has held for nearly twenty years but now his foresight warns him that the fragile truce between the races is threatened from without by an unknown enemy and from within by old hatreds and prejudice. With the aid of his true-friend Colath, the wizard Jareth and the elven archer Jalila, he goes in search of the source of the threat.

Ailith, the Heir to Riverford - fights her own silent battle. Her father has changed, something's wrong, but she can't say what, only that her beloved father is suddenly prone to inexplicable rages. Her quest to discover what changed him puts her life and soul in danger and leaves her only one place to turn. Elon. Ailith, though, has a secret that threatens everything for which they're fighting. To preserve the alliance, though, Elon will be forced to choose between his honor, his duty, and much more. 


Excerpt:

The mother bear had put up a terrible fight to save her cubs, as such will do when their young were threatened. All around the clearing the dirt was torn up, the underbrush crushed and the trees marked with blood and fur. It had been a valiant but futile effort on the part of the bear. Little remained of her and her offspring except for the blood, the shattered bones and a few traces of offal. They stank but not nearly as much as the reek of something else, something that chilled Elon’s blood.

“Kobold,” he said, quietly into the unnatural silence of the wood, mute testimony to the fact that the predators that had done this still remained somewhere near.

They hadn’t reckoned on kobolds. Although there had been reports of something killing down here, they’d thought it was perhaps a young orc or a boggart. So far from the borderlands, it would’ve been more likely by far to be a rogue bear.

It wasn’t the bear that had gone rogue.

Every sense was alert, his eyes as much on the destruction here as on the least twitch of a branch against the breeze.

Around him, the eyes of the other Hunters scanned everywhere, down in the shadows, up into the branches and all around. Bows were strung and arrows were notched against what they couldn’t see.

“Aye,” Colath said, kneeling in the dirt next to a particularly noxious heap of offal and scat. Looking up, he gave Elon a significant look. “More than one.”

Elon looked closer, not that he had any doubts as to true-friend’s assessment. The signs were unmistakable. The coldness in his belly spread. Colath, his true-friend, paxman and most trusted companion, was vulnerable down there. Especially to kobolds, who ran low to the ground.

“Kobolds don’t travel in packs. Something’s wrong here. Get back in the saddle, Colath, and quickly.”

He didn’t speak loudly but he did speak urgently and then gave a soft, low whistle to call the others in as well.

An answer came from the scouts, who were already turning, quickly and quietly, to close in on the rest of the group. They, too, were vulnerable, so far from the others.

Those closest to them had already heard and were alert, passing the news to those who couldn’t hear. Elf or man, without instruction, responded by pairing up. One looked up into the trees, the other scanned the bushes around them. Men had an atavistic and ancient abhorrence of these creatures and no one of either race would discount instinct. Elon trusted his people enough not to need to remind them. Noise, too, wouldn’t serve them well here.

Colath didn’t need much urging or even the reminder. A cold chill had gone up his spine at the thought. Being on the ground was a bad position with kobolds around. He was exposed there. In one quick move he swung up into the saddle and drew his bow. Not his best weapon―that was the sword―but best against kobolds.

One kobold was bad enough but two were a nightmare.

With one kobold, a band this size was barely enough. For two? They were too few.  Especially in country like this, with a lot of scrub trees and too much low cover. A bear and two cubs were a good enough meal for one kobold but not a second. This had happened some days ago, they would be hungry again and searching for prey.

Bears, wolves and mountain cats, all those natural creatures would avoid Elves, Men, or Dwarves unless they were desperate or starving. Kobolds, magically warped creatures of the borderlands, preferred the taste of men if they were near and would seek them out, although they would take a wounded Elf if they could. Elves were tougher prey.

Fantasy 
The Coming Storm series
The Coming Storm [Kindle] [Smashwords]
Not Magic Enough - prequel [Kindle] [Smashwords]
Setting Boundaries - prequel [Kindle] [Smashwords]
A Convocation of Kings - sequel [Kindle] [Smashwords]
Song of the Fairy Queen [Kindle] [Smashwords]

Thriller/Fantasy
Heart of the Gods [Paperback] [Kindle] [Smashwords]
(Servant of the Gods - prequel - coming soon)

Suspense/Thriller
The Last Resort [Kindle] [Smashwords]
(Nike's Wings - coming soon)

Romance
The Millersburg Quartet
Dirty Politics [Kindle] [Smashwords]
Two Up [Kindle] [Smashwords]
(Irish Fling - coming July 1)
(Director's Cut - coming July 1)

Erotic Romance 
Cooking Class [Smashwords]

Sample Sunday - Heart of the Gods

I always wanted to write about ancient Egypt. Everything from their egalitarian society to their Gods fascinated me. Did you ever notice that only in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics do you constantly see both the men and the women represented? Not solitary figures. And many of the statues had their spouses beside them. Even their Gods were equal. No philandering, no bad behavior (except by Set.) And it was devoted Isis who rescued Osiris when he was betrayed by his brother. Knowing the Egyptian gods as I did, I felt bad for poor Anubis when they did The Mummy movies (not that I minded watching them, or one or two of the actors).
So, one day I'm piddling around with this idea...sort of daydreaming... There'd been a recent discovery of a new tomb, and I was thinking about the steps the Egyptians tried to take to keep thieves out, and their burial rites. Of course, the proverbial what if... What if there was this ancient tomb, with something nasty in it, and they really wanted it to be protected. I had been reading the Book of Emerging into Day (aka The Book of the Dead) and speculating on how they could create a Guardian of that tomb...
It was originally one book that began in ancient Egypt and came forward into present day. From the get-go I knew it would be a series but I quickly realized I'd have to break the book up into two books - the first of which is


Heart of the Gods

Tales of the legendary Tomb of the Djinn and its Guardian fascinated Ky Farrar since a visit to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo when he was a boy. The story of the star-crossed lovers and their battle to save ancient Egypt from the dark Djinn made him decide to become an archeologist. He believes he’s close to finding it―only to discover the Tomb's Guardian is all too real and far closer than he expects. And she's as lovely as she is lethal.
It’s a race against time to reach the Tomb before it’s opened and Djinn are released. For if they are even the Guardian may not be able to stop them

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Heart-of-the-Gods-ebook/dp/B004RJ8RIW/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301925653&sr=1-2

Barnes & Noble
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Heart-of-the-Gods/Valerie-Douglas/e/2940012213808/?itm=4

Smashwords 

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/44102