Today
I’m helping my friend and fellow author Seelie Kay celebrate the
release of the newest book in her Feisty Lawyers series: Martimus!
Q.
Why do you write romance?
Because
I am fascinated by the games people play to find and secure a lasting
relationship, which is not always love. There’s the chase, the
courtship, the falling, the surrender. That’s what I try to capture
in my stories.
Q.
Do you prefer a certain type of romantic hero?
I
adore smart, dashing gentlemen who aren’t afraid to live on the
edge. They can be a bad boy, a billionaire, a prince, or a secret
agent. That hint of danger just hooks me! However, I they have to be
paired with strong, independent women who aren’t afraid to fight
for what they want, even love.
Q.
Why did you write Martimus?
This
is the final book in the series, so I needed a way to tie up a lot of
loose ends. That meant the Feisty Lawyers needed a compelling story
to accomplish that. Something in space was beyond the realm of
believability, but something at the bottom of the ocean? The
possibilities were endless. I went in all sorts of directions at
first, but ultimately made Martimus a key step in a much broader
journey. The bottom of the ocean is an unforgiving environment.
Survival is never guaranteed. Divert a few socialites there to serve
out a prison sentence, make then disappear, and you’ve got what I
hope is an exciting story!
As
a former lawyer, I also developed an interest in private prisons.
These are institutions that are governed by a different set of rules
and not all institutions follow the same rules. In some cases, the
private prison an inmate winds up in can mean the difference between
survival and death. In addition, there have been several cases of
prosecutors and judges who received a financial incentive to divert
inmates to private prison. Some were so incentivized that people
innocent of the crimes with which they where charged have been
convicted just so the prosecutor or judge could get their kickback.
It is an industry that requires serious regulation and monitoring.
Q.
How does your former profession as a lawyer impact your writing?
My
friends say I am obsessed with justice and I guess that’s true.
After 30 years, the law and the legal world are so firmly embedded in
my brain that I can’t flush them out. That has become the lens
through which I view the world and that naturally guides my
characters and plots. Injustice infuriates me, but it also leads me
to great stories!
About
Martimus
Martimus.
An underwater habitat dedicated to pharmaceutical research. Martimus.
A facility that staffs its vessel with inmate labor. Martimus. The
place where inmates visit and never return.
Agent
Cate Creighton is in love. Unfortunately, as the Agency honeypot, she
is knee-deep in an assignment that tests the bounds of her new
relationship. It seems eight socialites have gone missing, all
wealthy twenty-somethings with influential parents. No one seems to
care until a former vice president’s daughter disappears.
When
the vice-president shares a tale of false arrest, a broken promise of
deportation, an illegal diversion into a private prison, and an
alleged trip to an unwater habitat called Martimus, Cate and her
colleagues must find a way to follow the same path. In other words,
they must enter the right prison, meet the right fixer, wind up on
Martimus, and hopefully return in one piece. And it looks like Cate
is the perfect bait.
That
doesn’t sit well with Cate’s lover, former U.S. Navy Seal Warren
Hazelton. He intends to protect her until death ‘til do they part.
Fortunately,
another possibility appears, in the form of an MISix agent who has
interfered in one too many Agency operations. Tillie Henderson owes
them and they are all too willing to serve her up on a plate. It’s
race against time as the Agency attempts to lure their adversary out
of hiding and into their somewhat ambiguous trap. Maybe then Cate can
finally focus on love.
Release
Date: May 29, 2019
Publisher:
Extasy Books
Romantic
Suspense, Contemporary Romance, four flames
Buy
links:
Barnes and Noble: Coming soon
Kobo: Coming soon
Excerpt
Tom
cocked an eyebrow. “Warren, you’re a former Navy Seal. Isn’t
there some sort of limit on the amount of time you can spend under
the sea before it starts to seriously impair your health?”
Warren
frowned. “Usually two weeks. After that, the lack of exposure to
the sun and the constant high pressure oxygenated environment would
begin to take a toll. There’s also a psychological impact. Think
sensory deprivation. Your senses are out of whack because you’ve
been dumped into a soundproof sponge. There is no normal sensory
stimulation. No sunlight, no sound… Even taste and smell become
compromised. Coming back to the real world would be an adjustment.
“In
addition, those underwater stations are small. People are right on
top of each other. Things we take for granted, like privacy, hot
showers, home cooked meals, are in short supply. That can create
anxiety, depression, and stress. No way he served that sentence
consecutively. He had to take a break in between.”
Warren
gazed at Tom. “That environment is more hostile than a prison. You
may not be in danger from other inmates, but you are putting your
life at risk. Three months sounds like way too much time to be stuck
underwater though, especially if you’re not leaving the station for
deep sea diving on a regular basis. They must be breaking up the time
somehow, otherwise they’d have a pretty tough situation on their
hands. A lot of contract workers would be headed to a rubber room. It
would be extremely difficult to survive a month, much less three,
down there.”
“Could
they be treating the inmates like guinea pigs?” Hope asked.
“Testing their limits? Tracking actual survival rates?”
Warren
sighed. “Possibly. It’s not like they have to answer to anyone.
They are located in international waters. No country in particular
has legal oversight. I imagine they could be doing anything they want
without recourse. Unfortunately, when the prospect of a reduced
sentence is dangled in front of some people, they grab it, damn the
consequences. If one or two inmates suffer some sort of harm or die
along the way, they chalk it up to collateral damage.”
“And
who’s going to know?” Cate shook her head. “Someone dies, they
probably flush them down a chute into the deep sea and they become
shark chum. No evidence left behind.”
Hope
cringed. “God, that’s kind of evil. But that still doesn’t
answer our original question. Where the hell is Fuzzy? Has he already
served out his sentence? Has he been released, and if he has, where
the hell is he? He’s the one we need to find. He could have a lot
of the answers.”
“That
lack of governmental oversight is troubling,” Tom said. “If
Cassie McIntyre is down there, I can’t believe the CIA isn’t all
over it. At least, our government should be doing a welfare check
through the Red Cross or something.”
Warren
grimaced. “Unless no one knows she is down there. Think about it.
They are on the bottom of the ocean, more than two miles under the
sea. It’s not like you can just go down there and knock on the
door. Any regular monitoring would be impossible.”
Cate
nodded. “And we haven’t been able to confirm that she embarked on
the same path as Fuzzy. All we’ve got are suspicions. Right now,
she’s missing. We need to sit down with her family and get more
information. And we need to find other prisoners who contracted with
Martimus.
“Otherwise,
we’ve got nothing.”
About
the Author
Seelie
Kay is a nom de plume for a writer, editor, and author with more than
30 years of experience in law, journalism, marketing, and public
relations. When she writes about love and lust in the legal world,
something kinky is bound to happen! In possession of a wicked pen and
an overly inquisitive mind, Ms. Kay is the author of multiple works
of fiction, including the Kinky Briefs series, the Feisty Lawyers
series, The Garage Dweller, A Touchdown to Remember, The President’s
Wife, The White House Wedding, and The President’s Daughter.
When
not spinning her kinky tales, Ms. Kay ghostwrites nonfiction for
lawyers and other professionals. She resides in a bucolic exurb
outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she shares a home with her son
and enjoys opera, gourmet cooking, organic gardening, and an
occasional bottle of red wine.
Ms.
Kay is an MS warrior and ruthlessly battles the disease on a daily
basis. Her message to those diagnosed with MS: Never give up. You
define MS, it does not define you!
Seelie's
Author links:
Twitter:
@SeelieKay https://twitter.com/SeelieKay
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/seelie.kay.77
Amazon
author page: https://www.amazon.com/Seelie-Kay/e/B074RDRWNZ/
Prior
Books:
