After the Fire - Clare Revell

Welcome back, Clare! How wonderful to see you again! Thanks Donna. It's lovely to be here again. And how nice to see you're still wrapping us up in intrigue and tension! LOL Hehe, had to do something with all the left over Christmas paper and I love wrapping up.

I love the way you bend and twist a suspense filled story until it finally gives way and relieves the reader of the burden of wondering...quite a mastermind you are. Thank you. :)

How do you come up with these plots? You must spend hours just planning all the twists and turns! Actually, they tend to write themselves. I start off with a basic idea and it goes from there. With After The Fire it started with a sheet of paper I found under the bed in my idea's folder. It was a list of items found in a box that my sister had been given for homework many years ago. I'd copied it out because I liked the premise of writing the story behind the box. Took a very long time to do it but this is the result

Have you always written suspense? You seem very good at it! Blushes. My rejection folder would say otherwise lol. I love crime drama and mysteries and romance. Writing the way I do combines all of them. But yeah, I find writing straight romance really hard. Even my first attempts when I was five, were rewrites of Little Red Riding Hood, where the hero saves the heroine from the villain. (still has those cos Dad kept all my school books.) The fun bit is giving the characters as much grief as possible, scattering a few dead bodies tastefully around, and still giving the reader the satisfying happily ever after they crave.

And I hear you have a new series to come. Is that inspirational romantic suspense, also? Yes, they are. They revolve around the poem Monday's Child, with the main character having the characteristics of the same line from the poem. I'm currently working the edits for Wednesday's Child. Wednesday's Child according to the nursery rhyme is full of woe. Liam is an alcoholic, ex-missionary, who's convinced God abandoned him and his wife on the mission field when they were attacked by terrorists. The book is his journey back to sobriety, faith, and maybe love.

Together with my editor Lisa and Nicola, we redid the rhyme to fit the series. Each line is essentially the tag for the book, giving a cryptic clue but nothing more.

Monday’s Child must hide for protection,
Tuesday’s Child tenders direction
Wednesday’s Child grieves for his soul
Thursday’s Child chases the whole
Fridays Child is a man obsessed
Saturday’s Child might be possessed
And Sunday’s Child on life’s seas is tossed
Awaiting the Lifeboat that rescues the lost.

Ooh, I love it! I can't wait till those start coming out! Well you've certainly given us something to look forward to! Thank you for stopping by! Thanks for having me here today :)

After the Fire:

Private investigator, Freddie Flynn, wants nothing to do with the man who left her fifteen years ago—or the God he abandoned her for—especially if reports of corruption within high ranking levels of the P.I. firm are true. She might have to accept him as the company V.P., but she doesn’t have to trust him. Jason Bryant knows his leaving to enter the ministry cut Freddie deep, but now he’s returned to Headley Cross and wants to make amends. But Freddie’s different—jaded, distant, distrustful—so what’s he to think when a file claims Freddie is the traitor who’s sabotaging the company? Thrown together on a case that could cost them everything, including their lives, Freddie and Jason must look beyond suspicion and innuendo to catch the real traitor before it’s too late…and maybe, just maybe, they’ll find the love they once shared by listening to the still small voice that comes after the fire.

Ooh, nothing like love spurned to harbor resentment and suspicion, and she's got it in spades - on both sides! Here's a little peek:

Excerpt:

Jason stood there with an amused look on his face. “Is there something wrong?”

“Yes,” she managed, struggling to control her emotions. “I don’t have a partner. I work alone. The boss knows that.”

“You’re really not very good at taking orders are you? Maybe you need to learn.”
Freddie snorted. “If I wanted to take orders, I’d have joined the military.” She broke off. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Jason frowned, his eyes hardening. “No, you shouldn’t have. You can’t always have things your own way. Tell me, what do you have against a partner, Ms. Flynn?”

“I prefer to depend on myself. If I work alone, I don’t have to trust anyone, and I don’t get hurt when they let me down or betray me.”

Something flashed in Jason’s eyes and a shaft of guilt pierced her. She brushed it aside. He deserved that one. Taking a deep breath she continued, using the professional tone he’d adopted. “What did you want to see me about, Mr. Bryant?”

“The boss wants to see you. I’ll wait here. We’ll talk when you get back.”

The last thing she wanted was for him to sit in her office, touching her things. A flash of his hands running along her CD’s, putting music on her stereo, and caressing her arms, ran unwanted through her mind. “I still have to brief Sadie on all my cases. I don’t know how long I’ll be. I can’t ask you to sit here and wait.”

“You didn’t ask. I said I’d wait here.” He looked at her, hands on his hips, standing his ground. “I wouldn’t keep the boss waiting, if I were you. He doesn’t like that.”

“I know that—”

He held up his hand to stop her from further comment. “Just go. We’ll discuss your attitude to your superiors on your return. Now run along, like a good little girl. Go on, run, scoot, skedaddle, adios, vamoose...”

“Yes, sir.”

Review:

After the Fire is full of attitude - I loved it! What a spunky lead character Freddie is! She is ever on guard of her already broken heart, trying to keep it from being broken again. And on top of that, to be suspected and not trusted by the person who still holds its pieces could be devastating.

Misjudging a person is never easy to apologize for - doing it twice can be downright devastating. Jason is a man's man who stands on ethics and morals and Godly principles. But he still hasn't learned one of the golden rules - not to judge others - because what you see isn't always what it appears to be.

Great characters, great story! I loved it!