E-sale for my RomCom-Suspense, Ladies' Man !!

News from Suz Brockmannwww.SuzanneBrockmann.com@SuzBrockmann (on Twitter)June 8, 2021

To celebrate, I'm having a flash e-Sale for LADIES’ MAN !!Originally published (and set!) in the glorious 1990s, the reissue of my 1997 Bantam Loveswept, a rom-com-suspense called Ladies’ Man, is currently on e-sale for $2.99 !!Trope alert:

HERO: Sam Schaefer, NYPD detective/undercover copHEROINE: Ellen Layne, Yale ProfessorLOCATION: New York CityThis is an extra fun, weird little book, mostly because it includes heavily fictionalized versions of my own kids, Melanie and Jason. The heroine, Ellen Layne, is slightly older than your usual 1990s romance heroine (late thirties) and a relatively recently divorced mother-of-two. Their home is in Connecticut, but she and Lydia, a high school sophomore (who plays the saxophone, much like Melanie did), and Jamie, about to go into eighth grade (who looks and acts suspiciously like Jason did!!) are living in NYC for the summer with Ellen’s Uncle Bob. See, both kids have had some success acting in TV commercials (just like Mel and Jason did back when they were that age), and NYC is the place to be when it comes to auditioning for acting jobs. Ellen’s Uncle Bob, however, just happens to be the ultra-popular host of a late night TV talk show (think Dave Letterman), so their visit to the Big Apple isn’t exactly a couch-surfing experience. Imagine one of those glorious, gleaming townhouses like the one in which Katherine Hepburn lived in the movie Holiday. The kind of NYC home that had a ballroom and an elevator.  One of the weird things that happened to Ellen last spring (step with me into the way-back machine, as we travel to summer 1997, when Ladies’ Man is set) is that she was cast in a TV commercial. She was on set because Lydia had won the part of “happy teen daughter” in a laundry detergent commercial, but the actress playing the mom never showed. It was totally a case of right-place-right-time as Ellen stepped into the role, but she discovered that she really loved the experience. So this summer, our heroine is spending some time auditioning, too. (It’s vastly different from her longtime job as a professor at Yale University!) Ellen’s spent several post-divorce years mourning the loss of her relationship. Now she’s determined to take this summer of freedom and discovery—a summer of saying yes—to figure out not just what she wants to do with the rest of her life, but what she wants to do right now.  So when a very handsome but much-too-young, twenty-something, extra-flirty police detective named Sam Schaefer almost literally falls into Ellen’s lap, she finds herself flirting back. And when they’re stuck together and alone in the back of a limo, in stopped traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway, Ellen doesn’t just say yes, she says hell yes. Ellen thinks she’s having a one-night-stand—and she’s using the experience to fully exorcise the last haunting memories of her cheating ex-husband—but Sam has other ideas. Sam wants more. And when Ellen’s famous uncle starts getting threatening letters from a clearly unhinged and dangerous stalker, the NYPD is called in and of course Sam’s assigned the case. Ellen tries to avoid him, but he’s around day and night, and night and day and night... Ladies’ Man is a fun mix of rom-com and rom-suspense, as the threat from the stalker ramps up and turns deadly. There’s a fun cast of characters, too. (Diverse characters! Back in 1997. I was trying, people! I was really trying!) 

Of course, Jamie and Lydia play major roles in the story, lovingly bickering their way through the book. (Photo on right is Mel and Jace, circa 1997, when they were Lydia and Jamie's ages!)One of my fav scenes is when Sam is taking the kids to an audition, and in the cab Jamie reveals that he saw Sam leaving at 2 a.m., after “having a meeting” in their mom’s room. Jamie’s too young and naive to put those puzzle pieces together, but Lydia certainly knows what that means, so... yeah. Sam has to Say Something. It’s pretty fun. Ellen’s uncle, Bob, plays a big role, too. He’s a Vietnam vet and carries some scars from his time at war. The head of his security is a diminutive but very strong Vietnamese woman named Tran Minh Hanh. And Sam’s got some side-kick, best-friend action going, too. His bestie-since-grade-school is a reclusive non-fiction writer named T.S. Harrison. T.S. (or Toby, as Sam calls him) has been courting Ellen’s Uncle Bob—he wants to write the famous talk show host’s official biography.  

Here are the e-sale links to Ladies’ Man: Kindle: http://amzn.to/2ueKS8FNook: https://bit.ly/2RoJ7DQKobo: http://bit.ly/2uRGtGGApple: http://apple.co/2sUbHvvGooglePlay: https://bit.ly/3uT8k7iThere’s a whole nother long story about Ladies’ Man's alleged 1997 release. (It never happened! Only a few hundred books squirted out into the world when a Bantam promotion was killed!! The book wasn’t officially released until its "reissue" in 2006.) You can read about it on my website: https://suzannebrockmann.com/books/ladies-man/

And... yes, because I know that you’re wondering, yes, there are Star Trek references in Ladies’ Man. I’m pretty sure I put them into all of the short contemporary romances I wrote back in the 1990s!(Okay, I hear you shouting, you’re absolutely right. I put Star Trek references into all of my books, regardless of when I wrote them!!) Here’s an excerpt from Ladies' Man without a Star Trek reference:(P.S. This scene takes place several days after Sam and Ellen, um, interact in the back of that limo in a traffic jam, and a few hours after Ellen has spoken to Sam on the phone, gently letting him know that she is not interested in seeing him again, which of course is heroine-speak for not interested in letting him get close enough to break her heart.) “Excuse me, Bob, do you have a minute?” Ellen knocked on the half-opened door, poking her head into Bob’s office. A large, handsome Black man—a stranger—was sitting across from his desk, and she instantly backed away. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were in a meeting.”“No, no.” Bob waved her in from his prone position in his chair, feet up on his desk. “Come in. I want you to meet T. S. Harrison.” He laughed. “The real T. S. Harrison.” Sam’s best friend. How much had Sam told T.S., Ellen wondered as she forced a smile and shook the writer’s hand. “I’m Ellen,” she said. T.S. was tall—taller than Sam, taller than Bob even—with a large frame that was on the verge of being beefy. His face was pleasantly round, his eyes a light shade of brown and magnified very slightly by a pair of stylishly old-fashioned wire-rimmed glasses. He wore his dark hair cut very short. He was dressed down in a gray NYU T-shirt and a pair of sweat-shorts. Bob had on similar clothes. “We were just out shooting some hoops,” he told her. “Did you know T.S. used to play basketball?” “Actually,” Ellen said, “I did know.” She could feel T.S. watching her, still politely on his feet. “Please, sit,” she told him. She turned to Bob. “If this isn’t a good time...” Bob glanced at his watch. “No, we were just setting up an interview schedule—it’s weird, for the next however many months I’m going to be talking to this kid about myself. I’m usually the one asking the interview questions.” He looked at Ellen. “What’s up?” She sat down on the edge of the other chair positioned across from his desk, glancing briefly at T.S., who was still watching her. “Well, I couldn’t help but notice when I got home a few minutes ago that we’ve gone to DefCon Three. I nearly had to get a retina scan to get past the men with guns who are guarding the doors. I expected them to hand me a lanyard with a photo ID. What’s going on, Bob?” “I upped security a teensy bit,” Bob drawled.“But you didn’t call the police, did you?”Bob wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I didn’t think it was nec—”She stood up. “I knew you wouldn’t. You’re such a baby.” She turned to T.S. “He probably didn’t tell you what happened last night, either.” T.S. looked from Ellen to Bob. “What happened last night?” “Nothing,” Bob said. “Nothing?” Ellen repeated. “The burglar alarm went off at two o’clock in the morning, waking us up and scaring the hell out of all of us. Even those of us who are pretending that it was ‘nothing’ today.” She used air-quotes around the word. “It was pretty exciting for a few minutes there,” Bob agreed. “But my security team got it quickly under control.” “By finding out that someone hadn’t broken in—they’d broken out,” Ellen reminded him. “Someone was in here—a stranger was in this house when we all went to bed last night!” “It happens sometimes,” Bob said. “Some overenthusiastic fan manages to sneak in, steals the hair from my hairbrush or something equally disgusting, and then leaves. It’s no big deal.” “Don’t you think it’s just a little bit creepy considering the death threats you’ve been getting?” T.S. sat up a little bit straighter. “Death threats?” Bob pooh-poohed it. “Oh, I’ve gotten a few odd letters this past week. Nothing really that unusual. People are weirdos. And they think just because they can see me on their TV every night, that I’m talking directly to them. Some of them write back.” “What about those obscene phone calls?” Ellen asked. “How did those ‘fans’ get your phone number?” “That reminds me,” Bob said to T.S. “I’m getting a new line. It’s going to take a few days, but my number’s going to change. Call Zoey, my assistant at the studio. She’ll give you the new number when we find out what it’s going to be.” “I don’t know what to do—he won’t call the police,” Ellen said to T.S. “He hates it when his favorite niece talks about him in the third person, as if he wasn’t in the room,” Bob said loudly. Ellen turned to her uncle. “Bobby, I want you to call the police. I don’t want you to end up like John Lennon.” Bob sighed with exasperation. “Sweetie, I promise I’m being very careful. But I can’t just call the police every time some crazy wants a piece of me. I’m in contract negotiations with the network, and I don’t want any negative publicity circulating for them to throw in my face. To be honest, every time I contact the police about some minor security problem, the incident shows up on the front page of The Daily Star—along with a sidebar that brings up my lurid past and a head-line that suggests I’ve been drinking again.” He shook his head in exasperation. “I don’t need that right now.” T.S. cleared his throat. “I could give Sam a call.”Ellen froze.“Who?” Bob asked.“Sam,” T.S. repeated. “Sam Schaefer. A friend of mine who’s a police detective. He’s the guy you met at the airport, picking up your aunt. You thought he was me? He’s the guy I’m gonna call to come play b-ball with us tomorrow...?” “Sam. Right. We were just talking about him. He’s a cop? No kidding.” T.S. nodded. “He works out of a precinct that’s not too far from here. I’m sure he can be very discreet.” Bob pushed his telephone toward T.S. “Okay, call your friend. See if he’ll come over and tell us exactly what we know —that some crazy’s just trying to get a little attention.” He turned to Ellen. “We’ll all talk to T.S.’s friend Sam. Does that make you happy?” “Um,” said Ellen. 

Happy Summer!And happy, HAPPY Anniversary to my amazing parents, Fred and Lee Brockmann! They've been married for sixty-nine years--next year it'll be 70!After the past few challenging years, they are happily heading back out into the (mostly) vaccinated world !! (If you're on Facebook, send them some high-fives for all those decades of love and devotion!)

Jason with his grandparents, Fred and Lee Brockmann

That's all the news for now! Thank you for your time and attention!  As always, please feel free to email, blog, post, tweet, and/or share any or all of my news with your social circle! I appreciate it when you do! Love and hugs and don't stop fighting for equality, equity, peace, hope, and love,