Good morning. Happy Saturday! Did you sleep in? I don’t sleep in these days. I try to go to bed and get up at the same time, sticking to the bedtime routine in the hopes of getting better sleep. It doesn’t always work out, but most days I wake up rested. I also resist the idea of sleeping during the day. Last year, for the first two weeks after my surgery, I seemed to sleep all the time, and that included two naps a day. Now, I am far more productive. In fact, I see my orthopedic surgeon next weekfor my one year check up and to see what to do about hip # 2. It can be achy, but it isn’t sore like the other one was and I don’t want to go through that pain again.
Today’s letter is J. For me, J stands for two of the most important people in my world, my husband, John, and my son, Jason. Isn’t is amazing how as we grow older, we grow to resemble our parents? John resembles his father, and while all three of my children resemble my husband, Jason is the one who’s the spitting image.
J also stand for jays, beautiful blue birds with one of the ugliest voices you can imagine. This of a crow, and they’re worse, especually first thing in the morning.
The Toronto Blue Jays are my favorite baseball team. I watched every game in every series leading up to the World Series. Losing was heartbreaking, but tha was without a doubt the best baseball I’ve ever scene. Fingers crossesd that the Jays do as well this year and maybe we can take that trophy home this time.
The next J word I’ll consider is judging, especially the way we have a tendency to judge others. The world is an absolute mess right now, but it seems we’re all so busy judging others that we refuse to take a minute to understand, although, in all honesty, I believe actions based on lies, perversions, racism, misogynism, and all forms of hatred defy understanding. I’m not going to get political here, but if people took the time to find the truth, research the situation, and listebn to each other instead of trying to scream over the top of each other, our world, our civilization,might stand a chance. As it sits, I’m not so sure.
My last J word will be about justice. Just after I finished the 2025 A to Z Challenge, I realeased my novel, And Justice for All, a book in my Protecting the Innocent series. Here’s the blurb:
Someone is killing cops, and it’s up to them to stop him.
Eight years ago, Detective Maggie Sutton had her heart broken. She turned to her job to ease the pain, knowing that someday she would find the right man and start the family she always wanted. Fate had other plans. While she survived an ambush that killed her partner, the bullet that struck her ruined her chances of ever having the family she wanted. Now, her sole purpose in life is to find the one responsible. She’ll bring him or her to justice, but not until she understands the reasons for what happened.
When she returns to fulltime duties, she’s assigned to a new investigative unit dedicated to finding, identifying, and bringing to justice whoever is behind the ambush that killed her partner and nine other members of police forces in Ontario over the past three years. The problem is that her new boss is the man who broke her heart, and the one she just can’t forget.
Three years ago, RCMP Inspector Harry Collins survived an ambush that claimed the life of young officer. Since then, his sole purpose has been to find and stop what he sees as an organized effort by parties unknown to eliminate members of law enforcement. Walking away from Maggie eight years ago to do what he thought was the right thing was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he can’t stay away any longer. Too much is at stake. Working side by side on this case may be harder, especially when he could well have put her in the killer’s gunsights once more.
The air between them is charged as they fight to control their passion just below the surface and find the killer responsible for the latest deaths. Will they succeed, or will the assassins finish the job they started?
An interesting coincidenceis that thins winter, Pararmount + introduced a series called The Borderline, set in the exact same area as my novel, and also dealing with smugling drugs.
At the moment, I’m just finishing another novel in the same series that will be released as part of a multi-author box set in May. It deals with a judge forced to make a decision no parent should ever have to make. Think Sophie’s Choice.
Here’s the blurb.
A single father forced to choose between his daughter and his duty.
For Cole Hart, raising a daughter on his own hasn’t been easy. The former crown attorney earned the nickname, Cold Heart, for his lack of sympathy towards the criminals he prosecuted. Now a judge, he continues to follow his mantra, if you did the crime, you’ll do the time. Unfortunately because of his inflexible attitude, he’s made enemies.
While threats are an everyday occurrence, he didn’t pay much attention to them—until now. Set to preside over another case involving The Avengers, a Neo-Nazi gang he’s faced before, he receives a package filled with pictures that turn his blood cold—his seven-year-old daughter, Avery, a bullseye drawn over her face, and the words: How cold is your heart, Judge? Dismiss the case. What’s a father to do? Giving in to blackmail is out of the question, but he must protect Avery at all costs.
Ex-special forces Lieutenant JJ Jones, battles demons of her own on a regular basis, but she is the best at what she does. Her boss at Safe and Sound Security, an elite firm that provides bodyguards to those who need them, cuts short her vacation, insisting she is the only one who can do this job. When she and Cole meet, it isn’t the motherless seven-year-old with the missing front teeth that captures her attention, it’s the girl’s father. The attraction between them is magnetic but unwanted. While the judge is nothing like his cold-hearted reputation, she has a hard and fast rule about avoiding entanglements with clients, especially those with adorable children who pluck at her heart strings.
One judge disappears, another is murdered, and someone tries to burn down his home. Were they also threatened? Did they refuse to conform to the blackmailer’s wishes? No one knows for sure but when his close friend the Assistant Crown Attorney is killed and Cole is injured in a drive-by shooting, all bets are off. It’s time to let the ice in his heart and the frost in his veins do the thinking.
For his protection while he heals, Cole joins his daughter and her security guard at Blue Heaven, her family’s ranch. JJ does her best to keep the handsome judge at arm’s length, and as their relationship deepens so does the realization that safety is an illusion. There are two-legged animals hunting them now. It’s up to JJ to protect the child and the man she loves. With shadows of a past failure haunting her, will she succeed?
Cold Heart will be available in e-Book format next month.
And now,
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Living the Dream 