Shock & Awe Release Day: Guest Post by Abi Roux!

We here at The Saucy Wenches Book Club are pleased to bring you a stop on Abigail Roux's blog tour for her new release: Shock & Awe!  Many of us are beyond excited to see the book arrive in our ereaders, and are looking forward to devouring this surely incredible story - but please, take a moment, tear yourself away from the story ever so briefly (or remember to come back when you're done!), and follow along as Abi tells us a bit more about the series, her plans, and what a Sidewinder book may mean!

From the desk of Abigail Roux

Hello everyone! Welcome to the release day with the Shock & Awe blog tour! Thank you to Saucy Wenches Book Club for hosting on a day where hopefully everyone is reading. If you’re following along, you might find this handy dandy schedule of use, and you might be interested in keeping up with me each day, because I've got a couple goodies to give away. In celebration of Nick and Kelly’s coming out, so to speak, I've got three of their Heart and Clover T-shirts for three lucky commenters. And I've got five sets of trading cards with original artwork and character work-ups, something I intend to add new cards to every year, which makes this first year’s cards pretty important if you’re an obsessive collector like I am.

The Sidewinder Series

Today’s release day is something I haven’t experienced in a while, and that is the launch of a new series. The Sidewinder Series is the first thing I've written where I knew, from the very beginning, that I wanted it to be a series. It’s a little different for me.

But it must be a little different for readers too, because one question that keeps popping up is, “What does the Sidewinder Series mean for Ty and Zane?”

My immediate response to that is that Ty will probably flip his lid when he finds out, am I right?

In all seriousness, though, the Sidewinder Series does change things for Ty and Zane, and for readers. It means we’ll get to see glimpses of characters who would otherwise have been put to bed when the Cut & Run series ends. It means we’ll get to visit with old friends, keep that connection to them for a little longer, and follow their progress through the eyes and lives of others. It’s easing some of the pain and dread I had been feeling over coming to the end, and I hope it has the same effect for readers.

I won’t say that the advent of the Sidewinder Series won’t change what I originally had in mind for the end of the Cut & Run series, which is looming ever closer. Nick and Kelly changed a lot of my plans. So many plans, just down the drain. But I believe the end of Ty and Zane will be far richer, far more complex, and in a sense, far more hopeful, now that the Sidewinder Series is in place. Rather than a permanent goodbye, it’s more of a see you in the next adventure, and isn't that more like what life is anyway?

Not to mention the fact that in my original plan, neither Kelly nor Nick made it to the end of the 9th book. More on that later in the tour.

Those weren't the only plans that were utterly destroyed with the sudden and very unexpected development of Nick and Kelly’s chemistry, though. I had plans for Nick. He was supposed to get his happily ever after (before I killed him of course) with a character we hadn't met yet, and it was going to be glorious! But this couple of Nick and Kelly, friends and warriors who’d known each other for years, who had this level that is quite frankly rare in life, wound up being a better fit for each other than I could have ever designed. They basically found each other in the story, and that is the sole reason I'm not mourning for my plans, for the romances that will never be. The romances that just are can be so much more satisfying.

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After barely surviving a shootout in New Orleans, Sidewinder medic Kelly Abbott has to suffer through a month of recovery before he can return home to Colorado. He’s not surprised when fellow Sidewinder Nick O’Flaherty stays with him in New Orleans. Nor is he surprised when Nick travels home with him to help him get back on his feet—after all, years on the same Marine Force Recon team bonded the men in ways that only bleeding for a brother can. He’s very surprised, though, when Nick humors his moment of curiosity and kisses him.

Nick knows all of Kelly’s quirks and caprices, so the kiss was a low-risk move on his part . . . or so he thought. But what should've been a simple moment unleashes a flood of confusing emotions and urges that neither man is prepared to address.

Now, Kelly and Nick must figure out what they mean to each other—friends and brothers in arms, or something even deeper?—before the past can come back to ruin their tenuous future.

You can read an excerpt and purchase Shock & Awe today from Riptide!