Hot Cops and Strong Women

Thanks so much for letting me guest blog, Delilah! I really appreciate the opportunity. Hey, out there! Let me to introduce myself. My name is Melanie Atkins, and I’m obsessed with hot cops. I write romantic suspense with intense storylines, and I’ve tried writing erotic stories, but they’re just not for me. So I stick with the cops. Flawed, dark, sexy heroes who carry big guns.

Most of my favorite shows are crime dramas: Castle, In Plain Sight, Southland, Law & Order SVU, Unforgettable, The Killing, Blue Bloods, Memphis Beat, and the Glades, to name a few. All of them have strong heroes. Castle’s not a cop, but he is hot, he writes crime stories, and he helps the police. So that counts. I blog about that show after every new episode, too, by the way, on Lee Lofland’s The Graveyard Shift blog. Lee is an ex-cop who critiques the police procedure, while I give my take on the romance. We often give off a good cop-bad cop vibe, and that’s a lot of fun… but I digress.

Back to my flawed heroes. I like ’em troubled, with a plight only the heroine can solve. She, of course, is a strong, determined, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to lookout for her, but she just can’t walk away from the hero’s blatant masculinity. You get my drift. My stories might not be erotic, but they contain plenty of sexual tension, angst, and eventual satisfaction.

My latest release, BLOOD RITE, a single title romantic thriller from Whiskey Creek Press, gets this point across in spades. The hero in that one is Nick Marconi, a man in desperate need of the heroine’s help, but he doesn’t want it… because Gracie Simpson is a psychiatrist.

Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:

Women in New Orleans are dying. Women New Orleans Police Detective Nick Marconi has dated. To make matters worse, they have all been found with vials of his murdered sister’s blood in their throats. Nick is walking a tightrope between depression and rage. His superiors are worried about his mental health, so they send him to see psychiatrist Gracie Simmons.

Gracie is walking a tightrope of her own. She became a psychiatrist because she wants to help people, and in addition to private practice, she also treats police and parolees. The extra work gives her flashbacks about her father, however, a bad cop arrested when she was just fifteen. Then a former flame harasses her, and her best friend turns up dead. Desperate for a distraction, she makes Nick her special project. Only… he doesn’t want to be saved.

Somehow, I channeled that story and wrote it in six weeks — all 95,000 words. Nick talked to me, Gracie got angry with me, and I just kept writing. It’s my favorite of all the books I’ve written.

In addition to this book, I have another one up at Whiskey Creek: FLASH BANG is an Epic Award finalist. And I have two series out at Desert Breeze Publishing. Check out my New Orleans Detectives and Keller County Cops, plus a stand-alone novella. All have strong, damaged heroes in need of some sweet, hot lovin’. And boy, do they get it. In spades.

Website: http://www.melanieatkins.com
Blog: http://melanieatkins.wordpress.com