I had already fallen in love with Blossom Springs by the time I started thinking about Shadow Ops.
I’d created this little Florida town filled with people I cared about. The Warriors had made their homes there. Hart & the Hurricanes had brought music to the community. Sarge’s Sandbar had become a familiar gathering place.
So when I decided there was another story hiding beneath the surface of Blossom Springs, I wanted to be careful.
I wanted danger.
I wanted intrigue.
But I didn’t want to destroy this special little town I’d created just to make another series interesting.
And then Ronan Cross walked into my head.
It Started with Ronan Cross
Sometimes a character arrives before I know exactly what I’m going to do with him.
Ronan was one of those characters.
First of all, I loved his name. Ronan Cross. It immediately felt right.
I knew he needed to be secretive. Independent. A bit of a loner. The kind of man who could operate in the shadows without needing anyone else to know what he was doing.
There was just one little problem.
How was I going to make a man like that fall in love?
As it turned out, that was easier than I thought.
Then Ronan Met Lila
Lila Bennett is beautiful, intelligent and determined to learn the truth about her father’s death.
Everyone believed he’d suffered a heart attack.
Lila didn’t.
She didn’t know exactly what had happened to him, how it had happened or why. But she knew there was more to the story.
Then she discovered files her father had been working on, along with notes he’d made before his death.
And wouldn’t you know it?
What Lila uncovered was connected to the very reason Ronan Cross had come to Blossom Springs.
Suddenly my secretive loner had a woman beside him who was every bit as determined to uncover the truth as he was.
The more time they spent together, the easier it became to see how these two could fall in love.
But Ronan and Lila’s story was only the beginning.
One Mystery Wasn’t Going to Be Enough
I knew Shadow Ops would be a series, so whatever was happening in Blossom Springs couldn’t be wrapped up neatly in Ronan’s story.
There needed to be something larger underneath it all.
So I started creating multiple areas of what I’ll politely call tomfoolery happening behind the scenes.
And that’s when the rest of the Shadow Ops team really began taking shape.
I didn’t want six men who could all do the same thing. Each operative needed his own expertise. More importantly, each specialty needed to give us another way to uncover what was happening beneath the surface of Blossom Springs.
Building the Shadow Ops Team
Ronan Cross became the man at the center of it all, leading a team that operates quietly and doesn’t need recognition for what it does.
Then came Caleb Rourke, with some seriously impressive computer skills. When information is hidden, manipulated or erased, Caleb knows how to follow the digital trail.
Graham Holt brought a medical background to the team, which opened an entirely different avenue of investigation.
Ethan Vale, a former Coast Guardsman, is at home on the water. And in a Florida community, the water can hide an awful lot.
Victor Shaw can follow money through forensic accounting and financial investigations like nobody else. People can hide many things, but money has a way of leaving a trail.
And then there’s Declan Pierce.
Declan came to Blossom Springs as the new handler for the Shadow Operatives. He needed to see this operation for himself.
That decision brought him to Wren Callahan, a surveyor who had uncovered something that turned out to be very important to the Shadow Ops investigation.
Six men.
Six areas of expertise.
One much larger problem.
Protecting a Town That Doesn’t Know They’re There
That’s the part of Shadow Ops I really came to love.
These men work together, each bringing something different to the operation. They’re quietly keeping Blossom Springs safe while trying to uncover exactly who would do these things to this special place, and why.
Most of the people living their lives in Blossom Springs have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes.
And isn’t that entirely possible?
We know what happens in our own homes. We know what our friends and neighbors tell us. We recognize the people at our favorite restaurants and businesses. We wave to people on the street.
But do we really know everything that’s happening in our communities?
Probably not.
And my writer’s brain couldn’t resist that question.
What if the charming little town everyone loves has secrets most of its residents know nothing about?
That’s where Shadow Ops lives.
Six Operatives. Six Stories. One Investigation.
Each book in Blossom Springs: Shadow Ops follows another member of the team and the woman who becomes part of his story:
In the Shadows — Ronan Cross & Lila Bennett
Silent Watch — Caleb Rourke & Harper Wynn
Critical Hours — Graham Holt & Maren Ward
Presumed Dead — Ethan Vale & Sloane Mercer
Buried Accounts — Victor Shaw & Claire Donovan
No Safe Harbor — Declan Pierce & Wren Callahan
Each couple gets their own romance and their own danger, but the investigation continues to build from book to book as the team gets closer to the truth.
And through it all, Blossom Springs remains the place they’re fighting to protect.
Could It Happen in Any Town?
That’s probably what intrigues me most about Shadow Ops.
Blossom Springs is fictional, of course.
But the idea behind the series doesn’t feel all that impossible.
Every community has things happening that most residents never see. Most of it is probably perfectly innocent.
But maybe some of it isn’t.
And if there really were people quietly working behind the scenes to uncover it?
Well…
We probably wouldn’t know about them either, would we?
Ready to Step Into the Shadows?
If you love romantic suspense with covert operatives, capable heroines, hidden threats and a mystery that builds across an entire series, In the Shadows is where the Shadow Ops story begins.
Come back to Blossom Springs.
Just remember…
This time, we’re looking beneath the surface.