Reason To Believe

A Bullet Catchers Novella – Book 3.5

By Roxanne St. Claire

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Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author Roxanne St. Claire comes Reason to Believe–the perfect mix of romance and suspense. (Please note: this novella is a reissue of a title originally published in 2008 as part of a multi-author anthology called “What You Can’t See.”)

Arianna Killian is an engaging TV psychic and hostess of the popular show Closure where she is able to give guests one last conversation with a lost loved one. When she starts to have vivid visions of a brutal murder, Arianna believes she’s vulnerable to a killer who fears her clairvoyance, so she seeks protection from the elite security firm The Bullet Catchers.

Chase Ryker is well equipped to guard Arianna, as long as this pragmatic man of science isn’t expected to believe his client is anything more than a sophisticated guesser with a clever party skill. Regardless of who’s right about what’s real, Chase and Arianna battle a surprising magnetism that proves that opposites indeed attract. While they do, they must also adjust everything they believe about themselves and each other in order to stop a killer who will do anything to ensure Ar

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Michel’s Review

When the opportunity to review a Bullet Catchers novella by Roxanne St. Claire came across my desk I was thrilled to accept.  The Bullet Catcher series has been one of my all time favorite romantic suspense series.  Although this series is older, it is not outdated and is still exciting in our ever changing world of politics, technology, and international arenas.  This series is like watching a favorite suspense television series and becoming highly addicted. As a fan, you are anxiously awaiting the next episode or season. It becomes a classic you are thrilled to go back and watch reruns of every season even though you know what is going happen.  It’s the cast of characters that has caught and held your attention.  The Bullet Catchers series is exactly that.  It’s loaded with dynamic characters employed by the Bullet Catchers Security Agency.  Each member brings something exciting to the table.  The roster includes former FBI agents, CIA, organized crime connections, former astronauts, and international operators.

Reason To Believe features Chase Ryker, the former astronaut.  Chase is a man of science.  He doesn’t believe in the supernatural or psychic abilities.  He believes in facts and hard evidence.  When he is assigned to protect television pyschic Arianna Killian, he is in for a new learning experience.  Sometimes hard evidence and obvious facts are not the real clues.  Premonitions and open minds may be the factor that saves the day.  Not only is Chase going to learn to look beyond what he can see, he is also going to learn that the heart doesn’t need facts or hard proof before it declares love.  Some things in life where destined to be, his heart was destined to love Arianna.  Now he has to keep her alive so that they can have their tomorrows.

Although this novella was previously published several years ago, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and was riveted by the suspense.  Chase Ryker has been one of my favorite characters throughout the Bullet Catcher series.  I really wanted him to have a full length novel rather than novella.  He is a very complicated character that always had me intrigued.  It was great to revisit his story.  It was great to step into the Bullet Catcher world once again.

The publishing world has changed and the Bullet Catchers series came before the ebook explosion.  With the explosion of ereaders and ebooks the publishing world changed overnight.  Indie authors began publishing their works, publishing houses changed, and the print books began to disappear.  Traditionally published books in print where lost in the shuffle.  Readers had too many choices.  Traditional publishers were busy trying to adapt to the new markets.  The Bullet Catcher series is one that got lost in the shuffle. With the release of this novella maybe this series will come to the readers attention once again.  The Bullet Catchers series is a classic and timeless series .

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Bullet Catchers
This popular romantic suspense series (published between 2005 – 2010) centers on an elite group of bodyguards and security specialist run by a former CIA agent, Lucy Sharpe. Although the books all stand alone, many characters reappear throughout the series. In the middle of the series is a trilogy (First You Run, Then You Hide, Now You Die) which are closely related and contain a murder mystery arc that is launched in the beginning and solved at the end of the trilogy, but even those books stand alone. Also, within the series are a few novellas which can be found within other anthologies or online.

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I don’t know about you, but when I check out an author’s bio, it’s usually because I’ve read a book I liked and wondered about the person behind it. Let’s skip the formal bio and I’ll give you the inside scoop on who Roxanne St. Claire really is.

First of all, call me Rocki. Everyone does. Evidently, when my mother brought me home from the hospital I seemed too scrawny and small to pull off “Roxanne” (she’d read Cyrano de Bergerac while pregnant or I would have been Judy) so they called me Rocki.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, the youngest of five (overachievers, every one), and fell in love with words and stories the summer I read Gone With The Wind. That year, for my twelfth birthday, my parents gave me a typewriter (with italic font – it was the coolest thing) and from that day on, I’ve had my fingers on a keyboard, pounding out love stories for fun. My AP English teacher taught me the two most important lessons an aspiring author ever needs: 1) verbs are the key to life and 2) a writer should get a real job. After attending UCLA and graduating with a degree in communications, I tried acting and television broadcasting. Oh, they aren’t real jobs? I learned that the hard way. I changed my last name from Zink to St. Claire because a news producer told me Roxanne Zink had too many harsh consonants for a TV personality – apparently Katie Couric didn’t get the memo. I got some fun gigs, and even met Tom Hanks when I did a guest appearance on Bosom Buddies. I liked on camera work, but wasn’t too crazy about starvation, so I moved to Boston and got that “real” job. In fact, I placed my foot on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and didn’t look down until I’d climbed all the way up to the level of Senior Vice President at the world’s largest public relations firm. On the way up, I met the man of my dreams in an elevator. Two years later – in the same elevator! – he asked me to marry him and I wisely said yes.

I stayed in PR, moved to Miami, had a few babies, lost my home in a hurricane, built another one a few hours north and all along, I kept writing my “stories” for fun. One night, I read a particularly fabulous romance novel that changed my life for good. That night, I decided I wanted to make someone else feel as whole and happy as that author made me feel. (Everyone asks! It was Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.) With two small children and one big “real” job, writing my first novel wasn’t easy, but I did finish a manuscript that managed to get the attention of a literary agent. She told me to do one thing and one thing fast: write another book. (The first one is usually a “learner” book, honestly.) That second manuscript sold to Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books and was released in 2003 as Tropical Getaway. Since then, I’ve written almost thirty more, in multiple genres, and long ago replaced the corporate ladder with the rollercoaster of publishing as a full-time novelist. Finally, writing is my real job.

Today, I live in a small beach community in Florida with my husband and two dogs. Our kids are off to college and law school, which means my nest is empty! I spend my time writing, working with the kids at my church, enjoying my husband’s gourmet cooking, and hanging with my many writer friends. Of course, I love to read. I’m still crazy about words and stories and hope to write at least a hundred books in my lifetime. And, yes, verbs are the key to life. My favorites? Love. Work. Believe.

xoxo
Rocki

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