Welcome Caridad Pineiro!

Hiya, WordWranglers! We're excited to welcome Caridad Pineiro to the round corral this morning. Caridad is here with a guest post and to talk to us about her paranormal romantic suspense Born to Love. Take it away, Caridad!

Thank you so much for letting me visit with you!  It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been nearly 10 years since the first book in THE CALLING/REBORN vampire series.  It’s also been almost that long since the first appearance of FBI Agent Diana Reyes and vampire Ryder Latimer.

When I first sold the series, I had to change the plan that I had for what would happen with Diana and Ryder, but I’m lucky that now I can finally explore their relationship in the way I wanted.

How is that?  For starters, I wanted to show how two very different people faced with almost impossible choices can not only fall in love, but manage to keep that love alive through assorted challenges.

Those challenges are what I had originally wanted to explore and now, with the new stories in the series, I’m finally able to do that.

It’s been exciting to see how Diana and Ryder are handling some really difficult choices, from Diana dying to everyday things like getting married.  Of course, with Diana and Ryder, not even getting married is every day.  LOL!

But in addition to Diana and Ryder’s relationship, I love mixing in suspense as well as another romance between the supporting characters in the story.  In BORN TO LOVE, it’s time for Diana’s FBI buddies, Dr. Maggie Gonzalez and Special Agent David Harris, to overcome their own obstacles to hopefully find their happily-ever-after.

Thank you for coming by and taking a moment to find out more about BORN TO LOVE and THE CALLING/REBORN vampire novel series.

About Born to Love:
Fated to survive…

FBI agent David Harris’s life nearly came to an end during a botched raid. Though he survived, his body and spirit were broken by the perilous underworld he believes his estranged partner, Diana Reyes, has embraced with her Vampire husband. Now, left to a life in a wheelchair, David is angry, distrustful, and withdrawn…

Meant to love…

Seeing her former lover, David, again rekindles feelings long forgotten for Maggie Gonzalez. But she’s been thrown into a terrifying future as a werewolf, threatening to destroy what they might have again.

Destined to die…

Diana Reyes has lived on the edge since her blood contamination by Vampire Ryder Latimer. Her unexpected pregnancy is putting a huge strain on her body, but she’ll do anything to help right the wrongs of the past and help her former partner find happiness…even if it’s in the arms of a werewolf.

Excerpt:

From the corner of her eye, Diana caught Maggie’s slightly unsteady escape onto the balcony. So did their boss and friend, Assistant Director in Charge Jesus Hernandez, as he stood beside her.

“She’ll be all right,” he said, calmly sipping his champagne as he followed Maggie’s flight from the room with a gaze that missed nothing.

“She’s still hurting.”

“So is he,” Jesus replied matter-of-factly.

Diana didn’t need a road map to see where he was going. “David is the one who left her. The one who’s been shutting her out.”

Jesus turned and swept his gaze over her face. With a sardonic arch of his brow, he said, “Projecting much?”

Diana mumbled a curse beneath her breath, but before she could reply to his challenge, Jesus continued, “Harris has loosened up some since you’ve come back to work. Just give him a little more time.”

Diana couldn’t argue with that. In the month since her return to modified duty, there had been some hints that the iceberg that had once been her former partner was starting to thaw. Rumor had it David had cleaned and outfitted her new desk for her return—a desk far away from the one that had sat across from his when they first became partners. And equally distant from the office she had once occupied due to her rank in the department. The rank she had lost because of the failed raid, and because she’d defied the ensuing disciplinary directives in order to help out her vampire friends. Of course, there was no way she could tell that to Internal Affairs. Or to David, for that matter. The existence of vampires was closely guarded. Her lengthy suspension was the price to be paid for keeping her mouth shut about Ryder’s secrets.

As was David’s hostility. He knew she was lying about that night. But she’d had no choice. And she couldn’t
explain. He hadn’t forgiven her for that.

But he had offered her a word or two in passing during the past month. Progress. Not that “Don’t fuck it up” could normally be considered a pleasantry. Coming from David, whose three-year hostile silence had been brutally hurtful, those words were like manna from heaven.

“I need to make sure she’s okay,” Diana said. She lifted the front of her gown so as to not trip on the hem , and hurried over as fast as high heels would let her. Only for Ryder had she donned such instruments of torture.

She pressed through the diminishing crowd of guests, accepting their well wishes and goodbyes. It was getting late and fewer remained, mostly some of the vampires, Jesus and his girlfriend Michaela—an odd pairing if ever there was one—and Diana’s family. Her mother sat beside Sebastian and Melissa, and their sleepy little daughter who’d been Diana’s flower girl. Her mother had come to visit from Miami for the wedding and would be staying with Sebastian for a couple of weeks so she could enjoy some time with her granddaughter.

Her mom had been ecstatic with the announcement of her impending marriage and pregnancy, having despaired of ever experiencing either with her “all-work, no-play daughter”. Diana hadn’t had the heart to dim her mother’s happiness with the reality that the pregnancy might be stealing what little life she had left.

Covering her baby bump with her hand, she stroked it lovingly, not about to allow that thought to ruin the happiness of the day.

Maggie was off to one side of the balcony, leaning on the railing and staring toward Queens. In the distance were the lights from the Queensboro Bridge and Roosevelt Island.

Diana took a spot beside her friend, leaning one arm on the railing while slipping off her Juliet cap with the other. With the night almost over, it was time to start the return to normal.

“You looked lovely tonight,” Maggie said once more, a wistful smile gracing her beautiful features.

A slight gust kicked up, blowing strands of Maggie’s auburn colored-hair across her face. They both reached to brush away the stray locks at the same time, and it was only natural to hold hands afterward as they had so often in their nearly decade-long friendship. They had cried together on occasion. Laughed together more.

Diana could not have asked for a better friend, and would do anything she could to ease Maggie’s suffering.

“He’ll come around, you know. He’s just slow about these things.”

Maggie chuckled and her smile broadened, chasing away the shadows in her eyes as happier memories took hold. “Yeah, I know. How long did it take him to ask me out?”

“Forever. I don’t know how many times I had to drop hints that you were interested.”

“He always thought I was too beautiful to want to go out with him. And now that he’s different…” Maggie paused, knowing she would be an unreasonable bitch if she couldn’t understand how David might feel after his injuries had changed him so much.

“It’s okay to be angry at him, Mags. Being in a wheelchair doesn’t give him a pass in the stupid department.”

Maggie shook her head and laughed again. “You’re right. You’re different now, too, and you’re handling it.”

Maggie was one of the few humans Diana had told about the true nature of her condition. And about the shadow world of vampires. As a human, Maggie had been horrified…but as a forensic scientist she found it all incredibly fascinating.

Diana nodded, but reluctantly. “What’s happening to me…it happened slowly. I’ve had time to adjust. Not that it excuses his behavior, but David didn’t have to time to handle the change.”

No, he hadn’t. He’d gone from able-bodied man to being in a wheelchair in the blink of an eye. But Maggie had never subscribed to the idea that becoming disabled made you less than what you had been before.

“I’m trying to be patient, Di. But in our line of work, time is too precious to waste.”

“Definitely,” Diana said, and their gazes met, both of them mindful of her situation and just how dear a commodity life could be. Especially now. Diana once again reached down to rub her hand across her growing belly.

Maggie smiled, and wistfully put her hand next to her friend’s, feeling the warmth of the tiny life stirring within her body.

“This will happen, Di,” Maggie said with certainty. “No matter what it takes. We’ll make sure of it.”

“We will,” Diana said, and lacing their fingers together, led her back to the party.

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About Caridad: 

New York Times and USA Today bestselling paranormal and romantic suspense author Caridad Pineiro wrote her first novel in the fifth grade when her teacher assigned a project – to write a book for a class lending library. Bitten by the writing bug, Caridad continued with her passion for the written word through high school, college and law school. In 1999, Caridad’s first novel was released and over a decade later, Caridad is the author of almost forty published novels and novellas. When not writing, Caridad is an attorney, wife and mother to an aspiring writer and fashionista.

Follow Caridad online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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