Firsts Hop is the perfect time to share the hauntingly true Romeo and Juliet story behind my thriller, Raw Justice, with new readers like you!
You’ll have 2 chances to win a FREE e-book copy of Raw Justice and more at this stop. Read the short tale of Debbie and Frank’s romance and then:
- Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway below for a chance to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card and buy Raw Justice in eBook or Paperback; or
- Claim your Reader’s Reward by CLICKING HERE and completing the form on my website to collect a free eBook copy of Raw Justice
Haunting First Love
Readers often ask me where my story ideas come from. I usually joke that I order them from ideas.com. The truth is that sometimes I don’t really know. It feels like magic. But in the case of Raw Justice, the idea was a real life experience I couldn’t forget.
High school sweethearts Debbie and Frank first captured my heart and then imprisoned my memory for two decades.
Raw Justice finally delivers Debbie and Frank a happy ending, but not the ending they expected. Raw Justice is a thriller novel, after all.
The Hopeful Beginning
We adored Debbie and Frank. Their romance began when Debbie was a shy 15 year old respectful of authority. Frank, a year older, was hard-working and excelled at individual achievement more than team sports. Young love flourished easily until its first serious test.
The Tragic Middle
After almost three years of devotion, Frank’s impending graduation foretold a long separation. Neither one could face the certain emptiness ahead. They wanted to marry and her parents refused consent.
Parting promised not sweet sorrow but bitter bile to the young lovers. They became increasingly frantic as graduation drew ever closer. Until fate intervened.
Debbie and Frank claimed her pregnancy was accidental. Maybe it was. Or maybe not.
Either way, Debbie’s parents whisked her off to a distant aunt where her baby would be delivered and placed for closed adoption while hidden from our small town’s gossip. Even Houdini couldn’t have unsealed those records.
The Bittersweet End
By September, Frank was exiled to college and Debbie returned to high school forever changed by the boy she loved and the child they’d lost. Soon enough, the lovers found secret places to meet and console each other.
Within six months, Debbie was pregnant again. This time, the lovers were legally old enough to make their own decisions.
What about the rest of their story?
What happened to their first daughter? Did Debbie and Frank ever reveal their childhood troubles to their second child? How did the second daughter feel about her older sister? What if the second daughter could be reunited with her sister?
Read Raw Justice to find out what could have happened!
Here’s How:
For a chance to win this $25 Amazon Gift Card, which you can use to buy Raw Justice and more, enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below. The winner will be selected by Rafflecopter and posted here when the Firsts Hop ends. Thanks for stopping here at Licensed to Thrill and please do come back!
Folks, if you’re new here, you may not know that Readers are #1 with me! I love to hear from you! I see everything you send to me and reply as soon as I can. No exceptions! If I don’t respond to your e-mail within 10 days, let me hear about it!
Four fastest ways to reach me? Leave comments below this post.Join me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DianeCapriBooks or Twitter: https://twitter.com/@DianeCapri or send me an e-mail using the form here: E-mail Contact
As always, thank you for reading!
p.s. We have quite a bit of news coming up over the next few months and we don’t want to leave you out!Subscribe to my Licensed to Thrill blog and collect your free e-Book as our special thank you present for doing so. You’ll find the sign up in the right side-bar below my photo here: Blog If you’re on our announcement list, you’ll be the first to know everything! We’ll send you infrequent e-mails letting you know when we release new books, offer free books, and share other fun stuff — ahead of everybody else. To sign up click here: Capri Crowd Announcement List
p.p.s. Looking for tree books? Our new paperback publishing partner, Stonehouse Ink, has done a fantastic job with all 7 of my novels, now available from Amazon. Also, if you have new e-readers or friends with e-readers other than Kindle, all of my books are now available on KOBO, Nook, and yes — iTunes!
Interesting story line, but was wondering why my namesake got pregnant -twice. No birth control, lack of sex education, accident, etc.? So nice to meet you and thank you for sharing my post on Twitter. I am following you now and have entered the contest. Cheers!
You know, Debbie, that’s an excellent question! The real story is a mystery, of course, since “Debbie” and “Frank” claimed the pregnancy was an accident both times. But I’ve always felt they weren’t as careful as they could have been. Back then, small town good kids were a lot more naive than they are now, right? Thanks for reading and following and entering, too!
Glad to see your post, Diane! Thank you for taking part in MFRW’s very first bloghop.
This is a great hop, Kayelle! Thanks for inviting me to participate!
Just wanted to stop by and say great job everyone. You all have done MFRW so proud!
Hi, Karen! Thanks for stopping by!
Enjoying the blog hop so much fun to see different author sites.
This is great fun, isn’t it Tina? Thanks for stopping by!
Nice post Diane! I love a good thriller.
Thank you, Jenna! It was fun for me to delve into the backstory here. I’ve always wondered about “the rest of the story.” Are you like that?
Great sounding book. Love that a thriller writer is part of this blog hop. Much success.
Thank you, Karla!
Well, of course, you left us with questions! LOL So good to meet all the authors on the blog hop.
😀 Thanks for stopping by!
Terrific, site, terrific book.
Thank you, Rue!
Wow – you certianly know how to make a person want to know more!!! Excellent job, Diane!
Glad to hear it, Jennifer! LOL! 😀
Ooh, a thriller love story. I love that Diane! 🙂
Thanks, Karen! 😀
An unexpected pregnancy happened more often than we want to believe back when birth control was pretty much unavailable. And as you said, the mother-to-be was whisked away with a made-up story to explain her disappearance. I would have been interested in hearing more about the “thriller” part of the book. Good post, thanks for letting me make a very late visit.
I’m glad you enjoyed the post, Sandy. And thanks for asking about Raw Justice. This post was fairly long, so I didn’t include much about the book itself. Let me fix that now:
Three unlikely events explode thrusting young lawyer Jennifer Lane into the abyss of her secret history.
Bio-Medical researcher Gilbert Irwin is killed when his car is forced off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge by an unidentified driver in a dark blue Jaguar. Ronald and Lila Walden’s daughter disappears from her Tampa apartment. Jennifer Lane is mysteriously plucked from obscurity to represent Russell Denton, Tampa’s most successful mogul, to retrieve a stolen drug formula worth billions.
Unraveling the connections, Jennifer falls into a disastrous romance with Blake Denton, Russell Denton’s nephew and heir. A bewildering maze of betrayal, intrigue, and murder, put Jennifer’s license to practice law, her heart, and her very life on the line.