A quick insight into Rob Sangster’s process for writing Ground Truth!

I met the (future) love of my life at a party in an elegant home on the bank of the Mississippi River.  She was a novelist, a mystery writer. My professions were real estate development and practicing law, but I’d written an award-winning book on international travel, so I said, “What a coincidence. I’m a writer, too. May I offer you a glass of wine?”

Before long, to maintain a shred of credibility in this blossoming relationship, I felt compelled to figure out how to write a novel. My insatiable curiosity required me to write Ground Truth. When I discover something intriguing, I feel driven to explore it. If the topic turns out to be on the breaking wave of reality and is likely to come true in the foreseeable future, I make it the center of a suspenseful corkscrew of a plot. Then I populate the story with complex characters pursuing goals that inevitably bring them into conflict.

In Ground Truth, the action takes place in a corrupt law firm in San Francisco, a sacred cave in a Mexican mountain (where the sacred cave is crammed full of unstable nuclear material), and the Oval Office.

Ground Truth reached #1 on Amazon Kindle and is receiving very favorable reviews. My second novel, Deep Time, won the EPIC Award as Best Suspense/ Thriller novel of 2017.

The relationship that started all this is going strong and my curiosity remains unquenched, so my third suspense/thriller will be published this year.

Ground Truth by Rob Sangster is on sale for $1.99 until the 28th!

“A masterful, high-stakes thriller.”

—Lisa Turner, bestselling author of A Little Death in Dixie

Practicing law has never been so deadly.

Hotshot Stanford law professor Jack Strider is on the fast track to serve on the Supreme Court until a bullet and a nasty, front-page family scandal shatter that ambition.

After he’s unjustly fired from the law school faculty, a powerhouse law firm run by a former Secretary of State offers Jack a job and a chance for redemption. His first assignment: do whatever it takes to defend a sleazy corporate client in Juarez, Mexico, the Murder Capital of the World. Soon, Jack realizes that if he can’t stop his client, millions of people on both sides of the border will be poisoned.

Plunged into the violence of the Texas-Mexican borderlands, Jack discovers that he can trust no one, not even the law firm he works for, so when attorney Debra Vanderberg is sent to assist Jack, he doesn’t know whether she’s an ally or a spy. He has no choice but to trust her and pray he isn’t wrong.

Racing against the clock and dodging bullets, Jack and Debra uncover corporate greed and political corruption that lead all the way from a sacred cave in the Mexican mountains to the Oval Office. When the President of the United States refuses to stop the impending catastrophes, Jack risks everything, including his life. But can he learn the “ground truth” fast enough to save the millions destined to die?

Happy Reading!

Around Christmastime that year, Josh and I were talking about trips and places we’ve been and he started talking about how much he loves Universal Studios, how many times he’d been, how he hadn’t been since they opened up the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and how he’s been dying to go for that reason. And I told him how I had been once on a trip in high school, but I didn’t really get to enjoy it. I also told him how I barely remembered anything about it. So Josh insisted that we take a vacation, but then he told me he wouldn’t take me until I watched all the Harry Potter movies since I had never seen any of them or read the books. We then watched all eight movies in a two week period. We saved our money and bought a trip and in April 2016, we went to Orlando. I had never been on a plane before and I thought it was really cute that Josh wanted to be the one to take me on my first airplane experience.

            We arrived on Friday and Saturday was our first day at the park. Saturday night after dinner we took a walk on the City Walk and Josh started peppering me with questions. Wondering if I’d had fun, what my favorite section of the park was (It was Harry Potter World, BY FAR, by the way), and what my favorite ride was. I didn’t think anything of it, so I answered his questions and asked him the same things. Well the next morning we got up and went back to the park again for our second day. The only part of the park that’s open the first hour of the day is the Harry Potter rides. So we headed there, rode those, and afterwards we just walked around checking out all the stores and stuff. Josh asked me if I wanted to take a picture together. I should have known something was up right then because he never wants to take pictures. Because of that fact, I was excited and said yes! So we found a costumed park employee and asked him to take a picture of us. He was super nice and agreed. He took several shots of us, even getting all artsy trying to make sure he was getting some good ones. Then suddenly as the employee went to hand me my phone back, Josh intervened and said to him “Actually, could you take one more picture?” and got down on his knee! I was so surprised. My face turned red and all I could say was “Nuh uh.” There were people walking around all around us and a lot of them stopped to watch and were already clapping for us. He asked me to marry him and there was so much going on, I swear he whispered it because I could barely hear him. Luckily I couldn’t take my eyes off him, so I know what he said by reading his lips. Of course I said yes! Our “photographer” took photos of the whole thing on my phone, and I was really glad he did because those are some of the sweetest pictures that I have. Not to mention, it was one of my requirements of being proposed to. I always told Josh that if he wanted to propose to me, he had better plan a secret photographer to capture it. After our celebration, filled with lots of hugs and kisses, we finally came back to reality. Josh told me to be sure to call my dad and tell him that he did it. I asked him what he meant and he explained that before our trip, he’d asked my dad’s permission to propose. After my father agreed, he told Josh to tell me to call him to tell him as soon as it happened. I’m very much a Daddy’s girl, so that was another one of my requirements to being proposed to. That was actually the first one on the list. It makes me feel so relieved that my dad loves Josh as much as I do and I just felt so incredibly blessed that the perfect guy had just given me the perfect proposal.

I guess some people really do get a second chance at love. And if you do get a second chance, don’t waste it! Josh and I are getting married June 10, 2017, and we couldn’t be more grateful that we get a second chance at happily ever after.

THANK YOU FOR READING! REMEMBER TO LIKE AND COMMENT ON THE FACEBOOK POSTS TO WIN A FREE EBOOK OF HEALING A HERO BY SKYE TAYLOR!

Fast forward all the way to 2014. Josh and his previous girlfriend had broken up that March and I had been dumped in August of the year before. One day that May, I posted a picture on Facebook of my friend and I that I had taken at church that same morning. Little did I know that that picture was going to cause Josh to send me a private message. Apparently, in that photo, the way I had my hair pulled to one side and my friend blocking the side my hair was pulled to, it appeared that I had cut all of my hair off. Some people had already commented on the photo bringing it to my attention when Josh said something about it. His message said that he had noticed the picture I had posted and had to look twice because he thought I cut all my hair off. When the other people had told me I found it annoying, but when he said it I laughed. From that message, we continued talking and eventually one of us suggested texting instead of communicating via Facebook. We continued texting every day until one day Josh asked me to hang out. And we attempted to hang out several times, but things kept coming up where one of us couldn’t meet. I think Josh even got a flat tire halfway to see me once. But one night we were both finally free. I went over to Josh’s house, and I have to admit, when he answered the door, it was a tiny bit awkward since it had been so long since we had seen each other last and I was nervous. But I went in and we just talked with the TV playing something in the background. We sat there all night and talked. It didn’t take long for my nerves to go away. Nothing was off limits, we talked about everything. I went home sometime in the wee hours of the morning but we continued texting every day whenever we could, and hanging out more and more.

On June 10, 2014, Josh and I were hanging out at my place watching TV and he said to me “If you wanted to tell people I’m your boyfriend, that would be okay with me.” I laughed and immediately said to him “No way! You have to officially ask me.” So he cheesily said “Will you be my girlfriend?” or something like that. I, of course, said yes. We were dating for about a year when Josh suggested I move in with him and his roommate. I was nervous at first because what if we didn’t work out? And I didn’t know what my parents would think about it. But I talked to them about it and I moved in, in July of 2015. And later that month Josh surprised me by texting me at work one day asking me if I wanted a kitten. I thought he was joking. I had wanted a cat for so long. Before I moved in and after, we would be watching TV and someone would get a kitten and I would be like “Awww babe!” and he would say “No!”. The first thing I said to his was “Are you for real?” because I didn’t think he would get me a cat. The next text that came through was a picture of a litter of kittens that needed homes and Josh told me how a co-worker was trying to find them homes and if I wanted one, we needed to tell him right away. I picked out the one I wanted from the picture and the next day Josh picked up and brought home our precious fur child. I came home from work and he and our roommate had already named her.

READ THE FINAL CHAPTER IN OUR SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE SERIAL TOMORROW!

That July, Josh went to Oklahoma on family vacation and called me, as young people did back then before texting was a thing, on a Sunday night. We talked for a little while then, out of nowhere, Josh broke things off. I just sat on the phone and cried for what seemed like a really long time. For me, it was a total shock. After a while of sitting on the phone while I cried, he told me he couldn’t just sit there and listen to me cry on the other end so he said he should go and hung up. I was a mess that whole week. That Friday night, five days after the breakup, my best friend and I went to the movies to see a movie Josh and I had been planning on going to see for a while. When the movie ended and the lights came back on, everyone started getting up and we stood up to exit and looked around the theater and who did we see several rows behind us? Josh. With a girl. A girl that I knew for a fact was a pretty good friend of his who he talked to fairly often. I was hysterical. He had moved on that fast. Of course when I got home I had to get on MySpace to see what I could find out. They were dating. We had only been broken up a few days! Of course I assumed since he had a girlfriend so soon after we broke up that he had been cheating on me with her. Even if they were just talking behind my back and not even spending any one-on-one time together yet.

First day of junior year, I went to English class and there was Josh. I was so mad. I didn’t want to see him every other day for the rest of the school year. Luckily our teacher seated us in alphabetical order so I got to sit far away from him. I pretty much avoided Josh our entire junior year. However, during my junior year I started dating someone else and I started slowly getting over Josh. Eventually I got over the whole thing but we really didn’t communicate much because he was still dating that girl.

Fast forward to senior year, Josh and I have economics class together. By that point I had long forgiven him for what happened between us and had put it all in the past. I still made it a point, though, to joke with him about it here and there mentioning how he broke my heart. We enjoyed having that class together and we talked all the time. I looked forward to going to that class because of him. I remember a few specific conversations we had in that class that I will never forget. He always knew how to make me feel better about myself. We became pretty good friends again by the end of senior year, and eventually graduated in the class of 2010.

I don’t know if it was because we ran in different crowds or because I had a boyfriend, but we didn’t keep in touch after graduation. But we did seem to run into each other fairly often it seemed. It didn’t matter if either of us was dating someone or not, every time we ran into each other, we always stopped to talk to one another. I remember a few times when we ran into each other he would have his girlfriend with him or I would have my boyfriend with me, and we saw each other and had to stop and catch up. And we always hugged before we went our separate ways. I remember one time a few years after we broke up he called me on my birthday just to wish me a happy birthday. It made me feel special that he still had my number and that he remembered my birthday. Of course I always remembered his too. There was just something between us I can’t explain that was always there.

Read more tomorrow in SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE: THE REKINDLING!

Josh and I first met in eighth grade, in algebra class. Our desks were right next to each other. Josh was nice but quiet. I wouldn’t say we were close friends but we were friends who talked occasionally in class. Fast forward to high school, I don’t really remember ever seeing Josh during freshman year but, during sophomore year, Josh and I were in Algebra 2 together. Again, we sat right next to each other. That class was horrible, but we made the best of it. In February of that same year, I had to have back surgery and I was out of school for a month. My last day of school before I was out for surgery, My best friend at the time and I were waiting in the car pick-up line for her sister to pick us up. Josh was there waiting too. I don’t remember whose ride got there first but, before we parted, he came up to me, wished me luck on everything, and gave me a hug. Having never really been hugged by a boy before, I felt rather special.

Even though I was not able to go to school during my recovery time, I felt well enough to attend church as I always had. Well, somewhere around the same time that I was having surgery, a mutual friend of ours had invited Josh to come to our church. So on my first night back to church, Josh was there. At the time it was still a little difficult for me to get up and down out of chairs and such, so Josh would offer his hand to help me. I thought he was so sweet. From then on, we became even better friends and he continued to come to church. In April, Josh asked me to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Apparently we were walking side-by-side when he asked me and he tripped over a bush, but I have no recollection of that part at all. I said yes. We “dated” for the next few months. You know how it is when you’re fifteen and can’t drive on your own yet, so I would hardly call it dating, but we had fun together. I loved being around Josh’s family and my parents liked Josh as well. I thought everything was going great with us….

Tune in tomorrow to find where the ellipses lead!

Marrying James Bond

By Hope Clark

Lowcountry Bribe, the first in The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, opens with the protagonist being offered a bribe from a client she least suspects—a hog farmer. She calls the Inspector General’s office, and within 48 hours, they have a federal agent on the ground checking the situation. The investigation goes awry, trust is lost on so many levels, and lives are threatened.

At conferences and readings, I love talking about the opening chapter to that book . . . because it comes so close to reality. I was once a federal employee who was offered a bribe. And my husband was the agent who showed up on the case. We rigged hidden recorders and pin-hole cameras, rehearsed a script to pull off the “sting,” and dealt with threats against me. We didn’t catch the culprit, but we married 18 months later.

At that point in the presentation, the room goes abuzz. Many people then ask me how much of the book is fact and which part fiction. It’s fun, because that means the story reads that realistically. And while I have to tell them the rest of the story is fiction, I can’t help but put myself in those fictional scenes.

Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself where reality stopped and fantasy started. And when I do take that pause, I smile. Because I can get lost in my head with my characters and have a grand time, especially knowing that I get to actually sleep with the good guy. In this case, fantasizing in bed about a character is a very good thing, because I’m married to him.

I’ve actually pondered what would happen if, God forbid, I developed dementia in my older years, and fact gradually muddied into my fiction, blending Slade and Wayne into my own history until I could not remember the difference. After all, writers get very close to their stories and the players that make those tales come to life. I did minor investigations in my prior career with the federal government, and my husband was indeed an agent with many war stories under his belt. As I juggle the possibility of make-believe and my past entangling in my gray-headed mind downstream, I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad predicament.

To make matters worse, my husband is my sounding board for subsequent stories. He keeps my technical details accurate, my gun references true, and laughs at the predicaments Slade gets into, chuckling that he’d never let that happen on his watch. At my speaking engagements, he’s often asked if he was my model for Wayne, and he answers, “Nah, Wayne’s a wuss.” Everybody laughs, and I crack a smile. I know he’s serious.

What better life can I ask for than to secretly write about my husband, pretending I’m the girl in the story, carousing through escapades, playing dare-devil, and solving crime.

We may not look like Daniel Craig and his charming Bond-girl with our middle-aged appearances, but we love to think like we are . . . because one time we did some of that, and now we live happily ever after.

BIO

C. Hope Clark lives on the banks of Lake Murray, South Carolina, writing her mysteries, and often reading aloud to her federal agent with his lit cigar, neat bourbon, and deep opinions about how Wayne still isn’t close to the “real deal.” Tidewater Murder, the second in the Carolina Slade Mystery Series, arrives on book shelves in April 2013. www.chopeclark.com