What's a superheroine to do when her super soldier ex turns up alive after more than fifteen years?
Butterfly Ops
by Jen Doyle
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy with Romantic Elements
Sept 24, 2018
Length: 120,000 words
What's a superheroine to do when her super soldier ex turns up alive after more than fifteen years?
Lyndsey doesn't have much time to walk down memory lane before she and Ian find themselves thrown together to investigate the mysterious deaths of ten young men in the Canadian wilderness. How do such seemingly normal, healthy men's hearts just...stop?
With the hint of an evil spirit in the wind--and a whole lot of butterflies--there's no telling what Lyndsey and Ian are dealing with, including their own extensive baggage. Though seventeen years is a lot of life to live, there's one thing they can't deny: their attraction is as intense as ever. But is it just a spark that will burn itself out, or is it true love bringing them back together? When the force they're hunting turns its sights on them, the leap of faith required far exceeds either of their powers. But worrying about their future might be premature because one wrong move and they might not make it out alive.
In Book One of the Butterfly Ops trilogy, Lyndsey and Ian reconnect fifteen years after seeing each other for what each thought was the last time. That the spark is still there is undeniable—but is it enough to get past the secrets and lies that tore them apart the first time around? With old tensions rearing their heads as new challenges arise, what at first seems to be a sure path back to trust and happiness is rockier than it seems.
Note: this is Book One in a serial trilogy. Book Two will be released in Spring 2019; Book Three will be released in early Summer 2019. Books should be read in order.
Excerpt:
Taking a deep breath and deciding to face her demons head on, Lyndsey whirled on her heel—and proceeded to walk directly into someone who, thank you very much, had been a little too close for comfort. Coffee and bags went flying everywhere.
Damn it. This was not at all what she needed fifteen minutes before the meeting she didn’t even want to be at. Why hadn’t she just let the cab take her all the way there?
Trying to keep her irritation contained, she accepted the napkins being offered from an outstretched hand. An outstretched hand presumably connected to the body she had knocked into, a body in such close proximity that a collision had been unavoidable. Big, solid, muscular body, by the way, all done up in Army green, medals and ribbons to boot. Not that that did much to improve her mood, of course.
She purposefully didn’t look up right away, knowing it was an accident and this person had no intention of spilling everything all over her and the sidewalk. Therefore it would do absolutely no good to say something like, ‘Haven’t you ever heard of personal space?’ Not until she could say it with a smile at least.
“I’m so sorry,” she heard the man say in a tone that seemed genuinely apologetic, as it should. “You look like someone I...”
His voice cut off abruptly.
She slowly raised her head, and...
No.
Um... No.
This couldn’t be real. Lyndsey backed away, looking into the eyes of a ghost. A six-foot-and-change, two-hundred pound, solidly-packed-in-all-the-right-places ghost. She stared at him, his face so familiar despite the lines around his eyes and mouth. His hair had a few flecks of gray in that distinguished way men’s hair did, but his arms and chest and shoulders had lost none of their definition in the time that had passed, nor had his body lost its ability to stir something deep within her. Something that hadn’t been stirred in a very long time. And despite her various issues where the Army was concerned, she certainly didn’t mind seeing him in that uniform with all its medals and ribbons. Which also reminded her of all the times seeing him out of his uniform and, well, it wasn’t exactly helping her in the thought-forming parts of the brain.
“But you’re… You’re…” she stammered.
He was dead. He’d died almost ten years ago, as far as Lyndsey knew. Beyond that, she was unable to form a coherent thought.
Well, except that Ian—Ian Fox—seemed to be right there with her, also totally incapable of speech.
“Dad, please tell me you did not make this mess.”
Lyndsey looked past Ian to see the coffee shop girl coming towards him. A girl who called Ian, ‘Dad.’ A girl who was Ian’s daughter.
Taking a deep breath and deciding to face her demons head on, Lyndsey whirled on her heel—and proceeded to walk directly into someone who, thank you very much, had been a little too close for comfort. Coffee and bags went flying everywhere.
Damn it. This was not at all what she needed fifteen minutes before the meeting she didn’t even want to be at. Why hadn’t she just let the cab take her all the way there?
Trying to keep her irritation contained, she accepted the napkins being offered from an outstretched hand. An outstretched hand presumably connected to the body she had knocked into, a body in such close proximity that a collision had been unavoidable. Big, solid, muscular body, by the way, all done up in Army green, medals and ribbons to boot. Not that that did much to improve her mood, of course.
She purposefully didn’t look up right away, knowing it was an accident and this person had no intention of spilling everything all over her and the sidewalk. Therefore it would do absolutely no good to say something like, ‘Haven’t you ever heard of personal space?’ Not until she could say it with a smile at least.
“I’m so sorry,” she heard the man say in a tone that seemed genuinely apologetic, as it should. “You look like someone I...”
His voice cut off abruptly.
She slowly raised her head, and...
No.
Um... No.
This couldn’t be real. Lyndsey backed away, looking into the eyes of a ghost. A six-foot-and-change, two-hundred pound, solidly-packed-in-all-the-right-places ghost. She stared at him, his face so familiar despite the lines around his eyes and mouth. His hair had a few flecks of gray in that distinguished way men’s hair did, but his arms and chest and shoulders had lost none of their definition in the time that had passed, nor had his body lost its ability to stir something deep within her. Something that hadn’t been stirred in a very long time. And despite her various issues where the Army was concerned, she certainly didn’t mind seeing him in that uniform with all its medals and ribbons. Which also reminded her of all the times seeing him out of his uniform and, well, it wasn’t exactly helping her in the thought-forming parts of the brain.
“But you’re… You’re…” she stammered.
He was dead. He’d died almost ten years ago, as far as Lyndsey knew. Beyond that, she was unable to form a coherent thought.
Well, except that Ian—Ian Fox—seemed to be right there with her, also totally incapable of speech.
“Dad, please tell me you did not make this mess.”
Lyndsey looked past Ian to see the coffee shop girl coming towards him. A girl who called Ian, ‘Dad.’ A girl who was Ian’s daughter.
A big believer in happily ever afters, Jen Doyle decided it was high time she started creating some. CALLING IT, her four-book baseball/contemporary romance/romantic comedy series, has been winning awards since its inception, the most recent being the 2017 Best Banter Contest for Calling It and a nomination for the 2017 Harlequin Hero of the Year for Called Out. She also wrote the acclaimed HANSONS OF ST. HELENA series of novellas in the St. Helena Vineyard Kindle World. Butterfly Ops: Book One is the first installment of the BUTTERFLY OPS trilogy, an epic love story and her first in the paranormal realm.
Jen has an M.S. in Library and Information Science and, in addition to her work as a librarian, has worked as a conference and events planner as well as an administrator in both preschool and higher education environments (although some might say that there is very little difference between the two; Jen has no comment regarding whether she is one of the “some”). She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and is represented by Sarah E. Younger of the Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
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Jen has an M.S. in Library and Information Science and, in addition to her work as a librarian, has worked as a conference and events planner as well as an administrator in both preschool and higher education environments (although some might say that there is very little difference between the two; Jen has no comment regarding whether she is one of the “some”). She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and is represented by Sarah E. Younger of the Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
GIVEAWAY
Follow the first look and enter to #win a $10 Amazon Gift Card or one of five digital copies of a Jen Doyle backlist title
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