Wretched

Book excerpt: Bruce Mclean has experienced more tragedy and blessing in his forty-five years than most people would over several lifetimes. Orphaned at six when his mother died of a heroin overdose, he was fortunate enough to be adopted by a loving and caring couple - but tragedy returned to strike again at twelve, when his adoptive mother died of cancer, and yet again in high school, when his adoptive father was killed in a car accident. Bruce enters adulthood completely alone in life and haunted by dreams of a mother he barely remembers. Both exceptional and flawed in many ways, Bruce perseveres and marries a beautiful woman with whom he fathers a daughter. He goes on to build a successful business empire and considerable wealth. But fate isn't anywhere near finished with Bruce. Years later, divorced, he makes a lifestyle choice to relocate to a small idyllic mountain town. He is determined to move on to a new phase in his life. There he meets Tara, a very sexy and very dangerous woman, and is suddenly thrust into a web of sex, lies, deceit, and betrayal that threaten not only his business and wealth, but everything he holds dear. Like Bruce, Tara is extremely active, and after a few sessions of tearing up the mountain bike trails as well as ravaging each other, Bruce is completely under the spell of this alluring woman. But all is not what it seems, for Tara is from a different world than Bruce. As an ex-marine and mercenary, she is a very strong female but she is also an unapologetic psychopath. Bruce soon finds that to protect his loved ones, he must navigate through the impossible odds stacked against him by those who would seek his destruction, while at the same time dealing with his own inner demons and a tragic past that seems determined to follow him. This novel contains some sexually explicit content.