Elizabeth Heiter | Three Heroes Are Better Than One

I love writing series. As a reader, you get to return to favorite characters and follow along as someone new gets center stage. As a writer, you get much of the same fun – it’s hard to create a character, take them on a 60-100,000 word journey and then just say goodbye. When it comes to romantic suspense, it means throwing a new character not only into the limelight but also into trouble! And when it comes to heroes, more is always better!

When I wrote The Lawmen trilogy, about three friends who made a pact to join the FBI after violence tore apart their lives – and what happened when that threat returned a decade later – I already knew I didn’t want that to be the end. But I also knew the three friends could each only get one book. So, right from the start, I decided to use an important secondary role to create another hero, someone strong enough to spin off into the start of a new trilogy. That hero was Andre Diaz, an FBI Hostage Rescue Team agent partnered up with a hero in my first trilogy. And he kicked off The Lawmen: Bullets and Brawn trilogy.

The new trilogy needed a new hook, of course, and when I’d created Andre, one of the main things I knew about his background was that he’d grown up in the foster system. I knew right away that I wanted him to have two “brothers” who would form the basis of a spinoff trilogy. But that was all I knew. So, I when I was creating the Bullets and Brawn spinoff, I had to figure out a backstory strong enough to carry through three new books.

Slowly, a history for the brothers came to me: three orphaned boys who bonded in a foster home and were torn apart when that foster home burned down. Many years later, they learn the fire wasn’t an accident, and all three are determined to get to the truth about what really happened. Along the way, of course, they find love.

The stars of the new trilogy, Andre Diaz, Cole Walker, and Macos Costa were all natural heroes. Working for the FBI, Andre is used to dangerous situations, to risking his own life to save others, and in BODYGUARD WITH A BADGE Juliette Lawson should be no different. But this woman has a secret past too, one that quickly puts them both in jeopardy as Andre falls for her. Police detective Cole, the oldest brother, has always put everyone else first, and when Shaye Mallory, the forensics expert he’s had a crush on for years, comes under fire in POLICE PROTECTOR, he’ll do anything to save her. Marcos, the youngest brother, went into the dangerous work of an undercover DEA agent and he’d thought he’d seen it all – until he runs into his childhood crush Brenna Hartwell while posing as a criminal in SECRET AGENT SURRENDER.

To learn more about all of Elizabeth Heiter’s books, visit www.elizabethheiter.com. For a chance to win signed copies of the whole Bullets and Brawn trilogy, leave a comment below!