Feature Author: Lee Silver

Current Read: The Twist by Lee Silver





Title: The Twist
Author: Lee Silver
Website: http://www.leesilver.org/
Genre: Romantic Suspense Theme: High Tech Metamorphosis
Length: 223 pages
Available at:
(Paperback: $12.99. ISBN 978-1606011751)
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1606011758/sirenpub-20
(E-book: 5.99. ISBN 1-60601-174-X)
BookStrand: http://www.bookstrand.com/authors/leesilver/tt.asp
Fictionwise: http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook73194.htm?cache

"Every man should have to spend at least a month as a woman."~Debra Gaynor

ZANE TOLLISON’S wife is running through their cash faster than he can make it. A “Hail Mary” contract with Clearwater Tobacco arrives in the nick of time to keep his fledgling, consulting firm afloat and to unchain him once and for all from his narcissistic wife. Beautiful, brilliant and estranged, KATHY DAVIS is desperate for a new beginning. The feisty post doc bio-geneticist jumps at an offer from Clearwater, pouring her soul into a development that will revolutionize the tobacco industry.

The two are unwittingly reeled into a convoluted plan to steal $12 million; Zane is changing into a carbon copy of Kathy, a pawn in a bizarre genetic metamorphosis, entangling Kathy in a sinewy web of seduction and deceit. Forging a bond that will set the course of their destiny, they fight to overpower the diabolic hold that has taken over their lives.

I’ll admit it, I’m a geek! But setting a romance in the framework of high tech intrigue, my technical background turned out to be my best friend. I wanted a heroine who would stand toe to toe with the leading man and a plot that would keep a reader on the edge of their seat. The Twist is only the beginning.
~ Lee ~

Reviews

FIVE STARS One of the most fascinating books that I've read in a long time. This is one book that is definitely a keeper! You are going to love The Twist. Kasey, KaseysView

4 1/2 STARS She created a world that seemed so real and devastating that it seems almost possible...I would highly recommend this one to anyone looking for a suspenseful ride that will keep them anxiously turning the pages Sandra, The Romance Studio

4 STARS Lee Silver writes with a great deal of humor and imagination. Her plot is interesting and creative. Debra Gaynor, Review Your Book

"A clever and witty sci-fi romp through big corporations, marriage and the gender wars." Dee S. Knight , author of Coming Home

"THE TWIST was a great novel!"
Taylor Perry, Read Rave Reviews

"THE TWIST moves from being a story about a complex game of dress up to an emotional and sensual journey...sprinkled with tastefully written naughty scenes you will enjoy from the first to last page." Silapa Jarun , author of Katana Duet

"The science in 'The Twist' is fascinating...very original and intriguing...Lee Silver keeps you guessing right till the end." Lindsay Townsend , author of Flavia's Secret


Excerpt

Zane heard the tap, tap, tap of a woman’s heels on the tile floor as he stared at his watch anxiously waiting for the elevator.

She was a tiny thing, not more than five foot three, probably in her early thirties. She stepped up beside him. Their eyes met and she smiled.

One of the big guns’ secretaries, I’ll bet. Zane couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

Wearing a stylishly short, gray tweed business suit, her long auburn hair was pulled in a French twist. Designer gold-rim glasses framed her petite face and green eyes. She looked like she had just stepped out of the latest issue of Vogue.

Zane’s eyes followed her every move as she stepped into the elevator. A leather notebook clenched to her chest, she was one hundred percent professional and drop dead gorgeous.

She turned to him, a ghost of a smile on her lips. Looking Zane squarely in the eyes, she matter-of-factly quipped, “All right, you’ve seen my ass. I guess you can come in now.”

He turned beet red as he walked into the elevator. The doors closed like a vault. “I, I am so sorry, but—”

“No buts about it. I wouldn’t have said that if I didn’t think you were cute.” She stepped out onto the second floor “See ya!”

He stood, frozen like a pillar of salt, as he watched her walk in slow motion down the hall.

“Seventh floor.”

“What did you say?”

She peered over her shoulder and grinned. “Chorde’s office. It’s on the seventh floor.”

Eyes glued to the seam along the back of her skirt, he opened his mouth to speak, but the words refused to come.

She rounded the corner out of his sight. His eyes still peering into the hall, Zane’s finger pressed the button for the seventh floor. As the doors began to close, he blurted out to the brushed steel walls of the elevator, “Thanks.”

* * * *

Chorde glanced at the clock as he reached for his hand. “So good to see that you are prompt. Nine o’clock on the button.”

Clenching his hand with a confident grip, Zane put on a well-practiced smile. “Well, I try, Jonathon.” The truth was he was late for everything. Pat often teased him that he’d be late for his own funeral.

Jonathon Chorde was a stately gentleman in his early sixties. His British accent and tailored, double-breasted suit gave him an air of cosmopolitan sophistication. He was medium height, perhaps five foot ten, balding, and a bit over weight.

Chorde motioned towards two stuffed leather chairs at the far corner of his office. He poured two cups of tea from a silver carafe and offered a small serving tray. “Pastry, Mr. Tollison?”

Never one to pass on a free breakfast, Zane reached for a cherry Danish. He flashed a grin as he took an over-sized bite. “Mr. Tollison was my father. You can call me Zane.”

“As you please. Down to business then, shall we?”

He set his cup on the marble tabletop and leaned forward. “We are both businessmen. I shan’t beat around the bush. Simply put, Clearwater wants to buy your name.”

A piece of Danish caught in Zane’s throat and he coughed into his napkin.

Chorde ignored the outburst and continued. “As I indicated when I spoke to you yesterday, we are in the process of pulling together a study to refute the accusations of the anti-smoking coalitions. Although we certainly value your insights, there is really very little we expect you to do. We already know what we want to find, and except for going through the motions of the actual ten-day investigation, our people have basically completed the final report.”

He reached for his tea and leaned back in his chair. Chorde continued, “We did feel that it was important for you to actually be here while we conduct the study to lend a touch of credence to the work. In any case, it will certainly benefit us both for you to learn as much as you can about the project. So you’ll be better prepared to field any questions that might come up about the research in the future.

“We shan’t detain you once we’ve gathered our data, but please, feel free to stay at Clearwater to dot and cross whatever I’s and T’s you feel are necessary to put the finishing touches to the report. After all, the findings are going to be released by Tollison Consulting.” Chorde’s smile could have belonged to the Grinch who stole Christmas. “We had hoped we could attract your services and took the liberty of having our legal people draft a preliminary agreement.”

He pushed a pen and a stack of papers towards Zane, and reached for a French cruller as he continued, “A good faith advance in the amount of 1.15 million dollars shall be deposited to your account upon signing the contract, with the balance being paid in ten equal installments of 1.15 million dollars each day for the duration of the study. The total for your services will be 12.65 million dollars.

“The future of the entire tobacco industry depends on the timely release of these findings. We shan’t tolerate any mishaps. The agreement provides a rather stiff penalty of 2.3 million dollars per day should you fail to see the job through.” Chorde’s face grew cold as he glared over the top of his glasses. “I prefer not to elaborate, but please understand, this would be the least of your concerns if the details of your actual role in the investigation should ever chance to leave this room.”

Zane stared at the contract, contemplating the contrast between the ...

Biography

Lee grew up in the rolling farmland outside of historic Valley Forge, PA. Neighbors were few and far between, and with no sisters or brothers she spent hours in her room daydreaming about the world outside her rural community. Cramming nine months of fun into summer vacations, Lee lived for the trips she took with her family to their place on the Delaware shore.

She graduated as her high school class salutatorian and went on to earn a BS in engineering from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. After several years of writing specification manuals for the Navy, Lee returned to school full-time to earn her graduate degree from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA. She has spent the majority of her career as a professional engineer.

Lee has always enjoyed writing. Challenged with a series of health problems in the late 1990’s, she turned her technical experience to creative writing. The Twist is her first published novel.

Lee has spent most of her adult life in Tidewater, Virginia. She and her husband of 16 years live in a renovated Victorian on the Chesapeake Bay. Lee enjoys reading and relaxing on the beach at their summer home in Ocean City, MD.

And here's my interview with Lee Silver, today's "Word Wizard"!

Tell us about your first book, The Twist.

Hi Tiffany! Thank you for inviting me. It’s really great to be here with all my friends at Armchair Heroines. Just for fun, I’m going to put everybody who blogs this post in a hat for a chance to win a copy of my new romantic suspense, The Twist. Well, not actually them, just their names J

The Twist is a BookStrand #1 Bestseller! It was released in July and is available in paperback from Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and as an e-book from Fictionwise and BookStrand. I wanted a heroine who would stand toe to toe with the leading man and a plot that would keep a reader on the edge of his seat. The Twist is only the beginning. A story of mind-bending control and unnerving metamorphosis, The Twist unravels the tale of a hotshot consultant as he struggles to foil a plot to steal $12 million and to rescue the feisty, female scientist who has stolen his heart.

The hero actually turns into a carbon copy of the leading lady. I really had to get into Zane’s head to write The Twist. Women are so different...our emotions, what’s important to us, how we relate to each other. And then there’s the things we take for granted. Hair, nails, putting on your face, the whole bit. It would all have to be pretty strange for a guy.

Trying to stuff all of that into a guy’s head was a challenge. Male characters just don’t have the range of emotion for you to work with. I guess that’s part of what makes them guys. As Zane begins his transformation, everything he is grappling with bubbles to the top as a confused mix of humor and rage. After the change it’s like he’s got the hormones of a squad of teenage cheerleaders.

Yup, we finally get our revenge on the guys in The Twist :)

It's about time! :0) Why were you drawn to write a bio-technical romantic suspense?

You hear some strange things standing in the ladies’ room line on the Ocean City boardwalk. A cute little thing in a halter top and a pair of Daisy Dukes behind me was arguing with her purple-haired boy friend about her smoking. He was going on about what a filthy habit it was and how he might as well be kissing an ashtray. Fumbling in her purse for a Virginia Slim, all she could come up with in her defense was “You have no idea how hard it is for a girl to quit smoking!” I’ve always been fascinated by transformation stories, but they never seem to have a happy ending. Hum, it sounded like there was a story there to me.

The key to pulling off something as zany as a guy turning into a woman was to make it believable for the reader. As an engineer, I’m trained to come up with a way to make things work. The transformation in The Twist is pure sci-fi, but what if it were possible? My technical background gives me the tools to imagine and describe the things a scientist would need to actually make it happen.

I love your heroine, Kathy Davis! She is quick and witty and doesn't take any crap. How did you create her? What was your inspiration?

I’ve been a Charmed fan since day one. I even have a cool signed picture of Holly, Rose and Alyssa that I won on ebay! Alyssa Milano’s character Phoebe was my inspiration for Kathy. My characters are born from the faces of my personality. I’m like each and every one but not like any of them. There is a tiny seed of me in my characters that unfolds like a flower. They surprise me with the things they say and do, taking my writing to places I never could have gone by myself.

Zane met his match with Kathy in The Twist. He’s full of himself in a typical guy sort of way. But Kathy, with all her feminine charm, let Zane know from the minute they met at the elevator, she’d stand toe to toe with him for the full nine rounds. Its mutual respect like this that turns to love that will last a life time.

What are your working on now?

Well, right now I’m still trying to get caught up with everything I let slip around the house with the release! When I wrote The Twist, I had considered it to be a one book story. Working on my edits, I realized there might be enough open ends for another book. I just started working on a sequel so we can see what everybody's favorite feisty female scientist is up to next :)

I can't wait! How do you keep your creativity charged?

I’m always going off on these wild tangents. Maybe it’s lock picking, or the history of the bra or how they make balloons; I get absorbed in some pretty weird stuff. Whatever the flavor of the month happens to be, I learn absolutely everything I can about it for a couple of three weeks, then zip, I’m over it. Once you expand your head, you never look at the world quite the same way again.

Isn't that the truth?! What do you like to do when you aren't writing?

My parents used to have a travel trailer on the Delaware shore. I grew up outside of Philadelphia, so it was only about 3 hours away. We spent weekends there all summer long for years. I loved to go crabbing and fishing with my dad. LOL, I used to be such a tomboy! On rainy days, we’d all pile into my girlfriend’s mom’s old Buick station wagon. She’d haul us giggling and laughing into Ocean City, MD for pizza and let us go wild on the boardwalk.

I’ve been a car girl for as long as I can remember. I actually had a Suzuki 50 Trail Rider I used all through high school. I went everywhere on that darn thing! Somewhere along the line I realized that motorcycles and skirts don’t mix and got a blue MG Midget. My hubby is a car guy and we have a Model A hotrod. I’m not into all the grease and engine stuff but can hold a pretty mean flashlight. I love the people and the cruising. It gives me an excuse to get all dolled up and wear a pair of tight pants or a poodle skirt.

Anyway, my husband’s family also vacationed in Ocean City, and we went there with our son when he was growing up. We have our own place there now. It’s only a couple hours from Norfolk, VA, so we try to go whenever we can. I cherish our time in Ocean City. We both run so hard, it’s the only time we have for each other. I’m lucky to have a special place with so many memories from all the times of my life. I wish we could live there all the time.

I'm adding Ocean City to my "must visit" list! And a random question for you: Did you dress up for Halloween as a kid? If so, what was your favorite costume?

It was pretty rural once you got outside of Philadelphia when I was growing up, so we didn’t really dress for Halloween. I mean, like it’s not much fun walking two miles between neighbors for a Snickers bar :( I made up for lost time when I got to college. We used to start planning what we were going to be for Halloween as soon as we came back in the fall. I didn’t have a favorite costume, but I’ll never forget the year my girlfriend decided we were going to go as the Big Bad Wolf and one of the Three Little Pigs.

I still don’t know how I let her rope me into being the stupid pig! She got all dolled up in a dark brown leotard and 4” heels with this sassy little black leather mini, and dyed the playboy bunny ears she used the year before to match. A ton of hairspray and some of that cat grease make-up, and the guys were following her like a tail.

Oh, I wore a leotard and tights alright- bubblegum pink, with a pillow for a tummy and a pair of yucky black patent flats. And then there were those plastic alien ears and that rubber bald cap and the curly cue tail made out of pipe cleaners! At least you couldn’t tell it was me with that glue-on latex pig nose. Oink, oink, I was a real sight. You’ll have to trust me. I destroyed all the pictures :)

I'd pay good money to see that! :0) Thanks for being here with us Lee. And as Lee said, she's offering a copy of The Twist to one lucky Armchair Heroine. So make a comment, ask a question, share your thoughts! That's your ticket to the contest. :0)