The Fatal Series
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Book 1: Fatal Affair
"Sizzle, mystery and suspense...Fatal Affair has it all! Nick and Sam are a perfect pair and Marie Force is definitely an author to watch!" —Christy Reece, NYT Bestselling author of the Last Chance Rescue series
“This novel is The O.C. does D.C., and you just can’t get enough.” RT Book Reviews, 4.5 Stars for Fatal Affair
Washington, D.C., Metro Police Detective Sergeant Sam Holland needs a big win to salvage her career—and her confidence—after a disastrous investigation. The perfect opportunity arises when Senator John O'Connor is found brutally murdered in his bed, and Sam is assigned to the case. Matters get complicated when Sam has to team up with Nick Cappuano, O'Connor's friend and chief of staff...and the man Sam had a memorable one-night stand with years earlier. Their sexual chemistry still sizzles, and Sam has to fight to stay focused on the case. Sleeping with a material witness is another mistake she can't afford—especially when the bodies keep piling up.
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Book 2: Fatal Justice
“Marie Force’s second novel in the Fatal series is an outstanding romantic suspense in its own right; that it follows the fantastic first installment only sweetens the read.” RT Book Reviews, 4.5 Stars for Fatal Justice
Supreme Court nominee Julian Sinclair comes to Washington expecting to be confirmed to the high court. Instead, he’s found shot execution-style in a city park. Detective Lt. Sam Holland’s list of suspects is long, but does it include her significant other, Senator Nick Cappuano, one of the last to see Sinclair alive? While tracking down Sinclair's killer, Sam is also confronted with a new lead into her father's unsolved shooting that leads to unexpected danger for her. In the meantime, Sam's partner, Detective Freddie Cruz, returns to the "scene of the crime" when he looks up Elin Svendson, one of the late Senator John O'Connor's sexy ex-girlfriends. After a lifetime of virtue, will Freddie be led down the road to ruin by a temptress who wants only one thing from him?
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Book 3: Fatal Consequences
"Force pushes the boundaries by deftly using political issues like immigration to create an intricate mystery." 4 stars from RT Book Reviews
The murder of two members of the Capitol Cleaning Service might’ve been just another homicide investigation—that is If one of them hadn’t been romantically involved with a married senator from Arizona. Lt. Sam Holland and her team are plunged into another complex case that at first seems open and shut. But as Sam tugs on the threads of the investigation she uncovers a deep, dark Washington secret that threatens the careers of some of the government’s highest-ranking officials. Racing to catch a killer before he can strike again, Sam and her fiancé, U.S. Senator Nick Cappuano, attempt to plan a wedding while her colleague Detective Tommy “Gonzo” Gonzales faces life-changing news.
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Book 3.5: Fatal Destiny, The Wedding Novella
With the week of their wedding finally upon them, Washington, D.C., Police Lieutenant Sam Holland and her fiancé, Senator Nick Cappuano, are at odds. In the aftermath of a tragic loss, they struggle to reconnect as the big day draws near, but their work keeps pulling them apart. When a new clue into a cold case surfaces, Nick asks Sam not to take any foolish chances before the wedding and to leave it alone for the time being. Sam agrees, but she can't let it go entirely and winds up trapped in an explosive situation. Then an unwelcome visitor from her past threatens her future happiness… With trouble at every turn, will Sam survive long enough to walk down the aisle?
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Fatal Flaw, Book 4 in the Fatal Series,
February 6, 2012
Back from their honeymoon, Senator Nick Cappuano and D.C. Police Lieutenant Sam Holland are ready for some normalcy after the whirlwind of their wedding, but someone has other plans for them. When Sam discovers wedding cards containing thinly veiled death threats, she's not sure if she or Nick is the target.
Already on edge, Sam and her team start investigating a series of baffling murders. The victims are well-liked with no known enemies, and the murders are carried out in a clean and efficient manner. Unable to find a clear motive for the deaths, she feels like she's chasing her tail.
With no obvious connection between the victims, Sam soon suspects that she may be the ultimate prize in the killer's clever game. When the danger starts to hit a little too close to home, she has two goals: find the elusive murderer and manage to live long enough to enjoy her happily ever after.
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About The Fatal Series: Oh Yes, I Can!
“You can’t write a romance series that features the same couple in every book. You just can’t.” I love the word “can’t.” I really do. Telling me I can’t do something is like dangling a red blanket in front of a bull. It just makes me want to scream CAN SO at the top of my lungs. But rather than getting mad after everyone and her sister told me I couldn’t do it, I decided to get even. I wrote FATAL AFFAIR, intending for it to launch a series featuring Washington, D.C. Police Lieutenant Sam Holland and her love interest, U.S. Senator Nick Cappuano. I worked hard in FATAL AFFAIR to surround Sam and Nick with a rich cast of supporting characters, and I put them in a city that will provide endless sources of story and conflict for my fearless duo as well as their friends and family.
I wrote that book, I loved that book, and my agent loved it, too. Knowing the series idea would be a tough sell to romanceland, I decided to start book 2 just to make sure I could get this plan to work the way I thought it would. (Another no-no in the writing world: starting book 2 before you sell book 1. Did someone say, “can’t”? Hmmm, thought so.) We put FATAL AFFAIR out on submission and guess what we were told? You just can’t write a romance series featuring the same couple in every book. You can’t. Ouch. I mean, I knew it, but I still hoped someone might be willing to take a teeny tiny risk that maybe, just maybe, I COULD write a series featuring the same couple in every book. That maybe, just maybe, rabid romance readers would connect with this couple and want more, more, more! That maybe, just maybe, as a rabid romance reader myself, I knew what it took to make this work.
Meanwhile, back at book 2, I was finding it downright difficult to keep up the conflict in the relationship of my newly in love couple. You know that stage—the rose-color glasses phase when everything is hunky dory? Well, of course I couldn’t let them be TOO happy, now could I? I was 50,000 words into FATAL JUSTICE and being challenged like I’d never been challenged before when I got the official word that FATAL AFFAIR hadn’t sold. What’s a girl to do? Well, scream and yell and punch a few things (not people, don’t worry, although I did give my kids a heads up that it was a good day to steer clear of Mom :-). After the hissy fit subsided, my mulish Irish pride kicked in, and I set out to finish that second book.
After a significant amount of bone marrow and brain matter was donated to the cause, I finished with a scene that is probably my all-time favorite in any of my books. It took me a full year to write FATAL JUSTICE—four times longer than it took to write FATAL AFFAIR—and I finished with tears on my face because before I even wrote the words “THE END,” this book I loved with my all my heart was dead on arrival. No one would ever see it. A year later, I sold FATAL AFFAIR to Carina, which opened its doors promising to blow the lid off the publishing world. And last week, on the fifth anniversary of the day I wrote “THE END” for the very first time in my life, Carina bought FATAL JUSTICE—eighteen months after the DOA day. Guess what? OH YES, I CAN!
I couldn’t be more delighted to have found a home for these two books, and hopefully more to come in this series. I couldn’t be more delighted to be working with editors who can see the potential and possibilities for Sam, Nick, and their cast of supporting characters (yes, I’m talking to you, Angela James and Jessica Schulte!). I couldn’t be more delighted to be working with the savvy, professional, incredibly author-centric group behind Carina as well as the Harlequin team supporting this effort. Every aspect of my association with Carina has been a delight. And how about that cover? Whoa! They gave me everything I asked for and then some! When someone tells you that you can’t do something? Do it anyway. You just never know where it will lead you.
Building a World Within a World
When I started work on FATAL AFFAIR, I knew I wanted to write about a female Washington, D.C. police detective named Sam Holland, so the first thing I did was research the Metropolitan Police Department. Whoa! I quickly learned the department is enormous with levels and layers and complexities I couldn’t begin to bring to my story without weighing it down with details the reader would find tedious at best. Being the “seat-of-the-pants” writer that I am, I pressed on with the book as I pondered how to deal with this world-building challenge.
Over the course of the book, a department of my own making began to take shape. There’s a chief, deputy chief, detective captain, detective lieutenant, detectives, patrol officers, a medical examiner, etc. The chief of the real-life MPD is a woman. I would’ve loved to have done that in my books, but I needed the chief in the Fatal Series to be a crony friend of Sam’s dad. Her father, a disabled former deputy chief, plays a big role in this series, so his character helped me to inform and shape the others. Sam’s struggles to contend with being the daughter of a fallen hero while working for men she used to call “Uncle” is a central theme of the series.
I also tried to give each of Sam’s fellow officers context in their relationship with her. The chief was her Uncle Joe when she was a kid. The deputy chief is still a close friend of her father’s, as is the detective captain who serves as Sam’s mentor. Her lieutenant is her nemesis. He believes she’s gotten where she is in the department because of who she is and sets out to cause her all sorts of trouble as the series unfolds. Within Sam’s closest group of coworkers, her partner serves as a kid brother of sorts, while other colleagues fill a variety of roles in her personal and professional life. Over the course of the series, I hope to develop each of these relationships by giving these characters stories that keep them front and center in Sam’s life.
So I created my own version of the Metropolitan Police Department. I note in the acknowledgements that it is a department of my own making and is in no way intended to mirror the real thing.
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