Today I’m excited to have author Denisea Kampe on the
Sunday’s Author Spotlight. Denisea Kampe is the author of several contemporary
romance novels. Her latest novel ‘Bridge of Lies’ was published this year. Read
more about this new book in the guest post Denisea wrote especially for Maureen’s
Books. 

Good Sunday morning, y’all! And thank you, Maureen for
hosting me today on your Sunday Author Spotlight. I’m so excited to be here and
share my inspirational military romance, Bridge of Lies, with you and all your
readers.

Long ago and far away, I wrote under a pen name, which
I’ve since abandoned going on three years now. Truth be told, that pen name
girl, she wasn’t me. She wrote things I’m not particularly proud of now and
swerved far left from what I originally set out to do: write contemporary
romance. I didn’t know ‘Bridge of Lies’ would fall under the inspirational
category until it fell under the inspirational category. It was the first thing
that came to me after the switch from pen name to real me so it’s what hit the
paper, and honestly I’m not sure if another true inspirational title will come
to me, but if it does I’m at the ready. It’s not the first title published under
real me, but it’s the first thing I wrote completely under my own name, so I’m
pretty proud of it and its message. About ‘Bridge of Lies’…

 

With his
father’s blessing, against his
mother’s wishes, and without the woman he’d thought to someday call his wife,
Eli Jackson left his hometown and the family farm behind in pursuit of a career
beyond hay bales and cows. For ten years he’s served his country and served it
well with multiple tours to the Middle East courtesy of the Marine Corps. In
all that time, he rarely returned home and never for any great length of time,
preferring not to hear the worst about himself through a rumor he in fact
started. But after missing his ten year class reunion, something calls Eli back
to the snowiest Christmas Missouri has seen in years. Never did he expect that
literally in the midst of the storm, the girl he believed he could never have
would slip back into his life. 

Calliope Barnwell never thought for a moment she
was in Eli Jackson’s league. Sure, they mingled in the same social circles in
high school, but she knew as well as anyone she was there by default. After
hearing how he treated his girlfriend before leaving for boot camp, Calliope
wondered if she ever really knew him at all, even if her contact with him had
been limited to her observations from afar and she pushes him out of her mind.
Well, for the most part. His fly by night visits home only serve to remind her
of what she knew she could never have and the fact she actually misses him
befuddles her. Yet one winter’s night, he manages to not only plant himself in
her path, he figures out almost all her dirty little secrets in a matter of
hours. 

Then in that voice as smooth as aged bourbon,
Eli starts talking about the space that exists between being just friends and
more. Calliope wants more. Eli’s plan to help her recover from her fall from
grace seems sound, but sometimes more comes with a hefty price tag and after
spanning that space with a bridge of lies which bows under the stress and
threatens to collapse, they find themselves questioning if the cost is worth
it.

I thought this morning I’d share a few behind the scenes
facts about Bridge of Lies and how it came to fruition.

Marriages of convenience are nothing new. In fact,
they’ve been occurring since the dawn of time when woman knew she needed the
crème de la crème of the crop in order to survive. Love wasn’t necessarily as
much a part of the equation as eating was. There are cases of military men and
women marrying for convenience sake rather than love. It’s not condoned and can
be a punishable offense if it’s discovered the marriage is a fraud with the
only purpose being a fleecing of government monies and resources. While I’ve
never known of a single case of fraud being proven, it does in fact exist at
times. The occurrences of fraudulent marriages I’ve been privy to was the
catalyst for the plot line ‘Bridge of Lies’ follows.

Although I never specifically mention their exact
address, Eli and Calli live in the same base house MarshFox and I lived in when
first arriving at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The housing area it was located
in has since gone through some serious renovation and although it looks nothing
like it did when I first set foot in it back in 2001, it will always be the
tiny brick house where I planted my first flowers that someone else would
inherit. And the mention of having to know exactly how to utilize closet space
in those small homes, totally real!

Eli’s job is in the communications field. Although
MarshFox started out as a heavy equipment mechanic, he spent some time with a
comm unit because he knows how to work on the diesel run generators they use to
light up field exercises. It was fun revisiting our days with “the wing” in my
mind as I wrote Eli’s work scenes.

The commissary… There is a point in the story one of the
secondary characters has a run in with a wife who spreads rumors like wild
fire, you guessed it, at the commissary. If you do your marketing on base, it is
inevitable you will run into a few people you know. The Corps is a small world.
Some of these people will be friend and some foe. Lesson learned—be mindful of
what you say to anyone you encounter who might know a friend of a friend of a
friend.

Eli and Calli have known each other since childhood. When
they reunite, it’s in and around their childhood hometown. I never mention a
specific name of that town, but it is based on my hometown in Missouri. And,
no. Neither Eli nor Calli are based on me and a long lost boy, nor anyone I
know from that town, although Eli embodies the values many of the boys I grew
up with had instilled in them from their fathers.

Now that you know a bit of the back story behind the
story, here’s a short snippet from the book…

“Where’s Calliope?” Eli asked, grabbing the ticket before
anyone else could and standing to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Punching out,” Gail answered, taking the crisp bills Eli
offered and turning toward the front, presumably to collect his change.

“Keep it,” Eli tossed her way as he darted toward the
door where he could see their canary yellow cab just pulling in as Calliope
made her way across the parking lot. He waved over his shoulder toward the
table he’d just left. “You guys go ahead without me. I’ll find a way home.”

In the least, he owed the woman an apology. An offer of
dinner wasn’t out of the question either, since somehow a mouthful of words
didn’t seem enough to make up for picking a scab off what was clearly a still
festering wound.

By the time Eli pushed the door open and stepped out onto
the pavement, which had only grown slicker with the new round of wintery mix
now falling, Calliope was slowly making her way down the sidewalk toward town.
Bundled in nothing more than a heavy sweater, her face was buried in the collar
as she took tiny, metered steps into the freezing darkness. He imagined her
legs must be aching from exposure as her uniform skirt ended just above her
knees and bare skin gleamed between there and the tops of her boots which ended
mid-calf.

“Calliope, wait,” Eli shouted against a wind strong
enough to take his breath and steal his words before they made it past the end
of the building. If she was afraid to drive home in the weather, he’d make sure
she got there safely. That is, if she’d believe him when he said he was sobered
up sufficiently to accomplish that. What the coffee hadn’t taken care of the
knife sharp blade of winter air had. “Calliope Barnwell,” he tried a bit
louder, sprinting as quickly as the glassy ground would allow. “Wait.”

Her steps halted as she turned her head and peered from
beneath the sweater’s collar at him half jogging, half skating toward her.
Without a word, she returned her gaze toward town and set off again, teetering
a bit before finding sure footing again.

Between her wobbling along and his slightly quicker pace,
Eli caught up to her in no time. He in fact passed her then turned and stopped
so she’d be forced to either stop as well and acknowledge him or go around.
Neither scenario materialized though as she gasped and stumbled, her eyes
growing wide with fright and her arms flapping in circles as she tried to
regain balance. Her purse slid to her wrist before stopping and hanging
precariously.

“Oh, man,” Eli groaned as he scooted forward just in time
to keep her from hitting the ground. He ran his arms around her middle and held
on for dear life, spreading his stance to ensure they both kept their footing.
“I’m so sorry. Seems I’m not doing a great job in the I’d like to get reacquainted department tonight.” As they steadied,
one of Eli’s hands strayed from just under one of her breasts and eased down
the gentle swell of Calliope’s belly to rest at her side where a minute tic caressed
his palm. “Oh my God,” he breathed. “Are you pregnant?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not a contagious condition,” she
answered in a wavering voice over chattering teeth. “You can turn loose now.”

Again, thanks for hosting me today and thanks readers for
coming by and spending a few minutes with me. I’d be happy to answer any
questions you might have, just leave them in the comments. If you’d like to
keep up with me, you can find me at my Blog and on Facebook. ‘Bridge of Lies’ is now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Happy reading!

Denisea Kampe

Twenty-seven years, more than a dozen deployments, five
kids…and one missing wife.

After twenty-seven years of marriage and service to his country, Gavin McIntyre
returns from what he hopes will be his last deployment before either reaching
the highest attainable enlisted rank in the Marine Corps or retiring. But what
he returns to leaves him flat aback with a busted mast and broken rudder. His
wife is a no show for the homecoming. Using the ages old adage of improvise,
adapt, and overcome, he makes his way home only to discover, she hasn’t simply
forgotten to pick him up from the bus, she’s gone. In her wake, Gavin finds his
home set up boot camp style and twenty dollars in the cookie jar, but any
evidence he’s ever had a wife or five children with her is deplete.

Pregnant at sixteen and married to a marine in a less than romantic ceremony
courtesy of the local Justice, Raylyn McIntyre has spent almost three decades
playing the dutiful patriotic wife, catering to the whims of the military.
She’s lost track of how many places she’s lived, how many deployments she’s
endured, and how many tears she’s shed. But most of all, she’s lost track of
herself. With a husband who’s so wrapped up in saving the world he can’t see
he’s losing his family, Ray resorts to the one tactic he might understand…a
full frontal attack with extreme prejudice, which proves to get Gavin’s waning
attention.

Nothing good ever comes easy, though, and just when her choice of battle plan
seems to be working, tragedy befalls their family. As Ray and Gavin struggle to
find center, they also struggle with the notion that forgiveness of self is
often the only path to forgiveness of another, and that path is not only bumpy
but filled with pitfalls.

Target: Libby Calhoun. She’s independent and
strong-willed, the daughter of a near infamous Marine Corps sniper. Libby’s
been raised by the resident housekeeper, has learned to take care of herself
over the years and doesn’t take crap off anyone. She’s also sassy and pretty
darn cute. After one failed

Sometimes mourning the loss of one life while rejoicing
the discovery of another requires more than one tear…

Living just outside an Army base in the Midwest meant Madison
Melbourne grew up around soldiers by the thousands. While they were a constant
in her life, she never envisioned herself filling the role of Army wife. Until
Gage came along. Over the course of a few months, Madi knew two things. She
might be head over heels and she was definitely pregnant. Against the advice of
friends and family, she jumps over the state line and into a marriage that
would later be defined by the secrets it held rather than the truths she
thought it was based on. Upon his death in combat, Gage leaves Madi with more
questions than answers and more debt than money forcing her from her Kentucky
home and right back where she started. She may be at square one, but Madi’s
determined to move forward and never to be left destitute and heartbroken
again.

Seeing how difficult the Marine Corps is on marriages and
families, Rafe McCarthy has sentenced himself to a life of hard time as a
bachelor, living for the moment and never staying with any woman long enough
for the grass to grow beneath his feet. In fact, Rafe has a reputation as the
unit player that follows him everywhere he goes with a vengeance. But it seems
biological time clocks aren’t just a female thing. In fact, Rafe’s biological
alarm goes off one afternoon and like a man possessed, he falls into a wife
seeking mode akin to the heat seeking missiles he’s watched zipping over the
Middle East for the last several years. It’s only a matter of hours before he
has Madi in his crosshairs and a matter of days until he realizes he’s sighted
in on one tragically broken woman. But instead of listening to every single
male instinct he possesses and running, Rafe digs in his heels, determined they
can work and hell-bent on making her happy.

And then the tears come…

These and more books by Denisea Kampe are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.