Part of Series
The Dogfather is a brand new contemporary romance series from New York Times bestselling author Roxanne St. Claire celebrating what she loves most: hot guys, great dogs, big families…and true love. And a portion of the proceeds from every book in the series will be donated to the Alaqua Animal Refuge in the author’s home state of Florida! New Leash on Life When former attorney and current dog whisperer Shane Kilcannon messes up his chance with a beautiful stranger whose confident smile and quick wit intrigue him more than any woman he's ever met, he’s ready to snarl like one of his beloved pit bulls. But Shane's work with the wildest and wariest of his family's rescue dogs has taught him patience and persistence. When his father hands him the opportunity to work alongside that very same woman who has come to town with groundbreaking tourism plans, he seizes it. He even offers to help her win over the locals, as long as she is willing to give a temporary home to one misunderstood dog…and spend plenty of time with Shane. Chloe Somerset has built a reputation in the tourism industry as someone with big ideas that put little places on the map, and she’s certain she can do the same for Bitter Bark, North Carolina. All she has to do is convince one small town to change its name, open her clean-freak heart to a dog with a penchant for face-licking, and avoid the landmines of local politics when her plans divide the townspeople. But none of that is as scary as the feeling of falling hard for a sexy charmer who whispers all the right things and tempts Chloe to forget a lifetime of hard lessons. Shane might know exactly how to get through to the creatures who need care the most, but he's met his match with Chloe, and it'll take every trick he knows to teach her to fall in love. The Dogfather Series Daniel Kilcannon is known as “The Dogfather” for a reason. It’s not just his renowned skills as a veterinarian, his tremendous love of dogs, or the fact that he has turned his homestead in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains into a world class dog training and rescue facility. Ask his six grown children who run Waterford Farm for him, and they’ll tell you that their father’s nickname is due to his uncanny ability to pull a few strings to get what he wants. And what he wants is for his four sons and two daughters to find the kind of life-changing love he had with his dearly departed wife, Annie. This old dog has a few new tricks…and he’ll use them all to see his pack all settled into their happily ever afters! SIT…STAY…BEG (Book 1) NEW LEASH ON LIFE (Book 2) LEADER OF THE PACK (Book 3) BAD TO THE BONE (Book 4) RUFF AROUND THE EDGES (Book 5) DOUBLE DOG DARE (Book 6) OLD DOG NEW TRICKS (Book 7) About the Author Published since 2003, Roxanne St. Claire is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than forty romance and suspense novels. She has written several popular series, including Barefoot Bay, the Guardian Angelinos, and the Bullet Catchers. In addition to being a nine-time nominee and one-time winner of the prestigious RITA™ Award for the best in romance writing, Roxanne’s novels have won the National Reader’s Choice Award for best romantic suspense three times, as well as the Maggie, the Daphne du Maurier Award, the HOLT Medallion, Booksellers Best, Book Buyers Best, the Award of Excellence, and many others. She lives in Florida with her husband, and still attempts to run the lives of her teenage daughter and 20-something son. She loves dogs, books, chocolate, and wine, but not always in that order.
Author
I don’t know about you, but when I check out an author's bio, it’s usually because I’ve read a book I liked and wondered about the person behind it. Let's skip the formal bio and I'll give you the inside scoop on who Roxanne St. Claire really is. First of all, call me Rocki. Everyone does. Evidently, when my mother brought me home from the hospital I seemed too scrawny and small to pull off “Roxanne” (she’d read Cyrano de Bergerac while pregnant or I would have been Judy) so they called me Rocki. I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, the youngest of five (overachievers, every one), and fell in love with words and stories the summer I read Gone With The Wind. That year, for my twelfth birthday, my parents gave me a typewriter (with italic font – it was the coolest thing) and from that day on, I’ve had my fingers on a keyboard, pounding out love stories for fun. My AP English teacher taught me the two most important lessons an aspiring author ever needs: 1) verbs are the key to life and 2) a writer should get a real job. After attending UCLA and graduating with a degree in communications, I tried acting and television broadcasting. Oh, they aren’t real jobs? I learned that the hard way. I changed my last name from Zink to St. Claire because a news producer told me Roxanne Zink had too many harsh consonants for a TV personality – apparently Katie Couric didn’t get the memo. I got some fun gigs, and even met Tom Hanks when I did a guest appearance on Bosom Buddies. I liked on camera work, but wasn’t too crazy about starvation, so I moved to Boston and got that “real” job. In fact, I placed my foot on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and didn’t look down until I’d climbed all the way up to the level of Senior Vice President at the world’s largest public relations firm. On the way up, I met the man of my dreams in an elevator. Two years later – in the same elevator! – he asked me to marry him and I wisely said yes. I stayed in PR, moved to Miami, had a few babies, lost my home in a hurricane, built another one a few hours north and all along, I kept writing my “stories” for fun. One night, I read a particularly fabulous romance novel that changed my life for good. That night, I decided I wanted to make someone else feel as whole and happy as that author made me feel. (Everyone asks! It was Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.) With two small children and one big “real” job, writing my first novel wasn’t easy, but I did finish a manuscript that managed to get the attention of a literary agent. She told me to do one thing and one thing fast: write another book. (The first one is usually a “learner” book, honestly.) That second manuscript sold to Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books and was released in 2003 as Tropical Getaway. Since then, I’ve written almost thirty more, in multiple genres, and long ago replaced the corporate ladder with the rollercoaster of publishing as a full-time novelist. Finally, writing is my real job. Today, I live in a small beach community in Florida with my husband and two dogs. Our kids are off to college and law school, which means my nest is empty! I spend my time writing, working with the kids at my church, enjoying my husband's gourmet cooking, and hanging with my many writer friends. Of course, I love to read. I’m still crazy about words and stories and hope to write at least a hundred books in my lifetime. And, yes, verbs are the key to life. My favorites? Love. Work. Believe. xoxo Rocki
