Interview & Review of Under The Surface by Anne Calhoun

We are really excited to have author Anne  with us today.  She is promoting her latest book Under the Surface.  Enjoy her interview  and a sneak peek after some thoughts on the book.

Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date of publication: May 2016

Welcome to Eye Candy, the East Side’s hottest nightclub where the bartenders are hot, the cocktails are fancy, and danger lurks just under the surface…

Eve Webber, the gorgeous and savvy owner of Eye Candy, knows better than anyone that growing up on the wrong side of the tracks comes with certain complications. Determined to run a clean business and fix up the East Side, Eve’s plans get temporarily stalled when a potential new hire walks into her bar. The sexual chemistry crackling between them is a potent distraction…even if she refuses to mix business with the promise of pleasure.

Detective Matt Dorchester lives by strict rules that have kept him alive in impossible situations. When his latest undercover assignment has him playing a bartender, his desire for the passionate owner has him breaking every single one. Eve is in danger and her life depends on his secrecy. But once their attraction reaches a climactic conclusion, Matt must make a desperate choice: Tell her the truth about who he really is—or risk a once-in-a-lifetime love to save her life?

My thoughts:

In Under the Surface, Eve Webber was asked by a friend of the family to helkp launder money through her business.  She accepts, then promptly goes to the police with the information.  After she agrees to help them in an undercover operation, Matt goes undercover as a bartender named Chad. Sparks are ignited from the beginning.  For the most part, I enjoyed this book.  It looks like it is a part of a series, but I never felt like I was missing anything.  It stands up well as a stand alone.

I liked both Eve.  I liked Eve's determination to make it on her own.  She is a strong business woman who cares about the community.  Matt was a little harder to understand.  I felt like I got hints of why he was kind of cold and closed off, but I would have liked more about his background.  Maybe more interaction with him and his brother Luke.  The couple was good together and I was glad that Eve found out about Matt's real identity early on in the story. That made for a lot less angst over the "lies" between them. So, the romance part was my favorite part of the story.

As for the suspense, there wasn't as much as I would have liked.  I guess I was expecting more than I got.  The big scene in the end was kind of anti-climactic for me. I also felt like there were some loose ends left open. One other thing kept bothering me throughout the book.  Eve makes a big deal about firing a bartender who had sex with a customer in the parking lot.  Yet, she has no qualms about hitting on and sleeping with her employee.  That just didn't sit right with me.  Even if that employee was Matt.

Any way, if you are looking for a couple with heat, definitely check this one out.  Eve and Matt have it in spades!

Hi, Kari and Autumn! Thanks for having me!

Kari& Autumn: What inspired you to become a writer?

Anne: Well, the short answer is that a lifelong love of reading inspired me to become a writer. The longer and more realistic answer is that about a decade in corporate America doing everything from designing executive compensation plans to project management to HR systems development strengthened my desire to get a job where I could work from home on my own schedule and call daydreaming “research”.

Kari& Autumn: Where do you come up with the ideas for your books?

Anne: Lots of places! The newspaper is one of my favorite places to get ideas, especially for the suspense series that kicks off with Under The Surface. Otherwise, I follow my interests. If I’m interested in urban gardening, chances are good it will show up as a character’s work or passion.

Kari& Autumn: What exciting projects are waiting in the wings?

Anne: Going Deep, the sequel to Under The Surface, and featuring Matt Dorchester’s colleague Conn McCormick will be out in November. Conn gets roped into playing bodyguard for hometown girl/pop star, Maud Ward. I love bodyguard tropes, so this was a fun one to write. The third book in the series, which is Ian Hawthorn’s story, may or may not be called Reckless, or Falling Hard, or something else entirely, but will definitely be out next summer. I’m finishing up the manuscript now.

Kari& Autumn: Who is your favorite literary character and why?

Anne: Depends on my mood. I love Anne Elliott, from Jane Austen’s Persuasion. She’s devoted to her family, despite their lack of respect for her interests and gifts, and has never given up her love for Captain Wentworth. My second favorite is Miles Vorkosigan. The entire Vorkosigan saga is one of my comfort reads.

Kari& Autumn: Just for fun, if you could be any animal, what would it be and why?

Anne: A hawk. It’s such a different way of being in the world. They’re fierce, deadly, and beautiful. 

Excerpt:

One of the most basic components of police work was learning to control a situation. A good undercover cop adjusted his personality and attitude to manage the situation according to his objectives. Matt was as good as they came, and that bluff should have worked.

Except Eve Webber raised the stakes without blinking an eye, and suddenly white-hot, explicit images of exactly how they’d finish what she’d started flashed in his brain . . . the skirt that barely covered her upper thighs, her desk, and that sleek mass of black hair she kept tugging free from the glossy color on her mouth. Heat flashed through him, the sensation shockingly intense.

Your job is to keep her alive, not get her into bed.

Eve emerged from her office around seven, iPhone in hand, and once she started working the room the vibe punched up several notches. Watching her smile and talk to the customers triggered something he couldn’t put his finger on.

During a brief lull, he turned to Tom, the steroid-buffed player working the station next to his. “She looks familiar.”

Tom hit the button on the blender to mix a raspberry daiquiri. “She won the newspaper’s sexiest female bartender contest two years running before she switched over to events management at the Met.” “Fucking moron” was implied at the end of that sentence.

A niggling memory surfaced of the newspaper’s Arts and Culture section getting passed around before the shift briefing a couple of years ago, right before he made the leap to detective and started working long-term undercover assignments. The article’s text meandered alongside a full-length picture of Eve, hair tumbled into her face, hands braced on the bar behind her, wearing a white blouse unbuttoned deep in her cleavage, a tight, short black skirt, black stockings, and heels. Her slim legs were crossed at the ankle, and the angle of the shot made them seemed endless. He should have been focused on the briefing, but he’d given the photo a good thorough look before handing it to his partner, who’d looked even longer.

The provocative shot actually masked what won Eve the contest. In person she radiated vitality, a sheer visceral force that drew light, glances, attention. Even more surprising was the way she didn’t hoard the energy but rather turned it back on whomever she was talking to. Like that person was the only person in the room. Like she heard what they were saying, and maybe even what they weren’t saying.

Life flowed into this woman. She amplified it and sent it back out into the world, and he couldn’t stop watching her.

She checked in with her bouncer, the size of the Hulk, with gang ink disappearing into the sleeves of his T-shirt.

“That’s not an off-duty cop,” he said.

“Friend of the family,” Tom replied over the music. “Someone her dad knew.”

“Bars this busy usually hire the pros,” Matt said as he pulled out a fresh rack of glasses.

“You know what those assholes charge? They’re fucking expensive,” Tom said as he handed the drink across the bar. “And they’re nosy. Hot Stuff doesn’t like strangers in her business.”

Matt would bet his Jeep that Eve wouldn’t like being called Hot Stuff, but if Tom hadn’t figured that out, Matt wasn’t about to enlighten him. He watched as she cleared a couple of abandoned glasses off the bar in front of him and handed them to a passing busboy, then came around the corner of the bar, trailing her fingers along the polished wood. He handed the drink to a customer and gave her his full attention.

“How are you doing?” she asked, scanning his station.

“You tell me,” he replied, and if he got a little closer than necessary to hear what she was saying over the thumping dance music, well, he was just doing his job. Given the heat in the bar, he expected perfume, something musky and sexy. Instead the faintest scent of mint and rosemary drifted into the air between them when she tucked her hair behind her ears.

“I’m satisfied,” she said, not backing away. “The job’s yours if you want it.”

She was less than a breath away from him. A shift of his weight and a deep inhale, and they’d be breathing together like they were naked and horizontal. The heat sizzled and popped between them and it didn’t take training in body language to read the signals. Eve Webber wanted him.

Chad Henderson. His undercover identity, the man he was pretending to be. Not him.

No matter who he was today, neither he nor Chad could have her. He was supposed to keep her safe, make sure she didn’t change her mind about working with the department, monitor any appearances Murphy made in Eye Candy.

He wanted her.

“I want the job,” he said, not bothering to hide what he really meant.

She looked at him through the layered, sweeping fall of hair he wanted to brush back so he could see her eyes, her mouth. “Hang around after close. I’ll give you the paperwork to fill out and bring back with you tomorrow.”

He leaned in, as if he needed to speak with her, employee to employer, but didn’t want to shout over the music. “See you later, boss,” he rasped.

About the author:

After doing time at Fortune 500 companies on both coasts, Anne landed in a flyover state, where she traded business casual for yoga pants and decided to write down all the lively story ideas that got her through years of monotonous corporate meetings. Her first book, LIBERATING LACEY won the EPIC Award for Best Contemporary Erotic Romance. Her story WHAT SHE NEEDS was chosen for Smart Bitch Sarah's Sizzling Book Club. Anne holds a BA in History and English, and an MA in American Studies from Columbia University. When she's not writing her hobbies include reading, knitting, and yoga. She lives in the Midwest with her family and single-handedly supports her local Starbucks.