Excerpts

EXCERPT 1 | printable excerpt

EXCERPT 2 | printable excerpt

Orphaned at nine, Dean "Havoc" Conor has grown into a tough-as-nails extreme fighter happy to live a solitary life. When he receives a letter from his two little sisters, who he hasn't seen in the twenty years since their parents died, Dean reluctantly decides to honor their request and return home to Harmony, Ky. Once there, he finds that the aunt who raised his sisters has squandered most of their inheritance and that one of his sisters, Cam, is engaged to a sleaze named Roger. He also meets Cam's best friend, Eve Lavon, an opinionated beauty who already has the commitment-phobic Dean figured out. However, if Dean's going to drive off Roger and figure out why someone in Harmony is trying to kill him, he'll need Eve's help—and he'll have to confront his growing feelings for her.

More interesting, though, is Dean's struggle to become the family man his sisters need, a transformation that Foster executes with skill, elevating the tight if typical romance plot with convincing, heartfelt family drama. (Feb.) --- From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dean "Havoc" Conor, a gorgeous "extreme" fighter, returns to Harmony, Kentucky, in response to a letter from one of his two estranged sisters.

Camille needs money to repair their old home so she can sell it and marry a guy Dean dislikes immediately. The younger sister Jacki, 21, is still acting and dressing like a spoiled teenager, but she also has a quick wit and smart mouth, much like Dean himself. Then there's Aunt Lorna, who raised the girls with a heavy and humorless hand and spent their inheritance on herself. While all this is being revealed, Dean becomes smitten with Camille's best friend, Eve, and a fight buddy of his arrives and winds up falling for Jacki and helping put a new roof on the old house. In the end, Camille's fiance is redeemed, Aunt Lorna gets hers, and the guys get their women. Foster supplies good sex and great humor along the way in a thoroughly enjoyable romance reminiscent of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' novels. --- Mary K. Chelton, From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

"If you haven’t read a Lori Foster book lately, then I suggest you head on out and pick up Causing Havoc. Dean is a sigh-worthy hero who will have you drooling and linger in your memory for years to come, just like Joe Winston has for many. Move over, Eve, I want Dean. J The words fly across the pages and makes Causing Havoc one fantastically entertaining story. Can you tell I liked it? You bet! And I can’t wait for more stories from Harmony." --- Patti Fischer

Lori Foster is at her best CAUSING HAVOC with this delightful combination family drama, romance, and a bit of a mystery that all blends together into a wonderful contemporary. Though Dean and Eve are the lead characters, the changing relationship between the fighter and his sisters make the tale work as Dean wants to avoid entanglements, but Jacki and especially Cam will not allow him to do so. A secondary romance between Jacki and Gregor enhance the novel with apparently Dean’s manager next on the fight (make that romance) card. --- Harriet Klausner

Causing Havoc by Lori Foster takes us to the fascinating world of extreme fighting. This book has everything I love in a Foster novel, family, friendship and smoking hot passion. --- Judy Flohr

It was tough for me to finish this story, because I found myself somehow bonding to these characters. I loved Dean's protective brotherly ways towards Cam and Jacki--even though he didn't want to admit to feeling brotherly. Also, I loved all the little mistakes the three siblings made until they finally learned that, as a family all that matters is love and trust. Everything else will come. Not since the Buckhorns have I wanted to visit and revisit a family like I did with the Connors. I give Lori Foster very high marks for creating a story that I know I'll want to re'read! --- Anne Rainey

I'm sorry Noah, Joe and Jamie. I still love you but there's a new man in my life, Dean "Havoc" Conor. I devoured this book. Causing Havoc is a emotional, steamy, and humorous read that captured my attention and heart from the first page. No one writes sexy alpha-males like Lori Foster.
When you mix strong, confident, and gorgeous with caring, giving, and family oriented, you have a Lori Foster hero...you have Dean "Havoc" Conor.
Kelley Vitollo

This story takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride, where you feel a myriad of emotions love, hate, sadness, protectiveness and humour. Lori proves that blood is thicker than water, and who says you
can't go home. I highly recommend this book, and look forward to more.
Reader, Cryna Palmiere

Every Lori Foster novel is a scorching romance that is certain to hook you from the very first page, but every Lori Foster novel doesn’t have what this one has…Dean ‘Havoc’ Conor. You see, it’s not that he’s the sexiest Alpha Male I’ve ever read (oh my, yes!) it’s that he’s got a weak spot—family. How can you possibly resist a man like that? Eve Lavon tries…really! I guess some men are just too good—or bad—to resist!
Reader, Tami Boyer

Lori Foster continues her enormously popular SBC extreme fighting series with CAUSING HAVOC, the story of Dean "Havoc" Conor, a tortured soul who has returned home to get to know his estranged sisters and perhaps even find himself. Who knew that he would also find something he wasn't looking for - the one woman capable of wreaking her own havoc . . . on his heart.
Reader, Laurie Damron

1. In your books how do you decide which secondary characters should get their own stories?

The characters talk to me, tell me their story, and I write it. If they don't talk to me, I don't have a story to tell. It's weird, really. I get these streams of dialogue in my head. And yeah, that's why I have shirts that say, "I'm not schizophrenic. I'm a writer." :)

2. Have reader requests ever swayed you into writing a book on a secondary character that you perhaps had not given thought to before?  If so, which one?

Not really, because as I said above, if they aren't talking to me, I don't have a story for them. But readers have convinced me to bump up a story that I might have written later instead of sooner.

3.  As a reader I love series books, have you ever written a book that started out as a lone book, that snowballed into a series?

Most of them! I've only really planned two series, those being the Buckhorn Brothers through Harlequin and The Visitation Series from Kensington. However, the Visitation series got started because Joe Winston showed up. I was writing away on WILD when suddenly Joe was there. His sister, Alyx, did the same thing. I didn't know the Winston brothers had a cousin Joe, until he jumped on the page and said, "Here I am!" and I didn't know Joe had a sister until she called him in the middle of SAY NO TO JOE?

4.  I have noticed that your books have a strong feeling of family running through them, why is that?

Probably because I consider family to be so important, in all its different configurations. Blood related or not, people become family and play large roles in our lives, helping to determine who we are and what we believe in. They give us grief and they give us support. They cry for us and with us. They're there in good times and bad. Everyone, in my opinion, needs family of some sort.

5. How do you go from one book to another in a series, ie;  reintroducing characters, without going into too much detail?  Like for those of us who say, read book 2 or 3 first <G>.

In my mind, each book is book #1. The hero and heroine of the story is the main focus, not the background or the other characters.

6. How do you keep track of your characters from book to book?

I have character sheets that I fill out as I go along in a book. I mark names and nicknames, ages, height, weight (where appropriate, like in the fighter books) hair and eye color, fashion preferences, cars that are driven, houses... every detail I can think of.