I want to welcome back New York Bestselling Author, Caridad Piñeiro to Over Coffee. She writes paranormals, romantic suspense, and women’s fiction. I’ve spent some lovely hours immersed in the worlds she creates.Caridad has an intriguing new novel out called Sins Of The Flesh and I loved the premise when I saw it. I was fascinated by the idea of genetic engineering when Bionic Woman was popular, many years ago. As a kid, I remembered thinking, wow, wouldn’t that be cool if enhancements were possible?
Unlike poor Jamie Sommers, in Caridad’s books, her heroines get to have a happy-ever-after.
Thanks for having me at Over Coffee again! It’s always a pleasure dropping by to chat with you over my morning cup of java (I so need it to get going!).
I’ve been on a major blog tour and one of the things that I’ve been thinking about is “What do readers expect out of a book?” My editors would call it “the take-away” and when it comes to a romance, the “take-away” is usually the Happily-Ever-After.
Of course, being a paranormal suspense writer, that Happily-Ever-After can have lots of meanings, especially in a book like SINS OF THE FLESH.
SINS is about a woman, Caterina Shaw, who is genetically engineered against her will. When one of the scientists decides to blow the whistle on the illegal activities, he is savagely murdered. Caterina soon finds herself accused of the murder and on the run from both the police and the mercenary, Mick Carrera, who is sent to track her down.
For me there was a bunch of “take-aways” in this book. Caterina’s strength and optimism in the face of a grave illness, and a hard-assed mercenary for one. Mick’s underlying honor and incredible love of family for another. Vigorously mix those two take-aways and hopefully you found yourself rooting for these two to something overcome impossible odds to stay together. The Happily-Ever-After.
But there was another take-away that I was hoping would linger with readers, namely, the wonder of how much of the science part of the story was real and if it was, could it possibly already be happening? Well, there is a lot of reality behind the science, the most visible of which is Caterina’s glowing skin. Not fiction, but fact. You can actually buy fish engineered with these proteins online and in some stores. As for the camo skin and healing? Splicing together genes is happening all the time, creating foods that last longer or ripen faster. Even creating hybrids of different kinds of animals, so the possibilities are here and because of that, I’m going to leave you with a thought:
If you could mix up some genes to make the ultimate human/plant/animal, what would you mix-up and why?
Sins Of The Flesh Blurb:
- Caterina Shaw’s days are numbered. Her only chance for survival is a highly experimental gene treatment – a risk she willingly takes. But now Caterina barely recognizes herself. She has new, terrifying powers, an exotic, arresting body — and she’s been accused of a savage murder, sending her on the run.
- Mick Carrera is a mercenary and an expert at capturing elusive, clever prey. Yet the woman he’s hunting down is far from the vicious killer he’s been told to expect: Caterina is wounded, vulnerable, and a startling mystery of medical science. Even more, she’s a beautiful woman whose innocent sensuality tempts Mick to show her exactly how thrilling pleasure can be. The heat that builds between them is irresistible, but surrendering to it could kill them both . . . for a dangerous group is plotting its next move using Caterina as its deadly pawn.
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Caridad was born in Havana, Cuba, and settled in the New York Metropolitan area. She attended Villanova University on a Presidential Scholarship and graduated magna cum laude. Caridad earned her juris doctor from St. John’s University and became the first female partner of Abelman, Frayne & Schwab, an intellectual property firm in midtown Manhattan.From the start, Caridad’s novels have received acclaim and have helped redefine the landscape of modern romance novels. In 1999, Caridad was published by Kensington as part of Encanto, the first line of bilingual Latino romance novels. In 2000, Caridad was one of the first Latino authors featured at the launch of BookExpo America’s Spanish Pavillion. In December 2006, Caridad helped Silhouette launch its successful Nocturne paranormal line with DEATH CALLS, one of the novels in the award-winning THE CALLING Vampire series. In addition, Caridad has appeared at BookExpo America on numerous occasions and has captained both the multicultural and vampire genre panels at the RT BookClub Conventions.
In 2009, Caridad will debut a new paranormal romantic suspense series with Grand Central Publishing. The first novel in the series, SINS OF THE FLESH, will be released in November 2009.
When not writing, Caridad teaches workshops on various topics related to writing and heads a writing group. Caridad is also an attorney, wife and mother.
