Do you believe in love at first sight? I do. The moment I set foot in Burlington, Vermont, two summers ago, I knew I was wildly, head-over-heels, never-to-recover in love with Vermont.
It was a no-brainer to set IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (on sale now) on the beautiful shores of Lake Champlain. Lana Biel longs to leave her family’s Vermont wildflower farm so she can travel and see the world. And her sister Karin wants nothing more than to put down roots and conceive the child she and her husband just can’t seem to have. When a lighthearted fling with a mountain biker leaves Lana expecting, she finds herself tumbling headlong into motherhood while her sister Karin can only look on.
For help, Lana turns to Eli Ward, a professional meteorite hunter and her best friend for the last ten years. But Eli’s keeping secrets that could turn their friendship on its head. As the Vermont seasons change and the flowers in the wildflower meadows begin to fade, Lana must make some meaningful decisions about her family, her friendships, her love life, and her dreams.
Many of my girlfriends are new moms—and what a lifestyle change motherhood brings! At some point I think all women must wrestle with the question, Can we have it all? The kids, the job, the freedom, and the man of our dreams? Lana lives for her future and pins all her hopes on traveling the world. But what happens when fate has other plans?
I hope you’ll read about Lana, Karin, and Eli’s journey as they discover the courage within. Please check out my website at www.LisaDaleBooks.com. I love to hear from readers and hope you’ll be in touch.
Happy reading!
From the desk of Caridad Piñeiro
Dear Reader,
I have a confession to make—I’m a science geek.
I’ve always been fascinated with how things work, and so it was no surprise that I decided to major in science when I went to Villanova. It was probably more of a surprise that I did a switch after college to pursue a career in law and then decided to return to my first love—writing.
What wasn’t a surprise with my writing is that over the years my love of science and how things work has always managed to make it into my various novels. Whether they were paranormals, romance, or suspense, the science geek in me always found a way to research and try something new in each novel.
Of course, this is more true for SINS OF THE FLESH (on sale now) than for any of my other novels. With SINS OF THE FLESH (and the rest of the upcoming books in the SINS series), I let the science nerd out of the closet and delved into some of my favorite subjects in college—genetics, immunology, and biology. I also got to use some of the interesting developments that have been going on over the years since I graduated.
Interesting things like the GFPs (green fluorescent proteins) that make Caterina glow—the ones whose creators were acknowledged with the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Did you know that scientists have developed cats that glow in the dark? GFPs let them trace and mark where genes are going!
There are lots of other factual instances in SINS OF THE FLESH based on new developments in gene therapy as well as my own musings on where splicing human and nonhuman genes may take us in the future.
Tossed in with all that science are some of the things that I love most when I write—a determined heroine who is not afraid to fight her own battles and a hero who is strong enough to embrace the love of family and a special woman.
Mix all those parts together and I hope you will find yourself hooked on the world I’ve created for the SINS series!
Wishing you all the best and much edge-of-seat reading,
www.caridad.com
Contents
FRONT COVER IMAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
PREQUEL: THE MAKING OF THE MAN
A PREVIEW OF THE LOST
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
EPILOGUE
THE DISH
PRAISE FOR SINS OF THE FLESH
COPYRIGHT
Praise for
SINS OF THE FLESH
“Captured my full attention with its too-human characters and its too-real plot. A fascinating, adrenaline-fueled read! I could not stop turning pages!”
—Debra Webb, national bestselling
author of Everywhere She Turns
“If you’re feverish for a chilling scientific thriller with a sharp edge of romance, I prescribe SINS OF THE FLESH as a sexy, satisfying cure!”
—Jessica Andersen, award-winning
author of Skykeepers
“I can’t wait until the next novel in this new series comes out! She is on my automatic reading list! No one creates a page turner like Piñeiro!”
—Lindsay McKenna, USA Today
bestselling author of Dangerous Prey
“Cutting-edge scientific conspiracy gives ‘paranormal’ a fascinating and believable new edge in Caridad Piñeiro’s exciting romantic thriller. Her characters generate plenty of heart, heat, and heroism to defeat clever and brutal killers.”
—Carole Nelson Douglas, award-winning
author of Vampire Sunrise
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Caridad Piñeiro Scordato
The Lost copyright © 2011 by Caridad Piñeiro
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Forever
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
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Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: November 2009
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-446-55830-3
Sins of the Flesh Page 27
