Guest Author: Tracy Wolff

Sorry folks. We're moving a little slow here today. Please welcome Tracy Wolff ...

Easter was this past Sunday, which for me means that my family gathers together, makes Easter baskets, goes to church and then out to brunch, has a huge Easter egg hunt for all the kids in the backyard and then my mom and I make Easter dinner while everyone else rides herd on the sugared up children.

As I sit here writing this blog, reflecting on my brand new erotic suspense, Tease Me, I’m reminded of how lucky I am to belong to a loving family, one that has traditions and helps each other out when we need help. Because when I set out to write Tease Me, I deliberately created a heroine who had no such familial support—and almost no support whatsoever, actually. And then I plopped her down in the middle of an untenable situation, one that she could not navigate through without a lot of help …

Lacey Richards is a true crime novelist, one who shows up in New Orleans hoping to write about a famous prostitution ring that had broken up there about a year before. But as she begins to research the ring, she runs into brick wall after brick wall—until she finally manages to collect enough pieces to figure out that what is really going on is much bigger than she ever imagined—and much worse. She finds a human trafficking ring, much larger than the simple prostitution ring the police broke up, made up of college girls who have been kidnapped from various countries around the world and forced into sexual slavery. Girls who either have no family to turn to or who have been cut off from their families by the men who abuse them and force them into prostitution.

Determined to bring these girls’ plight out into the open, Lacey turns to the only person she can trust-- her neighbor—and lover—Byron Hawthorne to help her solve the mystery. But the closer they get to the truth, the more dangerous things become, because the corruption reaches higher than either of them could ever have suspected. And when Lacey—and her very sexy blog—attract the interest of one of the men who runs the sex trafficking ring, suddenly she and Byron must fight to keep her from turning into just another statistic …

As I researched this book—and everything that goes into human trafficking and sexual slavery in America—I was horrified to learn that approximately 17,000 girls and women are forced into sex slavery in this country every year. Some of them are from here, others are lured here with the promise of a new, better life and still others are kidnapped and brought across the borders illegally.

These girls have no one to turn to, no family to help them, no friends they can trust. They are at the mercy of the people who own them—who have bought them, often for as little as fifty dollars. A special on CNN the other night, spearheaded by Lucy Liu and Ashley Judd, spent a lot of time talking about the devaluation of human life in the last two decades—the fact that during the 1800s a human being’s (slave’s) life was worth approximately $45,000. Now, according to E. Benjamin Skinner, a writer who has infiltrated human trafficking rings on four continents, human life and ownership is often valued at $20 or $30.

To say that I was devastated while researching this book is an understatement—on more than one occasion I sat at my computer, tears rolling down my face as I read about these girl’s plights. And while my hero and heroine ultimately succeed in bringing down the human trafficking ring in New Orleans, on the way to their happy ending, it’s hard to accept that in real life many girls aren’t nearly as lucky.

So as I sit here writing this blog, I really am grateful for all of the opportunities and experiences I’ve had in my life, for my family and friends, for my education and for a career that I love. What are you thankful for?

The “edgy and erotic” (Shannon McKenna, New York Times bestselling author of Tasting Fear) author of Tie Me Down and Full Exposure offers another steamy novel of sex, lies, and sultry games.

Burned once too often, true crime writer Lacey Richards has sworn off love. Instead, she explores her deepest desires through her anonymous- and very provocative-blog. Anonymous, that is, until her dark and ultrasexy neighbor discovers her dirty secret.

Stockbrocker-turned-carpenter Byron Hawthorne gave up life in the fast lane, hoping to start over in a new city. When he learns his alluring neighbor is the one writing the sizzling blog that keeps him up all night, he can’t resist offering to fulfill her fantasies in the flesh. But Byron isn’t the only man provoked by Lacey’s writing. Now Lacey doesn’t know who she can trust-and who she can dare to tease.