Guest Blog: Sara Curran-Ross

Dear Readers,

Please welcome our guest today, Sara Curran-Ross, a follow Solstice author, who brings a tidbit about her Solstice release, The Organ Grinder, and an interview with one of her characters, Dominic. 

Where to find Sara:

Website:

http://www.saracurranross.com

Blog:

http://www.saracurranross.blogspot.com

Trailer for The Organ Grinder:

Blurb:

Award winning journalist Rebecca Eaton crosses the closed border of a troubled Asian country to interview a Human Rights activist and known terrorist.  Three days later, after her reported mysterious disappearance, she turns up at the border tortured, beaten, minus her memory and one kidney.

When an attempt is made on her life in hospital, her employer sends Eaton’s estranged ex-lover and security expert Dominic Kane to bring her safely home. 

Kane wants Rebecca back in his arms.  But before he can entice her into a reconciliation he has to help her expose a worldwide medical conspiracy involving mass murder and the illegal sale of stolen human organs.

Kane has to protect Rebecca from the men sent to silence her and the terrorists who demand she ensures the medical criminals are brought to justice or four suicide bombs will be detonated in London.

Interview with Dominic Kane

The Man Behind The Woman

Dominic Kane is a name that has been on everyone’s lips since he helped his journalist girlfriend, Rebecca Eaton blow open an international criminal conspiracy to commit mass murder and steal human organs to proffer them for sale on the black market.  The tall handsome, athletically built forty year old Security & Close Protection Consultant sits in front of me, casually dressed in a designer black sweater and trousers in the lounge of the Hotel Intercontinental in Paris, watching me intently with his piercing blue Paul Newman eyes.  With his short light brown hair and neat designer stubble many in the media have likened his looks to film star Edward Norton.

I am lucky to get this interview.  The couple have been hiding from the public eye and Dominic is at pains to protect Rebecca from further press intrusion so she can recover from her ordeal and injuries in peace.  So much so the veteran journalist, Kevin Boyle dubbed him Rebecca Eaton’s “heavy man with a posh public schoolboy accent” when he made the mistake of testing Dominic’s tough security around Rebecca in the war torn Asian country of North Bundhara two weeks ago.

He gives me a grin, “What can I say?  I was sent out there to do a job.  He got in the way.  Rebecca was lying in a hospital bed with serious injuries and having lost her memory.  The last thing she needed was a journalist with a gripe against her hassling her for information.  I did what I had to and removed him from the building in a manner he was unaccustomed to.  He never came back.’  He gives me another infectious grin.

Dominic Kane is softly spoken with an accent that does indeed betray an English public school education.  He is a man of few words but his tone is firm and commands your full attention.  When he speaks people listen.  A former Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Marines stationed in Afghanistan, Dominic is a man who is clearly aware of his power and doesn’t have to shout it out.

He first met Rebecca Eaton when she came to make her BAFTA award winning programme, ‘On The Frontline’ with his unit in Afghanistan.  With Dominic in charge of Rebecca and her camera crew’s safety the couple were rumoured to have grown close after the unit came under heavy artillery fire out on patrol one day and Rebecca was injured.

“We were ambushed in a compound.  We took some heavy hits and I had no choice but to ask Rebecca to pitch in and help out with the shooting.  She’d had training like every other journalist has to before they are allowed on the frontline and I just knew I could trust her to come through.  If I hadn’t I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.  So yes we became close after that.’

I widen my eyes as he leans over to lift his coffee cup from the table and take a gulp.  He is a little reluctant to talk about their clandestine affair in Afghanistan and the break up that followed but I persist.

“Rebecca became ill with post traumatic stress.  She was forced to shoot at the enemy when we were ambushed in the compound.  After that, she was nearly killed in an IED explosion.  It was more than enough to effect anyone.  She tried to keep it quiet.  Being a female journalist she had to fight hard to go to Afghanistan.  Any female reporter will tell you how tough it is to build a career in such a male dominated business.”

But Rebecca’s health was to deteriorate whilst in Afghanistan and she couldn’t hide her illness any longer.

“She wasn’t eating or sleeping.  She lost so much weight.  One afternoon I found her inside her tent rocking back and forth on the floor, lost in reliving the explosion.  I’ve seen it happen dozens of times to men on the frontline who’ve experienced trauma but Rebecca thought she was tougher and could handle it.  She needed help from a counsellor but she refused so I had to take action.”

There’s a hint of frustration in his voice and he talks of the whole affair as though he dealt with it like he would a military operation.

“I rang her station and got them to recall her.  I . . . rather naively thought they would understand, just give her some time off so she could get back on her feet.  She was pretty annoyed.  Told me I’d ruined her career and that was the end of our relationship.”  He sighs, “And she was right.  They let her hang on until she won the BAFTA for them then they sidelined her and eventually pushed her out.  She was out of work for a year.  No one would take her on because of her illness.”

I sense frustration but no regret in his tone.

“I never meant to hurt her or her career but I would do it again.  She needed help.  Her doctor later told her that I’d saved her from having a full nervous breakdown by making her return home.”

I get the impression that Dominic hadn’t wanted their relationship to end and it was difficult for him to accept when it did.  So it must have been harrowing to learn of Rebecca’s disappearance two years later.  He must have feared the worse.

“I never believed she was dead.  Not for a second.  I knew she would find a way to get out of whatever mess she was in.  You can’t keep a woman like Rebecca down.  She’s a tough class act,” he tells me with pride.

Rumour has it, he was packed and ready to go with his team to locate her and bring her out of the country even before she was found and her employer contracted his company to provide her with security.

He grins, ‘Yes.  It’s true.”

And by charging to her rescue no doubt he viewed the situation as an opportunity to facilitate a reconciliation.  He smiles again but won’t go into detail.  It’s enough to tell me that’s exactly what was on his mind.

It must have been difficult to say the least finding her lying in a hospital bed with so many injuries and having lost her memory.

‘Yeah it was.’  And perhaps an advantage, I venture.  He merely treats me to another smile.

“She was in a really bad way.  For one mad moment  I just wanted to throw her over my shoulder, fly her home, bundle her in a car and hide her in my cabin in the Lake District to keep her safe.  But getting out of the country proved more difficult than I imagined when South Bundhara decided to invade the North.  There were a few hairy moments when I thought we might not make it.”

It’s an opportune moment to bring up the nickname that Rebecca gave him out in Afghanistan, Captain Caveman.  He laughs.

‘She gave me that name when I wanted to carry her over my shoulder after she got shot in the Green Zone in Helmand Province.  She wasn’t impressed with my offer.  She didn’t want me treating her differently because she was a woman and acting like Captain Caveman coming to the rescue.  She says I’m a bit of Neanderthal with her,” he laughs again.  “But secretly I think she likes it.”

He’s been credited as the man behind the woman fighting to change the world and halt the medical exploitation of developing nations.  How does he feel about that?

“I’m proud of it.  I will do all I can to help her.  Rebecca needs someone to ground her and keep her in check when she goes off recklessly risking her life.”

And is Dominic Kane the man for the job? 

He grins.  ‘She tells me I am and she’s right.”

He’s smiling but I can see that like myself and others who know Rebecca Eaton well he’s going to have a hard time keeping her behind a desk.  She loves to be in the thick of danger and he is going to have his work cut out for him.  Still the steely gaze he gives me when I inform him of my thoughts tells me he is determined and Rebecca is going to have a fight on her hands.  One Dominic Kane may just win.