Behind the Scenes with Carolina Valdez

Dark blue wool uniforms and white caps during the winter were a common sight on the streets of the Navy town I grew up in. Once I was the only female dining  aboard a destroyer with young officers in their summer dress whites.

My high school boyfriend was the son of a Naval commander, and I had other friends who were sailors. One football season, another senior girl and I were hired as a cheerleaders for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot team. That only lasted one season because, unlike high schoolers, they didn't cheer when we led the yells.

When I was in college, a group of friends, including sailors, drove several hours to hear me the day our concert choir performed. It was a sailor who took me on base to the Navy Exchange to purchase my first watch for nursing school. It no longer works, and these days there are better timepieces out there, but it's still in my drawer of treasured momentos.

Later, when I was in nursing school in northern California, a sailor who'd been transferred from my home town to the duty station there came to visit me.

I may have married Air Force, but perhaps you can understand why the Marines and the Navy hold a special place in my memories. And why the exploits of the Navy's SEAL teams have captured my romantic fantasies. They make the perfect heroes, don't they?

In preparing to write Make Mine A Bad Boy, I read and listened to non-fiction books written by men of SEAL Team Six, watched two SEAL interviews on TV, researched weapons and customs, and turned to the official Navy SEAL website. There I found their mottoes, which I've used in my story because they reflect the Navy's beliefs and attitudes toward these modern day warriors. These heroes among heroes.

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Make Mine A Bad Boy by Carolina Valdez is now available at Amber Allure.

If you'd like the chance to win the entire pax collection, just leave a comment on today's post. On Saturday, a winner will be picked at random from all the comments made this week on the blog. Comment on all, and that's multiple chances to win!