Please say hi to CJ Matthew today! We’re taking a trip… to Japan!

Setting has always been a major component of my books. In my new contemporary romance quintet, the Colonel’s Daughters, I’ve taken advantage of my own international travel. Creating a fictional Air Force family of five daughters, I have four of the sisters born overseas, in foreign countries: Japan, UK, Italy, and Germany, and one born on the island of Oahu. In each of the five books, as one sister happens to return to the country of her birth, she meets the man of her dreams and must deal with her fate.

Book 1, A Major Seduction, is set in Tokyo, Japan at an AF wedding. Kari, the eldest of the Colonel’s Daughters is a Boston lawyer who will be serving as the maid of honor and Steve, an AF fighter pilot is the best man.

There are several sightseeing scenes in the book and in this excerpt, my hero and heroine are falling in love while visiting the Meiji Shrine.

Excerpt from A Major Seduction

Steve and Kari walked side by side. The smell of wet pine filled his lungs along with a trace of her perfume. He wanted to bury his face in her hair but held himself in check. The gravel crunched as they strolled along and he had to agree with his Japanese buddy, Z, this place was the definition of serenity.

Clearing his throat, Steve read from his notes, “Says here, the entire kit-n-caboodle is dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his Empress. The forest has 120,000 evergreens donated from all over Japan. Entering a Shinto Shrine you pass under a Torii, a shrine gate.” He glanced at her and she flashed him that amazing smile.

“The one up ahead is made from 1700-year-old cypress wood and is the largest in the whole country. Here, hold my camera. I’ll use the phone to get us in a selfie under the Torii.”

That accomplished, he approached a passerby, bowed and extended his camera. The older, smiling gentleman seemed to immediately understand his gestures.

Steve gathered Kari close to his side, arm around her shoulder, and beamed toward the camera. The heat of her body was a serious distraction and he prayed the older man would hurry before a telltale bulge in his pants gave him away.

After the stranger took several photos of Steve and Kari together, they bowed their thanks. “Domo aregato.”  Steve stepped away from her in an attempt to clear his head.

He checked his notes. “If we turn left here, the path goes to the Jingu Naien. It’s a giant garden of iris flowers designed by the Emperor for his wife.” A glance at Kari’s relaxed, happy face mesmerized him.

She sighed, “That’s so romantic.”

“Uh, but the iris don’t bloom until June. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s still romantic, with or without blossoms. I’m guessing those were her favorite flowers?”

“You’d be right on the money.” Steve made a mental note to discover Kari’s favorite flower. “Let’s keep going to the inner garden. Check out the main shrine.”

He extended his hand, curled their fingers, and they walked on side by side.

A Major Seduction
CJ Matthew

Kari Phillips has sworn off alpha men, thanks to a childhood spent raising four sisters while her dad served in the air force and her mom was unable to cope with his deployments. Vowing never to follow in her mom’s footsteps, Kari has become a driven, successful attorney. On her way to Tokyo to rescue her best friend’s wedding, she meets a cocky F-15 pilot headed to the same ceremony. When he finagles a seat next to her on the flight, she vows if he gives her any grief, she’ll shove him out of the emergency exit without a parachute.

Major Steve Shorner, a patriotic warrior fulfilling his lifelong dream as a fighter pilot, is finding it tough to live down a couple of practical jokes. Before he heads to Tokyo to be his buddy’s best man, Steve’s commander assigns him to a no-win project in Japan, and links the outcome to Steve’s tryout for the Thunderbirds, the AF’s elite demo team. But after a chance meeting with a beautiful redhead at the airport, Steve acquires a new goal—convince the sexy, workaholic lawyer to bend her rule against military men.

Available October 14 from Amazon!

About the Author

CJ Matthew grew up in an Air Force family traveling and living all over the US and around the world. It proved to be the perfect experience for gathering ideas for future books. And for meeting real life heroes and heroines in uniforms and flight-suits. She spent her high school and university years in California, which inspired her love of marine life, and the Pacific Ocean.

A Major Seduction is the first book in CJ’s contemporary romance quintet titled The Colonel’s Daughters. Each book features one of the five sister’s story. Born in different countries around the world, when each of the daughters happens to return to her country of birth, she’s meets her true love, and is forced to confront her destiny.

In CJ’s paranormal romantic suspense series Dolphin Shore Shifters, the most current release, Toxic Tide is book 5. The series features a pod of dolphins living in the Santa Barbara channel off the coast of California, who are capable of shifting to human form. While posing as real humans, the dolphins work, through their oceanic conservation corporation, Save Blue Water, to protect their oceans at any cost.

Her romantic suspense series, The Paladin Group, launched with Deadly Reboot. The books are set in a small southern town, and star wounded air force veterans, men and women warriors turned civilian attorneys and investigators determined to continue their rescue work.

A member of Romance Writers of America (RWA), Georgia Romance Writers (GRW), and Kiss of Death, CJ lives and writes near a lake in the woods northeast of Atlanta. When she isn’t writing or reading romances, CJ spends time with her two grown children, their spouses, a brilliant grandson and a feisty cat named Max.

Schedule permitting, CJ loves to travel, to discover new favorite places and to meet new friends in both the US and around the world.

Max flatly refuses to travel.

Connect with CJ on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads!