If they give in to their desires
a whole country will fall.

Red Leopard

Romantic Suspense.

(Romantica) -- ultra sensual.
This book contains explicit and graphic sex.
Published by Ellora's Cave.

Reviews. Outline. Excerpt.
Casting the movie. Buy it.

Reviews:

Five Stars!

A Great Read That Will Have You Glued To The Pages!!!

This is the second book that I've read by Ms. Cooper-Posey and it was great! The characters, the setting, and even the storyline are unique and fun. The chemistry between Calli and Nicolas is instant and it's hot, but Ms. Cooper-Posey manages to draw it out and as a result when our lovers finally get together it's beyond steaming.

This story is very romantic and although this is a "romantica" story, this is not a book with page after page of gratuitous sex scenes. Instead it's a story about strength and integrity, and yes, attraction.

This was really an emotional story that was well told. The characterization was right on, and Ms. Cooper-Posey does an excellent job of keeping our interest alive while at the same time keeps our lovers apart. That is until...well, never mind I'll let you read the book! This was a great book that I highly recommend to the fan of the romance genre. Word of warning -- things are a little spicy than the average romantic read, but it's tastefully done. Ms. Cooper-Posey is now an author I'll pick up simply because her name is on the cover.

Kristi Ahlers for Amazon.com

Five Stars!

This is a great suspense story. I don't want to tell too much of the story because it would ruin it for other readers. If you love those movies where you don't know who's side the hero is really on until the end, then you'll love the intrigue of Red Leopard. Cooper-Posey did excellent with the personalities of the characters. A follow up story on Calli and Nic would be great!

Reviewer: Angel Brewer For TRS Blue

RED LEOPARD is a fabulous read, because it combines a political thriller with an erotic, sensual read that builds and builds, and -- well, you get the picture. The anticipation is electrifying as you wait to see if Nick and Callie can actually reach the point where they are willing to risk it all to be together. With a good, strong plot, the reader is thrown into a fictitious but surprisingly realistic Latin American country that is dangerous and politically unsafe; in short, a perfect setting for these two explosive personalities, and when they finally come together, it’s dynamite. Deserving of its NC-17 rating, the passionate scenes in this novel are well developed, subtle when needed, and as hot as necessary. There are also other scenes, though, like the one where Callie tries to rescue Minnie’s boyfriend that are riveting and tautly suspenseful.

RED LEOPARD is not a read-it and leave-it novel. Its pace is fast, but it stays with you for a long time, long enough that you enjoy reading it just as much the second time around. I highly recommend RED LEOPARD to those of you who enjoy some thrills and chills along with some fiery scenes guaranteed to please.

Astrid Kinn
for Romance Reviews Today

In Red Leopard, national multi-award-winning, multi-published author Tracy Cooper-Posey, has produced an untamed, wildly exciting story of love and raw sexual desire. With steamy, pant-provoking sex scenes and a love to rival the most notorious forbidden affairs in history, Red Leopard will leave the reader in a state of arousal that will require a Tarzan-like beast of the jungle to sate! Tracy Cooper-Posey receives the highest rating for her great writing, intricate plotting and tasteful yet extremely erotic sex scenes.”

Titania Ladley
For Women on Writing

4 Stars!

Red Leopard is an interesting book that keeps the reader glued from beginning to end. The romance between Nick and Calli is spell-binding. The mixture of romance and sexual ecstasy made this book worth reading over and over. This reviewer found herself drawn to the mysterious sexy red leopard wanting to find out more about him. The whole romantic country and words that are used take you deep inside the book and you find yourself there. It takes you from an ongoing war to a romantic get away back to the war. It just goes to prove two people from different countries can fall in love and be together even when the countries don't want them to be.”

By Ruby, for Love Romances

“ros: Fresh new idea. Cons: none. The Bottom Line: Calli Munro, an American arrives in Vistaria during La Fiesta le La Luna, a combination of Mardi Gras and Carnival. Red Leopard is a strong sensual story that deals with irresistible attractions and the forces that stand in the way of love. This has both romance and action though out the story. Reading about the political climate of Vistaria, and the unfolding of romance between Nicolas and Calli will keep you on the edge of your chair. For Romantica this is something new and fresh.

Reviewed by Pat McGrew for About Romance.com

“By the way, I'm just sinking my teeth into Tracy Cooper-Posey's RED LEOPARD and WOW. Is this a great book. Enjoying the steam and the characterization. Now that's my favorite combination...danger, adventure, excitement, high-power characterization and steam. Yep. Love it!!!!!!!!”

Denise A. Agnew, Ellora’s Cave author
Denise's Homepage.

“Tracy Cooper-Posey weaves this tale in a delightfully exotic setting. The people on the isle of Vistaria are sensual and the descriptions of the landscape are beautiful. The characters are well developed and have great sensual chemistry together. The love scenes are well written and very hot! The plot moves along at a nice pace and is filled with sexuality. I really enjoyed the suspense of wanting them together intimately. I really enjoyed this and I would recommend Red Leopard to other people who love romanticas.”

Maria Desrosiers, eBook Reviews Weekly

“I just finished the best book - Red Leopard - those of you who love good writing and hot heros, a tight plot and an incredible love story set against the backgound of a rebellion, get Red Leopard! Tracy sure is a fantastic writer! (I first read her Diana by the Moon, I think it is at Hardshell, and I love her style."

Samantha Winston, Ellora’s Cave Author

In RED LEOPARD, Ms. Cooper-Posey has written a spellbinding, adventurous novel. The sexual tension between Nick and Calli is compelling. I could not see how it would be possible for Calli and Nick to have a future together and worried that there might not be a happy ending. I hope that there will be a sequel to RED LEOPARD as there are a few unanswered questions at the end. I am anxiously waiting to see what comes next from Ms. Cooper-Posey’s talented pen!

Denise Powers for Sensual Romance.

I loved this story. I was enthralled with Tracy's writing style, it's almost lyrical. There were several passages I had reread just because of the sheer beauty of the language. It was such a romantic love story...and very sensual too, and the action wasn't bad either <g>.

We have a country on the verge of revolution, and two lovers for whom common sense dictates should stay far apart from each...and they try their hardest to be oh so sensible...but lucky for us they fail miserably.

Tracy, here's hoping you do more contemporaries...particularly a sequel to this one soon!

Maryam (a reader)...off to savor this story again.

Outline:

Calli Munro, American, soon-to-be economics professor, and single by choice, arrives in Vistaria during La Fiesta de la Luna, a combination of Mardi Gras and Carnival. Calli's there to keep her sex-kitten cousin, Minnie, out of trouble. When she meets Nicolás Escobedo, the powerful bastard half-brother of Vistaria's president, she realizes she is the one in trouble.

Their attraction is instant, powerful and mutual, but to give in to it will open the floodgates of bloody revolution in Vistaria. Not even the mysterious man known only as The Red Leopard can stop it.

Excerpt:

Chapter One

Calli gripped the prison bars and looked out upon the carefree people celebrating the festival fifteen feet below her, all of them totally ignorant of her plight. It was La Fiesta de la Luna, which Vistarian citizens celebrated for the three nights of the first summer full moon. Calli was not Vistarian, she was American, and twenty-four hours ago she had been sitting in her apartment in Butte, Montana. The glorious republic of Vistaria had welcomed her onto the main island a scant five hours ago, and for the last three hours and twenty-five minutes she had been in this jail.

She turned back to face the bars of the dingy cell she stood in. It wasn't really a cell at all. Two short walls of bars keeping her penned in a cramped corner of the room—it was really a cage, not a cell. But when she looked out at the rest of the room, she welcomed the bars.

The dingy holding cells of the Lozano Colinas city police barracks were on the second floor of an adobe building on a large public square. The walls of the room, once white, showed a dirty yellow gray now, with the combined effects of years of dirt and smoke brushing against them.

Five men occupied the room, all wearing army green uniform pants with red stripes up the legs and white collarless dress shirts—their uniform jackets hung over the backs of chairs. Clearly they resented being on duty during the first night of the festival, for they were holding their own party.

Bottles of whiskey and black rum with colorful labels dotted the big round table with the battered wooden top. Between the bottles laid half a dozen old tobacco tins being used as ashtrays for the cigars and thin yellow cigarettes with the harsh tobacco they smoked.

Four of them sat at the table playing cards, laughing and talking in loud voices. From their gestures and expressions Calli guessed their conversation was ribald. Many times the comments were about her. They would speak, glance at her in her corner, then comment in the bastardized Spanish that was common here. A deep belly laugh would follow. Their thick cigarette smoke fogged the air, and the big multi-colored Vistarian currency liberally covered the table.

In the opposite corner to her cell the leader of the group, possibly a sergeant, sat on a stool with a woman on his knee, his big hands about her waist, as he whispered things into her ear. She was dressed like many of the women had been dressed that Calli had seen in the few short minutes she had been on the public streets tonight: a white off-the-shoulder blouse, a dark cummerbund about the waist and yards and yards of long skirt in panels of glowing, gloriously colored silk that floated about their legs. With their dark straight hair tied in buns low on the back of their necks, a spray of the odd blue-colored wisteria she had seen everywhere tucked behind one ear and hoop earrings, the women looked wonderful. They moved with the sophisticated confidence of sensual, mature women, their hips swinging invitingly. It was an art Calli had never mastered, that confident poise.

The soldier's hand slipped inside the neck of the woman's blouse, and beneath the cotton Calli could see the shape of his hand cup her breast, the thumb moving as if he stroked the nipple. The woman gave a small low laugh, her shoulders arching back a bit, easing his access to her breast.

Calli swallowed dryly. It seemed La Fiesta de la Luna shared Mardi Gras' lack of inhibitions.

Then the thought struck her like a gun shot: Is that why the soldiers are staring at me that way? She looked back at the table again. Another furtive glance towards her. Another comment and the chuckle that moved around the table.

Yes, she decided reluctantly. That's what they were doing. Sizing her up.

She brushed at the jeans she wore, wishing mightily she had chosen to wear sackcloth for the journey. The jeans and tee shirt had felt perfectly respectable in Montana—the low rise waist-band that sat around her hips was far more conservative than the pants some of her students wore.

But now she was uncomfortably conscious of the band of flesh that sometimes appeared between her tee-shirt and the jeans, and that the tee-shirt, even though it remained her favorite, fit a little snugly from too many washings.

She turned back to the tiny window with the bars, willing to watch the endless carousing on the street for hours if it meant she didn't have to look at the soldiers around the table. She didn't know anything about Latin American countries except what she had read in books, but she knew in her gut that watching the soldiers would be inviting trouble.

How the hell was she going to get out of this mess? They certainly hadn't offered her a phone call before they'd thrown her in here, and she hadn't seen a single sheet of paperwork. Would anyone—Minnie, Uncle Josh—know she was even here? Surely some sort of alarm must have gone up when she didn't show up on schedule. With the festival in full swing would they be able to trace her movements?

For a long while she watched the dancing and merriment down below. The heart of the festival appeared to be in the square itself. The hundreds of people down there appeared to be ready to party all night.

At least she would have something to look at while she idled her night away here. She certainly wouldn't be sleeping.

He entered the room so quietly that at first she didn't notice him. It must have caught the soldiers off guard, too, for the first hint she got was an overly loud "Atención!" followed by the sound of men scrambling to their feet, knocking over their stools in their haste. Grunts of effort and an alarmed cry sounded.

She turned, alert.

He wasn't in uniform. He didn't even look Latino. Dark red hair and midnight blue eyes, with the pale skin that went with that coloring. He looked more Irish than her great-grandmother, who came from county Kildare.

American? she wondered. Help, at last?

But no, they stood rigid, waiting. The sergeant, the big soldier in the corner, now stood with his hand locked into a salute, quivering with perfect attention. The woman next to him leisurely pulled her blouse into place.

The man looked about the room, sizing the men up. What had the soldiers called him? It had sounded, amongst the gibberish of mongrel Spanish, like the name "Roger" had been spoken.

He looked at the woman, and gave a little shake of his head. "Rosali?" and he spoke to her.

She gave a shrug and a smile and moved slowly to the door behind the man. He patted her shoulder as she went. She shut the door behind her while the man looked around again.

Not one of the soldiers had moved an inch. He spoke a quiet word, and they relaxed, but none of them sat down again.

He spoke to the sergeant then, in the same quiet, understated way. He didn't use his hands, either. In this land of flamboyant gestures and uninhibited volume, he was icily contained, controlled. His hands stayed relaxed at the sides of his dark, modern suit.

The sergeant rattled off a stream of words. Explanations, she realized.

They had been royally busted--so who was this guy?

When the sergeant had run out of words and fallen silent, the man studied him for a thought-filled moment. Then he spoke a few words.

The sergeant quailed and nodded eagerly. He spoke to the other men, who scurried to clear the table and go about their business.

The man in the dark suit turned then, finally, to look at Calli for the first time.

It felt like being pinned down by lasers. His direct gaze, the unflinching eyes, locked onto her face. The blue seemed almost black when he stared at her directly that way—as if a trick of the light made them appear that dark indigo blue only when reflected correctly.

He slid a hand into his pants pocket. "You have been in the country for less than five hours Miss Munro, and already you are in trouble. It does not augur well for the remainder of your stay here, does it?"

Author's note:

As I write this, Red Leopard is in final editing stage and is tentatively due for release in April 2003, although there are editorial rumblings at Ellora's Cave that hint it might be released earlier than that. Because it is the latest book I have written, it's currently my favorite, although that will likely change once I have begun the next story (Solstice Surrender, for the Winter Warriors anthology, due out for Christmas 2003 at Ellora's Cave).

Red Leopard has the distinction of being the first book I've written where one of the secondary characters became as endearing to me as the central characters, and I'm itching to write the sequel, which is scheduled for the not too distant future. I won't mention which character it is here, because I don't want to spoil the book for you.

-- Tracy.