As a former lawyer, it’s always fun to feature other lawyers and Cara Putman is attorney, author, educator, and more! It seems a natural fit for her to write legal thrillers but she first started her writing career publishing historical romance novels!

Lethal Intent sees Cara adding to her stable of novels featuring lawyers and the legal process with a good dose of suspense and romance to keep things interesting!

Today Cara is sharing about what she loves to read, a pet peeve, and a book she could not put down.

Over to you, Cara…

Cara’s Reading Habits

When is your optimal time to read?

            Literally all day, all night, at any moment. My husband jokes that I read while I’m blow-drying my hair. True. I even read while on walks, usually an audiobook, but sometimes a Kindle. I literally love reading.

Are you faithful to a genre, an author, or simply quality writing?

            Quality writing hands down. I read across all genres but fantasy and Sci Fi. I’ve discovered a love for Regency, Gilded Age, Victorian, and WWII in historical. I love contemporary romance with comedy, mystery, or suspense. I adore thrillers and legal suspense. I read intriguing cozy mysteries. I read the cereal box and just about anything with words that’s in front of me.

Which factors most influence your selection of a book?

            In one way it’s my mood. I read broadly, so when I’m trying to decide what to read next, it often comes down to what I’m ready for. Sometimes it’s a binge of suspense. Other times I know I need something lighter, so I pick up an author I know will make me laugh or give me a great story that ultimately ends with hope.

Your fiction pet peeve?

            A story that starts slowly. I want to know that I’m going to be sucked in by the plot and characters quickly. I rarely stop a book, but if I do, it’s because it’s bogged down.

What book have you read this year that you could not put down, and why?

           The year is early 🙂 , but The Paris Dressmaker would have to be that book out of the first eight I’ve read in January. Kristy does an amazing job recreating Paris in WWII and setting up the complex situations confronted by those who are occupied. I’m calling it this year’s The Nightingale.

How do you mark your spot – folded page corner, bookmark, dollar bill, whatever is at hand?

            What a fun question! Rarely a folded corner. Usually whatever is close at hand: rubber bands, dollars, bookmark, envelope, pen, etc.

Snack/drink of choice while reading?

            Coffee and almonds.

What book cover has really caught your eye?

            When Twilight Breaks by Sarah Sundin, Dress Shop at King Street by Ashley Clark and The Paris Dressmaker by Kristy Cambron. I think it’s the pops of red.

What book do you wish you had written? Why?

            Right now? The Paris Dressmaker. I hate to sound like a broken record player, but I had planned a Paris Monuments Men book for after Shadowed by Grace. Kristy captures that history as well as several additional layers superlatively.

What are you reading now?

            Because I just finished Colleen Coble’s next (Three Missing Days), I turned to Patricia Bradley’s next along with finishing Sarah Sundin’s When Twilight Breaks. I’ll also finish listening to Lynne Cheney’s Virginia Dynasty, about the first four Virginia presidents, tomorrow. I keep hearing songs from Hamilton as I read it.

Lethal Intent

If they expected silence, they hired the wrong woman. 

Caroline Bragg’s life has never been better. She and Brandon Lancaster are taking their relationship to the next level, and she has a new dream job as legal counsel for Praecursoria—a research lab that is making waves with its cutting-edge genetic therapies. The company’s leukemia treatments even promise to save desperately sick kids—kids like eleven-year-old Bethany, a critically ill foster child at Brandon’s foster home. 

When Caroline’s enthusiastic boss wants to enroll Bethany in experimental trials prematurely, Caroline objects, putting her at odds with her colleagues. They claim the only goal at Praecursoria is to save lives. But does someone have another agenda? 

Brandon faces his own crisis. As laws governing foster homes shift, he’s on the brink of losing the group home he’s worked so hard to build. When Caroline learns he’s a Praecursoria investor, it becomes legally impossible to confide in him. Will the secrets she keeps become a wedge that separates them forever? And can she save Bethany from the very treatments designed to heal her? 

This latest romantic legal thriller by bestseller Cara Putman shines a light on the shadowy world of scientific secrets and corporate vendettas—and the ethical dilemmas that plague the place where science and commerce meet.

What do you love most about this story, or the process of writing this story?

            I loved getting to write Caroline and Brandon’s love story. I’d been waiting to write it for a couple years, and it was such fun to dig into what makes them tick.

Share a little about one of your characters – what makes them unique?

            I could tell you about Caroline and Brandon. How she’s shifting from clerking for a judge to in house counsel at a pharmaceutical company. Or he’s a former NFL player who’s investing his life in the foster kids at the home he’s built. Instead, I’d like to tell you about Bethany. She’s the eleven-year-old foster child who is desperate for the potentially life-saving treatment Praecursoria is moving through FDA trials. Originally, she was a character who felt more like a prop, but my brilliant editor Erin Healy suggested there should be more from the kids. Bethany evolved into this tired by feisty young girl who makes you want to fight for her. So she creates this connection yet point of tension for Caroline and Brandon as they try to save her.

Share a favourite line or paragraph from your book.

If you wanted to break the law it was best to do it without an attorney looking over your shoulder. 

That was what her professional responsibility professor had preached, but she didn’t think Quentin would welcome the words, even if that was exactly the course he seemed determined to take.

How much of your own legal experience do you incorporate into your legal thrillers?

            There is always some of my experience laced throughout. I’ve worked with families who were foster parents adopting children placed with them. I’ve also worked with family members who were fighting to be the foster placement. I clerked for a judge like Caroline did, and I lived in the DC area for eight years. Other than that, it was research, relying on friends to share their stories, and adding layers of emotion from a medical challenge our daughter was experiencing as I was writing the book. Fortunately, hers isn’t life-threating like cancer, but it was scary all the same. I also fell in love with my best friend and we’re celebrating 25 years at the end of January.

Cara Putman is the author of more than twenty-five legal thrillers, historical romances, and romantic suspense novels. She has won or been a finalist for honors including the ACFW Book of the Year and the Christian Retailing’s BEST Award. Cara graduated high school at sixteen, college at twenty, completed her law degree at twenty-seven, and recently received her MBA. She is a practicing attorney, teaches undergraduate and graduate law courses at a Big Ten business school, and is a homeschooling mom of four. She lives with her husband and children in Indiana. Visit her website at CaraPutman.com; Facebook: Cara.Putman; Twitter: @Cara_Putman.

Relz Reviewz Extras
All Things Putman @ Relz Reviewz
Visit Cara’s website and blog
Buy at Amazon: Lethal Intent or Koorong