A few years ago, I woke up one morning with a complete outline of a story in my head, with completely different characters from any of my mystery series and in a somewhat different genre—romantic suspense.  And it was very steamy!
I decided that it needed a separate pen name. Thus, Jessica Dale was born.
I also decided to write a sweet romance series under that name, which I dubbed The Unintended Consequences trilogy.

The Unintended Consequences Romantic Suspense Trilogy — Sweet Romance/Spine-Tingling Suspense:

PAYBACK, Book 1 in the Unintended Consequences Romantic Suspense  trilogy

With strange fainting spells rattling James Fitzgerald’s sense of identity and complicating his acting career, he seeks solace at his country home in Virginia, once owned by his parents. But instead of a relaxing getaway with his closest friends, he walks into a bloodbath. And a cryptic message on a shower curtain points to him as the killer.

Carrie Johnson has hidden herself away in northern Virginia’s woods to escape an abusive husband. But her attempts to stay isolated from society are confounded by her attraction to her only neighbor, part-time resident James Fitzgerald.

Virtually under house arrest and struggling to resist his growing attraction to Carrie, James distracts himself by investigating his parents’ backgrounds, seeking an explanation for the fainting spells. Instead, he discovers some shocking truths about his family and himself and ends up wondering if he should have let sleeping ghosts lie.

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BACKLASH, Book 2 in the Unintended Consequences Romantic Suspense trilogy

James Fitzgerald and Carrie Johnson are taking it slow, getting to know each other as lovers instead of just neighbors, but slow is no longer an option when Carrie’s teenage son appears at her door.

They know her abusive husband won’t be far behind. He isn’t, and he brings with him more baggage than just his rage at the wife who ran away from him. With the help of a couple of ghosts, James struggles to protect Carrie and the boy.

But the danger is not only to their lives; the challenges thrown at them threaten to tear them apart and destroy Carrie’s hopes for a normal, happy life.

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BACKFIRE, Book 3 in the Unintended Consequences Romantic Suspense trilogy

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Divorced from a verbally abusive man, Mary Hanson goes on her first date in years, with a man she met through a dating service. A lovely evening culminates with a toe-curling kiss that fills her with hope… Until the middle of the night when a rapist breaks into her apartment—a masked man who smells like her date’s aftershave and knows things she has only told him.

Frantic, she flees to the home of her friends, James and his girlfriend Carrie. But no place—not even James’s secluded house in the backwoods of Virginia—is truly safe, as Mary’s rapist turns out to be a stalker, intent on possessing her, no matter what it takes. And James has neglected to tell her that his house is also occupied by the ghost of their mutual friend, who was murdered there.

While trying to identify the rapist, James struggles with his own legacy from his friend’s murder…has he become an overprotective and controlling jerk? And as the rapist escalates, James is forced to face another horror.

Has he put Carrie and her teenage boy—whom he’s begun to think of as a son—in danger as well?

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Click HERE for a collection of all three books.


BARTERED INNOCENCE, A Romantic Thriller (stand-alone)

An innocent errand—to pick up her young niece at a children’s birthday party—plunges P.I. Jenny Glassman into a gruesome scene and sets off a desperate search for a kidnapped woman and five missing children.

Police detective Hunt Morgan certainly doesn’t need a civilian cluttering up his case, not even one who’s a licensed investigator. But this particular P.I. keeps coming up with good leads. And she’s the first woman he’s felt attracted to in a long time.

Meanwhile, Deanna Roberts is dealing with the terrifying reality that she has been kidnapped, along with her daughter and four other little girls. She can’t afford to wait for the authorities to find them. In a few days, they will suffer a horrific fate, unless she can find a way to escape…even if it means sacrificing herself.

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(NOTE: Some people may be triggered by certain scenes in this book that involve sexual assault.)


Binding Vows cover