About the Book

Book: Protecting You

Author: Robin Patchen

Genre: Christian Romantic Suspense

Release date: February 4, 2025

In a high-stakes game of deception, two rivals must work together to bring down a ruthless terrorist.

After Alyssa’s dream of working in US intelligence is thwarted, she leaves her mundane profession to pursue a career as a cyber investigator. Though she aces every case she gets, securing enough customers to pay her rent proves challenging. When a lucrative commission comes along, she thinks she’s hit the jackpot. But this client isn’t the British entrepreneur he claims to be. And then her old nemesis interrupts their meeting with a startling move.

CIA agent Callan Templeton is floundering in his new role as a single father to a surprise daughter, but he still has a job to do. He follows a tip about a terrorist, only to be shocked when he finds his old college adversary dining with the notorious killer. Maybe there was a better way to step in than by posing as Alyssa’s fiancé, but it was the best excuse he could come up with to insert himself into their meeting.

Callan once stole the job Alyssa coveted, and now the last thing she wants is his help. But when he explains who her client really is, she realizes she’s in way over her head. Dariush Ghazi knew exactly what he was doing when he targeted her. She’s trapped. She must go along with a dangerous scheme, pretending to help him while working with Callan…or end up dead.

In their quest to dismantle Dariush’s network of evil, Callan and Alyssa risk sacrificing each other—and everything they hold dear.

Prepare to dive into this gripping tale of enemies turned allies, a fake engagement, and a deadly conspiracy.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Robin Patchen is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of Christian romantic suspense. She grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, the setting of her Coventry Saga books, and then headed to Boston to earn a journalism degree. Working in marketing, she discovered how much she loathed the nine-to-five ball and chain. After relocating to the Southwest, she started writing her first novel while homeschooling her three children. The novel was dreadful, but her passion for storytelling didn’t wane. Thankfully, as her children grew, so did her writing ability. Now that her kids are adults, she has more time to play with the lives of fictional heroes and heroines, wreaking havoc and working magic to give her characters happy endings. When she’s not writing, she’s editing or reading, proving that most of her life revolves around the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

More from Robin

Picture this:

You’re a cyber investigator, sitting across from a client in a Boston restaurant. It’s the first time you’ve ever met the man in person, but you’ve worked for him before. In person, he isn’t like you’d imagined he would be.

His arrogance doesn’t impress you, and he’s giving off a slightly creepy vibe, but he’s polite enough when he hires you to locate somebody for him.

It should be a simple job, right up your alley. He hands over a check, and you glance at the number. All those zeroes. This one job will keep your new business out of the red for months.

You slide the check into your purse and shake your client’s hand, still reveling in the knowledge that your business isn’t going under, not this month.

And then you hear a call from across the room. “Darling!”

You know the endearment can’t be directed at you. You’re nobody’s darling.

Still, you glance toward the too-loud patron and realize it’s Callan, your fiercest rival.

You haven’t seen him in years, and even back when you were in college together, you’d barely been more than acquaintances.

When he was offered the CIA job you coveted, your thoughts turned altogether uncharitable toward the man who’d bested you one too many times.

Callan must be mistaking you for someone else.

But he locks eyes with you. Wearing a wide smile, he reaches your table, leans close, and presses his lips to yours.

The kiss lights a fire that warms you to your toes. You ignore the reaction, though it takes considerable effort.

What in the world is he doing?

His whisper is so low that you barely hear him. “Trust me. Go with it.”

Trust him?

How are you supposed to trust him when you have no idea what he’s doing? Or why?

Before you can come up with a suitable response—and really, what are you supposed to say?—he stands and thrusts out his hand to your client, introducing himself as…

Your fiancé.

And then things really get interesting.

This is the scene that presented itself to me before I knew anything about Protecting You. After I wrote the first chapter, and with the help of wonderful brainstorming partners, I fleshed out the idea, turning it into a full-length novel.

This story features a single father who’s trying to figure out how to fill that role, a beautiful cyber-investigator, and a familiar enemy working to exploit the heroine and her entire family.

I’m so excited about this one. I can’t wait to hear what you think.

(And don’t worry. It’s not written in second person. Wouldn’t that be annoying for 300 pages?)

Interview with Robin

How long does it take you to write a book?

Of course it depends on the length of the book, but I can usually write one of my books, which tend toward the longer side, in about eight weeks. My most recent novel came in at almost 500 pages, and I wrote it in about nine weeks, but to be fair, I was scrambling to meet my deadline and wrote about eighty of those pages in the two weeks.

What is your real-life work schedule like when writing? 

I’m an early riser, so after get ready for the day, make coffee, and have my quiet time, ideally, I sit at my desk and start writing. The goal is to write four or five hours, each my wordcount goal for the day, and then spend the afternoon on other tasks. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it’s good to have a plan, even if everything from the attention-deprived kitten to the irritating phone conspire to disrupt it.

How do you create your main characters? 

I use the ideas in Susan Mary Warren’s brilliant The Story Equation to come up with my main characters. She poses great questions that require me to dig into my characters’ pasts and figure out who they are. And usually, if possible, I get together, either in person or via Zoom, with a group of brilliant writing friends, who help me brainstorm. I don’t know how I ever wrote without them!

What would you say is the most difficult part of writing a book?

The first chapter is far and away the most difficult for me. I always have an idea of what I want the scene to look like, and it’s such a challenge to get the words on the page to match the picture in my head.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

What is this “not writing” of which you speak? Is that a thing? To be honest, I have a tendency to overschedule myself so that I feel like I’m always writing, scrambling to meet my deadlines. But sometimes, I get to do other things, like eat and clean and go to church and small group. I love hanging out with my adult kids and, when he and his mom and dad are in town, my (most amazing in the entire world) 18-month-old grandson. I never turn down a lunch invitation, and I always make time for travel, which is my favorite thing to do.

My Thoughts

PROTECTING YOU presents this question—Who are you living to please? It’s easy to focus on the human beings in our lives—the ones that surround us daily. Our parents, children, bosses, pastors, spouses… We get caught up with wanting to please these people, to hear praise from their lips, and to savor the knowledge that they’re proud of us and appreciate all that we do. We want the praise of man and to be successful in the eyes of man.

But who should we be working to please? Our Heavenly Father. It’s far more important that we live our lives in a way that not only pleases Him but brings honor and glory to His holy name. We should care more about what He thinks of us than what others think of us.

PROTECTING YOU was my first read by Robin Patchen, and it will not be my last. PROTECTING YOU was an intriguing, edge-of-your-seat novel, with some amazing twists and turns throughout, but especially at the climax. She had me convinced… and I shed tears over the emotional ending.

The main characters are Alyssa Wright and Callan Templeton. Alyssa is a cyber detective trying to get her business off the ground, which makes her an easy target for nefarious clients who might not be as sincere and wholesome as they make out.

Callan is a government agent, whose life took a hairpin turn in the form of an eight-year-old child, he never knew existed. He’s trying to adjust to being a father and having a “safe” desk job, but a phone call urges him to put everything at risk.

This is a fake engagement trope, which in fact, is one of my favorites. It also uses a rivals-to-lovers trope, not quite enemies, but hiding their former attractions with each other. It’s also a forced proximity trope as Callan is determined not to leave Alyssa alone until she’s safe. The mention of armed drones felt a little too real—if you know what I mean.

The story works well as a standalone—I never felt like I was missing anything, though the brief mentions and interactions with other characters from the previous books sparked a desire to read them. The theme of the novel focused on “Who am I trying to please?” Our earthly parents or our Heavenly Father?

PROTECTING YOU was engaging, pulse-pounding romantic suspense novel from a talented author, and I highly recommend it for lovers of other romantic suspense authors and encourage you to read the entire series and check out others by Robin.

Note: Some readers may not like the use of several euphemisms that might be considered mild cuss words. Also, there are some conversations that mention people sleeping together. None of this happens on page and are referred to as past mistakes and some questions from a child based on her own mother’s poor behavior.

Blog Stops

Babbling Becky L’s Book Impressions, February 5

Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, February 5

Book Looks by Lisa, February 6

For Him and My Family, February 7

Pens Pages & Pulses, February 7

An Author’s Take, February 8

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, February 9

Texas Book-aholic, February 10

Locks, Hooks and Books, February 11

Holly’s Book Corner, February 11

Betti Mace, February 12

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, February 13

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, February 14

Pause for Tales, February 14

Blogging With Carol, February 15

Because I said so — and other adventures in Parenting, February 16

Stories By Gina, February 17 (Author Interview)

Mary Hake, February 17

Blossoms and Blessings, February 18

Leslie’s Library Escape, February 18

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Robin is giving away the grand prize of a $100 Amazon gift card AND a box of goodies including a print copy of Running to You, a Welcome to Nutfield coffee mug, and a few surprise goodies!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/00adcf54148