Christine Feehan's Blog - Posts Tagged "covert-game"
Covert Game's Gino "Phantom" Mazza
It’s time to head back to the bayou! We’re back with Team Four and this time they’re being sent on a suicide mission to save a woman they’re not sure they can trust. I thought you might like a little insight to the story.
Gino “Phantom” Mazza has an interesting background as well as unusual abilities and heightened senses. He takes one look at pictures of Zara Hightower, spending hours reading articles and he just can’t stop thinking about her. So, when they finally meet, his protective instincts kick in and nobody better get in the way of his saving her.
It’s not that he’s some white knight, he’s not. His character has never been that. He has a dark history and isn’t the nicest man. But, something about her calls to him and the predator in him meets the need to protect her in a way that is seriously sexy.
I love bad boy protector stories. I just do. Having a GhostWalker bad boy protector was so immensely fun to write.
Gino “Phantom” Mazza has an interesting background as well as unusual abilities and heightened senses. He takes one look at pictures of Zara Hightower, spending hours reading articles and he just can’t stop thinking about her. So, when they finally meet, his protective instincts kick in and nobody better get in the way of his saving her.
It’s not that he’s some white knight, he’s not. His character has never been that. He has a dark history and isn’t the nicest man. But, something about her calls to him and the predator in him meets the need to protect her in a way that is seriously sexy.
I love bad boy protector stories. I just do. Having a GhostWalker bad boy protector was so immensely fun to write.
Covert Game's Heroine: Zara Hightower
Zara Hightower is the heroine of Covert Game and I wanted to talk a little bit about her in light of the Covert Game book release on March 20th.
Zara was raised like many of the genetically altered and enhanced women. A team of five became a team of three early in her training and those three were incredibly bonded.
Zara’s friends were Bellisia and Shylah. Both women were very much warriors, but though Zara had that same training and was capable of killing, she wasn’t the warrior the others were and Whitney punished her for that.
Zara is a very different heroine. She’s brilliant. She’s a leader in artificial intelligence and lectures all over the world.
Her intelligence is what kept her alive, and important to Whitney. So, when she’s captured she’s not entirely ready for what awaits and her only hope comes when Gino Mazza’s team decides that saving her is worth the potential cost of lives.
But, there’s so much more to Zara than meets the eye initially and through the book we discover what that is. I love this heroine. I love that she’s so different and I hope readers will enjoy her story.
Zara was raised like many of the genetically altered and enhanced women. A team of five became a team of three early in her training and those three were incredibly bonded.
Zara’s friends were Bellisia and Shylah. Both women were very much warriors, but though Zara had that same training and was capable of killing, she wasn’t the warrior the others were and Whitney punished her for that.
Zara is a very different heroine. She’s brilliant. She’s a leader in artificial intelligence and lectures all over the world.
Her intelligence is what kept her alive, and important to Whitney. So, when she’s captured she’s not entirely ready for what awaits and her only hope comes when Gino Mazza’s team decides that saving her is worth the potential cost of lives.
But, there’s so much more to Zara than meets the eye initially and through the book we discover what that is. I love this heroine. I love that she’s so different and I hope readers will enjoy her story.
Where to Begin in the Series: GhostWalkers
The GhostWalkers are my second largest series with 14 books currently in that series and another one that I’m currently writing. As you likely know by now, I write all of my books to be stand alone stories. You can read them in any order and you’ll have a full story. But, like most series there is often an overall story arc that can enhance a reader’s overall enjoyment of the story of the GhostWalkers.
The GhostWalkers are military experiments gone awry. They were to be psychically enhanced, but many also had their DNA manipulated. Some of these super soldiers have brain bleeds and need “anchors” to help sooth them and keep them focused. The later experiments had more DNA splicing, but less defects.
There are four teams of GhostWalkers located in different areas around the United States. If you don’t want to start at the very beginning with team 1 you might consider starting with Viper Game, which has us in the Louisiana Bayou with team 4. Viper Game introduces us to some of the failed experiments made up of orphaned girls with strange DNA splicing/editing.
If you’d like to start even later in the series consider Power Game. This introduces us to a new set of women who are more closely tied to Whitney, the scientist who created the GhostWalker program and it expands into more international intrigue while still keeping us with team 4.
Again, keep in mind that you can read any of the GhostWalker books on their own and have a complete story. These are just some suggestions of starting points if you’re someone who wants to jump in later in a series.
The GhostWalkers are military experiments gone awry. They were to be psychically enhanced, but many also had their DNA manipulated. Some of these super soldiers have brain bleeds and need “anchors” to help sooth them and keep them focused. The later experiments had more DNA splicing, but less defects.
There are four teams of GhostWalkers located in different areas around the United States. If you don’t want to start at the very beginning with team 1 you might consider starting with Viper Game, which has us in the Louisiana Bayou with team 4. Viper Game introduces us to some of the failed experiments made up of orphaned girls with strange DNA splicing/editing.
If you’d like to start even later in the series consider Power Game. This introduces us to a new set of women who are more closely tied to Whitney, the scientist who created the GhostWalker program and it expands into more international intrigue while still keeping us with team 4.
Again, keep in mind that you can read any of the GhostWalker books on their own and have a complete story. These are just some suggestions of starting points if you’re someone who wants to jump in later in a series.
Covert Game – Inside the Characters
Zara Hightower was always going to be a complex character. I knew she was brilliant. Off the charts brilliant. Beautiful, which she didn’t see as a resource, or use as a resource. Her main focus would always be her “sisters”. Their lives mattered even more than her own. She would do anything for them, including break the rules by bringing in contraband to them, or lying to them to give them hope. Her life had started and would likely end in a laboratory where she’d been raised, trained and abused for the sake of experiment. She never expected to live as long as she had, so she wanted to be a bright light to them so they would continue to live, to try and save themselves.
Some people are naturally self-sacrificing. Not in a martyrdom kind of way, but in a generous, loving way. This is Zara. Though she was deadly in her own right, her nature was more of a giving, loving one. So when someone kidnapped her and tortured her, it challenged her sense of self and her belief that somewhere out there in the world there was kindness.
Gino Mazza had a horrific start as a child. His family was killed on his 12th birthday. He’d been shot and left for dead, his family home set on fire. But, his best friend, Joe Spagnola saved him and Joe’s family took him in. Gino grew up learning a mafia lifestyle and taking chances. He became very wealthy and, when Joe left to join the Air Force, Gino went with him. He was accepted into the GhostWalker program, his natural psychic abilities enhanced. He became a doctor and an elite hunter. His family became his “brothers”, other GhostWalkers he’d learned he could trust. He was fiercely loyal.
When Zara was captured and the call that came in asking for help was from the GhostWalker’s enemy Dr. Whitney, Gino and the team wondered if she were a plant, sent to harm them. Gino would do anything to protect his team and even as he realized he might be required to kill Zara, the pictures of her haunted him. Her beauty, her innocence, her horrible life forged from experimentation and hard training.
Matching up a hero and heroine takes some strategy. You need one to be strong where the other is weak. They have to complement one another. I want people to see both the conflict between them and the commonalities. Gino and Zara are both GhostWalkers, which makes them special. They both had a tough upbringing. They’re both wicked-smart.
But, not only do they both have trust issues, Zara was tortured, her spirit broken and the man she has to rely on knows he may have to kill her. It’s a pretty big conflict, especially given that the man who tortured her plans to reacquire her at any cost. You see, Zara has a big secret she’s kept from everyone and her ability to determine who to trust will be the difference between the life and death of hundreds of people. Including her own.
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Some people are naturally self-sacrificing. Not in a martyrdom kind of way, but in a generous, loving way. This is Zara. Though she was deadly in her own right, her nature was more of a giving, loving one. So when someone kidnapped her and tortured her, it challenged her sense of self and her belief that somewhere out there in the world there was kindness.
Gino Mazza had a horrific start as a child. His family was killed on his 12th birthday. He’d been shot and left for dead, his family home set on fire. But, his best friend, Joe Spagnola saved him and Joe’s family took him in. Gino grew up learning a mafia lifestyle and taking chances. He became very wealthy and, when Joe left to join the Air Force, Gino went with him. He was accepted into the GhostWalker program, his natural psychic abilities enhanced. He became a doctor and an elite hunter. His family became his “brothers”, other GhostWalkers he’d learned he could trust. He was fiercely loyal.
When Zara was captured and the call that came in asking for help was from the GhostWalker’s enemy Dr. Whitney, Gino and the team wondered if she were a plant, sent to harm them. Gino would do anything to protect his team and even as he realized he might be required to kill Zara, the pictures of her haunted him. Her beauty, her innocence, her horrible life forged from experimentation and hard training.
Matching up a hero and heroine takes some strategy. You need one to be strong where the other is weak. They have to complement one another. I want people to see both the conflict between them and the commonalities. Gino and Zara are both GhostWalkers, which makes them special. They both had a tough upbringing. They’re both wicked-smart.
But, not only do they both have trust issues, Zara was tortured, her spirit broken and the man she has to rely on knows he may have to kill her. It’s a pretty big conflict, especially given that the man who tortured her plans to reacquire her at any cost. You see, Zara has a big secret she’s kept from everyone and her ability to determine who to trust will be the difference between the life and death of hundreds of people. Including her own.
My Official Website
Christine Feehan Website
Christine's Facebook
Christine on Twitter
Christine Feehan Instagram
(Exclusives, Sneak Peeks, Discussions and more) - Exclusive Online Community
