Have
you Pre-ordered THE SURVIVING GIRLS by Katee Robert yet?
“This is a must read summer read!” —Book Him Danno
“Robert takes the story to an unexpected revelation of who
the real killer is and the trip there is highly entertaining in a hang on to
your chair kind of way. Every Robert book I’ve read has been filled with well
defined, gritty characters and a well-paced plot. The women aren’t Cinderallas
and the Princes Charming have an edge to them. Just the way I like it.” —Jeep
Diva
Pre-order THE
SURVIVING GIRLS and add it to your TBR pile on Goodreads! Then keep reading to get a sneak peek and your chance to enter
the giveaway for a $25 Amazon gift card or books from Katee Robert!
The Surviving Girls by Katee Robert
Series: Hidden Sins #3
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Release Date: May 29, 2018
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Print Length: 282 pages
Format: Digital and Paperback
ISBN: 978-1503902442
A fierce survivor and a fearless FBI agent battle a copycat
serial killer in a gripping thriller from New York Times and USA
Today bestselling author Katee Robert.
Twelve years ago, Lei Zhang and her friend Emma Nilsson
miraculously lived through the notorious Sorority Row Murders that left twenty-one
of their sisters dead. Still wrestling with the trauma but finally out of the
limelight, Lei and Emma are now devoted to helping other victims find closure.
But most disturbing for Lei—beyond the gut-wrenching survivor guilt—is that the
killer was her boyfriend. He’s behind bars, but she’ll never lower her guard
again.
When a copycat killer targets Lei and Emma, FBI Agent Dante
Young is put in charge of anticipating the sociopath’s every move. But what he
doesn’t expect is his immediate and overpowering attraction to Lei. The closer
they get to each other, the more desperate and terrifying the questions become:
Who wants to finish what the killer started—and why?
Now Agent Young vows to protect Lei at all
costs. If they have any chance of a future together, first they have to stay
alive…
On sale May 29th!
Enter to win a grand
prize of a $25 Amazon Gift Card or three (3) runner-up copies of a backlist
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The Surviving
Girls Excerpt
Copyright © 2018
Katee Robert
Watching
the women interact was fascinating on a level Dante wasn’t prepared for. He’d
known Lei and Emma lived together, but he hadn’t had the opportunity to take a
step back and consider the implications of that arrangement. Emma teetered on
the edge of a breakdown and used Lei to pull herself back from the ledge . . .
everything made a lot more sense.
They’d
formed a symbiotic relationship, of sorts.
There
wasn’t much data concerning situations like this one, mostly because they
rarely arose, and each case was too individual to tie together in nice, easy
studies. It stood to reason, though, that coming out of that sorority house as
the only two survivors would send these women into one of two futures. In one,
they never saw each other and pretended the other didn’t exist rather than be
faced with the perpetual reminder of what they’d gone through.
In
the other, they realized that no one would ever know what they went through as
intimately as the other person who survived—and leaned on each other as result.
Lei
was the one who finally met his gaze, and hell if her inky-dark eyes didn’t
take his breath away despite the circumstances. Clarke had pulled both women’s
photos on the way over there, but they were old—from their sorority days. Both
beautiful in their own way, though they were a study in opposites. Emma had the
sweet southern thing going for her, all blonde hair, big innocent blue eyes,
and curves that suggested southern cooking. He couldn’t tell if her soft tone
was practiced or natural, but it pricked at him every time she spoke.
Lei
. . . She was something else altogether. She was petite in a way that should
have read frail but reminded him of a blade waiting to be unsheathed. There
were muscles beneath her light-brown skin, and he guessed that she’d have no
problem keeping up with the monster dog at her feet during a search. Her
straight black hair was pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail, which left her
features in stark relief. Beautiful, but doesn’t like to draw attention to it.
Might as well have tried to hide the sky.
Fuck,
get it together. You’re here to interview them, not to lose your damn mind over
Lei Zhang.
Yes,
she was beautiful, but he’d dealt with beautiful women before without
jeopardizing his professional persona. Dante didn’t know what it was about this
woman that called to something in him, but he had to shelve it.
He
couldn’t afford to be distracted.
She
clasped Emma’s hand but turned her body to face him more fully. “The night of
the murders, I let Travis Berkley into the Omega Delta Lambda house. We’d been
dating four months and he told me he had a surprise.” Her lips twisted. “It was
against the rules, but girls broke the rules all the time.”
He
noted her knuckles whitening where she held Emma’s hand, but her voice
maintained its steady tone. “We had sex. Approximately an hour later, something
changed. I still have problems putting it into words. Travis just . . .
shifted. It was like he’d taken off a mask and I didn’t recognize the man
beneath. He hit me. A few times.” She absentmindedly touched the little hooked
scar on her cheekbone. From Travis’s ring. “I passed out. When I woke up, he’d
barricaded my door shut and I could hear their screams.”
Lei’s
breath hitched, and it was almost as if she inhaled and Emma exhaled. The
blonde lifted her chin. “I was in the basement studying when it started. Finals
were coming up, and I was struggling in history and needed the extra study
time. The first sign of something wrong was Travis hauling Sarah—” She cut
herself off and flinched. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to say their names, even now.”
Clarke
huffed out a breath. “You don’t have to name every single girl he killed. We
know their names. We know their stories. We just want to hear how it all went
down from your perspective.”
They
wouldn’t find anything new here. Dante knew it, and he suspected Clarke knew
it, too. These two women had told their stories countless times over the years,
and if there was information they hadn’t shared before now, he highly doubted
this would be the time it’d magically come out.
Hearing
the story through their own voices was a whole hell of a lot more jarring than
reading it in the file, however.
Emma
took them through it. How Travis Berkley brought the entire house of girls into
that basement, how he was charming and terrifying and told them that he’d let
them go one by one . . . if they did exactly as he asked. It wasn’t until the
night was over and no one had come to save them that the remaining girls
realized what was happening, and even then, they were too afraid to try to
overpower him.
Herd
mentality. Travis had to have known he could manipulate the whole group as long
as he got them scared and in a single place. They believed the pretty lie
because the truth was impossible to wrap their minds around.
Emma’s
voice shook. “There were still . . . ten of us left when I realized I wasn’t
getting out of that house alive—that none of the girls had gotten out alive
like he’d promised. When he took the next girl, I hid under the couch.”
“None
of those girls saw you hide?” Clarke frowned. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I
don’t know. I don’t . . .” She dropped her gaze as if she couldn’t bear to hold
her head up any longer. “We were in shock at that point—just sitting there,
lost in ourselves. We didn’t talk. We didn’t even look at each other. We just
sat there and . . . contemplated the fact we were going to die. I don’t know if
they even noticed I was gone. I hid until every single one of them was gone.
And he just . . . walked out.”
“He
came for me. I guess it was then.” Lei didn’t shrink in on herself. She seemed
to grow taller, sit straighter. “I heard him removing the barricade and I
panicked. After listening to that all night . . .” She shook her head. “I knew
what would happen if he got back into my room, so I climbed out the window.”
Clarke
went still. “I saw the list of your injuries. You had a broken arm, your knee
was so fucking swollen you shouldn’t have been able to walk, and you had several
head wounds and a handful of broken ribs on top of that. How the hell did you
climb out a window?”
Lei
shrugged on shoulder. “He would kill me if I didn’t. I figured falling to my
death was preferable to letting Travis have me, so I took my chances.”
It
was only sheer dumb luck that it was late enough in the morning that a student
jogging past saw Lei. By the time he’d come back with help, Lei was unconscious
in the flower bed and Travis was gone.
Dante
sat back, going over the story again in his head. As he suspected, there was no
new information, but they’d have been remiss if they didn’t go over it one more
time. He exchanged a look with Clarke. The killings in Seattle held some key
differences. He didn’t think any of the girls had willingly let the unsub in,
and he had carved his message into their bodies when he was through.
A
message that might or might not have been meant for Travis Berkley. Hard to
believe that someone who’d gone through the trouble of researching the murders
would get the killer’s name wrong, but the alternative was that the girls’
deaths were meant as tribute to someone else. Both possibilities stretched the
realm of belief and didn’t make a damn bit of sense.
The
tension in the room grew like it was a living thing, coiling and snapping
between the four of them. Once Dante and Clarke left, things would move
quickly. They had to talk to Berkley. They had to head back to Seattle to go
over things again with Detective Smith and the ME. They had to track down this
bastard before he continued with whatever plan he’d begun with those girls’
deaths.
Dante,
at least, would have the comfort of motion to keep him distracted from the
scenes that he’d witnessed. Lei and Emma wouldn’t have even that. He leaned
forward, catching Lei’s attention. “We can assign a protection detail. I don’t
think you’re in any immediate danger, but if it would help ease your mind, I’ll
make some calls.”
Lei’s
lips quirked up at the edges, but the smile never came close to reaching her
eyes. “Dante—Agent Young—we were in immediate danger the second that asshole
singled Travis out as someone he wanted to emulate. We’re more than capable of
taking care of ourselves.”
Praise
for The Hidden Sins Series
“…a captivating read, made all the more rewarding
when good triumphs.” —Washington Post on The Devil’s Daughter
“Robert
shows off her impressive versatility in this fast-paced and inventive new
Hidden Sins series. The small-town setting is a masterful blend of quaint and
oppressive, which ratchets the menace and thrill factor. The protagonists carry
the full weight of their pasts with them, making their growing relationship as
compelling as the mystery element in The Devil’s Daughter. With
plenty of twists and betrayals, this is a book that is sure to earn Robert a
wealth of new fans.” —RT Book Reviews on The Devil’s Daughter
"Katee
Robert has definitely picked up the romantic suspense genre and made it her
bitch. I can’t wait to see what we get next. Given some of the books I see
she’s been using for research, I know it’s going to be frightening and amazing
at the same time." —Goodreads Review
“Every
bit as complex as book one but with a totally different storyline, The
Hunting Grounds once again proved Katee Robert is more than capable of
spinning a thrilling romantic suspense tale that will keep readers on their
toes.” —Harlequin Junkie on The Hunting Grounds (recommended read)
“Filled
with suspense and lot of unpredictable twists and turns…Gripping.” —Life
at 17on The Hunting Grounds
Other Books in the Hidden Sin Series
THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER
THE HUNTING GROUNDS
About Katee Robert
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Katee
Robert learned to tell her stories at her grandpa’s knee. Her 2015 title, The
Marriage Contract, was a RITA finalist, and RT Book Reviews named it 'a
compulsively readable book with just the right amount of suspense and
tension." When not writing sexy contemporary and romantic suspense,
she spends her time playing imaginary games with her children, driving her
husband batty with what-if questions, and planning for the inevitable zombie
apocalypse.
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