by Serenity Woods

One Hot Winter’s Night is an action/adventure, fun and sexy romance novel that follows two archaeologists as they travel around the globe on a treasure hunt for priceless artefacts. How easy is it to transfer action and adventure stories to novel form? Here’s an idiot’s guide to the top five things you need to write action/adventure romance:

1. A gorgeous gamma hero

What do I mean by this? Well, Harrison Ford has been labelled the ultimate gamma hero—that is, a blend between the arrogant alpha and the boy-next-door beta. Think Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Han Solo in Star Wars, or Michael Douglas’s Jack T. Colton in Romancing the Stone. Your gamma man takes all the best bits from the alpha—he’s tall, dark, and handsome (or a variation of), arrogant, or at least confident in his abilities, brave and adventurous, but he also wields the wicked sense of humour and down-to-earth qualities of the beta hero. Heath in One Hot Winter’s Night exemplifies my perfect man, and yes, there’s more than a little Harrison Ford about him!

2. A feisty, courageous heroine

Think Kathleen Turner in Romancing, Karen Allen in Raiders, Princess Leia, Lara Croft, and The Mummy’s Rachel Weiss. Heroines have to be independent, adventurous, gorgeous, funny, and determined to resist the hero (although of course they can’t.) Cat in One Hot Winter’s Night is classy, witty, and smart, but like all these heroines, she can also be amazingly clumsy and she doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty!

3. An exotic setting

Raiders went from jungle to desert to cities like Berlin. Romancing delves deep into the heart of the Columbian jungle. The Mummy moves from London to Egypt. One Hot Winter’s Night starts in an ice hotel in Sweden under the Aurora Borealis, travels to the Pyramids in Cairo, to Xi’an in China, the sub-tropical Northland of New Zealand, and finally to London. Want to write an adventure story but never been to that country? That’s what’s the internet’s for!

4. A priceless treasure

Your hero and heroine have to be hunting for some kind of ancient artefact. In Raiders it was the Ark of the Covenant, in Romancing it’s a gemstone, in The Mummy it’s…well…a mummy. Often the artefact has religious or historical significance. In One Hot Winter’s Night they begin by fighting over the necklace of an ancient Swedish princess, then an Egyptian cat statue, then the Terracotta warriors. If the artefact has some kind of supernatural power, so much the better.

5. Romance

Ultimately, the novel has to have romance. What would Raiders or Romancing or The Mummy be without the love story? Your hero and heroine’s relationship has to be packed full of chemistry, and although these are ultimately romances, they’re not soppy stories but fun-packed adventures often full of sex ‘n’ sizzle. Cat in One Hot Winter’s Night seduces Heath so she can steal the priceless necklace from under his nose. Little does she know it’ll start a chase around the globe!

Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft in a hot, desperate treasure hunt that spans the globe and captures the imagination.

Dr. Cat Livingstone works for the British Museum, and she’s frustrated as hell when the mysterious man she knows only as the Silver Fox snatches yet another artefact from under her nose. Determined to steal the priceless necklace back, she tracks him to the Swedish Ice Hotel, but she doesn’t bank on him being the most gorgeous guy she’s ever laid eyes on.

Heath has no idea that the hot blonde in the ice cold hotel has ulterior motives. But when a night between the sheets ends with both Cat and the necklace gone in the morning, Heath jumps into action.

Unfortunately for Cat, Heath lives for the thrill of the chase. And the chase is on.

We’re giving away a copy of One Hot Winter’s Night! To be in the running, leave a comment, including your email address, telling us your favourite Action movie pairing!