Sunrise, Sunburst, & Sundown
THE SKY KING RANCH SERIES
by
Susan May Warren
Christian Fiction / Romance
Publisher: Revell
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THE SKY KING RANCH SERIES
Meet the boys of Sky King Ranch! The Kingston brothers are back in town, and you can read their stories in the Sky King Ranch series books Sunrise, Sunburst, and Sundown by USA Today bestselling author Susan May Warren.
Sunrise: (Publication Date: January 4, 2022, 352 pgs) Pilot Dodge Kingston has always been the heir to Sky King Ranch. But after a terrible family fight, he left to become a pararescue jumper. A decade later, he’s headed home to the destiny that awaits him.
Sunburst: (Publication Date: June 7, 2022, 368 pgs) When former Navy Seal and lifelong bachelor Ranger Kingston is called upon to take part in a rescue mission to save his brother Colt, who has been kidnapped by terrorists in Nigeria, he is shocked to find among the hostages a woman he knows and could never forget.
Sundown: (Publication Date: November 1, 2022, 352 pgs) Former Delta Operative Colt Kingston may not know the truth, but he sure doesn’t trust Tae, the woman who is caring for his ailing father at Sky King Ranch. Behind those beautiful blue eyes, he can tell there is a troubled–and smart–woman.
Baker Publishing Group
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Praise
“Warren proves yet again why she is a master in the genre.”–Booklist, starred review on Sunrise
“International intrigue and adventure paired with a simmering romance equals one fast-moving story you won’t be able to put down!”–Lisa Harris, bestselling author of the Nikki Boyd Files series, on Sunburst
Excerpt from Chapter One of
SUNBURST
Book Two in The Sky King Ranch series
by
Susan May Warren
Forty-two seconds to freedom.
Noemi had done the math. Freedom lay just two hundred yards out of camp, buried in the thin shimmer of fading orange light caught between the thick-trunked Kuka trees and past the brown and yellow grasses, ramshackle houses, battered motorbikes, and the smoking campfire simmering rice in a pot.
Forty-two seconds away.
She’d have to run past the two guards who stood barefoot, smoking cigarettes, AK-47s hung on old belt straps over their bony shoulders. Clearly not devout adherents to the Islamic Haram, these terrorists who had kidnapped them three weeks ago. Not devout, but still dangerous.
“Is tonight the night?” The whisper came from behind her, from Blessing, the fifteen-year-old girl also hidden in the hijab and abaya their kidnappers had forced the women to wear.
Noemi didn’t care—the abaya kept her warm when the night closed in, protected her from the ants and moths that burrowed into the ground beneath her.
The costume also hid the assortment of weaponry she’d acquired. Like a dull-edged dinner knife she’d discovered near the firepit and had quietly honed to a fine point. And a shattered mirror, now wrapped in a piece of cotton and secured to the waistband of her filthy underwear.
But most importantly, it hid Freddie’s cell phone.
Either he hadn’t a clue that he’d dropped it last night or . . . or the twelve-year-old boy soldier who’d been assigned to guard them under the massive tamarind tree had finally become her friend.
She prayed so. No, more accurately, Selah prayed. Because her friend was under the illusion that God actually cared. Might even show up to rescue them. Nope—Noemi did the actual work of planning their escape and dearly hoped that she didn’t get found out.
She couldn’t bear another person getting hurt—or killed—because of her. Even if he might be a terrorist.
Now, she glanced at Blessing, her dark brown eyes the only thing she could see of her beautiful face. “I don’t know,” Noemi said to her question. Escape, tonight? “Maybe. Stay alert. If they—”
“Stop talking!” one of the guards shouted. She thought his name might be Jala. He was older, gray woven into his dark knotted hair. He wore a pair of tattered slippers and his ribs stuck out from his black threadbare T-shirt. She guessed him maybe a buck forty, sopping wet.
Sometimes Noemi pictured herself walking out of camp, daring Jala to follow her. She wasn’t a wisp of a girl, and her father had taught her skills. If not for Jala’s gun . . .
Noemi turned back to the rice she stirred. In it, she’d added wild onion and Kuka leaves, which she hoped might help Colt heal from his recent go-round with the real tough guys.
The ones who threatened, randomly, to execute him. It was a sort of evil game they played.
Smoke stirred up around the fire, filtering into the fading sunlight. Every night, the same war raged inside her.
Survive. Evade. Resist. Escape.
Master Chief Pete Sutton would never have been imprisoned this long—three excruciating weeks. She imagined her father looking down from heaven and shaking his head. “You’re not here to survive this. You’re here to take charge of it.”
Fifty feet away, in another section, a couple men walked to the edge of the dusty camp and fired off their weapons. Beside her, Blessing jumped, but Noemi took her hand.
“They must have seen a wild dog.” Selah came over from where she had been gathering firewood from the outskirts of camp. The men liked her better—probably because of her blond hair and the way she never snapped back at them. Selah was calm in the chaos, and at night when the darkness settled, she sang hymns. But it wasn’t enough to drown out the cacophony of the savannah at night—the high-pitched squeak of the gray hornbill, or the chipped whine of guinea fowl, or worse, the incessant cackle of a francolin.
But the real danger were the wild dogs that roamed the outskirts of the camp. Feral and bold, sometimes they ran right in toward the fire and she had to ward them away with glowing sticks.
She imagined the dogs retreating into the darkness where they waited to gobble her up.
Coward.
If she didn’t run, they’d never be rescued.
Just forty-two seconds. She’d use the dusk to hide herself behind the massive tree, then scuttle through the brush and grasses, parallel with the dirt tracks, that wound through the wild savannah plains of northeastern Nigeria, away from the lush and beautiful montane forests to the east.
Away from the city of Jalingo, toward rescue.
Except, after the raid of the school there, she probably wouldn’t find anything but fear in the community. No, rescue had to be somewhere else.
Maybe her uncle’s home in southern Nigeria. If she could get there.
Selah added a gnarled stick to the fire, one of the many fallen from the massive tree that imprisoned them at night. “Did you talk to Moses?” She gestured to one of the four men across the compound. They hadn’t bothered handcuffing Dr. Aaron Hanson—not with his gunshot wound slowly turning septic. The sixty-year-old American had stopped moaning a few days ago. He mostly lay in the shade where Noemi and Selah had moved him, not even bothering to swat at flies.
He emitted a terrible odor, and the sight of him could make her weep. I’m sorry.
Moses, their translator, tried to bargain for medicine for him, early on, and had lost two teeth in the terrible wound one of their captors had delivered with the butt of his machine gun. His mouth had finally started to heal. But he sat, legs drawn up, head on his knees, humming, most of the time.
Moses didn’t deserve to die out here, not after everything he’d done for them.
The other two men, however, were bound hand and foot. Maybe because they’d been armed. Or because they’d fought back.
Because they were American soldiers who would, despite their injuries, grab the first chance to escape.
To continue reading Chapter One of SUNBURST, click here!
Susan May Warren is the USA Today bestselling author of over fifty novels with more than 1 million books sold, including Wild Montana Skies, Rescue Me, A Matter of Trust, Troubled Waters, and Storm Front. Winner of a RITA Award and multiple Christy and Carol Awards, as well as the HOLT Medallion and numerous Readers’ Choice Awards, Susan has written contemporary and historical romances, romantic suspense, thrillers, romantic comedy, and novellas. She makes her home in Minnesota.
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GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
ONE WINNER:
Receives a set of the Sky King Ranch Books &
Northern Nights of Alaska Necklace.
(US only; ends midnight, 12/09/22)
Visit the Lone Star Literary Life Tour Page
For direct links to each post on this tour, updated daily,
Or visit the participating blogs directly:
| 11/29/22 | All the Ups and Downs | Series Spotlight |
| 11/29/22 | Hall Ways Blog | BONUS Promo |
| 11/30/22 | It’s Not All Gravy | Review Book 3 |
| 11/30/22 | Stories Under Starlight | BONUS Review Bk 1 |
| 11/30/22 | LSBBT Blog | BONUS Promo |
| 12/01/22 | Shelf Life Blog | Review Book 2 |
| 12/02/22 | Bibliotica | Review Book 1 |
| 12/03/22 | Carpe Diem Chronicles | Excerpt, Book 1 |
| 12/04/22 | StoreyBook Reviews | Excerpt, Book 2 |
| 12/05/22 | Sybrina’s Book Blog | Excerpt, Book 3 |
| 12/06/22 | The Book’s Delight | Review Book 1 |
| 12/07/22 | Reading by Moonlight | Review Book 2 |
| 12/08/22 | The Plain-Spoken Pen | Review Book 3 |
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