Heather C: The wonderful KJ Charles is here on the blog talking about her new M/F romantic suspense thriller Non-Stop Till Tokyo and her breakdown of the action heroine. Plus, there’s a giveaway! Take a minute to tell us your favorite action heroine, book, TV or movie and get a chance at winning a free ebook copy of Non-Stop Till Tokyo.
The Reluctant Action Heroine
by KJ Charles
For a romance writer, I watch an awful lot of action movies. I like action adventure. I’ll watch anything – anything – with Vin Diesel or Jason Statham in it. I like things that go bang.
As an aficionado of these movies, I have noticed that women tend to divide into three groups.
Deathtastic. Whacking through the body count as happily as the men. Best ever: Helen Mirren in RED, aged 65, whipping round a machine gun like other ladies of a certain age have a handbag.
Useless. At best, hiding under the bed crying. At worst, manifests as: ‘Oh, we’re running for our lives from the mob? Let me put on stilettos and insist we go back for my pet chihuahua!’
Useless becoming deathtastic. Rachel McAdam in Red Eye starts off as a mild mannered hotel manager, and scales the dizzy heights of action till she stabs Cillian Murphy in the throat with a pen. Possibly all hotel managers fantasise about stabbing someone in the throat with a pen. Best to keep it nice at reception.
I’m sure we’ve all vaguely wondered what we’d do if caught up in an action adventure plot. Would you hide under the bed crying? Run away? Hand over the secret formula right away because, yeah, stuff this for a game of tin soldiers? Use your Girl Scout expertise to construct a range of booby-traps and improvised explosive devices? (If you’d insist on going back for the chihuahua and wearing heels, please get help.)
I thought about it a lot writing my romantic suspense thriller Non-Stop Till Tokyo. In this, our heroine Kerry is in no way equipped for action. She works at a hostess bar. She has never held a gun, has no fighting skills, and demonstrates as little physical courage as any normal person. When she finds herself the target of a yakuza gang, for reasons she doesn’t understand, she is quite unashamed to run like hell. Being an action adventure is just about the last thing in the world she wants to happen.
Unfortunately, she’s stuck in Japan, with the yakuza on her tail, and the two people she loves most under threat. And now she has to try and keep them all alive, which may well mean doing exactly what the bad guys tell her. Because Kerry’s afraid, really afraid, just like I’d be (I fall very firmly in the ‘useless’ category), and she stays afraid because she has no secret ass-kicking skills to call on.
She has some advantages, of course. A way with languages; some very odd friends; and, eventually, a 6’7 Samoan American ex-sumo wrestler with a foul temper as her bodyguard. (She’s not sure at first how much of an advantage this is. I think it’s fair to say he grows on her.)
But in the end, if Kerry’s going to find a way out for all the people she cares for, it’s not going to be by using her fists and feet, let alone guns. It’s going to require brains, fast talking, and, most importantly, a bit of heart.
About Non-Stop Till Tokyo
A man with a past is her only hope for the future.
Kerry Ekdahl’s mixed heritage and linguistics skills could have made her a corporate star. Instead, she’s a hostess in a high-end Tokyo bar, catering to businessmen who want conversation, translation and flirtation. Easy money, no stress. Life is good—until she’s framed for the murder of a yakuza boss.
Trapped in rural Japan with the gangsters closing in, Kerry doesn’t stand a chance. Then help arrives in the menacing form of Chanko, a Samoan-American ex-sumo wrestler with a bad attitude, a lot of secrets, and a mission she doesn’t understand.
Kerry doesn’t get involved with dangerous men. Then again, she’s never had one on her side before. And the big, taciturn fighter seems determined to save her life, even if they rub each other the wrong way.
Then her friends are threatened, and Kerry has no choice but to return to Tokyo and face the yakuza. Where she learns, too late, that the muscle man who’s got her back could be poised to stab it.
Product Warnings
Contains graphic violence, swearing, and implied sexual abuse.
Non-Stop Till Tokyo is out now from Samhain Publishing.
KJ has generously offered up a free ebook copy of Non-Stop Till Tokyo to one lucky winner!
The giveaway starts now and will end next Saturday, May 10th, 2014, at 11:59 pm EST. After which the lucky winner will be randomly picked.
All you have to do is tell us your favorite action heroine, book, TV or movie to be entered into the drawing for a free copy.
Be sure to give us your email address or we won’t know how to contact you.
Make sure to follow the blog for the winner’s announcement post or check back next Sunday, May 11th, 2014, to see if you’ve won.
Don’t forget to check out Heather C’s review of Non-Stop Till Tokyo to see what she thought of it! You can also buy your own copy at Samhain Publishing, Amazon, All Romance eBooks or Barnes & Noble.
The Blogger Girls 
Kerry was an awesome heroine!
Love a kickas heroine. Cat from Jeaniene Frost’s Night huntress series is my fave.
I gotta admire a strong heroine. I adore a good Jayne Ann Krentz or Christine Feehan heroine, but as far as action heros I gotta go with either Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs or Lily Yu in Eileen Wilks World of the Lupi series.
Omg YES! Mercy Thompson is easily my favorite heroine too. And Adam is delicious
And how’d I forget Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews?
My favourite action heroine is still Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies. She starts out as a totally ordinary person, definitely not equipped to deal with android assassins from the future. She’d have been dead if Kyle hadn’t come to protect her. But by the end of The Terminator she’s found the courage to fight back and defeat the Terminator. And then in the next movie she’s transformed herself into a warrior, but has paid a heavy price for what she’s become.
Close on her heels would be Ellen Ripley from the Alien films, who also starts out non-kick ass, until she’s in hot water. She’s regarded now as such a kick ass woman character that though she certainly shows courage and uses her brains and takes action from the start, she only really first does the “kicking ass” part she’s so famous for close to the end of Aliens. So like Sarah Connor she develops into that role, doesn’t start out that way, like someone like Trinity from the Matrix or Black Widow. (Though I love them too. :D)
I’m loving Non Stop Till Tokyo. 🙂