MatchUp SANDRA BROWN AND C. J. BOX SANDRA BROWN BEGAN WRITING IN 1981. Before that she worked as a model and in television, including weathercasting and feature reporting on the nationally syndicated program PM Magazine. And though she's published over seventy novels, with over eighty million copies in print worldwide, she admits to one handicap. She's short story challenged. "It's just not something I've written a whole lot of," she says. Luckily, C. J. Box does not suffer from that affliction, which made him the perfect partner for Sandra. Chuck is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, and small-town newspaper reporter, and he's even owned an international tourism marketing firm. He has over twenty novels to his credit, and short stories are not unfamiliar. He also has a character, Joe Pickett, so the idea was to connect Sandra's Lee Coburn with Pickett. By a stroke of great luck, at the end of Sandra's 2011 novel Lethal, Coburn ended up in, of all places, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Which is Joe Pickett country. Talk about fate. Everything just got easier after that. Together, Sandra and Chuck plotted the story. Then Chuck wrote the first draft and sent it to Sandra for an edit and rewrite. They went back and forth, until both were pleased with the outcome. Chuck's comment summed it all up. "Sandra was a dream to work with it." You're going to like this unexpected encounter between two of the most rugged protagonists out there today. Both harken back to another time, and the story's title poses an interesting question. Honor & . . . Excerpted from Matchup: The Battle of the Sexes Just Got Thrilling by Lee Child, Val Mcdermid, Charlaine Harris, John Sandford, Kathy Reichs, Eric Van Lustbader, Gayle Lynds, Nelson DeMille, Lisa Jackson, Sandra Brown, Christopher Rice, J. A. Jance, Lisa Scottoline, C. J. Box, Steve Berry, Peter James, Michael Koryta, Diana Gabaldon, David Morrell, Karin Slaughter, Andrew Gross, Lara Adrian All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
