*Drumroll please*
The latest Hot Hot Hot Off the Press new looks for….
and
aren’t they gorgeous?!
And in more exciting news:
Each of the above will be available in eBook format at a special price of $1.99 from May 4th – May 31st.
I am so excited to be the 6th stop on The Girls of Mischief Bay by Susan Mallery excerpt tour!
Please enjoy the excerpt and be sure to scroll all the way down to enter the fabulous giveaway!
“Hayley’s pregnant again,” he said. “She told me this morning. She’s waiting until three months to make a public announcement.”
Pam felt her mouth twist. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “That poor girl.”
“I hope this one takes,” John said. “I don’t know how much more of her suffering I can stand.”
Hayley was John’s secretary and desperate to have children, but she’d miscarried four times over the past three years. This would be try number five. Rob, Hayley’s husband, wanted to look into adoption or a surrogate, but Hayley was obsessed with having a baby the old-fashioned way.
“I should send her a card,” Pam said, then shook her head. “Maybe not.” She took a sip of her wine. “I have no idea how to handle this.”
“Don’t look at me. You’re in woman territory.”
“Where if you stray too far, you’ll grow breasts?”
“Damned straight.”
“I’ll write a note,” she decided. “I can say we’re rooting for her without a you’re-having-a-baby message. Did the doctor say she would be okay if she could get to three months?”
Her husband forehead furrowed. “I don’t know. She probably told me, but I barely want to know if she goes to the bathroom. Baby stuff is too intimate.”
“You’re not a complex man, are you?”
He raised his glass to her. “And that’s why you love me.”
He was right. She did love that he was dependable and predictable. Even if every now and then she wanted something different in their lives. A surprise trip to somewhere or a fancy bracelet. But that wasn’t John’s style. He would never plan a trip without talking to her and as for buying jewelry, he was more of a “go buy yourself something pretty” kind of man.
She didn’t object. She’d seen too many of her friends endure surprises of the not very pleasant kind. Ones that involved other women or divorces. John wasn’t looking for more than she had to offer. He liked his routine and knowing that gave her comfort.
“Jen got mail from the high school today,” she said. “An invitation to her ten-year reunion.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t think it’s stunning that we have a daughter old enough to have been out of high school ten years?”
“She’s twenty-eight. So the reunion is right on time.”
Pam sipped her wine. “I was shocked. I’m not ready to have a daughter that old.”
“Too late to send her back now. She’s used.”
Despite her earlier distress, Pam laughed. “Don’t let her hear you say that.”
“I won’t.” He smiled at her. “And you’re not old, sweetheart. You’re barely in your prime.”
“Thanks.” She heard the timer chime and stood. “That’s our dinner.”
He scooped up Lulu and followed Pam back to the kitchen. As Pam went about serving the meal, she reminded herself she was a very lucky woman. That a bit of sagging and a few lumps and bumps didn’t change who she was as a person. Her life was a blessing. If there weren’t any tingles anymore, well, that was to be expected. Wasn’t she forever hearing that you couldn’t have it all?
*
It’s just drinks, Shannon told herself as she pushed open the door that led into Olives—the martini bar/restaurant where she was meeting her date. Her online date.
She wanted to pause and maybe bang her head against the wall. Why did she do this to herself? It never went well. Dating wasn’t her strong suit. It just wasn’t. She was a successful businesswoman. She earned mid six figures and fully funded her 401K every single year. She had friends, she had a beautiful condo with an ocean view. Okay, there had been a string of boyfriends over the years and she’d been engaged twice, for no more than fifteen minutes each time. But no marriage. Not for her.
The truth was, she didn’t have good romantic relationships. Maybe it was her, maybe it was men, but she had to accept the truth that having it all simply wasn’t going to happen. Not to her. So why was she back dealing with the nightmare that was dating? Worse—online dating.
The only saving grace was that ProfessionalLA.com was a halfway decent site that actually screened subscribers. So the guy was going to look like his profile picture and wouldn’t have any felony convictions in his past. But the distance from that to happily-ever-after seemed insurmountable.
Still, she was here. She would go in and say hi. She would be pleasant and as soon as she was able to duck out without seeming wildly rude, she would run back to her office, get her car and head home. One glass of wine, she promised herself. She could survive that. Maybe what’s his name would be great.
She paused for a second, as panic set in. What was his name? Crap. Double crap. She kept moving even as her brain hustled toward whatever synapses stored short-term memory. Andrew? A something. Adam? Right. Adam. Adam something she would never remember. He sold cars maybe. He was about her age, divorced and possibly blond?
She made a mental note to spend a little more time with the profiles, even as she scanned the people in the bar and hoped to find someone who looked vaguely familiar.
A man rose and smiled at her. He was about six feet, with dark hair and eyes and a crooked smile. He was tanned and fit, but not in a look-at-me kind of way. And he was staring at her as if she had a monkey on her head.
She did her best to appear casual as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed by Taylor Swift or someone else who would cause a grown man to simply stare. There wasn’t anyone of note. So she kept moving toward him and hoped for the best.
“Shannon?” he asked as she got closer.
“Yes. Hi.”
“I’m Adam.” He held out his hand and they shook. “Thanks for meeting me.”
Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A.
Harlequin has put together prize packages for the Mischief Bay TLC Book Tours blog tour and I get to give away one prize package away to a lucky reader.
To enter to win the “California Dreamin’ Prize Package” simply share this blog post on your favorite social media outlet (Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc…) and comment on this letting us know you shared!
The prize pack includes:
A Pacific blue beach towel
Pure Paradise body cream
Luxury moisturizing bath bar from the San Francisco soap company
An autographed copy of EVENING STARS by Susan Mallery (the first book with a character from Mischief Bay)
Flip-flop tea candle holder
Map of Mischief Bay
THE GIRLS OF MISCHIEF BAY Post-It book
THE GIRLS OF MISCHIEF BAY bookmark
Handy bath mini-tote
Susan Mallery lip gloss
Susan Mallery 3D luggage tag
Susan Mallery pen
Don’t forget to visit MischiefBay.com for more giveaways and be sure to follow the rest of the excerpts:
Thank so much for stopping by!
Connect with the author:
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22859473-the-girls-of-mischief-bay?from_search=tru
Author’s website: http://www.susanmallery.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SusanMallery
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SusanMallery
Bound by Flames (Night Prince Series, Book 3)
Review by Selene
Synopsis:
Leila’s years on the carnie circuit were certainly an education. What she didn’t learn: how to be a vampire, or how to be married to the most famous vampire of them all. Adjusting to both has Leila teetering on a knife edge between passion and peril, and now the real danger is about to begin…
Vlad must battle with a centuries-old enemy whose reach stretches across continents and whose strength equals his own. It isn’t like Vlad to feel fear, but he does…for Leila, because his enemy knows she is Vlad’s greatest weakness. As friend and foe alike align against him—and his overprotectiveness drives Leila away—Vlad’s love for his new bride could be the very thing that dooms them both…
Selene’s review:
What an exciting, sexy, and overall FANTASTIC read!
Going into this book, I was a little worried that I’d forgotten some important details from the two previous installments but I had no cause for concern as Jeaniene Frost always makes it a point to [briefly] summarize events and plant reminders from previous books. And this story in particular can be summed up in one word: engrossing. I was so totally involved in this book that I hardly got anything done and I finished it the same day as its release!
Leila, new vampire and wife to the notorious Dracula, or in this case, Vlad, is the perfect character and voice to carry this series. While she’s not relatable in the strictest sense, she’s more than likable and a perfect complement to her man. Vlad, like his wife, is also a great character to read. Frost’s version of Dracula is by far the sexiest… and I have to admit, sometimes, the scariest.
Like their courtship, Vlad and Leila’s marriage has a few rough patches. You know, the standard: kidnapping, torture, and the most undesirable of alliances. The ongoing feud with master vampire Szilagyi has already resulted in the death of Vlad’s former wife and family as well as the human death of Leila. And after this formidable villain kidnaps and tortures Leila, Vlad has finally had enough.
This episode in the series is easily my favorite. Both Vlad and Leila grow in mental and physical strength, but more importantly, so does their bond and loyalty to one another. In real life, Vlad’s possessiveness would be seen as over the top and, quite frankly, frightening, but on paper, it’s downright SEXY. And this is especially because it’s offset by his protectiveness. As cold as he is to his enemies and foes, his gentle side with Leila and his friendship with Maximus prove him to be warm where it counts.
Also, Vlad is HOT. Literally and figuratively speaking. Every sex scene between him and Leila is scorching. EVERY. SCENE.
Bound by Flames is most definitely a must read, as is the series and author Jeaniene Frost!
Five Loves
About the author:
Jeaniene Frost is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the Night Huntress series, the Night Prince series and the Broken Destiny series. To date, foreign rights for her novels have sold to twenty different countries. Jeaniene lives in North Carolina with her husband Matthew, who long ago accepted that she rarely cooks and always sleeps in on the weekends. Aside from writing, Jeaniene enjoys reading, poetry, watching movies with her husband, exploring old cemeteries, spelunking and traveling – by car. Airplanes, children, and cook books frighten her.
For information on Jeaniene’s books, reading the first 20% of each book free, book trailers, deleted scenes, creature mythology, and more, please visit: www.jeanienefrost.com
BOOK BLURB:
Once burned…
Finding my fiancée naked on my couch might’ve been a good thing, if her ex-boyfriend hadn’t been with her. For the past eight years I’ve been a witness to the power of true love, but after getting burned I’d decided there wasn’t any hope for me finding it for myself. Until I met Noelle Brandt in a hotel bar. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic meeting, but the moment I met her I knew I had to have her. The more I learn about her, the more I know I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her.
Twice shy…
I’d already found the love of my life, but I’d lost that love forever. And I’d been lost ever since. But one night a wounded man makes all of that go away. He makes me laugh, live, and feel alive. When he tells me he has no intention of letting me go, I finally begin to believe in the power of true love again. That is, until I find out who he really is…and by then, it’s far too late to correct the mistakes we’ve already made. By the time we both know the truth, the lines have already been blurred beyond recognition.
About the author:
Jen McLaughlin is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sexy New Adult books. Under her pen name Diane Alberts, she is a multi-published, bestselling author of Contemporary Romance with Entangled Publishing. Her first release as Jen McLaughlin, Out of Line, released September 6 2013, and hit the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal lists. She was mentioned in Forbes alongside E. L. James as one of the breakout independent authors to dominate the bestselling lists. She is represented by Louise Fury at The Bent Agency.
Though she lives in the mountains, she really wishes she was surrounded by a hot, sunny beach with crystal-clear water. Though she lives in the mountains, she really wishes she was surrounded by a hot, sunny beach with crystal-clear water. She lives in Northeast Pennsylvania with her four kids, a husband, a schnauzer mutt, and a cat. Her goal is to write so many well-crafted romance books that even a non-romance reader will know her name.
Website: http://www.jenmclaughlin.com
Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/DianeAlberts6
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DianeAlberts
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6921962.Jen_McLaughlin
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COMMANDED by STACEY KENNEDY Title: Commanded Series: Club Sin Stacey Kennedy Canada Erotic Romance (recommended for mature audiences) July 7, 2015 240
“Claimed sucked me in! Stacey Kennedy weaves together the intense BDSM lifestyle with the soft touch of a sweeter, more traditional love story in a novel with an engaging heroine at its heart.”—J. Kenner “Desired is sexy, sensual, and totally seductive. Stacey Kennedy sure knows how to make a girl swoon.”—Tracy Wolff Synopsis:A dedicated cop, Sawyer Quinn blows off steam by immersing himself in his role as a Master at the hottest club in Las Vegas. But when Sawyer goes after the perp who brutally beat his sister, he teams up with Chloe Nash, a sexy private investigator who awakens a sweet new need: to keep her to himself, away from the dungeon of Club Sin. Chloe is beautiful, smart, and too innocent for the BDSM lifestyle. Sawyer’s never wanted a woman like this before. Is her love worth swearing off the one thing that keeps him sane? There’s something different about Sawyer: a commanding strength that pulls Chloe into a vortex of heady desire. But when she learns about his double life as a Dom, she’s shocked—and afraid she could never complete him. Then he saves her life, and just like that, Chloe knows she will be able to give him anything he desires. She is his—wherever and however he wants to take her. Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Additional purchase info
STACEY KENNEDY is the USA Today bestselling author of the CLUB SIN series. Growing up, Stacey’s mind wandered the path less traveled and that path most often led to love. She has always broken rules and she continues to feed off emotion – staying true to her heart. Those traits are now the bones of her stories. She lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, who puts any of the heroes in her books to shame, and their two young children. If she’s not on mom duty or plugging away at a new story, you’ll find Stacey camping in the summer, hibernating in the winter and obsessing over Penny Dreadful, Game of Thrones and Outlander. Connect with Stacey: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads Club Sin comes alive once again in this decadent new erotic romance from USA Today bestselling author Stacey Kennedy, perfect for fans of Fifty Shades of Grey. |
![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00072]](https://i0.wp.com/read-love-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/throb-cover1.jpg?resize=462%2C694&ssl=1)
Cover designer: Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative
Model: Josh Kloss
Photographer: Scott Hoover Photography
Genre: A contemporary romance novel
Want to read the first few chapters? Sign up for Vi’s mailing list now and get a sneak peek! http://eepurl.com/0ABfr
Add Throb to your TBR list on Goodreads!http://bit.ly/1w5mbHN
RELEASE DATE: January 26th, 2015
![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00072]](https://i0.wp.com/read-love-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/throb-blurb.jpg?ssl=1)
![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00072]](https://i0.wp.com/read-love-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/throb-full1.jpg?resize=300%2C212&ssl=1)
Additional Books by Vi Keeland
Worth the Fight (MMA Fighter Series, Book One)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1xC6epE
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1alpVES
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1dbzZ8R
Smashwords – http://bit.ly/1is0zNX
iTunes: http://bit.ly/1co2ZpF
Worth The Chance (MMA Fighter Series, Book Two)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1xC71aa
Itunes: http://bit.ly/1gHMCZg
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1fqQcnj
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/NU2rCR
Worth Forgiving (MMA Fighter Series, Book Three)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1wbsJEK
B & N: http://bit.ly/1ljdVzb
iTunes: http://bit.ly/XBTLFX
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1kWP4ka
Belong to You (A Cole Novel, Book One)
Amazon US : http://amzn.to/1jdAlRk
Made For You (A Cole Novel, Book Two)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1qLLdIk
First Thing I See (Stand Alone)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1qLL4ET
Left Behind (Stand Alone)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1wvew5K
About the author:
Vi Keeland is a native New Yorker with three children that occupy most of her free time, which she complains about often, but wouldn’t change for the world. She is a bookworm and has been known to read her kindle at stop lights, while styling her hair, cleaning, walking, during sporting events, and frequently while pretending to work. She is a boring attorney by day, and an exciting smut author by night!
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Pinterest
Someone is following Jack Winthrop—most likely the gunman who tried to kill America’s most controversial talk show host, Abraham Lincoln Jones. Ever since that fateful night when Jones called Winthrop with his audacious proposal, life has never been the same. Winthrop, an award-winning New York Times reporter who calls the Tit for Tat strip club his second home, agreed to collaborate on Jones’ national “Emancipation Tour.” The plan is to bring Jones’ passion for radical change to the people and transcend television by meeting America face to face. Now Winthrop has to survive long enough to make the tour a reality in Joe Wenke’s intellectual thriller, THE TALK SHOW (TransÜber, October 15, 2014, $9.99).
As the reach of his stalker spreads, so does the fear that Winthrop’s unconventional family is also in danger—Rita Harvey, the gentle transgender ex-priest and LGBT activist; Slow Mo, the massive vegetarian bouncer; and Donna, stripper and entrepreneurial prodigy—as well as the woman who is claiming his heart, media expert Danielle Jackson.
Steeped in the seamy underbelly of New York City, The Talk Show by Joe Wenke is a fast-paced and mordantly funny thriller that examines how the forces of nihilism threaten our yearning for love, family and acceptance.
About the author:
JOE WENKE, who is known for his seminal work on Norman Mailer, is an outspoken and articulate LGBTQ rights activist, social critic and observational satirist. He is the founder and publisher of Trans Über, a publishing company with a focus on promoting LGBTQ rights, free thought and equality for all people. Wenke is the author of MAILER’S AMERICA, FREE AIR: Poems, YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING! A Radical Satire of the Bible, PAPAL BULL: An Ex-Catholic Calls Out the Catholic Church, and THE HUMAN AGENDA: Conversations about Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (January 2015). Wenke received a B.A. in English from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in English from Penn State and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Connecticut. He is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post.
Treasure Coast is the wild new thriller from Tom Kakonis, the acclaimed author of Criss Cross and Michigan Roll.
A compulsive gambler goes to his sister’s funeral on Florida’s Treasure Coast and gets saddled with her loser-son, who is deep in debt to a vicious loan shark who sends a pair of sociopathic thugs to collect on the loan. But things go horribly awry…and soon the gambler finds himself in the center of an outrageous kidnapping plot involving a conman selling mail-order tombstones, a psychic who channels the dead and the erotically super-charged wife of a wealthy businessman. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a killer hurricane is looming…
It’s “Get Shorty” meets “No Country for Old Men” on a sunny Florida coast teeming with conmen and killers, the vapid and the vain, and where violent death is just a heartbeat away
LIKE MOST MEN CLOSING IN ON THE BENCHMARK forty, Jim Merriman made far more promises—to others mainly, a dwindling few yet to himself—than he knew, heart of hearts, he ever intended to keep. It was a habit by now so deeply entrenched, so much a part of him, that he wore it like a second skin: Generate an earnest pledge today; effortlessly shuck it off tomorrow. Mostly it was harmless, this habitual shortfall between oath and execution, deed and good intention. A commonplace human failing, to his thinking, small and forgivable.A way of getting by in this sorry world.
But the vow exacted from him by a dying sister—that now was giving him serious pause. Better make that acute discomfort. (If he were going to be honest with himself, for a switch, figuring—trying to figure—how to squirrel out of this one. Very unsettling.)From across the continent, he’d been summoned to her bed of pain, where eventually, floating up out of a narcotized fog, she found the strength to peel back crusted eyelids, fix him with a
fluttery gaze, and in a voice fainter than a whisper, feebler than a
gasp, murmur, “Jim? That you?”“None other,” he affirmed, putting some of that fraudulent deathwatch heartiness into it.
“You came.”
“Said I would.”
“Been here long?”
“Not long,” he lied. In fact he’d been sitting there for the better part of the afternoon, studying her sleep, marveling at the relentless progress of this formidable malady, its curious manifestations.
Her face, in sleep, was sunken, sallow with a greenish tint, the color of mold-infested cheese. The sockets of the eyes, hollow and dark, looked to be rimmed with a dusting of soot.
A limp hand, its flesh withered and veined as a dry leaf, seemed to sprout from a forearm grotesquely swollen to Popeye proportions and out of which coiled an IV vine that leaked some colorless, powerless anodyne into her blood. Now that hand moved in an effort at a sweeping gesture. “No, here, I mean. Florida.”
“I got in this morning. Leon picked me up at the airport.”
“Leon?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“Your place. I told him to go back and crash. He looked pretty wasted.”
“It’s been hard for him,” she said.
“He’ll be OK.”
“You think so?”
“Sure.”
“I wonder.”
“How about you?” he asked. “They treating you right here?”
“They do what they can.”
“Well, you need anything, you just let me know,” he said,
more confidently than he felt—as if he had a direct hotline to the
nerve center of the AMA and could make the quacks jump at his
barked command. Hotline to nowhere was what he had.
She nodded dismally, said nothing.
To put something into the oppressive silence, he launched
a wandering monologue, picking his topics cautiously, from the
security of the distant past mostly, skirting that phantom third
presence in the room, Lord Death, with his constrictive time horizons.
“Remember that time…” he’d begin a tale, lifted from their
shared heartland childhood, and through the malleable prism of
inventive memory, he’d mutate some perfectly ordinary incident
into an adventure antic. Outrageously the tales grew in the telling,
spinning the sunny Leave It to Beaver mythology of a tight,
joyous, loving family life. Pure fabrication of course. All of it. The
sorry truth was that, apart from the accident of birth, they’d never
had much in common, never been particularly close. Nevertheless
he wore on, mouth running tirelessly, until at last the grab bag
of hilarious anecdotes was depleted, the memory-lane tour
exhausted, and again a desolate silence settled over the room.
Thee somber interval lengthened. After a while she filled it.
“Jim?”
“Yeah?”
Eyes tearing over, she said, not as a question, “There’s not
much time left, is there.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Nurse out there says you’re
holding your own.”
“Will you do something for me?” she asked, ignoring the blatant
falsehood.
“Whatever I can.”
“It’s Leon. He’s all alone now. So helpless. Like a child. Will
you watch out for him?”
“Sure, I’ll give the kid a hand” is what he told her. Another in
that legion of empty pledges. Slippery, purposely vague. The kind
of thing you search for to say. Should have been enough.
Except she couldn’t leave it alone. “Promise?”
“Hey, you can count on me,” he said lightly, conscious of the
sickly smile tacked on his face.
“Need to hear you say it, Jim.”
“Uh, what’s that?” he asked, stalling, averting his eyes from
that pleading, miseried gaze, unblinking now, insistent.
“You promise.”
So, cornered, he heard his voice utter that one too, the “p”
word, figuring, Why not? What’s the damage? Whatever it took
to help her exit gracefully, or as graceful as anyone riddled by
outlaw cells, wildly multiplying even as they spoke, could ever
exit. It was only words. Nothing lost, no one really hurt.
His first mistake. First of many.
Ten minutes later he stood outside the entrance to the Palm
Beach Gardens Medical Center, idly puffing a cigarette. A nurse,
briskly efficient, professionally cheery, her smile as starched as
her uniform, had appeared only a moment after the vow-taking
ceremony (nice timing, those mercy angels) and shooed him out
of the room, chirping something about “Time for meds” and
whatever other ghoulish things they did to keep the croakee
wheezing and earn their pay. OK by him. Welcome break from
the white world of the hospital and its clash of pungent perfumes,
its soiled bedsheets, lemony cleansing solutions, acrid antiseptics,
hothouse flowers, rank festering flesh.
The slanting rays of the sun, still fierce on an immense slate
of bleached sky, steamed the hospital lawn, glued the parking-lot
tar. The dank air resonated with the atonal hum of insect energy.
Symphony of famished worms, he thought ruefully, gathering for
the feast waiting just on the other side of this door.
A sudden mournful ache, hollow and unfocused, overtook
him. But whom did he really mourn? An expiring sister in there,
seldom seen, scarcely known, barely recognizable anymore, soon to
be floating out of herself? No, it was himself he sorrowed for, himself,
a couple of weeks short of a milestone birthday, half a lifetime
squandered, pissed away, and dying just as surely as she, only daily,
increment by increment, puff by puff . Conducting his own requiem
in advance, dirge supplied courtesy of an invisible swarm of bugs.
What they’re doing, these crusading nicotine zealots, by banishing
us from their haloed presence, he further reflected, dourly
now, is creating a breed of solitary, morbid philosophers. Seekers of
occult mystery in wisps of smoke.
His cigarette had grown a tail of ash. He ground it under a
heel, defiantly lit another. And just as he put a flame to it, a most
handsome woman clad in a satiny blouse and designer jeans came
through the door, paused, the shed a pack of Capris from a Gucci
bag slung over her shoulder, and shook one loose. The flame in
his hand still flickered, and so in that wordless bond that links
a renegade fraternity, he offered it to her. She favored him with
a small smile and ever so lightly touched his hand in a steadying
gesture. Fetching gesture, fetching smile. Up close this way,
he could see she wasn’t young but not yet old either, a ripened
thirtyish somewhere; by his best estimate, forty tops. Around a
plume of smoke, she said, “Another second-class citizen?”
“Afraid so.”
“They’re turning us into a bunch of sneaks.”
“Or worse yet, wimps. Where’s Bogie when we need him?”
“Who?” she asked.
“Humphrey Bogart. Remember him? Tough as nails, and he
always had a weed stuck in his face.”
“How about Bette Davis? Nobody crossed her.”
“There you are.”
One thing you had to give your habit—it was an instant icebreaker.
Something to be said for that, particularly when your
commiserator comes equipped with a dizzying cascade of platinum
curls; good bone geometry; skin lacquered to a high sheen;
a generous crimson-glossed mouth; eyes a cool blue but with a
glint of worldly mischief in them; and pliant, slightly plumpish
curves under a fashion-statement outfit. Like this one did. All
of which he assimilated in a sly sidelong glance, as he no longer
pondered his own mortality but rather the enduring quality of
lust, how it occasionally nods but never really sleeps.
“You visiting somebody?” she asked him, turning the talk
elsewhere, extending it. Promising signal.
“A sister,” Jim said.
“Is it serious?”
“It’s cancer.”
“Bad?”
“Terminal variety.”
“That’s a shame.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well, cancer always wins.”
She took a long, meditative pull on her Capri. the third finger
of the cigarette-bearing hand, he noticed, was bedecked with
a gaudy rock the size of a boulder. Generally—though not absolutely,
in his experience—a bad signal. In a stagy, breathy voice,
she said, “I’m real sorry.”
“No need to be,” he said with mock solemnity. “Doctors
determined it wasn’t your fault.”
For a sliver of an instant, she looked perplexed. Then, as she
got it, her smile widened, displaying an abundance of teeth, dazzling
as neon and much too perfect to be anything but orthodontist
enhanced. Jim gave her back his player smile, oblique,
distant, hint of evasiveness in it. Dueling grins.
Hers departed first, displaced by an earnest expression. “Is
she centered?”
“Centered?”
“Centered,” she repeated, as though the echo explained itself.
“Afraid I don’t follow,” he said, baffled by the corkscrew twist
in the conversation and wondering if maybe this time the joke
wasn’t on him.
“Like, in tune with her spiritual center.”
Evidently no joke. “Well,” he said, “we’ve never been what
you’d call God-fearing people. She taught math, some community
college down here. Numbers are—were—her religion.”
“Got nothing to do with religion,” she declared, a little impatiently.
“No? What then?”
“Energy. Strictly energy. See, I read this book by this Indian
guy—from India, I mean, not your American kind—where he
shows how we’re all a part of this one big spirit. Only he calls
it energy. Cosmic energy. And it’s, like, steady. Never changes,
never dies. What we call ‘dying’ is just trading energies.”
“That’s a comfort.”
“And what you got to do,” she plowed on, voice elevating
urgently, “when your body’s ready to pass, is zero in on it, your
place in this energy field. That’s what centering is. Sort of like
finding your way home.”
“Interesting theory,” Jim allowed, thinking they all have to
come with some wart, physical or otherwise. Even the best of
them, like this dumpling of sex here, with the loopy-energy hair
up her sweet apple ass. Too bad. Terrible waste.
“Changed my life, I can tell you.”
“Bet it did at that.”
“What I do now,” she said, “is try and help people get in
touch with it. Their energy center. That’s why I’m here. My best
girlfriend’s mother—she’s about to pass too.”
Sounded to him like some spiritual fart cutting, with her
being the therapeutic Gas-X. But what he said was, “Sounds sort
of like volunteer work.”
“Guess you could call it that. See, growing up, I wanted to be
a nurse. Never did make it, so this is the next best thing.”
“You? A nurse?”
“I always wanted to help people.”
Yeah, right. “I see,” he said cautiously, radar suddenly alert
for a scam coming on.
“So you think she’s centered yet?”
“Who’s that?”
“Who we’re talking about here…your sis.”
“You got me.”
“If you want, I could speak to her.”
Finally the pitch. Everybody peddling something. Pretty
prosperous clip too, by the looks of that stone weighting her
finger. Unless, of course, it was fake. “Appreciate the offer,” Jim
said, “but I don’t think she’d be very receptive.” Figured that’d
be the end of it. Any good fleecer knows when it’s time to
book.
Figured wrong. “OK,” she said breezily and, in yet another
of those bootleg turns, added, “You’re not from around here, are
you?”
“How could you tell?”
“Wild guess.”
“You guessed right.”
“Whereabouts then?”
“Nevada.”
“Vegas?”
“Reno.”
“Reno, Vegas—they’re like Florida,” she said. “Nobody’s
from there.”
“Right again.”
“So? Originally where?”
“South Dakota.”
“No kidding!” she exclaimed. “Me too. I’m from Bismark.”
“That’s in North Dakota.”
“Same thing.”
“I expect maybe it is. There’s not all that many of us, either
province.”
“Hey, don’t I know? That’s why we got to stick together. What
I always say is, ‘When you’re from Dakota, you got to be good.’ ”
Jim regarded her narrowly. A corner of her wide mouth was
lifted once again in a suggestion of a smile, artful, provocative,
faintly amused. The naughty mischief he’d seen earlier, thought
he’d seen, all but given up on during the energy drone, shimmered
behind her eyes. “By that,” he said, choosing his words
carefully (for if four decades had taught him any lesson at all, it
was that a man never knew when he was going to get lucky), “do
you mean ‘nice good’? Or oh, say, ‘skillful good,’ ‘accomplished’?”
Before she could reply, a sleek silver Porsche swung into the
lot and lurched to an idling stop twenty or so yards from where
they stood. A head—male, jowly, squinty eyed, round, and hairless
as a billiard ball—poked out of the driver’s-side window like
a wary turtle emerging from its shell. She gave it a high-handed
wave, a big theatrical welcoming grin, calling, “Hi, honey. Be
right with you.” To Jim she stage-whispered, “Thee big doolie
arrives.”
“Doolie?”
“The worse half.”
“Oh.”
She lowered the waving hand, abruptly thrust it at him.
“Been real nice talking to you.”
Jim took the offered hand. Grip was surprisingly firm; the
shake snappy, businesslike. “Same here,” he said.
“My name’s Billie. Billie Swett.”
“Swett?”
“You got it. Like in the perspiration, only with an ‘e’ and two
‘t’s. Cute, huh?”
“Well, everybody’s got to be named something.”
“And you are?”
“Jim Merriman.”
“Merriman,” she repeated, the tantalizing shimmer not quite
gone out of her eyes. “You don’t look so merry to me.”
“Inside I’m laughing.”
“Listen, you change your mind—about your sister, I mean—
I’ll be at the hospital here. Next couple days anyway. Ask around.
They know me in there.”
“I’ll be watching.”
The Porsche’s horn bleated. The turtle head squawked,
“C’mon, honey. We’re runnin’ late.”
“I’m coming, hon,” she called back sweetly, but under her
breath, softly, though not so soft as to be inaudible, she muttered,
“Asshole.”
Across lawn and lot, she sauntered, loose easy stride, studied
sway in the shapely hips. Into the Porsche she climbed, pecked
the turtle on the cheek, checked her reflection in the rearview,
patted and primped the cotton candy ringlets. And with that the
two honeys were gone, sped away, leaving Jim to speculate now
on the quirky nature of luck, which, he suspected, like gold, was where you found it.
Treasure Coast is one of the first releases from the new publishing company, Brash Books. Bestselling authors Lee Goldberg and Joel Goldman created Brash to publish “the best crime novels in existence.”
About the author:
Tom Kakonis has been hailed by critics nationwide as the heir-apparent to Elmore Leonard… and for good reason. His stunning thrillers blend dark humor with gritty storytelling for compelling, and innovative crime noir capers packed with unique, sharply drawn characters and shocking twists. All of those talents are on full display in Treasure Coast, his bold new thriller from Brash Books.
But that success is built on a foundation of incredible crime writing. In his highly-praised debut Michigan Roll, Kakonis introduced Tim Waverly – a loveable gambler who constantly finds himself playing a game of survival against the odds. The Waverly series continued with Double Down and Shadow Counter, and Kakonis also penned the hilarious and harrowing Christmas car heist Criss Cross.
Kakonis took a darker turn with Blind Spot and Flawless, two mind-blowing thrillers he initially wrote under the pseudonym “Adam Barrow.” Blind Spot is a tour-de-force that tracks a father’s relentless, driving obsession to save his family at any cost, while Flawless, picked as a People Magazine Chiller of the Week, centers on a chilling serial killer as his perfectly-ordered life begins to crumbled when he falls in love, his imprisoned father is released, and a relentless, and sleazy, PI starts to follow the trail of bodies to his door.
And now Tom Kakonis is back with the thriller his fans have been waiting to read for years. It was worth the wait. Treasure Coast Is “Get Shorty” meets “No Country for Old Men” on a sunny Florida coast that’s teeming with conmen and killers – and marks the return of Tom Kakonis at his best.
by Selene
Tanna Barker is a world champion barrel racer. But her personal life has been less of a success, and she’s feeling adrift. After her mother’s unexpected death, her father has remarried, and sold the Texas ranch she called home. Now a rodeo injury has left the restless spitfire holed up in Muddy Gap, unsure what her next move should be.
Until she meets her match in a wild, wild cowboy
Veterinarian August Fletcher has always put his job first. He’s never found a woman who could handle his on-the-road lifestyle. But when sassy, sexy Tanna blows into town, he finally finds the woman of his fantasies. And there’s something between them, but she claims she’s been burned by love ’em and leave ’em road dogs before. How can Fletch prove that he’s in it for the long haul, and that their sizzling relationship is better than winning any rodeo medal? It’ll take some sweet persuasion to convince Tanna that Muddy Gap is where she belongs.
Delicious simmer… to hot boil!
Tanna Barker and August Fletcher are definitely a couple that know when to play coy and when to throw down. With such an incendiary initial meeting, these two are hard proof of lust at first sight.
After her unfortunate incident on horseback and the recent death of her mother, beautiful and feisty Tanna goes to Muddy Gap to find a temporary job while trying to overcome her newfound equinophobia, as well as find her place in life now that she can no longer barrel race. Fletch, a self-professed workaholic and very, very attractive veterinarian, is forced by his office assistant to take a much needed vacation. After their chance (second) meeting, sparks fly again, and though it takes them a while, they finally come together for a hot, fiery romance!
One of my favorite things about this novel is that it focuses on the couple and their developing relationship while the other characters merely play a supportive role. Another thing I love is that when they finally admit their genuine feelings for each other, they don’t drop everything (goals, work, friends, etc.) in their lives to be together; it is a very realistic portrayal of modern relationships.
As for their sexual chemistry, it is definitely off the charts! Someone as adventurous as Tanna is the perfect reciprocate for such a demanding man like Fletch.
Favorite passage:
Then Fletch stood on the rug. His hands hung by his sides. He looked gorgeous with that hot, turned-on male glaze in his eyes. The flush to his cheeks. His ragged breaths. The bulge in his jeans. Tanna nearly lost the ability to breathe when he said, “Come. Here.”
I swear my Kindle almost overheated…
Four LovesAbout the author:
A bit about me: When I’m not squirreled away behind my laptop writing fun, sexy, contemporary erotic romances set in the modern day Wild West, I can be found reading everything under the sun, practicing yoga until I’m a pretzel, shootin’ my .22, watching the Professional Bull Riders tour on Versus, and running a kid’s taxi service, all in the guise of avoiding housework and rustlin’ up vittles. Why do I have a particular fondness for all things western? Well, I’m a fourth generation South Dakotan, living in the Black Hills, which is chock-full of interesting characters, including cowboys, Indians, ranchers, and bikers. The geographical diversity of the surrounding area showcases mountains, plains, and badlands. Living in and writing about rural settings gives me a unique perspective, especially since I’m not writing historical westerns. Through my fictional world, I can show the ideals and the cowboy way of life are still very much alive.
He promised to take me as far as I could go—and I wanted to go to the edge.
My whole life has been a cover, a con, a lie. I was born into the grift, raised on the thrill of playing someone I’m not. As a rule, I never let anyone get too close—until Cole August makes it impossible for me to stay away.
Cole is tough, sexy, and intensely loyal, yet his secrets are dark and his scars run deep. Not many women can handle his past, or the truth behind his fierce demands. But something about him beckons me—and our desire is a game I must play.
I know he’s dangerous, that even his touch is trouble, but what is passion without a little risk?
Add it to your Goodreads list here!
He let go, then moved to face me. I missed his touch, but the trade-off was worth it. I’m not the kind of girl who swoons over hunky firemen calendars and I’ve only seen Magic Mike once. But as far as eye candy went, Cole was a walking, talking Milky Way bar, and at least as tempting.
“Really,”he confirmed. An easy smile bloomed on his face, and he shook his head slowly, with obvious pleasure. “I didn’t realize that working as a barista required such honed salesmanship.”
“I’m a woman of many talents,”I said, then fluttered my lashes.
“Damn right you are.”He drew in a breath as he looked at me, and try as I might, I had no clue what he was thinking.
“That was quite the commission you just brought in,”he finally said. “I have a feeling you’ll be getting Christmas cards from Tiki for the rest of your life.”
“I look forward to it. What about you?”I asked boldly, and blamed it on the wine. I met his eyes, and fervently hoped that mine really were a window to the soul, because right then I wanted him to see straight inside me. “What will I get from you?”
“That depends on what you want.”
“Want,”I repeated. Where Cole was concerned, what didn’t I want?
“I told you earlier that you owed me,” he said. “Do you want to call us even?”
“Do you?”
He was silent for a moment, and then one moment longer. “No,”he finally said.
I lifted my chin. “Good.”
His expression remained perfectly stoic, but he lifted his hand toward my face, then dropped it, as if he were a child who’d caught himself about to do something naughty.
“It’s okay,”I said, my voice almost a whisper. “I won’t break.”
“Don’t be so sure, blondie. I’ve been known to destroy even the most resilient things.”
“I’m not a thing. And you won’t destroy me.”I hesitated only a second, then took one step closer. The difference was only inches, but the air seemed suddenly thicker, as if my lungs had to work harder to draw in oxygen. “It’s okay,”I said again.
All around us, the party continued, but I’m not sure either one of us was aware. Instead, it felt as if we’d stepped into a vortex, and at least in our little corner of space and time nothing else mattered or even existed.
I held my breath, wanting his touch so badly I could taste it. And when he finally brushed the side of his thumb over my cheekbone, it was all I could do not to moan aloud.
All too quickly he took his hand away, leaving me bereft.
All too quickly he stepped back, forcing the world around us to come back to life.
“I just had to see if I was right,”he said.
“About?”
“Your skin. It’s like touching a promise.”
“Is it?”I murmured.
“Tender,”he said. “And a bit mysterious. With layer upon layer just waiting to be discovered.”
My breath stuttered in my chest. “I didn’t know you thought that,”I said. “I didn’t know you thought about me at all.”
He was silent for so long I began to fear he wasn’t going to answer. When he spoke, his words cut through me, sharp and sweet. “I think about you more than I should.”
It was suddenly very warm in the gallery. Little beads of sweat gathered at the hairline on the back of my neck. I needed air, because it seemed as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
Somehow, miraculously, I formed words. “What are you thinking now?”
Julie Kenner (aka J. Kenner and J.K. Beck) is the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over forty novels, novellas and short stories in a variety of genres.
Praised by Publishers Weekly as an author with a “flair for dialogue and eccentric characterizations,” J.K. writes a range of stories including super sexy romances, paranormal romance, chick lit suspense and paranormal mommy lit. Her foray into the latter, Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner, is in development as a feature film with 1492 Pictures.
Her most recent trilogy of erotic romances, The Stark Trilogy (as J. Kenner), reached as high as #2 on the New York Times list and is published in over twenty countries.
J.K. lives in Central Texas, with her husband, two daughters, and several cats.
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A thrilling suspense from Entangled’s Ignite imprint…
Some cowboys are worth getting dirty for.
In her latest adventure, sassy Deputy Laney Briggs discovers the local high school football coach passed out under the stadium bleachers wearing nothing but a smile…and his wife’s lingerie.
Things really start to get wild when she runs into the smoking hot Federal Marshal, Colt Larsen, snooping around the Granger’s house. Quicker than a cold snap comes and goes in Texas, Laney finds herself up to her eyeballs in a case involving a ruthless motorcycle gang, a Mexican drug cartel, a kidnapping, and a shoot-out to rival the O.K. Corral.
In over their heads, Laney calls in the big guns—her very own Texas Ranger, Gunner Wilson, who’s ready to fulfill every last one of her desires. But as things heat up between them, the stakes get higher than ever, and Gunner’s help may not be enough for Laney to get out alive…
Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy: A Deputy Laney Briggs Novella is the latest in author Jodi Linton’s Deputy Laney Briggs Series and packs a whole lot of mystery and heat into a quick read. I enjoyed it!
There’s never a dull moment in Deputy Laney Briggs’ life and finding the high school football coach passed out drunk in women’s lingerie in the football stadium, you could say it was just another day for her. Of course, this discovery only leads to another bigger mystery when the coach’s wife is nowhere to be found and a sexy Federal Marshall shows up looking for that very same missing wife…who just happens to have a few aliases. For such a small town, there sure was an overabundance of drama. Now Deputy Briggs finds herself working alongside this sexy and pain in the ass Federal Marshall all while missing her handsome Texas Ranger, Gunner Wilson, and wishing for a dull moment or two. But if we know Laney, we know that surely won’t be happening any time soon.
From start to finish this story kept packing a punch. There was never a dull moment when it came to unraveling the mystery of the coach’s wife and why she had the interest of the Federal Marshall’s office. It definitely ended up not being any of the scenarios I was leading to in my imagination while reading. Laney sure had her hands full with her less than savory section of her town, the Marshall, her co-workers, and her sexy Texas Ranger. Of course Laney brought her usual no-nonsense attitude and colorful language, which I adore about her. There was also plenty of heat packed into the scenes with her and Gunner. They are one hot couple!
Over all, this was a great, action packed, quick read that fans of Deputy Briggs would surely enjoy. Thank you, Jodi, for a great read!
Three-and-a-Half Loves
About the author:
Jodi Linton lives and works in Texas, with her husband and two kids. She can be found cozied up to the computer escaping into a quirky world of tall tales, sexy, tight jean wearing cowboys, and a protagonist with a sharp-tongue quick enough to hang any man out to dry. She writes the Deputy Laney Briggs Series.
WHATCHA GONNA DO WITH A COWBOY, August 18,2014.
Author Bio: