Release Date

June 29th

 Genre

Contemporary Fighter Romance

 Goodreads Link:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22306838-grace-for-drowning

Blurb

Hope is a dangerous thing. I know that more than most. Everything good I’ve ever had has been stolen from me — my friends, my fiance, my innocence, some would say even my sanity. All I have left is the cage. Fighting is the only thing that eases the ache inside me even a little. It’s the only thing that keeps the bottle at bay.

I was content to ride out my life alone. I was done dreaming that things could be better. But then I met Grace, and suddenly, all I could do was dream.

She’s battling those same demons, only she’s losing. I don’t want to care, but something about her calls to me. That pain in her eyes is so sharp, so familiar. I know it’s only a matter of time before it pulls her below the surface.

I can help her, and maybe, just maybe, she can help me too. For the first time in what feels like forever, I’ve got hope, and that scares the hell out of me.

This is a full length novel with no cliffhanger. There will be a sequel, but this book resolves all the story elements by the end. It is written with dual perspectives, so both Logan and Grace get their say.

Excerpt (Grace POV):

There were fresh tears rising behind my eyes now, and this time they weren’t for me. I felt like the world’s biggest bitch. “I…I’m sorry, Logan. I’m sorry.”

He nodded, seemingly not trusting himself to speak. I couldn’t blame him. That scene was more horrific than anything I’d experienced in my life. I was struck by an immense sense of shame. How much death had Logan seen? How many friends had been ripped away from him before his eyes? It didn’t bear thinking about. And here I was crying over one lost life. I probably looked so childish. If Logan could find a way to overcome his pain, then so could I.

“How do you stop it destroying you?” I asked.

“By acknowledging you don’t control the world. We all makes choices. Some of them are good, others are a fucking disaster, but very few things are the result of a single action. What if our CO had sent us to another village that day? Or the insurgent leader was slow with his dinner and the attack came five minutes later? What if Ace never enlisted at all? There are a million variables to everything. Blame isn’t black and white. I know I contributed to his death in some small way, but I also know I’m not responsible. You need to realise that too.” He stepped closer and reached out to brush my face where a single tear had leaked down. “There’s a girl in here somewhere who deserves a second chance, and you owe it to her to make that happen.”

The tenderness in his voice filled me with warmth. I stared up at him, everything inside me in tatters. I hurt for me and for him, for Tom and for Ace. There was so much pain, and right then it felt like we were both ready to drown in it. I desperately wanted something to cut through all that, if only for a moment.

There was barely a foot between our faces now, and slowly but surely, that space was shrinking further still. His hand lingered on my cheek, his eyes locked to mine. I could feel the heat of him enveloping my skin like steam, his scent swelling in my nostrils. There was something stirring in my stomach, something hungry and desperate and lonely. I knew I needed to look away, to break the spell of that moment, but his sheer presence held me in a trance.

He stood poised over me for what felt like a lifetime, gaze hungry, breath trembling, fingers dancing tiny circles across my skin, then with a low growl he pulled back.

Author Bio

Maya Cross is a writer who enjoys making people blush. Growing up with a mother who worked in a book store, she read a lot from a very young age, and soon enough picked up a pen of her own. She’s tried her hands at a whole variety of genres including horror, science fiction, and fantasy, but funnily enough, it was the sexy stuff that stuck. She has now started this pen name as an outlet for her spicier thoughts (they were starting to overflow). She likes her heroes strong but mysterious, her encounters sizzling, and her characters true to life

She believes in writing familiar narratives told with a twist, so most of her stories will feel comfortable, but hopefully a little unique. Whatever genre she’s writing, finding a fascinating concept is the first, and most important step.

The Alpha Group is her first attempt at erotic romance.

When she’s not writing, she’s playing tennis, trawling her home town of Sydney for new inspiration, and drinking too much coffee.

Social Media

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Boring Beth Lynn has always lived up to her nickname… until she wakes up in a hotel bed next to a sexy as sin state senator she re-connected with at a wedding the previous night.

The biggest problem? She can’t seem to remember anything about the night before except for crying into a box of cookies, and she’s pretty sure Grandma Nadine slipped something in her drink. And what should have been a one night stand turns into a six day adventure when Grandma whisks them off to Hawaii to save them from the ensuing media firestorm.

Jace isn’t looking for commitment — he believes he made that clear when he left the wedding with Beth. Then again, he can’t remember much of anything other than the way her skin felt beneath his hands. Now he’s stuck with her at some lame couple’s retreat and trying his hardest to fight the attraction only a woman like Beth could invoke.

He doesn’t think it can get any worse.

But one spider attack… A donkey ride from hell… And an unfortunate episode with Viagra tea — and there’s one thing Jace knows for sure: He should never have agreed to Grandma Nadine’s suggestion in the first place.
Because if this isn’t paradise, and it isn’t a vacation — that only leaves one option.

Survival.

But to make it through alive… they might lose their hearts in the process.

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Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she’s not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.
She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband and their snoring Boxer, Sir Winston Churchill. She loves to hear from readers!

You can follow her writing journey at www.rachelvandykenauthor.com

EMAIL ME: rachelvandykenauthor@gmail.com

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The #1 New York Times bestseller…

♥Thin Love – Excerpt♥

She doesn’t stop him when he kisses her. She lets herself take in the heat of his massive body, lets it work over her skin. She inhales him—his scent, the hot rub of his tongue against hers, along her bottom lip. At first, she thinks she won’t react; that she’ll push back the sensation, ignore how sweet he tastes, how hard he feels against her. But then he holds her arms, leans into her until her back rests against the brick wall behind her and Keira is lost.

Kona still makes low groans in his throat when he kisses her; still has the softest lips, the most demanding, wide tongue.

She can’t help herself. He’s an addiction, her favorite drug. She wants a hit. She wants a million hits of him.

Her hands work up his arms, his immense shoulders and his groaning deepens, becomes a growl of pleasure when she returns his attentions. Their mouths aren’t frantic, but they do match each other. He pushes, she pulls, like always, like habit, and it is a delicious drugging dance; one she didn’t know she’d missed.

She feels the swift lick of disappointment when Kona pulls back, but it disappears with his fingers holding her face and the tips smoothing just over her cheekbones.

“My dirty little rascal,” he says, but he doesn’t return her smile, seems struck by how close they are standing, how easy this has been, to fall back into old habits. It was returning…their reactions to one another were primal, instinctual. Un-fucking-avoidable.

The song ends, but Kona hasn’t stopped examining her face. His breath is still hot and panting over her cheeks. It would be easy, so fucking easy, to let him consume her. Every touch is a recall of all the dangerous, desperate emotions Kona sparked in her. Every look dulls her memory, makes her forget how he hurt her, how he broke the promises he swore he’d always keep.

Kona leans in again, somehow moving closer, another hit that will edge her toward overdose and she stops him. The rational part of Keira’s mind pushes back the sensation of his touch and the embers are extinguished.

“Wait.”

He pauses, but doesn’t move away from her, doesn’t move his fingers from her skin.

“Wildcat, come on.”

“What are we doing?” Keira knows that expression. It hasn’t changed in sixteen years. Kona’s face is calm, but he frowns, forehead wrinkling in his agitation and Keira stops another attempt of his lips against her mouth. She pushes him back, palm flat against that tempting chest. “How’d this happen?”

Kona’s shoulders sag and finally, her skin is free of his touch.

“Memory lane,” he says.

“That’s a dangerous place.”

“If you say so.”

“I can’t do this with you.” She takes a breath. “I can’t ever do this with you again.”

His anger isn’t quick, not the instant snap of frustration she’d always known from him, but there is no humor on his face and despite her small rejection, he hasn’t moved his arms from the brick behind her. “Why the hell not?”

“I told you. We were not good together. I can’t…” Another slow breath and Keira tries to calm, to ignore the sweet scent of his skin. “I won’t be like that again.”

Too easy, she thinks, reminding herself how effortlessly Kona consumes her. Moth to flame, eager to die in the fire. She hated who she was with him, most days. She hated that she forgot good sense, any smidgeon of reason when he was around her. She didn’t like who she’d been at eighteen and it was that girl, that unbalanced, obsessed girl, that Keira had been running from all these years. She wouldn’t let that girl return, not now, not even for Kona.

When she slips out of the cage of his impossibly large arms, Kona reacts, old habits flirting to the surface. He grabs her arm and for a quick second, Keira feels her teenage self return. His fingers are hot on her bicep, licking heat, anger, passion, through her limbs and Keira fears the sensation, hates that she loves it so much, that she’d missed it more than she wants to admit.

Just like that, she’s ready to react, to fight and it takes all Keira’s strength to repress that inclination. “Don’t…”And at her small warning, Kona jerks back, hands up as though she burned him. “You see what I mean? Three weeks and it’s starting already.”

“I’m sorry.” Keira thinks that he might be telling the truth. He fans his fingers through his hair, eyes rounded as though he can’t believe how he’d reacted. “Please,” Kona says, taking a tentative step forward, voice easy, calm. “Don’t leave.”

She doesn’t want to see that expression on his face; the one that tells her he’s different, that his overwhelming presence is no longer dangerous. He’d fooled her once. He won’t get a second chance. A quick shake of her head and Keira turns away from him, tries to focuses on a plane above shooting away from the city, wishing she was on it. Kona’s breath warms her neck and Keira cringes at how much she’d missed this—him, her, the heat, the passion and it is like refusing the best high she’s ever had. She wants it so desperately, wants to forget all his sins just for a moment, just for one small taste of how good he made her body feel. “If I don’t walk away right now, I’m going to kiss you again.”

Kona’s low voice is heady, firm and Keira has to tighten her eyes closed when his fingertip slides down her spine. “I want you to.”

“I can’t. We…no, we can’t.”

“You’re scared,” he says, mouth hot against her neck.

“I’m petrified.” Despite herself, Keira leans back, lets Kona wrap his hands around her waist.

“I would never hurt you. You know I’d never touch you, not like that.”

No, he never had. Not once. She’d slapped him and punched him because she was angry, because they were twisted, because they both got off on it. But Kona had never returned the favor. His wounds cut deeeper.

“You’re no good for me. You were never good for me.” Keira turns, takes a step back so she can look at his face, so she can see how determined he is to change her mind. “I was a crazy person with you. Obsessed. I can’t relive the past.”

“I’m not the same person.” Kona pulls her forward, gripping her waist in his too large hands until their bodies are flush, until Keira can feel the hard, delicious planes of his chest and the corded muscles of his thighs. She knows he won’t hurt her. She knows he won’t let her go. Kona takes her face again, moving her chin so she’s forced to look at him. “You’re not the same, Wildcat and that was a long time ago.”

And then Keira lets that girl sneak to the surface. She lets her take Kona’s mouth, pull his shirt so that her tongue licks against a wide expanse of tempting, copper skin. She lets that girl enjoy Kona’s mouth, his hands, the way he feels hard, demanding against her, until the night darkens, deepens and her rejection, though halfhearted, comes again.

Kona stops pushing, stops demanding and before he leaves Keira out on that balcony, he reminds her why she’d loved him in the first place. He reminds her why she should love him again.

“I only know one thing—no one sets my skin on fire like you do. No one. Not one person has ever made me feel like I’m alive like you. That hasn’t changed, not in sixteen years.
Don’t try to pretend it isn’t the same for you.”

©Copyright Eden Butler 2014

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