Excerpt

#BlogTour #Excerpt Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden @Karen_Odden @CrookedLaneBks @Austenprose #UnderaVeiledMoon #InspectorCorravanMystery #KarenOdden #HistoricalMystery #VictorianMystery #DetectiveMystery #NewBooks #Booktwitter #BookTour #AustenprosePR

#BlogTour #Excerpt Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden @Karen_Odden @CrookedLaneBks @Austenprose #UnderaVeiledMoon #InspectorCorravanMystery #KarenOdden #HistoricalMystery #VictorianMystery #DetectiveMystery #NewBooks #Booktwitter #BookTour #AustenprosePR Title: Under a Veiled Moon

Author: Karen Odden

Series: An Inspector Corravan Mystery #2

Published by: Crooked Lane Books on Oct. 11, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 336

In the tradition of C. S. Harris and Anne Perry, a fatal disaster on the Thames and a roiling political conflict set the stage for Karen Odden’s second Inspector Corravan historical mystery.

September 1878. One night, as the pleasure boat the Princess Alice makes her daily trip up the Thames, she collides with the Bywell Castle, a huge iron-hulled collier. The Princess Alice shears apart, throwing all 600 passengers into the river; only 130 survive. It is the worst maritime disaster London has ever seen, and early clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who believe violence is the path to restoring Irish Home Rule. 
 
For Scotland Yard Inspector Michael Corravan, born in Ireland and adopted by the Irish Doyle family, the case presents a challenge. Accused by the Home Office of willfully disregarding the obvious conclusion and berated by his Irish friends for bowing to prejudice, Corravan doggedly pursues the truth, knowing that if the Princess Alice disaster is pinned on the IRB, hopes for Home Rule could be dashed forever.

Corrovan’s dilemma is compounded by Colin, the youngest Doyle, who has joined James McCabe’s Irish gang. As violence in Whitechapel rises, Corravan strikes a deal with McCabe to get Colin out of harm’s way. But unbeknownst to Corravan, Colin bears longstanding resentments against his adopted brother and scorns his help.
 
As the newspapers link the IRB to further accidents, London threatens to devolve into terror and chaos. With the help of his young colleague, the loyal Mr. Stiles, and his friend Belinda Gale, Corravan uncovers the harrowing truth—one that will shake his faith in his countrymen, the law, and himself.


Excerpt:

I knocked twice and inserted my key in the lock.          

Even as I did so, I heard the twins, Colin and Elsie, their voices raised as they talked over each other—Elsie with a sharp edge of frustration, Colin growling in reply. Odd, I thought as I pushed open the door. Since they were children, they’d baited each other and teased, but I’d never known them to quarrel.

Colin sat in a kitchen chair tilted backward, the heel of one heavy boot hooked over the rung. He glared up at Elsie, who stood across the table, her hand clutching a faded towel at her hip, her chin set in a way I recognized.

“Hullo,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

Both heads swiveled to me, and in unison, they muttered, “Nothing.”

They could have still been five, caught spooning the jam out of the jar Ma hid behind the flour tin. Except that under the stubble of his whiskers, there was a puffiness along Colin’s cheek that appeared to be the remnants of a bruise.

Colin thunked the front legs of the chair onto the floor and pushed away from the table. “I got somethin’ to do.” He took his coat off the rack—not his old faded one, I noticed, but a new one—and stalked out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

I raised my eyebrows and turned to Elsie. She grimaced. “He’s just bein’ an eejit, like most men.” Her voice lacked its usual good humor; she was genuinely angry.

Jaysus, I thought. What’s happened?
But I’d give Elsie a moment. “Where’s Ma?”

“Went down to the shop for some tea.” She stepped to the sideboard and moved the kettle to the top of the stove. The handle caught her sleeve, pulling it back far enough that I caught sight of a white bandage.

“Did you hurt your wrist?”

She tugged the sleeve down. “Ach, I just fell on the stairs. Clumsy of me.”

The broken window and Colin’s abrupt departure had been enough to alert me to something amiss. Even without those signs, though, I wouldn’t have believed her. I knew the shape a lie took in her voice.

“No, you didn’t,” I said.

Her back was to me, and she spoke over her shoulder. “It’s nothing, Mickey.”

I approached and took her left elbow gently in mine to turn her. “Let me see.”

Reluctantly, she let me unwrap the flannel. Diagonal across her wrist was a bruise such as a truncheon or a pipe might leave, purple and yellowing at the edges.

I looked up. “Who did this?” My voice was hoarse.

Her eyes, blue as mine, stared back. “Mickey, don’t look like that. It was dark, and I doubt he did it on purpose.”

“Jaysus, Elsie.” I let go of her, so she could rewrap it. “Who?”

“I don’t know! I was walking home from Mary’s house on Wednesday night, and before I knew it, twenty lads were around me, fightin’ and brawlin’, and I jumped out of the way, but one of them hit my wrist, and I fell.”

“What were you doing walking alone after dark? Where was Colin?”

She gave a disparaging “pfft.” “As if I’d know. Some nights he doesn’t come home until late. Or not at all.”

Harry’s words came back to me: “Out . . . as usual.”

I cast my mind back to my own recent visits. Colin had often been absent, partly because he’d been working on the construction of the new embankment, but that had ended in July. So where was he spending his time now? And where had he earned the money for his new coat?

We both heard Ma’s footsteps on the inside stairs.

“Don’t tell Ma,” Elsie said hurriedly, her voice low. The bandage was completely hidden by her sleeve. “She has enough to worry about. Swear, Mickey.”

Even as I promised, I wondered what else was worrying Ma. But as the door at the top of the inner stairs opened, I had my smile ready.

Ma emerged, carrying a packet of tea from the shop. “Ah, Mickey! I’m glad ye came.” Her face shone with genuine warmth, and she smoothed her coppery hair back from her temple. Her eyes flicked around the room, landing on Elsie. “Colin left?” The brightness in her expression dimmed.

“Just now,” Elsie replied. Their gazes held, and with the unfailing instinct that develops in anyone who grew up trying to perceive trouble before it struck, I sensed meaning in that silent exchange. But before I could decipher it, Elsie shrugged, and Ma turned to me, her hazel eyes appraising.

“You look less wraithy than usual.” She reached up to pat my cheek approvingly. “Elsie, fetch the preserves. I’ll put the water on.”

“I’ll do it, Ma.” I went to the stove, tonged in a few lumps of coal from the scuttle and shut the metal door with a clang. As Elsie sliced the bread, I filled the kettle and Ma took down three cups and saucers from the shelf.

The tension I sensed amid my family derived from something drifting in the deep current, not bobbing along the surface, driven by a single day’s wind and sun. Something had changed.

Chapter 2, pp. 8-10

From Under a Veiled Moon © 2022, Karen Odden, published by Crooked Lane Books

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to Austenprose PR for inviting me to be part of this blog tour!

 

About Karen Odden

Karen Odden earned her Ph.D. in English from New York University and subsequently taught literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has contributed essays to numerous books and journals, written introductions for Victorian novels in the Barnes & Noble classics series and edited for the journal Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge UP). Her previous novels, also set in 1870s London, have won awards for historical fiction and mystery. A member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and the recipient of a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Karen lives in Arizona with her family and her rescue beagle Rosy.

 

#BlogTour #Excerpt Death on a Winter Stroll by Francine Mathews @SBarronAuthor @Soho_Press @Austenprose #DeathonaWinterStroll #MerryFolgerMystery #FrancineMathews #NantucketMystery #ChristmasMystery DetectiveMystery #NewBooks #Booktwitter #BookTour #AustenprosePR

#BlogTour #Excerpt Death on a Winter Stroll by Francine Mathews @SBarronAuthor @Soho_Press @Austenprose #DeathonaWinterStroll #MerryFolgerMystery #FrancineMathews #NantucketMystery #ChristmasMystery DetectiveMystery #NewBooks #Booktwitter #BookTour #AustenprosePR Title: Death on a Winter Stroll

Author: Francine Mathews

Series: A Merry Folger Nantucket Mystery #7

Published by: Soho Crime on Nov. 1, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 288

No-nonsense Nantucket detective Merry Folger grapples with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and two murders as the island is overtaken by Hollywood stars and DC suits.

Nantucket Police Chief Meredith Folger is acutely conscious of the stress COVID-19 has placed on the community she loves. Although the island has proved a refuge for many during the pandemic, the cost to Nantucket has been high. Merry hopes that the Christmas Stroll, one of Nantucket’s favorite traditions, in which Main Street is transformed into a winter wonderland, will lift the island’s spirits. But the arrival of a large-scale TV production, and the Secretary of State and her family, complicates matters significantly.
 
The TV shoot is plagued with problems from within, as a shady, power-hungry producer clashes with strong-willed actors. Across Nantucket, the Secretary’s troubled stepson keeps shaking off his security detail to visit a dilapidated house near conservation land, where an intriguing recluse guards secrets of her own. With all parties overly conscious of spending too much time in the public eye and secrets swirling around both camps, it is difficult to parse what behavior is suspicious or not—until the bodies turn up.
 
Now, it’s up to Merry and Detective Howie Seitz to find a connection between two seemingly unconnected murders and catch the killer. But when everyone has a motive, and half of the suspects are politicians and actors, how can Merry and Howie tell fact from fiction?
 
This latest installment in critically acclaimed author Francine Mathews’ Merry Folger series is an immersive escape to festive Nantucket, a poignant exploration of grief as a result of parental absence, and a delicious new mystery to keep you guessing.

Excerpt:

She’d risen before dawn and driven out to Great Point, stopping near the Wauwinet hotel (which was closed in winter) to deflate the ancient green van’s tires. The gatehouse to the Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge was deserted; and her spirits rose in the hope that she would find herself completely alone.

She drove over the sand at a snail’s pace for nearly forty minutes, sipping black coffee from an insulated bottle, windows cracked to welcome the crash of the Atlantic waves. At 6:49 a.m. by her watch, the sun rose out of the sea like a burning goddess, and it almost seemed possible that she was the only person on earth alive to witness it.

Great Point is Nantucket’s outflung upper arm, a narrow pen- insula of sand that trails northward for miles. At its tip, the calmer seas of the Sound run headlong into the open water of the Atlantic Ocean, creating dangerous shoals and rip tides and cross currents. Bluefish and bonito, false albacore and striped bass lurk in the rills where the two waters meet, and the fish draw birds

Which, in turn, drew the green van filled with photographer’s equipment, lurching along a beach still wet and compacted from yesterday’s rain.

She parked not far from the lonely white tower of Great Point’s lighthouse and carried her tripod to the lee of its empty keeper’s quarters. It was odd, she thought, that the presence of the buildings did nothing to humanize the spot. If anything, their desertion intensified the solitude. She was surrounded on three sides by ocean and buffeted by wind. Later in the day, gray seals would haul out of the Atlantic to sun them- selves. In this first hour of daylight, little stirred except the fitful branches of beach plum and bayberry. But the air was filled with wings.

She sighted sanderlings, running back and forth in the wash, as she set up her equipment, and a few dunlins as well—common to the Arctic Circle in summer months but hugging a different latitude now that it was December. Gulls of all kinds stalked the waterline, crying harshly. She did not waste her film on them. She waited, her coffee thermos drained and the cold beginning to seep into her toes, for the northern gannets.

She had come out this morning hoping for the heavy white predators of winter seas, with their bright blue eyes and black flight feathers. Gannets had dagger-sharp bills and dove straight from the air into the waves with a terrific splash, stabbing their prey at depths of up to seventy feet. Remarkably, they used their six-foot wingspan to swim underwater. Gannets were the Olympians of the Atlantic, and the ways they manipulated wind and sea fascinated her.

She had brought two camera bodies, both Nikon F2 35mm, that she’d bought as a baby in the 1980s. They were loaded with two different speeds and types of film—the first, with Fujichrome Provia 100f slide film that offered the speed and saturated color she sought for both birds and landscape; the second, with Ilford HP5, a 400 speed ISO black and white film that was brilliant for capturing movement without blur. She also had four different lenses with her, interchangeable on both bodies: the standard 50mm, useful for close-up and still shots; a 24mm wide-angle lens she rarely needed but packed as part of her kit; a 105mm and a 180mm for zeroing in on objects far away.

She had attached an MD-4 motor drive to one camera body to advance her film swiftly as she pointed and shot, and she had brought along a handheld light meter to supplement the one in the camera viewfinder. It was light that influenced how widely she set the f-stops on her various lenses; the viewfinder’s, which operated with a 3V lithium battery, showed only light reflected from the subject, not the depth of her field. For that, she needed the handheld one.

Yes, her work verged on art; but it began with science.

She tested the light now as she moved around the sand, focusing out on the roiling waters of Great Point Rip. It was stronger at twenty past seven, with the persistent heaviness of early December. Moving to the tripod, she attached a cam- era body and 105 mm lens for closer focus and snapped a roll’s worth of snow buntings, quietly enjoying the plump little birds’ alert briskness in the higher dunes. Then she reached for her second camera and attached the 180mm lens, scanning the horizon. Set her f-stop to 5.6, the aperture quite open to capture swift birds in flight. The gannets were out there; she had only to wait.

They appeared at 8:37, a great cloud winging in from the east with the sunlight gilding their feathers. The air was filled with high-pitched cries as they circled a hundred yards above Great Point Rip, a, searching the seas all around her for schools of fish. She pivoted to follow the birds’ flight with her camera’s eye, resetting her f-stops and snapping the powerful wing thrusts, until the first gannet glimpsed prey and, folding its wings back along its body, torpedoed into the water.

It was like watching a fighter jet plummet in a death spiral. The gannets’ speed was suicidally fast. They knifed into the waves at sixty miles an hour, as though punching through concrete. The fish they devoured underwater, at point of impact, then bobbed up to the surface to cry out their satisfaction. She knew enough about them to realize that one or two might not survive the morning’s feeding—the slightest miscalculation of angle as head hit sea, and the bird’s neck would snap.

The cacophony was immense. When she paused to reload her film her hands were shaking with the excitement and pleasure she witnessed. She forgot the cold entirely. Her heart raced and she could not stop smiling.

She had no idea how long they remained, only that after a time the wild calls faded again into the distance, the gleaming white and black bodies were pinpoints on the horizon, and once again, she was alone with the rearing stone tower and its emptiness. Exhausted.

Chapter 8, pg. 51-54

From Death on a Winter Stroll © 2022, Francine Mathews, published by Soho Crime

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to Austenprose PR for inviting me to be part of this blog tour!

 

About Francine Mathews

Francine Mathews was born in Binghamton, New York, the last of six girls. She attended Princeton and Stanford Universities, where she studied history, before going on to work as an intelligence analyst at the CIA. She wrote her first book in 1992 and left the Agency a year later. Since then, she has written thirty books, including six previous novels in the Merry Folger series (Death in the Off-Season, Death in Rough Water, Death in a Mood Indigo, Death in a Cold Hard Light, Death on Nantucket, and Death on Tuckernuck) as well as the nationally bestselling Being a Jane Austen mystery series, which she writes under the pen name Stephanie Barron. She lives and works in Denver, Colorado.

 

#BlogTour #BookReview #Excerpt An Everyday Hero by Laura Trentham @LauraTrentham @StMartinsPress @smpromance

#BlogTour #BookReview #Excerpt An Everyday Hero by Laura Trentham @LauraTrentham @StMartinsPress @smpromance Title: An Everyday Hero

Author: Laura Trentham

Series: A Heart of a Hero #2

Published by: St. Martin's Griffin on Feb. 5, 2019

Genres: Women's Fiction, General Fiction

Pages: 336

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: St. Martin's Press

Book Rating: 9/10

From award-winning author Laura Trentham comes an emotionally layered novel about redemption, second chances and discovering that life is worth fighting for.

At thirty, Greer Hadley never expected to be forced home to Madison, Tennessee with her life and dreams of being a songwriter up in flames. To make matters worse, a series of bad decisions and even crappier luck lands her community service hours at a nonprofit organization that aids veterans and their families. Greer cannot fathom how she’s supposed to use music to help anyone deal with their trauma and loss when the one thing that brought her joy has failed her.

When Greer meets fifteen-year-old Ally Martinez, her plans to stay detached and do as little as possible get thrown away. New to town and dealing with the death of her father in action, she hides her emotions behind a mask of bitterness and sarcasm, but Greer is able to see past it and recognizes pieces of who she once was in Ally. The raw and obvious talent she possesses could take her to the top and Greer vows to make sure life’s negativities don’t derail Ally’s potential.

After Greer is assigned a veteran to help, she’s not surprised Emmett Lawson, the town’s golden boy, followed his family’s legacy. What leaves her shocked is the shell of a man who believes he doesn’t deserve anyone’s help. A breakthrough with Ally reminds Greer that no one is worth giving up on. So she shows up one day with his old guitar, and meets Emmett’s rage head on with her stubbornness. When a situation with Ally becomes dire, the two of them must become a team to save her—and along the way they might just save themselves too.


Review:

Heartfelt, uplifting, and sweetly romantic!

An Everyday Hero is a compelling, touching tale that reminds us of the enduring emotional, physical, and psychological effects of war on those in the military and their families and highlights the incredible healing power that friendship, trust, love, and music can have.

The prose is clear and fluid. The characters are wounded, stubborn, and empathetic. And the story is a beautiful tale about life, loss, grief, family, ambition, forgiveness, introspection, patriotism, community, PTSD, pride, resilience, and love.

Overall, An Everyday Hero is another emotional, absorbing, enchanting tale by Trentham that is a wonderful addition to a series, A Heart of a Hero, that is quickly becoming one of my all-time favourites.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                

 

 

 

EXCERPT:

Chapter 1

“Disorderly conduct. Public intoxication. Resisting arrest.” Judge Duckett put down the paper, linked his hands, and stared over his reading glasses from his perch behind the bench with a combination of exasperation and fatherly disapproval.

Greer Hadley shifted in her sensible heels and smoothed the skirt of the light pink suit she’d borrowed from her mama for the occasion. “I’ll give you the first two, Uncle Bill—” The judge cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me—Judge Duckett—but I did not resist arrest.”

“That you recall.” Deputy Wayne Peeler drawled the words out in the most sarcastic, unprofessional manner possible.

She fisted her hands and took a deep breath. The impulse to punch Wayne in the face simmered below the surface like a volcano no longer at rest. But ten o’clock on a Monday morning during her arraignment was not the smartest time to lose her temper, and she’d promised herself not to add to her string of bad decisions.

She sweetened her voice and bared her teeth at Wayne in the facsimile of a smile. “I recall plenty, thank you very much.”

Truth was she didn’t recall the minute details, but the shock of Wayne’s whispered offer on Saturday night to make her troubles go away for a price had done more to sober her up than the couple of hours spent in lockup waiting for her parents.

Dressed in his tan uniform, Wayne adjusted his heavy gun belt so often she imagined he got off every night by rubbing his gun. Giving him a badge had only empowered the part of him desperate for respect and approval. His nickname in high school, “the Weasel,” had been well earned.

Unfortunately, she was the unreliable narrator of her life at the moment and no one would trust her recollections. Judge Duckett, her uncle Bill by marriage until he and her aunt Tonya had divorced, rustled papers from his desk.

The ethics of her former uncle acting as her judge were questionable, especially considering they had remained close even after he’d remarried, but if nepotism is what it took to make this nightmare go away, then she wouldn’t be the one to lodge a complaint.

“A witness claimed you were sitting quietly at the end of the bar until a song played on the jukebox. What was the song?” Her uncle glanced at her over his glasses again, which made him look like a stern teacher.

“‘Before He Cheats’ by Carrie Underwood.” She forced her chin up.

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Laura Trentham

LAURA TRENTHAM is an award-winning author of contemporary and historical romance. She is a member of RWA, and has been a finalist multiple times in the Golden Heart competition. A chemical engineer by training and a lover of books by nature, she lives in South Carolina.

#BookBlitz #Giveaway Wylde Fire by Sarah Robinson @booksby_sarah @InkSlingerPR

 

Today we have the release blitz for

Sarah Robinson’s WYLDE FIRE!

Check it out and be sure to grab your copy today!

 

 

Title: Wylde Fire

Author: Sarah Robinson

Genre: Contemporary Romance

 

About Wylde Fire:

Sam Wylde is ready to prove he’s more than just the privileged son of a wealthy Southern dynasty.

Wyldefire Whiskey is poised to take Nashville by storm—and with any luck, overshadow the scandal of his cheating ex-girlfriend marrying his brother. The only problem? This gruff country boy has no idea how to throw a launch party that will get people talking.

The answer to everything might just be Holly Glen.
A party wrapped up in one tiny woman, Holly is tattooed, tempting, and exactly the event planner Sam needs to liven up his brand—and his life. He can give her what she needs, too.

All it will take is a ring on her finger.

Falling in real love with his fake wife was not part of the plan—but one shot of Holly isn’t going to be enough.

 

 

Get Your Copy Today:
Amazon US | Amazon AU | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Goodreads

 

 

Exclusive Excerpt:

“You cannot do this to me, Cassie,” Sam Wylde argued over the speakerphone attached to his truck’s dashboard. He cringed as his Southern drawl came out a little thicker than usual. Frustration did that to him, and right now it was taking everything in him to not start cussing.

With a deft twist of his wrist, he steered his truck into the parking lot next to Town Hall, cutting off another car with a halfhearted wave of acknowledgement. He needed to pick up several permits before the city offices closed, leaving no room for pleasantries.

Damn, for a Saturday, the lot sure is packed.

He sighed and forced his attention back to the phone call. “We’ve got a few months until the launch of the entire brand. Everything I’ve done the last two years is riding on this.”

“I’m really sorry,” Cassie, his event planner, said from the other end of the phone. Or former event planner, apparently. “But I can’t be in two places at once, and neither can my influencers and vendors. We’re booked for that day now.”

Teetering on the brink of exploding, Sam breathed in slowly. “But. You. Signed. With. Us. First.” He ground the words out slow and steady.

“Technically, I haven’t signed an actual contract. I was helping you out as a favor to Noah,” Cassie informed him. “And where I go…so do my connections.”

Sam needed no reminders that his cousin was a major pain in his ass. There was no doubt in his mind Cassie quitting on the launch was directly related to Noah Wylde breaking things off romantically between the two of them yesterday. Yes, yesterday. Sam was pretty out of touch with the small-town gossip vine, but even he’d heard about the messy, public break up last night. Bringing his cousin into the business had been at the not-so-subtle suggestion of his father and uncle, and Sam had never regretted acquiescing to their demands more.

Despite his frustrations with his cousin, Wyldefire Whiskey was still Sam’s pride and joy. He and his cousin, along with a silent partner, Caleb Daughtry, had built their own distillery from the ground up and begun crafting their own brand of Tennessee whiskey. The first batch was being bottled now, and, in a few months, they’d be on liquor store shelves nationwide. He’d hired Cassie to plan their giant grand opening launch party at a swanky hotel in Nashville, only a short distance from the distillery—and Sam’s hometown—in River Ridge, Tennessee. It was the last step in a massive public relations campaign for the entire brand.

“There’s no one else in town who does events this large, Cassie. Especially last minute.” He hated begging, but right now, he had no other choice. Cassie was an extremely well-connected socialite across the South who had come highly recommended by his PR company. He’d already put thousands of dollars into the brand’s publicity, and a launch party filled with celebrities and social influencers she’d bring was supposed to be the final piece they needed to make their whiskey a household name.

Like I said, I’m sorry,” Cassie continued, zero remorse in her tone. “I’ll make sure you get your check back on Monday. Have a great weekend!”

The line went dead and Sam slammed his foot against the brake, coming to a dead stop in the middle of the parking lot. His hands were clenched so tightly around the wheel, there was a good chance he’d snap it in half.

“Sonofabitch!” His anger bubbled over, exploding at no one in particular.

Disconnecting the call, he placed his foot back on the gas and turned into the next aisle of cars to look for a spot. Pulling his truck past the open spot just enough to give him room to reverse, he shifted gears and anchored his arm behind the passenger seat, looking out the rear window.

A little blue coupe turned into the spot seconds before he could. So quick, he almost missed it entirely. Are you kidding me?

Sam shifted into park right in the middle of the aisle. Shoving the door open, he hopped down from the cab and stomped around the bed of his truck toward the coupe.

“Hey!” he shouted at the driver, throwing his hands up in the air. “What the hell was that? You stole my spot!”

Sam’s next words jammed in his throat, startled for a moment when the perpetrator, a tall, slender woman with fiery hair, climbed out of the driver’s seat as he approached. As angry as he was, he was first and foremost, a hot-blooded, all-American man. It was impossible not to notice her curvy figure as she crossed her arms over her chest, or the way the sun, just beginning to drift lower in the late afternoon, illuminated the varying crimson hues in her scarlet hair. She leveled intensely silver eyes at him.

Sam pushed away the distracting thoughts, trying to manage his irritation—and growing arousal. “Darlin, you parked in my spot.” He tried for the nicest tone he could muster, but it still came out sounding terse.

“Looks like I did.” Molten eyes, somehow both angry and intoxicating, stared back at him, unrelenting.

She’s admitting it? His anger dissipated slightly, which he realized was a bit odd since the admission should have infuriated him. Something about her blatant honesty was disarming and…refreshing? Or maybe it was those soft pink lips that smirked up at the corners, that had him feeling…forgiving. “Excuse me?”

The tiniest flash of guilt crossed her expression, but she masked it quickly, firming her jaw and pushing back her shoulders. The seductive smirk returned. “I almost crashed when you cut me off pulling into the lot. Maybe if you were paying a little more attention, rather than yelling at your dashboard, you wouldn’t have nearly killed me, and you wouldn’t have lost your spot. Really, I’m doing you a favor. You can take a few laps around this pretty parking lot and find your inner Zen.”

His mouth twitched, but he held tight, refusing to let the smile come. “So, you’re…what? The karmic delivery man?”

Woman, actually, but…yeah. I guess today I am.” A black tank top hugged her gentle curves and showed off one arm full of colorful tattoos as she reached into the trunk of her car and pulled out a large cardboard box then set it on the asphalt. “Someone needs to be.”

Her last words were quieter, as if to herself, but he heard them nonetheless. He noted the strain and tightness in her tone, and found himself wondering what the story was behind it.

But then she bent down. Every coherent thought fled his brain as Sam paused to admire her blue jeans molded to a firm round ass. Damn. It’d been too long. Starting a business and having his heart broken all at the same time will do that to a man.

Forcing his eyes away, Sam glanced back at his truck, resigning himself to finding another place to park. He didn’t have the time to fight with this woman who was making his blood heat, in more ways than one. Plus, admittedly, he had cut her off and not even given it a second thought.

She kept her back to him, continuing to unload boxes from the trunk of her car.

“Sorry about cutting you off,” Sam grumbled, though he knew she could still hear him. He didn’t like apologies. He rarely gave them, but he felt caught off guard by her and didn’t like it. “I’ll let you have the spot this time.”

She paused slightly while he spoke, but didn’t look back at him. “Let me?” When she did whirl around, her hands were straight down and fists balled. “Samuel. Jed. Wylde. You didn’t let me do anything. I took that spot to teach you a lesson in manners—something you’re sorely lacking.”

Sam raised a brow, a small smile on his lips despite the tightness in his chest. She knows me? Shit. Was she a one-night stand he’d forgotten? Another one of Noah’s conquests with a vendetta for the Wylde boys now? He racked his brain, sweating when he couldn’t place her.

“Honestly, I don’t know why I even bothered. You haven’t changed one bit.” Hands on her hips now, she was shaking her head in that same disapproving manner he’d gotten most of his life. He was familiar with disappointing women, and it was one of the many reasons why he kept most of his relationships to only a night or two.

Between the sheets, he never left a woman less than completely satisfied. It was his life outside the bedroom that seemed to be the problem.

Sam let his eyes rake over her body—from her cowboy boots to her bright pink lips. How could he have forgotten those lips? “We’ve met before?”

She exhaled sharply, obviously annoyed. “High school.”

 

 

About the Author:

Aside from being a Top 10 Barnes & Noble and Amazon Bestseller, Sarah Robinson is a native of the Washington, DC area and has both her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in criminal psychology. She works as a counsellor by day and romance novelist by night. She owns a small zoo of furry pets and is actively involved in volunteering in her community.

Subscribe to her newsletter at http://www.subscribepage.com/sarahrobinsonnewsletter

 

Connect with Sarah:

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#BookReview #Excerpt Nothing But Trouble by Amy Andrew @AmyAndrewsbooks @entangledpub

#BookReview #Excerpt Nothing But Trouble by Amy Andrew @AmyAndrewsbooks @entangledpub Title: Nothing But Trouble

Author: Amy Andrews

Series: Credence Colorado #1

Published by: Entangled Publishing on Apr. 30, 2019

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Pages: 400

Format: eBook, ARC

Source: Entangled Publishing, NetGalley

Book Rating: 9/10

For five years, Cecilia Morgan’s entire existence has revolved around playing personal assistant to self-centered former NFL quarterback Wade Carter. But just when she finally gives her notice, his father’s health fails, and Wade whisks her back to his hometown. CC will stay for his dad—for now—even if that means ignoring how sexy her boss is starting to look in his Wranglers.

To say CC’s notice is a bombshell is an insult to bombs. Wade can’t imagine his life without his “left tackle.” She’s the only person who can tell him “no” and strangely, it’s his favorite quality. He’ll do anything to keep her from leaving, even if it means playing dirty and dragging her back to Credence, Colorado, with him.

But now they’re living under the same roof, getting involved in small-town politics, and bickering like an old married couple. Suddenly, five years of fighting is starting to feel a whole lot like foreplay. What’s a quarterback to do when he realizes he might be falling for his “left tackle”? Throw a Hail Mary she’ll never see coming, of course.


Review:

Charming, engaging, and fun!

Nothing But Trouble is a passionate, workplace romance that introduces the hardworking, fiery CC, a young woman dedicated to her job but ready to head out on her own and start anew, and the confident, magnetic Wade, whose past has left him wary of the idea of forever and not too eager to risk his heart once again.

The writing is amusing and light. The characters, including all the supporting characters, are gregarious, spirited and lovable. And the plot sweeps you away into an original, irresistible, push-pull storyline filled with witty banter, honest emotion, shameless flirting, palpable chemistry, light drama, swoon-worthy romance, family, friendship, and community.

Overall, Nothing But Trouble is a fabulous, entertaining read that I thoroughly enjoyed. It has a wonderful cast of characters, a unique and steamy storyline, and a happy-ever-after ending that will not only leave you smiling but anxious to read what will happen in Credence, Colorado next.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                                            

 

 

 

Excerpt:

CC blasted a superior look in Wade’s direction. He was eating cookies, and crumbs had stuck to his lips. The sudden urge to lick those crumbs off those lips hit her out of the blue. Who knew farmer porn got more interesting with the addition of cookie crumbs? She knew they made ice cream better, but…

Oh, for crying out loud—what in hell was withher today?

Was she delirious? Or did every woman who entered the Credence town limits suddenly develop a thing for the town’s number one son? Like he needed any more adoration.

Welcome to Credence, Colorado, population 2,134.

Birthplace of Wade “The Catapult” Carter.

That’s what the welcome sign had said on the way in today. She’d thought it kinda funny and had given him some shit about it, but maybe it had been some kind of portent? A warning to poor, unsuspecting females.

Beware, all ye who enter here, estrogen hazard ahead.

“We don’t name them, anyway,” Wade said, breaking into her analysis.

Cal nodded. “That’s right, darlin’. Mighty hard to eat something that’s going to end up in burgers and sausages when it has a name.”

CC gasped, horrified, looking down into Wilburta’s—she’d already feminized the name, despite her earlier insistence—pretty face. “What, allof them? Don’t you…” She glanced between Wade and his father. “Keep some? Like for…kids’ parties and…petting zoos and stuff?”

Wade laughed again. “Hell no. But dibs on suggesting it to Wyatt.”

 

Thank you to Entangled Publishing, for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Amy Andrews

Amy is an award-winning, USA Today best-selling Aussie author who has written sixty plus contemporary romances in both the traditional and digital markets.

Her books bring all the feels from sass, quirk and laughter to emotional grit and panty-melting heat.

She loves good books and great booze although she'll take mediocre booze if there's nothing else. For many, many years she was a registered nurse which means she knows things. Anatomical things. And she’s not afraid to use them!

She lives on acreage with a gorgeous mountain view but secretly wishes the ocean was lapping the back fence.

#GuestPost #Excerpt Postcard From Paris by Holly Willow @HWAuthor

#GuestPost #Excerpt Postcard From Paris by Holly Willow @HWAuthor Title: Postcard From Paris

Author: Holly Willow

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Pages: 327

Paris is always a good idea…

When Poppy finds a postcard from Paris, sent by an aunt she didn’t know existed, she books a flight to France to investigate. Just days after arriving in Paris, she accidentally lands herself a job thanks to a case of mistaken identity. To complicate matters further, she soon starts to fall for her new boss. Falling in love with your boss is never a good idea and she knows it. But when he makes her an offer she can’t refuse, her heart just might win the battle against reason and logic.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy of this novel from your favourite retailer or from the following link!

 

 

Excerpt:

In the past, I avoided shopping for clothes until I couldn’t put it off any longer. My sisters were huge believers in retail therapy. I had yet to experience the therapeutic effects of shopping. I felt as though that was about to change. Paris was already having an effect on me.  

I grabbed Selma’s spare keys from the hook she had mentioned in her note and made sure that the door was locked before hurrying down the stairs. I kept my eyes on my feet so I wouldn’t miss one of the narrow treads. That was why I didn’t realize there was an obstruction at the foot of the stairs on the second-floor landing. I had no idea there was something in my way until I barreled right into it at full speed.

The collision made me lose my balance. I was about to keel over the banister when the obstruction sprouted arms and pulled me back to safety. This arm-sprouting obstruction turned out to be a man. A very tall man with quick reflexes and a strong grip. His dark hair had threads of silver running through it and his eyes were a hypnotic shade of gray. Wolf eyes, I thought. The expression in those eyes suggested that he wasn’t in a good mood. This man, who had saved me from almost certain death or at least grievous bodily harm, was scowling at me much like Callum the artist had the previous day. It was a little disconcerting. Men in Paris appeared to take an instant disliking to me.

“Sorry,” I said, looking up at my savior. I wasn’t used to looking up at people. I was taller than many women and just as tall as most of the men I met. “I didn’t see you.”

“You’re late,” he declared with unconcealed irritation.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t let it happen again,” he replied. Clearly, he mistook my question for an apology. “You were supposed to be here three hours ago.”

“Three hours ago,” I parroted in confusion.

“I made it very clear to the agency that I need someone punctual.” He bored his wolf eyes into mine. “I fired the last assistant they sent me because she couldn’t tell the time. And the one before her couldn’t speak English. You speak English, right?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “I’m American.”

“So am I.”

His scowl deepened, which struck me as odd since it was imperative that his assistant could speak English. Of course, I wasn’t his assistant, but he didn’t know that. He was making an ass out of himself by making assumptions.    

Despite his irate expression, he was a good-looking man. If I was honest, he was the walking definition of rugged handsomeness with his strong features and chiseled, stubble-covered jaw. Judging a person by their looks wasn’t my style. I wasn’t often impressed by a man just because he had the kind of face that you couldn’t help ogling. But this man was undeniably attractive. It was an unavoidable fact that was staring me right in the face. I could only have escaped this fact if I was blind.   

Just as I was about to tell him that I wasn’t the person he was waiting for, he spun around and stormed into his apartment. I was going to have to follow him. I was tempted to continue down the stairs but he had saved me from tumbling over the banister and plunging to my death. Even though he had the personality of an ogre, I thought that I owed it to him to let him know I wasn’t the assistant from the agency. 

With a niggling sense of apprehension, I crossed the threshold and entered his apartment. It appeared to have the exact same layout as Selma’s apartment upstairs but his place was as tidy as hers was cluttered. His decorating style would have appealed to my mother. The hallway didn’t have a single piece of furniture, not even a coat rack, and the living room beyond boasted nothing but a black leather couch and a glass-topped coffee table.  

The man was nowhere in sight. At a loss, I came to a halt in the middle of the living room. I knew that the door on the right would take me to the kitchen and that the one on the left opened into the corridor leading to the bedrooms and bathroom. Which door was the irritated ogre hiding behind?

My question was answered two seconds later.

“Are you coming?” he called from somewhere down the corridor.

The irritation in his voice was loud and clear as church bells on a Sunday morning. 

Starting to get a little irritated myself, I followed the direction his voice had come from. I found him in the room that was my bedroom in Selma’s apartment. Down here, the room was utilized as a home office. Bookshelves lined the walls and a large glass-topped desk with chrome legs, which matched the coffee table in the living room, stood by the window. The chair behind the desk was, like his couch, clad in black leather. It was such an eyesore that I knew it had to be one of those ergonomic designs. Half a dozen tall stacks of paper covered by handwritten notations of some sort sat on the desk, crowding a laptop computer that looked like it was a relic from the early nineties.   

“Um,” I said, searching for the right words to explain the case of mistaken identity.

“I need you to type my handwritten pages into the computer and print them out when you’re done,” he growled without as much as a glance at me. He was now busy glaring at the laptop. “And I need you to be punctual. I expect you to be here at ten o’clock in the morning from Monday to Friday. You will leave at two o’clock in the afternoon. Make sure you leave at two o’clock exactly. I don’t want you around here after two. Is that clear?”   

“Um,” I repeated.  

It wasn’t like me to let the cat catch my tongue. His utter boorishness had thrown me. He was an utter boor. There was no other way to describe him. Except handsome.  He was a handsome utter boor.

“You can type, right?” He looked up and directed his critical gaze at me. “Punctual. English-speaking. Computer literate. These are the only skills I’m looking for in an assistant. I have been very specific with the agency. Very specific. But they sent me two useless girls in a row. And the three before them quit for no good reasons.”  

“I can type,” I said.

“Good,” he replied before I managed to get another word out of my mouth. “You can type. You can speak English. If you can learn to tell the time and remember that I’m on the second floor, not the third or fourth, then we won’t have any problems.”

I should have stopped him right there and then. I should have spoken up. I should have said, “Goodbye and good luck finding an assistant who will tolerate you for more than a day.” But I didn’t. Something stopped me. Perhaps it was the scent of a challenge. I had never been able to resist a challenge.

Five assistants had failed to complete the task of turning the veritable mountain of handwritten pages into neat printouts. I could be the one out of six assistants to conquer the Mount Everest of transcribing. Except I wasn’t an assistant. Still, the challenge called to me.

 

 

And now a note from Holly:

Postcard From Paris, as the title suggests, is set in Paris. My mother took me to Paris for the first time when I was five years old. I’ve been irrevocably in love with the city ever since that first visit. The architecture, the history, the ever-present air of romance, not to mention the food, never fails to thrill and enthrall me. Paris is entirely to blame/credit for Postcard From Paris.

The main character in the story, Boston born and bred Poppy Parker, gets thrown for a loop when the promotion she has been promised for two years is given to someone else. Meanwhile, her fiancé accepts a job offer in Hong Kong without consulting her and postpones their wedding. So when she finds a postcard from Paris with a message written by an aunt she didn’t know existed, she can’t think of a reason to not book a seat on the next flight to France.

Poppy has worn the dutiful daughter and supportive sister hat for as long as she can remember, the loyal employee hat for her entire professional career, and the patient fiancée hat since she started dating the man she is supposed to marry, a man who is already married to his job. It’s time for her to try some new hats on for size. In the process, she uncovers long-buried family secrets and a chance at true love if she is brave enough to take it.

Postcard From Paris was the first full-length novel I wrote. Soon after I finished it, I started working on Love By Chance and One Little Lie. They’re all complete stand-alone stories but they share a theme: finding out what you want in life and working up the courage to try and make it happen. Oh, and there’s romance too of course. 

 

About Holly Willow

Holly Willow has lived her life on the move since her early childhood. She grew up in stables in the Middle East and South East Asia, surrounded by horses, philandering polo players, and wonderfully oversharing expatriate housewives. Currently, she's bouncing around Europe. Growing up, if she wasn’t on horseback, she had her nose in a book. Characters in novels were her best friends. And ultimately she started creating her own.

 

Thank you to Holly Willow for being featured on my blog today!

#BlogTour #Excerpt #Giveaway The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever by Addison Cole @Addison_Cole_ @InkSlingerPR

#BlogTour #Excerpt #Giveaway The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever by Addison Cole @Addison_Cole_ @InkSlingerPR

#BlogTour #Excerpt #Giveaway The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever by Addison Cole @Addison_Cole_ @InkSlingerPR Title: The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever

Author: Addison Cole

Published by: Addison Cole on Feb. 13, 2019

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Pages: 322

Fall in love with Addison Cole’s rich and romantic storytelling, and discover the magic of the Montgomerys.

In The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever…
Leaving New York City and returning to her hometown to teach a screenplay writing class seems like just the break Grace Montgomery needs. Until her sisters wake her at four thirty in the morning to watch the hottest guys in town train wild horses and she realizes that escaping her sisters’ drama-filled lives was a lot easier from hundreds of miles away. To make matters worse, she spots the one man she never wanted to see again-ruggedly handsome Reed Cross.

Reed was one of Michigan’s leading historical preservation experts, but on the heels of catching his girlfriend in bed with his business partner, his uncle suffers a heart attack. Reed cuts all ties and returns home to Oak Falls to run his uncle’s business. A chance encounter with Grace, his first love, brings back memories he’s spent years trying to escape.

Grace is bound and determined not to fall under Reed’s spell again-and Reed wants more than another taste of the woman he’s never forgotten. When a midnight party brings them together, passion ignites and old wounds are opened. Grace sets down the ground rules for the next three weeks. No touching, no kissing, and if she has it her way, no breathing, because every breath he takes steals her ability to think. But Reed has other ideas…
**

The Corner of Heartbreak and Forever is a Sweet with Heat novel and conveys all of the passion you’d expect to find between two people in love without any graphic scenes or harsh language. If you’re looking for a more explicit romance, pick up the steamy edition, Embracing Her Heart, written by New York Times bestselling author Melissa Foster. Addison Cole is Melissa’s sweet-romance pen name.

Paperback / Kindle / Nook / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play

 

 

EXCERPT:

“Grace…” Even after a decade her name tasted sinfully good rolling off his tongue.

Her hand slid from the doorknob, hanging limply by her side. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. A long moment later, “Reed,” slipped from her lips like the secret he’d once been.

His gut clenched with longing. He couldn’t help but study her—and that angered him as much as it eased the worries about his ability to feel that had plagued him for years. He hadn’t been all in with a woman since Grace, and he’d begun to think he’d exaggerated what he’d felt when they were together. But there was no misreading the heat thrumming through him. She looked incredible, and confused, and as her hand settled on her hip—the hand he remembered all too well digging into his back when they’d made love all those years ago—he realized she also looked angry. Definitely angry.

But still incredible.

In the space of a breath he was fighting the urge to figure out how to spend time with her and recapture the fire between them despite everything she’d put him through.

“Are you done gawking?” she snapped.

“I…Sorry. You caught me off guard. I was expecting to see your parents.” He held her gaze, forcing a smile even though he suddenly felt stuck somewhere between a teenager caught peering through a window, a jealous ex-boyfriend, and a lust-filled man.

She folded her arms over her chest, forcing a barrier between them, and smirked.

Ouch

At least he hoped it was a smirk rather than a scowl. After the clues he’d missed with his ex-girlfriend, Alina, who had been sleeping with his now ex-business partner, he no longer trusted his instincts where women were concerned. And when it came to Grace Montgomery, he’d never been able to think past the emotions she stirred within him and the future he’d hoped they’d have. She was the tsunami that had obliterated everything else in his world, and as he struggled to find his voice, he fought the urge to tangle his hands in her thick, lustrous hair and remind her of what she’d walked away from.

“I hope you don’t look at my mother like that,” she snapped.

“What? No. C’mon, Grace.” In her eyes he was probably a quintessential jerk, checking her out without any thought to their past. In reality, he’d been taken just as off guard by his leering as she was. “I don’t usually—”

“Don’t usually let your eyes wander?” She scoffed. “Right.”

“Believe it or not, yes,” he said angrily. “Who do you think I’ve become? I didn’t expect you to walk out here at all, much less wearing nearly nothing and…” He tried to figure out what to say next, what to feel

“Why are you here, Reed?”

He didn’t need this. Not when he had just begun rebuilding his life. After being screwed over by Alina, he’d vowed to stay away from anything that made his head spin, and Grace definitely made his head spin.

He studied her, while trying not to at the same time. The chip on her shoulder was bigger now, overshadowing the sexy smirk on her lips. She’d always exuded confidence, but somehow that, too, seemed more intense. His heart thumped harder with the memory of the first time he’d spotted her standing on the sidelines in her cute cheerleading uniform as he headed out to the football field. She’d challenged him with her glare, as if she were playing on the rival team rather than cheering for them. She’d hated that cheerleading outfit, but man, he’d loved it. And that challenge she’d emitted? He’d taken her up on that in a hot second.

But she’d kicked him to the curb once, he reminded himself. Why was he giving her any consideration at all? He had a job to do, and sure, he’d momentarily lost his footing and checked her out, but it wasn’t like that was a crime. She was hot, and they had history. That’s as far as it goes.

 

 

About Addison Cole

Addison Cole is the sweet alter ego of New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Melissa Foster. She writes humorous and emotional sweet contemporary romance. Her books do not include explicit sex scenes or harsh language. Addison spends her summers on Cape Cod, where she dreams up wonderful love stories in her house overlooking Cape Cod Bay.

Addison is proud to be part of the Main Street Romance family, a partnership with bestselling authors Nancy Naigle, RaeAnne Thayne, and Chris Keniston, bringing sweet happy-ever-after love stories to the Main Street Romance community. Join them at www.MainStreetRomance.com ~ open 24/7 just for you.

Addison enjoys discussing her books with book clubs and reader groups and welcomes an invitation to your event.

SIGN UP for ADDISON'S Sweet with Heat newsletter. Fun, flirty romance with a dash of heat. www.AddisonCole.com/Newsletter

DOWNLOAD the first book in Addison's Sweet with Heat: Seaside Summers series free: READ, WRITE, LOVE AT SEASIDE here on Amazon.

 

 

GIVEAWAY!

Two e-book copies of Sweet Love at Bayside!

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#BlogTour #BookReview #Excerpt The Military Wife by Laura Trentham @LauraTrentham @StMartinsPress

#BlogTour #BookReview #Excerpt The Military Wife by Laura Trentham @LauraTrentham @StMartinsPress Title: The Military Wife

Author: Laura Trentham

Series: A Heart of a Hero #1

Published by: St. Martin's Griffin on Feb. 5, 2019

Genres: Women's Fiction, General Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: eBook, ARC

Source: St. Martin's Press, NetGalley

Book Rating: 9/10

An emotionally layered novel about family, loss and what it means to be a military wife.

Harper Lee Wilcox has been marking time in her hometown of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina since her husband, Noah Wilcox’s death, nearly five years earlier. With her son Ben turning five and living at home with her mother, Harper fights a growing restlessness, worried that moving on means leaving the memory of her husband behind.

Her best friend, Allison Teague, is dealing with struggles of her own. Her husband, a former SEAL that served with Noah, was injured while deployed and has come home physically healed but fighting PTSD. With three children under foot and unable to help her husband, Allison is at her wit’s end.

In an effort to reenergize her own life, Harper sees an opportunity to help not only Allison but a network of other military wives eager to support her idea of starting a string of coffee houses close to military bases around the country.

In her pursuit of her dream, Harper crosses paths with Bennett Caldwell, Noah’s best friend and SEAL brother. A man who has a promise to keep, entangling their lives in ways neither of them can foresee. As her business grows so does an unexpected relationship with Bennett. Can Harper let go of her grief and build a future with Bennett even as the man they both loved haunts their pasts?


Review:

Absorbing, moving, and incredibly uplifting!

The Military Wife is a tender, heartfelt story that delves not only into the emotional and psychological struggles and hardships of being part of the military and the effects they have on both the enlisted themselves and their loved ones, but also the patience, understanding, support, and trust required to maintain a relationship and individuality under those conditions.

The prose is effortless and well turned. The characters are scarred, genuine, and endearing. And the story is a mesmerizing tale about life, loss, love, forgiveness, grief, familial drama, friendship, community, courage, resilience, and moving on.

Overall, The Military Wife is a beautifully written tale with a lovely mix of hope, grit, emotion, and romance that exceeded my expectations. It’s an impressive start to the “A Heart of a Hero” series and I can’t wait for the publication of book #2.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                                            

 

 

EXCERPT:

Chapter 1

Present Day

Winters in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, were temperamental. The sunshine and a temperate southerly breeze that started a day could turn into biting, salt-tinged snow flurries by afternoon. But one thing Harper Lee Wilcox could count on was that winter along the Outer Banks was quiet.

The bustle and hum and weekly rotation of tourists that marked the summer months settled into a winter melancholy that Harper enjoyed. Well, perhaps not enjoyed in the traditional sense . . . more like she enjoyed surrendering to the melancholy. In fact, her mother may have accused her of wallowing in it once or twice or a hundred times.

In the winter, she didn’t have to smile and pretend her life was great. Not that it was bad. Lots of people had it worse. Much worse. In fact, parts of her life were fabulous. Almost five, her son was happy and healthy and smart. Her mother’s strength and support were unwavering and had bolstered her through the worst time of her life. Her friends were amazing.

That was the real issue. In the craziness of the summer season, she forgot to be sad. Her husband, Noah, had been gone five years; the same amount of time they’d been married. Soon the years separating them would outnumber the years they’d been together. The thought was sobering and only intensified the need to keep a sacred place in her heart waiting and empty. Her secret memorial.

She parked the sensible sedan Noah had bought her soon after they married under her childhood home. Even though they were inland, the stilts were a common architectural feature up and down the Outer Banks.

Juggling her laptop and purse, Harper pushed open the front door and stacked her things to the side. “I’m home!”

A little body careened down the steps and crashed into her legs. She returned the ferocious hug. Her pregnancy was the only thing that had kept her going those first weeks after she’d opened her front door to the Navy chaplain.

“How was preschool? Did you like the pasta salad I packed for your lunch?”

“It made me toot and everyone laughed, even the girls. Can you pack it for me again tomorrow?”

“Ben! You shouldn’t wantto toot.” Laughter ruined the admonishing tone she was going for.

As Harper’s mom said time and again, the kid was a hoot and a half. He might have Harper’s brown wavy hair, but he had Noah’s spirit and mannerisms and humor. Ben approached everything with an optimism Harper had lost or perhaps had never been gifted with from the start. He was a blessing Harper sometimes wondered if she deserved.

“Where’s Yaya?” She ruffled his unruly hair.

Of course, her mom had picked an unconventional name. “Grandmother” was too old-fashioned and pedestrian. Since she’d retired from the library, she had cast off any semblance of normalcy and embraced an inner spirit that was a throwback to 1960s bra burners and Woodstock.

“Upstairs painting.” Ben slipped his hand into Harper’s and tugged her toward the kitchen. Bright red and orange and blue paint smeared the back of his hand and arm like a rainbow. At least, her mom had put him in old clothes. “Yaya gave me my own canvas and let me paint whatever I wanted.”

“And what did you paint?” Harper prayed it wasn’t a nude study, which was the homework assignment from her mom’s community college class.

“I drew Daddy in heaven. I used allthe colors.” The matter-of-factness of his tone clawed at her heart.

No child should have to grow up only knowing their father through pictures and stories. Her own father had been absent because of divorce and disinterest. He’d sent his court-ordered child support payments regularly until she turned eighteen but rarely visited or shown any curiosity about her. It had hurt until teenaged resentment scarred over the wound.

Noah would have made a great dad. The best. That he never got the chance piled more regrets and what-ifs onto her winter inspired melancholy.

“I’m sure he would have loved your painting.” Luckily, Ben didn’t notice her choked-up reply.

He went to the cabinet, pulled out white bread and crunchy peanut butter, and proceeded to make two sandwiches. It was their afternoon routine. Someday he would outgrow it. Outgrow her and become a man like his daddy.

She poured him a glass of milk, and they ate their sandwiches, talking about how the rest of his day went—outside of his epic toots. His world was small and safe and she wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Her mom breezed into the kitchen, her still-thick but graying brown hair twisted into a messy bun, a thin paintbrush holding it in place. Slim and attractive, she wore paint-splattered jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt that read: I make AARP look good. Harper pinched her lips together to stifle a grin.

“How’s your assignment coming along?” Harper asked.

“I’m having a hard time with proportions. It’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure my man’s you-know-what shouldn’t hang down to his kneecaps.”

Harper shot a glance toward Ben, who had moved to the floor of the den to play with LEGOs. As crazy as her mom drove her, she was and would always be Harper’s rock. The irony wasn’t lost on her. As hard as she’d worked to get out of Kitty Hawk and out of her mother’s reach when she was young, she’d never regretted coming home.

“It’s been a while for me, too, but that’s not how I remember them, either.”

“A pity for us both.” Her mother pulled a jar of olives out of the fridge and proceeded to make martinis—shaken, not stirred. She raised her eyebrows, and Harper answered the unspoken question with a nod. Her mom poured and plopped an extra olive in Harper’s. “How was work?”

Harper handled bookkeeping and taxes for a number of local businesses, but a good number closed up shop in the winter. “Routine. Quiet.”

“Exactly like your life.”

Harper sputtered on her first sip. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I hate seeing you mope around all winter.” Her mom poked at the olive in her drink with a toothpick and looked toward Ben, dropping her voice. “He’s been gone five years, sweetheart, and you haven’t gone on so much as a date.”

“That’s not true. I went to lunch with Whit a few weeks ago.”

“He was trying to sell you life insurance. Doesn’t count.”

Harper huffed and covered her discomfort by taking another sip. “What about you? You never date.”

 “True, but your father ruined me on relationships. I have trust issues. You and Noah, on the other hand, seemed to get along fine. Or am I wrong?”

“You’re not.” Another sip of the martini grew the tingly warmth in her stomach. Their marriage hadn’t been completely without conflict, but what relationship was? As she looked back on their fights, they seemed juvenile and unimportant. It was easier to remember the good times. And there were so many to choose from.

She touched the empty finger on her left hand. The ring occupied her jewelry box and had for three years. But, occasionally, her finger would ache with phantom pains as if it were missing a vital organ.

“You’re young. Find another good man. Or forget the man, just find something you’re passionate about.”

“I’m happy right where I am.” Harper hammered up her defenses as if preparing for a hurricane.

“Don’t mistake comfort for happiness. You’re comfortable here. Too comfortable. But you’re not happy.”

 “God, Mom, why are you Dr. Phil–ing me all of sudden? Are you wanting me and Ben to move out or something?” Her voice sailed high and Ben looked over at them, his eyes wide, clutching his LEGO robot so tightly its head fell off.

“You and Ben are welcome to stay and take care of me in my old age.” Her mom shifted toward the den. “You hear that, honey? I want you to stay forever.”

Ben gave them an eye-crinkling smile that reminded her so much of Noah her insides squirmed, and she killed the rest of her drink. She was so careful not to show how lonely she sometimes felt in front of Ben.

“Harper.” Her mom’s chiding tone reminded her so much of her own childhood, she glanced up instinctively. Her mom took her hand, and her hazel eyes matched the ones that stared back at Harper in the mirror. “You’re marking time in Kitty Hawk. Find something that excites you again. Don’t let Ben—or Noah— be your excuse.”

Harper looked to her son. His chubby fingers fit the small LEGO pieces together turning the robot into a house. She had built her life brick by brick adding pieces and colors, expanding, taking pride, until one horrible day she’d stopped. Maybe her mom was right. Was it time to build something new?

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Laura Trentham

LAURA TRENTHAM is an award-winning author of contemporary and historical romance. She is a member of RWA, and has been a finalist multiple times in the Golden Heart competition. A chemical engineer by training and a lover of books by nature, she lives in South Carolina.

#BlogTour #Excerpt The Dating Alternative by Jennifer Woodhull @AuthorJWoodhull @InkSlingerPR

#BlogTour #Excerpt The Dating Alternative by Jennifer Woodhull @AuthorJWoodhull @InkSlingerPR

#BlogTour #Excerpt The Dating Alternative by Jennifer Woodhull @AuthorJWoodhull @InkSlingerPR Title: The Dating Alternative

Author: Jennifer Woodhull

Published by: Jennifer Woodhull on Dec. 26, 2018

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Pages: 288

Max has crushed on Brie for as long as he’s known her but the timing was never right. When he finds out they’re finally single at the same time, he’s poised to move from friend zone to serious dating… until he finds out she’s only looking for something physical. He offers his services in hopes she’ll come around. Just when things are starting to go his way, a shocking turn of events snatches her from his grasp. Now he has to resurrect the life he thought he’d left behind to help the woman he’s falling in love with before it’s too late.

Goodreads / Amazon / B&N / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play

 

 

EXCERPT:

“Sabrina!” Jacqueline’s voice bellows from her doorway. “Come to my office this instant!

Awesome. My fave.

I breathe out a sigh and head toward the door in the corner. “Hi, Jacqueline. You wanted to see me.”

“I do indeed,” she says, her formality deliberate and intense. “Please have a seat.”

She closes the door, types out something on her keyboard, then takes off her glasses and glares at me as she leans across her desk. She is tall and slim with hair that falls in long, loose, perfect blonde waves, an incongruity against her severe features. Her face is thin, her chin pointed, and her nose looks like it has been broken a number of times. I can see why. I’ve wanted to punch her in her stupid face myself. Her whole appearance is menacing, except for those weirdly soft, bouncing blonde curls.

“Look, I’ll cut to the chase here,” she says.

“O-kay,” I reply, gripping the metal arms of the black leather chair across from her desk in which I’m seated.

“I’ve never much cared for you, Sabrina.” Really? Because here I thought we were besties and you might’ve asked me in to invite me to a girlfriends’ getaway – maybe a wine-tasting tour.

“You flit around the office and act like, just because you’re pretty, the world owes you something.” Where the fuck is this coming from? “You don’t take your job seriously, and honestly, I always assumed I’d end up having to fire you for incompetence.”

My eyes grow wide. She’s always been pretty direct, and clearly not a fan, but this is next-level, even for her.

“I’ve been over the audit reports with Adhira and Philip. I know about the anomaly in the accounts.” She sits upright and crosses her arms. Her lips draw into a narrow line, the edges turned slightly up, and her brows knit together. “Correction, your accounts.” She rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and makes a tsk-tsk sound between her teeth. “I never thought it would come to this.”

 

 

About Jennifer Woodhull

We all need moments of escape. With all the demands on us day in and day out, we each need something just for ourselves. Perhaps nothing provides a private moment - a brief respite from every day - like escaping into a great story. When you pick up one of my books I hope you find that place that you can escape to. Explore the streets of Paris with new heroines or fly around the world to reclaim your lost love with a favorite hero. Whether it's the romance that takes your breath away or those climactic encounters that make your pulse race, I hope you find that solitary moment of enjoyment while lost in one of my stories.

 

 

GIVEAWAY!

One Signed Copy of The Dating Alternative & Swag!

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#BlogTour #Excerpt Finding Jess by Julia Ibbotson @JuliaIbbotson @Endeavour_Media #LoveBooksGroupTours

#BlogTour #Excerpt Finding Jess by Julia Ibbotson @JuliaIbbotson @Endeavour_Media #LoveBooksGroupTours Title: Finding Jess

Author: Julia Ibbotson

Series: Drumbeats #3

Published by: Endeavour Media on Aug. 10, 2018

Genres: Women's Fiction

Pages: 254

Single mum Jess has had her world turned upside down. Now it’s about to be turned inside out.

Jess has got a tough life back on track after love-of-her-life husband Simon walked out on her and their beautiful young daughters Katy and Abi. But she has long-time friend and confidante Polly to turn to…until Polly and Simon start having an affair together.

When Polly decides to apply for a job at Jess’s school, in the English department, Jess feels threatened. So why has Polly set her sights on the department head’s role? And why is the school now offering Jess a sideways ‘promotion’?

Jess can no longer trust anyone – including herself. Then out of the blue she is mysteriously sent a clipping for a temporary post in the Ministry of Education in Ghana, where she did a gap year as a teenager, and where she was happy. She is on the brink of losing everything at home but could this be a lifeline?

Julia Ibbotson’s Finding Jess is a passionate study of love and betrayal – and of one woman’s bid to reclaim her self-belief and trust after suffering great misfortune. It is a feel-good story of a woman’s strength and spirit rising above adversity.

 

 

Excerpt:

On that night, in 1986, so long ago, on their wedding anniversary, lying next to her beloved Simon, listening to his breathing, loving him yet somehow afraid, she had held her hands up over her face trying to blank out the rhythmic rising and falling of sounds in the heavy darkness, that sense of imminent danger. She had no idea what was about to happen to them, to her much-loved family, but somehow it reminded her so vividly of that time in Ghana, and those portentous drumbeats … they were haunting her again, whatever they meant …

… the whispering souls and spirits calling to her across the bush; the surging and dying of the wind on the night air, the insistent beat of the kpanlogo djembe. Once more, her dreams were garish and crowded as they had been there. And she remembered that haunting. What was it that felt so ominous now?

Eventually, exhausted, she had slept, but it was restless and in the morning she had struggled out of bed feeling as though she had the worst hangover ever. Simon was already up and she could hear him downstairs as she went for her shower.

“Katy! Abi! Are you both up?” she had called.

“Yes, I’m getting dressed and Katy’s gone down.”

After her shower she had sunk onto the stool at the dressing table and peered at her drawn features. Her eyes looked puffy and sore. Right. Makeup out, let’s get respectable. Paint a decent face on …

As she swept brown eyeliner across her eyes, she became aware that he was standing in the bedroom doorway, a sense of agitation emanating from him. She could almost smell the sweat. She looked up and saw that he was leaning against the lintel staring at her. It was not a loving stare but a troubled, frowning one and she knew that he needed to tell her something that she wasn’t going to like. She knew him so well. Some money problem? Work? He wanted to resign from his job and let her to be the breadwinner? Oh dear – she hoped not. She didn’t have the years of promotions behind her to stand keeping the family on her income. But he had threatened that so many times.

She raised her eyebrows enquiringly. He shifted from foot to foot in the doorway and Jess began to feel very uneasy. Her hand trembled and she dripped the liquid eyeliner onto the dressing table.

“I have to tell you,” he said with a slow intake of breath, those fatal, unimaginable, alien words that would haunt her forever. “I’m leaving you.”

“What?” She hadn’t expected that. Her heart fell, tumbling to inexorable death.

“You heard me,” Simon snapped, his face suddenly contorted. “I’ve decided that I don’t want to be a husband and father any more.”

“Decided …? What on earth do you mean?”

 

 

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy of this novel from your favourite retailer or from the following link!

 

 

Thank you to Julia Ibbotson for being featured on my blog today!

 

About Julia Ibbotson

Award-winning author Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and concepts of time travel. She studied English at Keele University, specialising in medieval language, literature and history, and has a PhD in linguistics. She wrote her first novel at 10, but became a school teacher, then university lecturer and researcher. Julia spent a turbulent but exciting time in Ghana, West Africa, teaching and nursing. She has published both academic works and fiction, including a medieval time-slip, a children’s novel , a memoir, and the Drumbeats trilogy (which begins in Ghana in the 1960s). Apart from insatiable reading, Julia loves world travel, choral singing, swimming, yoga, and walking in the UK and Madeira where she and her husband divide their time. She runs an editing/critiquing service for authors: details on her website. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Society of Authors and the Historical Novel Society.