I never thought my fake marriage, would become real...
Jasper Hamilton
I've always been a pawn in the game of chess my grandfather prefers to play with me. It started when I was a child who didn't have anywhere else to go after my parents were killed.
Gone was my home full of love and warmth, and in its place was a mansion with a man as cold as a winter night.
The only thing that kept me sane were my friends. Those blue-collar buddies who didn't care about my grandpa's bank account.
I never cared about the money either. Until he threatens to take away the one thing I love in this world. The foundation created in their memory. The only way for me to get it back? Play by his rules, take a wife, and secure an heir.
Something I never planned to do after growing up the way I did. But the way I respond to Daisy Williams, and the satisfaction I get from calling her my wife makes me feel like I've been promoted from Pawn to King.
Tropes Included:
small town
blue collar
marriage of convenience
brooding for everyone but her
Jasper is book three in The Broken Falls Series: a series of interconnected standalones following a group of friends who have become family in small-town West Virginia, and the women who bring them to their knees. You do not have to read them in order, but each book builds upon the relationships of the last.
"I don't think I can resist tasting those lips again. I've tried."
"I've tried, too." I admit. But I've thought about it more than I should. Wondered if there was still the slight taste of mint from his toothpaste.
"So we're gonna give in together, right?" He licks his lips, as if he's warming his mouth up for what's about to happen.
"Yeah, if that's what you need in order to sleep at night. We can pretend like you're not the one driving this boat."
Jasper drops his head low. "Pretty sure you're right here with me, Daisy Mae. Unless you turn your head at the last minute, you're about to know what my lips on yours is all about. Ya know, in case you forgot."
I didn't forget, will never forget.
Laramie Briscoe is the USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of over 30 books, with sales of over half a million copies.
Since self-publishing her first book in May of 2013, Laramie has appeared on the Top 100 Bestselling E-books Lists on Apple Books, Amazon Kindle, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Her books have been known to make readers laugh and cry. They are guaranteed to be emotional, steamy reads.
When she's not writing alpha males who seriously love their women, she loves spending time with friends, reading, and marathoning shows on Netflix. Married to her high school sweetheart, Laramie lives in Bowling Green, KY with her husband.
Marsh Rose is here to tell us about Escape Routes, historical women's fiction.
She's also hosting a great giveaway.
___________________________
It’s
1985 and pampered psychotherapist Lauren Olive loses her job, the
love of her life to his hairdresser and is forced to move to a
backwoods bungalow as a drug counselor in a rural jail.
Escape Routes
by
Marsh Rose
Genre:
Historical Women’s Fiction
It’s
1985 and psychotherapist Lauren Olive, a pampered Baby Boomer in the
California wine country, has never owned a bank account, lived
without a man, or seen the dark side of life. But after she loses her
job, and then the love of her life abandons her for his hairdresser,
she’s forced to move to a decrepit bungalow in the backwoods and
accept work as a drug counselor in a rural jail.
At
her new job, the inmates view her wide-eyed naivete with hilarity and
her hardened coworkers resent her middle-class roots. Worse, the
bungalow seems poised to collapse around her. If Lauren is going to
survive financially, avoid going back to live with her parents, and
regain normality, she’ll need to leave her little-girl ways behind.
But success doesn’t come without struggle. Surrounded by her crusty
landlord, the jail’s seasoned deputies, skeptical inmates and a new
love interest, Lauren must confront challenges she never could have
imagined in her comfortable city life.
Escape
Routes is a tale of maturity under duress. It speaks to the emerging
audience of readers who want stories of growth and accomplishment by
strong women in compelling situations. Although it is a work of
fiction, it offers a glimpse into rural American criminal justice
during the 1980s, a time when addiction treatment for inmates was in
its formative years. Its narrative captures genuine lifestyles,
concerns, speech, and behavior without demonizing, demeaning, or
glamorizing the characters on either side of the bars.
To stop the meddling of her
matchmaker friends, divorcee Annalee fakes an affair with an Alaskan
bush pilot whose profile she has seen in a magazine about bachelors
in that rugged environment. The plan backfires when he appears in her
small California town and lures her to his remote cabin with stories
about the magnetic pull of the Last Frontier and the promise of
lasting love.
In
ways she never imagined, she finds herself falling for both the pilot
and Alaska in spite of the bears, blizzards, peculiar neighbors,
pyromaniac ex-girlfriend, stack of love letters hidden in a pantry
and evident truth to what they say about single men in Alaska: the
odds are good, but the goods are odd. Before Annalee can sever her
ties in California and move north, a shocking telephone call from an
unknown woman rocks her world and catapults her into a whole new way
of life.
Marsh
Rose is a freelance writer, psychotherapist and college educator. Her
short stories have appeared in a variety of publications including
Cosmopolitan Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, Carve Magazine,
Hippocampus Magazine, and New Millennium Writings where she took
first prize for creative nonfiction in 2018. This is her second
novel. She lives in the north San Francisco Bay Area with her
greyhound, Adin.
Samaire Wynne is here to tell us about Ever Mind the Rule of Three, Mystic Academy book 1, urban fantasy.
There's also a great giveaway.
___________________
A Wytch & Magical Cat Urban
Fantasy
"This
is the story of a girl and her cat."
Ever Mind the Rule of Three
Mystic
Academy Book 1
by
Samaire Wynne
Genre:
Urban Fantasy
★★★★★★★
Deep in
the house lies a box, hidden where no human would find it. Inside the
box lies an object of such immense power it refuses to be ignored
even one more day...
★★★★★★★
———
Tabitha
Murphy is no stranger to tragedy. After losing both parents as an
infant, she's being raised by her aunt and a very special
cat.
Although she's descended from a long line of wytches,
Tabitha has shown no sign of any powers whatsoever. Without magic,
she won't be allowed to attend the school where her aunt teaches. In
fact, with no better options, Tabitha plans to attend UCLA in the
fall and live a mundane life.
During an afternoon out with
friends after their last day of high school, she halfheartedly shares
french fries and milkshakes at the local malt shoppe and agrees to go
to a carnival in town later that afternoon.
That’s when
something happens that shocks her to her core. Something that will
change the course of her life forever.
⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡ ⚡
⚡ ⚡
Ever Mind the Rule of Three is a 120,000 word
urban fantasy story suitable for all ages.
No AI was used to
write this book or create its cover.
Samaire Wynne grew up in a lot of
different places, and now happily resides on the East Coast of
America, laboring away at writing stories every day. She is an animal
lover with far too many pets, yet she still muses how she’d like to
add even more. A lover of all things night and gothic, she also loves
to read and reread her favorite books. Owned by a cat named Tyrion,
she can be found haunting the shadows and mists that hang low over
the hills of southern Virginia.
My bio says that I’ve been writing all my life, and that’s pretty much true. I was penning stories and poems when I was in early elementary school. By high school I’d branched out to novels and plays. Though I’ve also done drawing and painting, sculpture and dance, words have always been my preferred instrument for creation. And to be honest, I grew up believing that I had significant writing talent.
The more I write, though, the more I realize how much I still have to learn.
Total-E-Bound, an English indie publisher focused on erotic romance, brought out the first edition of Getaway Girl way back in 2008. This was only my third or fourth tale written specifically for a romance audience. At that time, I knew almost nothing about the genre and its conventions. (Until I signed with TEB, I’d considered myself an author of erotica.) I spent quite a bit of time reading the work of my fellow TEB authors, trying to grasp the essence of this new category of fiction and to translate that into my own stories. My editors also did not hesitate to point out areas where common aspects of erotica just wouldn’t work for romance readers.
By 2008 I’d concluded that in every romance: 1) there had to be a sense of inevitability to the connection between the hero and heroine, an attraction that might seem to make no sense but which could not be denied; 2) the couple had to at least discuss commitment; 3) the sex (this was erotic romance after all) had to be more than just casual – there should be a sense of fitting or rightness, a connection that transcended the physical.
I tried to implement these conclusions in writing of Getaway Girl. The story was accepted and published, but was never particularly popular. I went on to write a lot more romance, getting better at it over time.
Last year I reclaimed the rights to the story so that I could self-publish it, and a few months ago I set myself the task of re-editing the piece in preparation. I really hadn’t looked at it for more than a decade.
I was appalled by how clumsy and stereotyped it seemed.
Inconsistencies in character and in plot were only part of the problem. There were also long passages of purple prose, most especially in the sex scenes. I posted the tale in my critique group and discovered there were also plentiful anachronisms and inaccuracies related to its historical period (contemporary) and British setting. (The story was originally targeted for an anthology entitled Bound Brits, so it had to take place in the U.K.)
I subjected the story to possibly the most thorough revision I’ve ever done on any of my work. I won’t say that it’s unrecognizable, but I probably modified at least 25% of the text. In the fourteen years since the first revision I’ve learned a lot, both about romance and about writing in general. Practice does make perfect; I’ve published nearly one hundred titles since that early attempt, both romance and erotica. This second edition of Getaway Girl is orders of magnitude better than the original.
But maybe I shouldn’t use the word “perfect”, because in truth, as long as we authors are writing, we are learning all the time. I’m about to revisit my first novel, preparing an expanded twenty-fifth anniversary edition for release sometime this year. This will be the fifth version of Raw Silk. I have no doubt it will be the best.
Blurb:
Be careful what you wish for
All Peg wants is a break, a bit of adventure, a relief
from her mundane existence in the bucolic but boring Yorkshire hamlet of Kirkby
Malzeard. When dashing, sophisticated journalist Lionel Hayes saunters into the
pub where she's tending bar, Peg suspects that he was just the sort of man to
fulfill her fantasies of escape.
The seductive Lionel, however, is not what he seems.
Before she knows it, Peg is a hostage, roped and gagged, speeding away from the
scene of a daring crime. Lionel is armed and dangerous, but somehow Peg still
wants him – regardless of the consequences.
Note: This book was originally published in 2015 by
Totally Bound. This second edition has been substantially revised and has a new
ending.
Excerpt:
“What are you doing here, if I might ask?”
“Me? Oh, I’m a journalist. I’m doing a story on the find and its historical implications.”
Peg felt a twinge of suspicion. “The press conference was yesterday.”
“My car broke down halfway from London. I spent last night in a town even tinier than this one.” His smile was charming, apologetic. Peg’s uneasiness melted away.
He leaned towards her across the bar, putting his hand over hers. “That’s why I appreciate your help, in giving me the information I need.”
His skin was warm and smooth, none of the calluses of a manual labourer. Not like the farmers Peg had occasionally dated here, before she gave up on finding a man in her home village. He ran one fingertip up and down in the sensitive crease between Peg’s thumb and forefinger. The light touch was enough to turn her nipples to aching knots and trigger a throbbing between her legs.
She caught a hint of his scent, a balsam-laced aftershave or cologne that simultaneously conveyed masculinity and refinement. His forefinger ventured higher, stroking the back of her wrist, a gesture both delicate and bold. Her pussy clenched as though he were massaging her down there, instead of merely brushing a casual finger across her hand.
She stared at the bar, blushing, angry with herself for being so susceptible. Finally, she managed to raise her head and meet his eyes, which were a stormy hazel colour.
“What paper are you from?”
“Oh, I write for an upmarket travel rag. I doubt that you would’ve heard of it. This story should enhance the romance and mystery of your already delightful village. I expect you’ll see a surge in tourists after publication.”
“You should interview Peter Lofthouse. He’s been mayor for the last dozen years.”
“I have the feeling that I’m talking to a real authority right now. Lived here a long time, haven’t you?”
She bristled. How did he know that? Maybe because she seemed such a country bumpkin. “I spent some time in London, but I had to come back. Family problems.”
“Sorry to hear that...” He scanned her chest, seeking a name tag. Peg felt as though he were fondling her breasts instead of just looking at them. Could he see the swollen tips, pushing up through her soft green jumper?
“I’m Peg,” she said, snatching her hand from his and reaching for the bar rag. “And you?”
He bowed slightly. “Lionel Hayes, at your service. But I’ll bet you’re really Margaret, right? It’s much more musical, more sophisticated. It suits you.”
He was clearly trying to flatter her. She didn’t really mind. “Lionel—sounds like an aristocratic playboy from the nineteen twenties. Nobody’s named Lionel anymore.”
The journalist laughed again, soft and intimate, sending the blood rushing again to Peg’s cheeks as well as to other body parts. He drained the last of his pint, then reclaimed her hand. “I’ve got to go. But it’s been pleasure to meet you, Margaret. Perhaps I’ll mention you in my article.”
OC Heaton is here to tell us about Leap, The Race is On book 1, a scifi techno thriller.
There's also a great giveaway.
_______________________
One
small step could ruin mankind’s greatest leap...
Leap
The
Race In On Book 1
by
OC Heaton
Genre:
SciFi Techno Thriller
One
small step could ruin mankind’s greatest leap...
November
2003. Brilliant scientist Uma Jakobsdóttir has figured out a way to
solve global warming for good. Known as LEAP, the system is capable
of providing Earth’s ultimate second chance...until it falls into
the wrong hands.
When
playboy CEO Samuel Reynolds III snatches LEAP out from under her
nose, he adds insult to injury by attempting to destroy Uma. But this
is no malicious whim. As the daughter of its creator, Uma enforces
the LEAP Laws.
Because
of its potentially devastating capabilities, LEAP users must not
clone people, revive the dead, or merge minds and species. But in the
race to recover her precious piece of tech, Uma is faced with
sacrifices that push her resolve to breaking point.
From
the frozen wastelands of Iceland, to the leafy suburbs of London and
the mean streets of New York City, LEAP is a technothriller that will
keep you questioning what it means to be human.
Ready
to take the LEAP? Click ‘buy now’ to start reading today!
I write what I love to read – big
issue thrillers that are super well researched inside a complex plot
full of twists and turns.
The result of the above is The
Race Is On Series, an idea I had on a trip to Iceland. The first in
the series is called LEAP, which tells the tale of a device which has
the power to halt global warming. The ensuing race to control the
power of this machine will continue throughout the sequel to LEAP
which I’m well on my way to completing. It’s called Green Ray and
will be published in May 2023.
Just like LEAP, the 2nd
book weaves fact with fiction and encompasses events such as the 2009
global financial meltdown, Al Qaeda, a new US President and a
cornered CIA; another delightful concoction around which I have
constructed another tall, but hopefully credible, tale. Watch this
space!
I live in Leeds, UK with the love of my life and
our two daughters. It rains a lot in Leeds but that works out well
for me – loads of time for research and of course writing!
Janet Morris is here to tell us about The Golden Sword, Silistra Quartet book 2, epic dystopian scifi fantasy.
She's also hosting a great giveaway.
_______________________
Enslaved on the planet Silistra
tomorrow's most beautiful courtesan unleashes the powers of the gods.
The Golden Sword
Silistra
Quartet Book 2
by
Janet Morris
Genre:
Epic Dystopian SciFi Fantasy
Dystopia.
Biology shapes
reality.
The further adventures of the most beautiful
courtesan in the galaxies of tomorrow.
She had the power
to create planets.
The sixty carved bones of the Yris-tera
foretold her ancient fate.
Her heritage of power took her beyond
time and space and stole from her the one man she loved.
Enslaved
on the planet Silistra tomorrow's most beautiful courtesan unleashes
the powers of the gods.
ON
A PLANET DESPERATE FOR POPULATION, WOMEN HOLD THE KEYS TO POWER.
But
power brings enemies.
Estri,
holder of Silistra's highest office, never suspected the intrigues
moving against her...until her rivals attacked.
Her
betrayal toppled more than a single well-Keepress.
Estri's
enemies threatened all of Silistra.
Their
plan: to reveal the planet's precious secret of extending life in
exchange for off-world technology -- the technology which decimated
Silistra's population long ago.
"Engrossing
characters in a marvelous adventure." -- C. Brown, Locus
The
amazing and exotic adventures of the most beautiful courtesan in
tomorrow's universe." -- Frederik Pohl.
Best
selling author Janet
Morris
began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 30 novels,
many co-authored with her husband Chris Morris or others. Most of her
fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres,
although she has also written historical and other novels. Morris has
written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of
non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons,
developmental military technology and other defense and national
security topics.
