Wicked Sexy - Excerpt & Giveaway

Wicked Sexy

Uniformly Hot!

By: Anne Marsh

Releasing June 17^th, 2014

Harlequin Blaze

Blurb

Too sexy to resist?

Danielle Andrews was supposed to be on her honeymoon. Instead, she's back on Discovery Island licking her wounds and running for shelter when she sees Daeg Ross coming her way. Years ago, on this very beach, Dani started something with the special ops aviation rescue swimmer. But she refuses to be tempted by the wickedly hot military hunk again.

Daeg Ross is used to jumping into treacherous waters. But his feelings for relationship-shy Dani are a whole new type of risk. They are volatile—and irresistible. When their lives are threatened by the invading winds and endless rain of a tropical storm, Daeg and Dani are forced to take shelter and ride out a wild night. Together, will they sink…or swim?

Uniformly Hot! The few, the proud, the sexy as hell!

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Excerpt – Wicked Sexy

Standing there on the beach, staring up at him, Dani Andrews looked confused, as if she wasn’t sure if she wanted to haul off and hit him—or if she’d decided he wasn’t worth the bother. She certainly knew who he was. After all, she’d come over from the mainland and spent every summer at her grandparents’ place for as long as he’d been on the island. She’d worked at the ice cream joint at the end of the boardwalk, making cones, and he’d eaten his weight in ice cream just for the excuse to chat her up some. Those brown eyes of hers looked decidedly less friendly by the minute, her head already shaking back and forth. Or maybe that was the effect of the wind picking up as the storm offshore gathered steam.

“Daeg Ross,” she said and, from the way she pronounced his name, she was still plenty upset about how their last encounter ended ten years ago.

He, meanwhile, still wanted to kiss her and kiss her and that was the problem, wasn’t it?

He’d already kissed her—just once—all those years ago, not too far from this very spot. Fresh out of the search and rescue training program, he’d had two weeks’ leave before he shipped out to the Middle East. Cal's family had been the closest thing to family Daeg had; his own father had never been part of the picture and he'd lost his mother in a car accident a few years before. So, when his leave came up, returning to Discovery Island had seemed natural.

It had been prom night when he'd last seen Dani and she’d been seventeen—too young for the likes of him, ice cream aside. He hadn’t been the one to take her to prom—she hadn’t asked and honestly, he didn’t even know if she knew his name, although he’d caught her looking at him a few times. Prom night he’d found her walking alone on the beach. She hadn’t started out the evening alone and they both knew it.

One look at her sad, disappointed face and he’d broken every rule in his book right then and there.

About the Author:

After ten years of graduate school and too many degrees, Anne Marsh escaped to become a technical writer. When not planted firmly in front of the laptop translating Engineer into English, Anne enjoys gardening, running (even if it’s just to the 7-11 for slurpees), and reading books curled up with her kids. The best part of writing romance, however, is finally being able to answer the question: “So… what do you do with a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures?” She lives in Northern California with her husband, two kids and four cats.

You can reach Anne Marsh at www.anne-marsh.com or email her at annemarsh@ymail.com

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In The Mood For Love - Book Blast & Giveaway

In the Mood for Love

By: Beth Ciotta

St. Martin’s Press

Releasing July 1^st, 2014

Blurb

THE ONLY THING BETTER THAN A SURPRISE FLING…

Sugar Creek, Vermont, is a world away from Los Angeles for high-powered, media-obsessed Harper Day. When she took the job doing publicity for the Cupcake Lovers, she never expected to be won over by the town’s old-fashioned charms. But that was before she moved into the Victorian vacation home of her dreams and fell in with a man whose good looks and irresistible ways are anything but small-town…

IS FINDING TRUE AND LASTING LOVE.

Sam McCloud is a widowed father of two. He and bossy, big-city Harper appear to have nothing in common… though the attraction they feel toward one another cannot be denied. But will their romance last longer than the day’s headlines? There’s more to Harper than meets the eye, and as it turns out, she needs to get married—fast. Little does Harper know that family-man Sam will do whatever it takes to keep her in Sugar Creek—even if that means taking matters into his own hands. And never letting her go…in the fourth novel in the Cupcake Lovers series, In the Mood For Love.

Purchase the book at:

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About the Author:

Storytelling comes naturally to award-winning author Beth Ciotta. Dubbed "fun and sexy" by Publisher's Weekly, Beth specializes in contemporary, historical, steampunk, and paranormal romantic fiction. 

Beth lives in NJ with her husband, two zany dogs, and a crazy cat. A retired professional performer, Beth now pours her artistic passion into her writing.

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The Right Design - Review

Review by Marlene Engel

Carrie was excited to be celebrating her six year anniversary with her boyfriend, Roger.  Secretly she was hoping that a proposal was in store for their special night.  Deciding to do something completely out of character, she got dressed in sexy lingerie, high heels and topped it off with a trench coat.  She headed to the house that they shared to surprise him, but she was the one who got the surprise.  When she walked in, she found Roger in a compromised position with another woman!  Hurt and confused, she fled to her sister’s house.  But she knew that she couldn’t hide out there forever.  She knew that she needed a change.  A change that didn’t include staying in Texas.  That’s when she decided to pack up her things and move to Palm Beach, Florida.  She needed a new start, in a new town, where memories of Roger wouldn’t haunt her. 

Carrie was fortunate to land a job soon after her move.  But her luck seems to run out when she learns that her first client is the same drunken guy who was hitting on her the night before at the bar.  Determined to be the professional that she is, she dodges advances from him and keeps herself focused on business.  But the more time they spend together, the more she starts to see a different side of him.  His once ungentlemanly behavior has turned into something more desirable and sweet.  But is she ready to consider another romantic relationship so soon after the hurt that Roger has caused her? 

I started reading this book and couldn’t put it down.  It’s a fun, fast read with relatable characters and an amazing story!  It’s the perfect book to take to the beach or to read pool-side.  Much praise to Isabella Louise Anderson on her first novel.  I look forward to reading more of her books in the future!

Purchase the book at:

Amazon * Barnes&Noble * Kobo * Smashwords

About the Author:

Isabella grew up with a book in her hand, and to this day nothing has changed. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and has been featured on several blogs. While Isabella doesn’t blog a lot, she focuses her time on featuring other writers, along with writing and editing.

Isabella Louise Anderson created Chick Lit Goddess to share the love of the following genres: Chick Lit, Contemporary Romance, Romance, and Romantic Comedies!  She loves featuring authors and their books.

She lives in Dallas with her husband and cat. She enjoys spicy Mexican food and drinking margaritas, and can be found spending time with family and friends, cheering on the Texas Rangers, and reading.

Isabella’s short story, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, was featured in Simon & Fig’s Christmas anthology, Merry & Bright, in November 2013. The Right Design is her first novel.

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Chasing The Sun - Review

Review by Darcie Czajkowski

Andres Jimenez’s wife is gone. She’s left him for a second time, and this time she’s not coming back.

Andres finds a note in the mail from Marabella. This is it, he thinks. She’s gone forever. But instead of confirming that she left him, Andres is blindsided by the news that she was kidnapped. He is horrified. His hometown of Lima, Peru is notorious for kidnappings, sadistic people looking to pilfer money anywhere they can, regardless of who gets hurt. But Andres never thought it would happen to him. To his wife. To his family which includes his young daughter, Cynthia, and teenage son, Ignacio.

One million dollars. That’s the ransom price. How is he expected to come up with that amount of money? His printing business is successful by Peruvian standards, but he’s not a millionaire by American standards.

With the aid of a kidnapping consultant, Andres attempts to negotiate a lower price for his wife’s return, all the while wondering how he can put a price on her life. Adding to his mounting stress is the knowledge that he and his wife have been embroiled in a strained, distant marriage for some time now and he wonders: if she returns, will she just leave again, this time of her own volition and for good? Will his childhood best friend, Elena, be able to offer insight into Marabella’s experience given that she was kidnapped years prior?

Natalia Sylvester uses the vehicle of a kidnapping to delve into the inner workings of a troubled marriage. Even though I was perplexed by the blend of English and Spanish in the characters’ conversations in a Spanish-speaking country, I was captivated by the drama of how the negotiations would unspool and how the situation would affect Andres’s and Marabella’s marriage. Would Marabella be so violated and traumatized by the event that she would never be the same again? Would the event rekindle a common bond between them? Or perhaps she wouldn’t even make it back to her family alive? I voraciously read this book to learn how these issues would be resolved. While I was startled by the abruptness of the ending, I appreciate a believable, realistic conclusion which I believe is what I got. I recommend this book to lovers of literary fiction, those curious about Lima in the nineties during a time of political unrest, and those interested in a pleasurable amalgam of drama and suspense. A solid, satisfying first novel from Natalia Sylvester.

About the Author:

Born in Lima, Peru, Natalia Sylvester came to the U.S. at age four and grew up in South Florida, where she received a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Miami. A former magazine editor, she now works as a freelance writer in Austin, Texas. CHASING THE SUN, partially inspired by family events, is her first novel.

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The Pink Suit - Review

Review by Rachel Hamm

It’s the early 1960s and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is the style icon of the decade.  Even after some bad publicity during her husband’s run for office (the amount of money she spent on foreign-made clothes didn’t exactly go over well), she’s still the woman the country looks to when determining fashion trends.  And Kate is the lucky seamstress at the fashionable copy-cat shop Chez Ninon who gets to make “The Wife’s” smart suits and gorgeous dresses.

                               

For Kate, a single woman, an Irish immigrant, living in a quiet Catholic neighborhood in northern Manhattan, the Wife is her passion.  She keeps clippings of the outfits she’s made for her.  She copies the outfits for her sister, who is the same size as the Wife.  She gets the opportunity of a lifetime when the Husband places a direct order through Chez Ninon for a Chanel suit.  The infamous pink suit the Wife would be wearing when the Husband was assassinated.

As Kate prepares the suit, she deals with personal troubles of her own.  Falling in love and deciding if that is enough to get married to fellow Irish Catholic Patrick Harris.  Contemplating an offer to go into business with her mentor and leave the shop she’s dedicated years to.  Discovering her sister doesn’t actually like having replicas of the Wife’s clothes.  Through it all, the suit grounds her while also allowing her to live out a fantasy – one where the Wife is not an untouchable public figure, but the girl from County Cork who isn’t all that different from Kate herself.

After reading this, I felt like chastising myself for not reading more historical fiction.  The entire book was wonderfully done.  The period details were subtle and accurate and made me want to grab Doc Brown’s Delorian and head back in time.  Everything was simpler, the world slower, but fashion was having a revolution.

Kate loves her work.  She loves the fabrics and the tiny stitches, and the way garments can be designed to hide the flaws our bodies come by naturally.  I found myself really routing for Kate.  She was relatable in having this passion that made her a bit of an outcast in her neighborhood, and at times within her own family.

Her friend-turned-boyfriend, Patrick, is as adorable as possible.  A sweet Irish butcher who loved his mam and misses her now that she’s gone, does everything in his power to show Kate that despite what everyone else may think, he loves her and celebrates her passion for the Wife and the Suit (and whatever else she wants to be passionate about) – all he asks is she take an interest in his passion as well.  It’s a great message about love, which I found surprising given the time period of the novel.

I don’t dog-ear books.  It’s just not something I do.  But there was one particular passage of this book that HAD to be remembered.  Kate is thinking about her nephew and how he’ll be associated with her unique ways.

Poor Little Mike, Kate thought, but knew there were worse things in life than having an aunt who didn’t always obey the rules – like having an aunt who mindlessly obeyed them.  What a frightful way to be.

Maybe this struck me because I’m an aunt who doesn’t always follow the rules of how my family thinks I should act.  Or maybe because it just seemed to sum up the entire book so well.  Kate actually DOES do some mindless rule-following at her job – coming in early and staying late to complete orders that absolutely must be done – but throughout the story, we see her coming into her own.  Once she realizes that there are people who see her as something undesirable, she kinda lets loose.  She allows herself to be reckless.  She becomes that person who doesn’t mindlessly follow rules.

My one complaint about the book is that, because of the genre, it is light on dialogue.  This makes it move along a little more slowly than I prefer.  I didn’t get “sucked in.”  But I really enjoyed the story and the cast of characters and most definitely appreciated the way the story was told.  The actual pink suit is now an icon.  The (fictional) Pink Suit could very well become a classic.

About the Author:

Brought up in Florida, Kelby has worked as a reporter, editor and educator. Initially a playwright, she later turned to novels and short stories. She is the author of Murder at the Bad Girl’s Bar and Grill, Whale Season, In the Company of Angels, and Theater of the Stars.

Her short stories have appeared in many publications including Zoetrope All-Story Extra, One Story, Minnesota Monthly, Verb, and The Mississippi Review. One was recorded by actress Joanne Woodward for the NPR CD Travel Tales, and included in New Stories from the South: Best of 2006.

Kelby has been the recipient of a Bush Artist Fellowship in Literature, the Heekin Group Foundation’s James Fellowship for the Novel, both a Florida and Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in fiction, two Jerome Travel Study Grants, and a Jewish Arts Endowment Fellowship. She was named "Outstanding Southern Artist" by The Southern Arts Federation and her work has been translated into several languages. She has been a Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Award finalist for fiction three times and placed twice in the Nelson Algren Award for the Short Story.

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The Matchmaker - Review

Review by Darcie Czajkowski

Dabney Kimball Beech lives and breathes Nantucket. No, she is Nantucket. Born on the island, she lived there her entire childhood, raised her daughter Agnes there, and plans to die there.

Dabney is a matchmaker. Not by trade, but by and because of love. She sees auras: rosy pink for “meant to be” and olive green for “utter failure, DO NOT GET MARRIED.” To her dismay, Agnes and her fiancé CJ fall into the latter category. Agnes doesn’t want to hear this, even though Dabney has never been wrong when it comes to matchmaking. Forty-two successful couples have made for a pristine record.

Then there is Clendenin, Dabney’s “meant to be.” Or so she thought. They were a couple from the time he moved to the island when they were teenagers until he took a job in Asia twenty-seven years ago and left Dabney devastated but enough resigned to their impossible situation that she decided to raise her daughter – their daughter – alone. Now he is back on the island after losing his left arm in pursuit of a hot story. He’s back for Dabney. But Dabney has been married to a renowned economist for over twenty years, leaving her to wonder if she can possibly take Clen back.

But when an unexpected health problem blindsides Dabney, she sets about matchmaking her final couples, the people closest to her and whose happiness she is determined to ensure, and along with them, she must come to peace with her own.  

The Matchmaker is one of Elin Hilderbrand’s best novels, adroitly incorporating the dynamics of many types of relationships: mother-daughter, husband-wife, best friends, long-lost loves. While ultimately telling a heartbreaking story, the book shares an uplifting message of cherishing the ones you love and realizing that it’s never too late to find your happily-ever-after. This book is much more than a mere beach read. It’s a must-read – for any day of the week, any time of the year. I am eagerly awaiting the next one from Elin Hilderbrand.

Purchase the book at:

Amazon * Barnes&Noble * IndieBound * BAM * iBookstore

About the Author:

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her five previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

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The Unimaginable - Cover Reveal

Title: The Unimaginable

Author: Dina Silver

Age Group: Adult 

Genre: Contemporary Romance/Mystery/Suspense

Publisher: Amazon Publishing

Scheduled to release: October 28, 2014

"Dina Silver's deftly woven tale has all of my favorite fictional elements: romance, action and adventure, and a knock-your-socks-off ending. The Unimaginable is simply superb." ~ Tracey Garvis Graves, New York Times bestselling author of On the Island. 

SYNOPSIS:

From the author of One Pink Line comes a story about letting go of the past and finding bravery in the depths of fear. Set on the sun-soaked beaches of Thailand and the rough waters of the Indian Ocean, The Unimaginable paints a vivid portrait of a young woman on a journey to find herself—and her harrowing fight for survival.

After twenty-eight years of playing by the rules, Jessica Gregory moves from her small Indiana town to Phuket, Thailand. But her newfound routine is upended with the arrival of Grant Flynn, a captivating, elusive man who is sailing around the world while trying to move on from a past tragedy. Jessica volunteers to help crew Grant’s boat, Imagine, on a passage across the Indian Ocean and finds herself falling in love with him as the voyage gets underway. But when disaster strikes, Jessica must summon her courage as the crew is confronted by unspeakable terrors––and, aboard a boat named for such promise, comes the unimaginable.

Excerpt:

His hand and fingers were slowly caressing my right arm just above the elbow, and every time he paused my heart would skip a beat. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to muster the strength to lift my head and look him in the eyes. I wanted to know that things were good between us and there were no hard feelings. His eyes would give me the answers. The eyes always say more than the mouth.

I shifted my body toward him ever so slightly, curling myself even further into his embrace. He tightened his grip on me and then continued to move his hand up and down, rubbing away the chills. I closed my eyes, counted to ten, then opened them and lifted my chin. He immediately looked down at me, stopped moving his hand, and squeezed hard, forcing the tips of his fingers into my arm. I froze. He studied my eyes and then looked away, loosening his grip.

My breathing intensified as I brought my hand to his cheek, brushing my thumb across his stubble and turning his face back to mine. He shifted his body, threaded his fingers through my hair, and rested them at the base of my neck. Just as I inhaled, he bent down and pressed his lips to mine. First, hard and firm, then soft and exploratory as he parted my lips with his tongue. My head went back, and my body fell forward into his arms as his hands tugged at my hair and the back of my shirt.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said without a second thought.

He was lifting my legs up onto the bench under the weight of his body when we heard someone cough. 

PRE-ORDER

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About the Author:

Dina Silver is an author, a wine drinker, and an excellent parallel parker. She is the author of Kat Fight, Finding Bliss, and One Pink Line, which was chosen as a 2012 Top Title by IndieReader and was a finalist in their 2012 Discovery Awards. She lives with her husband, son, and twenty-pound tabby cat in suburban Chicago. She’d prefer to live where it’s warm year round, but then she’d never stay home and write anything.

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