Monday, February 26, 2018

REVIEW: Secret Lucidity by E.K. Blair



Title: Secret Lucidity
Author: E.K. Blair
Genre: Student/Teacher Forbidden Romance
Release Date: February 26, 2018



Kudos to E.K. Blair for always giving us something completely different in everything that she writes. She never covers the same ground twice and I think that's what makes many readers interested in what she publishes. In the case of Secret Lucidity readers will need to brace themselves.

After a fairly sweet introduction to Cam, we were plunged into page after page of tragedy and struggle and sadness. This read is not for the faint of heart. Reading Cam's story is page after page of seeing her circle the drain with only tiny glimmers of hope to get through it. And here's the clincher: the glimmers of hope, in the form of David, are the thing you know in your heart of hearts is also going to be the thing that brings more pain before it gets better. UGH.

So, fair reader, this novel is gonna be emotional. It's going to have you bracing for the inevitable bad stuff while at the same time, hoping for the best. It tackles some issues that may be incredibly hard for some to read, so beware.


Blurb

This wasn’t supposed to happen.
But it did.
This wasn’t supposed to be my life.
But it was.

I was just a typical girl, living a typical life. Nothing was out of the ordinary until tragedy threw me into a turnstile I couldn’t see my way out of. That was, until him.

I never could’ve imagined my heart falling the way it did. Hard, fast, and with unbounding beauty.

The only problem?
He was off limits.
Forbidden.

But he became my everything, and I became his, so we risked it all. It was only a matter of time until I realized that our risk came with unimaginable consequences.

My name is Camellia Hale and his is David Andrews, and this is our love story.







Purchase Links

AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU






Teaser Video







Author Bio


New York Times, USA Today, and International bestselling author, E.K. Blair, takes her readers on an emotional roller coaster with her books. Blair tends to drift towards love stories that are deeply layered with emotional angst. Give her a character and she will dig into their core to find what lies beneath.

Aside from writing, E.K. Blair finds pleasure in music, drinking her Starbucks in peace and spending time with her friends and family. She's a thinker, an artist, a wife, a mom, and everything in between.


Author Links

Sunday, February 25, 2018

NEW + REVIEW: Memphis by Ginger Scott

We're celebrating the release of Memphis by Ginger Scott! Check out the excerpt below!

Memphis by Ginger Scott
A Contemporary New Adult Romance
Release day: February 23

I love that Ginger Scott always keeps us on our toes. In Memphis she gives us new characters and a world that feels gritty and run down. When we first meet Liv I couldn't help but wonder how in the world Ginger was going to take her out of a seemingly hopeless situation--she was down and out for the count, or so I thought. Turns out she's got a spine of steel and an attitude that wouldn't let her wallow, though once you see what she's up against, you wouldn't necessarily blame her for wanting to.

And then there's Memphis: our handsome, sweet, boxer and yet another book boyfriend that Ginger Scott has concocted out of thin air and made me swoon. He's also not had an easy life but he's on the upswing--as long as he can maintain his focus and determination. Annnnnd now you see the problem, right? Put a spitfire in his path and watch the fun begin. Neither of them want to want each other, but Ginger works her word sorcery and BOOM! we've found ourselves in the middle of a sweaty boxing gym and a love that probably shouldn't have happened..but we're so glad that it did.

Not only did I enjoy the pairing of Liv and Memphis and their tentative, they should be off limits but NOPE, sweet romance but I also super-loved that Ginger also included the storyline of Miles. This veteran and his side story was one that I felt really connected to. Ginger Scott always gives us a look at an important social issue to consider in conjunction with the main story of her romances and it's one of the many reasons why I love her novels.


Goodreads
Amazon: http://a.co/c50FzBy
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2Fe2sNv
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2sJ503C

Blurb:
My mom always said it was just something about the way he moved.
The same swagger Archie Valentine wore in the ring when he took his opponents down followed him like a halo everywhere he went. But make no mistake about it—he was no angel. He was like a drug. My mother was his addict.

I never understood it…how love could make you blind and convince you to drink the poison. Not until I met Memphis Delaney.

At first, it was the familiar form. He’s a fighter, built like a god from the past, the kind of man the universe doesn’t make anymore. His eyes hide a story, and every time I’m in his presence I want to keep reading him until I get to the end. And then…there’s the way he moves. His boxing is violent but beautiful, and his body is a seductive weapon. When he’s in the ring, he wears the stare of a man committed to the battle until his very last breath.

He could end me; turn me into her. Too much of him will leave me as a shadow, and I’ve lost so much of myself already.

But I have discipline. It came the hard way. Lessons learned, scars left behind, and trust stripped away from life.

I will breathe his air, but I won’t fall for a man like him. The only boxer who’s ever going to break my heart is the one who gave me my name.

EXCERPT:
I turn so our feet are squared and glance at his home that I think he probably knows I went through while he was gone. Somehow the money he paid for it seems not enough and too much all at once. My gaze shifts back to his, and he steps forward until the toe of his left shoe rests against the right side of mine.

“That’s a nice story, Memphis. I’m glad you found the bike, but I’m not sure what that has to do with me,” I say, my breath catching as his fingertips trace along my jaw, his touch so faint I find myself leaning my head to encourage his palm to rest along my cheek more boldly.

He brings his other hand up with more confidence, and I’m caught. The other option I had, to walk away, is gone. I never really wanted it, though.

Memphis dips his chin, hunching slightly to bring his eyes in line with mine. We’re so close that I can feel the tickle of his breath against my lips, and they tingle at the familiar. Each experience with him weaves itself into my heart in this way that terrifies me. This is how people lose themselves.

But I let it in—each breath, each sound, the smells and words. His story. I am surviving on the very being of him, and I think I have been for a while now.

“I was eighteen when I tracked down that bike. I knew it was mine...”

“I don’t belong to you, Memphis,” I cut in, my heart pounding.

His mouth forms a crooked smile. He holds my eyes hostage in silence for few long seconds. “Maybe it works the other way,” he says, his eyes moving over my face with a softness that feels intimate and vulnerable. His forehead falls forward until it rests gently on my own, and I let go of the grip I have on myself, exchanging it for fistfuls of his T-shirt. My knuckles run along his chest as I gather the material and close my eyes, his muscles hard from discipline.

“I can’t watch you get hurt. I can’t...”

His hand moves to my chin, and he lifts it until our eyes meet. Suddenly, breathing just got a lot harder to do.

“I won’t lose, Liv. I work too hard, and I study too much, and I will never be in a ring I’m not supposed to be in,” he says, and I breathe out what sounds like a laugh but feels like hurt.

“My fifty-year-old uncle kicked your ass in some display of alpha-male, teacher-student bullshit. I couldn’t watch that...how am I supposed to watch you step in with some guy who really wants to kill you? How am I supposed to kiss you knowing that your lips might never be the same after a fight. How...”

Memphis’s mouth takes mine before I can protest anymore, nothing like our stolen moment from earlier. His hands cup my face and his mouth moves possessively over my bottom lip, sucking it in and letting it slide loose through a graze of his teeth. He turns my head with a gentle nudge and kisses me deeper, and his hands fall from my face in long, possessive drags down my shoulders to my waist, stopping with his thumbs just above my hips and his fingers splayed out around my sides.

My hands roam up his chest and neck until my thumbs run along the roughness of his chin, and my touch seems to somehow make him hungrier.

“My god.” He breathes the words against my lips, restraint giving way…






iBooks - https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/memphis/id1350740601?mt=11
Kobo - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/memphis-11
Google books - https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Ginger_Scott_Memphis?id=oK1MDwAAQBAJ
Barnes & Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/memphis-ginger-scott/1128010743?ean=2940155140962

About the Author:


Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of several young and new adult romances, including Waiting on the Sidelines, Going Long, Blindness, How We Deal With Gravity, This Is Falling, You and Everything After, The Girl I Was Before, Wild Reckless, Wicked Restless, In Your Dreams, The Hard Count, Hold My Breath, A Boy Like You and A Girl Like Me.

A sucker for a good romance, Ginger’s other passion is sports, and she often blends the two in her stories. (She’s also a sucker for a hot quarterback, catcher, pitcher, point guard…the list goes on.) Ginger has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and blogs for more than 15 years. She has told the stories of Olympians, politicians, actors, scientists, cowboys, criminals and towns. For more on her and her work, visit her website at http://www.littlemisswrite.com.

When she's not writing, the odds are high that she's somewhere near a baseball diamond, either watching her son field pop flies like Bryce Harper or cheering on her favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ginger lives in Arizona and is married to her college sweetheart whom she met at ASU (fork 'em, Devils).

Social Media Links:
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/GingerScottAuthor
Twitter: @TheGingerScott
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/thegingerscott/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GingerScottAuthor
Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GingerScottAuthor/posts
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/GingerScott
Website: http://www.littlemisswrite.com

Thursday, February 22, 2018

REVIEW: Gods & Monsters by Saffron A. Kent




Title: Gods & Monsters
Author: Saffron A. Kent
Genre: Contemporary/New Adult Romance
Release Date: February 22, 2018

OUR REVIEW...or a retelling of our reading experience:

Anticipation.
Ever since The Unrequited I've been anticipating Kent's next book. 
Anticipation.
From page one, I know shit's going to go down. Every page forward I wonder if the next will be when the thing happens. And I wonder, what will be the thing? But then, I think it's too early in the novel for the thing to happen. Butttttttt then again, maybe not.

Fast forward several chapters...
Is she trying to kill me with this novel?  The ending of the last chapter of Part 1 indicated that yes, yes she is.

I find myself stalking her IG for hints about what's to come because I won't read the last page but I need to know that I'm going to make it out alive.

Feels like a twisted fairytale...and I like it.
42%

The foreboding. 
You know it's coming and as much as you may want to flip to the end, you just can't. You have to know not just what happens but how it all goes down. So you read while with this sick anticipation because you just know it's all going to go downhill fast and you can't help but notice that part 3 is marked by days instead of something else and you wonder WHAT THE HELL is about to go down. 

And then it happens. All hell breaks loose and you know what?! I survived it. Barely. But when I stepped back from it, I actually saw that absolute need for Kent to do what she did to and for her characters. And with each new span of time in Part 3, I could see that even though the characters weren't past the hard stuff yet, I was. I was going to make it out of this with an intact heart and an intact Kindle. Barely. I was barely going to make it out alive, but I count that as a win.

And that, my friends, is how that reading went down.

I like that Saffron A. Kent writes these novels that feel slightly otherworldly. They show us the darker side of desires. She throws us into these hedonistic experiences and twists fairytales. She toes the line, crosses the line, and gives us new lines. The love story of Evie and Abel has a little bit of all those things, mixed with a dose of the real life hardships of coming of age without any real guidance in how to do that. 

I didn't know what to expect with this novel, having only read and loved The Unrequited, but I knew I wanted to read it. I'll admit that the first part of this novel was stylistically not what I was expecting and the 'voice' of the characters kinda threw me, but I stuck with it because I was intrigued. Now having read Gods & Monsters, I know I need to circle back to her debut novel and read it as I wait to see what she'll do with Sky and Duke (that looks like it's going to be a ton of fun to read!).





Blurb

He was an artist. She was his muse.

To everyone in town, Abel Adams was the devil's spawn, a boy who never should have been born. A monster.

To twelve year-old Evie Hart, he was just a boy with golden hair, soft t-shirts and a camera. A boy who loved taking her picture and sneaking her chocolates before dinner. A boy who made her feel special.

Despite her family's warnings, she loved him in secret for six years. They met in empty classrooms and kissed in darkened church closets. Until they couldn't.

Until the time came to choose between love and family, and Evie chose Abel.

Because their love was worth the risk. Their love was the stuff of legend.

But the thing about legends is that they are cautionary tales. They are made of choices and mistakes. And for Abel and Evie, the artist and the muse, those mistakes come in the form of lights, camera, sex.

NOTE: This is NOT a paranormal or a priest romance.







Gods & Monsters Links







Purchase Links

99c for a limited time

AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

Free in Kindle Unlimited






Playlist





Author Bio

Writer of bad romances. Aspiring Lana Del Rey of the Book World. 

Saffron is a big believer in love (obviously). She believes in happily ever after, the butterflies and the tingling. But she also believes in edgy, rough and gutsy kind of love. She believes in pushing the boundaries, darker (sometimes morally ambiguous) emotions and imperfections.

The kind of love she writes about is flawed just like her characters. And she hopes by the end of it, you’ll come to root for them just as much as she does. Because love, no matter where it comes from, is always pure and beautiful.

She is represented by Meire Dias of Bookcase Agency 



Author Links

COMING SOON: Robbie by Ella Frank

SBPRBANNER-Robbie-CR

Confessions: Robbie, an all new tantalizing contemporary MMM Romance by Ella Frank is coming March 8th!

Robbie-Confessions-PRINT-FOR-WEB copy
Confessions: Robbie
Author: Ella Frank
Release Date: March 8th

Synopsis

Relationships are complex.
Love ever-changing.
And when it comes to rules of the heart,
they were made to be broken…
That’s what Robert Antonio Bianchi was telling himself, anyway.
Otherwise, he really had no excuse for what—or who—he’d done.
No excuse, except for his lonely heart, a pitcher of margaritas, four Bitter Bitches, and the apparent need to confess all his weaknesses to the two men he knew would bring him nothing but trouble.
But trouble was nothing new.
Just ask his crazy sisters or any of his friends, and they’d be the first to tell you:
If there was a bad decision to be made, Robbie always had a knack for making it.
And thus begins the story of the priest, the princess, and the prick.

Add To Goodreads

About Ella:

EllaFrankElla Frank is the USA Today Bestselling author of the Temptation series, including Try, Take, and Trust and is the co-author of the fan-favorite contemporary romance, Sex Addict. Her Exquisite series has been praised as “scorching hot!” and “enticingly sexy!” Some of her favorite authors include Tiffany Reisz, Kresley Cole, Riley Hart, J.R. Ward, Erika Wilde, Gena Showalter, and Carly Phillips.

Connect with Ella:

COVER REVEAL: Only You by Melanie Harlow

ONLY YOU COVER REVEAL BANNER

Only You, an all-new sexy and emotional standalone from USA Today bestselling author Melanie Harlow is coming March 12th!

MHOnlyYouBookCover5x8_BW_300
Title: Only You
Author: Melanie Harlow
Publishing Date: March 12th
Designer: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs
Photographer: Lauren Watson Perry

Synopsis

Nate Pearson is ridiculously handsome and wears the hell out of a suit and tie, but I’ve seen the parade of beautiful women leaving his apartment across the hall—a different one every time—and I want no part of it. When it comes to romance, I’m looking for something real, something that will last: the happily ever after.
As a divorce attorney, he loves to tell me there’s no such thing.
As a wedding planner, I choose to disagree.
We disagree on almost everything, in fact. Everything except James Bond. The only time we really get along is when we’re watching 007 flicks together, and I’ll admit—he has rescued me from a disaster or five. So when one of the baton twirlers from his parade leaves a baby girl at his door with a note that says “I’ll come back for her” and he begs me for help, I can’t turn him down.
But it’s a mistake.
Because watching him with his daughter, I start to see another side of Nate, a side that has my breath coming faster, my body craving his, my heart longing for him to change his mind about love and tell me there’s a chance for us.
I don’t want to be just another girl leaving his apartment in the morning.
I want to be the one he asks to stay.

Get the first chapter NOW when you subscribe to her mailing list

(current subscribers will be emailed a link): http://www.melanieharlow.com/subscribe/

ONLY-YOU-PREORDER-iBOOKS

Preorder exclusively on iBooks!

iBooks

Add To Goodreads

About Melanie:

MelanieHarlow Melanie Harlow likes her martinis dry, her heels high, and her history with the naughty bits left in. When she's not writing or reading, she gets her kicks from TV series like VEEP, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, and Homeland. She occasionally runs three miles, but only so she can have more gin and steak. Melanie is the author of the AFTER WE FALL series, the HAPPY CRAZY LOVE series, the FRENCHED series, and the sexy historical SPEAK EASY duet, set in the 1920s. She lifts her glass to romance readers and writers from her home near Detroit, MI, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and pet rabbit.

Connect with Melanie:

Sign up for monthly text alerts: Text HARLOT to 77948

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

COVER REVEAL: The Birthday List by Devney Perry

We are so thrilled to bring you the cover for THE BIRTHDAY LIST from USA TODAY bestseller Devney Perry releasing on April 3rd, 2018!

 

Happily married to her college sweetheart, Poppy lived a blessed life with the husband of her dreams. Then everything changed. She is no longer a wife. She is no longer the envy of her single friends. Now, people look at her with pity as they whisper a single word behind her back.

Widow.

Years after her husband’s tragic death, years of pain and sorrow and wishing for the life she’ll never get back, Poppy decides to finish Jamie’s birthday list. She’ll do the things he wanted to most. Because maybe, just maybe, if she can complete his list, she can start to live again.

Poppy expects going through the birthday list will be hard. She expects it to hurt. But what she doesn’t expect is Cole. Could the man who delivered the news of her husband’s death and shattered her heart be the one to help her put it back together again?

ADD TO GOODREADS

PRE- ORDER NOW

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Devney is the USA Today bestselling author of the Jamison Valley series. She lives in Montana with her husband and two children. After working in the technology industry for nearly a decade, she abandoned conference calls and project schedules to enjoy a slower pace at home with her kids. She loves reading and, after consuming hundreds of books, decided to share her own stories. Devney loves hearing from readers! Connect with her on social media.

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Newsletter

COVER REVEAL: Rebel Heir by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward

We are thrilled to bring you the cover from New York Times Bestselling authors Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward, REBEL HEIR the first book in a new, sexy duet releasing on April 9th!


COVER CREDITS:
Model: Micah Truitt
Photographer: Leonardo Corredor
Cover designer: Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative
   

How to kick off a great summer in the Hamptons:

Snag a gorgeous rental on the beach. Check.

Get a job at a trendy summer haunt. Check.

How to screw up a great summer in the Hamptons:

Fall for the one guy with a dark leather jacket, scruff on his face, and intense eyes that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the tony looking crowd. A guy you can’t have when you’ll be leaving at the end of the season.

Check. Check. Check.

I should add—especially when the guy is your sexy, tattooed God of a boss.

Especially when he not only owns your place of employment but inherited half of the town.

Especially when he’s mean to you.

Or so I thought.

Until one night when he demanded I get in his car so he could drive me home because he didn’t want me walking in the dark.

That was sort of how it all started with Rush.

And then little by little, some of the walls of this hardass man started to come down.

I never expected that the two of us, seemingly opposites from the outside, would grow so close.

I wasn't supposed to fall for the rebel heir, especially when he made it clear he didn’t want to cross the line with me.

As the temperature turned cooler, the nights became hotter. My summer became a lot more interesting—and complicated.

All good things must come to an end, right?

Except our ending was one I didn’t see coming.

Rebel Heir is the first book in the Rush Series Duet. Book Two, Rebel Heart, will release six weeks later on May, 22, 2018.

Add to Goodreads ➜ Rebel Heir (Book One)

Add to Goodreads ➜Rebel Heart (Book Two)

     

PRE-ORDER

iBooks exclusive pre-order ➜ Rebel Heir (Book One)

iBooks exclusive pre-order ➜ Rebel Heart (Book Two)

Amazon paperback ➜ Rebel Heir (Book One)

Amazon paperback ➜ Rebel Heart (Book Two)

Sign up for Penelope & Vi’s mailing list now and be the first one notified when it goes live!

         

 Vi Keeland is a #1 New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author. With millions of books sold, her titles have appeared in over ninety Bestseller lists and are currently translated in twenty languages. She resides in New York with her husband and their three children where she is living out her own happily ever after with the boy she met at age six.

  Website | Facebook Fan Group | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram  

            

 Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She grew up in Boston with five older brothers and spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor. Penelope resides in Rhode Island with her husband, son and beautiful daughter with autism. With over a million books sold, she is a seventeen-time New York Times bestseller and the author of over fifteen novels, including RoomHate which hit #2 on the New York Times bestseller list and #1 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Other New York Times bestsellers include Stepbrother Dearest, Neighbor Dearest, Drunk Dial, Cocky Bastard, Stuck-Up Suit, Playboy Pilot and Mister Moneybags (the latter four co-written with Vi Keeland).

Connect with Penelope Ward Facebook Fan Group | Facebook | Website |Twitter | Instagram    


Other books by the authors:

Cocky Bastard

Stuck-Up Suit
Kobo: http:// bit.ly/1RJdUif

Playboy Pilot

Mister Moneybags

Dear Bridget, I Want You

Other books from Vi Keeland:

Standalone novels
Sex, Not Love

Beautiful Mistake
Egomaniac

Bossman
The Baller

Left Behind (A Young Adult Novel)

First Thing I See


Life on Stage series (2 standalone books)
Beat

Throb

MMA Fighter series (3 standalone books)
Worth the Fight

Worth the Chance

Worth Forgiving

The Cole Series (2 book serial)
Belong to You

Made for You


Other books from Penelope Ward:

Gentleman Nine
Drunk Dial

Mack Daddy:

RoomHate

Stepbrother Dearest

Neighbor Dearest

Sins of Sevin

Jake Undone (Jake #1)

My Skylar

Jake Understood (Jake #2)

Gemini





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