Book Promo:Excerpt & Giveaway! Adapted for Film by Stacey Rourke

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Genre: Adult, Contemporary Romance

Aubrey Evans is living every author’s dream; her sizzling romance novel is being turned into a blockbuster film. She would be celebrating this momentous event, if she wasn’t busy fighting over every tiny production detail with the maddeningly cavalier director, Kole Camden. 

When news of their heated rivalry hits the gossip columns, drastic measures must be taken to save their sinking project. In an elaborate PR hoax, she is publicly linked to Greyson Meyers, the swoon-worthy star of her movie. A whirl-wind love affair is staged for the couple to mirror the steamy chapters of her own books. 

Can the introverted author resist the charms of Hollywood’s sexiest leading man? Or will love find her in the City of Angels?

“I think I get it. If a butterfly were to land on you, its touch would be so delicate that you would wonder if it had really happened at all, or if it was merely your mind fantasizing that such a rare beauty would honor you with the gift of their touch.”

A gorgeous man uttering such poetry temporarily short circuited my brain. Catching myself doing the slack-jawed fan-girl thing, I quickly snapped my mouth shut and averted my gaze to a nonthreatening cement turtle by the edge of the gazebo.

“Yep,” I muttered to the turtle. “I think you’ve got it.”

Unfortunately for my last remaining shred of dignity, Greyson wasn’t done with his tutorial. He closed the distance between us with a burning hunger blazing in his eyes. A hot flush rose in my cheeks, creeping clear up to my earlobes as his sculpted body skimmed against mine. Toned, rigid perfection only a few thin layers of fabric away …

“What are you doing?” My voice failed me, coming out in a raspy yelp.

“Making sure I’ve got this right.” Temptation, of the most carnal variety, emanated off of him. His focused gaze followed the curve of my lips, the lift of one brow promising toe-curling fun.

It had been a really long time since someone had looked at me like that. Much less one of the sexiest men on the planet. That almost never happened.

“Aiden wouldn’t grab Paige, wouldn’t pull her to him.” Raising one hand, he traced the length of my arm with two fingers.

Starting at my wrist, he worked his way up. His skin never actually made contact, but whispered over mine in an electrifying rush that rolled and built. Bowing his head, his silky locks tickled my cheek. Hot breath teased over my collarbone, awakening a need so powerful my hands curled into tight fists at my sides. Agonizingly slow, he raised his head. The blissful torment of his lips teased over mine, setting the veil of energy between us alive with desire.

“He wouldn’t want to crush her lips with his need,” he murmured against my mouth, “but would wait … patiently for her to close that last … remaining … space.”

 

RONE Award Winner for Best YA Paranormal Work of 2012 for Embrace, a Gryphon Series Novel

Young Adult and Teen Reader voted Author of the Year 2012

Turning Pages Magazine Winner for Best YA book of 2013 & Best Teen Book of 2013

Stacey Rourke lives in Michigan with her husband, two beautiful daughters, and two giant, dogs. She loves to travel, has an unhealthy shoe addiction and considers herself blessed to make a career out of talking to the imaginary people that live in her head.

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Book Promo: Excerpt & Giveaway! Losing Us, A Sex on the Beach Novella by Jen McLaughlin

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When it all comes crashing down...

Everything I thought I had with Austin Murphy—safety, stability, the normalcy I crave but my celebrity lifestyle rarely allows—was ripped away in one night. I wanted to surprise him, but the joke was on me. Now I don't know if I ever really knew him at all.

Someone has to pick up the pieces...

Mackenzie Forbes was everything I ever wanted and the one person I didn't deserve. When a past mistake costs me the girl I love, I'll do everything I can to get her back. We both have demanding careers and family secrets darkening our pasts, but I need Mackenzie in my future.

Sometimes everything you have to give just isn't enough...

He caught my shoulders in his hands and lowered his forehead to mine. “I love you, Mac. I love you so damn much. Believe me. Please...” He tipped my chin up with a trembling hand. “Please.”

My lids drifted shut. I knew I should move away. Kick him. Punch him. Scream at him. But I couldn’t move. I was mesmerized by his touch. His soft voice. Him. He lowered his mouth to mine, moving slow enough to give me a chance—a thousand chances—to move away or say no. I didn’t do either. I couldn’t. A broken sound escaped me the second his lips touched mine.

Because I was. Broken. So badly.

When he stepped closer, closing me in his embrace and looming over me, a hundred images of us together flashed before me in some horrible montage. Us snorkeling. 

Kissing in the rain. Me telling him I loved him. The way he’d looked on stage for the first time on tour with me. But the last image, of him kissing that blonde in his dressing room, ripped me out of the kiss. And out of his arms.

I stumbled back, covering my mouth. “Don’t. Just...don’t.”

Jen McLaughlin is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sexy New Adult books. Under her pen name Diane Alberts, she is a multi-published, bestselling author of Contemporary Romance with Entangled Publishing. Her first release as Jen McLaughlin, Out of Line, released September 6 2013, and hit the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal lists. She was mentioned in Forbes alongside E. L. James as one of the breakout independent authors to dominate the bestselling lists. She is represented by Louise Fury at The Bent Agency. 

Though she lives in the mountains, she really wishes she was surrounded by a hot, sunny beach with crystal-clear water. She lives in Northeast Pennsylvania with her four kids, a husband, a schnauzer mutt, and three cats. Her goal is to write so many well-crafted romance books that even a non-romance reader will know her name.

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Book Promo: Excerpt & Giveaway! Chasing Ravens by Jessica E. Paige

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Orphaned at a young age, 15-year old Anouk’s punishment for being too outspoken is an arranged marriage worse than any she could imagine. Fleeing on horseback, yet without a sense of where to turn, she stumbles upon an idyllic village where she finds safe haven. Could this be home? 

Ultimately, it will lead her to confront the very face of death, yet amidst the danger and darkness, she meets a handsome woodsman and finds a glowing blue flower with power beyond her wildest dreams. 

Inspired by Russian fairy tales and steeped in ancient folklore, Paige’s novel is ripe with fantasy, love, and courage.

Anouk continued picking, tossing every other berry to Pip. But it didn’t take him long to figure out he could do the job faster on his own. Instead of waiting his turn, he began sniffing out the berries and plucked them off gingerly with his mouth.

After she’d eaten the ripest fruit, Anouk started on a new bush nearby. Each berry seemed to taste better than the last, and she continued picking in the shade of the forest, unaware of the dark clouds moving in. At first Anouk could only hear the rain as it began to fall on the forest canopy, but within moments it turned to a downpour that came through the branches in heavy drops.

She grabbed Lucya’s reins and ran deeper into the woods until she spotted a fallen tree that had left a deep hollow. The roots arched over the cavity, shielding it from the rain. Anouk quickly tied Lucya under a neighboring tree and crawled into the hole, Pip wriggling his way beside her.

From the refuge of her little burrow, Anouk watched the drops fall, and drank in the smell of dry ground turning wet. She expected the storm to pass quickly, but as the light of day began to disappear and the rain continued, she realized she would have to spend the night where she was.

Jessica Paige hails from the Seattle area where she lives with her husband and two dogs. Though she was raised in the Pacific Northwest, Jessica has long been intrigued by the ancient folklore of her Slavic and Lithuanian roots. Her love of horses and the outdoors led her to a career in environmental outreach, and her studies in herbalism. When she’s not working or writing, you’ll find her digging in the garden, creating herbal remedies, or walking in the woods with her dogs. You can visit her at www. jessicaepaige.com.

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Book Promo! Diamond Road by Ginger King

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In this intriguing debut novel—a journey that reveals how memories shape our lives and connect or separate us from others- Jamie, a young woman ascending from an oppressive relationship embarks on a desperate quest to escape. However her refuge is to return to the home she despised and left in the dust years before. Only her childhood journal and the family who raised her, can guide her search for answers to questions from decades ago that have molded her choices and left her with the stinging consequences she now must face.

As vivid memories of a tragedy that cost her both parents, come flooding back, Jamie discovers a truth that she kept locked away - something only she knows about the night they both died. Could re-living the memories that have shaped her life and relationships be the key to finding real, lasting happiness? What else may it bring to her door?

All in all the walk was no more than five miles one way. Seeing that today she would have to change up her route, she went only a short distance toward the highway before turning back. She knew that the road didn't end at the Kirby farm, but she had been encouraged not to go further down the road especially alone because the road was unkempt.

As she passed first Link's house, which soon would be her own she thought of the work that Josh had put into it. Everyone knew it was a labor of love. Even the best meaning friends would not put forth such effort. The mantle looked amazing, just like it did in the photos of Link and Mary that she had gazed over again and again, missing them.

Yet she was unsure of what she was feeling for him. Despite her better judgment she found herself daydreaming of living in the house Link left her although she was not alone. Josh was always about in those dreams.

Each step past the Kirby farm filled her with joy as she realized that she might not have much of a past, at least that she could remember. But she would always have a family in them and in her own child who would be born before the spring. Her hand rested atop the rounded crest or her protruding belly. Walking had become a little more difficult but always enjoyable, and today was no different. The sun was descending in the west and she faced it with her sunglasses and scarf on for protection from the glare and the wind.

Since she had no idea how far the road would remain clear enough to safely walk, she determined that walking as far as she could go would have to do. She knew it was possible to make up any difference in time by doubling back yet again near the house Josh wanted her to start calling her own instead of calling it Link's.

There was a large stand of cottonwood trees on the right hand side of the road that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. In fact from the window of her room that was all she could see in this direction. Although at night from time to time as the sun was setting, she saw something else that didn't seem like it was natural at all. It was difficult to look in that direction as it was due west of the Kirby house. Even in this time of year when the trees were nearly bare.

As she rounded a sharp curve in the road, she saw it. An abandoned house that she recognized as her first home. There were a lot of memories of shelling peas with her mother and Mary there on the steps, and a few of her father coming home after work, and pulling up in the driveway. That was all she could summon. It was what the therapist called traumatic amnesia. Something tragic happened to her parents and she blocked most of her memories of her life for a few years after that. Now she had lost even more from the accident. There was only a short span of her life that she recognized as one hundred percent hers. Everything else felt like she'd read someone else's words although she knew the journals were her own. She recognized the first few of them and knew the handwriting was definitely hers throughout.

The road beyond the curve was indeed a little grown over, but a truck evidently had been through this way because she could see the brush pushed down as far along the road as she could see in the bright light. A tractor had recently been used to rake the road near the house too. There were brush piles lying about on either side of the road, and she could see grooves in the gravel like those that continued all the way from the highway up to this house.

She stood in the chilly wind for a moment longer gathering her thoughts about what secrets may lie inside. As she turned to walk back to her car she felt relief from the direct sun angle, but it made her a bit dizzy. She took a few more steps and noticed that the sunlight shining directly on the freshly raked gravel road made a rock recently nicked by the rake of the tractor sparkle brightly.

Several more paces now and the dizziness didn't correct. So she stopped and stood still for a minute taking a few deep breaths as the baby chose a most inopportune time to kick up a storm. Once her balance returned she started walking at a normal gate and quickly made her way back out of the curve. Looking toward the Kirby house and her own beyond it the sun fell fully across the road in such a way that the road appeared to be made of diamonds.

The dizziness returned but this time from the pit of her stomach as flashes of herself as a child, running down this road came back to her. She and Josh were running toward her own home, the steps she just left moments before. It was nearly all she could do to stand as the memories came flooding back.

Ginger King is the author (and or contributor) to more than four books, the Carolina Wine Country Cooking series and contemporary women's fiction with a kick. Her debut novel Diamond Road (December 2014) marks the first in a four part series called The Lost and Found Series. 

Carolina Wine Country Cooking is all about cooking with or pairing with wines from the Carolina vines. These cookbooks include recipes using the famous North Carolina Muscadine as well as European varietals produced in the state. Some titles in the series also include photography, poetry, and short stories inspired by the great tapestry that the NC people and landscape add to the experience of Carolina Wine Country. 

The Lost and Found Series - Diamond Road (book one of the series) is about the life and memories of a young woman, escaping an abusive relationship and reuniting with those she turned her back on years before. The stories in this series are centered around loving in difficult situations and the choices, consequences, forgiveness and patience required to move forward. They will resonate with anyone who has wanted a fresh start in life ,suffered tragedy, been abused/stalked or estranged from family. The next title in the series is Hope in Carolina and is scheduled to be published in 2015.

Ginger is also a contributor to her publisher’s anthologies, for example Second Helpings, which is a compilation of holiday short stories and authors recipes. Ginger worked with other food writers from around the globe and the World Food Travel Association on a culinary travel guide titled Have Fork Will Travel. Look for her regular column in Yadkin Valley Living Magazine and other writings for regional NC magazines across the state. 

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Book Promo: Excerpt & Giveaway! Touch Screen by L.B. Dunbar

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Genre: Adult, Contemporary Romance

The prodigal son. A second chance. The long kept secret. 

Home?

I had returned. I hadn’t been here for seven years. That last summer, I was angry. Once I got away, I didn’t want to come back. The irony was the career I sought to escape this small town was the very reason I was here. My first movie was a featured film of the Traverse City Film Festival. As an independent film director, my premiere brought me back home. Home. A place I didn’t recognize.

Or maybe home didn’t recognize me? 

I had it all in California: a girlfriend who was the daughter of a movie financier, a job that led to connections in the film industry, and a condo overlooking the ocean in Malibu. What I didn’t have was family. I had left them all behind. I was the prodigal son.

Now, the last person I expected to see was her. Britton McKay. She had been my summer love as a teenager. Not just once, but several summers. Until the last one. That was seven years ago. Now, she looked more beautiful than I remembered. Seeing her again, flooded me with memories long suppressed. She reminded me of everything I once had, and left behind. 

Now, she had returned too.

Can lost romance be rekindled? Can unanswered questions be revealed? 

Can I make this place my home again?

***

L.B. Dunbar reunites you with the Carter and Scott families as all are gathered for the annual film festival, a much anticipated wedding, and another summer weekend of Harbor Days.

I felt drawn to this woman and child, and I exited one of the French doors to walk along the pathway under another canopy. The beauty and her boy did not seem to notice me, and I tried to stay behind the columns that supported the overhang providing shade to this portion of the sidewalk as I peered nonchalantly at the beach. I glanced in their direction enough to notice wisps of her blonde hair around her tan face blowing out of her ponytail. She kept her eyes downward, focused on the boy, but I realized they had the same nose. Again, it seemed safe to assume this was her child.

She dipped the boy again and I heard his strong childish laughter. It was infectious and I smiled to myself. The woman kissed the boy again with several small pecks on his little red cheeks and neck, only now I could hear the sounds the mother made, loud and exaggerated, with each brush of her lips. The boy laughed harder, saying, “No, no, no,” but he squealed his enjoyment of each kiss and clearly wanted more. She stood him upright again and the child wrapped his arm around his mother, beginning to dance.

“Again,” the child pleaded, but the mother directed him elsewhere. They held hands as they stepped off the dance floor and into the white sand surrounding the pavilion. I hadn’t noticed they were both barefoot, and the woman bent down to pick up two pairs of shoes. She handed the child his and carried hers through her fingers. There was something strangely familiar about her as she walked across the sand away from me and toward the water line of the lake.

I stood straighter now, no longer leaning behind the barrier. I took no more notice of how much warmer I was outside in the blazing morning sun in my gray summer suit as I took a step into the sand, forgetting my leather dress shoes. The woman turned toward the child, walking backwards. Her tan legs were graceful beneath her white shorts. This blonde beauty shielded her eyes as if looking at something behind me, then she suddenly stopped walking. The child broke free of her hand and started running across the freshly combed beach toward the lake’s small white caps.

I made my way to the dance floor, the sand slipping under the hard soles of my dress shoes. I balanced on the edge of the cement structure with my heel and kept my gaze focused on her as she continued to stare back at the resort. Slowly, she lowered her hand from her eyes and tucked a piece of wayward hair behind her ears. I realized she was no longer looking behind me, but at me. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear made her instantly recognizable. Britton. Britton McKay had returned to northern Michigan, just as I had.

 

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I’d like to say I was always a writer. I’d also like to say that I wrote every day of my life since a child. That I took the teaching advice I give my former students because writing every day improves your writing. I’d like to say I have my ten-thousand hours that makes me a proficient writer. But I can’t say any of those things. I did dream of writing the “Great American Novel” until one day a friend said: Why does it have to be great? Why can’t it just be good and tell a story.

As a teenager, I wrote your typical love-angst poetry that did occasionally win me an award and honor me with addressing my senior high school class at our Baccalaureate Mass. I didn’t keep a journal because I was too afraid my mom would find it in the mattress where I kept my copy of Judy Blume’s Forever that I wasn’t allowed to read as a twelve year old.

I can say that books have been my life. I’m a reader. I loved to read the day I discovered “The Three Bears” as a first grader, and ever since then, the written word has been my friend. Books were an escape for me. An adventure to the unknown. A love affair I’d never know. I could be lost for hours in a book.

So why writing now? I had a story to tell. It haunted me from the moment I decided if I just wrote it down it would go away. But it didn’t. Three years after writing the first draft, a sign (yes, I believe in them) told me to fix up that draft and work the process to have it published. That’s what I did. But one story let to another, and another, and another. Then a new idea came into my head and a new storyline was created. 

I was accused (that’s the correct word) of having an overactive imagination as a child, as if that was a bad thing. I’ve also been accused of having the personality of a Jack Russell terrier, full of energy, unable to relax, and always one step ahead. What can I say other than I have stories to tell and I think you’ll like them. If you don’t, that’s okay. We all have our book boyfriends. We all have our favorites. Whatever you do, though, take time for yourself and read a book.

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Series Spotlight! Indigo Island Trilogy by Kaira Rouda

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Wealthy business tycoon Blake Putnam isn’t looking for love, he just needs a date for a family wedding he’s dreading. Alpha male to the core, Blake’s idea of being a man leaves little room for emotional connection. He comes up with the perfect solution to the dreaded wedding: he’ll find a controllable date. He has everything planned to perfection. 

Samantha Jones agrees to spend the weekend with the hot boss. She’s attracted to him, but she’s sworn off men after her embarrassing recent break up. She’s determined to ignore the attraction and focus on business when he hands her an opportunity to be part of the biggest business pitch in Blake Genetics’ history. It could change everything. She’s not looking for love, she won’t jump off that cliff again. But she will take the chance to further her career. 

What neither of them expected was the weekend to take flight. Is this a risk they’re willing to see through to the end?

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Stepping off the ferry onto Indigo Island for her new job at Melrose Inn, Dorsey Pittman, is excited to have a fresh start, far from heartbreak and tragedy. Signing the no romantic relationship with staff clause is easy, as Dorsey’s determined to focus on her career and not romantic entanglements, but every time the resort’s tall, handsome and oh so sexy lifeguard, Jack Means, is close, sparks fly, and Dorsey feels like she’s about to catch fire. 

Twenty-seven-year old Jack Means has secrets of his own and is only lifeguarding at Melrose Inn to ensure his advancement at Top Corp, where he’s in line for a management position. But it’s hard to remember why he’s signed the no romantic relationship clause, when twenty-six-year-old Dorsey Pittman arrives on the island. For promises to stick out one more summer of life guarding before attaining his dream of a management position with Melrose Inn and Plantation. She’s beautiful, adventurous, and impossible to ignore—but dating her could get him fired. Can Jack keep it casual and walk away from love when Dorsey might be the one woman who can hold, and heal, his heart?

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At 35-years-old, Cole Stanton is burned out. His high-paced, uber-successful career has left him yearning to start over. He finds Indigo Island, buys a restaurant and settles into an uncomplicated life. But Christmas is a mess. He has over-committed the small restaurant’s resources again, and is over his head. He finds himself longing for everything he has left behind, until a chance encounter with gorgeous Lily offers a spark of salvation to his business and, perhaps his life. 

Beautiful pastry chef Lily Edmonds is thirty years old and heartbroken. It’s just before Christmas and she’s just been dumped by via telephone by her fiancee. Her best friend Avery Putnam invites her to Indigo Island, hoping to add joy back into Lily’s life. A chance encounter with the sexy owner of a local restaurant makes Lily feel an attraction she thought she’d never feel again, and offers her a business challenge to keep her mind focused on something other than her broken heart. 

Cole Stanton and Lily Edmonds are both starting over. Will the joy of the holiday season bring them together or will the troubles with Christmas push them apart?

Kaira discovered the joy of reading and writing at a young age. In third grade, the assignment was to write a letter to a person who you wanted to be when you grew up. She wrote to Robert McCloskey, author of her favorite books, Make Way for Ducklings andBlueberries for Sal. Unfortunately, Mr. McCloskey wrote back that he was an illustrator, but did wish her good luck.

Undeterred, Kaira wrote her first book, Scooter and Skipper, in sixth grade. It was published by her school librarian to much critical acclaim, at least in her household.

After graduating magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in English, Kaira knew she wanted to focus on writing the next great American novel. But she had to eat. So, she filled the next 20 plus years writing everything but novels: ad copy, press releases, radio spots, newspaper columns, magazine articles – and well, if you can get paid to write it, she’s probably done it. After selling a brand she created with her husband from the ground-up, a story featured in her bestselling business book Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs, her family of six packed up and moved to California.

And Kaira dusted off her dreams.

Her first novel Here, Home, Hope was published in 2010. All the Difference followed a year later, and most recently, In the Mirror released in 2014. She hopes her novels will touch readers with humor and poignancy, suspense and delight.

When not spending time with her made up characters, Kaira is busy with her own supporting cast: Four kids, three dogs and her amazing husband, who helps keep the household from falling into complete chaos. She enjoys yoga, spending time with friends and never tires of watching the sunset at the beach.

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