It’s Christmas in Catalina Cove, a time of promise and second chances. But when you’re starting over, love is the last thing you’re wishing for…

Vaughn Miller’s Wall Street career was abruptly ended by a wrongful conviction and two years in prison. Since then, he’s returned to his hometown, kept his head down and forged a way forward. When he is exonerated and his name cleared, he feels he can hold his head up once again, maybe even talk to the beautiful café owner who sets his blood to simmering.

Sierra Crane escaped a disastrous marriage—barely. She and her six-year-old goddaughter have returned to the only place that feels like home. Determined to make it on her own, Sierra opens a soup café. Complication is the last thing she needs, but the moment Vaughn walks into her café, she can’t keep her eyes off the smoldering loner.

When they give in to their attraction, what Sierra thought would be a onetime thing becomes so much more. Vaughn knows she’s the one. Sierra can’t deny the way Vaughn makes her feel, but she’s been burned before. With Christmas approaching, Vaughn takes a chance to prove his love, and it will be up to Sierra to decide if her one Christmas wish—true happiness—will come true.

Author Bio:

Brenda Jackson is a New York Times bestselling author of more than one hundred romance titles. Brenda lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and divides her time between family, writing and traveling.

EXCERPT

1

SIERRA CRANE CRINGED every time her ex-husband called. Their marriage had ended almost two years ago, so why couldn’t he get on with his life the way she had gotten on with hers? She hadn’t heard from him since the divorce and now this was the second phone call in a month.

And why did he always manage to call her at the worst time? The dinner crowd was arriving at her soup café, the Green Fig, and she was short a waitress tonight. The last thing she needed to be doing was talking on the phone to her ex.

“What is it now, Nathan?” she asked, trying to keep her voice low to avoid being overheard by the customers coming in.

“You know what I want, Sierra. We rushed into our divorce and I want a reconciliation. We didn’t even seek counseling.”

She rolled her eyes. It wasn’t as if counseling would have helped their marriage. She had put up with things for as long as she could, and had to remove herself from that toxic environment. His infidelity had been the last straw, and then there had been his total lack of sensitivity when her best friend Rhonda Andrews was dying.

“Why are we even discussing this, Nathan? You know as well as I do that no amount of counseling would have helped our marriage. You betrayed me. I caught you in the act. Look, I’m busy,” she said when she saw customers waiting to be seated. “And do me a favor and don’t call back. Our divorce is final, and I intend for it to stay that way. Goodbye.” She clicked off the phone and, for good measure, she blocked his number.

Moving from behind the counter, she assisted her staff in seating customers and taking orders. It was an hour later when the dinner rush had ended that she found the time to go into her office and work on tomorrow’s menu. The monitor screen on her desk was connected to a video camera showing the perimeters of the dining area. If she was needed to assist her staff again, she would know it.

She sat in the chair behind her desk thinking about Nathan’s call. The nerve of him thinking they could get back together. Not only had he cheated on her but he had resented all the trips she’d taken from Chicago to Houston to spend time with Rhonda in her final days. It hadn’t mattered to him that Rhonda was terminally ill and there had been so much to do and so little time left.

The main focus had been the well-being of Rhonda’s four-year-old daughter, Teryn, who’d lost her father two years earlier in Afghanistan. Without family on both sides, Sierra was Teryn’s godmother and Rhonda had made Sierra promise to take care of Teryn when the time came. Nathan, who’d never wanted children, had been resentful of that, too.

It had been one of those weekends she’d visited Rhonda in Houston and she’d returned home early to find another couple, namely her neighbors, in bed with her husband. That’s when she’d found out about his swinging lifestyle. He’d confessed it was something he had tried during his college days but thought he had put behind him...until he had discovered their new neighbors had enjoyed doing that sort of thing.

When Sierra had filed for divorce, Nathan assumed if he kept sending her flowers, calling her all the time, and showing up unexpectedly at her new residence with chocolates, designer purses and jewelry, he could wear down her resistance and she would call off the divorce. He finally saw that wasn’t happening.

An hour later Sierra left her office to return to the dining area. It was time for her only waitress on the floor tonight to take her break. Sierra had just stepped behind the counter when the sound of the bell above the door alerted her that she had a customer.

The Green Fig, which served lunch and dinner Mondays through Fridays, had been open for business for only a year. The restaurant closed every night at eight. Most of her customers were locals who’d known her grandmother and were happy that Ella Crane had passed her delicious soup recipes on to her granddaughter.

Sierra had a good staff. She’d hired Emma, who’d been a friend of her mother’s for years, as head cook and Maxine, who’d graduated from the New Orleans cooking school last year, as Emma’s assistant. Normally there were two waitresses, Iris and Opal, who handled the dining room, and Sherri took care of the take-out orders. On any given day there were more take-out orders than sit-down orders, especially during lunch.

She’d hired Levi Canady as the assistant manager. An ex-cop who’d retired early from the force due to an injury, he was also a good friend of Sierra’s father from their elementary school days. Levi was a godsend and would take over for Sierra whenever Teryn came home from school. He managed the restaurant every night except on Wednesdays. He also opened and closed for her on Saturdays, when the restaurant was open only for lunch. Whenever Teryn had gymnastics practice Sierra would help out in the café until she got home. Today was one of those days.

Sierra glanced at the door and saw Vaughn Miller walk in, dressed in a business suit. On any other man the outfit would probably look like just regular professional attire, but on him it appeared tailor-made. He was a very handsome man and looking good in anything he wore was just part of who he was.

Sierra didn’t know Vaughn personally, although they had both been born in Catalina Cove and had attended the same schools. She hadn’t had the right pedigree to be in his social circles since his family had been one of the wealthiest in town. They had come from old money, probably as old as it could get in the cove when you were a descendant of the town’s founder.

When Vaughn Miller took a seat at one of the booths, she grabbed a menu out of the rack and headed to his table. He’d come in once or twice before, but it had always been for takeout. It appeared that today he intended to dine in.

“Welcome to the Green Fig.”

He looked up when she handed him the menu. “Thanks.”

This was the closest she had ever been to Vaughn Miller and she couldn’t help noticing things she hadn’t seen from a distance. Like the beautiful hazel coloring of his eyes. He had sharp cheekbones and she liked the way his nose was the perfect size for his face and the full lips beneath it. And speaking of lips...did his have to be of such sensual perfection? And then she couldn’t miss the light beard that covered his lower jaw and how it enhanced those lips but didn’t hide the dimple in his chin.

Vaughn’s skin was a maple brown and he wore his thick black hair long. It wasn’t down past his shoulders like Kaegan Chambray’s, but it was long enough to touch his collar. To her the long and tousled hairstyle did much to highlight his French Creole ancestry.

The Creoles derived from free people of color from Africa, France and Spain, as well as other mixed-heritage descendants. Those blended races and cultures were a large population of Louisiana, and more specifically, New Orleans, Catalina Cove and other surrounding cities.

Sierra had to concur with the feminine whispers around town that Vaughn Miller was a very handsome man and a sharp dresser, yet she noted he had a definite rugged masculine appeal. Even dressed nicely in a suit, all you had to do was add a tricorne hat on his head and a loop earring in his ear and he would instantly become a dashing pirate. A look that no doubt would make his great-great-great-great-grandfather, the cove’s founder, Jean Lafitte, proud.

She knew six years ago he’d been sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Three months ago, articles appeared in numerous newspapers reporting on his exoneration and how those who were guilty had been brought to justice. He had been cleared of all charges.

“What’s the special for today?”

She blinked upon realizing she’d been standing there staring at him the entire time. Clearing her throat, she said, “Today’s special is the broccoli and cheese soup and it’s served with a half sandwich. Turkey or chicken.”

He smiled up at her and that smile made his features even more beguiling and clearly showed that dimple in his chin. “That sounds good. I’d like a bowl with a chicken sandwich.”

She wrote his order down on the pad and noticed his French accent. She recalled overhearing her parents say that his mother had been French and his father mixed French and African American, and that French had been the primary language spoken in the Miller household. She also remembered hearing while growing up he would spend his summers in France as well with his grandparents. That was probably the reason the accent was still strong after all this time.

“What would you like to drink?”

“Brown ale.”

Sierra nodded. “Okay, I’ll put in your order and get your ale.”

“Thanks.”

She turned and walked toward the kitchen. When she knew she was out of his sight and that of customers and staff, she fanned herself with the menu. Vaughn Miller had definitely made every hormone in her body sizzle.

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

BLOG TOUR: SUMMERTIME GUESTS

SUMMERTIME GUESTS

Author: Wendy Francis

ISBN: 9781525895982

Publication Date: April 6, 2021

Publisher: Graydon House Books

Book Summary:

Sip cocktails in the lounge, bask in the summer sun by the pool, and experience the drama of the rich and famous firsthand in Wendy Francis’s newest novel, SUMMERTIME GUESTS (Graydon House; April 6, 2021; $16.99 USD). With its rich history and famous guests, The Seafarer is no stranger to drama. But the bustle at the social hotspot reaches new heights one weekend in mid-June when a woman falls tragically to her death from the tenth floor, unwittingly intertwining her life with the lives of the hotels’ guests and staff.

Claire O’Dell, reeling from the loss of her husband and possibly her job, has gone to The Seafarer for a little vacation…and to reconnect with a long-lost-love. Jean-Paul, the hotel’s manager, is struggling to keep his marriage and new family afloat. Bride-to-be Riley is at the hotel to plan her wedding with her fiancé ... or, she’s at the hotel with her fiancé while her mother-in-law tells them how to plan their wedding. Jason, whose romantic getaway with his girlfriend has not exactly gone the way he'd hoped and instead has him facing questions about his past that he can't bring himself to answer.

As their truths and secrets come to light, the lives of these four will collide in tragic, beautiful ways none of them could have expected that will teach them about the love they deserve and the strength they possess to change their lives for the better.

Buy Links:

Excerpt:

Friday June 11th, 2021

ONE

It wasn’t as if Riley could have anticipated what would happen later that day. None of them could. Because when you’re at a tasting for your wedding reception at one of Boston’s ritziest hotels, trying to decide between crab cakes or lobster quiches, no one thinks of anything bad happening. Or at least, this is what Riley tells herself later. Why she—and no one else there—could possibly be to blame.

At the moment, though, Riley is sitting at a table by the window, half-listening to her future mother-in-law while she sips gazpacho the color of marigolds. Something about wanting to know if the outdoor terrace can be transformed into a dance floor, assuming the weather cooperates. If Riley were asked to gauge her interest in planning her own wedding, she would characterize it as mild at best. Her only requirement being that she and Tom marry in July—and that the flowers are pale pink peonies from Smart Stems, the shop where she has worked for the past three years.

It was Tom who’d suggested the Seaport District for their reception, Boston’s new up-and-coming neighborhood, and Riley had happily agreed. It’s an easy spot for guests to travel to, and the setting is over-the-top gorgeous with views of both the city and the water. Not to mention the promise of fresh seafood—an almost impossible request if they were to wed in Riley’s hometown of Lansing, Michigan, where everything remains hopelessly landlocked.

But she hadn’t counted on Tom’s mother wanting to be so, well, involved. Maybe it’s the fact that Riley’s own mother passed away a few short years ago, and so Marilyn feels compelled to step up and fill her mother’s shoes. A retired schoolteacher, her mother-in-law-to-be still tackles each new day with the necessary energy for a classroom of boisterous second-graders, a gusto which she now seems to be funneling into her son’s nuptials. At first, Riley was grateful, but while she sits listening to the hotel’s wedding coordinator drone on about the Seafarer’s rich history, she’s beginning to feel as though she has stepped into one of those horrible, never-ending lines at Disney for a ride she doesn’t particularly want to go on.

Riley is well aware that the Seafarer is one of the most coveted venues for weddings, especially in light of its recent renovations. It’s no secret that New England’s most glamorous, its most fashionable clamor to stay here and that the Seafarer’s well-appointed rooms are typically booked months in advance. She should be grateful that they’re even considering it as an option. Rumor has it that everyone from Winston Churchill to Taylor Swift has been a guest (as the saying goes, if you want to appear in the society pages of the Boston Globe, then spend a few hours at the Seafarer’s exclusive summer cocktail hour from four to six). As for out-of-towners hoping to take in the full scene that Boston can be—with its attendant snobbishness and goodwill and weird accents wrapped into one—the Seafarer, Riley understands, puts you in the heart of it.

Not that she has anything against tradition, but if it were up to her alone, she would probably choose a smaller, more modest setting, a wedding with no more than fifty guests. There’d be a justice of the peace and rows of white chairs lining the harbor, the wind whipping her veil in front of her face. Naturally, she’d want a reception afterward, but Riley counts herself as the type of girl who’d be equally content with trays of fish tacos and margaritas under a tent as with oysters on the half shell served in a tony hotel restaurant.

“I can’t reveal everyone,” the coordinator is saying in hushed tones, “but it’s no secret that some of Boston’s greatest legends have celebrated their nuptials with us.” Riley shoots Tom a sideways glance, as if to say Is she for real? but her fiancé’s chin rests firmly in his hand, his attention rapt. He’s eating up every word.

“Well, Gillian, it’s all very impressive,” Tom’s mother says, slipping her reading glasses back into her pocketbook after a review of the menu. Her hair is pulled back in a severe ponytail, her lips coated in her trademark color, fuchsia. “It’s no wonder Boston’s finest flock here for their special occasions. The view alone is to die for.” She gestures toward the expanse of crystalline water out the window, the romantic outline of the city’s financial district in the distance. “Kids, wouldn’t it be something to come back here every year to toast your anniversary?”

Marilyn shoots Riley a wink, as if the two of them are in cahoots to convince Tom that this is the spot, meant to be. There’s no need to point out that she and Tom could never afford such a venue. They already discussed it over dinner the other night when Marilyn revealed that she’d gone ahead and booked an appointment for a tasting at the Seafarer on Friday and how she hoped Riley wouldn’t mind. “I don’t want you to worry about money, dear,” she instructed. “Tom’s dad and I would be honored to host. Tom is our only child after all.”

And Riley had breathed a tiny sigh of relief while swallowing her pride. Not because she wants an extravagant wedding but because it means that she and Tom can now channel the nest egg they’ve been building toward a mortgage on a new home instead of toward an elaborate one-day celebration. It’s a much more sensible use of their money, and Riley, having grown up poor verging on destitute, is nothing if not sensible.

Can she really imagine herself celebrating her marriage here, though? Tom keeps missing her not-so-thinly veiled comments about the food on the menu, which leans toward the bite-size variety that he hates (precisely because it never fills him up), but he has said nothing. Maybe he’s just being polite. Riley quickly scans the room for other future newlyweds, but most of today’s diners appear to be here for business lunches—buttoned-up men in suits and women in sharp blazers with silk shifts underneath. A few couples, perhaps away for a romantic long weekend, and a group of older women sharing a bottle of wine, sit wedged into the corners. It’s a lovely space, but is it too lovely?

She shifts in her seat and tries to picture her dad here, wearing his familiar old sports coat that’s nearly worn through at the elbows, his khaki pants and penny loafers, pretending to feel comfortable when he wouldn’t know which fork to reach for, which glass to use.

When Marilyn turns toward to her and says, “Don’t you agree, Riley?” Riley feels her cheeks flushing because she hasn’t been paying attention. She has no idea what her future mother-in-law is referring to.

“I’m sorry. What was the question again?” She’s slightly annoyed that Tom can’t—or won’t—decide on a few things himself or at the very least rein his mother in. Especially because they talked about this very thing—not letting Marilyn take over the tasting—last night! They’re discussing the appetizers, apparently, and all Riley knows is that she doesn’t want crudités. If there’s one rule she’s abiding by, it’s that her wedding menu will include only those foods that she can pronounce.

It seems there should be a box on a list that they can check for the Standard Reception—something not overtly cheap but not insanely expensive, either. Tom squeezes her knee beneath the table, though it’s unclear if it’s meant as encouragement or as a reprimand for her not giving this conversation one hundred percent. What Riley really wants to know is this: How can she avoid attending any more tastings with Marilyn? Should she just agree to the Seafarer right now and be done with it?

“Mom was wondering,” Tom says in complete seriousness, “if you thought it would be better to have cold and hot hors d’oeuvres or just cold since the wedding will be in July?”

“Oh, right.” Riley pretends to consider her options. “Good point. It’s bound to be hot, so I wonder—”

But somewhere between the words so and wonder, a loud whistle of air followed by a deafening blast socks through the room like a fist, sending Riley to grab the table and Tom to reach for her hand. Marilyn’s fork drops from her elongated fingers, clattering onto her plate, and the room seems to shake for a brief moment. There are shouts followed by an eerie hush while the dining room settles back into itself. Riley watches the other diners who begin to mumble to each other across their tables, asking if they’re okay and spinning in their seats to better determine the source of the blast. The woman at the adjacent table hovers on the edge of her chair, as if considering diving underneath the table.

When Riley glances over at Gillian, she looks equally alarmed and as surprised as the rest of them, which means this isn’t some kind of bizarre emergency testing by the hotel. Whatever they heard was real. Significant. Riley’s eyes slide toward Tom, then Marilyn, whose face has turned a shade as pale as milk, then back to Tom.

“What on earth was that?” Marilyn gasps, her voice an octave too high, her fingers fluttering to her necklace. It’s a silver chain studded with azure stones, the kind of jewelry that Riley has come to associate with women of a certain age.

“I’m not sure.” Gillian’s voice cracks. “It almost sounded like some kind of explosion, didn’t it?” And then, as if remembering her wedding-coordinator cap, she rushes to reassure them. “But I’m sure it’s nothing like that. Maybe a blown transformer?

But both Riley and Tom exchange glances because no matter how ill-versed they are in loud noises, that definitely was not a transformer. It wasn’t so much a popping sound as a crash, she thinks. Did the massive chandelier in the lobby fall? Did it come from the kitchen? Construction work outside maybe? It’s hard to tell.

“Not to be overly dramatic, but it almost felt like an earthquake,” Riley says. “The table actually shook, I think.” And although she understands that the curiosity sparked inside her is somehow inappropriate, she wants an explanation. “Whatever it was,” she says, lowering her voice, “it sounded awfully close.”

“Yes, very close,” Marilyn agrees, still fiddling with her necklace.

And that’s when the screams begin. Not from the kitchen at the back of the restaurant, not from the lobby, but from outside, just beyond the elegant bay windows peering out onto the terrace that fronts the water, the ocean seemingly close enough to dip a hand into. Riley’s glance swivels toward the small crowd that’s beginning to form outside near the firepit and hot tub.

“If you’ll excuse me?” Gillian says, as if emerging from a fog, and rises awkwardly to her feet before heading toward the row of windows.

Riley’s gaze follows her, and suddenly, she, too, feels compelled to get up, as if an invisible string tugs her toward the window. She hurries forward and angles around Gillian for a better view. But when she does, she immediately regrets her decision. Because it’s not a collapsed scaffolding or an awning or even construction work that has caused the sudden shaking, the loud blast.

But a woman, lying facedown on the terrace, several yards beyond the window.

The body lies completely still, the woman’s legs scissored like a rag doll’s, her left leg angled upward awkwardly. A curtain of muddy blond hair shields her face from view. Riley watches while a few bystanders move hesitantly toward the woman, as if afraid of startling her, until someone kneels down and grasps her wrist, presumably to check for a pulse. A man in blue running shorts and a Red Sox T-shirt yells for someone to call 9-1-1.

To Riley, it looks as if the woman was perhaps reaching for a glass that slipped from her hand, her arms still outstretched above her head. Her body is long, lean, even elegant. Riley holds her breath, waiting, and feels Gillian stiffen beside her when a youngish man, nicely tanned and formally dressed, parts the crowd and gently encourages everyone to take a few steps back. He assures them that an ambulance is on the way and speaks with an authority that suggests his importance.

“That’s Jean-Paul, our manager,” Gillian says quietly as they watch him crouch down next to the woman and brush her hair away from her face.

Just then, a young man in the crowd throws his hand to his mouth and rushes off, and Riley stands on her tiptoes for a better view. And that’s when she sees it, too—the wild splash of bright red she hadn’t noticed earlier that lies at the far edge of the woman’s hair. And in that awful moment, Riley—and everyone else watching—understands. An image of a woman in her yellow summer dress, cartwheeling through the air from somewhere up high, perhaps her hotel balcony, spirals through her mind.

“Oh, my God.” It hits her all at once, a hollow pit forming in her stomach.

“Jesus,” says Tom, who has come up beside her to rest a hand on her shoulder. “She’s not moving.”

“No.”

It’s obvious to them both, but somehow still needs to be said, as if by acknowledging it aloud, the woman might hear their words through the open window, might somehow will herself to move an inch, if only to give them a sign—a flutter of a hand, the shifting of a foot—that she’s going to be all right.

But her body remains completely, horribly still.

Published by Graydon House Books

Social Links:

Author Website

Twitter: @wendyfrancis4

Instagram: @wendyfrancisauthor

Facebook: @wendyfrancisauthor

Goodreads

Author Bio:

Wendy Francis is a former book editor and the author of the novels The Summer Sail, The Summer of Good Intentions, Three Good Things, and Best Behavior. Her essays have appeared in Good Housekeeping, The Washington Post, Yahoo Parenting, The Huffington Post, and WBUR's Cognoscenti. A proud stepmom of two grown-up children, she lives outside Boston with her husband and eleven-year-old son.

Thursday, October 08, 2020

BLOG TOUR: THE ROOKIE

The Rookie, an action-packed romantic suspense full of heat from USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Kincaid is available now!

Police recruit Xander Matthews wants two things:
to help people
and to keep his dark and dangerous past
in his rear-view, where it belongs.
He never thought he’d see brash, beautiful A.D.A. Tara Kingston
after she tried to prosecute him two years ago.

Yet here she is, smack in the middle of a crime scene
and now they have to work together
to catch a killer.

Tara prides herself on being tough—
after all, she learned the hard way
how fleeting life can be.
But the closer she gets to Xander
the more she wants to open up and let him in.
The more she wants everything.

The stakes are high
and the passion is hot.
But Xander’s secrets run deep
and now, their hearts and their lives
are on the line…

This is the first story in a brand-new, scorching hot romantic suspense series from Kimberly Kincaid. A shorter version of this story will appear in the Danger and Desire anthology from September 15-25, 2020. This is the extended version, containing bonus scenes and added content. It will be 99 cents for preorder and release week only (until October 13, 2020). Release day is October 6, 2020.

The Intelligence Unit series is a spinoff from Station Seventeen and Remington Medical. Xander first appears in DOWN DEEP. All of Kimberly’s romances stand alone.

Download your copy today!
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Rjwre3
Apple Books: https://apple.co/35ICwJt
Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/therookie
Nook: https://bit.ly/2RmYRUu
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2FnY2Ix

Add THE ROOKIE to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/33kT4UZ

Excerpt:

Tara took a step toward him, her arms softening at her sides. “You’re a really nice guy, you know that?”
The urge to correct her was strong, but Xander bit it in half and said, “Just doing my job.”
“The standard answer when someone says ‘you’re a nice guy’ is usually ‘thank you’.”
The words carried none of her usual heat, filled instead with curiosity, and hell, Xander would take her ire a million times over the beautiful, wide-open look on her face right now. “Thank you.”
Another step, and now Tara was right in front of him, close enough to touch. “How come you don’t like being called a nice guy?”
His pulse flared, but that shit about old habits was real.
This time, he stepped toward her, cutting the distance between them to inches. “The standard answer when someone says ‘thank you’ is usually ‘you’re welcome’.”
“Oh,” Tara breathed. Her lips parted to release the sound as a sigh, and suddenly, there was nothing in the universe other than him, her, and the red-hot urge to claim her mouth. “You’re welcome, Xander.”

About Kimberly

Kimberly Kincaid writes contemporary romance that splits the difference between sexy and sweet and hot and edgy romantic suspense. When she’s not sitting cross-legged in an ancient desk chair known as “The Pleather Bomber”, she can be found practicing obscene amounts of yoga, whipping up anything from enchiladas to éclairs in her kitchen, or curled up with her nose in a book. Kimberly is a USA Today best-selling author and a 2016 and 2015 RWA RITA® finalist and 2014 Bookseller’s Best nominee who lives (and writes!) by the mantra that food is love. Kimberly resides in Virginia with her wildly patient husband and their three daughters.

Connect with Kimberly
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2V66LBB
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2WzKg8B
Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2YzkLWU
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2JRt3WT
Stay up to date with Kimberly by joining her mailing list: http://bit.ly/2WwXAKW
https://kimberlykincaid.com

Liza's Review:

The Rookie is the first book in the Intelligence Unit series from Kimberly Kincaid. A shorter version of the novella was in the Danger and Desire: A Romantic Suspense Anthology, but the edition released on October 6, 2020 has more content. The Rookie is Xander Matthews and Tara Kingston's story.

First, I adored both Xander and Tara from page one. Xander has completely turned his life around following a bad patch in his past. He not only has put his past behind him, but become a police officer to protect and serve. Tara has been driven to find justice since her best friend was killed in a random convenience store robbery when they were in college.

Xander and Tara grew up so differently, yet I felt their connection immediately. They worked so well together and I loved they seemed to open up so much with each other. They also had an intense chemistry and I loved them together so much.

I really loved the suspense elements to The Rookie. I’m a huge fan of romantic suspense, and felt like Ms. Kincaid did a great job keeping me guessing about what would happen next.

While many of the characters in the series are from Ms. Kincaid's Station Seventeen series and Remington Medical series, I was able to read The Rookie as a stand-alone without reading some of the other series yet. I can’t wait to read more books in the Intelligence Unit series!

Rating: 4 Stars (B+)

Review copy provided by publisher

Monday, December 30, 2019

GOOD GIRLS LIE BLOG TOUR

Good Girls Lie

Author: J.T. Ellison

ISBN: 9780778330776

Publication Date: 12/30/19

Publisher: MIRA Books

Book Summary:

Perched atop a hill in the tiny town of Marchburg, Virginia, The Goode School is a prestigious prep school known as a Silent Ivy. The boarding school of choice for daughters of the rich and influential, it accepts only the best and the brightest. Its elite status, long-held traditions and honor code are ideal for preparing exceptional young women for brilliant futures at Ivy League universities and beyond. But a stranger has come to Goode, and this ivy has turned poisonous.

In a world where appearances are everything, as long as students pretend to follow the rules, no one questions the cruelties of the secret societies or the dubious behavior of the privileged young women who expect to get away with murder. But when a popular student is found dead, the truth cannot be ignored. Rumors suggest she was struggling with a secret that drove her to suicide.

But look closely…because there are truths and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened.

J.T. Ellison’s pulse-pounding new novel examines the tenuous bonds of friendship, the power of lies and the desperate lengths people will go to to protect their secrets.

Buy Links:

Social Links:

Twitter: @thrillerchick

Facebook: @JTEllison14

Instagram: @thrillerchick

Goodreads

BookBub

Author Bio: J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 novels, and the EMMY-award winning co-host of A WORD ON WORDS, Nashville's premier literary show. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 26 countries. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.

THE HANGING

The girl’s body dangles from the tall iron gates guarding the school’s entrance. A closer examination shows the ends of a red silk tie peeking out like a cardinal on a winter branch, forcing her neck into a brutal angle. She wears her graduation robe and multicolored stole as if knowing she’ll never see the achievement. It rained overnight and the thin robe clings to her body, dew sparkling on the edges. The last tendrils of dawn’s fog laze about her legs, which are five feet from the ground.

There is no breeze, no birds singing or squirrels industriously gathering for the long winter ahead, no cars passing along the street, only the cool, misty morning air and the gentle metallic creaking of the gates under the weight of the dead girl. She is suspended in midair, her back to the street, her face hidden behind a curtain of dirty, wet hair, dark from the rains.

Because of the damage to her face, it will take them some time to officially identify her. In the beginning, it isn’t even clear she attends the school, despite wearing The Goode School robes.

But she does.

The fingerprints will prove it. Of course, there are a few people who know exactly who is hanging from the school’s gates. Know who, and know why. But they will never tell. As word spreads of the apparent suicide, The Goode School’s all-female student body begin to gather, paying silent, terrified homage to their fallen compatriot. The gates are closed and locked—as they always are overnight—buttressed on either side by an ivy-covered, ten-foot-high, redbrick wall, but it tapers off into a knee-wall near the back entrance to the school parking lot, and so is escapable by foot. The girls of Goode silently filter out from the dorms, around the end of Old West Hall and Old East Hall to Front Street—the main street of Marchburg, the small Virginia town housing the elite prep school—and take up their positions in front of the gate in a wedge of crying, scared, worried young women who glance over shoulders looking for the one who is missing from their ranks. To reassure themselves this isn’t their friend, their sister, their roommate.

Another girl joins them, but no one notices she comes from the opposite direction, from town. She was not behind the redbrick wall.

Whispers rise from the small crowd, nothing loud enough to be overheard but forming a single question.

Who is it? Who?

A solitary siren pierces the morning air, the sound bleeding upward from the bottom of the hill, a rising crescendo. Someone has called the sheriff.

Goode perches like a gargoyle above the city’s small downtown, huddles behind its ivy-covered brick wall. The campus is flanked by two blocks of restaurants, bars, and necessary shops. The school’s buildings are tied together with trolleys—enclosed glass-and-wood bridges that make it easy for the girls to move from building to building in climate-controlled comfort. It is quiet, dignified, isolated. As are the girls who attend the school; serious, studious. Good. Goode girls are always good. They go on to great things.

The headmistress, or dean, as she prefers to call herself, Ford Julianne Westhaven, great-granddaughter several times removed from the founder of The Goode School, arrives in a flurry, her driver, Rumi, braking the family Bentley with a screech one hundred feet away from the gates. The crowd in the street blocks the car and, for a moment, the sight of the dangling girl. No one stops to think about why the dean might be off campus this early in the morning. Not yet, anyway.

Dean Westhaven rushes out of the back of the dove-gray car and runs to the crowd, her face white, lips pressed firmly together, eyes roving. It is a look all the girls at Goode recognize and shrink from.

The dean’s irritability is legendary, outweighed only by her kindness. It is said she alone approves every application to the school, that she chooses the Goode girls by hand for their intelligence, their character. Her say is final. Absolute. But for all her goodness, her compassion, her kindness, Dean Westhaven has a temper.

She begins to gather the girls into groups, small knots of natural blondes and brunettes and redheads, no fantastical dye allowed. Some shiver in oversize school sweatshirts and running shorts, some are still in their pajamas. The dean is looking for the chick missing from her flock. She casts occasional glances over her shoulder at the grim scene behind her. She, too, is unsure of the identity of the body, or so it seems. Perhaps she simply doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth.

The siren grows to an earsplitting shriek and dies midrange, a soprano newly castrated. The deputies from the sheriff’s office have arrived, the sheriff hot on their heels. Within moments, they cordon off the gates, move the students back, away, away. One approaches the body, cataloging; another begins taking discreet photographs, a macabre paparazzi.

They speak to Dean Westhaven, who quietly, breathlessly, admits she hasn’t approached the body and has no idea who it might be.

She is lying, though. She knows. Of course, she knows. It was inevitable.

The sheriff, six sturdy feet of muscle and sinew, approaches the gate and takes a few shots with his iPhone. He reaches for the foot of the dead girl and slowly, slowly turns her around.

The eerie morning silence is broken by the words, soft and gasping, murmurs moving sinuously through the crowd of girls, their feet shuffling in the morning chill, the fog’s tendrils disappearing from around the posts.

They say her name, an unbroken chain of accusation and misery.

Ash.

THE LIES

There are truths, and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened, which is where you and I will meet. My truth is your lie, and my lie is your truth, and there is a vast expanse between them.

Take, for example, Ash Carlisle.

Six feet tall, glowing skin, a sheaf of blond hair in a ponytail. She wears black jeans with rips in the knees and a loose greenand-white plaid button-down with white Adidas Stan Smiths; casual, efficient travel clothes. A waiter delivers a fresh cup of tea to her nest in the British Airways first-class lounge, and when she smiles her thanks, he nearly drops his tray—so pure and happy is that smile. The smile of an innocent.

Or not so innocent? You’ll have to decide that for yourself. Soon.

She’s perfected that smile, by the way. Practiced it. Stood in the dingy bathroom of the flat on Broad Street and watched herself in the mirror, lips pulling back from her teeth over and over and over again until it becomes natural, until her eyes sparkle and deep dimples appear in her cheeks. It is a full-toothed smile, her teeth straight and blindingly white, and when combined with the china-blue eyes and naturally streaked blond hair, it is devastating.

Isn’t this what a sociopath does? Work on their camouflage? What better disguise is there than an open, thankful, gracious smile? It’s an exceptionally dangerous tool, in the right hands.

And how does a young sociopath end up flying first class, you might ask? You’ll be assuming her family comes from money, naturally, but let me assure you, this isn’t the case. Not at all. Not really. Not anymore.

No, the dean of the school sent the ticket.

Why?

Because Ash Carlisle leads a charmed life, and somehow managed to hoodwink the dean into not only paying her way but paying for her studies this first term, as well. A full scholarship, based on her exemplary intellect, prodigy piano playing, and sudden, extraordinary need. Such a shame she lost her parents so unexpectedly.

Yes, Ash is smart. Smart and beautiful and talented, and capable of murder. Don’t think for a moment she’s not. Don’t let her fool you.

Sipping the tea, she types and thinks, stops to chew on a nail, then reads it again. The essay she is obsessing over gained her access to the prestigious, elite school she is shipping off to. The challenges ahead—transferring to a new school, especially one as impossible to get into as The Goode School—frighten her, excite her, make her more determined than ever to get away from Oxford, from her past.

A new life. A new beginning. A new chapter for Ash.

But can you ever escape your past?

Ash sets down the tea, and I can tell she is worrying again about fitting in. Marchburg, Virginia—population five hundred on a normal summer day, which expands to seven hundred once the students arrive for term—is a long way from Oxford, England. She worries about fitting in with the daughters of the DC elite—daughters of senators and congressmen and ambassadors and reporters and the just plain filthy rich. She can rely on her looks—she knows how pretty she is, isn’t vain about it, exactly, but knows she’s more than acceptable on the looks scale—and on her intelligence, her exceptional smarts. Some would say cunning, but I think this is a disservice to her. She’s both booksmart and street-smart, the rarest of combinations. Despite her concerns, if she sticks to the story, she will fit in with no issues.

The only strike against her, of course, is me, but no one knows about me.

No one can ever know about me.

Monday, October 29, 2018

LOST WITH ME BLOG TOUR

His touch takes my breath away. Our passion feeds my soul…

Damien Stark is back!

Lost With Me, a new full-length novel in the wildly popular Stark Saga from New York Times bestselling author J. Kenner, is available NOW!

My love for Damien fills me, and the intensity of our bond brings me to my knees. There is no burden I wouldn’t bear for him, no decadent punishment to which I won’t submit.

The dark days seemingly behind us, we have carved a life out of adversity, chiseling away pain to reveal strength and beauty. Now, all I want is to laugh with our children in the sunlight, then surrender myself to Damien’s embrace in the dark.

But lingering secrets and hidden menace threaten our family. Now, Damien and I must forge a new strength from our shared passion and hope the fire between us will burn away the darkness and protect everything we hold most dear.

This sexy, emotionally charged romance continues the story of Damien Stark, the powerful billionaire who’s never had to take “no” for an answer, and his beloved wife Nikki Fairchild Stark.

Download your copy today!

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Excerpt:

His name dies on my lips, but I hear it all the same in my head. Damien. My voice breathy. Full of need.

He eases me back so that my body is flush against his, and I close my eyes, losing myself in the way his touch makes me feel even while fighting the urge to step away. To tell him to stop. That we’re in public, and we can’t do this.

But I don’t. I stay, and as I close my eyes in acceptance of my own desires, I hear his low, soft moan of satisfaction and feel the swell of his erection against my lower back, his arousal growing with my acquiescence.

Mine, too.

Because while I may not want to be the kind of woman who gets turned on by her lover’s touch in a public gallery, I can’t deny the heat building between my thighs any more than I can deny the basic truth that where Damien is concerned, there are no limits. Not because I have none, but because he knows how to take me right to the edge. To make me breathless and needy and desperate. But never to push too far.

I’d changed before meeting Jamie for lunch, and now I’m wearing a knit tank that hugs my body and a wrap style skirt that fastens with a single button at my hip. His hands are pressed against the curve of my waist, the heat of contact burning through the black knit of my top. I make a small move as if to turn around, but he tightens his grip, his utterance of noso soft that I may have only imagined it.

But I know I’m not imagining the motion of his hands as he slowly eases them up my body, making my heart beat faster with each millimeter of progress higher and higher. My breath is shallow, and I whisper his name, “Damien,” not certain if I’m acknowledging the moment, pleading with him to stop, or begging him to continue.

His hands curve under my breasts, his palms lifting them as he presses his thumbs down until my nipples are pinched tight between his thumbs and forefingers. He increases the pressure, and I suck in air, squeezing my legs together, my clit throbbing as I bite my lower lip and fight the urge to surrender to the heat that is building inside me.

“You’re wondering if it’s pleasure she’s feeling,” he says, and my mind has traveled so far from these walls that it takes me a moment to realize that he’s referring to the woman in Blaine’s painting. “Pleasure or embarrassment,” he adds as his right hand eases lower, his fingers finding the flap of material where the ends of the skirt overlap.

He slips his hand in, his palm sliding over the brushed cotton, his fingers slowly tugging the interior layer toward him. It bunches within his hand, and I bite back a gasp when his fingertips graze the bare skin of my thigh. “Was she turned on by the knowledge that so many would see her portrait?”

His fingers slowly ease higher, closer and closer to my bare sex. I bite my lower lip and close my eyes, my entire body aching with need, craving his touch. I can imagine his hand cupping my sex, his fingers sliding inside as his lips brush my ear while he whispers to me, his sensual words making my imagination soar as my body quivers and tightens and explodes around him, and taste blood from biting down so hard to keep from crying out.

I imagine all of that. Craving it. Desperate for it.

And at the same time terrified of it.

“Not here,” I murmur, resting my hand over my skirt. Over his hand. “Not now.”

His fingers still, but he inches closer, his heat burning into my body, the beat of his heart reverberating through me.

“I got your note. And your present.” His whisper rumbles through me, his words making me even more aware that I’m bare beneath this skirt. “I missed you by just ten minutes.”

“How did you find me?”

“I have my ways. And I’m willing to use all my resources to get what I want.”

There’s a tease in his voice, and I smile in realization and amusement. Because it didn’t actually take too many resources. Just the app that’s installed on both our phones as well as our cars—and Bree’s, of course, in case we need to find her and the kids.

He would have checked his phone, seen that I’d parked in Beverly Hills, and remembered that I was going to check on the girls’ cakes today. Presumably he was following my route and saw me step in here.

“Do you really think I need a tracking device to find you?” he counters, after I tell him all that. “Don’t you know that you’re always in my heart, and how can I lose track of that?”

I smile and sigh happily, his words delighting me. And, who knows. Maybe it’s true. My husband is a remarkable man.

“I wanted to see you.” There’s a tone of finality in his voice. As if the details simply don’t matter. As if his will alone is enough to find me.

Maybe it is.

“To touch you.” The fingers of his hand that still cup my breast tighten on my nipple, sending a new shock of desire running down to my core.

“I wanted to know if you’re still bare, or if you’ve put on a fresh pair of panties.” His hand stays perfectly still, but, damn me, I relax the pressure of my own hand that’s been keeping his in check.

“We can’t.” It’s a public gallery. Anyone could come in. But even as I think that, my eyes roam the room. The section we’re in has no windows. And the gallery is empty and echoey, with a bell over the door. We’re alone, except for Emily. And if she came this way her heels will undoubtedly click on the floor, giving us plenty of warning.

The thought—the fantasy—makes my body tighten. “We can’t,” I repeat, as much to underscore the point as to remind myself of that very basic truth.

“No?” His mouth brushes my ear, his breath disturbing my hair and sending shivers down my spine. “What if I told you that Emily was busy at her computer. That she’s locked the door for lunch. That I’m certain we won’t be seen.”

I swallow and say nothing, afraid that if I speak, my desire will betray my common sense.

“She won’t want to disturb us. Not when we might be contemplating a purchase. Destroy the moment, and she could lose a sale. She knows that. Knows that a client needs to get lost in the art. In the moment.”

His thumb has been making small circles on my breast, and my heart is beating so hard now that I’m surprised Emily can’t hear its echo on the far side of the gallery. On my legs, his fingers move subtly. Not rising, but neither are they still. Instead, his fingertips brush my bare flesh in sensual movements designed to entice and tease.

“What do you want, Nikki?” His words are as tender against my flesh as his fingers. “Do you want me to move higher, millimeter by millimeter, up your wet thighs as you hold your breath in anticipation? Would you cry out if I stroked your clit, unable to hold back the explosion?

“Or maybe I shouldn’t stroke you there at all. Maybe I should slide my fingers deep inside you. Feel how slick you are, the way your body will clench around me, drawing me in as I use my thumb to tease around your clit. Never quite touching, but drawing you up and up, until you can’t take it anymore.”

I can’t take it right now, and I’m certain he knows it. I want to tell him to stop—except I don’t want him to stop.

And so all I do is whisper his name. A plea. A prayer.

“Damien.”

“That’s right, baby.” I hear heat in his low, melodic voice, a passion now equal to my own. “Would you scream my name when you explode? Or would you be so quiet as you tremble in my arms, that I’d be the only one who knows the force of your orgasm rocking through you?

I’m trembling now, so close to the explosion he’s describing that my skin seems to sizzle. The thin whisper of air from the ducts above does nothing to cool my heated flesh. I want the release, crave it, and yet I can’t quite let myself go. Not here. Not like this.

Damien knows that, of course. His real purpose isn’t to make me come—it’s to take me to the precipice. Pleasure, yes, but underscored by frustration. By need. And, ultimately by anticipation.

About J. Kenner

Kenner (aka Julie Kenner) is the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal and #1 International bestselling author of over one hundred novels, novellas and short stories in a variety of genres.

Though known primarily for her award-winning and international bestselling erotic romances (including the Stark and Most Wanted series) that have reached as high as #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, JK has been writing full time for over a decade in a variety of genres including paranormal and contemporary romance, “chicklit” suspense, urban fantasy, and paranormal mommy lit.

JK has been praised by Publishers Weekly as an author with a “flair for dialogue and eccentric characterizations” and by RT Bookclub for having “cornered the market on sinfully attractive, dominant antiheroes and the women who swoon for them.” A six time finalist for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award, JK took home the first RITA trophy awarded in the category of erotic romance in 2014 for her novel, Claim Me (book 2 of her Stark Trilogy) and in 2017 for Wicked Dirty in the same category. Her Demon Hunting Soccer Mom series (as Julie Kenner) is currently in development as a television show.

Her books have sold over three million copies and are published in over twenty languages.

In her previous career as an attorney, JK worked as a clerk on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and practiced primarily civil, entertainment and First Amendment litigation in Los Angeles and Irvine, California, as well as in Austin, Texas. She currently lives in Central Texas, with her husband, two daughters, and two rather spastic cats.