Spotlight & Excerpt A Love by Design

January 17, 2023January 17, 2023 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

A Love by Design by Elizabeth Everett

Genre: Historical Romance

Series: The Secret Scientists of London Series #3

Release Date: January 17, 2023

Publisher: Berkley

In the third installment of The Secret Scientists of London, the ladies of Athena’s retreat are back including widowed Margaret Gault. Margaret has big ambitions – she wants to establish England’s first woman owned engineering firm. But life isn’t always easy for a woman and Margaret runs into many roadblocks including one Earl Grantham.

Margaret and Grantham knew each other once, many years ago. What happened to end their friendship? Will they be able to mend their broken relationship – especially when there are so many forces working against them?

SYNOPOSIS

You couldn’t design a better hero than the very eligible and extremely charming Earl Grantham. Unless, of course, you are Margaret Gault, who wants nothing to do with the man who broke her youthful heart.

Widowed and determined, Margaret Gault has returned to Athena’s Retreat and the welcoming arms of her fellow secret scientists with an ambitious plan in mind: to establish England’s first woman-owned engineering firm. But from the moment she sets foot in London her plans are threatened by greedy investors and–at literally every turn–the irritatingly attractive Earl Grantham, a man she can never forgive.

George Willis, the Earl Grantham, is thrilled that the woman he has loved since childhood has returned to London. Not as thrilling, however, is her decision to undertake an engineering commission from his political archnemesis. When Margaret’s future and Grantham’s parliamentary reforms come into conflict, Grantham must use every ounce of charm he possesses–along with his stunning good looks and flawless physique, of course–to win Margaret over to his cause.

Facing obstacles seemingly too large to dismantle, will Grantham and Margaret remain forever disconnected or can they find a way to bridge their differences, rekindle the passion of their youth, and construct a love built to last?

EXCERPT

A LOVE BY DESIGN by Elizabeth Everett

Berkley Romance Trade Paperback Original | On sale January 17, 2023

Excerpt

Maggie had returned.

Of course, she was now known as Madame Margaret Gault.

Try as he might, Grantham could never twist his tongue around the name.

Almost his whole life, he’d called her Maggie.

His Maggie.

From upside down, he watched as she turned the corner of the carriage house, the wind unfurling the hem of her simple bronze pelisse. A brown capelet hung about her shoulders, and a matching muff hid her hands. Catching sight of him, she paused, tilting her head so he caught a glimpse of lush auburn curls peeking out from beneath her tea-colored bonnet trimmed with bright red berries. Margaret’s fair skin showed no hint of the freckles that had once plagued her every summer, and thick brown lashes shielded her hazel eyes.

She was unusually tall for a woman; nevertheless, she moved with effortless grace, and not even the blazing clash of colors adorning Violet next to her could detract from her beauty.

For she was a beauty, Margaret Gault. Once wild and graceless, she’d bloomed into a woman of elegant refinement.

A woman who was more than met the eye.

A woman who would rather feast on glass than give him the time of day.

For eleven years, the first day of summer meant Margaret would be waiting for him beneath the willow where they first met. She and Violet attended the Yorkshire Academy for the Education of Exceptional Young Women together. While Violet came home to her large, affectionate-and very loud-family, Margaret had no one waiting for her at home. Her father had died of a stroke when she was ten and her mother had little interest in Margaret’s whereabouts or well-being.

Violet and Grantham had been Margaret’s family. The three of them had been the best of friends until one hot afternoon when Margaret had smiled a certain way and the ground went out beneath his feet. A year later he was soldiering in Canada and Margaret lived in Paris and their summers together were nothing but a memory he pulled around himself like a blanket on cold lonely nights.

“Good afternoon, Grantham,” Violet greeted him, seemingly unaffected by his headfirst dive into her rosebushes. She wore a shocking yellow day dress beneath a burgundy velvet paletot and atop her head sat a garish blue bonnet topped with a life-sized stuffed parrot.

Swallowing a barrelful of curses, Grantham tried wriggling out of the bushes, every single thorn piercing his flesh a hundredfold as Margaret stared without saying a word.

“Ahem.” He cleared his throat as he managed to get to his feet despite being trapped in the center of one of the bushes. As he pulled a branch from his hair, a shower of wrinkled brown rose petals drifted down his shoulders. “You are especially . . . vibrant today, Violet. I brought this for Baby Georgie.”

He thrust the torn, dirtied rabbit at Violet, who received it with a bemused air. One of the buttons had come off and the silk was stained green and brown.

“Madame Gault,” he said, bowing to Margaret. “So lovely to see you again.”

No matter how strongly Grantham willed it, Margaret did not speak to him in return. Instead, she bent her knee a scant inch in a desultory curtsey, her lush mouth twisted like the clasp of a coin purse, no doubt to hold inside the names she was calling him in her head. He had a good idea what some of them were, considering he most likely had taught them to her.

Grantham hadn’t seen Margaret for thirteen years until their reunion-if one could call it that-a year and a half ago in the small parlor of Athena’s Retreat. He hadn’t exactly met the moment then, either-although to be fair, there’d been a hedgehog involved. The handful of times he encountered her since, she’d avoided meeting his eyes with her own, as though he were an inconsequential shadow cast by their past.

Someone to be dismissed.

Someone who had broken her heart and whom she would never forgive.

“See who is come to live in England for good.” Violet linked her arm with Margaret’s and beamed at her friend.

This was news.

When Margaret had come to stay at Athena’s Retreat a year and half ago to complete an engineering project for her father-in-law’s firm, Grantham had hoped she’d stay but she returned to Paris after three months. He’d asked Violet if Margaret might ever return, but Violet had doubted it.

“She’s one of the only women engineers in Europe with an excellent reputation. Why give up a dream hard fought to come back to England and fight all over again?” Violet had asked.

Something had changed, however, and now Margaret was home.

His heart leapt in his chest and the bitter orange flavor of hope flooded his mouth.

“Clean yourself up and come inside for tea,” Violet said to him now.

Margaret did not echo the invitation. Instead, she tightened her hold on a stylish carpet bag and accompanied Violet and Arthur into the building.

There are moments in life when the world shifts as though a door has opened somewhere out of sight. Whether a person runs toward that opened door or not depends on how fast they’re stuck in place. Grantham considered for a moment how painful it would be to get himself unstuck.

Although the tangle of branches in front of him twisted menacingly, he pulled a deep breath of resolution into his lungs alongside the scents of rosehips and crushed greenery. Gritting his teeth, he made his way through the thorns toward the open door.

Review & Excerpt- Barbarian Mine by Ruby Dixon

September 12, 2022September 10, 2022 ~ Tej ~ 1 Comment

Barbarian Mine by Ruby Dixon

Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi Romance

Series: Ice Planet Barbarians #4

Heat Level: 🔥🔥🔥

Release Date: September 13, 2022 (reissue)

Publisher: Berkley

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.

SYNOPSIS

The ice planet has given me a second lease on life, so I’m thrilled to be here. Sure, there’s no cheeseburgers, but I’m healthy and ready to be a productive member of the small tribe.

What I didn’t anticipate? That there’d be a savage stranger waiting nearby, watching me. And when he takes me captive, the unthinkable happens… I resonate to him.

Resonance means mating, and children… but I don’t know if this guy’s ever been around anyone before. He’s truly a barbarian in all ways, right down to clubbing me over the head and claiming me as his own.

So why is it that I crave his touch and hunger for more?

REVIEW

I enjoyed Barbarian Mine! Harlow and Rukh’s story was not as fast moving as some of the others in the series, but we finally got to see a few(!) babies – yay! I ended up enjoying Barbarian Mine and am already looking forward to book 5!

EXCERPT

BARBARIAN MINE by Ruby Dixon

Berkley Trade Paperback | September 13, 2022

Excerpt

Harlow

I need two poles for a travois. Two. No problem. There’s got to be trees in the distance, and I’m strong and whole.

Okay. I can do this. I can.

Aehako’s instructions ring through my mind, over and over. We need to make a travois and take Haeden back to the healer. My heart races wildly in my chest as I sprint through the snow, looking for the thin, pink, wispy trees of this planet. Kira’s gone, and both aliens are wounded. They need my help, and I can’t let them down. I don’t know why they don’t go back to the alien ship and get healed. They don’t trust it, and I guess I understand that. I’m used to technology, and it still freaks me out to think of the cold, emotionless voice of the computer.

Also, I know what it’s like to fear the doctor.

My feet sink into the snow with each step, and my leather boots quickly become sodden. There’s no time to fix them or reinforce the insides with warm dvisti fur. Time is of the essence. I trudge forward over a drift-covered hill, and when I see the pink, wispy eyelashes of trees in the distance, I pick up the pace.

Almost there.

I have Haeden’s knife, since he’s too wounded to use it. The bone handle is smooth in my hand, though it’s a little too big for my human-sized palm to grip comfortably. Everything here on Not-Hoth is sa-khui sized. I’m a decent height for a girl, but the average person on this planet seems to be seven feet tall, and the snows are deep, the caves huge. Really, everything feels just a wee bit too big. It’s like I’ve been transported to a Goldilocks house, except instead of just right, everything’s too large.

It’s just one more thing I must adjust to in an endless stream of new and frightening things.

Weeks ago, I went to sleep in my own bed, and the biggest concern on my mind was when I’d start my chemo. Then, a few weird dreams later, I woke up, shivering and weak, pulled from a tube and told I’d been abducted by aliens.

Which would have been hard to believe except that I’d come from Houston, Texas, and my air conditioner had gone out, so I’d spent the evening sweating and praying the repairman would come by soon. When I’d woken up? It had been so cold my bare feet had stuck to the metal floors, and strange blue aliens occasionally entered to chat with the humans.

It’s hard to call someone a liar when they’re seven feet tall, blue, and horned. After seeing that, I had to believe. And even though sometimes I want to pinch myself until I wake up, I have to accept the fact that I’m now living on a snow planet with no chance of getting home, and I’m infected with an alien parasite that allows me to endure the harsh conditions of Not-Hoth. Not exactly how I’d visualized my future at all.

But . . . at least I have a future.

According to the ship’s medical computers, I’m cancer-free now. I don’t know if it’s wrong, or if it’s Not-Hoth’s atmosphere or the new “cootie” (as some of the girls call it) living in my chest.

All I know is that the inoperable brain tumor isn’t showing up in scans. And for the first time in the last year, I have hope.

But first . . . a travois.

When I get to the trees, I move to the closest one and touch the bark with my fingertips. It feels spongy and damp despite the chill in the air, and not sturdy enough to support a massive, muscled alien. I have no idea if this will work, but I’ll give it a shot. I owe the sa-khui my life, and so I’m going to do my best to help Haeden and Aehako.

Kneeling down, I begin to hack at the base of the first tree. The knife sinks in with a squishing noise, and sap squirts out onto the snow. Ugh. I wrinkle my nose and keep cutting, determined. Kira’s gone, and they’re wounded, so I’m the only one that can help.

The snow crunches nearby.

I stand upright, surprised. It almost sounded like a footstep. “Hello?” I turn around and look. “Aehako?”

No one’s there. The snowy landscape is barren, nothing but rolling drifts as far as the eye can see.

I must be imagining things. I’m not alone out here in the wild. There’re creatures everywhere, or so the hunters tell me. It could be one of the porcupine-looking things. Or maybe it’s a rabbit. Or . . . whatever the rabbit equivalent on this planet is.

I can’t be a silly chicken and freak out at every little sound, though. I turn back to the tree and continue hacking at it.

I hear the crunch of snow again, and a moment later, a heavy thudding. My blood feels like it’s surging in my ears, and I press a hand to my head, wincing.

No, wait. That’s not thudding or drumming. My heart is calm. Is it . . . purring?

Something slams into the back of my head, and I pitch forward into darkness.

Even there, the strange purring follows me.

Spotlight & Excerpt – The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

August 22, 2022 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

Genre: Paranormal Romance / Women’s Fiction

Release Date: August 23, 2022

Publisher: Berkley

I’m currently reading this heart warming, magical read and I am loving it! Minka Moon is a witch who is also part of the very secret society of irregular witches – a group of witches who occasionally meet and discuss how magic seems to be affecting their lives.

Minka is used to being alone and not really having any friends. So when she decides to create an online account where she pretends to be a witch – she doesn’t think there’s any harm in that (also it’s a secret from the other witches). When she is contacted about her witchraft and tasked to helping three young witches control their magic – Minka is befuddled. Who is taking care of these witches? How are they all together – it’s a rule to keep witches apart as their magic can be powerful when combined? And most importantly who is Jamie – the temperamental librarian at Nowhere House and why is he so distrustful of Minka?

I can’t wait to dive back into the book. I am loving all of the secondary characters as well as Minka’s self discovery and her prickly relationship with Jamie.

SYNOPSIS

A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family–and a new love–changes the course of her life.

As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules…with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos pretending to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.

But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.

As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn’t the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for….

EXCERPT

THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES by Sangu Mandanna

Berkley Trade Paperback Original | August 23, 2022

Excerpt

When the spellwork part of the meeting was complete, Primrose cleared her throat. “Finally, does anyone have any news they’d like to share?”

“It’s okay to say it’s time to gossip, Primrose,” Mika said merrily. “We all know that’s what comes after the spellwork.”

“Witches don’t gossip,” sniffed Primrose.

This was patently untrue, however, because gossiping was precisely what they proceeded to do.

“My ex-husband wanted to get back together last week,” said Belinda Nkala, who was in her forties and never had time for anyone’s nonsense. “When I turned him down, he informed me that I am apparently nothing without him. Then he left,” she added calmly, “but I fear he’s going to be suffering from an inexplicable itch in his groin for a few weeks.”

Several witches laughed, but Primrose set her lips in a thin line. “And have you been playing such petty tricks lately, Mika?”

“Oh, for the love of fucking god, Primrose, what does this have to do with me?”

“It’s not an unreasonable question, precious. You do like to take risks.”

“For the millionth time,” Mika said, irked beyond belief, “I post videos online pretending to be a witch. It’s just a performance.” Primrose raised her eyebrows. Mika raised hers right back. “Hundreds of people do the same thing, you know. The whole witch aesthetic is very popular!”

“Witchcore,” Hilda said, nodding wisely. “Not quite as popular as cottagecore or fairycore, but it’s up there.”

Everyone stared at her.

“I didn’t know fairies were real!” shouted Agatha Jones, who was almost as old as Primrose and tended to believe all young people needed to be shouted at lest they miss the import of her pronouncements. “Whatever next!”

“You see, Primrose?” said Mika, ignoring this interruption. “People call themselves witches all the time. I’m not putting myself or you or anyone else at risk. Nobody who watches my videos thinks I’m actually a witch.”

It was unfortunate for Mika, then, that at that precise moment, over five hundred miles away, in a big house in a quiet, windy corner of the Norfolk countryside, a skinny old man in a magnificent rainbow scarf and enormous fluffy slippers was saying exactly the opposite.

“Absolutely not!”

This came from Jamie, the scowling librarian, who was not in fact the skinny old man in the scarf and slippers. That was Ian. And the third person in the library was Lucie, the housekeeper, a chubby, round-cheeked woman in her fifties, who sighed as if she knew exactly how this argument was going to go. (She did know, and she was right.)

Ian smoothed down the tail of his scarf and replied, in the deep voice that had charmed audiences in many a small theatre over his eighty-odd years, “Don’t be difficult, dear. It doesn’t become you.”

Jamie was unmoved by this criticism. “You can’t seriously be considering bringing that”-and here he jabbed a finger at the dewy, sparkly face on the screen of Ian’s phone-“into the house?”

“Why not?” Ian asked.

“Well, for one thing, there’s no way she’s a real witch,” Jamie said irritably. This was not unusual. Most of the things Jamie said were said irritably. “What kind of witch would show off her magic on a platform with millions of viewers?”

Mika would have been immensely gratified to hear this, had she been there, but it looked like her double bluff had not hoodwinked Ian.

“She’s a real witch,” he insisted.

“How the hell can you possibly know that?”

“I have excellent observation skills. Just watch part of the video.” Ian wiggled his phone like he was dangling a lollipop in front of a toddler. “A minute. That’s all I ask.”

Jamie’s glare stayed firmly in place, but he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against his desk to look over Ian’s shoulder. Gleeful, Ian tapped the screen and the video started to play.Excerpted from The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna Copyright © 2022 by Sangu Mandanna. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved.

Spotlight & Excerpt Out of the Clear Blue Sky

June 7, 2022 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

Out of the Clear Blue Sky by Kristan Higgins

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Release Date: June 7, 2022

Publisher: Berkley

Kristan Higgins newest book – Out of the Clear Blue Sky – is the perfect beach read! Heartwarming and funny, this book follows Lillie, recently divorced after her husband dumps her for another woman. With a grown child now in college, Lillie isn’t quite sure what to do with her life. Soon she’s bonding with people in her life that she never thought she’d get close to. Maybe this isn’t the end of life for Lillie, but rather the start of a new chapter?

SYNOPSIS

From New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins comes a funny and surprising new novel about second chances–and why the lies we tell ourselves are the most dangerous.

Lillie Silva knew life as an empty nester would be hard after her only child left for college, but when her husband abruptly dumps her for another woman just as her son leaves, her world comes crashing down. Besides the fact that this announcement is a complete surprise (to say the least), what shocks Lillie most is that she isn’t…heartbroken. She’s furious.

Lillie has loved her life on Cape Cod, but as a mother, wife and nurse-midwife, she’s used to caring for other people…not taking care of herself. Now, alone for the first time in her life, she finds herself going a little rogue. Is it over the top to crash her ex-husband’s wedding, dressed like the angel of death? Sure! Should she release a skunk into his perfect new home? Probably not! But it beats staying home and moping.

She finds an unexpected ally in her glamorous sister, with whom she’s had a tense relationship all these years. And an unexpected babysitter in of all people Ben Hallowell, the driver in a car accident that nearly killed Lillie 20 years ago. And then there’s Ophelia, her ex-husband’s oddly lost niece, who could really use a friend.

It’s the end of Lillie’s life as she knew it. But sometimes the perfect next chapter surprises you…out of the clear blue sky.

EXCERPT

When the waitress came to ask if we wanted dessert, Brad said no. “I’ll have the coconut cake,” I said, because speaking of joy . . . Pepe’s had the best coconut cake on earth. “We’ll split it,” I added, since we always did. One of our marital habits—Brad always pretended he didn’t want dessert, then shared mine. Denial.

“No, no. All for you,” Brad said, and for a second, I could’ve sworn he glanced at my midsection. He himself was lean. I was not.

Brad was nursing a second glass of malbec. That was funny . . . I’d never seen him order red wine, not even with steak. He said it gave him headaches, but here he was, sniffing it like he was a bloodhound, swirling it, savoring it. Before I said something snarky, I decided this was the moment.

“Honey, I have something to tell you,” I said. I took a breath and tried to get into the romantic mood. The candlelight made Brad look even more handsome. His blond hair, still fairly full, that WASPy, almost delicate bone structure. His amazing cerulean eyes. He looked younger, the gift of candlelight. I hoped I looked equally beautiful. “It’s pretty exciting.”

“Really? I have something to tell you, too,” he said. “Also exciting. But go ahead.”

I paused for dramatic effect. “We’re going to Europe! I booked us a trip!”

Brad’s face didn’t change. He didn’t smile. He barely blinked.

“Oh,” he said. “Uh . . . when?”

“October seventeenth. Venice, then a train ride up into the Alps for a few days, and then . . . wait for it . . . Paris! Surprise!”

Brad didn’t say anything.

“Honey?” I asked.

“Yes. Um . . . well.”

Not the reaction I was hoping for. Brad loved traveling. “Aren’t you excited?” I asked. “You don’t seem excited.”

He drained his wine. “Actually, Lillie, I . . . uh . . . I was thinking it’s time we . . . divorced.”

“Here’s your coconut cake,” said the waitress, a pretty girl with dark hair. “Two forks, just in case.”

“Thank you!” I said. “Dig in, honey, before I lay waste to this whole thing.”

“This is hard for me,” he said. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but I’m sure.”

“About what?” God. The cake melted in your mouth. Melted.

“Did you hear me? What I just said?”

“Did you hear me? We’re going to Europe!”

He looked away sharply. “No. We’re not. I want a divorce, Lillie. That’s why I took you here. To discuss our future at this natural split in the path.”

I snorted. “Oh, please. We’re not getting divorced.” God, this cake was so good.

“I’m serious. Please listen and don’t infantilize me, Lillie.”

“Brad. Honey. Is this because Dylan’s graduating? It’s normal to feel blue. But we’re happy. Not like everyone else.” There had been a rash of divorces among our crowd lately, and suddenly my skin felt a little too tight. “We’ve been talking about how fun being empty nesters will be.” Hadn’t we? No, we had. Just not recently.

“I’ve met someone.”

“You know, this trip is going to be perfect,” I said. “Change of scenery, new places, new food, different languages all around us. You can practice your French! Our son is going to college in Montana, and we’ve both been melancholy. I’ve looked at so many pictures of Venice, I already feel better.”

Wait . . . what was that he’d just said? It wasn’t about Europe. I felt a flush starting in my chest, creeping up my neck.

I took a sip of water. Glanced around the restaurant.

“Lillie?” Brad said.

“We’re going to Europe,” I said again, more loudly this time. “We deserve it.”

“Are you even listening to me?” he said.

“Are you listening to me?” I snapped. “We’re not getting a divorce! Are you crazy?” Heads were starting to turn. I lowered my voice. “Look. I don’t think . . . you didn’t mean what you said, honey. I know it’s a strange time, and it’s natural to do some soul-searching, but we’re in this together. It’s going to be great! We’ve been talking about all the things we want to do.” I smiled. Yeah. Keep smiling, Lillie. “And we will do them.” That last line came out as a command.

He didn’t look at me. “I haven’t been happy in some time, and . . . well, as I just said, I’m in love.”

There was a buzzing sound in my ears. “No you aren’t.”

“Lately, I just feel dead inside.”

“No you haven’t. This is idiotic.”

“I’m sorry if this hurts you,” he said, “but I’m sure.”

Suddenly, my plate was in my hands, and I was squishing the coconut cake on his head. “How dare you, Brad Fairchild! How dare you!”

Spotlight & Excerpt of Ramón and Julieta

February 2, 2022 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

Ramón and Julieta by Alana Quintana Albertson

Genre: Contemporary Romance/Retellings

Release Date: February 1, 2022

Publisher: Berkley

In this Romeo & Juliet inspired retelling, Ramón and Julieta find themselves in the middle of a family duel. What’s even worse is that they hooked up on the Day of the Dead without realizing who each other was…whoops! Soon Ramón is about to overtake Julieta’s taqueria only to realize that the taco recipe his family uses was stolen from Julieta’s mother. In this enemies-to-lovers romance, will love find a way to conquer it all?

SYNOPSIS

When fate and tacos bring Ramón and Julieta together on the Day of the Dead, the star-crossed pair must make a choice: accept the bitter food rivalry that drives them apart or surrender to a love that consumes them.

Ramón Montez always achieves his goals. Whether that means collecting Ivy League degrees or growing his father’s fast-food empire, nothing sets Ramón off course. So when the sexy señorita who kissed him on the Day of the Dead runs off into the night with his heart, he determines to do whatever it takes to find her again.

Celebrity chef Julieta Campos has sacrificed everything to save her sea-to-table taqueria from closing. To her horror, she discovers that her new landlord is none other than the magnetic mariachi she hooked up with on Dia de los Muertos. Even worse, it was his father who stole her mother’s taco recipe decades ago. Julieta has no choice but to work with Ramón, the man who destroyed her life’s work–and the one man who tempts and inspires her.

As San Diego’s outraged community protests against the Taco King take-over and the divide between their families grows, Ramón and Julieta struggle to balance the rising tensions. But Ramón knows that true love is priceless and despite all of his successes, this is the one battle he refuses to lose.

EXCERPT

Sometimes, Ramón envied his carefree younger brothers. They worked hard, but they played harder. Even so, Ramón struggled with that work-life balance. For Ramón, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, to give anything less than one hundred percent was unacceptable. It explained his bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in English from Stanford University, and his MBA from Harvard.

He read over the numbers on his computer one more time. The only thing that mattered to Ramón was the bottom line. And the bottom line was that the Montez Group wanted a piece of Barrio Logan and a Taco King front and center on the main drag.

His cell buzzed.

Ramón answered on the first ring. “Apá. ¿Qué tal?”

“Good, Ramón. Good. I called to check on the Barrio deal. How’s it going?”

Ramón smirked. It was like Papá could read his mind.

“Great. I’ve finalized the numbers for the offer. I’m ready to bid tomorrow.”

“Ah, good.” Papá hesitated. “You know, I could always check those figures, and-“

“Apá, isn’t it time you retired? I’m the CEO now. You should be relaxing, kicking back with a beer on the beach tomorrow, not heading to a meeting.”

Papá sighed as if he wasn’t quite convinced. “I know, but I am chairman of the board.”

Ramón sighed. There was no use arguing with Papá. “I’m confident we have this in the bag.” And he was-extremely confident.

Papá exhaled. “I believe in you, mijo. I can’t wait to close this deal. I’ve wanted a holding in Barrio for years, but it was never the right time . . .”

His wistful tone needed no explanation. There was a damn good reason why the Montez Group had never secured a property in Barrio Logan.

It was clear.

They weren’t wanted.

Papá had been accused of being a sellout, which was just plain ridiculous. His father was a proud Chicano man who always gave back to his community. So what if he catered to the tastes of non-Hispanics? Sure, the restaurants served mild salsa, and the tortillas weren’t made from scratch. Still, Papá had created jobs for Latinos and given to countless charities. And that was what mattered.

But Ramón understood the sting of not always being accepted by his community. He’d grown up rich and privileged and hadn’t faced the struggles that many others had. He felt Mexican in his soul but wasn’t always perceived as a real Latino. His cousins used to call his brothers and him coconuts-brown on the outside, white on the inside. Ramón’s heart soared when mariachi music played but sank every time he spoke in Spanish to fellow Mexicans and was answered back in English. He had to constantly prove to his company and to his culture how Mexican he was. And he hated being called not just a gentrifier, but even worse: a gentefier.

But, as painful as it was to admit, he was one.

“Don’t worry about it, Apá. I got this.”

“I’m proud of you, Ramón. You remind me of myself at your age-young, passionate, full of ambition. But you have to remember to take a break sometimes. You know my work cost me my marriage to your mother.”

Yup, Ramón was well aware of his parents’ horrible marriage. His mother reminded him constantly. Though lately, she was too busy with her new love interest, a boy toy Ramón’s age, to bother with her sons.

Ramón zoned out at his computer screen, which had a screensaver of Cabo San Lucas. The turquoise water rimmed around the natural rock arch. “After this deal closes, let’s take a vacation.”

“I’d like that.” Papá paused. “I have one more favor to ask of you.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Would you stop by the party in Old Town? There will be reporters there and the mayor. I think since we are going to try to acquire in Barrio, we need to be present at cultural events to show we support our community.”

“The Día de los Muertos party? ¿En serio?” The Day of the Dead party in Old Town was hands down the best fiesta for the holiday in San Diego, if not the state. Family fun, bro bashes, and cultural classes were all part of the event. There was something about the quaint, historic neighborhood that added genuine authenticity to the holiday. San Diego, which neighbored Mexico, was a true border beach town. With twenty percent of San Diego’s 1.5 million population Hispanic, politicians were usually found circulating at these bicultural celebrations. Old Town was literally the oldest settled town in California-a place that could be the set for the next Zorro adaptation. Now it was a tourist mecca that consisted of sarsaparilla shops and tasty taquerías.

“Yes, I am. I’d go myself, but you are the face of the company, Mr. People en Espa–ol’s sexiest eligible bachelor.”

Ramón groaned. That title had been nothing but trouble. All the gold diggers had placed a target on his back. Those women didn’t like him for who he was, but instead for what he was worth. He’d never wanted to be the face of the company; he was proud of his work but craved anonymity. He’d gladly give that role to his youngest brother, Jaime, who was a model, influencer, and director of the company’s social media platforms.

“Not sure that matters, because if I went, I would have to wear face paint.”

Papá laughed. “Just go for a few hours, check in with some reporters and the mayor, take a few pictures, and leave. You never know-you could meet a nice young woman there. When I was your age, I always made time for the ladies.”

Ramón exhaled. Papá’s wild youth was no secret. As a little boy, Ramón loved listening to Papá’s stories about hitchhiking through Mexico and surfing along the Baja coast. But Ramón’s favorite story was about the spring break love affair his father had had with a señorita in San Felipe. It was there that Papá had first tried fish tacos.

Ramón had no trouble meeting women, usually through dating apps, if he ever managed to take a day off work, which was rare. He had no time to even think about starting a serious relationship with someone. And after his parents’ nasty divorce, marriage no longer held any appeal for him.

Even so, sometimes, after he closed a big deal, he wished he could celebrate his success with someone. Toast champagne on his ocean-view rooftop deck or spend a romantic weekend in Paris. It would be nice to meet someone who was actually interested in him and not his money. But he doubted he could find such a woman, and he didn’t even want to try. Women were a distraction-a fun one, but nothing more.

“Seriously, Apá. Can’t Jaime do it? He will be posting his every waking minute anyway. And they look great in their outfits-they’ll get so much press. He and Enrique just left.”

“No. You know them. They will both be drunk and spend the night hitting on women. Definitely in no state to schmooze. There is nothing left to do on the Barrio deal. Take the night off. Please, do it for me.”

Ramón had no choice but to agree. “Okay, I’ll go. But only for a few hours.”

“That’s my boy. Do you have something to wear?”

Ramón exhaled. He did, but nothing like his brothers’ new threads. “Yeah. I think my old charro suit still fits.”

“Wonderful. Have fun. I love you. I’ll see you in Barrio, mañana.”

“See you tomorrow. Love you, too, Apá.”

Ramón hung up, saved all his work, and shut off his computer. Papá was right; the best thing he could do for the Barrio deal was to go schmooze.

Ramón walked out of his office, through the long hallway covered with family photos and framed magazine articles, and strode over to his fully stocked rustic bar in the game room, where he took a shot of his stash of Clase Azul Reposado Tequila. Hits the spot. It was smooth, and it took the edge off the day perfectly. He filled a flask with some more and placed it by his keys and wallet.

Then he went to his bedroom closet. He searched in the back and found his charro suit from when he’d played guitarrón with the Mariachi Cardenal de Stanford. The ingrained scents of dried tequila and stale smoke from the fabric brought back memories of his college years performing, which were the happiest times of his life.

The suit fit, surprisingly, even though Ramón had bulked up. His daily workouts running on the beach and flipping tires in his custom gym were his one outlet for stress.

Ramón went to Jaime’s bathroom in their beachfront bachelor pad, which, sure enough, had face paint strewn all over the white marble countertop. Their maid, Lupe, would not be pleased. She worked hard and fast, with a smile on her face, and Ramón always made sure to clean up after any parties he and his brothers threw so she wouldn’t have to do any extra work.

Ramón had played at plenty Day of the Dead parties in college, so he knew how to do the face paint. He shaved his face with a fresh razor blade, used a white eye pencil to outline his eyes and nose, and then spread white paint over his face. Black eye makeup and a spiderweb on his forehead came next. The perfect combination of beauty and macabre-life and death. To complete the look, he drew black stitches over his lips to indicate that he was dead.

Papá was right—appearing at the event would be good for business. Ramón might even have a good time.

He quickly put the makeup away and wiped down the countertop.

Ramón secured his sombrero on his head. A final glance in themirror, and he was satisfied with what he saw—a man who would doanything to close the deal.

He removed his guitarrón from the stand on the wall. One strumof the brittle strings and the music beat through his heart and awakened his soul. When the notes sprung back to Ramón’s head, he was relieved that he hadn’t forgotten how to play. He’d sung to crowds of women when he performed. Ramón loved being onstage, playingmusic, and singing love songs. He’d been a hopeless romantic, just like Papá.

But there was no time for women or music now.

He had a company to run.

Spotlight & Excerpt of Paws and Prejudice

June 28, 2021June 27, 2021 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

Paws and Prejudice by Alanna Martin

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Series: Hearts of Alaska #2

Release Date: June 29, 2021

Publisher: Berkley

The second book in the Hearts of Alaska series, Paws and Prejudice follows Kelsey Porter, a proud mom to three huskies and the new brewery owner Ian who not only rubs Kelsey wrong but also doesn’t like her dogs! Paws and Prejudice is sure to be angsty and swoony! Read ahead for an excerpt.

SYNOPSIS

It’s up to a trio of adorable rescue huskies to make two lonely hearts in a coastal Alaskan town realize that true love is worth too much to turn tail and run.

Glaciers have nothing on Kelsey Porter when she decides to freeze someone out. After getting burned once, she’s not about to let it happen again. And right now all that icy contempt is focused on one annoyingly attractive and entitled interloper: Ian Roth. Not only is he looking to take advantage of her quaint, coastal community, tainting the small-town charm of Helen, Alaska, but he has committed the one crime she can never forgive—he doesn’t like her dogs.

Unlike what Kelsey believes, Ian loves Helen’s charms as much as she does. That’s partly why he’s determined to open a brewery there, and he’s not about to let anything or anyone stop his dream from coming true. But he didn’t count on the beautiful, prickly woman getting under his skin. Or having to be within hand-biting proximity of her three huge huskies.

When Kelsey’s family conscripts her into helping Ian get his brewery off the ground, she finds herself caught between a rock and a hard . . . muscular . . . man who has a fear of dogs. But the longer they work together, the more she can feel herself begin to thaw. Now she’ll have to choose: let sleeping dogs lie to protect her heart, or mush head-on toward love.

EXCERPT

Kelsey Porter had always feared that the lies she told would one day come back to bite her in the ass. She’d just never expected the bite would come in the form of work she had no business doing for a man she wanted nothing to do with. But lies were cruel. They built on themselves-words turning into sentences and sentences into paragraphs, until Kelsey had written a novel of falsehoods about who she was and what she did for a living. So when her father volunteered her labor to Ian Roth, Kelsey was triply screwed.

One, she wasn’t about to confess that her alleged work experience was a lie.

Two, she was already extremely busy.

Three, and perhaps most important, Ian was a jerk who didn’t deserve what little free time she had.

Despite never having spoken to Ian, Kelsey was absolutely positive of number three. The man had shown zero interest in her dogs, and that spoke of a cold, unfeeling heart.

Kelsey had tried convincing her father she was too busy to help Ian, but her reasoning had been brushed off as easily as the death glare she’d given him. That was no surprise. Kelsey’s glare had a tendency to make people, particularly male people, want to pat her on the head and tell her how cute she was. Cherubic, even. Being taken seriously was hard when you were short. Add in her blond curls and blue eyes and it was damn near impossible. Her twin brother, Kevin, who shared her general appearance, at least had the advantage of being male. No one thought Kevin was cute when he scowled at them.

And no question, her father wouldn’t have volunteered Kevin to do unpaid labor. That was the sort of BS demanded only of women. Her father hadn’t cared one bit that Kelsey had deadlines to meet and a house she was renovating. Making Ian happy had been more important to him.

“You know I’m right,” Kelsey said as she pointed out this last incontrovertible fact.

Josh had the good sense not to argue, which was why he was her favorite cousin. “You’re probably right, yes. But try not to be so negative. Ian doesn’t know your situation. It’s not his fault.”

So that was who the nagging Be nice voice in her head sounded like. She’d been telling it to shut up since her father had dropped this bomb on her yesterday, and Kelsey turned the full force of her glare on her cousin. It was a combination of displeased, dismissive, and disgusted that on another face might have been lethal. “Excuse me?”

Like her father had, Josh ignored the glare. Freaking men.

They had embarked on their semi-regular afternoon ritual, walking their combined six huskies around the park in downtown Helen. Kelsey had given Josh his three dogs when he moved here a couple of years ago, and they mingled with hers-Romeo, Juliet, and Puck-as they made a circuit around the park’s perimeter.

What a difference a few weeks made. Helen hadn’t entirely shut down for the winter yet, but the number of tourists had so rapidly declined, it was like someone had shut off a spigot. The park, just a couple of weeks ago, had been a maze to navigate with six dogs, but now it was an easy stroll. That was good, because the chillier weather made Kelsey want to keep a faster pace even as she delighted in the scent of the wet grass and salty bay water. Anything smelled better than the drywall compound she’d been inhaling all morning.

Well, almost anything. She was supposed to meet with Ian at his brewery in an hour, and Kelsey assumed the place would smell like beer. She hated beer. Even if she did have experience writing marketing materials, which she most certainly did not, she still would be the worst person in the world to help Ian.

“I’m not saying it was cool of your father to volunteer you,” Josh said as he attempted to detangle a couple of leashes. “But how long can it take you to write some stuff for the brewery’s website?”

“It’s not only the website. It’s also press releases, and a puff piece for the local paper. Maybe even a longer article to submit to some travel zines.”

“And that.” Josh winced, and Kelsey hoped it was dawning on him why she was being so negative.

Lies-spinning them for a living was called fiction. Living them was turning out to be a pain in the ass. Everyone in town, including Josh, believed Kelsey was a freelance writer, and they all had their own ideas as to what that meant. She’d never bothered to correct them, since it hadn’t mattered. Until now.

Kelsey hadn’t the faintest clue what the website work might entail, but she did have an idea how much time it took to write for the Helen Weekly Herald, because she did it on occasion. It helped keep her cover and paid for the occasional new doggie toy, but she hated it. The only thing Kelsey enjoyed writing was novels. Steamy paranormal romance novels about a pack of husky shifters living in the Alaskan bush, to be 100 percent precise, because romance readers knew exactly what sort of stories they wanted, and Kelsey aimed to provide them for the ones who liked hers. It wasn’t what she’d planned to do with her life, but she enjoyed it, was apparently good at it, and had gotten extremely lucky to be able to support herself with it.

And there was no way in hell she could tell anyone in Helen about it. Thank goodness for pen names.

Spotlight & Excerpt of Crazy About a Cowboy

May 25, 2021 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

Crazy About a Cowboy by Dylann Crush

Genre: Contemporary Romance/Cowboy Romance

Series: Tying the Knot in Texas #3

Release Date: May 25, 2021

Publisher: Berkley

Opposites attract in this small town charming romance. Crazy About a Cowboy is sure to be a swoony romance!

SYNOPSIS

Local cowboy Jasper Taylor has to decide if it’s more important to help his hometown of Ido, Texas win a contest or for him to win the heart of the woman he loves.

The little town of Ido, Texas, is up against some big competition. With the state tourism department on a search for the most romantic town in Texas, Ido is pulling out all the stops to win the title. Leading the effort is the newly appointed hospitality host Jasper Taylor. If he can secure the honor for Ido, he’ll be able to hang onto his family’s land.

But when the reigning Miss Lovin’ Texas and celebrity judge, Delilah Stone, rolls into town, she isn’t exactly welcomed with open arms. Delilah’s ready to put her beauty queen days behind her, and the only thing standing in her way is spending the next thirty days in Ido. It should be an easy gig, but someone in town is tired of all of the recent publicity. Somehow everything that ought to go right is suddenly going wrong.

Now it’s up to Jasper to convince Delilah to give Ido another chance by showing her just how romantic the small town can be…without losing his own heart in the process.

EXCERPT

Jasper ran his palms over his denim-clad thighs. Delilah Stone had been in town for less than five minutes and he’d already screwed up. How the hell would he explain to his dad that he’d managed to ruin Ido’s run for the title before the judge even made it up the steps of city hall?

“What in the world happened?” Lacey entered her office, her cheeks flushed.

He jumped to his feet. “I don’t know. I was cleaning the pigeon shit off the sidewalk and all of a sudden there she was.”

“You didn’t hear her? See her heading your way?”

Jasper shook his head. “I came around the corner and before I knew what was happening she was soaked through.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll fix this.” Lacey crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth set in a determined line.

“Me?” His stomach dipped. “How do you expect me to do that?”

“I need a hospitality host, and you owe me.”

“Wait a sec. I said I was sorry and I meant it. But I don’t think—”

The office door creaked open. Delilah Stone entered. She’d changed into dry clothes, but her hair still hung in damp curls, framing her heart-shaped face. He’d expected the beauty queen to be, well, beautiful. But beautiful was too dull a word to do justice to the gorgeous woman who’d just entered the mayor’s office.

Lacey rounded the desk and moved toward the door. “Ms. Stone, welcome.”

Jasper rose to his full height and drew in a breath. Then he forced what he hoped looked like a reassuring grin and turned it on Miss Lovin’ Texas herself.

She might have been drenched from head to toe a few minutes ago, but she handled herself with the composure of a queen. Her spine ramrod straight, her face scrubbed free of any trace of makeup, she entered the office like she owned the place.

“We’re thrilled to be hosting you as part of the Most Romantic Small Town in Texas competition.” Lacey glanced toward him and he braced himself for the inevitable introduction. “I’d like you to meet Jasper Taylor, our hospitality host. He’ll be your main point of contact while you’re here in town.”

Jasper shot a look to Lacey, who lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. Great. He didn’t want to undermine the mayor, even if she’d made an incorrect assumption that he’d changed his mind about taking on the role. He’d let it go for now. But once Ms. Stone left the office, he’d have to set Lacey straight.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Stone. I’m sorry about getting you all wet. Although I’ve gotta say, you look just as pretty soaked right through as you did when you won your title.” He had to give major props to the beauty queen, she didn’t flinch as she slid her hand against his.

Delilah glanced over to Lacey. What the heck was wrong with him? Based on how he was handling his interaction with Delilah, she’d probably never believe he actually held a degree in business and had aced his professional communications courses. For some reason his tongue seemed to get all hog-tied when facing the woman with the smoky green eyes who held the fate of Ido in her soft, delicate hands.

She slipped her fingers out of his grip and followed Lacey toward the desk. “It’s my pleasure, Mr. Taylor.”

“Oh, you can call me Jasper.”

“It’s my pleasure then, Jasper.” The tight smile she gave him held more than a hint of frustration, making him think she’d rather slap him than have to rely on him for anything during her time in Ido. She probably thought Lacey was crazy for putting her trust in him. At least they were on the same page with regard to that.

Spotlight & Excerpt of Heart on a Leash

April 26, 2021April 25, 2021 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

Heart on a Leash by Alanna Martin

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Series: Hearts of Alaska #1

Release Date: April 27, 2021

Publisher: Berkley

Feuding Alaskan families, a forbidden romance and cute huskies – Heart on a Leash sounds like the perfect romance!

SYNOPSIS

A pack of rescue huskies inspires love and romance in a coastal Alaskan town fractured by feuding families–but can young pups really teach frozen hearts new tricks?

Taylor Lipin has made it her life’s mission to leave her hometown and its ridiculous, century-old feud with the Porters behind. But when her sister needs help running the family inn, Taylor agrees to return to Helen, Alaska on a temporary, definitely not longer than two weeks, basis. Or so she thinks, until she’s quite literally swept off her feet and into enemy territory by three happy huskies and their drool-worthy owner, Dr. Josh Krane.

Though Josh didn’t grow up in Helen with the rest of his Porter cousins, he’s heard the stories: Porters rescue huskies. The Lipins are cat people. Keep to your pack. But Taylor is too tempting to give up–plus, his dogs love her.

As Taylor and Josh grow closer, tensions in the town escalate and the need for secrecy starts taking a toll. Soon they’ll need to decide whether their newfound love is just a summer fling or if they’ve found their forever home.

EXCERPT

Ever since she was little, Taylor had been determined that-in her six-year-old self’s words-she was going to be a “business lady.” Little Taylor had devoted countless hours to making her Barbie dolls into perfect “business ladies,” which had mainly meant they wore stylish clothes, worked in tall buildings, and bossed people around. Her understanding had expanded as she grew older, but her desire to leave home and work someplace with tall buildings and stylish clothes had not. Taylor had taken off to Southern California for college and never turned back.

It was true that sometimes she wondered if she was still chasing an ephemeral ideal, because working in marketing had not lived up to her childhood expectations. And it was also true that sometimes, more frequently in recent years, she’d started wondering if she should have left childhood ideals in childhood and chosen a field that didn’t make her feel like her soul was being crushed on a daily basis.

But it was just as true that returning home and working at the inn remained on her list of Things to Consider Only before Selling Off Internal Organs. But even then, it might depend on which organ. No one needed two kidneys.

Lydia was still speaking, and Taylor caught the end of her last sentence. “. . . to help shut down the gossip too.”

“What gossip?”

“The usual. Mostly people speculating about affairs and garbage like that. All instigated by the Porters, I’m sure.”

Taylor snorted. Possibly living so long in L.A. had changed her perception about such things. “Can anyone back home actually have an affair without everyone else knowing about it?”

“Dan Fidel, the high school principal, carried on with a third-grade teacher for two years before his wife found out. So yes. But that’s not the point. The Porters are spreading lies, and rumor is Wallace is considering running against Dad for mayor. They’ve been looking for ways to cut us down since the article. We can’t afford to let them see us struggle. This is about family, however fractured we currently are.”

With her free hand, Taylor poked at the foam on her coffee. Sure, it was only eight in the morning, but she might need something stronger to drink if this was turning into a Lipin-Porter battle on top of a regular family disaster. Unfortunately, she could easily believe the Porters would try to take advantage of her family’s situation. After the Bay Song’s write-up, they’d started a whisper campaign that the hotel had only gotten such a glowing recommendation because her family had bribed the writer. Or, depending on which Porter was talking, because Lydia had slept with the guy.

It was easy for Taylor to roll her eyes from the California coast, but back home, the nastiness was something her family had to deal with on a daily basis. It was also another reason Taylor had been eager to leave.

The coffee shop’s door opened, and this time Stacy entered, along with a whiff of exhaust from the delivery truck idling outside. Her friend waved and began worming her way through the crowd.

“We can talk more about this later,” Taylor said. “I need to go.”

“Fine. Will you think about what I said? Please.”

“Promise.” It was an easy one to make. Taylor doubted she could do anything else.

Spotlight & Excerpt of The Kindred Spirits Supper Club

April 19, 2021 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

The Kindred Spirits Supper Club by Amy E. Reichert

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: April 20, 2021

Publisher: Berkley

The Kindred Spirits Supper Club is set in quirky Wisconsin Dells and has all of the elements of a warm and witty book – filled with supper clubs, random acts of kindness and a supernatural twist! Read on for an excerpt.

SYNOPSIS

Jobless and forced home to Wisconsin, journalist Sabrina Monroe can tolerate reunions with frenemies and kisses from old boyfriends, but not the literal ghosts that greet her in this heartwarming tale of the power of love and connection from acclaimed author Amy E. Reichert.

For Sabrina Monroe, moving back home to the Wisconsin Dells–the self-described Waterpark Capital of the World–means returning to the Monroe family curse: the women in her family can see spirits who come to them for help with unfinished business. But Sabrina’s always redirected the needy spirits to her mom, who’s much better suited for the job. The one exception has always been Molly, a bubbly rom-com loving ghost, who stuck by Sabrina’s side all through her lonely childhood.

Her personal life starts looking up when Ray, the new local restaurateur, invites Sabrina to his supper club, where he flirts with her over his famous Brandy Old-Fashioneds. He’s charming and handsome, but Sabrina tells herself she doesn’t have time for romance–she needs to focus on finding a job. Except the longer she’s in the Dells, the harder it is to resist her feelings for Ray. It doesn’t hurt that he shows his affection through good old-fashioned home-cooked suppers. And who can resist a guy obsessed with perfecting a Fried Cheese Curds recipe?

When the Dells starts to feel like home for the first time, Sabrina begins to realize that she can make a difference and help others wherever she is.

EXCERPT

Two days, twenty-three hours, and thirty-two minutes. Almost three full days since Sabrina Monroe had last spoken to someone who wasn’t a relative. Her record was seven days, four hours, and fifty-five minutes, but still, almost three days was impressive. In her ideal world, she could continue the trend indefinitely, a sweet happily ever after of telecommuting and food delivery.

She sat in the center of a large indoor waterpark, the WWW (Wild World of Waterparks)—or Three Dub, as people had started calling it—the latest addition to the Waterpark Capital of the World. The fake boulders hadn’t yet acquired the usual dust and stuck gum, the colors still popped on the water slides, and the painted murals were not yet dimmed by years of exposure to eye-burning levels of chlorine. With her feet propped on a white plastic chair, identical to the one she sat in, Sabrina stopped scrolling through the news app on her phone when a stack of towels toppled off a neighboring table into a puddle. She scooped them up, draping the wet towels over chairbacks and setting the still-dry towels at the center of the table, then returned to her lounging position before anyone noticed. Her nieces and nephew, Arabella, Lilly, and Oscar, frolicked in the kiddie area, a three-tiered structure of rope bridges, water cannons, and small slides for the little ones not quite ready to brave the twisty four-story flumes. An enormous bucket dropped one thousand gallons of water every fifteen minutes with a clang, a roar, and a rush of wind that blew over a lazy river circling the entire room, where tubes bobbed like Froot Loops and tweens raced around floating adults, who scowled at their rambunctiousness.

It should have been difficult to take her nieces and nephew to a waterpark without speaking to other people, but she had bought the tickets online, then took refuge among the crowded tables while the kids played. Being alone was always easiest in a crowded, noisy location, and no room was louder or more crowded than an indoor waterpark on a rainy holiday weekend.

Within the confines of this humid, echoing warehouse, Sabrina avoided interacting with people by scrolling through the news on her phone. She didn’t notice the people who stood up with meerkat attentiveness. She didn’t notice the people swiping chairs from other tables. She didn’t notice a nearby angry, tattooed chair-swiping victim returning from the snack bar with a giant fully loaded margarita.

Dumb luck had her looking up from her phone at exactly the wrong moment.

She watched as the Refill-A-Rita catapulted out of the tattooed man’s hand, centrifugal force and a red plastic lid keeping most of the fire-engine-red contents inside until they collided with the bridge of her nose. Tequila-laden pseudo-strawberry slush exploded onto her hair down to her flip-flopped feet, staining her yellow swimsuit a sunset orange and obscuring her vision with kaleidoscoping stars from the surprising pain. Bent over in agony, Sabrina avoided the unexpectedly aerodynamic white plastic chair that followed the margarita as it arced over her head toward the chair swipers.

A man wearing colorful swim trunks emblazoned with red crustaceans fought back a smile as his eyes inspected the substance dripping from her head, confirming Sabrina’s ridiculous appearance. What right did he have to judge her? He had crabs on his pants. As he took a breath to speak, Sabrina broke her no-talking streak.

“Duck,” she said, pointing to his white plastic table as a cup of soda soared over them. Caught in food-fight cross fire, the man crouched under it and out of the fray. Now she could do the same.

Sabrina dropped to the ground and scooted to safety, wiping the worst of the overly sweet slop off her face, the alcohol and red dye stinging her eyes. The warring people around her shouted, more food and plastic water bottles skittered across the wet concrete, and soon tables stuttered as bodies shoved against them. The man huddled under his table an aisle over from her. Around them, the babble of water rushing, children screaming, and parents yelling echoed off the walls and windows, amplifying the noise.

From her location under the table, she could spot her charges scampering in the spraying water, oblivious to the commotion at the nearby tables.

Two beefy men shoved at each other like Greco-Roman wrestlers, hairy bellies bumping against each other. Feet stumbled past her table, knocking her phone into a waiting puddle. She snatched it out of the water as her heart raced. Not her phone. She didn’t have the money to replace it. She dried it off the best she could on a small, still-clean section of her swimsuit.

A pair of delicate feet stopped beside her table, followed by a cheerful face framed by chin-length bouncing blond curls. The woman’s edges blurred into a soft glow as if she stood in front of a lamp. With Ghost Molly, it was barely noticeable. More recently deceased spirits had a blur that made it obvious they were new to the afterlife, helping Sabrina and her mom recognize them.

“Whatcha doing, honey?”

Spotlight & Excerpt of Special Ops Seduction

January 11, 2021January 10, 2021 ~ Tej ~ Leave a comment

Special Ops Seduction by Megan Crane

Series: Alaska Force #5

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Release Date: January 12, 2021

Publisher: Berkley

The fifth book in the Alaska Force series, Special Ops Seduction, is sure to be filled with plenty of suspense and a side of my favorite romance trope – fake dating! Read on for an excerpt.

SYNOPSIS

She’s the last woman he ever wanted to see again…

After an official operation turned deadly, Jonas Crow began a new life in Grizzly Harbor with Alaska Force. But when fellow soldier Bethan Wilcox joins the group, she forces him to remember things he actively prefers to forget. That’s unforgivable enough. But now the two of them are forced together on a mission to uncover deadly secrets tied to their complicated past, and with the heat between them at a boil, forgiveness is the least of his worries…

And the only woman he needs.

Bethan Wilcox, one of the first women to make it through Army Ranger school, didn’t join Alaska Force to deal with Jonas’s foul temper. Or her own errant attraction to him. Thrown together in a race against the clock, they have to pretend to be a couple and play nice to throw the enemy off their scent. She knows better than to let their pretend love feel real…especially while time is running out.

Jonas has always been good at saving the world. But it’s Bethan he needs to save this time around—if she doesn’t save him first.

EXCERPT

Bethan had been highly trained in a variety of scenarios. She’d signed up for the army right out of high school, mostly to appall her high-ranking air force general father. But then, spite enlistment or not, she’d loved basic training. She’d loved it when she got into psyops, too, and for a time, she’d greatly enjoyed her work as an interpreter, translator, and interrogator, connected to highly classified missions all over the world. It was after one of those missions—the one where she’d met Jonas, though neither one of them ever spoke of it—that she’d decided she wanted to be able to do more. To do something, on a grand scale.

That had led her to becoming one of the very few women to ever make it through Army Ranger School.

But the army hadn’t given her what she wanted, and now she was here. Using all her years of army training to stay calm in the face of provocation. Whether it was a building that shouldn’t have blown up or Jonas freaking Crow.

“Proceed,” Jonas ordered her.

“I have you covered,” Griffin said, cold and precise.

Bethan’s gut was working overtime, but courage wasn’t the absence of fear. It was using it as fuel. She eased out of her protected position, squinting past the billowing smoke from what they’d had down as a meaningless outbuilding in this creepy, abandoned place. She could feel eyes on her, no doubt friend and foe alike, and wished she were in full combat gear—but that wasn’t how they were playing this.

She quickly considered her options. The inhabited ruined building was directly across the square from where she was. The original plan had been for her to take the long way, skulking around the back of what was left of the row of houses where she’d been squatting. Then find a way in through a window that was almost certainly alarmed, if not actively guarded.

Bethan hadn’t seen any guards yet. And it was always possible that someone was blowing stuff up on the outskirts of this crumbling ruin of a mining town for reasons that had nothing to do with why she was here. Anything was possible.

But the more likely scenario was that there were guards, and those guards knew Alaska Force was here. And that they’d expressed themselves with a little C-4 as a welcoming gift, so there was no point sneaking around anymore.

Bethan stood. Then she sauntered around the corner of the ruined house like she was out for a stroll somewhere civilized. She headed across the arid dirt square, in the kind of broad desert daylight that made her lungs hurt, to go knock on what passed for the front door opposite.

“I like it,” Rory said with a quiet laugh from his position around the far flank of the building she was approaching. “A frontal assault always confuses them.”

“Shock and awe, baby,” August agreed.

Jonas, naturally, was completely silent.

Bethan knocked. The sound echoed strangely out here, with the Andes towering in the distance and that profound, if deceptive, emptiness all around. She knew how American she was, because she wanted to see a tumbleweed roll by, or a creaking saloon door, or the beginning twangs of a Wild West theme. But there was nothing.

Bethan knocked again. Louder.

She could feel all the targets up and down her back as she stood there. As if the eyes on her were punching into the light everyday tactical gear she wore, and worse, directly into the back of her deliberately uncovered head.

Look how friendly and approachable I am, her clothes were meant to proclaim across the desert, to all the various bad guys lurking around. No need to shoot.

Every single alarm inside her body was screaming bloody murder and she wanted nothing more than to duck, cover, and hide. Instead, she stood tall. Because she knew the fact she wasn’t visibly cowed was as much of a statement as a blast of C-4. A bigger one, maybe.

“I know you’re in there,” Bethan said through the makeshift door, leaning against the gutted wall beside it as if she felt nothing but casual, here in the middle of a creepy, abandoned desert village in a place even the few hardy locals avoided. “The trouble is, everyone knows you’re in there. And sooner or later, they’re going to come. All of them. And they won’t knock at the door, as I think you know. They’ll come right in—if they haven’t already.”

Languages had always come easily to her. This one, a specific dialect of a language very few of her own countrymen knew existed, much less could speak, had always been one of her favorites. Tongue gymnastics, she’d said, laughing with a friend, way back at Monterey’s Defense Language Institute, where she’d first started learning the kinds of languages that made her invaluable in the field.

She waited as the pitiless sun beat down on her. She had that same sort of split focus she often did in situations like this. There was a part of her that was all here, right now. She was aware of everything, from the faint sounds of life from the other falling-down structures around the square, to the wind from the far-off mountains, to that skin-crawling sensation of being in the crosshairs of too many targets. And on the other hand, she found herself thinking of her home of a year and a half now. In faraway Alaska, where a March afternoon like this one would almost certainly be gray. And wet. It might even be snowing.

For a girl who’d spent a significant part of her life in sunny Santa Barbara while her father ordered people around on Vandenberg Air Force Base, the idea that she could long for a place like Alaska should have been funny.

Some days it was.

Today it felt like a much-needed moment of centering. Reminding herself that she had a job to do here and a home to go back to, which let her focus in more sharply.

“All I want to do is ask you a question,” she said to the door. Conversationally. “What will the rest of them do, I wonder?”

Another eternity passed while the sun blazed down on her, lighting her up and giving every sniper in the village ample opportunity to take her out.

But no one did.

Far in the distance, she heard what sounded like a foot dragging. Faintly.

“There were three guards around the perimeter,” Rory said into the comm unit a few beats later. “Neutralized.”

Griffin’s voice came like a knife. “Three seems like a low number.”

Bethan knew their best sniper was up high on one of the buildings around this square, but she didn’t bother looking for him. She knew she wouldn’t be able to find him unless he wanted to be found.

“A little house-to-house turned up some more,” August said quietly. “Bringing the total to an even eight, which is still low for an asset like this.”

“I don’t like this,” Jonas said in that stern, considering way he had.

Bethan was sure he was about to recall her—order her to fall back and find a defensive position—but that was when the door cracked open.

She waited, aware that she looked relaxed when she was anything but. Her weapons were holstered, so she simply stood there with her arms loosely at her sides, looking as unobtrusive as any of them did in their tactical gear. Her cargo pants and a combat-ready shirt weren’t as dramatic as army fatigues, but she doubted very much that the slender woman who stood there in the sliver between the board masquerading as a door and the questionable wall would confuse Bethan for anything but what she was.

For a moment the two women eyed each other. Bethan smiled. The woman did not.

“Hi, Iyara,” Bethan said quietly. Warmly, as if she knew the woman personally instead of from photographs. “Do you want to tell me where your brother is?”

“How do you speak the language of my childhood?” Iyara Sowande asked softly in return. “How do you know a single word?”

“I’m only looking for your brother,” Bethan repeated in the same steady tone. “I don’t mean you any harm.”

“What is harm?” Iyara asked bitterly. “You’re too late for that.”

The door was wrenched open wider then.

And suddenly there were guns in Bethan’s face.