Cover Reveal: Lilly (Angel #3) By Tracy Lorraine

Lilly
By Tracy Lorraine

Lilly’s life has been shattered by her ex. Few people know the truth about what happened that day. Lilly is trying to put the past behind her but everyone around her is moving on with their lives and it’s a constant reminder of what she’s lost. Lilly throws herself into university and her part time job as a distraction. What she doesn’t expect is for an unwanted promotion to once again send her world into a tailspin.
Will she be able to let her guard down, open her heart once again and fight for the happiness she deserves?

Lucas could never have imagined that his life would turn out like it has. Supportive parents, a powerful job and more money than he knows what to do with. On the surface he looks like the perfect businessman but Lucas is not only hiding his past but also who he really is. The only thing missing is something he swore he never wanted. When he finds a broken Lilly in his sanctuary will he be able to push his fears of love aside and be the man she needs?

Individually they have a lot of demons that have the potential to break them but will they be strong enough together to face them?

Available at the following retailers!

Please Note: 5 days after release Lilly
will be exclusive to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited

New to the Angel Series?
Don’t Worry! You can catch up on the series.
Get the Angel Series Box Set (Books #1-2.5)
Only 99 Pennies until 8/25! Check it out here!

***SNIPPETS***


Snippet 1

I’m unattractively sobbing on the sofa when I suddenly hear a throat clearing behind me. I jump up from my seat in panic and turn around to see who’s walked in.
My eyes run from his spotlessly polished shoes, up his perfectly pressed trousers and over his waistcoat and crisp shirt until I reach his eyes. They are dark and staring daggers at me. His glare renders me motionless but my heart starts to race. A huge part of me wants to run, run as far away and as fast as I can from this situation. I’ve barely had this promotion two hours and I’ve already screwed it up.   
I square my shoulders and stand up. I wipe the tears from my cheeks with the backs of my hands as I wait for the ear bashing I’m about to get for slacking on the job.
Only it doesn’t come.
As I stand looking at him I see his eyes change. They started off hard and vicious but as the seconds have ticked by they seem to be softening. I must be mistaken though because there is nothing about the man stood in front of me that’s soft. He is a ruthless businessman who tramples on anyone who gets in his way. I have no reason to suspect he’s going to go gentle on me just because I’ve shed a few tears. I raise my chin slightly to him as I prepare for him to tear a strip off me.
He opens his mouth to say something but what comes out shocks the hell out of me. “Are you okay?” His voice comes out different to what I’ve heard before. There is no harsh demanding tone instead there’s concern. Weird.
“I’m…uh…” I stutter because this is so unexpected. I thought I’d already be on my way home with my P45 in my hand by now. “I’m fine. I just received some news and I…” I don’t continue because I realise that he really doesn’t care, he’s just trying to be kind. I appreciate that but I’m here to do a job. “I’ll just get on with it,” I say gesturing to the room.
I pick up my phone and go to walk past him. I don’t make eye contact. I’m scared he’ll return to his usual self once I get back to work.
I go to step past him but I’m frozen to the spot when he moves and clamps his hand around my wrist. I daren’t look up at him. Firstly because I don’t know what I might find looking back at me and also because he really doesn’t need to see the fresh tears in my eyes.
“If you need to go and have some time,” he says.
I’m so shocked by his words that my eyes snap up to his. Close up they look bluer than I thought they were from a distance.
“It…it’s fine, honestly,” my voice quivers as I say this showing that I’m anything but fine really.
“Well, if you’re sure,” he says hesitantly. I can only presume that being in the presence of an emotional woman isn’t the norm for him.
He holds my eye contact and I’m powerless to look away. There are only inches between us. I’m surrounded by his scent and his kindness touches me. Then I do something so unlike me and so utterly stupid that I can’t even comprehend it.
I lean forward and kiss him. I actually kiss him!



Tracy Lorraine is a M/F and M/M contemporary romance author. Tracy has recently turned thirty and lives in a cute Cotswold village in England with her husband, baby girl and lovable but slightly crazy dog. Having always been a bookaholic with her head stuck in her Kindle Tracy decided to try her hand at a story idea she dreamt up and hasn’t looked back since.



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Cover Reveal: You Don't Know Jack Schmidt By Susan Renee

As promised, I'll try to be more active with blogging so here's another post for the week!

I’ve always been the social butterfly, the girl with an Angry Vagina Box, the one who goes home with just about anyone for a booty call. So, why in the hell am I lying in bed alone on a Friday night downloading The Watering Hole dating app onto my phone?
Wait, what? No. Why am I creating a profile? No, no, fingers! Stop scrolling!
Whoa...he’s cute.
Kind of nerdy chic, but cute.
I bet he’s a barista.
Why am I drooling over the guy who has a strong set of morals and only wears matching socks? Who the hell is this guy?
Pre-Order for 99 Pennies!
“Hey Jacoby?” I say quietly as we sit in the treehouse copying math homework off each other. “Yeah?”
I’ve been waiting to ask him this question since yesterday, but I had to be certain we were alone first. Going through the foster system as much as I have sucks on so many levels. I may have made it to the eighth grade, but there’s so much I don’t know, and nobody to ask except my new best friend.
“Uh, so...do you know...what a twinkie is?”


Susan Renee wants to live in a world where paint doesn’t smell, Hogwarts is open twenty-four/seven, and everything is covered in glitter. An indie romance author, Susan has written about everything from lawn mowers to thick colossal bottles of wine, and has won a Snuggle Buddy award for her nonfiction book, “The Hula Hoop Tester’s Guide to Jumping.” She lives in Ohio with her family and seven tiny donkeys. She’s a Pet Whispering major from OMGU with a Masters in medical care for inanimate objects (a la Doc. McStuffins). Susan enjoys crab-walking through the Swiss Alps, drinking Muscle Milk, and doing the Care Bear stare with her closest friends.

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Author Interview: The Summer that Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel

Hey Bookworms!

 We've been hiatus for a very long time but I'm trying to get us back on track. 

And with that, I'd like to feature Tiffany McDaniel's novel THAT SUMMER THAT MELTED EVERYTHING! This is Tiffany's debut novel and we got a chance to ask her a couple of questions! To know more about the book and the Q&A, read on.... Happy reading!

**LINKS**
Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil.

Sal seems to appear out of nowhere - a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home where he's welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he's a runaway from a nearby farm town.

When word spreads that the devil has come to Breathed, not everyone is happy to welcome this self-proclaimed fallen angel. Murmurs follow him and tensions rise, along with the temperature as an unbearable heat wave rolls into town right along with him. As strange accidents start to occur, riled by the feverish heat, some in the town start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be. While the Bliss family wrestle with their own personal demons, a fanatic drives the town to the brink of a catastrophe that will change this sleepy Ohio backwater forever. 
***BLURBS***
“A wonderfully original, profoundly unsettling, deeply moving novel that delivers both the shock of fully realized reality and the deep resonance of parable...A remarkable debut.”―Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

 “A haunting Appalachian Gothic novel that calls into question the nature of good and evil.” ―Akron Beacon Journal

 “The Summer that Melted Everything is inventive and provocative…a meaty and relentlessly good story.” ―Bookreporter.com

 “Sometimes a book comes along that is so good that it defies all descriptions, but I'll give it a shot anyway: Tiffany McDaniel's astounding and heartbreaking The Summer That Melted Everything reads as if Carson McCullers and Shirley Jackson got together with Nathaniel Hawthorne in some celestial backwater and decided to write the first truly great gothic coming-of-age novel of the twenty-first century.” ―Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff and The Devil All the Time

 “A wondrous debut of a novel. Imagine To Kill a Mockingbird, seen through the eyes of Neil Gaiman. McDaniel’s prose is rich and magical, full of passages of exquisite, strange beauty that ache with bitter truths and old sorrows. You'll not read anything else like it.” ―James Sie, author of Still Life Las Vegas

Q: Tell me more about the book, yourself and the journey on how you wrote about TStME.

 A: I’m an Ohio poet and novelist.  The Summer that Melted Everything is my debut novel.  It is about a man who one day puts an invitation in the newspaper, inviting the devil to town.  A boy, claiming to be the devil, answers the invitation, only this boy is not your stereotypical devil of red flesh and horns.  This so-called devil’s arrival coincides with the start of a heat-wave that threatens to destroy the town’s very sanity.  As the summer unfolds, the boy’s presence has tragic consequences on the town and everyone in it.  Who is the real devil?  That is a question The Summer that Melted Everything sets out to answer.  To talk a little about my journey to publication, I should say that while The Summer that Melted Everything is my first published novel, it’s actually my fifth or sixth novel written.  I wrote my first novel when I was eighteen, and wouldn’t get a publishing contract until I was twenty-nine for The Summer that Melted Everything.  It was a long eleven-year journey to publication, full of rejection and perseverance.  But the struggle to get published has made me the author I am today.  An author who knows the value of perseverance and the value of each and every reader.

 Q: How did you first write about Fielding's story?

 The novel started first as a title.  It was one of those hot Ohio summers that I felt like I was melting.  Out of true heat, the title was born.  When I start writing a new novel, I start with the title and the first line.  These two things lead the entire rest of the story.  I never know how a story will end because I don’t outline or plan the story ahead.  I like for the story to evolve with each new word and page that I write.

 Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching while writing the book?

 I don’t do a lot of research when writing a novel because I don’t want the story weighed down with too much fact.  My research with this novel was getting a basic understanding of the culture of the 1980s, while also understanding about the emergence of AIDS was impacting the nation.   With time periods, I don’t want to ground the story too much.  I want the story to be very fluid and to feel as if it can take place at any point in time.

Q: How do you select the names of your characters?

 I try to add subtle meaning to the characters with names.  Some examples:

 In the case of Autopsy, the patriarch of the family, his name has a bigger meaning for looking at the entire book as a body itself, on a cold slab, about to be cut open and examined. Fielding’s telling of the story is in essence one big autopsy of that summer and his life.

 Another example of a character with an unusual name is Elohim.  Elohim is used for the name of God in the Hebrew bible.  So we have a character who is called god and another character who is called devil, and yet the one called god does not act godly, and the one called devil does not act devilish.   It’s about taking these ideas and turning them on their heads.  I could go on about the names, but I fear that would prove an essay-length answer, so I’ll leave it by saying, each name used serves a purpose to the story.
Q: Which readers would this book appeal to?

 I would hope that it would appeal to lots of readers of various different genres from mystery to literary fiction.  It will also appeal to those readers who have an appetite for Midwestern literature.

Q: Why did you choose Ohio?

 I’m an Ohio native.  The fictional town in the novel, Breathed, Ohio, is based on my childhood summers and school-year weekends spent in southern Ohio, in the foothills of the Appalachians and on the hilly acreage of my father’s family farm.  Ohio is a landscape that has shaped me as an author and so far, for all the eight novels I have completed, Breathed, Ohio is the setting for them all.
Q: Any excerpts available?

 Yes, there is an excerpt available from the publisher's site here.

Tiffany McDaniel is an Ohio native whose writing is inspired by the rolling hills and buckeye woods of the land she knows. Also a poet and artist, she is the winner of The Guardian's 2016 "Not-the-Booker Prize" for her debut novel, The Summer that Melted Everything. The novel was also a Goodreads Choice Award double nominee in both fiction and debut categories, is a current nominee for the Lillian Smith Book Award, and a finalist for the Ohioana Literary Award and the Women's Fiction Writers Association Star Award for Outstanding Debut.

 To learn more about the novel, feel free to visit her website.
Here is the novel's Goodreads page.
And here is the novel's Amazon page.

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Review: LBC Shipping Cart!

Beware: I will rant on this post.

I wanted to write a short (not really) review with my recent experience with Shipping Cart (Owned by LBC).

 I admit that they are fast when it comes to deliveries. From my experiences, they do deliver fast shipments and you'll receive your items on time or before your expected delivery date. My very first transaction with them was smooth.

I only had to pay the store so they can ship to my SC address. After that, I'll wait for it to arrive at the warehouse. There's been some delay in posting the photos and items to your online cart even if it was delivered and accepted a few days ago. But for this, I'm okay. It's not a big deal.

 HOWEVER, my stressful encounter with Shipping Cart started with my most recent shipment. I bought a cosmetics and signed books from various shops because they were on sale. The shop confirmed that it has been accepted and delivered, SC warehouse also emailed to say it was accepted already. There were some delay with the posting on their website and on my account but that was fine with me. 

After a couple of days, my items were on my account, I checked, all items are accounted for. So I shipped them via air because I couldn't wait to get them. 

 My items arrived before the expected date which I was ecstatic about. But open checking my items, 1 was missing.

I emailed them. They said they'll look into it. That "looking into" lasted for 1 month. ONE MONTH! I had to send them a dozen follow up emails - i didn't get a reply - and a couple of calls to the LBC hotline which had a designated SC agent. 

I was stressed that the item i was most excited to receive was missing from my items. The peculiar thing was, the photo on my cart had the complete number of items. Clearly someone messed with my items. 

 Basically, if something went wrong with the shipment, you won't get much attention to it. Their customer service sucks big time. It's the worse I've encountered. 

 They didn't find my missing item. I had to follow up a hundred times to get a reply. I had to go through more stress with following up just to get my refund. 
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Cover Reveal: Crown of Bitter Orange by Laura Florand!

I am so excited for Laura's new book! Here's the cover of CROWN OF BITTER ORANGE to tide us over the next month! Let's see if Tristan can dethrone Matt from my heart. ;)

Laura Florand, bestselling author of The Chocolate Kiss, combines lush description, smart dialogue, provocative sensuality, and the perfume of love itself in A Crown of Bitter Orange, an irresistibly lush novel that is an ode to the scents and pleasures of the south of France and the beauty of falling in love.


FRIENDS BECOME LOVERS IN LAURA FLORAND’S CROWN OF BITTER ORANGE

A CROWN OF BITTER ORANGE
by Laura Florand
February 2017 / Ebook & Trade Paperback / Original / Fiction
$5.99 ebook / 978-1-943168-12-5/ $14.99 trade / 978-1-943168-13-2
Author Residence: Durham, NC

For review copies or to schedule an interview with the author, please contact:
laura@lauraflorand.com
PRE-ORDER LINKS
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo: link not yet available
iBooks: link not yet available
Google

Other books in the series:

Childhood friends. Tristan Rosier might have asked Malorie Monsard to marry him when he was five years old, but things had only gone downhill from there. She’d spent the rest of their lives ignoring him, abandoning him, and destroying his perfumes. Now she was back, to wreak who knew what havoc on his life.

Lifelong enemies. Tristan might choose to dismiss the generations-long enmity between their two families, but Malorie didn’t have that privilege. Like all the other privileges wealthy, gorgeous Tristan took for granted that she couldn’t. But if she was going to restore her family company to glory, she might just need his help.

Or the perfect match? They’d known each other all their lives. Could these childhood friends and lifelong enemies ever uncross their stars and find happily ever after?

PRAISE FOR LAURA FLORAND’S NOVELS:

“Chocolate, Paris, and a Greek god for a hero; this delectable confection has it all!” – Library Journal Starred Review

“(Florand) captures the nature of love, its fierce, soul-warming necessity, in a way that will make you as happy as the finest bonbon could.” – Eloisa James, The Barnes & Noble Review, a Best Book of 2013 selection

“Florand outdoes herself with this exquisite confection… painstakingly crafted and decadent as the sweets it portrays, leaving the reader longing for just one little taste.” – Publishers Weekly Starred Review

“Adorable, charming, whimsical.” – Smexy Books

“Florand serves up a mouth-watering tale of slow-burning passion and combustible consummation that’s as perfectly crafted as the hero’s surprisingly complex confections and as silky and addictive as the heroine’s dark chocolat chaud.”– RT Book Reviews, 4.5 stars, TOP PICK!, RT Seal of Excellence, RT Reviewers Choice nomination Best Book of 2013

“A delectable summer bonbon.” – NPR Books

“This is one of the cleverest, most persuasive enemies-to-lovers stories I’ve read in a long time.” – Dear Author, RECOMMENDED READ


Laura Florand burst on the contemporary romance scene in 2012 with her award-winning Amour et Chocolat series. Her international bestselling books have appeared in ten languages, been named among the Best Books of the Year by Romantic Times and Barnes & Noble, received the RT Seal of Excellence and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and been recommended by NPR, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

After a Fulbright year in Tahiti and backpacking everywhere from New Zealand to Greece, and several years living in Madrid and Paris, Laura now teaches Romance Studies at Duke University. Contrary to popular opinion, this means she primarily teaches French language and culture and does a great deal of research on French gastronomy, particularly chocolate. For more information, please see her website: www.lauraflorand.com.  

More Praise for Laura Florand’s Novels

“The battle of pastries is an erotic subtext for their love affair, and every bit as decadent.” – Publishers Weekly

“All the elements of [Florand’s] successful recipe for reading pleasure—headstrong heroine, dashing hero, sinful desserts, and sultry situations—come together in another deliciously entertaining offering.” — BOOKLIST

“Full of whimsical charm, great dialogue and what turns into a very sexy romance. The author weaves the food these two create into their romance so well… a truly charming book. Highly recommend.” – USAToday.com  

“Sweet, sexy, and all around delicious. I’m addicted. I can’t wait for the next book.” – Nalini Singh, NYT bestselling author


© Laura Florand, 2016
Well, look at that. Prince Charming. Malorie should have known she’d stumble over him the instant she set foot back in his kingdom. The man was the bane of her existence even when she was halfway around the world.
She put her hands on her hips and looked down at him, so peacefully dozing out in the open that he hadn’t even stirred at the sound of her feet in the great white pebbles by the river.
Tristan Rosier asleep looked exactly how Malorie had always imagined. Gorgeous. Insouciant. Not vulnerable in the least, except to being over-kissed by the sun. A wicked little smile curving his mouth as if that sun was a woman and he was quite used to this kind of treatment.
Shirtless and completely ripped, the definition of his muscles visible even relaxed in sleep. He’d probably just come down from that beautiful limestone cliff face rising on the other side of the gorge and his muscles were still pumped from it. One hand held a half-eaten apple, the other a small white paperback—Giono’s Hussard sur le toit—and they had both slumped to his torso when he dozed off. In full sun.
She sighed. It would serve Tristan right to have his nose peeling for a week, but then forty years from now, if he got skin cancer, it would be all her fault, and the last thing a Monsard needed was more lives on her conscience.
Plus, knowing Tristan, a peeling nose would probably improve his ability to flirt with hot actresses, not weaken it—he always managed flips like that. And his ability to flirt with hot actresses was already freaking annoying.
Fine. She dipped her hands in the milky green river, high from the recently melted snow in the peaks, limestone giving it that beautiful color. She carried the water back across the round white pebbles, tightened herself and double-checked her buttons to make sure her clothes weren’t going to melt off as soon as he winked at her, and then tossed the icy water over his bare torso.
Muscles flicked like a cat’s—powerful, lean, surging awake—and he opened his eyes, blinking sleepily at her as if she was all shadow in too much light. “Malorie Monsard,” he said, with a sensual, lazy pleasure, as if he’d just woken up on a Sunday morning and was quite happy to see that she was the woman draped in his bathrobe bringing him coffee in the hopes he would ask her to stay.
She had to dive fast into irony to protect herself, as she always did with him.
“You make a good Sleeping Beauty, Tristan.” She used the masculine beau au bois dormant. “Or should I say Snow White?” A nod to the half-eaten apple resting against his washboard abs.
Tristan sat up, blinking, his eyes clearing. “Malorie Monsard.” His voice flattened. He shifted to sit on the rock against which his head had been resting, cushioned by his backpack. “Trust you to replace the kiss in the story with ice water on a man’s skin.”
Yeah. Tristan had been as friendly to her as to any other female on the planet when they were in high school, but when they met again in New York, it had not gone well. For him.
Supple, expressive eyebrows that could lilt up subtly in amusement, invite a woman in with laughter, tease her wickedly, did what they always did when she was around. They drew together. “Malorie,” he said for the third time, looking around them at the limestone cliffs and the rushing spring river as if finally processing it. “What the hell are you doing here?”

 


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