CHAPTER 1
Lane Hart’s newest release drops on May 31st!
Pre-order Lovestruck at:
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1N0bwas
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1UhBQ1s
Blurb
Finding love just got a little easier…
What if I told you that there’s a magic potion that could lead you to the man of your dreams?
Would you drink it?
Josie Carter swore that there was no such thing as a “love potion” and that the crazy lady selling it at the hippie festival was a complete sham.
But a tiny little thread of hope is what made her try a sip.
A sip that caused a series of unfortunate events to unfold, wreaking havoc in her life but leading her to a man who just might be everything she’s been missing.
Before time runs out she’ll have to figure out if it’s true love, or if it’s all just too good to be true.
New York Times bestselling author Lane Hart was born and raised in North Carolina. She continues to live in the south with her husband, two daughters, and several pets named after Star Wars characters.
When Lane’s not writing or reading sexy novels, she can be found in the summer on the beaches of the east coast, and in the fall watching football, cheering on the Carolina Panthers.
The Battle of the Brains
The Misadventures of Maggie Moore #2
Publication Date: April 29, 2016
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Humor
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks
Maggie Moore is leaving small-town south Georgia behind to embrace adulthood on her own in big-city Atlanta.
Finding inspiration in the unique people she’s met covering obscure sporting events, Maggie decides it’s time to fill her life with adventure – just as soon as she figures out how to cut ties with good ol’ Murphy, and his pesky laws, once and for all.
Naturally, the universe has different plans.
Before she even sets out to cover her next big story, Maggie is bombarded with old wounds and new insecurities, forcing her to choose between the reality in front of her and the promise of a dream just out of reach.
Channeling the hard-fought lessons of her Dad, Maggie struggles against the seemingly insurmountable force that is her troublesome partner, learning the hard way that things are never as easy as you think they’ll be.
Purchase: Amazon | Amazon UK | B&N | Kobo | iBooks
This Book Contains: 1- Novella, 1-Short Story, and 1-Full-length novel!
Maggie Moore has been put on notice: Find a new place to live and a life for that matter.
Spurred on by her mom’s ultimatum, Maggie sets out to fulfill her dream of Life & Style Stardom, a la Martha Stewart. After a colossal failure on her first assignment, which has nothing to do with crafting or curtains by the by, she finds herself fighting to save her career.
Far from home, and struggling with the aftermath of a family death, Maggie’s already hard fought lifelong battle with Murphy, and his pride-stealing Laws, kicks into high gear. Her enigmatic world-renowned photo journalist currently sporting a chip-the-size-of-Mount-Rainier on his shoulder might have something to do with it.
Determined to succeed despite numerous bumps along the way, Maggie throws herself – quite literally – into the heart of her assignments as she travels across the country, unlocking the oddities of various obscure sporting events and surviving the World’s Most Difficult Partnership along the way.
Summary:
Can Apollo’s curse be broken?
Seventeen-year-old Hope Nicholas is done running. Apollo’s curse has ruled her entire life, limiting her choices and robbing her of the things that matter most. But she refuses to live in fear any longer. In fact, she’s ready to do whatever it takes to break the god’s power over her existence.
When the goddess Artemis instructs Hope to impersonate a demigod and infiltrate a conservatory to get access to the Olympian library, she doesn’t hesitate. As she sees it, there’s nothing left to lose.
But once inside, Hope discovers the only way to get what she needs is to work with her sworn enemies. As the lines between demigod and monster are crossed again and again, Hope has to dig deep for the courage to accept her fate or fight for the freedom to save herself.
Demigods and Monsters is the second book in the Sphinx series.
Excerpt:
Mama’s Thoughts:
As with the first book, Raye Wagner effortlessly infuses ancient mythology into our modern world. There’s even more action in the second installment of the Curse of the Sphinx series, Demigods and Monsters, and a good deal more of the story of Hope’s purpose unfolds. I didn’t like Athan nearly as much in the first book as I did with this one, but I think that was on purpose. I think we are set up to be wary of anyone, just like Hope is. She’s come a long way, having become more self-sufficient after the previous book’s events. I love her tenacity and her ability to think fast in situations as they arise. She’s a character you genuinely root for, even when she’s not sure if she’s in the right, nor are you. I always appreciate a good young love story, but it’s nice to not have the focus remain on romance. We have such an exciting premise that it would be difficult not to get completely engrossed in the subject. I’m always fascinated by mythologies that are rewritten for a new story, and Raye Wagner’s Curse of the Sphinx series is not only original, but also heaps of fun. Safe enough for younger teens but interesting enough for adults, I’d rate it 13 and up.
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Tour by yabound:
There’s a new Alpha in town and he just found his mate, she just doesn’t know it yet.
Welcome to Crestview, Montana. Population ~1000 and not all of those are human.
After his brother is murdered, Ian must step up to become Alpha of his bear shifter pack. At the same time law student Mara shows up in town, and Ian knows she’s destined to be his mate.
When a rival pack lays claim to Mara, Ian and his brothers will stop at nothing to protect her.
About Alyssa Rose Ivy
Alyssa Rose Ivy is the bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels with over half a million books sold worldwide. She loves to weave stories with romance and humor, and she is best known for writing about college boys with wings and skinny dipping. After surviving law school and earning her masters in library science, she turned back to her creative side and decided to write. Although raised in the New York area, she fell in love with the South after moving to New Orleans for college. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two young children, and she can usually be found with a cup of coffee in her hand.
Release Day Blitz
Dryden Nightmares by Fluffy Sama, Laura Konrad, Kitty Sarkozy, Eugene Kelly III, and Katie Papilio
Release Day: April 28, 2016
Genre: Horror
The Dryden Experiment is expanding its Creative Commons revolution into new genre. Dryden Nightmares gives you nine treasures of the horror genre plus a bonus creepiness from Dryden founder Katie Papillio.
Welcome to the twisted minds of Kitty Sarkozy, Eugene Kelly, Laura Konrad, Katie Papilio, and Fluffy Sama. They are the things that go bump in the night.
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Whoa dudes. I started reading this collection at night and quickly put it away for day time reading. I’m not easily scared (Clive Barker cured me of that) but I was chilled to the core with some of these entries! There’s something for all kinds of horror fans- from psychological terrors to gory messes and everything between. I loved the style of very short chapters written by the different authors, and the way all the stories coalesced into a greater nightmare. Dryden has consistently put out some of the most exciting science fiction, so it’s no surprise they would kill it with horror as well! I really hope that Kitty Sarkozy and Laura Konrad give me heaps more of their stories, but I enjoyed each contribution in its own right. If you’re not easily scared or creeped out, grab this gem from Amazon and get to readin’.
Way to Roll
by Mandy Colton
GENRE: Romance (humorous)
BLURB:
Secure your seat belt and get ready for another bumpy ride.
Veronica Lane never considered her life dull as a single woman working in the travel industry as a sales representative—not until one bad day ends in the loss of her dream job, and desperation leads her to Cavalcade Tours. The fun quickly turns into chaos and eyebrow-raising questions. Disaster leads to a shocking revelation leaving Veronica disgruntled and unsure if she has what it takes to begin a whole new career.
Some time away, deep thought, and her own misadventures have her gathering up the remains of her dignity and returning to her job with its interesting group of colorful and charismatic cohorts…with one big change. She’ll no longer just be a tour escort this time. Milton Porter, the owner of Cavalcade Tours, owns another company with secrets.
With her mind made up, new skills, passport in hand, and her bags packed, Veronica is ready to roll out for new destinations. Things get hairy as she tackles the dual roles her new job demands, dodging wild animals, nasty foes, and sometimes even the new men in her life.
Surrounded by kooky tourists, Veronica’s adventures place her in some dramatic and hilarious situations, and each return home to Peachtree City, Georgia has its own drama with her family of oddballs, nutty bunch of friends, and their pets. Her new life is sometimes bumpy and filled with turbulence, but it stays an intriguing and exciting ride.
Excerpt: Tiny Things Make Big Stirs
When Nash came back, he was naked, having shed his own wet clothes, and he was carrying a tray full of food.
That made me giggle. I pointed at his man parts. “Ha! A naked waiter. That’s pretty hot. I wanna place my order right now.”
He snickered and sat down in the floor next to the tub with the tray and began spooning me soup. That’s when I got a really good look at him in the light. He was almost blue!
“Nash?”
“Yeah, kitten.”
I giggled again. “You look like a Smurf.”
He laughed. “So do you. We’re working on that.”
He fed me another bite of soup.
“You have to take some bites too,” I said touching his cold face.
He did and then smiled at me, and we continued to eat until the food was gone. He set the tray aside and then warmed up the water, stepping into the tub behind me and wrapped his arms around me.
“We did it, and we’re safe now, right?”
“Yes, we did, and we are safe.”
Feeling warmer, I was really getting drowsy again, thinking about the way he always seemed to come through and save us, keeping me and others around him safe. The sweet way he took care of me. The thoughts were giving me the warm fuzzies again. I picked up the hand on my stomach and grazed his fingers with my lips. Without thinking, I whispered, “Nash, I really love you.”
His body instantly tensed and minutes went by. Then he finally said in a very monotone voice, “Let’s get out of the tub and go to bed.”
I became more alert as we dried off, and when we crawled into the bed, he put his arm around me, but that was it. It was only a double bed and the cover was thin making me feel like the gesture had been made more out of necessity than affection. He never said a word, he never touched me further, and I felt the uncomfortable void that had suddenly grown between us like the Grand Canyon. And there was definitely emotional distance involved, he didn’t desire me anymore. When Nash was this close, he was always aroused. Not so tonight. It was what I’d said in the bathtub. I hadn’t really meant to say those words, meaning that I…that I really… I sighed. Fudge. They’d just sort of tumbled out and were hanging there for those awkward moments, and now something had changed in Nash. Guess I knew a sure fire way now how to repel him. Mentally and physically exhausted, I closed my eyes and quickly fell asleep.
Nash was up early and had already reported to WIC, and uploaded photos, and a map of the militia location. He had called the lady at the front desk about our wet clothes, and she’d been nice enough to stop by the room and take them for laundering. There wasn’t much we could do about our leather boots and jackets, as they were pretty much ruined. Nash gave the nice lady at the motel a generous tip, and thanked her for all she’d done for us when we left. We headed out, stopped quickly for some food, and moved on toward Crater Lake.
Nash had been unusually quiet all morning. He’d been polite, but curt, and avoided eye contact. It had stung the first time I put my arms around him on the bike and he’d gone nearly rigid like he couldn’t bear my touch. I was left with no doubts about how he felt regarding emotional ties, and I really wished that we could just go home now that we’d completed the mission. The rest of this trip was going to be miserably uncomfortable.
We caught up with the group at Crater Lake at the end of their hike. They were heading to a natural hot spring to soak, relax, and have some beers before dinner. Nash went with them, and I told Jemah to wake me to help with dinner and then headed to the coach for a nap. A while later, when I woke up and stepped off the coach, I noticed that the motorcycle was gone. Damn, the company I worked for had connections.
Nash set up his tent and sleeping bag for me that night, but he never joined me. He was up early, had breakfast with other tour members, and at the next coach stop, he disappeared. Although I wasn’t really surprised, it still hurt that he’d left without saying goodbye again.
The next two nights and days passed quickly. It had helped that I was in a mindless fog most of the time. We toured the caves of Lava Beds National Monument, a place where the U.S. Army and the Modoc Indians faced off at Captain Jack’s stronghold, and then Lassen National Park, currently a quiet volcano. The park had enough cracks in the earth and thermal activity to make the average man nervous and excite a volcanologist. Was supposed to be one of the wonders of the world. Made you wonder when it was really going to blow its stack again and hope you didn’t happen to be the dodo standing in the middle of it like we’d been.
Regarding blowing stacks… We had one more moment of excitement during the tour, and it came in a surprising form the last morning of the trip. I hadn’t slept much since Nash had left and was up early, had already showered and even helped in the breakfast line. Nash surprised the heck out of me and walked off the coach during breakfast, turning to give me a slight smile. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t already back in Atlanta.
This camp had a nice shower house, and Jemah donned her vintage swim cap again and headed that way after breakfast with her clothes and big scrub brush in hand while the rest of us finished cleaning up.
We had packed up the coach, and I was sitting at a picnic table talking to a few members of the group when we heard a hair-raising, high-pitched shrieking, followed by a sound like a squealing pig on the move. The door slammed open on the bathhouse, and out blasted a dripping wet and au naturel Jemimah, who was moving like the Roadrunner similar to that day after the bear encounter, scrub brush still in hand. We watched her squeal all the way to the coach and hop all three steps at one time like a mad bullfrog. Right before that door slammed shut, we heard a male scream, and Sully’s face appeared, plastered against the door window, looking freaked out with mouth agape. Suddenly, the door opened and he tumbled out onto the ground with a grunt, and then the door slammed shut again behind him. He just sat there on the ground, dazed and blinking, kind of like he was in shock.
After the rest of us had recovered from our own shock at that scene, some of the guys at the picnic table actually formed a plan and donned weapons and gloves to go in the bathhouse like they were expecting to find a killer or rapist like in the slasher flicks. They grabbed a cooking fork, a chopping knife, some big sticks, and a hammer and went to investigate. They came out several minutes later with Jemah’s clothes, howling with laughter. The only thing that they’d found was a tiny little deer mouse with a litter of babies.
Later, when we asked Jemah about it, she swore that it had raised up and tried to attack her like a momma bear with cubs. Poor Sully grumbled that his eyes burned and his butt was bruised for the first fifty miles heading back to Frisco. Nash pretty much stayed clear of me during the trip back.
Dedication
The Way to Go series is dedicated to all of the men and women I had the pleasure to work and have fun with in the travel business. The memories of that time and those friends helped to write these books. They were all a great group of people with different personalities, and from all over the globe with one big thing in common; a fascination with the world around us. We shared many good times and laughs when we got to together, when we traveled together, hilarity usually ensued. Some have moved on from travel like myself, and sadly, some are gone.
Last, and not least at all is my little family. My very supportive husband, my loving son, and Willy the dog with the twitchy back leg.
Mama’s Thoughts:
This was a bit of a slow build up, but once the fun started I was rolling with laughter! I didn’t easily identify with most of the characters, but absolutely loved Ewan and Fletcher! They were like the besties I wish I had. Not your typical romantic comedy, Way to Roll infuses bits of a spy thriller and espionage game into a tightly wound ball of laugh out loud lines and swoony romantic times. I’d recommend this for adults only, and ones who like to chuckle and snort while they read.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Mandy Colton is from Louisville, KY, and lives a very quiet life with her husband and teenage son. A fan of romance, fun adventure, drama, humor, and on occasion sci-fi stories. The idea for the Way to Go series came from her years, own adventures and experiences working in the travel industry.
Most of the experiences that plague her heroin, Veronica Lane, actually happened to her or someone she knows. The circumstances were sometimes not nearly as glamorous and are embellished some in the books.
She claims that working in the travel business could be horribly stressful but equally laugh-out-loud funny at times. Along the way she met many interesting people all over the world, and enjoyed many priceless and comical experiences with those people, her groups, friends, and peers. Even her clients shared humorous adventures of their own. Her opinion is, that there are just no better stories than those that involve true life.
Subscribe for notifications on future new releases! http://www.mandycolton.com and www.mandycoltonfiction.com
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1 in every 68 children is diagnosed with Autism. 1 in every 42 Boys
The LIFT Campaign is a charitable initiative rallying the romance reading community around Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) families in April, Autism Awareness month. Experts estimate that many ASD families spend up to $60,000 out of pocket each year on medical and therapy expenses. This year we’re raising funds to assist families struggling to manage these staggering costs. All profits go to the family scholarship program of Talk About Curing Autism (TACA).
The online auction is LIVE! There are too many items from authors and bloggers up for bid to list here, but we have full signed collections from some of your favorite bestselling authors. We have non-book items like Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon Echo, VIP Tickets to the Mile High Denver author signing, and so many other goodies! So start bidding while doing good!
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Title: THE
ROSE & THE DAGGER
“Above all there is the shattering, triumphant
catharsis of love… In a story about stories, love is ‘the power to speak
without words.’ Thrillingly full of feeling.”—Kirkus Reviews“Fiery romance, a spirited heroine, shifting loyalties… With more than a few
heartrending twists and turns.”—Booklist
Click to read an Excerpt
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Twenty minutes later, we reached the edge of the trees, crouched down, and peered at the structure before us. Technically, it was a mansion, although the gleaming white stone and architecture made it look more like a castle. Tall, skinny, diamond-paned windows. White trellises with red roses winding up through the slats. Towers topped with red flags bearing the Draconi Family crest of a snarling gold dragon. Everything about the castle made it seem as though it had been dropped on top of the mountain right out of a fairy tale. But there were no happy endings here—just danger, despair, and misery.
Devon, Felix, and I had been sneaking over here every night for the past two weeks on our thieves’ errand, and we fell into our usual routine of watching the guards patrolling the grounds. It was almost full dark now, and Devon and Felix were both wearing black cloaks to help them blend into the shadows. I sported my mom’s long, sapphire-blue trench coat, made out of spidersilk that also helped me melt into the growing blackness.
The Draconi guards were dressed in black boots, pants, and shirts, along with blood-red cloaks and matching feathered cavalier hats, making them look like extras from a Three Musketeers movie. But they were much more dangerous than that. All of the guards had their hands on the swords belted to their hips, looking for intruders, as well as keeping an eye out for any monsters that might be creeping up on them. Many an inattentive guard had been snatched by a copper crusher and dragged into the forest, unlucky enough to be the oversize, venomous snake’s dinner date.
“Are we good?” Felix asked, checking his phone. “It’s almost time for us to meet Deah. You know how she worries if we’re even one minute late.”
With good reason. If she was caught helping the enemy, Deah would be executed right along with us, despite the fact that she was Victor’s daughter.
Instead of answering him, I started counting the guards along the perimeter. One, two, three … It didn’t take me long to realize that something was different tonight. Worry shot through me.
“Wait,” I whispered. “There are more guards patrolling tonight.”
Devon frowned and squinted at the compound. “How can you tell?”
“I can see them. Trust me. There are more guards.”
“Can we still take our usual route into the mansion?” he asked in a tense voice, his hand dropping to the duffel bag sitting at his feet. “This is our last trip. If we can get in and out tonight, then we’re done with this.”
“Give me a second to work it out,” I said.
Devon and Felix both fell silent, although they kept looking from me to the guards and back again. I focused on the guards, staring at first one, then another. It took me less than a minute to realize that Victor had only doubled the number of guards, pairing them up in teams of two. I wondered at the change and why he thought he needed so many men up here at the castle, instead of patrolling down on the Midway like usual. But Victor hadn’t altered the guards’ routes, which meant that we could still get into the mansion the same way as before.
“We’re good,” I said. “Text Deah, and tell her that we’re on our way in.”
Felix nodded, his thumbs flying over his phone. A second later, his phone lit up with a message. “Deah says that the coast is clear on her end.”
“Good,” I said. “Follow me.”