Thursday, July 31, 2014

Tempted by His Touch

Tempted by His Touch 
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About the Book:

A boxed set with ten sizzling historical romances from ten bestselling historical romance authors. Fall in love with fabulous tales of intrigue, suspense, wit, and passion featuring dukes, rogues, alpha heroes…and the women who can’t resist them. JUST 99 CENTS from July 27 - Sept. 21---then it disappears FOREVER! http://amzn.to/UzXj9F

Scoundrel Ever After by Darcy Burke - Once upon a time there was a very bad boy who met a very nice girl....

Lady of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle - Educating a man in the art of love takes time. Lots of it.

Sonata for a Scoundrel by Anthea Lawson - Passion and secrets simmer against the glittering backdrop of 19th century musical celebrity.

To Dare the Duke of Dangerfield by Bronwen Evans - What's a lady to do when a notorious rake wins her estate in a game of cards?

Undone by Lila DiPasqua – One steamy, emotionally charged retelling of Rapunzel…Rescuing this beauty from the ‘tower’ is only the beginning…

The Problem with Seduction by Emma Locke - Elizabeth Spencer needs a man. She doesn't need to like him—because while she needs a man, she doesn't particularly want one.

A Dangerous Invitation by Erica Monroe - Daniel O'Reilly returns to win back Kate Morgan’s heart and prove he's innocent of murder.

Once Upon a Duke by Eva Devon - A widow looking to get seduced. A duke more than willing to oblige.

Great & Unfortunate Desires by Gina Danna - A marquis with a guilty past takes a bride in a world where love is fatal.

Dark Surrender By Erica Ridley - Trapped in darkness…. Their passion burns bright!
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About Darcy Burke:
A native Oregonian, Darcy lives on the edge of wine country with her devoted husband, their two great kids, and two Bengal cats. In her “spare” time Darcy is a serial volunteer enrolled in a 12-step program where one learns to say “no,” but she keeps having to start over. She’s also a fair-weather runner, and her happy places are Disneyland and Labor Day weekend at the Gorge.


About Bronwen Evans:
USA Today Bestselling Author Bronwen Evans grew up loving books. She writes both historical and contemporary sexy romances for the modern woman who likes intelligent, spirited heroines, and compassionate alpha heroes.
Her debut Regency romance, Invitation to Ruin won the RomCon Readers’ Crown Best Historical 2012, and was an RT Reviewers’ Choice Nominee Best First Historical 2011. Her first self-published novella, To Dare the Duke of Dangerfield, was a FINALIST in the Kindle Book Review Indie Romance Book of the Year 201,2 and a finalist in the RomCon Readers’ Crown Best Historical 2013. Her first contemporary released December 2012, The Reluctant Wife, won the RomCon Readers’ Crown Best Category 2013.

Newsletter: sign up at the top of Bronwen’s website

About Lila DiPasqua:
Lila DiPasqua is a multi-published, national bestselling author of historical romance with heat. Her novels are published by Penguin/Berkley, as well as having self-published works.
She is best known for her critically acclaimed Fiery Tales series. Her books have been featured on Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Clubs.
She lives with her husband and three children in Canada and is a firm believer in the happily-ever-after.

Newsletter: sign up on the sidebar of Lila’s website

About Delilah Marvelle:
Delilah Marvelle is the winner of the Reviewer's Choice for Best Sensual Historical Romance of the Year and had Booklist name her historical romance 'Forever and a Day' one of the TOP 10 Romances of the year. When she isn't writing, she's digging through inappropriate research books that include anything in history having to do with courtesans, brothels, sexual contraptions that were never properly used and other fascinating forms of dirty history that didn't make it into college textbooks. She includes all of her research in her books to ensure countless hours of entertainment and continues to take pride in knowing more about dirty history than most people feel comfortable with.


About Erica Ridley:
Erica Ridley learned to read when she was three, which was about the same time she decided to be a writer when she grew up.
She is the author of three Gothic romances, Too Wicked to Kiss, Too Sinful to Deny and Dark Surrender, the vampire romance "Never Been Bitten" in the paranormal romance anthology Born To Bite, contemporary paranormal romances Charmed and Midwinter Magic, and the holiday fantasy romance Let It Snow.
When not reading or writing romances, Erica can be found riding camels in Africa, zip-lining through rainforests in Costa Rica, or getting hopelessly lost in the middle of Budapest.


About Emma Locke:
Emma Locke is a writer and engineer living in the Pacific Northwest, where she loves hiking with her dog, hot yoga and riding out the annual 330 days of rain. Hiking and yoga give her time to plot, the lack of sun makes for perfect writing weather, and as for her day job, the dichotomy seems to work: her analytic side ensures her passionate, satisfying love stories don't mulch under her bed, and her author side forces her to keep writing more.

Newsletter: sign up at the bottom of Emma’s website

About Gina Danna:
Gina has spent the better part of her life reading. History has been her love and she spent numerous hours devouring historical romance stories, dreaming of writing one of her own. Years later, after receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees in History, writing academic research papers and writing for museum programs and events, she finally found the time to write her own stories of historical romantic fiction.
Now, under the supervision of her three dogs and three cats, she writes amid a library of research books, with her only true break away is to spend time with her other life long dream – her Arabian horse – with him, her muse can play.


About Erica Monroe:
Erica Monroe is a bestselling author of emotional, suspenseful romance. Though she has a Bachelor's degree in writing, she's been a secretary, a barista, and a retail assistant. Now Erica spends her days crafting lovable rogues and feisty heroines for her historical and new adult series. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, Heart of Carolina, and the Beau Monde Regency Romance chapter. When not writing, she is a chronic TV watcher, sci-fi junkie, lover of pit bulls, and shoe fashionista. She lives in the suburbs of North Carolina with her husband, two dogs, and a cat.

Newsletter: sign up on Erica’s website sidebar

About Eva Devon:
Author of sexy and laugh out loud funny Regencies, I'm also Maire Claremont, creator of dark and angsty Victorians!


About Anthea Lawson:
Anthea Lawson, called "a new star of Historical Romance" by Booklist, has won readers with her combination of spicy love scenes and elegant prose. Her first novel, PASSIONATE, was a Best First Book finalist in the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA awards.
Anthea also writes award-winning YA Urban Fantasy under the pen name Anthea Sharp.


GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Grand prize: iPad Mini (16GB) with surprise bonus print books [Open to US/CA]








Wings of the Butterfly by S.M. Pace Book Tour

S M Pace - Wings of the Butterfly - Virtual Book Tour

 

 

 


YA Fantasy
Date Published: August 15, 2014

 
Three nations teeter on the brink of war, and caught in the middle, a brother and sister find themselves surrounded by dangers they never imagined. 

Adopted by the Yurha, Toby still struggles to properly fit in.  Hunting in the forest, he stumbles across a jeweled cuff that attaches to his wrist and won’t come off.  Afraid at first, he is soon thrilled to discover the cuff carries powerful magic.  But as he tries to control it, he realizes the cuff is still linked to its original owner - an owner who will go to cruel lengths to get his magic back.

Miles away, Toby’s twin sister Ora struggles with life in a strange city.  She and family have fled Yois for Nietza, where Ora will not be arrested for possessing magic.  However, Nietza is not the magical paradise Ora had imagined.  Despite her new friends, she can’t feel safe in a country where women are little more than pawns. 

Secrets, brutal murders and war edging ever closer drive both siblings from their safe places.  Failure to stop those who pursue them will mean a fate worse than death. 


Toby worked at the wrist cuff, but it hardly budged.  It had become something like a piece of his arm.
Leaves shuddered overhead.  A pair of squirrels raced over the branches, chittering.  Toby sat alone against the bole of a tree, a half mile or so from the settlement.  No sign of an oversized hawk, but he had a better idea than scanning the branches.  He’d ended up inside the hawk’s mind before.  He thought he could do it again.
He stripped away his leggings and loin cloth and laid them beside him.  Naked, he shivered, despite the unusual heat of the mid-autumn day.  A thrill of fear coursed through him at the other part of his plan.  The memory of pale fur sprouting across his arm stuck hard in Toby’s head.  If it means what I think it means, the thought drifted as Toby steadied his breathing.  He pressed his back against the rough bark and sank into the wrist cuff.     
The wellspring of magic nearly swallowed him.  He tried to imitate what Kyat had done, pushing his awareness away from the crystals, and into the metal.  A different power, with the taste of metal, stung him.  
Blackness swallowed him.  He fought to stay aware.  Everything shifted, spun, and someone else’s mind swept over and around him.  He glimpsed scaled claws and dark feathers.  The hawk.
He watched through the creature’s eyes, and felt what it felt.  Spasms wracked its body. One claw flattened, flexed, the scales melting away to reveal a misshapen foot.  Toby cried out at the pain of even that small success.  Then the foot twitched and turned back into a claw, and with a strangled cry, the hawk took flight.
Toby was thrown back into his body.  He knew the hawk hid somewhere at the north-eastern edge of the pack’s territory, where the hills began to give way to mountains.  He’d also learned something else; the feel of a type of magic he’d never experienced before.  He sent his mind back into the wrist cuff.  
He pushed away the bits of his magic, and other magics he couldn’t name.  In the midst of those, the cuff held a bundle of power that curled and writhed.  Shifting magic.  
To wear fur and run on all fours.  To howl and tumble with his brothers.  To run with the pack during full moon hunts, and take down a deer with his teeth.  To be a wolf, like his family.  To be truly one of them.
Toby willed every ounce of those thoughts into the magic and spread it through his body.
A cramp struck his lower belly and doubled him over, then dropped him to his knees.  His chest tightened and, for a moment, panic seized him, and he wanted to shove the magic away.
He breathed slowly while spasms wracked his body.  The bones in his legs cracked first, shifting, and forcing him to stand awkwardly on his hands and feet.  Then his arms and back twisted.  His face crunched, stretched.  His shoulders popped.  Fur grew, like tiny pins bursting out of his skin.  The whine of an animal spilled from his throat.  


S. M. Pace

S. M. Pace lives with her husband in the wilds of Virginia, along with a pond full of fish, a turtle and too many squirrels.  When she's not writing, she's wrangling a dozen pre-schoolers, learning a new recipe or reading.
Website: http://www.smpace.com/home/
Twitter: @StephMPace
Blog: smpace.com
S. M. Pace's Fantasy World Post - Sign up to Fantasy World Post and get worldbuilding snippets, short fiction and behind the scenes peeks at my current WIP.  All free, just for signing up. 


How to Identify Your Writing Problems
My answer to this is pretty cut and dry, and something you probably already know.  Let other people read your work.  People who are not your best friends or relatives, who don’t care about bruising your delicate ego, and who genuinely want to help you become a better writer.
That last one is hard to find, but a gem when you find it.  Beta readers and critiquers who actually like your writing style, but will also tell you when something doesn’t work are like gold.  Try to hold on to them whenever you find them.  
In my opinion, a writer, especially just starting out, is too close to their story to identify issues in their writing.  What makes perfect sense to you, as the writer, because you have all the background knowledge, will leave a reader scratching their head.  “Why did Lady Anastasia chuck that whole box of jewelry into the lake?  She could have sold it and escaped to America, like she wanted.”
“No,” you insist. “That jewelry was a gift from her dead lover, and she could never bring herself to belittle his memory by selling it.  That’s revealed in chapter 25.”  
“Yeah, you may want to reveal that a lot sooner, or she seems kind of dumb.” Not revealing information soon enough is a pretty common problem, and definitely one I suffer from.   
Or maybe you use an abundance of adverbs, or you like to call characters by various names and epithets to avoid repeating words.  For example, John Jingleheimer Smith, is alternately John, Jackie, Jingles, Smith, Smitty and the blond-haired man, all in chapter one.  
I exaggerate, but you get the idea.  These are things that you won’t see as problems, because they work for you.  They are a part of how you process the initial rough draft, and a part of your writing style, and who you are as a writer.
By no means am I saying allow critiquers to re-write a story for you, or change your writing style.  But look for trends in critiques, and look for things that pop out at you.  Sometimes a single comment can help you spot an issue that even that critiquer wasn’t fully aware of.  As you grow more as a writer, you’ll get the hang of reading and revising your own work, and get better at spotting the problems a piece of your own writing has.  But I strongly suggest you never stop having your work beta read.  Even a seasoned writer benefits from getting other opinions.   


Will be available Upon Release

Cover Reveal & Giveaway: Without You Here by Carter Ashby

Cover Reveal
9781500331672
Book Title: Without You Here Author: Carter Ashby Genre: Contemporary Romance Release Date: September 9, 2014 Hosted by: Book Enthusiast Promotions
Synopsis 
After fighting with her boyfriend, Ettie’s only goal is to drown her sorrows in some Jack Daniels. But when she walks into a country tavern, her attention is immediately redirected to the sexy, older man at the bar. He looks lonely, and sad, and absolutely mouth-watering. Ettie can’t wait to put a smile on his face. For the first time in two years, Wyatt finds himself jolted out of his grief—and by a spunky, vivacious young woman who somehow sees right into his soul. What follows is a passionate weekend full of more life, laughter, and pure joy than he experienced in twenty years of marriage. After they part ways, Wyatt realizes that his feelings for Ettie run deeper than lust. He knows she has a boyfriend, but when he finds out that the boyfriend is his own son, Blake, Wyatt is shattered. He despairs of ever overcoming the guilt he’s slowly drowning in. But Ettie’s resilience and optimism might just save him after all. This Is Now is the sexy, heartwarming story of overcoming grief, embracing love, and learning to live in the moment. excerpt 
He didn't look up at me when he spoke. He was sopping up hollandaise sauce with a biscuit. "We should do this again, Ettie. Next weekend. How about it?" My heart was suddenly thundering in my ears. I watched him as he pointedly focused on cleaning his plate. "Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?" I asked. He finally looked up. Those blue eyes were hypnotic. And heartbreaking. "I'm asking you to have another fun weekend with me. That's what I'm asking." My eyes fluttered as they started to sting. "Do you need to get to know me better before asking me to be your girlfriend?" His jaw muscles tensed. "Ettie, I..." "Look, Wyatt. I have had just the absolute best time of my life with you this weekend. I have all the information I need to know I want to be in a relationship with you." He snorted and leaned back in his chair. "You don't know shit about me, Ettie. This was fun. But it was superficial and you know it." My chest constricted. I had to take a moment to swallow back the pain. "It wasn't superficial. I'm sorry it didn't mean as much to you as it did to me..." "It meant plenty and that's why I want to see you again. So let's do it, Ettie. Next weekend. We'll meet at the bar Friday and maybe we could road trip down to Gulf Shores or something. Or we could go zip-lining up at Cave City. All kinds of fun shit we could do together. That's what I want." "I want to go home with you." He looked away and shook his head in frustration. Meet the Author 
Carter Ashby was born and raised in Missouri. She is wife to a supportive, hard-working geek; homeschooling mother to three, future social miscreants; and caregiver to a high-strung, epileptic chihuahua and a severely accident-prone hound dog. Carter writes country romances and reads anything that sounds interesting. Social Links
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WYHcoverwrap Giveaway 
 
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Bella's Point by Elizabeth Seckman Blog Tour


Genre: Historical Romance
Release Date: 7/23/14






BLURB:

Isabella Troy Stanley is a divorced, slave freeing pariah surviving in the shattered post Civil War south the only way a fallen debutante knows how. She heads to a Yankee prison and buys herself a husband.

Jack Byron is the former Troy plantation stable boy and object of young Bella’s affection. He rejected her then, and he’s still not sold on the idea of marrying her now. Sure, she’s pretty, but he remembers too well how even a glance in her direction got a man of his standing ridden out of town with a semi-friendly warning. No, Jack’s more sensible now, not to mention he might still be betrothed to another woman.

It’s complicated.

Though to Bella, it’s simple: make Jack love her, marry her, and live happily ever after. The plan seems to work…at least until her secret is revealed.



Elizabeth is a wife, a mom, and a writer. She has four wonderful boys, one dusty house, and three published books to her credit. Feel free to check them out and buy them HERE! Erm, the books, not the kids or the house...though all things in life are negotiable ;)

You can find her here - Blog // Facebook // Twitter