Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Harlequin Celebrates!!! 10 Years of Halequin Series eBooks with 10,000 Titles at $1.99 from 11/10 thru 11/17




For one week only (November 10-17), Harlequin is having a $1.99 on 10,000 Harlequin series eBooks! The sale is restricted to the following U.S. e-retailers: Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, Apple, Kobo, Google and Harlequin.com

Celebrate 10 years of eBooks with Harlequin books!
 10,000 titles on-sale for $1.99 each! 
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Cover Reveal: Love is Found by R. Paone




Title: Love is Found
Series: Only If #1 
Author: R. Paone
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Cover Design: R. Paone
 Release Date: November 16, 2015



Blurb

“Love is Found” is the moving story about coming-of-age in suburban New York and discovering the broad concept of sexuality and love.

Based on true events of love, the story’s protagonist, Robert, finds himself thrown into the realization that upon entering graduate school he is beginning a new chapter in his adult life. Comfortable with being gay, he yearns for love but dwells on the ideal of being alone while being consumed by the world of academia. Upon starting a new job he meets a coworker, whom he begins an unlikely relationship with considering this man identifies as straight.

When sex is introduced and emotions run amok, the routine of Robert’s life is thrown into chaos with unexpected outcomes. Little does he know if his heart can survive the overwhelming desire and how this man will alter the course of his life just not now, but for the next decade.

The first novel in the debut “Only If…” series by R.Paone introduces the heartbreaking portrait of one young man finding love in all the wrong places while exploring themes of one’s sexual identity, passion, and nostalgia.








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Excerpt


“Are you sleeping?”

My eyes cracked open. I was still lying in the bed of grass. I am glad my dream was a true account of what happened the night before. I sat up and smiled as Mitch was standing over me with a grocery bag of food he picked up from the market. He was looking at me with such intent and determination. We were headed to the local art museum downtown but stopped by the adjacent park to have some lunch. I looked at my cell phone, I must have fell asleep for about five minutes. A good dream, nonetheless. It’ll happen again, I know it.

He emptied the contents of the bag onto the a bath towel we grabbed from his apartment and turned his gaze to me before even opening the container of hummus and bottle of water.

“I have something I have to tell you.”

I held my breath and waited… “





Author Bio


R. Paone started on this writing journey in June, 2014. From events that were beyond his control, he decided to start this new path in his life before my 30th birthday. It has been quite the journey mapping out this story arc. He has learned so much writing a novel in that it has been therapeutic and also eye opening as it evolves. He hopes everyone will enjoy what is to come from the "ONLY IF" series as I want this to be something anyone could reach for and say "that could happen to me." Stay tuned! Three fun facts about him is: he live in NYC, has a vast horror movie collection and has a great appreciation for Enya.




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His Muse by Coral F. Black




Title: His Muse
Series: His Muse #1
Author: Coral F. Black
Genre: Contemporary Romance
 Release Date: November 11, 2015



Blurb

No one had ever looked at me like that. Especially not the hottest man I’d ever seen. He had the lean, tan muscles of a world class athlete, thick black hair, huge hands marbled by big veins. Before he picked up his camera to shoot, he looked at me with eyes that could have set me on fire.


Nothing else mattered; he was all I wanted.



But when Daniel Baldessari called me “undateable" in order to get a reaction for the perfect fashion shot, I knew I was really in trouble.



And after that first shoot, things started getting even stranger. Who was the “mystery client” that wanted to hire me for an exclusive contract and was sending me gorgeous flowers and boxes of sexy silk clothing and stilettos so that I’d say yes? Why did Daniel Baldessari’s beautiful cousin keep showing up at his house? And what was the dark secret from his past that threatened to tear us apart before I could find out if this maddening man even wanted me?


I knew I had to find out.







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Excerpt

Chapter 1: Gaze

When I met Daniel Baldessari, I didn't know what real romantic love was. But I didn’t really care.

All I cared about was how he looked at me. No one had ever looked at me that way. Especially not the hottest man I’d ever laid eyes on.

Like a hunter about to pounce on his prey and lick her to death.

“Twyla,” he growled, his voice deep and rich like dark honey. “Unusual.”

“Daniel Baldessari,” I said back, surprising myself with the breathiness of my voice. I usually wasn’t a flirt. But the way he looked at me…I could feel my body lotion melting on my skin. I swallowed hard and my legs trembled like a deer’s in the crazy high sandals he’d had me wear.

I’d come to Daniel’s studio in his home in the hills above the city. An Italian villa with balustrades and columns, walls overgrown with bougainvillea and morning glory vines. Large plate glass windows overlooked the city that was sparkling after a very unusual and much-needed Los Angeles rain. I walked down a path lined with long, pointed cypress trees, up the marble steps to the front door. A dark-haired woman in a pencil skirt and sky-high heels met me and ushered me inside.

Daniel Baldessari was leaning against the wall wearing a white collared shirt open at the neck and jeans that clung to his ass and thighs and threatened to tear at the knee.

Those eyes were watching me where I stood in the bright light of the room. So intense.

Was he mad at me? Did I look all right? I felt my knees weaken and practically buckle under me. How was I going to model?

“Twyla, are you feeling uncomfortable?” he asked. “Do you feel good in the clothes?” He was holding a large, black, expensive-looking camera and his sleeves were rolled up so I could see the veins in his arms and hands.

Vein porn.

“The dress is beautiful,” I said. “I love everything.” I sounded like a twelve-year old.

“Then why do you look so tense?” He wasn’t smiling.

I stared down at the shiny white floor that matched the flawless walls. Then I made myself look back up at him.

“This is my first time,” I blurted.

“Really?” He put down his camera and came over to me. He was much taller than I was, even in the high heels. The body of a world-class athlete. I realized I was holding my breath.

“Where are you from?” he asked. He was close enough that I could smell the clean, foresty scent of his thick, black curls.

“Ohio.”

“That’s very exotic.”

“I know, right?” I tried to joke back. He still didn’t smile.

“Well, Twyla from Ohio, it’s nice to be your first.”

I didn’t think I was imagining the implication. What could I say to that? I pressed my thighs together and the thong dug into me, not in a bad way.

He went on, “But this is the big city and I need you to nail this. You got this job without a go-see. No one gets that opportunity. And I’m not sure if you realize that every minute we waste is costing the client money.”

If I hadn’t been aware, I was then. God, I wanted to please him. It was instinctual, powerful. And it wasn’t just about pleasing the client. I need to get the money to send to Jack.

“Now, just relax.”

Right.

“Pretend you’re alone, with your boyfriend, doing something you love.”

I blushed again; I could feel it travelling from my cheeks down my throat to the tops of my breasts. If I weren’t careful, my nipples would light up.

“What?” He sounded really impatient now.

“No boyfriend,” I said. There was Cooper but he wasn’t like Daniel Baldessari.

Compared to Daniel, Cooper was a boy in the presence of a man.

“That’s impossible,” Daniel said. “A young woman like you.” I felt myself melt a little. Was he flirting? Then he paused, held up his camera and pointed it at me like a weapon. “Unless. Is there something undateable about you?”

My mouth dropped open and adrenaline shot through my body. “What did you just say?”

But Daniel Baldessari was busy snapping photos of my animated expression, my adrenalized body.

“That!” he said. “That’s what I want.”

The manipulative piece of… And that was how it began.






Author Bio

Coral F. Black lives in Los Angeles. This is her first novel.




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The Lost by Cole McCade




Title: The Lost
Series: Crow City #1
Author: Cole McCade
Genre: Erotica
Release Date: August 25, 2015



Blurb


There's something wrong with Leigh. 

She's known it her whole life. She knows it every time she spreads her legs. Every time she begs for the pain, the pleasure, the heat of a hard man driving deep inside. She's a slave to her own twisted lusts--and it's eating her alive. She loves it. She craves it. Sex is her drug, and she's always chasing her next fix. But nothing can satisfy her addiction, not even the nameless men she uses and tosses aside. No one's ever given her what she truly needs. 

Until Gabriel Hart. 

Cold. Controlled. Impenetrable. Ex-Marine Gabriel Hart isn't the kind of man to come running when Leigh crooks her pretty little finger. She loathes him. She hungers for him. He's the only one who understands how broken she is, and just what it takes to satisfy the emptiness inside. But Gabriel won't settle for just one night. He wants to claim her, keep her, make her forever his. Together they are the lost, the ruined, the darkness at the heart of Crow City. 

But Leigh has a darkness of her own. A predator stalking through her past--one she'll do anything to escape. 

Even if it means running from the one man who could love her...and leaving behind something more precious to her than life itself. 

TRIGGER WARNING: 18+
This book contains material that may be triggering or deeply disturbing to some readers, including scenes discussing or detailing rape, physical and emotional abuse, and incest. Please focus on self-care and, if this book is triggering to you, do not be afraid to put it down and walk away, or skip certain chapters. Be good to yourselves. 
-C








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Prologue

“STATE YOUR NAME.”

Cold, clipped words, blending into the noise of the police station. Leigh lifted her head from a fixed study of her clenched fingers. Colors whirled around her in a lurid carnival nightmare, too bright, too blurry. On a bench on the far side of the room, a wasted and broken scarecrow woman picked at a scab on her wrist with a certain habitual listlessness, oozing diseased red-brown blood over liver spots. Her tendons were rails under her skin, and the dull gleam of cuffs chained her to the bench. She raised her head and stared at Leigh with yellowed eyes that captured her with a sort of empty, terrifying promise.

Across the desk a policewoman waited, with that compassionate impatience only a half-step from pity and shoulder-to-shoulder with disgust. Her flat blue eyes said she’d been trained to care, but couldn’t be bothered anymore. Leigh swallowed and tugged her hoodie close against the tinny air-conditioned chill. Her mouth had dried to a tacky, sticky mess, gummy pills of lipstick beading on her lips, and her tongue was a bloated and useless organ, this swollen pink thing pushing pointlessly against her teeth.

“Leigh,” she ground out. “Clarissa Leigh…” Her married name scratched sandpaper syllables against her throat. “…van Zandt.”

“And Miss van Zandt, do you know why you’re here?”

She nodded, her neck a creaking wooden puppet-hinge. “I do.”

“Your family’s been worried about you.”

“I know.”

She knew what she should do here. Bow her head in shame and contrition, maybe even sniffle. But she looked for the emotions and they weren’t there; just scraps and tatters, clinging to the empty place where they belonged. She had no feeling left, hollowed out and lost and wondering how she’d ended up here. This didn’t feel real. Instead it was a dream where everyone leered in fisheye close-up, their smiles all teeth and stretched red lips and manic glee. She wanted to run, but somehow she’d gone too numb to do anything but sit here surrounded by the stink of fear-sweat, stale beer, and that particular police-station smell of urine soaked into concrete for decades on end.

“What happened to you?” the officer asked. Leigh didn’t answer, and the officer’s pen tapped against the forms on her desk, rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat, Morse code for I’d rather be anywhere but here with this spoiled little runaway princess. “It’s been four years. You were declared legally dead.”

“That’s all right.” She closed her eyes with a laugh that ripped her guts up into her mouth, and buried her face in her hands. Dead. Dead.

Yeah, that was about right.

“Miss van Zandt?”

Stop calling me that.

“Miss van Zandt. I need you to focus on my voice.”

Stop calling me that!

Leigh took a measured breath and opened her eyes. Her shoulders squared. The bolts on the back of the hard, ass-biting chair dug into her shoulder blades. “I am focused. I can hear you just fine.”

“Eyes are dilated.” The officer—her nametag read Maroni, could there be a more clichéd name for a Crow City cop—leaned across the desk, peering at her face. Then she beckoned to the aide hovering over them like a mannequin. “I’ve seen this too many times. Drugs and prostitution.” She talked about Leigh like she wasn’t even there. “We’ll have to clean her up before her husband gets here.”

“I’m not on drugs. I’ve never been on drugs.”

Maroni’s pen-clicking stopped. Her disbelief was a heavy thing, push-push-pushing until Leigh nearly laughed.

“You’re not on drugs.”

“No.”

“Then what happened?”

There it was. The first hint of exasperation. Of frustration, stitched into knitted brows and the purse of lips in just the right shade of I can’t be a woman, I’m a cop mauve. Because like anyone normal, anyone who wasn’t fucking broken to pieces and liked being that way, Maroni needed to make sense of this. Needed to quantify it in a world where the rules worked as normal and everyone wanted to chase that dream of happiness that wasn’t anything but desperation painted over of a frantic tally of things. Things of plastic, things with value created by people whose upper lips curled when they looked down at little girls like Leigh, and demanded she account for herself in sane, rational ways that made proper sense.

Sorry, Officer Maroni.

I’m not the kind of thing that makes much sense.

Maroni pushed a harsh sound through her teeth. “You had a job, a husband, a newborn son. You had a life other people would kill for, and we find you here on the streets. Were you pressured? Kidnapped?”

“No. None of that.” Leigh shook her head.

“You’ll have to explain, then.”

“I left.” She trailed off, lips parted; no words came for long seconds, until she managed, “I…I was afraid.”

“Of what?” Maroni tried to catch her eye, but Leigh looked down at her hands, at her chipped pink fingernails dipped in the sparkles of shooting stars. “Miss van Zandt. If someone was hurting you, you need to tell us now so we can take appropriate steps to protect you.”

“No. No one hurt me. Not like that.”

“I’m afraid you’ll need to be more clear. What were you afraid of?”

“Of…”

She struggled for an answer. Struggled for something this woman would accept, something that would make her sigh with sympathy and pity and relieved disdain that said there, but for the Grace of God…

But again, she found nothing. Nothing but the truth, and Leigh shrugged as she looked up at the policewoman and wondered if she had daughters who might one day be like Leigh, daughters who would cut stark red lines of fingernails in the walls of flesh that caged her in the shape of pop culture’s perfect woman.

“Of the inevitable monotony of it all,” she said.

And smiled.







Author Bio



COLE MCCADE IS A NEW ORLEANS-BORN SOUTHERN BOY without the Southern accent, currently residing somewhere in the metropolitan wilds of the American Midwest. He spends his days as a suit-and-tie corporate consultant and business writer, and his nights writing romance novels when he’s not being tackled by two hyperactive cats. And while he spends more time than is healthy hiding in his writing cave instead of hanging around social media, you can generally find him in these usual haunts: 

• Email: cole@colemccade.com 

• Twitter: @ColeMcCade 

• Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/cole.mccade 


• Website & Blog: http://www.colemccade.com 


He also runs an advice column called Dammit, Cole, where he occasionally answers questions about everything from romance and dating to the culture of hypermasculinity, from the perspective of a male romance author: 


Looking for more? You can get early access to cover reveals, blurbs, contests, and other exclusives by joining the McCade’s Marauders street team at:






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Play Dirty by L.P. Maxa




Title: Play Dirty
Series: The Devil's Share #2
Author: L.P. Maxa
Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: November 11, 2015



Blurb

PILLS. PAIN. LOSS. LOVE.

Smith James doesn’t need drugs. He just likes them a whole lot. And as bassist for the Devil’s Share, they are easy to come by. So are the women. With a steady supply of both he doesn’t have to think too hard about his past. But when a beautiful physician’s assistant joins the tour, Smith can’t help but want…more.

After watching her high school boyfriend OD, there is no way Dylan Lawson is going to fall for a rock star with a tenuous hold on sobriety, no matter how sexy his New Orleans drawl. She’s been hired to do one job: monitor the health of the lead singer’s girlfriend and her unborn baby. But once Smith flashes that sweet, vulnerable smile, Dylan can’t help but want…more.

And more is what they’ll get. Love on tour is never simple, and with a music festival in Smith’s hometown, a place he’s avoided for years, near his illiterate, abusive, meth-addled father, Smith is one bad night away from a relapse. But with her heart already lost, Dylan is willing to do whatever is necessary to save him—even play a little dirty.


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Excerpt


The bathroom door opened and Dylan stepped out, wearing nothing but a towel around her body with her long dark hair piled on top of her head. There were still water droplets running down her skin from her shower. Holy fuck, the desire to lick them off was so strong I took a step towards her.

“You’re back.” Dylan looked from me to the door, almost like she was surprised to see me.

“Yeah, the reporters were crazy…took me a little while to push my way through. Dash was right to hire more security…” I let my words trail off. The sight of her in her towel was making my brain short circuit. “Were you going to bed?”

She gripped her towel tighter and nodded her head. “Yeah, I…I figured you guys would be out late…So…”

This was ridiculous. We both seem nervous and unsure of what to say. Plus, I’m sure the sexual tension coming off my body was making her uncomfortable as fuck. I glanced towards the bathroom again. My pills were so close, I could take two and down half a bottle of whiskey and then I wouldn’t feel anything until morning.

Dylan cleared her throat. “Are you okay? You just look a little…do you feel okay?”

Yep, my mask slipped and she saw it right away. “I feel great.” I smiled, probably too big to be real. “Just tired after the show. It takes a lot of energy to look that good up there.” I winked, for added affect.

She nodded, slowly. “Yeah, I’m sure it does…” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Are you, uh, I mean, are you going to sleep?”

I could say yes, I should say yes. I should just go take a shower and take some pills and climb into my bunk. I wouldn’t need to fake a smile; I wouldn’t need to pretend to be okay. I could just fall apart in my bed, all by myself. It might be a mistake, but for some reason, the need to be next to her seemed to outweigh my need for numbness. “No. I was, uh, why don’t you go put on some clothes and we can watch a movie.”

She eyed me with her head cocked to the side, like she couldn’t figure out if I was joking or not.

I raised an eyebrow. “Or you could just stand there in your towel and keep staring at me. I’m enjoying the view.” I added another wink.

It must be the wink that did her in because she rolled her eyes and nodded her head. “Yeah, okay. Just let me change real quickly.” She grabbed some clothes and went back into the bathroom.

“Oh for fucks sake, that was the most uncomfortable conversation I’ve ever had to sit through! You’ve been stuttering since Dylan walked out of the bathroom.” Luke sat up and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Awww, Sleeping Beauty decided to wake up?” I went with sarcasm, when all I really wanted to do was grab him by the shirt and send him flying out the room. I wanted Dylan all to myself.

“How could I sleep through that awkward as fuck exchange?” He got up and cracked his neck to either side. “Since when do you have a hard time talking to girls?”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to answer him honestly; since the girl I was talking to was Dylan.

“I’m going to bed. I hope for your sake, your skills return before she thinks you’ve had a stroke.”

When she came out a second later all the air left my lungs. She was wearing some loose black pants that looked softer than silk and hung dangerously low on her hips with a tight white tank top that made her skin look more tan than olive. Her hair was still a mess on top of her head, and most of her makeup was gone. But I had never in my life seen anyone more beautiful. And it was in that moment that I knew, without a doubt, that a quick roll in hay wasn’t going to get this girl out of my system.







Author Bio


L.P. Maxa lives in Austin Texas with her husband, daughter, 3 rescue dogs, 1 stray cat, and 1 fish that keeps dying that she keeps replacing so her toddler doesn't notice. L.P. loves reading Romance novels as much as she loves writing them. She says that inspiration can come from anywhere; a song lyric, a quote, a weekend with friends. The tiniest things spark amazing stories.



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