Tag: Giveaways
Posted July 14, 2019 by Holly in Features, Giveaways | 2 Comments
Once Upon a Bad Boy is the third book in Melonie Johnson's Sometimes in Love series and it's a second chance romance that you won't want to miss. We're super excited to be featuring this book on our Sunday Spotlight so check it out…
Series: Sometimes in Love #3
Also in this series: Getting Hot with the Scot
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler » No « Hide Spoiler
NEVER SAY NEVERSadie Gold is ready to take her career to the next level with the role of a lifetime. Finally, she can shake her reputation as a pretty face with more wealth and connections than talent. But Sadie is not prepared for the wild turn her own life is about to take. The man in charge of training Sadie for her most demanding role yet is none other than her first real boyfriend—the one who took her heart and ran away.
WHEN IT COMES TO LOVEBo Ibarra is as good-looking and irresistible as ever. Maybe even more so, now that everything once worked against them—Sadie's pampered and privileged upbringing and Bo's childhood in a family struggling to make ends meet—is in the past. But the future is still unwritten…and getting there, together, means coming clean about painful secrets and slashing through nasty tabloid rumors while trying to control the attraction that crackles between them. Maybe it's finally time for them to walk off into the sunset and into a true and lasting love?
"This looks cozy." Someone observed from behind them, the low male voice tinged with a hint of mockery.
Sadie froze. No way. She hadn't heard that voice in more than ten years. But she recognized it immediately. No freaking way.
Maybe she was wrong. She was probably wrong. She had to be wrong.
Beside her, Ryan turned toward the voice. "Bo! Hey, man, what's up?"
Bo. The name slammed into her gut, as if someone had written it on a piece of paper, tied it to a boulder, and hurled it straight at her.
Oblivious to her sudden discomfort, Ryan stood, shaking hands with the person behind them. Sadie remained frozen. She had not been mistaken. How did this happen? What was he doing here?
"Sadie?" Tugging on her elbow, Ryan provided the answer. "Say hi to our stunt coordinator, Bo Ibarra."
Not trusting her ability to stand, Sadie, glanced over her shoulder. "Hi." She smiled weakly then forced herself to look up, meeting his gaze. "Stunt coordinator, huh?"
"That's right," Bo said. His light brown eyes were exactly the same. Still, that unique tawny shade that reminded her of an Irish halfpenny she'd once found in her nana's coin collection, still framed with the most incredibly long and ridiculously thick eyelashes she'd ever seen. His hair was darker, only streaks of the golden blond she remembered glinting here and there. And shorter, much shorter. Last time she'd seen him, it had brushed his shoulders. But what hair Bo had chopped off on top of his head, he'd made up for on his face.
A full beard covered his lean cheeks, hiding the cleft she knew dimpled the center of his chin. The fact she was aware of that feature despite it being hidden from the world felt . . . intimate. Sadie squirmed in her seat, recalling all the times she'd pressed her lips to that dimple. Dragging her attention away from that spot, she noted the beginnings of laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes. She wondered if, besides the cleft, the beard hid more laugh lines around his mouth.
Had there been much laughter in his life? She hoped so. "Bo-dacious is one of the best in the biz," Ryan continued, patting Bo on the back. "Soon as my agent told me we'd be filming in Chicago, I got on the horn and insisted they hire you, man." Ryan turned to Sadie. "Ain't nobody better to have your back than Bo-dacious here."
"Dude, come on, I told you to knock it off with that Bo-dacious crap," Bo said, taking the sting out of his words with a light punch at Ryan's arm.
"You have a stunt company?" Sadie asked, unable to mask the surprise in her voice.
"I do," he said. "Windy City Stunts."
"I've heard of it." Sadie nodded. "But I didn't . . ." She hesitated. "I didn't know it was your company."
"It is." His mouth twisted.
The answer was spoken softly, but his words were sharp. Biting. An accusation. An acknowledgment of the fact she'd not bothered to stay up to date on what he'd been doing in the years since . . . well, in the years since she'd last seen him.
She hadn't. She'd been afraid to. And she never thought she'd see him again. Certainly not here. Not now. Not like this.
Digging deep, Sadie got to her feet and turned to face Bo. He seemed bigger than she remembered. Not in size exactly, not taller or thicker, but sturdier. More substantial. The last time she'd seen him, they'd been teenagers. A man stood before her now.
"That's great," she managed.
"Yeah, I started with some freelance gigs. Did that for a couple of years before helping form WCS. Now it's become the number one source for stunt performers in Chicago."
The pride in his voice was unmistakable, and well- deserved. The company had an excellent reputation— even she knew they were the go-to company to hire in this city.
"Wow. I'm happy for you," Sadie said, and meant it too. Despite everything that lay between them, everything that had happened, she was truly glad to see him doing so well.
"Hold up." Ryan glanced between her and Bo. "Do you two know each other?"
For a moment, neither of them answered.
"Yeah." Always the braver one, Bo spoke first. "We were friends as kids."
"Yep," Sadie agreed brightly. Too brightly. "Friends." Throat tight, eyes stinging, she added, "Although it's been a long time. Ten years, I think?"
"Eleven," Bo said, eyes never leaving her face. "But who's counting."
Sadie's heart began to beat faster, wild and fluttery, thumping against her sternum like a bird trying to escape its cage. She knew exactly how many years it had been. Despite her best efforts, she'd never been able to stop keeping track.
"Small world, huh?" Ryan chuckled, either completely oblivious to the tension zipping around him or a better actor than she'd realized. "I met Bo last year when I guest-starred on an episode of Chicago Rescue. He set up this amazing stunt, right? An explosion that sent me flying out a twelfth-story window." Ryan brushed one palm over the other, pumping a hand skyward, as if to demonstrate his airborne body.
Sadie's skin crawled at the thought.
"Got any cool stuff like that planned for us, man?" Ryan asked, eager as a kid about to ride a roller coaster.
Sadie hated roller coasters. Hated heights of all kinds, actually. She didn't even do well with escalators. Bo, of course, knew this.
Fuck. She jerked her head toward him. Would he use that knowledge against her? He could. Easily.
"I have some ideas," Bo answered Ryan, but kept his gaze on her, his tawny eyes giving away nothing.
"Do stunt coordinators usually come to first reads?" Sadie asked, struggling to hide the wave of anxiety crashing through her.
"Occasionally." Bo shrugged, the thick line of his shoulders rising and falling. "Depending on the complexity of the stunts, directors will sometimes ask me to sit in on a read, so I can get a feel for things. Identify potential problems."
As he talked, he'd begun rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. Sadie tried not to stare as the strong masculine lines of his forearms were revealed. What was it about a man rolling up his sleeves that immediately upped his hotness factor? And with a guy like Bo, whose hotness level was already off the charts, it simply wasn't fair. "Is that what you're doing today? Identifying potential problems?" Because she could think of a few.
Bo looked at her, a knowing twinkle in his eye as if he was aware of how discombobulated she was. "For one, I'll decide which stunts I think are suitable for the actors to perform themselves."
"Oh?" Sadie rubbed her palms on her jeans.
A grin curved one corner of his mouth as he nodded. "Don't worry, I'm not here to make anyone do anything that makes them uncomfortable." The teasing edge of his smile eased the vise around Sadie's heart.
Sometimes in Love
About Melonie Johnson
A Star Wars junkie and Shakespeare groupie who quotes both Yoda and the Bard with equal aplomb, she met her future husband in that most romantic of places—the mall—when they were teenagers working in stores across the hall from each other. Today, they live happily ever after in the magical land midway between Chicago and Milwaukee with their two redhead daughters, a dog that's more like a small horse, and a pair of hermit crabs. After earning her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Loyola University Chicago, Melonie taught high school English and Theatre in the northern Chicago suburbs for several years. Now she writes smart and funny contemporary romance and moonlights as an audiobook narrator under the pseudonym, Evelyn Eibhlin.
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Tagged: Giveaways, Melonie Johnson, Sometimes in Love, St. Martin's Press, Sunday Spotlight
Sunday Spotlight: Alpha's Promise by Rebecca Zanetti
Posted July 7, 2019 by Casee in Features, Giveaways | 4 Comments
I love the Dark Protector series. If you have not read it and love paranormal romance, you are seriously missing out. Alpha's Promise is book 10 in the series and book 3 of the new story arc. I am really enjoying the turn this series has taken. Zanetti has taken us back to the roots of the Vampires and Demons. The Seven are the protectors of the Realm itself and the Realm doesn't even know they exist. Or they didn't. Now they do and it has hit the proverbial fan. The Realm and the Seven now have to work together to protect all enhanced women, including the mates of some of the most powerful Vampires and Demons alive. But can they?
Alpha's Promise by Rebecca Zanetti
Series: Dark Protectors #10
Also in this series: Marked (Dark Protectors, #7), Fated (Dark Protectors, #1), Claimed (Dark Protectors, #2), Hunted (Dark Protectors, #3), Consumed (Dark Protectors, #4), Provoked (Dark Protectors, #5), Marked (Dark Protectors, #7), Shadowed (Dark Protectors, #6), Vampire's Faith (Dark Protectors, #8), Demon's Mercy (Dark Protectors, #9), Alpha's Promise
Genres: Paranormal Romance
To hell and back . . . Though he has vampire, demon, and Viking blood rushing through his veins, Ivar Kjeidsen's soul-crushing trip to hell broke him in ways he can barely fathom. One vow keeps the deadly immortal standing: To rescue the vampire brother who had sacrificed freedom for him. To do that, Ivar needs the help of a brilliant physicist with wary brown eyes, fierce brilliance, and skin that's way too soft.
Dr. Promise Williams understands the underpinnings of the universe but has never figured out the human beings inhabiting it. Her function is to think—and not feel—until she's touched by a vampire who's nowhere near human. The primal hunger in his eyes awakens feelings in her that defy calculation. As she shows him the way to step between worlds, he brands her with a pleasure that could last more than a lifetime . . .
The darkness of night carried additional rain. Mature trees scented the air with pine as drops drizzled from rolling clouds and splattered up from the leaf-covered ground. Thick branches protected Ivar as he leaned against a tree trunk, munching on peanuts, watching the quiet bungalow at the end of a private street. He ducked to the other side as a police cruiser drove by and turned around in the cul-de-sac, apparently conducting an hourly check of Promise's home. Either the local police force lacked manpower, which was likely, or they thought his stupid kidnapping attempt earlier that day had been random.
Promise slid open filmy curtains at the front of her house and waved at the officer. He waved back and drove away.
Leaving her alone.
It was near midnight, and she had changed into soft-looking gray yoga pants with a matching top. Her thick hair was pulled up on her head, and her hand trembled slightly on the curtain. She had long, very curly black hair, high cheekbones, and caramel-colored skin. Her ancestry wasn't obvious, but her beauty certainly was.
Relief had soothed some of his guilt earlier as he'd watched her walk from a different police car to her front door without a hitch in her stride. So he hadn't hurt her. Good. The curtain fell, and she disappeared from sight.
A loneliness drifted through him that caught him up short.
Her home was perched on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and the water crashed loudly against rocks below. Trees and branches blocked his view of the water, which was fine, because his interest lay in the woman. If he had found her, his enemies soon would as well. He slid down onto his butt and extended his legs, resting his head on the rough bark. Protecting her from afar should've been his default position.
Yet there had been something about her at the funeral. Something sad and solitary that had called to him. So he'd tried to kidnap her. He banged his head against the tree, enduring the pain as bark dug into his skull. Being half-crazed didn't give him the excuse to be a moron.
He closed his eyes and let the sound of rain, wind, and waves ground him in this moment and in this world. He was home, and for the time being, he was safe. His mind drifted, and he returned to hell.
He'd been forced into world after world through a portal, and somehow in this loop, he could escape by imagining other portals that soon appeared. Most led to worse places, so he'd try to jump again. Time moved differently—one minute felt like a hundred years of torture and pain. His spirit hung in tatters by the time he reached his brother's world. Quade was one of the Seven bonded in blood and bone, which made them family.
Quade had pulled him out of the fire and secured them both in a dirty cave littered with crumbled leaves and discarded bones. Fire and glass-filled wind roared in a maelstrom outside. The other male had scar upon scar upon scar on his body, but his nose was Ronan's. Exactly the same.
Even though pain had engulfed Ivar, he finally knew why he'd been through so many hells. "Ronan's world exploded, and he's home now. It's time for you to go home too. I'll take your place," he said.
Quade's dark aqua eyes barely showed the existence of his pupils in the dingy cave. "It's almost over, brother."
Ivar eyed the sharp rock. "Just tell me what to do." His memories were already dim, but hadn't Ronan said he'd needed to move rocks and balance the magnetic poles in his world to keep Ulric trapped? If so, what was Quade doing every day besides being tortured by an environment too horrible to believe?
Quade's torn lips twisted in a parody of a smile. "I feed the dragon, Viking. Not you."
"Dragon?" Ivar asked. They existed other places as well as back home?
"No," Quade said, his voice raw. "It's getting harder, and soon it'll end. Everything will. Me." He grunted the last, sounding more hopeful than resigned.
Ivar tried to reason with him. Was he mad? How could anybody have stayed sane here? "You'll be free, Quade. Ronan survived the end of his world, and so will you. You can heal and find a new life."
Quade's lids dropped to half-mast. "Already dead…Viking." He stood and dragged Ivar to his feet. "You go now. Portals will open, keep following. Maybe you'll get home." Even with his body damaged so badly, his strength was beyond that of a normal hybrid. "Tell Ronan. Tell all my brothers…"
Ivar clutched Quade's arms, fighting the unholy wind that pierced through his skin to his soul. "Come with me," he begged.
"Tell them goodbye." Quade pushed Ivar hard, sending him through a portal that swallowed him with a gleeful shriek. He screamed, but the void allowed for no sound. He hit ice in a new world, rolled, and came up fighting.
Through portal after portal, through hell dimension after hell dimension, he hung on to Quade's last words. Soon they were all he had. After a while, he vaguely remembered who he'd been. But Quade, he never forgot. Saving Quade, rescuing his brother, was the only thought that kept Ivar alive.
Until he finally arrived back home, on a peaceful lakefront, with his brothers surrounding him.
Dark Protectors
Tagged: Dark Protectors, Giveaways, Rebecca Zanetti, Sunday Spotlight
What Are You Reading? (+ Lori Wilde Giveaway)
Holly: I ended up re-reading Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs after all. I also re-read Complicated by Kristen Ashley after discussing it with Casee.
For new reads I listened to Most Valuable Playboy and Big Rock by Lauren Blakely. I love Sebastian York as a narrator, and both stories were good. I also read Huge Deal by Lauren Layne, my third and final pick from Rowena for our Summer Reading Challenge. I didn't like it as much as Hard Sell, the second book, but I liked it more than Hot Asset, the first.
I'm currently reading Smitten by the Brit by Melonie Johnson. I started it a couple weeks ago, but set it aside in favor of other books. After that I think I'm going to read Marry Me by Jo Goodman.
Rowena: This week, I've been pretty busy at work (where I do a huge chunk of my reading) since my boss is out of the office until Monday. I also went to the Dodger game so that cut into my reading time as well. I only finished Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11) by Patricia Briggs. I'm super glad that I'm all caught up on this series because I really love it. I really love Mercy and want to know all of her business.
Currently, I'm reading Wolf Rain (Psy-Changelings Trinity #3) by Nalini Singh. This book slipped through the cracks and I cannot believe that I haven't read it already. So, that's what I'm reading right now.
We are very fortunate here at Book Binge. We have loads and loads of books to read and we want to share the wealth so each week, we'll be tacking on a Freebie Friday giveaway to our What Are You Reading posts. This week, we're giving away…
The Christmas Key by Lori Wilde
Series: Twilight Texas #9
Format: Print
In this magical Christmas story--the latest installment in the Twilight, Texas series--from New York Times bestselling author Lori Wilde, the Cookie Club is at it again meddling in the course of true love by wiping up a batch of matchmaker cookies designed to help the lovelorn find their soul mates
There's a legend in Twilight, Texas. If you sleep with a kismet cookie under your pillow on Christmas Eve, you will dream of your one true love.
She saw him in her dreams…
It's impossible! Naomi Luther was standing face to face with the man she'd dreamed about over a year ago. Was it the magic of Kismet Christmas cookies that brought him to her? Or is there even a greater force at work? All Naomi knows is she is falling, hard and fast, for the one man all good sense says she should not have.
She was his best buddy's sister…
Rebellious Mark Shepherd found order in the Marines but chaos on the battlefield. In a mission gone wrong, Mark is injured and his best friend loses his life. Haunted by guilt, he arrives in Twilight to keep a solemn promise. But when the Luthers mistake him for their handyman, he's swept up in playing Santa to his buddy's orphan son…and falling hard for Naomi's irresistible bright spirit and sweet, sexy smile. But what will happen when she learns the truth?
What Are You Reading: The Christmas Key by Lori Wilde
What are you reading this week? Any new favorites or books that drove you crazy? Share!
Tagged: Casee's Reading, Giveaways, Holly's Reading, Rowena's Reading, What Are You Reading