Friday, March 22, 2013

A Slower, Lower Leap Tour


Blurb:
When you’re the last man standing…
Not only was Logan Delaney the last of his siblings to remain unmarried and unsettled, his entire family believed he’d never find a wife. The baby of eight, he’s been dubbed an irresponsible player and told he’ll never amount to a hill of beans. And at one time, Logan may have been okay with those descriptions, but no more. On a quest to prove his worth, he’s spent the entire summer learning the family business, staying in at night, and saving his money. And if his family would stop meddling in his affairs and trying to dictate who he should and shouldn’t be seeing, he might just show them he’s found the one, Lizzy Jenkins.


And have a bad reputation to blame…

Elizabeth Jenkins had always known Logan Delaney existed, but he’d never so much as turned one glance her way until she handed him his butt on a silver platter in three sentences or less over the phone. After that it seemed at every turn there he was and the more she resisted the heat building between them, the bigger the fire got. Until his family interfered. And why wouldn’t they? Between Logan’s legacy and her baggage, they were a disaster in the making.

Can you be trusted with a fragile heart?

But Logan doesn’t run when he finds out about Colby. In fact, he embraces Lizzy’s special needs son and defies the advice of everyone urging him to leave Lizzy alone. But after one moment of weakness, Logan finds himself knee deep in a marriage complete with the little boy whose father bailed before his birth and Lizzy’s grandfather, who needs constant care as well.  Then there's the man who just might be the demise of it all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Excerpt:
Last man standing. Logan now owned that title wholly and without question. And it was his entire family’s belief he’d hold it for life because according to them, Logan was nothing more than a love ‘em and dump ‘em overgrown adolescent who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Even his progress in learning the family business over the course of the last few weeks hadn’t done much to squelch the consensus that Logan would never amount to a hill of beans and would never find a woman he could be happy with long enough to marry and have a family.

Logan begged to differ, although not out loud. He knew his ass from the hole, he’d just ignored the need to prove it up until it became a necessity. He knew he could and would be more than the damn beans, and if people would quit trying to decide who he should and shouldn’t be interested in, he might just decide for himself and settle down with one woman.

Lizzy Jenkins.

He had no idea what it was about her that flipped all his switches, he just knew she did. Had, in fact, ever since she told him in no uncertain terms to basically go fuck himself over the phone. It was the first time he’d ever heard her voice, first time he’d known she existed, and that was it for Logan. After he’d seen her at Bryce’s wedding, well, that sealed the deal. She was down home, girl next door gorgeous, had the prettiest blue eyes God had ever seen fit to give a woman, and if he was being honest, her breasts…Lord have mercy, Logan daydreamed about having his hands all over them all day long. There wasn’t any danger in suffocating under them, but damned if they weren’t just the right sized handful and a half.

He hadn’t had a date since.

Lila will be awarding one set of signed copies of the first two books in the series, A Slower, Lower Love and A Slower, Lower Life to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour (US/CANADA ONLY), and a $10 gift card to Amazon or Barnes and Noble, winner's choice, to a second randomly drawn commenter. A $20 gift card to Amazon or Barnes and Noble, winner's choice, will be awarded to a randomly drawn host.
So the more you comment, the better your chances of winning.

March 22:  STOP 2  Long and Short Reviews


Bio and Links:


Lila Munro currently resides on the coast of North Carolina with her husband and their two four-legged kids. She’s a military wife with an empty nest and takes much of her inspiration for her heroes from the marines she’s lived around for the past fifteen years. Coining the term realmantica, she strives to produce quality romance in a realistic setting. Her genre of choice is contemporary romance that spans everything from the sensual softer read to BDSM and ménage. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading everything she can get her hands on, trips to the museum and aquarium, taking field research trips, and soaking up the sun on the nearby beaches. Her works include The Executive Officer’s Wife, Bound By Trust, Three for Keeps, the Force Recon series, the Slower Lower series, the Identity series, and the Private Collection. Currently she is working on two new series set to release summer of 2013, the At Your


Service line and the Steele Image line. She’s a member in good standing of RWA. Ms. Munro loves to hear from her readers and can be found at:

Facebook   

You can also contact her via email at: lilasromance@gmail.com

You can find all her works at:
Bookstrand
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Thursday, March 21, 2013

Caribbean Casanova Review Tour

Blurb:
Of all the islands in all the world, she’s come to his.

 Holly Hansen has sacrificed too much to let anything—especially a man—get in the way of making her clothing line a success. When she arrives on the island of Anguilla, she zeroes in on the biggest threat to her make-or-break photo shoot. At six-and-a-half foot of sculpted Dutch muscle, Harmannus Prinsen is every inch the womanizer of Caribbean legend, but he will not be seducing any of her models. She knows exactly how to make sure of it. Make the girls think he’s taken.

 Harm is stunned when the curvaceous beauty greets him with a mind-numbing kiss. She’s the embodiment of every pin-up portrait he collected as a teen, with a sassy tongue and a body that begs for his touch. Sure, he’ll pretend to be her date…but only if they really date.


Despite her best efforts to remain immune to his charms, Holly finds herself falling for the man behind the myth. She begins to wonder which island she belongs on…Manhattan or Anguilla.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
“I have half a mind to invite the entire boat of bikini models back to my villa for the night. Show them a true Caribbean good time.” Harmannus Prinsen crossed his arms over his bare chest and glared at his godfather’s approaching sailboat, annoyance pounding through him like rain from a hurricane.

He’d gone out of his way to help set up the photo shoot for Sassy, and the brat showed her appreciation by forbidding him to lay a hand on any of her models? As if he was hard up for female attention.
“Stop acting like you want to ruin this for her.” Joe stared at the boat in the distance and shifted from one foot to the other, like he couldn’t stand being in his own skin. Harm couldn’t recall seeing his younger brother so anxious. Probably because he wanted to crawl inside his brat of a girlfriend.

 “I’m not going to ruin anything. I’m making this happen. I’m helping chauffeur for her crew. I’m letting her use my rental bungalows for free. I’m even providing all the sporting equipment for her action shots. But I’m not putting up with her petty bullshit. I’m going to tell her where she can put her ultimatums. And if you weren’t fucking her I’d—”

 “Hey.” Joe jabbed him with a sharp elbow but never took his gaze from the sea. The blue water was so clear the approaching boat seemed to be hovering over it. “I’m going to marry her. That makes her your family.”


“She always was family. Our godfather’s daughter.” He could not fathom how his brother thought of the red-headed waif as anything but an irksome child. He remembered the day she was born, for God sakes.


Joe lifted his gaze skyward and shook his blond head. “You both need to stop the childish squabbling. This photo shoot could launch her swimwear designs. That’s why she’s doing it here in Anguilla. She needs our help.”


“That’s your issue. I’m only here to tell her she can’t dictate who I can and can’t sleep with. My dick, my business.” Harm touched his jaw and a week of beard growth abraded his fingers. He only shaved on Sundays, before dinner at Dutch’s place. But since his godfather had been otherwise engaged this week, Harm hadn’t bothered.
“Then keep your dick out of her models. If you don’t want to do it for her, do it for me.” He lifted his arm overhead and waved at the boat.

Damn if Sassy didn’t brighten like she was lit from the inside. The way she looked at his brother was the only thing that kept Harm from throttling her. She’d been a pest as a kid, a nuisance as a teen and a thorn in his side from the moment his brother had realized she’d become an adult.


Harm fell in step beside Joe, helping to secure the schooner to the dock. Once Sassy and her models were delivered to the bungalows, he could wash his hands of the whole mess. Trouble disembarked first, leaping into his brother’s arms as if they’d been separated for years instead of weeks. He looked down and shook his head, hoping he’d get used to the sight eventually.


Something hot and solid crashed into his chest, the scent of honeysuckle surrounding him a second before the woman who pounced on him crossed her arms behind his neck and wrapped her legs around his hips. Harm grabbed her waist on instinct, looking into naughty hazel eyes fringed with long dark lashes.


“Play along,” she whispered through her wicked smile.

Her soft lips were on his in an instant, parting slightly to fit against his mouth. Who was he to turn down such a succulent invitation?

He opened and she responded in kind, the sweet taste of cinnamon making the kiss all the more delicious. He slid his tongue along hers and she sucked in a breath, her body tensing around him. She pulled back a bit, capturing his lower lip between her teeth.

 He leaned in, wanting that mouth back on his. She denied him, releasing his lip and sliding down his body until her feet touched the dock.

“You need to shave, Casanova.” She winked, her mahogany eyes dancing with mischief before she turned and walked away.

As she made her way towards the bikini-clad women stepping off the boat, he tried to place her. She looked familiar, but not in a been-there-done-that way. He had a feeling he should know who she was, but for the life of him he couldn’t recall.

He looked to Joe for a clue, but he and Sassy were still attached at the face. No help there. But also no reaction. Had they missed the entire kiss?

His mystery woman herded the bikinis and their baggage to one side, the trio of scrawny men in head-to-toe black to another. Hadn’t they checked the weather before coming to the Caribbean?

Two hairless dudes in Speedos appeared on the deck from below, helping Saskia’s father, Dutch, hoist large black boxes off his boat. Harm stepped in to help, not wanting the older man to hurt himself. Manscaped One and Two he could care less about. He’d never understand the American abhorrence of body hair.

“Holly, we can’t possibly work today.” The scrawniest of the men in black leaned against luggage, his face flushed and shiny.

“The sunset shots will be brilliant tonight.” His new playmate spoke with an attractive air of authority.

Holly. Saskia’s best friend and business partner. His gut clenched.

Yes, they had met before, in a rather embarrassing way.


Copyright © 2012 Jenna Bayley-Burke

All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Review:
4 stars

I must say, I’ve never been a huge fan of models and all the drama, so I was going into this thinking it’d be okay at best. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. This is a great short novella. It’s humorous, sexy, and interesting. The characters were amazing and I surprisingly was able to relate to them, which I also wasn’t expecting. The setting was beautiful and I want to go on my own Caribbean island adventure now.

My only complaint is that it should have been longer. I wanted more of these characters, and the ending was abrupt and felt rushed. And the epilogue just tied it up a bit too nicely and I would have liked to see it play out more.

Complaints aside, I highly recommend this book to everyone and will definitely be looking into Jenna’s books in the future.



 Jenna will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and a second randomly drawn commenter will be awarded a $10 Amazon GC. A $25 Amazon GC will be awarded to a randomly drawn host. So the more you comment, the better your chances of winning.

Review Tour:
March 19:  i love lady porn
March 21:  We Love Kink
March 21:  STOP 2  Sharing Links and Wisdom
March 25:  Bunny's Review
March 26:  Harlie's Books
March 26:  STOP 2  Tiffany Talks Books
March 28:  STOP 2  Once Upon A Book
March 29:  IndieWritersReview
Virtual Book Tour:

April 3:  STOP 2 Flirting With Romance
April 4:  STOP 2  Books to Light Your Fire


Bio and Links:

By day, Jenna is faster than a speeding toddler, stronger than a stubborn husband, able to leap tall Lego structures in a single bound...but by night, while the family sleeps she writes romance novels where no one ever has to scoop up after the dogs, change diapers, clip coupons, drive carpool, do laundry, mop floors, get silly putty out of hair, vacuum, empty the vacuum bag (gross!), exercise, count calories, apply Band-Aids, clean up puke...wait where was this going? Oh, Jenna writes romance because it is glamorous. Just ask the dogs. Catch up with Jenna on:
Buy Link:
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Monday, March 18, 2013

Divine Fury VBT

Blurb:
Candidate Andrew Harper was a college basketball star, a crusading prosecutor and a beloved Congressman.  He is also openly gay.  When the San Francisco politician gets the inside track to become California’s next governor, it sends shockwaves through the political and religious establishment.

Reporter Enzo Lee is cajoled into leaving his comfortable niche covering fluffy features for the San Francisco News to cover the historic campaign.  A series of campaign events are mysteriously and dangerously disrupted.  A key endorsement is scuttled at the last minute.  An earlier murder takes on new significance when it is linked to a Watergate-style break-in involving computer spying.

But, finding the culprits behind political sabotage and high-tech hacking take a backseat when it’s discovered that a troubled war veteran armed with guns and explosives has begun a violent journey from small-town Montana to the City by the Bay.

When Lee becomes a target himself he must dodge attempts on his own life while trying to expose the conspiracy and, with the help of police allies, foil an assassination plot.
Divine Fury is the newly released second book in the Enzo Lee series from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert B. Lowe.  The series was kicked off by the best-selling Project Moses, the bioterroism thriller that made the Amazon Top 20 Mysteries list and was a finalist in the Best Indie Books of 2012 competition.

Divine Fury is a page-turning thriller with suspense, action, romance and enough twists to keep the reader guessing.  It also focuses on a timely theme as the issues of same-sex marriage and gay rights become a major cultural battleground in America.    


Excerpt:
The music continued. They were letting Harper have a long victory dance before he started speaking. To the sway of bodies and bouncing of signs, Walberg started to thread his way toward the middle and closer, always closer, to the platform and the self-assured politician who was front and center.

He wasn’t thinking about the bomb in the backpack now. He was close to the front with only three layers of people between him and the edge of the crowd held in place by the half-circle of police. This is how he preferred it. He wanted to see Harper’s face when he shot him. That was the instant he craved.

The crowd was pressing in. He could feel the pressure from behind as people inched closer to the front as the masses in back continued trying to push forward. He could see the police, now with their sticks at chest level fighting to hold their perimeter. They were straining. They weren’t trying to hurt anyone but he could see they were determined not to give up any ground.

All Walberg needed was two seconds, enough time to steady his right hand with his left without getting jostled and squeeze. He thought he would have that. He could see the faces and eyes of the cops moving all over. They were stressed. The music, the crowd, the signs…all the chaos would hide what he was doing for a crucial second or two.

Walberg had his right hand in the pocket of the jacket. His fingers found the Beretta and he could feel the safety with his thumb. He flicked it off while he kept his eyes focused on Harper and struggled to keep his face in a relaxed half-smile.

REVIEW SOUND BYTES
“Gripping…with an adrenaline-filled climax combined with compelling characters.” – Kirkus Reviews

“A fascinating and fast-paced mystery/thriller.  It is a thought provoking and extremely captivating story." – Kindle Book Review

Guest Post:
From Start to Finish – Writing a Mystery Novel.

For me, the two things I need when I start a book are a pretty good idea what the main conspiracy will be and who will be the main protagonist(s).

As an example, for Divine Fury I started with the idea that the story would center around a gay candidate running for office and the conspiracy would be two-pronged.  One element would be a group with power and money trying to sabotage the campaign.  The other piece would be someone on a violent mission.  Since I was carrying over the main character from my first book, Project Moses, I already had the main protagonist.  Some of the secondary characters – a police detective and the woman who becomes Enzo Lee’s love interest – already were in the first book as well so I had a head start there, too.

Once I’ve got these pieces set, I pretty much just start writing.  Usually I have an opening chapter that is in my head – hopefully something that will have enough of a hook to get people interested and kick things off.   
Even before I start to write, though, and certainly the entire time that I’m writing, I’ve got another side of my brain trying to puzzle through all the parts.  I may introduce a new subplot or an interesting character.  Often they just sort of happen while I’m writing.  Then, I’ll be thinking about how this will tie in with the main theme and the other subplots.   

Through the whole – say, 4 months of writing the first draft – parts will start to crystallize.   They may be climatic scenes, chase scenes, key character development moments, events in a romance, etc.   Sometimes, I’ll jump ahead and write one of those, particularly if I’m stuck or in an is-this-any-good mindset.  As an example, I had early on in the writing of Divine Fury the main campaign sabotage events.  So, I actually wrote those early on as separate chapters and determined later where to drop them in.

My style tends to be to have three or four somewhat discrete plot lines that start to get tied together as the book progresses.  For example, in Divine Fury there was the campaign, the religious leader trying to sabotage it, the war veteran on a violent mission and Enzo Lee who starts out covering a murder and also is assigned to cover the campaign.   Bobbie Connors, the police detective who investigates the murder and gets involved in uncovering the sabotage has her own part as well.  I tended to rotate through those subplots and keep them all advancing although I would jump around depending upon what felt right.  As the threads became more intertwined, it was more just points of view of the same situation such as two sides of chase.           

In the case of Divine Fury I wrote about half the book and gave it to my main two readers to critique while I kept writing.  Fortunately, their comments were very similar and were not major structural changes.  I kept on with the second half of the book.  When I finished that, I passed that along to my readers and went back to make some fixes to the front.  

Then I went on to make fixes to the back of the book. Of course, I’m constantly rereading what I’ve already done.  Even as I’m writing, I tend to look back over the past two days work and revise to improve it.  When I first started writing books, I would keep many copies of all the revisions because I wasn’t sure what was better and what wasn’t.  I do that much less now.  I guess I just trust my instincts and judgment much more now.  

In addition to what your readers tell you about weak parts of your draft, you always have a list of things that you know aren’t quite what you want or at least that you question.   So, when I go back for the rewrites, 80 percent of my time is spent reworking those parts versus just reading through it and fixing things that seem wrong.

 When I have a draft that I’m feeling pretty good about, I’ll send it out to another 4-5 people.  Some of these are more copy editor types – people who have been generous enough to volunteer to look for mistakes.  Others are more critical readers and I’m really doing more of a reality check.  Thumbs up or down.  Then, was there anything that jumped out as a problem or question?

For both books, I found that it helped me a lot to have a few days away somewhere where I could work on the book alone.   It just was helpful to have single-minded attention on it so I could get totally immersed.  This was more toward the end where I pretty much knew where I was going and was starting the major rewrite work.  I felt like I could really get my arms around the whole plot and the characters and see clearly everything I was trying to do and where it wasn’t working.

Another thing that helps me is to see the drafts in different formats.  For example, I’ll print it out on paper at several points along the way.  And, toward the later stages, I’ll put it into Kindle format and even read it on different devices – basic Kindle, Kindle for PC, Kindle for Ipad or even Iphone.   The more I can make it seem like something new I haven’t reread 8 times, the better I am at the self editing, I think.    My best experience in that regard was rereading a draft of Project Moses for the first time after 15 years.  It was really like editing someone else’s work.  That’s not a technique you can use often, though.



Robert will be awarding a $25 Amazon Gift Card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. So the more you comment the better your chances of winning!

3/11/2013 Lisa Haselton's Reviews and Interviews
3/11/2013 SECOND STOP http://triadliteraryworks.blogspot.com/
3/12/2013 Dawn's Reading Nook Blog
3/13/2013 It's Raining Books
3/14/2013 Long and Short Reviews
3/15/2013 The Bookcast
3/18/2013 Sharing Links and Wisdom
3/19/2013 You Gotta Read Reviews
3/20/2013 Fantasy Powered by Love
3/21/2013 Brewing Passion
3/22/2013 Andi's Book Reviews
3/25/2013 Donna's Blog Home
3/26/2013 J.C. Martin, Fighter Writer
3/27/2013 Writers and Authors
3/28/2013 Queen of All She Reads
3/29/2013 The Muse Unleashed


Author Information:
Robert B. Lowe is a Pulitzer-prize winning author whose fiction is based in San Francisco, his adopted home.

His past experiences – a 12-year career in investigative journalism and a Harvard Law School degree – enable him to write gripping mystery thrillers in both the legal and journalistic fields. Lowe draws his inspiration from John Grisham, Dick Francis and Lee Child and adds his own San Francisco twist. Readers will enjoy his references to the city’s landmarks such as Chinatown, North Beach and Pacific Heights  and the Bay area’s foodie culture.

Divine Fury is Lowe’s second novel.  His first was the best-selling Project Moses which reached the Amazon Top 20 Mysteries list and was a finalist in the Best Indie Books of 2012 competition hosted by the Kindle Book Review.

Divine Fury continues the adventures of Enzo Lee, a jaded journalist rehabilitating his career as a feature writer in San Francisco who stumbles into scandals and criminal conspiracies that require his investigative expertise to unravel.

When Lowe isn’t writing he enjoys a day at the golf course and spending time with his wife and daughters.


LINKS:
Facebook
Website
Twitter: @authorRobBLowe
Amazon Divine Fury
B&N Divine Fury
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