Blog Tour: Take the Shot by Danica Flynn – Excerpt + Giveaway

June 5, 2020Leave a comment

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Title: Take the Shot
Author: Danica Flynn
Series: Philadelphia Bulldogs #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance
Release Date: June 9, 2020

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DINAH

When my husband died, I never thought I would find love again.

I definitely didn’t think I would find it in the arms of my younger best friend. Why would the hunky hockey player want anything to do with me? I’m a stressed out writer with a lot of baggage. Any other man would say, “HARD PASS!”

But Noah was the best man I’ve ever known, and if it wasn’t for him, I might not be alive.

But am I ready to put my heart on the line again?

NOAH

I’ve pined for my best friend for so long, that my teammates issued an ultimatum.

“Make your move now or one of us will ask her out.”

They are just trying to push me, besides none of those jerks would ever be good enough for her. Makes me wonder if I even stand a chance.

Besides, what would a smart woman like her want with a dumb jock like me?

CW: This book deals with miscarriage & infertility.

Excerpt:

DINAH

The bass thumped against the wall, shaking me from my concentration as I tried to write. As if on cue, my phone vibrated against my desk lighting up with “Mom” across the screen. I silenced it, dodging yet another call from my mother wherein she tried to persuade me to go out on a date with another “nice Italian boy from the old neighborhood.” See also: balding, divorced dads. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I was only thirty and she kept trying to set me up with guys closer to my dad’s age. My family meant well, but they just didn’t understand what it was like to be a widow at my age. Or what it was like to endure a dangerous miscarriage that almost killed me.

Not that I’d ever told them that last part.

I put my headphones on and tried to drown out the sounds of my neighbors having another party. I didn’t really mind the noise, it was a Friday night after all. I was always invited to their shindigs, but tonight I had to get some writing done. I stared at the screen blankly, trying to figure out how to dig myself out of this plot hole. Working a full-time job in marketing sucked when all I wanted to do was write my novels.

I cranked up the volume of my own music. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop as if it would will the words out of me. When I heard the thumping bass through the wall again, I knew tonight just wasn’t my night. Not that I was going to blame the hockey players next door, this was on me.

I lived in a kind of swanky condo next door to two pasty Canadian hockey players for The Philadelphia Bulldogs. TJ was a lovable douche, but friendly enough. His roommate, Noah though, was a tall, lanky hottie with long hair who said “eh” a lot. Even when I had a husband, I had to admit he was cute.

When Jason died suddenly in a car crash two years ago, Noah had sent flowers and came to the funeral. He handled all the hockey questions my dad and three older brothers threw at him, even though it had been wildly inappropriate. My family were loud-mouth Italians from South Philly, so it hadn’t really been all that shocking that they razzed my friend, the hockey player, at the funeral for my husband.

The Mezzanettis did not give a single fuck about anything.

Like ever.

My phone buzzed on the desk and I tried not to smile when I saw it was from Noah. Speak of the devil.

NOAH: Is the music too loud?

I smiled at his question. He was such a good old Canadian boy. I could barely stand it. It definitely made it harder for me to not think about just banging one out with him, just one time. I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted to, that would have made things too complicated. Plus, I was pretty sure he was just really nice because he was Canadian and was not into me like that. He was a sweetheart, and it wasn’t like he ever had fantasies about me.

Giveaway:

Enter HERE
Prize: $25 Amazon gift card
Ends: June 18, 2020

About Danica Flynn:

Danica Flynn started writing at an early age, and thinks Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series is why she loves both writing and romance books. She is a rabid hockey fan of both The Philadelphia Flyers and the Metropolitan Riveters. When not writing, she can be found hanging with her partner, playing video games, and reading a ton of books.

Let’s Get Physical by Cassie Cross – Release Day Blitz + Excerpt

March 27, 20203 Comments

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Title: Let’s Get Physical
Author: Cassie Cross
Series: Love Is… #2
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: March 26, 2020

Amazon

Corinna McKnight is a chronically single girl in need of toned abs and a hot date for a wedding that her highly successful, deliriously happy lifelong frenemy will be attending. The weddings is only six weeks away and she doesn’t have much time to make it look like she has her life together. Luckily, her best friend’s boyfriend owns the hottest gym in town and sets he up with Noah, the best personal trainer he has on staff.

Noah Cartier is at a pretty good place in his life. He has a job and he loves working for his best friend, Hinter. Noah is in high demand, mostly for his talent, but sometimes for his body and Hunter has one very firm rule: no fooling around with the clients.

It’s an easy rule to follow until he meets Corinna, who makes him want more out of life and leaves him straddling the line between breaking a promise and betraying his heart.

Excerpt:

I look down at the napkin in my lap to keep myself from saying something that I might wind up regretting.

Noah notices.

“What?”

“It’s just…what is wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re beautiful and funny, and—”

“And I have the worst luck with men. It’s not this guy necessarily, because he seemed kinda smarmy when I talked to him, but it’s just, like, impossible for me to find a good guy? And it’s not just now, it’s…months. Years. I’m always finding men who can’t commit, who are flakes, who have issues I can’t even begin to address. I even went out with one guy five times before I found out that he was married. It’s been a non-stop steady string of badness since…well, since you actually.”

The second I register the words that came out of my mouth, I clamp my lips together. I went a bit too far there, unfortunately.

Noah caught on. It would be difficult not to. “Me?”

“Forget I said anything.”

“Kind of impossible to do that now,” he says, and I can tell he’s not going to let this go.

“I had the biggest crush on you. We went to Centerville for the summer for years and you were just Noah. And then, one year, I set eyes on you when we pulled up at my grandparents’ house and you were Noah. I think you were mowing the grass. I looked at you, and things felt different. There might’ve been cartoon hearts flying around you at the time, I can’t remember.”

He laughs as he leans in close, like I’m telling the most intriguing story in the world.

“I started tagging along with you and Mike more that summer. I was positive you were going to get tired of me; I know Mike was.”

“I never got tired of you,” he admits. “I made up reasons to see you when Mike wasn’t around.”

About Cassie Cross:

Cassie Cross is a Maryland native and a romantic at heart, who lives outside of Baltimore with her two dogs and a closet full of shoes. Cassie’s fondness for swoon-worthy men and strong women are the inspiration for most of her stories, and when she’s not busy writing a book, you’ll probably find her eating takeout and indulging in her love of 80’s sitcoms.

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Fool Me Twice by Carrie Aarons – Excerpt

March 5, 2020March 5, 2020Leave a comment

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Title: Fool Me Twice
Author: Carrie Aarons
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: March 12, 2020

Goodreads

When my best friend died of cancer just before her eighteenth birthday, she left her coveted bucket list to me.

The things she already crossed off? Skinny dipping, going to Paris, completing the local hot wing challenge, road tripping to the ocean, and sending out a message in a bottle.

So, it falls on me to finish it for her, to honor her memory. In the next year, it’s my mission to:

Dye my hair

Have sex

Camp out in a tent

Go bungee jumping

Get revenge on Lincoln Kolb

Most are doable, some terrify me, and then there is the last item on the list. When the raven-haired football god dumped my best friend during senior year of high school, she was devastated. The jerk with charm for days found out she was sick, and betrayed her in the worst way possible.

But he doesn’t know me, I went to school a town over. Now, to fulfill my promise, I’m the newest freshman on the campus where he is the big man. If there is one thing, aside from cheap beer, that a jock can’t pass up, it’s a shiny new girl.

So when I catch his eye, play hard to get, and then fall into his bed, I know my scheme is working to perfection. But what Lincoln can’t see coming is the beatdown I have planned for his ice-cold heart.

Unfortunately, what I never saw coming was the one he had planned for mine.

Excerpt:

Look at him, strutting through campus like he’s got his dick in his hand, and every girl wants a taste.

Jesus Christ, he’s preening more than a world-class peacock.

I pull my sunglasses down to the bridge of my nose, peering over them as Lincoln Kolb swaggers his way through the Warchester Campus quad. There are two other bros flanking him, big beefy guys who wear the same smug, shit-eating grins as their leader. How the guy is already a legend, by the way guys fist bump him and girls fawn as he walks by, escapes me.

It’s like that scene in Beauty and the Beast when Gaston sweeps into town. All of his idiotic, adoring fans practically crawl on their knees in his wake.

Only this time, Lincoln Kolb may be their god, but I’m here to bring him crashing back down to earth.

About Carrie Aarons:

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Author of romance novels such as The Tenth Girl and Privileged, Carrie Aarons writes books that are just as swoon-worthy as they are sarcastic. A former journalist, she prefers the love stories of her imagination, and the athleisure dress code, much better.

When she isn’t writing, Carrie is busy binging reality TV, having a love/hate relationship with cardio, and trying not to burn dinner. She’s a Jersey girl living in Texas with her husband, daughter and furry son.

Blog Tour – The Hookup Equation by Roxie Noir – Excerpt

March 3, 2020March 3, 2020Leave a comment

Title: The Hookup Equation
Author: Roxie Noir
Series: Loveless Brothers #4
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: February 26, 2020

Goodreads
Amazon

My whole life, I’ve been a good girl. I follow rules like nobody’s business. I obey guidelines like I was born to it. Show me a line, and I’ll toe it.

I’m even a twenty-two-year-old virgin. Good is my middle name.

And then, I break one tiny little rule. Miniscule. Inconsequential.

Next thing I know, I’m trapped with an incredibly handsome stranger. He’s got eyes like cut emeralds, biceps that makes my head spin, and a smile that has me rethinking all my life choices.

We escape a bar bathroom together. We go on an impromptu date. We share the hottest kiss I’ve ever had, one that leaves me panting for more. We promise to see each other again.

Turns out, we see each other the next morning.

In my calculus class.

Which he’s teaching.

My handsome, sexy date is Professor Loveless, and we’ll be seeing each other plenty. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday all semester.

There’s no choice but to call it off. We both have too much at stake: I could lose my scholarship, and he could lose his entire career.

But I can’t call off the way I feel.

I can’t call off the way he looks when he rolls up his sleeves and explains imaginary numbers.

I can’t call off the heated glances, or the way our hands touch when I hand in my homework, or the memory of his body pressing against mine that night.

I’m a virgin.

He’s my professor.

And if we give in, it could cost us both everything.

But I’m so tired of being a good girl.

Excerpt:

“I’m sorry I was a jerk on Friday night,” I start over, moving closer. “I still think that what I said was valid, but I didn’t have to —”

He steps closer, leans in.

“—I didn’t have to be an asshole about it,” I say into his ear.

“I think I deserved it,” he says. His lips brush my ear, and my eyes flutter closed.

Don’t, I tell myself. Don’t do a single thing that isn’t apologizing for your behavior.

As if I didn’t seek him out. As if I didn’t drag him into this tiny, cramped back staircase.

“No, you were right,” I tell him, automatically reaching out, steadying myself against his shoulder. “I found you at the banquet. I kissed you later. I gave you a bottle of wine.”

“But I’m the one who should know better,” he says, and then his hand is on mine, holding it against his warm chest. My heart beats harder, faster.

“You think I don’t?”

“I shouldn’t be giving you rides and walking you home,” he goes on. “Pretending that those things are perfectly fine and innocent, because they’re not.”

We shift in the tiny space and suddenly our bodies are touching from shoulder to hip, the jolt of his heat like an electric current.

“We shouldn’t be seeing each other at all,” I tell him, even as I close my eyes, press myself into him so softly I can tell myself I’m not doing anything, my lips millimeters from his ear.

“No,” he says. “The more I see you the harder it is to pretend I don’t like you.”

A hand on my hip, his fingers touching bare skin above my too-small shorts.

“And the harder it is to pretend I don’t want you,” he whispers.

My heart’s beating so hard and fast that it feels like my ribcage is rattling in my body. Outside and from above, the organ hums thickly, surrounding us.

“What if it were my fault?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

I know I should walk away. I know that. I know my coworker Nathaniel got expelled for sexual misconduct and while I have no intention of making porn, I’m fairly certain that sleeping with my professor also falls into that category.

I know he could get fired and his career could be over.

I know a million things wrong with this scenario, and not one of them stops me.

“I mean,” I say, and plant a kiss on his neck, right below his jaw. His fingers curl into my spine.

“What if —” another kiss, higher up, “— it were my fault?”

The last kiss lands on his jawline, right below his ear, my fingers now woven through his hair, his slight stubble sharp on my lips.

He moves his hand until his palm is flat on my back, in the space between the shorts and my vest, underneath the jacket I’m still wearing. He swallows hard, his breath on my neck.

Then his hand is on my face, his thumb stroking my jaw, and he pulls me back, his green eyes nearly black in the dark, his lips parted, his gaze roaming my face. I don’t breathe. I don’t think my heart beats.

And he kisses me.

About Roxie Noir:

I love writing sexy, alpha men and the headstrong women they fall for.

My weaknesses include: beards, whiskey, nice abs with treasure trails, sarcasm, cats, prowess in the kitchen, prowess in the bedroom, forearm tattoos, and gummi bears.

I live in California with my very own sexy, bearded, whiskey-loving husband and two hell-raising cats.

Blog Tour: Best Man by Katy Evans – Excerpt

December 13, 2019Leave a comment

Title: Best Man
Author: Katy Evans
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: December 10, 2019

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Indigo | Amazon | iBooks
Kobo | Nook | Audible

When the wedding of your dreams is just around the corner, everything needs to go as planned. Only problem is, the groom didn’t get the memo.Aaron forgot the rings, and Lia is determined to make the long drive home to get them in time for their “I do’s.”

But there’s a catch. There always is with Aaron, isn’t there?

Aaron is too hungover to come, and sends a replacement.

The best man.

Miles Foster. The cocky, arrogant, sexy best man…and the last person Lia wants to be trapped in a car with for hours.

But Aaron insists, and Lia wonders if there’s another reason Aaron wants Miles tagging along–aside from sticking her with a hot, surly babysitter.

Yet how bad can it be? It’ll be over before she knows it, and she’ll never see him again. Just like in college.

But when secrets are revealed, and Lia’s whole world is turned upside down, she realizes she’s been living a lie–and so has her groom.

Miles is supposed to be the best man at her wedding.

But what if he is simply the best man she has ever known? The best man for her?

Excerpt:

The dress is a strapless Carolina Herrera, with layers and layers of whisper-thin organza. It blows my budget and the “less is more” mantra out of the water, but like Eva said the day we bought it in downtown Denver, when you know, you know. The locale is the sumptuous Midnight Lodge, nestled in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, every tiny detail of the place costing my father more than an entire year of his salary. The twenty-three members of the bridal party are assembled. It’s the scene of every little girl’s fairytale fantasy.

My fantasy.

At least, the one I’d been harboring up until today, when everything changed.

Eva smiles at me. “Ready to make your dreams come true?”

I stare at myself in the mirror. I look like Cinderella, if the wicked stepmother had just materialized at the castle on Cinderella’s wedding day and gunned down Prince Charming in cold blood. I’m also about three minutes away from losing the mimosa I’d polished off earlier that morning at breakneck speed. I go to chew on my nails but then I remember Eva painted them, and the last thing I want is for him to see the chips.

He notices things like that. He’s an observer.

And I want to be perfect for him.

Him.

The wrong him.

Oh, god.

I go to chew on my lip, but I can’t do that because they’ve been lacquered with bubble-gum pink gloss, and he’d probably notice if I got it on my teeth, too. All my normal ways of freaking out are off limits.

This is the day of my dreams, the day I’ve planned to the letter, just so I could avoid any potential calamities that might make me freak out.

But I am freaking out. Oh, lordy, am I ever.

I’ve been waiting my whole life for this day.

This perfect day, where the sun is shining, the snow is melting, birds are singing, and the sky is the deepest blue I’ve ever seen.

But there’s a problem.

A problem in the form of a pretentious, bearded, six-foot-three wall of hot man flesh who stalks around hating the world and thinking he’s better than everyone in it.

My fiancé’s best friend. The best man, Miles Foster.

This is all his fault.

“You okay?” Eva asks.

“I am,” I insist, pushing the infernal veil out of my face for the thousandth time. “This dress is itchy as hell.”

I stand and pluck the dress up under my armpits, hoisting it over my boobs. I try to take a step but…too much fabric, in all directions. It’s a wonder I don’t drown in this sea. In this sea, or in this mess I’ve created for myself. I sit back down on the vanity stool and pout. “I’m stuck.”

In more ways than one.

She gathers handfuls of too much organza and helps me up, depositing the pile of fabric safely in my wake. I shuffle to the full-length mirror and glance at myself. I don’t look like a bride, or even a fairytale princess. I look like a prisoner who just got her death sentence.

“It’s too loose,” I whine. I never had much of a rack, and now it’s super obvious. Why did I decide to go strapless again? “I think I must’ve lost some boobage during my diet. What if the top of my dress falls down while I’m walking up the aisle?”

Eva smirks. “I’m sure Aaron’ll love the show.”

The thought makes the mimosa turn in my stomach. I used to live for what Aaron thought. Whenever I had a choice to make on something, be it a new movie coming out, or a sweater at the mall, or a new hair style, I’d think, Would Aaron like this? But I realize, as she says his name, that it doesn’t matter to me in the slightest what Aaron thinks. The only opinion I care about now is that of the man who will be standing precisely two feet to my husband-to-be’s left.

I am such an idiot.

In less than fifteen minutes, I will be marching down the stone steps outside the Midnight Lodge to a picturesque gazebo at the foot of the hills, on the arm of my father, who has socked his entire life’s savings into making this day picture perfect for his only daughter. I will take the hand of the man I’ve been attached at the hip to for over five years, ever since I met him in a dank frat cellar when I was a wide-eyed little college freshman. I will join with this man—this man I’ve spent all of my adult life with—in holy matrimony, ’til death us do part.

I will become Mrs. Aaron Eberhart.

But I know I’ll be looking past my husband-to-be to the man who, up until twelve hours ago, I’d thought I hated. Miles Foster.

And I will be wondering What if…

I wish choosing a husband was as simple as choosing a dress.

When you know, you know.

I did know, or I thought I did. Up until twelve hours ago, I thought Aaron Eberhart was my true soul mate, the one I’d happily spend the rest of my life with. That’s when things took an unexpected turn.

Right now? I don’t even know my own name.

And I have a feeling I might be making a huge mistake.

About Katy Evans:

Katy Evans is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Her debut REAL shot to the top of the bestselling lists in 2013 and since then 9 of her titles have been New York Times bestsellers. Her books have been translated into nearly a dozen languages across the world.

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Tag: excerpt

Blog Tour: Take the Shot by Danica Flynn – Excerpt + Giveaway

Let’s Get Physical by Cassie Cross – Release Day Blitz + Excerpt

Fool Me Twice by Carrie Aarons – Excerpt