Tuesday, January 30, 2018

New Release-Excerpt & Giveaway: HEAVENLY PLEASURES by Isla Dennes (For Heaven's Sake #1)

*** RELEASING TODAY !! ***
At Heavenly Pleasures, quite a lot of things are possible...
Heavenly Pleasures
HEAVENLY PLEASURES
Isla Dennes
Series: For Heaven's Sake Book 1
Genre: Chick Lit, Comedy, Romance
Publisher: Totally Bound
Publication Date: January 30, 2018
Meet Brooke, a self-confessed shopaholic turned reluctant brothel receptionist, as she stumbles through life, trying to live up to her parents' and fiancé's high expectations-at the cost of her now low self-esteem.
Who would have thought a group of working girls would help her rediscover her inner strength and finally tackle her personal demons? But at Heavenly Pleasures, the rules are made to be broken and new opportunities are just around the corner...

Purchase Links

Excerpt

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Scarlett asked, taking in my pale face and trembling hands.
“Some bloke just walked in here and asked me to have sex with him!”
Uggh! And he’d been all greasy black hair, gold fillings and overgrown ’tache, like an aging porn star. I stifled the urge to throw up.
Shaking her head in disgust, Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Hate to break it to you, precious, but you are working in a brothel, you know.”
“But—”
“But nothing. What the hell did you expect him to ask for, a burger and fries?”
“I kept telling him I was only the receptionist, but he didn’t seem to care. He told me he’d pay extra if he had to.” I fought to calm my racing heart and queasy stomach.
Scarlett’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t look happy. It occurred to me that maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.
“What do you mean extra? How much extra?”
“Um…” I swallowed hard. “Three hundred dollars.”
The temperature in the room plummeted as a blast of ice-cold fury filled the air.
“What!” she screeched. “And you turned him down?”
“But—”
“Jesus Christ!” she hissed and bolted over to the waiting room. “Sh*t, where the hell is he now?”
My glance flickered toward the door. Scarlett’s followed. For the briefest of moments, I thought she was going to drag him back in and make him apologize for being an insensitive bastard.
Instead her eyes widened in shock. “What! You let him walk out of here? You selfish f*cking cow. You mightn’t have wanted him, but what about the rest of us girls? Three hundred bucks and you just let him walk out of here? Jesus! Prue is going to go off her nut when she hears about this.”
Prue was the Madame and owner of Heavenly Pleasures. An outwardly serene woman with immaculate hair, but nonetheless seriously scary with a sinister reputation, not unlike Cruella DeVille on a bad day, and therefore someone I did not want to cross.
“Oh, please don’t say anything,” I begged, on the verge of tears. “Look, I promise if he comes back in, I’ll call you out straight away—before JoJo. Just don’t mention it to Prue. I was just a bit taken aback, that’s all, and didn’t know what to do.”
This part was true. Haggling for sex wasn’t something we’d covered in secretarial college. Maybe it was the look of pure terror on my face or possibly Scarlett was in a rare compassionate mood, but after a moment’s hesitation she stopped scowling, her expression softening in what could well have been pity.
“Okay. I won’t say anything—this time,” came with reluctance. “But of course I’ll expect some more bookings, if you get my meaning.”
Yes—her meaning was loud and clear. She was blackmailing me, but I was in no position to protest. I nodded.
Her mood lightened. “Hey, cheer up, will you? So what if some ugly punter wanted a poke? Jeez, you’re not the first one to have the hard word put on them by some tosser, believe me. Guys come in here, think they’re God’s gift to women and although they know you’re not a worker, it gives them a sick thrill to think they can convince you to drop to your knees for a blow job—even if it is for three hundred dollars.” She threw me a disgusted look and shook her head in disbelief. “I reckon in their pathetic little minds they’re convinced they’ve seduced you with their hot looks and charm. Losers, that’s what they are. Anyway, I suppose it’s probably just as well you didn’t take him up on it.”
“Really?” I brightened, seeing it as a sign I was forgiven.
“Yeah, the girls would have flattened you if you had.”
Oh, God. I felt ill. What on earth had happened to my perfect life?
Two months ago, I had never met or even spoken to a prostitute. Two months ago, I’d had no idea brothels even existed outside the red light district of King’s Cross. Two months ago, I’d thought French, Spanish and Greek were southern Europeans rather than hooker code for certain sexual practices. And two months ago, I’d been happily looking forward to marrying my fiancé, Brad, an up-and-coming lawyer who planned to be the youngest junior partner in the law firm where he worked.
Yes, two months ago my life had all been mapped out before me.
But that was before a day out in the city to catch up with an old friend triggered a series of events that would ultimately bring about my downfall. Yep, it was at that point I can honestly say my life had bit the big one, nose-diving to newly discovered depths of desperation and despair. I was completely screwed and I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself…

Heavenly Pleasures Tour Graphic

About Isla Dennes

Married, mother of one son and three daughters, Isla Dennes developed a love for writing while employed in her dream job as the owner of a book shop situated in a seaside resort town in NSW, Australia. Not content in simply reading every book in the store, she found herself compelled to create novels of her own.
Had she concentrated more on sales and less on writing she might well have retired a wealthy woman, but writing won out in the end, with the result being a lifelong passion for creative writing across a number of genres, including a brief but regrettable sojourn into horribly sentimental New-aged poetry which is best forgotten.

Giveaway!

WIN $10 AMAZON GIFT CARD
Heavenly Pleasures Giveaway Graphic
Contest runs from January 15 - February 1, 2018.
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Monday, January 29, 2018

Audiobook/Ebook Review, Excerpt & Giveaway: FOR THE LIVING by L.A. Witt



Buy Link Ebook: 

books2read.com/ForTheLivingLA-

Buy Link Audio: 

Audible US | Audible UK | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Length: 78,000 words approx.
Cover Design: Lori Witt
Narrator: Charlie David


Blurb

For the last year, Jay Warren has struggled to find the nerve to tell his wife he's gay. Every time he gets the chance, though, he freezes up. He's ashamed of hiding it all this time, he doesn't want to hurt her, and the guilt has been almost unbearable.

When his wife dies suddenly, Jay's conscience threatens to eat him alive.

Funeral director Scott Lawson deals with the bereaved every day, and he's all too familiar with the inside of the closet. He offers Jay some much-needed compassion and understanding, and from that connection comes a friendship that quickly - perhaps too quickly - turns into something more.

But are grief, guilt, and loneliness the only things tying them together? Or, will Scott get fed up with being used as an emotional crutch before Jay realizes what he has?


Excerpt

Tonight, I’m going to tell her.

Yeah right. Just like I was going to tell her every night for the past several months. Probably creeping up on a year at this point. A year of long evenings of pacing back and forth across the living room or the kitchen, gesturing with my drink and talking to myself as I rehearsed the words that I had, to date, never been able to say in her presence. A year of psyching myself up and telling myself tonight was the night, only to lose my nerve the second she came through the front door.

Pacing back and forth across the living room, I sipped the double Seagram’s in my sweaty hand.

I can do this. I can do this. God, I have to do this.

It didn’t help that she was late. Sure, it was more time for me to drink a little liquid courage and convince myself I could do this, but it was also more time for those ever-present doubts to get up on their respective soapboxes and tell me why I shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t.

“Do you really want to hurt her like that?”

“After this long, you’re an asshole for telling her now.”

“You’re a jerk, you know that?”

I stopped pacing and rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger.

Come on, Jay. She deserves the truth.

She deserved the truth a long time ago. And every time I passed up an opportunity to tell her, the guilt just burned deeper. One more day of leading her on. One more day of pretending the problems plaguing our marriage could be resolved with just a little more time and patience.

I cursed under my breath, then took another long drink. I put the glass on a coaster on the coffee table—Misty hated rings on the table—and kept pacing along that path I’d worn into the carpet in front of the fireplace.

I glanced at my watch. It was well after nine, and she was always home by eight-thirty.

Maybe her class had run late. Her professor’s lectures were always precisely two hours long, so if class started late, it ended late. There’d been a massive car accident on the freeway earlier this evening—a multiple fatality, from what the traffic reporter said—so maybe that had held things up. But an hour or more late? Even that prof wouldn’t hold his class that long.

Her study group wasn’t meeting tonight, was it? They always got together after class and sometimes didn’t finish up until ten or eleven. I picked up my drink again and closed my eyes as I held the ice-cold glass to my forehead, wracking my brain as I tried to remember if they were meeting on Wednesdays or Thursdays this quarter. She’d probably told me earlier. Might have even e-mailed me at work to remind me. I was just too far into this bottle and a night of undoubtedly futile self pep talks to remember.

Better check with her, then, since I wasn’t going to find the answer in my own nervous, slightly intoxicated mind, so I speed-dialed her cell. It rang several times, then kicked over to voice mail.

“Hey, this is Misty. I’m probably at work, in class, or just plain not answering, so leave a message and I’ll call you back.”

I cleared my throat. “Hey, it’s me. I can’t remember if you’ve got study group tonight or not, so I wasn’t sure when you’d be home, but give me a call when you’re on your way. Talk to you soon. Love you.”

I winced at the last two words. Sighing, I hung up the phone and set it beside the coaster on the coffee table. It wasn’t a lie. I did love her. I would love her until the day I died, and never questioned that for a second.

But was I in love with her?

No. No, I wasn’t.

And the longer I dragged this out, the more she’d hate me when she finally learned the truth that I had owed her for a long, long time.

I brought the glass up to my lips, but hesitated. I’d had enough for one night. No sense being legitimately drunk when she got home. For one thing, we’d end up fighting. Misty didn’t mind me drinking, but the second the alcohol showed itself in my speech or gait, she got pissed. I couldn’t even count the number of times a fight about my drinking had been the convenient excuse not to discuss the reason I’d been drinking in the first place.

Not tonight. No.

Come on, Jay. You can do this.

I also needed a clear head. Well, as close to a clear head as I could get. If I stopped drinking now, I might even be completely sober by the time she came home from study group.

I stood, leaving my glass on the coaster beside my phone, and resumed pacing between the coffee table and fireplace.

“Listen, Misty,” I said to the empty room. “I’m not quite sure how to say this, and I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner.” I tried not to choke on the words. “But, honey, I’m gay.”

A million images of my wife flickered through my mind, each reacting a different way. One cussing me out. One collapsing into tears. One getting herself a very, very strong drink.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked in my mind. Sometimes she screamed it. Sometimes she asked through her tears. Sometimes she just asked matter-of-factly, “Jay, why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

And why didn’t you tell her, Jay?

Scared. Ashamed. Uncertain. Embarrassed. In denial. Didn’t want to hurt her. Didn’t want to lose her.

Same answers, different night. And when she came home, I’d choke just like I always did. God, how long was this going to go on?

The longer you wait, the worse it’s going to get.

I sank onto the sofa and rested my elbows on my knees. Rubbing the back of my neck, I sighed, wondering how long I could resist the siren’s call of that mostly empty glass on the table. My willpower was melting faster than the neglected ice cubes. I wanted to say to hell with it and chalk up tonight as another failed attempt to work up the courage to tell her, and I wanted to celebrate that failure with this glass and at least two or three more afterward. So what if we fought? Maybe if we did enough fighting, we could divorce over that instead of this.

My shoulders slumped, and I pressed my fingers into my temples. Who was I kidding? I didn’t want to hurt her. I had to, I knew that, but not by picking fights and giving us a reason to scream at each other until we could tick the “irreconcilable differences” box and move on. She deserved better than that.

She deserves better than me.

F*ck it. I picked up the glass and threw it back, swallowing the whisky in one go, barely tasting how much the melted ice had watered it down. The remaining ice clinked halfheartedly as I put the glass back on the table.

The doorbell rang.

I shot the front door a suspicious glance, then looked at my watch. Who the hell showed up at

Jesus, how the hell was it already nine fifty-seven at night?

Something tightened in my gut. I glanced at my cell phone, which remained still and silent on the coffee table beside my glass. Heart pounding, I started toward the door, and with every step, that something tightened. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The deadbolt had never clicked quite as loudly as it did when I turned it.


I opened the door, and when I saw the pair of somber-faced cops on the porch with their hats in their hands, I knew.


Carra's Review

High amounts of angst and guilt fueled much of this story, continually pouring from Jay’s side of things even after others have reassured him he should not feel that way.  Scott was incredibly patient, being a friend when Jay needed one, but always ready and willing to switch to lover when that’s what Jay wanted.  The physical chemistry between the two is never in question, and is off the charts from the moment they delve into a physical relationship.  

For the most part, I had a hard time liking Jay’s character.  There’s times when it feels like his relationship with his wife was more important to him and others when it was like she was an afterthought (usually when he was so wrapped up with Scott), which left me feeling unbalanced and sometimes even annoyed.  Scott was wonderful—offering comfort and understanding, helping Jay make sense of his feelings—and I liked that under his more formal exterior that he had to present for his job, there was more of a wild, sexy guy underneath.

It did feel after a while like certain elements of the story became repetitive, constantly underscoring Jay’s mixed emotions, then moving back to the physical relationship between him and Scott.  I would even go so far as to say some of these repetitive areas could have been edited down, and it wouldn’t have affected my reading and my comprehension of the story at all.  

With the supporting characters, I found Jay’s family to be quite supportive of him once he came out to them though I didn’t understand the lack of their presence in the story in the time right after his wife dies.  His wife’s family—in particular his mother-in-law—well, they’re another matter…though I was okay with his father-in-law in the end.  

As for the story, I’m hovering between 3 to 3.5 stars…and this is where the narration comes in to give things a boost.  I’ve enjoyed Charlie David’s narrations previously, and as with his other projects, I really liked his interpretations of the characters.  His smooth voice is easy to listen to, and it is his narration that has me boosting my final rating closer to 4 stars overall.  Whether reading or listening, this story is meant for readers 18+ for adult language and hot and steamy sexual content.
About the Author

L.A. Witt is an abnormal M/M romance writer who has finally been released from the purgatorial corn maze of Omaha, Nebraska, and now spends her time on the southwestern coast of Spain. In between wondering how she didn't lose her mind in Omaha, she explores the country with her husband, several clairvoyant hamsters, and an ever-growing herd of rabid plot bunnies. She also has substantially more time on her hands these days, as she has recruited a small army of mercenaries to search South America for her nemesis, romance author Lauren Gallagher, but don't tell Lauren. And definitely don't tell Lori A. Witt or Ann Gallagher. Neither of those twits can keep their mouths shut...


Website - E-mail - Twitter - Blog
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Cover Reveal & Pre-Order: THE SEDUCTION EXPERT by Saya Lopez Ortega

One of the most anticipated romance books of 2018!
The Seduction Expert
THE SEDUCTION EXPERT
Saya Lopez Ortega
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: VSP Publishing
Publication Date: May 27, 2018
After two best-sellers in France and Brazil, the seduction expert has now arrived in New York with her Vuitton luggage. She was the most famous seduction expert in France. She is now the most famous seduction expert in the world.
Imagine years spent in her company, during which she challenges the biggest heartbreakers. . . . Years of analyzing, tracking and well-deserved revenge. All motivated by a single promise: to change the lives of all those women calling upon her services. A few women would swear that The Seduction Expert changed their lives. She is an iron hand in a velvet glove, a woman of honour, dressed in a designer suit. She is the Wonder Woman of modern times who owns Gucci shoes and Burberry coats. She is the kind of woman of action who brings emotional turmoil. Get her card, it's much better than spending holidays in St Barth!

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY

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New Release-Excerpt & Giveaway: HIS PERSONAL ASSISTANT by L.J. Harris (Men of New York #1)


HIS PERSONAL ASSISTANT
Men of New York, Book 1

 by L.J. Harris
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Sunday, January 28, 2018

New Release-Excerpt & Giveaway: DONNACH'S DAUGHTER by Nancy Pennick (The Clan MacLaren #2)


DONNACH'S DAUGHTER
The Clan MacLaren series, Book 2

 by Nancy Pennick
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