Three things I’ve learned this week: 1) Never fall for a client 2) Never fall for your best friend 3) And most importantly, never fall for your back-up guy …especially if they’re all the same person.
I’m the queen of dating disasters—I’ve had more rotten dates than you can shake a long stemmed rose at. After years of one disappointment after another, I’m beginning to feel like I’ll never say “I do.”
So after being dumped one too many times I do something stupid:
I make a pact with my best friend Asher. If neither of us are married by 35, we tie the knot. That’s five full years of searching for The One.
I’ve got to meet Mr. Right by then, don’t I?
Except when I take a job redecorating Asher’s bachelor pad, I realize he’s a lot different from the guy I thought he was. Against all odds, I find myself falling for my best friend. Maybe my back-up guy could be The One after all?
Except there’s only one problem…
My back-up guy has a secret that could ruin everything.
Visit kateokeeffe.com and sign up to her newsletter so you never miss out on new releases and great book deals again! Follow her on Bookbub to learn about deals on her books. Just cut and paste this link into your browser: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kate-o-keeffe
Kate O’Keeffe is a bestselling author of fun, feel-good romantic comedies. She lives and loves in beautiful Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand with her family, two scruffy dogs, and a cat who thinks he’s a scruffy dog too. He’s not: he’s a cat. When she’s not penning her latest story, Kate can be found hiking up hills (slowly), traveling to different countries, and eating chocolate. A lot of it.
Visit kateokeeffe.com to sign up to her newsletter to keep up to date on new releases, great deals on books, and more.
Leraine has finally returned home, but the welcome is not as she imagined it. Tension is rising within the Mochedan Federation as many advocate for an end to the long peace and a return to the glory of war.
She sets off to the most important festival of the Mochedan, hoping to preserve the peace for at least a little while longer. Eurik joins her, to help his friend and to finally find the answers about his parents he’s been chasing since he left the island.
What they find is theft, murder, and a conspiracy to end their world.
“Ah, so we’re heading for smithies,” Misthell said.
Startled, Eurik glanced over his shoulder at the blade. “We are. How did you know?”
“We’re looking for my makers, that’s the point of this whole story. Also, there were at least two carts laden with iron bars and coal we passed heading the same way we are.”
Looking past Misthell, Eurik spotted one of the carts in question. “Right. I should have noticed that.”
“You’re too focused on one thing. Or should I say, one Way. Why don’t you try Dance of the Whirlwind to find what you’re looking for?”
He hesitated for a moment as the people flowed around him. But these past weeks, what little time he’d had for training had been taken up by Silver Fang. And on the Road, even wind chiri didn’t quite work as it should.
Taking a deep breath, he reached out only to have Misthell whistle sharply in his ear. Eurik flinched away. “What was that for?”
“Because you’re starting wrong. The wind is motion, so if you’re trying to become one with the wind . . .”
He sighed. He should know this and he did. “So must I.” Eurik moved forward, arms hanging loose at his side, fingers lightly splayed, and felt for the flow of wind chiri. Though flow was the wrong word for the chaotic mess swirling around him, a chaos he added to with every step, every breath. On reflex, he closed his eyes to better concentrate on his other sense.
He tried feeling for the ringing of steel, of hammers striking hot iron. But the wind chiri shied away from his reach, his flow rebuffing those around him.
Eurik sidestepped a group walking toward them, their wake washing over him. A sharp flow snaked its way out of a tavern to his left, carrying a jaunty tune. Behind him an ox exerted himself, hot air blasting out with every huff.
Those flows he could feel, because they mixed and bounced off his own, but they also constrained his world. He pushed, wind ruffling clothes and hair, and he felt his perception expand. So did the chaos, new flows emerging within his flow while more flows beat at it from without.
The wingbeat of a lake gull, the wind blowing over the rooftops of Urumoy, hot air rising from a dozen chimneys, the staccato of a thousand voices whispering, speaking, hollering.
Eurik swayed, and a wagon wheel ground past his toes, almost crushing them. “Look where you’re going!” Opening his eyes, he staggered away as he lost his connection with the world. Out of the flow of traffic, into a narrow, shadowed alley. The air hung in there, thick and fetid. His deep breaths only set him to coughing.
“What did you do wrong?”
“I—” Another cough. Eurik shook his head. “I don’t know.” Breathing through his nose wasn’t better, only made the smell worse, but it helped against the coughing. “I tried to reach out to find the smithy, but I got swamped by the city. There was too much.”
“Wind is not earth,” Misthell said, his voice changing into a familiar one. One Eurik had not heard in months. “It is more like water, flowing from a place of abundance to one where there is absence. The wind dances to its own music, and you must dance with it if you wish to guide it to where you need it.”
Eurik blinked until his sight stopped being blurry. “You talked a lot to sesin.”
“Yeah. What, you thought I’d spent all that time in a box?”
Eurik shook his head. “Hard to imagine. I would have found you within a year or so if that were true. All I would have to do is follow the stream of complaints.” “You mean pointed reminders. Not my fault your fleshy minds leak memories like sieves.”
Pemry Janes grew up on a family-owned farm. He has had a love for history for as long as he can remember and studied it at university. Fantasy he discovered a few years later and now tries to combine the two in his writing.
Dominic Salem is many things: professional ghost hunter, curse breaker, and demon slayer to name a few. If there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s never pick up hitchhikers. Something about this one made him stop, though. Maybe he hasn’t learned his lesson yet.
Lavinia “Vinny” Wake doesn’t exactly trust her smoking hot ride. Her music is her sanctuary, the only thing she really believes in. But now, Vinny’s dreams have her all messed up, and the last one seemed too…real.
Dom can tell Vinny’s nightmares aren’t just dreams—they’re way worse. Something or someone is drawing her into a trap, and Dom has to stop it. Turns out Vinny’s life isn’t the only thing at stake. Her soul is on the line, too. No pressure.
The debut novel in The Brothers Salem, a new contemporary paranormal romance series where a trio of demon hunters–armed with spells and snark–are on a mission to slay some demons, break some curses, and get their girls. Unless the girls get them first
The sun crawled westward, hotter every minute. Vinny kept walking, relieved to be out of the creep’s car, but aware that this was not a great spot to be stranded. A low, pulsing headache began in the back of her neck and slowly spread upward. Sweat trickled down her face and the back of her neck in a steady stream. Her jeans were plastered to her skin. She wanted water. She needed water. She waited as long as she could to drink the last drop from her bottle, but it was mid-afternoon now, and things were starting to look pretty bad.
She automatically looked behind her every five minutes or so, hoping, praying that some speck in the distance would turn out to be a good Samaritan in an air conditioned SUV filled with lemonade.
Nothing.
Then she did a double take. Something glinted in the distance, the flash of sunlight on chrome.
She turned toward it and waited. Through the shimmering heat, a shape appeared. It was a motorcycle, not a car.
She moved to the very edge of the baking-hot asphalt and held up one hand, waving to it.
A miracle occurred.
The bike started to slow down.
She watched as the motorcycle slowed further, then stopped. The guy driving it put one foot on the ground, steadying the bike. He pulled his helmet off and pushed his black hair away from his face.
Wow.
Vinny was glad she had her sunglasses on, because she knew she was ogling him. He was hot. Smoking hot. All bad boy in faded jeans and a shiny black leather jacket.
Are you kidding me? Vinny thought. The one person to stop looks like more of a threat than the guy who left me here?
The guy looked her over, too, though she couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind those very pretty eyes.
Elizabeth Cole is a romance author with a penchant for history, which is why she lives in an old house in an old city. She can be found hanging around libraries and archives, or curled in a corner reading, cat on lap. She believes in love at first sight. Then again, she also believes that mac ‘n’ cheese is a healthy breakfast, so don’t trust her judgment on everything.
Elizabeth writes the Secrets of the Zodiac series of romantic spy thrillers set in the Regency period. The eighth novel, BREATHLESS IN THE DARK, is now available.
Elizabeth recently completed her Swordcross Knights series of medieval romances set in the beguiling world of Britannia during the period known as “The Anarchy”. Start today with HONOR & ROSES.
