Title: Broken Beginnings Author: C. Hallman and J.L. Beck Genre: Dark Contemporary Romance
The night I saved her eight years ago I knew a choice had been made.
Years later and I can’t manage to let her go.
She’s barely eighteen, virginal, and kind.
Touching her would be a sin, but letting another man have her would destroy me.
Every time I close my eyes I see her, standing there, afraid, scared out of her mind because of that one fateful night.
She doesn’t know the lengths I’ve gone to protect her.
The blood spilled, the words said.
Nothing deters my obsession… it’s wrong, immoral, to follow her, and watch her at every turn but I can’t help myself.
Her safety, her life. It’s the only thing of importance to me.
When an enemy lurking in the shadows challenges that I’ll do whatever I can to protect her, even make a deal with a devil, knowing the only way out is death.
Lucca tosses the broken plate into the sink. The sound makes me jump but doesn’t scare me as much as when I look away from the sink and find Lucca advancing toward me. I take a hesitant step back.
Instantly, I’m the prey, and he’s the hunter.
Lucca’s chest brushes against mine, and sparks of desire form low in my belly. I lick my bottom lip, wondering what it would be like to kiss him or if he would kiss me back? I’m so caught up in him, in his scent, his body, what I want him to do to me, that I lose focus for a moment. I can’t let the lust drive me alone.
Dark blue eyes pierce my own, and I break the connection taking a step back, putting a breath of space between us. It’s hard to show him my anger when he’s this close.
“I will not be your prisoner here. I will not be trapped in that bedroom. I’m an adult, but more than that, I’m a human being, not an animal you can keep in a cage.”
“I don’t care how old you are and what you think is best for you…” His voice is deep and soft, causing me to look up from his chest and directly into his eyes. His gaze has softened to a dull knife, and for once, in all the time I’ve known him, I feel like I’m seeing him, the real him, for the first time. His thumb brushes against the apple of my cheek, his touch making my skin heat. “Your age doesn’t stop me from protecting you, nor does it stop me from locking you up in that bedroom and keeping you there until you learn to listen to me.”
Born and raised in Germany, Cassandra moved to the United States when she was eighteen. She always had a love for reading, that love slowly transpired into writing. She put fingers to the keyboard and started writing about the dark side of romance.
J.L. Beck is a USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR, she has written over fifty different romance novels. She started her journey of writing back in 2014 and hasn’t slowed down a second since then.
She’s captivated by real romance, and loves reading about strong “ALPHA” males, as well as sassy heroines that know or may not know what they want. She is best known for delivering a happily ever after but has ended things on a cliffhanger a time or two.
When she’s not typing away at her next book you can find her being a mom to her two adorable kiddos and wife to her high school sweetheart.
She’s obsessed with Starbucks, social media, and is definitely more of a dog person than cat.
A heartwarming, emotionally satisfying contemporary Australian romance with an international flavour, by Amber Jakeman
A fresh start. An instant enemy. But Stella is determined.
Sparkles fly when former office manager Stella Rhees, 30, flees a failed affair with her old boss, Damian. Determined to run her own show, she pursues her dream of creating and selling her own jewellery.
The problem? She’s opened her jaunty stall directly outside the famous Huntleys House of Jewels at the very moment handsome James Huntley the Third, 33, asks her to move so he can stage a publicity stunt. Feisty Stella won’t budge.
Despite a mutual physical attraction, Stella and James become instant enemies, their rivalry fanned by a social media war.
While Huntleys appears prosperous, it’s facing bankruptcy, and James’s mother and playboy brother are squandering the family fortune overseas.
James finds Stella and her fresh ideas irresistible, and she becomes the catalyst for him to change Huntleys’ path of self-destruction. He offers her a job, but how can she accept when she’s vowed to never fall into the old trap of falling in love with the boss?
For Stella and James to find their Happily Ever After, each must overcome personal demons, take risks and learn to trust the other. In this delightful first book of the House of Jewels series, will this dazzling couple ever work out how to put a Huntley engagement ring to its proper purpose?
What? Move? Why would she move? She’d only just finished setting up. It had taken her months to prepare, and so much time just that morning, arranging her earrings and bracelets. What on earth could he mean?
“… just for a short time, thank you,” he said.
Her hackles rose. However handsome he might be, with that sun-kissed brown hair, and that way of smiling just on one side, as if life was a bit of joke as long as he was in control, he had no right to push her around.
“Actually, Mr …”
“Huntley. James Huntley.” He tipped his head back a little, indicating his connection with the three-storey building behind him, and she turned and read the ornate sign. Huntleys House of Diamonds.
Stella sighed. She didn’t reconfigure her whole life, resigning and moving here from Perth on the other side of the country, only to fall into the trap of obeying the next handsome man. No. She’d been there and done that. For too long. She’d been totally, pathetically, at the mercy of her boss Damian’s demands.
Obeying handsome men was a bad habit she’d finally kicked, hadn’t she?
This new Stella was strong and independent, she reminded herself. Stella now worked for herself, trusted only herself and obeyed only herself. She would no longer be told what to do by men who assumed she’d comply. So, whatever this man wanted, and however attractive he might be – and he was, quite attractive, every bit as good-looking as Damian, his hair more fair, and with a bit of a wave at the front, and those eyes – intense – she knew she had every right to stand her ground. And she would.
He waited expectantly, but she was only just ready to trade. With customers gathering, she needed to sell, sell, sell – and not waste another moment. Her licence to trade wasn’t a give away. It would take her months to pay back the loan she’d taken out to pay for it.
He lifted one hand up toward the side of her stack of display trays, as if to test his strength against its weight, to simply push her stall away. She could swear she saw his healthy bicep flex beneath that high quality pale grey woollen fabric.
How dare he! The flame of defiance inside her flashed fire. No. She would not be shoved away.
“Stella Rhys, Mr Huntley,” she answered, keeping her voice low and controlled, and extending her own hand to be shaken. His was smooth, the hand of a businessman, as cool as her own. It was a fine handshake, pleasant even.
Her mother would have fun reading this palm, she thought, smiling. It was a mistake. He must have interpreted her smile as acquiescence. Nodding and smiling in return, he held her hand just a moment longer than necessary.
“Thanks, so much, Stella. These stalls… There was nothing here for months, and suddenly you appear! Today of all days. It’s so good of you to move. Just for an hour or so.” He gave her the full blue gaze again and smiled.
For a moment Stella weakened, but she remembered the advice of Fritz, ther nearest stallholder, who’d welcomed her to the mall only that morning.
“I’ve been here nearly thirty years, young lady,” Fritz had said. “Seen a thing or two in my time. Seen stalls come and seen them go. Can be tough out here on the mall. Don’t you let anyone push you around.”
Stella knew the terms of her licence. Thursday to Saturday, 11am to 7pm. Right here. So she lifted her sunglasses and fired back a dose of her own dark eyes – bright, quick and determined.
“Actually, James,” she began, amiably enough, with a hint of steel. She gestured at the small crowd gathering to admire her unusual brooches, rings, earrings and pendants, all laid out so temptingly in the bright sunshine. Her excitement ratcheted up a notch. Behind James, two older women, sisters perhaps, were pulling out their purses. Her first customers! It was James who needed to move, so she could trade.
“Look. This is my business, James – ‘Stellar,’” she continued, polite yet firm, her voice steady. “And I’m not moving it. Not at all. I don’t mean to be unreasonable; nothing personal; but as I see it, the Huntleys property boundary begins at the edge of your doorway. The mall here is public space, and this patch is mine.”
Partial to sunsets, picnics and poetry, feel-good fiction writer Amber Jakeman was a journalist, ghost writer and editor before succumbing to her addiction to uplifting endings.
She writes from her tiny apartment on the edge of Sydney Harbour, creating wholesome historical and contemporary romance with an international flavour.
When not writing, Amber enjoys time with family and friends, sailing with her husband, travel, walking and savouring other writers’ creations.
Amber Jakeman acknowledges Australia’s first storytellers and offers respect to Aboriginal people past and present and to their descendants.
Falling in love with a vampire bites—and sometimes loving a human bites back.
Dorian Villeneuve is an unlucky vampire from the slums of Devil’s Row. He makes ends meet for himself and his emotional support Chihuahua by working sleazy bars and nightclubs, doing what it takes to get by. Cash Leroy is a monster hunter from East Texas with a golden voice and an unrivaled devotion to Stevie Nicks. Hunting does not leave time for friends, let alone love.
When their paths cross during a bloody run-in with the vampire mob, Cash upends Dorian’s life—and takes Dorian under his wing to teach how to hunt monsters.
The unlikely pair become partners, and soon, best friends. However, their deepening bond grows complicated when Dorian falls in love with Cash. Their friendship is too important to throw away over an interspecies attraction, especially in a career that is already nasty, brutish, and short.
And things become even more complicated when Cash finds himself returning the vampire’s affections.
When an unusually deadly case lands in the hunters’ laps, their ill-fated affair takes a backseat. A pair of man-eating weredeer are on the loose taking victims’ hearts. With the pressure on to end the killing spree, Dorian and Cash must set aside their feelings and hunt down the blood-thirsty deer.
Can Dorian and Cash’s friendship survive this monstrous romance, or will they lose their hearts in the process?
Cash Leroy could have been a singer but killing paid the bills. He stood at the karaoke machine and bathed in the pink neon spotlight, every inch of him painted in a dusky glow. Mic in hand, he commanded his favorite booth with lowered eyes, splinters of light catching in his fallen lashes as they fluttered against his stubbled cheeks. His voice hit the high notes of ‘Outside the Rain’ in a velvety dither that belied his smoky drawl and taste for Pall Mall cigarettes. In a depth of sound so full, it overshadowed the shrill karaoke track.
Here, on most nights and nearly every weekend, Cash sang Stevie Nicks songs and only Stevie Nicks songs. This was his ritual for the eight months that Dorian knew Cash, but it went well beyond their partnership. Cash was a man of singular interest, and no one else loved Stevie Nicks like he did.
The hunter cradled the mic between strong hands, his booted foot keeping time as he swayed to the music. Onstage, he seemed like a different man from the one Dorian knew the rest of the day. Singing straightened his slouched posture as his voice overtook the room. The stage broke Cash’s even temperament and replaced it with a showman’s presence as he performed for his preferred audience of one. Even the flecks of blood on the collar of his shirt disappeared into the neon. Everything else about Cash seemed to fall away whenever he opened his mouth to sing.
And Dorian, despite his best efforts, was in love with Cash.
Dorian nursed his second beer of the night on the modular pink loveseat across from the karaoke machine. He tried not to watch Cash as closely as he did. It was hard not to watch Cash in all things, both on the stage and off it. Dorian fought to keep his gaze from wandering over Cash’s strong legs in his beat-up blue jeans. The vampire fought harder to avoid staring at Cash’s neck, mouth, and sweep of his dark lashes as he sang.
Because Cash was Dorian’s best friend, roommate, and partner. He didn’t want to be in love with Cash. Loving Cash made Dorian’s life complicated and scary. It put an ache deep inside the vampire’s rib cage, choking on glass whenever the feeling threatened to claw its way out of his throat. Choking it down because they could never be together.
But sitting in a karaoke booth, watching Cash sing, Dorian loved Cash anyway.
Magen Cubed is an Eisner-nominated writer, essayist, and occasional critic, best known for her queer monster-hunting urban fantasy/paranormal romance series SOUTHERN GOTHIC. She has appeared in the critically acclaimed TWISTED ROMANCE comics anthology from Image Comics and has bylines on the award-winning Women Write About Comics. Magen lives in Florida with her girlfriend Melissa and a little dog named Cecil.
