Get a front-row seat to classic striptease during the heyday of burlesque.
When former burlesque dancers Dolly O’Dare and her friends discover that their manager, Ballard “Balls” Benedict, has skipped town with their retirement funds, there’s no stopping the irate troupe from converging on Las Vegas to track down the scoundrel. But to rack up enough dough to hire a private dick, the six dames must sell their life stories in a steamy, hilarious, and – yes – sweet tell-all book.
They’ll do whatever it takes to find Balls and get their money back. After all, at this point in their lives, they’ve got nothing to lose. But along the way they discover that the real treasures are in zany old friendships, quirky new acquaintances, and maybe even a second-chance romance or two.
Join the fun and fall in love with these wildly wonderful women in this first book in the Burly-Q Girls series. You may end up doing a little hoochie-coochie dance to become a Burly-Q Girl yourself.
This work of fiction was inspired by real-life stories told to the author by her burly-que friends.
Suddenly, an impatient knock from outside assaulted the apartment door like a mobster’s Tommy gun. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.
“Who in hell …?” Ginger got up and opened the door.
Annie Fannie stood there in all her hoity-toity glory.
Ginger glared up at the tall, svelte woman, her shock evident. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Dressed in a designer outfit that no doubt cost more than Ginger’s entire wardrobe, hell, probably her entire apartment, the uninvited guest pressed the back of her hand to Ginger’s shoulder to nudge her aside. “Let me in. The heat out here is insufferable.” She came to an abrupt halt just inside the door, leaving Ginger stuck in the open threshold to deal with the heat. “Well, well, well. Look … at … this,” Annie snarled as she sauntered into the room and stood like a queen looking down her nose at her peons. “The whole gang is here. Hello, girls. It’s been a long time.”
Dolly huffed. “Not long enough.”
“Aren’t you going to invite me to sit down?”
“No, Annie, we’re not,” Ginger stated flatly.
“I haven’t gone by Annie since I quit performing. It’s Anastasia now.” She patted her dyed blond hair, making certain they noticed she had a chichi coif.
“I’m guessing you’ve never quit performing, one way or another.” Dolly stood up to face the interloper mano a mano.
Merry hopped up to join the line of defense.
“My, my. What hostility. What did I ever do to make you all so rudely hostile toward me?”
“Gee, Annie, I’m surprised you ask, because we know you don’t give a rat’s ass what we think.” Dolly balled up her fists and ground them into her hips, at the ready.
“As for the hostility,” Ginger seethed, thirty years of hot anger boiling up unexpectedly, “how about the fact that you lied to my boyfriend about me and stole him away? Huh? How about that?”
“Pfft. Please. He wasn’t worth having. I only dated him a few times. You could have had him back. Oh wait. I remember now. He went on to Pussy Willow after me. I guess he liked her … willow.” She smirked, amused at her supposed wit.
“You treated us like shit,” Dolly growled. “You insulted our costumes and our acts and even our bodies. Like you thought you were so much better than us.”
“Well …” Annie made the mistake of throwing her arms out wide and looking around the room. “I’ve certainly never lived in a hovel like this.”
That did it. Ginger flung herself at their tormenter, clawing at the viper’s haute couture dress and tearing it down to her waist.
“You little bitch!” Annie Fannie, once the most elegant of exotic dancers, turned out to be a formidable foe. She grabbed a handful of Ginger’s hair and with that they hit the floor, rolling around and throwing punches as best they could. Arms and legs flailed about at random, like a game of Whack-a-mole gone bad.
Dolly and Merry jumped into action, each snatching a brawler and yanking her away. Everybody got roughed up in the process. The Women’s Wrestling Association had nothing on them.
“Girls! Girls!” Dolly hollered. “This isn’t going to change anything.”
“Stop! Stop!” Merry yelled at the same time. “You’re both acting like Neanderthals.”
Once separated and on opposite sides of the room, the brutal enemies tried to kill each other with laser stares.
“Look at what you did to my dress. It’s ruined.” Annie slung the comment across the room. Her pink, embroidered, lacy, padded, underwire bra poked out at them.
“Yeah. Well, that’s nothing compared to what you did to my life. I loved Harold!” Ginger’s lower lip quivered as she shook a quaking finger at her nemesis.
Annie frowned, paused, then said, “His name was Howard.”
“No, it wasn’t! He was my Harold.”
“Ah, Ginger, honey.” Dolly’s gentle tone caused Ginger to look at her friend. “I remember him.”
They watched as awareness clicked in on Ginger’s face.
“As much as I hate to admit that Annie is right, his name was Howard,” Dolly reminded her.
Ginger looked to Merry for support, but all Merry could offer was a helpless shrug.
“Oh. Oh. Well. Yeah, sure. Now I remember.” Ginger straightened herself, patted her mussed up hair, casually sat down at the table, and calmly clasped her hands. “I knew that.”
“Now that we’ve done a brawling bump and grind down memory lane,” Annie chided, stuffing the torn edge of her dress up into her bra straps, “I’d like to get to the reason for my visit and then get out of this dump as quickly as possible.”
“Do tell,” Dolly said. “Why in hell are you here?”
Happy endings and new beginnings – but not as you expect. Even better. That’s what Linda Hughes’ books are all about, whether historical romantic suspense, mystery, or second chance romance.
When Linda was 12 years old she wrote in her diary that she would be a “writter” when she grew up. With 20 books and a passel of writing awards, her dream has come true. She is a #1 bestselling co-author.
So browse around on her page. Find something that’s just right for you. That 12-year-old with big dreams, who still lives within Linda, is delighted.
Enter to win a $5 Amazon gift card + swag box (incl red sequin pasties (like the cover of the book), an autographed book, and a Burly-Q Girl temporary tattoo)!
Title: Dark Blue Waves Author: Kimberly Sullivan Genre: Time-Travel Romance
When you wake up in Bath, England two hundred years in the past, how far can a love of Jane Austen get you?
Janet Roberts dreams of an academic career in literature, so she can hardly believe her good fortune when she’s accepted into a Jane Austen graduate seminar in Bath, England. Settled in Georgian splendor among her seminar colleagues, Janet and her classmates live, eat and breathe Jane Austen.
An accident interrupts this idyll when Janet regains consciousness in her own room—back in Regency England. For a scholar of nineteenth-century literature, this should be a dream come true.
But Janet quickly learns there’s a world of difference between scholarly knowledge of the written page and maneuvering real life as a reluctant time traveler.
Her burgeoning friendship with Emma Huntington eases her entrée into nineteenth-century society. However, Emma’s brother, the handsome, proud and frustratingly magnetic Sir Edward, is far less welcoming.
While desperately attempting to make sense of her dilemma, Janet treads a thin line between trying to blend into her new world and not being unmasked as the imposter she is. Can she discover the way to return to her twenty-first century life? After working so hard to create a rewarding nineteenth-century life for herself and opening her hart to friendship and love, does she even want to?
Janet slid her legs over the side of the bed, pushed bare feet into her slippers and walked over to the window, pulling back the curtains. It was still dark, with only a glimmer of light along the horizon signaling the start to the new day. The fading night sky was clear. An ideal day for riding – something she had learned young, alongside her mother who loved to ride.
Nothing cleared her head better than a gallop through the countryside. She wished she could go off on her own, before everyone was up. Instead, she sat at her table and dipped her quill into the inkwell. Scratching the quill against parchment, she recorded her observations from last night as the sun emerged and cast its golden light upon the waters of the pond.
Penning her thoughts cleared her head, and she felt better when Turner entered the room.
“Miss Jane! You are up so early. Why did you not ring for me?”
“There was no need. I was enjoying the silence before the start of the day. I feel refreshed now.”
“I have brought you one of Miss Emma’s riding habits for your morning excursion.” She stroked the fabric. “This should fit you beautifully.”
Janet felt a wave of nausea. “This is how I am supposed to ride? A dress and jacket? Won’t the dress get caught up in the horse’s legs?”
“Miss Jane, the extra folds get tucked under your legs when you are riding sidesaddle. Surely you must do the same in the New World? There is even a petticoat that will cover what the habit cannot.” Her cheeks flushed. She looked down. “Your ankles, my dear. It would be most inappropriate to have them on view for all to see.”
How had Janet failed to consider the riding habit and sidesaddle when agreeing to ride with Emma? How many BBC films had she seen? And what exactly had she expected to wear to ride two hundred years ago? Surely not a jockey’s silks. How on earth could she ride in this get-up and not kill herself? No, she couldn’t risk it. She’d allow Turner to dress her, and then bow out at the moment of saddling. It was hardly worth risking a broken neck—quite literally—in exchange for a bit of exercise.
Turner was pulling tight the stays of the torturous corset Janet had hoped would be unnecessary for riding. She should have known better. The habit was swept over her head. A little jacket was added afterwards. Its tight arms limited mobility. Aside from its more somber colors, the habit appeared to Janet almost the same as the dresses she wore on a daily basis. How in God’s name could women ride in this get-up? How she longed for her no-nonsense, twenty-first-century riding britches and boots.
Janet sat sulkily at the breakfast table, long before the rest of the family was ready. She drank her coffee slowly, devising ways to extricate herself from her morning ride without causing offense. A headache? Upset stomach? An attack of Mrs. Bennet-like nerves?
“You are up already! You must be eager for our ride,” said Emma as she breezed into the breakfast room. Elegant in her riding habit and certainly capable of sitting expertly in it in her sidesaddle, Emma took her seat across from Janet. Janet wondered how to explain the sudden change of mind to her friend. She poured coffee into Emma’s empty cup. As soon as they had finished breakfast, they walked the short distance to the stable.
Kimberly grew up in the suburbs of Boston and in Saratoga Springs, New York, although she now calls the Harlem neighborhood of New York City home when she’s back in the US. She studied political science and history at Cornell University and earned her MBA, with a concentration in strategy and marketing, from Bocconi University in Milan.
Afflicted with a severe case of Wanderlust, she worked in journalism and government in the US, Czech Republic and Austria, before settling down in Rome, where she works in international development, and writes fiction any chance she gets.
She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) and The Historical Novel Society and has published several short stories and two novels: Three Coins and Dark Blue Waves.
After years spent living in Italy with her Italian husband and sons, she’s fluent in speaking with her hands, and she loves setting her stories in her beautiful, adoptive country.
Title: Only in Darkness Author: Brenda Stanley Genre: Paranormal Thriller
Based on ancient Mayan mythology comes a story of bloodlust, love and the horrors of coming of age.
In ancient Central America, the legend of the Camazotz: large, bat-like creatures that desire blood and terrorize the villages in search of prey. When the volcano, Masaya, erupts and kills the tribe from which the Camazotz are from, they discover a miracle ash in the ruins.
Years later in present-day eastern Idaho, 17-year-old Emilio Chavez lives in an isolated area near the lava rock cliffs of the American Falls reservoir. From birth, he has been different. After Emilio’s friend Clara falls victim to a terrible accident, suspicions about Emilio arise, and he discovers an astonishing secret about his past.
As a sinister force tightens its grip on Clara, can Milo save her from those searching for blood while keeping his own internal demons at bay?
I stand looking off the cliff at the raging river and jagged boulders below. I’m going to jump–or rather let myself give in to it and just fall–that I know. What I don’t know is what will happen next. There are two ways it will end, and the more I think about it, the more trouble I have deciding which result will be worse. Often, it’s the not knowing that makes life hell. I’ve been in the dark and unaware for so many years. Now I know what I am. But it is the unknown of what that fate holds for me, should I survive, that makes me shudder.
I’ve lost my family, my friends, and everything I’ve ever known, and still, someone, or something, is out there hunting me down like an animal, trying to take what has completely altered my life. The only thing I do know is I’m going to take the leap. It will be a rush for a few seconds, and then I will hit the rocks and hopefully die instantly or–and this is what I can’t fathom–if what they say is true, my back will explode, and I will transform into what my grandmother and the others of the tribe call the winged ones.
Brenda Stanley is a former television news anchor and investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Eastern Idaho. She has been recognized for her writing by the Scripps Howard Foundation, the Hearst Journalism Awards, The Idaho Press Club and the Society for Professional Journalists. She is a graduate of Dixie College in St. George, Utah and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. She is the mother of 5 children, including two sets of twins. Brenda and her husband Dave, a veterinarian, live on a small ranch near the Snake River with their horses and dogs.
