Title: Merry Ex-Mas Author: Elizabeth Janette Genre: Contemporary Christmas Romance
It’s been ten years since Delaney Silverman last stepped foot on the Silver Bells Christmas Tree farm her family owns and operates, but when her father dies, she has no choice. Even if it means mending fences with her estranged mother. The last thing this reformed wild-child-turned-Manhattan-marketing-pro has in mind, though, is a second chance at first love. But after life brings her face to face with the sexy, ex-fiancé neighbor boy, she realizes he’s everything she never knew she needed. Travis Harper knows two things to be true: 1. It’s time to adopt his foster daughter and build a custom home life for themselves, and 2. Laney Silverman is the last woman he’d ever trust with their hearts, even if she is everything he’s ever wanted. Especially since she has a bad habit of walking away from him. Will twelve days be enough to give two former lovers a Merry Ex-Mas?
She peered up at him, watching him approach with wariness in her eyes. He hated to admit it, but the caution was justified.
“Dance with me? For old time’s sake?” The smile he offered was intended to be charming and disarming. Or at least that’s what he hoped he portrayed rather than the ball of nerves that tumbled around inside.
When she finally rewarded him with a shy smile and placed her hand in his, part of him wanted to leap for joy. The other part clanged with warning bells, sensing impending doom. He ignored the alarms and led her to the dance floor. What could be the harm in one dance between old friends?
The moment he gathered her in his embrace, arm resting on his shoulders, hand in his, he knew he’d made a grave mistake. No matter how scorched she left him, one touch would never be enough.
Not with her. Not for him. He knew that now. But gracefully extricating himself from the situation would be difficult. All eyes were on them as they swayed in time to the melody.
“I’m sorry. About what I said yesterday. It was uncalled for.” He offered a rueful smile, forcing his eyes to stay trained on hers, and not dip lower to the smooth skin of her elegant neck and exposed shoulders. To ignore the thrum of her pulse that jumped when he tightened his hold on her or brushed his hand across the small of her back. The one that matched the beat of his own heart, pulse for pulse. And he absolutely did not heed the call when his lips ached to taste hers.
Born to parents who loved to read, it’s no surprise Elizabeth Janette’s lifelong love of literacy led her to become both a teacher and a writer. In fact, writing about getting RIF’d from her teaching job in the 2008 recession is what led her to publish an essay about the experience. From then on, she was hooked. Now days, when she’s not teaching sassy 5th graders, Elizabeth Janette writes romance that both sizzles and thrills. And when she’s not teaching or writing, she works for her local chapter of the National Writing Project teaching teachers how to teach writing. Visit www.elizabethjanette.com to connect and sign up for her newsletter.
He’s keeping a secret from his entire family. She’s keeping a secret from him. Their relationship has been occasional for the past five years… can there ever be more?
Lawrence Astor is stoic. He’s the level-headed one of his two siblings. Never one to overreact or cause a scene. Except, he’s keeping a massive secret from his entire family, and he has been for over five years.
He’s had enough of hiding, of his life being in limbo. Everyone in his family is finally finding their place and happiness, except him. They’re starting families and building their lives. Lawrence is still only seeing his own wife on occasion.
She has been keeping a secret, sneaking away from her home one weekend every three months to spend a total of forty-eight hours with her husband.
Rory Astor is living on borrowed time. She stays away from her own husband in an effort to save him. Can they salvage their relationship and live happily ever after, or are they doomed to be separated forever?
As an only child, Hayley Faiman had to entertain herself somehow. She started writing stories at the age of six and never really stopped.
Born in California, she met her now husband at the age of sixteen and married him at the age of twenty in 2004. After all of these years together, he’s still the love of her life.
Hayley’s husband joined the military and they lived in Oregon,where he was stationed with the US Coast Guard. They moved back to California in 2006, where they had two little boys. Recently, the four of them moved out to the Hill Country of Texas, where they adopted a new family member, a chocolate lab named Optimus Prime. Most of Hayley’s days are spent taking care of her two boys, going to the baseball fields for practice, or helping them with homework. Her evenings are spent with her husband and her nights—those are spent creating alpha book boyfriends.
I offer to do anything to save my father’s life when he’s captured by the devil he owes a debt to.
A three-million-dollar debt.
So, I became the devil’s spy as I enter the lair of the Cartel King to take a job as a live-in nanny for his niece.
My orders were simple.
All I needed to do was this:
Get close to the Cartel King.
Be his to do anything he wants me to do.
Make him trust me enough to tell me the secrets his enemies need.
Do that, and I will save my father.
I just never expected to fall in love.
Or that Alejandro Ramírez would be the first man to heal my broken heart. When he discovers the truth, I may wish I’d died instead of making that deal with the devil.
Title: Killer Runway Author: Daria White Genre: Cozy Mystery
Bianca’s determined to live a normal life in Edenville with her family, and she has no intention of getting involved in another case. While attending a fashion show, a model, also a childhood friend of her sister, collapses off the runway. Dead. Not the show Bianca planned on attending.
Detective Sims shows up to solve the case, but Bianca can’t keep silent. Too many clues are surfacing, and with a long-term photo shoot in town, the suspects remain in Edenville. There’s no harm in Bianca investigating one more time, though Detective Sims wants her to stay away.
Can she discover the motive behind this unexpected death? Bianca’s life at risk with another killer isn’t wise. Not to mention the lives of her loved ones.
Daria has lived in Texas for most of her life. She never liked reading as a kid. In fact, she almost hated it. However, as she grew up that all changed. Though she received her degree in healthcare management, Daria kept her writing as a hobby. She meant it to be private and her own way of expressing herself. It never crossed her mind to publish until she was in college. She took a chance and published. It worked!
Title: The Ritual Author: Shantel Tessier Genre: Dark Contemporary Romance
The Chosen One
I vow. You vow. We vow.
Barrington University is home of the Lords, a secret society that requires their blood in payment. They are above all—the most powerful men in the world. They devote their lives to violence in exchange for power. And during their senior year, they are offered a chosen one.
People think growing up with money is freeing, but I promise you, it’s not. My entire life has been planned out for me. I never got the chance to do what I wanted until Ryat Alexander Archer came along and gave me an option for a better life. He offered me what no one else ever had—freedom.
I chose to be his. He made me believe that anyway, but it was just another lie. A way that the Lords manipulate you into doing what they want.
After being sucked into the dark, twisted world of the Lords, I embraced my new role and allowed Ryat to parade me around like the trophy I was to him. But like all things, what started out as a game soon became a fight for survival. And the only way out was death.
Shantel is a USA Today & Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author. Who lives in Oklahoma with her high school sweetheart, who is a wonderful, supportive husband and their two daughters. She loves to spend time cuddled up on the couch with a good book. She considers herself extremely lucky to get to do what she loves while wearing pajamas. Going to concerts and the movies are just a few of her favorite things to do. She hates coffee, but loves wine. Although she has a passion to write, her family is most important to her. She loves spending evenings at home with her husband and daughters, watching Netflix.
Opposites attract in this laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about a free-spirited lawyer who is determined to find the perfect match for the grumpy bachelor at her cousin’s wedding.
After a devastating break-up, celebrity-obsessed lawyer Zara Patel is determined never to open her heart again. She puts her energy into building her career and helping her friends find their happily-ever-afters. She’s never faced a guest at the singles table she couldn’t match, until she crosses paths with the sinfully sexy Jay Dayal.
Former military security specialist Jay has no time for love. His life is about working hard, staying focused, and winning at all costs. When charismatic Zara crashes into his life, he’s thrown into close contact with exactly the kind of chaos he wants to avoid. Worse, they’re stuck together for the entire wedding season.
So they make a deal. She’ll find his special someone if he introduces her to his celebrity clients. But when their arrangement brings them together in ways they never expected, they realize that the perfect match might just be their own.
“So what kind of woman are you looking for? Let me guess. Professional. Sophisticated. Classy. Intelligent. Basically, Lucia but younger, or do you like a little Mrs. Robinson between the sheets?” She took another bite of her hot dog. Was there any better food?
“My relationship with Lucia is strictly professional,” Jay said. “But yes, I’d be interested in someone similar.”
“So, you want a mini-me,” she teased. “I mean a mini-you. Not me. Obviously. Lucia is pretty much the opposite of me, which is another reason I knew that job wouldn’t work out.”
“You have ketchup on your cheek.” He took a napkin and gently dabbed it at the corner of her mouth.
Desire flooded her veins followed by a wave of desolation. She could easily fall for a man like Jay. Smart, handsome, ambitious, successful, and yet she sensed a longing in him, a secret Jay waiting to be free.
“Is it gone?” Her voice came out in a whisper.
He leaned in and studied her with a serious intensity that took her breath away. He was so close she could see the gentle dip in his chin, the dark stubble of his five-o’clock shadow even though it couldn’t be much past four o’clock. His lips were firm and soft, his mouth the perfect size for kissing. She drew in his scent: pine and mountains and the rich, earthy scent of the soil she’d turned in the garden when her family was whole and she never had to wonder whose house she was in when she woke up in the morning.
But this wasn’t the time to be thinking about being held in Jay’s strong arms or what it would be like to kiss him, or how just being near him calmed all the wayward thoughts in her head. She was supposed to be concentrating on finding him a match and where she should get autographed when he made the promised celebrity introduction.
“We should go.” She jumped up so abruptly her half-eaten hot dog fell to the grass. “I have to get back to the office, and I don’t want to exceed your two-hour-and-forty-five-minute time limit.”
Jay picked up the hot dog and carried it to the nearest bin. “When do you want to meet again?”
His question sent a curious thrill rocketing through her veins. She hadn’t put him off with her rambling, or her quest for the perfect hot dog, or even the uncomfortable questions she’d asked as they lounged in the sun. She couldn’t have been more excited if he’d asked her on second date. Except he wasn’t really interested in her that way, and she needed to keep that in mind. The last thing she wanted was to get into a Cyrano situation where she would be forced to help someone else win the heart of the man she loved. She made a mental note to rewatch the 1973 Broadway version of the play with its soaring ballads and rousing word- and swordplay as a reminder of the heartbreak that could result.
She pulled out her phone and pretended to study the screen to stop herself from saying something stupid like how about tonight? “Hmmm. I have a big settlement meeting on Friday so the rest of my week is shot. I’ll have to let you know.” If he noticed her cool dismissal, he didn’t react. Instead, he said the one thing that would ensure she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she saw him again. “I’ll be waiting.”
Sara Desai has been a lawyer, radio DJ, marathon runner, historian, bouncer and librarian. She lives on Vancouver Island with her husband, kids and an assortment of forest creatures who think they are pets. Sara writes sexy romantic comedy and contemporary romance with a multicultural twist. When not laughing at her own jokes, Sara can be found eating nachos.
B is the last remaining B Model cyborg. All of his brethren, the beings he trained with, fought with, cared deeply for, have perished.
Or so he believes.
When he intercepts a communication mentioning the existence of one of his kind, he has to investigate its source. The message could be a trap set by his enemies. He’ll take that risk if it secures him the companionship he requires to be fully functional.
What he finds is a daring brown-eyed female who activates all his systems. She proudly proclaims she’s a researcher, brandishing that information like a weapon before her. He wants to kiss the sass off her beautiful face, protect her from the dangers around them, claim her forever.
Quinn is on a quest to locate the mechanics of an early-version cyborg. She believes the information captured within that frame will give her valuable insights into the past.
When her mission goes zombie-like beings levels of wrong, she comes face-to-face with a living, breathing B Model. He has big hands, a primitive countenance, and stern hard lips crafted for kissing.
She doesn’t trust him. And she doesn’t have time to indulge her desires.
Their shared enemies are chasing them, would kill to get their precious specimens back. One minor mistake could reduce B and Quinn to a mere line in the databases of history.
“If you joined Beings For Peace, you would always have nourishment bars.” Levi-Lucas The Third moved closer to her. “You’d be saving beings, not things. And you would be making a difference in the universe. As I am.” He puffed out his chest.
“I am making a difference in the universe.” She backed away from him. “We are both facing early planet rotations, and the rest cycle is progressing.” She preferred to confront the mystery male alone rather than deal with the operative’s persistence. “We—”
“You’re correct.” Levi-Lucas The Third looked at his reflection, touched the skin under his right eye. “I wish to sleep a full rest cycle.” He turned and strode in the direction from which he’d come. “If you change your mind, contact me before sunrise.”
She wouldn’t change her mind. Quinn watched him until he disappeared back into the darkness. Then she waited outside her ship for a few more moments. She—
“The pretty human isn’t the being for you.” Her mystery male’s dark tones rolled like thunder through the darkness. “If he touches you again, I’ll rip his arms off.”
Quinn trembled, turned on by the speaker’s dominance.
There would be no need for violence. Levi-Lucas The Third was pretty and the Beings For Peace operative knew it. He was also nice when he wasn’t being condescending about her role.
But he didn’t interest her.
The stranger lurking between the trees, threatening to maim a perceived rival, had captured her complete attention. Her body hummed with awareness.
She pushed her inappropriate desires to the side and applied herself to what she did best—uncovering facts. “Who are you and why are you following me?”
“What objects are you risking others’ lifespans to obtain?” The unidentified male countered her question with one of his own.
She frowned into the void. “Why are you interested in the objects I’m obtaining?”
Alarm filled her as she thought of one possible reason.
“Are you working for the Humanoid Alliance?” She slipped her right hand into her pocket. Her fingers curled around the handle of the gun hidden there. “Because if you are…”
“What will you do, tiny female?” Metal creaked.
A large booted foot and a gray hand emerged from the shadows, and her breath hitched.
Judging by the size of those exposed body parts, the male was massive, would tower head and shoulders above her. His boots were military issue, the type warriors wore. The enlarged joints on his fingers were almost…B Model-like.
But that was impossible. None of those cyborgs had survived. His gray skin, however, also indicated he wasn’t human, was something other.
That combination excited her.
“Will you shoot me with the gun you have stored in your flight suit?” His visible hand blurred and, before she could blink, an immaculately maintained gun appeared in it.
She gaped at him. The male was fast. And he was skilled. The way he held his weapon told her he knew how to use it. A tremor of awe skittered down her spine.
“How many beings have you shot?” He blasted her with that question.
“I’ve never shot anyone.” Lying wasn’t a skill of hers. “But I’ve seen it done.” She’d experienced it through her connections with objects, especially with guns.
“You’ve seen it done.” His chuckle was low and deep and held no humor. “If I was working for the Humanoid Alliance, you’d already be dead.”
For updates on characters and for very bad jokes, sign up for Cynthia’s monthly newsletter at http://cynthiasax.com
USA Today Bestselling author Cynthia Sax is currently writing cyborg and alien romances with high heat levels. These stories are set in a shared dark, gritty, sometimes violent world. There is always a romantic happy ending between the main characters and this happy ending is FOREVER. But everyone else is in danger.
Her stories have been featured in Star Magazine, Real Time With Bill Maher, and numerous best of… top ten lists.
She loves writing fated to mate or instalove romances as this is her personal experience with love. She fell in love with her Dear Wonderful Hubby at first sight and 25 plus years later, they’re still very much in love. This is what she wishes for her characters and for her readers.
Anna Paige is the author of the Broken series, the Thrill of the Chase series, and several sexy standalones including Off Script, Holding Out for You, and Tailspin (A Driven World Novel.)
She lives in a rural town in North Carolina where the only activity is the rhythmic color change of the solitary stoplight and a very real threat of being carried away by mosquitoes. The only alternative to terminal boredom is writing, making life interesting if only on the page.
Anna is happily married, with one amazing son and a hilarious rescue pup who is part boxer, part goat, and part dingo—at least that’s the theory after two incredible and entertaining years with him. When she’s not writing, she’s trying to make a dent in her TBR pile. Given that she’s constantly adding new titles to the list, the chances of her ever finishing are slim.
You know in movies where the big city girl lands in a small town for the holidays and falls for the hunky guy who saves Christmas?
This isn’t that story.
But this guy does look fantastic in flannel. And out of flannel…
Finding true love with his one-and-only soul mate? Drew Ryan’s given up on that.
But a hot holiday fling in Louisiana, far from his responsibilities and good guy image back home, is now on the top of his list for Santa.
So when he’s knocked on his ass—literally—by a Christmas elf who’s stealing a sleigh full of gifts and using his reindeer to commit the crime, he definitely doesn’t expect to fall head over heels.
This holiday couldn’t get any worse for Rory Robins.
First, her hair wasn’t supposed to turn green. It’s not even Christmas green.
And the elf costume wasn’t supposed to be two sizes too small.
And her con-man father wasn’t supposed to show up and go all real-life-Grinch on her beloved new hometown.
And she definitely wasn’t supposed to run into anyone while trying to fix the problem. Especially not the hunky guy who already seems too good to be true.
But he does have a way of making her “cocoa” even hotter and a whole lot sweeter…
Still, he lives in Iowa. The only good thing her father ever gave her was a healthy distrust of men who are never around. She’s not doing a long-distance thing.
This little fling is only going to last as long as the temporary color of her hair. Only nothing seems to be fading. And she might be asking Santa for just one more thing…
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Erin Nicholas has been writing romances almost as long as she’s been reading them. To date, she’s written over thirty sexy, contemporary novels that have been described as “toe-curling,” “enchanting,” “steamy,” and “fun.” She adores reluctant heroes, imperfect heroines, and happily ever afters.
Erin lives in the Midwest, where she enjoys spending time with her husband (who only wants to read the sex scenes in her books), her kids (who will never read the sex scenes in her books), and her family and friends (who claim to be “shocked” by the sex scenes in her books).
Jack Cassidy heads the team opening the next in an exclusive line of boutique hotels, this one in wine country. Working with his best friend’s sister should make it easier, tapping into her expertise about the area and its wines. The pair have been friends for years, so sharing an apartment shouldn’t pose any issues… except for the simmering heat building between them.
Campbell Taylor’s one of only a handful of women to battle the all-boys club and go for the title of master sommelier. She didn’t rise to her position by being a pushover, but living and working with her brother’s best friend – the man she’s secretly crushed on for years – might prove to be her greatest challenge. How can she get him to see her as more than Cameron’s little sister? And will their undeniable attraction derail her dreams?
Claire Marti is an award winning and USA Today Bestselling author of swoonworthy Contemporary Romance novels set in Southern California, including the Pacific Vista Ranch series and the spin-off California Suits series. She lives in San Diego with her husband, silly dog, and two clever cats.
Claire started writing stories as soon as she was old enough to pick up pencil and paper. After graduating from the University of Virginia with a BA in English Literature, Claire was sidetracked by other careers, including practicing law, selling software for legal publishers, and managing a non-profit animal rescue for a Hollywood actress.
When Claire’s not writing, she’s teaching yoga. You can find her sixty+ online classes on the international website www.yogadownload.com. A breast cancer survivor, Claire is a sought-after speaker on the power of yoga and meditation. She’s been published in numerous magazines with articles on wellness and is the author of a memoir, Come Ride with Me Along the Big C, on her experience beating breast cancer. Claire loves to hear from readers!
