Hammered A Shadows of Chicago Novel by Rose Hudson

Hammered

A Shadows of Chicago Novel
by Rose Hudson
Publication Date: May 5, 2017
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Cover Models - Lance Jones / Jurnee Lane
Cover Photographer - Calvin Smith
Cover Design - Sommer Stein

Hammer
ham·mer ?ham?r/
verb
past tense: hammered; past participle: hammered
1.hit or beat (something) with a hammer or similar object.

2. informal attack or criticize forcefully and relentlessly.

Stone
Fighting has been engrained—hammered into me. It’s something I know all about, yet wish I knew nothing at all. For the last seventeen of my twenty-seven years, hurt has fueled my desire in the ring. But I want better. I’ve paid my dues. I want far away from this life. I thought I finally had my chance and then corruption threatened to take it away. I’m no stranger to challenge; it just makes me more determined to come out on top—of my world and her. She thinks we’re from opposite sides of the track, and she’s right. But we’re both blinded by pain, and I see hers. I’ve fought plenty of fights and Lydia Norberg may prove to be my strongest opponent yet.

Lydia
I craved a man’s hands on me for no other reason than pure, unadulterated lust. No hidden expectations of more, just pleasure, anything to take my mind off my reality and send me into orbit around a brighter place. So I took a chance by attending an Elite party—young professionals looking for sex, no strings attached. At first glance, they all looked pretty boring until I saw him. I only knew him as Stone, no last names, no personal information exchanged; those were the rules. Little did I know, he represents everything I desire and everything I fear.

About Rose Hudson

Born and raised southern girl.

Mother, Wife, and lover of all things music, books and good people. Self-proclaimed number one fan of Scott Eastwood and Highly Suspect. When she isn’t tending to all of the above, you can find her reading, writing, or recording audiobooks.

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Streets of Glass by Michelle D. Argyle blitz

Streets of Glass
Michelle D. Argyle
Publication date: May 1st 2017
Genres: New Adult, Suspense, Thriller

Eighteen year-old Starry is destined to take over her father’s powerful drug syndicate. But when she finds out he has kept her only sister a secret from her, she can’t trust him anymore. Furious, Starry vows to find Emma, even though she knows her defiance could lead to losing the position she’s worked so hard to inherit.But Emma isn’t quite the sister Starry hoped for. She’s a straight-laced good girl who wants nothing more than to take down the syndicate that destroyed her family. Starry, willing to do anything to secure her place in the syndicate, accepts her father’s ultimatum to kill Emma and everyone helping her. But the more Starry gets to know Emma, and the more secrets she uncovers, the more she questions whether the price of saving the syndicate is too high—even for someone as cold-blooded and vicious as Starry.

*Streets of Glass is considered clean New Adult/Upper YA fiction**

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—

EXCERPT:

“There’s something I have to tell you,” Jack said as they moved forward in the line.

Emma rocked on her feet as she shivered. It was colder out here than she’d thought it would be. “Okay.”

Jack stared at the ground. “Haven’t you wondered what I was really doing in the laundromat yesterday?”

“I guess I haven’t thought much about it since then. We had a whole conversation about it. You said—”

“I lied,” Jack interrupted, his eyes intense as he searched Emma’s face. “I don’t have a job at the drugstore. I needed to clean up, but I could have done that anywhere. I chose the laundromat restroom because you were there. I’m sorry I lied to you.” He looked down at the ground, guilt spreading across his face. “I was tailing you.”

Emma took a step backward, nearly bumping into the person behind her. “T–tailing me?” she whispered, hardly able to get the words out. “Why?”

There was nobody she could trust. Not one person. Maybe the police, but right here, right now, she was not safe.

Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. “My dad asked me to watch you and make sure you were okay. I was supposed to tell him if anything seemed wrong. He wouldn’t tell me why.”

Emma took another step back. The person behind her backed up too and gave her a dirty look. She looked over her shoulder, searching once again for Jack’s mysterious father. She didn’t want to meet him now. She needed to get home. Fast.

“I gotta go,” she mumbled, and turned to leave the line.

Jack grabbed her arm and let her go a second later. She wanted to run, but stopped herself when she caught the desperate pleading in Jack’s eyes. “Hear me out,” he said softly. “Please, just give me a few minutes to explain.”

Emma inched away from him. “You lied to me. After everything I’ve been through. You lied. How long have you been tailing me? What have you seen?” Her mind raced through all the scenarios of someone watching her. Had he been looking into her apartment windows from a telescope across the street? Why would his dad ask him to do something so creepy?

The more questions she came up with, the more hysterical she felt, until she finally realized she was all the way out of the ordering line and people were looking at her like she was nuts.

Jack left the line and walked calmly to her. “Dad asked me on Friday. I’ve only tailed you to the laundromat and kept an eye on your building’s front doors to see when you came and went. That’s it. All my dad said was to make sure you were safe.”

She shook her head. “It still doesn’t make sense,” she said loud and shrill enough to get more weird looks from most everybody in the line. “Why would your dad care about my safety? Did my dad ask him to do this?”

Jack locked eyes with her. “I honestly don’t know. It’s not the first time my dad’s asked me to tail someone for him. Usually it’s just to find out if some guy he’s working with is where he’s supposed to be. I know it sounds crazy I’d do things like that for him, but he’s my dad, and none of it’s been dangerous so far.” He looked down at his feet. “You’re the first girl he’s ever asked me to tail. He seems genuinely concerned for you.”

Emma folded her arms, hysteria giving way to anger. She could run away and tell the cops Jack and his father were drug-dealing stalkers, or she could stay and maybe get some answers about who her father really was and why he’d been living a lie for who knew how long. She looked around the brightly-lit sidewalk full of restaurant patrons and decided to stay.

Author Bio:

Michelle lives and writes in Utah, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. She's a foodie and also adores anything Star Wars related. She loves to read and write books in the time she grabs between her sword-wielding husband and energetic daughter. She believes a simple life is the best life. Michelle mainly writes contemporary upper YA fiction, but occasionally branches into other genres.

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Fury of a Viking by Sky Purington

Fury of a Viking

The MacLomain Series

Viking Ancestors’ Kin

Book 4

Sky Purington     

Genre:  Time-travel Fantasy Romance

Date of Publication:  April 17th, 2017

ASIN: B01N4P4IO4

Number of pages:  295

Word Count:  94,000

Cover Artist:  Tamra Westberry

Book Description:

Shannon usually prefers the dead to the living. But then running a funeral parlor offers a different perspective. Peace and escape. Or at least it did until the day she’s summoned by her sister to their Winter Harbor chalet in Maine. Now she knows the truth. The veil between worlds is far thinner than she thought. In fact, it’s so thin she can’t prevent her and her daughter, Emily, from slipping back in time.

Of dragon blood, Matthew Sigdir has suffered more loss than most. A wife. Sister. Now, because of a vicious enemy, possibly his son, Håkon. Infuriated, determined to find his child, he heads north over unforgiving land. What he doesn’t expect is a twenty-first century little girl and her beautiful mother, Shannon, to join him on his quest. Nor does he expect Hel to show them favor. And there’s no turning away Loki’s daughter when she offers help. Now they have to navigate not only through the elements of a wicked Scandinavian winter but Helheim itself, the underworld of the dead.

While they travel, Matthew and Shannon are forced to face their pasts. What they left behind and all that haunts them. As they do, old wounds heal. Hope grows. Love sparks. Through it all, Emily leads them ever closer to Håkon. She’s the key. But is it already too late? Will they make it in time to save Matthew's son? Or is the enemy one step ahead of them?

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Spicy
Excerpt

Matthew nodded,
more and more impressed by her. He said nothing but watched her drink,
enthralled yet again by her appearance. Her slender body. The fine lines of her
profile.

She possessed a
quiet, mesmerizing sort of elegance and he found himself imagining what her
dragon might look like. Would it match the sleek blackness of her hair or would
it be the addictive blue of her eyes? He imagined she would make a stunning
addition to his homeland as she flew over its turbulent waters, the sea spray
coating her body in shimmering moisture. Which made his eyes fall to the
plumpness of her lips. The moisture left behind by the mead. Which led to the
way she had tasted when he kissed her.

“Matthew?” she
said softly with that tempting tone she was so good at. It was designed to be
soothing and compassionate for those going through difficult times, but his
dragon heard a little something else as well. A seductiveness he was fairly
certain she didn’t know she emitted. A sensuality he suspected was her inner
beast responding to his.

“Matthew?” she
repeated, tilting her head ever-so-slightly in question. “Are you with me?”

Oh, he was with
her all right.

Just in the last
way he intended. A way he thought he had been able to set aside.

“Yes,” he
managed, his voice a little gruff as he became overly aware of her scent still
lingering on him. “I am with you, Shannon.” He stood. “But as you said before,
it is time to rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow, yes?”

“Sure, if that’s
what you’d prefer.” She looked at him with concern, obviously refocused on the
battle and what had happened to him. “Whenever you need to talk, I’ll do my
best to listen, Matthew. What you’ve experienced, what you’re going through,
isn’t easy.”

Much to his
dismay, sexual frustration only grew as he pulled on his tunic and boots. He
didn’t want to talk but do something else entirely. And that only fed his
aggravation. He should want to get to the bottom of things.

Yet his muddled
mind remained focused on her scent.

Her looks.

On how she would
feel beneath him.

“It’s only
normal to be feeling what you are right now,” she murmured as they headed back.
“It’s normal to want to find relief from all the stress you’re under.”

At first, he
didn’t realize what she was talking about until he heard the switch of her
breathing in the darkness and caught the sweetness of her arousal. She was
catching glimpses of his thoughts and referring to his untimely lust. As they
cut through a narrow corridor of rock and were forced to walk single file, his
eyes dropped to her shapely backside, and he almost groaned.

Was it normal to
feel so strongly about her right now? To imagine pressing her against the wall
and closing his lips over hers more firmly this time? Then to fall to his knees
and inhale her desire? When Shannon cleared her throat, and her heart rate
increased even more, he knew for certain she heard his thoughts. And was likely
even well aware of his arousal through senses alone.

Especially if
they were dragon mates.

He could deny it
all he wanted, but there was no mistaking the way he responded to her. The
jealousy he felt not only when Kodran pulled her close but when Cameron put his
arm around her. He might have a real problem. Though he assumed he was well in
control of himself around female dragons, it seemed he was wrong. Because the
last thing he felt when she stopped short, and he came against her back, was in
control.

“What is it?” he
murmured, unable to stop from lowering his head and inhaling the warmth of her
skin. “Why did you stop?”

“I just had the
strangest feeling,” she whispered.

A shiver of
awareness rippled through her when his hands landed on either side of her slim
waist. She liked the feeling of him behind her like this. And he liked it just
as much.

“What kind of
feeling?” he managed as he stepped even closer and kept inhaling. He was so
aroused he could barely remember why he shouldn’t be. In fact, any sense of
decency was just about gone. 

About the Author:

Sky Purington is the bestselling author of over twenty-five novels and several novellas. A New Englander born and bred, Sky was raised hearing stories of folklore, myth and legend. When combined with a love for nature, romance and time-travel, elements from the stories of her youth found release in her books.

Purington loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at Sky@SkyPurington.com. Interested in keeping up with Sky’s latest news and releases? Visit Sky's website, http://www.skypurington.com to download her free App on iTunes and Android or sign up for her quarterly newsletter. Love social networking? Find Sky on Facebook and Twitter.

Website:   www.skypurington.com  

Blog:   www.skypurington.blogspot.com  

Twitter:   www.twitter.com/skypurington  

Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sky-Purington/260484263999780

Pinterest:   www.pinterest.com/skypurington

Newsletter: http://www.skypuringtonwrites.blogspot.com/p/newletter.html

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Elfin Nights Release Blitz

Fantasy Erotic Romance

Chronicles of the Four Courts, Book 2

Date Published: May 1st, 2017

Publisher: Champagne Book Club

A fae Knight’s life belongs to the monarchies, but for Finn of the Morrigan, his life comes second to his heart. And his heart belongs to his ladies.

The changeling princesses of the Springtime elves share a unique bond with their Knight—a bond that must remain perfectly secret. When the Queen of the Elves discovers their passionate love, she curses and exiles Finn from the elfin lands forever. With their guardian sent away to a lifeless wasteland, the royal changelings have no defense when the unseen enemies of the Four Courts attack, and the House of Elves falls.

To save his loves, Finn will need to break out of prison, undertake a perilous journey across the lands of Thairy, face wicked creatures, rogue Knights, and one of the most dangerous monsters in the fae world.

The enemy will soon learn what it means to provoke a true Son of War.

Excerpt

“Finn.”

I spun at the note of dread in Nineva’s voice. Her eyes gone wide, she stared at me. The flower dropped from her fingers, unnoticed. “You have to go back,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Back home…to the apartment. You have to go now.”

I tightened my arms around Neri. “What do you mean, lass? I don’t aim to go anywhere until you and Nerissa are well!”

“We will be fine, our Knight! In Tír na nÓg we will recover, but you must go!”

Neri twitched in my arms. Whatever spooked Nina, she caught onto it now too, and she turned her face up to me.  “Finn, she is right! You must go, quickly, before—”

I glanced up, distracted from her by a sudden discordant hum, somewhere up above us. It drew my focus for a brief instant, but then seemed to fade.

“I’m sorry, milady,” I mumbled. “What did you say?”

“Finn, please!”

Nina was practically shouting at me, and Nerissa’s fingers grasped at my collar. I blinked at them, confused. Then the damned humming snagged my attention again. I glanced up and around in agitation.

“Can you stand, Neri?” I asked in a low tone. I eased her down to her feet, all the while keeping an eye on the sky. The sound never increased in volume, but all the same it intensified. My instincts bristled along the back of my neck. Sidling a bit to keep both girls behind me, I sunk into the simmering heat of my magic, letting it bubble and boil up through my limbs. Ready for attack.

“Girls,” I murmured, hardly noticing Neri’s small hands tugging at my arm. “When I say so, you must go back through the circle and close it.”

“Finn, no!” Neri squeaked. “Ignore them! She is distracting you!”

“Knight, you must run!” Nina pleaded. “Please, you must!”

“We’re about to be ambushed,” I explained. The humming surrounded me. It resolved itself, turning into…

Buzzing.

“Wasps,” I grated, and I whipped around to shoo the princesses back through to Connlas Hall.

I realized then that I’d been trapped.

About the Author

When she isn't visiting the worlds of immortals, demons, dragons and goblins, Brantwijn fills her time with artistic endeavors: sketching, painting, customizing My Little Ponies and sewing plushies for friends. She can't handle coffee unless there's enough cream and sugar to make it a milkshake, but try and sweeten her tea and she will never forgive you. She moonlights as a futon for four lazy cats, loves tabletop role-play games, and can spend hours pencilling naughty, sexy illustrations in her secret notebooks.

Brantwijn has two romance series currently in-progress with Champagne Books. She's also had short stories published in several small press anthologies. She has author pages on GoodReads and Amazon, and loves to see reader comments on her work. Her short stories and audio readings occasionally pop up her website, www.brantwijn.com.

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July Lightning by Shannon A. Thompson blitz

July Lightning
Shannon A. Thompson
(Bad Bloods #4)
Published by: Clean Teen Publishing
Publication date: May 1st 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

From best-selling author Shannon A. Thompson comes an exciting new duology in the Bad Bloods universe.

Sixteen-year-old Caleb has been called many things: a patient, a musician, even a prostitute…now he has a new name—son. After his identity is uncovered, Caleb bands together with the family he once rejected in order to save the city of Vendona. But it won’t be easy. Enemies wait around every corner—and so do harsh realities. With Violet and Kuthun by his side though, nothing seems impossible. As Vendona sits on the verge of an economic collapse and a massive hurricane threatens the city, Violet and Caleb must show its citizens how to overcome decades of hostility and division to save themselves.

Standing or not, a sea will rage, a wall may fall, and all will depend on immortal pain and sacrifice.

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—

EXCERPT:

Everyone in the Pits called the fifteen-year-old Skeleton, for obvious reasons. Supposedly, the bad blood had been born a normal, healthy baby boy, but, over time, his skin unraveled and revealed pieces of bone. Somehow, defying all science, the boy continued to live. The last time I’d seen him, his right arm and chin showed bone, but now, half his face and all his fingers had contorted to the haunting shape. Even Adam cringed.

“You here to fight?” Skeleton asked, eyeing both Adam and me.

I attempted to answer, but Adam shouted over me. “You work here?”

The betrayal Adam felt was one I would never comprehend, even if I wanted to. Adam was a bad blood. To see a fellow bad blood protect the Pits that killed his kind went beyond my human pain. I volunteered to fight. Bad bloods often didn’t. Moments like this reminded me why Kuthun slapped me when I told him I wished I was a bad blood. Just because I sympathized with them and loved them, lived with them and listened to them, did not mean I would ever be one. I could never feel the same emotions Adam did, and Adam couldn’t comprehend mine.

“The humans aren’t the only ones who see value in bad blood.” Skeleton egged Adam on, and Adam fell for it.

“You mean, your blood.”

The boy’s bony fingers rattled against the door. “Of course,” he said, then smiled. The addition of teeth only made the bony boy look worse.

“You’re one of us,” Adam snapped. “How could you—”

I stepped in front of my cousin. Thankfully, my actions stopped him. “We’re here to talk to Connelly,” I said.

The lanky, crass kid looked me over and stepped aside, but as we passed, he gave in to temptation. “If you need a tag for the bad blood, let me know.”

Adam knocked the boy out cold before I could stop him. That was how fast his powers worked. And, for once, I didn’t feel the need to reprimand him.

“You know you have to fight if you hurt the workers,” I said.

“No one will know,” Adam said as he strode past me. “You’re good at keeping secrets, right?”

Author Bio:

Shannon A. Thompson is a young adult author, avid reader, and a habitual chatterbox.

As a novelist, poet, and blogger, Thompson spends her free time writing and sharing ideas with her black cat, Bogart, named after her favorite actor, Humphrey Bogart. Her other two cats bring her coffee. Between writing and befriending cats, Thompson graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing, and her work has appeared in numerous poetry collections and anthologies. Represented by Clean Teen Publishing, Thompson is the best-selling author of The Timely Death Trilogy and the Bad Bloods duology. When she is not writing, she is climbing rooftops, baking cookies, or watching murder shows in the middle of the night, often done with her cats by her side.

Visit her blog for writers and readers at www.ShannonAThompson.com.

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Life by Elise Noble blitz

Life
Elise Noble
Publication date: April 30th 2017
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Romance

At twenty-eight years old, the only men in lawyer Cate Jenkins’ life are her two cats, Thor and Loki, unless you count her not-so-secret love affair with Ben & Jerry.

Escape comes in the form of art classes, where life drawing model Joe provides a welcome distraction from the monotony of her job. Each Thursday for five weeks, she gets to lose herself in a world of twinkling blue eyes and chiselled abs.

Meanwhile, next-door neighbour Dane is determined to win her heart. Can his gifts of coffee and kitty treats win out against muscled perfection?

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—

EXCERPT:

Meeting Joe

“Ladies and gentleman.” Delores glanced over at Miguel, the sole male in the room. “We’ve got a treat tonight. The lovely Joe is going to model for us.”

She beckoned to someone behind us, and jaws dropped as Joe ambled to the front of the class, wearing only a sheet around his waist. He perched on the stool while Delores arranged the fabric to cover the good bits, and then he followed her directions to, “Lean forward a bit. Move your hand.”

Beside me, Marie’s pencil rolled out of her fingers and under Miguel’s chair, and it took him a second or two to snap his eyes away from Joe and retrieve it for her.

Finally happy with Joe’s pose, Delores clapped her hands. “This evening, we’re going to practice our sketching. Joe’s going to move every twenty minutes, which will give you the chance to explore various positions.”

From the way the other girls were salivating, I knew exactly which positions they wanted to explore. Even Marie, who had a boyfriend. I reached over and tapped her pad.

“We’re supposed to be drawing.”

“I’m committing his muscles to memory before I start. Wonder what would happen if I visited the ladies’ room and accidentally tripped over that sheet?”

With Marie, I could never quite tell if she was serious. This was the woman who’d once scrambled over a screaming crowd to clamber on stage with Justin Timberlake and managed to squeeze his ass before security hauled her away. I knew because she showed me the video on her phone. Loosening Joe’s sheet would be nothing for Marie.

Author Bio:

Elise Noble is an English rose with a few thorns who loves chocolate, sleep, and well-defined abs. Not hers, unfortunately. She lives near London with a sexy chef, a horse who eats all her money, and a dog who eats her car keys. Always a reader, she took up writing after inspiration struck in an old manor house, and still pinches herself at the fact that people read her books. She spends her days working in an office and her nights dreaming up new characters for you to fall in love with. Elise currently writes the Blackwood Security series of romantic thrillers and the Trouble series of romantic comedies.

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Breaking Rules by S.B. Alexander

Breaking Rules

by S.B. Alexander
Publication Date: May 1, 2017
Genres: Romantic Comedy, Sports Romance

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks

He’s a hunky quarterback. She’s a talented artist. He’s sworn off girls. She’s fighting to protect her honor.

Brooding, high school quarterback, Train Everly, was on the fast track to play football at the University of South Carolina until one misstep at a party put his chances in jeopardy. Now in his senior year, he’s sworn off dates, no steady relationships and definitely no sex. The last girl he’d fallen for tore out his heart and stomped on it with stiletto heels. But a new school year brings new students and one girl in particular, Montana Smith. He can’t seem to shake the blonde, curvy, and feisty girl who blows into computer class like a category five hurricane, causing his pulse to race for the end zone. Still, beauty, boobs, and curves are a recipe for disaster. He can’t afford to hook up with her. Not if he wants to protect his heart, and his spot on the USC football team.

Graffiti artist and rebellious eighteen-year-old, Montana Smith has been expelled from high school more times her mother cares to count. So when Montana gets expelled for defacing school property, Montana’s mom decides it’s time to get out of the big city and find a southern sleepy town where Montana surely can’t get into too much trouble. But the small town is ripe with temptation more than Montana or her mom even realize, especially when Montana meets the star quarterback, Train Everly. She’s drawn to his sea-green eyes, and his quiet personality. What she isn’t ready for is his moodiness that seeps under her skin so much so that she decides to make a fool of herself. But she’ll take the stares and whispers over her pathetic performance rather than tango with Train’s ex-girlfriend who will do anything to get Montana out of the picture.

As a relationship between Train and Montana ebbs and flows, both will be tempted to do things that could lead to trouble and broken hearts.

Intended for audiences 18+ Strong language and sexual content

About S.B. Alexander

S.B. Alexander is a bestselling romance author. Her books are filled with stories that tug at your heart, and are filled with romance, drama, action and suspense. As much as she loves to write, she also loves to read. Some of her favorite authors growing up were Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe. She stills enjoy reading Stephen King. In fact, she loves most genres, although in the past three years she has gravitated toward the romance genre, which is when she started her journey to write her first book. Her motto: write what you love to read.

Aside from writing, she’s a huge sports fan, in particular, baseball. Since she hails from New England, she is a diehard Red Sox fan. She’s also a navy veteran and former math teacher, and for the last twenty years she’s spent her career in the corporate world, coaching, teaching, and selling.

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