Excerpt Tour: Special Delivery by Judi Lynn

Special Delivery

by Judi Lynn

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GENRE: Contemporary Romance

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BLURB:

Karli Redding is a traveling nurse. She has a month off between jobs, so when Mill Pond's mailman, Keagan Monroe, calls to say that her grandfather can't care for himself anymore, Karli volunteers to go to Mill Pond and help set up suitable health care for him. Axel's always been a pain in the rear, and age hasn't improved him. The two bump heads, and Karli ends up cooking and cleaning for the old man while she tries to decide what to do with him. She also finds herself getting more and more attracted to Mill Pond's mailman. But Keagan's been through one bad romance and he wants something permanent this time, nothing temporary. Can Karli give up her footloose lifestyle? Can she find happiness in a small town?

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Exclusive Excerpt:

Keagan shook his head.  “What now?  I doubt you want to stay in this place tonight.  This is the only room that’s tolerable—barely.  What’s your next move?”

“I saw a motel closer to town.  I’ll try to get a room there, then come here early tomorrow morning and clean some place to stay in.  I brought an air mattress, in case.  I’ll set that up.  There’s no way I’m using one of the beds.”

Keagan gave a small nod of approval.  “My mom’s going to send over a casserole tomorrow to get you started.  I’ll drop it off when I deliver the mail.”

“Thank you.”

He grinned.  “You won’t believe me, but Mill Pond’s a pretty friendly place except for him.  Here.”  He opened his cell phone and punched in the name of the local motel.  “Nick and Meg own it.  I hope they have an open room.”

She was in luck.  When she handed his phone back to him, she looked surprised.  “They only had one vacancy tonight.  They’re full for the rest of the week.”

“Tourists.  Mill Pond is a happening place.  You’re lucky it’s not leaf season.  We’re mobbed when people come to the National Forest to see the trees in their glory.”  Keagan grabbed an empty carton of microwaved mac ‘n cheese off Axel’s TV tray and carried it to the kitchen to throw away.  “Good luck with everything.  If you need something, holler.”  He gave her his cell phone number.

She watched him drive away, then went to make a slow inspection of the house.  The refrigerator was clean inside, stocked with Axel’s Ensure and cottage cheese.  As for the rest of the house, she might as well have signed up to be a charwoman.  She returned to the back room and noticed the TV remote on Axel’s cluttered tray.  The house might be ready to fall around his ears, but the flat screen mounted across from his bed took up most of the wall.

He glared at her.  “The sooner you leave, the better.”

“Then find a nice nursing home, and I’m out of here.”

“Never gonna happen.”

She smiled.  “Then it sucks to be you.  Until you show me that you can take care of yourself, I’m going to be in your business.”

His hand shot out to pinch her again, and she raised an eyebrow.  “Go ahead.  Make my day.”  A Clint Eastwood quote, but appropriate.  He folded his arms over his chest, and she said, “Let’s get you cleaned up before I go to the motel.”

“Keagan takes care of that.”

“It looks like you need washed again.”

“That’s not gonna happen.  No woman’s touching nothing of mine.”

“I’m a nurse.”

“You’re a girl.”

She could argue, but he wouldn’t change his mind.  He’d been living alone and taking care of himself this long.  Another day wouldn’t matter.  She started for the front door.  “See you tomorrow.”

“Not if a semi hits you first.”

“You’re not that lucky.”

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I taught elementary education for six years before I had my two daughters. I have a fondness for kids, so lots of them have been in and out of our house. I have a fondness for cooking, too, which means I fed a lot of them. As much as I love hamburgers and hot dogs, the kids had eclectic tastes, so I collected more and more recipes and cookbooks. Today, food sneaks into my stories, and if I'm lucky, so do children...and strays. I invite most of them in and now have a stray cat who walked through our doors to rule our house, a stray chihuahua who barks at everything, and an adopted parakeet and rat terrier. I also have a very patient husband, or he'd have probably left before now.

My blog:  https://writingmusings.com/

My webpage:  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

My author Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/JudiLynnwrites/

On twitter:  @judypost

Book info: http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/book.aspx/35572

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and

Judi will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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Follow the tour here: http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2017/10/excerpt-tour-special-delivery-by-judi.html

Straight to Hell by Jane Hinchey blitz

Straight to Hell
Jane Hinchey
Publication date: October 31st 2017
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance

Everything you think you know is about to change.

My name is Lucifer. You can call me Lucy – I’m also known as the Devil and Satan, though why my idiot brothers came up with those nick names is beyond me. I’m a Guardian Angel and I run Hell. Yup, I’m the CEO.

Hell is easy. Hell runs like a well-oiled machine. Punishment befitting your sins is carried out and once your sentence is done, voilà, you get to go to Heaven. Simple. Easy.

Until suddenly there’s a blip on the radar. A breach. Some numb nuts on earth is trying to open a portal to another dimension. A very bad, very terrifying, very deadly dimension. So instead of my simple life in Hell, I end up earth side, where nothing is as it seems, looking for the soul stealing monster, avoiding the grumpy angel sent from Heaven and finding out my brothers Michael and Gabriel are twats. That last part’s not true – I’ve known they were twats all along.

With an unexpected fondness for my new human friends as a distraction, and my demonic presence stirring up a shit show of epic proportions, all I want to do is go back to my peaceful life in Hell. But someone has to save the world. It may as well be me.

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EXCERPT:

“Ummm. Lucy?” Ashliel stepped in beside me, electronic clipboard in hand.

“Yes, Ash?” I knew she had a long list of requests, meetings, messages. As CEO of Hell, my days were busy. I’d built my torturous dimension to great heights over the last few hundred millennia. In the last two hundred years alone, attendance of lost souls entering Hell has risen over two hundred percent, and that number looked to be on the rise.

“There’s a man who wants his punishment of having a buzzard constantly pecking his eyes out to be lessened, a man whose memories have been wiped and he wants to know who he was, and a woman who wants to warn her sister on Earth about the afterlife.” She spoke fast, knowing my time was limited.

“Buzzard man, no can do. This isn’t a negotiation. His punishment was set when he entered Hell. He knows this. Deny future requests. Memory man…good point, how can he atone for his sins if he can’t remember them? See to it that his sinful memories are returned. Only his sins, mind you. And no to the woman who wants to warn her sister—they get plenty of warnings. It’s not like this place is a secret.”

Ashliel’s fingers flew across her clipboard. By the time we reached my offices, she was done. Before stepping out of the glass box I looked down, into the fiery pit where the most heinous of sinners resided. It was eerily beautiful from this vantage point. Sighing, I turned my back on the bubbling pit of fire and exited the elevator, stepping into the opulence of Hell HQ.

I greatly admired the skyscrapers on Earth and had modeled Hell HQ on them. Over two hundred floors, soaring high into the red and orange sky, built from gleaming black marble. My offices took up ten floors alone; the very top floor was my penthouse. Yes, I lived in luxury, but I damn well earned it. Running Hell was hard work, never a moment’s peace. And now this. A breach. It niggled me. Security was tight. It couldn’t have come from the pit; I was just there. Had it come from one of the cell blocks housed on the other side of Hell HQ?

I crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out on the cells. Row upon row of fifty- story skyscrapers, all housing sinners. They spanned as far as the eye could see, each one providing different levels of punishment. Wingless Demons patrolled the streets, their black skin and red eyes clearly identifying them. Their winged counterparts took to the skies, massive wings spanning over twenty feet, soaring around and around the buildings. Who could escape this? That is if the breach had even come from Hell in the first place. Earth was my brothers’ responsibility. They were charged with watching over the humans. I was annoyed I was being dragged into it, yet I liked the humans. I didn’t want to see them destroyed by some other dimension creature. Not if I could stop it.

A ding on Ashliel’s clipboard caught my attention. I arched a dark brow at her.

“You have a delivery.”

“Probably from my brothers.” I sighed. Had they heard the news and were already poking fun?

“They might have sent something nice,” Ashliel suggested, ever hopeful.

“Knowing my brothers, I doubt it.”

Stepping through the glass doors into my office, I spy a huge gift-wrapped parcel on my sleek black desk. Here we go.

“Thank you, Ashliel. That will be all.” I waited for Ash to leave the room, then approached my desk cautiously. What were they up to? Gabriel and Michael were archangels like me, but when Father chose me over them to head up the Hell Division, to say the boys were a little prickly was an understatement. We hadn’t spoken in over a hundred years. Why now? Today? Were they connected to the breach? Did they instigate it? I wouldn’t put it past them. They’d do anything to see me fail.

Hoping I was wrong, and that maybe, just maybe, the box on my desk was an olive branch, I tore open the wrapping and cautiously opened the lid. Inside was a single piece of paper. On it was written the name, “Emily Barlow.” Who the hell was Emily Barlow? Was she a lost soul? I reached to pull the paper from the box, but the whole thing went up in flames. Great.

With a wave of my hand I put out the flames and cleaned the debris from my desk before crossing to the giant screen across the room, one so big that I had to stand in front of it, or if I preferred, recline on the leather couch a few feet away. I could split the screen into hundreds of smaller screens and monitor Earth and Hell at the same time if I so chose. This time I raised my hand and halved the screen, keeping an eye on my own dimension on the left, and scanning through files searching for Emily Barlow on the right. There were several humans with that name and I flicked through until one caught my eye.

There. Emily Barlow. Human. Alive. Her dossier flashed across the screen, a mini movie of her life so far. She was young, a teenager, seventeen and a high school student, blonde hair, blue eyes, pretty. She was a bossy little thing, liked to be involved in community events and social activities at school. She wanted a career in Public Relations or the Media. As I watched, the screen glitched, froze, then resumed. Emily was in a graveyard. Something was there with her. Something dark. I leaned forward, watching intently as Emily was clasped in a tight embrace, held for a matter of seconds, then let go. Glowing red eyes looked up, directly at me. Then it was gone, leaving Emily’s body on the ground drained of life.

The screen flickered, a brief moment of static, before settling again. This time I no longer saw Emily, but a man. He was sitting at a table, one hand resting on the table, palm up, and in the center of his palm a deep azure blue rock. He sent the message. Did he mean to send it to me I wonder? His eyes sprang open and he flopped back in his seat as if exhausted. I looked into his eyes, magnified the screen so it focused on his face. A very handsome face: strong jaw covered in a light beard, full lips that held my attention for slightly too long. I wondered what they looked like when he smiled.

Then I wondered…why am I wondering about his lips? Okay, seriously, he’s a human, I scolded myself. But it had been a long time since I’d…you know. Had any fun in that department. Maybe a dalliance with a human would take my mind off the stresses of running Hell. As much as I loved my job, I’d yet to have a vacation. I shifted my attention from his kissable lips to his eyes. A combination of hazel and gold, they were striking with their dark lashes. And the way he was looking directly into the screen, it was as if he were looking right at me.

Decision made.

Author Bio:

Aussie Author Jane Hinchey writes sexy, snarky, badass, paranormal romances and urban fantasy novels.

Living in the City of Churches (aka Adelaide, South Australia) with her man, two cats, and turtle, she spends her days writing fantastical stories full of dark sexy vampires, hot shifters, sexy aliens, jaw dropping demons, sinful angels, and magical witches – and while they can be snarky and swear a lot, they mean well and you’ll grow to love them. Honestly.

When she’s not in her writing cave she’s usually playing the Sims, Civilizations or something similar, binge watching Netflix or upping the ante in the crazy cat lady stakes. She loves to hear from her readers, so swing on by her website at www.janehinchey.com and say hi.

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The Lovely Dark by K.A. Last book blitz

Mick & Michelle by Nina Rossing blitz

Mick & Michelle
Nina Rossing
Published by: Harmony Ink Press
Publication date: October 31st 2017
Genres: Contemporary, LGBTQ+, Young Adult

Fifteen-year-old Mick Mullins has a great life: his parents are sweet, his sister is tolerable, and his friendships are solid. But as summer descends on Queens, he prepares to turn his carefree existence upside down by disclosing a secret he has kept long enough. It’s time to work up the courage to reveal that he is not a boy, but a girl—and that her name is Michelle. Having always been the perfect, good boy, Michelle is terrified that the complicated truth will disappoint, hurt, or push away the people closest to her. She can’t continue hiding for much longer, though, because her body is turning into that of a man’s, and she is desperate to stop the development—desperate enough to consider self-medicating with hormones.

Most of all, Michelle fears that Grandpa, who is in a nursing home after a near fatal stroke, won’t survive the shock if he finds out that his favorite grandchild, and the only boy, is a girl. If she kills her beloved Grandpa by leaving Mick behind, she isn’t sure embracing her real identity will be worth the loss.

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EXCERPT:

As we walk down the street next to each other, it strikes me that the nagging feeling I’ve been having lately is also down to him, because I look too much like my father. I’m the same height as him but skinnier. I adjust my walk so I don’t mirror his familiar swagger. I wish I didn’t have his hair, down to the identical whorl slightly to the right at the back of our heads. His hair is darker than mine, so dark auburn it looks black when wet, but thin and limp, always flyaway, so no good for keeping long. Buzz cut material, and that looks fine enough on him. My hair is quite short by convenience only. I would have liked to have my mother’s hair, which is thick and robust, a haystack in the mornings, and she uses a straightening iron to control it. If I tried that iron on my hair, I think it’d just melt away and disappear.

“How does summer feel so far?” Dad says and waves at Mrs. McAtee, who used to babysit him when he was little. I don’t think Dad has fond memories of her, because she never babysat me or Ash. No one outside the family was ever allowed to babysit us. “Any plans?” he adds after I fail to reply in the three seconds it takes him to grow impatient.

“Deliver papers and go busking,” I say. I was supposed to wait tables at Pepito’s Italian, but they went bust two weeks ago. I haven’t found anything else. The paper route job stopped last week, because I foolishly resigned when I got the gig with Pepito’s. As for busking… well, that’s more of a wild idea than a realistic plan.

“Busking? You only know three songs.”

“Five songs, and people move around, so they won’t catch on to my limited repertoire. Besides, I can always learn a couple more songs.”

“And what will you do if I, or your ma, come and catch you soliciting funds?”

“I can outrun you easily, Dad. The both of you. Rookie Ryan too.”

“Yeah, yeah. Smart-mouth. We have an alternative plan for you this summer. Busking is not a part of it. Tell you over dinner.”

“What? Why not right away? Are you finally paying for Wizarding Summer School now that I’ve grown out of it?”

“Wait and see.”

Author Bio:

Nina Rossing lives in Norway, where the winters are long and the summers short. Despite the brilliant nature surrounding her, she spends more time in front of her computer, or with a book in her hands, than in the great outdoors (though you may find her out on her mountain bike if the weather is good). She works as a high school teacher, which in her opinion is probably the best job in the world.

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Winter’s Siren by Krystal Jane Ruin blitz

Winter’s Siren
Krystal Jane Ruin
Publication date: November 1st 2017
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult

For the last five years, Fawn has been the star soprano of a secluded opera house, forced to sing for her kidnapper.

His daughter, Devi, waits patiently in the shadows, hiding a face so horrible that no one who’s seen it will look at it again.

As Fawn plots her escape, whispers spread through the shaded corridors of dark sorcery, warning her that she must flee by the next opening night.

But when Fawn draws close to the exit, it’s Devi who’s standing in her way, leading Fawn to suspect that Devi has something to gain if she fails.

(a dark reimagining of Swan Lake)

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EXCERPT:

Frosty air nips at my nose. I stand almost knee deep in fresh fallen snow, letting the diffused sunlight hit my face. There is no sound. Peace settles over me. In this moment, I truly feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere.

Something cold and wet explodes on the back of my neck. For a moment, I fear the worst. A boil. Pus. My father’s description of my mother’s face plays out in my mind.

But then I hear Andrew laughing behind me. I touch the rough skin on my neck and bring a shaky and damp glove to my face. Snow. It’s just snow.

It’s the middle of the day, and my face is uncovered. To make everything worse, it’s bright outside. Freezing and overcast, but bright.

My hands fly to my face automatically.

“Are you going to let me get away with that?” Andrew laughs again.

I twist around and peek at him through my fingers.

He stands before me, his arms spread wide. A thick coat covers his arms, and in his gloved hands, he holds another snowball. “You have two seconds to stop me!”

I flip my hood over my head and drop down to gather snow in my hands.

Another snowball bursts against my head. The wetness plasters my hair to my face. I hurl my deformed ball in his direction. It misses him completely.

Another wad of snow lands on my neck while I gather a larger, rounder ball of snow. “Cheating!” I throw my handful at him. It lands weakly by his knees.

“Here, let me help you.” He climbs towards me and gathers a nice, solid ball in his fist. He hands this to me, and then stands back and spreads his arms wide again. “Try again.”

I throw it square at his nose.

“Ow!” He covers his face and cries out dramatically. “It’s in my eyes!”

“Stop it! Are you serious?” I navigate closer to him, and he falls back into the snow. I run to his side and hear laughter bubbling out from behind his hands. “Jerk!” I shovel snow over his body, and he laughs all the while.

Then he goes still. I stop.

“Andrew?” I lean in close. “Andrew?”

He lunges out of his shallow grave and tackles me to the ground.

A panicked scream leaves my body as he lands on top of me, heavy and warm. Then a strange sound comes out of my mouth. Something that’s never come out of it before. Laughter.

His braid hangs down, inches from my sunken cheek. Suddenly aware of how close his head is to mine, the laughter dies in my throat, and I slap my gloves to my cheeks.

“You have such beautiful eyes,” he says.

My breath is trapped in my chest. It hurts. I don’t know how much he can see of my face—my hood is pulled low and my hair and hands cover everything else—but I fear it’s too much.

“Andrew . . .”

Author Bio:

Krystal is the author of supernatural and paranormal fiction, living in the Tennessee Valley with a collection of swords and daggers. When she's not hoarding stuffed pandas, hourglasses, and Hello Kitty replicas, she can be found in YouTube hole or blogging about books, writing, and random things at KrystalSquared.net.

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Pen & Xander by Laekan Zea Kemp blitz

Pen & Xander
Laekan Zea Kemp
Publication date: October 31st 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult

Pen Prado has a passion for cooking. Specifically, cooking her father’s food in her father’s restaurant. It’s the heart of their immigrant neighborhood, a place where everyone belongs, and second chances are always on the menu. Except for Pen. Despite the fact that there’s something almost magic about her food, her father can’t imagine anything worse than her following in his footsteps. And when Pen confesses to keeping a secret from her family, he fires her, ensuring she never will.

Xander Amaro is undocumented but that doesn’t stop Ignacio Prado from offering him a job at his restaurant. For Xander, it’s a chance to make amends and to sever his toxic relationship with the druglord, El Cantil–a man whose been like a father to him since his own disappeared. Soon after, his mother abandoned him too, leaving behind a void that not even his abuelo can fill. Until he meets Pen.

Both seeking a place where they feel like they truly belong, they end up finding each other, and in the face of tremendous fear and self-doubt, they end up finding themselves.

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Request a copy of Pen & Xander here!

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EXCERPT:

The parking lot hasn’t changed; the science building looks the same as that first day of school five months ago. But as I sit in my car, watching girls I met during orientation skip up the steps, hugging their bags, excited to play nurse, I try to convince myself that something inside me has. That today I’ll actually be able to go inside. That today I will stop lying and be the person they want me to be.

Class starts in approximately seven minutes—the class I should have taken and passed last semester, moving me one step closer to a degree in nursing.

Six minutes.

I sit in the parking lot, watching the clock tick down. The car is in park but I can’t bring myself to turn off the engine.

Walk inside.

I turn off the car, reminding myself how much I’ve already wasted on tuition and books.

You can do this. You can.

I reach for my bag.

Get. Out. Of. The. Car.

And then I can’t breathe.

My mother’s shoes.

All I can think about are my mother’s shoes.

How they’ve sat in the same spot by the door for almost twenty years. Scuffed and cracked, the shadow of her foot pressed to the leather even when the laces are loose. I imagine every hallway they’ve ever walked down, every door they’ve propped open, every mess they’ve ever stepped in, every second they’ve held her up when all she wanted was to collapse. Because one of her patients couldn’t remember her face or their daughter’s name or how to speak.

When she lost one I’d wake to the knock of the rolling pin and the smell of dough warming on the hot plate. Sometimes I’d try to take the pin from her but there was something about the force, about the rhythm that reminded her how to breathe. We’d work in silence and three-dozen tortillas later she’d wrap them in foil and drive them to the family. The family that only visited once a month. That would accept my mother’s food without acknowledging that she was more family to the deceased than they were.

And then the next day she would go back to work.

For almost twenty years. She went back.

And if I step out of this car, if I walk up those steps, if I sit at that desk and pretend…how long will I be sitting there before I realize I’m trapped?

I take a deep breath, the scent of a thousand shifts at the restaurant tucked into the fabric of the front seat. Mango and cilantro and epazote, tomatillos and roasted pepitas and tortillas. I can’t sleep without those smells tangled in my hair, without those flavors still on my tongue.

So I have to decide what’s scarier: living a life that doesn’t belong to me or losing the one I love. If the truth breaks my father’s heart, I know he’ll take it from me. But if it doesn’t, if he understands, if I can make him understand, I can be free.

I weigh each option, simmering in the anxiety they provoke, in the hope. Because I have to do what scares me. It’s the only way to ward off the helplessness. To stay in control. I always have to be in control.

Which means that today is not the day I go inside.

My stomach drops, my hand reaching to put the car in drive again.

Today is the day I tell them the truth.

Author Bio:

Laekan is a writer and explorer extraordinaire who grew up in the flatlands of West Texas. She graduated from Texas Tech with a BA in Creative Writing and is the author of the multi-cultural New Adult novels The Things They Didn't Bury, Orphans of Paradise, Breathing Ghosts, and the Young Adult Paranormal series The Girl In Between. Her upcoming contemporary romance is slated for release during the summer of 2017!

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Greco's Game by James Houston Turner Release Blitz

Thriller / Suspense / Action / Romance

Date Published: November 1, 2017

Publisher: Regis Books

Colonel Aleksandr Talanov – the “ice man” – is married to a woman he wishes he could love. But he can’t, and it’s an ugly consequence of his training with the KGB. Even so, no one should have to experience what Talanov experiences: the brutal murder of his wife in front of his eyes.

Wracked with guilt and suspected of plotting her death, Talanov spirals downward on a path of self-destruction. He should have been killed, not her. He was the one whose violent past would not leave them alone. Months tick by and Talanov hits rock bottom on the mean streets of Los Angeles, where he meets a hooker named Larisa, who drugs and robs him.

But in the seedy world of human trafficking ruled by the Russian mafia, Larisa made the mistake of stealing the ice man’s wallet. In it was Talanov’s sole possession of value: his wedding photo. Talanov tracks Larisa down to get that photo because it reminds him of everything that should have been but never was, and never would be because an assassin’s bullet had mistakenly killed his wife. Or was it a mistake?

The answer lies in Greco’s Game, a chess match played in 1619 that is famous for its queen sacrifice and checkmate in only eight moves. In an unusual alliance, Talanov and Larisa team up to begin unraveling the mystery of what Talanov’s old KGB chess instructor regarded as the most brilliant example of how to trap and kill an opponent. The question is: who was the target?