Fragile Scars by Lilian Harris

Title: Fragile Scars

Series: Fragile Hearts #1

Author: Lilian Harris

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Release Date: October 7, 2019

Blurb

SOMETIMES THE DEEPEST SCARS ARE THOSE NO ONE SEES.



Lilah seems to have it all--a great job and a gorgeous boyfriend,
but underneath the perfect exterior are bruises left behind by a monster who
claims to love her.



Damian has a troubled past of his own. He vows to steer clear of
love, that is until he meets Lilah--a woman whose secret is slowly consuming
her. One look and he knows they've met before but he doesn't know where.



Determined to help her escape the violent relationship she can't seem to leave,
he befriends her, vowing to keep her safe, but protecting Lilah comes at a
price.



When their attraction turns into passion and their secrets threaten to tear
them apart, will they fight for one another? Or will their demons swallow them
whole?





Fragile Scars is a steamy contemporary romance with suspenseful undertones. It
contains strong language, sexual situations and references. It is the 1st book
in the Fragile Hearts series. All the books in the series are standalone
romances with a different couple, but past couples and characters do make an
appearance in later books.



Author Note: Below is a trigger warning for those who may need it.
Please stop reading now if you don't want one. This story contains graphic
violence and sexual assault, which may not be suitable for some readers. 

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Author Bio

For Lilian,
a love of writing began with a love of books. From Goosebumps to romance novels
with sexy men on the cover, she loved them all. It’s no surprise that at the
age of eight she started writing poetry and lyrics and hasn’t stopped writing
since.

She was
born in Azerbaijan, and currently resides in Long Island, N.Y. with her
husband, two kids, and a dog named Gatorade. Even though she has a law degree,
she isn’t currently practicing. When she isn’t reading or writing, Lilian is
baking or cooking up a storm. And once the kids are in bed, there’s usually a
glass of red in her hand. Can’t just survive on coffee alone!

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Inside the Masque by R. T. W. Lipkin

Mystery + Science Fiction

Publisher: Eclipse Ink

Date Published: June 15, 2019

On Sale for $0.99

 In a future where everyone wears a masque, anyone could be a killer. But a masque can’t keep you safe. Nothing can. Now it’s up to Chief Inspector McNair and his team to find that killer. They’ll uncover the secrets and lies that dwell inside every beautiful masque and stop at nothing until they find the truth—no matter how ugly it turns out to be.

 Excerpt

Chapter 12

The later it got, the louder the squad room got. Well, it was a Saturday night. What else could you expect?

The officers on duty all wanted to be somewhere else. Many of them wanted to be someone else, at least for tonight. Someone who wouldn’t have to be working on a weekend night, someone who could wear any damn masque they wanted and not be limited to the meager selection that the agency afforded and that was mandatory, standard issue, part of the uniform.

McNair didn’t give a shit. The detective masque—he was wearing the No. 3 model today—fit him just fine, and he had no place else to be. Not tonight. Not any night. Not since his wife left him.

Good riddance. Off on her great life adventure with that damned legacy. Pretty stunning blow, that, but, yeah. Good fucking riddance. He had the whole apartment to himself now and more time to concentrate on his job, his one true passion.

She’d skewered that fact and driven the pike into his heart—and she’d been right.

Tonight he didn’t want to be in his office. The squad room was better. Not lonely. Alive. He liked it better out here anyway.

A group of officers were at the far corner of the room, having an arm-wrestling contest with all takers. The shouts and grunts and encouragements and disappointments and good-natured name calling filled the high-ceilinged chamber with their lusty sounds. Litz, McNair’s second-in-command—the man had biceps that could be mistaken for tree trunks—was probably winning every single round.

Behind the desk where McNair was sitting, Wieand, one of his most thorough officers, was asleep, snoring, his head on his desk, and his partner, Shey, had her feet up right beside his head and was reading off her scroll. She was the studious one of the pair.

McNair loved every single person in this room. More than he’d ever loved his ex-wife. She’d told him that once, maybe more than once, maybe more than that, and it was true.

So what? So what? He had loved her. It’s just that when you spent most of your waking hours with other people—people whose lives were at stake and who had to react to anything at any time and so did you and you all depended on one another—well, those were the people you loved. You couldn’t help yourself. You didn’t want to help yourself.

He hadn’t told her that. Why would he? He wouldn’t. But actually he hadn’t told her anything. He hadn’t had time to. Or the opportunity. Motive? Yes. More motive than necessary to order surveillance and some advanced close scrutiny, if it’d been a case. But means and opportunity? No. Not at all. Neither means nor opportunity. She’d left him a fucking note.

Good riddance. Good damn riddance. He was better off.

“Hey, Mac,” said Harata, shouting and waving to him from across the open squad room. McNair’s best friend, even before Harata had saved his life. Long before then. “Come have a go at it!”

McNair shook his head. He’d lose so fast he’d never live it down. Not a good idea for the chief inspector. Arm wrestling was hardly his forte, and Harata knew it, the bum. Litz, the sweat pouring from his forehead, was motioning to McNair to come over and take a beating. McNair laughed.

“What’s that?” said Shey.

McNair heard her voice through the cacophony of sounds in the room. He was attuned to the exact tone he was now hearing. He took his attention off the room, reached behind his left ear, and turned up the agency comm channel, listening in.

He felt the first pricks of tension at the base of his spine, where he felt everything. Where he still felt that note, which he’d pitched with the trash, yet he could see her handwriting in his mind as clearly as though he were still holding the note, as though it were being transmitted through a vid circ.

Shey had taken her feet off the desk and had her elbows on it now, leaning forward. Mac listened in. Wieand, Shey’s partner, who everyone in the squad room except Shey herself, the fool, knew was in love with her, was awake now. The man could sleep anywhere. McNair, who lately couldn’t sleep anywhere, envied him that.

“Sure,” Shey was saying. “Yes . . . They commed when . . . ? Oh, I see . . . Yes . . . How long ago? And . . . ? Yes . . . Okay . . . Yes. We’re on our way.”

She kicked Wieand, who stood up. “Ready, Chief,” he said, mocking her. The redheaded Shey was otherwise quite astute, but she never ever picked up on any of Wieand’s hints, many of them not very damned subtle. Anyone else would’ve either fallen in love or asked for a new partner by now. But not Shey.

“Homicide,” McNair said, standing up just as Wieand stood up.

Like all agency-issued masques, Shey’s had a forced neutral expression, but the waves emanating from her posture and attitude were tense, wary, and decidedly grim. McNair could read all his officers as though their masques were off, and he could recognize all of them from a distance without any help from an ID circ.

“Suspicious,” Shey said, being careful.

“I’m coming along.” McNair kicked closed the bottom drawer of his desk, where he’d been resting his feet. “Harata!”

Harata was already halfway across the room. When you work this closely with someone for this long, they don’t have to be told. They just know. You both just know. Harata had been listening in as well.

“Homicide,” Harata said. He lived on the extremes. Lived for them. But Mac thought it was homicide too.

“Suspicious,” Wieand said, siding with his partner. He’d been asleep and maybe hadn’t heard any of the conversation. He was looking at Shey with a gaze that said Come to me, my love but which she didn’t even notice.

“At the Nessard place,” Shey said, all business.

“That fabula producer?” Wieand said as he tore his gaze away from Shey, checked his sidearm, and buttoned the top button of his uniform shirt.

“Must be,” Shey said.

“I’m coming too,” said Litz, who’d given up arm wrestling, it seemed. He’d materialized at the desk where McNair had been camped out. Litz had probably heard everything. He had his hat on already.

“Sorry,” said McNair. “Something’s going on tonight. This might not be the only thing. You’ve gotta stay.” McNair would never issue an order exactly, but his word was law and no one questioned him. Litz was his second-in-command. He had to stay.

“Damn,” Litz said. He took off his hat and his curly hair sprang up comically. He rubbed at his left biceps, probably sore from all the arm wrestling. “Nessard’s,” Litz said. “Damn. I was looking forward to getting a decent snack out of this.”

“I’ll pack you a doggy bag,” Wieand said in his best deadpan as the foursome left the squad room and climbed the stairs to the rooftop landpad.

“Beautiful spring night,” Wieand said as he opened the door.

“For some,” Shey said.

About the Author

R. T. W. Lipkin lives in New York with her husband and three cats. Her genre-defying novels occur at the intersection of science fiction and fantasy, with mystery, romance, and adventure threaded throughout.

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What's Your Sign? by Lila Monroe

Title: What's Your Sign?

Author: Lila Monroe

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Release Date: October 7, 2019

Blurb

Is love written in the stars? Find out in the hot and
hilarious stand-alone romantic comedy from USA Today bestselling author, Lila Monroe! 

I’ve never been the superstitious type. Black cats are made
for snuggling, and broken mirrors just mean I can’t see today’s epic zit, but
getting stuck in an elevator and accidentally making out with my handsome boss
on his first day? I don’t have to read the tea leaves to know, this spells
disaster for my dream journalism job. With the future of the newspaper in
jeopardy, I’m next on the chopping block for sure… until I figure out our new
CEO’s one weakness.

And it’s written in the stars.

Turns out, Justin is a major fan of the Gazette’s astrology
column. And since our resident mystic has gone AWOL, guess who’s left secretly
writing the forecasts? Me! 

Soon, I’m using his star sign to nudge him in the right
direction - and away from the pink slips. But as Justin and I grow closer, the
chemistry between us is sizzling… and my little white lie turns into a
galaxy-sized problem. I’m seeing stars - and not just when he kisses me…

Can I find a way out of this celestial mix-up? Or will my
forecast spell heartbreak for the both of us?  Find out in the new romance
from Lila Monroe!

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Combining her love of writing, sex and well-fitted suits, Lila Monroe wrote The Billionaire Bargain. Lila enjoys writing, as it gives her a flexible schedule to spend time with her kids and a wonderful excuse to avoid them. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, who strips out of his well-fitted suits nightly.

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Defending Roxanne by PJ Fiala

Title: Defending Roxanne

Series: GHOST Book #2

Author: PJ Fiala

Genre: Adult Military Romantic Suspense

Release Date: October 22, 2019
Cover Design: Cover Me Photography & Design

Secrets and lies have become deadly.

While investigating the murder of her parents, Roxanne Bowman encounters more than she ever thought she would. The secrets that both of her parents kept knock her off kilter. Finding an intruder in their home afterwards changes her life forever.

GHOST operative, Hawk Delany is back in the swing of things after being shot while working a case. Sent to Washington D.C. to investigate the murder of a foreign dignitary, and an American couple with ties to deadly secrets, places him in a precarious position, between the fight to help solve the murders and to keep his heart from theft by the lovely Roxanne.

Chapter 1

"Roxanne, it was weird, he looked like your dad's cousin, Raymond. Do you remember Raymond? He was always a bit different and he had so much trouble dealing with people. That's why when I saw this man following me, it completely scared the crap out of me. Then, I saw him again yesterday and I don't know what to do." 

Roxanne's eyes flew open. Staring at the ceiling, her heart pounded in her chest as her mother's words came back to her. Throwing back the covers, she sat up and turned so her feet were touching the floor. Her childhood bedroom still had the same furniture, same bookcase across from her bed, same creeks in the floor. The only things that had changed were that her mother had repainted the room to a soft gray last year and had updated the bedding to match.

"I want you to be comfortable when you come home, and you've outgrown the pink floral patterns. This suits you so much better," her mother had said. Oh, how she wished she could speak to her mom now.

Sliding on her slipper socks, she walked out of her room and hesitated. This home seemed too large and ominous somehow now. Glancing down the hall to her right, her parents’ bedroom door was closed now and would be forever if it was up to her. But, only time would tell. Her brothers, Brendan and Matthew’s, bedrooms were to her left. It had been her paternal grandparents’ home before they passed, then her family's. Now it belonged to her and her brothers.

Descending the enormous, dark mahogany staircase with its white-painted handrails, which curved to the right of the large foyer in their old Georgetown home, she turned left and entered her parents’ office. 

Her mother had remodeled this room twenty years ago, but it still suited the era of the house. Majestic mahogany pillars stood adjacent to the wall behind her father's desk and in between those pillars were towering shelves of books. She loved playing in this room when she was a girl. Her father spent countless hours in here as his military career soared. His final position landed him at the State Department working as the Chief of Protocol, appointed by the President. It's also the position that got him and her mother killed. 

Turning to the opposite side of the room, where her mother's identical desk sat, she walked behind the desk and opened the left top drawer. Somewhere in here her mother had kept the key to the storage units in the basement. She needed to find a picture of Raymond. Her first order of business tomorrow morning would be to find Raymond and figure out why he had been stalking her mother and if he had anything to do with her death. The sheer level of chaos, not to mention the political uproar, that had enveloped her parents’ deaths and that of Kanan Mammodov, Prime Minister of Azerbaitani at the same time was monumental. Feeling around the papers in the drawer, she also found office supplies, staples, tape, and a ruler but she couldn't feel the key. The moonlight that shone through the tall windows to her right was ample light for moving around the house, but didn't offer enough light to see a small key. Yet, she enjoyed this darkness and the anonymity it offered. There had been at a minimum a handful of reporters on the street in front of the house since her parents died two weeks ago. Turning on the lights would allow them to see in better and use the zoom lenses on their cameras. Fuck that. 

Pulling the papers out of the drawer and laying them on top of the clean desk, she felt around a bit more. Nothing.

The top drawer on the right was next. Pulling the multitude of tablets and notepads from the drawer, she felt around the bottom of the drawer and found nothing. Repeating this motion for the five remaining drawers on each side, she had a mess to show for her efforts laying all around her and still no key. Standing with her hands on her hips, she looked across the room to her father's desk, then remembered, he'd hidden things on the underside of drawers from time to time. Pulling out the top right drawer of her mother's desk, she ran her hands underneath and smiled when she felt an envelope taped to the underside. Peeling the tape away and pulling the envelope from underneath, she smiled to herself as she removed the key and stepped over her mess to make her way to the basement. Through the foyer and into the living room, she turned right and headed to the back of the house and the kitchen.

The basement door was directly to the right of the entrance to the kitchen. Opening the door, she clicked on the light and descended to the basement. Over the years her parents had reinforced the basement and added lighting and the locked storage units, which her father had insisted upon having, since his position meant he had access to and possession of confidential information. Her mother then had insisted they have a room in the basement where family heirlooms and pictures were stored, keeping the room at a constant temperature and humidity free. 

Opening her mom's storage room, she looked at the shelves, walking down the row until she found the storage boxes marked "Family Photos.” Her mother, ever the organizer, had them stored by year. Trying to recall the last time they'd seen Raymond, she remembered being around ten, which was twenty-nine years ago. Finding this box, and pulling it down from the shelf with both hands, she turned to take it upstairs and lay the photographs out on the dining room table.

At the top of the steps, she nudged the light switch with her right elbow and closed the door with her behind. Turning to her left, she headed into the dining room from the kitchen and set the box on top of the table. 

A noise from her parents' office caused her to freeze. Papers softly shuffling, then nothing. Slowly reaching around her back, her heartbeat increased rapidly, and dread filled her gut as she realized she'd left her gun upstairs in her nightstand. Shit.

Softly she crept to the door of the dining room which was directly behind the huge staircase she'd come down earlier. Staying close to the wall she listened again. Inhaling, she took a slow deep breath and crept out of the room and around the staircase. 

A massive hulk emerged from the office, and she froze for only a moment before turning to run in the opposite direction. The back door was in the kitchen; if she could get there, she'd run across the lawn and to the neighbor's home for help.

Three steps from the kitchen she was grabbed from behind, an iron band of arm around her waist and one hand over her mouth. She was pulled into the hardened chest of her attacker and barely able to move. Her left arm was trapped next to her body in the steel grip of the man who now began to drag her deeper into her home. 

Panic flooded her brain and her stomach. She struggled to get free, twisting her body as much as she could, hoping to find a weakness to exploit. She began kicking back, but her slipper socks weren't going to do any damage to this man. A second man appeared in her peripheral vision and chuckled before saying, "Well, Hawk, looks like you found yourself a thief."

Writing has been a desire my whole life. Once I found the courage to write, life changed for me in the most profound way. Bringing stories to readers that I'd enjoy reading and creating characters that are flawed, but lovable is such a joy.

When not writing, I'm with my family doing something fun. My husband, Gene, and I are bikers and enjoy riding to new locations, meeting new people and generally enjoying this fabulous country we live in.

I come from a family of veterans. My grandfather, father, brother, two sons, and one daughter-in-law are all veterans. Needless to say, I am proud to be an American and proud of the service my amazing family has given.

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