Category Archives: Excerpt
BLOG TOUR – A Lair So Sinful by Zoey Ellis
A Lair So Sinful, an all-new standalone fantasy romance from bestselling author Zoey Ellis is available now!
From a dark, magic-ravaged world comes an enthralling new fantasy romance series. Five brothers, last of an ancient Alpha bloodline, each bound by fire and blood to their majestic dragons.
Captive in a dragon lord’s lair. No memory. Stripped bare.
I’mya awakens to find herself the property of Nyro—a rare and powerful Alpha bonded to a monstrous dragon. Like the other women in the lair, her only purpose is to satiate his every fantasy, but the beautiful omega is hiding a dark secret—even from herself.
From the first explosive encounter with Nyro, her incredible power is unleashed.
His carnal desires feed the fire of her magic.
Nyro’s captivation with her turns to possession, and I’mya becomes more than a plaything for him.
But as shards of her memories puzzle back together, her mind finally unveils the compelling truth.
A purpose much more sinister than pleasure.
Passion. Obsession. Betrayal.
I’mya must fulfill her quest, regardless of the cost. Nyro has conquered her body, but if he discovers the truth behind her presence in his lair… it is her life he will take.
A LAIR SO SINFUL is the first book in an adult fantasy romance standalone series. This story includes romance of a dark nature and a HEA.
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Excerpt
Suddenly, the fire stopped; everything was quiet.
I’mya inched her head up to see if the dragon had gone, but instead a figure loomed over her, blocking her view.
It spoke, and a deep, rich voice vibrated through the entire area, penetrating her body and sending a rush along her limbs, but its words were not clear.
I’mya lifted her head, blinking at it.
A man loomed over her. He had wide, muscled shoulders, toned arms and a broad chest with a torso that tapered down to a slimmer waist; his legs just as thick as his arms. In truth, he was a perfectly formed man—except he was enormous.
Dark, tousled hair fell to the top of his ears, and a low-cut dark beard spread over the lower half of his chiseled face. Long lashes framed the dark fury of his eyes, directed at her as he stepped forward.
I’mya panicked, but she couldn’t move. She was too weak to do anything. Thankfully the dragon was no longer attacking, but she heard the sound of its wings beating beyond the opening of the cavern. She wasn’t exactly out of harm’s way, especially when she didn’t know this man’s intentions. This mountain lair, or whatever the grey-cloaked woman called it, was a dangerous place to be.
She had to get out.
The giant man lunged forward, and I’mya squeaked as his hand closed around her neck. He yanked her upward until she was on her feet, then he leaned in, his dark eyes peering at her face, and her naked body. “’et khadon yo ma si kon’aya” The words boomed out of him and vibrated against her chest, even though I’mya was certain he wasn’t shouting. She tried to shake her head, eager to explain she was here by mistake, but it was impossible to swallow let alone speak.
“ko’lat ‘et numakh tmo’ shaf bok ma si tumezni?”
Surely he wasn’t expecting her to respond? Not with his fist so tightly wrapped around her neck? I’mya exhaled in annoyance, her nostrils flaring.
The man’s head tilted, a brow inching down to a frown as he studied her again. I’mya hoped she didn’t look like a trespasser, or even worse, a criminal. This might be the only time that being naked might work in her favor, though it wasn’t as though she looked good. This place was too hot. Sweat slicked her skin and her hair had to be a ragged mess. Hopefully she looked so out of place that this giant would discard her so she could get as far away from the Forbidden Mountain as possible. “Kev,” he murmured, dragging his eyes down at her body again, lingering in places they shouldn’t. His eyes darkened. “si zmusho da dvan. ‘Et lat tan itzutz de da tzo kon’aya.”
I’mya had no idea what he was saying, but the bass of his tone and the look in his eyes ignited a tingle in the pit of her stomach and the most delicate shiver skipped up her spine. The man’s scent was equally provocative. Rich, decadent tones of charred darkness emanated from him, as though he had bathed in the flame and smoke of a thousand midnights. It was potent and intoxicating, and affected her just as powerfully as his voice. Within moments, her nipples hardened, and the tingle in her stomach developed into an ache between her legs.
An even darker look entered the man’s gaze as his nostrils flared.
About Zoey Ellis
Zoey Ellis writes dark, magical, fantasy romances about tortured, possessive, alpha anti-heroes and the sassy heroines who belong to them (even if they don’t want to!). Filled with passionate, carnal steam, Zoey’s stories feature couples that go through tough journeys and make mistakes but ultimately have to grow for each other to survive the dark worlds they inhabit.
Described as ‘deliciously dark’ and ‘unputdownable’, Zoey’s thrilling, fantastical romances come complete with roller-coaster twists and turns, unique worlds, and happy endings.
Zoey is a Londoner, cat mama, and proud romance and epic fantasy addict. She loves jealous/possessive heroes, sexual tension that jumps off the page, and memorable, magical worlds. She reads most genres of romance and has a special love for the ‘true mates’ trope and dark angst. However, she enjoys all different genres of fiction, usually on the darker side.
When not working on her stories, Zoey is usually gaming, buddying reading with friends or stumbling upon new and ridiculous ways to mess up a date!
Connect with Zoey
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3efpbbT
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Website: http://www.zoeyellis.com
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BLOG TOUR – Oops, I’ve Fallen by Max Monroe
Oops, I’ve Fallen, an all-new laugh out loud romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Max Monroe is available now!
If my time with Ryan Miller were a hit track on the radio, I imagine the lyrics would go something like this…
“We’re so different, but they say opposites attract. Oops, I’ve fallen, and my heart doesn’t want to come back.”
But, holy bingo night, is my attraction to the sexy, broody businessman so much more complicated than the chorus of a song.
His dad lives right next to my mom, and after the two of them suffered an unexplained accident while taking down holiday decorations, both Ryan and I were forced to become the only thirtysomething residents of Sunny Creek Village Independent Senior Living Community.
Temporarily moving in might seem like overkill for a fractured tailbone and a severely pulled groin muscle, but believe me, when your mom is as wild as mine and your dad is as cantankerous as Ryan’s, they need supervision to ensure they stick to doctor’s orders.
Constantly thrown together by the antics of our crazy parents and the tough-as-nails community enforcer, Betty Matthews, Ryan and I formed an alliance for the sole purpose of survival.
But I never expected to be so interested in finding out what he was hiding beneath his grumpy, serious demeanor. More than that, I never dreamed what I found would be the kind of man women sell their souls to the devil for.
Unfortunately, our little one-hit wonder on the airwaves has more to say before it comes to an end.
Although, finishing the outro to this song is a real doozy…
Tell me…what lyric rhymes with Oops, I’ve fallen for my future stepbrother?
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Excerpt
RYAN
Incoming Call Dad.
I’m tempted not to answer—very tempted, actually—but I do anyway. There’s a chance he needs me, given the circumstances of my visit in the first place, and I don’t want to leave him hanging.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Where are you?”
“Baggage claim.”
“Baggage claim where?”
“Tampa.”
“What the hell, Ryan?” he bellows, making me close my eyes against the speech I know is coming. “I told you I’m good. You didn’t need to come here.”
“Yeah, well, your nurse said otherwise.”
“My nurse?” he questions. “Who? That old woman Jessica?”
“Old woman?” I retort on a laugh. “She was younger than you, Dad. By about twenty years.”
I had the pleasure of speaking to my dad’s nurse Jessica on FaceTime last night when I got a call that he had taken some sort of strange fall and had been escorted to the hospital in an ambulance.
“Whatever. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“Actually, she does,” I correct. “And so does your doctor, who also recommended that I come down and help you out while you’re recovering.”
“Recovering.” He scoffs. “You’d think I had a heart attack or some shit. I pulled a muscle in my damn balls.”
I shut my eyes briefly. “Groin muscle, Dad. You pulled your groin muscle.”
“Same difference.”
I want to explain to him there’s a big difference, but in the name of not driving myself insane—or drawing the attention of everyone around me—I bite my tongue.
“Go home.”
“Too late for that. I’m already here,” I answer on a chuckle and step up to the carousel to snag my black duffel from it.
He groans. “You’re my least favorite kid sometimes.”
I shake my head. “I’m your only kid, Dad.”
“Yeah, and I like you the least right now.”
I snort. Sal Miller is a seriously complex mix of blunt honesty, overwhelming affection, and way too much testosterone for a seventy-five-year-old man. The good news is that when he sounds like he’s being an asshole, I still know that behind all the flashy insults, he loves me. “Hey, Dad?”
“What?”
“I’ll see you soon,” I say and hang up the phone before he can respond.
I scrub a hand down my face and take a deep breath. It’s moments like this that make me realize how much shit my mom had to put up with when she was still alive.
Mom, seriously, you were a saint.
With my duffel over my shoulder and my small carry-on rolling behind me, I walk out of the baggage claim area and toward the taxi line.
Normally, I’d rent a car, but since I had to book this flight so last minute and there’s apparently some kind of end-of-summer festival going on in downtown Tampa, there were no rentals available.
Hopefully, though, I’ll be able to arrange something tomorrow. Or else, I’ll have to cruise around in my dad’s Porsche while I’m here.
Not such a terrible fate for me, personally, but as far as taking him places with an injury to his damn groin muscle, I’m thinking his late-life-crisis Porsche won’t be ideal.
Once I make my way through the automatic doors, I spot the taxi line and count only three people in front of me. Not too bad.
While I stand in line, I pull my phone back out of my pocket and start scrolling through work emails. In just the short flight from New York to Tampa—two and a half hours, tops—my inbox has managed to accumulate over forty emails. Since the small regional plane didn’t offer Wi-Fi, I had to settle for working on my end-of-quarter reports.
On a sigh, I run my hand through my dark-brown hair and begin the task of sifting through what’s priority and what’s not.
Five emails done and the taxi line gets smaller by one person.
Another ten emails and the line gets shorter again.
By the time I reach the front, I slide my phone into my pocket and wait patiently as I spot a black taxi heading my way. The driver pulls the cab to a stop right in front of me, but just as I lift my duffel up and over my shoulder to carry it to the trunk, a rush of bright red careens past me.
“Oh, thank you so much!” a female voice calls toward the male driver who has just gotten out of the driver’s side to assist with bags.
But he shouldn’t be helping with her bags.
He should be helping with my bags.
What the fuck?
“Uh, excuse me?” I question loud enough to catch her attention.
She looks up from her spot at the trunk. Her long, wavy red hair fans down her shoulders, and a few rogue curls hang over her face. Bright-blue eyes meet mine, and I can’t stop my brain from thinking, Well, goddamn.
Smooth skin, striking features, and a few freckles dotting her nose, she’s…stunning. The kind of woman that urges a double and triple take. Between her gorgeous face and the way her long legs look beneath her cutoff jean shorts, this woman is like the girl next door, but with secrets.
Dirty fucking secrets.
“Were you talking to me?” she questions, tilting her head to the side when I don’t answer right away.
Shit. Get it together.
Those blue eyes of hers are still locked with mine, searching them in confusion.
“Uh…yeah…actually,” I say, clearing my throat. I glance between the taxi and the taxi line. “You’re kind of stealing my taxi.”
“I am?”
I smirk. “Yeah.”
“Did you call him yourself?”
My head jerks back in surprise. “Well, no, but—”
“So, you don’t know this driver?” she questions, looking between the driver and me. “Do you know him—” she pauses briefly, then asks “—what’s your name, sir?”
“Bob.”
She smiles at him. “Bob, do you know this man?”
“No.” The driver shakes his head.
“I didn’t call him,” I explain on a sigh. “But I followed the rules and waited in this taxi line like everyone else.”
“You follow the rules a lot?” she asks, and I don’t know what to make of her question.
It sounds dirty and sexy yet sarcastic and accusatory at the same time.
“Don’t most people?”
“I don’t.” She winks. “But you keep doing you, Barney Fife. The town of Mayberry needs you.”
Okay, she definitely just passive-aggressively called me a square.
“So, you’re just going to steal my taxi, then?” I question and glance over my shoulder to note the other people waiting in line like myself, but I quickly realize I’m the only one standing here. It doesn’t matter, though. My point is still valid.
“Well, I guess that depends.”
“On what?”
“Are you going to fight me for it?”
Excuse me?
“Am I going to fight you for the taxi?”
She nods.
“Um, no,” I answer on a laugh. What a weird fucking question. “I don’t make a huge habit of fighting women.”
“Okay then, I guess the answer to your question is yes, then.” She nods. Winks. Taps her hand on the top of the taxi. “Let’s hit it, Bob.”
Bob looks between me and the redhead, who is now getting into of the back seat of his taxi. But eventually, he just shrugs and hops back into the driver’s seat.
Then they’re off. Just like that.
And I don’t miss the way the mysterious, taxi-stealing redhead turns around in her seat to wave to me as they go or the fact that I’m feeling a lot less attuned to how pretty she is.
Her manners are apparently very, very ugly.
What in the hell just happened?
About Max Monroe
A duo of romance authors team up under the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling pseudonym Max Monroe to bring you sexy, laugh-out-loud reads.
Max Monroe is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of more than ten contemporary romance titles. Favorite writing partners and long time friends, Max and Monroe strive to live and write all the fun, sexy swoon so often missing from their Facebook newsfeed. Sarcastic by nature, their two writing souls feel like they’ve found their other half. This is their most favorite adventure thus far.
Connect with Max Monroe
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Website: https://www.authormaxmonroe.com/
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BLOG TOUR – Feature & Giveaway – Changing the Rules (Richter series #1) by Catherine Bybee
Excerpt from Changing the Rules by Catherine Bybee
Claire collapsed onto the living room sofa the second she walked in the door. Not only had she suffered a headache the entire day, Cooper ran her like a trainer working an Iron Man competitor.
“That sounds like a bad day,” Jax said as she walked around the corner of the kitchen.
“You don’t want to know.”
Claire flung an arm over her eyes to block out the sun.
She heard Jax walk in the room and then exhale as she sat down. “You’re right. I don’t give a crap what happened in school, unless it involved Cooper. What I want is the details of last night after I got out of the car.”
Before Cooper picked them up, Claire and Jax had agreed that Jax would give them a few minutes to have a private conversation. Now Claire regretted that plan.
“The long story, or the short story?” Claire asked.
“Whatever one you want to deliver.”
Claire’s arms slid off her head, and she pushed herself into a sitting position.
“Cooper has a thing for me.”
Jax sat silent, blinked a few times. “Okay, and?”
“What do you mean, ‘okay, and?’”
“Sorry, Claire, but that’s obvious. I think you’d have to be an idiot to not see it. Even the guys on the team see it.”
“What? Are they talking about—”
Jax stopped her with a shake of the head. “Of course not. But you can tell by how they look at the two of you that they know there’s an attraction.”
Claire pointed to her chest. “I’m not doing anything, it’s him.”
“Maybe it’s more him.”
She kept shaking her head. “No, it’s all him. I’m not instigating anything.”
“You flirt with him all the time.”
“I do not,” Claire huffed.
One look from Jax and she rescinded her statement. “Okay, we banter. But it’s always been like that. I have the pool stick, he makes some kind of phallic joke. It’s banter. Not flirting.”
Jax sat back, crossed her arms over her chest. Claire couldn’t believe her best friend was calling her out. “We’re friends. And last night he ruined that by telling me he’s had a thing for me since we met. Told me he left sunny California for dreary London because I was too young and naive to handle him when I first got here.”
Jax narrowed her eyes. “Is that really how he said that?”
Claire’s headache was coming back. “No. He said I was a child.”
“A child?”
Claire stood up from the couch, started for the kitchen. “He kept repeating that I was eighteen back then.”
Jax followed behind. “Which is true.”
Claire yanked open the fridge, pulled out a beer. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always. But I just don’t see where all the fire is about this. Cooper owns up to the flirting comments and puppy-dog looks he gives you, and you’re pissed because he walked away six years ago.”
Like picking a lock, the pieces slid into place and finally started to click. “But he’s my friend.”
“Trying to say you’ve never thought of him as more?”
“No.” Her denial was quick.
Jax started to smile. “You’ve never checked out his ass? The guy can fill out a pair of jeans.”
Some of the anger she’d harbored all day eased. “That’s true.”
“And that smile. When he’s belly laughing he has the tiniest dimples.”
Claire closed her eyes, pictured his smile. She hadn’t noticed the dimples, but now that she thought about it . . . She opened her eyes to find Jax staring at her.
“Sounds like you have a thing for him,” Claire said.
“Wouldn’t matter if I did, and I don’t, by the way, but it wouldn’t matter. The guy can’t stop looking at you.”
“God, what am I going to do with him?”
“I don’t think you have to do anything. It’s not like he asked you out and you said no and now it’s awkward.”
“You’re right. It’s worse than that.”
“You’re overthinking it.” Jax pushed off the counter. “You know what, let’s gussy up a little and hit a proper happy hour. We’ll talk in German and pretend we don’t speak English and shamelessly flirt.”
Claire abandoned her beer. “Now that is exactly what I need to do and get my mind off of boys.”
About the Title
Title: Changing the Rules
Author: Catherine Bybee
Release Date: March 23, 2021
Publisher: Montlake
Summary
As an employee of MacBain Security and Solutions, Claire Kelly can certainly hold her own. Armed with an impressive set of covert skills, she’s more than prepared to tackle any job that comes her way…except one involving Cooper Lockman.
Cooper and Claire used to work together before his feelings for her sent him packing to Europe for six long years. But now he’s back and determined to ignore the still-smoldering heat that lingers between them.
Their current mission: go undercover together at a California high school to root out the mastermind behind a prostitution ring targeting young girls. The closer they get to the truth and the closer they get to each other, however, the deadlier their task becomes. As Claire and Cooper risk their lives to bring down their target, will their hearts be the final casualties?
Giveaway
About the Author 
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bybee has written twenty-eight books that have collectively sold more than five million copies and have been translated into more than eighteen languages. Raised in Washington State, Bybee moved to Southern California in the hope of becoming a movie star. After growing bored with waiting tables, she returned to school and became a registered nurse, spending most of her career in urban emergency rooms. She now writes full-time and has penned the Not Quite Series, the Weekday Brides Series, the Most Likely To Series, and the First Wives Series.
Social Media Links
Website: http://www.catherinebybee.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCatherineBybee
Twitter: https://twitter.com/catherinebybee
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2905789.Catherine_Bybee
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