Category Archives: Prologue
EXCERPT REVEAL – Ablaze (Elements of Rapture Series #3) by Swati MH
Title: Ablaze
Series: Elements of Rapture Series #3
Author: Swati MH
Release Date: August 31, 2023
Genre/Tropes: Brother’s Best Friend, Friends to Lovers, One Bed/One Night, Firefighter, Age Gap
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/194025630-ablaze
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/ablaze-elements-of-rapture-book-3-by-swati-mh
Cover Design: Cover Me Darling
NOTE: The discreet cover will only be available on paperback, the hot man cover will be for both ebook and special edition paperback.
Blurb:
Nine years . . . That’s how long I’ve secretly loved my brother’s best friend. A man who fights fires for a living but sets me ablaze with nothing but a cocky grin.
Dean Meyer has made it clear that we’re just friends–best friends. So when we get stranded in an epic snowstorm, sharing one bed in a roadside motel, what could go wrong?
Everything.
We may have blurred the lines over the past nine years, but we’d never crossed them. Not the way we did that night.
He promised nothing would change. That he’d forget every kiss and every touch, every whimper and every moan. He promised we’d walk out the door and go back to the way things were.
He promised . . . but he lied.
And now, a year of missed calls and unanswered texts later, we find ourselves forced back together again.
Will the fire still burn between us, or did that one night’s blaze leave us with nothing but ashes?
PreOrder Links:
Universal: https://mybook.to/Ablaze_SwatiMH
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXVQYKLH
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BXVQYKLH
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BXVQYKLH
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BXVQYKLH
Excerpt :
Prologue: Dean – Present Day
Embers dart up into the breeze as the fire crackles like an old staticky radio. The scent of burning logs entangles with the familiar perfume of towering pines and moss tickles my senses. It’s a scent that should relax me. A scent I’ve known for so long, I’d sometimes pretend I could smell it, only to be able to drift off to sleep.
Today, though, it seems foreign, completely wrong and unwelcomed. A scent that’s captured me in a chokehold so I can neither inhale it nor heave it out.
It’s just stuck.
Taking another sip of my beer and placing the bottle in the sand, I strum her favorite melody on my guitar, Storms by Fleetwood Mac. The melody she taught me to play at ten when she gifted me my first guitar.
It’s still hard to believe she’s gone, the earth settling her in, wrapping her in its embrace for eternity. It’s hard to believe I won’t be exchanging new recipes and old songs, new expressions and old memories with her ever again. The woman I gave my heart to only minutes out of the womb almost forty years ago–the one who raised me right along with my mother. The grandmother who was so much more than her title.
My brother, Darian, throws a small stick into the fire before leaning back on his Adirondack chair and entangling his hand with his wife, Rani’s. He might only be mine and Garrett’s half-brother, but I’d caution anyone who said we didn’t have the same blood running through our veins. He may not have been Grams’ grandson, but she treated him just the same. “I still remember when I spent part of a summer here when I was eight or nine. Every single night, your grandparents would watch WWE religiously.”
Garrett chuckles but my chest tightens with memories of Grams and Grandpa exchanging their picks for who’d win the match. No one loved wrestling more than Grams, and no one could convince her it wasn’t real.
I still remember how she’d have dinner prepared extra early on nights when her favorite wrestlers were going to be on. Garrett and I spent so many of our childhood summers at this lake house, sitting knees-crossed on the couch, snuggled on either side of her. We’d cheer and boo right along with Grams, even though we knew the whole match was rigged.
“She was a kooky little thing.” I try to chuckle, but it comes out all wrong with a choked inhale. I’m just about to take another swig of my beer to soothe the sand inside my throat when her soft hand grasps mine.
Her. The fucking enigma I’ve spent nine years of my life trying to crack.
The woman who packed up her things and got ready to leave without so much as a discussion with me–the man she claims to be her best friend. The woman who set my heart ablaze the same day she quelled the pyre. The woman who changed me day-by-fucking-day, just to unravel me in one fucking night.
A night she told me to forget, to chalk it up as a blip in our history, a moment–or rather, six fucking hours–of lowered inhibitions and bad decisions. A night that’s replaced the scent of burning logs and pine that used to help me drift off to sleep. Because if I can’t have the source, then the memories will have to suffice.
I pull my hand from her grasp, blinking back tears.
Loss. The fucking loss of it all.
My two best friends. A woman I just buried, and a woman whose touch I can’t bury, no matter how hard I try.
We’ve shared a room together for the past four days we’ve been at Grams’s lake house, and even though I knew we should talk–something that used to be as natural as blinking or breathing–I shut her down each time.
Because she tried. She tried to talk to me, to tell me whatever her fucked-up reasoning was for not being back home–with me–but I couldn’t listen to the same bullshit again. So, aside from the times she held me in her arms, letting me mourn my grandmother while soothing me with her soft whispers well into the morning, we haven’t spoken a single word.
Because, really, there’s nothing to say, is there?
How could there be when she said it all so clearly that day?
Rani yawns before telling us she’ll see us in the morning when we’re all ready to head back home, and Darian follows after her like the lovesick puppy he is. Meanwhile, Garrett and Bella whisper God knows what to each other across from me on the other side of the fire. My twin brother might have married the woman sitting in his lap on a drunken whim, but the only thing I’ve seen him drunk on over the past four years is her.
Mala shifts in her chair before standing, her bare legs covered with goosebumps. No matter what the weather is, the woman has always had a vendetta against pants. She pulls the sleeves of her oversized sweatshirt over her hands and wraps her arms around her chest. “I think I’m going to take a little stroll around the beach.”
I watch her leave as the breeze picks up her shiny black hair–hair that looks and feels like spun silk. Her sneakered feet make small indentations in the sand as her hips sway with a lilt of their own.
Garrett and I exchange a glance, a silent message spoken and heard only by us. One that urges me to stop being the idiot he thinks I’m being.
But he has no clue. No one does.
It’s not that I can’t tell him–hell, he and Darian would be the first ones I’d tell if I committed murder and hid the body–but some fears can’t be voiced. Some fears are for you to grapple with all on your own.
I pluck the guitar strings a few more times before the weight of the breeze threatens to snuff the oxygen inside my lungs. Placing my guitar on the sand, I lean it against my chair and give my brother a nod before running after her.
The stars twinkle like a dusting of diamonds in the moonlit sky, the ripples in the lake overpowering the crackles of the fire behind me.
It doesn’t take long to find her, sitting on the beach with her bare knees drawn close to her chest, wrapped inside her covered arms like a blanket. I know she’s cold, but for as long as I’ve known her, she’s preferred it that way, claiming heat has always felt too suffocating to her.
I suppose I can’t blame her, especially not when you’ve lived through the horror she’s experienced.
As if she can feel me, she turns to watch me walk toward her before a wisp of hair gets caught between her lips and she pulls it off to tuck it behind her ear, darting her gaze away from mine.
“You promised you wouldn’t run away,” I start. “You promised to–”
“No, Dean.” She shuffles to her feet quicker than I would have thought possible given how cold she looked. “You fucking promised. You promised nothing would change. You promised that night wouldn’t affect us. Remember that? But it did, didn’t it? It changed everything! And all the years prior to that, when you told me you couldn’t, wouldn’t mess up what we have . . . or should I say, what we had?” She points between us. “What happened to that promise, huh?” She looks over at the lake with rage in her eyes. “I waited for you. Eight fucking years I stood on the sidelines, waiting for you . . .”
“Yeah?” I yell. “As if I fucking didn’t? You think you’re the only one who had front-row seats to watch a show you never wanted to see?”
She takes a step closer, her nostrils flaring. “So why didn’t you say anything when you had the chance? Why wait until I was finally moving on?”
“Moving on? Is that what you call it, sprinkles?” I chuckle mirthlessly. “Because the way I see it, you weren’t moving on; you were running.”
Her eyes sharpen on me. “Yeah, okay, I was running. But have you taken even one moment to consider why? Or is that too hard for you to do, given your brick of a brain?” She seethes. “I was running because I was fucking tired. Tired of waiting, tired of wanting and wishing–”
I heave in a shaky breath, letting the cold air compress my lungs as I hang on her words for dear life. Words she’s cut off, like if she says them, they’ll float away with the wind. “Wishing for what?”
She shakes her head, wiping her cheek with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, but the moment she does, another tear falls to replace it. “It doesn’t matter.” She chuckles hoarsely. “Why would it matter? I’m not the one who can make it matter. I never have been.”
I close the distance between us, rounding my palms over her biceps and making her look up at me. “Wishing for what, Mala? Say it.”
She sniffles, her tear-stained cheeks shining under the silvery effulgence of the night. Her frown intensifies as she whispers, “For it to be me.”
Author Bio:
Swati MH is a Texas raised contemporary romance author living in the Bay Area with her very own book husband and two beautiful daughters. When she’s not writing stories full of humor, heart, and heartbreak, she’s likely thinking about doing so . . . preferably while holding a glass of wine.
Social Media Links:
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FIRST LOOK ~ LEGENDS: CATORI by Maggie Adams
It’s hard to keep secrets in a small town….
Out June 1st – The first in a new Paranormal Romance series
from Maggie Adams – Legends: Catori
Follow the blitz and enter to #win a $10 Amazon Gift Card
Title: Legends: Catori
Series: Legends
Author: Maggie Adams
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Release Date: June 1, 2018
Blurb:
It’s hard to keep secrets in a small town…
It’s even harder to keep a secret that could expose not only your family, but an entire species. That’s what Frankie Cavanaugh must do. As the daughter of the leader of the Wisdom Counsel, it’s up to her to step into her father’s shoes until another leader is chosen.
It’s also up to her to continue her lineage within the species.
She wants to do neither. She considers the shifter gene a curse rather than a gift, robbing her of a normal life. Unfortunately, the Counsel doesn’t see it that way and is determined to wed her to their next leader – by force, if necessary.
Tanner Coalson is fresh out of college and ready to tackle whatever life has in store for him. First item on his to-do list is marrying the woman he has loved for years. He knows Frankie will baulk at the notion because she’s fifteen years older and was his childhood sitter. He’s no longer a young boy, but a man who is determined to win her heart, and he is prepared to do just that.
But convincing her they are destined to be together gets much harder when she is kidnapped by an old enemy. In order to survive, Frankie may have to reveal her secret, and Tanner may have to accept what seems impossible, or reject the love of his life.
Find out more at: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
Prologue Excerpt:
Talon Cavanaugh stood on the grassy knoll above the cemetery, watching the procession as it wound through the cracked tombstones to the final resting place of the Wisdom Council’s leader, Leonard Cavanaugh. He smiled in satisfaction as the urn was laid into the dirt pit next to where his human wife would someday reside. Soon, he thought, soon all would be in place and he could claim his birthright.
“Son, I know how much you loved your uncle. Are you sure you don’t want to go down and join in the ceremony?” his father asked.
Well, the man he had called ‘father’ for most of his life, inquired. It was only on his mother, Sylvia’s, death bed, that Talon had learned the truth. He was the son of Leonard Cavanaugh, the owl leader of the Wisdom Council, who had died never knowing he had fathered a son. Sylvia had wanted to ensure the bloodline stayed pure when it became apparent that the old fool was planning to wed that woman, Paige, an inferior human. Sylvia had slipped a potion into his wine as the family celebrated her engagement to the leader’s brother, Lester, Talon’s assumed father. Leonard Cavanaugh had mated with Sylvia that night, the potion making him hallucinate that he was with his beloved Paige. Sylvia’s plan worked, and she gave birth to Talon, who was a pureblood shifter, keeping the bloodline intact.
Glancing over his shoulder, Talon shook his head in the negative at Lester. He had no need to go down there. He was the true heir to the leadership position of the Council. He knew the death procedure – one year of grieving for the widow and the family. He looked to Frankie Cavanaugh. She was a beautiful woman, despite her human blood. Her red hair glowed like flames in the sunlight. She was appropriately dressed in black, her cultural brooch, made of gold and the feathers of her father, pinned to her breast. She was crying quietly into a handkerchief, hugging her mother, in solace. It was almost a pity she would have to die, but there could only be one true leader.
And that position would be filled by him.
About the Author:
Maggie Adams is an Amazon Best Selling contemporary romance author. Her first book in the Tempered Steel Series, Whistlin’ Dixie, debuted in Amazon’s Top 100 for Women’s Fiction, humor, on November, 2014. Since then, she has consistently made the Amazon best seller 5-star list with Leather and Lace, Something’s Gotta Give, and Love, Marriage & Mayhem. She is also the recipient of the Dayreader Review’s Best New Series Award for 2015. Her series has launched the tiny town of Grafton, Illinois, into International recognition with sales in Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, Australia and the UK.
Back home, she resides in the Midwest, with her high school sweetheart, Ned, and their children, Katie (Kyle) and Ross (Valerie) and first granddaughter, Lorelei, otherwise known as “The Boss”
You can connect with her online at: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads | Instagram | Pinterest | BookBub
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