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NEW RELEASE SPOTLIGHT & REVIEW ~ Totally, Sweetly Irrevocably Sweet (Love #2) by Kira Archer
Totally, Sweetly Irrevocably
Sweet Love #2
Kira Archer
Publication Date: July 18, 2016
Genres: Adult, Entangled Lovestruck, Contemporary Romance
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Synopsis:
When Officer Rick Boyd answers a call about a peeping Tom, he doesn’t expect to find a gorgeous woman holding the binoculars. But Gina Silvano’s no peeping Tom, and she can catch her cupcake truck’s kinky vandals herself, thank you very much. No sexy cops required.
No matter how hot their stakeouts, by-the-book Officer Boyd can’t see a future with a dangerous, rule-breaking wild-child who despises the law. He’s never felt more alive, though, and expunging her from his heart might be impossible.
But loving each other might cost them more than they are able to give.
DON’T MISS THE FIRST BOOK IN THE SWEET LOVE SERIES…
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Synopsis:
An inherited parking spot. That’s all it took to make Natalie Moran’s food truck dreams come true. But her dream space is attached to a bakery inherited by someone else—drop dead gorgeous Eric Schneider, a financial consultant who wouldn’t know a cupcake from a cannoli. And he wants to buy Nat out, no matter what she has to say about it.
Eric’s determined to build his own business, but he needs the super cute klutz with the cupcake truck to help. If Nat will teach him the basics of running a bakery, he’ll give her free kitchen time. Except…neither expects the heat burning between them or the possibility that their arrangement might become permanent.
When it all blows up, Nat is convinced his actions mean betrayal. It’s up to Eric to regain her trust and show her he’s a man who is truly, madly in love with her, before she disappears from his life forever.
Excerpt:
Rick moved closer to the rustling bag while Gina stood stock-still, her eyes wide and anxious.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I think a mouse has decided to help himself to the rest of our cupcakes.”
“What?” she shrieked.
Before he could say another word, she’d jumped up on her chair. Not designed for trampoline practice, the thin plastic promptly shredded. Rick reached out to catch her as one leg went through the plastic and the rest of her went sideways. He caught her before she hit the ground. But apparently their movements landed them a little too close to the occupied bag for her comfort because she took one look down, gasped, and climbed him like a tree.
“What are you doing?” he asked, both laughing and grunting as she twisted around him.
“Get rid of it!”
“What, the bag?” He grabbed her around the waist to keep her from falling ass-first onto the hard roof.
“No! The damn mouse, or rat, or whatever the hell it is!”
The bag rustled again, and she squeezed her legs around his waist and gripped his neck so tight she was dangerously close to strangling him.
“I can’t do anything if you don’t loosen your grip.”
She tore her gaze from the bag o’ death at their feet and looked at him. “Oh. Sorry,” she said, letting up a little.
He took a nice deep breath. “Thank you.”
His eyes met hers, and she seemed to realize the position she’d gotten them into. Her legs and arms wrapped about him. His hands beneath her butt and thighs, holding her up. Their faces only inches apart. All their delicate bits pressed as close as they could get with their clothing still on.
Her cheeks flashed fifty shades of red in the faint light coming from the streetlight below.
“Sorry,” she murmured again. “You, um, can put me down now.”
He tightened his hold on her. “You sure?” he asked, not wanting to let her go. He liked the way she felt molded to his body. The vanilla scent of her hung in the air between them, whetting his appetite for something a little sweeter than the cupcakes in the rat bag. All he had to do was close the distance between them…
Her breathing sped up, her lips parting with a little sigh. Her gaze zeroed in on his lips and there was no hiding from her how he felt about her wrapped around him. For a split second, her legs tightened their hold on his waist, pressing even closer. Her eyes fluttered closed. But then she shook her head and loosened her grip.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said, pushing away from him. “But…put me on the chair until you get rid of that thing.”
He chuckled and reluctantly deposited her on top of the chair he’d been sitting in. Then he bent and swiftly scooped up the bag, rolling the top down so whatever was inside couldn’t get out.
BLP REVIEW – Tracy
I really enjoyed Totally Sweetly, Irrevocably. Well written with a leading couple who by all accounts didn’t think they could or would work together but totally did!!
Gina was crazy.. The girl just seemed to lurk from one drama to another. The latest issue she has is someone trashing her cupcake truck – and she’s got a fairly good idea who’s doing it. While on her personal truck stakeout, she is nabbed by the police. Officer Boyd, one of the policemen who turns up to the neighbours peeping tom call is hot and even though she doesn’t like the law (with, in her mind, good reason), there’s an instant attraction between him and Gina
Rick is a no-nonsense kinda guy. He’s dedicated to his job and follows procedure all the time – until he meets Gina… She knocks him for six and all the things he thought he wanted in his life – the wife, 2.5 kids, the picket fence – are suddenly under question. He knows they have a connection but given how different they are he’s not sure they could ever be a couple.
They pair start off by staking out the cupcake van together – pretty much to make sure Gina doesn’t get into any more trouble from Rick’s POV. Through their nights together they get to know each other better and the attraction between them heats up, but still neither is sure this is a relationship that could work.
The issues they had were understandable even though I felt that both of them needed to bend just a little and not be so rigid in their views of what they needed. When this pair got together they were smokin’ hot and, in and out of bed, they gelled really well. The banter, humour, general craziness that Gina managed to get herself into, the inclusion of family and friends and the heat between R & G all added up to give us a really good read. Fun, sweet, laugh out loud funny, hot & sexy.
I’m giving Totally, Sweetly, Irrevocably 4* and I’m definitely gonna be checking out the first book in the series as well as more of Kira Archer’s books!!
Playlist:
Music is a very strong inspiration for me. It isn’t necessary for my writing process, but it can really help set the mood or get a scene in my head if I need a little help. And as it is summer and my kids are home all day, it’s also great for drowning out the background noise 😉 I tend to listen to instrumental music when writing as lyrics can be a bit difficult to tune out sometimes. My go-to faves depend on the mood I’m going for. For more angsty/sad/tense scenes I gravitate toward The Piano Guys, Evanescence, Apocalyptica, E.S. Posthumus, and Rob Dougan.
My current release, Totally, Sweetly, Irrevocably, is a funny book with characters who enjoy pushing each other’s buttons. So I kept the music light and upbeat. My playlist mostly consisted of Lindsey Stirling and Parov Stelar on Pandora. A few of my favorite songs of theirs:
Lindsey Stirling: Master of Tides, Roundtable Rival, and The Arena
Parov Stelar: Booty Swing, Catgroove, and All Night
I also listened to my Old School playlist quite a bit – gotta love that 90’s music 😉 Some faves from that list are:
Shoop – Salt N Pepa
Poison – Poison
Steal My Sunshine – LEN
Da Dip – Freak Nasty
Opposites Attract – Paula Abdul
Mainly anything that made me want to dance or put a smile on my face was good for this book!
About the Author
Kira Archer resides in Pennsylvania with her husband, two kiddos, and far too many animals in the house.
She tends to laugh at inappropriate moments, break all the rules she gives her kids (but only when they aren’t looking), and would rather be reading a book than doing almost anything else.
She has odd, eclectic tastes in just about everything and often lets her imagination run away with her. She loves her romances a little playful, a lot sexy, and always with a happily ever after.
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BLOG BARRAGE ~ HAUNTED BY THE KING OF DEATH by Felicity Heaton
Haunted by the King of Death, the eleventh book in New York Times best-seller Felicity Heaton’s hot paranormal romance series, Eternal Mates, is now available in ebook and paperback. To celebrate the release of Grave and Isla’s romance, she’s holding a FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY and sharing sneak peeks of the book.
Enter the Haunted by the King of Death international giveaway (ends August 14th) and be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate by using the Rafflecopter form at the end of this post or at her website, where you can also download a 5 chapter sample of the novel:
Here’s more about the book and the savage and wicked vampire hero and his powerful phantom mate…
Haunted by the King of Death
(Eternal Mates Romance Series Book 11)
Felicity Heaton
A ruthless vampire warrior, Grave Van der Garde rules the mercenary Preux Chevaliers with an iron fist, determined to retain his hard-won position as one of the most powerful men in Hell and his reputation as the heartless King of Death. But beneath the cold façade beats the heart of a vampire torn between love and hate, ripped in two directions by a single ethereally beautiful female—his fated phantom mate.
Driven by her phantom instincts, Isla used a spell to make her solid in order to deceive the vampire who killed her sister’s demon mate and have revenge on him, condemning him with a single kiss to become a phantom too. But her plan took an unexpected turn when she fell in love with him, and with her new life, and the night she betrayed him shattered both of their hearts. Now, he lives to make her suffer through their connection, one that is fading with them as they begin to slip into the phantom world, and she must face the monster she created if she is to save herself and the vampire she still loves.
With a demon from Grave’s past determined to destroy him and everything he holds dear, and the clock ticking down to their inevitable doom, can he and Isla overcome their past and their pride to work together to claim the future they both desire deep in their hearts? Or will death finally catch up with the vampire king and his phantom mate?
Haunted by the King of Death is available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other retailers. Also available in paperback. Find the links to your preferred retailer:
Haunted by the King of Death – Excerpt
After a few seconds, the door opened to reveal Melia’s smiling face. Her blue eyes seemed brighter today, but they were troubled, as they always were after Frey’s visits.
Sometimes, Isla thought that he stayed away from the castle as much as he could not because he wanted to avoid his duties as a prince but because he wanted to avoid paining Melia with his presence. They both knew that Melia saw echoes of her lost love in Frey.
Just as her sister saw echoes of Valador in her son.
Isla’s gaze sought Tarwyn and found him sitting on a brown fur near the fireplace to the left of the room, his focus locked on the wooden animals in front of him. His dishevelled sandy hair fell across his brow in unruly curls and his tongue poked from between his lips as he concentrated, pale blue eyes fixed with determination on the toys. Isla had brought them to Hell for him as a present from one of her trips to the mortal realm, hoping they would be educational for him.
A moment with Frey had prompted it when he had called a bear a donkey when she had been showing him photographs of the time she had spent in the region of Canada and had then called a deer a bear. Of course, he had known a wolf when he had seen one. No surprise since werewolves made the free realm in Hell their home. She had expected the demon to know a bear though. He must have fought in at least one battle involving shifters of their kind.
So she had purchased the wooden zoo animals when she had seen them in a store.
To this day, part of her still wondered if she had done it to educate Frey too, intending for him to play with them with Tarwyn and learn the difference between a bear and a damned deer and donkey.
“He seems well today,” Melia said in a hushed tone, her voice a soft melody in the quiet white room.
Isla knew Melia wasn’t talking about the boy she watched, but the man who had just left.
“Impatient,” she said in response and Melia’s pale lips curled into a faint smile. “He wants war.”
Her sister glanced across at her and sighed softly, her shoulders shifting with it. “He has not forgiven me for making him remain in the castle while we answered the call of the elves.”
“He will in time. He’s stubborn.”
Melia looked away from her. “Like his brother.”
Isla’s heart ached for her sister as she drifted into the room, the long white skirt of her corseted dress gliding across the wooden floor in her wake, the pure colourless fabric matching her fall of hair that draped across her slender shoulders.
Isla closed the white door and stepped into the room, wishing there was something she could say to take her sister’s mind off Valador, even when she knew it was impossible. Melia saw him every day in their son.
Tarwyn lifted his head, noticing her at last. He was on his bare feet a second later, rushing across the room to hug her legs. His cerulean trousers blended with hers and matched her corset, but where hers were traditional leather, his clothes were soft cotton more suited to a child. He tipped his head back and beamed up at her, his blue eyes sparkling, and began prattling away in the demon tongue about his animals and Frey’s visit.
She listened to him for a while, aware that Melia was watching them from near the arched window. She petted his messy head of blond hair, teased the small horns that were growing in nicely now he was nearly one hundred, and looked at her sister. Melia smiled back at her, the hurt in her eyes gone, replaced with affection and warmth.
Tarwyn took hold of Isla’s hand and tried to pull her towards the fur rug.
“I will play soon. I must speak with your mother first,” she said in the demon tongue and he huffed and pouted, but released her and went back to his toys.
Isla waited for him to sit back down before she crossed the bedchamber to Melia.
Melia’s gaze was on Tarwyn again, a softness in it that made Isla want to sigh and wish for her own child.
Tarwyn was a little miracle, probably the only child of his kind in existence. Phantoms normally bred other phantoms, but the spell that gave Melia substance had allowed her to bear the offspring of her mate, bringing not a phantom but a demon into the world.
“You seem troubled today. What is wrong?” Melia said in English and Isla realised her sister had stopped looking at Tarwyn and was staring at her now.
She wasn’t sure where to begin.
She searched for a starting point, and the courage to tell Melia what she had done and what was happening to her. Her sister wasn’t going to be happy with her. Isla had kept the true reason behind why she had chosen to become corporeal hidden from her sister. Melia had a kind heart for a phantom, a quality that had made her perfect for Valador.
Isla lacked what her sister had been given by the gods. She had kindness in her, but not as Melia did. When faced with someone who had wronged her, or brought harm to her kin, she was as cruel and lethal as any other phantom. Cold. Heartless.
Melia’s sky blue gaze drifted down to her left hand and Isla stilled as she realised she was playing with the braid that hung from her temple on that side. The crystals at the end of the plait were warm beneath her fingertips. She looked down at them, the crimson stark against her pale skin.
A reminder.
She had found the crystals the night she had broken from Grave, had run headlong into the darkness and hadn’t stopped until she had been close to collapse, surrounded by an unfamiliar town and strange faces, leagues away from the comfort of his arms.
She had found a place to rest and an elderly woman at a stall in the market had tried to sell her craft to her, and Isla had seen the crystals and silver wire.
She had braided a length of her long white hair on her left temple, close to her ear, and had woven an intricate knot with the silver wire, slipped the red crystal on and then made another knot below it. On the right side, she had done the same with a blue crystal.
Red for the vampire in her heart.
Blue for the phantom she would become again.
A reminder that one day, everything she loved in this world would slip from her grasp, and it was no one’s fault but her own.
“Isla?” Melia drifted closer and her eyes slipped shut as her sister’s hand came to rest gently on her shoulder, and warmth spread from that spot despite the coolness of her sister’s skin. “Speak to me.”
Isla opened her blue eyes and clutched the red crystal in her fist.
Her vampire mate.
She still dreamed of him every night, and still used the connection between them to keep an eye on him, and still hurt when he used it to get back at her, to show her things she didn’t want to see.
Things that broke her heart.
Things that made her feel guilty.
When she had broken from him, she had convinced herself that she had done the right thing and she had felt nothing for the vampire, no real feelings anyway. She had tried to escape what she had done to him, but she had found she couldn’t, and over the decades she had started to feel guilty about what she had done.
She had seen in her dreams, and in the things he showed to her, that her actions tormented him—her betrayal and the knowledge that the clock was constantly ticking for him. He lived his life waiting for the inevitable day when he would become incorporeal—a phantom male. He wasn’t alone. It hung over her too.
Her freedom was about to be snatched from her and she was starting to feel there was nothing she could do about it. She didn’t want to go back to being a ghost.
She didn’t want that life for Grave either.
She held her hands out in front of her and stared at them.
“Isla.” Melia’s soft voice had gone dark, a thunderclap in her mind that warned her sister knew something was wrong, something terrible.
She looked up into her sister’s eyes, found love and despair in them, and forced the words out.
“My hands faded on the battlefield.”
Melia shook her head and stepped closer, seized both of her shoulders and held her so tightly that it hurt. She savoured the pain, because it made her feel whole, solid, as if she wasn’t about to disappear from this world others enjoyed without appreciating what they had been given by the gods and drift back into the cold world of the phantoms, denied the pleasures others took for granted.
Her sister’s expression turned grave.
It only worsened when Isla gave herself another push.
“I am not the only one this will be happening to,” she whispered and her sister closed her eyes, lowered her head and sighed.
“What have you done?” Melia lifted her head again, canting it to her right, and looked back into her eyes, her eyebrows furrowed and blue gaze filled with a mixture of sympathy and anger.
“Valador… I saw him fall… I saw the male who claimed his life and I-I… I took vengeance on him.” She wasn’t sure she could say any more, not when Melia’s pretty face was shifting towards horrified.
“I told you of the phantom mage who had made me corporeal because I believed that you sought substance purely so you could be with me and Tarwyn when he was born,” Melia snapped and the air in the room chilled, the light sucking from it, turning it shades of grey instead of white. “Valador would not have wanted such a thing. If I had known your plan, I would have stopped you.”
It wasn’t the response Isla had expected and she staggered back a step, slipping from her sister’s grasp and shaking as she battled the surge of guilt and shame, and the pain that always came with it. It beat fiercely in her heart.
“I saw the vampire kill your husband… I wanted to avenge him.” As any phantom would have, but the look on her sister’s face said that it hadn’t been what she had wanted.
Being corporeal had affected Melia’s mind, had softened it and destroyed her phantom nature. It had made her weak.
“Vengeance, Sister. I wanted vengeance and I took it. I am a phantom,” Isla barked and regretted it when Melia only sighed, the sorrow remaining in her eyes, leaving her feeling that she was trying to justify what she had done when she didn’t honestly believe she had done the right thing.
It had felt like the right thing at the time, when she had been a phantom.
But then she had fallen in love with the vampire.
“All you have done is doom yourself and now I will lose both my husband and my beloved sister.” Melia’s words were softly spoken but they fell like lead around her, striking hard and shaking her.
“I can fix it,” she said.
Melia was silent for so long that Isla’s nerves kicked up a notch, her heart pounding erratically against her chest as she struggled to find a way to undo what she had done. Was it possible?
“You will need a mage,” Melia said at last and relief swept through Isla but lasted only as long as it took for her sister to speak again. “They are rare now, and you must try to find the one who performed the spell on you. He may be able to fix it… but…”
Isla swallowed hard. “But?”
Melia looked down at her feet. “It will be best you take the vampire with you.”
“No,” Isla snapped and sliced her hand through the air between them. “No.”
It wasn’t going to happen. Grave hated her, probably wanted nothing more than to kill her. His reputation before she had tricked him into becoming a phantom had been deadly enough, should have warned her away, but now he was second to the Devil in the list of most feared males in Hell.
Going anywhere near him would be a death sentence.
“You have done more than merely trick the vampire into becoming a phantom. You are bound to him. The mage’s spell would have made it happen. To make a phantom flesh and blood requires a powerful bond… and that bond must be periodically renewed. I had thought your bond to me was enough… but now I see how wrong I have been. It is your bond to the vampire that gives you substance.” Melia drifted closer again and fixed her with soft blue eyes filled with fear laced with love, and something else.
Something that chilled Isla’s blood and sent a shiver down her spine.
“I will bond with another man,” Isla blurted and Melia shook her head, causing her long white hair to sway across her bare shoulders.
“That is not possible, and you know it. You are bound to the vampire and the vampire to you. If he does not help you, you will both fade.”
That chill grew stronger, the shiver fiercer. “I do not wish to become incorporeal again.”
Her sister’s expression turned pained, flooded with sorrow. “You will not become incorporeal, Isla… you will fade.”
Fade.
Fade was the phantom way of saying die.
Isla swallowed to wet her suddenly dry throat and slowly shook her head as she looked at her sister and realised her sister knew first-hand that the danger was very real.
“How long do you have?” Isla whispered, unable to get her voice to work as her throat tightened and heart ached at the thought of losing her sister.
Melia smiled sadly and looked off to her right, at her son, a wealth of love in her eyes. “I will live long enough to see Tarwyn grow into a man and then I will join my love on the other side. I am only able to be here now because of my bond to Tarwyn. He has his father’s blood and that is keeping me corporeal. I am not sad, for I knew what was to come when I bound my life to my love’s.”
Her sister was going to choose to fade.
Isla’s knees weakened and she had to lock them to keep standing as that knowledge crashed over her, battering her and stealing her strength.
Her sister was going to choose death over life.
Isla wanted the opposite, and that desire flowed through her stronger than ever as she thought about what her sister was going to do. She refused to make such a choice for herself and she refused to condemn Grave to death too.
He was going to kill her the moment he set eyes on her rather than hearing her out, but Melia was right and she had to at least attempt to convince him to work with her to find a phantom mage. If she could just get him to listen to her, she was sure she could make him see reason.
She almost laughed out loud at that.
Grave had lost all reason when she had betrayed him. He had become a vampire bent on hunting her, hurting her, and she was proposing to walk right into his hands and place her life into them.
He was going to live up to his reputation, the name Hell had given him and one he justly deserved.
The King of Death.
Haunted by the King of Death is available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other retailers. Also available in paperback.
Find all the links, a fantastic 5 chapter downloadable sample of the book, and also enter the giveaway and be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate at her website:
Books in the Eternal Mates paranormal romance series:
- Book 1: Kissed by a Dark Prince
- Book 2: Claimed by a Demon King
- Book 3: Tempted by a Rogue Prince
- Book 4: Hunted by a Jaguar
- Book 5: Craved by an Alpha
- Book 6: Bitten by a Hellcat
- Book 7: Taken by a Dragon
- Book 8: Marked by an Assassin
- Book 9: Possessed by a Dark Warrior
- Book 10: Awakened by a Demoness
Book 11: Haunted by the King of Death
BLP REVIEW – Tracy
I love this series….. Haunted by the King of Death is another great read (and what do you know…. after not being a fan of Grave I adored him as our hero – this was FH’s writing and story-telling at its best!!!!)
We’ve met the dark, sullen vampire hero of this book previously in the series and while we knew he hated females we really had no idea of exactly why… Enter Isla, a phantom who is the mate of the King of Death except in this case, instead of being delighted that they are mated, neither party is happy and as the story unfolds, we find out exactly why this is the case.
This story was really well put together and pulled in characters from the Eternal Mates series as well as some of our favourites from the VET series…. Gods, I was over the moon when Grave turned up in London – I’ll leave it to your imagination to ponder who he visited!! 😉
There was a lot of heartache and soul searching in this book by both leads. Even though they really didn’t want anything to do with each other there was still a huge pull and they had to work together to save their lives.
We met up with a foe of Graves who really has it in for him (mind you, given his chosen profession and his attitude, I had kinda expected to meet more who hated him!!) we also had to watch Isla deal with a real creep of a character – gods, I hate his kind (you’ll see what I mean when reading!) As ever, there was a lot of action, the story was full of suspense and some really bloody battles.
At points I was having trouble seeing a way forward for the couple and wasn’t sure how Felicity was going to leave them… but as ever, she gave us an enthralling, exciting and entertaining read and another great addition to this fantastic series!
A 5* read for me!!!
 About the Author Felicity Heaton is a New York Times and USA Today international best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books. In her books, she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons! If you’re a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too. If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series or any of her stand-alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try the best-selling Vampire Erotic Theatre series. Or if you prefer huge detailed worlds filled with hot-blooded alpha males in every species, from elves to demons to dragons to shifters and angels, then take a look at the new Eternal Mates series. If you want to know more about Felicity, or want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places: |
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