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The Darkest Vampire
-- EXCERPT: The smoke disappeared and I gasped as I took the figure in—a man. A half-naked, half-mad man, with murder written all over his face. He was large, with wide shoulders and very ripped arms, rags for clothes, and an attack stance. “What—?” I didn’t have time to say or ask anything. The man moved like the wind. In a flash, he had his hand around my throat and my back pressed against the bookshelf. Panic laced its way around my spine as I fought his steel-like grip, my legs dangling and my feet off the ground. My flashlight slipped from my hand. “H—“ I tried telling him to stop, to listen, but my voice wouldn’t come out. He snarled at me and in the near dark, all I could see were the dark veins around his dark eyes and his fangs—two long fangs. Holy shit, he was a vampire. The panic tightened around me. I had never seen a vampire before but I had heard they were fast and vicious and dangerous. The vampire’s gaze fell to my neck. Oh, shit. I swung my legs and kicked him in the thigh—or at least, I tried to. He probably felt nothing more than a scratch. But it had been enough to take his attention from my neck. His eyes locked on mine as he snarled again. Then, as quickly as he came, he backed off. My feet hit the floor with such impact, I thought I would kiss the carpet, but I was able to hold on to the bookshelf and stay upright. My lungs screamed as I inhaled deeply. I grabbed the dagger from inside my boot and pointed at the vampire. “Stay where you are or I’ll use this.” I was sure I couldn’t really hurt him if he didn’t allow me, but it was all I could do not to panic some more. The vampire took two slow steps back, his eyes wide, his hand over his heart. “It’s you,” he rasped.
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Deception in the Truth
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- EXCERPT: I cross my arms over my chest, and my stomach flips. Is she going to fess up about lunch with Dean today? Do I want to hear this? I haven’t heard from Dean since last night. He made his intentions clear, but I didn’t. “Okay, what do you want to talk about?” I ask around the dread settling in my gut. She takes a deep breath. “I had lunch with Dean today. It was…weird.” And there it is. “You did?” I ask, as if I didn’t already know. “Why’d you do that?” Her brows slam together. “We were close a long time ago. I haven’t seen him in years. You already know that. It was just us…catching up.” I feel anger coursing through my veins. “So you say.” I can feel the muscles working in my jaw. “Sterling, why would I lie to you? You know my secrets.” She closes the distance to where I’m leaning on the counter. She reaches out to put her hand on my face, but I turn away. She pulls back like I burned her. “Don’t do that, Sterling.” I didn’t mean to react that way. I’m just so angry and jealous, even a little scared. I don’t want her near Dean. I want her with me. I want him to know that she’s mine. “Do what, Ivie? I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to you spending time with your ex-boyfriend. If there’s a certain way I need to act about this, please tell me.” She bites her bottom lip like she does when she gets nervous. “He asked me if I was seeing anyone. I didn’t know how to answer him. What are we doing? Are we a thing? Was the other night a fling?” I blow out a frustrated breath. “What did you tell him?” She looks at me, wide-eyed. “Nothing. I told him things were complicated. Because that’s how they feel right now. That’s all I said. I didn’t want to assume this was something it might not be without talking to you.” I lift my cap and run my hand through my hair. “Ivie, what do you want from me? He’s been my best friend for years. None of us are kids in high school anymore, and I thought you knew how I felt. But if it’s complicated, I don’t know what to tell you.” She backs up. “What are you saying, Sterling?” “I’m saying I think you know how I feel about you, and if you don’t, you should. I’m saying I can’t tell you how to feel or what to do. You’re the only one who knows what you want and how you feel. But I can tell you this.” I walk right up to her and grab her hand and put it flat on my chest over my heart. “This, my heart, belongs to you. And only you. It has for a long time now.” She lets a tear fall down her cheek as her fingers splay on my chest, feeling my heartbeat underneath. “And Ivie, I didn’t fight for you before. I stood on the sidelines and let you go. I can’t do that again. I won’t. My heart can’t take it. Having you back here made me realize that. So, whatever you’re going to do or decide, don’t wait too long. I can’t handle not knowing where we stand.” I brush a kiss over her lips and wipe away her silent tears. “I’m getting in the shower. You can stay, or if you need to leave, I understand.” I walk away and leave her in my kitchen speechless. 
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Dangerous Temptation
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: “Have you ever heard of personal space?” I blinked, momentarily mute and dumb, the sight of him dominating every other one of my senses. So it took me a second to realize he was insulting me in a voice dripping with poisonous disdain. I blinked again as my mouth dropped into a shocked “O.” “Excuse me?” One inky brow rose, thick and slashing so that he had a perpetual expression of aggravated contempt. When he spoke, it was slow and overly enunciated as if he were addressing an imbecile. “Per-son-al sp-ace.” One tattooed hand, the one with the shiny watch, gestured dismissively between our bodies, his knuckles brushing my chest. There was a tightening to his flat mouth that made me wonder if it was as accidental as it seemed. My nipples beaded beneath my hoodie, but the fabric was too thick to betray me. Anger sparked through my blood like a delayed fuse, heat racing out from my heart to set my entire body on fire. I didn’t move back. In fact, I took one daring step closer and fisted my hands on my hips. My head was forced back at an awkward angle to maintain eye contact with the tall beast of a man, but I didn’t care. This jackass was not going out with my mother. I bared my teeth at him. “If this is how you normally greet your girlfriend’s family, it’s no wonder you were still single when you met my mother and it’s even less of a wonder why you’ll be single again after tonight.” A slow grin, somehow more vicious for its calculated movement, claimed his handsome face and made it acutely beautiful. “You are operating under the assumption that Aida cares enough about your opinion to end our relationship because you’re embarrassed I caught you making a pass at me.” My mouth flapped open, then closed. I felt like a fish out of water, gasping for breath. Never in my entire life had I faced such a rude, horrible man. “Making a pass at you?” I almost stomped my foot in outrage and just managed to resist the urge. “You show up at our doorstep and speak like this to a teenager? What kind of man needs to put down a little girl in order to make himself feel big, hmm?” “At least you acknowledge you are a little girl,” he said with faux pride. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t give a single fuck what you think of me. I’m dating your mother. Not you.” His pale gaze, a green so light they glowed almost unnaturally, seemed to burrow into me. Past my dark blue eyes straight into my brain, reading my thoughts like an X-ray machine read bones. “Though, it’s obvious you wish things were different.” Outrage crackled in my chest, my lungs steaming with it, my ribs creaking as they threatened to cave in on the fiery rage in my heart. I was a fairly good-looking girl though I knew I was no Aida Belcante. Still, enough of her boyfriends had hit on me when she wasn’t looking. They cupped my ass while I reached for a cereal bowl, complimented me lecherously at the pool, watched me walk to my room when I came out of the shower. They were all the same, eager for some woman to make them feel like a king. So, his comment rankled me more than it should have. I’d dealt with innumerable men in my mother’s life, but never someone like him. A demon in a suit more expensive than three months’ rent. I gathered myself, rising to my full five-foot-three height as I pinned him with a look I wished ardently had the power to kill him. “I wouldn’t date a jackass like you if you were the last goddamn man on the planet.” 
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Cross My Heart
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: Nisha I hoped I wouldn’t miss him. The only downside to these loosey-goosey barbecues was not knowing who was going to be there and when. I got to Victoria and James’ early to position myself on a barstool in the huge, eat-in kitchen with a wide view of the backyard. If he came in the front door, he’d have to pass through to get outside, and if he walked around and went directly into the yard via the side gate, I should be able to catch him. Doing another visual sweep of the patio and pool area where other guests enjoyed the warmer weather, I lost track of the conversation with my host temporarily. Victoria snapped a finger over my head while holding a knife in the other hand. “Hello, Nisha?” I smiled and turned my gaze back to her, and she continued chopping onions and tomatoes for guacamole. “What? Oh, yeah. Maya’s doing okay. She’s still staying with me.” “You’re going to keep her?” “Hopefully.” I sighed. “All Maya has to do is get through the next three years.” Of course, I knew nothing about how to raise a teenager except worrying every day we were crammed into my townhouse. And now Lisa was back. My spine stiffened until my neck hurt. It would be okay. Maya knew what she wanted. And I’d handle the rest. I reached out to my lawyer. He agreed to help, but representation would cost a couple thousand dollars I didn’t have just to get started. I would figure it out. Lord. Today wasn’t for worrying about Maya. Today was for meeting the guy at the heart of the story that would help me not have to worry. That’s why I’d asked Victoria about one particular hot, successful guy on the guest list. I hadn’t wanted to get her involved, but I needed to make sure he was going to be here. Otherwise, I’d have to get much more creative. “Well—oh, hey.” She lowered her voice. “Your hookup is here.” “What’s up, Victoria? I brought beer.” The back of my neck tingled at the masculine rumble behind me. I knew before I swiveled around that he was handsome. All the news clippings and online pics told me that. But they couldn’t warn me about the earthquaking timber of his voice that surely registered on the Richter scale. The vibration made my toes curl around the footrest of my barstool. The only shakes like that around here came from fracking. The tremors in my stomach told me he might be as dangerous as his new oil magnate employer. I drew in a steadying breath and turned. “Hi.” The wicked energy of his grin swayed toward me in time with samba-like way his hips moved when he walked. Damn. Focus, Nisha. What I needed from him didn’t have anything to do with his hips. Or the sinewed ripple of his forearms as he reached past me to set a case of Mexican beer on the counter. He wore a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It was open. His dark, smooth chest rippled and narrowed to hard abs that cut arrows pointing down into the waistband of his long swim trunks. He started to say something else, but Victoria interrupted. “There’s a tub of ice outside for the drinks. Then, come back in, and I’ll let Nisha introduce herself.” Victoria took a break from chopping and wiped her hands on a dish towel. The slash of his smile spread across his face again. My heart swelled and thumped to the beat that had played in my head as I watched him walk in. “Or we could do that now before I head outside.” He extended a hand. “Carter Cross.” Even his hands were sexy. Callused, but smooth at the same time. Strong, but elegant. His fingers wrapped around my hand, and I thought about having the grip sliding up my arm, over my shoulder, and down, down, down. I was sweating like Victoria’s A/C wasn’t cranked to a chill for the party. Straightening my spine lifted my chest in my magenta bikini, and his eyes flickered down and back up to my face. Normally, that would have irritated me, but instead, my stomach did another salsa dance. Let go of his hand, creeper. I’d clung on a nanosecond too long, then dropped it. “Nisha Donovan.” “How have we never met before?” “Are you sure we haven’t?” I crinkled my brow as if maybe I remembered him from somewhere else and not the days of research I’d done. “No. I have an expert eye for faces. Yours”—he paused and pointed at me—“I haven’t seen before.” I grinned. “Well, now you have.”
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Black Canvas
-- EXCERPT: “I dream of waking up and being someone else—my hair, my eyes, even my voice, completely different—and each time I go to the mirror to check my reflection, to see what I look like, I’m her. Every time. Her. It’s her reflection that stares back at me, but I’m the one who controls it. I’m in control, and that’s exactly why it feels so good. I control her and what happens to me; I control both lives—mine and hers—and I have what I want the most: her looks, her status, her marriage. There’s nothing left of me, and only I know the secret. Only I know it’s me inside, it’s me under that perfect porcelain skin, it’s me behind those sweet, smart deep brown eyes. And I have him. He’s mine—just mine now. I’m not the other woman anymore. I’m everything he needs. I can be both the wife and the whore. I’m a better version of myself and a better version of Miss Perfection. But most importantly I have control. I’ve never had control. Then, my eyes open to the real world—right when he’s kissing me in the dream, before he can tell me I’m the love of his life and that he only thinks of me. I wonder if he lies to her like he lies to me every time we see each other. Does he tell her he loves her? And why? Why does he love her? She does nothing for him, besides being her. ‘I love you for what you do for me’ Those are his words of love for me. In the moment, they mean everything, but they don’t stay long. They vanish with him—with my dream. I’m jealous of what he says to her; I hate the way he looks at her. No secret meetings, no hiding, no masks to disguise ourselves… Everything is out in the open in my dream. I wonder what that would feel like, to live our love out in the open. Before I wake up completely, I feel this resentment; the rage resurfaces. Would he be mine if it weren’t for her? Would he have married me, if it weren’t for her? I start to lose control again. I want what she has. I want him. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling for a few minutes. I have no reason to get out of bed so early. I’m alone, and I spend the first moments of my day—of each single day of my life—wondering if he’s sleeping close to her, if he’s breathing her scent… Wondering if and when he’ll call me. I have no control. He decides. He sets up our meetings. He tells me where and when. My role is to be there on time and the way he wants it. Possibly naked. It’s only when I get his text that I have the incentive to get up. It changes my day. I work around our meeting, I do what I have to do and I hope time flies to the moment when I’ll see him again. My whole existence revolves around him. And is focused on how I can be more like her. I would do anything, anything, Doctor. Anything to be her.”
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Blue
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- EXCERPT: My stomach tightens so hard I feel like I’m going to puke. I glance at my phone again, and the texts from last night are still there. Maya’s back at school my mom saw her mom at Target Maya is back did u see her pic on IG
Did you hear about Maya? I shove the phone back down in the pocket of my coat and I blow on my fingers to get them warm. I should have remembered my gloves but the whole morning is a blur and I had to get out of my house and now I’m sitting in my car in the cold and I can’t bring myself to turn the key in the ignition. The phone comes out again. I have got to get a grip on myself. I know better, but I open up Instagram and find her picture. She looks good. Well, better than the last time I saw her, which wasn’t a great time for her. Or me. Last night, I stayed up trying not to obsess about this and nursing a throbbing hand—which makes me tired and wishing more than anything I could go back to bed and forget the rest of this semester. I’m going to be late for school if I don’t get it together. The phone drops from my hand when a fist slams repeatedly into my window, scaring the hell out of me. “Jules!” I shriek. “What the—” “Got tired of waiting,” she says, opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat. “You better get moving or we’ve got another unexcused tardy.” I suppose it’s a good thing she lives four houses down, but right now I wish she lived in a neighboring town and took the bus. “Let’s go.” I stuff my phone down into my coat pocket, trying to ignore the way it’s vibrating again. Jules’s eyes drop down, having heard it. “So is everybody all up in your business?” “Oh God,” I moan. “All day yesterday and still going this morning. This is such a non-event. It really is.” “Did you see her pic?” “Yeah, but I don’t think that was meant for me.” Jules raises her brows. “You don’t?” “Nah,” I say with what I hope is a careless shrug. “Back at Audubon and nobody’s gonna keep me down,” Jules reads aloud while looking at her phone. Obviously, she had the picture open. Maya, in her bedroom, wearing a blue hoodie and smiling, both thumbs up. Her hair is longer now and she looks really pretty. “I think she means more like, the world in general isn’t going to keep her down,” I tell her. “I guess,” Jules agrees, only she doesn’t sound like she agrees even a little bit. “Lauren says Maya’s got Poly Sci third block with Jones.” “Well then,” I force a smile as I start the car. “I guess we’ll find out if my theory is right.” “She better not think she can start something.” “Jules.” I give her a look. “Drop it, okay? I mean, she and I barely know each other.” “I don’t think that’s true anymore.” “No, it’s still true.” I reverse out of the driveway so fast, Jules rocks sideways in her seat. “Whoa! Don’t go psycho on me! I’m just sayin’!” “And I’m just saying; drop it. I’ve got enough of a feeding frenzy going on around me without you hopping on the boat, too.” “You really don’t think that pic was meant for you?” I stomp the brake just as we’re moving forward, and Jules rocks in the seat again. “You honestly think I’m trying to keep Maya down? Like I don’t want her to succeed? In spite of—in spite of everything?” Jules holds up her hands, finally realizing, I guess, that my nerves are a jangling, dangling mess. “I’m not busting on you. I’m on your side, remember?” “There aren’t any sides here,” I remind her with a sigh. “Not for Maya, or for me. Neither one of us had a thing to do with it.” “Yeah, but dude—your brother killed her Dad.” I put the car in gear and drive. 
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Aries & Libra
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- EXCERPT: Libra “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Velma Lou. Here we go again.” At the mention of my name, I glance up from my drawing of the new kitchen layout I’ve been fretting about for days to my father, Kip. It’s not like him to use Jesus and Mary like that. I mean, the guy probably says six words a day and right there was his quota. “What?” I stare as his head slowly lifts from the small-town newspaper he’s reading, The Zodiac Hills Gazette, and turns until our eyes meet. “They’re making that goddamn show again.” Well, sadly, that’s not enough information. He’s going to have to give me a bit more. “What show?” “That show.” Still not enough. “Dad. What show?” It hits me. “No.” I say it in a breathy, shocked way that tells him everything he needs to know. That I’ve figured it out. “Reruns?” I squeak. Please say it’s only reruns. We’ve been through those before with only minor repercussions. “Worse.” “Worse than reruns?” What could be worse than reruns of the 1980s show, 1985 to be exact, that put my little town on the map and ruined a whole lot of lives. Well, not a whole lot. Several. It ruined several lives. Like mine and my dad’s. A few people actually got lives thanks to that show, but that’s neither here nor there, because the show Dad is talking about, Love in Zodiac Hills, turned my little town of Zodiac Hills, Nebraska, upside down and sideways. Granted, I was a young when it first aired, but I know, firsthand, the impact it had on the people here. “They’re re-making it. So it’s new.” “Re-making it? Who’s doing that?” Please don’t say Netfilms, because that company is huge. So big that everyone has that particular streaming service. “That Net thing you always watch on your computer.” “Shit.” Dad gives me his best scowl. He doesn’t care for my curse words even though he too cusses when it’s warranted. But “Do as I say, not as I do” is one of my father’s favorite sayings. “Sorry,” I say with very little remorse. “It says here, it’s coming out this April.” I glance at the calendar. “Next month?” “The fifteenth. They’re gonna call it Return to Zodiac Hills.” “You read that in the paper?” The local paper. Dad nods. “Which means, everyone will know.” Which also means, the town is going to go apeshit crazy. It also means we’re going to get split in two. Again. As soon as Dad heads off to work, I reach for the abandoned newspaper. I need to read it for myself. Scanning the front page, I see nothing about the show. Weird because, to me, this is front-page news. Opening our small-town paper, I search pages two and three. Since it’s a weekly paper, it’s usually only four or five pages long. I mean, how much news can a town with the population of over three thousand people generate in a week? Finally, I find the article on the second to last page. Well, article isn’t the right word. It’s a paragraph posted in the part of the paper called Kitty’s Korner. Katherine “Kitty” Standish has been writing what she refers to as “her column” for a century. Just kidding. It’s been years and years, though. She’s got to be in her seventies by now. You can’t tell her age for sure, though, because she’s rarely seen during the daylight hours. Some speculate that she’s a vampire due to that fact, but Dad says it’s not true. According to him, “She’s a night owl. Always has been.” I believe my pops. He’s a no-nonsense kind of man. What he says, he means, and what he means, he really means. Also, don’t piss him off, because he’s a grudge holder of epic proportions. Just ask my mom. Well, I would ask her if she ever came back to Zodiac Hills after she ran off with that Capricorn. But that’s a story for another day. Lifting the paper, I read Kitty’s Korner. Hear ye! Hear ye! She always starts off announcements like she’s a town crier. I usually laugh but not this time. People of Zodiac Hills, hold onto your hats! She does that too—makes archaic references like that. I mean… who wears hats nowadays? Well, lots of people wear baseball caps, I guess. But I’m getting off track. Starting this April, that big movie-streaming company called Netfilms will be showing a brand-new version of Love in Zodiac Hills. (For those of you young’uns out there, that was a show they had on television in the ’80s. Sort of like that other show, The Love Boat, only it was on land.) Anyhoo, it was a program about people finding their one true love all based on their birthday which is ridiculous because what does that have to do with anything? They’re calling it Return to Zodiac Hills. Which means, you’d better get ready because… they’re coming.
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And Hell Followed
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Eden Books -- EXCERPT: Thomas released her face and stood up, ordering Ma to go down to the root cellar and get the gunny sack. He watched her descend the ladder, her sniffling turning to quiet sobs when she cradled the direct result of her actions. The leaves crunched under their feet as they made their way through the apple orchard in the dark, with nothing but a lantern to guide the way. She ironically felt safer holding the sack against her chest as she was ahead. They stopped near one of the trees and Thomas broke ground. Ma cradled the sack and stared into the black void enveloping them. An animal must’ve fallen prey to something not far in the distance as it’s desperate wails echoed across the land. The horrible sound made Ma focus on the shovel hitting the earth mixed with Thomas’ heavy breathing and grunts. After what felt like hours, the grave was dug and he looked up at her. “Give me my child.” Overcome with the most emotion he had ever witnessed his mother show, she fell to her knees and held the sack against her chest, sobbing. Thomas took the sack and placed it at the bottom of the hole and climbed out, sitting on the ground with Ma next to him, her head buried in her hands. He thought of what could’ve been for a moment before getting up. “You did this, you finish it.” He pointed to the shovel and looked in the cabin’s direction. As he walked into the darkness, led by the dim light coming from Kate’s room, tears stained his cheeks.
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by: #Blog Tour #The Wedding Crasher and the Cowboy by Robin Bielman #Romance @Inkslinger PR @Entangled25/10/2021
 Today I'm delighted to participate in the blog tour for Robin Bielman's latest romance The Wedding Crasher and The Cowboy.  Title: The Wedding Crasher & The Cowboy Genre: Contemporary Romance Synopsis: Kennedy Martin is shocked when her ex calls days before his wedding, expressing serious second thoughts. Doesn’t he see his fiancée's actually the glaze to his doughnut? Now she’s got no choice but to crash his wedding and convince the man he’s with the right woman. Instead, she crashes into the absolute last man she ever wanted to see: Maverick Owens, her old college nemesis. Maverick is still as awful, infuriating, and just The Worst as ever—even if he looks way too sexy in his cowboy hat. And of course he’s convinced she’s actually at the seaside ranch to ruin the wedding. Now the only way to get some face time with the groom and save this marriage is to participate in all sorts of pre-wedding events…with Maverick. Stuck on a canoe, making small-talk at cocktail hour, and even a hoedown with her worst enemy? This just might be the longest week of her life… Buy Links: Amazon | Paperback | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon AU| Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Google Play | Kobo  My thoughts: Just admire this lovely cover for a moment. So full of sunshine and hope- this is exactly what this book is like. Kennedy Martin is the kind of person who never loses her calm-at least at work and she'd better not to, as she is an ER doctor. She's a person who will listen to you attentively and genuinely care about what you're saying, ready to step in and help if necessary. So when her ex-boyfriend Reed, not the latest ex (you'll just have to read the book to find out what that one did), calls her out of blue during his bachelor party and confesses he isn't sure he wants to get married, For the sake of their friendship, she needs to help him. There's only one snag- Kennedy wasn't invited to the wedding, which means she needs to crash the wedding to talk to him to make sure he's making the right decision. Whatever it will be. And if the event happens to take place on a ranch which belongs to her old college rival/archinemesis Maverick Owen's family, so be it. Nothing will stop this five feet tall, stubborn woman from ensuring her friend's future marital bliss. But as there's still a whole week before Reed's nuptials, there's plenty of time to find out why were Maverick and Kennedy trying to outdo each other at the pre-med school, what happened to them afterwards. There's plenty of time to fall in love (again) and maybe even have your heart broken. Or mended. Once again, I want to sing praise to the author who chooses a good guy as her protagonist. Romance books are full of 'flawed, but so charming' playboys-makes life interesting, right? wrong! makes life full of stress and anxiety. Give me Maverick any day! He's the proverbial good man who is so hard to find. I absolutely adored Kennedy and her insatiable thirst for knowledge about everything and everyone around her. She's sweet, hard-working, optimistic and likeable. Maybe not as likeable as her friend Andrew with his improvised stories that kept poor Kennedy on her toes. There were several moments in this book where I just couldn't help tearing up, but overall, There's more emotion in this book than carefree banter and it felt right. Sometimes this is exactly what you need- a sweet story of finding love when you are ready for it and not taking anything for granted, but taking care of people you love here and now. Thank you to Inkslinger PR, NetGalley, the publisher (Entangled Amara) and the author for the review copy, provided in exchange for an honest opinion.  Author Bio:
USA Today bestselling author Robin Bielman lives in Southern California with her awesome family and her very cute dog, Harry. She writes both sweet and sexy contemporary romances with one goal in mind: to leave you with a smile on your face. When not attached to her laptop, she loves to read, go to the beach, and frequent coffee shops with friends. She also dreams of traveling to faraway places and loves to connect with readers. Keep in touch on social! Xoxo Author Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Newsletter | BookBub | Amazon
Heart Stealer
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: Katherine Stallworth stared in horror at the carnage before her and the foul stench of death. Nothing could have prepared her for this. Her husband’s body lay sprawled across the duvet in the dimly lit room, his dark shirt darker from the uneven circle of blood that covered his entire chest. Dead, and so were his bodyguards. Keith lay face down at the foot of the bed, his arm at an awkward angle, his weapon butted up against the wall as if someone had kicked it away from his hand. His suit jacket was soaked with blood, and so was the cream-colored carpet beneath him. Ivan was on the floor, slumped with his back against the bed and his temple touching the nightstand. He would look like someone who’d fallen asleep sitting up, except half his face had been blown off and his white shirt was drenched in blood. Blood. Blood everywhere. Katherine walked slowly over to the bed on shaky knees. Her husband’s pale skin was ashen and drained of life, his mouth open as if in the middle of a scream, and his sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling. She lifted both hands to her mouth as tears filled her eyes and pain wrenched her heart. “Thurgood,” she whispered into her cupped palms. Who had done this, and why? Then she heard a noise in the walk-in closet. Her heart jumped, and her mouth fell open in silent panic. She wasn’t alone. The killer was still there! She backed away slowly, chest tight as she tried hard not to make a sound. When her foot breeched the entrance to the door, a shadowy figure dressed in black exited the closet, and she turned swiftly, rushing down the hall toward the staircase. Breathing accelerated, she gripped the wooden railing with a trembling hand and moved down the stairs as quickly and silently as she could on her toes. These shoes! The pretty gold heels she’d worn with such pride to the reception she now cursed for their impracticality. Her pounding heart was so loud in her ears and her breathing so shallow, she wondered if the intruder could hear the evidence of her fear. Her driver and the other bodyguard had already left for the night, but she had to get out of there. She had to get to the garage. “Hey!” Halfway down the stairs, she stopped and turned. A man stared at her from the catwalk. He wore a black ski mask over his head, with openings for his mouth and eyes—eyes that locked with hers and reeked of venom. His menacing posture and the death she’d witnessed provoked an immediate response. Run! Katherine took off down the stairs. “Stop!” he bellowed. There was no way she was stopping. Almost to the bottom, a gunshot shattered the wood railing she clutched. She screamed and, in her panic, missed her footing on the stairs. She twisted her ankle. Sharp pain jiggered up her leg, and she went down. Her hands flew out instinctively to protect her face, but she skidded along the edge of the last two steps, scraping her knees, shins, palms, and forearms. She lost one shoe and landed in an ungainly heap at the foot of the stairs in the foyer with her evening gown crumpled around her upper thighs. Heavy footsteps pounded behind her. Too terrified to turn around, Katherine ignored the burn of the bruises and scrambled to her feet as another man appeared in the open doorway to her right. “Get her!” the one on the staircase yelled. She kicked off the other shoe and gathered her full skirt to keep from tripping over the hem. She limped away from them both as fast as possible, fueled solely by adrenaline as she raced into a second hallway and pushed open the door to Thurgood’s study. She slammed it closed and quickly turned the lock but knew her actions would not keep them out for long. There was a loud boom as one of the men slammed his body against the door, which sent her scrambling across the room. She stubbed her little toe on a chair and cried out, wincing at the debilitating pain but didn’t dare stop, and hopped over to the bookcase beside her husband’s desk. The master bedroom, where Thurgood was murdered, was also a safe room. But fortunately, there was a second safe room inside his study. She yanked away two books hiding a plain-looking piece of metal in the wall and pressed her thumb to the silver disc. Right away, the entire shelf popped out, and she swung the door open. The office door was kicked in at that very moment. The frame splintered and pieces of wood spewed through the air. Both men rushed in, but Katherine slipped between the shelf and the wall and yanked the door closed.
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