#Book Blitz #The Enchanted Bungalow (The Mystery House Series, Book 9) #Mystery @Xpresso Book Tours31/10/2022
The Enchanted Bungalow
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: Two days later, Ellen flew with Moseby to Seattle, where she rented an SUV—a white Nissan Rogue—and drove in the dark and through the rain for three hours toward La Push. The last two hours were on winding roads that had Ellen gripping the steering wheel and clenching her teeth. Moseby whined. He sat in a carrier strapped in the front passenger seat. “I know, Moseby-Mo. It’s been a long car ride, but I think we’re nearly there.” Brian had business meetings in Portland all week, and Ellen hadn’t wanted to board the dog, worried it would cause post-traumatic stress disorder. Plus, she needed him, since she was traveling without her friends, hoping to get everything ready to save Tanya’s birthday. It was so dark and rainy in La Push when she arrived that she nearly missed the turn into the Oceanside Resort Office. She pulled in, put the rental in park, found the totem pole Dorothy had described, and, clutching her hood beneath her chin, used the phone inside the totem to telephone security. “I’ll be right there,” a man on the other end of the line assured her. Moments later, a black truck approached, and a police officer rolled down his window to hand her a key. “Are you staying there alone?” he asked as she stood in the rain beside his truck. “I thought there were three of you. My paperwork shows three signatures.” Ellen and her friends had been asked to sign, scan, and email liability waivers. “The other two will be joining me in a couple of days.” The officer frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, staying there alone? Dorothy told you about the history of the place, didn’t she?” “I’ll be fine.” Ellen sounded more confident than she felt. “I just need directions.” “It’s up there on the highest hill,” he pointed out. “Just follow this road on up. You can’t miss it.” “Thank you,” Ellen said. “Let us know if you decide to leave early,” the officer added, handing her his card with his contact information. “The cell service is spotty out here, but you can always drive over to the totem and call me from here.” “Will do.” Ellen read the card. “Thank you, Officer Hobucket.” The officer waited until Ellen had returned to the SUV before he drove off. She said a prayer as she followed him from the parking area and back onto the road in the opposite direction, heading toward the beach, until she came to a fork. The road to the right went downhill and the road to the left went up, so she went left. “This has to be it,” she said to Mo as they neared a bungalow surrounded by enormous western red cedar trees, the silhouettes of which were visible in her headlights. She parked the Nissan Rogue and took Moseby from his carrier. With his leash attached to his collar, she walked him toward the front door. It was too dark to make out much about its features. An old porchlight illuminated the front door and wooden porch, but not much else. She couldn’t even tell what color it was painted. Maybe gray? As she waited for Mo to do his business, she turned her face toward the ocean, but it was too dark to see. She could hear it, though, gathering in great bursts against rocks that must not be too far below. A glance to the dark sky above revealed no moon, but an ocean of stars twinkled down at her, and she felt suddenly small and nervous. “Come on, Moseby-Mo.” She nudged her dog from the grass toward the front door. “Let’s check out the inside.” Dorothy had warned her that it hadn’t been cleaned in years, and the stale air that greeted her when Ellen opened the door did nothing to contradict that. Moseby whined at the stoop. “Inside,” Ellen commanded as she blindly felt the wall for a switch. Not finding one, she stepped further into the bungalow, making the leash taut between her and Mo, who’d remained on the threshold. Ellen’s hand swept across a cobweb, and she gasped with surprise at the unexpected texture. Shuddering and wiping her hand against her jeans, she continued to flail around for a light switch and finally found a floor lamp when she walked right into it. She dropped the leash by accident to steady the lamp, and Moseby scurried away. Ellen rushed outside into the rain. “Mo! Come back here!” Mo stood at their rental car looking back at her without any intention of minding her call. Fortunately, he didn’t run off as she approached him and scooped him into her arms. “Why are you shaking, boy?” she said in a soothing voice. “Are you cold? I’ve got you. It’s okay.” She fumbled for her phone, which was somewhere at the bottom of the purse draped over her shoulder. Once she found it, she turned on the flashlight app and proceeded back toward the house. When she reached the porch, the front door, which she’d left ajar, slammed shut in her face. “The wind is really something out here,” Ellen remarked as she reached for the knob. 
Giveaway! --
Upon a Wicked Tide
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Giveaway! --
Rebounding with the Billionaire
-- SNEAK PEEK: It wasn’t wedding day jitters. Something was up.
Giveaway! --
Temporarily In Love
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play / Eden Books / Smashwords -- SNEAK PEEK: Declan’s dark eyes seared across the length of my body like he remembered all the times he had stripped me out of my clothes. He always did like the knee-high boots I wore during the fall. “You cold?” he asked. I nodded. “Been in California too long.” He shed his zip-up hoodie and put it over my shoulders. “Here.” A memory of this exact scene played through my mind’s eye. Of me not wearing proper attire because I wanted to dress cute for him and him giving me his jacket. But that was sixteen-year-old Declan and Lila; we weren’t those people anymore. “Dec…” “Come on, love, let’s go on the zipper,” he said and took my hand. I didn’t question his slip up. The old pet name rolled off his tongue like it hadn’t been sixteen years since I broke his heart. Like I hadn’t stood in his driveway all those years ago and told him I got accepted to Stanford and wasn’t going with him to Penn State. I told him I wanted to break up, because long-distance relationships never worked, but I’d always love him. That part had been true, was still true, but I never came back to him. I went to California and stayed there while he stayed in our gossipy small town and made a name for himself. The pad of his thumb brushed against the back of my palm. “Love?” “Right. Let’s go on the zipper!” I said excitedly, pulling myself away from the trip down memory lane. We walked over to the ride and waited in line for a few minutes, but neither of us wanted to sever the connection of our hands. I wondered if he was thinking about all the times we had done this before. Of those times back in high school when he was the one dragging me toward the rides. Adult Declan was quiet and reserved, and I couldn’t get a read on him. He wasn’t the boy I fell in love with, but yet, at the same time, he was. He led me into the cage and made sure I was seated before he slid in next to me. We pulled the lap bar down, and the ride operator clicked us in before shutting us inside the metal cage. We were pressed so close together, I felt his thigh against my own. I didn’t know why I did it, but I turned to him and found he was staring back at me intensely. He didn’t jerk back when I brushed my lips against his. He threaded his hands through my hair, one of them gripping my neck possessively as he deepened the kiss. We kissed like we hadn’t forgotten, like it hadn’t been years since we were pressed together. We still fit so perfectly. Then the ride lurched, and I pulled away to grab onto the handlebar above my head as we moved upwards. We screamed our heads off as our cage flipped us around. I held onto Declan’s arm when the ride took us up to its full height and then brought us back down to the ground, all the while flipping us upside down in our cage. I felt dizzy by the time we were back on the ground, and the ride operator opened the cage for us. Declan got out first, then offered me a hand when I stumbled out. He studied me. “Okay, love?” I could only nod. My heart was doing somersaults, and it wasn’t because I was motion sick from the ride. It was singing with the way this man still turned me inside out. But I couldn’t get ideas like that. I didn’t deserve him after what I did. Not after I had been such a coward and cut him out of my life.
Giveaway! -- #Book Blitz #Revenge Honeymoon by K.J.Gillenwater #Comedy #Romcom #Romance @Xpresso Book Tours30/10/2022
Revenge Honeymoon
-- EXCERPT: “That was Tyler,” Emily gulped. Her mouth so dry she wished she had a bucketful of water to drink. “He’s not coming.” Her voice dropped to a bare whisper. The cousins gasped and clutched one another in horror. The make-up artist, who had been waiting to do final touch-ups, packed up her case in a flash and squeaked out of the room without a word. Ruby’s eyes widened, her mouth formed an ‘o,’ and her body vibrated a fine tremor. “Oh no, was he in an accident? I told him not to drive himself. I’ve read so many stories about brides and grooms getting in accidents on the way to the church. Nerves, they said. Should I go to him? Where is he? Was he driving his father’s car or the rental? I hope he wasn’t driving the rental. We have to make it to our suite at the Hilton tonight, and I really don’t want to take an Uber. Or have my father drive. Oh, that would be so embarrassing.” “Ruby.” Emily grasped her friend’s arm, the fine Mikado silk cool under her fingers. A long-sleeved dress for a late fall wedding maybe was too warm for the Tampa location, but it had been so gorgeous on her friend’s slender body there had been no other choice at the bridal boutique. “He’s calling off the wedding.” Nausea soured Emily’s stomach. Why did she have to be the one who picked up the phone? One of the cousins burst into tears. Ruby stood stock still in the middle of the bride’s dressing room. “But—” Rhonda Madison Evers entered wearing a royal blue mother-of-the-bride dress covered in sequins. “My darling. The make-up artist told me the news. How could that man be so cruel?” She curved her arms around her only daughter. “Mom, I don’t understand. How could he not be coming?” Ruby crumpled to the floor. “You’ll crush your dress!” Mrs. Evers gasped and knelt beside her. She yanked at her daughter’s arm as if her will alone would lift up the one-hundred-twenty-five-pound woman and her ten pounds of underskirts and heavy fabric. “We can still return it.” “No, we can’t. It’s been altered.” The bride spoke in a monotone. “Well,” said Mrs. Evers, “there’s always eBay or Craigslist, I suppose.” “Facebook Marketplace is better,” mumbled a cousin. Mrs. Evers shot daggers in the woman’s direction. “I need to talk to him.” The bride snapped her fingers at Emily. “Get Tyler on the phone. I will just demand that he come.” Emily gulped and bit at her lower lip, then got up the courage to tell her best friend since grade school the worst thing a best friend could say. “Tyler doesn’t want to get married. Do you really want to force a man to marry you, Rubes?” “But he promised me. He gave me this ring.” Ruby held out her hand for the cousins, her mother, Emily, and now the florist who’d arrived with her wedding bouquet. A gorgeous pear-shaped 2 ½ carat diamond decorated her left ring finger. “Would he have given me this ring if he didn’t want to marry me?” “He doesn’t want to marry you, Rubes.” Emily knelt and put an arm around her friend. The bride sagged against her. The florist quietly set the bridal bouquet on a chair and scrambled for the door. Emily led Ruby to an empty chair and her mother sat beside her. “He’s an awful man. A terrible, mean, awful man. Who would do that to my little girl?” Mrs. Evers took her daughter by the hand and gripped it tightly. “Ow, mother, that hurts.” Ruby pulled her hand out of her mother’s grasp and began to nibble on her freshly manicured nails. “What do we do about the guests?” “Your father is telling them now,” Mrs. Evers reassured her. “What will we do about the reception?” Ruby pulled the veil out of her hair. “We’re inviting everyone to meet us over there,” her mother answered. “We’ve already paid for the hall, the food, the entertainment. We might as well have a party, don’t you think, darling?” “What will we do about the honeymoon?” Ruby kicked off her satin heels and rubbed her toes. “Well, I guess you’ll have to cancel,” sighed Mrs. Evers. “Maybe they’ll give you credit.” “No, wait, I have a better idea,” said Emily. And that’s when the revenge honeymoon took shape. That very moment. And Emily Small’s life would never be the same. 
Giveaway! -- #Book Blitz #Hate, Rinse, Repeat (A Gamble on Love Mom-Com 3) #Comedy #Romance @Xpresso Book Tours29/10/2022
Hate, Rinse, Repeat
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble -- EXCERPT: Childhood can be hard at the best of times. But when your name rhymes with crazy, lazy, hazy, daisy, and Swayze—as in Patrick—it’s worse than you can imagine. Here are a few phrases I heard ad nauseum during my formative years: “It’s crazy Maisy with the lazy eye!” Corrective glasses fixed the eye, but there’s no coming back from such an abysmal start to your school years. Kind of like if you wore a body brace in middle school, you will always be the girl who wore the body brace in middle school. And if you wore a body brace and had a lazy eye? It was no picnic, let me tell you. An actual allergy to allergy medication—you can’t make this stuff up—was to blame for my third-grade teacher often complaining, “Maisy was a little hazy today.” I have Dr. Seuss to thank for, “It’s Daisy Head Maisy!” That’s right, his first posthumous book was gunning for me. I turned down free tickets to Seussical (the musical) because of it. Finally, my least favorite and most often heard--thank you, Chase Evans—“Maisy Swayzeee, wassup?!” This one was often accompanied by, “Nobody puts Maisy in the corner.” Being that I live in the town where I grew up, I’m often reminded of my past nicknames. Owning the only hair salon in Gamble, Alaska, means old classmates and their mothers are always hanging around (and bringing their hilarious memories of me with them--Remember that time your back brace got caught in the monkey bars?). If having a challenging start to life wasn’t enough, I’ve made one or two questionable decisions along the way that have added to my troubles. The first being that the father of my son does not know he’s the father of my son. I know, I know, “secret baby” is by far the worst romance trope. As romance novels are my only social life, I read a ton of them. And even before I got pregnant with Jack, I always passed on the secret baby ones. I mean, who keeps a secret that big? Short answer—me. But I have my reasons. More on that later because I’ve got much bigger problems these days. 
Giveaway! --
All Hallows Airship
-- SNEAK PEEK: As they pulled up to the front door of Daguerre, Caz didn’t know what to expect. She certainly didn’t expect to see her great aunt, dressed in a modest burgundy gown with black lace edging, stacking pumpkins on the doorstep with the help of a maid. There was dirt under her fingernails. Caz grinned and removed her satin gloves, stuffing them into her pocket before opening the door to the auto. Grimlee wordlessly brought her carpetbag around as Caz stepped forward. She took a deep breath of the country air, inhaling the unfamiliar yet alluring scents of nature. Dowager Daguerre straightened, a calculating look in her eye as she smiled at her great-niece. “Go get the last four, will you, Marla, and then we can see if we need to buy extra from Shore. Caroline! Welcome to Daguerre.” “It’s Caz,” she blurted, and heat immediately rushed to her cheeks as she reached up to cover her mouth. Had she really just corrected her? “I’m sorry, Dowager.” Her great aunt raised a single eyebrow–a feat Caz envied–and said, “What for? I would never wish to call you by a name you dislike. And as far as names go, you may call me Elmira. We are flesh and blood, by-golly.” “I–all right,” Caz said breathlessly, her cheeks still burning, though she was secretly pleased. Her aunt was nothing like the stuffy nobles in Soldark. Her opinion on the upcoming month shifted immediately to excitement. “Grimlee, take her bag to her room, it’s already prepared. That’s all you brought?” she asked Caz. “No, my trunk should be here this afternoon. At least, that’s what my father said.” “Perfect,” Elmira said crisply. “Now, I need your opinion on these pumpkins.” Caz grinned as her great aunt picked up some wicked-looking shears and sliced off a few inches of the long stem on one of the bright orange gourds littering the mansion’s doorstep. Though she wasn’t sure she’d find much action worthy of a gripping story she could write for the Soldark Times, perhaps the season in the country wouldn’t be so boring after all.
GIVEAWAY! --
A Vampire’s Heart: An Order of the Black Oak Prequel
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- Praise for A Vampire’s Heart “These Immortals surrounded by powerful witches promise exciting adventures full of danger and romance. Just the way I like them.” ~ Goodreads Reviewer “This prequel is so good, it left me wanting more.” ~ Bookbub Reviewer “It was so good to be back in the world of these characters. It felt like a warm bath. Assuming a warm bath has drama, heat, things to prove and intrigue, that is.” ~ Goodreads Reviewer “What a great lead-in to book 1 in this series! Definitely got to re-read that!” ~ Bookbub Reviewer -- SNEAK PEEK: “Hey, it’s her!” Mag elbowed him as the pub’s door opened, letting some fresh air in. “Who?” Val frowned as he continued to scan the room, casting a brief nod at the waitress bringing them their drinks. “The girl from the shop,” Mag explained with eagerness. Val reluctantly looked to see what made his brother so enthusiastic. The young witch from the craft store stood there, a small figure in an anime logoed t-shirt, plain jeans, and faded sneakers. Her poker-straight black hair fanned against her cheek and down to her chest. A little geeky, but yes, there was something about her. He felt a kinship in her awkwardness. She, too, didn’t seem to want to be there. She perused the crowd, waved at a few people, before settling her eyes on him. His breath remained caught in his throat as her gaze of the deepest jade connected with his own. The contact disturbed something in him that had been dormant for centuries. Seigneur! The strange force stirring within him had gone straight to his core. His heartbeat pounded madly as a flush of warmth spread down to his groin. Oh damn. Val instinctively searched for Sasha, who was vigorously lapping water from his bowl at his feet. He couldn’t remember ever feeling anything so intense before. He shook himself as he sunk his fingers into the fur of his loyal companion. This could mean trouble. “I wonder if I should hit on her,” Mag was saying. Val moved his head bleakly as she broke their connection to survey the bar with her head held high before waving with animation at a group of women at the back. “Sure, why not.” He let out a slow exhale, his pulse now steadier, and leaned further back in his chair. He forced himself to look away from her and continue to study the patrons. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that this young witch was something else. And with his entire being, he strongly prayed that Mag would leave this one girl alone. 
GIVEAWAY! --
Extortion
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play --
GIVEAWAY! --
In Possession of a Good Fortune
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- SNEAK PEEK: His smile was slow. It didn’t spread across his face. He looked amused and slightly terrified. It was the same way her father had always looked at her mother. It was the way Carlos looked at Jane. It was the way Darcy looked at Eliza—that is, when he didn’t think anyone was watching. Wick had said he didn’t believe in love. But his gaze was telling Lydia something different. It was telling her that she might be different. Isn’t that what every girl wanted? For a guy to think she was different. That she was special. That’s how he was looking at her. This was it. Lydia hadn’t believed it would happen to her. But she was standing in the moment where the reality of it was going down. A guy was totally falling for her. “Are you going to kiss me, Mr. Wickham?” Lydia spoke softly in the dark. Not that anyone was around to hear her. But the moment felt sacred, holy even. “Yes,” he whispered back. “Yes, I am.” His thumb rubbed back and forth across her low back in a windshield-wiping motion. His chest pressed against hers, so much so that she could feel his heart beating in time with hers. His gaze was on her mouth, but he didn’t descend to capture her lips. “Well?” she asked. “Well, what?” “Are you going to kiss me or not?” “I said I would.” And then he stepped away from her. If he hadn’t kept hold of her hand, Lydia would’ve stumbled. Wick tucked her into his side and walked with her away from the pen. Lydia was so rattled from having been in a haze of desire and then yanked back down to earth that she was silent for a time. “You know what I think?” she said after a time. “I think you’re a player.” They were walking away from the light posts along the drive, so she couldn’t see his features, but she sensed a change in him. A stiffening. “But I don’t think that’s the full story,” she continued. Wick turned to her. She saw the whites of his eyes, but she still couldn’t read his expression. Some of the stiffness left his body as he walked on in silence. “One thing I’ve learned is that there’s always a kernel of truth to gossip. But there’s almost always more to the story.” She leaned into him. “Tell me.” “You want me to tell you all my secrets?” “I do.” “Well, I won’t. I’m still trying to impress you.” She laughed. When she did, the corners of Wick’s eyes widened as he watched her. His smile was back in place. He pulled her more firmly to his side as they walked on. 
GIVEAWAY! -- |
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