Tuesday, April 07, 2015

I have a very special guest today, Parker Kincade, whose new release is a project she holds close to her heart. Keep reading to learn how you can help The American Heart Association - and get a fantastic book in the process, including Parker's One Night Stand, one of my all-time favorite reads!
 

Did you know every minute in the United States, a woman dies from heart disease, stroke or another form of cardiovascular disease (CVD)? (Source: American Heart Association, www.heart.org)
 
Every. Minute.
 
According to the CDC, heart disease is the leading cause of death for African American and white women in the US. I could go on and on about statistics, but I won't. What I will do is encourage all of you to be aware of the symptoms. The American Heart Association offers great information to get you started. Click here for more info.
 
Cardiovascular disease runs in my family. More than that, I've felt the pain of losing a loved one to this dreaded and deadly disease. One of my dearest friends, Paul Waits, passed away on October 2, 2014, of a massive heart attack. He was 44 - only 5 months older than me (he passed the day before I turned 44).
 
Paul had no warning. No symptoms. One minute he was here, the next he was gone.
 
If cardiovascular disease runs in your family (and even if it doesn't), I urge you to see a doctor to check your cardiovascular health. I've done it. It doesn't hurt. It's cool to see your heart as it beats on an ultrasound screen. (I don't know the technical term for this machine - the test is called an Echocardiogram). Have a carotid doppler. Also painless. Have whatever test your doctor/cardiologist recommends. And then you'll know, hopefully BEFORE there's an issue. Even if you are asymptomatic.
 
There is a reason they call it "the silent killer."
 
In honor of Paul, and all the men and women who live with (or have died from) CVD, a portion of the proceeds from our new project--Hearts in Danger--will be donated to The American Heart Association.
 
Hearts in Danger is romantic suspense boxed set includes 14 novels, by romance authors at the top of their game. Many of these novels are "first-in-series", so if you're looking for a new series to get hooked on, this is a great way to try it out!
 
This limited time box set is only $0.99 (AWESOME value), but we will be rewarding those who purchase the set via PRE-ORDER and through the first week it’s live! Just fill out the form to claim your freebies as our thanks for supporting the cause.
Check out the website for contest details!
 
Preorder Links:
 
RELEASE DATE: JUNE 2, 2015 - for only $0.99! Here's what you'll get:
 
Accidental SEAL by Sharon Hamilton: Navy SEAL Kyle Lansdowne goes looking for his missing SEAL Team 3 buddy Armando who has been kidnapped by a drug gang intent on buying specialized military equipment. Newbie Realtor Christy Nelson holds her first Open House but is given the wrong address, and finds a hot naked SEAL in the master bedroom. Their little misunderstanding leads to a hot affair until the gang uses Christy as bait to lure Kyle into a trap to ransom his honor.
 
Pick Your Poison by Roxanne St. Claire: Meet Benjamin Youngblood - he’s sexy, smart, spectacular and ... about to lose his job for the best security firm in the world. He’s got one chance to prove himself and nothing will stop him. Not even a flower farmer. When Ben sets out to track and trap an assassin, he's forced to trust a feisty farmer who could be as dangerous as her homegrown poison. Ben and Callie join forces to zero in on the killer, taking a few heated detours along the way. Can they stay alive long enough to save Ben’s job, stop an assassin, and find true love?
 
Protective Custody by Paige Tyler: Someone is stalking reporter Paisley McCoy, and police detective Gray Beckham is the only man who can protect her. Having a dad on the force has led to one hard and fast rule – she doesn’t date cops. And while she might be sexy as hell, there’s no way he’s going anywhere near the captain’s daughter. Paisley and Gray can’t deny the chemistry between them, though. But as that connection turns into romance, they find out the stalker is a far greater threat than they had originally thought. And that if he can’t have her, no one will.
 
Hot Pursuit by Lynn Raye Harris: When someone starts shooting at Evie Baker, there's only one man dangerous enough to help her--the man who broke her heart ten years ago. Hostile Operations Team soldier Matt Girard uses all his considerable black ops skill to protect Evie from someone who thinks she possesses information that could bring down a crime syndicate. But working together shows Matt what he gave up--can he claim Evie for his own after what he did in the past?
 
SEAL's Honor by Elle James: Two Navy SEALs jeopardize their lives and hearts in a battle-torn land when they vie for the love of one sexy Night Stalker helicopter pilot.
 
Against The Dark by Carolyn Crane: Angel is an ex-safecracker forced into one last heist. Cole is an undercover agent with big plans for his gorgeous thief—he'll make her pose as his girlfriend to help with a dangerous mission.
 
Hidden Prey by Cheyenne McCray: Tori flees an abusive relationship and heads to her hometown in Arizona. When she arrives, she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnesses the execution of a Federal agent by the son of the head of the Jimenez Cartel. Special Agent Landon Walker rescues Tori and sets out to protect her, but soon protecting her isn’t enough. He’ll go to the ends of the earth for her—and never let her go.
 
Dangerous Curves by Nina Bruhns: A spec ops transporter for STORM Corps takes on drones, bad guys, and car chases on the coast of Italy—and falls for a beautiful scientist whose curves are far more dangerous than the road!
 
Deadly Pursuit by Misty Evans: One year ago, rookie FBI agent Celina Davenport pulled off the ultimate undercover operation…she seduced Emilio Londano – the dangerous leader of the San Diego Mafia – and destroyed his illegal empire. When Londano escapes a maximum security prison and begins picking off Celina’s friends and coworkers, everyone she knows becomes a target. Including DEA agent Cooper Harris, the man who once broke her heart and is now assigned to be her bodyguard. Cooper must risk his career – and his heart – to keep Celina alive. But will their past, with its forbidden passions and impulsive choices, put them directly in the killer’s crosshairs?
 
Protecting Caroline by Susan Stoker: Caroline helps foil a terrorist plot when she finds herself on a plane that’s hijacked (with the help of three members of a SEAL team), but after she gets home she finds herself still in the sights of the terrorists. She can only hope Wolf and his team will be able to save her in time.
 
One Night Stand by Parker Kincade: Amanda Martin decides to have a one-night stand. No relationship, no promises … just hot, indulgent sex. What she doesn’t anticipate is meeting a handsome-as-sin stranger who gives her pleasure unlike she’s ever known. A stranger with a deadly secret…
 
Brody by Mandy Harbin: Brody “Brutus” Jackson isn’t your average small-town mechanic. He's a man with no memory of his past, and no hope for the future. Under FBI protection, Alexandria Collins and her son have been in hiding for ten years. When it’s time to move again, her piece of crap car breaks down and the man giving her a tow is the biggest, hottest guy she’s ever seen. She is determined to ignore the need her long-neglected body hungers for. After all, the last man she showed interest in put a gun to her head. Brody thinks the skittish Xan is sexy as hell, but it’s not her hot body that has him rocked to his core. He knows her from somewhere, and in his line of work, that’s a dangerous thing. Following orders have never been this hard, but when he finds out she’s his next assignment, he will protect her at all costs … even if what she needs protection from most is him.
 
Enemy Mine by Megan Mitcham: Born in the blood of Sierra Leone's Civil War, enslaved, then sold to the US as an orphan, Base Branch operative Sloan Harris is emotionally dead and driven by vengeance. With no soul to give, her body becomes the bargaining chip to infiltrate a warlord's inner circle. As son of the warlord, Baine Kendrick will happily use Sloan's body if it expedites his father's demise. Yet, he is wholly unprepared for the possessive and protective emotions she provokes. In the Devil's den with Baine by her side, Sloan braves certain death and discovers a spirit for living.
 
Caught in the Crosshair by Barb Han: On a tropical island with a hurricane brewing and dangerous men closing in, private security firm owner Jaden Dean will need to work side-by-side with Lauren James to survive and find her brother. The cartel he's associated with seems to be one step ahead and Jaden’s operatives are being killed one-by-one. He will have to use all his specialized training and risk everything, including his heart, to outwit the deadly group and keep Lauren safe. Their magnetic attraction isn't helping matters...because even a slight distraction might just get them both killed.
 
*******
 
This set will only be on sale until the end of June, so you'll have to act fast. And remember, it's for an excellent cause. We would be grateful for shares and likes!

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Virtue's Lady by Jessica Cale

Welcome to Jessica Cale, a first time visitor to my corner of the web and a fellow LSB author. Thanks for coming, Jessica, and let me just say I'm entirely too jealous of your lovely covers!

Virtue’s Lady
Author: Jessica Cale
Publisher: Liquid Silver
Release Date: April 13th
 
Tagline
 
From toiling for pennies to bare-knuckle boxing, a lady is prepared for every eventuality.
 
Blurb
 
     Lady Jane Ramsey is young, beautiful, and ruined.
    After being rescued from her kidnapping by a handsome highwayman, she returns home only to find her marriage prospects drastically reduced. Her father expects her to marry the repulsive Lord Lewes, but Jane has other plans. All she can think about is her highwayman, and she is determined to find him again.
    Mark Virtue is trying to go straight. After years of robbing coaches and surviving on his wits, he knows it’s time to hang up his pistol and become the carpenter he was trained to be. He busies himself with finding work for his neighbors and improving his corner of Southwark as he tries to forget the girl who haunts his dreams. As a carpenter struggling to stay in work in the aftermath of The Fire, he knows Jane is unfathomably far beyond his reach, and there’s no use wishing for the impossible.
    When Jane turns up in Southwark, Mark is furious. She has no way of understanding just how much danger she has put them in by running away. In spite of his growing feelings for her, he knows that Southwark is no place for a lady. Jane must set aside her lessons to learn a new set of rules if she is to make a life for herself in the crime-ridden slum. She will fight for her freedom and her life if that’s what it takes to prove to Mark—and to herself—that there’s more to her than meets the eye.
 
 
 
Excerpt :

 

The girl was beautiful.

She had him pinned to the bed. He was helpless beneath her hands. Her long fingers spanned his chest, tracing the line where the muscle dipped and gave way to shoulder. A hint of a smile played on her lips, more than just a little bit wicked. Kiss-crushed and sherry red, they were the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

“Like this?” She shifted back onto his hip bones.

She hovered above him like a conquering angel, all of the fearsome beauty of heaven in her laughing eyes, as grey and deadly as any steel. He could see the evidence of her ferocity in the iron poker that still projected from the door behind her head, a temptation as much as a warning.

“Getting there.” He grinned.

His hands rested on the curve of her waist, his rough, tanned skin a stark contrast to her smooth flesh, luminous and pale as the moon.

“More,” she moaned, rocking against him.

The bed slammed noisily against the wall, an insistent rapping that increased in frequency, strangely unconnected to the movements of her hips.

Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a saw.

Mark became aware of the bedclothes tangled around his legs. The stench of the river replaced the scent of her skin. She flickered as she bent over him with a sly smile, her hair falling around him like a curtain of copper silk. He was moments away from a bone-shattering orgasm. Just a little bit longer. She increased her pace, her breath quickening as she neared her peak. Her lips hovered above his, close enough to kiss, but somehow out of reach.

Her hips flickered under his hands and he heard the warble of a flock of geese.

“Jane,” he gasped, reaching out to grasp her as she disappeared, and finding only bed linen beneath his hand.
 
 
 
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25238694-virtue-s-lady
 
Pre-Order Links:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Virtues-Lady-Southwark-Saga-Book-ebook/dp/B00VC6B9SS/
 
 
Other Books in This Series
 
 
 
Tyburn (The Southwark Saga, Book 1): Notorious harlot Sally Green fights for survival in Restoration London. When a brutal attack throws them together, Sally is torn between the tutor who saves her and the highwayman who keeps her up at night; between new love and an old need for revenge. Finalist for the Southern Magic Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence 2015.
 
Barnes & Noble
 
Author Bio
 
Jessica Cale is a historical romance author and journalist based in North Carolina. Originally from Minnesota, she lived in Wales for several years where she earned a BA in History and an MFA in Creative Writing while climbing castles and photographing mines for history magazines. She kidnapped (“married”) her very own British prince (close enough) and is enjoying her happily ever after with him in a place where no one understands his accent. You can visit her at www.authorjessicacale.com.
 
 
 
Social Media Links
 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JessicaCale @JessicaCale
Google+:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JessicaCaleWrites
Tumblr: http://authorjessicacale.tumblr.com/
Tsu: https://www.tsu.co/jessicacale
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Jessica-Cale/e/B00PVDV9EW/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0