Lethal Impulse

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Steve Rush will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

He’s riddled with guilt. She’s annoyed with the status quo.

The death of a crime boss’s daughter forces Detective Neil Caldera to leave NYC. He seeks refuge in the tranquil embrace of a small town, where he finds himself entangled in the labyrinth of a teenage girl’s murder.

Tess Fleishman’s pale skin and extreme weight loss portrays a disease she wants others to see. While inside, a compulsion for Neil fuels her passion to have him or destroy him.

As Neil delves into the heart of the town's secrets, will truth deliver solace? Or will Tess prevail?

Read an Excerpt

Tess set the camera on the rear seat. She pictured the murder scene planned at the barn. “You can thank me when it’s over. I need your help with this next part because the doctor told me I’m not to lift anything over twenty pounds. This leukemia drains me.” She popped open the trunk.

“I heard about your diagnosis.” Vanessa embraced Tess. “I thought about going into oncology once I complete medical school. If I get accepted. That is a long way off. What has the doctor said about your prognosis?”

“We view my future differently. I’m hoping for remission.” Tess gestured to the trunk. “Climb in.”

Vanessa glanced inside the trunk. She retreated two strides. “Do I have to get in there? It looks grimy. Why did you not bring your car?”

“We’re documenting an abduction and murder, Vanessa. We can’t let anybody see my car or you with me. It will ruin the surprise. It’s only until we get to the barn.”

Vanessa clambered into the trunk. Tess swathed towels around Vanessa’s wrists and ankles before she bound them with paracord. Vanessa thanked Tess for the use of towels to prevent ligature marks on her skin.

Tess grinned. “A killer must focus on details, Vanessa.”

About the Author:

Steve Rush is an award-winning author whose experience includes tenure as homicide detective and chief forensic investigator for a national consulting firm. He worked with the late Joseph L. Burton, M.D, under whom he mastered his skills, and investigated many deaths alongside Dr. Jan Garavaglia of Dr. G: Medical Examiner fame. His specialties include crime scene reconstruction, injury causation, blood spatter analysis, occupant kinematics, and recovery of human skeletal remains.

Steve’s book Kill Your Characters; Crime Scene Tips for Writers was named finalist in the 2023 Silver Falchion Award for Best Nonfiction and Honorable Mention in the 2023 Readers’ Favorite Awards. Lethal Impulse won the 2022 Public Safety Writing Association’s Writing Competition for an unpublished novel, longlisted in the 2022 Page Turner Awards and joint first prize in the 2020 Chillzee KiMo T-E-N Contest.

Publishing credits:

Kill Your Characters; Crime Scene Tips for Writers, Genius Books, June 2022
Blood Red Deceit, Wings ePress, (thriller) September 2023
After Her Deceit, Wings ePress, (thriller) October 2024
Lethal Impulse, The Wild Rose Press, (romantic suspense/crime thriller) October 2024
Upcoming 2025 releases:
The Shocking Truth (crime thriller) presale 02/15/25, and Deadline 4:59 (crime thriller), Wings ePress

Purchase links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCC8KC8Y/ref=sr_1_1
The Wild Rose Press: https://wildrosepress.com/product/lethal-impulse/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Lethal%20Impulse-
ITunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781509258130
BooksAMillion: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9781509258123

Website and social media links:

Website: https://www.steverush.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-rush-a20302149/
Substack: https://steverush.substack.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5217876
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/steve_rush

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After the Red Carpet

                                          

                             AFTER THE RED CARPET

Patricia Leavy

 

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GENRE:  Contemporary Romance

 

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BLURB:

 

For fans of Tessa Bailey and Hannah Grace, After the Red Carpet is a feel-good, contemporary celebrity romance about what happens after the fairy-tale beginning as two lovers work toward their own true meaning of “happily ever after.”

 

After legendary Hollywood star Finn Forrester proposed to philosopher Ella Sinclair on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, the couple captivated the press and public with their real-life fairy tale. Now they vow to prioritize their romance and live an adventure of their own making. Ella moves into Finn’s Beverly Hills mansion and must adjust to his world. Finn, secretly afraid of losing Ella, is determined to make everything perfect for his betrothed. Meanwhile, Ella wants nothing more than to retain her own identity as they build their new life together. All the while, she is writing a philosophical treatise on love, exploring the question: when we love so deeply, where do we end and where does the other begin?

 

In this highly anticipated follow-up to The Location Shoot, will Ella and Finn finally live the life they’ve dreamed of? See how their epic romance unfolds, after the red carpet.

 

 

Excerpt

 

Finn and Ella strolled down the long red carpet at the famed Royal Albert Hall, arm in arm behind the rest of the Celebration team.

 

“Somehow I’ve never been here before,” Finn said.

 

“Well, you’re in for a treat. It’s extraordinary inside. Concerts here are wonderful.”

 

“I’ll have to get us tickets sometime.”

 

“Funny story about how this place came to be. Prince Albert wanted to create a hall to celebrate the arts and sciences, to bring culture to the people. He died before it was completed, and Queen Victoria insisted it should be named after him. They even wove the letter A into the stairway railings. Then of course she had that obscenely pricey, gold memorial statue created outside, across the road from the hall. She spent the rest of her life wearing black, to show her deep mourning.”

 

“She must have really loved him.”

 

Ella shrugged.

 

“What?” Finn asked.

 

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure she did love him, in her own way, but perhaps it would have meant more to simply realize his vision. He wanted this place to be about the arts, not about him. Love isn’t about gold statues or opulence. The grandest gesture is seeing someone for who they are and honoring what’s important to them.”

 

A Word With the Author

1.     Did you always want to be an author?

 

Yes. I’ve loved creative writing since I was a little girl. My mother recently found some of my first stories, which I also illustrated and bound with old wallpaper and glue to make them look like books. On the back of one, it says I was only six years old. Despite dreaming about being an author for my entire life, I wasn’t brave enough when I was young to pursue it. I didn’t know if I could handle a life full of rejection and critique. Being an artist is tough. So, I took a different career path, became a sociology professor, and found myself writing books anyway, starting with nonfiction. Eventually, I wrote my debut novel and soon thereafter quit my tenured teaching gig and became a full-time author. 

2. Tell us about the publication of your first book.

 

It was a crushing disappointment. It was an edited, nonfiction book I worked on with a colleague. It wasn’t a great process and one day the book showed up at my door with a cover I had never seen. It was dreadful. However, publishing my first novel nearly a decade later was a much better experience. It was scary but exhilarating. Readers were pretty kind to me. My publisher was small and indie. I loved working with them despite the challenges. After that book, I knew I being a novelist was my true calling. 

3. Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

 

I personally know too many authors to pick a favorite in public. A few authors on my current to-be-read stack include Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Jude Berman. 

4. What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

 

Writing every day is the best. I love writing more than anything in the world. There’s nothing better than getting lost in a story world you’re creating. Sometimes I can’t believe how fortunate I am to be able to do this every day. The worst part is the inevitable critique. When you share your art, it’s like sharing a piece of your soul. It’s painful when people don’t respond positively, even though that’s their right, and of course not every book is for every reader. To deal with it, I think it’s critically important to develop a relationship with your books that’s not dependent on anything external, positive or negative. 

 

5. What are you working on now?

 

My novel Shooting Stars Above is the first book in a romance series I’ve written called The Celestial Bodies Romances. It will be out in March 2025 and we’ll be releasing a new book in that series each spring. For fans of After the Red Carpet, Ella and Finn’s story continues in a final book coming out in September 2025 but we’re keeping the title under wraps for now. One tidbit, it takes place decades after The Location Shoot and After the Red Carpet.

 

 

  

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Patricia Leavy, PhD, is an award-winning, best-selling author. She was formerly Associate Professor of Sociology, Chairperson of Sociology & Criminology, and Founding Director of Gender Studies at Stonehill College. She has published more than forty books; her work has been translated into many languages, and she has received more than one hundred book honors. Her last novel, The Location Shoot, was featured on Ms. Career Girl‘s “10 Perfect Books to Get Your Fall Reading List Started” and was the 2023 Firebird Book Awards 1st Place Winner in 4 categories: Contemporary Novel, Pop Culture Fiction, Romance and Summer Beach Read. Patricia has also received career awards from the New England Sociological Association, the American Creativity Association, the American Educational Research Association, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and the National Art Education Association. In 2018, she was honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame and SUNY-New Paltz established the “Patricia Leavy Award for Art and Social Justice.” Patricia lives in Maine. In addition to writing, she enjoys art, reading, and travel.

 

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/After-Red-Carpet-Patricia-Leavy-ebook/dp/B0D3FJGP55/ref=sr_1_2

Website: https://patricialeavy.com/

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

 

Patricia Leavy will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

 

 

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Where is Love?

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Annie Caboose will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

While walking in the garden one day, Annie, a curious little ant from Hillsville, meets a single poppy flower called Love. They become instant friends, sharing stories, laughing and talking for hours on end. Then one autumn day Annie goes to visit Love, but Love is not there. Remembering the rhyme that Love told her, she sets off on an adventure to find Love.

Love is with you every day.
Love is never far away.
Go search, go find and then you’ll see
All the places Love can be.

But don’t forget to look within
For often, that’s where Love begins.

May Annie’s story inspire anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved being, to look and perhaps still find them within their lives and within themselves.

Read an Excerpt

About the Author:

Annie, a.k.a. the Caboose, is the youngest of nine children. Her loving mother read her lots of children’s stories, including some she wrote herself. Inspired by her mom, Annie wrote her first book, Where is Love? She resides on a lake in the beautiful Okanagan Valley, fascinated by the many birds that live there too.

Website: https://anniecaboose.com
Amazon: https://a.co/d/4MLCYGf
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anniecaboose/

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For You I'd Break

 

FOR YOU I'D BREAK

Hannah Jordan

 

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GENRE:  Contemporary Romance

 

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BLURB:

 

When Rowan’s two-year marriage ends with a crash, she returns home to Peace Falls, VA, riding shotgun in her sister’s 1990 Cadillac hearse. Everything about her is damaged: her heart, her pride, her bank account, and her spine—thanks to a tourist, a Segway, and finding her husband getting busy with her boss. But Rowan is determined to reclaim her career and city life as soon as she recuperates and lands a new job.

 

Caleb “Cal” Cardoso didn’t notice wallflower Rowan in high school, but the former football star, and Peace Falls’s newest physical therapist, can’t take his eyes off the stunning redhead now. Too bad he’s sworn off relationships. After his last hookup purposely tanked his online reputation, Cal stands to lose his job if a single patient leaves his care. Which is why he can’t let Rowan switch to another practitioner, despite the friction between them, and why he definitely can’t act on his growing attraction.

 

Rowan agrees to remain Cal’s patient if he helps her younger brother train for football tryouts. Though Cal hasn’t touched a football since the accident that killed his best friend, he agrees, and as Cal helps heal Rowan’s body, she begins to heal his heart.

 

For You I’d Break is a small town romance with a hefty dash of spice, a HEA ending, and a cast of memorable characters, including a goth sculptor who secretly loves to decorate cakes, a fearsome-looking felon with a heart of gold, a hothead with a sweet side, a karma-devoted barista who collects damaged pets and first dates, and a lovable dog with more emotional sense than everyone put together.

 

 

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EXCERPT:

 

Excerpt One:

Being a wallflower makes you thirsty, so parched for attention your heart feels brittle. Then after years—or in my case a lifetime—someone finally sees you. The exquisite feeling seeps deep, the attention saturating your life. So, you jump, headfirst. The red flags go unnoticed. Declarations of love tossed as lightly as petals. Maybe you marry him, like I did. Maybe you bloom in domestic bliss with a house in the suburbs and two adorable kids. Maybe a dog. Bare minimum a pet turtle. 

 

I wasn’t so lucky.

 

After two years of marriage, instead of house hunting in the outskirts of DC, I was riding shotgun in my sister’s 1990 Cadillac hearse, headed back to Peace Falls, VA, with everything I owned stuffed where a coffin ought to be. 

 

I’d cried so much in the past three hours, I could barely make out the foothills rising in the distance. My throat was raw. Crumpled tissues littered the floorboard, and lint covered my leggings. 

 

The tears surprised me. Apart from a couple of late-night phone calls to my mother after I left the hospital, I’d held it together pretty well. I was too busy tying up the loose ends of my life in DC to feel anything but stressed. The moment Poppy arrived to drive me home, the tears started and built with every box, bag, and lamp we slid into the hearse.

1. Did you always want to be an author?

 

I did. I started out writing terrible poetry when I was five. Thankfully, I realized that wasn’t my thing and transitioned to short stories and personal narratives in high school and beyond before jumping into romance novels. 

2. Tell us about the publication of your first book.

 

The book began as a dare, specifically a challenge to write a romance in one month. I confessed to a writer friend that I’d always wanted to write a romance novel, a very different genre from my usual work. She had a partial draft of a paranormal romance she wanted to finish, so we dragged our third friend along for the ride. And just to be clear, the book went through over a year of revisions and rewrites, but the first draft came together in January 2023. I expected to be very busy that month. I didn’t expect to love every minute of it. I fell in love with the characters, the story, and the thrill of writing something I couldn’t wait to read myself. In short, I was hooked. 

 

I submitted the book to the Romance Writers of American’s mentor program, where I worked with the wonderful Jeannie Watt on revisions. Since I’ve always wanted to run my own business, self publishing just made sense. I have a background in marketing and enough humility to know when I need to hire a pro rather than attempt the work myself. I’ve made a ton of mistakes, but I’ve learned so much since For You I’d Break launched in July.

 

3. Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

 

The list of romance authors I admire (and read every chance I get) is long, but includes writers in different subgenres. I’ll read an LJ Shen novel one week, a Pippa Grant another, and an Amy Harmon the following. One writes fairly dark romance, one writes romantic comedies, and one writes historical romance. I love them all!

4. What’s the best part of being an author? The worst?

 

The best part of being an author is the job’s flexibility with time, place, and wardrobe. I can work anytime, anywhere in the world in my PJs. While editing For You I’d Break, I’d sit in my car with my laptop and work during my youngest daughter’s lacrosse practice. 

 

The worst part of being an author, for me, has always been the rejection. I have a lot of experience as a nonfiction writer, so I’ve grown a pretty thick skin. As a parenting blogger, I had internet trolls comment on my actual life, but that’s the price you pay for putting your words into the world. I want to continue to improve as a writer, so I read the comments and reviews. Still, a bad review hurts.

5.What are you working on now?

 

The first three books in the Peace Falls series focus on three friends who survived a fatal car crash when they were eighteen. The second book, For You’d Mend, launched in October and will be discounted to $0.99 from December 6^th to January 6^th. It focuses on Rowan’s sister, Poppy, and Cal’s best friend, Theo. Poppy and Theo feature heavily in For You I’d Break as friends who are clearly attracted to each other. Poppy is my favorite character in the entire series, and I loved writing her story. 

 

The third book, For You I’d Bloom, will launch on January 7^th. It’s my favorite book of the series, so far, because I fell a bit in love with the lead, Aiden. 

 

I plan to write at least three more books set in Peace Falls. The later books will focus on characters the readers meet along the way. They are all connected to the first three male lead characters, but were not in the crash. I’m buckling down in January to write the draft of book four.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Hannah Jordan grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia but wound up in South Jersey after falling in love with her complete opposite. She's got all the degrees of a "serious" fiction writer but only smiles when she's writing romance.

 

She lives with her husband and two daughters in a picturesque town outside of Philadelphia where she enjoys reading in all genres, especially the spicy ones, and confusing people with her half-Southern, half-Northern accent.

 

The first book in her Peace Falls Small Town Romance Series, For You I’d Break, launched July 17, 2024.

 

Website: https://hannahjordanauthor.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hannahjordanbooks

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/hannahjordanbooks

Amazon Buy Link:   https://www.amazon.com/You-Id-Break-Second-Romance-ebook/dp/B0D5VNSHF3/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top

 

Free to read on Kindle Unlimited.

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

 

The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

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Christmas In Pickens

I think that if you live in the suburbs of any small town there’s always those houses that are a can’t-miss if you like to cruise Christmas lights, and let me tell you…Pickens has more than its fair share. There are plenty of folks around who don’t know what it means to jump the gun hanging up lights. They are there glowing well before Thanksgiving, power bills be damned. 

There’s the powder-blue 1981 Lincoln Continental, parked just outside of town and festooned with year upon year of replaced light strands. It’s usually the first. Typically, a car parked by the road might draw attention from the city, especially since it has been there since ’87, but the Lincoln gets a pass. They’ve got the Christmas spirit after all. 

There’s the nightmare inducing Tiny Town, a collection of knocked-together wooden doll houses covering a three-acre yard. I’m sure they look better in the daylight, but I can’t say there’s much of a reason to be hanging around there during the day. The lights are the draw, after all. No one starts during the day. The off-color lights and rain-drenched dolls probably draw sighs from “Nightmare Before Christmas” fans, but they are the only ones. 

Don’t get me wrong. Everyone should do Christmas in their own way, whether it’s having your gardener put up the wicker reindeer every night to keep the frost from peeling the paint, or swapping presents over dinner at a Chinese restaurant. There are plenty of lights to catch in Pickens but we always check out Tiny Town and the Lincoln. That’s when you know Christmas is in the air. 

'Tis The Season To Feel Inadequate

 

'TIS THE SEASON TO FEEL INADEQUATE

Dorothy Rosby

 

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GENRE:  Humorous Essays

 

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BLURB:

 

 

Christmas comes but once a year; chaos never ends! Happy Halloween, merry Christmas and joyful Lumpy Rug Day. That’s real, by the way. Lumpy Rug Day is celebrated every May 3, though “celebrated” might be too strong a word. It’s the American way to create a celebration for everything, then turn it into a chore or worse, a nightmare. ’Tis the Season to Feel Inadequate is a collection of humorous essays about how we let our expectations steal the joy out of Christmas and other holidays and special events. It’s understanding for those who think Christmas form letters can be honest—or they can be interesting. And it’s empathy for anyone who’s ever gotten poison ivy during Nude Recreation Week or eaten all their Halloween candy and had to hand out instant oatmeal packets to their trick-or-treaters.

 

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EXCERPT:

 

Excerpt One:

 

from essay: Merry Christmas from the Envyofall Family

 

There are two things that make me feel like a boring person. Actually there are more than two, but the ones that come to mind this time of year are writing a Christmas letter and reading everyone else’s.

 

When I write a letter I come to the painful realization that the year has flown by and I’ve been terribly busy but I haven’t done a thing worth mentioning. Worse, when I read all the newsy holiday letters I receive I think the writers must have had more days since last Christmas than I had, and apparently more money, energy and ambition as well.

 

I don’t think I’m alone in my feelings of inadequacy either. Consider the following actual letter I made up. You’ll see in brackets what an unfortunate reader might be thinking as she reads this holiday greeting from the Envyofall family.

 

Merry Christmas from the Envyofalls!

 

We hope your year was as wonderful as ours was! [I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.] We started the year with a January vacation in Hawaii. [Now I know it wasn’t.] Since the children are both doing so well in school we decided taking them out for two weeks would be acceptable, and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly. [I’ll bet their teachers did too.]

 

In June Maxwell and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary with a month in Italy. [What a coincidence! My husband and I celebrated our anniversary in June too—at the Olive Garden.] You can see photos of both vacations on our family website. [You can see our vacation photos too—if my phone is working.]

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

 

Dorothy Rosby is an author humor columnist whose work regularly appears in publications throughout the West and Midwest. Her humor writing has been recognized by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, the National Federation of Press Women and the South Dakota Newspaper Association. In 2022 she was named the global winner in the Erma Bombeck Writers Competition in the humor writing category. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays.  

 

Author Interview

December 18 stop at Hope. Dreams. Life... Love

1.Did you always want to be an author? Yes, I think I did. I still have a tattered notebook with my handwritten attempt at a novel in it. I don’t even remember how old I was, but inside the front cover there’s a note I wrote to my younger brother telling him to “keep your damn nose out of this. It’s mine.”  I guess I wasn’t quite ready to show my dream to the world.  

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book. My first book was, I Used to Think I Was Not That Bad and Then I Got to Know Me Better which I published in 2014. I call it the book for people who read self-improvement books and never get any better because it’s a collection of humorous essays on anxiety, bad habits, communication, fitness, prosperity, relationships and other topics one tries to improve upon by reading self-help books. When my publishing handed me the proof copy, she asked me how I felt. I think she expected me to have some sort of strong emotional reaction. And I  know a lot of readers have those when they hold a book they’ve written for the first time. But I didn’t. In pondering it later, I think it felt like just another step in a very long process.  

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in? I read a lot of humor, but most of it is in online humor groups I belong to. There are so many I love that it would be hard to pick a favorite but a few I enjoy are Ivy Eisenberg, Janie Emaus and John Branning. 

4.What's the best part of being an author? The worst? I’m an author, a syndicated humor columnist and blogger and I would say the best part of writing in general is the feeling I get that I’m doing exactly what I was born to do, using my gifts as fully as I can. The worst part is that it’s very hard work that isn’t always rewarded in any way. That’s when the best part, knowing it’s what I’m meant to do saves the day. 

5.What are you working on now? I’m in the process of putting together my fifth book, a collection of humorous stories with the working title, That Which Doesn’t Kill You Makes a Good Story Later. These are all true stories about experiences I’ve had, but they’re greatly exaggerated because you get to do that when you write humor. I perform regularly with a local storytelling group so many of the stories have been performed for audiences. Website: https://dorothyrosby.com/

 

https://www.facebook.com/rosbydorothy

https://www.goodreads.com/dorothyrosby

https://www.instagram.com/dorothyrosby/

 

 

 

Amazon   https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578295520

 

Audible  https://www.audible.com/pd/Tis-the-Season-to-Feel-Inadequate-Audiobook/B0CBW57GYM

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Beneath Southern Stars

 

Title: Beneath Southern Stars

Series: Magnolia Grove Series

Author: Andrea Johnston

Genre: Small Town Contemporary Holiday Romance

Tropes: Single Dad; Musician/Celebrity; Love after Loss/Grief

Release Date: December 12, 2024

BENEATH SOUTHERN STARS is an all new smalltown, single dad romance from author Andrea Johnston set in the fictional town of Magnolia Grove. It can be read as a standalone but be sure to check out the rest of the stories from this collection.

LANEY

Small town life isn’t for everyone. At least that’s what I’m told. To me, it’s everything. Growing up in Magnolia Grove my neighbors are like family and every memory I have is tied to our community.

When a single dad rents the house next door he makes my simple small town life a little more exciting.

RYAN

After a year of grieving I vowed to give my daughter a holiday season to remember. Magnolia Grove is the epitome of holiday cheer and exactly the distraction that we need.

When my identity as a country music artist becomes town gossip, I greedily accept help from my new neighbor. What I didn’t expect was to find someone who speaks to my soul and reminds me of how much life there is left to live.

When we’re together beneath the southern stars, I believe anything is possible.

While I get us two glasses of water, Laney moves around the space, looking at the décor and finally settling on the sectional. She looks at the fireplace that’s more decorative than functional and smiles.

“Here you go.”

She takes the glass from me and lifts it to her lips, taking a small sip. I take the seat next to her and lean back into the cushions, my arm resting on the back. My hand is close enough I could touch her with a slight movement. She leans forward and sets her glass on the coffee table.

When she moves back to her spot, she buries her face in her hands. “I’m nervous.”

Thank goodness I’m not the only one. “Me too.”

Her eyes lift to peek through her fingers. “Really?”

I nod and stretch over to place my glass next to hers. I watch as she moves her hands to her lap, fingers twisting. Her unease is evident and I hate that she may feel uncomfortable.

Gently, I shift closer, closing the space between us and placing my hand over hers. I watch as her shoulders drop. Our eyes meet and my thumb traces circles along her soft skin.

“Yeah really. There’s something happening here that scares the shit out of me. I came to Magnolia Grove to get some space from all that we lost, I never expected to meet someone like you.”

Laney sinks into the cushion and sighs. “Ryan, we hardly know one another.”

She has a point but still, something is there. Not much can come of it. We live in two different states and my life is a cluster, to say the least.

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t chemistry. You’re a scientist, you understand chemistry.”

An eyeroll and then a smack on my arm cuts through any of the awkward tension that was lingering. We laugh and talk about the Jubilee and the anxiety she felt being on stage. Slowly we find ourselves closer, her legs are stretched over mine and my finger plays with the loops of her sweater.

In the heart of Alabama, lies a charming little town on the river, where everyone knows your name… and your business.

Follow the intertwined lives of its beloved residents as they navigate first love, second chances, and all the unexpected surprises that their small-town holds.

Welcome to Magnolia Grove, where every neighbor has a story worth unraveling, the roots run deep, and love blossoms around every corner.

Join the Magnolia Grove Reader Group to find out more!

A romantic at heart, Andrea has always been a storyteller. An avid reader since a young age, she never planned to pen her own romance novel but, on a whim, and with no plan, she discovered her passion. Known for her slow burn small town romances, Andrea prides herself on writing relatable characters that the reader cheers for and secondary characters who bring the sass and laughs to each story.

Settled in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and dog, she counts down the days when her adult children come home for a visit. Even if it means more laundry!

Follow Andrea:
Facebook | Website | Sassy Romantics | Nerd Herd | Instagram | Amazon

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