Whatever It Takes

Title: Whatever It Takes 

Author: S. Jones

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: January 6, 2020

It’s been seven years since Quinn Walker ended our engagement.

I’ve moved on, married his enemy, and started my own family.
Everything was perfect…until it wasn’t. My new life was a lie, and my husband turned out to be a fraud. The man that I married was now a wanted fugitive, and my ex-fiancé was the cop who was intent on making him pay.
He’s convinced that a simple apology and a dimpled smile is enough to fix that broken heart that he tore apart years ago.
I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him at a distance. Yet, all it takes is one kiss, one touch for me to remember how great our love was before he threw it away.
Little does he know that I’m not the young, foolish girl who he left behind. If he thinks he can waltz back into my life like the past never happened, he has another thing coming.
I can accept that fate sent him back to me. Now, I need to assure my foolish heart that this means nothing.

S. Jones is a contemporary romance author from Upstate New York. She has a strong passion for writing and reading stories that will rip your heart out before it’s put back together again.

If she’s not buried in her writing cave, she’s usually reading or planning out her next vacation. She loves to travel to different places and spends all her free with her husband, and two college age children.
When the weather permits, you can find her outside walking her golden retriever, or enjoying a nice cocktail by the pool. She loves cooking and entertaining for her family and friends.
When she’s not holding a glass of wine in one hand and her kindle in the other, she loves to hear from her readers at: Authorsjoneswrites@gmail.com

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Beyond the Book: Wintertime

This week I'm talking about things I actually like about winter, but in fact, I don’t dislike the season at all.

For one thing I live in South Carolina, which means we seldom get snow. When we do, it panics everyone, and we run to the grocery store for milk and bread. Everything comes to a halt, and we hurry home to get out of the snow. That being said, most of us feel joyful when the snow actually comes. We make snowmen, eat snow ice cream, and take walks outside. It’s truly a magical time for us.

My favorite holidays are in the winter too. I love Thanksgiving and Christmas. We always get together with our family and eat way too much. I love the thrill of selecting just the perfect Christmas gift for each family member. I also enjoy all the holiday decorating and parties. We have a lot of January birthdays in my family as well so that’s something to look forward to once Christmas is over. My birthday is January 12. 

We also seem to draw closer together during the winter. We can still get out, but if the temperature goes below fifty we have a tendency to enjoy more indoor activities like sitting in front of the fire with a nice cup of coffee and a good book. When the temperature is warmer my husband is likely to be outside working so it’s nice to have more time to just be together.

What about you? What’s your take on winter? Do you like it or not?

Weekend Writing Warriors: Never Trust a Pretty Wolf

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, your chance to sample the work of a talented group of authors. When you finish here you can find more snippets at:

http://www.wewriwa.com   

For the last few months I've been sharing excerpts from Turnaround Farm, but today I'm sharing from another book, Never Trust a Pretty Wolf. We'll begin with Chapter One.

Blurb:

Liesel Wolf has a secret, a dangerous secret she’ll go to any lengths to conceal. When she’s paired in a charity game with sexy marshal Andy Bryce, a man with secrets of his own, her carefully constructed world comes crashing down, and Liesel’s on a collision course with her past.

Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2KY04Rj

Last week:

Excerpt: 

Saturday Sample: Never Trust a Pretty Wolf

Welcome to Saturday Sample. Today we'll continue to share excerpts from Never Trust a Pretty Wolf.

Blurb:

Liesel Wolf has a secret, a dangerous secret she’ll go to any lengths to conceal. When she’s paired in a charity game with sexy marshal Andy Bryce, a man with secrets of his own, her carefully constructed world comes crashing down, and Liesel’s on a collision course with her past.

Buy link:  https://amzn.to/2KY04Rj

Excerpt: 

Chapter One

Last Week

He turned his attention to Liesel, who was pushing her dinner around on a pale green china plate that probably cost more than he made in a week. She hadn’t said two words to him since they’d sat down. “So, Liesel? What do you know about geocaching?” She hadn’t given him permission to call her Liesel, but he intended to anyway.

“Nothing.”

“How did Melton find you?”

“My property adjoins his.”

She didn’t ask about him, but he told her anyway. “I’m taking my brother’s place because his wife’s relatives are coming for a visit, and he’ll be busy.”

This week: Liesel speaks first.

Dragon Mist

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. David will be awarding a dragon pendant similar to the one worn by Christine Drachen in Dragon Mist (US only) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

As the third daughter of a third daughter, dragon-shifter Christine Drachen must mate with a human.

Not all human males are genetically compatible with dragon shifters, and suitable matches are rare in old Charleston. Christine, though, has identified James to be an appropriate match. Even humans who acknowledge the possibility of dragons cannot believe that one can be both a dragon and a human, shifting between the two. As a result, Christine must attract James without fully revealing her true, shifting nature until he has committed to mate.

James gradually discovers what Christine is. She shows him the gold dragon she always wears around her neck. He notices the prints, statues, and tapestries of dragons that decorate her family’s home. Strange noises emanate from behind the Drachens’ house during a party, and James believes he actually sees a dragon, one wearing a necklace like Christine’s. Christine’s last name, Drachen, means “dragon,” and, while she jokes her entire family is composed of the creatures, James begins to suspect there is more to what she says than a simple attempt at humor.

Finally, though, he sees her shift.

To protect their species from persecution, dragon-shifters silence any human who sees one of them shift, and the most practical method is generally death. The rule is absolute. But Christine has fallen in love with James. How can she protect her family without killing the boy she loves?

Dragon Mist is a story of boy-meets-girl, with a few non-human characters, high stakes, a bit of magic, a little humor, and an abundance of romance.

Read an Excerpt

It had started two days after high school graduation, following a sleepover at Cindy Beaufont’s house. Cindy and I had slipped away before dawn, leaving a note claiming we were going out to the beach for an entire day of sun worship. Instead, we bought bus tickets to San Francisco and hopped the first Greyhound headed west. I’d calculated we would pass through Atlanta and be somewhere in Alabama before we were missed.

Inspired by the underground newspapers we read, Cindy and I were joining the throngs of young adults who were descending on San Francisco for the Sumer of Love. We parted ways as we stepped off the bus. I purchased two pair of overalls and wore little else for almost three months. The jeans and t-shirts I had taken with me would come home just as they had been taken from Mom’s washer on the first day of June.

I was searching for freedom. For a month, a summer, a year, a period of time, I wanted to be free, free from the rules and discipline of the drache, free from the expectations for an upper class, below-Broad young woman in old Charleston, free to consider and understand my shifting nature. I passed the summer painting dragons, making jewelry, and selling my work to buy food. I had done well, I thought. I had left home with fifty dollars, lived well, and my wallet currently held sixty-two greenbacks.

It is mid-August now, the Summer of Love is winding down, my freshman year in college beckons, and my masquerade as a flower child must come to an end.

The real world calls, and I had planned to leave for home next week.

But Bing is dead.

Someone will link me to Bing, someone who saw us in the park in the moonlight, someone who watched us leave the house together, perhaps a friend of his to whom he confided his “plans” for the evening. The witnesses from the park all will tell a story of a golden dragon. The more lucid may recount how a blond girl turned into the golden dragon. All will say the dragon cut the man to bits with her hand.

Believable, right?

All of them, ninety-eight of hundred at the least, will have been smoking pot or dropping acid. Police officers will smirk, and search for a human perp. I was the girl with him, the one screaming “rape,” and the police will want to blame me for his death, although they will be hard pressed to explain how I overcame a man so much larger than I and dismembered him without a weapon, all in the space of thirty seconds.

Should officers frighten me, well, young draches have been known to shift involuntarily. An all-round bad scene.

Life will be simpler if I disappear, if I become an untraceable phantom.

I need to be on the road tonight.

About the Author:

I live near Charleston, South Carolina, where I walk the beaches, eat fresh seafood, and photograph the ocean, the birds, and the beautiful sunsets. Seven of my nine novels have been set in Charleston, but Dragon Mist is the first to explore the lives of the non-human residents of the “holy city.”

Find more of my work on my website! http://www.burnettsbooks.com/books-by-david.php
Sign up for my newsletter. https://www.subscribepage.com/j4c1o6
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavdBurnett
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidBurnett.Author/
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/David-Burnett//e/B0092SDNXM
Goodreads Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6579272.David_Burnett

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The Wrong Kind

The Wrong Kind

by Austin S. Camacho

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GENRE: Mystery

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BLURB:

A distraught woman hires private investigator Hannibal Jones to track down her daughter who has run away, trying to escape the homeless shelter life her mother has come to accept. When Hannibal finds Connie Blanco she is entwined in a gang war and somehow connected to a murder. The corpse is barely cold before a second murder follows and Hannibal finds himself entangled in a complex plot revolving around stolen drugs…but who is the mastermind of this twisted scheme?

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EXCERPT:

As Chico’s foot hit the first step he noticed Sophia for the first time. Just as his eyes met hers, Hannibal’s right foot thumped into Chico’s chest, slamming him back into the man whose jacket said he was Dave. Then Hannibal leaped from the porch, smashing his right fist across Billy’s jaw. A side stamp dislocated Jimmy’s right knee. Dave swung past Chico and clipped Hannibal’s cheek. Sophia gasped at the flesh-on-flesh sound of the blow.

Hannibal blocked the follow-up punch and snapped two crisp jabs into Dave’s face, staggering him into the tree growing up out of the sidewalk. Chico tried to slip past Hannibal, still driving for the door.

“Not tonight,” Hannibal said through clenched teeth. Sophia didn’t think Chico ever even saw the three punches, left-left-right that put him on his back, barely conscious. 

With no standing attackers, Hannibal stepped back up onto the porch. “That was fun, but now I’m running out of patience with you boys.” Hannibal reached inside his suit coat, under his right arm, and pulled out a pistol. He pointed its muzzle down at Chico’s face.

“There is nothing lower than a man who beats his woman, although anybody helping him is mighty close. I’d beat your asses some more, just for fun, but I don’t feel like answering questions at a hospital. Now, all of y’all, drag your sorry asses out of here. And if I ever hear you came back here, or if you tell anybody where this shelter is, I will hunt you down and end you.

A Word With the Author:

1.Did you always want to be an author?

I think I always wanted to be a storyteller. I love stories, and grew up surrounded by people who related even common events in a way that built suspense, sorted the characters into hero and villain roles, and had a strong payoff at the end. So I always wanted to do THAT, but I was in college before I realized that I wanted thousands of people to hear my stories – which meant becoming an author and being published.

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

After submitting manuscripts to just about every publisher I could find I decided to try it myself, to see if anyone wanted to read my work. In 1999 a company called Infinity was publishing through a brand new idea called Print on Demand so I put my first book out through this inexpensive self-publishing option.  Two years (and a published novel) later I met the publisher of Echelon Press at Book Expo America. She was impressed by my efforts to market my books and liked the books themselves, so Echelon became my publisher.

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

That’s a challenging question. My all time favorite mystery author is Raymond Chandler. His spectacular yet understated prose is just about as good as writing gets. I believe the best contemporary mystery writer is Dennis Lehane. Gone Baby Gone was the book that blew me away, but he has 9 or 10 other great novels out there. However, the “best” writer isn’t necessarily my favorite. The mystery writer whose work I most enjoy reading is Reed Farrel Coleman. With prose that’s almost poetry, no one has ever come so close to the flavor of Chandler’s work. It is a sheer joy to read him.

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

The best part of being an author is creating good prose. Nothing beats the joy I feel when it all works, the story comes together, the characters fit perfectly, and the story flows perfectly to a powerhouse finish. That’s why we do it – to tell a good story, and to tell it well. The worst part is surely the marketing aspect. Writing a novel is hard work, but writing a synopsis is just painful. Begging booksellers to carry your work, or let you sit in their store for a couple hours is degrading, mostly because the quality of your work doesn’t enter into that conversation at all. All that sells your books takes you away from the creative process you love.

5.What are you working on now?

My next novel of course.  There will certainly be more Hannibal Jones novels but, I’m taking a break from my private eye. My current work in progress is a novel about a character I created for a short story – Skye, an African American female professional assassin in Washington DC. She lives in the same universe as Hannibal Jones and in the still-forming manuscript she meets some of the minor characters In Hannibal’s  books. In the book she gets hired to kill a crime boss who is trying to pull the gangs in DC together into one cartel. It will be more thriller than mystery, but my readers will still like it.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Austin S. Camacho is the author of seven novels about Washington DC-based private eye Hannibal Jones, five in the Stark and O’Brien international adventure-thriller series, and the detective novel, Beyond Blue. His short stories have been featured in several anthologies including Dying in a Winter Wonderland – an Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Top Ten Bestseller for 2008. He is featured in the Edgar nominated African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey. Camacho is also editorial director for Intrigue Publishing, a Maryland small press.

https://www.facebook.com/austin.camacho.author/

https://www.amazon.com/Wrong-Kind-Hannibal-Jones-Mystery/dp/1940758971/

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

Austin S. Camacho will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Retaliation

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will award a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Sakota saved Astraeus and her friends from certain death, but in doing so, she gained the attention of the Oreck, who will stop at nothing to destroy everything in their path. With their ship severely damaged, Sakota and her crew land on a nearby planet and seek sanctuary while they make repairs to return home. But nothing on this perfect planet is as it appears, and Sakota soon learns they've traded one danger for another. Hunted and targeted, will Sakota be able to carry out her mission, or will everyone she cares about be destroyed?

Read an Excerpt

Sakota took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do it. We’re not going to survive if we don’t.” Hisoka and Tatiana turned around to man their consoles. She ate the last of her ration piece and slipped her hand into Astraeus’s. The escape pod reached the mouth of the black hole, then without warning, surged forward.

When Sakota was a child, long before Alistair rescued her from the orphanage in the squalid wasteland of London, the other children liked to play a game called Lights Out. In the main room where she bunked with fifteen other girls, a shaft of light streamed in from the hallway, in the same spot every night, like clockwork. The adult on night duty would check in once an hour and perform a headcount as they slept.

A few nights a week, a handful of the girls awakened and killed the hallway lights so they could scare and torture whomever they didn’t like among them. It was a powerful systematic lesson, however cruel. Sakota grew up knowing her place at the bottom rung of life. She’d never fit into the cookie-cutter type molding the upper-class girls had been bred for. She’d proved early on that she’d fight back with a vengeance when provoked, but she wasn’t certain which was worse; being preyed upon or listening to other girls’ pleas for help as she lay in the pitch-black room. The memory had stayed with her well into adulthood, as well as the countless times she could and should have stepped in to help instead of being crippled by primal fear and self-preservation. Children could be cruel. But the fear she’d experienced then was nothing, nothing, compared to being sucked into a black hole.

The escape pod whirled inside the conduit and pitched them around in a circle. They spun, at the mercy of inexhaustible energy along the black hole’s trajectory. Though she’d experienced raw fear when the Oreck had taken over the Sleipnir science vessel and killed everyone, this was different. Before, she at least had an idea what she was up against. Three razor-sharp talons emerging from claws didn’t lie. Being sucked into the black hole was like being an ant in a cyclone.

Astraeus squeezed her palm reassuringly. She turned and looked at him. They were both strapped in, tight.

Astraeus squeezed her hand. “Don’t be afraid.”

The speed of the escape pod amplified. Ribbons of light streamed past the windows like gossamer silk as the ship darted into unknown darkness. Sakota gritted her teeth. Oh, screw not acting afraid. She was terrified.

About the Author:

Haley Cavanagh is a military veteran, wife, and mother. She is an alumna of Columbia College, a musical theater nut, and she loves to dive into any book that crosses her path. Haley resides with her family in the United States and enjoys spending time with her husband and children when she’s not writing. She loves to hear from her readers, and encourages you to contact her via her website and social media.

Website: http://www.haleycavanaghbooks.com
Newsletter: https://haleycavanaghbooks.com/vip-readers-group/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/1769243778
Twitter: https://twitter.com/haley_cavanagh
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/haleycavanaghbooks/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ambitioushales/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42207961-astraeus

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082MB9VPV/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/retaliation-haley-cavanagh/1135488266
iTunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/retaliation/id1491106031
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/retaliation-20

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The author is also running a separate giveaway to celebrate the release of the book Enter here for a chance to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card and Autographed Paperback/Swag Bundle (ends January 15):

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