Re-Release Blitz + Giveaway: The Perils of Intimacy by Rick R. Reed

Author Rick R. Reed and IndiGo Marketing share re-release information about The Perils of Intimacy! Discover more about the contemporary romance and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: The Perils of Intimacy

Author: Rick R. Reed

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: February 3, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 63300

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, addiction, recovery, office worker, waiter, instalove, romance

Add to Goodreads

Synopsis

Mark believes he’s meeting Jimmy for the first time in the diner where he works, but he’s wrong. Mark has no recollection of their original encounter because the wholesome Jimmy of today couldn’t be more different than he was two years ago. Back then, Jimmy sported multiple piercings and facial hair. He was painfully skinny—and a meth addict. The drug transformed him into a lying, conniving thief.

Mark doesn’t associate the memory of a hookup gone wrong with this fresh-faced twenty-something… but Jimmy knows. Can Mark see Jimmy for the man he is now and not the addict he was? The answers depend on whether true love holds enough light to shine through the darkness of past mistakes.

Excerpt

The Perils of Intimacy
Rick R. Reed © 2020
All Rights Reserved

JIMMY

In romance novels, they call it meet-cute. If you’re not familiar with the term or even with romance novels for that matter, let me explain. Meet-cute is how our two protagonists, our star-crossed lovers, if you will, first encounter the other. It might involve an embarrassing moment, or some great coincidence, or something like a setup, or a blind date that goes horribly wrong and does not bode well for the future. See…it’s like there’s that day where everything changes, often in a funny way, and our two love interests begin their journey toward love.

You might look at how Marc Kelly and I met as a meet-cute experience. It went something like this:

Even though I’m a smart guy, at least I think so, I’ve never really had much in the way of education. High school diploma was about it. I always hated school and never did very well in it, which is why I currently wait tables at a little diner in the lower Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. I’ve been at Becky’s Diner a few years now, since I managed to get my life back in order. And I have to admit I like it. Becky’s is the kind of place alcoholics end up at 5:00 a.m. for an eye-opener and, if their stomachs can handle it, maybe a couple of greasy fried eggs and some bacon. It’s the kind of joint that’s been in Queen Anne since the Depression and still looks like it—scuffed black-and-white tile floors, dark walls, red leatherette booths, and stools at the counter, many of them patched with duct tape. On the other side of the joint is a bar that’s even darker—the drinks are strong, and we get a lot of regulars. The pinball machine over there pretty much goes untouched. Same with the TV, which is always tuned to some twenty-four-hours news crap with the sound turned off. No one watches it. Everyone’s too busy nursing their drinks. Anyway, I wait tables in the diner part.

And I find myself digressing away from my meet-cute. Maybe that’s because it wasn’t really a meet-cute, but it makes for a good story. And that’s what romances are all about, right? Good stories? At least on paper…

Anyhoo, about two weeks ago, this one guy comes in about seven, seven thirty. That day there hasn’t been much of a breakfast rush—we’re busier on the weekends—and I’m chilling behind the counter, checking Facebook on my phone. Marc, as I’d later find out his name, walks in, observes the Seat Yourself sign, and does just that—in the last booth at the rear. Right away, I see the guy is old school, as he spreads out an edition—paper, no less!—of the Seattle Times. He looks around expectantly.

I wipe my hands on my apron and approach, my order pad in hand.

I give him my trademark grin, the one I hope will coax big tips out of even the stingiest customers. “Hey there… mornin’! What are you in the mood for?”

He looks me up and down, a little smile twitching. I pick up on the gaydar, the attraction, and pause a little mentally because two things strike me almost simultaneously.

One: This guy is a good bit older than my twenty-three, maybe even by as much as fifteen or twenty years, but he’s a hottie. DILF! His salt-and-pepper hair is full, nicely cut, side part, with more salt than pepper. He sports—rocks—a little goatee that’s all salt. It perfectly frames cupid’s bow lips. How’s that for romance talk? But it’s his eyes that floor me—so dark the pupils just about get lost in them. They grip me. They hold me. They make me wanna quiver.

Two: There’s something about this dude that rings a bell. Not so much in the lust department, although that’s definitely there in spades, but in the area of “Have we met before?” Because, yeah, he looks familiar. I just couldn’t place him—at least not then.

We hold the look for a couple of seconds longer than the average waiter and customer would, and I can put my finger on this dance—it’s called flirting. Gives me the warm and fuzzies inside, except for that nagging feeling that I know him from somewhere.

And when you have a past like mine, you want to be careful with shit like that. Because I’ve not always been the best person, to say the least. Anyway, that’s something I’ve learned not to dwell on.

Can’t undo the past!

All that stuff took, like, thirty seconds to go down. The guy speaks, “I’ll have coffee and a cinnamon roll.”

I pull a pencil from behind my ear. Not sure I’ll need it, but just in case. “We’re all out of cinnamon rolls,” I say.

He grins, flips a page in the Times. Doesn’t look up at me as he says, “Okay, then. I’ll have tea.” He flips another page. “And a cinnamon roll.”

I chuckle. “We’re all out of cinnamon rolls.”

He nods and looks like he’s taking what I just put down to heart. “Okay, uh, how about a glass of milk and…a cinnamon roll.”

I shake my head. “Dude, I just told you—we’re all out of cinnamon rolls. Sold out during the breakfast rush. But I’ll tell you a little trade secret.” I lean close to his ear and notice a very nice aroma coming off him—something tangy, piney, and manly. “The cinnamon rolls come from the QFC off Mercer. You can buy a four-pack for what you pay for one here.”

“Okay,” he says, looking into my eyes with those killer dark eyes. Those lashes! Man! “Just bring me a cinnamon roll.”

I shake my head and then tuck the pencil back behind my ear. I start to head away, saying over my shoulder as I go, “You let me know when you’re ready.”

I can’t decide if the guy is a cornball, a total asshole, or incredibly charming. He’s probably a little of all three. And I feel a little flutter in my heart that tells me our little meet-cute encounter, which I’ve come to learn he lifted from some old public television kid’s show, means he has his hooks in me.

Smitten.

And yet there’s that nagging feeling I’ve met him somewhere before…and a darkness hides behind the notion that contradicts the fluttery feeling I get when I look at this hunk. In fact, that nagging recognition makes me a little sick.

It’ll come to me. Or it won’t. And something inside, a self-protective part maybe, hopes for the latter. They say ignorance is bliss, right?

He calls after me, “You do poached eggs? Runny?”

I turn. “We do anything. Two?”

He holds up two fingers and nods. “With coffee, no toast, no potatoes, fruit on the side if you got it.”

I jot down the order. “No cinnamon roll?”

He just laughs and begins reading the paper.

When is a meet-cute not a meet-cute?

When you’ve met before.

And my gut drops a couple of inches as I remember where I met him before.

I don’t want to go there. That was a different time. A different me. And there was nothing cute about it.

But I remember this guy because I felt something for him then. And I feel something for him now.

And it could never work.

Could it?

I watch from the corner of my eye as Cinnamon Roll, as I’ve dubbed him, downs his low-carb breakfast. How someone can eat poached eggs without any toast is beyond me, but it takes all kinds.

“You got a thing for him or what?” Matilda Blake, the other server on duty, whispers to me. She pauses just behind me with three plates balanced on two arms. I smell pancakes, bacon, and the sage aroma of sausage.

I turn a little to grin. “What?”

“Ah, don’t play innocent with me, Mister. I could see the lust in your eyes from fifty paces.”

I shrug. “Guilty. Maybe. A little.”

She laughs, and it’s a sound like a bell tinkling. Matilda doesn’t even reach five feet and probably doesn’t top ninety pounds, but she’s a workhorse like you wouldn’t believe. She has short, spiked blonde hair and numerous tattoos. On the weekends she plays in an all-girl metal band called Two Spirit. And in my head, I call her Tinker Bell, because that’s who she looks like to me. She takes off to serve her customers, but not without prompting me to “Go over and talk to him.”

I busy myself filling ketchup bottles and the salt and pepper shakers I’ve removed from empty tables, but I keep an eye on Cinnamon Roll. His food is gone and the newspaper’s been abandoned and he’s staring off into space. I shudder because I wonder if he’s recognized me and is thinking about our last encounter, a little over two years ago, at his place on Dexter Avenue.

But no, that couldn’t be possible, could it? I’m a different person now, inside and out. Back then I was twenty, twenty-five pounds lighter than my current one hundred and sixty-five. I had a septum piercing like Ferdinand the Bull. My hair, which is now cut high and tight and is reddish brown, was long back then, bleached blond, dirty, and tangled up in dreadlocks that reached down almost to my waist. My skin had, I’m sure, a pasty and unhealthy pallor.

That person doesn’t even exist anymore, and even though it’s only been two years, I look completely different today. He’s probably just thinking about his day or something.

Right?

I walk over to his table, a little nervous that he’d come to and look at me with an accusing glare. There’d be a scene. And maybe I’d end up getting fired or something. Thinking back to what I did to him, I deserve it.

But when I approach his table, all he does is smile. And that smile melts my heart. It did back then too. Just not enough to keep me from my desperate and dark ways.

“You need anything else?”

He looks down at his paper and back up at me. A blush rises to his cheeks, and I gotta say it—there’s nothing more adorable than this face staring up at me right now. He looks like he wants to say something, but all that comes out is “The check? I gotta get to work. If I don’t get out of here and on the bus, I’m going to be late.”

“Oh?” I cock my head. “What do you do?”

“You don’t want to know. Government contracts. Health care. Downtown. Websites, e-mail, so-called social media from a health-care perspective. Writing boring newsletters.” He laughs. “Not the astronaut I thought I’d be back in kindergarten.”

“Yeah. Well, I always dreamed I’d work in a diner. And look at me. Dreams do come true!” I tap my chest. “Living proof!” We stare at one another for a moment. My heart pounds for a variety of reasons, both sublime and shameful. “I’ll get your check.”

I turn and go to total up his modest bill. My hands are shaking just a tiny bit. There’s this dark shadow of shame hanging over me that I try my best to banish. I remind myself that shadows are made by light and that I should direct my thoughts toward the light, not the darkness.

I look over at him once more. He’s staring off into space again, and I take note of his clothes—the blue-and-white checked button-down shirt, the navy cardigan, the jeans with the rip in the knee of the left leg, the awesome wing tips, maroon and navy. He looks hipster professional. In the two years since I’ve seen him, he’s hardly changed a bit. A little grayer maybe, but essentially the same guy. I get a quick vision of a big black leather headboard, framed in dark wood. A box on the dresser containing valuables…

His name comes to me in full. Marc Kelly. Simple. Solid. Like him. A good guy who never deserved what I gave him.

I should leave him alone. I know I should. No good can come from this.

A little voice inside reminds me I’m a changed person, one who loves himself, and I shouldn’t beat myself up anymore. I should forgive myself and believe I’m deserving, especially now, of a man like this.

Still, it’s with a lot of qualms that I write, near the bottom of his eighteen dollars and sixty-five cents total, Jimmy Kilpatrick (206) 555-9407. I pause for a moment, thinking I should tear this ticket up and write a new one.

No. I put one foot in front of the other, walk over to him, and set it in front of him. “You can pay up front. Thanks for stopping by.”

I hurry away before he even has a chance to look down at the check or up at me. I head right through the kitchen and out the back door, where I stand outside by the dumpster in gray and drizzly February air and light up a smoke with shaking hands.

I think I have to release my wishes, to let them float away on the gray plume I exhale. I need to have faith—I remind myself—that everything will unfold just the way it should.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Meet the Author

Real Men. True Love.

Rick R. Reed draws inspiration from the lives of gay men to craft stories that quicken the heartbeat, engage emotions, and keep the pages turning. Although he dabbles in horror, dark suspense, and comedy, his attention always returns to the power of love. He’s the award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction and is forever at work on yet another book. Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” You can find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA, with his beloved husband, Bruce, and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix, Kodi.

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) by Rhys Ford

There are eight million stories in the City of Angels but only one man can stumble upon the body of a former client while being chased by a pair of Dobermans and a deranged psycho dressed as a sheep.

That man is Cole McGinnis.

Since his last life-threatening case years ago, McGinnis has married the love of his life, Jae-Min Kim, consulted for the LAPD, and investigated cases as a private detective for hire. Yet nothing could have prepared him for the shocking discovery of a dead, grandmotherly woman at his feet and the cascade of murders that follows, even if he should have been used to it by now.

Now he’s back in the dark world of murder and intrigue where every bullet appears to have his name on it and every answer he digs up seems to only create more questions. Hired by the dead woman’s husband, McGinnis has to figure out who is behind the crime spree. As if the twisted case of a murdered grandmother isn’t complicated enough, Death is knocking on his door, and each time it opens, Death is wearing a new face, leaving McGinnis to wonder who he can actually trust.

This is 100% a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”.

‘Back in Black’ is a book for the fans.

And it’s not that I disliked the original Cole McGinnis series - in fact, I quite enjoyed the audiobooks. But Cole and Jae-Min just aren’t my favourite Rhys Ford couple.

‘Back in Black’, and presumably the entirety of the new McGinnis Investigations series, is for those fans who would absolutely love to know what happens next.

Jae-Min and Cole’s story got the happy ending that they deserved in book 6 of the original series.

It had a finality to it - the two men had finally worked through their demons and gotten the answers that they needed to truly move forwards in life together.

So for me, ‘Back in Black’ started dragging pretty early on and never really picked up.

In particular, I was not at all a fan of the repetitive monologues and introspections on the same few parts of Cole’s life. Off the top of my head, Cole’s thoughts seem to mainly cycle through these topics on any given day:

• How loving Jae brought him back from the post-Rick brink
• How he and Jae had crappy families
• How he and Mike became better brothers
• How Bobby became a surrogate brother
• How Claudia became a surrogate mother

Again, these are all character and relationship dynamics that I’m sure fans of the series love and are more than happy to read about. But unfortunately, I just didn’t connect.

That being said - I did enjoy the mystery plot. I’m a fan of Rhys Ford’s brand. Give me all the explosions, gun fights, randomly-appearing corpses, and near-death scenarios you can throw at me!

The latest mess that Cole managed to get himself into was definitely entertaining.

Feel free to completely disregard this review, particularly for the superfans of Cole and Jae-Min. Your mileage may vary!

A review copy was provided.

Release Blitz + Giveaway: The Empires of Luxor City by Sasha Hope

Author Sasha Hope and IndiGo Marketing drop by to promote new release: The Empires of Luxor City! Learn more about the ABO urban fantasy and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: The Empires of Luxor City

Author: Sasha Hope

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: February 3, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 77400

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy, LGBT, futuristic, crime/thriller, family-drama, urban fantasy, alpha/omega, gangsters, criminal underworld, reunited, crossdressing, hurt/comfort

Add to Goodreads

Synopsis

In the aftermath of his father’s funeral, Dom Wesa, the new Alpha of Luxor City’s Central Empire, stumbles upon an Omega in desperate need of help. The Omega, Lin Vasiliev, wakes to find he’s been taken into Dom’s home to be rehabilitated. Dom thinks the young addict may have information about the illicit drug trade going on in his Empire. He gets Lin sober to question him only to discover that Lin is new in town and ignorant of Luxor’s laws.

Dom and Lin are both suspicious of each other at first for their own reasons, but as that wariness wears away a deep attraction develops between them. Dom dotes on Lin, leaving the once stone-broke Omega bathed in finery he never could have imagined. They start planning for Lin’s upcoming heat, when they will be driven together by their kindling bond and strong compatibility as an Alpha and Omega pair. However, in the midst of their swelling romance, Luxor’s most notorious Alpha reappears sparking a gang war that threatens to turn the entire city into a battleground.

Excerpt

The Empires of Luxor City
Sasha Hope © 2020
All Rights Reserved

There had never been fewer tears shed at a funeral.

It was strange. Crowds had wailed at funerals for worse men, but not a single soul in Luxor City wept for Malik Wesa, a business magnate who’d left behind a wife and two sons. They just stood there, all of them staring straight ahead with cold black eyes as the funeral director rolled the old man’s coffin into the crematory. Visible through a tiny char-stained window, the man who’d once been their leader burned down to ash and bone until there was nothing left of him but dust.

Shaking the image from his mind, Dom Wesa walked out through a wrought-iron fence and left the inner-city funeral home. He buried his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat and made his way back across the busy city streets toward his office on the east side of town.

A chill rolled off the water near the docks as the year moved into fall. Dom originally drove to the funeral home with the rest of the family, but he couldn’t bear to spend another second with them even if it meant enduring the icy wind.

When a family member dies, all too often they are given a whole new life story. This was a universal truth Dom struggled to wrap his head around. There weren’t any tears at his father’s funeral, but there were enough artificial words of kindness to make him grit his teeth and bite his tongue until his eyes watered.

They all loved to mention how hard things would be for Dom with his father gone; how much weight would now fall on his shoulders.

Dom wanted to laugh. He’d been running this town without his old man’s help for ages. The death of the man he had stopped calling father a long time ago wouldn’t change a thing in his day-to-day life; it just made his position more official. Dom was now the eldest Alpha of the Wesa family, one of the great crime families in Luxor City, the capital of New America.

Decades back, when the government’s power over New America first started to crumble, the gangs of Luxor City went to war, fighting for control over the expansive city’s lucrative ports. As Dom walked through the streets, he passed the remnants of that conflict in the form of bullet holes etched into brick walls that lined the sidewalks and boulevards. Luxor hadn’t always been a haven of prosperity. These wounds were stark reminders that they should not let war tear their city apart again. They’d been preserved during reconstruction.

After years of brutality and gangland warfare, the dust finally settled over the metropolitan battleground. Only three factions were left in a city divided by chaos. They brokered a peace treaty, a deal that divided Luxor into three Empires, each ruled firmly by the Alpha heads of the surviving crime families: Wesa in the Center, Faraji in the North, and Sun in the South.

Dom Wesa was the sole Alpha heir to the Central Empire, a great strip of land stretching from the high-rises along the city’s eastern ports all the way to the cliffs on the western coast. Their portion of city was the smallest, but the Center also included the West Island, the final stretch of green pasture and woodland in Luxor, a place where only the wealthiest families could afford acreage.

Sila Wesa, the family’s Omega matriarch, still maintained an estate there. She would probably return home once the ladder-climbing mourners all left her in peace. As an Omega, she was expected to stay home and mourn her Alpha’s death for at least a year. Dom hated thinking of her returning to that vast hollow estate, but she wouldn’t be alone. She had his younger brother, Atsadi, with her.

Maybe they could be happy there now, but Dom couldn’t stand the place.

He made his way to his portside office, the private sanctuary where he conducted the family business, far removed from his father’s offices across from the luxury hotels and nightclubs downtown. It was an old-fashioned Deco-style building, relatively small compared to Luxor’s expansive high-rises, but taller than the nearby brownstone residences lining the old dock’s edge.

Dom entered through the public hall and took the stairs to his office instead of his private elevator. He couldn’t stand still, not even for a minute, not until he got a drink in him.

His office took up most of the fifth floor. A large window lined the street-facing wall, giving him a view of his docks and businesses as well as the swaying blue horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

Ships pulled in and out, always coming and going. The ports were the center of all business in Luxor. They had been around since the city’s foundation and wrapped around the entire coastline, enclosing Luxor in a circle of docks extending out into the water like a sea urchin’s spikes. It was a well-known fact that he who controlled the ports, controlled the trade, and he who controlled the trade, controlled the city.

Dom was fond of the old portside architecture. He had always been keen on the brutalist, Deco styles of ancient cities. He even decorated his office to match with polished wood and geometric patterns of gold emblazoned on black surfaces.

Inside the familiar space he’d made his own, he poured himself a glass of whisky from a decanter on his side table. He took a good long swig before taking a seat in the plush leather chair behind his mahogany desk.

Sighing heavily, he closed his eyes until a quiet thud on his desk drew them open again.

A thin newssheet folded down the middle sat in the center of his desk. Images flashed across its holographic surface. Dom recognized himself, his brother, and his mother in more than one. Fucking paparazzi.

The Luxor City Times headline read: Death of Malik Wesa leaves Central Empire in hands of son, Dominik.

Dom stared at the paper with a deadpan expression. Unblinking, he took another sip of his drink.

“Somehow I figured you’d be back in the office today.”

Dom’s gaze shifted in the direction of the voice.

His right-hand woman, Isa Saqui, stood over his desk smirking down at him.

Isa had been Dom’s eyes and ears ever since terminal illness took his old man out of power and put Dom in charge. She was an Alpha, a member of the dominant sex, like everyone in his inner circle. Isa stood tall, a muscular and imposing woman with angular bone structure casting dramatic shadows over her olive skin. Her long hair was tied in an intricate brunette braid that fell over one shoulder.

Dom turned away from her and picked up the newssheet. Without giving it another glance, he tossed it back across the desk toward her.

“The headline is hilarious,” he muttered before taking another drink.

Isa chuckled as she snatched the thin device back up.

“Isn’t it?” she said as she examined the article. “I mean, it’s not even news. Your old man hadn’t been running shit for years.”

Dom huffed.

It was true. Even before his father’s illness, Dom had been in charge, but Malik’s stint in the hospital had truly put him in power. In under a year, he’d earned the city’s respect and made vast alterations throughout the Central Empire to counter his father’s ineffective rule. Dom had always been in control; nothing would change now Malik Wesa was gone.

“We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” Dom said, smiling around the rim of his glass.

“Then let’s talk business.” Isa grinned like a shark. “Because I haven’t got anything good to say about the old bastard. How was his funeral, by the way?”

Dom simply shrugged in response. “Let’s talk business.”

With another snort of a laugh, Isa pulled out her phone and started going over a list of the day’s imports. The ships had come in on time, and their guys on the docks were already warehousing their “product,” storing it until it could be shipped throughout Luxor.

“So, we finally received those luxury cars we’ve been waiting for, two weeks late, but that’s the Southern trade route for you. Same shipment had a few crates of unprocessed opium—”

Dom cut in with gritted teeth, “Make sure that goes straight to the labs. Apart from heat suppressants, I don’t want to see that shit on my streets.”

“Already done.” Isa hardly even glanced up from her phone. “The independent Omegas of Luxor are already thanking you. You truly are a hero, Dom, providing them with suppressants and saving them from their dreaded heats. Less mating means more working. Off your backs and on your feet. That can be your campaign slogan.”

Dom eyed Isa, trying to gauge her level of sarcasm before gesturing for her to carry on with a short huff of amusement.

“What else?”

“Firearms from the mainland,” Isa said before listing off the models and manufacturers. “About half of this shipment is being sold to the Sun family in the south. They’ve got an underground trade problem on their hands.”

In the south of Luxor City, the Sun family controlled the majority of the city’s ports, but only imported from the Second Continent, across the western seas. This made them an excellent trading partner for Dom whose eastern ports shipped to and from New America. Whenever the Southern Empire wanted products from the New American mainland, Dom was their man, and when he needed Second Continent shipments, he knew just who to ask.

“All right.” Dom stood from his chair, rubbing his hands together. “The agent from the Sun family will want to see the guns before we truck them over. I’ll call—” Dom stopped abruptly when a terse shout erupted from the streets below, loud enough to resonate through the glass window and into his fifth-floor office.

“What the hell was that?” Isa asked with a furrowed brow.

Dom walked over to glare out of the window. They were right above the lobby, so a glance down offered a clear view of the ground below.

Across the street, a young man stumbled along the sidewalk. Even from the distance, Dom could tell there was something off about him. He swayed with each step, unable to keep to a straight line and using one hand to balance himself against the wall of the opposite building to keep from falling over.

He disappeared into an alleyway, followed closely by another man. This much larger man was the one shouting furiously as he marched into the narrow passage after the boy.

Dom turned from the window and grabbed his coat. Without a backward glance, he stormed out of his office.

“Dom? Hey! What the hell was that?” Isa repeated as he passed. She tried calling after him again, but he was already out of the door.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Meet the Author

Sasha Hope is a lover of story, art and design based in Canada. As a writer and an artist, she enjoys having the opportunity to create new characters and build new worlds for readers to explore. Having studied linguistics and a myriad of languages from a young age, she is passionate about including characters of different backgrounds in her work. Whether the setting is fantasy or reality, she believes that a diverse cast with diverse languages and cultures is a wonderful thing.

Crafting stories that embrace MM romance and erotica is her modus operandi. When she is not creating new worlds she is travelling this one looking for inspiration or enjoying her career in the videogame industry.

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr | Pinterest

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Release Blitz + Giveaway: To the Flame by A.E. Ross

Welcome author A.E. Ross and IndiGo Marketing as they celebrate the release of To the Flame. Learn more about the paranormal LGBTQIA+ story and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: To the Flame

Author: A.E. Ross

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: February 3, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: M/NB

Length: 20900

Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+, nonbinary, mythical creatures/cryptids, college, psychic ability, paranormal

Add to Goodreads

Synopsis

Seattle boy Emerson Oakley is about to find that the strangest thing about his first year at West Virginia’s Vance University isn’t the neighbor in the next dorm over, who ghosts him after one kiss. It’s the fact that he keeps having his life saved by a stranger who seems to know about each accident before it happens.

Morrie Crisp, whose moth-person powers finally emerged at the most inconvenient time, is just trying to figure out how to deal with their crush on the boy next door, and all the different ways they’ve seen him die.

As Emerson tries to get to the bottom of who his pre-cog savior could be, his relationship with Morrie becomes extra complicated as their undeniable attraction to one another becomes a liability to both. Even as Morrie struggles to keep Emerson safe, Emerson is intent on igniting the fire between them, into which Morrie is naturally drawn.

What is a reasonable response to falling in love when the world itself is without reason? Unfortunately, neither one of them has any idea.

Excerpt

To the Flame
A.E. Ross © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Emerson

October 7th, 2019

With the sound of the school radio’s late-night show in his ears, Emerson Oakley pulled his wool-lined jacket more tightly around his broad frame and threw dirty looks at any shadows he passed, mean-mugging at would-be creatures waiting out there in the dark. Overhead, the campus clock chimed midnight, its toll reaching long and deep into the West Virginia night. Emerson clutched a stack of textbooks tightly under one arm, his free hand gripping the strap of his rucksack. By October, the school’s grounds had become a world of swirling fog. Frost was just beginning to lick at the blades of grass sitting neatly in between the cobbled walkways. The paths crisscrossed campus like a foursquare game. Just last month they had been full of hacky-sacking upperclassmen.

As a born and bred Seattle boy, Emerson was used to the sparkling mist that filled Puget Sound in spring, but the autumn weather in Appalachia was a different phenomenon altogether. It hung low, filling his nose and throat with damp cold as he made his way back to his dorm beneath flicking streetlights. His fingers were beginning to numb just a few steps in.

A loud crack rang out behind Emerson, causing him to jump a couple inches in surprise before turning around to see dazzling colors light up the sky. Some freshmen were letting off fireworks, probably to celebrate their newfound freedom to make bad decisions. The illegal rainbow starbursts snapped and popped in the sky over the astronomy building.

After reaching into his pocket, Emerson turned up the volume on his phone, letting the pop-punk singer’s smooth voice drown out any more unwanted jumpscare fodder. The song began to fade out as he crossed out of the quad and into the parking lot. His dorm was just on the other side of the empty gray stretch of pavement, and he could already see the golden glow from his next-door-neighbor’s room. He couldn’t hear the pounding bass that they loved to blast from morning to night, but he’d be in range soon enough. There was a reason he spent every night studying in the library instead of his dorm room. He didn’t know too much about the kid next door, but there were two things he knew for sure: they went by Morrie, and they fucking loved EDM turned up to 11.

“You’re listening to WVUX 69.1, The Voice of Vance. That was local band Rubric with their latest hit, ‘Risk Reward.’” The late-night host jumped in with perfect timing, his tone smooth as silk. As he continued with a recap of the week’s news, something flickered at the edge of Emerson’s vision. As he snapped his neck to the right, his breath caught in his throat. For a split second, he was certain he saw a dark shape on the roof of the nearest dorm building. The three-story brick building, Gryphon House, happened to be one of the earliest built on campus and was probably haunted, or at least that’s what the orientation tour guide had said. Of course, the guide was a bored junior, so he easily could have been making it up. Emerson was sure he had glimpsed…something. The large dark shape with flickering edges, host to two glowing red orbs that, ideally, were not eyes—or were eyes the better option?

Biting his chapped lip, Emerson turned away and kept walking, trying to focus on the words coming from his earbuds. “So, if you want to use the pool, you’re just going to have to wait until it’s been emptied and disinfected…for your own good. Oh, and one more thing—Emerson Oakley, watch your step,” the voice said just before another indie-punk hit began to play, coming in strong with the snare.

Emerson jerked his head up so hard his neck wrenched painfully. Scanning the empty parking lot, he took two nervous steps back. Just then, another colorful crack rent the sky above him, followed by a low whistle. It was the sound of a snapped power line slicing through the air and landing half-submerged in the puddle where he had been standing one second earlier.

Eyes wide, Emerson put a hand to his chest, a tight rush of anxiety beginning to cloud his brain in a familiar way. Music still pounding in his ears, he stared at the small sparks coming off the black wire. If he hadn’t taken those two steps back, he’d be fried. Panic rising in his throat, he let his logical pre-med brain take over and called campus security to let them know about the potential danger before continuing on to his dorm. This time, the music in his ears was drowned out by his own heartbeat as he swiped his key card and hustled up the stairs to the third floor.

Once he got into his room, the thump of his chest was drowned out by the heavy bass of Morrie’s EDM playlist. He basically knew the track listing by heart at this point. In a way, it was a comfort as he tried to get a grip on what had just happened. It was strange enough to get a cryptic warning from the college radio station, but he was certain that the warning had come seconds before the fireworks had actually hit the power line, assuming that was what had caused it to snap and swing into the puddle at his feet. How they could have called that shot, he had no idea. Emerson was pretty sure that the radio station was on the other side of campus.

He wriggled out of his heavy coat and flannel then stripped down to a sweat-soaked tee and gray boxer-briefs. It was hard not to think about what had just happened. He could have been deep-fried, his body burnt up and smelling like the hot dogs that the power company used to electrocute as an elementary school safety demonstration. Emerson ran his hands over his whole body just to make sure it was still there. He had always been barrel-chested with a soft, round stomach. Okay, he could admit he had a bit of an apple bottom as well, but he loved his body. If he had gotten his body fried up in a freak firework accident…well, he’d be dead and pretty upset about it. Sitting down on his worn forest-green patchwork quilt, he tried to sync his breathing to the rave beats from next door the way he’d learned in therapy.

Inhale.

Hold.

Exhale.

Hold.

He lay back on his bed and repeated that routine for several minutes until the fight-or-flight feeling flowed out of him and a reasonable calm remained. After grabbing his towel and toiletries, Emerson slipped out his door and down the hall to the bathroom. He did his best thinking in the shower, and boy, did he need a second to decompress.

The most important thing about the dorm bathroom was not to focus on the floor. If you did, it was over. All kinds of weird shit got caught in the grout that lined the beige tiles between cleanings, and it was honestly better if you could just keep your head on a swivel and ignore it altogether.

The second-most-important thing about the dorm bathroom was not to focus on anybody else either. To be fair, that had been Emerson’s modus operandi in every shared shower room he’d ever used: junior-high gym class, JV football, the YMCA pool. But it was especially vital now that he was in a university with all-gender facilities. He was proud of Vance Uni for living in the twenty-first century, and the last thing he wanted to do was make anyone feel weird or unwanted. That said, the scene was deserted, so he turned the water on as hot as it could go and divested himself of his earthly garments. The good burn of too-hot water relaxed his shoulder muscles, despite the shitty water pressure.

With a clear head, he convinced himself that there was surely a reasonable explanation for the DJ’s timely omen. Though, even if there was, it still didn’t do anything to ease his mind about the strange shape atop Gryphon House, which was still stuck in his mind.

After fluffing his hair dry and slinging a towel around his waist, Emerson made his way back down the hall to his room, just in time to cross paths with the Ghost of Electronica. Morrie was trying to unlock their door with a slice of pizza in one hand and a two-liter of soda wedged under their armpit. Emerson walked past and avoided glancing directly at Morrie, feeling irritated that they left their music playing even when they weren’t in the dang room. Or at least, that’s what he told himself. Certainly, his animosity for Morrie was all about the volume of their music and absolutely not about the way they:

1. Wore those tight black skinny jeans with the knee-baring holes, and
2. Hadn’t spoken to him once since that kiss during Orientation Week.

Obviously, neither of those things factored into the equation at all, and it was definitely not true that either of those two things ever made it harder to sleep than the pounding of a drum machine.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Meet the Author

A.E. Ross lives in Vancouver, B.C. with one very grumpy raincloud of a cat. When not writing fiction, they can be found producing and story-editing children’s cartoons, as well as producing & hosting podcasts like The XX Files Podcast. Their other works have appeared on Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Netflix (and have been widely panned by 12-year-olds on 4Chan) but the projects they are most passionate about feature LGBTQIA+ characters across a variety genres.

Website | Instagram | Tumblr

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Release Blitz: Candy Hearts (So Over the Holidays #2) by Erin McLellan

Interested in a sexy Valentine's novella? Author Erin McLellan and A Novel Take PR visit with the Candy Hearts (So Over the Holidays #2) release blitz. Learn more about the erotic romance today!

Candy Hearts by Erin McLellan

Series: So Over the Holidays #2

Publisher: Erin McLellan

Release Date (ebook): Feb. 3, 2020 

Length: 50k word

Subgenre: contemporary romance, holiday romance, erotic romance

Warnings: explicit sex and language

Order now: https://smarturl.it/candyheartskindle

Book blurb:

Mechanic Benji Holiday is so over Valentine’s Day and men who don’t get him. A weekend getaway with friends to escape the holiday hubbub is exactly what he needs. But William O’Dare—a stern and silent nightclub owner with “Be My Valentine” practically stamped on his forehead—throws a wrench into Benji’s plans.



William has spent years focused on his career, and it has cost him friendships and love. Inexperienced in the business of romance, he’s on the hunt for the perfect partner, and he’s armed with specific criteria to guide him. But William didn’t expect a hunky mechanic wrapped in satin and lace to show up on his doorstep.



Unable to resist their attraction, Benji and William agree to be secret fake valentines for the weekend, but secrets have a way of getting out. William gets struck by Cupid’s arrow, and as the weekend winds down, he doesn’t want fake or secret. He wants Benji to be his valentine for real and for keeps.



Candy Hearts is a male/male Valentine’s Day novella featuring a house party power outage, meddling friends and siblings, naughty lingerie and naughtier toys, homemade Valentine’s Day cards, and a happily ever after.

Praise for Candy Hearts: 

I highlighted the holy heck out of this freaking amazing book.



Eloquent, I know, but damn. Erin McLellan's Candy Hearts sent me into a sugar high with how much I loved it! My recommendation? Read it. - Michaelene, reviewer



***



I loved everything about this story and can’t wait to read more of this author’s work....although I’m worried nothing will come close to the love I have for Benji and William and all their quirks and kinks. LOVE.  - Kate Olson, reviewer



***



Erin McLellan keeps delighting me with these queer holiday romance novellas. Candy Hearts is perfect for those who maybe kind of hate to love Valentine's Day but would absolutely embrace it with their own sexy "fake Valentine". - B and her books, reviewer

Teaser:

Benji’s legs were covered in black filmy stockings, and he was wearing a long silky navy T-shirt with a loose open neck. A nightie, William’s brain provided out of nowhere. The getup wasn’t that revealing, but William about swallowed his tongue regardless. He couldn’t wait to feel the cool silk under his fingertips. To lift the shirt slowly up Benji’s body, unveiling him bit by bit.



In the dancing candlelight, the silk looked like moving water and Benji’s legs looked a mile long and the sex toys scattered next to him looked like …



Holy shit, sex toys. So many sex toys.

Mini Q&A with Erin McLellan: 

Book two in Erin McLellan’s phenomenal So Over the Holidays series is out on February 3 and it will feature a game of sexy Spin the Bottle, secret boyfriends, naughty toys and even naughtier lingerie combined with the magic of Valentine’s Day! Candy Hearts is already wowing readers and Erin is here to talk about the book to celebrate its release! Take it away, Erin!



Can you share with us something about the book that isn’t in the blurb?



One of the highlights of writing this book was being able to craft a tight queer friend group of people in their thirties. This friend group might not see each other all that often or even talk all the time, but they love each other and are there for each other. It was a joy to write.



Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?



Benji Holiday definitely has a special place in my heart. He has a history of allowing other people, especially romantic partners, to shape who he is rather than being his authentic self. This book is about him taking that control back. He’s complicated and complex and weird. It was great fun crafting a hero worthy of him.



What is the future for the characters? Will there be a sequel?



I already have Book 3 in the So Over the Holiday Series planned. It is titled Bottle Rocket and will be Rosie Holiday’ (the last Holiday sibling) book. Benji and William, as well as Sasha and Perry (from Stocking Stuffers) will make appearances. I’m sure Benji, Sasha, and Rosie will have an emergency brunch at some point.



About the author: Erin McLellan is the author of several contemporary romances, all of which have characters who are complex, goodhearted, and a little quirky. She likes her stories to have a sexy spark and a happily ever after. Originally from Oklahoma, she currently lives in Alaska and spends her time dreaming up love stories set in the Great Plains. She is a lover of chocolate, college sports, antiquing, Dr Pepper, and binge-worthy TV shows.




Connect with Erin:




Facebook Group: https://smarturl.it/ErinMcLellansFBGroup



Newsletter: https://smarturl.it/mclellannewsletter



Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erinmclellanwrites/



Twitter: https://twitter.com/emclellanwrites



Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorerinmclellan/



Website: https://www.erinmclellan.com



Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/erin-mclellan



Website: https://smarturl.it/erinmclellan

Review: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf, #4) by Charlie Adhara

Agent Cooper Dayton and his partner, Oliver Park, are going undercover—at a retreat for couples who need counseling. They do say the best cover story is one that’s close to the truth…

Agent Cooper Dayton is almost relieved to get a phone call from his former boss at the Bureau of Special Investigations. It means a temporary reprieve from tensions created by house hunting with Oliver Park, his partner both in work and in life. Living together in a forever home is exactly what Cooper wants. He’s just not keen on working out the details.

With a former alpha werewolf missing, Cooper and Park are loaned to the BSI to conduct the search at a secluded mountain retreat. The agents will travel to the resort undercover…as a couple in need of counseling.

The resort is picturesque, the grounds are stunning and the staff members are all suspicious as hell.

With a long list of suspects and danger lurking around every cabin, Cooper should be focusing on the case. But he’s always been anxious about the power dynamics in his relationship with Park, and participating in the couples’ activities at the retreat brings it all to the surface. A storm is brewing, though, and Cooper and Park must rush to solve the case before the weather turns. Or before any more guests—or the agents themselves—end up dead.

Follow Agents Dayton and Park’s romance from the beginning. Read the first book in the Big Bad Wolf series, The Wolf at the Door, available now from Carina Press!

This book is approximately 84,000 words

One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

For a series that I started off so-so on it sure has turned around. Now it's Sophie's Choice difficult to say whether this one or Thrown to the Wolves is my favorite. Luckily I don't have to choose!

Charlie Adhara has built these characters from the ground up, made them not just multi-dimensional but shown their growth as characters, specifically Cooper. He and Park make each other a better version of themselves which is something that appeals to me as a romance reader.

While they have always had an almost elemental chemistry with one another, the longer they are together, the closer they become, the more they trust each other deepens and enriches that chemistry oftentimes in creative and delightfully depraved ways. Evidenced here in the power dynamic between them which is wholly unique and captivating, something I've never experienced before. Though not to be undersold is their banter. The connection they share has fostered the comical and droll aspects of their personalities and allowed that playfulness to shine.

Lastly, this case not only kept me guessing til the end but the whole alpha thing I found both surprising and fascinating. 

I'm so grateful I didn't give up on Cooper and Park because they have turned into one of my favorite couples, so I was thrilled to learn there will be another installment in 2021!

Get your popcorn ready, people! Prepare to be entertained, maybe be a bit puzzled from time to time and for the swooning.

Highly recommended especially to fans of the series and if you haven't yet started it, what are you waiting for?

An ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Blog Tour + Giveaway: Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) by Rhys Ford

Rhys Ford visits on the Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) blog tour! She shares a special gift with this tour for her readers: a serialized short story, Nothing Else Matters. Read part 6, listen to narrator Greg Tremblay's "slice of cake" and enter in the awesome giveaway - win $25 USD gift certificate to your online store of choice!

Take it away, Rhys!

Hello! And thank you for joining the Back in Black Blog Tour! My name is Rhys Ford and I will be your guide through this serialized short story featuring Cole McGinnis and his trip to the altar. Hit each blog stop for the next bit of the story AND as a special bonus, Greg Tremblay has narrated each “slice of cake” on this wedding tour!

As some of you know, Cole McGinnis is a former LAPD detective who found love again in a romance suspense series called the Cole McGinnis Mysteries or as I call it, the Dirty Series. It is there he meets and falls in love with Kim Jae-Min, a Korean photographer with a few secrets of his own and a tiny black cat with an attitude. I left Cole and Jae in quite a happy place five years ago in Los Angeles with a promise to come back and “reboot” Cole’s life in a mystery series.

(You can find the first series here at Dreamspinner Press, including a special free bonus collection of shorts in both ebook and audiobook format)
https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/cole-mcginnis-mysteries-6335-s

If you’ve already met Cole, well then I am happy to announce he’s back and well, while things are a little bit different… and he’s a hair older… his life is still as insanely jam-packed with action and more than few mysteries to figure out. All of the old gang is back along with a few new faces and I hope you all enjoy Back in Black as much as I enjoyed writing it.

And as if Cole wasn’t fun enough to write, Greg Tremblay is back as Cole McGinnis in the upcoming audiobook which is supposed to be out on Feb 13th! If you aren’t a part of my Facebook group or follow me on social media, please be sure to find me to learn about any future stuff. Because 2020 is going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

As always, there is a giveaway! Please enter in rafflecopter for this blog's giveaway - ends February 9th 12AM EST. Please enter to win a $25 Gift Certificate to the online store of your choice!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


§

Nothing Else Matters: Part Six
Audio Snippet Link: https://rhysford.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/pt6_bib_wedding.mp3


“You ready to do this, little brother?”

If I wasn’t so nervous, I’d have mocked Mike calling me little. He’d inherited some stocky Japanese ancestor’s build and features, including a bristle of hair no amount of product could tame. I’d lost my other best man, Bobby to his husband, hopefully to check on if there was enough wrapping paper for Jae’s gift. Mo’s wife whose name I knew quite well appeared to have fallen into a bubble of amnesia for me because at the exact moment she offered to take care of it, everything I knew about her, her family and possibly the alpaca she’d rescued out of a raging river in Peru slipped from my brain.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t for the life of me remember my niece’s name either but I wouldn’t have to really worry about that until after the ceremony although I did grunt approvingly at her fluffy princess dress when she and Mad Dog came by to show off her rose-petal scattering skills.

I didn’t even know we were going to have scattered rose petals.

Hell, if it wasn’t for Mike, I wouldn’t have even been sure I’d made it to the right place.

“Why the hell am I nervous?” I paced about, feeling the carpet tickle the soles of my feet. Staring down, I realized my pinky toes were tucked right into the curve of the one next to it, something I hadn’t noticed before. “Why are my feet naked? Did you know my feet were naked? I’m commando right now.”

“Cole, come here.” Mike held his hand out to me then grabbed my wrist when I stared at his fingers as if I’d never seen them before. “You need to breathe. You’re about to pass out.”

Easy for him to say. He had working lungs and was already married.

I said as much as soon as my ass hit the chair in the room they’d given us as a place to get ready for the wedding.

“Suppose I screw this up, Mike?” There were wasps buzzing about in my head, unsettling my thoughts. On the other side of the expanse, tucked away in a room similar to the one we were in, Jae probably was asking his friend Ivo if he was doing the right thing by marrying me. “Jae’s… he helped me find myself again. Without him—”

“You two found each other,” my brother said, sliding a nearby ottoman over to sit on. After parking himself in front of me, Mike grabbed at my right foot, lifting it up to work a sock over my toes. “Shut up and listen to me because I know you’re losing it right now because you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared about marrying him,” I refuted, exhaling hard enough for my chest to hurt. “Hell, I think I fell in love with him the moment I saw him.”

“You fell in lust. Which isn’t a bad thing because if anyone needed to get his blood pumping again, it was you, little brother.” Mike tugged the sock up then grabbed my other foot. “It took you a bit longer to fall in love and I had some worries about him. Don’t punch me in the face. Because I know you’re thinking about it. But the day Jae told Dad to go fuck himself — that time at my house — I knew he was the one you needed in your life. So, since I have you here, and our father’s a piece of crap not worth the stamp to even tell him you’ve found happiness, I guess it’s up to me to tell you about what you need to know about being married.”

§

Back in Black
There are eight million stories in the City of Angels but only one man can stumble upon the body of a former client while being chased by a pair of Dobermans and a deranged psycho dressed as a sheep.

That man is Cole McGinnis.

Since his last life-threatening case years ago, McGinnis has married the love of his life, Jae-Min Kim, consulted for the LAPD, and investigated cases as a private detective for hire. Yet nothing could have prepared him for the shocking discovery of a dead, grandmotherly woman at his feet and the cascade of murders that follows, even if he should have been used to it by now.

Now he’s back in the dark world of murder and intrigue where every bullet appears to have his name on it and every answer he digs up seems to only create more questions. Hired by the dead woman’s husband, McGinnis has to figure out who is behind the crime spree. As if the twisted case of a murdered grandmother isn’t complicated enough, Death is knocking on his door, and each time it opens, Death is wearing a new face, leaving McGinnis to wonder who he can actually trust.

Purchase Back in Black at Dreamspinner, Amazon (Globally) and other online book stores:
Dreamspinner Press (https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/back-in-black-by-rhys-ford-11514-b)
Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Back-Black-McGinnis-Investigations-Book-ebook/dp/B07YZLRMPG)
Back in Black Audiobook can be preordered here: https://www.amazon.com/Back-Black-McGinnis-Investigations-Book-ebook/dp/B07YZLRMPG

About Rhys Ford

Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMBDA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.

She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Harley, a grey tuxedo with a flower on her face, Badger, a disgruntled alley cat who isn’t sure living inside is a step up the social ladder as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.

Rhys can be found at the following locations:
Blog: www.rhysford.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author
Facebook Group: Coffee, Cats, and Murder: https://www.facebook.com/groups/635660536617002/
Twitter: @Rhys_Ford

For more information and to keep track of his upcoming releases, visit Greg Tremblay at: https://gregtremblay.com/

Audiobook Review: Promises: Part 1 (Bounty Hunters #1) by A.E. Via

Duke Morgan owns and operates one of the largest bail bond companies in Atlanta. Not only does he bond criminals out of jail, he and his notorious group of bounty hunters will also track them down and ensure they show up for court.

Roman ‘Quick’ Webb is Duke’s business partner and best friend. Both men are in their forties and have given up on the happily ever after with the ranch-style home, and white picket fence. They’d both tried it and failed miserably. But they have their friendship and they have the business.

When Quick’s son, Vaughan Webb returns – after seven years - from studying abroad with his law degree in hand, he’s back to claim what he’s always wanted…his fathers’ best friend… Duke Morgan. Vaughan has always claimed to be a classic gentleman with an old soul. He didn’t party and screw up in school like his buddies. He was focused and dedicated to becoming the man worthy of Duke’s love.

It’s a complex and messy situation as Duke and Quick figure out how to still be best friends when one of them is sleeping with his friend’s one and only son. But when Duke is hurt on the job, all the unimportant trivialities fall to the wayside and Vaughan and Quick put their heads together to save Duke.

Part I of the Promises story is about Duke and Vaughan and DOES NOT end on a cliffhanger. Part II is about Quick and Dr. Chauncey and their realization that it’s not too late for any of them to find love.

Listening Length: 7 hrs 31 min
Narrator: Aiden Snow

Reviewer: Shee Reader

This is the first story in a new series, but there are some common characters with The Nothing Special Series. I adore AE Via’s writing, she does Alpha Male Law Enforcement like no one else. They are all huge hulking men who rule the streets, so I was super excited to get the chance to review this one.

I absolutely love love love audio books, and Aiden Snow’s narration is perfect for the macho guys AE comes up with. This book should therefore be the perfect trifecta, but there are some elements that made me feel a bit strange. Vaughan has been ‘in love’ with Duke for years (so we are told) and *I know* the blurb tells us all about the secrets, but I found the secret-keeping a bit controlling and worrying. Aside from that little niggle, I really loved it.

Duke is a super alpha-male bounty hunter. Vaughan is the much younger, lawyer son of Duke’s best Friend Quick. This is an excellent premise for a romance novel. All the better that Vaughan’s love has been kept a secret from Duke until Vaughan is a grown man that Duke will accept. Vaughan takes himself off to study and work overseas until he thinks Duke it ready.

I get it, but the lack of any communication for years and years felt a bit odd. Anyhoo, Vaughan has accepted a job with the DA’s office in Atlanta and he’s ready to make his move. Poor old Duke was a bit wrong footed by Vaughan’s very full-on seductive approach, which isn’t really surprising since he hadn’t been a party to all the falling in love, unrequited longing etc, etc.

Unfortunately on the day of the first date, Duke is attacked on the job and is in hospital with life threatening injuries. Up-steps Vaughan with the “solution” to all the problems but Duke must never know! I didn’t like all the withholding of information, but could understand Vaughan’s reasons, but it felt even more unhealthy that Duke’s best friend Quick was involved in the subterfuge.

Back at the romance, lies abound until someone inadvertently tells Duke a key bit of information. Without risk of spoilers, there is a teeth-achingly sweet HEA as required, and good communication does eventually get the guys on a firm footing. There also is a splendid set up for the next book in the series which I cannot wait for!

The narration is stellar, and so perfect for the story.

Recommended!

I was given free copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.