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Summer Kisses (Kiss Me Book 2) by Charlie Novak: RB, Exclusive Excerpt, New Release Review and Giveaway

July 19, 2021 by Denise

Aaron’s Plan
Then:
1. Get a better job
2. Learn more skills
3. Get money for restaurant
4. Don’t fall in love with Josh

Now:
1. Finesse menu
2. Stop being angry at Josh
3. Swear less (Ben’s idea)
4. Stop wanting to kiss Josh
5. Get Michelin stars
6. Stop being in love with Josh

Josh’s Plan
Then:
1. Start new job
2. Try not to burn out
3. Don’t fall in love with Aaron
4. Seriously. Don’t. It will only end badly…

Now:
1. Survive the summer
2. Get a new job?
3. Don’t get involved with Aaron again
4. Don’t think about kissing him
5. Don’t think about his smile
6. Don’t think about how much you still love him

Summer Kisses is a 78,000-word contemporary MM romance featuring two chefs with a complicated history, clashing egos, cheese toasties, and two summers that will change everything. It is part of the Kiss Me series and can be read as a standalone.

Content Warning: This novel contains mentions of drug use and issues of alcohol abuse.

Amazon – Kindle Unlimited

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Aaron POV

Ten minutes later we staggered out of the shop, weighed down with several bags.

“Shall we go back?” Josh asked.

“You just want to try your new grape drink,” I said with a wry smile.

“There’s nothing wrong with grape.” Josh nudged me playfully as we walked along Goose Gate. “You keep saying I whine about mushrooms, but I’ve never heard someone bitch so much about a drink flavour.”

I shrugged and grinned. “Do as I say, not as I do.”

“Fuck off.”

“I can if you want, but I’m taking the dumpling stuff with me.”

“Remind me why I like you again?”

“I didn’t think you did.”

“That’s true. I don’t,” Josh said. His smile was so wide it made my chest ache, a storm of emotions threatening to overtake me. Why had we resisted this for all those years?

We dragged everything back to the flat, and I left Josh to unpack while I made a quick trip to the Tesco Express around the corner to grab some chicken. When I got back, Josh slid the orange-flavoured Charmander drink across to me.

“Where do we start?” he asked.

“First,” I said, cracking the tab and taking a long sip. It was sweet and not quite what I’d been expecting, but in a good way. “We need music.”

I grabbed my phone, hooking it up to the old Bluetooth speaker that perched on the edge of one of the shelves. I grinned, putting my playlist on shuffle, and waiting to see Josh’s reaction when the first song came on. I’d always had eclectic musical taste, from death metal to chart-topping pop, but I thought most people associated me more with the former.

Josh stared at me as the familiar beat line of “Shake It Off” kicked in, his mouth falling open. “Seriously? Taylor Swift?”

I shrugged, taking another sip of my drink. “Don’t diss Taylor. She’s awesome.”

“You know,” he said, leaning in to give me a kiss, “every time I think I’ve got you figured out, you surprise me.”

Since discovering Charlie Novak, her books are an auto-read for me. Funny, snarky, sexy with interesting characters who aren’t cookie cutter style.

This is book 2 (easily a stand alone) and I did really enjoy it. We met Josh and Aaron is book 1- they are chefs where Patrick is a pastry chef. Seeing the friendship between Aaron and Patrick even more was a delight.

The book goes back in time to when Josh and Aaron first met and wanna be chefs in London. Their flame burned bright and fast and came to a crashing halt one night. That was when all of Aaron’s secrets came to light.

They didn’t see each other for a while and are faced with each other again in a new restaurant. Cooking together. Over the span of several years, we see the animosity between them. But really, they just wanted each other.

Aaron was a total jerk during those years. Josh pretty much saved his life by walking away and Aaron treated him like crap. Yanno, until THAT NIGHT.

They can’t keep their hands off of each other now. But they never really talked about what all went down before. Instead, they just had more sex. And honestly, I almost think there was too much sex in the book. That’s saying something for me. I would have liked to see them mature more together, grow together. Which they do, but so.much.sex.

This story was a little different from previous with the alcohol abuse and drug use. Although that part of the story was told well and compassionately. And mixing angst with snark is one of my favorite things. But I needed more. They went from boiling hot to ice cold to boiling hot again. No gradual rise in temperature.

I still highly recommend. I love books set in restaurants that really show the reality of working back of the house. And I REALLY want Ben’s story…

4 pieces of eye candy

Charlie lives in England with her husband and a dachshund named Biscuit. She spends most of her days wrangling other people’s words in her day job and then trying to force her own onto the page in the evening.

She loves cute stories with a healthy dollop of fluff, plenty of delicious sex, and happily ever afters — because the world needs more of them. Charlie also believes that loves comes in all shapes and sizes.

Charlie has very little spare time, but what she does have she fills with cooking, pole-dancing, reading and ice-hockey. She also thinks that everyone should have at least one favourite dinosaur…

Connect with Charlie:

Website: https://charlienovak.com/
Newsletter https://charlienovak.com/newsletter-sign-up/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/charlienovakauthor/
Bookbub https://www.bookbub.com/profile/charlie-novak
Twitter https://twitter.com/charlienwrites
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/charlienwrites/
Facebook Group, Charlie’s Angels https://www.facebook.com/groups/charlienovaksangels/

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Fractured Souls (Fallen Messengers, Book 1) by Ava Marie Salinger: RB, Exclusive Excerpt, Release Day Review and Kick A$$ Giveaway

July 19, 2021 by Denise

Humans are dying in San Francisco. The most shunned angel on Earth may very well hold the key as to why…

When Cassius Black moves to San Francisco for a fresh start, the angel’s hopes of staying below the radar of the supernatural organizations that oversee the otherworldly and magic users in the city are dashed when he stumbles across a dead body in the sewers. His grim discovery soon puts him in the sight of the Argonaut Agency and Francis Strickland, the bureau director who knows his darkest secrets.

Morgan King and his team of Argonaut agents have been hunting for the culprits behind a series of gruesome killings that have rocked the city all summer. Killings that bear sinister hallmarks of sacrificial rituals where the victims’ souls have been ripped from their bodies. When Fate brings Cassius in Morgan’s path, he realizes the angel everyone likes to call The Devil may very well be the only person who can help them track down the murderers.

Morgan and Cassius soon find themselves chasing down a sect of black magic sorcerers and cross paths with a mysterious warlock whose actions evoke disturbing echoes of an incident from Cassius’s past. As rumors of a potential plot to tear the Nether reach their ears, Cassius and Morgan must work together to defeat their common enemy and save the city from destruction, all while fighting their growing attraction for one another.

Fractured Souls is the first novel in the MM urban fantasy romance series Fallen Messengers. If you like action-packed paranormal adventures with romance and snark, then grab this pulse-pounding book today and enter a world you won’t want to leave!

Fractured Souls

Fallen Messengers, Book 1

By Ava Marie Salinger

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“Are you the person in charge?” Cassius asked the blonde icily. “On whose authority are you trying to arrest me?”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “You know very well who we are. You are a suspect in the murder of a man whose body was discovered in the sewers under Bayview Park eight hours ago. You were seen fleeing the scene of the crime.”

Cassius drew himself to his full height.

“So, you decided to come in here and gun me down?” he snarled. “Is that the modus operandi of the San Francisco branch of the Argonaut Agency? Kill first and ask fucking questions later?!”

The blonde frowned. “Like I said, that was an unfortunate accident. Now, how about you—?”

“What’s going on here?” someone said behind Cassius.

He whirled around.

Glass crunched under Morgan’s bare feet as he stepped inside the apartment from the terrace. He was wearing jeans, an almighty scowl, and little else.

Cassius stilled. The glass was not cutting Morgan’s skin.

Alarm had Cassius’s pulse spiking. He hadn’t sensed anything unusual about his neighbor when they’d just spoken out on the terrace. His stomach dropped.

Except for the fact that he knew I was there when I’d deliberately masked my aura.

“Morgan?” The blonde gaped. “What the hell are you doing here?!”

Cassius’s heart stuttered. Wait? They know each other?!

“I live next door,” Morgan replied irritably.

Cassius registered the expressions on the other Argonaut agents’ faces with a sinking feeling. It was clear they knew Morgan too. Not just knew him, but regarded him as their superior.

Shit. He’s an Argonaut agent.

Cassius fisted his hands. The demon cat protested with a soft meow when his fingers sank into its hide.

“Since when?” the blonde asked Morgan, still shocked.

“Since a month ago,” Morgan snapped. “Now, how about you tell me what the hell you’re doing in this guy’s apartment, Adrianne?”

“I should renegotiate my salary,” the blonde muttered, looking around the luxurious penthouse. Her gaze focused on Morgan and Cassius once more. “Your neighbor is a suspect in a murder,” she told Morgan. “FYI, your neighbor is Cassius Black.”

Morgan visibly stiffened. He observed Cassius with an inscrutable expression before turning to Adrianne. “That still doesn’t justify you guys coming in here in full tactical gear and shooting at him, Adrianne.”

Cassius blinked. That’s a first.

It wasn’t every day an Argonaut agent came to his defense.

He clenched his jaw. “I happened to be looking for this cat. That’s why I was in those sewers. My client is a woman called Joyce Almeda. Her phone number is on my cell phone.” Cassius studied Morgan and Adrianne coldly. “Seeing as your agency appears to be as biased against me as every other one on this planet, you’ll excuse me for not having stuck around long enough for you assholes to pin the blame on me for something I had nothing to do with.”

Adrianne frowned at Cassius.

“We found another victim,” she told Morgan, a muscle jumping in her cheek.

Morgan froze. “What?”

“We found another human sacrifice. It was a man this time. Your neighbor was at the scene of the crime when our agents got there.” Suspicion glittered in Adrianne’s eyes as she glanced at Cassius. “And yes, before you ask, it was a magic circle made from Dark Blight and human—”

Wind exploded inside Cassius’s apartment. It wrapped tightly around his body in overlapping bands, locking his limbs in place and robbing him of his breath. Cassius gasped as he was lifted bodily into the air, his wings straining uselessly against his back where he sought to spread them and escape.

Morgan’s pupils glowed with blinding-white light as he wielded his powers, imprisoning Cassius in a painful tempest of seraphic energy. The demon cat leapt onto the floor and hissed angrily at the angel who was glaring at Cassius as if he’d committed a grave sin.

Black spots burst across Cassius’s vision as the constraints squeezed his ribs to near breaking point.

He thought he heard Adrianne shout Morgan’s name.

Darkness encroached upon his world as his consciousness faded.

A supernatural detective/security agency of angels and demons. What a cool idea! And the name – Argonaut! I was expecting Jason to show up any second.

So, think bad boy/enemies to lovers. Morgan runs the team of avenging angels trying to find out why humans are dying.

Cassius Black – way more devil than angel – comes to town not looking for trouble but quickly finds it.

And speaking of Angels – these are the type of winged wonders that like whisky and cigarettes.

Add in black magic sorcerers, a warlock, angels, demons, and magic cats – oh my! And you have a high charged magical romp through the underworld – or I believe they’re calling it San Francisco these days.

Read the glossary of terms at the beginning because you’re going to need it!

4.5 pieces of eye candy

Ava Marie Salinger is the pen name of an Amazon bestselling urban fantasy author who has always wanted to write scorching hot M/M urban fantasy. In 2021, she launches FALLEN MESSENGERS, her first M/M urban fantasy romance series. She also writes contemporary M/M romance as A.M. Salinger. When she’s not dreaming up hotties to write about, you’ll find Ava creating kickass music playlists to write to, spying on the wildlife in her garden, drooling over gadgets, and eating Chinese.

Subscribe to Ava Newsletter and receive a free prequel short story to Fractured Souls (Fallen Messengers #1) here: https://www.amsalinger.com/subscribe/

Connect with Ava:

Website

Facebook Reader Group

To celebrate the thrilling release of Fractured Souls, Ava is giving away:

a signed Hardcover edition of Fractured Souls
A signed Paperback edition of Fractured Souls
A Special Angel, Demon, Magic themed necklace

Giveaway is open Internationally!!

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Beautifully Unexpected By Lily Morton: Blog Tour, Exclusive Excerpt & Giveaway

July 16, 2021 by Denise

Sometimes love comes when you least expect or want it.

Magnus Carlsen is determined to grow old disgracefully. At fifty-two, he doesn’t believe in keeping anything. Men, sofas, books—everything gets jettisoned, eventually. He’s divided his life into happy compartments. A successful trial lawyer, he spends his days lecturing jurors, exasperating judges, and striding arrogantly around courtrooms. He fills his nights with a parade of handsome young men who want to make him happy. Why date someone his own age to discuss back pain, retirement-planning, and corns, when he can date men who don’t care to discuss anything at all?

However, when one of these sunny young men shows an inclination for dramatic scenes, Magnus meets his new neighbour. And his whole world implodes.

Laurie Gentry is nearly the same age as Magnus, but that’s where the similarity ends. He’s messy and creative and nosy and mysterious. He’s everything that Magnus has spent a lifetime avoiding. So, why can’t he get Laurie out of his head?

Luckily, Laurie is only in London for the summer. Magnus can uncover Laurie’s mysteries and indulge their annoyingly hot attraction, and Laurie will be gone before complications arise. A few months isn’t long enough to lose his heart. Is it?

From bestselling author, Lily Morton comes a romantic comedy about two footloose older men and how one summer in London brings something quite beautifully unexpected into their lives.

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I come back out to find him examining a picture on the wall. It’s a six-foot landscape of the Danish coast done in sepia tones. “This is so good,” he says. “Your mum?”

I nod. “She gave it to me when I was twenty-one.”

He whistles. “Nice present.”

“I’d have preferred a motorbike,” I inform him. He gapes at me and I wave my hand. “Shall we?”

He peeps through the open door of my study at the mess of papers on the desk. “We definitely should.”

We leave the flat, and, as I lock the door, he leans against the wall watching me. “You seem busy,” he observes.

“I have a trial starting on Monday. I’m just getting a few things straight in my head.”

“Are you nervous?”

I look at him incredulously. “No.”

We walk towards the lift. “You thrive on your job, don’t you?” he says.

I shrug. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“Even living in such an artistic world? Your dad was a poet laureate and your mum a painter. Being a barrister is such a departure.”

“I was the shame of the family,” I say solemnly. “My mother was so embarrassed when I got my law degree that she wouldn’t tell anyone what I did for ages. She thought I should be doing something creative, so she’d tell people rather vaguely that I did something with paper. Half of her circle were convinced I was an origami expert.” He laughs. “It is true. I still get handed paper and asked to make a swan.” I consider that. “The only thing worse would have been if I became a policeman. But then I’d have had to arrest half of her boyfriends.”

“Did she have many?”

We walk out of the building into the sunshine, and I slide my Ray-Bans down over my eyes. “Define many.”

He starts to laugh. “Ouch!”

“Usually at this point, a man would be full of sympathy for me.”

“I’m not most men,” he informs me truthfully. “Anyway, that’s a lie. Your young men would probably be pretending to listen to you while wondering which knot to tie on their genital decorations.”

“You could be right,” I say slowly. “Good grief, I always thought they were interested.”

“Probably just bored into submission,” he says in a comforting tone.

Read Erin’s review here.

Lily writes contemporary romance novels, and specialises in hot love stories with a good dose of humour.

Lily lives in sunny England with her husband and two children, all of whom claim that they haven’t had a proper conversation with her since she bought her first Kindle.

She has spent her life with her head full of daydreams and decided one day to just sit down and start writing about them. In the process she discovered that she actually loved writing, because how else could she get to spend her time with hot, funny men!

She loves chocolate and Baileys and the best of all creations – chocolate Baileys! Her lifetime’s ambition is to have a bath in peace without being shouted by one of her family.

The Prince’s Vow: Starian Cycle #3 by Iris Foxglove: Blog Tour, Exclusive Author Interview, New Release Review and Giveaway

June 29, 2021 by Denise

Adrien de Guillory may be the heir to the throne of Staria, but no one in court believes that the submissive, meek-minded prince will ever be king. What they don’t know is that Adrien is hardly the meek, shy creature he pretends to be and that he has his own plans for the future. To see those plans through, Adrien embarks on a journey to Mislia, the land of his mother’s ancestors, to seek an answer to controlling his magic of foresight.

The one thing Adrien’s visions don’t predict is Isiodore de Mortain, his father’s confidante and the subject of Adrien’s long-standing, deeply embarrassing infatuation. Isiodore intercepts Adrien on his way to Mislia. But it’s too late to turn back—the two of them are now stranded on foreign soil, forced to rely on each other in order to get home in one piece. With Isiodore set on keeping Adrien safe and Adrien determined to become the most troublesome prince in Starian history, a storm is brewing over Mislia…one that will surely sweep both of them out into uncharted waters.

(The Prince’s Vow is an m/m dark fantasy novel, set in a fictional world where everyone is biologically either a dominant or a submissive and compelled to satisfy those urges. As such, the biological imperative kink in this story is pure fantasy, and not intended as a representation of real-life BDSM practices or dynamics.)

Title: The Prince’s Vow

Series: Starian Cycle #3

Author: Iris Foxglove

Release Date: 6/22/21

Heat Level: 4 – Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 64,000

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, BDSM, AU

Amazon – Kindle Unlimited

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When did you write your first story and what was the inspiration for it?

Foxglove: My family couldn’t afford a computer for some time, but we did have a typewriter for homework purposes. The big rule was that in order to use the typewriter, what you were writing had to be worth it. The first story of mine that was deemed worthy featured a group of fairies who caused a hurricane because they partied too hard, and a girl who told them to kindly knock it off, please. I wasn’t a big fan of hurricanes, to be fair.

Iris: I’m older than Foxglove and brought a word processor to college, LOL. But my first story was honestly very similar to Duke’s Demon — I joke that I’ve been writing some version of that story since I was twelve, but it’s true. I wrote a screenplay (I don’t know why it was a screenplay, to be honest) about a ballerina who was magically transported to an Irish castle and lived with a duke who was possessed by a demon. It was absolutely awful, but I still have it, and it makes me smile to think about how years later I published a (much better) version! I probably have had dozens of old Trapper Keepers filled with half-finished fantasy stories, but that was the first thing I ever finished in its entirety. It was called “At the Edge of Midnight” and my dad made me a cover on Print Shop on our family computer. To be honest, it would be a horrible movie but the concept was there, ha!

Where did the desire to write LGBT romance come from?

Foxglove: Well, I came out pretty young, which was rare in my conservative town, and I spent years carefully cultivating a small collection of LGBTQ fiction. It was important to me to know that there were writers out there who thought that people like me deserved love. Eventually, my room was searched and the collection was discovered—only one book remained hidden. I decided then and there that I would write my own stories to make up for the ones that were lost.

Iris: I’ve been a voracious reader all my life, especially of fantasy, and always wanted to see a story with someone like me in it. Especially because I always wanted romance in my stories, and the characters I wanted to get together were never the ones who did! I also wanted to write stories where people were accepting of all sexualities and genders, especially since so much of my love of fantasy is centered around the “found family” trope.

Briefly describe the writing process. Do you create an outline first? Do you seek out inspirational pictures, videos or music? Do you just let the words flow and then go back and try and make some sense out it?

Foxglove: We mostly babble at each other excitedly until a plot happens. There are a lot of moments that tend to go like this:

“So what IF, bear with me, but what IF this character…”
“Yes?”
“What if they did THIS?”

“OH MY GOD YES AND WHAT IF THEY DID THIS OTHER THING?!”
“AND THEN THIS OTHER THING HAPPENS?”
“YES!!!!”

It can get a little out of hand, but our brainstorming sessions are ridiculously fun.

Iris: It’s true!! We have so many books planned it’s unreal — the world that we’ve created is so fun, and we’re apparently going to write a story for the entire population 😀 We’re pretty good about writing a scene, then saying, “Hey, do you want to jump in, here?” and switching off. Usually we each gravitate toward a character and write their POV. Sometimes we outline, but it’s normally more of a general plot idea that we tweak as we go along.

We did write one of the books in the Starian Cycle out of order — look, we really love the pairing in The King’s Mage, okay — and after we went back and wrote Exile’s Gift, had to rewrite the fifth one!! So there’s two versions of book 5 floating around our Gdocs, lol.

I write best, personally, with music or thunderstorm sounds. Background noise is essential, but it can’t be anything I’m TOO interested in or I’ll get too distracted!

If you could sequester yourself for a week somewhere and just focus on your writing, where would you go and what would the environment be like?

Foxglove: Is this a magical place where I don’t have to cook anything? Can I go there? Also, my kingdom for a comfortable desk chair! I am a creature of simple needs.

Iris: Honestly if I could go somewhere it was raining and/or snowing constantly, with me in a comfy chair with sixteen blankets and a sweater with too-long sleeves and a huge mug of Earl Grey, I would still find a way to play a mobile game and be distracted. But I have such fond memories of finishing Traitor’s Mercy — I woke up at 5 am after I couldn’t sleep due to the excitement of nearly being done, and went to my then-office in our house and watched the sun rise with tea while I wrote Laurent being dramatic in the snow with Sabre. Then, I watched in real-time as Foxglove finished the epilogue, and immediately opened a doc to start Duke’s Demon! It’s such a happy memory, that feeling of excitement when you type “The End” (which I always do) is so satisfying.

I want to say right off that this is book three in the series and I haven’t read one or two. Which might have made a lot of nuances and sub-plots in this book easier to understand. I love fantasy and this had a really good start. In and amongst a fantasy plot the book had dominant and submissive tendencies which if that’s your jam was well done.

I think the plot got lost in detail a little in the middle, but there are a wealth of characters I am interested in discovering how their story progresses.

Adrien as a character is a delight and very well balanced. Isiodore is good for him even if a little too patient sometimes. I wished I had read the previous two books first.

4 pieces of eye candy

Iris Foxglove is a shared pen name between two longtime fantasy readers who are committed to writing fun, escapist dark fantasy featuring decadent, kinky stories, intricate world building and unforgettable characters.

Author Links

Twitter: https://twitter.com/irisfoxglove

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21219026.Iris_Foxglove

Email: irisfoxgloveauthor@gmail.com

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The Way to a Man’s Heart by Ann Marie James: Blog Tour, Exclusive Author Guest Post, Excerpt and Giveaway

June 24, 2021 by Denise

The heart wants what the heart wants…

Christian Diaz grew up as the best friend and unofficial bodyguard to the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Corazón. After an incident left him questioning his place in the castle, Christian joined the military and didn’t return for ten long years.

Now he’s been assigned to the castle as Royal Military Liaison to investigate the source of some recent threats against the crown. The annual Midsummer’s Ball is the perfect place for the anti-monarchy group to make their next move, so that’s where Christian will be too. If it gives him a chance to reconnect with his friends in the castle and make a play for the man he has compared all others to, it’s even better.

Max Ramirez is now the head chef for the castle. He started as a sous chef at age twenty when Christian was just an awkward teen. Now that Christian’s back at the castle, all grown up and interested in Max, the chef is determined not to let an opportunity with Christian pass him by.

When someone tries to sabotage the Midsummer’s Ball, Max and Christian need to work together to track down the people determined to make this event their last.

Title: The Way to a Man’s Heart

Author Name: Ann Marie James

Publisher: Totally Bound

Release Date: Tuesday, June 22 2021

Story Type: Novella 20k-50k

Word Count: 33982

Genres: Contemporary Gay Romance

Pairings: m/m

LGBTQ+ Identities: Gay

Keywords/Categories: Contemporary, Erotic, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Gay, LGBT, LGBTQ, Royals, Thrillers and Suspense, gay romance, mm romance, gay, new release, announcement, giveaway

Warnings: This book contains mentions of drug use, obsession, references to parental abuse, drink spiking, violence, attempted rape, and attempted murder.

Amazon

Pride Publishing

Ann Marie James sitting down with one of the characters from The Way to a Man’s Heart

Ann Marie: Greetings, Princess Zia. Thank you for agreeing to an interview.

Princess Zia huffs, while crossing her arms over her chest: My parents didn’t give me a choice. They said you’ve interviewed everyone else and I have to do it.

Ann Marie: Well, I appreciate you being here at any rate.

Princess Zia: I’m here what do you want to know?

Ann Marie: Are you excited for the Midsummer’s Ball?

Princess Zia: Not really. I mean my sister invited so many people. She wanted it to be inclusive. Really? It’s supposed to be an event and she invited the gardener and his wife. She said he earned it with all the hard work he has done for her.

Ann Marie: I understand it’s quite different from your event.

Princess Zia: Oh yes. My ball, you had to be someone to make it on the list. It was wonderful. Everybody being so nice to me to try to get an invite. I was sorry the event was over and people went back to their regular lives. Not that the lives aren’t fabulous of course. I can’t live a life that’s not absolutely spectacular.

Ann Marie: I can see that. I don’t think there’s one thing on your person that isn’t designer. Let’s move on to a new topic. Your sister heads to college in the fall. Your brother also has his bachelors and masters. Any plans for you to attend college?

Princess Zia: Who has the time? I have responsibilities here. I can’t leave.

Ann Marie: We would be interested in what those are?

Princess Zia: Making sure this family stays relevant. I mean my parents are rather boring. They would rather stay in and eat as a family. We need to be seen. Make sure everyone knows who we are.

Ann Marie: I’m sure everyone in the country, if not the world knows who you all are, would they really forget if you went to school for four years?

Princess Zia: The people on this island need something to aspire to. They look at me with my perfect hair and my perfect clothing and they want to be me.

Ann Marie: I hear more about Prince Sebastian and Princess Katarina whenever I talk to people on the island. They do a lot of good in the community.

Princess Zia sniffs: Like I care about what the people on the island think. You obviously haven’t spoken to the right people. The people with money and power.

Ann Marie: Ah. So it’s really just the rich people you want to impress.

Princess Zia: Exactly. And I do impress them. As I said, they want to be me.

Ann Marie: Okay then. Well, I think we’ve covered everything. Anything you would like to add?

Princess Zia: Only that if people think that Katarina’s ball is something, then they should have been at mine. Oh wait, they couldn’t. (Princess Zia laughs her way out the door.)

The royal family of the Kingdom of Corazón greeted their guests for the Midsummers Ball as Christian watched. He ran a hand down the front of his dress military uniform to straighten it while he waited for his turn to be announced. This was his first formal duty as the newly appointed Royal Military Liaison, and he needed to make sure he looked his best. He shifted his feet to find some relief for his ankle, which was still sore from him standing for a long time. His last mission had not gone to plan, and a broken ankle had been the result. Although the cast had come off a couple of weeks prior, it still wasn’t one hundred percent.

“Royal Military Liaison Lieutenant Diaz,” the herald announced. Christian caught the eye of Crown Prince Sebastian toward the end of the greeting line and his best friend’s eyes widened in surprise before his face lit up with happiness at seeing him. As the only child of the Castle Commander, Christian had grown up here, but he’d been in the service away from the castle for ten years. At thirty, Christian was the same age as Crown Prince Sebastian. They had been best friends from the time they had been in diapers, and even though Christian and the prince still got together when their schedules allowed, it wasn’t the same as seeing and being with him every day. Christian had missed him fiercely.

The royal children of the kingdom were usually paired with a young playmate from the age of about ten. Christian had started earlier than age ten as Sebastian’s companion, since he was always with him anyway. As Castle Commander, his father was the head of the guard slash castle security. He’d taken the companion idea a step further and trained Christian to be as good as he could be in martial arts and marksmanship. In his father’s eyes, Christian was to act as another line of defense for the Crown Prince. While Christian had not carried a gun—that was the role of the actual bodyguards—he was trained in case he ever had to use one.

With a nod to the herald, Christian stepped forward to greet the Queen of the Kingdom of Corazón. Queen Tania reached out both hands to Christian, and he clasped them and raised them to his lips while bowing over them. “My Queen… It is a pleasure to see you. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Lieutenant Diaz, it is a pleasure to see you as well. Ten years is way too long. We have missed you.”

“I apologize for the lengthy absence, Your Highness. I needed a change, but I am assigned here for the foreseeable future, so you will have time to get sick of me again.”

“So my husband has told me. I am excited to have you home, although in a different capacity as the Royal Military Liaison. I look forward to catching up.”

“As do I.”

The queen turned a stern eye on her eldest daughter, who was standing to her right. “Princess Zia, isn’t it wonderful that Christian will be back with us for a while?”

Christian tried to mask his sneer as his gaze went to Zia, who was not at all happy this evening. Of course, she wouldn’t be, since she wasn’t the center of attention. She wasn’t a very nice person and never had been. She was also part of the reason he’d left and joined the military. What she did… No, he wasn’t going to think about it. It was in the past. He was stronger and even more deadly now. It was time for him to face his demons. The military had finished the training his father had started, turning him into a true weapon. At twenty-eight, Christian had hoped Zia would have grown up and stopped being so self-absorbed, but the affliction seemed to have gotten worse instead of better in the time Christian had been away.

Christian gave Princess Zia a shallow bow. “Princess Zia.” That was all he could manage. He wasn’t going to lie and say he’d missed her.

Princess Zia tossed back her hair and gave him her haughtiest look. “Mr. Diaz.”

“It’s Lieutenant Diaz, actually, Your Highness.” Christian didn’t wait for her to respond, instead turning to greet the king of the Kingdom of Corazón. A striking man, even in his fifties, King Raul Hart exuded a sense of calm authority that Christian had always admired, making him seem larger than life. “King Raul.” Christian bowed low in front of the man. When he straightened, Christian was shocked to realize that he was now taller than the king. When they had met briefly the day before, the king had been busy on a phone call and had just waved him into his office and into a chair. Christian had experienced another surprise growth spurt after he had joined the military at age twenty and was now six-three, but he hadn’t realized that made him taller than the king.

“Hello again, Royal Military Liaison Lieutenant Diaz.” The king’s eyes twinkled at him as he ignored protocol and pulled Christian into a hug. “I didn’t get a chance to do that when we met yesterday. I wanted to correct that error.”

“Yes, sir.” Christian returned the hug before stepping back and offering him a crisp salute. “Lieutenant Diaz reporting for duty, sir.”

“As you were, Lieutenant. Now I think there’s someone here who can’t wait to greet you. It was hard keeping this a secret from him.”

“I know. I talked to him earlier, and I almost spilled the beans.”

Christian moved down the line and tried to keep a stern expression on his face as he saluted before grinning at one of his best friends. “Crown Prince.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were being assigned to the castle as Royal Military Liaison?”

“I thought you would like the surprise of it. It just happened a few days ago.” Christian once more ran a hand down the front of his military uniform. “First mission, the Midsummer’s Ball. It’s a very tough assignment.”

Ann Marie James is fluent in two languages, English and sarcasm. She believes that you will never learn anything new if you don’t read as much as you can, and/or talk to every stranger you meet. She always looks for the best in people and to treat people the way she wants to be treated. Above all Ann Marie believes in love, whatever form it takes. Relationships are hard, love is the glue that keeps it together.

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Ache by Marley Valentine: Blog Tour, Exclusive Excerpt, and Release Day Review * 2

June 22, 2021 by Denise

I couldn’t tell you when I fell in love with Gael Herrera, but I wish I knew how to make it stop.

Falling in love with a straight man is a rookie mistake. But falling in love with my soon-to-be-married-to-a-woman best friend is nothing but heartache.

Through all the years, and all the men I’ve fooled around with, he’s always been at the back of my mind. An unrequited crush I wish I could shake. A dream that was never going to come true.

When I whisk him off to a surprise bachelor party weekend in Vegas, I surrender to the idea that this is an opportunity for me to finally let go of my feelings for him and say goodbye.

But after a heated exchange and an even hotter kiss, everything I thought I knew about our friendship changed.

Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe, after all this time, we were more than best friends. Maybe, just maybe, he felt it too.

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Confidently, she places her hand on her hip, not caring that every inch of her is on display. “I don’t need you to touch me because you feel bad, Gael.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I protest.

She leisurely reaches for a nearby towel and wraps it around her body. “Is this about Frankie?”

God, I hated hearing that man’s name. “Why are we talking about Frankie?”

“Because every time he comes up, you turn into”—she gestures her hand up and down my body—“this.”

“I just don’t like him for Jordan,” I exclaim.

“They have sex Gael, it’s hardly a marriage proposal.”

“He said he would bring him over in the new year. That’s more than just sex.”

She shakes her head at me. “He said that because you seem to turn into an over protective, ornery father every time he mentions people he’s with.”

His father? God, that was so far from the truth. Nothing I felt about him was familial. Not in a long time and even less so lately.

Lately, I was fucking jealous, and Elena knew it. Every part of me knew she did, but she wasn’t going to call me out. Because she was hiding from the truth just as much as I was.

“Sorry,” I say, because honesty isn’t really an option right now. “I can’t help but feel protective over him. Ever since—”

“I know,” Elena says, nothing but understanding in her voice. “Ever since he got kicked out of his home, you’ve felt the need to protect him. I get it. You’re the same with me,” she adds with a soft smile. “You’re like that with everyone you love. And we love you for it, but you need to let this disdain for Frankie go and let Jordan live his life. If it turns to shit, you’ll be there for him, because that’s what good friends do.”

Every word she said pricked at my heart in pain, leaving little holes as reminders that this was so much more than being worried and protective of your friend. It was a lifetime of hurt, longing, lust, and confusion. And it was wrong.

The only other book I have read by Marley Valentine is Without You, which if you know me I rarely read anything that says “angsty”, but I absolutely loved that book. (Go grab it if you haven’t read it!) It broke my heart about six different ways, and then put it all back together again. So, I definitely went into this book expecting something quite similar. Anyway, since I hadn’t been burned with the angst on Without You, I figured I had to try this. I was not disappointed.

There is a piece in this book that the author calls “an unconventional triangle”, which **small spoiler** may cause some people to be overly cautious about reading it. Don’t, please! It is usually a piece that I don’t want to read either, but the author did it very well. Honestly, the author made it very real life. Life is about choices, day to day, week to week, year over year. And in this case, the heart had made its choice years before.

It was obvious from the first chapter how in love these two MC’s were with each other. They just were not bright enough to figure out that they other one was also in love with them, despite everyone around them realizing it.

They go to Vegas, and realize that they’ve hid it from each other all these years, etc. The first half of the book is almost entirely based in Vegas, and sets up the second half of the book very well.

The MC’s were best friends before they were lovers. However, they were also family. Jordan found family in Gael, as well as with the entire Herrera family, and it was just wonderful to see how much they loved him back, no matter what. Each person in that family was there for everyone else, at all times. What a joy to read.

I cried…multiple times…reading this book, something I genuinely try to avoid. However, with this author I have done it more than once, and it’s likely I will do it again. And I’m here for it. 🙂

A big recommend, without question. Take on the Ache, but, I promise, you’ll get to your HEA.

4.5 pieces of eye candy

Apparently this was a short that was included in a previous anthology. It has since been re-edited with 50,000 words added.

We’ve seen this- best friends, gay falls for straight, long drawn out angst, straight goes gay for you, happily ever after. It’s a bit that-but definitely more.

The more involves Gael’s family taking him in as their own when his parents throw him out at 17 for being gay. More is watching your best friend get engaged to a woman. More is finding out your straight best friend wants you just as badly.

I really loved that most of this book took place over a weekend in Vegas. The back story between Jordan and Gael is explained at appropriate times to move the story alone without bogging us down with their entire relationship since they were teenagers. It moved fast without sacrificing story and it had SO. MANY. FEELS. Family feels, romantic feels, friends feels, love feels. Sigh.

No one was a jerk, no one was the bad guy, no one needed to be redeemed. Just an awesome friends to lovers story that was really well done.

4.5 pieces of eye candy

Living in Sydney, Australia with her family, Marley Valentine is a USA Today bestselling author and a former social worker who uses her past experiences to write real life, emotional and heartfelt contemporary romance.

She enjoys mixing it up with both M/F and M/M Romance incorporating all forms of life, lust and love as her characters embark on their journey to their happily ever after.

When she’s not busy writing her own stories, she spends most of her time immersed in the words of her favourite authors.

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