Spotlight: Once Upon a Summer: A Contemporary Romance Anthology

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Once Upon A Summer
A Contemporary Romance Anthology
With Stories By:
Brooke Moss, Liz Ashlee, Clara Winter, Tammy Mannersly, Sarah Vance Tompkins, Kitsy Clare, Mark Love, Melissa Kay Clarke

Beaches, boyfriends and danger…summer is certainly hot! Grab a hold tight as these eight authors wow you with stories from sweet to sizzling! After all, every day can have some summer fun!

Breaking Girl Code by Brooke Moss
Aubrey is having the perfect evening out, with the perfect guy, on a perfect summer night. The problem is… Preston’s not her date. His real date is her B.F.F., and she’s passed out in the backseat.

Wishing on Water by Liz Ashlee
After watching everyone’s else’s lives hit huge milestones, all Hope wants is to escape to her boring, unchanging, single life. So, where’s the one logical place to escape to? A retirement home.

Art with a Pulse by Clara Winter
Artist Alice finds herself rescuing a seal on the sands of Laguna Beach with screenwriter Elijah. Can Alice put her past behind her and give Elijah the chance he deserves? 

A Natural Passion by Tammy Mannersly
How will marine biologist, Dylan O'Day, solve the illegal poaching problem threatening the ecosystem he loves and protects when the gorgeous, new intern, Kyra Shine, is occupying his every thought?

You Had Me at Aloha by Sarah Vance Tompkins
Social media guru Vivienne Parker's dream trip to Hawaii turns into a nightmare when her roommate in the luxurious surf shack is the hot Olympic athlete who just got her fired.

More Than Puppy Love by Kitsy Clare
Fireworks spark when Arianna, a city girl with an elite pet portrait business is in a wreck and asks Dave a country auto mechanic for help, but can these two beagle owners from different worlds see eye to eye?

Stealing Haven by Mark Love
Sand, sun, romance and a mystery to solve. Sounds like a perfect vacation for Jamie.

Harmony in the Key of Murder by Melissa Kay Clarke
Summer in the South can mean a different type of heat when a newly appointed investigator and a mechanical genius cross paths leading to murder and love.







"I write because if I don't...my head will explode, and ruin the drapes." ♥

Brooke Moss writes complex, character-driven stories about kismet, reunited lovers, first love, and the kind of romance that we should all have the chance at finding. She prefers her stories laced with some humor just for fun, and enough drama to keep her readers flipping the pages, and begging for more!

When Brooke isn't spinning tales, she spends her time drawing/cartooning, reading, watching movies then comparing them to books, and, of course, wrangling five kids, mugging on her hubby she lovingly refers to as her "nerd", and attempting to conquer the Mount Everest of laundry that is the bane of her existence.







Liz Ashlee is a romance novelist who recently graduated from Northern Kentucky University her B.A. in English and B.S. in Library Informatics. She has been published in Loch Norse Magazine and The Pentangle, and has won the Miller Award for Outstanding Fiction Writing. She currently lives in Independence, Kentucky, with her family and dog-daughter, Hero






Clara Winter is the writing name of Amy Rugg.
Amy Rugg grew up reading Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, and Alice in Wonderland, while watching Buck Rogers, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. Writing her own stories naturally ensued. She is a wife, mother, and former school counselor, with a Master’s Degree in Counseling. Amy is from Colorado Springs, Co and currently resides in Mission Viejo, Ca.









Tammy Mannersly is an Australian author based in Brisbane, Queensland. She loves writing romance, has a fondness for animals, is crazy about movies and enjoys a great Happily Ever After. Her passion for writing started from a very young age and led her to complete a Bachelor Degree in Creative Industries majoring in Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology.










Sarah Vance-Tompkins was born in a small town in northern Michigan. She spent every summer exploring the sugar sand beaches near Sleeping Bear National Park. She left her heart behind when she moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California. She received an MFA in Film Production and went on to work in feature film development in Hollywood. She has worked as a reporter for a weekly entertainment trade publication, and been paid to write obituaries, press releases, the directions for use on personal lubricant bottles, and breathless descriptions of engagement rings for an online jewelry store. She lives in a small town north of Los Angeles with her husband and three cats.








Kitsy Clare hails from Philadelphia and lives in New York. A romantic at heart, she loves to write about the sexy intrigue of the city, and particularly of the art world. She knows it well, having shown her paintings here before turning to writing. Model Position, her new adult novella is about artist Sienna and her friends. Living in a Bookworld says: “Beautifully written! We get to learn things about art & painting, which is refreshing. A colorful story from a promising new adult author.” The next in her Art of Love series, Private Internship launches in September with Inkspell.

Kitsy loves to travel, draw, read romance, speculative fiction and teach writing workshops. She also writes YA as Catherine Stine. Her futuristic thriller, Ruby’s Fire was a YA finalist in the Next Generation Indie book awards. Fireseed One, its companion novel, was a finalist in YA and Sci-Fi in the USA News International Book Awards, and an Indie Reader notable. Her YA horror, Dorianna, launches fall 2014 with Evernight Teen. She’s a member of SFWA, RWA and SCBWI.






                                                                      Mark Love
I am a Michigan native, who up until recently lived in the Metro Detroit area, where crime and corruption always seem to be at the top of everyone's news. So there's always the chance to find something that can trigger a story idea and enough interesting characters to jump start your imagination.

While I have worked in many industries and career paths over the years, one of my passions has always been writing. I was even able to parlay that passion for a while, working as a freelance reporter for a couple of newspapers in the Detroit area. Writing features and hard news helped me hone my talents. But while newspaper work was interesting and paid a few bills, it was a far cry from the fiction writing that I enjoy the most.

I've always been drawn to mysteries and thrillers, the kind of stories that have a fast pace, that keep you moving and keep you guessing as to what's going to take place next. Mix those in with some elements of crime, perhaps a glimpse of the seedier side and you've got me. So it's always been one of my goals to write stories like that. 



Melissa Kay Clarke was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and raised in Houlka, a small rural town forty-five minutes southwest down the famous Natchez Trace. She found a love of reading very early and quickly devoured everything she could. Told repeatedly that she had a wonderful imagination, she turned to scribbling her musings and wrote her first novel while in college. It was never published and has since vanished. The death of a close friend who aspired to become an author reawakened her own desire resulting in penning her first book, Shattered Dreams, published in 2013.

Melissa now resides in Meridian, Mississippi with her supportive family – husband, Robert and daughter Rebecca, two cats, and two dogs. When she isn't writing, she spends way too much time with her online friends and feeding her ravenous appetite for the written word.





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Read an excerpt from Crude Blessings: The Amazing Life Story of Glenn Patterson American Oilman

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Crude Blessings: The Amazing Life Story of Glenn Patterson American Oilman is the rags-to-riches story of Glenn Patterson’s road to survival and success in the volatile and unpredictable “modern age of petroleum.” Born on the family ranch in Blackwell, Texas, Glenn became one of America’s energy industry pioneers. His core values, work ethic and dedication to his family and employees are a valuable example for the American spirit of perseverance, hard work, and fair play.

Much more than one son's homage to his dad, Crude Blessings is a compelling narrative about a family patriarch who embodied the best qualities of the Greatest Generation, which inspired and powered the success of America. Timely because of the increasing polarization in our country, Glenn Patterson's story and values were examples of the Christian ethos of decency, integrity, faith, and trust throughout his life in his business and family. 

Building his business on a foundation of “always doing the right thing,” Glenn was revered by colleagues, customers and competitors alike. During the most disruptive period any industry had ever faced, his company, Patterson Drilling became one of the largest oil and gas-drilling companies in the country. The legacy of embedding strong family values in a small business is described in this new book through a first–hand account of the sector’s fierce challenges during the last two decades of the 20th century. Glenn’s journey became spiritual as well, when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease at too early an age, which led to struggles with his own mortality and his relationship with God.

Excerpt

It’s a day I’ll never forget.

Saturday morning, early spring. 1986. I was almost 12. Dad shook me awake around 6 a.m.—nothing strange about that. Saturday was a workday; so was Sunday sometimes. He’d been putting us to work on various weekends since elementary school. I worked in the yard, tore down motors, cut up pipe, scrap iron. Hoed weeds, painted. Sandblasted and painted drilling rigs in 100-degree heat or hotter. I did almost everything. My older brother, Robert, had it worse. He actually had to roughneck on the drilling rigs, like a full-grown man. I was still too young for that.

It wasn’t easy being the son of a boss—the kid of the legendary founder of Patterson Drilling, Glenn Patterson, who stood 6’4”, like LBJ or Abraham Lincoln. He showed no favoritism when it came to work. Quite the opposite, in fact. If there was some rookie job, some shit detail, it was sure to land in your lap. Glenn Patterson had no intention of raising a pair of spoiled brats.

So we piled into the truck without complaining. My dad’s best friend from high school, Donnie Newman, was in the truck behind us. It was a long drive through pitch black, leaving the asphalt onto a series of unpaved caliche roads. Dad used the time to think. He was worried. I didn’t know all the ins and outs at age 12, but times were bad.

The bottom had fallen out of the oil market. No one was drilling anymore, and Patterson Drilling, the company my father had built from scratch with his brother-in-law, Cloyce Talbott, was flirting with going belly up; they were nearing default on a bank loan. Dad had one last crazy idea to save himself and, thereby, the company—a last-ditch way of drumming up some cash to make an interest-only payment to the bank that he and Cloyce had both resorted to. They had to come up with a few thousand bucks every month. That was our mission that morning as we drove past acres and acres of aban- doned oil fields. The price of crude was just too low to keep ’em running—nothing but scrap metal now, which most men would call worthless. But not Glenn Patterson. He saw acres and acres of scrap metal, abandoned flow lines of pipe that no one wanted, and he thought, even scrap metal has a value. It’s something he had learned from his dad. You could cut up metal pipe and repurpose it for fencing and other construction needs. Every oil field has miles and miles of metal pipe used to pump water and oil in and out of the well and transport it throughout the fields. So Dad bought the scrap metal rights from an oil company that had abandoned its lines, and we parked, still in darkness, at one such field. My dad figured that if we could cut a bunch of 2 3/8” pipe into 30-foot lengths and pile it onto the trucks, we might get 50 cents a foot for it. And if eight biceps worked that pipe from dawn to dusk, we could drag away quite a haul. The key was efficiency. Fastest way to cut that pipe was using an acetylene torch, and that was Donnie’s job. I had learned how to use a cutting torch, and so had Robert, but Donnie was way faster at it. He would slice through those joints in nine seconds flat.

Only problem was that the pipe was red-hot when Donnie dropped it to the ground and moved to the next joint; any nearby brush or grass would instantly catch fire. My job was to rotate the pipe with wrenches as Donnie cut it and to put out these mini fires before they got out of control. I had a shovel and a bucket of sand. So I was running one step behind Donnie as he was slicing through the pipe. Robert and my dad were behind me, grabbing the cut pipe after it cooled and hauling it to the trailers we were towing. The system was working pretty well, but the pipe was not cooling down fast enough. Nearby shrubs kept sprouting up in flame, and I’d have to run back and deal with them. It had been a very dry year, and there was a breeze that morning; the fires started to multiply. I couldn’t keep up with them. Pretty soon, one area was out of control and getting worse. I turned to call my dad, but he was already there, assaying the situation—realizing there was little choice. Flames were spreading fast across the dry grass. Glenn ran to the truck and grabbed the radio to report the emergency to the authorities. Then we picked up our gear and parked the trucks upwind. It took a long time for the fire trucks to locate us. We were in the middle of nowhere. Seemed like hours in my panicked 12-year-old mind. The area that was now aflame looked a thousand times larger than the few acres it probably was. It felt like we had torched the whole state of Texas. The day was a bust. I had nightmares about it.

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About the Author

T.M. “Roe” Patterson is a 23-year industry veteran in the oil and gas services business. Moving to his dad’s family business Basic Energy in 2006, he was named Top Public Company CEO by the Fort Worth Business Press in 2014. Holding a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas Tech University, he and his wife Tonya have two children and live in Fort Worth. He is active supporter of The American Heart Association, North Texas Alzheimer’s Association and speaks frequently across the country on the practical approach to leadership that his father embraced. Crude Blessings is his first book.

Spotlight: Indebted by Sharon C. Cooper

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Indebted

Atlanta’s Finest Series by Sharon C. Cooper Publication Date: June 15, 2018 Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Purchase: Amazon | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | iBooks | Kobo

Even when he does good, he’s bad… Detective Lazarus Dimas doesn’t play by the rules. On the streets, he’s a force to be reckoned with, a dangerous man with a badge and a gun. But he does have a soft spot — the sexy Assistant District Attorney Journey Ramsey. There is something about the woman he can’t shake. She’s irresistible and off limits. At least that’s what he keeps telling himself, but one kiss leads to others and well…so much for limits. Journey plays by the rules, normally. But she can’t deny the sexual tension that sparks whenever Laz is near, even when he puts her professional integrity at risk. Laz is complex. The type of man fathers warn their daughters about. Yet, there’s a gentle, vulnerable side to him that he lets no one see except her, and she can’t resist him. Can Laz prove he’s the man for Journey before a reopened case exposes his true colors? Or will the danger they face show that the love they share knows no boundaries?

About Sharon C. Cooper

Award-winning and bestselling author, Sharon C. Cooper, is a romance-a-holic – loving anything that involves romance with a happily-ever-after, whether in books, movies, or real life. Sharon writes contemporary romance, as well as romantic suspense and enjoys rainy days, carpet picnics, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She’s been nominated for numerous awards and is the recipient of an Emma Award for Romantic Suspense of the Year 2015 (Truth or Consequences), Emma Award – Interracial Romance of the Year 2015 (All You’ll Ever Need), and BRAB (book club) Award -Breakout Author of the Year 2014. When Sharon is not writing or working, she’s hanging out with her amazing husband, doing volunteer work or reading a good book (a romance of course). To read more about Sharon and her novels, visit www.sharoncooper.net

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Spotlight: What My Sister Knew by Nina Laurin

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"...currently wanted by the police. If you know anything about the suspect's whereabouts, please call..."

I look up at the TV screen, and my twin brother's face is splashed across it, life-size.

It's a shock that makes my breath catch. This is my brother as an adult, my brother who I last saw fifteen years ago after the fire that killed our parents, covered in soot, clutching a lighter in his hand, his knuckles stark white against the dirt and ash.

Everyone always said he'd grow up to be a heartbreaker. But his face has gone gaunt instead. The stubble on his cheeks and chin is patchy, and his eyes look dull and dark.

My first thought is that it's not him. Not my beautiful brother, the golden boy who everyone loved. Yet, deep down, I've always known this would eventually happen.

What did you do this time, Eli? What the hell did you do?

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About the Author

Nina Laurin, author of Girl Last Seen, studied Creative Writing at Concordia University, in Montreal where she currently lives. She has published speculative short stories in various e-zines and anthologies over the years and her narrative nonfiction piece, “On Happiness” is soon to be published in the local literary journal Cosmonauts Avenue. She blogs about books and writing on her own site, thrillerina.wordpress.com.

Spotlight: The Anomaly by Michael Rutger

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Not all secrets are meant to be found.

If Indiana Jones lived in the X-Files era, he might bear at least a passing resemblance to Nolan Moore — a rogue archaeologist hosting a documentary series derisively dismissed by the “real” experts, but beloved of conspiracy theorists.

Nolan sets out to retrace the steps of an explorer from 1909 who claimed to have discovered a mysterious cavern high up in the ancient rock of the Grand Canyon. And, for once, he may have actually found what he seeks. Then the trip takes a nasty turn, and the cave begins turning against them in mysterious ways.

Nolan’s story becomes one of survival against seemingly impossible odds. The only way out is to answer a series of intriguing questions: What is this strange cave? How has it remained hidden for so long? And what secret does it conceal that made its last visitors attempt to seal it forever?

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About the Author

Michael Rutger is a screenwriter whose work has been optioned by major Hollywood studios. He lives in California with his wife and son.

 

Spotlight: Navy SEAL's Match by Amber Leigh Williams

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He believes he can’t be saved—she’ll prove him wrong!

Former SEAL Gavin Savitt always knew who he was—until his last deployment ended tragically. Now he’s home, his mind hijacked by trauma and the shadow of his once-perfect sight. Yet in this new hazy, unclear world, one person stands out—Mavis Bracken.

There are a million reasons why Gavin shouldn’t be with Mavis, including that she’s his best friend’s little sister. Yet he longs for her touch, her freckles and her special way with wild, skittish beasts like him. He just needs the courage to take his life back. And Mavis won’t let him give up without a fight.

Book Excerpt

“I know it’d be better for you if I left.” 
“You let me be the judge of that,” she advised.     
“The moment you’re burdened by me,” he said, slowly, “I’m out of here.” 
She didn’t agree. No. Instead, she raised herself onto her toes. 
Gavin’s eyes closed and his breath hitched as her kiss washed breathily over his lips and blew him away. Answers cropped up inside him, bright like candles. His hand moved to the back of her head, no more able to snuff them out than he was to convince her to walk away. 

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About the Author

Amber Leigh Williams is a romance writer who lives on the US Gulf Coast. She lives for beach days, the smell of real books and spending time with her husband and their two young children. When she’s not keeping up with rambunctious little ones (and two large dogs), she can usually be found reading a good book or indulging her inner foodie. Amber is represented by the D4EO Literary Agency.

Amber’s latest book is the contemporary romance, Navy SEAL’S Match.

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