Spotlight: Built by Maggie Marr

Built: An Enemies To Lovers Second Chance Bad-Boy Billionaire Alpha Romance
Maggie Marr
Publication date: March 19th 2019
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

I hate Jake Warner. Loathe. Can. Not. Stand. No matter how sexy he looks in his jeans with that low-slung tool belt. He had his chance with me and he blew it Big. Time. He’s not getting a second-chance no matter how long I stare into this ice-blue eyes and think about those full lips or his dimples when he smiles. We may have to work together, but that absolutely doesn’t mean that we’ll get back together. Nope. No way. No matter what my heart says, this time I’m listening to my head.

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EXCERPT:

“I hate you, Jake Warren. Loathe. Detest. Can’t stand to be around you. I—”

A wicked-slow smile spreads over Jake’s face. A smile that I’m almost willing to risk losing my job over to wipe from his smug mug.

Almost.

One of the reasons I hate that face so damn much is that Jake’s face is perfect. Not perfect in the sense that it’s got nothing wrong with it, because there’s that tiny scar that cuts through his right eyebrow from when he fell out of the tree in Mrs. Gibson’s front yard trying to get my cat, Mr. Biggles, down from the maple tree. Jake was ten and I was seven. That moment, in my childhood, when Jake played Prince Charming to my weeping Damsel in Distress resulted in four stitches, a broken arm, and a saved Mr. Biggles.

But none of that matters now. None of it.

That was twenty years ago and ever since I returned home and took the job at Ryan & Sons Construction, my Dad’s construction company, there’s been nothing, and I mean nothing charming about Jake Warren. In fact everything about him has been downright loathsome.

I. Hate. Jake.

I should get a tattoo. Or maybe a t-shirt.

No matter how perfect his face and body are—those two things don’t matter because I can’t stand his full, cupid-bow lips and indented cleft chin, and I definitely detest his square jaw with high-cut cheekbones. And his dark brown, curly hair and ice-blue eyes that seem to see right through every part of me.

Like this very moment, he’s standing so close to me that I can practically feel his muscles pulsing beneath that sweaty white Stanford t-shirt he’s wearing.

Show off.

So what if you went to Stanford and have perfect biceps and work with your hands and wear a tool belt slung low on your hips.

So. What.

Jake stands in front of me with his hands on his hips, with those lips—those damned pillow-cushion lips—nearly even with my eyes, like he’s some kind of crown prince because he can lift a two-by-four, swing a hammer, and hang drywall…he stands there in his dirty Levi’s with that hip cocked, staring right at me. Knowing full well that he was the boy that saved my cat, kissed me when I was twelve, and saw me naked at sixteen.

And broke my heart at twenty-one.

Well, I’m not naked today. Nope, today I’m pissed. I stand in front of him just back from an afternoon meeting with a Chinese investor who may or may not want Daddy’s company to build two hundred new homes, with my hand on my hip, my tablet in my hand, ready to tell Jake Warren why he should never, never, never speak to a client because that is my job as the front-facing newly minted sales team at Ryan & Sons Construction, and while I’m deadly serious, Jake’s eyes are…are…wickedly playful.

Asshole!

His damn ice-blue eyes are wickedly playful in this completely inappropriate way that causes my nipples to harden and my lady-bits to tingle like they do nearly every day that I work with Jake. Which for the last ten months has been every damn day.

Nope. I hate him. Loathe. Detest.

“Becca”—he lifts an eyebrow and his gaze streaks up and down my body—“you know you love me.” His words are honey. Sweet and slow and slick and sticky and they pull me to him almost as certain as if he’d taken that big strong arm of his and snaked it around my waist and pulled me close.

Which he didn’t do, and in fact hasn’t done in what seems like nearly a lifetime, and another reason why I absolutely can’t stand this man.

“Love you? Ha! I just told you I can’t stand you. Do you even listen to me Jake Warren? Do you listen to anyone? Ever?” I wave the tablet for emphasis because the email I just got from a client—a very important client—proves yet again to me that a) Jake Warren never listens and b) he should be fired so that c) I can run Daddy’s construction company like I was meant to do without any interference from this clown.

“Oh, I hear you, Becca,” Jake says, those ice-blue eyes gazing right past me and toward the open doorway and the construction office filled with support staff and other guys that work for Daddy on various construction crews, all of which Jake Warren heads up. “I think everyone in the entire firm hears you too.”

“Fuck you,” I silently mouth. I take two steps backward, and press my stiletto to the office door, between us and the rest of the company and kick the damn door closed. “Private enough for ya?”

“Guess it depends on what you have in mind, Tiger.”

Heat floods my neck. No one. No. One. calls me Tiger—or no one has since Jake did all those years ago and there have been a whole lot of years, plus one college degree, an MBA, and a failed (very public) engagement since the last time Jake stood this close to me and called me Tiger.

“Becca,” I say between gritted teeth. “That’s Becca to you. Or, if you prefer, you can call me Ms. Ryan,” I say.

“Riiiiiight.” He takes a step closer. “And what if I prefer Tiger?”

I swallow and don’t move because deep down inside as much as I currently hate Jake Warren, I actually, if I’m honest, prefer him calling me Tiger too.

Author Bio:

Maggie Marr is the USA Today Best Selling author of hot contemporary romance. She spends her days working in entertainment and her nights writing. Maggie loves all things pop culture and when she isn't writing, she's reading or binge-watching Netflix. Never miss a new release, sale, bonus content, or extras by signing up for Maggie's newsletter here: maggiemarr.net

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Spotlight: First: Sandra Day O'Connor by Evan Thomas

The intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives—by the New York Times bestselling author Evan Thomas.

She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. But Sandra Day O’Connor’s story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings—doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement, and cowgirl toughness.

She became the first ever female majority leader of a state senate. As a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, she stood up to corrupt lawyers and humanized the law. When she arrived at the United States Supreme Court, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, she began a quarter-century tenure on the Court, hearing cases that ultimately shaped American law. Diagnosed with cancer at fifty-eight, and caring for a husband with Alzheimer’s, O’Connor endured every difficulty with grit and poise.

Women and men who want to be leaders and be first in their own lives—who want to learn when to walk away and when to stand their ground—will be inspired by O’Connor’s example. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, who believed in serving her country, and who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for all women.

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About the Author

Evan Thomas is the author of nine books: The Wise Men (with Walter Isaacson), The Man to See, The Very Best Men, Robert Kennedy, John Paul Jones, Sea of Thunder, The War Lovers, Ike’s Bluff, and Being Nixon. John Paul Jones andSea of Thunder were New York Timesbestsellers. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years (1986–96) as Washington bureau chief at Newsweek,where, at the time of his retirement in 2010, he was editor at large. He wrote more than one hundred cover stories and in 1999 won a National Magazine Award. He wrote Newsweek’s fifty-thousand-word election specials in 1996, 2000, 2004 (winner of a National Magazine Award), and 2008. He has appeared on many TV and radio talk shows, including Meet the Press and The Colbert Report, and has been a guest on PBS’s Charlie Rose more than forty times. The author of dozens of book reviews for The New York Times and The Washington Post, Thomas has taught writing and journalism at Harvard and Princeton, where, from 2007 to 2014, he was Ferris Professor of Journalism.

Spotlight: The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

A new novel from Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author ofThe Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island.

Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility but also danger.

Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook’s differences are impossible to ignore. The Island of Sea Women is an epoch set over many decades, beginning during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by World War II, the Korean War and its aftermath, through the era of cell phones and wet suits for the women divers. Throughout this time, the residents of Jeju find themselves caught between warring empires. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, and she will forever be marked by this association. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers in their village. Little do the two friends know that after surviving hundreds of dives and developing the closest of bonds, forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a world turned upside down, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce and unforgettable female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.

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About the Author

Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1. She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles. See was the recipient of the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California and the History Maker’s Award from the Chinese American Museum. She was also named National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women.

Spotlight: The Goodbye Cafe by Mariah Stewart

From Mariah Stewart, New York Times bestselling author of The Chesapeake Diaries series, comes the next book in her popular Hudson Sisters series, which follows a trio of reluctant sisters who set out to fulfill their father’s dying wish and discover themselves in the process in this “sweet reminder of the importance of family” (First for Women). 

California girl Allie Hudson Monroe can’t wait for the day when the renovations on the Sugarhouse Theater are complete so she can finally collect the inheritance from her father and leave Pennsylvania. After all, her life and her fourteen-year-old daughter are in Los Angeles.

But Allie’s divorce left her tottering on the edge of bankruptcy, so to keep up on payments for her house and her daughter’s private school tuition, Allie packed up and flew out east. But fate has a curve-ball or two to toss in Allie’s direction—she just doesn’t know it yet.

She hadn’t anticipated how her life would change after reuniting with her estranged sister, Des, or meeting her previously unknown half-sister, Cara. And she’d certainly never expected to find small-town living charming. But the biggest surprise was that her long-forgotten artistry would save the day when the theater’s renovation fund dried up.

With opening day upon the sisters, Allie’s free to go. But for the first time in her life, she feels like the woman she was always meant to be. Will she return to the West Coast and resume her previous life, or will the love of “this amazing, endearing family of women” (Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author) be enough to draw her back to the place where the Hudson roots grow so deep?

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About the Author

Mariah Stewart is the award-winning New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous novels and several novellas and short stories. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives with her husband and two rambunctious rescue dogs amid the rolling hills of Chester County, Pennsylvania, where she savors country life and tends her gardens while she works on her next novel. Visit her website at MariahStewart.com, like her on Facebook at Facebook.com/AuthorMariahStewart, and follow her on Instagram @Mariah_Stewart_Books.

Spotlight: Letting You Go (Stone Lake Series, #1) by Jordan Marie

Jordan Marie's upcoming release, LETTING YOU GO, is now available for preorder. The book will be released on April 29. This will be the first book in her Stone Lake series. Learn more about her book and checkout an excerpt below!

I met Luna Marshall when I was seventeen.

She was a force of nature that I wasn’t ready for.

She was gravity and I was caught in her pull—

Powerless while she held me in a world I was desperate to escape.

They say you never forget your first love.

I believe they’re right.

I’ll always remember the sound of her laughter.

The way she whispered my name when I touched her, and the taste of her on my lips.

I’ll remember everything.

Including the look of pain as I walked away

Excerpt

“It’s a good night, right?”

“Yeah.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re having fun,” he says.

“I am. Just a little worried about my parents, I guess.”

“Parents are a drag.”

“Mine aren’t. Not really. They’re cool, which is probably why I don’t like lying to them.”

“Relax. It’s not like they’ll find out. You and Jules already called them, right? And she called hers?”

“Well, yeah. But I keep worrying. Like, what if one of my parents or Jules’s is in an accident? What if the house catches on fire? So, they try to find us and discover we lied. My father could have a heart attack or something and Mom would be a worried mess, and then she’d know I wasn’t where I said I was and she’d panic while already being upset…”

“You’re a freak, Luna. Breathe. None of that’s going to happen.”

“Yeah, probably not,” I tell him. “But, that doesn’t make me forget the possibility is there.”

“At least your parents care about you. My father won’t even notice I’m gone and wouldn’t for days, if then.”

“Of course, he would.”

“No. I don’t have your kind of life, Luna. Dad barely talks to me. He’s drinking from the time I get home from school until he passes out. I don’t know how he manages to keep his job at the garage. Old Mr. Gilroy threatens to fire him at least once a week. He just never does.”

“I’m so sorry, Attie. I had no idea,” I whisper, putting my hand on his leg in silent support.

“It’s okay. I’m used to doing things on my own. I don’t need anyone.”

“Well, you have your brother, Gavin. It’s good you both have each other.”

“Yeah, good ole’ Gavin. He’s—”

“Late to the party.”

My head jerks up at that deep voice and my body experiences an all over shiver. Gavin is standing across from me and Atticus. It’s dark, but the light from the fire highlights him perfectly. He’s wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that I’ve seen him in often. It has different colors of blues and greens in it and I love it because it somehow makes his dark hair look like it shines.

“What are you doing here?” Atticus says, and his voice is laced with anger. I’ve never seen Atticus angry at anything or anyone. He’s always been laid back and easy going. The change is shocking.

“You invited me. Remember?” Gavin says, and something about his smile tells me that is not the full story.

“I remember telling you that there was no way you’d get what you wanted. You might as well go back home now.”

“I don’t think so. I’m just now starting to enjoy the view,” he says and this time when he smiles he looks right at me.

My heart beats frantically in my chest. It’s a dangerous smile. I kind of feel like I’m Little Red Riding Hood and Gavin is the Big Bad Wolf.

“Hey, Luna,” he says.

Oh my God! Oh my God! My brain screams as my palms go sweaty. If I thought my heart was beating hard before, it’s thumping like a runaway train now.

Oh. My. God.

Gavin Lodge spoke to me!!?!!

And he knows my name! Mine!

Holy freaking cow!

“Uh… Hi…. Gav… Gavin.”

Heat explodes through me and centers on my face as I blush so deeply I probably glow from it.

Can I be any lamer?

I barely could get his name out and my voice cracked. I want to die in shame. I want the ground to just swallow me up and bury me alive.

“Want to go for a walk?” he asks and I blink.

“Me?” I squeak.

“Don’t see anyone else here I’d be asking, Babe. Unless you and my brother are busy?”

Oh my God. Gavin is asking me to walk with him! He wants to be alone with me!

Every freaking dream I’ve ever had has centered on this guy and he just asked to be alone with me!

Me!

“Attie? Um… No. We don’t have anything going on. I mean… We’re just friends. We were talking that’s all. You know…”

I have got to get control of my nerves. I’m not making any sense! Gavin probably thinks I’m insane. He’s probably already regretting asking me to go on a walk.

I expect him to tell me he changed his mind, but then he reaches his hand out.

“Then, take a walk with me, Babe.”

I put my hand in his and watch wide-eyed as his fingers wrap around mine and he pulls me up.

His hand is warm, strong and I memorize the feel of it.

I’ll remember it for the rest of my life

Grab your copy:

Amazon : smarturl.it/LettingYouGoJM

Nook: http://bit.ly/2UBxeXG

Kobo : http://bit.ly/2Cjuh76

iBooks : smarturl.it/iBooksLettingYouGoJM

Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43567325-letting-you-go

Cover Reveal: Glass Castle Prince by Nicole Williams

Releases: March 20th

A glass castle shatters as easily as a glass house—all it takes is one stone.

Prince Edward has known this all of his life, and taken staunch measures to ensure he doesn’t give the public any reason to pick up their rocks. Or torches. Or pitchforks. As a twenty-two-year-old in line to ascend the throne, he lives more like a cloistered monk than his college-aged peers. Restraint is the tone of his life, resilience the theme.

That is, until he meets a young woman who couldn’t care less about his title—unless she’s poking fun at it. Charlotte Everly grew up a stone’s throw away from the royal family’s summer house, but her life was, and is, entirely different from the prince’s.

They clash at each turn, disagree on every topic, and bear a general contempt for one another. Until . . .

One night, accompanied by one proposal, leads to one lapse in judgment . . .

Results in a nationwide scandal neither of them will escape.

GOODREADS - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44141323-glass-castle-prince

About the Author

Nicole Williams is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary and young adult romance, including the Crash and Lost & Found series. Her books have been published by HarperTeen and Simon & Schuster in both domestic and foreign markets, while she continues to self-publish additional titles. She is working on a new YA series with Crown Books (a division of Random House) as well. She loves romance, from the sweet to the steamy, and writes stories about characters in search of their happily even after. She grew up surrounded by books and plans on writing until the day she dies, even if it’s just for her own personal enjoyment. She still buys paperbacks because she’s all nostalgic like that, but her kindle never goes neglected for too long. When not writing, she spends her time with her husband and daughter, and whatever time’s left over she’s forced to fit too many hobbies into too little time.

Nicole is represented by Jane Dystel, of Dystel and Goderich Literary Agency.

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