Spotlight: Ashes of Pride by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Ashes of Pride
Tracy Cooper-Posey
(Scandalous Scions , #10)
Publication date: June 27th 2019
Genres: Adult, Historical, Romance

Married in haste, to the wrong man…

Blanche wed Lieutenant Colonel Seymour in search of a hero to replace the French military father she never knew, only to find herself stranded in Northumberland, in a penniless marriage, with no recourse.

Blanche’s cousin, Neil Williams, now a decorated Major, returns from the colonies to rejoin the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Her husband, as Neil’s superior officer, makes Neil’s life intolerable, as well as her own. Blanche learns that the truly courageous are defined by their actions and that Seymour is not one of them, for what he does to Neil defies imagination…

This book is the tenth book in the Scandalous Scions series, bringing together the members of three great families, to love and play under the gaze of the Victorian era’s moralistic, straight-laced society.

This story is part of the Scandalous Scions series:
0.5 Rose of Ebony
1.0 Soul of Sin
2.0 Valor of Love
3.0 Marriage of Lies
4.0 Mask of Nobility
5.0 Law of Attraction
6.0 Veil of Honor
7.0 Season of Denial
8.0 Rules of Engagement
9.0 Degree of Solitude
10.0 Ashes of Pride

…and more to come!

A Sexy Historical Romance

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EXCERPT:

Neil shifted on his chair, sitting back, drawing attention with his movement. Blanche’s gaze swung to him. Her lips parted. Her eyes widened. Joy spread across her face.

Neil felt a jolt at the pure pleasure in her eyes. Why could she possibly be so glad to see him? Of the five, Neil knew Blanche the least. Her company had always irritated him, for she ran hot and cold in fits and starts, which made her uncomfortable and unpredictable. She was not like Alice, who could be counted upon to be sunny and happy, no matter what.

Yet Blanche was tugging at her husband’s sleeve now with firm insistence. She murmured in his ear.

“Williams, you know Mrs. Seymour?” Edmund Hunter asked.

“Blanche is my cousin.” Neil realized he was smiling, too. He didn’t bother with the convoluted explanations about adoptees and honorary cousins. He got to his feet as Seymour brought his wife over to the table, his gaze on Blanche.

He realized he was just as pleased to see her as she seemed feel about seeing him.

“I had forgotten about that extended family of yours,” Captain Long said, on the other side of the table. “Everyone in William’s family is related to just about everyone who counts,” he added to Lieutenant Roberts, the last man at the table.

“Just about? Make that everyone,” Tom Penny said. “Didn’t you hear? Innesford married the Gainford heiress earlier this year.”

Neil ignored their gossip and watched Blanche, enjoying the sight of a beautiful woman moving. She had the grace and elegance of true European women, who seemed to be born with the knowledge.

“Neil! Oh, Neil!” she breathed, stepping ahead of her husband, her gloved hands coming up. She reached up on her toes and kissed the air by Neil’s cheeks, while Seymour’s eyes bulged. “I heard you were heading back home, but I didn’t think you would arrive for weeks, yet!”

Neil caught at her elbows, steadying her. “Hello, Blanche. It is wonderful to see you. You are the first in the family I have seen since I got back.”

As he spoke, everyone scrambled to their feet to salute the senior officer.

Neil followed suit, while Blanche smiled up at him.

Seymour acknowledged the salute, letting everyone relax.

Blanche turned back to Neil. “You are the first in the family I have seen since before Christmas…oh, Neil!” Her smile trembled and her eyes glittered.

Neil’s chest tightened. Blanche looked as though she was about to cry. The Blanche he knew, the little he did know of her…that woman did not cry. She laughed. She raged. She pouted and stomped her foot. She did not cry. She was too busy sailing through life and sampling all it had to offer to bewail her fate.

Blanche made a soft sound and put her arms around Neil’s neck and hugged him.

For a moment, shock froze his thoughts. He smelled her scent—something spicy that had nothing to do with flowers. Her hair brushed his chin. Heat registered through the slippery satin. Slenderness, too. And a soft roundness he had not enjoyed in far, far too long…

“Oh, dear!” Penny murmured, sounding shocked. Major Hunter smiled indulgently and didn’t bother looking away.

Seymour’s expression grew dark and thunderous.

Neil caught at Blanche’s arms, trying to draw her away from him, good sense returning with a crash.

She stepped back swiftly and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, please forgive me,” she said to the table. “It has been so long since I saw Neil…I mean, Major Williams.” She gave a small grimace of apology and rested her fingers on Seymour’s arm. “Husband, may I introduce to you my cousin, Major Neil Williams, of Innesford.”

“Cornwall?” Major Hunter said softly. “That Williams?”

“The very one,” Captain Long replied.

Neil saluted. “Lieutenant Colonel.”

“At ease,” Seymour said. “I’ve heard a little about you, Williams.”

Neil let his posture relax. “Sir.” Now the man was closer, he could see he was very young. Possibly younger than Neil. His pale hair was baby-soft. So was his chin.

Seymour’s eyes narrowed. “You’re out of uniform, Williams.”

Neil glanced down at his out-of-date red coat. “I haven’t had time to—”

Seymour glanced at Edmund Hunter. “Major, as Provost Marshall, it is your duty to attend to such slovenliness. Dock the man two shillings a day until he represents the Regiment properly.”

Hunter straightened to attention. “Yes, sir.”

Blanche’s eyes grew larger, as she looked from Neil to her husband.

Two shillings! Neil gritted his teeth. It was an exorbitant sum, especially as the regimental commander was aware of the uniform breech and was willing to tolerate it. Only, Neil could not argue with a senior officer and he was out of uniform.

Seymour glanced around the table of officers, possibly taking note of who dared dine with the slovenly Major. He curled his hand around Blanche’s arm and pulled her away. “Gentlemen,” he said.

Author Bio:

Tracy Cooper-Posey is a #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, historical, paranormal and science fiction romance. She has published over 100 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.

She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year. Tracy won the award in 2012, and an SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 for “Most Intriguing Philosophical/Social Science Questions in Galaxybuilding”. She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.

She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian Canadian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.

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Audio Spotlight: Secret Love by Isabella

Series: The 4ever Series, Book 2

Release date: Apr. 5, 2019

Synopsis: Guarding a secret and playing with fire has never been a good combination.

Four years ago, Holly Scallenger embarked on the most difficult journey of her life. As if being a single parent isn't already stressful enough, Holly also attended med-school, in hopes of helping other pregnant women in a way she wasn't helped. But things don't look so good as she has to embark on a new journey - a journey that would take her back to Boston, back to the man who broke her heart and discarded her and her babies.

Sworn to never fall for him again, Holy is put to the test once more when a chance encounter reunites them.

Secret Love is the second novel in the 4Ever series by Isabella White

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About the Author: Isabella White

Isabella White is a USA Today Bestselling author. She always knew she was going to be a writer, but it only started to really happen in 2015 when she published Imperfect Love. It was followed two years later by the second part, Secret Love, and in 2018 she published the final part, Endless Love.

When she is not writing she loves to spend her time with her Husband, two daughters and their pets doing whatever journey like takes them on. To find out more about Isabella visit her website at www.isabellawhitebooks.com

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About the Narrator: Stefanie Kay

Stefanie Kay lives on the East Coast of the US with her husband and two young boys. She's always been a book lover and has a background in performing arts. Narration has become a passion and she loves having the honor of bringing these stories to life. She has narrated Paranormal Romance for DB Sieders, Chick-Lit for Charlotte Roth, and Romance for Isabella White, loving how each author has created such depth and layered stories that are easy to get lost in and you can't help but fall in love with the characters.

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About the Narrator: Duane Dale

Duane Dale brings his distinct and unique timber to the voice acting world after searching his soul to find his ultimate calling. Duane's pursuit of becoming a voice actor came in an unexpected and clandestine manner. Since childhood Duane had a severe stutter that mysteriously left him in March 2004. Shortly after losing his speech impediment Duane decided to pursue what he felt was his Destiny: to become a voice actor.

Duane is also an aspiring author, writing is his passion. He has finished his first novel in a series of four stories all told. The first novel is titled, Time, the First Book in the Destiny Series™. The other books in his planned series are: Chaos, Chance and Inheritance.

He writes in the category of Magical realism mixed in with some family saga fiction. As an aspiring writer, Duane understands the challenges of getting published through traditional means and having people enjoy an authors story telling. Because he truly wants his story to be heard, he plans to produce the audio version of his first novel and release it shortly.

Secret Love Giveaway: $10 Amazon Gift Card

Spotlight: The Father of All Dad Guides: From (A)doring to (Z)addy by Madeleine Davies and Tara Jacoby (Illustrator)

A humorous gift book that introduces the different species of American fathers, from A to Z

Of all the mammalian species of North America, few are as paradoxically mysterious and demanding of attention as the human father of the United States. Quiet yet steady in his affection and deafeningly loud when he’s mad, the American dad—as much as we love him—is a particularly exciting study, which is why we’ve created this guide as an aid for readers to identify themselves (if you happen to be a dad), their dads (if you happen to have a dad), dads on television (often a stand-in when your dad’s not around), and dads in the wild.

In The Father of All Dad Guides: From A(doring) to Z(addy), you will learn how to identify fathers through:

· Their markings. Some dads have mustaches. Others do not!
· Dad calls. These include: “I’ll turn this car around right now” and “Can’t you ask your mom about that?”
· Migration patterns. Why does Dad consistently ignore directions when he clearly doesn’t know where he is going?
· Hibernation. Dads are tired all the time. 
· Defining characteristics. All dads are different, but they typically fall into at least one of the categories we’ve collected here. Is your dad obsessed with barbecuing? He might be a grill dad. Did he only really begin to see women as people deserving of political and social equality after he had daughters? That right there is the feminist dad!

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About the Author and Illustrator

Madeleine Davies is a Wisconsin-born writer living in New York. Having spent her twenties writing and editing for Jezebel and Gawker Media, she's now a stay-at-home mom (to two idiot cats) and a freelancer. Her dad and step dad somehow support this lifestyle.

Tara Jacoby is Philly-based illustrator from Vineland, New Jersey. Tara served as Deputy Art Director for Gawker Media before becoming a freelance illustrator. Her work has been published in GQ, The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Playboy and more. She has a quality dad named Bruce.

Spotlight: Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene

For readers of The Bright Hour and When Breath Becomes Air, a moving, transcendent memoir of loss and a stunning exploration of marriage in the wake of unimaginable grief.

As the book opens: two-year-old Greta Greene is sitting with her grandmother on a park bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A brick crumbles from a windowsill overhead, striking her unconscious, and she is immediately rushed to the hospital. But although it begins with this event and with the anguish Jayson and his wife, Stacy, confront in the wake of their daughter’s trauma and the hours leading up to her death, Once More We Saw Stars quickly becomes a narrative that is as much about hope and healing as it is about grief and loss. Jayson recognizes, even in the midst of his ordeal, that there will be a life for him beyond it–that if only he can continue moving forward, from one moment to the next, he will survive what seems unsurvivable. With raw honesty, deep emotion, and exquisite tenderness, he captures both the fragility of life and absoluteness of death, and most important of all, the unconquerable power of love. This is an unforgettable memoir of courage and transformation–and a book that will change the way you look at the world.

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Excerpt

Ever since the accident, I have avoided going to the park. The park was our place, Greta’s and mine — every tree, every leaf, every passing doggy belonged to the two of us. Even within my cocoon of shock, I am sure going there would pierce my defenses, flooding me the way my first trip outside did after she died.

And then, one day, just as the summer light is beginning to change, I wake up with a familiar itch. I need to go running in the park.

I step outside and feel only the warmth of the sun. I round the corner on the block that leads to the parade grounds, just outside the park’s southwest entrance. The street is wide, quiet, shaded. There is no one outside, no one to nod at, make eye contact with, step around.

I enter the parade grounds and run past fields full of children, my eyes fixed straight ahead. To my left, a middle-school football team is doing speed and endurance drills, dancing frantically on their toes and dropping down for push-ups. Two boys swing a bat lazily to my right, smacking a baseball into the same bulged-out spot on the chain-link. It hits the fence with a loud bong as I run past, but I do not flinch. I reach the edge of the park, tennis courts to my right.

There at the park’s mouth, my heart stirs, and I feel a peculiar elation. I recognize her. Greta is somewhere nearby. I feel her energy, playfully expectant. Come find me, Daddy, she says. Tears spring and run freely down my face. I hear you, baby girl, I whisper. Daddy’s coming to get you.

Elated, I enter the park and immediately spot her; she is waiting for me, hiding behind the big tree in the clearing between the Vanderbilt playground and the duck pond. She appears from behind the tree with a flourish, giggling, just like in our old game: She would run out into the hallway from the bedroom where we had been playing, either naked or in her diaper, and cast me an impish look, asking, “Where’s Greta?” I would feign great perplexity, turning over small toys on the floor to see if she was under them, peeking behind the couch, clutching my head in mock terror. “Oh no, what have we done?” I would moan. “We’ve lost her!” She would laugh, run back in, and announce, “Greta came right back!”

Standing in the park, staring at her, I make a strange and primal sound, deep and rich like a belly laugh, hard and sharp like a sob. You are here. You picked the park. Good choice, baby girl. Oblivious to the people around me, I run to her. She wiggles in anticipatory joy. Stooping down, I scoop her up under her soft armpits, her shoulder blades meeting at the pads of my fingers, and I lift her up into the sky. She is invisible to passersby — to them, there is nothing in the spot next to the tree where she stands laughing and clapping but a patch of grass, and there is nothing in my arms but air. But she is not here for them; she is here for me.

She gazes down at me, her smile that turned crooked at the bottom like mine crumpling her wide-open face. I bend my arms and lower her face down to mine and kiss her, slowly. Then I set her back down in the grass.

You stay here, okay? I say. Daddy’s going for a run, okay, sweetie pie?

Oh yeah, okay! she says back.

I turn around and begin running hard along the perimeter of the pond, where we had dipped her hand in the water, splashing and saying, “Here we go, ducks! Here we go!” The playground recedes behind me, where I had pushed her on the swing while she sang, “Poopy, poopy, poopy poopy,” to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” at the top of her lungs. “If my kid’s saying ‘poopy’ tonight,” the mother next to me deadpanned, “I’ll know where he picked it up.”

I feel her presence filling up my heart, and with it comes a strange exhilaration that I have felt often in the weeks after her death. Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it, a blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin, translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t know quite what’s behind it yet. But it is there.

I am treading ether, a new and unfamiliar kind of contact high. I have been raised secular by my parents, and I’ve never set foot in a church for more than an hour. But I will do anything for Greta, I am learning. And that includes becoming a mystic, so that I might still enjoy her company.

When I reach the edge of the park again, I stop and feel a torrent of words flood me. I grope for my phone, blindly choosing the most recent document, a mess of to-dos and grocery lists. Underneath a reminder to pick up pita and above a confirmation number for a UPS delivery, I write, “There will be more light upon this earth for me.”

Excerpted from Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene. Copyright © 2019 by Jayson Greene. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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About the Author

JAYSON GREENE is a contributing writer and former senior editor at Pitchfork. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vulture, and GQ, among other publications. This is his first book. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.

Spotlight: The Earl Next Door by Amelia Grey

What does a fiercely independent young widow really want? One determined suitor is about to find out. . .

When Adeline, Dowager Countess of Wake, learns of her husband’s sudden death, she realizes she’s free. At last, she can do, go, and be as she pleases. Finally, she can have the life she has always dreamed of. She doesn’t need, or want, to remarry. Especially not the supremely dashing future Marquis of Marksworth, who makes Adeline yearn for his desire. . .

Lord Lyonwood, son of a philandering marquis, will not be like his father. He wants to run his estates and watch them flourish—and find a wife who brings love to his life. When he meets spirited and self-reliant Adeline in a case of near-scandalous mistaken identity, Lyon feels he’s met his match. But Adeline isn’t interested in a marriage proposal. She will only accept becoming his lover—and Lyon finds it hard to refuse. Unless the fire of his passion can melt Adeline’s resolve. . .

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About the Author

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Amelia Grey read her first romance book when she was thirteen and she's been a devoted reader of love stories ever since. Her awards include the Booksellers Best, Aspen Gold, and the Golden Quill. Writing as Gloria Dale Skinner, she won the coveted Romantic Times Award for Love and Laughter, and the prestigious Maggie Award. Her books have sold to many countries in Europe, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, and Japan. Several of her books have also been featured in Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Clubs. Amelia is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the Heirs' Club trilogy and the Rakes of St. James series. She's been happily married to her high school sweetheart for over thirty-five years and she lives on the beautiful gulf coast of Northwest Florida.

Spotlight: The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary

What if your roommate is your soul mate? A joyful, quirky romantic comedy, Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare is a feel-good novel about finding love in the most unexpected of ways.

Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met.

After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art.

Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet.

Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes – first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more.

But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you've never met.

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About the Author

Beth O’Leary worked in publishing before becoming a full time author. The Flatshare is her debut novel.