Spotlight: Even Better Than the Real Thing by Melanie Summers

Release Date: April 7

A swoon-worthy, buttery, uber-fun romance about a marriage of convenience between two people who couldn't be more wrong for each other...

You know what’s great about applying for an art history Ph.D. program at one of the world’s most prestigious universities? I get to study what I love and land my dream job at the end of it. You know what’s not so great? Being told I’ll only get accepted to the program if I gain access to my aloof, uppity, super grumpy boss’s private art collection.

As it turns out, said boss—a one Lord Hayden Stuart—needs to get married to inherit his late father’s estate and earldom. And if there’s one thing Hayden Stuart is never going to want for real—it’s a wife.

So, we strike up a deal: I marry him and go live at his castle, where I’ll have unlimited access to his collection, he gets his earldom, and when the estate is settled, we part ways forever.

Win-win, right?

Wrong.

I may have fooled myself into believing I wasn’t risking my heart, but there’s one huge problem: I’m definitely falling for him. He’s not just another man. He’s THE man—an irresistibly good-looking, in-control, expensive-suit-wearing man who makes all the other men look like little boys. And the more time I spend with him pretending to be his wife, the more desperate I become to believe the lie.

But he’s never going to fall for some lowly Ph.D. student. So what if at the wedding he looked at me as if I’m the only woman in the world, and kissed me like he’s shipping off to war in the morning? It doesn’t mean anything.

Or does it?

Because the more we’re together, the more I realize that, even though we’re from totally different worlds, we have a lot more in common than I ever could have imagined.

Now all I have to do is convince him he really does want a wife…

*** Even Better Than the Real Thing is a standalone romance with a little extra spice than a regular Melanie Summers book. ***

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Meet Melanie Summers:

I got SUPER lucky and my first novel, Break in Two, a steamy contemporary romance cracked the Top 10 Paid on Amazon in both the UK and Canada, and the top 50 Paid in the USA. My Full Hearts Series was then picked up by both Piatkus Entice (a division of Hachette UK) and HarperCollins Canada. 

My first three books have been translated into Czech and Slovak by EuroMedia. Since 2013, I've written and published sixteen novels and three novellas (and counting). I've sold over a quarter of a million books around the globe, and received two Bronze Medals at the Readers’ Favorite Award in the Chick Lit Category for The Royal Treatment (2018) and Whisked Away (2019), and one Silver Medal at the Readers' Favorite Awards in the Women's Fiction Category for The After Wife (2019).

Not bad for a newbie, eh?

I'm from Edmonton, Canada, where I live with my taller half, our three 'spirited' children (such a nice word to describe the chaos, no?). We also share our home with the cuddliest no-eyed dog ever, Lucy, and a furry Cuban dictator named Nelson. When I'm not writing, I love reading (obviously), snuggling up on the couch with the gang for movie night (which would not be complete without lots of popcorn and milkshakes), and long walks in the woods near my house.

I also spend a lot more time thinking about doing yoga than actually doing it, which is why any authorized photos of me are taken ‘from above’.

Oh, and I also love shutting down restaurants with my girlfriends. Well, not literally shutting them down, like calling the health inspector or something. More like just staying until they turn the lights off.

Connect with Melanie Summers: https://www.melaniesummersbooks.com 

Spotlight: Cease Fire by Marie James

Release Date: April 7

Making something off-limits will always make that thing more appealing. 

Jules Warren, my sister’s best friend, was no different. 

She has been the leading lady in every fantasy I’ve had since I was a teenager. 

There was no way I was turning her down when she invited me to her room. 

Those fantasies? They had nothing on the real thing. 

I was given the weekend to make my dreams come true. 

The ramifications, however, will last a lifetime. 

Keeping a secret is one thing. 

Living with the lies is impossible.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Audible | Paperback

Meet Marie James:

Let's see...where to begin...

I'm inching up on the BIG 4-0. The gray hairs are doubling what seems like daily, and the wrinkles and laugh lines are more pronounced than ever.

I have an amazing husband (Married just over 15 years.)

We have two boys we're doing our best to raise as respectful gentleman.

I have a master's degree in criminal justice which I used to work as a juvenile probation office until deciding to write full-time in June of 2019. So that means there's usually always some criminal/law element to my novels.

If I'm not writing; I'm reading.

My favorite genres recently are bully/reverse harem and enemies to lovers. Maybe I'm reliving my traumatic teen years through the girls who actually end up with the boys. (Not that I would change my history since it's gotten me exactly where I need to be!)

I love coffee. I miss carbs. Music is LIFE. I try not to be too serious.

Connect with Marie James:

Website: https://www.authormariejames.com

Newsletter: https://www.subscribepage.com/MarieJamesNewsletter

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

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/398SnB5

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13830123.Marie_James

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthrMarieJame

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/marie-james

Spotlight: Worth The Chase by J.D. Hollyfield

Release Date: April 7

From USA Today bestselling author J.D. Hollyfield comes a heartwarming, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about falling in love with your one-night stand. But of course, it can’t be that easy.

CHASE
Hit it and quit it.

That’s always been my motto. Falling in love is for chumps and I vow to never go down that road again. So, when a bombshell blonde approaches me at the bar looking to hook up, I am more than willing to oblige.

One night is my limit, but after our night of passion, I would change my rules for another round with her. Shame, the only proof she even existed is the lingering scent of cherries and the damn smile I can’t get rid of.

Or so I thought.

BRIDGET
Losing the love of your life puts your whole world into perspective, especially when the one man who is supposed to protect you is the very man who took it all away. I’m done feeling betrayed. From now on I make the rules. And currently, my eyes are set on the tan, muscular, guy sitting at the bar. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. One night together is exactly what I need.

But when I open the front door to my cousin's house, and I see him standing on the other side...that's the moment everything gets complicated.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Paperback

Meet J.D. Hollyfield:

Creative designer, mother, wife, writer, part time superhero…

J.D. Hollyfield is a creative designer by day and superhero by night. When she is not trying to save the world one happy ending at a time, she enjoys the snuggles of her husband, son’s and three doxies. With her love for romance, and head full of book boyfriends, she was inspired to test her creative abilities and bring her own story to life.

J.D. Hollyfield lives in the Midwest, and is currently at work on blowing the minds of readers, with the additions of her new books and series, along with her charm, humor and HEA’s.

Connect with J.D. Hollyfield:

url.bio/authorjdhollyfield

Spotlight: The Medic by Anna Hackett

Release Date: April 5

She’s a tough former soldier trying to resist the charming medic who’s going all in to claim her. 

Former Norwegian special forces soldier Siv Pederson is making a new start in San Francisco. New country, new job at Norcross Security, and her new rule: no men. She’s left her annoying ex behind and her only goal is to prove herself in her new job, especially when she’s assigned to her own investigation.

What she didn’t count on was having to work with one handsome, charming, and far-too-tempting former combat medic. 

After a career as an Air Force combat medic, Ryder Morgan is happy with his life. He likes working part time as a paramedic and donating the rest of his time at a free clinic in the toughest part of the city. He always thought finding “the one” wasn’t for him…until he sees gorgeous, tough Siv in a killer red dress. 

Now he’ll do anything to break through her prickly shell and convince her that he’s the man for her.

As homeless people start dying, and Ryder loses a good friend, Siv and Ryder must work together to find a killer. Going undercover as husband and wife, they have to discover who’s preying on the city’s most vulnerable before more people die. As they uncover a vast web of lies, Ryder has his work cut out for him. Not only to find justice, but to prove to Siv that he’ll protect both her body and her heart.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Paperback

Meet Anna Hackett: 

Anna Hackett is a USA Today bestselling romance author who’s passionate about fast-paced, emotion-filled contemporary and science-fiction romance. She loves writing about people overcoming unbeatable odds and achieving seemingly impossible goals. Some of her bestselling series include Galactic Gladiators, Eon Warriors, Treasure Hunter Security, and Team 52.

Anna lives in Australia with her real-life hero and their two little boys. For more information on Anna and her books visit: www.annahackett.com.

Spotlight: Sisters!: Bonded by Love And Laughter

Credit: Drue Wagner

No one has your back like your sister. And no one can make you laugh as hard. Explore this humorous, nobody-else-could-ever-understand, special world in Sisters! Bonded by Love and Laughter, featuring over 50 hilarious (and true) stories, Q&As, interviews and more from contributors including New York Times bestselling authors, Saturday Night Live legends, humor writers, podcasters, and other creatives, as well as Nickie's Prize winners.

Enjoy comical sister stories of illicit ear-piercing, sisterly advice (gone seriously awry) and sharing that shoulder to cry on during life’s most crushing moments.

If your sister is “your person,” then Sisters! is for you—and her—and for friends in your life who are just like sisters, and share that special bond of love and laughter.

Excerpt

Conversations in Cars with Sisters

Kim Bonner

The women in my family are not good drivers. They lack basic defensive driving skills, insist on fishing for a pack of gum underneath the seat while merging onto the highway, and are generally prone to vehicular mayhem. The effects of this hereditary defect quadruple when more than one of us is in an automobile at any given time.

Once, my sister and I sat in silence as my mother and two of her sisters crammed into the front seat of a Ford LTD to go shopping, while we sat in the back, choking down their second- hand smoke. I think I was ten years old.

“I can’t breathe,” I whispered to my sister.

She seemed unconcerned. “Don’t be so dramatic. Roll the window down.”

“You’re letting the air condition out!” my mother barked. “But...” I gagged.

“You ran a stop sign,” one of my aunts pointed out, mid-drag. My mother was indignant. “Did not.”

“I LITERALLY CANNOT BREATHE.”

“Just inhale through your mouth,” my other aunt advised me as she lit an unfiltered Camel. This, along with, “If you don’t have a fever, you’re not really sick,” was a staple of their parent-ing philosophy.

Years later, I was driving my sister and her toddler son home.

She’d volunteered him as a guinea pig for me to test out whether I could hack being a mom, since I was considering procreating. (I did, and she turned out fine, thank you very much.) When I glanced at the back seat, where I’d painstakingly strapped the tyke into a five-point harness, I squealed and swerved hard to the right, nearly nicking a mailbox. My sister was unperturbed, having hit more than her share of mailboxes.

“Your son is buck naked!” The kid had managed to remove all of his clothes, including his pull-up diaper. He sat happily wiggling his toes like a tourist on a European nudist beach.

“Yeah, sometimes he does that.”

The rest of the ride home was a mashup of, Your kid is a psy- cho and Don’t be so dramatic.

Later, when we had four kids between us, the conversations became, Can’t you make that Tamagotchi toy shut up? and Do you think that shake weight thing actually works?

Our kids, though, are of a softer generation and less tolerant of distracted driving. There were no aunts in their life to blow carcinogens in their face and say things like, “Go play in the street,” unironically. My mother’s sisters used to let our cous- ins light toothpicks with matches and pretend to smoke them. But our offspring? When my sister got pulled over because the two of us were debating McDonald’s fries vs. Wendy’s fries and didn’t notice a flashing yellow light, they ran and tattled to their granny, the same granny who wouldn’t roll down a window so I could breathe 30 years earlier. She put us both on restriction. I was 41.

Conversations in cars with sisters nowadays is just a matter of using Bluetooth, keeping your hands at the ten and two position, and generally being boring. Our kids will never know the thrill of almost losing your life because your sister can’t talk and drive at the same time.

Take, for example, my grandmother’s two older sisters. They lived together for 50 years until one of them became unable to care for herself and had to move to a nursing home. The other, deaf since birth, prevailed upon me, my mother, and one of my aunts to transport her to visit. When we picked her up, it was with the full expectation that there would be something by way of an address or map to get us to the nursing home. Mind you, this was before GPS or Siri or the Internet.

My great aunt deposited herself in the front passenger seat and proceeded to point whenever a turn had to be made, occa- sionally slapping my aunt on the arm when she failed to exe- cute instructions quickly enough.

“Couldn’t she have written out directions?” my aunt snapped as she swerved around a garbage truck. “I know my glasses are in here somewhere,” she mumbled, digging in her purse with her freshly bruised arm.

My great aunt was probably thinking, Couldn’t she have learned sign language?

My mother launched into one of her signature diatribes from the back seat, where I hunkered down. “You can’t see without your glasses! And she can’t tell you where to go. Lord have mercy!”

My great aunt slapped my regular aunt again and panto- mimed putting glasses on. “I’m looking!” my aunt hollered, ap- parently forgetting her aunt was deaf and, therefore, impervious to her go-to dispute resolution tactic: Yell until they forget why they’re mad.

“Are you touched in the head? Why would you even crank the car without putting your glasses on?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” I muttered.

My aunt skidded around a corner and almost took out a young couple walking a tiny poodle. “Who cranks a car any- more! What decade are you living in, for chrissakes?”

My great aunt slapped her arm again. She did not tolerate blasphemy, even if she couldn’t hear it.

“Don’t you have cataracts?” my mother persisted.

“Only old people get cataracts!”

“You’re 13 months younger than me!” my mother shouted back, reigniting a longstanding car debate: If I am the youngest sibling, does it mean I am actually young?

The actual young couple snatched up their pooch and ran for the curb, raising angry fists and shouting that my aunt needed to get her eyes checked. She triumphantly produced her glass- es and waved back at them. “There. All better.”

“Slow down!” my mother yelled.

They made it to the nursing home and a good time was had by all. No poodles were injured and the traffic authorities did not get involved. Those were the good old days, when conver- sations in cars with sisters meant real talk, a little drama, and sometimes a naked toddler.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Paperback | Bookshop.org

About the Editors

Nickie’s sister, Marcia Stewart (above left), is a 30-year publishing veteran who spent most of her career acquiring, editing and writing business and legal books for the publisher, Nolo. She co-founded Nickie's Prize for Humor Writing in honor of her younger sister who died of lung cancer in 2018. Sisters! is the first of what Marcia plans to be many humor books on relationships and family.

Teri Rizvi is the founder and director of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop at University of Dayton, where she serves as executive director of strategic communications. She's the author ofOne Heart with Courage: Essays and Stories and the co-editor ofLaugh Out Loud: 40 Women Humorists Celebrate Then and Now...Before We Forget.

About the Illustrator

Drue Wagner is an Austin-based graphic designer and illustrator. She got her start at Pentagram, in Austin, then spent over ten years at various publications in New York, including GQ, Bon Appetit, and the Wall Street Journal, before moving back to Texas.

Spotlight: Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy by Bob Goff

Hardcover: 256 pages

Through his pithy and inspiring storytelling that has endeared him to millions, New York Times bestselling author Bob Goff reassures readers that they can harness today’s distractions, follow Jesus’ example, and find focus, purpose, and joy.

You probably know what it’s like to be driving down the road when you suddenly feel the vibration and hear the guh-guh-guh–guh-guh of the rumble strips–those groves in the pavement–warning you that you’ve drifted out of your lane. You didn’t mean to get distracted. You only took your eyes off the road for a moment, but you drifted off course. And that’s a lot like life, isn’t it?

In Undistracted, Bob Goff lovingly yanks us back in our lane and helps us get back on track so we can live our lives with real purpose and joy. In his trademark storytelling style, Bob helps us

• learn the destruction of distraction and the benefits of living a life of undistracted love and authentic connection;

• identify the distractions in our lives and either eliminate them or route around them; and

• catch a vision of our future, undistracted selves where we can experience true happiness and joy.

Bob’s inspiring and entertaining stories in Undistracted show us what it looks like to live a beautiful and purposeful life rather than drifting aimlessly from one season to the next. He encourages us to fix our eyes on Jesus and harness life’s distractions so we can find joy despite our circumstances.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Audible | Hardcover | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Bob Goff is the author of the New York Times bestselling Love Does; Everybody, Always; and Dream Big as well as the bestselling Love Does for Kids. He’s a lover of balloons, cake pops, and helping people pursue their big dreams. Bob’s greatest ambitions in life are to love others, do stuff, and most importantly, to hold hands with his wife, Sweet Maria, and spend time with their amazing family. For more, check out BobGoff.com and LoveDoes.org.