Cover Reveal: Buck Up, Buttercup by Anna Alkire

Publication date: June 30th 2022
Genres: Comedy, Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

All’s fair in love and war.
With Randi and Buck, it’s hard to tell the two apart…

An uptight, self-contained college girl, Randi Becker just needed one thing: a room. Somewhere she could study, and keep away from the things that most confuse and frighten her: people.

Unfortunately, the “nice quiet place” she reserved turns out to be a room in the campus’ most raucous house. A place seemingly designed to make studying impossible, made even worse by the other girls’ non-stop drama.

But then Buck, a fun-loving cowboy whom all the ladies love, shows up…and everything gets much worse.

Buck seems to have it all: friends, fun, and a never-ending line of admirers. But what he most desires is a break. So when Buck spots Randi, he figures she’s a perfect decoy: he can play up a “crush” on her that will take him off the market; buy him some breathing room. And if he can tease her a bit, and get under the skin of the uptight busybody? Well, that’s just gravy.

But Buck is about to find more than he bargained for. Randi’s strong-willed, opinionated, difficult—and maybe just what he needs. And Buck isn’t alone. Soon Randi wonders as well…if the world she wanted is really the world she needs. If her future is nothing more than a diploma on the wall. And if the most important thing in her world isn’t a grade, but the cowboy who’s planted his boots firmly in her heart.

Fans of Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare and Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game will delight at this mix of romantic comedy, contemporary romance, and cultures colliding in a campus town with a western flair. Grab your copy today, and fall in love with Buck Up, Buttercup!

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About the Author

Anna Alkire has been a long-term college student, a business owner, and a world traveler. Now “settled”—with a sigh and a cup of decaf—Anna lives in Washington state, where she splits her time between a husband who thinks the North Pole would be a great place to live, chasing her hurricane of a son, learning new handicrafts, and creating worlds full of the kind of romance and fun she most wants to read. Find more about her (and grab a freebie or two) at her website, annaalkire.com.

Connect:

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Spotlight: The Ruthless Groom by Monica Murphy

(Arranged Marriage, #2)
Publication date: June 14th 2022
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

I didn’t plan to marry a reclusive heiress. Lucky for me, I find myself attracted to my beautiful new bride. Our arranged marriage connects two powerful companies. That we’re compatible between the sheets is a bonus, but I didn’t bargain on her ex showing up at the wedding reception uninvited.

That pushed me right over the edge.

I protect what’s mine, and Charlotte is now mine, whether she likes it or not. Our honeymoon is a disaster in paradise. I’m angry. She’s resentful. All those swirling emotions explode in the most physical ways.

But even as I’m drawn closer to my new wife, there’s still a threat looming out there. Seamus McTiernan is determined to destroy what we’ve created.

I won’t let anything tear us apart.

He has no idea who he’s dealing with. I will end him.

Watch me.

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About the Author

Monica Murphy is a New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author. She writes new adult, young adult and contemporary romance.

She is a wife and a mother of three who lives in central California on fourteen acres in the middle of nowhere, along with their four cats and one crazy dog. She's a firm believer in happy endings, though she will admit to sometimes putting her characters through tough, angst-filled moments before they finally get that hard won HEA.

Monica is also known as USA Today bestselling romance author Karen Erickson (http://karenerickson.com).

Connect:

https://monicamurphyauthor.com/

https://www.facebook.com/MonicaMurphyauthor

https://twitter.com/MsMonicaMurphy

https://www.instagram.com/monicamurphyauthor/

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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5934418.Monica_Murphy

Spotlight: The Soul Always Remembers by Georgia Cates

Release Date: June 14

The Soul Always Remembers is a soul-stirring multi-genre tale of a southern romance that will captivate fans of The Notebook, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and Outlander in this atypical love story about the transcending love between soul mates.

My name is Caroline Beaumont. I appear to have it all––beauty, a successful career, friends and family who adore me.

But I have a secret.

I was four years old when the past began reaching out to me. Sometimes it came to me as a voice in my head. Other times, it presented as a vision of a lovely redhead and handsome dark-haired man from decades ago.

The doctors call it schizophrenia.

They’re wrong.

I have something else. Something that doesn’t have a name. Something that modern medicine can’t explain.

And I’m ready to embrace it.

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Meet Georgia Cates

Georgia resides in rural Mississippi with her wonderful husband, Jeff, and their two beautiful daughters. She spent fourteen years as a labor and delivery nurse before she decided to pursue her dream of becoming an author and hasn’t looked back yet.

When she’s not writing, she’s thinking about writing. When she’s being domestic, she’s listening to her music and visualizing scenes for her current work in progress. Every story coming from her always has a song to inspire it.

Connect with Georgia Cates: https://linktr.ee/authorgeorgiacates

Spotlight: Roughing the Kicker by Emily Silver

Release Date: June 16

Jackson Fields. Denver’s star kicker. Best friend since 9th grade. And love of my life since he moved in next door.

But what happens when I move in with him?

When an injury sidelines him, I step up. Living with him will be easy. I can hide my feelings long enough to take care of him. I’ve done it for 13 years. A few weeks will be a piece of cake.

Except he depends on me for everything. Every touch, every move he makes has butterflies swarming my stomach. I can’t fall for him. Because he’s my friend. And he doesn’t see me as anything else.

But when his situation changes, he starts to see me in a new light. Am I willing to risk everything to see if we’ll be good together? Or will we always be destined to be just friends?

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Meet Emily Silver

Hello! After winning a Young Author’s Award in second grade, Emily Silver was destined to be a writer. She loves writing strong heroines and the swoony men who fall for them.

A lover of all things romance, Emily started writing books set in her favorite places around the world. As an avid traveler, she’s been to all seven continents and sailed around the globe. Some of her favorite places are Antarctica (Emily's first book is a love letter to Antarctica!), New Zealand, London and South Africa!

When she’s not writing, Emily can be found sipping cocktails on her porch, reading all the romance she can get her hands on and planning her next big adventure!

Connect with Emily Silver: https://linktr.ee/authoremilysilver

Spotlight: Discordant Memories by Dee Rollings

Publication date: June 14th 2022
Genres: Adult, Thriller

Synopsis:

A car accident, amnesia, two supposed lovers, and many dark secrets. In a race against time, who will come out on top?

Catrina Banks wakes up with bruises on her body and no memories from the last six months. An illustrious painter, she feels as though someone has stolen the colors from her canvas.

Under the teeming hospital lights and white coats crowding around her, Catrina faces questions she has no answers to. How did she end up in a city far from home? What was she doing there? Where is her phone, her ID, and most of all: Who assaulted her?

Struggling with intermittent flashbacks, Catrina tries to piece her life together. Cradling a gray hoodie and wedding bands she has no memory of, Cat returns home with her boyfriend Danny.

Even after she’s safe at home, she can’t shake the weird feeling that something is off, nor can she ignore the haunting glimpses she gets of a different life with another man.

“Discordant Memories” is a gripping domestic thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat, desperate to flip the pages to find out what happens next.

Follow Catrina’s story and find out if she can overcome the obstacles in her way and regain the memories she so desperately craves.

Excerpt

I opened my eyes slowly, but as I reached up to scratch an itch on my forehead, pain shot through my side before my hand connected with whatever was stuck to my forehead. A bandage? I tried to sit up to shake off the weird dream I was having, but every muscle in my body protested. Pain shot through my ribs.

Something was wrong. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and realized I was not at home. I was in a hospital bed. 

“Help!” I shouted. 

Was I still dreaming? I called out weakly a couple more times before a nurse rushed in.

“You’re awake!” she said, helping me sit up. “Can you tell me your name?”

“What’s going on? What happened?”

“You were in a car accident. You are at Nashville General Hospital. Please tell me your name.”

An accident? The scene that played out so many times in my dreams began to have clarity. The sounds and the glass. It must have been a roll-over. 

“Nashville? When did I come to Nashville? Oh God, my Chevelle!” 

The only possession I actually cared about was the car my dad had given me before he passed away. I didn’t know what I would do if it was totaled. I put my head in my hands to clear my thoughts and try to focus. 

The nurse rolled the computer cart up to my bed and started typing. She wasn’t exactly cold, but she didn’t offer much sympathy either. She let out an exasperated sigh. “Can you please verify your name so we can see how you’re doing?” 

How was she so calm when I was falling apart?

“Catrina Banks. Please, tell me what happened.”

“I’ve sent for the doctor; he can tell you more when he arrives.” 

“Is there anything you can tell me? How long have I been here?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but it was difficult.

She ignored my question and checked my vitals, then asked me to tell her where I was on the silly little pain-scale poster that hung on the wall. I told her it was a mix between the regular sad face and the crying face. She gave me no additional information. When the doctor finally came in, she gave me a pitiful look and rolled her computer cart off to the corner of the room.

“Ms. Banks, it’s nice to see you again. I’m Dr. Parker.” He offered me a sweet smile and a handshake. He was tall and had thick silver hair. He wore a white coat over a green collared shirt and plaid slacks, which looked more appropriate for the golf course than a hospital. 

“Catrina, your accident happened a day and a half ago. You suffered a brain contusion and have been in and out of consciousness since then. The ribs on the right side of your body are bruised and you have some additional bruising in places we rarely see in these types of accidents. Do you remember anything before or after the accident?” 

I shook my head as I rubbed my hand against my ribs. Now I knew why breathing was so uncomfortable. “I don’t remember even leaving my house. Maybe something inside the car hit me?”

He wrote something down on my chart and clicked his pen a few times, clearly thinking about something he didn’t want to tell me yet. “You’ve been getting a lot of rest, which is good, but you have been regressing every time you fall asleep. We aren’t sure how long it will continue, or if you’ll even remember this conversation later.” The way he spoke led me to believe it wasn’t the first time he had told me this. He paused, giving me a chance to interject, but I had nothing to say. “Do you know what today’s date is?”

“April 10th,” I blurted without even thinking.

Another one of those pitiful looks came my way, but this time it was from Dr. Parker. The room was silent for a few moments except for the sound of the nurse typing away on her computer.

The doctor clicked his pen three more times before replying, “Actually, it’s October 15th. I’m afraid you have some time missing.”

Six. Months. 

How the hell was I missing six months of my life?

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About the Author

Dee Rollings was born and raised in the big city, but her heart lives in the forest.

She does her best writing on the porch of her tiny house in the woods when she’s not wrangling her kid and her dogs or having one-way conversations with chipmunks.

She has a gorgeous husband who resembles Paul Bunyan and builds the best campfires, which makes all her dreams come true.

Spotlight: The Second Time Around by Kelly Collins

Publication date: June 2nd 2022
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

A swoon-worthy second chance romance with all the feels.

Brie Watkins had loved two men in her life. One abandoned her at the altar twelve years ago, and the other died in the war. She is no stranger to loss, but she’s still learning how to move on. When her sick aunt asks her to come back to Willow Bay to help at the family resort, Brie says yes. After all, she’s a southern girl at heart, and a southern girl never turns her back on kin. Brie sells her beloved home, quits her job restoring historic properties, and goes back to the last place she wants to be, only to find her aunt healthy, The Brown Resort thriving, and the man who left her at the altar living next door, looking as handsome as ever. Why can’t life be fair?

Carpenter Carter Kessler left Willow Bay a dozen years ago and never looked back, but he never forgot his first love, Brie. He’s spent the rest of his life regretting his decision to leave her all those years ago. After his father’s death, he reluctantly returns to find his family’s resort a mess. But it is not a total disaster – Brie is next door and as beautiful as ever. He talks her into helping him refurbish The Kessler Resort, but first she lays out the ground rules: they aren’t friends, they’ll never be lovers, and she’ll never stop hating him. As far as Carter is concerned, it’s a start.

But as summer heats up, so does their relationship. As they peel back the layers, what will they find hiding beneath the surface? Can what they started all those years ago be restored, or are some things better left buried in the past?

Find out in The Second Time Around…

Excerpt

She leaned on the suitcase. Even in the moonlight, and despite her frown, she still had the most beautiful blue eyes. Eyes as blue as the bay. The Texas coast wasn’t known for its clear waters. It didn’t have the blue of the Caribbean, but the way the reef protected the shore gave it a unique environment, and it had the bluest water. He’d forgotten how he’d thought of the bay as Brie blue, and paired with her chestnut hair, she was one of the prettiest girls in Texas.

He started back to the porch and his beer, but he caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, trying to stand. She stumbled over the suitcase and fell on top of it. 

He raced toward her. “How much of that bottle did you drink?”

She looked at it and shrugged. “Not sure. Four or five.”

 “Four or five what? Sips? Gulps? Gallons?” She rose and tottered back and forth. Her back end was high in the air. All these years later, she still had the finest derriere he’d ever seen. “Let me help before you hurt yourself.”

She wagged a finger behind her. “Stay away from me.” She shifted and grunted and righted her suitcase, only to lose her balance again. This time she landed on top of it like it was a lounger. She squeaked, then smiled and let out an “Oh, this isn’t so bad.” She opened the bottle for another drink.

“Is that wise?”

“What do you care?” She laid back and looked up at the twinkling lights of the willow tree. “Did you know when I woke that morning, Mama got me ready? She used an entire can of Aqua Net. I smelled like Ms. Cricket but looked like Miss America.” She ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “I had the prettiest braids going in every direction, but they all came together in the back.” The whiskey bottle fell into the sand, which was probably a good thing. “So pretty.”

“You were always beautiful, Brie.”

“Oh, what would you know? You didn’t even show up.” She blindly searched around for the bottle but gave up quickly.

He sat a few feet away from her. He had a lot to say, but all he’d do was listen.

“You know what the funniest thing of all was?”

“Tell me.” He scooped up sand and let it sift through his fingers. It kind of felt like how life was. It just got away from you.

“Mama wanted me to wear those fancy jeweled shoes. Those heels were four inches high and pinched my toes. I’m telling you, she had me practicing for days, and I was in pure agony. I refused to wear them and hid them at Tiff’s house, because I knew with the humidity, my feet would swell, and I wanted to dance under this tree with you. I didn’t want to have achy feet on my wedding day, so I bedazzled my Keds. I had the perfect shoes for running, and I wasn’t the one who ran.” She turned on her side, showing her back to him.

He thought about how he’d apologize. He wasn’t sure what she knew or didn’t know. It had been so long, and both her parents were gone. Did she know her mother had been unfaithful? Did she believe until their dying days that they’d been hopelessly devoted to one another? Her father had died of a heart attack on a yacht filled with half-naked drunk coeds. Though he’d been gone, gossip traveled fast, and he’d gotten the condensed version every time his mother talked to someone from town.

“Look, Brie, I did what I did for a lot of reasons, but mostly it was to spare you pain and embarrassment.”

“Mm-hm.”

This was going far better than expected. “I’m sorry for hurting you, but if you’d known what I did, you would have been hurt so much more. I was a coward for many reasons. I should have stayed and let the grenade explode. At least then, maybe we could have worked it out, but I didn’t have the maturity to face them or you.” A loud sound startled him, and he scooted closer. “Brie.” He reached out and touched her leg, only to realize she was snoring.

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About the Author

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International bestselling author of more than thirty novels, Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping love alive. Always a romantic, she blends real-life events with her vivid imagination to create characters and stories that lovers of contemporary romance, new adult, and romantic suspense will return to again and again.

Kelly has sold more than a quarter of a million books worldwide, and in 2021 she was awarded a Readers' Favorite Award Gold Medal in the Contemporary Romance category for A Tablespoon of Temptation.

You can learn more about Kelly at www.authorkellycollins.com.

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