Spotlight: Fireball by Lainey Davis

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(Bridges and Bitters, #1)
Publication date: May 10th 2022
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

He hates her for some reason. She will not rest until she changes his mind.

People always like Samantha Vine. It’s kind of her thing. All the employees at her tech startup think she’s the best boss, and the community partners and investors she woos not only trust, but adore her.

Everyone likes her, except him.

Sam may have been caught off guard when she accidentally insulted science teacher AJ Trachtenberg, but she’s pulling out all the stops trying to make it up to him…and it’s not working. Offering his students a swanky field trip doesn’t win him over—it only seems to make him grumpier.

Unfortunately, grumpy looks very good on him. AJ is tall, dark, and annoyingly handsome and he’s got a giant chip on his shoulder. Honestly, his smoldering is distracting.

Sam can’t afford any distractions right now, not with the media hounding her as she tries to take her company public. Maybe she can swing a one-time naked distraction, though. That doesn’t have to mean anything, right? She’s not looking for a happily-ever-after here. She’s just trying to get him out of her head.

Alas, when it comes to business and bossy men, Samantha Vine has trouble letting go.

Fireball is the laugh-out-loud first stand-alone installment of the Bridges and Bitters series. If you love found family, hilarious antics, and off-the-charts heat, you’ll devour these sexy romantic comedies.

Excerpt

SAMANTHA

The only thing saving me from curling in a ball and crying is the promise of meeting up with my friends. We call our little group Foof…Fresh out of fucks. It’s a sort of ridiculous name for a bad-ass group of entrepreneurs, engineers and queens of the Steel City. 

I feel so at ease when I’m with them, like I really don’t have to pretend or put on a fake smile or any of that. I can actually free my fucks with these gals…and I need that, because everyone else claws at me, demanding attention I can’t spare and hurling mean words at me if I say as much.

As often as we can, Foof huddles up in the event room of our friend Esther’s bar, Bridges and Bitters, and these meetings are my recharge. Esther bought an old building in Lawrenceville and transformed it into the most amazing spot. She went for a speakeasy feel, with reclaimed wooden everything and these cozy settees. But honestly, we could meet on a milk crate by the river and I’d still walk away energized from these women.

A few days later, and I’m still reeling after I chased off Mr. Grumpy Teacher from our meeting and stumbled through the rest of my interview with the guy from Forbes. I definitely appreciate Esther’s vintage velvet furniture as I collapse in a heap.

“That bad?” She arches a dark brow at me as she moves some furniture around the room to get ready for the rest of Foof to arrive. 

I drape a wrist across my forehead. “If I had a corset on, I’d be asking you to slice the laces.” She pats me on the shoulder and heads back up front to mix a batch of cocktails for us. My friends shuffle in, some of them excited about their day and others looking like they want to join me tying one on.

Logan links arms with her sisters-in-law as they make their way in. As they all chat about life, I sit up and rest my elbows on my lap, propping my forehead against my palms. “I wish I could have a do-over,” I mutter.

“Tell me about it.” Celeste Sheffield, actual grandma and the oldest member of Foof, sits next to me, patiently waiting for me to spill my guts. 

I take a deep breath, thinking back over the wretched day, from the annoying call from my dad to my magazine interview not going well. I bite my lip, trying to decide the worst part of it all. “I told a middle school science teacher I didn’t think young students would gain much from touring Vinea,” I tell her. “So now this guy thinks I think his students are too stupid, because of poverty.” Celeste pats my leg in a motherly sort of way I really appreciate.

“I was just so overwhelmed with the Forbes reporter there and thinking about how much work it’ll be to prepare for going public. Who has time to prep for a bunch of tween visitors? But I guess what I said came out wrong and AJ took offense.”

Celeste swirls around the ice in her drink and looks at me. “What if you called and explained? Said you realized your mistake? You could extend your invitation to the students after all.”

I cringe. “Ugh. Apologies are the worst, though. Like, now this guy is going to know I say dumb things when I go off book.” Men thinking I’m stupid is a big, fat trigger for me after living with the Colonel. He’s so domineering and immersed in a hyper-macho military world. Everything has to be precise with him. Language, thought processes, all of it. “Can I make Logan call?”

Logan laughs and shakes her head, wagging a finger at me. “I just run the numbers, boss. You’re the one with your name on the building.”

It’s true. My name is on the damn building. So why do I feel like such an imposter all the time? I’ve spent my entire life trying to fill someone else’s shoes…I got thrust into that role after my mother died. I didn’t mean to start a company in my free time from my dorm room, but I did. Now, ten years along the way, I’m on the cusp of going public with my business-baby and I can’t drum up the ovary power to call someone and apologize?

“Gah. Fine. I know, I know. I’ll call him and grovel.”

“That’s the winning spirit!” Esther winks as she slides me a glass of something magical.

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About the Author

Spotlight: Tristan by Samantha Lind

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Release Date: April 17

I was a forever-bachelor kind of guy.

I never planned on settling down.

I never wanted a family of my own.

Until a phone call came, the one woman I’d secretly loved my entire life needed my help.

I went from bars and hook-ups to late nights on the couch.

When her daughter is born, I find myself captivated by both of them, and falling deeper in love.

What happened to my forever-bachelor life, and is that the life I want?

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Meet Samantha Lind:

Samantha Lind is a USA TODAY Bestselling contemporary romance author. When she’s not dreaming up new stories, she can often be found with her family, traveling, reading, watching her boys on the ice, or watching her favorite professional hockey team (Go Knights Go!), and listening to country music.  She can be contacted by email or found on Facebook. 

Keep up with Samantha Lind and subscribe to her newsletter: http://bit.ly/FDSLNL

To learn more about Samantha Lind & her books, visit here!

Connect with Samantha Lind: samantha@samanthalind.com

Spotlight: To Dream of Shadows by Steve N Lee

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She will save hundreds of lives. But can she save her own?

Inspired by a previously untold true story.

1943. 18-year-old Czech, Inge is torn from her family and imprisoned in some godforsaken hellhole. There, she suffers month after month of torturous labor while praying for liberation by the Allies. But rescue never comes. And her dream of surviving the war dies.

Heinz, an SS Sergeant, has been force-fed the Reich's poison since childhood, but nowadays, he covertly helps prisoners.

So when a random act of kindness thrusts Inge and Heinz together, they can't resist being drawn to one another. Unable to deny their feelings, they dare to dream of a future, a life — together.

But their relationship does not go unnoticed. For Inge and Heinz, falling in love becomes a death sentence. And not just for them, but for all those they care about.

Unless…

Inge makes an unthinkable sacrifice.

Set during history’s darkest hour, “To Dream Of Shadows” is an epic tale of compassion, sacrifice, and the strength of the human spirit.

Discover one of the most heartwarming, heartbreaking, and heroic tales of the Holocaust. Discover “To Dream Of Shadows”.

Excerpt

Chapter 1 (abridged)

Inge Zaleska wiped the sweat off her face on the short sleeve of her pink-and-white striped dress. She panted, even though she was doing nothing but sitting on her suitcase with her back against the side of the cattle car. Cursing under her breath, she glared at the tiny window crisscrossed with barbed wire high in the far left corner. The thing was worse than useless with eighty-six people crammed in the car under the baking sun.

She raked her fingers through her long, greasy black hair, pulling the straggly mess away from her face. Would it ever be silky soft again?

Grimacing, she struggled to flex her left shoulder, Mrs. Karkowski having slumped against it asleep again. The unbearable stuffiness saw many of the older travelers constantly dozing. Inge circled her shoulder, fighting to relieve the ache without disturbing her friend’s slumber. The pain didn’t go.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Karkowski, but I have to move.” Inge eased Mrs. Karkowski’s head up, but instead of the old lady waking and greeting Inge with a wrinkled smile, clouded eyes stared like frozen millponds. Inge gasped and lurched away, bumping Mama on her other side.

Mrs. Karkowski crumpled over her knees.

Mama pulled Inge closer and shielded Inge’s younger sister. “Don’t look, Agata.”

Agata buried her face in Mama’s shoulder.

Robert, Inge’s stocky older brother, and a man in a blue shirt picked up the body.

Robert shouted, “Dead coming through.”

The sea of people parted, squashing themselves together just enough to create a narrow aisle to the far right corner. The two men shuffled along it.

Dead coming through. What a horrible and degrading send-off for a dignified woman. The only thing worse was how such a horrendous statement had become so commonplace that it was now more likely to irritate people at the inconvenience of having to move than to bring tears to their eyes.

In the corner, the men dumped the old lady on top of the other six bodies piled there.

Glassy-eyed, Agata said, “Why are they doing this, Mama?”

Mama stroked Agata’s short brown hair. “Don’t wonder about the bad things that are happening, sweetheart. Wonder about all the good things we’ll have when we’re resettled.”

“But I don’t want to be resettled. I want our old home, and my old school, and my old friends.”

Inge clasped Agata’s hand. “It’ll be fun, Aga. That nasty bully Vera Bosakova won’t be in your class anymore, you won’t have math with that horrible Mr. Sliz, and ice cream is half the price in the new place, isn’t it, Mama?”

“That’s what I heard.” Mama stroked Agata’s hair again and smiled at Inge. But her eyes didn’t smile. Inge could tell she was fighting to make it look genuine — fighting with all her might because of her love for her family — but such sadness lay in her eyes. Sadness Inge had never seen before. As if someone had said the sun was never going to shine again, so they’d spend the rest of their lives in darkness.

Someone shouted from the far side of the car, “Toilet bucket!”

A moment later, a bespectacled man passed a metal bucket to Mama, who passed it to Inge. The contents sloshed around and the stench clogged her nostrils. Holding the bucket at arm’s length, Inge screwed up her face and quickly passed it to the chubby man who’d spread into Mrs. Karkowski’s space.

The bucket reached a middle-aged woman who wept as she squatted over it, screened by a bald man and a boy encircling her with their jackets.

Three days ago, Inge had cried too when she’d had to relieve herself surrounded by so many strangers. Now, despite the revulsion and embarrassment, she was almost thankful for the bucket — its stink helped mask the one coming from the corner of the dead.

Robert crouched and nodded over his shoulder. “Someone saw a road sign through one of the cracks and thinks they recognized the name — a town in Latvia.”

“Latvia?” asked Mama. “Where the devil are they resettling us?”

“I don’t want to go to Latvia.” Agata clutched Mama.

Inge let her head fall against the side of the car and closed her eyes. Okay, so the journey was horrendous, but hadn’t she always dreamed of traveling? Wasn’t that why she’d studied languages so diligently? And now, here she was traveling. Of course, she’d pictured a luxury passenger carriage, not a cattle car, but travel was travel. Maybe this “resettlement” would be a good thing. A golden opportunity to start fresh.

Yes, that was it. She smirked. This wasn’t the end of her life — the way Agata imagined — but the start of it. A life filled with wonder and adventure.

So where was this adventure going to take her?

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About the Author

Apart from animals and writing, Steve’s passion is travel. He’s visited 60 countries and enjoyed some amazing experiences, including cage-diving with great white sharks, sparring with a monk at a Shaolin temple, and watching a turtle lay eggs on a moonlit beach. He’s explored Machu Picchu, Pompeii, and the Great Wall of China, yet for all that, he’s a man of simple tastes — give him an egg sandwich and the TV remote control, and he’ll be happy for hours!

He lives in the North of England with his partner, Ania, and two black cats who arrived in the garden one day and liked it so much, they stayed. Graciously, the cats allow Steve and Ania to stay in 'their' house.

Cover Reveal: Call Sign: King by Livia Grant

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(Black Sky Ops, #2)
Publication date: May 8th 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

He got cocky. Let his guard down.

Now the love of his life is paying the price.

For a moment he’d forgotten there were men who wanted him dead. Men who lived their lives in the dark, who could reach out of the shadows he used to live in, and he’d been naive to think the light inside her would keep her safe.

She was too bright to hide away though, made for the spotlight, and he’d felt warmer just by being near her… then everything went cold so fast.

In a breath she was gone, in the hands of his enemies, and he’d seen first hand what happened to women who crossed paths with the Volkov Bratva. They’d touch her, hurt her. She’d be afraid, suffering.

All because of him. All in the name of vengeance.

But that was their mistake, because in the maddening darkness her absence has put him in, a beast was sleeping… and they woke him up. Now everyone will pay.

Black Sky Ops – Danger for Hire

This network of global mercenaries stay in the shadows, going on the impossible missions no one else will take. The elite soldiers of Black Sky Ops aren’t afraid to break the rules as long as it’s for the greater good — and the paycheck is high enough. But sometimes the line between right and wrong gets blurry, especially when protecting the people they love.

Note: The Black Sky Ops series is made up of full length novels with no cliffhangers and guaranteed happily-ever-afters. Each book is a standalone and the series can be read in any order.

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About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Livia Grant lives in Chicago with her husband and furry rescue dog named Max. She is fortunate to have been able to travel extensively and as much as she loves to visit places around the globe, the Midwest and its changing seasons will always be home. Livia's readers appreciate her riveting stories filled with deep, character driven plots, often spiced with elements of BDSM.

Connect:

https://liviagrant.com/

https://www.facebook.com/LiviaGrantAuthor/

https://www.instagram.com/liviagrantauthor/?hl=en

https://twitter.com/lbgrantauthor

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8474605.Livia_Grant

Spotlight: Leaving: How I Set Myself Free from an Abusive Marriage by Kanchan Bhaskar

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Raised by two loving parents in New Delhi, India, Kanchan Bhaskar has always been taught that marriage means companionship, tenderness, and mutual respect--so when she enters into an arranged marriage, this is the kind of partnership she anticipates with her new, seemingly wonderful, husband. But after they marry, she quickly discovers that his warmth is deceptive--that the man beneath the bright, charming façade is actually a narcissistic, alcoholic, and violent man.

Trapped in a nightmare, Kanchan pleads with her husband to seek help for his issues, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Indian law is not on her side, and as the years pass, she finds herself with three children to protect--three children she fears she will lose custody of if she leaves. Almost overnight, she finds herself transformed into a tigress who will do whatever it takes to protect her cubs, and she becomes determined to free them from their toxic father. But it's not until many years later, when the family of five moves from India to the United States, that Kanchan is presented with a real opportunity to leave him--and she takes it.

Chronicling Kanchan's gradual climb out of the abyss, little by little, day by day, Leaving is the empowering story of how--buoyed by her deep faith in a higher power and single-minded in her determination to protect her children best--she fought relentlessly to build a ramp toward freedom from her abuser. In this memoir, Kanchan clearly lays out the tools and methods she utilized in her pursuit of liberation--and reveals how belief in self and belief in the Universe can not only be weapons of escape but also beautiful foundations for a triumphant, purpose-driven life.

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About the Author

Kanchan Bhaskar (Kan-chan Bhas-car), an Indian-American, is a first-time author. She holds a Master's Degree in social work and a certificate in life coaching. She is also a certified Business Coach. Being a successful Human Resource professional, her expertise is in training and mentoring. She is a certified advocate, speaker, and coach for victims and survivors of domestic violence. Kanchan lives in Chicago.  Learn more about Kanchan on her website: kanchanbhaskar.com

Spotlight: Just Wanted You To Know Kait Nolan

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Livia Applewhite needs a change. Her awful boss has made the job she used to love a serious drag. On top of that, it seems everyone around her is paired off in romantic bliss. It's enough to give a girl a complex. Hoping a change of scenery will give her new perspective, she sets off for a two-week trip to Tennessee to visit her favorite cousin.

It's been more than a decade since Declan Callahan has thought about anything but being a dad. But when his extensive (and meddling) foster family wrangles him into a "chance" encounter with the first love he had to leave behind, he's wise enough not to waste it. He's got a long-overdue apology to make.

But as that apology opens a door long shut, Livia and Declan give in to the spell of nostalgia, basking as all those old feelings kindle anew. They're fully grown now, with lives in different places. Will this brief encounter be enough to convince Livia to give the undeniable connection between them a real second chance?

Buy on Amazon | Audible | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Kait Nolan is a USA Today best selling, RITA® Award-winning Mississippi author who calls everyone sugar, honey, or darlin', and can wield a 'Bless your heart' like a Snuggie or a saber, depending on requirements. She believes in love, laughter, and that tacos are the world's most perfect food. When she's not writing, reading, or wrangling family (both the two-legged and the four-), you can find her obsessively watching The Great British Bake Off. 

Keep up with Kait Nolan and subscribe to her newsletter: https://kaitnolan.com/newsletter/

Kait Nolan & her books, visit here!

Connect with Kait Nolan: https://kaitnolan.com/contact/