Spotlight: Break My Bones by Rachael Tamayo

(Deadly Sins, #1)
Publication date: June 6th 2024
Genres: Adult, Thriller

Synopsis:

Three years ago Brooklyn James ran for her life with her toddler in tow. Now, her estranged husband, Cain, is back. Brooklyn will be forced to decide, will she run once again, or stand her ground and face the devil himself?

Brook is the manager of a popular Dallas Nightclub, mother, and wife. Three years later she and her daughter are back on their feet and things for her are going better than she imagined when she was forced to run for her life from her husband Cain and ended up homeless with a toddler to protect. Despite her current success, spending every waking moment watching for his inevitable return has taken its toll on the young mother.

Cain James has been released from a three-year stint in prison, and has hooked back up with his lifelong best friend, Donovan. With money in hand due to a substantial inheritance after his father’s death, and the support of the man that has always helped him when he needed it most, he’s got a plan to win back his wife, by any means necessary.

As Cain becomes a man undone by obsession and descents slowly into madness, Brook must watch virtually helplessly and decide, will she run from him again, or stand this time, risking everything?

Excerpt

After dropping off my daughter and parking my car, I walk into the empty, closed club, pulling the ringing cell out of my purse to answer. 

“Hello.” 

“Is this Brooklyn James?”

“Who is this?” 

I can’t make out the noise in the background on the line, wondering if it’s just a bad connection or if she’s really somewhere that loud. “My name is Mary, and I’m with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. I’m calling to advise you that your husband has been released from custody.”

The world sways around me, and I wonder if I heard her correctly. I swallow even though my mouth is dry and grip the rail on the bar next to me, steadying myself as I choke out, “What?”

“He was released three days ago.” She says it as if it’s nothing. As if she might not have just destroyed my life. 

He’s been out for three days? 

But why is she calling? It doesn’t even make sense. 

“Why are you notifying me? He wasn’t arrested for assaulting me. You guys don’t do that for DWI, do you?”

“Yes, I understand that, and no ma’am, we don’t. When his file was being processed, there was a request that you be notified. I apologize for the delay, but we’ve been short-staffed here due to budget cuts.”

I sit on a barstool, glancing around to make sure no one else is here. What if a vendor is walking around? Or the bartender came in early, and I didn’t notice his car in the parking lot? I’ve worked hard to keep this part of my life in the shadows, away from almost everyone. “Can you tell me who made the request?”

“I’m afraid not. We can’t release that information. I’m sorry.”

I blow out a breath, having figured as much. But you never know when you’ll get that one person who will bend the rules, or simply doesn’t know the rules. “Um, okay then. Thanks, Mary.” What else do I say? Thanks for destroying my life? 

“You’re welcome, ma’am. Have a nice evening.” 

The conversation ends, and I put the phone back in my purse without thinking. I’ve told myself that I would know what to do when this happened. I’ve had a mental checklist for close to two years now. 

Call Ashley and let her know. 

Call the school.

Consider changing my name, my daughter’s name. Why didn’t I leave Dallas? Why did I stay here and make it so simple to find me? 

I should take the money, turn around now, and go. Fetch my child, pack, and never look back. His mother knows how to find me. My heart beats too fast in my chest. I close my eyes, considering every choice I’ve made in all these years, making no move to hide from him. No move to run once I had the means to get away. 

What was I thinking? Fuck. 

No, scratch that. I won’t run. I won’t hide. I’ve been training, and I’ve been shooting; I know how to handle the gun, and myself. I’m strong now. I can do this. I have to. Because he will show up. He will find me. 

I have no doubt. 

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About the Author

Rachael Tamayo is the bestselling author of the award-winning Deadly Sins Series, and award-winning thriller, Crazy Love, among several other titles. Before she started her writing career, she was a highly awarded 911 emergency services dispatcher with twelve years of experience and many commendations under her belt. Upon exiting law enforcement, she focused her writing career on the dark, suspenseful, and psychological after beginning as a romance author. Now Rachael uses her dark thriller as a sort of self-therapy after all those years answering 911 calls and works all that she knows and was exposed to into the frighteningly realistic and layered characters her readers know and love her for. Rachael lives on the Texas Gulf Coast in Houston, Texas with her husband and their two children. 

Connect:

https://rachaeltamayowrites.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/@rachaeltamayowrites?

https://www.instagram.com/rtamayo2004/

https://x.com/rtamayo2004

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15251093.Rachael_Tamayo

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Spotlight: Falling in the Blue Hour by Kristi Ayers

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance

Publication Date: June 4th, 2024

Surfing with her best friend Brody by day and playing guitar alongside her other best friend Nate in the evenings is what Sam equates as the ideal way to spend summer vacation. When her mother announces they will be moving from the California beach where Sam grew up, Sam’s world gets rocked off its core. Her mother and her childhood best friend from Michigan, both newly divorced, decide they want a fresh start, and what better way than a sleepy fishing town on the coast of South Carolina, their families all together in one big house.

Sam’s mother doesn’t tell her that Julie’s boys will be joining them. She last saw Ledger and Noah on a visit to Michigan when she was thirteen. Gangly limbs, braces, pimples, and a hefty dose of brotherly competition didn’t amuse Sam then, and nothing is going to amuse her about them now. Ledger and Noah aren’t her boys. Nate and Brody hold that title.

But Ledger and Noah grew up…

The brothers begin to show an interest in Sam, and slowly, day by day, they wiggle their way into her guarded, tentative sphere. It’s not until one night that a race in the swimming pool changes Noah’s feelings for Sam, but it’s too little too late.

Will Sam be able to navigate her feelings for both South Carolina and her new housemates in the midst of missing her old life, or will she let the tide sweep all her passions away? Find out in the latest teen romance from author Kristi Ayers, Falling in the Blue Hour.

Warning: Contains strong language and sexual situations.

Excerpt

   I can feel her respirations have evened out, but she’s not asleep yet, just relaxed. “I’m sorry, Sam.”

     She’s quiet for a few moments, staring at the ceiling. “No. You warned me. I didn’t listen.” She turns her head to look at me. Our faces are so close now. “…and I should have.”

     My eyes glance at her lips, but I drive them back up to her eyes. I want nothing more in this world than to kiss her right now, but we can’t. Not yet. 

     “I want you to look back up at the ceiling.” Her brows draw together, confused by my request. “Look up there, Sam.” She tries to read me for a few moments and then finally turns her head and looks up at the white ceiling. 

     Her profile is stunning. I have a hard time continuing, taking one long blink to get back on track.

     “That’s a blank canvas. We can paint any kind of picture we want. Now I want you to close your eyes.”

     She lets her eyes close, her long lashes resting against her cheeks now.

     “Picture yourself in the ocean, sitting on your board.” She gives me a side-eye with a raised brow. “Just humor me.” When her eyes are closed again and she’s focused, I continue, “Think of what the water feels like moving against your legs, your hands. What it sounds like. What the breeze feels like flowing through your hair. Focus on the peacefulness that’s out there because it’s just you and the warm sun shining on your back, your shoulders, your arms. Do you feel it?”

     She nods. Her lips are parted.

     “This time, there isn’t a wave coming. Just soft lapping ripples that started a thousand miles away. Each ripple is determined, and it never once lost faith that it would reach the shore. It saw sharks that cut it in half, boats that flattened its drive for the minutes of time they took to leisurely move along, and storms that threw it off its course completely, throwing droplets in every direction, but it never wavered in its determination to reach the sand.” 

     I love that she’s intently listening to me. “The ripple meets you where you are and you both head in the direction of the shore. You lie on your stomach and paddle, following alongside the ripple that started before you even decided to go out on the ocean, before you even woke up that morning. When you both reach the shore, you realize that, like seashells, as fragile as you seem, you traveled, you overcame, and you made it home.”

     Her eyes remain closed, but I feel her hand search for mine, threading her fingers through mine when she finds it. 

     I freeze. Any words that were on the tip of my tongue to say next get stuck in my throat along with a plethora of emotions. How many times did I want to simply hold her hand since the night we kissed? Countless. Though admittedly, half were to lead her away from Ledger. But the other half…I wanted to take her wherever made her smile. 

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About the Author

I write in the hope of sparking infinite imaginations for all readers who enjoy love stories. I most enjoy writing young adult and new adult novels containing slow-burn romance with a dash of pining, a sprinkle of pounding heartbeats, and a measured heaping of desire. When I’m not writing, I’m reading, planting flowers, or hanging out with my family. 

Connect:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069713360931

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Cover Reveal: Wrinkled Rebels by Laura Katz Olson

Literary Novel / Historical Fiction

Date Published: 07-23-2024

Publisher: Vine Leaves Press

Now 80 years old, retirement and advanced age have dissipated the spirit of six college radicals of the 1960s, who jointly had participated in civil rights campaigns and anti-war protests. Having engaged in only periodic communication over the decades, they suddenly receive an invitation to reunite for an extended weekend. Struggling with whether to go, each of them has divergent qualms and expectations for the proposed gathering.

During their three days together, they confront their inner demons, each other, and their future. Does Rebecca, the prime mover of the event, find solace after losing her wife and career? Can Malaika regain her sense of self after stepping down from her successful law practice? Mourning the loss of her youthful athletic prowess and attractiveness, what happens when Deanna faces her old friends?

Struggling with two divorces and a failing marriage, can Russell attain peace of mind? How will Max, an expat living in Canada, manage with his incipient dementia? Will the demoralized Keith recover his idealism?

Wrinkled Rebels is a story of how six people achieve meaningful lives through the struggle for social justice. It is also a tale of love, the bonds of friendship, and growing old positively.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Paperback | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Laura Katz Olson, AGF Distinguished Professor of Political Science, has taught at Lehigh University since 1974. To date, she has published nine nonfiction books, focusing on aging and healthcare. Her latest, Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms U.S. Health Care has been awarded several gold medals, including from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and the Benjamin Franklin Awards. Elder Care Journey: A View from the Front Lines, which relates her personal experiences as a caregiver for her mother, won a Gold Medal in the Ninth Annual Living Now Book Awards. Wrinkled Rebels is her second novel.

Connnect:

Website: http://wrinkledrebels-olson.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559156664714

Twitter @lauralee111

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/55546307-laura-olson

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/laura-katz-olson-a7706034/

Spotlight: Follow Her Down by Victoria Helen Stone

Decades of doubt, fear, and suspicion won’t let a woman overcome her trauma in a riveting novel of suspense by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of Jane Doe and The Hook.

The murder of Elise Rockwood’s sister shattered her family. Their mother’s anxiety kept her housebound. Elise’s paranoid brother, Kyle, saw conspiracies everywhere. Elise numbed her grief in an aimless lifestyle that left her emotionally broken. All of them victims. A local boy eventually confessed, but the damage was already done.

Years later, Elise is reinventing herself. She’s bought a mountain lodge to be close to home again and to find stability. Not even an email from her ex tempts her into revisiting the past. But Kyle won’t let it go. He still believes there’s more to their sister’s murder―and the confession―than meets the eye. When Elise’s ex is found dead in the same forest where her sister went missing decades before, Elise is finally willing to listen.

The traumas of the past are reemerging. So is the truth. Elise’s greatest fear now is who will survive it.

Buy on Amazon Kindle | Audiobook | Paperback | Bookshop.org

About the Author

Victoria Helen Stone is the author of the runaway hit Jane Doe, which was optioned by Sony for television, and the Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestseller The Last One Home. 

In addition to her critically acclaimed novels of dark intrigue and emotional suspense — At the Quiet Edge, Problem Child, Half Past, False Step and the chart-topping Evelyn, After — she has also published 29 books as USA Today bestselling author Victoria Dahl and won the prestigious American Library Association Reading List award for best genre fiction. Her novels have been published in 18 different languages.

Victoria writes in her home office high in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, far from her origins in the flattest plains of Minnesota, Texas and Oklahoma. She enjoys gorgeous summer trail hikes in the mountains almost as much as she enjoys staying inside by the fire during winter. Victoria is passionate about dessert, true crime, and her terror of mosquitoes, which have targeted her in a diabolical conspiracy to hunt her down no matter the season.

Connect:
Official Website: VictoriaHelenStone.com
Instagram: @victoriahelenstone
Threads: @victoriahelenstone 

Cover Reveal: Illusion of Stars by Sarah Marie Page

Publication date: July 16th 2024
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

She’s stealing more than secrets.

As the royal physician of a tiny, windswept island, Isabel spends her days trying to keep the queen from dying and the mad king from streaking naked down the halls. But when her best friend is found murdered on the beaches, her world is ripped apart. Desperate for answers, she discovers a stash of letters that reveal a terrifying truth: the neighboring kingdom of Volgaard possesses a kingdom-shattering weapon and is poised to conquer everything in its path.

Seeking vengeance, Isabel infiltrates the enemy. Her mission? Woo Erik Lothgarson, the general’s steamy, illusion-magic wielding son, and steal the dangerous weapon. She can bring Volgaard to its knees—if she isn’t caught.

But as Isabel dances along the knife edge of deception, the lines between truth and fiction blur, and she must wrestle her quest for vengeance against her undeniable attraction to the enemy.

Buy on Amazon

About the Author

I'm Sarah, an award-winning author who writes fluffy fantasy. I live in Phoenix, Arizona with my equally fluffy cat (starting to see a pattern here?) And fine, I have a husband too.

He's not fluffy.

My debut novel, ILLUSION OF STARS, comes out July 2024. I'm currently working on the (untitled) ILLUSION OF STARS sequel and SERPENT GREEN, VENOM BLUE. I also have a witchy manuscript that lives in a trunk under the bed.

We don't talk about that.

My work has been featured in Y Magazine, The Advocate, The Crow’s Quill, and Hippocampus Magazine (among others) and I've been a guest on a ton of podcasts like The Outspoken Artist, Bookish Flights, Books are Magical and the Author's Alcove.

If I got some pity laughs out of you, I suggest signing up for my newsletter where I will make you pity laugh some more. 

I'm also a frequent flier on Instagram, so if you still can't get enough of me, you can also follow me there.

Connect:

https://www.sarahpagestories.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sarahpagestories/

https://x.com/sarahmclifford

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/48017983.Sarah_Marie_Page

Spotlight: One Deadly Eye by Randy Wayne White

Publication Date: June 4, 2024

Publisher: Hanover Press

From New York Times bestselling author Randy Wayne White, after the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast in a century, Doc Ford must stop a gang of thieves—and worse—during the twelve hours of chaos that follow the passing of a storm’s eye.

A Russian diplomat disappears while Doc is tagging great white sharks in South Africa, and members of a criminal brotherhood, Bratva, don’t think it’s a coincidence. They track the biologist to Dinkin’s Bay Marina on the west coast of Florida, where Brotherhood mercenaries have already deployed, prepared to pillage and kill in the wake of an approaching hurricane.

No one, however, is prepared for a cataclysmic event that will forever change the island and leaves Doc to deal with escapees from Russia’s most dangerous prison, including a serial killer—the Vulture Monk—who has a taste for blood. His only ally is an enigmatic British inventor whose decision to ride out the storm might have more to do with revenge than protecting a priceless art collection.

Doc has a lot at stake—the lives of his fiancée, Hannah Smith, and their son, plus the fate of his hipster pal, Tomlinson, whose sailboat has disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest threat of all, though, is a force that cannot be escaped—a Category Five hurricane that, minute by minute, melds sins of the past with Florida's precarious future.

Excerpt

1 

I returned an arcane Station Six pistol to the US Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa, unaware a storm that would forever change Florida had gathered to the north, fueled by a mirror that is the Sahara Desert. 

In a world of electronic intrusions, I’m too often deafened to the silence of atmospheric tides, saltwater and sunlight—dynamics that can ignite a cataclysm six thousand miles away. 

“Has this weapon been fired?” the consulate armorer asked. 

The strange bolt action pistol lay on a table. Its bulbous barrel (an integrated sound suppressor) had the utilitarian aspect of a ball-peen hammer. 

“At the range a few days ago. Five rounds,” I said. 

“But not in the field.” 

“Nope.” 

“A few practice rounds. That’s all?” He sounded disappointed. 

“With a bolt action single-shot, five rounds was four too many.” 

A Cold War assassin’s tool was an ironic weapon to issue me, a marine biologist in Africa under the guise of tagging great white sharks.

He noticed the bandage on my knuckles. Blood had wicked through the gauze.

“Tough on your shooting hand. Too bad, Dr. Ford.”

“Tougher to explain if I’d been stopped at the border,” I said. “Shouldn’t I get some sort of receipt?”

When I was at the door, the armorer spoke again. “Afrikaners call the stretch of water off Dyers Island ‘Shark Alley.’ I heard a Russian diplomat went missing there yesterday.” There was a pause. “Or defected. Depends, I guess, on who you ask.”

It was a question without a question mark.

Dyers Island, one hundred twenty kilometers southeast. It brought back the stench of thousands of fur seals and penguins fighting, breeding, dying, birthing pups on a rock the size of a parking lot. Blood, the ammonia stink of urine, verified that monster great whites cruised the island’s rim.

I replied, “Can’t say I’ve been there before. Maybe next visit.”

“After your wedding, perhaps. An interesting honeymoon that would make. A few weeks away, isn’t it?”

In state department/intel circles, there are no personal secrets, only classified obligations.

“Maybe,” I said again. I tapped my wrist. “The COS wants a word before I take off.”

He buzzed me out.

The US Consulate in Cape Town is a geometry of white concrete on acres of landscaped grounds. Tiers of bulletproof windows, three stories high, are dwarfed by the enormity of Table Mountain, a slower geologic cataclysm eight kilometers north.

Across the commons, marines in BDUs were getting in a morning run. Kids with tattoos, jarhead buzz cuts, rocking to a navy cadence call.

Let ’em blow, let ’em blow,

Let those trade winds blow,

From the east, from the west…

Let those nukes, the new kids glow… 

A foreboding message cheerfully voiced this spring morning in September, half a globe away from my lab and home at Dinkin’s Bay Marina, west coast Florida.

Building A, through security, up three flights of granite steps. The Chief of Station slid an envelope across her desk, an encrypted IronKey memory drive inside.

After some distancing pleasantries, she said, “Don’t download the files until you’re over international waters. Are you familiar with Black Dolphin Prison on the Kazakhstan border?”

I might have smiled if I didn’t know the place was real. Russia sends its twisted worst to Black Dolphin—terrorists, pedophiles, serial killers, the criminally insane. Cannibals.

“Named for a stone dolphin carved by inmates,” I said. “No prisoner has ever left there alive from what I’ve heard.”

Chief of Station indicated the envelope. “Until two years ago. There was an earthquake, the facility flooded. Guards evacuated and left seven hundred prisoners behind. We don’t know how many drowned, but at least six escaped according to the few villagers they didn’t murder.” Again, a glance at the envelope. “It’s all in there.”

I started to explain, respectfully, that I was a poor choice to send to Russia.

Chief of Station surprised me by agreeing. “Of course. Not at your age, Dr. Ford.” She was bemused. “And your skill set isn’t up to…well. Let me ask you something. This morning, were you aware of the van shadowing you?”

I answered, “Until it missed the curve at Killig Bay. Was anyone hurt?”

Her flat gaze told me the subject was not to be discussed. “Our concern is, they know who you are. Don’t worry, we’ll look into the matter. Besides, you’re getting married in a few weeks, aren’t you?”

Not if a certain agency didn’t stop leveraging me with extradition threats.

I responded, “That’s the plan.”

As I went out the door, she said something about the weather—“Keep an eye on it,” possibly, which I took as a reference to my flight. Or marriage. Or both.

At Wingfield Airbase, a chill breeze was siphoning toward the Sahara—another silent dynamic. At 36,000 feet, I opened the IronKey while our pilots rode the North Equatorial Jetstream across the Atlantic.

I read. I summarized. Four, maybe six of Russia’s most violent criminals had left a blood trail crossing to the Caspian Sea and might have entered the US via Venezuela or Mexico.

Might. But it made sense. Bratva, a Russian criminal brotherhood, and Wagner mercenaries had established crime syndicates in major US cities, including Miami.

Thus the courtesy of briefing me, a biologist whose skill set was doubted, but who could at least pick up a phone and dial for help.

So why bother with the second, unopened folder on my laptop screen?

Why, indeed.

Sixteen hours in the air. I dozed, awoke when the pilot warned of turbulence. Somewhere off Brazil, the plane pitched, banged down hard into thermal clouds that mimicked tentacles. We landed and took off again at sunset. Below revolved a familiar green mosaic of seaward borders. South America. The coastline tracked my past and the passage of time.

To port, a monoxide haze flagged Caracas. The largest tarpon in the Americas had been landed there long before Lake Maracaibo became a swill of petroleum, plastics, and industrial offal.

After that, there were only small pockets of light: jungle villages, fires burning, night islands of humanity linked by darkness, aglow like pearls, bright and solitary from four miles high.

We crossed the flight corridor of Western Cuba, Pinar Del Rio. More solitary lights. Somewhere down there was a farm town, Vinales, a baseball diamond, wooden bleachers, fields where oxen grazed.

I winced away fun memories of villagers and playing ball with barnstorming friends.

Nostalgia is a waste of time. The present is our only tenuous reality. It’s all a rational person has. But there was something grating about the Chief of Station’s smirk regarding my skills and age. And her reference to the impending wedding had the ring of sterile dismissal.

My betrothed—Hannah Summerlin Smith. Captain Hannah to fly-fishing aficionados from Ketchum to Key West. And the mother of our toddler son, Izaak.

In the Everglades, in the middle of nowhere, is a jet port that never got off the ground for environmental reasons. But its ten-thousand-foot runway is still used clandestinely and for commercial touch-and-goes.

Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport is the official name.

They dropped me off in the wee hours of the morning, the air heat-laden, wet, ripe with sulfur. By 4:00 a.m. I was in my new truck, a gray Ford, crossing the Causeway bridges a few miles from the marina and home.

I reminded myself, If you don’t stop lying to Hannah, there won’t be a wedding.

Most of us have a nagging, destructive voice that second-guesses even the best of decisions.

Is that such a bad thing? mine argued.

Excerpted from One Deadly Eye by Randy Wayne White. Copyright © 2024 by Randy Wayne White. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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

About the Author

Randy Wayne White is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Doc Ford series. In 2011, White was named a Florida Literary Legend by the Florida Heritage Society. A fishing and nature enthusiast, he has also written extensively for National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal, Playboy and Men's Health. He lives on Sanibel Island, Florida, where he was a light-tackle fishing guide for many years, and spends much of his free time windsurfing, playing baseball, and hanging out at Doc Ford's Rum Bar & Grille. Sharks Incorporated is his middle grade series, including Fins and Stingers.

Connect:

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Instagram: @randywaynewhite