Twisted

(Lost Series, #2)
by Cynthia Eden

 

In the second seductive LOST novel from New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Eden, an obsessed Last Option Search Team agent goes looking for trouble—and finds her in the Big Easy.

Dean Bannon comes to New Orleans for one reason only: to track down a missing sixteen-year-old girl. That's before he meets the drop-dead gorgeous con artist who makes him want to lose his legendary control.

With her past, Emma Castille doesn't claim to be psychic. She just notices things other people don't. Like the fear in a runaway's eyes—or the pain in an ex-FBI agent's heart. Her chemistry with Dean is blistering, but Emma follows her passion . . . not someone else's orders.

Then a madman breaks into Emma's home and leaves a twisted message: You're next. Now Dean refuses to let her out of his sight until he pries every last secret from her full, sexy lips. And suddenly Emma's aching to give him everything he wants. 

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 Excerpt

“You’re not psychic.”
Were they back to that?
She put her hands in her lap. Emma didn’t believe in making nervous gestures. She didn’t believe in giving away anything at all with her body language.
“What you are …” Ah, now he did smile. Her father would have called it a shit-eating grin. The more PC term was probably a Cheshire cat smile. Whatever the name, that smile annoyed her. “What you are, Ms. Castille … is a criminal. A fraud.”
Maybe she should grab her chest and dramatically gasp. She didn’t. “Wonderful for you,” Emma said. “You pulled up a background report one me.” She let her eyes widen a bit. “It’s amazing just what one can find if a person knows how to use a search engine.”
A furrow appeared between his eyes.
“How about I say what … you are?” Emma asked him. “A washed-up FBI agent who snapped on the job. You held your control tight every single day, but the bad guys—they just didn’t stop, did they? You hunted them, you stopped them, and more appeared. While you were fighting the system, they kept coming, and the bodies kept piling up on your watch.”
He shot right back to his feet. The folding chair slammed down behind him.
“You and your father bilked desperate people,” he accused. “You told them you were psychic, that you could help find their missing children. And you—”
“We found them.” Two girls who’d vanished. They’d found them. “We just didn’t get to them in time.” And she would not go back to that place.
She motioned toward Manuel. He knew the signal meant he could take over her booth. There was no way, no way, that she was going to stay there with that prick while he slammed the most painful moments from her past in Emma’s face.
Manuel, pale, tattooed, with piercings in his lips and eyebrows, quickly claimed her spot.
Emma jumped to her feet. Muttered her thanks, and fled right past the guy she was starting to think of as Agent Jackass.
She pushed through the crowd. Wasn’t there always a crowd in Jackson Square? And that was why she loved the place. It was so easy to vanish in a crowd. To be anyone.
The crowd closed around her.
To be no one at all.
She hurried around the back of the cathedral. She knew the streets so well. Her home was close by. Emma would get inside and forget Agent Jackass.
I’m being followed.
Emma stilled at the intersection. A horse-drawn carriage rolled by her. Voices called out.
And he touched her.
Emma didn’t flinch. Didn’t scream. She looked down at the hand on her shoulder. “When a woman runs away from you, that means you need to stay the hell away from her.”
His hold tightened on her. “You and I aren’t done.”
She looked up at his face. Had she really thought the man was handsome? Annoying, that was all Dean Bannon was.
“I need to find that girl, and you’re the only lead I have so far.”
“Then you’re not a very good investigator.”


  About the Author

USA Today Best-selling author Cynthia Eden has written over twenty-five novels and novellas. She was named as a 2013 RITA^® finalist for her paranormal romance, ANGEL IN CHAINS, and, in 2011, Cynthia Eden was a RITA finalist for her romantic suspense, DEADLY FEAR.

Cynthia is a southern girl who loves horror movies, chocolate, and happy endings.  She has always wanted to write (don’t most authors say that?), and particularly enjoys creating stories about monsters–vampires, werewolves, and even the real-life monsters that populate her romantic suspense stories.

Cynthia’s foreign sales for her books include translations to Japan, Germany, Thailand, Greece, and Brazil.

(Back in the day…) Cynthia graduated summa cum laude from the University of South Alabama where she studied Sociology (because people interest her) and Communication (because she likes to write about said people).  Cynthia has worked as a college admissions counselor, a teacher, and as an editor. But now, Cynthia is thrilled to be spending her days making up stories.

          

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Cover Reveal $25 GC giveaway! You Can't Get Blood ouf the Shag Carpet by Juliette Harper

We're excited to share the cover for You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet by Juliette Harper! This is the first book in A Study Club Mystery series. It's set to release in June 2015. Check out the excerpt and then the fabulous giveaway at the end!



About the Book:

Wanda Jean Milton discovers her husband, local exterminator Hilton Milton, dead on her new shag carpet with an Old Hickory carving knife sticking out of his chest. Beside herself over how she’ll remove the stain, and grief-stricken over Hilton’s demise, Wanda Jean finds herself the prime suspect in the case. But she is also a member of “the” local Study Club, a bastion of independent Texas feminism 1960s style. Club President Clara Wyler has no intention of allowing a member to be a murder suspect during her administration. Aided by her younger sister and County Clerk, Mae Ella Gormley; Sugar Watson, the proprietress of Sugar’s Style and Spray; and Wilma Schneider, Army MASH veteran and local RN, the Club women set out to clear Wanda Jean’s name — never guessing the local dirt they’ll uncover in the process.

Excerpt:



Sugar Watson took a long drag on her Camel and critically appraised the height of Clara Wyler’s black bouffant. “You want me to go a little higher, honey?” she asked, punctuating the question with a well-developed smoker’s cough. “If I rat it up real good, I can get you another 2 or 3 inches on top.”



Clara squinted at herself in the mirror. “I think I’m good, Sugar,” she said. “What with Wanda Jean finding Hilton dead in the living room, I don’t want to look insincere at Study Club.”



Sugar leaned in conspiratorially. “I know we don’t ever throw anybody out of the Study Club, but my Lord, what in the world are we gonna do if she really did kill him?”



Clara glanced around to confirm that all the other women in Sugar’s Style and Spray were safely tucked under the dryers. “Well, she called me herself to assure me that she didn’t do it,” Clara said. “She owned up to wanting to, but she didn’t do it.”



“Well, hell,” Sugar said, “we’ve all thought about killing our husbands. That’s just part of being married. But nobody’s ever walked in my house and found Slim laying there with an Old Hickory carving knife sticking out of his chest. What did Wanda Jean say about finding him?”



“She told me the first thing she thought about was how hard it was gonna be to get the blood out of that new shag carpet they put in last month,” Clara said. “You know they went with the deep pile.”



“I know,” Sugar said. “I looked at it too when T.J. put the ad in the paper, but my vacuum cleaner just won’t suck up dirt good enough for that. Is it a light carpet?”



“I didn’t think to ask her,” Clara said, unclipping the plastic cape around her neck and handing it to Sugar. “Anyway, she said she just stood there thinking about how you can’t get blood out of shag carpet. Then it dawned on her maybe she ought to check him for a pulse.”



“I hope it wasn’t a light carpet,” Sugar said, rearranging cans of Aqua Net on the counter. “Those boys from the ambulance service never think to wipe their feet before they go in to get a body. You should have seen the mess they made when Blake Trinkle died. They just ruined Maybelline’s carpet. She spent as much getting it cleaned as she did on the funeral.”



“That’s so inconsiderate,” Clara agreed. “People just don’t think. Now you’re not gonna be late this afternoon, are you?”



“Of course not,” Sugar said. “Flowers knows not to book me on the third Thursday at three. Study Club day is sacred.”



“Good, I have to go by the bakery and . . . ”



The look on Sugar’s face stopped Clara mid-sentence. “Good Lord, Sugar,” she said. “You look like you swallowed one of your Camels.”



“I think we’re gonna be one short for Club,” Sugar croaked. “Look.”



Clara glanced out the front window in time to see Sheriff Lester Harper helping a handcuffed Wanda Jean Milton out of the backseat of his car. “What is that man thinking!” she exclaimed. “Parading her in front of God and everybody on the courthouse square!”

                                                  --------------------------------------------

About the author:

Juliette Harper is the pen name used by the writing team of Patricia Pauletti and Rana K. Williamson.

Like the characters of their debut series, The Lockwood Legacy, Juliette is a merging of their creative energies.

Pauletti, an Easterner of Italian descent, is an accomplished musician with an eye for art and design. Williamson, a Texan from a long line of hardheaded Scots, knows the world of the Lockwoods like the back of her hand.“We decided to write under a pen name because neither one of us by ourselves could have created Kate, Jenny, Mandy, and their world,” says Pauletti. “Juliette is a little bit of us both. We want to be her when we grow up.”

“Patti teases me that I just don’t want to own up to writing a book with romance in it,” Williamson adds, “but that’s not true. I like the Lockwood women and the way they tackle everything life throws at them. And before we’re done, they’ll be ducking a lot. I imagine coming into the office every day and saying, ‘Okay Juliette, what’s going to happen now?’ She tells us, and we get it down on paper.”

Website | Twitter (@jharperbooks)

Giveaway:

Ends May 12th, 2015

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.

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Review: The Unleasing by Shelly Laurenston

The Unleashing by Shelly Laurenston

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


4 1/2 stars




WINGING IT

Kera Watson never expected to face death behind a Los Angeles coffee shop. Not after surviving two tours lugging an M16 around the Middle East. If it wasn’t for her hot Viking customer showing up too late to help, nobody would even see her die.

In uncountable years of service to the Allfather Odin, Ludvig “Vig” Rundstrom has never seen anyone kick ass with quite as much style as Kera. He knows one way to save her life—but she might not like it. Signing up with the Crows will get Kera a new set of battle buddies: cackling, gossiping, squabbling, party-hearty women. With wings. So not the Marines.

But Vig can’t give up on someone as special as Kera. With a storm of oh-crap magic speeding straight for L.A., survival will depend on combining their strengths: Kera’s discipline, Vig’s loyalty… and the Crows’ sheer love of battle. Boy, are they in trouble.


First things first let me just say that I am so freaking glad the Crows and Ravens are back!!!. I first read Hunting Season which was the very first Crow book and I fell in love with it. Periodically I would request more crows but the author was busy with other projects so I had to wait. And I loathe waiting with a passion of a thousand suns so when this book was announced I was happy dancing in my chair.
I was not disappointed. I first received this book from Netgalley to review and I read it but I needed my own proofed and edited version so I bought that and reread it. Let me start off by saying that Crows are the executioners of the Norse gods and the ravens are the search, rescue and destroy if needed team. This story is mainly about Kayla and Vig. I love Kayla. She is a Crow but she has to be shown that these folks needed killing and I agree with that but after she is on board she is amazing. And Vig is a contradiction in every way. He’s a shy, protective, loving, stalkerish in a good way, and a stone cold killer. See definitely a contradiction. I love that he that even though he couldn’t save Kayla he got her another life with the crows. Also all the old and new crows and ravens are freaking hilarious. I was snorting and smiling through the entire book.
This book leaves some questions and issues unresolved but it wasn’t a cliff hanger so I was pleased. And I hope that we don’t have to wait as long for the next book in this series. Because yes there will have be at least another book hopefully more. My only little problem I had with this book was that there were so many folks and the Author switched too much from first to last names and vice versa. But in the final version there seemed to be less of this than in the ARC. All in all I give this book 4 1/2 stars because any book that has me laughing out loud and smiling is stand out book IMO.





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Excerpt: The Dead Room by Stepanie Erickson

Post Apocalyptic 

Date Published: March 11, 2015

322 years after the apocalypse, the world has changed, but her people have not. Secrets, lies, and manipulations endure among a small group of survivors taking refuge on an island in the Northern Pacific.   

 No one knows what claimed so many lives over three centuries ago, and no one asks, except Ashley Wortham. She can feel the secrets all around her, begging to be uncovered.  

 

But the nine elders who govern the island guard their secrets jealously. They believe the islanders know what they need to, and they hide their secrets behind a ruse of peace. But when Ashley, and her best friend Mason, go down the rabbit hole, no one is prepared for truths they uncover. What will they do when they discover the downfall of humanity lies within their own island, deep inside the dead room?

 
The body lay on a two-piece metal pyre in the center of the clearing.
Nothing more than the skeleton of a table, the pyre was simply used for the display and transport of the bodies. Burning the dead was a custom from the time before.

The corpse’s blue cotton, long-sleeved shirt was buttoned all the way to
the top to hide his injuries, and the matching navy slacks had recently been pressed.
With his hands folded over his abdomen, Wesley looked rather dashing. Ashley wished her match had actually been dashing in life.

She wondered who would wear that outfit next. Nothing was ever wasted on
the island.
Not even the clothes of a dead man. She herself had worn the clothes off a
dead woman’s back. Squeamishness was a luxury no one could afford.

Although “new” clothes were made on the island, from animal skins and the
cotton grown in the farmlands, they were typically reserved for the higher
ups—elders, doctors, and the like. Cotton was difficult to grow in the cold climate, and the clothes were made entirely by hand. Once it had been worn and patched a few times by those with power, new clothing was eventually passed down to the lower branches of society,

But, it wasn’t just clothing that moved on after an islander died. All of
their belongings were redistributed among those in need. The dead’s family
wasn’t allowed to keep anything they didn’ t need. Sentimentality was a lost emotion to the islanders. Reusing everything was essential, even if the previous owner was a dead man.

It had only bothered her once—the first time she’d seen one of her
father’s outfits on another man. Even then, at the tender age of ten, she’d understood it was bound to happen eventually. She just hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. Only a week after his funeral, she’d spotted one of her neighbors walking down the road in her father’s clothes. She ran to him, hoping her father’s scent might still linger on his shirt. But the man neither embraced her nor offered her any sympathy. He only looked at her with wide eyes,the horror and disgust plain on his face.

Death on the island was such a strange thing. She’d lost track of how many
funerals she’d been to in her lifetime—at least one a month. Unexpected deaths,
like that of her match, added to the average.

Only three of the losses had actually meant something to her—her mother,
her father, and now Wesley. Her father’s funeral was, of course, devastating, made more so by the fact that they’d shared the same first name. Everything the elders said about him could have also been applied to her. How they were thankful for “Ashley’s life,” how they wished “Ashley peace.”It sent shivers down her spine.

Once, she’d asked him why they shared a name. His mother’s name had been
Ashley, he’d explained, as had her mother, and her father before that. On and on, down the line, the name had traveled, until it had reached Ashley. And one day, as was their tradition, it would go to her own child.

The funeral for her mother, who had been taken by a simple cold that
escalated into something much worse, was nothing more than a hazy memory. Still, Ashley missed her mother terribly and felt incomplete without her. She searched for her whenever the jasmine got caught on the wind, because her mother had loved to wear the flower behind her ear.

Wesley’s funeral was a problem. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt
about it. The loss of her parents had left her feeling completely alone. She’d hoped to find love again with her match, but he’d left her terribly disappointed.

Now that he was gone, her emotions warred with themselves. Relief was the
biggest player fighting for space in her mind. Relief to have escaped the abuse
and the pressures of being the next elder’s wife. Guilt came in at a close second,
but not because she regretted killing her match.

It was because her best friend was being blamed for it.

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