COVER REVEAL & Excerpt: ARE YOU MINE by N.K. Smith

Title: Are You Mine?

Author: N.K. Smith

Genre: New Adult Contemporary

Expected release date: 7 August 2013

Cover Design by Regina Wamba at MaeIDesign.com

Photography by Poly Mendes at www.polymendesphotography.com

Cover Reveal hosted by: Natasha at www.natashaisabookjunkie.com

[This is a self-published title so no pre-order purchase links will be available prior to publication.]

Isn't that a lovely cover?! And here is the full jacket. 

Book synopsis:

Human connection? Who needs it?

Ever since she can remember, wealthy but weary Saige Armstrong has felt different from her peers in Pechimu, New Jersey. With only one good friend to her name, she has navigated the complicated halls of high school and is now faced with the timeless question: Now what?

Fox Harrington, a fun-loving, socially charismatic graffiti artist uses his passions to color his world exactly how he wants it. He knows exactly where his life is headed. That is, until he meets Saige.

A summer project links the two together, making a tentative friendship bloom into romance, but despite their affection for each other, fundamental beliefs and ways of thinking threaten to destroy all they have built.

In this tender story of young love, N.K. Smith delivers a striking tale of two people standing on the precipice of adult life.

*****

Book Excerpt:

His weight on me is new and wonderful, and when his lips find mine, I’m sure there’s nothing better in the universe. He moves his mouth lower and his tongue touches the hollow of my neck. I can’t stop shivering. I close my eyes when his lips are back to mine, and I tighten my arms around him.

There’s something frenetic, yet measured in the way he kisses me. It’s not hard to figure out that I’m the wild frenzy, and he’s the calm, dignified restraint. I can’t move much because the weight of him limits me, but I’m able shift just enough to free my legs. It’s instinctive to wrap them around his waist, but that brings about a whole other rush of sensations.

I inhale deeply the moment his lips part from mine, but it’s only a moment of freedom. Fox’s tongue sweeps out over my bottom lip, and it’s all I can do to let out my breath in a slow, but stuttered exhale.

It’s crazy how much I want him. It’s insane how just being with him changes everything.

*****

Author bio:

Based in the American Midwest, N.K. Smith is a Technical Writer for a Fortune 100 company. The author of the Old Wounds Series, Ghosts of Our Pasts, and My Only, she is a mother of two who finds the time to write very early in the morning when the rest of the world is still fast asleep.

An avid lover of history, art, music, books, and people, she is interested in telling stories that speak to the human condition.

Author contact links:

Website

Facebook 

Twitter 

Goodreads 

Review: PARADISE HOPS by Liz Crowe

Paradise Hops

By: Liz Crowe

Published by: Tri Destiny Publishing

Pub Date: October 15, 2012

Source: Tri Destiny Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

**WARNING: THIS IS AN ADULT NOVEL. Recommended for 18+ only. This title contains mature themes, explicit language, and sexual scenes that are not suitable for everyone.

A brutal attack  left Lori  Brockton convinced she was damaged goods. By the time she emerges from hiding two years later, ready to run her family’s famous  brewery, she’s determined to be independent–never rely on anyone ever again. Nearly a year of working in every corner of Brockton Brewing Company, from warehouse to pub, front office to kitchen, teaches her all she needs to know about the business. Then, she comes face-to-face with masculine perfection in a suit and her world is rocked in more ways than one. Garret Hunter is the new Brockton business manager who takes one look at the beautiful, sad young woman and his entire existence coalesces  around winning her heart.

But standing between Garrett and what he believes is his true love, is a six-feet six-inch blond-haired bad boy brewer.

Eli Buchannan is a craft beer rock star, recently hired by Brockton to drag the company into the 21st century. He brings innovation and attitude plus a prima donna ladies’ man reputation.  But he’s sworn off anything resembling commitment, personal or professional, after getting burned at his last job on both fronts.

Garret Hunter is “The Perfect Man” — handsome, successful, stable, eager to settle down. Eli Buchannan… is not.  Compelling, smoking hot, creative and elusive, he represents everything Lori Brockton should avoid.  But just as  she makes a difficult choice, a drastic life-changing shift occurs, and nothing is ever the same again.

*******

Review:

Ok, this one blew me away! I bawled, actually sobbed my eyes out as my poor husband looked on with abject terror. He doesn't do weepy women, and I was one extremely weepy woman. I don't know that any other book has ever made be cry that hard. I actually had to put the book down for about 5 minutes (that's as long as I could bare to pull myself away from it) so that I could compose myself and find out what was going to happen next.

The characters in Paradise Hops (just the title makes my eyes misty now) are incredible and the love triangle is truly complex. Both male characters, Garrett and Eli, are so well developed that in combination with Lori's past her indecision, mistakes, and confusion are very believable. My heart reached out to her during all her confusion and mixed up feelings and, as I've already said, I bawled like a freakin' baby. 

This is the second book the I've read by Liz Crowe and I love how brewing and craft beer are so central to these stories. It's fascinating, and well, I love beer! So it's totally a plus for me. But the brilliant thing is that while the story is built around the brewing, it's not ... well, about the beer. It's about the characters and their relationships to each other and the beer. 

Paradise Hops is a stand alone novel so if you haven't read any of Liz's work before, it's a great place to start. I will warn you, there is sex. And lots of it, along with details and language. So, if you are sensitive to these issues, this might not be the book for you. Personally, I love it! And if you enjoy a semi nontraditional romance, with some vulgarity thrown in, you should definitely pick this one up. And then, pick up some more of her books because she is absolutely fabulous!

********

LINKS

BUY PARADISE HOPS

LIZ ON FACEBOOK

LIZ ON TWITTER

LIZ'S WEBSITE

COVER REVEAL & Giveaway: EVERYTHING BREAKS by Vicki Grove

Everything Breaks

by Vicki Grove 

Release Date: Fall 2013

Synopsis:

Tucker was supposed to be the designated driver. But there was something about the beauty of that last true summer night, that made him want to feel out-of-control just once. He drank so much and so quickly that he was instantly sick. That left Trey to drive. "I'll catch up to you later," were the last words Tucker would ever say to his friends as he heaved by the side of the road. It was the last time Tucker would ever see them alive.

Tucker’s grief and guilt are just about unbearable and he wonders how he can continue living himself. When he meets the Ferryman who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers that divide the world of the living from the world of the dead, Tucker gets a chance to decide: live or die. The temptation to join his three best friends on the other side may be too much for Tucker to overcome.  

A gripping, haunting and emotional read.

*****

Snippet:

There was a lot more that I wanted to tell her, like that everything in this beautiful treasure house of a world breaks, and sometimes things break so bad, all you can do is hope to get your heart to stop bleeding long enough for you to sift through the ashes so you can try to gain some slight understanding. But some things that break real bad can be mended if you’re lucky enough to have someone on your side with a ton of glue who won’t give up.

*****

And now, an interview with the author, Vicki Grover!

B: Who is your favorite author and what is your favorite book/series?

Vicki: Wow, I hate to give you such a lame answer, Britney, but I guess I read too many great authors to single out anybody.   I read YA and adult stuff and the books of my writer buddies, all of whom are marvels of nature.  I like meaty books that concentrate most on characterization.  Here's something I've noticed lately~ when I'm struggling with something, I pick out books written on that subject.  Fiction, not self-help books.  Everything I know about life I've learned through voraciously reading fiction, which is why I love the name of your blog so much.

B: Do you have a favorite time/place/method of writing?

V: I live deep in the Ozark woods.  You have to go to a lot of trouble to live clear out here.  For instance, the steep gravel roads ruin your car, you're a good half hour from the nearest town, the internet connection is iffy, and there are snakes galore.  On the good side, it's gorgeous, and exciting in the quietly mysterious way of all natural places.   I love to write on the banks of our big creek, or down at our pond.   I'm not afraid of being alone, and quiet.  Noise is a deal-breaker for me.  I love to write early in the morning.  The main thing for me is to write for at least a few hours every day.  But of course a part of your mind is always on your writing, swirling it around.  I'm thinking very seriously of going back to a #2 pencil for my first drafts.   Sometimes I think computer is too fast, faster than my thoughts.  Sometimes I wonder if cursive isn't a sort of magical match for the speed of your brain.

B: Can you tell us a little about what we expect from the story?

V: This is my first full-out supernatural book, though I did put a ghost boy in an attic once in a book called Rimwalkers.   When I was a kid I was addicted to Twilight Zone on television, and later I wrote a story or two for Twilight Zone Magazine.  I think of Everything Breaks as a sort of TZ-ish story.   It starts out with four seventeen-year-old boys in Oklahoma, going to the last bonfire of the season.  Spirits are high, drinking starts, and driving over a bluff to reach the lake, the car leaves the road on a switch-back curve and crashes on the beach far below.  Just before this, one of the boys has dived from the car to throw up in the ditch.  He, Tucker, survives to tell the story, but he's in horrible shape, physically, mentally, and emotionally.   Guilt and longing for the past are eating him alive, literally.  And then one night he picks up a hitchhiker, or rather she gets into his car, uninvited.  She looks like a scrawny little blue-haired teenager with bitten-to-the-quick purple fingernails, but looks can be deceiving.  She's actually the Ferryman who carries the souls of the newly deceased across the rivers that divide the world of the living from the world of the dead.  From her point of view, he's now in her vehicle, having called her to come with his own dwindling life force.  And now Tucker will have to figure out fast whether he wants to fight to live or yield to the intense longing he feels to join his friends on the other side.   The dog on the cover of the book is Cerberus, better known to the Ferrygirl, Charon, as Cherry Berry.   I was flattered when my editor called this, "A gripping, haunting and emotional read."   I hope it is, and wanted it to be.

B: Can you tell us a little more about the characters in EVERYTHING BREAKS? Any interesting tidbits?

V:  I almost always start my novels with some resonant memory that hounds me and wants to be explored.  When I was a senior in high school, three boys went off a bluff road in a 1967 cherry red Mustang convertible.  There was a triple closed-casket funeral, then one of the boy's mothers insisted on opening her son's casket because we seniors were getting into the drama of the thing too much, making it a movie of the week.  So my four boys are from memory, with embellishments and imaginary traits that fit the plot and made them contrastive.  The horrible trick of a writer is to make you love people that you're going to lose, so I hope the boys are attractive in their different ways. The step-grandfather in the story is based on my dad, who died a couple of years ago.  This may sound weird, but I think I wrote this book through grief, to figure out what you can keep in the face of death's finality.  It helped, as all writing (and reading!) helps to clarify this messy and beautiful thing called life.

And last but not least… if you could take ANY fictional character on ANY vacation for a week without any limitations, who would you take and where?

V: Well, I guess I would take Huck Finn, or I'd get him to take me, and we'd go down the Mississippi on his beloved and shabby raft.   And then some Missouri evening when the sky is such that you can't tell it from the water we'd slip right between those two elements and sail on eternally, with, yes, a book forever in our hands! 

Thanks so much for sharing with us Vicki! 

Find Vicki:
Website 

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