Thursday 5 February 2015

Release Day Blitz for Pulse by Amity Cross @givemebooksblog @amitycross




Title: Pulse
Series: The Beat and the Pulse #2
Author: Amity Cross
Genre: Erotic Romance
 Release Date: February 5, 2015


Synopsis


Ren Miller never dreamed her life would turn out quite like this.

On the cusp of qualifying for the brand new woman's UFC league, she's finally found the thing that makes her tick. She finally has a whole new life before her, but it’s one that doesn't include Ash Fuller.


No one has seen or heard from Beat's Golden Boy in six months, not even Ren. He's disappeared off the face of the earth and he's just another person who's ended up abandoning her when she needed him the most. He broke her heart, but he took the one thing that was hers. Her spirit.


When someone unexpected turns up at Beat with an ultimatum, Ren must make a decision. Go after Ash and her own heart or make her Dad's dream of winning a Championship come true.


Will Ren choose to fight?


Or sacrifice everything to save the man she loves?


18+ due to mature sexual content









Links to Buy

AMAZON US / UK / AU
KOBO / B&N / iBOOKS

Review by Nadia Chief Obsessive Pimpette

~*~ Obsessed by books arc given in exchange for an honest review ~*~

This is the concluding part to this series and I highly recommend you read them in order. Again I must warn you this is a little different to the first as the fire and fight is on a low simmer initially. You need to recap on where we were left...Ren violated and shaken, unclear as to whether the love of her life had just murdered the lowlife scumbag who had tried to force himself on her. Set up by her half sister caused by the insane jealousy Monica felt towards her, Ren is still grieving for her mother, dealing with a family member that wanted her crippled and a distant father. The writing style is subdued and reflective of the characters mood, showing how they are all muddling through day to day.

Ren, having given up the Underground, has been training hard and is on the road to winning the Championship. Her dad is now her coach and they have formed a relationship and now have a better understanding. Ren is ghosting through her life no longer feeling anything as Ash's unexplained departure has left her dead inside. Unsure of what she wants and how she feels she is letting the tide of success pull her along...that is until she receives a surprise visitor.

Ash has been keeping secrets...and we learn each and every one of them. We slowly see him let each brick surrounding his heart crumble as he lets Ren in. He is fighting his past demons and his present, reconnecting with Ren relights the fire in his soul and together they decide they need to end things once and for all.

The path to forever is never easy and Ren has many choices, none of them straightforward. But we see her fighting spirit emerge from the black cloud of defeat that had surrounded when Ash was not in her life, he is her sunshine she is his centre, together they are undefeatable. The story takes many twists and turns, the romance is a slow build as the trust has been broken and too many secrets scatter the path. Dealing with one issue at time is the only way forward for these hard headed fighters.

This is a story of love, redemption and endings. Of family and support, it's more than sex scenes and happily ever afters with real emotions and explosive revelations. I loved the writhing style and was not disappointed. I hope we see more of the Twins, Hamish and Violet...I feel they have their own stories to tell! And more of the Ungerground please!

A five star blood splattering read.
Review by Emma Mistress of Dark & Twisted
This is book 2 in The Beat and The Pulse series by Amity Cross and is not to be read as a standalone, you will need to have read Beat first before venturing into this round.

When we left Ash and Ren in Beat things were unfinished and ended with so many questions, did Ash kill Hammer? Where is Ash? And what will Ren do now?

In book two we find the answers to the questions. Ren is heartbroken at been left by someone she trusted again. Ash and Hammer being missing leave things at Beat as chaotic as ever. Ren is qualifying for the AUFC and pro fighting seems to be in the cards for her future. She is slowly building back up the broken relationship with her father and he is now her trainer. Ren cannot let go of the Underground fighting circuit though: it's her last connection to Ash and puts herself at risk of injury and disqualification from AUFC by going to every match, but she can't stop going....

Ash Fuller: strong, tattooed, an ultimate fighter is broken and hiding from everything and everyone, including Ren. He has his reasons but is it worth all the pain it has caused for the last 6 months. Everyone fears the worst, he's dead but he feels what he's living is worse than that and doesn't want to taint anyone else with his problems.

A surprise visit from a stranger and a rumour that Hammer has returned to underground fighting leads Ren to have to make the ultimate decision: go after Ash and heal her heart or fulfil her Dad's dreams of wining the championship??

Will Ren choose to fight to be a champion or sacrifice everything to save the man she loves?

This is one book that's addictive reading till the final round!!

*** reviewed on behalf of Obsessed by Books ***



Also Available


AMAZON US / UK / AU







Author Bio


Amity Cross isn't her real name. That's no secret.

She is the author of wicked stories about rock stars looking for redemption, gritty romances featuring MMA fighters and dark tales of forbidden romance. She loves to write about screwed up relationships and kick ass female leads that don't take s**t lying down.

Amity lives in a leafy country town in southern Australia and can be found chained to her desk, held at ransom by her characters.

Don't send help. She likes it.



Author Links

Giveaway

Release Day Blitz for Keys to My Cuffs by Lani Lynn Vale. @givemebooksblog @LaniLynnVale




Title: Keys to My Cuffs
Series: The Heroes of the Dixie Wardens MC #4
Author: Lani Lynn Vale
 Release Date: February 5, 2015


Synopsis

You’re the Keys

Loki’s life was a lie. Everything he’d done for the last eight years was under an assumed name for the Benton Police Department. He’d lied, cheated, and stolen all in the name of the law. He wore himself thin, and not even the open road could take away the pain anymore. Then his little next door neighbor moved in, and suddenly he had a reason to get out of bed every morning. Except he was an officer of the law, and a member of a prominent motorcycle club in the area, The Dixie Wardens MC. Neither of which she could deal with.

To My

It wasn’t the scars that covered her new neighbor’s body that scared Channing. It was the badge. The fact that he belonged to The Dixie Wardens MC was only icing on the cake. She should be running away as fast as her legs could carry her. But there’s something about Bryce ‘Loki’ Rector. Something that eased the unreasonable fear she felt every time she came into contact with something that reminded her of her past.

Cuffs

They say love isn’t easy, and it definitely isn’t for the two of them. Loki has to learn to feel again, and Channing has to learn to live. Their road isn’t an easy one by any means, but Loki makes two promises. One, he’ll never let anything hurt Channing again. Two, it’d be over his dead body that he’d ever let her go.









Links to Buy

AMAZON US / UK





Also Available


AMAZON US / UK
KOBO / B&N



AMAZON US / UK



AMAZON US / UK
KOBO / B&N





Author Bio

I’m a married mother of three. My kids are all under 5, so I can assure you that they are a handful. I’ve been with my paramedic husband now for ten years, and we’ve produced three offspring that are nothing like us. I live in the greatest state in the world, Texas.



Author Links

Giveaway

CHAPTER REVEAL - Where We Belong by Eve Connell @givemebooksblog @EveConnell




Title: Where We Belong
Author: Eve Connell
 Release Date: February 19, 2015


Synopsis


One man diving into the past.

One woman emerging from the depths.

At the age of seventeen, Amelia Baide won silver at the Olympic Games and was the second-fastest woman in the pool. Then one tragic night she crashed into a lake and was dragged out without a pulse. Now twenty-four, she is still haunted by it and hasn’t swum again. Until this year’s anniversary of the accident. It is a day unlike any other and a strange turn of events finds Amelia back at a swimming pool.

Harry Jamieson had eyes for one girl, while women and the media had eyes for him. As a trainer of Olympic athletes, he was an in-demand man. Until one boozy morning after … But from bad luck to pure chance he runs into his old flame, Amelia, at a swimming pool no less. She doesn’t remember a thing from the night of the crash.

And Harry knows every single secret.

The pair joins forces—a comeback for Amelia and Harry’s ultimate coaching opportunity. But dodging waves is hard to do; and even the strongest swimmer may sink.

Where We Belong is a second-chance love story for young and old, for swimming enthusiasts and romantics at heart.






Chapter 1

 

Amelia


We had the fight moments after I slipped the robe off my shoulders into a pool around my feet. I had one foot on the shower base, one on the plush rectangular mat.
At that moment, my fiancé, Kristopher, knocked from the other side of the bathroom door, which I’d already locked for privacy.
He had this tendency often. The first word he would speak to me all day? As I stepped into the shower. Was it okay if he went out with his friends instead of the dinner reservation? As I stepped into the shower. His solution to cancer? As I stepped into the shower.
Clenching my jaw, I awaited the question.
“Aftershave, Amelia?” he asked.
I sighed. “You should have gotten it when I told you I needed to shower. Or while I collected my creams and lotions and make-up. Or while I sniffed around for a clean towel in your stash in the corner.”
The soap—as we both knew—was irrelevant in this argument. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if we stayed together out of laziness. And maybe we did. Because I hated many characteristics about my fiancé. Especially his ignorance of this anniversary.
It was September twenty-ninth.
This year I called my boss’s mobile at the crack of dawn to fake a sick day, playing up my groggy tone as a terrible sore throat in addition to a nauseous tummy. She told me to get well, and I swallowed the news with a lump in my throat, guilty for lying. I was an assistant for a medium-sized advertising business and handled paperwork, invoicing and calls all day long—it wasn’t like my absence would be of consequence to day-to-day activities. I’d pick it up tomorrow.
Last year Kristopher and I made dates apart with our respective best friends, and I’d spent it eating all the ice cream along a strip of shops down the coast. I’d thrown up once and then kept on going. Jaffa flavour, I remember.
I’d licked and slurped the drips down the paper cup, and only thought twice of the anniversary. Once on the drive down to the beach, and then once as I’d clutched the sides of a rusty public bin and spewed my guts up to the backdrop of disgusted gasps from passers-by.
I don’t know what Kristopher did that day, but he came back when the night sky was a deep sapphire blue, whisky on his breath as he climbed in bed behind me.
The year before I took a day off from work and spent $600 buying cocktail dresses I would never have occasion to wear. The next day I donated them to charity.
Six years ago today, I died. Hence, it was the one time of the year we didn’t forget the date. Unlike some years when we had to shop for Christmas gifts at two am on the twenty-fourth.
I stared down the white door of the bathroom, one foot tingling with the sharp cold of the shower base, hand clutching the knob. I stepped back onto the tiles, accepting defeat.
“Come on, Amelia,” he said in a low tone. “Just one Goddamn bottle of aftershave. That’s all I need.”
“No. Just wait till I’m done.”
“Babe.”
“Amelia,” I said.
“Amelia, please,” he said, voice breaking. “I haven’t showered and I stink. I just need a few fucking sprays, and I’ll be out of your way all day.”
I gritted my teeth and hobbled from toe to toe, the cold seeping up my legs. If we kept going on like this staying out of each other’s way was pointless. We knew how to nip at each other’s sensitive spots in a way learned from several years of being together. I saw the forthcoming crash, clenched my eyes shut against the pain. My shoulders heaved, bracing for impact.
Was this what happened to me just before my crash?
Was there a moment of wide-eyed fear as my corded, muscled arms grabbed the wheel at the proper ten and two positions, and I flew through the air, reduced to a thin, crushed and crumpled body at the bottom of the lake?
Hot tears grew heavy behind my eyelids as something inside me snapped. I shut the gate to the horrific visions.
It was too late to shower.
Kristopher banged his fist on the door, the boom echoing. I bent and hurried on my new clothes folded on the counter.
“Come on. This is beyond a joke. It will take you a few seconds to pass it.” The door rattled, the handle jerking, but I’d locked the door already. “Amelia.”
I slipped my arms into the cardigan and threw open the door, despite the bags under my eyes and the chill settling over my chest because of the unbuttoned front.
I said, “Have it all,” pushing the aftershave bottle into his chest, then rushed past him.
And I didn’t look back.


 

Chapter 2

 

Harry

 

I woke to star- and heart-shaped glow-in-the-dark stickers radiating in neon green from the ceiling. A ceiling I’d never seen before in my life—typically, I wasn’t the sort of man to befriend the fancy sticker type of person.
It was pre-dawn, barely so, the sun a tiny orb just under the horizon through the crack in the curtains.
My world swayed as I tilted my head. I held my ears in my palms, and my fingers weaved through the messy state of my bed hair. Under the purple sheets, my stomach churned, and farther down, morning glory unstuck from the aforementioned undelightful purple sheets. I crawled out of the bed.
What the fuck was this? I thought. And where the fuck was I?
I remembered flashes from the previous night. A club, a slime party, and breathy kisses with the girl who lay splayed under these purple sheets beneath her stars and hearts glow-in-the-dark ceiling.
Viol … Vick … no, it was Vivienne. No, wait, Vivienna.
I smiled, proud of my achievement. But that dropped into a wobbly set of lips. My stomach churned again. I lurched into the attached bathroom and retched, wiping myself clean with water.
Even though I was ninety-nine-point-nine per cent certain I fucked Vicky (or Vivienna), I shivered at the thought of sharing her toothbrush, so I used the handy finger-stick in lieu and then the mouthwash beside the basin.
Feeling somewhat refreshed, I let out a deep breath and looked around the bathroom, not much of a better sight than the bedroom. The towels were white and pale purple, the soap purple, and more stickers dotted along the corners of the mirror above the basin.
I stared at my reflection, disgusted.
My hair Mohawked, askew to one side, a chunk plastered across my forehead in a teenage boy-crush style. I fussed it around with my hands. It looked as if I just had sex, which was better than it had moments prior.
I stepped back into her bedroom, peering amongst the sheets and all her hair. I sighed upon seeing her, confirming one thing. She had the youthful expression of someone I hoped was legal. I was twenty-eight, she perhaps twenty or twenty-one. I hoped.
Since she was still asleep, I returned to the bathroom and looked around for supplies to make myself appear more human. But I caught my reflection in the mirror and stalled. My tan skin and dark hair vividly contrasted against my steel-blue eyes. Most noticeably, a bloodshot glare, lined with purple bags, rolled lazily at the reflection.
I didn’t suspect my pick-up techniques from last night would have worked if I’d looked like this.
Just twelve or so hours ago, one look at Vivienna and she was under my arm, my lips near her ear telling her things she wanted to hear.
I wished I’d had the foresight to stop drinking and pick up her nuisances: the squeals I thought made her sound cute, the frilly neckline of her dress more girly than sweet, and the bright purple shoes. The poor woman had a young girl trapped inside her body.
I looked through the doorway and whispered, “You’re a little crazy, Purple Vivienna.”
I never should have—
Stop, Harry. I told myself. Find some deodorant, get some clothes on, and get out of here.
So I did just that. Then I walked out of her bedroom without a note or text. I didn’t have her number, plus she didn’t care for me.
The others didn’t, either. They thought they cared.
But they wanted the thrill of a night with the Harry Jamieson.
A night of passion and drinking with the idea of love.
One of us had to have our heads screwed on.
With mine teetering on the right side of sanity, I dashed out and found my car parked by the kerb outside her house, hoping she’d been sober enough by the end of the night to drive it. I knew with absolute certainty I wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel.
I didn’t drive after drinking. Not anymore.
I travelled home, which took an hour—a long way for pussy, even by my standards—and did the whole routine: shower, force down some hangover-cure food, spend the rest of the day watching TV like a zombie. Late afternoon, I got onto all my emails, responding to meetings, questions and other ad hoc business, then prepared some training sessions for my swimmers.
When I woke the next morning, I stumbled drowsily onto my front lawn in just a pair of sleeping pants and retrieved the delivered roll of newspaper. My neighbour, having noticed my exit, darted her eyes away and scurried inside her house.
I never claimed to be a sight for sore eyes in the morning. But what the hell was that about?
Five minutes later, as I tipped a steaming cup of coffee to my lips, I saw the headline and cursed, spraying coffee all over my granite countertop.






Author Bio


Writer, kid-at-heart, awesome partner, graphic design dabbler, book lover.



Author Links

Cover Reveal - Avery Flynn - Make Me Up @averyflynn


Avery Flynn
Make Me Up
Release Date: February 16th, 2015
Cover Reveal Date: February 5th, 2015


Blurb:

Murder, mayhem and makeup.

Panty dropper, knee knocker and all-around-good time Cam Hardy leaves a trail of broken hearts wherever he goes. His lady killer reputation never bothered the private investigator until he met Drea Sanford. Getting the tough as nails make up artist in his bed proved to be the easy part. It’s keeping her there that’s harder than any of the special ops missions he’s run in South America.

Falling into Harbor City’s modern day Casanova’s bed was never on Drea’s list of smart things to do—but hotness happens, especially in the form of the six-foot-five-inch motorcycle riding Cam. Then he takes their secret affair public and she swears to never let him crinkle her sheets again. But when one of Drea’s clients is murdered and the police zero in on her, the only person she can count on is the one man she never thought she could trust.

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24701704-make-me-up

Buy links:




About Author

Avery Flynn has three slightly-wild children, loves a hockey-addicted husband and is desperately hoping someone invents the coffee IV drip.
She fell in love with romance while reading Johanna Lindsey’s Mallory books. It wasn’t long before Avery had read through all the romance offerings at her local library. Needing a romance fix, she turned to Harlequin’s four books a month home delivery service to ease the withdrawal symptoms. That worked for a short time, but it wasn’t long before the local book stores’ staffs knew her by name.
Avery was a reader before she was a writer and hopes to always be both. She loves to write about smartass alpha heroes who are as good with a quip as they are with their *ahem* other God-given talents. Her heroines are feisty, fierce and fantastic. Brainy and brave, these ladies know how to stand on their own two feet and knock the bad guys off theirs.