Saturday, January 30, 2021

Eat Your Heart Out Cover Reveal

Hi, everyone!

Please help me welcome Shirly Goldberg as she shares details on her upcoming book Eat Your Heart Out. 


Yup, it’s a Cover Reveal!

I’m so thrilled to show off my new cover for Eat Your Heart Out, the second book in the series Starting Over.

Two foodies, Dana and Alex, banter, sauté and tiptoe around each other. Except for the occasional smooch. What’s with that?

I’m sharing more of Eat Your Heart Out’s details on my blog. Read the blurb and click this link https://midagedating.com/ to read an excerpt. Too soon for links, but I’m looking for ARC readers, so please keep in touch. Publication date coming soon!

Thanks to Debbie Taylor for her cover and the team at The Wild Rose Press for all their hard work!

      Shirley



Blurb

When a tyrant in stilettos replaces her beloved boss, and her ex snags her coveted job, teacher Dana Narvana discovers there are worse things than getting dumped on Facebook. Time for the BFF advice squad, starting with Dana's staunchest ally, Alex—hunky colleague, quipster, and cooking pal extraordinaire. But when the after-hours smooching goes nowhere, she wonders why this grown man won't make up his mind.

Alex Bethany's new lifestyle gives him the confidence to try online dating. What he craves is a family of his own until a life-altering surprise rocks his world. He knows he's sending Dana mixed messages. Alex panics when he thinks he's blown his chance with his special person. From appetizers to the main course will these two cooking buddies make it to dessert?

Funny and bittersweet, Dana and Alex's story will have you rooting for them.


Click here to read an excerpt. 

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Forgiven by Garrett Leigh Book Blitz & Giveaway

Forgiven
Garrett Leigh
(Forgiven, #1)
Published by: Carina Press (HQN)
Publication date: January 25th 2021
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

High school sweethearts Mia and Luke get a second chance at love in this brand-new contemporary romance from award-winning author Garrett Leigh.

When Mia Amour returns to England to open a florist shop, all she wants to do is put her lousy ex behind her and never look back. But getting a fresh start is easier said than done when her first love, the boy who once broke her teenage heart, strolls back into her life. He’s every bit as sexy as she remembers, and the urge to melt back into his arms almost makes her forget how devastated she was when he took off without a word. Almost.

Left with no choice, Luke Daley did what he had to do, leaving town to earn enough money to save his broken family, though it just about broke him, too. But now he’s back, running his uncle’s business and trying desperately to forget about Mia, the girl he left behind all those years ago. When he runs into her in town, the shock of seeing her again brings an intense rush of emotions: love, guilt…and an overwhelming urge to find out if it’s still as amazing between them as it used to be.

It doesn’t take either of them long to give in to desire and discover the fiery passion they once shared burns hotter than ever. With each new touch, each moment of forgiveness, old hurts heal and the future they’d hoped for ten years ago becomes possible again. But their fragile connection is tested by a threat neither of them saw coming—a threat that could end their second chance before it even gets started.

Forgiven

Book 1: Forgiven

Book 2: Unforgotten

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play

EXCERPT:

Luke

I was playing darts with some dude-bro of my dad’s when Gus walked in. An automatic grin spread across my face, but he wasn’t alone. Mia flitted in behind him and went straight to the bar without looking my way.

Gus shrugged and followed her.

It stung. I had plenty of old schoolmates knocking around Rushmere, but Gus got me. His easy company had made the transition to civilian life seem almost normal. Perhaps I’d become too reliant on him. Too demanding, and Mia was right. He was her brother, not mine.

I turned my back on them and focussed on flinging darts at the board. My aim had always been good, and I won several times over, but still the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and no matter how much I drank, my skin tingled with her imagined gaze all over me—imagined, because I reckoned I still knew her well enough to be certain she was stubbornly refusing to face me.

Calling time on my darts marathon, I drained my drink, bid my opponents goodbye, and left the pub without glancing in the direction I’d last seen Gus and Mia. It was a mile walk back to my house, but I was glad of it; at least I would be come the morning.

I fished my phone from my pocket and checked that my alarm was set, even though military life had left me incapable of sleeping more than four hours at a time. An Instagram notification from my brother caught my attention. I swiped it and immediately wished I hadn’t. Wasted and trashing whatever shithole town he lived in now, treating them to the same havoc he’d wrecked my mum’s life with after our dad died. Not that I could judge him right now for being wasted, but I’d go home, fall asleep in my own bed, and wake up in time to keep my life moving forward, even if I had no idea where I wanted it to go. Billy was destructive to himself and everyone around him. I loved him, but sometimes I just couldn’t fucking look at him.

A muttered curse behind me spun me around.

Mia glared at me. “For God’s sake. Is there nowhere in this town I can go without you loitering around the corner?”

The absurdity of it was so unfair I just stared.

She stepped closer, her face pretty much twisted in the kind of half snarl that had made me so fucking hard in the past.

Would make me hard now if I let it.

If I let her.

I swallowed thickly. We’d been in the same room all night, and yet somehow the sight of her in front of me seemed brand new. “I’m going home.”

“Yeah. I figured that when you left the pub ten minutes ago.”

She didn’t move. Neither did I, and I cursed myself for not going straight home. The rare glimpses of her were bad enough, but these face-to-face staredowns clawed at my insides. I had stubborn feet, a steady gaze, and hands that never faltered, but with Mia so close a gust of wind would blow her hair into my face, everything trembled.

I inhaled fresh air, hoping it would clear my mind. It didn’t. “Whatever. I’m going home now.”

“Uh-huh.”

Still I didn’t move. I glanced over Mia’s shoulder at the pub. “Where’s Gus?”

“Talking to some bloke from Grindr, I’d imagine. He left with a spring in his step.”

“He left you there by yourself?”

“No, he just left like an adult, because I’m old enough to make the three-hundred-metre walk on my own.”

Mia started to step around me. In a fit of nonsensical recklessness, I grabbed her arm, then braced myself for the inevitable answering shove.

But she didn’t shove me. She stared, apparently transfixed by my fingers circling her slim wrist, and did nothing at all.

Reeling, I let her go. “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why are you sorry?”

Perhaps she was drunk too, and heat swam in my veins. Getting lit with Mia had always been awesome. Back in the day, I’d lie back and let her take whatever she wanted from me, but that wasn’t the picture dancing through my beer-addled brain right now. I wanted to grip her again, spin her around, and pin her against the wall. She’d never let me dominate her—I’d never wanted to—but fuck if it wasn’t an image I couldn’t shake.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

It was my turn to move past her, and her turn to stop me in my tracks with a strong grip. “Luke.”

“What?” I spun around to face her again, my shout ringing out in the quiet pub car park, the vehemence in it surprising me as much as Mia. “What?” I tried again, softer this time, but no less desperate. “You don’t want to talk to me, I get it, okay? So leave me the fuck alone, and I’ll do the same for you.”

“I never asked you to leave me alone.”

Our eyes met and held on for the first time since our chip shop reunion two weeks ago. I fell down the rabbit hole of those fucking stormy blues, and as the seconds ticked by, so did my resolve to walk away.


Author Bio:

Bonus Material available for all books on Garrett's Patreon account. Includes short stories from Misfits, Slide, Strays, What Remains, Dream, and much more. Sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/garrettleigh

Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer, cover artist, and book designer. Her debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards, and was again a finalist in 2017 with Rented Heart.

In 2017, she won the EPIC award in contemporary romance with her military novel, Between Ghosts, and the contemporary romance category in the Bisexual Book Awards with her novel What Remains.

When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.

Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram


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Friday, January 22, 2021

Damned When I Didn't - Book Tour & Giveaway

 

I'm super excited about this month-long tour hosted by Silver Dagger Book Tours, and I hope you will follow along to read excerpts and guest posts from yours truly. 

I huge thank you to Silver Dagger Book Tours for putting the tour together and to all the wonderful bloggers who are participating. Please be sure to leave a message here or on their blogs to let them know you stopped by. And don't forget to enter the giveaway!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading! Cherie



Damned When I Didn't
by Cherie Colyer
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance


Death isn't the end for eighteen-year-old Avery Williams, and her final resting place isn't beyond the Golden Gates. No, the Queen of the Damned has plans for her and, unbeknownst to Avery, fought hard to gain possession of her soul.
As Hell's newest succubus, Avery is expected to siphon life from the living. It only takes a long, meaningful kiss, but for a virgin like Avery, kissing guys she barely knows isn't something she's comfortable doing. Avery focuses on the upside of her fate—she'll be returning home, or so she thinks. When the Queen of the Damned cuts her off from her old life, Avery is determined to find a way back to her family and friends, even if it means facing Hell's fury if she's caught.






Cherie Colyer is best known for her young adult, paranormal romance thrillers, including the Embrace series (featuring witchcraft) and Challenging Destiny (a story about outsmarting heaven and hell.) She usually has several book projects in the works. She enjoys helping budding writers improve their craft and learn more about the publishing industry. Cherie lives in Illinois with her family. She happily visits schools and libraries and is a member of SCBWI (Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators).






Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!



Tuesday, January 19, 2021

In the Penalty Box Blog Tour


Hi, everyone!

This week, I'm celebrating Lynn Rush and Kelly Anne Blount's new release, In the Penalty Box. Learn more below!



Blog Tour! 

The Cutting Edge meets Friday Night Lights in a sizzling new hockey romance from bestselling authors Kelly Anne Blount and Lynn Rush!


In the Penalty Box 
by Lynn Rush and Kelly Anne Blount  
Genre: YA Contemporary 
Release Date: January 5, 2021
Entangled Teen 

Summary: 

Willow: Figure skating was supposed to be my whole world. But one unlucky injury and now I’m down...but I’m definitely not out. I just need to rehab—a boatload of rehab—and who’d have thought I could do it on the boys’ hockey team? Of course, the infuriatingly hot captain of the team seems to think I’m nothing but sequins and twirls. What’s a girl to do but put him in his place? Game on.

 Brodie:  Hockey is my whole world. I’ve worked my tail off getting my team in a position to win the championships—hopefully in front of major college scouts, too—so what’s a guy to do when a figure skater ends up as our new goalie? Of course, the distractingly sexy skater thinks I’m nothing but a testosterone-laced competitive streak. And surely she’s only biding her time to heal, then she’s gone. Game over.


Universal Buy Link

Amazon     B&N     iTunes     Kobo     Indigo     GooglePlay

Thalia     bol.de     Angus & Robertson     Mondadori


INSPIRATION BEHIND WRITING THIS BOOK AND YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTERS: 

Welcome to the IN THE PENALTY BOX release festivities! I’m so excited to be here today and grateful for the chance to talk to you about the sweet YA romance novel I co-wrote with Kelly Anne Blount! We love blog tours! Have you been hitting all the tour stops? Be sure to, because there are lots of fun prizes to try for and adventures to be had. 

Lynn Rush here. In case you don’t know me, I’m one of the writers of IN THE PENALTY BOX. Kelly Anne and I met through our agent, Nicole, at The Seymour Agency. We clicked right away and one day, Kelly said, “Hey, we should write a book together.” 

I was all about that. I really enjoyed Kelly’s writing and her personality. She’s pretty freaking awesome, so yeah, I agreed right away. Kelly and I had been involved in high school and college sports, so it felt pretty natural to go that route with a book we would write together. 

Normally I’m a seat of the pants type writer, but when we started planning out what we might write about, it was evident we’d need to do some plotting, so that was a fun experience. Now I kind of like plotting books out. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the rush of staring at a blank word document with no idea what I’m going to write out. I don’t think I’ll ever lose that, but I’ll keep that more to what I write on my own. 

Since the first trilogy I’d ever released was written from the male point of view, first person, it seemed fitting that I write that POV in our novel. And since Kelly enjoyed writing the female point of view, we had a starting point to get our first novel up and running. 

While I normally write demons, vampires and scientifically modified humans, we decided this one would be a small town, contemporary high school sports romance. And no, the star hockey player couldn’t be a vampire.  :) 

We went on to write over 100,000 words in about four months. The story just seemed to flow. Oh, and it was so much fun. I love writing, absolutely love getting lost in different worlds, so this was just plain awesome. 

Writing Brodie, a kid who seemingly has it all: he’s good looking, has amazing hockey talent, and is rich...he was really fun to write. Even though making him a vampire wasn’t an option, I enjoyed creating and delving into his family dynamics and the dysfunction of it. Showing his vulnerabilities along with his fears, strengths, and convictions. 

One thing about Brodie that inspired me was his loyalty. To his friend Preach and his other, more difficult to love friend, Pax. The brotherhood and commitment to his family of hockey players...it makes me smile.  

I hope you find Brodie as intriguing as I did, and I thank you all so much for your support and your participation in the IN THE PENALTY BOX release festivities. 

Thank you again for having me and featuring IN THE PENALTY BOX!  

Much love, 

Lynn Rush




About the Authors:

 


Lynn Rush:
 New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author, Lynn Rush, is a full-time writer, wife, and trail runner living in the Sonoran Desert, despite her fear of rattle snakes. Known as #TheRunningWriter, Lynn can’t resist posting epic sunrise pictures while running in the desert with her trail sisters, even if she has to occasionally hop a scorpion.

When she’s not running or writing, she’s watching movies that fuel her everlasting love of superheroes, vampires, and all things Supernatural. The books she reads usually carry the same theme, but this former college athlete loves reading sweet sports romances as well.

She’s madly in love with her Ironman husband of 20+ years who is the inspiration for what true love is. You can find her on social media as @LynnRushWrites and her 
website is: www.lynnrush.com 



Kelly Anne Blount: USA Today Bestselling author and Wattpad Star Kelly Anne Blount has more than seventy-three-thousand followers on social media. Her Wattpad stories have been read more than twenty-million times. She’s contributed to Tap, Wattpad’s new app for chat-style stories, where her work has been “tapped” more than fifty-million times. She is a writer and reviewer for SpoilerTV, which has allowed her to develop an incredible network of film and TV stars.

Two of her Wattpad works, including Captured (seventeen-million reads), have been optioned for film by Komixx Entertainment, and she is regularly invited to present seminars about social media at author events.

Stop by any of Kelly’s social-media platforms (@KellyAnneBlount) and stay tuned to this website for announcements and information about upcoming releases and events.

Kelly Anne Blount is represented by Jennifer Wills (jennifer@theseymouragency.com) and Nicole Resciniti (nicole@theseymouragency.com) of The Seymour Agency.


Website
Twitter
Goodreads


Book Tour Created by YA Bound Book Tours 



Tuesday, January 12, 2021

My 20-21 New Year Goals



I'm setting twenty goals for 2021. 

1. Continue to be the courteous, kind, and self-respecting person I want to be. I think I have done well with this over the years, but it never hurts to add it to the list.

2. Strive to be positive, even when things appear bleak. This used to come naturally for me, but events of the past years have made it more of a challenge than I'd like it to be.

3. Focus on the things I can control. One could go mad focusing on the things she can't.

4. Practice zen... I'm really bad at thinking about nothing. But I've heard that clearing the mind can improve physical and mental health. 

5. Perform a random act of kindness every week. 

6. Go on more long walks.

7. Drive somewhere special specifically to watch the sunrise.

8. Drive somewhere else special specifically to watch the sunset.

9. Visit somewhere new every month.

10. Share an Instagram photo every week. By the end of the year, I'll have my 2021 story documented in photos.

11. Provide weekly updates about my writing on my author Facebook page. 

12. Blog at least once a month, and visit others' blogs.

13. Improve my D2 skills for my day job. Those I work with will understand this one.

14. Finish the sequel to Damned When I Didn't's first draft. Then finish revisions and submit the story to my publisher.

15. Find a home for at least one of my middle-grade novels. I have a couple I'm rather fond of and am excited to share with readers. 

16. Excercise five days a week.

17. Eat healthily. 

18. Paint the bedroom. (I had to slip in one home-improvement goal.)

19. Plant more flowers. 

20. Be the best person I can be. 


What are your goals?


Thanks for stopping by. I hope something on my list inspires your 2021 goals. 

Cherie


Saturday, January 2, 2021

Welcome to 2021



Welcome to 2021!

I hope it's an amazing year for you!

I also hope you had a wonderful holiday season. 2020 was a difficult year with many challenges, and my heart goes out to all those who have been affected. May the worst be behind us and the vaccines prove effective. As the fight against covid rages on, please continue to practice social distancing. Your health is important.

Warm wishes for a safe, healthy, and magical 2021.

All my best, Cherie