Hearts On Fire by Alison Packard Excerpt & Giveaway

BLURB:

Country music star Jessie Grant has it all. An amazing voice, a string of multi-platinum albums, and a sold-out concert tour. But just before her Hearts on Fire tour rolls into Las Vegas, her lead guitarist is badly injured and is unable to play. Desperate to find a replacement before the night of a televised live show, Jessie is forced to accept help from the last person on earth she wants to see again.

Drew Carmichael has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the best up-and-coming musicians in Nashville, without cashing in on his renowned father’s name. When Jessie’s manager calls and asks him to fill in for her band’s injured guitar player, he agrees to help Jessie out even though she cut him out of her life four months ago.

In Sin City, sparks fly between Jessie and Drew, and it isn’t long before they give in to their mutual attraction. But when the dark past Jessie has successfully hidden for ten years explodes in the media, their tenuous bond is put to the test, and both Jessie and Drew must learn to trust each other if they don’t want their newfound romantic relationship to go up in flames.

EXCERPT:

As if sensing she was being watched, she turned and their gazes collided across the stage. Her smile faltered as the seconds ticked by. She remained rooted to the spot, so he moved forward. One of them had to make the first move; it looked like it would be him.

“Hey,” he said as he halted in front of her.

She thanked the roadie, who smiled and left them to attend to Tara and Renee.

“Hello,” she replied, her tone formal and her eyes guarded. “Thank you for agreeing to help us out.”

“You’re welcome.” He rested his arm along the top of his favorite guitar, a Fender Strat that he’d bought when he was sixteen, after years of saving his allowance and hoarding the money he’d earned doing odd jobs around town.

Although his father had made good money and left them fairly well-off after he died, his mom always believed that he should learn the value of money. It was a lesson he’d learned well, and to this day, he hadn’t touched one dollar of the money his father had left him. He wanted to make something of himself on his own terms, not because he had connections or an inheritance.

“Wally gave me the set list yesterday. It looks like it’s pretty much the same as before,” he said, after an uncomfortable silence.

“For the most part.” Jessie tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “The only difference is, I’ve changed up the order so that some of my older stuff is sprinkled throughout the set. Works better that way.”

He nodded. “So what the hell happened to Kenny? Wally said he broke his arm?”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “The damn fool decided to take a swan dive off the stage, and because he’d had a couple of fireballs before the show, he miscalculated how close the audience was to the stage and fell smack dab onto the concrete floor.”

Drew gasped, equally shocked and amused at the picture she’d painted. “Jesus. Are you serious?”

Her lips curved upwards with a ghost of a smile. It was something, even if it wasn’t the usual mega-watt smile she gave him when they used to hang out together. “It’s true. I couldn’t make something like that up. Broke his arm in two places.”

“Ouch.” He winced, thinking of the pain Kenny must have been in. “So he’ll be laid up for a while?”

“Looks like it,” she said. Then, without warning, her tone turned frosty again, and the laughter vanished from her eyes. “Well, we should get started. Do you feel comfortable with all the songs?”

“Yeah. I could do them in my sleep,” he said, then frowned. “Did that sound cocky?”

“No. Just confident.” Her unreadable eyes roamed over his face. “Wally wants us to do a duet.”

“I know.”

He’d taken a look at the sheet music and recognized the song immediately. Anybody who’d ever attended a wedding in the last twenty years would probably be aware of the hit ballad that was popular in the early ‘80s. It was a nice song, and one that would suit his and Jessie’s harmonies to a tee.

“I’m not sold on the idea, but he seems to think it’ll be good for the CMT taping.”

“Whatever you decide is fine with me.” He brushed his hair back from his eyes and held her gaze. “I miss talking to you, Jessie,” he said, unable to stop himself.

Her eyes flickered with some unknown emotion, which vanished as quickly as it came.

“We should get to work. Time’s a wastin’.” And with that, she turned her back on him, moved to the center mic near the front of the stage and never looked back.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Alison now lives in Southern Nevada where she’s still getting used to the blistering summers and the slot machines in every grocery store.

When not working at the day job that pays the bills, keeps a roof over her head, and supports her book and chocolate habits, Alison spends most of her free time writing. But when she takes a break, she enjoys reading, watching movies, and spending time with her family and friends.

Website: http://alisonpackard.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alison-Packard-Author/368976796492227?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Alleyfics

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Alison-Packard/e/B009JG39XQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_4?qid=1419875275&sr=8-4

Barnes and Noble Author Page: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/alison-packard

GIVEAWAY:
The author will award a $10 Amazon or BN GC to one randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:  http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2015/01/blurb-blitz-tour-hearts-on-fire-by.html
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Just a Theory by Annie Wood Excerpt & Giveaway

BLURB:

Just when Martin thinks his life will never go anywhere remotely interesting, he meets an eccentric quantum physicist who gives him the ability to travel to his parallel lives where, in one of them, he runs a successful bed and breakfast with his beautiful wife in Italy.

Only problem is, Martin has no control over any of this.

EXCERPT:

~Out of Body~

Pages, words, sentences float across Martin’s mind as he lie in bed.

You are in a state of consciousness similar to a twilight between sleep and full waking awareness. To find the answers, simply tell yourself, ‘I will now have an out-of-body experience.’ Trust. Let go. Explore!

If the professor wants to play games with him, then fine, he’ll play along. Just the mere chance of seeing Abby again is worth feeling stupid for a minute while he’s alone in his bedroom. Without much feeling, he repeats the mantra...

“I will now have an out-of-body experience. I will now have an out-of-body experience.”

He’s getting sleepy, but he manages to repeat the sentences with a tad more commitment.

“I will now have an out-of-body experience. I will now have an…”

At that moment Martin hears a loud POP. His body begins to vibrate violently. He watches, in utter amazement, as his spirit actually detaches as a carbon-copy of his physical body. His spirit self looks down upon his physical self, which is still in bed, motionless. This fact freaks out the spirit self which, in turn, startles the physical self. The sudden fear of both selves makes the physical self quickly suck the spirit self back into him like a high-powered-spirit Hoover.

A bewildered Martin stumbles into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face and reassure his reflection in the mirror. “It’s cool.”

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Annie Wood is a Hollywood native, lifelong actress and writer. She was the host and co-producer of the nationally syndicated dating game show, BZZZ! She has appeared in many films and television shows and is an award winning playwright. The digital-series she created, wrote and stars in, Karma’s a B*tch was Best of the Web on Virgin America. Annie is committed to telling stories that have plenty of her two favorite things - humor and heart.

Also, she can juggle oranges for about three seconds and spider monkeys creep her out.

Now you know everything.

Website:

http://www.anniewood.com

Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon/author/anniewood

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/anniewood

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/welcometoanniewood

Instagram:

https://www.facebook.com/welcometoanniewood

Pinterest:

 http://www.pinterest.com/TheAnnieWood/

GIVEAWAY:
Annie will be awarding $40 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.  The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: 

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/12/blurb-blitz-just-theory-by-annie-wood.html

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Running Away With You by Suzanne Sweeney Excerpt & Giveaway

BLURB:

Juliette Fletcher’s life has been full of surprises ever since she began dating NFL superstar Evan “Big Mac” McGuire. He’s everything she could ever have wished for – strong and tender, and wrapped up in an exquisite package. She has experienced more happiness than she ever dreamed of, but she’s also survived enough pain and anguish to last a lifetime.

It’s Evan’s rookie season as starting quarterback with the NJ Sentinels, and it looks like he just might take the team all the way to the playoffs for the first time in five seasons.  And now Juliette is planning her dream wedding in the dazzle of the paparazzi’s camera flashes.

But Juliette is about to learn how quickly a dream can turn into a nightmare. Dark secrets begin to emerge – the kind that wreck careers and break hearts. Is silence a betrayal, even when the truth could cause anguish to the ones you love? And when the past threatens to cast its shadow over the present, how far is too far to make certain it stays buried?

Running Away With You is the third book in the Running Series

EXCERPT:
I hear the water running in the bathroom while Evan showers. AC/DC is blaring, and when I hear Evan singing along to “You Shook Me All Night Long”, I can’t help but smile. We have a routine when he’s got an away game, and “You Shook Me All Night Long” pretty well sums it up. The first few weeks of the season, I felt guilty for keeping him up all night so close to a game, but then I realized that the night before the game, he’s safely tucked away in his hotel room by eight o’clock. That more than makes up for whatever sleep he may have missed the night before.

He doesn’t need to bring much with him when he travels. He’ll wear a suit jacket on the plane, and then again on the way home, so there’s no need to pack that. He needs workout clothes, something to wear to dinner, and lots of clean socks and underwear. God, he has great underwear. Some say Armani on the waist. Others say Andrew Christian in gold. They are all tight-fitting boxer briefs and all make him look sexy as hell. Not that he needs any help in that department. 

“Why are you staring at my underwear?” he laughs. I am so caught up in my thoughts, I never heard him turn off the music. Now, he’s standing in front of me wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Water droplets cling to his skin, and all I can think about is licking them off one by one.

My God, he’s delicious.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Suzanne Sweeney is a graduate of Georgian Court University where she studied Education and Sociology.  For some time now, she has been sharing her love of literature with the young minds who sit before her in class each and every day.  After years of teaching the art of writing, Suzanne has finally taken her own advice and put pen to paper in order to produce her most recent book, Running Away With You.  She writes what she lives, residing in the community she loves, Point Pleasant, with her family who provide a constant source of inspiration and support.

For more information on this novel and author, please visit 

http://suzannesweeney.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Running-Series-Books/595007973866974

http://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-Sweeney/e/B00HK4SY16/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/suzanne-sweeney

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7151235.Suzanne_Sweeney

http://www.pinterest.com/SweeneyWrites/

GIVEAWAY:
$10 Amazon or B&N gift card to a randomly drawn guest and a $10 Amazon or B&N gift card to a randomly drawn host.  The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:  http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/11/blurb-blitz-tour-running-away-with-you.html
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Sudetenland by George T. Chronis Excerpt & Giveaway

BLURB:

Sudetenland© is the premiere novel by author George T. Chronis. The book delivers suspenseful and sweeping historical fiction set against Central European intrigue during the late 1930s leading up to 1938′s Munich Conference. The characters are the smart and sometimes wise-cracking men and women of this era – the foreign correspondents, intelligence officers, diplomats and career military – who are on the front lines of that decade’s most dangerous political crisis. With three million ethnic Germans in Bohemia at stake, Adolph Hitler’s unshakeable will demands that the Sudetenland be ripped from Czechoslovakia and joined with Germany. The novel takes readers behind the scenes into the deliberations and high drama taking place within the major capitals of Europe as the continent hurtles toward the crucible of a shooting war.

EXCERPT:

Ros strutted into Lasky's office, coming to a dead end in front of the wood desk that was as long as Rhode Island. She tapped the sole of her shoe on the floor impatiently while Lasky bellowed at someone else in the newsroom. At least the afternoon view over Manhattan was pleasing. Blowing in like a foul wind, Lasky slammed the door and walked right past her.

"Boss, I'm sorry to run a little fast with your image back there," Ros offered up in appeasement.

Still rounding his desk, Lasky shook her off with a wave of his hand. "Forget it. That's not why you're here. I have a job for you."

Wondering whether she should be concerned or happy, Ros decided to play along. "What kind of job?"

Sitting down, Lasky rifled through some paperwork until he found the document he was looking for.

"Yeah, go find this guy Lester downstairs, he'll get you all set up. Lodging, fares, advances, the whole low-down," Lasky finished, handing her the form.

"Who's Lester? What are you talking about? Where am I going?" she blurted out before taking a wild glance at the paperwork.

Lasky thought if he could keep Ros distracted, maybe he could get the problem child on the boat before she could cry about needing a raise. He reached out and grabbed the form back. Throwing it on the desktop, Lasky signed the paper with his fountain pen.

Done, he thrust the page back at Ros. "Paris. I'm sending you to Paris."

Ros looked down at the form, then at Lasky, then back at the form. "I'm going to Paris? When did someone around here start liking me?"

"Stop dreaming, no one around here likes you," Lasky taunted her while he walked back around to the front of his desk. "That screwy Miranda just stabbed me in the back. She found herself some guy over there, got married, and now she's running off to some French island in the Caribbean. I need someone to pick up the pieces in Paris. That's you."

"Just slow down. Miranda got hitched?" all of the angles weren't coming together in Ros' head.

"Yeah, nice announcement: Hi Harry, I got married, and I quit," Lasky mimicked a feminine voice. These damn ditzy broads were always letting him down. But Ros showed promise.

Pointing his finger repeatedly at her nose, he continued his rant. "Miranda left me high and dry, so I'm sending you to pick up the pieces. You, I don't have to worry about. With that mouth, no one is going to be marrying you."

"Harry!" Ros yelled indignantly. "You're not painting a very enticing picture for me here. What if I don't want to go to Paris?"

Lasky stared at her incredulously. "Who doesn't want to go to Paris? Any one of those stooges out there would kill to go to Paris but none of them have what you've got."

With her natural skepticism starting to boil over, Ros leaned in closer and started jabbing Lasky in the shoulder with two fingers, slowly backing him up against the desk.

"I know what you're up to Harry," her tone low and threatening. "Miranda was on a fashion beat. That means to you the only thing I got that those mugs out there don't have, is boobs. It's another glorified gossip beat, you rat!"

"It's Paris! C'mon, every woman wants to go to Paris," Lasky shouted in his defense.

"That's not the point," Ros continued poking him. "I'm tired of going to county fairs. I'm tired of the only labor unrest stories coming my way having to be in washing machine factories. I'm tired of reporting on this ditzy socialite, and that boring dolt of a millionaire. I want a real beat like a real reporter, Harry. I can do the job just as good, or better, as those guys out there and I cost less."

"Stop trying to get on my good side," Lasky retorted, readying his counter attack. He hadn't expected this much of a fight. But he needed her and he couldn't run the risk of her bolting.

"Listen, give me a chance here. You're the only person I've got who can jump in and take over for Miranda. But you're also a hell of a lot better than she is... err, was. You won't have to work as hard to cover her beat. In case you haven't noticed, between the Nazis and Mussolini, there's one crisis after another going on over in Europe. I'm sure there's going to be some important stories Walter and our boys won't be able to get to. What you do with your free time is up to you."

Somewhere in there were a couple of compliments, but she wasn't going to let him twist free that easily. Paris did sound kind of nice, and he was throwing her a bone in the way of real work, but Ros was sure the beat would take up more time than Lasky was promising, and she wanted something else from him... for pride, and because she could.  So Ros just silently stared Lasky down, daring him to add one more carrot to get her to sign on.

"Okay, and I'll throw in a raise," Lasky conceded after a long standoff.

"Done!" Ros threw her arm out to shake hands with Lasky to seal the deal.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

After years as a journalist and magazine editor, George T. Chronis decided to return to his lifelong passion, storytelling. A lover of both 1930s cinema and world history, Chronis is now devoted to bringing life to the mid-20th Century fictional narratives that have been in his thoughts for years. Sudetenland© is his first novel. Taking place during turbulent times in Central Europe during the 1930s, the book took eight years to research and write. The author is already hard at work on his second novel.

Chronis is married with two daughters, and lives with his wife in a Southern California mountain community.

Links

www.sudetenland.georgetchronis.com

www.georgetchronis.tumblr.com

www.georgetchronis.com

Buy Links

www.georgetchronis.com/book/112-2

GIVEAWAY:
George T. Chronis will be awarding $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn host. The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:  http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/10/blurb-blitz-sudetenland-by-george-t.html
a Rafflecopter giveaway