Wednesday, March 13, 2024

DARKER by A.K. Nevermore #MCromance



Maw of Mayhem MC, Book 2


Paranormal, Motorcycle Club Romance

Date Published: March 15, 2024



So much for sanctuary. Kit Parson doesn’t feel any safer than she was before she first stepped into the Maw of Mayhem, and things are going from bad to worse. Something big is definitely going down in the paranormal community… and inside Kit. Now that her inner beast has awoken, all it wants is out. The only thing Kit wants is Grim, but he’s got issues of his own.

Fingered for a crime he didn’t commit and injured by the witch’s spell, his cat Darke has control of their form. He doesn’t play well with others, and tensions with the crew are at an all-time high.

With the witches’ elite assassins on their trail, can Darke and the crew put aside their differences to keep Kit safe and get back to the MC? And as the clock ticks toward the vote with Grim’s reputation in shambles, will there be an MC to go back to?



EXCERPT


Shades of the past tore through the consciousness Darke shared with his man, threatening to swallow Grim whole. He fought against their poisoned bite, but the witch’s spell had weakened the big cat’s skin-brother and freed the memories from their fetters. They lashed at Grim with inky black tentacles of torment. His agonized screams rose within the crescendoing squall, raging through their split psyche. A growl welled in Darke’s chest, ruff bristling at their assault.

-- Mine! -- he snarled, lunging into the fray. Sharp claws and teeth rent the shadowed memories of the bad time from his man, scattering them back into the depths of their mind. Grim was his. Him. A self separate, yet one. His skin-brother. Darke nuzzled him close, tongue rasping over Grim’s flickering light.

-- heal --

Kit… his man whimpered, curling into a ball. His light dimmed, giving up control of their form to the big cat.

-- ours -- Darke rumbled, shifting their body and sending Grim what strength he could. Fur sprouted, limbs cracking and reforming. Two legs became four, and a tawny gray mountain lion lay sprawled on the bed where the others had lain his man to recover.

Within, his skin-brother’s light strengthened, its low glow holding steady.

Darke ran a paw over his face, licking at his pad. He sneezed at the scent of old blood, the room thick with the patina of its tang and the decaying musk of the undead. A low growl rumbled in his chest, his pupils dilating to take in the room’s blend of muted color.

Heavy furniture dominated the space, its angles stark amidst the gloom. Tendrils of scent threaded through the room, age and linseed seeping from the wood to twine with the rest of the civilized rot assaulting his nose. He pushed off the bed, padding across the thick carpet. His shadow grayed the fingers of scant moonlight streaming in from long, amber-tinted windows.

Darke paused, his lip curling over his canines, disdainfully eyeing the city spread out below him before turning his face to the bulbous moon.

Had Grim’s female changed and released her animal?

Clay’s cat had promised Darke a mate. Teased him with her scent, captured within the weft of the afghan on Grim’s bed. The desperate longing it evoked proved the connection. The tip of Darke’s tail twitched. He’d trusted it would be so. Waited for so long. Too long. Kit’s scent matched the afghan’s. That meant the beast within her was his.

Darke chuffed his frustration. Sensing his mate without being able to claim her was torture. He paced the breadth of the room, eyes narrowed at the heavy oaken door leading out. Beyond it, faint voices pricked at his ears. Part of his skin-brother’s pride was near. His crew. Darke growled at the snippets of the MC’s inner cats’ near-unintelligible murmuring punctuating the two-legged babble. That he could understand the crew’s stupid yapping better than his own brethren’s yowls irked.

A pang of loneliness shot through Darke’s chest. He missed Clay. When his father’s inner lion had spoken, his deep rumble was clarion. The lynxes out there? Yowls and hissing. Darke could pick out maybe one hard-won word in six, and they couldn’t understand him at all. It had been the same with his littermates, Grapple and Shiv, leaving Darke to rely on instinct when forced to interact.

It got him into trouble. Lynxes were shady and the two-leggers lied. Said things they didn’t mean, then hurt you. Clay had been different, but he was dead while his murderer walked free.

Reaper.

Darke shivered, ears flicking back, remembering the bad time. The man who called himself their uncle needed to die, and Grapple and Shiv with him.

Darke’s temper spiked, his tail swishing. Keenly feeling the loss locked within his mind again, in this stinking place of undead. His skin-brother shared his sorrow at their father’s murder, but not Darke’s isolation.

And now Grim had left him, too.

Darke shouldered through another door into a smaller room lined with tile. It smelled faintly of excrement and strongly of fabricated pine, the water in the bowl stale and chemical-laced. Darke shook droplets from his maw and chuffed his distaste, returning to the window.

Soft footfalls approached from the beyond the oaken door.

Darke slunk into the deep shadow of an armoire as the heavy slab canted open, then closed. Kit limped to the center of the room, favoring a leg. Her arm was splinted, the opposite hand bandaged in gauze. A ruddy stain marred its whiteness. She wrapped her damaged limbs around herself with a low sob, the scent of fresh blood perfuming the air as she moved. Darke’s nostrils flared at that thread of wrongness twining within the delicate tendrils of citrus, cinnamon, and female musk.

His mate was presenting as wounded prey.

Darke bit back the growl building in his chest, fury pounding through his temples. His claws extended and retracted from the carpet’s thick pile. Healthy, she’d be a tempting prize for any predator. Injured… He was going to kill --

No. Darke’s ears flattened against his skull. His man would think before spilling blood.

But Grim thought too much.

Kit scanned the room, then dashed a hand across her face, stumbling to the bed. Her feet froze at its foot, head snapping toward the bathroom, then away. Another low sob eked from her throat, and Darke’s ruff stood on end. He would destroy them. Destroy them all. Starting with those who had failed to protect --

-- Hey! Boy Vengeance! You really just gonna let her think her think he’s gone? --

Darke jumped, fur bristling at the syrupy censure. He backed deeper into the shadows, eyes wide and pulse pounding.

-- Aww. Here puss, puss, puss… I don’t bite --

His lip curled over a canine, and a female’s mocking laughter flitted through his mind as clearly as the gravelly chuckle of Clay’s beast had. Darke’s heart leaped, his ears pricking forward, saliva pooling in his maw.

He could understand her.

The beast inside Kit, his promised mate -- when she spoke, her words were clear, and she wanted to play.

 


About the Author

AK Nevermore enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebases coffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. A Jane-of-all-trades, she’s a certified chef, restores antiques, and dabbles in beekeeping when she’s not reading voraciously or running down the dream in her beat-up camo Chucks. Unable to ignore the voices in her head, and unwilling to become medicated, she writes Science Fiction and Fantasy full time. AK pays the bills writing a copious amount of copy, along with a column on SFF. She belongs to the Authors Guild, is an RWA chapter board member, volunteers for far too many committees, teaches creative writing, and on the rare occasion, sleeps.


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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Oaky With a Hint of Murder by Dawn Brotherton #CozyMystery



 Eastover Treasures, Book 2


Cozy Mystery

Date to be Published: 12 Mar 2024

Publisher: Blue Dragon Publishing, LLC

 


Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see what ferments.

Is there any truth to the Native American legends that cluster near Seneca Lake? Is the warrior’s disapproval of wineries growing legs?

Aury will need to pour over the clues to unearth the mystery before the winery’s reputation is crushed. With the annual wine festival just around the corner, Aury harvests more than she bargained for when the killer tries to bottle her up for good.


About the Author

Dawn Brotherton is an award-winning author of nineteen books and featured speaker at writing and publishing seminars. When it comes to exceptional writing, she draws on her experience as a colonel retired from the US Air Force as well as a softball coach and Girl Scout leader. Her variety of interests has led to a range of genres including mystery, romance, young adult fantasy, middle grade sports, picture book, and nonfiction. When she isn’t using her words, Dawn is in her craft room in Williamsburg, VA, quilting, painting, or taking online classes. Her affection for travel and all-things-crafty keeps her imagination in high gear for the next Eastover Treasure Mystery.

 

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Monday, March 11, 2024

Picasso's Lovers by Jeanne Mackin #HistoricalFiction #Giveaway



This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Jeanne Mackin will award a randomly drawn winner a $25 Amazon/BN GC. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.






You know Pablo Picasso. Now meet the women behind the masterpieces. The women of Picasso's life are glamorous and elusive, existing in the shadow of his fame - until, in the 1950's, aspiring journalist Alana Olsen determines to bring one into the light and discovers a past complicated by secrets and intrique.




Read an Excerpt

Gazes from Pablo Picasso are like brushstrokes. Some are long, lingering, full of texture and pigment. Some are short, shallow, even accidental. His gaze on me now falls somewhere between the two.

Once, his gaze would have found enough for an entire painting. He would have seen flesh, and the bone and muscle under the flesh, the question or certainty of the eyes. He would have seen past, present, and future and painted them in a way that made time irrelevant.

Yes, that was how he pained me. Everything and at once, all the angles and geometry of the body, and he made of me something eternal and always beautiful. That is what an artists can do for a woman. When most men looked at me, all I saw in their faces was desire, the urge to possess. When Pablo looked at me, his face filled with wonder waiting to be translated to lines and brushstrokes.

Spring. The second year of the Great War. I wasn’t twenty yet, and had returned from cold, starving Moscow, where a loaf of bread coast as much as a silk dress…Back to Paris for me!

When Pablo first saw me, I was sitting on the rim of the Wallace Fountain in Place Emile, face turned up to the sun like a basking cat, enjoying the fine day and wondering what adventure I might find…It was early summer. I had stolen a bunch of cherries at Les Halles and a roll, but my stomach rattled.

About the Author:
Jeanne Mackin is the author of several historical novels, including The Last Collection, which has been translated into five languages, and The Beautiful American, which won a CNY award for fiction. She has taught in the MFA Creative Writing program at Goddard College and won journalism awards, and is currently at work on her next novel.

Website: http://www.jeannemackin.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeanneMackinAuthor
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JeanneMackin1
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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Picassos-Lovers-Jeanne-Mackin-ebook/dp/B0C3C2J4FH/ref=sr_1_1

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Friday, March 8, 2024

Point of Beginning [The Gentlemen's Club 1] by Gale Stanley #GayRomance #MFRW

 




Welcome to the March Steam Hop! If you’d like to heat up your winter a bit, you’re in the right place. 

The MFRW Steam blog hop is a monthly event that showcases authors in the Marketing for Romance Writers community who write more explicit stories.

Today I'm sharing a spicy excerpt from POINT OF BEGINNING. Enjoy! Then when you’re done with my steamy snippet, follow the links at the end of this post to sample more spicy excerpts.

Blurb:

Geeky CAD technician Jack Monroe is bi-curious, but after he falls head over heels for a certain curly-haired construction surveyor, he's ready to admit he's gay. Too bad Alex James is straight and has a girlfriend who keeps him on a short leash. 

Jack is determined to meet other gay men, but after a few dates from hell, he's ready to give up. Then he meets Richard Caldwell, part owner of the exclusive Gentlemen's Club where wealthy members can make their dreams come true. Richard takes Jack under his wing and offers him a chance to act out his fantasy with an Alex lookalike. Nobody can replace Alex, but knowing the real thing is off-limits, Jack accepts the offer. 

When the real deal shows up, Jack is convinced that Alex is only there for the money. But sometimes dreams do come true.

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Gentlemens-Publishing-Allure-ManLove-ebook/dp/B00C2BWPKI



Excerpt:

Jack suddenly felt shy undressing in front of another man. It was just easier if he didn’t have to watch Alex watching him.

“What are you thinking?” The voice behind Jack was low and husky.

But before Jack could reply, hands reached around his waist and held him close, close enough that Jack could feel the warmth of a hard furry chest against his back. Jack swore he could feel the erratic thump of Alex’s heart, and the other man’s barely controlled passion scared the shit out of him. Jack hadn’t been this anxious in the bathroom at the Canopy Club. But that had been a stranger sucking him off. This was Alex!

Searching fingers released his zipper, and a warm palm slid inside the fly of his slacks. A hand fisted his cock and stroked, nudging the swollen head at every pass.

Jack groaned.

The feeling of another guy’s big, calloused hand around his cock did crazy, wonderful things to Jack’s flesh. Knowing who belonged to that hand made it even better. Alex’s thumb rubbed circles over the leaking head. Then Alex lifted his thumb to Jack’s mouth and brushed a bit of pre-cum over his lips. It was a taste of what was coming, and it made Jack anxious for more. He gripped the waistband of his jeans, and Alex helped him shimmy out of them and his briefs.

“Turn around and look at me, Jackson.”

Jack did as he was told, and Alex stepped back. Slowly and seductively, Alex’s gaze slid downward, stopping at Jack’s leaking prick before traveling back up. “Tell me you want me, Jackson.”

Jack had never been good at expressing his feelings. Words didn’t come easy. “You know I do.”

“I need to hear you say it. I need to know you want me and not some anonymous stripper. Because if it’s not like that, we can stop right now.”

Pure desperation helped Jack force the words out. “I want you, Alex,” he heard himself say. “It’s always been you. I didn’t think I could have you.”

“You make me so fucking hot,” Alex said hoarsely. He pulled Jackson into his arms. “I’m not sure I could stop if you wanted me to.”

Alex grabbed the hair at Jack’s nape and kissed him hard, pushing his tongue deep into the man’s mouth. Jack returned the kiss, his mouth wide open, his body rubbing against Alex. Alex felt so fucking good. Jack melted against his warm body, making them both shudder. It was hot as hell.

Panting, Alex suddenly pulled back. “Want to suck you.”

Oh, God. Jack wanted that, too. But even more, he wanted Alex’s cock in his mouth. He wanted to know that he could bring pleasure to Alex. What Jack lacked in experience, he’d make up for with enthusiasm.

He averted his eyes. “Alex?”

“What, baby?”

“Me, too.”

“Tell me.”

“I want to suck you, too,” Jack croaked helplessly.

“Fuck, yes.”

Alex looked like the director of a porn movie as he lay on his back and told Jack where he wanted him. Jack would have laughed if he hadn’t been so hot and so embarrassed. He climbed on the bed, and facing Alex’s feet, he straddled his head. Alex stared up at Jack’s cock and licked his lips.

“Want to make you come so hard you see stars.” Alex growled. He gripped Jack’s thighs, urging him down.

Jack crawled over him until they were both in a mouth-to-genitals position. Jack slid his hands over Alex’s thighs. The coarse hair bristled under his palms. Alex’s penis stood straight up and wagged like a metronome in front of Jack’s face. He’d never been this up close and personal with another man’s cock. Fascinated, he compared it to his own. Maybe a little longer… Jack traced a finger over the bulging veins and heard a quick intake of breath behind him.

The tip of Jack’s cock brushed against Alex’s lips, and Alex swirled his tongue around the head.

“Oh, God,” Jack moaned as he did the same to Alex and was rewarded with appreciative grunts and groans.

Then Jack’s cock was bathed in wet heat as Alex licked his shaft from top to bottom. Determined to please his lover, Jack did the same for Alex. A few swipes of his tongue, and instinctively he wanted more. His mouth closed around the purple head, and Jack let it slide over his tongue. It seemed like such an intimate act, having another man’s dick in his mouth. Jack relaxed his jaw and slid his lips up and down the shaft, swiping the head with his tongue on every pass. God, he hoped Alex was enjoying this as much as he was. 

Happy Reading!

 Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Gentlemens-Publishing-Allure-ManLove-ebook/dp/B00C2BWPKI



Thursday, March 7, 2024

The Desk from Hoboken by ML Condike ~ A Genealogy Mystery Series

 

A Genealogy Mystery Series


Mystery

Date Published: March 5, 2024

Publisher: Harbor Lane Books, LLC.

 

 

In a bid to heal from the grief of a personal loss, forensic genealogist, RaeJean Hunter, takes on a straightforward case —identify human remains found on a nearby college campus, believed to be the 180-year-old remains of Mary Rogers, a woman who died mysteriously in 1841 and was believed to have been buried in the nearby cemetery that had washed away. It should be simple enough, a project to get her back in the game.

Unfortunately, it quickly becomes anything but. In fact, it becomes downright dangerous.

Someone doesn't want RaeJean to investigate the puzzling death of the woman whose death inspired Edgar Allan Poe's "The Mystery of Marie Roget." As she follows clues through four states and discovers living family members who both help and hinder her search, she quickly realizes that the secrets of Mary Rogers' demise were never meant to be exposed.

What lengths will someone go to keep the truth buried in the past? As threats escalate and RaeJean and her family's lives become endangered, she's forced to follow every lead and use every skill she has to find the answers she needs before it's too late. Using DNA from two famous New England families, historical data, modern genealogical techniques, and a little guidance from a seemingly mystical antique desk, RaeJean takes on the cold case despite being given every reason to abandon it.

After all, what truths have been hidden for 180 years that would be worth bribery, kidnapping, and even murder?

RaeJean Hunter is about to find out.


 

About the Author

ML Condike has published short stories in anthologies that include Strange & Sweet, (2019), Tall Tales and Timeless Stories, (2022), Malice in Dallas, Metroplex Mysteries, Volume 1 (2022), and won first place in the fifteenth annual Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Awards, Mystery/Crime category (2019), and 2nd Place in the Tennessee Williams Short Story Contest, Key West Art & Historical Society (2022).

She’s an associate member of Mystery Writers of America Florida Chapter, Sisters in Crime National, Sisters in Crime North Dallas (Treasurer), Granbury Writers’ Bloc, and Key West Writers Guild.

As the result of her study of genealogy for her debut novel The Desk from Hoboken, she researched her own family and she discovered she had a direct bloodline to a Patriot. So, most recently she has been inducted into the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).


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