Thursday, July 30, 2020
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
I Kissed Alice: Excerpt and Giveaway
I Kissed Alice
Anna Birch
Published by: Macmillan
Publication date: July 28th 2020
Genres: LGBTQ+, Romance, Young Adult
For fans of Leah on the Offbeat and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, Anna Birch’s I Kissed Alice is a romantic comedy about enemies, lovers, and everything in between.
Rhodes and Iliana couldn’t be more different, but that’s not why they hate each other.
Rhodes, a gifted artist, has always excelled at Alabama’s Conservatory of the Arts (until she’s hit with a secret bout of creator’s block), while Iliana, a transfer student, tries to outshine everyone with her intense, competitive work ethic. Since only one of them can get the coveted Capstone scholarship, the competition between them is fierce.
They both escape the pressure on a fanfic site where they are unknowingly collaborating on a webcomic. And despite being worst enemies in real life, their anonymous online identities I-Kissed-Alice and Curious-in-Cheshire are starting to like each other… a lot. When the truth comes out, will they destroy each other’s future?
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EXCERPT:
Iliana
It was the end of our junior year when everything between Rhodes and me came to be as it is now.
It was May, and we were at a pop-up installation on the edge of campus. Clouds of heavy, weed-scented smoke hung up around the light fixtures of an old gas station with bars on the windows, and rain was falling in through a spot where the roof had caved, leaving puddles on the dirty tiled floor.
Behind each ancient cooler door was an installation: women with tape over their mouths. Women with their hands bound. Women dressed like schoolgirls, and dressed like moms, and dressed like frumpy old ladies with curlers in their hair. There was a gas station attendant behind the dilapidated old counter, a girl barely older than us with shiny red lip gloss and breasts begging to escape from a Play- boy Bunny costume. Word around campus was that participants had to be eighteen so they could sign the liability waiver provided by the lead artist.
Men wandered from one cooler to the next, shopping quietly, selecting someone to take with them along with six-packs of beer and packs of beef jerky.
Rhodes and I had become friends, sort of.
We weren’t talk-on-the-phone friends, or even text-on-occasion friends.
But Sarah had been my best friend since the third grade, and Sar- ah and Rhodes had become completely symbiotic during their first and second years as roommates at the Conservatory. It had taken weeks of begging for Sarah to even suggest to Rhodes that I come along—no matter what I did, Rhodes thought my work was “pedestrian.”
She didn’t think I’d understand the show—called Quickies at the Kwickee Mart, clever them—or that the art installation would speak to me the way it spoke to her and Sarah.
But by some force of nature, I had been the one to win a scholar- ship at the Savannah College of Art and Design only a week before. My art wasn’t an existential crisis played out with paint and canvas, and it didn’t make any grand political statements, but it was going to pay for my college—and apparently it meant I was allowed to play with the big girls now. Only two days later, Rhodes invited me along herself.
A week after that, we stood side by side, stoned out of our minds and attempting to make sense of the little theater that played out in front of us. Some of the girls in the cases were seniors at the Conservatory, and I knew about half of the people standing around us from campus as well. The rest were unimaginably sophisticated, worldly looking artist types—people with ink-stained hands and tattoos that crept up from under the collars of their shirts and onto their necks.
If my perception hadn’t been completely altered, I would have thought to be a little embarrassed by my own clothing choices. I felt so metal sneaking out in my tattered-on-purpose Slipknot T-shirt and my tattered-on-purpose acid-washed shorts and my tattered-on-pur- pose pink-and-white-striped tights.
“It’s, like, feminism—” Rhodes said.
Her brows were knit together; her cogs were turning.
She didn’t understand. I didn’t want to tell her otherwise, to ruin the night like I always do. It wasn’t enough to say it was about “like, feminism.” Anything can be about feminism, because in everything there’s an imbalance of power. There will always be one person in the room that has more privilege than the rest, and that person is almost always an Ingram.
It didn’t surprise me that Rhodes didn’t understand then, and it doesn’t now—she doesn’t really know what it means to be a little further down the food chain than everyone else. I’m not much further down than she is—I’m just as white, Christian-adjacent, abled, and straight-passing as she is—but I’m aware of it.
“Yeah, just, you know—” Sarah’s pupils were blown out. She held on to me for dear life, the way Rhodes’s barely-younger brother and then-dance-track student, Griffin, clung to Rhodes’s arm. Sarah liked Griffin then—she was infatuated, really. I think she thought he’d be an easy segue into being a fixture in Rhodes’s life forever.
She thought wrong.
“The motherfucking patriarchy,” said Griffin.
The motherfucking patriarchy. As if that phrase in and of itself wasn’t the purpose of the installation, the fact that women are continuously victims of sexual violence in Western culture, so much so that it has permeated our patterns of speaking and even the way we curse.
Rhodes sighed, and nodded appreciatively. Sarah sighed, and nodded appreciatively. Griffin sighed, and nodded appreciatively.
This is art, they communicated, with stoops in their shoulders and ennui-burdened frowns. This is life.
This is suffering.
Pot only ever makes me more philosophical. Everyone around me was melting into puddles, and I was practically writing ninety-nine theses on third-wave feminism on the back of a fifteen-year-old Kwickee Mart napkin that had been stuck to the bottom of my boot.
Author Bio:
Anna Birch is the author of I Kissed Alice. She was born 'n' raised in a rural area on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. She traded thick forests and dirt roads for the heart of the city, where she lives now with her husband, three children, and dog. She loves knitting, brie, and hanging out with her family.
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Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Venom: Book Blitz and Giveaway
Venom
Harley Wylde
(Dixie Reapers MC #1)
Publication date: February 9th 2018
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Ridley:
I might live in a mansion in South Florida, but my daddy was a biker, and I was definitely Daddy’s girl. When I found out my mom and stepdad had something horrible planned for me, I ran. Straight to the Dixie Reapers, the only place I’d ever thought of as home, but it wasn’t my daddy’s arms I ended up in. Venom is dark and seductive, the type of man who doesn’t take shit from anyone. Despite his hard exterior, being with him makes me feel safe, and his kisses make me ache for so much more. I’ve never been with a man before, but even as inexperienced as I am, I know that being with Venom will ruin me for anyone else, and I don’t care. I want him — all of him — and damn the consequences.
Venom:
I hadn’t risen to the rank of VP of the Dixie Reapers MC without getting my hands dirty. I’d been deep in blood and dirty money for over twenty years, could have any pussy I wanted whenever I wanted and how the fuck ever I wanted. But when an angel I hadn’t seen in fourteen years came back into my life, all it took was one look in her eyes, and I was a goner. As a kid, Ridley had been this little blonde cherub who lit up the place. Now she’s older, has curves in all the right fucking places, and damn if I don’t want her. The fact she was the nineteen-year-old daughter of a patched member meant I needed to keep my hands to myself, and I might have, if she hadn’t begged me so sweetly. Now she’s mine, and I’ll do anything to keep her safe, even if it means starting a war.
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NOW ON AUDIO!
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EXCERPT:
By the time I’d reached the Dixie Reapers compound, I ached from head to toe and felt near to collapsing. I’d been on the road for about ten hours, and the sky was already starting to lighten. My bike came to a stop outside the gates, and a Prospect sauntered forward.
“You lost, sweet thing?” he asked, flashing crooked teeth through the beginnings of a beard.
“Get Bull.”
The man rocked back on his heels. “Bull’s busy.”
“He’s not too busy to see me.”
“Sure.” He chuckled. “The man’s balls deep in pussy, but I’m sure he’ll just run right out here to see you.”
I turned off the engine on the bike, swung my leg over the seat, and stalked forward, poking the asshole in the chest and giving him the fiercest look I could muster. My shoulders were thrown back, and I hoped I looked more intimidating than I was. “Look here, you piece of shit. You get Bull, and you fucking get him now.”
The man grabbed my hand and twisted so that I went down on my knee, my arm behind me at an odd angle.
“I don’t care who the fuck you think you are, bitch. You don’t fucking touch me unless you’re going to wrap your lips around my cock.”
Booted steps drew near. “Is there a problem, Pete?”
“Just some fucking whore who insists on seeing Bull,” the man said, twisting my arm a little more and making me cry out. “Fucking poked my chest and bowed up at me like she’s fucking someone.”
The man in the shadows chuckled. “Is that so?”
The boots came closer, and a dark head of hair appeared. The eyes that fastened on mine nearly took my breath away. I’d recognize those green eyes anywhere.
“Venom,” I said softly.
His gaze narrowed. “Just who the fuck are you, sweetheart? Because I sure as hell don’t remember you.”
“I’m Ridley Johnson,” I said, my voice almost a whisper as dots swam in front of my vision. If the Prospect turned my arm any more, it would break.
Surprise flashed in Venom’s eyes, and he shot up to his full height. The crack of a fist filled the silence, and I was suddenly released. As I tumbled the rest of the way to the ground, strong arms wrapped around me.
“I’ve got you, baby girl,” Venom murmured. “No one’s going to fucking touch you again.”
Author Bio:
Harley Wylde is the International Bestselling Author of the Dixie Reapers MC, Devil’s Boneyard MC, and Hades Abyss MC series.
When Harley‘s writing, her motto is the hotter the better — off the charts sex, commanding men, and the women who can’t deny them. If you want men who talk dirty, are sexy as hell, and take what they want, then you’ve come to the right place. She doesn’t shy away from the dangers and nastiness in the world, bringing those realities to the pages of her books, but always gives her characters a happily-ever-after and makes sure the bad guys get what they deserve.
You can follow Harley on Amazon, Twitter, or Facebook. Get New Release notifications (for US readers) by following Harley on BookBub! Want to talk more about the Dixie Reapers or other Harley books? Join the Wyldlings on Facebook!
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Talk Derby to Me Cover Reveal!
Talk Derby to Me
R.H. Tucker
Publication date: August 2020
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
As the editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper, Evan Maldonado is right on track for college next year and pursuing his dream of being a journalist. To put the finishing touch on his college applications, he’s taking an intern position with a well-known newspaper where he’ll receive a letter of recommendation from the editor. There’s just one little problem. The business intern spot he was expecting to get is taken. The only other position they have available is covering the local roller derby league.
Mari Valdez isn’t worried about getting into college. All she’s concerned with is getting through the repulsive world of high school. Sure, she has her best friend, but she still has to put up with teasing because of her multi-colored hair or bruises. The bruises are from roller derby, by the way, the only thing that Mari looks forward to. It’s been her safe haven since her world imploded.
In order to get more information on the derby league, Evan follows Mari to her practices and games. To call their friendship rocky would be an understatement, but the more Evan and Mari are together, the more they seem to connect. When Mari’s personal life boils over, she finds herself confiding in Evan. And just when everything seems to be coming together for the two, a horrible mistake may separate them for good.
Talk Derby to Me is a stand-alone, YA romance novel.
Author Bio:
RH Tucker writes cute & edgy YA romance. He also lives in Southern California, consumes too much caffeine, eats too much pizza, and firmly believes Rocky Road is the best flavor of ice cream.
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Friday, July 17, 2020
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