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Early Review: The Heiress and the Hothead by Sabrina Jeffries

Posted on Nov 30, 2016 with No comments

Nov 30, 2016



Return to the beloved Sinful Suitors series from New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries in this delightfully sexy winter-themed novella!

Stunned by the heat of an unexpected kiss on a cold winter’s eve, two strangers from vastly different worlds turn hotheaded principles into burning passion in Sabrina Jeffries’s charming yuletide story, The Heiress and the Hothead.

3 STARS

The Heiress and the Hothead by Sabrina Jeffries is not what I had expected.  This short holiday story had all the right elements but they danced around each other and didn't quite make the story enjoyable for me.  It could have been that Amanda was too high strong or that Cory just wasn't the right one for her.  I felt it was a bit rushed, and the  romantic chemistry between the two just didn't gel.  I enjoy the majority of Sabrina Jeffries and will continue to read her work. 


Publisher: Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books
Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2016

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Enchantress of Books Presents: Gift Ideas for the Book Lover #89

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If you're a blogger and use a planner, you're going to love today's Gift Ideas for the Book Lover! Let us know what you think of the items Viviana, Enchantress of Books has shared! 



Continuing with doing something a little different today we're focusing on bloggers!
Many of my friends and fellow readers and/or bloggers started using planners, myself included, to help them not only get organize but also find balance in their lives.

I found some very cute and very awesome stickers that we can all use regardless of the type of planner you use.

The little different part comes in that due to the number of awesome stickers, I'm only including the image of the stickers. Click on the image and you'll be taken to the seller!


































If items are no longer available, please contact the seller to request further information. 

Click here to see more gift ideas!!

Visit us every Wednesdays for more awesome gift/present ideas for you or the 

Book Lover in your life!!! 






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Excerpt & Giveaway: Death Dancer by Tara Lain

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Death Dancer
(Dangerous Dancers #2)
By Tara Lain

Blurb:

A tattooed dancer and a by-the-book detective dance with death in the ego-fueled halls of ballet.

Bad boy of ballet, Valentin “Val” Aalto stands poised on the verge of huge success -- except for one big obstacle. Influential lead dancer Harry Hardesty hates Val and cheats him out of the lead in Romeo and Juliet. When Hardesty winds up dead, Val looks like a prime suspect – and gets thrown under the detailed and methodical inspection of the handsome NY detective with the stick up his butt, Andrew Preston. At first, Preston believes Hardesty may be the victim of the chilling Dancer Killer who’s struck three victims, but evidence stacks up against Val. Still, Andrew can’t seem to keep his hands off his suspect and when the Dancer Killer starts stalking Val, Andrew is forced to choose between his dedication to a job he loves – and his growing passion for his beautiful dancer. Together Val and Andrew discover that chaos can be beautiful, one should choose desserts wisely, and love can even trump death in the rehearsal halls of ballet.



Available for purchase at


      



Excerpt

His eyes opened wide. Dark. Why am I awake? He shivered. No so-called uncles trying to slip in beside him or boys sneaking in to drop ice in his bed.
A sound, between a scratch and a squeak, sent the feel of that long-remembered ice down his back. Don’t move yet.
Squrunch. Woosh, Squrucnch.
Where? The door? Too close. The window then?
Shit, the branch Andrew had freaked over. Val’s heart slammed so hard it had to make a sound. The sheets over him actually shook.
Andrew.
He snaked out a hand and grabbed his cell phone. He pulled it under the covers. Speed dial, baby.
One ring. Two. Three— “Preston.” Thanks for police reflexes.
He put his head under the covers and whispered, “Andrew. It’s me.”
“I know. Why are you whispering? What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s trying to break in, I think.”
“Shit. Jump out of bed. Yell into the phone. Make it clear you’re talking to the police. Turn on all the lights. Now. Go.”
Val threw back the covers, grabbed for the bedside light and flipped it on, half expecting to see some killer standing in his room, but nobody. “Police. Get here now! Someone’s breaking into my apartment. Hurry. Please!” He raced around the apartment, turning on every light.
Andrew’s voice, panting. “What do you see?”
“Nothing. No one’s here.”
“Look out the window, but stand back in case he has a gun.”
“Shit. Seriously?”
“No, it’s okay. Don’t do it.”
“Hell.” He sidled to the window, pulled back the blinds and looked out. A sliver of light from his apartment shone into the darkness outside, although darkness was relative and his street pretty much never got more than dim. Staring between the buildings, he might have caught a glimpse of movement below, but it could have been a cat or a shadow. “I don’t see anything.”
A siren cut through the general noise of traffic that created the background of Val’s world. Nothing unusual about sirens, but this one got closer. Andrew was still breathing hard. Was he running? Val looked again. “I hear the black and whites.”
“Yeah. Just pulled up in front of your building, I think. They’ll buzz. Don’t let them in until I tell you.” The tinny squawk of a police radio sounded in the background. Andrew seemed to be talking. He came back on the cell. “Have they buzzed?”
The buzzer sounded.
“Yeah. Just now.”
“Okay. Let them in. I’ll be there in a second.”
Val started to the door where the buzzer was, stopped and laughed.
“What?”
“I forgot I’m bare-assed. I’d better grab my jeans fast. See you in a second.” Still chuckling, he hit the buzzer, grabbed his pants from the floor and was zipping them as the police knocked on his door. New stair speed records. He opened.
The young female cop’s eyes widened just a little. “Valentin Aalto?”
He nodded.
“I understand you had an attempted break-in?” Two male cops in uniform stood behind her.
“I think so, but I’m not sure. Come in while I grab a shirt.”
Her half smile said ‘not on my account’, but she didn’t voice it. “Tell me what happened, sir.”
He pulled a long-sleeved T-shirt over his head. “I was asleep. I’m a light sleeper. I woke up and heard a strange sound, like a scrunching and a squeaking. I might not have thought anything about it since I’d double-locked the door, but An— Detective Preston inspected this apartment and suggested the limbs on the tree outside should be cut since they hang near the apartment windows. I got worried and called him.”
“Why didn’t you dial nine-one-one?”
Val speared her with his eyes. “I’m a dancer with the NYBT. Detective Preston is investigating the murders of dancers. He was my first thought. Is there a problem with that?”
“Of course not.” She turned to the male officers. “Check the tree and the area around it. The apartment window from the outside also, although we may have to come back with a ladder. I’ll look at it from in here.”
“No, thank you, Officer. I will.”

Oh, man, was Andrew a sight to make a scared dancer’s heart go pitty-pat. 


Dangerous Dancers Series




Golden Dancer 
(Dangerous Dancers Series, #1)
By Tara Lain


Available for purchase at 

      






About the Author




Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 32. Her best-selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Paranormal Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft.  She lives with her soul-mate husband and her soul-mate dog near the sea in California where she sets a lot of her books.  Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!


You can find Tara at Lain

               






Presented By


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Early Review: Alien Nation by Gini Koch

Posted on Nov 29, 2016 with No comments

Nov 29, 2016


It’s a typical day of bureaucracy and stress for President and First Lady Jeff and Kitty Katt-Martini, made more stressful when alien spacecraft are spotted making a beeline for Earth, none of them from the Alpha Centauri system.

Then a cryptic request from an old adversary pulls Kitty out of the White House and into an explosion—and an even more explosive situation. Not only is the Mastermind back in the game, influencing the Club 51 True Believers to find and destroy all Centaurion bases, but he’s also found a dangerous benefactor and created some frightening new cloning abilities. And, just to make things a little more challenging, those alien spacecraft are coming to ask Kitty for protection, and asylum on Earth. 

Police stations being blown up and war helicopters in play aren’t enoughto keep Kitty down, especially when she’s got some new alien friends helping out. But what these aliens share will rock the world—the other aliens on theirway to Earth are fleeing an enemy so terrifying that even a Z’porrah ship is trying to get to Earth for safety and protection. And if Earth isn’t able to stop this threat, there may not be anything left of humanity. 

Now Kitty and Company have to figure out where the Mastermind is and stop him, before any new aliens land. And then they have to save the world from a deadly invasion. Or, as Kitty calls it, Thursday.


5 STARS

 STAR

Alien Nation by Gini Koch hits all the right notes.  This is the fourteenth installment in the Katherine "Kitty" Kat Series and it continues to be fresh and sparkly.  Humorous and stand out characters make this book and series a very unique read.  Kitty is now the First Lady and her darling Jeff, President. These two will have to deal with the most dangerous of situations as fanatics want to destroy all. Thank goodness we have the most amazing First Lady ever and her extraordinary gang of bad-asses the Earth has ever seen.  Alien Nation was a wonderful read. If your interest is pique-ted, it would be a great place to take up the series if you have not had the opportunity. Kitty continues to be one of my all time fave science fiction heroines. 

Enjoy the first chapter below and make sure to visit Gini Koch's page for a slew of great stories. 






Available for purchase at
                 
    



 Excerpt


Chapter 1 

“Is it a good day for America and the world at large? In addition to the Stars and Stripes, we now have a flag from an alien nation flying at the White House. Does this mean that President Martini values an alien planet more than Earth?” 

The newscaster had a total Serious Face on. Which was hilarious in one sense, because when said newscaster had been live at our scene, he’d been pretty darn thrilled. 

“It’s not ‘flying’,” my husband, Jeff, aka the President of These United States fumed, as pictures from the treaty signing we’d done the day before flashed onto the screen. “It was in one room and it was standing there. And since when have I not valued Earth? I’ve risked my life to protect Earth!” 

Managed not to say that I’d mentioned that the flag’s photo op might be problematic. I’d been overruled, my first career being in marketing or no. Now wasn’t the time to toss out a big Told You So to the room. 

“Not only is the flag of Alpha Four flying at the White House, but it’s also been added to the United Nations,” our Serious Newscaster shared. The image changed to the outside of the U.N. Sure enough, there was the black and white flag of our people flapping in the wind, right next to the American flag and the Australian flag. I had no idea if this was a new position for the flags or if ours had just been inserted into the regular line-up, but it probably didn’t matter. 

“It’s not even the flag of Alpha Four,” Christopher White, Jeff’s cousin, added, while glaring at the TV monitor. “It’s our flag, the flag of our people, and a flag we created when we exiled here, so it’s the flag of the A-Cs of Earth.” 

A-Cs loved their black and white so much that not only did they wear it practically 24/7 in what I called the Armani Fatigues – black Armani suits and ties with crisp white shirts for the men, black Armani slim skirts with crisp white oxfords for the women – but their flag was black and white, too. Sometimes wondered if they couldn’t see colors, but experience showed me that they could. 

The flag was definitely an homage to the Stars and Stripes. It was set up in a similar fashion, with thirteen alternating bands of black and white with a square in the upper left-hand corner that had one large gray star on a black background, with twenty-one white stars superimposed over this big one and going from smaller to larger in a spiral pattern. The stars were to honor the original families who’d broken off from the main Alpha Four religion way back when. For a monochromatic theme, it was quite attractive. 

“Who approved that?” Jeff asked the room at large. “I didn’t approve that! I haven’t even heard from the UN!” 

“No one at the White House approved that,” Rajnish Singh replied. He was Jeff’s Chief of Staff and, like Jeff and Christopher, talented above the norm. 

Jeff was an empath, most likely the strongest one in the galaxy, meaning that he probably had his blocks set to high so that he didn’t collapse from feeling all the tension that was currently in the Large Situation Room. Unless people in here were wearing emotional blockers or overlays – created by our enemies to keep Jeff and all the other empaths in the dark about bad guys and their plans – which I doubted. 

Christopher was an imageer, meaning he could touch a picture and know everything about the person in the picture. Or he could have, before our enemies snuck in a virus that had dampened or destroyed the talents of most of our imageers. 

Raj, however, was a troubadour – someone who could affect people with his voice, facial expressions, and body movements. Early on in my time with the Gang from Alpha Four I’d been told that troubadour talent was useless. I’d found out, however, that it was the best stealth talent around, and since our enemies were indoctrinated into the mindset that troubadours didn’t matter, no one had attacked their talents yet. I hoped that would last. 

Since Raj was a troubadour, I normally expected him to sound soothing in stressful situations like this one. But he was clearly upset because he wasn’t trying to exert any talent at all and sounded as pissed as Jeff and Christopher. 

“Will other alien flags soon be flying all over our country?” the Serious Newscaster asked. “And are these aliens the reason the Z’porrah attacked our world again? Stay tuned for the first of our twelve-part investigative report: Aliens Among Us.” 

Charles Reynolds cleared his throat as the show mercifully cut to a commercial. Chuckie was my best guy friend since 9th grade, always the smartest guy in any room, and also now the Director of the CIA. “It’s not an issue for us to share that the photos were shown out of context,” he said, sounding calmer than anyone else had so far. “And I’m sure we can get someone at the UN to share that the flag was their idea. However, this is highlighting one positive thing – the press and therefore the public at large have bought that the attacks at Camp David were caused by the Z’porrah.” 

The Z’porrah were an ancient race of nasty dino-birds who had the longest running feud ever going with the Ancients, who were an ancient race of shapeshifters. The Ancients were on the side of Earth and the Alpha Centauri solar systems – and by “on the side of” I mean “had meddled with everyone’s evolution but because they cared” versus what the Z’porrah were doing out this way, which was still mourning the death of our dinosaurs and wishing the rest of us were long gone. 

So, during our last frolicsome fun of less than six weeks ago, we’d taken the advice of the Planetary Council and had blamed the created in-control superbeing and android attacks at Camp David on the Z’porrah. That our spin for the events of Operation Madhouse had started biting us in our butts far sooner than expected was just par for our particular course. We were, as always, stuck in the sand trap with only a miraculous hole-in-one likely to save us. 

Serene Dwyer, who was the strongest imageer after Christopher, a stealth troubadour, and the Head of Imageering for Centaurion Division, nodded. “That the press is attacking is no surprise. That’s what they do these days. However, what Alexander and our other galactic advisors told us is still accurate – LaRue Demorte Gaultier was, is, and always will be a turncoat Ancient and a Z’porrah spy, and every action against us can be traced back to her, directly or indirectly.” 

“Can we honestly confirm that?” Jeff asked. 

Serene nodded. “We can, Jeff. Believe me.” 

I believed her, since I knew that Serene was also the head of the very clandestine Centaurion CIA made up of troubadours around the world. I was the only person not involved in their operations who knew they existed. Therefore, if Serene said she had proof, we had proof. 

“However, some of that proof can never be shared with the general population,” James Reader said. Reader was the Head of Field, a former top international male model, and the handsomest human I’d ever met. In a room full of A-Cs he looked normal, because the A-Cs were truly the hottest people on Earth. So far as I’d seen, they were the hottest people in the galaxy, but I was prepared to find other alien races just as good-looking out there. That was me, always willing to take one for the team. 

“Leave the spin to us,” Doreen Coleman-Weisman said. She was the current American Centaurion Ambassador, a job I’d done for what seemed like far too long and then, the moment I became the First Lady, far too short a time. 

She’d grown up in the Embassy, and though her parents had been traitors, Doreen was loyal to Earth and the rest of us. However, she was the best qualified to be doing the Ambassador’s duties. Well, other than one other person. 

Richard White was the former Supreme Pontifex for the A-Cs of Earth, meaning their Pope With Benefits. He’d retired to the active lifestyle when my daughter, Jamie, had been born, and he’d been my partner in butt-kicking ever since then. However, due to the events of Operation Epidemic, where one of our most virulent enemies had launched a bioterrorist attack that had killed half of our country’s leadership, White was now the Public Relations Minister for American Centaurion. 

White nodded. “Yes, Jeffrey, this falls to us. Doreen and I have been preparing a statement to counter most of this. With the help of the Planetary Council, of course.” He nodded towards the other aliens in the room, of which we had a lot, since the Alpha Centauri Planetary Council had come to visit at the start of Operation Epidemic and literally hadn’t had time to finish their business and leave yet. We liked to keep our guests busy, go team. 

The news came back on. “Welcome back. In a related story to the one about alien flags flying over the White House, our next story deals with the religious summit taking place in Rome right now.” We switched from the bald-faced lying Serious Newscaster to a shot of Vatican City. “We’ve learned that the Pope and religious leaders from all parts of the world are indeed in agreement that they will be encouraging their flocks to join together in order to face the ‘brave new world’ we find ourselves in.” 

The Pope was outside along with a variety of other religious leaders, including ours – Paul Gower. Gower had been groomed by White for this position and he was reasonably comfortable with it these days. He was also Reader’s husband. The camera zoomed in on him. Sadly, it probably wasn’t because Gower was big, black, bald, and gorgeous, but because he was the A-C’s Supreme Pontifex and, therefore, the person getting all the “blame” in this situation. 

Sure enough and right on cue, the Serious Newscaster shared his so-called thoughts. “Is the Pope being negatively influenced by the head of the aliens’ religion?” 

“Where is this coming from?” Jeff asked. Though this time he wasn’t asking the room at large. He was asking the two members of the fourth estate who had unlimited access to us – Mister Joel Oliver and Bruce Jenkins. 

Oliver had been the laughingstock of the media for decades, because he’d insisted that aliens were on the planet. He was and remained the best investigative journalist going, and these days, he actually had the respect of his peers. 

Jenkins was known as the Tastemaker, and he had tremendous influence therefore. He’d been after us in a bad way during Operation Defection Election, when Jeff had been running as Vice President to the late Vincent Armstrong. But events of that particular frolic had made Jenkins switch sides in a very fast and permanent way. Discovering that one of the candidates you’re supporting is an android did that to some people. 

“I believe that the answer is simple,” Oliver said. 

Jenkins nodded. “Follow the money.” 

“Excuse me?” Jeff asked. 

The answer dawned on me. “Oh. This station is owned by YatesCorp, isn’t it?” 


About the Author
Gini Koch lives in the American Southwest, works her butt off (sadly, not literally) by day, and writes by night with the rest of the beautiful people.Touched by an Alien, the first in her Alien/Katherine Kitty Katt Series, received a starred review from Booklist and was named one of Booklist s Top Ten adult science fiction and fantasy novels of 2010.Gini started writing as an excuse to stay up late playing on the computer while listening to rock music and mooning over pictures of hunky men. She's thrilled all that drooling has finally paid off. She can be found at ginikoch.com."

Want to know what's happening with Gini Koch first? Send your email address to gini@ginikoch.comwith "Hook Me Up!" in the subject line, and I'll add you onto my email blast. You'll be the first to know about news, excerpts, book releases, contests and more.


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Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Pub Date: December 6, 2016

This Title was Accepted via







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