Guest post by Iyana Jenna

Hi, Lea. Thank you so much for allowing me to borrow a spot on your blog to share with you and your readers about my second story from Evernight Publishing. And there is a giveaway. Just enter the Rafflecopter below! 🙂

By the way, I just want to add a bit about something. The other day I asked the lovely Facebook peeps about what a baby can suffer from that makes them upset and restless. It was for this book. I got so many input and suggestions. I would like to extend my gratitude for you all! ❤

This Isn’t Goodbye

by Iyana Jenna 

Romance on the Go 

Evernight Publishing 

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Stay-at-home dad Taylor MacLean chose his life knowing he could rely on the trust fund from his rich grandmother. He didn’t have to work a day in his life. He preferred to take care of his baby daughter Janine and, when he was not busy changing diapers, he would get down to his art studio.

After finishing college, Jamie Selkirk followed his dream to be a photographer. Now working for a famous fashion magazine, Jamie spent more and more of his time away from Taylor and Janine, his husband and daughter. Can the couple learn to put each other first before their marriage begins to crumble?

EXCERPT 

Taylor went still for a moment before he let Jamie go. Jamie’s body turned rigid a moment ago, a tell-tale sign every time his boy almost said something important. It disappointed him when Jamie only said that he needed an aspirin. Really, Jamie, an aspirin? Taylor had put a full bottle on the glass table in the living room next to the couch where they both slept last night.

“Go ahead. It’s on the table,” Taylor said in dismissal. “You would’ve seen it if you hadn’t been so busy wanting to throw up.”

Taylor turned around abruptly. He combed his hair back. He’d acted mean and thoughtless. He caught a pained reflection in Jamie’s eyes. Taylor wanted to leave the room, this very second.

“Taylor?” Incomprehension and hurt chased one after another in Jamie’s voice, and Taylor couldn’t take it anymore.

“I heard something. I think Janine’s woken up.”

“Janine.” Jamie’s trembling voice stopped him in his tracks. “I haven’t seen her since … since I don’t remember when.”

Yeah, Taylor knew it must’ve been too long since Jamie saw their daughter. He’d stormed out of the house right after breakfast yesterday morning.

“Don’t you miss her, Jamie? Or is your job and are all those parties still too important for you? More important than your own daughter?” It crossed Taylor’s mind that she was Jamie’s and not his, but he figured it would be mean of him to say that. They’d both agreed to use a surrogate, and they were married. It meant whatever belonged to Jamie belonged to him, too.

“I want to see her,” Jamie said, his voice so thin Taylor thought he was imagining it.

“She’s okay,” he said. “I checked her earlier. She slept through the night while I was down here.” He stopped at once. Jamie didn’t know Taylor slept with him on the couch.

But nothing escaped that pretty head.

“Down here? Were you with me?” Jamie’s face flushed and Taylor wanted to grab him right there.

“Uhh, yeah.”

“Taylor.”

“I just missed you.”

Jamie sniffled, but he stayed still. Taylor balled his fists.

“Aw, what the hell.” He lunged forward at Jamie right at the same time as Jamie moved toward him. They met halfway, grasped each other’s face, and mashed their lips together.

“Wait a minute.” Jamie pulled back, gasping.

“What? Jamie?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“No, you don’t. I missed you. You’re all I want.”

“I need to tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry I neglected Janine and you. I won’t do that again, ever.”

Taylor cupped Jamie’s face. “You don’t need to apologize.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then I’m sorry, too.”

“What for?”

“I ignored what my husband needed.”

Jamie smiled. “So do you forgive me?”

Taylor swept him off his feet and grazed his lips lightly against Jamie’s.

“I already have.”

Taylor kissed deeper and drank in everything he could. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed Jamie. All the models in the world and their neighbors could want him, but Jamie belonged to him.

BUY LINKS 

Evernight Publishing ~ Amazon ~ All Romance Ebooks  ~ Bookstrand  ~  Amazon UK

About the Author:

Iyana lives in Jakarta, a city famous for its traffic jams, a lot of cars and motorcycles, and people selling stuff on the roads. You can spend two hours on the road going to a place you can reach in half an hour in a normal situation. Thanks to the traffic jams, though, Iyana can come up with a lot of stories, mostly shorties, as she prefers to spend the time during her trips writing into her cell phone rather than sleeping.

Another thing Iyana loves is kitties. Right now she has five of them. Their names are Larva, Nyil, Cil, Mermood, and Horus. When she doesn’t write, she plays with them, or they would play with her when she writes.

Author’s Links: 

Blog ~ Website ~ Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter

You can win my story and an Amazon gift card.

Please enter the Rafflecopter!

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Guest post by Nikka Michaels – Christmas with Caden

Good morning and thanks to the lovely Lea Bronsen for hosting me. I hope everyone had a safe and Happy Holiday and all the best in the New Year. 

Christmas with Caden

by: Nikka Michaels

Genre: Erotic Romance

Length: Short Story

Published: December 15, 2013

Publisher: Cobblestone Press

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Paige Anthony is annoyed at spending Friday night at the company Christmas party. She’s bored until she spots the son of the boss, Caden Davis dancing and is intrigued.

When Caden saves Paige from the advances of his brother, she looks at him in a new light. A few sexy dances later, she manages to forget the horrible beginning of the night. When she decides to leave, he offers to walk her home and admits he’s wanted her for a while. Will Paige’s attraction be enough to make her forget about holidays past and consider Christmas with Caden?

EXCERPT: 

“Is this how you really dance? Because you can show me the real you, you know. After all, you did just middle school dance me. I want a Caden dance.”

His slow, wicked smile made her stomach flip and heat flood her skin. “You want me? You got me.”

Slowly he spun her in a circle, her back resting against the front of his body. His hands settled on her hips, squeezing gently as he nuzzled her ear. His fingers pulled the fabric of her dress taut against her nipples as the delicious friction intensified with every move. She bit back a low moan at the sensation.

“This is me. This is how I really dance.”

Shivering at the feel of his warm breath against her ear, she closed her eyes and let her body go loose, relaxing as she moved with the beat of the music. His hands smoothed up and down her sides, teasingly light as he moved with her, not guiding but simply moving with her.

Through the thin fabric of her dress and his shirt and suit pants, heat from his body added to the sweat that beaded on her skin. She could feel his hardness pressing against her ass when she rocked back into him, though he let her lead all their movement. The club had gotten more crowded as they’d danced. The look on his face when she glanced up at him was one of hunger, his heavy-lidded eyes gone dark, illuminated by the flash of the strobe light. With the top buttons of his shirt undone, he looked as though he’d just been dragged off the floor and ravished.

Paige wanted to be the reason he looked that way.

BUY LINKS: 

Cobblestone Press | Amazon | Amazon UK | All Romance eBooks | Barnes and Noble  

NIKKA MICHAELS BIO:

Nikka Michaels lives in the often rainy Pacific Northwest where she spends her time cooking, laughing and crafting romantic tales to satisfy her craving for HEAs.

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

“Romance – Behind the scenes” guest post on Just Contemporary Romance

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a celebrity? How it feels to have hordes of fans and media adoring you and following your every move? And how, in this mass of hysterical people, you can possibly find true love?  Aren’t relationships bound to be tainted by superficiality—the very backside of stardom?

I’ve always wanted to go behind the scenes and discover who these colorful, super-talented and holier-than-thou individuals are and how they cope with life on a pedestal… what they do in their free time, what they eat, how they sleep on the road, who they like to spend time with, how they deal with constantly being recognized, and how they see their situation. I’ve wanted to know their influences, dreams, struggles… and their heart’s desires.

One day, I decided to write the tale of a bass player and founder of a groove rock band as seen from his perspective. What a challenge it was to dig deep into the mind of such a mythical person! Like with every story I write, I needed his to be realistic yet original, and did a thorough research (I’m not going to elaborate on the procedure, he he).

Developing my rock star character was so much fun. I could make him as gorgeous, raunchy and untouchable as I liked and have girls—and maybe even guys—squeal for him. At the same time, I could give him a unique personality and show my readers that even the most famous of people can have a poignant past, a bad conscience, a lonely heart, and a normal life beside the sex, drugs and rock ’n roll circus.

These are the premises of the erotic contemporary romance My Biggest Fan. Whether true love was in the cards for my boy or not, you’ll have to read to find out. Enjoy—and Merry Christmas!!

Check out the full blog post on http://www.justcontemporaryromance.com/

NEW! Fantastic review of Wild Hearted

I can only be humbled by the following words:

“Reading a book such as this is generally a once in a life time experience. But what if you then go and read it three times in a course of a few weeks? To me, it was implausible to find such a book that would stay so strongly with me after the first reading and then not lose its intensity with the second one. Yet, rereading this one proved to be an enjoyable pastime.

Our story begins with a male protagonist Tomor, unique specimen of manhood and a seasoned, devil-may-care crime lord of Hellhole, unredeemable inner-city area on the north side of the town, who after an unplanned brush with the law in south inadvertently sets himself on the path of Luz, a young naive woman with lots of pluck.

Grievously maltreated and rejected as a child by the very people who were supposed to give him their understanding love and support, Tomor grows into an emotionally stunted man of twisted morals. Having to fight for all he’s got in his youth and learning to enjoy no other options, he became belligerent and fierce, and feeling himself scorned by his surroundings later takes a purposefully aloof demeanor and makes an conscious effort to be authoritative and condescending to those around him,  shunning all emotional contact. After many years, Tomor’s world then starts to open after the encounter with Luz, a young woman in whom he seems to recognize a kindred spirit.

During the course of the book you can see this man with a troubled mind growing as a individual after being secluded all his life in a narrow worldview of malice, bitterness and grit. Tomor at first becomes intrigued with Luz and as crude and obnoxious as he was she returns a favor and sets on finding him out, drawn in by his vigour and passion for life. Their mutual and at that point in time still somewhat inexplicable attraction grow only stronger and fervorous after each subsequent meeting.

To say that at the end of it all I was utterly bewitched by Tomor would be an understatement. His is one of the best characterizations in the book and saying that he’s pairing with Luz is unfair is somewhat justified. More often than not I’ve felt that Luz, as a female protagonist and Tomor’s counterpart does not possess the same depth of character as him and that her sole purpose in the book is to act like a foil to Tomor, facilitating a motive for his character development. It would be far for me to say that she is a flat character, but the one who benefits the most from their union is Tomor, while Luz for great part remains the same individual well into the second half of the story and matures as a character at the very end.

Sadly, this being not your typical love story, Tomor and Luz are never left at peace to fully cultivate their relationship and are time and time again alienated by the very differences of their prospective environments and upbringing. As a contrast to their budding romance and assorted cast of meaningful side characters, this story offers you their broken souls and shattered dreams, disturbing images of bloodshed and carnage, brutal torture and abuse, and sets in motion events bound to tear Tomor and Luz apart for good.

Those of fainter heart may undoubtedly cringe at some parts in this book, but my advice is to not drop it just yet and continue reading till the end. The open ending leaving our protagonists with only bleak, unknown fates may disappoint some, but that in itself leaves space for a sequel and I at least am happy with that possibility. With all this said so far, I only have to add that it was truly a roller-coaster ride!”

Wild Hearted cover

Encouraged by critiques

I have put my soul on display in the writing group Scribophile for about 1,5 year and still get my hands smacked on by fellow critiquers. Writing is a difficult craft to learn, especially in a foreign language. But once in a while, I am astonished and humbled by words of encouragement such as “I forgot to breathe”, “I was picking at perfection”, “You write imaginary too freaking well”, “The writing is top-notch and impressive”, “The chapter totally sucked me in”, and “You make me feel it all and hate feeling it all”. What more can an aspiring author ask for?

Today, a kind heart left me this message: “This is writing which I would classify as powerful realism, and unlike much of that genre, this piece is tasteful, eschewing mere shock value or vulgarity in favor of well-crafted prose to achieve its aims.”

Thank you!!

Excerpt from the thriller WIP Carnivora

Chapter 5, First Kill

“When I open my eyes, face down in the dirt, it’s still too dark to be morning.

Looming silhouettes of boulders and trees surround me, animated by the soft swing of hanging branches. The river noisily swooshes by a few meters away, bringing a constant humidity that impregnates everything from the pores in my skin to my too-thin clothing.

Roots and stones scattered in the hard soil press against my stomach and chest, but after endless hours of lying on the biting cold riverside, I’m so numb I could care less. Regular shivers run through my body, the only signs of life beside the small fogs of breath escaping my nose. And the painful cramps stiffening my legs every now and then, that I wait out until the hurting muscles relax and soothing warmth washes over.

But I’m so tired of breathing, tired of fighting to live.”

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