The novellas written by the 12 NA’s of Christmas will be on sale beginning December 1st! From December 1st-11th, each day one of the novellas will be highlighted around the book community. Today, the novella spotlight is Christmas Catch by Chelsea M. Cameron. Check out the excerpt and enter the giveaway!
You can buy any of the 12 NA’s of Christmas titles on Amazon.
Two years ago, when Ivy Emerson bailed from the tiny fishing village she’d grown up in to go to Columbia, Sawyer McCallister was the only thing she was sad to leave behind, and she still didn’t look back. But when her mother guilts her into coming home for Christmas, she crashes headfirst into Sawyer, who’s also returned after being away.
Now that they’ve both been dragged back to Saltwater, Maine, they might just realize it’s where they belong. Together.
You can buy this book or any of the 12 NA’s of Christmas titles on Amazon.
Excerpt
“I’m sorry,” I say. I mean for breaking up with him and for a lot of things. About his dad. He and Sawyer were never close, which was one of the reasons we got along so well. He was really close with his mom, though.
“What are you sorry for, Ivy?” Ah, the old Sawyer is back. He never let me get away with vague statements. He always made me explain them. Big fan of honesty, that boy.
“I’m sorry for a lot of things.” I look down at my shoes. Our toes are almost touching.
“Maybe . . . maybe we can sit down and talk about some of them. It’s . . . it’s really good to see you.” I look up from his feet and see that he’s serious. God, it’s good to see him. I didn’t know how much I missed him until he popped up in my life again.
“It’s good to see you, too. I have to get home, but maybe later? Where are you living now?”
“I’m back at home, but they built me a place over the garage. Come around five and we’ll talk. I’ll make sure I have plenty of vanilla Coke and Red Vines.” The mention of the Coke and Red Vines makes my heart stutter for a moment.
“You still remember that?”
“I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. See you at five.” With that he backs the cart up and vanishes down another aisle.
Chelsea M. Cameron is a YA/NA New York Times/USA Today Best Selling author from Maine. Lover of things random and ridiculous, Jane Austen/Charlotte and Emily Bronte Fangirl, red velvet cake enthusiast, obsessive tea drinker, vegetarian, former cheerleader and world’s worst video gamer. When not writing, she enjoys watching infomercials, singing in the car and tweeting (this one time, she was tweeted by Neil Gaiman). She has a degree in journalism from the University of Maine, Orono that she promptly abandoned to write about the people in her own head. More often than not, these people turn out to be just as weird as she is.
The 12 NA’s of Christmasauthors are Marquita Valentine, Zoe Dawson, Chelsea M. Cameron, Tiffany King, Breena Wilde, Sawyer Bennett, Magan Vernon, Sarra Cannon, A. Meredith Walters, Shelly Crane, and Addison Moore.
Courtney Cole’s amazing new Beautifully Broken Series novel, BEFORE WE FALL, is out today and we are excited to join in the release day launch for it. BEFORE WE FALL is a steamy, shocking and a Contemporary Romance you are not going to want to miss! Dominic Kinkaide is a bad boy that will keep you screaming for more. So check out what we have for you today and then enter to win in the release day launch giveaway-“A Night With Dominic Kinkaide” Basket of Goodies! There’s also a fantastic excerpt for you to check out!
Before We Fall by Courtney Cole
Series: Beautifully Broken #3 (full reading order below)
Sometimes, one dark moment is all it takes to turn your world black…
For 24-year old Dominic Kinkaide, that moment took place on the night of his high school graduation. One dark incident changed him forever. He’s a hardened actor now, famous in the eyes of the world, but tortured in his own. He doesn’t care about much of anything, except for losing himself in the roles that he plays.
23-year old Jacey Vincent doesn’t realize how much her father’s indifference has affected her. She is proof that sometimes it isn’t one specific moment that wrecks a person, but rather it’s an absence of moments. She’s like a bird with a broken wing-strong yet fragile, as she tries to float through life, finding acceptance in the arms of random guys, one after the other… to fill the void that her father left in her.
Until she meets Dominic.
After jaded Dominic and strong-willed Jacey are thrown together, his secret and her issues create a dark and damaged energy that will soon turn their attraction to each other into an explosive storm.
Even though when the clouds have cleared and the dust has settled, both of them are almost obliterated… they’ve learned a priceless lesson.
We have a fantastic excerpt here today, and you can read my review of Before We Fall here.
Excerpt
Are you feeling warm yet?”
I watch his lips as he speaks the words, husky and low. His lips are full, yet manly and suddenly I ache to lean over and press mine to his, to touch them in any way that I can.
But I don’t.
Because I’m not a girl who gets used. Not anymore.
“No, not at all.”
But Dominic takes that as a challenge. He’s not used to hearing the word no and he’s not about to start now. I see that in his dark eyes a scant moment before he dips his head and consumes my mouth.
I say consume, instead of kiss, because that’s what he does.
He consumes me.
His lips are fiery and hot and he kisses me with a fierceness that touches a secret part of me; moist, hot, firm, sexy. I want to inhale him, to suck him down. I vaguely feel his hands on my back, his warmth emanating through my clothes, his hardness pushing into my softness.
I’m breathless when he pulls away.
“What about now?”
For the life of me, I’m afraid to answer that. Instead, I pull away, just a bit, just enough that there is some space between us, but I can still absorb his warmth. As my teeth chatter, both from the cold and from the suddden absence of his lips, I answer.
“I’m good.”
He laughs, a husky, low, naughty sound.
“Oh, I’m sure of that.”
And just like that, I’m drawn back in… in toward his sexy smile, his arrogant gaze and his knowing smirk. He’s bad for me. Very bad for me. I’ve got to remember that.
He will decimate you, I tell myself.
But my problem is, every time I look into his dark eyes and see the mysterious things that lurk there, I forget that. I forget everything that is supposed to matter.
Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. She loves chocolate and roller coasters and hates waiting and rude people.
Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.
I’ve finally gotten everything I ever wanted: love, freedom, happiness, and, most importantly, Finn. Our love is everything I expected it to be and more. We’ve finally found each other, but the world seems determined to tear us apart. We thought my father was the only obstacle between us, but now it’s the military. With Finn’s departure looming, we’re squeezing in every moment together before we run out of time.
Trying to make every moment count…
Being Carrie’s bodyguard was one thing. Being her boyfriend is another. Every day she’s mine is a day the sun shines in my life. Yet our time together is running out. Her father will never think a tattooed Marine will be good enough, so I’ll do whatever it takes to be worthy of her love. But the road will take me away from the girl who makes me feel alive–the girl I can’t live without.
When he closed his mouth over mine, I shut off my mind and stopped thinking. He’d already told me all he could tell me about the call, so focusing on it wasn’t the healthiest choice. We had to wait until this weekend to hear anything more. Until then we were just sitting ducks.
And if I was going to be forced to wait, then I’d do it my way.
He picked me up and carried me to his bed. He was so hard and solid and it drove me insane every time he moved his tongue over mine like that. His teeth scraped my lower lip, and I whimpered into his mouth. His fingers moved over my butt, slipping between my legs and rubbing against the spot where I needed him most.
As he lowered me to the mattress, he started to climb on top of me, but I broke the kiss and shoved at his shoulders. “No,” I said, locking gazes with him. “It’s my turn. Just stand there.”
He stilled, instantly giving me what I wanted. “Your turn for what?”
“Control,” I said, my cheeks heating. “I want to undress you. And then I want to wrap my lips around your…your…”
When I drifted off, uncertain what to call his penis, he chuckled. “Cock. It’s a cock, Carrie. Say it.”
My cheeks heated. I knew what it was called. It just sounded so dirty and wrong. “Around your cock,” I said in a rush, my cheeks getting even hotter.
“Okay.” He fisted his hands at his hips, watching me from beneath his lowered lids. When he looked at me like that—like I was his dessert or something—it made everything inside me quiver and beg for his touch so much it hurt. I licked my lips and crawled to the edge of the bed on all fours. He twitched and took a step toward me; as if he couldn’t hold himself back anymore, but then he stopped.
He stood there because I’d asked him to.
I ran my hands over his chest, then up over his shoulders. Just touching him made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world, and I wanted to do everything to him. Everything in the romance books I read at night, and then more. Even though my mother had never figured it out, I used to sneak them out of her library after she was finished with them. I’d started it in sixth grade. Now I bought them with my own money.
And I had a lot of ideas stored away in my mind that I wanted to try out on Finn.
Jen McLaughlin is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She writes steamy New Adult books for the young and young at heart. Her first release, Out of Line, came out September 2013. She also writes bestselling Contemporary Romance under the pen name Diane Alberts.Since receiving her first contract offer under the pen name Diane Alberts, she has yet to stop writing. She is represented by Louise Fury at The Bent Agency.
Though she lives in the mountains, she really wishes she was surrounded by a hot, sunny beach with crystal clear water. She lives in Northeast Pennsylvania with her four kids, a husband, a schnauzer mutt, a cat, and a Senegal parrot. In the rare moments when she’s not writing, she can usually be found hunched over one knitting project or another. Her goal is to write so many well-crafted romance books that even a non-romance reader will know her name.
Jen is giving away 4 $10 Amazon Gift Cards and an amazing grand prize! The grand prize winner will get to help name a character in book 3 of the series, and will get their name in the acknowledgement section of the book! Contest is international.
Covert Assignment by Missy Marciassa
Publication date: December 2nd 2013
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult
Covert Assignment is a New Adult, Coming of Age Novel with a strong romantic element. Elle is ready for graduation and full-fledged adulthood: no more living like the leftover of her parent’s divorce. She’s about to graduate with her degree in Information Science (the 21st century term for Library Science) and has a ten-year plan as well-designed as any model for analyzing metadata: earn her JD/MBA, enjoy a couple of years as a single professional, then marry her college sweetheart, Adam, and start her own family.
Yet Elle feels like she returned to an alternate universe her final semester. There are pictures of Adam with a classmate who must be surgically enhanced, but he insists he wants Elle. CIA recruiters show up on campus, and they aren’t just interested in recruiting Elle for future employment: turns out she’s already working for them since they’re funding her thesis. Hot operative Preston Raddick is tasked to work with her. Preston isn’t just hot: he’s hot for Elle, but is he offering happy ever after or happy for right now? A fling with Preston could be the beginning of a new life plan, which is exciting and scary, especially with espionage thrown in. Elle needs a predictive model to tell her which decisions have the greater likelihood for happiness…
Covert Assignment is about the unexpected turns life can take when making “adult” decisions.
Covert Assignment was a surprisingly short and fun read!
Elle is in her last year of college, and she finds out that Adam, her boyfriend of two years, has cheated on her. But she’s more angry than heartbroken. And then she goes to class and meets CIA recruiters, one of whom is a sexy CIA operative, Preston Raddick. Elle is a complete nerd (but an adorable one) and it turns out that she’s been unknowingly working for the CIA through her thesis. And now they’ve come to ask her for help and she agrees.
Throughout the book, Adam keeps coming back to Elle and groveling, begging her to take him back. She’s angry, but she’s still not quite ready to let him go. If she breaks up with Adam, then she feels like she’ll be alone. But then she starts being with Preston more, and thoughts of Adam are completely out of her head. Preston is a nice guy with great qualities–he’s a badass CIA operative, he can be sweet and supportive, and he can be sexy when he wants to. So of course Elle would develop feelings for him.
I really enjoyed the feel of the college atmosphere of the book, and Elle’s braininess. I hadn’t expected to have an in depth look at the CIA and its operations, but it was a lovely surprise. Covert Assignment was a unique and refreshing read. And towards the end, there’s a lot of action taking place. Everything builds up, everything’s intense, and the book ends with a bang. All loose ends are tied up, and I really enjoyed reading it.
Missy Marciassa loved getting lost in novels from the time she could read, so it’s no surprise she wanted to write. Her very first “novels” were re-writing the books she read to get the endings she wanted in second grade. Missy continued to read and write through grade school and high school.
After becoming rather disillusioned with fiction after writing literary criticism as an English major in college, however, Missy focused on her enjoyment of learning about people and studied psychology. Reading fiction fell to the wayside with all the reading and writing required for college and graduate school, but once Missy became a doctoral candidate, she rediscovered her love of fiction. Then she started getting the urge to write, an urge that wouldn’t go away (she refuses to diagnose it as a compulsion). Covert Assignment is the end result of that urge.
Booklovers For Life 