Welcome to the Keeping Warm or Staying Cold Giveaway Hop, hosted by Reading in Twilight and I Am a Reader!
One (1) winner can choose one of the following books (click the covers to go to the Goodreads page):
A romance to keep you warm…
Or a fantasy/dystopian to keep you cool…
This giveaway is US ONLY! Entrants must be 13 or older. Ends on Nov. 19.
Click here to follow the rest of the hop and enter more giveaways!
Break You by Jennifer Snyder
Publication date: November 8th 2013
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Blaire Hayes enjoys a quiet life, spending her days as a CNA at the local nursing home and nights studying for exams. She prefers things to be as uncomplicated as possible — but when her friends drag her to a party and she bumps into her high school crush, the path of Blaire’s life veers in an entirely different direction than what she had planned for herself.
Jason Bryant created a nice life away from his hometown, putting distance between himself and the suffocating sadness of his father’s death. But when he finds out his grandfather’s health is deteriorating, he decides he must return home. Partying was not on his agenda while in town, but it’s how he bumps into Blaire Hayes—the girl he’d always thought of in high school as an unobtainable pass.
Together the two learn there are moments in life that hold within them all the power to break you…
(New Adult: Contains sexual situations, language, mature themes, and alcohol usage.)
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Excerpt
The bartender came over with another Long Island for me. Jason handed him a crisp bill from in his wallet. I took a sip and watched as he lifted his ass up and tucked the wallet back into his back pocket.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, forcing my eyes away from the muscles I could see shifting and flexing in his forearm while he played with the cap from his beer. “I was a little embarrassed, but only because what you said is true. I’m fine now.”
I wanted to smack myself. Why the hell did I just flat-out admit that to him? What I’d said before had been enough; there was no reason for me to add to it. Heat crept along my neck. I’d look like I was having an allergic reaction in a matter of seconds. Great.
“Maybe this will lift your embarrassment some: it’s been a while for me, too,” he said.
This new knowledge he’d openly offered floored me. His eyes locked with mine as he brought his beer to his perfect lips for a swig. I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed from the action.
“Why?” The question formed in my head, but I had no intentions of actually saying it aloud, and most definitely not in such a dumbfounded tone. Rich laughter rumbled through his chest and his head tipped back in the process. A grin twisted at my lips, one I couldn’t suppress no matter how hard I tried. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not my place.” I forced my eyes to look anywhere except at him as I shook my head.
“No, it’s okay,” he said, containing himself. “I just can’t get over how shocked you seem by my confession.”
I took a sip of my drink. “You just don’t seem like the type to have any dry spells. If I remember correctly, you didn’t have that problem in high school either, and I can’t imagine it forming in college of all places.”
Hadn’t meant to say that one aloud either. What the hell was in this drink, a loose lips amplifier?
“People change,” he said. “You did.”
“How so?”
“You’ve gotten more beautiful, for starters.”
His words made my stomach flutter and my heart pound. That was most definitely a line…but I liked it. Jason straightened his back and downed the rest of his beer. Banging the empty bottle against the bar as he set it back down, he stood and held out a hand to me.
Jennifer Snyder lives in North Carolina were she spends most of her time writing new adult and young adult fiction, reading, and struggling to stay on top of housework. She is a tea lover with an obsession for Post-it notes and smooth writing pens. Jennifer lives with her husband and two children, who endure listening to songs that spur inspiration on repeat and tolerate her love for all paranormal, teenage-targeted TV shows.
Find out more about her latest novel by visiting her blog:
http://jennifersnydersblog.blogspot.com
Other ways to connect with Jennifer:
Email | Facebook | Twitter
Prize (open to US addresses only):
–One Break You key purse charm and one signed Break You bookmark
Keep Me Still by Caisey Quinn
Release Date: November 11th 2013
Layla Flaherty had the perfect life, or close to it. Until a stranger gunned her parents down right in front of her, leaving her with seizure inducing PTSD. After years of trying to pass as normal and failing miserably, she resigns herself to being invisible. But new to town Landen O’Brien sees her, and he likes what he sees. Much to Layla’s surprise, he doesn’t freak out when she has a seizure in front of him. He does the exact opposite, calming her until the tremors subside. But Landen has secrets of his own. Secrets that both bind them together and tear them apart.
Scarred by loss, Layla leaves her hometown of Hope Springs, Georgia, hoping to put her painful past behind her and start over in college in California. When she runs into Landen at freshmen orientation, she has a choice to make. Reinforce those steel walls she’s built up around herself or give the only boy who can keep her still a second chance.
Landen’s more than ready to tear down those walls but this time when they come crashing down, they might bury her.
Buy Links:
Excerpt
I move the pillow and look at him, overheating instantly at the sight of his mouth and the memory of what he just did with it. I can’t help but wonder how people do these intimate things to each other and then go on with life business as usual. Pass the salt and all that.
“You are the most dangerous kind of beautiful,” he says, brushing my messy hair away from my face.
I can only imagine what a wreck I look like after that, but with the way he smiles at me, he must actually think I am beautiful right now. I lean in and kiss his mouth. I can taste myself on his lips. It’s kind of strange and kind of a turn on. I pull at his lower lip with my teeth and he groans.
His voice is raspy against my mouth. “You even taste like peaches, sweet like I knew you would be.”
“What do you taste like, Landen?” I ask, as my sex voice woman comes back to me. “And more importantly, what’s with all the clothes?”
Caisey Quinn lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, daughter, and other assorted animals. She is the bestselling author of the Kylie Ryans series as well as several New Adult Romance novels featuring country girls finding love in unexpected places. You can find her online at www.caiseyquinnwrites.com .
Prizes include a $50 Gift Card, a KEEP ME STILL Kindle Case, and a swag pack. Plus signed copies of WISH I MAY by Lexi Ryan, BREAK IT UP by E.M. Tippetts, and a winner’s choice title from Elizabeth Lee are up for grabs. 5 winners get one or more of these prizes! US only.
A Risk Worth Taking by Heather Hildenbrand
Release Date: October 22nd 2013
Source: I received an ARC from the author for the blog tour in exchange for an honest review
When 22-year-old Summer Stafford’s parents split halfway through her senior year at college, Summer’s world is rocked. Everything she thought she knew—heck, everything she thought she wanted for her own life—feels like a lie. The truth is love is a risk. And the true kind, the kind that lasts, might even be a fairy tale.
Reeling from the divorce, Summer derails her own future by breaking up with her parent-approved boyfriend and giving up her lifelong plans for a big-city career. She moves back home, business degree in hand. Dad needs her to fill the gaps her mother left behind; Summer needs to find who she is outside of the cookie-cutter life that failed so miserably for her parents.
Ford O’Neal’s future involves one person: himself. He doesn’t have a permanent address and he definitely doesn’t commit. To a place or a person. Raised by hippies, he plans just far enough ahead to secure his next stop, this one landing him at a work-study program at Heritage Plantation where he can grow his own herbal and medicinal creations.
Summer is gorgeous and smart and fun to be with, the perfect way to pass five months. It won’t be love—Ford’s got too many things to accomplish, too many places to go, before he settles down. Yet Summer pulls him in, challenging him to rethink his own philosophy.
When Ford’s five months are up, each of them must decide if love is really worth the risk.
Buy Links:
Amazon • Barnes & Noble
I wholeheartedly loved reading this book! It was funny, sweet, entertaining, and just a great romance. I fell in love with the characters and the romance and the story. At its heart, A Risk Worth Taking is about figuring out what you want in life, and taking risks for the things you want, for the the things that make you happy. And if love is in the equation, if you find that one special person who means the world to you, then you should absolutely go for it.
You’re not living unless you’re risking.
The story is told through Summer and Ford’s POVs. I loved reading both of their POVs, and I felt the author did a tremendous job moving between the two main characters. It was one of the most well done dual POVs I’ve ever read. The story flowed and connected very well, and the writing was fantastic.
Summer Stafford moves back home to the farm after breaking up with her steady, stable, boring boyfriend to help support her father, because her parents are recently divorced, and the farm needs some help that Summer can provide. Summer has all this built-up anger within herself at her mother, because she feels it’s all her mother’s fault that her parents are divorcing. Summer has always thought her parents’ love was the ideal, but finding out that it was all a lie is disappointing. She feels deceived, and is now skeptical about whether true love really does exist.
Ford O’Neal is the new temporary hand at Summer’s farm, and when the two meet, they connect. Ford is a bit different from your everyday guy. It’s not just that his parents are hippies, or that he’s an herbalist. He’s thought-provoking and challenging and real. He makes Summer question things about herself she never thought about before.
“You should never settle. Life’s too short. Do things that make you happy.”
I loved reading Ford’s POV. I loved the way he thinks and his care-free, live-in-the-present view of the world. And when Ford and Summer finally get together, even though they know they can’t last because Ford has to leave, it’s not just Ford changing the way Summer thinks. Summer also changes Ford’s way of mind. She’s all he thinks about, and vice versa, and I could just feel them falling in love. It’s romantic but bittersweet as well. Because even though they’re falling in love, they can’t be together once Ford leaves at the end of the summer.
“I thought you said love is a risk,” I whispered, another tear escaping the edge of my eye.
Ford caught it with his fingers and wiped it away before pressing a lingering kiss against the corner of my mouth. “It’s a risk worth taking.”
Ford and Summer have both found things worth risking for, and they’ve both realized what they truly want in life. I can honestly say that I adored reading their journey together, of falling in love and discovering the world through new eyes because of each other. Their love is real and passionate, and it’s wonderful how the author manages to make the reader connect so well with them. A Risk Worth Taking is a great contemporary romance that I highly recommend.
4 hearts!
Heather Hildenbrand was born and raised in a small town in northern Virginia where she was homeschooled through high school. She now lives in coastal VA, a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, with her two adorable children. She works from home, part time, as a property manager and when she’s not furiously pounding at the keyboard, or staring off into space whilst plotting a new story, she’s lying on the beach, soaking in those delicious, pre-cancerous rays.
Heather loves Mexican food, hates socks with sandals, and if her house was on fire, the one thing she’d grab is her DVR player.
Heather is a co-founder of Accendo Press, a publishing group she operates with fellow authors: Angeline Kace and Jennifer Sommersby. Accendo (a-CH-endo), A Latin word, means “to kindle, illuminate, inflame, or set fire.” This is something Accendo strives to do inside a reader’s imagination with every title released. For a complete list of titles and author bios, visit www.accendopress.com.
Website • Facebook • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Newsletter
Heather is giving away a gift basket with a hair flower, nail polish, bracelet, and a $20 Amazon Gift Card!
Drowning by Rachel Firasek
Publication date: October 26th 2013
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult
*Drowning is a New Adult Contemporary Romance suited for 18+ due to some violence, language, and sexual content*
“I dare you.”
Those words would change adrenaline junkie, Alice Harrison’s life forever. She’s a party girl that doesn’t believe in love until she meets a man that only writes about it.
Seth James escaped his overbearing father and moved into one of the James family’s vacant condos, hoping to create the music he loves in peace. But the fragile calm he’s envisioned shatters when a tiny woman with a world full of energy bounces out of the elevator and nearly takes him out.
With the patience of a saint, Seth seeks the dark that keeps Alice from enjoying life. He challenges her to exorcise the demons in her past in order to discover the true meaning of love. But when the walls fall down, the hidden deceptions will bare the ugly truth about a woman drowning in sorrow and a man who may not know how to be her hero.
Purhcase links:
Excerpt
He laughs that loud laugh that cuts down into my stomach and vibrates my breakfast to the surface. “Of course. I haven’t seen you in quite some time and thought I’d pay my baby daughter a visit. Did you get my letter?”
I can’t help the tremble that takes root in my chin and bleeds up into my tear ducts. I fight the well of salt water. Seth was right. They were a weakness to him, and he’d feed on them. “You need to go.”
“I’ll go when I’m ready. I think you should remember whose roof you’re living under and be more gracious.”
The door across the hall opens, and I meet Seth James’ bold stare over my father’s shoulder. God no. Please, don’t watch this.
He leaves the door open and steps closer. “Everything okay?”
My father lurches back and clears his throat. “Everything’s fine.” He spins and thrust out his hand, all politician’s smiles and his kissing baby’s grin on his face. “E. Harrison, and you are?”
“Neighbor. Seth James.”
I grip my towel tighter, but Seth’s eyes never stray from Dad’s. He was so wrong about being a hero. He’d just saved me from pure evil. The two men stand taller. My father is forbidding in his expensive threads. He has years of cut muscles beneath that have kept him from sagging like most men his age. Seth, on the other hand, has youth on his side. He’s all hard ridges and full of territorial male dominance.
With a deep sigh that relaxes all those tightened nerves, I ask, “Father, did you need something?”
“I came by to speak to you about something, but, perhaps another time would be better suited.” He glances back at me and sneers, but returns to sleazy smiles before he gives a nod to Seth. “Mr. James, a pleasure. I’ll be on my way.”
Seth puts a hand out and catches my father’s shoulder. “Mr. Harrison, as the owner of this condo, I feel that I should warn you against making my tenants uncomfortable.” Seth steps across the hall and drops an arm around my scarred shoulder. His thumb soothes away the shiver chasing over my collar bone. “I’m not sure of your welcome here, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t want to see either of these girls come to harm.”
I gasp. He spoke so eloquently. Bold and rich. I’d have never thought he had it in him if I hadn’t just witnessed it. And no one has ever come to my defense. Never. Seth James was ten feet tall and made of blue bubble gum right now. I’d chew him, blow him, and make him pop. Vulgar, I know, but there it is.
My father straightens his jacket. “Do you know who I am?”
“I do, but obviously you do not know who I am or what I’m capable of.” Seth tucks me even closer. If he’s noticed the scars stretching across my shoulders, he’s too polite to even give them a second glance, and for that, I’ll forever be indebted to him. “Don’t fuck with Alice again.”
He knows my name. And he just cussed my dad.
Harrison squints at us, and turns, clicking his heels together before stalking to the elevator. As much as I love seeing someone put him in his place, Seth James had just built me a coffin.
Fucking great. As soon as the sliding doors close on Dad, I shove Seth away from me. He’s too much right now. Everything is too much.
His brow wrinkles. “What?”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
He steps back and glances at the floor before smirking up at me. “Being your hero.”
Drowning Trailer!
Rachel Firasek spends her days daydreaming of stories and her nights putting the ideas to ink. She has spent a dull life following the rules, meeting deadlines, and toeing the line, but in her made up worlds, she can let the wild side loose. Her wonderful husband and three children support her love of the written word and only ask for the occasional American Idol or Swamp People quality hour.
She has a philosophy about love. It must devastate or it isn’t truly worth loving. She hopes that you all find your devastating love and cling to it with all your heart!
Prizes (open internationally):
–A Kindle Paperwhite
–one (1) ebook copy of Drowning
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16240497-no-good-duke-goes-unpunished
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