STEALING THE DUKE by Lexi Post has Released at 99¢ #Historical Romance

Stealing the Duke

(Marrying a Mabry #1)

by Lexi Post

Only 99¢

Lady Joanna Mabry has many flaws. One is her penchant for stealing books from her peers’ homes. Since she returns them, usually to the same house, she feels it’s a harmless flaw until she’s almost caught by James Huntington, the Duke of Northwick. His outspoken views on a proper woman’s education have left her bristling. So in this case, she’s pleased to have taken his book on what is sure to be an antiquated view of the female sex.

James dismisses Lady Joanna’s odd behavior until he discovers his book on “feminine education” is missing. Guessing she has it, he’s highly amused since the cover concealed the real title, The Illustrated Pleasures of Seduction. He soon finds himself putting off his proposal to another woman as he attempts to trap Joanna into revealing her theft. He enjoys countering her energetic arguments for women’s equal education, while he insinuates what women should be most concerned with, the bedroom.

Before long, the pictures in Northwick’s book, his quiet hints, and his tantalizing touches begin to leave Joanna breathless. Worse, their debates bring her to a state of excitement she’s known with no other. How can such a closed-minded man, be so tempting? But with a spurned woman lurking in the background, Joanna must make the decision whether to let the duke wallow in a bed of his own making, or acknowledge the feelings that have grown between them…neither of which, she’s willing to do.

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 About Lexi 

Lexi Post is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of romance inspired by the classics. She spent years in higher education taking and teaching courses about the classical literature she loved. From Edgar Allan Poe's short story “The Masque of the Red Death” to Tolstoy’s War and Peace, she's read, studied, and taught wonderful classics.

But Lexi's first love is romance novels so she married her two first loves, romance and the classics. Whether it’s dashing dukes, hot immortals, sizzling cowboys, or hunks from out of this world, Lexi provides a sensuous experience with a “whole lotta story.”

Lexi is living her own happily ever after with her husband and her two cats in Florida. She makes her own ice cream every weekend, loves bright colors, and you’ll never see her without a hat.

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The Seat Filler by Sariah Wilson

 Another romantic comedy is in need at the end of winter and to open the blossoms of spring!  

I never considered it, but sometimes an average, ordinary person gets all dressed up, looking great, and may get the opportunity to sit next to a famous actor/actress.  

Granted, there are rules to doing this, which Juliet really tries to follow.  Too bad Hollywood has a weak monitor on details.

Juliet has her dream job as a the owner of a mobile dog grooming van.  I like her already!  She doesn't want a boyfriend.  It's not because she doesn't like men, but rather she has an embarrassing secret, even her best friend wasn't let in on.  

It's the whole problem when she's sat next to the award winning Noah Douglas.  She knows all his movies and has loved everything he portrays.

Noah is public eye-candy and shows up whenever and wherever he's required to by contract.  When off the clock, he wants to be that ordinary, unknown person too.  The rich and famous women in his crowd are not a challenge and hold little interest in his black book.  

Juliet is interesting.  She doesn't know who he is and treats him like a normal, slightly irritating person.  Noah is destined to get to know Juliet and help her with her embarrassing phobia.  

Juliet can't believe she opens up to her life-time crush.  Maybe Noah can slowly and carefully cure her.

Don't read the summaries of this romance because they tell you too much.  I think it's super suspenseful to wait till the story tells you about Juliet's embarrassing secret.  Then, the tension builds as you read and read to find out if they can overcome and adapt to a new romance that is sure to tingle in your toes and hearts.

Happy reading,

Dawn 

Beta Read Ready (or Not)

 

        Hello, gentle readers! Hope you are all well and staying safe!

Let’s see…what shall we talk about today? Oh, I know! Yesterday, I sent Wife Wanted out to my beta readers. This is a big step because believe it or not, I never feel like my manuscripts are ready for eyes other than mine or my critique partner, but at some point, you gotta let go so I did. I struggled though, thinking I should read it over one more time, put it through the “editor” one more time looking for misspellings and grammar, give it one more day to just think about it a little more.

I was procrastinating and I know I was (I should have done it Friday or Saturday but waited until Sunday). Up until the moment I hit the “send” button (the email was already prepared and sitting in my draft folder), I still wasn’t sure it was ready, but sometimes, you just have to do it. Does that mean to say I don’t have doubts about the story? Hahahahaha! I always do, even after it’s been published and the whole world can see it.

In fact, it’s usually after it’s available to everyone that those doubts hit hardest! Then those famous words “shoulda, woulda, coulda” start playing havoc with my brain.

What’s the cure? I don’t know if there is any, but I would have to say just moving on to the next story helps (a little). It doesn’t stop the inner critic living in my brain (who sounds sorta like Meryl Strep in “The Devil Wears Prada”, kinda condescending, kinda cruel, and I’m sure, kinda right…come to think of it, it’s her voice I hear when I step on the scale, too!). Do I think it’s a good story? I do. Do I think readers will enjoy it? Well, I certainly hope so. I fell in love with my hero (but then again, I always do), but will everyone else? Ugh!!!!

In order to stop those questions from ramping up in my brain (and quiet that nasty, patronizing voice), I’m rushing full speed ahead into Wife Desired. Hope that works!

Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread kindness wherever you go!

Marie

The Chemistry of Love by Sariah Wilson

 Chemistry may not hold interest to all, but chemists are people with the same feelings, ambitions, and heartache as anyone else.  

Anna Ellis loves her nerdy job as a cosmetic chemist.  She has her own lab at home, put together dollar by dollar in the most frugal way she is able to manage.  Her lab at work is complete with a best friend, a demeaning boss, and the desirably handsome son-of-owner, Craig Kimball, she rarely gets to see.  

Anna's goal, outside of her creations with chemicals, is to capture the love of  Craig.  She's sure he vividly remembers a parking lot encounter two years prior.

Anna, Anna who?  Craig is less enamored than Anna could imagine. Instead, she's invited to his engagement party where he proposes to Marco's, his brother's, ex-girlfriend.  

Marco hatches a plan to give payback to Craig, help Anna attain her true love (she thinks it's Craig-just a reminder), and help the makeup company they all work for thrive.

This involves a pretend relationship, which has to appear authentic between Marco and Anna.  So many emotions have to be incorporated either by choice or necessity.  Lust, Greed, jealousy, honesty, anger, and love.  Some are great, and others not so great.  

As the reader, you cannot tell the characters what to do, unfortunately.  You have to wait and see if they find the right chemistry with the right people.  A little hand-wringing and urging from the sidelines might help happiness and love prevail, even for the one who smells like sodium sulfate (the bad egg!).

Happy reading,

Dawn 

 

THE HAPHAZARD COOK!

 

Good mornin’, ya’all.  Hope everyone out there is doing great!  Actually, it will be afternoon by the time I get this posted, so…good afternoon to ya, as well.  😊 

Okay, I got up this morning with no blog, no topic, no nothing, and wondered what the heck I could do to fill that white space. So, stumped, I decided to go into avoidance mode and fix something in the Foodi for dinner. I had ordered some groceries yesterday to try a new cabbage soup, so I thought that would be something good to have on hand for the weekend. Never made it before, but how hard can it be? 

Famous last words! We all know I’m renowned for my shortage of cooking skills. 

Well, the recipe I found online called for two quart size cans of tomato juice.  Okay, so I ordered two large cans of tomato juice with my groceries. Opened and poured those into the large pot, then added the can of green beans the recipe called for and a can of lima beans, which wasn’t in the recipe. 

Now, this is where the term haphazard comes in…I have never been good at being told what to do. It annoys me, so I seldom follow a recipe as written.  Not because I’m a better cook than the person who wrote it but because I’m a random soul. I just have trouble following convention and a recipe often strikes me as a set of orders. Uh…nooo. 

This is also where the train starts off the track. In goes the can of lima beans. Then I add the can of beef stock that is called for and beefy onion soup mix instead of the onion soup mix that is called for…just because. Now the train is veering even further off the tracks. I add the can of petite diced tomatoes instead of the can of whole stewed tomatoes that was called for…again, just because. Train is now venturing into no-man’s land. 

It is at this point that I lift my head and begin to wonder where the hell I am. The landmarks don’t look familiar. So I step back and assess the situation. I still have 10 stalks of celery to add, a half dozen carrots, and a full head of cabbage. But my pot is already almost full. 

WTH? How many people does this recipe feed?! 

Now I decide to go check the recipe again to see how much stinkin’ soup this recipe is supposed to make…which is in the other room.  Yeah, I know. I told you…haphazard…random…not right. 

Well, crap! The recipe doesn’t say how much this will make. But clearly, it is intended to feed all of the inmates in our state prison…for two days! 

Okay, time to get creative because all this stuff will not fit in my pan, nor in any pan I have in the house.  😊  Yeah…now the train is all the way through no man’s land and headed toward a stinking cliff. 

I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit and think about this for a minute. I know what to do. I pull out a strainer and start scooping juice from the pot into a large bowl because I want to remove juice, but not green beans and lima beans. Well, this doesn’t work as expected because the pulp from the tomatoes and tomato juice are clogging the strainer and tomato juice is splattering everywhere except into my bowl. 

Time to switch to a colander that has bigger holes…because a disaster that moves faster is so much better than a slow one. 

Well, that actually works moderately well and I’m able to get 4 cups of juice removed…because, as it turns out, my damn tomato juice cans are 46 ounces and the cans called for in the recipe (which I didn’t need to follow) were 30 ounces. Sigh. Okay, I think the train is back on the tracks now. 

NOT. 

I pull out the onions and check the recipe because…well, maybe it’s just time to give the recipe a try. It calls for 2 full onions. What?  I look at the onion in my hand and it’s pretty big. That’s a lot of onions. I wonder if I need more juice. Okay…not yet.  Let’s just cut up one onion…because I’m now piloting the train cross-country on a sight-seeing trip. Turns out one onion looks like a LOT of onion. I’m not doing two. Let’s just move on to the celery. 

OOPS. 

Apparently, WalMart allowed this guy to do my grocery shopping for me yesterday because in addition to packing my bags to about 25-30 pounds each and combining bread and tomatoes with canned goods, he also picked a bunch of totally rotten, moldy, and limp celery for me. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that happened in my fridge overnight! 

Okay, celery isn’t my favorite, so no problem. I empty about 1/3 of a small container of celery salt into the pot and call it good. Now, don’t freak out…I did taste the mixture as I went and it was fine.  😊  Says me.  LOL 

Now on to the carrots. Well, the recipe calls for 5 carrots. Hmmm…I’m pretty sure they mean 5 whole, large adult carrots. But I hate to peel carrots, so I have a bag of pre-peeled baby carrots. Okay, I fly by the seat of my pants (as if it’s the first time ever) and just start cutting up carrots and dropping them into the pot until it looks like there is enough orange in there. Good enough. 

The train is now picking up speed, but the course has been set. All of the called for ingredients have been addressed…they are not necessarily in the pot, but they have been given due consideration. Nothing to do now but let the train run and see if it ends up in the station or at the bottom of a ravine. 

I look around the kitchen at the horrendous mess and begin to clean up the carnage as I wonder what the hell I’m now going to do with 4 cups of tomato juice that also contains a little bit of beefy onion soup mix and the juice from green beans and lima beans. 

Actually, it turns out that is a recipe for a damn good Bloody Mary, which I am enjoying as I write this blog and my derailed batch of soup cooks in the kitchen. Who knows what dinner will taste like, but I’ve got 4 cups of drink mix to get rid of. By dinnertime, I won’t give a flying rat’s arse what that soup tastes like! 

Well, that’s my story, haphazard and hairbrained, and I’m stickin’ to it. Hang on tight now ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast! 

Be sure to check out my books on sale at Amazon and Smashwords, as the half-price sale ends TODAY! And pick up some Butterscotch Martini Girl boxed sets while you are there. They are also half-price and when the sale ends, the sets are coming down and will no longer be offered anywhere. Today is totally your LAST CHANCE for these boxed sets and for the half-price sale. Here are the Amazon links...

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Love ya,

Sign up for Kayce’s newsletter so you don't miss any of the shenanigans—and be sure to forward the link to all your friends. What's a party without friends?

NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

Whoooo-hoooo! A New Story Begins

        Hello, gentle readers! Hope you are all well and staying safe!

So, now that Wife Wanted is pretty much finished (except for the last chapters to be critiqued and the beta read…oh, and the crying to get it all right), I get to start another story. It will be called Wife Desired and it’ll be the third book in the Wives of Bravado County. This time, the story revolves around the Sheriff of the town where my stories are set and his search for someone to love.

I love this part of the process—building my characters, finding names that fit them, outlining what will happen in the story. Oddly enough, I don’t do this part on the computer. It’s all long hand on a colored 8 ½ by 11 pad. Wife Wanted was a lovely lilac shade (and yes, I used purple ink). I think Wife Desired will be on green or maybe pink. I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to see what my local grocery store has in stock (I won’t go to Office Max because the temptation to get all kinds of office supplies is overwhelming—not sure if any of you have that problem, but I certainly do).

I already have a lot of the details sorted out (in my head) because that’s kinda how my brain works—close to the end on one, time to start thinking about the next and I finally settled on a name for my heroine. Now to figure out who she is. I already know who he is…he’s been in the last two books.

What else is happening besides that (and the rush of adrenaline that accompanies it)? The search for a New-to-Me car continues, but I think I’m getting close. And the day job is still crazy busy (I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon but it’s all good. Keeps those pistons in my brain functioning).

Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread kindness wherever you go!

Marie

HUGE EBOOK SALE!

* * * * *  OOPS...CORRECTION POSTED WITH UPDATED LINKS   * * * * *

Woo Hoo! Hey, gang, Kayce here waving a big “Hey-Howdy” to everyone.  Just wanted to shoot out a quick post to let ya’all know that there is a huge online ebook sale going on all this week in the Smashwords online store. 

In celebration of Read an Ebook Week, many of the Smashwords authors have opted to offer huge discounts on their ebooks. 

So, hit the link below to check out my inventory of books and pick up any titles you don’t already have at 50% off the normal retail price. I have never before offered a discount like this across my full catalogue, so it’s a great time to pick up new books or buy a gift for a friend at great prices. And while you are there, take a look around and see which of your other favorite authors are also offering discounts. 

 

CLICK HERE OR USE QR CODE ABOVE

* * * * *   LIMITED TIME OFFER   * * * * * 

The sale starts today and runs through Saturday, March 11^th. Go get your books NOW! 

Also, for those of you who are fans of the Butterscotch Martini Girls boxed sets, this week’s sale will be your last chance to get any of the four boxed sets currently on the market, as they will be coming down after the sale ends on Saturday and will no longer be available once they are gone. They make great gifts and are an excellent (and inexpensive) way to try new authors you may not have read before. LAST CHANCE…GET ‘EM NOW!

Well, that’s my story, discounted and deeply, and I’m stickin’ to it. Hang on tight now ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast!

Love ya,

Sign up for Kayce’s newsletter so you don't miss any of the shenanigans—and be sure to forward the link to all your friends. What's a party without friends?

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Vicious (Sinners of Saint Book 1) by L.J. Shen

 L. J. Shen must be a greatly talented writer.  A reader can love a character and hate a character, but how can they change your opinion in a few hours of intense reading?

Emilia is the woman I love in the story.  She is artistic, loves to paint, will do anything for family, and works her behind off.  Originally from California, she relocated to New York City under the threat that her parents would be fired from their job and kicked out of their apartment if she didn't evacuate what she knew as her only home.

The hateful character has an appropriate name, Vicious.  That's what he is, and it appears impossible to make this rotten, evil person into a likeable part of anyone's life.  He's the one who made the threat along with teasing and acting mean to Emilia when she was a kid. 

 

Vicious and his childhood friends build a billion dollar business and it happens that he sees Emilia at her cocktail waitress job and lures her to temporarily work for his business.  She accepts under obligations to her sisters health.  Why else would she endure his horrible nature again?

The ironic thing is, they both fight their growing attachment to the other.  What could be right with Vicious making his evil layers peel off one by one?  What sob story can he have that will actually explain his couple of decades of torment to a woman?  How can Emilia, whom I constantly root for, let Vicious back into her life? It's not his money or connections.  

This romance is a page-flipper, and I dare you to put it down as L. J. Shen untangles a messy relationship!

Happy reading,

Dawn