vrijdag 1 maart 2019

Release Day Blitz ~ Instinct by Loki Renard














He is Savage. Dominant. Primitive. I am slave to his instinct.

In the year 10,442, humanity is a space faring race.
We do not have sex, and we certainly do not breed.

I am an observer, a young woman alone in space, being punished for her sins. My sentence is to observe a remote planet where it is rumored an old Earth ship crashed thousands of years ago. According to records, there were no survivors.

The records were wrong.

While in orbit around the planet, I am hit. My shuttle crashes.

Zion, the beast of a man who pulls me from the wreckage and sets about making me his own does not know that my people do not engage in sexual activity. He doesn't understand that reproduction is expressly forbidden. All he knows is that he wants me.

My untouched body will be his in every way imaginable. He will mate me over and over. He will fill me with his seed until my belly swells. When I defy him, I will be punished shamefully and thoroughly until I give him the submission he demands.

But there are even more dangerous things in the universe than Zion. My people will come for me, and when they do, even my primitive beast of a man might not be enough to save me from their wrath.











It's just as well Loki Renard became an author because other career paths proved disastrous. She was once thrown out of someone's house for trying to sell them citrus based cleaning product, and her brief brush with corporate life ended when she wrote profiles for her fellow employees likening them to various feral animals then attempted to negotiate the idea of not coming into the office and getting paid anyway. Perhaps if she'd had the dedication to slug herself in the face a la Fight Club, things might have turned out differently.













donderdag 28 februari 2019

Cover Reveal ~ PIECES OF US by A.L. Jackson #Excerpt #Giveaway

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PIECES OF US
A stand-alone second-chance romance in A.L. Jackson's Confessions of the Heart Series...
COMING APRIL 22ND

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Cover: RBA Designs
Photo: Michelle Lancaster Photography
Model: Josh Elton

070f51baad014f8a268446d7d5762113a011eb4fTITLE: PIECES OF US
SERIES: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 22ND, 2019 

Synopsis 

Maxon Chambers has a way of stealing all the attention. All my affection, and all my dreams. What I needed to remember was he’d stolen my good judgment and my virginity, too. When he broke up with me, I ran across the country and swore I’d never return to Broadshire Rim. But here I am, thirteen years later. Maxon is all grown up. Sexier than sin and more tempting than ever. A detective on the Charleston force, he lives on the outside of safety, devoted to protecting the people of his city. But with the way he’s looking at me now? I’m pretty sure what needs protecting is my heart. Can we mend the pieces of us? Or will he leave my heart shattered forever . . .

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MEET MACK AND IZZY - Your Pieces of Us Excerpt

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A smirk pulled at the corner of Maxon’s mouth where he had me backed against the wall. “You act like I have some other place to be.”
Redness flushed. “Don’t act like you don’t have plenty of people to entertain you.” I hoped it didn’t sound like bitterness, like scorn, but it was hard to keep that from quivering in my voice.
He moved even closer and planted his hands over my head. So close I could feel need oozing from his skin, his breath on my face, blueberries and ice. “There’s no one else, Izzy. No one I want. No one I can’t breathe without. It’s always been you.”
Desire pulled at my stomach, knottin’ it up tight. I pressed my thighs together, and he caught it, scenting my need.
Hot air puffed out of his nostrils like the dragon he was, and I was shivering. Shaking like a leaf.
He moved his hand, slowly, watching me carefully as he dropped it down and placed it on my bare thigh.
Right up under the skirt of my dress.
The breath left me on a staggered gasp. Tingles flashed. Flames licking and lapping.
My body begged to come alive under his touch.
“Izzy, baby,” he murmured, and oh God, I sagged, my back pressed to the wall. Hooked. Knowing how fast this man could make me fall.
Those eyes pinned me, keeping me in place, while his hand squeezed my leg.
He edged down, nose brushing mine, a soft inhale between his lips.
Breathing me in.
Then he pressed his mouth to mine. Featherlight.
Didn’t matter how soft it was.
Lightning streaked. A crack of thunder in the air.
He pressed our mouths tighter, lips closed, just this persistent pressure that felt so right.
A promise.
An apology.
Sensation rushed through my body.
This old love trying to bust free.
To climb out.
Reach for him.
Because I’d wanted it. Wanted to be with him so badly.
I whimpered.
“Izzy,” he murmured at my lips.
“Maxon,” I whispered back.
That was it.
We lit.

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A.L. Jackson Pink Box including a Kindle Fire, 2 Signed Paperbacks, Tons of Premium Swag, and Fun Goodies!

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  Enter    


   A.L. Jackson is the New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance. She writes emotional, sexy, heart-filled stories about boys who usually like to be a little bit bad.

Her bestselling series include THE REGRET SERIES, CLOSER TO YOU, BLEEDING STARS, and FIGHT FOR ME novels. Grab A.L. Jackson’s latest novel, MORE OF YOU, the first stand-alone novel in her brand-new CONFESSIONS OF THE HEART series.
If she’s not writing, you can find her hanging out by the pool with her family, sipping cocktails with her friends, or of course with her nose buried in a book.
Be sure not to miss new releases and sales from A.L. Jackson - Sign up to receive her newsletter http://smarturl.it/NewsFromALJackson or text “aljackson” to 33222 to receive short but sweet updates on all the important news.








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Release Blitz ~ Truth or Bear by Zoe Ashwood


Title: Truth or Bear
Series: Shift Book 2
Author: Zoe Ashwood
Genre: Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance
Release Date: February 28, 2019
Cover Design: Natasha Snow Designs Teaser Credit: Elle Thorpe






Even a lone wolf’s heart can be broken.
Nikolai’s life was going just fine—until he was betrayed. He’s lost his job, his family’s trust, and his purpose, all for the cost of falling for a pretty bear. Now his friends have turned against him and they won’t stop until he’s dead. The last thing he wants to do is join forces with the woman responsible, but she might be his only chance at survival.
Getting kidnapped and shot was not part of Claire’s plan—and neither was falling for the lieutenant of the very organization she swore to destroy. Now working with Nik is dredging up all sorts of unwanted, heated memories. She couldn’t resist him when they first met, and nothing has changed when she sees his handsome face again.
But when rogues threaten their families, claws come out. Keeping secrets might have been their job description, but they’ll have to come clean to beat their enemies.


CHAPTER ONE
NIK
The dimly lit corridor was empty as Nik made his way toward the server room. He flicked off the safety on his gun then glanced over his shoulder to confirm that Stevens and Novak were actually doing what they’d been told for once. At their nervous nods, he faced forward again, reaching for the door handle.
His shift was about to end, just forty minutes until he could shuck his gun belt and go find Masha. Take me out on a real date, she’d said last night as they’d lain on his bed, sweaty and breathing hard after the most spectacular sex he’d ever experienced. He’d have promised her anything right then: a date, a dozen dates, his heart and soul—so he’d kissed her and later made dinner reservations for tonight.
“On three, I’ll open the door. Novak, you cover Stevens while he enters.” He kept his voice at a murmur, not wanting to spook the intruder who’d tripped the silent alarm.
How he’d gotten past the other security measures—an armed guard and an eight-digit keypad—was a question Nik would be asking as soon as the asshole was shackled to a chair. The guy had to be pretty stupid. Like he was going to get away with breaking into the room where Maxwell kept all the Guard’s backups?
The hum of the cooling vents drowned out any sounds coming from the room beyond, and Nik could barely detect the scent of something living over the musty smell of dust. This house wasn’t one of the luxurious mansions Maxwell liked to rent. They’d vacated one of those just days ago after the report had come in that the Shifter Assembly of North America had captured one of their people. The hyena was a nasty piece of work, and Nik wasn’t sad to see him gone, but he’d been taken alive, which meant he could be questioned. He could be turned. So Maxwell wasn’t taking any chances with this new intruder. Three to one might have seemed like overkill, but they couldn’t let him slip through their fingers. Not if he had answers to give.
“One…two…three!”
With a sharp push, he threw open the door, stepping to the side in the same movement to hide from a potential attack. Novak, overeager monkey that he was, barreled right past him, his gun raised to a point where he was sure to clock himself in the eye if he actually fired his weapon. He clearly needed more hours at the shooting range. Stevens covered for him, though, staying back.
Novak’s voice sounded from inside the room, “Oh fuck, Nik. I mean, sir.”
Something about his tone had Nik moving, even though he hadn’t received the all-clear from his trainee. He stepped over the threshold, gun ready, and swept the room for the intruder. Here, the scent of another living creature that had barely filtered through to the corridor became stronger, more pronounced. His body reacted to it before his mind caught up. And then he saw her.
Masha was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the server room, her computer in her lap and her palms up. Novak pointed his gun at her. Stevens was hot on Nik’s heels, and now the two of them were aiming at his—his what? Girlfriend? He thought he might be sick as the truth rolled over him like a tidal wave. She had no reason to be there. Which meant… Fuck.
The defiant look in her eyes faltered when he barked the order. “Cuff her.”
“Nik, wait,” she called, but he turned from her, putting away his gun. There was a scuffle, something crashed, and Novak yelled at her to get back down. Nik flinched but kept going. A blow connected, then a soft groan nearly ripped him in two.
A weight settled on him, the crushing realization that he’d been fooled, that every good thing that had happened in the past two months had been a lie.
“Nik!” she gasped, then yelped in pain.
He did not turn back.
***
Entering the living room, Nik was relatively sure his face was blank. Hard to tell since he’d spent the past hour trying to get his emotions under control, punching a bag in the gym—without gloves—until he’d skinned his knuckles and sweat poured off him. He’d had a cold shower to cool down and changed his clothes, all the while breathing through his mouth and keeping the windows open, though the night temperatures had dropped below freezing. But Masha’s scent lingered. He’d sat on his bed, and a cloud of it rose around him like a seductive, deceptive embrace.
He’d chucked her pillow through the window, startling another young guard into shifting. At the gangly elk’s confused stare, Nik had cursed and yelled an order to burn that fucking pillow. Clearly not his finest moment.
He was better now. A fresh shirt that only smelled of his detergent, a gun strapped in his shoulder harness, a prayer that Maxwell wasn’t in the mood to make a spectacle out of her. He could face his lover and be as professional as his reputation claimed he was.
But one look at Masha, and he realized his poker face would do him no good at all. She was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, her head hanging forward so wisps of her short black hair obscured her face. The sharp scent of her fear hit him hard, and her labored breaths told him she was in bad shape. What scared him the most was the plastic tarp that covered the dusty wooden floor and the carpet. A tarp meant to catch any bodily fluids that were released during the…questioning, and possibly to wrap up the remains after his boss had extracted all the information he needed.
Nik had his gun out before he knew what he was doing. The two lieutenants who stood guard by the door advanced, going for their own weapons, so Nik forced himself to relax, letting his hands drop. But he didn’t holster his gun. Then he focused all his attention on his boss, even though his gaze was drawn to Masha.
“Thank you for joining us,” Reid Maxwell said, his voice mock-polite. “I’m sorry we started without you.”
“What’s going on?”
At the sound of his voice, Masha lifted her head, and Nik couldn’t help the curse that slipped out of his mouth. Her face was a ruin, blood dribbling from her lip, and one eye already swelling shut. From the way she grimaced with every shallow breath, her ribs were broken or at least bruised. He moved toward her; he couldn’t even process what he was doing. They questioned suspects, yes, but not like this. Never—
“Uh-uh, Nicky.” Maxwell’s soft admonishment stopped him dead. “I can’t let you at her just yet. You think you’re angry now? You want to hurt her for betraying your trust? Wait until you hear who our little friend really is.”
Hurt her? Maxwell’s words refused to pierce Nik’s shock. He thought Nik wanted to hurt her even more? God, yes, he wanted to shake her, ask what the hell she’d been thinking, breaking into a restricted room, but she was defenseless, unarmed. A woman. If he hit her with enough force, he could… Bile rose in his throat, and he wondered, stupidly, whether the tarp would also serve to protect the floor from his vomit.
Novak, his eyes round with apprehension, stepped closer to Nik, offering a thin file. Nik reached out to take it, anything to keep his mind from imagining how Masha got those bruises. Which of them had hurt her? He’d kill them, he’d—
The black-and-white photo inside the file was of Masha, a candid shot of her in the street, her face thoughtful as she studied her phone. Her hair was longer, a silky mass that fell around her shoulders, and black-framed glasses perched on her nose. But the clothes made the biggest difference. The Masha on the photo wore a fitted dress that even Nik recognized as elegant, a fancy trench coat and a handbag that probably cost more than his monthly salary. And heels. Sleek high heels that sent an involuntary curl of lust into his gut. But it wasn’t her outfit that boiled his blood. It was the building behind her: a glass-paneled wall of a corporate high-rise in downtown Manhattan that he knew too well from hours of surveillance that he’d done on the place.
“What’s this?” he choked out, turning to Masha.
This Masha, the short-haired tomboy who’d wormed her way into his bed, spat blood onto the tarp. Nik saw how much it cost her to lift her head, to look him in the eyes.
“This right here is Claire Thibault,” Maxwell said, stepping over the spit and placing a hand on the nape of her neck.
She flinched at the gesture, just slightly, but enough for Nik to know it was his boss who’d inflicted the injuries, not one of the other lieutenants.
“She can’t be.”
“You’d think Thibault would take better care of his little heir, wouldn’t you? Fucking cowards, sending a woman to do their job.” Maxwell’s voice was deceptively light as he cupped Masha’s face and lifted her chin. “But the family resemblance is there. She even has the birthmark.”
Nobody had ever seen the heiress of the largest North American shifter clan. Protected and kept hidden in their Canadian stronghold, that was the word on the streets concerning Claire Thibault. People joked about her—was she so ugly Thibault hid her from the world? Pregnant and busy making an army of little bears?
Bears. The thought clicked into place, a missing puzzle piece. Masha had claimed she was a half-blood brown bear, and from her name, he’d assumed she had Russian roots like him. As a half-blood, her shifts didn’t come easily, she’d said, explaining her reluctance to wear her animal form. But if it was true, if she was really Claire Thibault, her other form was a black bear. Fuck. The betrayal stung. The scents were too close to distinguish, so the ruse had worked perfectly. Everything about her had been calculated to make him trust her, like her.
And the birthmark? Nik’s heart sank even lower. How could he have missed it? The identifying mark of all Thibault shifters, a stamp of their pure blood, of their superiority.
“You can see why I was worried to find someone breaking into our server room.” Maxwell dropped her chin and wiped the blood off his fingers.
“You knew who she was before you sent us in?” His boss was a sadist but he usually reserved this kind of subterfuge for his enemies, not his highest-ranking officers. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Nik rubbed his hand through his hair. “Fuck, Reid, how did you even find out?”
Maxwell snorted. “It was too easy. I should have thought of flipping one of the Council members years ago. A threat here, a fat check there, and voilà, one Councilwoman all too ready to rat out this little mole.” He grinned, the smile reminding Nik of days when their world had been a lot less bleak and angry. “Did I go too far with the animal metaphors? Never mind. All that matters is that we have one very important guest here.” He waved his gun in Masha’s—Claire’s—direction.
Then he stepped closer and backhanded her. The chair toppled over with the force of the blow. Masha’s head whipped back, droplets of blood splattering the tarp, and Nik snarled, prickles of heat all over his skin announcing he was about to shift.
He felt more than saw the lieutenants close in as Maxwell turned on him.
“What, Nik?” he snapped. “You don’t want to see her hurt? What did you expect, that I’d let her go?” Leaning in close, he murmured, “Do you want me to look weak?”
Panic rising in his chest, Nik had to force his jaw to unclench. “No, sir. But she won’t be worth much as a hostage if she’s dead.”
Maxwell cocked his head to the side. “See, you’re saying the right things. Yes, Thibault would pay more if I could convince him that his precious princess hasn’t been hurt. But you know we need information. And if it were anyone else, you’d be the first to agree. You’re my best interrogator! Yet here you are…” He drew in a deep breath, and Nik fought not to step back. “…smelling of fear. You’re shaking, Nicky. So tell me. What are you hiding?”
A hundred answers flitted through Nik’s mind, none convincing enough for Maxwell to drop this line of questioning. The worst that could happen… Oh, who was he kidding? The worst was already happening right in front of him.
“I should have worked out who she was.” The truth was all he could give his boss. The man he’d once thought was his closest friend. “I’m sorry.”
“So why are you afraid?” Maxwell’s amber eyes burned holes into him. “Don’t you want to see her punished? She fooled you. Fucked you. So she could run back to Daddy and tell him all about it.”
Nik’s stomach roiled at the thought, and he shook his head, half to say no, he didn’t want her punished anymore, and half to deny that this was what their relationship could be boiled down to.
Maxwell clicked his tongue. “You’re growing soft on me. I need you sharp, Nicky, if we’re going to win this war.” He turned back to Masha, who was still lying on the floor, and gave her a casual kick in the ribs that had her whimpering. Then he waved his free hand at Novak and Stevens. “Pick her up.”
The younglings scrambled forward, feet slipping on the tarp, and heaved Masha’s chair upright. Then they almost ran back to the corner of the room, eyes darting between Nik and Masha, as if they were hoping for him to tell them what to do. So he jerked his head toward the door. There was no need for them to witness this.
Maxwell watched with narrowed eyes as Nik’s youngest trainees left and only the two lieutenants remained. Bach and Moers each took one corner of the room. The three men stared at him, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t think past the crushing blow that had shattered all hopes he’d had for his future, for their future. He couldn’t look at the mess that had been his lover’s beautiful face.
Nik didn’t step closer to Masha, and Maxwell lifted his arms. “What are you waiting for? We need answers.”
Masha’s dark eyes met his, and he knew he was screwed. He would never hit her. He was sick to his stomach with guilt from having left her alone with these people. The irony didn’t escape him—he was usually an eager member of ‘these people’. So many times, he had questioned men and gotten answers. He’d always been good at getting answers. But now, there was only one answer he could give his boss.
“No.”








Zoe Ashwood is a romance writer with a passion for sweet stories with a sexy twist. While she’s always been a reader, Zoe’s writing used to be limited to diary scribbles and bad (really bad) teenage poetry. Then she participated in NaNoWriMo 2015 and never looked back.
Some 400,000 words later, she’s still in love with the art of making up stories—and making her characters fall in love. Trust the Wolf is her debut novel.
When she’s not writing, Zoe works as a literary translator. She’s happily married to her best friend and has two small boys who are as stubborn as they’re cute.
She’s active on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, but her newsletter or Facebook Group are the best way of keeping in touch!
Get Bearly Married, a free prequel novella to the Shift series, for free here: https://zoeashwood.com/newsletter/




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