Sunday, 1 July 2018

Release Day Spotlight: One Week to Wed by Laurie Benson




One Week to Wed
One Stolen Night…leads to unexpected wedding vows!
Widowed Lady Charlotte Gregory believes she’ll never love again after losing her husband, until meeting dashing Lord Andrew Pearce brings her respectable, lonely world back to vibrant life! Left alone one night, they give in to their desires only to find their secret passion leads to shock, scandal…and a sudden marriage of convenience.
Excerpt #2 for ONE WEEK TO WED
Why had she not taken breakfast in her room? She might still have an appetite if she had. Now she was sitting alone with Lord Andrew Pearce, drinking tea and watching him eat. Occasionally he would glance at the door as if he, too, was expecting a footman to enter and confer respectability on their encounter. At times Charlotte’s gaze would follow his, mentally willing the closed door to open.
What if he was not attempting to strike up a conversation with her because he thought she was looking for a husband and had set her sights on him? Perhaps Lord Andrew thought she had arranged this with Ann! Where was Ann? Although it was too early for a Town gentleman such as Lord Andrew to be awake, it was not for country folk like Ann and Toby. She closed her eyes and rubbed her brow. Why was Ann torturing her like this?
‘Are you well?’ he asked, drawing her attention away from what she planned to say to her friend the next time they were alone.
‘Forgive me, yes, I am.’ She lowered her hand and played with the napkin on her lap. ‘I confess, I did believe our friends would be having breakfast here at this hour. Had I known you were dining here by yourself, I would have left you to your peaceful solitude to enjoy your meal and read your paper without having to make polite discourse with someone you do not know.’
After spreading jam on his toast, he lowered his knife. ‘I see.’
She couldn’t tell if he believed her. She couldn’t tell if he thought her to be a widow in search of her next husband. Being trapped alone at breakfast with her would make it a logical conclusion. ‘I did not arrive here yesterday evening with a design to meet you. I did not wish to stay last night at all, but was forced to do so by the unfortunate weather and our rather insistent friends. And I did not come down for breakfast with the intention of being alone with you in this room in this compromising situation. It was all done by chance.’
He tilted his head while studying her, but remained silent.
He didn’t believe her.
‘I am not a widow with a plan to trap you into marriage. If I were, I would have brought my own clothes last night. Instead I’m forced to wear this gown that, while lovely, is yellow and I never wear yellow. At least I haven’t worn yellow since my husband passed. I can assure you, I would not be sitting across from you shining brighter than the midday sun if my plan was to entice you into marriage.’
She was rambling. Dear God, she wasn’t even certain what she had just said. Something about yellow…possibly? Her brain was not working with her mouth. It very well could be from lack of food. That bacon smelled so good, but her stomach was now clenched tight, as if it was trying to tell her that if she ate one bite, she would be seeing it again shortly.
Charlotte shifted her attention from the bacon on his plate to his unreadable expression. She really wished he would say something—anything. Heat was spreading up her neck. She should just excuse herself and return to her room. Or just leave the building entirely—and perhaps the town and county. She rubbed her brow again.
When she glanced over at him, she caught something that looked like amusement in his eyes as he chewed his toast. The shine from the sugar of the jam highlighted his top lip, before he licked it off.
Involuntarily, she swallowed. She needed to get away. His presence was having an unsettling effect on her. She stood suddenly, startling Lord Andrew and bringing him to his feet.
‘I will leave you,’ she said, and before he could reply she turned and walked to the door. When she opened it, she was surprised to find a footman standing outside as if guarding the door.
‘Please see that my carriage is brought around in half an hour. I’ll leave a note for Mr and Mrs Knightly. I assume they are still abed.’
‘I believe so, my lady. I’ll see to it directly.’
‘Wait,’ Lord Andrew called out, holding up his hand and walking towards the doorway with his gaze fixed on Charlotte. ‘You cannot leave. It has started to rain again.’
Her head snapped to the window and her eyes widened at the sight of raindrops sliding down the glass panes. She looked at him and had the ridiculous urge to reassure him that she had nothing to do with the rain.
‘My lady?’ The footman’s voice broke the spell from where he stood beside them. ‘What would you have me do?’
‘Lady Charlotte, the roads have not dried out and we don’t know if they are even passable. I think you are forced to remain a bit longer and, since our hosts are nowhere to be found this morning, that leaves it to me to convince you of the sensible course of action.’
That was the longest thing he had ever said to her. ‘Why do you…?’
‘I would not be able to live with myself if any harm came to you because you fled to prove you have no desire to be in my presence.’
‘I’m not trying to prove anything.’
‘Then you are simply willing to risk injury to get away from me.’
‘Yes. No. I mean…’
His eyebrows rose and he appeared amused rather than insulted. She really needed to stop talking.

Laurie Benson is an award-winning author who writes flirty and frisky Regency romance novels. She began her writing career as an advertising copywriter, where she learned more than you could ever want to know about hot dogs and credit score reports. Her novel An Unexpected Countess was voted Harlequin’s 2017 Hero of the Year by readers.

When she isn't at her laptop avoiding laundry, Laurie can be found browsing antique shops, going on ridiculously long hikes, or sitting in her car on the school pickup line. She lives with her husband and two sons in a house filled with testosterone—even her bunny is a boy.


To learn about her upcoming books, visit her historical blog, and to sign up for her newsletter go to www.lauriebenson.net.

Giveaway – Win a signed copy of One Week To Wed (Open Internationally)
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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Location: Sundebru, Norway

Saturday, 30 June 2018

Spotlight: Cajun Persuasion by Sandra Hill


Cajun Persuasion by Sandra Hill
Series Cajun Series
Genre Adult Contemporary Romance
Publisher Avon Books
Publication Date November 28, 2017

Return to New York Times bestseller Sandra Hill’s Cajun country, where the Louisiana bayou is steamier than ever…

Alaskan pilot Aaron LeDeux came to Louisiana with his brother to discover his Cajun roots. But any hopes he had of returning home are extinguished when he agrees to help a crew of street monks and nuns rescue trafficked girls from strip clubs, pimps, and other horrors. For the work has become his new calling.

With her harrowing past, Fleur Gaudet only feels safe at the nunnery. But when she’s ordered out into the real world to decide where she truly belongs, Fleur goes to live with the LaDeux family. Suddenly, she’s in regular clothes, thinking irregular thoughts about Aaron. With his whiskey-colored eyes and fierce bravery, Aaron is like her own personal Cajun cowboy, re-introducing her to...everything.    As the dangerous missions brings them closer, Fleur must decide if she’ll continue her path—or if she’ll have a new future with the man she’s losing her heart to.



(One year ago)
A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do . . .
Fleur Gaudet, whose name tag read Doris Jones,
stood in the dressing room of the Silver Stud Club in New Orleans, using a long-handled dustpan and broom to sweep along the edges of the tiled floor, all the while keeping an alert eye on her surroundings. Al- though she wore a blonde wig to hide her identity and a rather demure black nylon uniform with a white apron, as befitted her new job on the club’s cleaning staff, unlike the scantily clad women around her, she was still outside her comfort zone. Way outside!
She decided to offer up the discomfort as a penance for past—and future—sins. Mortifying the flesh, so to speak. Like that self-flagellating albino monk in The Da Vinci Code. You had to be Catholic to understand the logic of suffering in silence and offering it up as a heavenly gift.
But then, Fleur was a nun!
An honest-to-God, hope-and-pray nun. Like Mother Teresa.
Well, not really like that holier-than-holy nun, bless her heart, who had lived, by choice, in abject poverty in Calcutta. In the old days, Mother Teresa would probably have worked in a leper colony.
On the other hand, a strip club was somewhat like a leper colony, wasn’t it?
Truth to tell, Fleur wasn’t really a nun yet. More like a nun-in-training, with the Sisters of Magdalene religious order. The Magdas had originated in Spain, but expanded into satellite convents throughout the world. Like the one in Mexico, with which she was affiliated, that had in recent years joined forces with the rogue order, St. Jude’s Street Apostles, in Dallas. Their mission: to rescue girls kidnapped into the sex trade. Which was why she and some of her partners were in this sleazy club tonight.
There were other females in the dressing room, but mostly they kept to themselves as they lounged or touched up make-up. None of them were the young, frightened teens they hoped to rescue, though. Not that they were old, exactly. In fact, Peaches Galore, the girl in front of her, was no more than twenty-two years old, wearing a sheer black bustier and a G-string and heels high enough to give a person a nosebleed.
Peaches was on her cell phone, presumably talking to one of her three children, all under the age of eight, that she’d told Fleur about a short time ago. “No, you cannot make a frozen pizza, Henry. You know the stove is off-limits. The microwave, too. Did Jimmy say his prayers before you put him to bed? He skipped Auntie Priss?” Peaches laughed, and murmured something under her breath about how she would skip the old bat, too. “Did you change Elisa Mae’s diaper? I don’t care if it stinks, do as you’re told. I know, sweetie. I’m sorry I yelled. Be a good boy, and tomorrow we’ll go to the park with your remote control airplane.”
It was sad, really. But the Magdas couldn’t rescue everyone. And not everyone working in this club wanted or needed rescuing.
Just then, the door flew open as a group of strippers, waitresses, lap dancers, and bar maids trooped in, laugh- ing, cursing, talking, many of them pulling five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar bills from their G-strings or thigh- high fishnet stockings. The pounding beat of that old Mötley Crüe song “Girls, Girls, Girls” could be heard through the open door, coming from the DJ station.
Also, through the open doorway, she could see the raised circular stage with its spokes leading out into the crowd, up close and personal. At any one time, a dozen girls were dancing. Another dozen would be doing lap dances in semi-private alcoves.
A regular meat factory! Ironically, that’s just what this former warehouse had been . . . a huge meat packing plant.
And none of these activities included those upstairs, which was why Fleur and her “posse” of nuns were here tonight with the Rogues.
“Gentlemen, let’s give a warm—no, hot—welcome to the next round of ladies,” the DJ yelled out. The door hadn’t closed tightly. “Chocolate Cream. Bubble Icious. Fanny Bigguns. Ms. Demeanor. Moana Bigona.”
Yep, this was a high-class place, all right.
Fleur rolled her eyes as the air compressor door finally swooshed shut, muting the club noise. Just then, she noticed one of her religious cohorts, Sister Carlotta, leaning her forehead against the wall, muttering something. Lottie was working as a waitress, not a topless one in the bar, but a regularly dressed one in the coffee shop. Her uniform was similar to Fleur’s, except shorter, and she wore the proverbial high heels. She wore a wig, too, but hers was black and cut into a straight bob. Attractive, actually.
Fleur went up to her and whispered, “Lottie, are you all right?”
Lottie nodded, then turned to face her. “I was praying. This place just gets to me. How disgusting! And sad!”
“I know what you mean.”
Carlotta waved the ten-dollar bill in front of Fleur and said, “A man stuck this in my blouse, then had the nerve to ask if I had five dollars in change. This place feels like hell.”
Or a leper colony. Fleur barely stifled a laugh. Car- lotta wasn’t that old—about twenty-five—but she’d been in a conventional Spanish convent since she was thirteen. The philosopher John Milton’s “cloistered virtue” personified.
Carlotta, like many other humble nuns who cherished the insular life of prayer and meditation inside the walls of an abbey, was a victim of the upheaval in all the flagging religious orders, male and female, throughout the world. The old ways no longer worked.


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Sandra Hill is a graduate of Penn State and worked for more than ten years as a features writer and education editor for publications in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Writing about serious issues taught her the merits of seeking the lighter side of even the darkest stories.


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Location: Sundebru, Norway
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