Monday, 8 February 2016

Excerpt Reveal: RoomHate by Penelope Ward





RoomHate Excerpt
Copyright © 2016 by Penelope Ward


My heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest. Watching this whole thing unfold had made me totally lose sense of reality. I felt like I’d been experiencing every movement, every feeling right along with him, except I wasn’t allowed to come. It was as if I’d seriously lost my mind in the process. That was the only thing that could possibly explain why my body decided to betray me, letting out an involuntary sigh….moan? I wasn’t sure and couldn’t even tell you what it was except to say whatever sound I made caused Justin to jump back. His head whipped toward me, and his shocked eyes met mine for a brief second before I ran back down the stairs.
Humiliated.
Mortified.
My heart felt like it was in my mouth. Escaping out the front door and down to the water, I continued to run aimlessly on the sand. At one point, about a mile down the beach, it became necessary to stop and catch my breath, even though I wanted to keep running. I’d gotten so wrapped up in Justin that I’d forgotten how sick I was this afternoon. It was all hitting me again as I stumbled over to the shoreline and vomited into the ocean.
I collapsed into the sand and must have sat there for over an hour. The sun was starting to go down, and the tide was coming in. It felt like everything was closing in on me. I knew I couldn’t avoid going home forever.
What if he told Jade what I’d done?
That I was watching him.
Oh God.
He was going to crucify me for this.
What excuse could I possibly give him that would explain why I was hiding behind his door, watching him ejaculate like it was a Fourth of July fireworks performance?
I decided that I needed to get home before Jade did. Maybe I could convince him not to say anything. Brushing the sand off my thighs, I made my way back over to the house.
My heart nearly stopped upon finding Justin standing in the kitchen, drinking out of a half-gallon of orange juice. I stood silently behind him and watched as he put the container back.
Justin turned around and finally noticed me standing there. His hair was wet, making it appear brown instead of blonde. He must have taken a shower to wash away the awkwardness of our encounter. Looking painfully handsome in a brown distressed t-shirt that fit his chest like a glove, he just stared me down.
Here it comes.
I braced myself for his humiliating words. My heart was beating out of my chest as he just continued to look at me blankly without saying anything. He slowly walked toward me, and all of the muscles in my body tightened. He was going to get in my face and do it.
Shit.



RoomHate releases on February 15th!
Pre-order your copy here:



From New York Times Bestselling Author, Penelope Ward, comes a new standalone novel.

Sharing a summer house with a hot-as-hell roommate should be a dream come true, right?

Not when it’s Justin…the only person I’d ever loved…who now hates me.

When my grandmother died and left me half of the house on Aquidneck Island, there was a catch: the other half would go to the boy she helped raise.

The same boy who turned into the teenager whose heart I broke years ago.

The same teenager who’s now a man with a hard body and a hardass personality to match.

I hadn’t seen him in years, and now we’re living together because neither one of us is willing to give up the house.

The worst part? He didn’t come alone.

I’d soon realize there’s a thin line between love and hate. I could see through that smug smile. Beneath it all…the boy is still there. So is our connection.

The problem is…now that I can’t have Justin, I’ve never wanted him more.

Author's note – RoomHate is a full-length standalone novel. Due to strong language and sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18.



Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author. She grew up in Boston with five older brothers and spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor, before switching to a more family-friendly career. She is the proud mother of a beautiful 11-year-old girl with autism and a 9-year-old boy. Penelope and her family reside in Rhode Island.

Sign up for Penelope’s mailing list now to be the first one notified of releases: http://eepurl.com/MnXoH 





Other books from Penelope Ward

Sins of Sevin

Cocky Bastard

Stepbrother Dearest

Gemini

Jake Undone (Jake #1)

My Skylar

Jake Understood (Jake #2)

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Location: Gjerstad, Norway

Spotlight & Excerpt: Anything More Than Now by Rebecca Paula




Noah
Dusk settles over us, an inky light veils Reagan’s tanned body a couple of days later. She smiles back at me over her shoulder, her hand clutched tightly in mine as she leads us through the cool, tall grass. I drove deeper into the ranch where there’s nothing but fields and endless sky and promises of good. I study the line of her back from her cropped top and those denim shorts of hers. She’s curves and soft sweeping lines, no angles. I’m convinced her barefoot on a summer night might be the sexiest thing yet.
“Are you sure you want to go back to the house?” she asks. Maybe she asks twice because she stops and tugs me closer. “Noah?”
I brush the back of my hand against my forehead, my skin sticky from working on the house all day. My body feels stretched and alive after the work, like a good runner’s high except this is bone deep. I want to kiss her so badly, but instead I take her hand and twirl her in a slow circle so her loose hair fans out and brushes over her sun-kissed shoulders.
“It’s like dancing in the sky,” she says in a husky whisper.
If I could keep her, if we could have more than this moment, I think everything in life would work out finally. Realistically, I know we can’t have anything more than now. And I plan to make the most of it.
Reagan shimmies her hips, raising her hands up in the air as she lets go and dances. Fireflies dart and flicker around her, the moon finally in the sky, and the Montana night has fully settled in. Between crickets and my heartbeat, it’s just her softly humming to herself as she dances for me.
I reach out and hook my fingers inside the waist of her shorts and drag her against me. She gazes up dreamily, still humming, her eyes wide and sleepy. “I love you,” I whisper. It just falls out and as soon I as hear the words, I stiffen.
Her hand skirts up my bare chest and curls around the back of my neck. “What a perfectly dumb thing to say about a girl like me.”
I smile because she’s not backing away. Judging by her smile, she’s teasing, so I take my chances and press more. “I think it’s a perfectly true thing to say.”
“Tell me, Noah, how does a girl like me respond to that? From a boy like you?” She pushes up to the balls of her feet and kisses my chin, scratching her nails along the back of my neck and I’m instantly turned on. Completely. Her lips spread into a smile over my jaw as she feels me hard against her middle. “I want today to last forever,” she says, her breath warm over my skin. She slides her body closer, her hands growing greedy. “Tell me we have a thousand more days like today.”
I could lie. Holy hell, do I want to lie, but my lips meet hers instead and I kiss her until the truth is there, until we both know we can’t because her life is going one way and mine another, if at all. We have tonight and another two days and maybe emails or texts later. We don’t have anything permanent and maybe that’s why I told her what I did. Maybe that’s why she didn’t run away.
I just want to believe there’s more.




Reagan Landry is months away from college graduation, but instead of excitement, she’s frozen by the fear of letting go — of her ex-boyfriend, of the comfortable life she created for herself in Portland, of the years-long search for her older sister who abandoned her as a homeless teen. When she’s finally forced to decide what’s next, Reagan is met with another complication — her ex’s best friend, Noah Burke, who seems determined that she embraces what could be instead of what has been.
Drunkenly hooking up with his best friend’s ex, Reagan, is a mistake, but being secretly in love with her is so much worse when things seem one-sided. A disenchanted frat boy about to fail out of college, Noah has been living out someone else’s dream after a horrible accident five years earlier. Just when he thinks he’s lost any chance he has with Reagan, she surprises him by agreeing to spend the summer together at his family’s ranch in Montana.
And suddenly what started out as a complication between them becomes serious...until the past starts ripping apart their future.


AMAZON     B&N     iBOOKS     KOBO


Rebecca writes smart, emotional New Adult and historical romances featuring flawed characters struggling to find their place in the world, from Paris to Portland. She’s a lover of rainy days, an unabashed anglophile, and a devote Earl Grey tea drinker. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and their very spoiled cat, Bella. A wanderlust connoisseur, Rebecca can be caught daydreaming about her next travel adventure when not writing.
She is the author of EVERLY AFTER, BETWEEN EVERYTHING AND US, and the upcoming releases ETIQUETTE WITH THE DEVIL, A PROPER SCANDAL, and ANYTHING MORE THAN NOW.
Rebecca loves hearing from readers and writers. You can follow her on Twitter @beckapaula or find out more about her and her books at www.rebeccapaula.com.

REBECCA'S READERS     NEWSLETTER     TWITTER     FACEBOOK     AMAZON PAGE     WEBSITE


Catch up on the Sutton College Series:
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Location: Gjerstad, Norway

Cover Reveal: Slave To The Rhythm by Jane Harvey-Berrick.



We are delighted to bring you the cover of Jane Harvey-Berrick’s newest novel.

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Dance like the world is watching…
Dance. Guns.
Music. Bullets.
Rhythm. Pain.
Music in my head, dance in my body, the rhythm of my heart.
How far can you fall in just one month? How quickly can the human spirit be broken? Where does evil hide in plain sight?

Ash wants to dance. Needs it. To leave behind a life of expectation and duty, to set his soul free.
But life is never that simple. Every step is a journey on a new road.
For every action, there is a reaction.
Every choice has a consequence.
And when you meet the wrong person, all bets are off.
Laney tolerates her limitations, pushing quietly at boundaries. But when Ash crashes into her world through rage and violence, it sets off a chain reaction that neither of them expected.

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Laney POV
“Hi, I’m Ash. Are you by yourself?”
It was hard to be sure over the pounding music, but it sounded as if he had an accent. Something Eastern European, perhaps Russian? Polish?
I gave him a polite but closed smile, a cool smile that hid all warmth, a smile for slow servers and rude cab drivers. A smile for men I didn’t trust.
“No. I’m here with my friends.”
The man looked around him, then shrugged theatrically. “I don’t see them. Would you like to dance?”
And he held out his hand, obviously assuming that I would say yes.
I laughed.
“No, I’m not dancing.”
He frowned, his hand still suspended between us. “But you like to dance?”
I stopped laughing and stared, my gaze sinking into his, puzzled, annoyed.
“What makes you think I like to dance?”
He shrugged again and his hand fell to his side.
“You’re in a nightclub, and you’re not drinking. So you must be here to dance. Please, dance with me.”
He held out his hand again, but I shook my head impatiently. “Then go find someone who will dance with you.”
His eyes widened with surprise, and then he grinned as he leaned on the table, his perfect face inches from mine. “Maybe I want to dance with you.”
“Then you’ll be waiting a long time.”
He cocked his head to one side and I noticed a small beauty spot, shaped like a teardrop beneath his left eye—a perfect imperfection. Up close I could see that he was younger than I’d thought, younger than me perhaps, maybe early twenties. My eyes dropped to his lips and then to his throat. I could see a thin silver chain around his neck.
“I’m a good dancer,” he said, looking almost wounded at my continued refusal.
He wasn’t lying, but my anger, smoldering beneath the surface, ignited.
“I’m not dancing!”
“But everyone comes here to dance,” he insisted, his intense dark eyes so focused, it was unnerving.
“Not me,” I insisted.
He was making me anxious now and I glanced around for my friends.
“You’ll have a good time.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I snapped, losing patience. “Your last friend seemed to enjoy herself immensely.”
A dull red flooded his cheeks and he looked away.
His reaction surprised me. I’d hurt his feelings, but I wasn’t sure why.
“Maybe I’d like to dance with a pretty girl for a change,” he said softly, glancing up at me from beneath long dark lashes.
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“What it would be like to dance with him like that, to be swept away, to float, to glide, to caress his skin, to move with him through the music, the music that enslaved him”

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For as long as I can remember, I wanted to write. Perhaps it was growing up in a village well known for its mystery and folklore, which sparked my imagination as a child.
I enjoy writing in several different genres, and I've just published my first romcom, 'Dazzled'.
All my books have a little me in them, and I'm inspired by the personal stories of those around me. It's often from a simple discussion overheard in the train ('Exposure'), in a café, or in the street, where ideas for characters or scenes come to me.
I fell in love with both Sam ('The New Samurai') and the eponymous Sebastian in 'The Education of Sebastian' and the sequel 'The Education of Caroline', and missed them desperately once I'd finished their stories. I love writing dialogue and always try to include touches of humour in the most poignant stories.
Whether you like adult romance novels, new or young adult writing, thrillers, or fantasy, I hope you'll enjoy the journey through my stories.



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Location: Gjerstad, Norway
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