New Release Spotlight & Review: Claimed By Love by Melissa Foster.

Claimed By Love
Love in Bloom: The Ryders #2

By: Melissa Foster

Releasing March 23, 2016
World Literary Press


Claimed by Love

Love in Bloom,The Ryders

Family law attorney Gabriella Liakos has one true love, Elpitha Island, where she grew up and hopes someday to return. But Elpitha is in financial ruins, and Gabriella will do anything to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

Duke Ryder is a savvy real estate investor set on making Elpitha into an exclusive resort. Unlike other investors, he's not scared of purchasing a property where one family has roots so deep they practically reach the ocean floor...until he meets his beautiful, stubborn, and enticing tour host―the daughter of the owner of most of the island.

Gabriella sets out to dissuade Duke from purchasing Elpitha, but Duke has other ideas. He wants Gabriella and the island. Duke's powerful seduction draws Gabriella in, but can a savvy investor who's used to glamour and glitz, and a woman interested in preserving the culture she adores find a happily ever after together?

I've read quite a few Melissa Foster books and I'm always impressed with the quality of her writing. Claimed By Love is no exception as we are introduced to Duke Ryder and Gabriella Liakos.

Duke Ryder is an investor and heading to Elpitha, South Carolina to evaluate the island and see if it's ripe to redevelop into an exclusive holiday resort for the rich. On arrival, he's instantly taken with the mix of Southern and Greek Mediterranean charm of the landscape, but even more so by the woman who'll be his tour guide.

Gabriella Liakos is a successful lawyer and back on the island where she grew up. Her grandfather has decided to sell the island and wants his granddaughter to assist in finding a suitable buyer. She's strongly against the sale and hopes to dissuade the investor who's coming to view. However, she didn't bargain on meeting a smokin' hot gentleman who won't stop until he gets what he wants...including her!

The timeline for the protagonists is short, yet this doesn't feel like an instant love story. Both Duke and Gabriella are immediately drawn to each other but have conflicting agendas – can they successfully separate business and pleasure? Gabriella is stubborn in her desire to not change and begin a relationship, whilst Duke is very persuasive and persistent. He knows what he wants and how to turn on the charm to get it! Duke is simply adorable and very patient. He uses his skills well to sweep Gabriella off her feet when he realises he's found the woman of his dreams.

The foundation of a successful relationship is trust and this is an integral part of why Gabriella and Duke's relationship moves quickly. Ms. Foster demonstrates that Duke is a competent negotiator, yet sincere with his words and promises. Gabriella is clever and no fool but correctly recognises Duke has a conscience about a sympathetic redevelopment of Elpitha. Their families is important to them both, with matchmaking relatives happy to give these smitten lovebirds a gentle push. The plot has hot and heavy scenes balanced with times for thoughtful reflection and humorous dialogue. We get a lovely insight into some Greek traditions and meet more of the Ryder clan.

The beauty of Ms. Foster's books is the cameo appearances of protagonists from the past and the introduction of new ones of the future. Claimed By Love is another such standalone.

4 stars

***arc generously received courtesy of World Literary Press via Tasty Book Tours***

Link to Follow Tour: Here

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Melissa Foster is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author. She writes contemporary romance, new adult, contemporary women’s fiction, suspense, and historical fiction with emotionally compelling characters that stay with you long after you turn the last page. Her books have been recommended by USA Today’s book blog, Hagerstown Magazine, The Patriot, and several other print venues. She is the founder of the World Literary Café and Fostering Success. When she’s not writing, Melissa helps authors navigate the publishing industry through her author training programs on Fostering Success. Melissa has been published in Calgary’s Child Magazine, the Huffington Post, and Women Business Owners magazine.

Melissa hosts an Aspiring Authors contest for children and has painted and donated several murals to The Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. Melissa lives in Maryland with her family.

Visit Melissa on social media. Melissa enjoys discussing her books with book clubs and reader groups, and welcomes an invitation to your event.

 Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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New Release Spotlight: Fair Play by Tracy A. Ward

She writes plays while her brother's best friend brings the drama in this spicy New Adult read Harlequin Junkie says is perfect for “anyone looking for a unique story line, some smouldering sex, and two people not necessary looking for their happily ever after, but they might find it anyway!”

Title: Fair Play

Author: Tracy A. Ward

Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance

Release Date: March 28, 2016

Publisher: Self-published

Format: eBook

ISBN: 9780997282702

Who knew love could bring a playwright so much drama?

Writing three plays for a nationally acclaimed theater in Phair, Texas, was never supposed to put Ashlyn Carter’s inheritance at risk or make or break her future. And it certainly wasn’t supposed to force her into constant contact with the very guy she’s avoided since her teenage crush-gone-bad days.

Noah Blake. He's Ashlyn’s enemy, for good reason. As her older brother's best friend, he seems hell-bent on interfering with nearly every aspect of her life. So how then does he also seem to be her muse?

When Ashlyn reluctantly agrees to act out scenes with Noah from the play she’s writing in order to trigger her creativity, the spark of passion she’d felt for him as a teenager flares up again. But there’s more at stake than just her future as a playwright or the inheritance she never cared about in the first place. Finding out the theater she loves is in danger of closing puts everything she thought she knew and felt about Phair…and Noah...to the test. Will there be a standing ovation for Ashlyn Carter, playwright, or will the curtain drop and fade to black? Only by facing their biggest fears together will Ashlyn and Noah learn to trust in themselves and each other.

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Here’s the set-up. Lucas Marshall, owner of The Marshall Theater, has just given Ashlyn an ultimatum—work with Noah, her big brother’s best friend and Ashlyn’s sworn enemy, to overcome her writer’s block that’s appeared at a very inopportune time (threatening her inheritance, career, and the fate of the theater itself). Noah, too, has a stake in the game. The town of Phair was founded around The Marshall. If it fails, so too will his bar. Equally important, Noah has just discovered another threat—a theater critic set on revenge against Ashlyn for a past transgression. But if there’s one thing you can count on Noah Blake to do, it’s protect what he considers his, no matter the cost. In this scene, from Noah’s point of view, he appears at Ashlyn’s door, attempting to convince her that Lucas’s plan to overcome her writer’s block and save the theater is valid.

Excerpt from Fair Play:

The door opened. She stood, blinking at me. Then, without saying a word, she pulled ear buds from her ears and placed them, along with her iPod, on the table beside the door. Her arms dropped. “I don’t have time for this, Noah.”

Stepping through the threshold, I reached for her wrist and snapped on the cuffs, an abandoned favor from last week’s bachelorette party at the Double Shot.

Her blue eyes widened, then she forced a controlled facade. She raised our conjoined wrists. “So you’re into kink. But I don’t think that’s the way this is supposed to work. Obviously, you need pointers.” She scanned the small, spartan room, consisting of a loveseat, coffee table, and a fake ficus tree. “I might have a fifty-shades-of-something book you could borrow.”

With my cuffed hand, I reached behind me and closed the door, jerking Ashlyn’s body against mine in the process.

Mistake.

My cock instantly hardened. All I could think about was how she smelled, like moonlight and summer. How her white tank clung to her torso, contoured over bare breasts to the point where I swore I could just make out the vaguest tinge of rose-colored nipples. How she turned me on without even trying, like no one ever had.

As my cuffed hand found hers and I finagled her arm so that it bent comfortably behind her back, wispy strands of auburn hair, twisted into an awkward bun at the side of her neck, tickled my face. Her pulse beneath my fingertips jumped. I inhaled her sweet scent as my heart rate went into overdrive along with hers. A primitive ache with the need to fill her settled in my bones.

But a man did not touch his best friend’s little sister. Quinn had asked me years ago to look out for her, and as we’d pledged in our fraternity as freshman, a promise once made is never broken.

“The cuffs are to prove a point,” I said. In spite of the warning going off in my head, my lips grazed her temple when my opposite arm circled her waist.

Ashlyn rose on toes, bringing us hip-to-hip so my erection was closer to where God intended, like she was testing how well we’d fit. Her eyes darkened a shade and I could tell she knew exactly what she was doing. Having her against me like this was bending the rules. Bending, I reminded myself, wasn’t breaking. She also had that weird look—the one that told me she understood what I was thinking before I did.

It was also the look she got before she became the world’s biggest smartass.

“So,” she drawled out. “Not into kink. But it appears after all these years, I’ve been wrong about you. You’re not a eunuch, after all.”

“Not even close, sweetheart.” My free hand covered her ass. My fingertips found bare skin beneath the curve of her shorts, and despite her bravado, she twitched.

About time she figured out who was in charge.

After the birth of her children, Tracy had an epiphany: banking just wasn’t her thing. So she quit her corporate job, let her nanny go and became a not-so-desperate housewife by day, Sexy Women’s Fiction author by night. Her characters are every-day women, following their dreams, searching for that elusive happily ever after.

Connect with Tracy A. Ward: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads

Rafflecopter for Cover & Blurb Giveaway:

Tracy is offering one (1) lucky Grand Prize Winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card and a digital copy of Fair Play, and five (5) Runner-up Winners a digital copy of Fair Play! To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below:

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