Thursday 16 June 2016

Upcoming New Release: Heavy Hitters by Taylor V. Donovan



Heavy Hitters
Caribbean Tales #1
By: Taylor V. Donovan
Releasing June 24, 2016
Self-Published


Heavy Hitters


Caribbean Tales Series

*Standalone Gay Romance Saga

His toughest opponent is himself.

World Boxing Champion Santino Malavé González has been fighting since he was a kid. Poverty, domestic violence, and emotional abuse were early contenders. Guilt and self-loathing were beaten into him at an impressionable age, and now machismo, an integral part of the Latino culture, rules his life. In the ring he’s undefeated. Outside the ropes life constantly hits him below the belt. It takes a sucker punch from his best friend to finally knock the denial out of him and force him to face his true nature like a real man.

A natural born entertainer, Luca Jenaro Betancur Ferrer has grown up serving God, performing, pursuing a career in music, and celebrating life among his tight-knit Catholic family under the scorching Puerto Rican sun. Singing the wrong note on stage is not a mistake the multi-platinum award-winning singer would ever allow. Falling in love with a man is not a transgression his devout family may ever accept. The ties that bind him are strong, but the pull toward his childhood best friend may just be enough to tear it all to shreds.

Anger, mistakes, bigotry, and the need to conform put up a good fight throughout their life journeys. Their religious and chauvinistic society constantly challenges their pursuit of happiness, and only time will tell if their relationship will survive the battles, or if they’ll lose each other by technical knockout. 


Link to Follow Tour: HERE
Déjalo tranquilo, canto ’e borrachón!” Santi couldn’t see him, but he knew Julito had jumped their dad from behind. Julito had done the same thing many times to protect him and Mami. This wasn’t the first night Papi showed up drunk and completely out of control. “Leave him alone!”
You want a taste of my belt too, you fucking freeloader?” Papi reached behind him and yanked Julito’s hair. “I don’t give a shit that you’re twenty years old. You should be married and out of my house already.”
Santi got up from the floor and walked toward the bed on trembling legs. He positioned himself between his mom and his dad. He couldn’t let Papi hit her again. His fist was too big. It hurt too much.
I’ve stayed here to protect Mami and my brother and sister from you.” Julito bit Papi’s forearm and punched him in his side. “And don’t call me a freeloader. I happen to have a job. Do you remember what that is?”
Santi blinked rapidly and took a peek at his mom. She was still crying and holding her nose.
Who the fuck do you think you are?” Papi grunted, trying to free himself from Julito’s hold but failing miserably, thank God. He was running out of steam. The alcohol was getting the best of him.
I’m the one who took a shit job as a bellhop at a local parador so I could watch over my family and bring some money to the house,” Julito said, his arm firmly wrapped around Papi’s neck.
You can’t talk to me that way.”
I’m the one who’s had enough of watching you beat my mother and little brother to a pulp,” Julito kept going. “I’m the one who’s tired of seeing you sabotage Santi’s boxing career.”
He can’t have a boxing career,” Papi snarled, and Santi took a step back. “He’s a fucking pato. He has no place in the ring, and that’s your mother’s fault. The only reason I hit her is because she gave me a maricón for a son.”
I’ll have a boxing career. I’m gonna get married and have kids, and they’re gonna have all the things you didn’t give me,” Santi yelled. “I’ll have the best boxing career ever. I’m not a maricón. I’m gonna prove you wrong!”
I’ll believe it when I see it,” he literally spat out. “Tell you what. If that ever happens, I’ll kiss your goddamn feet and beg you for forgiveness.”
Then get ready for it,” Santi growled, “because I swear on Ma’s life I’ll never be gay, and you’ll be groveling in no time.”
There. That should convince his equally superstitious dad of how serious Santi really was. If he were lying, he’d never tempt fate like that. Not when there were so many bad spirits out there trying to get theirs.
Santi has the potential to reach the top,” Julito stated. “He’s won the Silver Gloves three times, and he’ll win the National Golden Gloves if he gets a chance to compete. He’s motivated. Unlike me, he can be a champion, and you haven’t done a damn thing to help him achieve his dream.”
He needs to learn to behave like a man before he can—”
I am a man.” Heat flushing through his body, Santi swatted his dad’s arm when he threw a punch. “I make money and buy my own things. I’m more man than you’ve ever been,” he blurted, sick of hearing the same thing over and over.
Julito tightened his choke hold and pulled Papi away from Santi. “What he needs is a good trainer that will help him be mentally and physically stronger,” he carried on in a firm tone. “We all know a few trainers who’d love to work with Santi, so finding one shouldn’t be hard. Hell, Tío Miguel is willing and ready to take him, even though you’ve been a total shit to your own brother and mom.”
He won’t get any of that,” Papi yelled, thumping his chest. “I’m the only one who was willing to work with him.”
Santi fisted his hands by his side. “I can get anything I want.” He fought the urge to introduce his right jab to his dad’s face. His jaw looked very tempting right about now.
You know that’s not true, Pa.” Julito said as he gave him a look, warning him to stay put. “But even if it were, you’re not good for Santi.”
Papi thumped his chest repeatedly. “I’m the best trainer he could ever have.”
Julito laughed humorlessly. “Promoters don’t want to deal with you.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “You’re toxic. Everything around you is toxic and the environment you provide isn’t good for Santi. We don’t have money to pay for memberships and gyms and no one will touch him as long as you’re around. We’ve got to find sponsors willing to pick up the tab, and you’ve alienated everyone. Santi needs a good team in his corner, and he’ll get it in a heartbeat if you’d just step aside. He has a chance, Pa. Stop messing with his head and let him go.”
Santi gulped and looked at his older brother. Julito’s support and confidence in his ability meant the world to him. He was so touched he could’ve hugged Julito—if only men were allowed to express themselves that way.
He doesn’t deserve a boxing career. None of you do! I dedicated years of my life to train all of you, and for what?” Papi yelled, throwing his arms in the air and glaring at Santi. “Héctor decided he wanted money more than he wanted to go pro, you were a disgrace in the boxing ring, always complaining about the pain, and this little pussy turned out to be a maricón.” He spat on the floor and tried to kick Santi. “You’re a bunch of good for nothings… Buenos para nada… You’ve wasted my time.”
I’m not a maricón,” Santi said, swiftly moving to the side. “I’m not.” Breaths bursting in and out, he gripped the mattress and swallowed hard.
Mami was right. He hadn’t touched a boy. He certainly wasn’t in love with one. He could fix himself. It wasn’t too late to make things right.
He didn’t want people laughing at him.
He didn’t want to get sick.
He didn’t want to die.
Héctor didn’t decide he wanted money more than he wanted to go pro. He decided he needed to eat better and buy clothes for us and himself more than he wanted to fight,” Omayra said from the door. “He had to make money fast. You weren’t providing for us, and Mami was working herself to death trying to make ends meet. She’s still doing the same. You’ve destroyed this family. Vanessa got pregnant as soon as she could because she was desperate to get away from you, and now you won’t even let her come visit us!” Breathing noisily, she pointed a trembling finger at him and screamed, “You’ve done nothing for any of us other than criticize, put Mami down, and beat on her and the boys.”
Should’ve beaten the shit out of you, too,” Papi spat. “I should’ve shown you your damn place. You’re sixteen years old. It’s time you learned.”
Stay out of this, Omayra,” Mami said softly, wiping blood from her nose. “Please.”
My place will never be under the fist of a man,” Omayra rolled her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Not even my dad’s. Things have changed. Women work, run countries, lead in lots of fields, and we have a say in a relationship!”
Santi looked at his sister with bulging eyes. “Don’t talk,” he mouthed at her, even though he’d been doing the same seconds earlier. “He’ll go after you.”
And if he does, I’ll punch the shit out of him. I’ll punch him until he’s swallowing blood and begging me to let him go.
A sudden coldness hit his core. He barely recognized himself. He didn’t know what was going on in his head.
Talking back to one’s parents wasn’t acceptable, not even when one was a grown-up. They all knew that, and, usually everyone stayed out of Papi’s way when he was drunk, but tonight they all seemed bent on egging him on. Santi knew he couldn’t take on any more abuse, and Omayra had always been outspoken about her opinions on machismo and domestic violence. But Julito kept quiet more often than not. He made sure things didn’t get more violent than usual without saying a word. So what the hell was he doing tonight?


**To Be Confirmed***

Taylor V. Donovan is a compulsive reader and author of gay romance and suspense. She is optimistically cynical about humanity and a lover of history, museums, and all things 80s. She shamelessly indulges in mind-numbing reality television, is crazy about fashion, and passionate about civil rights and equality for all.
When she’s not writing or making a living in the busiest city in the world, Taylor can be found raising her two daughters and their terribly misbehaved furry baby in their home.

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Spotlight: Lovegame by Tracy Wolff


Blog Tour Kit: Lovegame by Tracy Wolff

The stakes are high in LOVEGAME, when a movie star with a shattered past meets a man who can either break her or make her whole. USA Today and New York Times bestselling author, Tracy Wolff, returns with a novel full of seduction and desire. Fans of Tiffany Reisz’ The Siren or Lauren Dane’s Laid Bare will fall in love with Ian and Veronica, a true crime novelist and movie star, who steam up the pages in LOVEGAME.




True Crime novelist Ian Sharpe has spent his career writing about serial killers for very personal reasons. For his latest exposé, he is taking on the sadistic madman known as the Red Ribbon Strangler, and when his research leads him to Hollywood’s most private and provocative actress, he will break every rule to uncover her truth.
The daughter of one of Hollywood’s golden couples, chased by paparazzi and treated as a commodity her entire life, Veronica Romero wields her sex appeal like a weapon. She expects Ian to be as easy to control as every other man she’s ever known. But from the beginning, he refuses to fall into line. Mysterious and cool, challenging and just a little bit dangerous, Ian somehow makes her feel safe—even as he digs into the deepest secrets of her life and pushes her to the breaking point.
As raw ecstasy gives way to agonized truths, their dark obsession exposes secrets that have been buried for far too long. Ian wants to tear down her walls and heal the sensual woman underneath. But if Veronica’s learned anything, it’s that the line between pleasure and pain is a narrow one—and when caught between them the only thing that matters is how you play the game.
Find out more at: Tracy’s Website


I take picture after picture, with a vintage champagne glass in my hand or my face buried in a huge bouquet of dahlias. Toward the end, Marc has the stylist and his assistant wrap me up in a long string of artificial belladonna since the real stuff can cause problems if it touches the skin. Then they heap my gloved hands with a mountain of the poisonous black berries and Marc has me hold my hands out to the camera in a deadly macabre offering.
Again and again Marc shoots me like that, taking pictures from every possible angle. On his knees in front of me, looking up. From a ladder above me, looking down. Beside me. Behind me. Across the room. Up close. Again and again he points and clicks. Again and again, I smile and pout and make every other expression he asks for. I even take his suggestion to tilt my head back with my mouth open wide and hold one of the berries between my thumb and index finger as I pretend to be about to drop it in. As I do, I close my eyes and pretend not to be totally icked out.
When I open them two minutes and twenty shots later, the first person I see is Ian. He’s leaning back against one of the mirrored walls and for once his omnipresent notebook is nowhere to be seen. Instead he’s staring straight at me, a half-snarl on his normally calm face and his eyes burning with a mixture of contempt and desire.
It’s the first time I’ve seen anything but pleasant or puzzled interest from him and it has the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Has ice skating down my spine and a desert taking up residence in my mouth. Because, in that moment, as our eyes lock and his turn impossibly darker, impossibly blacker, I don’t know who he sees. Can’t tell who he wants.
Me or her?
Actress or murderer?
Sentient being or a character he helped create?
It’s just more fuel to add to the fire of my earlier doubts and in that one tense and electric moment, it comes to me. What the cover shot should be.
What I need it to be.
Marc backs off a little, has his assistant come forward with a trash bag for me to throw away the last of the berries and the gloves I’ve been wearing. As she pauses to tie up the bag in front of me, I ask her for a couple wipes.
She quickly returns with a box of baby wipes and I smile my thanks even as Marc instructs me back against the mirror for what he calls “the last series of shots.”
I do as he instructs, but as he’s fiddling with the lighting, I turn toward the mirror and swipe the wipe over the right half of my face.
“What are you doing?” my makeup artist squawks as he comes racing across the room at me.
“Trust me, Dalton,” I tell him as I continue to scrub.
“Stop doing that!” he orders as he grabs on to the end of the wipe and actually tries to wrestle it away from me.
“Just wait,” I instruct, refusing to let go no matter how hard he tugs.
“But—”
“What are you up to, Veronica?” Marc asks. He sounds more intrigued than annoyed.
“I’ll show you,” I tell him, pushing gently at Dalton’s hand until he finally lets go with a whimper.
And then, with the whole room—including Ian—watching me intently, I wipe the entire half side of my face clean of any and all makeup. I do it carefully, making sure that the line that runs down the center of my face is exact so that both sides are completely symmetrical.
When I’m done, I reach up and take off my right earring and hand it to Dalton who still looks slightly shell-shocked. Then I step back and stare at this new reflection of myself in the mirror.
Half me at my most natural, half her at her most armored, it’s a devastating look. Made even more so by the elaborate fifties makeup Dalton has me in—all red lips and thick black liner and long, long lashes.
There is a difference, I tell myself fiercely as I study myself. I am not her. I will never be her, no matter what it felt like four months ago.
In the background I’m aware of Marc cursing softly, of him snapping picture after picture. I don’t turn around, instead continuing to give him my back so that he gets both me and my reflection in each shot.
“Turn around,” he breathes after he’s taken at least three dozen pictures.
Reluctantly, I do as he requests, then follow his impatient gesture for me to move away from the mirror. I step forward and then the camera starts again, clicking away to get the shot from this angle as well.
At that moment, Ian moves and I make the mistake of glancing his way. Our gazes lock and heat slams through me at the look he’s giving me, has my eyes widening and my lips parting on a gasp as I struggle to draw air into lungs that have abruptly forgotten how to work.
“Fuck,” Marc breathes from where he’s narrowing in on my face. “That’s it. That’s the money shot.”
I drag my eyes away from Ian, but it’s too late. For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel vulnerable. And I hate every second of it.

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Tracy Wolff collects books, English degrees and lipsticks and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven she forayed into the wonderful world of girls lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten she’d read everything in the young adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mom started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, Tracy knew she’d found her life-long love. Now an English professor at her local community college, she writes romances that run the gamut from sweet contemporary to erotica, from paranormal to Urban Fantasy and from young adult to new adult.


1 winner will receive a $35 Amazon Giftcard and copies of the Ethan Frost Trilogy by Tracy Wolff

New Release Spotlight: Struck From The Record by K.A. Linde



STRUCK FROM THE RECORD
By K.A Linde
Release Date: June 7, 2016


Clay Maxwell is a smart, quick witted, sex-driven, manwhore with the good looks to match. Plenty of women have shared his bed, but only one has ever been constant, Andrea.
Their rules were simple. When they’re together, it’s just the two of them. When they’re apart, anything is fair game. And it worked. For ten years.
But one of them has changed the game…
Clay must decide if his player ways are worth losing the one girl who has always been there.
Yet another awesome read from K.A. Linde! Clay is HOT and BAD in the best way possible, you won’t be able to put it down! I literally was begging for more!” -A.L. Jackson, NYT Bestselling Author

Amazon      iBooks      B&N      Kobo     Paperback 


“What’s going on?” Andrea asked.
Liz plopped into the chair next to Andrea. “It is a madhouse! Be glad that Clay is already with you,” she said, brushing her long blonde hair out of her face. “Brady got all caveman on me when I said I had to find my own seat! He didn’t want me to leave his side, but it’s not like I can sit with all the congressmen!”
“He just likes having you with him,” Andrea said sensibly.
Liz brightened at the words. “Yeah. He’s a little protective.”
“A little?”
“A lot,” she admitted. “But he had to be during all the election chaos we had to deal with.”
Andrea tapped Liz on the hand. “Honey, that runs in the Maxwell blood.”
Clay snorted.
“I’ve noticed,” Liz said, looking pointedly at Clay.
“You’re lucky though,” Andrea said. “Brady is a great guy. A respectable man. It was nice to see him settle down and with someone who could keep up with him.”
That sounded strangely like a compliment. Clay had never really been sure what Andrea thought of Liz. Their first meeting, in which Andrea had called Liz boring and promptly told him not to fuck her, had been pretty memorable. Since then, the two hadn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot, but it seemed that they both were becoming more accommodating to the other. He didn’t even know when that had happened. He seemed to be missing a lot lately.
Liz shot Andrea a surprised look, and then her gaze moved down to her engagement ring. “I’m glad to see him settle down, especially with everything we’ve been through.”
“This is good for you two.”
“Thanks, Andrea,” Liz said with a warm smile.
Clay pretended not to be paying attention when Liz leaned over and whispered to Andrea, “And what about you and your Maxwell brother? Can you get the black-sheep bad boy to settle down? Can you tame his ways?”
Andrea laughed. “I don’t want to tame him. I like him the way he is—wild and mine.”





K.A. Linde is the USA Today bestselling author of the Avoiding series and the All That Glitters series as well as seven additional novels. She grew up as a military brat traveling the United States and even landing for a brief stint in Australia. She has a Masters degree in political science from the University of Georgia and is the current head coach of the Duke University dance team.
An avid traveler, reader, and bargain hunter, K.A. currently live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband and two super adorable puppies.