Book worlds are the best worlds!
Firstly, welcome new subscribers…hi. Nice to have you here!
So, no doubt the rest of you all know that I don’t have the world’s best coping mechanisms, which is why I’m hoping you’ll excuse me for escaping reality by writing and reading all the time.
When the real world just…gets too much, there is always book world. There’s no pandemic, no financial worries, and everyone gets a happily ever after, even if they have to fight like hell for it, sometimes.
That being said, I had a weird realisation this week with The Wedding vs. The Baby as I started to get feedback from alpha readers, but I’ll go into that in the Cruise Control update.
Before that, I’ve got two BookFunnel giveaways, one StoryOrigin giveaway, and five books to tell you about.
Also…THERE’S A NEW CHAPTER OF SEBASTIAN! *does a victory dance for actually managing that this week*
GIVEAWAYS
This one is a BookFunnel giveaway with 133 books in it. There’s a combination of full books, samples, and chapters from all romance genres in this one.
| There’s 72 books in this StoryOrigin giveaway and holy heck, some of them are steeeeeamy! They are all definitely worth checking out. |
Click here to check out the books
This is another BookFunnel promotion with 168 books in it, all of them are available in Kindle Unlimited, but you can also buy them if you’re not a KU subscriber.
BOOKS
Luca Barresi. The crowned prince of the Mafia’s New Orleans empire. He stalks through the streets like a shadow in the night and his path is one I never meant to cross.
He’s cold, conniving… and my new captor after raining hellfire down on the jazz club I called home. A ruthless playboy, the only thing bigger than the collection of notches on his bedpost is the list of men he’s murdered in cold blood. And when I find the barrel of his gun pointed at me, I’m left with an impossible choice.
I know that in the end, I’ll be a casualty of his wicked games either way, but which list I find myself on is a decision he leaves in my hands.
Since I was old enough to understand I knew I was worthless. A girl child when my powerful politician of a mother prayed for a boy. Someone to mold in her image. I stayed out of her way, until I couldn’t, and she made me regret every stumble, every misstep, every breath.
Like clockwork, she paid off doctors to drag me into a mental hospital at her most crucial career moments. I rotted behind cinderblock walls for six months at a time. It became my life…until I met him.
Ash. A one night stand in the back seat of his car turns into my only solace while locked away. He pretends I’m just another patient, until I force him to see me…the woman…Kory…someone who needs him more than anyone else.
My mother is a monster. I’m nothing more than a pawn. But Ash…he’s my salvation.
Hades and Persephone like you’ve never seen them. This is magic, this is menace, this is myth…with a dark twist.
She needs a total life reboot…even if it means marrying a stranger
Taya Maverick has just volunteered to marry a random Navy SEAL as part of the military’s new spouse-matching program. What other choice does she have? Her former best friend killed her father and torched her house. Taya’s determined to start over, but to be safe she has to disappear. The program is the perfect opportunity, complete with refuge and a built-in bodyguard. Her Navy SEAL husband can keep her safe, right?
After one spectacularly disastrous marriage, Jim Stephens nixes round two. But his commanding officer never accepts no for an order. While an injury may have sidelined him temporarily, Jim still needs to salvage his career after a mistake in combat puts him in leadership’s cross-hairs. Being the first in the pilot program guarantees him his rank and eventual active duty clearance…as long as he can last the trial year.
The I dos are barely uttered before Jim and Taya realize they’ve each miscalculated. Their sizzling chemistry might lead to bed, but neither is prepared to open their heart. And then Taya’s past comes knocking…
What could be worse than being stranded on an alien planet? Or so I thought.
I wanted to uncover a secret, and I did…eventually…. when I got stuck on Valkrya.
He saves me and I think he’s HOT. Yeah, I know… he’s blue, massive and scary, BUT he treats me better than any other man I ever dated… until he doesn’t anymore.
He’s just a brute, like all the other aliens on this creepy planet… and just wants to breed me. I hate him. Or do I? I trusted him, but he’s cold and cruel… that is until he gets his memory back.
A brute? Or my true love?
Claire: A stunning psychiatrist with a doctorate degree in Psychology.
Erica: A shy, inexperienced girl, heiress of an immense fortune, who transforms into a passionate seductive woman.
Cleo: A fiery, mysterious being who holds a secret and is not who she seems.
Kostas: A business consultant.
All brought together into a game of life, power and love in the merciless world of big enterprises. Ventured in a cosmopolitan island on a luxurious yacht and taking part to a wedding with three brides and a groom!
All of the above with an intense permeating eroticism! Described by intense eroticism, passion, twists and intrigues.
CRUISE CONTROL
So, this week has been interesting. I started to get feedback from alpha readers of The Baby. While I was waiting on that, though, I started on Gabriel’s Album.
That’s the companion novel to The Album, it’s Ariana and Gabriel’s story but told from Gabriel’s first-person POV. So far, I’m about halfway through “The Second Song” and it’s definitely a lot of fun to get Gabriel’s take on things.
I’ll give you a sneak peek.
Ariana’s version:
He took her hand, and they left her apartment. She locked the door behind her, and they headed out to his car.
“Nice wheels,” she complimented him, “what sort of car is it?”
“This, my dear Ariana, is an Aston Martin Vanquish. It’s the very first thing I bought once we were signed. I absolutely love it. I’ve always wanted one!”
“Well, it’s very nice,” she told him.
The look he gave her made her laugh out loud. It was a mixture of exasperation and humor.
Gabriel’s version:
I nod, and take her hand as we head out of her apartment, then we cross the street to where I parked my car.
“Nice wheels,” she says, “what sort of car is it?”
“This, my dear Ariana, is an Aston Martin Vanquish. It’s the very first thing I bought once we were signed. I absolutely love it. I’ve always wanted one!”
“Well, it’s very nice,” she tells me.
I don’t even know what to say to that, I’ve literally never had someone tell me that my Vanquish is ‘very nice’ as though I’m a kid presenting the crayon drawing they did at daycare.
She sees the look on my face and laughs. It’s infectious and I can’t stop myself from smiling back at her.
Also, I think that I’d totally forgotten how utterly adorable Ariana and Gabriel’s story is. They’re so damn cute and I think I definitely needed to revisit this story because I wrote this so long ago that I’ve forgotten how much I do love it.
Other than that, I did something naughty…I wrote chapter one of The Stalker, I actually wrote part of chapter two, as well…then I enjoyed it so much that I rewrote it from Hayden’s POV which means that chapters one and a half of Hayden’s Stalker exist now, too.
I’m already in love with Tatiana, she’s freaking amazing. I had to write the sneak peek for the end of The Baby and I was inspired. I was about to link it, but then I realised that it includes spoilers for The Baby (kind of). Instead, I’ll drop the blurb below. Then, I’ll get into book-specific stuff!
Rule number one: Never sleep with the client. Especially, if they’re a hot rock star.
Tatiana Swanson isn’t afraid of anything. She’s learned to harness her fears in her job working as a specialist security expert for high-profile clients. When she’s hired to protect Hayden Vega from his stalker, she approaches it the same way she would with any other contract.
She’s used to working in close quarters with her clients, but Hayden is funny and sexy, and she finds herself longing to be far less than professional with him. Can Tatiana and Hayden find love together when he’s supposed to be nothing more than a job for her? Will she be able to keep him safe, or will the ever-present danger of the person who is after him become all too real?
The final installment in the Cruise Control series by Sian Ceinwen will have you on the edge of your seat. A steamy romantic suspense novel that will keep you up late at night, wanting to know more.
THE WEDDING – HEATHER AND HARRISON
So, I’m not even joking, but I think that writing The Wedding fully traumatised me. I heard “Like No One Does” by Jake Scott on Spotify this week and it is so Heather and Harrison.
It is painful for me to listen to, the same as “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran is. These songs just remind me of them and that is enough to kill me, apparently. It’s my favourite book, but I haven’t been able to go back and reread it since I finished the editing process.
I cannot stress enough that knowing they get a happily ever after is not enough for me to not struggle to read this book. I am absolutely dreading when I have to write Harrison’s Wedding. Nope, nope, nope…you guys are cool if we skip that one, right?
Awesome. So, it’s agreed. The heroine series is four books, the hero series is three books. Or, maybe I could write Harrison’s Super Fun Happy Years With Heather Before Siân Started Documenting Their Lives, instead? I think it’s a catchy title. 😝
THE BABY – LITA AND SEBASTIAN
Gah…okay, so part of why I mentioned my emotional response to The Wedding is because the alpha readers have come back with feedback on The Baby and it’s not pretty.
Good news, nobody has a problem with the length…bad news, it’s too nice. Very enjoyable to read, but it’s…bland. I was speaking to D about this and she suggested that maybe after The Wedding, I just wanted to write something light and funny and easy.
I think that she’s spot on. I mean, there’s also a whole host of reasons why Lita and Sebastian basically cruise along being surprisingly mature about shit, but, now I need to go back and fuck shit up.
I’ve already rewritten the first three chapters and the person whose opinion I was most concerned about, Mum, read them today and was okay with the direction it’s going.
Can we take a second to appreciate how awesome my mum is for being my biggest fan? I’m not sure how she’ll feel about some of the later changes, though. She’s very attached to the book as it is, so am I. I even said to the alpha readers, “this version will always be canon for me, but fine, I’ll rewrite it to give it more drama”. Okay, I’ll admit…I was sulking at the time.
I’ve said over and over that I was worried about this, though. I think that I just needed to tell the story I wanted to tell, then I could go back and change it. As I’m writing this email, I’m realising that I was definitely scarred by The Wedding and The Baby as it currently stands won’t do that to anyone.
Ally said to me, “they want emotional torture p**n!” 🤣
Let’s be honest, I gave you that with The Album and doubled down on it with The Wedding, so I should probably meet those expectations with The Baby. I’ve also had a lot of people on Facebook telling me how much they’re looking forward to Sebastian’s story, so I’d better reassess and make it far more eventful, I guess. Pressure!
It’ll be interesting to see how the rewrite goes. It’s going to be a massively different story, I know that much!
SEBASTIAN – YOUNG ADULT CRUISE CONTROL
Last but not least, I updated Sebastian today. Chapter 12 – The Book of Gabriel is up now and if you haven’t even started Sebastian, yet, you can click here to start from the beginning.
For those who don’t know, it’s a serialised YA novel of Cruise Control from when they first met at a music band camp when they were in their teens. It’s totally free to read it on Wattpad.
All that being said, it’s time for me to go to bed. I’m not going to lie, I’ve started doing that thing where I play out scenes in my head when I’m going to sleep. The ones I’m doing now are from later in The Stalker.
For years, my go-to bedtime scene to play out was one from…late in The Album. I write all my books from start to finish, so finally getting to write that scene was my reward for finishing the rest of the book! Without giving spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read The Album, yet, I rewrote that scene from Heather’s perspective as the sneak peek for The Wedding.😉
Anyway, I hope you’ve had a great weekend and happy reading!
