Money always came with strings – @PublishConquest @writersd56 #politicalromance #rivalstolovers #enemiestolovers

Blurb

“Politics makes strange bedfellows, and I’d like to keep my sheets clean."

Democratic incumbent, and Hayfield's current mayor, Jade Weatherby thought she had the mayoral race in the bag. That was until cafe owner and independent candidate, Finn Haley, joined the game.

Amidst their political rivalry and social pressures put on them by the small town's populants, Jade and Finn immediately fall for one another.

When a third candidate for mayor emerges with plans that could endanger the town, Jade and Finn are forced to make tough decisions about their careers and their growing relationship.

Genre: Political Romance

Tropes: Enemies to lovers, Social Issues

Spice: One (reference can be found at https://www.conquest-publishing.com/resources)

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Bedfellows-Steven-Donahue/dp/1962739287/

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strange-bedfellows-steven-donahue/1145830191?ean=9781962739283

 

Excerpt

The air smelled like money. Money was the one thing most attendees had in common.

There was old money, like the wealth of the Hendersons, derived from oil fields in Texas. Then there was new money, like the Charlestons, who started a dotcom for sports fans that took off like a rocket.

The room was filled with rich people eager to help finance their choice for mayor of Hayfield, Pennsylvania. At the front of the hotel ballroom stood the one person who hoped to shake some of that money off the tree and guide it into her campaign coffers.

Mayor Jade Weatherby knew the pressures of fundraising. This was her third go-around and it never got easier. Money always came with strings, and she sometimes felt like a puppet caught in a web of promises and obligations.

She opened her compact to check her makeup. At forty, the stress of two consecutive terms had begun to show. She hated the lines that ran under her eyes and the loose skin forming on her chin. She touched the edge of her face and wondered if it was time for a facelift.

Jade snapped her compact shut and watched her assistant, Raydrick Lee, walk up to the podium. The slender, black man moved so gracefully it was easy to see why he had no trouble attracting members of his own gender. Jade recalled many times when women were disappointed to find out they biologically lacked what he needed. The mayor hid her clenched fists as she nervously waited for her turn to speak. Raydrick addressed the crowd first.

“Good evening,” said Raydrick. The noise in the room dissipated. “I want to thank you all for coming tonight in support of our wonderful leader of Hayfield.” He paused as some applauded. “I am proud to work for an intelligent, passionate person who I can truly call my friend. A trailblazer for the rights of all citizens, no matter their gender, race, religious beliefs, or romantic preferences. A 21st Century leader in every sense of the word. Come on, now,” said Raydrick. “Let’s hear it for Mayor Jade Weatherby.”

The applause grew louder as Raydrick whooped up the crowd. The host stepped away from the podium as a single spotlight fell on Jade while she made her way to the microphone.

She raised her hands and flashed her best politician’s smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you all.” She turned toward her assistant as the room quieted again. “I want to take a moment to thank my right-hand man, Raydrick Lee, for his kind words and unyielding support.” More cheers filled the room before dying off.

Jade looked out at the jubilant audience. “Most people enter politics with good intentions. They feel a call to duty, a need to do what they can to improve society. JFK said it best, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country”. I believe that applies to all levels of government, from small towns like ours to big cities like Philadelphia, and capitals like Washington, D.C. Good people want to do good things.”

Jade paused for more applause.

About the Author

Steven Donahue was a copywriter for TV Guide magazine for 14 years. He is an avid reader, and his writing is inspired by the works of Ernest Hemingway, John Jakes, Ray Bradbury, and Matt Christopher. Donahue is a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, a team that brings him great joy and great sorrow on a week-by-week basis.

Currently residing in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia, Steven hopes to become successful enough to one day retire to a beach house in Ocean City, N.J.

Website: https://steven-donahues-site.yolasite.com/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@writersd56?lang=en

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writersd56/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/writersd56

Release blitz organised by Writer Marketing Services.

 

Charity Sunday: Supporting Humanity, Opposing Genocide – #CharitySunday #Sudan #Rape

Last Charity Sunday I asked whether you knew anything about Laos.

This month, I’ll ask the same question about Sudan. Do you know where it is? Do you have any idea what’s happening there?

From https://www.britannica.com/place/Sudan

If you can access the NY Times (for some reason, I can’t at the moment), then read this deeply disturbing article by Nicholas Kristof.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/28/opinion/darfur-sudan-atrocities.html

Civil war, famine, rape being used as a weapon, the Black inhabitants of Sudan targeted for elimination by Arab militias... Yes, the world is a mess, with conflict at multiple locations across the globe. With people focused on the Middle East and Ukraine, places like Sudan where the situation is even more dire but where Western countries have less at stake simply fall off the agenda.

So for today’s Charity Sunday, I’m supporting Mutual Aid Sudan, a grassroots charity recommended by Kristof that’s helping the ordinary Sudanese people survive. 

 https://mutualaidsudan.org/howwework

I will donate two dollars to MAS for each comment I receive on this post.

Closer to home: I will also donate one dollar to Be Loved Ashville, an organization providing support to people in North Carolina who have been impacted by Hurricane Helene. 

 

https://www.belovedasheville.com/

So don't be shy! Leave a comment! Get your friends to comment! Make a difference.

For my excerpt, I’m still trying to keep a Halloween/paranormal theme, so I have an excerpt from my vampire erotic romance Fin D’Espoir. The main character, vampire Etienne de Remorcy, is a former slave, shipped from Africa to Haiti, then Jamaica.

To attract sweeten the pot, I’ll give away a free copy of this book to one person who leaves a comment. I’ll draw the winner on Halloween.

 

Excerpt

“Tell me.” She lay with her head on Etienne’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. Strange, she thought, that he should have a beating heart, if he was what she suspected. But what did she know of such things? She raised her face from that ebony pillow and flicked her tongue over the rosy nub of his nipple. “Tell me about her.”

Etienne stirred, untangling his limbs from hers. “Why waken old sorrows, petite? Why not just enjoy the remains of the night?”

“I want to understand you.” She braced herself on her elbow, feasting her eyes on his physical perfection. “Maybe to help you.”

“Impossible. I am damned, condemned to live alone with the knowledge of my sins. You are a poor, frail mortal. There is nothing you can do. If I wish, I can wipe your mind clean of the memory of me. From your perspective, I will not exist.”

“Please, don’t,” Madeleine whispered. “I gave myself to you. Give me a bit of yourself in return.”

The sable giant frowned. He shifted his bulk to a sitting position. His heavy penis lolled against his thigh. Madeleine’s mouth watered as she imagined rousing it from its relaxed state. She shifted her attention to his noble face. “Please, Etienne.”

“Very well. I find you difficult to resist.” He sighed and was silent for a moment, looking off into the distance.

“I first saw my mistress in the slave market in Port-au-Prince. The year was 1796. I was fifteen. It was dusk. In those glory days of colonial power, the trade in human flesh went on around the clock.

“In the midst of the filth and degradation, she was a gorgeous tropical flower. She wore a gown of emerald silk embroidered with silver thread. Her hair tumbled in jet ringlets over her pale shoulders. Her eyes were dark jewels, her mouth a crimson blossom. She picked her delicate way through the dirty straw wearing kid boots, but she held no handkerchief to her face against the stench of unwashed bodies. She carried a dainty leather whip dyed to match her costume.

“I stood on the block with the other merchandise, dirty, covered with scabs, chains around my neck and my ankles. The auctioneer called for bids on the man before me, laughing and joking in a coarse way about the man’s substantial genitals. My mistress came right to the front of the crowd and interrupted the proceedings.

“‘I will take that one,’ she stated, pointing at me. ‘What is his price?’ She was a petite woman. Her voice was not loud, but it held an unassailable authority. Everyone stopped to listen.

“‘He is to be auctioned next, Madame.’ The grizzled man looked nervous. ‘Please wait for a few moments.’

“‘There is no need to bother with the bids,’ my mistress insisted. ‘I will match any offer.’

“‘Madame, please…’ She ignored him and fixed her eyes on me. ‘I want you, boy,’ she said. Though in my own country I was a king’s son, her attention made me blush and hang my head. Then to my horror, I realized that I was hugely erect.’

“‘And you want me, too, do you not, my prince?’ She laughed. I had picked up a bit of French on the voyage. I understood why the crowd was jeering. She threw a heavy bag of coins onto the block. ‘Unchain him,’ she ordered.

“The auctioneer scrambled to retrieve the purse. Inside was more gold than he had likely ever seen at one time, enough to purchase every slave on the platform. He hastened to unfasten my leg shackles and unchain my collar from that of the two men on either side of me. He handed the chain to my mistress and she led me to her carriage.

“We returned to her plantation. She had me bathed and fed. She tended to my sores with her own hands. I thought that I was in paradise. I was hard the whole time.

“That night she took me to her bed. As I entered her, she drank from me for the first time.”

Maddy swallowed. “She was a—a blood-drinker?”

“A blood-drinker, a witch, a Voodoo priestess. The cruelest and most savage creature you can imagine. She looked white but she was an octamaroon, the granddaughter of a slave as black as I. How she loved to play the grand lady, full of contempt for the society around her…” He buried his face in his hands. Maddy rested her hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to continue.

“I grew to manhood on her plantation. She educated me, when it suited her fancy. She used me. Sometimes, she made me labor in the cane fields, laughing when I came to her at night, covered with sweat and dirt. Sometimes it pleased her to dress me in silk livery and have me serve her the wine and raw meat she favored. She enjoyed hanging me from a hook in the ceiling and whipping me until my skin hung in strips from my back. Then she would lick the gore from my wounds and tell me that she loved me.”

Buy links at: https://www.lisabetsarai.com/findespoirbook.html

Don’t forget to leave a comment. Help the people of Sudan and maybe win a free Halloween read!

Bad Boy Musicians – on sale! #99cents #rockstarromance

Veteran author M.J. Roberts has a treat for you! Rock Hard, the first book in her rock and roll romance series The Chord Brothers is on sale now for only 99 cents!

Series Blurb

Rockers with larger-than-life personalities, lighthearted humor, broken hearts that need mending, and desperate struggles to overcome the trauma that unites them. Go deep into the Rock and Roll life and see these amazing people deal with real-world issues while they woo their partners with toe-searing chemistry and laugh-out-loud fun.

Book Blurb

Drummer Ryder Chord has been living half a life since he was sixteen when a brutal tragedy struck, and he and his best friend hit the road.

Ryder, desperate to forget, throws himself into touring life and writing music. When Lexi joins the band, Ryder’s life becomes almost tolerable. Until one day when the rest of the band isn’t there and Ryder and Lexi have to share a hotel room: with only one bed.

Rule number one of band-dom: You never sleep with anyone in the band. Rule number one of bro code: You never sleep with anyone’s sister. You DEFINITELY never sleep with your best friend’s little sister. Rule number it’s so obvious it’s a count even a drummer can keep: You Never, EVER, sleep with your best friend’s little sister when she’s in the band…and he is too.

** “A moving, funny, white-hot sexy romp that fans of Lauren Blakely, Nora Roberts, and Janet Evanovich will love.” – Smart Woman’s Steamy Romance Reviews.

Buy Link (only 99 cents for a limited time): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MDHXT8C

About the Author

M. J. Roberts is a novelist and movie writer, editor, and teacher – with more than two million copies of her stories in circulation worldwide, Roberts is well loved for creating characters who feel as real as your most cherished friends. Roberts works to diligently to create believable, lovable characters, witty dialogue, prose ripe with metaphor, exciting plot twists, action that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and romance scenes that sizzle.

Roberts is a multiple award-winning author including first place in the prestigious Summer Lovin’ Romance Literary Contest 2015 for the novel Risk Your Heart.

Roberts also writes under the pen name Natasha Action. Roberts is originally from New York but lives in the southern United States for the purpose of endless comic material.

She’s married to a professional musician (A.K.A. The Rock and Roll God) because she is too busy tormenting imaginary characters and counting her blessing to pursue her longtime dream of Rock n’ Roll stardom herself.

Website: http://www.mjrobertswriter.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mjrobertswrites

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mjrobertswrites/

https://about.me/mj.roberts

I love to hear from fans. Contact me directly at

mjrobertswriter [at] gmail [dot] com

News Flash! Raw Silk is back in print! #NewRelease #FirstNovel

Twenty-five years ago, Black Lace brought out my first novel, Raw Silk, in paperback.

Now, after several years of unavailability, I’ve self-published a brand new print edition. If you’re the sort who likes to hold a physical book in your hands, this one’s for you.

I’m warning you, though: it’s hot enough that you might need oven mitts to read it!

Blurb

“You were born to this. You may not understand, yet. You may not believe. But I will teach you.”

When software engineer Kate O’Neill leaves her lover David to take a job in Thailand, she embarks on a sensual journey that will change her forever.

In the glittering City of Angels, Kate becomes sexually involved with two very different men—a handsome and debauched member of the Thai aristocracy, and the charismatic, dominant proprietor of a sex bar. With Anand Rajchitraprasong, she discovers her own almost unlimited capacity for erotic pleasure. Meanwhile, Gregory Marshall shows her what she has hidden from herself: a deep desire to submit, to surrender herself body and soul to someone with the power and compassion to master her.

Each lascivious adventure binds her more closely to her lovers. Then David comes to Bangkok, and Kate realizes that she must choose one of the three men who all desire her.

Long considered an erotic classic, Raw Silk chronicles one woman’s intimate voyage toward love and self-understanding. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition has been freshly edited and includes a new introduction plus a bonus chapter.

Get it in print! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKJ2PW92

(Still available for free on Kindle Unlimited, until November 23^rd.)

A Sense of Foreboding – #Mystery #ArtHistory #Giveaway Blurb

 

Blurb

Dying for Monet, book 5 of Riess’s art history mystery series, opens on a gala evening auction at Laszlo’s, an upstart auction house in New York City. After a much sought-after Impressionist still life painting is without notice withdrawn from the auction block, its broker is found dead at the foot of an imposing statue in Laszlo’s courtyard. Amateur sleuths Erika Shawn and Harrison Wheatley are once again drawn into an investigation involving an art-related homicide, this time with one sharing an unnerving coincidence with violent crimes occurring abroad.

Excerpt

“I knew it,” Erika said tonelessly, shoving her phone back into her evening bag; saw the look of horror Greg directed at her, as if she were some devilish prophet; half believed it herself. She gazed back at him, and her numbness suddenly dissolved into tears.

Still, neither of them openly acknowledging whose body lay before them, the blood at the man’s head curling away with the rainwater; Botero’s mighty woman and child, their backs to him, underlying the omission. The figures were dark brown, almost black patinated bronze, and the dead man, in his black suit, seemed part of their tableau, or its discard. One of his arms was jammed against the base of the statue, the other flung to the side, the hand gracefully cupped like a ballet dancer’s—the hand with the ring that had pressed into Erika’s flesh. Looking down at Ivan’s hand, she felt its phantom grip on her wrist; the ring’s forceful dig. Impossible for that hand to have been doomed into stillness. 

“I felt for a pulse,” she said, anticipating Greg’s question. “He’s gone.”

She looked away and saw a few people standing behind the glass door at Laszlo’s entrance, waiting to be picked up or for the rain to stop. What must they make of this rain-sodden group, and what did it matter? “The way he reacted to that text or email,” she directed to Greg, down on his knees, checking for a pulse; not taking her word for it; she, grateful to him for sharing the burden of proof. “I could see he was alarmed by the message. I thought he would be coming back after he was done talking or texting, but he never did. I thought it was odd. After all, his client’s lot was coming up for sale.”

Greg rose to his feet, a subtle headshake verifying her medical diagnosis. “And then the lot was removed.”

She nodded. “It was then that I thought the two events—the message on his cell phone and the painting’s unexpected withdrawal—were related. And just now, when I looked out the car window and saw...”

“You had a sense of foreboding—of what you would find. I wish we could cover him, I mean from the rain and all.”

“We can’t disturb the scene.”

“I know. From what I can see, he was shot in the head...” Tentative, as if declaring the words would set them in stone.

“Yes.”

They were silent, standing in the rain that was finally abating, and in that moment the sun completed its descent and darkness fell, a delayed reaction in what seemed an act of respect—or mimicry—of life’s end.

About the Author

Claudia Riess has worked in the editorial departments of The New Yorker and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and has edited several art history monographs. Stolen Light, the first book in her art history mystery series, was chosen by Vassar’s Latin American history professor for distribution to the college’s people-to-people trips to Cuba. To Kingdom Come, the fourth, will be added to the syllabus of a survey course on West and Central African Art at a prominent Midwestern university. Claudia has written a number of articles for Mystery Readers Journal, Women’s National Book Association, the Sisters in Crime Bloodletter, and Mystery Scene magazine. To read more about Claudia and her work, visit the author's website.

Website: http://www.claudiariessbooks.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaRiessBooks

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/claudiariessbooks/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/claudiariessbooks/

The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.

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Join us for Charity Saturday, 27 October 2024 #CharitySundaySignup #Altruism #Marketing

Since 2017, I’ve been devoting the last Sunday in each month to a post which features some worthy cause. Often, other bloggers join me in this effort, turning the event into a blog hop. This month’s Charity Sunday blog hop will take place this coming Sunday, the 27^th of October.

Charity Sunday is a meme designed to give authors and bloggers a chance to give back to the world, as well as to attract new readers.

How does it work? Each participant selects a favorite charity. Before the date, you should prepare a blog post that: 1) talks about the charity and why you support it; 2) provides a link to the charity; 3) includes an excerpt from one of your books; 4) includes the code to show links to other participating blogs.

It’s fun if you can make the excerpt relate somehow to your chosen charity, but this isn’t required.

For every comment left on your post, you commit to giving some amount to the relevant charity. The specific charity and the amount to donate are up to you. You can set an upper limit to your donation if you want.

If you’d like to participate in the next Charity Sunday on September 29th, sign up using the Linky List below. Please be sure that the link you enter will lead directly to your Charity Sunday post, not just to the home page of your blog.

You can get the 2024 Charity Sunday banner here:

https://www.lisabetsarai.com/2024CharitySundayBanner.jpg

For an example post, check out this link from my last Charity Sunday:

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2024/09/charity-sunday-gift-of-education.html

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An unlikely heroine on a perilous quest -- #Fantasy #Review #Vancouver @AndrewCownden

Blurb

Vancouver is falling down—crumbling into sand. To save it, Astrid O'Brien boards a bus to a parallel dimension, there to confront the demons of the city, and to answer the question: Are we who we're told we are, or who we decide to be?

#1 in Canadian Literature eBooks on Amazon.ca

Excerpt

A three-storey building had collapsed into a pile of sand, and no one seemed to care. And that made Astrid angry. She wanted to walk up to every one of them and shout in their faces and make them look, show them what they’d lost, show them what they never knew they had. She was ready to start a fight with the entire city.

“Will you be careful?”

It sounded like Emily’s voice, but it was smaller, weaker, and much, much older than Astrid had ever heard it before. Her aunt was standing at the base of the dune, a tiny bundle of scarves before a mountain of sand, arms folded around herself. She was weeping.

“Promise me you’ll be careful? Where you need to go … I can’t come with you. I can’t be there to protect you. So I need you to promise me, Astrid. Please. Will you be careful?”

If there had ever been an anchor in Astrid’s life—some dependable constant that assured her the world was a thing that could be understood—it had been the unflappable fortitude of her Aunt Emily. Seeing her now, looking so uncertain and afraid, Astrid felt herself become fully untethered and set adrift into an unfathomable universe. Words faltered in her throat.

“I’ll try,” she answered.

Emily winced against tears. She bowed her head. “Alright,” she said. “Then this is what you have to do.”

 

Review by Lisabet Sarai

Astrid Falls begins with a challenge from the author:

The events of this book did not happen and its characters do not exist. However, the place in which they did not happen and do not exist is the City of Vancouver, which the author insists is a very real place full of very real people. Now, any work of fiction set in a real place must, by necessity, displace some of the real to make a space for the unreal. Consequently, the Vancouver of this story, although quite close to the real thing, is by no means authentic. The author, therefore, advises you, the reader, not to trust a single word between the covers of this book (especially not the footnotes*).

The asterisk leads to a footnote, which adds that especially one should not trust anything in parentheses.

This sly introduction captures a good deal of the tone of Astrid Falls. This is a serious novel masquerading as a light-hearted fantasy. While chronicling the efforts and misadventures of the hapless Astrid O’Brien, who might or might not be the Chosen One destined to save the universe from annihilation, Astrid Falls confronts issues like racism, community, environmental destruction and the meaningless alienation of modern life.

Twenty-something Astrid is an unlikely heroine: awkwardly tall, so pale-skinned that the sun fries her to a crisp in minutes, afflicted with anxieties that lead her to avoid people to the greatest extent possible. She works as the only clerk in an umbrella shop (a fine occupation during Vancouver’s rainy season), has been going to college (but didn’t have the energy to register for the current semester), lives with her father (but barely talks to him) and can’t even remember what her mother does for a living. Addicted to social media but fighting that compulsion, she’s largely isolated from humanity.

And yet, it appears, it is her job to save humanity. To her credit, she takes this bizarre and obviously doomed quest seriously. Indeed, it finally gives her a mission in life. Struggling against apparently insuperable odds, she acquires a following of individuals as broken and lonely as she is. As the city literally crumbles into piles of sand, she and her hapless entourage struggle against insidious evil as well as their own prejudices.

The book overflows with startling and original ideas. It swings widely from irony through slapstick to horror. We’re not allowed to forget that the fate of the universe hangs by a thread, even when Astrid and her band of reluctant heroes and heroines seem trapped in absurdity. Meanwhile, almost every page features the not-to-be-trusted footnotes.

The story is a bit dizzying. I couldn’t quite decide how much of this was deliberate, how much a symptom of the author’s effervescent imagination. The book has the distinctive hallmarks of a first novel: occasional rough edges and breathless sincerity.

Overall, I hugely enjoyed Astrid Falls. It also left me with issues to ponder, as I think the author intended.

I do wish I were familiar with Vancouver, though. In the introduction, Andrew Cownden challenges the reader to research the truth behind the footnotes. However, no amount of research can substitute for personal experience. As multi-layered and challenging as I found the book, I suspect I’d have appreciated it even more if I, like Astrid, called the city home.

About the Author

Andrew Cownden is an actor and writer living in Vancouver, Canada. ASTRID FALLS is his first novel.

Website: https://www.andrewcownden.com/

Twitter: https://x.com/AndrewCownden

Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@AndrewCownden

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2834364/

Andrew Cownden will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

 

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