Past Regrets by Shelley Munro

[I've got another sneak peek for you today, from Shelley Munro's romance Past Regrets. Shelley's giving away three $10 GCs to different randomly chosen readers. To enter, use the Rafflecopter link at the bottom of this post. ~ Lisabet]

  

Blurb

Never look back…unless that’s where your heart belongs.

Love and Friendship, Book 2

Julia Maxwell was a seize-the-moment party girl until the night she spent with up-and-coming rocker Ryan Callander. From that moment, she was a one-man woman. Pity he hasn’t kept with the program.

Tired of the secrets that have kept her out of the press and Ryan’s fans happy, angry with mounting evidence of infidelity, Julia is older, wiser, and determined to divorce his cheatin’ ass.

Ryan’s long European tour had more than its share of hard knocks—one of which landed on his head when he was mugged. Divorce papers waiting for him at home are a shock that fills in some of the holes in his sketchy memory. But it could be too late to salvage his marriage.

If Ryan thinks flirtatious smiles, seductive touches, and hot-and-heavy kisses are going to smooth things over, Julia’s got a hammer with his name on it. To her surprise, he picks it up, determined to rebuild a bright future for both of them. But the past is lurking with some missing pieces that could bring their hearts crashing down.

Warning: Contains a pissed ex-stripper turned burlesque dancer, a bunch of nosy friends and a smooth-talking rocker with one thing on his mind. Stripper poles and skimpy costumes may be involved.

Excerpt

“Julia!” Ryan crossed the room in seconds flat and grabbed her into a tight embrace before she could react. His familiar scent rolled over her, masculine with a hint of spicy green and the outdoors. He pressed her head to his chest, apparently content to hold her against his trembling frame. For long seconds she let him, too stunned to react. Then her shock gave way to fury, and she lashed out with her foot, kicking him in the shin.

“Ow!” He released her abruptly, an aggrieved scowl distorting his pretty face. “What did you do that for?”

Cripes, she’d broken her foot, not that she’d admit it to him. She gathered the pain and hurled it back in harsh words. “You can’t come waltzing back after nearly a year and expect me to welcome you. Didn’t you receive the divorce papers?”

“I don’t want a divorce.” His blue eyes bored into her. Determined. Steady. He glanced at their avid audience. “Maybe we should take this somewhere private?”

Julia dug in her heels, feeling contrary. He had no right to burst into her life again. And as for orders—forget it. She squared her shoulders and glowered at him. “They’re my friends. They can hear anything you have to say to me.” Aw, heck. Ryan. She’d thought she’d hate him… No! She did hate him. “You cheated on me.”

“When did Julia get married?” Susan asked.

Curiosity buffeted Julia in waves, coming at her from all directions. Great. Just great.

She lowered her voice, steeling herself against his charisma. One look at his dark hair, blue eyes and strong runner’s body and her willpower seeped through the soles of her favorite high-heel pumps. Go figure.

“I can’t talk to you now. We should discuss this with our lawyers present.”

A total contradiction of her previous words. Off-balance, surprise and a tinge of outrage ran hotly through her veins, yet she wanted to grab him and lay one on his sexy lips. She wanted to lick along the tail of the dragon winding around one biceps and explore the scaled body tattooed on his shoulder. How could he do this to her?

About Shelley

Shelley Munro is tall and curvaceous with blue eyes and a smile that turns masculine heads everywhere she goes. She’s a university tutor and an explorer/treasure hunter during her vacations. Skilled with weapons and combat, she is currently in talks with a producer about a television series based on her world adventures.

Shelley is also a writer blessed with a VERY vivid imagination and lives with her very own hero in New Zealand. She writes mainly erotic romance in the contemporary, paranormal and historical genres for publishers Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Publishing. You can learn more about Shelley and her books at http://www.ShelleyMunro.com.

WEBSITE: http://www.ShelleyMunro.com

BLOG: http://www.ShelleyMunro.com/blog

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All Around New Zealand

By Shelley Munro (Guest Blogger)

New Zealand. It’s the country whose scenery stole the show in the Lord of the Rings movies and the place I call home. My name is Shelley Munro, and I write contemporary and paranormal romance for Samhain Publishing and Ellora’s Cave and historical romance for the new Carina Press.

I choose to set many of my books in my home country, both because it’s familiar to me and because I like to showcase the beauty of the place for readers. To me it’s the place I live, but to readers in the United States of America, the United Kingdom or elsewhere it’s an exotic location and one they’d love to visit. Maybe some of them will visit in the future while others will do the second-best thing and go with armchair travel and reading.

New Zealand consists of three main islands: the North Island (which is more highly populated), the South Island (which is rugged with a range of mountains up the middle) and the small and remote Stewart Island. The scenery varies a great deal from North to South. The North Island has many volcanoes, some dormant while others such as Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and White Island erupt on a regular basis. The north of the North Island is semi-tropical with high humidity and lots of rain. The South Island is more rugged with mountains and beautiful lakes. In summer it’s incredibly hot while during the winter temperatures dip below freezing.

Summer in the City of Sails, one of my earlier books published with Ellora’s Cave is set in Auckland. In fact, part of the title is inspired by the fact Auckland has a beautiful harbor and on a sunny summer day it’s full of yachts. Make That Man Mine is set in the island paradise of Waiheke, not far from the city of Auckland.

Currents Run Deep is also set in Auckland, but I’ve brought in some of the beaches, with their black sand, a reminder of our volcanic origins.

In my recent release, The Bottom Line from Samhain Publishing, you’ll briefly visit Wellington, our capital city. The main part of the book is set in Auckland, and many of the places the characters visit are my favorite haunts.

The entire city of Auckland is actually built on and around volcanoes—over fifty of them! We live on what is known as a field of volcanoes and all of them are dormant rather than extinct. Although it’s possible one of them could erupt, scientists say it is more likely a new volcano will appear. Rangitoto, the cone-shaped island in Auckland harbor is the youngest of our volcanoes erupting a mere six hundred years ago.

Never Send a Dog to Do a Woman’s Job is about an alien who wants to bring tourists to New Zealand. He hires a female travel agent to show him some of the sights and they visit places such as thermal Rotorua with its geysers and boiling mud holes, Lake Taupo with its stunning lake (the result of a huge volcanic explosion thousands of years ago), the wine country of the Wairarapa and Marlborough and beautiful Nelson. With this book, the reader can explore New Zealand along with the hero and heroine.

My Middlemarch Mates series is set in the small Otago town of Middlemarch in the South Island. There are currently eight books available in this series about a black leopard colony who live secretly among humans. In these books I visited one of my favorite regions, that of Otago and Mackenzie country in the South Island. In Assassin and Cat and Mouse you’ll visit vineyards and the beautiful Queenstown with its mountains and lakes. In Stray Cat Strut you’ll visit Aoraki Mount Cook, home of the highest mountain in New Zealand.

New Zealand—it’s a beautiful country, and one I hope you all get the opportunity to visit in the future, either in person or within the pages of a book.

Note: Please visit my photo album at my website if you’d like to see some photos of New Zealand.

Shelley Munro lives in New Zealand and writes contemporary and paranormal romance for Samhain Publishing and Ellora’s Cave and historical romance for Carina Press. When she’s not writing she loves to travel and frequently drags her husband off to far-flung parts of the world. Not that he argues much. Cooking is fun (since she enjoys eating) and she likes to take photographs of everyone and everything. Her latest release is THE BOTTOM LINE, an erotic contemporary romance, which is available from Samhain Publishing. You can visit Shelley at http://www.shelleymunro.com or her blog at http://www.shelleymunro.com/blog