Sunday Six with Emmy

I just love Sunday Six!

- picking out a little snippet of a book that shows the spark between hero and heroine - unstoppable, no matter how hard they fight it!

Emmy, after making her second escape bid of the evening, has been run to earth by Tom Brodie - the man who's sole purpose is to prevent her marriage to a penniless artist - and this time there's no escape.

Her palm collided with the hard muscle of his chest but it did nothing to impede his progress and, as the warmth of his body seeped into her through her hand, along her arm until her entire body seemed to be heating up from within, her fingers closed over his t-shirt, bunching it in her fist, holding it tight.

‘Joking?’ he enquired, softly.

For a moment she thought she had a chance and opened her mouth to reinforce her contention. But he stroked the back of his long slender fingers slowly and gently along her throat, mesmerising her with his touch and a delicious languor stole through her body as he captured her chin. Then he began to trace a slow, sensuous line across her bottom lip with the tip of his thumb. It was like that moment in the car when he had so nearly kissed her. When she had, for one crazy moment, wanted him to kiss her more than anything else in the world.

If you want to know how that turned out, download Eloping With Emmy from Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Sony or Smashwords. There are links on the sidebar.

And don't forget to go to Sunday Six and check out loads of other great books.

Have a great Sunday!

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome!  It's been a while since I've played Six Sentence Sunday, but the reissue of A Stranger's Kiss as an ebook seems like the perfect moment!

Tara Lambert is being followed and to escape her pursuer she takes refuge in a nearby wine bar - sliding into a seat beside a well-dressed businessman. Her appeal for him to pretend she's with him does not go unanswered -

His fingers grazed her cheek and slowly he began to wind a long jet strand of hair that had escaped from restraining pins around his fingers. For a moment she sat too stunned to move or do anything to stop him. Then, he tucked it behind her ear and while she was still trying to gather her scattered wits he moved swiftly to capture her chin, tilting it upwards, leaving her mouth at his mercy.

       ‘You’re late, my darling,’ he murmured, his voice a velvet caress. Shaken by this dashing, if unexpected response to her appeal for help, she began to protest. Then he smiled and the words died in her throat. ‘But I forgive you.’ 

A Stranger's Kiss in on sale at the special launch price of 99c/77p at Amazon US and UK, at iTunes, Sony and Smashwords. (Nook and Kobo always take a little longer to get books online, but you can download for those devices at Smashwords). There are links on the sidebar.

And if you ennjoyed this, check out all the other great authors who are playing this week at Six Sentence Sunday  

Sunday Six...

It's been a while since I've joined in with Six Sentence Sunday fun, but it's a holiday this weekend in the UK and apparently it's going to rain and blow - no change there, there - so I thought we'd probably all be indoors putting out feet up with a book.

This is from WILD LADY the second book in the Beaumont Brides trilogy. The first, WILD JUSTICE can be downloaded free (there are links on the sidebar). Or the entire trilogy is available in one collection

Startled by the sudden switch she froze. But as his body moulded itself to her, his arms about her waist lifting her from the floor, taking her weight, all the anger at being set up like this seeped away from her and she bunched his sweater beneath her fingers, clinging to him.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear the audience clapping, counting out the seconds as the kiss went on and on. But this final humiliation didn't seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter, except the heat of Gabriel MacIntyre's mouth and the slow, deliberate way in which he was taking possession of her.

Then, suddenly it was over and as she leaned back against his arm, her hair falling back from her face, his eyes were shuttered, giving her no clue to the way he was feeling. 

Don't forget to check out other Six Sentence Sunday blogs and hether you have a holiday this weekend or not, I hope it's a good one.

Six Sentence Sunday...

My Six this week is taken from my non-fiction book, Liz Fielding's Little Book Writing Romance. I wrote for new writers, those who are struggling to get their story on the page, but reviewers have all said that it's a useful aide memoire for the experienced author, too

When we're having problems with a plot, a hero, anything, it's always useful to go back to basics.

This little snippet is from Chapter One - which is all about grabbing the reader on the first page.

...

"Consider any newspaper story. It doesn't start with ten years of back story, it starts with a headline.
 

LONG LOST HUSBAND HALTS WEDDING

BRIDE DESERTS GROOM AT ALTAR

"They are designed to catch your attention, make you read on. Does your story start with a headline?"

I hope you'll make some time to visit other Six Sentence Sunday authors and leave encouraging comments. (They'll love you for it!)

Have a lovely day.

A Six Sentence Sunday for Mother's Day!

Today, the fourth Sunday in Lent is Mother's Day in the UK - the day when servant girls were allowed to go home and visit their families, taking a cake and picking wild flowers on the way - so I've chosen my six sentences from my book Secret Baby, Surprise Parents, a story about the perfect gift of surrogacy.

But nothing he had done, nothing he had achieved, not even a hastily conceived and swiftly regretted marriage had ever dulled the memory of that one night they’d spent together and still, in his dreams, his younger self reached out for her.

It had been unbearably worse during the last twelve months.  Sleep had been elusive and when he did manage an hour he woke with an almost desperate yearning for something precious, something that was lost forever. 

This.  This woman clinging to him, this child…

He brushed his lips against her temple and then, his head full of the warm, milky scent of baby, he kissed Posie and for one perfect moment all the pain, all the agony of the last twenty-four hours fell away.

Don't forget to go and check out other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts!

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY GOES WILD!

I think of the three Beaumont Brides cover, WILD LADY is my favourite. I just love how that guy is smiling, how happy he is to be with that woman.

Here's a six sentence Sunday snippet so that you can get to know them better, too:-

 Offering up a silent prayer that it wouldn't shake, he raised his hand, holding it out in a wordless demand that she bring her dress to him. Surrender completely.

For one long moment she made him wait, made him endure the torture that he had inflicted upon himself, before bending gracefully to pick up her discarded dress, carrying it towards him in two outstretched hands like a precious votive offering from some heathen priestess. But if her stance was that of a supplicant, her eyes were not downcast, they were bright and knowing and her lips were set in a provocative curve. For a moment his resolve wavered as he realised that she had not surrendered. The game had simply moved onto another level.

I've dropped the price on WILD LADY for this weekend's six sentence on Kindle and at Smashwords, to introduce a newly edited version (although the spelling is still English/English!), so if you like it, fill your boots and tell your friends!

And do go and visit the other Six Sentence Sunday writers - it's a great way of finding out whether an author's voice grabs you.

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY MEETS HERE COME THE GROOMS!

It's Sunday and, since we're getting close to the end of this year's Here Come the Grooms competition, I thought I'd choose my Six Sentence Sunday snippet from myown  hero's book, FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN.

Matteo di Serrone is many things. A botanist, wine maker, adviser to the United Nations, conte. His complex personality has been influenced by a childhood marred by the death of his father and the betrayal of two women who were important to him. He has two passions; the quality of his wine and the protection of his dysfunctional family. Sarah Gratton's arrival appears to threaten the latter and there meeting is fraught with tension that culminates in a kiss...

The world seemed to have slowed down and it took forever for his lips to reach hers.  Somewhere, deep inside her brain she knew the word “…no…” was teetering on the brink, ready to fall to her lips.  All she had to do was move them, say it, but her butter-soft mouth seemed to belong to someone else. 

When it parted, it was not to protest and as his mouth found hers a tingle of something like recognition raced like wildfire through her blood, blotting out reason.  Her  and her body, with nothing to guide it, softened, melted against him, murmured, “Yes…”

It wasn’t enough and she clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging into hard flesh as she began to fall back, leaving gravity to take them down into the soft thick grass on the shady side of the wall.

If you'd like the chance to win a copy, along with books by Kate Walker and Anne McAllister, click HERE - we'll be drawing the winners on the Sadie Hawkins Day - 29th February!

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

And for this week's Six Sentence Sunday we return to Isola del Serrone with Sarah Gratton and Matteo di Serrone, who are spending the weekend at the vineyard at the start of harvest.

'I’ve been wanting to do this,’ he said as he backed her into a bay housing one of the barrels and kissed her, sliding his hands inside her t-shirt to unclasp her bra.


She leaned back over the gentle curve, sighing with pleasure as he took possession of her breasts. ‘Is this what is known as being had “over a barrel”?’


He shook his head, clearly not familiar with the expression.


‘At your mercy, my lord,’ she explained.


‘On the contrary, cara, I rather think that I am at yours.’


For more details about Six Sentence Sunday click here

For the first chapter of FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN click the Browse button if you're in the UK -

Or if you're in the States - click HARLEQUIN

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

Welcome back to Six Sentence Sunday!

Today I'm snipping my six sentences from WILD FIRE, the third in my Beaumont Brides trilogy.

TV soap queen and West End star, Melanie Beaumont has accepted a bet from an old friend that she can't do an ordinary job for a month - take the Cinderella role and work as a cleaner.

She's just mad enough at everyone to give it a go. Her first job, cleaning up after a party that's got out of hand, goes pretty well - until the owner of the apartment arrives home earlier than expected...

Jack Wolfe's steel grey eyes flickered about the apartment and came back to rest upon Melanie as she wriggled out of Tom's grasp and got to her feet. She fielded the look, held it, refusing to be intimidated, but the man was not a bit like his brother.


Tom was young, still soft, with an eager puppy-like charm that ensured quick forgiveness of his doubtless many sins. She knew the type and kept firmly on a training lead he would be amusing company.


Jack Wolfe was darker, leaner, harder. A Doberman to Tom's Labrador.

For more details about Six Sentence Sunday click here

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

It's Sunday - and time for six sentences. This week from my new release, FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN.

Italy is all about food, about pleasure and when Sarah is invited to lunch with Matteo de Serrone, all that English restraint just melts away.

            Vivid colour, the scent of herbs and the sun-baked earth. The touch of a man’s lips for the first time in months.   

            Languorous in the still heat of the early afternoon, lulled by the faint hum of drowsy insects, mesmerised by Matteo’s dark eyes gleaming softly in the shade urging her to this one last pleasure, she leaned forward the inch required to take the grape, closing her lips around it.  Around the tips of his fingers.

            The grape exploded on her tongue, the juice dribbling over her lips, over his fingers.  And it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lick it up…

For more details about Six Sentence Sunday click here

Six Sentence Sunday

For this week's SSS - for more details about that see here - I've taken this little snip from the second book of my BEAUMONT BRIDES trilogy, WILD LADY.

When I wrote WILD JUSTICE, I had no notion of writing a trilogy but when my editor read it she said, "Three girls, three books and can I have the first chapter of the second one this week so that I can use it as a teaser in the back of the first book."

Of course. No problem...

Gulp.

I have to tell you, that if I'd known I'd be writing Claudia's story, I'd have made her nicer, which really would have been a shame!

This one has a "heroine in peril" plot, and a self-appointed bodyguard.

Claudia, who could usually reduce a man to stuttering incoherence in less time than it took to say it, was seriously shaken to discover that this man was quite immune to her particular brand of magic. 
     Insurance? 
     That was all that bothered him? He wasn't in the least concerned about her health, the fact that she might have broken her neck? Apparently not. As their eyes met across the wreck of her car she received the very strong impression that he was quite prepared to break it himself. Well, the day was still young and if her anonymous correspondent was right, he might yet get his wish; the thought was enough to drive the smile right off her face.


Actually there are seven sentences, but one of them is only one word and that's allowed.

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY

Welcome to my very first SSS - and if you don't know what that is, click here.

Here are six sentences from my upcoming Riva/Romance, FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN...

Her brain was apparently engaged, busy dealing with a bombardment of signals.  The sun hot on her arms, her throat, her breasts.  The sensuous sweep of the mouth hovering above her own, the scent of warm skin, leather…

The world seemed to have slowed down and it took forever for his lips to reach hers.  Somewhere, deep inside her brain the word “…no…” was teetering on the brink and all she had to do was move her lips,say it,but her butter-soft mouth seemed to belong to someone else. 

When it parted, it was not to protest; as his mouth found hers a tingle of something like recognition raced like wildfire through her blood, blotting out reason and her body, with nothing to guide it, softened, melted against him, murmured, “Yes…”

Coming soon!