First Page Friday - Joss Wood's Top Pick "KISS"

My First Page Friday guest this week is fellow KISS author, Joss Wood, who is giving us a taste of her 4.5 star TOP PICK debut book IT WAS ONLY A KISS.

Here’s the blurb!

Luke Savage never failed! Ok there was the marriage thing, he’d dropped the ball on that one, but in his defence he’d been duped from the beginning. Now he was divorcing Satan’s sister, so everything was back on track. That was until a beautiful, cocky twenty-something interning in his marketing department waltzed into his office and announced his marketing plan, for his recently inherited family vineyard, sucked!

Jess Sherwood was bright, ambitious and a know-it-all. She was also gorgeous as sin and made Luke feel things he shouldn’t. But that didn’t excuse her intrusion into his office and her blatant disregard for his authority in his own company. So after kissing her senseless, Luke fires Jess and kicks her out of his office. No way was an arrogant little madam with all of five minutes experience going to tell him his business would fail!

Eight years later, Luke’s family vineyard is failing. With the insurmountable debts he’s inherited from his father to pay off, Luke is struggling to keep St Sylve Vineyards afloat. A successful businessman in his own right, it would be so easy to sell up and return to his own thriving company. But how can he sell off the work of his many fore-fathers and generations his family’s history? Luke has never failed in business before and he isn’t about to start now. What he needs is a hip new marketing strategy… and he knows just the woman for the job! Their only problem is how to keep their minds on work and off that kiss!

And here’s the first page…

Eight years ago…

‘So, in conclusion I think the marketing strategy your people presented to you is hackneyed, stupid and asinine and plays absolutely no attention to your demographics, to the market research and to where your competitors are placing themselves. It’s under researched and knocked together and if you follow it I guarantee that you will lose most of your market share in five years time, if not your business.’

Luke Savage looked across his messy desk at the earnest young woman perched on the edge of her chair, her face animated with youthful zeal and healthy dose of arrogance. What was her name again? He glanced down at her file in front of him─ Jess Sherwood. She was twenty-two, he read and was currently doing her MBA in marketing. The file did state that she was over blessed with brains, her school and university achievements were─ to put it mildly─ impressive but it failed to mention that she was solidly gorgeous as well.

A true brown eyed blonde.

She was quite a parcel and boy, did she know it…

Luke kept his face impassive as she draped one long, slim leg over the other and lightly linked her hands around a bare knee, an index finger tapping away. She wore a short, flouncy dress falling off one shoulder and showing a thin purple bra strap; belted at slim hips by a broad leather belt. Falling to mid-thigh, it was too short, too casual and too sexy an outfit for work but she wore it with careless confidence.

Luke, who was seldom surprised at much, was taken aback by her self-importance and her balls-to-the-wall chutzpah.

 ‘Wood’s tortured hero is believable and compelling and the story takes readers on a passionate, emotional rollercoaster ride.’ Sabrina Madan RT Book Reviews Top Pick for May. 


Click to read on  in the US                                          Or at Harlequin Australia

First Page Friday - The Secret Wedding Dress #KISS

It's time for another First Page Friday - this time from the fabulous Ally Blake and her new Harlequin KISS title, The Secret Wedding Dress. I've already read this and I can tell you that it's brilliantly sexy, funny, and totally engaging. But don't just take my word for it...

Here's the blurb - 

On maid of honour duty with her best friend, Mae, fiercely independent Paige Danforth finds herself surrounded by hundreds of bridezillas at a factory outlet wedding dress sale when something catches her eye...  Suddenly, there's a tightening of her throat, a lightness in her head…. A glimpse of chiffon in dark champagne. And before she knows it, self-confessed cynic, Paige, the girl who swears blind that happy ever after is an evil myth perpetuated by florists and bakers, has just bought herself a wedding dress! One problem… no groom… or wedding!

Determined to put this wedding dress debacle down to a deliriousness caused by her 'dating drought', Paige decides she needs a man and fast. Enter dark, brooding adventurer Gabe Hamilton... the very next man to step into the lift in their apartment block. So against her type, Gabe is dark and diabolically hot... and only in town for a few weeks! She doesn’t have to have a relationship with the guy. She needs a date. A kiss. A night. A good and proper tumble. A way to find her dating legs again. No promises made, no promises broken. And after witnessing her parents messy divorce and her cricket star dad's notoriously philandering ways, Paige is determined to never let herself be hurt in the same way and this fun-only fling with Gabe is perfect... for now.

Until Paige begins to realise that by purposefully keeping Gabe - the guy who inspires all these new, exciting feelings in her - from getting close, she's creating her own unhappy ever after.

And here's the first page -

Paige Danforth didn’t believe in happily ever afters.

     So it was a testament to how awesome a friend she was that she stood freezing her tush off outside a dodgy-looking Collingwood warehouse in the grey half-light of a misty Melbourne winter’s morning with her best friend Mae who was there to buy a wedding dress.

     Wedding Dress Fire Sale! Over 1000 new and used dresses, up to 90% off! read the massive hot pink banner flapping dejectedly against the cracked brown bricks of the old building.  Paige wondered if any of the other women in the line, which by that stage snaked all the way around the corner of the block, saw the irony of the hype masking the depressing reality.  By the manic gleams in their eyes they all bought into the fantasy, for sure.  Each and every one of them convinced they were the ones for whom the love songs and sonnets rang true.

And here's a link for iTunes, Australia

Sexy Duo/The Secret Wedding Dress/Driving Her Crazy - Ally Blake

"Fast paced, funny, warm and deliciously hot, this is the kind of can't-put-down story Ms. Blake is famous for writing. What's more, she has a magical way of making it feel like the heroine is a best friend who is telling her story over cocktails instead of within the pages of a book. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS ONE!"

 

...Trish Wylie, Goodreads

 

 

"If you enjoy fun, flirty, contemporary romances, you'll love The Secret Wedding Dress.  Paige is ballsy and quirky, Gabe is flawed and incredibly sexy. Thoroughly enjoyed!"

 

...Nicola Marsh, USA Today Bestselling author

 

First Page Friday - The Proud Wife

My First Page Friday guest today is not only a colleague, but a dear friend who has been writing wonderful books for Harlequin for more than twenty years. The Proud Wife isn't her latest, but has that special, original, Kate Walker touch so I wanted to share it with you.

Here's the blurb -

Her husband wants her back!
Marina thought her dreams had come true when her husband placed a wedding band on her finger. But their marriage was not the fairytale she'd hoped for, and eventually Marina walked away, her heart broken.
But two years on Pietro DInzeo no longer haunts Marina's dreams. She knows the time has come to move on, and even a summons to join him in Sicily won't deter her However, with his wife standing before him, about to sign on the dotted line of their divorce papers, Pietro wonders why he ever let her go?

And here's the first page -

THE letter lay exactly where he had left it last night, right in the centre of his desk. The single sheet of paper was aligned carefully square, in the centre of the polished oak, straight in front of his chair where it could not possibly be missed. All it needed was his signature and it would be folded neatly, placed the already addressed envelope and sent on its way. 

            And after that there would be no turning back.

            But until he made the final move, added the swift, determined scrawl of his signature – the work of just a couple of seconds – nothing at all would happen. It would just lie there,  untouched, until he was ready.

Of course it would, Pietro told himself, his mouth twisting slightly wryly at the corners. He hadn’t spent almost half his lifetime building up the sort of  retinue of employees that any man would envy. The staff who would not only obey his every command but anticipate it perfectly, knowing exactly what he wanted and when. They would remain poised, waiting, until he would give the word to act. Then  - and only then – would they carry out his instructions to the peak of perfection he had come to expect so much that he no longer even noticed it was there – only coming up against the system that created it when something went wrong. Which happened so rarely that he couldn’t actually recall the last time it had ever ruffled the controlled surface of his world.

He would never allow it to happen.  Lack of control, the wildness of emotion, brought confusion and chaos with it. Confusion and chaos of the sort that he never ever wanted to experience again.

‘Dannazione!’

The curse was torn from him, the flat of his hand slamming  down on the polished surface of his desk so that the letter lifted slightly in the air current it created, fluttered,  shifted, landing back down again an inch or two further left before lying still again.

He had known the sort of chaos that could be created by lack of control. Once, just once, he had been fool enough to let that sort of wildness invade his life and take with it the organisation and the rule of rational thought he valued so deeply. He had loosened his grip on the reins and lost control. And he had hated the results.

Just once had been enough.

Just once. Never again. And it had all been this woman’s fault.

To read on click here for Amazon US or here for Amazon UK

First Page Friday

It's Friday and time for a teasing glimpse at the first page of OLD DESIRES, when the infuriatingly arrogant (no, let's be honest, he's just plain rude) Joshua Kent arrives unannounced on Holly Carpenter's doorstep with an invitation he is not aboujt to let her refuse.

‘MISS Carpenter?’

The enquiry was simply a formality. Holly had no doubt that the man on her doorstep, filling the entrance with his powerful presence, knew exactly who she was. In that, he had her at a disadvantage and she didn’t much care for it, or for the quite unmistakeable chill in his manner.

She had the feeling that, whatever the reason for his call, he would prefer not to be making it and she already wished she had kept to her usual habit of ignoring the doorbell when she was working. Except that this afternoon nothing was going right and she had almost welcomed the interruption.

Besides, one look had been enough to warn her that this man would not have simply given up and gone away. Determination was written in every austere, finely chiselled line of his face; an intensity of purpose that hardened the sensual curve of his full lower lip.

‘I’m Holly Carpenter,’ she affirmed with an unconscious lift of her chin, wondering what this arrogant and very expensively-groomed man could possibly want with her. The well-cut navy pin-striped suit gracing his square shoulders and lean, hard figure, and the telling pale blue stripe of his tie, betrayed that he was a long way from his City office. His method of transport, if the gleaming silver Rolls at the kerb could be described in so plebeian a manner, was already attracting curtain-twitching attention from a window opposite.

It will only cost you 99c (77p) so to read on, click -

Amazon US  
Amazon UK
or Amazon wherever you are in the world. 

First Page Friday - HITCHED!

Today's First Page Friday comes from one of the brand new KISS series that has just been launched in the US and this is by one of my own favourite authors, Jessica Hart.

Here's the blurb:

Engineer Frith is a woman with a plan, and it doesn’t include weddings of any kind.  But when she’s roped into organizing a hen party for her spoilt half-sister, she ends up relying more than she wants on her annoying neighbour George … and before long a wedding doesn’t seem quite such a terrible idea after all.

Here's the first page:

I WAS having a good day until George Challoner turned up. 

It had rained almost every day since I had arrived in Yorkshire, but that morning I woke to a bright, breezy day.  By some miracle Audrey had started first time, and I hummed as I drove along the country lanes lined with jaunty daffodils to Whellerby Hall.

When I arrived at the site, Frank, the lugubrious foreman, had even smiled, a first.  Well, his face relaxed slightly in response to my cheery greeting, but in my current mood, I was prepared to count it a smile.  Progress, anyway.  

The ready-mixed concrete arrived bang on time.  I stood and watched carefully as the men started pouring it into the reinforced steel raft for the foundations.   They clearly knew what they were doing, and I had already checked the quality of the concrete.  After a frenzied couple of weeks, I could tell Hugh that the project was back on schedule. 

Phew.

To read on click on a link:

Amazon US
 Harlequin Store
 Harlequin eBooks