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Saturday, December 29, 2012

New Book Good Enough To Share (Good Enough, Book 1 – Christmas)

New Book Good Enough To Share 
       (Good Enough, Book 1 – Christmas)

Exciting news! This book now available.


Welcome to Books, Books, and More Books.  I am pleased to share this book with you.  Thank you for visiting and please come again.

 
Blurb : 

An erotic contemporary romance, including menage, F/M/F, M/F/M and sex outdoors.

One Christmas, four friends – but will they still be together by New Year?

Divorce wasn’t part of the plan for Holly, but then again nor was spending the festive period with two sexy men and Santa’s little helper! With a disastrous marriage behind her, and three good friends who are willing to share, moving on could be fun – if only she can accept that sometimes her heart is wiser than her head.

Dane doesn’t do commitment, which suits Holly just fine. But when things heat up between the four friends, he’s forced to face up to his past. Will realising he’s good enough mean he no longer wants to share…?

Laid back Charlie knows that if his best friend becomes his lover he could end up losing big time. But can he resist? And when the girl he once loved comes back, who will he decide to spend the New Year with?

…And Sophie just wants to have fun. She’s got the answers to everyone's problems, except her own …. is she the one who needs good friends most of all?

Will a caring, sharing, lust and love filled Christmas lead to the happy ever after they all desire?

WARNING - Christmas may never seem the same again!

Contacts:

BUY LINKS:

Excerpt:

“You two out on the pull then?” You know how some deep male voices have that perfect resonance to vibrate right down to the bottom of your stomach and beyond? Yeah, that. I was blushing from the inside out and I had completely and utterly forgotten about Charlie, with or without a surfboard.
Christ, why was it that every time Dane Stephens popped up I was dressed in something that either said ‘shag me, I’m a complete tart’ or ‘I’m a complete saddo’? Or in this case a mixture of both. The fact that Sophie and I were propping up the bar, both with a goblet of wine in hand each didn’t help with the image much either.
“We’ve been working.” I tried to keep my face straight and stop my nipples making a break for freedom as the gorgeous guy who seemed to feature in every one of my current run of dirty dreams rested his hand on my shoulder and sent a warm thrill straight between my thighs. Along with a very strong urge to grab hold of him and give him the type of kiss that would leave a lasting impression. Gee, life would be so much easier if that kind of full frontal attack was one of my special skills. It wasn’t. Best mates with a bit of flirting thrown in as a side order was a better description of my capabilities.
I’d been having dirty dreams about Dane for as long as I can remember. Well, probably since the first time all six foot something of him had swaggered into this bar and given me the type of smile that gave me an almost, emphasis on almost here, uncontrollable urge to strip every last inch of his clothing off in slow motion. But I hadn’t, because nice girls don’t, do they?
“Been out hammering shoes on?” I tweaked a bit of straw out of his thick dark hair and resisted the urge to tangle my fingers in deeper, just in case I’d missed a bit. And then rub a hand over that broad, strong chest just for good measure. He was buff underneath that shirt, I just knew it. Well, I did actually. I’d seen him strip to the waist the odd time at the tail end of the summer when we’d actually seen a bit of that golden orb in the sky they call the sun, and he’d built up a sweat manhandling horses. And along with every other girl on the yard I’d gone weak-kneed and tried not to stare as I’d watched his muscles ripple and a trickle of sweat bead its way down his back. A bead of sweat that needed licking off.
I’d had a thing about cowboys, well, since I was fifteen when my boy friend, as in two separate words, had dragged me along to watch a western in the local cinema. His idea had been to get his tongue down my throat, but he’d faded into insignificance when the hero of the piece had got off his horse. This had been no normal cowboy, he’d been naked down to the low slung jeans that barely scraped his hips and when he’d slipped one hand under the waistband, just as he tugged the girl in for a kiss the rush of dampness to my knickers had shocked me. And left me squirming, and meant that the boy friend got an end of show, tongue twisting snog that shocked me more than as it did him.
And as I grew up I realized men like that just didn’t exist. I just never met a man who’d had the same effect on me, not even the man I’d married had done that. Until Dane had walked in four long months ago and been the nearest thing to a cowboy that the English counties had to offer. He’d probably never had a Stetson on his head, or a rifle in his hand, but I bet he’d look good on a horse and even if he didn’t, in my mind it just didn’t matter. Dane was just hot, and made me hot, and wet.
His jeans were slung just the same, so I just knew I’d be able to see his hip bones if I unbuttoned that thick cotton shirt. And boy did I want to, and I was just itching to slip my own hand tight in there. I just needed an excuse and September through December had left me too tongue-tied to find one. Even if my horse seemed to be throwing a shoe on a weekly basis and he’d been out an embarrassing number of times.
“Yeah, lots of thrown shoes, darling, you know ‘tis the season.” He winked and my mouth watered. Literally. Much more and I’d be drooling, a drooling elf who would have thought? Bugger, I really did need a plan or I’d be spending another Christmas morning just wishing I’d asked Santa for the type of toy box that had long life batteries and lube in it. But was quiet enough not to disturb Charlie.
 “Hi Dane, boy. We—” Sophie was practically licking her lips, he had that effect on every female old enough to have hormones, as she drew herself up to her full five-foot one and a half inches and put a hand on his arm “—have been doing our good Samaritan bit.” She knew him? I didn’t know which bit made the feeling of empty spread in my stomach, the fact that she knew him, or she knew him. Because from the way she was grinning in a slightly flirty, slightly too cosy way meant she definitely knew him. Every bit of him.
***
To read a longer excerpt visit Zara’s blog.


This product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my opinions or reviews.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Books, Books, and More Books: Giveaway and Book Review of Untimed

Books, Books, and More Books: Giveaway and Book Review of Untimed: Giveaway and Book Review of Untimed S ponsored by Innovative Book Tours Welcome to Books, Books, and More Books.   I am pleased to ...

Giveaway and Book Review of Untimed

Giveaway and Book Review of Untimed
Sponsored by Innovative Book Tours

Welcome to Books, Books, and More Books.  I am pleased to share my review of this book with you.  Thank you for visiting and please come again.


Blurb : 

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates.
As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously.
Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem.
When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it.
And there's one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!


About the Author:

Andy Gavin is a serial creative, polymath, novelist, entrepreneur, computer programmer, author, foodie, and video game creator. He co-founded video game developer Naughty Dog and co-created Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter. He started numerous companies, has been lead programmer on video games that have sold more than forty million copies, and has written two novels including The Darkening Dream, a dark historical fantasy that puts the bite back in vampires.
Contacts:
ONLINE LINKS:
BUY NOW LINK: 
·         Amazon paper book
·         Amazon Kindle copy

Giveaway:

Giveaway: $25 Amazon GC   signed copies of his video games Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter.




Excerpt:

Chapter One:
Ignored
Philadelphia, Autumn, 2010 and Winter, 2011


My mother loves me and all, it’s just that she can’t remember my name.
“Call him Charlie,” is written on yellow Post-its all over our house.
“Just a family joke,” Mom tells the rare friend who drops by and bothers to inquire.
But it isn’t funny. And those house guests are more likely to notice the neon paper squares than they are me.
“He’s getting so tall. What was his name again?”
I always remind them. Not that it helps.
Only Dad remembers, and Aunt Sophie, but they’re gone more often than not — months at a stretch.
This time, when my dad returns he brings a ginormous stack of history books.
“Read these.” The muted bulbs in the living room sharpen the shadows on his pale face, making him stand out like a cartoon in a live-action film. “You have to keep your facts straight.”
I peruse the titles: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Asprey’s The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. Just three among many.
“Listen to him, Charlie,” Aunt Sophie says. “You’ll be glad you did.” She brushes out her shining tresses. Dad’s sister always has a glow about her.
“Where’d you go this time?” I say.
Dad’s supposed to be this hotshot political historian. He reads and writes a lot, but I’ve never seen his name in print.
“The Middle East.” Aunt Sophie’s more specific than usual.
Dad frowns. “We dropped in on someone important.”
When he says dropped in, I imagine Sophie dressed like Lara Croft, parachuting into Baghdad.
“Is that where you got the new scar?” A pink welt snakes from the bridge of her nose to the corner of her mouth. She looks older than I remember — they both do.
“An argument with a rival… researcher.” My aunt winds the old mantel clock, the one that belonged to her mom, my grandmother. Then tosses the key to my dad, who fumbles and drops it.
“You need to tell him soon,” she says.
Tell me what? I hate this.
Dad looks away. “We’ll come back for his birthday.”

* * *


While Dad and Sophie unpack, Mom helps me carry the dusty books to my room.
“Time isn’t right for either of you yet,” she says. Whatever that means.
I snag the thinnest volume and hop onto my bed to read. Not much else to do since I don’t have friends and school makes me feel even more the ghost.

* * *


Mrs. Pinkle, my ninth-grade homeroom teacher, pauses on my name during roll call. Like she does every morning.
“Charlie Horologe,” she says, squinting at the laminated chart, then at me, as if seeing both for the first time.
“Here.”
On the bright side, I always get B’s no matter what I write on the paper.
In Earth Science, the teacher describes a primitive battery built from a glass of salt water covered in tin foil. She calls it a Leyden jar. I already know about them from Ben Franklin’s autobiography — he used one to kill and cook a turkey, which I doubt would fly with the school board.
The teacher beats the topic to death, so I practice note-taking in the cipher Dad taught me over the weekend. He shows me all sorts of cool things — when he’s around. The system’s simple, just twenty-six made-up letters to replace the regular ones. Nobody else knows them. I write in highlighter and outline in red, which makes the page look like some punk wizard’s spell book. My science notes devolve into a story about how the blonde in the front row invites me to help her with her homework. At her house. In her bedroom. With her parents out of town.
Good thing it’s in cipher.
After school is practice, and that’s better. With my slight build and long legs, I’m good at track and field — not that the rest of the team notices. A more observant coach might call me a well-rounded athlete.
The pole vault is my favorite, and only one other kid can even do it right. Last month at the Pennsylvania state regionals, I cleared 16’ 4”, which for my age is like world class. Davy — that’s the other guy — managed just 14’ 8”.
And won. As if I never ran that track, planted the pole in the box, and threw myself over the bar. The judges were looking somewhere else? Or maybe their score sheets blew away in the wind.
I’m used to it.

* * *


Dad is nothing if not scheduled. He and Sophie visit twice a year, two weeks in October, and two weeks in January for my birthday. But after my aunt’s little aside, I don’t know if I can wait three months for the big reveal, whatever it is. So I catch them in his study.
“Dad, why don’t you just tell me?”
He looks up from his cheesesteak and the book he’s reading — small, with only a few shiny metallic pages. I haven’t seen it before, which is strange, since I comb through all his worldly possessions whenever he’s away.
“I’m old enough to handle it.” I sound brave, but even Mom never looks him in the eye. And he’s never home — it’s not like I have practice at this. My stomach twists. I might not like what he has to say.
“Man is not God.”
One of his favorite expressions, but what the hell is it supposed to mean?
“Fink.” For some reason Aunt Sophie always calls him that. “Show him the pages.”
He sighs and gathers up the weird metallic book.
“This is between the three of us. No need to stress your mother.”
What about stressing me? He stares at some imaginary point on the ceiling, like he always does when he lectures.
“Our family has—”
The front doorbell rings. His gaze snaps down, his mouth snaps shut. Out in the hall, I hear my mom answer, then men’s voices.
“Charlie,” Dad says, “go see who it is.”
“But—”
“Close the door behind you.”

* * *


I stomp down the hall. Mom is talking to the police. Two cops and a guy in a suit.
“Ma’am,” Uniform with Mustache says, “is your husband home?”
“May I help you?” she asks.
“We have a warrant.” He fumbles in his jacket and hands her an official-looking paper.
“This is for John Doe,” she tells him.
The cop turns to the man in the suit, deep blue, with a matching bowler hat like some guy on PBS. The dude even carries a cane — not the old-lady-with-a-limp type, more stroll-in-the-park. Blue Suit — a detective? — tilts forward to whisper in the cop’s ear. I can’t hear anything but I notice his outfit is crisp. Every seam stands out bright and clear. Everything else about him too.
“We need to speak to your husband,” the uniformed cop says.
I mentally kick myself for not ambushing Dad an hour earlier.
Eventually, the police tire of the runaround and shove past me as if I don’t exist. I tag along to watch them search the house. When they reach the study, Dad and Sophie are gone. The window’s closed and bolted from the inside.
All the other rooms are empty too, but this doesn’t stop them from slitting every sofa cushion and uncovering my box of secret DVDs.

* * *


Mom and I don’t talk about Dad’s hasty departure, but I do hear her call the police and ask about the warrant.
They have no idea who she’s talking about.
Yesterday, I thought Dad was about to deliver the Your mother and I have grown apart speech. Now I’m thinking more along the lines of secret agent or international kingpin.
But the months crawl by, business as usual, until my birthday comes and goes without any answers — or the promised visit from Dad. I try not to let on that it bothers me. He’s never missed my birthday, but then, the cops never came before, either.
Mom and I celebrate with cupcakes. Mine is jammed with sixteen candles, one extra for good luck.
I pry up the wrapping paper from the corner of her present.
“It’s customary to blow out the candles first,” Mom says.
“More a guideline than a rule,” I say. “Call it advanced reconnaissance.” That’s a phrase I picked up from Sophie.
Mom does a dorky eye roll, but I get the present open and find she did well by me, the latest iPhone — even if she skimped on the gigabytes. I use it to take two photos of her and then, holding it out, one of us together.
She smiles and pats my hand.
“This way, when you’re out on a date you can check in.”
I’m thinking more about surfing the web during class.
“Mom, girls never notice me.”
“How about Michelle next door? She’s cute.”
Mom’s right about the cute. We live in a duplex, an old house her family bought like a hundred years ago. Our tenants, the Montags, rent the other half, and we’ve celebrated every Fourth of July together as long as I can remember.
“Girls don’t pay attention to me.” Sometimes paraphrasing helps Mom understand.
“All teenage boys say that — your father certainly did.”
My throat tightens. “There’s a father-son track event this week.” A month ago, I went into orbit when I discovered it fell during Dad’s visit, but now it’s just a major bummer — and a pending embarrassment.
She kisses me on the forehead.
“He’ll be here if he can, honey. And if not, I’ll race. You don’t get your speed from his side of the family.”
True enough. She was a college tennis champ and he’s a flat-foot who likes foie gras. But still.

* * *


Our history class takes a field trip to Independence Park, where the teacher prattles on in front of the Liberty Bell. I’ve probably read more about it than she has.
Michelle is standing nearby with a girlfriend. The other day I tapped out a script on my phone — using our family cipher — complete with her possible responses to my asking her out. Maybe Mom’s right.
I slide over.
“Hey, Michelle, I’m really looking forward to next Fourth of July.”
“It’s January.” She has a lot of eyeliner on, which would look pretty sexy if she wasn’t glaring at me. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
That wasn’t in my script. I drift away. Being forgettable has advantages.
I tighten the laces on my trainers then flop a leg up on the fence to stretch. Soon as I’m loose enough, I sprint up the park toward the red brick hulk of Independence Hall. The teachers will notice the headcount is one short but of course they’ll have trouble figuring out who’s missing. And while a bunch of cops are lounging about — national historic landmark and all — even if one stops me, he won’t remember my name long enough to write up a ticket.
The sky gleams with that cloudless blue that sometimes graces Philly. The air is crisp and smells of wood smoke. I consider lapping the building.
Then I notice the man exiting the hall.
He glides out the white-painted door behind someone else and seesaws down the steps to the slate courtyard. He wears a deep blue suit and a matching bowler hat. His stride is rapid and he taps his walking stick against the pavement like clockwork.
The police detective.
I shift into a jog and follow him down the block toward the river. I don’t think he sees me, but he has this peculiar way of looking around, pivoting his head side to side as he goes.
It’s hard to explain what makes him different. His motions are stiff but he cuts through space without apparent effort. Despite the dull navy outfit, he looks sharper than the rest of the world, more in focus.
Like Dad and Sophie.
The man turns left at Chestnut and Third, and I follow him into Franklin Court.
He stops inside the skeleton of Ben Franklin’s missing house. Some idiots tore it down two hundred years ago, but for the bicentennial the city erected a steel ‘ghost house’ to replace it.
I tuck myself behind one of the big white girders and watch.
The man unbuttons his suit and winds himself.
Yes, that’s right. He winds himself. Like a clock. There’s no shirt under his jacket — just clockwork guts, spinning gears, and whirling cogs. There’s even a rocking pendulum. He takes a T-shaped key from his pocket, sticks it in his torso, and cranks.
Hardly police standard procedure.
Clueless tourists pass him without so much as a sideways glance. And I always assumed the going unnoticed thing was just me.
He stops winding and scans the courtyard, calibrating his head on first one point then another while his finger spins brass dials on his chest.
I watch, almost afraid to breathe.
CHIME. The man rings, a deep brassy sound — not unlike Grandmom’s old mantel clock.
I must have gasped, because he looks at me, his head ratcheting around 270 degrees until our eyes lock.
Glass eyes. Glass eyes set in a face of carved ivory. His mouth opens and the ivory mask that is his face parts along his jaw line to reveal more cogs.
CHIME. The sound reverberates through the empty bones of Franklin Court.
He takes his cane from under his arm and draws a blade from it as a stage-magician might a handkerchief.
CHIME. He raises the thin line of steel and glides in my direction.
CHIME. Heart beating like a rabbit’s, I scuttle across the cobblestones and fling myself over a low brick wall.
CHIME. His walking-stick-cum-sword strikes against the brick and throws sparks. He’s so close I hear his clockwork innards ticking, a tiny metallic tinkle.
CHIME. I roll away from the wall and spring to my feet. He bounds over in pursuit.
CHIME. I backpedal. I could run faster if I turned around, but a stab in the back isn’t high on my wishlist.
CHIME. He strides toward me, one hand on his hip, the other slices the air with his rapier. An older couple shuffles by and glances his way, but apparently they don’t see what I see.
CHIME. I stumble over a rock, snatch it up, and hurl it at him. Thanks to shot put practice, it strikes him full in the face, stopping him cold.
CHIME. He tilts his head from side to side. I see a thin crack in his ivory mask, but otherwise he seems unharmed.
CHIME. I dance to the side, eying the pavement, find another rock and grab it.
CHIME. We stand our ground, he with his sword and me with my stone.
“Your move, Timex!” I hope I sound braver than I feel.
CHIME. Beneath the clockwork man, a hole opens.
The manhole-sized circle in the cobblestones seethes and boils, spilling pale light up into the world. He stands above it, legs spread, toes on the pavement, heels dipping into nothingness.
The sun dims in the sky. Like an eclipse — still visible, just not as bright. My heart threatens to break through my ribs, but I inch closer.
The mechanical man brings his legs together and drops into the hole. The seething boiling hole.
I step forward and look down….
Into a whirlpool that could eat the Titanic for breakfast. But there’s no water, only a swirling tube made of a million pulverized galaxies. Not that my eyes can really latch onto anything inside, except for the man. His crisp dark form shrinks into faraway brightness.
Is this where Dad goes when he drops in on someone? Is the clockwork dude his rival researcher?
The sun brightens, and as it does, the hole starts to contract. Sharp edges of pavement eat into it, closing fast. I can’t let him get away. Somehow we’re all connected. Me, the mechanical man, Sophie, and Dad.
I take a step forward and let myself fall.

Review

            I really enjoyed this book.  I like books about alternate realities, and what could be more alternate than a family that can travel through time.  Imagine going your whole life without being noticed…I don’t mean your average run of the mill not noticed that every kid feels at one time or another, but seriously not noticed… as in your own family, at least your mother and sisters, can’t remember your name.  Your teachers are always shocked when they call your name in class, that kind of not noticed.  Then suddenly you drop though a whole after a clockwork man and everything you do is important and can impact the whole of history.  What a trip, right?

            I give this book 4.5 out of 5 clouds.

This product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my opinions or reviews.