🌟BOOK BLITZ:🌟 The Black Widow by Christa Simpson {EXCERPT + GIVEAWAY!}

The Black Widow by Christa Simpson

Release Date: October 28th 2019 by Black Widow Publishing

Series: Dark Secrets Duet #2

Genres: Adult, Psychological Thriller

Day by day, piece by piece, he puts it all together. What will happen when he finally realizes what I’ve done?

There was a time when I thought I was simply a magnet for trouble. Now I know better. If you want to call me the Black Widow, I’m going to own it. You want a monster? I’ll give you one. I’ll alienate you from everything you know and love. You will learn the hard way that evil doesn’t only lurk in our imaginations and so will the cop that's watching my every move.

I like the strong silent type, but tall, dark and handsome would be well-advised to steer clear of me. He knows better than to get tangled in the web I’ve weaved. I warned him. I told him not to mess with me if he values his life. You’re probably wondering what’ll happen when my darkest truths unravel. It’s not my problem anymore. If he sticks around, he will be the author of his own misfortune.

Caught in my own dangerous game of elimination, will he be the last nail in my coffin?

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{EXCERPT}

Finlay is taking me home for war. I know the drill. Sit there and take it like a woman. Make dinner. Get b*tched at for baking it wrong. Clean up the clear glass when he slams the dish of lasagna off the side of the table. Cry on my knees while cleaning the floor, broken like Cinderella but unable to keep a steely face with him standing over me screaming about what a mistake of a human being I am.

“What is wrong with you?” he screams. “Can’t you do anything right? All I ask for is an edible plate of food on the table. Is that too much to ask? You can’t even get that right.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” I cry hysterically. “I’m so f*cking sorry.”

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry?”

I zone out after that. Words... they’re just words. He doesn’t mean it. I’ve done this to him. This is my fault. If I would have stayed calm, it would have been fine. Maybe if I was a better cook, he wouldn’t flip out over everything. He leans toward me to shout in my ear, as if maybe I will hear him better when he’s spitting at my ear drum.

I want to scream back at him—tell him to stop—but think better of it, stiffly doing what I know I have to do—bow down and take it. I have to calm the down and get through this, one episode at a time.

I take a deep breath and smear my tears with the sleeve of my shirt. I listen to the seconds tick by, the over-sized clock on the wall reminding me that this will all be over soon enough. He starts shouting again, but I can handle it now. This anger will pass, like it always does. He can’t keep this up for much longer. The volcano will erupt and soon the sweet, emotional rush will flow again.

I know what Finlay’s working toward—make-up sex—but it won’t be until I’m a trembling, tear-faced wreck, browbeat into submission. I snap free from that safe place in my mind and tremble from the cold rush of tears on my cheeks. I place the wasted food into a plastic bag Finlay throws at me, together with the broken glass and dirty napkins I used to pick up the saucy mess. A chunk of the broken dish slices across my thumb as it drops into the bag, and I cry out in surprise. Blood instantly pools on the surface of the long cut, and I stare at it, wondering whether it’s deep enough to make a bloody mess. It takes a second for Finlay to realize something is wrong.

My eyes fly across the room. Finlay’s suddenly watching me with a disgraceful look in his eyes. He notices the drops of blood on the floor and takes a step toward me. I flinch, raising my arm to hide my face, afraid he’s finally going to raise a hand on me.

“Please,” I beg, not knowing what I beg for anymore. The shouting to stop. The name-calling to end. The rotten feeling inside my soul to subside. Just hit me and get it over with.

His hand comes gently down onto my shoulder. “You winced. Why did you wince?” He pauses as the words sink in and make me shudder. “Do you not love me anymore?” He sighs, tears coming to his eyes as I lower my guard. “What a monster I’ve become.” He pours his face into his hands. “Oh, God. What have I done?”

Every second is torture, but this is no show. He means it and I can’t escape him. The other Finlay is back, and I can never leave him. I drop the bag to the floor, tuck my thumb into the palm of my hand and curl into his crumbling form. The tips of my fingers slide over his wet cheek and drag through his hair. “You know that’s not true,” I whisper, burying my face into his neck and clutching my injured hand to my chest. “Our love isn’t finished yet.”

He kisses my wound, tasting my blood before pulling me to the sink. He rinses my hand under a stream of cool water, watching the pink swirling down the drain until the water runs clear. Finlay hands me a paper towel, and I press it against the laceration while he searches the cabinet for peroxide and a bandage. He cleans the fresh wound, dries my hand and covers the sliced skin, kissing the spot now concealed. His eyes remain downturned. Does he feel bad for the way he’s treated me? Will he remember this feeling tomorrow? His thumb smooths back and forth over my hand.

“Can you ever forgive me?” he asks, his eyes pleading with the rush of a thousand oceans.

AUTHOR BIO:

Christa Simpson is the Bestselling Author of contemporary romances with a twist and dark, twisty psychological thrillers. Her stories are loaded with passion, suspense and sarcasm. She’s a small-town Canadian girl living in Southwestern, Ontario, with her husband and two beautiful daughters. Check out her stories and get ready for some emotionally charged entertainment!

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🌟BOOK BLITZ:🌟 Slaying Monsters for the Feeble by Annette Marie {EXCERPT + GIVEAWAY!}

Slaying Monsters for the Feeble by Annette Marie

Release Date: November 1st 2019 by Dark Owl Fantasy Inc.

Series: The Guild Codex: Demonized #2

Genres: New Adult, Urban Fantasy

I'm bound to a demon.

For my entire life, I avoided magic at all costs. Now, I'm responsible for a demon who wields magic more powerful than the toughest mage or sorcerer.

Demons are evil.

That's what my textbooks say. That's what I see. He's ruthless, he's temperamental, he's cold. But he protects me without fail. I wonder if he's hiding a heart behind his hostility.

My demon is a monster.

Whether he's heartless or not, my contract with him is illegal and beyond dangerous. Together, we must find a way to return him to his own world before anyone discovers our secret. If that wasn't bad enough, I've come to realize something else:

My demon isn't the only monster I should be worried about.

--
From the author of The Guild Codex: Spellbound comes a new series that will plunge an unprepared young woman into the darkest magic of the mythic world.

--
THE GUILD CODEX: DEMONIZED
Taming Demons for Beginners (#1)
Slaying Monsters for the Feeble (#2)

Amazon

{EXCERPT}

I dashed into the bathroom, pulling the infernus out of my sweater with one hand. “Zylas,” I said breathlessly. “Come out.”

The silver pendant glowed. Red light spilled down, then expanded into Zylas’s shape. As his body solidified in front of me, his dark eyes gazed into mine—then he crumpled.

I grabbed him, gasping at his weight, and he clutched the towel rack for balance. It tore off the wall. As he staggered, Amalia dove into the bathroom and braced him from behind. Supporting him between us, Amalia and I pulled him over to the tub and tried to ease him down, but he was too heavy. He slipped backward and fell into the tub, his legs hooked over the edge and elbows smacking into the opposite side with hollow thuds.

“Sorry, Zylas,” I panted. “Amalia, get the hot water on.”

She spun the tap and water blasted from the showerhead, spraying across him. His dark eyes went wide.

“Cold!” he gasped, seizing the tub’s edge. With sudden strength, he hauled himself up.

“It’ll get warm in a minute!” I exclaimed. Amalia and I caught his shoulders and held him back. The last thing we needed was for him to collapse on the floor. “Just wait—”

He grabbed the front of my shirt and tried to pull himself out of the water—almost yanking me down on top of him.

“Idiot demon!” Amalia shoved him under the spray. He landed hard, water drenching him. “Would you toughen up for a damn sec—”

Zylas’s head lolled back, half-lidded eyes emptying as though a light had been flicked off. He went limp. My heart gave one panicked lurch and stopped. “Turn off the water!”

Amalia wrenched on the tap. The water cut off.

“Zylas?” Putting a knee on the tub’s edge, I pressed a hand to his cheek, then patted it gently. No reaction. I held my fingers over his nose and mouth, lightheaded with relief when I felt his breath. “Zylas?”

Amalia leaned over his other side. “I think he’s unconscious.” Her stunned stare turned to me. “We just knocked out a demon with cold water."

AUTHOR BIO:

Annette Marie is the author of Amazon best-selling YA urban fantasy series Steel & Stone, its prequel trilogy Spell Weaver, and romantic fantasy trilogy Red Winter. Her first love is fantasy, but fast-paced adventures and tantalizing forbidden romances are her guilty pleasures. She lives in the frozen winter wasteland of Alberta, Canada (okay, it's not quite that bad) with her husband and their furry minion of darkness—sorry, cat—Caesar. When not writing, she can be found elbow-deep in one art project or another while blissfully ignoring all adult responsibilities. 

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🌟BOOK BLITZ:🌟 The Event by Whitney Dineen {EXCERPT + GIVEAWAY!}

The Event by Whitney Dineen

Release Date: November 1st 2019

Series: The Creek Water Series #1

Pages: 313

Genres: Adult, Contemporary

There’s a reason Emmeline Frothingham left her hometown of Creek Water, Missouri as soon as humanly possible. That reason is small-minded, judgmental people who wouldn’t know the truth if it was coughed up on them like an errant furball.

After graduating from college, Emmie gets her dream job in New York City. As the head buyer at Silver Spoons--a high-end boutique, and single girl about town, her  life is ideal. That is, until the night of The Event, her company’s annual award's ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nerves plus too much tequila leave Emmie dealing with a wicked hangover, the unemployment line, and a surprise to end all surprises.

Facing the repercussions of her wild night, Emmie is forced to go home to work in her family's business. But her return puts her dead in the sights of the gossipy country club harpies who drove her away in the first place.

Will Emmie make peace with her past and embrace the love of her family? Will she discover that the man who seems to be judging her most has a secret of his own? Find out in this deliciously fun romantic comedy, sure to put a smile on your face!

Amazon

{EXCERPT}

In my esteemed, but obviously biased opinion, Creek Water, Missouri, population 14,012, is the armpit of the world. Scratch that, it’s a ripe pustulant boil on the butt of the Northern Hemisphere. If it weren’t my hometown, and I weren’t desperate for employment, I’d have never considered moving back. Ever.

I just got off the phone with my Uncle Jed—the Beverly Hillbillies reference is not lost on me—and he’s offered to make me manager of a new commercial venture he and my other uncle Jesse (yes, like Full House) are starting up in the old warehouse district. The revitalization of Creek Water continues as my former peers have discovered that it’s cheaper to live at home and not go out into the real world like I did. Problem is, I got myself into a tiny bit of trouble in the real world.

I was driven in my formative years to prove that I could make something of myself without any backing from the illustrious Frothingham family, of which I am one. I was sick to death of people thinking everything was handed to me on a silver platter just because of my last name. So, I worked hard to get excellent grades in school, and I earned myself a scholarship to college. After graduation, I moved to New York City, determined to leave my small-town, small-minded roots behind. Things were going great too, until The Event.

I worked as head buyer for Silver Spoons Enterprises in Manhattan, an exclusive gourmet/kitchenware boutique chain on the Eastern Seaboard. I was stationed at our flagship location on East Seventy-Third Street.

The Event was the corporate dinner dance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where all the bigwigs gathered to pat each other on the back and recognize top-performing employees. I thought I was a shoo-in for the Demitasse Award, honoring the most creative contribution to the company during that fiscal year. I was personally responsible for the whole “Linens for Dinner” campaign, which promoted the idea that both urban and suburban millennials only use cloth napkins to dine, thus not only cutting back our carbon footprint by lessening paper waste, but also adding a touch of elegance to our lives. We sold more linens that year than in the previous ten years combined. It was that successful.

So there I sat in my way too expensive dress—I splurged because I knew how important it was to make a good impression on the executives and because it was the perfect little number to accept my honor in—when Jameson Diamante announced the nominees for the Demitasse.

There were only three of us—me with my linen campaign, Juliet Smithers from the Southampton store for her “Drink More Wine!” crusade, and Allison Conrad from Atlanta for her “Pretty Please, Y’all” call to reinstate formal invitations on engraved card stock.

Why don’t we just kill the planet, Allison, with all the trees we’re going to murder for your cause?

I was poised on the edge of my seat ready to throw my hands across my heart and gasp something along the lines of, “What? Me? My word, I’m so surprised!” I’d imagined how I’d get up and show off my six-hundred-dollar understated elegance to the whole room.

Jameson announced, “This year’s decision was not an easy one to make, with all three ladies greatly contributing to our brand, but in the end, we chose the contender who was responsible for the most innovative campaign.”

Here’s where the chain of events gets a wee bit cloudy. I could have sworn he’d called my name, so I stood up as planned, but my good friend and table-mate Lexi says that isn’t what happened at all. Apparently, old Jameson had called out Allison’s name, and she and I both went up to accept the award. How deforesting the planet is innovative, I do not know. I did hear through the corporate grapevine that Allison had gone to Jameson’s hotel room with him before the ceremony like a Kardashian auditioning her new sugar daddy. But I digress. Back to The Event.

I grabbed the silver spoon out my fellow nominee’s hand and proceeded to give my speech. All of it. Which for some reason I was allowed to do. It was a beautiful speech. I thanked my mother for her graciousness and manners, and I thanked my grandmother for teaching me how to fold dinner napkins into swans. I was about to thank Silver Spoons for having the wisdom to hire me, when Allison grabbed the Demitasse out of my hand. I may have chosen that moment to snatch it back and hit her over the head with it—obviously not very hard as she never pressed assault charges, thank God.

It’s all conjecture really. All I can say for certain is that I hastily fled the ceremony, trotting down all eight hundred thousand stairs of the Met in four-inch heels, in a cloud of disgrace and disappointment. I took a cab to a nearby bar, where I proceeded to drink my body weight in tequila before waking up in an unknown apartment in Brooklyn.

AUTHOR BIO:

Whitney loves to laugh, play with her kids, bake, and eat french fries -- not always in that order.

Whitney is a multi-award-winning author of romcoms, non-fiction humor, and middle reader fiction. Basically, she writes whatever the voices in her head tell her to.

She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, Jimmy, where they raise children, chickens, and organic vegetables.

Gold Medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2017.

Silver medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2015, 2016.

Finalist RONE Awards, 2016.

Finalist at the IRFA 2016, 2017.

Finalist at the Book Excellence Awards, 2017

Finalist Top Shelf Indie Book Awards, 2017

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