Well, you all knew this day (and blog post) was coming. If you’ve been following me for the past few weeks, I’ve been writing up a storm about my newest New York Socialites book, INFLUENCE.
This story was so much fun to write and research. I had to delve deeply into the influencing sphere and it was eye opening, I have to tell ya. For all the time we as writers have to spend on social media hawking our books, influencers and brand ambassadors have to be on 24/7. That’s exhausting just thinking about. And not everyone can make the kind of money Lizzy Cray makes as an influencer, either. The top tier is small and anyone can be pitched off their perch when a newer, better brand ambassador comes around. Too stressful for me, LOL!
Brand influencer, Lizzy Cray, is killing it.
She’s got a list of high profile clients who pay her handsomely to help their products explode on social media. Everything from cameras to cashmere, shoes to smoothies. One picture of her with a product and the money practically prints itself.
Why does this trust fund-baby need to work so hard to rake in the cash? That’s a question journalist Dominick Templeton wants an answer to, because Lizzy Cray used to be known in the gossip pages as socialite and wild-child Mackenzie Craymore.
Mackenzie disappeared from the public’s eye twelve years ago, right after her fiancé, hotel-heir, Lucky Blumenthal, died in a fiery car crash rumored to be fueled by drugs and alcohol. But now she’s back, still hauntingly beautiful, rebranded, and from everything Dominick’s researched about her, a much different person. When she ignores all his attempts at an interview, Dominick tries a different tactic and soon becomes embroiled in a world he never imagined…with a woman he’s rapidly falling for.
I spotted a lone guy in a tux at one end, leaning an elbow on the counter and facing the room, a tumbler in his hand. I couldn’t make out his face clearly from this distance but he was tall, trim, had a mass of wavy dark hair and a neatly trimmed goatee.
And he was staring straight at me while he lifted his glass to his lips and drank.
His attention never wavered from me while he sipped. There was something so…erotic about that. For a moment I didn’t think he was looking at me, but maybe lost in thought, you know? Looking toward me but not really seeing me? When his lids dropped down to half-mast and he stopped sipping, he held the glass up in a subtle salute aimed right at me, and one side of his mouth lifted.
Every nerve ending in my spine fired and I shuddered like I’d stepped into an ice-cold bath.
But I wasn’t. Cold, that is. Nope, I was about as far from cold as a person could get on a temperature scale.
Hot didn’t even come close to what my insides were experiencing. If you happened to step into a roaring volcano and come in contact with all that molten lava spewing from it, then maybe – maybe – you’d know how I felt with this guy’s piercing gaze glued to mine.
Mesmerized, I couldn’t pull away from it.
You ever have the notion your life is about to change, something big is about to happen, and you can’t figure out what it is but you’re powerless to alter the course? That’s what it felt like with this guy’s focus zeroed in on me.
Excited anticipation zipped through me.
You can get your copy here: INFLUENCE
Read the reviews:
Goodreads (And add it to your WANT TO READ list)
Peggy Jaeger, Author 