Toady’s #fridayfive is an exciting one for me. Tomorrow, I will be at the Boston Marriott Peabody for GETTING WITCHY WITH IT 2023 as an attending and book-signing author! I’ll be at table #44 in the Centennial Room
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 9.16-17, 2023 THE BOSTON MARRIOT PEABODY NEAR SALEM, MA
So, here are 5 reasons why you should come on down:
300 authors – spread over two days, Saturday and Sunday. I’m a Saturday author, so I’ll see you tomorrow!
Models – many of the authors are bringing their cover models with them to take pictures with fans. How many people do you know who have their picture with a famous book cover model? It could be you!!
Harper Vale is my kind of woman and heroine: smart, snarky, doesn’t suffer fools, introverted, and has a dream.
Here’s a little insight into what happens after she’s fired…
In the elevator, the guard demanded her badge and security code card, which she handed over without a word into his meaty outstretched hand. Harper was too furious to feel embarrassed when the questioning stares and raised eyebrow glances of co-workers shot at her as she was escorted through the lobby and out the front doors. She was met at the entrance by another guard holding her backpack and told it contained everything in her desk of a personal nature, including her bike helmet.
The pack was unzipped, indicating they’d searched through it. A sense of violation shot through her and the anger swimming inside her intensified.
“Don’t try to come back into the building,” the Neanderthal said. “You’ll be stopped, detained, and handed over to the police for trespassing.”
“Don’t worry, Dickhead,” she said, her voice carrying clearly into the lobby. “I have no intention of ever coming back here.”
He tossed her a speaking glance and it took every ounce of will she could summon not to shoot him a middle finger salute as he strode back into the building on legs ridiculously too large for his pants.
Seething, she made her way to the bike rack and slipped her helmet on. After searching her backpack she found her wallet, phone, house keys, an emergency bike repair kit, and an old pack of peppermints, everything she typically carried with her. She’d never brought any pictures or other personal items into her workspace to clutter it and make it homey. To her, it was merely a space to work.
Ten years, she muttered, as she wove her bike through traffic. Ten years of her life devoted to a company that never appreciated her and now accused her of being a thief.
Lunch hour traffic was unusually thick and it took her an extra half hour of zipping in and out of traffic before she made it safely to her apartment. Throughout the trek, her anger grew to a boiling point.
She wanted to hit something. Hard.
Paying for a session at SCHMASH blew into her mind but was quickly discarded. She’d been fired which meant her income was now gone.
Fired.
How in the world had this happened? She’d done nothing—certainly never stolen from him. Or anyone.
And where had that bank account with her social security number attached to it come from?
If she possessed fifty thousand available dollars it certainly wouldn’t have been in a bank in another country. She’d have invested it in her project, not socked it away on foreign soil.
Someone had set her up. That was the only explanation. Someone had stolen something from Kirkpatrick, sold it, and made it look like she was responsible.
Why? Who the hell hated her so much?
She may not be best friends with anyone at K.I. but she’d certainly never done anything to warrant this.
As she pulled her bike off the elevator, Ginger’s door flew open.
“Oh, Harper. I thought you might be the delivery person. I’m waiting for my new fruit of the month delivery. Whatever are you doing home in the middle of a workday?”
Nerves raw and emotions in chaos, the last thing Harper wanted was to get into a gabfest with her nosy, however nice, neighbor.
“Just taking some personal time,” she said, shoving her bike through her apartment door. With a forced smile, she added, “I’ve got a bunch of vacation time saved and if I don’t use it I lose it.”
Ginger’s expression told Harper if given the slightest indication she wanted company, the woman would be in her place in a heartbeat.
“Oh, well, enjoy the afternoon, then, dear. I’m off to pack for a visit with one of my sons for a few days.”
“Enjoy.”
“You as well.”
She shut herself into her apartment, fell back against the closed door after slamming it against the stuck portion, then slid down it to the floor. The tears she’d been valiantly holding back were finally allowed to rain down her cheeks.
Harper dropped her head against her knees and let them free.
~~Intrigued? Preorder here: Amazon Watch the trailer here: You tube
Add it to your GOODREADS WANT TO READ LIST here: goodreads
A PRIDE OF BROTHERS: DYLAN releases next Monday, Sept. 18,2023. Today’s little teaser is from Harper Vale’s POV as she reads up on the new hire, Dylan Keane.
Harper peeled her sweaty clothes from her body, tossed them in the hamper, and then jumped into the shower for a quick hose down of the day. That done, she then took a moment to evaluate her arms and legs.
Old scars in various colors and lengths traversed her limbs. Some were so old the skin had turned white where they’d healed. Others were various shades of pink. The most recent – the grad school ones – were smaller, but redder in color.
Harper shook her head as she fingered several of the older ones on her forearms and then her thighs. Her scars were the reason she never wore short-sleeved shirts or shorts in public. The need to explain to anyone who noticed the scarified flesh why they hopscotched across her limbs was a conversation she wasn’t going to have with anyone – ever – if she could help it.
With meticulous care, she pumped a bottle of body lotion a few times, then slathered her arms and legs with the white, coconut-scented cream. Done, she pulled on a pair of ancient gym sweats, an old college t-shirt. Since she was staying home and no one was going to see her, she figured she might as well be comfortable and cool. Next, she saw to dinner.
But first, she had to feed her fish.
“Hey, Tony,” she said as she sprinkled some of the fish food her mother had given her as a gift for Christmas into the bowl sitting atop her kitchen counter. The single goldfish swam to the surface to suck in the flakes. “Do anything fun today?”
Tony ignored her as he darted around the bowl to catch every single flake of food before it drifted to the bottom.
“Yeah. Me, neither.”
She pulled open her refrigerator door. Her fridge wasn’t what anyone would call stocked. Several cartons of generic yogurt, a bowl of leftover spaghetti from last night’s dinner, a half-loaf of bread, and a carton of eggs were the only things on the shelves, reminding her she needed to go grocery shopping soon. The salad she’d treated herself to at lunch today was supposed to be a nod to try and eat better. She’d forgotten the prices of the salads at work were based on weight, though. Her first one had consisted mostly of lettuce and some sliced egg bits and still cost her almost four dollars. Luckily, when the new guy bumped into her and offered to replace her ruined meal, she’d opted to add more on it since she wasn’t paying. The soda and cookies she’d tossed in were an indulgent treat. And since he didn’t protest, she figured, why not?
As she reheated the spaghetti in the microwave she thought about the new guy.
Dylan.
After she’d gone back to her office she’d retrieved the email introducing him to the company and discovered his last name was Keane.
Dylan Keane.
A pretty ordinary name for a guy anything but.
She read through his biography again paying special attention to the personal stuff and not the professional achievements.
Vital statistics: Thirty-six, single.
No mention if the single status was because of divorce, never married, or something else.
Personal interests: biking, karate, running.
Now she understood why he’d been impressed with her bike. If he was an avid rider himself, he’d surely have recognized the classic Schwinn 10-speed. This version hadn’t been produced in over twenty-five years and collectors paid a fortune for originals.
Wonder what he would have said if he knew it was her first bike, gifted to her on her tenth birthday by her parents and which she’d lovingly cared for all these years?
The microwave dinged and she stood in her small kitchen, bowl in hand, and ate.
So he was a runner. The memory of his six-foot-plus, trim, long-legged body proved it. He had that classic male model physique – the inverted coat hanger. Broad, square shoulders tapering down to a trim waist and lean hips and ending in legs that went on for days.
For a tech geek he liked sporty stuff. Most of the techies she knew from work and while she’d been at school eschewed physical sports of any kind, preferring to sit in front of their screens most of the day. Gamers were the inveterate couch potato. She couldn’t picture Dylan Keane sitting in a chair with a joystick or control panel in his hands for hours on end.
Future aspirations: to be independently wealthy and one day run a non-profit devoted to helping underprivileged kids enter STEM careers.
Well, well. It seemed Mr. Gorgeous had lofty future goals. Or he just mentioned those because he knew it would look good to others.
Harper didn’t know him well enough to decide which characterization was the more truthful.
In just 1 week A PRIDE OF BROTHERS: DYLAN releases into the book loving world. This is the third book in the A PRIDE OF BROTHERS SERIES, and centers around middle brother, Dylan Keane. My idea of what Dylan looks like is….
Le sigh.
5 things about Dylan that you should know are that he’s a cyberspecialist, a hacker, he’s loyal, loves his family and is a total extrvert.
Cyber Security specialist Dylan Keene is working undercover to suss out a corporate thief. The client wants answers – yesterday – and Dylan’s getting close. When he zeros in on coding expert Harper Vale, he thinks he’s found his mole and sets out to prove it.
Harper has a reputation as a coding savant and an introvert. As a woman competing in a male dominated industry, Harper doesn’t make waves. Dylan’s interest in her is flattering, but after she’s implicated in the theft of the company’s protected software, she begins to doubt everything he’s told her.
When a series of potentially deadly accidents occur, all surrounding Harper, Dylan starts to wonder if she truly is guilty, or being made to take the fall. One thing is certain, though. The more time the two of them spend together, the more Dylan realizes he’s the one who’s falling – for Harper.
Today’s snippet comes from the 9.18.2023 release of A PRIDE OF BROTHERS: DYLAN, the third book in the POB series.
As the name implies, Dylan Keane is front and center in this one. A cyberspecialist/bodyguard/hacker, Dylan has been hired to suss out a corporate thief. He centers on a dream team member named Harper Vale. Here’s Harper’s impression of Dylan:
“Guys like you always have an agenda.”
“Guys like me?”
She lifted a shoulder, then a hand in a careless wave, slicing the air. “Good-looking, likable. The kind who only has to smile to make a girl feel like she’s the queen of the world. Guys like you always have ulterior motives when it comes to me, so let’s get to it and forget all the schmoozing.”
She counted to ten while he simply gaped at her. She figured the insults alone would make him leave her to her desired solitude. Her dismissive attitude would certainly add to the swiftness with which he’d go.
After she got to ten, she took a breath, astounded he still sat across from her. Then, something happened that she’d never counted on: he smiled. Not the full wattage aren’t-I-just-the-hottest-thing-you’ve-ever-seen smile he’d tossed her a few minutes ago. No, this one was real. She’d bet next week’s pay on it. And, holy crap, it was more devastating and…alluring, than anything she’d seen prior.
Her face scorched with heat at his gentle perusal. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
He tilted his head to the left and tucked his cheek between his teeth. “You think I’m good-looking?” he asked in a voice so filled with conceit she couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her.
When his grin broadened, showing off the second mortgage his parents probably took out to pay for his perfect orthodontia, something shifted low in her belly, something she hadn’t felt in quite some time: arousal.
“Do you own a mirror?” she asked.
He nodded. “Couple.”
“Well, then.” She sliced her hand in the air again in a there-you-have-it gesture.
If you’re looking for a good read to get you through the last weekend of Summer, INFLUENCE will be 99cents for Labor Day weekend.
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.
So, I’m still hyping my newest NYC Romance INFLUENCE, and decided for today’s Teaser tuesday, to give you another little look between the pages!
Somewhere between waiting for her to arrive and when I spotted her walking into the restaurant, I realized how excited I was to see her again and not simply because I had a story to write. I hadn’t felt this level of anticipation about a woman in a long, long time.
Kissing her like that, without asking permission, or even wondering if she felt the same way I did should have felt like a mistake.
Should have…but didn’t.
And also wasn’t a mystery.
Mackenzie Craymore was, without a doubt, the most intriguing woman I’d ever met. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d been wanting to kiss her since we’d danced.
“I love walking in the park,” she said as we ambled along. We’d joined midday runners, joggers, moms and nannies with baby carriages, rollerbladers, as we walked, hand in hand.
“When we first moved here,” I said, skirting around an elderly woman walking her Schnauzer, “I spent most of my free time here. Biking, or with my skate board tucked in my backpack. I hung out here every afternoon after school.”
“Alone or with friends?”
“Mostly alone. Later on, when we’d been back awhile I started making friends. It was hard, at first, because by the time I arrived on scene the social cliques had already formed. Life long friends who all go to the same schools, same camps, same music lessons, tend to congregate. When you’re an outsider,” I said, “It’s hard to worm your way in.”
She sighed. “Kids can be mean.”
I shook my head. “Not so much mean as insulating. And I didn’t mind being on my own.”
Anything was preferable to the silence that met me at home every day and night.
“Is that when you began writing? During those alone times?”
Surprised, I turned to find her staring up at me with the question on her beautiful face.
“That’s an astute question.”
With a careless shrug she said, “Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. A lonely kid, living in new place. No friends. There aren’t many scenarios that fit. I don’t picture you as the kid who sat at home and played video games all day long.”
I laughed. “Nope. Not even close.”
She nodded. “So, that leaves potential mayhem and rabblerousing, or something worthwhile to occupy your time. And again, I can’t see you being the kid who stole from the local bodega or did a little pharmacology dealing on the side.”
I speared her with a speaking glance. “I’ll have you know I can cause mayhem and mischief with the best of them.”
Her laugh was so free and easy I couldn’t help the feeling of contentment it bolstered in me. I really wanted to kiss her again, but from the dark recesses of my brain I remembered I had a job to do and no matter who alluring I found this beautiful woman, I needed to do it.
“Enough about me. I want to ask you something, something about your new career.”
Her sigh floated on the gentle breeze around us. “Go ahead.”
“Why do you do it? I mean, no offense, but I don’t think you have to work, do you? Your family wealth is solid.”
It was subtle, and if I hadn’t been looking down at her when I asked, I might have missed it, but the corners of her mouth tightened a bit, her smile loosing some of its luster.
“What’s that old saying?” she asked. “You can never be too thin or too rich?”
I wasn’t buying it. Not for a second. But I knew I had to tread lightly. Otherwise, she’d shut down even more.
“Is that why you do it, then? For the money? Because I don’t see you as the type of person who courts fame and loves the attention.”
She stopped walking and looked up at me through her sunglasses. I wished I could see her eyes, try to discern what was going on behind them.
“Let’s sit.” She tugged me toward an empty bench. The earthy scent of fresh grass invaded my senses and somewhere behind us I heard a power mower working.
Mackenzie dropped my hand, placed hers in her lap as she faced me. Shaded from the tree canopy above us, she finally removed her sunglasses by shoving them up on her head.
She looked about sixteen years old as she pulled a corner of her mouth between her teeth.
“You’re right about my family’s wealth. My great-grandfather set the next five generations up for life, and my father and grandfather have only added to the family coffers.”
I nodded.
She sighed again. “If you Googled me then you probably spotted an article or two about me from…before. From when I was younger.”
Another nod. “Lots of them, in fact.” My lips lifted. “The gossip pages were filled with mentions of your escapades.”
She rolled her eyes. “I did a lot of stupid things when I was a teenager, and then in my twenties, to garner attention. Some I’m not proud of, some I couldn’t care less about. Once something is on the Internet, though, it’s never lost. Or forgotten.”
“Truth.”
“When you’re young you don’t care what people think about you, what they write about you. You feel invincible and that it’s no one’s business but yours what you do, or say. How you conduct your life. It’s when you get more mature that you begin to realize your actions and the opinions of others do make a difference.”
“Again, that’s true. Reputations are lost and gained on one simple act.”
She nodded. “You must know I was engaged.”
“Lucky Blumenthal. Hotel heir and ridiculously wealthy in his own right.”
“His parents built that empire. When he lost them, he personally made it his mission to keep the business growing.”
“He was a bit of a reckless wild child, though.”
“He was, but his brain for business was unparalleled.” She bit down on her cheek again. “You know what…happened?”
I unwound her hands and pulled one into my lap, cocooning it with both of mine. For once I didn’t think words were necessary.
