New Releases Spotlight/Giveaway: Secret Santa: Twelve Secrets of Christmas & Her Special Ops Santa

Her Special Ops Santa by Aurora Russell

General Release Date: 13th December 2022

Word Count: 42,729
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 160

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
CHRISTMAS
CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE
MEN IN UNIFORM
THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE

The sexy secret operative gave her unforgettable pleasure, but will he return to kiss her under the mistletoe?

When Rose Abbott took the position as a nurse at a charitable clinic abroad, she imagined she’d be saving lives, but instead she’s running for her life as a surprise insurgent uprising at the American embassy throws the country into chaos. In order to save a patient, she misses the last of the evacuation transports and has to make her own way to find her brother. She’s only prevented from walking into a trap by the massive soldier who rises out of the sand like a sexy specter.

T.J. Browning, known as Hook to his select special ops crew, has been growing jaded, so that each new sensitive, dangerous mission has become just another day at the office. When he sees a lovely young woman clutching her American passport as she tries to sneak across the open landscape, he knows he shouldn’t risk revealing himself, but he can’t help but save her.

Passion ignites between them as they shelter overnight in a small cave, but T.J. has secrets and responsibilities. He can’t make any promises, but he leaves her with the hope that he will be able to meet her for Christmas. Doubts creep in for both of them in the months of separation, and the road to a potential reunion is made even rockier by circumstances beyond their control. Still, T.J. remains determined to be Rose’s secret Santa…if she’ll still have him.

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About the Author

Aurora Russell

Aurora is originally from the frozen tundra of the upper-Midwest (ok, not frozen all the time!) but now loves living in New England with her real-life hero/husband, two wonderfully silly sons, and one of the most extraordinary cats she has ever had the pleasure to meet. But she still goes back to the Midwest to visit, just never in January. She doesn’t remember a time that she didn’t love to read, and has been writing stories since she learned how to hold a pencil. She has always liked the romantic scenes best in every book, story, and movie, so one day she decided to try her hand at writing her own romantic fiction, which changed her life in all the best ways. You can find out more about Aurora at her website here.

Twelve Secrets of Christmas by Amelia Foster

General Release Date: 13th December 2022

Word Count: 30,448
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 124

Genres:

BILLIONAIRE
CHRISTMAS
CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE

A workplace connection gets murky when the heir to the company is involved.

Leah Carson’s four-year relationship exploded on New Year’s Day and soured her toward all holiday-related activities. She no longer excessively decorated her home and office for Christmas, choosing the grinchy path instead. Working for a media outlet forces her into some semblance of holiday cheer, especially when the up-and-coming channel sets its sights on making a mark with a New Year’s Eve special to rival all the standard offerings—something thrown into question when the host of the broadcast is put in jail, and Leah and her team are scrambling to fill the slot.

Brendan Lanza is heir to the throne of Lanza Broadcasting, but he has to earn his seat by learning every department within the company at his father’s orders. His term with the marketing team offers the unexpected bonus of getting to know Leah better. The respect his father holds for the woman becomes an understatement once Brendan sees how her clever brain easily handles issues, something only rivaled by the temptations her body creates in him.

But her less-than-festive spirit and the threat of losing their highly anticipated special lead Brendan to appoint himself as her Secret Santa, sending twelve anonymous gifts to Leah. Their office flirtation ramps up as Leah begins to receive presents from a secret admirer, creating a bit of conflict as she believes that she is torn between two men, and Brendan is left to decide if he’s betraying their blossoming bond by withholding the truth behind the packages she finds on her doorstep each night.

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About the Author

Amelia Foster

Books, coffee, and chocolate make up both the heart and body mass that is better known as Amelia Foster. She has been a lifelong lover of the written word, both as a reader and an author, and completed her first manuscript at the ripe old age of five, complete with illustrations. Sadly, her art was a medium that never improved over time, although thankfully her writing has.

From sweet to salacious, the only requirement Amelia has in books she reads – and definitely in the ones she crafts – is an excessively satisfying happily ever after… and then a little bit more.

You can find Amelia at her website here

Giveaway

Enter for the chance to win a $50.00 First for Romance Gift Card! Competition hosted by Totally Entwined Group. 

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Discover Secret Santa: Exposed by Christmas & Moving Mountains/Giveaway

Exposed by Christmas by Hayden West

General Release Date: 13th December 2022

Word Count: 32,013
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 135

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
CHRISTMAS
CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI
SPORTS
THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE

Secrets refuse to stay buried.

Pulled in for an op he never wanted, Michael Little knows it won’t be a hardship to pretend interest in his target. What does prove difficult is knowing that when it’s over, he’ll have to walk away.

Radek Dionne has busted his ass to keep his name away from the shady dealings his family is involved in. Used to people wanting him either for those connections or due to him being a player in the NHL, he keeps to himself. Until one night when he meets someone who gets to him on a level he’s never expected.

But family has a way of showing up when you least want them to and his is no exception. Secrets are exposed and loyalties tested. Will they be together by Christmas, or has this last secret ruined any chance of a happy ever after?

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence, sexual harassment, blackmail, and kidnapping. There is mention of child abuse, domestic violence, drug abuse, human trafficking and child trafficking.

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About the Author

Hayden West

Hayden West lives in the Pacific Northwest, enjoys being outdoors, and hanging out with friends when not working on the next novella to be released. Find Hayden at their website and blog.

Moving Mountains by S. J. Coles

General Release Date: 13th December 2022

Word Count: 49,206
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 197

Genres:

CHRISTMAS
CONTEMPORARY
CRIME
CRIME AND MYSTERY
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI
MEN IN UNIFORM
MYSTERY
THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE

Jacob would move mountains to spend Christmas with someone special. A suspicious death and Park Ranger Cody Spencer will help him do just that.

Special Agent Jacob Miles was looking forward to spending Christmas with someone special, but the job always gets in the way—or so his FBI agent ex keeps telling him. So, it’s looking like another lonely holiday at home.

But first, he’s got to get to the bottom of a suspicious death in the picturesque mountain town of Silveridge, Colorado. A local drug dealer has been killed, and the local sheriff’s minimal investigation seems to suggest that something’s not quite right.

Jacob isn’t thrilled to be sent undercover a week before Christmas to look into what he is sure is a case of country-cop incompetency, but then his local contact, Park Ranger Cody Spencer, has him looking at his trip, Christmas and the case in a whole new way.

Can Jacob decide which matters more, the case or his heart, before the holiday is over and one—or both—are lost?

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About the Author

S. J. Coles

S. J. Coles is a Romance writer originally from Shropshire, UK. She has been writing stories for as long as she has been able to read them. Her biggest passion is exploring narratives through character relationships.

She finds writing LGBT/paranormal romance provides many unique and fulfilling opportunities to explore many (often neglected or under-represented) aspects of human experience, expectation, emotion and sexuality.

Among her biggest influences are LGBT Romance authors K J Charles and Josh Lanyon and Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice.

Find S. J. Coles at her website and on Facebook, and follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

Giveaway

Enter for the chance to win a $50.00 First for Romance Gift Card! Competition hosted by Totally Entwined Group.

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Book Blast~ Lucy Felthouse's Cupid

Discover Lucy Felthouse's Cupid, available now at Evernight Publishing.

Out Now! Cupid by Lucy Felthouse (@cw1985 @evernightpub) #holiday #christmas #erotica #romance #shifter #paranormal #pnr

Blurb:

As a postman by day, and one of Santa’s reindeer on a single very special night, Cassius Cupid eats, sleeps, and breathes deliveries. He doesn’t mind, but sometimes wishes that someone would send him something more exciting than bills and junk mail.

One cold January morning, Cassius gets his wish. A young woman arrives with a parcel. Turns out it’s for his housemate – but Cassius doesn’t care. All he’s interested in is Carina – the beautiful female courier.

Has Cupid finally met his match?

Buy links: http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/cupid/

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27255784-cupid

Excerpt:

Cassius Cupid woke with a start, and then sat bolt upright in his bed. Shit, I’m going to be late! was his first thought.

Milliseconds later his brain switched on, and he remembered. He was on holiday. Flopping back onto the warm mattress and pillows with a contented sigh, he smiled. No work for fourteen whole days—it was going to be utter bliss. He stretched, relishing the feeling it created in his sleep-softened muscles. Ahhh…this is the life.

He knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep—hell, it was eight o’clock, which was practically the middle of the day for someone in his profession—so Cassius fell to thinking about how he was going to spend his day, not to mention the several others in front of him. God knew he deserved to relax and have some fun. He’d just emerged from the busiest part of his year, and he was more than ready to do some chilling out.

He enjoyed his job as a postman—he really did—but the Christmas period was a total killer. He idly wondered how many cards and presents he’d delivered over the past few weeks. It didn’t bear thinking about. Once you factored in the festive period itself, the weird few days between Christmas and New Year, and then the flurry of mail that got sent when everyone went back to work properly at the beginning of January, he’d racked up some serious deliveries. And that was before you even thought about his other job—which was for just one day a year, but was arguably more important than the other 364 put together.

Cassius—or Cupid, as he was known to his boss and colleagues in his second, but most important job—was not only a regular postman for the Royal Mail, but also a reindeer. For a single day of the year, Cassius had the supernatural power to transform into one of Santa’s faithful steeds and help pull that famous magical sleigh, delivering presents to excited children the world over.

Therefore, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Cassius really did eat, sleep and breathe deliveries, but not for the next fourteen days. All he planned to do was watch some TV, read some books, maybe go out hiking, meet some friends… basically anything that wasn’t delivering something to someone. Hey, he might even receive something through the post himself—preferably not the usual crap; bills and junk mail. He didn’t hold out much hope.

He lounged in bed for another ten minutes before realising he was lying there just for the sake of it. Being on holiday didn’t have to equal staying in bed all day—and certainly not for someone as active as him. He reached over to his bedside table, grabbed his glasses and put them on. Throwing off his thick duvet, he walked to his bedroom window and peeked out through the curtains, immediately glad of the effective central heating he and his housemate had forked out to have installed the previous year.

The outside world was covered in a thick layer of snow, and Cassius was mightily glad that he wasn’t out delivering letters and parcels. The stuff was treacherous enough without having to carry a heavy bag up and down driveways, paths, and pavements — most of which either hadn’t been cleared, or had been cleared badly, leaving incredibly slippery patches of ground for an unsuspecting postie to come across. God knows he’d gone down enough times, but, much to his relief, nobody had ever seen him do it. He’d always been relatively unharmed—excerpt for his pride, of course—and had been able to scramble back to his feet and carry on.

The eerie silence outside was broken by the rumble of an engine, and Cassius turned his head to look up the street—he lived in a cul-de-sac, so he knew that’s where the vehicle would come from—and watched as a delivery van made its way slowly and carefully down the road. He hoped the driver was sensible enough to try and steer over the thickest parts of the snow—the more people went over and over the same patches, packing it down, the more the road surface resembled an ice rink. And since the cul-de-sac was on a slight hill, it was easy enough to get stuck. He’d seen it so many times—even going outside one time last winter to suggest the driver go down to the bottom of the road, turn around and try reversing up the hill—an almost foolproof plan for vans with rear-wheel drive. He’d gotten a big thumbs-up for that suggestion as the driver finally got to the junction where the road became flat, and went on his merry way.

As the van drew closer to his house, he saw that the driver was a woman. That would explain her cautious driving—he’d never admit it to one of his drinking buddies, but women were far superior when it came to driving in adverse weather conditions. He even thought he’d seen some survey containing statistics that proved it.

Author Bio:

Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 140 publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women's Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house. She owns Erotica For All, is book editor for Cliterati, and is one eighth of The Brit Babes. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

Release Blast for Christmas at the Castle

Out Now! Christmas at the Castle by Jenny Kane (@jennykaneauthor) #contemporary #romance #christmas #ku #kindleunlimited

Blurb

Christmas at the Castle is a seasonal treat from Jenny Kane, featuring much-loved characters from her bestselling novel Another Cup of Coffee.

When hotshot businesswoman Alice Warren is asked to organise a literary festival at beautiful Crathes Castle in Scotland, her ‘work mode’ persona means she can’t say no – even though the person asking is her ex, Cameron Hunter.

Alice broke Cameron’s heart and feels she owes him one – but her best friend Charlie isn’t going to like it. Charlie – aka famous author Erin Spence – is happy to help Alice with the festival…until she finds out that Cameron’s involved! Charlie suffered a bad case of unrequited love for Cameron, and she can’t bear the thought of seeing him again.

Caught between her own insecurities and loyalty to her friend, Charlie gets fellow author Kit Lambert to take her place. Agreeing to leave her London comfort zone – and her favourite corner in Pickwicks Café – Kit steps in. She quickly finds herself not just helping out, but hosting a major literary event, while also trying to play fairy godmother – a task which quickly gets very complicated indeed...

Available to buy from Amazon, and to read as part of the Kindle Unlimited Programme: http://mybook.to/christmasatthecastle

Extract

Charlie pushed open the door of The Deeside Bookshop.

Instead of being greeted by John, she was surprised to see a much younger man behind the counter. Having never known the shop without John in it, Charlie was immediately concerned. ‘Um, hello, I wondered if I could speak to John, is he OK?’

‘He’s very OK, thank you. Soaking up the sun in New Zealand in fact.’

‘Oh.’ Not sure what to do, Charlie decided she’d dive straight in anyway. If John trusted this man to run the shop in his absence, then he must be alright. ‘Could I have a quick chat about the literary festival at Crathes? I know Ms Warren has already approached the shop, but I…’

The man, who Charlie guessed must be in his late thirties, ran an exasperated hand through his short hair. ‘I already told your colleague I can’t help. What Ms Warren is asking of me is not cost-effective. Although I wish you luck with the festival, the tactic of sending her prettier colleague to get me to change my mind is not going to work!’

Prettier colleague? Charlie felt thrown. No one ever thought she was prettier than Alice.

‘I assure you no… tactics are in play. I’m only helping out today because I’m a friend of one of the other organisers, and I have a more sensible and, I think, more realistic proposition for you than Alice did. I will tell you about it if you would like to hear it; if not, I’ll leave you in peace to stare around your customer-free shop!’

Rather taken aback by the edge to her tone, the tension in Charlie’s shoulders unknotted a little as, to her amazement, the man began to laugh.

Placing the books he’d been holding on the counter he said, ‘I’m sorry, forgive me for being abrupt. My name is Gervase Potter; I bought John out a few weeks ago. This little empire is now mine.’

Tilting his head to one side, giving Charlie the impression he was enjoying the view, he added, ‘I would very much like to hear your proposal. How about we discuss it tonight over a drink at Scott Skinner’s? I haven’t made it there yet, and I hear it’s a nice pub.’

With her brain privately grappling with the concept of being asked out for a drink by a handsome man who liked books, Charlie replied, ‘It is nice. I often go to Skinner’s to write when I need a change of scene from my desk at home. Oh, I’m Charlie, by the way. Charlie Davies.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Charlie. So, you write?’

‘Yes.’ Charlie pointed to the bookshelves, ‘I’m over there somewhere.’

‘You are? Who are you, then? I mean, who else are you?’

‘Erin Spence.’

‘The Unbrave Heart Erin Spence?’

Charlie’s pulse started to beat faster. He didn’t immediately connect me with The Love-Blind Boy. ‘Yes. Yes that was my first novel.’

‘I love that book.’

‘You’ve read it?’ Charlie was shocked. ‘Forgive me, but you don’t look like you’d be into women’s fiction.’

‘I’m not as a rule, but my ex-girlfriend had the audiobook and we played it on a long journey once or twice. I enjoyed it. You have a very perceptive view of the male side of things.’

‘Really?’ Charlie could feel herself blushing, ‘Thanks. It’s kind of you to say so.’

‘Not at all. That drink tonight, then? Eight o’clock? With a meal as well, maybe?’

‘To talk about my idea for the festival?’

‘I’m making no promises, because I think I’d rather talk about you.’

Charlie’s head buzzed with contradictory thoughts. Had she been right to agree to go out with Gervase? Only this morning she’d been thinking about how she felt about Cameron being back, and now she was going on a date with someone else. A part of her knew she’d only said yes in the hope that Alice and Cameron might see them. But so what if they did? Cameron isn’t going to be jealous, and I don’t want him any more anyway. And Alice wouldn’t notice in her current mode if I walked around naked with a pineapple on my head.

A new thought entered Charlie’s head. Was there any point in going out with another man until Alice had gone home? Gervase would only have to see them standing next to each other, and it wouldn’t be her that he wanted to take for dinner anymore.

Suddenly, Charlie stopped moving. She knew she was being ridiculous, but somehow the thought of how Alice was always going to be there to eclipse her wouldn’t shift...

Bio

Jenny Kane is the author the contemporary romance Christmas at the Castle (Accent Press, 2015), the bestselling novel Abi’s House (Accent Press, 2015), the modern/medieval time slip novel Romancing Robin Hood (Accent Press, 2014), the bestselling novel Another Cup of Coffee (Accent Press, 2013), and its novella length sequels Another Cup of Christmas (Accent Press, 2013), and Christmas in the Cotswolds (Accent, 2014).

Jenny’s fourth full length romance novel, Another Glass of Champagne, will be published in 2016.

Jenny is also the author of quirky children’s picture books There’s a Cow in the Flat (Hushpuppy, 2014) and Ben’s Biscuit Tin (Coming soon from Hushpuppy)

 Keep your eye on Jenny’s blog at www.jennykane.co.uk for more details.

Twitter- @JennyKaneAuthor

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/JennyKaneRomance

Jenny also writes erotica as Kay Jaybee.