Tag Archives: Grace

HIGH HOPES – PROMO BLITZ

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Contemporary Romance
Date Published:  August 2016

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Grace, Sam and Dixie have known each other forever. But Grace has a secret. Pregnant and penniless after one drunken night with Sam, she gave up her baby for adoption without telling him. And condemned herself to twenty years of guilt.
When her daughter traces her, out of the blue, Grace longs to meet her. But she’s asking about her father and if Grace confesses to Sam after all these years, it will surely wreck his marriage to Dixie. How can their friendship survive such a betrayal? Yet does Grace have a choice?




Excerpt
Grace glared at them. Sam didn’t bother to move his hands. If anything, he pulled the girl harder against him, a defiant glint in his eye. Grace had never seen Sam look like that. He looked hungry. And strangely sexy in his own dishevelled way.
The girl kissed him, her lips deliberate as she kept her eyes on Grace. Grace wanted to slap the smirk from her face but when Sam made no attempt to kiss her back, the girl shrugged and eventually slunk away.
“Why did you tell her you’d been dumped?”
Sam grabbed at the bottle precariously balanced on the fruit machine. “What would you call a dirty weekend with your ex?”
“That’s stupid,” Grace laughed. “Dixie went to his twenty-first party.  Big deal. It’ll be your turn next year. Who will you invite from school?”
“That’s easy.” He combed his fingers through his untidy shock of black hair. “I was the school odd-bod, remember? There was only you.”
She remembered, even through the drunken haze of too much vodka and champagne. It had always been the two of them. Until Dixie. And then there were three.
“Here you are, like a mermaid in your sexy see-through top.”
His hand was on her arm, the heat of him, next to her breast, the nipple poking through the thin fabric of her top. It was suddenly hard to breathe.
“Dance with me?”
It was a slow number, barely recognisable over the raucous beat of the party. Sultry, though, throbbing through the wooden floor, up through the soles of her feet to thud against her heart.
“Our song,” he whispered against her hair.
Black Velvet, she recognised it now. Remembered Sam’s crush on Alannah Myles. Felt strangely thrilled that Sam had called it their song. They’d always had each other. And Sam was right here, kissing her for the first time, an intense meeting of lost souls. It had always been their destiny to be together.
***
Danny was strangely riveted. “What happened next?”
“I can’t blame Sam. I totally seduced him.”
“You’d be pretty hard to resist, twenty years ago. Not like now, with your puffy red face and mascara filling your wrinkles.”
“How can you make me laugh at a time like this?” She fished another tissue out of her bag. “I need to start buying waterproof mascara.”
“Here, let me.”
He licked the tissue and applied it to the streaks on her face. For once, she was too exhausted to care what she looked like as she snuggled into the warmth of his shoulder, staring at the gulls as they wheeled and whooped above the harbour.
“I’m guessing you got pregnant? What did he say?”
“He didn’t know. But now I have to tell him everything because his daughter wants to meet him.” Another tear escaped down her cheek. “Everybody’s going to hate me.”
***
They’d loved each other all through that one stolen night, right until the first glimmer of watery daylight. Even drunk on vodka and champagne, Grace had never felt more alive. Sam was her soul mate. How had she never known that before?
When she woke up, Sam had gone out. He stayed out for hours and when he came back, he turned on the TV without saying a word.
“I made chilli. Something to do, left here on my own.”
“I already ate, thanks. Hangover munchies, you know how it is?”
She sat on the arm of the sofa, sick with dread. “What’s wrong?”
“You know what’s wrong. Listen, I’m sorry. But please can we not talk about it again?”
Still, he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t be sorry. He must see they were meant to be together. She stroked his arm but he shrugged her off, leaning as far away from her as he could get.
“Look Grace, stuff happens. I’m not sure how I ended up in your bed but the sooner we can forget about it the better. When Dixie comes back, Christ! This would kill her. Don’t even think about telling her.”
“But last night you said she’d dumped you.”
“Well today, I know I was being a tit. I’ve spoken to her. She’ll be back tomorrow, as planned. We’re fine.”
“What about me? Should I just disappear? Everything hunky-dory because you and Dixie are fine?”
The sarcasm bounced off him. He’d reduced their connection to a drunken fumble. A mistake he didn’t want to pick over. Dixie returned to claim Sam’s bed as well as his heart and nobody noticed how distraught Grace was. She’d never been more lonely.
By Christmas she knew she was pregnant.
About the Author

 

Sue Lilley lives in the north east of England, when she isn’t escaping somewhere else in her imagination.  She loves a good story, especially feel-good escapism that makes you miss your stop and be late for work because you can’t put the book down.  Her practical exterior hides the soul of a daydreamer and compulsive people watcher.  She has been writing as a hobby for years, eavesdropping on people’s conversations on the Metro for inspiration.
She’s been married to Michael, an artist and fellow creative spirit, for more years than they’re brave enough to count.  They have one grown-up daughter who’s far more sensible than either of them.  ANOTHER SUMMER was Sue’s first published novel. Her latest, HIGH HOPES is also available on Amazon. Now she’s forced herself out of the closet, there will be other novels coming soon.

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REVIEW – THE REBURIALISTS BY J.C. NELSON

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The author of Wish Bound and the Grimm Agency novels returns with an all-new urban fantasy novel!

Burying the dead is easy. Keeping them down is difficult.

At the Bureau of Special Investigations, agents encounter all sorts of paranormal evils. So for Agent Brynner Carson, driving a stake through a rampaging three-week-old corpse is par for the course. Except this cadaver is different. It’s talking—and it has a message about his father, Heinrich.

The reanimated stiff delivers an ultimatum written in bloody hieroglyphics, and BSI Senior Analyst Grace Roberts is called in to translate. It seems that Heinrich Carson stole the heart of Ra-Ame, the long-dead god of the Re-Animus. She wants it back. The only problem is Heinrich took the secret of its location to his grave.

With the arrival of Ra-Ame looming and her undead army wreaking havoc, Brynner and Grace must race to find the key to stopping her. It’s a race they can’t afford to lose, but then again, it’s just another day on the job . . .

BOOK DESCRIPTION COURTESY OF AMAZON

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley for an honest review.

THE REBURIALISTS is a whirlwind of action! J.C. Nelson does a remake on the zombie genre and Egyptian folklore. Brynner Carson is the son of Heinrich Carson, who wrote the book on how to handle a Re-Animus. Grace Roberts is an analyst and a skeptic of magic. When she is partnered with Brynner Carson to study and translate his Father’s journals to find a way to the heart of the Re-ANIMUS. His Father has hidden the heart, and now Brynner must find it the heart of Re-Ame, the daughter of the Pharaoh. They must find this heart to give her eternal death. While doing this Brynner and Grace become very close, and when her life is threatened he has to keep her safe. I loved this book and the characters of Brynner and Grace. I have read J.C. Nelson’s other works and loved them. I like his writing style and the worlds he creates. If you have not read any of J.C. Nelson, I urge you to do so. I give THE REBURIALIST 5/5 STARS.

 

 

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