Book Blitz with Excerpt + Giveaway: Limitless by Kaylene Winter @kayleneromance @XpressoTours

Limitless by Kaylene Winter

Series: A Less Than Zero Rockstar Romance #2

Publication date: June 23rd, 2021

Synopsis:

"She snuck up on me and stole my heart..."

Friends with benefits, that's always been my relationship speed.

My band Less Than Zero is set to conquer the world.

Nothing and one is going to tie me down.

Except ethereal animal lover, Alexandria LeRoux, made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Our secret, spontaneous global hookups are decadent, erotic, extraordinary.

For the first time in my life, I picture my future with her.

Until one fateful night threatens to destroy my chance forever...

"I'll travel the world for him..."

I set out that summer with only one goal in mind.

Conquer sexy Viking drummer Jace Deveraux before he left on tour.

Our first time was so sublime, it ruined me for anyone else.

What's a girl to do? Enjoy him in as many countries as possible, that's what.

Now, he says he wants a future.

But I'm tired of putting my own dreams on hold for the band.

Unless we can find a compromise, things aren't looking hopeful.

Our lives orbit on different courses.

But gravity always seems to pull us back together...

Will Alex leave Jace when a blast from his past threatens all they have built?

Or will Jace take matters into his own hands?

LIMITLESS is a steamy, whirlwind, playful, rollercoaster, round-the-world romance... with horses, drums and a bit of social media thrown in for good measure.

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Excerpt

"Please tell me there are beers here." Without thinking, I ripped off my sweaty t-shirt and grabbed a replacement LTZ shirt out of my bag.

"Um, yeah. Over there." Alex's eyes were transfixed at my bare torso as she pointed toward the deck.

"Great. Well, let's go." I gestured, flexing my biceps. She quickly looked away, embarrassed at being caught ogling me.

Externally, I kept a neutral face but internally I was secretly pleased that she liked what she saw. Having a hot, young woman like Alex find you attractive wasn't the worst thing in the world. Even if I'd never do anything about it.

We headed toward the makeshift bar on the desk. I grabbed a Manny's and she grabbed a Coke.

"Sucks that me and Zoey can't drink in front of all of the parents." Alex pouted. "God, I can't wait to be twenty-one. Or to be somewhere it doesn't matter."

"Ah, it's not all that different." I laughed.

"How old are you?" Alex asked.

"Twenty-three." I smiled. "Too old for you."

God, her eyes were the most amazing combination of blue with dark flecks. Her skin a smooth, caramel-colored tan with the slightest pink tinge on her cheeks. With only a hint of mascara and lip gloss, she was quite possibly the most naturally gorgeous woman I'd ever seen. Girl. Not that I'd ever, ever, ever do anything about it.

"True, you're an old man." Alex's eyes crinkled when she laughed. "You're practically retirement age."

"Ha ha." I grinned.

"So, Zoey and Ty have really hit it off." Alex gestured over to where our friends were tangled together, giving each other googly eyes. "They're a little over the top."

"Ty's never had a girlfriend before, so she must be pretty cool." I knew how girls worked, especially best friends. I wasn't going to give up any intel to Alex on my man Ty.

"Was that redhaired girl at the club your girlfriend?" Alex cocked her hip and pulled a long drink on her soda. I couldn't help but watch her lips as she took a swallow of her Coke, thinking that she was more beautiful than the models who usually advertised the beverage. Again, not that I'd ever do anything about it.

"Um, no." I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Hmmm." She raised her eyebrow back at me.

"We're leaving on tour for six months." I sputtered.

"Uh huh." She held my gaze.

"She's not my girlfriend." I huffed. "Now is not the time for a girlfriend."

"I said the same thing to Zoey." Alex looked at me directly. "She's going to college in the fall, it seems a little irrational to get serious about a dude this summer."

"Well, I like to tend my own garden. Ty can tend his." I glanced around, not super interested in the way the conversation was heading.

"Fair enough." Alex took the hint good-naturedly, absentmindedly playing with a few of the bangle bracelets on her wrist. "I'm not going to college, I want to travel the world. It's pissing my dad off to no end."

"Really? Where will you go?" I was genuinely surprised, figuring Zoey and Alex were attached at the hip.

"Everywhere! That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I figure if I can get a good following on Instagram, maybe I could even start funding my travel that way." She gestured excitedly. "I know it will take a few months, but maybe you know some shortcuts or ways to get there faster."

"Hmmm, well, I have a marketing degree but in real life I'm not an expert at all. It's been a bit of trial and error with the LTZ account. Basically, it's all about watching your analytics and seeing what is working and what isn't and just doing more of what resonates." I explained.

"Well, it will be a piece of cake then," Alex said sarcastically.

"Look, I can help you get started, I've discovered a few shortcuts." I took another pull of my beer.

"Oh, for the love of God. Get a room," Alex muttered when her attention was diverted to the show our friends were putting on.

Ty and Zoey were full-on making out in the middle of the backyard and everyone was trying to avert their eyes, which was nearly impossible. I started laughing. Clearly, they didn't care at all who saw. Why should I?

"Well, Alex the adventuress?" I nudged her with my shoulder. "Are you gonna stare all night or should we figure out a way to make you famous?"

"Yes, please. I'll need a project because I'm pretty sure that I won't be seeing much of Zoey for the rest of the summer." Alex laughed.

I couldn't help but flash her a smile, hoping my dimples were on full display. Chicks dug my dimples.

"So, um, Jace, just so you know I don't want to be another annoying Instagram model. No cheesy, posey, pouty stuff. I mean, I'll do what I need to do, but I want to find a clever way to travel and also raise awareness about animal rights." Alex said as we walked over to an open bench seat.

"Piece of cake." I followed her. "No fish lips, only fish."

When she was 15, Kaylene Winter wrote her first rocker romance novel starring a fictionalized version of herself, her friends and their gorgeous rocker boyfriends. After living her own rockstar life as a band manager, music promoter and mover and shaker in Seattle during the early 1990's, Kaylene became a digital media legal strategist helping bring movies, television and music online. Throughout her busy career, Kaylene lost herself in romance novels across all genres inspiring her to realize her life-long dream to be a published author. She lives in Seattle with her amazing husband and dog. She loves to travel, throw lavish dinner parties and support charitable causes supporting arts and animals.

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Series Blitz with Excerpt + Giveaway: Salt Kisses Series by Josie Demuth @JosieDemuth @XpressoTours

A Thousand Salt Kisses by Josie Demuth

Series: Salt Kisses #1

Publication date: June 2nd, 2016

Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Crystal White is the new girl on Starfish Island. Dragged to the remote community by her environmental activist father, she is eager to find fun that doesn't involve touching fish guts or listening to local folklore.

During a midnight swim with some new friends, Crystal is pulled out to sea by the waves. Convinced she's going to drown, Crystal is rescued by Llyr, a handsome stranger. As she searches for him in the following weeks, she finds there may be more truth to the Starfish legends than she thought.

Over a sizzling roller-coaster summer, Llyr introduces Crystal to magic she'd only ever dreamed of. But as Crystal comes to love Starfish Island, it begins to drive her family apart. A nearby power plant is devastating local marine life, and her parents are stuck in the middle. As the magic and mundane parts of Crystal's life converge, she finds herself risking everything to save Llyr, her family, and herself.

A Thousand Salt Kisses Later by Josie Demuth

Series: Salt Kisses #2

Publication date: November 17th, 2016

Synopsis:

The spellbinding sequel to A Thousand Salt Kisses.

Four years ago, Crystal White fell in love with Llyr, a prince of the magical mer colony living off the coast of Starfish Island. For one summer, he enchanted her with stories of jeweled palaces and underwater gardens, but then he left, returning beneath the waves with her heart in tow.

Now, graduated and with no job in sight, Crystal is forced to go back to the island she thought she had left in the past. By the sea again, she realizes she is far from over her first love, and when an opportunity arises to contact the merfolk, Crystal can't resist.

Once more with the mer, Crystal is forced to come to terms with the fact that Llyr has moved on, and also with her own magical secret that has endangered her life, his throne, and every mer kingdom. Working against all odds, she has to try to save the people she has come to love and--if she can--rekindle the romance of her first summer on Starfish Island.

A Thousand Salt Kisses Forever by Josie Demuth

Series: Salt Kisses #3

Publication date: August 15th, 2017

Synopsis:

Crystal White, formerly an ordinary human, is finally back together with her true love: the handsome, charming mer-prince Llyr. Granted supernatural abilities of her own that will allow her to live underwater, Crystal finally seems to have a shot at happiness with the man she's waited for so long.

Not, however, if obstacles both below and above the ocean have anything to say about it. Llyr's undersea domain is becoming increasingly discontented by their relationship, and to make matters worse, ancient denizens of the Black Seas are capitalizing on this to wage a formidable war. Meanwhile, Crystal's human friends begin to learn of her secret love for the mer-prince, sending shockwaves across the land and sea. With social pressures surrounding her above and all-too-physical threats lurking in the waters below, Crystal finds herself increasingly torn between two worlds. Will she and Llyr together conquer the dangers in their way, or will Crystal once more have to say farewell to the watery depths?

Available at:

Excerpt

Mine @2

😊❤

I double checked the message again. I was restless, I wanted to see Rosie now. What is this big secret? What does it have to do with Llyr?

I would now have to wait until two o'clock to find out.

I have a vivid imagination and it was rattling around in my skull like a hurricane right now. Is Llyr some kind of criminal on the run? Does he have to hide in the sea or something? Maybe he was a Starfish native and that was why only islanders knew of his hiding place... Where does he sleep?! He must get really cold out there all the time... Surely, he would drown at some point or catch pneumonia. What had he done anyway, and should I turn him in? Surely I couldn't let my insane crush on him get in the way of justice.

I did a Google search on my phone, typing in 'Most Wanted' and 'Coney Bay'.

A jokey news article came up about a kid who had released their goldfish into the sea and now wanted it back.

I screamed with frustration and threw my phone on the sofa, storming out into the back garden and down the ocean stairway.

It was a blazing hot June Sunday, but I didn't care. I would search for answers. When I got to the jetty, I marched to the end of it, and I stood there gazing out to sea.

I must have looked a little strange to the neighbours standing so determined on the edge of the jetty, fists clenched at my sides, my hair yellow in the sun.

I was a woman on a mission, but with nowhere to mission to.

My eyes scanned the sea, begging for something, but asides from a fishing boat and a couple of gulls, the surface was barren.

"Darling!"

It was Mum. She was making her way down the stairs.

I sighed. "Hi Mum."

"Are you alright, standing around in the boiling heat like this?" she shouted.

"Yeah, I'm fine Mum," I said distractedly.

She made her way down the jetty. She wore a big floppy black sun hat and a black fitted strappy dress.

"Are you off to a funeral?" I joked as she neared. It was surely not normal to wear such dark colours in the summer.

"I suppose I'm mourning London, Crystal," she said putting her arm around my shoulders.

God, she's so melodramatic. She's probably trying to give Dad a guilt trip.

"It's nice here," I said reassuringly, as we looked out to sea. "I missed London to start with, but I've not thought about it one bit in the past few weeks."

I was still scouring the waters.

"That's great," she said watching my face carefully. "But you don't really seem yourself."

"Oh... well, I'm fine," I pretended.

My mum was silent, and I knew she was waiting for me to explain myself.

"Oh, it's just this guy."

"Oh, well, say no more," she said, looking relieved. "Now, my motherly advice is keep cool, kid."

I laughed, "Okay Mum."

"Let them do the chasing."

No danger of me chasing Llyr, I thought. I wasn't even totally sure if he existed.

Josie is an author who writes the occasional article. She loves all things gothic and magical, but particularly a story which is fun, intriguing and says a little something about the world. She loves to write about weird and wonderful happenings in her hometown, London but also sets her tales in the mystical lands of the Westcountry, England and more recently, Iceland.

Josie's novella Liggers and Dreamers was published by Thin Man Press in 2015 and was described as 'beautifully written' in a critique by bestselling author and radical poet Heathcote Williams. Meanwhile her YA Salt Kisses series - a new-age eco 'mermance' - has garnered nearly four million reads on story-telling site, Wattpad and tens of thousands on Radish Fiction app. The first three books are now published and can be purchased through Amazon.

Josie has appeared on the 'Wattpad's most successful authors tell you how to do it' panel at WattCon, Foyles, SoHo. Her former zine, La Bouche, has also featured on the BBC Today Program on a feature about literary sub-culture; in LOVE Magazine's TOP TEN ZINES, and in Thames and Hudson's FANZINES. In 2009, it was selected as the ICA bookshop's first ever 'Zine of the month'.

Josie also writes short stories and articles. She hosts fantasy writing competition 'Under The Sea', which last featured NY-Times bestselling YA author Danielle Paige as the celebrity judge.

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Review: Credence by Penelope Douglas @PenDouglas

 

Credence by Penelope Douglas

Publication date: January 13th, 2020

Pages: 485

Synopsis:

Tiernan de Haas doesn't care about anything anymore. The only child of a film producer and his starlet wife, she's grown up with wealth and privilege but not love or guidance. Shipped off to boarding schools from an early age, it was still impossible to escape the loneliness and carve out a life of her own. The shadow of her parents' fame followed her everywhere.

And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She's always been alone hasn't she?

Jake Van der Berg, her father's stepbrother and her only living relative, assumes guardianship of Tiernan who is still two months shy of eighteen. Sent to live with him and his two sons, Noah and Kaleb, in the mountains of Colorado, Tiernan soon learns that these men now have a say in what she chooses to care and not care about anymore. As the three of them take her under their wing, teach her to work and survive in the remote woods far away from the rest of the world, she slowly finds her place among them.

And as a part of them.

She also realizes the lines blur and rules become easy to break when no one else is watching.

One of them has her.

The other one wants her.

But he...

He's going to keep her.

*Credence is a new adult standalone novel suitable for readers 18+

Available at:

Review:

With the various recommendations all over BookTok it was not surprising that I dove head first into this book. Even with the unusually taboo romantic interests referenced in the synopsis, I am not the type to shy away before actually giving the book a try (that was very evident by the fact I actually finished Skeleton King previously). I have read a few Penelope Douglas books and she's not one to shy away from a hot romance even when unconventional. I was curious to know whether Douglas has been able to continue to tear at the heartstrings of her readers or if the hype was less than deserved.

Tiernan was cold and aloof when her parents died. She had never truly existed in their eyes and for that reason feeling sadness over the loss of them was an emotion just out of reach for her. Her life was one of solitude and indifference. Her socialite parents loved each other with the entirety of their hearts which left no room for their young daughter. She was used to simply existing amongst people without interacting with them, never being seen and never needing to prove she was anything beyond a beautiful ice queen. When her parents committed suicide and recommended Tiernan be shipped off to her father's aloof stepbrother, she went if for no other reason but to leave the silence of her unhappy family home.

Tiernan thought her life with her step-uncle, Jake, and two step-cousins, Noah and Kaleb, was going to be similar to her life with her parents. She was a ghost not used to affection or anger directed her way. Jake thinks very little of her detached personality other than thinking she is just another spoiled rich brat bucking against the need for manual labor and simple living. Soon Tiernan's skepticism of Jake's motives taking her in and pushing her to contribute turns into a desire unlike any she had experienced before. It is only after she is caught in an forbidden act that the desire she has for him is returned in a blast of heat and passion she never could have imagined possible.

But amongst this confusing exploration of emotions with Jake, she also must come to terms with her lust for Noah's carefree friendship and Kaleb's dark brooding. For a girl who has never felt anything but invisible everything is very confusing. Especially when one of the men she lives with takes it upon himself to make her life as difficult and miserable as he possible can. But is this a misplaced hatred of her past or a carefully disguised passion unlike any she had ever experienced before?

The taboo nature of this book was purely an afterthought as I flipped the pages and delved deeper into their world. It is one of those situations where you either accept that its a little weird but no less hot or it completely turns you off and makes the story cringy beyond reason. I was able to remind myself that the relationships between Tiernan and her 3 men had zero blood relation so the unconventional relations didn't strike me as odd beyond the brow raise when reading the synopsis. 

This book was beautifully written and the heat just radiates off the pages. I danced between the men and knew from the synopsis one was going to win out over the others. There was a time when I wanted each of the men to end up being Tiernan's final decision, but I am always a sucker for a dark broody asshole so Kaleb stole my heart. Just as much as he made me swoon he also made me ugly cry with the cruelty of some of his treatments of Tiernan. 

Credence is a mix of a taboo inferno of lust and a heart-wrenching tale of self-discovery.

Review: Skeleton King by Charity B.

 

Skeleton King by Charity B.

Series: The Dirty Heroes Collection #9

Publication date: June 8th, 2020

Pages: 366

Synopsis:

In this town, I'm free from shame

A place where everyone knows my name

Glamorizing corpses to feed a need

That's why they call me Skeleton King

They all worship me, but they don't know the real me

All they see is my painted face

Truth is, I'm terrified, all the hope inside me died

Death and cold will forever be my morbid fate

Then she showed me something more

Somehow stealing deaths allure

Available at:

Review:

I heard about this book on BookTok. A few readers were referencing the book as the most hardcore of the smut categories which intrigued me. I mean, how far could it really go? Far. That's the answer. It can go very, very, VERY far. If you enjoy the movie/story of the Nightmare Before Christmas, you may want to skip this book. It's not a happy Disney tale.

Skeleton King is a man who haunts the local graveyard digging up corpses for his own carnal needs. With his trusty, dog Nothing by his side he brings home his new play things in hopes of pretending to have the relationship he can't manage to have with women who can speak and judge. He feels that its a victimless crime and while his desire for Sarah is obvious, he can't bring himself to believe he'll ever know the touch of a living girl's hand. He's destined for cold and temporary.

Sarah has wanted to be with John since she first laid eyes on him but due to his predelections and her inability to leave her captor, she doesn't have any faith in it happening. Sarah is a broken ragdoll of stitched together flesh and scars that even her sweet John wouldn't find becoming. Or so she thinks. 

Can Sarah and John find a way to be together in the end?

I have so much to say about this book and no idea how to say it. It was absolutely grotesque in all its aspects. The love connection was creepy, the instances of rape, torture, gore, and death were nauseating and the acceptable of sexual perversion was terrible. The only thing I was intrigued by was finding the similarities between this story and its inspiration it was driven from. If you have any aversion or triggers, do not read this book. It is not for the faint of heart and if BookTok hadn't mentioned it I would have been better for it.