Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

DISTANT THUNDER: Rising Storm Midseason 2 by Larissa Ione

I absolutely LOVE this series! As I finish each installment, I'm eagerly anticipating the next chapter into the lives of the residents of Storm, TX. I usually go through a wild range of emotions as I read them.  Tears, laughter, dread, repulsion, shock...yeah, this series has it all. Each author does a fabulous job driving the plot along and keeping the characters interesting.

Rising Storm - Header banner


Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy…

Nestled among rolling hills and painted with vibrant wildflowers, the bucolic town of Storm, Texas, seems like nothing short of perfection.

But there are secrets beneath the facade. Dark secrets.  Powerful secrets. The kind that can destroy lives and tear families apart.  The kind that can cut through a town like a tempest, leaving jealousy and destruction in its wake, along with shattered hopes and broken dreams. All it takes is one little thing to shatter that polish.

Reading like an on-going drama in the tradition of classic day and night-time soap operas like Dallas, Dynasty, and All My Children, Rising Storm is full of scandal, deceit, romance, passion, and secrets.

With 1001 Dark Nights as the “producer,” Julie Kenner and Dee Davis use a television model with each week building on the last to create a storyline that fulfills the promise of a drama-filled soap opera. Joining Kenner and Davis in the “writer’s room” for the Midseason Episodes of this serial opera are bestselling authors Lexi Blake and Larissa Ione who have brought their vision of Storm to life.

So get ready.  The storm is coming.



 Rising Storm - Midseason 2 Distant Storm


 Secrets, Sex and Scandals …

 Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy…  Get ready.  The storm is coming.

As Sebastian and Marylee plot to cover up Sebastian’s sexual escapade, Ginny and Dakota continue to reel from the fallout of Dakota’s announcement. But it is the Rush family that’s left to pick up the pieces as Payton, Brittany and Jeffry each cope with Sebastian’s betrayal in their own way…


Distant Thunder - Teaser 1



Experience Rising Storm Here…

Rising Storm Midseason Episode 1 (March 29): Lexi Blake’s After the Storm

 Amazon **  Kobo **  iTunes ** Barnes & Noble ** GooglePlay ** All Romance EBooks

Rising Storm Midseason Episode 2 (April 5): Larissa Ione’s Distant Thunder

Amazon ** Kobo ** iTunes ** Barnes & Noble ** GooglePlay ** All Romance EBooks




Check out this fantastic excerpt from DISTANT THUNDER!



It had only been three days since the Great Founders’ Day Disaster, but it felt like a month. For the first twenty-four hours after Dakota’s revelation, the town had been mostly shell-shocked. Then the story started spreading through social media, and last night after Marcus dropped Brittany off after dinner at Murphy’s, she discovered that someone posted the Founders’ Day Disaster on YouTube. The media had descended on Storm like locusts this morning, and her father, whom she’d only seen in passing since Founders’ Day, had adopted a shelter-in-place stance.

Brittany had given him suggestions on where he could shelter in places that were much, much hotter than Texas, and then she’d run out the front door toward her car, only to be swarmed by reporters.

“Ms. Rush, is it true that your best friend is pregnant with your father’s baby?”

“Ms. Rush, how do you think this scandal will affect your father’s reelection campaign?”

“Ms. Rush, did you know about the affairs your father was having with your friends?”

Ugh. She and her mother shouldn’t have left Francine’s cabin so soon, and Jeffry certainly should have remained with one of his buddies. But when Marylee snapped her fingers and went into crisis mode, everyone came running and fell in line like good little minions.

“This blows,” Jeffry said, looking up from where he was lounging on the couch with his iPad.

“What blows?” She sank onto the love seat across from her brother. “The game you’re playing? Or the fact that we’re trapped like animals? Or maybe the fact that our father is a lying, cheating bastard who slept with our friends? Or the fact that my best friend is going to give birth to our little brother or sister?”

Yep, she might be a little bitter. And it was ex-best friend.

He tucked his feet under him on the couch and sighed. “Yeah.”

“I can’t believe Mom thinks we need to be here for him—”

She broke off as their mother, Payton, came around the corner with a tray of finger sandwiches and a pitcher of lemonade. They hadn’t spoken much about any of this, and Brittany wasn’t sure how to go about it. As far as she could tell, her mother hadn’t so much as shed a tear over the fact that her husband had knocked up a girl young enough to be his daughter and had probably slept with a dozen more.

“I brought you something to eat,” Payton said, and if she’d heard Brittany talking, she was choosing to ignore it. “Your father and grandmother are finished with their meeting with Mr. Stayton, and they’re on their way up to talk to you.”

“This should be good.” Jeffry reached for a sandwich as their mother put them on the coffee table. “I was wondering how long it would be before we got the circle-the-wagons lecture. Five bucks says he tries to convince us that everything Dakota said was a lie.”

“I know you two are angry and confused and you have a lot of questions,” Payton said as she took a seat next to Brittany, looking all prim and proper in a subdued green dress and gray scarf. “But we’ll get through this. I promise.”



stunning sensual young couple in love posing in summer
field, happy lifestyle concept






Author pic - Larissa Ione

Larissa Ione is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. An Air Force veteran, she traded in a career as a meteorologist to pursue her passion of writing. She now spends her days in pajamas with her computer, strong coffee, and supernatural worlds. She believes in celebrating everything, and would never be caught without a bottle of Champagne chilling in the fridge…just in case. She currently lives in Wisconsin with her U.S. Coast Guard husband, her teenage son, a rescue cat named Vegas, and her very own hellhound, a King Shepherd named Hexe.






Prairie landscapes






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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Spotlight tour: THE GOLDEN SON by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

A Globe & Mail #1 best-seller from the

internationally best-selling author of Secret Daughter

 
THE GOLDEN SON


SHILPI SOMAYA GOWDA


A stellar follow-up to Gowda’s excellent debut. Vivid, heart-warming, and absorbing, THE GOLDEN SON succeeds as an immigrant’s tale and love story wrapped into one because of the beautiful writing and compelling characters that illuminate universal truths of loss and identity.”
   — Heidi Durrow,
New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky


In THE GOLDEN SON Shilpi Somaya Gowda has penned an unforgettable story of family, love, tradition, and identity, in which two childhood friends—a young doctor and a newly married bride—must balance the expectations of culture and family with the desires of their own hearts.

SHILPI SOMAYA GOWDA’S debut novel Secret Daughter is a New York Times bestseller, selling more than 1 million copies since its release. Already published in Canada, THE GOLDEN SON (US publication February 1, 2016; ISBN 9780062391452; $26.99) has been a runaway best-seller, hitting all the major lists for five consecutive weeks, and spending two at the #1 slot on the Globe and Mail list. Set in India and the US, THE GOLDEN SON is a tale of friendship, coming of age, and traditional values versus modern freedoms—in a compelling and timely exploration of the struggles and triumphs of modern immigrants.

The first of his family to go to college, Anil Patel, the golden son, carries the weight of tradition and his family’s expectations when he leaves his tiny Indian village to begin a medical residency in Dallas, Texas, at one of the most competitive hospitals in America. Navigating a major American city and a high stakes career in a busy hospital, reality versus “the dream” of living in America brings for Anil the excitement of first love—and a crushing misstep. Anil is then hit by another blow when his father dies, and he is faced with the pressure of being the newly appointed head of the Patel household, taking on the role of arbiter for all the village disputes back home. Anil is doubtful he has the wisdom and courage demonstrated by his father and grandfather to step into the role, and is uneasy with the challenge.

In India, Anil’s closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles to adapt to her demanding new husband and relatives. Arranged by her parents, the marriage shatters Leena’s romantic hopes, and eventually forces her to make a desperate choice that will hold drastic repercussions for herself and her family. Though Anil and Leena struggle to come to terms with their adult identities thousands of miles apart, their lives eventually intersect once more—in a sequence of events that illumines the fraught, unforeseen nature of life, and the sometimes disappointing and perplexing developments that hold no real answer.

Tender and bittersweet, THE GOLDEN SON highlights the intense struggles of both Anil and Leena—two people caught between a traditional culture that demands the best interests of the entire family be considered above all else—and an increasingly modern world in which each individual can voice their preferences and attempt to live their dreams.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shilpi Somaya Gowda was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. Her fiction debut, Secret Daughter, was published in 2010 and became an international bestseller, translated into over 20 languages, and selling more than 1 million copies worldwide. Shilpi holds an MBA from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain scholar. Shilpi is also a mom, and a pottery and chess enthusiast. She lives in California with her husband and children. For more information please visit her on the web at: www.shilpigowda.com; Tweet her @ShilpiGowda; or look her up on Facebook at “Shilpi Somaya Gowda.”


THE GOLDEN SON
Shilpi Somaya Gowda
February 1, 2016
ISBN 9780062391452
$26.99





Saturday, January 9, 2016

NOT THE ONE by Amy Daws














~Not The One is a full length standalone adult romance~

My name is Reyna Miracle. Even though a part of my name is Miracle, there’s nothing miraculous about me. My body portrays the tales of my life. Every feeling, every heartbreak, every emotion. Marked. Inked. Stained. A walking canvas of my messed up truth.  But there’s one confession I can’t put in a tattoo. A confession that will kill me to tell, but my best friend died before I had the chance. Now I’m left with him. The only one who can hold me in the night and squeeze that spot on my neck that feels like my lifeline between sanity and chaos. But we don’t work together. We’re absolute poison for each other.We’re a stifling, suffocating, sickness of darkness. But I feel safe...because I’ve made an art of pushing people away.

Now he’s pushing back…

And making me believe...

Making me wonder...

Maybe, just maybe...

I could be the one.



















“Christ, I hardly recognized you,” he seethes, the angry bulge in his jaw bone ticking violently. He grabs my arm firmly and pulls me off the concrete steps and into a covered archway away from all the other happy students. “What the fuck, Rey?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask in utter confusion.

He reaches beneath my chin, grabs the zipper and yanks it down harshly. I shove his hands away as my robe is yanked open.

“Fuck, Rey! You’re skin and bones!” Liam’s face is tortured and sickly. Dark circles reside under his eyes but he still looks gorgeous as ever.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Grabbing the edges of my robe, I cover myself back up, protectively. I’m wearing a short blue shift dress that used to hug every one of my curves but now hangs on me like a potato sack. I know I’ve lost some weight since Marisa but I’m not about to let him scold me like a child over it. “I’m a twenty-five-year-old adult, Liam. I don’t need you chastising me over this.”

“Rey,” he says my name on a sigh. “How can you expect me to ignore this?” His eyes are pleading and pained as they flash between my eyes and my mouth in utter agony.

“I’m not your concern!” I push back my dark hair and squeeze the back of my neck to try to gain some of my control back.

“You made that perfectly clear when you shoved me out of your dorm room. Fuck. How did we get this so utterly wrong?”

“Just leave it, Liam.”

“No.” He grabs my shoulders and turns me to face him. “Don’t you miss me? At all? I miss you like crazy. I feel like I’m mourning two deaths instead of one. It’s like you died on me two weeks ago. And now I see you today and it makes me sick to my stomach that I’ve left you the way I did!” His eyes are shimmering with tears and pain, only adding to the self-loathing I’ve developed the past fourteen days.

My eyes are dead and cold, my voice flat and unaffected. “I told you I wanted nothing to do with you, Liam. I meant it.”

“You’re lying to me. Again!” he roars, angrily punching the concrete wall beside my head. 







Q: Readers are calling Not The One a “painfully beautiful love story.” Why is that? What was the writing process like?
A: Writing this book was terrifying. I’ve never been so far outside my comfort zone with any other book. This storyline literally terrified me and I got pretty depressed during the process. It was crazy hard, but crazy cathartic. It feels good to sink into those dark corners sometimes. It makes finding the light that much more magical.

Q: What inspired this story?
A: Well, Reyna was a character in my London Lovers Series that I couldn’t get out of my head. I had an idea for an interesting backstory for her…a mother/daughter dynamic that I’d never read before but could relate to because of some of my own personal struggles. I needed to know more about her, so I wrote it.

Q: But this book isn’t a London Lovers Series novel, correct?
A: Correct. I’m calling it a spinoff. A cross-pollination so to speak. There are characters from my London Lovers, but it reads best as a total standalone.

Q: Who the heck is Frank? And how did you create him?
A: LOL! Ohhh, Frank and Beans. He is my London Lovers secondary standout. He’s a fantastical redheaded gay Brit that everyone needs in their life. Magically, he fit into Not The One like it was meant to be. Frank is the comedic lightness that this story needed, but he’s so much more. He’s special.

Q: Will he get a story? 
A: He is my most requested story.
That’s not an answer. 
LOL…Let me be “frank” when I tell you…it is a distinct possibility. ;)

Q: Who designed your cover? It’s stunning!
A: I’m so glad you like it because I did! LOL. My sister in law took the photos. We do all of my covers together. We both come armed with cameras and click away until our models can’t take anymore. But I always end up using my sister-in-laws pictures for the cover. I just like to see through the lens instead of  eyes. But I do all my own layout and designing in Photoshop.


Q: And the cover models? 
A: All of my covers have just normal people. I never shoot models. The cover models on Not The One are just a couple of local hairdressers that my sister-in-law knew! It’s funny…I had met the girl a couple of times and talked with her briefly about her incredible ink and through the writing process, her tattoos fit my story perfectly. It was kind of chilling.


Q: So what’s next for you?
A: I’m pretty sure I’ll be continuing on this London path for a couple more stories. Without revealing any spoilers, I’m really hoping readers will be interested in one of the characters’ HEA. I’d love to write his story next. And then…finally, Frank and Beans. :)











Amy Daws is a commercial producer and lives in South Dakota with her husband and daughter. The long-awaited birth of Lorelei is what inspired her passion for writing. Amy is a lover of all things British and her award-nominated romantic comedy series, The London Lovers Series, is centered around Americans in London. It's emotional and self-deprecating with lots of humor sprinkled in. On most nights, you can find Amy and her family dancing to Strawberry Shortcake’s theme song or stuffing themselves inside children’s-sized playhouses because there is nothing they wouldn’t do for their little miracle.












Thursday, November 12, 2015

Rising Storm: Episode 8 THUNDER ROLLS by Dee Davis


Rising storm RDL Header Banner

We are so excited to bring you the Release Day Launch for THUNDER ROLLS by Dee Davis! THUNDER ROLLS is Episode 8 in the Rising Storm Series brought to you by 1001 Dark Nights. Grab the last episode in Season One of this sexy series today!

Mini Review:

Thunder Rolls - Episode 8 - coverI cried my eyes out as I read this final episode of Rising Storm season 1!!!! In this episode so much came to a head, yet it leaves us hanging, waiting to see WHAT will come of the revelations brought forth.  My heart breaks for Ginny, as her lies weren't meant to hurt others, but they do. The consequences she must face are going to be devastating to not just her.  

I hope the wait for season 2 isn't too long because I don't want to forget what brought all the emotional turmoil.  


  Rising Storm Episode 8 (Nov. 12): Dee Davis’s Thunder Rolls

Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy...

Nestled among rolling hills and painted with vibrant wildflowers, the bucolic town of Storm, Texas, seems like nothing short of perfection.


But there are secrets beneath the facade. Dark secrets.  Powerful secrets. The kind that can destroy lives and tear families apart.  The kind that can cut through a town like a tempest, leaving jealousy and destruction in its wake, along with shattered hopes and broken dreams. All it takes is one little thing to shatter that polish.


Reading like an on-going drama in the tradition of classic day and night-time soap operas like Dallas, Dynasty, and All My Children, Rising Storm is full of scandal, deceit, romance, passion, and secrets.


With 1001 Dark Nights as the “producer,” Julie Kenner and Dee Davis use a television model with each week building on the last to create a storyline that fulfills the promise of a drama-filled soap opera. Joining Kenner and Davis in the “writer’s room” is an incredible group of New York Times bestselling authors such as Lexi Blake, Elisabeth Naughton, Larissa Ione, Rebecca Zanetti and Lisa Mondello who have brought their vision of Storm to life.


A serial soap opera containing eight episodes in season one, the season premiere of Rising Storm, TEMPEST RISING, debuted September 24th with each subsequent episode releasing consecutively this fall.

So get ready.  The storm is coming.



Thunder Rolls - teaser 2
About THUNDER ROLLS: Episode 8 of the Rising Storm Series


Secrets, Sex and Scandals …


Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy…  Get ready.  The storm is coming.


In the season finale …


As Hannah Grossman grapples with the very real possibility that she is dating one Johnson brother while secretly in love with another, the entire town prepares for Founders Day. The building tempest threatens not just Hannah’s relationship with Tucker and Tate, but everyone in Storm as dire revelations threaten to tear the town apart.




Experience Rising Storm Here…


Rising Storm - Book Banner 2


Rising Storm Episode 1 (Sept. 24): Julie Kenner’s Tempest Rising


Rising Storm Episode 2 (Oct. 1): Lexi Blake’s White Lightning


Rising Storm Episode 3 (Oct. 8): Elisabeth Naughton’s Crosswinds


Rising Storm Episode 4 (Oct. 15): Jennifer Probst’s Dance in the Wind


Rising Storm Episode 5 (Oct. 22): Larissa Ione’s Calm Before the Storm


Rising Storm Episode 6 (Oct. 29): Rebecca Zanetti’s Take the Storm


Rising Storm Episode 7 (Nov. 5): Lisa Mondello’s Weather the Storm


Rising Storm Episode 8 (Nov. 12): Dee Davis’s Thunder Rolls




Thunder Rolls - teaser 1

Dee Davis - Author picAbout Dee Davis:

Bestselling author Dee Davis has a masters degree in public administration. Prior to writing, she served as the director of two associations, wrote award winning PSAs, did television and radio commercials, starred in the Seven Year Itch, taught college classes, and lobbied both the Texas Legislature and the US Congress.

Her highly acclaimed first novel, Everything In Its Time, was published in July 2000. Since then, among others, she’s won the Booksellers Best, Golden Leaf, Texas Gold and Prism awards, and been nominated for the National Readers Choice Award, the Holt and two RT Reviewers Choice Awards.

Recently she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Romance Writers and has also been nominated for a Lifetime Achievement Award for romantic suspense from Romantic Times. In addition, she is Hall of Fame member of the New Jersey Romance Writers and was awarded an Odyssey Medal from Hendrix College.

To date, she has written over twenty-five romantic suspense, time travel, and women’s fiction novels and novellas. Among her latest books you’ll find her A-Tac, Liar’s Game, and Last Chance series.

She’s lived in Austria and traveled in Europe extensively. And although she now resides in an 1802 farmhouse in Connecticut, she still calls Texas home.

Visit Dee Davis’ website.






Prairie landscapes





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