She’s afraid to take risks. He’s an incurable daredevil. When tragedy throws them together, will it spark a lasting devotion?
Crystal Whalen isn’t sure why she should go on. Two years after her husband’s death on a ski trip, she’s devastated when a fire destroys her quiet Colorado mountain home. And when she can’t keep her hands off the gorgeous divorcé who’s become her new temporary housemate, it only feeds her grief and growing guilt.
Garth Welty won’t be burned again. After his ex-wife took most of his money, the downhill-skiing Olympic medalist is determined to keep things casual with the sexy woman he can’t resist. But the more time they spend with each other, the harder it is to deny his burgeoning feelings.
As Crystal’s longing for the rugged man’s embrace grows, she worries that his dangerous lifestyle will steal him away. And although Garth believes she’s his perfect girl, the specter of betrayal keeps a tight grip on his heart.
Will the thrill-seeker and the wary woman succumb to the power of love?
The Patron of Emerson Pass is the emotional second book in the Emerson Pass Contemporaries small-town romance series. If you like lyrical prose, unexpected chances at happiness, and uplifting stories, then you’ll adore Tess Thompson’s sweet tale.
Other Books in the Emerson Pass Contemporaries series:
The Sugar Queen
Emerson Pass Contemporaries, Book 1
Published: May 2020
True love requires commitment, and many times unending sacrifice...
At the tender age of eighteen, Brandi Vargas watched the love of her life drive out of Emerson Pass, presumably for good. Though she and Trapper Barnes dreamed of attending college and starting their lives together, she was sure she would only get in the way of Trapper's future as a hockey star. Breaking his heart, and her own in the process, was the only way to ensure he pursued his destiny. Her fate was the small town life she'd always known, her own bakery, and an endless stream of regret.
After a decade of playing hockey, a single injury ended Trapper Barnes' career. And while the past he left behind always haunted him, he still returns to Emerson Pass to start the next chapter of his life in the place his ancestors built more than a century before. But when he discovers that the woman who owns the local bakery is the girl who once shattered his dreams, the painful secret she's been harboring all these years threatens to turn Trapper's idyllic small town future into a disaster. Will it take a forest fire threatening the mountain village to force Trapper and Brandi to confront their history? And in the wake of such a significant loss, will the process of rebuilding their beloved town help them find each other, and true happiness, once again?
Fast forward to the present day and enjoy this contemporary second chance romance set in the small town of Emerson Pass, featuring the descendants of the characters you loved from USA Today bestselling author Tess Thompson's The School Mistress.
Tess Thompson is the USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author of contemporary and historical Romantic Women’s Fiction with over 40 published titles. She lives in a suburb of Seattle with her husband and their blended family of four kids and five cats.
Being a nobody isn’t Duncan Alexander’s life goal, but it’s worked for him. He has a nondescript job, a few good friends, and overall he’s content. That’s until one fateful trip to San Jose, California, where he is “Called” to meet the mysterious Juliet de Exter. Juliet is a beautiful, wealthy, powerful Immortal who is undertaking The Calling—a search for a human to join her world of Immortals. Inexplicably, Duncan’s calling is more dangerous than any of the Immortals, even Juliet, ever thought it would be.
There is more to this nobody, this only child of long-deceased parents, than anyone thought. When Duncan experiences uncontrollable dreams of people he doesn’t know and places he hasn’t been, Juliet and the other Immortals worry. Soon, his visions point to a coven of long-dead witches. The dreams also lead Duncan to his one true love. How will Duncan navigate a forbidden romance with an outcast Immortal? How will he and the others keep the balance between the Light and Dark, survive vicious attacks, and keep the humans from learning who they truly are? More importantly, who is this implacable foe Duncan keeps seeing in his dreams?
**SPECIAL OFFER!**
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The world is changing quickly for Chris now that he’s part of the Immortal Community. With the events of his past finally behind him, he’s still having visions and true magic is gradually taking hold in the world. Chris is still new and has no real standing in the Immortal Community, but he is learning that nothing is what he thought.
Old enemies must work together and longtime friends may not be trustworthy. With Juliet, Amanda, and Kirtus by his side, they have to prevent the immortal and witch community from being exposed.
New friendships are made, and longtime alliances are called into question. How will The Called defeat these latest threats, and what does it mean for the world?
**SPECIAL OFFER!**
Get 25% off of orders $40 or more from the author's website HERE!
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M.D. Neu is an award-winning inclusive gay Fiction Writer with a love for writing and travel. Living in the heart of Silicon Valley (San Jose, California) and growing up around technology, he’s always been fascinated with what could be. Specifically drawn to Science Fiction and Paranormal television and novels, M.D. Neu was inspired by the great Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Stephen King, Alice Walker, Alfred Hitchcock, Harvey Fierstein, Anne Rice, and Kim Stanley Robinson. An odd combination, but one that has influenced his writing.
Growing up in an accepting family as a gay man he always wondered why there were never stories reflecting who he was. Constantly surrounded by characters that only reflected heterosexual society, M.D. Neu decided he wanted to change that. So, he took to writing, wanting to tell good stories that reflected our diverse world.
When M.D. Neu isn’t writing, he works for a non-profit and travels with his biggest supporter and his harshest critic, Eric his husband of twenty plus years.
Dahlia: The Velvet Witch and Her Dark Spirit by David Minutillo Genre: Urban Fantasy, Romantic Thriller
Making a pact with the underworld isn’t a problem … … but change the deal and hell breaks loose.
Dahlia’s world was turned upside down as a child and her innocence taken. But she chose to fight back with her own blend of magical mayhem. Levi has been let down by every person he’s ever loved. He’s betrayed, lost and about to end it all.
London, 2019. Our star-crossed lovers meet at a tattoo festival on the Thames. Big Ben might look the same, but magic is spilling onto the streets as Dahlia’s dark spirit begs for blood. Can she keep her raging orbit in check long enough to survive? Are they doomed? Or can Levi save them both?
You'll love this paranormal thrill-ride of beauty, chaos and despair which will keep you guessing until the bitter end.
A small travel journal on a family holiday to Italy in 2005 would become the catalyst for my first book. After bad weather forced us inside, I found myself scribing a story about a fictional character named, Lucca from Portofino. Balcony Nights – Tales of a Moonlit Guitarist was born, and for the next year, my keyboard took a beating as my imagination leapt into print.
But my downfall was self-belief. And eventually, niggling inadequacy won the battle, and I shelved the project. Over the next decade, I would get random hot flushes of enthusiasm and open the manuscript from time to time. Though inevitably, after a day’s tinkering, I would see a complete rewrite was in order and quietly back away from the near finished draft.
Ironically, another holiday would change all that, when I read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (the Holy Bible for anyone suffering with procrastination). It was time to kick my own ass into submission and get a book finished. The idea for Dahlia came into my head a few days later, and once again, I spent morning and night, before and after long days of work, bashing away at the keys. One day I looked up and there it was. A 120,000 word, completed manuscript.
Not long after, came the redundancy call from Egan. And just like that, I was a full-time writer. It’s now been a year and change since that day, and I couldn’t be prouder of sticking to my guns and working my ass off to make this dream come true. In that time, I’ve started and finished a novella called Travel Infinity, completed a second, 100K manuscript called Scarecrow and have just published my first novel called Dahlia - The Velvet Witch and Her Dark Spirit on all major sites.
Growing up in a family with alcohol abuse can leave you significantly scarred as an adult. The addiction robbed you of a caring, nurturing, secure and playful childhood, forcing you to become an adult too early. A lack of attention and compassion stifled your ability to grow into a whole person.
As an adult, you might experience personal and professional problems related to feelings of abandonment or loneliness, relationship problems, low self-esteem, unhealthy coping strategies, and lack of clear boundaries.
If you have felt traumatized, anxious, and depressed throughout your life, this is the book for you.
Through in-depth chapters and exercises, you will:
· Understand how families are shaped by alcohol addiction
· Gain insight into how trauma affects your body and your mind
· Learn how to build your self-esteem and become aware of your own feelings
· How to identify unhealthy patterns and relationships and break free of them
· Reshape your thoughts and beliefs about yourself and your future
This book offers extensive insight into the dynamics and consequences of growing up with addiction. It provides the help and compassion that addiction stole from you when you were a child. In short, Raised in a Bottle offers new hope for reclaiming your own life.
Kristina Hermann is a psychotherapist and author with a clinic in Copenhagen, Denmark. She has worked with families afflicted by alcohol abuse since 2000 and has written extensively about adult children of alcoholics. In 2015 she published a self-help book in Danish: Du er ikke alene: en opvækst med alkoholproblemer ("You are not alone: An upbringing shaped by alcohol problems"), now in its third printing. Raised in a Bottle: A Workbook for Adult Children of Alcoholics (in progress) is her first book in English.
She received her Master in Psychology from the University of Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. In addition to her work as a psychotherapist, she also teaches seminars, conducts workshops, and is a supervisor of the work of other therapists.
Olive Meeks is anything but. Quiet – yes. Shy – sort of. Yet underneath beats a heart filled with hope and promise.
Which is why she accepts the challenge and applies for one of the open positions with Burlesque A La Mode. No surprise she's really good at it and becomes a darling burlesque baby.
But...Vic Thornton is the owner of the Speakeasy, where the troupe performs, and weeks before, she literally crashed into him. Well, her bicycle hit the truck he was riding in.
Now, she's certain he's what she wants, but Vic's sending mixed messages, and Olive doesn't play games. More than most, she's learned to live life and to love when she feels it since no one is promised tomorrow.
Vic still has to figure out he's worthy of the incandescent sprite who has the potential to become his whole world.
Twelve years ago Amanda Lane fled her small town, and the man she loved. She changed her life in Chicago, and found a new family with Burlesque A La Mode. Now on tour, the troupe is performing near her former home, and her past walks in looking better than he ever did.
Mike Nichols never understood why Amanda left him, and his heart has never recovered since she ran away. Now, watching her take off her clothes in his crowded club, he wants to drag her off the stage and yet is mesmerized by her beauty and her charms. Mostly, he needs to know why the hell she disappeared, and what he can do to make her stay.
Brigette O'Hare - photographer and graphic designer by day, burlesque performer by night - is in New Orleans to dance with a local burlesque troupe. Touring the city, she has an incredibly sensual encounter in a voodoo shop with the mysterious Henri Dauphine.
Henri defines everything Bridgette doesn't trust she deserves: wildly sexy, old money, his own man, and crazy about her.
She can't wrap her mind around why he wants more than a weekend fling while he's trying to figure out how to get to her to stay in New Orleans with him - forever.
Henri won't give up on the only woman he's ever loved and Bridgette finally realizes he's the man who colors her life with everlasting happiness.
Kitty Bardot juggles a life full of excitement and love. By day, she's a chef with her own catering company, by night she puts tens years of burlesque experience to use in various venues in the Quad Cities. She writes from her country home not far from the Mississippi River, enjoying every moment with her husband and their three children. Currently, she is working on her next Burlesque River story.
Thistle Greenbud thought the nickname Bad Fairy was behind her, but she can't escape it. Someone is spreading a rumor about her that just isn't true and can ruin all of her hard work in getting into Advanced School. What fairy would do such a thing? As if that's not bad enough, Thistle's dad goes missing. Not a single fairy in Tinselville has seen him. He's vanished like pixie dust. Her mom is distraught, and Thistle is worried. Where could he be? Thistle and the Flutters, along with Dusty and Moss, are on both cases. Can they find out what happened to her dad and solve the Bad Fairy rumor? Thistle hopes so!
Thistle Greenbud is not a bad fairy. She simply doesn't like rules, and it's just her luck that her homework is to create a new rule for the fairy handbook. But first, she has more important things to do. Like figure out how to get back at Dusty and Moss for playing tricks on her.
Before she can carry out her plan, though, disaster strikes and she finds herself working alongside the very fairies she wanted revenge on. Can they work together and trust each other, or will things go from bad to worse?
Elaine Kaye is the author of A Bad Fairy Adventure series AND A Gregory Green Adventure series. She first created Gregory Green after her son, who loved her homemade pea soup, thus inspiring the story Pea Soup Disaster.
Kaye has worked as a library assistant and teacher’s assistant in elementary schools in the Sunshine State. She currently lives in Florida, but she has called Michigan; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Okinawa, Japan home. She is a grandmother of three boys.
When Neyla Bennett receives an invitation to participate in what she thinks is a quiz show, she is immediately suspicious. But the offer includes an all-expense-paid vacation to the Crimson Moon Hideaway resort and that’s just too good to pass up.
When she arrives, she receives a rude surprise. Witch’s Choice is not a quiz show – it’s a dating show! To make matters even worse, one of the contestants is her former love, Tullie LaCroix, who left Neyla years earlier without an explanation.
Tullie is still as beautiful and sexy as Neyla remembers, and she wants to resume their relationship. But when the truth of Tullie’s desertion is finally known, will it bring the couple back together or tear them apart for good?
Natalie-Nicole Bates has worn all the hats in the publishing world - reader, reviewer, author, and now small publisher with Perfectly Poisoned Press. She has the ability to see the point of view of everyone involved with the love of books.
With a taste for the darker side, Natalie-Nicole's favorite genres are Dark Victorian, Steampunk, and Dark Paranormal. Her interests include collecting Victorian-era photographs, Frozen Charlotte Dolls (her latest batch was just delivered from a German excavation site after being buried underground since about 1860), and antique poison bottles. She loves exploring and photographing cemeteries - the older, the better!
As a teen, Elliott Denison grapples with life, love and sexuality. His heart had been shattered every time his parents pushed him away. Life had forced him to be strong enough to endure Stanstead’s biggest bully and strong enough to come into his own as an openly gay man.
Now he was 26 years old, and a wave of emotion invaded him as though a switch had been sparked in his mind when Chase Harrison unexpectedly crossed his path. Everything Elliott ever wanted growing up was there in front of him. It doesn’t take long for Elliott to enter into Chase’s life.
Then the ugly past rears its head. Only this time, the face is a shadowy online stalker and an anonymous hater.
Book Trailer
Excerpt
“What?”
My father was sitting in his chair with my mother by his side. Something didn’t look right.
“Are you a homosexual?” my father asked calmly but sternly as he turned my laptop around. I hadn’t even noticed it there.
My worst nightmare was staring at me. Ah, shit. “How come my laptop is down here?” I asked.
“I asked you a question,” my father said.
My eyes started darting around as if looking for a place to hide, but I finally looked at my father and answered, “I don’t know.”
“This is a sin!” my father yelled, slamming the laptop shut. He approached me, pointing his finger at me. “This behaviour stops now, you hear? I will not have a sinner in my house! We didn’t bring you up like this, and no son of mine will partake in such disgusting, perverted activities! If you don’t change, I will send you to conversion therapy.”
I looked at my mother for some support or compassion, but she stood there and did nothing. My father stormed outside and slammed the door behind him.
“Mom,” I said, “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“You are a sinner,” she said, slapping me across the face. “You are a disgrace to this family. I would rather have a criminal for a son than a pervert. If you want to remain part of this family, you will cease this deviant behaviour immediately; otherwise, I want you out of this house.”
“Mom, please… Don’t say that. It’s not my fault. I tried to resist these feelings. Believe me, I tried.” My eyes were starting to tear up.
“You didn’t try hard enough,” she said.
“This is how God made me, Mom. I can’t change that.”
Her eyes became dark, and her pupils dilated, “Don’t you take the lord’s name in vain! Why do you insist on hurting us like this?”
“I don’t want to hurt you! Do you think this is to hurt you?”
“Liar!” Her face was so close to mine that I could smell her breath. Then she walked out.
I ran outside, slammed the door behind me, and sat on the front steps, trembling. I couldn’t stop sobbing. I called Chad and asked him if I could crash at his place.
“What happened?” Chad asked.
“My parents found out I was gay! They saw the video on my laptop. The things they said to me were so hurtful. I can’t live here anymore! All that matters to them is what the bible says! They’re ready to throw me out! I don’t mean anything to them!”
“Calm down,” Chad said. “I’ll come to pick you up. Pack your things.”
I went inside, grabbed all that would fit in my duffle bag, and stormed back outside to wait for Chad. I didn’t bother telling my parents where I was going; they wouldn’t care anyway. Chad drove up the driveway, I got in, and we left.
“What did you tell your parents?”
“I told them what you told me,” Chad said.
“Are they cool with me coming over?”
“Yes, they’re fine with it. How are you holding up?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know what to think. I feel so ashamed.”
“Don’t. It’s not your fault.” As we pulled up the driveway to his house, Chad suggested that I see a school counsellor next week. “Maybe they can help.”
“Yeah, maybe. Thanks for everything,” I said.
As we walked in, Chad’s parents met us at the door. His mom said, “Hi, Elliott, welcome. I want you to feel comfortable here. Consider this your home now. Chad told us a bit of what happened, and we’re so sorry you had to live that.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hardwicke.
“Come, I’ll show you your room,” Chad said as we walked up the stairs. “Rest up. If you need anything, I’m just across the hall. It will be alright, I promise.” Chad hugged me and went back downstairs.
I sat on the bed, hunched over with my head in my hands, rocking. “What am I suppose to do now? Am I such a bad person?”
About the Author . . .
Kristian Daniels writes coming of age, gay romance and gay love stories. His stories are about the life and tribulations of the LGBTQs community, their fight to be accepted and loved. It’s also about their struggles, rejection and their suffering. Writing a novel was always a thirst for him, and with Stolen Heart, it became a reality.