A French Girl in New York by Anna Adams Genre: YA (Musical series) Release Date: December 2012 Maude Laurent is a spirited 16 year-old orphan who grew up in a small, provincial town in the North of France with a passion for piano and a beautiful voice. One day in Paris, she is discovered by an American music producer who takes her to New York to live with him and his close-knit family while producing her first album, with help from teen pop star, Matt. Maude will dive into a new fascinating world discovering New York City, music, family, love and the truth about her past.
Download the book for FREE at one of the following locations: Amazon * iTunes * B&N * Kobo
The Original Soundtrack for A French Girl in New York will be available September 7th!
The #1 New York Times Bestselling author Vi Keeland is back with a brand new standalone, Beautiful Mistake releasing on July 17th and we have the amazing cover for you today!
Model: Lucas Barbosa Gil Photographer: Chuando & Frey Cover designer: Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative
The first time I met Caine West was in a bar.
He noticed me looking his way and mistakenly read my scowling as checking him out.
When he attempted to talk to me, I set him straight—telling him what I thought of his lying, cheating, egomaniacal ass.
You see, the gorgeous jerk had wined and dined my best friend--smooth talking her into his bed, all along failing to mention that he was married.
He deserved every bit of my tongue-lashing and more for what he'd done.
Especially when that lazy smile graced his perfect face in response to my rant.
Only it turned out, the man I'd just told off wasn't the right guy.
Oops. My mistake.
Embarrassed, I slunk out without an apology.
I was never going to see the handsome stranger again anyway, right?
That’s what I thought…until I walked into class the next morning.
Well, hello Professor West, I’m your new teaching assistant.
I’ll be working under you…figuratively speaking.
Although the literal interpretation might not be such a bad thing—working under Professor West.
Vi Keeland is a #1 New York Times Bestselling author. With more than 1.5 million books sold, her titles have appeared in over eighty Bestseller lists and are currently translated in sixteen languages. She resides in New York with her husband and their three children where she is living out her own happily ever after with the boy she met at age six.
Rachel Blaufeld is a social worker/entrepreneur/blogger turned author. Fearless about sharing her opinion, Rachel captured the ear of stay-at-home and working moms on her blog,BacknGrooveMom, chronicling her adventures in parenting tweens and inventing a product, often at the same time. She has also blogged for The Huffington Post, Modern Mom, and StartupNation.
Turning her focus on her sometimes wild-and-crazy creative side, it only took Rachel two decades to do exactly what she wanted to do—write a fiction novel. Now she spends way too many hours in local coffee shops plotting her ideas. Her tales may all come with a side of angst and naughtiness, but end lusciously.
Rachel lives around the corner from her childhood home in Pennsylvania with her family and two dogs. Her obsessions include running, coffee, icing-filled doughnuts, anti-heroes, and mighty fine epilogues.
The perfect husband. Colin Cassidy—the incredibly talented, extremely gorgeous, and unbelievably humble star NFL quarterback.
The perfect marriage. Our bond was unbreakable. His support unwavering.
The perfect career. As the recently-appointed executive director for the Boston chapter of Mending Hearts, a child abuse prevention and treatment program, my daily reward was helping to keep vulnerable, innocent children from being preyed upon and destroyed. It’s all I’d wanted to do since I was a teenager.
Perfect city. Perfect car. Perfect house with the perfect view.
From the outside looking in, it was impossible to find a single flaw in my life. I had it all. Everything I’d ever wanted.
But that kind of perfection came at a price. Demanded the ultimate sacrifice.
What happened when I discovered what I’d been missing all along? When I began to question if the lies were worth protecting?
What if suddenly the last thing I wanted was to be perfect?
“What in the world is all this?” I asked with a chuckle, hovering under the archway that separated the living room and kitchen. “Did you invite the offensive line over for breakfast or something?”
Colin, still dressed in his pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt, whisked something feverishly at the stove while I gaped at the steaming, mouth-watering spread on the butcher-block kitchen island. Buttery scrambled eggs. Waffles. French toast. Crispy bacon. Sausage. Hash browns. Flaky buttermilk biscuits. And fresh strawberries with homemade whipped cream to top it all off. I’m pretty sure I gained five pounds just looking at it all. So much for that workout.
“I’d need a lot more food than this, if that was the case,” he contended as he shot me a teasing smile. Momentarily abandoning the baked beans in the saucepan, he set the wooden spoon down on the counter, turned the heat down to low, and closed the distance between us to kiss my forehead. “Morning, gorgeous. I’d give you a proper hug, but my hands are all greasy. How was your workout?”
I scrunched my nose up and gave a sharp shake of my head. “It sucked.”
His chest shook with laughter as he bent down to rub the tip of his nose against mine. An Eskimo kiss, it was called, according to Colin. My mom wasn’t big on any kind of kisses, hugs, or demonstrations of love for anyone other than her current boyfriend or husband, and since I’d never had a boyfriend before him, it took me some time after Colin and I started dating to get used to his open displays of affection—both public and private—but soon…soon I began to love them. To live for them. They were my drug. He was my drug. All I needed to keep my perfect world balanced and me grounded.
“You knew better when you took that final glass of wine last night. I saw the hesitation in your eyes,” he half-scolded, returning to the food I still contended was not a breakfast food at all, despite his and his parents’ claim otherwise. I didn’t care that Google backed them up, maintaining beans were common in breakfasts throughout many countries that were once a part of the British Empire. The only way I was eating them at nine in the morning was if I was camping, or it was the apocalypse. Otherwise, they were a lunch or dinner-only menu item.
“Yeah, I did.” Sighing, I shuffled inside the gourmet kitchen and plopped down on one of the four bar stools situated around the island, where we ate ninety-nine percent of our meals. It was my seat while we were in this room, which was more often than not if we were home. When we originally bought the house after Colin was drafted by his hometown team, the first thing we did was have the entire thing gutted and redesigned to our liking.
The kitchen was my husband’s pet project, as he claimed it would be the heart of our home. He personally selected everything from the mahogany cabinets and black-and-tan marble countertops, to the natural wood accessories and the toaster that had more settings than a spaceship. Warm, cheery butterscotch walls. Restaurant-quality stainless steel appliances. Ornate hardware on all of the drawers and cupboards. It didn’t make sense to me then, but as we settled into our life together, I soon discovered that if we weren’t in our bedrooms, chances were we were in the kitchen—either comparing our daily schedules over coffee and a healthy breakfast in the mornings or catching up at night at night over dinner. It was ourplace. Just like this was my stool. Unfortunately, our already-busy schedules only seemed to be growing more and more hectic over the previous few months, and we’d been missing each other more frequently than I’d have liked.
“You never told me what this is all for,” I reminded him before I snuck a piece of bacon and shoved it in my mouth.
“We’re celebrating.” Peering over his shoulder, he smirked as he watched me chew the heart-attack inducing deliciousness. “And get your grubby little fingers out of the bacon until it’s time to make our plates.”
I moaned as I swallowed. I couldn’t help it. It was that good. Bacon was my weakness; I could never have a pet pig.
Once I’d finished climaxing with Wilbur’s belly, I realized my husband was still staring at me, his expression unreadable. “I hope you don’t do that in public, Roe. That sound would give a hundred-year-old man on his deathbed a woody.”
My right eyebrow arched high up into my forehead, a combination of confusion over the celebration comment and a where-in-the-hell-did-he-come-up-with-some-of-this-stuff look. I opted to ignore the old-guy-with-a-boner explanation and found out when I could have more bacon. “What are we celebrating?”
He twisted back around to stir the beans, even though I could see the burner was off and they were clearly ready and didn’t need stirring. The only time Colin didn’t face me when he was talking was when he was nervous. And only one subject made Colin nervous.
“Well, the success of the gala, of course. I know I said it last night, but I was so impressed with everything. You kicked ass, babe.” He paused briefly to exhale loudly then continued on. “This is also my last Sunday home before the season starts. After this, we won’t get to do our Funday Sundays until after playoffs next February, and I knew you were going to meet with Allison later, so I wanted breakfast to be awesome.” Another pause. Longer this time. Two deep breaths. “And after we got home last night—”
“This incredible guy showed up,” a familiar male voice that belonged to Colin’s childhood next-door neighbor and best friend finished the sentence from behind me.
I quickly spun around to find Seth Andrews closing in on where I sat, wearing only a pair of loose athletic shorts and with his brown hair all a bedhead mess. He scooped me up off the seat and twirled me in the air as he covered both sides of my cheeks with kisses. I squealed with delight.
“Roe, baby girl, you were amazing last night!” he exclaimed as he eventually lowered me back on the cushion then parked himself two stools away from me. His spot. “Not only did you look absolutely stunning, your speech was fuckin’ killah. Those snooty assholes were eating out of the palms of your hands.”
“You do know you’re one of those snooty assholes, right?” Colin scoffed from the refrigerator while pulling out the milk and orange juice. “And watch your language in my house, especially around Monroe.”
Seth rolled his eyes and snatched two pieces of bacon from the platter, giving one to me and keeping the other for himself. I giggled as Colin flared his nostrils when he caught us. “Roe doesn’t care if I curse. She works with teenagers. Kids these days throw fuck around like it’s an everyday word. I bet Oscar the Grouch teaches them how to spell it on Sesame Street now or some shit.”
I wanted to agree that he probably wasn’t far off, but instead of riling up Colin even more and forcing him to get out the swear jar, I redirected the conversation. “I was wondering if I was gonna see you here this morning,” I said to Seth, “but when you weren’t around at the end of the gala, I thought maybe you had to take Effie home and didn’t feel like driving back into town.”
“Nah,” he shook his head as he grabbed a strawberry, “she wanted to go meet some of her friends at a bar, and I didn’t want her on the streets by herself, especially considering the fancy shit she was wearing. So I escorted her there and hand-delivered her to a girl I somewhat trust. Then, I ran into a guy I knew from school, so I stayed and had a couple beers while I waited for you two to get home.”
“You must’ve been quiet when you got here. Or I was so tired that I just passed out, oblivious to the world around me.” I shrugged my shoulders, not surprised.
Erin Noelle is a Texas native, where she lives with her husband and two young daughters. While earning her degree in History at the University of Houston, she rediscovered her love for reading that was first instilled by her grandmother when she was a young child.
A lover of happily-ever-afters, both historical and current, Erin is an avid reader of all romance novels.
Her titles published include the Book Boyfriend Series, the Dusk ‘Til Dawn Series, the Luminous Duet, Conspire — co-authored with SE Hall, Surviving Us, MILF: Wrong Kind of Love, Spark and Flame.
Her books have been a part of the USA Today Bestselling list and the Amazon and Barnes & Noble overall Top 100.
Allison O'Malley's plan is to go to grad school so she can get a good job and take care of her schizophrenic mother. She has carefully closed herself off from everything else, including a relationship with Ethan, who she's been in love with for as long as she can remember.
What is definitely not part of the plan is the return of her long-lost father, who claims he can bring Allison's mother back from the dark place her mind has gone. Allison doesn't trust her father, so why would she believe his stories about a long forgotten Irish people, the Tuatha de Danaan? But truths have a way of revealing themselves. Secrets will eventually surface. And Allison must learn to set aside her plan and work with her father if there is even a small chance it could restore her mother's sanity.
Allison thought it was crazy enough when she found out her father, Liam, wasn't entirely human. But now she has to join his magical allies to unravel his former mistress's plans. Aoife wants to keep Allison's parents apart forever.
Despite Allison's efforts to keep Ethan, the only guy she's ever cared about, out of this supernatural mess, fate keeps throwing him back into the mix.
Will Allison be able to find the amulet that holds the enchantment Aoife placed on Liam and destroy it? Are Ethan' s feelings for Allison strong enough to endure the magic of the Tuatha De Danaan?
The time has come. Allison's quest to save her mother from Aoife's wicked enchantment will test everything she believes in. Who is trustworthy in the land of the Fair Folk, the Tuatha de Danaan? It's up to Allison, along with her ragtag host of allies, to unravel the truth.
Journey along and discover the power of love and duty as Allison faces the most difficult trial of her life.
Laura Howard lives in
New Hampshire with her husband and four children. Her obsession with books began
at the age of 6 when she got her first library card. Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley
High and other girly novels were routinely devoured in single sittings. Books
took a backseat to diapers when she had her first child. It wasn’t until the
release of a little novel called Twilight, 8 years later, that she rediscovered
her love of fiction. Soon after, her own characters began to make themselves
known. The Forgotten Ones is her first published novel.
I received a copy of each of the three books in exchange for an honest review.
What I say: I read all three instalments of The Danaan Trilogy back-to-back so I am going to discuss each book in one review. Therefore there may be minor spoilers for the individual books.
The Forgotten Ones- I decided to read this book because I found the concept really intriguing. Whilst most girls/young women are focused on dating and school/Uni etc, Allison has a mother with a mental illness to look after.
Now before you start thinking this is another book where the main character spends her time moaning about her life, don't worry it really isn't. Allie's mother's illness is handled with sensitivity, but the main focus is on Allie herself and how she copes with the many pressures she faces, as well as a special supernatural/fantasy twist - yes I mean fairies - well, sort of...
Allie is quiet and a bit of an outsider. She's often judged by her mother's condition and keeps herself to herself. She avoids the uber flirtatious Ethan, even though she does really want him. For her letting anybody in is a scary prospect.
I liked Allie and wanted her to go out and experience life a bit more. The events of the book completely change her quiet life and she finds herself in situations she never imagined. I REALLY wanted Allie to give Ethan a chance. He goes out of his way to help her, getting very little back.
We are introduced to MANY characters throughout the book and so I did find the character and place names a little disconcerting at times. BUT Laura Howard does provide a helpful pronunciation guide to help. The world of the Danaan itself is very interesting and I did enjoy the fairy aspect, but it was perhaps a bit confusing but a fun start to the series.
3 - 3.5 Stars in my Sky!
The Stone of Destiny- Book two picks up right where the previous book left off. Aoife is still causing trouble and is hellbent on controlling Liam and all the Danaans. I have to admit that even with the pronunciation guide I did still get a little confused with who was whom at times, and who was good or bad.
I like Allie and Ethan's friendship and would like to see more about their connection and past - BUT I did appreciate the almost fated element to their attraction. Ethan always has her back, even with the many strange things going on in her life.
It was interesting to see Allie interacting with Liam a bit more and the introduction of a certain new character. Just when one twist has been resolved something else would happen and throw Allie off course again. I preferred the pacing in the first book but I did like the more romantic elements this time.
3.5 Stars in my Sky!
A Place Beyond- As the final book in the Danaan series A Place Beyond has the responsibility of having to hold and wrap up the entire series. Overall I felt as though Howard does a good job concluding the series and answering some lingering questions.
I finally felt as though I had managed to get to grips with the character names and who does what. The pacing is quick and a lot happens in fairly short period of time.
Aoife is still being, well Aoife. She's desperate and destructive which makes for a very dangerous situation. I really liked Niamh in this book and felt like I understood her motivations a lot more.
Allison and Ethan have reached the point of admitting everything or going their separate ways. I kept thinking to myself why doesn't she just take the chance? They have a big task ahead of them if they're going to save everybody and find a HEA. There are a couple of really sad moments that I wasn't expecting, but I liked how the story ended. Certain parts are bittersweet, yet charming.
