Finding a Farmer By Jason Wrench

General Release Date: 16th August 2022

Word Count: 66,905
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 256

Genres:

BILLIONAIRE
CONTEMPORARY
CRIME
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI

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Book Description

Sometimes you need a new job to put the important things in life into perspective. And sometimes love finds you when you least expect it…maybe even while picking apples.

Dale Devereux is an unemployed, spoiled rich kid on the cusp of turning thirty. His grandfather, Jameson, decides it’s time for Dale to learn the family business, so he sends him to work on one of the corporate farms in Woodstock, New York.

Talgat Kudaibergen is the twenty-seven-year-old who is currently running things at Deveraux Farms Upstate. He took over operations after his mother’s and father’s deaths. Along with his younger sister and brother, Ayala and Rasul, the three siblings have kept the farm running.

Dale finds out quickly that he has a lot to learn about living life outside the big city. Talgat and his siblings grow to appreciate Dale and what he’s able to bring to the farm.

Slowly, Dale and Talgat realize that they may have more in common than either imagined. The two start to have feelings for one another, but their romance is threatened when money goes missing from the farm’s coffers.

Reader advisory: This book contains mention of embezzlement, attempted murder, and cancer.

Excerpt

I glanced down at the Rolex watch my granddad had given me when I had finished my MBA a few years earlier. It’s not one of the crazy expensive ones. Of course, I’d had to google the price after he gave it to me. At the time, it was worth around ten grand—so, nothing to sneeze at, but still on the lower end of the Rolex scale. I’ve thought about upgrading it a couple of times but can’t bring myself to do it. Sure, I can afford a more expensive one. Between my day job working on Wall Street and my trust fund, I can afford almost anything I want.

I guess I should say my ‘former’ job on Wall Street, since that’s what I was celebrating—my getting fired. I wasn’t fired for cause or anything. My firm had scrolled back its trading arm in the US to focus on overseas markets. Thankfully, Granddad had taught me to squirrel away money. I’d been taking my skills on the trading room floor of the Stock Exchange and turning them into my private nest egg. There was something satisfying about having an account with seven figures that hadn’t been given to me by my family. At least the firm had waited until the Tuesday after Memorial Day to fire my ass. So, there I was on June first, drunk out of my mind.

I stared down at my empty glass, which was supposed to be filled with two shots of Belvedere Single Estate Lake Bartężek Vodka. I was about to raise my hand and order another one when I caught sight of my watch. I hadn’t realized it was this late already.

“Dudes, it’s ten-thirty,” I said, looking at my two drinking companions.

On my left was my best friend in the universe, Grayson Jackson. Grayson and I had met when we were attending The Quad Preparatory School in Manhattan. And with a seventy-five-thousand-dollar-a-year price tag, The Quad opened the doors to go anywhere we wanted. We’d both ended up at Harvard, for the fun of it. After making it through our undergraduate years barely sober, I’d gone off to their MBA program, and Grayson had gone to law school. Now we were both single, hot, wealthy guys in their late twenties getting everything we ever wanted out of life. We’d lived by the ‘work hard, play harder’ motto our entire adult lives.

On my right was Avery Addington, my sort of on-again, off-again lover or fuck buddy. He’s a couple of years younger than me. I had met him on a dating app and figured it would be a onetime hookup, but he’d ended up sticking around. I called him my ‘on-again, off-again boyfriend’ because I didn’t know what the hell we are. Hell, I didn’t know if we even were at that point. We weren’t exclusive, that much I knew. God, the idea of being in a long-term relationship gave me heart palpitations—and not the good kind. I liked my freedom. I enjoyed doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. If I found a hot guy at a bar and I wanted to fuck him senseless in the back room, then I took him into the back room, bent him over and showed him the best time of his life. And while I’m an admitted slut, I was on PREP and played safely…most of the time. And despite my use of protection, I got regular checkups to make sure I hadn’t contracted anything. Shit happens.

“It’s already ten-thirty?” Avery slurred. “How long have we been drinking?”

I found myself with my mouth open, on the verge of responding, but I honestly did not know what time we’d gotten there. I tilted my head to the side and glanced at Grayson, because I knew he’d know.

Grayson rolled his eyes. “You texted me about four, and I got here about five-thirty. You said you’d just gotten here, which I figured meant you had at least thirty minutes on me already. Based on this, you’ve been here drinking for six hours,” he said with the emotion of a forensic accountant. Oh, I should have mentioned that Grayson had also gotten a master’s in accounting after law school from NYU. He worked for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in accounting crimes—or something like that. Honestly, when he talked about numbers, I daydreamed. I enjoyed making money and could tell you all about bulls and bears, but when it came to the day-to-day math part, I tuned out. I liked the game of making money, the strategy of making money—hence, why I have an accountant who handled my books.

“I don’t feel drunk,” I heard myself say right before I started touching my forehead. “But I can’t feel my forehead.”

“Okay,” Grayson grumbled. “I hate to be the adult in the room, but I have work in the morning, so I’ve gotta get out of here. Can you two make it home?”

“Your place or mine?” I asked Avery.

“Yours. It’s closer.”

“We can call my car service.” No worries.

Grayson shook his head and grabbed my phone off the table. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m calling your car service.”

“But we’re not ready to leave yet,” Avery whined.

“Yeah, I think you two are.”

“But, Dad,” I complained.

“I’ve gotta go,” Grayson said flatly. “And I’m not leaving you two to your own devices. To keep my conscience clean, I’m putting you in a car and sending you on your way. What you do after that is up to you.”

I thought about objecting, but I knew Grayson was right. I’d had my pity party and would have to get up and join the world of the unemployed the next morning. Thankfully, between my granddad’s and my contacts, I was sure I wouldn’t be unemployed for too long. Honestly, I didn’t understand why some people stay unemployed. It’s like, why don’t they use their personal and family networks to get a new job? It’s not like it’s that difficult.

Grayson got up and put his suit coat back on.

“How can you wear a suit in this heat?” I questioned.

“Don’t you wear a suit to the office?” Grayson asked.

“Oh yeah,” I said, as I tried to stand and realized my eyes were going in and out of focus. Grayson reached out and steadied me until I got my feet firmly planted below me. “Whoa, maybe I’ve had too much to drink.”

“You think?” Grayson asked.

Once I was fully standing and the lightheadedness had passed, I helped Avery to his feet and the three of us exited the bar and grill after paying our tabs. I didn’t know how much this evening was going to cost me. I’d handed over my American Express Black Card and given my signature. I’d worry about the expense later.

Thankfully, my car service arrived right as Grayson’s Uber did. I shuffled into the car, sliding over so Avery could get in. Once Avery closed the door, the driver took off. I put my arm around Avery and rested my head on his shoulder. I felt his arm sneak around and pat the side of my head as he leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of my head.

Why aren’t we dating? I thought to myself, as I was almost on the verge of falling asleep.

“We’re here,” the driver said.

“Thanks. That was fast,” I muttered as I untangled myself from Avery, who had fallen asleep.

“What?” Avery said as I jostled him awake.

“We’re at my place.”

“I must have fallen asleep.”

“Well, duh,” I said, reaching over him to open the door.

I nudged him out of the car and followed before gently closing the door. I stared up at my apartment building, noticing all the lights in the windows were turned on.

I walked into Twenty Exchange, where I have a two-bedroom apartment. For its location and proximity to Wall Street, Twenty Exchange is an ideal apartment complex for the up-and-coming business type in Manhattan. Not only is it in the heart of Wall Street, but it also caters to an exclusive tenant list. When I decided I wanted to live there, I had my granddad pull a few strings to get me to the top of the list for a new two-bedroom apartment when one opened up, which wasn’t often. But here I was, four years later and I’m still living here, paying my four-thousand-dollar-a-month rent. Maybe one day I’ll break down and buy a condo in the city. But for the time being, I’m okay with renting. I’ve always liked the idea that I could choose to move at the end of my lease if I wanted to.

The doorman opened the door for us with a polite bow of his head. “Good evening, Mr. Devereaux.”

“Good evening, Jack,” I responded. “How are the kids?”

“They enter the first grade this year,” the uniformed man responded. He had the look that all proud fathers get when they realize their kids are growing up much faster than expected.

“Wow! Already… I can’t believe it,” I said with a smile. “Well, good night.”

“You, too, Mr. Deveraux.”

Granddad had taught me early in life to always respect those people in service positions. He was a whiz at remembering names, birthdates, anniversaries and all kinds of other facts. Me? I was happy I could remember someone’s first name and maybe one or two details about their lives, but I tried.

Avery and I made our way to the elevator banks. I pushed the button, then leaned against the wall to make the marble around me stop spinning. I haven’t been this wasted since my first year in college.

I heard the ding of the door and sort of spun myself into the elevator then hit the button for the fifty-fifth floor. Avery was leaning against me by this point as the elevator doors slid shut.

The ride up was smooth and uneventful. When the elevator opened onto my floor, Avery and I stumbled out and made it the few feet to my door. I whipped out my key card and let myself into the apartment.

“I’m going to get a bottle of water.” I asked Avery, “You want one?”

“Yeah, we should definitely hydrate after all this alcohol. I’m going to take a leak first.”

I didn’t watch him make his way to the bathroom, but I heard him as he bumped into one wall and tried to apologize to it.

I made my way into the kitchen, opened the fridge door and pulled out a bottle of Glacial Flow, a bottled water company that harvested water from fifteen-thousand-year-old glaciers. Each twenty-four-ounce bottle cost something like sixteen dollars, but I liked it and loved the conversation starter it provided me when I was drinking one at work. I could always talk about saving the planet and our melting icecaps while I was drinking one. Trust me, the irony wasn’t lost on me.

I twisted off the top and took a swig, savoring the crisp taste before swallowing. I leaned against the fridge, took a second sip and noticed that my answering machine light was blinking. Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Who has an answering machine in the twenty-first century? Well, I do. And it’s connected to my home line. I know, who has one of those in this century?

I’d broken down and gotten myself a home line and answering machine when I had to work from home for six months during the pandemic. I could have done everything through my cell phone, but I figured having an actual phone with a headset attached was going to make my life easier while I stared at the four-monitor terminal I’d set up in the spare bedroom. I lived in the one bedroom, and the second one had become my home office. I figured the only people who ever stayed over with me slept in my bed, so I didn’t need a spare room. Besides, a spare room seemed like an utter waste of space. Who needs to have a bedroom that is only used when they have company over? I don’t get that. If someone is coming for a visit, I’ll put them up in a luxurious hotel, not my apartment. Again, I liked my space.

I walked over to the flashing red light, put both water bottles on the island separating the kitchen from the dining area and pushed the button.

“Dale, it’s your granddad. I heard through the grapevine that you were let go from your firm today. I’m sorry to hear that, but I think it’s the perfect opportunity to talk to you about the family business. Why don’t you show up at my office tomorrow morning at seven a.m. for breakfast?”

Well, fuck!

“How the hell does he already know?”

“Who knows what?” Avery asked, coming into the kitchen. I picked up one of the bottles of water and offered it to him. I turned around, leaned my hip against the island, unscrewed the cap on my bottle again and took another swig.

“My granddad. He already knows about my being let go today. I swear he has spies that watch my every move.”

“You don’t think he’d actually do that, do you?” Avery questioned, scrunching up his face in an expression I couldn’t read.

“No. It’s a figure of speech…or maybe hyperbole. In reality, Granddad knows too many people in this town. I can’t say that I’m too surprised, though, but I wish I’d been the one to tell him. You know?”

I glanced over at the clock on the microwave, and it read eleven-twenty p.m. “Dear God, I have to be up in five hours.”

“Five hours?”

“If I’m going to get to his office by seven a.m., I’m going to have to get up at four-thirty to hit the gym.”

“Why not skip tomorrow?”

“Because you don’t look this amazing by skipping the gym,” I said. I attempted to wink at Avery, but I’m sure my wink probably appeared more like some kind of facial spasm. “Let’s just crash.”

I grabbed Avery’s hand and led him down the hall to my bedroom. I wished I could text my granddad and say I wouldn’t be able to see him in the morning, but I knew that when you’re summoned by my granddad, you show up—whether you like it or not.

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About the Author

Jason Wrench

Jason Wrench is a professor in the Department of Communication at SUNY New Paltz and has authored/edited 15+ books and over 35 academic research articles. He is also an avid reader and regularly reviews books for publishers in a wide number of genres. This book marks his first full-length work of fiction.

Find out more about Jason at his website.

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Horribly Harry by Lisa Henry & Sarah Honey

Book 2 in the Bad Boyfriends, Inc. series

General Release Date: 9th August 2022

Word Count: 65,288
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 253

Genres:

COMEDY AND HUMOUR
CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE
FAKE RELATIONSHIPS
GAY
GLBTQI

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Book Description

Bad Boyfriend, Inc—when you can’t find a good boyfriend, why not hire a bad one instead?

To supplement his income while he’s completing his Early Education degree, Harry Townsend hires himself out as a terrible date—for a set fee, he’ll horrify parents and family members in all sorts of interesting ways. But when it comes to actual relationships—and sex—Harry doesn’t get the appeal. He doesn’t get the same tingly feelings everyone else seems to when they meet someone attractive, and he’s fine with that. He’d rather spend his evenings watching TV anyway.

Jack Windsor abandoned his uni degree to do an apprenticeship as a mechanic, much to his parents’ dismay. He’s happy with his choices, but leaving uni meant losing his accommodation, and now he’s crashing on his sister Mia’s couch. It isn’t ideal, but it’s only until he finds something else—which is proving difficult in Sydney’s brutal rental market.

When Jack almost kills Harry with a strawberry smoothie, he discovers that not only was Harry’s disastrous date with Mia a set up, but that Harry is looking for a roommate. Moving in with Harry is great, if only he wasn’t so distractingly cute—and totally uninterested in Jack. Except as they grow closer as friends, for the first time in his life, Harry tells Jack he’s developing feelings for him—tingly ones.

But how can Harry and Jack be together when Jack’s family thinks that Harry is the worst human being in the universe? And how can Jack convince them that his Bad Boyfriend is the best boyfriend he’s ever had, without admitting that Mia hired him to be terrible to them? When an approaching family event brings everything to a head, Jack’s going to have to step up to prove to Harry that he wants him in his life. And it might just take some bad timing, some good luck and the ugliest suit known to mankind.

Excerpt

“Hello, Beryl,” Harry said through clenched teeth as he slid the garish Hawaiian shirt onto the counter.

Beryl narrowed her one good eye at him. “Mr Townsend. I believe you’re banned from this shop.”

Harry stared her down as he lifted his chin. “No. I spoke to Agnes, and she said that you’re not in charge so you can’t ban anyone. And she said, ‘looking at someone funny’ wasn’t grounds for a ban anyway.”

A flicker of fear passed through her good eye and, he thought, something almost like admiration, too. She clearly never would have thought he’d have the balls to go above her head to Agnes, but she’d underestimated him and his need for this incredibly ugly Hawaiian shirt. It was blue, with a typical background of islands and boats and palm trees and flowers, but what made it truly terrible was that, at one time, it had been someone’s custom gag gift. Harry had no idea whose grinning face it was that had been printed all over the fabric, but the second he’d seen it hanging in the slightly grimy front window of the Newtown Op Shop, he’d known he had to have it. The guy on the shirt had a combover. It was perfect!

Beryl’s mouth pressed into a thin, wrinkled line as she tugged the shirt over and inspected the tag. “Twenty dollars,” she announced.

“It says five.”

Beryl reached up and adjusted her not-even-close-to-flesh-coloured eyepatch. She told people she’d recently had cataract surgery, but Harry suspected she was hiding an evil eye. The sort that would melt people’s faces off if she looked at them. “Agnes might be the manager, but I’m in charge of pricing, and this shirt is twenty dollars.”

She picked up a pen from the jar beside the cash register and changed the price.

“I need that shirt!”

Her sour mouth turned up in a grin. “And you can have it, for twenty dollars.” She tapped the handwritten sign taped to the side of the register—No arguing with staff.

“That sign wasn’t there last week.”

Beryl’s grin widened. “I wrote it when I saw you at the door.”

Harry gasped. “But I really need that shirt, Beryl! Please!”

She unpeeled the sign from the register, wrote Or begging on it, then stuck it back up.

Harry drew a deep breath, then wished he hadn’t, because, like all op shops, this one smelled musty and weird. He pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans. It was depressingly thin. He tugged out a twenty, watching Beryl’s eye light up with victory, then hummed and put it back. “Actually, I think I’ll save my money.”

Beryl glowered at him.

“Yeah,” Harry said, even though she hadn’t asked him anything. “I came past the bakery on the way here, and they were just icing the coffee scrolls. I might have to buy a couple. They’re so good. They always sell out really quickly, don’t they? Like, there probably won’t be any left at all in about twenty minutes, once word gets out on the street.”

Beryl’s sweet tooth was legendary, and it was the only sweet thing about her. She looked at her watch.

“Oh, well,” Harry said. “I guess I’ll just…browse some more. Maybe find something in my price range.”

He stared at her and she stared back at him.

He sighed. “It’ll probably take me a while. A good, long while.”

Beryl vibrated with murderous rage.

Four minutes later and five dollars poorer, he was stepping outside the op shop with the ugly Hawaiian shirt in his backpack.

When he wore it, it was going to feel like victory.

* * * *

Harry met Angie Lau outside the old geology building where she was sitting with a group of friends. She was short and button-nosed, and wearing a bright pink sweater with a cat on it. Harry was tempted to show her his amazingly ugly Hawaiian shirt, then thought he’d better not, just in case she wasn’t wearing the sweater ironically.

“Hi, I’m Harry.”

Angie’s friends looked him up and down speculatively. Angie sighed and shoved her lunch containers into a tote bag before climbing to her feet. “I’m Angie. Let’s go talk over here.”

Harry walked with her to the shade of a large tree. “When we talked on the phone, you said you were interested in a lunch date? With your parents, right?”

Angie chewed on her bottom lip and bobbed her head in a nod.

“Tell me about them,” he suggested. “What are you looking for out of this? Do you have a boyfriend they don’t approve of?”

Her eyes grew large. “No! I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t want a boyfriend. I want to do my Master’s, but my dad is super old-fashioned and thinks that if I study any more my womb will shrivel up and fall out, and my mum agrees with him, and last week we were arguing and I said I was sick of them trying to set me up with every nice Chinese boy they meet, and Mum said that wasn’t true, and they’d be happy with literally any boy I dated, as long as I found one.” She stopped at last and drew a breath. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“It’s fine,” Harry assured her. “So you want to test that theory?”

Angie rolled her eyes. “It’s so stupid! But they’re driving me nuts, and my friend Anna said she knew this girl who hired this fake boyfriend who was a theatre kid, and…” She shrugged. “And here I am.”

“That would be Ambrose,” he said. “I took over from him. Okay, so basically you want to turn up to lunch with a boyfriend who is so awful they’ll be happier you’re single, right?”

She flashed him an anxious smile. “Right.”

“Okay,” he said. “So, the deal is, you pay for my lunch and also my fee on top of that. I have like a sliding scale thing, depending on how big you want me to go, or if I have to get anyone else involved.”

Her brow crinkled. “Anyone else?”

“Yeah, for an extra fifty my housemate will turn up and say he’s my parole officer and remind me that I can’t be within two hundred metres of a school.”

Angie’s eyes grew even larger.

“For an extra hundred, he’ll pretend to be a detective and arrest me on a warrant.”

“Oh, wow. I don’t think any of that is necessary.”

“Okay, then. What flavour of awful did you want? Ambrose specialised in ‘hot but an asshole’ but, well”—Harry gestured to his distinctly un-muscled physique—“I’m built in a way that lends itself more towards awkwardly terrible. Bad clothes, bad past, ‘society’s out to get me’ kind of thing. Would you prefer me to be unemployed, or working at something really questionable?”

Angie gave a grin that was ever so slightly evil. “Definitely unemployed. And if you could turn up late and drunk, that’d be ideal.”

“Easy done.” Harry nodded. “I do a great sloppy drunk. Now, let’s talk rates.”

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About the Author

Lisa Henry

Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.

Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.

She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.

Lisa has been published since 2012, and was a LAMBDA finalist for her quirky, awkward coming-of-age romance Adulting 101, and a Rainbow Awards finalist for 2019’s Anhaga.

Find out more at Lisa’s website and blog. You can follow her on Bookbub and sign up to her newsletter.

Sarah Honey

Sarah started life in New Zealand. She came to Australia for a working holiday, loved it, and never left. She lives in Western Australia with her partner, two cats, two dogs and a life-size replica TARDIS.

She spends half her time at a day job and the rest of her time reading and writing about clueless men falling in love.

Her proudest achievements include having adult kids who will still be seen with her in public, the ability to make a decent sourdough loaf, and knowing all the words to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Awfully Ambrose will be her fifth published novel in collaboration with Lisa Henry.

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Trusting Tennyson by KD Ellis

Book 3 in the Out in Austin series

General Release Date: 9th August 2022

Word Count:  92,524
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 363

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
BONDAGE AND BDSM
CONTEMPORARY
CRIME
CRIME AND MYSTERY
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI
MEN IN UNIFORM
MÉNAGE AND MULTIPLE PARTNERS

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Book Description

Tennyson thought this would be just another undercover assignment. Catching feelings for two traumatized men wasn’t part of the plan.

When FBI Agent Liam Tennyson was embedded in the La Familia cartel, he didn’t expect to meet not one but two young men whose terrified eyes haunt his dreams—and stir up feelings he thought long buried.

Asher Downs left his homophobic family behind the day he earned his high school diploma. With little more than a bus ticket to his name, he moves to Austin to meet his online boyfriend, Devon. Unfortunately for Asher, life doesn’t always go according to plan.

Misha might have been born as Dimitri, but now he answers to whatever name Master gives him. Snaring another innocent young man into this life is the last thing Misha desires. But Master gets what Master wants—and Master wants a matching set of toys to play with.

When a mole in the justice department compromises Tennyson’s identity—and jeopardizes his plan to rescue Misha and Asher—Tennyson is left with no choice but to go on the lam. Can the two traumatized boys learn to trust him to keep them safe?

Reader advisory: This book references child trafficking, abuse and Daddy play. It is best read as book three in a series.

Excerpt

The boy on the screen was pretty. Blond, with copper-lined blue eyes—cornflower, not steel—and pouty lips made shiny from gloss, he looked like a doll. Men would pay thousands to fuck him and even more to fuck him up. It wasn’t hard to see why Master was enamored.

Misha hated him. Misha hated everything the boy stood for on the other end of a computer screen, thousands of miles away. He probably lived in some nice suburb with a white picket fence, with parents who paid for braces without complaint, drove him to swim classes and sat down for family dinners consisting of more than just oatmeal and water.

Misha hated his amateur videos that taught boys how to apply makeup, his comparisons of drugstore makeup brands and his mock fashion shows as he strutted around in skirts and heels and lacy blouses.

If the boy weren’t so pretty, if his videos hadn’t gotten so popular, he could have stayed under the radar and Misha would still be Master’s favorite.

The best whore.

The prettiest.

The most obedient.

The good boy.

Instead of sitting there, Master’s breath damp on the back of his neck while Misha crept his fingers over the keyboard to lure in his replacement. The pretty boy must get thousands of messages a day. Maybe Misha’s wouldn’t register, buried beneath the rest. Maybe he’d get it but not reply, and Misha would be safe.

Master’s attention, and his hands on Misha’s body, might terrify him, but not as much as the idea of losing it.

* * * *

Asher Downs rattled his bedroom doorknob for the third time, just in case it had somehow come unlocked. Then, and only then, with his heart pounding in his chest, did he drag out the old Nike shoebox from under his bed, the one that used to hold his soccer cleats. Now, it hid his makeup case.

It was plastic and cheap, much like the makeup inside, odds and ends he’d bought discounted at the drugstore on the corner with change he’d picked up from the sidewalk and pilfered from the ashtray in the Buick, one lonely quarter at a time.

With reverence, he carried the case over to his desk-turned-vanity. The mirror was a cheap thing, bought on sale because it was cracked, the glass spiderwebbed from the top of the frame down one side. When his parents were home, he kept it tucked in the back of the closet, under a ratty baseball jersey he’d outgrown as a preteen.

His phone was already secured in his makeshift tripod—leaning against a book, the bottom half-inch tucked behind a two-pound dumbbell so it wouldn’t slide forward. As soon as he laid out his makeup, he could start the video.

His lipstick was barely a nub of pink in the cracked tube, his eyeshadow more dust than pigment. Even his foundation wasn’t quite right—a bit too dry and a little too light for his sun-kissed, boy-next-door skin, tanned from playing football each summer with the church youth group.

These broken beauties were his prized possessions, worth more to him than the collectible baseball cards in their little plastic sleeves on his bookshelf or the signed poster of Kobe that his dad had been so excited to hang up when Asher had started high school.

Before Asher had gotten caught kissing the captain of the basketball team under the bleachers.

Before the mandatory after-school meetings with Pastor Luke twice a week to ‘examine his soul’.

Now, his little brother Ryder wasn’t even allowed in the same room with him, his dad could barely look at him without scowling and his mother locked the cabinet doors in the bathroom as if she needed to hide her feminine products from his perverted eyes. She should have locked her makeup away instead, back when he’d been a boy and had first discovered the magic it held.

The way a bit of shadow could make his eyes piercing, soften his jaw or sharpen his cheekbones… How a little color could make him look happy, even when inside he felt like dying.

He’d come a long way since the first time he’d decided to film himself doing this, a silent protest against his parents that he’d devised under the influence of Dad’s bitter liquor, pilfered from the expensive stash he kept on top of the fridge. He hadn’t expected the video to go viral.

Now, he filmed sober, but nerves still birthed butterflies in his stomach. The fear of getting caught, which had him rattling his doorknob again, mingled with the excitement of watching his view counter tick steadily upward. He had almost a hundred thousand subscribers now, enough to put a little money into the secret bank account he’d opened as soon as he’d turned eighteen.

He could use it for better makeup or a ring light, but he was saving it to escape, maybe move out West, somewhere he wouldn’t have to hide anymore. He’d dipped into it once already for a better laptop after his old one had crapped out. He was going to need to upgrade his phone soon, too—an expense he couldn’t avoid but was delaying as long as he was able. His subscribers were already starting to comment on the graininess of the videos, and those wouldn’t take long to become complaints.

Mom promised he could stay with them until he graduated, but that was it, leaving him with just over a month to get a plan in place. College was out of the question. Unlike his younger brother Ryder, he wasn’t a computer genius who already had a dozen scholarships to choose from, and unlike they would for Ryder, Mom and Dad would never cover his expenses.

If he wanted out, he was going to have to do it on his own, a thought that finally motivated him to draw in a breath, plaster on a smile and push the red circle to start filming.

“Everything sucks and we’re all dying, but I’m going to look pretty doing it. Who’s ready to play with the pretty paint and give themselves a plus ten to their charisma check?” Asher jumped in with his quirky and somewhat nerdy greeting, smothering his real-world concerns beneath the joy that he got from doing makeup.

It wouldn’t last long—only until the video ended—but for now, for these handful of minutes, he was going to enjoy it.

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About the Author

KD Ellis

KD Ellis is a professional cat wrangler by day, and an author by night. She moved from a small town to an even smaller village to live with her husband and wife and their two children. She loves reading—anything with men loving men. She writes queer romance in between working her two jobs and cuddling her pets—all six of them, which confuses the turtle.

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Rihanna’s Rancher by Bella Settarra

Book 6 in the The Cowboys of Cavern County series

General Release Date: 9th August 2022

Word Count:  67,263
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 267

Genres:

CONTEMPORARY
COWBOYS AND WESTERN
CRIME
EROTIC ROMANCE
MYSTERY
THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE

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Book Description

There’s no time for love when you’re only passing through town…is there?

When Rihanna Richards takes a job as the new bank manager in Pelican’s Heath, she is relieved to leave her life in the city behind, especially with all the pitiful expressions of those who are only too aware of how Phil Cartwright dumped her shortly before their wedding.

Ace Blenheim, the new foreman at the Shearer Ranch, also came to the town to put his past break-up behind him.

When the two meet, sparks fly. It seems they both have a tendency to wind each other up, and neither is willing to back down. Rihanna’s stubbornness and Ace’s knack for making assumptions lead to a very fiery relationship.

Ace gradually learns a little about his beautiful nemesis, though, and softens his approach toward her. After all, he can’t deny how he has begun to feel about her.

Rihanna secretly has feelings for the gorgeous cowboy but can’t afford to let her heart get broken again—and, besides, she’s not planning to stay long in Pelican’s Heath.

Rihanna discovers that something is very amiss at the bank, and when her life is at stake, will anyone care enough to come to her rescue? And has Ace overstepped the mark completely when he delves into her past?

Excerpt

Rihanna frowned at the figures on the screen. It was going to take a while to get her bank balance to look anything like healthy again. In her job, that wasn’t a good thing—the bank manager with the humungous overdraft!

Her wedding dress hadn’t fetched half what she’d paid for it, and the fancy hotel had refused to refund her a single penny for the canceled reception, despite the fact that they’d gotten months to find another couple to take their place. She wished now that she hadn’t been so keen to pay it all off early. Had she paid in monthly installments, she’d have saved over a thousand dollars on the cost of the venue, but she could never bear to be in debt. “Never a borrower or a lender be,” her dad had instilled into her from an early age, and she’d lived her whole life by the motto.

Phil Cartwright had been the love of her life—and now he was the bane of it.

“At least he didn’t jilt you at the altar,” Mum had said, sympathetically.

Rihanna half-wished he had. At least then everyone would see for themselves what a cruel, heartless bastard he was. And she’d have gotten the chance to wear that gorgeous dress and show off her new figure. But the humiliation of him turning her down in front of everyone—or, worse still, not turning up—would have been insufferable. Almost as bad as having to return all the gifts and explain to everyone that the wedding was off.

Of course, they’d all been sorry for her, which just compounded the situation. She hated pity about as much as she hated Phil Cartwright right now. That sorrowful expression of his haunted her dreams, as well as every waking moment.

“I’m really sorry, but it’s just not going to work,” he’d told her softly.

Oddly enough, he’d omitted to mention that it wasn’t going to work out with her because he already had someone else waiting on the sidelines—someone much richer and more sophisticated than Rihanna could ever hope to be. That much didn’t become apparent until way after he’d moved out and left her to deal with the fallout. Bastard. She’d spent weeks believing it was her own fault, that she hadn’t been good enough for him. She’d even begged him to give her another chance, for God’s sake!

This promotion couldn’t have come at a better time. She’d moved all her belongings into storage, packed a bag and headed out into the middle of nowhere to begin a new life—not where she wanted to be, of course, but at least she was away from Phil Cartwright and all her sympathetic, well-meaning friends and family.

She looked around the hotel room the company had put her up in. It was nice enough—clean, with high ceilings and dark wooden furniture. Not quite as good as she’d have had in New Moldington, but then, she was no longer in the city. Far from it…literally. This was Almondine in Cavern County. It had been described on the net as ‘a busy town with everything a person could need’. Yeah, right. She wouldn’t count on that.

The new job was in a place called Pelican’s Heath, a few miles down the road. She’d been told it was more rural there and had been highlighted as ‘a small up-and-coming town with lots of potential’. Yet it didn’t even have a decent hotel for the bank to accommodate her in! Not that she’d want to stay too close to where she worked, anyway—not in her position. She was the boss and needed to be seen as such at all times, not be caught socializing with staff and customers during her downtime.

Talking of her new position, she noticed the clock by the bed as she checked that her hair was neatly tucked into a bun. Only a quarter to seven? That couldn’t be right, surely? She went over to the coffee table where she’d left her cell charging. Half past eight? Shit! She was about to be late for her first day. What sort of impression would that give everyone?

She threw her laptop into its case, grabbed her phone and handbag and charged out of the door. She’d complain to reception later about the damn clock.

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About the Author

Bella Settarra

Bella Settarra is a British Erotic Romance author and lives in the beautiful English countryside.

She has several published novels to date, with subject matter including cowboys, BDSM and Myth/Fantasy. She has also written short stories for anthologies and has even had some raunchy poems published.

She likes to keep busy, cramming as much into each day as she possibly can, while battling—and is determined to win—against breast cancer. She loves to hear from her readers, so please get in touch!

You can read Bella’s Blog and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Guarded by a Hero by Aurora Russell

Book 3 in the Anywhere and Always series

General Release Date: 2nd Aug 2022

Word Count:  61,105
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 232

GENRES:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
BILLIONAIRE
CONTEMPORARY
CRIME
CRIME AND MYSTERY
EROTIC ROMANCE
MEN IN UNIFORM
THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE

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Book Description

Sometimes, a hero is the worst and best man for a girl to fall in love with…

Besides being the lovely only sister among the wealthy, powerful and famous Gaspard siblings, Clothilde Gaspard has had a life that’s been anything but charmed. She has recently gone through a break-up from hell, survived a serious car accident and multiple other attacks. The only constant has been her heroic former-military bodyguard, Marc, until he leaves abruptly the morning after giving her the greatest pleasure of her life, and she vows never to let him get too close again.

Marc Constantin’s entire life has been about duty, honor and service—and it’s this service that leads him to be stationed undercover, posing as a security guard with the Gaspard family as he tracks a criminal mastermind. He tries not to let his relationship with Clothilde become personal, but he can’t help but admire the strong, smart and gorgeous woman who hides her fiery nature behind an Ice Queen persona. When he’s ordered to stay away from her, it tears him up to leave, but he has no choice.

When a new, unknown threat to Clothilde emerges, the pair must set aside their past to work together. As they retreat from glittering society parties to a remote island lighthouse in Maine, passions and tempers flare, and old family secrets might just hold the key to catching the deadly criminal, the Chimère. In order to protect Clothilde, Marc must put his career, his honor and his life on the line, but can he prove that he’s not just the hero who guards her, but also the hero who loves her?

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of attempted murder, drugging, references to past domestic abuse and past sexual aggression.

Excerpt

The fête was truly lovely, a great mix of elegance and charm, and Clothilde might have been enjoying herself if her hip, leg and back hadn’t ached so damn much. She knew she shouldn’t have stayed so long—and she particularly should have found a way to avoid dancing—but she’d wanted to ensure that Rémy’s friend, Annelise, had a good time. She used the term ‘friend’ liberally, since her brother’s relationship with the young American event planner was obviously much more romantic and complex than mere friendship. To help Rémy, she’d needed to draw Charles Pinkston, Annelise’s boss, away.

Without conceit, she knew that she was a woman who men considered to be very beautiful, and it seemed that even the pain she’d suffered since the accident hadn’t lessened her appeal too much. And so, to give Rémy and Annelise more time together without the older man’s kindly interference, she had danced with Charles twice, as well as completing several circuits of the ballroom with him. Later, she’d made an additional full tour of the party with Annelise alone, introducing the American to some of Montreal’s young elite. Luckily, a number of her close friends had been in attendance, including Pauline Cartouchel and Élodie Carillon. Both women would be excellent for Annelise to claim as acquaintances in Montreal society.

Now Clothilde’s feet weren’t thanking her but were aching in their stylish, strappy heels, shoes which she would have worn without a second thought only a year ago. Worse, though, putting her body under the strain of wearing heels and staying active for so long had made her newly healed muscles and bones positively throb with pain, like a hot flame was crawling up from the balls of her feet into her left leg, hip and now along her spine.

She tried to hide a grimace under a flirtatious smile, and she must have succeeded, because Charles Pinkston finally, blessedly, said a charming good evening to her, kissing her hand. He was such a sweet man, who obviously missed his late wife terribly. She held herself still for a moment as she watched him walk toward the door before allowing her shoulders to droop just a little bit to ease some of the stiffness that she knew she was going to pay hell for over the next several days. She froze as she swore she could almost feel the heat of disapproval from behind her. Marc Constantin.

She felt his approach more than heard him, like a big predator, stalking on silent feet.

“You’d better sit down before you fall down, Duchess.” His tone was hard and angry, but there was an underlying tenderness. Or maybe I just wish there was—which she knew was ridiculous, since as her bodyguard, it was his job to watch out for her. Literally, taking care of her physical well-being was in the job description. Yet she felt goosebumps rise on the wealth of bare skin on her chest, arms and back, exposed by the daring cut of the dress. When she turned her head to look at him, his dark blue eyes blazed with some strong emotion.

“I’m fine,” she answered, her tone clipped.

He raised one pale eyebrow, his skepticism obvious.

“Right. Is that why, when you think no one’s watching, you look like one strong puff of air would make you topple over?”

She turned fully toward him, drawing her annoyance around her like a cape.

“I’m having a wonderful time,” she insisted, even as her joints burned with protest. “Didn’t anyone tell you? I’m a total social butterfly, the darling of Montreal society. That’s what all the gossip sites say.” She didn’t know what about Marc Constantin made her so desperate to goad him, but she couldn’t help herself. Regardless of her bright tone, though, her left leg and hip, the side that had taken the brunt of her car accident six months earlier, began to tremble, in spite of her best efforts. She hoped that the tremors were so subtle that Marc wouldn’t notice, but she should have known better.

“Screw this. I’m calling for the car and we’re sitting down now,” he pronounced and took her elbow with a growl, leading her toward one of the quiet alcoves in the tastefully decorated hallway just outside the ballroom. Anyone looking at them would have seen a well-dressed security guard very properly escorting a beautiful young woman in an evening gown, albeit perhaps a little closely. But while Marc’s grip wasn’t painful, it was firm and unrelenting, with no give at all. Much like the man himself, she mused. She was too damn tired to fight his hold, anyway, considering she’d been dreaming of sitting down on one of the cushioned benches herself for at least the past hour.

The relief from the pressure on her joints was instant and profound as he settled her on the thickly padded bench, and she had to stifle a groan of pleasure. Surprising her, he slid in next to her, so close she could feel the heat that he continually seemed to give off. Surreptitiously, she inhaled his rich, fresh masculine scent. He always smelled like he had just come in from outdoors, even when she knew he’d been inside for hours. He turned the focus of his angry gaze on her again.

“Why do you let them tell you how to act?” he asked, but it sounded more like a demand.

Clothilde narrowed her eyes.

“That question is totally inappropriate,” she huffed.

He looked unrepentant. “I notice you didn’t deny it.”

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About the Author

Aurora Russell

Aurora is originally from the frozen tundra of the upper-Midwest (ok, not frozen all the time!) but now loves living in New England with her real-life hero/husband, two wonderfully silly sons, and one of the most extraordinary cats she has ever had the pleasure to meet. But she still goes back to the Midwest to visit, just never in January.

She doesn’t remember a time that she didn’t love to read, and has been writing stories since she learned how to hold a pencil. She has always liked the romantic scenes best in every book, story, and movie, so one day she decided to try her hand at writing her own romantic fiction, which changed her life in all the best ways.

You can find out more about Aurora at her website here.

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