Thursday, February 19, 2015

Book Tour {Excerpt & Giveaway} Asking for Trouble by Anna J. Stewart



A themed tour through Prism Book Tours.

Asking for Trouble (Tremayne Family, #1)Asking for Trouble
(Tremayne Family #1)
Anna J. Stewart
Adult Contemporary Romance
February 17th 2015 by Berkley InterMix


The Tremaynes are one of the most prosperous families in Lantano Valley, California. But money can’t buy everything—especially when it comes to love…

Morgan Tramayne has a heart of gold, but to keep her children’s charity afloat she’s had to resort to some less than legal means: donations from a notorious cat burglar who targets the wealthy. It’s only a matter of time before Morgan’s criminal connection blows up in her face—especially since her undeniable attraction to the man heading the investigation keeps putting her in tricky situations.

Former police detective-turned-investigator Gage Juliano has two goals: salvaging his career and nabbing Lantano Valley’s present-day Robin Hood. But when he meets a beautiful, curvaceous woman who’s more interested in helping others than amassing a fortune like the rest of the town’s residents, Gage finds his desires pulled in an unexpected direction…

Note: This novel contains some mature content.


Excerpt

“I thought I might catch you here, Inspector.”

Gage Juliano’s hand froze on the slender metal handle of the glass door to Lorenzo’s café.  The sound of the District Attorney’s voice kicked the jackhammer headache pounding behind Gage’s eyes into sync with his caffeine-neglected blood. His spine stiffened as his boss approached. “Sir?”

“I thought we agreed to ditch the ‘sir.’” Evan Marshall pushed off from where he’d been leaning against the real estate office next door and stopped beside Gage. He lifted his chin, took a deep breath, and smiled, no doubt catching the addictive roasted aroma that brought Gage to this door every afternoon at this time. “You didn’t think you could keep this place to yourself forever, did you?”

The corners of Gage’s mouth quirked. As a matter of fact, he had. “Can I swear you to silence?”

“Depends. How good is the coffee?”

“Good enough I’m regretting not bringing my gun. Sir.”

Evan laughed and slapped a hand on Gage’s shoulder. “My lips are sealed and the coffee’s on me.”

Gage may have only worked for the D.A. for a month, but he’d learned early on that Evan never went anywhere or met anyone without proper motivation.

“What’s so important you had to stake out my afternoon escape instead of knocking on my office door?” Gage asked once they had coffee in hand and were headed back to the historic brick warehouse that housed the D.A.’s office. The instant Gage took a long, throat-scalding swallow, his system calmed and zinged at the same time. The day righted itself once more.

Evan pulled out his cell phone and accessed his pictures, then turned the screen toward Gage. “You know this guy?”

The picture was blurry, as Evan had obviously snapped it through a glass window, but Gage couldn’t place the middle-aged, paunch-heavy, over-tanned man. The shit-brown suit he wore told Gage the man wasn’t a conformist. He had his own way of doing things. “No. I’ve never met him before. Cop?”

“Close. He’s a Fed.”

Despite the steaming coffee, Gage’s blood turned to ice cubes that clattered one by one into his stomach.

“An Agent Kolfax,” Evan said. “He called me into the FBI’s temporary office this morning for a meeting, and while I was waiting, I saw this on his desk.” Evan flipped to the previous photo, handed the phone over so Gage could see the document.

A solitary page of official FBI letterhead listing a string of contact numbers was topped with a fluorescent pink sticky note covered in almost illegible scribbles. Gage’s gut clenched as he made out a smattering of phrases and names, but one word stood out enough to raise the hair on his neck. “Why would the FBI be interested in the Nemesis case? And what does that case have to do with the Tremayne family?”


You’ve met Anna J. Stewart (or someone like her) before. She was the girl who spun in circles on the playground hoping her Wonder Woman costume would magically appear before playing cops and robbers a la Charlie’s Angels–as Sabrina (she was the smart one). Anna was the girl in the back of the class with a paperback romance hidden in her algebra book (and yes, she failed algebra).
Growing up in the 70′s and 80′s meant there weren’t a lot of YA books, so she ventured early into mainstream fiction and read Stephen King’s CARRIE at the age of 8. Discovering Nora Roberts and romance novels early in high school opened her eyes to the wonders of storytelling and the beauty of a happily ever after.

So here she is, many years later with an English degree from CSU Sacramento, an RWA Golden Heart nomination behind her, countless stories in her head, and a serious addiction to STAR TREK, SUPERNATURAL, and SHERLOCK. She recently wrapped up a nearly 8-year stint working as assistant to NYTimes bestselling author Brenda Novak where she helped run Brenda's annual online auction for diabetes research. When she's not writing or reading (which she never has enough time for!), she's working on dollhouse miniatures and tolerating her overly-affectionate cat named Snickers (or perhaps it's Snickers who tolerates her).


Tour-Wide Giveaway

$50 Gift Card (Winner's Choice of Amazon, BN or iTunes)
Ends March 8th

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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Book Tour {Guest Post} Drawing Conclusions by Deidre Verne

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Drawing Conclusions by Deidre Verne

Drawing Conclusions

Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: MIDNIGHT INK (February 8, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-0738741314
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Synopsis

Cece dumpster dives her way through this suspense-filled murder mystery...

Cece Prentice is a most unusual young woman. Heiress to a large fortune thanks to her doctor father, who is the head of a genome company on Long Island, Cece is also a freegan—ecologically-minded and socially conscious. If that happens to include dumpster diving for half an old hamburger, previously started by someone she has never met, then so be it.

Cece would still be going about her ordinary, albeit weird, life had her beloved twin brother Teddy not been murdered. Drawn into the police investigation, CeCe uses her sketching abilities and knowledge of her father's company to provide Detective DeRosa with the clues he needs to ferret out what happened to Teddy. But she soon realizes that this mystery is much more complicated than she ever imagined.

Guest Post

Write What You Know       

We’ve all heard the old adage – write what you know. This works just fine if you’ve got firsthand exposure to a topic or theme that makes for a good story. If your life is, well, just average, you may want to avoid what you know.

I learned this lesson the hard way. I had written an entire mystery novel based on my experiences as a college professor. Along the way, my unsuspecting students had been become murder suspects. Every dank campus stairwell, the ideal spot for a murder. And my poor officemate – I had imagined her horrific death in a dozen different scenarios.

With three hundred crisply printed pages on the subject of a murder on a campus, I headed off to my first Sisters-in-Crime chapter meeting at a library in Manhattan. The guest speaker, a literary agent, had been scheduled to speak on hot trends in the market.

            “If I see another manuscript from a professor about a murder on a campus, I’m just about going to die.”

That was the agent’s opening statement. I nearly passed out. When I came to, I realized a new strategy was in order. Apparently what I knew, put people to sleep. Maybe this was the opportunity to live outside my small world. A win-win for myself and my new reader.

Without this kick in the pants, I would have never discovered my eco-friendly, Dumpster diving main character, CeCe Prentice. After much research on topics far outside my comfort zone, I had made a new friend and found a whole new world to discover. I’m excited that this realization has resulted in the Sketch in Crime mystery series.
Better yet, my officemate is no longer afraid to be in the same room as me. I think I’ll give her a free copy of Drawing Conclusions just to be sure.

deidre
About This Author

Deirdre Verne (Scarsdale, NY) is a college professor and an active college blogger. A writer for the millennium crowd, Deirdre’s interest in green living inspired her to create an off-the-grid character who Dumpster dives her way though a suspense-filled mystery series. A member of Sisters in Crime, Deirdre’s short stories appear in all three New York chapter anthologies – Murder New York Style, Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices and Family Matters.

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