Thankful Hearts pushed into the Top 50 Best Seller list at All Romance! It’s also #19 on their Hot Deals list! I’m so excited that I’m having a hard time focussing on the work I need to get done for tomorrow!
Only $0.99 at All Romance through Veterans Day!
I’m sorry I’ve been totally neglecting The Beautician and the Billionaire. I’ve been focussed on Thankful Hearts and the surprises I have planned for Veterans Day. I promise by Friday it will be all Beautician and the Billionaire all the time 🙂
Today has been one of those days I’ve dreamed of having for a long time. My sales are way up, the first customer review for Thankful Hearts is up at Amazon (Thanks Blueduck516!) and Romance Novels for the Beach posted a review of Thankful Hearts!
Please, please please read her whole review. Here’s just a snippet:
Aster can definitely describe a sex scene in amazing detail, but when it comes to those scenes where Hudson is transported back to the battle field in his mind, shaking and sweating with anxiety? They are so gripping that I found myself holding my breath, and even bouncing my leg in anticipation.
I spent so much time trying to get Hudson just right that those words were really gratifying to read.
So read the review; buy the Book.
And check back Wednesday for some fun!
Thankful Hearts begins on the first Thursday of November. It’s a sunny day in Albuquerque. On Friday in the book, it snows on the crest of the Sandia Mountains. On Saturday, the snow on the crest of the Sandias is melted. That is exactly how the weather was these past three days in Albuquerque and on the crest. Except today was a little colder than described in the book, but the snow still melted.
*Spoiler Alert* I’m avoiding going to the bank on the third Friday of November because that’s when an attempted bank robbery happens in the book.
What a great opening day I had! Please keep the sales coming and make this a great opening weekend too!
I have some surprises coming next week that I’m working on as a thank you. I can’t wait!
Here are all the links for Thankful Hearts. Please pass them on to a friend!
It’s live on Amazon now!! http://www.amazon.com/Thankful-Hearts-Holiday-Cafe-Book-ebook/dp/B017OA0S46/
All Romance: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thankfulhearts-1921896-149.html
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/590880
And a new one, Coffee Time Romance! http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookStore/pubs_product_book_info/thankful-hearts-p-14338#.Vj5GpLerTIU
Hudson sat up straight but didn’t see the motel room. Instead, he saw a shithole apartment he’d crashed in for weeks in Afghanistan protecting convoys. He heard a steady thumping against the wall. What the fuck? This place was supposed to be deserted. He jumped out of bed, and for the first time he saw Stacy lying there. Why was Stacy in Afghanistan? Why was there pounding on the wall? He wanted to grab her and run, but the memory of her grinding against him burst through his head. He glanced around, and his breathing slowed—he was just in a shitty motel in Albuquerque.
The noise stopped. He realized sweat was running down his face despite being naked in a freezing room. He needed to get the fuck out of here. He should wake Stacy up, and they could take off on his motorcycle. He didn’t know why he needed to leave, he just knew he did—and he wanted Stacy with him.
Before he had made a move, he heard a woman’s voice from the other side of the wall. “Give me my fucking money, asshole!” There was maybe laughter, followed by a smack. He stepped to the nightstand. The lamp still shone, reminding him of the erotic ways Stacy had moved her body when they made love. The thought made him pause with the drawer open. Stacy didn’t want to call it lovemaking, but his emotions for a woman had never been so intense.
The sound of glass breaking startled him into action. He pulled his Smith & Wesson Model 64 revolver out of the drawer and ran toward the window. A loud bang made him cautious as he looked between the blinds. In his peripheral vision he saw Stacy sit up. She was going to think he was crazy. He’d been determined not to have PTSD, but right now it sure as shit seemed like he did. He couldn’t endanger Stacy like this. He should leave sooner than Sunday.
Thanks for the love for Thankful Hearts at All Romance! It’s my best opening day there for a paid book! It’s on sale for a buck until Veterans Day. You can get it in Kindle, epub and pdf formats.
Amazon is still reviewing it, but it’s also up at Smashwords! You can get it there in even more formats: epub mobi pdf rtf lrf pdb txt html.
I have a new vendor I’m working with. Hopefully I’ll get that going today and then back to The Beautician in and the Billionaire!
In the meantime, here’s another tasting of Thankful Hearts:
Gratitude and amazement welled up inside him. He reached out to her and pulled her back to his body. She didn’t even flinch. Her hands clasped together behind his neck, and he kissed her, forcing her lips apart and their tongues together in an aggressive dance where both partners tried to lead. He gripped her back with his fingertips. He needed to get her back to his motel room. It was kind of a long drive from here, but he was sure he’d stay hard the whole way.
They kept making out like they were there to watch the end of the world. Her hands trailed down his chest, over his hips and to his ass. She pushed his hardness against her belly, drawing out a moan from deep inside his throat. Maybe he wouldn’t last all the way back to the motel. He kept one hand on the small of her back and brought the other around underneath her blouse to cup her breast. It was her turn to moan.
She closed her mouth against his and kissed his cheek to his ear. “Maybe we should delay dinner,” she whispered.
He withdrew his hands from underneath her shirt and pulled away, leaving his hands on her hips. “I was just thinking about taking you back to my motel, but I’m happy to do dinner first.” He wasn’t really, but it seemed like the gentlemanly thing to say, though they seemed way past that at this point.
She burst out laughing, catching him off guard. “You must think I’m such a slut.”
He’d never seen someone appear so happy and embarrassed at the same time. He pulled her to him, needing to hug her tightly. “I’m actually not doing much thinking, which is a nice change. I don’t see why it’s so bad for a woman to want to jump into bed as much as a guy does. I’m just happy you do.” He kissed her tenderly, hoping she didn’t suddenly decide she needed to be coy or play hard to get. All the nerves in his body wanted to drown in her touch—her lips.
Thankful Hearts is up on All Romance!!! The book is regularly $3.99 but today through next Tuesday it’s only $1.00! I’ll be releasing it on other sites too and let you know as they go up. At All Romance, you can get Thankful Hearts as a pdf, mobi (for Kindle) and epub. Buy it Today!
Desire surged throughout his body. He moved his hands up beneath her business jacket and along her back, untucking her blouse and itching to undo her bra, but he’d save that for later. Her hands slid up his chest and underneath his leather jacket. He was so into her body beneath his hands and her scent in his nose that he’d forgotten about his gun. Her fingers ran into the tip of the holster, and her whole body froze.
He released her lips and body and stepped back. Her eyes were wide, but he couldn’t really read her expression. They stared at each other in silence, which seemed to make the situation worse. He felt guilty and inexplicably scared for her. She was up in the mountains with a total stranger who had a gun. He fumbled over his words, trying to ease her fears. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it. I wasn’t expecting–” he broke off his sentence realizing anything he said might be taken the wrong way.
She stared at him a long moment and then finished his sentence. “For me to throw myself at you?”
He expelled his breath and combed his fingers through his hair. This woman couldn’t be for real. “I’ve got no complaints, but you’re up here with a complete stranger who’s carrying a gun he didn’t tell you about. I appreciate that you’re not screaming your head off.”
She rolled her lips together. The moonlight showed a vulnerability in her eyes, but her words were spoken with confidence. “I assume you’re waiting to kill me until after we’ve had sex, but the sex will make you forget your evil plan.”
By the way, Stacy and Hudson meet in the story on the first Thursday of November, Which is today!
Charisse dropped into the closest chair at a sink. She’d lost all sense of balance and feared falling flat on her butt. “I didn’t think you were interested in him anymore. I know you were embarrassed by all the roses he sent to the salon, and I tried to cover that up for you. I explained to my lady luvs later that they were because he was taking over Daddy’s partnership. But he and I were alone, and I didn’t think–” Continue reading
Hello! Sorry the break was longer than expected! To remind you where we left off, I’ll post the end of Episode 2 below:
He should stop now. He wanted to take her out, show her he cared. But her fire was unmatched by any woman he’d been with. A fleck of guilt tried to blow through his thoughts. Was the memory of Elise fading?
Charisse slid her hand off his neck, placed it on his hand at her breast and pressed his palm into her. She kissed him harder and pushed down on his cock again. Heat flared between them. He wanted her now. He dropped his hands to the bottom of her blouse and lifted it up.
The bells on the door jangled.
They both froze. Charisse ended the kiss and pulled back with an embarrassed glow. She whispered, “I forgot to lock the door.”
He pulled her shirt down, blood still roaring in his ears from the rush of lust. She scrambled off him just as someone came around the shelf of products that blocked the view of the sinks from the entrance.
Marie. Fuck.
“And this is exactly why I turned down your offer to go to The Hamptons,” Marie said.
Charisse shrunk back, her clothes in disarray and her glow fading. “You offered to take my sister to The Hamptons?”
And now, please enjoy Episode 3: The Third Ship, Scene 1
Charisse tightened her arms across her stomach. She’d been so ready to let herself go with Conor right in her salon. They’d had a connection—at least he’d made her believe they had. But the Hamptons?
Her eyes glanced back and forth between Marie and Conor. She must’ve lost her mind. She’d let herself be seduced by his seeming sincerity and vulnerability, forgetting that he’d chosen Marie first. Forgetting the picture of Marie pouring a shot down his throat. Forgetting she hated suits.
Worst of all, she was business partners with Conor, through no fault of her own. Shoot. It was her fault. She was the one who hadn’t read her own contract.
Conor stood up and combed his fingers through his still wet hair.
Marie stood with her umbrella down in one hand, dripping water on the floor and holding the strap of her Louis Vuitton purse up on her shoulder with her other hand. She glowered at Conor.
“It’s not how it sounds,” said Conor. When his hand came down from combing his hair, his face resumed the slick “I can explain everything” expression Charisse loathed so much. “I offered Marie a job at my Hamptons house because she wanted to make a change. She wanted to work at the flower shop that delivers my roses. Considering her biology degree, I thought she might want to work with the actual roses instead.”
Marie flipped her straight black hair back over her shoulder and said, “So you could get me out of the way and make your moves on Charisse. I think it’s sick that you’re trying to fuck us to get back at Daddy for the lost ships. You should’ve just fired him and left us out of it. We didn’t do anything to you.”
It was as if a bomb had detonated inside Charisse. “What? Kissing me was about the ships? We were about to…” Charisse backed away and thought she might faint. It was bad enough being the second choice, but being some sort of payment…maybe she’d hurl first and then faint.
Conor reddened and clenched his fists at his sides. Marie took a step back, looking fearful but clutching her umbrella like she’d swing it at him if he tried to hit her.
Instead of yelling, Conor spoke in a quiet voice that chilled Charisse. He stared at Marie as he spoke. “Really? You’re going to lie about that in front of me? The salon is payment for the ships. Your father offered you up instead, and I refused. Or maybe you forgot that part of our conversation.”
Charisse’s vision blurred as her world shattered before her. Conor had to be the one lying because Daddy would never try to trade Marie as payment. Never.
Conor turned to Charisse. Pain had flashed in his eyes before a shield went up. His voice gained volume and lost its edge. “I had hoped to take you to dinner tonight. I’m sorry for getting carried away before your sister arrived. Believe me, it won’t happen again.”
Conor grabbed his tie from the chair where he’d tossed it and stalked to the other side of the partition.
Charisse listened for the bells to jingle and then took a deep breath. She opened her mouth to speak to Marie, but Marie beat her to it.
“I can’t believe you were making out with Conor the day after I broke up with him. You never consider my feelings at all.”
Please follow my blog so you don’t miss a scene!
I’m so excited about the release of Thankful Hearts next week!!!
Enjoy the cover by Hang Le and a sneak preview of the story:
Hudson felt her resistance in her muscles and wondered what had happened to his own hesitations. He’d just decided to leave before Sunday and then turned around and told her he wanted to stay longer. She’d been so calm about the gun, so soothing to his nerves. She was the antidote to his weariness. His lips traveled up to her ear, and he whispered, “I’m ready to go back to bed now.”
For one moment she relaxed her body into his. But then she said, “We should just leave. This is no place for us.”
He liked the us, but he didn’t want to bother with getting dressed or shoving stuff into his pack. He wanted her again. His shaft hardened against her skin, and he moved his hand up and around so his thumb could tease her nipple. “The police are outside now. We probably can’t even get out of our parking spots. And I can’t stop touching your body.”
She drew in a slow breath. He pressed against the small of her back and felt the tension leave her muscles.
“Come on,” he pleaded. “When the cops leave we’ll go get something to eat and find a new motel.”
He felt her body vibrate with a laugh. “You sure know how to make a woman feel like she’s in college again.”
Before I post the last teaser, I revealed the cover for Thankful Hearts on the ARe Cafe Blog! Go check it out!!
Mark had one romantic comedy picked out and one action movie picked out. He wasn’t at all sure she’d show up, but the lunch conversation had been fantastic until her phone rang: probably the douche bag. He frowned at his romantic comedy selection: The Princess Bride. Shit, he’d been a kid when that was popular. Had she even been born? He didn’t want to think about it. He picked it up to go find something else, but the doorbell rang. His heart pounded. She’d actually come. He put The Princess Bride under the Avengers movie and hoped she was into comic book super heroes.
He took a final glance around the den. He’d tried to put away all of his kids’ toys, but crayon scribbles covered the bottoms of the beige walls where his kids had drawn as toddlers. He’d never wanted to paint over them. At least the back wall was a window looking out onto the desert and down over the splayed city of Albuquerque, lights twinkling everywhere.
He walked through the kitchen with its spotless stainless steel appliances and an island where he’d set out a few recipe books to show her he cooked. He’d also left a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table to show her he knew how to feed his children. He’d have to get all the details right to impress a kindergarten teacher.
The doorbell rang again. At least he knew he hadn’t imagined the first ring. He jogged through the doorway to the living room, which was definitely not kid friendly with its leather couches and glass coffee table, but they wouldn’t be spending any time there. Two steps led down to the large front hallway with a couch on one wall and a mirror to make the hallway look even larger on the other wall.
On a small table by the mirror was a vase filled with a dozen red roses and a dozen white interspersed together. There was a card sticking out of the top; Sienna’s name was scrawled on the envelope. He’d spent most of the evening figuring out what to write in the card. Now he had second thoughts. No it was fine. But he’d leave it on the table rather than answering the door with it—it was just too big.
He reached for the knob and opened the door.
His jaw dropped.
Sienna had her brown hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, stray strands falling over one side of her face. Her red lipstick brought a lushness to her lips that he’d never observed before but had definitely felt in her kiss earlier that day. She wore a black leather jacket tied at the waist. He imagined she wore nothing under the jacket because her legs were bare and shaved smooth all the way down to the black, spiked high heels.
And that’s all you get for free! Now go buy the book so you don’t miss out on the great sex!
Only $0.99 until Novemebr 1!
Evelyn Aster 