Good With His Hands by Lucy Felthouse (@cw1985) #romance #steamy #shortstory

Blurb

Layla is enjoying a beautiful moorland walk in the English countryside when suddenly, clouds start to roll in. The weather was forecast to be fine all day, so Layla is woefully unprepared when the heavens open and her visibility is reduced to next to nothing. Trying hard not to panic, she carefully makes her way towards a remote hut she spotted before the fog descended. When she arrives, though, she discovers park ranger Stuart already there, and luckily for her, he’s much more prepared than she is, and they soon find a way to pass the time until the storm blows over.

Note: Good With His Hands was previously published in the Down and Dirty boxed set.

Buy links

Amazon: http://mybook.to/goodwithhishands

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/good-with-his-hands-lucy-felthouse/1129960024

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/good-with-his-hands/id1445209735?mt=11

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/good-with-his-hands-15

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/910076?ref=cw1985

*****

Excerpt:

Anticipation seeped into Layla’s body, increasing with every second that ticked by. Each handhold she groped for, each push off with her feet brought her that bit closer to the moorland plateau she’d been wanting to explore ever since she’d seen photos of it in a Facebook group a few weeks ago. She was a keen hiker—or walker, she’d never really understood what the difference was between the two—but she’d always stuck to places she knew well, or had at least visited a couple of times before, mainly because she always walked alone, and getting lost was bad enough without doing it by yourself.

But one Sunday evening, after a flurry of yet more stunning photographs of the area had been uploaded to the group, Layla made up her mind. The following Sunday, she would join the seemingly scores of people that headed up to the dramatic-looking gritstone edge in Derbyshire’s Peak District every weekend, no matter the weather. Hikers, climbers, fell runners… they all raved about the place, despite the crowds. And if she did get lost, well, she’d just ask one of them for directions. No problem. Then, providing it was indeed as amazing as the photo-uploaders proclaimed it to be, she’d add it to her list of regular haunts. It’d make a refreshing change from her usual low-level trail walks.

Now she was beginning to understand what all the fuss was about, and she wasn’t even at the top yet. After leaving the relative familiarity of the car park, she’d trekked up a slight incline through some dense woods—surprised to pass only one or two small groups of people on the way. She’d expected it to look like London’s Oxford Street but with outdoorsy types in hefty boots and backpacks instead of shoppers with umbrellas and carrier bags. The moment she’d stepped from the shadow of the woods, the landscape had opened up in front of her and she’d got a real sense of how special it was. Then she’d glanced up and to her right and, taking in the height of the edge she had yet to climb, realised she hadn’t seen the half of it yet.

With one last push to get her onto a particularly large boulder, then a small step, she was there. On the gritstone edge, the moorland plateau—whatever you wanted to call it. As she took a couple of tentative steps forward and looked around, she decided she wanted to call it heaven. It was like nowhere she’d ever been before—so removed from everyday life that she was half convinced she’d stepped onto the moon, except it was unmistakably England. Wild, untamed, rugged, but England nonetheless. How had she never been up here before? And were there more places like it? She suddenly felt like the worst kind of ignorant city dweller—her walks up until now had made a mockery of wearing walking boots. She may as well have done it in flip flops.

She turned at the sound of voices behind her, and moved aside to let a group of three men in their early twenties pass. They had enormous, weirdly-shaped bags strapped to their backs, and yet strode along—exchanging smiles and nods with her when they drew level—as though their burdens weighed nothing.

Layla shook her head incredulously and started to follow in their footsteps. She didn’t need to consult her walk instructions yet—there was only one path, deliberately keeping footfall to a dedicated area for conservation purposes, according to a snippet of text she remembered reading on her printout. The trail stayed close to the edge—not so close as to be dangerous, but close enough to afford the most amazing views. The ground beneath her feet was made up of mud, rough grasses, rocks and boulders in shades of grey, brown, and black, scrubby bushes, and what she suspected was heather. To her left, the stunning countryside went on for as far as the eye could see, with delightfully twisted trees in the foreground, followed by brown and green fields, woodlands, moorlands, and more fields, broken up only very occasionally by a road—often only identifiable by the moving glint of light that passed along them—vehicles highlighted by the reflection of the sun off their metalwork. It’d be incredibly easy to forget civilisation even existed while she was up here.

 

*****

Bio

Lucy Felthouse is the award-winning author of erotic romance novels Stately Pleasures (named in the top 5 of Cliterati.co.uk’s 100 Modern Erotic Classics That You’ve Never Heard Of, and an Amazon bestseller), Eyes Wide Open (winner of the Love Romances Café’s Best Ménage Book 2015 award, and an Amazon bestseller), The Persecution of the Wolves, Hiding in Plain Sight and The Heiress’s Harem series. Including novels, short stories and novellas, she has over 170 publications to her name. Find out more about her writing at http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk, or on Twitter or Facebook. Join her Facebook group for exclusive cover reveals, sneak peeks and more! Sign up for automatic updates on Amazon or BookBub. Subscribe to her newsletter here: http://www.subscribepage.com/lfnewsletter

Release blitz organised by Writer Marketing Services.

New Years Resolutions and Navel Gazing

Here it is the last day of 2018. I don’t mind saying the last month has been a total gut punch for me with the loss of my sister. I’m more than ready to shed 2018 and move forward. As of tomorrow, the gym will be overflowing with New Years Resolutioners; all around the world new diets will have begun as soon as the New Year hangover wears off; people stop drinking, stop smoking, begin learning Spanish or French, people promise to take better care of themselves, spend more time with good friends, waste less time in front of the telly, and the list goes on. Since Boxing Day, the universal urge to be ‘better’ in the New Year has been nearly palpable in the soggy English air.

 

It happens every year, that urge to reflect on what has been and plan how the New Year will be better. Hope and excitement at new beginnings is so much a part of our human nature that the end of a year and the beginning of another one can’t help but be the time when we anticipate, plan change, and dare to dream of what wonderful things we can bring about in the next year. In fact there’s a heady sense of power in the New Year. I think it’s the time when we’re most confident that we can make changes, that we really dohave power over our own lives. It’s the time when we’re most proactive toward those changes, those visions of the people we want to be.

 

Before I actually began to sell my writing, back when I dreamed of that first publication, back when there seemed to be a lot more time for navel gazing than is now, I was a consummate journaler. I filled pages and pages, notebooks and notebooks full of my reflections, ruminations and navel gazes. And nothing took more time and energy than the end of the year entry, in which I reflected on how I did on the year’s resolutions and planned my resolutions for the next. This was a process that often began in early December with me reading back through journals, taking notes, tracing down some of what I’d been reading during that year and reflecting on it. Yeah, I know. I needed to get a life!

 

By the time New Years Day rolled around, I had an extensive list of resolutions, each with a detailed outline of action as to how I was going to achieve it. I found that some of those resolutions simply fell by the wayside almost before the year began — those things that if I’m honest with myself, I know I’m never gonna do, no matter how much I wish I would. Others I achieved in varying degrees-ish. But sadly, for the most part, a month or maybe two into the year, that hard core maniacal urge to be a better me no matter what cooled to tepid indifference as every-day life took the shine off the New Year.

 

It was only when there stopped being time for such ginormous navel-gazes and micro-planning that I discovered I actually had achieved a lot of those goals that were my resolutions simply by just getting on with it. As I began to think more about how different my approach to all things new in the New Year had become the busier I became, I realised that I had, through no planning on my part, perfected the sneak-in-through-the-back-door method of dealing with the New Year. The big, bright New Year changes I used to spend days plotting and planning no longer got written down, no longer got planned out. Instead, they sort of implemented themselves in a totally unorganised way somewhere between the middle of January and the middle of February. They were easy on me, sort of whispering and smiling unobtrusively from the corners of my life. They came upon me, not in a sneak attack so much as a passing brush with someone who would somehow become my best friend.

 

I’m my own harsh task master. I’m driven, I’m tunnel-visioned, I’m a pit bull when I grab on to what I want to achieve with my writing. No one is harder on me than I am – no one is even close. And yet from somewhere there’s a gentler voice that sneaks in through the back door of the New Year and through the back doors of my life and reminds me to be kinder to me, to be easier on me, to find ways to rest and recreate and feed my creative self. I’ll never stop being driven. The time I’ve been given, the time we’ve all been given, is finite. And that gentler part of ourselves must somehow be a constant reminder of comfort and gentleness, of self-betterment that comes, not from brow-beating and berating ourselves, not from forced regimentation, but from easing into it, making ourselves comfortable with it. We, all of us, live in a time when life is snatched away from us one sound-bite, one reality TV show, one advert at a time. Often our time, our precious time is bargained away from us by harsher forces, by ideals and scripts that aren’t our own, and the less time we have to dwell on the still small voice, the deeper the loss.

 

So my resolution, my only resolution every year is to listen more carefully to that gentler, quieter part of me, to forgive myself for not being able to be the super-human I think I should be, to settle into the arms of and be comfortable with the quieter me, the wiser me who knows how far I’ve really come, who knows that the

shaping of a human being goes way deeper than what’s achieved in the outer world, and every heart that beats needs to find its own refuge in the value of just being who we are, of living in the present and coming quietly and gently and hopefully into the New Year.

I wish you all the very best in 2019 in a very gentle, very peaceful sort of way.

 

 

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Moonlight & Moet
B&B Billionaire Romance Series (Book 2)
by Madison Michael 
 
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December 26th – December 29th
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Can the Hottest Man Around Melt this Ice Queen’s Heart?

When her husband publicly cheats on her, Leigh Dobbs trades her humiliating reputation as an ice queen and a hometown that shuns her for the unknown of rural North Carolina. Taking over a small bed and breakfast, Leigh sets out to restore it, her dignity and her life. Excited at the prospect of adding more rooms and a full-service restaurant, Leigh’s big plans encounter the brick wall that is Caleb Rausch. Sparks fly even as Caleb votes no on the planning commission, crushing Leigh’s dreams.

Handsome powerhouse Caleb Rausch is a man on a mission, expanding his huge corporation without encroaching on the small town where it resides. His commitment to his products, employees and historic preservation are unwavering. What’s lacking is his commitment to one woman. Caleb is the most eligible bachelor in three states, dating celebrities and models, but never settling down. Until now.

Even as Caleb forces Leigh’s expansion plans on hold, the couple moves full-steam-ahead on their relationship, unable to resist the mutual attraction. So why, after a steamy night together, does Caleb disappear for weeks? Has Leigh put her heart out there again, just to be played?

Will the magic of a moonlit night be enough to kindle their love or will Caleb’s constant disappearing act prevent him from melting this ice queen’s heart?


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December 24th – December 31st
 
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Freebie Blitz—Shopping for an Heir (Book 10 in the Shopping series) by Julia Kent (@jkentauthor)

FREE for a limited time – SHOPPING FOR AN HEIR. A hilarious standalone in Julia Kent’s bestselling Shopping for a Billionaire series. Gerald Wright works for billionaires. He never imagined he’d become one. Get the Whispersync audio for $7.49 on Amazon or your favorite audiobook retailer.

Description:

Gerald Wright works for billionaires. He never imagined he’d become one.

The former Navy Seal is a chauffeur by day, artist by night, so when hotter-than-ever ex-fiancée Suzanne Dayton interrupts his nude model sculpting class to serve him with inheritance paperwork from a man he’s never heard of, he assumes it’s a joke.

Turns out the joke’s on him. There’s just one catch. A big one.

And it might be Suzanne — in more ways than he ever dreamed.

Shopping for an Heir is the 10th book in the New York Times bestselling Shopping for a Billionaire series by Julia Kent.

Buy links:

BN/Nook: http://bit.ly/29DaZZv

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*****

Excerpt:

Gerald awoke with a start, gasping into the strange box of reality, the room dark with shadows and filled with the scent of deeply anticipated horror.

“Oh, God,” he grunted, breathing erratic, heart in flames in the center of his chest.

That dream.

That f*king dream.

He hadn’t had that dream about Suzanne in eight years.

Drawing on every tool in his psychological coping toolbox, Gerald started with deep breaths. Inhale for eight, exhale for four. Something like that. His hands fisted the sheets, which were damp in sections. Sweating profusely, Gerald stood, throwing the sheet off him, stomping through his bedroom naked, headed to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Instead, he found himself five minutes later, standing in front of the open freezer door.

Just…standing there.

A glance at the stovetop clock told him it was 4:56 a.m. Sunrise soon. The day would begin.

Hell, the day had clearly begun already. No way was he going back to bed.

His nose was cold. His back was covered with sweat. One drop trickled down his spine and into his ass crack. And yet, still he stood there, stupidly staring at a half-empty freezer.

Enlightenment would not come from a frozen pad Thai dinner.

Today was his day off. He had a wide-open schedule. Nothing planned.

Which made today dangerous.

Think, man. Think, he urged himself, recalling what his psychologist at the Veterans Affairs center had told him, all those years ago. Use the tools. Don’t define yourself by the intrusive thoughts.

He froze.

And realized that the dream had been different this time.

Blinking, he felt his corneas stick against the backs of his eyelids, the rapid eye movement necessary to return his body to the well-oiled machine it needed to be.

The dream was different.

*****

Author Bio:

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Julia Kent writes romantic comedy with an edge. From billionaires to BBWs to new adult rock stars, Julia finds a sensual, goofy joy in every contemporary romance she writes. Unlike Shannon from Shopping for a Billionaire, she did not meet her husband after dropping her phone in a men’s room toilet (and he isn’t a billionaire). She lives in New England with her husband and three sons in a household where the toilet seat is never, ever, down

Social Media Links:

Website:  http://jkentauthor.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/jkentauthor/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jkentauthor

Freebie blitz organized by Writer Marketing Services.

Celebrating the Time Before Beginnings

It’s hard for me to write a holiday post this year. To say I’m not in the Christmas spirit is the understatement of the year. And yet, this is the time of more than just canned Christmas music and out of control commercialism. I’ve always been bah humbug about that. But the fact that we’re in the dark days, the fact that we’re about to find in each of us newness in spite of all that has happened, all that has laid us low in the past year, the fact that we’ve found a commonality a sense of connectedness in those dark days, well that is something I’ve always found worth celebrating. This year, with the loss of my sister, more than ever, I need what those dark days can offer me, that womb of darkness, a place of being and not doing and that’s why I’m sharing this post with you again.

 

As I was walking along the canal the other day between rain showers, watching the moorhens leave water con trails across the surface, I was thinking about why this time of year is such a big deal. It’s dark, it’s dreary, it’s seemingly dead. Really, it seems like something we should just want to skip right through as much as possible, and yet we celebrate this time of year more than any other.  For several years I celebrated the seasons of the year with a Wiccan coven, and one of the best parts of that time in my life was the effort made to understand and live in sync with the changing seasons of the year. That I’ve held onto long after I left the coven. That ebb and flow remains an important part of who I am and how I celebrate.

 

Then, as now, the magic of this time of year intrigued me the most. In the Pagan cycle of the year, the winter months are represented by the direction of north, the cold, dark direction, the place where everything seems dead and silent. The days are short and the nights are long and it’s a temptation to go to bed early and sleep late. In the darkest days it’s even a temptation to follow the example of our bear cousins and sleep the whole dreary time away until the spring returns. The holidays aside, by the time January gets here it’s all about the return of the light. We’ve all had enough dark days, and we want sunshine.

 

So what’s so magical about that? Of course we want the sunshine. Who doesn’t? But the magic comes in the waiting. The dark powers of the north, the dark earth energy of the pagan wheel of the year is dream magic. It’s the time before beginnings. It’s the time when we sit with a cup of tea clenched in our hands and reflect on what has been, while everything in us looks forward to what lies ahead. On the one hand we dream of the past and we say our good-byes to this turning of the year, on the other hand, we dream and scheme and anticipate the future that will begin, just like new life, in the dark place. And we wait for the end that has to happen before the beginning. The time before beginnings. It’s a phrase that has no meaning if we don’t have a past to reflect upon. It’s a phrase that has no meaning if we don’t have a future to anticipate and to dream and scheme for.

 

This time of year the sun, when we do get it, is never very high in the sky, and it’s often a cold anemic sun. This time of year when everything seems so dead, there are already buds fattening on the trees — the beginnings of the leaves that will shelter the birds and shade us from the sun when it’s at its most powerful. This time of year even the winter visitors, the waxwings and the fieldfares, are anticipating new beginnings, feeding up for their return to the north and for the raising of the next generation.

 

It’s in these dark days, in this space in between when it’s not quite the end, but it’s not yet the beginning either, it’s in this liminal space that we experience a magic that’s different from any other time of the year, a magic of stillness, a magic of holding ourselves tightly and inhaling deeply just before the sun returns and we’re off once again, running forward into the headroom and the creative momentum that this time before beginnings has afforded us.

 

Happy Time Before Beginnings!