Book Blast: Love Vindicated by Lila Munro (Giveaway!!!!)

About the Book

In 1980, Kyle Montgomery’s life was seemingly perfect. Heavily recruited by Force Recon fresh from the Naval Academy, he’d been working black ops for the Marine Corps for six years and was on the cusp of being promoted to Major. He was on the fast track to bigger and better things, had all the right people vetting him, and he'd married the woman of his dreams and was exploring a lifestyle which could have ended his career. With the Iranian embassy under siege and the Middle East in turmoil, Kyle was sent on a mission which would change the course of his life forever.

Returning home after three months of being invisible, Kyle finds his wife has been murdered by the very people he'd been sent to protect. And instead of the government retaliating, they hand him his walking papers with the agreement they’ll never speak of the events again. It's like Kyle never existed. His wife never existed. And the people who maimed and tortured her never existed.

Resigned to never again walk that path, Kyle opens the first Steele Image club with the thought of providing a safe haven for others like him, those who were invisible to the public and most of the government. Those who had eclectic sexual tastes. Those who would later become his allies. And his enemies. And both will drive him back to the place he’d thought he’d let go of forever to vindicate his love…

AMAZON | ALL ROMANCE EBOOKS

 About the Author

  

Lila Munro currently resides on the coast of North Carolina with her husband and their two four-legged kids. She’s a military wife with an empty nest and takes much of her inspiration for her heroes from the marines she’s lived around for the past fifteen years. Coining the term realmantica, she strives to produce quality romance in a realistic setting. Her genre of choice is contemporary romance that spans everything from the sensual softer read to BDSM and ménage. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading everything she can get her hands on, trips to the museum and aquarium, taking field research trips, and soaking up the sun on the nearby beaches. Her works include The Executive Officer’s Wife, Bound By Trust, Three for Keeps, the Force Recon series, the Slower Lower series, the Identity series, and the Private Collection. Currently she is working on two new series set to release summer of 2013, the At Your Service line and the Steele Image line. She’s a member in good standing of RWA. Ms. Munro loves to hear from her readers and can be contacted at lilasromance@gmail.com .

Her latest book is the BDSM contemporary romance, Love Vindicated.

Visit he website at www.lilamunro.com.

FACEBOOK | TWITTER

And now for the GIVEAWAY!! Fill out the Rafflecopter form below for your chance to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card/Paypal Cash + Gift Basket including her Slower & Lower seies of 3 books plus a copy of Executive Officer’s Wife!!
(Ends June 21, 2013)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Cat Thursday - June 20th

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! This fun meme is hosted by The True Book Addict. Go over to her site to join in the fun.

From:  LOL Cats

Promo/Blog Tour: The Boys of DownCrash Series by London Casey (Guest Post)

The Stronger, Safer Kind
(The Boys of DownCrash #1)

All Scarlett wanted to do was thank the sexy stranger who helped her push away a drunk, grabby college boy at a bar. When that stranger identifies himself as Tripp and then takes the stage as the lead singer and guitarist for rock band, DownCrash, everything in Scarlett's life begins to change.

Her best friend, Andy, confesses his love for her and leaves her with what should be an easy decision to make... yet each time she looks in Andy's eyes, she can't help but face her secret, nightmarish past.

The only thing that makes Scarlett feel better is Tripp... but Tripp isn't just a bad boy rockstar, he's hurt. He's in pain. He tries to hide his pain in a bottle, but Scarlett believes that, perhaps, their secrets can help each other.

Friendship and love is suddenly put to the test, and Scarlett is torn... Will she choose an easy, comfortable, happy life or a life clouded with mixed signals, raw emotion, and intense romance?

Torn to Pieces
(The Boys of DownCrash #2)

Trying to forget about the promises she was forced to make as a young, naive eighteen year old, Maggie creates a false persona that paints her as the girl who never says no...

However, once she lays eyes on the drummer of DownCrash, everything clicks. From his sexy lip ring to the way he stares at her from the stage, Tatum becomes everything Maggie has ever fantasized about.

When trouble catches up to her in a parking garage after a DownCrash show, and Tatum shows up out of nowhere to protect her. For the first time in years, she is intimidated by a man's kindness and sexiness, and not by his temper and jealousy. As real feelings begin to grow Maggie is faced with her past and wonders if she'll ever be able to escape the promises she once made to keep the promises she wants to make right now.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=London%20Casey&search-alias=digital-text&sort=relevancerank

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Author Guest Post

When I wanted to write a series, I wanted to create something that was powerful and something that came with a beginning and end right from the go. I wanted a sexy band and something about a trio just worked. And it worked in the sense of the series itself. Three books is perfect.

The band is called DownCrash and the members are Tripp, Tatum, and Logan. Each band member gets their own book, following their lives, the band, and everything happening around them. And that’s the best part of writing this series. I’m not just tapping into each band member… the series follows the band. Readers can enjoy each book as a stand alone but reading it as a series will give them the full picture of DownCrash.

Since I’m here, I want to introduce the band to everyone reading…

Tripp – featured in The Stronger, Safer Kind, Tripp meets Scarlett and it’s instant. They don’t know why at first but as they reveal each other’s pasts, they realize how much they have in common. Beyond the physical attraction. Beyond the feelings of love too. They’re both in pain and they seek each other and music to save themselves.

Tatum – featured in Torn to Pieces, Tatum is rough and tough. He’s tall and strong and isn’t afraid to defend Maggie when something terrible comes close to happening her. He can’t stop thinking about her and Maggie is afraid to open to Tatum. But then something horrifying happens… a person comes back from Maggie’s past and threatens to take everything away from her. Including her life. And it might be something that even Tatum couldn’t handle.

Logan – in the final book of The Boys of DownCrash has Logan and Annie falling in love. It’s almost picture perfect… how they flirt, push each other away, chase each other, and succumb to their feelings. They share personal stories and as DownCrash is growing more and more popular, things are on the rise. Then two devastating pieces of news hit both Logan and Annie, tearing them apart. But there’s something that can never break them apart… and Annie hopes it’s love.

Books 1 and 2 in The Boys of DownCrash series are available. The final book is coming July 2013!

Blog Tour: Read and Buried by Erika Chase (Guest Post)

About the Book

Hosting an award-winning novelist is quite a Christmas coup for the Ashton Corners Mystery Readers and Cheese Straw Society. But when he’s murdered in Lizzie Turner’s house, she’s got a holiday homicide on her hands …

For their very first guest author event, most of the book club members can’t wait to pull out all the stops in Southern hospitality. But for Lizzie, Derek Alton is nothing but trouble—from his massive ego to his smarmy moves. When he’s found murdered in her living room, it seems someone decided that this womanizing writer would be better off dead than read.

After suspicion falls on Lizzie’s friend, she and her fellow book club members discover that Derek wasn’t who he pretended to be. Cracking this case means going up against Lizzie’s boyfriend, police chief Mark Dreyfus, and unearthing a novel’s worth of nasty secrets. And as they get closer to uncovering Derek’s scandalous final manuscript, someone hiding in plain sight is out to write finis to Lizzie’s sleuthing for good…


Purchase from Amazon.

Author Guest Post

COZY SETTINGS By Erika Chase

What’s not to like about a cozy? They’re so…well, cozy. To me that means a traditional mystery, a puzzle, something on the lighter side, without the excess of violence, sex or language – except where appropriate. If I want any of that I can read the newspapers, watch TV news, or even, most of the mystery/crime series that are on TV.

Don’t get me wrong, I do read other types of crime books, I’m an avid newspaper reader and I do watch some psychological police dramas on TV, because they do have their place and there are times when that’s exactly what I want to see or read.

But for the most part, I want my reading time to be spent in a world where friendships are a primary focus, where there’s a hint of romance, and of course, the world is made right by the capture of the bad guys. I want to work through the crime puzzle along with the main character, be he or she an amateur sleuth or professional. I want to get to know these people as friends so that I enjoy spending time with them catching up, in each new book in the series. And, as importantly, I want justice to be carried out.

So it’s natural that I write cozy mysteries. I try to combine all those factors that I enjoy when reading a mystery in my Ashton Corners Book Club series. I belong to a book club, and although the members are very different from my fictional ones, especially the fact that we don’t solve crimes, the friendships and camaraderie are the aspects I’ve brought to the series.

Each character is unique, someone I’d like to know and learn more about, (I am learning more about them as I write each new book) and to this end, each has her or his own story and reason for belonging to the book club. Together, they compliment and contrast, they cajole and console, they are friends and they are my friends.

To me, a cozy setting means community. From the larger community of Ashton Corners, Alabama (totally fictional but somewhat based on a small town located close to me) to the smaller community of the Ashton Corners Mystery Readers and Cheese Straws Society…this is the heart of a cozy mystery. The puzzle and the unraveling of it are layered on to present a reading experience that hopefully will delight the mystery lover.

I enjoy writing cozies and I enjoy reading them. I hope you do, too.

About the Author

Erika writes the Ashton Corners Book Club mysteries for Penguin/Berkley Prime Crime. In a parallel life Erika Chase is also known as Linda Wiken. A former mystery bookstore owner (Prime Crime Books in Ottawa, ON, Canada), Linda is also a short story writer. She is a member of those dangerous dames, The Ladies’ Killing Circle.

Her short stories have appeared in the seven Ladies’ Killing Circle anthologies (three of which she co-edited), and in the magazines Mysterious Intent and Over My Dead Body. She has been short-listed for an Arthur Ellis Award, Best Short Story, from Crime Writers of Canada.

Before life in the world of mystery, she worked as an advertising copywriter, radio producer, journalist and community education worker. Besides writing and reading mysteries, her other passion is choral singing and she is a member of two choirs.

She shares her house with Keesha and Mojo, her two Siamese cats. Actually, they allow her to live there.

Connect with Erika Chase: Website | Facebook | Twitter

Join Erika Chase On Tour

June 17, 2013 – Omnimystery
June 18, 2013 - Socrates Book Review
June 19, 2013 - Book of Secrets
June 20, 2013 - Books-n-Kisses
June 21, 2013 - Melissa’s Mochas, Mysteries & More
June 22, 2013 - Melina’s Book Blog
June 23, 2013 - Cozy Up with Kathy
June 24, 2013 - Book Lady’s Book Notes
June 25, 2013 – Cozy Mystery Book Review
June 26, 2013 - Shelley’s Book Case

Teaser Tuesdays - June 18th

If you'd like to play along on Teaser Tuesdays, just click the button above.


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I'm reading...

Although Skye's fiance, police chief Wally Boyd, claimed he didn't believe in ghosts, it was kind of hard to ignore the fact that nearly every time he and Skye started to get intimate, something in her house blew up, burst into flames, or broke into a thousand pieces.

Q&A's with Author Sara Palacios (Love in Translation)

Book Synopsis

Still reeling from an unexpected breakup, Emily nurses her broken heart by spending time with her best friends and taking one-too-many vodka shots. After one long night, she takes a hard look inside herself and doesn’t like what she sees. She realizes that she has sacrificed too much in her failed relationships from the past and vows to never settle for anything less than almost-perfect again. As she picks up the pieces and regains her confidence, a sexy Spanish chef moves in across the hall and knocks her off her feet. What ensues is an unexpected and tantalizing affair that opens her eyes - and her heart - to a whole new world and leaves her feeling sexier than she has ever felt.  Emily finally sees how easy love is supposed to be. Is happily-ever-after actually possible? Just when she starts to think so, she realizes that sometimes life gets more complicated before it gets easier. And complicated is an understatement when Steven (her best and oldest friend in the world) confesses his love for her. Everything spirals out of control as Emily must make a choice between love and friendship, and in doing so, possibly risk it all.

LOVE IN TRANSLATION is a modern day love story about following your heart to unexpected places and taking chances in life … because sometimes you will find exactly what you are looking for.

You can purchase LOVE IN TRANSLATION here:
Amazon: Print or eBook
Barnes and Noble: eBook
Kobo: eBook

Q&A's With Author Sara Palacios

Please join me in welcoming author Sara Palacios (author of Love in Translation) to Socrates’ Book Review Blog.  I haven’t read Love in Translation yet, but I’m looking forward to it and learning more about this author.

So, let’s begin…

1. Love in Translation is your debut novel.  Can you tell us how you came up with the idea for it?

I would love to. The idea for the novel actually stemmed from my own relationship with my husband…in a way. He is a native Spanish speaker (although you wouldn’t know it) but one day I wondered what would have happened if he still only spoke Spanish and I spoke English. I thought it was an interesting concept for a story and an idea for a book was born. 

2. Was there much research involved?

Yes, actually there was quite a bit of research involved. I really immersed myself in the Spanish culture in order to make it feel authentic. I wanted the language, the sights, the sounds and the tastes to all feel real to the reader. 

3. Do you have plans to write anymore books and do you plan to write in other genres?

I am currently writing a new novel which I hope to be finished with by the end of the year. Wish me luck!

4. Thinking about your own reading preferences, what’s your favorite genre to read?

I adore Chick-Lit but I also really love historical fiction. My favorite book of all time is Pillars of the Earth by Ken Folliet. I also love fantasy books like Lord of the Rings!

5. Are your fictional characters based on real life people or a creation of your own imagination?

There are small slivers of similarities between a few characters and a few people from my real life. I think my girlfriends play a big role in my writing when I am creating friendships.

6. Who is you biggest influence in your writing career?

I don’t have one person per se, but I really enjoy looking at successful authors and trying to see what they’ve written and done and how they got to where they currently are. 

7. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve always enjoyed writing and reading. I didn’t try to pursue it professionally until after I graduated from college.

8. What is the very first thing you wrote (published or not)?

I wrote a book prior to Love In Translation called Beautiful Disaster. It ultimately was just a trial run but I would love to try to dust it off in the future and see if I can make it shine. 

9. Do you have any favorite authors or books?

Yes! I mentioned a few above, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Folliet and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. As far as chick-lit goes, I love Sarah Jio, Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner.

10. Can you tell us any info about your next book?

I am a fly by the seat of my pants type of writer and my story is constantly evolving, so unfortunately what I say right now may not turn out to be very accurate. But, in a nutshell, it is about a woman who has to return home to face some things from her past that she left behind. Think Sweet Home Alabama meets Sleepless in Seattle. Fun, right?

Thank you, Sara, for spending time at Socrates’ Book Review Blog!

Thank you so much for having me! I am over the moon to be featured on your wonderful book blog!

Sara Palacios

Author of LOVE IN TRANSLATION

Sara Palacios is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a major in Advertising and a minor in English Literature. It was during her time in college that she really fell in love with the written word and ventured into writing her own stories. In addition to writing, Sara spends a majority of her time reading the works of other authors.  She reads most genres  – but thoroughly enjoys chick-lit, women’s and historical fiction. When she isn’t busy reading or writing, Sara enjoys spending time with family and friends. She is happily married, the owner of two precious doggies and a new mom to a handsome baby boy. Sara is also an avid animal-lover, runner, yoga enthusiast and wannabe vegan.

You can connect with Sara here:

Twitter: Sara Palacios

Facebook: Sara Palacios

Email: sararpalacios@gmail.com

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between! This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

A decent week for me...

Here's what I read this week...

I finished reading...

and finished listening to...

I'm currently reading...

and I'm going to start listening to...

Next up...

What was your week like? What are you reading this week?