Tuesday, 2 January 2024

Elex: Sons of Hecate Volume I by Mellanie Rourke #kindleunlimited

NEW RELEASE

Book Title:  Elex: Sons of Hecate Volume I

Author and Publisher: Mellanie Rourke

Cover Artist: Reese Dante

Release Date: December 26, 2023

Genres: Dark Romance, Paranormal/Urban Fantasy

Tropes: Hurt/Comfort

Themes: Overcoming adversity, rags to riches

Heat Rating:  4 flames     

Length: 92 000 words/320 pages

It is a standalone story and first in a series. The other books will be coming out in 2024. 

It does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited

Amazon US   |  Amazon UK

Alone, they are victims. Together, they may topple an empire.

Blurb

Elex is a slave even though his father is King of Alexandria. Disinherited once his elemental magic developed, he was banished to the Alexandrian Legion to "learn his place" at the non-existent mercies of his new masters. Humiliated and abused, he learns the hard way that he can't always protect the ones he loves.

Now the time of the Machi Thanatos approaches, a deadly competition where Legionnaires must battle their foes and each other for the dubious honor of a lifetime of slavery at the hands of Elusians, Alexandrians with the ability to control Elex and his fellow Mageians by Suppressing their ability to use magic.

Elex will fight to the death to protect himself and those he loves, but during the Machi he meets Helios, a shapeshifting Soma from the rebel country of Illyria.  Helios will fight for what he loves, too, and this savagely fierce little Mageian is quickly adding his name to that list. 

Separately they are two victims of the whims of Alexandrian Elusians. Together, they may discover a secret that could topple an empire.

Excerpt 

The moonlight slowly slid across his face, casting his scarred side in shadow. Finally, he spoke.

“What did you want me to ask you that I didn’t?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. Fuck. He’d know if I was lying. In for a penny.

“I wanted you to ask me if you could kiss me,” I whispered finally. He didn’t move at my words, and I suddenly felt like the biggest idiot. How could this beautiful, courageous, kitten-saving man ever want someone like me? Especially after just sharing everything my own blood had done to me.

Feeling suddenly filthy, I was on my feet and pulling away from him without thinking. “Yeah, dumb thing to think, I know. Probably been drinking too much of that vodka.”

“That sentence was a lie,” he whispered. Then without warning he was in front of me. He slowly reached out and cupped the back of my head and drew me close. He was standing so near to me that I could feel his breath on my cheek. “But that first one…”

He swept his thumb over my lips.

“Truth,” he whispered, a small, sad smile forming. He moved even closer, his breath hot on my skin.

“Kataramenos,” he said, drawing my name out. My heart pounded in my chest at his nearness, and my body flushed both hot and cold at the same time.

“Kat. May I kiss you?” he asked, finally.

I swallowed hard, my nerves on fire. I couldn’t believe someone like him might want someone like me. I couldn’t look away from his eyes, which were brighter than the moonlight. I could see my reflection in his gaze. It was almost unrecognizable. It was a person who was strong. Confident. Whole. Someone who deserved something good in his world. Someone I wanted desperately to be.

I nodded, unable to form the words.

He moved forward slowly, just brushing his lips across my own. The zap of our magics built to a vibrating hum as he licked gently across my lips with his tongue. I opened my mouth slowly, savouring the taste of the vodka as he slid into my mouth, the gentle heat of his body pressing against mine.

He held me like I was something…precious. Not fragile, exactly, but something valued. I had fooled around with other Mageia in the past and been used by Elusians against my will. This was completely different from any of that. None of those encounters, even the willing ones, had ever made me feel cherished. Safe. Made me feel like he did.

About the Author 

Mellanie Rourke lives in Akron, Ohio with her spouse and their furry menagerie of 3 young adult roommates (because ‘they aren’t kids anymore’), two dogs, three cats, and five ferrets.

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Saturday, 16 December 2023

True North by TA Moore #giveaway

 RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: True North (Yule Lads #1)

Author: TA Moore

Publisher: Rogue Firebird Press

Cover Artist: TA Moore

Release Date: December 15, 2023

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Tropes: Opposites attract, star-crossed, enemies to lovers, fish out of water, work romance…sorta, betrayal, Christmas romance

Themes: Sins of the past, forgiveness, found family.

Heat Rating:  4 flames

Length:  40 500 words

It is the first book in the Yule Lads series.

It does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links

Amazon US  |  Amazon UK 

Blurb

Despite what his co-workers say Belling, Montana paramedic Dylan Holly does not hate Christmas.

It’s just that as an ex-foster kid he learned early on that Christmas just didn’t have much relevance to his life. He’s seen no evidence since then that he’s wrong.

That said, if Santa ever delivered a six-foot plus wall of hot muscle under his tree he’d be willing to reconsider. He’s even sourced an available one locally in the taciturn Somerset North and his impossibly blue eyes.

So really, at this point the ball is in Santa’s court.

There’s just one problem. Well, just one to start with anyhow. The battered, dying man someone dumped from a height onto Dylan’s car outside the Just-as-High, Somerset’s bar. He gave Dylan an old, well-worn watch and begged him to keep it safe.

Now Christmas is relevant to Dylan’s life in the worst way. The Winter Court has loosed their Wolves on the world and Dylan is on the run with Somerset North. A man who seems to know a lot more about what is going on than a Montana bar owner with exceptional shoulders should.

It turns out that Santa is missing, presumed dead. And the key to the hotly disputed succession crisis is a foster kid who never celebrated the season.

Excerpt 

TWENTY YEARS SINCE Somerset had tried to tap the power of his old position. Now he had done it twice in one night. He would never admit it, but as the wind blew up into his armpits, he wasn’t sure the magic he’d set aside would answer.

Apparently though, there were no hard feelings.

Cold filled his chest and soaked out into his body. It spilled out of his mouth on white fog and turned his marrow into frost. The only heat in him came from the prickle of pain as a dozen tiny fractures crazed along the bones of his arms and legs. The threads of the North Wind surged up around him and thickened under his feet. His boots skidded on the slick, snow-vapor surface at first. It was solid, but not still. The wind blew and eddied under his weight. It made for unsteady footing.

The weight of Dylan as he swung awkwardly from Somerset’s grip didn’t help. Somerset briefly indulged the thought of letting him drop. He was not a sentimental man at the best of times, that wasn’t what his kind had been made to be, and the chill of Winter magic in his bones reduced the idea of logic and odds.

Mostly.

Dylan didn’t scream or thrash. He gripped Somerset’s wrist with white-knuckled fingers and kept his eyes closed so he didn’t give in and look down. Somerset had always liked that quality about the wiry paramedic. No matter what happened around him, Dylan was always the calm at the heart of the storm. It made him… pleasant… to be around.

Something in Somerset’s chest, buried down deep under permafrosted meat and organs, felt warm. The rest of him was too Winter-numb to put his finger on what the feeling was. Guilt maybe. Or something stupider.

Either way, as he remembered the knack to riding the storm, he dragged Dylan into his arms. The other man resisted at first—Somerset didn’t take it personally—but the only other option was to fall. It wasn’t a hard choice to make. Dylan pressed against Somerset’s chest, arms wrapped around him so tightly that Somerset could feel knuckly fists dug into the small of his back.

Somerset enjoyed the feeling of the warm, lean body pressed against him for a moment, then he had to focus on what he was doing.

“You can fly?” Dylan asked, his voice ragged and his breath warm against Somerset as it seeped through the cotton T-shirt. When Dylan laughed, it was a thin, nervous sound. “Explains what happened to my car.”

Somerset hesitated as he narrowed his eyes. He could see the snow caught in his lashes. Dylan was right; that probably had been what happened.

As many questions as that answered, though, it raised more. Wolves couldn’t walk the storm, so who’d brought Gull down? Had he already been injured?

The wind took advantage of Somerset’s distraction and tried to drop from under him. He stumbled, caught himself, and did his best to ignore the way Dylan’s arms tightened around him.

About the Author

TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide.

Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.

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Giveaway 

Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway for a chance to win

one of three Amazon $25 Gift Cards

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Reasonable Doubt by Patty Padron