Carries Book Reviews

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Title: The Paris Widow

Author:  Kimberly Belle

Publisher: Park Row

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

Page Count:  305

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

From USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Belle comes a deliciously twisty new thriller following a married couple vacationing in Paris whose trip takes a dark turn when the husband goes missing, dredging up secrets from both of their pasts, perfect for fans of THE PARIS APARTMENT.

When Stella met Adam, she felt like she finally landed a nice, normal guy – a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. She loves knowing she can always depend on Adam, which is why when he goes missing during a random explosion in Paris, she panics. Right after what is assumed to be a terrorist attack, she’s interviewed live on TV by reporters, begging anyone who knows anything about her husband’s whereabouts to come forward and is quickly dubbed “The Paris Widow.”

As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer in the black market for priceless antiquities, making deals with very high-profile and dangerous clients. Reeling from this news and growing suspicions about her husband, Stella can’t shake the feeling that she’s being followed. And with Adam assumed dead, she realizes that whoever was responsible for the bombing will come after her next. Everything – and everyone — that Stella has tried to keep in her duplicitous past might be her only means of survival and finding out what really happened to Adam.

An irresistible and fast-paced read set in some of Europe’s most inviting locales, THE PARIS WIDOW explores how sinister secrets of the past stay with us – no matter how far we travel.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon / HarperCollins  / BookShop.org / Barnes & Noble 

Excerpt:

Prologue

Nice, France

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

—Oscar Wilde

At Nice’s Côte d’Azur Airport, the pretty woman coming down the jetway looked like every other bleary-eyed traveler. Rum­pled T-shirt over jeans with an indeterminate stain on the right thigh, hair shoved into a messy ponytail mussed from the head­rest. A backpack was slung over her right shoulder, weighed down with items that weren’t technically hers but looked like they could be. She’d sorted through them on the seven-hour flight, just long enough to make the contents feel familiar.

“Don’t lose it,” the Turkish man said when he hung it on her arm, and she hadn’t.

The jetway dumped her into the terminal, and she trailed behind a family of five, past gates stretched out like spider legs, along the wall of windows offering a blinding view of the sparkling Mediterranean, a turquoise so bright it burned her eyes. The backpack bounced against her shoulder bone, and her heart gave a quiet, little jingle.

She made it through passport control without issue, thanks to her careful selection of the agent behind the glass. A man, first and foremost. Not too old or too young, not too hand­some. A five to her solid eight—or so she’d been told by more than one man. This one must have agreed because he stamped her passport with an appreciative nod. French men were like that. One smile from a woman out of their league, and they melted like a cream-filled bonbon.

She thanked him and slid her passport into her pocket.

In it were stamps to every country in Europe and the Americas, from her crisscrosses over every continent in­cluding Antarctica, from her detours to bask on the famous beaches of Asia, Australia, the South Seas. More than once, she’d had to renew the booklet long before it expired because she’d run out of empty spots for customs agents to stamp. She was particularly proud of that, and of how she could look any way you wanted her to look, be anyone you needed her to be. Today she was playing the role of American Tourist On A Budget.

At baggage claim, she slid the backpack down an aching shoulder and checked the time on her cell. Just under six hours for this little errand, plenty of time assuming she didn’t hit any unexpected roadblocks. If she didn’t get held up at customs, if the taxi line wasn’t too long, if traffic on the A8 wasn’t too awful, which it would be because getting in and out of Monte Carlo was always a nightmare at this time of year. If if if. If she missed the flight to London, she was screwed.

A buzzer sounded, and the baggage carousel rumbled to a slow spin.

At least she didn’t look any more miserable than the people milling around her, their faces long with jet lag. She caught snippets of conversation in foreign tongues, German, Ital­ian, Arabic, French, and she didn’t need a translator to know they were bitching about the wait. The French were never in a hurry, and they were always striking about something. She wondered what it could be this time.

Thirty-eight eternal minutes later, the carousel spit out her suitcase. She hauled it from the band with a grunt, plopped the heavy backpack on top and followed the stream of tour­ists to the exit.

Walk with purpose. Look the customs agent in the eye. Smile, the fleeting kind with your lips closed, not too big or too cocky. Act breezy like you’ve got nothing to prove or to hide. By now she knew all the tricks.

The customs agent she was paired with was much too young for her liking, his limbs still lanky with the leftovers of pu­berty, which meant he had something to prove to the clus­ter of more senior agents lingering behind him. She ignored their watchful gazes, taking in his shiny forehead, the way it was dotted with pimples, and dammit, he was going to be a problem.

He held up a hand, the universal sign for halt. “Avez-vous quelque chose à déclarer?”

Her fingers curled around the suitcase handle, clamping down. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I don’t speak French.”

That part was the truth, at least. She didn’t speak it, at least not well and not unless she absolutely had to. And her rudi­mentary French wasn’t necessary just yet.

But she understood him well enough, and she definitely knew that last word. He was asking if she had something to declare.

The agent gestured to her suitcase. “Please, may I take a look in your luggage?” His English was heavy with accent, his lips slick with spit, but at least he was polite about it.

She gave a pointed look at the exit a few feet away. On the other side of the motion-activated doors, a line of people leaned against a glass-and-steel railing, fists full of balloons and colorful bouquets. With her free hand, she wriggled her fingers in a wave, even though she didn’t know a single one of them.

She looked back at the agent with another smile. “Is that really necessary? My flight was delayed, and I’m kind of in a hurry. My friends out there have been waiting for hours.”

Calm. Reasonable. Not breaking the slightest sweat.

The skin of his forehead creased in a frown. “This means you have nothing to declare?”

“Only that a saleslady lied to my face about a dress I bought being wrinkle resistant.”

She laughed, but the agent’s face remained as stony as ever.

He beckoned her toward an area behind him, a short hall­way lined with metal tables. “S’il vous plait. The second table.”

Still, she didn’t move. The doors slid open, and she flung an­other glance at the people lined up outside. So close yet so far.

As if he could read her mind, the agent took a calculated step to his left, standing between her and the exit. He swept an insistent arm through the air, giving her little choice. The cluster of agents were paying more attention now.

She huffed a sigh. Straightened her shoulders and gave her bag a hard tug. “Okay, but fair warning. I’m on the tail end of a three-week vacation here, which means everything in my suitcase is basically a giant pile of dirty laundry.”

Again, the truth. Miami to Atlanta to LA to Tokyo to Dubai to Nice, a blur of endless hours with crummy movies and soggy airplane food, of loud, smelly men who drank vodka for breakfast, of kids marching up and down the aisles while everybody else was trying to sleep. What she was wearing was the cleanest thing she had left, and she was still thousands of miles from home.

She let go of the handle, and the suitcase spun and wobbled, whacking the metal leg of the table with a hard clang. Let him lug the heavy thing onto the inspection table himself.

She stood with crossed arms and watched him spread her suitcase open on the table. She wasn’t lying about the laundry or that stupid dress, which currently looked like a crumpled paper bag. He picked through her dirty jeans and rumpled T-shirts, rifled through blouses and skirts. When he got to the wad of dirty underwear, he clapped the suitcase shut.

“See?” she said. “Just a bunch of dirty clothes.”

“And your other bag?”

The backpack dangling from her shoulder, an ugly Tumi knockoff. Her stomach dropped, but she made sure to hold his gaze.

“Nothing in here, either. No meat, no cheese, no forgot­ten fruit. I promise.”

She’d done that once, let an old apple sink to the bottom of her bag for a hyped-up beagle to sniff out, and she paid for it with a forty-five minute wait at a scorching Chilean airport. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.

“Madame, please. Do not make me ask you again.”

The little shit really said it. He really called her madame. This kid who was barely out of high school was making her feel old and decrepit, while in the same breath speaking to her like she was a child. His words were as infuriating as they were alarming. She hooked a thumb under the backpack’s strap, but she didn’t let it go.

And yet what choice did she have? She couldn’t run, not with those senior agents watching. Not with this pubescent kid and his long, grasshopper limbs. He’d catch her in a hot second.

She told herself there was nothing to find. That’s what the Turkish man had promised her with a wink and a smile, that nobody would ever know. He swore she’d cruise right on through customs. And she had, many, many times.

As she slid the backpack from her arm with another dra­matic sigh, she hoped like hell he wasn’t lying. “Please hurry.”

The agent took the bag from her fingers and emptied it out on the table. He took out the paperback and crinkled maga­zines, the half-eaten bag of nuts with the Japanese label, the wallet and the zippered pouch stuffed with well-used cosmet­ics that had never once touched her face. He lined the items up, one after the other, until the contents formed a long, neat row on the shiny metal surface. The backpack hung in his hand, deflated and empty.

She lifted a brow: See?

But then he did something she wasn’t expecting. He turned the backpack upside down, just…upended the thing in the air. Crumbs rained onto the table. A faded receipt fluttered to the ground.

And there it was, a dull but discernible scraping sound, a sudden weight tugging at the muscles in his arm, like some­thing inside the backpack shifted.

But nothing else fell out. There were no internal pockets.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” With a clanging heart, she pointed to the stuff on the table. “Can I put that back now? I really have to go.”

The agent stared at her through a long, weighted silence, like a held breath.

Hers.

He slapped the backpack to the table, and she cringed when he shoved a hand in deep, all the way up to his elbow. He felt around the sides and the bottom, sweeping his fingers around the cheap polyester lining. She saw when he made contact with the source of the noise by the way his face changed.

The muscles in her stomach tightened. “Excuse me, this is ridiculous. Give it back.”

The agent didn’t let go of the backpack. He reached in his other hand, and now there was another terrifying sound—of fabric, being ripped apart at the seams.

“Hey,” she said, lunging for the backpack.

He twisted, blocking her with his body.

A few breathless seconds later he pulled it out, a small, flat object that had been sewn into the backpack lining. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Almost like he’d been looking for it.

“What is this?” he said, holding it in the air between them.

“That’s a book.” It was the only thing she could think of to say, and it wasn’t just any book. It was a gold-illuminated manu­script by a revered fourteenth-century Persian poet, one of the earliest copies from the estate of an Islamic art collector who died in Germany last year. Like most of the items in his collec­tion, this one did not technically belong to him.

“I can see it’s a book. Where did you get it?”

Her face went hot, and she had to steady herself on the metal table—the same one he was settling the book gently on top of. He turned the gold-leafed paper with careful fin­gers, and her mind whirled. Should she plead jet lag? Cry or pretend to faint?

“I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

This, finally, was the truth. Today was the first time she’d seen the book with her own eyes.

The agent looked up from the Arabic symbols on the page, and she didn’t miss the gotcha gleam in his eyes. The way his shiny forehead had gone even shinier now, a million new pin­pricks of satisfied sweat. His gaze flitted over her shoulder, and she understood the gesture perfectly.

He was summoning backup.

She was wondering about French prison conditions.

His smile was like ice water on her skin. “Madame, I must insist you come with me.”

Excerpted from THE PARIS WIDOW by Kimberly Belle. Copyright © 2024 by Kimberly Belle. Published by Park Row Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle is an action packed suspenseful thriller novel. The story in The Paris Widow is one that is told mainly from one point of view but a few chapters alternate to another and is mainly told in the current timeline with also some flashing back to past events with the characters.

Four years ago Stella met and fell in love with her now husband, Adam. Adam is a rare antiquities dealer who travels looking for unique items to bring back to his business in the states. Stella and Adam decided that Stella would accompany him on his latest trip to Paris to also have a bit of a romantic getaway too.

One day while touring around Paris Adam forgets his sunglasses as he and Stella are heading back to their hotel. Stella heads on without him as he rushes back to retrieve the glasses but a huge explosion takes place and Stella can’t find Adam anywhere in the mayhem after the incident with victims surrounding her everywhere she turns. As the time passes without Adam being found Stella learns from a French policeman that Adam may have been involved in illegal activities making him a target of the bombing.

I’ve read quite a few novels from author Kimberly Belle in the past so I was expecting to pick this one up and find a story that I would enjoy. What I really didn’t expect was the high intensity action and expected more of a psychological thriller but I wasn’t disappointed in the least for this change. There was still the psychological side with some adrenaline pumping and it all wrapped up together nicely. I was quite glad I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out was he or was he not the man our main character knew and if she would become a target herself so hats off to the the surprises along the way and I will definitely return to this author again to see what she will have in story for readers next.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

About the author:

Kimberly Belle worked in marketing and nonprofit fundraising before turning to writing fiction. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Kimberly lived for over a decade in the Netherlands and currently divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam. She is the bestselling author of The Marriage Lie, Three Days Missing, Dear Wife, as well as The Last Breath, The Ones We Trust, Stranger in the Lake, My Darling Husband, and The Personal Assistant.

Author website  / GoodReads  / Twitter  / Instagram 

**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**

Queen of Ruin
Paula Dombrowiak
(Kingmaker Series, #2)
Publication date: June 11th 2024
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Our marriage is fake. But our feelings are dangerously real…

Marrying playboy billionaire Darren Walker was only ever supposed to be a business deal.

If only it were that easy.

I’m finding it far too comfortable living in Darren’s world, and I never predicted I’d find real meaning in the charity I’m involved with while I pretend to be the perfect wife.

The worst thing is, I’m scared Darren’s feelings for me are becoming real, too.

But a woman with a past like mine doesn’t belong in a world like his. Especially because I thought my heart belonged to someone else before we were married. Someone much too close to him.

When Darren decides to leave his playboy ways behind and follow in his father’s footsteps, I must face reality. A marriage like ours won’t last forever.

Not when my former life has the power to come back to haunt me. There’s no way Darren’s reputation will survive the scandal of being married to a former escort.

And if I let myself get any deeper, neither will my heart…

Queen of Ruin is the second book in The Kingmaker trilogy, a steamy marriage of convenience romance full of political scandal. The books must be read in order for the best reader experience. This book does end in a cliffhanger.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo

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EXCERPT:

“Revisionist history, Alistair,” I say, pointing my finger in the air before taking a seat on the step.

Alistair takes a seat next to me, stretching out his long legs over the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“We look back on history and memorialize a great man, but we forget about the flaws; we minimize them. His martyrdom makes it impossible to point them out. It’s true that Lincoln had one foot in the 20th century, but the other foot was still planted heavily in the 19th,” I lament, “and yet here we sit on the steps of this memorial that holds the daily pilgrimage of thousands, and we forget about those innate things that made him human.”

“We’re not really talking about Lincoln, are we?” Alistair asks astutely.

“I didn’t get along with my father,” I say as a matter of fact. “That’s never been in question; a constant since as far back as I can remember, and yet I always looked up to him.” I sigh, tilting my head towards Alistair who looks down at his clasped hands resting on his thighs. “But I always thought I knew him. Lately, I’m beginning to question that, to question a lot of things.”

“Anything in particular that you didn’t know?” he inquires, lifting a brow.

I pull out the envelope and hand it to Alistair.

“Fuck,” he says, “He was a client?”

“No, these were taken four years ago. She was a student, and my father was giving a speech at her university. She said nothing happened.”

“Do you believe her?” The photos are damning without context, but that’s the problem with photos – they’re up to the interpretation of the viewer.

“Bailey was there when they met and attests to the fact that he drove my father back to his hotel alone.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he questions.

“I wanted to believe her,” I admit, peering over at Alistair. “But it’s this part of me,” I gesture to the monument, “that needs the facts.”

“Who gave those to you?” Alistair’s question breaks through my thoughts. “Rausch?” He gives a dark laugh.

“I know he’s pissed that you circumvented the will, but now that it’s done, what does it matter to him?”

“Other than to gloat that he was right about marrying her?” I scoff. “I’m not worried about that.” I shake my head. “It’s who he got the photos from that I’m worried about.”

“If the press had gotten ahold of them…” Alistair doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t have to. This would be a huge scandal, whether it was an innocent interaction or not. Politics runs on perception, not to mention the media storm that would descend on Evangeline.

Even though I’m angry, I wouldn’t wish that upon her or the destruction of my parents ’reputation.

“Someone’s had these for four years, Alistair,” I point out, my voice sounding grave with the weight of it. “I have a feeling it was Langley.”

“But what would he have to gain from that?” Alistair asks. “Rumor around Washington was that he was going to be your father’s first pick as a running mate.”

Something my father taught me – Presidential elections aren’t won in the final hour. Presidents are made decades before they even run.

Feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket, I hold my hand up for Alistair to stop as I take a call. He rolls his eyes.

“Sir, I’ve been notified that the jet is ready for flight,” Bailey explains on the other end.

“What are you talking about?”

“The crew called me to find out if you would be joining.”

“Bailey, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I start to get agitated.

“I don’t think Evangeline knew that the flight crew would alert anyone.”

Evangeline?

Fuck!

“What’s going on?” Alistair asks, the creases of concern fanning his eyes.

“Evangeline’s leaving, and she’s taking my fucking plane.” My heart races and the sudden change makes me feel dizzy. Never did I think she would actually leave – especially when she knows what’s at stake.

“Leaving?” he asks, tilting his head in confusion. “Does she know she’s not getting any money unless she stays the whole year?”

“She knows damn well!” I yell, pacing along the steps. But if I thought Evangeline cared about the money, I’d have bought her a closet full of designer gowns, fur coats, or whatever the fuck she wanted.

She’d rather leave penniless then stay with me.

I press the phone to my ear and ask to be patched into the pilot.

“What’s the destination?” I ask before the pilot can utter a word.

“Sorry, Mr. Walker?”

“Where the fuck is my wife going?” I fume.

“Las Vegas, sir,” the captain confirms. “Do you want me to cancel the flight?”

 

Author Bio:

Paula Dombrowiak grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois but currently lives in Arizona. She is the author of Blood and Bone, her first adult romance novel which combines her love of music and imperfect relationships. Paula is a lifelong music junkie, whose wardrobe consists of band T-shirts and leggings which are perpetually covered in pet hair. She is a sucker for a redeemable villain, bad boys, and the tragically flawed. Music inspires her storytelling.

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The Echo on the Water
JA Huss
(Sacred Trinity, #2)
Publication date: July 25th 2024
Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense

Rosie Harlow is desperately seeking… well, she’s not sure. A romance would be nice but so would a dinner conversation with her pre-teen son. Too bad her boy is way too busy growing up to pay his mama any attention. Rosie never meant to swear off men and she’s not frigid—you don’t become a single mom at fifteen by being frigid—but this dry spell of hers has gotten out of hand and something must be done.

Enter Amon Parrish. Back in high school Amon was voted most likely to get caught with his pants down. He was a trouble maker. The quintessential bad boy. But twelve years away from home, traveling the world and working with Collin Creed doing super-secret (and somewhat illegal) things, changed all that. These days Amon Parrish is a brand-new, stand-up man.

And, to Rosie’s surprise, a romantic man as well. Because he has decided to court her. And this is not just any ordinary courting, either. It’s… well, a page ripped right out of a bodice ripper.

But everyone in Disciple, West Virginia has a secret in their past.

Even the cheerful, perpetually optimistic, and seemingly innocent, Rosie Harlow.

The Echo on the Water is a swooning plate of small-town fiction served up with a side of spice. It honors the themes of friends to lovers, found family, and is filled with bigger-than-life, morally-grey characters against a backdrop of the weird and wonderful.

INSIDE THE PAGES YOU WILL FIND:

Small Town Secrets

Charming Alpha Male

Friends to Lovers

Touch Her and Die

Morally Grey

Found Family

THIS BOOK WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE AT NOOK, KOBO, AND APPLE ON PRE-ORDER and will release two days early at those distributors. It will go into Kindle Unlimited on the stated release day of July 25, 2024.

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Author Bio:

JA Huss is a scientist, New York Times Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, and a cowgirl who rides English. Five of her books were optioned for TV/film, several of her audiobooks have been nominated for the Audie and SOVA Awards, and she was a RITA Finalist in 2019. She has been an indie author in both fiction and non-fiction for seventeen years and lives on a ranch in Colorado with her family, horses, dogs, goats, donkeys, and chickens.

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**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**

Return to You
Bella Rivers
(Emerald Creek Series, #3)
Publication date: June 12th 2024
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Two broken hearts. Ten years apart. Can one small town bring them back together?

Ten years in the military might have changed me, but it didn’t change the reasons I left Emerald Creek. Back for a short visit to my family after a decade away, I’ll do everything to keep my stay painless.

It will be short.

There will be no trips down memory lane.

There will be little to no reconnecting with locals.

One thing is certain: I won’t run into the girl who broke my heart. She’s long gone, married away.

Or so I thought.

All it takes is a pulled muscle, a massage tent at the town fair, and some not-so-subtle interventions from my friends for me to suddenly be alone with her—with me flat on my back on the massage table and her kneading me like I’m a stranger. Like what we had back then meant nothing to her.

She won’t even talk to me? Fine. I’m ready to bolt anyway.

But when the townies engineer another close encounter and I find out what she’s trying to hide from me, it’s Operation Get Her Back.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

It’s dark inside the tent, and my eyes strain to adjust. A sweet and relaxing scent fills the atmosphere. Oriental-type carpets cover the ground, giving the space a sense of being elsewhere. There’s a chair next to the entrance and a massage table in the center.

To the back, there’s the silhouette of a woman busying herself at a small console with lotions. My heart ba-booms at the shape of her shoulders, the tilt of her head. Jesus fucking Christ, she’s thousands of miles away. Not here. And even if she was here, what does it matter? Shake it off, man.

But her dark, curly hair stirs something deep inside me, and I hold my breath.

Am I hallucinating? It can’t be her, dammit.

It’s a trick of my imagination.

Shit.

It’s been so long.

But then she turns around, and my heart hammers in my chest.

The last time I saw this woman, she didn’t even have one word for me.

After everything we’d shared. After everything she’d told me.

She was walking down the aisle, holding some idiot’s arm, a stiff smile fooling only herself, her gaze glazing over me.

And she didn’t have one word for me.

Not one explanation.

Didn’t even bother trying to be my friend.

It was like I’d never existed.

I’d been on leave, decided four years without coming back to my hometown was enough. I had one week off, and god played a trick on me. It was the weekend she was marrying someone else.

She was supposed to be mine.

Always was.

She said so herself. So many times.

But after her wedding, didn’t she move to Texas? She’s not supposed to be here.

She does a double take. Her eyes round, her mouth gapes, her breath catches.

“Why are you here?” I ask right as she says, “What brings you here?”

I clear my throat. “I’m—I’m just visiting.” I should add something generic and half-assed polite, like It’s nice to see you, or How have you been, but the words stay stuck in my throat.

She’s supposed to be in fucking Texas.

She blinks several times, takes a small breath, shows me a list of services calligraphed on an elegant paper and framed in gold. “I mean, what type of massage would you like?”

Oh, really? Not even Hey, Ethan. Not even Wow, it’s been a while.

Granted, I’m not good at small talk either.

But really? “I dunno. My back is tight. It hurts down to my leg.”

I can’t believe we’re talking like we’re two fucking strangers.

I glance at the tent opening. I never should have come here. I should just go. It’s only gonna get weirder and weirder.

Her voice is melodious with a touch of coldness. Professional. “Strip down to your underwear and get under the sheet. Face down.” She turns around. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

Yeah, that’s not gonna work out. “I-I… maybe I should just go.”

She whips around. Her eyes are shiny, her bottom lip trembles until she pulls herself together and snaps her mouth in a fine line. Her voice catches when she says, “Yeah, maybe you should.”

What the hell? I don’t think so. I pull my T-shirt off my back. Her eyes narrow on my torso, slide down to my abs, and even in the dimness of the tent I can see her cheeks turning a deep red. She catches herself and turns her back to me just as I unbuckle my jeans.

I fold my clothes neatly and place them on a stool. My hands don’t shake. My heartbeat doesn’t rattle the tent. Nothing betrays the anger boiling inside me. Then I slide under the cool sheet.

Face down. I turn on my belly. I wish I could look at her. Make her squirm under my gaze. Ask her to her face what the hell happened to her.

To us.

“Ready,” I grunt.

 

Author Bio:

Bella Rivers writes steamy small town romances with a guaranteed happily ever after, and themes of found family and forgiveness. Expect hot scenes, fierce love, and strong language!

A hopeless romantic, Bella is living her own second chance romance in the rolling hills of Vermont. When she’s not telling the stories of the characters populating her dreams, you can find her baking, hiking, skiing, or just hanging around her small town to soak in the happiness.

Her newsletter is where Bella shares progress on her writing as well as sneak peeks into upcoming books, the occasional recipe from her characters, and books from other writers she thinks her readers might like. Subscribe from her website.

You can also connect with Bella on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook, all @bellariversauthor, or through the contact form on her website.

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Hotheaded Heart
Anna Alkire
(Waterfall Canyon, #1)
Publication date: June 25th 2024
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

A fun sexy story, with a dash of suspense, about not hiding from yourself and letting love in. This steamy, laugh-out-loud, enemies to lovers romance pits an annoying prankster, turned small town cop, against the woman forced to live with him.

I’m finally back in Waterfall Canyon, after leaving for a decade, when one-night changes everything. I sort of snapped and beat up my stalker with yard debris. That creep didn’t know who he was messing with. Except, I was the one put in the patrol car.

Sometimes the worst mistake of your life calls for desperate measures—like accepting help from one of the cops that arrested you.

Beau Martin is a police officer, a slob, and also a man that’s promised to never settle down. He’s my best friend’s older brother. We had a history—of him tormenting me ten years ago. Now he leaves me flirty notes, wants me to believe he’s always liked me, and thinks we should blow off some steam.

Torn between Beau and an unrequited work crush, pursued by my increasingly creepy stalker, and fighting to save my career from the fallout of my mistake, I stumble into organizing a bachelor auction for charity. Everything depends on the support of our small town—and how much I can sacrifice for my own heart.

From award winning author Anna Alkire, comes an unforgettable new series that mixes the spice of Meghan Quinn’s A Not So Meet Cute, and the unexpected fun of Lucy Score’s Things We Never Got Over. Anyone looking for banter, cuteness, and a bit of suspense will find it in this steamy contemporary romance with a romantic comedy spin. Grab your copy of Hotheaded Heart today!

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Author Bio:

Anna Alkire has been a long-term college student, a business owner, and a world traveler. Now “settled”—with a sigh and a cup of decaf—Anna lives in Washington state, where she splits her time between a husband who thinks the North Pole would be a great place to live, chasing her hurricane of a son, learning new handicrafts, and creating worlds full of the kind of romance

and fun she most wants to read. Find more about her (and grab a freebie or two) at her website, annaalkire.com.

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