Adriana Kraft

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“Only you can do this.” #WeWriWa #MFRWAuthor #RomanticSuspense

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Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, where writers share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of their writing on Sunday.  Be sure to visit other participants at http://www.wewriwa.com/  and read and comment on their #8sunday posts.

Spread the word: Twitter hashtag #8sunday

The Kentucky Derby is only five weeks away! From now at least through the Derby, we’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of the horse racing industry, the setting for our four-book romantic suspense series, Riders Up. Here’s a snippet from Book One, Cassie’s Hope:

EXCERPT

Set-Up: Cassie’s agreed to come home to her dad’s horse farm in Northern Illinois for six months to train horses for him after his stroke. He has a plan…

“Only you can do this—I want you to take Cassie’s Hope to Wyoming Downs. They have a stakes race comin’ up May seventeenth—that’s sayin’ a lot more than it is—but it’s a decent race.”

“Wyoming Downs,” Cassie squeaked, her eyes rounding. “Where the hell is that?”

“It happens to be in Wyoming.”

“You want me to haul a horse half way across the country to find her confidence? Why not Prairie Meadows or Canterbury?”

Cassie saw the cagey glint dancing in her father’s eyes. Every horse trainer, every horse player had to have an angle, and she was about to hear one more.

“Altitude—if we train the filly in the mountains, she’ll have a tremendous edge when we run her back here.”

 

Cassie’s Hope is the first romance my husband and I ever wrote together – more years ago than I’d care to admit. What we finally published bears very little resemblance to that early manuscript. We had so much to learn! Even so, we got encouraging feedback from a few editors we submitted to (in the days when everything was hard copy)!

WATCH FOR FREE DOWNLOAD!

Because we love to celebrate the Kentucky Derby, starting next weekend and through Derby weekend May 5, we’ll be offering free downloads of each book in the series. If you follow our Author Page at Amazon, you’ll get an alert when each free promo begins. Enjoy!

BLURB

High stakes, a fiery Irish redhead, her stunning racehorse, and a fiercely loyal rancher

What happens when a fiercely loyal widowed half-Ute cowboy meets a fiery redhead with an Irish temper to match? Cassidy O’Hanlon – Cassie, to her friends – has set aside her Chicago career for six months to train racehorses for her dad after his stroke.

Furious the interloper has shipped in a ringer from the Chicago circuit to his Wyoming turf, Rancher/trainer Clint Travers sets out to put her in her place. Sparks fly immediately, but after their rocky start, the two quickly forge a passionate relationship, and he follows her to Chicago.

When it becomes clear someone is drugging Cassie’s horse, Clint sets out to solve the mystery, but storms off in a cloud of wounded pride when suspicions turn to him.

Can love trump pride?

Book Information:

Cassie’s Hope
Riders Up, Book One
ISBN-13: 978-0-9894693-4-0
ASIN B00GDWTUGY
B&B Publishing:
November, 2013
Novel: 71,000 words
Cover Artist: Rebecca Poole
Three flames:  Explicit sex: M/F

REVIEW: Five Stars at Goodreads: “…I took their journey with them. I felt their pain, their sadness, their struggles, and most of all their love. And that is the mark of a truly good book.”  Faith

BUY LINK

E-Book, Paperback, and Kindle Unlimited:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GDWTUGY

Did you wear those for me? #MWTease #MFRWAuthor #LGBT

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Welcome to MidWeek Tease, where authors share tempting snippets to tide you over till the weekend. A huge shout out to author Angelica Dawson for hosting our blog hop every week!

Ready for an adventure in Vegas? We know Meg is ready – here’s how she’s getting things started in our most recent release, Vegas Gambler (Meghan’s Playhouse Book 5):

EXCERPT

Tia turned and began to gather her things.

Meg grinned. Her masseuse challenged her patience, and she’d always considered herself a very patient girl. She tried a different tack. “You look so sexy in that tank top and short skirt. Did you wear those for me?”

Tia shrugged. “I wear what is comfortable for my work.”

“At least that doesn’t include a bra. I’m pleased to know your nipples grow as taut as mine.” She reached out to graze one.

“Don’t,” Tia pleaded, pulling away before Meg could touch her.

“They look so dusky through the white material. They must be quite dark. Not as dark as your hair,” Meg said softly, running her fingers through Tia’s long coal-black hair.

This time Tia did not pull away. Her eyes glazed in that French Vietnamese habit of hers when she tried to withdraw inward.

Meg had seen that ploy several times before. “Why do you insist on resisting me so?” Meg murmured, lazily drawing her knuckles across Tia’s cheek. Meg’s heart raced. Tia had never accepted her advances like this before. Were they finally at a turning point? Had she finally worn Tia down? Penetrated that oriental reserve?

“You’re my client.” Tia choked out the words. Her dark eyes rounded with emotion. “I’ve said that before.”

“And I’ve said that I don’t have to be your client.” Meg cocked an eyebrow and let her hand fall from Tia’s cheek to gradually settle over a small breast. “What if I fired you?”

Tia peeked down at the offending hand and then back at Meg. She wet her lips.

“What if I kissed you?”

Tia’s lips parted tentatively.

WIN A FREE DOWNLOAD

Vegas Gambler is on tour through from now through April 5 – visit our tour stops to enter the Rafflecopter for a free download of any earlier book in the series!

TOUR STOPS

BLURB

Time off in Vegas with her latest squeeze? Nothing could be better—unless maybe Meg adds another woman, or perhaps another man as well. What happens in Vegas…

Fresh with success from a recent stint in a musical on the Las Vegas Strip, Meghan Keenan takes some time off to play with her current flame, Jack Hawthorne, professional poker player. She’s delighted to add her petite masseuse Tia Minh to the mix and even more thrilled when she learns Tia’s relationship with her boyfriend Tony Sanders is on the skids. It’s the perfect challenge!

Tia has different ideas—she thinks Tony would be perfect for Meg, and she conspires to throw them together any way she can.

Ever the gambler, Jack catches on to Tia’s game quickly and keeps the ruse going behind Meg’s back. Who knew his heart was up for grabs?

BUY LINKS

Amazon     Kobo     Extasy Books

Vegas Gambler by Adriana Kraft
Meghan’s Playhouse Book 5
Release Date: February 23, 2018
Extasy Books
Isbn 978-1-4874-1333-0
Word count: 26,000
Genre: Erotic Romance, ménage, LGBT
Heat Level: Five flames

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

Be sure to check out the rest of the Midweek teases from these marvelous authors:

You were breached… #wewriwa #Sunday8 #MFRWAuthor

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Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, where writers share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of their writing on Sunday.  Be sure to visit other participants at http://www.wewriwa.com/  and read and comment on their #8sunday posts.

Spread the word: Twitter hashtag #8sunday

Enjoy our next snippet from The Heist:

EXCERPT

“It must’ve been quite a shock discovering the museum’s security was breached,” Ted said.

Kara scowled at him as she popped the trunk of her sporty car open and watched him plop his stuff in. “I guess that’s technical jargon for breaking and entering.”

He slid into the passenger seat and admired how Kara’s dress worked halfway up her thigh. She must’ve seen him staring, because she yanked it down without commenting. He waited until she’d paid the parking fee and they were away from the airport before adding, “Didn’t sound like the police were treating what happened yesterday as breaking and entering.”

Never taking her focus off the road, Kara shook her head and gripped the steering wheel as if it was in danger of falling off.

He smiled – was it only the break-in that had her uptight? “We can call it a break-in, if you like, but you were breached—that’s what led to someone strolling uninvited through your entrance.”

.

TheHeist_MEDThe Heist
B&B Publishing
ASIN: B00LNE7366
Romantic Suspense
81,000 words
Heat rating: Three Flames
(Warnings: explicit sex, m/f; light bdsm; sex toys)

BLURB

A Heist? A Murder?
It’s villain’s choice.

A special-order art theft? Tedious, but seamless – until small town museum director Kara Daniels calls in the experts. Furious her favorite trio of priceless impressionist paintings has been stolen from its traveling exhibit on her watch, Kara is determined to save not only the paintings, but her future in the art world. She’ll stop at nothing to entrap the thief.

Ted Springs knows the underbelly of the criminal world a little closer than he might like—but he’s turned it to good advantage, first as a police officer, and now as detective for the Upper Midwest Arts Council. His job? To guarantee the security of the valuable paintings in the Council’s traveling exhibits.

Heat sizzles when Ted and Kara collide—can they work together, before it’s too late?

REVIEWS

Five stars at Goodreads: “The sex is hot and I loved the phone sex scenes. Never did I expect the ending. It was brilliant. The Heist is a winner!” Sheila G.

Five stars at Amazon: “Very hot…engaging, entertaining, funny and serious, well written and extremely enjoyable to read.” Donna H. “A true ‘romance novel’! Adriana Kraft at her best.” Mama

BUY LINKS

E-Book   Amazon

Print    Amazon

FREE at KindleUnlimited  and  AmazonPrime

o ~ o ~ o

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Weekend Writing Warrior posts–you’ll be glad you did!

http://www.wewriwa.com/

A thirty-plus heroine and her real-life connections #MFRWAuthor

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Caitlin Shanahan is a heroine in Seducing Cat (Meghan’s Playhouse Book One). She’s thirty-four. Our plot hinges on the fact that she’s finally given up on finding a man and has decided to purchase the house of her dreams—alone.

When this book was first released, more than one reader commented that thirty-four was way too young for any woman who wanted a partner to conclude it’s too late. Maybe that’s true – certainly the age of first marriage has risen in our culture, and lots of women choose to pursue careers into their mid-thirties or beyond before committing to a romantic partner.

Choosing to wait, though, is different from giving up hope, and this is where Cat finds herself. Is that realistic? Where does it come from? The book is a novella, so we didn’t fill much space with her backstory, other than to convey that her efforts to form relationships have been unsuccessful and painful. But one of us knows those experiences at a personal level – I was in my early thirties when my first husband announced he wanted a divorce.

Though I probably never ceased hoping for love at some level, I spent the next couple years believing it would never happen for me. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to avoid pain – I had simply come to the understanding that romantic love wasn’t in my future. I had started to explore buying a condo for myself when I met Mr. Kraft at the university where we were both teaching.

For now, I’ll spare you the details of the one-year-minus-one-day that transpired between our first date and our wedding, though snippets have turned up here and there in our stories. Finding love again later in life is a trope we love to re-visit in our fiction, and so far we haven’t set an upper age limit on who we might write. We have main characters in their sixties, and even secondary characters as old as their early seventies. Love – and hot sex, since we write erotic romance – are possible as long as we live and breathe. And huzzah for that!

BLURB

What could college English Professor Caitlin Shanahan ever have in common with the brash carpenter Kurt Davis?  The sexy sprite Meghan Keenan, that’s what. 

Level headed English Professor Caitlin Shanahan has finally earned tenure and purchased the century-old two-story house of her dreams in the college town of Burntside, Wisconsin—at thirty-four, she’d better face facts: her future is teaching college and writing plays, not falling in love.  So why is she so drawn to foxy little hometown actress Meghan Keenan, who’s rented her upstairs apartment, or worse, to the girl’s gorgeous hunk of a lover Kurt Davis, a carpenter who’s never even been to college?

Twenty-year-old Meg has a plan. First she’ll seduce the reluctant professor, then she’ll share her sexual delights with both Cat and her brawny carpenter, and when she’s successfully brought them together, she can make her escape and explore what’s beyond the only town she’s ever lived in.

Kurt can’t stand the up-tight professor who’s hired him to build a gazebo and refurbish her old house—the house he wanted for himself. Even if Meg’s scheme succeeds, he knows Caitlin would never look at him twice.  No need to go there in his fantasies…

A pall of suspicion…#WeWriWa #RomanticSuspense #MFRWAuthor

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Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, where writers share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of their writing on Sunday.  Be sure to visit other participants at http://www.wewriwa.com/  and read and comment on their #8sunday posts.

Spread the word: Twitter hashtag #8sunday

Enjoy our next snipped from The Heist:

EXCERPT

Set Up: Kara and her curator, Sasha, arrived to open the museum and found the door already unlocked and standing wide open, but nothing missing…

Kara closed her eyes. The police had arrived around noon. She’d made her call to the Upper Midwest Arts Council just before lunch. Alice Erikson had been supportive of the museum’s plight, but she’d been equally assertive about sending out a security consultant to help them prevent any further incursions. After all, as she’d pointed out, the Council had investments to protect.

The quick move to provide assistance really didn’t surprise Kara. She would’ve done the same if their roles had been reversed. Still, she wasn’t thrilled with the turn of events. The entire day had cast a pall of suspicion over her and her staff. Even the police had discounted the entire unforced entry as a likely prank by an insider.

 

TheHeist_MEDThe Heist
B&B Publishing
ASIN: B00LNE7366
Romantic Suspense
81,000 words
Heat rating: Three Flames
(Warnings: explicit sex, m/f; light bdsm; sex toys)

BLURB

A Heist? A Murder?
It’s villain’s choice.

A special-order art theft? Tedious, but seamless – until small town museum director Kara Daniels calls in the experts. Furious her favorite trio of priceless impressionist paintings has been stolen from its traveling exhibit on her watch, Kara is determined to save not only the paintings, but her future in the art world. She’ll stop at nothing to entrap the thief.

Ted Springs knows the underbelly of the criminal world a little closer than he might like—but he’s turned it to good advantage, first as a police officer, and now as detective for the Upper Midwest Arts Council. His job? To guarantee the security of the valuable paintings in the Council’s traveling exhibits.

Heat sizzles when Ted and Kara collide—can they work together, before it’s too late?

REVIEWS

Five stars at Goodreads: “The sex is hot and I loved the phone sex scenes. Never did I expect the ending. It was brilliant. The Heist is a winner!” Sheila G.

Five stars at Amazon: “Very hot…engaging, entertaining, funny and serious, well written and extremely enjoyable to read.” Donna H. “A true ‘romance novel’! Adriana Kraft at her best.” Mama

BUY LINKS

E-Book   Amazon

Print    Amazon

FREE at KindleUnlimited  and  AmazonPrime

 

o ~ o ~ o

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Weekend Writing Warrior posts–you’ll be glad you did!

http://www.wewriwa.com/

 

Time for a confession #MFRWAuthor #BabyBoomers

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It’s confession time.

An author friend posted the question why do you write? on one of our author loops. As I pondered how to answer, I realized it’s so embedded in our own personal story that I couldn’t give a short answer.

Our readers know we are baby boomers. If they’re anywhere close to our age, they also know that midlife can bring a host of challenges in the bedroom. For us, that was complicated by health issues: A heart attack (in his forties!) for him, abdominal repair issues for me. Add onto that the fact I have three stepchildren. From the moment we married until our own son turned 20, I always had at least one teenager in the house. Time for sex? Interest in it? Not so much, for longer than I’d like to confess.

But neither of us was willing to give up. Our parents, it turns out, lived very long lives. Who, at midlife, wants to look forward to three or four more decades with no sex? We started looking for resources and found some great ones. We started watching videos – yes, Those Kinds of videos, in the bedroom, as a prelude to our own activities.

After a while we started saying things like “I’d like that story better if…” and “what would really turn me on is if she…”  As you might guess, we started setting down stories that better met our needs. Gradually we didn’t use the videos so much – we read out loud from our own material.

So why do we write? We want to save the world from boring sex.

Feel free to take a peek at our Swinging Lifestyle stories and our Polyamory stories and let us know if we’re succeeding!

Like and Follow our Author Page at SwingTowns!

If you're curious about polyamory and the swing lifestyle, Swing Towns is a great place to check it all out!

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