Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

Suspense

Maybe I was the Fool #MWTease #MFRWAuthor

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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!

The Painter is a Lady is now available in paperback!

Amazon

Available in EBook from the following retailers:

Amazon   Barnes & Noble   iTunes

  Kobo   Smashwords    Extasy

Secrets. Trust. Courage.

Who will knuckle under first—

The war hero?

The spirited single mom?

Or the former high school bully who still hates them both?

 

Word count: 74,600

Genre:
Romantic Suspense

Heat Level:
Three flames

 

BLURB

When war hero Michael Jarvis returns to his hometown on the shores of Lake Superior, he doesn’t plan to stay—he’s undercover, investigating a possible sex trafficking ring operating on the Great Lakes. But he does want to sample the pesky girl next door he always turned down—and it wouldn’t hurt if she’d clear up a few mysteries of her own along the way.

Successfully established as an interior house painter, Brenda Tower finally has her act together as a single mom—but it hangs by a thread, a secret she’ll guard with her life. The return of her youthful crush Michael Jarvis threatens to unravel everything.

Jealousy has inflamed Brett Hill’s hatred of Michael and Brenda for as long as he can remember. Revenge will be so sweet—and it will fit in perfectly with his high stakes game.

When the secrets break open, can Michael and Brenda find the courage to trust each other, or will revenge and betrayal triumph?

EXCERPT

Hours later, Michael dried the china, crystal and silverware Brenda had brought out for his dad’s birthday party that didn’t go in the dishwasher. Tommy had gone to his room as soon as the others had left. No one seemed surprised that Michael had lingered to help with the dishes. More than satisfied with the turn of events, he hummed a show tune while Brenda fidgeted with the last of the silverware.

Remaining focused on scrubbing a stubborn piece of icing from a fork, Brenda muttered, “You’re making me nervous.”

“What?” He scowled at her profile. “Am I standing too close? Am I humming too loudly?”

Heaving an exasperated sigh, Brenda dropped the fork in the dishwater and turned to face him. “All of the above and much more. You didn’t have to stay behind and help with the dishes. I can do this without you. I have for years.”

“I’m sure you can. But that’s not what’s gnawing at you, is it? I thought you were coming around.” He stared at her through half closed eyelids.

She blanched.

“You’re the one who started the knee play beneath the dining table.”

“I know.” She shrugged, looking lost. “That was my impish clown, I guess. I can’t explain it, Michael. I’m sorry. I dreamed about you for hours on end when I was a kid. I threw myself at you. But you didn’t want me then. I was a fool.”

“Maybe I was the fool,” he replied softly, rubbing the back of his hand across her shoulder.

 ~ o ~             ~ o ~

Lots of fabulous authors have teases waiting just for you – click the links below to travel:

“Too Hot to Handle” and other titles…#MFRWAuthor

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Welcome to Week 8 of the MFRW 52-Week Blog Challenge! This week’s topic is How I Choose a Blog Title.

Sometimes we think book titles choose us. Did you ever try to pick something up off a hot stove and go Wow—that’s too hot to handle? Yeah. That’s the level of heat we hope you think of when you see our upcoming title this July. When Extasy Books proposed their Summer Shorts series, we knew we wanted to write about the swinging mid-life couple who star in our Swinging Games Series. The incident at the stove happened the evening after I saw the announcement – well, and maybe I said some other words, too, but they don’t belong in our title. We’ve had a lot of fun writing Too Hot to Handle. Summers can be brutally hot and humid where our star couple live in Southern Indiana, so we sent them to the Wisconsin north woods to cool off at a nudist resort. Wonder if they’ll meet another couple too hot to handle…

Any little thing in our life can inspire a title or a story. We were driving through Ashland, Wisconsin, headed back home to Minnesota late one spring when we had to stop for a construction van that was double parked unloading supplies. When we took a closer look at the figure in coveralls carrying the materials, we discovered it was a woman. Our son is a general contractor, and at the time he had a female interior painter he relied on for detail work, so our title was easy, and the plot soon followed. The book will be released at Extasy Books March 17.

“Riders Up!” is the call for jockeys to mount and move from the paddock out to the racetrack for the post parade ahead of each horse race. We thought that would work perfectly for our four-book romantic suspense series set in the horse racing industry. The title for Book One was obvious as soon as we had names for our heroine and her horse: “Cassie,” and “Cassie’s Hope.” Once that was in place, we wanted all four books to have a two-word title. We love how our cover artist, Rebecca Poole, created symmetry across the series with the title words.

For this last book, the title definitely created the story. Young virgin seeks out her trusted childhood buddy for some sex tutoring so she can please her fiancé on that special night. Cherry Tune-Up says it all, don’t you think? Wonder who she’ll choose for the next tune-up…

When you’re browsing for books, what grabs you first and makes you look again? It can be a close race between the cover and the title – but for me, the title wins out. Titles are almost certain to have come from the authors, while covers are more likely to have a host of other contributors and decision makers behind them.

Click on the links below to hear about other authors and their titles!

Slow Dancing #MySexySaturday

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Welcome to another round of My Sexy Saturday, where authors offer seven words, sentences, or paragraphs from their work for your entertainment. Be sure to click on the graphic at the bottom of the page and visit the other participants.

This week’s theme is My Sexy New Year, celebrating new beginnings. Having a relationship with a man – any man – is definitely a new beginning for Traci Steele. She has yet to learn that the transition from victim to survivor is a choice within her power to make. We think maybe Scott McCord, with his gentle patient approach, might just be the key to help her make this discovery. Even so, it’s a long journey, with many twists and turns.

EXCERPT

Detour-Ahead-Ebook-web“Do you have any CDs for that CD player over there?” Scott asked.

“Some.”

“Anything slow we could dance to?”

Traci went into the bedroom and rummaged through her CD case. Her fingers felt like five thumbs. Finding what she wanted, she put it in the player, and soft music filled the room.

“Much better,” Scott said, rising from the couch and extending his hands to her.

She kicked off her flats and stepped into his arms. Was she in a trance? He held her close; her breasts nestled against his chest. It felt good. It felt right. Their feet hardly moved. They swayed to the music. There was no hurry.

She wanted to taste and savor the moment. The press of her body against his, his aftershave enticing her senses, his hand resting on her lower backside. Intimate and right. She didn’t want him to let go. Ever.

BLURB

Threatened race horses, city slicker attorney, sexy California wrangler—what can possibly go wrong?

Hot-shot Chicago prosecuting attorney Traci Steele works tirelessly keeping rapists off the street to prevent other women from suffering the hell she’s endured, so she resists her friends’ insistence that she take a two month R&R in their California Live Oak condo—until they persuade her to help their rancher friend as a private investigator.

Though he runs the stables at Live Oak, well-muscled mustached wrangler Scott McCord much prefers working with the race horses he trains at his ranch, and he can’t believe his old friends have sent a greenhorn female to help him with horse troubles.

The improbable dance between this mismatched pair barely fits in around the escalating suspense of whoever’s after Scott’s horses. Traci is as tenacious in her sleuthing as she is terrified about her inability to ever love a man. Can Scott succeed in gentling her – like he does his horses – before she flees in panic?

REVIEWS

Night Owl Reviews Top Pick This is a story about letting go of your past so you can move on to your future. It is a story about letting go of being the victim and becoming a survivor…Add into this touching story of recovery a mystery that will keep you guessing to the very end, and you’ve got a story you won’t be able to put down. Angi

You Gotta Read Reviews Rich in romance and suspense, this book had me mesmerized from the first page. I was definitely drawn toward the main character, Traci, and all of the emotional barriers that she faced… a sensational job of combining just the right amount of suspense with a sauciness that leaves you longing for more. Run, don’t walk to your nearest book store for this sensational book. Val

BUY LINK

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RPT6YJA/

THE SERIES

Series-Timeline

All four books in our Riders Up romantic suspense series are now available at Amazon. The books share some characters, but each can also be read as a standalone novel.

Cassie’s Hope (Book One) High stakes, a fiery Irish redhead, her stunning racehorse, and a fiercely loyal rancher

Heat Wave (Book Two) Hang onto the land – but at what cost? Feisty widow hires ace racehorse trainer to salvage her family’s heritage. Can they survive escalating threats to life and limb?

Willow Smoke (Book Three) When the chips are down, there’s nobody there.

Detour Ahead (Book Four) Threatened race horses, city slicker attorney, sexy California wrangler—what can possibly go wrong?

My Sexy Saturday Participants

Click on the links to travel to the other marvelous authors in this hop: