Cover Reveal: Found in You by Laurelin Paige

It's finally here! My cover reveal for Found in You, the sequel to Fixed on You. Are you ready for this? And make sure you stay til the end because I have an awesome giveaway.

First, here's the book description:


Alayna Withers has only had one kind of relationship: the kind that makes her obsessive and stalker-crazy. Now that Hudson Pierce has let her into his heart, she’s determined to break down the remaining walls between them so they can build a foundation that’s based on more than just amazing sex. Except Hudson’s not the only one with secrets.

With their pasts pulling them into a web of unfounded mistrust, Alayna turns to the one person who knows Hudson the best—Celia, the woman he almost married. Hoping for insight from someone who understands all sides of the story, Alayna forms a bond with Celia that goes too far—revealing things about Hudson that could end their love for good.

This is the first relationship where Alayna hasn’t spiraled out of control. And she might lose Hudson anyway…

And now, the cover:

I hope you like it. :)

If you haven't had a chance to read Chapter One of Found in You, it's available for FREE for a short time on Amazon.

Plus, in celebration, I have a giveaway and a sale! Fixed on You is only available for $.99 for one day so get it now if you haven't yet.

 

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Meet the Naturals: Laurelin Paige

Part Four of our story is written by Laurelin Paige, author of Fixed on You. If you haven't read Part One, Part Two  and Part Three please read them first. Don't forget to stick around to the end for a chance to win awesome prizes.

The Boy Next Door (Pt.4)

My skin erupted in goose bumps, my heart beating so loud I was sure Ben could hear it. Despite my

decision to take it slow, I said the words that I knew were an invitation to do just the opposite. “Well, looks like now’s your chance to find out.”

Not even half a second passed before he crushed his mouth against mine. His skin was surprisingly soft, but his pressure firm, as he teased my lips apart. When he had an opening, his tongue slid along mine, tentatively at first, then stronger, his long strokes making me dizzy and breathless. He tasted good, like spearmint with a hint of keg beer. The sneaky devil must have popped a breath mint right before he called out to me. Part of me wanted to say, “Confident, much?” but on the other hand, his boldness was HOT.

He closed in against me as our kiss accelerated to a frenzied pace, his body mashing against my curves in ways that made my inner thighs tingle. And, holy shit, was he built. His body had always looked strong, but pressed up against me, the hard planes of his chest and abs became evident, and yowzers, he was cut!

Speaking of hard…his erection thickened as our make-out session progressed. It was so wonderful, felt so wonderful, I felt like I was falling, falling, falling…

And then I was falling. Literally. When Ben had pushed into me, I’d leaned back expecting the brick wall would catch me, but I must have turned while we were kissing and instead of brick, I met the jagged edge of the trellis. The wood splintered with a crack, jabbing into my rib. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground tangled up in rhododendron bushes and broken pieces of wood. So much for the trellis being strong.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ben gave me his hand, helping me out of my mess when I heard it—the sound of the window screeching the rest of the way open above us.

“What’s going on down there?” Derek peered over the pane. “Natalie?”

“Um, hi.” Well, this was awkward.

“Give me a minute and I’ll be down there.”

“No, it’s fine, Derek. You don’t need to…” But he’d already left the window. Dammit. Just what I needed—a potential confrontation with Derek and oh-so-yummy-man-of-my-every-dream Ben Simons.

“Look, Ben.” I had to say something before Derek arrived, explain in some way. “Until this morning, I was sort of, kinda seeing Derek.”

“Sort of, kinda?”

“We were messing around. Secretly. Stupidly.”

“But you’re not now?”

“I’m definitely not now.” I shouldn’t have been with that loser in the first place. “Is that…” slutty, I thought, but said, “bad?”

Ben shrugged. “I guess if you hadn’t been here breaking up with him, I never would have bumped into you. And that would have been quite unfortunate.” He leaned in and I waited expectantly for his kiss.

“What the hell?”

Derek. Somehow his impending arrival had slipped my mind.

“Derek. Long time no see.” Ben nodded to my ex-whatever.

With my messed up hair and Ben’s noticeable hard-on, it was obvious even to dim-witted Derek what exactly had been going on beneath his window. “Ben,” he said tersely. “I didn’t realize you were back in town. Your endless stream of girls isn’t enough, you had to go and steal mine?”

The image of Ben and an endless stream of girls left an uncomfortable knot in my gut, but I filed it away to deal with later and focused on what else Derek had said. “Are you fucking kidding me? You broke up with me. This morning. Did you forget?”

“Wait, he broke up with you?” I hoped the chill in Ben’s tone was my imagination.

“Yes.” I hated admitting it. “No. I mean, it was over regardless of who officially said the words.”

“I didn’t realize you’d immediately run and hump the next thing you ran into.”

“Hey, that is no way to talk to a lady.”

“Lady? Natalie ain’t a lady. She’s tits and mouth—an incredible mouth—but that’s about all—”

A fist interrupted Derek’s speech—Ben’s fist. He socked the asshole right in the jaw.

An entire new wave of tingles spread through my body. I’d never had a guy fight for me before.

“What the fuck was that for?” Derek rubbed at his face. I was a little disappointed to see there was no blood.

“I don’t appreciate you talking that way about my date. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be heading back to our party now.” Ben held his hand out to me.

My date. I grinned from ear to ear. But I couldn’t leave without letting on about what I’d overheard. “Marni, Derek? Really?”

Derek’s jaw dropped. Mission accomplished. I laced my fingers in Ben’s and let him lead me toward

his house.

“Hey,” I called over my shoulder to a stunned Derek. “You forgot to water the rhododendrons.”

Laurelin Paige is a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there’s kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn’t seem to complain, however. When she isn’t reading or writing sexy stories, she’s probably singing, watching Mad Men and the Walking Dead, or dreaming of Adam Levine. She is represented by Bob Diforio of D4EO Literary Agency.

Her debut NA/contemporary adult crossover FIXED ON YOU is available now.

Here's your chance to enter two giveaways. Here's PART 5 of our story and a chance to win more prizes.

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If you love someone, write a review

Last month I posted on another blog about a very important topic. Today, I'd like to revive that post here.

I’d like to chat a bit about love. Love of a book, to be precise. We all can name at least one book we absolutely love, right? We’re all book lovers here, so I imagine that for most of you, favorite isn’t a title it’s a category. I have so many favorite books I couldn’t begin to name them all. I’m betting most of you are the same.

So let me ask, when you love a book so much that you can’t stop thinking about it and you have book hangover for days, what do you do about it? Do you tell everyone you know? Again, I bet a lot of you do. Some of you might even tweet the author or write him an email or like her Facebook page. But how many of you write a review? I’m not just talking about clicking 5 stars on Amazon or Goodreads. I mean write a review with words and descriptions about exactly what you liked about the book.

I’m guessing most of you do not.

Until I started writing seriously, I never wrote reviews. It never occurred to me because who would even care about what I had to say?

Here’s the thing I didn’t know until recently when my writer friends started getting books published. I’m going to bold this because it’s the whole point of my post. Writing a review is the number one best way to tell an author you loved their book.

It’s not because writers are dying for validation and happy words written about them (though we do love that too). It’s because sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Goodreads place books with more reviews more prominently on their website. In other words, a book with lots of reviews will be seen more (and probably purchased more) than a book with no reviews. For writers with a huge following, your little review might not make a bit of difference. But for newbies such as myself and even your average run of the mill authors who have been around awhile, your review can absolutely change how successful a book is. Even a three sentence review counts.

Maybe it seems crappy and greedy to talk about helping an author get sales, but the truth is, most authors do not make enough money to make a living at it. It’s a second job. For me, it’s a third job. For people like me, every sale counts. And the more reviews writers like me get, the more likely I’ll get seen. The more likely I’ll get a sale and I’ll get to keep writing for people like you.

For those of you who write reviews on a regular basis, THANK YOU! Thank you to all you bloggers who write reviews all the time. Thank you for making it possible for writers to continue giving you the words you love.

And for those of you who’ve never written a review, we authors love you too. For buying our books and telling your friends. But we’d also like to ask, if you really loved a book, please consider taking a moment to tell us by writing a review.

Under the Cover: Fixed on You by Laurelin Paige

Since Fixed on You releases in just two days, I'm giving you a sneak peek Under the Cover.

First, here's the cover.

And now an excerpt. I'm warning you upfront--it's pretty steamy. :)

I huffed at a strand of hair that had fallen over my face and entered the dressing room, not at all eager to encounter Stacy and her dagger eyes alone. While I waited for her, I reached behind my back to see if I could unlace the corset myself, snagging my fingernail on one of the threads. I was examining the nail, trying to smooth out the rough edge when I felt Stacy’s hands undoing the laces. She had so much hatred for me she hadn’t even offered a greeting.

I glanced up from my nail at her in the mirror. But it wasn’t Stacy undoing my corset—it was Hudson.

He met my eyes, pinning my reflection with a greedy stare. Slowly, without breaking his gaze, he continued loosening the laces of my bodice.

I didn’t stop him. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t stop him.

When he’d finished loosening my gown, his hands traveled to the spaghetti straps at my shoulders. I watched as he moved the straps over the curve of my bones and down my arms. The dress fell to the floor, leaving me in nothing but black strappy heels and my red thong.

Hudson’s eyes widened and my sex clenched.

I wanted him. Whatever I told myself about healthy and unhealthy relationships, it didn’t matter. I was already in this with him. If there was a point of attachment that would lead me to obsession, I’d already passed it. And admitting that made me sorry I’d ever tried to be anything different with him.

Hudson’s hands ran around my waist, meeting above my navel. Then while one hand traveled up to fondle my breast, the other moved under the band of my thong. I stepped my legs apart, an invitation for him to find my swollen bud. His lip twitched the slightest bit as he slid his fingers through my slick desire, parting the folds of my sex, and releasing the musky aroma of my lust. In that moment he knew how much I longed for him, embarrassingly wet as I was.

He continued to plump my breast that was suddenly heavy and tender as he flicked his thumb across my raised nipple. The attention he gave to my bosom magnified the action below, his pad returning to tease my clit, and I let out a breathy moan. He stretched his arm over my torso, supporting me as I weakened from pleasure and I closed my eyes to relish in the nearness of climax. 

You can purchase Fixed on You by Laurelin Paige at Amazon and Barnes and Noble starting 6/24.

It's time to introduce you to the NAtural men

  

 

 

 

Another Blog Post Defining New Adult Plus a Giveaway

As the title of this post implies, there have been quite a few bloggers who have discussed and defined the New Adult category in recent months. Even our own Tamara Mataya spoke briefly about it in this blog's introductory post.

But it hasn't been talked about by me yet, and certainly not in reference to my book, Fixed on You (out June 24th, shameless plug), so now you get another epistle.

Let me begin by posting a few definitions from some well-known sources.

“The Transition from child to adult doesn’t happen overnight--just ask as anyone who is or has been (or is a parent to) a teenager. But the transition from teen to adult doesn’t happen overnight either. There’s a period of time where adulthood feels like a new pair of shoes. The expectations of independence and self-sufficiency are still new, still being broken in. New Adults are the people who have just begun to walk in those shoes; New Adult fiction is about their blisters and aches.” -from Kristan Hoffman, winner of St. Martin's Press New Adult Contest

 "Protagonists generally fall between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, though exceptions may apply. NA characters are often portrayed experiencing: college, living away from home for the first time, military deployment, apprenticeships, a first steady job, a first serious relationship, etc." -NA Alley: What is New Adult

"New Adult (NA) fiction is a developing genre of fiction with protagonists in the 18-25 age bracket. The term was first coined by St. Martin's Press in 2009 when they held a special call for “…fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an ‘older YA’ or ‘new adult’.” New Adult fiction tends to focus on issues such as leaving home, developing sexuality, and negotiating education and career choices." -Wikipedia

Here's the thing. I started writing Fixed on You last fall with no thought to New Adult or regular Adult or any of that. I simply had these characters that were floating around in my head and I wanted to put them down on paper. When I was finished, one of my critique partners said, "Oh, you wrote a New Adult book!" And another of my critique partners said, "This is not New Adult. No way."

Let's take a look and see what the difference in opinion may be. My main character, Alayna Withers begins the book on the eve of her MBA graduation. She's twenty-six years old. She's swamped with student loans. She's beginning her career. She has never had a successful relationship with a man. She's cut off from her family and hence alone for the first time.

So far, we have a New Adult book, right? Fresh out of school, dealing with new adult issues. Alayna's possibly a little two old for the age range, but total new adult.

Except the main man in the book is not a new adult at all. He's Hudson Pierce, a twenty-nine year old business genius in the likes of Christian Gray, Gideon Cross, and Ethan Blackstone. And the issues that Alayna and Hudson deal with are not related to any of the new adult elements in Alayna's life.

Where does that leave me classifying this book? New Adult or Adult? I've seen Naked by Raine Miller and Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James and Bared to You by Sylvia Day all classified as New Adult in one place or another. Take a look at the greatest New Adult Books lists on Goodreads and you'll find them all there.If you are one of those people who considers these books New Adult, then I think you'll put Fixed on You there too.

Truthfully, I wouldn't care about this except that so many things you have to fill out as an author require you to label your book. You have to put keywords in Amazon, you have to describe your book on Goodreads and to your blog tour host. So I have to call my book something!

Therefore I'm calling it New Adult Crossover/Adult Romance. Because that's as good as I can get. It has elements of New Adult, but it has an Adult theme. How's that for compromise?

And since you sat through all that which was basically me rationalizing anything I ever say about what category Fixed on You fits in, here's a giveaway! It's actually a 2 weeks until release giveaway, but right now I'm so excited about the impending birth of my book that I'll celebrate anything. Enter and pass it on!


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Cover Reveal: Fixed on You by Laurelin Paige and Giveaway

It's here, it's here! The day of our very own Laurelin Paige's cover reveal for FIXED ON YOU, out July 31st. As always, we're going to tempt you with the synopsis first. Make sure you stick around until the bottom because she's also got a great giveaway.

Stalking and restraining orders are a thing of Alayna Pierce’s past. With her MBA newly in hand, she has her future figured out – move up at the nightclub she works at and marry the manager, David. He’s perfect for her because, although he’s attractive, he doesn’t get her all turned inside out and upside down like some other men have. It’s a safe plan, one that assures she’ll remain in control of her obsessive love disorder.  

But what Alayna didn’t figure on is Hudson Pierce, the new owner of the nightclub. He’s smart, rich, and gorgeous – the kind of guy Alayna knows to stay away from if she wants to keep her past tendencies in check. Except, Hudson’s fixed his sights on her. He wants her in his bed and makes no secret of his plans to seduce her. Avoiding him becomes impossible after he offers a business proposition Alayna can’t turn down and she’s drawn further into his universe, unable to resist his gravitational pull. Soon Alayna’s charmed by Hudson in every way possible and the control over her old behaviors slip. When she learns Hudson has a dark history of his own, she realizes too late that she’s fallen for the worst man she could possibly get involved with. Or maybe their less than ideal pasts give them an opportunity to heal each other and finally find the love their lives have been missing.   

Title: Fixed on You (Fixed, #1)

Author: Laurelin Paige

Genre: Contemporary

Age Group: Adult/NA Crossover

Expected release date: July 31, 2013

Cover reveal organized by: AToMR Tours

  

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If you want to help out with the blog tour for this book you can sign up here. 

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Putting it Out There

Later this week my cover is being revealed for my debut novel, FIXED ON YOU.

I'm a mess.

Usually I'm pretty laid back about everything, I can handle stress and pressure like nobody's business. It's just one of the things I'm good at. But this time? I'm seriously freaking out.

I mean, there's lots to worry about here:

1. What if my cover sucks?
2. What if no one signs up to do the cover reveal? (You can sign up here, by the way *wink, wink*)
3. What if no one reads my book?
4. What if everyone hates the book?
5. WHAT IF I SUCK???

It's hard to put yourself out there, no matter how well you handle stress, no matter how many times you've done it in the past.

Because when you put yourself out there, you might be RIDICULED.

Tamara Mataya and I had a pretty good discussion last week about this very thing. The question is this, if someone puts themselves out there and they suck, does that make them free game to be ridiculed? Like the singers in the early rounds of American Idol, the ones that are absolutely horrible--they put themselves out there on national television so that means we're free to say "BOO!" loud and long, right?

Part of me says yes, emphatically yes. They should expect it, in fact.

But the other part of me says, wait. Because what if, when I put myself out there, what if they ridicule me?

And they will. That's the hard truth. No matter how good of a book I wrote, there will be some who say I suck.

I want to put it out there. I want to be brave. I know there's risk. I know some people will ridicule me, even if a whole bunch of people don't. I think I can learn to get past that.

Well, we're about to find out. Only two days to the reveal. See you then.