Page Turning Books

Thanks for being part of the Bulletproof excitement! It’s a pleasure to visit so many wonderful bloggers courtesy of Orangeberry Book Tours. Today I have a treat for readers – an excerpt from Bulletproof, the first novel in Unknown Identities, my new paranormal romantic suspense series.

John Noble hasn’t had an easy life and a few years back, a reporter’s lies nearly got him killed, so protecting Amelia Bennett, a tough, controversial reporter in Boston isn’t his ideal assignment. The story she’s working on could make her career, but only if his skills can keep her alive long enough to tell it. In this excerpt, what should have been a simple meeting with her source quickly goes awry:

~~

John set a hand on her shoulder, preventing her next maneuver. “Stay put for a minute.”

Exasperated, she spun around and found her view full of his dark shirt and tie. Slowly her eyes traced up across the freshly shaved terrain of his throat and over the trim beard accenting his jaw until her gaze was locked with his. She stared into those hard, green depths, heedless of the rain catching in her eyelashes. The ability to breathe deserted her.

There had to be a remedy for this strange, magnetic pull he held over her. Her melting mascara might have been enough to break the spell, if he hadn’t dropped his gaze to watch her lick a raindrop from her lips.

Something deep inside her wanted to reach out and capitalize on his distraction. To discover if the rain tasted different after trailing across his skin.

Blinking away the peculiar thought, she cleared her throat. He wasn’t here to fulfill some long-buried fantasy, he was here because her boss insisted she was in danger. “This meeting is essential,” she managed to squeeze out between gritted teeth.

“So is your safety.”

“I have to get across the street.”

“Can’t get the story to your readers from the grave.”

The hair prickled on the back of her neck. For a bodyguard offering protection, he gave considerable voice to her imminent demise. There was no arguing with the statement or with him, based on the implacable expression he was sporting.

Frustrated on more levels than she cared to analyze, she turned back toward the street. “That’s my meeting place.” She tilted her head toward the Revolutionary Cemetery shrouded in rain, the old grave markers splashed with red and blue from the emergency lights. “Do you see anyone?”

She started to work her way closer, but before she’d managed a few paces, she felt his hand on her shoulder again. “Wait here.”

“No.” Her source had surely run from all this commotion, but she needed to see for herself. She understood people and though they’d never met, she knew she could recognize her source by the body language if given half a chance. Around her, people in the crowd murmured but no one wept or mentioned names. In a community the size of Sudbury that meant the problem in the street involved strangers, but this seemed like a big crowd for a distracted tourist induced accident.

Please, don’t let it be my contact. It couldn’t be, she decided. A thought like that was simply a paranoid side effect having a bodyguard. She and her source had been too careful in light of the careers and lives on the line with this story.

“Let me do my job,” he growled at her ear.

“You’re here to enable me to do mine.” She studied his features, noticed the wariness in his eyes as he studied the cemetery across the street. Had he noticed a threat she’d missed? “What happened to keeping me in sight?”

The glare he leveled on her made her think twice. She couldn’t let him intimidate her or having him around would derail her story anyway. Holding her ground, she folded her arms across her chest and glared right back.

~~

I hope you enjoyed meeting Amelia and John today as much as I enjoyed writing them. From the moment they arrived in the same scene, they were butting heads and dodging the flying sparks of attraction. As their story progressed, a grudging respect turned into a valuable team effort to stay alive and dare something completely new – lasting love.

Live the adventure!

Regan

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Genre - Romantic Suspense

Rating – R

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Connect with  Regan Black on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.reganblack.com

Three Weeks Earlier
November 3
It was time to let go and move on.
Late Saturday afternoon, Charlie stood over three tombstones, holding three bunches of red tulips in her hand at St. Lucas Cemetery. Several months passed since Charlie lost her family, and this was the first time she visited her family's gravesite since the funeral. It was tough going there knowing what her family had suffered. Within a matter of days of each other, she lost her mother, father and only sibling. Charlie believed it would destroy her. And it almost did. Her sleep patterns were thrown into a flux. She wasn't painting as much as she used to, and she closed herself off to everyone but a select few. Every day she walked around with a dark ghost that hovered over her, reminding her of ruin and just how risky life was.
After the tragedy, she distanced herself from work and sought counseling from her psychologist. Since then, things improved some, but not much. She returned to work, returned to her art class, and even met a few new friends. But still she was immobilized from moving past her anguish, which haunted her.
After she brushed aside the colorful dead leaves from her family's adjacent tombstones, her eyes panned over to the words, Sandy Weiss and Terri Weiss. Gently she laid the tulips on her mother and sister's tombstones, but she could not bring herself to place anything on her father's grave. Her eyes locked in with his name. Maxwell Weiss.
How could someone she loved so much have brought her so much pain? But he did. She hesitated, pushed her animosity aside, and then laid the flowers on his grave. Already having forgiven him, now was not the time to rehash old resentments. The tombstones brought back useless memories, memories that chartered her to an ugly place of despair, a place she had gone many times before. She loved her parents like any normal person would, but she was most affected by the death of her sister, Sandy. Charlie was only a few years younger than her sister, and they looked almost exactly alike, except for the difference in hair color.
Her sister was a redhead.

A 3rd Time to Die by George Bernstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

George A. Bernstein’s “A 3rd Time to Die” is a beautiful book. To begin with, I found this novel very well-written. It's a subtle story of passion and purpose, love and tension, trust and distrust, and perhaps above all the importance of honesty.

The main characters who were romantically involved in the past and coming together in the present was unique and not a plot I have come across before. I have read one other book by this author, Trapped, and just like that book the final twist was unexpected and surprised me.

A 3rd Time to Die is the kind of book you remember vividly long after you have finished. It is a marvellously written, compelling story, masterfully plotted and paced.

Disclosure - As a Quality Reads Book Club member, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.



View all my reviews

Book Excerpt: (Chapter 2)

The brass doors opened behind her bringing with it an unexpected guest.

“I knew you’d come home.”

Onyx’ heart sank hearing him speak in that gentle voice. He always used that voice when he knew he was wrong; when he was trying to make her forgive him. It felt repulsively sweet now.

“She was just leaving,” Jade said in a firm tone as she turned to face him.

“Nicky, you brought a bodyguard with you? That hurts,” he sounded genuinely insulted.

“Goodbye, Philip.” Onyx said softly, suddenly lacking the confidence she just had.

Philip reached out for her arm, but Jade intercepted the action, grabbing him by the wrist and twisting it until he let out an almost inaudible yelp.

“You will not lay a hand on her. Not now, not ever again. If you so much as brush against her in a way I don’t like, I will break every bone in your body, starting with your pinky toe and ending with your skull.” She twisted just a little further.

But he didn’t lose his composure. He looked Onyx dead in the eye, “Quite a lot of bark for your little Chihuahua of a friend here, huh? Nicky, we don’t need all of this. This running away, the muscle, the hiding out, we are better than this. You know I love you more than anything in the world. Just come home, baby. I need you. It’ll be different, I promise. I’ll start going to therapy like you always wanted. You can even hang out with that crayon haired one. No questions asked. Just come home. What do you say? Come on, I need you.”

“Onyx, don’t you listen to him. Put the bags in the elevator, we’re leaving.”

Onyx hesitated, switching her gaze back and forth between the two. He looked so hurt, so broken up, she just wanted to leap into his arms and console him. For a moment, she could feel her heart ripping in her chest; she believed him. She believed he meant he would change and things would be different. She believed it and she hated herself for it.

Onyx rolled her bags into the elevator before she lost her nerve.

“Goodbye, Philip.” She said again.

“If you love her even half as much as you say, you’ll let us leave here. You’ll leave her alone and move on with your life. But keep the therapy bit, you need it.” Jade winked at him before joining Onyx.

As Jade released his wrist, he noticed a small green marking on her arm; a very familiar mark that he knew all too well.

The girls disappeared down to the ground floor, leaving Philip alone in his flower filled living room. He pulled out his phone and hit speed dial.

“She’s with the Order of Earth. Find out what family, find out who their Protector is, and find out now.”

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Genre - Urban Fantasy

Rating – PG – 13

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Connect with Jennifer Cornet on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.jennifercornet.com/

The unknown figure’s back was to them as he connected the wires to the detonator. Will shoved Tom. Only minutes remained.

They located the last connection point where the blasting caps were wired to two sticks of dynamite. The wires to the plunger snaked up the hill. The connecting strands were twisted, tightly, as with pliers. Tom snatched a rock, but Will grabbed his hand and pointed up the hill. Tom understood. The man would hear the pounding. They each took a twisted connection and tried to pry it apart with their fingers. They would need to break only one.

The wires resisted. Tom gritted his teeth, then remembered his pocket knife. He pulled it out, flipped the blade open, and wedged the tip between two strands. He twisted and the blade snapped. The sound startled the man. He whirled around and stared directly at the boys. Tom forced the broken blade into the gap in the wires. Will put his finger on top of one and pulled as Tom twisted. Blood ran down Will’s hand as the metal bit into his finger. They strained, and watched the man. His eyes darted in all directions. Then he made his decision. He pulled the plunger up, hesitated a moment, and slammed it down.

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Genre - YA/Mystery

Rating – PG – 13

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Connect with Ben Woodard on Facebook and Twitter

Website http://BooksByBen.com

Excerpt

Chiku couldn’t help stare at the large bulge that was Rebecca’s baby-to-be. It made her reflect upon the gynecological exam Dr. Kessel had just given her. At sixteen, she couldn’t imagine being anyone’s mother, except maybe a chimpanzee’s. Rebecca was only fourteen, an eighth grader back home, a middle schooler. How could she be a mother? Yet even in wealthy well-educated America girls in their mid-teens were getting knocked up all the time, having their babies, and changing their lives in ways unpredictable and permanent. Not Chiku. Boys could go to hell.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Chiku asked.

“Two week. Three week. He ask me how my baby doing. I tell him, fine. He give me twenty francs. He always give me money.”

“And that was it?” Chiku gazed at Tim who was still holding all of the things she had given him from her buried stash. “What about Dr. Fisher? Do you know why he’d be in my dad’s house?”

Rebecca dipped her head in thought then gave out with a startled grunt as the baby inside her gave a hefty kick. “Soon,” she said, “Any day my Abasi.” Then she staggered against Chiku.

“You okay? Maybe she’s coming out now.” Chiku was aghast.

“No. No. He. Not yet. No water.”

“Well, you can’t stand here. You have to sit, Rebecca. In the shade.”

Chiku pulled the pregnant girl into the cooler cover of the banana tree. “You want water? Something to drink?”

Rebecca leaned against the tree rather than risk getting herself into a position from which she couldn’t rise. She panted, holding a hand against her belly, Chiku watching that hand move not of its own volition but due to the child inside raring to get going with life.

Not for me, Chiku thought.

Rebecca said, “I okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“When the water break, then we know.”

“Know what?” Chiku asked.

“That the baby is coming,” Tim said. He placed his hands on his friend’s shoulders. They were trembling as if she were the one about to go into labor. “Honestly, Chiku, what do they teach you in Brookline, Massachusetts?”

“How to avoid reality.”

Chiku took Rebecca’s hand. It was cool and sweaty and on her ring finger she was wearing something that looked awfully familiar to Chiku. “Nice,” she said. “Amethyst. My color. My ring, actually. How’d you get it?”

“Your father give me.”

“Cool. It matches your dress.”

Chiku didn’t care that it was an old ring, one that she had either lost or forgotten some distant time in the past and that probably couldn’t even fit her fingers anymore. She just wondered why her father would have given this particular girl this particular ring.

“I think they kill him,” she said.

“What?” Chiku’s eyes darted from the purple colored ring to the black face of the Hutu teenager.

“They were mad mad.”

“Who?”

“Fisher. Your father. Dr. Kessel. They all mad. And the others.”

“What others?” Chiku asked. “Does Colonel Fundanga know?”

“Colonel Fundanga one of them,” Rebecca said. “I keep quiet. Bad enough in the camp. I don’t want to die.”

Rebecca let out a long breath, took in a deep mouthful of air, and let out her discomfort once again. Then she smiled at Chiku before saying, “They come for you next. You his daughter.”

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Genre - Young Adult

Rating – PG

More details about the author and the book

Connect with Peter Clenott on Facebook & Twitter

Website www.peterclenott.net