Monday, April 6, 2015

Crushed Tour & Giveaway with Lauren Layne

 


 

Crushed
Redemption # 2

By: Lauren Layne

Releasing April 14th, 2015

Loveswept: Flirt

 

Blurb 

Lauren Layne’s latest novel about the healing power of redemption tells the story of a crush gone wickedly wrong, proving that what you want isn’t always what you need.

 

Growing up in New York, Michael St. Claire never expected to spend his twenties wearing cowboy boots. But that was before he learned about his real father, a total stranger with a family in Cedar Grove, Texas. Once in the Lone Star State, Michael meets Kristin Bellamy, who is exquisitely refined and everything Michael always thought he wanted in a woman. The only problem is that Kristin is dating Michael’s new half-brother, Devon.

 

Kristin’s mouthy, curvy sister Chloe has always been in love with Devon Patterson. So when Michael offers to help Chloe break up Devon and Kristin, Chloe agrees to a deal that seems too good to be true. Before long, Chloe finally gets her man, only to make a startling discovery: She no longer wants the guy she had to fight for—she wants the one who stood by her side.

 

After all he and Chloe have been through, Michael swears he’s damaged goods. Can Chloe convince him that love is worth the risk?

 


Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23166994-crushed

Goodreads Series Link:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/132732-redemption

 





 

Author Info

Lauren Layne is the USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance.

Prior to becoming an author, Lauren worked in e-commerce and web-marketing. In 2011, she and her husband moved from Seattle to New York City, where Lauren decided to pursue a full-time writing career. It took six months to get her first book deal (despite ardent assurances to her husband that it would only take three). Since then, Lauren's gone on to publish ten books, including the bestselling Stiletto series, with several more on the way in 2015.

Lauren currently lives in Chicago with her husband and spoiled Pomeranian. When not writing, you'll find her at happy hour, running at a doggedly slow pace, or trying to straighten her naturally curly hair.

 

Author Links:  Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads



EXCERPT

“Your shirt’s untucked in the back.”

I turn, giving a half smile of gratitude to the blonde who’s just followed me out of the unisex restroom at the Cambridge Country Club tennis courts.

She giggles as she runs a hand over her tennis skirt, smoothing it over tanned, toned thighs. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing that in a public restroom.”

Yeah. Right. I hadn’t talked Mindy McLaughlin into shit. Everything from the location to the position had been her idea.

But I don’t remind her of this.

If I’ve learned anything in my first month as tennis pro to the rich and richer, it’s that cougars don’t like being reminded that they’re the ones doing the pursuing.

I give her a wink as I finish tucking in my shirt, before scanning the courts to make sure we don’t have any witnesses to the fact that we just spent the first twenty minutes of Mindy’s sixty-minute tennis lesson fucking against the wall of a bathroom stall.

Luckily, it’s the middle of the day and hot as hell. Most people hit the courts in the early morning or not at all.

Mindy follows me to the benches, where we retrieve our rackets. “Should we finish up?” I ask.

She lets out a low laugh, running pink manicured nails down the front of my white polo. “I think we already did that.”

I ignore this, and hold up the tennis ball questioningly.

“It’s hot,” she whines.

It is. Way too fucking hot to play tennis. She still has forty minutes left, but I’m not all that surprised that she wants to bail. We both know she didn’t come down here for the tennis.

It’s just as well. I hate the damn sport. I only work the courts three days a week, and my lesson schedule is packed with women who are probably better at tennis than I am.

I’m passably decent at tennis, because, once upon a time, I was one of the spoiled brats taking lessons, not giving them. I don’t love the sport. I’m not like these other douche bags that work the courts and make a big show of how they could have gone pro if they wanted.

My tennis skills aren’t why I was hired, and I damn well know it. Growing up on the Upper East Side of New York taught me early that women of the idle rich class get bored easily. A boredom they often ease by taking up with men other than their husbands.

Fortunately for me, most of my life I was blissfully unaware that my own mother fell into that category of straying housewives.

Ignorance truly is bliss.

And when ignorance is over?

All hell breaks loose.

 
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