Friday, February 20, 2015

Merrick & William by Claire Cray

Merrick #1
Summary:
New York, 1799: the future looks bright for the charming young book dealer William Lacy, until a raucous night of drinking lands him in shackles. He narrowly avoids the brutal prison system thanks to his mother, who negotiates with the judge to secure him a five year apprenticeship in lieu of a prison sentence. And so William finds himself in a carriage bound for the remote woods upstate, where he'll spend the next years of his life learning a new trade under some old master.

When he first sees Merrick, William thinks he's been dropped into a medieval horror story. Tall and gruff, dressed in a hooded robe that completely conceals his features, and riding a black mare, Merrick might as well be the Grim Reaper.

But appearances are deceiving. A skilled apothecary and healer, Merrick proves to be a generous host and a gentle teacher, and William soon finds himself surprisingly comfortable in his new surroundings. And yet troubling mysteries abound: Why does Merrick never show his face or hands? Why do his movements seem so young and sure beneath his robes? What lies within the cave behind the stone cottage?

Something unnatural is afoot. But most alarming by far is William's own reaction to his new keeper. For Merrick's strange charms are bewitching enough by day; but by night, in the darkness of the room and the bed they share, William finds himself entirely overwhelmed by desires he never imagined...


This was such a great find.  I wasn't looking for a vampire or supernatural story, I was actually searching for historical fiction when I saw "New York, 1799" in the summary and went and "1-clicked" it.  So glad I did.  I'll start by saying there is, in my honest opinion, a bit of an over abundance of exclamation points in William's inner monologues.  I only mention it because I know for some that can be an issue, but for me it wasn't.  Not once did those exclamation points or lack of inner thoughts in italics a distraction from the ride the author was taking us on.  I found the story to be beautifully told and the characters very intriguing.  From William being faced with a five year court appointed apprenticeship to his acceptance of who and what Merrick is, this book had me completely enthralled.

RATING: 

William #2
Summary:
The story of William and Merrick continues in this sequel to the spellbinding bestseller Merrick.

In the summer of 1799, young William Lacy watched his carefree life go up in smoke when a night of mischief landed him in shackles. Beaten, jailed, and sentenced to a long apprenticeship in the dreary woods of upstate New York, William was braced for the worst.

But he wasn’t prepared to fall in love with his master, a renowned and reclusive apothecary — a man — by the name of Silas Merrick. And he damn well never expected Merrick to be a blasted vampire.

Now, nearly one year after that summer of mystery, longing and unspeakable pleasure, William is still waiting to begin the future with Merrick he was promised. But it’s not easy becoming a vampire. Not only has Merrick become more secretive than ever about his nature and his past, but his feud with the beautiful and ruthless vampire Theo raises ever more troubling questions about the dark world William is about to enter.

William is determined to unravel the mysteries and find his happily ever after. But to do it, he must resolve Merrick’s doubts for himself. Can there be love and joy in this life of death and darkness? And will Merrick ever learn to open his heart?

Set in New York and Boston several months after the events of Claire Cray’s bestseller Merrick, William is another haunting, sensual story of love and desire in the shadows…and the adaptability of the human spirit.


Once again we find ourselves in the world of Merrick and William and vampires.  At first, I thought this was going to be mostly about why Merrick wouldn't turn William but it's so much more than that.  We learn Merrick's history, we get to see Theo working his magic to see his friend happy, but we also get to see William going from the human he was to the vampire he's been waiting to become.  This is a great sequel to Merrick.  Seeing them as individuals as well as a pair is intriguing.  Sometimes, characters lose their individuality when they finally become the couple that the story builds up to but I found that not only do they keep some of themselves they also blossom and find a new part of their individuality.  I don't know if there are any plans for further tales of this vampire couple but for this reader, I wouldn't mind seeing how they are when 1900 comes around.

RATING: 

Merrick
God’s sakes.

I wasn’t even fighting it anymore.

When he touched me like that, even with just his gloved fingers on my head, it felt like every molecule in my body was drawn to the point of contact.

Was it loneliness? Was I lonely? Was that made me want to press against his broad chest and breathe in the warm, male scent of him? Was it loneliness that made me dream of his lips on my skin?

Merrick turned back to me, and I realized I’d fallen several paces behind. “Are you all right, William?”

“Yes, sir. Pardon me.”

He waited for me to catch up. “Are you unwell? You’re flushed.”

“No, sir.” Lord, I could feel it. I was flaming red. “It must be the air I’m unaccustomed to.”

His dark hood stayed fixed on me for a moment.

I fumbled. “Don’t you suppose that um…living in the city all that time, the lack of fresh air and all…maybe when a man gets out into nature, he feels so much more for the first time, say…that is, his body might experience a whole new spectrum of…”

Oh, for the love of... That wasn’t where I’d meant to head. “That is,” I tried again. “Of taste, and scent…senses, little parts of his body he’s never used, suddenly waking up, now that there’s something to stimulate them…”

I cursed myself silently.

“I think you’re right,” Merrick said simply, and turned away to continue on.

I grabbed my own face, scowling fiercely before I shook my limbs out and rushed to catch up to him.

Author Bio:
Claire Cray specializes in M/M romance and stories of an offbeat nature. Her tales feature intelligent characters, a vivid sense of atmosphere, and a (sometimes twisted) sense of humor. Born in a strange little village in the Pacific Northwest, Claire was raised on rain, trees, and spooky stories. An addiction to misadventure has carried her from the backwoods of Oregon to Portland, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York, where she currently resides.


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EMAIL: clairecray@gmail.com



Merrick
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William

Friday's Film Adaption: LA Confidential by James Ellroy



Summary:
Christmas 1951, Los Angeles: a city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals. Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers. The novel takes these cops on a sprawling epic of brutal violence and the murderous seedy side of Hollywood. One of the best (and longest) crime novels ever written, it is the heart of Ellroy's four-novel masterpiece, the LA Quartet, and an example of crime writing at its most powerful.

Film:
As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
Release dates: September 19, 1997
Running time: 138 minutes
Cast:
Kevin Spacey as Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes
Russell Crowe as Officer Wendell "Bud" White
Guy Pearce as Det. Lt. Edmund "Ed" Exley
James Cromwell as Capt. Dudley Smith
Kim Basinger as Lynn Bracken
Danny DeVito as Sid Hudgens
David Strathairn as Pierce Morehouse Patchett
Ron Rifkin as District Attorney Ellis Loew
Graham Beckel as Det. Richard "Dick" Stensland
Amber Smith as Susan Lefferts
John Mahon as Police Chief Worton
Paul Guilfoyle as Meyer "Mickey" Cohen
Matt McCoy as Brett Chase
Paolo Seganti as Johnny Stompanato
Simon Baker-Denny as Matt Reynolds
Shawnee Free Jones as Tammy Jordan
Darrell Sandeen as Leland "Buzz" Meeks
Marisol Padilla Sánchez as Inez Soto
Gwenda Deacon as Mrs. Lefferts
















Trailer:



I haven't read the original book but the movie is amazing.  The acting, the writing, the settings are all perfect for a film noir movie.  Film noir is a genre you just don't see today, or at least not that you see done correctly.  This is definitely a true nod to the noir of the 40s.

RATING: 

Author Bio:
James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international best sellers. His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. His novel The Cold Six Thousand was a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book for 2001. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.

Ellroy is known for a "telegraphic" writing style, which omits words other writers would consider necessary, and often features sentence fragments. His books are noted for their dark humor and depiction of American authoritarianism. Other hallmarks of his work include dense plotting and a relentlessly pessimistic worldview. Ellroy has been called the "Demon Dog of American crime fiction."


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Cover Reveal: Consent by Nancy Ohlin

Title: Consent
Author: Nancy Ohlin
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult
Expected Release Date: November 10, 2015
Summary:
Bea has a secret.

Actually, she has more than one. There’s her dreams for the future that she can’t tell anyone—not her father and not even her best friend, Plum.

And now there’s Dane Rossi. Dane is hot, he shares Bea’s love of piano, and he believes in her.

He’s also Bea’s teacher.

When their passion for music crosses into passion for each other, Bea finds herself falling completely for Dane. She’s never felt so wanted, so understood, so known to her core. But the risk of discovery carries unexpected surprises that could shake Bea entirely. Bea must piece together what is and isn’t true about Dane, herself, and the most intense relationship she’s ever experienced, in this absorbing novel from Nancy Ohlin.

Author Bio:
I am the author of BEAUTY, a YA retelling of the Snow White tale, and ALWAYS, FOREVER, a YA retelling of Daphne du Maurier's REBECCA. ALWAYS, FOREVER was originally published in hardcover as THORN ABBEY. 

I've also contributed to several celebrity novels, including a New York Times-bestselling YA trilogy.

I'm currently hard at work on my next YA novel, which will be as mind-bending as ALWAYS, FOREVER (I hope!).

My favorite cures for writers' block are long walks, long showers, popcorn, chocolate, and really expensive coffee. I talk to myself a lot while I write (you know, to make sure the dialogue zings).


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Sword by Amy Bai

Title: Sword
Author: Amy Bai 
Release Date: February 10th 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Summary:
Sword shall guide the hands of men . . .

For over a thousand years the kingdom of Lardan has been at peace: isolated from the world, safe from the wars of its neighbors, slowly forgetting the wild and deadly magic of its origins. Now the deepest truths of the past and the darkest predictions for the future survive only in the verses of nursery rhymes.

For over a thousand years, some of Lardan’s fractious provinces have been biding their time.

Kyali Corwynall is the daughter of the Lord General, a child of one of the royal Houses, and the court’s only sword-wielding girl. She has known for all of her sixteen years what the future holds for her–politics and duty, the management of a House, and protecting her best friend, the princess and presumed heir to the throne. But one day an old nursery rhyme begins to come true, an ancient magic wakes, and the future changes for everyone. In the space of a single night her entire life unravels into violence and chaos. Now Kyali must find a way to master the magic her people have left behind, or watch her world–and her closest friends–fall to a war older than the kingdom itself.


     An arm reached out of the dark and wrapped around her neck.
     She saw it coming from the corner of her eye, but only had time to twitch uselessly sideways. Another arm immediately followed the first one, muffling her startled cry and stealing her breath.
     Too shocked to be afraid, she bit down. The hand over her face jerked away. Her elbow drove backwards and her heel went up into a knee. The awful crack of bone that followed drew a pained groan from behind her, and brought her panic in a thundering flood. Her attacker staggered, pulling her with him. The dropped candle sputtered on the floor beside them, throwing huge shadows everywhere. Spurred on by the thought that she might have to finish this struggle in the dark, she shouted. It was a much softer sound than she'd intended, but the floorboards above them creaked ominously, the arms around her fell away, and he screamed, as though she had burned him.
     Leaving this mystery for later consideration, Kyali flung herself at the steps and scrambled up, leaving the back panel of her skirts in his fist. Her sword clattered on the floor as she snatched at it. He came hard on her heels and, as she turned, drove himself obligingly onto it for her. Stunned, she froze again.
     Her blood sang in her ears. By the look on his face—a fair face, some much colder part of her noted, with the Western short-beard—he was at least as surprised as she was. He drew a bubbling breath. A dagger dropped from his hand and hit the floor between them.
     They stared at one another.
     He made an odd face then, and coughed a gout of blood all over her. She blinked through the drops. She knew she had to move—not dead till they stop bleeding, Father would say—but she couldn't. For all her years of study, all the secrecy and swordplay, she had never killed a man. She supposed, watching his face in a perversely distant way, that she still hadn't quite managed it. But he fell forward onto her then, going limp, and after the instinctive terror of having him land on her subsided the sight of his glassy gaze, of her old practice sword sticking out of his ribs, made it clear that she had done it now.
     She watched his face closely while his blood dripped down her cheek. He didn't move. He seemed not to be bleeding anymore, though with all the blood on him already how could one tell? She didn’t intend to get closer to check. She couldn't hear anyone else in the house. Through the haze of shock, she was grateful the soldiers weren't here to witness this bizarrely personal moment.
     "Well," Kyali said, beginning to be pleased at how well she was taking this—and then threw up on him.
     Damn.

#2
     There was someone following them.
     Devin shifted in the saddle, twisting to look behind him for the third time in the last hour. He turned back when his guard Hewet, a man who looked like he had been carved whole from dark oak but who moved with unnerving grace, hissed through his teeth. Amazing how much irritation such a small sound could hold. He scowled and faced the road ahead, which stretched on endlessly under patches of treeshadow and the blistering blue arch of the sky.
     "They're closer," he said sullenly, earning himself another hiss.
     Orin's briny, moody winds were far behind them now, and the rich fields of Syndimn province lay all around, shimmering under a heat haze. He missed the salt air and the fogs. He missed fish for breakfast, fish for lunch, and fish for dinner. He even missed Duchess Armelle, who had done what not one of the doddering theorists who claimed to be her court wizards had managed, and terrified him into taming his wayward Gift.
     She was a frightening lady, Armelle Orin. He understood the magic no more than he did when he'd arrived, but he could at least play a tune without a flicker of magic now. He was going to miss her.
     He was going to miss her heir Ysmena more, though.
     Devin sighed, stopped himself from casting another glance backwards just to see if the dust cloud in their wake had grown any larger, and brought out the bone flute in his pocket.
     "Put it away, my lord," Hewet said, mournful as a foghorn and utterly unamused. "Now, please."
     "Surely even you prefer a little music to lighten a long journey, Hewet."
     That got him an actual glower. Hewet went back to contemplating the shadows ahead of them, or the sound of the Deepwash running in the distance, or the utter lack of birds in this part of Syndimn, or whatever it was that interested a man who could probably lift a whole horse by himself but instead chose to follow around irritable sons of generals, keeping them from trouble. For his part, Devin went back to contemplating the desultory flick of his horse's ears, but he kept the flute in his hand as a silent, petty protest.
     He wet was Armelle's man, not one of his father's soldiers, who would have put up with his humors. He hadn't given his father time to send one of his own guards for an escort. He'd woken three days ago with an inexplicable need to be home, and only Armelle's ferocious scowls had stopped him from leaping ahorse that very moment, his boots half-laced and all his belongings trailing behind him like lost children.
     "There are six of them, they carry horse bows, and they appeared on our trail after we passed Savvys village, which is a known crossing point on the Western border," Hewet said, without sparing his charge another glance or even altering his tone to better match the grave nature of that statement.      "They may be bandits, but they are more likely border guards from the other side, and here because you look like an opportunity, my lord. We can only hope they don't know what sort of opportunity."
     Devin stared at him, gone loose and clumsy in the saddle. After a long, frozen moment, he put the flute away. "What do we do?" he asked in a small voice, when it was clear Hewet would volunteer no more information.
     "Why, we keep riding, my lord. I am a hired guard and you a wealthy merchant's son, should we be asked, and we know nothing of Western affairs or border troubles."
     That seemed wildly optimistic. "And if we did?"
     "We'd still be outnumbered three to one, not counting the pair out by the bannerstone in the field, who are clearly prepared to drive us back to the road should we leave it."
     "Oh."
     He was going to think only good thoughts about Hewet from now on.
     The sound of hoofbeats came to him faintly, a leisurely, insolent pace, and Devin swallowed in a throat gone dry. "Will they... I mean, they wouldn't break the king's peace. Would they?"
     When he looked over, Hewet's expression was not reassuring.

#3
     The next branch took her unawares and caught her full in the face. It stung, and she stopped. A hand to her nose came back bloodied. The realization that she was being a fool came to her somehow out of the sight of her own blood. Here she was, running from nothing, in the middle of—
     Oh, damn.
     In her preoccupation, she had been a very great fool indeed.
     The trees parted just in front of her. Two men were gaping at her from where they sat on the ground near a smothered firepit.
     Outlaws. And she was completely alone here.
     For a brief instant, not even a whisper of wind marred the perfect silence, and then one man gave a wild shout, leaping to his feet. The other lunged at her from where he knelt, a flash of metal in his hands. She felt the shock of whatever it was as it grated off her vest.
     Her sword came free of its sheath and cut his feet out from under him. His scream was terrible. The rest seemed to happen as if at some distance—the arc of blood following the sweep of steel, the bewildered agony on the man’s face as she drove her sword through him. It was far too easy.
     Her own ragged panting brought her back to herself.
     Kyali backed up a step and then another, and moaned in what she first thought was horror and then realized was pain. At her side, her blood leaked out. A great deal of it was already soaking the leather armor.
     A very great deal of it.
     Not so easy after all, it seemed.
     The second man held an old dagger. The pain, when she let fall her sword and tried to release the side buckle of her vest, loosened her knees. She dropped to the ground. The locket around her neck leapt up and swung. She stared fixedly at the Corwynall dragon engraved on it as she worked at the armor’s catches, hissing through clenched teeth, trying to ignore the pain, which was rising rapidly past endurance.
     The buckle came undone. Her fingers found the wound at once, and she drew in a ragged gasp and shrieked at the feel of her hand against it. Unable to do anything else, Kyali pressed both hands against the outpouring of blood, rolling onto her back.
     The peaceful trees grew shadowed, then faded altogether into a strangely gold-flecked dark.

11 Random Things About Me
Because 10 is just too even a number for my rebellious soul.
1.) I occasionally take 3-hour baths. Yes, really. I have started and finished books in there, and I am not ashamed, except possibly of my heating bill.
2.) I lose every social grace I can (tentatively) lay claim to when I get behind the wheel of a car. I think it is perfectly fine to tailgate people driving too slow for my taste, and just as acceptable to bait fellow drivers tailgating me. I unconsciously speed up when somebody passes me. I gently encourage people driving in front of me to pull over with flashing headlights, honking horn, and occasional hand gestures. And yet, though my grill may be locked to your bumper the whole way in, I’m nonetheless likely to hold the door for you when we’re walking into the building together, even if you’re in the process of telling me what a dangerous bitch I am on the road. Don’t ask me to explain this. It’s a pathology.
3.) I think meat is totally gross. And I have since I was about 7 years old. When we had our family visits to McDonald’s (hey, backwoods town in Maine; it really was the big hangout) I used to eat only cheeseburgers because I believed the cheese negated the beef. This logic only worked for me until I was about 8, and then I moved on to about a pint of A-1 sauce, which certainly had the effect of negating the taste, if not the existence, of meat. And when I was 9 I gave up the red stuff altogether, and I think I was 13 or 14 when poultry went. I’d love to claim some great moral objection, but while I think the methods of raising and slaughtering are more than reason to give meat up, I stopped because it was dead flesh, and well, ew.
4.) I once dressed in poplar leaves stitched together with twigs and tree sap. I wasn’t alone, either.
5.) My first real story was an action-romance about two of my classmates in second grade. Poor Brian and Charity were drowned, mugged, shot from a cannon, chased by lions across the Sahara, and Charity herself died at least once before they shared their first sloppy, painfully-depicted kiss. Their real-life counterparts were horrified when I was picked to read the installments out loud in front of the class. The teacher, who probably wasn’t the best choice for the classroom, was extremely amused. And I, of course, was hooked.
6.) I own The Secret of Nimh. And I do on occasion watch it. So should you. Because it’s awesome.
7.) I loved writing essays in college. Even dreadfully hungover, scratchy-eyed and exhausted, I still loved writing essays. I know this makes me a freak, and I don’t care.
8.) I am a conflicted cynic: I don’t believe in happy endings, but I still want one.
9.) I count sounds. I don’t mean to; it just happens. I turn on the blinker, sit there in traffic waiting for someone who appears to be moving slowly enough that I can cut across their path, and by the time I get into the parking lot the little ticky noise has happened 128 times, 64 if you’re counting the high and low tics as one unit.
10.) I cringe when I write big angsty melodrama, and yet somehow both the emotional and the plot arcs of all my books head inevitably toward climactic scenes of great angst and melodrama.
11.) When I am stressed for too hard and too long, or in constant physical pain or ill health, I tend to write backward. And I don’t mean switching letters: I mean whole sentences, spelled (mostly) correctly, and completely backward except for the capitalization and punctuation.

1) What is your novel about?
Sword is a coming of age high fantasy about a girl pretty much at odds with everything, including and especially herself. It's set in a fictional kingdom called Lardan, one with a long history of magic and war, and a population so complacent they've forgotten that either one ever applied to them. They learn differently when history begins to repeat itself: there's an uprising, the kingdom is thrown into civil war, and the royal family, of which my main character Kyali is a satellite member, is murdered. Kyali, her brother, and the princess are forced into exile with a small army of refugees. Kyali was badly hurt during the uprising, and comes out of that a changed person; unfortunately for her she's now the only person with the training to command what is left of the army, and her friends need her.

Sword is her story, how she learns to deal with what happened to her without shutting out the people she loves, and with the responsibilities she has to shoulder now that the older generation is dead and the kingdom is overrun. It's about loyalty and love, fate and family and politics. It's also violent, occasionally sarcastic, and unabashedly sappy.

2) What inspired you to write the story?
I had a very sullen young woman with a battered old sword and no patience kicking my frontal lobe. As motivators go, it was a pretty good one.

--Ok, so that's a little dramatic, but really not too far from the truth (except the part about the frontal lobe, of course). Kyali Corwynall started out as a patchwork of some of my favorite characters from books like Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, and Patricia McKillip's Cygnet, going all the way back to Barbara Helen Berger's Gwinna, which I read when I was seven. My brain is like cosmic flypaper: the stuff I like (or hate) sticks, accumulates, eventually acquires a gravitational field, and before I know it light's bending around it and I'm up at 3 am mainlining coffee and my keyboard's broken. Sword was like that. One day I had scattered pieces, and the next I had a character with layers, flaws, goals, scars, and a complicated history. Stories always start that way for me, no matter how cool my premise may be (or how cool I may think it is, anyway) --my characters inspire and drive it, start to finish.

3) Since your novel is medieval-influenced, can you tell us a bit about your researching journey?
Wow. How I'd love to give you a list of planned, organized steps I took. It would make me feel so much smarter!

But no. I stumbled into the research for Sword much like I did the story itself. I think my research began the moment I realized I had no idea how heavy a sword really was, or how hard it might be to wear armor and, you know, walk at the same time. I remember thinking writing fantasy would be easy (yes, feel free to laugh at me). It didn't take long before I realized it was very, very obvious when I didn't know what I was talking about. So I went from looking up Irish baby names online to running to the library after work to find the Focloir Scoile or The Book of the Sword. I eventually learned to restrain myself, because research can be a wonderful excuse for not writing when you're stuck-- but overall, it was great fun.

4) What's your best revision tip?
Remember basic dramatic structure when you're reading your draft(s). It definitely doesn't always apply, and definitely shouldn't always apply, but I've found it can be a great lens: I can look at the whole story, each subplot and character arc, each chapter, and each scene with that structure in mind, and I'll always find something to tweak. Or mangle. Or outright kill.

...Revision is a slightly violent process for me.


Author Bio:
Amy Bai has been, by order of neither chronology nor preference, a barista, a numbers-cruncher, a paper-pusher, and a farmhand. She likes thunderstorms, the enthusiasm of dogs, tall boots and long jackets, cinnamon basil, margaritas, and being surprised by the weirdness of her fellow humans. She lives in New England with her guitar-playing Russian husband and two very goofy sheepdogs.


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Forever Series by Lan LLP

Beginning with Forever #1
Summary:
“Carson, I’m freely offering myself to you right now. Please,” I plead fearlessly. I’m shameless and not above begging for him to take my body. Who is this sex-craved woman anyways? 
“Sweetness, you’re making it very difficult for me to resist you, to control myself.” He lowers himself intimately close to graze his soft, moist lips on my forehead, bridge of my nose and then intensely over my lips. The urgency of his need for me is translated through his kisses. Biting down firmly on his lower lip, it appears that he’s forcing the strength of his will to remain tame. Our eye contact is broken when he seals his shut to blind the temptation lying underneath his body. His hands grip the sheets desperately, clawing and then fisting. I think this is his last hope of hanging onto his dignity. “Goodnight Lily, only offer your body to me when you believe it in your heart,” he murmurs and rolls off of me. Lying flat on his back, he attempts to steady his labored breathing. 
Love isn’t easy to forget even if you’re determined to never feel it again. It has a way of finding you when all hope is gone, resurfacing tender emotions you’ve buried deep in your core because the pain of acknowledging them is too much for you to handle. 
Carson Bradley, CEO of a powerful pharmaceutical corporation is rich beyond boundaries with a missing soul. His heart faded away fifteen years ago with the death of his first love. He strives every day for the sake of his cancer research because he’s determined to eradicate cancer forever. 
Lillian Ly is a humble, young medical student whose kind and generous heart is as vast as the universe. Being raised poor by a single parent; she matured quickly and respected the sacrifices her mother made for her. Lillian’s determination leads her down a stringent five-year path with no room for love. 
When their paths cross at an unlikely place thousands of miles away from home, they both realize that fate has brought them together, and Carson will never let anything or anyone tear them apart. He knows how desolate life is without love and refuses to return to that dark place ever again. 
Lillian enters Carson’s world with the purest intention of loving him with all her heart, but discovers that his volatile world will alter her uncomplicated life indefinitely. Regardless of what obstacles are thrown in their path, Lillian and Carson will endure them all to hold onto their forever from the beginning to the end.

Finding our Forever #2
Summary:
When tragedy strikes it doesn't always signal the end. Sometimes it can mean a new beginning...

Still reeling from the events of the past culminating in her devastating loss, an emotionally scarred Lillian Ly is determined to follow her heart and temporarily forego a bright academic career to keep alive the only thing that matters, being with the man she loves.

Guilt pours over Carson Bradley like molten lava, but despite his shame, he cannot let her go. She is the flame to his fire, the soul of his heart.
Without Lillian by his side, he is just a body without a warm pulse.

Now with news of two missing researchers, whose survival is based on a drug formula that he is unable to deliver, he fears the kidnappers will stop at nothing to get what they want—ensuring Lillian’s life is also in danger.

Desperate to obtain the missing drug components and keep Lillian safe, Carson's unreasonable behavior combined with Lillian’s strong-defensive will - collide - threatening their future.

Lillian knows she loves him irrevocably, but can she survive in Carson's volatile world? 




 Trailer:


Author Bio:
Over a year ago, I decided to pick up a pen and jotted down the first sentence of my vivid imagination. Those initial words were the seeds that grew into my romance book, “Beginning with Forever.” With all my heart, I wrote, rewrote, edited, re-edited and now, I’m finally ready to share it with all of you. My one and only aspiration for this book is to have readers embrace my story and characters with their heart. If I can make someone laugh till their gut hurts, hate the villain with vengeance, cry till their eyes dry out, fall in love all over again, and drool over the hero or feel any other emotions, than I’ve succeeded my goal.
I’m the sappiest person in the world when it comes to romance. I believe in love at first sight, Prince Charming or in my book, Mr. Hot Billionaire, and happy endings. In my heart, every women deserves all three, and they will when they lose themselves in my books. Your fantasy can become a reality with just the flip of a page, so come join me.


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Beginning with Forever #1

Finding our Forever #2
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