Monday, January 6, 2025

🎅🎄12th Day of Christmas Author Spotlight🎄🎅: Eden Finley




Eden Finley
Eden Finley is an Amazon bestselling author who writes steamy contemporary romances that are full of snark and light-hearted fluff.

She doesn't take anything too seriously and lives to create an escape from real life for her readers. The ideas always begin with a wackadoodle premise, and she does her best to turn them into romances with heart.

She's also an Australian girl and apologises for her Australianisms that sometimes don't make sense to anyone else.


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Football Royalty
Summary:
Franklin U #8
If you never fooled around with someone of the same gender, did you even go to high school?

PEYTON
My whole life I’ve had the pressure of being Marcus Talon and Shane Miller’s football prodigy. I’ve been destined to follow in my NFL-playing fathers’ footsteps since the day I was born. I usually thrive under pressure, but as senior year looms, it all gets too much, and I need an outlet. The last place I thought I’d find my release is at Levi Vanderbilt’s graduation party. In his bed. With him.

It’s a one-time thing. An experimentation. And while it was fun, we agree that being with guys isn’t for either of us. I’m happy to accept that until he turns up in California.

I haven’t had to think about him for four years, but now I can’t get him out of my head.


LEVI
Coming to Franklin University for grad school to follow a boy I hooked up with once is the stupidest thing I could have done.

We said that high school didn’t mean anything, but the truth is, that night made me realize who I truly am, and since then, I’ve been trying to find that sense of freedom again.

I’m hoping it can be with him, but everything I’ve heard around campus points to Peyton not having the same life-changing revelation I did.

And if that’s the case, did I just move across the country for a straight guy?

Kill me now.





The Backup Plan
Summary:
King Sports #1
Thad
Failing to make it in pro ball left me absolutely devastated. Baseball has been my life, my dream, but it’s time to move on.

Becoming a sports agent was always my backup plan, and now that I’m interning at the biggest queer-focused firm in the country, I’m doing my best not to let my bitterness toward baseball affect my future.

That’s really difficult when I’m assigned to babysit Kelley Afton, hotshot rookie pitcher for Philly. He has everything I ever wanted, and he doesn’t even appreciate it. I didn’t become an agent so I could soothe the ego of diva athletes.

His constant need for validation from others frustrates me to no end, but that’s probably a good thing. Because if he didn’t have that, I’d find him irresistibly my type.

Attraction could lead to crossing lines which would put my position at King Sports in jeopardy, and I can’t have that.

I don’t have a backup for my backup plan.





Can't Say Goodbye
Summary:
BRADY
Our quick hellos are followed by drawn out goodbyes.

What started out as one fun night turned into a regular thing none of us ever planned for.

I can’t walk away from Kit and Prescott. Kit is the stern nurturer I need. He’s the caretaker, the solid presence. Prescott enables my wild ways. He’s someone I can have fun with. They couldn’t be more perfect for me.

But come graduation, I have to move across the country, and geography isn’t our only obstacle. Being in a relationship with two men isn’t good for my public image, my brother’s NFL career, or the media frenzy that surrounds my famously queer family.

We have a plan to meet up once a year, but with every reunion, every brief visit, we fall deeper.

There has to be a breaking point, something that will end it for us, or soon it will be impossible to say goodbye at all.





Fake Out
Summary:
Fake Boyfriend #1
Maddox
The reason I rarely go home is three simple words: I’m a liar.

When the pressure to marry my childhood sweetheart became too much, I told her I was gay and then fled to New York like my ass was on fire.

Now, five years later and after a drunken encounter, I find myself invited to her wedding. And I have to bring my boyfriend—the boyfriend who doesn’t exist because I’m straight.

At least, I think I am. Meeting the guy I’m bribing to be my boyfriend for the weekend makes me question everything about myself.


Damon
When my sister asks me to pretend to be some straight guy’s boyfriend, my automatic response is to say no. It’s because of guys like him people don’t believe me when I tell them I’m gay.

But Maddox has something I need.

After an injury that cost me my baseball career, I’m trying to leave my playing days behind and focus on being the best sports agent I can be. Forty-eight hours with my sister’s best friend in exchange for a meeting with a possible client. I can do this.

I just wish he wasn’t so hot. Or that he didn’t kiss like he means it.

Wait … why is the straight guy kissing me?

*Fake Out is a full-length MM novel with no cliffhanger.*





Unwritten Law
Summary:
Steele Brothers #1
Being an identical twin doesn’t come without issues.

No one can tell us apart, not even our parents sometimes. We don’t usually use that to our advantage, but it comes in handy when my brother needs help breaking up with his boyfriends—which happens more than I’d care to admit. I know it’s enabling him, but I can’t say no to Anders. I will do anything for my twin. The breakups always go the same; they’re swift and simple.

Until Reed.

He’s everything I've fantasised about but never allowed myself to have. When I give in to temptation and begin to freak out, it’s not because he’s a guy. It’s because he thinks I’m my brother, and I can’t bring myself to tell him the truth.

**Unwritten Law is a 52,000 word stand alone with a HFN/HEA guarantee and no cliffhanger. It contains a mistaken identity trope. Please check trigger warnings in the front matter.**




Football Royalty

🎅🎄Monday's Mystical Magic🎄🎅: Silent Knight by Davidson King



Summary:

Can someone have both all the luck and none at all? For Ezra Acker the answer is yes. Life just is for him…until one Christmas when everything shifts and he finds out he has a silent knight who has been protecting him.

A world Ezra didn’t know existed is trying to kill both him and his knight. Can they survive the holidays and have a happily ever after or will Heaven and Hell see to it they don’t?

Silent Knight is a standalone dark paranormal novelette that was a part of the O Deadly Night Vol 2 Charity Anthology. No part of this story has been changed.






Silent Knight Re-Read Review January 2025:
I originally read this King short in the O Deadly Night Vol 2 Charity Anthology last Xmas and loved it then and I think I might love it even more now.  Ezra and Senon are so amazing together, despite some of the darkness of the story you can't help but cheer them on.  I have no idea if Davidson King ever intends to expand and branch this universe or perhaps connect it to another of her series, if she does I'll be like the family cat poised to pounce on discarded wrapping paper on Christmas morning.  If Silent Knight is all we get of Ezra and Senon's world than I will savor it for Xmases and Xmases in July for years to come.


Original O Deadly Night Vol 2 Charity Anthology Review November 2023:
(from the overall part of the anthology review): "these are dark stories would probably be an understatement.  If you're looking for Hallmark-y, Disneyesque, cute meet, cliche HEA, then this is probably not for you.  If you like creepy horror with your holiday fare then I can't recommend this anthology enough"

I said above that if you're looking for HEA this isn't the book for you but I think Davidson King's entry, Silent Knight(though more of a dark suspense than flat out horror) is probably as close to that HEA label as any horror collection can provide.  Truth is, King's storytelling star shines bright in this perfect blend of dark, dreamy, and delicious.  Destiny and holiday has rarely been darker.

RATING:




EZRA ACKER: AGE TEN 
The first time it happened, I was ten. I was living with the Kimbers, my fifth foster family. I got off the school bus and started walking the five blocks to their house. It wasn’t in a great part of town and, Natalie, my foster-for-now mom, always said to keep my head down and walk fast. So, I did and never had a problem… until today. 

I’d made it three blocks when I crashed into something solid. I fell backwards, my school bag flattened on the ground under me. 

“You should watch where you’re walking.” I didn’t recognize the voice but when I looked up, I did recognize the face. Morris Fieldman. He was sixteen and loved bullying younger kids. He’d never bothered me before but likely because I stayed off his radar. Until now. 

“Sssorry, Morris. I was trying to get home; dinner will be ready soon and I have to be on time.” 

Morris’s laughter was cruel and that was when I noticed two other people with him. Them I didn’t know but it likely didn’t matter. 

“It’s not really your home though is it, Ezra? You don’t have one, or a real family for that matter. Mommy and daddy didn’t want you and left you on the doorstep of a church like an afterschool special. Only, there’s no happily ever after for you, is there?” 

I swallowed down my sobs as Morris taunted me and his friends laughed. When I made to get up, Morris pushed me down with his foot.

“Stay down there, that’s where dogs belong.”

A sound in the alley behind Morris made us all jump and when the three of them turned to see what it was, I didn’t pass up the opportunity. I grabbed my bag and ran faster than I ever had before.


Davidson King
Davidson King, always had a hope that someday her daydreams would become real-life stories. As a child, you would often find her in her own world, thinking up the most insane situations. It may have taken her awhile, but she made her dream come true with her first published work, Snow Falling.

She managed to wrangle herself a husband who matched her crazy and they hatched three wonderful children.

If you were to ask her what gave her the courage to finally publish, she’d tell you it was her amazing family and friends. Support is vital in all things and when you’re afraid of your dreams, it will be your cheering section that will lift you up.


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