Made For Us - Samantha Chase + Guest Post + Giveaway!!!

Guest Post: Top 10 Interior Design Tips by Samantha Chase

Hey, Everyone!  I’m Samantha Chase and it is a pleasure to be here with Ella talking about my new contemporary romance Made for Us book one in my new family series The Shaughnessy Brothers.  And I have to tell you, this series is one that I know you are going to fall in love with as much as I have.

There are six siblings and at the point that you’re going to be meeting them seventeen years has gone by since they lost their mother, and we see how this affects who they currently are.  Each book will not only introduce you to an individual Shaughnessy as they navigate through their life and eventually find love, you get to spend a lot of time getting to know the rest of the family, as well. 

My heroine in Made for Us is Zoe Dalton and she is an interior designer – that’s how she meets Aidan.  Sparks fly from the get-go and a lot of it is over his ideas for the designs in a home and how Zoe feels they should look.  Here are her top ten interior design tips for you!

10.  Wall Art.  It doesn’t all have to match but it does need to be hung at eye level.  These can add interest to a room and really change up your space.

9.   Mirrors are great for giving the illusion of more space.  If you have a small room, adding mirrors in some capacity can really help it feel bigger.

8.  Choose your paint color last.  Furniture and accessories first – because you’ll be keeping them longer than you have to keep color on your walls. 

7.  Pillows – more, more, more!  Throw pillows are a great accessory – don’t skimp on them.  Pile them on!

6.  Measure your space BEFORE you purchase anything.  Nothing ruins a room more than having furniture that doesn’t fit the space – either too big or too small. 

5.  Rugs.  The days of wall-to-wall carpeting are kind of going away.  Hardwood floors are all the rage but you can use area rugs to define a space.  Even in an open floor plan, you can use multiple ones and they don’t all have to match!

4.  Don’t be afraid to try something new!  Color can be your friend!  Not every room has to be white or beige.  If you’re afraid to go all-out with a bold color, try doing it as a feature wall.

3.  Be comfortable.  It won’t matter how beautiful a room is if nothing in it is comfortable.  It’s your home and you’re going to be living in it so make sure you’re picking pieces that you actually want to sit on and use.

2.   Lighting.  Natural lighting.  Supplemental lighting.  It’s all important.  Natural lighting is always best, but you need to make sure you’re utilizing all of your options to make your space bright and inviting.  Chandeliers, can lights, table lamps, candles…so many options! 

1.  Make the space your own.  Believe me, I can come in and design a room for you and decorate it like no one’s business, but unless you add your own personal touches, it’s always going to lack warmth.  Put out the things that have memories for you and let others see it.

***

Book Information

Title: Made For Us

Author: Samantha Chase

Release Date: August 4, 2015

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Series: The Shaughnessy Brothers, Book 1

Summary

Can't make time for love?

The Shaughnessy brothers have spent the years since their mother's untimely death taking care of each other and trying to make their father proud. Oldest son Aidan is hard-working, handsome, successful-and still single. Sure, he'd like to have his own family someday, but who has the time?

She'll show him how to find it

Zoe Dalton, a stunning designer Aidan meets on one of his construction jobs, has the beauty and heart to make Aidan realize how much he could be missing. But it's not easy to break down walls you've spent years building up. Now there's a major storm bearing down on the North Carolina coast, and it could be catalyst enough to force Aidan and Zoe into some major decisions of the heart.

Buy Links

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Author Biography

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller/contemporary romance writer Samantha Chase released her debut novel,Jordan's Return, in November 2011. Although she waited until she was in her 40's to publish for the first time, writing has been a lifelong passion. Her motivation to take that step was her students: teaching creative writing to elementary age students all the way up through high school and encouraging those students to follow their writing dreams gave Samantha the confidence to take that step as well. 

When she's not working on a new story, she spends her time reading contemporary romances, playing way too many games of Scrabble or Solitaire on Facebook and spending time with her husband of 25 years and their two sons in North Carolina.

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SPOTLIGHT: Tremaine's True Love - Grace Burrows + Excerpt + Message From the Author + Giveaway!!

Book Information

Title: Tremaine’s True Love 

Author: Grace Burrowes

Release Date: August 4, 2015

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

Genre: Historical Romance

Summary

He's had everything he could ever want...until now

Wealthy wool magnate Tremaine St. Michael is half French, half Scottish, and all business. He prowls the world in search of more profits, rarely settling in one place for long. When he meets practical, reserved Lady Nita Haddonfield, he sees an opportunity to mix business with pleasure by making the lady his own.

Nita Haddonfield has a meaningful life tending to others, though nobody is dedicated to caring for Nita. She insists the limitations of marriage aren't for her, then Tremaine St. Michael arrives-protective, passionate, and very, very determined to win Nita's heart.

Excerpt – Tremaine’s True Love

Wealthy businessman Tremaine St. Michael has concluded that marriage to Lady Nita Haddonfield would be a prudent merger of complimentary interests for the mutual benefit and enjoyment of both parties… or some such blather.

Tremaine rapped on Lady Nita’s door, quietly, despite a light shining from beneath it. Somebody murmured something which he took for permission to enter.

“Mr. St. Michael?”

Tremaine stepped into her ladyship’s room, closed the door behind him and locked it, which brought the total of his impossibly forward behaviors to several thousand.

“Your ladyship expected a sister, or a maid with a pail of coal?”

“I wasn’t expecting you.” Lady Nita sat near the hearth in a blue velvet dressing gown. The wool stockings on her feet were thick enough to make a drover covetous. “Are you unwell, Mr. St. Michael?”

“You are not pleased to see me.” Did she think illness the only reason somebody would seek her out?

She set aside some pamphlet, a medical treatise, no doubt. No vapid novels for Lady Nita.

“I was not expecting you, sir.”

“You were not expecting me to discuss marriage with you earlier. I wasn’t expecting the topic to come up in a casual fashion either. May I sit?”

She waved an elegant hand at the other chair flanking the hearth. Tremaine settled in, trying to gather his thoughts while the firelight turned Lady Nita’s braid into a rope of burnished gold.

“You are pretty.” Brilliant place to start. The words had come out, heavily burred, something of an ongoing revelation.

“I am tall and blond,” she retorted, twitching the folds her of her robe. “I have the usual assortment of parts. What did you come here to discuss?”

Lady Nita was right, in a sense. Her beauty was not of the ballroom variety, but rather, an illumination of her features by characteristics unseen. She fretted over new babies, cut up potatoes like any crofter’s wife, and worried for her sisters. These attributes interested Tremaine. Her madonna-with-a-secret smile, keen intellect, and longing for laughter attracted him.

Even her medical pre-occupation, in its place, had some utility as well.

“Will you marry me, my lady?”

More brilliance. Where had his wits gone? George Haddonfield had graciously pointed out that Nita needed repose and laughter, and Tremaine was offering her the hand of the most restless and un-silly man in the realm.

The lady somehow contained her incredulity, staring at her hands. “You want to discuss marriage?”

“I believe I did just open that topic. Allow me to elaborate on my thesis: Lady Bernita Haddonfield, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? I think we would suit, and I can promise you would know no want in my care.”

A proper swain would have been on his damn bended knee, the lady’s hand in his. Lady Nita would probably laugh herself to tears if Tremaine attempted that nonsense. Lady Nita picked up her pamphlet, which Tremaine could now see was written in German.

“Why, Mr. St. Michael?”

“I beg your pardon?” Tremaine was about to pitch the damned pamphlet in the fire, until he recalled that Nita Haddonfield excelled at obscuring her stronger emotions.

“Why should you marry me, Tremaine St. Michael? Why should I marry you? I’ve had other offers, you’ve made other offers. You haven’t known me long enough to form an opinion of my character beyond the superficial.”

This ability to take a situation apart, into causes, effects, symptoms, and prognosis was part of the reason she was successful as a healer. Tremaine applied the same tendencies to commercial situations, so he didn’t dismiss her questions as coyness or manipulation.

She wasn’t rejecting him either. She most assuredly was not rejecting him.

Message From the Author

What makes a man a gentleman?

For a romance writer, this question has to be answered in every book, because implicit in the term “hero” is something of the gentleman. Heroes need not be charming, handsome or wealthy, and they might not even be obviously heroic, at least at the start of the book, but they have to be worthy of our loyalty for the duration of an entire book. 

In the True Gentlemen series, I took three men who’d wandered across my pages in previous stories—Tremaine St. Michael, Daniel Banks, and Willow Dorning—and found them each a happily ever after. Tremaine is a flinty business man, Daniel is poor and pious, Willow finds polite society an enormous trial and would far rather be with his dogs. These fellows were not obvious choices as romance heroes, but they each had something that tempted me to write stories for them.

When we met Tremaine in an earlier book (Gabriel: Lord of Regrets), Tremaine was convinced that he’d found a good candidate for the position of wife. He offered marriage, listing all the practical advantages to both parties, and he congratulated himself on how much sense his proposed union would make.

The lady turned him down flat, and as a gentleman is bound to do, he graciously ceded the field. He didn’t like it, he didn’t entirely understand how or what he’d lost, but he wished the happy couple well.

Daniel’s role in David: Lord of Honor was to charge to London with sermons at the ready in an attempt to restore his sister’s honor. The very man Daniel accused of wronging that sister had already set her back on the path to respectability.

Oops. But again, being a gentleman, Daniel wishes the couple every happiness, even if doing so costs him the future he’d envisioned for himself and his loved ones. Like Tremaine, he’s a gracious and even dignified loser.

Willow’s appearance in Worth: Lord of Reckoning is brief, but he too is determined to see a sister rescued from a possibly compromising position, and again, rescue is simply not on the heroine’s agenda.

In all three cases, the true gentleman acts in the best interests of those he loves and is responsible for, regardless of the inconvenience or cost to himself. Because Tremaine, Daniel, and Willow were honorable, I liked them. I trusted them, I wanted them to have the happiness they clearly already deserved.

In the Nicholas Haddonfield’s sisters—Nita, Kirsten, and Susannah—I found ladies willing to oblige my ambitions for these men. In each case, our hero has lessons yet to learn, and in each case, his inherent honor wins the day. He might not be handsome, wealthy, or charming in the eyes of the world, but because he’s a true gentleman in the eyes of his lady, he wins her true love.

I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Author Biography

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Grace Burrowes' bestsellers include The Heir, The Soldier, Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal, Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish and Lady Eve's Indiscretion. Her Regency romances have received extensive praise, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Grace is branching out into short stories and Scotland-set Victorian romance with Sourcebooks. She is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural Maryland.

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TEASER: The Great Estate - Sherri Browning + Giveaway!

Title: The Great Estate

Author: Sherri Browning

Series: Thornbrook Park, #3

Pubdate: August 4^th, 2015

ISBN: 9781402286858

Pulled apart by past mistakes. Driven by a passion neither could deny.

Sophia Thorne was young and inexperienced when she married the dashing Earl of Averford…and through dark and troubled times, their relationship nearly came to an end. Now she’s determined to transform herself into the fiery, ardent lover she always wanted to be, giving them a second chance at love… before they’re lost to each other forever.

It took nearly losing Sophia for Gabriel to realize he had allowed his love for his great estate to distract him from his beautiful wife. But that time is over. Despite all the obstacles standing in their way, Gabriel vows to teach Sophia what it is to truly love…and to be loved by a husband devoted heart and soul to her every desire.

Sherri Browning writes historical and contemporary romance fiction, sometimes with a paranormal twist. She is the author of critically acclaimed classic mash-ups Jane Slayre and Grave Expectations. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Sherri has lived in western Massachusetts and Greater Detroit Michigan, but is now settled with her family in Simsbury, Connecticut. Find her online at www.sherribrowningerwin.com.

A Teaser:

Sophia had no earthly idea what she would say to her husband when she saw him again after nearly a year apart. Perhaps she would carry on as if nothing had happened, simply pick up where they’d left off before everything had gone so wrong between them. By now, what else was there to say?

“Oh, sorry I kissed Lord Ralston, by the way. How was Italy?”

She took a deep breath as the cab pulled up in front of Averford House. To mask her trepidation at surpris- ing her husband, she put on the imperious face she wore when dealing with the servants and smiled coolly at the driver as he opened the door for her to step out.

“Thank you. A footman will see to compensating you when he comes to retrieve my luggage.”

Before the driver could protest, she walked by him, up the steps to the door, and entered. No one was there to greet her, as expected since she hadn’t called ahead. She proceeded to the parlor and rang for Sutton.

“My lady.” His cheeks reddened in surprise as he rounded the corner. “I—we weren’t expecting you.”

Finch, their Yorkshire butler, had the good sense to appear unruffled at all times. Sutton occasionally slipped and revealed himself to be...human, she supposed. The man was only human. Why would she expect otherwise? Times were changing, as her friend Eve never failed to remind her. Perhaps it was time Sophia softened her expectations. A little. But allowing the servants to be human meant that she might slip and expose herself as human too. She wasn’t sure she wanted to make herself that vulnerable.

“Of course not.” She loosened her lace gloves one finger at a time and pulled them off. “I came on a whim. I’m sorry if I’ve startled you. I hope it won’t be much trouble to make my room ready, considering Lord Averford is already in house.”

It was the first time she’d ever apologized to a servant that she could recall, and she supposed that she could do it again. The foundation hadn’t rocked beneath her feet, and Sutton remained standing before her awaiting further instruction. Surely Gabriel might see it as a sign that she was making an effort.

Buy Links:

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BLOG TOUR: Full Contact - Sarah Castille + Review + GIVEAWAY!

Book & Author details:

Full Contact by Sarah Castille 

(Redemption #3) 

Published by: Sourcebooks Casablanca

Publication date: April 7th 2015

Genres: Adult, Erotica, Romance

Synopsis:

When you can’t resist the one person who could destroy you…

Sia O’Donnell can’t help but push the limits. She secretly attends every underground MMA fight featuring The Predator, the undisputed champion. When he stalks his prey in the ring, Sia is mesmerized. He is dominant and dangerous and every instinct tells her to run.

Every beautiful thing Ray “The Predator” touches he knows he’ll eventually destroy. Soft, sweet and innocent, Sia is the light to Ray’s darkness-and completely irresistible. From the moment he lays eyes on her, he knows he’s going to have to put his dark past behind him to win her body and soul.

Goodreads

Purchase:

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Review: 

**Disclaimer: I received this book via Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.
 Any thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Full Contact is the third book of the Redemption Club series, but it can be read as a stand-alone. This is the first book in the series that I have read. And it will not be my last. This was an awesome book!

I once dated an MMA guy who wasn't high-profile himself but knew, and trained, with quite a few of the high-profile guys so I've had the privilege of seeing both the legitimate and the underground and Sarah Castille portrays these underground fighters and the environment around them perfectly!

I have to be honest, I've read a book by Sarah Castille before and I wasn't impressed so I was a little apprehensive to read another book but I am so glad that I did. I definitely want to read the rest of this series. Sia and Ray are definitely damaged goods but they compliment each other very well! They both have some issues that they have to work out and some things that they need to let go of but they help each other work through their stuff. Ray was definitely part caveman with some of his actions but at times he was very sexy!

I don't want to give too much away and it's hard for me to talk about this book without giving stuff away. (I've already spoiled it for a friend. Oops.) It's just SO freaking good and SO SEXY! Steamy, steamy, steamy! I loved it!

This book is more on the darker side of things and probably isn't for everyone. If you aren't into dominant men and BDSM type stuff then you probably won't enjoy it but if you are into those things, I'm pretty sure you will love Ray! Can't wait to read the rest of this series!

AUTHOR BIO:

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author, Sarah Castille, writes contemporary erotic romance and romantic suspense featuring blazingly hot alpha heroes and the women who tame them. A recovering lawyer and caffeine addict, she worked and traveled abroad before trading her briefcase and stilettos for a handful of magic beans and a home near the Canadian Rockies.

Author links:

SarahCastille.com

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