Tuesday Teasers + TOXIC Part One is available~!

Welcome back to the Tuesday Tease~!  TOXIC Part One released a little earlier than expected!

Amazon,  Barnes and Noble, Smashwords  

What happened, right? Well, sometimes babies arrive early and I guess in this case book-babies are no different.

When I uploaded EPHEMERAL I uploaded 3 days in advance for Barnes and Noble and two days in advance at Amazon, and they both ended up loading late. SO, trying to circumvent that from happening, I loaded both books even earlier, 4 days out for B&N and 3 days out for Amazon. Well, Amazon loaded in just over an hour. Go figure, right? B&N also loaded shortly thereafter. I guess it’s better early than late. So there’s that.

News! I’m on track with edits for TOXIC Part Two and should have them back for a final review to my editor next Monday. *squeals*

*TOXIC Part Two is a fun, freak-fest, and the ending… well, it’s heart-stopping in nature. But that’s just my humble opinion. ;)

News: Ezrina MacHatter speaks! That’s right , our hack attack princess gets her very own POV. I hope you’ll join me in traveling back to 1692 and seeing the world through Ezrina’s warped lenses. I’ll be sharing a scene from Ezrina’s yet untitled book from a chapter called, The Season of The Witch. It’ll be up on a friend’s blog sometime this month and I’ll give you the link once it comes out.   

Questionable News: (LOL) Christmas story! Will it be out in time for the holidays? I hope so, but I wouldn’t count after the New Year out of the running either. I’m going to try super hard to push SOMEONE TO LOVE out in time for the holidays since there is a touch of Christmas in it. (This isn’t my adult romance. That one is safely nestled on my editor’s desk.) SOMEONE TO LOVE is not quite a warm and fuzzy delight as it is a lusty romp of a ride—reader beware. This is not young adult. ;)

I’ll be giving an extended preview of SOMEONE TO LOVE next week, with or without a cover. I cannot wait to share this new book with you~!

On to the teasers!

Here’s the preface to TOXIC Part One:

 Preface

Love can play host to rich delusions. It stifles reality and skews the truth to meet our insatiable desire to be wanted, longed for, needed. It waxes poetic on destiny and soul mates with thoughts of forever and happily ever after pinned high on its wings. Love affords you the luxury of a unique brand of trust, an intimate level of confidence that solidifies two souls as one. It unifies them under the false banner of all things holy and right.

I gave my heart away in exchange for beauty and a song. I put a hook through my nose and leashed it, handed the reins to the one who held my affections and gave him permission to lead me astray. It was the scourge of my youth that bore a thousand different sorrows. 

Deceit. The grey clouds of deceit clotted my world. The battlefield moved from heaven to my heart. It came at me from all directions at once—an entire landscape of smoke and mirrors. Deception in acres spawned heartache for miles. This was no ordinary illusion. This was the severing of a lover’s cord. The death of a pure and righteous love I believed in.

I bought into the calm still waters that surrounded the one that I loved and entered in, but the current pulled me under and swept me away—dangerous—inescapable.

A rainbow of truths finally emerged. It pushed the darkness away and thrust us back into the light.

We held our faces to the sun only for a moment before death clapped over us like a bridegroom snatching away his betrothed.

Death is a promise incapable of deception. 

It tells the truth. You were destined to die from the moment you were born. It makes no promises, holds no delusions. Your corporal form was never meant to linger—only love, in theory, is capable of withstanding time and memoriam.

Love promises happily ever after, it boldly professes forever—but delivers only one thing—a reckless brand of hope.

***TOXIC Part Two (sorry if there are any repeats my “used” file is corrupted)***

(Skyla thinking about Logan)

“I still love you, Logan,” I press the words out with my heart. “I will never stop. I don’t know what you did to me that day I met you in the bowling alley—or before that in my dreams but you shifted my entire existence on its axis. I will never recover. I will always need you, deeply—completely.”

(Skyla in a pickle)

Trust only your heart, my mother’s strange words come back to me at this odd hour, and strangely enough, right about now, my heart is saying don’t trust your mother. 

*(Skyla to Marshall)

“So where are you going to sleep?” I already know the answer but I figure we should have our first lovers spat while I’m still bright eyed and bushy tailed and not wait until I’m so exhausted I don’t care whether or not his heavenly bod is snuggled up to mine.

(Skyla and Gage)

“What was that about?” Gage digs his dimples in and slays me without trying.

“You tell me.” I try not to get caught up in the fact he just wrapped his arms around me, that he’s dotting my neck with a series of molten hot kisses. Gage Oliver doesn’t fight fair, that’s for damn sure.

(Wes and Skyla in the Tenebrous Woods)

Wesley dreams of his Laken—her long wavy hair, the barely there skirt of her cheer uniform. She sways her hips for him on the football field. She’s not good by the way. Brielle could have aced those moves in her ninth month of pregnancy if she wanted.

She’s very good, he corrects.

***Thank you so much for your outpouring of support for TOXIC Part One all over Facebook and Twitter. You made me cry in a good way. If you enjoyed Book 7, please consider leaving a brief review, even a sentence is so very much appreciated! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ~A