Teaser Tuesday!

Well, it won't always be Teaser Tuesday, but it is today. Yesterday was the cover reveal, here's a little peek of what's inside.

If I ever meet LH Cosway in person I will either be speechless or I'll hug her so tight she'll be in danger of me squishing her.

Killer Queen Cover Reveal

I have been so excited ever since I heard that LH Cosway was writing a companion novel to Painted Faces and now we have the cover! May I present Killer Queen!

Killer Queen

by

LH Cosway

Cover Designed by: Letitia from Romantic Book Affairs

Synopsis

Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome…

Come inside The Glamour Patch club to see the star of our show, Miss Vivica Blue.

Do you want to read my diary you nosy little devils? Have a glass of champagne (you’ll need it) and get comfortable because you’re in for some crazy shenanigans brought to you straight from the horse’s mouth.

I can be whatever you want me to be: boy, girl, a little bit of both.

If you have a problem with a man in a dress then best be off with you. If males in make-up give you the willies, then I’ll say au revoir and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

So, who are we left with? Ah, a fine collection of curious souls. I want to tell you a tale of love, because those are the most glorious kind. I want to tell you about real love, a love that transcends labels and gender stereotypes.

The moment I first laid eyes on my Freda I knew that we were kindred. Well okay, I also knew I wanted to get into her pants, but that’s beside the point. My world was a grey place. I was at my lowest ebb. Then she came along and patches of colour began to spring forth. One day the daffodils were yellow and before I knew it, colour was everywhere, lighting up my life.

Love is not about how we appear on the outside, it’s about the soul contained within.

Our story was not a conventional one, but it was ours, and that’s what made it shine.

Killer Queen is a companion novel to L.H. Cosway’s contemporary romance, Painted Faces. It contains scenes that take place before, during and after the original story. It can also be read as a standalone.

Goodreads

Excerpt

I was immediately happy to be left alone with my most recent object of attraction, and tried to think of a way to endear myself to her. She seemed a little defensive, and I didn’t like it. She was focused intently on stirring a pot of simmering bolognaise, not paying me any notice. Deciding to take the bull by the horns, I walked across the room and stepped up right behind her, taking her by the hips and affectionately resting my head on her shoulder.

Sometimes, forcing physical closeness with women worked for me. Not that kind, I’m not completely depraved. Often though, women liked it when I took them into my arms for a hug or pulled them onto my lap to sit. Unfortunately, Fred’s entire body went ramrod straight the moment I touched her. I instantly regretted the move, but at the same time I didn’t. Her supple hips felt good beneath my palms.

“Smells delicious, Fred,” I told her, brazenly giving her a squeeze. It was ridiculously inappropriate, but I wanted a reaction out of her. Needed one. Still, she barely moved and instead gave me a one word reply, “Yep.”

I leaned closer, allowing my breath to whisper across the back of her neck. She shivered and I think I saw her breath hitch, which made me grow a little hard. “The wine cost twenty Euros, and I got it from the off-licence down the road.”

“Oh, very la di da, Viv. You must be a big spender.”

I grinned, liking how she was subtly taunting me by continuing to call me by a woman’s name. “You like calling me Viv, do you?”

“What can I say, feminine blokes really do it for me.”

Enjoying this interaction, I decided to up the ante a level…or twenty. I spoke low and quick into her ear. “I can do that, if it's what you're into. In fact, I can be whatever you want me to be. I don't think it is, though. I think you're the kind of woman who likes a man to take the lead.” Then I pulled her hips back into mine. The feel of her soft arse flush against my cock did wonderful things. Wonderful things. I was having visions of throwing her over my shoulder and carrying her into my apartment so that I could have my wicked way with her. Unfortunately, my forwardness was not taken in the manner I had intended. Pulling swiftly out of my hold, she lifted up her stirring spoon and pointed it at me, as though it were a weapon that would keep me at arm’s length.

“Okay. Listen here, back the hell up or I'll knee you in the balls.”

About the Author

L.H. Cosway has a BA in English Literature and Greek and Roman Civilisation, and an MA in Postcolonial Literature. She lives in Dublin city. Her inspiration to write comes from music. Her favourite things in life include writing stories, vintage clothing, dark cabaret music, food, musical comedy, and of course, books.

Links

LH Cosway's Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Giveaway

Signed copy of Painted Faces (open internationally)

 http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/8032cec7278/

Painted Faces Links

Goodreads

Amazon

Amazon UK

Shiver Cover Reveal

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and what better way to celebrate than enjoying some candy purloined from the kids with stories from some of my favorite authors! Here's the cover for SHIVER!

SHIVER: 12 Sexy Tales of Humor & Horror

Release Date: Monday, October 13, 2014

Anthology blurb:

100% of all proceeds go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

12 smart, sassy ladies of RomCom are sharing 12 short stories and novellas. You will find some new characters, some old characters in new situations and a whole lot of awesome for a great cause all wrapped up with a spooky, sexy, Halloween themed bow.

Authors:       Belle Aurora

                        Jodie Beau

                        Ruth Clampett

                        L.H. Cosway

                        R.S. Grey

                        Z.B. Heller

                        Jennie Marts

                        Liv Morris

                        Daisy Prescott

                        Penny Reid

                        N.M. Silber

                        C.C. Wood

Add SHIVER to your Goodreads TBR list:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22667134-shiver

Stay tuned: Pre-orders will be available on Oct. 5

Giveaway

2 chances to win: autographed books and swag items galore!

Click here for Rafflecopter

Beauty and the Mustache

Add to Goodreads

Beauty and the Mustache
by Penny Reid
Publication Date: August 28, 2014 
Genres: Contemporary, Humor, Romance 
Purchase from: Amazon • Nook • Kobo • iBooks • 

Synopsis

There are three things you need to know about Ashley Winston: 1) She has six brothers and they all have beards, 2) She is a reader, and 3) She knows how to knit.

Former beauty queen, Ashley Winston’s preferred coping strategy is escapism. She escaped her Tennessee small town, loathsome father, and six brothers eight years ago. Now she escapes life daily via her Amazon kindle one-click addiction. However, when a family tragedy forces her to return home, Ashley can’t escape the notice of Drew Runous— local Game Warden, bear wrestler, philosopher, and everyone’s favorite guy. Drew’s irksome philosophizing in particular makes Ashley want to run for the skyscrapers, especially since he can’t seem to keep his exasperating opinions— or his soulful poetry, steadfast support, and delightful hands— to himself. Pretty soon the girl who wanted nothing more than the escape of the big city finds she’s lost her heart in small town Tennessee.

This is a full-length novel, can be read as a standalone, and is the fourth book in the 'Knitting in the City' series.

Review

5 Stars

It shouldn't surprise me anymore when I read the latest book by Penny Reid and I love it. Beauty and the Mustache, even by Penny Reid standards, is something extraordinarily special. This book is a romance in the true sense. We get to see two people fall in love with each other and we fall in love with them in the process. There are definitely moments of the humor that fans of the Knitting in the City series have come to expect so I did get to laugh out loud with the ladies from the knitting group. But this book is different from the first four. It may sound twee but I laughed, I cried, I had all the feels. 

This is Ashley's story. Just as she did with Janie, Elizabeth, and Sandra, Penny writes amazing women. All too often at the end of a romance novel it's the guy who really stands out, that readers talk about. That's not to say that I don't adore the men in the Knitting in the City books, but the women are wonderful, smart, funny, fully realized characters in romances in a way that we don't find as often as I wish we did. Ashley left her Tennessee home 8 years ago to escape her family and the small town in which she grew up. She has made a life for herself she is rightfully proud of in Chicago. Having to return to Tennessee to help care for her ill mother, she reconnects with her brothers and meets Drew, who has become an honorary member of her family. The beauty of this book is how Penny has layered all the aspects of Ashley's return home - the relationship with her mother and emotional struggle of dealing with a dying parent, learning about the men her brothers have become and rebuilding those neglected relationships, dealing with the memories and emotions of coming home to a place she was so desperate to leave 8 years before, recognizing, processing and accepting the complicated feelings she develops for Drew - and dealt with all them to perfection. 

Ashley has always been one of my favorite members of the knitting group. I can't really say why, but I am always happy when she shows up in a scene, so her book was one I was really looking forward to. Penny's choice for making Ashley's story more serious than the previous books worked perfectly. Ashley has the soul of a poet and the depth of her story is a wonderful fit.

Drew. I love Drew. A Viking philosopher poet mountain man. Ok. That sounds like it couldn't really work but it just really, really does. He's a reader, deep thinker, Nietzche quoter, soulful, poetic to his core, fictionally handsome good guy who loves Ashley the way she needs to be loved. He's the kind of hero that makes a romance novel an actual romance. The desire, the internal struggle, the doing-the-right-thing-for-the-woman-you-love. Classic romantic hero.

The Winston Boys, Ashley's six bearded hillbilly brothers. Another aspect of Penny's writing that can be taken as a given is that her secondary characters ... well, they don't seem secondary. It's easy to give someone six brothers, give them similar physical descriptions and populate the story with them and some hijinks. By the end of the book you may not be able to really tell one from the other except by describing what they look like. Penny loves us, and her characters, too much to do that. Ashley's brothers, Jethro, Billy, Cletus, Beauford, Duane, and Roscoe, are all fully realized, unique characters. You know them by their personalities, their different reactions, their ways of speaking. They don't feel secondary. There is nothing filler or fluff about Penny's writing. Each character brings something necessary to the story and this includes each one of the Winston boys, all of whom I want to hang out with. I want to populate my world with the characters in Penny Reid's books!

The knitting ladies can't be left out of this because just as her brothers and her momma are her family, so are the ladies from Chicago, and their husbands. The ladies in the knitting group are, as always, there for each other. What we see now is how their spouses are really part of the mix as well. I think Quinn talks more in this book than in Friends Without Benefits and Love Hacked COMBINED! And Fiona's husband, Greg, even makes an appearance. Yay! There really are no secondary character, just characters who may not be at the center of things at the moment.

Beauty and the Mustache is a beautiful book - the writing, the story, the characters. I know it will be one of those books I go back to again and again to lose myself in it. Penny Reid as outdone herself with this one, and proven that she is a consummate story teller.

About Penny Reid

SEX! It all started with sex, between my parents. Personally I don’t like thinking about it, but whatever works for you is a-ok with me. No judgment. The sex happened in California and much of my life also occurred in that state until I moved from the land of nuts (almonds), wine, silicon… boobs, and heavy traffic to the southeast US. Like most writers I like to write, but let’s get back to sex. Eventually I married and gave birth to 2 small people-children (boy-6, girl-4 as of this writing).

By day I’m a biomedical researcher with focus on rare diseases. By night I’m a knitter, sewer, lino block carver, fabric printer, soap maker, and general crafter. By the wee hours of the morning or when I’m intoxicated I love to listen to the voices in my head and let them tell me stories. I hope you enjoy their stories.

Blog • Twitter • Facebook • Goodreads

Also in the Series: 

  

Neanderthal Seeks Human

Neanderthal Marries Human

Friends Without Benefits

Love Hacked

Getting Back To It

So, things they are a changing here in Welsh World. I'm starting school and a new day job. Since I know these two big events are going to make crazy demands on my time, and I still have rug rats to raise to be passably good and responsible adults, I've said good bye to Penny For My Thoughts Book Blog and I'll be hanging out here at hopefully regular intervals and making at least a modicum of sense. Very soon I'll be telling you how I feel about Penny Reid's latest, Beauty and the Mustache. A bit of a teaser is that I feel a lot about BatM. 

Toodles for now.

Laptop Traveler

I love to travel, even if it's just laptop traveling (modern version of the armchair traveler, guess). When my friend Penny posted this article 15 Romantic Getaways Around the World, of course I had to take a look. This in turn led to a little time on Pinterest (never mind that the laundry has to be taken in early so I can get it back today) which usually ends with some fun or interesting discovery on the habits of Pinners. I found some wonderful travel boards, not surprisingly, but I also found several bucket list boards. The bucket lists I found at first had a lot of travel items on them, not surprisingly. I liked the look of this one, and this one. I got some fun ideas of places I'd like to visit from both. But I found both of those from boards that had pinned the article about the romantic getaways so it made sense that travel would have been the focus there. I decided to just search "Bucket List" and see what I came up with. That's when the fun really started.

Things I Liked on Other People's Bucket Lists

Being a kid again
-Spending a night in a tree house - the kid in me is really excited about this one
-Rope swings

There were some wonderfully romantic ones
-Writing a letter on Juliet's wall
-Message in a bottle
-Put a lock on that bridge in Paris
-Dancing in the rain
-Underwater fun

Adventurous and Exotic ones
-Zorbing - who knew this was a thing?
-Shipwrecks
-Ziplining
-Underwater hotels
-Overwater hotels

Doing something for others
-Donating blood
-Donate hair
-Volunteer

I'm going to start a bucket list! What would you put on yours?

I'm a Penny! I'm a Penny!

I am thrilled to announce that I am part of a fantastic blog team! I am joining Lisa Karafa and four other new blog team members at Penny For My Thoughts Book Blog! I will be reviewing books, helping with giveaways, hanging out with the other lovely ladies and readers on Facebook and who knows what else. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun and I'll get to tell my kids that I'm reading for "work" so they'll have to leave me alone! Total score! Can you tell I'm excited? I'm using lots of !'s!