Release Blitz, Excerpt & Giveaway:Trying Sophie by Rebecca Norinne

Trying Sophie

by Rebecca Norinne Dublin Rugby #1
Publication Date: December 6, 2016
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Rugby, Sports Romance

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SYNOPSIS

She doesn't date players...

Sophie loves her life: she's travelled the world and lived by her own rules. But when she finds out about her grandfather's heart attack, she drops everything and boards a plane to Ireland. Two weeks, that's the plan. Until one look at her childhood nemesis has her rethinking everything. She's sworn off athletes, but she might just give him a try...

He's the biggest player of all.

Sex and rugby. Those were the only two things Declan cared about, right up until his first love waltzed back into his life. Even as he slept his way through Dublin, he never stopped thinking about her. Never stopped wondering if she thought about him, too. So even though he's never gone after a woman the way he chases down opponents on the field, this time, he won't let her get away.

On the field, he's invincible, but she just might break him.

EXCERPT- TRYING SOPHIE by Rebecca Norinne

I dropped my eyes and stared at the floor. “I want you, Declan. Really, I do, but I’m worried about being just another notch on your bedpost.”

Pushing off the window, he crossed the room in three purposeful strides. Wrapping his large hands around my arms, he squeezed them gently. I raised my eyes to his.

“How can I make you see that’s not true?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you can’t.”

When I looked away he groaned and loosened his grip. Trying a different tactic, he asked, “What are you most afraid of?”

Man up Sophie, I thought to myself. If you’re not brave enough to have The Talk, you’re not mature enough to have The Sex. 

I couldn’t help how I felt and if we didn’t get this out in the open, it might always be between us. And despite this being a difficult conversation, it was more important to tell him how I felt than to keep it bottled up inside and resent him in the future because I hadn’t been honest with him from the get go.

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “The thing I’m most afraid of is you’re going to be with me today, then turn around and fuck someone else three days from now. I’m worried that if we do this, it’s not going to mean the same thing to you that it’ll mean to me.”

He closed his eyes and exhaled loudly as he pinched his fingers around the bridge of his nose. When he opened them, he dropped his hand and leveled an indecipherable gaze on me.

“How can you think that?”

“I know it’s not fair of me to judge you for your past, but you don’t exactly have a solid track record here. Tell me I’m wrong. Convince me that when we walk out of here you’re not going to think, ‘That Sophie, she was one hell of a lay. Who’s next?’”

“Is that really what you think of me?” he asked somberly.

“That’s what I was talking about earlier,” I answered sadly. “I don’t really know you, do I? What if you forget about me tomorrow?”

“That won’t happen.”

I continued as if he hadn’t spoken because if I didn’t, I’d never say what needed to be said.

“I know I’m leaving soon and less than an hour ago I told you we should just enjoy each other while we had the chance, but I think I’ve been fooling myself. I can’t be casual with you, Declan. If we’re going to be together, it has to be more than just sex.”

My eyes dropped to the patterned rug at our feet and I held my breath, waiting for him to laugh, scoff, or otherwise indicate I was being completely unrealistic with my expectations. Which is why I was taken by surprise when he lifted my chin with his finger and, staring into my eyes, chased away all my doubt and fear.

“Done,” he promised, finality in that one word. “And just so you know, there was never any question that’s what this would be. I’ve thought about this for so long, wanted you as much as I’ve ever wanted anything. I have no intention of screwing up one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.” 

He rubbed his rough, calloused thumb across my cheek. Dropping his eyes, he cradled my face in his hands and watched his fingers stroke along the apples of my cheeks. Finally, his eyes landed back on mine. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

I shook my head because I couldn’t seem to find my voice.

“You ruin me.” He dropped a soft kiss on my lips. “Just completely destroy me,” he added, taking the kiss deeper.

“Let me show you Sophie,” he whispered, his gaze locked on mine. “I promise it’ll be good. I’ll be so good to you.”

I nodded and he licked the seam of my lips. Opening to him, felt the tangle of his tongue against my own, the taste of him imprinted forever on my memory.

“Yes,” I whispered and kissed him back, hungrily.

He scooped me into his arms and carried me to the bed.

 

ABOUT REBECCA NORINNE

Rebecca read her first book when she was four years old and has been hooked on the written word ever since. While working in technology PR in Silicon Valley, she began writing her debut novel and eventually published it six years later. At the end of 2014, she left behind her career in corporate communications to become a full time author. When she's not writing, you can find Rebecca exploring her new city of Dublin, Ireland, watching Leinster Rugby matches, or traveling the globe searching for inspiration for her next book.
 

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Release Week Tour Excerpt & Giveaway: Crossing the Line by Audra North

A reporter looking for a big break gets involved with a race car driver with a secret that could destroy his entire team if they find out.

Out June 14th – Crossing the Line by Audra North

Title: Crossing the Line
Series: Hard Driving #3
Author: Audra North
Publisher: St Martin’s Press
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: June 14, 2016
Length: 52k words
Format: Digital
Digital ISBN: 978-1-4668-8904-0

Synopsis:

He wanted her the first time he saw her. It didn't matter that he was on stage in front of a room full of reporters, or that his publicist was telling him to move on, or that she was asking him a question about racing. One look at her "just been bedded" hair — completely at odds with her deliciously prim appearance — and Ty Riggs is hooked.

Corrine Bellows is one of the woefully few women in a male profession: sports reporting. In a field where "Hey, sweetheart, can you fetch me a cup of copy" is part of her job description, she's determined to keep things professional. And while interviewing Ty Riggs, the hottest new driver on and off the track, is a major scoop, Corrine knows that she is in major trouble when it becomes clear that Ty wants so much more and is determined to get it. As things heat up between them, Corrine finds herself on shakier ground. Her big secret just may destroy everything.

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Follow the tour and enter to #win a grand prize $50.00 gift card to Amazon or runner-up prizes including 5 backlist ebooks from Audra North!

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Excerpt

“And Riggs makes another attempt to—yes! He grabs the lead with only ten laps to go! Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes peeled because this will no doubt be a finish y’all don’t want to miss!”

Cori Bellowes pressed her face against the glass wall that overlooked the track. Throughout most of the race, the announcer’s voice had barely cut over the din in the press box. But now that they were getting close to the finish, the race was becoming more intense. All the reporters had grown quiet, barely breathing as they watched the drivers jockey for position at over a hundred fifty miles an hour.

One of the series’ newer drivers—Ty Riggs—had just overtaken a veteran racer and was pulling away from the pack. It was his second year in the Intercomm Cup, the highest level of stock car racing, but he’d come up through the ranks over the past dozen years and made a name for himself in the sport and in celebrity news.

It certainly didn’t hurt that he was gorgeous, too. But his very fine looks were secondary to his racing abilities.

So it wasn’t a surprise that he was tearing things up down there, but that didn’t make it any less exciting. Cori had been following Riggs in the news for years, well before she’d gone to college, then on to journalism school to become a sports reporter. He was known for being intense and focused on the track, but the most laid-back, affable guy off of it.

Except for the knock-down, drag-out fight with Dave Gilroy that he’d gotten into after last week’s race, that was.

Poor Ty was driving today with a not-quite-healed shiner from that scuffle. Of course, the fight—and the subsequent gossip swirling around about the reasons why he and Gilroy came to blows—was one of the main reasons why Cori was here, in the first place. She couldn’t feel too sorry about it.

“And there’s Gilroy in third, trying to make a move up but—no! He’s blocked by Colt!”

Uh oh. A similar move was how the fight started last week. Ty was in the lead and managed to shut out Gilroy on the last lap.

Gilroy accused Ty of cheating and, to everyone’s surprise, it was Ty’s fist that flew first.

Cori contented herself with the assumption that, since it was Kerri Colt who had blocked Gilroy this week, he wouldn’t dare hit a woman, even if she threw the first punch.  

She hoped, anyway. Gilroy wasn’t exactly a model citizen.

The cars seemed to pick up speed and even from up in the box, she could hear the scream of the engines on the track below. Ty was still in the lead, hanging on to his position by a narrow margin of distance. She wondered how he felt, knowing that if he won, fans would probably be hoping he’d get into another fight. A driver like Ty, who’d never publicly lost his temper before? It was too sensational not to.

Of course, she didn’t believe the accusations of cheating that Gilroy had slung at Ty. But she could see how, once suspicion was raised, people would begin to wonder. Ty had been on a winning streak at the end of last season, and last week he’d won the first race of this season by a significant margin.

Fans were starting to talk. People would probably want answers.

The orange and white of Ty’s car—the trademark color of his biggest sponsor—was nearly a blur from above.

To have a sponsor like that was what teams dreamed of. It was impressive. But then, so was the team’s founder, Bobby Riggs—a retired racer and Ty’s dad. Bobby had started his own racing team twenty years ago after leaving Youngtown Racing and had built it into a multi-million dollar operation with eight drivers on the payroll.

It would be almost too perfectly tragic, to bring down the biggest names in racing based on a single post-race throwaway insult.

On the track, the pack whipped around the curve, Ty in the lead.

She tried not to let her plans for Ty bother her. Despite the matching black eye he’d given Gilroy, which the other driver definitely deserved, she knew from years of watching his career that Ty was a good guy. She didn’t like the idea of deceiving him.

That’s not your problem. This is your only chance.

Right. She couldn’t allow her misgivings to get in the way of getting the information she needed.

If he won today, he’d give the reporters ten minutes of Q&A in the press room after the race. Either way, tomorrow during Media Day, she would have a chance to interview him one-on-one.

A one-on-one with Ty Riggs. She allowed herself a small, excited smile.

“Keep your eyes peeled, honey. It’s about to get good.” The reporter standing next to her, a man in his mid-forties—who’d been standing way too close to her all day—nudged her with his beefy shoulder. She tottered on her heels, but pressed her palm against the window, steadying herself before she toppled over.

Asshole.

She didn’t even care about the nudge as much as she did the comment. Only a complete idiot wouldn’t realize that the race was about to get good. It already had, in fact. She knew racing. She loved racing. And she was a damned good journalist. She’d waited for too long and worked too hard to give up the chance to actually report on something, instead of fetching coffee and answering phones.

Even if that chance had come at a price.  

She suppressed the urge to nudge the guy back…with the spike of her heel. He wasn’t the first man to think that blond hair and a pencil skirt merited condescension and inappropriate come-ons. She was used to male reporters being assholes. She worked for one, after all. And her boss had already asked her to do something that was outside her comfort zone. Something that the wire service she worked for should never have even considered, in the first place.

But what was done, was done. And she was about to deceive one of the most genuinely good people in the racing business.

That was why she was feeling so nervous beneath the excitement.

She wanted to release some of those nerves by inflicting bodily harm on the condescending reporter, but responding to the jerk at her side would only draw undue attention to her. And she already had enough, being the lone woman in the press box. She didn’t want too many eyes on her in the coming weeks.

So she nodded her head just slightly in acknowledgment, then focused on the track below. As soon as it was over, they’d be rushing to the press room, and she wanted to be sure she didn’t miss a moment of the race.

The announcer’s voice echoed through the box. “Going into lap one-ninety-five, and Colt is working her way through the pack. She’s moving up behind Riggs…she’s challenging him…but Riggs blocks! Colt is forced to drop back with only five laps to go.”

Cori watched Kerri Colt’s car as it chased Riggs’s around the next lap. The two were famous for their friendly rivalry on the track and their close relationship off it. Not that there was anything romantic going on between them. Colt was formerly Kerri Hart, the only woman driver in stock car racing, who had married her team co-owner, Ranger Colt, last year. Kerri and Ranger seemed like the happiest couple Cori had ever seen—at least, they did in the photos of them online. Cori had followed Kerri for a long time, too, starting back when Kerri had still been racing on the Indy circuit. Colt was only a couple years older than Cori, but she’d already accomplished so much, and in one of the toughest sports imaginable.

Cori might faint if she actually got to meet the woman in person.

Of course, that probably wouldn’t earn her any points as a serious journalist.

Then again, considering that Cori was about to perpetrate the most ethically questionable act of her life, a little fainting might not matter at all.

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What I thought about Crossing the Line

Ty Riggs has a problem. He's recently blown his cool with a fellow driver over accusations of cheating and even though he's not involved, past history could come back to haunt him.

Cori Bellows is a reporter hired to get the dirt on Ty, but when she meets him for the first time, there's a connection there that has her questioning whether she can go through with what her boss wants her to do.  It doesn't help that Ty is totally in immediate lust for her, and  things get steamy between them.

They both find that the feelings they have are more than just lust, but neither wants to say it just yet.  But when outside forces threaten their budding relationship, it could mean that it's over before it even gets started.

This was a very sweet love story.  I particularly liked Ty and how he fell hard for Cori.  Cori is a bit conflicted with keeping her secret from Ty, and that ends up causing some real problems between them.  

This title worked very well as a standalone for me as I hadn't read the previous two books in the series.  It's novella sized so it made for a nice afternoon read for me. I liked the diversity in Crossing the Line as well.  I wish the cover would have better depicted this aspect of the story. 

Overall, a cute, quick well-written story. While I thought that the tension could have been used to make the story a little more exciting and fast-paced, I enjoyed Crossing the Line.

ARC provided for review.

     

About the Author

About Audra North:

Audra North is a contemporary romance author of more than twenty romances, including the Stanton Family series from Entangled Publishing, the Hard Driving series from St. Martin’s Press, and the Pushing the Boundaries series from Samhain Publishing. She is the owner and publisher of Pink Kayak Press, which focuses on the publication of diverse romance works. Winter Rain, a Pink Kayak Press anthology, won a gold medal in the 2015 Independent Publisher Awards.

Audra enjoys speaking to writing groups and at industry conferences. She is also an avid jogger and loves running marathons. She has three children and lives with her family outside of Boston.

You can visit her online at the following places:
 Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon