[Blog Tour] THIN LIES (Donati Bloodlines, #1) by Bethany-Kris

An ARC was also received from the author in exchange for an honest review.My thoughts can be read 

> HERE <

THIN LIES by Bethany-Kris Donati Bloodlines, #1 Publication Date: May 2, 2016 Genres: Romantic Suspense, Erotic Romance, Organized Crime

PURCHASE (#Free with #KINDLEUNLIMITED!): Amazon

Synopsis: Calisto Donati

She was just a woman. That’s what Calisto wanted to tell himself; that’s what he wanted to believe. Emma was nothing more than a woman. There were other women for him to want. To obsess over. It couldn’t be Emma Sorrento. Not for Calisto. She was taken. She was claimed. She was not his. In a few days, Calisto would hand her off, and that would be that. He wondered why it wouldn’t be that easy to let her go. What good had saving her done? He had simply taken her from one monster to give her to another. Emma Sorrento Emma slid on her mask. All someone would need to do was look close enough to see what was really beneath the sheer falseness of her smile. At the other end of the table, Emma found her lies staring her right in the face. He smirked. And winked. Calisto Donati was her worst mistake, her greatest shame, and the one thing she still wanted more than anything. Emma could still feel him all over her, long after his touch and kiss was gone. In thirty days, her entire world had changed—he had changed her. Emma had a feeling that if she played another game with Calisto, she would surely lose. She had already lost once. Wasn’t it enough? WARNING: The first two books in the Donati Bloodlines Trilogy end on a cliffhanger, and are not considered safe romance.

THIN LIES - MUSIC PLAYLIST

#CALISTODONATI

#EMMASORRENTO

EXCERPT

• “Maximo,” Affonso said, “are we just about ready to leave for the church?”

  Emma was shocked that her uncle was going to church at all. He hadn’t returned to the

  Catholic church since he divorced his first wife. Maybe it was another way for Maximo to extend

  a hand to Affonso in friendship. She wasn’t sure.

  Her uncle nodded. “Yes, we are. The cars are waiting.”

  “We’ll catch up in a minute,” Affonso replied to Maximo. “I want a second alone with

  Emma, if you wouldn’t mind, old friend.”

  Maximo passed Emma a look as if to silently ask if she was okay with the request herself.

  Emma didn’t see how her opinion of things mattered at all. It hadn’t before, so why would it

  now?

  Before long, the house had cleared of people but for Affonso and another man standing at

  the bay window. The color streaming in through the glass bathed him in bright light, showcasing

  a tall frame and broad shoulders hugged by a tailored suit. His dark hair was cropped short, but it

  was still long enough for him to run his fingers through as he lifted a glass of water in his hand to

  take a drink.

  “Now that we’re alone,” Affonso said, turning to Emma.

  She shot the quiet man with his back turned a look. “Um—”

  “My nephew always stays close by. Ignore him. As I said earlier, I was promised a girl who

  knew her place, Emma. I want to make sure you understand everything that means.”

  “I think you explained it well enough.”

  “Then why are you trembling like a little leaf?” he asked.

  Emma stilled on the spot. She hadn’t realized that she was still shaking. “I’m nervous.”

  Affonso frowned. “Calisto?”

  The man at the window turned his head slightly, just enough to stare at his uncle and

  Emma. Dark brown, almost black, eyes and a strong jaw framed the man’s face. His sharp

  cheekbones and unsmiling lips hardened his features, but it still stunned Emma.

  It stunned her because he was … beautiful.

  A hint of something dangerous and sinful wafted from the young man as the corner of his

  mouth tugged upwards into something resembling a smirk or even a sneer. She couldn’t be sure.

  Long fingers wrapped tighter around the glass he was holding, drawing Emma’s attention to the

  fact he wore no wedding band and his hands seemed strong.

  She could clearly see the resemblance between the younger man—Calisto, Affonso had

  said—and his uncle.

  “Sì?” Calisto asked.
• “Cal, ottenere vino. Fill a glass. Hurry, before someone comes back and bitches about her

  age and drinking.”

  Calisto chuckled deeply. The sound came out dark and heavy, and his tall, fit frame rocked

  with movement. Emma thought he sounded almost musical, even if the man looked entirely

  bored with the situation and day.

  “Whatever you need, zio.”

  Then, Calisto was gone.

  “Wine?” Emma asked.

  “It’ll take the edge off for you,” Affonso said, smiling widely. “As long as you’re a good

  girl, Emma, I will always take care of you.”

  A good girl.

  Emma felt sick again.

  “And of course, Cal will always be around to keep an eye on you when I can’t,” Affonso

  added. “He’s closer to your age, at twenty-seven. Too bad, really. Had he wanted what I wanted

  for him, then I wouldn’t need you at all, Emma.”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “I prefer Emmy,” she said.

  It was the only thing that came to her mind. She felt stupid for even saying it, but it was

  better than spitting out how disgusted the man made her.

  “Emmy,” Affonso echoed. “Sounds a bit girlish and young, doesn’t it?”

  Suddenly, a presence was behind Emma. She knew Calisto was back before he’d even said

  a thing.

  “Here,” Calisto said, handing Emma a glass of wine.

  Her fingers brushed his and warmth spread up her arm. She pulled her limb and the wine

  glass back as fast as she could, but not before dropping her gaze.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I prefer Emmy,” Calisto said quietly.

  Emma’s head jerked up, finding Calisto watching her curiously.

  “Pardon?” Affonso asked.

  “Her name. Emmy. I like it.”

  Emma tipped her wine glass up and gulped down a mouthful just to keep from smiling.

  Who was this man? A few minutes ago, he seemed like he didn’t care who she was or if she was

  even breathing.

  “It’s got a nice ring, zio,” Calisto added. “Rolls off the tongue, if you know what I mean.”

  Affonso scowled. “You would think so, Cal. Hurry up with the wine, Emma. We have

  things to do and people to see. A good Don doesn’t keep people waiting. You’ve spent enough

  time around Maximo to know this.”

  Emma drank her wine a little bit slower

ABOUT BETHANY-KRIS

Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to three young sons, one cat, and two dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a hubby calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something … when she can find the time. To keep up-to-date with new releases from Bethany-Kris, sign up to her New Release Newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/bf9lzD

Website • Blog • Twitter • Facebook • Goodreads • Pinterest • Mailing List • Amazon Author Page

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[Book Blitz] What Love Is by Emma South

What Love Is
Emma South
Publicationdate: April 29th 2016
Genres: New Adult, Romance, Suspense

Inthis epic romance collection that spans eighteen years, the lives of six people will be changed forever.
Ask a million people what love is, and you’ll get a million different answers. None of them are wrong.
What makes a Marine take a bullet for a Hollywood starlet?
What makes a singer with a deep-seated hatred for the wealthy find herself smiling for the first time with a billionaire?
What makes a small-town princess defy death to be reunited with her small-town prince?
The answer is love.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

EXCERPT:

I hadn’t been held quite like this ever before, so tenderly yet with an unmistakable undercurrent of lust. I’d had embraces in the past, in another lifetime, that meant all kinds of things. Celebrations, commiserations, I-was-just-jokings, they’d provided so much I didn’t even realize until they were gone.
One minute they were there and then all of a sudden there were no more shoulders to cry on. The shoulder that I should have been able to turn to was busy with other things, things that weren’t me, and that had maybe done the most damage of all. That had hurt a lot.
“Are you going to hurt me too?” I whispered without even consciously willing it, so quietly that I didn’t think Jeremy would hear, but he did.
Jeremy stopped moving and I could feel him looking down at me.
“No. Bea, look at me,” he said.
Jeremy let go with one hand and I felt his finger lightly pushing my chin until I opened my eyes and gazed up at him. Jeremy’s brow furrowed and he shook his head gently.
“No,” he repeated.
I lost myself in his eyes for a second and then raised myself up on the tips of my toes to get closer to him. Jeremy lowered his head and our lips met for the second timein as many days, a much slower kiss that soon had me as oblivious to the outside world as I had been while dancing just a few moments ago.
The song faded away and our lips parted as I heard the sound of a couple people clapping. Our waitress was standing next to the young man who had been moving tables earlier and an older man, the owner perhaps. They were all clapping politely, butonly our waitress had a truly dreamy look in her eye.
When we had been interrupted the previous day I had been anxious to get some distance between the two of us as quickly as possible. I didn’t feel that now, I didn’t want to be apart from him even a single inch.

Author Bio:
Now a USA Today Best Selling Author!
Please visit http://emmasouth.com/?page_id=31 to sign up for my newsletter.
I'm in my thirties and living in New Zealand. About 3 years ago I lost somebody veryclose to me. I was lucky in a way, I was given enough time to make a promise. My promise was that I would never forget our young and innocent love, and it's a promise I intend to keep.
My writing is a way to help me keep that promise. I've always enjoyed writing but was forced into being 'prudent' and giving myself over to soul-crushing office work for the sake of a steady salary. Recent events forced me to re-evaluate my priorities and I decided to take a chance. I like to put little pieces of 'us' into my writing, from funny conversations we had, to apocalyptic arguments, to that special feeling you get when you hop into bed fully aware that your feet are freezing but your partner doesn't kick youaway.
Even though these things are set in fictional worlds and attached to fictional characters, in a way it feels like I'm doing something that will make our love live forever. If somebody reads one of my stories and likes a joke or sheds a tear, then our love has lived on, and I thank any readers I might have for that.

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[Book Blitz] Elemental Secrets by Elle Middaugh

Elemental Secrets
Elle Middaugh
(TheEssential Elements, #1)
Publication date: February 27th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Valerie Moore was a beautiful, headstrong girl with below-average social skills and above-average anxiety (including a flair for over-analyzing).
With her mother long deceased, and her father recently deployed, she ends up being sent to live with her eccentric aunt in a tiny town nestled in the mountains of Pennsylvania. But, being a Navy brat had made her into a bit of a loner, and making friends certainly wasn’t her strongest suit. As if the life of a typical teen wasn’t hard enough.
But Valerie soon discovers she’s not a typical teenager. Not by a long shot.
SECRETS are revealed…
…About her family, about her newfound friends and relationships, and about her whole world… Things that have been kept from her for her entire life…
But the biggest secret of all is revealed when Valerie discovers that she has Elemental powers, and a chain of inexplicable and irrevocable events unleashes throughout the little town…

Goodreads / Amazon

EXCERPT:

Cade leaned against the wall just inside the doorway, eyeing us silently and intently. The warring emotions that blurred in his eyes were like the chaotic flashing of lights. I tried to pin down a few of them, but I wasn’t sure if I actually succeeded.
Curiosity. Suspicion. Disdain. Jealousy?

“What’s up, Cade,” Holden said, tossing out a calloused greeting.
He shook his dirty blond head. “Just waiting for my lab table to open up.”
His emerald eyes locked onto mine, slowing me, maybe slowing time itself, until I was barely creeping on my way to the door. I so desperately craved for him to talk to me, and jaw taut, lips pursed, he looked like he was fighting the urge to do just that.
But he didn’t. He just watched with a frustrated expression as I tiptoed out of the room.
My lime green sandals had barely touched the old checkered tiles of the hallway when I felt it. The whole school began to shake. It sent palpable vibrations up my legs and dust falling from the ceiling like mini waterfalls. Balance and gravity completely eluded me and I dropped to the floor like a dizzy drunk. A siren screamed at the top of its lungs as the already dim lights flickered off and on under the strain of the trembling.
“This is not a drill!” Principal Bauer bellowed quickly over the intercom. “Use earthquake protocol; drop and take cover immediately! I repeat, this is not a drill! Drop and take cover immediately!”
All fifty states were at some risk for earthquakes, I knew, but Pennsylvania virtually never had them. It was completely uncharacteristic and absolutely terrifying.
The lights took their last breath then, plummeting the school into a thicket of shadows.
I crawled haphazardly on the tiled floor, the ground rumbling violently beneath me, until I reached the classroom across the hall. Most of the desks were unoccupied, so I slid under one in the front and waited. The quaking was subsiding, but the hammering inmy chest was as jarring as ever. Each rapid breath I took only prolonged the anxiety as I waited for the aftershock.
Other students crouched under desks, too, silent with fear, eyes wide and disoriented. Dust hovered like a chalky fog and had a number of kids sneezing, coughing, and gagging. I coughed, then glanced at my hands. My palms were scuffed and stinging, but luckily that was all.
Lightning flashed blindingly through the windows and across our faces as a violent downpour suddenly unleashed from the sky.
And holy shit, global warming might have been happening after all. I wasn’t sure how else to describe the phenomena erupting all around me, but pinning a name to the destruction was the least of my worries right then; I just wanted to get the hell out of there in one piece.

Author Bio:
Elle Middaugh is a newly published author, born in the sticks outside of Clearfield, Pennsylvania. After moving around the east coast a number of times, she now lives in her hometown with her husband and three children.
Reading has been a favorite past time since Elementary School and choose-your-own-adventure books. Writing has been her dream since Middle School when she first began penning her own material. Being published is the most awesome achievement in her writing career so far, but she hopes for more exciting landmarks and stepping stones in the future!
She’s a proud Navy wife; a frazzle-brained mother; a homebody who dislikes cleaning; a fan of tennis, and fitness in general; a lover of hot tea, mountain dew, and allthings fiction; and she’s a bigger My Little Pony fan than her children.

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[Book Blitz] You Found Me by Eve Cates

You Found Me: Complete Series
Eve Cates
Publication date: May 2nd 2016
Genres: Adult, Romance

After a summer spent in France with her controlling mother, Sage Forrester is returning to New York to marry her long-time beau, Nicolas Billiton. But there’s a problem, Sage and Nick don’t share much of a…spark.
Sage wonders if she’s incapable of feeling, or if she’s just stifled in her life as a princess of the Upper East Side. Plus, there’s a secret she’s forced to keep to maintain their extravagant lifestyle.
All of this changes when a young Australian model by the name of Cameron Wilson steps onto the elevator and takes notice of her. Her heart starts racing. There’s electricity. There’s a connection.
And he feels it too.
After a series of chance encounters pushes them closer and closer together, Sage is forced to make a decision between doing what is expected and following her heart.
Or will fate have other, much more disastrous, plans?

Goodreads / Amazon

EXCERPT:

In the golden elevator, I stand quietly as soft piano music floats from hidden speakers, and Nick presses the button to our floor. It’s as if there is absolutely nothing for any of us to say to each other as we watch the doors slowly closing us in.
“Whoa, whoa! Hold the lift!” A male voice cuts through the quiet, and before I know what’s happening, a huge man dressed in faded jeans and a faded blue t-shirt has jammed his body between the doors, causing me to gasp in surprise, and the doors to reopen. “Thanks for waiting,” he grunts sarcastically, glaring at Nick as he punches the button for his own floor. “I guess manners are an Australian thing.” His voice has this beautiful softness to it, even though he sounds annoyed. It sends a delighted chill down my spine as the screaming inside me stops. When I meet his deep blue eyes, the last thing I want to do is run.
My heart quickens.
Nick forces his hard mouth into a smile. “We didn’t see you.”
It’s as if Nick hadn’t even spoken as the Aussie’s full lips curve into a slow and sexy grin aimed directly at me. “I’m Cameron,” he says, extending one giant hand out to me as the other runs through his thick beard. With his tan skin, tousled dark hair and beard,he has the lumberjack look down perfectly.
Suddenly, all I can think about is watching him chop wood. Shirtless…
Blinking quickly, I clear the image from my mind as I slide my small hand into the gulf of his. “Sage.” I can’t stop the smile taking over as this beautiful warmth travels up my arm, and the world we were just standing in seems to fall away, replaced by nothing more than this very moment.
Keeping a hold of my hand, Cameron’s eyes seem to register the same thing I’m feeling. He grins a little wider and his thumb begins to draw small circles on my skin. “How long will you be in New York, Sage?”
I love the way my name sounds on his lips. I love the way my hand feels encased inthe warmth of his. I feel light-headed, drunk, dizzy, and all at the same time. How is this even happening? How is this random person making me feel more alive than I’ve felt in my entire life?
When I open my mouth to speak, the clearing of Nick’s throat breaks into whatever it is that has us so entranced. I turn my head quickly as if woken from a dream.
“Your floor,” Nick states curtly, his lips pressed together in a hard line as he glares at the point where Cameron’s and my hands are still joined.

Author Bio:
Eve Cates is a twenty-something author of contemporary erotic romance. She lovesall things naughty, demanding men and difficult situations (pass the popcorn please). Her first series, StepSister Devotion, will be told in four parts, releasing via Kindle Unlimited.
Eve has loved writing ever since she picked up her first crayon and penned a note to her imaginary friend 'Pok'. Accused of being a 'dreamer' as she grew, she's taken thatnotion and turned her daydreams into stories to delight and satisfy her readers.
When she isn't writing, you'll find her at home with her husband, four children, and two dogs.

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