New Release-Hide and Seek, Playing with Fire #2, plus a giveaway!

Hide and Seek, from the author of the Pierce Securities, has readers going ga-ga!

"This story makes you believe in love all over again."~~Goodreads reviewer: Sue

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Joey was optimistic about his relationship with Simone, but she leaves him floundering in a sea of confusion when she suddenly dumps him. His mom is marrying a man younger than him, his station has him fundraising in a Santa suit, and there’s an arsonist loose in town. Then he sees her, the petite goddess who won't give him the time of day.

Vivian has all the reasons in the world to not get involved with Joey, the biggest of which is her four-year-old daughter, Carly. Joey's made her a lot of promises, but after the issues she had with her ex, she just knows Joey is too good to be true.

These two can't see what's right in front of them, but when the fuse is ignited, sometimes you just have to cling to someone and hope you survive. Hiding is not an option. 

Excerpt

Joey was pretty sure he wasn’t the first hungover Santa ever, but even with a slight hangover, playing Santa Claus wasn’t sucking nearly as much as Joey had thought it would. He’d been pissing and moaning for nothing because, as it turned out, he was having fun.

None of the kids had peed on him, nobody had punched him in the gut to see if it was real, and they smelled way better than he’d thought they would. Especially the babies. Who knew babies smelled so good?

They cried a lot, but they didn’t stink. And who could blame them? He was a weird, jolly, bearded guy; the babies didn’t know he was supposed to bring them toys yet. As far as they knew, their mothers were just plopping them in his lap, standing back to take pictures, and laughing at how cute they were while they were freaking out. He would be mad too.

It was sort of sick, actually, but funny too.

He was wrestling with one particularly strong infant, making helpless shushing noises, when he got a whiff of the top of its head. Damn. Somebody should bottle that smell. It was certainly lowering his blood pressure. As he breathed in the scent of the baby as he held it against his chest, it quieted down, snuffling and rooting around in his giant, furry coat. The baby found its fingers, stuffing them into its mouth, and looked up at him. Joey thought for a second he had conquered it until its eyes squinted, it opened its mouth, and an ear-splitting wail pierced his ears.

He looked at the mom, who was gleefully taking pictures of her wailing baby, and finally said, “What does it want for Christmas?”

“She wants one of those tummy time pallets.” The mom smiled at him and spoke loud enough for the benefit of the other children in line. “Thanks so much, Santa.” Bless her. She retrieved her daughter from his lap, making room for the next child.

“Ho, ho, ho, Meeeeerrry Christmas!” He had a thing going and was playing it up. “What’s your name?”

The little girl in question was climbing onto his lap as if she were scaling a very serious mountain. When she was settled, she looked up at him with earnest brown eyes. He couldn’t resist tugging on one of her ponytails, crazy with curls.

“Carly,” she said simply. No smiles, no giggling. This was a serious kid, so he pulled a serious face in response.

“Have you been good this year?”

She nodded solemnly. “I have a question, Santa. Do you make presents for grownups?” Her voice had lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, and Joey leaned his own head closer to her.

It was fun, and this wasn’t the first kid to tell him secrets. One little boy had fessed up that he’d been bad but his baby brother had been worse than him this year, so Joey was ready for more secrets like that. He sort of enjoyed the idea of being in on something with the kids. The “us against them” games were more fun than he’d realized.

“Sometimes. Has the grownup been naughty or nice?”

“Oh, she’s been really nice. But Mommy works so hard and is always so sad and stressed. Can you bring her something to make her better?”

“I might have something I can bring her,” he said, feigning thoughtfulness. “Who’s your mommy?”

“Vivian Clarke.”

The little girl could have punched Joey in the gut and he wouldn’t have felt it for the air rushing out of him. Could it be the same Vivian he’d wanted to kiss the hell out of yesterday?

“Is she here?” He couldn’t resist. He wanted to see her again, and if she were here, that would be perfect. Maybe she wouldn’t recognize him dressed as Santa. Maybe he could do a little kissing under the mistletoe. Okay, his imagination got away with him on that one, but as he followed the tiny finger pointing to a woman standing not too far away, watching intently with an eyebrow raised, he saw she was in fact the very same Vivian, dressed casually in jeans and a sweater.

And now so much made sense with her. She didn’t date because she had a kid. Wait, was she married? He hadn’t seen a ring yesterday, which was why he’d done the full-court press thing with her. But if she were married, that was a no-go. Well, with the wealth of information right here, he should take advantage.

Hide and Seek-Out Today!

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Spin the Bottle-Releasing October 9

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Hot Lava-Releasing November 6

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Nook-http://bit.ly/2OA0B98

iTunes-https://apple.co/2Mmhqai

Kobo-http://bit.ly/2B7ZXOE

Giveaway sponsored by LoveBooks running until September 13th for a $10 Amazon gift card.  Enter HERE!!!

About the author:

Anne has written her entire life and has the boxes of angst-filled journals and poetry to prove it. She’s been writing for public consumption for the past several years. She lives in rural East Texas with her husband and children in her own private oasis, where she prides herself in her complete lack of social skills, choosing instead to live with the people inside her head.

Currently, she has five romance series.  Playing with Fire explores the trials and tribulations of a small team of fire fighters in the fictional mountain town of Pamona Gulch. In Pierce Securities, she gives us Ryan, Evan, Miriam, Zack, Quinten, Jordan, Hollerman, and Simon. Her favorite series, Book B!tches, is all about a group of women in Mystic, Texas who get into all sorts of shenanigans. In Stories of Serendipity, she explores real people living real lives in small town Texas in a contemporary romance setting. In The Four Winds, she chronicles God’s four closest archangels, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael, falling in love and becoming human.

Follow her on the platform of your choosing!

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Website/newsletter/blog: www.anneconley.com

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Out TODAY!  The new series by Anne Conley, Playing with Fire's first installment, Truth or Dare.

Buy NOW!
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Burb:

When a child’s game goes delightfully wrong, Jude finds himself rethinking his current status quo.  Jude finds himself strangely looking to Annette to make sense of his own life.

Annette is trying not to get distracted by the sexy firefighter, but when her artistic retreat begins in disaster, Jude’s playing the hero she can’t ignore.  Suddenly, her artwork is completely changed with Jude’s exquisite lines transforming her landscapes.

Up until now, their life was like a notebook full of doodles, but it’s turning into a full-fledged art showing, and neither of them know how to deal with the embers of desire when they ignite into flames.

Excerpt:

She walked through the cabin, taking stock. The first thing she noticed was it was rustic, and had one room, an open plan divided down the middle. An enormous brass bed was in the back corner, divided by a half wall that separated the bed/kitchen area from the living room. 

Next to the bed, along the back wall, was a row of cabinets and countertops broken only by a sink for washing up and two large windows that exposed a breathtaking view. A butcher block island and a refrigerator, along with a coffee pot, seemed almost like decorations instead of necessities in the spartan room.

On the other side of the half wall was the living area with a couch, a couple of old recliners that looked more like homes to creatures than comfortable seating areas, and giant wood stove. Annette looked closer and noticed it had removable burners on top, which meant this was her stove for the week. She’d only cooked on a wood-burning stove once, at Luke’s deer camp, with horrific results. Oh well. She shrugged to herself. Fine dining was not a priority at the moment. She’d gotten Drake to leave, she just needed to get the cabin set up and she could get to work.

Aside from the recliners, the furnishings were old yet warm. Patchwork quilts covered the bed, there was an afghan the back of the sofa, and a closet held more blankets, towels, a stack of board games, cold weather gear, and a locked box. The bathroom was utilitarian yet had everything she would need, including running water.

It was cold, so she went outside to gather wood for a fire in the stove.

Huh.

There wasn’t much. Scratch that. There was a ton of huge logs she had no hope of picking up and carrying inside, despite the fact they wouldn’t fit inside the barrel-bellied stove anyway.

She stifled the silent alarm that rose inside her as she looked at the sky. It was clear-blue with a few fluffy clouds. It looked gorgeous, but she didn’t know much about mountain weather. She’d moved here from the piney woods of east Texas. It rarely snowed there, much less was a way of life.

November on a mountain was a different story. She went back inside and looked in the wood stove, pleased to see there was a small fire already stacked. But how long would it last with no wood?

With a heavy sigh, she went over to the bed—where Drake had left her things before driving back down the mountain—and grabbed another sweater to put on. She would save the wood until she was nearly frozen, then start breaking up furniture, she supposed.

Annette opened the refrigerator to find a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mustard, and two cans of Bud Light.

The pantry was much the same way, but the spice cabinet was full. A snort left her lips. She could use it to flavor the mustard.

Was she supposed to freaking starve out here all alone in addition to freezing to death?

“Thanks a lot, Drake,” she muttered to herself while she stalked to her cell phone to call him.

No service.

Alarm bells were clanging in her head. She was stranded here with no food, no heat, and no cell phone.

She was suddenly freezing, starving, and had an inane desire to call her mother.

Preorder the entire series TODAY!
Hide and Seek-Releasing September 11

Amazon-https://amzn.to/2L3JhXW 

Amazon UK-https://amzn.to/2Pm6BUz

Nook-http://bit.ly/2ODCKWt

iTunes-https://apple.co/2OBsFJA

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Spin the Bottle-Releasing October 9

Amazon-https://amzn.to/2MEWQCo

Amazon UK-https://amzn.to/2BmRSFF

Nook-http://bit.ly/2Mj7EGZ

iTunes-https://apple.co/2vDxPh5

Kobo-http://bit.ly/2vLrMa6


Hot Lava-Releasing November 6

Amazon-https://amzn.to/2L2Y5X9

Amazon UK-https://amzn.to/2ONcRU8

Nook-http://bit.ly/2OA0B98

iTunes-https://apple.co/2Mmhqai

Kobo-http://bit.ly/2B7ZXOE

About the author:

Anne has written her entire life and has the boxes of angst-filled journals and poetry to prove it. She’s been writing for public consumption for the past several years. She lives in rural East Texas with her husband and children in her own private oasis, where she prides herself in her complete lack of social skills, choosing instead to live with the people inside her head.

Currently, she has five romance series.  Playing with Fire explores the trials and tribulations of a small team of fire fighters in the fictional mountain town of Pamona Gulch. In Pierce Securities, she gives us Ryan, Evan, Miriam, Zack, Quinten, Jordan, Hollerman, and Simon. Her favorite series, Book B!tches, is all about a group of women in Mystic, Texas who get into all sorts of shenanigans. In Stories of Serendipity, she explores real people living real lives in small town Texas in a contemporary romance setting. In The Four Winds, she chronicles God’s four closest archangels, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael, falling in love and becoming human.

Follow her on the platform of your choosing!

Reader group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1346696508686306/

Amazon:  https://amzn.to/2NYhw62

Website/newsletter/blog: www.anneconley.com

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/anneconleyauthor

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/AnneConley10

Pinterest:  www.pinterest.com/anneconley

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6907845.Anne_Conley

Follow on Instagram: anne.conley   https://www.instagram.com/anne.conley/ 

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#CoverReveal Truth or Dare, Playing with Fire series by Anne Conley 7/21

Truth or Dare, the first in a new series, Playing with Fire, by Anne Conley!

Cover Art: James Price with AEP Designs

Cover Model: Stanley Fields

Photographer: Jeffrey Todd Photography

Publish Date: August 21st, 2018

When a child’s game goes delightfully wrong, Jude finds himself rethinking his current status quo and begins looking to Annette to make sense of his own life.

Annette is trying not to get distracted by the sexy firefighter, but when her artistic retreat begins in disaster, Jude’s playing the hero she can’t ignore. Suddenly, her artwork is completely changed with Jude’s exquisite lines transforming her landscapes.

Up until now, their life was like a notebook full of doodles, but it’s turning into a full-fledged art showing, and neither of them know how to deal with the embers of desire when they ignite into flames.

Excerpt:

Jude let out a hiss of air, probably because the paint was cold, but it made his nipples stand out, a stark relief against the flat disks on his chest. She traced the ridges of his abdomen with strokes of color that stood out against his tanned skin.

The bristles of the brush loved Jude’s skin, flattening and molding to it, leaving color in their wake. It was glorious, the way her hand was working the brush.

His jeans hung low, and Annette held her breath as she outlined the line that went down the outside of the abdominal ridges, leading into the miraculous “V” that ended with the jutting 

bulge in his jeans. Jude was holding his breath too.

Moving back up his body, she painted his collarbone, his neck, his Adam’s apple, then stood back and looked at him, trying to imprint the picture in her mind. Grabbing her sketchbook to ground herself, Annette quickly drew the lines, transposing them from Jude to paper so she could look at them later.

And remember.

His eyes were dark and intense, like a caged beast was inside him desperate to be let loose. Not finished with her work for the day, she tried to ignore that thought.

Vague impressions of Drake and his intentions for her show made her focus enough on her work to make sure she utilized the light while she could.

She made a quick sketch of Jude’s torso lines and looked at him again. He hadn’t moved and was still looking at her intently. A shudder of need slammed into her, but she still required something more.

Annette looked at him, trying to be dispassionate as she thought about what it was she needed.

She needed him to move a little bit so she could get the lines in motion.

“Can you hold onto that beam above you?” His golden eyes looked up to the beam in question, a good two feet above his head.

“Sure.”

Her breath hitched as he jumped straight up in the air and grasped the beam, his muscles popping with the exertion.

Those were lines a girl could dream about.

“Perfect,” she breathed as she reached for a chair to stand on and continue painting him.

The muscle around his armpit was bulging out roundly, so she started there. God, his arms were phenomenal. She loaded up her brush and went to work, tracing the routes of the veins on his forearms as his hands gripped the beam. His biceps were bigger here, more defined from this position, so she re-marked them in a darker shade of the flame color she’d mixed up.

His jeans sunk lower on his hips, so she was able to trace this “V” a little further down, gulping at the top of the nest of curls peeking from his jeans. The curve of his ass showed as she went around to the back of him.

“How long can you hang there?” She really wanted to get his back. It was amazing, the muscles a brilliant topography of the human body.

“As long as you need me to, sweetheart.” He wasn’t breathless at all, so she took his word for it.

After a quick sketch of the lines on his front, she went around to the back and started painting it.

Annette hadn’t done many portraits and hadn’t had much of an interest in sketching the human body. It was mostly because she went to college in east Texas, and the nude model they’d had for the one lesson had been a woman.

She may have to rethink the human anatomy.

This one's a live release, so there's not a preorder, but sign up to follow me on Bookbub or Amazon to get the link as soon as it's live!  OR you can sign up for my newsletter.  Oh hell, just stalk me EVERYWHERE!  Add it to your Goodreads!  

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And if you haven't read any of my stuff yet, never fear!!  I have freebies!  Check them out, and you can try before you buy!

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Summer Blues

I always, always, always underestimate how busy my summers are going to be when making my yearly plan.  I treasure my time with my family and want to make the most of it.  I always realize this is a prime working time, since I don't have to stop and pickup/drop off children and run them various places.

But I have an inane desire to keep them busy during the summer months, so they don't become vegetables.  I love to hear them laugh, see them smile, and do things with them.  I love that I have a job that allows me to do these things, and I don't want them being grown ups and singing Cat's in the Cradle with not so fond memories of their mom who never had time for them.

So summers are busy.  I work in the morning, while they're sleeping from their late nights watching tv and reading.  Then we go to the gym, swimming, to the library, or just hang out somewhere air-conditioned.

It honestly doesn't seem like that much on paper.  Not to me, anyway, but holy cow it fills up the days.  Add in the fact that most of the people I work with (editor/formatter/PA/etc) are night owls and productive in the PM hours, I'm still on my phone answering PMs or emails while I'm supposed to be being present for my kids.

It's that time of the season where the gilt has worn off and we're not super excited to be spending time together anymore.  My trips out of the house are met with rolling eyes more than anything else (especially at the idea of "active time").

I've had to institute a rule of no electronics after eleven and the kids are on the honor system with that, since I'm barely conscious at that time of day.  They are awake several hours after I go to bed, hence the quiet morning time I get to work.

My daughter has begun working for me, with time-sheets and everything.  She's doing a lot of copying and pasting, making me documents I've been needing (lists of all my ISBN's, AISN's, etc., documents with blurbs that need to be re-written, ad/spend documents, lots of things I need to be keeping up with but are time consuming and overwhelming to me).  So far, it's working out, but it's only a week in, so that will soon loose it's luster as well, I'm thinking.

Stress from these releases is starting to build.  I have a release in August, and it's ready to go.  The one in September is almost ready.  The one in November will be.  The one for October?  Not even finished.  And stuff is piling up.  I'm about to get Girlspawn on the release events, but that is all time consuming for me because as much as she's the digital generation, she hasn't spent much time on the practical side of things.  I've had to teach her how to send emails, create folders on her laptop, organize files, etc.  Knowing I'll have to walk her through the release stuff too is daunting, even though I know it will pay off in the end (hopefully).

Anyway, this summer is busier than most, even though I wouldn't trade a second of it.

Next week, I'll have some release info for anyone who's paying attention.  I'm super excited about these firefighters, and I hope you guys are too.

New projects

Wow.  It's been so long since I blogged about anything, I almost forgot what to do.

Haha.

Just kidding.  Not really.

I've just been super busy.  I've been trying desperately to get my next project underway, I've let a lot of things slide.  I'm sorry to those of you who check here semi-regularly for updates.  I promise I'll get better.

So what's this new project, you ask?

I'm going to try to publish a new series, the entire series in four months, so there's minimal waiting on the readers' part.  It's insanity, but I don't want to make promises I can't fulfill, so I'm trying to get it done before I start.

Yeah, that didn't make sense to me either.  Let me try again.

I'm trying to get the series finished before I start releasing them.  There.  That's better.

I've got two of them with my editor, and am almost finished with the third to get it to her.  The fourth shouldn't take too long.  So far, I'm a little bit behind my schedule, but still on track to publish the first book in August.

So, without further ado, let me tell you a little bit about the series.

Jude, Joey, Zane, and Logan are firefighters in Pamona Gulch, a fictional town in the mountains of New Mexico.  There's an arsonist plaguing the popular tourist destination, distracting them from finding love with these pretty ladies they meet.  Have you read Fortune's Kiss yet?  It's sort of a prequel.

Anyway, it's four stand-alone novels with the arsonist revealed in the fourth story, each novel with it's own HEA for the couple, cuz that's how I roll. 

I have other stuff going on, and hopefully will have some details soon to share, but for now, this is what you get.

Oh, and the stories are called Truth or Dare, Hide and Seek, Spin the Bottle, and Hot Lava.  The series is called Playing with Fire.  Get it?  I thought it was clever, myself, but I'm me, and probably a bit cocky, but that's another story altogether, one I'm sure you've heard before, and if not, I'm not getting into it.

Teasers and graphics coming soon!