Monday January 24, 2022
Welcome to HERE BE NEWS, where each Monday we bring you all the latest from the fantasy romance authors at Here Be Magic:
Tuesday January 18, 2022: Deborah Bailey discusses writing intimate scenes.
Thursday January 20, 2022: In a post pulled from the archives, Maureen Bonatch lists 4 stories that have stayed with her.
A Games We Play Story
PG Forte
BUY LINK
He knows what to do to save her business. She knows what he needs to fix his life!
Atlas Beach is experiencing a retail-renaissance—and Carly Meyer is determined to be part of it. But her sandwich shop-slash-food-truck, The Lunch Box, is struggling to stay afloat.
Luckily, help is on the way thanks to the Chamber of Commerce’s innovative mentoring program—partnering successful Atlas Beach business owners with some of the newer start-ups. Too bad the mentor assigned to her is the delectable—and highly annoying—Tino DiLuca.
Tino knows exactly what’s hurting Carly’s business and—exactly how to fix it. But his number one solution, changing the name of her signature sandwich, is the one thing she’s not prepared to do.
Two Truths and a Lie
(Games We Play #3)
PG ForteBUY LINK
BLURB: All work and no play has been the story of Brenda Donovan's life these past few months. Her concern about the future of her family's inn has her tied up in knots--and not in a good way. Between searching for a buyer for the business, and keeping secrets from her cousins, she's had no time to pursue an actual relationship. But pretending to date sexy Max Murphy, the hotel scout who's there to assess the property? That's totally doable. Especially when games, role-playing, and light bondage are included in the package. Falling in love was never supposed to be part of their deal; but now her heart's in play and all bets are off.
Max has no problem with hiding his true identity from Brenda's cousins. If that's the way she wants to play it, he's all in. But are Luke and Gwyn the only ones he's deceiving?
It's game, set, and match this time around. And when all the scores have been tallied, and everyone's secrets are finally revealed, will the cousins lose the Wild Geese Inn?
* * * * *
Although the focus of this book is on Brenda and Max's relationship, this excerpt is from one of my favorite scenes because it features all the main characters from the first three books. This first trilogy revolves around the three cousins who own the Wild Geese Inn. The second trilogy, starting with The Name Game (which releases Monday!) focuses on the DiLuca family (including Kristy's two brothers and a cousin).
EXCERPT:
Brenda was more than happy to have Max beside her when she entered the dining room a short while later to find that Luke and Gwyn had been joined by Cam, Berke, and Kristy. They were all seated around the table looking tired and grim—like the tail end of a long night, as her grandmother might have said.
“What’s going on?” Brenda asked, wondering why they’d chosen to meet here—or now. It was hardly private. She could hear the kitchen staff in the next room, going about the business of cleaning up after breakfast.
“We have a business proposition for you,” Luke said. He scowled at Max. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but since you are, we have a message for you to take back to your bosses. Tell them the deal is off. We’re not selling.”
Max shrugged. “I’m afraid you’ll have to tell them yourself. I don’t work for Fairfax anymore.”
“Oh yeah? How come?”
Max glanced at Brenda and smiled. “Let’s just say I have a conflict of interest.”
“That’s great,” Gwyn said. She gestured at the buffet. “Why don’t you both get some coffee, then come and sit down? We have a lot to discuss.”
Brenda hesitated for an instant. She didn’t want coffee, and she preferred to stand. But her cousins’ behavior had made things crystal clear. She wasn’t the one in charge anymore. “Buckle up,” she muttered to Max as they fixed their coffee at the narrow buffet, with their backs to the room, just barely out of earshot of the others. “Looks like we’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Max laid a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “Don’t worry. We’ll get through it. It will be okay.”
“So Gwyn and I got together last night to talk things over,” Luke said after Brenda and Max seated themselves.
“We all got together,” Gwyn corrected. “The five of us.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “You know that’s gonna take some getting used to, right?”
Gwyn nodded. “I know.”
“Anyway, Brenda, it was somewhat forcefully suggested to us that we may have more or less strong-armed you into this.”
“‘This’ being quitting your job,” Gwyn elaborated. “And moving away from the city, helping us keep the inn operational. We guilt-tripped you into doing what we wanted you to do. That was wrong. And we’re sorry.”
Brenda shook her head. “No, that’s not— It wasn’t like that. Really.”
“Yeah, it kind of was,” Luke admitted. “We both knew from the start that you weren’t really on board with the idea of our taking over the hotel. We knew you were unhappy. I guess we were hoping that, in time, you’d come around to seeing things from our point of view. We didn’t realize until yesterday how bad things had become.”
“But all the same, you didn’t need to go behind our backs like you did,” Gwyn told her. “That was low. You could have come to us.”
“Could I?” Brenda asked. “Really? What would I have said? I told you how I felt last November.”
Luke shook his head. “How about we try and keep on topic here? We can play coulda, shoulda, woulda all day long. But that’s not going to solve anything.”
“You’re right,” Gwyn agreed. “When you’re right, you’re right.”
“So where does that leave us?” Brenda asked. “Are you saying you want to agree to disagree? That’s not going to solve much of anything either.”
“Which is why we came up with an alternative plan,” Luke said. “You want out and, as it happens…”
“Berke and Cam want in,” Gwyn finished.
“And me,” said Kristy, raising her hand. “I mean, I know I don’t have a lot of money, just what I inherited from my mom, but I love this place. And I want a stake in it too. Even a little one.”
Luke shot her an exasperated glance. “How many times we gotta go over this? You don’t need to do that. You’re marrying me in a few months; that means you already have a stake in it. What’s mine is yours.”
“I don’t care,” Kristy replied stubbornly. “It’s my money, and this is what I want to do with it. This place is important to me too, you know. I want to be involved in helping to save it.”
“Wait.” Brenda frowned in confusion. “Married? You two are engaged? When did that happen?”
“Last night,” Luke said. He cast a rueful glance at Kristy. “I had to do something to make up for telling the entire bar I thought kissing her was a mistake or I’d never have heard the end of it.”
“Damn straight,” Kristy agreed, smiling back at him.
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