Title: New York Dolls
Author: Catherine Hensley
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: It’s Fashion Week in New York, and Denton Hodges just got her first big assignment for Glitter magazine.
Denton’s assignment: Get in the show at the posh Regency Viscount Hotel, and find a story. But a chance encounter with hard-partying starlet Amber Donovan forever changes the course of the night—and Denton’s life. After a night of being chased by the paparazzi, swimming in swag bags, and falling heart over heels for Hollywood hunk Chris West, Denton’s not just on the story. She is the story.
Suddenly, Denton’s no longer merely a low-level assistant. Amber’s latching on like a BFF from hell, Chris is flirting and cooking her dinner, and as Denton falls for the real people behind the tabloid screen, neither knows about her ties to Glitter. Only Denton holds the secret—or so she thinks. Is Anna Creel, Glitter’s icy beauty editor, on to her? Will Denton be able to write a story exposing her new friends? And is Chris more than just a friend, or did Glitter get the headline right—“Chris and Amber: Hot Nights!”?
Step into the spotlight, and peek beyond the red carpet in New York Dolls.
Title: Petit Four
Authors: Cindy Arora, Lucie Simone, Sue Watson & Joel Zlotnik
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Cake is often a major part of life’s celebrations, both big and small. From birthdays to wedding days, cake, in all its delectable concoctions, marks joyous occasions with a sweetness that can’t be beat. But even better is the love that is shared when two people connect over a sweet confection. Maybe it’s a cute new guy wreaking havoc on a broken heart, or a beautiful woman testing the limits of love, or an old beau stirring up long lost desires. Whatever the circumstances, cake can always be relied upon to save the day when it comes to affairs of the heart. In this collection of short stories, cake is the delicious center around which each tale unfolds and romance blooms.
When single mom and journalist, Olivia, sets out to find romance in Cindy Arora’s “Cake Therapy,” she gets a little help from her friends and more than a few slices of cake to coax her off the couch and into the arms of a truly great love. Lucie Simone’s “Aprez Vous” finds success-driven Tara in Paris reminiscing of her long lost love, Jean Marc, and her niece bound and determined to reunite them. In “The Heart-Shaped Secret of Raspberry Jam” by Sue Watson, cake enthusiast, Milly, meets her match in the kitchen, and other places, when new owners take over the tea rooms where she works and her talents and her heart are put to the test. And Scott, mayor of a small seaside community, flirts with political suicide in Joel Zlotnik’s “Her Charms” when he falls for new-in-town Nicole, an entrepreneur with a passion for cupcakes, and whose latest venture proves a little too sexy for the sleepy beach town.
From San Francisco to Paris, from small towns to tea rooms, this anthology tempts readers with humor, style, romance, and the powerful aphrodisiac that is cake. Petit Four is four stories, frosted with love.
Title: And Then There Was You
Author: Suzy Turner
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Three years ago, Eve Brooke had the most passionate, memorable night of her life. Unfortunately, it was with a man who wasn’t her husband.
Can infidelity be forgotten? Not when her one night stand moves in next door, it can’t.
Eve Brooke has a pretty good life. She’s married to Matt, her childhood sweetheart, has an interesting career and lives in a nice house in the suburbs. If life is so perfect why did Eve sleep with a complete stranger during a trip to London? And why, three years later did he have to move in next door with his beautiful wife? As the attraction between them flares up again, Eve begins to question her marriage and wonders if it is fate or coincidence that has brought them back together…
Title: City Illusions
Author: Judith Works
Received: Booktrope
Synopsis: Laura longs for warmth and excitement in her marriage and her life. Her impulsive response to a job posting in Italy leads her to cook Jake’s favorite Italian dinner to persuade him to take the leap from the comfortable confines of Seattle to unknown Rome. But the move turns out to be anything but a holiday. Behind the fountains, trattorias, and facades of ancient buildings lurk scheming art dealers and a Machiavellian co-worker who impact Laura’s marriage in ways she never imagined.
Will Laura find love among the ruins? Or will her dreams turn out to be illusions?
Title: That’s a Promise
Author: Victoria Klahr
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Pain isn’t new to me.
I’ve been to hell only to find it never really leaves when you get back. It haunts me through nightmares, unrequited love, lies, broken hearts, and now death.
A monster almost took my life.
My best friend carries half my soul a world away.
My boyfriend broke my heart but refuses to let me go.
And my father is dead.
I don’t believe in fate and I don’t believe in happily-ever-afters, but for some reason, I still hope.
Live, even with a tainted spirit.
Long for my other half to come back to me.
Risk another broken heart, just to feel loved again.
And refuse to let another horror break me.
In the face of my most recent tragedy, I have to decide whether forgiveness is something I can give. But even if that’s an option, can I be forgiven?
Title: The Reluctant Physic
Author: Suzan Saxman
Received: St. Martin’s Press
Synopsis: We all, as children, had our imaginary friends and monsters in the closet. But for Suzan Saxman, those friends and monsters didn’t go away—and they weren’t imaginary.
From an early age, Suzan knew instinctively that she had to hide her true self. She couldn’t talk about the specters who haunted her, waking and dreaming. In bed with a childhood fever, winged beings guarded her; bullied and friendless at school, she ate lunch silently under the steps of St. Theresa’s with the ghost of a nun; paralyzed with fear, she woke each night to see a man with no eyes, watching her; and she kept watch at the window, every day, while her real father was at work and Steve, her other father, was with her mother. It was the 1960s in suburban Staten Island and she tried to hide it all—to silence the spirits, ghosts and her own developing abilities to tap into people’s futures. She tried to be a daughter her mother could love.
Now, with Perdita Finn, Suzan tells the story of her journey in The Reluctant Psychic, and tries to make sense of her mother’s own personal buried secrets that were never acknowledged. She tells of the joy and terror in seeing things others couldn’t and understanding what no one else expected—and the loneliness and sadness of possessing a tremendous gift. Through powerful readings of others’ destinies interwoven with compelling narrative, a reluctant psychic emerges into the light.
