Cover Reveal: The Ruthless Gangster, by Avery Kane

the ruthless gangster
TITLE- The Ruthless Gangster
AUTHOR – Avery Kane
GENRE – Dark Romance
RELEASE DATE- October 30th, 2021

 

“The devil is out to corrupt the ballerina.”

Crossbar May is doomed.

That’s what I first came to know about the shady town.

I never thought I’d see myself ending up in that horrific town… but I did.

I was taken, stolen and completely destroyed.

The Shadows were hovering upon me to wreck me, hiding and waiting- until they finally attacked. Ace West is on a mission to ruin me.

He told me he’ll break me in the most ruthless way.

What he doesn’t know is that you can’t break someone who’s already broken.

And you definitely can’t break the girl you love without destroying yourself.

The Ruthless Gangster is book ONE in an ALL-new college romance series with your favorite tropes by debut author Avery Kane!

Enemies to lovers, childhood romance, rockstar romance, obsessed boy trope and so much more. In the town of Crossbar May, meet The Shadow Sinners- a group of gangsters ready to take over the world. These dangerous hot bad boys are about to meet their match in the most unexpected ways.

 

 

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AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

 

Author Bio
Avery Kane is a dark romance writer. Her passion for reading began at a very young age of fourteen, she found her escape through books.  Avery is releasing her epic debut book series in 2021 that you don’t wanna miss out on!

Book Blitz & Excerpt: Just a Phase + Giveaway

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Just a Phase
by M.J. Marstens
(Not Another Teen Wolf, #1)
Publication date: August 31st 2021
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal, Romance

Bullshit is spelled ‘You’re a werewolf’.

First, my parents tell me I’m going to be “checking into the Red Roof Inn” every month, and now, they tell me I’m a werewolf?!

Add to that I need to pick a mate and enter into some wolfy marriage—NOPE.

Not.

Going.

To.

Happen.

They can’t make me.

Everyone thinks this is just a phase but nineteen is the new two—and I’m going to show them how terrible I can be.

Buckle up, bitches, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Goodreads / Amazon

Just a Phase by M.J. Marstens

EXCERPT:

“I’ll tell you in exchange for something,” I bargain.

Rue squints at me warily.

“What?”

“I’ll tell you where we’re going and what we’re doing, if you give me a kiss.”

I hear Rue’s heartbeat speed up at these words. She might say she wants the omega as her mate, but her body is finely tuned to mine. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and I nearly groan at the sight. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, and she’s sending out all the right signals. She just needs to turn off her brain. I see her body war with her mind, and I know the moment her flesh wins. Her lithe frame becomes soft, and she leans in towards me.

“One kiss—that’s all.

“One kiss,” I promise, leaning over.

“Well, not now!” Rue shrieks. “You’re driving!”

I chuckle at her outrage.

“Okay, when we get there, then.”

Exactly thirty seconds later, I stop the car.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

“We’re here—and I want my kiss.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Backup, buddy! You’re not getting that smooch for free. You tell me where we are right now.”

Rue peers out her window into the night. She hasn’t admitted it, but I know she can’t see anything. I wish she would tell me more about why she’s not like a normal wolf, but trust will come with time. If I want her to confide in me, I need to respect Rue’s boundaries.

“We’re at my grandma’s house,” I finally confess, making her gasp.

“Your grandma’s house?!”

“I told you I was going to feed you homemade tortillas and margaritas. What better place than at my grandma’s where you can meet my family, too.”

“But—but—but—” she splutters, “we could’ve done this back at the mansion!”

“Nah. I only make tortillas and margaritas at my abuela’s. Do you not want to meet them?”

“It’s not that—it’s just this is like tenth date shit, ya know?”

“I’m working with only three and a half days, so I’m speeding things up,” I remind with a wink.

Rue snorts.

I’d say. Well, don’t think you can just skip all the bases and go to home plate, mister!” she admonishes severely.

“I know that’s a sports analogy, but I don’t get it,” I admit.

Rue’s tinkling laugh dances around us, and I can sense her irritation at my date plan fading away.

“Not a human saying you know, huh? It means that first base is kissing, second base is er, feeling one another up… third base is—shit. You know what? I don’t even know what the bases really are anymore except for first and home. Everyone changes them, but first is always kissing and home plate is when you finally bump uglies. You know—”

“Yes, I know,” I cut in. “Humans make sports analogies for sex?”

“Yep.”

“Strange. If I promise not to shoot it in your hoop before you dribble my balls, can we just try a kiss?”

Rue clutches her stomach as she bends, giggling hysterically.

“That’s not a saying!” she wheezes.

“Well, how am I supposed to know which sports analogies work and don’t work?”

I get out of the car and walk over to her side. Smoothly, I open her door and pull her out to me.

Now, about that kiss.

 

Author Bio:

Bestselling author M.J. Marstens mixes romance, suspense, comedy, and sassy characters who can say whatever they are thinking because it is just a story. When she is not creating steamy scenes or laugh-out-loud fiascos, she is refereeing her three children that she homeschools. In her free time, she loves to eat, sleep, and pray that her children do not turn out like the characters she writes about in her books. To read more about MJ, please visit her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/M.J.Marstens/.

Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram / Bookbub

 

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Spotlight & Excerpt: Blonde Boy, Red Lipstick + Giveaway

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Blonde Boy, Red Lipstick

by Geoff Bunn

Genre: LGBTQ Romance

 

Boy meets… another boy. The first boy is straight. The second is a stunning blond(e) wearing red lipstick.

Touching on issues such as homophobia, gender, human relationships and insecurity, ‘blonde BOY, red LIPSTICK’ tells the story of a brief affair between two young people living in big cities more than 100 miles apart. But can their meetings, filled with love, music and laughter – not to mention dancing and shoplifting – overcome the inevitable barriers of naivety, doubt… and distance.

‘blonde BOY, red LIPSTICK’ is an old-fashioned love story. But it’s also a love story with a difference.

A marriage finally breaks up because of a photograph. A photograph taken years earlier…

– “A real page turner… it made me cry and laugh, often at the same time”. Susan, Reader

– There is something singularly urgent about the appeal of a breakup story… like taking a photograph of a wave before it rushes back to sea.” Leslie Jamison. The GUARDIAN

– “The portrayal of gender, straight, gay and transgender issues in this book is hugely important”.Clare Conville, one of the UK’s foremost literary agents.

– The character of Alley is wonderful… I adore her. More please!”LGBTQ Review.

“Wonderful!” The TIMES

blondeboyredlipstick - excerpt

We first met in 1981, on a cool day in mid-August.
I had just turned 18. I was good looking, with dark eyes and thick dark hair. At the time I was seeing a girl, but we were going nowhere. I knew that was largely down to me. I had a public face, a persona, which girls found very attractive. Outgoing, talkative, with an almost arrogant charm. That was how I appeared. I dated any girl, every girl, as and when I chose. But in private, once we were alone together, I was much less sure of myself. Quieter. More reserved. Shy really. And that, I knew – but couldn’t easily change – was less attractive. We were teenagers, and life was supposed to be fun.
Back then, I was still living in Birmingham, my home city. But on that day, a day I would never forget, I was in London, on a dreary work-related visit to the south east, travelling on a local train slowly making its way back into the city centre. Then at some anonymous suburban station, voices caught my attention and I looked up from my book to see a group of punks or something on the platform. They were just talking, laughing. Fooling around a little. Doing nothing in particular.
I watched them for a few seconds, focusing mainly on a slender girl with strikingly blonde hair and a short pink mohair jumper. She did a little dance and seemed to be making all the others laugh. For some reason I found it impossible to even look at her without smiling.
Then I went back to my reading: ‘There are moments in life that are given to us. Moments where we can make a choice. There is much more to the world than we realise, and those moments should be treated with special care when they do arrive. They are often crossroads or junctions. A clear choice between action and inaction. Sometimes mundane. Sometimes – and often, and we do not see it – one of them will be very precious. A chance to change a whole life. To act or not to act. If only we make the right decision, we might be able to change a whole story.’
Suddenly, just as the train was about to leave, someone jumped on board, opening the door right next to me and then dropping into the seat directly opposite. That felt a little odd. It was one of those open carriages with lots of woodwork and as many doors as there were windows. Strong smells of dust and warm moquette. But the train was almost empty too, so there was no need for them to sit so close. And as we moved off, I half looked up.
It was that same girl.
Other than the pink jumper, she was mostly wearing black. She had also scattered a half dozen glossy magazines on the seat next to her.
Then, once again, I returned to my book.
What happened next? A misunderstanding. That was all.
The train slowed down for the next station and I felt a strange sensation. I didn’t look up, because I could tell what it was.
And I was embarrassed by it. I even felt myself blushing. It was the girl opposite. She appeared to be periodically rubbing her shoe against mine, against my boot.
The train stopped. And then she did it again. Very lightly, but – to me at least it was quite definite – she pressed her shoe against mine. I tried to ignore it. Sure, it wasn’t much, but it wasn’t the kind of thing most strangers did on a train.
Then it happened once more.
Still I didn’t look up. At least, not fully. But I did glance over the top of my book, past the words I was no longer able to read or think about, and notice that she was wearing a longish, black, tight fitting skirt and leather high heels.
I guess because it was daytime and August, albeit a cool day, those clothes surprised me. And maybe that was why I looked at her legs for longer than I ought to have done, as she later assured me I had. In any case, from her, I went back to staring at the pages of my book, turning them slowly to make it look as if I was reading. Not sure what to think. I hoped that staying quiet would make her stop.
The train moved off. And then it happened again.
I didn’t know what to do now. Should I say something? I’d never had anyone sit opposite me and do that before, and it felt strange.
Why would she keep doing that?
As we approached the more urban parts of London, I glanced out of the window, first to my side and then across her to the other window, as people do, by way of an excuse so I could look at her without being too obvious. Not obvious? Well, that’s what we tell ourselves.
Oh. Fuck.
I don’t know why, but I hadn’t expected her to be so attractive. There was not only the startling bleached blonde hair, which I’d always loved, but above night-club-red lipstick, she had high, fine cheekbones which gave her an almost sculpted appearance, and narrow almond-shaped eyes, outlined heavily with eyeliner, the lashes darkened to black with mascara.
There was a coldness in that face too, yet at the same time, a vibrancy, a liveliness that bordered on the insolent. I could see all that immediately.
But there was also something else there that I couldn’t place. Not then. Nor could I study her for too long, because those almond eyes flashed a sudden glance at me and a bright smile passed across her face. I couldn’t tell what colour those narrowed eyes were, but I could see that they sparkled, that they shone.
I turned back to my book. The train stopped again. And we were stuck at another nondescript station for quite a long while.
I knew the girl was now watching me now. I could feel her gaze on me.
Then she lit a cigarette, took a few drags on it and seemed to blow the smoke straight at me. “Ooo, sorry, is that bothering you?”, she said immediately. The accent was a little strange, but where from exactly? I couldn’t place it at first. It was also, somehow, not an ordinary girl’s voice.
“Nah”, I said, making myself smile at her. “It’s fine. Really. I smoke myself sometimes.”
“Mmm”, she said quietly. “I thought it might be bothering you. Sorry.”
I didn’t reply. And she picked up one of her magazines and, very quietly, began humming to herself as she flicked through it. Maybe even singing a little. Then she tossed the magazine back down onto her seat.
“People can be rude like that, though, can’t they? With smoke.” She spoke quickly. The voice was nervous and I found myself watching her mouth, and those very red lips. “Sorry”, she said again. With a shy but wide smile. “I am. I’m sorry.”
That was it! There, in that final apology.
That was when I realised.
Those few extra words. They had given it away. The something about her. The something about her face. About her body language. About her movement. Everything. We made proper eye contact for the first time and I froze as we did so.
The girl opposite me wasn’t a girl. She was a boy!


“Humour, romance, society, gender, those are the sort of things I write about. I like true stories.”An established author, Geoff Bunn was born in Birmingham, England. He left school at the age of 16, without any qualifications, and began working in a factory. After four years of that… he left the factory and went back to college. And today, as both a writer and artist, he divides his time between homes and studios in rural France, the UK and southern Sweden.Geoff is always happy to hear from readers and can be contacted in person via his website or on social media.

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