The stunning conclusion to the Savaged Illusion Trilogy.
She fell in love with a rock star and lost everything…
Liza Cade won’t be safe until the disgraced former rock star who tormented her for a decade is captured or dead. All of her dreams died the night Gene Hayes swore to kill her, exposing her husband’s desperate lie and resulting in the loss of their baby. Liza is heartbroken and leaves, but can she walk away from her marriage and the powerful love of Justice?
He loves her too much to let her go…
Rock star Justice Cade learned the hard way love is more important than fame, and he’s determined to win back his wife. But just as he convinces her to give him a year to prove his love, he’s forced to go on an extended international tour to use his fame to ruin Gene Hayes. He won’t let physical distance, broken hearts, savaged vows or a vicious enemy come between him and his beloved Beth again. He fights with everything he has to regain her trust, will she forgive him?
They reunite in a savagely devoted love that charms the rock world…and drives her enemy into a murderous rage.
In the stunning conclusion to the Savaged Illusions Trilogy, Liza and Justice’s powerful love triumphs over tragedy. But their happily ever after is threatened by the man who has nothing left…except his vow to destroy Liza.
Savaged Devotion is the 3rd and final book the Savaged Illusions Trilogy.
His skin tightened at the confidence brimming in her rendition, and in the way she owned her moment of singing with a kitchen tool in the middle of the night like she was a rock star. She was doing exactly what they’d talked about earlier, standing up to him in a song by Pink and Nate.
Justice couldn’t have held back now if he had a punctured lung, and he poured more passion into the verse. Singing was his way of communicating, of having a voice in the world after being a kid whose parents didn’t want him, and then thrown into juvie as if he’d been human garbage to be tossed in a dumpster. Later, it’d been all he’d had left after losing their daughter and Beth leaving him.
Beth stayed right there with him in the moment, belting out her part and not the least bit cowed by his powerful vocals, nor did she stumble when she couldn’t hit the amazing notes that Pink could. Nope, here in this kitchen alone with him, she sang like she wrote—all in with no censor. When she wound her voice with his in the chorus, his entire body twanged with a wild joy that was damn near orgasmic.
Just as he’d worked so hard to find a path into her secret world of writing, tonight Beth had found her path into his world of singing.
As the song ended, he reached out, taking her spatula and pulling her against him. Tilting her face up, he said, “You trying to steal my limelight, baby?”
She grinned. “I don’t think you or Pink need to worry.”
He laughed. “I’m sure Pink will be relieved, but you’re not bad. You can sing. Not as good as me, of course.”
She rolled her eyes. “Did your fat ego fall off the bed and wake you up?”
A Prelude Novella to The Existence Series
Science Fiction
Date Published: October 2020
Publisher: Patella Publishing
One invention and two men hoping to change the way humans connect—through memory exchanges—but days before it’s released, one man realizes it may do more harm than good.
Foster Grady pleads with doctors to give his dying wife a moment of reprieve. He wants her to experience his creation: the ability to relive their life together through his memories. But when doctors refuse, terminal patient, Ashyr Harmon, convinces Foster to give him the chance instead.
The exchange becomes Ashyr’s lifeline and the two form a friendship and business deal which ignites dangerous consequences.
BEYOND THE END, BOOK 1 of THE EXISTENCE SERIES – Coming November 2020
Other Books In The Existence Series:
Beyond the End
The Existence Series, Book One
Publisher : Patella Publishing
Release Date: November 20, 2020
Nothing else exists—at least that’s what she’s been told.
Strong-willed teenager Leilani Grady is suffocating on her family’s island. She wants off, but her parents say the rest of Earth is destroyed.
When a stranger shows up, Leilani realizes her parents have fed her a life of lies.
Ashyr Harmon shares a complicated history with her parents—and now he wants Leilani’s help with saving his society. It’s her chance to escape the only place she knows. But Leilani must decide who she trusts: her flesh and blood or this man who promises to fulfill her dream.
Excerpt
Both men pressed shoulder-to-shoulder to look down at the resume, neither commenting on the fact Mariana had emailed it to at least one of them earlier in the week.
Regardless, while they looked, she looked too. Past the pizza boxes, down a long table against the east wall. She slid a foot back toward the table and, with a lean of her head, read physiology handwritten across a banker box. Then a slide of the foot to the right to see the scribble in permanent marker mind vs the brain across a journal cover, and then to a loose sheet of paper with a sketch of a glove with the word pressable next to circles which lined the palm.
Her feet had shifted ninety degrees when she heard Ashyr say, “We want to hire you.”
She looked behind her back, a grin spilling over her face. “Just like that?”
He shrugged. “I almost died before I discovered this…this…”
“Em-Path” Folsom added, standing directly next to Ashyr as if the two spoke as one.
“It saved my life. And showed me what to live—”
“And we don’t have time to waste,” Folsom inserted.
Ashyr twisted to face Folsom, nodding his head, as if Folsom had said the key words. “Yeah. It’s about timing. And you seem like an excellent fit.”
Mariana turned her focus back to scanning the details of the room. On the north wall, a table presented itself as a technology graveyard with broken tablets, game consoles, power cables, remote control boxes, and all sorts of other things she didn’t recognize. She felt awkward, her back toward these men who had just offered her a job. But an urgent curiosity kept drawing her forward, her feet moving toward a dark room, only partially visible, tucked in the far corner between the back table and the west wall, which was lined with a lab sink, a long counter, and a fridge. The room’s door was ajar. Taped to the center of the door, she read the handwritten note.
Please Do Not Disturb—Memory Exchange in Progress.
She drew her head back and turned around to face her interviewers. Her breath caught in her throat, the question ready now. “What’s the pay?” As long as it was higher than minimum wage, she would have to take the job.
Ashyr stood taller. “What do you want it to be?”
Folsom released a sharp cough. “Within reason.” He gave her an apologetic grin. “We don’t have much to offer yet, but with your help finding the support we need, we will soon.”
Ashyr stepped closer toward her. His clear blue eyes pulling her in again. “We are committed to making this work. We’re investing everything we have into this. In other words, we’re super, absolutely, insanely committed to this. And we want to make this a win for you too.”
Mariana nodded slowly, unsure of what exactly she was agreeing to.
“Help secure us a sponsor in—what—?” He twisted looks from Folsom to Mariana, “Two? Three months? In three months. You secure us a sponsor in three months and…” his voice turned soft, dipping into a whisper, “we’ll make you a partner with us.” Then he flung back to face Folsom. “Right? She helps get us a sponsor and she has partial ownership, with you, me, and Brody. It’ll be the four of us.” He looked again, back and forth between the two of them. “A percentage.” He started waving his hands around as if a number wasn’t within his mental reach. “We draft up all that legal stuff. We’ll figure it out. Together, we all make this dream come alive.” He whirled back to face her with a grin. With a lopsided tilt of the head, he said, “It’ll be worth it for all of us.”
Folsom stepped forward, the three of them forming a triangle.
Ashyr straightened. His clear blue eyes met hers. From him to Folsom’s rich blue eyes, Mariana looked at both of them, a nod growing inside her, just as Ashyr said, “So, you in?”
About the Author
TARA C. ALLRED is an award-winning author, instructional designer, and educator. She has been recognized as a California Scholar of the Arts for Creative Writing and is a recipient of the Howey Awards for Best Adult Book and Best Adult Author. She lives in Utah with her husband.
Her published works include REMEMBER (The Existence Series), SANDERS’ STARFISH and UNAUTHORED LETTERS (John Sanders Series), HELPING HELPER and THE OTHER SIDE OF QUIET, a 2015 Kindle Book Award Finalist and Whitney Award Winner.
Through online coaching, she helps other writers unleash their creative stories.
To learn more about the author, visit www.taracallred.net.
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Happy Release Day to Priscilla Oliveras, her new Holiday Romance, Holiday Home Run is AVAILABLE NOW!
Event planner Julia Fernández is in Chicago for an internship that she hopes to turn into a full-time job. She’s ready to live on her own, out from under her familia’s expectations that she take over their catering business in Puerto Rico and away from their year-round baseball fever thanks to her three ball-playing brothers.
Ex-MLB pitcher Ben Thomas knows what it’s like to have different dreams than your family intends for you, but since his injury-caused early retirement, he’s been struggling to find the sense of family baseball once brought him. When he volunteers as the emcee for Julia’s big holiday fundraiser for a local youth center, he finally begins to find a sense of purpose working with the kids and alongside Julia.
She’s focused on organizing the best holiday event the youth center has ever seen, not on romance. But Ben…he’s got a game plan for them that includes both.
Holiday Home Run was previously released as part of the holiday anthology A SEASON TO CELEBRATE.
Priscilla Oliveras is a USA Today Best-Selling author & 2018 RWA® RITA®
double finalist who writes contemporary romance with a Latinx flavor. Her books have earned Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly & Booklist, hit
the top 5 on Barnes & Noble’s Top 100 Book Bestseller list, & notched Amazon #1 Bestseller status. Her latest release, Island Affair, made it onto O, The Oprah Magazine’s “28 of the Best Beach Reads of Summer 2020” list.
Priscilla earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and currently serves as adjunct faculty in the program while also teaching the online class “Romance Writing” for ed2go. She’s a self-professed romance genre junkie, who’s also a sports fan, beach lover, Zumba aficionado, and hammock nap connoisseur.
Follow her at prisoliveras.com and on social media via @prisoliveras and Facebook.
Just in time for Halloween we have an author spotlight on Andi Lawrencovna and her soon to release anthology, WHO’s THE FAIREST? A Sisters Grimm Anthology. (October 20, 2020 and it is available for preorder, now.)
Andi Lawrencovna lives in a small town in Northeast Ohio where she was born and raised. She writes Fantasy with a twist, un-Happily-Ever-After-ing as many fairy tales as she can. And she’s not averse to looking at the odd nursery rhyme or ten when the mood strikes. Her Never Lands series is currently enamored with an ash covered assassin and a prince who’s not in the highest of towers. From ogres spouting poetry, to princesses toting swords, Andi’s stories aren’t quite like you remember.
For more, visit: www.AndiLawrencovna.com
Andi’s story in WHO’s THE FAIREST? A Sisters Grimm Anthology is called “The Snake’s Leaves” and we’re please to have an excerpt.
The clipper bobbed with the tide against the dock, rocking in the first waves as the storm blew in. Dark clouds churned the sky. Raindrops threatened to fall, but remained heaven bound for a moment more.
“It’s a bad omen.”
“There are no such things as omens.”
Reigner turned his head and stared at his prince.
Despite the response, Euridone’s voice held concern, and his face was stern with concentration and consideration.
Though the ship might not set sail during the midst of the storm, it would set sail eventually.
The waters whispered of hate and roiling death.
Rey did not think the voices beneath the waves referred solely to the tempest.
He might not have believed in omens before, but he wasn’t fool enough to ignore them when they stared him in the face. He opened his mouth to argue with his master—
“We should find our berth and get settled in. She’ll be along soon enough, and I’d rather be stowed away than have to deal with her.”
A call to action, and yet Rey remained still at Euri’s side, the backs of their hands touching where they stood together, neither of them wanting to move forward to whatever fate awaited them.
“I hate the sea.”
“It hates us too.” He replied and shifted the pack on his shoulder. A raise of his hand, the quick flick of his fingers forward, and the servants that lined up at their backs with the prince’s trunks moved towards the ship, and Euri followed their lead, Rey bringing up the rear.
The wind wailed as they walked the gangplank to the clipper’s deck.
Ware. Ware. You will die here.
Rey turned his face to the storm as the first drops of rain fell. “I’ve died before. I’m not afraid of my end.”
For only a moment, the wind stilled, listening to his words.
It screamed at his impudence when he smiled into its gale.
Prince Euridone Adavignlor, Hero of the Battle of Blackmore, Lord of the Southern Settlements, husband to the Princess Abrialla, wedded Heir to the Kingdom of Spinick, stood in the hallway outside the birthing suite and paced the cold stone floor.
His wife’s labor had slowed to a crawl somewhere in the tenth hour of the trial.
The healer said it was normal for a first birth to take time, and perhaps it was, but that was over a day ago when the pains first started, and now, at nearly forty hours, even Euri knew that something was wrong.
He was born a farmer’s son with nothing to his name but the clothes on his back and the dirt caked to his skin. Hock and hoof, field and plow, working the land and toiling beneath the sun, that was where he came from. He was a good farmer. A good and dutiful son.
And when the war came, and the king called all eligible men to battle, he traded pitchfork for pike and learned to wield a sword in place of the culling scythe.
He was a good soldier.
When his captain died, and he was chosen to replace the man, Euri discovered he was good at leading too.
He won the war with his tactics for King Ashwarth.
He should have died at Blackmore, but he’d somehow returned to the land of the living where the king took an interest in the man named champion.
A good soldier. A good leader. A good prince.
Words Euri never expected, nor wanted, to hear, especially when they were followed by a wedding decree, and the burden of what marrying the princess would entail.
For all his life, all he’d ever wanted was to escape his farm.
Now all he longed for was a chance to return to the quiet fields and the mooing of cattle and the mucking out of horse stalls.
He wanted to take his child away from the castle walls and show the babe the beauty of a simple life that Euri always took for granted with the man who he’d come to depend on more than his next breath.
A man who was not Euri’s spouse but her bastard brother.
Rey was more honorable than all the nobles put together in the palace halls.
And he was the only one Euri wanted, and that his vows demanded he never claim.
Not that Abrialla honored her marriage to Euridone.
For all the prince knew, the babe fighting to be born was not even his, some other of his wife’s lovers having whelped the child on the princess.
He should be angry at the knowledge, at the implication.
All he could feel was relief.
A small, childish, plaintive part of him prayed that if the babe proved to be another’s, he would be allowed to break his oath and be free of the witch.
The more rational part of his mind knew the unlikeliness of the same.
It wasn’t Abrialla who wanted Euri as a prince.
No matter that the king gave his daughter every other wish she desired, Euri was Ashwarth’s demand for the kingdom, and there was no escaping a king.
Abrialla would destroy the kingdom Euri fought a war to save.
Ashwarth chose a farm-boy to lead his country instead of his own spawn to keep the land safe.
And now, here Euri stood, outside his wife’s room, waiting for the birth of the child that would tie him eternally to the nation he called his own.
Knots tangled in his stomach.
Because the child was late in coming, and country or not, rule or not, the infant was innocent of his mother’s indiscretions or his father’s peasant desires. The babe deserved a chance at life, but Euri knew how frail new life could be.
The door to the princess’ suite opened.
A tired nursemaid stepped out of the brightly lit room into the dim hall where the prince waited.
“It is a boy, your highness.”
Euri nodded.
He’d known.
All along he’d known that she would bear a son that Euri would call his own.
He held himself still, one hand braced at the windowpane behind him, not sure if it was to hold him back from forging the room and looking at the child fresh from the womb, or if it was to keep him standing, that the birth was done, and the child was here. He was well and truly bound up in the fight for rule now with an heir of his own, blood or not.
Euri’s valet stepped forward to draw the maid’s attention when he could not.
“How is the prince’s lady wife?”
Rey stood with his hands clasped behind his back, anxiety showing in every line of his body. There was no love lost between princess and manservant. Where Euri might not abandon a bastard child, the king had no such proclivities when Rey was born and cast aside.
It was a mercy, in Euri’s mind.
If Rey was raised a prince, or a lord, or anyone of importance, they would never have met upon the battlefield. That Reigner was just a man, same as Euri, made all the difference.
Rey kept his eyes on the maid, and Euri tore his from the valet to watch a tear slide down the woman’s face.
“It was a hard birth. The healer,” her hand trembled when she raised it to her cheek. “He has asked the prince be admitted to speak his farewells.”
“Who hired you and Digger to kill Jessie Kegan?”
Petrov shook his head. “We didn’t have to kill her. We just had to convince her to quit sticking her nose into other people’s business.”
“And if you couldn’t convince her?”
Petrov shrugged his thick shoulders. “Then we’d have to do something that would.” He was built like a bull, and with that pale, scraggly beard, he was ugly.
“What? Like make her dead?” Bran pressed.
Petrov didn’t answer, just gave another shrug as if killing her was no big deal. Jessie shivered. She gasped when Bran drew back his fist and punched Petrov hard in the face, sending a spray of blood into the air and his body flying backward into the dirt.
“Bran, stop!” Jessie grabbed his bicep, which was bunched hard as steel, ready to deliver another brutal blow.
He shook his head, fighting for control. “He’s lucky I don’t kill him.” Instead, he jerked Petrov upright. “I need a name. Who hired you?
”
Petrov spit out a wad of blood. “Weaver. That’s his name. Just Weaver.”
“How do I find him?”
More blood trickled from Petrov’s nose. The way it was swelling, by tomorrow, both eyes would be black.
“I don’t know. He phones us on a burner, tells us what he needs, we call him back after the job’s done. Weaver tells us where to pick up our money. That’s the way it works.”
Bran swore foully. “What’s going to happen when Weaver finds out you didn’t finish the job?”
Petrov grimaced. “He ain’t gonna like it, that’s for sure.”
“Then I’d strongly suggest the first chance you get, you and your buddy leave town. I’ve got friends on the base. I’ll be texting them your photos. You don’t leave, I’ll know and you’ll be dealing with me instead of your buddy, Weaver. You won’t have a second chance to walk away.”
Petrov stared up at him. Jessie knew Bran was talking about soldiers in the 10th Special Forces stationed at Fort Carson, where he had friends.
“You understand what I’m saying?”
Petrov swallowed and nodded.
Bran turned to Jessie. “Time to go.”
“What about them? We can’t just leave them out here. They could die of exposure.”
“We’ll call the sheriff once we’re on the road.”
“I thought you were letting us go,” Petrov complained.
“You’re lucky your still alive.” Bran closed Jessie’s car door, rounded the hood, and slid in behind the wheel.
“Maybe we should call the MPs instead of the sheriff,” she suggested as the engine roared to life. “Since it involves a CID investigation.”
Bran shook his head. “These guys aren’t active duty, plus we don’t know who we can trust on the base.”
Unfortunately, that was true. Her dad had been murdered on the base. The military was somehow involved.
As soon as the SUV reached the highway, Bran called 9-1-1 and anonymously reported that two men had assaulted him and were now tied up in an empty field. He gave the location using GPS coordinates.
“Sheriff will be there in ten,” he said, ending the call. “We need to be long gone by then.” He punched the gas and the Expedition picked up speed, heading back to Colorado Springs, forty miles away, and their motel.
“What will the sheriff do to them?” Jessie asked.
“For starters, they’re probably driving with a stolen license plate. There’s also a good chance there’ll be warrants out for them. Guys like that…could be anything from a speeding ticket to a felony. Might get them locked up for a while.”
There were few cars on the back road Bran was driving toward town. The wind had picked up, blowing dust and dry leaves into the air. The night was dead black, no moon no stars. Jessie shivered, though it was warm in the SUV.
She thought of the men who’d come after them. “Once they’re released, do you think they’ll actually leave town?”
“I’d say chances are better than good. Men like that go after the easy money.” He cast her glance that held a trace of arrogance. “Turned out getting to you wasn’t as easy as they thought.”
She almost smiled. No, not nearly as easy with Bran Garrett acting as her bodyguard.
“I’ll text those photos to a couple of SF guys I know, have them spread the word to their buddies, keep a lookout, give me a heads-up if anyone spots them.”
She nodded. At least they might get some kind of warning if the two men stayed in the area.
Silence began to stretch between them. Neither of them spoke until town drew near and Bran’s gaze slid back to her.
“You okay?”
Was she okay? Men had been hired to stop her–one way or another–from finding out what had happened to the stolen munitions and clearing her father’s name. Since she had no intention of quitting, no, she wasn’t okay. But she didn’t say that.
“I will be. Once we clear my father’s name.”
“Be smarter to quit before things get worse.”
“You think they will?”
“Good chance they will.”
She fixed him with a stare. “You sticking?”
His mouth faintly curved. “If you are.”
As Jessie settled back in the seat, she found herself smiling. “Glad that’s settled.”
Bran just shook his head. “Well, you sure as hell aren’t boring.” He flashed one of his devastating grins. “Can’t remember when I’ve had a better time with a lady.”
Jessie scoffed. “Not counting sex,” she said dryly.
His look turned scorching the instant before he glanced away. “Yeah,” he said. “Not counting sex.”
Jessie’s whole body went warm, and in that moment she made a decision.
She decided she was going to seduce him.
A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
In the second pulse-pounding thriller in the series, Detective Gabriel McRay is once again forced to face his inner demons
More info →At the English country estate Drakenfall, Christmas is topsy-turvy, romantic, and heartwarming!
More info →As if Olivia Merriman doesn’t have enough to do in her beloved town of New Moon Beach, now her grouchy great-grandmother has recruited her to head up their coven of witches; her sisters are miffed, the coven is pushing her to accept the job, and to top it all off an evil wizard is messing with her love life.
More info →A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
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