It's another manic Monday here at Ever After Romance Book Blog. Jackie Ashenden will be our guest poster for today. She's here to talk about not only her book, Talking Dirty With the Player but to also tell us the Ten Reasons Why New Zealand is cool!
But before that, let me give all the fantastic details about Talking Dirty With the Player including a juicy excerpt, buy links, et cetera. Enjoy!
Talking Dirty With the Player
by Jackie
Ashenden
BLURB
Up-and-coming photographer Judith Ashton is
pretty sure she has everything in her life under control. That is, until a
blast from the past comes back to taunt her, in the shape of Caleb Steele, her
older brother's best friend...and the man who broke her heart eight years ago.
Their chemistry is combustible, but she's been fooled once by this player, and
she's not going there again. To pro rugby player Caleb, Judith has always been
his Kryptonite. But his former playboy lifestyle is the last thing she wants to
be involved in. In the midst of her brother's threats to back off, and the deal
of his career sending him far away from her, he knows he's playing with fire.
And this is one game he's going to lose.
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EXCERPT
His smile
widened and Judith had to remind herself that she was now immune to its lethal
charm. Completely immune. “Oh don’t be like that,” he said. “You missed me.
Admit it.”
“Yeah. Like I
miss gonorrhea.”
One dark brow
rose. “You’ve had gonorrhea?”
Judith
sighed. He was all about the witty comeback. If that’s what you called wit.
“Oh, shut up, Caleb.”
“See, this is
what I’ve missed while I’ve been away. I say something then you say something,
then I say something back and you end with ‘shut up, Caleb’. We always have
such great, in-depth conversations.”
Still the
same old Caleb. Patronizing, arrogant, and cocky as hell. They’d been friends once,
a long time ago. And then more than friends. Until he’d broken her poor little
teenage heart. She’d forgiven him for that, though; it had been years and years
since their affair, after all.
Eight years
to be exact.
Nevertheless
a familiar feeling began to creep up on her. An antsy, irritated feeling. Like
she’d brushed up against poison ivy. Okay, so she may have forgiven him. That
didn’t mean he didn’t bug her on occasion.
Judith
swallowed her irritation and maintained her usual calm-and-in-control
expression. The one that seemed to exasperate him as much as his teasing
arrogance exasperated her.
“Did you have
something special you wanted to say?” she asked him in bored tones. “Or are you
just here to be annoying?”
“Actually,
I’m here to shoot you. Though, being annoying is always an added bonus.”
GUEST POST
Jackie Ashenden
Since Talking Dirty with the Player is set in New Zealand
and we're such a small country, you may not have heard that New Zealand is
actually quite cool. And not only because we have a lot of sheep! Here are ten
reasons why:
Ten Reasons New
Zealand is Cool
1. We
have the best beaches in the universe. Seriously. Beaches for surfing,
lounging, walking, digging holes in the sand that get filled up with hot water
(true fact)… And the best part is that
they're almost never crowded.
2. Sonny
Bill Williams' abs
3. The
coffee. I've been around the world and I'm afraid NZ makes the best. Sorry, but
it's true. The cafes here make the most fabulous lattes but if you're after US
style coffee, you have to ask for a flat white.
4. Kiwis.
The bird, not the fruit. They are cute and feathery, have long beaks and scurry
around in the undergrowth. What's not cool about that?
5. Sonny
Bill Williams' abs (have I mentioned this yet?).
6. Hobbits.
It's a little known fact that Hobbits do, indeed, exist. I've seen them on my
trek through Mordor (AKA the Tongariro plateau), and you can also spot them in
the Shire region (AKA Matamata).
7. Sausage
rolls. So I've heard you don't have sausage rolls in the States and dudes,
you're seriously missing out. What's a
sausage roll? Well, it's sausage in a roll of course.
8. Sonny
Bill William's abs (yeah, I think I really have mentioned this)
9. We're
incredibly laid back. Lady Gaga could probably walk into a supermarket and NO
ONE would ask for her autograph. We'd be all 'oh, it's Lady Gaga. Let's be cool
and give her space'.
10. Oh and
lastly, the best reason New Zealand is cool because it's full of New
Zealanders. We're pretty awesome actually. J
Jackie has
been writing fiction since she was eleven years old. Mild mannered
fantasy/SF/pseudo-literary writer by day, obsessive romance writer by night,
she used to balance her writing with the more serious job of librarianship
until a chance meeting with another romance writer prompted her to throw off
the shackles of her day job and devote herself to the true love of her heart –
writing romance. She particularly likes to write emotional stories with alpha
heroes who've just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide
apart by their kick-ass heroines.
She lives in
Auckland, New Zealand with her husband, the inimitable Dr Jax, two kids, two
cats and some guppies (possibly dead guppies by the time you read this). When
she's not torturing alpha males and their stroppy heroines, she can be found
drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, posting
random crap on her blog, or being forced to go mountain biking with her
husband.
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