Last
First KissBrightwater
Series Book #1
By:
Lia Riley
Releasing
June 23rd, 2015
Avon
Romance
Blurb
New
to Avon author Lia Riley makes a splash with her first sexy,
hilarious book in the sizzling Brightwater series!
A
kiss is just the beginning…
Pinterest
Perfect. Or so Annie Carson’s life appears on her popular blog.
Reality is... messier. Especially when it lands her back in one-cow
town, Brightwater, California, and back in the path of the gorgeous
six-foot-four reason she left. Sawyer Kane may fill out those
wranglers, but she won’t be distracted from her task. Annie just
needs the summer to spruce up and sell her family’s farm so she and
her young son can start a new life in the big city. Simple, easy,
perfect.
Sawyer
has always regretted letting the first girl he loved slip away. He
won’t make the same mistake twice, but can he convince beautiful,
wary Annie to trust her heart again when she’s been given every
reason not to? And as a single kiss turns to so much more, can Annie
give up her idea of perfect for a forever that’s blissfully real.
Link
to Follow Tour:
http://www.tastybooktours.com/2015/06/last-first-kiss-brightwater-series-book.html
Goodreads
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23507376-last-first-kiss
Goodreads Series Link: https://www.goodreads.com/series/141818-brightwater
Goodreads Series Link: https://www.goodreads.com/series/141818-brightwater
Author
Info
Lia
Riley writes
offbeat New Adult and Contemporary Adult romance. After studying at
the University of Montana-Missoula, she scoured the world armed only
with a backpack, overconfidence and a terrible sense of direction.
She counts shooting vodka with a Ukranian mechanic in Antarctica,
sipping yerba mate with gauchos in Chile and swilling XXXX with
stationhands in Outback Australia among her accomplishments.
A
British literature fanatic at heart, Lia considers Mr. Darcy and
Edward Rochester as her fictional boyfriends. Her very patient
husband doesn't mind. Much. When not torturing heroes (because c'mon,
who doesn't love a good tortured hero?), Lia herds unruly chickens,
camps, beach combs, daydreams about future books, wades through a
mile-high TBR pile and schemes yet another trip. Right now, Icelandic
hot springs and Scottish castles sound mighty fine.
Website:
http://www.liariley.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/authorliariley
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/liarileywrites
Excerpt
#1
The
next knock rattled the front door’s hinges; whoever was out there
meant business. Annie
sneezed before drawing a shaky breath. Drinking wasn’t a personal
forte, but chamomile tea didn’t do much to blunt the
first-night-back-in-my-one-cow-hometown blues, even with extra honey.
Maybe
if she took her time, whoever was out there would go away.
She
closed her laptop’s lid, stood, and walked to the sink, setting the
tumbler under the leaky tap. Water drip, drip, dripped into the brown
dregs. Dad’s radio above the fridge, tuned to a Fresno classical
station, piped in Mozart’s requiem on the scratchy speakers,
hopefully due to coincidence rather than cosmic foreshadowing.
More
knocking.
This
could very well be an innocent mistake. Someone had confused
directions, taken a wrong turn, driven up a quarter-mile driveway to
an out-of-the-way farmhouse . . . to where she sat wearing a Kiss
Me, I’m Scottish
apron with a sleeping five-year-old upstairs.
She
hadn’t missed Gregor in months. Her ex-husband might be a
metrosexual philosophy professor, but at least he stood higher than
five feet in socks. Why, oh, why had she enrolled in yoga instead of
kickboxing last summer in Portland? No way would a sun salutation cut
the mustard against a crazy-eyed bunny boiler. An alarmed buzz
replaced the hollow feeling in her chest. Brightwater was a sleepy,
safe backwater. Had it grown more dangerous since she tore out of
here on her eighteenth birthday? Meth labs? Cattle thieves? Area 51
wasn’t too far away, so throw in possible alien abduction?
Well,
she was alone now and would have to deal with whatever came.
As
a rule, killers and extraterrestrials didn’t announce themselves at
the front door. Still, this was no time to start taking chances. She
grabbed her father’s single-malt by the neck and padded into the
living room. The change from bright kitchen to gloom skewed her
vision as blood shunted to her legs. Shadows clung to the beamed
ceiling and brick fireplace. If the rocking chair in the corner
moved, she’d pee her pants. That old gooseneck rocker starred in
more than a few of her childhood nightmares—ever since her sister
had mentioned that Great-Grandma Carson had died in it.
“Hello?”
she called, her voice calm—but, darn, an octave too high. “Who’s
there?”
Silence.
The
door didn’t have a peephole. This was the Eastern Sierras, a place
where shopkeepers left signs taped to their unlocked front doors
saying “Went to the bank, back in five minutes.”
Think!
Think! What’s
the game plan?
Retreat—not
a choice. But more whisky was definitely a viable option. She opened
the bottle, and the gulp seared her throat. At least the burn helped
dissipate the cold fear knotting her stomach. She pressed her lips
together while screwing the cap back on. Here
goes nothing.
Brandishing the bottle like a club, she flung open the door.
A
light breeze blew across her face, cool despite the fact it was early
July. Five Diamonds Farm sat at four thousand feet in elevation. She
glanced around the porch. Empty. Unable to stand the suspense, she
stepped forward, her bare toes grazing warm ceramic. A baking dish
sat on the mat. Annie knit her brow and crouched—a neighborly
casserole delivery? At this hour? Fat chance, but one could hope. She
removed the lid, and an invisible fist squeezed her sternum.
If
hope was a thing with feathers, all she had was chicken potpie.
Literally.
A
toothpick anchored a Post-it note to the crust.
Caught
your hen in my tomatoes.
Chicken
#2 will be nuggets.
Welcome
home.
GUEST POST FROM THE AUTHOR:
Brightwater: Creating a Small-Town from Scratch
I’ve lived in various places around the world from Italy to Australia, as well as throughout the United States, but no matter what, I maintain strong small town roots. My under-ten years were spent in a tiny village in Southeastern Michigan, surrounded by soybean fields, corn and red barns--the sort of Shire-ish landscape that might be suitable to hobbits. It’s a location that you have to describe to others by naming other, bigger towns, nearby.
When I made the decision to write a small-town romance series, I knew that part of me would tap into my childhood experiences even though it’s far removed from the Californian mountains, in the fictional valley where Brightwater is located.
Part of what makes a small town a fantastic setting is their individuality, the special qualities of the local businesses and the folks who run them. Ma and Pa shops on Main Street can make for quirky fun, as can the locals who patronize them. Parking and traffic are no big deal. People can band together…or know everything about everyone else (or at least think they do).
The town where I grew up isn’t dying out, but it’s not thriving either. There is very much a “stuck in time” feel. That was part of how I designed Brightwater. What if a town that hadn’t changed much in one-hundred-and-fifty years suddenly became an “it” destination? People flocked in to build expensive vacation compounds and suddenly housing prices jumped. Long-time residents were uncertain…would they be pushed out of their home or was this an opportunity to grow and change?
I hope you enjoy getting to visit Brightwater and stop by throughout the books in the series to see how the town and its residents evolve with the times.
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