Release Day: #AmWriting A Collection of Letters to Benefit The Wayne Foundation

#AmWriting A Collection of Letters to Benefit The Wayne Foundation
Publisher Pure Textuality PR
Cover Art Pure Textuality PR
Publication Date June 7, 2016
Knowing what you know now of writing, publishing, and putting your art out into the world, if you could go back to the day you sat down to start typing in your very first manuscript, what words would you offer to yourself? Words of encouragement? Words of advice? Caution against certain pitfalls? Would you change anything about how you got to where you are today?

The publishing community is so much bigger than it was before the self-publishing boom and it continues to grow exponentially every day. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with a handbook or support group. #AmWriting is a collection of letters written by authors from all different corners of the publishing community. The letters provide words of encouragement or advice to those just starting out or those who have become discouraged in their art. At Pure Textuality PR, we believe in supporting each other as a community, and we felt this project would be a good way to bring writers together and maybe give some new artists just the right nudge to keep going. 100% of the net proceeds of #AmWriting will be donated to The Wayne Foundation, a charity dedicated to offering aid and services to young women victimized by illegal sexual exploitation and the sexual trafficking of minors. For more information about The Wayne Foundation, you can visit them on the web at http://waynefdn.org.

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Nook *Coming Soon* 

iBooks *Coming Soon* 

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Who is involved???

#AmWriting has a great list of more than 60 authors, including NYT bestselling author Jeaniene Frost!

A.D. Ellis Amy Joy Lutchen Andrew Jericho Ashlynne Laynne Becky Flade Beth Dolgner Brandy Dorsch Brenda J. Pierson C.L. Foster Cassia Brightmore Cecilia London Cherron Riser Cithara Patra Courtney Houston Crystal Dawn E.J. Stevens Elizabeth Sharp Ella Col Emily Cyr Emma Nichols Erin Hayes Erynn Crittenden Felicia Starr Gabbie S. Duran Geri Glenn Harlie Williams J. Nichole Parkins J.B. McGee J.M. Gregoire Jamie Summer Jeaniene Frost Jess Haines Jessica Cage Jody Pardo K.c. Stewart Karina Espinosa Kasey Belle Katie Kenyhercz Kendall Grey Kory M. Shrum L A Cotton Leyla Kader Dahm Louisa Lo M. Never M.L. Steinbrunn Mary Crawford Michelle Mcloughney Mike Gonzales Misha Carver Misha Elliott Muriel Garcia Nicole Zoltack Pamela K. Kinney R.A Mizer Rachel Walter Rebecca Sherwin Renee Dyer Sara Dobie Bauer Serena Kearney Shakuita Johnson Shannon Bell T.J. Michaels T.L. Manning Tracie Podger Xandra James

About The Wayne Foundation

Board of Directors | Financials | Podcasts

Mission Statement
The Wayne Foundation is committed to spreading awareness of CSEC (Commercial Sex Exploitation of Children) DMST (Domestic Minor Sexual Trafficking) occurring within the United States.

Vision Statement The Wayne Foundation’s vision is for a world without child slavery. We are dedicated to providing direct assistance to those victimized by exploitation.

Drop in Center
The Wayne Foundation operates the third drop in center in Florida recognized by the Department of Children and Family Services. It is located in Charlotte County Florida, and serves clients throughout Southwest Florida. Our target clientele are young women aged 13-25. Our DIC is equipped to provide daily services that include, but are not limited to: Food, New Clothing, Access to Shower, Media Center, Mental Health Assistance, SNAP/ Medicare Benefit sign-up/renewal, Family Counseling, Education Assistance, and Transportation To and From the Center.

Shelter Services The Wayne Foundation continues to have the goal of providing shelter services to young women victimized by exploitation or trafficking. This is our primary long term objective.

Book Review: Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge
by Paul Krueger
Publisher: Quirk Books
ASIN: B00STNC7KG ISBN: 9781594747595
June 7, 2016
Bailey Chen is fresh out of college with all the usual new-adult demons: no cash, no job offers, and an awkward relationship with Zane, the old friend she kinda-sorta hooked up with during high school.

But when Zane introduces Bailey to his monster-fighting bartender friends, her demons become a lot more literal. It turns out evil creatures stalk the city streets after hours, and they can only be hunted with the help of magically-mixed cocktails: vodka grants super-strength, whiskey offers the power of telekinesis, and tequila lets its drinker fire blasts of elemental energy. But will all of these powers be enough for Bailey to halt a mysterious rash of gruesome deaths? And what will she do when the safety of a “real world” job beckons?

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Recent Ivy League college graduate Bailey Chen is currently tending a bar managed by her childhood friend/crush, Zane. Unlike in her childhood, Zane now dresses in suits, has a girlfriend, Mona (who is a bartender at another bar), and seems to manage being an adult well. Bailey has moved back in with her parents in Chicago and is angling for an interview at a company that produces a music app. Her career plans change when she accidentally discovers that the city's bartenders do much more than mix drinks. They also fight drunk-preying monsters, known as tremens, by using correctly mixed drinks that grant the drinker a particular superpower for a limited period of time. After she mixes herself a drink to enables her to kill a tremens herself, she finds that Zane’s uncle is, in fact, a senior member of this group, called the Alchemists. When he offers her the chance to drink something that will produce amnesia about their world, instead, she chooses to be trained as a tremens slayer.

Due to the tension between her and Zane’s girlfriend (Bailey has feelings for him), she is assigned a mentor, a blind veteran, Vincent, whose disability was caused by improperly mixing a Long Island Iced Tea. The drink is said to give its drinker possible immortality and much power. But when Bailey learns an owner of the app business she going to interview with is connected to Zane’s uncle, and that the uncle may be perfecting that drink himself, plus that it is the drink that has been drawing the ever increasing numbers of tremens to Chicago, she knows she must do something.

Besides a great story, the book includes 14 recipes from a book of ancient cocktail lore, with tongue-in-cheek explanations of their ingredients, historical and cultural origin, and the people responsible for inventing them. The novel is an original twist on how people get magical powers to fight demons. Suddenly, alcohol can cause more than a splitting headache the next morning after an all-night binge. Now it just might give your friendly neighborhood bartender abilities to kick demonic butt!

I give 4 ½ sheep for Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge

Pamela Kinney

About the Author:

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Paul Krueger is, down to the very bottom of his black little heart, a city rat. Raised in and around Chicago, he got his learning on in New York before scuttling off to Los Angeles, where he lives now.

His short fiction has appeared in the anthologies SWORD & LASER and NOIR RIOT. His debut novel, LAST CALL AT THE NIGHTSHADE LOUNGE, is due out in June of 2016 from Quirk Books. It’s about a secret society of bartenders who fight demons with alcohol-magic, and yes, it’s very much autobiographical.*

His non-writing hobbies include cooking, playing ukulele, Pathfinder, and boring strangers with long, involved stories about his cat. He’s also a musician, singing lead for the Adventure Time-themed punk band Lemonbadd.

If found, Paul should be returned to Ms. Jennie Goloboy of Red Sofa Literary, who is very patient with him.

*for a very loose/nonexistent value of “autobiographical”

Sheep Movie Review: TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES - OUT OF THE SHADOWS

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Directed by: Dave Green

Rated: PG-13 

Cast: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Stephen Amell and Tyler Perry

Plot:

Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael return to theaters this summer to battle bigger, badder villains, alongside April O'Neil (Megan Fox), Vern Fenwick (Will Arnett), and a newcomer: the hockey-masked vigilante Casey Jones (Stephen Amell). After super-villain Shredder (Brian Tee) escapes custody, he joins forces with mad scientist Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry) and two dimwitted henchmen, Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (WWE Superstar Stephen "Sheamus" Farrelly), to unleash a diabolical plan to take over the world. As the Turtles prepare to take on Shredder and his new crew, they find themselves facing an even greater evil with similar intentions: the notorious Krang.

I don't know what's wrong with other critics on some sites, maybe they are just big ol' sticks in the mud. Or in this case, green turtle ooze. Well, whatever the prudish case may be this second reboot of an entertaining franchise was action packed enjoyable and filled with humor. I laughed out loud numerous times. My 10 year old did too. Cut from the same cloth folks. We like these types of movies and enjoy them for the mindless fun that they are. The point is, this is a summer popcorn movie that's meant to be just that and is not ashamed of it! 

Loads of fast paced CGI action and some high kicking ninjas kept me rock steadying along to the bebop beat. Vanilla Ice was a big hit in the second movie back in my day, there is a fun little nod to him in this one that I really appreciated. (Go ninja, go ninja, go!) And who can beat Krang! I love that brain villain so much and it sure was awesome to watch him unfold on the big screen. 

Snarky humor and jokes from these lovable heros in the shadows kept me entertained until the credits. You certainly can't help but root for the bros and want to join the team! Cowabunga dudes! 

Getting 4 'Mikey' Sheep 

KD 

Guest Post by Kristen Reed-The Way of Escape Dream Cast (book tour) + Giveaway

The Way of Escape Dream Cast 

Like most authors, I would love to have my latest novel, The Way of Escape, turned into a Hollywood blockbuster with a cast that would make every director in the film industry green with envy. The Way of Escape has two primary groups of characters: human missionaries who get kidnapped by vampires and the fanged fiends themselves. So, I had to come up with a cast that has the right combination of congeniality and ferocity.

Nicole Beharie as Clara Robinson
This Sleepy Hollow actress has really impressed me over the years, and she would be perfect for the protagonist. Since Nicole did such a wonderful job playing Abbie, I have no doubt that she would slay as a character who finds out that she’s half-vampire and is forced to choose between freedom as a vampire and slavery as a mortal.

Henry Cavill as Augustus Damiani
While this superstar has gotten a lot of recent attention for playing Superman in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , it’s his role in The Tudors that originally captured my attention. After seeing him play Charles Brandon, I have full confidence that he can pull off playing the Italian vampire with a growing appreciation for Clara’s integrity despite having a moral compass that rarely points north.

Sebastian Stan as Emmanuel Géroux
I chose the Winter Soldier himself to play the baby-faced coven leader with a penchant for kidnapping and enslaving humans. By playing the charismatic Bucky Barnes in Captain America: The First Avenger, and the ruthless, brainwashed Winter Soldier in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as well as Captain America: Civil War, and he’s proven that he would be flawless as the fiendish French vampire.

Ehrenreich as Connor Davis
Boyish charm with a side of anguish is the name of the game for Texas missionary Connor Davis, and Alden has that in spades. Like the Clara, he too is unwillingly pulled into the vampire world, and I think he would do an amazing job playing this character. He was delightful as Ethan Wate in Beautiful Creatures, and he’d be equally amiable in The Way of Escape.

Blake Lively as Leah Johnson
Leah is one of Clara’s friends who once sought solace from abusive relationships in drugs and alcohol. Like Clara and Connor, she too is snatched up by Emmanuel’s coven during their mission trip to Haiti. I originally became a fan of Blake during her time on Gossip Girl and continued to be impressed by her skills in The Age of Adaline, and I’d love to see her play the vivacious blonde missionary.

Eva Green as Danielle
I chose Eva Green for the vicious vampire vixen primarily because of her roles in Casino Royale and Camelot. She’d be a great addition to the cast as the undead brunette whose pointed remarks and uninhibited feedings truly test Clara’s self-control.

Rachel McAdams as Marie
Regina King herself would be perfect for Marie, the vampire who purchases and proceeds to torment Connor throughout the book. I know from The Notebook that Rachel can pull off the vintage look that Marie loves and from Mean Girls that she has the ability to be quite vicious on the silver screen.

Tom Hiddleston as Grayson
As the vampire who purchases Leah, Grayson also grates on Clara’s nerves during the book and makes her skin crawl on one especially uncomfortable occasion. Considering Tom’s depiction of Loki in Thor, The Avengers, and Thor: The Dark World, he would undoubtedly take this unlikeable vampire and make Grayson into the character that everyone loves to hate. He’s also my favorite actor, so I’d do my book a disservice by not casting him in one of the principal roles.

The Way of Escape (The Clara Robinson Series Book One)
by Kristen Reed
Genre: Vampire/Horror
Christian Fiction
May 1, 2016
ASIN: B01DQ1V314
Number of pages: Appx 255
Word Count: 67,196
Formats available: Kindle eBook
Cover Artist: Photo by Galyna Andrushko
When the leader of a vampire coven tells Clara Robinson that she's a dhampir, he gives her an impossible choice: Keep her mortality and live as a slave or become a vampire be free. A vampire visiting the coven complicates matters by revealing that she can liberate all of the slaves by parting with her humanity and becoming a vampire. This news forces Clara to examine her faith and decide if she should risk her eternal soul to save the humans or give up her freedom to serve by their side.

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/zfNA-vCEE24

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Excerpt:
“Come in,” a male voice called.

Lisette pushed open the door and gestured for me to enter. I hesitantly tiptoed into the room and jumped slightly much as the other woman had, my heart skipping a beat when she shut the door behind me and left me alone with the two strange men who occupied the large living area.

The first man stood by the fireplace taking a sip from a glass of red wine. Long black curls cascaded down his back and nearly blended in with the expertly tailored tuxedo he wore just as his button down shirt almost disappeared into the pale skin of his neck.

When the man set the glass on the mantle, I finally got a good look at his surprisingly youthful, heart-shaped face as he licked the wine from his Cupid’s bow lips. After he finished savoring his wine, which he barely seemed old enough to drink, he opened his blue eyes and fixed me with an inquisitive yet predatory stare that made me shiver despite the heat coming from the lit fireplace. I suddenly knew how a gazelle felt after capturing the unwanted attention of a cheetah during a stroll across the savannah.

In an attempt to evade his chilly gaze, I gave the second man a once over. He sat in a Queen Anne-style chair that was just a shade whiter than his fair skin. Though his green eyes were trained on me, his stare wasn’t as unsettling as his companion’s had been. I thought that his wavy auburn hair was short until he turned his head to glance at his phone and I saw that he’d just swept his locks away from his face in a low ponytail. 

As I took in how the minimalist hairstyle showed off his deep-set eyes, high cheekbones and square jawline, I realized that I would have been attracted the man if I hadn’t been terrified of him.

While he didn’t exude the same threatening aura as his slightly younger companion, I still felt as if I was a fly that he could swat easily and remorselessly at any moment. I hadn’t felt that powerless in over a decade, and I hated the feeling just as much then as I had growing up.

“Bonjour, Clara,” the raven-haired man greeted in a smooth French accent. “My name is Emmanuel Géroux and this is my guest, Augustus Damiani.”

“Hello,” I replied hesitantly.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here,” he presumed. “Let me begin by apologizing for the lackluster room you awakened in. I wasn’t quite sure what I should do with you when you first arrived.”

“I’m more concerned about what I’m doing in your house than the quality of the room I woke up in,” I said carefully.

“Why did you bring me here?”

Emmanuel walked over to the wet bar nearby and poured himself another glass of wine as he spoke, his friend’s eyes never leaving me as the conversation continued.

“My men found you lying unconscious near the village of Manonette last night. Apparently a fire broke out at the facility where you were staying, and you passed out after the evacuation.”

When I struggled to recall the events that transpired earlier that night, I vaguely remembered smelling smoke and hearing an alarm blaring. The memory was so indistinct and brief that I’d brushed it off as a dream, but that hazy memory was enough for me to believe that Emmanuel was telling the truth about the fire at Gospel Gateway. However, I should have awakened in a hospital and not on a private island with two men who looked like they’d just gotten home from a night at the opera.

“Is everyone else alright?”

“Yes, no one at the facility was injured in the fire.”

The relief Emmanuel’s news brought gave me a brief respite from my suspicion. Alas, that break didn’t last long.

“Not that I don’t appreciate your help, but why didn’t your men take me to a hospital if I was unconscious? I might have needed treatment for smoke inhalation or burns,” I pressed on. “And who are you that you have people prowling around Gospel Gateway and Manonette at night?”

“The sooner you tell her the whole truth, the better,”

Emmanuel’s Italian counterpart said.

My host nodded and took another less leisurely swig to polish off his wine before giving me a more fleshed out explanation.

“Well, mademoiselle, I am the leader of the vampire coven that resides on this island. I sent the men who found you to Haiti to bring more humans to the island to be our servants. When they discovered you and a few of your missionary friends near Manonette, they took you to fill my open positions,” Emmanuel explained nonchalantly. “One of the first tasks my men complete with new humans is pricking their fingers and tasting their blood to see if they are worthy of being one of our personal attendants. However, when they tasted your blood, they realized that there was more to you than meets the eye. Your blood had the sweetness of life and the bitterness of death, which means that you are half vampire — also known as a dhampir. Since you aren’t fully human, I wanted to give you the opportunity to choose your fate. You can either live with your fellow mortals and toil on my island for the rest of your days or enjoy the luxury and privilege that comes with being a vampire.”

I gaped at Emmanuel in stunned silence as I attempted to process his ridiculous explanation. Although my first instinct should have been to laugh at him and look for hidden cameras, something inside of me told me that he was telling the absolute truth. 

While I’d never contemplated the existence of vampires and had only seen them as fictional characters in books and movies, I’d spent enough time in the Bible to know that demons and other nefarious creatures existed. Jesus himself had even cast a legion of demons out of a man and into a herd of two thousand pigs.

If people can be possessed by demons, is the existence of vampires really that far off, I wondered. Either this guy is telling the truth or he’s insane. I can’t decide which one is worse.

“You’re being awfully quiet, Clara,” Emmanuel remarked.

“What are you thinking?”

“I need proof that you’re telling the truth.”

“Then proof you shall get,” he agreed with a smile as he set down his drink.

Emmanuel took a step forward, but I backed away before he could reach me.

“Can you prove it without coming any closer,” I revised.

“Of course.”

The Frenchman stood his ground a few yards away and his blue eyes underwent a frightening transformation. His pupils bled outward as if someone had dropped ink into his eyes until I found myself gawking into two completely black orbs. Once that change was complete, Emmanuel opened his mouth to show that his top canines had extended into a pair of gleaming white fangs. He let out a feral hiss that sent me sprinting for the door, which I quickly realized was locked. I tried to force the door open, but the hair-raising tickle of his breath on my neck paralyzed me as he placed a frigid hand on mine and removed it from the doorknob.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said in a tone that would have sounded reassuring if not for his newly terrifying appearance.

“If I truly wanted to hurt you, you would not be standing here with your pretty neck untouched and your blood still in your veins.”

About the Author:
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Kristen Reed, a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas, is an artist, filmmaker, and author from Dallas, Texas. As a Christian, her faith heavily influences her writing and is the driving force in her life. Her most recent works include The Way of Escape and The Jilted Bride: A Footnote to Cinderella’s Happiness.

Tour giveaway 

5 autographed, print copies of The Way of Escape

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Exclusive 'First Look' with Tracy Wolff LOVEGAME + excerpt

Lovegame

by Tracy Wolff

Genre: Erotic Thriller

Release Date: June 7, 2016

Publisher: Random House Loveswept

Format: Digital and Paperback

True Crime novelist Ian Sharpe has spent his career writing about serial killers for very personal reasons. For his latest exposé, he is taking on the sadistic madman known as the Red Ribbon Strangler, and when his research leads him to Hollywood’s most private and provocative actress, he will break every rule to uncover her truth. The daughter of one of Hollywood’s golden couples, chased by paparazzi and treated as a commodity her entire life, Veronica Romero wields her sex appeal like a weapon. She expects Ian to be as easy to control as every other man she’s ever known. But from the beginning, he refuses to fall into line. Mysterious and cool, challenging and just a little bit dangerous, Ian somehow makes her feel safe—even as he digs into the deepest secrets of her life and pushes her to the breaking point. As raw ecstasy gives way to agonized truths, their dark obsession exposes secrets that have been buried for far too long. Ian wants to tear down her walls and heal the sensual woman underneath. But if Veronica’s learned anything, it’s that the line between pleasure and pain is a narrow one—and when caught between them the only thing that matters is how you play the game. 

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Exclusive Excerpt

The phone buzzes yet again and I grit my teeth to keep from screaming, largely because I’m afraid once I start I’ll never stop. I’ll keep screaming and screaming and screaming until they come and take me away to some hospital for movie stars and rich people, an insane asylum disguised as a place for plastic surgery and rehab. Considering where my mother ended up all those years ago, I’m intimately familiar with such establishments.

I am not her. I am not going to end up in one of them.

And so I keep my jaw locked against the screaming and the nausea and the betrayal so fresh that it burns like acid. I shove it all down as deep as I can get it, pretending as I do that it doesn’t make me sick. That it doesn’t make my stomach churn and my mouth taste like vomit.

The phone buzzes again—it’s vibrating this time, as whoever has been calling suddenly switches to texts. I moan, start to roll over to get away from the sound. But my body is heavy, lethargic. I can barely get it to move. In the end, I settle for grabbing a pillow and dragging it over my head to block out the noise—and the light.

Except the pillow is wet. Sticky. Salty. I shove it away with a gasp, struggling to open my eyes against the overwhelming lethargy that continues to pull me down, pull me under.

My face is wet from the pillow and I bring my hand to my cheek, try to rub the stuff away. I finally manage to get my eyes open and I glance down at my fingers, trying to see what’s on them.

I’m so out of it that what I’m seeing doesn’t compute for several long seconds. When it does—when I register that my hand is stained with something red and thick—my adrenaline finally kicks in. I stagger out of bed, staring in horror at the pillow I’d just pulled over my head. At the crisp white sheets and blankets that I’d been under.

They’re doused in blood, covered with the thick, viscous liquid. And so am I, my gown heavy with the stuff. My arms and legs streaked red with it.

I stumble backward, desperate to get away, but I get my foot tangled in the comforter that’s on the floor and go down hard—right in a puddle of blood. That’s when I start to scream, loud, high-pitched shrieks that can probably be heard in Mexico.

Over and over and over again I scream, my mind racing. My body working of its own volition, crab-walking backward away from the bed. From the blood.

But I’m dragging it with me, can see the smears of it left in my wake—wet and red and terrifying.

There’s a tiny part of my brain that’s still working, that’s telling me to breathe. To calm down. To think. It’s almost impossible to hear it over my strangled cries and the frantic beating of my heart. But I try to listen anyway, try to stop screaming long enough to take a deep breath as the room swims around me.

It’s not blood, I tell myself again and again. It’s not blood. It’s not blood. It’s not blood.

It can’t be.

But it’s in my nose now, in my mouth. Salty, coppery, thick and I know—I know—that it’s exactly what I’m afraid it is.

Oh my God. Oh. My. God. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

I don’t stop shuffling backward until my hand brushes against something sharp. The sudden prick of pain cuts through the hysteria and I lift my hand into my lap and stare at the new, jagged cut running across my palm. It’s bleeding now, my own blood mingling with the rest of the mess. Bright red mingling with dark.

I glance around wildly, trying to figure out what cut me. Trying to figure out where I am.

The last thing I remember is my mother helping me to bed. That’s it. There’s nothing after that. Nothing to account for what’s happening now. Nothing to account for all of this.

I can’t stop screaming any more than I can stop the blood pouring from my hand.

There’s a small part of me that knows I should get to the bathroom, that knows I should wrap a towel around my cut. But I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t do anything but sit here and scream.

Suddenly, I hear footsteps thundering down the hall, fast and hard. The door to my bedroom crashes open and Ian is standing there, eyes wide and wild as he takes in the state of the room . . . and of me.

It only takes a second, and then he’s next to me.

Crouching in the blood.

Hands gripping my shoulders.

Face next to mine.

He’s saying something—I can see his mouth moving, can hear the words falling into the sudden silence between us. But I can’t make sense of them. Can’t get them to compute in my jumbled brain. All I can think is that Ian is here. Ian, my love.

No, no. Not my love, I remember abruptly. Ian, the liar. Ian, the user. Ian, the traitor.

There’s a tiny part of me—the one bent on self-preservation—that tells me he can’t be here. He can’t see this. He can’t write about this.

Go, I try to tell him, but my mouth isn’t working right. Nothing is. I want to shove Ian away, but my arms are so heavy I can barely lift them. My whole body feels like it’s slogging through quicksand. Like I’m drowning in plasma and can’t work my way out of it. Whatever strength I had, I used up just getting here.

Ian grabs my hand, holds it up so he can look at it. Then he’s shrugging out of his T-shirt and wrapping it around the wound.

He’s glancing around now, eyes dark with horror, even as he elevates my arm and holds pressure on the cut. He’s talking again—I can see his mouth moving—but the words still sound tinny and distorted. Like they’re coming through water.

I look back at the doorway as my mother comes skittering through it. She freezes much like Ian did, then screams, her hand pressed to her mouth.

“Damn it, Veronica. Focus! I need you to answer me. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

The words he’s saying finally arrange themselves in the right order and instinctively, I do what he commands. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

He grabs my nightgown in the center of the bodice, then rips it away with his bare hands. Thank God. I don’t think I could handle him trying to pull the bloody thing over my head.

Then his hands are on me, running over my shoulders, my back, my ass. Doing the same to my chest and stomach and sex. “Let me see your legs,” he orders, and I stick them out obediently. I’m so confused, so lost, that it seems smart to let him have control, at least for a little while. He seems to know what he’s doing.

“It’s not yours,” he says after a minute, relief ripe in his voice.

“What?” I finally manage to force a word past my dry lips.

“The blood. It’s not yours. I don’t see any other injuries.”

“But where’s it from then?” I clutch at him, still too groggy and panic-stricken to think clearly.

“I don’t know,” he answers grimly. And then he’s sitting down next to me, right in the middle of the mess.

“Be careful,” I warn him, my words sounding garbled to my own ears. “I cut myself on something back there—”

“This,” he says, his voice dark and foreboding. “You cut yourself on this.”

He holds up a black and orange bow saw.

“Oh my God.” I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. “Oh my God.”

It’s the same saw that Belladonna used to dismember that poor girl. The same one I used in the bloodiest scene in my entire career.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” I look around at all the blood. “What’s happening to me? What did I do? What did I do?”

Copyright © 2016 by Tracy Wolff

Praise for LOVEGAME 

“Lovegame is a true masterpiece, with thrilling suspense, crazy hot sex, and writing so truly beautiful that it stays with you long after you put the book down. It’s my favorite read of the year by far.”—Sawyer Bennett, New York Times bestselling author of Sugar Daddy 

“I loved Lovegame! It’s a hot, sexy thriller of a book, with so many twists and turns I never saw coming!”—M. O’Keefe, author of Everything I Left Unsaid Barclay Publicity, LLC Author and Book Promotion, Simplified. 

Praise for the novels of Tracy Wolff 

“Tracy Wolff knows how to steam up the pages.”—New York Times bestselling author J. Kenner 

“Fall in love under the spell of a master. Tracy Wolff knows how to keep you panting for more and utterly satisfied all at once.”—New York Times bestselling author Beth Kery, on Ruined

“Tracy Wolff had me turning pages way past my bedtime. The suspense kept me on the edge of my seat, and the steamy love scenes had my pulse racing.”—New York Times bestselling author Cassia Leo, on Exposed

The Book Scoop, to discover the newest work from our clients at http://www.barclaypublicity.com, and follow us on Twitter: @Barclay_PR

About the Author:
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New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Tracy Wolff collects books, English degrees and lipsticks and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six she wrote her first short story— something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven she forayed into the wonderful world of girls lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten she’d read everything in the young adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mom started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, Tracy knew she’d found her life-long love. Now an English professor at her local community college, she writes romances that run the gamut from sweet contemporary to erotica, from paranormal to Urban Fantasy and from young adult to new adult.