Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Damaged & Dangerous Cover Reveal!






Title: Damaged & Dangerous
Series: The Sacred Hearts MC VI
Author: A.J. Downey
Release Date: September 27, 2015


Synopsis
 
 
She’s Damaged…
Dani Broussard never imagined that her life would turn out like this. She always thought that her grandfather would be there for her into adulthood and that her high school sweetheart, Jared, would be the man she would marry. That isn’t what happened though. Instead, her grandfather got sick and passed away before Dani saw the age of nineteen. It was just her and Jared until he hooked up with a local MC, The Suicide Kings… Then it was just her. Pig-Pen claimed her body, rules her life, but he would never hold her heart. Kept because of her looks and a particular set of skills unique only to her, Dani has been with The Suicide Kings for the last three years… three long damaging years. She hates it, all of it, the pain the humiliation, the fear… and as strong as Dani is, as clever as she can be, she is quickly finding that death may be the kinder, gentler option rather than live through any more of this hell.
He’s Dangerous…
Red-XIII is, and always will be, a Sacred Hearts man. But for now, he’s a Suicide Kings prospect. Tasked with providing intelligence on the King’s inner workings to his real club, Thirteen has been slowly, quietly and carefully dismantling the King’s operation from the inside out. The situation is dangerous, good thing Thirteen is a dangerous guy but even he can’t be everywhere at once and a couple of missteps have cost the Sacred Hearts dearly. Doubly determined to finish this with no more wreckage or damage to the SHMC, Thirteen is blindsided by his heart when he lays eyes on Dani. A pretty, little thing with long black hair and striking blue eyes. She slays him with one look from her damaged soul and now Thirteen has tasked himself with two missions… Take down The Suicide Kings and get both Dani and himself out alive.
For now those missions run parallel to each other but what happens if they ever end up at odds? The bigger question is, how can he get close to the VP’s Ol’ Lady as a Prospect and not get them both burned?
 
 
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Excerpt


I finished cleaning the clubhouse all the while trapped in memory. I didn’t realize that I’d had company as I’d worked. As usual, he was there, parked on the end of the couch, boots propped on the old, scarred, garage sale coffee table, only this early in the day he’d forgone the beer in favor of a bottle of water. Another thing that set him apart as ‘other’, to the rest of the guys beer was bottled water.

I secreted a small smile in his direction and he secreted one back but we didn’t speak, we didn’t need to. Soon, Skid came around and our little private moment was in the wind but that was okay. I knew that I could or would never be with Thirteen, but having him around had become a little ray of light in an otherwise darkened room. Maybe it was foolish to hope or to dream at this stage but I couldn’t help but believe that with a guy like Thirteen around the club, maybe, just maybe things could get better.

“What you smiling about?” Skid asked me as he bellied up to the bar. I startled, had I been smiling? I glanced at the older biker and he raised an eyebrow under his faded black do-rag.

“I don’t know…” I frowned and flailed helplessly inside my head for a convincing lie, “I was just thinking about a piece I was going to try and create. I think I have all the pieces now.”

Skid chuckled, “It’s good to see you smile Rac. How ‘bout you get me a beer? One of them ones with the orange dude on the label.” He turned on his stool and started talking to Thirteen who had been grinning like an idiot behind his back but who quickly schooled his features into neutrality before Skid turned.

I rolled my eyes at Thirteen behind Skid’s back and got Skid the bottle he asked for, popping the top. I set it on the bar by his hand and he picked it up and drank, never breaking his stride as the two of them spoke bike. I was simply nothing more than furniture again which I didn’t like but at the same time was definitely the lesser of two evils.

Pretty soon Gordy, Pipes and Cooter came in from the front of the club and I was serving them up drinks when Pig-Pen and Griz made their arrival. The rest of the guys started to trickle in from the front or the back lot and girls started coming intermixed with the guy’s arrival. The party was in full swing the sky dark outside when Gordy swore and pounded his fist on the bar.

“God damn fucking son of a bitch!” he bellowed, looking at the lighted screen on his phone. Griz shoved down on the head of the strung out broad sucking him off and she choked, struggling.

“What is it now?” he demanded and let her up. She stood up disgusted and stumbled towards the bathrooms.

“Trouble!” Gordy declared, “But if we all go now we might make it, Ace and Deuce are holed up at the North West safe house, says Sacred Hearts have ‘em pinned down, four of ‘em.” Griz stood up and tucked himself back in his pants doing up his jeans.

“Boys! We’re goin’ huntin’!” he yelled. A cheer went up and I swallowed hard, Thirteen stood.

“Not you!” Gordy stabbed a finger at him.

“Take Coon to your place and keep her locked down. She’s our last bet on making any god damned money.”

Thirteen raised an eyebrow, “I live in a cabin with no electricity!” he declared.

“So fucking what!?” Pig-Pen called, “Don’t care if she’s comfortable, so long as she can produce. Don’t be god damned pussy over her pussy!”

Thirteen gave a shrug and I gathered my purse. The guys were all going out the back door to the parking lot where they kept their bikes I could already hear some of them firing up. Dredd and Flyer were chasing out the club sluts, which truthfully there weren’t many left hanging around since the club’s drug supply started drying up. I came around the bar and Pig grabbed me by the elbow, hard.

“You’re my bitch, so don’t be getting any ideas about spreading those whore legs of yers for Pretty boy over there,” he muttered savagely in my ear, his breath washing over me, a fetid mixture of whiskey and cigarettes with an overlay of just plain rot.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I plastered on a fake as hell sincere smile, “I know who takes care of me,” I said.

“Damn right.” And as if to prove his point he shoved his mouth against mine and his tongue in my mouth all the while looking daggers at Thirteen. I gave little resistance. I didn’t want or need any bruises except the ones that were likely imprinted on my arm from where he gripped me, besides that, I’d learned a long, long time ago that resistance was futile and only hurt more in the end. Pig-Pen finally broke the kiss and thrust me in Thirteen’s direction before going out the door.

“You good to ride?” he asked. I nodded grimly. I just wanted outside so I could spit. Thirteen grabbed my coat off the hook in the wall behind the bar and handed it to me and I shrugged into it.

“C’mon.” he put a hand on my shoulder and made like he was shoving me in front of him out the door, though his grip on my shoulder was light, not painful. He put on his helmet and glasses sitting astride his bike. I put on the spare and with one final brave smile at Pig who was glaring at me and standing with Griz and Gordy I got on behind Thirteen.

Text Copyright © 2015 A.J. Downey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved

 
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About The Author 
 
A.J. Downey is a born and raised Seattle, WA Native. She finds inspiration from her surroundings, through the people she meets and likely as a byproduct of way too much caffeine.

She has lived many places and done many things though mostly through her own imagination... An avid reader all of her life it's now her turn to try and give back a little, entertaining as she has been entertained. She lives in a small house in a small neighborhood with a larger than life fiancé and one cat.
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Monday, July 6, 2015

I'm so thrilled to reveal the beautiful new cover to the next book in the The City of Dark Pleasures series, The Amber Columns by Bibi Rizer.

But first a reminder about book I, The Obsidian Stairway:

blurbWhen O’Mara is assigned to report on a new sexual service in the City of Dark Pleasures -- one that has been the subject of much gossip -- she’s not sure what to expect. What she finds there only reminds her of all that has been lost in The Expiation.

She meets Tully -- handsome, attentive, mysterious and unlike any “servant” O’Mara has met in the Pleasures. His extraordinary service is about to allow her to experience a level of intimacy she has only ever imagined.

And now, here's a little synopsis of what's to come in The Amber Columns:

Tully:
          Sex is what we sell in the City of Dark Pleasures. To work here you need to sequester your emotions, your humanity, your soul if there’s such a thing. If you don’t you’re in danger of losing it all together, permanently.
          For someone like me, my damaged soul is all I have left. I try to slip it off like a coat when I work, and most of the time I can. Most of the time no feelings at all come into what I do. But there are times I weaken, times when patrons get to me either for good or ill. Mostly ill.
          Once a woman I met got inside me like no one has. It wasn’t love, but it was as close as I will ever be. O’Mara was her name. O’Mara Tanner. Every morning I read her byline on the Island News Service. She writes about fluff—places to shop, entertainments to see. She wrote about me once. It was all lies, but I don’t hold that against her. Our civilization is built on lies. The brief time we spent together was all lies.
          Sometimes I think I would give up everything just to have O’Mara Tanner lie to me again.

O'Mara:
          It’s only at night that I’m scared of him. During the day I think about his golden eyes, his warm skin and his velvety voice to the point of distraction. I could lose my job if I don’t get my shit together. A lost job means a lost income. If I can’t pay my rent I could lose my citizen status. And then what? Then I join him, working in the Pleasures?
          I could go and see him. I should go and see him. I can find the money somewhere and go and get him to hook me up to that infernal machine of his and lose myself in his beautiful dreamscape. The one in which we are lovers. If I can just spend another moment in that forlorn and hopeless dream I might be able to get him out of my system.
          As it is I’ve been masturbating until my fingers ache, and the skin of my clitoris is burning and raw. Whenever I climax I hear his voice, saying my name. Or I say his name.
          “Tully…”
          Maybe before the Expiation people knew that the love of a good man was a powerful, devastating intoxicant. It weakens you, distracts you, makes you prone to obsessive thoughts and lost productivity. Maybe that’s why they did it. To increase productivity.
          Love must be the most potent force on earth, if it can fuck you up even when you know it’s not real.

Without further ado, here's the lovely new cover:

obsidian2 copy

Isn't it gorgeous? And when you read the book and discover what he's looking up at it's even better! And if that's not enough to get you excited, here are a couple of teasers:

ac TEASER 1 copy       ac TEASER 2 copy

Thursday, July 2, 2015

It's a day in... and already I have to rant!


I have gotten a lot of messages and some seriously fired up responses about killing off characters in the fifth installment of the SHMC series. Some of the reviews that have been left have been pretty entertaining, some of them have been downright special, but all of them have the same theme: “Oh my God! You wretched bitch! How could you!?”

Well! Oh my God! If you only knew what I had to go through to write Fractured & Formidable this way, some of you might be a little more understanding. It was bad, ladies and gentlemen, it was really bad. I argued with the specific character for weeks. The secondary characters I was a bit meh about, but the main character, oh good lord the knockdown, drag out, internal screaming matches inside my head were to a level that I came down with some very real physical headaches.

To give you an idea, I wrote Fractured & Formidable in its entirety and I wrote it so the character in question lived… I really did! Then I got half way through the next and final book in the SHMC series and had to come to a screeching halt because the character in question put their foot down. I went back to Fractured & Formidable and ripped out the entire back half of the book. When I say the entire back half I mean I deleted chapters nineteen through thirty-two, the only thing that got saved was the epilogue. I then rewrote the entire back half of the book according to the character’s wishes and what do you know? The book came out so much better for it.

Then, not even going to lie, I spent a week on my couch in my pajamas barely talking to my fiancĂ© while he kept the Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream coming. If he judged, he did it silently and with no outward signs he was doing so. That’s love, people.

Unfortunately, my day job wouldn’t let me wear the black arm band for a month in remembrance but what the fuck do they know about it anyways? I was in mourning and, to be completely honest, I still haven’t found all of the pieces of my broken heart.  It may have killed a part of y’all to read it, but these guys live in my heart and in my head twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. To suddenly have that voice go silent, to never hear from them again… then to know and be the only one to know for months and months and months before I could release it, suffering in silence, knowing how many people I was about to devastate…

Yeah, I understand you might be angry, hurt and heartbroken but does that really necessitate a one star review?

Seriously. Just wondering.