Month: May 2017

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Redemption

The Protectors #8
By Sloane Kennedy

Hosted by Jo&Isalovebooks Blog.

My job is to save lives. But what if the one that needs saving is the one I was sent to take?
At 33 years old, Phoenix Jones once had a stellar military career ahead of him. But when tragedy struck his family, he walked away from the path he’d chosen to be there for the one who needed him most. Except fate is a bitch and when she once again takes Phoenix’s future in the cruelest of ways, he must find a new path.
When a former army buddy introduces him to Ronan Grisham, the leader of an underground vigilante group, Phoenix knows he’s found a new family and nothing and no one is going to take that from him again. So when Ronan asks him to shadow a young man who participated in a brutal crime against Ronan’s husband, Seth, when he was a child and appears to be targeting him again, Phoenix doesn’t even hesitate for a second.
Even knowing what he must do if the young man proves to have gone back to his old ways.
Because family is everything…
I can’t come back from what I did. I’m not sure I even want to…
An ugly childhood left Levi Deming with little to do but dream of a day when he’d be free of his tormenters so he could carve out a simple life for himself, preferably somewhere far away from the family who never let him forget he was less than human. But one terrible choice at the tender age of 16 changed everything…
Wracked with guilt for the role he played during a home invasion gone horribly wrong, a now 24-year-old Levi is trying to piece together a life where he can maybe do a little bit of good, even knowing it won’t make up for the lives he helped take and it definitely won’t give back the future he stole from the young man whose agonized screams still haunt him night after night. If it were only about him, he’d walk into the nearest police station and happily tell them to lock him up and throw away the key.
But it isn’t just about him anymore…
I expected to find a hardened criminal. What I found was something else entirely…
With Ronan’s orders to terminate young Levi if he so much as even jaywalks, Phoenix expects an easy job with one clear outcome. But when a violent encounter forces Phoenix to interact with Levi, he quickly realizes the case might not be as black and white as he thought. Instead of finding a criminal with no conscience, Phoenix discovers a young man battling impossible odds and near crippling guilt.
When his feelings of disgust and anger begin to fade and turn into something else, the would-be hitman is forced to make a terrible decision between the family he needs and the young man more intent on seeking judgement than redemption.

Goodreads 
Buy Links

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Excerpt

Father O sobered and then turned his attention on Levi. I watched his fingers curl around Levi’s chin. “Put some ice on these,” he said as he carefully fingered the bruised skin. “You know where to find me.”
Another nod from Levi. I expected it was yet another one of their silent conversations. The priest got up and left the room. Levi shifted and pushed the blankets off his body before swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“You shouldn’t lie to a priest,” he murmured.
His observation was a surprise, but I didn’t bother to deny it. It had been a pretty lame argument.
“Why were you really in that alley?” he asked.
“That’s not really what you want to ask me, is it?” I countered.
An uncomfortable sensation floated through my chest as I watched Levi bend his upper body over his legs and let his clasped hands dangle just above his knees. His demeanor was much like what it had been in the alley after the rough blowjob.
“If you tell me who he is, I can help you,” I said, shocking even myself. But every time I tried to remind myself that this guy deserved everything he got, I saw him spitting out that cum, his eyes empty, his body broken. It was like he’d accepted that all he’d ever be was some guy who belonged on all fours in a dirty alley surrounded by garbage, waiting for the next man to come along and use his body.
As much as I detested him for what he’d done to Seth and his family, I’d seen enough in the last hour to know he hadn’t walked away unscathed. But I also still had more questions than answers. And the bottom line was that I didn’t believe in making people suffer for their crimes. I’d joined Ronan’s team to make sure justice got served, not to inflict the same torment on my marks that they’d inflicted upon others. Maybe it was a fine line that separated me from the monsters I hunted, but it was there just the same and I knew what side of it I wanted…no, needed to be on.
Levi hung there dejectedly for a moment before saying, “You should go, Phoenix. I really appreciate what you did for me in the alley, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here.”
When he got up to leave, I grabbed his wrist to keep him next to me. He shuddered and I heard him let out a wisp of air, but he didn’t try to pull free of me. On the one hand, I was glad he wasn’t fighting me, but on the other, I kind of wished he would.
“Why not?” I asked. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”
Levi finally lifted his head and turned to meet my gaze. My heart hurt for him as I saw the tears pooling there. “Because I’d be too tempted to take you up on your offer. What you saw out in that alley…I deserved it…I earned it,” he whispered. His tears fell and he pulled free of my hold so he could dash them away. He let out a wet-sounding laugh. “Father O keeps telling me God’s watching over me…that he loves me no matter what and he’ll forgive me for all of my sins.” Levi shook his head. “I don’t have the heart to tell him God gave up on me a long time ago.”
I let him go when he stood and left the room.
Because no matter what, I wasn’t going to tell the man I’d been sent to kill that his life was worth fighting for.
Even if the tiniest part of me was beginning to wonder if maybe it was.

Teasers
Other Books In the Series.
Absolution Salvation Retribution Forsaken Vengeance Atonement

ALL ON KINDLE UNLIMITED

Absolution (The Protectors #1)

http://getbook.at/Absolution

Salvation (The Protectors #2)

http://getbook.at/SalvationTP2

Retribution (The Protectors #3)

http://getbook.at/Retribution

Forsaken (The Protectors #4)

http://getbook.at/ForsakenTheProtectors4  

Vengeance (The Protectors #5)
Atonement (The Protectors #6)

Retribution (The Protectors #7)

Author Bio

Although Sloane Kennedy always dreamed of being a writer as a teenager, she didn’t take the plunge until March of 2015 when she released her first novel as an independent author. Since then, she has released more than a dozen books including the Amazon best-selling “Barretti Security” series, “Finding” series and “Protectors” series. While she initially began writing M/F romance, she found her true passion writing gay romance and all four of her most recent releases reached the #1 spot on Amazon’s Gay Romance bestseller list and Freeing Zane, her final book in the Barretti Security series, made it to Amazon’s overall bestseller list. Sloane was born in Germany and grew up in Virginia and Wisconsin. Although she currently lives in Wisconsin, the place where she has always felt most at home is Seattle and many of her books take place in the Emerald city. Although she is unmarried, a menagerie of 2 dogs and 3 cats keeps her busy enough and 3 young nieces take care of the rest of her free time. Sloane loves being able to share her passion for romance with readers and she is truly humbled by all the support she’s received from fans and fellow authors alike.

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Thank you for touring with Jo&Isa♡Books


Blog Tour-Guitars and Choices by Layla Dorine
Guitars and Choices Blurb
Asher Logan has been a lot of things: runaway, guitarist, cage fighter, cowboy, but the one thing he’s always avoided was being a father to his young son. Now faced with returning to his families ranch, he’s forced to deal with the knowledge that the move would put him right down the road from Shawn. Still, it’s better than staying in the city, with drunken, bitter older brother Cole, whose anger and prejudices have made him difficult to be around.
Add in the fact that Asher’s new boyfriend, Conner, is eager to make the move with him, and there’s little argument that he can make against it. But returning home means facing demons, and the barn he’s avoided since the day his father caught him and his first love together in the hay. Speaking of his father, when the old man finds out Asher is back, he knows it will only be a matter of time before he demands Asher come to the prison to see him.
Moving means facing a buried past and truths long hidden, but staying in the city isn’t good for anyone, least of all Asher’s young nephew, Rory. It’s a hard road to face, filled with tough choices, and an old secret that just might provide more questions than answers.
Book Trailer

Buy Links
US Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07177SZMY
UK Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07177SZMY
JP Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07177SZMY
CA Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07177SZMY
AU Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07177SZMY

Guitars and Choices is the sequel to Guitars and Cages, newly re-released on Amazon and Amazon KU for .99.
Guitars and Cages Blurb
Asher Logan is a bartender and a pretty wicked guitar player, when he isn’t wrecking his hands fighting in a cage. With a past he keeps hoping to outrun, Asher’s been on a downward spiral for longer than he can remember. When his sister-in-law leaves Rory, his eight-year-old nephew, in his care, Asher is forced into two things he’s never been good at: sobriety and responsibility. As he struggles to care for Rory, his own life begins to unravel.

When Asher’s brother, Alex, turns up, presenting as a girl and announcing her new name is Alexia, it further complicates matters, as does the arrival of his new neighbor, Conner. Both, in their own way, compel Asher to look at his own closely-guarded views on sexuality.

When the siblings’ older brother, Cole, reacts violently to Alexia, Asher is placed squarely in the middle of a family conflict which compels him to confront who he pretends to be versus who he really is.

Asher must choose who to trust and who to finally walk away from.
US Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Guitars-Cages-Layla-Dorine-ebook/dp/B0725ZMHP1
UK Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guitars-Cages-Layla-Dorine-ebook/dp/B0725ZMHP1

About the Author
LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places.
Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.
Layla Dorine can be found at:
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005197938547&fref=ts Twitter: https://twitter.com/layladorine
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/layladorine/
Tumblr: https://layladorine.tumblr.com/
Author Website: layladorine13.wix.com/layladorineauthor
Author on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9814124.Layla_Dorine

Guitars and Choices
Excerpt #3
Morgan shook his head, watching Asher fishtail away, and Earl chuckled. “He still can’t drive worth a damn.”
“Doubt he ever will.”
“How’s he been doing? I mean, really. Every time I ask he tells me ‘fine’, but that’s all he’d ever say even when he was a kid, and I think we both know that most days, fine wasn’t the truth.”
“It’s a process,” Morgan admitted. “Some days are better than others and some nights are outright bad, especially since…”
“Since what?” Earl asked when Morgan hesitated. “Did something happen? He still having issues with the barn?”
Morgan sighed and sat on the porch steps. Earl took a seat on the railing a few feet away. “Someone must have gotten word to Jack up at Statesville that he was back. A letter showed up at the ranch yesterday for him; don’t know what kind of shit that old bastard put in it because Asher wouldn’t let me see it, but he skipped supper last night and I caught him wandering around at three this morning. He said he couldn’t sleep, and I could tell he was pretty shook up. I sat up with him playing cards ’til the sun came up, and yeah, he asked me if I’d handle the work in the barn today, said he wasn’t in the mood to go in there.”
“What I wouldn’t give for one day in a cell with Jackson Logan. I’d teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget.”
“You and me both. I wish like hell Asher’d let me see that letter; I’m worried that whatever is in it is more lies.”
Earl stroked his chin, staring at a red-and-gold chicken scratching in the dust. “If it turns out he’s harassing Asher, we can get those letters stopped. The jails have policies against that sort of thing. Make sure he knows that, so maybe he won’t destroy the letters.”
“I will. Jack’s hurt the boy enough. I wish I had done more to get Adrianna to leave him when I had the chance, but I wasn’t in any position to push the issue. Now maybe I can make up for that, even if it’s just a little.”
“You done all you could for them under the circumstances. Wouldn’t have done any good for you and Jackson to shoot each other, especially when Adrianna never could make up her mind.”
“I know, but maybe if she’d let me do the blood tests back then, I could have taken the ones that were mine and got them the hell away from that bastard. Maybe then Colton wouldn’t be such a hateful cuss.”
“And where would that have left Asher, without his brother to look out for him?” Earl asked. “No, the good Lord has his reasons for why things happen the way they do; we might not always agree with them, but eventually the reasons reveal themselves.”
“I’ve just got to keep on hoping that it doesn’t derail the progress Asher’s made. Watching him out there with Shawn today was more than I could ever hope for, and so soon after we moved back, too. Guess I’m worried that Jack could push him to run again and cost him everything this time.”
“With the mindset he’s been in, would he run, or would he cut a deeper line into his arms?”
Morgan’s jaw clenched, because he wasn’t sure of the answer to that. The truth was he still woke up in the middle of the night and made sure Asher and Alexia were in their rooms safe and sound. Something told him it would be a long time before that practice came to an end. “You saw those,” he said at last.
“Hard to miss them,” Earl said. “He does a decent job trying to cover them up, but every now and again he forgets, rolls up his sleeves and there they are.”
“Yeah,” Morgan muttered.
Earl clasped him on the shoulder. “It don’t get any easier the older they get, does it.”
“It gets harder.”
“Yeah, that it does. You just have to keep doing what you’ve been doing, give him space when he needs it and a listening ear when he’s willing to talk,” Earl said. “And if you ever need to talk, I’m right here.”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.”

~Review~ Redemption by Sloane Kennedy

Redemption (The Protectors, #8)Redemption by Sloane Kennedy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay. Deep breath here. Wow, just wow. Trying to decompress. What a beautiful, emotional gut punch … but a good one. Was this book hard? Heck yeah. Did I shed tears? A few times. Was it worth it? Without a doubt. Phoenix had always seemed so….robotic to me in past books – a cold, emotionless person. Boy was I wrong. He’s stunning and amazing. And Levi? I couldn’t possibly be any more in love with him. I think he might be my favorite – which is saying a lot because I adore all the men in these books. A beautiful story in a series that just keeps getting better and better. I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy.

View all my reviews

~Review~ Ready for Love by Stella Starling

Ready For Love (Semper Fi, The Forever Faithful Series, #1)Ready For Love by Stella Starling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this story, I couldn’t put it down, I drank it in like a cold drink on a hot day. Gabe was hot and adorably clueless for a while there.
“What, Gabe? You don’t want to be ‘tied down’ to someone who helps you laugh at all the little things life throws at you, and who gives you a reason you make it through the big ones? Someone who’s always in your corner? Who makes life more beautiful each and every day, just by being in it?”
Yeah, it took Gabe a little while but he got there…eventually.
And Jake, sweet Jake, funny Jake, adorable Jake. Yeah, I kinda fell in love with him, can you tell?
“Jake shuddered, repeating his name over and over, like it was the only word he could remember, and Gabe leaned in, needing to taste his own name on Jake’s breath.”
A beautiful story about two amazing men who ended up being perfect for each other. I was given an arc in exchange for an honest review.

View all my reviews

~Cover Reveal~ Guitars and Choices by Layla Dorine – Coming May 26th

 

 

 

Rock guitar. Close-up view part of guitar, very popular musicalGuitars pre-release banner (002)

Cover Reveal Kit

Layla Dorine’s Guitars and Choices

The sequel to Guitars and Cages

Coming May 26th from Encompass Ink along with the re-release of Guitars and Cages

Cover Art for Guitars and Choices by the amazingly talented Rue Volley who has a wonderful way of taking fragmented ideas and envisioning something wonderful.

Guitars and Choices Blurb:

Asher Logan has been a lot of things: runaway, guitarist, cage fighter, cowboy, but the one thing he’s always avoided was being a father to his young son. Now faced with returning to his families ranch, he’s forced to deal with the knowledge that the move would put him right down the road from Shawn. Still, it’s better than staying in the city, with drunken, bitter older brother Cole, whose anger and prejudices have made him difficult to be around.

Add in the fact that Asher’s new boyfriend, Conner, is eager to make the move with him, and there’s little argument that he can make against it. But returning home means facing demons, and the barn he’s avoided since the day his father caught him and his first love together in the hay. Speaking of his father, when the old man finds out Asher is back, he knows it will only be a matter of time before he demands Asher come to the prison to see him.

Moving means facing a buried past and truths long hidden, but staying in the city isn’t good for anyone, least of all Asher’s young nephew, Rory. It’s a hard road to face, filled with tough choices, and an old secret that just might provide more questions than answers.

About the Author

LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places.

Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.

Layla Dorine can be found at:

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005197938547&fref=ts Twitter: https://twitter.com/layladorine

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/layladorine/

Tumblr: https://layladorine.tumblr.com/

Author Website: layladorine13.wix.com/layladorineauthor

Author on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9814124.Layla_Dorine

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💕💕Skyler has lived a tortured existence. Her head was always filled with other’s thoughts, and she could feel everyone surrounding her emotions. That is until she moves into a share house with three others.
She can’t explain the quiet in her head and she doesn’t care what the cause for it is because she is now living in utter bliss. Bliss until she falls madly in love with one of her roommates.
Jax wants to return the feelings and have a relationship with the girl he already knows is his soulmate, but he doesn’t want to bring her into his world. It’s killing him to have to keep his distance from Skye, but he thinks it’s for her own safety. And maybe it is.
She knows she’s different, but she has to find the courage to let the others in on her secret, in a bid to find out more about herself and her father that was killed when she was only a young girl💕💕

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