It All Began With a Lie by MichelePariza Wacek - First Look, Excerpt and GiveAway

Here’s your FIRST LOOK Michele PW’s upcoming romantic psychological thriller, IT BEGAN WITH A LIE! 

Join us as we get our first peek at this psychological thriller with an eerie twist of romantic suspense. 

Plus, enter to win one of ten digital ARCs of IT BEGAN WITH A LIE!

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Book Description:

A fresh start. That was what Becca hoped the move from New York to Redemption, Wisconsin would be for her troubled family. A way to get her crumbling marriage back on track, and to bond with her difficult 16-year-old stepdaughter.

But instead of a new beginning, Becca is thrust into the mysterious past she barely remembers, as she is now living in her aunt's house (or what the locals call "The Witch House").

But is the house really haunted? Or is there something far more sinister out to destroy them?

Don’t miss Michele’s bonus novella 

THE SECRET DIARY OF HELEN BLACKSTONE. 

https://claims.instafreebie.com/public/1XxZR5gT?source=discover

IT BEGAN WITH A LIE Excerpt

Copyright © 2018 Michele PW

"You're right. It's perfect for us. I'm so glad we're here," I said, lying through my carefully pasted-on smile.

I tried to make my voice bright and cheery, but it sounded brittle and forced, even to me. I sucked in my breath and widened my smile, though my teeth were so clenched, my jaw hurt.

Stefan smiled back—actually, his mouth smiled but his dark brown eyes, framed with those long, thick lashes any woman would envy, looked flat … distracted. He hugged me with one arm. "I told you everything would be okay," he whispered into my hair. His scent was even more musky than usual, probably from two straight days of driving and lack of shower.

I hugged him back, reminding myself to relax. Yes, everything is going to be okay. Remember, this move represents a fresh start for us—time for us to reconnect and get our marriage back on track. It’s not going to happen overnight.

His iPhone buzzed. He didn't look at me as he dropped his arm and pulled it out of his pocket, his attention already elsewhere. "Sorry babe, gotta take this." He turned his back to me as he answered the call, walking away quickly. His dark hair, streaked with silver that added a quiet, distinguished air to his All-American good looks was longer than normal, curling around his collar. He definitely needed a haircut, but of course, we couldn't afford his normal stylist, and not just anyone was qualified to touch his hair.

I wrapped my arms around myself, goosebumps forming on my skin as a sudden breeze, especially cool for mid-May, brushed past me—the cold all the more shocking in the absence of Stefan's warm body.

He has to work, I reminded myself. Remember why we're here.

I remembered, all right. How could I forget?

I rubbed my hands up and down my arms as I took a deep breath, and finally focused on the house.

It was just as I remembered from my childhood—white with black shutters, outlined by bushy green shrubs, framed by tall, gently-swaying pine trees and the red porch with the swinging chair. It sat all by its lonesome in the middle of a never-developed cul-de-sac, the only “neighbors” being an overgrown forest on one side, and a marshy field on the other. 

Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly the way I remembered it. The bushes actually looked pretty straggly. The lawn was overgrown, full of dandelions going to seed, and the porch could definitely use a new paint job.

I sighed. If the outside looked like this, what on earth waited for me on the inside?

Inside.

I swallowed back the bile that rose in the back of my throat. It slid to my stomach, turning into a cold, slimy lump.

The house of my childhood.

The house of my nightmares.

Enter to win a $10 Amazon Gift Card and One of Ten eARCs of IT BEGAN WITH A LIE!

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About Michele PW:

Michele Pariza Wacek (also known as Michele PW) taught herself to read at three years old because she so badly wanted to write fiction. As an adult, she became a professional copywriter (copywriters write promotional materials for businesses, nothing to do with protecting intellectual property or putting a copyright on something) and eventually founded a copywriting and marketing company. She grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and currently lives with her husband and dogs in the mountains of Arizona. You can reach her at MicheleParizaWacek.com. She’s published two novels, “The Stolen Twin” and “Mirror Image,” both psychological thrillers/mystery/suspense books.

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Deep Cover by Scarlett Cole - Excerpt Tour and Giveaway

Back with the next installment in her Love Over Duty series, comes DEEP COVER by Scarlett Cole. 

For Ex-Navy SEAL Cabe Moss and FBI operative Amy Murray when the sparks begin to fly—and the stakes rise to dangerous heights—are they in too deep? 

Fans of alpha heroes and workplace romance won’t want to miss this hot romantic suspense.

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AmazonUK ~ Barnes&Noble ~ Chapters ~ iBooks

Book Description:

ARE THEY IN TOO DEEP?

Ex-Navy SEAL Cabe Moss always comes when called to duty—at all costs. Even though the death of his fiancée nearly destroyed him, Cabe won’t let his past interfere with any work that has to get done. When his latest task pushes him to team up with FBI operative Amy Murray, a fierce beauty with the undercover skills to match, Cabe must admit that, for the first time in years, he wants to do more than just complete their mission together…

Amy was born ready for this assignment, but working side-by-side with the the strong, silent, and frustratingly professional Cabe seems to be the biggest challenge of all. But when the sparks begin to fly—and the stakes rise to dangerous heights—the only thing Amy is left worrying about is how she can resist him. Their lives may be in danger, but their hearts hold the biggest risk of all…

DEEP COVER Excerpt

Copyright © 2018 Scarlett Cole

“Where are you hiding my baby girl?” a large voice boomed from the Caesars Palace hallway.

Valentina nodded her head in the direction of the doorway. “You should go find him before he disrupts any of the private tables,” she said with a smile.

Amy wandered to the door and found her Stetson-clad father looking into one of the rooms. “I’m right here, Dad,” she said as she hurried to him and hugged him in the hallway. He smelled of leather and cigar smoke. Maybe it was because she’d lost her mother so many years ago, but it was impossible to explain the feeling of safety that washed over her when she was fortunate enough to spend time around her father.

“Let me look at you,” he said, taking a step away from her. He studied her face. “Humph. San Diego appears to agree with you. I was kinda hoping it wouldn’t.”

“It does. And while you know I can’t talk about what I’m working on, the job does too.” Over her father’s shoulder, she saw Cabe walking toward them with Uncle Clive. She smiled when she noticed that Cabe was wearing a black jacket that fit him to perfection. He’d remembered. “Dad, let me introduce you to Cabe Moss.” 

Her father turned and offered Cabe his hand. “Well aren’t you one big son of a bitch? If you’re the guy who has my little girl’s back, I feel better already.”

Cabe’s face broke into a grin. “My pleasure, sir.”

“Sir. I like manners in a man. Military?”

“A SEAL, sir.” Cabe said.

“Well, let’s see if we can’t teach you a thing or two. Which room are we in, Clive?”

As Uncle Clive led her father farther down the hallway, she turned and noticed Cabe’s eyes were on her legs. Her bare legs. “Eyes up here, soldier,” she said, humor in her tone. It made her feel warm inside that he was looking.

“It’s sailor,” he said with a wink. “They’re good-looking legs, and I’m only human.”

It was wrong to let him flirt, it was wrong for her to respond, but for a moment, she wanted to pretend the rules didn’t apply. She reached forward and brushed a piece of lint off the shoulder of his jacket, then smoothed down his lapels. It was an intimate thing to do, she knew. And a risk, given the requirement to stay focused on the job. But hell, a piece of her had always believed in the what-happens-in-Vegas slogan. Here, in the middle of Caesars Palace, the real world didn’t truly exist. “You look good in a suit, sailor.”

Cabe placed his hands on top of hers and squeezed them gently. “You’re killing me, Ames.”

The heat of his fingers burned her inside. Made her want things she had no business wanting from a man she had no business wanting them from. “Why Ames?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just like it. It’s catchy. Makes you sound like one of those TV cop heroines from the seventies.”

Amy looked at their joined hands for just a millisecond longer before pulling them away. “You should go and start practicing,” she said. “If I’m going to work my way into the Lucky Seven Casino’s inner circle, I’d feel better if you were there too.”

“I’ll be there. But rest assured, even if I’m not invited, I’ll find a way to cover your back.” Cabe placed his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her forward gently to place a chaste kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be there, even if you can’t see me. I promise.”

Want to start from the beginning? 

Grab the first two books in the series today!

Read UNDER FIRE (Book #1) 

  Amazon ~ AmazonUK ~ Barnes&Noble ~ Chapters ~ Indigo ~ iBooks

Read FINAL SIEGE (Book #2) 

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Love Over Duty Series!

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About Scarlett Cole:

The tattoo across my right hip says it all really. A Life Less Ordinary. Inked by the amazingly talented Luke Wessman at the Wooster Street Social Club (a.k.a. New York Ink). Why is it important? Well, it sums up my view on life. That we should all aspire to live a life that is less boring, less predictable. Be bold, and do something amazing. I’ve made some crazy choices. I’ve been a car maker, a consultant, and even a senior executive at a large retailer running strategy. Born in England, spent time in the U.S. and Japan, before ending up in Canada were I met my own, personal hero – all six and a half feet of him. Both of us are scorpios! Yeah, I know! Should have checked the astrological signs earlier, but somehow it works for us. We have two amazing kids, who I either could never part with or could easily be convinced to sell on e-bay.

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a really long time. Check through my office cupboards or my computer and you’ll find half written stories and character descriptions everywhere. Now I'm getting the chance to follow that dream.

Connect with Scarlett:

  Website ~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Twitter

The Surviving Girls by Katee Robert - Spotlight, Excerpt, Giveaway

Release alert for THE SURVIVING GIRLS!

Don’t miss this intense, and suspenseful crime novel by Katee Robert! 

Download THE SURVIVING GIRLS or add it to your TBR pile on Goodreads! 

Then keep reading to get a sneak peek and your chance to enter the giveaway for a $25 Amazon gift card or books from Katee Robert!

Amazon ~ Barnes&Noble

Book Description:

A fierce survivor and a fearless FBI agent battle a copycat serial killer in a gripping thriller from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Katee Robert. 

Twelve years ago, Lei Zhang and her friend Emma Nilsson miraculously lived through the notorious Sorority Row Murders that left twenty-one of their sisters dead. Still wrestling with the trauma but finally out of the limelight, Lei and Emma are now devoted to helping other victims find closure. But most disturbing for Lei—beyond the gut-wrenching survivor guilt—is that the killer was her boyfriend. He’s behind bars, but she’ll never lower her guard again.

When a copycat killer targets Lei and Emma, FBI Agent Dante Young is put in charge of anticipating the sociopath’s every move. But what he doesn’t expect is his immediate and overpowering attraction to Lei. The closer they get to each other, the more desperate and terrifying the questions become: Who wants to finish what the killer started—and why?

Now Agent Young vows to protect Lei at all costs. If they have any chance of a future together, first they have to stay alive…

Excerpt:

The Surviving Girls Excerpt

Copyright © 2018 Katee Robert

Lei couldn’t breathe. Her chest closed painfully as if she’d been knocked flat on her back, and her lungs burned with the need for oxygen. Somewhere in the tiny rational corner of her mind, she knew there was nothing really wrong with her, but rational thought had no place in the midst of her panic.

He’s back. Emma was right all along and he’s coming for us.

Stop.

You’re spiraling.

Travis Berkley is still in jail. This is a copycat, and no matter how bad a copycat is, he can’t be worse than Travis. You survived before. You will this time, too.

A whine cut through her thoughts, and then Saul was there, nudging her hand with his cool nose. She inhaled sharply, suddenly aware that everyone in the room was staring at her. The Feds had the blank-slate expression she’d come to associate with cops when they were in a difficult situation. Emma looked at her as if she was on the verge of her own panic attack.

Lei stroked her hand over Saul’s head, forming a wall of indisputable facts in her mind to keep the fear at bay. She wasn’t twenty-one anymore, only a couple of years out of the stifling family home she’d grown up on, still drunk on freedom and the realization that she could do anything she wanted to with her future.

She’d been an idiot. A child who was playing dress-up without realizing the pitfalls of adulthood.

Though most pitfalls don’t come attached to a knife.

Lei wasn’t that girl anymore. She’d seen the worst Travis Berkley could offer and had the scars to show for it. She could shoot. She could fight. She’d worked with enough cops over the course of her career as a trainer and search team that she had an inside view to how their minds worked.

She would not lose herself to terror.

Another stroke to Saul’s head and she was able to speak. “How close to the original murders are the details?”

Agent Young exchanged a glance with his partner and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. His big hands dangled between his legs, and she distantly noted that he had really firm thighs beneath the expensive slacks. He spoke slowly, as if gauging her response. “We haven’t had a chance to check the original case files, but the big details are almost identical. The murders were performed in the same way—girls kept in a main room and taken out individually. We think he snuck in through a window, because their condo was on the second floor and he used a knife from the kitchen.”

She could almost hear Travis’s voice in her head, even after all these years. Let me in, Lei-Lei. I have a surprise for you. Stupid. She’d been so incredibly stupid, swayed by a pretty face and a boy her parents would approve of who made her feel. Smart, athletic, the right dollar amount in his family’s bank account. Someone bright and colorful and checking all the right boxes.

Since she couldn’t bring herself to ask if one of the girls let him in, she focused on the rest. “If this is a fan, he must have been in contact with Travis at some point.” She put her hand on Emma’s leg when her friend flinched at his name. The Feds didn’t react, which made her sigh. “But you already knew that. You don’t need me telling you how to do your job. What is it you need?”

Another loaded look between them. They’d obviously been partners for a long time, because they managed to convey an entire conversation’s worth of talking in a single look.

Again, it was Agent Young who took the lead. “We can find the details of the case easily enough, along with your accounts, but what I’d like to know is your take on Travis.”

“Because I dated him.” She stated it baldly, as if the fact she’d slept with a murderer was something she’d dealt with and moved on from. As if the fact didn’t still keep her up at night, moving beneath her skin until she wanted to take a wire brush to her body. There weren’t enough hot showers and bleach baths in the world to change the fact she’d willingly been with him. She could never take that back.

“Because you—both of you—have known him longer than anyone.”

“Agent Young—”

“Dante.”

She stopped short. Dante. It fit him somehow—strong and a little bit intense. He masked it well, but there was fire lurking in the depths of his dark eyes, in the way he clenched his fists as they spoke about Travis. She shouldn’t be forming personal opinions about any man, let alone one connected with the case. Lei’s track record had more than proven that fact.

While she was still trying to process her strange and seriously inconvenient reaction to him, Emma had found her voice. She spoke softly, her southern accent giving her breathy tone a pretty lilt. She had a Dolly Parton thing going for her—at least before Dolly got a little crazy for plastic surgery—and Emma wasn’t above playing up the sweet-southern-belle thing when it suited her. “Travis Berkley is a sociopath with a healthy dose of narcissistic personality disorder—which you already know because you read the file. Everything is in the file. We have been doing our best to get past what he did to us—to our sisters—and that means forgetting as much as possible.”

Maybe for Emma. Lei couldn’t afford to forget. It had been her mistake that tipped the first domino that destroyed so many lives. While it was possible Travis could have gotten into the house on his own, she’d been the fool who let him in her window.

The knowledge made her hands shake. Emma might want to do everything to avoid that gory walk down memory lane, but Lei didn’t have that option. Guilt wrapped around her throat, tightening, ever tightening. “You have something specific you’re here for.”

Agent Rowan leaned forward, a clear indication that she’d take it from there. As much as Lei wanted the calming force Dante—Agent Young—seemed to emanate, she turned almost gratefully to the redhead. She eyed her as if Lei was a particularly interesting bug. “We’re theorizing this fucker—”

“Clarke.”

She didn’t look at him. “These women have seen enough, Dante. You know as well as I do that a few choice curse words aren’t going to have them scrambling for their sniffing salts.”

Lei understood now why Britton had paired these two together. Clarke was the blunt force designed to set a person back on their heels so they were too busy reacting to her foul mouth to stop and think that there might be a shrewd mind behind those deceptively big blue eyes. Dante on the other hand, was a cool summer mist, unruffling feathers and putting everyone in the room at ease with his calm presence. Both agents would be underestimated in different ways, which was only to their benefit.

Clever.

She eyed the dogs on the floor. Neither of them seemed overly concerned with the Feds in the room. Good. Lei had more than proven she could be fooled, but Saul couldn’t. Every time he reacted poorly to a person, she paid attention—and most of the time something eventually came to light to prove her dog’s instincts correct.

Clarke followed her gaze and then refocused on Lei and then Emma. “A lot of sociopaths think they’re smarter than everyone else in the room—some of them are even right—and Travis sure as hell falls into the latter category. His IQ is 167, and from all accounts, prison hasn’t broken him. What we need to know is if he’d encourage a fan to take these steps.”

“Of course he would. He’s a fucking psycho,” Emma snarled.

“What do you think?” Clarke was looking at Lei.

Because why not? Even now, cops thought Lei had some kind of inside track to the way Travis’s mind worked. She’d dated him for months, had slept with him countless times, and so she must have some insider knowledge to explain how the golden boy went so very, very wrong.

She hadn’t been able to give them a satisfactory answer then. She didn’t have one now, either. But she could try.

Other Books in the Hidden Sin Series

THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER

Goodreads ~ Amazon ~ Barnes&Noble

THE HUNTING GROUNDS

Goodreads ~ Amazon ~ Barnes&Noble

GiveAway:

Enter to win a grand prize of a $25 Amazon Gift Card or three (3) runner-up copies of a backlist eBook from Katee Robert!

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About Katee Robert

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Katee Robert learned to tell her stories at her grandpa’s knee. Her 2015 title, The Marriage Contract, was a RITA finalist, and RT Book Reviews named it 'a compulsively readable book with just the right amount of suspense and tension." When not writing sexy contemporary and romantic suspense, she spends her time playing imaginary games with her children, driving her husband batty with what-if questions, and planning for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

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