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Release Blitz: Come Together by Mia Kerick

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Come Together | Mia Kerick

IF I FELL #3

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Release Date: January 21st, 2022

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Blurb

Timmy and Cole faced brutal obstacles to their union from the moment they fell in love. It nearly drove them apart for good, but they overcame hostility, distance, and the deceptively alluring escape of alcohol. Now they’re ready to settle into the future as a married couple. With their spirited dog, Blackbird, and a close circle of friends, they’ve made a home and a happy life. But they don’t want to step into marriage until they’ve put complicated family problems behind them.

Cole’s son, Robbie, has turned bitter, refusing to accept his father’s engagement to the much younger man. His cold rejection threatens to destroy Cole. Meanwhile, Timmy’s dysfunctional family turns more treacherous than ever after the couple takes in his abandoned teenage niece, Lucy.

Soon, mysterious, threatening messages begin to appear.

When Cole leaves town on a trip to rebuild the severed bond with his son, the threats become real. Timmy’s brother—Lucy’s missing father—reappears. Addicted, violent, and homophobic he’s determined to either coax Lucy away from the shelter of the couple’s home…or destroy it.

Will the two families come together in an explosive collision or in reconciliation? The journey to marriage takes Cole and Timmy on one more wild ride. Through it all, can they hold on tight to their love and its promised happily-ever-after? 

In the dramatic conclusion to award-winning author Mia Kerick’s IF I FELL Series, lovers Timmy Hale and Cole Ledger meet with danger when they attempt to mend broken family bonds.

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Excerpt

As I drop to one knee, Timmy tilts his head, and his eyes flood with tears. I reach into my pocket.

“I can’t imagine life without you—and to be honest, I don’t want to. You’re my partner in every way, and I love you more than I ever thought possible.”

One of his hands rises from his side to cover his mouth. I snatch the other and press his palm to my cheek. And I close my eyes, just as Timmy used to do when life was all too much, and he wanted to disappear. But this time I close my eyes to burn this precious moment—the fierce hope in my heart and the glistening anticipation in Timmy’s eyes—into my memory.

“And so, I-I want to-to ask you…” I suck in a deep breath to steady myself but end up releasing a sob. And just like that, we’re both crying. I lift my chin to stare into his dark eyes, and then I throw caution to the ocean breeze. “Will you marry me, Timmy?” I release his hand to open the velvet box.

Timmy gapes at me, tears streaming down his face.

“Will you?” I grip his hand again. “Well, w-will you?”

Start the Series

Hide Your Love Away

IF I FELL #1

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Blurb

Too young.

Too damaged.

Too close to Cole’s enormous secret for comfort.

Rough and tumble Edgewater University maintenance man Colton Ledger should keep his distance from the sleek and snarky college junior who has caught his attention. After all, Timmy is half his age, not to mention that Cole has a secret life he can’t afford to reveal. So why is he compelled to undermine the young man’s cocky game and lure him into his private life?

As the product of an unwanted late-life pregnancy, Timmy Hale has been emotionally shattered by a loveless upbringing. After years of desperate attempts to garner attention from his apathetic parents fail, young adult Timmy changes course. He hides his feelings of vulnerability behind meaningless sex, endless partying, and a big, bad attitude. Until Cole comes along…

When trouble finds Timmy in the form of a dangerous and relentless stalker, Cole must decide if Timmy is worth the risk of coming clean about the confidence he’s obliged to keep, as Timmy weighs the potential havoc falling in love could wreak on his heart.

Age Gap, Hurt/Comfort, Keeping Secrets, Opposites Attract Adult Contemporary MM Romance.

Blackbird

IF I FELL #2

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Timmy and Cole’s angsty love story continues…

Last year, in Timmy Hale’s junior year at Edgewater University, he set his romantic sights on Colton “Cole” Ledger—a burly and sometimes over-protective dormitory maintenance man. Cole soon had it bad for sleek and snarky Timmy too, and—despite a bumpy road (a frenzied stalker and an uncooperative son)—before year’s end they’d found love. Now, in Timmy’s senior year, the couple has left the dormitory behind. Cole is back to running his own custom construction company, and they’ve turned an antique Victorian home into a love nest. For a while, life is good.

But insta-love comes at a cost, and for Timmy and Cole it’s steep. Cole’s doubts haunt him: he’s almost certain he’s too old for Timmy, and that he’s pushing him into a life he’ll eventually resent, keeping him from spreading his newfound wings and taking flight toward his best future. Acting on his fears, Cole pressures Timmy to accept an internship in Manhattan—far from the home they’ve built together. He means well, but Timmy feels like a baby bird kicked out of the nest too soon.

Tensions rise until fear, resentment, and desire draw Timmy and Cole into explosive conflict. When the dust settles, will Timmy wing away like a young blackbird, or return to nest with Cole in their happy garden home?

For maximum enjoyment, read Blackbird after reading Hide Your Love Away.

About the Author

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Award-winning gay romance author and mother of four, Mia Kerick, knows that a satisfying romance novel is riddled with challenges. For true love to prevail, the leading men are going to have to put in some effort. But the HEA is oh-so rewarding.

From Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester to Brokeback Mountain’s Ennis and Jack, Mia has a great affinity for the tortured hero in literature. Her contemporary gay romance focuses on such steamy tropes as hurt/comfort, forbidden love, and enemies/friends to lovers. She firmly believes that sometimes you have to break his heart to save him. In Kerick’s books, the course of true love truly never does run smooth.

Mia’s books have been featured in Kirkus Reviews magazine. They have won a 2019 IPPY GOLD award for Juvenile/Young Adult Fiction, a 2018 YA GOLD MOONBEAM Children’s Book Award, a YA Readers’ Favorite Award, several Gold Rainbow Awards in YA and adult categories, a Reader Views’ Book by Book Publicity Literary Award, the Jack Eadon Award for Best Book in Contemporary Drama, a YA Indie Fab Award, a First Place Royal Dragonfly Award for Cultural Diversity, a First Place Story Monsters Purple Dragonfly Award, and more.

Mia cheers for each and every victory made in the name of human rights. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.

Social Media

https://miakerickya.com

Facebook Group Mia’s Lost Boys: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3769563033151500

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/mia-kerick

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miakerick/

Twitter: @MiaKerick

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Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Come Together, Mia is giving away a $15 Amazon Voucher!

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Vorian and Beau’s romance gave me all the feels

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My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For a lot of the time period of this book we’re going over old ground but this time we see it from Vorian and Beau’s perspective.

It was interesting to get a different view of what was going on in Kaelum’s book (not as much with Jax/Wesley’s) but it did mean that for the first half of the book, the only new thing happening was the burgeoning romance.

Fortunately, that was enough for me to not care because Vorian and Beau were so desperately right for each other. They’ve both been treated as disposable objects, have had little support, encouragement or kindness in their lives.

So when they meet on Crux’s ship after Beau’s been beamed up from Earth, the situation is ripe for them to find a soulmate. And I very much appreciated the slow nature of their relationship, it’s not all instant chemistry and big lusty thoughts.

They connect through acts of compassion, Beau sees Vorian as something other than the bastard child of the disliked Crux, the half-brother of Kaelum that no-one wanted, the Queen’s child – but one born from an act of violence.

My heart hurt for Vorian so much. He is nothing like the character we were given a perspective for in Book One. He is steadfast, faithful, conflicted and – ultimately – a Thorizan halfbreed who will help remove the danger his father presents to all.

Beau is a sweetheart, he’s had a rough time of it and just wants to find a home and in the strange alien ways of Thorzan he does just that.

I loved Kenosi throughout this book too, and I really hope we might get back to this series and find out if he also finds his own eight-foot blue-skinned warrior to love!

#ARC kindly received from the authors in return for an honest and unbiased review

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Blog Tour: Finley Embraces Heart And Home by Anyta Sunday

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Finley Embraces Heart And Home | Anyta Sunday

Love, Austen #4

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Release Date: September 13th, 2021

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MUM is the love of his life.
Until he meets his STEP-BROTHER.

For years it’s been just Finley and Mum. Now she’s getting married, and they’re moving into a flash mansion and his step-dad is lording it over him. He’s clearly a homophobe, and doesn’t want him rubbing off (so to speak) on his son.

Like that would ever happen. No way he’d ever go for someone who shares his DNA.

Even if Ethan and his dad don’t look anything alike.

Even if Ethan and his dad don’t act anything alike.

Even if . . .

This can’t happen. They’re whānau now, family, there are boundaries.

Secret. Forbidden. Irresistible.

A reimagining of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

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“Every moment has its pleasures and its hope.”

― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

***Heart-throbbing slow burn, a bit of pretty prose, Ethan is his step-brother, Finley wasn’t supposed to see him naked, step-dad is a homophobe, Finley has naughty thoughts, Austen might roll over in her grave, secrets and confessions under sparkly stars, mutual pining, the world is unfair, pining-pining-and-more-pining, Finley turns naughty thoughts to actions, so what there are rules?, maybe they shouldn’t have done that, jealousy is an ugly green beast, Austen might like this now, forgetting is impossible, more impossible is choosing between heart and home.***

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Excerpt

Red brick and shingles and intricate white latticework.

Someone is up on the turret, looking down on us. I can’t stare back long against the glare of the sun. Male, sports cap.

Mum loads a duffel bag into my arms.

She takes the last two suitcases of our clothes—in mine, the picture of Dad—from her fender-bent hatchback. This is all we’ve got.

Mansfield has everything else we need, she said.

The car, Mum and I—our whole lives—are dwarfed by the historic mansion that looms before us.

It should be raining. There should be thunder and lightning cracking the sky the way my heart is cracking.

“I want to go home.”

“I know it’ll take time to adjust,” she coos in my ear. “But I promise, it’ll all turn out in the end. You’ll see.”

My throat is sore. “Couldn’t you have waited?” I know my whine is unreasonable, but I want her to feel my pain. Want her to feel guilty. “It’s only three more years until I leave school.”

Tom emerges from the massive entrance in a short-sleeved shirt and crisply pressed shorts. All that’s missing is a golf bag and a flash of his overly-whitened teeth.

Mum melts into a smile at the sight of him, then settles her warm eyes on me. She speaks a proverb; I know it, but I’ve never understood it before. I don’t really now, either. “Ka mate te kāinga tahi, ka ora te kāinga rua.”

When one house dies, a second lives.

But our home wasn’t dead. And leaving the refuge he made for us feels like leaving his memory behind. It feels worse.

Tears leak out the corners of my eyes. I want to sing and cry like we did at his tangi.

Mum pulls the duffel from my arms and hoists me into her embrace. She clutches me tightly, her bright dress wrinkling between us. “He is our past, he is always a part of us.”

Now we must concentrate on the present and build a future.

She lets me go and opens her arms for Tom.

I kick at the sun-gleaming grass. A black cat scampers from behind the tree and hisses as it avoids my arcing foot.

“Oi,” Tom scolds. “Careful of Mrs. Norris.”

“I didn’t . . .” It was an accident! I’d never hurt a cat.

“Why don’t you take your bag inside and look around? Help yourself to a scone, there’s some on the dining table.”

I don’t want to listen to him. I fold my arms.

He starts kissing my mum.

I grab my suitcase and stalk across the manicured lawn to the stupid, pretty house. I hope I leave mud over the pristine polished marble floor. My belongings, I drop in the middle of the entranceway. Where it’s most annoying. Only the duffel and suitcase are so small in the wide space they look ridiculous.

The dining room is as big as our old home. Sun streams in through the gridded windows and across the table set with modern plates and cups with saucers and matching navy teapots and two silver platters of scones. Some clotted cream.

I sit down on a leather-upholstered chair. I like scones. But now I don’t ever want to touch one again.

Tears track down my cheeks, hot and heavy. I swipe at them with the back of my hand, sniffing.

Footsteps.

I shoot my head up, expecting to see Mum and Tom, but it’s neither. A guy strides into the room wearing a blue cap. He’s about my age, a little older, maybe. Broad shouldered like me and toned. But I don’t know where he gets his from, living in a mansion. Okay, Mansfield is on the outskirts of Port Rātapu, and the property looked big. But it’s no farm. I can’t imagine anyone living here doing any heavy lifting.

“I guess you’re Finley?” he says.

“I guess you’re Ethan,” I say back.

About the Author

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I’m a big, BIG fan of slow-burn romances. I love to read and write stories with characters who slowly fall in love.

Some of my favorite tropes to read and write are: Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Clueless Guys, Bisexual, Pansexual, Demisexual, Oblivious MCs, Everyone (Else) Can See It, Slow Burn, Love Has No Boundaries.

I write a variety of stories, Contemporary MM Romances with a good dollop of emotion, Contemporary lighthearted MM Romances, and even a splash of fantasy.

My books have been translated into German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Thai.

Social Media

Contact: http://www.anytasunday.com/about-anyta/

Newsletter: http://www.anytasunday.com/newsletter-free-e-book/

Facebook Group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/SlowBurnSundays/

Website: www.anytasunday.com

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/anyta-sunday

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Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Finley Embraces Heart And Home, Anyta is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift card and an e-set of the “Signs of Love” books (5 novels and 4 novellas)

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