Musings and Ramblings: @GoddessFish Guest Post: Take the Heat Anthology edited by Skye Warren

Take the Heat

Anthology
Skye Warren, Cynthia Richards, Pam Godwin, Sheri Savill, Shoshanna Evers, Candy Quinn, Tamsin Flowers, Elizabeth Coldwell, Audrey Lusk, Trent Evans, Giselle Renarde

Genre: Erotic Romance
Date of Publication: September 9, 2014
Number of pages: 169
Word Count: 62,920

Available at the following retailers:
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The ultimate bad boys, criminals capture our attention and awaken our darkest desires. Celebrate the illicit in this romantic suspense anthology, where handcuffs are used for more than play. These stories are shocking, sexy, and thought-provoking.

In New York Times Bestselling Author Skye Warren’s Magnolia Hotel, meet the heroine who pays her brother’s debt to a loan shark—who happens to be her childhood crush. Find out if the jury made the right decision in Acquitted by award-winning author Giselle Renarde. Explore a dark and sensual psychology with New York Times Bestselling Author Pam Godwin in Unlawful Seduction.

Ride the edge of desire and see if you can TAKE THE HEAT…

Skye Warren – Magnolia Hotel
Cynthia Richards – Captivated
Pam Godwin – Unlawful Seduction
Sheri Savill – Slipknot
Shoshanna Evers – This Might Hurt A Bit
Candy Quinn – The Bombshell
Tamsin Flowers – Playing with Fire
Elizabeth Coldwell – Disposing of Donnie
Audrey Lusk – Surprise Witness
Trent Evans – Last Day
Giselle Renarde – Acquitted

Excerpt:

FROM “MAGNOLIA HOTEL” BY SKYE WARREN

Maybe Liam still had that spark of humanity, of compassion, I’d once loved as a child. And even if I knew my brother was partly to blame for his situation, I couldn’t leave him to the wolves. Namely, one wolf. Liam.

I turned to my childhood friend who looked so different now with the glint of scruff on his face, with a bend in his nose where it had been broken. He looked some much more distinguished. In fact, he looked intimidating.

“Please let him go. Even if he… I know what he did. But he’s my brother. I can’t leave here without him. Take the two thousand. I’ll get you more, soon. I promise you. Just don’t hurt him.”

“Do you know how much he owes me, Grace?”

I swallowed. “Five thousand dollars?”

His face pulled into a slight grimace. He sighed. “Fifteen.”

I stood there, stunned. Unable to gasp or even breathe. Fifteen thousand dollars. I would never have that much money, not ever. But he was my brother.

“Please,” I whispered, reduced to begging.

Liam looked away, and for a horrible second I thought it was a refusal. My stomach pitched wildly, in fear and doubt and desperation. How could I fix this? I couldn’t, I couldn’t. My brother was going to be beaten or killed.

Then he turned back to me, a hard glint in his gunmetal eyes. “There is a way you can help. You can be mine, Grace. Mine to do whatever I want with.”

Seconds passed with excruciating slowness as my mind protected me. Then reality slammed into me—all at once. He meant sex. I was almost sure he meant sex. Then I laughed at myself, hollow and jaded. What else would it mean?

I hadn’t thought it possible to hate Liam more, but I did, because he’d setup an impossible choice. For fifteen thousand dollars—and for my brother’s safety—I had to agree.

What did that make me? A prostitute? A sex slave?

I looked at my brother as the offer stood in the air. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. Couldn’t he at least put up a token protest? At least try to protect my honor? But I was getting a clearer picture of Benny than I had our whole lives. Letting himself fall to this level was one thing, but dragging me into it was the last straw. I would do this for him—and that was it.

“Never again,” I whispered.

I would never drain my bank account and come running to help ever again. Never sell my body for him. Never trust my brother again. It was like losing a family member. The only one I had.

Benny nodded, or maybe he was just drifting out of consciousness, his head bobbing slightly. Who knew? I was done. I would do what Liam required of me, and then I would be finished. Finished with family. Finished with criminals.

I’d be alone then.

I nodded grimly. “I’ll do it.”

Guest Post:

Thanks so much for having me on Musings and Ramblings! I’m thrilled to share my new release, Take the Heat, which is a criminal romance anthology. I loved putting it together and seeing each author’s take on the subject…

I think one of the joys of reading, thinking back even to childhood, was the sense that anything could happen. Wardrobes opened to new lands and golden tickets opened the gate to magical chocolate factories. When I got a little older (but probably not old enough) I started reading Anne Rice. Ooo boy, let me tell you. The Witching Hour is as dark and as taboo as it gets. There’s ménage and incest and all kinds of wild times. And these were books sitting on a nice, bright shelf in the bookstore that my parents bought for me—totally not knowing what was inside!

So I really didn’t have a sense that there were boundaries in books. That was something I learned later, as an adult.

And it’s something I try to unlearn, in a way.

I try to push my own boundaries with each new book. I try to stretch myself. Because that’s a huge part of the fun of writing. And even though this is my career, I want to have fun. Plus, it produces better books. The books I wrote with my hands flying over the keyboard, the ones I questioned before I published them if they were even acceptable for public viewing, are consistently my bestsellers. My readers want me to push the envelope.

When I came up with the idea for this criminal romance anthology, it was more than an invitation to read dark and taboo; it was an invitation to write it. Some of the authors I had read before and knew. I knew Pam Godwin and Shoshanna Evers would deliver—and they did, with a dark and psychological exploration of the criminal mind and a fun and surprisingly sweet kinky story, respectively. With others, I discovered new authors whose stories blew me away.

Some days, I don’t even see how this stuff is considered that dark—or dangerous. After all, there are demons and werewolves in books and no one bats an eye. Is it that strange to read about a person finding love? Even if that person does happen to be a prison inmate… Real criminals find love (and hot sex) every day. But then I remember that that’s what makes these stories scary. They hit close to home. They make us squirm. And that’s why I love them.

TAKE THE HEAT
The ultimate bad boys, criminals capture our attention and awaken our darkest desires. Celebrate the illicit in this romantic suspense anthology, where handcuffs are used for more than play. These stories are shocking, sexy, and thought-provoking.

In New York Times Bestseller Skye Warren’s Magnolia Hotel, meet the heroine who pays her brother’s debt to a loan shark—who happens to be her childhood crush. Find out if the jury made the right decision in Acquitted by award-winning author Giselle Renarde. Explore a dark and sensual psychology with New York Times Bestseller Pam Godwin in Unlawful Seduction.

New York Times Bestseller Skye Warren – Magnolia Hotel
Cynthia Rayne – Captivated
New York Times Bestseller Pam Godwin – Unlawful Seduction
Sheri Savill – Slipknot
New York Times Bestseller Shoshanna Evers – This Might Hurt A Bit
Candy Quinn – The Bombshell
Tamsin Flowers – Playing with Fire
Elizabeth Coldwell – Disposing of Donnie
Audrey Lusk – Surprise Witness
Trent Evans – Last Day
Giselle Renarde – Acquitted

Ride the edge of desire and see if you can TAKE THE HEAT…

Giveaway:

The author will be awarding a $15 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter between this tour and the Review Tour, here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway