Thursday, April 13, 2017

SPOTLIGHT: To Seduce a Stranger by Susanna Craig @lyricalpress @SusannaMCraig #Historical #New



To Seduce a Stranger
Susanna Craig
Kensington Publishing/Lyrical Press
Spotlight: 4/13

Blurb
After her much older husband dies—leaving her his fortune—Charlotte Blakemore finds herself at the mercy of her stepson, who vows to contest the will and destroy her life. With nowhere to turn and no one to help her, she embarks on an elaborate ruse—only to find herself stranded on the way to London . . .

More than twenty years in the West Indies have hardened Edward Cary, but not enough to abandon a helpless woman at a roadside inn—especially one as disarmingly beautiful as Charlotte. He takes her with him to the Gloucestershire estate he is determined to restore, though he is suspicious of every word that falls from her distractingly lush lips.

As far as Charlotte knows, Edward is nothing more than a steward, and there’s no reason to reveal his noble birth until he can right his father’s wrongs. Acting as husband and wife will keep people in the village from asking questions that neither Charlotte nor Edward are willing to answer. But the game they’re each determined to play has rules that beg to be broken, when the passion between them threatens to uncover the truth—for better or worse . . . 


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Excerpt
Leaning forward, Edward curved his fingers around the handle of the brush and drew it from Charlotte’s grasp. His touch was warm and soft, as she had known it would be. “Allow me,” he said.
“I really don’t think—”
“Surely a husband can do as much for his wife, Mrs. Cary,” he insisted, his voice gently teasing now. “A repayment, of sorts.” Before she could reply, the boar’s bristles tingled against her scalp, sending off little fireworks of ecstasy, followed by ripples of relaxation that seemed to flow from the top of her head through every limb, every vein, every cell. “Relax.”
She had been without the gentle touch of another person for so long . . . forever, really. Though she craved it, she had schooled herself not to need it. Yet here she was, tormented daily by the touch of a man who was all but a stranger to her. She could still feel where his hand had circled her arm and jerked her to safety; where his arm had clutched her waist, brushing the underside of her breast with each bounce of the horse; where his fingertips had skated with care over her injured palms. And now, his deft hands, his long fingers, made her forget the pain of her own hands and the tightness in her shoulders, in favor of an entirely different ache, in a place no one had ever touched her. A place no one ever would.
Realizing it would be a terrible mistake to surrender to his command to relax, she kept her spine straight as ever. Still, her eyes drooped closed and a sigh escaped her lips as he dragged the brush downward, again and again, stroking its bristles through her hair until it crackled and shone.
Too soon, he laid the brush aside. Unwilling to let the moment of pure indulgence come to an end, she refused to open her eyes. When he gathered her hair in one hand and swept it to the side, over one of her shoulders, a few strands caught on his work-roughened fingers. Then she heard the tell-tale creak of leather as he shifted his weight. Caught the scent of him, wool and shaving soap and man. Felt the warmth of his body as he leaned closer still.
Please.
How did her body know to want the press of his lips against that curve of skin he had exposed, at the base of her neck where it joined her shoulder? Were those forbidden cravings a part of her blood, as everyone had always insisted? An instinct, prowling silently along the shadowy edges of her mind, like Noir in search of a mouse? Would she have a moment to react, to save herself, when the tension coiling tighter and tighter within her finally sprung?




Previous books in Runaway Desires series


To Kiss a Thief
Sarah Pevensey had hoped her arranged marriage to St. John Sutliffe, Viscount Fairfax, could become something more. But almost before it began, it ended in a scandal that shocked London society. Accused of being a jewel thief, Sarah fled to a small fishing village to rebuild her life.
The last time St. John saw his new wife, she was nestled in the lap of a soldier, disheveled, and no longer in possession of his family’s heirloom sapphire necklace. Now, three years later, he has located Sarah and is determined she pay for her crimes. But the woman he finds is far from what he expected. Humble and hardworking, Sarah has nothing to hide from her husband—or so it appears. Yet as he attempts to woo her to uncover her secrets, St. John soon realizes that if he’s not careful, she’ll steal his heart…





To Tempt an Heiress
After her beloved father dies, Tempest Holderin wants nothing more than to fulfill his wish to free the slaves on their Antiguan sugar plantation. But the now wealthy woman finds herself pursued by a pack of unsavory suitors with other plans for her inheritance. To keep her from danger, her dearest friend arranges a most unconventional solution: have Tempest kidnapped and taken to safety.

Captain Andrew Corrvan has a reputation as a ruthless, money-hungry blackguard—but those on his ship know differently. He is driven by only one thing: the quest to avenge his father’s death on the high seas. Until he agrees to abduct a headstrong heiress…

If traveling for weeks—without a chaperone—isn’t enough to ruin Tempest, the desire she feels for her dark and dangerously attractive captor will do the rest. The storm brewing between them will only gather strength when they reach England, where past and present perils threaten to tear them apart—even more so than their own stubborn hearts…




Bio
A love affair with historical romances led Susanna Craig to a degree (okay, three degrees) in literature and a career as an English professor. When she’s not teaching or writing academic essays about Jane Austen and her contemporaries, she enjoys putting her fascination with words and knowledge of the period to better use: writing Regency-era romances she hopes readers will find both smart and sexy. She makes her home among the rolling hills of Kentucky horse country, along with her historian husband, their unstoppable little girl, and a genuinely grumpy cat.

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