Tracey Alvarez' HOT new release

One of my very favourite authors has a new book out which I'm excited to share with you. Check it out!

Title: Teach Your Heart (Far North Book 3)

Author: Tracey Alvarez

Release Date: November 30, 2016

Regular price: US$3.99

New Release price (until December 8^th) $2.99

Full Blurb:

Some lessons are harder to learn than others…

Doctor O-for-Awesome Owen Bennett is all about fixing broken things. Then the arrival of his orphaned nieces and nephew for twelve weeks causes his workaholic life to plummet into chaos. Hiring the beautiful but unpredictable Gracie Cooper as a live-in nanny might just get him out of a tight spot…or it could seduce him into a reckless affair.

After four years flitting around Europe, waitress/dog-walker/au-pair Gracie Cooper has returned home to New Zealand. Her plans to hang out with her big brother change when Owen offers a perfect solution to her crippling university debt. In spite of her sexy-stick-in-the-mud boss, she’ll spend fun days playing in Bounty Bay’s sand and surf with his cute charges. At summer’s end she’ll follow the sun overseas again.

Gracie and Owen’s opposites-attract connection is so unexpected and powerful that foundations are rocked. But some things aren’t easy to fix. Some past hurts can’t be run from forever. And the lessons they teach each other risk breaking their hearts.

Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29764931-teach-your-heart

Buy links:

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MYPQJNR

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MYPQJNR

iBooks US: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/teach-your-heart/id1099244245

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1125098420

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/626749

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/nz/en/ebook/teach-your-heart

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Tracey_Alvarez_Teach_Your_Heart?id=sceDDQAAQBAJ

Excerpt

“Morning,” he said. “Another early bird.”

“I saw the lights go on in here. I’ve been awake for hours. Touch of jet lag still.”

“Takes some adjustment.” Owen gave Gracie a wide berth and entered the walk-in pantry. “As does acclimatizing to the Far North summer,” he said over his shoulder. “Are you cold?”

Her laugh was a smoky chuckle. Fortunately, neither she nor Charlie could witness him closing his eyes for an instant to enjoy it.

“No, just lacking in some warmer-weather clothes,” Gracie said. “I like to travel light, so I gave away a lot of my summer things when the UK winter closed in.”

“I was hot last night.” His nephew’s sleepy voice drifted into the pantry. “And what’s for breakfast?”

“Uncle Owen’s making pancakes, and I was hot, too. In the bus I sleep in my knickers,” Charlie said and then giggled. “Will, tell Gracie the story about Uncle Owen and Uncle Danny in the bunny-hole.”

“What’s a bunny-hole?” Gracie asked.

Owen snatched the baking powder from the shelf and ducked back into the kitchen. “It’s a space under the main floor of my parents’ bus down the back. Big enough to fit a small set of bunks. Daniel and I used to share it.”

“You lived in the house bus, too?”

Gracie sat bolt upright on the barstool, but before Owen could answer, Charlie tugged on her elbow.

“Hey! It’s Will’s story!”

“Sorry.” Gracie stroked Charlie’s hair, which stuck out in wild corkscrew curls. “Tell me about the bunny-hole, Will.”

Owen moved to the fridge and opened it. He’d need the cool air if the story he suspected was the one his mum had passed on to the kids.

“Weeelll,” said Will, relishing the role of storyteller. “The bunny-hole bunks are up against the window, so you gotta remember to close the curtains if you’re on the top one. One day, when Uncle Owen was little, he forgot to close the curtains and he woke up to see people laughing at him as they walked past. Because he only had his undies on and nothing else.”

Charlie clapped a palm over her mouth but it didn’t muffle her high-pitched giggles.

“Oh dear.” Laughter rippled beneath the surface of Gracie’s voice. “I hope they were clean undies, Owen.”

Bunny-hole, rabbit hole. He’d fallen down one of them into a nutty world where discussing underwear choices with a woman he’d just met was appropriate breakfast conversation. “Clean Spiderman ones, yeah.”

Owen pulled out the tray of eggs and placed them on the counter, turning to find Gracie’s gaze once again on him—at ass height. This was a whole new sublevel of the rabbit hole. Did she wonder if he still wore Spiderman underwear? Or maybe she was checking out his attributes for some other reason.

He grabbed a whisk from the utensil jar and pointed it. “Twenty-five years ago, I thought Spiderman was the ultimate in cool. Now I’ve moved past the tighty-whities stage—so can we please stop laughing at my underwear choices and change the subject?”

Charlie climbed onto the lower rung of Gracie’s barstool and whispered into her ear. This time, his niece managed a whisper he couldn’t overhear and two spots of rosy pink appeared on Gracie’s cheekbones.

Owen cracked an egg into the mixing bowl one-handed. “Want to share with the class?”

“Girls don’t share secrets,” said Charlie. “Eh, Gracie?”

“That’s true.”

Since the spots had grown larger on Gracie’s cheeks, curiosity burned in his gut. There was another darting glance to the fly level of his shorts. Interesting.

Author Bio: 

Tracey Alvarez is a USA Today Bestselling Author living in the Coolest Little Capital in the World (a.k.a Wellington, New Zealand). Married to a wonderfully supportive IT guy, she has two teens who would love to be surgically linked to their electronic devices.

Fuelled by copious amounts of coffee, she’s the author of contemporary romantic fiction set predominantly in New Zealand. Small-towns, close communities, and families are a big part of the heart-warming stories she writes. Oh, and hot, down-to-earth heroes—Kiwi men, in other words.

When she’s not writing, thinking about writing, or procrastinating about writing, Tracey can be found with her nose in her e-reader, nibbling on smuggled chocolate bars, or bribing her kids to take over the housework. 

Follow Tracey on Twitter as @TraceyAlvrezNZ or Facebook as http://www.facebook.com/TraceyAlvarezAuthor 

Her website is http://www.traceyalvarez.com and don't forget to sign up to her newsletter here: http://bit.ly/JR3Asu

 Author Social Media links:

Website: http://www.traceyalvarez.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TraceyAlvarezAuthor

Twitter: http://twitter.com/TraceyAlvarezNZ

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/TraceyAlvarez

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

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+TraceyAlvarez/posts

Amazon Author page: amazon.com/author/traceyalvarez

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

Newsletter: http://bit.ly/JR3Asu

Release Day Giveaway

(Open Internationally)

1st Prize (over $50 value) includes:

~ Know Your Heart (Far North Book #2) signed paperback
~ Beautiful NZ themed scarf
~ New Zealand Wild Ferns Lanolin Pure & Delicate soap
~ New Zealand Wild Ferns Lanolin lip balm with Shea Butter
~ Pascall Jet Planes lollies - for those of us with a sweet tooth and who like to fly away to exotic places like Gracie. Classic NZ candy.
~ Cute New Zealand bird (Fantail) hanging decoration (Christmas tree?)
~ New Zealand made Whittaker's dark chocolate bar Kaitaia Fire Chili Pepper Spice. Kaitaia Fire hot-sauce was created in the Far North, where Teach Your Heart is set.
~ Author magnet (not pictured)
~ Author bookmark (not pictured)

Runner up prize:

2 runner up winners will get a New Zealand fire fighters 2017 calendar as pictured.

To Enter: Just click on the below Rafflecopter giveaway links below.

To qualify for the bonus 5 entries, you'll need to purchase Teach Your Heart and answer this question in the space provided in the rafflecopter. The question is: What is the first 5-word sentence at the beginning of Chapter 17?

* Prizes are not exchangeable for cash or anything else.
* All due care will be made in ensuring the prize arrives at the winner’s address, but I am unable to refund prize value in any way should it not arrive due to postal disaster.
* Entries close on December 7th and winner will receive a direct e-mail from me shortly after – so please ensure my e-mail address is added to your safe/contacts list. If I haven’t had a reply from the winner in 48 hours, I will redraw a new winner.

Rafflecopter Code: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review - Ghost of a Promise by Kelly Moran

A paranormal category romance from Entangled's Covet imprint...

It might be love…but will they survive the night?

The ghosts of her family's estate on the coast of Maine never troubled Ava Trumble. When she finally inherits the historic mansion, however, there's a small string attached: Ava has exactly one year to solve a 200-year-old mystery of a missing girl, or lose her family's home...

The lead investigator for paranormal TV show Phantoms, Jackson Granger, is prepared for any metaphysical encounter—until now. It's not just the uncanny sense of "coming home" or even his reaction to the fiery redhead who seems to consume his every waking thought. No, it's that the ghosts are using Jackson and Ava's attraction to play out a centuries-old tragedy. Heartbreak. Loss. Overwhelming passion. Now Jackson and Ava must determine if they're sharing something real...or if they've been possessed by a love that never died.

*I was given an ARC of this book by the Publisher for an honest review*

Kelly Moran can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. This is the third book of hers I've read and she has become a firm favourite of mine. Her writing is flawless and effortlessly sucks you into the story from the very first page. What she absolutely excels at in this novel is the creating of the spooky energy a paranormal novel needs that will have you wanting to leave the light on late at night. Some of the scenes in this book just about made my hair stand on end!

The sexual tension between Ava and Jackson is incredibly hot, but more than that - you get the feeling that the two characters actually like each other (not a common enough occurrence in romance novels I've read lately). The plot is well thought out and crafted and I loved being introduced to the secondary characters throughout the book, making me eager to read the following stories in this series.

I highly recommend this book for those who enjoy a good mystery with a great cast of characters.

Amazon U.S.: http://amzn.to/1tgdCJa
Amazon CAN: http://tinyurl.com/ktv66fr
Amazon UK: http://tinyurl.com/kdrq3pk
B&N: http://tinyurl.com/ojh7hyh
iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/k4zcj6n
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/l2glmxk

Author's Blog Tour...A New Approach

Mackenzie Crowne tagged me in this blog tour, which is a spin-off of the Writing Process blog tour.
I'm honoured she asked me to be a part of this as she is one of my very favourite authors. She writes wonderful true-to-life characters and delves deep into what makes a character tick...and what ticks them off! Expect fireworks between the hero and heroine in Mac's books - in all the very best of ways *waggles brows* If you haven't read her yet, I highly recommend that you do! My favourites so far? An arm-wrestle between A Song for Sophie and Gift of the Realm.

Wife, mother and really young grandmother, Mackenzie Crowne lives with her high school sweet heart husband, a neurotic Pomeranian, and a blind cat. She calls Phoenix home because the southwest feeds her soul. Though her friends claim she’s a princess, she disagrees. After all, one can’t raise two rambunctious boys to wonderful men without getting a little dirt under their nails. ESPN and dirtbikes are the order around her house, and life at the “Testosterone Ranch” more closely resembles one of today’s wacky reality shows than yesterday’s “Leave it to Beaver.”
A lover of the romance genre, her resolve to share her stories with others was sharpened by a bout with breast cancer. Today she is an award-winning, multi-published author and seven year survivor, living the dream.

Here are Mac’s questions for me:

If you were beginning your writing career today, what would you do differently?

Definitely get started in all aspects of social media sooner! When I first started writing, it was all about the story. Little did I know that when you become published, things change. It's no longer just you and the story anymore. If you're lucky, there might be some folks who'd like to know a little more about the person who wrote the story they've just read and chat to them about it. I know I get a special thrill when some of my favourite authors chat back to me through social media, and the idea that someone feels the same way about little old me - well, that's just magic!

What’s the one thing about you that might surprise readers?

In my early twenties, I seriously contemplated joining the police force. I HATE running any kind of long distance with a passion (anything over 1km is lo-o-o-ng to me) but I would run every day trying to do the required distance within the required time allowed. I joined two policemen during a night-shift to get a feel for what the role required and had an absolute blast racing around in the squad car, going to domestic disputes, checking out the police headquarters and even watching them input the paperwork. It sure didn't hurt that they were both tall, muscular and very good-looking boys...sigh. Is it any wonder I love to write my heroes as cops? :)

Tell us a little about your main characters in your latest book. 
Nate, a cop, sees life in black and white - and to his detriment, this includes people. His emotions and reactions to situations are coloured by tragic events in his past - and the guilt he carries for it. 
Kelly is not your average heroine. Tall and strong, she is the equal - and sometimes better - to most men. She tries hard to hide the obvious flame she holds for her partner, Nate, especially since he makes it clear hes not the romancing kind. Brought up in a close and loving family, she is the polar opposite to his dark, morose personality - and the very best thing to happen to him if only he'd let her in.

What are some of your favorites…

Color? 

Green. I love the fresh, clean feel of the colour. It makes me feel refreshed and happy. :)

Food 

My favourite all-time food would be a well selected antipasto platter. Mmmm...goes so well with wine! But really - I'm easy. Anything I don't have to cook myself is delicious!

Place 

If its not in New Zealand, I'd have to choose County Kerry, Ireland where I have family. I fell in love with that area - and they serve the best Guiness there!

If it was a place in NZ, I'd go with Wainui Falls where my family and I have recently holidayed. Gorgeous scenery, wonderful eateries, and relative solitude.

Now I am tagging three authors. (Click on their names to find out more)

First up is Kelly Matsuura, who also writes under the pen-name of Kelly Noro.
Kelly is Australian but currently lives in America with her lovely Japanese husband, whose work seems to take them all over the globe. 
Kelly's writing is gorgeous! Almost lyrical in style, she has a gift of taking you on a journey, as if you were sitting right there on her character's shoulder. And what worlds does she take you too! A range of genre's, one thing Kelly's stories have in common - you won't want to stop reading until the very last delicious word.

Next, I introduce you to Catherine Mede.
Catherine is a fellow New Zealander and has one of the most incredible imaginations I've ever come across in a person. Full of fantastic and (and sometimes fantastical) ideas, I'm thrilled to celebrate with her as she unleashes her debut novel, Cursed Love, out into the world!

And finally, meet my lovely writing buddy and author of amazing contemporary romance, Serena Clarke. Not only is Serena's work so page-turningly fantastic, but she is the most loveliest of people too and we get along like a house on fire. We finally get to meet in person next year, and I for one can't wait!


Thanks for visiting everyone :-)