BooksChatter: ☀ Combustion

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Combustion, a Steampunk erotic romance by Elia Winters (5 May 2015, Samhain Publishing, 177 pages).

Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. You can also read our review of Combustion and our Q&A with author Elia Winters.

The Author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts, also the more comments you leave the higher your chances of being a winner.

Synopsis | Teaser | Author Q&A | About the Author | Book Review | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

A war orphan, Astrid Bailey is content living her adult life alone, working as a contract machinist. Her real passion, though, is inventing felicitation devices that promote women’s sexual empowerment and help them find pleasure independent of a man.

The upcoming World’s Fair, with its substantial cash prize, is an opportunity to open the shop she’s always imagined and hopefully solve her financial woes. Except the committee has denied her entry unless she obtains a “sponsor”. Astrid suspects they mean “male”.

Eli Rutledge, noted watchmaker, knows entering the fair will solidify his reputation as an innovator —but he’s fresh out of ideas. Until Astrid approaches him with her outrageous product line. With no other options, though, he agrees to lend her his good name.

As construction heats up, so does their chemistry—and the complications. Astrid is unaccustomed to asking for help, much less sharing credit. And Eli fights an attraction that could spell professional disaster. As the Fair date approaches, Astrid and Eli must decide how far they’ll go. For the business…and for each other.

Product Warnings Contains period-appropriate graphic language, highly inappropriate amounts of M/F and F/F sex, and copious amounts of *ahem* product testing. May *ahem again* “spark” an online shopping binge for *cough* toys. Of the adult variety.

Teaser: Excerpt

Astrid hopped up on the worktable, legs dangling freely. “Eli, you can hang on to whatever outdated notions of propriety work for you in your world, but I’m not going to deny myself what I want just because I’m worried about what people will think.”

Taking deep, calming breaths, he studied her. Maybe she had a point. Maybe it wasn’t his responsibility to protect her reputation. Maybe she did want to sleep with him. Damn, he wanted to believe her.

Seeming to sense his acquiescence, Astrid made him an offer. “Look, I’m only talking about one night. Resolve this tension between us, and then we can get back to work like normal.”

It was tempting. He hesitated, running through the pros and cons in his mind. She was so damn sexy, sitting there swinging her feet, her dark eyes sparkling in the light from the lanterns. He’d sworn off relationships after Mallory, wasn’t going to go through that heartache again. But Astrid wasn’t proposing a relationship—and he wasn’t surprised; she was dynamic, bold, adventurous, and he was a straightforward businessman like every other businessman. She was proposing sex. If it didn’t mean anything, couldn’t they share one night and be done with it? No heartache, no complications?

“Just one night. One night, and this never happens again.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Right?”

“Of course. You’re still a self-righteous prude, and I doubt I’d be able to stand more than one night.” Her smile indicated that she was teasing, but she’d made it clear what she thought of him already.

He looked around the workshop. “So…what happens now, exactly?”

Astrid hopped down off her bench. “Now, I think you take me home.”

Combustion - available NOW!

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About the Author

Elia Winters has always been a New England girl, despite having spent much of her childhood in Florida. She holds a degree in English Literature and teaches at a small rural high school where she runs too many extracurricular activities. She balances her love of the outdoors with a bottomless well of geekiness.

Elia dabbles in many genres, but erotic romance has been one of her favorites since she first began sneaking her mother’s romance novels. In high school, she kept her friends entertained with a steady stream of naughty stories and somehow never got caught passing them around. Her erotic fiction and poetry have been published online at Clean Sheets and Scarlet Letters under a different name. Elia currently lives in New England with her loving husband and their odd assortment of pets.

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