BooksChatter: ☀ Maude's Score: The O-Line [3]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Maude's Score, a Romantic Suspense by Jillian Jacobs (6 July 2016, Green Moose Productions, 265 pages).

This is the third book in The O-Line series.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first five chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Jillian Jacobs will be awarding a $10 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 (☀).

Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

He knows how to play the game, but can he win when the stakes turn deadly?

Manchester Marauders offensive lineman Jason Stafford has everything going for him until he is blindsided by a calculating woman who names him as the father of her unborn child. Unsure of the validity of her claim, he treads carefully, despite being willing to accept responsibility.

Maude Killion, the younger sister of one of Jason’s teammates, has been sidelined by a crush on Jason. Determined to revise her game plan, Maude asserts her independence from her overprotective brother and a controlling boyfriend.

While working on a charity project, Maude and Jason discover they play well together. But when Maude becomes the victim of a malicious foe, it appears that another player has entered the game—one with deadly intentions who will stop at nothing to win.

Now, Maude and Jason must join forces to defeat their opponent and score a victory for love.

Teaser: Excerpt

Chapter 1

Jason Stafford slammed his hand against the steering wheel then quickly regretted his actions.“Sorry, girl.” Beating against his friend and teammate, Owen Killion’s restored ‘72 Ford Ranchero wasn’t a wise choice, because his buddy babied his vehicles. This car was one of many housed inside this six-bay garage with an added workshop and kitchen area. Owen’s job might be the center for the Marauders Offensive Line, but his hobby and real love was banging around inside an engine.
      In search of a distraction, Jason skimmed through his Twitter feed, replying to his fans and ignoring his haters. His Marauders football fans came from all over the world. Not just this sprawling city in Northern Ohio. Although, he did find his most loyal fans were from Manchester.Monday thru Friday his local supporters were a mish mash of blue and white collar, but, on game day, everybody bled green. His sports agent, Tyrone Speaks would welcome his more positive exchange with his followers, as typically Jason responded with antagonistic comments to those who didn’t appreciate his efforts on the football field. His ears still rang from the phone call he’d received from Tyrone just two hours ago. All because, five hours ago, Jason’s world had irrevocably changed.
      He’d visited Ariel Silvers, a girl he’d been seeing on and off since the beginning of the previous football season. To his utter shock, she’d informed him she was pregnant. After leaving in a bewildered state, he’d gone to Owen’s house, but since the hour was so late, he’d settled for sitting in a restored car in his pal’s mega-garage.
      At the end of their season, Jason’s friend on another professional team had experienced the whole pregnancy scare. The girl had claimed to be with child, the guy had claimed no way. In the end, the girl was, in fact, having his baby.
      So Tyrone, after chewing his ass out for fifteen straight minutes, advised him not to deny anything, to treat Ariel with kid gloves and wait until the facts were known, because his friend had been raked over the coals by the media.
      Broiled, steamed, and baked over scalding hot coals. The situation had gotten ugly fast. The public saw his friend as just another example of a pro-football player mistreating a woman.
      Tossing his phone on the dash, Jason rubbed his eyes and sighed. Thing was, he liked Ariel.Nice, hot blonde he’d met through his lawyer, not at a party or bar. She understood, as he always laid out the truth, relationships weren’t his thing. For twenty-seven years, he’d lived his life loose and carefree, but now the tether of parenthood had wrapped around his throat and snapped him back to Earth.
      Not that Jason didn’t like kids, he did…mostly. Hadn’t he just spent the past two days with a whole passel of them while shooting a “FIT 365” commercial for the National Board of Health’s Get Kid’s Active initiative? He and Chewy, the Marauders’ quarterback, had even tossed around a football with a few of the tiny creatures during the shooting breaks. Was this his future? What did he know about being a father? A few days of entertaining grade school kids was one thing—a baby was another.

[...]

Maude's Score
Available NOW!

The Series: The O-Line

Each book in the O-Line series is a stand alone.

**This is a romantic suspense series intended for readers age 18+ due to a language and sexual situations.**

|| [1] || [2] ||

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Ember's Center [1]

She spent her life fighting for middle ground, and now that she’s found it, she’ll fight for her life.

Ember Brooks yearns for an end to the dark chapters of her life—abusive mother, negligent father, teenage trauma, and sibling suicide. Determined to escape her traumatic past, Ember is finally headed for solid ground, gathering strength and balance with the help of her trusted counselor and friend, Xander Kane.

Still reeling from the death of her brother, Ember finds solace when Manchester Marauders center, Owen Killion goes on the offensive and barrels into her life. Both on the football field and off, Owen is sure-footed and confident. With his domineering presence and reliable nature, he alters her game-plan. But for a girl continually left on the sidelines, can she leave her heart on the line?

When Ember is the victim of increasingly dangerous incidents, and Xander changes the course of their relationship, once more her life spirals out of control. Ember trusts Owen to guard their love, but when someone else is calling the shots, can they reach the end zone or will they fumble?

Contemporary romance with a jagged edge.

[Published 24 December 2014, 323 pages]

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Rachel's Guard [2]

One hidden secret. One tragic mistake.
Two lives converge to discover one final truth.

“I killed you.” With his grandmother’s words, pro-football player Warren “Bronco” Murray’s picture-perfect world takes a direct hit. After mistaking him for a man from her past, Bronco believes his grandmother’s confused confession reveals the man who raised him isn’t his real father. Is his grandmother’s mind slipping? Or is she harboring a deadly secret?

Searching for an answer to a question he’s not even sure exists, Bronco hires Rachel Harris, a local private investigator and a woman who brings out his protective—and primal—instincts.

Rachel’s spent her life seeking her own resolution for a tragic mistake made years ago. Unwilling to suffer through another loss, she vows to keep her relationship with Bronco strictly professional. Yet with each step into Bronco’s past, she finds that the players shaping her life also shaped his.

Working together to uncover the facts, they falter when the game turns deadly. Nothing is as it seems and they must fight to unearth the truth buried under past deceptions and lies.

Bronco and Rachel survive personal attacks and shocking revelations only to discover that the answers they sought have created a new path…but will they endure the journey together or falter under the truth?

[Published (10 October 2015, 253 pages]

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About the Author

In the spring of 2013, Jillian Jacobs changed her career path and became a romance writer. After reading for years, she figured writing a romance would be quick and easy. Nope! With the guidance of the Indiana Romance Writers of America chapter, she’s learned there are many "rules" to writing a proper romance. Being re-schooled has been an interesting journey, and she hopes the best trails are yet to be traveled.

Water’s Threshold, the first in Jillian’s Elementals series, was a finalist in Chicago-North’s 2014 Fire and Ice contest in the Women’s Fiction category.

Jillian is a: Tea Guzzler, Polish Pottery Hoarder, and lover of all things Moose.
The genres she writes under are: Paranormal and Contemporary with suspenseful elements.

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