BooksChatter: ☀ Lyrical Press Contemporary Romances: Cheryl Ann Smith, Patricia Preston

Thank you for joining us on the first day of the The Lyrical Press Contemporary Romances Tour! Our featured titles today are:

The Sweetheart Racket (Brash & Brazen, #1) by Cheryl Ann Smith
One Week in Your Arms (Love Heals All, #1) by Patricia Preston>

Below you will find synopsis, excerpts, trailers and purchasing links for each novel, as well as author bios and stalking information.

The authors will be awarding digital copies of both books on tour 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 (☀), and reviews (✍).

Synopsis | The Books | About the Authors | Giveaway

Lyrical Press Contemporary Romances Books

|| The Sweetheart Racket (Brash & Brazen, #1) || One Week in Your Arms (Love Heals All, #1) ||

The Sweetheart Racket by Cheryl Ann Smith

They used to be on the sidelines. Now they’re out in the field…

Two years ago, Taryn Hall was a pro football cheerleader—until she left her lecherous boss with a bloody nose and a faceful of Mace. Now she’s part of a different kind of squad. An elderly billionaire named Irving has hired and trained Taryn and her two best friends to work as private investigators…

Taryn loves the job, though it sometimes involves boring stakeouts, dog bites—and listening to Irving talk about his golf shoes. Then tattooed, steely-eyed, straight-up gorgeous undercover DEA agent Rick Silva walks into the office and shakes things up…

Rick needs help finding the con artist who’s taken his lonely mother for all she was worth. With multiple aliases and multiple victims, it will be a challenge to track down the coldhearted gigolo. And Rick insists on accompanying Taryn on the hunt, working closely, day and night.

This could be dangerous. And the case might be kind of risky, too…

[13 September 2016, Lyrical Shine, 232 pages. This is the first book in the Brash & Brazen series.]
PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the Prologue and first chapter with Kobo Preview.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

      Over the course of the last two years, Taryn had often reflected upon the day, stuck on that deserted dusty road, when she, Summer, and Jess took a chance. They had climbed into Irving’s limo and changed their destiny.
      It was hot then, too.
      At times like this, when she was sitting in a steamy car, camera in hand, waiting for a money shot, she wished Irving had just driven on and left them to follow those cows to civilization. Being a private investigator meant long hours, boredom, and gallons of coffee.And she wasn’t a fan of coffee.
      “I should have stuck with cheerleading,” she said and waved a celebrity gossip magazine in front of her face. “At least the stadiums were shaded.”
      But she loved this gig and wouldn’t—couldn’t—trade it for anything else. She had something to prove.
      A year ago, when she’d faced off with Willard in their first court appearance, he’d found out she was a PI and he’d scoffed, saying, “Girl, you’re only good for shaking your ass and waving your pompoms. Nothing else.” It was then that she vowed to be the best damn PI in the business.
      Okay, current circumstance aside, there were exciting moments to her job, too. Interesting cases, working with her friends, and her monetary piece of Brash & Brazen, Inc. made the tedious stuff all worthwhile.
      Mostly. “Why won’t it rain?” she groused and grabbed a fresh water bottle from her small cooler. Ann Arbor, Michigan, was a large city, a melting pot of people and cultures that circled the University of Michigan and the U of M hospital. It was a fun place to live and work, but summers could be a bear during dry, hot days. Even now with August coming to a close, they were experiencing a heat wave. Taryn was looking forward to fall.
      Hoping for some relief from the cloying simmer inside the beat-up old Oldsmobile, she rubbed the water bottle across her chest. The chilly condensation trickled down into her cleavage and took up residence in her lacy lavender bra. She sighed happily.
      A polished-up, nerdy man in chinos and boat shoes walking a rodent-sized pooch past the car stopped, stared in at her, and waggled his brows as if her sigh had been some sort of sexual invitation.
      Right. Like she’d ever have sex with a man who dressed his wimpy rodent in a pink wifebeater t-shirt and spiked collar. Who did he think he was impressing? Not her.
      “Move along, buddy. I have a gun.” She glanced evilly at the furry lump as if sizing it up for termination.
      He gasped and yanked the mutt up by the leash. The dog gacked against the tightened collar and swung back and forth like a yipping pendulum. The owner tucked the mutt in a football hold under his arm, glared, and scurried away.
      “That was just mean,” Taryn said and sucked on the bottle. The heat made her surly.Truthfully, she wouldn’t shoot a dog. The owner, maybe, but not the dog, if one could call it that.
      She wondered if she should fire up the ancient car for a few minutes of questionable air conditioning. Then she decided no. The idling car with its turbo-charged engine could give her away. Besides, the air usually came out lukewarm anyway. So hot it was. In another hour or two, she’d call it a day.
      “I should have stayed in bed. Darn you, Gregory Peach.”
     [...]

The Sweetheart Racket
Available NOW!

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One Week in Your Arms by Patricia Preston

IT STARTED WITH A FLING…

Six years ago, ambitious med student Marla Grant gave into temptation with a gorgeous man. Now a busy doctor and a loving single mom, the only thing that matters to Marla more than her adorable daughter is the Lafayette Falls Community Clinic. When its funding is threatened, Marla is determined to find out why—until she learns the person responsible is none other than the powerful, persuasive man of her long-ago fling and the unsuspecting father of her child…

Carson Blackwell has never forgotten bright, beautiful Marla. When he discovers that she runs the clinic his grandmother’s foundation funds, it’s the perfect chance to put an end to his ongoing infatuation—and use his leverage to cement a new business deal. He needs a fake girlfriend for one week in Hawaii, and Marla is just the woman for the job. It’s a win-win situation, until they realize the attraction between them isn’t feigned, and the heat has never died down. Only the secrets they’re both keeping stand in the way of a future together—and a love that could last a lifetime.

[13 September 2016, Lyrical Shine, 230 pages. This is the first book in the Love Heals All series.]
PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first chapter with Kobo Preview.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

      Marla wished the letter on her desk would vanish. That, somehow, it would sprout little legs and go running all the way back to California. But she was not going to be that lucky. Today, her luck had run out.
      She shifted in the old executive desk chair that squeaked every time she moved. Her desk was a vintage monstrosity made of dark cherry wood. Built in the sixties and made to last forever. Unlike her luck.
      A variety of modern items covered the desk. Her new smartphone and touchscreen tablet.The latest editions of Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary and Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. Her red stethoscope and a solid brass desk nameplate engraved with her name.
      Marla E. Grant, MD
     The idealistic country girl who had made her family proud. Of course, that wasn’t engraved on the nameplate, although she often thought it should be.
      Beside her nameplate, a lovely philodendron grew in a ceramic pot. Philodendron was the kind of plant you couldn’t kill. She could save people, but not plants.
      A funny figurine of a frazzled female physician, given to Marla by her staff, stood next to a wire basket that held a variety of notes and reports. Near the basket was a stack of mail in disarray. Most of the mail was the typical stuff from pharmaceutical companies, consulting physicians, and medical associations. She had not been expecting anything out of the ordinary as she thumbed through the envelopes.
      Then she had gotten the shock of her life.
      She leaned forward and contemplated the striking envelope on her desk. It haunted her in the way that only an unresolved past can haunt you. Especially a past of well-kept secrets.What did this envelope conceal? She managed to touch it. Barely.
      The stationery was exceptional. Expensive, of course. Buff linen paper. The return address featured raised letters in a bold font, black outlined with gold. No surprise there.
     Blackwell Enterprises.
      She stared at those two words and tried not to tremble as she thought of a pair of tall, ornate gates that led to an imposing mansion and a world so different from hers. Those gates only opened for a select few in Carson Blackwell’s elite circles.
      Lifting her gaze from the envelope to the wall, she looked at the photographs of her little girl. Sophie. Dark-haired and blue-eyed, Sophie smiled back at her. There were pictures of Sophie as a baby, a toddler, and the most recent was a picture of Sophie and Marla together, taken on Sophie’s fifth birthday.
      Plus, there was one old portrait of Marla with her former husband, Dr. Ben Archer, and one-year-old Sophie. The family that never was.
      Marla closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the letter was still there. It wasn’t going to disappear on its own.
      It’s not going to open by itself either.
     Put on your big girl panties and do it.
     No. No. Just stick it in the shredder and hope for the best.
      She picked up the letter opener. Her heart palpitated in sheer terror as she slid the opener under the flap of the envelope. With the envelope open, she peeped inside to see one folded sheet of stationery.
      After six years, what could he possibly have to say?
     [...]

One Week in Your Arms
Available NOW!

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About the Authors

Cheryl Ann Smith | Patricia Preston |

Cheryl Ann Smith became hooked on romance at age fourteen when she stayed up all night to read The Flame and The Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Her own writing journey happened much later, when one afternoon she ran out of books and decided to write her own. Previously, she has published five sexy Regency novels and one novella with Berkley in her School for Brides series.

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Patricia Preston is a Southern author whose dream come true would be living in the French Quarter. Besides writing, she loves music, history, taking road trips, and anything containing chocolate. Having fun is her objective when it comes to storytelling and she hopes her readers will find her amusing, feel-good romances entertaining.

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