Cover Goodness: Goddess With A Blade by Lauren Dane

Lauren Dane shared this on her blog today. Love it!

 

June 2011

Armed with a blessed blade and blood from a goddess, Rowan Summerwaite’s got a divine mission. Embodying a Vampire’s worst nightmare is a big job, but someone’s got to do it.

Freshly returned from a political firestorm that erupted after she’d executed the last Scion, Rowan hopes for a period of peace and quiet with the new replacement.

But before long, human women are being found in and around Las Vegas and it’s clear to her the killer is a Vampire. Clive Stewart rules his Vampires with an iron fist in the wake of a spectacular failure on the part of his predecessor. He doesn’t make the mistake of underestimating The Hunter. He knows she’s a predator just like him so he agrees to help her investigation. Within limits.

But nothing between Clive and Rowan stays within the lines and before long, things are tangled and dangerous both personally and professionall

http://www.laurendane.com/

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Honesty… Is Not a Lonely Word – by Katharine Ashe

She would marry no man…
Serena Carlyle dreams of a happily ever after. Firmly on the shelf at twenty-five, instead she’s determined to find the perfect match for her beautiful younger sister. What better prospect than their neighbor, the wealthy, rakishly handsome Earl of Savege? Now Serena can beg his help in halting a local band of smugglers. Then, one night, stealing away from yet another disappointing ball, Serena finds herself trapped alone with a stranger …

Until he captured her—body and soul
His kiss was irresistible, his caress unforgettable, and he hides a devastating secret. A Robin Hood upon the sea, Alex Savege is the brazen pirate Redstone, seizing the yachts of spoiled noblemen to settle an old debt. Serena needs a hero, but her heart is in the gravest danger—for it is soon to be captured by a man as skilled at seduction as he is at plunder.

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I’ll admit it: I don’t care for Billy Joel’s music.

Yikes. I realize this gets me in hot water with many people. But I do adore “Only the Good Die Young”! I would much rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, at least at this time in my life.

Actually, that brings me to my point. Back when Billy was first crooning and hollering to the delight of rock n’ rollers throughout America, I was quite young and a whole lot more naïve than I am now. The world to me was a big adventure full of experiences to be had and people to love (especially cute boys… oh, most especially cute boys!). Back then I did not know people could be horridly dishonest with one another. I did not know they could be dishonest at all. I was a miserable liar — everything, everything I felt and thought showed on my face. I never really saw the need to lie anyway, I guess. When Billy came along singing “Honesty is such a lonely word; everyone is so untrue,” I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

Yup. Ridiculously naïve.

Then I grew up. And I started to read romance. I was already writing it, though I’d no idea that’s what it was. (Remember the “especially cute boys”? I was writing stories about them!) And I kept it a secret from everybody in my life except a few trusted souls. For far too many years.

That was about the time I started to realize that while the world can indeed be a place of lies and dishonesty, it is also a place of love. And love is about honesty. Love is about passion and fire and desire and ecstasy. It is also about goodness and truth and compassion and all those warm, real things that urge an initial spark of physical attraction into flame. Into something so much more powerful than lust. Into something sublime and divine.

Now wait just a minute! you may be thinking, especially if you are familiar with the heroes of my “Rogues of the Sea” trilogy. Each of them, after all, has a secret identity, not the least Alex Savege in my latest book, CAPTURED BY A ROGUE LORD. By land Alex is the indolently rakish Earl of Savege, breaking hearts in boudoirs across London. By sea he is the dangerously brazen pirate Redstone, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. He is a man of two identities, neither of which in fact he particularly cares to entertain any longer. And yet because of honor he cannot escape either of his false personae.

Love is about honesty, I say? Honesty???

Honestly.

Because sometimes it takes love to show a man what’s truly inside him. When the delightfully determined Miss Serena Carlyle steps into Alex’s life and turns it upside down, he hasn’t any idea that she is asking him for a great deal more than assistance against a band of unruly smugglers. As he falls — like the veriest callow lad, stumbling into love with the most honestly daring lady he has ever met — he does not realize until far too late that she is demanding that he become much more than a powerful lord. More than a seafaring Robin Hood.

She demands that he become a hero. A noble man in more than rank and title. A champion far beyond what he has ever imagined. A lover worthy of a lady’s whole heart.

Honesty is far from a lonely word. For in love, honesty walks hand in hand with passion, together joyfully and gloriously making heroes of great men.

It’s time to fess up. Are you an honest sort or an inveterate fibber? Do you have good reason to fib? Have you ever told a really dreadfully big lie? One commenter today will win a signed copy of CAPTURED BY A ROGUE LORD.

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Many thanks to Katharine for joining us today!

For more information about Katharine and her books, please visit www.katharineashe.com. And don’t forget to answer the question for a chance to win CAPTURED BY A ROGUE LORD. Good luck! 🙂

 

 

 

 

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