Books: Featured Friday- Riptide by Amber Lea Easton
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I know I mostly aim my content towards the children's market when it comes to book features here but when I heard that my cyber-buddy Amber Lea Easton was touring the web (with World of Ink- one of my favourite tour companies to work with) I jumped at the chance to host her. Amber has written several books but today's post is for Riptide.
Title: Riptide
Author: Amber Lea Easton
Publisher: Siren-Bookstrand
Length: 98,000 words
Genres: Contemporary Romantic Suspense (Adventure)
Heat Level: Steamy
AVAILABLE AT:
BLURB:
One violent night shatters Lauren
Biltmore’s life. As an anchorwoman, she's accustomed to reporting the news
rather than being the lead story. She escapes the spotlight by fleeing to
her brother's home in the Cayman Islands. Haunted by nightmares, all she wants
is a distraction from reality.
Distraction arrives via sexy
screenwriter, Noah Reynolds. His take-me-to-bed looks mask a past ripe with
scandal. He knows he should stay away from Lauren, especially when the worst
night of her life unlocks his writer's block and while he's dealing with a
stalker of his own, but ethics are his weakness.
Attraction sizzles beneath Caribbean
sunshine. As their relationship grows, Noah's stalker intensifies her torment.
Lauren wonders if her paranoia is justified or a carryover from her past.
What's real? What's imagined? Tentative trust is tested as their love is
swept up against a riptide of deceit, murder, and revenge.
EXCERPT (more suspenseful than sexy):
Heart
thudding in her chest like steel drums, she jolted awake, and blinked at the stars glaring at her from
the open hole in the ceiling. She froze with fear, every limb paralyzed,
breathing labored. Someone watched her from the foot of the bed. She could feel
their gaze on her...on them.
Noah
slept next to her, completely unconscious judging by the steady rise and fall of
his chest and the weight of his arm over her abdomen.
Look.
It’s my imagination. No one’s there. I double-checked—no, triple-checked—all
the locks before bed.
Her
thoughts immediately went to the morning before...the blackout, the pictures,
the fear. She exhaled slowly and raised her head.
A
woman stood at the foot of the bed, hair hidden by a yellow scarf, face in
shadow, dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. Real.
“Who
are you?” She bolted upright, eyes wide as the woman turned and ran from the room.
Pushing
Noah’s arm aside, she bolted from the bed. Anger replaced fear in an instant.
Unable to control the emotions raging through her bloodstream, she ran into the
living room. No one. She’d left all the lights on before going to the bedroom.
She turned in a circle, plastic from the still unfinished kitchen crunching
beneath her feet.
The
deck door remained closed and locked. Nothing appeared disturbed.
Heart
still slamming against her ribcage, she walked to the top of the stairs leading
down to the laundry room. She took one step...and then
another...slowly...unable to breathe until she reached the bottom. All the
deadbolts remained locked.
No
one had left.
She
flattened her back against the wall and looked over her shoulder toward the top
of the stairs. If no one had left, then the woman had to still be inside.
Ali?
Alicia? Someone pretending? Questions rattled her mind as she ascended the
stairs with her back kept firmly against the wall. She wanted to call out to
Noah, but her voice lodged in her throat.
Once
in the living room, she again checked the lock on the sliding glass door before
staring down the hall toward the spare room she’d never entered. Fear battled
anger until she thought her head would explode from the pressure of the two heated
emotions.
As
she passed the bathroom, she flicked on the light to make sure it was empty
inside. It was. She pushed open the door to the spare room with her foot as she
kept her back pressed against the door.
Dark.
She slid into the room, her hand moving along the wall for a switch of some
kind.
Then
she heard footsteps behind her. Slow. Creeping.
“What’re
you doing?” Noah asked from where he stood in the open doorway.
He
flicked on the light, showing the room to be empty except for piles of boxes and
tools. She stared at the open window at the far side of the space.
Without
answering him, she walked over the mess and leaned out the window. Palm trees
swayed with the night wind. Shadows danced in the darkness, black on black. In
a moonless sky, stars fell toward the dark void where the ocean lay. .
“Lauren?
Are you sleepwalking or something?” Noah’s hand dropped against her shoulder.
The
truth of what she was seeing warred with the knowledge in her heart that
someone had been standing at the foot of the bed. The intruder could have
escaped out this window. It wasn’t a long drop for an athletic person.
I’m
not going crazy, I’m not. God, I hope I’m not.
She
shoved the window closed with more force than necessary and latched it. When
she finally faced Noah, she felt like someone dancing on the edge of a cliff in
the darkness, someone about to take a free fall into the abyss.
“I
didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, her voice husky with emotion.
“You
look terrified.” He smoothed her hair back from her face, his thumbs caressing
her cheekbones. “Did something happen that scared you?”
“You
look better.” She flattened her hands against his chest and forced a grin. “How
do you feel?”
“Hungry.”
His grin reassured her that all was well in the world. “Want an omelet?”
She
smiled and let her hands trail down his chest. Maybe she’d been dreaming, after
all. Yesterday had been more than a little stressful.
“I
hear you make the best omelets on the island—”
“In
the world, actually.” He winked. “World famous omelet.”
“World
famous, yes, of course, how could I resist?” She exhaled the nervous energy
that still zapped through her system and leaned into him. The man had a way
about him. There was no denying it.
“You
can’t resist me. I’m like a drug.” He glanced behind her toward the window
she’d forcefully closed. “Want to tell me why every light in the house is on
and why you’re in here closing windows at three a.m.?”
“Not
really.” She linked her hands behind his waist and looked up at him. “I like
being here with you in the middle of the night, think I’ll make it a habit.”
He
squinted at her, obviously curious about the reason behind her madness. Again,
he glanced toward the window but said nothing.
Habit?
Had she actually said that word? There’s no way she could stay here again,
probably shouldn’t be here now, not when she was having blackouts, chatting it
up with creepy redheads and hallucinating women standing at the foot of the
bed. She’d successfully gone from one nightmare into the next and could no
longer distinguish reality from fantasy.
She
cringed when he looked away and turned off the light. She was such a liar, a
dirty, rotten liar. A hypocrite. A fraud. She needed to control herself and
slow this down before they both got in too deep.
BOOK
TRAILER:
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Amber Lea Easton is a multi-published
fiction and nonfiction author. For twenty years, she's worked in the fields of
journalism and advertising with a brief detour into the financial industry. Although she holds a
BA in Communications & Journalism, she is a perpetual student of life who
enjoys taking courses on a wide variety of subjects when time allows. Smart is sexy, according to Easton, which is why she writes
about strong female characters who have their flaws and challenges, but who
ultimately persevere.
Easton currently lives with her two
teenagers in the Colorado Rocky Mountains where she gives thanks daily for the
gorgeous view outside her window. She finds inspiration from traveling, the
people she meets, nature and life’s twists and turns. At the end of the day, as
long as she's writing, she considers herself to be simply "a lucky lady
liv'n the dream."
Visit Amber at:
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