Fans
of Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries will enjoy COURTED, a New Adult Contemporary Romance
with a modern royals flair, about a young woman about to give up on her dreams
… and the prince whose dreams she could help make come true.
Rafflecopter for
Virtual Blog Tour Giveaway:
Jennifer
is offering up some fabulous prizes during her Courted Virtual Tour event. One
(1) lucky grand prize winner will receive a $25 Gift Card for Amazon or B&N
(winner’s choice) and two (2) runner-ups will win an eBook copy of Rock It,
book #1 in Jennifer’s Rule Breakers series! To enter, simply fill out the
Rafflecopter below:
About Courted:
Title:
Courted
Author:
Jennifer Chance
Publisher:
Elewyn Publishing
Release
Date: October 6, 2015
Series:
Gowns & Crowns #1
Genre:
Contemporary Romance, New Adult
Length:
222 Pages
ISBN:
9781943768042
Aspiring
concert violist Emmaline Aurora Grace Andrews is torn between her love of
family and her love of music. A year ago, she deferred entering a prestigious graduate
program to help her parents recover from a devastating accident. Now the
deferment is expiring, but her parents still need her. Worse, every time she
plays her audition piece, she mangles it. Is it too late to be the musician
she'd always dreamed of? Should she even try?
Determined
to get clarity, Emmaline accepts a friend's offer for a whirlwind European
vacation. First Stop: a real live fantasy kingdom—the perfect place to sort
wishes from reality.
Prince
Kristos Andris was a respected captain in his nation’s military… Was. In the
wake of the tragic death of his elder brother, he's managed to avoid his duties
as the new Crown Prince of Garronia for months. But now he must accept his
responsibilities and leave his troops behind. Outraged at the restrictions of
his new royal position, he'll do anything for one last adventure. So when
opportunity suddenly lands in his arms in the form of a dreamy-eyed American
girl, he embraces it (and her) for all he's worth. What's the harm in a quick
fling, after all? It won’t change what he knows he must do…
Only
this is Garronia in the summertime, where passion has a way of ruining even the
most sensible of plans.
Excerpt:
*An excerpt just after Kristos pulls Em ashore from the Aegean sea.*
When the man looked up and shouted
something she didn’t understand, yet another wave of
mortification crashed through Emmaline. Oh
God, we’ve drawn a crowd. Why hadn’t she realized there were people around them?
Of course there would be people. It was a public beach. With people on it.
“I’m so sorry, I’m fine,” she
managed, though she could barely understand her own words, she was shaking so
much. “If you’d let me get up—I just need to walk around. I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize. You have done
nothing wrong.” The man’s words were harsh with the crack of command, but Em
was beyond responding to any more orders. “I am calling for my men. You are
frozen.” And with another curse, he pulled her into his lap, surrounding her
with his heat.
His men?
Was he in charge of that little group of navy guys?
“Why are you so cold?” he continued,
and though her brain seemed to be on the verge of shutting down, Em knew he
thought she was going into shock. “It is a warm and sunny day. We have only
sunny days here in Garronia, didn’t you know that? It is a kingdom of sunshine
and joy.”
He was talking to her like she was a
child, and Em closed her eyes in humiliation. Seriously, this was not
happening.
“I just—I get the shakes sometimes.
It’s okay, I—get cold, it’s—” Now did not seem to be the best time to talk
about poor blood circulation, but Em couldn’t help her rat-a-tatting teeth as
the man’s rough arms encircled her, his thick biceps and corded forearms
covering her chest and waist. He dropped a soft kiss on the crown of her head,
as natural as if they’d been dating for years, and murmured something else to
her.
Wait, what?
Had he seriously just kissed her?
Warmth snaked through her now, all
right, but that was mostly because a man was actually holding her. She hadn’t had that happen in so long that she’d
practically forgotten what it felt like to have someone pressing against her,
skin to skin, chest to back, lips to ear, surrounding her so completely that
she had neither time nor breath to think about anything else, anyone else,
anywhere else…
Whoa, there, girl. Dial it down a notch.
Only now the man who was making such
insane, impossible images dance through her head was speaking again, his voice
rich with Mediterranean sun and spices and, God,
his arms around her felt amazing. “You get cold,yes, I can see that,” he
murmured into her ear, his breath fanning through her wet hair. Despite
herself, Em shivered again, and he held her yet closer. As her heart pounded
thunderously, his next words were soothing, gentle, and once again in a
language she couldn’t understand. He was trying to help calm her down—not rile
her up. Settle down! She implored her
newly reawakened libido, which was beginning to thrum with anticipation at a
real, live man holding her real, live body in his real, live arms…
Her newly reawakened libido was
apparently not to be deterred.
“The water is treacherous,” Sexy
Navy Adonis said. “I tried to warn you, but I did not do a good job. For that,
I am sorry.”
He kissed her hair again, and Em
gave up thinking any more rational thoughts. Instead, she closed her eyes,
wishing the world away while she stored up all these memories for the next
however many years it would be until she could feel a man’s body against hers
again. “I didn’t—you didn’t—”
“Shh. All is well.” He rocked her
into him and she became aware of other parts of his body too. His broad, flat
chest, his knotted abs—and even lower, as his groin snugged up against the
drenched backside of her suit.
Em’s eyes popped open, though the
man couldn’t see her. Nevertheless, while she might be the one trembling, she
wasn’t the only one affected by their tight embrace.
Oh my God.
“What can I say?” Hot Rescue Guy’s
thickly accented English whispered against her ear. “I am but a man.”
And when she turned to apologize,
his mouth was right there, his lips soft and warmed by the sun, his expression
open and sure. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to lift her
face that little bit as well and touch her lips to his.
Sunshine.
That was the first coherent thought that raced through Em’s mind. Her rescuer
tasted like sunshine and salt and sand, like blue skies and possibilities.
Something shifted in her that made her trembling stop for a second, her heart
lurching with surprise into completely unfamiliar territory. What—how?
Oblivious to her confusion, her
gorgeous Greek god kissed her back, hard and firm, but only for a moment. Then
he lifted his head, his rich laughter rolling forth as someone pounded up the
beach.
About Jennifer
Chance:
Jennifer Chance is the award-winning
author of the new adult Rule Breakers series as well as the modern royals Gowns
& Crowns series. A lover of books, romance, and happily-ever-afters, she
lives and writes in Ohio. In addition to her work in romance, she is also Jenn
Stark, urban fantasy author of the Immortal Vegas series, and Jennifer McGowan,
YA author of the Elizabethan spy series The Maids of Honor. She is truly NOT
trying to become 27 Jennifers, but it’s getting a little dicey.
You can find her online at
JenniferChance.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/authorJenniferChance and on
Twitter at @Jenn_Chance.
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