One Red Cent, Chapter One

When you share the news about the Miranda Vaughn Mysteries box set release, you can get a FREE download of One Red Cent, a Miranda Vaughn summer mystery novella.

Sarah Girard has a reputation to protect—the paralegal has never failed to serve a subpoena, no matter how reluctant the witness. But this guy she’s tracking down is more slippery than usual, and should he escape, an innocent man could go to jail for arson. 

To catch the sneaky chef, Sarah is going to have to do the unthinkable—team up with tall, smug, and all-too-handsome investigator Burton Worthington. 

This fun short story is usually only available in the Killer Beach Reads anthology. Details on this limited-time giveaway are here:  One Red Cent giveaway!

To tempt you, here’s Chapter One.

Chapter One

“Have you been here before, Sarah?” Christian asked, leaning across the table toward me, his artfully mussed hair highlighted by the sparkling hand-blown glass lights hanging above our table.

I shook my head and didn’t bother to answer. The restaurant was packed with the Friday night crowd and the conversations bounced off the brick walls and the concrete floor. It was so loud, I could barely hear my date across the tiny table.

This wasn’t a huge loss, because he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. He was pretty to look at, and probably handy to have around if you needed to move furniture, but I didn’t expect Christian Morris to keep me interested through dessert. I’d turned him down, gently, when he’d asked me out last month at the gym. But he’d bounced back from that with a shrug. Since then, he’d made it a mission to chat me up whenever he saw me. It was sort of sweet, but he just wasn’t my type.

“I’ve been doing the Paleo diet,” Christian said.

Oh, crap. I didn’t want to talk about that. I didn’t really want to talk at all.

Feeling… Lucky?

Hello, hello! The audiobook tour continues with book 3, Lucky Penny! The tour stops are below, and you should totally stop in and say hi. We’ll have two weeks of reviews, interviews, and exclusive audio excerpts. Stop by these blogs and enter for a chance to win a Kindle Fire!

Apr. 30: CGB Blog Tours

May 1: Dab of Darkness

May 2: Read Day and Night

May 3: Spunky-n-Sassy

May 4: Desert Rose Reviews

May 5: The Book Junkie

May 6: Between the Coverz

May 7: Buried Under Books

May 8: Lomeraniel

May 9: The Book Addict’s Reviews

May 10: Guilty Indulgence Book Club

May 11: terriluvsbooks

May 12: Bound 4 Escape

May 13: Celtic Lady’s Reviews

If you haven’t tried out audiobooks yet, you simply must! Check out Audible.com and get your first book for FREE! You might want to start with this one, or maybe this one! I think you’ll like them.

Lucky Penny, Chapter 1

Lucky Penny, book 3 in the Miranda Vaughn Mysteries series, is out on December 14th! Yay! Here’s a sneak peak at chapter 1!

Enjoy!

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

I gripped the handle on the courtroom door and took a deep breath before forcing myself to pull it open and walk into the silent and solemn room. The gallery was about half-filled, and several audience members turned to watch me come in. I glanced around quickly, trying to locate my boss, Rob Fogg, in the area reserved for spectators. From the middle of a row near the back of the room, he nodded and waved at a few empty seats near him. I squeezed past other spectators who had come to watch the trial.

“Glad to see you made it,” he whispered as I sat down.

“Parking,” I mumbled.

It was a common excuse in the busy downtown blocks around the federal courthouse, but it was also a lie. I’d found a prime parking space in the lot across the street. I’d also hit every green light on the way there. There was no excuse for my tardiness except my own nerves.

New short story coming your way!

I just wrapped up edits on One Red Cent, a short story that will be released this summer! It’s in the Miranda Vaughn Mysteries series, but is from the point of view of Sarah Girard, Miranda’s kick-ass best friend! I had such a great time writing this and am really excited to get to share it with you soon!

In the meantime, here’s a snippet from another of Sarah’s bad dates:

I smiled at Christian and hoped that I looked semi-interested in whatever he was talking about. I was pretty sure it was about his job at a mortgage brokerage firm, but I had tuned out the last time the door had opened and I’d seen Eddie waving a chef’s knife at an employee. 

“…my new supervisor thought he’d be changing the policy after he got promoted, but well, that was just the way things were done from the gecko.”

My head snapped back to Christian. “Uh, I’m sorry. What did you say? The gecko?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s a saying. You know, like, from the gecko.”

I paused, unsure if he was serious. “I think you mean from the get go.”

He laughed. “That doesn’t make sense. Get go? What does that even mean?”

“No, ‘from the gecko’ doesn’t make sense,” I said. Was I really having this discussion?

“It means from a long time ago. You know, when the geckos ruled the earth.”

“Uh…” I had no idea what to do with this.

Christian nodded, his handsome face quite serious. “They’re, like, dinosaurs.”

One Red Cent will be released in July in the KILLER BEACH READS anthology, by Gemma Halliday Publishing. For updates on this collection, sign up for my newsletter: http://bit.ly/EllieNews

Trouble… on the move

To celebrate the release of A Good Kind of Trouble, I’ll be dashing around the internet in the next week, with guest posts, excerpts, and other fun stuff at various book blogs. Check in here for my itinerary and then come say hello. First stop is A Passion for Romance, where I’m talking all about the book.

I’ll also be giving away two signed copies of A Good Kind of Trouble (US only, please). Sign up here for the Rafflecopter giveaway!

Thanks to Krista at Bridging the Gap Promotions for organizing the tour!

Are you ready for Trouble?

Good morning!

It’s release day for A GOOD KIND OF TROUBLE! Get it on your Kindle for only $2.99 for a limited time (or free if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber)!

Beacon news reporter Lindsey Fox is on the verge of breaking a huge story of political corruption that will make her career and make her famous journalist parents proud—or she could be thrown in jail and fired. It really could go either way. Her streak of bad luck continues when Lindsey finds herself facing a bogus contempt charge—and attorney and former bad date Ben Gillespie is appointed to get her out of the slammer.

Ben can totally believe that Lindsey is behind bars. The woman is trouble. Now he has to get his new client out of jail and away from a shady P.I., help her save her job, and convince her to put down the pepper spray and give him another chance.

This book is near and dear to me because it was so much fun to write. I hope you enjoy spending time with Lindsey and Ben, too.

Read on for a sneak peek at A Good Kind of Trouble! 

Dropping the Dime is out in the world!

Lovely readers, I have some wonderful news! Dropping the Dime is available today at all the finest online booksellers. This is the second book in the Miranda Vaughn Mysteries series and I had such a great time writing it. 

You can get your copy here:

Kindle * Nook * iBooks * Kobo * Smashwords

Here’s a peek at Chapter One! I hope you have as much fun reading about Miranda’s latest adventures as I did writing it!

Chapter One

My heart pounded, and my legs ached, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I struggled for breath and grimaced at the pain in my side. Gasping, I struggled onward through the empty city streets in the gray early light.

“I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.”

There was no one out on the street to hear my complaints, so I voiced them, chanting in time with my footsteps on the sidewalk.

“Hang in there, pretty lady. Your butt will look good.”

“Eeep!” I leapt sideways at the voice and saw the bearded man reclining in a doorway. He lifted a paper-covered bottle and winked a bleary eye at me.

I picked up my pace and crossed the street, my heart rate well into the aerobic range thanks to the new rush of adrenaline.

It’s pretty much impossible for me to explain how much I loathe running.

I hate feeling like a lumbering elephant as my feet pound away at the unforgiving sidewalk. I hate sweating. I hate sports bras.

But I kept moving at a pace that could be considered a jog. It was barely daylight, the only sane time to go out in public and humiliate myself. At least there were few people out and about to see me attempt the concept of exercise.

Why was I doing this if I hated it so much? I asked myself this question as I tried to focus on the music streaming in through my earbuds. It was healthy, though it made me feel like I was dying. It would let me fit into the cute dress I just bought that was a little snug.

And the next time I was chased by gun-toting psychopaths, I’d be ready to run.

I hoped there was never a next time. But after recent events, I wasn’t going to rule it out.

By the time I reached the entrance to the alley that led to my apartment I was a huffing, sweaty mess, and all I could think of was showering then stopping by my aunt’s bakery and grabbing a hot almond croissant right off the baking tray. My mouth watered at the thought of the pastry as I opened the gate to the backyard that led to my apartment over Aunt Marie’s garage. I’d been living in the apartment for a couple of years and though it was small and cramped and I could now afford to move out, I liked living near my only family member. And her yummy bakery.

Dropping the Dime has a cover!

Dropping the Dime, book 2 of the Miranda Vaughn Mysteries, will be released on April 7! And isn’t that cover gorgeous?

I’m very excited to share this book with you! It was so much fun to hang out with Miranda, Jake and the rest of the crew, along with some interesting new characters.

Preorder links will be available soon! Check back here for updates, or sign up for my newsletter and be the first to know!

And here’s a look at what Miranda’s up to next:

Miranda Vaughn was once accused of stealing millions, now she’s helping others who are facing criminal charges. While being an assistant to her former defense attorney isn’t her dream job, she’s eager to prove herself, and her first task is a simple one—protect Kathryn, a shy CFO turned informant, and help her prove that a popular real estate developer is embezzling millions from his company. But what should be a straightforward assignment is deliciously complicated when Miranda is thrown together with FBI Agent Jake Barnes, the man who saved her life, broke her heart, and then disappeared.

 

Beneath the neatly plotted rows of new homes lurk dark secrets, bitter feuds and a whole lot of greed. Nothing is what it appears, even Miranda’s timid client, who is hiding secrets of her own. Despite her growing distrust of her client, Miranda must protect Kathryn from becoming the target of the FBI’s investigation, protect herself from the real thief—all while protecting her heart from the sexy FBI agent she can’t seem to resist.

Last chance to win a copy of Chasing the Dollar!

To celebrate the release of Chasing the Dollar, I’m giving away five signed copies. Enter today at Undercover Book Reviews!