Taste of Love: A Romance Sampler

Bestselling author Susan Connell offers readers a generous sample from seven of her hottest romance novels. Extended excerpts include the first three chapters from A Woman to Blame, Glory Girl, Trouble in Paradise, Pagan’s Paradise, Some Kind of Wonderful, and the holiday-themed Rings on Her Fingers. And for a bonus nibble, enjoy the first chapter of her latest beach romance, A Man Like This.Bestselling author Susan Connell offers readers an assortment of generous samples from seven of her hottest romance novels. Extended excerpts include the first three chapters from A Woman to Blame, Glory Girl, Trouble in Paradise, Pagan's Paradise, Some Kind of Wonderful, and the holiday-themed Rings on Her Fingers. And for a bonus nibble, enjoy the first chapter of her latest beach romance, A Man Like This. A WOMAN TO BLAME: When city girl Bryn and laid-back Rick butt heads over the renovation of his Florida Keys restaurant, sparks fly. But what happened 5 years ago on August Moon Key, and will that secret destroy their chance at happiness?GLORY GIRL: When Evan discovers ex-super model Holly Hamilton hiding in his Jersey Shore guest cottage, the aviation executive wants to know why. An unauthorized semi-nude poster known as 'Glory Girl' has America riveted but Holly just wants her celebrity status to go away. Evan knows there's more to the story, and he'll do whatever it takes to gain Holly's trust.A MAN LIKE THIS: Drew wants info about a string of burglaries in his beloved uncle's retirement community, and he can't understand why the community's resident problem solver, Jill Stuart won't believe they're even happening. As their undeniable chemistry comes to a head, Jill finds herself torn between her connection with Drew and her solemn promise to one of her residents.TROUBLE IN PARADISE: Buttoned-down Allison arrives in the Central American rain forest on the hunt for her brother-in-law, Tony. She's got a message to deliver, but standing in her way is one Reilly Anderson. When he sidetracks her into playing out her childhood Tarzan fantasies, this pharmaceutical exec just wants to protect Tony's secret drug research. But when Allison lets down her hair - and her guard - anything can happen. After all, it's a jungle out there.PAGAN'S PARADISE: After a bad breakup with her high-society boyfriend, Joanna's chance for a badly-needed life makeover comes in the form of an offer from a children's charity. They want this hard-working freelance photographer to shoot underprivileged Central American kids. When she signs on, she expects a walk on the wild side. What she gets is her nose bloodied and her camera stolen within hours of arrival. Enter her rescuer, undercover agent Jack Stratford, who knows the streets of San Raphael are about to explode. As the revolution grows closer, so do they, and this gutsy redhead is a distraction he can't afford. So why can't Jack shake the feeling that she's the woman of his dreams?SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL: Young widow Sandy Patterson has had a perfect life, now she wants a real one. Time away from her well-meaning but overly protective southern family is something she needs, and a summer painting in Greece sounds perfect. She just needs to get a quick visit with her husband’s old college roommate, Alex, out of the way. He invites her to stay at his Greek isle villa where he keeps a respectful distance, but soon their chemistry has her wanting things she hasn't in a long time, and she can tell he feels the same. Now she just needs to find out what hidden sadness is holding Alex back.RINGS ON HER FINGERS: Gwen Mansfield only moonlights as a jewelry store 'mall elf' to help pay the bills at her beloved mansion-turned-apartment house. Between her duties to her tenants and the *four* broken engagements in her past, she knows it's best she resist Architect Steve Stratton's charms. Steve's not dissuaded by her white-lies, though, and he manages to rent her last vacant apartment, then makes himself indispensable. When their undeniable attraction heats up, Gwen's heart soon begins to melt...until an unexpected visitor knocks Steve's plans into the nearest slushy gutter.*Please Note* This contemporary romance sampler contains sample chapters. For the full novels, please visit your favorite ebook retailer.
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If Only She Knew

A CURSED TOWN. A FAMILY'S MURDER. A GIRL WILLING TO RISK EVERYTHING TO SOLVE IT. She thinks she's solving her family's murder, not ensuring her own. If only she knew what danger lurked ahead... Peace Bloodson always wondered about the origin of her family's curse. Dark tales about the gruesome death of her ancestors, the founders of her hometown Bloodson Bay, are retold in fearful whispers around campfires. Wide-eyed children search the shadows for ghosts said to haunt the townsfolk. And the abandoned manor at the edge of her family's farm—called the Slaughter Shed for good reason—holds mysteries no one can explain. As the small-town rumors, and body count, have grown over the years, so does Peace's curiosity. When she finds a hidden journal that sheds light on what happened those fateful years ago, Peace uncovers a secret she doesn't expect. An ancient murder she and her friends must solve to lay the...
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White Wings Run Red

A simple collection of poems that I've gathered over the last few years.Lily and the Lion tells the story of a young woman who is thrust into an adventure when her secret rendezvous is interrupted by a witch and a lion.
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Room 127

You begin in a dark hallway. There are no instructions, only a blinking cursor at the bottom of the screen. It invites a response. It draws you in. Now it is too late to turn back.Room 127, a novella told entirely through e-mail, explores a mysterious computer game connected to a series of grisly crimes. How far would you go to get it out of your head?You begin in a dark hallway. There are no instructions, only a blinking cursor at the bottom of the screen. It invites a response. It draws you in. Now it is too late to turn back.Room 127 is just a computer game. Or is it? Steve Norman thought that he had landed his dream internship: writing about video games for the popular website GameCore.net. But when a mysterious disk from an unknown sender appears on his desk, his world is turned upside down. Told entirely in e-mails sent and received by the unlucky intern, this novella reveals his investigation into the enigmatic Room 127 and the dark history that preceded it.
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The Invisible Cipher - A Jagged Journeys' Novella

Neil Gatlin’s bad choices and worse luck only multiply—even when he tries to make good. Will the deciphering skills he learned as a boy rescue him or lead to greater danger?Neil Gatlin’s bad choices and worse luck only multiply—even when he tries to make good. Used to failure, and on the verge of fatherhood, Neil desperately wants to succeed. Instead, his bad choices trap him between both sides of the law. As Neil flees from police he stumbles upon a murder and must choose between doing right or escaping.Soon, his life is in a downward spiral into greater danger than even he thought possible. Now he’s in a fight for his life trying to decipher clues to the hidden truth before others’ lies and deception entangle him for good.Will the deciphering skills he learned as a boy rescue him or lead to greater danger?
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Bessie at the Sea-Side

THE hotel carriage rolled away from Mr. Bradford\'s door with papa and mamma, the two nurses and four little children inside, and such a lot of trunks and baskets on the top; all on their way to Quam Beach. Harry and Fred, the two elder boys, were to stay with grandmamma until their school was over; and then they also were to go to the sea-side.The great coach carried them across the ferry, and then they all jumped out and took their seats in the cars. It was a long, long ride, and after they left the cars there were still three or four miles to go in the stage, so that it was quite dark night when they reached Mrs. Jones\'s house. Poor little sick Bessie was tired out, and even Maggie, who had enjoyed the journey very much, thought that she should be glad to go to bed as soon as she had had her supper. It was so dark that the children could not see the ocean, of which they had talked and thought so much; but they could hear the sound of the waves as they rolled up on the beach. There was a large hotel at Quam, but Mrs. Bradford did not choose to go there with her little children; and so she had hired all the rooms that Mrs. Jones could spare in her house. The rooms were neat and clean, but very plain, and not very large, and so different from those at home that Maggie thought she should not like them at all. In that which was to be the nursery was a large, four-post bedstead in which nurse and Franky were to sleep; and beside it stood an old-fashioned trundle-bed, which was for Maggie and Bessie. Bessie was only too glad to be put into it at once, but Maggie looked at it with great displeasure. "I sha\'n\'t sleep in that nasty bed," she said. "Bessie, don\'t do it.""Indeed," said nurse, "it\'s a very nice bed; and if you are going to be a naughty child, better than you deserve. That\'s a great way you have of calling every thing that don\'t just suit you, \'nasty.\' I\'d like to know where you mean to sleep, if you don\'t sleep there.""I\'m going to ask mamma to make Mrs. Jones give us a better one," said Maggie; and away she ran to the other room where mamma was undressing the baby. "Mamma," she said, "won\'t you make Mrs. Jones give us a better bed? That\'s just a kind of make-believe bed that nurse pulled out of the big one, and I know I can\'t sleep a wink in it.""I do not believe that Mrs. Jones has another one to give us, dear," said her mother. "I know it is not so pretty as your little bed at home, but I think you will find it very comfortable. When I was a little girl, I always slept in a trundle-bed, and I never rested better. If you do not sleep a wink, we will see what Mrs. Jones can do for us to-morrow; but for to-night I think you must be contented with that bed; and if my little girl is as tired as her mother, she will be glad to lie down anywhere."
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Genius and Ink

FOREWORD BY ALI SMITH WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANCESCA WADE Who better to serve as a guide to great books and their authors than Virginia Woolf? In the early years of its existence, the Times Literary Supplement published some of the finest writers in English: T. S. Eliot, Henry James and E. M. Forster among them. But one of the paper's defining voices was Virginia Woolf, who produced a string of superb essays between the two World Wars. The weirdness of Elizabethan plays, the pleasure of revisiting favourite novels, the supreme examples of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Henry James, Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad: all are here, in anonymously published pieces, in which may be glimpsed the thinking behind Woolf's works of fiction and the enquiring, feminist spirit of A Room of One's Own. Here is Woolf the critical essayist, offering, at one moment, a playful hypothesis and, at another, a judgement laid down with the authority of a twentieth-century Dr Johnson. Here is Woolf...
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A Novel Idea

Sometimes a novel idea can turn out to be a bad one. Sally Simmons was rather misunderstood in the small town of Whitby, North Carolina. An awkward woman with a sly countenance, she became a regular at the library, spending a good deal of time scribbling in a notebook and staring vacantly off into space.It turned out, to everyone's surprise, that Sally had been industriously penning a novel. To their greater surprise, it became something of a sensation, even landing itself on the bestseller lists.Since much of the novel had been written within the hallowed walls of the Whitby Library, reference librarian Ann and other staff members decide to hold an event to celebrate Sally's accomplishment and learn more about her book.Sadly, it soon becomes evident that Sally's book was inspired by actual residents of Whitby—and that she concealed their identities poorly.When Sally meets an unfortunate demise, it's up to Ann to figure out the...
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Typhoon

A classic story of sea-faring life at the turn of the century; Captain Macwhirr, estranged from his family and his crew, sails the Siamese steam Nan-Shan into the center of a typhoon. Notice: This Book is published by Historical Books Limited (www.publicdomain.org.uk) as a Public Domain Book, if you have any inquiries, requests or need any help you can just send an email to [email protected] This book is found as a public domain and free book based on various online catalogs, if you think there are any problems regard copyright issues please contact us immediately via [email protected]
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The British Barbarians

Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen was born on February 24th, 1848 at Alwington, near Kingston, Canada West (now part of Ontario). Home schooled until 13 when his family moved to England, Grant was to become a highly regarded science writer who branched out to a fiction career and became enormously popular. His work helped propel several genres of fiction and whilst his career was short it was enormously productive. Grant’s scientific background enabled him to root much of his work in a plausibility that was denied to others. He had little fear in challenging a society that treated women as second class citizens and creating best sellers from such works. On October 25th 1899 Grant Allen died at his home in Hindhead, Haslemere, Surrey, England. He died just before finishing Hilda Wade. The novel\'s final episode, which he dictated to his friend, doctor and neighbour Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from his bed appeared under the appropriate title, The Episode of the Dead Man Who Spoke in 1900.
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man

This new edition combines Tolstoy’s most famous short tale, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, with a less well known but equally brilliant gem, Master and Man, both newly translated by Ann Pasternak Slater. Both stories confront death and the process of dying: In Ivan Ilyich, a bureaucrat looks back over his life, which suddenly seems meaningless and wasteful, while in Master and Man, a landowner and servant must each confront the value of the other as they brave a devastating snowstorm. The quintessential Tolstoyan themes of mortality, spiritual redemption, and life’s meaning are nowhere more movingly and deftly explored than in these two tales. This unique edition also includes a critical Introduction and extensive notes by Ann Pasternak Slater, a Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. From the Hardcover edition.
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