Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus
Creek #1) by Violet Duke
Contemporary Romance
Release Date: January 30, 2014
All you need in one post!
Blurb, Author Bio, Excerpt and Giveaway!!
Synopsis
Romance has met its most unlikely match-up…
Luke Bradford is a chocolatier on a mission. After moving his chocolate shop, and newly single life, to the quirky town of Cactus Creek, Luke wants nothing more than to devote all his energy into making his business a success—by taking the romance market by storm. But his grand plans get thrown for a loop when he locks horns with the feisty beer-brewing beauty next door who calls his ‘romantic idealism’ a load of fairytale bull. Soon, driving the woman sparking nuts becomes another wickedly fun priority he simply can’t get enough of.
In his defense, she’s addictively easy to incite … and plain impossible to resist.
Beloved local brewmaster Dani Dobson is beyond riled up. It’s bad enough the new shop owner in town comes locked and loaded with both a distractingly rugged charm and sexy flashing dimples, but the whole only-in-the-movies variety of romance he’s selling—the kind her world has been crushed by before—is really doing a number on her allergy to unrealistic clichés. What’s worse, he’s created an annoyingly clever ad campaign that dubs ‘beer joints’ like hers as the “cave where romance goes to hibernate.” The nerve of that man.
Combustible chemistry or not, damn it, this means war. The stakes … very likely, her heart.
Luke Bradford is a chocolatier on a mission. After moving his chocolate shop, and newly single life, to the quirky town of Cactus Creek, Luke wants nothing more than to devote all his energy into making his business a success—by taking the romance market by storm. But his grand plans get thrown for a loop when he locks horns with the feisty beer-brewing beauty next door who calls his ‘romantic idealism’ a load of fairytale bull. Soon, driving the woman sparking nuts becomes another wickedly fun priority he simply can’t get enough of.
In his defense, she’s addictively easy to incite … and plain impossible to resist.
Beloved local brewmaster Dani Dobson is beyond riled up. It’s bad enough the new shop owner in town comes locked and loaded with both a distractingly rugged charm and sexy flashing dimples, but the whole only-in-the-movies variety of romance he’s selling—the kind her world has been crushed by before—is really doing a number on her allergy to unrealistic clichés. What’s worse, he’s created an annoyingly clever ad campaign that dubs ‘beer joints’ like hers as the “cave where romance goes to hibernate.” The nerve of that man.
Combustible chemistry or not, damn it, this means war. The stakes … very likely, her heart.
Author Bio
New York Times & USA Today bestselling
author Violet Duke is a former professor of English Education who is ecstatic
to now be on the other side of the page writing wickedly fun contemporary
romance novels. When she's not arguing with her story characters or feeding her
book-a-day reading addiction, she enjoys tackling reno projects with her power
tools while trying pretty much anything without reading the directions first
and cooking 'special edition' dishes that laugh in the face of recipes. Violet
lives in Hawai'i with her two cute kids and similarly adorable husband.
Note from Violet
The prequel novella (A Little
Combustible Chemistry) that goes along with this book is meant to be a
**FREE** gift for all of you amazing fans. It may take a little
while but it should price-match to free soon. In the meantime, I just
uploaded a special version of Love, Chocolate, and Beer that has the prequel
built into the file at the front so you can still read the prequel for free
that way. You don't need to get it separately. I'll
keep the prequel in there until the prequel ebook is price-matched at free.
Thank you!!!
Excerpt
“Hey Dani,
why isn’t the coffee started? Breakfast
is getting—OH!” Xoey dropped the box of
bakery fresh doughnuts in shock at the foot of Dani’s bed.
Dani
estimated the level of Xoey’s shock was pretty high up there. Not just because she was still in bed this
late in the morning. But more so because
she wasn’t in said bed alone. “Get out!” Dani launched a pillow at her.
Xoey shot
out of the bedroom. “I’m so sorry!” she
shouted as she closed the door behind her.
“I figured it was safe! I thought
you two were waiting till your fifth date to...hey, wait a sec, did I count
wrong?”
“Just
stop talking and go wait outside! Or
better yet, wait down in the brewpub!” Dani jumped out of bed, and instantly
dropped flat as a pancake onto the carpet.
Good
lord, she was naked.
And,
criminy, she was totally just gave herself a carpet burn on her belly.
Where the
heck did her towel from last night go?
At the
soft whoosh of falling terry cloth landing inches from her face, she muttered,
“Thanks.”
“No
problem,” came Luke’s amused reply.
Dani
tucked the now dry bath towel around herself securely before peeking just her
eyes and the bridge of her nose up from behind the tangle of goose down
comforter lined-up like a trench barricade on her edge of the bed.
“Good
morning, beautiful.”
She
popped her head up fully like a prairie dog, and asked the first burning
question that swirled around in her head.
“Did we—ˮ
The look
he shot her stopped her from finishing that sentence.
“Honey,
if we had, the trench barricade my soldier is failing to hide behind wouldn’t
be taller than yours right now.”
Oh
my. A quick glance toward the center of
her bed had her rising to her feet quicker than the sound of the national
anthem had ever inspired. Furthermore, she
wasn’t the one saluting the flag in this case.
Before
she could do so much as gape, however, he dragged the comforter over himself,
and pulled her back up onto the bed beside him in one easy swoop.
With a
sleepy morning growl, he gathered her into his arms and laid warm, rumbly
kisses down the side of her neck.
“Believe me Dani, the next time you wake up next to me in bed, you won’t
be wondering if we did, you’ll damn well know it, remember it, and want more of
it.”
All
evidence in front of her would certainly suggest so.
He nipped
at her earlobe. “I can practically see
your thoughts, sweetheart. Before you
slaughter my control even more than you already have, put some clothes back on
me in that pretty little head of yours and go take care of Xoey. I’m going to see how cold I can get your
shower to run.”
As she
rushed out of the room to go demand her spare key back from Xoey, it registered
belatedly that Luke had spent the entire night lying next to her, fully clothed
and on top of her bed spread, just holding her hand.
A total
gentleman.
With whom
she fully intended to renegotiate the intolerable terms of their pesky
five-date waiting period. Seriously,
whose crazy-ass idea had that been anyhow?
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