I am one of the few people who has had the privilege of reading In Too Deep so far, and let me tell you this is one fabulous book! Trust me and add it to your shelves because it is beautiful.
Available
on January 20th 2014, the first book in the Due South series.
She vowed never to return.
To save her brother from financial ruin,
Piper Harland must do the one thing she swore she’d never do—return to the tiny
island hometown where Ryan “West” Westlake crushed her heart. Piper is tough,
resilient and a little wild—much like the remote and beautiful Stewart Island
where she grew up. As a cop who’s part of the elite New Zealand Police National
Dive Squad, bringing the dead back to their families still doesn’t stop the
guilt she feels over her father’s drowning
death. Now nine years later she’s obligated to return to a hostile
community as the outsider, and forced to work with the man who was once her
best friend and first lover.
She’s a risk he can’t take.
West is an Island man, through and through. As owner of the local pub, he lives and breathes the local community, and sure as hell can’t imagine living anywhere else. But most of all he refuses to ever fall for a woman like his flighty mother. He lost Piper once to give her the chance to fulfil her dreams of becoming a cop. But now she’s back for an unexpected six week visit to help her brother—his best mate. Maybe West wants her a little bit, maybe he can’t resist the temptation to tease and touch her, but can he fall in love with such a flight risk?
Saying goodbye the second time might just destroy them both.
(Excerpt)
“Hey,” she shouted. “I wanna talk to you.”
“Leave me alone, Piper,” West’s voice rose above the running water.
He hadn’t told her to “piss off” or “stop bitching at me and go back to
the city.” Progress, right?
“Not this time.” Catching West in the shower meant she’d have a captive
audience.
Knowing he wouldn’t have locked it, Piper walked inside and shut the
door behind her. In her imagined scenario, the steam-filled room would modestly
conceal West in the shower cubicle while she talked.
She hadn’t taken into account an extractor fan. No steamed-up mirrors,
no fogged-up shower glass, just the whirr of the fan and the hiss of the water.
Plus the tanned and very bare length of West’s body. She froze beside the door
and gripped the doorknob, her heart hurtling into her throat.
Thank God he faced away from her. The sight of his toned ass turned her
breathing into an asthmatic wheeze. She debated a quick, quiet exit, but tossed
that idea out—West was on the back foot here, since she had clothes on.
Besides, the tension etched across the muscles of his back indicated he knew
she was already inside.
Just keep it above neck level, say what you need to
say, and get out.
She cleared her throat. “That was a crappy way to talk to your mother.
You made her cry.”
West pulled his head out of the spray and scrubbed water off his face.
“The woman cries at a drop of a hat. It goes with her artistic temperament.”
Then he turned.
Holy guacamole. Piper nearly wrenched the doorknob off the door. Her brain
must’ve missed the memo to keep her eyes above West’s neck because,
hello—nicely shaped pecs, washboard flat abs, corded thigh muscles…and then her
gaze skipped straight back up to his, er, expanding interest.
“True, buhht…” Her tongue unfurled to her knees when West rubbed a bar
of soap over his chest, never taking his direct, blue gaze from her.
“So you barged in here to tell me I was rude to my mother?” Water
sprayed over his shoulder, running down his body. His soapy hand slid from pecs
to the trail of dark hair low on his belly. A happy, happy trail indeed.
“Well, I…” She licked dry lips, looked at anything other than where his
hand headed, and found her mud-flecked, crimson-cheeked reflection instead.
So much for West’s awkwardness at being butt naked—she was the one
exposed and vulnerable. Her excuses for being there suddenly seemed lame. Under
the circumstances maybe his reaction to Claire was understandable, and though
she told his mother she’d talk to him, nothing was so important the
conversation couldn’t wait until after West had finished being all wet
and hot and naked.
The creak of the shower door made her jump.
“Piper?” His voice, low and loaded with seduction, blazed through her.
West left the shower, water cascading off him and onto the tiled floor.
She averted her gaze and turned her back, yanking on the doorknob again. It
slipped through her damp fingers.
“Is this really about my mother or did you barge in here for something
else?”
The spicy scent of his shower gel curled around her and the heat of his
skin singed the fine hairs on the back of her arm, but still she grappled with
the stubborn doorknob.
“Like because you’re very, very muddy,” he said.
His breath touched the back of her neck, droplets of water falling on
her shoulder. “There’s a clean spot here, I think.”
A thumb traced the sensitive skin behind one ear and her vision blurred.
“And another here.” Warm lips trailed along the curve where the cords of
her neck met her shoulder.
“But on the whole—” his hand snaked around her waist, fingers spread
wide across her lower belly.
Hot shivers arrowed through her pelvis and struck their target.
“—You’re a dirty girl who should hit the shower—”
he pressed her hips back against his body, shifting so his erection wedged
intimately between her Lyrca-covered cheeks “—with me.”
Links
Bio.
Tracey Alvarez lives in the Coolest Little
Capital in the World (a.k.a Wellington, New Zealand) where she’s yet to be buried under her to-be-read book
pile by Wellington’s infamous wind—her Kindle’s a lifesaver! Married to a wonderfully supportive IT guy, she has two teens
who would love to be surgically linked to their electronic devices.
Fuelled by
copious amounts of coffee, she’s the author of contemporary romantic fiction
set predominantly in New Zealand. Small-towns, close communities, and families
are a big part of the heart-warming stories she writes. Oh, and hot,
down-to-earth heroes—Kiwi men, in other words.
When she’s not
writing, thinking about writing, or procrastinating about writing, she can be
found reading sexy books of all romance genres, nibbling on smuggled chocolate
bars, or bribing her kids to take over the housework.
Oh an the cover is designed by Romance Book Marketing!
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Gorgeous cover and the story sounds awesome too. I love reading stories set in New Zealand.
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