But spending my life hiding behind closed curtains just doesn’t work anymore. I want to live, really live. Like feel warm sand beneath my toes, the sun on my face, and laughter inside my heart, live.
Stepping outside was the hard part.
Falling for my neighbor, easier than I thought. But finding out my neighbor has a twin brother that wants me too?
I’m not sure I’m ready for both of them, but I can’t give either of them up.
What happens when they find out how broken I am? That I’ll never be normal?
Welcome to Summers in Seaside, a small town located along the Oregon Coast and home of the Seaside Festival. This brand new series of short contemporary romance stories is filled with sun, sand and summer adventures that will tug at your heart strings.
Join the Summers in Seaside 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐊𝐔 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞!
Running July 11 – September 15, 2022
Enter for your chance(s) to win a Kindle Fire + an Amazon.com gift card to fill it with, a set of signed paperbacks, and more!
We all live in the illusions of our own realities. Cassandra’s reality lies between the quiet bridge of complex and chaotic. A single mother to two amazing boys, graphic artist, author, avid home gardener, baker, reader, and introvert, her hats are many. A refined goth, she’s obsessed with tattoos, shoes, hair dye, chocolate, metal and hip-hop music, and all things dark and creepy except bugs, those are too creepy. Each of her books contains a piece of her reality. Tiny fragments laced with forbidden romance, defining miniature slices of her truths.
Stop the world I want to get off. I gave up my career to race home and save my family, only to be overwhelmed. We are behind on the mortgage; our family band is struggling, and my two younger brother’s constant bickering has escalated to Def Con three. The Seaside Music Festival is our last best shot – if we don’t land a music deal, everything will be lost. So why exactly am I kissing a stranger under the boardwalk?
Marshall
I’m a music producer that lives in the land of tweaking mainstream music consumed by the masses. My reputation is taking a beating, and I’m losing clients. At the end of my rope, failure is knocking at the door holding a stack of applications to mind-numbing desk jobs. Kill me now. It’s time to take a risk – I only need one special artist. So why am I kissing a stranger at the Music festival?
Two souls in search of redemption discover the sweetest sound is the beat of their own hearts.
Summer Sounds is part of the Summers in Seaside Romance series and may be read as a standalone.
Welcome to Summers in Seaside, a small town located along the Oregon Coast and home of the Seaside Festival. This brand new series of short contemporary romance stories is filled with sun, sand and summer adventures that will tug at your heart strings.
Mel Walker has been writing fiction most of his adult life. Specializing in Short Stories and Contemporary fiction and Romance Novels. A native New Yorker and life-long frustrated NY Mets fan. He loves to write about ordinary people placed in difficult situations, especially as it relates to their closest relationships.
After the end of a disastrous marriage, she returns to her hometown in Seaside Oregon to make a fresh start.
She rediscovers her love for the ocean and a renewed passion for creating art from the sea and starts an exciting new business selling her jewelry designs. With the support of her friends and family, she’s on a path to find the happiness she gave up on years ago.
When she finds a man lying in an alley one night, bloody and beaten, suddenly the path she’d carefully navigated shifted. Another complicated man in her life was the last thing she needed, but this stranger has a hold on her she can’t ignore.
Ellis Vaughn was tired.
For years he’d had to fight to survive his own bad decisions and what fate had handed to him.
He’d found a quiet life, but the pull of his old ways won out. When his little brother goes missing, all arrows point to a small beach town in Oregon, and what he finds there is more than the trouble he expected.
The last thing he imagined fate to hand him was a beautiful blonde angel who stirs feelings he’d never thought he’d consider.
Like forever.
When the danger following Ellis threatens to tear through the bloom of happiness between them, can they trust each other enough to save what they’ve started to feel?
Around three o’clock, I was coming out of my skin. Anxiety had taken me by the throat and even after all the mundane things I’d managed throughout the day, my thoughts were constantly on the man in my bed.
The very sexy, very injured man in my bed.
I set up my yoga mat and my bolster in my room in front of the big window facing the water and went through a series of stretches to relieve some of the tension and stress. It always made me feel better to lose myself in the movement and focus on my breathing.
In. Hold. Out.
“Fuck me,” a gravelly voice groaned from behind me. “Am I dead?”
I had just stretched down into puppy pose, and the sound of his voice scared the crap out of me. I screeched, causing my dogs to bark like crazy and then flipped around so I was facing him.
And holy hell. His eyes were open, and the look on his face was positively dangerous.
“I figured I’d end up in hell, but your ass is about as close to heaven as it gets.”
I sat up on my knees and then edged closer, slowly. “You’re alive.
He groaned. “Who are you? Where the fuck am I?”
“I’m Calista, and you’re in my apartment. I found you last night and brought you here. Do you remember anything that happened?”
He tried to push himself up, but his body wouldn’t allow it. He fell back against the pillow, both hands going to his head.
“How did you get me here? Where is here? Oh, fuck.”
He cringed and then ran his hand over his face, cursing again. He sure loved the F-word.
“I tried to fix you up as best as I could. They really did a wallop of a job you. You’ve been out of it for about twenty-two hours. I was giving it twenty-four hours before I called 911.”
His eyes snapped open again and pinned me to the spot. “Why didn’t you? Call the cops?”
I sighed and sat back on my heels. “When I found you in the alley, you asked me not to. Then you threw my phone. Cracked my screen, thank you very much. But you were adamant, and it felt right to honor your wishes. There had to be a reason why you wouldn’t want help from authorities.”
He barked out a pained laugh and then groaned again and held his chest with his arm.
“Understatement, sweetheart.”
As vague as that was, I got the gist—whatever had brought him to that alley had been nefarious, and probably felonious. Whoever the bad guys were, he had to have been involved with them in some way, not an innocent passerby.
“Are you involved in something illegal? Is that what happened?”
He groaned again and then turned over, so he was on his side, facing me. “How about you get my phone?”
I quirked my lips and gave him my best impression of an eek. “No phone. Or wallet. I did find your hat and a jacket, which is hanging on the door over there,” I told him, pointing to the closet door. “But there was nothing else. I checked your jacket but didn’t feel anything in your pants.”
My cheeks went flaming hot and I was sure the shade of red on them could rival a fire engine. “I don’t mean it like that.”
He tried to raise an eyebrow but winced. “I don’t guess a hot little thing like you is very interested in feeling around in an old man’s pants.”
“Oh.” I giggled, nervous and flattered by the off-color compliment. “I wouldn’t say you’re an old man. I just didn’t want to move you around anymore than I had to. I had to cut your shirt, though, to check your ribs.”
He groaned again and rubbed his hand over his chest, drawing my attention to the thick ink covering his torso. He caught the direction of my gaze and smirked.
Flaming. Red. Cheeks.
Welcome to Summers in Seaside, a small town located along the Oregon Coast and home of the Seaside Festival. This brand new series of short contemporary romance stories is filled with sun, sand and summer adventures that will tug at your heart strings.
Jami Denise is an author of gritty Contemporary and Romantic Suspense, including the best selling Jayne Series.
When she isn’t working on her next novel, she is watching old movies, or swooning over her son and her gorgeous grandsons.
She lives in her hometown in Southern California with a gang of wild cats.
Someone should’ve told me pretending to date your best friend only works if you aren’t in love with them.
Kennedy Davis is not in love with her best friend. That’s what she tells every girl she dates anyway, but it always ends up the same.
Sienna Stevens is in love with her best friend, but she’s too afraid to admit it. A hopeless romantic who hopes her best friend might one day see her as more.
When Kennedy must return home for her brother’s wedding it only makes sense to bring her best friend along. But Kennedys fears of returning home give Sienna a chance for Kennedy to see her as more—by being her fake girlfriend.
So when the line between friends and more gets blurred with Sienna, will Kennedy finally see what everyone’s been telling her all along and confess her true feelings? Or will she hide how she feels to keep their friendship?
After all, a fake relationship only for the summer, can’t hurt right?
Welcome to Summers in Seaside, a small town located along the Oregon Coast and home of the Seaside Festival. This brand new series of short contemporary romance stories is filled with sun, sand and summer adventures that will tug at your heart strings.
Ella Green is looking forward to some time off from her stressful job.
Soaking up the sun with her toes in the sand is a hell of a lot less dangerous than chasing down bad guys and dodging bullets on the regular. But when a wealthy resident of the small town she’s ended up in approaches her with a unique problem he’d like her to handle, saying no isn’t as easy as Ella thought it would be. Will her standard alias and quick wit get the job done and still leave her time to relax? Or will she have to work a little harder to earn the money this time?
“I’ll be a good girl. Promise.”
Welcome to Summers in Seaside, a small town located along the Oregon Coast and home of the Seaside Festival. This brand new series of short contemporary romance stories is filled with sun, sand and summer adventures that will tug at your heart strings.
It’s not about me, it’s about them *nods to characters*… however, simply put:
→ FanAddict → Superhero geek → Sarcasm academy → Mystery aficionado → Paranormally fascinated → Twisted sense of humor → Broken in oh, so many ways → Believer that love is perfectly imperfect
Life is messy. I like to write about the mess and make something good come out of it. That includes any, and / or all of the above + everything else that happens along the way.
And the delicious way the water trickled down over his washboard abs and the V thingy.
And the fact that I’m on the trip that was supposed to be my honeymoon until I caught the bastard cheating.
Yeah, I’m going to blame it on all that.
Because reckless behavior is so not usually me.
But surfer god Fyn is a breath of fresh air I so badly need.
A break from reality of the world around me.
One he seems to need, too.
It’s a single wild moment in my otherwise structured life that seems to be crumbling.
A perfect snapshot in time…
Until the royal guard shows up looking for him.
Turns out the king of the waves is actually a prince.
A real one next in line for the throne.
And I just banged him on the sand.
People say a one-night stand can be good for you, especially after a break-up.
I’m starting to question that advice.
Because finding my prince is only the beginning…
Things are about to get royally complicated.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Gwyn McNamee is an attorney, writer, wife, and mother (to one human baby and one fur baby). Originally from the Midwest, Gwyn relocated to her husband’s home town of Las Vegas in 2015 and is enjoying her respite from the cold and snow. Gwyn loves to write stories with a bit of suspense and action mingled with romance and heat. When she isn’t either writing or voraciously devouring any books she can get her hands on, Gwyn is busy adding to her tattoo collection, golfing, and stirring up trouble with her perfect mix of sweetness and sarcasm (usually while wearing heels). Gwyn loves to hear from her readers, and here’s where you can find her:
Writing with a whole lot of sarcasm and humor, mixed with a bit of Southern charm, Christy Anderson ain’t no sweet tea kinda storyteller. As an author of romance, Christy believes it doesn’t always have to be hearts and flowers; sometimes, it is dark and twisted, but romance nonetheless. She mixes terror, revenge, and a sliver of love and hope into stories about family, friends, struggles, blurred lines, and happily-ever-afters. Christy lives in the beautiful mountains of Eastern Tennessee with her husband and 152 cats (not really, but close), where she enjoys writing one twist at a time. Christy loves to hear from her readers, and here’s where you can find her:
Being the black sheep in a mafia family is hard. I desperately want to escape my life, and I thought I found a nice, boring, regular man to do that with.
Demertri Sokolov is anything but those three qualities. He rules the Bratva, making my family look like saints. He has a reputation for violence, cruelty and being unforgiving. My heart drums with anticipation each time I see him, even though I know it’s wrong. We have enough chemistry to explode a room. I should have known he was a horrible decision that I continued to play with.
When I find out I’m carrying his baby, I’m terrified. I’m left with no other choice but to run away. Instead of forgetting about me, he searches for where I disappeared. Hiding his baby is a sin not even a mafia princess will get away with when he finds out.
He may be handsome, but he’s not the type to fall in love. When he finds me, will he take mercy or kill because of my betrayal? Will he see a choice?
Emily Bowie is from a small town in Western Canada. She has been making characters come to life through her writing since she was old enough to put her thoughts on paper. She loves her white wine cold, her heels red, and her books spicy.
She married her high school sweetheart and they have two amazing children.
When she is not writing she can be found reading a good book, making digital scrapbooks and being physically active—whether it is at the gym, going for a walk, or playing /keep up with her children.
Fake date. Real trouble. Fall for a new trope-tactic, fake dating rom-com series from USA Today bestselling author, Lila Monroe!
Ex-pro athlete Austin Banks is cocky, charming, and the ultimate player… at least, that’s what I think when he makes me an offer I can’t refuse for my dream job. Except, it’s not technically me he’s offering it to…
Other Jennifer Walker is the bane of my existence. We may share a name (and a similar email address) but that’s where the similarities end. Other Jenn is bold, confident… and off having wild adventures on the other side of the world. So, she won’t mind if I borrow our identity back and prove I’ve got what it takes to have Main Character Energy, too. Right?
I figure I can put up with Austin’s playboy shenanigans long enough to level up my career, but I’m not expecting the sparks between us to be quite so sizzling, or for there to be a sweet, driven guy buried under all that charm. Soon, my one little white (not-quite) lie is spiraling, and I’m in way over my head (and out of my underwear).
Can I find a way out of this mistaken identity mix-up? And will Austin’s past keep us from scoring a home-run – on, and off the field? Find out in the hot and hilarious Billionaire Bachelors rom-com from Lila Monroe!
Combining her love of writing, sex and well-fitted suits, Lila Monroe wrote The Billionaire Bargain. Lila enjoys writing, as it gives her a flexible schedule to spend time with her kids and a wonderful excuse to avoid them. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, who strips out of his well-fitted suits nightly.
Luke Kessler is known for his daring play on the field and his carefully scripted life off it. The Growlers’ wide receiver has a strict rule of dating one woman he’s meticulously chosen per season, then letting her down gently. After all, his game is football, not love. That is until his dopey mutt falls for a French bulldog owned by a hot mess of a woman whose sassy mouth and mind-blowing curves have him fumbling his best laid plans.
After a humiliating concert performance played out in front of the world on social media, cellist Summer Pearson has sworn off a career in music. Forever. She’s hiding out with her grandparents in Milwaukee, licking her wounds and preparing for a predictable, if not boring, law career. The last person she needs challenging her life choices is a sexy, dog-rescuing jock who loves his grandma as much as he loves a good dare.
Especially when that same guy is dating her perfect cousin.
This fun, flirty sports romance delivers a happily ever after that will have you laughing, crying, sighing, and cheering in the endzone. One-click it now for doggy hijinks, senior citizens bent on shenanigans, sexy ax-throwing, locker room bromance, steamy private cello performances, and all the feels as two people discover they are worthy of love.
Double Dog Dare is book 2 in the Milwaukee Growlers Football series but can be read as a standalone with no cliffhangers.
USA Today bestselling author Tracy Solheim writes books with shirtless men on the cover. Some of them are actually best-sellers. The books, not the men. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing her curling. . . bottles of wine, that is. She’s been known to cook dinner but no more than two nights in a row. Most days, she’d rather be reading, which to her is just necessary research. She lives in the suburbs of Atlanta with her husband and a neurotic Labrador retriever. Her two adult children visit but not often enough. (See the note above about cooking.) Check out her romantic suspense series featuring the Men of the Secret Service–shirtless, of course! See what she’s up to at www.tracysolheim.com
This is for one story on Season 8 Crystal “The Double Life” Listen on Wondery. I am a subscriber, so I listened commercial free. Lucky me no more Best Fiends or Madison Reed garbage.
So now I am seriously stuck on these few episodes in Season 8 All by Iridian speaking of her boyfriend’s brother and his wife Crystal. So we gather the facts about Crystal. Her story is she leads a double life, has a so-called affair with someone at work. So Iridian and Crystal work at the same place and don’t interact there too much. Enough of the soft talk about Crystal- she is young and has a child with Grant, who is Ben’s brother & Iridian’s boyfriend, and lastly she lies.
Basically, we find out that Crystal is a typical twenty something girl. Rumors fly about cheating and a little lie here and there. But wait! She supposedly has told some pretty nasty ass lies. My issue with the first 2 episodes is WHY is it your business? If you have issues with her speak on it. If you don’t like what she does, then don’t bother with her. Oh, wait you don’t hang around, go to lunch or speak that much. Go on about your life then. NO Iridian loves this crap. She thrives on the gossip and fake comradery she gets with a few people at work and her new gay bff Zachary, who makes a couple of comments so typical like “I don’t play that way” Like he is a gay Lou Ferrigno. Please! I bet he is sipping his soy latte while wearing some hot pink crocs performing fake outrage.
Is it over yet? No Iridian feel like she must right some wrongs from her LEFT leaning self. So, she goes and tells Boyfriend Ben and then begins to try to get the sister and the mother involved. I get the feeling that Crystal has what Iridian wants. She has a kid, is married and this bothers Iridian to the point that she contacts a podcast.
Hit the lights and microphone because now she gets all emotional saying that her and Ben decided to have an abortion. She sort of fake cries a bit. Trying to gain sympathy for her choice to be a baby killer. Now the dramatic Tiffany “I’m SO sorry” More behind the back talk goes on, it is now bordering on juvenile. I would think telling Grant will be the thing, let me light up her marriage. OK? No, he doesn’t want to hear anything. Good for you Grant. For whatever reason he chooses to cut that off. I respect that. keep your business private and don’t engage with this juvenile behavior.
Crystal leaves the job and moves to another job at a different building so Iridian feels no more drama at work BUT this can’t be.
Iridian needs attention to be focused on how awful Crystal is. Now she has for the last episode gone on about politics. Left leaning Tiffany who screams liberal to me, lets her go off on a rant about the Texas border with Mexico. Crystals mother makes a post and then there is the “family group chat text” that is in the “Hostile as Fuck” episode.
👎🏾
We learn Iridian and her boyfriend Ben say that people in the family post things in the group chat to get a rise out of her. Again, she thinks it is all about her. The family has nothing better to do but say things in the chat to get her annoyed. Grant hates her and I think it is about politics? hhmmm Next, they use 👍and it is “digital blackface”. She finds the group chat text so hostile but stays involved. Why? She likes the drama. “It was so mentally draining and so exhausting to feel like if you turn on your phone you’ll be in a political debate.”
REALLY? She is so full of herself. She really thinks that 7 people do nothing but post brown skin color thumb emojis to hurt her? So, this dim bulb goes on about her being Mexican (go figure) and has issues with anyone who watches Fox News. She uses Facebook a lot and openly speaks about issues and apparently has to explain things to people and correct them and help them learn more. She goes on to say that someone asked “can you dumb it down for me?” I guess she thinks she’s a brilliant person.
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This is where I feel like I would lose my shit! She posted “It’s getting really really hard not to pop off on so many of those ignorant posts and comments about the migration detention center. Those ignorant comments are hurtful uneducated and dehumanizing to a community” blah blah WOW now this bitch is on a pedestal looking down. So, Crystal’s mother is her Facebook friend so she comments that she has family members who work for ICE and it is not what it seems. Being that Crystal’s Mother has a family member who works for ICE and dim bulb says “someone who is an ICE agent is an Immigration Police officer who works on the border” Correction idiot- ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement – their mission is to protect us US citizens from crime at the border. CBP for the US is homeland security for the border. “The way ICE works is not very ethical”. Well, I disagree. This girl has turned this episode on its ears. She infuriates me. “If all the information someone gets is from Fox News” So this girl who know nothing about what the border crisis does. I think the fact that Tiffany Reese left all this garbage in shows that she is very liberal and while I appreciate her and respect her choice, she didn’t have to leave such HATE words in the episode. When Iridian was reading her posts, you could tell that it was not what she wrote the way she stuttered over her words. Very disappointed about this and I do hope it is addressed.
For Iridian, you my dear, you are ignorant and need to be educated yourself. I take offense to what you said. The people who I am sure you refer to as migrants are in fact #ILLEGAL. To come into the country legally through proper channels is what America needs.
Illegals drain resources from the US. When you have a family, let’s say 2 kids and parents who jump the wall, they get to their relatives and then what? Get benefits, Medicare and send their kids to school. Right? Their family here is not turning them away and advising them to go back. So when they start collecting benefits, they find a place to live and do not assimilate.
Kids– overwhelm the schools by requiring ESL, an aide and who pays for this? Taxpayers
Medical– They can see a doctor for free! They need vaccines and well care almost immediately. Who pays for this? We do the taxpayers
Police and Fire a big strain when they need all personnel to be bilingual. Nothing like getting called to an issue and you cant communicate.
Garbage and city services– also a huge strain
When you have 207,000 illegals coming through in one month what happens? We are in serious trouble that is what happens. We are overwhelmed at the Arizona and Texas borders. The counties closest to the border are the ones that are drained of resources. How can they serve the taxpayers in their communities when all of a sudden they are flooded with 50 new students who don’t even speak English. They can’t because next week there will be 50 more. So the schools need more teachers, aides, ESL teachers, lunch aides, custodians and school nurses. Moving on they need a larger bus route, because these kids have to be brought to school.
It’s past time we secured our southern border. The people who come here and are seeking asylum are another issue. The Migrant Camps are a temporary settlement that is built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. So people are taking not days but months to slowly walk through from other countries like Honduras and Guatemala. They come because the border is not secure, and we give free things when they get here like a little welcome party.
I have no hope that Tiffany will read and respond to this or the ignorant and uneducated Iridian will do the same. My hope is to reach one person that will ask me, like they did her, to dumb it down.
In the end this girl Iridian had no hurts.
What did she do to you? nothing
Were you hurt directly? NO
Wait I got it I know her issue:
That’s a big YES
All you did was play a little drama game. I don’t know what you need in your “healing” process when Crystal did nothing to you. Seems like you were only effected by her because you wanted to be. You liked the drama.
The last episode had a link because this dim bulb and two friends wanted to start a podcast. In the interest of fairness I gave a listen. I made an attempt to listen at half speed and count the “like” word and got up to forty three and gave up. At the end I copied the landing page, and it is clear that the one who labels herself a “scholar” wrote it.
“most of the words we are starting off with are words and phrases that we personally have seen misconstrued in the wild world of social media (or even news media). they’re the kinds of yours that your racist uncle are sharing because biased news sites find it most effect to fear mongrel with. they’re the things you find people holding your tongue back about at work (thanks HR). They are things that have become difficult tot talk about without someone having some sort of opinion on (whether it be well informed or not).
although we do have a list of words that we want to personally talk about, we are also completely open to suggestion. please submit your suggestions or email or dm us! we encourage a dialogue and want to give you beautiful people an open safe to talk and learn and teach!”
@dirtywords
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So in closing, basically, I don’t see any damage, pain or suffering inflicted on Iridian by Crystal. If the entire family has a problem it seems to be with her and that is telling. I say shame on Tiffany for adding all of Iridian’s nasty comments and allowing her hate towards conservatives. It is pretty sad that she was given this platform.
I’m not normal.
by the authors.
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Reading Renee 
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