UPDATE: The winner is…Toni Whitmire!
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Release Day!

It’s release day!! Yes, my story, Brian released yesterday—but not because I was trying to get out ahead of everybody else. I was simply calendar-challenged when I selected my date. I thought I’d chosen a Tuesday. Which is really kind of stupid, because KDP gives you a little calendar to look at when you choose your date, but I had the 24th in my brain, so the 24th it would be.

Anyways, lots of great books to celebrate today: Mine (ahem, Brian), my sister Elle Jame’s (SEAL’s Vow), and the one I’m featuring here today, written by my friend and fab author, Reina Torres!

From Fab Friend & Author Reina Torres

Part of the challenge of setting a Romance in the early 1970s was giving it a different feel from the modern-day. The book didn’t qualify as a “historical” in the book sense, but since I was setting it back almost fifty years in the past, there were certain things that brought me back into the early 70s: Clothes and Music.

Clothes were fun: terrycloth, corduroy, denims—and all the fun that went along with those fabrics.

Music was a little more of a challenge…

I was born in 1973, and my mother has often told me that I sang before I spoke. I’m guessing she means in complete phrases or sentences, but she just repeats the same stories over and over. My mom and dad both worked for the United States Postal Service, so I think you can safely say that I’m a Postal Child. 🙂

My dad worked the day shift, and my mom worked the graveyard shift. So when my dad headed off in the morning to go to work, he’d put me in the passenger seat (remember, it’s the 70s), laid back and wrapped up in my favorite blanket. He’d put the radio on for the drive into downtown Honolulu, heading straight to the post office where my mother worked. She’d get in the driver’s seat, and my dad would climb in the back, and we’d drop him off at work before my mom turned toward home.

I’d doze the way there and back, singing to the radio the entire time to songs like this one…

 

When I started writing Jesse, I did a little brainstorming on the earliest songs I could remember, and then came the reality check while going through the songs and checking to see which ones were in the right time period and which came after 1973-1974. With a couple of “oops” choices, I actually managed to put together a list of songs that helped take me back in time.

Much like Richard Collier in the movie Somewhere in Time, surrounding myself with the music of the era helped take me back in time for the book. So, I hope you’ll enjoy a little trip back in time to see how Jesse Sutton and Etta Bradford met and fell in love.

The rest of the series will be the stories of their children as they continue The Suttons – An American Legacy.

Jesse

Named for an Outlaw, He has the Heart of a Hero

Set in 1973
Amazon Link – https://tinyurl.com/Reina-Sutton1
$2.99 ebook or included with Kindle Unlimited

An Excerpt from Jesse

“Who taught you how to kiss?”

The instant he said it, he tensed, expecting to feel her hand across his cheek.

When she didn’t, he gave her a curious look, doubling down on his stupidity, and a moment later he wished that she had cracked him across his jaw. It would have been better than the way her expression crumbled as she took a step back, breaking the hold he had on her hand, and her shoulders sagged.

He was an ass. That was clear.

What he needed to do was apologize.

Quickly.

But all the words he needed to say were stuck somewhere in the back of his mind along with the sense that should have helped him keep his mouth shut in the first place.

“I’ve been kissed before!”

What?

That wasn’t what he asked.

Not by a long shot.

But, then again, her answer was just as telling.

He wasn’t just an ass. He let his mouth get way ahead of his brain. A fucking stampede ahead of the stage.

“I’m not talking about the playground, Etta. I’m talking about a kiss.” His voice had dipped dangerously low, vibrating through him like a tuning fork and making him just as hard.

He took a step closer.

Etta countered by taking a step back. They danced that way across the sidewalk until he knew he had her exactly where he wanted her.

Against the wall.

She knew it too. Her palms flattened against the wall at her sides and her shoulders pushed back. She raised her gaze up to meet his as if she was trying to tell him that she wasn’t nervous, but he saw the way her breathing shallowed, her skin flushed, and her lips parted as he moved even closer.

And he continued until the toes of his boots were almost nudging the tips of her shoes. He raked his gaze up over her feet, the hem of her dress, over the tantalizing rise and fall of her breasts and back up along the flushed skin of her chest, neck, and face.

He lifted a hand and gently touched her cheek. “First,” he smiled at her, “one, or both people, have to move their nose out of the way. So, we’ll go with both here.” He put the tiniest bit of pressure on her cheek and tilted her head a little bit. “Next, we’ll keep teeth out of it, unless you want to bite a lip… that could be fun.”

She swallowed and he swore he could hear the soft sound echoing off the thick concrete walls. “Is that all?”

“All?”

Etta nodded, but he didn’t see the motion, he could only feel it against his fingertips. “The rules?”

The corner of his mouth lifted and he leaned in closer, bracing his free hand on the wall just above her shoulder. “Those aren’t rules, Etta. Just a few things to make it easier.”

“Easier?” She echoed the word with a tight, breathy voice. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t,” he sighed and trailed the hand against her cheek into her hair, enjoying the feeling of it against his skin, “but I’m going to show you.”

She blinked up at him. “Okay.”

If she didn’t stop looking at him like a sacrificial lamb, he was going to lose his mind.

“There’s a time and place for hard kisses, sweetheart.”

Etta nodded as if she was making a note in her head. So beautiful and if he was any judge, innocent in so many ways.

“But tonight,” he moved closer until his lips were close enough to hers to feel the heat of her skin, “we’re going to start with gentle.”

“Gentle…” her lips were so damn close and he could hear the curious plea in her tone, “okay.”

He couldn’t wait another moment. He touched his lips to hers and felt her tense. He waited until her body eased into the sensation before he moved away.

Her eyes fluttered open. And she looked into his eyes as her brow pinched ever so slightly.

He smiled at the curious question he saw in her eyes. “What is it, Etta?”

She swayed closer. “Was that… all?”

“You want more?”

She opened her lips to answer and he swept in to kiss her again. Press in closer until he could feel the way her lips pressed back against his. Plump. Plush. Made for this. Made for him.

Contest

Pick your favorite song from my list above, and I’ll select a random person to win a download of Jesse!