Sunday Spotlight is a feature we began in 2016. This year we’re spotlighting our favorite books, old and new. We’ll be raving about the books we love and being total fangirls. You’ve been warned. 🙂
Sarina Bowen is releasing another True North book and if you’ve been paying attention to the blog lately, you will have noticed that we’re all reading her stuff and Casee, well, she’s reading this series for the first time. We’re all big fans of Sarina Bowen and this series in particular so we’re all stoked for Benito’s book. We’re even more excited to share some before it releases this coming Tuesday goodness with you guys. Check it out.
Fireworks (True North #6) by Sarina Bowen Series: True North #6
Also in this series: Bittersweet, Steadfast, Steadfast, Bittersweet, Keepsake, Bountiful, Speakeasy, Bittersweet, Steadfast, Fireworks, Keepsake, Bountiful, Fireworks, Heartland , Heartland
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: November 13, 2018
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 343
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating:
Skye Copeland is on paid leave from her broadcasting job after accidentally drawing a pecker on the traffic map.
Let that sink in. Like it’s her fault the traffic pattern that day created a perfect schlong?
Skye isn’t laughing. She needs this job. And that’s the only reason she’s agreed to chase down a story in her least favorite place—that hell on earth known as Vermont.
A quick trip. In and out. Much like - never mind. Skye can sneak into the town that once tried to break her, get the story and get back into the good graces of her producer. Easy peasy.
Except things go sideways even as she sets foot over the county line. Her step-sister is on the run from a violent drug dealer. And the cop on the case is none other than Benito Rossi, the man who broke her teenage heart.
His dark brown eyes still tear her apart. And even as she steels herself to finally tell him off after twelve years, the old fireworks are still there.
Things are about to go boom.
Order the Book:
Excerpt
While the bartender makes change, I scan the crowd, trying to reconcile this scene with my life in Colebury. This place is full of happy, prosperous people enjoying craft brews and good company. Except for the flannel shirts and technical fabrics, I could almost be in New York—but on a weeknight, when the crowds aren’t crushing. This bar is really pretty cool.
No, it isn’t, I remind myself. Vermont is a horrible place. I take a sip of my cider, and then notice how good it is—earthy and interesting, sweet and bitter and musky.
It’s really too bad that I hate Vermont because this cider is flipping amazing.
These are my scattered thoughts as a second man appears behind the bar in my peripheral vision. He must have come through a back door somehow. I feel tingles on my scalp, because he’s watching me.
Slowly, I turn to face him. And holy shishkebab. Six-foot-three inches of my high school heartbreak is staring intently at me.
All my blood stops circulating. There stands the man who basically ripped the beating organ right out of my chest and stomped it with a motorcycle boot. I need to look away, but I almost can’t. My heart is pounding wildly inside my chest, and I feel the onset of a fight-or-flight response coming on.
Flight is sounding like a good option.
Yet, because I’m a big idiot, I keep on staring. And he looks good. When did his shoulders get so wide? His eyes are just as beautiful as they always were, so dark and brooding.
From the nose down, he’s not the same, though. He isn’t the clean-shaven high school senior who once kissed me. This version of Benito has a scruffy beard. And his hair is a little too long.
It does nothing to dim his attractiveness, though. On the contrary, the mountain-man look suits him.
This is information that I never needed, by the way. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that he grew up as hot or hotter than he was at eighteen.
Back then, my whole world orbited around this man. Even now I feel my world tilt subtly in his direction. He has his own gravitational pull. And he looks…devastated. For a split second I see hurt in his eyes when he looks at me. And then I blink and it’s gone. His face is impassive.
But he’s still staring at me.
Trying for casual, I lift the cider glass to my lips and take another sip. I study him.
“Skylar.”
At the sound of his sexy rumble, my hand wobbles, and I actually spill a drop of cider on my wrist. Smooth, Skye.
He ducks under the bar, which puts him right beside me. I get a whiff of him, and it wrecks me all over again. Leather and pine needles. “Come over here and talk to me,” he says in a soft voice that brings out goosebumps all over my body. Then he takes my wrist in one large hand and leads me across the room.
Everything is happening too fast. His hand is wide and warm, and my brain is all swimmy. If only I could go meditate for a half hour somewhere, to clear my head. But who am I kidding? A prepaid week at a yoga spa wouldn’t be enough to restore my equilibrium right now.
Benito nudges me toward a booth, where I sit down hastily, tucking my duffel bag against the wall and setting my drink on the table. I’m breathing too quickly as Benito shrugs off his leather jacket and tosses it onto the opposing seat.
I have no choice but to look up. The first thing I see when I lift my chin is his black T-shirt. It hugs an impressive set of abs. I lift my gaze slowly, taking in a chest far more sculpted than even my fantasies and a muscular arm propped on the table.
Wow. He must have spent the last twelve years at the gym.
Then, when it can be avoided no longer, I look up into his face. And there it is—the cognac-colored gaze that had always regarded me softly. When we were friends, I looked into those big eyes a thousand times, and they never let me down.
Until the night when they did.
True North
Giveaway Alert
We’re giving one lucky winner their choice of one of our Sunday Spotlight books. Use the Gleam widget below to enter for one of this month’s features.
Are you as excited for this release as we are? Let us know how excited you are and what other books you’re looking forward to this year!
About the Author
About Sarina Bowen
Sarina Bowen is the RITA® Award winning author of over two dozen contemporary and LGTB romance novels. She most recently hit the USA Today bestseller's list in February, with Brooklynaire. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina holds a BA in economics from Yale University.
Sarina Bowen is a New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country since the 1760s. Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. On a few wooded acres, she lives with her husband, two boys, and an ungodly amount of ski and hockey gear.
Sarina's books are published in a dozen languages on four continents. In 2016, The Romance Writers of America honored HIM by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy with a RITA award for Best Contemporary Romance, Mid-Length.
This book, Diamond Fire, and Someone to Trust by Mary Balogh are the ones at the top of my list this month.
Well I just LOVE Sarina Bowen, but I have only read Bittersweet!! But her books are so fun to read.
Sarina Bowen is a favorite author of mine, and this sounds like a fun read. I’m looking forward to it.
I haven’t started this series yet, but it does sound great! I think the books I’ve been anxiously awaiting this month have all come out. Then again, I might have a surprise preorder delivery.
Fireworks by Sarina Bowen one of my favorite authors ! Look Alive Twenty Five by Janet Evanovich. My Favorite Half-night Stand by Christina Lauren just to name a few new releases i cant wait for !