Sunday Spotlight is a feature we’re running in 2016. Each week, we will spotlight a release we’re excited about. We’ll be posting exclusive excerpts and being total fangirls. You’ve been warned. 🙂
Sarina Bowen made it on to my radar a couple of years ago when I couldn’t get enough of her Ivy Years series. She won me over with the very first book and with each passing book, it just kept getting better and better. She has a knack for tackling serious issues that we face in each book and making readers sit up and take notice of her writing but also the choices that they make in real life.
I was excited when Sarina announced a new series because I will read anything and everything she writes. I’m looking forward to getting to know Griff because I just know that I’m going love him. squee
Bittersweet (True North #1) by Sarina Bowen
Releases on June 14, 2016 by Rennie Road Books
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The new series is set in Vermont. True North is populated by the tough, outdoorsy mountain men that populate the Green Mountain State. They raise cows and they grow apples. They chop a lot of wood, especially when they need to blow off steam. (Beards are optional but encouraged.)
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the orchard.
The last person Griffin Shipley expects to find stuck in a ditch on his Vermont country road is his ex-hookup. Five years ago they’d shared a couple of steamy nights together. But that was a lifetime ago.
At twenty-seven, Griff is now the accidental patriarch of his family farm. Even his enormous shoulders feel the strain of supporting his mother, three siblings and a dotty grandfather. He doesn’t have time for the sorority girl who’s shown up expecting to buy his harvest at half price.
Vermont was never in Audrey Kidder’s travel plans. Neither was Griff Shipley. But she needs a second chance with the restaurant conglomerate employing her. Okay—a fifth chance. And no self-righteous lumbersexual farmer will stand in her way.
They’re adversaries. They want entirely different things from life. Too bad their sexual chemistry is as hot as Audrey’s top secret enchilada sauce, and then some.
Holly has already read and loved this book so that makes me so stinkin’ excited to jump into my own copy. This excerpt has done nothing to dampen my excitement for this book.
Excerpt
He lifted one giant hand to stroke his beard. “You might have called first. Did you think of that?”
“Good point,” I said gamely. “The BPG buyer told me that it was better to just drive up. He said farmers don’t answer their phones.”
Griff tipped his scruffy face toward the sky and made an unexpected sound which I eventually identified as laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
He crossed his bulky, lickable arms. “Look,” he said. “I have a feeling I know why your man at BPG doesn’t have his calls answered too often. His prices are bullshit, right? So his new plan is to send a hot sorority girl in a halter top and short skirt to dazzle the poor hicks who grow his food. Your guy thinks I’m a big enough idiot that a nice rack and a bright smile will blind me for long enough to agree to sell apples for a buck a pound.”
Later I would remember this moment as important. Standing there on Griff’s road, I’d gleaned the first prickle of understanding that a flat tire was just the start of my buzz kill. A brand new sinking feeling kicked in, because I had a hunch that Griff Shipley knew what he was talking about for once. I opened the price list in my hand to see that the first item on the list was, indeed, “Apples: $0.99 / lb.”
Fuck. “So you’re saying that a dollar a pound is not the market rate for wholesale apples?” I said it as sweetly as possible, but Griff’s face began to darken like a stormy sky.
“Listen, princess,” he growled. “You can buy shitty, mealy apples for that price from a giant orchard out west, or from a farmer that got swindled into growing only Red Delicious during the eighties and can’t afford to re-graft his trees. But your guy wants organic apples, probably heirloom varietals. He wants bragging rights on the menu—apples grown locally in New England, with no pesticides, and blessed by virgins in the moonlight. That’s what he wants hand-lettered on the menu, right?”
“Right,” I agreed reluctantly. That was exactly how it worked.
“That does not come at a buck a pound. Not from me, and not from any of my neighbors.”
Uh-oh. My heart sank a little further into the dirt, just like my rental car.
Oh, I already love Griff. I’m pretty sure that I look like this:
credit
16 more days guys, we only have to wait 16 more days. Yay!
True North Series
Giveaway: We’re giving one lucky winner their choice of one of our Sunday Spotlight books. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter for one of May’s features.
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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
Sarina Bowen is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance. She lives in Vermont’s Green Mountains with her family, six chickens and too much ski gear and hockey equipment.
I’ve been a fan of Sarina since The Ivy Years series, while waiting for The Rookie Move, I’m very excited about this True North series!!!
Honestly can’t wait for the new Kleypas to arrive on Tuesday!
Looking forward to Sarina’s upcoming release. Also can’t wait to pick up Laura Griffin’s new release Deep Dark.
I’m definitely looking forward to reading Sarina Bowen’s latest book. Her Ivy Years books are favorites.
Looking forward to the new Lisa Kleypas.