TAKE ME UNDER
Dangerous Tides, Book 1
Format: Paperback and eBook
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Publication Date: June 4, 2013
Ben
Hudson had a thing for shy, sexy Reese Monroe from the moment he first
saw her three years ago. Back then, she was married and living in
Boston—two very good reasons for the Miami detective with a bad boy
reputation to stay away.
But that was then…
Now Reese is divorced and moving to Florida, where her mother has rented her a small beach house—one that happens to be owned by Ben. Living right next door, he can’t get Reese’s soft curves out of his mind. He’s waited three long years to touch her in all the ways he’s been dreaming about, and this time he won’t let anything get in his way.
For Reese, Ben’s sudden advances are thrilling, but leave her stunned. With her limited experience in the bedroom, she never expects a man with such a wicked reputation to go after her. She knows she should be on guard, but he’s a temptation she can’t resist. And when trouble follows her down from Boston, threatening her life, Ben may be the only one who can help her.
But that was then…
Now Reese is divorced and moving to Florida, where her mother has rented her a small beach house—one that happens to be owned by Ben. Living right next door, he can’t get Reese’s soft curves out of his mind. He’s waited three long years to touch her in all the ways he’s been dreaming about, and this time he won’t let anything get in his way.
For Reese, Ben’s sudden advances are thrilling, but leave her stunned. With her limited experience in the bedroom, she never expects a man with such a wicked reputation to go after her. She knows she should be on guard, but he’s a temptation she can’t resist. And when trouble follows her down from Boston, threatening her life, Ben may be the only one who can help her.
********* INTERVIEW ********
United By Books is pleased to have Rhyannon Byrd on the blog today so we can learn more about her amazing books........
1 ~ Can you please share with us a little about yourself?
Sure! I have a wonderful husband who’s a Brit and does
all the cooking despite his busy schedule, two great kids who make me
laugh every day, two crazy but loveable dogs, and have lived in the UK
for the past five years. I love books,
music, travel, museums, beaches, sunshine, good food, good friends,
Pearl Jam concerts, my iPod, football, scented candles, movies, my Rottie and Beagle, a clean house, and last but not least, spending time with my crazy but awesome family. And I also spend a ton of time sitting at my laptop writing...to the point that I sometimes feel like my eyes are going to fall out of my head...but I stil lconsider myself incredibly lucky to have something that I enjoy so much as a fulltime career.
2 ~ Please tell us a little about your newest release?
My next two books, TAKE ME UNDER and DARKEST DESIRE OF THE VAMPIRE, are both out on June 4th!! TAKE ME UNDER is the first book in my new contemporary erotic Dangerous Tides series
with Berkley Heat. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a new erotic
romance out and I’m so excited to finally be writing them again! TAKE ME UNDER is a hot, sexy, emotional story about a shy divorcee named Reese who
moves to Florida in the hopes of escaping a psychotic stalker. When she
discovers that her mom has rented her a beach house owned by the town’s sexy bad boy sheriff, Ben Hudson, she’s shocked. But what’s even more surprising is when Ben makes it clear that he’s interested in being a hell of a lot more than her landlord. And when danger follows her to the sleepy little beach town, Ben quickly claims the role of Reese’s personal bodyguard, determined to do whatever it takes to protect her.Ben is definitely one of my all-time favorite heroes and I can’t wait to hear what readers think of him!!! :)
My other June 4th release,
DARKEST DESIRE OF THE VAMPIRE, is a Harlequin Nocturne anthology with
the lovely Lauren Hawkeye, and my novella, Wicked in Moonlight, kicks
off my new Santos Brothers vampire series with the line.
3 ~ Would you like to share an excerpt with us today?
I would love to share an excerpt from TAKE ME UNDER!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When
Reese came into the kitchen a few minutes later, after sending her mom
on her way with a promise to call her that evening, she found Ben
waiting for her. He was leaning back against one of the counters, the
dark hair hanging over his forehead only adding to his bad-boy image. He
might be the sheriff of this beautiful, upscale county, but she wasn’t
fooled. Yeah, he was a respectable guy, but he was also rough and wicked
and wild. It was like having a beautiful predator lounging in her
kitchen, making her feel like the proverbial mouse.
He
appeared to calmly be drinking a cup of coffee—until she noticed the
long fingers wrapped around his mug were white with tension. Did he
think she was going to kick him out? And would it really bother him so
much if she did?
With
those strange thoughts running through her head, something she wasn’t
ready to put a name to spread through her chest in a warm, kinda
soothing rush. She could see how hard he was trying to hold on to his
control, and it made her own nervous tension easier to deal with. But
she was still irritated by how he’d handled the situation with her
mother.
“What exactly was that?” she demanded.
He set his mug on the counter. “What was what?”
Tossing
her hands up in frustration, she said, “You do realize that my mother
now thinks we’re sleeping together, right? She’ll have told half the
town by lunchtime!”
He whistled under his breath. “She works fast, huh?”
“She’s
not the only one,” she muttered, knowing everyone was going to assume
that she’d thrown herself at Ben, when it was actually the other way
around. But how could she expect anyone to believe that shocker when she
could hardly believe it herself?
He
lifted his hands, as if claiming innocence. “Hey, I’ve been golden. I
might have kissed you last night, but I kept it tame, despite how badly
I’m dying to fuck you.”
She shook her head with disbelief. “You call that tame?”
He
closed the distance between them, crowding her against one of the
counters, all six plus feet of sexy, sleep-tousled male. “As soon as
you’re ready, let me know.”
Reese stared up at him. “Ready for what?” she asked a little breathlessly.
His eyes gleamed with wicked heat. “The untamed version.”
She
gave a nervous laugh, needing caffeine if she was meant to handle him
this early in the morning. “What I’m ready for right now is coffee and
food. Thanks to your grocery shopping, I can offer you some Cheerios and
milk.”
He
cocked his head to the side and smiled. He was so gorgeous she thought
it might actually hurt to look at him for too long, like staring at
direct sunlight. But she couldn’t look away as he said, “I’d rather just
have you.”
She
blushed as she started to respond, but was cut off by the beeping of
the phone he’d attached to his belt. “Don’t you need to answer that?”
she asked, when he just stood there, staring back at her.
“No.”
He leaned forward, gripping the counter on either side of her hips,
caging her in. “I can tell from the notification tone that it’s a text
from work.”
“You can?”
His face was right over hers now. “I can.”
“But don’t you need to—”
“Shh.”
His lips brushed against hers, tempting and warm. “I don’t want to talk
about work or my phone, Reese. So just shut up and let me kiss you.”
Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I already let you kiss me. Last night.”
Her eyes slid closed, but she could feel him smile against her mouth. “Then let me do it again. I get better with repetition.”
She
laughed, unable to believe she could be so turned on when he’d barely
even touched her. Then she gasped as his hands slipped under the hem of
her sleep shirt and settled on her hips. “I thought we were going to
have breakfast,” she said, gripping his biceps.
“But
you were complaining earlier about how I left you hanging last night.”
He kissed the corner of her mouth. “I think we should take care of that
first.”
Reese
moaned, almost sobbing with anticipation, until he finally took her
mouth in a deep, eating, toe-curling kiss. The guy did things with his
tongue that should have been outlawed, and she drowned under the
onslaught of heat and excitement, her heart tripping as he suddenly
moved his right hand, shoving it down the front of her panties...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4 ~ What's in store next for your readers?
The second installment in the Dangerous Tides series is a novella titled Make Me Yours that will be part of the WICKED AND DANGEROUS anthology that’s coming out in October with the awesome Shayla Black. Make
Me Yours falls between books 1 and 2 in the Dangerous Tides series, and
I’m already buried in book 2, KEEP ME CLOSER, which will be out in June
of next year. You meet the heroes from both of these stories in TAKE ME
UNDER, because they either work for or are related to Ben. I’m also
working on some exciting self-published projects that will be coming out
this summer, and the fifth title in my Bloodrunners series, DARK WOLF RUNNING, will be out in December.
5 ~ What's the weirdest thing you've ever done in the name of research?
Um, I plead the fifth. ;)
6 ~ What are some of your favorite kinds of stories to read?
I’ve always loved contemporary erotic romances with sexy, rugged alpha
males and they’re still the books that I buy more than any other. Of
course, I also love hot, gritty paranormals from authors like Kresley
Cole and Karen Marie Moning. I’ve also recently discovered some of the steamier new adult books that are out there and have fallen into complete lust with them.
7 ~ What is something people would be surprised to know about you?
Um...I’m
not sure. Maybe that I’m shy? That always seems to surprise people a
bit when I meet them. I wish I could be one of those super confident people who are completely comfortable in social situations, but the idea of having to do something like public speaking absolutely terrifies me. When I’m scheduled to sit on a panel at a convention or record a video interview, I will literally stress about it for days beforehand. So I live in envy of those who find that kind of thing easy.
8 ~ Do you sing and dance around the house while picking up?
All the freaking time! Seriously!!! Since my husband does all of the cooking, my daughter and I get stuck with the dishes, and we always blast music and then sing and dance around the kitchen while we do them. If my husband or son walks in, they usually almost crack a rib laughing at us, but we just sing even louder.
9 ~ Describe yourself in three words?
Loyal, Adventurous, Fun-loving.
10 ~ What is the most embarrassing thing you got caught doing?
Oh, wow, I don’t think I can pick just one, since I tend to do a lot of embarrassing things. But I can give you one of my most embarrassing “moments.” It’s silly, but we still talk about it nearly five years later. Anyway, I was at a lovely Japanese restaurant with my hubby one night,
and before we left I asked him to make sure nothing was stuck in my
teeth and smiled at him. He glanced at me, said everything was good, and
we got up to leave. Just as we walked outside we met up with a couple from his office and spent a few minutes chatting with them, then made our way to our car. Once inside, I flicked the visor down to check my lipstick in the mirror, only to come
face-to-face with a piece of broccoli stuck between my front teeth that
looked like a freaking tree!! So there I had been standing, laughing
and smiling away with this lovely couple, and the whole time they had probably been trying not to stare at the vegetation poking out from between my teeth. Ugh, I was so pissed at my hubby, but he thought it was hilarious. Needless to say, if I don’t have a mirror when we’re at a restaurant, I always do the “teeth check” with my daughter now instead of him. He can’t be trusted!!
11 ~ How did you celebrate the sale of your first book?
My hubby took us all out to eat at a Benihana, which is one of my favorite restaurants. When we got home we cracked open a delicious bottle of Veuve Clicquot and celebrated with a toast!
12 ~ What are the scenes that are the hardest for you to write?
I had to answer this question the other day, and after talking about it with a friend, they said that the scenes I most often complain about are the fight scenes. I think this is probably because it’s sometimes difficult to get the action across in precisely the way that it’s playing out in my head, and this is especially tricky when I have a large group of people fighting, like in one of my paranormal books.
There’s so much going on in a fight or battle scene—blood flying,
bodies crashing, people snarling and cursing—and it’s important to keep
the action fast-paced and fresh while still keeping it from becoming
just a confusing mass of bodies trying to rip each other to pieces.
13 ~ Is there anything special you would like to say to your readers while we have you here today?
Rhyannon
Byrd is an avid, longtime fan of romance and the author of more than
twenty paranormal and erotic titles. She has been nominated for three
Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards, including best Shape-shifter
Romance, and her books have been translated into nine languages. After
having spent years enjoying the glorious sunshine of the American South
and Southwest, Rhyannon now lives in the beautiful, but often chilly
county of Warwickshire in England with her husband and family. For more
information on Rhyannon’s books and the latest news, you can visit her website (www.rhyannonbyrd.com)or find her on Facebook and Goodreads.
TAKE ME UNDER Blog Tour Schedule
5/31- Musings From An Addicted Reader (spotlight)
5/31- Romance Junkies (interview)
6/01- Ramblings From This Chick (interview)
6/01- Scorching Book Reviews (spotlight)
6/02- HEA Romances with A Little Kick (spotlight & review)
6/03- Book Monster Reviews (spotlight)
6/03- United by Books (interview)
6/04- GraveTells (spotlight)
6/04- Wicked Readings by Tawania (spotlight)
6/05- The Reading Cafe (interview & review)
6/05- Cocktails and Books (spotlight)
6/06- Tiffy-Fit (spotlight)
6/06- Darker Passions (spotlight)
6/07- Love In A Book (interview)
6/08- Babbling About Books (spotlight)
6/08- Mimmi's Musings (spotlight)
6/09- Under The Covers (interview)
6/09- Reader Girls (spotlight)
6/10- Book Lovin' Mamas (interview & review)
6/10- Sassy Book Lovers (spotlight)
6/11- Flirting with Romance (interview)
6/11- Books, Books and More Books (spotlight)
6/13- Offbeat Vagabond (spotlight)
6/14- Reading Between The Wines (spotlight)
6/14- Riverina Romantics (spotlight)
******** GIVEAWAY *******
Rhyannon is giving away the following prizes at the end of her tour:
GRAND PRIZE:
•
$50 Amazon gift certificate
•
signed copy of Take Me Under
•
signed copy of Darkest Desire of the Vampire
•
BIG swag Pack
RUNNERS-UP:
Three (3) runners up will EACH receive all of the following prizes below:
•
signed copy of Take Me Under
•
signed copy of Darkest Desire of the Vampire
•
swag pack
1 comment:
Excellent author and I loved the interview. I love several of her series and I cannot wait to read the new book. sdylion(at)gmail(dot)com
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