Secrets...
Evie Sandstrom has always had secrets. She has grown up with them and now they are coming back and chipping away at her confident facade. Always one for an adventure, she decides to leave after college break and spend the summer in Boston.
The Irish Gangster...
Finn Reilly is not only a bad-boy drug dealer but he is also Evie's first love. When they meet again in Boston, sparks begin to fly and although they share one huge secret that should have destroyed them forever, it unites them at a time when she needs all the help she can get.
The French Model...
Evie's mother, superstar actress Athena Donahue, has remarried to Etienne Fournier, a model who is eighteen years her mother's junior and wants to get to know Evie in more ways than one.
Once Athena drags her daughter back to L.A. under dubious circumstances, she is within the sights of Etienne yet out of the sights of Finn. Can they resolve their differences and will true love prevail or will life get in the way and spoil their chances of happiness?
Excerpt
My flight to Boston from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport went off without a hitch and I arrived in the city I’d called home for the first eight years of my life enthused and giddy despite the exhaustion that hadn’t set in though I knew it would eventually.
I checked my phone while I waited at the baggage carousel and wasn’t surprised to find several messages, all but one of them, from my mother.
“How could you do this to me? Don’t you understand how embarrassing it all is? None of them give a damn about you and all they’ll do is ask you for money. I have already contacted your grandparents and told them to send you away when you show up so don’t expect a warm welcoming from them. When you come to your senses, call me back and let me know when I should expect you in L.A.”
I pressed the delete button and listened to the final message. “Hey, gorgeous, it’s Dylan, your cousin—remember me? I’m not staying in Dorchester anymore but own a cute little walk-up in the gentrified area of Charlestown.”
I smiled as I listened to the rest of the message before he gave me his address and instructed me to call him as soon as I was on my way. I grabbed the two Hartmann spinners I owned—both hardside to prevent damage to my precious clothing cargo—and walked out of the airport to flag a cab down.
It didn’t take me long to find one and I quickly hopped in before I gave the driver the address, some double-digit numbered house on School Street and wondered how well I would adjust to my new surroundings. It didn’t take too long for me to find out when less than forty minutes later we were pulling up to a swanky single-family, three-story home painted gray and obviously built within the past ten years. Although it only had a one car garage, there was obvious a vehicle parked inside and late-model, pearl white Cadillac Escalade blocking the garage.
I didn’t get the chance to ring the door before my cousin ran out barefoot in nothing but a pair of black stovepipe jeans and a matching wife-beater. I threw my arms around his neck as he twirled me around.
“How’s my favorite baby cousin been doin’?” Dylan exclaimed happily in that thick Bostonian accent of his that was pure Dorchester even if he was residing in Charlestown now.
“I’m doin’ good,” I replied before I held him at arm’s length to get a good look at him.
Dylan had always been thin but now he was firmly a man at twenty-five who obviously lifted weights though he was still lean. His skin, the color of alabaster, suited his short dark hair and piercing blue-gray eyes so prevalent in the McKenna clan though they firmly came from my grandmother’s side of the family. Before Cleona had been a McKenna, she’d been a Donahue, hence where my mother had gotten her name from. She thought Athena Donahue would sound better than Athena McKenna and she was right.
My cousin grabbed my suitcases, paid the driver and we walked inside. The place was complete with blonde hardwood floors and minimal furniture. There’d obviously been some kind of get-together the night before because the place smelled heavily of stale beer, marijuana and cigarettes.
I turned toward Dylan and stared at him as I cocked my head to the side. “The dope business must be good. How much did a place like this cost you?”
“Can you believe the yuppie bastards I brought this place from wanted nearly a mil for it? I was payin’ in cash and they liked that a hell of a lot better than havin’ to deal with a bank and transferring mortgages and shit. It allowed ‘em to pay off the mortgage they had and I got this dope fuckin’ pad away from my parents.”
He walked towards me and I found myself backing up self-consciously until my back hit a wall. “What are you doin’ here? Your mother is raisin’ all kinds of stink about you being back here. Hell, even Patrick and Clara are frightened you’re gonna pay them a visit and take away their precious bundle. You didn’t come back to do that, did ya?”
I shook my head. “What the hell am I going to do with a kid? I just couldn’t handle L.A. right now and the first place I thought about was here. I even transferred to Boston Uni because I didn’t want to stay in Seattle.”
“Good, just stay away from Fiona and her gang of friends, including Chloe. If you can manage that then you should be fine. I don’t want you turnin’ into a skank like my sister, you got that? It’s rough out here.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know it by the way you’re flossin’,” I responded sarcastically.
“What can I say? The Oxy and coke markets are good. Especially now those Oxyballs have gotten so popular. I try to stay from that Bath Salt crap—too much weird psycho shit I’ve seen people do when they are on it…but I got help and I am not runnin’ this organization alone.”
“No doubt you gotta give McGee a cut?”
“Well, you know how it is? The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“You can say that again,” another male voice said and when I turned its way, the face and body I saw took my breath away.
Title: Undertow
Author: Elle Chardou
Release date: February 3, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Group: New Adult
Event organized by: AToMR Tours
Book Links:
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/281963
Createspace (Paperback): https://www.createspace.com/4161811
Giveaway!!
The first installment of The Atonement Series.
Deirdre Bardot is a PhD student at Harvard and on her way home for Thanksgiving when she finds out her father has been murdered in a vicious hit and run by a drunk driver.
Forced to piece her life together after such a traumatic event, Deirdre moves back to Seattle to be closer to her younger sister, Caitlyn, and their mother.
When her psychiatrist, Dr. van der Meer, suggests she needs to get away from it all and take a vacation, her best friend decides to introduce her to a friend of his who has more or less the same idea. Colin is perfect: he's good looking, self-deprecating and sexy as hell but he also happens to be the Dr. van der Meer's son.
Deirdre finds herself falling hard for a guy she barely knows and one who is equally into her as she is into him. They decide a trip to Western Europe together is the perfect way to get to know one another a whole lot better.
Then an unspeakable and random act of violence occurs one night and Colin realizes he is forced to reveal a secret to Deirdre he has been hiding...a secret that is breaking him, and in doing so to free his conscience, he just might destroy the relationship he has created with Deirdre and lose her forever.
Deirdre Bardot is a PhD student at Harvard and on her way home for Thanksgiving when she finds out her father has been murdered in a vicious hit and run by a drunk driver.
Forced to piece her life together after such a traumatic event, Deirdre moves back to Seattle to be closer to her younger sister, Caitlyn, and their mother.
When her psychiatrist, Dr. van der Meer, suggests she needs to get away from it all and take a vacation, her best friend decides to introduce her to a friend of his who has more or less the same idea. Colin is perfect: he's good looking, self-deprecating and sexy as hell but he also happens to be the Dr. van der Meer's son.
Deirdre finds herself falling hard for a guy she barely knows and one who is equally into her as she is into him. They decide a trip to Western Europe together is the perfect way to get to know one another a whole lot better.
Then an unspeakable and random act of violence occurs one night and Colin realizes he is forced to reveal a secret to Deirdre he has been hiding...a secret that is breaking him, and in doing so to free his conscience, he just might destroy the relationship he has created with Deirdre and lose her forever.
Publisher's Note: Due to mature adult themes, sexually explicit scenes and adult language, this novel is not suitable for minors under the age of 18.
Elle Chardou is a world traveler and author of several different series.
Ms. Chardou is the author of The Ties That Bind Trilogy, The Atonement Series, The Hart Family Saga, The Vamp Saga, The Supernaturals, Beginnings: Book I (The Plague) series.
She is currently working on Only Love (The Atonement Series), Queen of the Immortals, Book Three in The Vamp Saga.
Ms. Chardou has lived abroad in Stockholm (Sweden), Manchester (England), Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland. She currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Author social media links:
Blog: The Beautiful People: A Writer’s Journey located http://thebeautifulpeopleawritersjourney.blogspot.com.
Follow Elle Chardou on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/dblanchbenz007
Like Elle Chardou on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Elle.Chardou.
1 comment:
Great promo!
The excerpt was great, and I love the colors in the cover of Undertow!!
-Theresa M. Jones
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