Monday, March 5, 2012

Ride With Me & About Last Night (First Sneek Peak) + Giveaway

I am so excited to let you all know about Ride With Me and soon to be released About Last Night by Ruthie Knox. I have Ride With Me on my Kindle and it is next up on my reading list. I wish I could read all day and that I was a fast reader. Unfortunately life gets in the way and I am a slow reader. Good news for me....two hot books that I can't wait to read!

Synopsis: In this fun, scorching-hot eBook original romance by Ruthie Knox, a cross-country bike adventure takes a detour into unexplored passion. As readers will discover, Ride with Me is not about the bike!

When Lexie Marshall places an ad for a cycling companion, she hopes to find someone friendly and fun to cross the TransAmerica Trail with. Instead, she gets Tom Geiger--a lean, sexy loner whose bad attitude threatens to spoil the adventure she's spent years planning.

Roped into the cycling equivalent of a blind date by his sister, Tom doesn't want to ride with a chatty, go-by-the-map kind of woman, and he certainly doesn't want to want her. Too bad the sight of Lexie with a bike between her thighs really turns his crank.

Even Tom's stubborn determination to keep Lexie at a distance can't stop a kiss from leading to endless nights of hotter-than-hot sex. But when the wild ride ends, where will they go next?


Meet the Author:  Ruthie Knox figured out how to walk and read at the same time in the second grade, and she hasn't looked up since. She spent her formative years hiding romance novels in her bedroom closet to avoid the merciless teasing of her brothers and imagining scenarios in which someone who looked remarkably like Daniel Day Lewis recognized her well-hidden sex appeal and rescued her from middle-class Midwestern obscurity. After graduating from Grinnell College with an English and history double major, she earned a Ph.D. in modern British history that she's put to remarkably little use. These days, she writes contemporary romance in which witty, down-to-earth characters find each other irresistible in their pajamas, though she freely admits this has yet to happen to her. Perhaps she needs more exciting pajamas. Ruthie abhors an epilogue and insists a decent romance requires at least three good sex scenes.
This biography was provided by the author or their representative.

A special message from Ruthie Knox (I know, pinch me, right?):
Thanks to Jill for hosting what is the final spot on my blog tour for my debut release, Ride with Me. In the past month or so, I’ve written forty-three guest posts about Ride with Me for other people’s blogs. That’s a lot of yammering! I’m ready to retreat into my Cave of Introversion and not come out for a few months. (Don’t tell my editor. She’ll never allow it.)

Seriously, though, I’ve talked about Ride with Me from as many directions as I could think of. I’ve blogged about camping and biking and adventure and disaster. I’ve praised grouchy heroes and plucky heroines. I’ve written posts about banter and tent sex and getting over my sex-scene-writing embarrassment. I’ve written a couple mini-plays featuring my characters. (For the curious, the full list of stops on my blog tour is here.)

Along the way, I’ve experienced all the crazy ups and downs of my first book release — reviews, sales figures, strangers talking about me on the Internet. So far, so good!

Plus, I now know what it’s like to be published. It’s heady stuff. When I was a newbie writer, I worried about whether I would ever sell my book. After Random House bought it, I worried about whether anyone would like it. Now that people are reading it and liking it, I’ve found new things to worry about — whether anyone will like the next one, whether I’ll ever sell a third, et cetera. Apparently, the supply of authorial worries is endless.

But for the most part, I have better things to do than worry. I’ve met so many neat people this past month — readers, other authors, new friends — and now I have fans to correspond with, a website and Facebook page to keep up to date, more books to write, and pretty soon the launch of a second book to worry about!

The world keeps spinning. I’m going to keep looking forward, bravely marching off into the uncharted (by me) territories of Authorhood.

In that spirit, rather than promoting Ride with Me today, I’m sharing a secret snippet from my next book, About Last Night, which is now available for preorder from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and will release from Loveswept on June 11.




Synopsis: Sure, opposites attract, but in this sexy, smart, eBook original romance from Ruthie Knox, they positively combust! When a buttoned-up banker falls for a bad girl, “about last night” is just the beginning.

Cath Talarico knows a mistake when she makes it, and God knows she’s made her share. So many, in fact, that this Chicago girl knows London is her last, best shot at starting over. But bad habits are hard to break, and soon Cath finds herself back where she has vowed never to go . . . in the bed of a man who is all kinds of wrong: too rich, too classy, too uptight for a free-spirited troublemaker like her.

Nev Chamberlain feels trapped and miserable in his family’s banking empire. But beneath his pinstripes is an artist and bohemian struggling to break free and lose control. Mary Catherine—even her name turns him on—with her tattoos, her secrets, and her gamine, sex-starved body, unleashes all kinds of fantasies.

When blue blood mixes with bad blood, can a couple that is definitely wrong for each other ever be perfectly right? And with a little luck and a lot of love, can they make last night last a lifetime?

What People Are Saying . . .

“A page-turner, full of sex, sizzle, and heart.” —Susan Andersen, New York Times best-selling author of Playing Dirty

“Smart and sexy . . . About Last Night is absolutely irresistible.” —Shiloh Walker, author of the Ash Trilogy

“If only all romances were this funny, smart, sexy, and real!” —Isabel Sharpe, Harlequin Blaze

EXCERPT

Setup: This scene is from the first chapter. Our heroine, Cath, is on a train station platform in Greenwich, near London. She’s made a bet with another woman that she can predict the next three people to come up the stairs to the platform. Our hero, Nev—she calls him “City”—is the third arrival.

Cath glanced at the station’s clock and repressed a smile. She only needed one more to complete the hat trick, and you could set your watch by the next guy.

“Tall blond man in an expensive suit, Financial Times under his arm,” she said, then added, “Possibly a cyborg.”

Thirty seconds ticked by, and City rose into view, punctual as ever and way too good looking to be human.

Cath had a soft spot for City. From the moment she’d spotted him waiting for the train to Bank last winter, he’d intrigued her. She’d given him the nickname as a nod to his profession, because everything about him announced he worked in the City of London, the square-mile financial district at the center of the metropolis: the dignified wool overcoat and scarf he’d worn all winter, the shined shoes, the ever-present newspaper. Aristocratically remote, he was Prince Charming in a suit.

Amanda applauded, whether for her or for City, Cath couldn’t tell. She suppressed a triumphant grin and allowed herself a moment to watch him pass. He gave her his usual stiff nod, the greeting they’d long since settled on for their semi-regular encounters.

She’d never heard City talk or seen him crack a smile. He didn’t even fidget, just stood stoically in place until the train pulled up, then stared straight ahead once seated in the car. Cool as a cucumber and veddy, veddy English. At least, that’s how she imagined him when she wrote about him in her journal. She’d bet her next paltry paycheck he had a posh accent, an expensive education, and a boring job moving piles of money around. He was her polar opposite.

Still, she always kept an eye out for him. She saw City two or three mornings a week, either here or at Greenwich Park, where both of them liked to run. In motion, he was a beautiful thing, a Scandinavian god with flushed cheeks. She loved that flash of pink on his face—such an endearing crack in his cool perfection. It made her want to muss his hair and tie his shoelaces together when he wasn’t looking, just to see what would happen.

And now he’d helped her win access to the piece she so badly wanted for the exhibit. You really had to love him.

GIVEAWAY

How about you — have you ever had a crush on a not-quite-stranger who you see on your commute, at the local Starbucks, or the like? One lucky commenter will be randomly chosen to win a digital copy of Ride with Me or a preorder copy of About Last Night — your choice!

To enter the giveaway please follow all of the directions below! Giveaway ends March 13, 2012.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

27 comments:

  1. I can't say that I have had a real crush on someone that I have only occasionally ran into.

    I would love to though, but not have struck me that way.

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  2. My crush was on a barista at one of the Starbucks here. I knew that he was much younger than I was so we just talked whenever I came in.

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  3. wasn't really a crush to speak of, but i thought i saw my dad at the eye doctoers office. he's been gone over 5 years now and i had to keep just looking at him

    julie

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  4. Not really. I like to get to know people. Looks only count for a small portion of what attracts me. :)e

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  5. I had alot of crushes on guys in high school but not since I got married I now have a perminent one on hubby:)

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  6. I had a huge crush on a co-worker. I felt like a silly 16 year old mooning over him. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a jerk and told me he would marry me if I allowed him to have 5 other wives. I said no thanks.

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  7. Haven't had a crush on anybody in years. I had a couple in high school.

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  8. Not since the start of college... some georgeous guys in the commons... but werent' science guys so I never saw them in classes...

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  9. I've had several crushes in my life. It's a good thing, makes you all giddy!

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  10. No crushes here. Not only people. Just on books and book covers! hehe

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  11. I never had any crushes until I met my hubby. It must have been right though because we will be married 23 years on March 18.
    purpleunicorn19(at)yahoo.com

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  12. I occasionally work at a location where we have to ride a tram in from a guardshack. Usually it is a 20 minute ride with all the stops and a new tram coming every four minutes or so. I would try to time my arrival to ride the tram in with Brandon, how I had an uber-crush on. He was so nice, we had funny conversations, he shared about his upbringing (the only boy with two sisters), etc. He was so unassumingly charming and seemed oblivious to his affect on women. Alas, he was promoted and his shift changed. I miss those tram rides with him...

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  13. Had a mad crush in high school .. he never found out, guess as I got older I never had one, or else I called them lusts instead. ;)

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  14. Thanks for all the comments, ladies! I can't believe so many of you are not the crushing type. I didn't know there *was* such a type! Now I feel distinctly lacking in virtue. Bad, bad Ruthie. ;)

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  15. Ruthie..."Mary Catherine" with her tattoos, and sex starved body? I swear I had a teacher with the name Sister Mary Catherine !! Can't wait to read this story!!!!!!!

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  16. Whoops...commented about the wrong thing!!! My one and only crush turned out to be my husband. He had just come back from Viet Nam...(showing my age) and lived across the hall. I was thrilled when he asked me to play tennis,(never played before in my life!!) Thank goodness it's not all about first impressions!

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  17. There's this really cute guy that comes into my work. Too bad he's taken lol. I'm a horrible person, I admit it :D

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  18. Sassenach, Charlotte Stein has a great erotica book that starts that way. ;-) ALL OTHER THINGS -- if you like erotica.

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  19. HY RUTHIE

    I had one of crushes on guy in my office until now..he is expat in my office (from korea).

    he is make me broken heart coz he's have a wife and child, but for me its ok (actually poor for me)..^^

    thank for this giveaway..

    success for you ^^

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  21. i have crush on one of my childhood friend.. too bad for me, he's already married, and gonna have a baby soon..

    but im happy now, i got someone of my side..

    thanks for the giveaway

    e: sunshine_pinkystar(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  22. You ladies are making me smile this morning! I think I need to look around today and find a crush!

    Jill - Seaside Book Nook

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  24. I don´t have any crush since i´m to stressed to see my fellow commuters =) Love the interview and giveaway, this is def. going up on my TBR list! =)

    best wishes, Linda xo

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  25. I can't say that I have.

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  26. I can't think of one as an adult but when I was in high school that was common.

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