Teaser Tuesday ~ Comeback by Catherine Gayle

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

• Anyone is able to play along, just do the following :)
• Grab your current read 
• Open to a random page 
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page 
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!) 
• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Nicklas Ericsson is an addict. He’s also a star goaltender with the NHL’s Portland Storm, or he was until his addiction changed everything. Now he’s throwing himself into doing all the necessary things to pave his path to a comeback, both in his personal life and on the ice. Nicky’s run out of options, and now his sister and her children are in Portland. They need help he has no clue how to provide, though, and figuring it out might derail all the progress he’s made.

For a few years now, Jessica Lynch has been running the Portland office for the Light the Lamp Foundation. Between her work and several people from her past, she knows more than she’d like about addicts. One lesson she’s learned is that even when addicts try to turn their lives around, more often than not, they fail. That’s why she takes a hands off approach, keeping her heart well away from the addicts she works with, like Nicky Ericsson.

Nicky’s recovery efforts put him directly in Jessica’s path, and she can’t ignore his very real need for help. Where Nicky is concerned, she can’t separate her emotions. His niece and nephews further complicate her efforts to guard her heart. The attraction between Nicky and Jessica is instant and mutual, but she’s misplaced her trust too many times before. Can he prove that he won't fall back into old habits in time to complete the perfect comeback?

My Teaser

Now that I'd made it clear to him, not to mention to myself, that I wasn't able to keep my heart closed to him, the entire barrier I'd built for myself seemed to have just been smashed. The pieces of it lay crumbled beneath our feet before washing away with the rain, and now I felt as vulnerable as I had when I was a little girl coming to terms with the fact that my father wasn't exactly a safe person in my life.

All The Way to Heaven by Becky Doughty - Blitz and Giveaway

All the Way to Heaven
(The Fallout Series #1)
by Becky Doughty
Published by: Clean Teen Publishing
Publication date: November 2nd 2015
Genres: New Adult, Romance

Anica Tomlin, business major, has just learned that the man she’s been planning her future around, her Global Finance professor, already has a beautiful wife and family. Ani cashes in her graduation gift to herself a little early—a trip to Tuscany—but from the moment she boards the wrong train in Pisa, her plans for solitude and self-indulgence begin to unravel around her.

When a bicycle accident thrusts Ani into the skilled hands of the dashing Dr. Cosimo Lazzaro, she reluctantly accepts his invitation to recover in his family’s country villa, perched on a hilltop surrounded by the Lazzaro olive groves. But it’s been a black year for olive growers all over Italy, and generations of tradition are being put to the test like never before.

Ani is swept up in the drama of life in Tuscany, the convergence of old and new, and the passions that drive people to pursue the desires of their hearts. Just as Ani begins to get her feet under her again, an unexpected turn of events leaves her doubting the very existence of happily-ever-after, unless she can learn to trust the desires of her own heart.

Although All the Way to Heaven is a stand-alone novel, it is the first book in The Fallout Series, a collection of sweet contemporary romances that follow characters featured in the first book.

Goodreads / Amazon / B&N

EXCERPT from All The Way to Heaven

Seven AM in Lucca, and the quaint medieval town was teeming with life, fueled by a caffeine-and-Mediterranean-air-induced high. Bicycle bells jingle-jangled, and boisterous greetings volleyed from one side of the narrow streets to the other. School children laughed and called out to comrades as they scurried off to class.

“Why is everyone so happy?” I pulled a lumpy pillow over my head, but I could find no entry back into the anesthetizing arms of sleep.

My first morning in this enchanted place, and I felt more like a forgotten princess in a tower than a girl on a much-anticipated trip to Italy.

I hadn’t expected to fall asleep right away, but after a hot shower and a bowl of the packaged soup my mom had slipped into my luggage before they drove me to the airport, fatigue settled its heavy cloak around my shoulders. Crawling between the crisp sheets that smelled of bleach and lavender, I was disquieted by the unfamiliar stillness of a town that collectively slept at night. My world was round-the-clock, where the freeway slowed, but never stopped, businesses stayed open twenty-four hours a day, and people lived in shifts, as though afraid the earth might cease turning on its axis the moment no one was looking. But sleep, I did, like a stone, in spite of the tears that made it impossible to breathe through my nose.

Morning, however, had arrived with a vengeance, the stillness before dawn exploding into a cacophony of sound as unfamiliar to me as last night’s stillness. Cobbled streets bordered by tall, ancient stone buildings made shouts and laughter echo and reverberate, each sound amplified. Everything felt so close, but no one here seemed to mind. Like an orchestra tuning its instruments before a performance, each noise outside the window was finding its perfect pitch in the symphony entitled, “A Day in the Life of Lucca.”

About the Author

Becky Doughty is the author of the best-selling Elderberry Croft series, The Gustafson Girls series, Waters Fall, and more. She’s also the voice behind BraveHeart Audiobooks. She writes Women’s Fiction with strong elements of romance, as well as Young Adult and New Adult Fiction. Becky’s favorite people are edge-dwellers, those who live on that fine line where hope and despair meet, where love is the only answer and grace becomes truly amazing. Becky is married to her champion of more than 25 years. They have three children, two of whom are grown and starting families of their own, and they all live within a few miles of each other in Southern California. They share their lives with too many animals, a large vegetable garden, and a strange underground concrete room they’re certain was built for dark and sinister purposes….

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

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#TGIT Recap Season 2 ~ Week 3

To see last week's recap click here.

This week's episodes of TGIT were great!  There was a some adult things happening this week as well as the normal dose of drama, plus the extra person getting thrown under the bus!  Yeah, it was a great week!  Here's your weekly recap...

Baby issues?

Grey's Anatomy

I Choose You

This episode mainly focused on Alex and a case with two newborn twins that are dying from tumors.  The Challenge: He can only choose one to get a liver transplant from the father, who was a match.  Amongst this is new drama with Jo, who found an old record or receipt or something that involved the embryos he froze with Izzie.  This led to a whole conversation about their future and they ended up working it out.  

Other important things:

• Maggie was invited to her ex boyfriend's wedding, which was not cool, but then she makes out with the new guy, Andrew so it all ends up okay!  ;)
• Meredith is being told she's not getting paid enough for her new job, so she finally just goes to Bailey and asks for a raise, so she is proud of her
• Jackson kept trying to get April out of his apartment, but since she wouldn't leave, he left (to Bailey's house)

"Watch me choose you!"

Scandal

Paris Is Burning

The moment we've waited FIVE SEASONS for finally happened: Olitz has gone public!  This leads to massive negotiations in the White House between Ftiz and Mellie because they need to do an interview together, proving that they're stronger than ever.  Abby and Cyrus are the messengers for both sides respectively. Long story short, they come to an agreement but Mellie drops out at the last minute.  The White House has to go to its last resort by throwing Olivia on the bus!

Other important things:

• Cyrus makes a big speech to Ftiz about how he should get his job back and they can finish out what they started.  Fitz's response: "you don't work here anymore"
• This is what influences Cyrus to play Mellie and convincing her to drop out of the interview
• Olivia sees Mellie in her gigantic closet and she has a beautiful monologue about giving up everything to be First Lady and how her hooch is the only thing that makes her feel alive instead of numb.
• Back at OPA, Jake, Quinn, and Huck have a drinking party because they assume it's the end for them
• At the end of the episode, Quinn points out that the Louvre is on fire, but the biggest story is still the Olitz scandal
• This prompts Jake to go talk to Papa Pope in prison and he ends the episode with one of his sophisticated coded references to old literature or something, so we're confused now because now we don't know who's behind all of this!

As if it wasn't already too much...

How to Get Away with Murder

It's Called the Octopus

This episode focuses a lot on adult things, but in the overall story, it really was about Nate.  He ends up getting his job back as a police officer, but the really interesting thing is that he's now involved with the night that happens seven weeks from now.  He calls Annalise, but she never answers. At the end of the episode we see him getting the (now escaped) Keating 4 in his police car.
Other important things: 

• The maid for the Hapstalls leaks photos of them that makes it appear as if they are incestuous, which we've come to find out is true!
• Wes discovers the guy that Michaela is currently seeing (Levi) is EGGS 911!  What's even more shocking is that it's Rebecca's brother!  
• Where did the "Eggs" in "EGGS 911"come from? It was Rebecca's nickname after she dropped a carton of eggs
• Asher is being blackmailed by Emily Sinclair into getting information from Annalise on the Hapstall case
• The Dirt: There's something to do with a girl named Tiffany at a place called Trotter Lake
• Connor is all ready to do adult things with Oliver so they're happy again, but the biggest accomplishment for Connor was that he never did adult things with anyone before then! 

Ready?  Now you're ready to watch #TGIT tonight starting at 8/7c on ABC! DO NOT MISS IT!