Guaranteed smiles and giggles... maybe even howling chuckles... yep, rove those baby blues over the excerpt below.
And!
Guess what, werewolf lovers, Pat Cunningham just earned FIVE Delightful Divas and a Recommended Read by Autumn! For her previous release, BEST OF BREED.
A LONDON WEREWOLF IN AMERICA
by Pat Cunningham
Blurb ~
British werewolf Roderick Chase has been sent to Philadelphia to get married. Instead he finds himself the target of werecoyote assassins. His only hope: Darinda Lowell, a witch with a low tolerance level for arrogant alpha males. She agrees to act as his bodyguard and use her magic to find out who’s trying to kill him.
There’s no way the pushy wolf and the vegetarian witch can get along, or so Darinda tells herself. However, love tends to work a spell even a witch can’t ignore. Can she claim the wolf who’s won her heart, or will she lose him to a murderer?
"I like comedies. I like murder mysteries. I like paranormals. I like an evenly-matched hero and heroine engaged in snappy dialogue. And I just love me an English accent spoken in a deep sexy voice. I had a blast writing this book. Hope you have as much fun reading it." ~Pat
A BookStrand Mainstream Romance
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EXCERPT ~ A LONDON WEREWOLF IN AMERICA
She set her shoulder bag on the dresser and began to pull vials and drawstring packets out of it. The smug seeped out of Alfie’s face. “Hey. That better not be poison. I got rights.”
“Don’t worry. I’m brewing a truth potion. One good sniff and you’ll tell me everything and be happy to do it.” She smiled. “I would have gotten far less with the touch, but you had to insist on the hard way.”
“Hey. Hey, wait a minute—”
“Too late.” Darinda took a small clay bowl from her bag and poured the contents of a vial into it. Green liquid pooled in the bowl. Into this she sprinkled ground herbs from a pouch. A soft, smoky mist arose from the bowl, thick with the smell of mint. “You’d better wait in the hall,” she told Roderick. “This can have a powerful effect on people with sensitive noses.” She beamed evilly at Alfie. “Just imagine what it can do to a were.”
His imagination was working just fine. She could tell from his worried posture and the way he flinched from the bowl. She swirled the liquid in the bowl, and its steamy billow increased. Anyone other than the spell caster who caught a whiff of it would be compelled to speak the truth. She extended the bowl toward Alfie and watched his eyes glaze over.
And only then became aware of Roderick hovering far too closely over her shoulder. “I said wait in the hall. This stuff’s dangerous.”
“And leave you alone in the room with that?” He thrust his chin at Alfie. His voice slurred over the consonants, and his eyes didn’t seem to be focusing. “He’d kill you the second I turned my back. Fine mate I’d be if I allowed that to happen.”
“Whoa. She’s your mate?” Alfie said in the same fuzzy voice. “Dog, your pack’s standards have fallen.”
“Roderick,” Darinda said, “please wait in the hall. I’ll be all right. He can’t—”
Roderick shouldered her aside to confront Alfie. “You will not speak in that tone to my mate.”
“Holy scat, dog. She’s not even shifter. Don’t you teabags have rules against messing with the lower orders or something?”
“Bugger the rules. Bugger the pack. I never even wanted control of the pack to begin with. Bloody treacherous low-rankers fawning all over you, right before they go for your throat. Rip out your guts soon as look at you. Forget the upper ranks.” He snarled. “Lift your leg too high and it’s taken for threat. You can’t relax for a second. And this is your family. Think what outsiders are like.”
“Dog, that’s rough.”
“This trip is the first chance I’ve had to breathe in years. You are so fortunate,” he said to Darinda. “Free to be whatever you want, mate with whomever you please. I love this country.”
“I’m touched.” She tried to steer him toward the door and away from the misty cloud hovering over the bed. “Roderick, please—”
“I always wanted to be a cowboy,” he said dreamily. “Out in the wide open spaces with no damned pack trailing after you. Like that Eastwood fellow. He’s one of us, you know. A wolf. If he isn’t, he bloody well should be.”
“No way,” Alfie said. “He’s a coyote. Gotta be. He’s got a sense of humor. No wolf on the planet has a sense of humor. That’s why you mutts are doomed.”
“This is all fascinating,” Darinda said, tugging at Roderick’s arm. “However—”
“It would never work,” Roderick said. “The cowboy thing. Horses don’t like me. The predator-prey dynamic.” His wistful smile disappeared, and he seized Darinda’s shoulders. “You like me, don’t you?”
“Um—”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me. You’ve put your life on hold and yourself at risk to protect me, and I’ve been such a perfect brute. I’m a—what’s the Yank word?”
“Putz?” Alfie suggested.
“I was going to say ‘ass,’ but I suppose yours works. Darinda, you’re a lovely, brave, patient woman who’s been kinder to me than I deserve. I’ve never met a wolf I wanted to stand at my side more than you.”
“Roderick you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“The hell I don’t. I’m in love with you.”
“Whoa, dog,” Alfie said.
Darinda got as far as “Rod—” before his mouth closed over hers and smothered all objections. She couldn’t stop her own response. She’d been attuned to him from the beginning, and the emotions that flooded her now through the contact washed away any objections. The female in her surrendered to instinct and rose up to match the male. The cards never lied. This arrogant, overbearing, meat-eating wolf was her perfect mate.
But not here, not now, not under these circumstances. Reluctantly she broke the kiss. “We’ll talk about this later,” she promised him.
“I get her when you’re done,” Alfie said. Roderick snarled, and Alfie recoiled. “Hey. Just asking.”
Darinda turned Roderick’s head to face her. “Do you really love me?”
“Of course I love you. You’re the only she I want.”
“Would you do something for me?”
“Anything, darling.”
“Open that window, stick your head out and take deep breaths.”
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AVAILABLE: Tuesday, March 2nd ~ http://bookstrand.com/a-london-werewolf-in-america ~
HAPPY WEREWOLF HOWLING~
Savanna
Savanna Kougar ~ Run on the Wild Side of Romance ~
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Werewolf Romance ~ A LONDON WEREWOLF IN AMERICA
Posted by Savanna Kougar at 3:57 PM 2 comments
Labels: A London Werewolf in America, Humor in Paranormal Romance, Paranormal Werewolf Romance, Pat Cunningham, Siren-BookStrand Publishing
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Werewolf Romance ~ BEST OF BREED by Pat Cunningham
OPENING NOTE: Okay, this is pure synchronicity. First, Gem Sivad’s BREED TRUE, now available from Liquid Silver Books.
NOW!!!
Are you ready for BEST OF BREED by Pat Cunningham?
The Kougar just read the excerpt and her answer is a big kitty-yowling YES!
BLURB ~
It started out as a joke: a werewolf entering a dog show. Adele Chase has always believed herself ugly, with her doggish wolf form and non-shifter blue eyes. But in the show ring she’s discovered a place where she can be beautiful.
Now, poised on the brink of her biggest win, nothing can deter her-–not even the presence of Bowie, the notorious werewolf hunter. He’s stalking the show in search of a werewolf and found what he thinks is a woman. Adele realizes he could be her destined mate–-or, if he uncovers her secret, her death.
With Best in Show within her reach, she plays a dangerous game with a man who might either love her or kill her…with neither aware of the enemy who’s out to destroy them both.
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EXCERPT ~
Blue. Her eyes were blue, just as he’d imagined. As he’d been hoping, he realized. Pallid as an arctic sky, just like her dog’s. He sucked in a temporizing breath and discovered she smelled of lavender. It couldn’t be coincidence. More like fate. He’d had that smell in his nose all morning, ever since he confronted the Chase boy and the dog. He couldn’t seem to shake it. Encountering it now on Adele, he decided he no longer wanted to.
Those remarkable eyes lifted to meet his. Fear darted through them, swiftly suppressed. Her smile was courteous, but guarded. “Yes?” she prompted.
She couldn’t be were. Not in those shoes that no shifter female would ever subject her feet to, or that dress that clung so tightly to every delightful dip and curve of her body. Not with those blue eyes.
He’d felt those eyes on him up in the stands, dragging at his awareness, demanding response. One look at her and he’d become obsessed, even before he heard Dartmouth identify her. He wanted suddenly to draw her to him and learn the texture of that midnight hair. Learn how she would respond to his most intimate touch. Test the strength of those athletic-looking limbs, discover how the skin between her breasts would taste.
Not at all his normal reaction upon meeting a woman, not even the most attractive ones. That scent of lavender had scrambled his thoughts. He’d been on the trail too long, he decided. Too long hunting weres and nothing else.
He’d slit his throat with his own silver knife before he’d do with a were what he wanted to do with this woman. She must be human. She had to be.
She fidgeted at his continued silence. Her smile had disappeared. She wrenched her gaze from his and darted it at the nearest exit. She tried to slip by him. “If you’ll excuse me—”
He reached for her arm. She shied away, with a quick, instinctive lift of her lip. A were’s reaction. Her eyes thinned to ice-blue slits. “What do you want from me?”
To kill her, if she weren’t the human he desperately wanted her to be. He doubted she’d appreciate hearing that. He found himself groping after an answer. That had never happened to him before.
It was the lavender, of course. And the way she stood before him, head raised and eyes direct, every line of her body proud and sure. Just like the dog in the ring. “You’re very beautiful,” he blurted.
Her jaw dropped. Not the reaction he expected when he complimented a woman. Her voice shot up the scale to a squeak. “What did you say?”
“I said you’re very beautiful, and I meant it. I’m also incredibly rude. My name is Jeff Bauer.” He held out his hand.
“You’re…who?”
“My name is Jeff Bauer,” he repeated. “You are Adele Chase? Owner of Hide in Plain Sight?”
She stared at his hand as if it held poison. Then at his eyes, as if she expected the same. She seemed confused when she found none. He hoped his smile looked reassuring. Smiles did not come to him easily. He let his hand drop. “You’re not thinking I’m somebody else?”
“I’m not sure who you are, Mr.…Bauer. Or what your interest is in me.”
“To be honest, my interest is more in your dog. You bred her yourself?”
She smiled tentatively, as if at a private joke. Even that faint expression transformed her from beautiful into a woman who could shake a man’s soul in her teeth. “My parents bred her, actually, but she belongs to me.”
“And her handler? Your…?”
“Brother. Trevor is my brother, and Heidi’s co-owner.” She eyed him cautiously. “Are you a Husky fancier, Mr. Bauer?”
“I’m becoming one.”
~~~~~~
"I meant to write a funny story–-werewolf undercover at a dog show–-but low self-esteem and bad body image aren't laughing matters for too many young women. Adele proves strong enough to find her own beauty, and triumphs over the ugliness around her. Confidence breeds beauty, no airbrushing required." ~Pat~
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AVAILABLE: Tuesday, February 2nd ~ http://bookstrand.com/authors/patcunningham ~
Plus, take a look at COYOTE MOON by Pat Cunningham ~ Can a half-werewolf woman, unaware of her wolf nature, come to love the WereCoyote determined to free her wild side and make her his mate? ~ http://bookstrand.com/product-coyotemoon-14959-330.html ~
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HAPPY SHAPESHIFTING VALENTINE’S DAY!
~ MAY YOUR BRIGHTEST READING DREAMS COME TRUE ~
Savanna
Savanna Kougar ~ Run on the Wild Side of Romance
Posted by Savanna Kougar at 12:53 AM 3 comments
Labels: Best of Breed, BookStrand, New release, Paranormal Werewolf Romance, Pat Cunningham