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Sweet
Trouble
B’s
Book Labyrinth Series
Sharon
Lynn Fisher
Genre: Contemporary erotic
romance
Publisher: SilkWords
Date of Publication: April 2
Cover Artist: Indie Designz
Book Description:
Welcome to B’s Book Labyrinth and
Bistro! The first novelette in this SilkWords Shared World Series, Sweet Trouble
is the story of smart and feisty bookstore owner Bronte and sexy Seattle-area
rock musician Brody.
Brody appears at the store’s
grand opening to pick up a book recommended by an ex-girlfriend — and to meet
the woman responsible for him losing his apartment.
The awkward first meeting does
nothing to dampen the instant chemistry, but with Bronte wrangling menus, book
buyers, and the resident ghost, and Brody’s rockstar-complicated past, can
either of them afford even the sweetest kind of trouble?
Excerpt:
Heading for the
stairs, I met Trissa coming down. “You’ll never believe it!” she whispered
urgently.
“What’s up?”
“I think Lenny
Kravitz is here.”
Having Annabelle
on my mind, I had braced myself for news of mischief directed at customers.
Relieved, and feeling a little mischievous myself, I raised my eyebrows and
replied, “Who?”
She groaned and
rolled her eyes. “God! Do you do anything but read?”
As the grin I’d
suppressed broke free, she frowned in annoyance. “B! You have to go talk to
him.”
“It’s not Lenny
Kravitz.”
“Come on.”
She grabbed my
arm and dragged me upstairs to the fantasy section, where she gave me a shove
toward a man in distressed denim and black leather. He stood eyeing a shelf on
the L-through-P aisle.
To be fair, he
could’ve been Lenny Kravitz — like twenty years ago. This guy’s denim was truly
distressed, not distressed by machines for that perfect, overpriced lived-in look.
And the cracks in his leather jacket traced a map of a rugged landscape in some
unknown, dark country. The heel and sole of one of his motorcycle boots were
held together by duct tape. He was as poor as I used to be. Maybe poorer.
But his sculpted
features were framed by a glorious but compact starburst of spiky dark hair
bleached burnt-orange at the ends. And I’d stake my store on him being a
musician.
As I stood there
studying him, he looked up, and I took a few steps forward. “Can I help you find
something?”
His eyes moved
over me, but not in a way that felt creepy. He was studying me back. And what
he was probably seeing was that the money I’d spent on my outfit would have
bought him groceries for a month. It wasn’t the way I usually dressed. Well, it
was now. But a year ago my clothes were all the same vintage as his.
“You work here?”
he asked.
“I … ” I
couldn’t bring myself to say I was the owner. “Yes. Can I help you?”
“Do you have
sci-fi? This is all fantasy.”
I nodded. “We’ve
got them in two sections. If you’ll follow me … ”
Chill bumps
washed over my back as I listened to the thud of his boots against the hardwood
floor behind me. I was suddenly self-conscious about the length (or lack
thereof) of my skirt. No way of knowing whether I was imagining his eyes on my
ass, but I was glad he couldn’t see my face, because the heat there confirmed
my belief that they were.
“Here we are,” I
said, waving at the first of the sci-fi shelves. Alpha by author. Is there
something specific you’re looking for?”
He considered me
a moment, delicious chocolate eyes fixed on my face. He was intense about eye
contact. Finally he gave a slight nod. “Solaris.”
“Oh yes,” I said
too eagerly, “that’s one of my favorites.” I walked to L through P and sank
down to study the bottom shelf. “Looks like we have both a used and new copy.”
Solaris was on the obscure side for sci-fi, and now my curiosity was piqued. Or
rather more piqued.
“I’ll take the
used,” he said quietly.
“Of course,” I
said, again in a quick, nervous voice, as I slid the book off the shelf.
I held it out to
him, and he said, “What do you mean?” Something dark flashed in his eyes.
I felt my smile
slipping. “I’m sorry … ?”
Clearing his
throat, he shook his head. “Nothing. I’ll take it.”
I handed it to
him, annoyed that my heart felt like a box of wrestling kittens. The guy had
spoken a handful of words, and he had me completely unsettled.
“What interested
you in the book?” I asked, trying to sound casual and friendly rather than neurotic
or stalker-like.
He hesitated,
studying the cover. “My girlfriend recommended it.”
“Ah.” I
swallowed hard to prevent any more words from coming out.
“Ex-girlfriend,
I mean.” He glanced up, and a slow smile swung one corner of his lips up. “She
left me for a guy with a PhD. I decided it was time to educate myself.”
“Ah.” I didn’t
have to swallow this time. There was no way to reply to that without ending up
a mess of blushing awkward.
“You’re Bronte,
aren’t you?” he said, tucking the book under his arm. “The owner.”
I cleared my
throat. No avoiding it now. “Yeah, that’s me. But it’s just ‘B.’”
“Nice to meet
you, Just B.”
I tried and
failed to stop the eye roll. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that
one.
He grinned.
“Sorry. But I can’t call you that.”
“Why?”
Encore of the
intense chocolate stare. “It’s a less than perfect grade, and that’s not you.”
I was so
startled by this I forgot to notice that it sounded an awful lot like a cheesy
pickup line. “That’s exactly what my moms say.”
He lifted an
eyebrow. “Your moms?”
Now the pickup
line thing sunk in. “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“No,” he
laughed.
No one here was
ruffled but me, and I felt like a jerk. I couldn’t think of a single word to
say to him now, except “if you’ll excuse me,” which at this point would only
emphasize my discomfort. Luckily he took pity on me.
“I’m Brody,
Bronte. Thanks for helping me with the book. Good luck with the store.”
Grateful to him
for coming to my rescue, I smiled. Genuinely. “Thank you. I hope to see you
here again.”
He gave another
shake of his head, and his gaze slid around the second floor. “I don’t read
much. But I had to see if it was worth it, me getting kicked out of my
apartment because some rich kid wanted to open a bookstore.”
About
the Author:
An RWA RITA Award finalist and a
three-time RWA Golden Heart Award finalist, Sharon Lynn Fisher writes stories
for the geeky at heart — meaty mash-ups of sci-fi, suspense, and romance, with
no apology for the latter. She lives where it rains nine months of the year.
And she has a strange obsession with gingers (down to her freaky orange cat).
In addition to her SilkWords stories, she’s authored three science fiction
romance novels for Tor Books: Ghost Planet (2012), The Ophelia Prophecy (2014),
and Echo 8 (2015). She’s also the editorial director for (and a partner in)
SilkWords! Visit her at www.sharonlynnfisher.com.
Shared Worlds: The new story format from
SilkWords
SWEET TROUBLE is the first story in the
SilkWords World B’s Book Labyrinth. Shared worlds were introduced just this
week, along with some other fun new features on our web site.
SWEET TROUBLE is the story of Brontë (the
“B” of B’s Book Labyrinth) and local rock band frontman Brody. Each story set
in this world begins with an introduction (in B’s point of view) that sets the
stage for the reader. Here’s a little taste of that:
My name is Brontë Austen O’Neill, and I
have the best job in the world. If you took even one course in English
literature, you can probably figure it out just from my name. (My moms are both
literature professors.)
Yep, I manage the world’s last bookstore.
Or at least the last one in Seattle. Well, maybe not the last, but certainly
the biggest. In the heart of the Fremont neighborhood, which is accepted by all
Seattleites (or at least the ones living in Fremont) as the Center of the
Universe, is a funky old turn-of-the-century mansion, just south of the world’s
only real troll-under-a-bridge. Its architect was insane, or possibly a drunk.
Six floors, piled atop each other in higgledy-piggledy fashion (much like a
stack of books someone has tripped over and righted without bothering to
straighten), connected by a staircase winding like a corkscrew through its
heart.
In and around this bookstore, our authors
will set stories about various customers. Currently in the works is a story
about a bike messenger and a mystery author who writes all his books in the
store’s bistro. The setting is contemporary, but will likely include a range of
genres. (The store has a resident poltergeist who is sure to be the subject of
a future story!)
B’s will feature romance of all heat
levels (the first story is erotic romance), and we have a second world in the
works that will focus more on erotic adventures. (More on that soon!)
Along with the launch of our first
SilkWorlds World, we also introduced ratings, comments, and a game-inspired
system of currency (hearts, of course!).
Here are five fun facts about SWEET
TROUBLE:
- This is my first contemporary romance!
I’m a sci-fi romance author for Tor and have always written speculative
fiction. (Let me know what you think in the story’s comments section!)
- Brody, the frontman for the fictional
band Iron Clementine, mentions a real Seattle group called the Mark Lanegan
Band. (Mark was the frontman for the grunge band Screaming Trees.)
- The “Book Labyrinth” in the series was
inspired by Portland’s Powell’s Books [http://www.powells.com/],
one of the last of the big indie bookstores.
- B’s signature cupcake is called “Heart
of Darkness” — vanilla cake, grenadine buttercream, and a truffle-sized ball of
soft chocolate at the center.
Tour
giveaway
3 bundles of 30 hearts, which can
be used for buying stories on the SilkWords site (www.silkwords.com)
Display link
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/ba112ffc964
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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