New Release: Fireworks at Midnight by Tara Quan

Tara Quan is back with another new release – she’s on a role!  Fireworks at Midnight is the third installment in her Witches Night Out series.  The first two I thoroughly enjoyed, so I can’t wait to dive into this one.

 

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New Year’s Eve is a night filled with bright colorful lights, rambunctious outings, and a good amount of mischief. It also marks the passage of time, bringing to mind our hopes for the future, the exhilaration that comes with change, and fond memories of days past. Part of Decadent Publishing’s 1Night Stand line, my paranormal romantic comedy Fireworks at Midnight features a struggling college graduate who is just coming to terms with the thrills and perils of newfound independence. When her best friend’s older brother rolls back into town, this intrepid young witch is faced with help she doesn’t want, protection she doesn’t need, and the reality that this warlock cop no longer thinks of her as a “troublesome little sister.”

 

Add a pinch of magic, supernatural mayhem, and Madame Eve’s renowned matchmaking service, and we’ve got the beginnings of a stormy love story. Those who’ve read my Christmas release Frosty Relations will already know Dulcina “Sweets” Gato, this tale’s smartass heroine. In keeping with the holiday spirit I’m giving away a $15 gift card. To enter, leave a comment here and drop your details in the Rafflecopter widget at the bottom of this post. [or at my website: TaraQuan.com/FireworksAtMidnight]

 

 

Blurb: Fireworks at Midnight (A Witch’s Night Out, 3)

 

Recent college graduate and part-time cat familiar Dulcina “Sweets” Gato is having the worst New Year’s Eve in living memory. End of year expenses trigger serious cash flow problems, and her microwave just went up in smoke. To make matters worse, her best friend’s overprotective big brother is back in town, and his return threatens to put a huge crimper on her nocturnal activities. The only thing she can look forward to is Madame Eve’s 1-Night Stand service. After all, she’s sick and tired of being a 21-year-old virgin.

 

Enforcement Agent Mikal Knight is a warlock on a mission. Having finally scored a transfer to Washington, D.C., he’s now at liberty to pursue the object of his desires—his baby sister’s best friend. But first, he has a vigilante to track down and a mysterious matchmaking service to investigate. Sent on an undercover operation, he resigns himself to a pointless 1-Night Stand on New Year’s Eve. As luck would have it, his mystery date’s identity might let him kill several birds with one stone.  

 

Genre: Paranormal Romantic Comedy, Interracial/Multicultural

 

Buy Links: Amazon | Amazon UK | ARe | B&N | Decadent | Kobo | GoodReads

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

About Tara Quan:

 

Globetrotter, lover of languages, and romance author, Tara Quan has an addiction for crafting tales with a pinch of spice and a smidgen of kink. Inspired by her travels, Tara enjoys tossing her kick-ass heroines and alpha males into exotic contemporary locales, paranormal worlds, and post-apocalyptic futures. Her characters, armed with magical powers or conventional weapons, are guaranteed a suspenseful and sensual ride, as well as their own happily ever after. Learn more at www.taraquan.com

 

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Excerpt

 

His gaze drifted to her chest. A gust of wind sliced over it, tearing off the top- most button. She jumped in her seat. “What the hell?”

 

“Welcome to Strip Interrogation. The rules are simple.” Her toes curled at the playful yet predatory gleam in his stormy eyes. Yup, he got her invitation loud and clear. “Whenever you give me a crap answer, I take away a stitch. Any questions?”

 

She licked her lips. “Is this how Enforcement trained you to question helpless witches?”

 

He crossed his arms and put on a mockery of a stern expression. “[…] The gloves come off when there’s a badass in the car.”

 

Her cheeks warmed at the backhanded compliment. Placing her hands primly on her lap, she squeezed her upper arms together to better showcase what little boobage she had. When she heard his warning growl, she batted her eyelashes. “What’s your question, Detective?”

 

He bared his teeth at her, but his breath had turned shallow. […] In a quicksilver move, he lunged forward and captured her nape with one hand. Holding her shoulder in place, he looped his free arm around her waist, splayed his fingers against her lower back, and yanked her toward him. The motion tipped her off balance. With a yelp, she placed her hands on the seat and straightened her arms. The position arched her back, lifting her breasts like an offering. […]

 

He settled his thumb between her collarbones. “I warned you about the skirt.”

 

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Damn, was that menacing tone sexy. “Any chance we can work this out? I’m running low on winter clothes.”

 

With his free hand, he explored her abs, his fingers lingering on each groove long enough to send a tingle down her spine. His hungry expression more than paid for the hours she’d spent doing crunches. “What do you have in mind?”

 

Having devoured plenty of inspiring reading material, she had a long list of things she wanted to try. “I’m all stocked up on underwear.

 

Guest Author Zee Monodee: Research into the setting for Light My World @ZeeMonodee #NewRelease via @tara_andrews1

 

It’s my pleasure to have Zee Monodee here today to tell us about her brand new release Light My World, and her inspiration for its setting.  Light My World is the 2^nd book in the Island Girl Triology which follows the 3 Hemant sisters – Lara, Neha, Diya – over the span of the 2000-2010 decade.  It also chronicles the changing face of the Mauritian society over that crucial period.  Both the book and Mauritius sound wonderful.  I now I have a new vacation spot added to my wish list!  Stick around—there’s an awesome trailer below, too.

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Blurb:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that to find a prince, a girl has to kiss a few frogs along the way. But what happens when a modern-day princess comes across…an ogre?

So what if a girl has to kiss a few frogs to find her prince?

Tired of her Indian-origin mother’s relentless matchmaking, Diya Hemant is determined to find her Prince Charming on her terms. Armed with a definitive list of requirements, she is sure she’ll know her man when she meets him…

But looking and finding are two different things, especially on the tiny island of Mauritius…

When her path crosses surly British widower Trent Garrison’s, it’s hate at first sight. And though fate keeps pitting her against him, she’s certain he can’t be turned into a frog let alone a prince.

Can this modern-day princess overcome her own expectations and see beyond the ogre to the man beneath?

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Research into the setting for Light My World

By Zee Monodee

First of all, thank you, Tara, for welcoming me on your blog today! It’s an absolute delight to be here!

So, where do I start telling you about the different settings that were used in this book?

The story takes place on the western coast of Mauritius. Much of that district is like a long, vertical strip of land bordered by the sea, and the farther North you go, the more you get to those tourist-y, paradise-like beaches Mauritius is known for. Flic-en-flac, one of the most popular beaches on the island, is a stone’s throw away from where this story takes place, in the village of Tamarin.

Tamarin is a coastal village and two of its particularities are that firstly, there’s a river’s mouth meeting the sea there, so no coral reefs to break the waves, making this the prime surfing spot of the island. Secondly, a big basalt mountain flanks the other side across from the sea, and thus, the village climbs up on these slopes – of course, the higher up, the more exclusive the area.

I’ve never lived in that area – lol, way too expensive for me. In fact, it’s mainly expats who live in that village and it surroundings. But Diya is an up and coming designer, and her company is located in that village; it only makes sense that she would live there. And Trent decides to settle in that area because on top of being an expat hub, the west coast is also renowned for its low humidity, something his eldest son needs for his health.

So how to place them there when I’ve never lived in the area? Research, of course! My husband took me on an afternoon to Tamarin and we travelled along the roads, checked out the public beach, strolled into those exclusive expat areas. And lo and behold, we found a new development – exclusive, high-end flats being built in a newly appointed residential area...and it turns out it’s from the same company from which one of my uncles bought his inland flat...and it turns out the layout of both buildings would be pretty similar.

I thus had the building and the flats where Diya and Trent live! Score one!

The next biggest part of this book’s setting was the colonial house. Yes, that’s one of them on the cover itself. But it’s not the one I actually used for the backdrop of La Porte du Paradis in the story (though the structures are similar). This house here – which is a former residence of a big tea plantation owner and has now been converted into a tea route museum – was the main inspiration.

These colonial houses are a dwindling legacy in Mauritius, most of them falling into derelict states and then being bulldozed for the prime land where blocks of concrete will surely go up. A shame, really, because these houses are a legacy of what life in the French and then British colonies of Mauritius were like.

My own grandparents had one such house, and I remember the awe whenever I visited the place. You could play hide and seek all day in there! There were polished wood floors, high ceilings with exposed beams, enormous verandas, even catacombs where kids could stand up and run without need to stoop – I always thought of that house as a castle. Yes, it could be the romanticized recollections of a little girl at play here (sadly, the house got demolished when I was about 9)...so I visited this dwelling-turned-museum, le Domaine des Aubineaux, located inland and about half of mile from my parents’ house – for the sake of the story, I transposed its likeness onto the west coast. Turns out my memories weren’t so far off the mark. I wanted – needed – to immortalize this legacy in a story, to pay my respects to these old colonials, and hope they get a chance to live forever in a book.

So there you have it – the main settings of Light My World and the how and why behind them.

Thank you again, Tara, for having me over today!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

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About the author:

Zee Monodee

Stories about love, life, relationships... in a melting-pot of culture

Zee is an author who grew up on a fence – on one side there was modernity and the global world, on the other there was culture and traditions. Putting up with the culture for half of her life, one day she decided she'd stand tall on her wall and dip toes every now and then into both sides of her non-conventional upbringing.

From this resolution spanned a world of adaptation and learning to live on said wall. The realization also came that many other young women of the world were on their own fence.

This particular position became her favourite when she decided to pursue her lifelong dream of writing – her heroines all sit 'on a fence', whether cultural or societal, in today's world or in times past, and face dilemmas about life and love.

Hailing from the multicultural island of Mauritius, Zee is a degree holder in Communications Science. She is a head-over-heels wife, in-over-her-head mum to a tween son, best-buddy-stepmum to a teenage lad, an incompetent domestic goddess, eternal dreamer, and an absolute, shameless bookholic. When she isn’t penning more stories and/or managing the Ubuntu line at Decadent Publishing, you can bet you’ll find her with her nose in her tablet, ‘drinking in’ a good book.

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Excerpt

Diya spun around when the warm, strongly male hand closed over her wrist. She risked a startled glance at Trent’s face, to then train her focus to where he touched her. The heat from his palm filtered into her arm, yet she stood frozen.

She glimpsed back up, into his face. What is going on here? In the blink of an eye, everything seemed to have changed.

Lines had appeared on his forehead, his features drawn and pale. But his eyes held an intense light, and the warmth in them took her aback.

Trent Garrison’s grey eyes had always peered at her with ice in them. She remained unprepared for the assault on her mind when the softness of this look washed over her. A quiver thrummed in her chest, tingles shot up from her fingers, and a lump lodged itself in her throat while her mouth went dry.

She parted her lips to speak, but no sound escaped her; only a small, husky breath.

“Thank you, Diya.”

She’d never heard him say her name before. Not like this, anyway. His voice rumbled deep and ragged at the edges. The phrase came out thick with the emotions echoed in the depths of his deep-set eyes….

Something, or someone, tugged on her jeans.

“Can we go now?” a little voice asked.

Startled out of her thoughts, she shook the unreal, dream-like sensation as she emerged from the mist she’d been plunged in by the touch of his skin on hers.

Trent’s touch.

He released her hand, and she bent to scoop Josh in her arms.

“Let’s go, sweetie. I hate hospitals. I’ll meet you at the gate,” she said in Trent’s direction as she left the room.

 

Trailer:

Buy Links:

Decadent Publishing

Amazon

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble