Love’s Deception JUST WENT LIVE!!! MARITAL DRAMA ALERT & oooooooooh this one sounds ANGSTY!!!! And lucky us, the author is celebrating her release right here on the blog by sponsoring this week’s newsletter & celebrating her sister’s birthday today, too. P.S. Happy birthday to her sister!! 😀
She’s sent over a Five Fun Facts (actually TEN Fun Facts – 5 about the author and 5 about this book!!) and a giveaway (a surprise book box that even I don’t know what’s inside other than I DO KNOW there’s a signed book in there!!!), plus an excerpt (that got my heart with angst and so much love… and then the author told me something even more exciting!! I asked her if it gets safer from then on, after excerpt and she said oh HECK NO!!! Tee hee!!! ).
I asked:
DC: I had a cover model read an entire chapter live in my Facebook reader group yesterday & she got very emotional reading it, so that’s why I was thinking a chapter…
Maryse: The chapter is fantastic and heartwrenching and has a little HEA on it. 😀 I’m curious… is there more drama to come?
DC: Is there more drama? Oh yeah!! My readers have called me the queen of twists & they don’t happen until near the end. I can spoil it for you if you’d like. Just let me know 😀
Maryse: more drama to come and twists? EVEN BETTER!!! LOL!! We’re so mean to our characters. But we sure do love when we don’t know what’s going to happen. So… YAY!!! 🙂 And noooo I don’t want want spoilers. The journey is fun for me too!! 😉
DC: Hahaha! Sometimes my friends will read & be like “what’s going to happen, I know something is going to happen” and I just sit back & do an evil laugh 😉 yep, mean 😛 lol!
YAY US!!!
But first…
What’s it about?
For someone who wasn’t the “dating kind,” he had certainly done a bang-up job of wooing me. Dating, marriage … the whole nine yards. I’d fallen hard. I couldn’t help it. Nolan Corrington was gorgeous, charming, sweet, and he loved me with a passion I’d never felt before. It was inevitable on my end.
He tried to fight his love for me. I was the first girl he ever let in because he’d vowed never to love. He didn’t want the fallout a heartbreak would create. But he said dating me, marrying me, loving me … the whole nine yards was inevitable for him too.
With a love like that, there could be no room for heartbreak, right?
Well, see … that’s the thing about loving someone so hard. You don’t always share everything about yourself, at least not until it’s too late … until the person is so deep inside you that you hope they won’t want to leave. That’s what I like to call love’s deception.
And that’s what Nolan counted on.
What could go wrong? Oh, only everything … only the one thing he feared in the first place … heartbreak. Too bad it wasn’t just a matter of walking away … it was more, a lot more. It was life, death, and everything in between. It was love, and it was deception.
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ABOUT THE BOOK:
5 FUN FACTS ABOUT DC:
1. DC are my initials, and Renee is my middle name. I went with a pen name when I first wrote because I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I figured if I sucked at it, no one would know if I didn’t use my own name.
2. My 2 kiddos have the same initials: EAC. Totally not on purpose. We had a hard time picking both names. Emmie just sort of happened in the hospital right after she was born. And her middle name was in honor of the hubby’s aunt who passed away years ago. For Elon, we needed an E name in honor of my grandma who passed away the year before. And the hubby just liked “Adam.”
3. I work with my sister. I followed in her footsteps, going to the same college, getting the same degree, even getting a job in the same department at the same insurance company. It’s definitely fun & nice to see my sister almost every day. It also helps that we can ask each other for help at work, advice, or even vent.
4. I have a lipstick & eyeshadow addiction, which would be ok if I used them all. The lipsticks, I do, but only like once a week. The eyeshadows? Only on special occasions, like weddings or cocktail parties. And the kicker? The lipsticks and the eyeshadows are all basically different colors of the same shades. Ha!
5. I love painting my own nails. It’s nice to go get them done every so often & get pampered, but I love changing them up & trying new colors & designs myself. It makes me feel pretty proud that I can do it on my own. I used to change them once a week, both toes & hands. But it’s hard to do that since I had my kiddos. I still try to do it every 2 weeks-ish though. Currently, I’m sporting glittery silver on my pinky nails, French tip with clear glitter on my ring fingers & just white on the rest.
5 FUN FACTS ABOUT LOVE’S DECEPTION:
1. The release date, 1/29/20, is my sister’s birthday. That wasn’t a coincidence. I always pick special dates for release dates, and this one is for my sis! It’s also my cousin’s bday! She was born on my sister’s 25th bday. Her hubby turned to her and said, “When she’ll be 25, you’ll be 50.” We laughed, my sis not so much. Ha! And…it happens to be my cover gal’s bday too!
2. This is the first book I wrote with “parts.” There is a long “Part 1.” A shorter “Part 2.” And an even shorter “Part 3.” If you want to know why, you have to read the book. 😁
3. I probably had the most re-writes on this story than my others. My editor is great because she doesn’t just correct grammar/spelling/punctuation; she provides feedback on the story too. And, she pointed out there was too much narrative. I went back & rewrote big chunks to remove unnecessary details & change some narrative to dialogue.
4. Whenever I hear a name I like, I write it down to use for future stories. There is a character in the book named Lily. That was actually a potential name for our daughter. That’s how I got the name. Why it’s in this book is simply that I picked a random name from my list. There is also another character in the story whose name was an option for my baby boy, but I won’t spoil which character that is. If you want to know the name, feel free to contact me & I’ll tell you!
5. *Spoiler Alert* This is my first book in which the characters get married in the middle of the story. All the other ones don’t have it as part of the story, for lack of a better way of saying it without giving away too much. I did publish a free book through my newsletter that I plan to turn into a permafree story at some point. It’s called Enough, and it does involve “marriage” (notice the quotes). And, like I said, it’s not an official story. So, Love’s Deception is the first one!
An excerpt:
CHAPTER EIGHT
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked as I stopped short in front of my door, staring at the figure sitting against it. He was hunched over, his head hanging down with one leg straight in front of him and the other bent with his arm hugging it. He looked like a little kid, and for the briefest of moments, I wanted to bend down, scoop him into my arms, and hug him while telling him that whatever was bothering him would be all right. But then he looked up. His face was pale, he sported a five o’clock shadow, and his eyes looked tired, dark circles lining them.
I could see the pain in them as clear as day, and it probably mirrored my own.
Call me petty if you want, but it gave me satisfaction to know he was miserable.
I didn’t even need to hear his words to know there was only one reason a guy looked like shit but was sitting at your door waiting for you after he tore your heart in two. So why the heck did he do it in the first place?
It had been a week since I’d cried over Nolan with Stephanie. My heart still hurt, still beat for him, still loved the asshole sitting in front of me, but I’d accepted we were over, and I knew I’d forget him in time.
I had gone about my days as before. Yes, my usual chipper mood wasn’t quite there, my motions somewhat robotic at times, but I wasn’t wallowing in self-pity.
I was afraid seeing Nolan in front of me and having him this close but not be mine would be a step in the wrong direction. So I wanted him as far away from me as possible, yet I wanted him to stay too. Why he was here, and what did he have to say?
“I f*cked up,” he said as he stood slowly. I didn’t respond. He took a step toward me, but I put my hand up to halt his advance. He stopped midstep and visibly winced, as if staying away from me was painful. “I f*cked up,” he repeated, but this time, it was quieter and more to himself as he ran a hand through his hair. As if it had just dawned on him how badly he’d ruined us.
“Yes, you did. You managed to reel me in, but instead of holding on, you threw me back in the water.” I knew my worth even if he didn’t.
“You’re right,” he said with a sad sigh. “Can we …?” He trailed off as he gestured toward the door, asking silently if we could continue this conversation inside.
Stephanie wasn’t home, so we could easily go inside and have some privacy. Lord knew she’d probably throw something at him if she saw him. But I was still hurt and upset, and I didn’t think he deserved my time when he hadn’t been decent enough to give me his.
“I’d rather not,” I told him.
“Please,” he begged. “Five minutes. I just … I need to explain myself, and then if you still want me to go, I will.”
Just then, I heard a door open and close somewhere in the building, and I knew even if I didn’t want to have this conversation inside, I didn’t want to continue it in my hallway either. I had a feeling he wouldn’t leave until I heard him out, though, whether the entire world had to hear it or not.
I nodded. His shoulders visibly relaxed, and I motioned with my head for him to move to the side so I could open the door without brushing against him. He complied and then followed me in once I opened the door, closing it behind him.
I walked to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water before leaning against the counter, effectively using it as a barrier between us.
His eyes trailed to where I leaned against it before going back to my face, and he nodded slightly like he understood.
“I’m listening,” I told him after a minute of silence.
“I was scared,” he admitted, and it felt like it hurt him to say the words. “You asking for clarification of what we were forced me to think about it. In my heart, I already knew, but denial is a beautiful thing. I couldn’t deny it any longer when I was faced with it.” He paused, and I waited for more, but he didn’t give it.
Curiosity won. “What were you denying?”
“That I love you,” he said point-blank, his heart on his sleeve, his words sincere, his eyes penetrating. “I love you,” he repeated, a little louder and a little clearer.
“I-I …” I stuttered, caught completely off guard.
“I’m not telling you because I expect you to love me in return. I just … all my life, I knew I’d never love anyone. Not because I wasn’t capable, but because I saw what the pain of losing my mom did to my dad. I told you before what he said to me—to never love—and I took that to heart. I never dated, so I couldn’t get close enough to anyone to fall in love. But you obliterated all that. You came into my life, and it was inevitable that I was going to fall for you. I knew it was a possibility when I pursued you, when we started dating, and I told myself I was okay with that. But when faced with the actual feelings … it’s hard to disassociate from a belief you’ve had all your life. I realized I loved you, and I wasn’t even sure when it happened. But I knew that if I lost you like my father lost my mom, I’d be shattered. So I tried to run away while it was still fresh, thinking that it would somehow lessen the blow. That maybe if I lost you now, it wouldn’t hurt as badly as losing you later in life. I was wrong. I. Was. Wrong,” he repeated, telling me without telling me the depth of his love for me.
If his actions were the hammer to my heart, his words were the glue that could put the jagged pieces back together.
“This past week and a half have been utter hell. If this is how my dad felt when my mom died, then I didn’t give him enough credit. He’s a stronger man than I could ever be. Because at least I knew you were out there in the universe. I’m here, asking you to forgive me and give me another chance. I have that possibility; he didn’t.”
“You what?” I asked.
“Please, Lise,” he said as he took a step toward me even though the counter was still between us. “I tried so hard to stay away. I thought maybe if I did, I could prevent the heartache I knew would come if you left me. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t function, can’t sleep, can’t even survive one minute without thinking about you, without wondering about you, without itching to call you. I threw my phone against the wall so I wouldn’t be tempted to call you, yet I still reached for it so I could hear your voice. Please, Lise, give me another chance.”
“You broke my heart,” I said. “You walked away to protect yourself, but you didn’t think about me. You didn’t think about how it would affect me. You didn’t even tell me why or that we were over. I had to guess, Nolan. I had to guess. You couldn’t even be bothered to come up with an excuse as to why we were over just so I would know it was. I appreciate your situation and your feelings, I do, but now it’s my turn to be scared.”
He rounded the kitchen counter, stopping right in front of me, and took my hands in his before I even knew what was happening.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so very sorry. I admit I didn’t think about your feelings at all. That part kills me the most. Not my own pain, but what I did to you. When you love someone, you put their feelings above your own, and I didn’t. I was selfish. But I promise you, for the rest of my life, for as long as you’re in it, never again.”
“You say that now, but at the first sign of discomfort, you ran. How do I know you won’t do it again?”
“You don’t, but I’m asking you to trust me, to believe in me.”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly because I honestly didn’t. I wanted to believe him, I really did, but actions spoke louder than words, and even though his words had melted the little ice crystals that had formed around my heart from when he dropped me so suddenly, it wasn’t yet one hundred percent whole.
“I don’t know isn’t no,” he responded with a hopeful smile. “I could work with that. We can go slow. I’m willing to go at whatever pace you want. I’ll earn back your trust, Lise. I promise. But at least give me that chance.”
Afraid of the words that would escape my mouth, I didn’t speak, but I found myself nodding. The smile I got from him in return was something extraordinary, and I couldn’t help but return the smile. “Slow, Nolan,” I told him.
“Slow,” he said with a nod before he pulled me into his arms and captured my lips with his. We stayed that way with our mouths fused for a long time until he finally pulled away and rested his forehead against mine. “I don’t want to go. I just got you back, but if I stay, I don’t know that I can go slow. So, I think I should leave, but please, Lise, tell me I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You’ll see me tomorrow,” I told him automatically.
“Thank God,” he whispered. After giving me another quick kiss, he started to back up.
“What are you doing?” I asked, laughing.
“I’m not turning my back on you again,” he said with a wink. “Plus, this way I get to see your face for a little longer.”
“Go, silly man.” I chuckled as he fumbled with the door behind him. When he finally managed to open it with his hands behind his back, I laughed. And then he was gone, and I realized what had just happened.
The man I loved told me he loved me, and I didn’t say it back. I told myself I would, but I’d let him sweat it out a little first. As I said, petty … and proud of it too.
NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY:
…a signed book with some surprise goodies that are related to the book… Like a surprise “book box”
How to enter for a chance to win it? Just leave a comment below (and better yet, if you have one, tell me your favorite “he’s keeping a huge secret from her” story) and by 10pm EST, Sunday February 2nd, 2020, I will randomly select one lucky commenter as the winner.
The winner will be contacted and will have 48hrs to respond confirming their mailing address, so if you are picked, do not delay or you will lose your chance. The signed book & surprise box will be sent to the winner directly by the author.
Giveaway open to International!!!
Looks interesting, thanks for the chance at the giveaway (and the international option!).
First “he’s keeping a huge secret from her” story that comes to my mind would be November 9, by Colleen Hoover…
I haven’t read any DC Renee books yet, I am def interested in Love’s Deception.
Jake Undone is what comes to mind for a heart dropping secret!😳
Congrats on new release DC Renee. Bloom from Deborah Bladon comes to my mind on ‘he is keeping huge secret from me’.