Today as part of her blog tour for, Side Swiped ,book two in the Off The Map series, Lia Riley shares with me her Top 5 Book Boyfriends. Who are yours?
1. Mr.
Rochester from Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
2.
Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3.
Mr. Knightley from Emma (Jane Austen)
4.
Jamie Fraser from Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
5.
Allegretto from Shadowheart (Laura Kinsale)
About The Author
Lia Riley writes offbeat New
Adult Romance. After studying at the University of Montana-Missoula, she scoured
the world armed only with a backpack, overconfidence and a terrible sense of
direction. She counts shooting vodka with a Ukranian mechanic in Antarctica,
sipping yerba mate with gauchos in Chile and swilling fourex with stationhands
in Outback Australia among her accomplishments. A British literature fanatic at
heart, Lia considers Mr. Darcy and Edward Rochester as her fictional boyfriends.
Her very patient husband doesn't mind. Much. When not torturing heroes (because
c'mon, who doesn't love a good tortured hero?), Lia herds unruly chickens,
camps, beach combs, daydreams about as-of-yet unwritten books, wades through a
mile-high TBR pile and schemes yet another trip. She and her family live mostly
in Northern California.
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Side Swiped Excerpt
Talia passes out hard from the travel and epic
reunion sex. I’m too amped for sleep, so I lie in the dark and trace her spine.
Can you love someone too much? No point being afraid, might as well jump in it
with both feet. I press my mouth to her neck and she undulates, responsive even
from her dreams. If miracles were real, I’d swear we were designed to fit
together.
I loop my arm around her waist and hold fast,
until our breathing syncs. I’m drifting off when she jerks—hard—once, twice.
Her body recoils as she unleashes a lung-tearing scream.
“Talia, wake up. Come on, sweetheart, talk to me.”
I clamber over her, hunching protectively. “Open your eyes. It’s Bran. I’ve got
you. I’m not letting go.” I keep talking while she flays my chest like she’s
drowning under ice, desperate to find a break in the surface.
“Can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I…where am…oh
God. Bran.”
“I’m right here.” I cradle her while she draws
another unsteady gasp. Her hair plasters her forehead in sweaty wisps.
“Give me a minute. I’ll be fine.” She pushes
herself to a half-sit and sways with disorientation. “This…this happens
sometimes…panic attacks or night terrors…whatever. They seem to come when I
drop my guard. Or, I don’t know, maybe it’s the meds. Those pills make me feel
like a toxic waste dump.”
“Have you been bad this summer?” The muscles in my
neck cord. It shreds my guts to see her hurting. I’d do anything, any fucking
thing, to carry her pain. I don’t fully understand the inner workings of OCD
but she’s explained that for her, the condition comes in waves. Everything will
be rolling along fine, more or less, and then bang—a giant squid grips her
brain. She fights hard for recovery, a warrior even when she believes she’s
nothing but a coward.
“No, not really.” She grinds her eyes with the
backs of her hands. “I kinda danced around the edge of the rabbit hole a few
times but never fell inside.”
My muscles release some tension. “Try to go back
to sleep. You need the rest. Don’t worry, I’ll keep watch, okay?”
“I’m sorry to be such a psych job. It’s totally
shaming.”
“Shhhhhh.”
Her chin tips down. “Can you talk to me for a
little while? Get me out of my fuckball head?”
“Hey now, I got mad love for that head, Captain.”
I kiss her brow, acting chill even though I’m scared. How can I get her to
settle? Then it hits me. “I want to take you surfing again.”
“Mmmm, that’d be nice.”
“Picture yourself out there, in the water, on a
board, under the shooting stars.”
“With sharks eyeballing me from the depths?”
“Nah, they’re all busy hunting sea lions or some
bloody mischief. This is you, the sea, and the sky. A set rolls in. You can’t
make out the wave. The board lifts and you feel the momentum building. There’s
fear deep in your belly, sensible, because you can’t see what’s coming or where
you’re going. You fight the self-protective instincts, give yourself over, and
the next thing you know—you’re having the ride of your life.”
“Thank you.” She flips in my arms so we’re belly
to belly. “I mean it. That was beautiful, really, really
beautiful. I’m so excited to be here, for right now—to live in the moment. But
it’s like I have this…this weird mental stutter. My thoughts keep skipping over
the same annoying question like a scratch on vinyl: What will we do?” Tears
spill from the corners of her eyes, course silently toward her chin. “My visa.”
Talia’s been granted a three-month student visa to
complete her senior thesis in history. In all its benevolent generosity, the
Australian government expanded her time in the country by an extra month.
Four months—the sum of our allotted time.
“They’ll make me leave.”
“Don’t believe everything you think.” I wipe her
damp cheeks.
“Can you tattoo that on my forehead?”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the brass alarm
clock on the dresser clicks louder.
Another second gone.
Another second gone.
“I’m not losing you to some shithouse immigration
policy, Captain. We will be all right in the end.” I’ve no idea how the hell
I’m going to solve this drama but I will figure it out. “We have to hope,
otherwise we’re sunk.”
She jerks with surprised laughter.
“What?”
She hiccups and covers her mouth with her hand,
shoulders shaking. It takes me a second to realize she’s giggling.
“I’m funny to you right now?” This girl drives me
every sort of crazy.
“I’m not laughing at you.” She
works her lips together and unsuccessfully smothers the smile. “It’s—”
“Forget it.” I instinctively stiffen.
“Bran the Optimist.” She grabs my wrists, lifts my
palms to her face, and plants a kiss in the center of each one. “I like this
side of you.”
“Never mind. I was being dumb.”
“You were awesome.” She pecks the tip of my nose.
“And for the record, I love your stupid face.”
I give her a begrudging kiss back. “I love yours too.”
Love isn’t enough of
a word.
I wasted almost an entire year of my life
implementing a scorched earth policy, not caring who I left burned and broken
in my path.
Talia was my oasis. My salvation.
“Don’t give the visa a second thought.” I nestle
her against me, rubbing her lower back in easy circles. “I’ll sort this out, I
swear to you.”
Even if I don’t have the first fucking clue.
SIDESWIPED by Lia Riley
(October 7, 2014; Forever E-Book; $3.99)
Sometimes in order to find
yourself, you need to venture off the map.
Talia and Bran broke all the rules and navigated dark and stormy emotional waters to be together and now that they finally seem to have found their way back to each other, the winds of change threaten to blow their love off course yet again…
Talia and Bran broke all the rules and navigated dark and stormy emotional waters to be together and now that they finally seem to have found their way back to each other, the winds of change threaten to blow their love off course yet again…
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