Courted (Gowns & Crowns #1) by Jennifer Chance **Blog Tour, Excerpt & Giveaway**
Fans of Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries will enjoy COURTED, a New Adult Contemporary Romance with a modern royals flair, about a young woman about to give up on her dreams … and the prince whose dreams she could help make come true.
About Courted:
Title: Courted
Author: Jennifer Chance
Publisher: Elewyn Publishing
Release Date: October 6, 2015
Series: Gowns & Crowns #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult
Length: 222 Pages
ISBN: 9781943768042
Aspiring concert violist Emmaline Aurora Grace Andrews is torn between her love of family and her love of music. A year ago, she deferred entering a prestigious graduate program to help her parents recover from a devastating accident. Now the deferment is expiring, but her parents still need her. Worse, every time she plays her audition piece, she mangles it. Is it too late to be the musician she'd always dreamed of? Should she even try?
Determined to get clarity, Emmaline accepts a friend's offer for a whirlwind European vacation. First Stop: a real live fantasy kingdom—the perfect place to sort wishes from reality.
Prince Kristos Andris was a respected captain in his nation’s military… Was. In the wake of the tragic death of his elder brother, he's managed to avoid his duties as the new Crown Prince of Garronia for months. But now he must accept his responsibilities and leave his troops behind. Outraged at the restrictions of his new royal position, he'll do anything for one last adventure. So when opportunity suddenly lands in his arms in the form of a dreamy-eyed American girl, he embraces it (and her) for all he's worth. What's the harm in a quick fling, after all? It won’t change what he knows he must do…
Only this is Garronia in the summertime, where passion has a way of ruining even the most sensible of plans.
Add to your TBR List: Goodreads
Buy Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes
Excerpt:
*An excerpt just after Kristos pulls Em ashore from the Aegean sea.*
When the man looked up and shouted something she didn’t understand, yet another wave of mortification crashed through Emmaline. Oh God, we’ve drawn a crowd. Why hadn’t she realized there were people around them? Of course there would be people. It was a public beach. With people on it.
“I’m so sorry, I’m fine,” she managed, though she could barely understand her own words, she was shaking so much. “If you’d let me get up—I just need to walk around. I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize. You have done nothing wrong.” The man’s words were harsh with the crack of command, but Em was beyond responding to any more orders. “I am calling for my men. You are frozen.” And with another curse, he pulled her into his lap, surrounding her with his heat.
His men? Was he in charge of that little group of navy guys?
“Why are you so cold?” he continued, and though her brain seemed to be on the verge of shutting down, Em knew he thought she was going into shock. “It is a warm and sunny day. We have only sunny days here in Garronia, didn’t you know that? It is a kingdom of sunshine and joy.”
He was talking to her like she was a child, and Em closed her eyes in humiliation. Seriously, this was not happening.
“I just—I get the shakes sometimes. It’s okay, I—get cold, it’s—” Now did not seem to be the best time to talk about poor blood circulation, but Em couldn’t help her rat-a-tatting teeth as the man’s rough arms encircled her, his thick biceps and corded forearms covering her chest and waist. He dropped a soft kiss on the crown of her head, as natural as if they’d been dating for years, and murmured something else to her.
Wait, what? Had he seriously just kissed her?
Warmth snaked through her now, all right, but that was mostly because a man was actually holding her. She hadn’t had that happen in so long that she’d practically forgotten what it felt like to have someone pressing against her, skin to skin, chest to back, lips to ear, surrounding her so completely that she had neither time nor breath to think about anything else, anyone else, anywhere else…
Whoa, there, girl. Dial it down a notch.
Only now the man who was making such insane, impossible images dance through her head was speaking again, his voice rich with Mediterranean sun and spices and, God, his arms around her felt amazing. “You get cold,yes, I can see that,” he murmured into her ear, his breath fanning through her wet hair. Despite herself, Em shivered again, and he held her yet closer. As her heart pounded thunderously, his next words were soothing, gentle, and once again in a language she couldn’t understand. He was trying to help calm her down—not rile her up. Settle down! She implored her newly reawakened libido, which was beginning to thrum with anticipation at a real, live man holding her real, live body in his real, live arms…
Her newly reawakened libido was apparently not to be deterred.
“The water is treacherous,” Sexy Navy Adonis said. “I tried to warn you, but I did not do a good job. For that, I am sorry.”
He kissed her hair again, and Em gave up thinking any more rational thoughts. Instead, she closed her eyes, wishing the world away while she stored up all these memories for the next however many years it would be until she could feel a man’s body against hers again. “I didn’t—you didn’t—”
“Shh. All is well.” He rocked her into him and she became aware of other parts of his body too. His broad, flat chest, his knotted abs—and even lower, as his groin snugged up against the drenched backside of her suit.
Em’s eyes popped open, though the man couldn’t see her. Nevertheless, while she might be the one trembling, she wasn’t the only one affected by their tight embrace.
Oh my God.
“What can I say?” Hot Rescue Guy’s thickly accented English whispered against her ear. “I am but a man.”
And when she turned to apologize, his mouth was right there, his lips soft and warmed by the sun, his expression open and sure. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to lift her face that little bit as well and touch her lips to his.
Sunshine. That was the first coherent thought that raced through Em’s mind. Her rescuer tasted like sunshine and salt and sand, like blue skies and possibilities. Something shifted in her that made her trembling stop for a second, her heart lurching with surprise into completely unfamiliar territory. What—how?
Oblivious to her confusion, her gorgeous Greek god kissed her back, hard and firm, but only for a moment. Then he lifted his head, his rich laughter rolling forth as someone pounded up the beach.
Rafflecopter for Virtual Blog Tour Giveaway:
Jennifer is offering up some fabulous prizes during her Courted Virtual Tour event. One (1) lucky grand prize winner will receive a $25 Gift Card for Amazon or B&N (winner’s choice) and two (2) runner-ups will win an eBook copy of Rock It, book #1 in Jennifer’s Rule Breakers series! To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below:
Jennifer Chance is the award-winning author of the new adult Rule Breakers series as well as the modern royals Gowns & Crowns series. A lover of books, romance, and happily-ever-afters, she lives and writes in Ohio. In addition to her work in romance, she is also Jenn Stark, urban fantasy author of the Immortal Vegas series, and Jennifer McGowan, YA author of the Elizabethan spy series The Maids of Honor. She is truly NOT trying to become 27 Jennifers, but it’s getting a little dicey.
You can find her online at JenniferChance.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/authorJenniferChance and on Twitter at @Jenn_Chance.
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