it. USA Today bestselling author Maggie McGinnis has written a captivating novel spiced with holiday magic, featuring a rugged Montana man who mends a Northeast girl’s jaded heart—don’t miss A Cowboy’s Christmas Promise. And the Weird Girls return in another edge-of-your-seat novel, A Curse Unbroken, from Cecy Robson! Just when Celia thinks the supernatural world can’t turn deadlier, a new rival emerges to prove just how dangerous a power-hungry Were can be, yum!
For the New Adult reader, check out our Flirt line featuring debut author Amber Hart as she pushes contemporary romance to its wildest limits in the heart-pounding novel Until You Find Me, the story of a girl who travels to Africa to protect the legacy of one man—and stays for the love of another. Regina Cole’s debut, Draw Me In, is a steamy novel of hot ink and delicious angst, where two tortured artists take a leap of faith despite the past that threatens to tear them apart.
Stay well and follow the prescription above—if you do you’re guaranteed a happy, healthy, romantic holiday season. Until next time…
~Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for a sneak peek of the next book in Sidney Halston’s Worth the Fight series, Below the Belt.
Antonio “Scarface” Marino jumped up and down inside a steel cage in a sold-out arena in Tampa, Florida. All around him, thousands of fans cheered him on. Well, they weren’t all cheering him on—some were booing him for his recent brawl at a nightclub, but for the most part his fans had remained loyal. This is what he lived for, and he loved it.
“Hey, this isn’t wrestling, Hulk Hogan. Bring it down a notch. Concentrate.” Slade Martin, his trainer and the owner of the mixed martial arts gym Worth the Fight Academy, yelled at him.
“Bite me,” Tony hollered back as he continued to rile up the crowd. He ran inside the cage, grabbed the fence, and shook it as he yelled back to the screaming spectators. Then he ran to the other side and did the same thing. The noise was deafening, but the crowd ate it all up.
Five months earlier, at his agent’s insistence, Tony had been shipped to the small town of Tarpon Springs, Florida, because the only trainer who hadn’t blackballed him was Slade at the new, up-and-coming Academy. Tony still didn’t understand what everyone’s problem was. For sixteen years he had been fighting professionally—he knew the game. He could win in his sleep.
So he partied. Who cares? He liked sex. He liked to drink. There was no harm in having fun so long as he brought in the big money. He also loved his family, especially his nieces, but the media never covered those stories. Those stories didn’t sell. But Tony making a scene at the local bar? Well, the media was all over that shit.
Even though his roots and family were still in Miami, truth be told, he was beginning to like the small town and the people in it, primarily the woman who was currently glaring at him from the front row: Slade’s business partner, Francesca Silva, whose long, lean, tanned legs were currently on display and distracting him. Tony had been ogling those legs since arriving at WtF Academy months ago.
Francesca had been the one who had ultimately decided that Tony was a risk worth taking and had convinced Slade to bring him onboard. She was also the sexiest, feistiest woman he’d ever met, and she drove him absolutely crazy. She rode his ass every time he missed practice, cursed like a sailor, and didn’t give a shit about going out with him—and God knows he’d tried to get her to go on a date with him. If he didn’t get her naked and under him soon, he’d explode.
The music changed to a familiar heavy metal song and the crowd roared as Jimmy Winters strutted down the hall and into the cage with his entourage. In MMA fights, each fighter always has a discipline he excels in, and in this case both fighters stood on equal footing as kickboxers. But that was all they had in common because, at thirty-four, Tony was already headed toward retirement, whereas Winters was only twenty-seven and at the apex of his career.
Once both men were in the middle of the cage, the referee said some things into the mic that had the crowd roaring. But Tony paid him no mind, his focus solely on his opponent. They eyed each other like two predators on the hunt for