Heart Signs Blog Barrage & Review & Giveaway

Cari is giving away a PDF copy of Hearts Signs to one lucky commenter during the tour.  Don't forget to leave a comment.

Title:  Heart Signs

Author:  Cari Quinn
Publisher:  Ellora's Cave
Length:  45,000 words
Sub-Genres:  Contemporary, Erotic

BLURB:

The heart has a language all its own...

Rory Fowler has taken Sam Miller’s billboard orders for the last two years, but they aren’t to advertise, they’re love notes to his wife. Sam’s most recent billboard about his wife’s passing hits Rory hard. When she calls Sam to offer condolences, it sets off an unexpected chain of events that ends with Rory in Sam’s apartment...and his arms.

Reading Sam’s love letters tugs Rory into the romance between him and his estranged, now-deceased, wife. Their lives soon intertwine so completely that Rory wonders how she’ll ever forget the man who makes poetry out of emotions she’s fought to dismiss. And plays her body even more skillfully than he writes love notes.

Consumed by guilt and grief, Sam is shocked by the feelings Rory arouses in him, sexually and otherwise. Now he’s not thinking about yesterday as much as he’s looking forward to tomorrow. He’s just not sure if he’s capable of moving on...or if the woman who helped him find the will to really live again will be by his side.

EXCERPT #1:

“Yes, I remember you.” Sam’s long pause encouraged her knee to jitter more. “I thought you were a man, Rory.”

“Why? Because I like sports?”

“No. Of course not. Well, maybe,” he admitted. “You know so much about them.”

“Yeah, I do. Women enjoy sports. Newsflash—some even play them.” Rory hoped she sounded as if she were teasing rather than irritated. She wasn’t mad. More than anything she was a little amazed. She couldn’t believe they were finally having an actual conversation.

Some women idolized rock singers or movie stars. Other than her long-held and unavoidable crush on Tom Brady, the only man she’d ever crushed on from afar was Sam Miller.

Another woman’s husband. Or he had been. He still was, she supposed. And always would be. Death didn’t erase what had come before and she had no doubt that he’d been completely, irrevocably in love.

“I know that. But the kind of shows you watch—”

“You mean the ones with potty humor?” She shrugged, knowing he couldn’t see her. “What can I say? I have a juvenile outlook on the world.”

“Thanks a lot.”

The amusement in his tone bolstered her self-assurance. “Maybe you didn’t think I was female because I don’t put smiley faces at the end of all my sentences?”

She most certainly was not a smiley face girl. Actually she’d be more likely to use emoticons if they indicated less politically correct gestures. The occasional well-placed graphical middle finger, for example. Not that she’d ever do that with customers, but some of her interfering relatives like her boss? A definite possibility.

“No, because of your name. Rory isn’t usually feminine.”

“Neither am I.”

EXCERPT #2 (ADULT):

“I should give you my insurance card,” Rory said into the silence, drawing her full lower lip between her teeth. “I’m covered. I know these things cost a mint to fix, but it doesn’t look like the scratches are too bad. There’s only a couple and they’re pretty shallow.” She traced her fingers over Bertha’s wounds and Sam’s cock hardened to steel. “I’m really sorry.”

The last thing he cared about at the moment was damages or insurance. For the first time in forever, his skin was on fire, and it wasn’t from the beaming September sun. This was all her. This nameless woman who’d sparked something inside him and set it ablaze without even knowing his goddamn name.

Nor did he know hers. It didn’t matter. He’d know what her lush, giving body felt like beneath him and how she stretched around his length when he slid deep. That was enough.

Adrenaline buzzed through his system, a heady drug he hadn’t experienced in so long. He’d be damned if the feeling escaped before he’d made good use of it. Whether it was the rush from the minor fender bender or simply her, he didn’t care. He would ride this wave until it bottomed out.

“If you want to exchange information, I live eight blocks from here. 16 Kimchee Road,” he said, his gaze trained on her face. Any hesitation and he’d back away. Get in his car, drive back to his apartment and take out his frustration on his punching bag.

But there was only interest. Only fascination turning those remarkable eyes from mist gray to the ashen color of the smoke that pumped out from the exhaust when an engine was burning oil.

“You free?” Sam finished, hoping he sounded less idiotic than he felt.

Free. What an insane question. He’d never be free again, not completely. And here he was asking a total stranger if she happened to be something that sounded so impossibly wonderful that his breath stumbled. What he wouldn’t give for freedom. Or to forget, just for a little while. Maybe, just maybe, she could give him that.

Small price to pay for some scratches.

“Yes.” She grabbed the flat disk around her throat and flipped it between her fingers. “I’m free.”

Unthinkingly, he dropped his gaze to her license plate. Fowl ’Er.

To anyone else, that would probably seem like an odd chicken joke or something. But after all the sports emails he’d exchanged with Rory, he knew exactly what it meant.

“I’m average height, spiky dark hair. Big earrings.”

Sam checked her earrings, decided the giant silver triangles definitely qualified. The spiky dark hair was a given. She’d left out that her eyes were the color of storm clouds and that her cheeks had the rosy glow of a skin care commercial.

So he’d finally met Rory Fowler. Somehow his crazy reaction fit. She’d sucker-punched him twice now. First with her voice. Now with her everything.

He wrenched open his car door without sparing her another glance. “Follow me.”

EXCERPT #3 (ADULT):

“I’m definitely hungry.”

Sam flicked a look toward the door that led to the kitchen. “I might have stuff for a sandwich.”

Rory walked her fingers up his belly, stirring all sorts of appetites that had nothing to do with food. “Not hungry for a sandwich, Sam.”

He took a long breath. If he could’ve picked the ideal woman to have a one-afternoon stand with, Rory would’ve been the perfect choice. She made things so easy.

God, it had been forever since anything had been easy.

“Okay. Good.”

“Would you rather just go sit and talk?” His pained expression must’ve given him away because she laughed. “I’m fine with hanging out for a while. We’re both buzzy from the accident.”

Was that why he felt so electrified? “Wasn’t barely one. Just a bump.”

“Enough to get our hearts racing. That and the sunshine set the right conditions for some harmless feelings of attraction.” She shrugged. “Not surprising the rush turned into something else.”

She was giving him an out. Yes, adrenaline and excitement had carried him through the ride home and into the house. But now nerves were winning. And that small voice at the back of his mind that told him he shouldn’t bring anyone into his world, not when he’d likely lock them right out again afterward.

But she wasn’t asking for a lifetime commitment. They didn’t have to be any more to each other than they were right now. She knew the score. If they both found release and moved on without any hard feelings, what was the problem? Whether they attributed it to drive-by lust or the aftereffects of a fender bender didn’t really matter.

Thinking too much had gotten him into the stasis he’d lived in for over two years. He wanted out. Could even smell the scent of freedom beyond the barred gate inside his head. He just needed to reach for it.

“I’d rather not talk. Or hang out. If it’s all the same to you.” He cleared his throat. Kiss her, dolt.

Instead she stepped into him, tipping her face upward until their mouths brushed. Her soft lips heated under his, encouraging him to press his tongue against their parted seam. She made a sound of acquiescence, of excitement. The deeper he slid, the more she made the noise. Almost a purr. Carefully, he reached up to hold her head in his palms, tilting her so he could explore. She tasted like grape bubblegum. Sweet, a little wicked. A lot sexy.

This would be okay.

His heart was pounding so fast that eventually he had to break their kiss to breathe. Then he came back for the next round, using his thumb to stroke her lower lip while he licked the upper. Again that whimper in the back of her throat. His hard-on grew, straining against his well-worn jeans. If he hadn’t been afraid of scaring her, he would’ve tugged down the zipper to give himself room.

Then she did it for him.

REVIEWS:

“Final verdict? Lovable characters, intense emotions and mind melting hot sex. Erotica doesn’t get any better than this.” 4.5/5--MBR's Realm of Romance

“HEART SIGNS is a fascinating, compelling and heartwarming love story filled with raw emotion and sensual heat. After INSATIABLE and UNWRAPPED, this book has earned Cari Quinn her third perfect 10 from me. The combination of heat and emotion does me in every single time and Cari delivered on both in HEART SIGNS!” 10/10--Pearl's World of Romance 

My Review:

Ms. Quinn has done it again.  She has written a sexy book full of emotions and characters that you want to meet.  I will admit at first that I didn't quite "get" the book in the beginning but I knew that I could trust Cari and her writing.  She has managed to write a book that had me scratching my head, squirming, sighing and then crying tears of joy. 

Rory Fowler is me.  I swear Cari wrote Rory with me in mind.  I'm everything that Rory is at her age.  Friends with men, some with benefits and some not.  Sports nut that has a regular hangout, not to girlie but can clean up nice and a feisty personality.  Rory also has feelings buried deep with her and she has a lot to give to someone if she ever let someone in.  (Of course, I'm much older now and very happily married and settled.  Well that and I'm NOT a Tom Brady fan.)  Rory is a contradiction to herself and to Sam. 

Sam Miller is a man in pain for different reasons.  Reasons only he sees and feels.  I felt like Sam was a little too hard on himself.  I like a hero that shoulders some of the things from his past, but I felt like his dead wife should have taken some of it, too.  That was the one problem that I had with the book.  I never felt like Dani's part was ever fully explained to me.  No disrespect for the dead but I really wanted to slap Dani.  She made Sam the way he was now and I hate it for it.  On the flip side, it took someone like Rory to bring him back to the land of the living.

Sam and Rory are two characters that captured my heart from the beginning and never let go.  Both of them had some growing up to do and I feel like they will do that together as a couple.  Their love for one another is strong and will continue to grow.  While the sex was hot, it wasn't overly done.  In fact, for a Cari Quinn book, it was fairly tame but it fit the story perfectly.  Heart Signs is a romance book pure and simple.  Its about two people that were lost and found each other and learned to live again.

I highly recommend Heart Signs and as always, Cari Quinn has another winner on her hands.  :)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bestselling, multi-published author Cari Quinn wrote her first story--a bible parable--in 2nd grade, much to the delight of the nuns at her Catholic school. Once she saw the warm reception that first tale garnered, she was hooked. She attempted her first romance in junior high, long before she'd ever read one. Writing what she knew always took a backseat to what she wanted to know, and that still holds true today.

Though she also fires up her computer as a graphic designer, proofreader and editor, she can't resist the lure of disappearing into a world of her own creation. Now she gets to pen sexy romances for a living and routinely counts her lucky stars.

The only thing she loves more than writing is hearing from readers! Please contact her through one of the ways below.

Email: cariquinnauthor@gmail.com
Website: www.cariquinn.com
Friend Cari on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads under Cari Quinn as well!

AVAILABLE AT:

Ellora's Cave: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9887-heart-signs.aspx

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Signs-ebook/dp/B007575XG2/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heart-signs-cari-quinn/1108625292?ean=9781419938306