Friday, January 2, 2009

Taking Joy Released!!!

So excited. Taking Joy has been released, and I'm eager to know what readers think of this new book. Below is the blurb and an excerpt. Hope you like it.

Buy it here.

Blurb

All Joy wants is to live right like her Mama taught her growing up. She works hard to provide for her three-year-old son. But when she loses her job and her baby's father has no legal solution, Joy thinks the next step for her is the thing that terrifies her more than anything--that she'll lose her son. Desperation leads her to break the law on her own, but when the upper scale store owner catches her, his proposition is not what Joy expected. Keane Kavanagh wants Joy for his mistress, and he won't take no for an answer. Suddenly Joy finds herself on beautiful Cooper Island living every woman's dream. All the clothes she could want, no bills to worry about and a sexy man who knows how to please a woman in bed. But Joy wants more. She wants love, and she'll do whatever it takes to remain the woman she was raised to be.

Excerpt

Joy strolled through the department store, with the application in her hand, filled out but not turned in. She had worked in a coffee shop and had become addicted to an iced caramel macchiato. How was she going to get her daily fix now?

Kavanagh’s was out of her price range—not over the top in prices, but not what she could regularly swing either. She loved the smell, the atmosphere, the marble floors. The dresses even fit over her hips, and were made bigger so she could pretend she wasn’t a size fourteen. “This store was made for me,” she whispered as she flicked through the assortment of thong panties on display.

“May I help you, ma’am?” a saleswoman asked behind her.

She didn’t bother to turn around, before moving on. “No, thanks.”

At that moment, while she teased her fingertips with silks from who knows what country, she had a thought. What was the point of handing over another application to be turned down for lack of experience or because she was inflexible with her hours. She couldn’t be on call, night and day, with no reliable babysitter and no family that could watch Travon—another lesson learned. She had been through too many horrible sitters, even one who had left her son as an infant in the basement while she was upstairs watching her soap operas. Had she not come when she did, he would have choked on his own vomit. Tears filled her eyes remembering.

He was older now, and she didn’t have to be as afraid, but that didn’t stop the emotion from rising, threatening to consume her from time to time. She needed a better plan than that, maybe one that would help her to make enough money to take some time off and attend school.

When she ran her hand over the dresses for the second time, she stopped. Kavanagh’s had security guards and cameras, but she knew for a fact that the guys sometimes got to watching women more than they watched what was happening. And when she got a whiff of the too flowery perfume that had just sailed by on the guards’ favorite ass to ogle, temptation got the better of Joy.

She moved to the bras. Every one was over ten bucks, but they had the kind that were stylish without that awful underwire that bit into one of her sides. She fingered the lace while watching the beauty. Just as she expected, the camera in this section rotated. The security officer in the back room was probably already jacking off.

“This is wrong,” she told herself. “I shouldn’t even think about it. I’m not like Darren. I don’t want this life for Travon.” But her fingers still slid the nearest bra into her purse. She didn’t even know if it was her size.

Her stomach fluttering, she followed the woman to the jewelry section. Bells and alarms in her own head told her to leave right now, but she resisted. She checked the camera, and just like before, it turned to follow the woman. A flip of her blonde hair, pouting pink lips, and the guard in this area zipped to her side to chat her up.

Joy swallowed hard. This area was trickier. There were two cameras and the guard. Besides that, the best stuff was locked behind a counter. Kavanagh’s had become famous for their exquisite jewelry at affordable prices, even the real stuff. Joy nearly chewed her lip off taking in the gold and silver. With any one of them, she could buy groceries and pay the phone bill. She could even get Travon some new clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs.

Walk away, Joy.

The sales girl took out two trays of jewelry and sat them on the counter. Pouty Blonde began fussing about their quality while the woman rolled her eyes and turned to help another person. Joy slipped on sunglasses and moved to look in the mirror closer to the counter. The guard was practically drooling.

“How does this look on me?” the blonde woman asked the guard.

“Perfect.”

Joy tried not to gag. She put the glasses back and moved as casually as she could manage to the watches. These would sell okay, she knew. They weren’t too expensive, thirty or forty, but it was something. She considered settling for two or three, and then the guard was called away. The phone rang, and the salesgirl answered with her back to the trays. Joy couldn’t believe her luck.

She hurried over, and when Miss Thing wasn’t looking, Joy stuffed a few rings and bracelets in her pockets. Only after she was halfway to the front door did she remember the camera.

No! Please, no! The camera was always trained on the woman. Snatching what she had right next to the woman insured she had been seen. Her throat dried, and she could already see the prison doors slamming shut and Child Protective Services taking her son.

Her vision blurred. She leaned against a counter and rubbed her forehead. Maybe if she threw her purse away... No, it had her ID in it and her fingerprints. All the police had to do was run them. Years ago, she had worked as a janitor in a secure building. All employees had to give their fingerprints and take drug tests. Her information was sure to be on file somewhere, just waiting for her to screw up.

While she stood there wondering what to do, someone walked up behind her. A hand rested familiarly on her waist, and a deep voice whispered in her ear. “You want to come with me?”

She wanted to say no and run, but her legs wouldn’t work. He propelled her forward. She shuffled along too shocked to resist, her brain befuddled. Instead of the security office like she expected to await the police, he led her down a hall and up a short flight of stairs. Back here, the store was even nicer. They spared no expense in the wall hangings, the plush carpet and the richly appointed office. Oh no! The man was taking her to the big boss!

Still behind her, he moved his hands to her shoulders and pushed her into a seat. She sat ramrod straight, hearing the door click closed behind her. When the man came into view and sat down, she thought she would hurl. The bad twin sat across from her. Or rather, the man from the subway who had the darker looks of the two.

He smiled. “Hello.”

She couldn’t find her voice.

“Not talking?” The man was too handsome for her own good. Upon closer inspection, she found he had violet eyes. She’d never seen such a color in a man’s eyes. He had long black lashes so thick women must cry with jealousy over them.

But instead of the kindness she had seen in his brother, there was only coldness in this one. He reared back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the desk, with the other hand across his mouth. He appeared to be considering his next words, but something told her he had already worked out what he would say, and what he would do to her. She held onto consciousness with supreme effort.

“I—”

He held up a hand. “No, no, let me. You didn’t mean to do it. A demon just took hold of you. A friend coerced you, perhaps the loser from the subway who tried to get you to dance for him.”

She gasped. “You don’t know me.”

“No?”

“N-No.” She hated the stutter. It signaled to him that his scare tactic would work. Perhaps it was her imagination, but the man looked bigger, his shoulders wider than they had seemed on the train. The only mercy was that he was sitting down.

She had thought too soon. He stood and moved around his desk to perch on the edge. Now, he towered over her. His taut thigh muscle crowded her, the bulge at his crotch even more so.

“A-Are you going to call the police?” Better to get right to it.

“You have a son. Travon, isn’t it?”

She choked back a scream.

He went on. “He’s three. No other family, deadbeat dad whose way of paying child support is getting you into things you don’t want to get into. You’ve had a string of jobs, none lasting long, because you’re in the tragic situation of having no higher education, no skills and the only positions you land want you to work hours that eventually clash with your ability to get a babysitter. Am I close?”

“Um...” What the hell was she to say? He could not have guessed all of that or found it out in the moments after she grabbed the jewelry, could he?

He leaned over and tipped up her chin when she would have stared down at her clenched hands for the duration of the meeting. “Final nail in your coffin...If you go to jail, there will be no one to care for your young son. You thought two weeks of not having him last year was hard. This would be far worse.”

She sobbed, great hulking ones that had her bent in half and clutching her stomach. He pulled her to her feet and crushed her to his chest. His lips descended along her neck, and his hands were too possessive at her waist.

“You have to ask yourself what Darren asked you in the subway car just this morning, Joy. What are you willing to do for Travon?”