Tori Ross's Blog, page 7

Free Stuff for August

Need some freebies this month? Here they are…all 120 of them. Some are shorts or novellas. Some are full books. Click here or on the picture below to get the freebies with newsletter sign up.

As always, Head Over Heels in Hawaii is free on all major retailers.

Happy Reading.

Book Suggestions for the Weekend

Need some swoony reads for the weekend? Click on the cover below to get more info. Happy reading!

How to Read Jensen City Heroes

Some of you have asked where Jensen City Heroes went and how you can read the series.

I unpublished that series because it was…very first book-ish. Superhero erotic romance is also off brand for me now that I write steamy contemporary/romantic comedy. I didn’t want to risk people picking it up on main retailers and putting it down, never to touch my other books because it wasn’t what they were expecting.

However, you can still read it in a couple of places.

Place #1 – Buy Me a Coffee

This works a lot like Patreon but without monthly subscriptions. All Jensen City Heroes books (Arson, Thirst, Darkness, and Amp) are there. Arson is free with an option for you to pay more if you want to be generous. The other books are a buck with the option to give more. Click here to be taken to my Buy Me a Coffee page.

As a side note, you can also name characters, do a blind date with a book from my collection, or even commission a story using yourself as a character. It’s actually a pretty cool site. Payments are processed through stripe, and you get a link to the book on BookFunnel when you pay.

I’m not saying that future releases will be there a bit earlier from now on…but it’s a distinct possibility. Wink wink.

Place #2 – Radish Fiction

Just bring up the Radish serial app and search Tori Ross. Arson is free, and the others are pay to unlock.

Happy reading!

Sale of the Month!

Click on the picture below for a universal link to your favorite retailer. The Caretaker is 99 cents all month long!

Blurb:

Eryl Woods is a nursing student looking for a summer job in her boyfriend’s small hometown. She finds employment with Olivia and Kyle March, a middle-aged married couple that lives in a neighborhood called The Yards, as a caretaker for Olivia’s mother.

Tensions are high in Olivia and Kyle’s marriage. Kyle thinks Olivia ignores him, and Olivia thinks Kyle requests too much from her. However, she’s already taking care of the house, their teen son, her dying mother and runs a baking business from home.

When her boyfriend breaks up with her for being uneducated on several things, Eryl takes comfort in Olivia and Kyle as much as they take comfort in her. Will they all help each other with their problems in one summer?

Happy reading!

Book Suggestions for this Weekend!

Need something to read this weekend? Check out these choices. Click on the cover to purchase.

Happy Reading!

Contact High is Live!

It’s here in book form! Paperbacks and eBooks are both live on all major retailers. Click here to purchase! If you search on your computer, you’ll need to use the Kindle drop down box and not the general search. Amazon doesn’t like that this is steamy…so it hides it a little.

It is available for purchase suggestion by your library through the Libby app. To learn how to recommend a book to your library, click here.

Blurb: Tori Ross, award-winning author of The Cuffing Season Contract, brings you a steamy romantic comedy full of heart.

Lorelei Rogers excels at baking, so business booms when she starts a food truck specializing in marijuana edibles, even taking it to concerts and private parties. Despite the rules surrounding growing and selling, Lorelei manages a successful business, and she won’t let anyone come between her and success. That includes the arrogant police officer with an overactive tape measure.

Liam Lane, a drug task force officer for the county, hates marijuana. He’s spent his career fighting the drug and educating youth on its drawbacks. He’s peeved that he can’t crack down on weed anymore and sets out to make Lorelei’s life as miserable as possible, hoping she’ll quit the business and find a respectable baking gig.

Too bad he’s also falling for her like a baked college boy with the munchies.

Contact High is a full-length standalone.

Trigger warnings: Character with cancer, physical and gun violence toward police officer.

Happy reading!

Book Suggestions to Love This Weekend!

It’s hot…damn hot where I live. It’s a good weekend to sit around and in a pool or inside and read. Here’s what I’ve been reading or putting on my TBR list this weekend.

OMG. Hot Chicken by LM Fox released today, and I adore this cover. I first saw this because I’m a mod in the same group as LM, and the blurb sounds interesting. I’m picking this up this weekend and can’t wait to dive in. Grab it here.

As the great Katy Perry, once said, “That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas.”

Operation I Do is the second book in a series but can be read as a standalone. Grab it here. Fair warning…Lala Montgomery brings the heat.

I read this when it came out under a small press a couple of years ago. EL Koslo revamped it a little and re-released it. (I did a podcast with her that’s currently in edits. Watch for her episode on Sitting Here Reading Corn with Tori Ross on Spotify in the coming days!)

This book is a sex scene goldmine. They fuck in a bed. Then in the shower. At a sex club. Back in a bed. On a balcony. You name it. It’s fucking fucking fucking, and I know you’ll love it. Grab it here.

Not really reading this…but I figured I’d mention it because it’s still in pre-order and releases Tuesday. Believe me, I read it 8 million times over the course of the last 6 months. lol. Grab it here.

What are you reading this weekend? Whatever you read…Happy reading!

Christmas in July Ideas

Doing the Christmas in July bingo game that’s going around? If so, I have a few ideas for you. I’ve teamed up with a handful of other authors.

Click here to see the list. Christmas on the Cruise Ship is there. Not going to lie, I may have to try A Drummer Boy for Christmas. lol

Happy reading!

Chapter 1 of Contact High

Read below for Chapter 1 of Contact High!

Pre-order here, or click on the picture below.

Chapter 1

Lorelei

“What’s in it?” the older woman at the window asks, pushing her glasses back onto her long nose and simultaneously looking at the brownie like it’s an insect to be squashed. She looks about sixty, and I bet she’s never purchased a weed brownie from a food truck before. Hell, she’s probably never had a weed brownie at all.

“The strain relaxes you. Mellows you out. Perfect for a jazz concert, wouldn’t you say?” I nod toward the gate entrance to the outdoor concert arena.

People have been covertly smoking joints in the lawn seats here for decades. They’ve used covert ways of getting past security, shoving joints into their shoes and blowing the smoke through blowtubes made of toilet paper rolls and dryer sheets.

But it’s legal now.

The good citizens of Missouri voted to legalize marijuana under three ounces and decriminalize possession charges last year. As soon as the permit process opened, I applied for my cultivation and seller permit. While other sellers flocked to the shop strategy at the borders of surrounding states, I went for something a little more niche. I now have my own food truck that specializes in edibles and caters to event goers, complete with my own patented cannabutter with a few secret infusion extras. Depending on what I’m baking with it, the butter can also have tea, coffee, cardamon, and cinnamon infused with it. Mostly cinnamon. In fact, my most popular cannabutter is simply butter, marijuana, and cinnamon. But people marvel at it like I invented the light bulb.

There are still rules, permits, red tape to jump over, and hoops to dodge, but it can be consumed on private property. Thankfully, the concert arena owner is weed friendly, and the land is privately owned. The owner, Buddy Wilkens, was more than happy to let me park my food truck, Lorelei’s Blissful Baked Goods, on a small patch of grass between the entrance and parking lot.

“If this were a Metallica concert, there’d be a different strain in it. I have to know my customers.” I chuckle at my own joke and stiffen when the lady doesn’t laugh.

I guess she’s that kind of customer. Too bad she can’t report me to the police any longer, and I smile with the knowledge. Then again, she’s probably here to hold up the line. I get those every now and then. People who hate marijuana and want to keep people from buying it any way they can.

“Can I help you?” I ask the next customer in line, a younger bald man with a pierced nose. My kind of person.

I finger my own nose stud, remembering the terrible infection I got. I thought it would make me look edgy for the customers when I started selling a few months back, even though you have to be close to see it since it’s so small. Kailee, my employee that helps on the weekends and substitute teaches during the day, did it herself.

Don’t let an untrained person pierce your nose. Lesson learned.

I catch a glimpse of Kailee out of the corner of my eye as she works at the back of the truck, stirring the fudge ingredients and donning an oven mitt before taking a tray of cookies from the truck oven.

“Yeah, I’ll take a brownie and one of the mint cupcakes,” the man says. “Do you have any vanilla cupcakes?”

Amateur. My shoulders slouch, disappointed that I still get asked about vanilla baked goods, but I still smile. I never miss an opportunity to educate about edibles. “Actually, there’s a reason that people bake marijuana into things like chocolate or brownies,” I say, shrugging as the older woman stomps off. The man steps closer, his eyebrows raised like we’re in a chemistry lab and I’m explaining something cool.

We kind of are. I mean, I always loved Breaking Bad, but making my own cannabutter for baked goods took some trial and error, and I ruined more than a couple slow cookers in the process. The recipes took months to be tweaked into something that tasted good and got people high.

“The key is saturated butter,” I say, grabbing a stick of the butter from the mini fridge next to the register. “Cannabutter. You can’t just sprinkle weed into a batter. You have to infuse the butter by melting it with leaves, removing the leaves, and letting the butter solidify again. When the butter is infused, it’s greenish, sometimes darker green. It really doesn’t work well in white baked goods. I mean, you can have it in vanilla, and it tastes good. People just don’t like eating green-tinged baked goods,” I explain, waffling my head side-to-side. “Well, unless it’s St. Patrick’s Day.”

“Whoa. So cool. Did you figure that out yourself?”

I chuckle. “No. Some dude taught me how to do it in college. This is how it’s been done for decades, my friend. I grow my own plants and infuse my own butter that I use in the truck. You can go to my website and buy your own to use at home.”

He gets his phone out and takes a picture of the side of my truck with my website information under the truck name, and I hand him an environmentally friendly paper bag with his pastries, wrapped in their wrappers to show what strain it is, as required by law. “Enjoy the show.”

He waves, and the next person approaches. A fifty-something woman with purple hair adjusts noise-canceling headphones over her ears and stands on her tiptoes to look at my menu. “So fucking cool,” she mumbles. “Do you only do this for concerts?” she asks, her eyes moving to the case containing the wrapped peanut butter fudge and the case of chocolate chunk cookies.

“I do birthday parties.” I lean over the ledge and hand her my business card.

“Shut the front fucking door,” she says, looking at it.

“The only rule is that the birthday has to be on private property. It can’t be a park or something. I usually back the truck into a driveway.”

“Awesome. I’ll take two,” she says, nodding to the case with the fudge squares.

Customers come and go over the next hour as they purchase their edibles before the show starts. I run out of business cards and make a mental note to order more. Even better, I run out of most pastries. Kailee checks the fridge and tsks. “We’re out of everything except for three mint chocolate cupcakes. Want to have a good time?” she asks, waggling her eyebrows. We’re not above eating a leftover pastry at the end of the night.

“That still leaves one.”

“I’ll take it,” a voice says from the window.

Turning around, my insides freeze. I usually can’t see people if I’m not right at the window, but I can see his head and shoulders. Either he’s incredibly tall, or he’s on a step stool. He’s wearing aviators like he’s a pilot. No, police officer. He reeks of cop, but fuck me, he’s hot as hell.

“Can I help you?” I smile, sauntering to the window.

He returns the smile, but I can spot a fake smile a mile away. “What do we have here?” he asks, nodding to the lone cupcake I’m holding in my hand. “I couldn’t help but overhear you wanting to have some leftovers. It’s illegal to imbibe in marijuana and drive.”

“We usually wait until we get home before we eat the leftovers, mister…”

“Lane. Officer Lane. Drug task force.” His smile disappears from his face, and I miss it.

His full, bowed lips settle into a straight line that doesn’t suit him. He runs his hands over the stubble coating his cheeks, but he doesn’t touch the wavy hair on his head. Aren’t cops supposed to have buzz cuts? His dark brown hair curls at the ends just over his ears, and I lament that he doesn’t touch it. I’d like to know how it waves when he’s frustrated.

“Would you like the last one, Officer Lane?” I say, holding up the cupcake inside its plastic container with the strain sticker on it and the date it was made. “If it’s your birthday, I can put a candle on it.”

Shit. Did I just bat my eyelashes when I said that? I blink again, hoping to pass off that I have something stuck in my long, fake eyelashes so he won’t know I’m thinking about how I’d like to undo his pants and check out his night stick.

I lean against the metal window frame and look down. Yep, totally sexy. Tight-fitting dark jeans and a simple black t-shirt that stretches across those sexy shoulders. His badge sits in his waistband, and he pushes his sunglasses up his nose with his middle finger, a slow indication that he really isn’t impressed with my behavior.

I sigh and hold out the decorative paper plate holding the cupcake and smile. “Be cool. Live a little,” I whisper, mentally acknowledging that I sound like the stereotypical drug pusher that jumps out at middle schoolers from behind a tree.

“I prefer not to. I just saw this while I was driving by and had to give it a look. I assume you have all the proper permits and licenses?” he asks, patting the side of the truck like he’s taking it for a test drive. He squints at the sign indicating lunches. “Do you serve food besides pastries?”

“No, sir. That’s leftover from the last owner. I need to get it replaced, but it’s stuck on there tight, and it looks tacky when I try to paint over it.”

He clears his throat again. “I’ll ask again. Do you have the correct permits?”

“Of course.”

Kailee slides up to my side and looks down at him. “Damn,” she whispers under her breath. “Is he going to handcuff you? If not, can he cuff me?” I step on her foot, and she grunts. “I’m just saying,” she whispers before walking away.

“That’s disgusting,” he says, ignoring Kailee and nodding at the gorgeous cupcake in front of him.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s drugs. I hate drugs. I hate people that push drugs.”

My face reddens, and my nostrils flare. “Officer Lane, do you drink beer?”

He scoffs and puts his hands on his hips. “Sure.”

“Technically, alcohol is a drug. So is a bottle of cold medicine. It’s in the usage.” I tilt my head and put on my most condescending snarl. “Whether you like it or not, the voters of this state legalized marijuana for recreational use on private property and with the proper packaging. I park on private property and have all appropriate seller licenses. I’ve paid my fees to the state, I don’t drive while eating my own product, sell only to people before the show, check ID, and always have under the allowed amount on the truck. I even have a transportation license,” I say, tapping the framed piece of paper behind my Square reader. “Regarding the three ounces rule, in case you didn’t know, three ounces is actually a fuck ton of weed and even less when we’re talking cannabutter. If you have a problem with any of this, you can take it up with all 1,089,326 citizens that voted to legitimize this business.”

He backs away from the order area and looks at the side of my truck, then back to me. Fuck, I’d love to see what color his eyes are under those aviators. I bet they’re blue. No. Probably green. To keep from thinking about his eyes, I push the cupcake to him. “Here. On the house.”

“I’m going to take this to the office and make sure it’s just THC in there. Are you adding any other drugs to it?”

Laughter bubbles from my chest. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“I’m an officer of the law, ma’am. I expect you to be respectful when you answer my questions.”

“Well, Officer Lane, if I’m being questioned about illegal activity, I’d be happy to answer your questions with an attorney present. As I am operating on private property in a perfectly legal capacity, I’ll answer any harassing questions the way I please.”

He pulls his phone out and takes a picture of the truck, including my website information. Normally, I’d be happy someone was interested, but my gut tells me I haven’t heard the last of him.

“I’ll be watching you,” he says, pointing his finger at me. I half expect him to wag his finger like he’s scolding a child. “This is wrong, immoral, and I’ll make sure you toe the law.”

He turns and walks away, my cupcake in his hand like it’s a dead animal he’s trying not to touch. He takes long strides away from the truck, and I watch his chiseled ass muscles clench as he walks. My mouth feels like cotton, but I clear my throat and try to think of something witty to put him in his place.

“I do birthday parties!”

Back Half of 2023 Releases and Events

With 2023 being half over, I thought I’d do a reminder of upcoming events I’ll be attending, and also go over my releases for the next six months.

I have only released two books so far this year, one a novella. I usually do way more, but I’ve been working hard the first six months of the year so that you’ll get a lot of releases in the last half and heading into 2024.

July 11– Confessions of a Reluctant Erotica Writer – This is non-fiction and details my first year of attempting to write erotica. After a lot of back and forth, Selena Moore convinced me I need to publish this after she read it. I’m very twitchy about it, but let’s see what happens, shall we? It’s 99 cents on pre-order right now. It’ll be on all major retailers, but I only have the Amazon link here at the moment.

August 1: Contact High releases.

This has been on Kindle Vella, but I’m so excited to give this to you in book format. Pre-order is here on all major retailers. It was top-faved on Kindle Vella twice, so I hope you like the book as much as Vella readers enjoyed it in serial format.

It will be available in print wide. So, if you have an indie bookstore in your town and want to buy it through them, you can request it. You can also request your library purchase a copy. They should have that ability a couple of weeks after release.

Coming Late September: Radish and Kindle Vella readers rejoice. I’ve kicked a story around for about 2 years, and I finally decided to write it piecemeal so I can get my other work done. This will be an erotic suspense romance with a happy ending. It will be ongoing for a long time, so buckle in. It’s a bit darker than I normally write and very little romantic comedy, but this story is scratching in my brain. Watch social media for drop dates, but I told my friend Lisa about it when we were walking the other day, and she loved the idea.

October 3: Turkey in Tennessee (book 5 of The Traveling Calvert Sisters) will release this month. Cover below. I’ll send something in my newsletter when this is ready for pre-order. It’s currently on Kindle Vella here.

November 7: All I Wank for Christmas. Pre-order here.

This book…I think you’ll get a kick out of it. This will be in KU for at least one round, and then I’ll re-evaluate. I know I’m mostly wide now, but this went into pre-order before the KU royalties plunged. I asked Amazon to let me out of KU for this, and they said I couldn’t do it. So…it’s in KU. It will be available for purchase in paperback at all retailers. (You may just need to request it.) You can also request your library purchase it. (Don’t be surprised if they don’t because of the title.)

Extra Shorts: Did you enjoy the Rocks shorts? I have shorts that are similar to this coming this Fall. No pre-orders or serialization first. I’ll drop them one by one when they’re done. There are 4 of them. These will be in KU, at least at first, because I want to give KU readers that enjoy All I Wank for Christmas something to enjoy in my catalog. I thought these shorts would do it. More info coming soon.

Also, my current newsletter magnet, Hot Sauce Blues, will be available for purchase wide after September. If you want it for free, now is the time to sign up for my newsletter here. After September 1st, this will no longer be available with newsletter signup.

Appearances for the rest of 2023:

Books by the Arch– September 30 in St. Louis. General admission is free. There are still VIP tickets available that get you a swag bag and into the event early.

Writers of the Riverbend – October 14 at Maeva’s Coffee House in Alton, IL. Free admission.

Happy reading!