Blair Babylon's Blog: Blair Blathers, page 28
May 19, 2016
The Supermodel's Best FriendBy: GretchenGalwayFREE!When L...
The Supermodel's Best Friend
By: Gretchen
GalwayFREE!
When Lucy attends her best friend's destination wedding, she hopes she can meet a guy who fits all her requirements. Best man Miles is outgoing, uninhibited, and uninterested in marriage--not Lucy's type at all. But sometimes opposites attract!
iBooks Amazon Nook Kobo Google Play
GalwayFREE!
When Lucy attends her best friend's destination wedding, she hopes she can meet a guy who fits all her requirements. Best man Miles is outgoing, uninhibited, and uninterested in marriage--not Lucy's type at all. But sometimes opposites attract!
iBooks Amazon Nook Kobo Google Play
February 19, 2016
January 26, 2016
Child Prodigies, the Arts Industry, and The Devil’s Violinist
So, as I’ve said, I’m going to watch “The Devil’s Violinist,” the movie, starring David Garrett and live-tweet it. Just to be fair, I am not the normal, typical movie-watcher, and I feel like I need to come clean before I do. I’m going to have to brag a little, but I need to present my bone fides. I find it obnoxious when partially trained reviewers go to ludicrous snark without understanding the art involved.
First of all, I’ve read reviews. Most of them are less than complimentary about several aspects of the movie. First of all, many people have mentioned that the writing is less than stellar, to be polite. Bernard Rose is listed as both the director and the writer. I loved “Immortal Beloved,” but his more recent films have devolved, which worries me.
So why do I get to judge, you ask? What skills do I have that mean I get to review this film?
Okay, I’m a pretty good writer. I hold an MFA from Iowa, which is the Juilliard for writers. The metaphor is apt for several reasons. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop tends to attract the people who are already the very best writers of the generation because The Workshop has the best reputation (self-fulfilling prophecy) and the best financial aid. Why would anyone go to USC and end up $100,000 in debt when they could go to the better-ranked Iowa (#1 according to all the grad school rankings) and emerge with no debt? Most people who went to Iowa who become major talents are compelled or convinced to come back and give seminars or teach, so the faculty and visiting faculty are stellar. Also, it’s the literary program, the classical music of writing, as opposed to Columbia University, which is more like the Berklee School of Music. Twenty-three of the twenty-five students in my class (including me) have trad-published a novel-length work of literary fiction, and I know why the other two didn’t. There were big reasons, not just oopsie-reasons. I was the Truman Capote Fellow, a very prestigious fellowship. Also, I’ve been on the USA Today bestseller list five times in the past two years. Yeah, I get to judge the writing.
Yes, David Garrett can play the violin, and I’m looking forward to see what he’s going to do with Paganini. The thing is, I also get to judge the acting. Garrett is about fourteen in this photo (right), and he had been playing the violin since he was around four. He’s marvelous. He’s an exceptional violinist.
My fourth set of headshots.The photo of me (left) is from when I was nine. I started taking acting lessons when I was four and got my first big gig when I was five. I worked for hours every day, long hours every week, on all the triple-threat skills. I was one of those child actors who took classes and private lessons in every spare second to hone my skills. I acted and modeled until I was about sixteen, when I blew out my knee in ballet and, without ballet as the lynchpin, decided to walk away (as best I could) from the performing arts. I don’t want to discuss it much, other than to say that I did enough that I can judge the acting. I’m also not going to get into my rant here about child labor, the manufacture of child prodigies, and the arts, but no one escapes unscathed, or even mostly whole, from that machine.
(Yep. Actor/Model as a kid. Writer as an adult. There was more stuff in between and since. I’ve had an interesting life. When I do something, I do it hard. And I don’t need a lot of sleep.)
Anyway, I have some thoughts about the movie “The Devil’s Violinist” even before I begin.
From what I understand, the running time is 122 minutes, of which over 40 minutes is music.
That’s not a dramatic movie. I don’t think you can quite call it a musical, due to the genre promises that “musical” implies, but it’s more of an opera, closer akin to “Tommy,” “Quadrophenia,” or “The Wall.” It’s about a rock star, the music, and the life. Any time you cast a movie with non-actors for authenticity, it shouldn’t be judged against films that aren’t comparable. It’s a different art form. You have to come into it with different expectations, and you have to establish a different rubric to judge it.
And because I am a hell of a writer and an accomplished actor, I can figure that out.
Soon, I will set up to watch the film and live-tweet, and then we’ll see if this team pulled it off.
First of all, I’ve read reviews. Most of them are less than complimentary about several aspects of the movie. First of all, many people have mentioned that the writing is less than stellar, to be polite. Bernard Rose is listed as both the director and the writer. I loved “Immortal Beloved,” but his more recent films have devolved, which worries me.
So why do I get to judge, you ask? What skills do I have that mean I get to review this film?
Okay, I’m a pretty good writer. I hold an MFA from Iowa, which is the Juilliard for writers. The metaphor is apt for several reasons. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop tends to attract the people who are already the very best writers of the generation because The Workshop has the best reputation (self-fulfilling prophecy) and the best financial aid. Why would anyone go to USC and end up $100,000 in debt when they could go to the better-ranked Iowa (#1 according to all the grad school rankings) and emerge with no debt? Most people who went to Iowa who become major talents are compelled or convinced to come back and give seminars or teach, so the faculty and visiting faculty are stellar. Also, it’s the literary program, the classical music of writing, as opposed to Columbia University, which is more like the Berklee School of Music. Twenty-three of the twenty-five students in my class (including me) have trad-published a novel-length work of literary fiction, and I know why the other two didn’t. There were big reasons, not just oopsie-reasons. I was the Truman Capote Fellow, a very prestigious fellowship. Also, I’ve been on the USA Today bestseller list five times in the past two years. Yeah, I get to judge the writing.
Yes, David Garrett can play the violin, and I’m looking forward to see what he’s going to do with Paganini. The thing is, I also get to judge the acting. Garrett is about fourteen in this photo (right), and he had been playing the violin since he was around four. He’s marvelous. He’s an exceptional violinist.
My fourth set of headshots.The photo of me (left) is from when I was nine. I started taking acting lessons when I was four and got my first big gig when I was five. I worked for hours every day, long hours every week, on all the triple-threat skills. I was one of those child actors who took classes and private lessons in every spare second to hone my skills. I acted and modeled until I was about sixteen, when I blew out my knee in ballet and, without ballet as the lynchpin, decided to walk away (as best I could) from the performing arts. I don’t want to discuss it much, other than to say that I did enough that I can judge the acting. I’m also not going to get into my rant here about child labor, the manufacture of child prodigies, and the arts, but no one escapes unscathed, or even mostly whole, from that machine.(Yep. Actor/Model as a kid. Writer as an adult. There was more stuff in between and since. I’ve had an interesting life. When I do something, I do it hard. And I don’t need a lot of sleep.)
Anyway, I have some thoughts about the movie “The Devil’s Violinist” even before I begin.
From what I understand, the running time is 122 minutes, of which over 40 minutes is music.
That’s not a dramatic movie. I don’t think you can quite call it a musical, due to the genre promises that “musical” implies, but it’s more of an opera, closer akin to “Tommy,” “Quadrophenia,” or “The Wall.” It’s about a rock star, the music, and the life. Any time you cast a movie with non-actors for authenticity, it shouldn’t be judged against films that aren’t comparable. It’s a different art form. You have to come into it with different expectations, and you have to establish a different rubric to judge it.
And because I am a hell of a writer and an accomplished actor, I can figure that out.
Soon, I will set up to watch the film and live-tweet, and then we’ll see if this team pulled it off.
David Garrett, Music, and Synesthesia
I love music.
Most music.
I can listen to Eddie Van Halen shred “Eruption” on a loop or listen to Imagine Dragons, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, Aerosmith, Alicia Keys, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Queen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, No Doubt, Rush, The Stones, Nirvana, The Who, Stevie Nicks, U2, Taylor Swift, Lauryn Hill, Jimi Hendrix, Billy Joel, The Decembrists, or most classical music for hours.
And I listen to a lot of classical music. When I write, I prefer to listen to orchestral classical music or opera in Italian so that those words don’t get in the way of my words. I love everything about classical music.
Except for the frickin’ violins.
But I’m a little odd. When I’m listening to music and close my eyes, I see colors and shapes, and the music shifts around in front of me in a way that is not related to the mixing for the speakers. I have synesthesia, which means that I am “a synesthete.” It means that my sensory neurons interact with each other in nontypical ways.
To be clear, I’m not autistic. I can read facial expressions and body language and get inside other people’s heads to the point where it’s creepy. I’ll make eye contact until youlook away. It’s some of my other neurons that are crossed. It’s just an unusual way to experience the world. It’s not so much a sensory disability as a sensory bonus prize.
I also hear music when I read, as the words have rhythm and specific words have tones, and yes, I use it in my writing. I have to be careful not to go too far into it because it can become incomprehensible to other people, but either it has seeped into the language enough or that enough people have a low level of synesthesia that just about everyone understands bright treble musical notes and dark, mournful low tones. I gave synesthesia to one character (Alexandre) so I could let it out and play with it. I reread Nabokov ravenously.
"Hallelujah" by Melissa McCrackenA fantastic artist and synesthete, Melissa McCracken, paints what she sees, and she does a remarkable job of transforming a four-dimensional experience (three dimensions plus time) into a two-dimensional canvas. It’s the best representation of what it’s like to have synesthesia that I’ve seen. I don’t see exactly the same things, but when I saw this painting of “Hallelujah,” I knew immediately that it must be Leonard Cohen’s song and could not be the chorus from Handel’s Messiah. What I see is generally rounder and smoother, more like billowing fabric that blossoms with colors, less spikey. I see different colors, but we both agree that the white in the foreground here is the most intense.
Classical music is especially friendly to synesthetes. The first time my ballet teacher played proper classical music in class when I was about six (Swan Lake), she could barely get me back to the barre because I was pressing my head against the speaker. Some pop music is so busy with the seven-second rule that it’s like watching a fireworks finale from inside a popcorn popper for three and a half excruciating minutes. I’m a little more tolerant than a lot of synesthetes in delving into pop music to find the underlying elements and listening to those, but it’s still overwhelming sometimes.
"Imagine" (John Lennon)But not all music or instruments are friendly to synesthetes or to me as a synesthete.
Violins are especially problematic for me. I like classical music, and I listen to a lot of symphonies and piano concertos, but I have rarely listened to violin music, except for certain musicians. Within an orchestra, the violins don’t bother me because the other instruments blend and smooth away the problematic sounds, the buzz of the strings on the lower notes and a shrill screech on the higher notes that are the higher harmonics of the tone. The brass section is particularly important in blending out the painful tones.
I can only listen to three solo violinists: Jascha Heifetz, Itzhak Perlman, and David Garrett.
That these three violinists play with a similar style isn’t surprising. Itzhak Perlman has confirmed that he’s a synesthete, too, and David Garrett counts Perlman as one of his major influences. For example, J.S. Bach’s “Sarabande,” I can only listen to those three violinists play. Especially for the first few bars, those first low,dissonant tones, listening to any other violinist is like iron-black, silver-edged sawtooth spikes erupting from the ground all around me, and it yanks down on my ears. It feels like someone stripping the nerves out of my lower arms. It hurts. James Ehnes’s technique is supposedly flawless, but I can’t listen to him play. I want to run my fingernails down a chalkboard and chew aluminum foil afterward to get it out of my head. Joshua Bell’s colors are monochromatic and flat, not nuanced, except when they’re shattering and like grating sandpaper on my palms.
And before anyone gets snarky about David Garrett, please don’t. I don’t snark about people, especially other authors and other artists. People are dismissive of him in bizarre and reactionary ways that seem little based in reality. Yes, he’s pretty. Yes, he’s popular. Get over it and listen to how he plays the damn violin. If you’re talking about his hair or his cheekbones, then you’re falling into the same hype trap that you’re pretending to disdain. Seriously, when I read a review of his music that mentions his hair, I know the reviewer is an idiot. It’s exactlythe same thing as a review that gushes about his looks and doesn’t mention his music but with a troll’s evil intent.
There are many reasons why Garrett is outselling other classical musicians, and if you can’t figure out what they are, then you need to sit down, set your preconceptions aside, and listen more deeply. Technique is craft. Craft is the foundation of the arts, but mere technique is just draftsmanship. It’s tracing another person’s painting and coloring by numbers.
Art is communication of what it means to be human, conveys emotion, and causes an emotional change in the viewer/reader/listener. Popularity is a measure of the effectiveness of communication. If no one responds, it isn’t art. If a lot of people respond, it is the very definition of art. Close your eyes and listen to Garrett play Bach’s Sonata No. 2, here. I don’t think I drew a breath for three minutes while I listened to this because I didn’t want the rushing of the air in my head to interfere with hearing it. Listen to that emotion.Expressivity like that is art.
A very smart friend of mine said, “I think a lot of commoners,” she was speaking of herself, bless her heart, “are put off by classical music because they won't be valued as fans because they can't give a technical 'educated' commentary. The genre is set up to make Joe Average feel inferior.”
Garrett doesn’t talk down to his audience like most classical performers do. He gives them something familiar and that is widely understood, like Metallica or Michael Jackson, and then he shows them connections to classical music. That’s brilliant. That’s communication, and that’sart.
All artists work with the tools of craft and the inspiration and ride the blinding lightning bolt of art. Some are better at one than the other. It is easier to explain why artists with better technique are “better,” because technique can be objectively and rather easily explained, and it is what can be taught. It’s why the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (my alma mater, don’t want people to think I’m randomly bashing an MFA program,) concentrates on dissecting and discussing prose at the word- and sentence-level. Technique is easy to discuss.
Art is almost impossible to quantify or to explain. A lot of my friends (after I have ruthlessly converted them to being David Garrett fans, but they became freaky-psychotic fans all on their own,) have said that they don’t know a lot about classical music, but they know how they feel when they listen to Garrett play.
That’s art.
Most music.
I can listen to Eddie Van Halen shred “Eruption” on a loop or listen to Imagine Dragons, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, Aerosmith, Alicia Keys, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Queen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, No Doubt, Rush, The Stones, Nirvana, The Who, Stevie Nicks, U2, Taylor Swift, Lauryn Hill, Jimi Hendrix, Billy Joel, The Decembrists, or most classical music for hours.
And I listen to a lot of classical music. When I write, I prefer to listen to orchestral classical music or opera in Italian so that those words don’t get in the way of my words. I love everything about classical music.
Except for the frickin’ violins.
But I’m a little odd. When I’m listening to music and close my eyes, I see colors and shapes, and the music shifts around in front of me in a way that is not related to the mixing for the speakers. I have synesthesia, which means that I am “a synesthete.” It means that my sensory neurons interact with each other in nontypical ways.
To be clear, I’m not autistic. I can read facial expressions and body language and get inside other people’s heads to the point where it’s creepy. I’ll make eye contact until youlook away. It’s some of my other neurons that are crossed. It’s just an unusual way to experience the world. It’s not so much a sensory disability as a sensory bonus prize.
I also hear music when I read, as the words have rhythm and specific words have tones, and yes, I use it in my writing. I have to be careful not to go too far into it because it can become incomprehensible to other people, but either it has seeped into the language enough or that enough people have a low level of synesthesia that just about everyone understands bright treble musical notes and dark, mournful low tones. I gave synesthesia to one character (Alexandre) so I could let it out and play with it. I reread Nabokov ravenously.
"Hallelujah" by Melissa McCrackenA fantastic artist and synesthete, Melissa McCracken, paints what she sees, and she does a remarkable job of transforming a four-dimensional experience (three dimensions plus time) into a two-dimensional canvas. It’s the best representation of what it’s like to have synesthesia that I’ve seen. I don’t see exactly the same things, but when I saw this painting of “Hallelujah,” I knew immediately that it must be Leonard Cohen’s song and could not be the chorus from Handel’s Messiah. What I see is generally rounder and smoother, more like billowing fabric that blossoms with colors, less spikey. I see different colors, but we both agree that the white in the foreground here is the most intense.Classical music is especially friendly to synesthetes. The first time my ballet teacher played proper classical music in class when I was about six (Swan Lake), she could barely get me back to the barre because I was pressing my head against the speaker. Some pop music is so busy with the seven-second rule that it’s like watching a fireworks finale from inside a popcorn popper for three and a half excruciating minutes. I’m a little more tolerant than a lot of synesthetes in delving into pop music to find the underlying elements and listening to those, but it’s still overwhelming sometimes.
"Imagine" (John Lennon)But not all music or instruments are friendly to synesthetes or to me as a synesthete.Violins are especially problematic for me. I like classical music, and I listen to a lot of symphonies and piano concertos, but I have rarely listened to violin music, except for certain musicians. Within an orchestra, the violins don’t bother me because the other instruments blend and smooth away the problematic sounds, the buzz of the strings on the lower notes and a shrill screech on the higher notes that are the higher harmonics of the tone. The brass section is particularly important in blending out the painful tones.
I can only listen to three solo violinists: Jascha Heifetz, Itzhak Perlman, and David Garrett.
That these three violinists play with a similar style isn’t surprising. Itzhak Perlman has confirmed that he’s a synesthete, too, and David Garrett counts Perlman as one of his major influences. For example, J.S. Bach’s “Sarabande,” I can only listen to those three violinists play. Especially for the first few bars, those first low,dissonant tones, listening to any other violinist is like iron-black, silver-edged sawtooth spikes erupting from the ground all around me, and it yanks down on my ears. It feels like someone stripping the nerves out of my lower arms. It hurts. James Ehnes’s technique is supposedly flawless, but I can’t listen to him play. I want to run my fingernails down a chalkboard and chew aluminum foil afterward to get it out of my head. Joshua Bell’s colors are monochromatic and flat, not nuanced, except when they’re shattering and like grating sandpaper on my palms.
And before anyone gets snarky about David Garrett, please don’t. I don’t snark about people, especially other authors and other artists. People are dismissive of him in bizarre and reactionary ways that seem little based in reality. Yes, he’s pretty. Yes, he’s popular. Get over it and listen to how he plays the damn violin. If you’re talking about his hair or his cheekbones, then you’re falling into the same hype trap that you’re pretending to disdain. Seriously, when I read a review of his music that mentions his hair, I know the reviewer is an idiot. It’s exactlythe same thing as a review that gushes about his looks and doesn’t mention his music but with a troll’s evil intent.
There are many reasons why Garrett is outselling other classical musicians, and if you can’t figure out what they are, then you need to sit down, set your preconceptions aside, and listen more deeply. Technique is craft. Craft is the foundation of the arts, but mere technique is just draftsmanship. It’s tracing another person’s painting and coloring by numbers.
Art is communication of what it means to be human, conveys emotion, and causes an emotional change in the viewer/reader/listener. Popularity is a measure of the effectiveness of communication. If no one responds, it isn’t art. If a lot of people respond, it is the very definition of art. Close your eyes and listen to Garrett play Bach’s Sonata No. 2, here. I don’t think I drew a breath for three minutes while I listened to this because I didn’t want the rushing of the air in my head to interfere with hearing it. Listen to that emotion.Expressivity like that is art.
A very smart friend of mine said, “I think a lot of commoners,” she was speaking of herself, bless her heart, “are put off by classical music because they won't be valued as fans because they can't give a technical 'educated' commentary. The genre is set up to make Joe Average feel inferior.”
Garrett doesn’t talk down to his audience like most classical performers do. He gives them something familiar and that is widely understood, like Metallica or Michael Jackson, and then he shows them connections to classical music. That’s brilliant. That’s communication, and that’sart.
All artists work with the tools of craft and the inspiration and ride the blinding lightning bolt of art. Some are better at one than the other. It is easier to explain why artists with better technique are “better,” because technique can be objectively and rather easily explained, and it is what can be taught. It’s why the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (my alma mater, don’t want people to think I’m randomly bashing an MFA program,) concentrates on dissecting and discussing prose at the word- and sentence-level. Technique is easy to discuss.
Art is almost impossible to quantify or to explain. A lot of my friends (after I have ruthlessly converted them to being David Garrett fans, but they became freaky-psychotic fans all on their own,) have said that they don’t know a lot about classical music, but they know how they feel when they listen to Garrett play.
That’s art.
December 28, 2015
Free books, 99c New Releases, and More!
Hey Folks!
The holidays are mostly over, and that means that it's time to unwind and relax with some great new books, thank heavens. I've got some great new picks this month! These books are great, absolutely wonderful, and I hope you enjoy them!
I'm doing a bit of relaxing, a bit of reading, etc. I've been beginning to work on the urban fantasy/paranormal romance that I'll put out early in 2016 that's based in the world of SM Reine. If you haven't read Sara Reine's books, I highly recommend them. Indeed, I recommend them so much. Not just because I'm going to write in her world. Her writing is lovely, and she creates long, convoluted, character-based plots that tie up beautifully after long, complex series. (Just in case you were wondering why I like her work, yeah, maybe they resonate with me for some strange reason.) I'll put the first book in her series in this email. They're really good. The first one is called Death's Hand and it's FREE everywhere. Cool, huh?
Also, I'm going to be writing a couple of "standalones" in 2016, as "standalone" as any of my books ever are, anyway. I'm thinking that one, which will be released in May, will be based on one of the guys at Georgie's wedding, maybe one of the Earls or Princes that Alexandre was telling Georgie about. Or maybe about Pierre's younger brother, Maxence Grimaldi, who is heir to the throne of Monaco after Pierre, should anything, ahem, happen to Flicka's husband Pierre, like a sniper shot from a bell tower if Pierre doesn't pony up and tell Wulf anything he knows about Flicka's whereabouts. Just sayin'.
As always, thank you so much for reading, and thank you for your support this last year. I'll do my best to drop lots of fun books in 2016.
All the best,
Blair Babylon
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Perfectly KissedBy: Lacey SilksMistletoes, a sneaky best friend and an old lady, coerce best friends and former lovers, Millie and Dave, to reunite for Christmas Holidays.
Amazon ~~ iBooksBarnes & Noble ~~ Kobo ~~ Google Play
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Montreux (A Rae and Wulf Wedding Epilogue #3)(Billionaires in Disguise #17)By: Blair BabylonOnly 99c!
Blair's newest release! Just hours before Wulf von Hannover’s wedding to Rae Stone, his sister Flicka has been kidnapped. The thrilling conclusion to the Billionaires in Disguise: Rae epilogue trilogy!
Amazon.com ~~ iBooksBarnes & Noble ~~ Kobo ~~ Google Play
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Death's Hand (The Descent Series Book 1)by SM ReineFREE EVERYWHERE!Policing relations between Heaven, Hell, and Earth is messy and violent, but Elise Kavanagh and James Faulkner excelled at it-- until coming across a job so brutal that even they couldn't stand to see one more dead body.
Now they've been pretending to be normal for five years, leaving their horrific history a dark secret. Elise works in an office. James owns a business. None of their friends realize they used to be one of the world's best killing teams.
After years of hiding, something stirs. Bodies are vanishing. Demons scurry in the shadows of the night. A child has been possessed.
Some enemies aren't willing to let the secrets of the past stay dead...
Amazon.com ~~ iBooksBarnes & Noble ~~ Kobo ~~ Google Play
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What A Girl Wants (Rock Stars in Disguise: Rhiannon)A New Adult Rock Star Romance The first book in the Killer Valentine Series By: Blair Babylon
Music is a bitch mistress.When Rhiannon is hired as a back-up singer for Killer Valentine, the hottest breakout rock band on the planet, her contract includes an iron-clad no-fraternization clause. However, it doesn’t take her long to figure out that Killer Valentine is falling apart from the stresses of touring and promotion. The band’s manager Jonas Rees, a green-eyed starmaker, is frantically trying to prevent them from self-destructing during their grueling tour and right before their first major-label record deal, but neither Jonas nor Rhiannon can deny the attraction that flares between them.
When the band’s problems threaten to derail the tour and Jonas slips and reveals their relationship, the lead singer demands that Rhiannon choose between music and love.
Amazon ~ Your Local Amazon SiteAmazon PaperbackBarnes & Noble ~ Google PlayiBooks ~ Kobo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mimi Strong's 99-cent Chick-Lit BundleLove to laugh with a lighter read?
Get several hilarious books by NYT bestselling erotic romance author Mimi Strong (best known for the Peaches Monroe trilogy), writing under her chick-lit pen name & more!
This is a limited edition bundle of COMPLETE NOVELS (no cliffhangers), and it's only 99 cents for a limited time.
AmazonRead for free with Kindle Unlimited
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Torn: Part Three (An Alpha Billionaire Romance)By: Sky CorganPiper Gravatt had the perfect life until it all went to hell. Now there's only one place that she can go to get what she needs to survive. Club Fet, where the men are hot and the acts of lust are unconventional.
**A KindleUnlimited series** Amazon
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RIOT (Bad Boy Escorts)By: Jo RavenOnly 99c or FREE with KU for a limited time
A male escort romance unlike any you've ever read. Hot. Suspenseful. Heart-breaking. "An escort love story that will melt your heart and heat your body” ~ Rochelle's Reviews
AmazonRead for Free with Kindle Unlimited
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October 20, 2015
Nothing Else Matters -- October 27th! The Conclusion to Xan and Georgie!
Brand-new New Adult Rock Star Romancefrom USA Today-Bestselling Author Blair Babylon!
The nail-biting conclusion to the Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Xan series Nothing Else Matters explores the depths of the heart and the healing power of love.
Release: October 27, 2015
Georgie broke up with Xan Valentine, the lead singer for the rock band Killer Valentine, the guy that Rolling Stone calls “sex incarnate.” The magazine isn’t wrong, but they don’t know the half of it. He’s the alpha-est male who ever walked onto a stage or into a bedroom and might be crazy, and Georgie is definitely in love with him. Plus, he hired her ex-boyfriend, her first “real” boyfriend, to play in the band, and now she’s stuck between them.
So she tried to leave. That’s what any sane girl would do.
And just as she feared, the Russian mafia kidnapped her.
She prays that Xan won’t try to rescue her because they said they’ll kill him. But she knows he will, even if it costs him everything.
Your Local Amazon ~~~ Amazon.com iBooks / iTunes Barnes & Noble / Nook ~~~ Google Play Store Kobo Nothing Else Matters is the final book in the Georgie and Xan series.
Haven’t read the first one yet?
Get Every Breath You Take (Book 1) Here: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Google Play iBooks / iTunes ~ Kobo
Excerpt from Nothing Else Matters
Georgie pushed the door open and found Alexandre sitting on the bed, his good arm resting across his bent knees. He was wearing his jeans, but he had on a blue hospital gown instead of a shirt. His hair was escaping his ponytail, blond strands of it glinting in the fading sunlight streaming in the long windows. His hurt arm rested in his lap behind his knees. He said, “Sorry about making you the fetch-andcarry girl.” “It’s fine. I don’t mind.” Georgie pulled the drape that cordoned off the door to the private room and scooted onto the foot of his bed, careful not to jostle the mattress too much under her legs. “Are you going to wear your jeans again?” he asked. His weak smile worried her. “It’s considered déclassé to not change into yet another designer outfit for the reception. Perhaps your black jeans?” “I have a dress that Flicka brought for me,” she told him. “It’s red.” “Too bad you don’t have that black dress with the silver chains from their civil wedding. It looked smashing on you.” “And on your floor.” “Indeed.” His smile grew a little warmer. “Are you okay?” she asked. He didn’t even glance at his hand, but his quiet voice was just slightly breathy. “I don’t think so.” “Is there anything I can do?” He shook his head, a slight movement from side to side, but his expression was still so calm. “Are you sure that you want to go tonight? We don’t have to. We can just stay in Geneva tonight, if that would be better. I’d stay with you.” “It wouldn’t matter. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow because the best surgeon in Europe is flying in to do it. Going now wouldn’t change anything. A distraction might be welcome.” “Well, then. Let’s get this party started,” Georgie said, bracing her arms on her knees to stand and get their clothes. He lifted his wrapped arm from his lap where it had been hidden behind his legs and the long part of the hospital gown. Elastic bandages wrapped his forearm and hand down to his fingertips where the ends of a foam and silver splint stuck out of the beige cloth. “I don’t know how I’ll get clothes on over this.” Georgie smiled, cocking her head and looking up from the corner of her eyes like she had been very smart. “I called the concierge at the hotel and got sewing supplies. I have scissors and a needle, and white thread for the shirt and black thread for the jacket. I can sew you into it. If they look closely, it might look like Frankenstein,” she admitted. “But if they don’t, the tux should cover most of that.” A slow smile grew on his face while she spoke. He said, “That’s amazing.” She patted his long, bare foot because it was closest to her. “It’s okay, man. I’ll just grab those garment bags.” Georgie slid off the end of the bed and got the garment bags from Friedhelm, who looked entirely relaxed leaning against the wall, pleasantly hanging out with Paul, except that his brown eyes tracked everyone who moved in the long hospital hallway. He had a resting sweet face. When she brought the bags back to Alexandre, he was already standing up and was shrugging off the cotton hospital gown, facing her. The cotton slid down his chest and dropped to the floor. She hoisted the bags up and hung them on the curtain track that ran near the ceiling. “Let’s get you dressed first,” she said. “You’ll wrinkle less.” “You can wait outside,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute. Then we can sew me in.” “Oh, come on. I’ll just help you button up the shirt.” He unbuttoned his jeans with his one hand and shoved them down his long legs. “I don’t need any help.” “One last night, okay?” “I beg your pardon?” he asked as he sat on the bed and yanked the denim off his foot with one hand. “One last night. I’m going to Atlanta tomorrow. Let me help you.” “I keep hearing that, but you never leave.” “Now you’re daring me,” she said. He pulled the other leg of his jeans off his foot and threw them behind himself on the pillow. He wore blue boxer-briefs that hugged his slim hips and rode below the ripples of his abs. Red-gray bruises stained his skin on his ribs and thighs, mostly on his left side. He said, “I am merely commenting on a trend. One that I like.” “Well, I’m just saying that you should let me help you because this really is our last night,” she said, trying not to look at the bleeding under his skin. “Don’t push me away, even for a minute, even to just get dressed.” “Then don’t go to Atlanta,” he said. She ignored him because she ignored the people on the sidewalks of Southwestern State who hollered that little green men were following her, too. Indulging in fantasies was not something that the Ice Princess did. She said, “Even now. Even just for a few minutes. Just pretend that I’m helping you so I can stay.” He blinked, those lush eyelashes blinking over his dark eyes. “All right.” “So we need to get ready for the reception,” she said. He nodded, some of his blond hair slipping over his shoulder. “Do you want to shower?” she asked. He gestured to the splint and bandages on his left hand and shrugged his strong shoulder, pulling up the ripples of muscle along his torso. Yeah, his splint and bandages shouldn’t get soggy. “I can give you a sponge bath,” Georgie said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in hospitals?”
The nail-biting conclusion to the Billionaires in Disguise: Georgie and Xan series Nothing Else Matters explores the depths of the heart and the healing power of love.
Release: October 27, 2015
Georgie broke up with Xan Valentine, the lead singer for the rock band Killer Valentine, the guy that Rolling Stone calls “sex incarnate.” The magazine isn’t wrong, but they don’t know the half of it. He’s the alpha-est male who ever walked onto a stage or into a bedroom and might be crazy, and Georgie is definitely in love with him. Plus, he hired her ex-boyfriend, her first “real” boyfriend, to play in the band, and now she’s stuck between them.
So she tried to leave. That’s what any sane girl would do.
And just as she feared, the Russian mafia kidnapped her.
She prays that Xan won’t try to rescue her because they said they’ll kill him. But she knows he will, even if it costs him everything.
Your Local Amazon ~~~ Amazon.com iBooks / iTunes Barnes & Noble / Nook ~~~ Google Play Store Kobo Nothing Else Matters is the final book in the Georgie and Xan series.
Haven’t read the first one yet?
Get Every Breath You Take (Book 1) Here: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Google Play iBooks / iTunes ~ Kobo
Excerpt from Nothing Else Matters
Georgie pushed the door open and found Alexandre sitting on the bed, his good arm resting across his bent knees. He was wearing his jeans, but he had on a blue hospital gown instead of a shirt. His hair was escaping his ponytail, blond strands of it glinting in the fading sunlight streaming in the long windows. His hurt arm rested in his lap behind his knees. He said, “Sorry about making you the fetch-andcarry girl.” “It’s fine. I don’t mind.” Georgie pulled the drape that cordoned off the door to the private room and scooted onto the foot of his bed, careful not to jostle the mattress too much under her legs. “Are you going to wear your jeans again?” he asked. His weak smile worried her. “It’s considered déclassé to not change into yet another designer outfit for the reception. Perhaps your black jeans?” “I have a dress that Flicka brought for me,” she told him. “It’s red.” “Too bad you don’t have that black dress with the silver chains from their civil wedding. It looked smashing on you.” “And on your floor.” “Indeed.” His smile grew a little warmer. “Are you okay?” she asked. He didn’t even glance at his hand, but his quiet voice was just slightly breathy. “I don’t think so.” “Is there anything I can do?” He shook his head, a slight movement from side to side, but his expression was still so calm. “Are you sure that you want to go tonight? We don’t have to. We can just stay in Geneva tonight, if that would be better. I’d stay with you.” “It wouldn’t matter. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow because the best surgeon in Europe is flying in to do it. Going now wouldn’t change anything. A distraction might be welcome.” “Well, then. Let’s get this party started,” Georgie said, bracing her arms on her knees to stand and get their clothes. He lifted his wrapped arm from his lap where it had been hidden behind his legs and the long part of the hospital gown. Elastic bandages wrapped his forearm and hand down to his fingertips where the ends of a foam and silver splint stuck out of the beige cloth. “I don’t know how I’ll get clothes on over this.” Georgie smiled, cocking her head and looking up from the corner of her eyes like she had been very smart. “I called the concierge at the hotel and got sewing supplies. I have scissors and a needle, and white thread for the shirt and black thread for the jacket. I can sew you into it. If they look closely, it might look like Frankenstein,” she admitted. “But if they don’t, the tux should cover most of that.” A slow smile grew on his face while she spoke. He said, “That’s amazing.” She patted his long, bare foot because it was closest to her. “It’s okay, man. I’ll just grab those garment bags.” Georgie slid off the end of the bed and got the garment bags from Friedhelm, who looked entirely relaxed leaning against the wall, pleasantly hanging out with Paul, except that his brown eyes tracked everyone who moved in the long hospital hallway. He had a resting sweet face. When she brought the bags back to Alexandre, he was already standing up and was shrugging off the cotton hospital gown, facing her. The cotton slid down his chest and dropped to the floor. She hoisted the bags up and hung them on the curtain track that ran near the ceiling. “Let’s get you dressed first,” she said. “You’ll wrinkle less.” “You can wait outside,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute. Then we can sew me in.” “Oh, come on. I’ll just help you button up the shirt.” He unbuttoned his jeans with his one hand and shoved them down his long legs. “I don’t need any help.” “One last night, okay?” “I beg your pardon?” he asked as he sat on the bed and yanked the denim off his foot with one hand. “One last night. I’m going to Atlanta tomorrow. Let me help you.” “I keep hearing that, but you never leave.” “Now you’re daring me,” she said. He pulled the other leg of his jeans off his foot and threw them behind himself on the pillow. He wore blue boxer-briefs that hugged his slim hips and rode below the ripples of his abs. Red-gray bruises stained his skin on his ribs and thighs, mostly on his left side. He said, “I am merely commenting on a trend. One that I like.” “Well, I’m just saying that you should let me help you because this really is our last night,” she said, trying not to look at the bleeding under his skin. “Don’t push me away, even for a minute, even to just get dressed.” “Then don’t go to Atlanta,” he said. She ignored him because she ignored the people on the sidewalks of Southwestern State who hollered that little green men were following her, too. Indulging in fantasies was not something that the Ice Princess did. She said, “Even now. Even just for a few minutes. Just pretend that I’m helping you so I can stay.” He blinked, those lush eyelashes blinking over his dark eyes. “All right.” “So we need to get ready for the reception,” she said. He nodded, some of his blond hair slipping over his shoulder. “Do you want to shower?” she asked. He gestured to the splint and bandages on his left hand and shrugged his strong shoulder, pulling up the ripples of muscle along his torso. Yeah, his splint and bandages shouldn’t get soggy. “I can give you a sponge bath,” Georgie said. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in hospitals?”
July 27, 2015
Lay Your Hands On Me -- August 4th!
Brand-new New Adult Rock Star Romancefrom USA Today-Bestselling Author Blair Babylon!
Xan Valentine, the rock star that Rolling Stone called “sex incarnate,” stands in the spotlight every night and sings love songs to the women in the audience. They swoon. They scream. They believe him.
They don’t know him like Georgie does.
They’ve never seen him nearly beat two men to death until someone pulled him off. They’ve never seen the coldness in his dark eyes when he sat across a table, negotiating a contract that broke their hearts.
He’s never stolen into their bedroom at night, slid into their bed, and made love to them until dawn, and he’s never treated them like it never happened while the bitemarks on their backs and thighs were still sore.
They’ve never seen him play the violin like an angel.
Or a demon.
Georgie is officially in his band now, playing the keyboards, and every concert drives the music deeper into her soul. If Georgie leaves the protection of the band and Xan Valentine, the Russian mafia will kidnap and kill her. If she stays and plays in his band for just a few more weeks, Xan will pay for her college and law school.
If her heart can survive even one more night with him.
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Lay Your Hands on Me is the third book in the Georgie and Xan series.Haven’t read the first one yet?
IT’S FREE!
Download Every Breath You Take (Book 1) for FREE here: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Google Play iBooks / iTunes ~ Kobo
Excerpt from Lay Your Hands On Me
Xan Valentine, the rock star—and Georgie could tell that he was Xan by the arrogant tilt of his head and the jitter of his fingers drumming on the conference room table—pushed a thick contract across the table toward her. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he wore a trim, blue business suit without a tie, his collar unbuttoned at his throat. Silver and steel chains at his throat sparkled white glints in the overhead fluorescent lights, and that green crystal earring dangled from his ear lobe.He looked straight at her while he slid the contract over the wood like he was accusing her of something, his dark eyes level and still as he stared. White bandages wrapped his knuckles, but at least the bleeding must have stopped overnight.Jonas, the band manager for Killer Valentine, sat on Xan’s left. He sat straight in his chair, his black suit pressed and smooth.Georgie was alone on her side of the table. The chill air in the hotel leaked down the back of her tee shirt and up her short sleeves, raising goosebumps on her skin.She picked up the stack of paper and riffled through it. “This is a lot of contract for just two months.”“There’s a lot to do in a rock band,” Xan said.He didn’t sneer, and he didn’t snarl. If anything, his businesslike tone sounded resigned.“I’m not signing this until I read the whole thing. I want an attorney’s opinion on it, too. Do you have an electronic copy?”Jonas slid a thumb drive across the table to her. “Here’s a PDF.”“Thanks.” She crammed the stick into the back pocket of her jeans.Xan said, “We need you to sign it before you play with the band again, and the next performance is two days from now.”“I’m not signing something I haven’t read or don’t understand.” The sheaf of pages weighed in her hands.“We have a show coming up. If you haven’t signed it by tomorrow morning, we have to cancel the show. If we cancel it—”“I know. I know. The fans will post vomiting gifs and Killer Valentine will be ruined forever.” She flipped to the front page, which was mostly defining terms, like that Georgie was The Band Member, Killer Valentine, Inc. was The Band, and Mr. Alexandre Grimaldi de Valentinois was The Employer.So Xan was the one who was paying her, not the band.Georgie flipped more pages.Xan folded his hands and looked down at his fingers. He didn’t look like he was trying to hide something, just waiting. Steel and black metal rings wound around his fingers, and thick chains dangled on his wrists near the cuffs of his suit jacket and clicked against the table when he moved his arms.Georgie read further into the contract, slowing down when she got to The Band Member’s Duties.The concerts were there, of course, including playing the music while sober and not under the influence of controlled substances.That must be a new clause.Her chest hurt for a minute. Rade had been a brilliant keyboard player, and hearing him play classical music on the piano would have been amazing. She had meant to ask him to play for her.She sucked in a steadying breath and read on.The terms of the contract ran until July thirty-first, a little over two months, the entire European leg of the tour.After that, Georgie was free to move to Atlanta and Emory University, where she would resume her plan to go to law school and pay off her many, many debts, both financial and moral. There was an option to renew the contract for one-year terms after that, which made Georgie snort.No way.No fucking way was she sticking around after July thirty-first.The next part was weird.Georgie looked up at Xan and Jonas. Xan was still meditating on his clasped hands, but Jonas was scrolling through something on his phone. She asked, “What do you mean by ‘public relations engagements?’”“Anything the band needs,” Xan said. His hands were still clasped on the table. “Radio interviews in the mornings by phone, studio interviews, clubs, other appearances.”“I can’t do public appearances,” she said. “They’re still after me.”The Butorins, a Russian mafia bratva, had tried to kidnap Georgie several times because she owed them eight million dollars. Her father had swindled them out of that money, and they felt that Georgie should pay up. Before they had found her, she had planned to first pay off the charities that her father had stolen from, but she liked breathing, too. If she were dead, she would never pay off all the charities.Xan shook his head. “The public eye is the safest place for you, currently. Every attempt to kidnap you has been in private or at least away from cameras or crowds. Also, later in the contract, you’ll see that it’s not your responsibility to provide security. It’s ours. You’ll have Adrien, who is the most diligent and highly trained security person we have. You’ll have others, too. You’ll be safe.”“I need to hide. I need locked doors between me and the Russian mob.”He shook his head again, but his careful, methodical gesture didn’t exude the wild energy of Xan anymore. “You need to remain in the limelight. Witnesses are your best security.”Even his English accent had switched to the high-society British of Alex de Valentinois, leaving behind the guttural, working-class accent of Xan Valentine. His switches dizzied Georgie, but Jonas didn’t even look like he had noticed.Jonas and the rest of the band either didn’t hear the difference in Alex’s accents or else they didn’t know what they signified, not that Georgie could have exactly defined what they meant, either.But she knew that he was Alex now.She stole another peek at Jonas, who was still peering at his phone.Not that she could call him Alex. Everybody around here only knew him as Xan and only called him Xan.“I can’t do appearances,” she repeated.Alex’s dark eyebrows twitched. “The band needs all its members to do appearances.”“I’m not really a band member.”Alex leaned across the table and tapped the contract. “For two months, you are a full band member. You will continue to receive royalties on anything you record or write for the duration of the copyright.”“It’s a ridiculously generous contract,” Jonas muttered. “Contract musicians and writing consultants are generally paid a flat rate under work-for-hire laws. I’ve never seen anything like this for a short-term gig.”Georgie raised her eyebrows at Alex. “Really?”He shrugged. “We negotiated the terms last night. This is merely the formal contract.”“If this isn’t customary—” she started.“We’re in a crisis. It isn’t customary to simultaneously lose two musicians out of five.”“Six,” Jonas muttered.“Rhiannon is a contractor under work-for-hire guidelines,” Xan told him.“Hell, if Georgie is a band member, Rhiannon should be, too.”“Just whom are you advocating for, Jonas?” His mild tone belied what he was actually saying.Jonas set his mouth in a hard line and went back to texting on his phone.Alex turned back to Georgie, his face still as impassive as marble. “The songs that we’ve already written together are copyrighted in both our names. Future music will be the same.”Georgie went back to reading. The Non-Disclosure Agreement was outlined in excruciating detail, including but not limited to any communication in any form—electronic, print, or methods not therein described or currently in existence, and the ban was worldwide. She couldn’t even discuss him or the band by using smoke signals in Siberia or telepathic waves on Alpha Centauri. “Guess I won’t be writing my memoirs.”“No,” Alex said. “No memoirs.”Georgie saw the flaw in the logic. “How am I going to do interviews if I can’t discuss anything about the band?”Jonas said, “You’ll have a list of approved topics and talking points.”“That sounds spontaneous,” she grumbled.Jonas looked confused. “It’s how all interviews are run. You can’t have musicians puking out anything they want to talk about. They’d just incriminate themselves for all sorts of things, like smuggling drugs over international borders up their asses.”Georgie frowned at him.“Okay, you wouldn’t do that,” Jonas said. “But can you imagine Grayson with a live mic and no piece of paper in front of him?”“Grayson is in rehab,” Alex said, twisting one of the silver death’s head rings on his fingers.“Yeah, but still,” Jonas sighed.While Georgie had been standing in line for a latte that morning in the hotel lobby, she had seen Alex escort Grayson, their bass player, to a limo that morning, shake his hand, and stand on the sidewalk as it drove away. He had strode back into the hotel without looking back, his jaw set.She asked, “What’s this ‘other and sundry duties?’”“Anything band-related that I think is necessary,” Alex said, still fidgeting with his rings.She didn’t want to make a suggestive comment, not after last night, not when she wanted to break down and sob or punch him in the face, she wasn’t sure which. “Okay.”Alex’s eyes flicked up at her. “Band-related,” he stressed. “Keep reading.”Georgie skimmed through the document, slowing only when she came to a section titled, “No Fraternization Among Band Members.”The language was brutal. The consequences were severe, from fines to summary dismissal with no recourse. “This clause is pretty rough.”“You wanted it,” Alex said, still staring at his hands.“So what happens to you?”“I beg your pardon?”“If you make a pass at me, I get fired and lose my college financing. What about you?”He looked up from his hands, and for the first time, lines of anger creased around his eyes. The anger spread through his face and body, tightening his arms and clenching his hands into fists. In a guttural British accent, Xan said, “I’ll break up the band. I’ll cancel all future concerts and pay off the venues. I’ll walk away.”“Is that in the contract?” she asked.“I’ll have it added.”Jonas stared at Xan, his lip curling up. “You can’t break up the band over something like this.”“Watch me.”“You can’t throw away everything you’ve worked for,” Jonas insisted.Xan didn’t look away from Georgie. His dark eyes narrowed, and he bit down on the words. “She’s right. It’s not fair for her to take all the risk. If I violate that clause, I’ll burn Killer Valentine to the ground.”
Amazon Barnes & Noble ~~ Google Play ~~ Kobo
iBooks / iTunes / Apple
Xan Valentine, the rock star that Rolling Stone called “sex incarnate,” stands in the spotlight every night and sings love songs to the women in the audience. They swoon. They scream. They believe him.
They don’t know him like Georgie does.
They’ve never seen him nearly beat two men to death until someone pulled him off. They’ve never seen the coldness in his dark eyes when he sat across a table, negotiating a contract that broke their hearts.
He’s never stolen into their bedroom at night, slid into their bed, and made love to them until dawn, and he’s never treated them like it never happened while the bitemarks on their backs and thighs were still sore.
They’ve never seen him play the violin like an angel.
Or a demon.
Georgie is officially in his band now, playing the keyboards, and every concert drives the music deeper into her soul. If Georgie leaves the protection of the band and Xan Valentine, the Russian mafia will kidnap and kill her. If she stays and plays in his band for just a few more weeks, Xan will pay for her college and law school.
If her heart can survive even one more night with him.
Amazon Barnes & Noble ~~ Google Play ~~ Kobo iBooks / iTunes / Apple
Lay Your Hands on Me is the third book in the Georgie and Xan series.Haven’t read the first one yet?
IT’S FREE!
Download Every Breath You Take (Book 1) for FREE here: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Google Play iBooks / iTunes ~ Kobo
Excerpt from Lay Your Hands On Me
Xan Valentine, the rock star—and Georgie could tell that he was Xan by the arrogant tilt of his head and the jitter of his fingers drumming on the conference room table—pushed a thick contract across the table toward her. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he wore a trim, blue business suit without a tie, his collar unbuttoned at his throat. Silver and steel chains at his throat sparkled white glints in the overhead fluorescent lights, and that green crystal earring dangled from his ear lobe.He looked straight at her while he slid the contract over the wood like he was accusing her of something, his dark eyes level and still as he stared. White bandages wrapped his knuckles, but at least the bleeding must have stopped overnight.Jonas, the band manager for Killer Valentine, sat on Xan’s left. He sat straight in his chair, his black suit pressed and smooth.Georgie was alone on her side of the table. The chill air in the hotel leaked down the back of her tee shirt and up her short sleeves, raising goosebumps on her skin.She picked up the stack of paper and riffled through it. “This is a lot of contract for just two months.”“There’s a lot to do in a rock band,” Xan said.He didn’t sneer, and he didn’t snarl. If anything, his businesslike tone sounded resigned.“I’m not signing this until I read the whole thing. I want an attorney’s opinion on it, too. Do you have an electronic copy?”Jonas slid a thumb drive across the table to her. “Here’s a PDF.”“Thanks.” She crammed the stick into the back pocket of her jeans.Xan said, “We need you to sign it before you play with the band again, and the next performance is two days from now.”“I’m not signing something I haven’t read or don’t understand.” The sheaf of pages weighed in her hands.“We have a show coming up. If you haven’t signed it by tomorrow morning, we have to cancel the show. If we cancel it—”“I know. I know. The fans will post vomiting gifs and Killer Valentine will be ruined forever.” She flipped to the front page, which was mostly defining terms, like that Georgie was The Band Member, Killer Valentine, Inc. was The Band, and Mr. Alexandre Grimaldi de Valentinois was The Employer.So Xan was the one who was paying her, not the band.Georgie flipped more pages.Xan folded his hands and looked down at his fingers. He didn’t look like he was trying to hide something, just waiting. Steel and black metal rings wound around his fingers, and thick chains dangled on his wrists near the cuffs of his suit jacket and clicked against the table when he moved his arms.Georgie read further into the contract, slowing down when she got to The Band Member’s Duties.The concerts were there, of course, including playing the music while sober and not under the influence of controlled substances.That must be a new clause.Her chest hurt for a minute. Rade had been a brilliant keyboard player, and hearing him play classical music on the piano would have been amazing. She had meant to ask him to play for her.She sucked in a steadying breath and read on.The terms of the contract ran until July thirty-first, a little over two months, the entire European leg of the tour.After that, Georgie was free to move to Atlanta and Emory University, where she would resume her plan to go to law school and pay off her many, many debts, both financial and moral. There was an option to renew the contract for one-year terms after that, which made Georgie snort.No way.No fucking way was she sticking around after July thirty-first.The next part was weird.Georgie looked up at Xan and Jonas. Xan was still meditating on his clasped hands, but Jonas was scrolling through something on his phone. She asked, “What do you mean by ‘public relations engagements?’”“Anything the band needs,” Xan said. His hands were still clasped on the table. “Radio interviews in the mornings by phone, studio interviews, clubs, other appearances.”“I can’t do public appearances,” she said. “They’re still after me.”The Butorins, a Russian mafia bratva, had tried to kidnap Georgie several times because she owed them eight million dollars. Her father had swindled them out of that money, and they felt that Georgie should pay up. Before they had found her, she had planned to first pay off the charities that her father had stolen from, but she liked breathing, too. If she were dead, she would never pay off all the charities.Xan shook his head. “The public eye is the safest place for you, currently. Every attempt to kidnap you has been in private or at least away from cameras or crowds. Also, later in the contract, you’ll see that it’s not your responsibility to provide security. It’s ours. You’ll have Adrien, who is the most diligent and highly trained security person we have. You’ll have others, too. You’ll be safe.”“I need to hide. I need locked doors between me and the Russian mob.”He shook his head again, but his careful, methodical gesture didn’t exude the wild energy of Xan anymore. “You need to remain in the limelight. Witnesses are your best security.”Even his English accent had switched to the high-society British of Alex de Valentinois, leaving behind the guttural, working-class accent of Xan Valentine. His switches dizzied Georgie, but Jonas didn’t even look like he had noticed.Jonas and the rest of the band either didn’t hear the difference in Alex’s accents or else they didn’t know what they signified, not that Georgie could have exactly defined what they meant, either.But she knew that he was Alex now.She stole another peek at Jonas, who was still peering at his phone.Not that she could call him Alex. Everybody around here only knew him as Xan and only called him Xan.“I can’t do appearances,” she repeated.Alex’s dark eyebrows twitched. “The band needs all its members to do appearances.”“I’m not really a band member.”Alex leaned across the table and tapped the contract. “For two months, you are a full band member. You will continue to receive royalties on anything you record or write for the duration of the copyright.”“It’s a ridiculously generous contract,” Jonas muttered. “Contract musicians and writing consultants are generally paid a flat rate under work-for-hire laws. I’ve never seen anything like this for a short-term gig.”Georgie raised her eyebrows at Alex. “Really?”He shrugged. “We negotiated the terms last night. This is merely the formal contract.”“If this isn’t customary—” she started.“We’re in a crisis. It isn’t customary to simultaneously lose two musicians out of five.”“Six,” Jonas muttered.“Rhiannon is a contractor under work-for-hire guidelines,” Xan told him.“Hell, if Georgie is a band member, Rhiannon should be, too.”“Just whom are you advocating for, Jonas?” His mild tone belied what he was actually saying.Jonas set his mouth in a hard line and went back to texting on his phone.Alex turned back to Georgie, his face still as impassive as marble. “The songs that we’ve already written together are copyrighted in both our names. Future music will be the same.”Georgie went back to reading. The Non-Disclosure Agreement was outlined in excruciating detail, including but not limited to any communication in any form—electronic, print, or methods not therein described or currently in existence, and the ban was worldwide. She couldn’t even discuss him or the band by using smoke signals in Siberia or telepathic waves on Alpha Centauri. “Guess I won’t be writing my memoirs.”“No,” Alex said. “No memoirs.”Georgie saw the flaw in the logic. “How am I going to do interviews if I can’t discuss anything about the band?”Jonas said, “You’ll have a list of approved topics and talking points.”“That sounds spontaneous,” she grumbled.Jonas looked confused. “It’s how all interviews are run. You can’t have musicians puking out anything they want to talk about. They’d just incriminate themselves for all sorts of things, like smuggling drugs over international borders up their asses.”Georgie frowned at him.“Okay, you wouldn’t do that,” Jonas said. “But can you imagine Grayson with a live mic and no piece of paper in front of him?”“Grayson is in rehab,” Alex said, twisting one of the silver death’s head rings on his fingers.“Yeah, but still,” Jonas sighed.While Georgie had been standing in line for a latte that morning in the hotel lobby, she had seen Alex escort Grayson, their bass player, to a limo that morning, shake his hand, and stand on the sidewalk as it drove away. He had strode back into the hotel without looking back, his jaw set.She asked, “What’s this ‘other and sundry duties?’”“Anything band-related that I think is necessary,” Alex said, still fidgeting with his rings.She didn’t want to make a suggestive comment, not after last night, not when she wanted to break down and sob or punch him in the face, she wasn’t sure which. “Okay.”Alex’s eyes flicked up at her. “Band-related,” he stressed. “Keep reading.”Georgie skimmed through the document, slowing only when she came to a section titled, “No Fraternization Among Band Members.”The language was brutal. The consequences were severe, from fines to summary dismissal with no recourse. “This clause is pretty rough.”“You wanted it,” Alex said, still staring at his hands.“So what happens to you?”“I beg your pardon?”“If you make a pass at me, I get fired and lose my college financing. What about you?”He looked up from his hands, and for the first time, lines of anger creased around his eyes. The anger spread through his face and body, tightening his arms and clenching his hands into fists. In a guttural British accent, Xan said, “I’ll break up the band. I’ll cancel all future concerts and pay off the venues. I’ll walk away.”“Is that in the contract?” she asked.“I’ll have it added.”Jonas stared at Xan, his lip curling up. “You can’t break up the band over something like this.”“Watch me.”“You can’t throw away everything you’ve worked for,” Jonas insisted.Xan didn’t look away from Georgie. His dark eyes narrowed, and he bit down on the words. “She’s right. It’s not fair for her to take all the risk. If I violate that clause, I’ll burn Killer Valentine to the ground.”
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July 13, 2015
Every Breath You Take on FKB&T!
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July 10, 2015
NOW FREE! Rock Star Romance Novel is FREE Everywhere!
FREE!New Adult Rock Star Romancefrom USA Today-Bestselling Author Blair Babylon!For the first time,this rock star romance novelis absolutely FREEEVERYWHERE!
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY HERE: Amazon Barnes & Noble Google Play iBooks / iTunes Kobo
What happens when a Rock Star in Disguise meets a Billionaire in hiding?
Georgie doesn’t know who she is dating.
At a high society wedding, Georgie Johnson is introduced to Alexandre de Valentinois, a hereditary duke of nothing who flies around the world on his private planes and describes himself as “one of those despicable, idle rich men.” Yet, when pressed, he sings at the wedding in a gorgeous, clear tenor that tugs at Georgie’s soul, and miraculously, he calms her paralyzing stage fright so she can accompany him on the piano, even though she thought she had left her classical music career behind when she went into hiding.
But Alexandre has a dark side. His name is Xan Valentine, and he’s the rock star front man for Killer Valentine. He’s famous, but his paparazzi-dogged lifestyle might expose Georgie and get her killed.
Excerpt:
Alex said, so quietly, “Play something for me.”Her hands stretched over the keys, and she tried to push them down to play even a major chord, but as soon as a key neared the break point, just when the hammer inside the piano was poised to strike the string, something in her mind shouted Don’t! and she couldn’t press it.Alex asked gently, “Does Flicka know you’re worse?”“I don’t see how she would. We’ve been out of touch for a few years.”“But she knows that you’ve got—” he paused, obviously considering whether to say the terrible words, “a problem with this.”“She must have forgotten about it,” rather than that Flicka had decided to punish Georgie in a spectacularly cruel way.Maybe Georgie deserved to try to face her fears, melt into an incoherent puddle on the floor, and have everyone from her childhood and current best friends laugh at her failure.It would serve her right.But she would never be able to walk as far as the piano in front of all those people, so Flicka couldn’t have her poetic justice.“Anyway,” she said, “I can’t do it.”“I can help you,” Alex said.“And how could you do that? Hypnotize me? Doesn’t work. Psychoanalysis? There’s nothing there.”“Of course not, but I don’t want you to play for them.” He leaned across the piano again, and his hair slid from behind his shoulder and hung, reflected in the black gloss of the piano’s lacquer. “I want you to play for me.”Georgie stared down at her spidery hands hanging over the black and white piano keys. “I can’t.”He walked around the piano and stood beside her, his slim hip right beside her cheek. A faint, masculine scent wafted from his clothes, a cologne, something soothing like green herbs. She was acutely aware that she could lean about six inches over and unzip his fly with her teeth.Alex said, in a low, soft voice, “Play the middle C.”She laid her thumb on the white key right in front of her waist and held it there, but she didn’t push down.Alex stroked her arm from her elbow to her wrist with the back of his hand, soothing her. “Play it.”She told her finger to push down, and she let the weight of her arm fall on her finger that was curled above the keys.Her finger collapsed and wouldn’t press the key.Alex shook his head, and his long hair swished over his shoulders. He turned his hand over so that his palm was on her wrist, and then he slid his hand over hers, covering her fingers on the keys with his own. Calluses on pads of his fingers were hard on the tops of her fingers.He stepped behind her, still not moving his fingers over hers. Warmth from his body drifted out of his suit jacket that opened around them, spreading over her bare back, and his cologne filled her nose like she was walking in the fields around Tanglewood.He leaned over her, stretching his arms on both sides of her, caging her.His whisper brushed the skin on her neck. “I’m not forcing you to do something you don’t want to. I’m letting you have what you want most, what you crave, but you dare not admit, even to yourself.”“I’m afraid,” Georgie admitted, her voice breathy from fear at pressing that note and from his body so close to hers.“Everyone is, in the beginning,” he said. “It can be terrifying to have an experience so desired, so primal, that you lose yourself. You have to trust me to take you through the place that terrifies you, to keep you safe, and to hold you until you emerge on the other side.”Georgie couldn’t seem to catch her breath or move away from him. “We’re still talking about the piano here?”Alex chuckled.“Just the piano,” she said, but she leaned back, almost imperceptibly, maybe an inch, so that his mouth was so near her skin that his breath was a hot circle on her bare shoulder, and the scent of champagne in his mouth rolled down her skin.“Let me do it for you, first,” he whispered.Georgie closed her eyes, and the weight of his finger forced hers down.A single note, a C, rang out of the piano and jarred against her skin.
May 6, 2015
Wild Thing - May 11
Brand-new New Adult Rock Star Romancefrom USA Today-Bestselling Author Blair Babylon!
The music calls Georgie.
Every night, she stands offstage, watching rock star Xan Valentine and his band, Killer Valentine, set fire to the crowd with music until they would burn down the city for him. His music wraps her until her fingers dance, desperately wanting the piano, but her terrified legs could never walk onto a stage.
Most nights, when Xan Valentine strides off the stage, his dark eyes shift, blurring, and he becomes Alexandre de Valentinois again.
Sometimes, Xan won’t let go.
Some of the other band members, Rade and Grayson, are caught in a death spiral of booze, drugs, and groupies. The drummer, Tryp, is too infatuated with his new wife to do more than show up to play.
Xan is the only one who can compel them onto the stage. He’s holding Killer Valentine together with the force of his will.
This can’t go on.
Something has to break.
Amazon (Your Local Amazon Site) Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Google Play iBooks / iTunes Kobo
Wild Thing is the second book in the Georgie and Xan series.
Haven’t read the first one yet?
Get Every Breath You Take (Book 1) Here: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Google Play iBooks / iTunes ~ Kobo
Excerpt from Wild Thing
Riding in the back of the limousine on the way to the sound check, Georgie watched Alex, or Xan, or whoever he was. He reached over and held her hand. The hard calluses on his fingertips scraped her fingers. The sympathetic interest in Alex’s dark eyes made her feel like the chaos of the world out there had quieted. As they neared the venue, gliding through the light traffic hours before the arena began to fill, Alex’s body tensed. First, his far leg began to twitch. His strong fingers tapped out a complicated rhythm on the armrest on the door. As the venue came into view—a huge arts complex like a pile of white boxes surrounded by lonely fields of empty parking lots—Alex tugged her hand toward him, and he leaned over for a kiss. At first, his lips caressed hers, drawing out her response, an intimate and tantalizing kiss that promised more. His lips parted, and Georgie opened hers. His strong arms clamped around her waist and the back of her neck, grabbing a fistful of her long hair. He stroked her tongue with his until she felt a moan shudder in her throat, and he chuckled against her skin as he drew away. When he lifted his head, his dark eyes held the predatory gleam of a hawk, and his lips were pinker with the blood rushing through him. He dragged her across the car seat. His burly arms caged her, and he pinned her against the seat and kissed her again, opening her lips with his and bending her to fit against his hard body. She flattened her hands against his chest. He lifted his head, looking down at her. A smile curved one side of his mouth. “We’re almost to the show, anyway.” She couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Yeah.” He uncoiled his arms from around her, still keeping one hand resting on her back, and he stared out the window at the arena. His posture on the seat was wider, more possessive of the space, and his body nearly vibrated with energy. If she hadn’t seen the change for herself, several times, she might not have believed it. It seemed more like black magic than psychology.
The music calls Georgie.
Every night, she stands offstage, watching rock star Xan Valentine and his band, Killer Valentine, set fire to the crowd with music until they would burn down the city for him. His music wraps her until her fingers dance, desperately wanting the piano, but her terrified legs could never walk onto a stage.
Most nights, when Xan Valentine strides off the stage, his dark eyes shift, blurring, and he becomes Alexandre de Valentinois again.
Sometimes, Xan won’t let go.
Some of the other band members, Rade and Grayson, are caught in a death spiral of booze, drugs, and groupies. The drummer, Tryp, is too infatuated with his new wife to do more than show up to play.
Xan is the only one who can compel them onto the stage. He’s holding Killer Valentine together with the force of his will.
This can’t go on.
Something has to break.
Amazon (Your Local Amazon Site) Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Google Play iBooks / iTunes Kobo
Wild Thing is the second book in the Georgie and Xan series.
Haven’t read the first one yet?
Get Every Breath You Take (Book 1) Here: Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Google Play iBooks / iTunes ~ Kobo
Excerpt from Wild Thing
Riding in the back of the limousine on the way to the sound check, Georgie watched Alex, or Xan, or whoever he was. He reached over and held her hand. The hard calluses on his fingertips scraped her fingers. The sympathetic interest in Alex’s dark eyes made her feel like the chaos of the world out there had quieted. As they neared the venue, gliding through the light traffic hours before the arena began to fill, Alex’s body tensed. First, his far leg began to twitch. His strong fingers tapped out a complicated rhythm on the armrest on the door. As the venue came into view—a huge arts complex like a pile of white boxes surrounded by lonely fields of empty parking lots—Alex tugged her hand toward him, and he leaned over for a kiss. At first, his lips caressed hers, drawing out her response, an intimate and tantalizing kiss that promised more. His lips parted, and Georgie opened hers. His strong arms clamped around her waist and the back of her neck, grabbing a fistful of her long hair. He stroked her tongue with his until she felt a moan shudder in her throat, and he chuckled against her skin as he drew away. When he lifted his head, his dark eyes held the predatory gleam of a hawk, and his lips were pinker with the blood rushing through him. He dragged her across the car seat. His burly arms caged her, and he pinned her against the seat and kissed her again, opening her lips with his and bending her to fit against his hard body. She flattened her hands against his chest. He lifted his head, looking down at her. A smile curved one side of his mouth. “We’re almost to the show, anyway.” She couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Yeah.” He uncoiled his arms from around her, still keeping one hand resting on her back, and he stared out the window at the arena. His posture on the seat was wider, more possessive of the space, and his body nearly vibrated with energy. If she hadn’t seen the change for herself, several times, she might not have believed it. It seemed more like black magic than psychology.
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