To kick off the Memorial Day weekend and the traditional start of summer here on the mid-atlantic coast, check out this steamy read
Taken Identity by Raven McAllan. Her books are perfect summer beach reads and I promise you won't be disappointed!
Thank you for offering to host me
on your blog today. Even though this is all about someone stealing your
identity I promise I won't steal yours. (I may use your name in a book though.)
Blurb…
When the devastatingly handsome
Gray turns up on her doorstep looking for his wife, and calling said wife by
Jules name, Jules wondered briefly if she'd landed in an alternative universe.
She knows she's not his wife, and so does he. But apparently someone with her
name and history is.
Is it a case of coincidence or
did his missing wife 'borrow' Jules' life?
Even though the dominant Gray
sends her knickers aflame with just one look, with a missing wife in the
equation, Jules knows there's no chance of finding out what else he could
achieve.
There's only one thing to
do—unravel the mystery and try and keep their hands off each other in the
meantime. The first may well prove far easier than the latter.
A wee tease…
“Well, Mr Reynard.” She spoke in a brisk fashion, as
she did her best to emulate his tone and pace and show none of the tension he
invoked in her. Unfortunately—and no doubt he’d see it as a weakness—she had to
squint slightly to bring him into focus. It wouldn’t be a pretty look. She’d
taken enough selfies sans glasses or contacts to know that. She peered at him
closely to bring him into focus. “So, how may I help you?”
Even without twenty-twenty vision, Jules was now close
enough to see and decide the glance he gave her was along the lines of one you
might give a not very bright child. She gritted her teeth, determined to show
nothing of how she felt. Which was like a particularly unpleasant bug under a
microscope.
“Well?” she prompted him in as pleasant a voice as she
could manage. When she’d gone to answer the door, Jules hadn’t had time to put
her shoes on and the old stone floor of the cottage’s hallway wasn’t warm. It
would have been oh so easy to shiver, except she thought it would project a
wrong image. She was not scared.
Allegedly.
“I wish to speak to Julia Frayne.”
Sheesh,
is he a robot or something? Stuck on one sentence? “You are
speaking to Julia Frayne. Oh, for fucks sake, hold on a sec.” She remembered
her old glasses, the ones she wore for gardening, were in her jacket pocket and
if she stretched out, she should be able to reach them.
She managed and shoved them on her nose. All her
suppositions were correct. A tall, dark, dangerous sex on legs specimen of
manhood was filling her doorway. A very pissed off one.
The expression on his face would have frozen molten
lava. Even more now, she wished she was wearing fuzzy slippers and a warm
jumper. The look as well as the nip in the air didn’t make her feel comfortable
in her thin, strappy and long, floaty skirt. Julia risked a brief glance downward
and groaned inwardly. Just as she thought, her nipples had responded to the
chilly atmosphere and pushed at the silky material covering them. Even though
she was getting mighty sick of the guy, one of Miss McMurty’s expressions
floated into her brain and she gave a stifled laugh. Sticking out like hat pegs, lovey. She crossed her arms over her
chest and ignored the fact she was annoyed that her action looked defensive.
“You think something I’ve said is funny?” he asked
with a frown on his face. “I beg to differ. This is no laughing matter.
Impersonating someone—or purporting not to know what I’m referring to—isn’t
something to smirk about. You are not Julia Frayne. And neither are you
pregnant.”
Jules knew her jaw dropped, and she stood and stared at
him, mouth open. At last, she found her voice.
“Half correct,” she said, pleased her tone was almost
as frosty as his. “I can assure you, I am
most certainly the former, and have been for close to thirty years. Equally, I
am certain I am not the latter.”
For goodness sake, she
thought in disgust, I sound like his clone with a stick up my ass. Very
proper!
“Prove it,” he said.
The challenging tone made the hairs on the back of her
neck stand upright, and Jules lost her temper. It was a rare occurrence, but
when it happened, friends and relatives knew to duck. As her parents had often
said, she lived up to the red-haired virago scenario when necessary.
“Certainly. I’ll fetch my passport.” She slammed the
door shut, obviously taking him by surprise, as he made no move to stop her. Damn it, I wish I’d trapped his balls in
there. Or at least his toes. Arrogant ass.
The doorbell rang almost immediately, seemingly
invested with his impatience. Jules grinned to herself. She’d bet his finger
was jammed on the buzzer, and it would stay there until she reopened the door.
Let it, she had more things to worry about—like who the hell was he looking
for? The bell began to ring in short staccato buzzes. Well, Mr
Whoever-you-are Reynard, you can bloody well wait, Buzz Colonel Bogey
and whistle, and if you hurt your finger, well, tough. I’m putting my lenses in
before I face you again. In addition, I’ll maybe just wave my passport through
the window.
It only took a few minutes for her to put in contact
lenses, swipe the mascara brush over her pale eyelashes—she really must
remember to book an appointment to get them re-dyed—retrieve her passport from
a drawer and return to the front door. Nevertheless, in the short time she was
away, the noise of the doorbell continued non-stop. At this rate, the
battery will stop before he does, she mused, as she stopped in front of the
mirror and checked just what her uninvited caller might see when he looked at
her.
Typically Celt, she
thought ruefully as she eyed her red corkscrew curls, green eyes, pale skin
that never tanned properly and the myriad of freckles sprinkled over her nose.
Never was she going to be a page three girl—Thank goodness. But, as her mother
used to say, “What you’ve got is all yours!” Her strappy vest was now covered
with a long, fluffy jumper, and her feet had striped socks on. Not haute
couture but warm and serviceable.
Jules checked that her dad’s old, sturdy golf umbrella
was tucked away in its usual place in the hallway—for poking her visitor, if
need be—then slipped the chain on before she opened the door as far as the
security measure allowed. A foot immediately inserted itself into the gap.
“Congratulations,” Jules said sarcastically. “A bit
slow last time, weren’t you? But be warned, Mr Reynard, that’s as far as you’ll
get. An expert fixed this chain. Now, if you look to the window on your right,
I’ll show you my passport.”
Jules could almost hear his teeth grinding. Too
bad. She had no intention of handing her passport to a stranger. For any
reason. She moved to the side of the door where a small window brought a little
more natural light into her otherwise darkish hallway and pressed the
photograph page of her passport to the glass. Her—what? Intruder? Unwanted
visitor? —moved slightly, without taking his foot from the door opening and
leaned toward the glass. After long seconds, he stood back with a bewildered expression.
He blinked, and tiny lines radiated out from the corners of his eyes. Then he
shook his head.
“Ah…” he stopped speaking and shrugged.
“Satisfied?” Try as she might, Jules couldn’t keep the
satisfied note out of her voice. “I, Mr Reynard, am I! Julia Frances Frayne.
Spinster of this parish. Do you need anything else?”
“Yes, actually. I want my wife.
Julia Frayne.”
~~~~~~~
If that has interested you,
here's the buy links
https://www.totallybound.com/taken-identity
Thanks for reading,
Love Raven x
Raven Bio…
Well what can I say?
I'm growing old disgracefully and loving
it.
Dh and I live on the edge of a Scottish
forest, and rattle around in a house much too big for us.
Our kids have grown up and flown the nest, but
roll back up when they want to take a deep breath and smell the daisies so to
speak.
I write in my study, which overlooks the
garden and the lane. I'm often seen procrastinating, by checking out the wild
life, looking—only looking—at the ironing basket and assuring tourists that
indeed, I'm not the bed and breakfast. That would mean cooking fried eggs
without breaking the yolks, and disturbing the dust bunnies as they procreate
under the beds. Not to be thought of.
Being able to do what I love, and knowing
people get pleasure from my writing is fantastic. Long may it last.
