Title Heartquake
Author Terry Newman
Genre Paranormal Romance
Publisher The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb
Coffee shop owner, Charlee Lightheart, views corporations with contempt. She believes her father died at the hands of the pharmaceutical industry. When she's approached to run for city council on an anti-fracking platform, she's reluctant. She's not sure this movement is her cause.
Billionaire Riley Brockton has given up on love. Then he walks into Charlee's shop. All he wanted was coffee and muffins. From that first electrifying touch, he knows he needs more. He withholds one piece of vital information: he's a lionshifter.
A rogue reporter sets out to reveal the one secret that can destroy the anti-fracking movement and the couple's relationship. Can their love survive the truth and public exposure?
Excerpt:
Her simple answer, spoken quietly, startled him and at the same time emboldened him. He recalled his conversation with his brother, and he decided that there was only one way to know for sure if this were his lioness standing in front of him or simply his hormones and pheromones run amuck.
The downside of all this, of course, was that he put his heart on the line…again. In an instant he wondered how many times he would do this to himself. Twist himself up inside like a pretzel, only to feel the painful unraveling of the relationship within several months. Could he put himself through all this yet again?
Then he looked in her green eyes. And caught another incredible whiff of that unmistakable lavender swirling about her. What if she really is my lioness? Could I bear being a nomad lion for the rest of my life? That’s it. It’s now or never.
She had just given him the perfect opportunity to discover what was happening between them. All he had to do was take it. All he had in mind was one date—a test date, he labeled it in his mind. A horrible description, he knew, but then he was never accused of being a wordsmith. If things went south on the date, he could assume that this was not his soulmate.
What then?
Simple, he told himself boldly, I’ll buy my coffee at another coffee shop.
They stood there for what seemed an excruciating long time in silence. She—oh, my goodness, he didn’t even know her name—not saying a word, really not making a move. He gathered up the courage and asked, “So, how ‘not sorry’ should I be?”
“That depends,” she said.
“Could I tell you that from the first time I saw you, the first time we touched, I wanted to ask you out? And if I asked you out now, what do you think the chances of your saying yes would be?”
Again, she laughed. And, again, he heard angels. He noticed she was blushing. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw a grown woman blush. The women he met in New York were too sophisticated to blush.
This was not, he thought, how playboys seduce women. If he were true to his reputation, he would have already given her some shallow line and they would have been finalizing the details.
Before she had a chance to answer, he said, “I would be honored if you would consent to go out to dinner with me.”
“You really don’t need to be so formal,” she said. “A simple ‘Would you like to go to dinner?’ would work.”
“Well, would you? Please don’t tell me you put me through all of this just so you can say no?”
“I would like to go out with you, Mr. Imp…” she stopped when she realized his name wasn’t Impervious, “I don’t even know your name. I’m Charlee, by the way, Charlee Lightheart.”
“Riley Brockton, very nice to meet you. Can I pick you up tomorrow evening at seven?”
“Consider it a date.”
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Author Biography
Terry Newman has always loved words. As the editor-in-chief of a national natural health publishing company, she has written books on a variety of topics, as well as writing direct-mail advertising.
She’s also worked as a reporter, a communications specialist and a freelance writer. She’d had clients worldwide, and researched and wrote hundreds of eBooks and print books as well as ghostwrote novellas and short stories.
One day she woke and decided to make her dream of writing her own novel come true. She sets all her stories in fictional towns in northeast Ohio and writes about things she loves—like coffee.
Terry has taught workshops on writing and character development.
She has a daughter, a son-in-law, and a grandpuppy, and lives in North Lima, a real town in northeast Ohio.
Social Media Links
Facebook: Terry Newman
Twitter: @tnewmanwrites
Instagram: terry.newman.31521
TikTok: @terrynewman614