Sliding Home

With: Kathy Lyons

Congratulations to "Cassandra D.", the winner in Kathy's giveaway. Please contact JUST CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE to claim your prize.

Thanks for having me here today! I’m excited to give you an excerpt from Sliding Home by Kathy Lyons. In it, the heroine is working her way through rejection therapy training. She’s creating situations where she gets rejected so that she can become used to the feeling and realize she isn’t going to die just because someone said, no. I heard about it from a TED talk about a guy who did this, and it made a huge difference in his life. So sweet Ellie has asked her celebrity crush out on a date. She knows he’ll say, no, because she requires it to be “old fashioned” which means no kisses, no sex, nothing that couldn’t appear on a 50s sitcom. And since Jake is a man-ho, he’s not going to accept…or so she thinks.

Giveaway:

                  After the excerpt, feel free to leave a comment on whether you think rejection therapy is silly, pop science or if you think it could work for someone. Or if you’d rather, just say how fun you thought the excerpt was! One lucky commenter will win a limited edition Locker Room Diaries mug and a signed copy of Hitting It, the first book in the series.

                  So without further ado, here’s the excerpt for SlidingHome by Kathy Lyons

Sliding Home by Kathy Lyons -- excerpt

“God, just say no already,” Ellie huffed. “Then I can get back to my regular life.”

This was getting curiouser and curiouser. Jake leaned forward on his lawn chair while beside him, the guys on the team perked up with interest. “Are you asking me to say no, or asking me out on a date?”

Now she was even more uptight. “I know I’m not your usual type.”

True that. She was the complete opposite of the bold, fast f**k I usually enjoyed.

“And with my rules,” she continued, “I’m nothing like the kind of girls you usually date.”

The guys snorted at that, and now I was the one feeling indignant. “I’ve gone on normal dates before.” Just not since the AAs.

“I’ll even help you out,” she said. “Pick an answer: A--Connor would kick your ass if you dared get me alone for an intimate dinner.”

I snorted. “Connor could try.”

“How about B then? You’ve got to train or have an early curfew tomorrow.”

“Nah. Just the game, but we should be done by six.”

“Okay then, what about C? You’ve got an appointment with a different lovely lady.”

“Just how many ways have you imagined me rejecting you?”

Her eyes narrowed but her cheeks pinked. I could tell she’d run through this scenario hundreds of times in her head.

“Okay, then there’s D. You’re just not into me.”

That wasn’t true. I’d been into her from the moment she’d walked into the backyard carrying a fruit salad. She’d hugged her mother and kissed her father’s cheek while her freckles fought with her dimples for most adorable feature on her face. There’d been absolutely nothing sexual about her, just an overall sweetness, and I had been hit by a wave a lust that nearly ripped through my jeans.

The thing is, she was exactly my type, which is why I didn’t date girls like her. Sweet, wholesome girls usually started asking about meeting my crappy family by date three, and I just wasn’t going there—with anyone. It was much better to have my fun with someone who didn’t count on a morning after.

The problem was that Ellie clearly expected me to let her down, and I just wasn’t that kind of guy. There was some stupid genetic thing going on in my firefighter family that made us all want to be heroes. We did our best to save the day in the worst way...which meant I had a nearly pathological desire to make good girls happy. I could no more turn Ellie down than I could let her burn to death in a fire. And that’s why I usually avoided good girls. And why I shouldn’t have come to this family barbeque, even though the entire team was here.

“Then we’re down to E. You’ve been struck dumb with shock.”

Not shock. I was just trying to strangle my better nature. But it wouldn’t be silenced and suddenly, I was answering her in the worst possible way.

“Seven,” I rasped.

She looked startled. “What?”

“Seven. As in, I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven.”

SLIDING HOME

Shy and reserved, good girl Ellie McDonald is determined to break out of her shell–and her relationship rut. First order of business, woman up and finally ask her longtime secret crush, Jake Armstrong on an old-fashioned date. She's not at all his type–which is great. Once Jake turns her down she can finally move on. Except he says yes...

MVP short-stop Jake Armstrong has tried to keep his bad boy nature under wraps. But there's nothing he likes more than tempting sweet Ellie to the dark side. No one need know.

But when the hotel catches fire and their rescue–while nearly naked–is caught on camera, the two have a PR problem. Jake's solution is a fake relationship, just for the season. Only for Ellie, there's nothing fake about it…

Each book in the Locker Room Diaries series is STANDALONE:
* Hitting It
* Sliding Home

                                                         AMAZON

Giveaway:

                  After the excerpt, feel free to leave a comment on whether you think rejection therapy is silly, pop science or if you think it could work for someone. Or if you’d rather, just say how fun you thought the excerpt was! One lucky commenter will win a limited edition Locker Room Diaries mug and a signed copy of Hitting It, the first book in the series.

Giveaway ends 11:59pm EST Aug. 15th. Due to GDPR regulations you no longer need to submit your email address in the comments. If you have been selected as a winner your name will be posted at the top of the post. You may then contact maureen@JustContemporaryRomance.com to claim your prize. Your email address will be shared with the author/publicist providing the giveaway.