Game of Love Synopsis:
Game of Love is set in the high-stakes world of professional tennis where fortune and fame can be decided by a single point.
Gemma Lennon has spent nearly all of her 21 years focused on one thing: Winning a Grand Slam. After a disastrous and very public scandal and subsequent loss at the Australian Open, Gemma is now laser-focused on winning the French Open. Nothing and no one will derail her shot at winning – until a heated chance encounter with brilliant and sexy Andre Reyes threatens to throw her off her game.
Breaking her own rules, Gemma begins a whirlwind romance with Andre who shows her that love and a life off the court might be the real prize. With him, she learns to trust and love… at precisely the worst time in her career. The pressure from her home country, fans, and even the Prime Minister to be the first British woman to win in nearly four decades weighs heavily.
As Wimbledon begins, fabricated and sensationalized news about them spreads, fueling the paparazzi, and hurting her performance. Now, she must reconsider everything, because in the high-stakes game of love, anyone can be the enemy within… even lovers and even friends.
In the Game of Love, winner takes all.
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Excerpt:
CHAPTER TWO
“Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”
~Marilyn Monroe
“Time,” the umpire called. Gemma had won the coin toss earlier and elected to serve, always preferring to draw first blood.
“Gemma, marry me!” a fan from the upper decks yelled.
“I’m quite busy right now,” she yelled back.
The crowd exploded in laughter. Within moments, a persistent chatter draped center court. Not enough for the umpire to call for silence, but enough to be palpable. She scanned the anxious crowd. The French enjoyed long, competitive matches. Gemma preferred quick, decisive ones. Particularly on warm days like this.
She took a deep breath.
Done.
All sounds vanished. From now until the end of the point, she would hear nothing but her heartbeat and the sound of ball on string or clay.
She asked for and received three balls. With all three in her hand, she studied them as she rotated the spheres in her palm, trying to identify one that didn’t belong. She dropped one, tucked another under her skirt, and squeezed the third.
At the baseline, she bounced the ball five times then glanced at Paulina. She stood exactly where Gemma expected her to stand―deep corner. A predictable move.
Focus. Toss. Hammer.
Gemma zeroed in on her feet, the grip, and the ball, nestled in the open throat of the racquet. Muscle memory took over, a movement refined in the course of thousands of hours of repetition. Her body executed the dance: where her knees bent, her arms rose, and the ball flew high above, exactly where she needed it. Her eyes bore in on the spinning ball as she leapt and the hammer slid behind her back, like an axe ready for the kill. And in one instant, the ball stopped―the world on pause―inviting Gemma to make contact.
She grunted, the hammer erupted, and the ball exploded down the line.
Ace.
The crowd roared.
Paulina had guessed poorly.
No, Gemma would not lose this match.
Ara Grigorian Bio:
Armenian by heritage, born in Iran, lived in Barcelona, and escaped New York until he found his home in Los Angeles, Ara’s first eleven years were both busy and confusing. The fruit salad of languages would slow down his genetically encoded need to tell stories. Until then, an alter ego would be required…
He received an engineering degree from California State University Northridge and earned his MBA from the University of Southern California. Today, he is a technology executive in the entertainment industry. True to the Hollywood life, Ara wrote for a children’s television pilot that could have made him rich (but didn’t) and nearly sold a video game to a major publisher (who closed shop days later).
But something was amiss until his wife read him the riot act. “Will you stop talking about wanting to be a writer and just do it?” So with her support (and mandate), and their two boys serving as his muse, he wrote stories.
Fascinated by the human species, Ara writes about choices, relationships, and second chances. Always a sucker for a hopeful ending, he writes contemporary romance stories. He is an alumnus of both the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and Southern California Writers’ Conference (where he also serves as a workshop leader). Ara is an active member of the Romance Writers of America and its Los Angeles chapter.
Ara is represented by Stacey Donaghy.
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Giveaway:
Love Affair With Ficti 
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