Title: Desire After Dark
Series: Gansett Island
Author: Marie Force
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tobias “Slim” Jackson has the perfect life as a pilot on Gansett Island in the summer and in Florida in the winter. He’s happiest when he’s in the air, or at least that was the case before last summer when he met Erin Barton, Gansett Island’s newest lighthouse keeper. Now he can’t seem to find his usual enthusiasm for flying, winter in the sunny South or anything that doesn’t include her.
Erin has been stuck on pause since she lost her twin brother. She’ll tell you herself that her life has been a hot mess since Toby died. After dropping out of law school, she’s flitted from one pointless job to another, existing rather than truly living. Then she comes to Gansett Island to take over as the new lighthouse keeper and meets Slim, who happens to share her beloved brother’s first name. That small coincidence is enough to convince Erin that she needs to spend more time with the dashing pilot—except for the fact that he’s spending the winter more than a thousand miles from her.
Now Slim’s come home to Gansett for the holidays and to hopefully pick up where he left off with Erin. He’s got twelve days before he’s due back in Florida to finish out the remainder of his winter obligations. A lot can happen in twelve days, but will it be enough to convince Erin that it’s time to start truly living again? Read Slim and Erin’s story and catch up with the rest of the Gansett Island cast in Desire After Dark!
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EXCERPT
“I think your guy is here,” Jenny said.
Erin was on the verge of reminding Jenny that he wasn’t her guy when Slim came into the kitchen and made a liar out of her. Her heart nearly leapt from her chest at the sight of his handsome, smiling face as well as the windblown hair and the rugged leather jacket he wore. He was like a fantasy come to life, and his dark eyes drank her in.
“Is that Alex calling me?” Jenny asked, scooting from the kitchen to give them a moment alone.
“She’s nothing if not subtle,” he said.
“Always has been her strong suit.”
He came over to her, making her entire body go haywire in reaction to his nearness. What. The. Hell.
Unsure of what he expected, she looked up at him, trying to anticipate his next move. But when he merely hugged her, she sagged against him, breathing in the bewitching scent of man and leather and soap.
“Missed you,” he whispered, close enough to her ear to set off another series of unprecedented responses that converged in an insistent throb of desire between her legs.
Dear God. What was it about this man? How did he reduce her to a quivering pile of want simply by walking into a room and hugging her?
When she came up for air, she realized her arms were inside his coat and wrapped around his waist. If this was how she reacted when he was gone for a few hours, how would she feel when he left again to resume his winter life in Florida? She didn’t want to think about that, especially not while he was standing right in front of her, sizing her up with those sexy dark eyes that saw her a little too well for her liking.
“Did you miss me?”
“Did you go somewhere?”
His eyes glimmered with amusement, his smile transforming his face from handsome to ridiculously sexy. “You hurt me with your nonchalance.”
“Yes, I missed you. Feel better now?”
“I’ve never felt better in my life.”
“Never?” she asked, relying on humor to hide her emotional reaction to his heartfelt words.
“Not that I can recall.”
With his fingers on her chin, he tipped her face up for a soft, sweet kiss that left her dizzy and dying for more.
“To be continued,” he said, releasing her.
Q&A About Desire After Dark with Marie Force
Q: Here we are at book fifteen in the Gansett Island Series. Does that boggle your mind?
Marie: It truly does. When I published Maid for Love back in 2011, I never could’ve imagined the incredible journey I was embarking upon. The series has sold nearly 2.5 million books, and readers have fallen in love with the McCarthy family and the rest of the Gansett Island community. It’s been amazing!
Q: What do you love best about Desire After Dark, Slim and Erin’s story?
Marie: Slim is a longtime member of the Gansett cast, as a McCarthy family friend and a pilot who is based on the island in the summer. Readers have often asked to hear more about him, so I was excited to write his story. His love interest, Erin, is a friend of another reader favorite, Jenny Martinez, and when Jenny leaves her post as lighthouse keeper to live with Alex in book 10, Erin takes her spot at the lighthouse. Erin and Jenny have a tragic connection—Erin’s twin brother, Toby, who was killed in 9/11 was Jenny’s fiancée. The two women have traveled a long and difficult path in the years since Toby’s death, and they are both still healing. Jenny’s story in Meant for Love is one of the readers’ favorites, and I think they will have a similar reaction to Erin’s story in Desire After Dark.
Q: While this series hits a lot of emotional notes for readers, it’s also known for being quite funny, too. Will readers find the humor in Desire After Dark?
Marie: Definitely! There are a couple of scenes in this book that I think readers will be talking about for a long time to come, one of them taken from my own life. I’ll let you try to figure out which one after you read the book. In Love After Dark, the ladies pull a hilarious prank on the guys, and in Desire, the men are out for revenge. You’ll have to read the book to see if they are successful. Suffice to say, I cried laughing a couple of times while writing it, imagining what the readers would have to say.
Q: What’s up next for the Gansett Island Series?
Marie: I’m very much looking forward to writing Light After Dark, which will be Mallory’s story. Readers met Mallory a couple of books ago, when she came to Gansett to find her biological father, who was none other than Big Mac McCarthy. I’ve got a great story planned for Mallory, and I can’t wait to write it.
Q: So, no end in sight for the Gansett Island Series?
Marie: Not as far as I can see.
On 50 Books and 50 Years: Things I Know for Sure
By: Marie Force
This week marks a major milestone in my publishing career. Desire After Dark is my 50th book, and it releases 17 days before my 50th birthday. To those who would ask, I didn’t plan that. Like many things in this life, it just sort of worked out that way. I wish I could say I’d written a book a year, but in fact most of them have been written in the last five frantic years that have gone by like a flash.
I thought this 50-50 combination platter was a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned writing 50 books and living for a half century. (God, it sounds DREADFUL when I put it that way!) So in no particular order, here’s what I know for sure halfway through my life. Note to my kids: I intend to stick around for the entire second 50, so batten down the hatches.
- I’m acutely and painfully aware that too many of my high school classmates didn’t live to be 50, so I’m thankful for every day I’ve spent on the right side of the ground. I’m not planning on indulging in a middle-age funk or crisis or anything like that because being 50 certainly beats the alternative.
- I’ve accepted that my arms are never going to look like Michelle Obama’s guns. I’m learning to live with that and letting them out to see the world more often than I used to, taking comfort in the fact that they are still smaller than my thighs. I’ve also learned that eating salt and vinegar potato chips makes me happy, so I will continue to eat them in my second 50 years. This is nonnegotiable as is my relentless war against all forms of chin hair.
- My mom had a magnet on her fridge declaring that FIFTY IS PRIME TIME. I believe that. This time next year, my youngest will graduate from high school and next fall he will head off to college, leaving his parents with now two empty bedrooms and hearts full of memories. In my fifties, I’ll be able to do just about anything I want any time I want. If that’s not PRIME TIME, I don’t know what is.
- That said, being a mother has been the greatest thrill ride of my life. There is, simply, nothing better in my world than my two wonderful kids, who are both better people than I could ever hope to be. No matter what they do or don’t do or achieve, all I care about is that they are healthy and happy and productive. The rest is up to them, and I can’t wait to see what they get done while I sit in my tub and eat bon bons, knowing I was never a perfect mother, but I always tried to be a fun mom and I did my very best for them always. And if being a great-aunt is this much fun, I can’t wait to be a grandmother. Take your time, though, kids. Take. Your. Time.
- That said, being a mother has been the greatest thrill ride of my life. There is, simply, nothing better in my world than my two wonderful kids, who are both better people than I could ever hope to be. No matter what they do or don’t do or achieve, all I care about is that they are healthy and happy and productive. The rest is up to them, and I can’t wait to see what they get done while I sit in my tub and eat bon bons, knowing I was never a perfect mother, but I always tried to be a fun mom and I did my very best for them always.
- Family is everything. Parents, siblings, cousins, close family, extended family—if you got lucky in the family department like I did, then you know what I mean. They know you better than anyone and don’t let you get away with anything, which is actually a good thing—until they tell people you look like Nick Nolte’s mug shot in the morning with photographic evidence to prove their point. I’m grateful for the brother who has traveled all but one year of this journey with me as well as our posse of cousins who made us feel like we had a huge family when it was only the two of us.
- I honestly believe the outcome of your entire life can be determined by who you are born to. I was born to two of the best, and they are as much responsible for the life I have today as I am.
- Friends who stick with you through bad times—and good—are worth holding on to. Everyone is there for the bad times. The ones who show up during the especially good times, who share in your joy selflessly and without reservation, are the people you want on your journey with you. I have been enormously blessed in the friend department.
- I also got lucky in the husband department. We don’t always see eye to eye (what fun would that be?), but I always know I can count on him and so do our kids. He gives me Valentine’s Day cards that say things like “I’m still not sick of you,” which is the perfect sort of card for the nonromantic romance author. And his family is rather awesome, too.
- I’m grateful every day for the series of fortunate events that led to my career as an author. If you had told me at 40 that THIS would be 50, I probably would’ve laughed myself senseless at your delusions of grandeur on my behalf. However… Here I am with 50 titles to my name, 5 million books sold, 22 times on the New York Times list, my closest friends and family members working with me, a new house that Mac McCarthy bought for my family and a life that five years after it happened still feels like a dream in progress. For that I thank the readers who’ve taken my books to heart and me along with them. You have made all of this happen, and I never lose sight of that fact. I’ve also learned that never allowing myself to be entirely satisfied with where I am at the moment can lead to new challenges that broaden and expand my sense of the possible.
- I have learned that I can do just about everything right, be the best possible friend/family member/colleague/author (fill in your own blank) I know how to be, and it won’t be enough for some people. What I know at 50 is that I’ll never make everyone happy. I’ve learned to be okay with that and to know FOR SURE that if I can make myself and those who matter most to me a little happy every day, then I’m doing something right. And that is more than enough for me.
Here’s to the next 50 books and the next 50 years. As Sam Holland would say, bring it on.
REVIEW
Jill’s Review
Marie Force’s Desire After Dark is a sweet romance that will make you smile.
Let’s start with the nitty gritty… this is book 15 in the Gansett Island Series (say what? that’s a lot of books!) You can absolutely read this as a standalone (I did) and you will be able to follow along with everything that happens. Though the story focuses on Slim and Erin we get to see glimpses into their many friends’ lives. Enough backstory was given to both easily follow and peak your interest for the other books in the series. I think I have some binge reading ahead!
Erin has lost sight of herself after her twin brother’s tragic death. She has forgotten what it means to really LIVE her life. But then she meets Slim. A pilot that lives for flying. He spends his summers there on Gansett Island and his winters in Florida. They have spoken non-stop on the phone, texts, facetime since they met… but now Slim is back for the holidays and he can’t seem to get enough of Erin. Will Erin lay down the baggage of her past to embrace a future with this dashing pilot?
Desire After Dark was a sweet, fun read with a bit of pulling on your heartstrings. I enjoyed how well matched Slim and Erin were for each other. The banter between all of the characters was great. I want to move to an island like that where everyone is so warm, open, accepting and acts as one big family. It would be a magical place to be.
If you enjoy a sweet story, where love, romance, hope, family and friends take center stage, you don’t want to miss this one.
I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.
GIVEAWAY
10 selected winners will receive a signed copy of Desire After Dark and a $10 Amazon gift card! Contest ends May 29 and winners will be notified by June 1.
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