A Dream Within A Dream: Piper Shelly

Welcome to my stop on the Play With Me blog tour! Today I have a great excerpt from the book to share with you and don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the post to enter the giveaway!

Play With Me will be FREE on Kindle for the entire month of October, so be sure to grab your copy now!

Play With Me (Grover Beach Team #1)

Author: Piper Shelly

Genre: YA Romance

Release Date: December 9, 2012

Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes and Noble

Description:

A short, sweet novella.

Ryan Hunter's parties are legend. And tonight she's going to be there.

Liza Matthews anticipates the return of her best friend and only love since kindergarten from soccer camp. But when Tony finally shows up, his mind is more focused on another girl. And worse, she's a soccer player. Fighting for the attention Liza craves, she's just a hairbreadth away from making a very stupid decision. But when extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, she's prepared to play ball to get her man.

The tryouts are hell, the first match ends bloody, and the morning after the selection party she wakes up in the worst place possible—in the arms of the captain of the soccer team. The hottest guy in school. Ryan Hunter.

I went back into the hall and wandered around the ground floor, hoping to find Tony somewhere. But the shoving and bumping of sweat drenched people soon got on my nerves, and I kept closer to the walls instead. When I reached an arch leading to another room, I peeked inside. No blond caught my eye. My shoulders slumped with disappointment. But then a few guys shifted to the side, and I spotted a pool table and someone leaning over it in an eye-catching way.
By now I was pretty good at recognizing Hunter’s black hair.
He held the cue low over the green felt, aiming the tip at the white ball. Some colored balls fanned out on the table too, but as it looked he went for the black eight.
“Come on, Ryan, give a friend a chance. You can’t hole the ball just yet.”
I pivoted to the left to see who was pleading with Hunter. I didn’t know the tall boy’s name, but the look on his face was hilarious. One would think his life depended on Ryan’s hit or fail.
“What’s your problem, Justin?” Still working on positioning the cue perfectly, Hunter grinned. “Afraid, your Mama’s going to find out you’re playing for money?”
Just then I noticed the stack of dollar bills at the edge of the table. They seemed to have a sum of about one hundred bucks in the pot. My jaw dropped. Fifty from each? I didn’t get half as much pocket money in one month.
“My Mama doesn’t give a damn. But I really, really need this Spiderman comic. It’s an original,” Justin whined.
I felt really bad for him. Intrigued how the game would end, I moved around the edge of the wall and stood face to face with Hunter across the room. Narrowed eyes and knitted brows gave away his tension. The cue moved backward just a couple of inches. He’d shoot any moment.
But then his dark eyes looked up…and remained fixed on me. His body froze, only his chest moved with each breath. Heads turned in my direction. My heart drummed a little faster, and with all the attention, my cheeks warmed uncomfortably.
I grimaced. “Is something wrong?”
Ryan didn’t answer, but Justin victory-punched the air as he rushed to my side. He laid his arm around my shoulders, grinning like a loon. “You just saved my life, hun.”
“Ah…yes.” With a grimace, my gaze switched back to Hunter. “And how so?”
He started grinning, too, but didn’t seem as happy as the guy next to me. More like, he knew crap was about to fall.
“He can’t play when someone is watching him,” Justin almost sang into my ear. “Totally screws up then.”
“But you all are watching him,” I pointed out.
At the back of the room, someone laughed. “Yeah, but we’re not girls.”
Chuckling, Hunter straightened and chalked the tip of his cue, lips tight, eyes set on me. Although my being there obviously amused him, I didn’t want to trouble him, especially where money had a hand in the pie.
“Sorry,” I croaked. “I’ll leave you guys alone then.”
“Uh-uh, no way, hun!” Justin’s arm remained firm around my shoulders. “You’re my insurance to get that comic book. You stay.”
His antics made me laugh, even though I felt like a traitor.
Ryan, who hadn’t said one word in all that time, slid his tongue over his bottom lip, then the left corner of his mouth tilted up. He took a deep breath and leaned over the table once more. Everyone kept silent. Justin crossed his fingers next to my face, no doubt praying for Hunter’s miss.
I never thought a single shot could get an entire room this tense. Including me. Ryan cleared his throat, his gaze moving back and forth between me and the white ball. Suddenly he dropped his forehead to the edge of the table and laughed. “Take your money, Just. I give up.”
The room cheered as though the unthinkable just happened. Justin pressed a kiss to my cheek and hurried to grab the bills. I stood rooted to the spot, staring at Ryan, who now braced his palms on the pool table and hung his head. But when he looked up, there was this flash of amusement in his eyes again.
“I’m so sorry,” I mouthed, not even trying to raise my voice over the other guys’ celebration.
“You are banned from this room,” he mouthed back, a smirk on his lips. Then he walked around the table, slowly, measuring me with each step he took. I pressed a little harder against the wall, welcoming the coolness seeping through my top.
He stopped right in front of me, the cue in one hand, the other placed against the wall next to my head. “You just cost me fifty bucks,” he drawled with a smile.

The quick-and-dirty:
I’m a cool girl with a passion for writing.
The genres you’ll find me hanging out at are contemporary and paranormal YA, but I’m also snooping into some adult paranormal right now. All of them romances…of course.
The nitty-gritty:
I’m an Austrian lass—totally uncomplicated and up to anything fun.
I grew up in Vienna, not by free will but because my parents decided to move there when I was only 4 years old. I. Hated. The. City. Everything about it. So right after graduation I moved back to Upper Austria, where I settled down with a nice husband and an awesome laptop.
I’ve been a storyteller all my life. Already in kindergarten, I came up with the most exotic fantasies and tales. My teacher would call me a liar. I call it the cornerstone of my writing career.
People always told me you can’t make a living with being an author. So when my first novella PLAY WITH ME came out and shot straight to the stars within the first week, I was totally dumbstruck. Took me a while to realize what was happening, LOL.
And the personal stuff:
At the (awesome) age of seventeen, I met the love of my life. But he was a playboy, and I was so not going to be his next trophy. It took him another four years of fighting for me until I finally decided to give that “couple-thing” with him a shot. I’m now married to this man. ;-)

We have an eleven-year-old son, and together we travel a lot…although I sometimes wish the trips were shorter because I can’t wait to get back to my laptop and my many stories. Unless we’re in Disneyland. No stress to go home then…

If you still want to know more about me, my FAQ page is the right address for you. ;-)

http://pipershelly.com/faq/

Author Links:

Website: http://pipershelly.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6522373.Piper_Shelly

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorpiper

Grand Prize: A boxed set of PLAY WITH ME and RYAN HUNTER. One book, both stories inside. (Open Internationally)

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Welcome to my stop on the Loving Your Lies blog tour! Today I have an exclusive excerpt from the book to share with you and don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the post to enter the tour wide giveaway!

Loving Your Lies

Author: Piper Shelly

Genre: New Adult Paranormal Romance

Release Date: January 2013

Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes and Noble

Description:

Julian is drop-dead gorgeous, annoyingly provocative, and he's fast becoming her best friend. But he also has a secret that makes the little hairs on her arms stand on end...

My name is Jona Montiniere, and that’s pretty much the only good thing to say about me.

I’m seventeen, I’m snarky, and I’m a crap-load of trouble. Or so they say. But what did they expect from me really, when they dumped me in an orphanage at age five? That I’d grow up to become the new first lady? Nah, I think it’s much more fun to raid Camden Market in London with my friend, Debby. She’s cool. She lives on the street. I learned so much from her.

The only thing she missed to teach me was how to tend to a vineyard. And yeah, that’s what I’m going to do for the next 6 weeks, courtesy to this darn judge, who sent me off to France after I was caught stealing again. Fair enough, the vineyards are okay, and so are my aunt and uncle, who I haven’t met up ‘til now. What isn’t okay, and I mean it, is that I have to live in the same house with my mother, that god-awful dragon, who spurned when I was only a child. And now she wants me back? Demands my forgiveness? Why, because she’s about to die of cancer? Uh-uh. Sorry, but that’s not gonna happen. I want no contact with that woman, thanks.

But what’s Julian got to do with all of this? About my age, he’s too young to be my mother’s lover. So why doesn’t he leave her side? Ever. He’s different, as in the paranormal kind of different, but he’s sa-woon-worthy gorgeous. He obviously has secrets, but he’s also get-under-my-skin charming. In short, he’s a riddle to me. But he likes me, and that’s scaring the shit out of me. I sure won’t let anyone come too close.

So now I'm wondering only two things: How did he manage to hold me in his arms after only three days? And how the hell do you keep an angel earth bound?

As I neared the house, I noticed that someone had beaten me there. Through the wide window pane in the parlor, I could see my mother resting on the couch with Julian taking a seat right next to her. Stopped dead, I kept to the low line of bushes in the garden. I even held my breath for a second then shook my head at my own silliness.

Drained of any healthy flush, Charlene looked close to death with her arms lying lifeless by her side. With a caring touch, Julian took my mother’s hand. His other hand stroked first her fingers, then her forehead, wiping long, colorless strands of hair from her face.

To catch the two in an intimate moment ranked high on my never-do-that list. But for some reason, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scene. Crossing to a weeping willow, I hid in the long overhanging branches and peeked around the trunk to catch another glimpse through the glass.

My mother’s eyes remained closed, but her lips moved with an effort. I’d die to find out what she told him. The stroking continued for a couple of minutes. All of a sudden, Charlene’s eyes opened and focused on Julian’s face. Something she saw there must have caused her pure happiness, for that was what she radiated with both her face and body.

And then it occurred to me that it wasn’t so much Julian’s look, but what he did to her with his hands that stirred a certain change in my mother’s composure. Hadn’t I experienced a similar stimulation only yesterday?

Charlene propped on her elbows and waited until he helped her to a sitting position. The lively color of youth replaced her white face. Her eyes grew wider and lost their glassy sheen. A spine that had seemed broken only seconds before straightened. She beamed. Strong and content.

Oh my God! Julian was her personal brand of drug.

As my back sagged against the tree, a breath pushed out of my lungs. The scene I just witnessed seemed so very weird. Surreal. What was Julian’s secret? He must have one.

I peeked around the tree one last time to catch a glimpse of him talking to my mother while he held her chin cupped with his hand. Then he tilted his head to gaze through the window. His eyes caught mine in an instant.

Shock slammed into me. Bloody hell, I couldn’t move.

Julian rose from the sofa, his expression blank. My nails dug into the bark of the willow, and my heart knocked against the base of my throat. I swallowed hard. As he held me with his penetrating stare, I completely forgot why I’d come here in the first place. The world spun around me. It needed to stop. Finally, I found the strength to tear my gaze away. I whirled around and marched back to the vineyard.

Marie cast me a troubled glance when I stormed past her and Valentine to find a place some fifty feet away. Knees digging into the ground, I ripped weeds with a whole new enthusiasm.

Secrets. Secrets. What was it about Julian that made everyone feel better around him? Calmer. Healthier. He could hardly cast a spell over people.

Capable of hypnosis? I shook my head. Dirt crumbled from the bundle of dandelion I just tore out of the ground and tossed to the side. With a smudgy arm, I wiped beads of sweat from my forehead, pushing an angry sigh through gritted teeth. Damn, there was something weird going on with that guy.

And Charlene? The dragon woke from the dead in the front room. All happy.

All his.

She shouldn’t be his. She was my mother and about two hundred years too old to be his.

Someone laid a hand on my shoulder. At the touch, I jumped to my feet and shot around. “And why the hell do I care?” I bellowed before I even got a clear glimpse of who I was facing.

Julian gazed at me with a stunned expression. My outburst had made him back off a step. He shrugged, forlorn.

My nostrils flared as I pushed an angry breath out. A storm raged inside me. I didn’t know what to do to keep myself from exploding.

Julian just stared at me. His silken hair glinted golden in the sun, his eyes shone like the surface of a calm sea. Inwardly, I whined. How dare he look so sweet?

Oh no, I wouldn’t be fooled this time. A mental slap helped to tear me out of my passing fancy. His sweetness must in no way distract me now. He wouldn’t work this calming voodoo on me. I wouldn’t let him. “Stop that!”

“Stop what?”

“Stop weaving your hocus-pocus around me.”

The left side of his mouth twitched. “Jona, are you feeling all right?” One of his hands came up to touch my shoulder again.

A shrill siren shouted suspicion inside my head, and I slapped his hand away. “I feel perfectly fine.” With my finger pointed at his face, I frowned. “I just won’t let you infect me with your…your…happy feelings. You’re like a drug.”

He angled his head and obviously questioned my sanity with an arched eyebrow. “You better put this on, girl.” A straw hat dangled in midair from his hand. “A sun stroke can be a nasty issue.”

He stuck the hat on my head and tapped the top. Invisible roots tied me to the ground when he pivoted and walked away.

The hat shaded my face from the wretched glare of the sun and shielded my eyes. Julian brought it for me. I’d be damned if he wasn’t concerned about me. My steely core turned liquid. He really cared.

But that was not an excuse for his relationship with my mother, and I sure didn’t need him to care about me. I needed no one. Hand clenched around the brim, I tore the hat from my head. Like a flying saucer it shot at Julian’s back. “I don’t need no bloody hat! What I want is an answer!”

He stopped and turned around. “An answer?” After he picked up the straw hat from the dirty ground, he wiped off the dust with one hand. “And just what would you want to know, Jona?” he drawled.

One heartbeat. Two. I couldn’t bring myself to mouth the question. Julian waited while seconds ticked by.

Ah hell, what was I afraid of? With a final deep inhale, I stalked the few feet to him and, on tiptoes, glowered at his face. “Are you, or are you not, my mother’s lover?”

Julian cast a nervous glance over his shoulder like he was afraid someone could’ve heard me. His firm fingers curled around my upper arm. He pulled me further away from where Marie worked the field.

“I’m a lot of things, but certainly not her lover,” he hissed. “And if you stopped spying on people, you’d never come up with such stupid ideas.”

“I wasn’t spying,” I snapped and yanked my arm from his hold. “Not intentionally, anyway.”