By Beth Kery

The phrase says it all: one day, two people go on a journey that takes them from one relationship to another. Friends to lovers romances have similarities to a travel adventure, where characters begin one place and end up in another, experiencing obstacle after obstacle. On the daunting path, they are sure to experience dangerous precipices, wicked bad weather and nights where all seems lost. Sometimes they choose that journey. More often than not, the romantic hero and heroine don’t. Uncontrollable emotion, life-altering circumstances and loss force them onto a path they would have preferred not to take.

For me, that’s the appeal of the friends to lovers romance. It’s a risky adventure told in terms of a relationship versus a map. All the while, a little question always hovers in the reader’s mind. Will they make it? Or will their longing for that old, familiar territory of a secure friendship make them falter on their path?

Rill and Katie in Addicted to You, are two such travelers. Katie has known Rill for years as her brother’s best friend. As an Irishman, Rill is a stranger in a strange land when he first comes to the UCLA to attend film school. Katie’s family takes him in with open arms. A young Katie acquires a serious crush on the brilliant young man with the easy charm and raw sexuality. Years later, when Rill begins to court her college roommate, Eden, Katie’s chances of ever forging a romantic link to Rill diminish even farther. Katie is glad to accept friendship with Rill, however. Friendship is a wonderful thing, after all. It’s the fear of sacrificing friendship that makes couples hesitate and doubt the journey to romance.

For Rill, there’s a ton of reasons he always held himself back romantically from Katie. Because of a dysfunctional childhood, Rill strives for control above all else in the arena of love and sex. Katie is that which cannot be controlled all tied up into one package. She’s a gypsy in designer jeans, a whirlwind with a heart of gold who is loyal to the bone. When Eden dies and Rill learns a heart-wrenching secret about his wife, he begins to fall apart. He’d been one of the most talented and respected film directors and screenplay writers alive, but one day he forsook everything. He got off a plane in a strange city and holed up in tiny, quirky Vulture’s Canyon.

One day, Katie drives across the country with one mission in mind: to save Rill. Here’s where the altered circumstances, volatile emotions and unquestioning loyalty and love come into play. Here, we have all the ingredients for two friends to be thrown on that thrilling, dangerous path of friends to lovers.

Rill and Katie survive their journey, of course. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have to survive some terrible storms and intimidating emotional landscapes first. Like all travelers in a good adventure, however, they survive to see the rainbow at the end of the storm, the promised land.

Friendship really is the perfect foundation for passionate love. The appeal of the friends to lovers story is that the hero and heroine have to earn that truth to deserve it.

Addicted To You

“A fabulous, sizzling hot friends-to-lovers story. You’ll be addicted from page one!”
Julie James, New York Best Selling author of Something About You!

All it takes is a moment for your life to change—one night of desire to make you feel alive…

Irish film director Rill Pierce fled to the tiny, backwoods town of Vulture ‘s Canyon, seeking sanctuary and solitude after a devastating tragedy. Once, his raw sex appeal and sultry Irish accent made women across the globe swoon. Now, he’s barely recognizable…

But Katie Hughes, his best friend’s sister, is not the type of woman to give up on a man like Rill. She blazes into Vulture’s Canyon determined to save him from himself. Instead, she finds herself unleashing years of pent-up passion. In a storm of hunger and need, Katie and Rill forget themselves and the world. But will Rill’s insatiable attraction to Katie heal his pain—or will it just feed the darkness within him?

Excerpt

She leaned back when he placed his hand at the side of her head. When she looked up at him, Katie abruptly became aware of how blue his eyes were, how thick his lashes were . . . how her belly pressed against the fullness between his thighs. Everett, Eden, Rill and Katie had been friends for years now. She’d hugged Rill countless times. She’d never had cause to feel ashamed hugging him before.
She stepped back now.
“It could have happened to anyone. Vulture’s Canyon becomes a dead man’s land at night. And Errol acts on impulse. He should have known better than to run in front of a moving car.”
Katie sighed. “Well, it’s done. I’ll have to pay for his hospital stay and his rehab. He doesn’t have any insurance. He doesn’t have a car, either. I’ll have to drive him to all his appointments,” she added, not realizing the truth of her words until that moment.
“I’ll be driving him.”
Katie glanced up in surprise at Rill’s resolute tone. “Don’t be ridiculous. You didn’t hit him.”
“That may be, but Errol will likely require rehab for weeks on end. There’s no way you’re staying in Vulture’s Canyon that whole time.”
Katie straightened to her full height. “Who says?”
“I do.” He seemed to reconsider his bluntness. “I can imagine Morgan and Watkins might have a say in the matter as well.”
“I’ve taken a vacation from Morgan and Watkins,” Katie said, referring to her former employer, a large law firm that did taxes for the rich and famous.
“You took a vacation and came to Vulture’s Canyon?” Rill asked incredulously.
“I told you I did.”
“That’s just stupid.”
Anger rose from her belly to her brain like mercury in a thermometer stuck in boiling water. “Don’t you call me stupid. I’d say what you’re doing these days is way off the idiocy scale, so I guess you can put up with me for what’s left of your miserable life.”
Katie paused when she saw how the color left his face, but she didn’t relent. Suddenly, the idea of this beautiful, talented man wasting his life felt like a personal affront, like a slap to the face. It surprised her a little to realize she shook with emotion. Or perhaps it was some culmination of the bizarre events of the past fifteen hours and a sleep-deprived brain that was finally getting to her.
“You’re not going to chase me off like you did Everett, Rill,” she said in a quiet, vibrating voice.
His lips flattened in irritation. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Katie. You haven’t seen how I live.”
She swallowed convulsively. There it was: proof positive that he definitely had been too drunk to recall her being at his house last night, let alone remember what they’d done. A feeling of mixed relief and sadness swooped through her.
She stepped toward him and tilted her chin up, meeting his glare. “You call what you’ve been doing the past eighteen months living? We both know you’re flirting with the opposite, Rill. It’s gonna stop here and now, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked belligerently. “How do you know that?”
“Because Eden would be ashamed of you. I figure you just need someone to remind you of that.”
His eyes flashed in fury at the mention of Eden’s name; his jaw clamped tight. Katie recoiled slightly in her own skin, the evidence of his hurt paining her, as well. She stepped back.
“You can come up to my place and get rested up for your drive back to California. You’re not welcome here, though. I want you gone as soon as you’re rested,” he said stiffly.
She stalked past him toward the nurses’ station, wondering why having Rill say out loud what she already knew with perfect clarity could hurt so damn much.

ADDICTED TO YOU, Novel #1 in the One Night of Passion series available now

My lovely author copies of Addicted to You for the UK, New Zealand and Australia market! This, along with the novella ebook only Bound to You, releases on January 3! Addicted to You will be available in print and ebook!

Here’s a blurb and excerpt of Addicted to You, Katie and Rill’s love story.

All it takes is a moment for your life to change—one night of desire to make you feel alive…

Irish film director Rill Pierce fled to the tiny, backwoods town of Vulture ‘s Canyon, seeking sanctuary and solitude after a devastating tragedy. Once, his raw sex appeal and sultry Irish accent made women across the globe swoon. Now, he’s barely recognizable…

But Katie Hughes, his best friend’s sister, is not the type of woman to give up on a man like Rill. She blazes into Vulture’s Canyon determined to save him from himself. Instead, she finds herself unleashing years of pent-up passion. In a storm of hunger and need, Katie and Rill forget themselves and the world. But will Rill’s insatiable attraction to Katie heal his pain—or will it just feed the darkness within him?

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been sneaking out a cover or two whenever they appear at retailers, but I have yet to show off the entire set of 8. Here are the gorgeous covers for my second serialized novel, WHEN I’M WITH YOU. (Click on the cover for a pre-order link. I realize that one or two parts are not yet up at every retailer, but they will be soon.) I don’t have all the blurbs yet from the publisher, so stay tuned. Information is trickling in, and as soon as I have it all, I will have a WHEN page similar to the BECAUSE page.

This is Elise and Lucien’s story, but Ian and Francesca play a big part in it. In fact, WHEN opens the door for more Ian and Francesca in BECAUSE WE BELONG, out later in 2013.

So with no further ado:

WHEN I’M WITH YOU
Serial Novel, presented in weekly installments beginning March 5
Contemporary Erotic Romance
Berkley Intermix

WHEN WE TOUCH

WHEN YOU DEFY ME

WHEN YOU TEASE ME

WHEN I’M BAD

WHEN YOU SUBMIT

WHEN YOU TRUST ME

WHEN I NEED YOU

WHEN WE ARE ONE

My second book in the Princes of the Underground series from Samhain is now available in print! Here’s a bit about it!

When Blaise Sevliss, Lord Delraven, rescues a young woman from the clutches of his vampiritic clone the sheer amount of soul energy blazing from her unconscious body stuns him…and awakens a primal, parasitic hunger he has fought for centuries to quell.

Determined to keep her safe from the ravenous Scourge horde, Blaise must hide her in his underground stronghold. Where the powerful urge to consume her gnaws at the last shreds of his control.

With a touch, Isabel Lanscourt can divine the darkest of secrets. Her ability is little help, though, when she awakens in a lush world where sensuality rules. Her shining spirit is a beacon to all the powerful immortals in Sanctuary, but only one can touch her. The enigmatic Lord Delraven, whose brusque coldness is belied by the heated need in his eyes.

In a dangerous zone between temptation and memory, desire ignites an explosion of luminescent beauty. And Isabel’s healing touch begins to fill his emptiness with an impossible gift: a soul. But Blaise holds a dangerous secret, one that could extinguish Isabel’s inner light. And cast his lonely world into eternal darkness.

Warning: Step into a sensual world of vampires who love to feed and love to…er…feast, where sexual variety is the spice of their lives. No sweetness and light here, this is one vampire who can put the “B” into “bad guy” without batting an eye. Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings! I hope everyone in the states had a wonderful Thanksgiving on Thursday! I’m still recovering from carb overload, but other than that, it was a warm, wonderful holiday with family. I’m very lucky.

I have been busy working nonstop on my next serial, out in March at the same time as the print version of the complete Because You Are Mine! When I’m With You features Ian and Francesca, and their love story is furthered, although the main hero and heroine are Lucien and a newcomer, Elise Martin. I noticed that Barnes and Noble is already listing Part One, so I guess I’m clear to show off the first of eight covers. I’m telling you…they are gorgeous, so rich and sensual. I haven’t got a website page up yet because I haven’t received official blurbs, but I’ll keep you updated as to when I can share more.

Oh…and by way of explanation, the heroine is a bad-girl, spirited heiress turned chef, thus the fork, along with the hallmark pearls. 🙂

Book Signings and Readings: Be sure to check out the two events listed just to the left of this blog: The Fifty Shades of Naughty book signing in the St. Louis area on December 1, with myself, Jaci Burton, Sylvia Day, Shayla Black, Shiloh Walker and more! I hear it’s already sold out, and promises to be a fun lady’s night out. The other event I have upcoming is at Lady Jane’s Salon in Naperville, Illinois, Dec 4 at 7 p.m. I’ll be reading from Exposed to You and will have several book giveaways! I hope I can meet some locals there. It’s being held at a chocolate shop, so it can’t be all bad, right? There will be another signing around Valentine’s Day here in Chicago with several local authors. I’ll put up more details as I get them.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying a holiday weekend of family…and reading, of course!

~Beth

Exposed to You was a story of the heart for me.

Many of us have encountered first hand or witnessed a loved one battling cancer. For Joy Hightower, cancer has eclipsed her life. She watched her mother succumb to it over five painful years as a child. When she was diagnosed as an adult, it altered her completely. That–and the fact that she encountered the love of her life, Everett Hughes, on that fateful day, even if she didn’t recognize it herself at the time.

She’s healthy now, but an experience like that leaves not only scars on the spirit, but the seeds of growth and love in the heart.

It all sounds sort of dark, doesn’t it, for a romance? But Exposed to You is light and effervescent; the reason being Everett Hughes. Here is a force of nature, a man who sweeps a reluctant, but inevitably bowled over Joy off her feet. The lovely thing about Exposed to You is that Everett is one of the few men on the planet who could have broken through Joy’s gray barrier and brought her into the light.

And he does. Does he ever. He does it with raw, challenging sex. He does it with his confident, unguarded persona. He does it my loving Joy like no one else could.

Some early reviews for Exposed to You, out now!

With the wealth of erotic stories popping up everywhere, Kery dethrones them all with her latest — a real eye-opener. This well-written story is original, refreshing and hot enough to generate third-degree burns.
4 1/2 Stars – RT Book Reviews

5 Stars Book Lovers Inc. “A beautiful, memorable love story.”

5 Stars and a “Purest Delight”, Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews. “This book has it all. A definite re-read for me!”

Heroes and Heartbreakers Blog “This was a romance in the true sense of the word”

Recommended Read from Dear Author: “Offers a well-blended romance with eroticism”

Rating: A- Romance Book Forum: “Exposed to You was fantastic. An amazing tale.”

Here’s a blurb and excerpt for Exposed to You!

“What would you do if the sexiest man in the world was bent on bringing you unbearable pleasure again and again? Joy Hightower wasn’t sure she could survive the experience…or live without it.”

It’s not often you’re hired to paint a body tattoo—and what a body—on a total stranger at a Hollywood film set. A reserved and careful art teacher, Joy would never forget it. In a rare fit of raw desire she gave herself completely, knowing she’d never see him again, or ever repeat such a shameless, naked impulse.

Little did she know, the man with whom she shared that lightning bolt of lust was star Everett Hughes. For Everett, women and sex came as easily as fame. But how could he hope to convince the guarded Joy that beneath the hard body and sexy façade of celebrity was a real man who wanted only one, real woman?

In the heat of an intoxicating affair, Everett endeavors to break down her barriers, gain her trust, and expose himself as the real deal. But can Joy do the same, and reveal to him the vulnerable woman who longs to be loved, wanted, and desired forever?

RT Book Reviews Top Pick!

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Sunday!

I hope you are all relaxing and are enjoying a cozy day of reading or hanging out with family and friends…or even better, both!

I’m still getting lots of messages about the One Night of Passion series with Exposed to You coming out on Tuesday. (Hurray!) To add to some of the confusion, the first novel in the series, Addicted to You, was written under the pen name Bethany Kane, while the two novellas and Exposed to You are written under Beth Kery. A couple important points:

–There is no break in the story tone, content or characters because the pen name changed. It was just a legal thing and the publisher was unable to change it, so don’t worry about story flow or anything.

–You do not need to read the books in order necessarily. Each stands alone, each about a separate hero and heroine and their love story. However, you might get the gist of the people and setting better if you read in order. Since there’s been some confusion on Shelfari, and therefore the Amazon Exposed to You page (which I can’t alter, btw…grrrr) I wanted to repost the series reading order, in case you are the orderly type. 🙂

Click on each title for a blurb and spicy excerpt!

1. Addicted to You (novel)
2. Bound to You (novella)
3. Captured by You (novella)
4. Exposed to You (novel, releasing November 6)

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED 11/30:
I’ve received a lot of questions about when my books will be made available in the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Headline Publishing has bought my entire backlist, including the serials Because You Are Mine and When I’m With You. Where I know of a release date, I’ve included it. Please note that I don’t control release dates, or the fact that they may change.

ADDICTED TO YOU, January of 2013

BOUND TO YOU, January of 2013

WICKED BURN, February 14, 2013

CAPTURED BY YOU, March 14, 2013

EXPOSED TO YOU, March 14th

DARING TIME, April 11

SWEET RESTRAINT

PARADISE RULES

EXPLOSIVE

RELEASE

Thanks to every one for celebrating the upcoming release of Exposed to You with me. I decided to give away two extra books, for a total of 6!

The random number generator has chosen the following winners. Winners, please write to me at bethkery@aol.com. If you are international, write with your snail mail address, U.S., specify ebook or print and appropriate information for each.

The winners are as follows.

Sara Sobel
Michelle B
Lyn in Tampa Bay
Katherine (43)
Cayenne
and Emily (24)

I hope everyone has a terrific weekend, and thanks again for taking interest in my books!

~Beth

Happy Friday!

Today is my last day for giving away copies of Exposed to You and doing snippets, and for the finale, I have FOUR copies to give away.

I also have an exclusive snippet here. For those of you who didn’t catch it, the very sexy entire first chapter of Exposed to You is available at Dear Author. Check it out!

“What would you do if the sexiest man in the world was bent on bringing you unbearable pleasure again and again? Joy Hightower wasn’t sure she could survive the experience…or live without it.”

It’s not often you’re hired to paint a body tattoo—and what a body—on a total stranger at a Hollywood film set. A reserved and careful art teacher, Joy would never forget it. In a rare fit of raw desire she gave herself completely, knowing she’d never see him again, or ever repeat such a shameless, naked impulse.

Little did she know, the man with whom she shared that lightning bolt of lust was star Everett Hughes. For Everett, women and sex came as easily as fame. But how could he hope to convince the guarded Joy that beneath the hard body and sexy façade of celebrity was a real man who wanted only one, real woman?

In the heat of an intoxicating affair, Everett endeavors to break down her barriers, gain her trust, and expose himself as the real deal. But can Joy do the same, and reveal to him the vulnerable woman who longs to be loved, wanted, and desired forever?

RT Book Reviews Top Pick!

Snippet, Exposed to You, Releasing November 6

“I’ve never seen anyone here. Even Rill and Katie don’t know about it.”

“You’re keeping it a secret?” she asked, amused.

He shrugged. “It’s my private place. I come here to think sometimes.”

He whipped off the ugly polo shirt, revealing his ripped, sweat-glistening torso as casually as he might flick at a fly. He kicked off his shoes, stripped off his socks and jerked down his shorts and boxer-briefs with as much ritual or thought.

“You coming?” he asked her when he finally stood there nude and more glorious than the rising sun.

“I’m just going to stretch a little to cool off,” she said breathlessly.

He nodded and headed toward the lake, shoving aside some tall grass with his hand, heedless when it snapped back behind him, brushing his ass. Joy just stood there for a second, breathing hard, watching him with her mouth gaping open, a sense of unreality clouding her consciousness. How could he possibly be so sublimely beautiful and seem about as aware of it as the air he breathed? If there were a trace of disingenuousness in his actions, a hint of contrivance, it’d be one thing. But instead, he was all easy male grace and quick intelligence, good-natured humor interspersed with sudden, dark, smoldering sexuality. He was just . . .

Everett.

*******

With the wealth of erotic stories popping up everywhere, Kery dethrones them all with her latest — a real eye-opener. This well-written story is original, refreshing and hot enough to generate third-degree burns.
4 1/2 Stars – RT Book Reviews

Pre-Order Exposed to You for release November 6:
Amazon
iTunes
Barnes and Noble

4 copies of Exposed to You will be given away tomorrow morning to two randomly chosen commenters. International entries okay.