Friday Favourites with Cathy Yardley

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Friday Favourites

1. Favourite place: Snoqualmie, WA – the location of the series. It’s a real place, and a lot of the locations in the books or are based on real sites. It’s also my hometown, and it’s my favourite place on earth.

2. Favourite food and drink: My favorite food is probably ice cream. I have a weakness for it! Just about any flavor. As to drink – hmmm. Hot cocoa. (Can you tell I have a sweet tooth?)

3. Favourite music/genre/artist/song: I like different music for different moods and occasions, so it’s hard to choose just one. I’ve been listening to a lot of 90’s electronic dance music lately, stuff I used to listen to in clubs and stuff I’m finding on Pandora. Front 242’s Headhunter, or Nightmares on Wax’s Carboot Soul album. Good stuff.

4. Favourite movie/TV series: Again, depends on the mood! I’d say my favorite series is Game of Thrones, because I am super engrossed in it. I have to see what happens!

5. Favourite hobby besides writing, if you consider writing a hobby: That would be reading. I devour books like I could live on reading alone. 😊

6. Favourite books (feel free to list as many as you want; all-time favourites or newly released ones; grouped by sub/genre or other criteria) I love, love, LOVE romantic comedies! Or really so many romances that have strong comedic elements (especially witty banter.) Jennifer Crusie, Tessa Dare, Kresley Cole. For funny, emotional, and downright hawt, I read Melissa Blue. Right now, Penny Reid is my leading favorite rom com author by a long shot – I re-read her book Beard Science regularly. Oh, and I just read Teagan Hunter’s Let’s Get Textual and adored the banter in the texts between the hero and heroine. When I’m not reading funny, I love reading Alisha Rai, Courtney Milan, Lisa Kleypas. I’m also a fan of Jim Butcher, Patrick Rothfuss, Ernest Cline.

7. Please introduce your latest/upcoming release (what inspired you to write, what can the readers expect from it, etc.) My upcoming release is called Game of Hearts, and it’s the third in my Fandom Hearts series. I’m an unrepentant geek, and this series is a set of love letters to various fandoms. The first book, Level Up, had nods to Sherlock; the second, One True Pairing, was for Supernatural and their fans. This one is not surprisingly dedicated to Game of Thrones. I’ll be honest: a lot of it was inspired by Jason Momoa! The hero, Jericho Salomon, hasn’t been home to Snoqualmie in nine years, since his mother kicked him out and he left home to join a biker gang at seventeen. Now, he comes back to help his best friend’s kid sister, Kyla Summers. Kyla has an opportunity to get her sideline costume business into an exceptional spotlight, but she needs help keeping the family auto shop running. There’s cosplay, there’s geekery, and there’s a healthy dose of tension (and sexy fun times!)

Title: Game of Hearts (Fandom Hearts #3)

Author: Cathy Yardley

Genre: Contemporary romance

Release date: 30 Jan 2018

Purchase links: Amazon

Blurb

Kyla Summers has been offered the opportunity of a lifetime to get her cosplay business off the ground, and only one thing stands in her way. She needs someone to take over the auto shop, and there’s only one person she can think of to call…

Jericho Salomon hasn’t been back in his home town since he joined a biker gang and rode off nine years ago. When his best friend’s kid sister calls begging for help, he knows that he owes the family a debt and he intends to pay. This is easier said than done once he finds that the kid is all grown up…

She needs a pair of skillful hands. He needs to keep his hands off. When sparks begin to fly, can they keep things strictly business, or will their hearts get hopelessly tangled? No more games, it’s time to play for keeps.

Author Bio and Links

Cathy Yardley needs to get out more. When not writing, she's usually lurking on social media, playing Elder Scrolls Online, or watching D-list movies and adding to her unnatural mental store of character-actor trivia. She's a fangirl of Supernatural, Doctor Who, Sherlock, LOTR, and too many others to name. She lives with her family in Seattle. They are considering performing an intervention for her addiction to pop culture.

Website / Facebook / Twitter

Excerpt

She shrugged. “He was kind of a sexist asshat when he dropped it off. Was looking for the mechanic — a man, obviously, not a woman like me.”

She couldn’t help but notice that Jericho looked her over quickly, lingering on her chest just a second after she said woman. His eyebrow went up. “And you didn’t kill him?”

“Nope. I did my patented calming technique, went hyper-cheerful, and sent him on his way.”

Jericho moved closer, all but whispering in her ear. “Someday, you gotta teach me this technique of yours.”

She shivered. I’d love to teach you muscle-tensing and relaxing techniques. Which only brought back memories of last night’s dream.

“Do you really want to know?” she quickly asked, heading off that avenue of thought.

“Yeah, I do.” He smiled at her.

“Promise not to tell anyone?”

“Who am I gonna tell?” She could tell he was trying not to laugh. “Okay, I promise.”

Now she was dying with embarrassment. What was she thinking? Leaning forward, she buried her head against his chest, then muttered, “I do kegels.”

She felt him stiffen. “You… eat bagels?” he asked.

She started snickering, then giggling, then laughing even harder, until he laughed along with her, lightly looping his arms around her.

“Not bagels,” she corrected, breathlessly, her cheeks hurting from smiling. “I do kegels.”

He blinked, leaning back to stare at her. “You do… kegels?” he repeated.

“When I get stressed out, or a customer pisses me off, or I get mansplained by some douchebag cosplay guy or something,” she whispered. “I just smile like Pollyanna on meth and do kegels until the desire to strangle them passes.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and she wondered if he was shocked or uncomfortable, until he started laughing, much like she had. In fact, he’d released her and was doubled over, leaning against a wall. “Oh, my God,” he said, wiping at his eye. “You are too much. Really. You are nuts.”

“Sure, laugh now,” she said, poking him in the midsection and looking up at him, her eyes bright with mischief. “But someday I’ll be a Zen monk who can bend a metal bar with her hoohah, and who’ll be laughing then, huh?”