Erzabet's Enchantments: The Bottom Line by Shelley Munro Blog Tour and Giveaway

The Bottom Line

Love and Friendship

Book One

Shelley Munro

Genre: Erotic contemporary romance

Publisher: Samhain Publishing

Date of Publication: April 2010

ISBN: 978-1-60504-985-4

ASIN: B003BGUO92

Number of pages: 272 pages

Word Count: 85,000

Cover Artist: Scott Carpenter

Ebooks: Samhain All Romance ebooks Kindle BN Kobo

Print: Samhain Amazon BN Book Depository

Book Description:

Spicing up her sex life sounds exciting…until the fantasy hits the fan.

Love and Friendship, Book 1

When Maggie Drummond buys an erotic romance novel by mistake, she gets more than an unexpected eyeful. She gets an introduction to a world that arouses her to a fever pitch. Spanking.

Her boyfriend isn’t interested in pushing his vanilla-flavored sexual boundaries. Then there’s Connor Grey, who haunts her fantasies like a magical genie. As a source of masculine advice for her and her female friends, he’s off limits. The only safe place to explore her fetish is her anonymous blog.

The recent changes in Maggie don’t escape Connor’s notice. Now that her boyfriend has dropped her, he can finally—carefully—make his move. Given his family history, laying a hand on any woman, even in fun, is a line he’s reluctant to cross. But for Maggie? Anything the lady wants.

As Maggie gives in to the temptation to let Connor add some sin to her life, she finds herself juggling lies, half-truths, friendship and sensual delights. Her job is in jeopardy—and she’s falling in love. Exploring her fantasy is one thing, but she’s beginning to question if indulging her own pleasure is worth the cost to everyone around her. Especially Connor…

Product Warnings: Contains explicit sex, spanking, and the good, the bad and the ugly about friendship.

EXCERPT: The Bottom Line by Shelley Munro

An excerpt in which Maggie, our heroine, tells her friends about her interest in spanking.

“Secret. Secret. Secret.” Christina banged her palms on the edge of the table. Julia and Susan joined in the beat, their eyes gleaming with challenge in the dim light of the booth.

Maggie picked up her margarita and gulped to moisten her dry mouth. “Okay. Okay.”

Placing her glass on a coaster, she glanced around the bar. No doubt about it. People were starting to stare. Time to spill her secret before things turned ugly. After another deep breath, she dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. “I’ve started a website called BigBadAss.com.” She spoke so quickly the words ran together. Once finished, she scanned each of her friends in turn, anxious now for their reactions.

“Big bad ass?” Christina’s watchful eyes held curiosity while her lips curved in an approving smile. She pushed her frameless glasses up her nose with perfectly manicured copper fingernails. “Isn’t that pretty racy for you?”

“What’s the big deal?” Julia scoffed and tossed her head before Maggie could answer. Her blonde hair stirred and settled in sexy curls around her almost bare shoulders. Shoestring straps held her low-cut black top in place. “It’s just a website.”

“Who’s a bad ass?” Susan smirked. “Don’t say Greg has gone and found some balls?”

“Bother, I have a smear.” Christina rifled through her handbag for a tissue to clean her glasses. “Anyway, I want to hear more about this website.”

Questions. Maggie had expected them, but the comments and queries didn’t put her at ease. Her stomach vibrated like one of her younger brother’s toys—over-wound and about to fly apart. She wiped sweaty palms on her sensible navy skirt, swallowed and said, “It’s more of a blog.”

“A blog about what?” Julia asked, rolling her eyes. “Desperados? Bandits? What’s a bad ass?”

Maggie closed her eyes briefly to summon courage. This next part was worse. Her teeth clacked when she closed her mouth. The longer her hesitation, the worse the mental strain would become. Big bad ass, she wasn’t. More like a marshmallow, burnt on the outside with a gooey interior.

“I explore…um…my adventures in spanking,” Maggie said, forcing a smile. “Does anyone want another drink?”

“Spanking,” Susan cried out as the band ended their song and the haunting notes of a sax faded. Everyone in the vicinity heard her shocked shriek. Heads turned, customers surveying them with distinct interest. Two men at a nearby table leered. Their dark suits suggested they worked at the lawyer’s office next door, but their toothy smirks told Maggie their minds crawled in the gutter, armed with floggers and paddles.

“Shush,” she muttered, aware of the two plum-sized patches heating her cheeks. “It’s a secret. I don’t want everyone to know.”

Christina picked up her drink, golden bracelets jingling with musical grace. “Since when were you interested in spanking, Maggie?”

“Yeah,” Julia demanded. “How long has this been going on?”

Susan smirked, her gaze darting from Christina to Julia and back to Maggie. “Does Greg spank you?”

“Um…” Oh, heck. She’d known they’d have lots of questions. Greg was her boyfriend. Solid, dependable and boring. How was she going to tell him? True, she was still a spanking novice, but Maggie was determined not to chicken out. She would explore spanking. It wouldn’t be like the fad diets she tried and failed.

Her spanking interest—or sickness, depending on how a girl looked at it—began with a book and some in-depth soul-searching along with a bottle of wine. She’d hauled her drunken self off to bed and, after reading more of the erotic romance, she’d had the best orgasm ever. Yeah, if she could scale those heights by herself, a real extravaganza lay ahead with a male lover. Right there, she decided to explore her wild side and the naughty spike of pleasure that jolted her right to the core every time she considered a swat on the ass. The fiery heat…

She could see the curiosity filling Susan’s blue eyes, the nosy interest mirrored in Christina and Julia’s faces. “You asked for one secret. I’ve given you one and you have to promise not to tell anyone.” Maggie had no idea where this new bravery had come from. It reminded her of her teenage years, and she liked its return. The inner Maggie cheered, enjoying the nonplussed expressions on her friends’ faces.

Fact or Fiction with Maggie Drummond

Meet Maggie Drummond, the heroine of THE BOTTOM LINE. She lives and works in the city of Auckland in New Zealand, has lots of friends and secretly lusts after one of her male friends, Connor Grey.

Below are four statements about Maggie. Three are true and one is false. You guess which one isn’t the truth.

1. Maggie has a blog called Big Bad Ass where she posts regularly and explores her adventures in spanking. When her friends ask if they can tell Connor, Maggie threatens to smother them with her breasts.

2. Maggie and her friends have a Tell a Secret night at the pub. This involves many margaritas and taking turns at telling a dark secret. This ritual started when Julia, one of the group, told them about her sexual adventures and how she dyed her pubic hair blue.

3. Maggie tells her boyfriend to take a hike because he refuses to spank her and threatens to tell everyone at work about her interest in kink.

4. One of Maggie’s boyfriends asked her to suck him while he was driving. He got so excited he drove off the road and she bit him. There was a terrible scandal in the newspapers and the event was referred to as Penisgate.

So, which one do you think is the true statement? (Check the comments section to see if you’re right)

Review:

I love spanking books and The Bottom Line is a great read. A friends to lovers kind of romance, Maggie picks up an erotic novel about spanking and becomes fascinated with it. She starts a blog (the name of which I won't tell...you have to guess) and in a rousing truth or date episode with her friends, admits to a new kink that she never would have imagined. Neither would her boyfriend!

Her fascination with the book and her best guy friend lead Maggie into all kinds of interesting places. Shelley does it again with a book that has humor, smoking hot sex and some spanking scenes that curled my toes. I love the quirky humor and a heroine with full on voluptuous curves.

5/5

Author Bio:

Shelley Munro is tall and curvaceous with blue eyes and a smile that turns masculine heads everywhere she goes. She’s a university tutor and an explorer/treasure hunter during her vacations. Skilled with weapons and combat, she is currently in talks with a producer about a television series based on her world adventures.

Shelley is also a writer blessed with a VERY vivid imagination and lives with her very own hero in New Zealand. She writes mainly erotic romance in the contemporary, paranormal and historical genres for publishers Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Publishing. You can learn more about Shelley and her books at http://www.shelleymunro.com.

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