Always on My Mind by Jill Shalvis Blog Tour, Giveaway and Sneak Peak

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jill Shalvis

Check out her website: http://jillshalvis.com/jill/

Follow Jill on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/JillShalvis/

Follow Jill on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JillShalvis

Check her out on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22370.Jill_Shalvis

New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis is the award winning author of over four dozen romance novels, including her upcoming sexy contemporary novel It Had to Be You, book one in the Lucky Harbor series. The 4-time Rita nominee and 3-time National Readers Choice winner makes her home near Lake Tahoe. Her first four novels were published under the name Jill Sheldon then switched to Jill Shalvis. To see a complete list of all her books Click Here

~ The Lucky Harbor Series ~

If you check out Jill's website, she talks about how she came up with The Lucky Harbor Series. She states, 

"When I began brainstorming the sexy contemporary romance series about three estranged sisters who get stuck together running a dilapidated beach resort, I decided I was out of my mind. I don’t have sisters. I have a brother, and we like each other just fine. Then at the dinner table one very night, my three teenage heathens started bickering and fighting, and I just stared at them in awe and wonder.

I had my fodder! “Keep fighting,” I told them — much to their utter shock, since I’ve spent the past fifteen years begging them to get along.

After that night, it was a piece of cake to write the sisters — Maddie, Tara, and Chloe — their claws barely sheathed, with resentment and affection vying for space, stuck together in the small Washington State beach town of Lucky Harbor.

So then all that I had left to do was find the three sexy guys who could handle them. I’m a big romance reader as well an author, and for me, it’s always about the hero. It doesn’t matter what he looks like, or what he does for a living, or even who his family and friends are — it’s about his heart.
It just so happened that at the same time, my neighbor was having an addition put on her house. For six glorious weeks, there were a bunch of guys hanging off the roof and the walls, in perfect line of sight of my office.

Which is really my deck. It’s a wonder I got any work done at all. I sat in the sun and wrote while in the background cute, young, sweaty guys hammered, and sawed, and in general, made my day.
And on some days, they even took off their shirts. Those were my favorite days of all."

The above excerpt from Jill's blog is not a "full" discloser. There is much more (and there are pictures of some story inspiring guys - sigh). To read more on how Jill came up with The Lucky Harbor Series Click Here.

Description of Simply Irresistible:

Maddie Moore's whole life needs a makeover.

In one fell swoop, Maddie loses her boyfriend (her decision) and her job (so not her decision). But rather than drowning her sorrows in bags of potato chips, Maddie leaves L.A. to claim the inheritance left by her free-spirited mother-a ramshackle inn nestled in the little coastal town of Lucky Harbor, Washington.

Starting over won't be easy. Yet Maddie sees the potential for a new home and a new career-if only she can convince her two half-sisters to join her in the adventure. But convincing Tara and Chloe will be difficult because the inn needs a big makeover too.

The contractor Maddie hires is a tall, dark-haired hottie whose eyes-and mouth-are making it hard for her to remember that she's sworn off men. Even harder will be Maddie's struggles to overcome the past, though she's about to discover that there's no better place to call home than Lucky Harbor. To read an excerpt Click Here

Description of  The Sweetest Thing:

Two men are one too many...

Tara has a thousand good reasons not to return to the little coastal town of Lucky Harbor, Washington. Yet with her life doing a major crash-and-burn, anywhere away from her unfulfilled dreams and sexy ex-husband will do. As Tara helps her two sisters get their newly renovated inn up and running, she finally has a chance to get things under control and come up with a new plan for her life.

But a certain tanned, green-eyed sailor has his own ideas, such as keeping Tara hot, bothered . . . and in his bed. And when her ex wants Tara back, three is a crowd she can't control-especially when her deepest secret reappears out of the blue. Now Tara must confront her past and discover what she really wants. If she's lucky, she might just find that everything her heart desires is right here in Lucky Harbor. To read an excerpt Click Here

Description of Head Over Heels:

Breaking rules and breaking hearts 

Free-spirited Chloe lives life on the edge. Unlike her soon-to-be married sisters, she isn't ready to settle into a quiet life running their family's newly renovated inn. But soon her love of trouble--and trouble with love-draws the attention of the very stern, very sexy sheriff who'd like nothing better than to tame her wild ways.

Suddenly Chloe can't take a misstep without the sheriff hot on her heels. His rugged swagger and his enigmatic smile are enough to make a girl beg to be handcuffed. For the first time, instead of avoiding the law, Chloe dreams of surrender. Can this rebel find a way to keep the peace with the straitlaced sheriff? Or will Chloe's colorful past keep her from a love that lasts . . . and the safe haven she truly wants in a town called Lucky Harbor? To read an excerpt Click Here

Description of Lucky in Love:

Mallory Quinn has had enough of playing it safe. As a nurse and devoted daughter, she takes care of everyone but herself. And as the local good girl, she's expected to date Mr. Right. But for once, she'd like to take a risk on Mr. Wrong. And who could be more wrong than Ty Garrison? The mysterious new guy in town has made it clear that he's only passing through, which suits Mallory just fine. Besides, his lean, hard body and sexy smile will give her plenty to remember once he's gone . . . 

For the first time in his life, Ty can't bear to leave. Helping this sexy seductress-in-training walk on the wild side is making him desire things he shouldn't including leaving the military for good. As their just-for-fun fling becomes something more, Mallory and Ty wonder if they could really be this lucky in love. After all . . . anything can happen in a town called Lucky Harbor. To read an excerpt Click Here

Description of  At Last:

HER LOVE HAS COME ALONG…

Amy Michaels loves her new life in Lucky Harbor. A waitress in the local diner, she’s looking forward to her first weekend hike through the mountains. But when a wrong turn takes her off the trail, she finds herself up close and personal with forest ranger Matt Bowers. And even though she’s tempted to kiss that sexy smile right off his face, she won’t make the mistake of getting involved with the town heartthrob.

A former cop whose life went south, Matt doesn’t let anyone get too close. But something about the feisty beauty caught his eye the moment he first saw her in the diner. After a hot night under a starry sky, Matt can’t deny their attraction-or the fact that for the first time in a long time, he feels the stirrings of something more. Now it’s up to Matt to help Amy see that, no matter what is in their past, together they can build a future in Lucky Harbor.  To read an excerpt Click Here

Description of Forever and a Day:

LOVE CAN HAPPEN IN A HEARTBEAT

Grace never thought she’d be starting her life over from scratch. Losing everything has landed her in Lucky Harbor, working as a dog walker for overwhelmed ER doctor Josh Scott. But the day his nanny fails to show up, Grace goes from caring for Josh’s lovable mutt to caring for his rambunctious son. Soon Grace is playing house with the sexy single dad…

With so many people depending on him, Josh has no time for anything outside of his clinic and family-until Grace arrives in town. Now this brainy blonde is turning his life inside out and giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “good bedside manner.” Josh and Grace don’t know if what they have can last. But in a town like Lucky Harbor, a lifetime of love starts with just one day… To read an excerpt Click Here

Description of It Had to Be You:  

Ali Winters is not having a good day. Her boyfriend left her, everyone in town thinks she's a thief, and now she's about to be kicked out of her home. Her only shot at keeping a roof over her head and clearing her name is to beg for help from a police detective who's as sexy as he is stern....

After a high-profile case goes wrong, Luke Hanover returns to his hometown for some peace and quiet. Instead he finds a bombshell brunette in a heap of trouble. As he helps Ali put her world back together, the pieces of Luke's own life finally seem to fall into place. Is this the start of a sizzling fling? Or are Luke and Ali on the brink of something big in a little town called Lucky Harbor?

Description of Always On My Mind:

After dropping out of pastry school and messing up her big break on a reality cooking show, Leah Sullivan needs to accomplish something in her life. But when she returns home to Lucky Harbor, she finds herself distracted by her best friend, Jack Harper. In an effort to cheer up Jack's ailing mother, Dee, Leah tells a little fib - that she and Jack are more than just friends. Soon pretending to be hot-and-heavy with this hunky firefighter feels too real to handle . . .

No-strings attachments suit Jack just fine - perfect for keeping the risk of heartbreak away. But as Jack and Leah break every one of their "just friends" rules, he longs to turn their pretend relationship into something permanent. Do best friends know too much about each other to risk falling in love? Or will Jack and Leah discover something new about each other in a little town called Lucky Harbor?To read an excerpt Click Here

Sneak Peek courtesy of Grand Central Publishing of
Always on My Mind:

     It wasn’t all that difficult to find Leah, once Jack set his mind to it.  Since the beginning of time, when she’d been troubled, she’d been drawn to two things.

          Him.

          And the ocean.

          She hadn’t come to him.  That was new.  There’d been a time when she’d have come to him no matter what was troubling her. 

          Except, of course, at the moment he was the source of her trouble, even though it was of her own making.  The last time that had been the case, she’d left Lucky Harbor. 

          But he knew she couldn’t leave now.  She was here for her grandma, and though Leah had plenty of faults, her grandma meant too much to her.  Unlike himself…  He tried not to resent that, but there was no getting around the fact – he did resent it.  He was pissed off that she had no idea what she meant to him, back then.

          Or now.

          His heart squeezed a little, making room for a few other emotions besides his temper.  Empathy.  Maybe even reluctant affection.  He could’ve gotten into the water with her, but it was after midnight and Christ, he was tired. 

          Nothing good ever happens after midnight. 

          His mom had always said so, and in this case, he was willing to bet it was true.  So he sat on the sand, positioned halfway between her car and the water, giving her no easy escape.  And waited.

          And brooded. Because he was having lots of odd and unexpected urges as it pertained to Leah, and he didn’t know what to do about them.  Once upon a time, she’d been the only highlight in his day, the only one to make him smile.  She was still that person, but there was something new between them, and he wasn’t sure if it was good.  In fact, he was pretty sure he should be running like hell.

          Finally, she swam in, and then she was standing up in the water, and he nearly swallowed his tongue.  It’d been a damn long time since he’d seen her in a bathing suit.  Maybe since high school, when she’d been a head taller than all the other girls and skinny as hell.

          She was still tall but she’d filled out in all the right places and then some.  She wore a black bikini, nothing but a few straps low on her hips and two triangles over her breasts, and as a wave knocked her around a little, everything jiggled enticingly.

          And suddenly he went from slightly chilled to very overheated.  Good Christ, she was … beautiful.  It should’ve assuaged his simmering temper just looking at her, but instead it stoked it, making him tense as hell. 

          Leah, on the other hand, was looking pretty carefree as she lifted her arms and shoved back her hair. 

          At the sight, his brain utterly clicked off.

          She saw him then.  He could tell because, from one blink of an eye to the next, she froze every single muscle.  It’d have been fascinating to watch, except for the fact that she was freezing up over him.  She’d never reacted this way before.  He didn’t like it.  And besides, he was the wronged party here.  He was the one who got to be pissy.

          “You’re still here,” she said flatly. “You scared me.”

          “You need to be more aware of your surroundings.”

          Dripping water everywhere, she crossed her arms over herself.  “It’s Lucky Harbor.”

          He rose to his feet.  “Bad shit can happen anywhere.”

          She met his gaze for one brief beat and then looked away.  “What are you doing here, Jack?”

          “I figured as your ‘almost fiancé,’ I should see how you’re doing.”

          She winced but didn’t respond.

          “What the hell is this all about, Leah?”

          “You know it's about your mom's cancer,” she said, hugging herself a little tighter.

          She always got defensive when she screwed up, and since she’d screwed up a lot, she had a lot of practice. 

          “My mom has enough going on,” he said.  “She doesn’t need to be lied to.”

          “Maybe not.  But she does need to be happy to heal.  And this made her happy.  All week she’s been glowing.”

          He knew it was true, and a stab of guilt hit him that he hadn’t been able to make her happy without help. 

          Leah didn’t say anything more but she didn’t have to.  Yeah, she’d gotten them into this mess, but he knew damn well it’d been out of the goodness of her heart.  Jack knew that she thought she owed him for all those years ago, when he’d done his best to protect her, the chivalry having been deeply ingrained by his dad.

          But they were even.

          In the dark, Leah shivered, and that chivalry had him torn between enjoying the sight of her cold and wanting to wrap her up in his arms.  “Where’s your towel?”

          “In the car.”

          He pulled off his sweatshirt and tugged it over her head. 

          “I’ll get it wet,” she said.

          “It’ll dry.”

          “I’m—"

          “Just wear the damn sweatshirt, Leah.”

          There was an awkward silence while they stared at each other as behind her the water pounded the shore.

          “I realize that this is really hard for you,” she finally said, pulling on his sweatshirt.  “Having everyone think you like me that way.  You’ll just have to pretend.”

          He narrowed his eyes.  Had that been sarcasm?  Or…

          Hurt?  “There was a time when I wouldn’t have had to pretend anything,” he said.  “But you flaked out, remember?  You pretended, and then you left.”

          She grimaced, swallowed hard, and looked away.  “We were just kids.”

          Was that how it played in her head?  Seriously?  “Does it make you feel better?” he asked quietly.  “To downplay what we were to each other?”

          She closed her eyes.  “We were friends, Jack.  Friends who’d made a quick, knee-jerk, stupid decision to become naked friends and sleep together.”

          “Yeah.  And then one of the friends didn’t show,” he said, much more mildly than he felt.

          “It was a bad idea.  I was leaving.”

          “Which you forgot to mention.”

          She dropped her head back and stared up at the sky.  “I couldn’t stay, Jack.”

          He took in her expression, filled with memories, and nodded.  “I know.  But you should have told me you were going.”

          “You had another girl in your bed by the following weekend.”

          Had he?  Hell, probably.  But she wouldn’t have meant anything to him.  Not like Leah had.  His chest tightened at the memory of the hole she’d left in his life.  He didn’t want to go through that again.  “I missed you.”

          She said nothing, and he shook his head.  Fuck it.  He started to walk away, and then she spoke.

          “Brandi Metcalf.”

          He stopped.  “What?”

          “Brandi Metcalf was the one in your bed by the next weekend.”  She turned her head and glared at him.  “Pretty blonde Brandi with the perfect boobs.”  She emphasized this by cupping her hands out in front of her own breasts.  “So don’t even try to tell me you missed me.”

          He shook his head.  Apparently he wasn’t the only pissed-off one tonight.  “Okay,” he said.  “Let’s have it.”

          “Let’s have what?”
          “Well, I know why I’m pissed.  Why the hell are you pissed?”

          “It’s not like it’s going to be a walk in the park for me either,” she said, giving him a little shot to the chest.  “Pretending to like you.”

          “Me?” he asked, flabbergasted.  “What the hell is there not to like about me?”

          The sound she made assured him that she had volumes on the subject.  “Don’t get me started.”

          “I want to know,” he said.

          “Fine.  You watch that stupid ice fishing show like it’s a religion, you’re a horrible backseat driver, you drink out of the milk carton – and fyi, so does Ben – you don’t put the cap on your toothpaste, or put the lid down on the toilet, and you shush me when you’re watching sports.”

          He stared at her.  “That’s quite a list of shortcomings,” he eventually said.  “Is that all?”

          “No.”  She shoved her wet hair from her face, though she managed to keep her regal stance, nose firmly in the air at nose-bleed heights.  “I held back because I didn’t want to be overly rude.”

          He laughed softly.  “Don’t hold back, Leah.  Let’s hear all of it.”

          “Well, your truck has more sporting goods than a store, you never say you’re sorry, and your girlfriends look like super models.  I mean what is that?  There’s nothing wrong with real boobs, you know!”

          He took it all in and had to admit that he couldn’t say she was wrong, about any of it.  “And yet you call me The Picker.”

          She ignored this.  “And your mom told me that you need knee surgery again.  You’re just too stubborn to get it done.  So you can add ornery to the list.”

          He blew out a slow breath.  “It’s not ice fishing,” he said.  “It’s crabbing.  And sometimes I lose the cap on the toothpaste, or my dog eats it.  And I don’t need knee surgery, I’m fine.”

          Leah snorted.  “You’re always ‘fine’.  Your knee could be falling off and you’d say you were fine.”

          “I fail to see the problem.”

          She snorted again, and he was starting to feel greatly insulted.  “You’re not exactly a walk in the park, Leah.”

          “No?”

          “No.  You’re flighty, you live for your every whim, you downplay any real emotion you feel.” 

          She hugged herself tight.  “Good thing this is all pretend then, isn’t it,” she said softly.

          “Yeah.”

          She was freezing.  And hauntingly gorgeous, so damn gorgeous standing there wet and silvery by the moon’s glow, like a goddess.  It’s Leah, he had to keep reminding himself.  Leah, who’d once beaten him in a marshmallow eating contest only to puke all over him.  Leah, whose dark green eyes had a way of telling the world to bite her.  Leah, who’d run off on him and left him heartbroken.  He took a step into her – for what exactly, he had no idea-- and she poked a finger into his chest. 

          “God,” she said.  “You’re so …”  Words apparently failed her, but she let out a sound that managed to perfectly convey how annoying he was.

          “Ditto,” he said, and then grabbed the finger drilling a hole between his pecs and tugged her hard enough that she lost her balance and fell against him.

          He wrapped an arm around her waist, entangling a hand in her wet hair.

          She went still as stone and stared into his eyes.  And then lowered her gaze to his mouth.

          Yeah, they were in sync there.  Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.  Hers caught audibly in her throat, a good sign he decided.  Maybe she wouldn’t knee him in the balls.  Testing the waters, he grazed her jawline with his teeth.

          She shivered.

          Then he slid his mouth to the very corner of hers and was rewarded by the clutch of her hands on his shirt.  Having her hold on to him like this, like he was her only anchor, sent a bolt of lust straight through him.  “Leah,” he murmured, hearing the surprise in his own voice, feeling the heat course through him as he finally, God finally, covered her mouth with his.

          Her lips parted for him eagerly, and he groaned, drowning in the erotic collision of her hot tongue and chilled, wet body.

          Serious trouble.  He was in serious trouble.

          Because he had a taste of her now, a damn good taste, and it was better than he could have imagined, making him want the rest of her.  With his fingers still in her hair, he pulled her in tighter, slanting his mouth across hers for more.  She moved with him, into him, making the connection all the sweeter.

          No.  Sweet wasn’t the right word.

          Hot.  She was so hot she was turning him inside out.  And then she made another of those soft, surrendering sighs deep in her throat, the sound slaying him.  She still had a death grip on his shirt and had managed to catch a few chest hairs while she was at it.  He didn’t care.  Sliding a hand beneath his sweatshirt, he cupped her ass over her wet bikini bottoms, rocking into her. 

          She had to feel what this was doing to him.  And given that she was breathing like she was running out of air, and still holding onto him tight enough to bruise, she also had to know where this was going.

          Jack kissed Leah some more, sinking deeper into her taste, her softness, her scent, all while wondering how the hell she could drive him crazy and made him ache at the same time.  It was a feat that totally wrecked his equilibrium.  Maybe it was just the kiss.  Because holy shit, the kiss.  He still had a handful of her sweet ass, and he squeezed, wanting more.  But they were outside and the night’s temp was quickly dropping.  She was wet, trembling with the chill, and there was absolutely nowhere to go with this.  Not here, not now.  He’d had no business kissing her like he had an end game, and knowing it, he regretfully pulled back.

          She blinked as if waking up from a dream.  “What—"  She cleared her throat.  “What was that?” 

          “Insanity.  It’s going around.”

 

 (Excerpt used with permission from the Publisher.)

~ Giveaway ~

(Giveaway sponsored by and prizes distributed by the publisher)

: a Rafflecopter giveaway