Other Books

A Case for Romance

Runaway Hearts

PHOTO: © KOVATCH PHOTOGRAPHY

Award-winning historical author KATIE ROSE makes her contemporary debut with the Boys of Summer novels, Bring on the Heat and Too Hot to Handle, which combine Katie’s true loves: baseball and romance! When not watching baseball, Katie is at her lake house in New Jersey, hard at work on her next book.

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The Editor’s Corner

As the seasonal colors change with the leaves on the trees, so does our lineup of new Loveswept romances…and we’re sure you’ll love them all!

Adore MC romances? You’ll love Rachael Johns’s Fire Me Up. Sports fans won’t want to miss New York Times bestselling author Sawyer Bennett’s Cold Fury Hockey series continuing with Ryker and debut author Sophia Henry introduces her Pilot’s Hockey series with Delayed Penalty. Then it’s off the ice with Samantha Kane’s new NFL title, Broken Play. Baseball fans everywhere will want the next in the Boys of Summer series by Katie Rose, The Heat of the Moment, while readers who devour MMA stories will go for Loveswept debut author Sarah Robinson’s Breaking a Legend. And if your taste for fighters is not squelched just yet, Raven by Suzanne Ashley has a twist that will shock you and yet melt your heart—prepare yourself for an emotional ride.

For those sports enthusiasts who take to the slopes, Extreme Risk’s next installment, Slashed, by New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff is here! Fabulously fun and flirty author Cassie Mae begins a new series, All About Love, that will have you laughing out loud, then sniffling, maybe both at the same time with the first book, Doing It for Love. Lastly, a sexy regency historical novella from Lavinia Kent, part of her Bound and Determined series, Sarah’s Surrender.

All affordably priced and found wherever eBooks are sold, Loveswepts are stories you’ll always remember and that can be easily stored on your digital shelves to be read over and over again. Until next time…

Happy Romance!

Gina Wachtel

Associate Publisher

Read on for an excerpt from The Heat Is On A Boys of Summer Novel

by Katie Rose

Available from Loveswept

Prologue

“Come on, Cody! Hit the damn ball!”

Cody Jones, catcher for the New Jersey Sonics, kicked at the dirt in the batting box. This was going to be their year; he could feel it. Everything was in place to ensure success. Chase Westbrook, their ace pitcher, was having a phenomenal season. Jake Baldwin, the shortstop who had just stolen second base and was eyeing up third, was on a tear. And right behind him batting cleanup was Gavin King, the heavy hitter they’d acquired last year from the Dodgers after an injury. Gavin was batting a solid .320, and he gave the catcher a quiet grin from the dugout as thirty thousand fans cheered from the stands.

“Cody! Cody! Cody!”

The pitcher, a young kid with a scruff of red beard sticking defiantly out from his chin, leaned back and threw a slider. Cody knew it immediately by the way his opponent handled the ball. He didn’t swing, but stepped back and allowed it to fall to the left of the plate.

Ball three.

Come on, Cody thought. I’m not swinging at that weak-ass cheese. Bring on the heat!

He’d get the pitch now, the one he’d been waiting for. Another ball and he would walk, and with Gavin coming up behind him and Jake itching for third, there was no way in hell this kid would risk that. So Cody waited as the applause grew thunderous, lifted the bat, and positioned himself for the fastball.

But instead of crossing the plate, the 95-mile-an-hour pitch came directly at him and smashed his right hand. Pain shot through his fingers as the bat fell helplessly to the dirt. Grimacing, he trotted to first, feeling the shattered bones beneath his fingers.

His hand was broken. The batting coach looked at him questioningly, but he shook his head. Furious, he glared at the pitcher as he hid the excruciating discomfort, knowing what this meant.

He was going on the DL.

So when Gavin stepped up and effortlessly tagged a wild pitch and sent it soaring over the fence, bringing them all home, Cody tried to share in the explosion of joy as the fans screamed wildly. But as he entered the dugout, his hand throbbing, he could see the swelling starting already.

It was June and he was done, maybe for the season.

Maybe forever.

Chapter One

He was home.

Connor Jackson stepped off the charter plane at the Philadelphia airport. A tired-looking man with a Phillies cap barely looked up from the information booth, and when asked where to pick up a rental car, he simply shrugged and pointed to a sign that said GROUND TRANSPORTATION.

The men’s room was less than desirable, and although the airport had recently added quite a few shops and restaurants, it wasn’t the gleaming perfect facilities that he’d seen in other states like Minnesota, with iPads on every table and the retail help all bearing permanent smiles.

But Connor didn’t care. Even when a woman dressed in head-to-toe Spandex pushed him out of the way to get her bag, he had to smile. This was, after all, Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Shove.

And it was real.

Pausing at the newsstand for a local paper, he proffered his two dollars in exchange for The Philadelphia Inquirer. The cashier glanced up at him and gave him a broad smile.

“Say, aren’t you that new pitcher coming to New Jersey?” When he nodded, she slapped her hand on the countertop with fingers lifted as if impressed, careful not to break her gel nails. “Damn. I knew it! Wait till my peeps here this.” Immediately she got on her cellphone to tweet.

Tucking the newspaper under his arm, he made his way to the rental car waiting outside. The young guy standing beside the vehicle greeted him as if he’d known him forever.

“Hey, Con Man! I heard you were coming to the Sonics!” The man even knew his nickname. As he opened the door with a flourish, he continued his chatter. “Glad to have you here. That was rough, what happened to Jonesy.”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t surprised that the man knew every detail of the trade. After all, this was Philadelphia. “No one ever likes to think of a player getting hurt. Especially someone as talented as Cody Jones.”