Release Blitz, Excerpt & Giveaway: Fakers by Lucy Lennox & May Archer
A Licking Thicket Novel, Book 2
Universal Link
My Review
The Licking Thicket series has been the breath of fresh air that you don’t realize you need. Reading about this little town full of innuendos had my stomach cramping from laughing so hard. Diesel and Parrish’s story is sweet yet hilarious. These two couldn’t be more different but they came together so beautifully, I just couldn’t get enough. Parrish is so selfless even when put in such an impossible situation. His rambling made him so endearing and I just couldn’t get enough of him. Diesel was definitely a surprise. I never expected the man he truly is based on the snippets we got in Fakers. He and Parrish were absolutely perfect for each other and I just loved every second of this book.
Excerpt:
A bloodcurdling wail echoed through the little stairwell, and I froze for a second, then rushed headlong down the steps two at a time, skidding to a halt halfway down the staircase when I found the source of the sound—a wriggling baby in a fuzzy pink sweater who was literally crying herself purple, possibly because the giant, tattooed mountain of a man holding her was growling down at her with a ferocious scowl on his face.
I gripped my folder tightly and opened my mouth to protest even though the guy was twice my size, when the baby’s cries quieted for half a second and I caught that the man wasn’t growling. He was… singing?
“Something… sunshine. Only sunshine. You make me happy. Something gray? Christ.” He heaved a frustrated sigh. “Marigold, you’ve got to stop now. You’ve made your point. Be reasonable, baby girl.”
Oh. Oh, good gravy. That changed everything.
I caught my breath and stared. The man looked like he’d been torn off the stage at a rock concert, transported to Nowhere, Tennessee, and stuffed into the outfit I once wore to a middle school dance. There was no other explanation for a guy with overlong brown-blond hair, graceful black inked scrolls emerging from the collar of his wrinkled, blue button-down shirt, shiny Dockers that clung to his tree-trunk thighs, and black steel-toed boots to have appeared in this stairwell. I sure as heck hadn’t seen any other guys in this neck of the woods who were so unapologetically themselves.
And if that weren’t enough to pierce my heart, the kidlet in his arms was gorgeous, despite her tears and wiggling. She had a head full of dark curls, way more than should have been possible for a baby her age, which I’d peg at somewhere around nine months—somewhere past the shriveled-potato stage of early infancy but not nearly at the terrifying walking age.
The baby wailed again, and the giant looked genuinely panicked. He held her flat across his outstretched forearms, like he was carrying a box of pizza or helping her learn the backstroke, and he bent his knees in a kind of next-level Oompa Loompa jig in time to his stammered singing. A pink-and-white striped tote bag sat on the floor next to the wall.
“Work with me, Marigold, okay? You’re not hungry, ’cause you just drank ten gallons of formula. You’re not stinky…” He lifted the kid gingerly. “Not stinky,” he confirmed in a deep, raspy voice that did things to me. “Are you having an existential crisis? Is that a thing kids do? Do you need alone time? Are your lips chapped? Do you hate my cologne?”
The baby fussed harder, flailing her tiny feet. The man groaned, and I belatedly noticed one of those pacifier stuffed animal things lying on the floor by the giant’s boot.
I scurried down the stairs and picked it up. “I think she might be looking for this,” I said, holding it aloft. It was a gray-and-white polka-dotted chicken with a green sucker on the end.
The guy shut his eyes and shook his head. “Ah, shit.”
His eyes popped open in shock as he realized what he’d said, and he looked from me to the kid guiltily. “Fuck, forget I said that,” he muttered.
His eyes widened further. “Goddamn it all.”
I snickered. “Maybe quit while you’re ahead?”
Enter the Giveaway:
About the Authors
