First BOOK Friday-- Kinsey Holley

It's First BOOK Friday!  For the next few months, we're going to highlight the first book from each of the Nine Naughties.  Sometimes people find us further down our backlist, sometimes readers think they're picking up our first book when really it's number 3 or so, sometimes our first book was so long ago even we've forgotten!  (just kidding... it's true that you never forget your first!).  So we thought it would be fun to revisit the books that started it all for each of us!


This month we're featuring the first book from Kinsey Holley, Kiss and Kin.


A note from Kinsey:

Actually third book I ever wrote, first sold. I was in the middle of Yours Mine and Howls and having fits coming up with a coherent plot. Then Samhain did an anthology call for a shifter anthology and I figured - I've already got this world set up, with werewolves and everything, so why not take a break? At that point 30K sounded like a piece of cake compared to what I was trying to do. And the story kind of fell out of my head - I finished it in like two months. CAN YOU BELIEVE I WROTE A WHOLE NOVELLA IN TWO MONTHS?

I knew it was a good story when my sister - the queen of Eh, It's Okay I Guess - emailed me the day after I submitted it to tell me she LOVED it, didn't want it to end, thought it was awesome and adored my hero. And my sister, back then (2009) didn't even read paranormal.

Still, when I got an email from Angie James telling me she'd picked it I absolutely freaked. I'll never forget how my hands shook as I opened the email.

Blurb: 

Brotherly love? Oh hell no...

EXCERPT:

“What are you doing here?” he growled softly.

Those words, that voice, just hours after the dream, freaked Lark right the hell out. She started so violently her perfectly chilled Cosmopolitan sloshed the front of her dress. Her nipples stood at attention. 

He didn’t even notice.

She grabbed a handful of napkins. “Damn it, Taran, what—”

“Quiet,” he said fiercely as he stole her breath with a smile. He never smiled at her like that. He rarely smiled at her at all. She stared up at him, dumbfounded. He clamped a meaty paw on her elbow and dragged her away from the bar toward an empty table.

The dark blue pinstriped suit, a fitted European cut, and the custom-tailored, crisp white dress shirt looked great on his long, muscular frame. Taran didn’t live on his detective salary alone.

“Act like we’re having fun.” Irritable as always, he still wore that stutter-inducing smile. It stopped short of his luminescent green eyes. “Why are you here, and who are those wolves?”

“None of your business…” she grinned gaily, “…and I don’t know.”

A few golden strands of hair drifted across his eyes. He wore it halfway to his shoulders; HPD grooming regulations exempted werewolves. She always itched to brush his hair aside. One day she’d do it, just to watch him react.

”I’m serious, Lark.”

“You’re hurting me, Taran.”

He let go instantly but continued to stare at her, knowing she’d answer him.

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’m here with my friend Eloise, who’s into some Euro werewolf whose name I don’t remember, and he’s with his bros, and they’re all creepy and boring, and one of them keeps trying to pick me up, and after you replace the Cosmo you made me spill, I’m going home. This just is not my night.”

“Are you driving?”

“No, I’m talking to you. Why? Do I look like I’m driving?”

He didn’t laugh. He never laughed.

“El drove. I’ll take a cab home. Where’s my cosmo?”

Add it to your library here!