First BOOK Friday-- Kate Davies

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 Kate Davies, Taking the Cake.


A note from Kate:

Back in 2006, I was writing a romantic suspense novel when Stella Cameron announced her Scarlet Boa contest. Though the book wasn't finished, I submitted a suspense scene from it, and ended up in the top ten. All the finalists were posted for public voting.

I didn't win. But a short time after the contest ended, I got an email from the contest coordinator letting me know that an editor for a new, not-yet-up-and-running e-press was interested in seeing the manuscript. If I wanted, they would pass along her contact information.

Well, I was wary, but did a little research and finally decided that though the book wasn't done, I would be willing to submit something else instead. I wrote the editor - Angela James - and offered two connected novellas in place of the unfinished novel.

She said go ahead and send them, and three weeks later I got an email offering for both.

(And the romantic suspense? Still hasn't found a home. So if I'd been done with that one and sent it in instead, my writing career would look very different - or might not have happened at all!)

Blurb:

A walk on the wild side with her favorite bad boy is just what this good girl needs!

Mollie Mason is sure her night can't get any worse.  Stuck in an inflatable rubber cake, she overhears her fiancé slamming her to the entire guest list of his bachelor party—and then she catches him cheating!  But discovering her high school crush has witnessed her humiliation is the icing on the cake.

Cade Gallagher has wanted Mollie for years.  And when she asks him to help her prove to the world—and herself—that she's not just a good girl, he knows he'd be a fool to say no.  But she wants a temporary fling.  Will two weeks be enough time to convince her to take a chance on him—forever?

  

Excerpt:

If she never saw the inside of another cake, it would be too soon.

Mollie Mason shifted uncomfortably, hoping the music cueing her “arrival” would hurry up and start playing. The combination mask/headdress had shifted, leaving her able to see out of only one side, not that there was much to see at the moment besides the dark interior of a round rubber container. And to make matters worse, her spangly leotard was slowly creeping up her butt.

Of course, the pop-up rubber cake left little room to adjust either situation, so she was left crouching on all fours, legs cramping, a half-blind butt-flossing idiot.

At least it wasn’t a real cake, she thought, blinking drops of sweat out of her eyes. She could be worrying about getting crumbs and frosting in unmentionable places.

Instead, she had plenty of time to wonder if it was possible to suffocate inside such a confined space.

“Seattle Tax Accountant Dies Inside Bachelor Party Cake.” Yeah, that’s the legacy she wanted to leave.

Still no music; if they didn’t get her out of this thing soon she was going to completely freak out.

And a sobbing, jabbering mess was probably the last thing anyone wanted to see tonight.

For a moment, she let herself wonder—very briefly—how Blaine was going to react when she popped out of the cake. Although the stripper she’d bribed to let her take over the cake-jumping job insisted this was the most modest outfit available, it still revealed far more than she was usually comfortable revealing. At least the mask would hide her identity from the other guys in attendance. She might want to surprise Blaine, maybe shock him out of the complacency that seemed to be creeping into their relationship, but she had no intention of letting his friends and co-workers know that the girl popping out of the cake tonight would be walking down the aisle next Saturday.

She might be feeling a little daring tonight, but she wasn’t a complete moron.

Mollie stretched her neck from side to side, trying to work out the kinks that seemed to be multiplying with each second inside this cake-shaped casket. The weight of the headdress only added to her discomfort—how in the world did showgirls dance every night in Vegas wearing these things?

The scent of disinfectant spray and stale body odor wafted past her nose again, making her gag. How did the poor women who did this for a living tolerate it? Not that they had much choice—the strippers’ union wasn’t exactly a powerhouse in labor relations.

Showed what a sheltered life she led. Until tonight, she’d never even considered these issues.

Her hiding place lurched, nearly sending her sprawling on her butt. Mollie’s heart rate accelerated. Someone was rolling the cake out into the middle of the hotel suite where the party was taking place.

At least it would be over soon. Then she’d drag Blaine to a back room and let him in on the secret, plant a big kiss on him, and hightail it over to Caroline’s place to collect her fifty bucks.

She’d fulfilled her terms of the dare, so Caroline had better not kick about paying up.

She’d be lucky if Mollie didn’t insist on double for pain and suffering.

She shifted once again, trying to keep her legs from falling asleep, and settled back to listen for her cue.

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