Bravery Not Included - Excerpt

Bravery Not Included launches my Amazon series. Here is the excerpt:

Being an Amazon didn’t automatically make you a morning person. “Whose idea was it to go so f’ing early?” Liesel Grant turned her head so her little sister wouldn’t see her stifle another yawn. She could always attribute the moisture in her eyes to the glare of headlights from other cars. Harriett saw anyway and laughed, the dork.

“It’ll give us more time to talk.” Harry grinned at her sister, annoyingly chipper and fully awake without the aid of caffeine. “This once-a-week get together has been canceled twice.”

 Liesel could hear the hurt in her sister’s voice. “I really am sorry I canceled last week.”

 “You’d better be. And you can prove just how sorry by buying breakfast.” Harriett kept her eyes on the road.

“Crap, Harry. I’ll do better—”

“What? Like it’s just you?” Her baby sister flipped her golden hair off her shoulder to look at Liesel. Then Harry looked back at the road and sighed. “How long since you’ve seen Karma for anything but babysitting? She doesn’t return my calls and I’ve not seen her for over a month.”

Liesel didn’t want to fight. The sun had to be up before people could fight. It was a rule. And if she tried to defend their older sister Karma, they’d fight. It wasn’t that she didn’t agree with Harriett. She did. But you stuck up for your sister.

Headlights flashed in their eyes again as they took the sharp corner. A Suburban ignored the twist in the road, popped the curb, hit the canal’s guardrail and kept going. The sound of steel folding like aluminum foil, ground down Liesel’s spine as the Suburban pushed through the metal barrier. The sound, like a fucking dog whistle, had all her senses on full alert. It switched Liesel to ready mode.

Marriage Most Convenient - Excerpt

LUKE HAD to choose. He could wear the white polo shirt he’d mistaken for his towel and was covered in blood from his nose. Walk in to meet Tom looking like a horror movie. Or he could wear the team scrimmage shirt that showed off his stomach.

Travis from sales had dived elbow-first at his head, the
ass, and Luke’s nose had finally stopped bleeding fifteen minutes ago. Luke gripped the white, now mostly red, polo and looked down at his flat stomach. He’d worked hard to finally get the abs he’d always envied in others. With any other guy he wouldn’t think twice about covering them up. But this was Tom.

With little effort Tom would pull him into his latest adventure or scheme. A smile and his slow drawl and Luke would happily embrace danger. He’d never been hurt, not physically. He never regretted. But he worried and craved.

Luke rolled his shoulders. The scrimmage shirt made him feel exposed.

Tom had said it was urgent, and a round trip home meant forty minutes and a waste of gas. Luke climbed out of his car and looked down the row at Tom’s battered ’85 Land Cruiser. Definitely not the magazine-pretty version of a Jeep some people drove, but it looked like Tom had gotten the plywood replaced with an actual door.

The coffee shop was close to a Gold’s Gym and the playing fields. The clerks wouldn’t be bothered by his exposed abs. He tugged at the shirt anyway and adjusted his cutoff sweats so they weren’t too low on his hips before he walked into the shop.

I Miss - Danny Mahealani

I'm not a huge television watcher but when I do watch, I can be a complete fan girl. I look for gifs and fan fiction and Facebook Pages and tell all who will listen about my new character obsession. Often they are minor characters that steal the show, who are clever or loyal or gorgeous.

Sometimes they don't stay on the show or the show is done, even though it lives in the hearts of fans. Here is a character I'm missing. Feel free to let me know about your favorite characters.

Keahu Kahuanui(as Danny Mahealani) from MTV's Teen Wolf.

Another Chance to Read

The rights to G.I. Joe Holiday, a Christmas short story, reverted back to me so I'm indie publishing it. This will give new readers a chance at it's fine pages. Deck and Mason hold a soft spot in my heart because they were my first published work. I sold it a month before Do Ask, Don't Tell was repealed.

Here's the blurb:
G.I. Joe Holiday by Amberly Smith

Declan Mathews has two objectives after surviving Navy SEAL Hell Week: keep his secrets hidden and enjoy what may be his last Christmas with his family. But Deck’s holiday plans are shot to bits when his commanding officer orders him to sit for artist Mason Cartwright. How in blue
blazes is Deck supposed to stay safely in the closet when there’s a gorgeous, funny man staring at his ass for hours on end? It will take a Christmas miracle.

Here is an excerpt. Available, at the awesome price of $0.99, at Amazon.

G.I. Joe Holiday Excerpt

DECLAN MATHEWS was raised on bad omens. His mom had once found a dead wren on the front porch, and the next morning a tornado shredded the house like confetti. His mom had said the wren was a sign, though Deck figured that being stationed in Kansas had been the bigger heads up. His parents saw it as a bad omen that he was born with blue eyes. That he, even from the beginning, had been different.

Today’s bad omen was from Chief Petty Officer Davis, who, like a judge about to deliver a verdict, wouldn’t look at the SEAL training class. Here came the chopping block.

Deck stared down at his hands, looking at the blisters and crusty red scabs. They looked better than his feet did, and there were no red and white lines up his arms to indicate infection, which was good. He was starting to feel dry along his shoulder blades, which meant it was time to go out to the surf and get “wet and sandy” before one of the cadre noticed and yelled at him to do it. The sand had chaffed his inner thighs as he ran the miles up and down the beach. A layer of calluses and a bowlegged gait worked to diminish the pain.

“We’re almost done,” Spencer, aka Speck, said next to him. He squinted at the wall clock, one eye swollen, a casualty of a log roll earlier that day.

“Still day six,” whispered Lowman, swaying back and forth in his chair. Deck didn’t think he was aware of the movement.