New Release Spotlight - First Choice Second Chance by Lynn Rae
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My pub-buddy Lynn Rae has a new contemporary romance out, and I'm delighted to help her spread the word. Here's info about the book to whet your appetite (with the requisite buy links, naturally).
First Choice, Second Chance by Lynn Rae
Conscientious Emily Fontaine is on a mission to prove her marketing and public relations skills. When she volunteers to restore a historic statue, she isn’t prepared for her attraction to one of her fellow committee members.
Paul Ellison has stayed out of circulation since his wife’s death, but once he meets Emily, he can’t resist her quiet allure, despite the difference in their age.
When the statue which brought them together is vandalized, and both Paul’s daughter and sister strenuously object to their burgeoning relationship, Paul and Emily realize the sacrifices they’ll have to make for each other. Will Paul have a second chance at love?
Buy Links: Amazon | AllRomance | LSBooks
Excerpt
Sniffing in a whiff of fertilizer, wet soil, and late-blooming jasmine, Emily decided to concentrate on the task at hand: finding something cheerful for the planters downtown. The chrysanthemums came in a wide variety of colors, and as she picked up a pot of tiny white ones, a vaguely familiar voice called out a greeting. She glanced around the deserted aisles to find Paul Ellison a row away, holding up a blooming Black Magic sedum. He smiled at her, and she couldn’t resist giving him one in return.
“That’s a nice chrysanthemum.”
Emily stopped staring at him to gaze at the plant she held. Nice was a polite way to describe such a pedestrian specimen. She shrugged her shoulders and complimented his plant, which was much more attractive than the utterly bland one she had.
Paul narrowed his eyes and looked down as he put the sedum back on the shelf. Before Emily could wonder if she’d somehow insulted him by complimenting his taste in greenery, he circled around the markdown daylilies at the end of the aisle and approached her.
“I’m surprised I ran into you here, but I’m glad, too.” He cleared his throat and chafed his lean hands together, rubbing off potting soil. “I want to apologize for the language Dave and Roger were using earlier. They didn’t realize you were there, and I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”
Emily was taken aback for a moment, but his sincere and gentlemanly apology delighted her. It seemed he didn’t dislike her after all. “Thank you. They seemed repentant.”
“I think they were. They might not say so, but they know how to behave themselves. Neither one of them would want someone using that sort of language around their wives or daughters.”
Paul gazed at her unflinchingly with deep brown eyes, and Emily stared back until she realized they’d reached that awkward place in an unplanned meeting where you either decided to keep talking or made your excuses and wandered away. Some compulsion to continue their conversation welled up. “I noticed you didn’t include yourself in that. Do youknow how to behave yourself?”
Emily tensed. She hadn’t meant to be provocative, only humorous. Thankfully, he breathed out a laugh and gave her an abashed expression. “As far as I know.”
About Lynn Rae
Lynn Rae makes her home in land-locked central Ohio after time spent in the former Great Black Swamp, beside the Ohio River, and along the Miami and Erie Canal. With professional experience in fields ranging from contract archaeology to librarianship along with making donuts and teaching museum studies, Lynn enjoys incorporating her quirky sense of humor and real-life adventures into her writing (except the naughty bits). She writes sci-fi, contemporary, and historical romances.
