As someone who remembers the 80's fondly, someone who enjoyed the music of that time especially, I'm thrilled to introduce you to this anthology that will have you reminiscing. Keep reading to get a glimpse of this collection of seven romantic tales inspired by the time and the music of the 80's and found in 80's Mix Tape, then add it to your bookshelf. In honor of this second installment in the Romance Rewind series make sure to fill out the form below for the chance to win a $25 Amazon GC too!
Save a Prayer by Karen Booth
Angie Dawson never wants to see Graham Whiting again, a complete impossibility living in Stourbridge, England, the town outside London where she and Graham grew up. His band, Banks Forest, is so hot in the UK they might as well be on fire. She can’t turn on the blooming radio or watch telly or look at a magazine without being confronted by the ’80s Fab Four, fronted by the sexy bloke she’d once called her boyfriend. Every girl in England wants him. Bloody bastard.
Desperate to escape the 24-7 Banks Forest overload, Angie takes a two week job working as a photographer at the Music Revolution festival in the US.
Finally, she can set her mind on something other than Graham and what it was like before he started being such a wanker. Maybe she can sort out what to do with her life. If she’s lucky, she’ll meet a cracking guy who doesn’t think he’s God’s gift to women. The instant she steps off the plane, she learns how daft her plan was. Banks Forest mania practically followed her across the Atlantic.
Her new job puts her in Graham’s sights and he’s dead-set on winning her back.
He knows the perfect things to say, the right way to kiss her and make everything brilliant again. She wants him, she wants him to be the guy he says he can be, but he’s about to go on the road for a year. How does a reunion with her ex end up being anything more than a one-night stand?
Need You Tonight by Gwen Hayes
Jacob Stone is on the run for a crime he didn’t commit, but when he’s stranded with the only woman he’s ever loved by chance, the girl he abandoned to protect two years ago, he can’t deny the need to possess her one last time.
Mind, body, and soul.
Typical good girl Becky McDonald has loved bad boy Jacob since they were kids, but even as she gives in to the passion only he can ignite in her, she hides the truth. The one secret that would bring him back is the lie she can never reveal.
One night of passion. One night of need. That’s all they can have, but it will never be enough.
Kickstart My Heart by Autumn Jones Lake
Russell “Chaser” Adams knows he’s destined to take over his father’s outlaw motorcycle club one day. With Chaser’s heavy metal band close to making it big, his father encourages him to pursue his music for now. Chaser straddles his Harley and heads across the country to the Sunset Strip.
Raised in a strict family with old-world traditions and their own secrets, Mallory Delov longs for glitter and glamor instead of blood and deceit. With her father serving time, it’s the perfect time to escape his domineering grasp and pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an actress.
After nailing her first audition, Mallory is offered the part of a playful vixen who torments the lead singer of the up and coming metal band, Kickstart. Her job description calls for lots of hair tossing and ass wiggling. Not quite the career she had in mind.
She didn’t plan to fall in love either. Unlike any man she’s ever known, she can’t help being drawn to the guitar player, Chaser. He’s sweet, yet dangerous. An irresistible mixture to Mallory.
On the surface they seem like complete opposites.
Little do either of them know how much they have in common.
EXCERPT:
“Can I at least get a pair of shorts that cover my butt cheeks?"
My request is met with an Are you serious? stare from the director.
I’ve been in LA for less than a week and already landed my first job. I rock.
Angie Dawson never wants to see Graham Whiting again, a complete impossibility living in Stourbridge, England, the town outside London where she and Graham grew up. His band, Banks Forest, is so hot in the UK they might as well be on fire. She can’t turn on the blooming radio or watch telly or look at a magazine without being confronted by the ’80s Fab Four, fronted by the sexy bloke she’d once called her boyfriend. Every girl in England wants him. Bloody bastard.
Desperate to escape the 24-7 Banks Forest overload, Angie takes a two week job working as a photographer at the Music Revolution festival in the US.
Finally, she can set her mind on something other than Graham and what it was like before he started being such a wanker. Maybe she can sort out what to do with her life. If she’s lucky, she’ll meet a cracking guy who doesn’t think he’s God’s gift to women. The instant she steps off the plane, she learns how daft her plan was. Banks Forest mania practically followed her across the Atlantic.
Her new job puts her in Graham’s sights and he’s dead-set on winning her back.
He knows the perfect things to say, the right way to kiss her and make everything brilliant again. She wants him, she wants him to be the guy he says he can be, but he’s about to go on the road for a year. How does a reunion with her ex end up being anything more than a one-night stand?
Need You Tonight by Gwen Hayes
Jacob Stone is on the run for a crime he didn’t commit, but when he’s stranded with the only woman he’s ever loved by chance, the girl he abandoned to protect two years ago, he can’t deny the need to possess her one last time.
Mind, body, and soul.
Typical good girl Becky McDonald has loved bad boy Jacob since they were kids, but even as she gives in to the passion only he can ignite in her, she hides the truth. The one secret that would bring him back is the lie she can never reveal.
One night of passion. One night of need. That’s all they can have, but it will never be enough.
Kickstart My Heart by Autumn Jones Lake
Russell “Chaser” Adams knows he’s destined to take over his father’s outlaw motorcycle club one day. With Chaser’s heavy metal band close to making it big, his father encourages him to pursue his music for now. Chaser straddles his Harley and heads across the country to the Sunset Strip.
Raised in a strict family with old-world traditions and their own secrets, Mallory Delov longs for glitter and glamor instead of blood and deceit. With her father serving time, it’s the perfect time to escape his domineering grasp and pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an actress.
After nailing her first audition, Mallory is offered the part of a playful vixen who torments the lead singer of the up and coming metal band, Kickstart. Her job description calls for lots of hair tossing and ass wiggling. Not quite the career she had in mind.
She didn’t plan to fall in love either. Unlike any man she’s ever known, she can’t help being drawn to the guitar player, Chaser. He’s sweet, yet dangerous. An irresistible mixture to Mallory.
On the surface they seem like complete opposites.
Little do either of them know how much they have in common.
EXCERPT:
“Can I at least get a pair of shorts that cover my butt cheeks?"
My request is met with an Are you serious? stare from the director.
I’ve been in LA for less than a week and already landed my first job. I rock.
Although, while sitting in the New York courtroom and watching my father get sentenced to eight years in prison last week, and making my plans to escape, I did not envision this would be my first job. Embarrassment has no room in my heart any longer—not if I want to make it in Hollywood, anyway.
Wiggling my ass in tiny denim cut-off shorts. Shaking my boobs in a thin red halter top.Tossing my fully blown-out and teased-high blond hair from side to side. All while strutting across a cement stage in shiny red fuck-me heels.
But at least it’s a job.
And there’s a hot guy on set. One of the band members. He’s the only one who doesn’t have his long blond hair teased sky-high.
Although he is wearing what seems to be the standard-issue glam metal uniform of skin-tight leather pants and a faded black T-shirt. But it’s his eyes that capture my attention. Serious. Predatory.
Job. I’m here to work. Not flirt with the hot guy. I need to focus and perform well if I ever want to land another one.
Sure, this job’s for a cheesy glam metal video for a band I’ve never heard of.
But everyone has to start somewhere. Even me. The sheltered and protected daughter of a criminal. Until last week, when his credit card schemes finally caught up to him, he’d ruled my life with an iron fist. Almost never allowing me out of his sight, except to attend classes at the nearby community college. Out of everyone in my graduating class at the exclusive high school I attended, I was the only one who ended up at Bright Point County Community College. So I could remain at home.
One would expect a man so determined to keep me pure and uncorrupted to make contingencies for his beloved daughter while he’s busy hanging out at Club Fed. And he did. Sort of. The man who’d been promised my hand in marriage should have been keeping an eye on me, but he was too busy watching his own back. The void left by my father was about to turn into a nasty battle to see who would take his place.
Seemed like the perfect time to get the hell out of New York and head to California. To pursue my dreams for once.
“Mallory! Purse your lips and run your hands through your hair again,” the director yells out.
The band chuckles. As far as I can tell they haven’t done much but stand around looking bored all afternoon. Haven’t seen them touch an instrument yet. One of them whispers something and the rest laugh. Doesn’t matter if they’re criminals or rockers, men are all the same.
The serious one catches my eye again. Compared to his friends, he’s way more heavily muscled and tattooed. Heck, compared to most people. His ink doesn’t shock me though. In fact, I can’t pinpoint what it is about him that sends both a thrill of excitement and a lick of fear through me.
“Okay, Jacob. Time for your scene with hot girl,” the director says.
Great. I’m not even Mallory anymore. I’ve been reduced to “hot girl."
Jacob almost seems apologetic as he approaches me. Not for the first time this afternoon, I wish someone had given me a script so I knew what to expect. I may be new at this, but isn’t a script a major part of an acting job? I’d been so excited and grateful for the part that I hadn’t wanted to press for any details.
Now I wish I had, because for some unfathomable reason, the script everyone—except me—has, calls for me to make out with the lead singer.
Um. Yeah.
It’s not that he’s bad looking—he’s not. But I’m in no way attracted to him. How could I be attracted to anyone in this ridiculous situation?
Except hot-muscled-inked-guy. Now him? If the script called for us to make out...
I have to fan myself.
Jacob attempts to put me at ease before jamming his tongue down my throat and slobbering all over my neck. I’m so tense and freaked out we have to repeat the shot a number of times.
After the third take, Jacob asks with an incredulous, but not unkind, expression, “Are you new at this, sweetheart?"
The lie rolls off my tongue easily. “No."
Maybe I won’t be such a bad actress after all.
867-5309 by Jenny Holiday
Jenny Fields is a crusader. The editor of her college newspaper, she never met a cause she couldn’t get behind. So when the administration announces it’s tearing down the historic art building, she’s on the case. All she needs to do is get Matthew Townsend, the art department’s most talented student, on board.
If she could just get the moody genius to answer his phone…
Drummer Girl by A.J. Pine
Sam Walsh is done—done with college, done with guys, done with the whole scene. After graduation tomorrow, she’ll head home, ready to start her job as an elementary school music teacher in the fall. But her roommate coaxes her out for what she promises will be an epic last night, a night that ends up changing everything.
London Calling is the up-and-coming band playing at the local bar, and Sam can’t take her eyes off the sexy drummer. When he dedicates the drummer’s choice song to her, she knows the evening might be more epic than she’d imagined. Then one kiss turns her world upside down, making her question everything she thought she wanted out of her last night at school.
Ben McCarthy is the guy behind the drums, the would-have-been 306 valedictorian who dropped out three years ago to follow his dream. Tomorrow he and the band leave for London, but for one unforgettable night, it’s just Sam, the music, and him. Can a girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground fall for the boy who reaches for the stars when the only result is a broken heart?
Young Teacher by Bobbi Ruggiero
Control freak Julia Powers hates surprises. With the skills of a ninja, she keeps her ad business and personal life in perfect order. That leaves zero time for fun, let alone men. But there’s nothing wrong with having a little crush on the guy she sees at lunchtime, is there? Sure, he’s a lot younger, but it’s only a crush.
It’s not like she’s going to date him or anything.
Matthew Gordon wants nothing more than for his band Joyride to go national.
While he waits for his big break, he spends his days working in a sandwich shop—a job he loathes—and teaching guitar on the side—a job he loves. His days get a bit more interesting when a mysterious woman comes in for lunch and hands him a list of her favorite songs. So imagine his surprise when she shows up at his door for guitar lessons.
Unfortunately, Julia can’t play guitar to save her life, and her frustration threatens to ruin any chance of her finding happiness—with herself, or in love.
Will he ever be able to teach her that she’s perfect just as she is?
Just Like Heaven by Rachel Cowell
As a premed student, college junior Sarah Lattimore’s life is a carefully calibrated system of studying, studying, MCAT prep courses, and more studying. She didn’t have time for a social life in high school, and she definitely doesn’t have time for one now. But when she walks into the first day of anatomy lab and sees her gorgeous TA, Sarah’s brilliant mind is suddenly racing in new directions.
Grad student Josh Chapman’s mom died of ovarian cancer when he was a teenager, and his grief and rage at the experience turned his future aspirations toward cancer research. But the unbelievably cute, nerdy, and possibly insane Sarah Lattimore is in his section, and she’s… distracting. But when admiring from afar turns to up close and personal, both their academic lives begin to fall apart. Sarah cares too much about her grades to stay with Josh and she breaks things off.
But when she makes a mistake in class that results in Josh facing expulsion, will this mean the end of his dreams? Or will Sarah realize in time that being with Josh was the smartest choice she’d ever made?
Wiggling my ass in tiny denim cut-off shorts. Shaking my boobs in a thin red halter top.Tossing my fully blown-out and teased-high blond hair from side to side. All while strutting across a cement stage in shiny red fuck-me heels.
But at least it’s a job.
And there’s a hot guy on set. One of the band members. He’s the only one who doesn’t have his long blond hair teased sky-high.
Although he is wearing what seems to be the standard-issue glam metal uniform of skin-tight leather pants and a faded black T-shirt. But it’s his eyes that capture my attention. Serious. Predatory.
Job. I’m here to work. Not flirt with the hot guy. I need to focus and perform well if I ever want to land another one.
Sure, this job’s for a cheesy glam metal video for a band I’ve never heard of.
But everyone has to start somewhere. Even me. The sheltered and protected daughter of a criminal. Until last week, when his credit card schemes finally caught up to him, he’d ruled my life with an iron fist. Almost never allowing me out of his sight, except to attend classes at the nearby community college. Out of everyone in my graduating class at the exclusive high school I attended, I was the only one who ended up at Bright Point County Community College. So I could remain at home.
One would expect a man so determined to keep me pure and uncorrupted to make contingencies for his beloved daughter while he’s busy hanging out at Club Fed. And he did. Sort of. The man who’d been promised my hand in marriage should have been keeping an eye on me, but he was too busy watching his own back. The void left by my father was about to turn into a nasty battle to see who would take his place.
Seemed like the perfect time to get the hell out of New York and head to California. To pursue my dreams for once.
“Mallory! Purse your lips and run your hands through your hair again,” the director yells out.
The band chuckles. As far as I can tell they haven’t done much but stand around looking bored all afternoon. Haven’t seen them touch an instrument yet. One of them whispers something and the rest laugh. Doesn’t matter if they’re criminals or rockers, men are all the same.
The serious one catches my eye again. Compared to his friends, he’s way more heavily muscled and tattooed. Heck, compared to most people. His ink doesn’t shock me though. In fact, I can’t pinpoint what it is about him that sends both a thrill of excitement and a lick of fear through me.
“Okay, Jacob. Time for your scene with hot girl,” the director says.
Great. I’m not even Mallory anymore. I’ve been reduced to “hot girl."
Jacob almost seems apologetic as he approaches me. Not for the first time this afternoon, I wish someone had given me a script so I knew what to expect. I may be new at this, but isn’t a script a major part of an acting job? I’d been so excited and grateful for the part that I hadn’t wanted to press for any details.
Now I wish I had, because for some unfathomable reason, the script everyone—except me—has, calls for me to make out with the lead singer.
Um. Yeah.
It’s not that he’s bad looking—he’s not. But I’m in no way attracted to him. How could I be attracted to anyone in this ridiculous situation?
Except hot-muscled-inked-guy. Now him? If the script called for us to make out...
I have to fan myself.
Jacob attempts to put me at ease before jamming his tongue down my throat and slobbering all over my neck. I’m so tense and freaked out we have to repeat the shot a number of times.
After the third take, Jacob asks with an incredulous, but not unkind, expression, “Are you new at this, sweetheart?"
The lie rolls off my tongue easily. “No."
Maybe I won’t be such a bad actress after all.
867-5309 by Jenny Holiday
Jenny Fields is a crusader. The editor of her college newspaper, she never met a cause she couldn’t get behind. So when the administration announces it’s tearing down the historic art building, she’s on the case. All she needs to do is get Matthew Townsend, the art department’s most talented student, on board.
If she could just get the moody genius to answer his phone…
Drummer Girl by A.J. Pine
Sam Walsh is done—done with college, done with guys, done with the whole scene. After graduation tomorrow, she’ll head home, ready to start her job as an elementary school music teacher in the fall. But her roommate coaxes her out for what she promises will be an epic last night, a night that ends up changing everything.
London Calling is the up-and-coming band playing at the local bar, and Sam can’t take her eyes off the sexy drummer. When he dedicates the drummer’s choice song to her, she knows the evening might be more epic than she’d imagined. Then one kiss turns her world upside down, making her question everything she thought she wanted out of her last night at school.
Ben McCarthy is the guy behind the drums, the would-have-been 306 valedictorian who dropped out three years ago to follow his dream. Tomorrow he and the band leave for London, but for one unforgettable night, it’s just Sam, the music, and him. Can a girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground fall for the boy who reaches for the stars when the only result is a broken heart?
Young Teacher by Bobbi Ruggiero
Control freak Julia Powers hates surprises. With the skills of a ninja, she keeps her ad business and personal life in perfect order. That leaves zero time for fun, let alone men. But there’s nothing wrong with having a little crush on the guy she sees at lunchtime, is there? Sure, he’s a lot younger, but it’s only a crush.
It’s not like she’s going to date him or anything.
Matthew Gordon wants nothing more than for his band Joyride to go national.
While he waits for his big break, he spends his days working in a sandwich shop—a job he loathes—and teaching guitar on the side—a job he loves. His days get a bit more interesting when a mysterious woman comes in for lunch and hands him a list of her favorite songs. So imagine his surprise when she shows up at his door for guitar lessons.
Unfortunately, Julia can’t play guitar to save her life, and her frustration threatens to ruin any chance of her finding happiness—with herself, or in love.
Will he ever be able to teach her that she’s perfect just as she is?
Just Like Heaven by Rachel Cowell
As a premed student, college junior Sarah Lattimore’s life is a carefully calibrated system of studying, studying, MCAT prep courses, and more studying. She didn’t have time for a social life in high school, and she definitely doesn’t have time for one now. But when she walks into the first day of anatomy lab and sees her gorgeous TA, Sarah’s brilliant mind is suddenly racing in new directions.
Grad student Josh Chapman’s mom died of ovarian cancer when he was a teenager, and his grief and rage at the experience turned his future aspirations toward cancer research. But the unbelievably cute, nerdy, and possibly insane Sarah Lattimore is in his section, and she’s… distracting. But when admiring from afar turns to up close and personal, both their academic lives begin to fall apart. Sarah cares too much about her grades to stay with Josh and she breaks things off.
But when she makes a mistake in class that results in Josh facing expulsion, will this mean the end of his dreams? Or will Sarah realize in time that being with Josh was the smartest choice she’d ever made?
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What a great inspiration. Got songs running through my brain.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading the post, thank you.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on '80s Mix Tape release! I think I fell in love with the book after reading the book description! Thank you for the post and the giveaway!
ReplyDelete