Book Extract: An Orkney Hearth by Sara Romera
Please join me as we welcome Sara Romera to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for An Orkney Hearth; book one in the Love and Other Ports series.
She has spent fifteen years learning how to need no one.
Nora Sterling is the Cruise Director of the Vesta. She runs a department of a hundred, remembers nine hundred guests by name, and can talk a shipful of frightened people through a mid-ocean helicopter evacuation without once raising her voice.
She has no address. She has never slept on a mattress that was not somebody else’s first. She has spent her entire adult life at sea and she has been perfectly, deliberately fine.
Then the ship takes on a new Music Director.
Erland Isbister is Orcadian, unhurried, and quietly immovable. He does not perform, he does not push, and he notices everything. He also reports directly to her, which puts him squarely on the wrong side of the company handbook and squarely in her path ten hours a day, months at a stretch.
On a ship, there is nowhere to put a thing like this.
Nora has spent her whole life being the person everybody relies on and nobody worries about. She has never once, in thirty-three years, said out loud that she wanted something.
She is about to find out what it costs her not to.
An Orkney Hearth is a slow-burn, closed-door cruise ship romance set aboard a luxury liner and on the windswept islands of northern Scotland. Forbidden workplace romance, forced proximity, found family, and an unhurried hero who says almost nothing and means all of it. No explicit content. Guaranteed happily ever after.
Book One of Love and Other Ports, for readers of Jenny Colgan and Susanna Kearsley.
Written by Sara Romera, a former Cruise Director who spent fifteen years at sea.
Sara has shared an extract from An Orkney Hearth with us today. We hope you enjoy.
*****beginning of extract*****
Nora Sterling has spent fifteen years at sea being charming at people for a living. Erland Isbister is her Music Director, which puts him on the wrong side of the company handbook, and he is from Orkney. The ship calls at Kirkwall for the day. He takes her up the road to meet Torfinn, the uncle who raised him, and somewhere around the third pot of tea she asks what she believes to be an entirely reasonable question.
Torfinn Isbister was sixty-four years old, five foot eight, and had been waiting behind the door.
Erland knew he had been waiting behind the door because the door opened before they were through the gate, and because Torfinn was wearing a shirt.
“Well,” said Torfinn.
“Torfinn, this is Nora. Nora, ma uncle.”
“Nora.” He took her hand in both of his. “You’ve come a long way for a cup of tea.”
“I’d heard about the tea.”
He was already turning, already going down the hall, already talking. “Come in, come in, mind the step, it’s a bad step, I’ve been meaning to do something about it for twenty years. Have you had your breakfast? You’ll have something.”
“We’ve eaten, Torfinn.”
by 
Book Extract: I Was Watching You by Chris Westlake
Please join me in welcoming Chris Westlake to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, I Was Watching You.
I WAS WATCHING YOU is a fast-paced psychological suspense thriller that will have you turning the pages well into the night.
When city girls Faye, Zara and Heidi book a weekend away at a remote cottage in rural Wales, it is intended to be the perfect detox from their hectic lives. But they let a stranger into the cottage…and they return home with a dark secret they don’t want exposed.
Five months later and their lives have returned to normal. They think they have gotten away with it. And then a hand-delivered photograph drops through each of their letterboxes.
They were watched.
But who watched them?
What do they want?
And how far are the friends prepared to go to keep their secret?
Chris has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
*****beginning of extract*****
This is the second scene in the novel. The POV is deliberately anonymous, and as the story unfolds, the reader is challenged to work out the source of the danger.
The gate swung open. Tilting her head back, she gazed at the cloudless sky before uttering the words again and again. “Matthew 6:14-15. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Sucking in a mouthful of air, she pushed open the door. Stepping inside, the sprinkling of light vanished. There was no going back now.
by Book Extract: Dreadnought by Robin Bennett
I am so excited to be welcoming Robin Bennett to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, Dreadnought.
A child sees things she’s sure don’t exist. The adults call it trauma. They’re both wrong.
On a remote Yorkshire headland known as Dreadnought, seven-year-old Cass Delaval begins to glimpse figures and fragments tied to a past that refuses to stay buried.
As the world edges toward conflict, Cass is drawn into a family mystery stretching back to the Second World War: a missing boy, a hidden weapon, and a family secret.
Because whatever has lain dormant on Dreadnought goes deep into our past … and it isn’t finished with us yet.
Dreadnought is a story of loyalty and hope, where the courage of one small girl may be our last defence.
Robin has very kindly shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
*****beginning of extract*****
This is a scene early in the book, from the youngest protagonist, Cass Delaval, aged 7. It sums up her personality, presages some of the novel’s mystery surrounding her brother, Bertie, and is the first proper demonstration of the real threat of war that sends the family to North Yorkshire. To Dreadnought.
Cass
‘Good morning Cassandra, I trust you are well?’ Eva’s mum always used words like Cass was a grown-up, but the way she said them, with gaps, sounded like she also thought Cass was stupid.
‘Hello,’ replied Cass solemnly, ignoring the question, then gave a little wave and a smile to Eva who was looking at them out of the car window. Eva was her joint best friend with Julia. ‘I’m already ready,’ she said, closing the front door and walking past Mrs Reicher.
‘Oh,’ Eva’s mum looked a bit put out her next question had been pre-empted as she followed, rather than led, to the car.
by Book Extract: Play It Back by Sara Palacios
Please join me in welcoming Sara Palacios to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Play It Back.
Ten years. Two hearts. One love story that never forgot how it began.
Ten years ago, Erin Campbell left Texas without saying goodbye to the only boy she’d ever loved.
Ten years later, he’s the biggest name in country music… and every song he’s ever written is about her.
After losing her mother at eighteen, staying meant facing a life she no longer recognized. So Erin left – her hometown, her grieving father, and Jake Ingram, her best friend, first love, and the future she’d always imagined.
A decade later, Erin has built a successful career as one of New York City’s most sought-after photographers, creating the life she always thought she wanted. But no amount of distance – or success – has been enough to silence the memories she left behind.
When her father needs surgery, Erin returns to Texas expecting to stay only long enough to help him recover.
Instead, she comes face to face with Jake.
The boy she left behind is now one of country music’s brightest stars, known for writing songs that have captivated millions. Fans have spent years wondering who inspired the heartbreak woven through every album.
Only Erin knows the answer.
As old memories resurface and long-buried truths finally come to light, Erin and Jake must decide whether the love they never stopped carrying is strong enough to overcome the heartache they never healed from – or whether ten years is simply too much time to ask two hearts to begin again.
Play It Back is a heartfelt second-chance romance about first love, grief, forgiveness, and finding your way home.
Because some love stories don’t end, they simply wait for you to come home.
Sara has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
*****beginning of extract*****
I’m kicking things off with an extract from the prologue of Play It Back. Interestingly, the prologue was quite literally the last part of the novel I wrote.
By that point, the manuscript had already gone through a pretty rigorous review process with a couple of beta readers, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. I wanted the opening to immediately put Jake, my MMC, on the page and give readers a glimpse of who he is, while also planting a few hints about what they could expect from the story ahead.
And this prologue did exactly that.
My favorite part? Honestly, all of it. But if I had to choose, it would be Jake Ingram fresh off his third tour, talking about some of his new music when he accidentally reveals a little more than he intended during an interview with journalist Timmy Collins. Suddenly, there’s a question about a heartbreak ballad everyone seems to love… and perhaps a certain someone who inspired it.
I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into Jake’s world.
COLLINS: How does it feel to wrap your third tour?
He leans back, considering.
INGRAM: It feels good. Real good. This album was different; took a few risks. I didn’t know how people would take it, but it connected. That’s all you can really ask for.
COLLINS: Any songs that stood out for you along the way?
by Book Extract: All Or None by Clive Fleury
Please join me as we welcome Clive Fleury to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, All Or None.
Returning to Sydney, Detective Ramesh Ryan is promoted to the Homicide Squad. Zoe Yang joins him there. Now a detective herself, she is assigned as his junior partner. Straight up, the cops are off and running—investigating the discovery of a murdered company director. Following the clues, Detective Ryan finds that this and a second murder may be linked to past events.
As the pressure mounts for a quick solution to the case, the detective finds that he too, is in the killer’s crosshairs. But Ryan is distracted from the investigation by a romantic encounter with an old university friend. He also worries about his mother, Mumta, and her new obsessive desire for grandchildren from her only son. Could this be linked to her recent medical tests? And there’s another pressing problem—the plague of rats in his apartment block.
Detective Ryan’s hands are well and truly full.
Clive has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
beginning of extract
Tommy Clarke and his wife Anne are saving up to buy a house, so they need all the money they can get. However, despite this, Tommy is still not pleased to be working on Saturday. He is to drive a small group of demonstrators down to a rally in Sydney and so will miss the all-important grudge match between the Swans and the Eagles.
There were eleven of them squashed into the red Ford Transit van. All were in high spirits—except, that was, for the driver, Tommy Clarke. He wasn’t happy.
Tommy had thought long and hard about offering his services locally as a driver and wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Anne, his wife. She had heard that people were looking for transport into the city for a protest march and saw it as the perfect opportunity for them to earn some money—even though it was scheduled for Saturday, which would mean Tommy missing the big match: the Swans versus the Eagles.
by Book Club
