Tag Archives: sports romance

Hearts in Extra Time

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I’m pleased to announce that HEARTS IN EXTRA TIME – Atlanta Skyline #3.5 – is now available for pre-order! This holiday novella features an uptight heroine prone to tension headaches, a charming hero prone to flirting, and a three-day road trip that changes both their lives forever.

HEARTS IN EXTRA TIME is live to pre-order on Amazon, and I’ll be adding links to other retailers over the next couple of days. Happy reading!

Hearts in Extra Time Rebecca Crowley

Swapping her honeymoon trip for a singles cruise should’ve been the one upside to her canceled wedding, but disembarking to discover that a snowstorm has crippled the East Coast flings corporate lawyer Stella Schuster right back into the high-octane anxiety mode she’d been trying to escape. She was supposed to come back from the Caribbean refreshed, relaxed, and ready to become the kind of carefree, spontaneous woman her ex-fiancé left her for. But stuck in Miami with urgent deadlines, no way to get home to Atlanta, and the tension headache from hell, Stella’s facing a long night glued to her laptop in the airport lounge—until a sexy stranger slides into the empty seat at her table.

Defensive midfielder Aaron Jackson may be one of the lesser lights in Atlanta Skyline’s high-profile line-up—he definitely doesn’t get paid like a star—but he gets to do what he loves, and that’s all he cares about. As in, that’s genuinely all he cares about. Aaron lives for the moment, thrives on uncertainty and adventure, fully embraces his commitment phobia and steers well clear of stress-heads too focused on planning every minute to enjoy the one they’re in—stress-heads exactly like the stunning woman scowling at her laptop screen.

Just as Stella decides that an airport quickie might be the perfect way to usher in her new self, their flight goes from delayed to canceled, stranding them in Miami along with hundreds of other passengers. The only way back to Atlanta is on a road trip that will force Stella to focus on today, tempt Aaron to consider tomorrow, and maybe even lead to the shared future neither of them ever imagined they wanted—if they’re brave enough to follow the winding road of fate.

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release day for SAVING HEARTS!

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Happy Tuesday! SAVING HEARTS hits digital shelves today – check out the Books page for full buy links – and while I’m sad to say goodbye (for now) to the men of Atlanta Skyline, I’m excited for readers to finally meet its alpha heroine, Erin, and Brendan, Skyline’s neuro-atypical goalkeeper. You can catch my interview on the HEA blog to learn a little more about the future potential of the series.

This release day finds me in my new home in Houston, so it’s perhaps apropos that as I reflect on the process of writing SAVING HEARTS I realized that huge chunks of it were drafted in airport lounges and hotels. I had two trips to London and one to Amsterdam in the space of about ten weeks, and the overnight flights to and from Johannesburg often left me with a spare most-of-a-day on either end of work training. Here are some fun facts about my own setting for these scenes:

  • Erin’s trip to snoop Brendan’s house was written in the airport lounge at OR Tambo.
  • I wrote the backstory to Brendan’s neuro-atypicality in a hotel in Baker Street.
  • Erin’s visit to Brendan’s hometown was drafted at a spare desk in my company’s London office.
  • Erin realized she was falling for Brendan while I was in Schiphol airport.
  • Brendan fell in love with Erin when I was perched on a stool in the lounge at Heathrow’s terminal 5, with a view over the security lines.
  • I wrote the final scene in the cafe at my gym in Johannesburg, where I knew there’d be no wifi to distract me.

As you can see, Brendan and Erin traveled thousands of miles with me in the couple of months it took to write their story. Maybe that’s why they have an extra special place in my heart. They’re both deeply flawed and prone to awful mistakes and misjudgments, even ethical transgressions, but in the end they want nothing more than to do right by each other, and in the process find that they’re right for each other. I love them and this book to bits, and I hope you will, too.

release day for DEFENDING HEARTS!

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DEFENDING-HEARTS

It’s release day for DEFENDING HEARTS and it’s an extra special one! To celebrate my tenth book (!!!) I’m giving away ten free digital copies. Comment on my Facebook post to be eligible to win one of ten free downloads of DEFENDING HEARTS! Winners will be drawn at random on Friday, 22nd September.

ten

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Hello faithful readers! Today is a big day, and I’m excited to share a few milestones.

First and foremost, today marks 10 years as an expat! Ten years ago today I shut the door on my Greenwich Village apartment in New York City for the last time, took a cab to JFK and boarded a flight to London. My plan was to spend the year it would take for me to complete my MA in the UK, and maybe another year if I found a good job, as my degree entitled me to a one-year work visa. I ended up staying for six years before embarking on my second expat adventure: South Africa.

Unlike my solo shift to the UK, I made the jump down to SA with my then-fiance. Since our arrival in 2013 we’ve gotten married, bought a house, and expanded to become a family of three. My two-year-old daughter is definitely the best souvenir from our time here.

Now, a decade after expatriating, I’m taking the first steps toward another milestone: repatriating. My husband’s company has offered him an exciting new job based in Houston, and we’ll be landing there in November.

I have so many mixed emotions when it comes to this move, and they’re all about leaving South Africa – I haven’t even begun to process the Stateside stuff. South Africa is a complex, fraught, wonderful place and I’m torn between relief at leaving the worst bits and abject despair at saying goodbye to the best bits. Overwhelmingly, though, I’m grateful to have had four years in a place unique in the world, at the tail end of a misunderstood continent. My worldview is richer, more nuanced, and forever changed.

DefendingHearts_RebeccaCrowleyAnd in the midst of all of this, tomorrow sees the release of my tenth book! Defending Hearts hits digital bookshelves tomorrow and I hope Kate and Oz will find their way into readers’ hearts with the same stubborn insistence they found their way into mine.

Opposites attract with unparalleled force when Oz – Skyline’s neurotic, intellectual, and incidentally Muslim left-back – meets Kate, a private security contractor who’s recently said goodbye to life as an enlisted Army soldier. This book is about identity as we define it – and as others sometimes insist on defining it for us. Full buy links are on the Books page, and I hope you’ll check this one out!

Huge thanks to you, readers, for propelling me through to this ten-book milestone. I promise there will be many more!

goodreads giveaway!

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Hello faithful readers! I’m minutes away from signing off for the holidays – including a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Zimbabwe – but I have a late-breaking opportunity for you to up your festive game!

From 1 January my publisher will be giving away two print copies of CROSSING HEARTS via Goodreads, closing the 19th January. Start off 2017 right by entering here: http://bit.ly/2ilm2ux

Happy holidays to you and yours, and all the best for 2017!

cover reveal: Crossing Hearts

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Hello faithful readers! The new Atlanta Skyline soccer romance series is moving along apace, with the manuscript for book #2 in my editor’s inbox and the final proofread for book #1 underway. Book #1 – now titled Crossing Hearts – hits digital shelves on 21 March. In the meantime, though, here’s a super sexy cover to whet your appetite!

crossinghearts_rebeccacrowley_final

New to the U.S. soccer scene, not to mention the English language, compact yet explosive Chilean soccer legend Rio Vidal is driven to define a role on his new team, Atlanta Skyline. But he must also adapt to a new culture—and accept that he can’t do it alone. His beautiful interpreter, Eva, has been his voice, his refuge. But she is becoming so much more. If only he could convince her he isn’t like the other men she’s worked with, players on—and off—the field.

As a translator for pro athletes, Eva Torres is used to dealing with self-interested super stars. But Rio seems different, and she’s blindsided when he locks eyes with her across a church pew. By now, after weeks of close contact with the endearing athlete with whom she shares a language, her thoughts are far from holy. She must remind herself flirtation is probably just his default style. Plus, she’s the only one he can really talk to. But when his ambition threatens to derail his career—and their deepening connection—they’ll both have to lay their hearts on the center line.

Now available for pre-order at Amazon!

game, set, match!

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It’s April 14th, which means two things: only one day left for US citizens to file their taxes, and release day for LOVE IN STRAIGHT SETS! Its release is part of Carina Press’s Sports Week, spotlighting sexy athletes and the men and women who love them.

Love in Straight SetsIn addition to being in Kansas on vacation – where the state has kindly decided to make up for nine months of tropical South Africa by going through three seasons in four days, topping it off with a dusting of snow this morning – I’m all over the web like a zombie plague.

You can win stuff by commenting at Give Me Books and Fresh Fiction and later today at RT, and you can read an excerpt at the Contemporary Romance Cafe.

If you want to see whether this one’s worth the money, there have been some great reviews from the Dirty Girls and my personal intellectual hero, Jackie Horne from Romance Novels for Feminists.

That’s it for now, but watch this space for even more surprise appearances from my tempestuous tennis player Regan and her sexy Zimbabwean super coach!

anyone for tennis?

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Faithful readers, I hope your Valentine’s Week (if there is such a thing) is going better than mine! I got back to Joburg on Monday evening after an awesome extended weekend in Cape Town and have spent the ensuing several days trying to get around this petrol-fueled city without my car, which is being held hostage by the world’s most inefficient panelbeaters. Commuting to work via taxi and begged rides from co-workers is really less than ideal, and I can’t wait to retrieve my beloved, TARDIS-blue Honda tomorrow. At least I hope the mechanic meant it when he said tomorrow…

So to cheer myself up in this final furlong before the weekend, why not have a cover reveal? There are almost exactly two months to go before the release of my second sports romance with Carina Press, LOVE IN STRAIGHT SETS, the story of an uptight professional tennis player and her deliciously laid-back coach. I love this cover almost as much as I love this novel (which is a lot). Please to enjoy!:

Love in Straight Sets

Regan Hunter came to tennis late in life, but she’s worked hard to become one of the world’s top players. Beating the odds has made her unstoppable on the court and neurotically controlling off of it. So when her manager hires a new coach, a has-been who left the sport after a scandal, Regan wants him gone, fast.

Ben Percy, a former Grand Slam winner, is well aware of Regan’s reputation for driving coaches away—usually screaming. But working with the notoriously mercurial Regan could be just the break he needs to take his career to the next level, and he’s never been one to scare easily. He must stick to only one rule: hands off Regan.

Keeping his distance from Regan is more difficult than Ben ever imagined. Behind her tough, sexy exterior is a woman he wants to get to know better. And Regan feels a connection with her patient, easy-on-the-eyes coach that’s hard to ignore. But with the biggest championship of all on the line, romance may be completely out of bounds…

I won’t lie, probably one of my favorite elements of this cover is the hero’s slight resemblance to Roger Federer. Did you know that ol’ Roger is half South African? Or that he’s on a huge, billboard-sized ad for Moet Chandon that I pass every morning on my way to work? In fact sometimes I sit at the red light and just stare at all ten floors of him. Certainly improves the morning commute!

Roger Federer

Bunker-Play Blog Hop

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I’m not going to lie to y’all – I’m not a huge fan of professional golf. It takes ages, winners and losers are often determined long before the game is finished, and how seriously can you take a sport where guys like Angel Cabrera can become champions?

Angel enjoys a performance-reducing drug.

I always groan when golf is the sport du jour on the gym TV screens…yet I don’t mind playing a bit of mini-golf or even hitting a few balls at a driving range. Just recently I found myself taking a couple of swings at a golf course here in Johannesburg, and with a cloudless blue sky and incredible highveld vistas I suddenly understood why so many people love to play.

Which brings me to that essential distinction: sports we love to watch vs. sports we love to play.

bunkerhop2I’m a fairly committed middle-distance runner, always training for the next 10K or half-marathon. A colleague recently asked whether I was interested in joining her harriers club, and as I analyzed what turned me off about the prospect I realized that what makes running my favorite activity is that it’s completely solitary. Every run comes down to me versus my personal goals, and having to make conversation or keep up with a group is the last thing I want.

On the flip side, one of my favorite sports to watch – but not play – is football (or soccer for my fellow North American natives). Weirdly, what I love most about it is the team dynamic! I find it fascinating that a player can be a superstar on one team yet become shockingly bad when he moves to the next, or the way the addition of a new player can transform the cohesion of a side. And let’s not forget those on-pitch moments that are practically soap operatic with thrown-up palms and angry pointing!

The Striker's Chance by Rebecca CrowleyHow do your preferences shake out when it comes to playing versus watching? Are there any sports you love to do but can’t bear to sit through on TV? Tell me which sports you love and loathe and why, and one lucky commenter will win a copy of THE STRIKER’S CHANCE, my Carina Press debut about a sexy soccer superstar who joins a failing team and meets his match in – and loses his heart to – the ambitious publicist assigned to revamp his image.

BUT WAIT! As part of the Bunker-Play Blog Hop you also have the chance to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway including some awesome swag from author Lily Malone whose latest, Fairway to Heaven, is available now! Follow the links below for the giveaway and to visit the other amazing bloggers, and be sure to check back here on January 15th to see whether THE STRIKER’S CHANCE will be winging its way to an eReader near you!

Click here to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway!

And click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list!