Read more about our new releases for September!
GIVEAWAY: We will pick ONE winner to receive a digital book of their choice from the September releases. Comment down below saying which book you’re looking most forward to reading! Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY. The winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month.
Read more about our new releases for August. GIVEAWAY: We will pick ONE winner to receive a book of their choice from the August releases. Comment down below with your name, email address, and which book you’re looking most forward to reading! Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY.
Following the success of our lists for Mother’s Day, the Tule editors have decided to bring you another two part series for Father’s Day!
Thanks for having me on the Tule blog today to introduce The Playboy in the Sexy Summer boxed set! This novella is set in the peak of summer in Byron Bay, Australia – a coastal town with gorgeous surfers, sparkling blue surf, and soft white sand. This lush location had so many opportunities for sexy summer fun, and I adored writing about sea-sticky skin, salt-encrusted surfer hair, and long, lazy days (and nights) by the beach.
The hero, Parker, was a player in his teenage years: blond, gold-toned, and loaded – and arrogant to the point where he humiliated the heroine Alexia. Six years later, he’s learned humility and wants to make up for the way he treated her.
Alexia is a successful actor, but has reached a point where she needs sexual experience to secure an upcoming role. Her goals starts off simple: find a guy to hook up with. But as her failures accumulate, Alexia realizes she’s running from guys because she wants her first time to mean something. She wants connection and attraction…two things she feels very strongly around Parker, the very man who has treated her poorly in the past. There’s nothing like a rift to force the denial of serious sexual chemistry.
I hope you enjoy this hot, racy beach read!
Buy your copy of the Sexy Summer Boxed Set here:
Amazon | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | GooglePlay
Madeline has always lived in Melbourne. She is emotionally allergic to spontaneity, and yet doesn’t mind the weather that drags her into rain when she’s planned for sunshine. She likes to call this her wild side.
She’s a Virgo, vegetarian, and once had a romantic suspense-style dream in which the hero was a shredded lettuce sandwich and the villain was a cherry tomato. The tomato got away. She took the dream as a sign that she’d better stick to writing contemporary romance.
Her stories have spunky heroines, strong heroes, and as much dialogue as she can cram in. As for why she writes romance, she’s in a long-term relationship with the genre and writing such stories makes it happy.
We’re thrilled to have Madeline Ash here with us today chatting about her latest release with Holiday Books! Readers, be sure to leave a comment as Madeline and the Tule Team would love to hear from you. Take it away, Madeline!
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Having not written a romance with Christmas as a key theme before, I wanted to capture every special sparkle of the festive spirit in YOU FOR CHRISTMAS. While planning, I came up with a list of things that really make the festive season stand out (for me), and to celebrate release week, I thought I’d share some snippets of those from the story!
Fairy lights (don’t be shy, the more the merrier)
He had to admit, the display impressed. A morass of fairy lights glittering golden. No music playing yet, just a gentle galaxy contained within these four walls, an indoor wonderland that would have people pointing up from the street below.
Summer sun (it’s Australia, after all)
Regan inhaled deeply, smelling home.
The festive season had never seemed right, cold and coated in snow. She’d hardly recognized it, year after year. Now, as she entered the mass of trees, the sticky clog of sunscreen on her skin and relentless heat from above felt undeniably like Christmas.
A freshly cut Christmas tree (got to love that smell)
She led the way through the bright green maze, deeming one potential tree too narrow, another too sparse, and another not nearly triangular enough. She yelped when the pine needles stabbed her bare skin, and laughed in outrage when she realized Felix had picked a small branch and had been poking her with it every time she turned her back.
Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You (because it continues to get better with age)
Regan asked, “Do you really need this many lights?”
“Possibly more,” he said without hesitation. “I’m writing a program that’ll sync the lights with music. Press play and they’ll make patterns in time with the beat, full on sound and light show style. I haven’t decided on a song yet, but I’m thinking the cornier, the better.”
“Mariah Carey,” she said instantly.
He cringed.
“How many other Christmas carols do you know with a real beat?” she asked, stepping up onto the coffee table with her arms high so he could weave through. He eased passed, dragging awareness across her chest like a heated magnet. Pulse thudding, she distracted herself by singing the opening bars of All I Want for Christmas Is You.
A dash of madness (because let’s be honest, most people stress a little at this time of year!)
Popping the bottle top off a beer, Felix slid open the door to his third floor balcony and confronted the sun. Summer hadn’t been shy this December, spilling hot over the city like a sticky latte, making the rendered outside wall almost too warm as he leaned against it, swallowing the cold brew and gazing down at the busy city street below.
Melbourne bustled with a pre-Christmas panic that frayed tempers and loaded bags with impulse buys. Horns blasted more often than usual, tram drivers dinged wildly, surely cursing the merry sound, and mania fueled the general mood seething up from the streets.
With no family, no kids, and nowhere else to be, Felix cleanly dodged this particular seasonal torture.
And (the author in me decided) a down-trodden heart in need of Christmas peace.
Regan. His memory of her was blurred. Mixed parts carelessness, attitude, and fierce generosity. She could have been anywhere, done anything in her eight years away. He had no idea what had made her steal twenty grand and split in the first place, just as he didn’t know why she was back now.
Only one thing was certain.
She’d come home looking as broken as when she’d left.
What about you? What things do you particularly adore at Christmas, or what things – if you were without them – would stop Christmas feeling quite right?
Happy reading!
Madeline x
Today we have the four fabulous authors of the Hot Aussie Heroes series from Holiday Books here with us! We’re celebrating the release of the books on all platforms – you can now find the Hot Aussie Heroes at Amazon, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords! But for now, let’s talk about Victoria, Madeline, Amy, and Margareta’s favorite real-life hot aussie heroes! Take it away, ladies!
Victoria Purman – Author of The Millionaire
Why does Hollywood head directly Down Under when it’s looking for a hot guy to grace our screens and fuel our fantasies?
The answer is simple. We have, pound for pound, the sexiest actors around. My evidence of this?
Chris Hemsworth.
Not only has he been described as the Sexiest Man Alive (thanks People magazine but we knew that already), but he’s also been described as The Manliest Man in Hollywood.
Like a tall guy? Chris is 6 ft 3 and, as we say in Australia, he’s “built like a brick shithouse”. (translation: he has a manly physique).
He surfs and is an outdoorsy kind of guy. Love that. And that voice of his? Mmm mmm. Deep and rugged and don’t we all love an Australian accent?
And we don’t mind in the slightest that he’s married to a gorgeous and talented women, Elsa Pataky and they have three children, because like any dad he worries about being a good father. Adorable, right?
And like all good Australian men, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. (Saturday Night Live, anyone?)
And men who can laugh at themselves are hot.
Madeline Ash – Author of The Playboy
Victoria has covered a lot of smokin’ ground with Chris Hemsworth, but superb examples of Aussie sexiness abound…oh, don’t blush now, it’s Hugh Jackman :)
Another actor bearing (but not boasting) the title of Sexiest Man Alive, Hugh stole the role of Wolverine and owned that testosterone-and-rage-fuelled beast. He’s got strength, intensity, and broodiness to boot. Let’s be honest, not many men could make hair-horns look hot, but Mr. Jackman manages just fine!
Then there’s the man off-screen: Honest, gracious, and good-humored. He’s Hollywood’s baddest good guy. Did you know that despite his hectic schedule while playing Wolverine, Hugh drove his son to school every morning? He plans his workdays around his kids. That’s right – a family man. Swoon.
He’s also diverse. He can run and bellow and fight like a powerful mutant. He can sing and dance on Broadway. And my personal favorite, he’s even played a closet Australian outback romance novelist in ‘90’s film, Paperback Hero. Loved that movie!
So many gorgeous traits and we’ve crammed them all into our Hot Aussie Heroes. Good thing the series is digital only – those pages would be singeing!
Amy Andrews – Author of The Hero
I’m going for a lesser known but still seriously hot Aussie actor, Callan Mulvey. US audiences might best know him as Sycllias in 300: Rise Of An Empire but here in Australia he’s also played an underworld drug lord, a rough-around-the-edges cop and a badass biker. But most of all, most of all, is his seriously sexy real life scar that he picked up in a serious high speed car crash. There’s just something about a man with a scar….. makes you want to soothe his brow, right? :)
Margareta Osborn – Author of The Cowboy
The rugged yet ‘boy next door’ look on a man is so appealing especially when you write books set in the Australian outback like me.
While Madeline’s Hugh Jackman certainly slots into this ‘rugged Aussie’ category, up-and-comer Sam Worthington has also joined these ranks. A bricklayer (think rudimentary body building) before he turned to the thespian arts, Sam is a keen surfer (tanned and running semi naked from the Gold Coast surf, a board under his arm into your arms … Yum!). He has also been described as one of Australia’s most likeable leading men (efilmcritic.com). He’s got smiley eyes, a youthful, strong and earnest face. There’s a set of square shoulders, and a light pattern of chest hair covering a solid torso that leads down to … well, the rest.
This man is delectable, nice and will look after you ladies. He’s a cowboy, a soldier, a bloke not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. In fact it was reported that the producer of the movie, Avatar cast the then relatively unknown Sam as the lead character, Jake Sully, because, “he has that quality of being a guy you’d want to have a beer with, and he ultimately becomes a leader who transforms the world”.(John Horn. “Faces to watch 2009: film, TV, music and Web”. Los Angeles Times.)
Transforms the world, but will sit down for a drink? Is eye candy of the finest kind? Which bar shall we meet at, Sam? You can also bring Hugh if you like. Coming Madeline?
Giveaway!
Is it hot in here, or is it just the Aussie Heroes, fictional or not? As a thank you to all book girls, we’re giving away a Tule <3 Book Girls tote stuffed with books and swag! Tell us in the comments who your favorite hottie is, in life or in books, and you’ll be entered to win! Winner to be announced next Friday, May 8th. In the meantime, download your copies of the Hot Aussie Heroes from any retailer! Happy reading, book lovers!
We’re thrilled to have Madeline Ash here on the Tule blog talking about her brand new release, Her Secret Prince! Read on to learn more about the book and the inspiration behind it!
From Madeline:
I particularly loved writing Her Secret Prince, because it is connected to my first Tule novella. The heroine Dee was Alexia’s best friend in The Playboy – fun, a little outrageous, and bold to a fault. She was happy to march through the sidelines of that story, cheering on her friend while having her own summer fling down under.
Dee seemed capable of anything. In reality, she was hiding her vulnerability: that her flings never became anything more and she had no idea why. Why didn’t men want to make it last? What was wrong with her? By the time she returned to Los Angeles at the end, Dee’s heart had begun to wilt.
Now she’s on her guard. Not rushing into sex, not risking her happiness on men who’ll only leave her. At the beginning of Her Secret Prince, her first love Jed turns up – ten years after his disappearance. His presence threatens her newfound singledom and the very depths of her heart. She’s confused, torn, and overwhelmed. She loves him still, but can’t trust that he’ll stay.
I wanted to capture Dee’s mood properly here. It was difficult – because she was so vivacious in The Playboy, it was hard to imagine her feeling uncertain about anything! But there had to be a depth to her beyond bold statements, and I was determined to find it.
So I used music to help. I had a big playlist, influencing the mood of my writing to tap into her emotions. These were some of my favorites:
I Thought You Were God – Clare Bowditch
Between Friends – Japanese Wallpaper
Only Love Can Hurt Like This – Paloma Faith
Music can be so persuasive. I’d love to know if there are any songs that make you feel a certain way – doesn’t have to be melancholic!
—
Madeline has always lived in Melbourne. She is emotionally allergic to spontaneity, and yet doesn’t mind the weather that drags her into rain when she’s planned for sunshine. She likes to call this her wild side.
She’s a Virgo, vegetarian, and once had a romantic suspense-style dream in which the hero was a shredded lettuce sandwich and the villain was a cherry tomato. The tomato got away. She took the dream as a sign that she’d better stick to writing contemporary romance.
Her stories have spunky heroines, strong heroes, and as much dialogue as she can cram in. As for why she writes romance, she’s in a long-term relationship with the genre and writing such stories makes it happy.
