Rock Hard by Nalini Singh

(I received an e-ARC for this book from Net Galley.)

Guess what comes out on Monday!?!

Do you know?

Can you guess?

I can. Not. Wait. for all of you to read Nalini Singh's Rock Hard*.

It's a bit of a side trip of a Rock Kiss novel--related to the stories of Schoolboy Choir but not actually focused on the band.

Instead, Rock Hard, gives us the story we've all been dying to read since we first met Charlotte (and learned of the dreaded T-Rex) in Rock Addiction**.

Business suit, rugby ball
Hint, hint

Really. Any two characters who meet over a hurled stapler and the realization that a presume prowler is really the new boss are two people I need to know more about.

Charlotte, who we first met as Molly's loyal best friend in Rock Addiction, is a records clerk at the headquarters of an ailing department store chain in New Zealand. Gabriel is a retired rugby star turned corporate savior. Charlotte is bright and hardworking; she's actually doing the work of two, but surviving a prolonged assault has left her so timid most people don't realize it. T-Rex, err, Gabriel is known as a no-nonsense, hardworking executive. He's also smart enough to notice that all the work his assistant turns in originates at Charlotte's work station.

This is how the author
is promoting the book.
Smexy, indeed.

Gabriel then puts both Charlotte and the assistant through similar interviews to see who really knows the details of the work being done. It's Charlotte, naturally, and Gabriel is just about hooked. She's shy and wears shapeless clothes, but Gabriel knows full well that smart women are his catnip. (The catnip bit is in his own--um, the author's--words.) So he fires the assistant, promotes Charlotte, and goes about getting to know the new assistant that he now wants to know very, very well.

Rock Hard navigates the issues of finding balance between a hard-charging dominant T-Rex and a courageous and brainy mouse. The characters both have traumas from their youths to overcome, and, of course, the issue of separating work life from personal life.

Like all Nalini Singh stories, this is a well-written, sexy romance with characters I want as friends in real life. I know you'll like them, too.

*I've reviewed other books by Nalini Singh here and here.
**Sadly, I must've slipped into a fugue state after I read Rock Addiction because I didn't review it.  But I should've.  Go read it.

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Risking It All by Kati Wilde

(I received a free e-ARC of this novella from the authors for review.)

Yeah, I understand your conflicted feelings.

Perhaps you have a bit of a crush on Jax from "Sons of Anarchy"*.

Perhaps it's more than a bit.

And perhaps you're more than a little lost without the show.

Then I have a series of erotic novellas just for you.

Kati Wilde writes about the Hellfire Riders, a motorcycle club in the Pacific Northwest. The novellas are part of a coordinated effort with two other authors, Ruby Dixon and Ella Goode, to, in their own words, "write the kind of romances we love to read." Which would be romances that include strong women, alpha males and hot sex and danger.

Risking It All  was just released last week, and I devoured it.  It's the second book of three featuring Lily and Jack.  It's a standalone story; you can jump right in. (But the first one's sexy, too, so you may as well get them both. Betting It All is free right now while Risking It All is 99 cents.)

Steamy.
Very steamy.

Lily and Jack are both more than a little messed up from dysfunctional childhoods, but they're also smart and loyal and oh-so-hot together.  Risking It All has them trying to navigate their own issues as well as as the threat of a rival motorcycle club.

It's a quick read--in part because you won't want to tear your eyes from the page and in part because the author wants to give you just a tasty bit--90-ish pages.

To date, I've read all of the Motorcyle Club novellas, and Kati Wilde's are my favorite.  All of them are fun (and hot), but I find Kati's characters to be more fully developed and her alpha males a little more enlightened.  (So my Jax obsession is definitely obsession-lite.)

*For the uninitiated, "Sons of Anarchy" was a show that ran on FX about a family and its (in a?) outlaw motorcycle club.  That's Jax pictured above. He's no Prince Charming, but many, many women have seen him more than once upon a dream.

Fizz by Ted Wright

(I received a free e-ARC of this book from Net Galley.)

This is me. Trying to put together a video presentation.
Clearly, I'm an idiot.  But clearly, teaching tools have changed.

So.

I teach marketing.

That's my day job.

And trying to get my students ready for a career in marketing is a bit of a challenge right now.

Why?

Because we've moved away from the broadcast model of promotion.  Everyone has more than three TV channels.  In fact, most of us my students don't actually watch television anymore.  They might watch television shows, but they stream them.  All that means any "formulas" for promotional success are outmoded and outdated.

Also?

Because my students should know a lot about digital media.  And they only know enough to be dangerous.  They use it as consumers--not as creators, not strategically.

So, I'm constantly looking for information--blogs, books, videos, Storify--to help me get them prepared for a career of changing technology and change consumer habits.

And so I read Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth by Ted Wright.

I'm glad I did.

At the heart of Fizz is the firm belief that good companies with good products have good stories to tell their customers.  And, equally importantly, that customers (and employees) are smart and can be trusted with more than sound bites of information.

This here book contains solid advice
 for both large and small organizations.

The author walks through the power of influencers (the people you want telling other people about your brand), how our consumption habits have changed, and finding your brand's story.

So basically, we walks through the what, the why and the how, and he does it for both large organizations and small.  He also explains that word of mouth is neither easy or free, but critical to a brand's success.

Why most casual readers aren't looking for a good marketing read, I'd definitely recommend this for small business owners, and it'll be required reading in class.

High praise, indeed!