Men in Books Aren't Better
by Amanda Nelson and Lisa-Marie Potter
Contemporary Romance
Date Published: November 25, 2024
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Pressured by her looming deadline and an unfinished romance manuscript, author Molly Covington applies her immersive research skills and goes all in. She hires a male companion for inspiration during three days of research in Las Vegas.
Enter sexy, confident Jared Washington—an extreme sports enthusiast and relationship skeptic who moonlights as a Plus One male companion. Molly’s contract puts him within arm’s reach of buying his own business and making his dreams come true.
The chemistry between her and Jared is surprisingly easy. Before their Vegas rendezvous comes to an end, one of them will need to lay all their cards on the table to discover if they’ll be lucky in love.
Excerpt:
Molly
Searching for an escort was not the same as searching for porn.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself as I hit enter on my keyboard. Holding my breath, I waited as the list of results Elite Males, Premium Gigolos, Stags R Us populated my laptop screen. I perched on the edge of my black leather desk chair in my home office overlooking the Seattle harbor. All the entries sounded like adult films. Each one screamed precisely what to expect, which made choosing any one in particular impossible.
With one eye shut and a tentative finger, I clicked on the top entry, Elite Males. An obscene amount of oiled flesh filled most of my monitor—a close-up photo of a smooth-chested guy flexing his defined muscles while lying on his back. The shot highlighted his torso and prominent tattoos, capturing only his lips and chin; he was clean-shaven, and his jaw was also, for some reason, shiny. Ugh! Too much! The home page wasn’t quite as bad as I’d expected but still cringe-worthy: almost laughable. The guy in the image provided what was supposed to be an enticing, yet exaggerated, display, which I assumed combined with his other “talents” listed in the reviews that read like porn must have earned him his five-star rating. To each his own.
The parts of the man I could see on my screen were considered conventionally hot. However, after reading the list of customers’ erotic comments, I swallowed back the bitter tang filling my mouth. I felt dirty just looking at his image and desperate. But I guess, for all intents and purposes, I was. My deadline from my publisher loomed overhead, and I had no manuscript to submit. My stomach rolled.
“It’s been a year, Molly,” Renee had said last week after huffing into the phone. “The editors expect something after that advance. Your reputation will only buy you so much time. Can you at least give me the first fifty pages so I can appease them? Try to barter an extension?”
Picturing Renee’s scowl was easy an otherwise non-existent crinkle above the bridge of her button nose, with her perpetual bold lips in full pout mode.
A cold sweat broke out across my forehead. “I’ll get you something soon. I promise.” My hollow words sounded more like a question as I brushed off the brittle ends of hair that flaked onto my sweatshirt, an inevitable consequence of straightening my Jamaican locks with my flat iron. However, my hair wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t fallen asleep at the computer the night before, attempting to muscle out some words that never came. I should have just gone to bed at a decent hour with my silk hair wrap.
“Look, Molly, you’ve been a real trouper since breaking off the engagement with Enrique. But I think gifting your cousin your non-refundable venue for her wedding was…a mistake. Admirable, but a mistake nonetheless.”
About the Author
Amanda and Lisa-Marie are a co-writing team of best friends who share imaginary worlds, including a short story, Shivers, published in Moments Between. Lisa Marie Potter (BIPOC) is a mom of four who grew up in Nottingham, England, and now resides in Alaska with her husband and golden retriever. Amanda Nelson grew up in Maryland and moved to Arizona, where she attended college and currently lives with her husband and four kids. Both women are members of the Author’s Guild and were part of a Manuscript Academy Podcast featuring their writing and critique group. They also review books on their socials, hike the Olympic National Park, and fight over the same fictional crushes.
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Fun excerpt. This sounds so fun!
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