Bad Cruz(107)
Cruz kisses my forehead and runs a finger over his daughter’s cheek.
“I would’ve made you mine one way or the other. I never would’ve given up on you.”
Note to self: never let this man go. He’s the real deal.
Before you go
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I strongly dislike writing acknowledgements, because I always forget key people. Also because I write my books so far in advance, sometimes I thank people who haven’t actually worked on the book. So I’m going to try to do this as painlessly and swiftly as possible.
Thank you so much to Tijuana Turner, Vanessa Villegas, Ratula Roy, Marta Bor, Sarah Plocher, and Yamina Kirky. I love you so very much and your friendship and support mean the world to me.
To my editors, Tamara Mataya, Paige Maroney Smith, and Mara White. Thank you SO much for everything.
To my cover designers, Murphy Rae and Bailey McGinn. It’s a sunny day in author heaven when you have two jaw-dropping covers for one book that mean the world to you.
Thank you, Social Butterfly PR, for allowing me to focus on writing instead of all the…you know, grown-up stuff (insert shudder here).
Special thanks to Parker and Ava for basically having my wits together for me, and to my family, who is a huge distraction from writing books, but I love them anyway, so very much.
A huge thank you to my readers, and especially my followers on IG who seem to put up with my nail art obsession for reasons beyond my grasp, and the readers in my Facebook group, LJ’s Sassy Sparrows. And to the amazing bloggers who work relentlessly to put independent works of fiction center stage.
If you enjoyed Bad Cruz (or if you didn’t, but still have something to say about it), please consider leaving a review. Even the briefest of reviews can help the next person decide whether or not to give Nessy and Cruz a try.
Thank you so much,
L.J. Shen
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Sinners of Saint:
Defy (#0.5)
Vicious (#1)
Ruckus (#2)
Scandalous (#3)
Bane (#4)
All Saints High:
Pretty Reckless (#1)
Broken Knight (#2)
Angry God (#3)
Boston Belles:
The Hunter (#1)
The Villain (#2)
The Monster (#3)
Standalones by order of publication:
Tyed
Sparrow
Blood to Dust
Midnight Blue
Dirty Headlines
The Kiss Thief
In the Unlikely Event
Playing with Fire
The Devil Wears Black
Before you leave, here’s a sample of Vicious. Enjoy!
My grandmama once told me that love and hate are the same feelings experienced under different circumstances. The passion is the same. The pain is the same. That weird thing that bubbles in your chest? Same. I didn’t believe her until I met Baron Spencer and he became my nightmare.
Then my nightmare became my reality.
I thought I’d escaped him. I was even stupid enough to think he’d forgotten I ever existed.
But when he came back, he hit harder than I ever thought possible.
And just like a domino—I fell.
Ten Years Ago
I’d only been inside the mansion once before, when my family first came to Todos Santos. That was two months ago. That day, I stood rooted in place on the same ironwood flooring that never creaked.
That first time, Mama had elbowed my ribs. “You know this is the toughest floor in the world?”
She failed to mention it belonged to the man with the toughest heart in the world.
I couldn’t for the life of me understand why people with so much money would spend it on such a depressing house. Ten bedrooms. Thirteen bathrooms. An indoor gym and a dramatic staircase. The best amenities money could buy…and except for the tennis court and sixty-five-foot pool, they were all in black.
Black choked out every pleasant feeling you might possibly have as soon as you walked through the big iron-studded doors. The interior designer must’ve been a medieval vampire, judging from the cold, lifeless colors and the giant iron chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. Even the floor was so dark that it looked like I was hovering over an abyss, a fraction of a second from falling into nothingness.
A ten-bedroom house, three people living in it—two of them barely ever there—and the Spencers had decided to house my family in the servants’ apartment near the garage. It was bigger than our clapboard rental in Richmond, Virginia, but until that moment, it had still rubbed me the wrong way.
Not anymore.