Guest Post with Author Heather Long and Giveaway

Today I would like to welcome to the blog author Heather Long. Heather is currently on tour promoting her book Once Her Man, Always Her Man and has stopped by the blog to chat. Before I give the floor to Heather lets get to know her a bit shall we.

Heather Long lives in Texas with her family and their menagerie of animals. As a child, Heather skipped picture books and enjoyed the Harlequin romance novels by Penny Jordan and Nora Roberts that her grandmother read to her. Heather believes that laughter is as important to life as breathing and that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are very real. In the meanwhile, she is hard at work on her next novel.

Places to find Heather:

| Site | Facebook | Twitter |

Growing Up Heroes

It’s a question that we’re asked a lot when we’re kids. When we’re very little, we want to be cowboys, Indians, astronauts, pilots and superheroes. As we get a little older we want to be actors, Broadway stars, police officers and attorneys. By the time we reach high school, we may have firmed our concept of self up so we recognize that we want to be a journalist, a teacher or a game designer. But no matter what we want to be, we want to be the hero of our own story.

The Hero

As a hero we want to do something worthwhile. Whether we’re teaching kids, breaking the story of a lifetime, building roads, saving lives or providing support to soldiers overseas, we want to make a difference. A hero is not just about the big, splashy events, but the little things:

• Teaching a child to read
• Giving someone in pain a friendly ear
• Offering a desperate animal a safe haven
• Reaching out to touch another life

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. I grew up in an era where many of the veterans I knew served in Vietnam, occasionally Korea and still more rare, World War II. My grandmother lived in London during the Blitz, but she only talked about the aftermath.

My neighbor worked in a MASH unit in Korea, but he only ever talked about coming home, not what happened to over there.

The father of a family I babysat for was a former Navy Seal who never talked about his time in Vietnam or coming home or anything about the war except to tell us never to tiptoe around him and never to be ‘silent’ while he slept.

Every one of these ‘heroes’ went through a hell that unless we were there we couldn’t really understand.

Coming Home

When I sat down to write my first 1Night Stand, it was the theme of coming home that struck me so powerfully. The heroes in my stories wear dog tags, not capes. They served their country and fought in wars. Some have scars on the inside, instead of the out. But coming home is hard. Coming home is a challenge that our men and women in uniform are not always trained to do.

My Always a Marine 1Night Stand tales include a second chance at love (Once Her Man, Always Her Man), a night of passion, healing and escape (Retreat Hell! She Just Got Here) and a fantasy come true grounded in reality (Tell It To The Marine) -- and that’s just the first three. I fell in love with all of my Marines. I loved their honor, their sense of duty, their courage…but most of all, I loved that once a Marine, always a Marine.

We honor not only those who serve, but they who also wait, who support, who love, who forgive, who help heal…we honor the families and the friends of those who serve because while we may not be able to understand what they went through, they all must face what happens when our heroes come home.

About Always a Marine

1Nightg Stand is the business name of an exclusive dating service run by Madame Evangeline who provides clients with a possibility of happily ever after or happily for now.

Always a Marine is dedicated to finding happiness for the men and women wearing the uniform.

Fulfilling a favor and executing a business plan, Luke Dexter arrived at Dallas’ Sybarite Club for a one-night stand. He never imagined that in the darkened club with bluesy strains of jazz playing he’d come face to face with the woman he left behind a decade earlier.

Rebecca Rainier fell in love with Luke Dexter in high school and was crushed when he dumped her to join the Marines after 9/11. Now, waiting for a date her best friend and business partner set up, she’s unprepared when Luke walks in.

Can Luke and Rebecca bridge the pain of a decade long abandonment in one cold Texas night?

Check out my review here.

Places to Purchase:

| Amazon | All Romance | Bookstrand | 

Luke Dexter handed his keys over to the red corseted valet driver, gaze skimming the generous globes peeking up from the open buttons of her white shirt. The Sybarite Club offered the Dallas area generous access to every pleasure. He slipped a card out of his leather wallet and displayed it to the doorman. The doorman, a tall, lanky figure dressed in topcoat and tails exuded a sense of elegance that the club's exclusive clientele enjoyed.

The doorman examined the card, scanned it with a small device in his palm. Luke admired the cageyness of the action. The pen scanner would be out of place with the old world atmosphere encouraged by the man's uniform. “Good evening, Mr. Dexter. Welcome to the Sybarite Club.”

Accepting his card back, he passed through the opening doublewide doors. The gothic style doors were dark cherry, aged like a fine wine and a decorated with wood cut carvings of a man and woman engaged in cunnilingus and fellatio. The joining was subtle, the each left crying out in pleasure when the door opened, only to be joined again when the doors closed.

Amused by the door carving, he smiled as he plunged into the velvet darkness of the club's jazz infused atmosphere. Every night featured a different style of music, but Fridays were reserved for jazz. Old world, cool smooth jazz with smoky voices, haunting guitars and lonely horns played to the soul. The doors barely closed behind him when his phone buzzed inside his breast pocket.

How did the woman know these things?

Pulling it out, he thumbed it on, a new message from Madame Evangeline of the 1Night Stand exclusive online dating service populating the screen. She's dressed in green silk and sitting at the bar. Life doesn't always offer a second chance…

Clicking the screen off, Luke walked down the four red-carpeted steps into the lounge proper. He'd only agreed to the dating service only to support the men in his unit putting themselves out there. The last thing he'd expected was the invitation to the Sybarite Club. His gaze roamed the room the room, coming to a halt as they fastened on a pair of to die for tan legs at the bar. The sweet length of them, one crossed over the other ended in black heels with crystals glittering around dainty feet.

A green skirt skimmed her knees. While he appreciated the legs, he studied the line of her back, curious about the rest of her. His gaze slid higher to the pile of unruly auburn hair fighting to escape a pair of matching crystal hair combs.

As though sensing his appraisal, the green cloaked mystery woman turned on the bar stool and his heart tripped.

Check out the other books in Heather's Always a Marine series:

Click on cover for more info. 

Want to win a copy of this book? 1 lucky commenter will win an eBook copy. 

To Enter:

• Leave a comment answering the question: What do you think of second chance at love stories? 
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