Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Book Spotlight: The Marriage Bargain by Jennifer Probst





Alexandria Maria McKenzie casts a love spell for a man to help save her childhood home, but she never planned on her best friend’s older brother.  He offers her a bargain: marry him for one year and he will meet her price.  A marriage in name only with certain rules: no emotion, no attachments, no sex.  The terms should be easy to follow since he is the man who broke her heart years ago.  Or are they?

Nicholas Ryan doesn’t believe in marriage or family, but he needs a wife in order to inherit DreamScape Enterprises.  He looks for a suitable candidate, but never planned on his sister’s childhood friend.  She is everything he usually avoids in a woman: too impulsive, too emotional, too demanding.  Of course, he intends to avoid any real entanglements and stick strictly to business.  Or can he?
The stakes are high, but neither bargained for love…


Here is an excerpt...
 

Chapter One


She needed a man.
Preferably one with $150,000 to spare.
Alexandria Maria McKenzie stared into the small homemade campfire in the middle of her living room floor and wondered if she had officially lost her mind. The piece of paper in her hand held all the qualities she dreamed her soul mate would possess. Loyalty. Intelligence. Humor. A strong sense of family and a love for animals. A healthy income.
Most of her ingredients were already cooking. One hair from a male family member—her brother was still pissed. A mix of scented herbs—probably to give him a tender side. And the small stick for…well, she hoped that didn’t mean what she feared.
With a deep breath, she threw the list into the silver bucket and watched it burn. She felt like an idiot for creating a love spell, but she had no options left and little to lose. As the owner of an eclectic bookstore in a trendy upstate New York college town, she figured she was allowed some quirks. Like sending up a prayer to Earth Mother for the perfect man.
Alexa reached over and grabbed the fire extinguisher as the flames leaped. The smoke rose and reminded her of the burnt pizza crust on the bottom of her toaster oven. She crinkled her nose, shot the spray in the middle of her carpet, and went to hunt up a glass of red wine to celebrate.
Her mom would have to sell Tara.
Her family home.
Alexa grabbed a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and thought about her dilemma. Her bookstore was mortgaged to the hilt. The cafe expansion would take careful planning and there wasn’t a dime to spare. She looked over the Victorian loft apartment and easily calculated there was nothing to sell. Not even on eBay.
She was twenty-seven and probably should live in a stylish condo, with designer clothes and a date every weekend. Instead, she took in homeless dogs from the local shelter and bought chic scarves to update her outfits. She believed in living in the sunlight, being open to every possibility, and following her heart. Unfortunately, none of those traits would save her mother’s house.
She took a sip of the ruby red wine and acknowledged there was nothing left to do. No one had enough money, and this time when the tax collector came, there wouldn’t be a happy ending. She was no Scarlett O’Hara. And Alexa didn’t think her last-ditch attempt to make a love spell to lure the perfect man to her door was going to help.

 





Jennifer Probst wrote her first book at twelve years old. She bound it in a folder, read it to her classmates, and hasn’t stopped writing since. She took a short hiatus to get married, get pregnant, buy a house, get pregnant again, pursue a master’s in English Literature, and rescue two shelter dogs. Now she is writing again.
She makes her home in Upstate New York with the whole crew. Her sons, one 4 and one 6, keep her active, stressed, joyous, and sad her house will never be truly clean.
Her first contemporary romance, Heart of Steel, was re-launched in e-book form. Her publications with Red Sage include “Masquerade” Secrets Volume 11,  The Tantric Principle, and her February 1st release, Sex, Lies and Contracts. She has also written a children's book, Buffy and the Carrot, co-written with her twelve year old niece, along with a short story, "A Life Worth Living." Her newest series include Catch Me, the first in The Steele Brothers series with Decadent, and The Marriage Bargain, her new Marriage to a Billionaire series with Entangled. All of her books are available at her website or Amazon.


3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the spotlight Tamaria! BTW, I just love that name - so exotic like a heroine's!!

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    1. Thank you, Tamaria Soana is my biological name, I was adopted and they changed it!

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  2. Jennifer Probst surprised me with The Marriage Bargain. I was already in high anticipatory mode when I started on the book, knowing that Jennifer would not disappoint me. What surprised me, and all in a good way I must add, was the thread of humor that was introduced into the book right from the very beginning. Humor and red hot passion is an unbeatable combination in any romance novel and I was a goner from the first chapter itself.

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