Excerpt from: THE CENTER BY ASA AKIRA He woke up before her, as he always did on Tuesdays. Thirty-two cracks in the ceiling, same as last Tuesday, same as the Tuesday before that, and the Tuesday before that. In her bed, Hana moaned in her sleep and kicked her leg out from under the blanket. She would be awake soon. She looked so peaceful at this hour, her grey hair pinned up, head on her pillow, face smooth and expressionless. Not like the rest of the day, with that wrinkle in between her eyebrows, which grew even deeper with each year. Never would she say it out loud—not just to Matsu, but to anyone—but he sensed she couldn’t remember the last time she was truly happy. That wrinkle, though, she could not hide. It was an arranged marriage. Thirty-plus years ago, he wondered if she would have agreed to commit to him had she known what the future held in store for them. Probably not. He had grown to love her. Even before any of it had happened. When she bore his first child, how could he not? She gave him the gift of family. And when that child died…

The world can seem like a pretty dark place some days. Sometimes just checking your Twitter feed can leave you wanting to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers. But before you do that, you find the remote and take it under there with you – and then, after your panic attack subsides, you peek out and turn on the TV. And there, in all its glory, on some random cable channel, The Holiday is being shown for the millionth time, and there you are, with Cameron Diaz, in that quaint English pub, looking up and seeing Jude Law, who smiles at you like you are the only other person in the entire crowded room. You watch the rest of the movie—Will Cameron finally get in touch with her emotions and cry? Will Iris find the strength to finally leave the Jerk? YES! Of course, all these things will happen! Then, when the credits roll, you take a deep breath, and emerge, ready to face the day. Romance novels do the exact same thing, don’t they? Except they’re portable and available whenever you need them. If you think about it, they’re like little paperback (or electronic) weapons against…

The Hudson Kings is a new series featuring a team of superhot mercenaries who live and work in an armory in Manhattan. The books are as much about the relationships between the guys and their individual journeys as they find their way to the love of a great heroine as they are about the suspense plot. So, romantic suspense, yes, but with lots of emphasis on the characters, plus a lot of laugh-out-loud banter. In THE FINANCIER, billionaire mercenary Nick Dawes hires sexy-as-hell but down-on-her-luck Jane MacGregor to babysit his penthouse and his fish while he’s lying low after losing $20 million in a freelance heist gone wrong. A Russian crime boss wants the money and Nick’s head. As it turns out, Jane’s no shrinking violet; her unflappable approach to the unusual and dangerous occurrences in Nick’s world is just one of the reasons he falls for her so hard. It’s not easy wooing your ideal girl whilst dodging bad guys who want you to die. It can really cramp your style. But Nick manages. Here are the top five ways Nick Dawes is able to romance Jane even while on the move. Drunken Poetry. Loose lips plus words written…