BOOK TOUR: THE ARRANGEMENT by S.D. LETTIE January 5-February 28

 

A forced engagement binds them, but the secrets simmering between them threaten to implode their lives far sooner than any wedding bells—part one of a slow-burn duet…

 

Title: THE ARRANGEMENT

Author: S.D. Lettie

Publisher: Independent

Pages: 298

Genre: New Adult, Romantic Suspense

Format: Paperback, Kindle, FREE with Kindle Unlimited

You know that guy you fell for at sixteen—the one who vanished without explanation, leaving behind enough damage to last years? Now imagine being forced into an engagement with him because your parents decided you’re more useful as leverage than as a daughter. 

And the part he forgot to mention? He’s heir to a Bratva empire with blood on its hands. 

That’s Emilia’s life. Her future is not her own, and her fiancé, Nikolai Volkov, is a man whose silence is more dangerous than his words. Their past is a wound. Their engagement is a threat. And what grows between them is something neither of them should let happen. 

The Arrangement is a dark, slow-burn story of buried truths, political corruption, and a connection that pulls two damaged people toward a collision neither may survive unscathed.

Read sample.

The Arrangement is available at Amazon.

 

Book Excerpt

My phone buzzes in my shorts pocket. I ignore it, thinking it’s a text, but then it buzzes again. I look down and see my father’s name lighting up the screen. Groaning, I answer. 

“Emilia.” His voice is calm, clipped. Not cold, just clean, like everything else he controls. He says my name like punctuation. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Your mother asked me to check on the brunch.” 

She didn’t want to ask herself. She never does. She strategically delegates through him, like always. “It’s done,” I say. “Final headcount is confirmed. Catering’s squared. My remarks are short and already vetted.” There’s a pause, the sound of him moving paper in the background, or maybe pouring a drink. I can’t tell. He’s always multitasking, even when he speaks like everything is a priority. 

“She wants it to go smoothly.” 

It will. He knows that. He wouldn’t have called if he didn’t already trust it was handled. 

“There’s something else,” my father says right as I think we’re done, his voice flat and clipped in the way he reserves for things that aren’t up for discussion. “I’ve arranged a meeting with Nikolai and his father next week at the Four Seasons. I’d like you to be there. We have some important things to discuss.” 

– Excerpted from The Arrangement by S.D. Lettie, Independent, 2025. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author

Before she ever had “author” next to her name, S.D. Lettie was—and still is—an avid reader first; the kind who would finish a book in a day and beg her parents to take her back to the bookstore. Reading started as a hobby and, as she got older, became her source of entertainment, escape, and comfort. Over the years, she found herself wanting to write the kind of worlds readers could get excited about—a world that could grow into a fandom of its own. 

Today, Lettie writes slow-burn romances—stories about characters who are imperfectly perfect, the hard moments that shape them, and the plot twists that leave readers reeling. Outside her writing life, she’s a wife and mom of two, roles that influence both her time and perspective. She’s also a dedicated soccer fan, the kind who will plan her day around a match and openly admit she’ll yell at the TV when things get heated.

Through all of it, her goal as an author is simple: she wants her characters to stay with readers long after the book ends. 

Her latest book is the new adult romantic suspense, The Arrangement (Bancroft University Chronicles Book 1).

Visit her website at www.sdlettieauthor.com. Connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, BookBub and Goodreads.

Sponsored By:

GUEST POST: NIGHTBORN by Theresa Cheung

 

When a brilliant dream psychologist begins appearing in thousands of strangers’ nightmares, she must confront a terrifying truth…

 

Title: NIGHTBORN

Author: Theresa Cheung

Publisher: Collective Ink

Pages: 220

Genre: Paranormal Thriller

Format: Paperback, Kindle

What if the line between your waking life and your darkest dreams disappeared forever?

Alice Sinclair, a driven psychology professor, is about to find out. When thousands of people begin experiencing terrifying, vivid nightmares … all centered around her, Alice’s quiet academic life is shattered. Haunted by the question of why she’s become the subject of these shared dreams, Alice embarks on a desperate search for answers, uncovering a chilling secret: someone – or something – hungry for global power has discovered a way to manipulate consciousness itself. The world is fast becoming a playground for those in control of the dreaming mind.  In a heart-stopping race against time, Alice must navigate a treacherous web of deception, where nothing – and no one – can be trusted, not even herself.

Read a sample.

NightBorn is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Book Excerpt

Florida, USA—Sometime soon

Alice saw the wave. It was a beast.

It rose slowly at first, the way a predator prepares to strike—silent, inevitable. It quickly gained speed, swelling into a towering monster, a force of nature, as if the ocean itself had decided to swallow her whole. The wave surged, easily 30 feet high, dark and roaring with a ferocity she could feel in her bones. It moved toward her with the relentlessness of fate.

She turned, panic seizing her as she raced up the beach, her bare feet slipping in the wet sand. The ocean was closing in—the world was closing in on her. Her breath came in jagged gasps, but the wave, too quick, slammed into her, yanking her under.

Her body twisted through the water, eyes stinging, lungs burning, desperate for air, clawing at the debris swirling around her—plastic, broken wood, seaweed, dead fish—but there was no solid ground to cling to. The current pulled her deeper, its

grip tightening like cold fingers around her throat.

She gasped for air, choking on the water, the world a dark, crushing void. She couldn’t see. Every nerve in her body screamed for release, but the ocean kept pulling, tumbling her in every direction, turning her body like a puppet with broken strings. She was drowning. No—she was going to die.

Something in her snapped.

Her feet hit something solid. Hard. Stone? She couldn’t tell.

All she knew was that she had to rise. She shoved upward, throwing her weight toward the surface with every ounce of strength she had left. Her body screamed, but she pushed

harder, until her head broke through to air. For one split second, she inhaled—but the water dragged her down again, relentless, hungry for her life. She fought the instinct to panic.

She couldn’t let it win. Not today.

Just breathe. Just breathe, Alice. Instinctively she let herself float, stilling her body, letting the sea carry her, accepting the weight of the water around her. She couldn’t fight it anymore—but maybe she didn’t have to.

Her feet found solid ground again. She shoved upward, defiant, gasping as she broke through. Sunlight blinded her.

Alice jerked awake, the sharp taste of salt lingering on her tongue, her body tangled in the sheets. The echo of the wave still thundered in her ears. The sunlight slanted through the bedroom window, blinding. Her pulse thrummed in her neck as if the sea still had its grip on her.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. It was a dream. Just a nightmare.”

What if it wasn’t just a nightmare?

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, Alice’s feet hit the cold floor. Had Swiss psychiatrist and dream analysis pioneer, Carl Jung ever felt this unsettled after one of his dreams? Had his own night visions ever made him question his grasp on reality?

Her eyes flickered to the bedside table and her Red Book: the dream journal she’d named after Jung’s own. Ever since she was young, she’d written down her dreams. But this one felt radically different from the rest.

It was too real, though it clearly wasn’t literal. She lived more than an hour from the nearest beach and had never been to it. Was the dream a symbolic glimpse into her own future? A warning? Or something darker, deeper?

It was just a dream. Maybe it was just all the energy she’d poured into teaching Jungian dream analysis spilling out cathartically in a nightmare.

The feeling of drowning clung to her.

She grabbed her journal and scribbled out every detail of the dream. The ocean. The wave. The suffocating terror. Jung had called the act of recording dreams an act of self-analysis—so why did this one feel more like a clear and present danger than an analysis? Was it the forbidden mystery Jung had hinted at in his Red Book—that thin line between genius and insanity where revelation could be found?

Was her obsession with dreams driving her mad?

It was her calling, her passion. Perhaps, as director of the new program in Jungian Studies at the University of Central Florida, she could teach her students what she had dreamt and encourage them to analyze it; maybe it would be cathartic for

them and for her.

What if her students were the key to unlocking the deeper meanings of her own dream? She could see herself standing before the class, scrawling on the blackboard, her voice filled with energy as she taught them about using their dreams to peer into possible futures, even to shape reality. Inception—she would reference that for sure, the perfect movie fix to illustrate how the subconscious could manipulate perception and even reality.

What better way to introduce her students to the power of their own dreaming minds?

Alice pushed herself out of bed as the sinking feeling of the dream still clung tight. Blinking rapidly in front of her bedroom mirror, she forced herself to take deep breaths. Her long dark hair framing the mismatched eyes staring right back at her: one

blue, one brown. She had always hated this difference. Always hidden it behind a pair of blue lenses.

A perfect illusion of normalcy, her blue lenses. They always worked—ever since she was 14, when her mother had taken her to the ophthalmologist to prevent the cruel teasing at school.

Alice slipped them on, as though the simple act could shield her from her nightmare.

The rhythm of her repeated blinking to help the lenses settle helped bring a semblance of calm.

Something was coming, though; she could feel it. Something was drawing her, pulling her into the unknown. Could she rise above and survive it?

Alice dressed the part for her day ahead and stepped out into the bright light of the day.

Was the drowning nightmare a message? A warning? And if so, a warning about what?

– Excerpted from NightBorn by Theresa Cheung, Collective Ink, 2025. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author

Theresa Cheung is an internationally bestselling author and public speaker. She has been writing about spirituality, dreams and the paranormal for the past 25 years, and was listed by Watkins Mind Body and Spirit magazine as one of the 100 most spiritually influential living people in 2023. She has a degree in Theology and English from Kings College, Cambridge University, frequently collaborating with leading scientists and neuroscientists researching consciousness.

Theresa is regularly featured in national newspapers and magazines, and she is a frequent radio, podcast and television guest and ITV: This Morning’s regular dream decoding expert. She hosts her own popular spiritual podcast called White Shores and weekly live UK Health Radio Show: The Healing Power of Your Dreams.

Her latest book is the paranormal thriller, NightBorn, available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

You can visit her website at www.theresacheung.com or connect with her on X, Facebook, Instagram or Goodreads.

Sponsored By:

REVIEW OF THE GALLAGHER PLACE by JULIE DOAR

 

Publication Date: December 2, 2025

 

Murder Thrillers,
Psychological Thrillers (Books),

Suspense Thrillers 

 

 REVIEW

 

A RIVETING PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVENTURE
 COLLIDES WITH A HAUNTED PAST

It’s been over twenty years since Marlowe Fishers’ best friend disappeared. There one moment and gone the next, Nora just disappeared into the atmosphere. Although Marlowe tried to hide it, she never got over the loss. And while bottles filled with alcohol sufficed to keep her numb, somewhere deep inside was a fixation on finding out what truly happened to her beloved pal. Was she dead? Was she alive? Was she kidnapped? Or had she run away and spent all this time on the coast living it up in Malibu? All those were possibilities, but Marlowe was positive that she would never know, so imagine her surprise when she awoke to the news that a dead body was found in the vicinity where Nora was last seen.

A deep howl of agony  signaled that the game had changed.

The two detectives assigned the new case were as anxious as Marlowe about finding a connection between the two events, but it wasn’t enough for Marlowe. She was insistent that quietly hijacking the investigation from under the police was the only way to untangle the web of connectivity. The reason was simple and clear; the detectives didn’t know what Marlowe knew because if they did … they’d know that someone In the Fisher family was lying.

Love Gothic? Crave changelings, elves, and witches appearing through extra-sensory perception? Adept at arranging puzzle pieces in fog so thick, you can’t see? Then THE GALLAGHER PLACE by author Julie Doar is for you! The mystery solid … nothing beats trying to harness contradictory clues putting on a light show and daring you to find the offender. I did take the challenge … no, make that ‘welcomed’ it … and found the tale captivating and strangely addictive. Superbly written, the novel is a very tidy offering, mixing forensics with folk tales. The juxtapositioning works, and gives the novel’s characters a kill pen of dissecting  motives and motivation … then there are those stabs to the psyche. Yes, it’s a nice superego psychological wonderland for those of us who enjoy playing in someone else’s id. And to translate that  into concise terms: if the atmosphere doesn’t kill you, the unnamed murderer will!

I gotta say I was thoroughly charmed …  and  befuddled … and entertained … and add in thrown off balance by THE GALLAGHER PLACE. The story told from the perspective of Marlowe Fisher, Ms. Doar does an excellent job in understanding the grief that follows the loss of someone you love. The notes struck are very genuine to what actually lives on … and what dies. 

I would definitely recommend THE GALLAGHER PLACE, and would like to thank Zibby Publishing and NetGalley for giving me an ARC copy. It’s a novel that satisfies all the reasons to keep on reading far into the night. FOUR STARS for this one!

 

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