Smut Fanatics: Another Mazzy Monday Release Day & Giveaway Plus Review!!

Another Mazzy Monday

Tawnee Mountain #1

By Savannah Young and Sierra Avalon

Genre: Adult, Contemporary Romance

Out January 6, 2014

Synopsis

When the wealthy and charming Drew Graham walks into the Tawnee Mountain Resort where I work and offers me a lucrative part-time job it sounds too good to be true. I just have to pretend to be his fiancée until he wins the election for Governor and then we can go our separate ways. It seems like an easy way to make a hundred thousand dollars…until his brother, Austin, returns from Europe and moves in with us. And I’m completely overwhelmed by my attraction to my fake fiancé’s rebellious younger brother.

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Excerpt

My brother hasn’t changed very much since I left for Europe. He’s just a little more of everything. Cocky, charismatic, and quite charming. Give him an audience, no matter how small, and he’ll captivate them within minutes.

Not that I haven’t been accused of being cocky myself. Okay, maybe I’ve been called an asshole on more than a few occasions. But charming I am not. My brother is great at telling people exactly what they want to hear. It’s a skill that will serve him very well in politics. I’m more of a say-what’s-on-my-mind kind of guy. I’m always straightforward and honest. I tell people what I think they need to hear even if they don’t want to hear it.

“Austin Graham,” my big brother says when he finally spots me. He excuses himself from the small group of would-be campaign donors and heads in my direction. “The rebel without a cause returns to the roost.”

To my surprise my brother grabs me into a hug. I reflexively look around the ballroom to see if there are any photographers snapping shots of us. That’s the only reason I could see Drew giving me such a warm greeting. We didn’t exactly part on the friendliest of terms when I left the country.

“I take it Dad summoned you back to the States to help with the campaign.”

“Help is really a strong word. I get the impression I’m needed for publicity photos. He says he wants to show the press that our family is strong and united. You are running a family values campaign, aren’t you?”

My brother glares at me. Then after a few moments of being at the center of his arctic stare he says, “Nice suit.”

“It should be. You probably paid top dollar for it.”

“I thought it looked familiar.”

“Suits and I don’t really get along.”

“I guess that means Dad hasn’t talked you into getting a real job yet.”

“I’ve had plenty of real jobs all over Europe. Everything from milking cows to fixing motorcycles. Whatever odd jobs people had in exchange for a hot meal and a warm bed.”

Drew shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s difficult for me to believe we’re products of the same two parents.”

“You were there when I was born,” I remind him.

“And you were stubborn and willful from the moment you took your first breath. Some things never change.”

“I need a drink,” I announce. Drew, always being the perfect politician and everything his constituents want him to be wrapped in a picture-perfect package, rarely drinks anything but water and orange juice. I, on the other hand, imbibe on a regular basis.

“Maybe stick with one,” he suggests. “Nurse it for a while.”

“Yes, Sir,” I give him a cheesy little fake salute.

As I approach the bar I see a gorgeous little blonde serving small cups of wine to several middle-aged women wearing matching conservative navy blue suits and single strands of white pearls around their necks. They all have their hair cut short and look like they’ll be absolutely no fun even with a little wine in them.

Once the women of the blue suit brigade have cups of wine in their hands they make their way over to my brother. As I wait for the bartender to acknowledge me I’m a little hurt that she doesn’t even glance up at me when she asks me what I want. Then I remember I’m wearing one of my brother’s stuffy suits and that I probably look just like another one of the conservative jackasses at the fundraising event.

This girl looks like someone who prefers a more down-to-Earth kind of guy. If I had on my everyday attire: leather jacket, well-worn jeans and black biker boots, I think I’d get her attention in a heartbeat.

“Beer,” I say, trying to will the blonde to at least glance at me once. But to no avail. She’s all business, serving drinks then taking the next person’s order.

“We’ve got Miller, Bud, and Coors.”

“Miller.”

She nods and fills up one of the small cups with beer. It’s not even the size of a Dixie cup. Maybe half as large. “Got anything bigger than that?”

She shakes her head. “Sorry. It’s complimentary. You can have as many as you like.”

I hold up the ridiculously small cup. It would probably take about ten of these before I even felt a buzz. “Thanks.”

She nods, but she’s only half paying attention to me. When I glance down at her name tag I see her name is Mazzy. Unusual name. I’m completely intrigued. Not just because she’s beautiful with a smoking hot body to match, but there’s something about her that’s different.

Most girls fall all over themselves to get my attention when they figure out who my family is. Being from a wealthy and well-connected family is like an aphrodisiac for most women. I look down to make sure I’m still wearing my name tag and it’s definitely there. This girl just hasn’t even bothered to take a look at it.

Two guys are now standing behind me so I know I have to let her serve them, but I don’t want to move from this spot. I just want to look at her for a few seconds more. I like watching the way she moves. She seems so carefree and comfortable in her body. As carefree as I like to pretend to be I know I’m really just a mass of insecurities and compensative tactics.

“Anything else?” she asks.

Your number, I want to say, but what’s the point. I don’t plan on being in New Jersey any longer than I have to. I promised my dad I’d stay through the election and that’s it. Then my backpack and I are off to Asia.

I take my ridiculous little cup of beer and head off in search of someone I might find even remotely interesting to talk to.

As luck would have it I run into my mother and her league of women voters. They’re all wearing the same conservative blue suits as the blue suit brigade who were ordering wine in front of me at the bar and they each have a tiny American flag displayed prominently on their lapels. As soon as my mother spots me a look of disgust overtakes her face. She can’t seem to control it whenever she sees me and I’m not sure she wants to. She’s even less thrilled with me than my father and she usually has no trouble expressing that displeasure to me. My only saving grace is that I know she won’t rail at me in front of her supporters. She’s much too shrewd for that. She’ll do her best to pretend I’m the perfect son in front of potential donors and wait to condemn me in private.

I’m so glad I’ll be staying at the lake house. My mother won’t consider venturing out to Northern New Jersey this late in the season. When it’s less than seventy degrees she has no interest in the lake house.

“Austin,” my mother says as she approaches and places a quick peck on my cheek. “So glad you could make it.”

The other women in her small group are all smiling and eyeballing me, even though they’re all my mother’s age or older.

I down the rest of my beer and stare into the empty cup. “I think I need a refill.”

My mother expresses her displeasure with a harrumph, but then quickly replaces her grimace with a broad smile. Hers isn’t as rehearsed as my father’s or brother’s, but it’s equally phony.

“When you come back, Mrs. Lexington has an opening in her firm that might be of interest to you and she’s already said she’d love to talk to you about it.”

“Great,” I lie as I loosen my tie. I’m already feeling trapped and the stupid material around my neck isn’t helping matters any. I can’t even remember the last time I wore a tie.

What I Loved

This was a really cute book that was a lot of fun to read mixed with an original overall plot idea. I love that this wasn’t your typical rich man falls for plain poor girl story, and I loved that the main love interest turned out to be the black sheep brother not the dapper politician. Also, I really enjoyed the main character Mazzy, she’s an easy person to relate to and a hard worker, which made me respect her a lot. I loved the chemistry between her and Austin from the very beginning, and that lead to some pretty hot scenes which I thoroughly enjoyed. The same can be said for Austin, definitely a very hot character that made it easy to love him. I like the fact that he separated himself from his crazy family and didn’t want to spend a dime of their money and stood up for Mazzy when no one else would. Austin is definitely a very charming fellow that made this book very fun to read.

Not So Much

Although this was a great book, the flow for me was just too fast and because of that I felt like there were a lot of holes in the plot. There isn’t very much detail of anything when it came to the backgrounds of each scene. I have no idea what kind of colors are involved in Mazzy and Suzie’s apartment, what the entire lake house looks like, or even what the resort looked like. There was no character development when it came to Drew as well, I get he’s not the main love interest but there were very rarely any scenes of Drew and Mazzy together and when there was they said maybe two sentences to each other. It’s kind of insinuated that they talked more to each other but you never got to see it or experience it. There should’ve been more of a plot line when it came to Drew and Mazzy themselves or at least throw in one lengthy conversation the two of them had.

Also there were times when I felt like the story was being talked at me, rather than me experiencing the story. The sentences seemed halting at times and sometimes didn’t match the flow of the scene or paragraph. Scenes would often end just too soon for me, and then there would be no follow up and follow through which kind of annoyed me.

To Sum it All Up!

The overall plot of the story was awesome, and I really enjoyed the interactions of each character in the story. Austin and Mazzy are awesome and I loved watching them fall in love. I just felt that the sentences were very fractured and structured in such a way that I felt like they were telling me the story rather than me being a part of it. The sequence of events went too fast for me and left a lot of holes in the overall plotline and left out a lot of details. I’m from New Jersey so it was great to read a book that took place there, and since I’m a political science major as well it definitely made this book a lot of fun to read. There aren’t tons of political romance stories out there so I was happy to discover another one. This book could’ve been about 100 pages more in my opinion by just adding more detail and developing the characters more. Overall though, this was a great fun story to read, very light and easy not dark at all, so if you’re looking for a happily ever after with some very cute scenes than this is the book for you.

Meet the Author

USA TODAY Bestselling Author Karen Mueller Bryson writes under four pen names. This is her first novel co-written by two of them.

Savannah Young's stories take place in fictional Old Town, which is very much like the rural Northwest New Jersey town in which she grew up. She is the author of the four-book Wilde brother's Old Town Country Romance series.

Sierra Avalon's stories have a little sass and lots of spice. She is the author of Always Rayne, which is the first book in the Always, Sometimes, Never series.

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