Title: From Scratch Series: Blue Plate #1 Author: Rachel Goodman Genre: Light Women's Fiction/Chick Lit
Release Date: May 1, 2020
Blurb
A down-home, feel-good debut Southern romance, From Scratch explores one woman’s journey back home to Dallas, Texas, where her family is cooking up a plan that doesn’t quite suit her tastes…
Thirty-year-old Lillie Turner grew up with maple syrup stuck to her skin and bacon grease splattered on her clothes, courtesy of working in the family diner. Thank goodness she escaped all that when she moved to Chicago five years ago. Now a successful strategy consultant and newly engaged to a man who complements her like biscuits and gravy, she has everything she wants.
When an urgent phone call about her father’s health pulls Lillie back to Dallas, she soon learns it was a ruse to bring her home so she can run the diner she’d rather avoid and compete in the Upper Crust, an annual baking competition, with no option to withdraw. Lillie is furious and ready to run back to Chicago, but her father’s haggard appearance makes her wonder if he’s hiding something. Things go from bad to worse when Nick, her handsome ex and the only man she ever truly loved, reappears, looking as scrumptious as ever.
Lillie’s trip home forces her to question the path she’s chosen, find her place in the family she abandoned, and wonder if the life she left behind is what she really wants after all.
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Excerpt
"Move around," Nick says. "It'll help flush out the lactic acid in your system." I nod, too exhausted to reply, and walk back and forth with my fingers linked behind my head. A breeze washes over my face, cooling me, but still my lungs are screaming. I can't seem to suck in enough air. Nick strides over to me. "You want your breathing to come from deep in your diaphragm. Right here," he says, placing one hand on the curve of my back and the other just below my rib cage, applying pressure. "Can you feel that?" His gaze rakes over my face, painfully slow, as though he's afraid to miss something. Is he kidding? His palms are burning holes in my shirt, making me dizzy, and he wants to know if I can feel that? Suddenly I go from barely being able to retain oxygen in my lungs to a total inability to breathe at all. I should be shocked that after all this time a simple touch from him has the power to steal my breath, but after what happened between us at the Tipsy Teakettle, nothing surprises me anymore. Stepping away, I pick up the water bottle lying on the ground by his feet and gulp some down, the liquid sloshing around in my stomach. "Drink it slowly. Otherwise you'll throw up," he says, tugging on my ponytail. My heart trips in my chest at the way his voice dips with his playful scolding. Sticking out my tongue, I squirt some water at him and stretch my aching muscles. Nick does his own form of post run recovery, which involves some strange yoga poses mixed with light strength exercises. I squeeze my eyes shut when I hear him groan, the sound similar to those he once murmured during sex. After he's done, he uses the hem of his T-shirt to wipe his neck and forehead. His chest expands and retracts with his breathing, his skin glistening. I swallow thickly, watching a bead of sweat travel down the length of his torso and absorb into his mesh shorts. Everything about Nick is corded muscle and hard, chiseled angles and lines. My eyes drop to his hands resting on his hips, and I have an overwhelming urge to feel them on me. My whole body clenches as I remember exactly what those fingers are capable of. A dog barks, snapping me out of my haze. I focus on the college-age guy playing fetch with a golden retriever across the park and wait for my heart rate to return to normal. "It's okay, you know." "What is?" I ask. "To check me out," Nick says, smug and without shame. "Don't think I didn't notice your little eye dance." I balk. "I wasn't checking you out. You were doing those weird poses, and I was curious." He laughs, deep and sexy, erasing all of my common sense. His soles scuff against the gravel as he saunters toward me. He stops and stands so close I can feel the heat radiating off his body and see the faint scar above his left eyebrow—a casualty from back in my diner days when I accidentally opened the freezer door into his face. When he speaks, his words send a shiver down my spine. "You forget, Lillie, I know your blush." My breath hitches, and his smile grows into that destructive grin that's always been deadly to me. I force my eyes away, over to the other side of the parking lot where a woman is adjusting a set of ankle weights, back to the guy still tossing a tennis ball with his dog, down at my grungy shoelaces, anywhere other than at him. "At least I used to," Nick says, low and hoarse. "Before . . ." He settles a hand on the crook of my neck, his thumb ghosting along my collarbone, and everything inside me ignites, alive and volatile. I look at him, and the intensity in his stare causes a fresh wave of heat to rush through me. I lean toward him, pulled by invisible fingers. His gaze flicks to my mouth, and as if on their own volition, my lips part. My breath comes in shallow gasps, my body humming in anticipation, waiting for him to pin me against my truck and kiss me the way he did at the Tipsy Teakettle. The way he used to.
Coming Soon
Releasing June 5
AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU
AVAILABLE NOW IN PRINT
Author Bio
Rachel Goodman is the critically acclaimed author of the Blue Plate and How to Score series. She was raised in Colorado on Roald Dahl books and her mother's award-worthy cooking. Now an engineering professor at her alma mater, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, she has not lost her passion for culinary discovery or a well-told story. A member of RWA, she continues to hone her craft through the Writer's Path at SMU while seeking to create the perfect macaroni and cheese recipe. Follow her on Twitter (@mojitomaven), Instagram (@mojitomaven), and Facebook (@RachelGoodmanBooks), or visit her website at rachelgoodmanbooks.com.
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Giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway #BluePlate#1 #FromScratch #Women'sFiction #ReleaseBlitz #ChickLit
