Greeting and salutations, Luscious readers!  Please extend your warmest welcome to Eva Rabi, our guest for today.  Eva has a treat for you today – one lucky commenter will receive both books in the series.

Let’s take a closer look at the cover, shall we?

My Brother, My Rival blurb:

Cody Garrett, a former Navy SEAL, has never met a skirt he didn’t fancy. His  six-pack, rugged looks and bad boy image ensures a steady stream of hot babes  waiting to slip him their phone numbers wherever he goes.

So, he is confused when Bridie Barker refuses to go on a date with him.

It’s not like she’s a stunning beauty or something. According to him, her ears are  big, she’s well-rounded and she’s not even a D-cup. In spite of her shortcomings, the more she pushes him away, the more he finds himself thinking of her.

Twenty-year-old Bridie Barker has control issues. Every detail in her life is planned.  Her closet is color-coded and she has an array of storage containers, to ensure that everything is in its correct place.  Her whole world is black and white, and grey areas are a no-no.  When she meets the warm and grounded Scott Garrett, she thinks she has found her soul mate. Unfortunately, and to her disappointment, things don’t pan out with Scott.

While waiting tables, she has a disastrous run-in with his brother, wild boy Cody  Garrett, King of Body Shots, who parties every night with a different girl.  Even though he’s good to look at and makes her laugh, she turns down his advances as he’s clearly the tag-and-release kind of guy.  Besides, she is pretty sure he owns not a single storage container, and she’s certain that his closet is not color-coded.

Problem is, Cody Garrett finds her rejection an aphrodisiac and pursues her.

 

Excerpt from My Brother, My Rival

My urge to destroy returned with a vengeance. I turned my Hummer around.

“Where you going to, Cody?” my mother demanded, her voice frantic.

I didn’t answer, but hit the gas and gunned the Hummer toward Bridie’s old place.

“Cody, where are you going?” my dad demanded.

I stared ahead as I floored it.

“Cody, just stop!” Jenna said. “I know where you’re going! You stop right now, Cody!”

Ignoring all their pleas, I drove on until I pulled up into the parking lot outside Bridie’s old place.

Just in time – I spotted her standing outside Scott’s Roadster in the parking lot.

Scott was still in the driver’s seat, talking on his phone.

I braked and without killing the engine, I hopped out of my Hummer.

Within seconds, my family was running behind me, pleading with me to leave them alone.

Bridie spotted me first. “Cody!” she mouthed, fear in her eyes.

I picked up a brick from the side of the road and walked toward Scott.

“Cody!” Bridie screamed. “What are you doing? STOP!”

I ignored her and walked over to my brother. I was going to smash his skull with the brick until his brains lay all over his Roadster.

His window was opened. Good. When he saw me above him, brick high up in the air, ready to hit him with it, he dropped his phone.

I raised the brick to smash it down his face.

His eyes grew large.

“CODY, NO!” Bridie screamed.

When I looked into Scott’s eyes, I wavered.

He stared, I glared.

I willed myself to do it, to kill Scott.

But I couldn’t do it. He was still my brother.

Even though he stole my girl, even though he hurt me like no one in this world had ever hurt me, I couldn’t hurt him.

How I wished he was some other fucker at that moment.

Frustrated, I booted in the Roadster’s door three times. The door caved into him.

Scott tried to open his door, but the door wouldn’t budge.

He scrambled toward the passenger’s side and tried to open that door, but I dropped the brick and pushed the Roadster until it fell onto its side.

“What are you doing, CODY?” Bridie screamed.

With the Roadster on its side and Scott trying to boot out the BMW’s windshield, I spun around to look at Bridie.

With eyes as big as saucers, she walked backward. “Cody, stop, please!”

I walked faster. She turned and broke into a run, away from me.

There’s no way she could outrun me. I raced after her. She ran faster and in a bad move, toward my Hummer. I caught up with her and grabbed her hair.

“Where the FUCK are you going to, sister-in-law? Huh? We need to talk.”

“No, leave me alone!” she cried as she tried to free her hair from my fingers.

“You owe me an explanation,” I said, as I dragged her to the Hummer and shoved

her into it. I got into the driver’s seat and sped off.

Behind me, Jenna, my mother, and father were running after the Hummer, screaming my name. I didn’t stop.

“Slow down, Cody!” Bridie cried.

“Why? Why the fuck should I, huh? Let us both die. Today. NOW!” I stepped on the gas.

“CODY, PLEASE STOP!” she begged.

I flashed her a mirthless smile. “Scared? Huh?”

“Why are you doing this?” She was crying now.

“Because I thought I was in a bad dream, but guess what; it’s true, my brother and my FUCKING GIRL! Not a dream, honey, just my reality.”

“Cody…”

“What the fuck are you CRYING FOR?” I yelled.

“Cody, I don’t understand; you cheated on me. Why are you acting like you’re so cut, huh?”

“Cheated on you? What the fuck are you talking about, Bridie? I never cheated on you.”

“You did!”

“When? When the FUCK did I cheat on you, huh? You talking about that stupid

body shot? That was fucking cheating? Huh?”

“No, not the body shot, Cody. The night of the party – you cheated with Nicole!”

“What are you talking about, Bridie? You’re hallucinating. I did not cheat with Nicole.”

“Yes, you did, Cody! I walked into your room and saw you both in bed. I left straight away.”

I shook my head in disbelief. She could lie so blatantly? Fury overtook me. I locked the steering wheel of the Hummer. It slid across the road like it was on snow.

“Today, both of us are going to die,” I warned.

If that isn’t enough for you, there is also a book two!!

Years ago, Cody Garrett’s heart was ripped to shreds when Bridie ditched him and married his brother, Scott.
With great difficulty, he moved on and rebuilt his life without her, severing all ties with his brother because of their betrayal.

Now, Scott, his brother, is ill and a threat to his wife and children.

Cody is forced to step in and move them into his house.
Being physically so close to Bridie, and spending time alone with her, brings back a flood of memories, and he finds it a daily struggle to contain his feelings for his brother’s wife.
To Bridie,  who likes to put things (and people) in perspective, Cody Garrett was filed under ‘Cheat’ and she too moved on with her life.
But while living with him, she stumbles upon secrets involving Cody and her, that changes everything.
Now, she must fight her feeling for Cody and remain true to her marriage.

Remember, leave a comment and you will be entered to win both books!

The public eye can be a very scary place.  Just ask actors, musicians, singers and authors, just to name a few. Criticisms run rampant.  You’re too fat, too tall, too boring, too skinny, too nasty, too quirky, too eccentric , too inaccessible.  Yes, yes, poor us, right?

But remember that even as a person who is not in the public eye, you are still subject to critique, from bosses, family, friends and media.  Every commercial is designed to sell something, and in order to get you to purchase the product, they first have to let you know that you have a problem that only their product can solve.  It’s subtle, but it’s there.  Too fat?  Get a weight loss pill.  Eyelashes too short?  Get this mascara.  Pores too large?  Buy this facial toner.  Too wrinkly?  Buy this makeup, plus this cream, plus this treatment masque.  Don’t you feel and look better already?

Writers have it the same way, only worse in some ways.  As a woman, I am already too fat, too wrinkly, boobs too big, boobs too small, skin too dark, skin too light, teeth too yellow, lips too thin, lips too big,  feet too big, feet too small,  not enough jewelry, not organized enough, not pretty, too pretty, clothes not fresh enough, too many children, not enough children, no children,  itchy crotch, smelly crotch.

I’m not telling you anything you haven’t seen on a commercial at one time or another.

As a writer?  Well, let me list the ways:  books too short, books too long, heroine too slutty, heroine too bitchy, stupid plot, not ‘multicultural’ enough, too ‘multicultural’, boring hero, heroine doesn’t act like I would act,  far-fetched, “why is the hero this ethnicity”, too white-washed, not deep enough, too deep…

And that’s just the criticisms I’ve received as a writer.  If I took the criticisms of the authors of just two other authors on this lovely blog, I’d have a complete blog post.

Stuff all that nonsense in the trash.  Silence the outer critic.

Please note, I am NOT talking about criticisms that come from a place of love and caring.  Consider the critic before you dismiss or condemn.

In order to silence the outer critic, you must silence the inner critic.  It’s a judge, stealing you of your goodness and light.

Three ways I do it.  Take notes, there will be a test and that test is life.

1.            Stay positive- Monitor your thoughts – Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative if it doesn’t help you improve.  Huffing and puffing climbing the stairs?  You need to take off a few pounds.  Now, if you’re festively plump and you can climb those steps like a champ, shimmy that size 18 bootie and tell Judgy Jane or Jimmy to suck it.

2.            Stay Powerful – You CAN do this  – Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t.  And if you can’t do it, seek assistance.  Don’t be afraid to reach out. And remember, life is a journey.  What you can’t  today, strive to do tomorrow.

3.            Stop swimming in past failures – Clear your mind of the negative.  Maybe that last character you wrote was a little flat.  Liven him up the next time.  Kitchen not clean? Make a plan to clean it, don’t worry that dishes were left in the sink overnight.  Focus on the future, not the past.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” ~William Shakespeare

Be fearless.  Keep your head up. Be fierce. Go forth and conquer.

Dahlia, who the day after Halloween feels like that broken blossom on the floor of the garden center.