Book Hooks is a weekly meme hosted by Marketing for Romance Writers as part of the MFRW Authors Blog. Readers can jump from one author to another who share hooks from their current WIP (work in progress) or any previously published books.
For this week’s edition of Book Hooks, I will give you a teaser from The Circle is Small, a second-chance contemporary romance. Don’t forget to check out the other book hooks from participating authors HERE.
An ex-cop returning to face his horrendous past, the woman who won’t forgive him, and the family who’ll never let him forget that he killed their son.
Blurb: First Nations Constable Jordan Chartrand’s guilt can’t handle the accusing stares from the family left to mourn their son after that horrible night…so he flees from his Ojibway community and the woman he loves. Two years later, his mother’s cancer diagnosis forces him to return to help her.
Devoted schoolteacher Ellie Quill wants nothing to do with Jordan after he bolted to the city and left her behind. Her life goals are set. As for her secret, she’ll keep that to herself, even if Jordan’s begging to know the truth about her child.
When the two are compelled to work on a community project to address the rampant drug problem, their forced proximity slowly melts Ellie’s icy walls. But no matter how much her heart desires to give Jordan the second chance that he’s begging for, she refuses to because providing a life for her son in the tradition of the Ojibway culture is her top priority now, not moving to the city where Jordan continues to hide.
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance, First Nations Romance, Adult
Heat Rating: Level 3
Publication Date: March 17, 2023
Publisher: eXtasy Books
Ellie pulled up at the six-plex. During the drive, everything had shaken, from her nerves to her fingers. She switched off the engine. The living room light was on. Brittany was probably texting a friend or watching TV.
Headlights appeared behind Ellie. She glanced over her shoulder to Jordan guiding his mom’s car beside hers.
Shuddering, Ellie reached for her purse. Before she opened the door, Jordan appeared, holding the pink umbrella. She got out to protection from the rain. “You didn’t have to—”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jordan flatly replied. “I know what the purse means to you, and you got your tablet inside it. C’mon.”
She scurried up the walkway beside him, having to keep up with his long legs and quick strides. While ascending the stairs, he kept the umbrella safely over her. Even as she opened the front door, he kept holding the umbrella.
God, she couldn’t wait to get inside. He was too close again. His scent of overbearing masculinity was assaulting her delicate aroma of femininity. He could take her elbow again, drag her off to the car, and easily have his way with her. But Jordan wouldn’t. Never. Ever. He might get into cop mode and become an unbearable ass at times, but he was too much of a gentleman to ever take advantage of anyone.
Still, she couldn’t help the dryness in her mouth, recalling the times he had mastered her in the bedroom, bringing her to ecstatic heights she’d never known until he’d swaggered into her life, giving a presentation to her class the first week she’d begun working at the school.
His stern stare had slowly assessed the students, and then he’d pinned his unnerving dark eyes on her. Cop eyes. The kind that could see through a person’s bullshit and unearth if someone was lying. She hadn’t been able to hide her lie—the electrical sensations bubbling beneath her skin at the sight of him done up in his uniform…
“Ellie?”
She blinked. Oh, for heaven’s sake, she was standing at the door, staring at it like an idiot. Drawing in a big breath, she turned the handle. “I’ll get Brittany.”
Jordan set his hand over hers on the handle. “What were you thinking about? You were a million miles away. You looked the same way the first time I visited your classroom. Remember when I confessed I’d done it on purpose? That I wanted to ask you out?”
Ellie’s ears heated at his confession on their first date. Sure, they’d known of each other while growing up, but being four years apart, they’d run in different crowds. They hadn’t gotten to truly talk until he’d scored her digits before he’d left her classroom, and had texted her an hour after school, asking to take her out to the baseball game the very same night, which had ended in…
“I wasn’t thinking about that.” But she had been.
“Liar,” he whispered.
CHECK OUT OTHER BOOK HOOKS BY PARTICIPATING AUTHORS
Maggie Blackbird 
Great excerpt! I like that she intellectually has all her reasons for resisting Jordan but she still can’t do it – and he knows it.
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