TAKE THAT RIDE by Meg Benjamin

 

 

TAKE THAT RIDE

by Meg Benjamin

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 GENRE:  Contemporary Romance

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BLURB: 

They’ve only got a week. They need to make it count.

 Coy Blackburn is an up-and-coming country singer, but right now he feels more like he’s down-and-going. He’s at the end of a long tour, and his band is dragging. A week-long gig at the Faro tavern in Konigsburg, Texas, may get them back on their feet or it may be a disaster. For Coy, it feels like it could go either way.

 Lexi Markham is living life on auto-pilot at the moment. As the main driver at her family’s tour business, she spends her days taking tourists around the Texas wineries and trying to get over her breakup with her lying fiancé. Now her sister has booked her to drive a country band around town, and she’s definitely not feeling it.

 When Coy and Lexi meet, sparks fly—and not it a good way. Still, trust the power of music (and a backcountry cloudburst) to overcome a few bumps in the road. But can they even think about the future when they’ve only got a few days together?

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EXCERPT 

Lexi propped herself against the doorway watching the band slide into the complete number. After a moment, Deirdre stepped up behind her. Lexi didn’t recognize the music the band was playing, but it must be one of their regulars, given the easy way they seemed to be moving through the verse. As if they felt comfortable with what they were doing. After they’d played a few minutes that were strictly instrumental, Coy stepped to the microphone and began to sing.

 The words weren’t familiar, but she found herself listening closely. Something about a couple that had broken up but still had feelings for each other. The man in the song missed the way they’d been together, even though he didn’t exactly miss the woman herself. It was a complicated kind of lyric, a lot more complex than she might have expected.

 Lexi wasn’t sure if she’d heard Coy sing before or not. The last time she’d heard them rehearse, she hadn’t paid much attention. She was fairly certain now she’d never really heard him sing. His voice was deep and resonant, but not exactly a bass. More like baritone. Something about the way Coy sang those complicated lyrics began to reach deep into her senses. He wasn’t really living the song, but he made her feel as if the feelings he described weren’t totally unfamiliar. As if he knew how to make her feel them, too.

 A shiver travelled up her backbone, and her arms seemed to tingle. She checked to see if she had gooseflesh. 

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Baby, You Can Drive My Car

The heroine of my newest Konigsburg book, Take That Ride, is a driver at her family’s tour bus company. But Lexi Markham is getting a little tired of driving people to the local wineries, particularly when her passengers don’t seem that interested in their destinations or the road to get there. When her sister, the company manager, sets her up to drive a visiting band to and from their Konigsburg gig, she’s not impressed. And when she has to deflect one of the musicians who makes a pass, she’s even less so.

Fortunately, the leader of the band, Coy Blackburn, steps in and sends the wayward musician on his way. But Lexi and Coy don’t see eye-to-eye at the beginning of their relationship. A misunderstanding has Coy snarling at his driver and Lexi suggesting he might want someone else behind the wheel.

After a couple of days, though, the two begin to strike up a friendship. They bond over music—Lexi’s late mother’s collection of country-folk-rock albums from the seventies. And their bond is strengthened when Coy tags along on Lexi’s photo shoot in the backcountry. They’re caught in a sudden cloudburst, and Lexi has to navigate increasingly hazardous road conditions to get them out. When they finally reach the highway, having gotten through flooded roads and perilous slick hillsides, Coy can’t help himself. He embraces her enthusiastically, telling her, “Lady, that was the hottest thing I’ve seen since I hit Texas. Watching you wrestle this tank around the flood waters was almost like foreplay.”

Who wouldn’t fall in love with a guy like that? And of course, that’s what Lexi does.

I first got the idea for a heroine who drove a tour bus on a trip to San Diego. The hubs and I rode several tourist buses around town. Some of the drivers were men, but some were young women, occasionally college students on summer break. Watching them wrestle their aging buses around with aplomb while delivering their tourist spiels was a revelation. Of course, women can handle tour buses. And watching them do it is a real treat.

So Lexi came to be, and I threw in the sequence in the backcountry just to show that she has the right stuff.. And she deserves a man who recognizes just how good she is.

Lexi and Coy have some bumps in the road—it’s romance, after all. But they’re both great at what they do, and talent recognizes talent. Baby, you can absolutely drive my car!

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 Meg Benjamin is an award-winning author of romance. Meg’s Konigsburg series is set in the Texas Hill Country and her Salt Box and Brewing Love trilogies are set in the Colorado Rockies (all are available from Entangled Publishing and from Meg’s indie line). Her new cozy mystery series, Luscious Delights from Wild Rose Press, concerns a jam-making sleuth based in the mythical small town of Shavano, Colorado. Along with contemporary romance, Meg is also the author of the paranormal Ramos Family trilogy from Berkley InterMix and the Folk trilogy from Soul Mate. Meg’s books have won numerous awards, including an EPIC Award, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Holt Medallion from Virginia Romance Writers, the Beanpot Award from the New England  Romance Writers, and the Award of Excellence from Colorado Romance Writers.

 

Website: http://www.MegBenjamin.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/meg.benjamin1

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/megbenj1

Email: meg@megbenjamin.com.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Take-That-Ride-Konigsburg-Texas-ebook/dp/B0CB9BZBGT

 

 

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

 

Meg Benjamin will award a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway