In Golden Heart® winner Jeanne Oates Estridge’s The Demon
Always Wins, sparks fly upward when fallen angel Belial comes to Earth on a
mission to corrupt God's favorite. But when widowed nurse Dara Strong instantly
recognizes the demon-in-doctor-disguise for the fiend he is, she kicks him out
of her clinic. Hell's most successful soul-stealer won't give up so easily
though. As the battle between these cosmically well-matched opponents
escalates, they will learn that sometimes you have to go through Hell to claim
your Heaven.
The Demon Always Wins by Jeanne Oates Estridge
Genre:
Paranormal Romance
Release
Date: September
4, 2018
Publisher:
Jeanne
Oates Estridge
Series:
Touched by a Demon
Format:
Digital eBook
Digital
ISBN: 9781949451009
Print
on Demand ISBN: 9781949451016
Seven
short weeks. After beating his boss at the poker table, ambitious demon Belial
must appease Satan, so he takes on a new bet. If he can get God’s champion to
curse God, aloud and in public, within the agreed timeframe, Hell gains another
soul and Belial earns a coveted promotion to chief executive demon—second only
to Satan himself. The demon always wins, but this time the deck may be stacked
against him.
Seven
long weeks. Widowed nurse Dara Strong is the ace up God’s sleeve. The
granddaughter of famous demon fighters, Dara has no problem recognizing Belial
as Dr. Ben Lyle. When the demon in doctor’s disguise he appears in her clinic,
she kicks him out the door. If she can hold out against the alluring demon till
the wager expires, Dara will be safe—but she already has plenty of reason to
curse God, and Belial, the most successful soul-stealer in the history of Hell,
is not about to give up easily.
Belial
may look heavenly, but his soul belongs to Satan. As the battle between these
cosmically well-matched opponents escalates, conflict breeds passion and
passion transforms into love. Caught between a victory-hungry Satan and an
unforgiving God, Belial and Dara discover there may be only one way to ransom
the soul of a fallen angel: sometimes you have to go through Hell to claim your
Heaven.
Copyright©
2018 THE DEMON ALWAYS WINS
Jeanne
Oates Estridge
Dara Strong slid her credit card through the reader
and waited for the gas pump to authorize her purchase. In the darkness beyond
the concrete apron, crickets called sleepily from the grass.
The air was heavy with moisture and mid-September
pollen. Her hay fever had gotten so bad earlier she'd taken an antihistamine,
leaving her a little fuzzy-headed. On the plus side, she could smell ocean in
the warm, damp air tonight.
The gas pump dinged, almost drowned out by the
thunder of an approaching motorcycle. It was a Ducati, all black except for the
gleaming chrome. The rider, too, was dressed in black—black t-shirt, black
jeans, black boots with chains around the heels, black helmet. Even though it
was night, he wore his tinted visor down. She didn't usually feel threatened by
bikers—most people who owned machines as expensive as this one were lawyers or
accountants—but something about the shadowy figure sent a shiver down her
spine.
His t-shirt outlined every muscle in his torso. He
kicked the stand down and leaned the bike on it, slinging his leg over the
saddle in a move that was almost balletic in its grace. His body was so
flawless it didn't seem quite human. Without raising his visor, he tugged a
leather wallet from his back pocket—no mean feat, given how snug his jeans
were—and slid his credit card through the reader.
He unscrewed the gas cap and pushed the button for
high-octane fuel. Black fingerless gloves covered his hands, but his forearms
were muscular and scattered with dark hair. He lifted the nozzle from its
holder and thrust it into the gas tank. Low in her belly, something clenched.
She stared at his hands. The tautness in her belly
intensified and a languor swept over her limbs. What would it be like to share
a night of love with a handsome stranger, a night without responsibility or
regret?
She gave herself a shake. She didn't know what that
would be like, but she knew what it wasn't like: her. She didn't even date,
much less share nights of passion with anonymous strangers.
It was impossible to see through his visor to tell
what he was thinking, or even what he was looking at, but she knew his gaze was
trained on her. Beneath his helmet, his throat was like a bronze column. He might
have been an alien, come to Earth as a scout for an aggressive race.
The featureless visor remained fixed on her, and,
although he didn't move, she felt him willing her closer. Come to me, he seemed to say. Let
me show you pleasure beyond your wildest fantasies.
He held out a black-gloved hand and flexed his
fingers. Come to me. This time, the
command was unmistakable. She took a step toward him. The smell of gasoline and
ocean faded away, replaced by the fragrance of petrichor—the smell of rain as
it strikes hot cement—fresh and sweet, but with a faint undertone of sulfur. In
the back of her mind, an alarm clanged. That smell meant something, something
perilous, but she couldn't recall just what. His scent wound around her like
the tendrils of a vine, drawing her to him. She took another step.
Rafflecopter for
The Demon Always Wins Blog Tour
Giveaway
Jeanne
is offering one lucky Grand Prize winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card and signed
paperback copy of The Demon Always Wins!
One Runner-up will receive a $10 Amazon Gift Card and an eCopy of The Demon Always Wins and a second
Runner-up will receive a $5 Amazon Gift Card and eCopy of The Demon Always Wins. To enter for your chance to win one of these
fabulous prizes, please fill out the Rafflecopter link below:
About Jeanne
Oates Estridge
Jeanne
Oates Estridge wrote her first short story in third grade, a tale of
birth-control-challenged bunnies who named their children in alphabetical
order—Alice, Benjamin, Cathy, Dexter—all the way down to baby Zachary. Later
that year, when given an assignment to depict what she wanted to be when she
grew up, Jeanne drew herself in a floor-length, crayon-blue dress, sitting at a
typewriter.
Life has a way of
handing us detours, though, and Jeanne wound up earning her degree, and her
living, as a computer analyst. She continued to write at night and on weekends,
but she could never quite manage to write anything that satisfied her.
But she didn’t
give up. In 2012, she returned to college to earn a Master’s Certificate in
Creative Writing at the Nora Roberts’ School of Romance Writing at McDaniel
College. Working under the mentorship of NYT Bestseller and former high school
English teacher Jenny Crusie, Jeanne wrote a paranormal romance that went on to
win the 2015 RWA® Golden Heart®.
The Demon
Always Wins, the first book of her Touched by a
Demon trilogy of paranormal romances, will debut in September 2018.
Thanks for the promo!
ReplyDelete