Pretty Nightmare (Creeping Beautiful #2) by J.A. Huss-Review, Excerpt & Giveaway tour
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date May 12, 2020
INDIE
I have them all now. Just the way I want them.
McKay, the one who loves me deepest.
Adam, the one who protects me fiercely.
Donovan, the one who tells the truth.
They are my friends, they are my lovers, they are my world.
And Maggie belongs to all of us—no matter who her father is.
This is the family I’ve always wanted.
This is the family I deserve.
And I will do whatever it takes to keep them.
McKAY
I have a secret that could ruin everything.
But I’m not keeping that secret to hurt her.
Nathan St. James needed to go.
ADAM
I made a plan that could ruin everything.
But I did it to save us in the end.
The Company needed to come back.
DONOVAN
I told a lie that could ruin everything.
But I didn’t tell the lie to them—I told it to myself.
Carter is closer than we think.
There is something truly wrong at Boucher House on the Old Pearl River.
Some hidden evil lurking deep inside the woods.
Nothing about their blissful life is what it seems.
Because just when they think they have it all—he shows up to take it back.
•••••••
REVIEW: PRETTY NIGHTMARE is the second instalment in JA Huss’ contemporary, adult CREEPING BEAUTIFUL suspense filled, mind-bending, dark, psychological thriller focusing on four ‘friends’: Core McKay, Adam Boucher, Donovan Couture, Indie Anna Accorsi, and their neighbor Nathan St. James. CREEPING BEAUTIFUL is a spin off of, and set in the same world as the author’s THE COMPANY –Dirty, Dark and Deadly series (2017)-several characters cross-over for back story and continuity. PRETTY NIGHTMARE should not be read as a stand alone as it picks up immediately after the events and cliff hanger of book one Creeping Beautiful.
SOME BACKGROUND: At ten years of age, Indie Anna Accorsi was sold and bought by the next generation of an organization known as The Company, an organization that trained child killers and assassins to do the work of cleaning up when society has gone wrong. As Indie grows into adulthood, all is not well as she suffers with memory lapses, disappearances, psychotic breakdowns, and the attempted murder of the men that she loves.
Told from five first person points of view (McKay, Adam, Donovan, Indie and Nathan) using present day and memories from the past, PRETTY NIGHTMARE continues to focus on the dysfunctional dynamic of McKay, Adam, Donovan and Indie, a dynamic that includes sexual liaisons, ménage M/M sexual scenarios, buried secrets, lies and several missing ‘Company’ personnel, once presumed dead who have now resurfaced to take down the remaining few. Donovan continues to psychoanalyze Indie Anna; Adam Boucher searches for the classified and long buried information from his past; Core McKay hides the truth about a death in the family; and Indie needs to keep everyone together for her sake and that of the men that she loves, but their world is about to implode with the return of an enemy desperate to end them all. A long held secret reveals a darker betrayal, a secret that threatens McKay, Adam, Donovan and Indie in more ways than one; a secret I guess from the very start.
PRETTY NIGHTMARE is a psychological thriller about an embittered, flawed and broken ‘family’ –heirs to The Company; a generation caught between walking away or continuing to get pulled into the depths of depravity, manipulation, mind control and murder. PRETTY NIGHTMARE is a story of deception, delusion, and nightmares; of altered timelines, manufactured memories, and the reality of what was, what is and what will never be. PRETTY NIGHTMARE ends on a cliff hanger –you have been warned.
Click HERE for Sandy’s review of book one CREEPING BEAUTIFUL
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
This girl—woman, now, I suppose—she has been off limits to me for so long. It’s really hard to get that out of my head. And sometimes, when I look at Maggie, I see Indie.
It’s just… weird.
Indie doesn’t lead me to the front porch. She takes me around the side. “Where are we going?”
“To spy on them, of course.”
“Ahh, I don’t know.”
She stops us on the side of the house in front of the office window. “Stop being a baby. Don’t you want to be with McKay?”
And this is weird too. Since when do I talk about my feelings with Indie? With anyone, actually?
“You’re really trying hard to find an excuse, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.” It comes out defensive. “Of course I love McKay. Of course I want to be with him.”
“So what’s the problem?”
I hesitate. She just shakes her head at me and drops my hand. “Fine. Then stay here. I’ll spy.”
She turns away and continues walking along the side of the house, then looks over her shoulder one last time before she disappears around the corner.
I jog to catch up.
Fuck it.
When I round the corner, Indie has her face pressed against the glass of the family room window. The only lights on inside are the ones under the kitchen cabinets. So it’s a low light. A soft glow of yellow But it’s more than enough to see them.
Donovan and McKay are kissing.
I exhale and then heat fills me up. And I don’t remember breathing, but I exhale again. And then again. My chest rising and falling as emotions flood into my bloodstream.
“It’s kinda hot,” Indie whispers.
I have to agree. It kinda is. But it’s a lot of other things too.
They are both shirtless. And I’m not gonna lie, Donovan is just as nice to look at as McKay.
That’s not the only reason it’s hot though. This looks like a real fucking kiss. McKay is even kissing him back. And then Donovan’s hand slips down McKay’s chest, then down his ridiculous sixty-four-pack abs and rests on the waistband of his jeans.
Indie sucks in a little breath of surprise. “Damn. I didn’t think they’d… ooohh. Wow.”
Donovan is gripping McKay’s cock through his jeans. And McKay pulls out of the kiss. I have a moment of hope that he’ll push Donovan away. McKay looks down at Donovan’s hand as Donovan grips his cock and begins massaging his hand over his groin area.
But McKay doesn’t push him away. He closes his eyes and leans back against the counter. Practically giving Donovan permission to do whatever he wants.
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J.A. Huss never wanted to be a writer and she still dreams of that elusive career as an astronaut. She originally went to school to become an equine veterinarian but soon figured out they keep horrible hours and decided to go to grad school instead. That Ph.D wasn’t all it was cracked up to be (and she really sucked at the whole scientist thing), so she dropped out and got a M.S. in forensic toxicology just to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible.
After graduation she got a job with the state of Colorado as their one and only hog farm inspector and spent her days wandering the Eastern Plains shooting the shit with farmers. After a few years of that, she got bored. And since she was a homeschool mom and actually does love science, she decided to write science textbooks and make online classes for other homeschool moms. She wrote more than two hundred of those workbooks and was the number one publisher at the online homeschool store many times, but eventually she covered every science topic she could think of and ran out of shit to say.
So in 2012 she decided to write fiction instead. That year she released her first three books and started a career that would make her a New York Times bestseller and land her on the USA Today Bestseller’s List eighteen times in the next three years. Her books have sold millions of copies all over the world, the audio version of her semi-autobiographical book, Eighteen, was nominated for a Voice Arts Award and an Audie award in 2016 and 2017 respectively, her audiobook Mr. Perfect was nominated for a Voice Arts Award in 2017, and her book, Taking Turns, was nominated for an Audie Award in 2018. Johnathan McClain is her first (and only) writing partner and even though they are worlds apart in just about every way imaginable, it works.
She lives on a ranch in Central Colorado with her family.
NOTE: The Reading Cafe is NOT responsible for the rafflecopter giveaway. If you have any questions, please contact the tour promoter.
To celebrate the release of Pretty Nightmare, JA Huss is giving away a $50 Amazon gift card. Giveaway ends June 9th. Open International.
