The Second Lie Blog Tour! (+Giveaway!)

Title: The Second Lie

Author: Anna Richland

Series: Immortal Vikings #2

Pages: N/A

Date Published: January 26th, 2015

Publisher: Carina Press

Format: Kindle

Genre: Speculative Romance

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours
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Synopsis:
A woman desperate to achieve her dreams.

To reassure wealthy clients, Christina Alvarez Mancini invented a jet-setting British owner for her Napa Valley wine collection service. Success has brought her close to buying her own winery, when irregularities at a London wine auction threaten her business.

A man in love with a good plan.

Stig, an immortal Viking thief, knows he’s found the perfect role. The California woman who created his character won’t discover what he’s up to in England until after he’s pocketed the money he needs. Then Christina walks into the auction preview, ready to ruin his plans, and he knows his boredom has ended.

Secrets that turn deadly.

By the end of the night, these two rivals must cooperate to escape kidnappers, British authorities, media and a pair of mysterious watchers. That’s when a game Stig’s played for a thousand years puts Christina’s life at risk.

Can two people whose identities are based on lies trust each other enough to survive?

~Try an Excerpt!~

A long night investigating fraudulent wines at London’s most elite auction house is about to turn dangerous for Christina. And the only man who can help her is the same one who threatens her business.

If the men hadn’t been arguing loudly, Christina wouldn’t have heard their voices through the wine cave’s walls several minutes later. She didn’t have time to raise the hinged counter panel, just ducked under with the syrah bottle’s green glass neck clenched in her fist and crouched in the corner behind the bar.

They opened the door. Now she could hear them clearly. Her shoulders shook and her breathing sounded like a twenty-year-old air conditioner until she covered her mouth with her free hand.

“You don’t have a choice, Stig.” The man’s accent was clipped and hard enough to emphasize the malice in his voice.

“On the contrary, I have several.” The voice of the man replying was unfortunately familiar. “I choose to finish my business here.”

His business. Defrauding and ruining her. She didn’t have any sympathy.

“It is finished.”

“I’m afraid not.” Whoever the bastard claiming to be Geoffrey Morrison actually was, he didn’t sound nervous. She was, however, so she bit down on the skin between her thumb and first finger in her effort to keep silent. A slight rustling that she couldn’t identify, and then he continued. “May I offer you a drink before you leave?”

“You’re coming with us. One way or another.”

Her stomach twisted, and she tried to recall the mental chant she’d used to enter her zone before gymnastics meets, but part of that ritual had been pacing, twelve out, twelve back. Stuck in a corner, no walking, no moving, just listening, she couldn’t find her calm.

“He doesn’t mean it that way.” This third voice was more modulated, less vicious than the first and hinted at Eastern Europe. “We told you Ivar wants to see you.”

“His problems are no longer mine.” His voice had come closer and his shadow blocked the light diffusing into her hiding space, as if he was leaning on the other side of the bar. “I paid my debt with the Boston job and I’m free.”

Payment. Money. Her purse.

The weight of the revelation rolled across her like a loose barrel, crushing her with certainty even before she looked at the bottle clenched in her left fist. Her right hand covered her mouth and crap, yes, she’d forgotten to grab her purse or shoes. From her place crouched on the floor, the only thing visible to her was the faux-beamed ceiling, but she pictured the countertop as clearly as a label engraving. A black oblong purse with a ribbon trim and a thin gold chain. Stark against the green slate counter. Her black heels tumbled on the floor. No way to retrieve them.

Dread raised goose bumps on her arms, and she curled her chest tighter to her knees to try to warm herself.

Her phone and list were out there too. On the counter? Or in a niche next to a bottle? It didn’t matter exactly where, because her presence was scattered across the space like leaves in the street.

“What’s behind you.” The angry man’s flat intonation wasn’t a question.

They were coming for her now, but she was frozen on the floor, a ball of quivering silence.

“A bar. In celebration of our unexpected reunion, I’m happy to share the Incarnadine. It’s the best vintage here, and happily it’s not mine. A glass, shall we?”

“No. This.”

The tiny jingle wouldn’t have registered in a crowded party, but inside these walls no night-traffic or city noises, not even the hum of a heater, intruded. To Christina’s ears, the clinks of her purse chain sounded like a tray of glasses breaking.

~Meet Anna!~ 

Anna lives with her quietly funny Canadian husband and two less quiet children in a century-old house in Seattle. The perpetual drizzle is a good excuse to drink more coffee. She’s a former US Army officer who now writes The Immortal Vikings series from Carina Press and also the author of His Road Home, a novella which Publishers Weekly called “Tantalizing … a raw, emotional story” and the website SmartB*tchesTrashyBooks gave an A rating.

She donates a portion of her book proceeds to two charities: the Fisher House Foundation, which provides housing for families of wounded soldiers in the US and Great Britain, and Doctors Without Borders, which delivers emergency medical care in more than sixty crisis zones world-wide.

To sign up for Anna's newsletter, find out more about her books, and read longer excerpts, please visit her website.

Anna will be awarding a set of En Route notecards, gorgeously illustrated by Kate Pocrass (because falling in love with an Immortal Viking is a wild journey!) to a randomly drawn winner (INTERNATIONAL) via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.

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