Guest Post, Excerpt, and Giveaway: Liar, Liar by TA Moore

We’re so pleased to welcome author TA Moore today on the tour for her latest release, Liar, Liar. We’ve got a teaser from the book to share with you, and there’s also the chance to win a $20 Dreamspinner Press store credit, so be sure to check out those details below.

Welcome, TA!

I have always aspired to amorality. Unfortunately, the evidence of a lifetime suggests that I just don’t have it in me. Unlike Jacob, I’m an awful liar and a premature confessor. So it was fun, for Liar, Liar, to put on the skin of professional fibber Jacob Archer. He might not be a stranger to the truth, but he does hide around corners from it a lot.

It was a lot of fun to write, although he’d admit it’s a pretty exhausting way to live!

Anyhow, I hope you give Liar, Liar a go! I enjoyed writing it, and I think people will enjoy reading it. To whet your appetite, here’s an exclusive glimpse at the characters just before the start of the book.

Check HERE to find the other extracts.

About the Book

Title: Liar, Liar
Author: TA Moore
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Anne Cain
Genre: Romantic Thriller
Release Date: 12 May 2017
Buy the Book: Amazon || Dreamspinner
Blurb: Just another day at the office.

For some people that means spreadsheets, and for others it’s stitching endless hems. For Jacob Archer a day at the office is stealing proprietary information from a bioengineering firm for a paranoid software billionaire. He’s a liar and a thief, parlaying a glib tongue and a facile conscience into a lucrative career. He just has one rule—never get involved with a mark.

Well, had one rule. To be fair, though, Simon Ramsey is dark, dangerous, and has shoulders like a Greek statue. Besides, it’s not as though Jacob’s even really stealing from Simon… just his boss and his brother-in-law. Simon didn’t buy that excuse either after he caught Jacob breaking into the company’s computer network.

That would have been that—one messy breakup, one ticket to Bali booked—but it turns out that the stolen information is worth more than Jacob thought. With his life—and his ribs—threatened, Jacob needs Simon to help him out. Or maybe he just needs Simon.

The Excerpt

It took a couple of hours to rub the rough off Simon’s nerves, and for the sweaty dancers to look good instead of like a threat assessment. By that point Dev was six beers to maudlin and ready to leave. Since the his temper would be back by the time he got anyone home, Simon shrugged the temptation off. He hooked Dev’s arm over his shoulder and walked them both outside, sliding between the press of bodies with the ease of big blokes that can look nasty.

‘I can take a cab,’ Dev protested as Simon called the car service. ‘I’m not fucking Jobs. I can still take a cab.’

‘Humour me.’

Dev rolled his eyes, but waited to get poured into the town car. He stretched back out and thumped Simon’s ribs. ‘Come on. Tell Callie I was the life and soul.’

It wouldn’t have been the first Simon crashed on Dev’s couch. Not today though, he needed to walk off the empty adrenaline hangover. He pushed Dev back into the car. ‘Not this time.’

Dev gave in, sprawling over the leather seats. ‘I’ll see you Monday.’Once the car was gone, Simon started walking. His long legs ate up the scuffed pavement, sweat itching down his spine as the heat got to him. It was a muggy heat, that smelled of hot tarmac and concrete – not dust and sand. He walked until he heard the music and shouting of Riverside drifting up over the banks, strung lights glittering against the darkness. Reversing course, he had spent his allotment of tolerance for bodies around tonight, he kept walking.

Eventually he’d get a cab and head home, but there was no rush. Three blind turns later, on a street of narrow, age-worn red brick buildings, he heard the familiar thud and scuffle of dirty work from an alley.

‘Fucking queer fucker.’ A rough voice grunted out the unimaginative expletives, punctuated by the distinctive sound of a boot leather connecting with flesh-covered bone. Another voice laughed, the sound nasal and nervous.

Two. At least two. He pulled his wallet out of his jacket and stuck it into the back pocket of his jeans, striding towards the alley.

It would probably have been good practice to yell and try to scare the thugs off without any violence. Simon could – vaguely – remember a time when he’d have done that himself. Fuck it, some people didn’t deserve to avoid a broken nose.

He stepped into the alley – three men, he registered and adapted – and grabbed the kicker by the back of his jacket, hooking his other foot around the man’s ankle. Already off balance, one foot raised for another kick, the man went down on his ass. He was big, all fleshy muscle and angry, ham-pink skin, and he might have been dangerous to someone not already on the ground. Just in case, Simon drove his foot into the man’s gut. All the red colour drained from the man’s face and he wheezed wetly for air as Simon stepped over him.

The braver of the two remaining thugs – looking out of place in his navy jeans and a collared t-shirt – threw a punch at Simon’s head. He swayed out of the way, grabbed the wrist on his way past his ear, and popped the elbow out of true. The man screamed like a hurt dog, eyes stunned and shocky, and the last man – scruffy and nondescript in his rat-faced meanness – lunged at Simon. Something thin and metallic glinted in his hand. Simon used yuppie’s broken arm to swing him around, fouling rat-face as they stumbled into each other.

Shoving his friend roughly out of the way, rat face wove the knife in front of him as he went for Simon. A bit of skill. Enough to gash the back of Simon’s hand, opening a hot, wet line from knuckle to wrist.

Simon flicked the blood from his knuckles. In an odd way, he liked the pain. It was a relief, for once, to have something to do with the triggered fight or flight reaction. Rat-face jabbed twice. Simon blocked him, then drove the heel of his hand into the man’s face. His nose crumpled with a spurt of blood and a sound like breaking plastic.

‘Watch out!’ someone yelled.

Simon turned on his heel. The first man was back on his feet, sick clotting around his lips and his hands clenched into big, clumsy fists.

‘Gonna-’

Before he could get out the rest of the sentence, the man they’d been whaling on staggered to his feet and broke an empty beer bottle against the back of his attacker’s head. Bloody glass scattered the ground, and the man went down like he’d been pole-axed. Blood gushed from the open wound on his scalp – tight skin peeling back from his skull – and the fight went out of his mates. They ran for it, yuppie huddled over his ruined arm, leaving their friend on the ground.

Simon wiped his knuckles on his shirt and glanced at the other man, giving him a quick once over. He had scruffy blond hair and the sort of angular lines that made it look like God had spent a long time on his skeleton and didn’t want to hide it under skin. Good looking, but in the sort of way that wouldn’t grab attention if he wasn’t bloody and bruising. Nothing that merited the hot rush of lust tightening Simon’s balls and making his breath hot and eager in his throat – so that was probably more down to the after-wash of the fight.

‘You ok?’ he managed to rasp, trying to swallow the heat in his throat.

That got him a snort and a scathing look out of pale eyes. ‘Brilliant,’ the man snarked. ‘There’s nothing like a bracing beating to wind up the evening. I just-’ He stopped and scrubbed his hand over his face, grimacing an apology out between his fingers. ‘Sorry. I’m being an asshole. You stopped it being a lot worse. Thanks. Jacob.’

He stuck his hand out, long and elegant with big knuckles and a dirt under the neatly trimmed nails. Simon hesitated – he didn’t shake hands, but he wanted to know what Jacob’s skin felt like. Warm – probably running a bit hotter than usual – and with the rub of new calluses across his fingertips and palm. Against Simon’s fingertips, his pulse was a fear-driven stutter.

‘Simon.’

Instead of letting go, Jacob tightened his fingers slightly. Pale eyes glanced down at their hands and then up. The colour was nondescript in the dim light, but Simon could see the question in them.

‘Look, I don’t particularly want to go through this with the cops,’ Jacob said. His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, raising his eyebrows. ‘So maybe we should just get out of here

Maybe it was the fight – or the leftover lust from the bar – but somehow it seemed like a good idea to say ‘yes’.

It was obvious that Jacob didn’t want anything more from Simon than he could give. A thank you fuck, a one-night stand, and a mug of coffee in the morning.

The Teaser Trailer

About the Author

TA Moore genuinely believed that she was a Cabbage Patch Kid when she was a small child. This was the start of a lifelong attachment to the weird and fantastic. These days she lives in a market town on the Northern Irish coast and her friends have a rule that she can only send them three weird and disturbing links a month (although she still holds that a DIY penis bifurcation guide is interesting, not disturbing). She believes that adding ‘in space!’ to anything makes it at least 40% cooler, will try to pet pretty much any animal she meets (this includes snakes, excludes bugs), and once lied to her friend that she had climbed all the way up to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, when actually she’d only gotten to the beach, realized it was really high, and chickened out.

She aspires to being a cynical misanthrope, but is unfortunately held back by a sunny disposition and an inability to be mean to strangers. If TA Moore is mean to you, that means you’re friends now.

Website || Facebook || Twitter: @tammy_moore

The Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway
https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js