STRANGER ON THE SHORE is Available Now!

The newest story in the Mirabelle Harbor series is available in ebook and paperback now, and I'm so excited by this release!! For anyone who hasn't yet read the premise, here's the back-cover blurb:

On the verge of turning forty and having just lost her job, Marianna Gregory flees Mirabelle Harbor for the summer with little more than a suitcase, her beat-up car, and the blessings of her good friend Olivia Michaelsen. Her ex-husband is living a new life in California. Her college-aged daughter is spending her vacation with her boyfriend in Michigan. And the house Marianna once called her own finally sold, so she has nowhere to live in Illinois now anyway.

However, her wealthy sister Ellen owns an empty bungalow on the beach in Sarasota, Florida, so Marianna turns to the sea for a chance to go shelling, regroup, and figure out what to do with this new chapter in her life. She doesn’t bargain on having to face down several family crises while she’s away, nor does she count on meeting a handsome beachcomber who bears a striking resemblance to Elvis. Just as surprising is the craft project she gets roped into volunteering for and the new group of friends who might just change the way she views the world and her future.

The most unexpected gifts can be found where the land meets the sea. STRANGER ON THE SHORE, a Mirabelle Harbor story. 

**AVAILABLE NOW on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and Kobo in ebook form, and in paperback on Amazon and B&N!!

A few lovely reviewers have already said:
“The summer on the beach and the stranger on the shore is more than a shallow summer read. Though light with characters who keep you in stitches, as only Marilyn knows how to write about, each one adds her piece of blessing to the recipe for a wonderful story with a magical ending.” ~Blogging Under the Shade Tree

“I have fallen in love with Ms. Brant’s Mirabelle Harbor series, and its characters. #4 in the series, Stranger On the Shore, is no exception. A FUN. Sexy. Perfect Summer read. For the beach. Or just a lazy Summer day.” ~Brandy

“This one just makes me crave the beach.” ~Austen Coffee & Music

“Have thoroughly enjoyed the Mirabelle Harbor series and this story is no exception. Marilyn’s descriptive language makes you feel like you are at the beach feeling the sand between your toes…I highly recommend this story.” ~Deborah

"Sincere and emotionally charged. This wonderful story had me in its grip and transported me to the delightful Sarasota...The descriptiveness throughout the novel was mesmerizing and brilliant." ~Vee

“I have enjoyed every book so far, and I am looking forward to what’s to come next.” ~Gina Rose

**If you’d like to read an excerpt, I have one HERE and another one HERE.**
Hope you'll enjoy reading this book half as much as I enjoyed writing it!!

GOING FOR IT - Out Today!!

In this crossover novella between my contemporary romance series (Mirabelle Harbor) and my friend Erin Nicholas's contemporary romance series (Sapphire Falls), my characters Trevor and Tina Marie have a whirlwind love story...

This is one of the launch books for Erin's Sapphire Falls Kindle World, which means it's a digital-only release on Amazon, but it's a standalone novella that can be read independently of either series. And it was a lot of fun getting to take Trevor (who's one of Blake Michaelsen's friends from YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME) on a road trip to Nebraska, where he could finally meet the redhead of his dreams!

Here is the summary of GOING FOR IT:

Mirabelle Harbor meets Sapphire Falls...

Journalist Trevor Cayne is working on the biggest feature story of his career, and he’s on a road trip from his home in the lakeside Chicago suburb of Mirabelle Harbor to Colorado Springs to get the final details. But a quick stop to see his grandmother in Sapphire Falls threatens to derail his carefully constructed plans. Between Gram and her friends, the weather whims of Mother Nature, and the most stunning redhead he’s ever laid eyes on in his life, he may not make it further than the western edge of Nebraska.  

Aspiring singer-songwriter Tina Marie Moran has vowed to leave Sapphire Falls for Nashville after this week’s big fireworks—she’s not even waiting for the Annual Town Festival to come to an end. She’s put her music dreams on hold for long enough and has no intention of postponing her plans yet again, least of all for another potentially untrustworthy man. But between her loving but meddlesome relatives and friends, a broken heart that’s in desperate need of mending, and a handsome stranger who can play her body like a virtuoso lead guitarist, she may find herself engulfed in a new passion that’s as strong as her love of music.

When it comes to their creative lives, both Trevor and Tina Marie know all about GOING FOR IT—but are they willing to put that same drive into what just might be the love of a lifetime?

Hope you'll enjoy it!!!

KINDLE EXCLUSIVE! Buy it here:

You Give Love a Bad Name -- Out January 24th!!

I can't express how excited I am about this new release!! You Give Love a Bad Name, Book 3 in my Mirabelle Harbor contemporary romance series, will be available on January 24th, and it's up for pre-order on Amazon right now! (Kindle version is here and paperback is here.)

All of the books in the series can be enjoyed as standalone stories, and this one is no exception. Check out the back-cover details:

“Nothing but love, 24/7” is the slogan of Mirabelle Harbor’s only radio station, 102.5 “LOVE” FM. On the verge of turning thirty-five, local DJ Blake Michaelsen is well-known for several reasons: his very sexy on-air voice, his omnipresent family, his eligible bachelor status, and his reputation as one of the most impulsive men in Chicago’s northern suburbs. 

High-school French teacher and lifelong romantic Vicky Bernier is not at all wild about people who exhibit reckless conduct. (Blake.) Or men who have gigantic egos. (Blake.) Or grownups who still act like teenagers. (Blake, again.) She deals with enough adolescent behavior during the school day. Unfortunately, she’s the staff advisor to the Homecoming Committee, and they’ve chosen him as their DJ for the big fall dance. 

What happens when a man whose job it is to play love songs for a living is forced to admit his deepest secret—that he doesn’t believe in true love—only to discover that the one woman who might capture his heart is the same woman who distrusts him the most? 

No matter what you call it, with love there’s an exception to every rule. YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME, a Mirabelle Harbor story.

**I hope you'll all enjoy reading Blake and Vicky's romance as much as I enjoyed writing it! (And that you'll like meeting Blake's dog, Winston, too. ;) Here's a peek at a never-before-seen excerpt from the novel:

My friends and I settled our bill and stepped outside of The Lounge just as a ruckus was getting started next door at Max’s Pub.

“You asshole!” this dopey, burly, drunk guy screamed, ineffectively swinging at another drunk guy.

“You witless dickhead!” slurred the second guy. But that didn’t mask his identity. As soon as he spoke, I knew who it was. Everyone did.

“Isn’t that Blake Michaelsen?” Janet whispered.

“Yep,” I whispered back. I’d only seen him in person once before—at a big event at the radio station this summer—and it was, literally, across a crowded room. But Blake’s voice on 102.5 LOVE FM was one of the sexiest I’d ever heard. I listened to him on the radio all the time. And he was my friend Sharlene’s older brother, so I knew a few additional facts about him than I might have otherwise.

Like that he was impulsive.

And loud.

And kind of a manwhore.

Then again, he had a rep in town, so most women knew these things, too. It was just that Shar had actually confirmed them for me.

Blake landed a decent punch and sent the other guy stumbling. But Dopey Dude got back up.

Oh, boy.

Shar was going to be so pissed when she heard about this. And she would. Probably within three minutes or less. Gossip traveled at the speed of sound in Mirabelle Harbor.

There was more yelling between the men, along with a bunch of shouts from the sports-bar crowd surrounding them. It reminded me of the stupid hall fights I’d had the misfortune to have to try to break up at the high school. Dumb boy behavior at its finest. Guys who fought each other because they couldn’t rationally reason their way through a discussion. So foolish and immature. And, worse, so painful to the people who actually cared about these cretins.

Dopey Dude landed a crushing blow to Blake’s abdomen. He doubled over and fell to the pavement. Then the other guy started to seriously pummel Blake while the crowd alternately jeered, taunted, and screamed their encouragement.

I winced. Blake’s dark hair was matted against his forehead with sweat and, also, with some fresh blood. He had a gash across his cheekbones, dirt on his face and neck, and more blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

And he was devastatingly handsome, even then.

Although, with the angry eyes and the snarl on his lips, he looked like the poster child for one the French revolutionary insurgents in Les Misérables. If he decided to build a barricade, storm the Bastille, or lead the crowd in the first verse of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” I wouldn’t dare to stand in his way.

The fact that I couldn’t guess whether he’d be more like a hero or a terrorist in any uprising made me immediately uncomfortable, though. I hadn’t known he’d be like this. His sister could get a little fiery sometimes, but Shar had a marshmallow heart. Blake, by contrast, looked both self-destructive and vicious. Like he could quite effectively kill someone.

Finally, an officer came on the scene and broke up the fight. He ordered us all to leave, but I was rooted to the spot. I couldn’t take my eyes off Blake’s cut-up face. So many bruises, and he was even spitting blood.

Lisa nudged me. “Let’s go, Vicky.”

Before I could make my feet move, Blake looked up at me and our gazes collided. I kept imagining the shock Shar would feel if she saw her brother in this horribly battered, sweaty, and drunken state. She was very protective of her family. But nothing was going to protect Blake from the wrath of one massive hangover and the need for some serious first aid.

His eyes turned even darker and they narrowed dangerously as he continued to stare at me.

Christine tugged me away.

“They were like a couple of wasted jocks after a football game,” she observed on the drive home.

“I know. I was thinking the same thing. Like those boys that get into fights in the school cafeteria. With them, it’s all crazy levels of testosterone and impaired judgment, leading to damage of property and reckless endangerment of themselves and others. Imagine someone acting that way after being out of high school for fifteen years? It’s like they never got all the way through adolescence.”

Christine nodded. “Although I can’t say being a mature grownup all the time is a barrel of laughs.”

I smiled. “True. But anything is better than being forever seventeen.”

I remembered myself at seventeen and suppressed a shudder. That was one time of my life I’d never want to relive, and I had daily witness as to why in my classroom.

Though, if forced to be completely honest with myself, one of the main reasons I’d been drawn to teaching was to see if I could make high school a better experience for kids like me. For those quirky, quiet, culture-loving, rule-following bookworms who really wanted to learn. Not that I was so different now, really. It was just that, back then, I’d felt so alone. I hadn’t realized there might be others like me out there.

I said goodnight to Christine, went inside my apartment, and leaned against the door with a deep sigh. I should go to sleep, but I just couldn’t. All I’d be able to see behind my closed eyes would be Blake Michaelsen’s bloodied, infuriated face.