Sarcastically Yours, Jen

That Boy by Briar Black
Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Holiday, Romance, Women’s Fiction

Building an impossible tea farm in the Cheshire countryside was Sofia’s second chance. A way to prove herself. A fresh start. She knew it would be graft. She anticipated a degree of isolation. But with Christmas imminent and the farm failing, her thoughts have grown darker. She’s searching for something — an ineffable force to make this year the magical wonderland she always craves and never finds.

Yet with the farm failing there’s no time to fix her ailing social life. Sofia resigns herself to another lonely holiday.

Enter Matt.

Delaware Grange’s twenty-one-year-old assistant gamekeeper. Nice enough, a bit dopey.

As she hunkers down for winter, Sofia thinks she’s prepared for everything. Nothing could prepare her for Matt. For the abrupt awareness of him. For the way he’s far more capable than he seems. Thoughtful. Considerate. Quietly intelligent.

Way sexier than he appears.

Suddenly impossible to ignore.

But Matt isn’t what he seems. A darkness runs beneath Delaware Grange — insidious, creeping, buried deep.

Sofia was little more than a challenge, a box for Matt to check, an assignment to complete. Until he fell.

Hard.

Now all he sees is her. All he wants is her. And all he knows is she has no idea who he truly is. While Sofia fights her feelings in the face of forbidden fruit, and Matt wrestles with the reality of his true purpose on the estate, the pair fall into an intoxicating, passionate, volatile romance.

As winter deepens and Christmas closes in, two lonely souls struggle to find peace in each other, and trust becomes the most dangerous choice on the estate.

Falling for Matt threatens everything Sofia has worked so hard to build. Falling for Sofia might just be the making of Matt.

That Boy is a high-heat, secret-identity romance where desire, deception, and devotion collide in a snowy small-town Christmas.

While not required, it is highly suggested to read Nightshade before That Boy.

Author’s Note: Each novel in The Cheshire Set can be read as a standalone, but the following order avoids spoiling the reading experience of earlier books.

Recommended Reading Order for The Cheshire Set:

1. Bane
2. Nightshade
3. That Boy

Eve Was Framed, a prequel novella to Bane, isn’t strictly part of The Cheshire Set but is available for free download on the author’s website.

Excerpt:

This Sofia was a fucking fever dream.
I want more.
I want her.
Jogging to catch her up, I was trying to decide if I was brave enough to ask her to the Christmas barn dance when she stumbled. Yelped.
Vanished.
The earth just swallowed her whole.
“Sof?”
I ran. Skidded. Stopped myself just shy of the lip of an open grave.
“Fuck!”
Sofia lay in the earth, propped on her elbows, staring up at me with wide, sanguine eyes.
“Matty,” she whispered. “I fell in a grave.”
Then she giggled so hard I thought she’d hyperventilate.
My hands clutched my knees as I struggled to breathe through my own laughter. “You fell in a fucking grave.”
“Wait.” She sat up straighter. “Who died?”
“Oh god! Who died?”
We stared at each other.
But in the absence of any kind of answer, we both degenerated into laughter once more.
She struggled to her feet.
“Are you hurt?”
“My pride, perhaps.” She craned her neck, staring up the sheer cut of earth before her. “I fell in a fucking grave.”
“How will you get out?”
Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, fuck! How will I get out?”
“That’s what I…never mind, back up.”
“Huh?”
I made shooing motions with my hands. “To the back.”
She obliged. As soon as she’d made room, I dropped in after her.
“Oh! You came to rescue me.” She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. Pulled back. “Now. How will we get out?”
Dropping to one knee, I cupped my hands. “Foot.”
She stepped up into my clasped palms.
“Hold my shoulders.”
She clutched.
I stood. “Climb up me.”
“What?”
“Stand up straight. You won’t fall.”
After a second’s hesitation, she rose. I wavered with her, keeping her balanced.
“Other foot on my shoulder.”
She obliged.
“I’m going to push this foot up. When I do, pull yourself out.”
“I don’t think I can—”
I pushed. She rose. And had it not been so dark down there, I’d have got a full and glorious view of her knickers. As it was, I only caught another glimpse of her strappy suspenders and a teasing flicker of pale silk before she disappeared over the edge.
A moment later, Sofia’s face reappeared, hesitantly peering down at me.
“But how will you get out?”
“Stand back.”
She vanished.
I backed up as far as I could, ran at the opposite end, planted a foot against the wall, and used it to spring up, twisting, catching the next wall higher, then the opposite wall, finally sprawling on my side in the spongy grass.
All I could see was Sofia’s muddy boots.
Okay. So I didn’t stick the landing.
Now I’m filthy.
And fairly sure I pulled a hammy.
Suave, dude. So suave.
“Matty!” Sofia blinked at me. “You just flew out of a grave.”
I expected her to laugh. Instead, she raised a shaky finger, pointed it at me accusingly, and said, “You are a vampire!”

About the Author

Briar has been a professional copywriter for many years (far more than she cares to admit). She began her career working for large companies and agencies before realising she could do it all for herself. Now, she happily writes for businesses and entrepreneurs she’s passionate about and dreams of the day her fiction becomes popular enough for her to retreat into fictional worlds full-time. Growing up in Cheshire and falling in love with its countryside, small towns, and villages, she’s enjoyed creating a fictional world that reflects her own.

Links To That Boy

• Goodreads
• Amazon

Giveaway!!

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