A LITTLE TOO HOT Character Week--Sam (and win signed books!)

It's A LITTLE TOO HOT release week, which means another Character Week here on the blog! Before we start, though, just a reminder that today is the LAST DAY to pre-order ALTH and earn a BONUS CHAPTER from Harrison's POV. This bonus chapter is only available to those who pre-order and fill out this form for your download code by today. Here's what Katy Evans, NYT bestselling author of REAL said about the bonus content:

"I just read the extra chapter for A LITTLE TOO HOT! @LisaDez are you trying to kill me? I'm still aflutter! Harrison's so sexy!"

Don't miss out on Harrison HEAT!

Also, enter below to win signed books from the authors who blurbed ALTH, including REAL, MINE and REMY by Katy Evans, RULE, JET and ROME by Jay Crownover, and FOREPLAY by Sophie Jordan.

So, we kick ALTH Character Week off with my lovely, yet somewhat misguided heroine, Samantha West. A LITTLE TOO HOT is totally stand alone, and there is no need to read A LITTLE TOO FAR first, but if you did, you might remember Sam. She was Lexie's best friend who was totally lusting on Lexie's stepbrother, Trent. Some of you loved to hate her in A LITTLE TOO FAR, for good reason. Sam was crazy for Trent, and what Lexie couldn't tell her best friend was that she was secretly in love with Trent, so Lexie had to stand by and watch Trent date Sam...which nearly killed her.

Here's what some lovely blog reviewers had to say about that after reading A LITTLE TOO HOT:

"I thought I knew [Sam's] character and personality after reading about her in book 1, but it turns out I didn't know a thing! She's feisty, resilient, and street smart." --Forever Me Romance

"I've got to be honest and say that I didn't like Sam at all in the first book. In fact, I thought she was a calculating, callous, boy crazy bitch. My opinion soon changed upon being able to see events from her point of view." --Book Angel Emma

"The side of Sam we got in A LITTLE TOO FAR was the bratty, best friend side, which doesn't to Sam any justice at all! The Sam I got to know in this book was so much more--determined, feisty, sensual and sweet." --Bittersweet Book Love

So, why the "boy crazy" brattiness in A LITTLE TOO FAR? I'll let Sam explain that to you...

I sit and force my fingers to stop fidgeting with the clip of my garter belt.

“So, no boyfriend?” Harrison asks, and there’s an intensity to the question that unnerves me a little.

“No boyfriend. I’ve really only ever had one.” Oh my God. Why did I just tell him that?

“Me too. That is … one girlfriend,” he clarifies.

“Your fiancée?”

He nods. “How long ago? Your boyfriend, I mean.”

“We broke up a year ago.”

“Were you together long?”

I shake my head. “We were dating for about eight months, but it was long distance.” I don’t tell him the whole time we were together, Trent was in love with someone else, because that just makes me sound pathetic.

“How did you meet?” he asks.

“He untangled his stepsister’s kite string from my braces,” I say, tapping my lips with my finger.

His gaze sticks for a second on my mouth before he lifts it to my eyes. “Braces … ” he says with a tip of his head. “How old where you when you met?”

“Fourteen.”

“So, you knew him for a while before you dated.”

“You could say that.”

He looks at me curiously for a long beat. “There’s a story there.”

I blow out a sigh. “A long and extremely pathetic one.”

“I’m listening.” He settles deeper into the cushions and drapes an arm over the back of the sofa.

I just look at him for a second, trying to gauge if he’s messing with me or if he’s really interested. His liquid gaze is deep and his expression soft but intent. I tip my head back against the sofa and stare at the ceiling. “I was totally in love with him all through high school, and I held out for him for five years, even when he didn’t show any interest, because no one else measured up. So, yeah. I knew him for a while.”

“After all that time, you finally got your man. What happened?”

“He was in love with my best friend … who also happens to be his stepsister.”

There’s a long silence, and I lift my head, but I can’t bring myself to look at him as I tell him things I’ve never said out loud before. “He was practicing with his band in Lexie’s garage, and we were in the driveway flying her kite, but the wind gusted and it did this loop, and the string got caught in my braces. Lexie yanked, I screamed, and when the guys came out of the garage to see what was up, they all started laughing. But not Trent. He came over and got me untangled. And he told the guys to cut the shit when they started calling me Jaws and asking if I got good reception.”

I remember it so clearly.

Hold still, he’d said. He grasped my chin gently and leaned in to examine my mouth. He was a little sweaty from jamming with the guys, and I remember thinking I should think that was gross. But I didn’t. It was the opposite of gross. I’d crushed on a few guys in junior high, but I never remember my heart racing the way it did with Trent so close. He’d unhooked me from the kite, and when he let me go, he smiled this incredible sideways smile and said, Good to go, and that was it.

I sigh and sink deeper onto the cushions. “I fell in love with him right that second. But even though I was under his nose all the time, he never thought of me as anything but his stepsister’s best friend, so, for five years, I pined.”

The heart wants what the heart wants, even if it (he) doesn't want you back. When Sam loses Trent to Lexie, she feels betrayed by both of them. Her best friend and boyfriend have chosen each other over her, and it stings. So she acts out, first by burning bridges with her best friend, then by drowning her sorrows in alcohol. She makes some new friends, the best of whom is lead man for a local band, and the real partying starts...which eventually gets her thrown out of college. A LITTLE TOO HOT is the story of Sam trying to finding herself again after being totally adrift. Unfortunately for her, this involves a little more chaos than she'd anticipated...especially when a certain hero enters the picture.

Enter here for SIGNED BOOKS and check in tomorrow for Harrison's story!

a Rafflecopter giveaway