Love Bytes is delighted and honored to reveal to you the brand new cover of Ariel Tachna’s new upcoming release “Service with a Smirk”.
Ariel tells us a bit about the book , shares an excerpt and brought a giveaway for our readers.
Welcome Ariel 🙂

First, thank you to Dani and the staff of Love Bytes for hosting my cover reveal today. I’m very excited to share it with everyone.

Service with a Smirk is the second published book in the At Your Service collection, but it was actually the story that led to the idea for the set in the first place. Pascal is based on a waiter in a lovely restaurant in Montréal, and as we ate dinner there for the second night in a week, we laughed about the idea of a group of writers coming in to the restaurant and flirting with the waiter. The story took on a life of its own from there.

LC Chase did an amazing job with the cover, keeping the style the same as the cover for At Your Service but placing it firmly in Montréal with its quirky old-town buildings. And of course the martini/cosmo glass that is such an integral part of the tale.

For anyone wondering, the only connection between Service with a Smirk and At Your Service is the theme of waiters and restaurants, specifically waiters and restaurants that have a special place in my heart.

ARE WE READY…. HERE WE GO !

 

Blurb:

 

Pascal Larocque, a waiter at a high-end Montréal restaurant, knows what it means to love—and he knows what it means to lose. He buried the man he expected to spend his life with years ago. He’s perfectly happy with his solitude, or so he tells his friends. But a chance encounter in a neighborhood bar followed by a run-in at his apartment building turns his world upside down.

 

Mathias Perras is twenty-four, newly arrived in Montréal, and works two jobs so he can live on rue Sainte-Catherine in the heart of the gay district. During the day, he’s on a fast track to management at the Banque de Montréal. At night, he waits tables at a gay bar down the street. He’s burning the candle at both ends, but it will be worth it when his career takes off and he has the life he’s always dreamed of. When he meets Pascal, one more piece of that dream slots into place. Pascal is everything he wants in a lover: older, self-assured, established in his life and his career. But Pascal doesn’t look at him twice. What’s a boy have to do to get a little action?

Dreamspinner Press Pre-Order links:

eBook

Paperback

 

 

“Welcome back,” Mathias said when Mystery Man took a seat. “Are you sticking with a martini tonight, or can I talk you into something more adventurous?”

Mystery Man smiled. “You’ve got a good memory. That’s a bonus in this business.”

“That sounds like experience talking,” Mathias said, hoping to keep the conversation going while things were quiet. He didn’t really expect a huge rush on a Tuesday evening, but he’d take what he could get now, just in case.

Mystery Man just laughed, a very nice, deep laugh, not too throaty or fake.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Mathias prompted when the laughter didn’t lead to a reply.

“Yes, it’s experience talking.” Mystery Man really had the nicest eyes, Mathias noticed. Blue-gray and dancing with merriment.

“What about the other question?” Mathias asked. “What am I bringing you to drink?”

Mystery Man contemplated that for a moment before his smile widened. “Surprise me.”

Mathias took that as a compliment. As hesitant as Mystery Man had been the last time he came in, Mathias decided not to go with anything too wild and crazy for a first try. Michel at the bar had been talking about a new drink he wanted to put on the menu with pear and elderflower. That ought to be something different enough to catch Mystery Man’s attention while not so over the top that Mathias would lose his interest because of it.

“Hé, Michel,” he called when he neared the bar. “I need one of your new drinks. I’ve got a customer wanting something new.”

Michel looked up from mixing the drink in his hands and glanced at the patrons in the bar. “Pascal is the only one who doesn’t have a drink. He always gets a vodka martini, neat.”

Mathias filed the name away for later. “He told me to surprise him this time. I thought your pear martini would be a little something extra without sending him running away screaming.”

Michel looked so surprised that Mathias wondered what he’d done wrong. “I don’t know how you got him to even think about anything other than his usual, but I’ll make the drink for you. Don’t blame me if he doesn’t like it.”

Mathias promised. Michel finished the drink he was working on and put together Mathias’s order. Mathias took it back to Pascal with no little trepidation. Sure, the man’s friends had teased him about being a stick-in-the-mud the last time they were in together, but Mathias hadn’t thought anything of it. Not really. Now, though, he wondered what he’d done to draw the other man out. Pascal hadn’t seemed at all impressed with Mathias’s usual shtick. He’d left a decent tip, but nothing extravagant, nothing to suggest Mathias had been at all memorable.

“Here you go,” Mathias said, setting the drink down in front of Pascal. “One surprise special.”

“Is that what it’s called?” Pascal’s voice betrayed his humor, and Mathias found himself wanting more. The man he was talking to now bore little resemblance to the dour person he had met the last time Pascal came in.

“No, but I want an honest opinion of it,” Mathias said. “I’ll tell you what’s in it after you tell me if you like it. It’s a new recipe Michel is trying, so it’s not on the menu yet. Adrien said he could try it on some customers to see if we should add it to the menu.”

Author bio:

When Ariel Tachna was twelve years old, she discovered two things: the French language and romance novels. Those two loves have defined her ever since. By the time she finished high school, she’d written four novels, none of which anyone would want to read now, featuring a young woman who was—you guessed it—bilingual. That girl was everything Ariel wanted to be at age twelve and wasn’t.

She now lives on the outskirts of Houston with her husband (who also speaks French), her kids (who understand French even when they’re too lazy to speak it back), and their two dogs (who steadfastly refuse to answer any French commands).

Visit Ariel:

Website: www.arieltachna.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ArielTachna

E-mail: arieltachna@gmail.com

 

Ariel graciously brought a copy of the first book in this series “At Your Service” to one Lucky winner

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