Friday, May 23, 2014

Blog Tour: To Professor, With Love by Linda Kage



To Professor, With Love

Forbidden Men #2
By: Linda Kage

Blurb
Junior in college. Star athlete. Constant attention from the opposite sex.

On this campus, I’m worshiped. While seven hundred miles away, back in my hometown, I’m still trailer park trash, child of the town tramp, and older sibling to three kids who are counting on me to keep my shit together so I can take them away from the same crappy life I grew up in.

These two opposing sides of myself never mix until one person gets a glimpse of the true me. I never expected to connect with anyone like this or want more beyond one night. This may be the real deal.

Problem is, Dr. Kavanagh’s my literature professor.

If I start anything with a teacher and we’re caught together, I might as well kiss my entire future goodbye, as well as my family’s, and especially Dr. Kavanagh’s. Except sometimes love is worth risking everything. Or at least, it damn well better be because I can only resist so much.

-N. G.-


5 Star Review by Jen Skewes

I loved this book!!  To Professor With Love is a story of forbidden love.  I loved every minute of it from start to finish.  Noel and Aspen completely captured my heart, especially Noel.

Noel is in his junior year of college and is the star quarterback.  Upon first meeting him he seems exactly how you would expect him to be. A cocky, arrogant football star who can be a bit of an ass. Growing up Noel was considered to be nothing more that trailer trash.   He was known as the son of a whore and complete trash.  But here in school he is considered a king.  The school loves him for his football skills and the ladies love him for his good looks.  But beneath the cockiness is a young man who is trying his best to survive and make a life for him and his family.  He works hard at football and school and works his ass off so that he can send money home to his three siblings.  He needs to take care of them because their mother sure as hell doesn’t.  His mother has never been around and it is his job to provide for them as much as he can.  Noel loves his siblings and will do anything to help them and protect them.  But Noel has also never experienced love.  Yes he loves his siblings and they love him but he doesn’t really know what it is like to be loved and cared for.  Until he meets Aspen and that just changes everything.  But what happens when the one person that you let in, that owns your heart is one person that is forbidden.

Aspen is 23 years old and teaches at the college that Noel attends.  She is very young to have her doctorate but her parents pushed her to be the best she can be.  Most people would look at Aspen and think she has a great childhood, two parents who provided for her in every way that she needed.  And while that may be true, her parents never gave her the one thing that she was craving, their love and affection.  Aspen’s parents never said they love her, never shows her any affection.  She has never known what it feels like to be loved, until she meets Noel Gamble.

Noel is in one of Aspen’s classes and when she first meets him she thinks he is nothing more than the typical jock.  She despises him, but the feeling is mutual. When she meets Noel she feels like she is in high school all over again.  An incident from her past, which involved a football player in high school has scarred her and as a result when she looks at Noel, she sees the same person who hurt her.   When Aspen is told that she basically needs to make sure that Noel passes her class, she is forced to give him a second chance at the assignment that she just gave him a “D” on.  It is that assignment where Aspen realizes that she completely misjudged Noel in so many ways.  She sees him for the person that he truly is.  She begins to see his struggle, learns about his past and his siblings that he is trying so hard to take care of.  As they start spending some time together they both see how wrong their first impressions of each other really were.  They also begin to realize that they both want more than a teacher/student relationship.  And they also want to be more than just friends.  But being together comes with risks that neither one of them can afford to take.  Is love worth risking it all?

Noel is just amazing in every way.  I loved seeing the real person behind the football star façade.  He was sweet, loving, caring and just adorable.  He completely melted my heart.  He opened up to Aspen in ways that he has never opened up to anyone.  I loved his persistence and how much he fought for their love.  Aspen was a wonderful heroine.  I honestly felt so sorry for her and the way her parents treated her.  She was forced to grow up so quickly with all the pressure that her parents put on her to succeed.  She was only 23 years old and while she tried to be this hard ass professor in the classroom behind it was a sweet 23 year old girl who I think needed to live a little.  Noel helped her with that, he showed her how to be a little more carefree and took her places anklet her experience things that most kids her age have already done, like going to a carnival.  Noel also gave her the love and affection that she so needed.  He was there for her and just wanted to take care of her.  You felt the attraction, the sexual tension and also the love between these two.  I wanted so much for them to find a way to be together without the consequences.  When they were together especially that very first time when they finally gave into their feelings it so was intense and explosive. 

I cannot say enough about this book and how much I loved it.  It was sweet and sexy.  I laughed, I cried and and even held my breath a few times.  There was enough drama and angst to keep you on the edge of your seat.  It was freaking Fantastic!!!  And I am a sucker for an epilogue and this one was pure perfection!!  Left me smiling.  

Just a side note if you have not read book 1, Price of a Kiss yet then you must read that one as well.  They can be read as a stand alone but you do not want to miss out on Mason and Reese's story.  It was the first book that I read by Linda Kage and was one of my top reads of last year.  I loved that we still got to see them in Professor and that Ms. Kage introduced us to new characters that I just loved, especially Pick.  Cannot wait for his book.  


Excerpt #1

I’d been stood up. I hadn’t talked to Philip since the day before when we’d revised our plans, but I figured we were still on.
Oh, how wrong I was.
But I was already here, so I stayed and kept looking for him. I didn’t want to become a lame loser and go home alone in the nicest, sexiest dress I owned to sulk on the couch as I ate bon-bons and watched reruns of my one true love, Damon, on The Vampire Diaries. I wanted my damn date to show.
So, here I wandered through clusters of partying friends, feeling alone and abandoned. Uncomfortable to find myself surrounded by so many college students, I wondered why Philip had even chosen this place. Wouldn’t he want a break from this crowd?
Thank God, no one had recognized me as their English professor yet, but I’d certainly recognized a few of them. Or maybe I should say no one recognized me until I finally approached the bar after searching the place for Philip for the past forty-five minutes.
But as one of my student’s eyes widened in shock and he uttered, “Dr. Kavanagh?” I gaped back at the football star, deciding Joseph Conrad had been a genius when he’d written Heart of Darkness and coined the phrase, The horror, the horror! Because that was exactly how I felt. Absolutely horrified.
Number one way to make my night a living hell: toss Noel Gamble into the mix while I was being stood up on a date.
I moaned out a little whimper under my breath, wondering what I’d ever done to karma to make it kick me in the tits like this. If Philip showed up now, I’d never be able to concentrate on him because Noel looked incredible in that tight black shirt. And his bulky arms were so...
Oh, yum.
Why did he have to work here of all places?
Clearing my throat, I straightened my shoulders and tried to pretend it was perfectly normal for me to be here, wearing the most-revealing clothes I owned, and relishing some potent alcohol to ease my mangled nerves.
“Y-yes. I...I’ll take a Bud Light Lime.” There. That had sounded good...enough. Normal, average woman ordering a drink from a normal average bartender...who just so happened to star in all the dirty dreams I’d had this past week.
He gaped at me a second longer, then shook his head and dully repeated, “Bud Light Lime,” as if he was a recorder. But as soon as the words seemed to soak into his brain, he wrinkled his brow and snorted. “A Bud Light Lime? Really?”
“What?” I frowned, curious about the venom in his voice.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought you’d be more the type to order a blushing champagne in a fluted glass.” He fluttered his eyelashes to complete his mockery.
His contempt shocked me. I would’ve thought he’d despise me a lot less by now. I’d finally given him an A. I’d assured him I would keep his secret. I’d even pretended not to notice when he’d almost kissed me. It hurt to realize he still thought of me as the bitch of the century.
“Well, I’m not,” I mumbled, trying to hide the pain. “May I have a Bud Light Lime or do I need to go somewhere else for a drink?”
“No, no need to go. I can hook you up.” A smirk twisted his lips, and his eyes went hard. “I.D. please.”
When he held out his hand, I gaped at his extended palm. “You’re kidding me?”
His expression glittered with evil relish as he slowly shook his head. “No, ma’am. I am not. Underage drinking is serious business, and we here at Forbidden don't allow that kind of activity.”
Muttering under my breath, I snapped open the clasp on my purse and began to dig around. “You’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you, Gamble?” I ripped my driver’s license free and thrust it his way.
“You have no idea,” he murmured as he slipped the plastic from my fingers before lowering his gaze. A second later, his eyebrows crinkled. “Aspen, huh?”
Folding my arms over my chest, I scowled. “That’s right. What about it?”
Noel shook his head. “Nothing. I just didn’t know your first name.”
I ground my teeth and held out my hand. “May I have my ID back, now? Noel?”
He pulled it away from me and shook his head. “Hold on. I still need to check your age.” When his gaze flickered to my birth date, his jaw dropped open. “Holy shit, you’re only twenty-three?” His face zipped up. “How the hell do you have a PhD at twenty-three?”
I sighed and flicked some hair out of my eyes impatiently. “Let’s see. I graduated high school at fifteen, earned my bachelor’s degree at eighteen, my masters at twenty, and I received my doctorate at the top of my class last year. Add that up, and that makes me...what do you know, twenty-three.”
Shaking his head slowly back and forth, he gawked. “Well, shit. Graduated high school at fifteen? Fuck, I should’ve known you were one of those freaky girl geniuses.” Then he hissed a derisive snort.
“I’m also thirsty.” I leaned forward and yanked my driver’s license from his hand. “How about that drink now?”
“Sure, Professor.” His voice was contemptuous as he turned away and sauntered off. I glared after him, upset to realize everything I thought we’d shared yesterday must’ve been nothing but a figment of my imagination. And yet I wasn’t quite upset enough not to ogle his tight ass in those blue jeans.
Seriously. Wow.
Forcing myself to look away, I opened my purse and pretended to dig around, though I’d already had my money ready to pay before I’d even seen who was behind the counter.
“Here.” His voice was none too polite as he clunked an open bottle on the counter before me.
“Thank you.” I gave a regal nod and took a tentative sip.
He stayed in front of me after I paid, watching me drink. His stance brooded as if he couldn’t wait for me to leave, but his eyes...oh God, his eyes.

Growing warm under his direct stare, I motioned around us, hoping to say something that would at least get him to look away, because his captivated attention on me was making the insides of my thighs tingle. A slow burn spread from the pit of my stomach and out to the tips of my toes.



Buy Links
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Author Info
Linda grew up on a dairy farm in the Midwest as the youngest of eight children. Now she lives in Kansas with her husband, toddler daughter, and their nine cuckoo clocks. She works a day job in the acquisitions department of a university library and feels her life has been blessed with lots of people to learn from and love. Writing's always been a major part her world, and she's thrilled to finally share some of her stories with other romance lovers.
You can find Linda on the web at:

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