Cover Reveal for Breathe the Sky & Giveaway

It’s time, my lovely readers! I’m finally ready to reveal what my next book will be. People have been asking me to write a romance about my weird desert biology job for years, and I finally did it.

It’s called BREATHE THE SKY (which might be my favorite title yet) coming August 18, 2020 from Berkley-Penguin Random House, and also in audiobook from Penguin Audio. It has:

• A grouchy, foul-mouthed construction worker with a secret, cinnamon roll heart
• A nomadic wildlife biologist who lives in her truck and is on the run from her ex
• A whole lot of adorable saving-baby-animal scenes
• enemies to friends to lovers
• Two people who’ve both survived abuse and they’re so gentle with each other, oh my gosh I can’t even with them.

The last one makes it sound like the story’s really sad, but it so isn’t. I wrote this book for the sheer joy of it, to cheer myself up while on a job working a trillion hours a day, and IT SHOWS.

Ready for the gloriousness of the desert sunset cover that caused me to propose marriage to the whole of the Berkley art department?

I can’t get over how perfect it is. It captures that limitless sky feeling of the sunsets in the Mojave Desert, and features Jack’s classic but impeccably maintained green truck. Here’s what the book is about.

BREATHE THE SKY

Two strangers start out saving animals and end up rescuing each other in this heartwarming romance from the author of Unbreak Me. 

Mari Tucker is a wildlife biologist who scoops bunnies and endangered tortoises out of harm’s way on construction sites. Still haunted by her past, she takes the most remote jobs in the Mojave Desert to avoid people and hide from her ex. It’s a simple, quiet life filled with sweet animals and solar-powered baking until she ends up assigned to Jack Wyatt’s crew.

Construction foreman Jack Wyatt’s loud, foul-mouthed temper keeps even the most rugged of men on his crew in line. No mistake is overlooked, because out in the desert it could mean life or death. In his opinion, the job site is no place for sensitive biologists, especially one as shy as Mari. But instead of wilting from the heat and hard work, Mari wins over Jack and his crew one homemade brownie at a time.

Jack and Mari find a comfortable rhythm, building a friendship that’s rare for both of them. After Jack’s rocky childhood, they have more in common than they’d imagined. But even the Mojave sun can’t chase away the shadows when the past is determined to track them down…

Coming August 18, 2020 from Berkley Books

Save it on Goodreads, if you want to be sure to remember it when it comes out: https://bit.ly/2OWWkQe

or pre-order your copy now!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/34XeBTc
Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/34WqFEf
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2rYccZY

Excerpt:

“Oh!” a feminine voice said from behind him. “You found a tortoise!”

Jack turned with a scowl. “Wasn’t hurting him. Look, he’s fucking fine.” He gestured at the tortoise, sitting snugly in the shade and peering up at Jack as if he didn’t know enough to squeeze up into his shell and hide.

“I can see that,” Mari said in that gentle way she had. “But I could have moved him for you. That’s my job, after all.”

“Can carry my own goddamn turtle,” he grumbled.

Her lips twitched. “It’s just, they’re so rare anymore, you need a permit to handle them. And even if it’s an emergency and I’m not around, you need to use gloves.” She pulled a baggie of blue latex gloves out of her pack.

He looked at the tortoise, looked at his own grubby hands, all crisscrossed with old steel burns and stained black from messing with the forklift battery earlier. “You afraid I’m gonna get him dirty?” He gestured. “Little sucker lives in a hole in the ground. Probably doesn’t have a shower in there.”

Her face softened, and for a second, he thought she was going to laugh, but then she seemed to stop herself.

Heat crept up Jack’s collar. Why did she keep smiling when he talked? What the fuck was he saying that was so damn funny?

Pretty women were like that, though, always two steps ahead of you. So a man never had any idea what they were mad about or laughing about or looking so expectantly at you for.

“It’s for disease, actually,” she said. “You could be carrying all kinds of germs on your hands that might be fine for humans but affect tortoises. Or, without knowing it, you could have touched something out here that a diseased tortoise had already touched, and you might spread that disease. Tortoises were nearly wiped out from disease that we didn’t have a good understanding of until just a few years ago.”

“You telling me I need to use a turtle rubber?”

Her lips twitched. Trembled. And then she burst into laughter, so musical and unabashed that he saw a few of the crew’s heads turn their way. His skin flared a red as deep as a sunburn.

Mari pulled off her sunglasses and wiped her eyes with the back of one hand, still grinning.

He shifted from one foot to the other, his shoulders bunching as his skin crawled with shame. It wasn’t that stupid a thing to say. She was talking about preventing the spread of unintended disease and—

“You’re exactly right,” she said, stopping his defensive thoughts as another chuckle shook her slender chest. “I’ve never thought of it that way, and Lord, now I’m not going to be able to think of gloves as anything else.”

He hesitated, his toes curling and fidgeting in his boots as he tried to decide what to say. She wasn’t making fun of him; she really thought what he said was funny.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that. He’d sort of expected to be in trouble.

Seemed like, whenever he took a step outside the construction zone, the other bios were all up his butt about rare-plant this and fancy-ass-bird that, like his boots were the size of Nebraska and they’d crush everything for miles. But then the words Mari said earlier came drifting back.

Permit to handle.

Endangered species.

He frowned down at his boots. “Gonna write me up, aren’t you? For turtle grabbing.”

The smile tugged its way back onto her lips, her eyes warm before she slipped her sunglasses back on, hiding them from view. A pang echoed in his chest, and he rubbed absently at it. Probably he ought to quit this job before his stupid crew gave him a heart attack.

“I think it was consensual grabbing, considering you saved the tortoise from danger. There’s a Good Samaritan law for that, though it’s not usually applied on monitored sites. But Jack?”

He ticked his chin up in answer, trying not to think about how much he liked the sound of his first name in her voice.

A sly smile lit her face. “If you see another tortoise? No glove, no love.”

Praise for previous Michelle Hazen titles:

Amazon Best Books of the Month

Booklist Top 10 Best Books of 2019

Winners of the Lone Star, Great Expectations, and Southern Magic Awards

“Two trauma survivors find love and acceptance in Hazen’s warm and thoughtful contemporary multicultural romance. Hazen’s well-developed characters, soft and steamy love scenes, and exquisitely detailed settings makes this a winning love story.” -STARRED Booklist review

“Michelle’s writing is like dark chocolate mousse-rich, intense, flavorful, with just enough air to keep things light.” -Jill, Goodreads reviewer

“Michelle Hazen creates the best book boyfriends.” -CD, Amazon reviewer

“Hot! Hot! Hot! Michelle tackles many tough subjects with grace and honesty.” -Terri M, Goodreads reviewer

“Wow. Five stars isn’t enough for this amazing read! My words won’t do it any justice, so I won’t even try. LJ is what book boyfriends are made of—kind, beautiful, and swoony!” _Jessica R, Netgalley reviewer

“An unlikely pair take on their pasts together in this endearing contemporary tale of love through emotional hardship.” -STARRED Publisher’s Weekly review

“What starts as cooking lessons to ease the loneliness for both of them turns into a friendship with the potential to be more…A wonderfully inspiring read.”-Brandi A, Goodreads reviewer

“This book drew me in like the smell of fresh brewed coffee.” -JJ, Amazon review

“I couldn’t read fast enough. Hazen has the ability to wrap you up in her words and cause you to forget everything else in the world while you read her stories.” -Obsessive Book Nerd blog

Pre-orders:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/34XeBTc
Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/34WqFEf
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2rYccZY

Giveaway

As my thanks for coming to my virtual cover reveal party, please enter for a chance to win a $30 Amazon gift card, and an ebook of one of my other books, of your choice!
a Rafflecopter giveaway