Shut Up and Kiss Me [Kindle Edition]

Christie Craig (Author)

Book Description

Live...Laugh...Read...with New York Times-bestselling author Christie Craig....

"Quirky, Touching and Fun!" -- New York Times Bestselling Author Susan Andersen

Welcome to Precious, Texas, where fistfights serve as dinner theater and fire ants rain from the sky. The locals are very friendly, if a bit eccentric. No pictures please, or you may find yourself a guest of the county morgue.

Photojournalist Shala Winters already had her hands full bringing tourism to this backward, podunk town, but her job just got tougher. Pictures can say a thousand words, and one of Shala's is screaming bloody murder. Now she has to entrust a macho, infuriating lawman with her life -- but she'll never trust him with her heart.

Trusted or not, Sky Gomez isn't about to let a killer get his hands on Shala's Nikon -- or any of her more comely assets, for that matter. Her mouth might move faster than a Piney Woods roadrunner, but all he can think about is how good it must taste...and how she'll never escape true love.

Bonus Content:

At the end of the book, get a sneak peek at Christie Craig's newest contemporary romance, BLAME IT ON TEXAS, now available from Forever Books!

Read on for a preview of her recent release, MURDER, MAYHEM AND MAMA, available now in paperback and ebook!

AND as an added bonus, you'll also get a look at the first EIGHT chapters of BORN AT MIDNIGHT, the first book in the New York Time-bestselling YA paranormal series, Shadow Falls, that Christie is writing as C. C. Hunter!! BORN AT MIDNIGHT, AWAKE AT DAWN, TAKEN AT DUSK and WHISPERS AT MOONRISE are currently available from St. Martin's Griffin wherever books are sold. CHOSEN AT NIGHTFALL releases on April 23rd!!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Craig (Divorced, Desperate and Deceived) turns her latest smalltown romance into a delightful comedy of errors. Hired by the mayor of Precious, Tex., to do a PR shoot that will draw visitors to the tiny town, photojournalist Shala Winters dodges burglars, would-be assassins, and vandals while tangling with sexy police chief Sky Gomez, who doesn't want her taking pictures of Native American rituals and turning Precious into a tourist trap. Sky doesn't believe in soul mates, though his foster father has prophetic dreams of Sky and Shala together. Shala, orphaned and divorced, is wary of men and furiously defensive of her independence. Many of Precious's standoffish, quirky, nosy residents are of Native American descent, but the culture feels like an afterthought; Craig stays focused on playfulness and sexual tension, and hits all the high notes en route to happily ever after. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When Mayor Johnson and the tribal council of the small town of Precious, Texas, calls on photojournalist Shala Winters to produce some positive publicity to increase their tourism, she packs up her $8,000 camera and heads straight there. Unfortunately, when she attends a Native American ceremony, her camera is confiscated by Sky Gomez, the most handsome of the dancers. Shala has to retrieve her camera, her livelihood depends on it, but Sky, who's also the sheriff, isn't the only one keeping it from her. It seems that Shala has taken a photograph of something she shouldn't have, and someone's willing to kill her to keep the picture from seeing the light of day. To top everything off, not everyone in Precious is onboard with the plan to increase tourism, and they're making sure Shala knows where they stand. Entertaining Craig shows that both love and danger can pop up when you least expect them, and her breezy style and spunky heroine won't fail to delight readers. --Shelley Mosley

Product Details

• File Size: 724 KB
• Print Length: 320 pages
• Publisher: Love Spell (July 25, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005EMLDLY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,917 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Sky's The Limit June 3, 2010

By J. Legacy

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Shut Up and Kiss Me centers on the small town of Precious Texas - but for many of the characters in this largely Native American/Hispanic town - it was anything but "precious". This book started out hilarious and within the first 6 pages had me grinning from ear to ear like a mad fool at some of the antics the characters had to endure especially poor Jose, who was one of many memorable secondary characters. He seemed to be on the receiving end of the funny (or not) torture dished out by the author upon her poor unsuspecting characters. Rushing home to Precious after his father Redfoot sustains a nasty head injury, poor Jose had a car crash, fire ants making a picnic out of his family jewels and then being sprayed by a skunk and that wasn't even half of what he had to endure on his first night back in his not so precious home town (his character must have seriously pissed Craig off while she was writing this book LOL!). Hopefully Jose merits his own story in a future installment about the citizens of Precious because I can't wait to see what additional torture Craig cooks up for him.

Shala Winters just wanted to do the job she was hired to do by the Mayor of Precious; take pictures that showcase the town and prepare a marketing campaign to turn this little town into a Texas tourist attraction. She hasn't been in town a day when her very expensive Nikon camera gets confiscated at the local Indian Pow-Wow by a headdress-wearing, loincloth sporting, hard-bodied, oiled-up bare-chested Adonis who makes her girl parts tingle. So Shala may have broken the strict "NO Picture" policy by not handing over her camera (heeelllo? it's worth $8,000) before attending the ceremony, but she didn't take the flash picture she's been accused of taking. And she certainly can't do her job if the pig-headed, hotter-than-a-firecracker thief won't give her back her camera for a week.

Sky Gomez *sigh*. Yes you may be surprised to learn that Sky is the name of the MALE lead character in Shut up and Kiss Me. Even though it's an unusual name for a man, it actually fits him and don't let his name fool you or deter you from picking up this book to read because he's all man. Sky doesn't believe all the mumbo-jumbo soul-mate crap his foster father Redfoot saw in a dream and has been spewing lately (mmmm wonder who that soul-mate might be?), but when he spies the blond in the crowd at the Pow-Wow, her camera in hand and then an incriminating flash, he senses that trouble is just beginning with the newest addition in Precious. And taking her camera hostage (even if he does believe she may not have been the culprit snapping a photo), he can't help getting a rise out of Shala because teasing her is just too damn much fun.

Who knew one little camera and it's potentially incriminating contents could cause so much havoc in this Precious town. A chain reaction of events puts Shala's life in danger and working together, Sky and Shala attempt to uncover why someone is so hot-to-trot to get their hands on Shala's camera bad enough that they are willing to kill for it.

Sky and Shala had such a fun, sexy relationship and sizzle-worthy hot romance. These two are by far the stars of the show, but the supporting characters are really well developed and contribute greatly to the overall story. You can't help but be captivated by Redfoot, Jose and Maria as well as the secretive best friend Lucas (who I hope gets his own story too!).

Shut up and Kiss Me is the perfect blend of a highly entertaining, funny yet suspenseful romance and if this book isn't on your TBR pile than you are missing out. Shut Up...and go buy this book!

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars So-So Read at Best April 10, 2012

By Dianne E. Socci-Tetro TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

With many story lines going at one time, this ends up being a confusing read. Yes it is light and fluffy, but a reader shouldn't need a score card to keep straight what story belongs to whom.

When we meet the protagonists it is just after Shala who is trying to help the mayor of the city of Precious Texas encourage more tourism. Shala has gone to a Pow-wow and instead of leaving her extremely expensive camera at the door to possibly get stolen, she takes it with her but does NOT take any pictures. That is against the rules. At the end of the Pow-Wow someone near her takes a picture and Shala is blamed and her camera is taken by Sky, the police Chief and a member of the Pow-Wow. There is a lot of stupid innuendo as to how if she pretty much begs at the end of the week (that is how long they confiscate the camera) and offers to shine Sky's boots she may get her camera back.

Right her is where I would have normally stopped reading and just trashed this book. But I had loved some of Ms Craig's other books and decided to keep going. I'm sorry I did as it wasted hours of my time that I could have spent reading something that didn't make my blood boil. I never realized that I could get so incensed by a man belittling (even in jest) a woman like that. I pout up with it in my historical romance because it is expected that they aren't writing about the 21st century. But upset I was. Yes it is fiction and just a story, but I had expected better from this author.

There is an ongoing joke about mustard and how it is good for b urns...it wasn't cute or funny.

And of course there has to be an ongoing investigation that forces Sky and Shala into closeness. The relationship felt forced and false, the adding of danger, was at best confusing at worst silly. The secondary and tertiary stories were actually more interesting than the main plot. The narrative was OK and the characterizations were just so-so. The best thing about this book was the price.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fun Romp With a Bit of a Bite June 23, 2010

By Tracy TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Shala Winters was hired by the mayor of the small town of Precious, Texas to create and launch a PR campaign to draw some tourism to his struggling town, but there's no way she would've guessed that there was so little precious about Precious. Within the first twenty-four hours of being within the town's limits, Shala has had her lunch stolen and her leg amorously assaulted by a stray dog, her expensive camera stolen right out of her hands, been followed by a strange vehicle, had a whole town stonewall her, been accused of breaking the rules of a Native American ceremony, forced to dance disco in a disreputable establishment with a lecherous bar owner, pushed into a contentious disagreement with the sheriff of the town...who was the one who stole her camera and refused to give it back to her, almost assaulted by a man carrying a gun, cut her hand badly enough to need stitches, and was forced to go to a hospital, a place that had given her panic attacks since having watched her parents die in one when she was eight years old.

Shala is not having a good day.

Neither is the sheriff of the town, Sky Gomez. Everyone in town knows that his foster father had a spirit dream that pegged Shala as his soul mate even before she reached town, so Sky did what any dedicated bachelor who doesn't believe in love (let alone soul mates) would do (no matter how sexy Shala is). He avoided her like the plague. Sure, he followed her around town...no, not stalking...to keep an eye on her...that's really not stalking...because half the town was quite vocal about not wanting her there...so that definitely means it's not stalking! Then she gets eyeball to groin with him during a powwow and seems pretty enthusiastic about it with that camera of hers. That's against all sorts of his rules. So he confiscated it. Then the entire town starts calling his house to let him know that Blue Eyes is looking for both him and her camera before the spitfire herself shows up on his porch in all her gorgeous...if blathering...glory. Then his foster father is attacked during a break in at the lodge and his own house is almost broken into while he's at the hospital with him. And for some reason, Blue Eyes' camera seems to be the motivation behind all of it. Whatever Shala took a picture of has targeted her for danger and the assaults and danger keep coming. Sky's determined to keep the sexy woman safe and Shala just wants to leave. That's unacceptable to Sky and not just because he's the one who wanted her there to save the town.

With a fast and funny plot that provides a seemingly endless sequence of increasingly threatening events that include some not so funny situations, like a good friend being shot and almost killed and a man murdered, Shut Up and Kiss Me rockets out of the gate and doesn't slow down until the last page turns. The searing heat of a Texas summer pales in comparison to the fiery chemistry that sparks between the prickly and strong willed Shala and the protective and steady Sky. This particular unstoppable force and immovable object relationship provides a surprisingly wide variety of meaty exchanges that are at times sweet and other times sexy as hell as they start to fall for one another.

Around them, relationships of all sorts are also put to the test as the miles between an estranged father and son need to be breached and hearts have to be won for more than one couple. I have to admit, there's a lot that goes on in Shut Up and Kiss Me, and I really enjoyed all of it. I loved Sky and Shala and their relationship as it developed, but I wasn't as happy with the plot threads of his foster father's romance problems or those of Sky's foster sister. I didn't mind them for what they were, exactly, and they certainly added depth to the story as it was happening...not to mention I don't think I've ever read a character be as helplessly beat up as Jose was throughout this book, poor guy...but the resolution of all of those other issues felt, to me, to be a distraction to the conclusion of the suspenseful part of this story and a detriment to the romantic conclusion between Sky and Shala.

Still, the narrative is a fast, flowing, and surprisingly complex piece of work and the plot was built and developed with a lot of meat on its bones, not to mention a lot of really funny moments that made me laugh out loud (sorry, Jose, but mostly at your expense), and the relationship between Sky and Shala was sweet, at times endearingly bumbling, and sexy. I was surprised, actually, that the conclusion to the suspense was as dark as it was, given the tone of the rest of the book, and while I don't think it blended so well, it didn't detract from this charming and fun read.

Shut Up and Kiss Me was my first experience with Christie Craig's books but I can guarantee it won't be my last. This was a solid (if lighter than some) romantic suspense read that had many more comedic moments than I was anticipating. Very nice.

More About the Author

Photojournalist, Author and Speaker

Christie Craig, a New York Times Bestseller, is an Alabama native, a multi-published writer, motivational speaker, and writing teacher. Her romance fiction is widely acclaimed for combining witty humor and heart-felt emotions with a suspenseful, sexy tone. She currently hangs her hat in Texas and writes for Grand Central/Forever. Her backlist titles are available wherever e-books are sold. Check out her website and blog at www.christie-craig.com and her Blog at http://christie-craig.com/blog/ .

In addition, Craig writes romance-flavored non-fiction with Faye Hughes, including The Everything Guide To Writing A Romance Novel and Wild, Wicked and Wanton: 101 Ways to Love Like You Are in a Romance Novel, a humorous self-help relationship book. You can learn more about Christie's books with Faye at www.WritewithUs.net.

Craig also writes the New York Times and USA Today best-selling young adult paranormal romance series, Shadow Falls, published by St. Martin's Press/Griffin under her pen name C.C. Hunter. You can learn more about C.C.'s books at her website, www.CCHunterBooks.com.