Author Empi Baryeh's Blog

Love Grind by Shelly Ellis She’s used to baring it all . . . but baring her heart is a whole different story Down on her luck and broke, Jennifer Dudley long ago traded dancing in the chorus line for swinging from a stripper pole to make ends meet. She’s hoping an offer to come back home and teach dance at her old performance academy will be the opportunity she needs to fix her life. When she moves in with and falls for a software developer with brains, a boyish smile, and muscles, she decides she might be well on her way to a second chance at success—and love. But her X-rated past may come back to haunt her, compromising her newfound happiness and hurting the ones she loves the most. AVAILABLE ON: AMAZON   EXCERPT Jennifer heard a knock at her car window and slowly opened her eyes. “Ma’am! Ma’am, wake up!” a baritone voice said. “This is a private parking lot. You can’t sleep here.” She rubbed her eyes and slowly turned to find a police officer standin...

They beat the odds and turned their lives around. But now three best friends will go head-to-head with ambition, deception--and each other . . . BLURB Derrick. Ricky. Jamal. One's responsible; one's still a player; one's upwardly-mobile. Sentenced to the Branch Avenue Boys' Youth Institute at twelve, they grabbed the chance for better futures. They stayed tight even when their lives diverged--but the times . . . they are a-changing. New deputy mayor Jamal is anti-corruption, which means severing ties with Ricky, now a "criminally-adjacent" businessman. But political power plays and unrequited love will lead Jamal to a lethal choice . . . Ricky doesn't mind running a front for DC's biggest drug dealer, but when he pursues a sexy customer at his strip club and discovers she's a cop, any wrong move could end Ricky's good times permanently . . . Now the Institute's new leader, Derrick is torn between his job and his fiancée, Meliss...