Ropin' the Moon Book Blast

Blurb:
He had tumbleweed in his blood, moving from one town to the next. Traveling to where there was trouble, Dalton Moon was hired to tame wild places with a fast draw and an iron will. Lacy Tyrell knew that Dalton wouldn’t be around long and she shouldn’t be tempted by him. But like the moon, his pull on her was a natural, powerful force that she was helpless to resist.


Excerpt:
“I don’t view women that way. Mostly, I figure that if a man thinks that a woman who can whip up a good meal, birth and raise decent children, and keep him in check is ‘weak,’ then he doesn’t deserve her.”

Her heart thrummed happily and she smiled, thinking that this man had somehow become even more attractive. “You truly believe that?”

“You doubt me?”

She let out a little sigh of contentment. Noticing a cocklebur in Cry Baby’s mane, she removed her gloves and worked it loose from the long, white hair. “You’re an interesting man, Dalton Moon. In fact, you’re nothing like I thought you’d be.” She tossed aside the offending bur.

“What did you imagine I’d be like?” He unbuttoned his coat and leaned a forearm on his saddle horn.

“A strutting, preening, cold-hearted, trigger-happy bore.”

His brows shot up and a startled laugh erupted from his chest. “All that, huh?”

“It is your reputation,” she informed him, archly as she tucked her gloves under her coat’s belt. “You must know that. If you aren’t in the habit of drawing your gun and shooting at people, then how did you acquire it?”

“Through wagging tongues and shameless liars,” he answered in a contemptuous tone. “I am fast on the draw. I don’t deny that. But I’m not eager to pull the trigger. I will, mind you, in defense of my life or someone else’s.”

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About the Author:

Whatever type of romance you love to read, Deborah Camp writes it. From sweet to sexy, contemporary to historical

Author of more than 50 romances, both contemporary and historical, Deborah received the very first Janet Dailey Award (given to a romance novel that best addressed a social problem). My Wild Rose deals with battered women and children in 1800s with Carrie Nation as a character in the novel. Solitary Horseman also won the In d’tale Magazine’s Rone Award. Deborah loves writing stories that are centered on brave women and honorable men.

Deborah’s books have been praised by reviewers, bloggers, and readers who love complex characters and clever plotting. She always mixes in a bit of humor and a lot of heart.

She’s been a full-time writer since graduating from the University of Tulsa. Her first novel was published in the late 1970s and her books have been published by Jove, New American Library, Harlequin, Silhouette, Avon, and Amazon. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Authors Hall of Fame and she’s a charter member of the Romance Writers of America. She’s also a member of the Author’s Guild.

Communicating with readers and other writers is something she enjoys, so don't be shy about visiting her online.

Be sure to join her Happy Campers Super Cool Reader Group on her website to receive a copy of one of her romances novels free and participate in it on Goodreads, too.

WEBSITE: http://www.deborah-camp.com
EMAIL: deborahcampauthor@yahoo.com
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/officialdeborahcamp
PINTEREST: http://www.pinterest.com/debbycamp44/
BLOG: http://www.deborahcampwritersdesk.blogspot.com
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/authordebcamp
GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/198990

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XQPJMV8?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420

A Sickness in the Soul VBT

Blurb:

“Many people wear masks. Some to hide their feelings; some to conceal their identity; and some to hide that most hideous plague of mankind: a sickness in the soul.”

Ashmole Foxe, Norwich bookseller, man-about-town and solver of mysteries will encounter all of these in this tangled drama of hatred, obsession and redemption.

This is a story set in the England of the 1760s, a time of rigid class distinctions, where the rich idle their days away in magnificent mansions, while hungry children beg, steal and prostitute themselves on the streets. An era on the cusp of revolution in America and France; a land where outward wealth and display hide simmering political and social tensions; a country which had faced intermittent war for the past fifty years and would need to survive a series of world-wide conflicts in the fifty years ahead.

Faced with no less than three murders, occurring from the aristocracy to the seeming senseless professional assassination of a homeless vagrant, Ashmole Foxe must call on all his skill and intelligence to uncover the sickness which appears to be infecting his city’s very soul.

Can Foxe uncover the truth which lies behind a series of baffling deaths, from an aristocrat attending a ball to a vagrant murdered where he slept in a filthy back-alley?

Excerpt:

Naturally, all this affability ended the moment Foxe stepped into the Great Hall itself. Sir Samuel would have used this as the meeting place to impress his influence and social status on all his visitors, and on Mr Foxe most of all. Now he received Foxe standing, his back to a large fireplace with an elaborate alabaster surround. Above him could be seen the coat of arms of the Valmar family. I may be a man like you, all this seemed to proclaim, but I am not just your social superior. I am a Valmar too. Remember that.

The baronet had dressed himself in a suit of fine brown wool embroidered in gold, over a pale cream waistcoat sprigged with tiny flowers. From his leather shoes with their golden buckles and his spotless white silk stockings up to his freshly powdered wig, he was the embodiment of the rich landowner suffering the attentions of some troublesome tenant. He was also in a combative mood. He launched his attack at once and without preliminaries.

‘Say what you have to say, sir, then get out!’ the baronet barked. ‘I am only suffering your presence because my wife begged me to do so. According to her, you have some important information affecting the Valmar family. My family heritage is everything to me. We Valmars came over with the Conqueror and have been here ever since. In all that time, no one has dishonoured the family name. No one ever shall, while I live and breathe. Now, get on with it — and be brief!’

When Foxe had stood before this man the last time, Sir Samuel had affected an air of complete indifference. Now all was different. What he wanted was to send this meddlesome tradesman about his business; preferably with his tail between his legs. By the end of his opening speech, his face was suffused with red and purple from the effort of holding his temper in check. Foxe noted how the other man’s breathing was shallow, his fists clenched tight and his eyes narrowed with fury. He had expected some such display of temper, but even he was taken aback by the vehemence of Sir Samuel’s attack. Still, he had determined in advance nothing would shake his calmness. He therefore replied in a quiet voice, his words measured and his tone mild and reasonable. To his quiet satisfaction, he observed immediately how much this gentle manner seemed to inflame Sir Samuel even more.

Do you ever wish you were someone else? Who?

No, I don’t think I do. Sometimes I like to imagine myself living in a different time from now: a time when life was simpler, manners were better and the world in general was less full of strife. The sad fact is that no such time ever existed. I write about England in the 18th century. What we tend to see today are grand mansions full of fine art, huge estates and parks laid out with no regard for cost and the beautiful dresses and fine manners of TV and film adaptations of Jane Austen novels. None of that represents the experience of the vast majority of people at the time. Life was hard, food often scarce, and the politics of the day just as riven with factional strife as it is today.

What did you do on your last birthday?

Nothing special, beyond going out for a nice meal with my wife. At my age, birthdays are more to be ignored than celebrated!

What part of the writing process do you dread?

Getting started! I sometimes begin the same book four or five times from different angles, searching for the right way into the story; the way that will catch the reader’s imagination and make her or him want to read further.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?

No, I don’t think I ever have done. My trouble is verbosity, not the inability to write at all.

Tell us about your latest release.

It's the sixth story in the Ashmole Foxe series, featuring a wealthy young bookseller with time on his hands, who has become the person to whom the city authorities turn to clear up all the more complex and messy crimes in the city. This is a time before police forces and public prosecutors, so all detection and prosecution of crimes is down to interested individuals.

“A Sickness in the Soul” is a story set in the England of the 1760s; a time of rigid class distinctions, where the rich idle their days away in magnificent mansions, while hungry children beg, steal and prostitute themselves on the streets; an era on the cusp of revolution in America and France. The England of the time is a land where outward wealth and display hide simmering political and social tensions. The country had faced intermittent wars with several continental countries for the past fifty years and would need to survive a further series of world-wide conflicts in the fifty years ahead.

Into this comes a series of murders in Norwich, which was still the second or third largest city in England at the time. At the outset, all appear straightforward to unravel. An aristocrat is killed after a public row at a masked ball; an elderly, reclusive scholar with a young wife is murdered in his own library; and there is a seemingly senseless professional assassination of a homeless vagrant. In each case, everyone looks to Ashmole Foxe to unravel the answers and bring the killer or killers to justice. Yet, because this is the real world, those answers turn out to be far messier and more complex than anyone imagines.

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Author Bio and Links:

I started to write fiction as a way of keeping my mind active in retirement. Throughout my life, I have read and enjoyed hundreds of detective stories and mystery novels. One of my other loves is history, so it seemed natural to put the two together. Thus began two series of murder mystery books set in Norfolk, England.

         

All my books are set between 1760 and around 1800, a period of turmoil in Britain, with constant wars, revolutions in America and France and finally the titanic, 22-year struggle with Napoleon.

         

The Ashmole Foxe series takes place at the start of this time and is located in Norwich. Mr Foxe is a dandy, a bookseller and, unknown to most around him, the mayor’s immediate choice to deal with anything likely to upset the peace or economic security of the city.

         

The series featuring Dr Adam Bascom, a young gentleman physician caught up in the beginning of the Napoleonic wars, takes place in a variety of locations near the North Norfolk coast. Adam builds a successful medical practice, but his insatiable curiosity and knack for unravelling intrigue constantly involve him in mysteries large and small.

         

I have spent a good deal of my life travelling in Britain and overseas. Now I am more than content to write stories and run a blog devoted to the world of Georgian England, which you can find at http://www.penandpension.com. You can also follow me on Twitter as @penandpension.

The Ashmole Foxe Mysteries Buy Links:

The Ashmole Foxe Mysteries

The Fabric of Murder

Dark Threads of Vengeance

This Parody of Death

Bad Blood Will Out

Black as She’s Painted

A Sickness in the Soul

The Dr Adam Bascom Mysteries Buy Links:

The Dr Adam Bascom Mysteries

An Unlamented Death

The Code for Killing

A Shortcut to Murder

A Tincture of Secrets and Lies

Death of a Good Samaritan

Blog - Pen and Pension    |    Amazon Author Page

Fire Song Book Blast

Blurb:

Praised for her beauty and grace, deep down, Seren Pendragon fears a tempest rising inside her. Her mother is a witch, her sisters are in peril, and she has been promised to a beast of a man who's already murdered one king. When she and her youngest sister seize the opportunity for escape neither realizes how much their struggle will cost, and it will take a terrible tragedy to unleash Seren’s inner fire and true nature.

The Bastard of Warkworth is no stranger to misfortune. Everything he held dear vanished one night in a wisp of smoke and fire, and he has been scarred by his encounters with Seren's own mother, Morwen Pendragon. Even so, when one of the witch’s daughters finds herself in trouble, Wilhelm must find the champion within and ride to her rescue.


Excerpt:
“Where are you going?” she asked in surprise.

“Home,” he said irascibly.

“Nay, my lord—not lest you mean to go by ship. And you’ll not put me on another one after what I have witnessed. You would have to gag and bind me, and tis not very likely I would stand still to allow it.”

“I am not your lord,” he said again. “I’m no man’s lord.” And he kept riding, without bothering to turn back. Seren cast Jack a bewildered glance. The boy shrugged.

It was her habit, she supposed, to call every man of consequence lord. Somehow, it seemed better to give Wilhelm deference, but he clearly did not like it. And yet, he behaved like a willful lord, doing whatsoever pleased, keeping whatever pace he saw fit, and never bothering to ask what Seren would like to do. Hadn’t he said he was here to help? Well, he hadn’t had very much to say since insisting she accept his aid.

“Wait here,” she said to Jack, and spurred her mare to catch up with the sour-faced lout. “I do not mean to disparage you,” she confessed. “Tis but that you seem more a lord to me than most lords do.”

He grunted in answer, but kept going, and Seren frowned.

How was she supposed to travel with his man, who seemed so intent upon ignoring her? He hadn’t said much of anything since retrieving Jack.

“What in the name of St. Afan would you have me call you if not lord?”

“Wilhelm,” he replied. “And since when do you Pendragon sisters swear by the name of saints?”

Seren lifted her chin. “I lived most of my life in a priory,” she informed him. And then she whispered, “I cannot very well swear by the Goddess, can I? Else Jack will wonder.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s your fault. Had you left the boy in Dover you wouldn’t have to pretend you are someone you are not. And anyway, I doubt he knows St. Afan, either.”

Had he somehow taken offense? “Do you know St. Afan?”

“Nay,” he said. “And neither do I aspire to. He’s some Welshman, by the sounds of him. But, more importantly, do you know who he is?”

Seren frowned. “Nay, sir. I do not,” she confessed. “Though I did hear Father Ersinius invoke him on occasion. I am not so much impressed by saints.”

“What are you impressed by?”

Seren bristled. She was not going to confess herself to this impertinent stranger. “What I wouldst like to know is what you wish me to call you if not lord—can you, please, stop! Please?” She reined in her horse, peering back at Jack, who was staring at them with furrowed brows.

“Nay,” he replied, without turning.

Seren sighed, and moved forward once more. “Where are you going?”

“Home, I said.”

She furrowed her brow. “You are not going home! Did you not read that sign? You are going to Ramsgate, returning to the ocean, and, once again, I will remind you that lest you have a ship, or you and your horse would like to have a good swim, the road to Canterbury is the road best traveled.”

Finally, he stopped, turning to look at her, and his cheeks appeared to bloom. Without a word, he spun his mare about, trotting back toward Jack, who was still waiting right where Seren left him. Wilhelm passed him by, never sparing him or the signpost a glance.

He couldn’t read, she realized, with blinding insight.

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About the Author:

Tanya Anne Crosby is the New York Times/USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including works of women’s fiction, suspense, historical romance and fantasy. Known for stories charged with emotion and humor and filled with flawed characters, she is an award-winning author, and her stories have garnered reader praise and glowing critical reviews.

Tanya has been featured in magazines, such as People, Romantic Times and Publisher’s Weekly, and her stories have been translated into eight languages. Her first novel (Angel of Fire) was published in 1992 by Avon Books, where she was hailed as “one of Avon’s fastest rising stars.” Her fourth book (Once Upon a Kiss) was chosen to launch the company’s Avon Romantic Treasure imprint. She and her writer husband currently split their time between Charleston, SC, where she was raised, and northern Michigan, where the couple make their home.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanyaannecrosby/
Website: https://www.tanyaannecrosby.com/

Buy Links:
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Challenging Mountains Review Tour

Blurb:

By 1840 the colony of New South Wales was expanding. Transportation of convicts to the east coast ended, and many free squatters set out to settle on lands to the south. In 1836, the Government in London authorised Governor Bourke to establish a settlement in The Port Philip District of New South Wales, and an Association was formed to make the district a separate colony.

Timothy, Tiger and Bella Carstairs eldest son has turned 21. Bored with his Government job and intent on seeking adventure and a new life away from Sydney, Tim decides to journey south in an endeavour to find this adventure, accompanied by his Uncle Carlos. Where else to find it, but in a newly formed settlement.

In the 1840s the road south might not be as hazardous as the one across the mountains travelled by his parents when he was a child, but the month long journey overland holds many dangers and challenges to be faced. Escaped and ex-convicts seek the easy life by forming gangs to take what they can where they can. Forced to fight off the intruders who take claim to the land they have cared for over many, many generations, the Indigenous people are faced with many trials and battles of their own.

Not the least of Tim’s personal challenges is a young headstrong woman who, uninvited, takes it upon herself to join him on his travels.  When they reach their destination, their troubles have only just begun.

Excerpt:

He walked off, but Tim lingered. He knelt to stroke Bracken’s ear as Josephine approached. “Can I come with you?” she asked.

“And just where do you wish to accompany me, young Jo?”  Straightening, he began to stroll towards the house with her at his side.

“Rude of me, I know, but I couldn’t help but overhear your discussion with your uncle.” She lowered her voice and bent closer. Tim caught a scent of lavender. Carefree of feminine ways she might be, but she smelt as good as any young miss. “I shouldn’t sound so ungrateful, as your aunt ensured I had employment in her emporium when I arrived here in town, but the tasks are so tedious. I am bored. I thought of running off and making my own way in the world.” Her face grew comical as she wrinkled her pert nose.

“Silly chit. Don’t you dare even contemplate such a rash move,” he scolded. “You are not naïve, I think, and must know the dangers that exist beyond the sanctuary of a safe home. Anyway, I could not consider taking you along on such a dangerous journey.”

She made an unladylike noise. “Don’t you dare suggest I could not cope with such a journey. I roved free for all of my childhood while my parents worked their mine. I told you, my father treated me more as a son than a daughter.

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Author Bio and Links:

Award winning author Tricia McGill was born in London, England, and moved to Australia many years ago, settling near Melbourne. The youngest in a large, loving family she was never lonely or alone. Surrounded by avid readers, who encouraged her to read from an early age, is it any wonder she became a writer? The local library was a treasure trove and magical world of discovery through her childhood and growing years. Although her published works cross sub-genres, romance is always at their heart.

Tricia’s love of animals has always shown up in her books. Tricia devotes as much time and money as she can spare to supporting worldwide conservation groups and is passionate about supporting those who do all they can to preserve our wildlife for future generations, especially elephants and orangutans who seem to be getting the raw end of the deal even in this enlightened age. She also volunteers for a local community group that helps disabled adults and children to connect to the internet with provided computer equipment. When people ask what she does in her spare time, she is heard to ask, “Spare time, what is that?”

Website     |     Blog     |     Facebook

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The Carousel VBT

Blurb:

…Like the Wild Geese of Old Ireland, five boys grew to manhood despite hunger, war, and the mean streets of New York...

The War had left him blind to beauty…

Kieran Donnelly is a gifted artist who has sworn never to paint again. He saw and did too many things during the war to extinguish the ugliness that lies in his heart. But a chance to work with some of the most magnificent paintings brings him close to the world he still loves…and an extraordinary woman who sees his true heart.

Darkness couldn’t extinguish the light in her heart.

Blind from the age of four, Emily Lawrence yearns to experience the outside world. When she hires Kieran Donnelly to catalogue her father’s paintings, he offers her a glimpse at life outside her exquisite home…and a chance for a future.

Can Kieran and Emily emerge from the darkness to find happiness and love?

Excerpt:

Queenstown Harbor, Cork, Ireland, 1847

“Take your fill of it, lad. Remember it all.”

Ten-year-old Kieran Donnelly clutched the icy metal of the ship’s railing, his gaze locked on the wild, rocky coast as the Sally Malone moved slowly out of the harbor.

The long voyage to America had begun.

He heard Gran’s keening wail, filled with grief as she lamented the loss of their homeland. Da’s hand rested on her shoulder, his silent grief palpable. His brother’s spirit, full of anger and despair, reached out to him.

None of it touched his heart.

His eager gaze sought the mist-shrouded green hills, distant, dotted with tiny white cottages. Empty cottages, no sign of the ever-present gray turf smoke rising from their rich, dark thatched roofs.  The fields were black with the stinking slime of the blight, but hawthorn and gorse and wild strawberries still dotted the landscape with bright splotches of white, yellow, and scarlet.

The water bucked and spat white-capped waves, gray-green with angry sorrow under the cloud-smudged sky. A single bright ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, as if to bid the desperate refugees a fond farewell. A patch of sky, so pure a blue it made his throat ache, brought a rush of tears to Kieran’s eyes.

Oh, to capture the image that would forever be in his mind on paper before the ship sailed! The colors, the hues, the light and shadow. The crowds of skeletal people scurrying about, weeping as they waved good-bye, the lone fiddler playing them away with a desolate lament of parting and grief.

One day. He struggled against the harsh sob that clawed at his throat. One day I’ll paint this scene and the whole world will know the sorrow that gripped Ireland in its cruel fist.

I’ll call it The Parting.

 A Heroine to Be Proud Of

Hello, and thanks so much for having me as your guest today! I’m thrilled to be able to share The Carousel with your readers!

As a romance novelists, I’ve created many a fictional hero and heroine. And I’ve been lucky enough to have real ones in my own family. The Carousel, Book 7 of my Wild Geese Series, is dedicated to the memory of my paternal grandmother. She was a heroine any girl would be proud of.

Her name was Emma Laflamme, and she died when she was 88 years old. She raised a family of nine children in a tiny farmhouse on the wind-swept Gaspé Peninsula in the province of Quebec, Canada.

She was also blind from the age of 40.

It must have been difficult for her to look after her children and take care of the house on her own. I only had two children, and well I remember the merry dance they led me at times!

Yet it never seemed to bother her. I remember watching with utter fascination as she kneaded a loaf of bread (made from scratch, no less!), and marveling at how easily she did it. It was even more fun to devour the wonderful results. To this day, whenever I smell bread baking, I think of her.

One of my most tender memories of my grandmother was the way she greeted us when we’d arrive each summer. She would smile and run her toil-worn hands over each of our faces, “seeing” in her own way how we’d changed since the previous year.

I can’t remember ever seeing her stumble, although I know she must have. She never shuffled, but stepped proudly across a room. I even remember coming into the living room, where I was ensconced in the big, comfy chair with a book, and handing me a glass of chocolate milk. How did she know where I was, or who I was? I wondered. I believed it was a sort of magic that only my grandmother possessed.

My heroine, Emily Lawrence, is also blind, and has been since she was four. I based her on my grandmother in many ways.

I hope she’s proud of both Emily and me.

Thank you for having me as your guest today, and for sharing The Carousel and my grandmother with me.

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Author Bio and Links:

I believe I was destined to be interested in history. One of my distant ancestors, Thomas Aubert, reportedly sailed up the St. Lawrence River to discover Canada some 26 years before Jacques Cartier’s 1534 voyage. Another relative was a 17thCentury “King’s Girl,” one of a group of young unmarried girls sent to New France (now the province of  Quebec) as brides for the habitants (settlers) there.

My passion for reading made me long to write books like the ones I enjoyed, and I tried penning sequels to my favorite Nancy Drew mysteries. Later, fancying myself a female version of Andrew Lloyd Weber, I drafted a musical set in Paris during WWII.

A former journalist and lifelong Celtophile, I enjoyed a previous career as a reporter/editor for a small chain of community newspapers before returning to my first love, romantic fiction. My stories usually include an Irish setting, hero or heroine, and sometimes all three.

I’m the author of The Claddagh Series, historical romances set in Ireland and beyond, and The Wild Geese Series, in which five Irish heroes return from the American Civil War to find love and adventure.

I’m a member of the Romance Writers of America and Hearts Through History Romance Writers. A lifelong resident of Montreal, Canada, I still live there with my own Celtic hero. I have two adult children.

Website: http://authorcynthiaowens.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCynthiaOwens

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cynwrites1

https://www.amazon.com/Carousel-Wild-Geese-Book-ebook/dp/B07TXGS4QM

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-carousel-cynthia-owens/1132308194?ean=2940161461914

Google +:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/+CynthiaOwens/posts

Amazon Author Page:  http://www.amazon.com/Cynthia-Owens/e/B003DQ1V2E

By the Light of Embers Book Blast

Blurb:
It's 1954, and twenty-two-year-old Lucia Lafleur has always dreamed of following in her father’s footsteps. While sock hops and poodle skirts occupy her classmates, she dreams of bacteria and broken bones—and the day she’ll finally fix them.

After graduation, a letter arrives, and Lucia reads the words she’s labored a lifetime to earn—"we are pleased to offer you a position at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine." But in the midst of her triumph, her fiancé delivers a crushing ultimatum: forego medical school, or forego marriage.

With fractured hopes, she returns home to Louisiana, expecting nothing of the summer of '54 but sweet tea and gumbo while she agonizes over her impending choice. There, she unexpectedly befriends Nicholas, a dark-skinned poet whose dignity and intellect are a salve to her aching heart. Their bond, initially forged from a shared love of literature, soon blossoms into something as bewitching as it is forbidden.

Yet her predicament deepens when a trivial misunderstanding between a local white woman and a black man results in a brutal lynching, and the peril of love across the color lines becomes chillingly real. Now, fulfilling her lifelong dream means relinquishing her heart—and escaping Louisiana alive.


Excerpt:
I didn’t realize I’d drifted off until Nicholas touched my hand, startling my eyes open. He lay on the blanket a few feet away, watching me. His twilight eyes were as heart-stopping as ever, his lashes so long they nearly brushed his brows.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he said. “I wanted to get here earlier. You don’t know how envious I am, seeing you nap. I stay up half the night for all the work I should’ve finished while here with you.”

His mouth curved gently, though a sliver of sadness showed in the bow of his lips. I wondered if he intended the words to distract me from what I had to ask.

“What happened last night?”

“Nothing you need to worry over, little bird. Everything’s alright now.”

He didn’t elaborate. Around us, cypresses reared skyward like cathedral columns while soft light filtered through the canopy and dusted our faces with tiny islands of radiance. As always, the pristine silence of the swamp circled steaming waters, but today, something menacing lurked beneath it all.

“How can it be alright? They’re talking all over town, about how someone attacked the Widow Magnusson in the street.”

His face lengthened. “You heard about that?”

“I couldn’t not hear about it.”

He looked away.

Fear bubbled up from somewhere deep. “Who’re they talking about?”

“Does it matter?”

The same maddening answer Gertrude Mays had given. But she’d said it maliciously, while Nicholas imbued the words with grief.

“Will it always be like this?” I said, frustrated. “Will there always be secrets, things you can’t tell me?”

“Yes,” he said.

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About the Author:

SHAYLIN GANDHI secretly stole her mother’s copy of Clan of the Cave Bear at age ten, and fell madly in love with love stories. Now, as an author, she still can't get enough, and the tales she spins all center around affairs of the heart. To her, that's what makes a story truly worth telling.

Besides writing, she tries to stamp her passport at every opportunity. Traveling has been a lifelong passion, and she’s lucky to have done it a lot. Shaylin and her husband once spent an entire summer living in their van while touring the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska. Her most memorable trips often tie in with writing: her books are usually inspired by majestic places that stole her breath.

In addition, Shaylin practices medicine, scuba dives, plays the piano, and once rode her bicycle from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. She now lives in Denver with her incredible husband, their identical twin daughters, and two adorable rescue dogs. The family can usually be found in the mountains, either hiking up or skiing down.

You can find Shaylin online at www.shaylingandhi.com or on Twitter @shaylingandhi. Please get in touch—she would love to hear from you!

Website: www.shaylingandhi.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShaylinGandhi
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shaylingandhi/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shaylingandhi/

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