UPDATE: The winner is Ani S!
*~*~*

This is where I’ll be today! My daughter and I will have a table. We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, but we have some “things” to sell!

So, I’ll leave you with this puzzle because—it’s Saturday! Solve the Puzzle, then tell me what you’re doing to get “holiday ready” for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

December is for wishes, whether it be gifts we desire or things we hope for in the next year. And sometimes, we are given things we newer knew to wish for.

Take Aaron, for example. He seems to have everything a person could want: he’s good-looking, a powerful witch, and his family is rich. He goes to wintry Fairview to look for a missing girl.

Then there’s Ilya. Ilya’s a bartender who likes his job. He’s also a banshee and mildly psychic, but he doesn’t tell people about that, because it makes him a target, desirable for his skill.

These two men run into each other, and while the reason for their meeting isn’t a happy one, they do get something out of it: each other. But not without a fight. Not without a risk.

Meet Aaron and Ilya this holiday season in The Night Bartender.

The Night Bartender (Fairview Chronicles 9)

Ilya stays safe by trusting no one, but Aaron, a wealthy witch, makes Ilya want to trust.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DjlWNU
Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/3wLbmwQ
Apple: https://apple.co/3Di9UEK
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3qQMsLh
Changeling Press: https://bit.ly/3HwmLpj

Aaron has come to Fairview to find his ex’s teenage sister, who went missing in the city. As a witch both rich and powerful, Aaron follows a trail that leads him to a bar frequented by supernaturals and to a bartender who attracts Aaron’s attention — and not just because the bartender is keeping something from Aaron. When Aaron runs out of leads, he follows the mysterious and pretty bartender, and the next thing Aaron knows, he’s foiling an attempted abduction.

Ilya has built a quiet life in Fairview mixing drinks and flying under the radar. He is a banshee, and the psychic ability and mild telepathy that comes with that makes Ilya a sought-after commodity. That carefully constructed life Ilya built for himself breaks into a thousand pieces when a handsome witch starts asking questions and becomes Ilya’s rescuer mere hours after they meet.

The witch, Aaron, vows to protect Ilya and to keep his secret. Now Ilya has to decide whether he will give Aaron his trust and risk a lonely but safe life as a night bartender in a wintry city in which people disappear only to then turn up murdered.

Excerpt from The Night Bartender…

Copyright ©2021 Alexa Piper

Aaron buried his hands in his coat pockets and gave the bleak Fairview midday sky a hard look. Not that the sky gave much of a damn. It was late November, just after the Thanksgiving weekend, and for most of the morning, it had sleeted in a way Aaron had never before experienced in his life. It was like a hot shower, except the cold, freezing water got all the way through to your skin and passed the cold to every inch of your body.

“Damn city just might be cursed with bad weather,” Aaron mumbled as he walked along a street in the Old Town, which should lead him to a bar friendly to the not-quite-human clientele if his online research skills hadn’t failed him. A deep black cloud caught his attention. It zapped across the horizon as if blown by a particularly vicious breeze. Aaron frowned before he picked up his pace. The sooner I’m done here, the sooner I can go back to Morrowvale where November doesn’t suck so bad your balls want to freeze off in surrender, he thought.

In all honesty, Fairview wasn’t a bad place. The city itself was nice enough. The parks and trees here littered the streets with the bones of leaves turning to sludge in the puddles left from the earlier sleet showers, and the people, while ignoring both other people and the suck-tastic weather, dressed a little nicer than the average Morrowvaler. Aaron had also never had Japanese food as good as he’d had an hour ago in a small, unassuming place he’d accidentally walked into, at least not outside Japan. That counted for something, at least in Aaron’s book.

Traffic was in what passed for a bit of a midday lull in Fairview. The honking had ebbed to a not-eardrum-shattering noise, and Aaron managed to cross the street without it feeling like he was gambling with his life.

The Ragdoll was a basement bar, and if Aaron hadn’t been looking for it, he probably would have missed the small neon sign that was either broken or just off this early in the day. A wrought-iron fence further hid the sign and the door, which lay at the bottom of a flight of stairs. This could be a private gambling den or the hideout of a bunch of Russian spies, Aaron thought.

He walked down the stairs and pulled the door open just as another sleet shower was getting ready to wash the streets and everyone walking outside with icy wetness. Aaron shivered as he crossed the threshold and blinked into the softly lit bar.

Last week’s Thanksgiving paper turkeys and fall-colored garlands were still up, though a busboy collected the decorations into a cardboard box labeled “Turkey Day” in black sharpie. There were no Russian spies and no gambling going on here.

Surprisingly, there were several patrons in the bar this early in the day. Aaron spotted a handful starting their day’s drinking early, but most nursed mugs of coffee or were digging into sandwiches which, admittedly, looked better than was right in a basement bar. Judging by their business suits, those were just office workers who knew where the good sandwiches were at. The music was pop, playing just loud enough to offer background noise without becoming obnoxious. This place, despite the outward appearance, looked hip, trendy even. Fucking Fairview. This city is as confusing as a clown at a dinner party, Aaron thought.

Aaron’s fingers closed around the talisman in his pocket. With his touch and the smallest pinch of magic, he felt the worked metal coin activate and the spellbound to it sizzle to life. Three people, including the strawberry-blonde girl behind the bar, whipped their heads around to look at him. So, this place really is supernatural friendly, Aaron thought. The talisman heated rapidly in his pocket. And Dora definitely was here before she disappeared.

That confirmed, he let go of the talisman and walked straight to the bartender. The other two patrons who’d noticed his magic had gone back to ignoring him like the good Fairviewers they were.

“Hi,” Aaron said, giving the strawberry blonde his best winning smile. “What’s good here?”

She shrugged. “Depends on whether it’s drink-o’clock in your world or not. If not, the pumpkin spice latte kills. If yes, you look like a Macallan kind of guy.”

Aaron grinned at her. “You’d be right about the whiskey, but I think I’ll go with the latte,” he told her.

He was doing his best with the charming vibes, which usually worked even if he turned it on women, but the bartender just nodded and went about preparing his coffee. Aaron watched her, more interested in the fact that she was making coffee at a bar decked out with an impressive assortment of liquor than anything else. The coffee machine was one of those intimidating ones that took up some primo counter real estate, and from the looks of it, it saw some use.

When she was done, she brought the latte over to him and puffed a dash of cinnamon over the foamy top right in front of him. The warm scent of the spice immediately made Aaron feel just a little more optimistic about everything. The mug was the cutesy kind with a grinning, red-nosed reindeer on the side.

“There you go,” she said with little enthusiasm, though not exactly unfriendly.

“Thanks, miss,” Aaron said. Before she could walk away again, he focused on her instead of the latte. “Could I ask you something?”

“I’m guessing I’m not your type, so go right ahead,” she said.

Aaron’s eyes widened, and it was the girl’s turn to chuckle. “Half-succubus,” she said in a whisper. “The gay-dar is practically built-in.”

He nodded, fighting the color rising to his cheeks. “Right. Makes sense.” Aaron cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you’ve seen this girl,” he said and pulled the photo Patrick had given him from his pocket. It showed Dora smiling, her blond hair shimmering in the sun.

The half-succubus took a look, then shook her head. “No, sorry. Friend of yours?”

“My ex’s sister, believe it or not,” Aaron said. “She went missing, and I tracked her first to Fairview, and now here.” Aaron had the cellphone gods to thank for that. It made using his magic almost unnecessary, although Aaron still liked to confirm the actual person had been to a place, not just their phone, hence his talisman.

About Alexa Piper

Alexa Piper writes steamy romance that ranges from light to dark, from straight to queer. She’s also a coffee addict. Alexa loves writing stories that make her readers laugh and fall in love with the characters in them.

Connect with Alexa: https://linktr.ee/AlexaPiper

Wow, it’s December already. I have no idea where this year has gone. But I can tell you I’m hard at work on Elemental Dragons. And I’m thrilled to share a sneak peek at a scene from book two, Wind’s Fury.

Haunted by her loss of control and the injuries she and her air dragon caused to another of her kind, Nina Buchanan knows there’s no more running from the rare gender mismatch that made her dragon, the other half of her soul, male to her female. She’ll do anything to make this right. Haunted by the death of his older brother, Reuel Damaris knows these dragons are like a disease. He’ll do anything to cure the human race of the terrible shifter affliction that took his brother and shattered his family. But when the battle lines are drawn, only together can they unravel the lies and calm the fury of a dragon.

This scene is when Nina shifts for the first time in front of Reuel. (How do you think you’d react if a dragon appeared right in front of you?) Enjoy!

He clenched his fists. Hell, he clenched his entire body.

A dragon.

That was a fucking dragon. And somehow, that dragon was also Nina.

No. Not possible.

Reuel pressed his fingers against his carotid. Hard. He still had a pulse. So not a heart attack. Unless he was actually lying on the ground, gasping his last, and this was some kind of death-knell hallucination.

The dragon landed in front of him. Right in fucking front of him. Close enough for him to see each individual scale, sharp-edged and sparkling in a thousand different shades of white. Close enough for him to smell the musk of the beast. For him to feel the heat rolling off the massive body. For him to see the endless depths of those faceted eyes.

Close enough for him to reach out and touch.

He clenched his fists again.

Damn it, he wasn’t ready to die. He had things to do. Things to prove to his father. Things to say to his mother. He had to make them see.

Fucking heart attack.

The dragon–he couldn’t call this thing sitting calmly, proudly in front of him Nina, no matter what he thought he’d seen, not even in a hallucination–lowered its massive head and snuffed at him. The heat and force of the beast’s exhale actually pushed him back a step.

He should turn around and walk away. Maybe hallucinate a super model with him on a nice, eighty-foot yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean. No, ditch the super model. How about a fishing pole and a cooler full of beer and nothing but the sound of the water against the hull and the wind in his face. Geez, didn’t he deserve some peace in the last few moments of his life?

And now he’d never get to know Nina better. Would she have liked to go fishing with him?

Or would a woman who could turn into a dragon just grab fish from the waters with her razor-sharp claws and eat them with those massive jaws?

Walk away.

He dipped his shoulder. Shifted his weight. He hadn’t asked for this craziness. Didn’t want it. But in that split second before he could turn, the dragon tilted its massive head and the stunning blue of Nina’s eyes caught him. Wrapped around him and held him motionless. Promised him heat and strength and a power he couldn’t comprehend.

And silently called to him, with more sorrow and pain than he’d ever felt in a lifetime of sorrow and pain.

He knew that pain. Understood to the depths of his bones the primal longing for acceptance he could see in those stunning eyes. In Nina’s eyes.

This wasn’t a hallucination.

Reuel swallowed hard. “Nina?”

He felt a thousand times a fool, whispering to this beast like it could understand him. Like Nina was actually somewhere in there.

But that massive head nodded, the tiniest fraction.

His breath left him in a giant whoosh. It physically hurt to inhale again, to take all the hot scent of dragon into his lungs. “You’re… Fuck, Nina. I can’t…” Shifting, he swiped a sweaty palm across his jaw. But the word dragon wouldn’t come out of the tightness constricting his throat.

The dragon’s head drooped. Had the beast just… sighed?

“I’m sorry,” Reuel said, not sure what he was apologizing for, but positive that was all he could manage.

Again the dragon nodded. And then the light around the beast… shifted. Shimmered. Danced.

He blinked as the brightness grew, but he couldn’t look away. Or maybe he wouldn’t look away.

This was magic.

He knew it suddenly, totally, like he knew his own name. Like he knew he was meant to be a scientist. Not an athlete. No matter what his father thought. Or said. Or did.

Or didn’t do.

This was magic, and that dragon was somehow Nina.

“Fuck me,” he muttered.

The warmth of the dragon’s breath wafted over him. And then the dragon wasn’t there anymore. Nina was.

For a half a heartbeat he thought she was naked.

About the Author

Grace Adams is a 2017 Golden Heart® finalist and award-winning author of paranormal romance who loves nothing more than a happy ending. Whatever the genre, regardless of the medium, as long as justice prevails, the good guys win, and people are falling in love, she’s in.

A lifelong reader of science fiction, fantasy, and of course romance, Grace also enjoys painting and drawing and is an avid skier. One of those rare Geeks who loves both Star Wars AND Star Trek, she’s got a closet full of costumes she created and firmly believes that she who dies with the most fabric (and books) (and shoes) wins.

Grace has a B.S. in Mathematics from Ursinus College and an M.A. in English from Wright State University.  She is a veteran of the USAF as a communications officer and currently works as an IT Controls Analyst. She shares her home with the best super cats ever, Thor and Loki.

So, have you heard about KISS? I have three of my Entangled books in the app now: Five Ways ‘Til Sunday, Burning Up Memphis, and the latest release, Hotter with a Pole.

Don’t know what KISS is? Here’s the pitch!

KISS is a new and exciting way to experience Romance stories of all genres. Enjoy serialized quality content from NYT and USA Today bestselling authors, available right from your phone.

KISS has hundreds of titles and authors to choose from, including new and exclusive content from some of your favorite voices!

Best of all, you can choose just how much to read with our pay-as-you-go format!

Where can I download it? 

IOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kiss-read-write-romance/id1508942129

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stardust.kissreader&hl=en_US&gl=US

So basically, it’s a phone/tablet app you can use to download stories.  It’s easy and so addictive to use! And to help you on your way to your new addiction, I’m offering 20 coins to four readers!  Let me know below whether KISS is something you’ve already tried or are going to try right now for a chance to win those coins! There will be 4 winners!

Open Contests

Be sure to enter these contests while you’re here!

1. Thanksgiving Leftovers (Puzzle-Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Elizabeth Andrews: Holiday Favorites (Contest) — Win a FREE book!
3. What have you binged lately? (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner is…Debbie Chenault!
*~*~*

I love cable and the ability to binge-watch a series from beginning to end. It’s a gift really to watch characters’ arcs, story arcs, uninterrupted.

During the worst of the pandemic, I watched start to finish, Criminal Minds, Manifest, Queen’s Gambit (excellent, excellent!) and a few others I can’t think of off the top of my head.

Lately, I’ve watched some fun movies with the fam…Love Hard—which was surprisingly funny and good! A great catfish movie and the catfishing, nerdy hero was adorable. Cruella, which surprisingly I am mad about. I say surprisingly because I never cared for the 101 Dalmations movies.

tick, tick—Boom! I had to watch by myself because the fam did not like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and was leary of this one. I loved it. Andrew Garfield was amaze-balls.

My latest two series binges are…Star Trek: Next Generation. I’m in season 5 at the moment. I have a serious crush on Lt. Worf, so I know I’ll be diving into Deep Space Nine as soon as I’m done with this one. Plus, I’m six episodes into Only Murders in the Building. It’s sooooo good!

So, my question to you is what have you binged lately? Share for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner is…Colleen C!
*~*~*

I want to start by thanking Delilah for letting me come play in her space again today! It’s been a while, and I always enjoy visiting all of you here.

We just wrapped up my favorite holiday of the year here in the U.S. Thanksgiving is just the start of a long stretch of holidays, though. When I still worked in retail, that meant one of our busiest times of year, which made the holiday season a whole lot less fun with all of the extra hours we put in and some people who didn’t care if they were on a naughty list. I bet some of you have dealt with the same things in one way or another.

Holidays as adults are a lot different than when we were kids, aren’t they? All the work, not as much of the fun. Shopping, cooking, baking, wrapping, decorating, other obligations. Kids get to enjoy only the good stuff, the fun things. They rip into gifts with no thought about the huge pile of crumpled wrapping paper shoved into a corner. They get to eat the foods without any of the prep work, though when I was a kid, we did ‘help’ my mom with the baking, as kids do—getting in her way, spilling flour and sprinkles all over the kitchen, then getting out of the way when fresh cookies came out of the oven and leaving her to deal with the clean-up. Wouldn’t you sometimes like to do things that way now? Take part in all the fun bits, but none of the messy stuff?

I’m afraid I can’t really help with that, but thinking about holidays as a kid also makes me think of favorite things from those long ago holiday seasons. Like my grandma’s nut rolls—she always made extras to put in the freezer so she had something quick to pull out when company came throughout the year, and I loved getting a nice slice with butter on. I begged her for the recipe for a few years before she gave it to me, and it still makes me smile when I look at the index card with her neat handwriting and imprecise measurements and directions. My nut rolls are still not quite there yet, but I work on them every year. (I also cheat and make the dough in my bread machine now.) Or my other grandma’s sand tarts. She rolled that dough so thin, you could see light through it when the cookies were baked. I gave up on making those a long time ago—much too hard to get that dough that thin, then all the time spent with the cookie cutters and decorations, and such a mess to clean up afterward. My mom did that every year, too, and I can’t imagine doing it with a kitchen full of kids underfoot. But I really miss those cookies…just the right amount of sweet and perfectly crisp.

For our Thanksgiving dinners, I used to experiment with different kinds of stuffing each year, until I discovered how amazing stuffing is when made with sage and onion bread. That is a constant on our Thanksgiving dinner table now, along with a corn pudding and some variety of homemade cranberry sauce, plus the turkey of course. One thing that has been on our holiday table for years, though, is my grandma’s china. My Pop-pop gave it to me as a gift one year, and using it for holiday dinners makes me remember Thanksgiving dinners at their house when I was little, with immediate and extended family and friends around the table.

I think most of us have some favorite holiday recipe or family tradition that we try to continue even as adults, right? Something for our kids or even just ourselves. I’d love to hear about yours, and if you share by the end of Friday, December 3, 2021, I have an ebook copy of my most recent release, Protecting Medusa, up for grabs via a drawing on RandomResult.com. 

Protecting Medusa Blurb

Being the Medusa will put a real crimp in a woman’s social life. Lucky for Philomena Gregory, she gave up on men long before Athena’s curse landed on her head—she learned as a child men don’t stay, a lesson reinforced when she was a lovesick teenager. Not even the hot naked man in her bathroom will change her mind.

Ryder Ware has waited six years to meet Mena in person. She’s managed to avoid him every time he’s visited his son, her nephew. Flirting on the phone and via email is no substitute when a man is so intrigued. But now that Athena’s Harvesters have found her, Mena has no choice but to let him keep her safe—and close, very close.

Philomena may have to accept his protection, but, even if the chemistry between them is hotter than Hades, she won’t change her mind about a relationship, even after a little hot sex. Or even a lot of sex. Good thing Ryder’s a patient man. After years of waiting, what’s a few more weeks to convince the woman of his dreams he wants forever?

 

About the Author

Elizabeth Andrews has been a book lover since she was old enough to read. She read her copies of Little Women and the Little House series so many times, the books fell apart. As an adult, her book habit continues. Almost as long as she’s been reading great stories, she’s been attempting to write her own. Thanks to a fifth grade teacher who started the class on creative writing, she went from writing creative sentences to short stories and eventually full-length novels. Then, as a teenager, she found her mother’s stash of romance novels, and her future direction in writing was pretty well set in stone.

Along with her enormous book stash, Elizabeth lives with her husband of more than twenty-five years, and their two young adult sons live near enough to see frequently, though no one else in the family reads as much as she does. When she’s not at work or buried in books or writing, there is a garden outside full of herbs, flowers and vegetables that requires occasional attention, plus some neighborhood stray cats who like more frequent attention.

You can find out more at ElizabethAndrewsWrites.com

Many years ago, my parents built a cabin in the Colorado mountains—in South Park to be exact (yes, that South Park). When it came time to drill the well, our contractor informed us we had to “witch” it first and provided us with dowsing rods.

The witching tool he gave us were two long thin metal rods bent to form an “L” shape. The well-digger instructed us to grip the short end of the metal, one rod in each hand, and allow the long side to point straight ahead as we walked. After about ten paces, the metal turned in my hands and the long ends crossed. Then my parents each had a try. No matter what direction we started from or where we walked, the rods crossed when we approached that sweet spot on the hill.

The well-contractor considered the terrain and then drilled the well remarkably close to where we had “witched” the well. It blew me away and made me a paranormal fan for life.

Dowsing rods, divining rods, and pendulums all work on the same principle. Something, or someone, from somewhere is providing knowledge to you through the medium of a rod or a pendulum. Another theory is that our own “higher self” controls the divining rod and provides the requested information from our inner knowledge. Either way, when dowsing for water with rods, the question is already asked: where is the underground water?

 A pendulum can be used, much like a Ouija board, to divine several different questions. To make a pendulum, all you need is a long string or chain with a weight or bob on one end. A necklace and pendant would work just as well as those expensive, mystical pendulums you can purchase online. Rumor has it—a skilled medium can use a pendulum to find missing objects, answer questions about the future, and predict the sex of your next child.

There are a lot of websites that will teach you, convert you, and beguile you with information about divining, dousing, and pendulums. As with everything, please proceed with caution and understand that they are all trying to sell you something. You don’t need any fancy stuff to have fun with a pendulum or dowsing rods. And they aren’t scary – unless you write it that way.

In my novella Hunter and Lily Graham, Hunter uses a pendulum made from his father’s pocket-watch chain, an arrowhead from his grandfather, and rose quartz from his grandmother. All the items have special meaning to Hunter and give his pendulum unique qualities.

After collecting a bounty in Wichita, Hunter hoped to return home before the snow begins to fall.

Then he saw Lily Graham.

Beautiful and desperate, she fell to her knees and begged for his help. A child was missing, a young life in danger.

Hunter would need to call upon his supernatural skill to find the child, but time was running out.

Giveaway

Hunter and Lily Graham is free this month, along with several “out of this world” romantic offerings from other authors on the link below. But hurry! There are only a couple of days left to get free books from this collection of paranormal and alien romance stories.

The giveaway ends on November 30^th:
 HUNTER AND LILY GRAHAM GIVEAWAY

 

About Author C. Marie Bowen

Discover nail-biting suspense with paranormal romance author C. Marie Bowen. She weaves her supernatural characters into a collection of tales linked to her first award-winning novel, Passage. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Mr. B, and their two rescue pets, Abby and Rue.

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