UPDATE: The winner is…Jennifer Beyer!
*~*~*

 

Let’s Play!

First, your brain needs a little warm-up. It probably won’t be a stretch for you to figure out what I consider my “brain juice”, but work for it anyway!

Contest

My daughter says I’ve ruined some very common words for her. She’s been my beta reader for many of my short story collections, and I’ve twisted her arm to read my stories a time or two. So, now, she has a list of trigger words that make her throw up a little in her mouth. Her list includes: moist (#1 most hated word), juicy, folds, slit, kernel, pea, wet, and vagina.

So, for a chance to win a $5 Amazon card,
tell me what words make you shudder!

A Reminder

I have two new releases! If you’re read them, I’d love for you post a review. Readers trust other readers’ recommendations! And thank you!

Click on the covers to learn more about these stories!

UPDATE: The winner is…BookLady!
*~*~*

I want to start by thanking Delilah for being so generous with her blog and letting me play here with you today. I always have fun when I come here to visit. 

I suppose my choice of title for this blog post may seem odd, given that we’re in the middle of summer (and a hideously hot and humid one in my neck of the woods). But I just had a birthday near the end of July, and I always think of birthdays as fresh starts, much like the actual new year at the beginning of January. So even if it’s the middle of the year, you get to start over. It’s a good time to re-evaluate any goals or plans you’ve set for yourself for the year. Are you on track? Do you need to adjust or down-size an overly-ambitious aim? Do you have something new you want to try instead? Maybe it’s just something you want to accomplish before your next birthday. 

I came home from a writing conference a few days ago, so, besides all of the things I was already evaluating from my January goals for just this calendar year, I have a head full of fresh ideas and plans that will need to be worked into those existing plans. It would be unrealistic for me to try to cram everything into the next five months until the actual new year. Probably, it is unrealistic for me to even work more than one of these new ideas into this year since I am already reworking this year’s goals. So I have to look at big-picture plans and goals for the next year or so, but that’s a whole other project in itself, and I have time to figure those out. My focus right now is on the more immediate goals and plans. I’ve given myself two weeks to figure how those fit into the rest of 2019. Then I can start thinking about next year when we get into November, and maybe start working on my big-picture goals sooner, which ought to make setting next year’s goals easier. 

A lot of romance novels have characters who are forced to start fresh, who thought they had their lives mapped out and then got the rug pulled out from under them. I’m working on a project for late this year and just realized as I’m writing my post that it falls into this category. The heroine in the story is dealing with that issue, having lost a job she thought was secure, following a path she’d been on for a long time, and now she has to start over. She agrees to house-sit for friends on a Maine island while licking her wounds and trying to figure out where to go from there. 

That story opportunity was something that came at a time when I needed to figure out a new direction, and the timing couldn’t have been any better. It was nowhere on my list of plans last year, but I couldn’t say no to it since it leads down a path I intended to research and wanted to start on eventually anyway. I guess it’s ‘eventually’ now.  

Does anyone else see their birthday as the start of a shiny new year? An opportunity to start fresh? Or is there a story you love where one of the characters is forced to start all over again?

Contest

I would love to hear from you on those, so I have a signed copy of my first book Hunting Medusa to send to one person who comments by 5 pm (Eastern) on Sun, August 4 (via drawing on RandomResult.com).

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. She has a room overflowing with her literary collection right now, and still more spreading into other rooms.  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, Elizabeth went from writing creative sentences to short stories and eventually full-length novels. Her father saved her poor, callused fingers from permanent damage when he brought home a used typewriter for her.  

Elizabeth found her mother’s stash of romance novels as a teenager, and-though she loves horror- romance became her very favorite genre, making writing romances a natural progression. There are more than just a few manuscripts, however, tucked away in a filing cabinet that will never see the light of day.

Along with her enormous book stash, Elizabeth lives with her husband of twenty-five years, and spends plenty of time with her two young adult sons who have recently flown the coop. 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.

You can find out more and keep up with news at her website: 

www.ElizabethAndrewsWrites.com

“Why do you write ghost stories?”

It’s a question I’m often asked, especially since my novels cross genres—contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and supernatural romantic suspense.

The answer is simple:

I believe in ghosts. Have I ever seen a ghost? Yes, and no.

I’ve sensed spirits, more than once, in more than one old, abandoned building. When the hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms rise, and there’s no chilly air to explain it, I know I’m in the presence of something supernatural. I’ve caught fleeting glimpses out of the corner of my eye of . . . something. A figure, a shadow, a presence that, when I turn to try and focus on it, evaporates like vapor. More than once I’ve not been alone when this happens, and my companions have had the same experience.

So yes, I do believe in ghosts, or spirits, or whatever your preferred term is. I think there are at least two kinds of hauntings: residual and intelligent. Residual hauntings are shadows of people who lived in a time past (or perhaps in the future). These apparitions are like black-and-white frames from an old movie. They are visible, or can be sensed, but keep playing over and over in an endless loop of whatever they were doing or experiencing when they were alive. You cannot communicate with residual hauntings. Over time, they gradually fade away and eventually disappear.

Intelligent hauntings, however, I believe are spirits who are trapped between this life and the next. They are stuck here, in our conscious realm, for whatever reason: a child or other person dies but does not know they are dead; a person died with some unfinished business here in this realm; they are confused, and don’t know how to “cross over.” Some of these intelligent hauntings can be communicated with, under the right circumstances. Some, angry because they’re trapped in between, can be dangerous (like poltergeists).

“How, since you work in scientific research by day, can you believe in anything paranormal?”

That’s an easy answer as well. There actually is a scientific theory, in quantum physics, of parallel universes. We may well be existing in our own conscious realm alongside those who have passed, who lived long ago, or have yet to be born. In my mind, the quantum theory explains it. Just because we don’t fully understand how it all works doesn’t mean it isn’t the way things are.

“Are your love stories between ghosts? Or between real human beings?”

No, my love stories are between very real, very human, very flawed individuals who all have issues of their own, whether inside or out, they need to resolve. They meet in some location where spirits are trapped. Sometimes they have a hard time believing in the paranormal, but one way or the other, the spirits make believers out of them. And in their quest to free the trapped spirits, they also happen to fall in love.

“Why romance plus the ghost story? Why not just write about hauntings?”

Another easy answer: because I believe in true love, and I believe in a happily-ever-after. I know most people would like to think it can be reality (thus the popularity of the romance genre), but not everyone is lucky enough to find their special soulmate. I married mine over forty years ago and have never looked back.

Also, because these are the kinds of stories I like to read: heart-melting romance laced with the thrills and chill of the supernatural. I couldn’t ever find enough to read, so I started writing my own.

In my newest release, ELECTRICITY, my heroine, Mercedes Donohue, is an electrician who fled her home in Atlanta with her teenage son after a particularly bad divorce. She’s returned to Massachusetts, where she was born and lived up until her teens, when her adoptive parents moved to Atlanta.

My hero, Daniel Gallagher, is also an electrician who works on the same team as Mercy. He has avoided any serious relationships since his fiancé was killed in a car wreck twelve years ago, after stubbornly refusing to take his advice, driving off in a terrible storm. He’s not getting involved with another stubborn, independent woman ever again.

When Mercy joins the team, though, she short-circuits his plans. The electricity between them is simply too strong.

Their first big job together is an old mental asylum, which has its share of secret tunnels and lingering, tortured spirits. Neither Mercy nor Daniel believe in ghosts, so there’s no problem, right?

The spirits of Gravely Hall figure out a way to make them believers.

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/K6m8T51ziFU
Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2MdeRIY

New Release!
ELECTRICITY: A Haunted Voices Novel

She’s an electrician starting over with her son. New job. New town. New life.

He’s a coworker who’s interested in more than her ability to run conduit.

The building they’re rewiring was once an insane asylum…but it appears some of the patients never left.

Mercedes Donohue pulled up roots in Atlanta when her marriage imploded. She’s come back to New England, to the place where she was born. Mercy’s focus is to stabilize her teenage son’s life—he took the breakup pretty hard—and to establish her place, gain the respect of Progressive Electrical’s team.

She never expected so many sparks to fly so soon, both on the job and after hours.

Daniel Gallagher has been alone since his fiancé’s death. He’ll never feel that way about any woman again, and certainly won’t try with another independent, strong-willed one. Then Mercy short-circuits his plans.

Although the asylum closed its doors over thirty-five years ago, it seems some of the patients never left . . .

If you like a heart-melting romance laced with healthy dose of supernatural thrills and chills, you’ll love Electricity.

Link to Trailer: https://youtu.be/K6m8T51ziFU
Amazon Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2IJr0BD

Excerpt:

Mercy had gotten to the very last wire when the lightning struck.

At least that’s what it felt like. A burst of blue light momentarily blinded her, and a deafening crack pierced her brain. The force of the jolt blew her backwards and set her ears ringing.

The next few seconds slowed surreally. Dizzy and confused, Mercy, ladder and all, careened away from the wall in silent, slow motion. As if in a dream. No pain, no fear.

Then she landed, flat on her back on the floor, the impact rattling her jaw. Pain shot through her then as the ladder bounced off her chest once, and then settled heavy on top, pinning her to the dust-laden tile.

“DAMN it!” Mercy’s oath blew out with the last of the air in her lungs.

“What the holy hell?” Conner was standing over her in seconds, yanking the ladder off with one hand. The other two men raced over, and Daniel dropped to one knee to hold Mercy down by one shoulder.

“Don’t try to move till you’re sure nothing’s broken,” he muttered.

“I thought you said we were off at the main, Bro! Holy hell!” Jacob was wild-eyed, shoving Conner with one of his gloved hands. “You tryin’ to get us all killed?”

Mercy felt as though a horse had just trotted over her ribcage, squashing one breast under each hoof. The back of her head throbbed even though her safety helmet had protected her from a possible concussion. Her breath was coming in short, shallow bursts. “Let me up, Daniel. I’m okay,” she barked through clenched teeth, wrenching her shoulder from under his grip and sitting up.

She could not, however, feel her left hand. She stared down at the blackened fingers of her glove. Were there still operable digits under the leather? Or just charred stumps?

As though he’d read her mind, Daniel locked a strong hand around her wrist. His eyes flashed to hers once before he said, “I’m going to see what’s going on under here.” Slowly, he pressed on each finger of the glove. “Hurt?” he asked.

Mercy shook her head. “No. They’re numb. Or gone. I can’t feel them at all.”

Daniel sucked in a breath and said, “Not unusual to be numb for a while.” His eyes slid toward hers again, and she hoped he couldn’t see her fear. His gaze was steady, intense. “I’m gonna cut the glove off. Stop me if it hurts, okay?”

Mercy watched, holding her breath as Daniel wielded a pair of snips from his belt and began clipping away at the wristband of her glove. He worked methodically, gently, cradling her hand on his knee the whole time. Once he’d opened the entire back of the glove, he turned her hand over and did the same on the palm side.

He took a deep breath as he slid the cutting tool back into his belt, then raised his eyes to hers. “You ready?”

Mercy swallowed and nodded. Daniel grabbed the edges of the leather and gently worked the covering free.

She let out a whoosh of relief when she looked down on five fingers, only slightly reddened, complete with intact fingernails. They were still numb but began to tingle as she flexed her knuckles.

“Good gloves you got there,” Daniel mumbled. He flashed her a narrow gaze. “Forgot to use your tester first, huh?”

Mercy snatched her hand away, fury flaring in her chest. “I used the damned tester on the main feed, and on the first three fuses, like I always do. How the hell was I supposed to know there was more than one source to the freaking panel?”

***

About Claire Gem
Contemporary, Romantic, Soul-Freeing

Claire is an award winning-author of supernatural suspense, contemporary romance, and women’s fiction. She also writes Author Resource guide books and presents seminars on writing craft and marketing. Her supernatural suspense, Hearts Unloched, won the 2016 New York Book Festival, and was a finalist in the 2017 RONE Awards.

Claire loves exploring the paranormal and holds a certificate in Parapsychology from Duke University’s Rhine Research Center. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Lesley University.

A New York native, Claire now lives in Massachusetts with her husband of 40 years. When she’s not writing, she works for Tufts University in the field of scientific research. She is available for seminars and media interviews and loves to travel for book promotional events.

Media Links
Email: gem.writer@yahoo.com
Website: https://www.clairegem.com
Blogs: https://www.clairegem.wordpress.com
https://www.hauntedpathways.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clairegem.author
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/gemwriter
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8284235.Claire_Gem
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/2nabvbm
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO-vB7WDZhEQ8U4YpC937ng

So, now that I’m caught up, blog-wise (check yesterday’s post!), I’m taking a deep breath and moving forward to talk about what happened in July and give you a view into what’s coming (hopefully) in August. Bear with me!

My Awesome-Sauce July!

July was the month I got my writing mojo back. Since the start of the year, I struggled. My dad’s health was failing, and then he passed. I actually, for the first time, began to wonder if my nearly 200 published stories were going to be it, because I found way too many excuses NOT to write. And every time I did sit my butt in the chair and poise my fingers over the keyboard, every word that popped into my head was total shit. Sorry for my French! And now, I apologize to all French people for inferring that the French language is filled with cusswords. Who made up that stupid phrase anyway?

Anyway, things turned a corner for me in July. I think it was because I got out of my mole hole of an office (it’s in the basement, no windows, thus “mole hole”). For a week in July, I attended a writer’s retreat with some writer friends and my sister, and I blew out a book in 4-1/2 days! It was just there every time I sat. I made myself squirm over the sexy bits and laugh (a lot) over the humor. I knew I was back!

The result was Hot SEAL, New Orleans Nights, which released on July 14th!

Get your copy here!

Another thing that hung like a cloud over me since last Fall was being in KDP jail. Meaning, I couldn’t put stories on pre-order in Kindle. I failed to meet a deadline while my dad was ailing, so Amazon removed the privilege, which REALLY bummed me out. First, I need solid deadlines, or I find it really hard to motivate myself to produce. Also, with pre-orders, I tend to make more sales, so I really got hit hard in the pocket book.

When I returned from the retreat, where I was super-pumped with my success, I shot off a message to Amazon to ask them what specific date I was getting out of jail, because I wanted to make some plans, and they wrote me back and said they were doing me favor. THEY LET ME OUT OF JAIL! You have no idea how happy I was. I felt as happy as the first time I sold a book to a publisher, which to a writer, is like every Christmas ever, all rolled into one joyous moment.

So, of course, I set myself a deadline. Quincy, my next Montana Bounty Hunter story, is up for pre-order now! So, if you want to make me even happier and inspired to keep working hard toward that release, go ahead and put the book on pre-order!

Pre-order now!

I was ready to dive into writing again, but I had multiple editing jobs lined up in a row and two teenagers to corral for two weeks (read yesterday’s blog to see what that’s been like), but I rolled up my sleeves and went to work finishing the editing jobs all up. I have more deadlines coming, but not so many that they will keep me from writing my own new words, so I’m feeling pretty good about where I am this last day of July!

And, if you didn’t read yesterday’s blog, I had another new release, yesterday, the prequel short story to introduce you to my sexy man, Quincy!

You know you want it. Get your copy here!

What’s coming in August!

Just a few of hints…

Okay, so I’m late posting this. I’m doing it anyway. I hate leaving blanks in my blogging calendar. I already had two this year, the first in four or five years, but April followed some pretty gritty family things, so I’m excused, right?

Let me tell you how yesterday got so FU’d, because I know you want to know what a day in the life is like with me. And even if you don’t, this is my blog, so I get to tell you anyway. 🙂 And after I tell you my sad story, I’ll tell you about the new release! Yay!

So, yesterday, I was playing the good grandma. My dd and SIL are in Virginia at the moment, so I have the two teenagers to ferry back and forth to football and volleyball practices, as well as “play dates” at the community pool with their friends. The boy told me he HAD to be at the football field at O-five-thirty because they had some special deal and had to be bussed. So, I was up at 4:30 to make sure he got his own ass out of bed (he’s a teenaged boy, he needs more sleep than Sleeping Beauty). I woke him, took him to the school, and we sat. The field was dark. I asked him to check his schedule again. “Nina, it says we have to catch the bus at 6PM.” I must have given him bug-eyes, because he handed me the phone and said, “See?”

WTF do they teach kids in school? I took a deep breath and instead of punching him in the throat told him “PM” indicated that he had to be there in the evening.

Soooo, back home we went. I stayed awake, because the girl had to be at volleyball at 8 so I woke her at 7, because, even though she doesn’t need as much sleep as Sleeping Beauty, she still NEVER hears her alarm.

So, I went back in two hours to pick her up. Back home, I worked on edits that were due yesterday. Took me all my time, up until I had to head out to drop the boy at his bus, then the girl and I caught a craft club meeting in town, then back to the school to pick him up. By the time I arrived home again, I was too tired to post a freaking blog, and I went to bed.

So, that was my shitty day.

I didn’t have time to tell you about my new release, but here it is. Only, it’s not really new if you picked up a copy of Stranded: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology. It’s one of the thirteen stories in that sexy volume.

However, if you haven’t read my story and want to drool over the cover, you are very welcome and encouraged to pick up a copy of the short story, all by itself! It’s just $0.99 or FREE to KU subscribers!

Quincy Down Under

A bounty hunter following a lead is trapped in an underground-bunker-turned-beauty-salon with a pretty beautician…
Get your copy here!

P.S. If you’ve read the story, and want to help an author out, post a review! I’d be forever grateful!

Woodstock’s 50th Anniversary is this summer, Thursday, August 15 to Sunday, August 18, 2019. Fifty years ago, in 1969 from August 15 to 18, throngs of people came together in Bethel, N.Y. for four days of peace, love, and music. It turned out to be one of the biggest and grooviest rock festivals ever, and an iconic cultural and historical event. The concert was far-out with thirty-two acts including Joan Baez, Santana, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Jonny Winter, The Band, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Jimi Hendrix with what was probably the most memorable performance of the festival—his profound rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

Food was in short supply at Woodstock because the promoters only expected about 50,000, but around 400,000 showed up—which also created the largest traffic jam in the history of the Catskills, forcing State police to close the New York State Thruway’s Exit 104. Plus, on the second day of the festival, a downpour transformed the grounds of Max Yasgur’s dairy farm into a sea of mud.

Yasgur’s former farm, the site where all of this took place, has been remembered by the opening of both the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts and the Museum at Bethel Woods on the grounds and was also added to the National Register of Historic Places.

I am a babyboomer but I was only 12 in 1969—too young to hitchhike to Woodstock, unfortunately. However I always wanted to go, so by writing about it, I got to go, at least mentally, and I get to take all you wonderful readers along with me as well as two of my favorite characters, Cash and Keith. This Woodstock, time-travel, baby boomer, comedy romance of mine is called Back To The One I Love.

The thrilling adventure of first love and self-discovery is just as groovy the second time around.

A free-spirited, baby boomer couple, Cash and Keith, find their marriage of forty-five years unraveling amid apathy, boredom, and retirement. Cash feels Keith is no longer attracted to her and he’s consumed with a couch-potato life of streaming The Orville and Game of Throne episodes all day long. Trying to hang on to their marriage and rekindle the romance they lost along the way they turn to a counselor. The therapist uses an unorthodox magical method of a time-traveling Volkswagen van to cast them back into the garden…four days of Eden at Woodstock….the epic music festival… where they first fell in love.
Will the freedom of Woodstock lure Keith and Cash to push their individual boundaries and seek new lovers? Or can Déjà Vu and grooving to music….truly lead them to rediscover the peace, love, and harmony they once shared?

Excerpt:

Cash’s mind was in a haze, floating with the music, moving her body freely―bouncing, jiggling, dancing her heart out.

Keith clapped with Cash as Jimi Hendrix picked the strings and worked the frets as he played “The Star Spangled Banner.”

In his hands, the inanimate object, the sleek, white electric Stratocaster, came to life, with jolts of electricity like Frankenstein’s monster.

This was no confused, lonely monster Hendrix created, Cash thought. This is raw, spiritual beauty.

“The notes are ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ mixed with truth and distortion, fear and hope, chaos and order, all fighting each other. It sounds like bombs and guns, screams of pain, and the whirl of army helicopters, all from the strings of his guitar,” Keith said.

“The national anthem has never been played like that before him or since him,” Cash said, with an edge of awe to her voice.

“He’s telling a story of freedom fighting to break through prejudices, lies, and cover-ups just by the way he’s playing the song,” Keith added.

“He’s incredible.” Goosebumps prickled on Cash’s arms when Jimi Hendrix laid the guitar on the stage and picked it as he ritually set it on fire, letting hype and lies go up in smoke and flames.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” she said in an emptily charged, broken whisper.

Keith gulped hard. “It blows my mind.” He slapped his palms together, clapping with Cash, a long time after Hendrix left the stage.

“And we saw it twice, together.” She slipped her arm around Keith’s waist.

“How special are we?” He slid his arm around her shoulder and pulled her tight to him.

*~*~*

You can find more on Back To the One I Love here and Peace, Love, Music here.

We are made of flesh and blood, but also stories. The stories we hear, read, imagine, are as much a part of us as our make-up as our genes or the colour of our eyes. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the stories that shape me. I’d like to tell you a little about them.

The first stories were the Celtic legends that my Welsh grandparents and my older cousin told me. Tales of magic and monsters. Shape-shifting bards. Torrent spectres. And the mysterious Otherworld, always shimmering just out of reach… at the top of the hill… deep in the forest… at the point on the horizon where sea and sky merge. I loved the Ceffyl Dwr, the Water Horse, a mythical shape-shifting creature that lives in water, but can also appear on land. I loved the merfolk too. More about them later!

I also grew up with the Nordic myths that my father used to read to me as bedtime stories. I’d go to sleep with the sound of epic battles ringing in my ears. Thor was my favourite. I was delighted to meet him again recently in the Avengers films, played by the delicious Chris Hemsworth!

When I was twelve, I read The Lord of the Rings. That story changed me. I was so sad when I finished the book, I actually cried. No more Elves or Dwarves? That couldn’t be. I decided that day that I’d become a writer, and create stories like that.

OK… it took me thirty-three years… and I never wrote that big epic novel. But I did write my own books, and eventually one of them got published. I write fantasy romance, because I love fantasy, and I think I’m a romantic at heart. The stories I heard and read as a child and teenager are still with me. The Otherworld is in my head, with all its magic, and every time I read or write a new book, it gets a little richer, a little better.

My book A Merman’s Choice was published in January by Black Velvet Seductions. It is the hot and tender story of the forbidden love between a shape-shifting merman and a human woman. Read a summary and extract below!

The second book in the series, Music for a Merman, is due out later this year. I’m currently working on the third book, where a feisty shape-shifting mermaid teams up with a warlock to save London from a water monster. I have also written a short story, “The Sweetest Magic of All”, for the supernatural romance anthology Mystic Desire by Black Velvet Seductions – pre-sale 1 September, release date 1 October. I’m so excited about it, because it’s about a witch and a warlock who go back in time, and I love witches!

A Merman’s Choice
Book 1 in the Sea of Love series

For centuries the shape-shifting mermen of the Morvann Islands have lived incognito among humans. But one of them, Yann, has developed some bad habits. Like rescuing humans, even when doing so risks revealing his true nature. When he fishes Alex out of the sea, he doesn’t expect her to reappear eight months later, and turn his life upside down by asking him to be her guide.

Alex is determined to fulfil a promise to her dying grandmother, by gathering pictures and stories of the Morvanns. But she soon discovers that, on these remote Welsh islands, legends have a habit of becoming true!

Over the course of a few days, Yann and Alex grow close. But some mermen hate humans. Their hostility, and Yann’s secret, threaten to tear the couple apart just as they are discovering that they are soul mates. Can Yann overcome the obstacles in his path and make the right choice?

Buy here! Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QglyeI
Other retailers: https://books2read.com/u/31xw7a

Excerpt

Yann went to the dresser against the wall and picked up a bottle and two glasses. “Would you like a dram of whisky to warm you up?”

Alex slid back down the sofa. His ears registered the squeak of leg against leather, and his mind instantly pictured her sprawled on the cushions, her golden hair fanned behind her head, milky thighs open wide. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the maddening image.

Her voice dropped into a seductive purr. “I’m quite warm already, thank you. But I can cope with more heat.”

He poured a glass of the golden liquid and brought it to her.

“Thank you.” She sipped it and made a grimace, which turned into a smile. “Even better than cider.”

Her mouth glowed against her milky skin like a forbidden fruit. He thought of the first summer berries, tart redcurrants, juicy raspberries. Would she taste like them?

They needed food. If he didn’t get lunch down her soon, she’d get drunk. The demon voice in his mind whispered that Alex would be great fun if she lost her inhibitions. He tried to shut the demon out. What could he prepare quickly?

He strode to the trap in the floor by the front door and lifted it. The smell and sound of seawater, sloshing in the dark, rose up.

Alex padded over to investigate. “Oh, wow. You have a whole aquarium down there!”

The corner of her blanket brushed his bare arm, sending another twig to feed the fire that smouldered in his loins. “That’s how Islanders keep their seafood fresh. Why don’t you go and sit at the table, and I’ll open a dozen oysters for you?”

She didn’t need to see the tunnel on the side of the “aquarium,” that led to the lower floor of the house, the level that flooded at high tide and opened onto the sea. The level where a more respectable merman would spend most of his time.

She moved away, to the centre of the room where the oak table stood. Not far enough. He’d become so attuned to her that every one of her movements seemed to ripple across the space and lap against his body. He grabbed a knife and bucket from the tool shelf, snapped the first oyster open and dropped it in the bucket. Now she was crossing her legs, damn her. Did she know that the woollen fabric was opening, uncovering the ivory skin of her inner thigh? Was she flirting with him, or was it his imagination?

“I love oysters.” Her voice wrapped itself around him like a silk scarf. “Pity we don’t have any champagne to go with them, but this whisky is just as good.”

Too late, he remembered that for mainlanders, oysters weren’t a cheap, quick meal. On the mainland, oysters were the food of seduction. An aphrodisiac. What if Alex was misreading his intentions?

Or rather, what if she were reading them all too well?

She patted the bench next to her. “Come and sit here. I can’t eat all these oysters on my own.”

Her grin gave the lie to her words. Her grin said, “I can gobble them all up, and you with it.”

*~*~*

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