Category Archives: Guest Blogger

The Eyes of Bast by Lisabet Sarai

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TheEyesOfBastCover300

Channeling the Cat

It’s almost a joke – the common association between authors and cats. I haven’t done a systematic survey, but I would estimate that at least 75% of the authors I hosts as blog guests mention feline companions in their bios. I’m no exception. I currently have two cats who traveled with us from the United States to southeast Asia ten years ago, and who have settled in quite comfortably.

Of course, many famous writers were renowned for their close relationships with their felines.  Colette, Papa Hemingway, Jean-Paul Satre, Ray Bradbury… the list goes on and on.  The inspiration for my erotic writing career, Portia da Costa, is a huge cat lover – that’s one of the things that forged a bond between us.

Many explanations have been offered for the feline-author affinity. A cat doesn’t need to be walked, so we can spend our time at our desks as opposed to trucking around on the street scooping up their business. Cats are mysterious creatures with many layers of personality – rather like effective characters. Cats have an elegance and precision of movement we writers might use as a model for our prose. Many authors have cited their felines as sources of inspiration. Noted Canadian writer Robertson Davies once said “Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reason.”

The other day, I was suddenly struck by a new theory. I was thinking about the fact that so many authors report hearing “voices”. “I just listen to my characters, and write down what they say,” one of my guests commented. Writing sometimes feels like something driven from outside, beyond our conscious control. Well, what if that’s true?

What if it’s not our characters who are dictating the story? What if it’s our cats?

Ridiculous, right? But Mr. Toes sits behind my monitor most days I’m writing. He pretends to be asleep, but if I should get up for a bathroom break or a drink of water, he stirs and gives me a look, as it to say, “Where are you going? The story’s not done yet!”

I grew up with cats. I grew up writing fiction. When I went off to college and then grad school, I left the felines behind, and although I wrote lots of poetry during that period, I didn’t pen a single story. Then I met my husband, a confirmed ailurophile, and filled my life with felines once more. Next thing you know, I was a published author.

Ever tried to write when your cat was sick? Tough to concentrate on the tale, isn’t it?

And wouldn’t this explain why our characters are larger than life? Why they have so much vitality, such powerful passions, such intense adventures? How could a mere human imagine such creatures? Cats, though – they have superhuman abilities. Just ask them.

Of course to really test this, we’d all have to get rid of our felines and then see if we could still write.

That might be informative. It might restore our self-respect. But it’s simply too painful to contemplate.

If I’m channeling my cats, I’m okay with that. As long as they don’t want their names on the cover.

Meanwhile, I’ve finally written a story in which a cat has center stage. The Eyes of Bast is a shifter tale with a difference. Read on to learn more.

Blurb

Trust your heart. Follow your dreams.

Shaina Williams’ grandmother bequeathed her that wisdom, along with a old pendant from the Islands, carved from an ocelot’s tooth. When instinct tells Shaina to visit the feral cat trap she’d set in Central Park, she listens to that inner voice, She discovers she’s caged a magnificent black tom, but the cat inexplicably vanishes after she tends to his wounds. Seeking the errant feline, Shaina encounters instead a handsome stranger whose slightest touch sets her body on fire. As the day dawns after a night of ferocious passion, her mysterious lover is forced back into his true shape – the tomcat she’d rescued.

Born a cat, Tom was transformed into an unwilling shape shifter by a sorceress who craved a human plaything to satisfy her perverse lusts. Centuries old and irresistibly powerful, Delphine Montserrat will stop at nothing to find her runaway familiar. Shaina vows to do whatever is necessary to defeat the vicious but seductive witch and save the man she believes is her soul mate – even though it might mean losing him forever.

Buy Links:

Totally Bound | All Romance Ebooks | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Add on GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25153711-the-eyes-of-bast

Check out my exclusive interview about the book at Totally Bound!

https://www.totallybound.com/the-eyes-of-bast-exclusive

 

 

Excerpt:

It was near dawn when I woke again. In the pearl-gray light filtering through the blinds, my familiar furnishings were strange and ghostly, shrouded in shadow. Stretching, I realized I was no longer on the floor. My bed had been unfolded, and I lay stretched out on the sheets, nude. Alone.

Groggy with sleep, I raised myself on my elbows to scan the room. It appeared to be empty. “Tom?” I whispered. There was no answer. A sense of unreality seized me. Had I dreamed the entire scene – the handsome intruder, the overwhelmingly sensual kiss, the orgasm that had shot me straight into the stratosphere? I recalled my devastating arousal in the stranger’s presence. What was going on? Could I be suffering from some kind of hormonal imbalance? This seemed like something more than the normal horniness of a woman who’d been celibate for a while.

Thinking exhausted me. I sank back into my pillow, closing my eyes as if that might make my doubts and confusion vanish. Sleep, I told myself. I’ll figure things out in the morning. I was already drifting back into slumber when the sound of running water roused me.

I peered into the dimness. A tall, male form emerged from the bathroom. My heart did a somersault in my chest.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

His low, musical voice melted me. I propped myself up to a sitting position, heedless of my nakedness.

“You! You’re real…You’re still here?”

He’d discarded his clothing as well. In the half-light, I drank in the sight of his smooth, muscled limbs, becoming more intoxicated by the moment. He seated himself beside me and circled me with his arms. Heat radiated from his dark skin.

“Why would I leave, my beautiful one?” he murmured in my ear. Bending a bit, he flicked his tongue across one of my nipples. Lightning tore through me. “There are still a few hours left to the night.”

Before I could reply, he’d fastened his luscious mouth on mine. His firm lips coaxed rather than demanded a response, one I was only too willing to give. I opened to the prodding of his rough tongue, letting him taste me, savoring his wild, sweet flavor in return.

Once again a sort of delirium swept over me. It seemed we were back in the park, sheltered by trees more than a century old. My nostrils filled with the perfume of dew-soaked grass and damp earth, laced with a hint of animal musk. I felt light as dandelion down, drifting in the night wind. Only his strong grip kept me grounded. The moon rode above the clouds, invisible but palpable, stirring tides in my flesh. Desire ebbed then surged, cresting higher with each cycle.

His hands molded my breasts like moist clay. Blind with need, I groped along his furred chest and taut belly, down to his gloriously erect cock. When I squeezed, he moaned into my mouth and bit the corner of my lip. The iron-tinged flavor of my own blood simply added to the stew of sensation.

I smeared my thumb over the slippery bulb. His answer was a savage twist to an already aching nipple. Moisture gushed from my pussy. I tumbled backward, dragging him down on top of me.

“Shaina…” he murmured, breaking the kiss to lick his way along my throat. His saliva felt like liquid fire. He nuzzled in the hollow of my cleavage, then captured one breast and began to suckle. Electric pleasure arced through me when his hardness brushed my inner thigh. I squirmed beneath him, trying to align his cock with my hungry cleft.

“Please….” There was no need for me to say more. The stranger rose above me, supporting himself on his powerful arms. His eyes gleamed like phosphorescent jewels in the grayness. He smiled down at me, baring those sharp, white teeth that had already drawn my blood. An almost inhuman glee painted his features.

He hovered at my entrance, his rigid flesh teasing my engorged clit. I spread my thighs wide. Without a word, he sank his cock deep into my drenched pussy.

 

About the Author

When I was a little girl, my dad would make up stories for my siblings and me, fabulous sagas about ghosts and monsters, magical races with mysterious powers, heroes on impossible quests, hidden treasures awaiting only the most courageous seeker. I blame him for my lifelong fascination with the magical and miraculous.

Now that I’m grown up, I create my own tales of wonder, weaving in generous portions of human desire with its potent enchantments. In my paranormal tales, love works the most powerful magick.

Find out more about me and my books at my website, Lisabet’s Fantasy Factory (http://www.lisabetsarai.com) and my blog Beyond Romance (http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com). I also hang out on Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/83387.Lisabet_Sarai) and Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/author/lisabetsarai).  I also have a VIP readers email list where I share release and contest information and run exclusive monthly giveaways. To join, just email me: lisabet [at] lisabetsarai [dot] com.

The Para-Portage of Emily by Muffy Wilson (@SexyMuffyWilson)

Guest Blogger, , , , ,

Night ocean with moon and moonlight reflection on water. Solitude.

Blurb:

Emily Macque, a young, beautiful junior partner in her father’s law firm, is but a heartbeat away from love or destiny. Duty brings Emily to a frozen Island estate two hundred and fifty miles north of Chicago. Devotion requires she delve into the property history to settle an estate probate. Death lures her into the arms of the shadows seduction created by the flickering light and dark shadows.

What flames the timeless passions spanning the decades? Love, desire or obsession?

Colin Jorgenson, once a Great Lakes mariner, is a strong man haunted by love and loss. How long will he return each night, gripped by desire, hoping to find the woman he has loved for a century?

Beneath the pristine Island beauty, passions hungered, lingered in the ardent darkness. His passions, fueled by decades of loneliness and longing, could no longer be denied. Will they face eternity together or love in secret as dark things are to be loved between the shadows and the soul?

Available from: Amazon UK | Amazon US

LaywithMe

Excerpt:
“Tell me what you know about Mariner’s Maiden please, Kirby.”

Kirby took a long draw on his beer before he began his narrative.

“It was years ago, around 1800 Miss Emily, when the original land owner arrived on the Island with settlers from Norway. He’d claimed five hundred acres on this southern point of the Island for himself. He became wealthy in cattle, wheat, timber and cheese. As his family grew and were educated on the Mainland, they moved, one by one, off Island. They were a wealthy, hard-working lot, but needed less and less of the acreage they owned. Much of the original plot was donated to the Town throughout the years. Some sections were sold.

“It got down to the last hundred acres when Colin Jorgenson bought the property, around 1890 or 1900. I am not exactly sure. The main house was much smaller and less grand than it is now, for sure.

“Now, Colin was a Maritime Captain and often he’d be gone for months at a time. He sailed the Great Lakes several times a year with supplies, spices, fancy goods and ‘fortunes of bounty’. That’s what they called it then. It was for sale to rich settlers throughout the Great Lakes. He’d earned all his wealth in trading by the turn of the century. He came and went for several years until, in his mid-thirties, he met and married a much younger woman, Amalya, and came back to the Island with her.”

Kirby sat back, drained his beer and continued. “The property was called Mariner’s Cove then. He spent two years with Island tradesmen rebuilding this house for his wife. To honor her, and before his return to the water, he commissioned a maritime woodcarver to create the figurehead of Amalya you saw yesterday on the tree marking the entrance.

He had the figure of Amalya mounted on the bow of his ship and apparently felt she was always with him in his travels. She died one summer, pregnant with their first child, shortly after his returning from his last trip of the season. He shut himself away in this house—a broken man, left forlorn and alone, to die years later of a broken heart as a recluse. It’s said he returns night after night trying to find his Amalya, his beloved.”

“But that’s just old folklore, Miss Emily, there’s nothing to it but made up stories from the past by gossips and romantics. This place has never been haunted—no one has ever said it was, anyway. Even though he was long dead, this property was held in Old Colin’s estate until your uncle bought it around 1955, I think. I suppose there is more you can find out at the Archives office in the Island library at the town offices, if you want. That’s about all I know and it ain’t much.”

Refusing a second beer, Kirby was off to finish his chores. “Thank you, Miss Emily,” Kirby said as he stood to leave.

Emily walked him to the door with Barkley in tow.

“Oh, there is one more thing” he added. “There is supposed to be a crypt on the property somewhere. I heard tell that Old Colin buried his Amalya in there and when he was dying, he crawled into it to die on her casket. Creepy, but no one’s ever found it to my knowledge—and between me and my dad, we’ve covered this property as caretakers for over fifty years.”

Emily extended her hand in gratitude for the information and company. “Thank you, Kirby. All of that is so very interesting. He must have been deeply in love with Amalya.”

Kirby, a middle-aged man, stood and shook Emily’s hand. He turned to leave, stopped and dropped his head as he hesitated at the bottom of the steps. A simple country man, this time was no different.

“Miss Emily…” He looked up at her rather sheepishly, and stuttered slightly, “Forgive me, Miss Emily, if I offend you. I have been a bachelor all my life and never had a way with women or much of a need for them. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like ‘em well enough, but I never was able to pick the right words in their presence. If…if you don’t mind my saying…you look an awful lot like those paintings in the house of Miss Amalya.”

“Oh my word, Kirby, how you flatter me! It is purely a coincidence, I assure you.” Emily smiled, as she dismissed the compliment and waved good-bye at Kirby. As he left, she thought about the love shared between these two remarkable people, Colin and Amalya. Amalya and Colin.

She had forgotten to ask what became of the baby…

releaseblitz_paraportageAuthor Bio and Links:
Muffy, author of erotic, romantic stories about love, sex, hope and passion, was born in San Antonio, Texas, to traditional parents. With two older brothers, she was the youngest, the family “princess,” indulged and pampered. She adored her older brothers, following them everywhere and was surrounded by love, stimulation, and pets. Her father was a career Colonel and pilot in the U.S. Air Force which required the family to travel extensively. The family lived in most points between Alaska and France. Muffy spent her formative years in Europe and came of age in France.
Returning from France with her family, Muffy finished high school in Northern California and attended the University of California, Davis, and majored in Business Management. Muffy entered the work force, independent with a fierce work ethic, and retired at 39 from IBM as a Mid-West Regional Director in the Real Estate and Construction Division. She and her husband moved to a small Island in northern Wisconsin where they owned a historic tavern, restaurant and resort business which they since have sold. They now live a charmed life by the water in SW Florida. Muffy pretends to be a serious real estate business person but, in real life, indulges her private interest in writing sexy short stories and sensual literotica ~ Live, Laugh, Love with Passion.

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Out Now! – Raige (Tainted Blood, Book Four) by RT Lucas and LJ Halkett

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RaigeBlurb

“Blood is thicker than water, that’s the old adage yeah? Family is everything to my Sweetcheeks.  She lives and breathes it. I would do anything for my female, but some things are a bigger ask than others.”
Commander Xavier Raige

Commander Xavier Raige is the leader of an elite team of soldiers-turned-mercenaries – and a super hybrid wolf. His entire life has been kept a well guarded secret, and with good reasons.  It takes the love and devotion of his Alicia to help him face his past so that he can wipe out the ghosts that still haunt him. Alicia “Sweetcheeks” Carberletti is a Sanguis-Solis vampire and it takes all her strength, intellect, determination and love to discover what happened to fracture Xavier’s family so terribly and break down the walls that he has built up around him to let her in.
The mafia war is gearing up, and with all the personal battles that are going on, will control slip through their fingers, or can the tainted blood that binds them together give them the strength to fight back?

Buy link:  http://www.darkhollowspress.com/#!raige-tainted-blood-book-four/c1oti

releaseblitzbutton_raigeAuthor bio
RT Lucas is 41 years of age, and had a very successful career in Recruitment and Business Development until it was cut short through illness.  Having worked in the Health Sector, Human Resources and Ministry of Defense, she has a myriad of experiences to draw from – and says that sometimes life can be stranger than Fiction!  RT is an avid reader of the paranormal/romance genres but her first love will always be Science Fiction.  She says that she has far superior music taste to that of her Best Friend and Co-Author – and uses every available opportunity to tell her so! RT lives alone with her #XavCat who faithfully lies by her computer whenever she wanders into the world of Tainted Blood.

L J Halkett is 35 years of age, Mother, Wife and Housing Officer for Local Government.  She is a smart, sassy and superbly imaginative woman who devours books – especially in the paranormal genre!  She is the master at multi-tasking and she is always thinking ten steps ahead. With her passion for creativity, she brings to life her imagination with vivid detail.  Family is the cornerstone of LJ’s life, and her greatest achievement is her wonderful son.  Left Partially sighted after her Stroke, LJ has to write in what the Authors call ‘NASA’ font and can only detect the colour red, which can be difficult when reading print on a daily basis – her determination is testament to her personality – as she says…. “Where’s there’s a will? There’s a way!”

Author website: http://www.xali.net/

 

Sommer Marsden talks about Her New Release, HAUNTED: A Labor of Love

Guest Blogger, New Releases, , , , ,

Ferris Wheel

It’s my pleasure to welcome a fabulous storyteller and one of my very favourite people, Sommer Marsden, to my place today to celebrate the release of her latest novel, Haunted, which is truly a labour of love.

*****

This was not an easy blog to write. Which is why I made poor KD wait for it. For that, I apologize.

It mainly comes from the fact that I love my new book Haunted. I love it because it contains characters that are damaged but resilient. I love that it is all about the healing hope of love and perseverance. I love that it contains a story line that practically wrote itself. And I love it because it was the last book I wrote while my husband Jim was still alive.

In fact, I finished it about a week before he passed. The entirety of the book was written in the midst of 24/7 caregiving. Bad sleep hours. Bad days. Hard days. Difficult and sad times. But like the characters, I decided to cling to what saved me when I was in a bad way—for me that’s writing.

So, I wrote. I wrote the entire book in our bedroom at his bedside. I wrote while he slept or was too zoned out on morphine to have a conversation. I paused writing when he’d say, “What ya writing, baby?” to tell him. I paused when he needed me.

Considering all that could be considered bad memories, in a way, I adore this book. The male lead Maddox, like all my wonderful male characters, is rooted in my husband’s personality, his ways, his kindness, his understanding and his love. For that reason alone it would be worth loving. But another reason I cherish Haunted is that when I see the book I feel his energy. His devotion. His support. I remember that without Jim I never would have fulfilled my goal to become a full-time writer. He put his faith in me, took the main ‘bread-winner’ role for a time, and gave me the shot to write for a living.

And I flourished.

So yeah, it’s a ghost story. It has scary bits, and loving bits, and sexy bits, and healing bits. But above all that, it’s the last book written while the love of my life was still with me. It’s dedicated to him (as all my books are) and it makes me remember those last few precious days with him. So, I guess you could say that Haunted haunts me but in a lovely way. A way that allows me to remember how incredibly lucky I was to have that man in my life for nineteen years. And that makes it precious to me.

For those of you who’ve read it and reviewed it, thank you! And to those of you who are considering it, thank you, also. I’m very proud of this book, and the man who made it so that I could write books, which is all I’ve ever wanted to do. <3

XOXO

Sommer

 

Ferris Wheel

 

Two people lost and alone in life searching for answers…

Maddox visits abandoned sites to take photographs and figure out his future. He haunts the places that are monuments to the way he feels inside. Stark, empty, raw. And Olyvia searches for answers to her own painful loss by hunting ghosts. Trying to comfort herself by seeking proof of an afterlife.

One haunted amusement park with a dark history…

Maddox and Olyvia recognize kindred souls in one another. But a chance to fully explore their connection is a luxury they may not have. There’s a ghost stalking Screamland hell-bent on revenge. And it’s targeting them. 

 

Excerpt:

“Wait,” he said. It killed Maddox to draw away from her. Her thighs were wrapped around his waist, her body hot against his. But he had to. “Right back.”

He moved across the room and found his bag. In the inside zippered pocket were condoms. He grabbed one and moved back to her, his socks whispering across the dirty floor. It had grown chillier in the room, but he didn’t care. Not a lick.

She leaned on one elbow watching him—her face a little less sad, her smile a little less haunted. “Always prepared, I see.”

“My dad wouldn’t let me join the boy scouts,” he said. “But I read the handbook.” He returned to her, pressing himself back against her and kissing her whiskey-tainted lips.

“Wouldn’t let you?”

“Nope. Said I quit things too often.”

She shook her head. “Stupid,” she said. “I think kids should be allowed to explore and decide.”

He pushed her red-red bangs off her face and kissed her forehead. “Brilliant plan.” Maddox ground his cock against her, feeling the bite of the thick seam of her jeans. He imagined her, hot and wet and flushed beneath. His cock ached with the thought of her. With the idea of being with someone. Especially, this oddball, forthright, sensitive woman.

He’d never have given her a second glance in a bar. The whole dark clothes, bright hair, sad look…and she probably wouldn’t have even given him a first glance. On the outside they didn’t work. Not at all. On the inside, it was like finding a kindred spirit. A shadow the exact  same shape, darkness and density as himself.

She pushed his shoulders back, raised herself up slightly, and tugged her tee over her head. Beneath it, she wore a plain white bra with just a hint of lace along the tops of the cups, and he thought it was possibly the sexiest undergarment he’d ever seen. Simply because it was on her.

He worked the front clasp, and when it parted, he pushed back the cups revealing small, pert breasts with pale pink nipples. He stared at her for a moment, mesmerized by the small caramel colored freckles that dotted her chest. When he saw her take a shuddery breath, he shook his head and sighed. “You’re gorgeous, you know?”

Before she could answer, he sucked one of Olyvia’s nipples into his mouth. He swirled his tongue, feeling the soft skin pebble. He sucked and sucked again, and when she started to tremble he gently used his teeth. Her body arched up to meet his, her fingers tangled in his hair.

 

Buy Haunted Here:

Excessica

Amazon US

Amazon UK

All Romance Ebooks 

 

About Sommer:

Sommer Marsden has been called “…one of the top storytellers in the erotica genre” (Violet Blue), “Unapologetic” (Alison Tyler) and “…the whirling dervish of erotica” (Craig J. Sorensen).

Her erotic novels include Restricted Release, Restless Spirit, Learning to Drown, and Boys Next Door. Sommer currently writes erotica and erotic romance for Xcite Books, HarperCollins Mischief, Excessica, Pretty Things Press and Resplendence Publishing. The wine-swigging, dachshund-owning, wannabe-runner lives in a little house in a little town near Baltimore, Maryland. Her fiction runs the gamut from bondage to zombies to humor.

Sommer’s short works can be found in well over a hundred and twenty-five(and counting) erotic anthologies. Her short stories have also been included numerous adult and romance magazines–both in print and online.

Visit Sommer at Unapologetic Fiction by visiting http://sommermarsden.blogspot.com or find her on social media.

 

 

Heroes Old and New: Looking For Charlotte by Jennifer Young (@jynovelist)

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tourbutton_lookingforcharlotteLooking For Charlotte is, at heart, a romantic novel in that it’s a novel about love. But that comes with qualifications, because it isn’t just about romantic love, or about sexual love. It’s about all sorts of love — sex and romance come into it, but so does the love of a mother for her children, of one human being for another when they’re strangers to one another.

But although it may trip out of one genre and into another when the time is right, Looking For Charlotte has the things that all romantic novels have — a hero and a heroine. In fact, reader, aren’t you lucky, because you have not one but two of each, a lead and a support.

It’s the heroes I’m talking about today. Let me introduce our main man first up. He isn’t your typical hero. His name is Philip. He’s in his fifties, a solicitor with the driest sense of humour, handsome (in a mid-fifties kind of way). He loves our heroine, Flora — but there’s a problem and that’s his wife. And the problem is that although he loves Flora he loves his wife, too, and his wife has been dead for twenty years.

Enter our supporting hero, the appropriately-named Archie Fortune. Archie is also a solicitor, though a couple of decades younger than Philip and without the emotional baggage. He’s much more of a conventional hero but he has problems of his own, because he falls in love with our supporting heroine, Suzanne and she is the one with the baggage. More specifically, Suzanne’s recent past involves a dead husband and the daughter he murdered before his suicide — so how can she ever love again?

So there are two love stories going on here; Flora and Philip, Suzanne and Archie. There’s an old love story (if I may call it that) and a young love story. Because young people aren’t the only ones to fall in love and (as someone once said) not all heroes wear capes.

I wonder sometimes if there’s a risk involved in writing love stories that are a little out of the ordinary; but I don’t regret it in the least. Most of my romantic plots are about first love, or at least first real love; but in Looking For Charlotte all but one of the main protagonists have long and/or never-to-be-forgotten stories behind them.

Can Philip put his saintly, beloved, dead wife, Joanne, behind him or will she come between him and Flora, whose obsessive search for little lost Charlotte frustrates and unnerves him? And is Archie, unencumbered by the traumas of any serious relationship that’s failed, sufficiently sensitive to overcome Suzanne’s suspicions and teach her to trust again?

Two heroes, then, one traditional (“Well, there was no question that she’d picked the handsome one”), one less so (“He hadn’t always been old-fashioned. Time moved on and some people stayed behind. Sometimes it suited them”). They both face a challenge. Will they both succeed?

 

Excerpt

‘I was married in June.  It’s supposed to be lucky, June. We had the full works. Marquee, ceilidh band, the lot.’ Over the years she’d tried to forget about it, but suddenly it surged up in her mind — dappled sunshine, rose-petal confetti, flower girls, laughter. Lucky horseshoes.

‘Jo and I married in a church on Loch Lomondside. Reception in a local hotel. We even had the view down to the water, just like this. It had snowed the day before. And there was a moon. Gorgeous. ’

She could see that he was just as reluctant to recall the details. Their weddings had been a long time ago. ‘How we must both have changed.’

‘Change happens to everyone in the end. It’s just that it comes to some of us sooner than others.’

‘Yes. Think of poor Suzanne Beauchamp.’

The silence persisted. They moved along the terrace a little way, isolating themselves from the clustered smokers, breath and cigarette-smoke mingling to make a fog of the night air.

‘Actually,’ said Philip, after a moment, ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

‘About what?’

‘Suzanne Beauchamp. Though I know this isn’t the time or the place. But you mentioned it.’

‘Go on.’ Of course it was the right time, the right place. It was because of the drink and because of the memories and because it showed he cared.

‘You aren’t going to find that girl.’

‘I might. Charlotte.’ She has a name. She narrowed her lips, her eyes, not in a scowl but in determination.

‘Flora, she’s dead. She could be buried anywhere. You’re chasing some ridiculous shadow for reasons of your own. You’re letting it take over your life.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are. I never see you. You’re always out. You’re always tired. It’s making you unhappy.’

‘It isn’t.’ No, it isn’t that.

‘And at the end of the day you won’t find her.’

‘She has to be somewhere.’

‘She does, but you don’t know where. And you won’t find out. How can you? We don’t even know if the clues on his letter were right. He could just have dumped her in a loch somewhere and made up the rest.’

‘He might. Or he might not.’ Flora stared out at the nearest thing to stare at, a few straggly shrub branches, iced and still. If you want to see me you could come with me when I look. He would laugh if she said that, or worse, shrug his shoulders and look away.

‘I think you should drop it before you make a fool of yourself.’ Then, after the silence he said, ‘Sorry. Wrong time, wrong place.’

 

Looking For Charlotte by Jennifer YoungBlurb

Divorced and lonely, Flora Wilson is distraught when she hears news of the death of little Charlotte Anderson. Charlotte’s father killed her and then himself, and although he left a letter with clues to her grave, his two-year-old daughter still hasn’t been found. Convinced that she failed her own children, now grown up and seldom at home, Flora embarks on a quest to find Charlotte’s body to give the child’s mother closure, believing that by doing so she can somehow atone for her own failings.

As she hunts in winter through the remote moors of the Scottish Highlands, her obsession comes to challenge the very fabric of her life — her job, her friendship with her colleague Philip Metcalfe, and her relationships with her three children.

Tirgearr Publishing: http://tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Young_Jennifer/looking-for-charlotte.htm

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1D7pNY6

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1JmAwBR

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/526032?ref=cw1985

 

Author bio

I live in Edinburgh and I write romance and contemporary women’s fiction. I’ve been writing all my life and my first book was published in February 2014, though I’ve had short stories published before then. The thing that runs through all my writing is an interest in the world around me. I love travel and geography and the locations of my stories is always important to me. And of course I love reading — anything and everything.

Links

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

Twitter: @JYnovelist

Website: http://www.jenniferyoungauthor.com/

 

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