I am still having a difficult time concentrating on reading a book, I hope to get back into it at some point. Still doing book promotions just not reviews
Thank you for your understanding during this difficult time. I appreciate all of you.
Kathleen Kelly
July 2024
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Maggie Blackbird will be awarding a $10.00 eXtasy Books Gift Certificate to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
An ex-cop returning to face his horrendous past, the woman who won’t forgive him, and the family who’ll never let him forget that he killed their son.
First Nations Constable Jordan Chartrand’s guilt can’t handle the accusing stares from the family left to mourn their son after that horrible night…so he flees from his Ojibway community and the woman he loves. Two years later, his mother’s cancer diagnosis forces him to return to help her.
Devoted schoolteacher Ellie Quill wants nothing to do with Jordan after he bolted to the city and left her behind. Her life goals are set. As for her secret, she’ll keep that to herself, even if Jordan’s begging to know the truth about her child.
When the two are compelled to work on a community project to address the rampant drug problem, their forced proximity slowly melts Ellie’s icy walls. But no matter how much her heart desires to give Jordan the second chance he’s begging for, she refuses to because providing a life for her son in the tradition of the Ojibway culture is her top priority now, not moving to the city where Jordan continues to hide.
Ellie kept dunking the tea bag into the mug.
“I’m sorry. When I met him there, I thought you’d told him to get Ray-Ray, otherwise I woulda stopped him.”
“It’s okay,” Ellie muttered, still staring at her tea instead of at her sister. “You didn’t know.”
“What made you finally tell him?”
Ellie drew in a breath. “I realized if we were going to start with a clean slate, I couldn’t keep hiding it. And he’s right. I shoulda told him from the get-go. I shouldn’t have hidden it from him.”
“Easy,” Iris warned. “Remember something. You have rights, too. He’d upped and left after you told him how you felt, after you begged him to stay. He chose the city over you. He chose everything over you. You had every right to be angry.”
“It still doesn’t justify what I did. Raymond has rights, too, and he had a right to know who his dad is.” Ellie glanced up.
“Look, I can’t see him getting on the plane and skipping town with Ray-Ray. He probably took him to his mother’s. And he’ll be here until she’s done her treatment. He won’t leave.”
“I know he won’t, but he has every right to hate me. If I was in his shoes, I’d be angry, too.” Ellie shoved aside the mug. She’d ruined everything. Keeping that secret and then lying about it was the most foolish thing she’d ever done. What had gotten into her? That wasn’t how she behaved. Selfish. That was how she’d acted.
Iris reached over the table and grabbed Ellie’s hand. “Don’t be hating yourself or blaming yourself. Women have rights, too. And you have rights. You still have rights. If he wants to be pissy about this, let him. But he can’t take Raymond from you. Not after you raised him. Jordan didn’t even stick around long enough to find out you were pregnant.”
“How was he supposed to know I was pregnant without me telling him?” Ellie whispered. “He’s not a jaasakiid.”
“He didn’t need to involve the shaking tent. Did he ever stop and ask?” Iris blinked. “It’s common sense. You two were having sex, for crying out loud. And if he holds this against you—”
“He has every right to.” Ellie ran her nails along the table. “I did it so he wouldn’t take Raymond to Winnipeg. So I wouldn’t have to live in Winnipeg. So I could raise our child here. But…”
What did it matter? The fact was, her heart had shattered into a million pieces for the second time. She could try fooling herself again, as she’d done for the last two years by saying she didn’t care, but she did.
She loved Jordan Chartrand, and she wanted to raise their son together. There went the biggest dream she’d ever dreamt, because she’d screwed up everything now.
An Ojibway from Northwestern Ontario, Maggie Blackbird resides in the country with her husband and their fur babies, two beautiful Alaskan Malamutes. When she’s not writing, she can be found pulling weeds in the flower beds, mowing the huge lawn, walking the Mals deep in the bush, teeing up a ball at the golf course, fishing in the boat for walleye, or sitting on the deck at her sister’s house, making more wonderful memories with the people she loves most.
A haunting legend. An ominous curse. A search for a secret buried deep within the castle walls.
In 1870, orphaned Daisy François takes a position as a housemaid at a Wisconsin castle to escape the horrors of her past life. There she finds a reclusive and eccentric Gothic authoress, who hides tales more harrowing than the ones in her novels. With women disappearing from the area and a legend that seems to parallel these eerie circumstances, Daisy is thrust into a web that threatens to steal her sanity, if not her life.
In the present day, Cleo Clemmons is hired by the grandson of an American aristocratic family to help his grandmother face her hoarding in the dilapidated Castle Moreau. But when Cleo uncovers more than just the woman's stash of collectibles, a century-old mystery of disappearance, insanity and the dust of the old castle's curse threaten to rise again. This time leave no one alive to tell the sordid tale.
Award-winning author Jaime Jo Wright seamlessly weaves a dual-time tale of two women who must do all they can to seek the light amidst the darkness shrouding Castle Moreau.
Praise for The Vanishing at Castle Moreau:
"An imaginative and mysterious tale."
New York Times bestselling author RACHEL HAUCK
"With real, flawed characters, who grapple with real-life struggles, readers will be drawn into this gripping suspense from the very first page. Good luck putting it down. I couldn't."
LYNETTE EASON, bestselling, award-winning author of the Extreme Measures series
"Wright pens another delightfully creepy tale where nothing is quite as it seems and characters seek freedom from nightmares both real and imagined."
Library Journal
"Wright captivates. A thrilling tale. . . . Readers won’t want to put this down."
The one who rescues,
who loves,
and who stands in the gap.
God knew I needed you.
The Girl
MAY 8, 1801
When I was a little girl, my father would often come to my bedside after my screams wakened him in the night. He would smooth back my damp ringlets, the mere feel of his callused and strong hand inspiring an instantaneous calm.
“What is it, little one?” he would ask me.
Every night, the same question. Every night, I would give the same answer.
“It is her again, Papa.”
“Her?” He would tilt his head, giving credence to my words and refraining from scolding or mockery.
“Yes.” I would nod, my head brushing the clean cotton of my pillowcase. “The woman with the crooked hand.”
“Crooked hand, hmm?” His query only increased my adamant insistence.
“Yes. She has a nub with two fingers.” A tear would often trail down my six-year-old cheek.
My father would smile with a soothing calm. “You are dreaming again, mon chéri.”
“No. She was here.” He must believe me!
“Shhh.” Another gentle stroke of his hand across my forehead. “She is the voice of the mistress of your dreams. We all have one, you know. Only yours needs extra-special care because she isn’t beautiful like the rest. She is the one who brings the nightmares, but she doesn’t mean to harm you. She is only doing her best with what she has been given, and what she has been given are her own horrors.”
“Her hand?” I would reply, even though we repeated this explanation many nights in a row.
“Yes,” my father would nod. “Her hand is a reflection of the ugliness in her stories. Stories she tells to you at night when all is quiet and your eyes are closed.”
“But they were open,” I would insist.
“No. You only think they were open.”
“I am afraid of the ghost, Papa,” I urge.
His eyes smile. “Oui. And yet there are no spirits to haunt you. Only the dream mistress. Shoo her away and she will flee. She is a mist. She is not real. See?” And he would wave his hand in the air. “Shoo, mistress. Away and be gone!”
We would survey the dark bedroom then, and, seeing nothing, my father would lean over and press his lips to my cheek. “Now sleep. I will send your mother’s dream mistress to you. Her imaginings are pleasant ones.”
“Thank you,” I would whisper.
Another kiss. The bed would rise a bit as he lifted his weight from the mattress. His nightshirt would hang around his shins, and he would pause at the doorway of my room where I slept. An only child, in a home filled with the fineries of a Frenchman’s success of trade. “Sleep, mon chéri.”
“Yes, Papa.”
The door would close.
My eyes would stay open.
I would stare at the woman with the crooked hand, who hovered in the shadows where the door had just closed. I would stare at her and know what my father never would.
She existed.
She was not a dream.
one
Daisy François
APRIL 1870
The castle cast its hypnotic pull over any passerby who happened along to find it, tucked deep in the woods in a place where no one would build a castle, let alone live in one. It served no purpose there. No strategy of war, no boast of wealth, no respite for a tired soul. Instead, it simply existed. Tugging. Coercing. Entrapping. Its two turrets mimicked bookends, and if removed, one would fear the entire castle would collapse like a row of standing volumes. Windows covered the façade above a stone archway, which drew her eyes to the heavy wooden door with its iron hinges, the bushes along the foundation, and the stone steps leading to the mouth of the edifice. Beyond it was a small orchard of apple trees, their tiny pink blossoms serving as a delicate backdrop for the magnificent property.
Castle Moreau.
Home to an orphan. Or it would be.
Daisy clutched the handles of her carpetbag until her knuckles were sure to be white beneath her threadbare gloves. She stood in the castle’s shadow, staring at its immense size. Who had built such an imposing thing? Here, in the northern territory, where America boasted its own mansions but still rejected any mimicking of the old country. Castles were supposed to stare over their fiefdoms, house lords and ladies, gentry, noblemen, and summon the days of yore when knights rescued fair maidens. Castles were not supposed to center themselves inside a forest, on the shore of a lake, a mile from the nearest town.
This made Castle Moreau a mystery. No one knew why Tobias Moreau had built it decades before. Today the castle held but one occupant: Tobias’s daughter, Ora Moreau, who was eighty-six years old. She was rarely ever seen, and even more rarely, ever heard from. Still, Ora’s words had graced most households in the region, printed between the covers of books with embossed golden titles. Her horror stories had thrilled many readers, and over the years, the books helped in making an enigma of the reclusive old woman.
When the newspaper had advertised a need for a housemaid—preferably one without a home or ties to distract her from her duties—it was sheer coincidence that Daisy had seen it, even more of a coincidence that she fit the requirements. And so it was a surprise she was hired after only a brief letter inquiring after the position.
Now she stood before the castle, her pulse thrumming with the question why? Why had she accepted the position? Why would she allow herself to be swallowed up by this castle? The stories were bold, active. Women disappeared here. It was said that Castle Moreau was a place that consumed the vulnerable. Welcoming them in but never giving them back.
Daisy stiffened her shoulders. Swallowed. Tilted her chin upward in determination. She had marched into hell before—many times, in fact. Castle Moreau couldn’t possibly be much worse than that.
Cleo Clemmons
TWO YEARS BEFORE PRESENT DAY
They had buried most souvenirs of the dead with the traditions of old, and yet what a person didn’t understand before death, they would certainly comprehend after. The need for that ribbon-tied lock of hair, the memento mori photograph of the deceased, a bone fragment, a capsule of the loved one’s ashes—morbid to those who had not lost, but understandable to those who had.
Needing to touch the tangible was a fatal flaw in humanity. Faith comforted only so far until the gasping panic overcame the grieving like a tsunami, stealing oxygen, with the only cure being something tangible. Something to touch. To hold. To be held. It was in these times the symbolism attached to an item became pivotal to the grieving. A lifeline of sorts.
For Cleo, it was a thumbprint. Her grandfather’s thumbprint. Inked after death, digitized into a .png file, uploaded to a jewelry maker, and etched into sterling silver. It hung around her neck, settling between her breasts, just left of her heart. No one would know it was there, and if they did, they wouldn’t ask. A person didn’t ask about what was held closest to another’s heart. That was information that must be offered, and Cleo had no intention of doing so. To anyone. Her grandfather was her memory alone—the good and the bad. What he’d left behind in the form of Cleo’s broken insides were Cleo’s to disguise. Faith held her hand, or rather, she clenched hands with faith, but in the darkness, when no one was watching, Cleo fit her thumb to her grandfather’s print and attempted to feel the actual warmth of his hand, to infuse all the cracks and offer momentary refuge from the ache.
Funny how this was what she thought of. Now. With what was left of her world crashing down around her like shrapnel pieces, blazing lava-orange and deadly.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” Cleo muttered into her phone, pressing it harder against her ear than she needed to. She huddled in the driver’s seat of her small car, all of her worldly possessions packed into the trunk and the back seat. She could hear the ringing on the other end. She owed it to Riley. One call. One last goodbye.
“Hey.”
“Riley!” Cleo stiffened in anticipation.
“. . . you’ve reached Riley . . .” the voice message continued, and Cleo laid her head back against the seat. The recording finished, and Cleo squeezed her eyes shut against the world outside of her car, against the darkness, the fear, the grief. This was goodbye. It had to be.
The voicemail beep was Cleo’s cue. She swallowed, then spoke, her words shivering with compressed emotion. What did a person say in a last farewell?
“Riley, it’s me. Cleo. I—” she bit her lip, tasting blood—“I-I won’t be calling again. This is it. You know. It’s what I hoped would never happen. I am so, so sorry this happened to you! Just know I tried to protect you. But now—” her breath caught as tears clogged her throat—“this is the only way I can. Whatever happens now, just know I love you. I will always love you.” Desperation warred with practicality.
Shut off the phone.
There was no explaining this.
There never would be.
“Goodbye, Ladybug.” Cleo thumbed the end button, then threw the phone against the car’s dashboard. A guttural scream curled up her throat and split her ears as the inside of the vehicle absorbed the sound.
Then it was silent.
That dreadful, agonizing silence that came with the burgeoning, unknown abyss of a new start. Cleo stared at her phone lying on the passenger-side floor. She lunged for it, fumbling with a tiny tool until she popped open the slot on its side. Pulling out the SIM card, Cleo bent it back and forth until it snapped. Determined, she pushed open the car door and stepped out.
The road was heavily wooded on both sides. Nature was her only observer.
She flung the broken SIM card into the ditch, marched to the front of the car, and wedged the phone under the front tire. She’d roll over it when she left, crush it, and leave nothing to be traced.
Cleo took a moment to look around her. Oak forest, heavy undergrowth of brush, wild rosebushes whose thorns would take your skin off, and a heap of dead trees and branches from the tornado that had ravaged these woods decades prior. The rotting wood was all that remained to tell the tale now, but it was so like her life. Rotting pieces that never went away. Ever.
She climbed back into the car and twisted the key, revving the engine to life. Cleo felt her grandfather’s thumbprint until it turned her skin hot with the memories. Memories of what had set into motion a series of frightful events. Events that were her responsibility to protect her sister from.
Goodbye, Ladybug.
There was no explaining in a voicemail to a twelve-year-old girl that her older sister was abandoning her in order to save her. Cleo knew from this moment on, Riley would play that message, and slowly resentment would seep in as she grew older. Resentment that Cleo had left and would never come back.
But she couldn’t go back. Not if she loved Riley. Sometimes love required the ultimate sacrifice. Sometimes love required death. Death to all they knew, all they had known. If Cleo disappeared, then Riley would be left alone. Riley would be safe. She could grow up as innocent as possible.
So long as Cleo Clemmons no longer existed.
***
Excerpt from The Vanishing at Castle Moreau by JAIME JO WRIGHT. Copyright 2023 by Jaime Sundsmo. Reproduced with permission from Bethany House Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Jaime Jo Wright is the author of six novels, including Christy Award winner The House on Foster Hill and Carol Award winner The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond. She's also the Publishers Weekly and ECPA bestselling author of two novellas. Jaime lives in Wisconsin with her cat named Foo; her husband, Cap'n Hook; and their littles, Peter Pan and CoCo.
The Vanishing at Castle Moreau by Jaime Jo Wright is a dual time about a "castle" in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Girls have gone missing in each generation and there is a mystery surrounding the disappearances.
In 1870 Daisy Francois, an orphan goes to Castle Moreau, owned by the Tremblays, to obtain a job as a housemaid. She is escaping her past life, hoping to better herself. There is Grand Mere(Ora) a gothic author. Her novels are pretty creepy and she is pretty creepy and demanding. There is Lincoln whom Daisy becomes close with. There is no other staff in the castle except for Festus who is really creepy. So long story short, all the people in this remote "castle" are really creepy.
Girls have gone missing, never to be found and Daisy fears that her snooping has taken her to places in the castle that hold mysteries of their own that could put her at risk. Daisy has lots of questions and the only ones that can answer the question are not talking.
In present day, Cleo Clemmons arrives at Castle Moreau, also escaping her past. A past that includes an alcoholic grandfather and a sister she abandoned. Feeling tremendous guilt she hopes to be able to recover. She is hired to help the grandson, Deacon a famous person, clean up the castle. Virgie, the grandmother, is a hoarder, upon first meeting her it seems that her hoarding is haphazard, but there is a method to her madness, literally, but the reader does not find out why until later in the book. Nope no spoilers.
At first you think that Castle Moreau is the typical gothic haunted house, it appears that way in the 1870's where there are suspicians and rumors, missing girls, screams in abandoned rooms etc.
In present day, the castle is more of a dilapedated structure in need of assistance. The characters Daisy and Cleo are both flawed individuals, keen on redemption. The grandsons now on the other hand are handsome, a lot like a character in a Daphne du Maurier novel. The grandmothers, well they are both a bit off in their own way, with lots of secrets and they are not very nice but there is a reason that they are not nice.
All of that put together, makes this a story that is dark and creepy until you get to the end, then the reader understands the whole story. I really enjoyed it, of course one of my favorite genres is a dual timeline. I love how Jaime Jo Wright tied up all the loose ends and make this a story that I could not put down.
I definitely give it 5 stars.
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Print edition of The Vanishing at Castle Moreau by Jaime Jo Wright AND an Amazon.com Gift Card.
Category: General Fiction, Fictionalized Memoir
Tour Dates: April 4-21, 2023 ISBN: 978-1955065764
Available in Print and ebook, 280 pages
On the cusp of turning eighteen, it’s time for Drew Lovell to become a man.
But deep within, Drew has questions—ones he doesn’t know how to phrase—about what that means and how to go about it.
During three intense stretches between 1985 and 1993, taking him into his mid-twenties, Drew undergoes a series of profound experiences—often wild, sometimes painful, and always revealing—that force him to rethink his current assumptions. Only after nearly dying from trying to conform to conventional models of masculinity does he begin to become the man he wants to be and not the one he thought the world required him to be. Still, he’s unable to live with full integrity until interaction with a pair of awakened humans inspires new awareness that helps him at long last embrace the truth of who he is.
Review Sex, Drugs, and Spiritual Enlightenment by Karuna Das
Guest Review by Laura
I don't think I've ever read a book that the author
bills as both a novel and memoir before and this was an intriguing place to
start! He actually calls it a “fictionalized memoir.”
'Sex, Drugs, and Spiritual Enlightenment (but mostly
the first two), is about exactly what you think from reading the title, one
man's journey into himself and his spirituality. You could also call it a
coming-of-age novel. Though Das insists that this book is not technically a
memoir, he also points out that some parts of it are truthful to his own life.
However, the main character, Andrew Lovell, is a
different person entirely. Drew is a young person who spends most of his time
on the whirlwind of life's most dangerous delights. Having been born in the
Midwest, Drew's family moves to New England when he is a young boy and his
mother soon falls in with an alternative religion.
Called the Bahá'í Faith, this group is one that Drew
respects for their open-mindedness, despite not fully believing in their
message. As he grows into a man, Drew experiences love, heartbreak, travel and,
finally, an illness that completely and utterly changes his perspective on not
just his own life, but his place in the world. He decides to write a memoir and
that's where the 'fictionalized memoir,' as Das calls it, becomes, I think,
more real.
Speaking as someone who doesn't consider themselves
very spiritual, this was an interesting read. I came out of it with a different
perspective on a few things, and I always appreciate a book that can change my
mind.
Das is a solid writer, with a lot of chops. I never
felt like he missed any marks and I couldn't pick apart which parts of the book
were real and which were fictionalized, which I think is a good thing. It was
hard to put down and is definitely worth the read!
Trigger: Language
Edited excerpt of Sex, Drugs & Spiritual
Enlightenment (but mostly the first two) by Karuna Das, taken from the
book’s Second Movement, “Holy Daze,” and the chapter “In Memoriam”:
“F*ck the world!” I yelled from the
rooftop of Angie’s apartment building.
“F*ck the world!” Scott echoed me.
“F*ck life!” I shouted.
“F*ck life!” he repeated.
“F*ck death!”
“F*ck death!”
“F*ck everything!”
“F*ck everything!”
If you’ve ever ingested
psychedelic—a.k.a. “magic”—mushrooms, perhaps you can relate. Either way, I
should explain how I came to be, at nearly midnight on Memorial Day Eve, at
that site in that state of mind.
#
“What is liberty?” said Alex, reading the words I’d
written with the magnetic stylus on my podium screen. “That’s the correct
response. And how much did he risk? Everything!”
Go bold or go home.
To win I still needed the prodigy
beside me—a sixteen-year-old college senior—to have either missed it or
mis-wagered, the latter of which seemed unlikely given this juvenile genius was
Asian, and thus an obvious math whiz. I struggled in this opening match until
the Double Jeopardy round, when I got back in the game by sweeping a College
Sports category—a feat not actually as impressive as it might sound, coming
against a nerdy teenager and a bubbly Ivy League coed.
“Now we come to the young man who
held a solid lead going into the Final Jeopardy round,” continued the quiz show
host. “What did he write?”
“E
pluribus unum,” said my opponent with a shake of his head, answering the
rhetorical question in violation of the instructions we were given to remain
silent until the visual reveal.
“Oh, too bad,” replied Alex once the
Latin phrase appeared. “The clue, as you may recall, specified it was a single
word. Your wager? Nothing! You might well still advance as a wildcard. In the
meantime, congratulations to today’s automatic semifinalist, Drew Lovell.”
I pumped my fist for the camera. Winner!
I wish I could say I won the entire
event. I should have made the finals.
I led my semifinal from the start and, aided by a true Daily Double, built a
nearly insurmountable advantage heading into Final Jeopardy. Nearly insurmountable. Still, all I had
to do was get the question right.
By the time Weird Alex arrived at my
podium, I knew I’d lost on Jeopardy!, as both other players had answered
correctly, and I hadn’t. After the deduction of what I bet—precisely enough to
cover my closest competitor’s maximum possible score—I was left in third place.
When I’m persuaded to relate this
story in person, everyone wants to know the question I choked on. And I did
choke. It concerned early American literature, a favorable subject for an
English major—or, in this case and to my downfall, three of them. In fairness,
I’d never set eyes on that particular work. But I knew it existed and, had I
not panicked under the pressure of the moment, I likely would’ve pieced
together hints in the clue and come up with the title.
If you want the actual category,
clue, and correct response, you’ll have to find that information for yourself.
Or ask my half-brother Billy. He’ll be pleased to tell you how, playing along
at home, he knew the answer instantly.
The phone call notifying me I was
chosen as a contestant came the day after my failed coupling—the first one—with
Angie. In the two weeks between then and my weekend trip to Los Angeles to participate in the
competition, I did almost nothing but memorize questions and answers from the
Trivial Pursuit game I’d long enjoyed playing. I once won a match-up with that
same half-brother on my initial turn, before he even had a chance to roll the
die.
In hindsight, all that studying
didn’t help much. But it was a convenient excuse to avoid interacting with
Angie, lest we undertake another attempt at sexual union I feared would end in
more disappointment for her—and humiliation for me. The pressure of that moment would’ve eclipsed even what
I felt under the spotlight, in the camera eye, before a live studio audience,
on that Hollywood stage. I needed time to
prepare for the more intimate performance as well.
I didn’t anticipate my temporary
physical withdrawal would induce her to turn elsewhere for satisfaction so
soon. Talk about premature emasculation! And, more crucial to the
eventual outcome of the situation, I never imagined she’d turn where she did.
Before departing for sunny Southern California, I accepted Angie’s offer to pick me
up at Sea-Tac after my flight back. I figured I’d return home either triumphant
and confident or defeated and in need of tender loving care, two scenarios I’d
be thrilled to have her join.
“Hey, Drew-Drew!” she called as I
stepped from the jetway into my arrival gate.
I stared at the young man beside
her. Where did I know him from?
“Hey,” he said as I approached.
That’s when I recognized her
companion as Christian, organizer of raves and supplier of MDMA, LSD, and other
drugs. Without his customary and deliberately strange party attire—which I’d
seen range from the Mad Hatter to Cap’n Crunch to the Cat in the Hat—he
appeared almost boy-next-doorish. But he would prove to be nothing like an
archetypal boy next door.
While I was aware of Christian’s
involvement in illicit business, as he and I walked through the concourse on
either side of Angie, I still had no idea how deep that involvement ran, or how
dangerous he—and his associates—actually were. Nor did I have any idea how intimate her dealings with him had
become, much less where they were headed. But I could plainly see they were
high at that moment, early on a Monday afternoon, and that caused me concern.
Karuna Das is the pen and spirit name of Kyle Bostian. Born in Wisconsin, he grew up in Massachusetts and now resides in Pennsylvania, but he lives wherever he happens to be at that moment and feels at home everywhere in the universe. He holds a BA in English and an MFA in Playwriting. In addition to his dramatic writing, he’s published the sci-fi novel Kat’s Cradle as well as short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. He and life partner Ti share their house with five wonderfully wacky cats.
Maybe it’s the beer or the stifling heat, but his eyes seem to follow as I make my way around the room. Caught staring back, it’s as if he sees my thoughts when the corner of his lip tugs into a knowing smile. It’s impossible for him to know that I’m imagining what kind of lover he would be – selfish or generous, relentless or fleeting, but his smile says otherwise. That smile could knock a girl right out of her panties. Maybe for one night I can be someone else, and that makes the prospects endless.
Slipping between the crowd, I find myself on the street. A gust of wind travels down the long strip mall. Everything is dark, all the other stores closed for the night. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply and smell the rain.
It’s coming.
The city hibernates all year waiting for the rain to penetrate the hard-shelled soil, breaking it open, and once it does, everything comes to life.
A lightning bolt stretches across the sky just as the wind picks up, blowing the hair from my neck and cooling it. I start to walk down the block on the way back to my car, passing a darkened record store when I hear a voice call out behind me. “Hey.”
Without even turning around, I know it’s him, the singer with the velvet voice and the kissable lips. The wind continues to blow like a freight train down the block, picking up the edges of my shirt and blowing my hair across my face. Turning around, I see he’s standing on the sidewalk, looking every bit as delicious as he did on stage. Waiting for him to look around me, to the person whose attention he was really trying to get, but he just stares at me the same way he did in the bar, like he’s trying to unearth my secrets.
Caught in the spider’s web of his soulful eyes, I’m unable to move.
The silence is broken when the sky opens and dumps heavy sheets of rain, plastering my hair to my face and my shirt against my body in less than a minute. Moving towards me, with each step closing the distance between us, the bashful smile on his face causes my pulse to quicken, and the blood rushing in my ears becomes the only sound I can hear. When he reaches me, I can see the pulse in his neck as his hand grips my waist, guiding me into the alcove of the darkened record store, taking us out of the rain. With his hand still on my waist, the heat from it makes me shiver.
His close proximity takes the breath out of me, and I watch as the water drips from his hair onto his full lips, leaving a trail down his chin. In the dim light of the alcove with only the streetlamp to illuminate his face, I see the green flecks in his brown eyes as he searches mine. They pull me in like a magnet; intense and beautiful. My palms press against his chest slowly gathering his shirt between my fingers, all while my heart pounds in my chest because this stranger drew me in the minute I laid eyes on him in the bar. It’s as if he is a tiny piece of my past buried long ago now being unearthed.
Maybe it’s the wind, the way it wraps itself around us, pushing us together rather than pulling us apart, I feel as though this is a chance I need to take. How many times in the last eighteen years had I truly taken something just for myself? And how many more times in my lifetime will I get a chance to choose something for myself?
In the small space between us, a question lingers in the air.
Can I kiss you?
Wanting it and doing it are two different things, because once I cross that line, will I be taking a step backwards? Looking at his beautiful rain-soaked face, I know the answer.
Paula Dombrowiak grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois but currently lives in Arizona. She is the author of Blood and Bone, her first adult romance novel which combines her love of music and imperfect relationships. Paula is a lifelong music junkie, whose wardrobe consists of band T-shirts and leggings which are perpetually covered in pet hair. She is a sucker for a redeemable villain, bad boys, and the tragically flawed. Music inspires her storytelling.
Bianca Maria Curtis is at the brink of losing it all when she meets Eric at a bar in Manhattan. Eric, as it turns out, is the famous Korean drama celebrity Park Hyun Min, and he’s in town for one night to escape the pressures of fame. From walking along Fifth Avenue to eating ice cream at Serendipity to sharing tender moments on top of the Empire State building, sparks fly as Bianca and Eric spend twelve magical hours far away from their respective lives. In that time, they talk about the big stuff: love, life, and happiness, and the freedom they both seek to fully exist and not merely survive.
But real life is more than just a few exhilarating stolen moments in time.
As the clock strikes the twelfth hour, Bianca returns back to the life she detests to face a tragedy that will test her strength and resolve—and the only thing she has to keep going is the memory of a man she loves in secret from a world away.
Maan Gabriel is a mom, wife, dreamer, writer, and advocate for women’s stories in literature. She earned her BA in communications from St. Scholastica’s College in Manila and MPS in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University. She has lived in Manila, Brussels, Dakar, and Mexico City. During the day, she works in strategic communications. Gabriel, along with her husband and son, currently calls suburban Washington DC home. After Perfect is her first novel.
"I dream of a world full of hope, where believing is as important as life itself, and where love can move mountains. This is in the very core of my stories, and I wish in more ways than one that I can inspire you to see the world as I see it... a fairy tale."
What
if the world changed overnight…and it was all because of you?
All
Pennrae wanted to do was to help. Now she’s found herself in a
world that’s been instantaneously transformed by magic…that she
brought back. She’s gone from a simple karate instructor to an
instant celebrity—and she hates it. Fortunately, she has her
friends, her beloved magic companion, and one ridiculously hot
boyfriend.
But a sudden, unprompted attack in broad daylight
is about to make Penn’s life even more complicated. An ancient
forest guardian known as a Kiabi—a warrior of magic and almost
impossible to defeat—has marked Penn to die. The attack at first
seems incidental and unprovoked…until she discovers the true
cause. Her.
Penn may have saved the world, but her actions have set a chain of
events in motion. In one brief moment, something dark, terrible, and
older than time itself found an opportunity to escape, to free itself
from the guardians and mark Pennrae as its enemy. Now the world and
everyone she loves face a gruesome fate unless Penn can unleash the
full force of her Divine magic...
The Warrior of the Divine
Sword series is best enjoyed in order.
Falling
asleep for almost 300 years was never part of Pennrae's plan.
Of
course, when you're a mercenary with magical abilities and defy a
spellbinding prophecy...bad stuff happens.
Now,
magic is long gone from the world. So Penn works as a karate
instructor, trying very hard to dodge her hot, flirty, and super
annoying colleague, Callan. All is well until a Jigori - a
nightmarish magic-eating monster - shows up at a New York City street
fair, forcing Penn to use her Shaper magic, which allows her to
transform wood and metal into deadly weapons.
Now,
the Jigori's master has her scent, and their eye on stealing her 300
years of life. If they succeed, Penn succumbs to centuries of sleep
again, and magic will be unleashed on a completely unprepared
world.
And
to add to her ridiculously complicated life, something isn't quite
right with Callan. Which she could figure out if it weren't for that
evil, apocalyptic plot she's trying to stop. But Penn may not have a
choice - Callan could be the secret weapon she needs to save the
world...
A.J.
Locke is a young adult and adult fantasy author, and also writes and
illustrates picture books. She is an artist of various mediums
including oil and acrylic paint, and watercolor. When she’s trying
to avoid her writing projects she can be found trying to make a dent
in her TBR pile, playing video games, watching anime, baking, and
chasing the ever elusive eight hours of sleep. A.J. is originally
from Trinidad and Tobago and now resides in NYC.
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