Moonshine, Magic, and Murder by January Bain – Spotlight and Giveaway

May 14, 2021 By 8 Comments

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. January Bain will be awarding a $50 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Charm McCall has a proven track record for solving small-town mysteries, but can she figure out how to deal with a life event that threatens to harm the McCall clan…

Charm McCall is once more on the hunt to figure out why her cat has been seeing a ghost, why she’s been shown a treasure map by, gulp, a dead guy and why her Auntie T.J. has suddenly disappeared, bagpipes and all. That would be more than enough, but with the upcoming Sadie Hawkins dance and its accompanying promise bags to create and spell, to help her fellow Goddesses get their dearest wishes fulfilled, she’s about run off her feet. Not to mention that now it’s legal to sell marijuana in Canada, orders for pot brownies are spilling in and threatening to crash her online store.

Charm discovers she needs all the help she can get to deal with the arrival of her mother and the beyond painful host of problems that creates for her family, find her Auntie T.J. to save her hiney and discover who the real murderer is. That is, if she wants her romance with Snowy Lake’s sexy Mountie, Ace Collins, to have any hope of deepening…

Enjoy an Excerpt

“Careful! That box is already spelled! Anything could happen if you mix them up,” I shouted at my triplet Star, who was paying me no mind, just moving things haphazardly around as she ‘dusted’ the shelves of the Tea & Tarot café.

Star twitched her whole body into a pretend robot, her blonde curls bouncing when she dime-stopped her limbs in an abrupt series of motions. It was a lightning change of mood that had become far too common of late. I gave a deep sigh of frustration I didn’t bother to hide. She’d been getting worse by the day, antsy no doubt for The Call. Darn movie people. Telling her she had a role, then delaying production.

“Oh, really.” Okay, she was good at the robot dance, I’d give her that, if a job ever asked for such a dubious ability. But that didn’t stop me from rushing forward to rescue the Promise Bags. They held the precious trinkets of all the females around town who were participating in the upcoming Sadie Hawkins dance. Each midnight blue velvet bag had been magically infused with a specific wish, ranging from a marriage proposal to a spa vacation. Mix up those babies and all Hades will break loose, because this year the items had been blessed under the decade’s most awesome supermoon.

Maybe that’s a bad idea? I chewed on a fingernail while I worried about going too far in my overwhelming urge to have my fellow goddesses receive their fair due from men who did not always appreciate them. Men could be so lame sometimes, not reading the signals right under their very noses, though that did not appear to be the case with our local Mountie, Ace Collins. He could be a little too astute at times. Goddess, give me the strength…

The emotive notes of a musical instrument native to Scotland, one that defied the noise ordinance of Snowy Lake, broke through my worry fog.

Auntie T.J.

I set the rescued box safely aside on a shelf and scurried toward the huge picture window of the Tea & Tarot café to where Tulip sat perched on a stool. The third triplet of our McCall clan, she was a matching bookend to Star, which made them both polar opposites to me with my Elizabeth Taylor-esque violet-colored eyes and dark hair. Or at least according to Granny Toogood, who loved her old movies.

Tulip was keyboarding as per usual on her computer, working either on her ongoing blog posts or selling our newly rolled out ‘potcakes’ to the Canadian masses. I sent a silent prayer to the goddess that the extra revenue the items were supposed to bring in happened. We’d invested in producing cannabutter to add to our spectacular line-up of bakery goods, and to think it might go to waste if the idea didn’t catch on induced serious heart palpitations. And that just isn’t right when a gal’s only twenty-one years old.

“Shoot! What’s Auntie T.J. up to now?”

“She only brings out the big guns when she feels threatened,” Tulip said. “See, Sergei McCausland.” She pointed at the business owner our auntie was serenading with her warmongering.

The town hound dog owned the Bowl-a-ram-a, the five-pin bowling alley tucked away at the outskirts of town, which was located a hop, skip and a jump from our café, Snowy Lake being so small with only twelve hundred and fifty-nine residents, that I could run across it quicker than I could be bothered to start up my Jeep, Thor.

Though that had been changing somewhat of late with the arrival of Constable Collins and his annoying active pursuit of law and order. Sheriff Winn Duffy was more beloved of course, having turned a blind eye for decades, but the new Mountie was gaining ground. Did I share that he’s a handsome devil?

About the Author: January Bain has wished on every falling star, every blown-out birthday candle, and every coin thrown in a fountain to be a storyteller. To share the tales of high adventure, mysteries, and full-blown thrillers she has dreamed of all her life. The story you now have in your hands is the compilation of a lot of things manifesting itself for this special series. Hundreds of hours spent researching the unusual and the mundane have come together to create books that features strong women who live life to the fullest, wild adventures full of twists and unforeseen turns, and hot complicated men who aren’t afraid to take risks. She can only hope her stories will capture your imagination.

If you are looking for January Bain, you can find her hard at work every morning without fail in her office with her furry baby, Ling Ling. And, of course, she’s married to the most romantic man! Who once famously remarked to her inquiry about buying fresh flowers for their home every week, “Give me one good reason why not?” Leaving her speechless and knocking her head against the proverbial wall for being so darn foolish. She loves flowers.

If you wish to connect in the virtual world she is easily found on Facebook. Oh, and she loves to talk books…

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Manitoba Tea & Tarot Mysteries Facebook Page | Goodreads

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The Gospel According to Prissy by Barbara Casey – Spotlight and Giveaway

May 11, 2021 By 2 Comments

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Barbara Casey will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Three Army veteran misfits, a college dropout, an unmotivated high school graduate accused of murder, a controversial warden of a women’s prison, and a little girl with the gift of prophesy – these are the people 31-year-old Lara Kruger invites into her life after suffering a miscarriage, a divorce from an abusive husband, and unemployment.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Miriam walked away from her desk and paused in front of the unframed full-length mirror she had salvaged from the recent renovations in the women’s shower rooms. The edges were chipped and blackened, and there was a fairly large crack that ran vertically from one corner to the other. The condition of the mirror was the result, no doubt, of one of many displays of frustration and anger within the prison walls before she took over. Still, the mirror served its purpose. On those rare occasions when Warden Miriam Temple of the Braden Women’s Correctional Institution needed to be sure she looked her best, at least she could do so in the privacy of her own office.

Studying her reflection, she saw a tall, aging fifty-nine-year-old woman with dark hair streaked with gray cut in a simple shag, myopic brown eyes made evident by the wire-framed glasses, and a raw-boned body that could be considered well-proportioned if it weren’t for the fact that it was about twenty pounds on the heavy side, fifteen of which had settled around her thighs and buttocks. “Pear shaped, as opposed to apple shaped,” she frequently reminded herself, “so that means at least I won’t die of a heart attack.” The fact that her ear lobes were also plump and didn’t have the diagonal creases indicating some type of heart disease seemed to confirm that fact. She didn’t know if these old-wives’ tales she had grown up with were really true, but she liked to keep an open mind, especially when they worked to her benefit.

She normally didn’t wear make-up, but this morning before leaving for work, she had dug out her small tapestry bag that held what few cosmetics she owned and applied a little blush and a touch of lipstick. She rubbed one cheek with her hand now, thinking that maybe she shouldn’t have bothered. She didn’t need to impress anyone. Even if there had been the awkwardness that sometimes comes with being a large woman, it had been replaced years ago by the confidence born from a privileged background and the level of acceptance and comfort from which she viewed herself.

Her dark gray suit and crisp white blouse were clean and unwrinkled, thanks to the prison laundry facilities. The plain black pumps she wore looked both practical and appropriate to complete the over-all appearance of discipline, control, strength, and above all, a positive attitude. It was the attitude within the prison that Miriam had worked the hardest on when she took over as head warden six years earlier. There had been a stifling wave of hopelessness and despair among the female inmates so thick it made it difficult to breathe. This was manifested daily in brawls, food fights, and a behavior of non-compliance in general. “Animals get treated better than we do,” had been the mantra at the prison.

For six years Miriam had been working fourteen-hour days, overseeing the operations of the facility, staying on top of problems, writing reports, and talking to every person she could reach about helping to set up programs for “her girls” as she referred to them. Each of Miriam’s programs offered something to a few of her girls, but not to all, something she struggled with daily. She constantly researched what other correctional institutions were doing not only in this country but other countries as well, trying to come up with new ways to stimulate her girls and help them feel enthusiastic about their lives.

It had worked. She started getting noticed after the first year of her tenure. Complaints from the prisoners dropped, a State audit confirmed that for the first time in over a decade the prison budget would be in the black, and the over-all appearance of the facility was vastly improved. Government officials who previously had been reluctant to show interest now started to open doors for this hard-working, persistent, and obviously dedicated woman.

And then Prissy had been born.

About the Author:

Originally from Carrollton, Illinois, author/agent/publisher Barbara Casey attended the University of North Carolina, N.C. State University, and N.C. Wesleyan College where she received a BA degree, summa cum laude, with a double major in English and history. In 1978 she left her position as Director of Public Relations and Vice President of Development at North Carolina Wesleyan College to write full time and develop her own manuscript evaluation and editorial service. In 1995 she established the Barbara Casey Agency and since that time has represented authors from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan. In 2014, she became a partner with Strategic Media Books, an independent nonfiction publisher of true crime, where she oversees acquisitions, day-to-day operations, and book production.

Ms. Casey has written over a dozen award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction for both young adults and adults. The awards include the National Association of University Women Literary Award, the Sir Walter Raleigh Literary Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award, the Dana Award for Outstanding Novel, the IP Best Book for Regional Fiction, among others. Two of her nonfiction books have been optioned for major films, one of which is under contract.

Her award-winning articles, short stories, and poetry for adults have appeared in both national and international publications including the North Carolina Christian Advocate Magazine, The New East Magazine, the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer, the Rocky Mount (N.C.) Sunday Telegram, Dog Fancy, ByLine, The Christian Record, Skirt! Magazine, and True Story. A thirty-minute television special which Ms. Casey wrote and coordinated was broadcast on WRAL, Channel 5, in Raleigh, North Carolina. She also received special recognition for her editorial work on the English translations of Albanian children’s stories. Her award-winning science fiction short stories for adults are featured in The Cosmic Unicorn and CrossTime science fiction anthologies. Ms. Casey’s essays and other works appear in The Chrysalis Reader, the international literary journal of the Swedenborg Foundation, 221 One-Minute Monologues from Literature (Smith and Kraus Publishers), and A Cup of Comfort (Adams Media Corporation).

Ms. Casey is a former director of BookFest of the Palm Beaches, Florida, where she served as guest author and panelist. She has served as judge for the Pathfinder Literary Awards in Palm Beach and Martin Counties, Florida, and was the Florida Regional Advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators from 1991 through 2003. In 2018 Ms. Casey received the prestigious Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and Top Professional Award for her extensive experience and notable accomplishments in the field of publishing and other areas. She makes her home on the top of a mountain in northwest Georgia with three cats who adopted her, Homer, Reese and Earl Gray – Reese’s best friend.

Amazon Author Page

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Proximity and Touch: In Life, In the Pandemic and In Emergence by Ellie Beals – Guest Blog and Giveaway

May 5, 2021 By 3 Comments

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Ellie Beals will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour. See our five star review here!

Proximity and Touch: In Life, In the Pandemic and In Emergence

I have a new puppy – he’s 15 weeks old now, and is doing a lovely job of taking brisk walks around the neighborhood on a loose leash. Many people we encounter on these walks get that soft, mushy “OMG, a puppy!” look on their faces when they see him, and I respond affirmatively when they ask if they can greet him. This is a pandemic puppy – he needs all the input and stimuli I can allow or provide. I keep him on a long leash, and step back and turn my face away, to allow appropriate distance between humans, while he moves forward to greet the new folks. As I watch puppy and humans interact, the way the humans revel in the physical contact seems more pronounced to me than what I’ve witnessed in the past with other puppies. Am I imagining this? I don’t think so. I think the hunger for the tactile exchanges that we used to take for granted are profound. We have all become, or are becoming, pandemic puppies ourselves – constantly attached to invisible leashes that prevent us from interacting with the world the way we want to. The way we need to.

As both a dog-trainer, and a human with profound “skin hunger” I have always been highly aware of proximity and touch, and I believe I would have embedded that awareness in my first novel under any circumstances. But I suspect the fact that Emergence was written during the pandemic may have contributed to my decision to use proximity and touch as the principal milestones in the development of the relationship at the heart of Emergence – the friendship that slowly evolves between middle-aged Cass Harwood, an urban-born dog-trainer turned wilderness recreationist, and Xavier, the isolated “wildchild” of Lac Rouge.

At the outset, the contact between Xavier and Cass is, frankly, one-sided and a tad creepy. Unknown to Cass, Xavier surveils her for a long period, during which, unequivocally – he touches her with his eyes, describing for example, how she looks younger and softer as she raises her face to the sun, or how she sighs in resignation when she realizes she’s lost track of one of her dogs. Had she known, surely Cass would have been as disturbed by the invasiveness of this kind of observation as any of us would be if someone we didn’t know or didn’t like, stood too close and touched too often.

But she didn’t know. And as a result, when they finally met, Cass brought her own awareness of proximity and touch to the relationship. Though she (like her creator) is a tactile person, she recognized that Xavier would be skittish about proximity and touch, and suppressed her natural impulses to reach out to him. Numerous times, she alludes to wanting to make physical contact with him but restraining herself, recognizing the kind of intense physical and emotional “privacy” he emanated.

Xavier is also acutely aware of and curious about, the implications of touch. He comments on the fact that the very first time he observed Cass and her husband Noah together, Noah patted her bottom. He is repelled by the way Jean Luc touches him too often and too intimately. He is fascinated by how “touchy” Yates, a close friend of both Harwoods, is. He is also a bit jealous of the implied intimacy between Yates and Cass.

Xavier experiences a kind of epiphany which is part of his emergence from his isolation, when he realizes the extent to which touch can be a communication vehicle, when Cass coaches him on dog-training and explains the importance of “good hands”. It is during that session that Cass, previously so cautious with Xavier, touches him without even thinking about it, because it is so innate a part of her coaching persona. And because that touch is so natural and appropriate to the circumstances – Xavier breaches the touch barrier, and accepts this new degree of contact with another person. He has started to emerge. And the process culminates when later, at a time of high emotion, Cass opens her arms to Xavier, and his empathy propels him to breach the touch barrier. He describes it this way: ‘And she looked at me like she was asking permission as she held her arms out. I couldn’t leave her standing there like that; it would have been mean. So I nodded and stepped in for the hug she was offering.”

Even Stefan, Xavier’s father, whose decision to live the isolated life at Lac Rouge that has created the social void in which Xavier has resided, is not immune to the pleasures of touch. Xavier is intrigued by watching Stefan interact with a puppy, and speculates that based on what he sees – Stefan must have “good hands”. But the fact that this is conjecture says all that needs be said about the absence of touch between father and son.

Dogs, and puppies in particular, are powerful touch champions. I return to my adventures watching pedestrians interact so fervently with my puppy. As a result of these interactions, he will grow up “normally” – attuned to and invested in the pleasures of tactile interactions with humans. But what about us? When this is over, will we be able to abandon our acquired paranoia about proximity and touch, like a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis? I hope so.

It starts with Just Watching. But danger emerges when Just Watching ends.

When the “wild child” Xavier ¬ first encounters Cass Hardwood and her dogs in the woods of West Quebec, he is enthralled. Unknown to them, he Just Watches them in a lengthy ongoing surveillance, before ¬ finally staging a meeting. His motives are uncertain—even to him.

The intersection of the lives of Cass, a competitive dog handler; her dogs; her cousin Lori; and the complex and enigmatic Xavier leads them all into a spiral of danger. It starts when Just Watching ends—when Cass and her crew encounter tragedy in the bush. Xavier’s involvement in the tragedy, unknown to Cass, sets off a chain of potentially lethal events that begin in the dark woods of Lac Rouge, when hiking, skiing, hunting, trapping, marijuana grow-ops, and pedophilia collide. It matures in the suburbs of both Ottawa and Baltimore, and culminates back in Lac Rouge, when Lori’s spurned and abusive lover arrives uninvited at Cass’ isolated cabin in the woods. In the night. In the cold. In the heavily falling snow. His arrival is observed by Xavier, whose motives are again uncertain, but whose propensity for action is not.

Join Xavier, Lori, Cass, and the realistic and compelling dogs that are essential players in this dark drama as their fates converge in a deadly loop of revenge, fear, guilt, and hope.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Our cabin doesn’t have a basement. It is raised on cinderblocks, and is only maybe a foot off the ground…That has allowed me to have an excellent place to hide things I don’t want Stefan to know about. There are boards underneath where the kitchen is, that I’ve had to explore when working with insulation. I now have my own special board, where I’ve hollowed out a space where I can hide stuff. My secret stuff incudes extra notebooks with the drawings of Cassie and the dogs, that would reveal how much time I spend observing them. But it also includes special stuff I’ve liberated, that I don’t want Stefan to know about.

Liberation is a game Stefan taught me when I was littlelittle. He told me that good equipment deserves to be well cared-for. When he was teaching me how to Just Watch, he’d find hunting stands where we could watch campers, fishermen, and hunters. And he would explain when they did things right, and when they didn’t. Not looking after your equipment is not right. So when people were careless, and particularly when they were careless and drunk, or even better – careless, drunk and asleep ( which happens pretty often!) he taught me how to do a super-quiet “leopard crawl”, which means crawling really low to the ground on your belly. And I would have to leopard crawl to liberate the good equipment. It was scary and very fun! I got us lots of good stuff. As far as Stefan knew, it all went into a big wooden chest in the book room.

But I have liberated some stuff on my own – things I never told Stefan about. And that stuff goes into my hiding space under the house. Most of it is small stuff. My favorite little liberation was a system for carrying water in a pack with a hose you can sip it through. But the main thing, the big thing in my hiding space, is the rifle I liberated a year ago, when Stefan was away.

I was Just Watching a little clearing off the main road where hunters often met up with each other. It was early in the season, and I was there before any one arrived. But as the sun rose, four SUVs showed up. They were all big, expensive looking vehicles. Six men got out, all dressed in in the kind of clothes that hunters from the city wear and that Stefan makes fun of. One of the men, who I think maybe was younger than the others, acted really excited. He reminded me of how bullshit dogs like Zeke try to act tough but end up wagging their tails really fast and low and licking the mouths of the no-bullshit dogs. He was the guy with the biggest SUV. While they were getting ready to go, he took two rifles out of the car and showed them to the other men. There was a lot of discussion. I’m pretty sure they were deciding which one he should use that day. They decided on the fancier, newer-looking one, with a powerful-looking scope. The guy put the other one back in the SUV…

It never occurred to me to liberate it. Breaking into a car was not something Stefan had taught me to do. But the guy never locked his vehicle! I couldn’t believe it!

About the Author Ellie Beals grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and moved to Canada when she was 20. She spent the majority of her professional career as a management consultant in Ottawa, Ontario. Plain language writing was one of her specialties.

Dogs have been a constant in Ellie’s life from the time she was a child. In the mid-1990s, she started to train and compete in Obedience with Golden Retrievers, with considerable success. In 2014, she had the highest-rated Canadian obedience dog (Fracas—upon whom Chuff is modelled), and her husband David Skinner had the second-rated dog. During a ten-year period, both Ellie and David were regularly ranked among Canada’s top ten Obedience competitors. They have an active obedience coaching practice in Ottawa, having retired from their previous professional careers in order to spend more time playing with their dogs and their students.
Like Cass and Noah Harwood, Ellie and David have a log cabin in the wilds of West Quebec, where Ellie is an avid wilderness recreationist, constantly accompanied by her dogs. As COVID-19 spread in March of 2020, she and David temporarily shut down their coaching practice and retreated to their cabin, where Emergence was written. Lac Rouge is not the real name of the lake on which they live. Everything else about the locale for Emergence is faithful to the character of the gentle Laurentian mountains of West Quebec.

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Blood from a Stone by David M. Salkin – Spotlight and Giveaway

May 3, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Long and Short Reviews welcomes David M. Salkin who is celebrating the recent release of Blood from a Stone. Enter to win a fabulous gift package and get a First For Romance Gift Card!

A dream house to share with his love becomes a nightmare when an old diary reveals a dark secret that brings a wounded warrior out of retirement.

When Special Forces veteran Cory Walker purchased the home on Harkers Island, he knew it came with a history. Two white marble angels in the rear yard stand sentinel over the house where Casey Stone and her mother had lived—and died. But that was decades ago, and Cory is now in love with both the house and his girlfriend Amanda. He’s determined to build a new life on the quiet island to readjust to civilian life and enjoy his new love.

Cory’s decision to build a wine cellar turns his dream house into a nightmare when he discovers the hidden diary of Casey Stone. Casey, only sixteen, had been raped and murdered many years earlier, the only horrible crime that had ever occurred on the small island. Her mother was so devastated that she hanged herself, hence the two angels in the yard placed there by Earl Stone. As Cory reads the journal, he discovers that the truth may be much different from what was ever believed.

The wrong man is sitting in jail, and as Cory begins to ask questions about the case, he soon realizes he is opening a box of secrets that may get both him and Amanda killed.

Earl Stone, the formerly grieving husband and stepfather, may be the next President of the United States, and when a man that powerful wants secrets to stay buried, the dangerous possibilities are endless.

Reader advisory: This book includes mentions of sexual abuse and rape of a minor, psychological abuse, violence, reference to warfare including the deaths of children, sometimes graphic injury description and murder.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Amanda was driving down from Twin Oaks. I had a bottle of Italian red, a Super Tuscan called Le Volte by Ornellaia, decanting in the kitchen. I’d made a puttanesca sauce, and the garlic, red peppers and crushed anchovies sautéing in olive oil had perfumed my new home. The sizzle was a magical noise. Into that, I’d added diced Kalamata olives, capers, tomato paste and crushed tomatoes.

The spaghetti alla puttanesca was just a little taste—a traditional Italian pasta before the main course. The secondi would be a huge bone-in rib-eye steak, grilled out back on the patio. I had dry-rubbed the steak with my list of secret ingredients. It’s a secret because I never make anything the same way twice, so it’s a secret to me, too. A little sautéed broccoli rabe and badda-bing, dinner would be served. It would be our first meal together in the new house. I was trying to cook my way into her staying with me forever.

In my other life, I had eaten MREs on a regular basis—government-supplied packets of food designed to make you angry enough to kill people. ‘MRE’—Meals Rejected by Ethiopians, Meals Rarely Edible, Meals Requiring Enemas, Massive Rectal Expulsions. You get the idea. They weren’t very good. As a result, I learned to cook—foraging and becoming a creative genius to turn the rancid packets into something my comrades and I might actually eat.

Amanda arrived right on time, and with her, a breath of fresh air and an aura of positive energy and bright light that I’d been missing all my life. Her mere presence made me smile. I was hoping my cooking skills would make up for whatever other shortcomings I have. It seemed to be working. I have two great skills—cooking and killing people, and I planned to leave the death and destruction part in my former life. I was determined to be a kinder, gentler version of myself going forward. I would gourmet my way into Amanda’s heart.

Dinner was a smashing success, with conversation that covered a hundred topics and had us both smiling like lovestruck teenagers as we caught up on each other’s weeks. It was pretty darn perfect. After dinner, we finished that great bottle of Ornellaia, opened a bottle of port and decided to take a walk to the beach.

It was the kind of peaceful night that reminds one of how amazing life can be when everything falls into place. We ended up in the warm, flat ocean up to our knees and I asked her yet again about moving in. This time she didn’t say ‘no’. Instead, she talked about maybe trying to find a physical therapy job down here, closer to the island.

We walked home and sat outside in the back garden, looking at the stars. The moon lit the white marble faces of the two angels who resided in my yard. The pair had stood sentinel there for years before I’d purchased the house. They came alive softly in the moonlight, and with them, their sad story hung in the still air. The house had a history—one that the folks on Harkers Island wanted to forget.

On Sunday, after a late, leisurely brunch, Amanda left. It was like the air had been sucked out of the house. Loneliness snuck back into my soul and once again I had to fight off the ghosts of those last days in Afghanistan.

I needed a mission to focus on. And this time, it would be for me. A wine cellar… It would be a surprise for Amanda when she came back down in two weeks.

When I had purchased the house, I had been surprised to find it had a basement. The island is only a few feet above sea level. When this house had been built, the foundation had been set on a man-made hill, making the house one of the tallest on the island. It made the stately home regal, perched slightly above the rest of the houses like a castle above the serfs. It had an attitude—and I probably had one of the only basements on the island. There were plenty of newer and fancier homes, several worth seven figures, but this house had character—along with that dark history.
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The basement was cool, the perfect temperature for wine. I’d sketched out a design and purchased lumber and some tools. The first thing I did was put in some overhead fluorescent lights. Then I scrubbed the poured concrete floor. The walls were cinderblock, with a few open crawlspaces.

Channeling my energy into something positive, I was going to finish making a rack system against one of the walls. Nothing too fancy. I would have the shelves slightly pitched forward. That way I could see the labels and keep the corks angled to the floor. It was a great way to design a wine cellar, but I couldn’t take credit for inventing it. Back in my days with Special Forces, a buddy and I used to kill time talking about our dream houses, and all of them included a great wine cellar. He would have built it someday—I’m sure of it—if some fanatic wearing a bomb vest hadn’t run into his tent one morning in Kabul and killed him and a few other great guys I knew. I’d build it for him. And that first bottle would be used to toast my friend.

I was cleaning off the cinderblock wall, getting ready to nail in the studs, when the beam of my flashlight caught the edge of something inside the crawlspace. That was when my dream house turned into a nightmare and ancient history became my new reality.

Sitting on the sand behind the top of the cinderblock wall was a small leather-covered book. Old and worn… I picked it up and looked at the cover. It must have been covered with doodles and cartoon flowers years ago, but the ink had faded, and insects and moisture had damaged it. When I opened the front cover, it cracked slightly at the binding.

Casey A. Stone 1991.

It took me a moment to realize what it was—a diary.

The paper was stiff and crinkly in my hands. The penmanship was neat and feminine…

My brain started playing catch-up, making the hair on the back of my neck stand.

Casey Stone.

She was one of the angels in my yard.

About the AuthorInternational, award-winning author David M. Salkin has been entertaining readers since 2005. His brand of thrillers includes military-espionage, horror and crime. Salkin has appeared around the country, including three times as a panelist at New York City’s Thrillerfest and also at Books in the Basin, in Midland and Odessa, Texas. Dave enjoys speaking to book clubs and groups about writing, and has appeared on television, radio, and various print media.

David served as an elected official in Freehold Township for twenty-five years (Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Township Committeeman) and was inducted into the New Jersey Elected Officials Hall of Fame in 2019. He is a 1988 graduate of Rutgers College with a BA in English Literature. When not working or writing, Dave prefers to be Scuba diving or traveling. He’s a Master Diver, as well as a pretty good chef and wine aficionado. David speaks three languages fluently – English, sarcasm and profanity.

David is an associate member of the Philip A Reynolds Detachment of the Marine Corps League, and board member of the Veterans Community Alliance.

Find out more at David’s website.

Website | Goodreads | First for Romance Author Page

Buy the book at your favorite venue or First for Romance.

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If She Dies by Erik Therme – Spotlight and Giveaway

April 28, 2021 By 3 Comments

This post is part of a virtual tour by Goddess Fish Promotions. Erik Therme will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Nine months ago, Tess’s five-year-old daughter was killed in a car accident. The driver, Brady Becker, was sentenced to two years in prison. It didn’t make Tess’s pain go away.

Brady also has a daughter: A twelve-year-old named Eve who walks to Chandler Middle School every day. Tess knows this because she’s been watching Eve for the last three weeks. It isn’t fair that Brady’s daughter gets to live, while Tess’s daughter does not.

When Eve goes missing, all eyes turn to Tess, who doesn’t have an alibi. But Tess isn’t guilty.

Or so she believes.

Enjoy an Excerpt

I slouch further into the driver’s seat as Eve exits her apartment complex across the street. Today, she’s wearing jean shorts, sandals, and a blue tank top; blonde hair pulled into a crooked ponytail, her electric-pink backpack secured firmly over both shoulders. Eve turned twelve a few weeks ago, and since that day, she walks the six blocks to and from Chandler Middle School alone. She’s a few minutes later today than yesterday, but last Friday she was so early I almost missed her leaving. That won’t happen again.

Eve stops just outside the complex doors and tilts her head upward. Her mother, Meg, is raining down an angry stream of words from the screen-less window one story above. I can’t make out what’s being said, but I do manage to catch a single word riding the mild May breeze: ungrateful. There was clearly an argument this morning, maybe about laundry that wasn’t folded, or unfinished homework, or a dishwasher that wasn’t unloaded, or one of a thousand other things a mother raising a twelve-year-old daughter alone can stress over.

But Eve is a trooper.

She patiently listens to every word with her head raised, not talking back, not crossing her arms, not reflecting her mother’s anger. I think to myself: what if today’s the day? What if something unthinkable happens to Eve this very morning and she’s never seen again? What would Meg do with that guilt? How would she live with herself, knowing her final words to her daughter were angry and bitter over something trivial and inconsequential?

About the Author:Erik Therme has thrashed in garage bands, inadvertently harbored runaways, and met Darth Vader. When he’s not at his computer, he can be found cheering on his youngest daughter’s volleyball team, or watching horror movies with his oldest. He currently resides in Iowa City, Iowa—one of only twenty-eight places in the world that UNESCO has certified as a City of Literature.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | BookBub

Buy the book at Amazon, Amazon UK, Audible, or Audible UK.

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The Coach’s Wife by Barbara Casey – Spotlight and Giveaway

April 22, 2021 By 2 Comments

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Barbara Casey will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn commenter. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

The Cinderella Coyotes of State University are in the Final Four, poised to win the NCAA National Championship in basketball—the culmination of March Madness. For Marla Conners, she’s proud of her husband Neal, and his achievement of coaching a collegiate team to the pinnacle of his career and the ultimate victory for his team. Yet, Marla’s idyllic life is about to be viciously attacked and torn apart by a different madness—her husband’s reputation ruined, a university disgraced, and she finds herself on trial accused of first-degree murder.

The Coach’s Wife is rife with spine-tingling suspense, conspiracy, deceit, and murder, sizzling and seductive passion, right down to the last second buzzer-beating heroics. This is also a candid and vivid behind-the-scenes portrait of Division One college basketball, university politics, money and corruption, and all the lives that are blessed and ruined by it all.

Enjoy an Excerpt

Another deafening roar exploded from the coliseum, and when it did Marla threw down her partially smoked cigarette and ground it into the polished tile floor with the toe of her shoe. Quickly she reached for another cigarette from the opened pack in her small red handbag. She lit it, sucked the smoke into her mouth, held her breath, coughed, and then slowly released it. Marla didn’t smoke, but when she paced up and down the hallways of basketball coliseums, puffing on cigarettes seemed appropriate. It gave her something to do with her hands, and it helped keep her sane.

“God, how I hate this.” Gale Simmons, the gray-haired woman pacing in the same direction as Marla, was married to one of the assistant coaches at Piedmont State. She, along with several other women—also wives of coaches, some of them wives of players—were known as the hall walkers. They were the women who met on a regular but unscheduled basis the last two minutes of every game, pacing the halls, smoking, or pretending to in Marla’s case, and trying to give each other encouragement. Unable to watch the most crucial time of the game—that last two minutes—they paced in heart-pounding agony, listening to the fans erupt in cheers or boos, and to the announcer scream out the play-by-play over the public address system.

It didn’t matter which team they supported. The bond they shared went beyond the game and winning or losing. It was after the game that most mattered. If their team won, it meant going through the torture one more time, but at least their husbands would be happy. If their team lost, it meant their husbands would go through weeks of depression and as their wives they would have to put up with an impenetrable wall of silence broken only by an occasional negative outburst—usually directed toward them. Each of the hall walkers had experienced it. And it was that experience more than any other that cemented the friendship between them.

With thirty seconds to go, the score is 76 all. This is a hot one, folks. Let’s see what the Seawolf pack is going to do. Sydney Rob makes an inbound pass into the back court to Jerry March—the clock is moving, folks. Jerry lobs the ball back over to Rob. Rob passes it over to Miller in the right court.

Interception by Darrell Washington! Holy cow, sports fans! The Seawolf’s Sydney Rob loses the ball to the Demon Deacons. Wake Forest has the ball. Washington bringing it down court. Fifteen seconds on the clock.

About the Author:

Barbara Casey is the author of several award-winning novels for both adults and young adults, as well as book-length works of nonfiction true crime, and numerous articles, poems, and short stories. Her nonfiction true crime book, Kathryn Kelly: The Moll behind Machine Gun Kelly, has been optioned for a major film and television series. Her nonfiction book, Assata Shakur: A 20th Century Escaped Slave, is under contract for a major film. In addition to her own writing, she is an editorial consultant and president of the Barbara Casey Agency. Established in 1995, she represents authors throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Japan. Barbara is also a partner in Strategic Media Books Publishing, an independent publishing house that specializes in cutting-edge adult nonfiction. Barbara lives on a mountain in Georgia with her three cats who adopted her: Homer, a southern bobtail; Reese, a black cat; and Earl Gray, a gray cat and Reese’s best friend.

Author Website | Agency Website

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Forging Monsters Pt. 1 by Annie James – Spotlight and Giveaway

April 12, 2021 By 4 Comments

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will award a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

A modern and beautiful Frankenstein’s Monster fights for the right to carve her own destiny in the human world of New York City.

A talented young dancer tired of witnessing violent crimes against women go unpunished and takes matters into her own hands.

A young woman tries to escape her past in the anonymity of New York but finds out that she cannot escape the scars on her soul, which drives her to shocking acts of violence.

Watch for Forging Monsters Part 2, coming soon.

Enjoy an Excerpt

“This body looks as if it has been chewed on–the edges of the throat lacerations are ragged and similar to a previous body that was brought in bearing the same type of teeth marks. A computer 3D model of the wounds on the second body, in front of me, determined the wounds to be made by the teeth of a large canine. However, The DNA test of the saliva left behind has been inconclusive.”

Dr. Violetta paused the tape recorder. “I have never seen anything like it,” she said to her assistant Andrew. “Take a look at the slide I have on the microscope. You’ll see.”

Andrew studied the cells on the microscope and wrote some notes in his typical scrawl that only he could read while Dr. Violetta started recording again.

“Cells separated from a human body die in moments. These cells scraped from the saliva on this body’s wounds have continued to divide and multiply, indicating that the cells are still living. Also, the DNA strands continually rearrange their structure without any outside influence. This is why it has proved impossible to conclusively determine which type of animal caused the damage to this body.” She stopped the recorder.

“This has to be kept out of the media,” she whispered, shaking her head in horrified disbelief.

“Where did this one come from?” Andrew asked, looking up from the microscope.

“He was found in Central Park.”

About the Author:Annie is the author of the Tales of Origen series and several short stories. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and two fun-loving cats who inspired the feline characters Dirtbag and Scumbucket. She has an adult daughter who is also a writer, and a grandson. Her influences and favorite writers include:

Frank Peretti
Mary Wollencroft Shelley
Apryl Baker
Dean Koontz
Alexandre Dumas
Linda Joyce
Mary Ramsey
Lance Sheridan poetry

She has lived in New York and Louisiana and loves Cajun cooking. She has had several people tell her that she should open a restaurant, but she loves writing too much to make time for it—running a restaurant is a TON of work. She has an associate degree in Administrative Assistance, majoring in writing, and business administration.

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My Favorite Books by Hawk MacKinney – Guest Blog and Giveaway

April 2, 2021 By 5 Comments

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Hawk MacKinney will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

My Favorite Books

My favorite books are and aren’t in my genre – mystery or sci-fi. Yet, they are. When not stringing words across a screen, I’m constructing the building blocks of a manuscript between my ears among the nonfiction stacks. Call it research. Whether particle physics or historical background for setting or character, I am holed up among the volumes, browsing when not writing which is very seldom. Biographies of the great personalities and nonfiction of important events have it all – saga, setting, plot, failure, success, characters bigger than life. Picky detailed research? One best be picky to probe historical settings/characters/dialogue, not to mention what they wore. My favorite bio, Désirée, the one-time fiancée of Napoléone Bonaparte, married a French general and founded the Swedish House of Bernadotte – and he blew it. The Bernadotte Dynasty still carries the crown of Sweden. How’s that for imperial screw-ups and disasters, or should one say egos run amok? And the uninformed call history and public libraries boring. Not hardly. Librarians are some of the great unsung experts of the professions that involve writers. History, dialogue, settings, plots turned downside-up, mysteries with mayhem, victim and collateral damaged innocents, characters’ strengths, and more intriguing, their weaknesses mesh into tales being told. Fiction and nonfiction involve the same constructs. It doesn’t matter where the approach begins; a face in the crowd, a title, setting, conflict, passion, lust can trigger a whole volume of scenes that expand with lightening speed…and I like to go fishing or sit on the porch swing with a hot cup of tea.


While dangling a fishing hook from his flat bottom skiff before dawn, former SEAL-turned-PI Craige Ingram spots grey-black smoke coiling above the treetops across the river in the direction of the Georgia bayous and Corpsewood Manor. Bayou or bogs, fire in the uncut cypress and pines bodes a sense that the river is no barrier to the fire that threatens his ancestral home, Moccasin Hollow. Neither are the bodies later found in the burned mansion of Corpsewood Manor. Craige wastes no time in helping his ex-SEAL buddy Lt. Graysen MacGerald who is now Head of Buckingham Homicide Investigations by unofficially investigating the bodies and an exquisite dragonfly brooch found in the mansion with a reputation for evil, hauntings, and mystery.

Enjoy an Excerpt

“How many times you got to be told to stay away from this place?” Clenched fist, a threatening stomp through the ashes and rubble of Corpsewood toward Kenyon, was no bluff.

Kenyon said, “Ain’t got no other place ‘cept them leaky sheds behind the garage. Least before the fire, I had a place to sleep. Got kicked out of my other place.”

“I’ll just bet they let your sweet cheeks sleepover. You’re just the kind of meat they liked to sucker in.”

“Now I got no place, an’ nights are gettin’ colder.”

“Get a job. Quit blowing your money, and you’d have a place of your own. They the ones that hooked you on crystal?”

Kenyon whined, “I told you. I don’t do drugs.”

Steady raven-black gaze, “Cut the crap. Ever’body’s heard all your stories. Out’a your mouth never been nothing but pity-me mewling.” Between a snarl and a chuckle, “I suppose you never done meth, push crank up your nose—whatever’s on the streets to stoke in your arms.” Glanced at the needle tracks on both arms, “Or running out’a veins in your arms and using the ones in your ankles. Wash your stringy, greasy hair; take a bath, stop acting like some mangy animal.”

“I don’t snort crystal or Nazi dope,” Kenyon griped. “You’re like ever’body else, judging someone by the way we live.”

“I don’t care what you’re on, but anyone fool enough to supply you is askin’ for trouble if that goddamn homicide Lieutenant MacGerald starts nosing around, asking questions. And his friggin’ PI SEAL mate Ingram helpin’ him is worse.”

Kenyon wiped his nose across the grimy grunge sleeve of his jacket. “If you hadn’t torched the house, I’d still have me a place.”

Knotted a fist in Kenyon’s jacket, “Buttin’ into stuff that don’t concern you ain’t good for your health. I ain’t telling you again. I didn’t start no fire. I don’t know who did, but if I find out, they won’t be startin’ no more fires.”

Kenyon squinched his face, “Ever’body always puts the blame on me.” Didn’t want no cops finding out he’d done a couple of torch-for-insurance.

Yanked Kenyon eyeball to eyeball closer, “Don’t give me shit, and don’t make trouble. Get your ass off from around Corpsewood Manor, and don’t let me catch you around here again.” Shoved Kenyon backwards against charred support beams.

About the Author:Hawk MacKinney began writing mysteries for his school newspaper, served in the US Navy for over 20 years, earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history, taught postgraduate courses in the United States and Jerusalem, authored professional articles and chordate embryology texts on fetal and adult anatomy, and is well known for his works of fiction. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel, was nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award. Both his CAIRNS OF SANCTUARIE science fiction series and the MOCCASIN HOLLOW MYSTERY series have received worldwide recognition.

Website | Goodreads

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The Vines by Shelley Nolden – Spotlight and Giveaway

March 25, 2021 By 9 Comments

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Shelley Nolden who is celebrating her debut thriller The Vines. Leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of THE VINES, along with a mug that features a unique map of North Brother Island, a tea bag and bookmark (US only).

A Letter from the Author
December 2020

Dear Reader,

I hope this letter finds you and your family healthy and well during this challenging time.

Like far too many coronavirus patients, I’ve spent dozens of nights hospitalized. While in the ICU, on oxygen therapy, I feared that my lungs would fail me before daybreak. I know how it feels to struggle for air, and the terror that comes with that. –Not as a result of contracting the virus, but rather, because of a leukemia diagnosis that caused pooling of blood in my lungs. As a result of my past trauma, I have deep empathy for those who’ve experienced severe complications from COVID-19, and for those who’ve lost loved ones.

Despite being nine years out from my diagnosis, I still grapple daily with my fears and anxieties. When details were first emerging from China of a novel virus that causes acute respiratory syndrome, the notion of a new threat to my—or a family member’s—lungs, triggered my PTSD.

The first symptom of my cancer was the death of our baby at twenty weeks gestation. While inpatient, I lay awake each night, weeping over her loss and for the eighteen-month-old I was forbidden to see because her germs could kill me. Frequently, I asked for opiates to numb the emotional as much as the physical pain. Daily, I received blood transfusions. Throughout, I experienced 105-degree fevers, dangerously high blood pressure, hemorrhaging of the eye, a full-body hive outbreak, migraines, vomiting, and severe bone pain. During this period, I spent a total of two hours with my toddler. By the time I returned home, she’d stopped asking for me.

If someone in my family contracted this new virus, it could be similarly traumatic, I’d reasoned in January 2020. So I ordered four re-usable N-95 masks, hand sanitizer, and surgical gloves. At the time, the outbreak was contained to Wuhan, and my family was amused by my purchases. In early February, my mother humored me by tagging along on a trip to Costco so she could push my second cart.

My “prepping” was not solely driven by the emotional scars of my cancer ordeal. Additionally, I feared this virus before doing so became rational because I’d spent several years researching and imagining contagions, quarantines, and elusive treatments while writing The Vines.

For the three years of treatment that followed my leukemia diagnosis, much of my writing was for my cancer blog, focusing on the themes of disease, fear of death, isolation, loss of a child, infertility. But also: survival, courage, healing, and hope. Through that process, the heroine of The Vines—and her foil—were born.

Before these two strong women, however, came the setting:

Death. Decay. Despair. Those were my first impressions of the abandoned campus on North Brother Island. Diving into research, I learned that North Brother Island’s past was, in fact, rife with misery. The haunting online images of Riverside Hospital, originally a contagion hospital and later an experimental heroin rehab clinic, provided gut-wrenching context to the grisly historical essays.

I decided that a novel set there should incorporate Riverside’s 125+ year evolution, its actual inhabitants, and the details captured by on-line photographs and Christopher Payne’s non-fiction book, North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City, for which I attended the standing-room-only book signing. After meticulously cataloguing every map, image, and historical detail available, I took a deep breath and began structuring an epic tale that I truly believed I’d earned the right to tell.

Now, as I look at my nearly empty “emergency supply closet” and the still alarming headlines, the fact that the novel I’d written pre-COVID feels like it had been created with the benefit of hindsight is incredibly unnerving. Hopefully, this crisis will soon be behind us all, and the conclusion to my planned series, which begins with The Vines, will be read during a time when the anxieties of today feel like a distant memory.

Thank you so much for your interest in my debut novel.

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In the shadows of New York City’s North Brother Island stand the remains of a shuttered hospital and the haunting memories of quarantines and human experiments. The ruins conceal the scarred and beautiful Cora, imprisoned there by contagions and the doctors who torment her. When Finn, a young urban explorer, arrives on the island and glimpses the enigmatic woman through the foliage, intrigue turns to obsession as he seeks to uncover her past–and his own family’s dark secrets. Nolden skillfully intertwines North Brother Island’s horrific and elusive history with a captivating tale of love, betrayal, survival, and loss.

Enjoy an Excerpt

The forest was too still; he was being watched.

He tasted blood and realized he’d bitten his tongue. Another scalpel could whiz through the air, this time landing in an eye or the back of his head. Unlike all those who’d been incinerated or transported to Potter’s Field on Hart Island, his body would rot where it landed.

If Finn had respected his father’s ruling that North Brother had become too risky, he wouldn’t now be defenseless and alone, about to die on a deserted island surrounded by eight million people.

The faint hum of traffic underscored the proximity of help; so close, yet so far.

He knew his best option was to flee. Surveying the greenery, he spotted the tennis court fence that marked his escape route. Yet he didn’t bolt.

Either his invisible enemies were defending the woman, or they wanted to kill her, too. Assuming they hadn’t already sliced her throat, Finn and she, together, might be able to make it to his kayak. The currents would quickly carry them beyond the range of those blades.

With the daylight, a patrol might notice them leaving, but he’d gladly take an illegal trespassing charge over death.

A pokeberry plant blocked his view of the decaying bathroom. He eased aside a long, thin cluster of dark berries, revealing only more vegetation. He would have to get closer.

Shifting his pack onto his back, he realized that he’d dropped his sketchbook and turned to reach for it.

The air trilled.

A third scalpel—this one from above—stabbed the moleskin cover. Protecting his face with his hands, he looked up.

About the Author: A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Shelley Nolden is an entrepreneur and writer, now residing in Wisconsin. Previously, she lived in the New York City area, where she worked on Wall Street and first learned of North Brother Island. At the age of 31, Shelley was diagnosed with leukemia and completed treatment three years later. The sense of isolation and fear she experienced during her cancer ordeal influenced her spellbinding debut novel, THE VINES.

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Ellerslie by William Francis – Spotlight and Giveaway

March 23, 2021 By 2 Comments

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. William Francis will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Did you know author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived in a haunted house?

It’s the Jazz Age, it’s Prohibition and aviator Charles Lindbergh is the most famous person in America. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald rents a mansion in Edgemoor, Delaware called Ellerslie hoping for a quiet retreat so that he can write his next novel following The Great Gatsby.

April Ross, the first and only female history major at the University of Delaware, is commissioned by the owner of Ellerslie to research the estate’s history for a potential sale. At least, that’s what April is told. In the days ahead, April’s historical research uncovers Ellerslie’s former owners dating back to 1810. She interacts with the Fitzgeralds, yet endures unexplained occurrences and visits by an unknown woman. Against her better judgement, April eventually accepts that the woman is a ghost and realizes that her true purpose is to find out who this woman is, or was, and what happened to her in real life.

Enjoy an Excerpt

The door had swung violently away from April and slammed shut.

“How did that happen?”

Nobody closed the door, nor did she feel a gust of wind. It would take a strong wind to close the heavy door. So how had it shut on its own?

April cautiously turned the metal door latch and peeked into the hall. She looked left. She looked right. Nobody was present. She glanced across the way and might’ve suspected the maid Elena, but the maid was busy rehanging Zelda’s clothes. So without a logical explanation for what happened April had no choice except to shrug it off and close the door.

April stripped to her slip and turned the handle to the sink’s hot water facet. The plumbing made a low rumbling noise for a couple of seconds before rust-colored water spilled out. April wasn’t alarmed. The same discoloration happened at her family home. And like home, she waited a few seconds for warm and clear water to appear.

She grabbed a bar of Pear’s soap already at the sink and started to wash her hands when a familiar aroma struck her nose.

Lavender?

April knew the fragrance well. It was her mother’s favorite. Mama rubbed the oil on her face and hands in the belief that it calmed the skin and reduced wrinkles.

Something flashed in the mirror.

Like the sensation of being watched, April felt someone, or some-thing stood near, very near. It was close enough to give her goosebumps on her arms and raise the hair on the back of her neck.

Squeak.

There was a clawfoot tub in the back half of the bathroom. The hot and cold-water valves were turning on their own.

Splash.

Water shot from the two spigots.

April’s eyes bulged. “Sweet Jesus.”

She hurried to the tub, shut off the flow, and then stared dumbfounded at the draining water. Her heart pounded as she scratched her head and wondered out loud. “How did that happen? What’s going on?”

Tink.

A tiny crack developed on the upper right corner of the mirror.

April sucked in air and watched in disbelief as a jagged fissure slowly spread diagonally across the mirror, about to split the glass in two.

Smash!

April ducked and covered her head as the mirror shattered and shards of glass clinked into the porcelain sink and scattered onto the tile floor.

When she raised her head, April stared at the glassless frame awestruck and bewildered. “Sweet Jesus, it really happened. I didn’t imagine it. It’s not a delusion.”

April then experienced a paralyzing fear as she felt something like fingertips caress the back of her neck.

“Elena!”

About the Author:

Raised in Newark, Delaware, William spends his days working in Corporate America and writing about the First State. He achieved a Masters Degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, but also writes non-fiction. Through Arcadia Publishing he has produced 5 books related to Delaware: The DuPont Highway, Along the Kirkwood Highway, Along the Christina River, Building Interstate in 95 in Delaware and Newark Then &amp Now. Fiction titles include: A Life Told to None, The Umpire, Seacrest, and the five-star The Katie Dugan Case. Whether his books are fact or fiction, William hopes to entertain as well as inform and leave the reader with a satisfying experience.

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