Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.
Dungeon of Horrors by Hawk MacKinney – Spotlight and Giveaway
June 27, 2024 By 2 Comments
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. A randomly drawn winner will receive a $20 Amazon/BN GC. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
The bank’s newest Trust Officer Terri Stanley prepares the requested department’s internal audit. Finding puzzling inconsistencies and a jumble of misappropriations and unexplained offshore accounts, she follows protocol and immediately punches in the listed number for the Executor-Trustee, Craige Ingram.
Wealthy land owner/parttime PI Craige Ingram reaches the file back to homicide Lt. Grayson MacGerald after finishing a quick read-through of the preliminary forensic report from Coroner Fred Dinkins on the unexpected death of bank President Royce Sedgewicke. Dinkins’ meticulous autopsy findings verify that a massive apparent heart attack was not from natural causes, confirming what these longtime SEAL buddies suspected.
When Ingram gets a call from Terri Stanley, the bank’s attractive, newly-hired Trust Officer, wanting to discuss in confidence possible account irregularities discovered during her audit, he never imagines the twisted world of money and greed that would involve a psychopath’s trail of bloody body parts strewn along Ingram’s river property, or that Terri and her son would disappear.
Confronted by a race against time, Ingram fears that Terri might become one more on the list of dead who crossed a twisted mind bent on thrill-kills and retribution.
Read an Excerpt
Death is seldom dignified, even less so if it’s felony murder. There was no such thing, exSEAL-turned private investigator Craige Ingram believed, but he sometimes forgot how personal death could get. This time, however, it blind-sided a lot of people—including him.
For the annual charity event of the Silver Bluff Museum of Southron Art, the master of ceremonies grandious CEO Llewyn Royce Sedgewicke and PI Craige Howelle Graeme Roynane Ingram seldom moved in the same black tie social circle. Chances were slim to none that Royce Sedgewicke would’ve ever been invited to the sprawling riverfront domains that had once been Grannie Ingram’s dogtrot Moccasin Hollow that she left debt-free to her gran’son Craige.
Unlike his collection of mounted big game trophies along the walls of his profligate mancave, portly Royce Sedgewicke’s food-bespattered tuxedoed carcass stretched out like public roadkill amid the crash and smash of food, china, crystal and splayed floral pieces, and very dead. Last-breath gurgles clung around his gagging tongue as smart phones madly clicked, flooding social media before the emergency ambulance arrived. First edition headlines the next morning made big local news and an avid up-tick in morning papers. Purloined forensic photos of his corpse showing Sedgewicke’s swollen tongue and his bare overstuffed derrière grabbed a growing audience for more about his secretive lifestyle, squandering what little decorum he never had. That mess was bad enough. His passing sent more than a few local bigwigs scrambling to cover their backsides—and their offshore accounts.
Complications and felony murder cinched more-snug when Graysen MacGerald, head of Buckingham Parish Metro Law Enforcement, Investigative Support Team, paid an off-the-record visit to his grown-up-together SEAL Commanding Officer Craige `Peadinger’ Ingram. The death certificate said heart attack. It wasn’t.
About the Author
Internationally acclaimed author and public speaker, Hawk MacKinney began writing mysteries for his school newspapers. Following graduation, he served in the US Navy for over 20 years. While serving as a Navy Commander, he also had a career as a full-time faculty member at several major state medical facilities. He earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history and has taught postgraduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem, Israel.
In addition to professional articles and texts on fetal and adult anatomy, Hawk has authored several novels that have received national and international recognition. 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.
Known for his terrifying suspense and unique “Southron” dialog, Hawk has published five novels in the Moccasin Hollow Mysteries: Hidden Chamber of Death, Westobou Gold, Curse of the Ancients, Dead Gold, and Blood of the Dragonfly.
In a change of direction, Hawk has also published three books in The Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series: The Bleikovat Event, Volume I; The Missing Planets, Volume II; and The Inanna Phantom, Volume III.
His latest work is a series called the Moccasin Trace Mysteries. Dungeon of Horrors is the first book in the series, and the second book – Blood in the Shadows – is in development.
Buy the book at Amazon.
Playtime Clothes by Kim MacLean – Spotlight and Giveaway
June 26, 2024 By 1 Comment
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Kim MacLean will award a randomly drawn winner a $15 Amazon/BN gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
The young boy’s room is an undeniable mess. Did he actually clean his room, as he is telling his mom? Or do his clothes come to life and play?! They are, after all, playtime clothes. Is he learning a lesson to tell the truth and be accountable, as we all do in life? Or is it a world of make believe? It is for you to enjoy while you decide.
About the Author: Kim MacLean was inspired to be creative while she and her little girls made their own fun inside their home on long, cold winter days. Her girls sat for hours painting and gluing crafts into works of art on paper. Oh, the rows and rows of finished masterpieces drying on the floor while Kim sat and wrote! And there were the hundreds of books that they read and enjoyed together that further inspired creativity and an adult love of children’s books!
Tia Bates is an artist, illustrator, and storyteller from London, Ontario. She is inspired by the beautiful illustrations she grew up looking at in children’s books just like Playtime Clothes, the first children’s book she has illustrated! Currently pursuing a master’s degree in fine art, Tia’s personal artwork is all about the stories we tell.
Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Book Depository.
My Second Life by Simon Yeats
June 26, 2024 By 4 Comments
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Simon Yeats is awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
We all have two lives. We only get to experience living in the second after we realize we only have just one.
I have my first real scare in life when I get attacked by a kangaroo when I am seven. My first brush with the cliff-face edge of death comes when I am 12. My dad drives the family down the dangerous Skipper’s Canyon dirt road in New Zealand in a rented minivan.
Including the occasion I am almost involved in two different plane flight crashes, in the same night, there have been at least a half dozen more occasions when I have been within a moment’s inattention of being killed.
However, none of those frightening incidents compare to what I experience after my son is abducted.
This memoir is the story of how I used the traumatic experiences of my life to give me strength to forge on during a 13 year fight to be a father to my son.
What did it take for me to get to my second life?
It took me to truly understand what fear is.
Enjoy an Excerpt
How does a second life differ from a first? My story of reaching the second will demonstrate it perfectly for those languishing in the latter. I guarantee the perception of your life will never be the same after reading about it.
What did it take for me to get to a second life?
Was it an occasion of cheating death? Was it multiple occasions of evading the grim reaper? Was it being arrested and thrown in jail for no reason?
Perhaps a better question might be. How much do I love my child? What am I willing to go through to be in my child’s only life?
Until recently, I had never even heard of this saying by Confucius. But, when a person sees something that resonates with a chord in their heart, they feel it.
I felt it like an earthquake.
Before then, I had never given thought to who I might have ever met that I would consider was living a second life.
Yet this would seem to be our very point of being.
While there have been many occasions in my existence when I have felt like the world is against me. The true nature of life often seems a cruel device. Callous. Savagely unforgiving. And the puppeteer of fate in control of all our lives does not seem to care that we do not want it to be this way.
How many people would admit that they are suffering during their first life?
Rhetorical question.
We all are. Some more than others. But we all are.
Not surprisingly then, that humanity thrives on the ever-unfolding tragedies around us. The devastation of the tsunami in Thailand. The OJ Simpson trial. World War Two concentration camps. The collective work of The Cure and The Smiths.
If it bleeds, it leads.
This is what people want to see.
But the hordes in their first life are primarily concerned with the suffering of the mighty.
However, many of us are not mighty.
Most of us are ordinary.
And the suffering in our first life is done in silence.
About the Author:
Simon Yeats has lived nine lives, and by all estimations, is fast running out of the number he has left. His life of globetrotting the globe was not the one he expected to lead. He grew up a quiet, shy boy teased by other kids on the playgrounds for his red hair. But he developed a keen wit and sense of humor to always see the funnier side of life.
With an overwhelming love of travel, a propensity to find trouble where there was none, and being a passionate advocate of mental health, Simon’s stories will leave a reader either rolling on the floor in tears of laughter, or breathing deeply that the adventures he has led were survived.
No author has laughed longer or cried with less restraint at the travails of life.
Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for June 26, 2024
June 26, 2024 By 1 Comment
Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.
A Skill I Wish More People Had and Why
Ten Self-promotion Actions to Market Your Book by Karen Hulene Bartell – Guest Post and Giveaway
June 25, 2024 By 4 Comments
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. A randomly drawn winner will be awarded a $25 Amazon/BN gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
For me, marketing is the nightmarish counterpart to the dream of writing. Ugh! Promoting my books is the hell to the heaven of authoring them. I’d much rather keep “plugging away” at finishing a chapter than “plugging” myself on social media. But despite dreading self-promotion, I’ve learned a few marketing tricks over the years to make the task less onerous.
Authoring a book is not easy, nor is getting / having it published. According to various sources, roughly three percent of people who begin drafting a novel ever finish it. And only twenty percent of those completed novels are ever published.
So if you have a published book, congratulations! Pat yourself on the back and take a bow! You are one of an elite minority!
But can you rest on your laurels and stop there?
Nope. Marketing your book is just as important as writing and publishing it. Whether you’re self-published or you work with an indie publisher, small publisher, or a major house, your next challenge is your book launch, and book launches require your 3Ts–talent, time, and treasure.
Because my bread-and-butter job has been technical writing in MarCom–Marketing Communications–for over twenty years, I’ve done almost all my own marketing for the past 26 of my 27 published books. Am I a multi-billionaire? HAH-LOL! BUT let me share ten relatively easy actions that authors CAN take to self-promote their books.
Take Ten Self-promotion Actions!
1. Create an author website (https://karenhulenebartell.com)
2. Create an Author Central page on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/stores/Karen-Hulene-Bartell/author/B000APG0Q8)
3. Create a Goodreads Author page (https://rb.gy/qyvrev)
4. Accumulate blurbs for your book from trusted friends and acquaintances.
5. Add your book’s title and link to your automatic email signature.
6. Trade guest posts on your blog with other authors (https://karenhulenebartell.com/f/january-newsletter)
7. Accumulate Amazon book reviews (https://rb.gy/haasnb)
8. Gather Goodreads book reviews (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204849593-kissing-kin)
9. Write self-promotion articles for LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7152697619885051907)
10. Create a launch team by asking trusted friends and acquaintances to read / review your free book on Amazon and Goodreads. (That’s right. I said FREE. Quid pro quo. A favor for a favor.)
Complete each of these actions in the six to eight weeks prior to your book’s release–one task at a time. Each action is doable, and if you complete all ten, I promise you’ll raise your book’s visibility.
Happy self-marketing!
Heights terrify Ava. When a stranger saves her from plunging down a mountain, he diverts her fears with tales of Japanese kitsune—shapeshifting foxes—and she begins a journey into the supernatural.
She’s attracted to Chase, both physically and metaphysically, yet primal instincts urge caution when shadows suggest more than meets the eye.
She’s torn between Chase and Rafe, her ex, when a chance reunion reignites their passion, but she struggles to overcome two years of bitter resentment. Did Rafe jilt her, or were they pawns of a larger conspiracy? Are the ancient legends true of kitsunes twisting time and events?
Enjoy an Excerpt
I applied my makeup with an artist’s hand, blending three shades of eyeshadow and going heavy on the mascara. Then I slipped into the black cocktail dress I’d bought for the occasion–a fusion of chic and slutty.
Wish I knew what Rafe planned for my birthday. Dinner at an upscale restaurant? Pub food at a sports bar?
“A surprise,” was all he’d said.
What’s the fine line between dressed to kill and overdressed? Glancing at the mirror, I glimpsed the exposed décolletage, then examined my naked left hand. More importantly, is tonight the night? After dating for three years, the conversation had finally turned to rings and weddings, and with graduation a month away, I was eager to take the next step.
At six o’clock sharp, I sat by the door, butterflies fluttering in my belly.
Ten minutes passed, fifteen. I texted him. An hour later, I called. When he didn’t pick up, I left a voicemail.
At eight o’clock, I checked my email. No messages, no texts–radio silence.
At nine o’clock, I removed my makeup, the black, smoky taupe, mauve, and greige streaks on the cotton pad mirroring my mood. After showering, I picked at soggy leftovers as I studied my bare left hand. Leftovers…
When the phone dinged, I flinched. Rafe?
Mia–Guess who’s at Tootsie’s? And Rafe’s not alone. What’s going on?–
I sat back, stunned. He wouldn’t break up with me on my birthday–without even the courtesy of telling me–would he?
About the Author 
Author of the Trans-Pecos and Sacred Emblem series, Karen is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, wife, and all-around pilgrim of life, who writes multicultural, offbeat love stories. Born to rolling-stone parents who moved often, Bartell found her earliest playmates as fictional friends in books. Paperbacks became her portable pals. Ghost stories kept her up at night—reading feverishly. The paranormal was her passion. Novels offered an imaginative escape. An only child, she began writing her first novel at the age of nine, learning the joy of creating her own happy endings. Professor emeritus of the University of Texas at Austin, Karen resides in the Texas Piney Woods with her husband Peter and her “mews”—three rescued cats and a rescued *Cat*ahoula Leopard dog.
Buy the book at Amazon.
Broken Fortune by Aly Mennuti – Spotlight and Giveaway
June 24, 2024 By 6 Comments
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Aly Mennuti will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Elizabeth Sunderland—a forty-three-year-old wife and mother of two teenagers—is the oldest of five children in a blended family that never quite blended. The only thing that has held them together is the iron will of their wealthy parents: Benjamin Sunderland, a venture capitalist, and Kate Bernard, a partner of a hedge fund. Together, Benjamin and Kate create and rule over a Manhattan dynasty of which their children each bear their own unique scars.
Elizabeth has been trying to keep the family together since she was ten years old, hoping to convince everyone they have more in common than just their fortune. This stance will be put to the ultimate test when Kate dies with one final request: that the family travel together to the island of St. John and spread her ashes in the ocean. However, Kate’s plan to fix the family will involve more than just a family trip to the sea.
As the hidden secrets and quiet betrayals built up over thirty years begin to ripple and crash like the ocean surrounding the sinking family, Elizabeth not only faces each of her sibling’s personal inflection points—moments that could lead to reconciliation or ruin—but she has to face her own demons that have laid dormant. What happens next will shock Elizabeth into recognizing a reality she had no idea existed.
Enjoy an Excerpt
“Dad,” I say, tapping him on the shoulder. “I wanted to ask you something while we’re still alone.”
“What?” he answers, already annoyed before the question passes my lips.
“Did Kate give you any kind of…reason why she wanted us to come here?”
“Elizabeth,” he says. “I told you. She wanted her ashes spread.”
“But I mean…why? Why would she even want to do that? Why wouldn’t she want an actual funeral? Why wouldn’t she want everyone to be there to say goodbye.”
“I can’t answer that for her,” he says. “But maybe she can.”
“How?” I say, more lost than before. “Can you for one second stop being cryptic?”
“She left us all a video to watch together.” He takes his eyes off the path for a second, looks back to see my reaction. “That’s where we’re headed now.”
About the Author 
Aly Mennuti has always had two passions: philanthropy and literature. She satisfied one of those by being an executive at an international nonprofit consulting firm and has helped a diverse range of high-profile clients reach their philanthropic goals.
However, she’s always had a desire to express herself creatively and carve out her own role as a writer in a writing family. Finally, upon turning 40 (and with two children hitting their teens and deciding Mom is really uncool and not needed to hang out with anymore) she had the time and head space, to tell her first story.
Broken Fortune is her second novel. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, Nicholas Mennuti, a novelist and screenwriter and their two children, Charlie and Lilly.
Buy the book at Amazon.
My Gangster Father and Me! by Marcia Rosen – Spotlight and Giveaway
June 19, 2024 By 3 Comments
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Marcia Rosen will award a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Happy Fathers Day.
Our history and experiences can define us, inspire our actions and as writers impact our words and stories. Mine most definitely has. My father was a gangster. Really!This is my story about my relationship with my father and how his profession affected me and my life, “He called me Sugar Plum. Both a blessing and a burden, I learned interesting lessons from my father: about generosity and determination, taking risks, and certainly finding the willingness to live life as an adventure.”
Enjoy an Excerpt
Some fascinating and incredible women have inspired me. None, who by the way had a physical beauty, but surely an inner beauty. Being inspired and inspiring others provides us with shared strengths giving us opportunities to be more than we are as one. Those who inspire us, in the process, influence us by their intellect, accomplishments, and wisdom.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Golda Meir have been two of my role models. Author Gertrude Stein and many other good writers have influenced me. These are people who dared to go beyond the ordinary. They were not willing to accept the limitations society or family set upon them.
If we are fortunate, there are also those in our lives who inspire us, expressing belief in us. I’ve had a few such people in my life, encouraging me to never give up my dreams and ambitions. I decided long ago to keep at a safe distance people who are angry, jealous, and mean-spirited. Really. Who needs them? Who made them right?
I know it’s not always easy to do. Sometimes they are a close relative, even a parent. And it’s quite a juggling act dealing with those situations. The worse is for any woman dealing with an abusive spouse. Finding support and asking for help is critical. We all deserve better.
What does all this have to do with me and my dad?
Quite a lot, in fact. His actions inspired me. In doing so, they influenced my actions in many ways. He almost never gave up at times when it would have been easier to do so.
Once asked what characteristic I think most important in a partner, my response was generosity. Oh, not only financial. I also mean being generous in expressing feelings and communication and being generous in kindness, thoughtfulness, and love. Many people are stingy and withholding of those things. They and their relationships have lost so much in the process.
All we need to do is look and listen to the world around us for negative influences. Controlling people need power to fuel their egos and cause pain and chaos. The benefit of their actions is solely for their own egos even though they falsely claim otherwise. The psychology of their actions and rhetoric is for professionals who understand human behavior. But I do know they are difficult people who create difficult situations.
My father showed me his love and affection. Maybe it’s why writing and words matter so much to me. There should be no doubt how much words matter. Cruel and thoughtless words sting. When I owned my first business, two nursery schools, many parents would say goodbye to their child with, “You better be good today!” or “Don’t be bad today!”
I would ask them please, not to do that and just tell their child, “Have a good day,” and better yet, “I love you.”
There had to be something about my growing up, about my experiences providing me with such an awareness.
I think back about my father buying lunch for the homeless man asking for money. I remember him taking a huge basket of food to one of his sisters whose husband was out of work. I saw how he never said no to my mother when she asked for money.
Sometimes a simple action or a few words can influence.
Sometimes a simple action or a few words can inspire.
About the Author: 
Marcia Rosen is an award-winning author of twelve books including nine mysteries, the most recent is An Agatha, Raymond, Sherlock, and Me Mystery: Murder at the Zoo. She is also the author of The Senior Sleuths, the Dying to Be Beautiful Mystery Series, and The Gourmet Gangster: Mysteries and Menus (Menus by her son Jory Rosen). She wrote The Woman’s Business Therapist and My Memoir Workbook and has given Memoir Writing presentations and classes for close to twenty years. Her Memoir Blog can be found on her website. For twenty-five years she was owner of a successful national marketing and public relations agency.
Marcia has frequently been a featured speaker at organization meetings, bookstores, libraries, and Zoom Programs presenting talks on Encouraging the Writer Within You, Marketing for Authors, Writing Mysteries…Not A Mystery and A Memoir Detective…Writing Your Life Story. She has also helped numerous writers develop and market their books.
She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Southwest Writers, New Mexico Book Association, Public Safety Writer’s Association, International Memoir Writer’s Association, Women’s National book Association and National Association of Independent Writers and Editors—for which she is also a board member.
Buy the book at Amazon.
Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for June 19, 2024
June 19, 2024 By 1 Comment
Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.
Things I Totally Misunderstood as a Kid
Ten Self-promotion Actions to Market Your Book by Karen Hulene Bartell – Guest Blog and Giveaway
June 18, 2024 By 16 Comments
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. A randomly drawn winner will receive a $25 Amazon/BN gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Ten Self-promotion Actions to Market Your Book
For me, marketing is the nightmarish counterpart to the dream of writing. Ugh! Promoting my books is the hell to the heaven of authoring them. I’d much rather keep “plugging away” at finishing a chapter than “plugging” myself on social media. But despite dreading self-promotion, I’ve learned a few marketing tricks over the years to make the task less onerous.
Authoring a book is no easy task, nor is getting / having it published. According to various sources, roughly three percent of people who begin drafting a novel ever finish it. And only twenty percent of those completed novels are ever published.
So if you have a published book, congratulations! Pat yourself on the back and take a bow! You are one of an elite minority!
But can you rest on your laurels and stop there?
Nope. Marketing your book is just as important as writing and publishing it. Whether you’re self-published or you work with an indie publisher, small publisher, or a major house, your next challenge is your book launch, and book launches require your 3Ts–talent, time, and treasure.
Because my bread-and-butter job has been technical writing in MarCom–Marketing Communications–for over twenty years, I’ve done almost all my own marketing for the past 26 of my 27 published books. Am I a multi-billionaire? HAH-LOL! BUT let me share ten relatively easy actions that authors CAN take to self-promote their books.
Take Ten Self-promotion Actions!
- Create an author website (https://karenhulenebartell.com/)
- Create an Author Central page on Amazon (com: Karen Hulene Bartell: books, biography, latest update)
- Create a Goodreads Author page (https://rb.gy/qyvrev)
- Accumulate blurbs for your book from trusted friends and acquaintances.
- Add your book’s title and link to your automatic email signature.
- Trade guest posts on your blog with other authors https://karenhulenebartell.com/f/january-newsletter
- Accumulate Amazon book reviews https://rb.gy/haasnb
- Gather Goodreads book reviews https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204849593-kissing-kin
- Write self-promotion articles for LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7152697619885051907/
- Create a launch team by asking trusted friends and acquaintances to read / review your free book on Amazon and Goodreads. (That’s right. I said FREE. Quid pro quo. A favor for a favor.)
Complete each of these actions in the six to eight weeks prior to your book’s release–one task at a time. Each action is doable, and if you complete all ten, I promise you’ll raise your book’s visibility.
Happy self-marketing!
Maeve Jackson is starting over after a broken engagement—and mustering out of the Army. No job and no prospects, she spins out on black ice and totals her car.
When struggling vintner Luke Kaylor stops to help, they discover they’re distantly related. On a shoestring budget to convert his vineyard into a winery, he makes her a deal: prune grapevines in exchange for room and board.
But forgotten diaries and a haunted cabin kickstart a five-generational mystery with ancestors that have bones to pick. As carnal urges propel them into each other’s arms, they wonder: Is their attraction physical…or metaphysical?
Enjoy an Excerpt
Our shoulders rubbed each time we moved. The downy hairs on the back of my neck tickling from the electricity passing between us, I shivered as the currents barreled down my spine.
“Cold?” Eyes wide, he caught my gaze.
I opened my mouth to speak but, forgetting what I meant to say, lost myself in his inviting brown eyes and could only nod.
He reached his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, sharing his body warmth.
With the faint scents of leather and saddle soap wafting from his jacket, his nearness was intoxicating, and I was tempted to lean into a kiss. Yet huddled together on the bone-chilling ledge, I gazed instead at the rugged wilderness surrounding us, content to savor the sweet ache of longing. If more is meant to be, it’ll happen.
Then thoughts of Cody froze me like a blue norther. Why did he come to mind?
****
So close, Luke felt the rise and fall of her chest each time she breathed. Her hair tickled his ear, raising goosebumps–and possibilities. If she turns toward me or gives any sign…But her sigh signaled something else. He side-glanced to read her mood, but she stared at the scenery, apparently oblivious of his rising libido.
“Want…” His voice cracked. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Want some water?”
“Sure.” She turned her head quickly, her hair brushing his cheek with a citrus scent.
About the Author: 
Author of the Trans-Pecos and Sacred Emblem series, Karen is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, wife, and all-around pilgrim of life, who writes multicultural, offbeat love stories. Born to rolling-stone parents who moved often, Bartell found her earliest playmates as fictional friends in books. Paperbacks became her portable pals. Ghost stories kept her up at night—reading feverishly. The paranormal was her passion. Novels offered an imaginative escape. An only child, she began writing her first novel at the age of nine, learning the joy of creating her own happy endings. Professor emeritus of the University of Texas at Austin, Karen resides in the Texas Piney Woods with her husband Peter and her “mews”—three rescued cats and a rescued *Cat*ahoula Leopard dog.
Buy the book at Amazon.
