Today’s snippet comes from the 9.18.2023 release of A PRIDE OF BROTHERS: DYLAN, the third book in the POB series.
As the name implies, Dylan Keane is front and center in this one. A cyberspecialist/bodyguard/hacker, Dylan has been hired to suss out a corporate thief. He centers on a dream team member named Harper Vale. Here’s Harper’s impression of Dylan:
“Guys like you always have an agenda.”
“Guys like me?”
She lifted a shoulder, then a hand in a careless wave, slicing the air. “Good-looking, likable. The kind who only has to smile to make a girl feel like she’s the queen of the world. Guys like you always have ulterior motives when it comes to me, so let’s get to it and forget all the schmoozing.”
She counted to ten while he simply gaped at her. She figured the insults alone would make him leave her to her desired solitude. Her dismissive attitude would certainly add to the swiftness with which he’d go.
After she got to ten, she took a breath, astounded he still sat across from her. Then, something happened that she’d never counted on: he smiled. Not the full wattage aren’t-I-just-the-hottest-thing-you’ve-ever-seen smile he’d tossed her a few minutes ago. No, this one was real. She’d bet next week’s pay on it. And, holy crap, it was more devastating and…alluring, than anything she’d seen prior.
Her face scorched with heat at his gentle perusal. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
He tilted his head to the left and tucked his cheek between his teeth. “You think I’m good-looking?” he asked in a voice so filled with conceit she couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her.
When his grin broadened, showing off the second mortgage his parents probably took out to pay for his perfect orthodontia, something shifted low in her belly, something she hadn’t felt in quite some time: arousal.
“Do you own a mirror?” she asked.
He nodded. “Couple.”
“Well, then.” She sliced her hand in the air again in a there-you-have-it gesture.
Hey Peggy, great to return to your blog with my new release, Raven’s Hollow Spring Magic to chat about my inspiration. I have also included my book trailer. I just love it.
My inspiration for Writing Raven’s Hollow Spring Magic
What possessed me to write Raven’s Hollow Spring Magic? Several things actually. This book is kinda a follow-up to Meringue Snowflake Magic (Both books can be read as stand alones). I wasn’t ready to let the characters or town I’d created in Meringue Snowflake go. They were so fun, and still had stories to tell. So, Raven’s Hollow Spring Magic was born. I take a look at how the characters have settled into their new town. Then add in a few new quirky characters, a romance, a mysterious ancient jelly bean machine, a disappearance, and time travel an poof you have a new and exciting tale. I love jelly beans. Don’t you? I guarantee after reading Raven’s Hollow Spring Magic, you’ll never look at jelly beans the same way again. Am a finished with Raven’s Hollow and the characters? Only time will tell. <grin>
Now let’s see what my new release, Raven’s Hollow Spring Magic is all about.
How about a sneak peek between the pages of Raven’s Hollow Spring Magic?
“Does it work?” He dropped in a penny and twisted the handle. A couple jelly beans rolled out. “Is that all?” He jiggled the handle. It turned another quarter turn and gears whirred. The glass globe sparkled, etchings of the countries around the world appeared as it tilted and slid to the side. On the opposite side a control panel slid out revealing a panel filled with tokens in the center. The group gasped and silence ensued for several beats.
“What the heck?” flew out of Wynter’s mouth as she clutched at her chest. With her other hand, she reached out to touch the machine only to have her hand slapped away with a pair of black gloves Blaze had pulled out of his pocket.
“No one else touch this—or anything in here.” He slipped on the protective gloves and removed one of the tokens holding it up to the light. “It’s inscribed in Latin around the outside. My Latin may be rusty, but rursus in tempore means a turn in time.” He picked up another token and read the inscription. “Fatum suum aspicientis moderatur – Beholder controls its destiny.” Carefully, he returned the tokens to their slots turning his attention to the control panel. “Look here…”
Wynter pointed at the panel. “There’s a slot for one token in the control panel. You don’t suppose this is a—
Tena Stetler is a best-selling author of award-winning paranormal romance/mystery with an over-active imagination. She wrote her first vampire romance as a tween, to the chagrin of her mother and the delight of her friends. Colorado is home; shared with her husband, a brilliant Chow Chow, a spoiled parrot and a forty-five-year-old box turtle. When she’s not writing, her time is spent kayaking, camping, hiking, biking or just relaxing in the great Colorado outdoors.
Her books tell tales of magical kick-ass women and mystical alpha males that dare to love them. Travel, adventure, and a bit of mystery flourish in her books along with a few companion animals to round out the tales.
I don’t cry every day anymore, but still find myself, at times, getting weepy for what seems like no reason. Watching t.v., making dinner. Nothing tangible to put the sadness on to. Just…grief.
Life has moved on.
Case in point, I closed on my parent’s house recently.
Miraculously, it sold. I say miraculously, because, in all honesty, I never thought it would.
Shows you how wrong I can be about stuff.
My parents lived in 2 trailers/mobile homes during the past 20+ years. The first one was destroyed during Hurricane Irene. They were left homeless.
I didn’t know this. It occurred during the time frame my mother and I weren’t in communication. When we reconnected she told me about how they watched the water from the nearby creek rush under their front door. In no time at all they were standing in a foot of it. No time to pack anything. They were evacuated by the local fire department and could only bring the clothes on their backs. Luckily, my mother had the foresight to grab all their personal papers.
For three days they were put up in a local motel, wearing the same clothes, depending on the kindness of the Red Cross for food, and then allowed to go back to their home once the water receded.
Not much survived the flood. Some clothing, their mattress. The rest was destroyed by water damage.
As luck would have it, FEMA gave them money and they found another trailer, where they lived for the last 16 years of their lives, until circumstances made it impossible for them to do so anymore.
I’m ashamed to say this but the thought of them living in what was a glorified ( and not really all that nice) trailer made me a little…well…embarrassed. And I hear in my head how horrible, elitist, and prejudicial that sounds. There’s absolutely nothing wrong or shameful about living in a mobile home.
Nothing.
But…it was just another facet of their lifestyle that made me realize how poor they really were. I think that’s the thing that shames me most of all. Their relative poverty. For all my life and all their adult lives and marriage, they could never get ahead financially. They lived paycheck to paycheck and sometimes not even that long. They didn’t live an extravagant life, either. No cars, no vacations. The cheapest food. It was simply the cost of living out-cost their take-home pay.
“New” clothes were purchased at the Salvation Army. My mother took to wearing shoes that were a size too small for her simply because they “looked nice” and were only a quarter. All she could afford.
When I was clearing and cleaning out their house so they could move into the nursing home I saw their bed, unmade, for the first time. There was a huge depression in the center so that no matter what side you were on, you rolled to it. My mother said they’d brought the bed with them from Brooklyn, bought when they were newly married.
They hadn’t lived in Brooklyn since 1968. That meant their mattress was over 55 years old.
Think about that for a moment and then think about your own, comfortable, probably NOT 55-year-old mattress.
And then think about the fact that mattress survived a flood.
She suffered through, and survived, so much in her life. I wish I had been more understanding, more compassionate about all her mental and emotional issues.
I wish I had been a better person; a more empathetic, understanding daughter.
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If you read on Vella, please consider taking a peek at the stories I’ve there. And remember: the first 3 chapters/episodes are ALWAYS FREE TO READ!
I’m not going to lie. This has been the hardest day of my life to date.
In 62 years I’ve lived through a lot.
A lot.
So that’s saying something about the agony of today.
Chronic pain; numerous surgeries; life-changing accidents; rejection; multiple types of skin cancer with subsequent disfiguring surgeries.
It’s a lot.
But it’s all paled in comparison to the unstoppable ache in my soul today.
This is the first Mother’s Day I’ve ever had without my mother.
The sadness surrounding me is like a cloak made of a heavy black depression that weighs more than anyone should bear.
Even during the times our relationship wasn’t perfect, Mother’s Day was always something I never forgot. Cards, small tokens, even just a phone call was all she ever wanted, just a reminder from me that she was my mother and I loved her.
My mother wasn’t one of those moms who demanded and expected hearts, flowers, and expensive gifts.
She was a simple woman with simple tastes and desires.
One of her favorite gifts, and the one she commented on every year on Mother’s Day, was a ceramic house I made her in third-grade arts and crafts class in school. I’ve looked at this item over the years and have always wondered, why the hell did she love it so much?
I know the answer now. At least, I think I do.
We lived in apartments from the time I was born until I was in the sixth grade. That year, my mother and stepfather bought their first home. It was a tiny one-bedroom bungalow in a beach community on Staten Island. Low rent district, because it was in a flood zone, but a real house nonetheless.
And yes, I said one bedroom. They slept in it, I slept in the living room on an old Castro convertible – remember them?
The entire house couldn’t have been more than 750 square feet. It had a small fenced-in backyard that abutted a wooded area. The houses were separated from each other by three feet ( 1.5 feet on either side), which meant you could hear and see everything going on in the next house. Railroad track houses they were called. One room falling into the next.
I don’t know how much the house cost in 1971 but they had a sizable mortgage for the time. That, I do remember because money was really tight during those years. Those were the times when we didn’t eat vegetables because we couldn’t afford them, powdered milk was the only kind they could buy because of the cheap price, and we ate boiled potatoes five times a week and plain macaroni as our main meal on the weekends.
My mother loved that house.
Why? I think because it was the first real one she ever lived in. Her entire life until that moment had been spent in apartments. First as a child, then as an adult.
This was the first home that was truly hers and not owned by someone else.
I’m not gonna lie and say everything was honky dory in that house. It wasn’t.
The water pressure was practically nil, which meant taking a shower and actually getting soap and shampoo off you took five times longer than it should have. And the water was never really…hot.
The stove was an old burner flame one and the pilot light went out routinely 3-4 times a week. I learned how to light an oven at an age no child should. And with matches, not an electric lighter.
The walls were paper thin which mean no privacy. In the bathroom…in the bedroom.
You get the idea.
There was one thermostat to control the heat and it was in the living room so that meant in order for heat to register in the bedroom the temp had to be turned up high. I never went to bed without sweating.
And forget air conditioning. They couldn’t afford one. Summers were…difficult.
But my mother loved that house, despite all the issues.
And I think that’s why she loved that ceramic house I made her so much.
At the time I made it, we were still living in apartments where roaches were our roommates, junkies looking for a fix roamed outside the front doors, and crime lived in the lobbies.
That little ceramic house was my mother’s hope for the future; her dream where we would live one day. Safe, sound, and far from crime and urban squalor.
The funny thing is, that very first home in the beach looked an awful lot like the ceramic one.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms, moms-to-be, aunties, sisters, and step-moms. If you’ve still got your mom with you, call her, give her a hug, tell her you love her.
Episode 21 of MAGIC’S CHARM dropped this morning over on Amazon Kindle vella. Are you all caught with Rhys and Siobhan’s story? Here’ the link – and remember you can read the first three episodes for FREE to decide of you like the story. And if you do, please consider giving it a thumbs up or weekly favorite.
Next, if you don’t follow me on instagram or facebook you might not know this, but I’ve got a PREORDER CONTEST going on for SABLE ( ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID) The details are below in the graphic,but the gist is this: if you preorder the book and then put up a screenshot of the preorder and provide me with your email address, I’ll put your name in an invisible hat and once the book releases, I’ll be drawing 5 names to each win a $10.00 Amazon gift card. Sound good? A chance to will 4 times the cost of the book just for preordering?? YOWZA! I’d take advantage of that deal!!
I’ve never done an Instagram Live event before and had to look up on Google how to set up my camera!! This should be so much fun. Join us starting at 11ESt/10CT tomorrow!
I’m having a special TUESDAY TEASE today because it’s also a chance to win 1 of 5 Amazon Gift Cards once SABLE releases.
Here are the rules:
And here’s today’s teaser:
“Listen,” he said, “I’m starving and I imagine you are, too, since neither of us got a dinner break last night. Want to go grab something quick before heading home? The diner across the street makes the best waffles this side of the Mississippi.”
When a corner of her mouth lifted a bit, he felt ten feet tall. In the next instant it flattened again.
“I’m actually heading there for a breakfast meeting right now, so, sorry. I can’t.”
“Business meeting?”
When she rolled her eyes, he thought she looked all of sixteen years old again. Since he’d known her when she was that age, a familiar feeling of warmth moved within him.
Sable expelled a tortured groan. There was no other way to describe the sound that rumbled up from the back of her throat and blew past her lips.
“I wish it were a business meeting, but no.” When he cocked his head, she added, “I’m meeting with my cousin, Moira. She has something to”—she lifted her fingers in air quotes—“discuss with me, but I already know what it is and I really wish I had an excuse not to go.”
“Okay, now I’m seriously interested. What’s so horrible she wants to talk about?”
“Me.” Another eye roll.
“You?”
She nodded.
“What about you?”
“Not me specifically, I guess, but my unmarried, childless state.”
If he wasn’t mistaken there was a hint of bitterness in her tone, topped by a whole lot of embarrassment, solidified when her cheeks turned three different shades of crimson within a millisecond.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I can’t believe I said that out loud. And to you, of all people,” she mumbled.
He’d think about the last part of her sentence later. For now, he said, “Let me take a guess here.”
She opened her eyes and – halleluiah – looked him in the eye.
“She wants to fix you up.”
Eyes closed again, she nodded.
“And you…what? Don’t want to be?”
Another nod.
“Because? You don’t like to be set up? Or you’re already seeing someone?”
He said a silent prayer it wasn’t the latter.
“The whole thing is ridiculously embarrassing, for starters,” she said. “I’m thirty years old and can get my own dates, thank you very much. But you’d think I was either twelve and knew nothing about the world the way my family acts, or pushing fifty and looking at a lonely later life with nothing for companionship but cats and Netflix movies.”
He wanted to laugh but kept the merriment inside him, understanding she was dead serious. She hadn’t said she was seeing someone, though, so that was telling.
And promising.
Preorder your copy here: SABLE and then follow the rules if you’d like a chance to win one of those 5 Amazon GCs!
