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Vera Jane Cook Weaves Family Saga, Historical Fiction & Paranormal in Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem – Book Trailer Now Available

4.3 stars – 6 Reviews
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From the Salem Witch trials through the Nineteenth Century and beyond, Annabel Horton is pursued by the devil’s disciple, Urban Grandier, the demonic priest from the incident at Loudon. She must take the bodies of those that the devil favors to protect her family. She must uncover the motive behind the illusive Ursula/Louis Bossidan, the scandalous cross-dresser who is pursuing her beautiful granddaughter, and she must learn, being one of God’s most powerful witches, how to use her power. But will it be enough to save her husband from Urbain’s fiery inferno? Will it be enough to save her children from demons greater than themselves? Read on, you will learn more…..

5-Star Amazon Reviews

“The story weaving in this book astonished me. I was really expecting the book to be very different than it was. I guess I had preconceived notions because I read so many para type books. This book, however, is unlike anything I have ever read. It was a cross between a family saga, historical fiction, horror and paranormal. That does not even do it justice, but it had elements from them all…”

“…At times heartfelt, always verging on the dramatic, Vera Jane Cook’s novel is a masterpiece. When reading this you may find yourself questioning time and reality, but I doubt you’ll question the abilities of this author. Five very large stars.”

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Kindle Free Book Alert for August 27 – Seven Bestselling Freebies, Just For Today! Plus The Best Kindle Deals Anywhere … Plus Don’t Miss Today’s Spotlight Freebie: Thomas Benigno’s The Good Lawyer: A Novel

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But first, a word from ... Today's Sponsor
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The Good Lawyer: A Novel
by Thomas Benigno
4.2 stars - 1,341 reviews
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#1 BESTSELLING LEGAL THRILLER ON AMAZON JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

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A young, ambitious lawyer is eager to prove he is better than the father who abandoned him and worthy of the devoted mother who raised him beyond the siren call of the mobster dominated family he grew up in. Working as a Bronx Legal Aid Attorney he learns how to twist the system, how to become an unbeatable defense lawyer, and he is peacock proud of his perfect record-not a single conviction. But it's 1982. The Spiderman rapist is on the loose and New York City is a city in fear. When an outraged rape victim commits suicide right before his eyes, searching for absolution, he grabs the headline case of a teacher's aide accused of molesting three students. Armed with a firm belief in his client's innocence, he knocks the pegs out from under the prosecution's case. When one of the children turns up dead, he discovers that his client may be strangely connected to the Spiderman. Digging deeper, horrifying revelations about his family's past collide with the true identity of the sadistic sociopath behind the Spiderman's rampage. In the process, this good lawyer comes face-to-face with his greatest conflict and deepest fear: to win, really win-save the city and even the woman he loves-must he sacrifice every principle he believes in and embrace his family's mafia past to become judge, jury, and executioner?
One Reviewer Notes:
Benigno's mastery comes through in introducing and developing character after character and weaving them into a complex and totally believable story that connects them all together in the end. Seemingly incidental subplots some from years earlier tie back to the main plot in surprising yet meaningful ways. Some are easily guessed, others catch you by total surprise...The setting too is inspiring and nostalgic ...a flash back to simpler times...plus Nick drove a 1966 Chevy Malibu... awesome. I hope we hear more from Thomas Benigno.
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About the Author
Thomas Benigno is a practicing attorney on Long Island, N. Y. After graduating Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan in 1979, at the behest of his Criminal Law Clinic Professor, Barry Scheck (who later obtained fame for representing O. J. Simpson) he was fast-tracked to a position as Associate Attorney with the New York City Legal Aid Society in the Bronx. While there he sought out and tackled the grittiest of cases, even representing the infamous Spiderman Rapist… Two years later he left Legal Aid, and within eighteen months after that, left the practice of criminal law behind forever having never lost a trial… He is married to the same beautiful woman since shortly after graduating law school and has three adult children. THE GOOD LAWYER is a novel inspired by real events while he was working as a Legal Aid Attorney in the Bronx. Thomas Benigno is a practicing attorney on Long Island, N. Y. After graduating Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan in 1979, at the behest of his Criminal Law Clinic Professor, Barry Scheck (who later obtained fame for representing O. J. Simpson) he was fast-tracked to a position as Associate Attorney with the New York City Legal Aid Society in the Bronx. While there he sought out and tackled the grittiest of cases, even representing the infamous Spiderman Rapist… Two years later he left Legal Aid, and within eighteen months after that, left the practice of criminal law behind forever having never lost a trial… He is married to the same beautiful woman since shortly after graduating law school and has three adult children. THE GOOD LAWYER is a novel inspired by real events while he was working as a Legal Aid Attorney in the Bronx.
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The Good Lawyer: A Novel

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4.5 stars – 55 Reviews
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When newly married Sharon Gold suddenly finds herself in the unfamiliar culture of the U.S. Army during the unpopular Vietnam War, she realizes she must quickly adapt to this alien world. If she does not learn to “fit in,” the consequences could have a severe impact on her husband.

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4.3 stars – 113 Reviews
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Lily Ross was having another miserable day at work when tall, dark, and stunningly handsome walked in. After hours. With some very unusual requests.

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Here’s the set-up:
I had been constantly begging my parents for a dog, and finally in the fall of 2011 my parents consented to get me one. And so began a long search for selecting the type of dog we wanted to bring home and where to get it. In the spring of 2012, we finally decided upon a pretty, white-brown Golden Retriever and named her Berry. I scoured the net for information about dogs in order to convince my parents that dogs are a great pet to have.

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4.0 stars – 105 Reviews
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Or check out the Audible.com version of Everville: The First Pillar
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Owen Sage is the emblematic college freshman at Easton Falls University. With all the worries about his first year in college, he was not prepared for what would happen next. His way of life was flipped upside down when he mysteriously crossed into another dimension, into the beautiful land of Everville. His excitement was abruptly halted when he discovered that there was a darkness forged against both the natural world, which he knew well, and the new land which he discovered, Everville. He must devise a plan to save both worlds while joining forces with the race of Fron and The Keepers, whom both harbor hidden secrets he must learn in order to gain power over the evil that dwells in The Other In Between.

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4.8 stars – 5 Reviews
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Fifteen-year-old Anna Moore has stepped back in time through the forces of a mysterious mirror to the fifteenth century during the fall of Constantinople. It is a city under siege, surrounded by an army intent on breaching its walls, taking its treasures, and killing or enslaving its people. Caught in the turmoil of the action, Anna tries to help people flee to safety from the impending doom.

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With the memories of her mother’s death fresh in her mind and her father too involved in his work, twelve year-old Emma Bradford, new to London from Manhattan, is driven to prove her theory that King Tut was actually a girl.

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Free Excerpt From KND Romance of The Week: J. L. Spohr’s Historical Romance Heirs & Spares … 49/51 Rave Reviews!

Last week we announced that J. L. Spohr’s Heirs & Spares is our Romance of the Week and the sponsor of thousands of great bargains in the Romance category: over 200 free titles, over 600 quality 99-centers, and thousands more that you can read for free through the Kindle Lending Library if you have Amazon Prime!

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4.6 stars – 51 Reviews
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It’s 1569. Elizabeth I sits on the English throne, the Reformation inflames the Continent, and whispers of war abound.

But in Troixden, just north of France, the Lady Annelore isn’t interested in politics. Times are hard, taxes are high, and the people in her duchy need her help just to survive. Her widowed father is a good man easily distracted by horses, and her newly knighted childhood friend…well, he has plans of his own.

Then Annelore receives a call she can’t ignore.

When Troixden’s sadistic king died childless, his younger brother William returns from exile to find his beloved country on the brink of civil war. He’s in desperate need of the stability that comes with a bride and heirs. But Annelore, his chosen queen, won’t come quietly.

Now the future of Troixden lies in the hands of two people who never wanted the power they’ve received and never dreamed that from duty and honor they might find love and a path to peace.

Heirs & Spares is one part history, two parts palace plotting, and a whole lot of juicy romantic intrigue. Break out the spiced wine and sink in to this rousing read.

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  And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

CHAPTER 1

Milady

In the far-flung duchy of Beaubourg, where the Truss Mountain foothills tumble soft and green to the sea, Annelore, biting her cheek in concentration, tended to the blacksmith’s broken leg. He was splayed atop the table in his rank kitchen, struggling in vain not to whimper.

She massaged his lower thigh to relax the knee, then pounced, pinning his leg down with a strength that belied her small frame.

“You’ve got to keep the leg straight, Charity,” Annelore said. “Like this.”

Charity screwed up her fresh, freckled face, tried to help, then backed up to the wash basin. Mary, Annelore’s maid, took over.

The smith bit down hard on a leather strap.

“Ungh…”

Annelore wrung out a rag and moved to the top of his head, stroking back his hair.

“One more adjustment and we’re done.” She smiled at him, took out the strap, and wiped it on her silk skirts. He took it back to his mouth, steadying his breath.

Mary, face stern, sleeves up to elbows, apron covered in salve and blood, stood at the ready by his foot. Annelore returned to his leg. They needed to realign the bone, drain the pus, and pray to God the infection did not spread.

Annelore laid her torso on his thigh as Mary grabbed hold of his foot and calf. Charity backed further away, knocking over dirty dishes with a clang. Anna and Mary exchanged a nod.

“One,” Mary said. “Two. Threeee—”

The blacksmith’s howl rang in the rafters.

###

 

Annelore retreated to her gardens as soon as she and Mary were back at Castle Beaubourg. She squatted in the dirt, plunged her grimy, bloody hands into the cool earth, and began lifting the last of the sage into a raised bed.

Plants died, of course, but at least they didn’t grip her hands and beg her to save them when she knew there was nothing more to be done. Plants didn’t have to bury their children. Plants merely drooped or refused to thrive, silently bearing their grievances only to sprout anew the next year. The blacksmith’s leg would not be so resilient.

“Don’t be taking it out on the herbs.” Mary had come up behind her.

Annelore sat back on her haunches and saw she was practically choking the stalk.

“Owk—” She plunked it in the ground.

“Annelore!” The duke leaned out the kitchen window, calling into the sunny June day. “Annnaaaaa!”

She brushed a tendril of brown hair off her cheek, leaving a smudge of earth in its place.

“What is it, Papa?” Even from that distance she saw the delight in his face.

“Anna! Bryan is here—you must come to see. I’m in fits at the very sight of him! Dust yourself off, my dear, make haste.”

She grabbed a basket full of pruned peppermint and fennel and came into the kitchen, Mary following.

“Papa,” she said, a hand on her hip, “certainly he has seen me in much worse.” And she him. She had first met Bryan when they were children, he peeing pictures in the snow.

“Have you forgot what this week is, my dear?” Her father ruffled her hair. “Or do you forget your oldest and dearest friend unless he’s right in front of your nose?”

Anna clapped her hands. She thought her mood could not be lifted, but this—how could she have forgotten?

“And here I have nothing to give him but peppermint!”

“I daresay your smile will be sufficient.”

She tore through the castle, tossing her filthy apron on the Great Hall table as she flew past. She washed her hands as best she could, pinched extra color into her cheeks, then hurried into the stable yard to find Bryan mounted on his steed.

She stopped short. He wore full chain-mail regalia—he was positively glowing.

“Bryan!” she called. “Or do I say Sir Bryan now?”

He dismounted, fell into a bow, and doffed his helmet, revealing all that golden hair.

“My lady,” he said.

Laughing, she ran to him.

“Our very own knight, newly minted!”

He lifted her up and swung her around, laughing himself.

“Yes, my dear, ’tis true.”

“Well done.” She paused a moment when he set her down, hands on his cheeks, taking him in. He released her and she took his arm.

“And what of court? What of the new king? Even more wicked than his brother? What wore the ladies? What did they serve you?”

“Questions, questions—you’re worse than my mother,” he said. “But let’s walk and I’ll tell you all there is to tell, starting with silk—the ladies wear burgundy silk.”

“Owk, and here I am in blue damask.”

“Even in a woolen tunic you would shine like a princess amongst all of those painted peacocks.”

She blushed, looked down at her hands, and picked at sediment under the stubbed nails.

“Court has no use for Beaubourg and I have no use for it,” she said as they set off toward their favorite spot, the willow tree by the stream at the far end of the east meadow.

“Oh, I think we’d make a fine pair there. Don’t you? The Knight of Beaubourg and his lady love?”

“Court just seems such a whole other world,” she said. “’Tis almost as if you’ve traveled home from the Far East.” They reached the willow. “And I suppose the ladies were no less exotic…”

Bryan reached for her but lost his footing and the two of them tumbled down to the soft moss below in peals of pleasure.

Anna lay on her back, pulling at the new summer grass. Bryan propped himself up on an elbow as best he could, shining suitor at her side. The sun dappled their faces, a soft breeze lifting the willow branches like a swishing skirt over their heads. He picked up a lock of her chestnut hair and wrapped it around his finger.

“May I be lashed severely if I thought even one held a candle to you, my love.” He gave her hair a kiss. She made a face.

“I see they haven’t spared your education in the art of courtly love.”

He laughed, then gave a drawn-out sigh and threw himself, clanking, on to his back.

“You vex me, Anna. One day I think you love me, the next you don’t. One day we’re to marry and care for your father in his old age, the next you shall never marry and I’ll be cast out to haunt the lands sad and alone.”

“Well, then, shall we find out today’s answer?” She picked a clover daisy, smiled, and began to pluck its petals. “I love you, I love you not, I love you, I love you not—”

Bryan grabbed the flower, tossed it aside, and seized both her hands in his.

“Annelore, hear me.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“Now don’t tease,” he said. “Being knighted—it’s made me take a firmer look at the future. Even the king is casting about for a wife. I too want my future to be secure, to be settled. You know I’ve planned for us…” He looked into her dark eyes and swallowed. “You’ll be twenty-one by month’s end, well past time to marry—”

“And my father will finally relent to any suitors I may have, yes, I know.” She kissed him gently on the hand. Bryan scowled and pulled away.

“Bryan, you know you’re the nearest and dearest person in the world to me, forsaking Father and Mary. Be of good cheer. Why would he refuse you?” She picked up his fallen right hand, intertwining their fingers.

“But you’ll tell him, won’t you?” He smiled. “That it’s what we both want? We can start our own little family soon—the girls will look like you and the boys like me, and—”

“And any second now you’ll be naming our grandchildren.” She patted his hand and smiled at his frown. “Come now, tell me more of court.”

Relenting his talk of love, he told her of the grandeur of Palace Havenside, its courtiers and feasts, becoming even more animated when he talked of the king.

“I met him once, when I was a child,” Anna said. “He was kind to me then but he’s sure to be a brute now. Just like the rest of his family, God rest their souls—if he must.”

“He’s no brute, Anna. He—”

“What?” She could feel her cheeks turn hot. “I for one have had enough of his family. Beaubourg’s wool market sold more than ever, but we saw no profit—though I’m sure the crown did. Not to mention the—”

“Anna, I tell you, this King William…” He paused. “There’s something in his countenance—something in his manner of being, in the set of his jaw… I can’t describe it.” He looked up, as if the right words might be found in the wind. “I would follow the man wherever ordered, even straight down the road to hell.”

“I see the drink at court is quite strong.”

“Don’t.” He scowled, then lay back and sighed. “Speaking of hell, this waiting for us to wed grinds my soul.”

“Tush, tush. I say again, Sir Bryan,” she gave him a dazzling smile she knew would appease him, “you must wait till my father is at his leisure—”

He interrupted her with a kiss full on the lips. She broke away and stood up, dusting off her skirts.

“I must bid you adieu for a time,” she said, “but come sup with us—we are to fete you properly.”

“Mother won’t have it.” He gave her a half smile. “She’s impatient to hear more of court and the goings on.”

She started to back away from him up the hill.

“For heaven’s sake bring her along, and your brothers and Charity too. That’s an official order from the House of Carver and the Duke of Beaubourg.”

With that, she turned heel and ran back home. When she reached the castle’s outer gate, she looked back at their tree and saw him still sitting beneath it, plucking a clover daisy, sun splattering his armor with shocks of light.

Sweet boy.

###

 

“He can’t be serious.” A blond curl escaped Lady Margaux’s headdress and quivered with the ire of its mistress.

Robert, Duke of Norwick, seated behind his desk piled high with papers, arched a black brow and considered her.

“Dear sis, while the king isn’t thrilled, he has steeled himself to his duty.” He signed a contract with a flourish, blew off the blotting dust, and gave the parchment to his secretary, whom he dismissed with a flick. Robert made his way to the front of his desk and perched on the edge.

“We need an heir—one of Troixden blood, not of some foreign country that will pitch us into war with the Empire or the French.”

“Save your lecture for council! How dare you recall me to court for this? Even your wife hinted that I—”

Robert glared at her. She waited for his entourage to exit, smiling sweetly at the bows they gave her as they left. With the close of the door she was at him again.

“How dare my own brother go along in recommending His Majesty look outside court for such a match? Have you no heed for your family?”

Robert was up and twisting her arm before she could move. She yelped.

“Keep your voice down!” he whispered. “You come here screaming like a banshee about succession when King James’s grave is barely cold, William one month on the throne, and I next in line?”

He thrust her toward the window, where she tripped onto the waiting settee, her skirt a wine-red cloud swelling about her.

“Don’t pretend you have no interest in the throne,” she said. “Friend or no, you want your boys in our fair cousin Will’s place.”

Robert turned to the girl he had once adored, the girl he had played knight and princess with, rescuing her from dragons and stern tutors. Now she sat there, a shrill annoyance, twitching her nose like a rodent. Perhaps not a rodent—her nose was too lovely for that, even he could admit.

“And how does your becoming queen get me or mine any closer to the throne? My sons would be well behind any brats you’d bear—”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t have any brats.” She crossed her arms and frowned out the windows at an early summer gloom.

“The king will have children—it’s the entire point of the marriage. And with one as virile as His Majesty, he’ll be fathering children like Abraham.”

“There are ways women know to keep children from coming.”

Robert walked over to the settee and frowned down at her.

“’Tis vile, what you speak of—and unholy.”

“Then what if the king should pass before I conceive?”

Robert was upon her in a second. He jerked her off the settee and shoved her, shoulders first, into the stone wall.

“Listen to yourself! You come to my rooms in the middle of the day while the king’s away and speak of his death!”

She had the grace to flinch.

“Do you not think all eyes are upon me?” he said. “Do you think because he and I are old friends I’m immune to his vengeance?”

He held her a moment longer until her perfect face crumpled like a crushed flower, then dropped his hands and walked back to his desk.

“Guards!” he called.

Margaux stood where he left her, shriveled against the wall like a dead spider.

“Please show my sister the door,” he said when the guards came. “And my lady, I trust I won’t be hearing from you anytime soon.”

She straightened to her full height, regal as ever, gave Robert a small curtsy, and preceded the guards out, leaving him alone with his discomfited thoughts.

###

 

Anna returned to the castle to find her father doling out coins to a royal messenger at the foot of the Great Hall table. The little man doffed his feathered cap and left the duke holding a letter sealed in thick, red wax.

“Well, what news?”

“’Tis from the king,” he said.

“And why do you not open it?”

“You’d like me to read it?” He smiled.

Anna put her hands on her hips.

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

He turned it round and round, ever so slowly broke the great seal with a knobby finger, and began to read to himself.

“Out loud, Papa, out loud.”

The duke’s mouth curled into a smile.

“But of course, my lady—if you demand it.”

“Owk!” She stamped a foot, but couldn’t help her own grin.

He cleared his throat and began.

“From His Royal Highness, King William the Second of the Mighty Kingdom of Troixden, to His Grace the Honorable Duke Stephen of Beaubourg et cetera, et cetera…” He scanned the letter, lips twitching. “Ah! Here’s the meat: On a matter of both personal and national import, Our Royal Person shall arrive to Castle Beaubourg on the fifth of June, the year of Our Lord fifteen-hundred and sixty-nine. All persons of the House of Carver are obligated to attend…”

“June fifth? That’s the morrow!”

“The courier said there were some delays on the road…”

While the duke continued reading Anna hollered for Mary, who was peering over the ledge of the balcony above them, outside Anna’s chamber.

“I’ve already started on the beds,” Mary called down, “and I suppose we’ll be having to strangle the swans for feasting.”

“Surely not.” Anna looked over at her father. “We don’t want things too pleasant, lest His Majesty want Beaubourg for himself. For why else would he lower himself to come here? We’ve been disdained by court for years.”

The duke, still reading, pursed his lips and frowned.

“Papa?”

“We must ready the castle—no time to waste. You as well, my dear—and until the royal party leaves, there’ll be no more digging about like a mole!”

She was about to make a retort, but glanced at her hands and thought better of it.


 

 

 

CHAPTER 2

His Highness

 

The royal carriage was stuck—again—leaving the freshly crowned King William II and Daniel, Duke of Cecile, standing in the mud under a hastily erected canopy. It did not put the king in a courting frame of mind.

As William’s closest friend and advisor, Daniel was as new to Council Table as the king to his throne. It was against all tradition to name a novice to such high standing, an unpopular decision in any case thanks to Daniel’s being a bastard, in lineage if not in manner. But the king was happy to have his friend by his side again.

Except at the moment. At the moment, William could have wrung his neck. Although, to be fair, much of the king’s anger derived from endless talk about the inevitable royal marriage. Daniel had just told him, not for the first time, that a willing bride would not be hard to find.

“Can she not be comely as well as willing?” William said.

“I don’t see why not, Majesty.” Daniel said. “You’ve the face of a man who’s seen and loved the world, the smile of a contented soul, the wise blue eyes of your mother, may she rest in peace—”

William rolled his wise blue eyes.

“You sound like a courtier wanting another title.”

“I think you’ve done enough for me already.” Daniel looked at his feet and blushed. “Besides, you’ve not exactly had a hard road where women are concerned…”

Daniel kept talking, but William had heard it all before. With the effects of his family’s disastrous, bloody reigns still lingering and the heretical Germans hoping to take a bite out of his realm, the crown needed security. The country needed stability. William needed heirs and spares and he needed them soon.

“Negotiating with England for the hand of Elizabeth appeals more and more at the moment.” William looked at his men working valiantly and thus far fruitlessly to dislodge the carriage wheels from the thick mud.

Daniel smiled in his quiet way.

“Majesty, you’ve been out of the realm these fifteen years in lands hostile to the Holy Father. To marry a heretic—”

“I know, I know.” William watched his straining men, itching to put his own shoulder to the task. “We’ve been through the debate most heartily. Besides, she’s too old for our purposes—though not much older than my creaky self.”

He began creating little haphazard rivers and tributaries in the sludge with his foot. “But at least I’d be dry. And her wit would make me merry. And I daresay, if our past acquaintance is any indication, she wouldn’t find the idea abhorrent.”

Daniel watched the progress of William’s miniature riverbed for a minute, then frowned and looked up at him.

“You’re but thirty, sire. And since when has Your Majesty ever balked in the face of such exploits as—”

“It’s William when just the two of us.” He clapped his friend on the back. “Didn’t think I had to tell you that twice. And as for exploits, I’ve never had to tromp through fields, forests, and foulness in such absurd costume.” He held up his arms, showing his damp royal finery. “As king come a-courting, I cut a damned sorry sight.”

Daniel looked at William’s mournful expression and pouted his lips in consideration.

“Yes, friend,” William said, “I’ll give you all the gold in the realm if you can spin this yarn into something agreeable.”

Daniel swallowed a smile.

“We can head south, turn back to—”

Turn back?” William said. “As you say, our people already have a foul opinion of their sovereign. Shall they now find a little mud forces him to retreat on his tour?”

“They shan’t, Majes—William.”

“Then let’s review our route. Again.” William rubbed his large hands together as if to magic away the damp. “Why on earth we started by going north…”

“Seven duchies. Seven ladies. Seven chances to charm your people—”

“I’m sure the people of Hosmer were quite charmed as we sloshed through town in a hail of filth and rain, not even stopping for a royal wave.” William grimaced at the thought of what his brother had done to their land.

“Hosmer is not even the halfway point,” Daniel said, “and we’d already been delayed over four hours. We may have to skip Beaubourg entirely—”

William looked up at the canopy just as a large drop of rain hit him square on the nose. He swore.

“We’ll not skip it. Though the duke will have to wait.” He massaged his jaw, feeling its close-cropped stubble. “As will the rest.”

At the rate they were moving, the Duke of Beaubourg would have to wait quite a while.

###

 

That evening, Anna retired to her chamber. Mary was standing ready with a hot bath and Anna’s most luxurious gown hung to air.

“Oh Mary,” she said, stretching her arms to the air, “what a day, and what a morrow.”

To Anna, Mary was frozen in time, smelling of spice-bread and roses. As a child Anna had spent many a night nestled against Mary’s ample bosom as the nurse sang away the witches and goblins.

“What a day indeed, m’dear. Now off with your filthy clothes and into the tub.” Mary helped Anna out of her day dress and into the copper bath in front of the fire, then set to scrubbing Anna’s hair with a frenzy normally reserved for an outbreak of lice.

“Do you want me to go bald?” Anna said.

She turned to her nurse who, holding the ends of Anna’s dripping tresses in her knobby, calloused hands, continued unabated to thwack the dark locks into submission.

“Mary, do you think he means to take our lands?”

Mary stopped and looked square at Anna, opened her mouth, seemed to reconsider, then snapped it shut.

“I’ll be saying nothing about the whole matter—I’m just a servant here, after all.”

Everyone was so peculiar today. Even Anna’s brown cat Mae sulked under the bed, refusing to come out. Perhaps it was the approaching dark clouds from the sea harkening yet another storm that put them all to such brooding.

Anna resettled herself in the deep tub.

“Once he sees our natural splendors, how could he not want them for the crown?” she said. “And then what would happen to us all?” If she had to start wearing muslin again to keep food on the tables of her people, she would do it.

“Well, m’love, as I said, I’ll not say a thing about it.” Mary helped Anna out of the bath and into a towel, then her shift. “’Cepting I think he’s here for some other reason altogether.”

Anna, looking at her, saw tears starting in her eyes.

“Mary, whatever is the matter?” She thought of her father. Was he going to be called away? How could she manage running Beaubourg by herself?

“Tell me or I shan’t sleep a wink!”

Mary patted her head.

“’Tis nothing, dearie. The early summer winds are making me head fuzzy.” She

went about turning down the bed, Anna following right behind.

“Tell me or I’ll leave my candle burning all night and read the whole of St. Paul’s epistles. Aloud. In the Greek.”

“You wouldn’t do that to your old Mary, now would ye?” She wouldn’t meet Anna’s eyes.

“If it’s about Papa…”

“Don’t be playing on my old heart, dearie. I told you ’tis not my place. But I daresay you’ve nothing to badger me about.”

Anna sighed. She would not be getting more information from her unusually tight-lipped maid. Perhaps things would be clearer in the morning. She climbed into bed and opened her precious Bible.

While Protestantism was gaining purchase in other lands, the Pope still held sway in Troixden. And the gentry were expected to know their Scripture, if only to appear learned. If they had a Bible at all. Anna enjoyed the stories—they fed her sense of adventure and drama. She loved the wisdom and poetry, the epic tales. Every night she read until her candle burned out or her eyes fluttered to a close.

Mary, who slept in Anna’s chamber, patted her shoulder.

“Not too late, dearie. You’ll be needing your sleep.”

Anna arched a brow.

“For what, pray tell?”

Mary shook her head and Anna smiled through a yawn.

“I’m tired—and in Leviticus. I’ll soon be asleep.”

She watched Mary give her one last lingering look and wipe away another tear from a creased eye.

###

 

It was getting on eleven the following evening, and the entire House of Carver, from the lowest stable hand to the duke himself, stood at attention in Castle Beaubourg’s courtyard. The rain was misting, a fine drizzle that showed no sign of letting up.

Anna had been up and down and up and down what seemed like twenty times that day. No one dared touch the feast—now gone cold—and no one dared take a bit of leisure, lest His High and Mighty arrive without warning. They had been kept apprised of the king’s halting progress by a succession of messengers, all claiming His Majesty would arrive soon, the last one having left them a half-hour ago.

He’d been due early that afternoon.

Blast these royals! Anna shivered in her damp gown. Selfish, slow, full of their own airs. The butcher’s wife due with her babe any moment and Mary and I stuck here.

She heard the thick clomp of hooves fast approaching. No doubt another fleet of messengers. She’d go to bed after this final insult, king or no.

Just as she turned to go to her father to beg his permission, twelve horses tore into the yard, mud flying, whining and wet, their riders bedraggled in their court dress. A tall, cloaked man at the center dismounted in haste, barely waiting for his black beast to halt, the others scrambling after him.

“Your Grace,” the man said, striding to her father, not bothering to pull back his hood. His boots were covered with mud. How disrespectful of her father’s rank and wait! They were all alike, no matter what Bryan said.

“Please accept our most humble apologies for our tardiness,” the man said. “It seems the weather up north frowns upon our journey. And as you can tell from our state, we have been stuck a long while.”

Anna gasped as she realized who he was.

“Your Majesty,” her father said, taking the king’s proffered hand and kissing his ring. “’Tis a trifle to wait upon such an honor. Please, let us retire to dryness and warmth.”

The two men entered the castle followed by another four of the king’s party. Anna heard the king’s deep voice booming out.

“Our carriage shall be along at some point. Hopefully by the time of our needed departure.”

“Certainly, sire, my men shall attend to every need,” her father said. “They’ll soon be about seeing to your steed. A creature of rare beauty, I might add…”

The voices faded and Anna was finally able to enter the castle, where Mary caught hold of her arm.

“Owk, you look a fright.” She busied about Anna’s hair, which had frizzled in the damp.

“What does it matter? I shall retire and make my official appearance in the morning.” She was tired and didn’t care how the king would look upon such a breach. It served him right, keeping them waiting like this. Weather! What a paltry excuse.

“You’ll do no such thing, my dearie,” Mary said, moving to re-fluff Anna’s sleeves. “’Tis the king who’s here, not some horse trader.”

“And the king needs to learn his manners.”

“By flouting your own? Nay, Anna, you were raised better, if I say so meself.” Mary gave a final shake to Anna’s skirts. “Maybe with the light so dim he’ll not see dirt on the hem.”

Anna stood glowering as more laughter echoed in the hall.

“Out with you.” Mary gave her a little shove on the backside.

Anna walked the few steps to the archway leading to the sunken hall where the men had all sat down to eat, the king at the far end—in her father’s usual place—her father to the king’s right.

The hall was darker than normal, as if the gloom from outside had drifted in with the king’s party and hung over the table. She could barely make out the men’s faces closest to her, shadowed as they all were by this pall that even a surplus of candles could not pierce.

She stopped on the top stair, unsure whether to enter there or go around through the hallway to her father. The laughter was cresting and she noticed the king joining in. He glanced in her direction, stroking his cheek. His smile faded. Even at such a distance she could feel his eyes bore through her. Her heart sped like a sparrow under Mae’s paw.

Benches and chairs scraped the stone floor as the men rose to honor her entrance. The king remained seated, watching. She furrowed her brow at him and saw the flicker of a smile break. So she was entertaining, was she?

“Your Highness,” her father said, hurrying to her side, “may I present my daughter, the Lady Annelore Matilda of Beaubourg.”

Anna curtsied low, glad to avoid the king’s sharp eyes.

“Lady Annelore,” the king said, “we are pleased. And hope you accept our regrets for the lateness of the hour. Please, join us at table.”

At her table.

“Thank you, Majesty,” she said.

She rose and moved to the lone open seat at the far end of the table between two of the royal party, a thin blond man and an older one, heavy and balding. She sat without ceremony, took a long swig of wine and set her goblet down with too much force, hushing the conversation enough to attract Bryan’s attention. He gave her a sheepish look from across the table.

She picked up a fork and stabbed at a piece of cold venison. Meat secure, mouth open, and morsel halfway to its mark, she looked up to find the king still staring at her. She put her bite down slowly, her eyes following it to her plate.

Dammit. Stop looking at me with those blasted eyes!

“By all means, dear lady, eat,” he said. The men were silent, everyone now waiting for her next move.

“Begging your pardon, Majesty,” she said, eyes glued to her plate. “As we long awaited your party, I had not a moment to eat since noontime.” She knew it was rude, but it should stop his stares.

“Of course,” the king said. She thankfully felt his eyes leave her. “Your Grace, tell me more of your stables.”

This was the cue for the rest of the men to resume eating and talking. How skittish they all seemed, all save the two flanking her. The one to her left, the fat one, reached out and patted her forearm.

“Pay no heed, my lady,” he said. She glanced up to find hazel eyes dancing in the dim candlelight.

“I especially enjoy the plum sauce with the venison,” he said. “Finer plum sauce is not even found in Havenside I daresay.”

His smile was so sincere she couldn’t help smiling back.

“The Duke of Halforn at your service, my lady.” He made a little twirling salute with his hand. “And the gentleman to your right is Daniel, the Duke of Cecile.”

Daniel turned to her, nodded, smiled.

“My lady, it is indeed a pleasure. And His Grace is correct—the plum sauce surpasses that of even Rome.”

“Your Grace has been to Rome?”

His pale cheeks flushed. She had not been able to mask her eagerness.

“Yes, my lady, but I did not mean to boast, only to compliment the sauce.”

“But of course. I merely wish to—it’s just that… please, Your Grace, speak to me of your travels.”

Daniel acquiesced with almost enough details to satisfy her, the jolly Halforn interjecting his wit until the talk of travels finally subsided.

“So it’s true. Your Ladyship has a learned mind,” Halforn said through a mouthful of sweetbread. “If only my daughters would take a lesson from you, my dear.”

“What you have heard, Your Grace?” How could anyone outside of Beaubourg have heard anything about her, let alone the state of her mind? Ah, but of course: Bryan had just returned from court. Halforn laughed.

“Why, it’s our business to know of all the ladies of the land—”

“What His Grace means to say—” Daniel started, but the voice of the king rose above them.

“We are afraid there’s no remedy, Your Grace, as we are already so delayed. We really must away tomorrow morning. Please do not take it as any reflection on your hospitality.”

“Of course not, sire,” her father said. “I only wished you to have the time you needed, as the matter is of such import.”

“Worry not, Your Grace,” the king said. “Things shall present themselves much more clearly after a night’s rest. If her ladyship would be so inclined as to break fast with us, we do not believe our early departure will hamper things.”

“If that be the case, Highness,” Anna said, “I shall to bed now, if you please.”

The king raised his thick brows at her. Her father looked stunned.

“Please excuse my daughter, Highness,” he said. “She is used to less formality, as in usual circumstances only she and I are at table.”

“Think nothing of it, Your Grace,” the king said. “A lady who speaks her mind is one to be admired, is she not?”

Several at the table called out “Here, here!” and raised their glasses in a toast. To her or the king she could not tell.

She pushed herself away from the table.

“Then I shall—”

“You have our leave,” the king said, fixing her in mid-rise with that unnerving stare of his.

How dare he make her feel so small in her own home? But of course, that’s what kings did best.

“Majesty,” she said, dipping into the faintest of curtsies and meeting his gaze with the force of her own, “the distinct honor of your presence has been mine. Please continue to enjoy our hospitality as seems fitting to you.”

With that she turned from all those men with their disconcerted faces and left them to grovel before their tyrant of a king.

 Click here to download the entire book: J. L. Spohr’s Heirs & Spares>>>

Three Great Reads in One Box Set! Don’t Miss Victoria Danann’s The Order of the Black Swan, Books 1-3 COLLECTED TALES – Here’s a Free Sample

4.8 stars – 59 Reviews
Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled
Here’s the set-up:
313,000 words of Best Selling, Award Winning Books.

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Once upon a time a girl traveled so far from home that she found herself in another world where heroes, elves, vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, fae, berserkers, and psychics became her friends and family. She learned that there’s a place where adventure intersects fairytales and that true love can find you in the strangest places, when you’re least expecting it, even far far from home.

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Book 1, My Familiar Stranger: Romancing the Vampire Hunters. (Nominated for best paranormal romance of 2012 by the Reviewers’ Choice Awards.)

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Appropriate for 17+.

Reviews

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About The Author

If you’re looking for something new and different in PNR, you’ve come to the right place.I write unapologetic romances with uniquely fresh perspectives on paranormal creatures, characters, and themes. Add a dash of scifi and a flourish of fantasy to enough humor to make you laugh out loud and enough steam to make you squirm in your chair. My heroines are independent femmes with flaws and minds of their own whether they are aliens, witches, demonologists, psychics, or past life therapists. My heroes are hot and hunky, but they also have brains, character, and good manners – usually – whether they be elves, demons, berserkers, werewolves, or vampires.

My first book, My Familiar Stranger, was nominated for Best Paranormal Romance of 2012 by the Reviewers’ Choice Awards. Each of my books has remained on the Amazon best seller list in category every day since release. All three also earned the Night Owl Reviews TOP PICK award.

My work has been compared to J R Ward, Karen Marie Moning, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Lara Adrian. For example:

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The Order of the Black Swan is a series that is also a serial saga. Each book is an episodic installment in an ongoing story. Join me for the adventure.

Victoria Danann
WEBSITE: http://www.VictoriaDanann.com
BLOG: http://VictoriaDanann.me
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/vdanann
TWITTER: @vdanann

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Enjoy A Free Excerpt From KND Thriller of The Week: Matthew Mather’s Bestselling Technothriller Cyberstorm – Over 1,550 Rave Reviews!

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CyberStorm

by Matthew Mather

4.4 stars – 1,732 Reviews
Or currently FREE for Amazon Prime Members Via the Kindle Lending Library
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Sometimes the worst storms aren’t from Mother Nature, and sometimes the worst nightmares aren’t the ones in our heads. Mike Mitchell, an average New Yorker already struggling to keep his family together, suddenly finds himself fighting just to keep them alive when an increasingly bizarre string of disasters start appearing on the world’s news networks. As the world and cyberworld come crashing down, bending perception and reality, a monster snowstorm cuts New York off from the world, turning it into a wintry tomb where nothing is what it seems…

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

Prologue

 

PULLING MY GOGGLES up, I stopped and blinked, looking out into the night with my own unaided eyes. The night was pitch black and soundless, and my mind suddenly felt disconnected. Alone, staring into the void, I became a tiny dot of existence floating by itself in the universe. At first the feeling was terrifying, my mind reeling, but it quickly became comforting.

Maybe this is what death is like? Alone, peaceful, floating, floating, no fear

Clipping the night-vision goggles back into place, ghostly green flakes of snow appeared falling gently around me.

My hunger pangs had been intense that morning, almost driving me to the point of going outside during the day. Chuck had held me back, talked to me, calmed me down. It wasn’t for me, I’d argued with him, it was for Luke, for Lauren, for Ellarose, for any reason that would allow me, like an addict, to get my fix.

I laughed.

I’m addicted to food.

The falling snowflakes were hypnotic. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath.

What is real? What is reality anyway?

I felt like I was hallucinating, my mind never quite able to take a firm track before skidding off. Get a grip. Luke is counting on you. Lauren is counting on you.

Opening my eyes, I willed myself into the here and now and tapped the phone in my pocket to bring up the augmented-reality display. A field of red dots spread out into the distance, and, taking another deep breath, I began carefully putting one foot in front of the other, continuing on my way across Twenty-Fourth, pushing myself toward a cluster of dots on Sixth Avenue.

November 25

Chelsea, New York City

 

 

“WE LIVE IN amazing times!”

I carefully studied the piece of charred flesh that I held up in front of me.

“Amazingly dangerous times,” laughed Chuck, my next-door neighbor and best friend, taking a swig from his beer. “Nice work. That’s probably still frozen on the inside.”

Shaking my head, I put the burnt sausage down at the edge of the grill.

It was an unusually warm week for Thanksgiving, so I’d decided to throw a last-minute barbecue party on the rooftop terrace of our converted warehouse complex. Most of our neighbors were still here for the holiday, so my two-year-old son, Luke, and I had spent the morning going door-to-door, inviting them all up for our grill-out.

“Don’t insult my cooking, and don’t get started on all that.”

It was a spectacular end of the day, with the setting sun shining warmly. From our seven-story perch, beautiful late-autumn views of red and gold trees stretched up and down the Hudson, backed by street noise and city skyline. New York still held a vibrancy that excited me, even after two years of living there. I looked around at the crowd of our neighbors. We’d gathered a group of thirty people for our little party, and I was secretly proud so many had come.

“So you don’t think it’s possible a solar flare could wreck the world?” said Chuck, raising his eyebrows.

His Southern twang made even disasters sound like song lyrics, and kicking back on a sun lounger in ripped jeans and a Ramones T-shirt, he looked like a rock star. His hazel eyes twinkled playfully from beneath a mop of unkempt blond hair, and two-day-old stubble completed the look.

“That’s exactly what I don’t want you to get started on.”

“I’m just saying—”

“What you’re saying always points to disaster.” I rolled my eyes. “We’ve just lived through one of the most amazing transitions in human history.”

Poking the sausages on the grill, I generated a new round of searing flames that leapt up.

Tony, one of our doormen, was standing next to me, still dressed in his work clothes and tie, but at least with his suit jacket off. Heavyset, with dark Italian features, he was as Brooklyn as the Dodgers of old, and his accent never let you forget it. Tony was the kind of guy that grew on you immediately, always ready to help, and never without a smile and a joke to go along with it.

Luke loved him too. From the moment he could walk, every time we went downstairs, Luke would go rocketing out of the elevator as soon as it pinged to ground level and run to the front desk to greet Tony with squeals of glee. The feelings were mutual.

Looking up from my sausages, I directly addressed Chuck. “Over a billion people have been born in the past decade—that’s like a new New York City each month for the last ten years—the fastest population growth that has ever been, or ever will be.”

I waved my tongs around impressively in the air to make my point.

“Sure there’ve been a few wars here and there, but nothing major. I think that says something about the human race.” I paused for effect. “We’re maturing.”

“That billion new people are still mostly sucking baby formula,” Chuck pointed out. “Wait fifteen years until they all want cars and washing machines. Then we’ll see how mature we are.”

“World poverty in real-dollar, per-capita terms is half what it was forty years ago—”

“And yet one in six Americans goes hungry, and the majority are malnourished,” interrupted Chuck.

And for the first time in human history, just a year or two ago,” I continued, “most humans live in cities rather than the countryside.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

Tony looked at me and Chuck and shook his head, taking a swig of his beer and smiling. This was a well-worn sparring match he’d watched many times before.

“It is a good thing,” I pointed out. “Urban environments are way more energy efficient than rural ones.”

“Except urban is not an environment,” argued Chuck. “The environment is an environment. You talk as if cities were these self-supporting bubbles, and they’re not. They’re entirely dependent on the natural world around them.”

I pointed my tongs at him. “That same world we’re saving by living together in cities.”

Returning my attention to the barbecue, I saw that the fat dripping off the sausages had ignited into flames again and was searing my chicken breasts.

“I’m just saying that when it all comes undone—”

“When a terrorist launches a nuke over the US? An EMP pulse?” I asked as I rearranged my meats. “Or a weaponized superbug let loose in the wild?”

“Any of those,” nodded Chuck.

“You know what you should be worried about?”

“What?”

I didn’t need to give him anything new to be obsessed with, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d just finished reading an article about it.

“Cyberattack.”

Looking over his shoulder, I could see that my wife’s parents had arrived, and my stomach knotted up. What I wouldn’t have given to have a simple relationship with my in-laws, but then again, that was a boat most people were rowing with me.

“Ever heard of something called Night Dragon?” I asked.

Chuck and Tony shrugged.

“A few years back they started finding foreign computer code embedded in power plant control systems all over the country,” I explained. “They traced command and control back to office buildings in China. This stuff was specifically designed to knock out the US energy grid.”

Chuck looked at me, unimpressed. “So? What happened?”

“Nothing happened, yet, but your attitude is the problem. It’s everyone’s attitude. If Chinese nationals were running around the country attaching packs of C-4 explosives to transmission towers, the public would be crying bloody murder and declaring war.”

“Used to be that they dropped bombs to knock out factories, but now just click a mouse?”

“Exactly.”

“See?” said Chuck, smiling. “There’s a prepper in you after all.”

I laughed. “Answer me this—who’s in charge of the internet, this thing that our lives depend on?”

“I don’t know, the government?”

“The answer is that nobody is in charge of it. Everyone runs it, but nobody’s in charge.”

Chuck laughed. “Now that sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

“You guys are freaking me out,” said Tony, finally finding some space to add something. “Can’t we talk about baseball for once? And maybe you’d better let me take over the grilling?” The flames on the grill roared up again, and he recoiled in mock fear. “You got more important stuff to do, no?”

“And we’d like to eat some food that’s not burnt to a crisp,” added Chuck with a smile.

“Yeah, sure,” I replied without enthusiasm, nodding and handing the tongs over to Tony. I was hiding at the grill, trying to delay the inevitable. Glancing over my shoulder I could see my wife, Lauren, looking my way. She laughed as she talked to someone, brushing back her long, auburn hair with a sweep of one hand.

With high cheekbones and flashing green eyes, Lauren captured attention whenever she entered a room. She had the refined, strong features of her family, a sharp nose and chin that accentuated her slim figure. Even after being with her for five years, just looking at her from across a patio could still take my breath away—I still couldn’t believe that she chose me.

Taking a deep breath, I straightened up my shoulders.

“I leave the grill in your care,” I said to nobody in particular. They were already back to discussing Cybergeddon.

Taking a swig from my beer, I put it down on the table next to the grill and turned to walk over to Lauren. She was standing at the opposite corner of the large deck on top of our building, chatting with her parents and a few of our other neighbors. I’d insisted on hosting her mother and father for Thanksgiving this year, but was already regretting it.

Her family was old-money Bostonian, dyed-in-the-tweed Brahmins, and while early on I’d done my best to earn their good humor, lately I’d given up and settled into a grudging understanding that I’d never be good enough. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t polite.

“Mr. Seymour,” I called out, outstretching my hand, “thank you so much for coming.”

Dressed in a square-shouldered tweed jacket accented with a navy handkerchief, blue oxford shirt, and a brown paisley tie, Mr. Seymour looked up from talking with Lauren, and smiled a tight-lipped smile. I immediately felt self-conscious in my jeans and T-shirt. Covering the last few paces, I reached out to grip his hand and pumped it firmly.

“And, Mrs. Seymour, as lovely as ever,” I added, turning toward my wife’s mother. She was sitting uncomfortably on a wooden bench beside her husband and daughter, dressed in a brown suit with a matching oversized hat and a thick strand of pearls around her neck. Clutching her purse tightly in her lap, she leaned forward as if to get up.

“No, no, please, don’t.” I leaned down to peck her on the cheek. She smiled and sat back down on the edge of the bench. “Thank you for coming to spend Thanksgiving with us.”

“So you’ll think about it?” Mr. Seymour said loudly to Lauren. You could almost make out the layers of ancestry in his voice, thick with both privilege and responsibility, and today, perhaps a little condescension. He was making sure I could hear what he said.

“Yes, Dad,” Lauren whispered, stealing a glance my way and looking down. “I will.”

I didn’t take the bait and ignored it.

“Have you been introduced to the Borodins?”

I motioned toward the elderly Russian couple that were sitting at the table beside them. Aleksandr, the husband, was already asleep in a lounger, snoring quietly away beside his wife, Irena, who was busy on her knitting.

The Borodins lived right next door to us. I’d sometimes spend hours listening to Mrs. Borodin’s stories of the war. They’d survived the siege of Leningrad, the modern St. Petersburg, and I found it fascinating how she could have lived through something so horrific yet be so positive and gentle with the world. She cooked amazing borscht, too.

“Lauren introduced us. A pleasure,” mumbled Mr. Seymour, smiling Mrs. Borodin’s way. She looked up and smiled back, and then returned to her pair of half-knitted socks.

“So,” I said, spreading my arms, “have you guys seen Luke yet?”

“No, he’s downstairs with Ellarose and the sitter at Chuck and Susie’s place,” replied Lauren. “We haven’t had a chance to go and see him yet.”

“But we’ve already been invited to the Met,” said Mrs. Seymour brightly, perking up. “Dress rehearsal tickets for the new Aida performance.”

“Oh yeah?”

I looked at Lauren and then turned toward Richard, another of our neighbors, who was definitely not on my favorites list.

“Thanks, Dick.”

Square-jawed and handsome, he’d been some kind of football star in his Yale days. His wife, Sarah, was a tiny thing, and she sat behind him like a hand-shy puppy. She quickly pulled the cuffs of her sweater down to cover her bare arms when I glanced at her.

“I know the Seymours love the opera,” explained Richard in his thick-money accent, like a Manhattan stock broker describing an investment option. Where the Seymours were Old Boston, Richard’s family was Old New York. “We have the ‘friends and family’ seating at the Met. I only have four tickets, and Sarah didn’t want to go”—his wife shrugged weakly behind him—“and I didn’t mean to presume, but I didn’t think it was your kind of thing, old boy. I thought I could take Lauren and the Seymours, a little Thanksgiving treat?”

While Mr. Seymour’s accent sounded genuine, Richard’s faux-British-prep-school affectation grated on my ears.

“I guess.”

What the hell is he up to?

Awkward pause.

“We need to get going if we’re going to make it,” added Richard, raising his eyebrows. “It’s an early rehearsal.”

“But we were just about to start serving,” I said, pointing back toward the checker-clothed tables set with bowls of potato salad and paper plates. Tony smiled and waved at me with the tongs while he piled burnt sausage and chicken atop a serving tray.

“That’s all right, we’ll stop for something,” said Mr. Seymour, again with his tight-lipped smile. “Richard was just telling us about a wonderful new bistro on the Upper East Side.”

“It was just an idea,” added Lauren uncomfortably. “We were talking and Richard mentioned it.”

I took a deep breath, balling my hands into fists, but caught myself and sighed. My hands relaxed. Family was family, and I wanted Lauren to be happy. Maybe this would help. I rubbed one eye and exhaled slowly.

“That’s actually a great idea.” I looked toward my wife with a genuine smile and felt her relax. “I’ll take care of Luke, so don’t hurry back. Enjoy yourselves.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lauren.

An inch of gratitude propped our relationship back up.

“I’m sure. I’ll just grab a few beers with the boys.” On reflection, this was sounding like a better and better idea. “You best get going. Maybe we can meet for a nightcap?”

“It’s settled then?” said Mr. Seymour.

Within a few minutes they were gone and I was back with the guys, piling my plate with sausages and rooting around in the cooler for a beer.

I slumped down in a chair.

Chuck looked at me with a forkful of potato salad halfway into his mouth. “That’s what you get for marrying a girl with a name like Lauren Seymour.”

I laughed and cracked my beer open. “So what’s the word regarding this mess between China and India over those dams in the Himalayas?”

 

 

November 27

 

 

THE FAMILY VISIT didn’t go well.

Thanksgiving dinner started the disaster rolling, first because we ordered a precooked turkey from Chelsea Market—“Oh my, you don’t cook your own turkey?”—and then the awkward dinner seating around our kitchen countertop—“When are you buying a bigger apartment?”—with the finale of me not being able to watch the Steelers game—“That’s fine, if Michael wants to watch football, we’ll just make our way back to the hotel.”

Richard had gracefully invited us down the hall for after-dinner drinks, to their palatial three-story apartment that faced the Manhattan skyline, where we were served hand and foot by his wife, Sarah—“Of course we cooked our own turkey. Didn’t you?”

The conversation had quickly centered on connections between the old New York and Boston family lines: “Fascinating, isn’t it? Richard, you must be almost a third cousin to our Lauren,” quickly followed by, “Mike, do you know any of your own family history?”

I did, and it involved steel working and nightclubs, so I said I didn’t.

Mr. Seymour finished off the evening with an interrogation of Lauren about her new job prospects, which were nonexistent. Richard was helpful with many suggestions about introductions he could make for her. They’d politely asked me how my business was going, followed by proclamations that the internet was just too complicated to even talk about, and then: “Now, Richard, how is your family investment trust being managed?”

To be fair, Lauren did defend me, and everything remained civilized.

I spent most of the time chauffeuring them around to meet their friends at places like the Metropolitan Club, the Core Club, and of course, the Harvard Club. The Seymours had the distinction of having at least one member of each generation of their family attend Harvard since its foundation, and at the namesake club they were treated like visiting royalty.

Richard had even graciously invited us to the Yale Club for a drink on Friday night. I nearly throttled him. Mercifully, it was just a two-day visit, and finally we had the weekend to ourselves.

It was early Saturday morning, and I was sitting at our granite kitchen countertop feeding Luke, with him in his highchair and me balancing on a barstool while I watched the morning news on CNN. I was cutting apples and peaches up into little chunks and leaving them in front of him on a plate. In the height of merriment he was picking each piece up, smiling a toothy, gummy grin at me, and then either eating the fruit or squealing and throwing it on the floor for Gorby, the Borodins’ rescue dog mongrel.

It was a game that just didn’t get old. Gorby spent nearly as much time in our apartment as he did at home with Irena, and watching Luke throw food down to him, it wasn’t hard to understand why. I wanted our own dog, but Lauren was against it. Too much hair, she said.

Banging his fists on the tray, Luke squeaked, “Da!” his universal word for anything involving me, and then outstretched his small hand—more apple please.

I shook my head, laughing, and reached over to begin cutting up some more fruit.

Luke was just two years old, but he had the heft of a three-year-old, something he probably got from his dad, I thought with a smile. Wisps of golden-blond hair floated about his chubby cheeks that always glowed warmly. His face was permanently stuck in a mischievous grin, showing a mouthful of white button teeth, as if he was about to do something he knew he wasn’t supposed to—which was almost always the case.

Lauren appeared out of our bedroom, her eyes still half-closed from sleep.

“I don’t feel well,” she said unsteadily and then stumbled into our small bathroom, the only other closed room in our less-than-thousand-square-foot, loft-style apartment. I heard her coughing loudly and then the sound of the shower turning on.

“Coffee’s on,” I muttered, thinking, she didn’t drink that much last night, while I watched some enraged Chinese students in the city of Taiyuan burning American flags. I’d never heard of Taiyuan, so while I dropped some more fruit chunks in front of Luke with one hand, I queried my tablet with the other.

Wikipedia: Taiyun (Chinese: pinyin: Tàiyuán) is the capital and largest city of Shanxi province in North China. At the 2010 census, it had a population of 4,201,591.

Wow.

That was bigger than Los Angeles, America’s second largest city, and Taiyun was China’s twentieth. With a few more keystrokes I discovered that China had over 160 cities with populations over a million, where the United States had exactly nine.

I looked up from my tablet at the news. The image on the TV had switched to an aerial view of a strange-looking aircraft carrier. An anchor on CNN described the scene, “Here we see China’s first, and so far only, aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, ringed by a pack of angry-looking Lanzhou-class destroyers as they face off with the USS George Washington just outside the Straits of Luzon in the South China Sea.”

“Sorry about my parents, honey,” whispered Lauren as she snuck up behind me, mopping her hair with a towel and dressed in a white terry cloth bathrobe. “Remember, it was your idea.”

She leaned down and cuddled Luke, kissing him while he smiled and squeaked his pleasure at such attention, and then she wrapped her arms around me tightly and kissed my neck.

I smiled and nuzzled her back, enjoying the affection after a tense couple of days.

“I know.”

A US naval officer had appeared on CNN. “Not five years ago Japan was telling us to get our boys out of Okinawa, but now they’re begging for help again. Japs have a fleet of their own aircraft carriers coming down here, why on Earth—”

“I love you, baby.” Lauren had slipped one of her hands under my T-shirt and was stroking my chest.

“I love you too.”

“Have you thought more about going to Hawaii for Christmas?”

“—and Bangladesh will be hit hard if China diverts the Brahmaputra. They need friends now more than ever, but I never imagined the Seventh Fleet parking itself in Chittagong—”

I sighed and pulled away from her.

“You know I’m not comfortable having your family pay.”

“So then let me pay.”

“With money that comes from your father.”

“Only because I’m not working because I quit my job to have Luke,” she said loudly. It was a sore point.

We’d completely pulled away from each other, and she turned to grab a cup from the cupboard and filled it with coffee. Black. No sugar this morning. She leaned against the stove and cupped her hands around the hot coffee, hunching inwards and away from me.

“—starting cyclic ops around the clock, constant launch and recovery missions from the three American aircraft carriers now stationed in—”

“It’s not just the money. I’m not comfortable spending Christmas there with your mother and father, and we did Thanksgiving with them.”

She ignored me. “I’d just finished articling at Latham and passing the bar”—she was speaking more to herself than to me—“and now everyone is downsizing. I threw the opportunity away.”

“You didn’t throw it away, honey,” I said softly, looking at Luke. “We’re all suffering. This new downturn is hard on everyone.”

In the silence between us, the CNN anchor started on a new topic. “Reports today of US government websites being hacked and defaced. With Chinese and American naval forces squaring off, tensions of conflict heighten. We go now to our correspondent at Fort Meade Cyber Command headquarters—”

“What about going to Pittsburgh? See my family?”

 “—the Chinese are claiming the defacement of US government websites is the work of private citizen hacktivists, and most of the activity seems to be originating from Russian sources—”

“Seriously? You won’t take a free trip to Hawaii and you want me to go to Pittsburgh?” Now she looked angry. “Your brothers are both convicted criminals. I’m not sure I want to expose Luke to that kind of environment.”

I shrugged. “Come on, they were teenagers when that happened. We talked about this.”

She said nothing.

“Didn’t one of your cousins get arrested last summer?” I said defensively.

“Arrested,” she replied, shaking her head, “but not convicted. There is a difference.”

I paused and stared into her eyes. “Not all of us are so lucky to have an uncle who’s in Congress.”

Luke was watching the two of us.

“So,” I asked, my voice rising, “what was it your father wanted you to think about?”

I already knew it was some new offer to entice her back to Boston.

“What do you mean?”

“Really?”

She sighed and looked down into her coffee. “A partner-track position at Ropes and Gray.”

“I didn’t know you applied.”

“I didn’t—”

“I’m not moving to Boston, Lauren. I thought the whole idea of us coming here was for you to start your own life.”

“It was.”

“I thought we were trying for another one, a little brother or sister for Luke? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“More what you wanted.”

I looked at her in disbelief, my vision of our future together unraveling in just one sentence. But there had been more than one uncomfortable sentence lately. My stomach knotted.

“I’m going to be thirty this year,” she added. “Opportunities like this don’t come often. It could be my last chance to have a career.”

Silence while we stared at each other.

“I’m going to the interview.”

“That’s all the discussion?” My heart began to race. “Why? What’s going on?”

“I just told you why.”

We stared at each other in a mutually accusatory silence. Luke began to fuss in his chair.

Lauren sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I don’t know, okay? I feel lost. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

I relaxed, and my pulse began to slow a little.

Lauren looked at me. “I’m going for brunch with Richard to talk about some ideas he had for me.”

My pulse raced again, my cheeks flushing.

“I think he beats Sarah.”

Her eyes flashed angrily. “Why would you say something like that?”

“Did you see her arms at the barbecue? She was covering up. I saw bruises.”

Shaking her head, she snorted, “You’re being jealous. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What should I be jealous of?” I shot back angrily.

Luke began to cry.

“I’m going to get dressed,” she said dismissively, shaking her head. “Don’t ask stupid questions. You know what I mean.”

Ignoring me, she leaned down and kissed Luke, whispering that she was sorry, she didn’t mean to yell, and that she loved him. Once she’d calmed Luke down, she gave me an evil look and stalked off into the bedroom, closing the door heavily behind her.

Sighing, I turned toward Luke and picked him up. I eased his head onto my shoulder and began to pat his back softly.

“Why did she marry me, huh, Luke?” I whispered under my breath.

I answered my own question.

“Ah, yes, well, we’ve got you, don’t we, big bruiser?”

With two or three sniffling sighs, I felt his little body relax into me. “Come on. Let’s take you over to see Ellarose and Auntie Susie.”

Continued….

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This story reminded me of the innocence of love. It is genuine. The honesty to each other was what actually captivated me.
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Jessa Allen knew she was plain and average.  Yes, she was brainy and successful in her career as a senior writer for the popular Lifestyle by Design magazine, but she wasn't a raving beauty who easily attracted hunky, gorgeous men like Rob Granger even if her well-meaning friends wanted her to believe she was.  So when Rob asked her out, she was shocked.  A seriously handsome man who had magnetism she couldn't seem to escape wanted her.  That wasn't something that happened everyday.

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I live in Sydney, Australia with my amazing husband who lovingly cheers me on in my journey as a novelist. Ever since I was a young teenager, I have loved reading romance novels. My auntie used to send me boxes of her books and I would devour them one after another. Every so often, I would read a mystery or a suspense or a paranormal novel as I love those genres too. But romance is still my favourite. 🙂 For many years, I wrote technical and non-fiction materials for professional use and had only dreamt about writing a novel. Then, one day, after a period of binge-reading sexy romances, I decided to sit in front of my computer and start writing my first fiction book. The result? My debut novel, "Will To Love", the first in the hot and sexy Lifestyle by Design series. After that, I knew that I would love to tell more beautiful love stories through my books. I live in Sydney, Australia with my amazing husband who lovingly cheers me on in my journey as a novelist.
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