Tuesday's Tales - 25-06-13 -- Hand(s)

Welcome to Tuesday's Tales!

A place where books are born.

 

Thank you for stopping by. This week's word prompt is Hand(s), my snippet is the opening from Consuela's story, my sequel to Vidal's Honor. This post was scheduled before writing last week's TT. I hope to continue with that in the future.

Did it never stop raining in England?  Consuela rose and stalked to the window for the tenth time in as many minutes.

“If you do not sit down I declare you will wear a path in the carpet my dear.” Lady Sitwell looked up from her embroidery and stifled a sigh. “I am sure you have nothing to worry about.” In truth she shared her guest’s unease.  Juan had insisted on returning to Spain, returning to fight against Napoleon Bonaparte and his brother Joseph, now King of Spain.

“You do not understand.” Consuela spun round, her eyes bleak with fear, her face pale and the dark circles beneath her eyes quite plain to see in the candle light my lady insisted on using because, as she said to her butler less than half-an-hour ago, “How am I supposed to see to stitch in this gloom?”

“It is Phillipe’s brother I fear.”

“His brother?”  Lady Sitwell laid the embroidery frame in her lap and waited. It was true she thought, trying to remember what her husband had said; something about a wicked brother when he’d tried to persuade Juan to work with the English government without leaving for Spain.

“He has vowed to kill Juan.”  Consuela let the statement hang in the air before returning to the sofa, and clenching her hands in her lap. In an effort to prevent a scream of frustration she looked at her host and saw the concern in her eyes.

“You must realise, it was Juan’s brother who killed his wife and child.”

“Surely not, you misunderstood.” Her sewing forgotten Lady Sitwell grasped one of Consuela’s hands in hers.

“No. According to Juan his brother boasted of it.”

“I am surprised Juan told you. It is not the sort of conversation I would expect a man to discuss when ladies are present.” Censure laced the duchess’s tone.

“He did not—“ she hesitated, “—well he did, but it was because of something that occurred during our escape from Spain.

 

Thank you for reading this week's offering, and please hop on over to read everyone's offering for this week's Tuesday's Tales prompt. 

Release Day for Honor's Dilemma

TODAY IS RELEASE DAY FOR

HONOR'S DILEMMA

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

Honor's Dilemma, (the prequel to my best-selling Regency romantic suspense, Vidal's Honor,) is now available at

Astraea Press Exclusives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"...We stood in peril of becoming enemies ready to fight for your love.”
“What stopped you?” Had she really spoken such a shallow thought aloud?

 

TT picture prompt 18th June

 

  

Welcome to Tuesday's Tales! A place where books are born. Thank you for stopping by.

Today is June's Picture Prompt day, and of the selection offered, I've chosen to go with this one...

 

Lucy gave the trunk pride of place in the window of her antique shop and surrounded it with a variety of other items, while she wondered about the strange man who’d brought it in two days ago.

“This is for you,” he’d said, and held her gaze until she’d nodded and opened the lid.

Less than two minutes later after sifting through the few objects and laying the letters on the counter surface, she’d looked up and he’d vanished. Almost immediately it came to her that he’d arrived as soundlessly as he’d departed. Not a young man, nor was he handsome, but he had an air about him, so why couldn’t she remember what he looked like?
Would her ‘Display only’ ticket on the chest entice someone to enquire about it? The contents were another matter; they remained in her safe upstairs in her flat. Of the two dozen or so faded letters, she’d skimmed through three of them after discovering the birth certificate in a pristine brown envelope at the bottom of the chest.

Why, she wondered as she did a final tweak to her display, would someone slip an old birth certificate into a new envelope and conceal it beneath the rest of the contents? 

Well, not that old, she conceded. The dates and details on the certificate, apart from the parents’ Christian names, were identical with hers.

In just a few minutes she could close the shop for the weekend and set off to the town named in two of the letters she’d read so far. She backed out of the window area, replaced the protective glass panels and reached the door seconds after it opened.

Another new customer.

One glance at the man hesitating in the doorway convinced Lucy she wouldn’t forget his face anytime soon. 

Thank you for reading this week's offering, and please hop on over to read everyone's offering for this week's Tuesday's Tales prompt. 

Tuesday's Tales - Shoes. 11-06-13

 

Welcome to Tuesday's Tales!

A place where books are born. Thank you for stopping by.  This week's word prompt it Shoes.  This is an unedited complete short story.

 





 
www_pakfashiontrends_com

Some women drooled over gourmet food, Lidia thought,  while others lusted after jewellery or the latest fashion in clothes. For her it was shoes.

She stood in front of the shop window and dreamed. It was the only shop she knew that carried all the top fashion brands in one place.

Once, she remembered with a smile, she’d actually gone inside and almost turned and run out again when one of the women had asked if she needed assistance.

“No,” she said, her mouth dry with desire, her hands sweaty with longing and her fingers itching to snatch just one shoe of its display and try it on.

She looked round, if there were other customers in the sop, Lidia couldn’t see them.

Had the assistance seen the longing in her eyes? She didn’t know, but when offered the chance to try on the Jimmy Choo shoes she let the dream override her sanity. With the encouragement of several members of staff, she’d gone on to try on several more. Every leading brand, she sighed, and smiled – and drooled, and kept going back to one pair that tugged at her heartstrings.  The feel, the style, the straps dancing over the sole of the soul and twining up her calf, as soft as a lover’s touch, and the heels. Robert, her brother called the stilts and often wondered how any woman could even want to walk in them, let alone accomplish the skill.

Lidia had never entered the shop again, but occasionally a member of staff, if they saw her would come out and have a chat.

But today was different. Today was a day for dreams to come true, thanks to her winning lottery ticket earlier in the week.

Not just a win, but one of those ‘it-only-ever-happens-to-other-people’ wins, that allowed her to pay off the mortgage on her flat, and to replace her own car and that of her parents. She’d tussled with her brother before he’d allow her to pay his student fees for the next four years.

“You can pay me back,” she'd promised, and smiled when he’d finally caved.

And now…?

Now it was her turn.

Lidia caught hold of the door handle, opened it and stepped inside…

 

Thank you for reading this week's offering, and please hop on over to read everyone's offering for this week's Tuesday's Tales prompt. 

Shadow of Danger by Kristine Mason - GF vbt

 

Shadow of Danger

by Kristine Mason

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

BLURB:

 

Four women have been found dead in the outskirts of a small Wisconsin town. The only witness, clairvoyant Celeste Risinski, observes these brutal murders through violent nightmares and hellish visions. The local sheriff, who believes in Celeste’s abilities and wants to rid their peaceful community of a killer, enlists the help on an old friend, Ian Scott, owner of a private criminal investigation agency, CORE. Because of Ian’s dark history with Celeste’s family, a history she knows nothing about, he sends his top criminalist, former FBI agent John Kain to investigate.

 

John doesn’t believe in Celeste’s mystic hocus-pocus, or in her visions of the murders. But just when he’s certain they’ve solved the crimes, with the use of science and evidence, more dead bodies are discovered. Could this somehow be the work of the same killer or were they dealing with a copycat? To catch a vicious murderer, the skeptical criminalist reluctantly turns to the sensual psychic for help. Yet with each step closer to finding the killer, John finds himself one step closer to losing his heart. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Excerpt:  (hero/heroine meet)

 The bell on the front door chimed, and sunlight spilled into the diner. When Celeste glanced up from the mug she’d been filling, she nearly fumbled the scalding coffee pot as she caught her breath and stared at the man strolling through the door.

 

Very male, very hot, and certainly not from Wissota Falls. If he had been, she would already have known every detail about him. Who needed to be psychic when the diner was a regular gossip factory?

 

Tall, dark and sexy glanced around the busy diner, then chose a vacant stool near the wall at the end of the counter. If a man that big could move with such a fluid, commanding grace by simply walking, she’d bet he had even better moves in bed. She startled herself with the thought, then even further when she pictured him in her bed, naked and between her thighs.

 

“Can I get a little more coffee?”

 

Her cheeks burned. Good Lord, she was fantasizing about a complete stranger when the diner was hopping with customers needing attention. “Sure, Russ, need anything else?”

 

He grunted a refusal, which gave her a chance to lose the coffee pot before she did some serious damage. After setting the pot on the burner, she wrung her hands on her apron, then reached for her notepad and pencil.

 

He’s just a man like any other, she told herself. No big deal. So what if her fingers tingled and itched to touch his thick black hair? So what if she’d already pictured him naked? It had been a long time since she’d had sex. Too long, she supposed, based on the sudden desire to touch and be touched sizzling through her body. She stuffed any notion of having sex with the stranger in the back of her mind, like she did with any thoughts or memories she wasn’t sure she could control. This time, though, it didn’t work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

I didn’t pick up my first romance novel until I was in my late twenties. Immediately hooked, I read a bazillion books before deciding to write one of my own. After the birth of my first son I needed something to keep my mind from turning to mush, and Sesame Street wasn’t cutting it. While that first book will never see the light of day, something good had come from writing it. I realized my passion, and had found a career that I love.

 

When I’m not writing contemporary romances and dark, romantic suspense novels (or reading them!) I’m chasing after my four kids and two neurotic dogs.

 

LINKS:

FACE BOOK: http://www.facebook.com/kristine.mason.1029

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/KristineMason7

WEBSITE: www.kristinemason.net

Books available on       Amazon,        B & N,         iBooks

Shadow of Danger is also available on   iTunes:

 

~GIVEAWAY~

Kristine will be awarding four (4) print copies of Pick Me (US only)

and three (3) $10 Amazon GCs to randomly drawn commenters during the tour.

 

 

Hump Day Hook - 5th June

 

It's good to be back again.  This week's HDH offering is from a WIP, working title, Megan's Story. Thanks for coming by, I always enjoy feedback.

“Did she now?”  Unaware of her maid’s desperate grab to prevent the tiffany lamp from crashing to the floor, Esmy paced the cluttered room her lace shawl fanning out behind her.  “Her latest scheme must be even more outrageous than usual then, and now it’s coming unstuck.”  After the last outrageous scheme to extort money from a prominent banker in the City that resulted in the threat of prosecution, Esmy had hoped her daughter would learn her lesson.  Apparently it hadn’t achieved the desired affect.  It seemed the money it cost her to hush up the affair had been a waste of effort.  Turning, Esmy focused on the woman still waiting for instructions.  “I’m not interested in my daughter’s threats, if she calls again tell her …”

 

There are lot's more great hooks to enjoy at Hump Day Hook