Sweet Saturday Sample 16-03-13

Time for Sweet Saturday Sample again, and this week I'm continuing from where I left off last week one of my Gasquet Princes WsIP, its working title - Sacha's Story.

Sacha is the third (being the younger twin) Gasquet brother, and this clip comes from may be the opening scene in his story.
 

He swung round with the intention of heading for the hall to watch the man pretending to be his twin, enter the house, but found his path blocked.

“They why is not obvious to me, so before we greet this imposter, if imposter he is, you better share your conclusions,” Liam demanded.

His head snapped up, his attention on the closed sitting room door. “Whoever is behind this subterfuge is counting on their man getting past us.  After all, if he can fool his brothers, then whoever has organised this exchange can be more confident their man will fool the public.  

“And there’s his first error.” Sacha breathed in a sigh of relief when the doorbell peeled. 

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Sweet Saturday Sample 02-03-13

Time for Sweet Saturday Sample again, and this week I'm sharing something from one of my Gasquet Princes WsIP,  its working title - Sacha's Story.

Sacha is the third (being the younger twin) Gasquet brother, and this clip comes from may be the opening scene in his story.

Something was off.  
 
Sacha couldn’t put his finger on it, but his personal alert system had gone haywire. No one could explain the loud bang he’d heard twenty minutes ago. Nor could they explain why nothing was disturbed when he’d done a personal check on all the outdoor buildings.
 
So what on earth was going on? Thankfully Simeon had phoned to say he’d be at the farm in another twenty minutes. But—
 
Sacha stalked to the sitting room window; then glanced at his watch. Forty minutes had passed since Simeon’s call, so where was he? 
 
He watched the crimson coloured Porsche zip up the drive and come to a shuddering halt. Simeon’s car. But the man who slipped from behind the wheel and looked towards the front door was not his brother.

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 You can find more information on the first two Gasquet Princes stories on my website - http://www.sherrygloag.com

Sweet Saturday Sample

Sweet Saturday Samples strikes again :-) Thank you to everyone who comes by, I appreciate your suppport and comments.

As retailers gear up for another Valentine's Day I thought I'd share the original, sadly discarded, opening to my first Valentine novella, The Wrong Target.

Every so often there are days that start badly, and continue to go on downhill, and today I’m having one of those days. 

I often think humans assume Cupid’s life is one big laugh.  Well, I’m here to tell everyone it’s not.  And if I get it wrong this time, ‘They’, as in ‘the Powers that Be’ have threatened to remove my wings.

My boss instructed me to target this guy Sam Brown. “And make sure you don’t screw-up this time,” he said.

Of course, I blame Murphy’s Law for missing my target last year. They weren’t too pleased with the outcome.  The guy married the wrong woman. So you see, I had to get it right this time. 

 Until last year I used my own discretion, unfortunately because of my error, this year’s Valentine orders came down from Above. I’m Cupid, you see, and I’m supposed to shoot arrows at the good folk down on Earth so people will find their true love. But, as I said, today day started out bad and went downhill faster than an avalanche.

“You are to target Ms. Blackberry. I mean, come on, we all know a Blackberry is a kind of phone-thingy humans can’t do without these days, don’t we?  So I asked. after all, I don’t want to go targeting the wrong person, do I?

“This Ms. Blackberry, where do I find her?”  Well, you can imagine my surprise when They told me she’d be in school. For a moment I couldn’t help wondering whether we were targeting children this year.

“No, she’s the headmistress at this elite co-ed school in the south of England.”

I grinned. Sitting at her desk all day, she’d be an easy target.

“And her soul-mate?”  I asked.

“Sam Brown, the English teacher.”

I mean, I had my bow all set up, the arrow sighted on Sam’s heart, and what happens? This stranger storms into the Blackberry’s office and walks right in front of Sam just as I let my arrow fly… and I hit the wrong target… again.

The guy was as mad as a hornet before my arrow hit, but boy, did he blow right after. I thought he’d take off into the stratosphere.

You can imagine the thought of returning home didn’t appeal to me, but hanging around that office, as I’m meant to, appealed even less to me. Believe me, I skedaddled as fast as my tiny wings would carry me. They would have my hide anyway!

So you see, against all the rules, I didn’t hang around to find out what happened. Perhaps one day, if I ever meet one of you, someone can tell me.

~Cupid~

~~~~~~~
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Sweet Saturday Sample (8th-09-12)

Welcome back to Sweet Saturday Sample.  Today I am switching to my current Regency Romance WIP, Vidal's Honor.

        “What are you going to do when we reach the border?” she leaned forward and asked Consuela.
       "I go with Juan.”
       “He has agreed?” After his recent revelations, Honor wondered whether Juan would accept her plans.
        “We are discussing it.” Consuela tossed the words over her shoulder with an air of false bravado.
         Was that what they’d been arguing about earlier?
         “And if he refuses?”
         “Then I will come to England with you and find myself a new husband. The English, they have no passion. That’s acceptable to me, I do not want that. It is false.” She waved a hand at the scenery below. “Like that,” she said, pointing to the sinking sun.  Tranquil. “It looks so calm, and it is not. Deception comes in many guises.”
        Was Consuela warning her? If so, what about? Leaning forward Honor risked another question. “Was your marriage not a happy one?”
        “For a Spanish woman it is not the same as it is in your country.”
         ”In what way?”
         “Our parents arrange our marriage when we are children. Sometimes as soon as we are born.”
          While she’d married for love, Honor knew many English girls were forced to marry men years older than themselves. “Maybe not arranged from the cradle,” she conceded, “but it has been known. Marriages are arranged for financial benefits.”

"In other words, you are sold to the highest bidder. Is that what you are saying?"

 

Since Blogger's latest changes I can no longer control the formatting on my blog, no can I insert any pictures at all so my apologies if this ends up looking very peculiar.

Sweet Saturday Sample

This is an excerpt I thought was for a certain story only to disciver it's nothing of the sort but the start of a new WIP which *may* turn out to be a spin-off from my Gasquet Princes series.  It's all getting very confusing! :-)

Today was the first anniversary… her mind skittered still unwilling to return to the darkest moments of her life— The knock on the door the sombre-faced police officers who didn’t need to say a word to relay their information.



The approaching bridge disappeared from view, swamped by a kaleidoscope of bitter, futile memories.


Hadn’t she left the flat to escape them, she demanded silently. Hadn’t she demanded, a year ago, her husband stay in bed ‘for one more day’?


Yes, she had! And had he listened to her? Of course not, when had Allan ever stopped long enough to listen. To consider her fears, her needs, her love. And why, she asked herself as she ran into the shadow cast by the bridge, why had she ever thought herself in love with the arrogant bastard?


She’d seen him daily for a year before he spoke to her other than to pass over his order for coffee and a bagel on his way into work. She’d lived for those moments, dreaming that one day his smile would connect with hers. That one day his heart would hear the excitement and desire when her own childish heart beat out its delirious tattoo of longing.


Tall, and the sight of his blond hair falling across his forehead and one eye, turned her stomach to mush each morning. His broad shoulders offered false promises of strength and security, his lying, laughing eyes had her believing him when, one day, out of the blue, he’d asked her out because she was so pretty and he couldn’t get her out of his mind.


Gullible, gullible, gullible fool that she’d been.

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Sweet Saturday Samples - I missed it!

Where does the time go to, these days?  Or am I getting more 'dittzy' by the day?  Now there's a frightening thought!

So why have I once again missed the wonderful Sweet Saturday Samples well, I'm not sure.  I've been no busier than usual, yeah I'm trying to work on three stories at once and find my characters gaily cruising through each other's stories, which is fine, except one of them is a Regency and the others are not!  What joy :-0

But that's no reason not to offer you something else instead, is it?  I keep talking about my wip Regency story, No Job For a Woman, so why don't I offer you a little snippet from that today?

Julian, (my hero) is rescuing two women from a burning building when tragedy strikes...

A sound, reminiscent of canon fire, did not give him time to escape the building as burning timbers rained down, pinning his legs just inside the doorframe.

Careful hands cradled him while others fought frantically to free his him. He didn’t hear the woman’s sobbing thanks.

Only Deborah’s voice filtered through his agony, kept him striving to hold on. Rough hands swept him off the ground and carried towards his wife’s home. The soft touch of her hand, wrapped round his, faded into the engulfing blackness.

Sweet Saturday Sample 25th Feb

I don't know about you, but I just don't know where the time is going to.  Sweet Saturday Samples rolls round again, and today I am continuing from where I left off in His Chosen bride, my Valentine story and the 2nd book in the Gasquet Princes series, in the Six Sentence Sunday snippet last week.
Thanks to everyone who comes by to read and to those who stop long enough to leave a comment .  I appreciate you all.

Prince Henri, heir to his father's throne, has been banished from carrying out his royal duties until further notice, by command of the King.  now he'sd having to adapt to a new way of life...

An emotional hole he hadn’t known existed opened up in his heart while he watched. Would the woman his parents chose for him have the same empathy with children as Monica? He clamped down on the question and went in search of his brother.



A new life opened up in front of him, one he could never embrace, but to which he knew he could escape occasionally, for long or short breaks, whenever he wanted to.


He began spending more and more time around the stables and if, while helping with the usual outdoor chores and seeing to the animals’ welfare, his gaze strayed to where Monica worked, he refused to acknowledge it beyond noting how she removed her glove to tuck her hair back behind her ear every time the wind whipped it round her face.


He denied the increased heartbeat that thrummed within his chest in time to a mantra he tried to ignore.


Liar, liar, liar.


He watched as, with graceful efficiency, Monica moved on from one task to the next. Her appearance of fragility was deceptive, Henri discovered, when he caught her hefting a hay bale and rushed over to take it from her.


“It’s okay,” she said, “I’ve got it.”


Ignoring her protest, he grabbed the pitchfork carrying her bale and followed her instructions. “You shouldn’t be lifting these.” He indicated the floor-to-roof stack of bales.


“I’ve been doing ‘this’ for many years, Henri, and just because you suddenly ‘see’ me at work doesn’t change my reality.”


From the beginning she’d ignored his title, and to start with he’d assumed she did it to annoy. But he soon realised it was her way of according him the same sense of belonging and family she offered Liam. So he ignored the warmth surrounding his heart that her actions triggered.

You can buy it here~~
http://www.astraeapress.com/#ecwid:category=1651593&mode=product&product=9472803 

http://www.amazon.com/His-Chosen-Bride-ebook/dp/B0079A7V9W/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_6/190-6871302-0103505

http://www.amazon.co.uk/His-Chosen-Bride-ebook/dp/B0079A7V9W

From Now Until Forever (Book 1) is available here  ~~

http://www.amazon.com/From-Now-Until-Forever-ebook/dp/B006GYAV44/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322854797&sr=1-1-spell

http://www.amazon.co.uk/From-Now-Until-Forever-ebook/dp/B006GYAV44/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322854884&sr=8-1-spell

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/sherry-gloag-from-now-until-forever?keyword=sherry+gloag+from+now+until+forever&store=book

nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/sherry-gloag-from-now-until-forever?keyword=sherry+gloag+from+now+until+forever&store=ebook

Sweet Saturday Samples

Welcome to another Sweet Saturday Sample. And thank you to everyone who stops by every week. I hope you enjoy the sample my my latest release today.
There will be more tomorrow.



“Use this to stop the bleeding.” A dishtowel landed on the floor in front of him. “And put some pressure on the wound.” She slammed the outer door shut, cutting off the sunlight.
“It’s true.”
“What’s true?”
For a second a ghost of a smile tilted her lips before it faded again. Guilt for the loss sat heavily on his shoulders.
Because of his obsession to live a ‘normal’ life, he’d endangered Melanie. The ache in his arm threatened to steal his concentration. In his arrogance, why had he thought he’d manage to keep his identity and location hidden?
“You can smell your own blood.”
It warred with the forgotten bacon congealing on their breakfast plates on the table above him, the toast going stiff in the toaster, and the coffee that never made it to their mugs.
He pressed the cloth more firmly against his arm. He expected Melanie to join him, to seek safety. Instead she stalked to the window, rammed the gun butt against the lower windowpane, and focused her attention on the road.
“Care to explain why someone’s got you in their sights today?”
If he anticipated sympathy, he didn’t get it. The woman at the window had morphed into a hard, disciplined stranger before his eyes. Until this moment he’d assumed her to be his friend, his lover. Instead she’d covered his butt, protected him—.
A tenuous memory tapped his brain, demanding attention, only to vanish beneath the sound of Mel’s sudden approach.
He stared at the blood-­soaked cloth and wondered if he’d ever see his home and family again.

To celebrate the release of my new book From Now Until Forever by Astrea Press, I will share samples with you throughout December.

GIVEAWAY

At the end of December I am giving away a PDF version of From Now Until Forever
and will use random.org to choose one lucky winner from all the SSS comments
received during December.

Sweet Saturday Samples

Thank you to everyone who visits every week and to those joining us all this week. Click here-> Sweet Saturday Samples to enjoy many other fabulous excerpts.

This month I am offering excerpts from a published short story Thanks Given, using a British heroine's take on Thanksgiving.  I am also going to post the next six sentences tomorrow for SSS then continue on from there next week.  

The rain slapped against the windscreen, challenging the wipers to clear the glass long enough for Alex to see her way forward. "The plane trip from hell" didn’t begin to describe her flight from Heathrow to the States, and now this. She’d checked her map and turned off the highway onto what amounted to little more than a dirt track. One that emulated a trampoline, throwing what the man behind the counter of the hire firm called, ‘a neat little European compact, ideal for a lady’, all over the rutted surface. Surely her journey could only improve.

Apparently not.

The raging storm muffled the bang when the front tire blew. The steering wheel jerked to her right, hurling the car into the centre of the road, confirming the worst. The air inside the vehicle turned blue as she grappled to control the car.

Thank God Americans drove on the wrong side of the road. In this case a deserted road. Instinctively she brought the car to a slithering halt and tried to release her fear-locked fingers from the steering wheel. Failing, she gave up and rested her forehead on them instead waiting for the shaking to stop. The curtain of rain and falling dusk masked her surroundings. No way would oncoming traffic see her vehicle slewed across the road until it was too late. She had to move it. How much room did she have? She didn’t fancy ending up in either ditches edging the road. O.K. She’d have to get out and check, but first, she’d ring her brother-on-law, Luke Marino, so he and her nieces wouldn’t worry. He once judged her on her modeling career. Shallow, frivolous and a useless specimen of humanity, so this latest calamity would only add to his conviction. And yet…

~ ~ ~

In the meantime I am doing a complete rewrite of my Wolfman story, so perhaps I will have something more from it for you all next month.

Sweet Saturday Samples

Thank you to everyone who visits every week and to those joining us all this week. Click here-> Sweet Saturday Samples to enjoy many other fabulous excerpts.

This week I'm sharing a last snippet of my short paranormal story, Riddick.


My niggling suspicions ballooned, explaining the unease I’d experienced earlier. “No!”

“Yes!” The adamant contradiction slapped at my beliefs, sweeping them away, like ice in a heat-wave, and settled somewhere deep in my heart. “When you arrived, we watched and waited. We had to make sure, you see.”

I looked beyond the tow-haired, emerald-eyed god standing in my palm. “No I don’t see anything at all.” I apologised. “Who are you?” Apparently, he had the advantage. He knew me, but I knew nothing of him or his identity.

“I am Riddick. King of the Faeries.”

http://www.sherrygloag.com/

Sweet Saturday Samples - 29th Sept.

Thank you to everyone who visits every week and to those joining us all this week. Click here-> Sweet Saturday Samples to enjoy many other fabulous excerpts.

This week I'm sharing one more snippet of my short paranormal story, Riddick. 

“What kind of behaviour is that, I’d like to know?” Hands on hips and flashing green eyes told me what he thought of my instinctive reaction to his presence.

“I’m very sorry,” I kept my voice penitent, and reached my hand down for him to step onto. “I didn’t know you were there.

“Didn’t know I was there?” His indignation ripped over me, like waves in a storm. “Of course you knew I was there. You were looking right at me.”

“I was looking at a moth.” I corrected. He didn’t have sole rights to indignation, and mine was growing exponentially with every twist and turn in the unfolding situation.

“Like I say.” His satisfaction flowed over me liked warm honey.” You were looking right at me.”

Sweet Saturday Sample

Thank you to everyone who visits every week and to those joining us all this week. Click here-> Sweet Saturday Samples to enjoy many other fabulous excerpts.
This week I'm  sharing more of a short paranormal story that so far has failed to find a home.


I’d locked both my front door and the side gate into the garden before coming outside. So how had an intruder gained access to my private space? And more to the point, I wondered, as panic and sanity warred for supremacy, where was he?

“See what I mean?” The indignant speaker demanded.

“No, I don’t!” My fear of intruders, and the absurdity of the situation, raised my voice to full throttle.

“That’s because you’re not looking.” Did I detect amusement in that voice?

Amusement!

Some invisible intruder dared to laugh at my situation!  I sprang up from the rocker allowing anger boot my fear away.

The sound of vitriolic cursing near my toes converted my anger into astonishment. "Watch where you put those clumsy feet of yours!"

“What the...” I bent over and peered at the decking, then reared back, as before my very eyes, the beige moth morphed into a human form about two feet high.

One, very angry male, human form.

Sweet Saturday Samples

#1
This is the first week of the great new Sweet Saturday Samples please enjoy

While The Brat is rated 'sensual' and PG, there is no violence or 'explicit' sex in The Brat.  There is some background reference, without details, to child abuse.

This is part of the opening scene in my debut novel The Brat published by The Wild Rose Press

From the shadow of the ancient yew tree, Benedict Kouvaris observed the two people standing at his mother’s graveside. The clergyman’s voice carried on the still air, as he intoned the funeral rites for the woman who’d sent him to another
country on his tenth birthday, two and a half decades ago.

He thrust his anger and confusion beneath the surface of his consciousness and focused his attention on the elegant Armani-suited woman, whose blonde hair contrasted with her black suit and concealed her face from view. The wind sighed through the branches, and the man beside him shifted from one foot to the other.

“Who is she?” He raised an eyebrow in query.

“Miss Williams, sir.” His mother’s solicitor, Mr. Cranborne, cleared his throat. “She cared for your mother for the last five years.”