Excerpt: The Lebrus Stone by Miriam Khan

The Lebrus Stone by Miriam Khan

Series: Lebrus Stone Book One

Release Date: November 28, 2014
Publisher: Rogue Phoenix Press

Genres: Fantasy

When eighteen-year-old orphan, Crystal Valdez, accepts an invitation to the small town of Blacksville, West Virginia, she hopes to have a summer to remember and a chance to learn more about her parents, to also get to know the family she never knew existed.
But the Lockes begin to act strange and erratic; eerie movements in the night fuel her vivid and gruesome nightmares. To complicate her summer further, she becomes attracted to the menacing yet handsome Cray Locke: her none blood related cousin.
He seems determined to keep his distance. The only bonus to her trip seems to be the housekeeper and gardener.
And when a local informs Crystal of the secrets buried at Thorncrest Manor, the kind consisting of a forbidden relationship and a war between hidden worlds, and witchcraft, she must decide whom to trust. Even if it means leaving behind those she has come to love.

 

EXCERPT

 

I lay back and tried not to over think things to calm the storm in my head, but a knock on my door moments later interrupted it.

"Come in!" I called out, sitting up to retrieve my book.

Syd entered, carrying in what looked like a sandwich and a glass of her homemade lemonade.

I could have done with a hot soup.

But I blew a sigh of relief it wasn't one of the Lockes.

"Isobel said to make sure you had some lunch by now," she said, placing the tray on my bedside cabinet.

"Thanks, Syd."

"Any reason why you're hiding in here?" she asked as she sat on my bed.

I tensed. Being told I was hiding annoyed me, but I wasn't annoyed at Syd, just at myself. I had come too far in life to start acting like a coward, especially over something clearly in my head.

I fingered the dog-eared cover of my book.

"I think I just need a quiet day to myself. It could be some type of…delayed jet lag." It could be partly true, I thought. It had taken two flights to get from Salt Lake City to Blacksville; six hours in total. I smiled, pleased with the conclusion. Exhaustion could have been why I had such a freakish dream.

"I see," Syd said, seeming unconvinced. "Well, do you think you'll be joining the Lockes for dinner?"

"Do I have to?" No matter how much I was becoming fond of Syd, she worked for the Lockes. They could try and make her tell me what do.

"No." She chuckled. "But I think you should try to interact. Cray's alright, by the way. A little scratch like that won't do a boy like him any harm."

Boy like him?

So, I had hurt him. My chest tightened.

"Oh, don't look so beat up about it, honey. The boy is as tough as old boots." She chuckled again. "And luckily for you, he's not as vain about his looks as you would think. He won't hold what happened against you." She patted my hand.

I gulped. "Has he…said something?"

"No. He left early this morning. He didn't say where he was going, and Isobel never dares ask these days. He's a very private person, as you've probably noticed. She respects that. We all do." She looked lost in thought for a moment, then smiled in her sad little way, and asked, "So, are you ready to talk about what happened last night?"

My mouth felt too clamped to begin

"I have to say, not many girls would have left home to meet so many strangers. I admire your courage."

Her comment only made me sound irresponsible. I gritted my teeth.

"I don't feel very courageous," I admitted. "I feel pretty stupid right now."

Thanks for the added comment to make me feel even more naive, I wanted to add.

"I don't think five months was long enough to think this through," I said.

She nodded. "Maybe. But everything happens for a reason. You followed your heart. It's all you can do in life. It's your only real compass."

I wanted us to keep talking. When Syd wasn't nicely pointing out my flaws, she had a way of calming me until I felt optimistic about my trip again. But she had dinner to prepare, so she reluctantly left me after insisting I get ready to face my evening with the Lockes.

Something about her was becoming familiar. It could have been the warmth in her eyes and how they reminded me of Selma. She had always been as hospitable and over helpful.

I still missed her. Talking to Syd was like getting back something that had been cruelly taken away, too. It wasn't just my parents I'd lost, but my pride, self-worth, my best friend, at times my composure. It had been an uphill struggle this past year or so. But I was finally feeling on top of things…I think.

I sure wasn't going to let it keep me down.

Coming to Blacksville was my new start as the new and improved me. I really had to keep believing that.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Miriam is from Cheshire, England and a family of six siblings. Her love for creativity led to acting at her local theatre before being a lead vocalist in rock bands. During those years, she often found solace penning her thoughts and feelings through lyrics or poetry. She chose not to continue singing in 2006, and two years later she woke up with the idea for The Lebrus Stone and began typing. revising and editing it for the next six years. She is now eager to see what readers will think.

Author Links:
Blog: miriamkhannovels.blogspot.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9793155.Miriam_Khan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007806765011&fref=ts

 

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Promo Post + Giveaway: A very Coco Christmas by Robert Bryndza

A Very Coco Christmas by Robert Bryndza

Series: Coco Pinchard

Genres: Contemporary Romance

 ‘A Very Coco Christmas’ book extract and giveaway

Hello Brook Cottage Books. I’m so pleased to be visiting you! Today I have an extract from A Very Coco Christmas, the ‘prequella’ to my best selling Coco Pinchard series. I’ve called it a ‘Prequella’ because it’s both a novella and a prequel. It can also be enjoyed as a cosy stand-alone Christmas treat!

A Very Coco Christmas

The Blurb

It’s 1985, and eighteen-year-old Coco is home in London for Christmas after her first term at Aberystwyth University. She has started to write, and fallen hopelessly in love with Daniel Pinchard, a devilishly handsome musician from the wrong side of the river.

But Coco’s overbearing mother has other plans and resumes her campaign for Coco to meet and marry the ‘right sort of man’, preferably Kenneth, son of her best friends Adrian and Yvonne Rosebury, who will be joining them for Christmas.

As snow falls softly over the city, and Coco tries to juggle a series of hilarious events, the stage is set for a Christmas lunch like no other. A Very Coco Christmas is a delicious, stand-alone ‘prequella’ to the smash-hit Coco Pinchard series, with a glorious cast of characters including Daniel’s mother Ethel, sister Meryl – and a turkey called Jean Paul Belmondo...
Extract from A Very Coco Christmas

Monday 23rd December

The doorbell rang early in the afternoon and I heard a familiar voice start to sing Good Kind Wenceslas. I came down the stairs two at a time and Daniel was standing in the open doorway his dark handsome face framed by his gorgeous long hair. He was singing beautifully, his voice carrying through the cold still air. I came to the bottom of the steps and joined Mum who was rapt with attention, actually clasping her pearls in joy. I’m sure if she’d known that this was the boy I had spent many a night lying underneath she wouldn’t have been so joyful, but I just watched, grinning knowingly at him as he entertained my mother.
 When he came to the end of the carol there was a brief silence as his voice faded, until we became aware of the sounds from outside once more, the cars rushing past at the end of the road, a bus hissing and roaring as it changed gear.
‘Thank you young man,’ said Mum. ‘What a lovely rendition of Good King Wenceslas…’
‘Thanks,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m studying for a degree in music.’
‘How impressive,’ said Mum. ‘I’ve always thought it’s a very broad subject, classical, modern…’
‘I’m studying classical, the history of music. Do you know how Good King Wenceslas liked his pizza?’ said Daniel.
‘No I don’t,’ said Mum.
‘Deep and crisp and even,’ grinned Daniel. I burst out laughing but Mum looked blank.
‘It was a joke Mum,’ I said cringing.
‘Oh, yes… Look I don’t usually do this, but come into the hall a moment out of the cold.’ Daniel came in and wiped his feet on the mat. Mum closed the door behind him.
‘Karen just stay here with…’
‘Daniel.’
‘Just stay here with Daniel whilst I find him something to be on his way with.’ She adjusted her cardigan and went off down the hall to the kitchen.  The door swung closed behind her.
‘What are you doing?’ I said thrilled to see him.
‘You didn’t ring me Coco, and when I phoned you, your mum kept saying you weren’t in.’
‘Did she now,’ I said darkly. ‘I thought you’d gone off me… I lost my handbag on the train with your number in and…’ It was odd and thrilling to see Daniel standing in the hallway of my house in London. His presence was sexy and dangerous against the pastel flocked wallpaper. He leant in and kissed me. His mouth was a mixture of hot and cold and he tasted of cigarettes and sweets. His stubble rubbed against my chin and I felt warmth flood through me. We jumped apart as the kitchen door opened and Mum came back. This is ridiculous I thought, and I stood up straight in preparation to tell her that Daniel was my boyfriend.
“Here we are, I’ve popped in some vegetables we’ve got spare…’ She handed Daniel a package wrapped up in the pale pink of the Financial Times and tied with string. It was a food parcel. Everything about it screamed charity.
‘Um… Thanks,’ said Daniel trying to hide his embarrassment.
‘I thought it was the least we could do, in the cold, well – it should keep you going.’ Daniel looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him. Mum leaned round him and opened the latch on the door.
‘Do you have a phone number?’ I said.
‘Karen!’ shrilled Mum.
‘What? He’s a musician, we might know people who need a carol singer…’
‘I don’t think so Karen.’ Now the sound of his beautiful voice had faded, Mum saw she had an oik in a leather jacket perilously close to her Laura Ashley wallpaper.
‘It’s Catford 67932…’ said Daniel quickly.
‘Catford 67932,’ I repeated.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said and he walked off down the steps trying to regain his composure.
‘Oh Karen,’ said Mum closing the door. ‘He’s nice to look at but you could do so much better. Kenneth, for instance.’
‘Why are you so obsessed with Kenneth? Do you fancy him?’
‘If I were lucky enough to be young like you I’d be thrilled to have the pick of an eligible young man like Kenneth. And his father Adrian is a meat distributor and Yvonne tells me the Masonic Lodge are interested in him.’
 I started to tell her about Daniel but the phone rang, and it was one of her reptilian Joan Collins friends who she talked to for nearly two hours. Which was long enough for me to lose my courage.
However, Daniel still loves me!!!!

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Robert Bryndza was born in the UK and lived in America and Canada before settling in Slovakia with his Slovak husband Ján. His debut novel The Not So Secret Emails of Coco Pinchard became an Amazon bestseller and two sequels have followed, Coco Pinchard’s Big Fat Tipsy Wedding and Coco Pinchard, The Consequences of Love and Sex. A Very Coco Christmas, is a delightful introductory novella to the Coco Pinchard series.  When he’s not writing Rob is learning Slovak, trying to train two crazy dogs, or watching Grand Designs – all in the hope that he’ll be able to understand his mother-in-law, build his dream house, and get the dogs to listen.
Author Links

Website www.robertbryndza.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bryndzarobert
Robert Bryndza on Goodreads
Robert Bryndza on  Twitter @robertbryndza
Coco Pinchard on Twitter @CocoPinchard

The Very Coco Christmas Giveaway

Enter at the widget below to win a signed copy of A Very Coco Christmas, a limited edition Coco Christmas mug filled with chocolate sprouts, and a £25/$25 Amazon gift voucher
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Book Excerpt: Sanguinary by Margo Bond Collins

Sanguinary, by Margo Bond Collins

Series: A Night Shift Novel

Release Date: 8th October 2014
Publisher: Bathory Gate Press

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Vampires

Only fifty years left before vampires rule the world.

When Dallas police detective Cami Davis joined the city's vampire unit, she planned to use the job as a stepping-stone to a better position in the department.

But she didn't know then what she knows now: there's a silent war raging between humans and vampires, and the vampires are winning.

So with the help of a disaffected vampire and an ex-cop addict, Cami is going undercover, determined to solve a series of recent murders, discover a way to overthrow the local Sanguinary government, and, in the process, help win the war for the human race.

But can she maintain her own humanity in the process? Or will Cami find herself, along with the rest of the world, pulled under a darkness she cannot oppose?

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Excerpt 

"Hey, Bradley." I beckoned the crime-scene tech, who had finally arrived and was snapping on gloves. "Is that a piece of paper under the vic's head?"

He bent down over my shoulder to get a clearer view from my line of sight. "Looks like it's tangled in her hair," he said. He pulled a pair of long tweezers out of his kit and snagged the sliver. "Yep. Looks like it has a word written on it . . ." We both peered at the brownish, spidery writing.

"Sanguinary," I said. "Is that written in blood?"

"Maybe. I'll get the lab to run a basic analysis on it. If it's blood, we'll be able to let you know pretty quick if it's human and if so, what type. DNA will take longer."

"Sounds good." I stared at the woman a little longer. Her dark hair—almost the same color as mine—spilled out around her, matted with dark, coagulating blood. The two bloody marks on her neck shone like black stars on a white background.

Vampire.

I knew that if I lifted her dress, there would be other puncture wounds all over the body, and strange symbols carved across her skin—pentagrams within circles and other ritualistic signs. Exactly like the others. Ten murders in the four weeks since the beginning of September—all centered in downtown Dallas, and many with affluent victims whose families demanded action.

The department had been in a barely suppressed uproar.

I stood up, my knees popping a little. Five years ago, they wouldn't have done that.

And five years before that? Vampires hadn't existed, except in books and B-movies.

It took time for the world to believe. We hadn't even realized how to fight back when they'd first shown up.

This victim's ragged, bloody fingernails suggested that she had tried to resist, but obviously failed.

The red dress she wore would have originally matched the color of the relatively scant splashes of blood surrounding her, but those stains had dried to a muddy brown, the same color as the writing on the paper caught in her hair.

Her clothing suggested that she'd been at the opera that evening, though the manager, roused from her bed, swore that the building had been cleared and empty when she left.

One black, high-heel shoe lay several feet away, toppled over onto its side, the heel broken, as if she had stumbled out of it when it failed her as she ran from a pursuer.

Sanguinary.

I'd heard the word before from vampires I had taken down—whispered as a threat, shouted as a warning: the Sanguinary is coming, the Sanguinary will kill you all.

The Sanguinary is here.

It was why I was about to go undercover among the vampires.

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About the Author

Margo Bond Collins is the author of urban fantasy, contemporary romance, and paranormal mysteries. She has published a number of novels, including Sanguinary, Taming the Country Star, Legally Undead, Waking Up Dead, and Fairy, Texas. She lives in Texas with her husband, their daughter, and several spoiled pets. Although writing fiction is her first love, she also teaches college-level English courses online. She enjoys reading romance and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, monsters, cowboys and villains, and the strong women who love them - and sometimes fight them.

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Connect with Margo

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/margobondcollins

Email: MargoBondCollins@gmail.com

Website: http://www.MargoBondCollins.net

Blog: http://www.MargoBondCollins.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MargoBondCollin  @MargoBondCollin

Google+: https://plus.google.com/116484555448104519902

Goodreads Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/vampirarchy

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/MargoBondCollins

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/mbondcollins/

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