South Beach Chicas Catch Their Man, the latest book by award-winning Romance novelist Caridad Pineiro, is due for release in September. Visit her website at http://www.caridad.com to learn more about her books.

by Chrissy Dionne
Romance Junkies

An ancient relic granted by Divine Decree to a Noble Knight who had been mortally wounded is buried beneath the foundation of a home - this home had once been named Pierce House but now is known as THE HOUSE ON THE BLUFF. Only a direct descendant of the Noble Knight may take possession of the house - and even he or she will be tested by the house to deem if he or she is worthy.

Abigail and her consort, Ethan, have fulfilled the prophecy surrounding their current dwelling which they’ve converted into an Inn. It’s a beautiful house steeped in mystery and ghostly wonders - who cling to the old ways. There’s no electricity, no running water, no central heating system, no phone and no television. Abigail’s a bit apprehensive about their first guests. There’s a possibility they’ll get spooked and want to leave especially once the ghosts make themselves known. There’s no way of telling how the ghosts will react to guests at the Inn and Jacob, the apparitions’ “Ambassador,” knows it will just depend. Many of the ghosts have been living there for centuries and may not like having visitors in their house.

As soon as the first guests arrives a shapeless apparition appears over the Inn. Abigail, Ethan, and Tony (town sheriff and sometime permanent resident of the Inn when he’s not working) quickly realize that this apparition is not one of the ‘Others’ and they question who it is and what it wants. The ghostly appearance doesn’t scare off the guests though and is just the beginning of the bizarre appearances which will be taking place over the next couple of days. What will happen when the guests unexplainably begin to start disappearing - one or two at a time? Is the house holding them hostage?

I don’t normally read ghost stories but I have to tell you I was fascinated by this one! Elena Dorothy Bowmen’s GATEKEEPER’S REALM takes an ancient prophecy and brings it into a modern day setting with results that will steal your breath. I was enthralled by the ghost scenes and the guests reactions to each of them and couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next or to whom it would happen. The storyline moved along at a quick pace but it never lacked enough descriptive information that I was easily able to imagine each of the scenes.

I would highly recommend reading HOUSE ON THE BLUFF first simply because I believe it goes into more of the details of what Abigail had to endure in order to claim the house. Of course, I’m also going to recommend the third book, ADAM’S POINT, because there are questions that are left unanswered in this story and I’m dying to find out the answers. HOUSE ON THE BLUFF, GATEKEEPER’S REALM and ADAM’S POINT are all available now.

SNIPPET:
The HOUSE ON THE BLUFF has been converted into an Inn and the ghostly spirits who inhabit the house seem to have taken offense at the guests presence amongst them. Are any of them safe from the ghostly wrath? What will happen when the guests start mysteriously disappearing?

The following is an excerpt from the book Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception by Lois Winston

CHAPTER ONE

Winter wonderland, my ass.

The stinging wind whipped at Emma’s exposed cheeks and brought tears to her eyes. Lowering her head, she trudged around the enormous mounds of black snow piled along the curb, searching for a semi-safe path onto the sidewalk. Finding none, she grabbed a parking meter and hauled herself over the smallest of the soot-encrusted icebergs. Some people would go to any lengths for their morning cup of java, and she was one of them.

As she yanked open the door to Chapters and Verse, the “Spring Movement” of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons greeted her. Someone had a really warped sense of humor. Or hoped the power of positive thinking could affect weather patterns. Still, the music held a reminder that the harsh realities of early February in Philadelphia would eventually give way to sunshine and flowers come late March. Maybe. Last year they’d suffered through one of their worst blizzards ever the first week in April.

Emma shivered, thoughts of daffodils and crocuses quickly replaced by the chill rippling through her damp body. Shaking the moisture from her hair, she deposited her coat on a chair in the café, then headed for the coffee bar.

“Morning,” said the barista. “The usual?”

“Please.”

With her morning shot of caffeine and sugar in hand, Emma trolled the stacks of books, occasionally pulling a volume from the shelves and sliding it under her arm. She needed the predictability of this daily routine. It helped her get through the rest of the day. Every day.

Why the hell do I stay?

If she had any courage, she’d leave. Sell the house. Move away. Start over. But she couldn’t leave, and her reasons had little to do with a lack of courage. Life in Emmaville was just too damn complex. One part guilt, one part masochism. But how could she leave the only tangible reminder she had of life before everything had turned to shit?

So she stayed, losing herself in work that at least gave her the satisfaction of knowing her efforts helped others. She pushed herself each day until exhaustion overcame her and she fell into nightmare-riddled sleep. Tomorrow morning the cycle would repeat itself. I’m a twenty-first century Sisyphus, eternally damned to live out an unending punishment for my sins. Not that she had a clue as to whatever sin first condemned her years before, but she’d certainly committed a whopper since then. Whether a sin of omission or commission, it hardly mattered. The result was the same.

Still, what would be the harm in a short escape? She deserved that much, didn’t she? Emma closed her eyes and conjured up a distant memory of a sun-kissed Adriatic coastline. Hell, why not? She opened her eyes and headed for the travel section.

* * *

Logan Crawford’s mind kept drifting back to the events of last night, an evening definitely not worth remembering. Even her name escaped him. Although normally not a problem, this time he was saddled with Candi-Randi-Bambi-whatever-the-hell-her-name-was for the length of his stay in Philadelphia. As head of the city’s redevelopment office, she was his official escort-slash-liaison, the person assigned to make certain he chose the City of Brotherly Love as the East coast site for his corporate headquarters. And last night Candi-Randi-Bambi, a woman who wore her ambition emblazoned across her surgically augmented chest, made it abundantly clear just how far she’d go to get him to sign on the dotted line. And it was far from brotherly. Or sisterly.

Logan doubted he was the first billionaire businessman she’d bedded in her quest up the corporate ladder, but he’d wager a good portion of his sizeable fortune that he was the biggest — the wunderkind west coast urban developer who was giving The Donald a run for his money. Only Logan had better hair — as the media was quick to point out.

With a snap of his fingers, he could provide Candi-Randi-Bambi with an express elevator straight through the glass ceiling, and she knew it.

No fucking way in hell.

Last night when he stared down into Candi-Randi-Bambi’s come-hither eyes, he saw the reflection of a disillusioned, unhappy man. And damn, up to that moment he hadn’t even realized he’d been disillusioned or unhappy. He had wealth; he had power. So what was up with the sudden emptiness and dissatisfaction?

Beryl would say it was because he led a shallow life devoid of emotional commitment. As much as he protested to the contrary, he knew she was right. Maybe it was time to leave the bimbos to Trump.

Struck by the epiphany, he’d bolted from Candi-Randi-Bambi’s bed. They’d used each other. She spread her legs hoping to advance her career; he’d taken advantage of the offer. Sex without emotional entanglements, the pattern of his adult life. He got the release he needed, and the woman got a notch on her bedpost. Only this time it hadn’t worked. After thirty-eight years Logan Crawford realized it was time to grow up. Only damn it, he didn’t have a clue how.

Still reeling from the self-revelation, he’d canceled his morning appointments and headed his rental car north, needing some time alone to think. After driving for half an hour he found himself in a quiet, upscale section of Philadelphia. A bookstore on top of a hill beckoned like a siren.

For the rest of his stay in Philadelphia he vowed to spend his nights curled up with a good thriller rather than a cheap thrill. Now all he had to do was find one. At the moment he couldn’t even find the damn fiction section in the boundless maze of shelves that wound around the first level of the two story megastore. Lost in the travel section, he spun on his heels and –

THUD!

Read what others are saying about Love Lies and a Double Shot of Deception
Watch the Book Trailer on YouTube!

About the Author

Lois Winston is the author of several romance novels. Her book, Talk Gertie to Me, won the 2007 Readers and Bookbuyers Best Laurie Award. Find out more about Lois by visiting her website at http://www.loiswinston.com.

The following is an excerpt from the book The Last Summer (of You & Me)
by Ann Brashares
Published by Riverhead Books; June 2007;$24.95US/$31.00CAN; 978-1-59448-917-4
Copyright © 2007 Ann Brashares

One

Waiting

Alice waited for Paul on the ferry dock. He’d left a crackly message on the answering machine saying he’d be coming in on the afternoon boat. That was like him. He couldn’t say the 1:20 or the 3:55. She’d spent too long staring at the ferry schedule, trying to divine his meaning.

With some amount of self-hatred, Alice had first walked out onto the dock for the 1:20, knowing he wouldn’t be on it. She’d looked only vaguely at the faces as they emerged from the boat, assuring herself she wasn’t expecting anything. She’d sat with her bare feet on the bench at the periphery, her book resting on her knees so she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone. I know you’re not going to be on it, so don’t think I think you are, she’d told the Paul who lived in her mind. Even there, under her presumed control, he was teasing and unpredictable.

For the 3:55, she put Vaseline on her lips and brushed her hair. The boat after that wasn’t until 6:10, and though Paul could miss the so-called afternoon ferry, he couldn’t call 6:10 the afternoon.

How often she did attempt to process his thoughts in her mind. She took his opinions too seriously, remembered them long after she suspected he’d forgotten them.

It was one thing, trying to think his thoughts when he was close by, his words offering clues, corrections, and confirmations by the hour. But three years of silence made for complex interpolations. It made it harder, and in another way it made it easier. She was freer with his thoughts. She made them her own, thought them to her liking.

He had missed two summers. She couldn’t imagine how he could do that. Without him, they had been shadow seasons. Feelings were felt thinly, there and then gone. Memories were not made. There was nothing new in sitting on this dock, on this or that wooden bench, watching for his boat to come. In some ways, she was always waiting for him.

She couldn’t picture his face when he was gone. Every summer he came back wearing his same face that she could not remember.

Absently, she saw the people on the dock who came, went, and waited. She waved to people she knew, mostly her parents’ friends. She felt the wind blow the pounding sun off her shoulders. She slowly dug her thumbnail along a plank of the seat, provoking a splinter but caking up mold and disintegration instead.

When it came to waiting, Riley always had something else to do. Paul was Riley’s best friend. Alice knew Riley missed him, too, but she said she didn’t like waiting. Alice didn’t like it. Nobody did.

But Alice was a younger sister. She didn’t have the idea of not doing things because you didn’t like them.

She watched for the ferry, the way it started out as a little white triangle across the bay. when it wasn’t there, she could hardly imagine it. It was never coming. And then it appeared. It took shape quickly. It was always coming.

She stood. She couldn’t help it. She left her book on the bench with its paper cover fluttering open in the wind. Would this be him? Was he on there?

(more…)

by Peter Pagnamenta, co-author of Sword and Blossom: A British Officer’s Enduring Love for a Japanese Woman

In 1982 a retired Tokyo teacher was going through boxes in a storeroom, when she found a stash of old letters, still in their original thin white envelopes, with foreign stamps and sealing wax. They were bundled tightly together and there were over 800 of them. The letters inside were on rolled, thin, hand made “makigami” paper, and many of them contained pressed flowers which disintegrated, as they fell out. They were from a British officer who had been sent to Japan to learn English in 1904, written to his love, Masa Suzuki, and they spanned a period of nearly thirty years. The finder of the letters was a relative of Masa’s by marriage, and she had heard about the Englishman. But she had no idea of the full story.

Those letters are the principal source for our book, and we could only reconstruct the story by working through them, and finding the clues, and the chronology, which allowed the narrative of this relationship to emerge.

Momoko Williams and I were not the first to see this extraordinary cache — the Japanese writer Takako Inoue had looked at many of them and written a book published in Japan, but she had not been able to do any research in Britain, so her version was not complete. She helped set us on our way, but it was only when we got full access to the original letters that we realized what a daunting task we had taken on. They were difficult to decipher even for a Japanese, because the language and the ways of writing characters had changed so much, and Captain Hart Synnot’s language and syntax, specially at the start when he was learning, were not very good.

We spent nine months going through the letters, one by one, from 1905 to the 1930’s. We worked in real time, sitting at a table. Momoko would try and read them, and I would transcribe and type the contents in rough English as we went along, so we could pick up the references and ask each other questions. There were Japanese allusions that she could catch, or could ask others about, and there were English related references that I could understand. So there was a lot to do before we could get to what, for most books, would be regarded as square one.

One of the difficulties was that Arthur had helpfully (for Masa) rendered all the English names, of other officers, or places in Ireland, or family members, into phonetic Japanese. For example we were confronted with a cast of characters with strange sounding names — Blododo, Toku, Sarmondo, and had to check army lists and other sources until we found he meant General Broadwood, or Major Toke or Captain Salmon. He called her “Dare” and for a long time Momoko couldn’t work out what this meant, until she realized, from just one letter in which he used some English as well, that this was his Japanese spelling for “Dolly”. That was what he must always have called her.

As we went on we built up an index of names and places, and dates, and then started to do lateral research into army records, birth certificates, marriage certificates, wills, and land records in Japan, England and Ireland, to build up the picture. The newspapers of the time yielded vital information. We ploughed through yellowing copies of the small English language papers that had been published in Tokyo and Yokohama for the foreign community, and one of their staple ingredients were columns listing passengers arriving and departing by ship. In the “Japan Weekly Mail” for March 12th 1904 we were pleased to find: “per British steamer “Java” from London via the Chinese ports — Mr F.J. Abbott, Mrs F.J. Abbot, Miss Abbott and nurse, Mr H Fleming, Master Fleming, Mr G. Kingswell, Captain Hart Segnott” They had the name wrong, but it was good enough for our purposes. There were only three European style hotels that westerners used in Tokyo then, and the same papers published lists of guests who were staying. So we were able to place him at the Imperial in Tokyo on several occasions, or staying at Hakone, and for three or four years it was possible to track most of his comings and goings around the Far East, and check these dates against his own letters. The Japanese system for registering births and deaths was much more difficult to crack — the “Kosekki”.

Our greatest piece of luck was finding the diaries of two of the four other British language officers who were in Tokyo at the same time, because they described this world of foreign bachelors, the trips to the sumo wrestling, the tea houses, the picnics with the girlfriends at cherry blossom time, and Arthur and Masa flit in and out of them.

There was one major element we hoped to find, but never did — and that was the correspondence in the other direction, and Masa’s own letters to Arthur. We know where they were at various times, but they disappeared, probably during the Second World War.

© 2007 Peter Pagnamenta

Author
Peter Pagnamenta is a writer and television documentary maker, with a special interest in Japan. He conceived and wrote the eight-part BBC series Nippon, an archive and testimony history of Japan’s recovery after 1945, as well as Bubble Trouble, about Japan in the 1990’s. Other series for the BBC include the twentieth-century industrial history All Our Working Lives, for which he wrote the book with Richard Overy, and the twenty-six-part People’s Century. He is a former editor of the weekly current-affairs television program Panorama.