Challenge 22 - Rock Candy!- snippet from previously published novel.

Today I’ve chosen a snippet from a previously published contemporary romantic thriller, one I’m seriously thinking of putting out on Kindle and as a paperback at Amazon! 

   

Brief: it’s early afternoon, and Mac (an American secret agent) is on a mission, and Cassie (English businesswoman) his prey for reasons relating to US National Security. They’re lounging on a lawn in an English country garden while the others in their company continue playing croquet. They’ve spent a night away and slept together . . . This scene is a pivotal point in the story, for the hero is treading a minefield of female emotions he thought he could cross without getting into difficulties, but he’s in trouble and can’t afford to let loose his guard.  Male POV.

O.K, word count 372: code MPA.

“Mac, you do realise we’ve been awfully wicked in lying to everyone. That we were not where we said we were.”

       “Yeah.” The way she chopped a rod of lettered rock candy to bite size pieces caused him to wince. “Guess they know now, with that hideous pink candy in bits.” He watched her pluck a sticky piece from the chopping board and slip it between luscious red lips, and the way she licked sticky substance from the tips of her fingers blew his mind. He rolled over onto his stomach to shield manly arousal, her perfume intoxicating. He closed his eyes, the heat from the afternoon sun adding to the warm glow of contented male, as he recalled the sound of distant seagulls . . .

      He revelled in the sensation of hot grains of sand sifting between toes.  Savoured sparkling waves swelling and surfing onto the beach then receding through burrowed rivulets in the wet sand. With shoes in one hand, Cassie’s hand clasped in the other they idly ambled to the waters edge and strolled along through the gentle surf. He glanced over his shoulder; their indented footprints fast filling with seawater just as he would again vanish into obscurity.

      They strolled on, avoiding larger incoming waves. Sometimes leaping sideways, bumping into one another, their closeness enjoyable. She paused to pop seaweed, and again to pick up shells. He was dangerously on the edge of declaring something but instead stole a momentary kiss in passing. He clasped her hand and led her away from the waters edge. 

      Just to sit and stare out to sea bliss in itself. But they lounged back resting on elbows raising their faces to the sun and the pull between them too strong to resist. He rolled over, his mouth on hers potent, lustful and declaring his intentions. But it sure couldn’t go on forever. He had a job to do.

      Whoa. He stirred, conscious of a hand on his back. Sense of danger overwhelmed him. His gun was locked in the glove compartment of the car. With air of caution he opened his eyes: long shadows casting across the lawn and Cassie kneeling beside him. Could she be the enemy? Hell, he hoped not.

      

 To see entries by other participants go here.

Ever met a "Star Guide"? A Sci-Fi Author, to boot!

So, what is a Star Guide? See below in bio -  What does a "star guide" do in her spare time?

Answer: she pens thrilling Sci-Fi novelettes.

In her own words...   


About M. Pax: Inspiring the words I write, I spend my summers as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory in stunning Central Oregon where I live with the husband unit and two loving cats. I write speculative fiction mostly and have a slight obsession with giant, man-eating reptiles and Jane Austen. I know, they don’t really go together, but it’d be interesting to insert Godzilla in the middle of Pride & Prejudice.

And so we come to the fun thing "M" does in her spare time. 

Description for Semper Audacia : Alone. Leda is the last living member of the brigade, the sole defender of her world. War took everyone she knew, leaving her in the company of memories and ghosts. Or is it madness?

The siren blares. The enemy is coming. Or is it? The approaching vessel isn't a friendly design, but it answers with the correct code. Leda must figure out whether the arrival is reinforcements or the final assault. In an aging flyer, she ventures out to meet her world's fate, the last stand.

Visit M's web site   or check out M's blog.

Semper Audacia is now available through the following outlets:

Smashwords.

Amazon. com 

Amazon.UK 

Amazon DE.

Challenge 21 - RFW - Fearful Heart

Romantic Friday Writers hold weekly challenges. The base line being whatever the theme (named and prompts given) we can post up snippets from novels, ongoing WIPs, write a piece of Flash-Ficton or poetry. My contribution this week is a Flash-Fiction piece.  Maximum word count is 400.

The Prompt: "Fearful Heart."   

382 words: MPA.

Jack had said he would be back before dawn, but a storm had blown in before dark and worsened over night. Waves taller than a house had crashed on the shore and pounded the headland. First light of dawn now streaked the horizon in ghostly pallor, and although the sea fallen calm and ebb tide barely lapping the sands she nevertheless walked the beach, her petticoats and skirt leaving a faint drag-trail.    

   It was all so unfair. Jack, who had survived the war, who’d returned home safe and in one piece, and now lost at sea. She could not fault his setting sail, for the man he had gone to warn of impending trouble had saved his life at Waterloo. But Billy was a smuggler, and someone had reported seeing lights out at Hart Point.  

   The local excise men and the militia had been out and about as soon as overnight winds had subsided. They’d already searched the creek and several coves the other side of the headland with lamps long before dawn.

   If the militia had found man or boat or contraband on the beach they would have said, would have been overjoyed in proof of guilt whether men found dead or alive. But there was nothing bar for driftwood and seaweed scattered in heaps. The militia had moved on to the next cove, so why had she come to the beach? It was madness. Yet something kept pulling her toward the headland, to the cavern . . . The cavern.

   She hitched up her skirts and ran and ran as if the very devil on her heels. The tide was not yet clear of the headland but she waded in to the sea, the chill of the water momentarily caused sharp intakes of breath. Soon waist deep, struggling to keep her balance, the entrance to the cavern lay within hands reach. She rounded the corner with difficulty, for pull of the tide on her skirts much like an anchor holding fast on a ship. 

    Fearful though her heart at finding nothing, a hand touched hers and a voice said, “So you do love me.”

    She willingly succumbed to the salty tang of his commanding mouth on hers, and his tongue emulated promised pleasure already indulged in as man and wife. 


To see entries by other members of RFW go here.

Perfected Imago - Campaigner Challenge No.2

This challenge is a tough call because oscitate is not a word I'd heard before. Oscitation, yes: as in noun formal. In the event of oscitate's absence from the Oxford English dictionary I sought it from within Collins Concise Dictionary: again absent. So, when did oscitate become a word? I'm guessing it's an American usage! Needless to say I kept thinking of oscillate... But, in the spirit of any challenge I chose Oscitation as my guide, though refer to required word "oscitate" within the text.


199 words, and snippet from a historical romance circ 1800s: adapted to accommodate the required words for the challenge.

Perfected Imago.

Putrid miasma of strange fungi lingered in the woodland and drove her to the tower in haste. Trespassing as usual she climbed the stone steps to the very top, where the air was fresher and the view spectacular.

       A strange dream the night before had come to life with every step taken, though akin to lacuna for she could not define every aspect of the dream. And, as in the dream, a butterfly emerged from a crevice and alighted on her shoulder. Perhaps the warmth from the sun or the pale lemon colour of her gown caused it to spread its wings and oscitate. Inattentive to the glorious view and enchanted by her brightly coloured companion, a barely noticeable whisper of air brushed her face in passing. But a glimmer of bright reflective light caught her eye as it crept eerily across the inner parapet of the tower.

       “Yours I believe.” The deep timbre in voice caused her heart to stall. 

       She turned to see Lord Devonish sporting a tiny hand mirror, the one she had lost from her drawstring purse weeks beforehand.

       “Serendipity, Miss Davenport, or sychronicity of like minds seeking sanctuary within this Godforsaken folly?”  

     


To see entries by other participants, go here.

Challenge RFW - Blue Moon!

This week's theme Blue Moon struck a nostalgic note! Hence I snatched this snippet from a modern historical I've had kicking its heels in a cupboard. It's set in 1964 twenty years after a wartime incident that changed the life of one woman in a shocking way, and left an American Army Air Corp pilot thinking he'd been dumped. It's a heart-wrenching re-union love story, in more ways than one.
This is part of the opening chapter. 

399 words: code MPA.

She slipped the record on to the turntable with infinite care: a few good winds of the handle, and then needle to outer groove. She could have placed it on the automatic triple-deck player, but this was a once in a blue moon treat. She hugged herself, swayed to the gentle rhythm, the words alone wiped away twenty years. Memories of another life another time flooded to the fore. In one sense it was pure nostalgia, in another unmitigated hell. Tears brimmed. She fought them back.

       She glanced at the letters on her desk, the sheer amount unbelievable. Why, why had her mother kept them? And why, in all these years had she never said a word, never revealed the fact that he’d come back? That he hadn’t died on that secret mission in forty-four. Oh God, how different things might have been had she received the letters when they had first arrived at the farm. Had she known then that he’d survived capture and in a German prisoner of war camp she would have waited, and hoped and longed for a happy outcome. To be denied that knowledge, utter cruel. To then be sent away in disgrace, unforgettable and unforgivable. 

       She leaned on the desk, tears spilling forth. It was all very well to think back to what might have been, but what about the person who’d helped her through her banishment and resulting distress. If her mother had stood by her instead of seeing pregnancy as shameful she would never have met David, and how fortunate she was to have loved twice and twice loved in return. David now taken from her, too.

       Out of love for an American pilot she’d gained a daughter. Her love for David had brought forth a son. And what of David, her rock, the man who had become her every thing? She could not now deny the love they had shared for fourteen years.

       She snatched at the heavy needle head and scratched the record in haste to obliterate the song and kill the music. She cursed the memory of a crowded dance floor, those oh so blue eyes, and his tight possessive hold. Now, with the letters in her possession, she knew Sophie's father had meant those three little words he had uttered so often when alone together: I love you.  Blue Moon had a lot to answer for.




To see entries by other participants go here.