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Rainbow Snippets September 19-20

9/19/2020

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​It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets! The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ+

Today, I'm sharing another snippet from The Sorcerer's Guardian, which is now back out in the world with a gorgeous new cover by Natasha Snow! The Sorcerer's Guardian is an opposites attract fantasy romance between an arrogant sorcerer and a loyal guard captain sent on a mission for the crown. They spend a lot of time clashing with each other and manage to tumble into love along the way (and at one point, they are stuck at an inn with only one room left and only one bed...). This week, I'm skipping just a little bit ahead. In this snippet, Savarin is explaining a problem he found to the princes and Lord Etan.
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​“What did you find?” Prince Philip asked.

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“I traveled the majority of our eastern border with Elleri before I had to return to Jumelle. From what I’ve seen, the barrier formed by the protections follows the border, or at least it does in that area. I did find spots where it seemed weaker.”

“Weaker how?” Prince Amory asked.

He fumbled for a moment to find the words to explain it to someone with no training in sorcery. He might have struggled to explain it to someone with training as well—the protections didn’t behave like any others he had ever seen. “Think of the spells surrounding Tournai as a barrier, a thin but strong wall, Your Highness. In a couple of spots, the wall has gotten thinner, weaker. As if someone has been pushing at it, wearing it away.”

“Trying to get through it,” Lord Etan murmured.



You can find more about The Sorcerer's Guardian here. And you can still get it 30% off at NineStar Press, along with my other books. Thanks for reading today, and I hope you're all staying safe and healthy!
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Release Blitz: Cassadaga Nights by Jana Denardo

9/16/2020

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Title: Cassadaga Nights

Author: Jana Denardo

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: September 14, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 30100

Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+, gay, fantasy, paranormal, fae, psychic ability, magic, magic users, shifter, mystery, small Southern town

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Synopsis

Santino Bellomi and his coworker, Cam, are sent to Cassadaga, Florida by the Aspida Pneuma, a group of psychics and mages. Their job is to rescue a nixie from a polluted lake and to check out the town, which is known for its psychics. New recruits to the Aspida are always welcome and where better than a spiritualist camp to hunt for them? What Santino wants most, however, is to finish the assignment quickly. He isn’t a fan of heat and humidity, and he’d looking forward to a well-earned vacation once the mission is over. Ryan Doyle grew up in Cassadaga, where being psychic runs in the family. Ryan has never roamed far from home, though it’s hard being a geeky gay, wannabe urban fantasy author living in a small town. His job as one of the town psychics is fairly routine until he meets someone new. Ryan has never encountered anyone with a psychic shield so strong until Santino sits down for a reading. Intrigued, he asks Santino out even though Santino is as secretive as he is fun. Santino hopes to win Ryan over both for himself and for the Aspida. And he’s hoping his skills in the kitchen will swing the balance in his favor. Ryan has almost given up on finding love, living in rural Florida. Can a seductive tourist be the answer to his dreams? Things never run smoothly for those in the Aspida. What should have been a simple rescue mission is plagued by mosquitoes, enraged ghosts, and someone or something draining residents of their life force. Ryan’s first foray into adventure may be his last.

Excerpt

Cassadaga Nights Jana Denardo © 2020 All Rights Reserved Ryan drew his shield over himself, letting his psychic senses dampen down. All day, most days, he dropped his armor, walking around exposed, vulnerable on all sides to the flood of stimuli. Such was the life of a professional psychic. He was unable to cut himself off when he was on the job. His clients depended on his abilities. While he could cold read a person to give Houdini a run for his money, Ryan was the real deal when it came to being psychic. Houdini would have had a helluva time debunking his abilities. Here at home, safe in his fortress of solitude, Ryan armored up, drawing upon his psychic shields. He could rest, letting his senses recharge. Elsie—one of the original inhabitants of the town in the 1890s—had been the only thing able to penetrate his shields. The books on his bookcase rattled alerting him that Elsie, his boisterous ghost, had noted his return. Ryan double-checked the setting on the air conditioning in his tiny Harmony Hall apartment. He might have been born and raised in Cassadaga, but it didn’t mean he loved Florida summers. That said, the air conditioner sat at an acceptable temperature, but inside, the heat stifled him. He turned on the old fan from the 1930s, the kind with barely a whisper of a guard surrounding it, and aimed it at his computer. Only the force of the wind coming out of the fan kept Kuro from jamming his paws into it to catch the blades. His cat didn’t like his fur mussed. Ryan drew the curtains where his apartment overlooked the Cassadaga Hotel before stripping off his shorts. There, he was as naked as he could get without removing skin, and he was still too hot. He crammed into the cramped shower and ducked his head under the faucet, wetting his hair. Afterward, he strolled into the kitchen, poured himself an iced tea, and rubbed the cool glass across his nipples a few times in a vain attempt to lower his body temperature. Finally, giving up, Ryan returned to his computer and let the ancient fan and his wet hair act as a swamp cooler. Acclimatize my ass. In quiet moments like this, Ryan was sure he heard the mildew growing on his skin in the humidity. He streamed some indie music and opened up a story file. After a day of work, he enjoyed doing what he’d actually gone to school for: writing. Unfortunately, his career as an urban fantasy writer hadn’t taken off yet, so he was still in the family business. Much to the endless and completely irrational irritation of his sister, Mary. Ryan didn’t quite get it. She’d been vicious in claiming their mother’s house as her own to do readings in, following their mother’s path. Their whole family possessed psychic abilities, as did many others in Cassadaga, a Spiritualist commune. Ryan didn’t understand why he couldn’t share the house with Mary, but she was having none of it. She’d been pissed off he’d been accepted into Harmony Hall after proving his abilities worthy of the honor. One had to be psychic to rent there. It bemused him that his only living relative didn’t want much to do with him, and it wasn’t because he was gay. Mary didn’t give a crap about his sexuality. No, she didn’t like the fact that his psychic abilities equaled hers. Shoving Mary from his mind, Ryan tried to get into his story, but the day’s worries bled into his consciousness. Tomorrow, a big open house would have trainees doing half-price readings at the Davis Center, and he’d have to oversee Lisa, his trainee. It was fun, in a way, interacting with the public, and many turned out for the half-price offering. But surely there was more he could be doing with his ability. A vague disappointment dogged Ryan because he hadn’t thought to do the psychic TV thing. He assumed they started out legit, but ratings and pressure from the shows’ money men probably quickly led to faking results. Sure, some of them did fake stuff. He’d been on more ghost hunts than he could count. No one got so many results every time, and demons didn’t really lurk around every corner. Oh, he didn’t discount demons—but to have house after house filled with them? He had his doubts. He didn’t want to contribute to all the charlatan acts out there. He was the real deal. Sighing, he gave up for a moment and tried to clear his head with a little internet therapy. Of course the internet was as big a bane to his writing as it was an asset to his research. He checked out a tarot card Kickstarter using some truly gorgeous art and sighed again. The goal hadn’t quite been reached yet, but hopefully soon. He planned to add them to his collection. His last acquisition had been a steampunk deck almost too pretty to use. Tarot cards were the one thing he collected outside of manga. Ryan had reluctantly put his books into storage because his apartment was too small, and he’d moved to e-books, which didn’t have the same appeal. Still, his hating on the e-book afforded him nothing. He planned to sell some one day. Elsie fluttered in the corner of his eye like black butterflies dancing in and out of the ceiling fan blades. When he turned his attention to her, she smiled, waved, and faded away, content she’d gotten his attention. Rolling his eyes, Ryan turned to his computer. He goofed off on the internet for a little while longer before getting back to his fantasy world. He’d left his warrior witch in a rough spot. He probably ought to have her save herself.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Amazon

Meet the Author

Jana is Queen of the Geeks (her students voted her in), and her home and office are shrines to any number of comic book and manga heroes along with SF shows and movies too numerous to count. It’s no coincidence that the love of all things geeky has made its way into many of her stories. To this day, she’s disappointed she hasn’t found a wardrobe to another realm, a superhero to take her flying among the clouds, or a roguish starship captain to run off to the stars with her.

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The Sorcerer's Guardian is Back!

9/14/2020

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I'm so excited (and happy and relieved) that The Sorcerer's Guardian is back out in the world today. This is the last of my former Dreamspinner titles, and it's been out of print for almost a year. But now, it's back with a gorgeous new cover by Natasha Snow, and all of the books in the Chronicles of Tournai series (so far—new books coming soon!) are available again.

The Sorcerer's Guardian is an opposites attract romance between an arrogant sorcerer and a loyal guard captain sent on a dangerous mission for the crown. They clash with each other and somehow tumble into love along the way (and get stuck in an inn with only one room left which only has one bed...). The changes to this book are minimal—just a bit of cleaning up. The characters and story remain unchanged from the first edition, so no need to buy it again, unless you want one with the pretty new cover. And if you haven't read it yet, I hope you enjoy getting to know Loriot and Savarin.

And The Sorcerer's Guardian is currently 30% off at NineStar Press, along with my other books!

About The Sorcerer's Guardian

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Savarin honed his Talent through years of study, and to achieve his goal of becoming the most powerful and accomplished sorcerer in Tournai, he made magic his life. Among the wealthy and noble circles he moves in, no one would suspect the handsome, refined, arrogant sorcerer’s humble beginnings--which is how Savarin prefers it. He wants to be seen only as the man he’s made himself. When Tournai’s princes task Savarin with studying and strengthening the spells that protect the principality from magical attack, he is more than happy to do so. The spells are complex, centuries old, and exactly the type of puzzle Savarin is eager to solve. But to his annoyance, the princes insist Loriot accompany him on his journey.

​
Second son of a minor noble family, Loriot worked his way up the ranks of the royal guard to captain with single-minded determination and takes pride in his service to the crown. He must obey the prince’s orders to protect Savarin, despite believing his skills would be best used elsewhere and his wariness of magic. UnTalented himself, Loriot has learned not only the benefits of magic but also its potential for harm--and how to counter it. He still believes it’s best to avoid most magic entirely, which is difficult when he’s tasked with playing guard to a powerful sorcerer.

Loriot and Savarin clash repeatedly during their journey, but the simmering tension between them doesn’t only stem from their work, and passion develops into feelings neither expected. But Savarin must still secure Tournai’s magical barrier, and his only solution will endanger both him and the royal family.


Add The Sorcerer's Guardian to your Goodreads shelf

​Buy The Sorcerer's Guardian:
NineStar Press
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
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Apple
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Rainbow Snippets September 12-13

9/12/2020

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​It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets! The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ+

Today, I'm sharing another snippet from The Sorcerer's Guardian, the last of my former DSP titles to be rereleased. It will be back out in the world on Monday (yay!), with a gorgeous new cover by Natasha Snow. The Sorcerer's Guardian is an opposites attract fantasy romance between an arrogant sorcerer and a loyal guard captain sent on a mission for the crown. They spend a lot of time clashing with each other and manage to tumble into love along the way. This week, I'm skipping just a little bit ahead to introduce you to Savarin. (I went a little over the sentence limit this week—I'm sorry!)
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​Savarin sank into a chair in his study and reveled in the quiet. He tipped his head to rest against the back of his chair and closed his eyes. Aside from him, only the cook and a maid remained in the house, and they 
wouldn’t bother him. No one would see him take this moment to himself.

What he needed was sleep. He hadn’t gotten enough since he’d been pulled in to help find the kidnapped baby. The magic use had worn him down, even without lack of sleep, but he hadn’t wanted to be unavailable until the baby was found, in case he was needed again. The baby was home with her father now, unharmed and seemingly no worse for her experience, and the culprits were in Loriot’s hands, as they should be. The captain of the royal guard was more than capable of handlingeverything from there; Savarin’s part was done.

​
Just in time for him to lecture at the university.

You can find more about The Sorcerer's Guardian, including preorder links, here. Also, The Sorcerer's Guardian and all my other books are still 30% off at NineStar Press. Thanks for reading today, and I hope you're all staying safe and well.
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My August Reading

9/11/2020

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I meant to get this post up a week ago, but everything has gotten away from me as I slowly drown in a sea of moving boxes (moving is never fun and even less during a pandemic). Somehow, it's not only September already but nearly the middle of the month! 

My reading remains sporadic and still easier in audiobook, but I enjoyed a few books in August:

Wolfsbane by SJ Himes: This is the first book in a spin-off to the Beacon Hill Sorcerer series and focuses on werewolves, which is fun since we didn't get much about them in the original series. It made for a good start to the spin-off, and I really enjoyed the couple in this book—and the appearance by a favorite character for the original series—and I hope we see more of them.

The Fantastic Fluke by Sam Burns: Let's start with there being an adorable fox familiar in this book and I love foxes. There's also a guy who's under the impression is magic is incredibly weak—and therefo re believes he's a failure—until a ghost shows up and shows him otherwise. I so enjoyed this book. The world building is so interesting, and I enjoyed the characters. I'll be waiting impatiently for the next in the series.

Demons Do It Better by Louisa Masters: This was a fun paranormal romance about a human administrative assistant working for a team of assorted shifters, demons, and vampires...and the guy he had a one night stand with right before starting the job happens to work there too. I enjoyed the world building, and I'll look for the next in the series.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson: This f/f small town young adult romance was just so cute. Liz Lighty is a Black, queer girl with anxiety in a small midwestern town. A town that is obsessed with prom. And Liz has to run for prom queen in her school's big competition because it's the only way she can can the money to attend her dream college. Along the way, there are some great friendships, Liz figuring out how to be herself and find her own type of fairy tale, and an adorable romance.

​Have you read and loved anything lately?

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Release Blitz: Time Lost by CB Lewis

9/7/2020

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Title: Time Lost

Series: Out of Time, Book Two

Author: C.B. Lewis

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: September 7, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 114600

Genre: Science Fiction, LGBTQIA+, science fiction, gay, British, detective/police officer, law enforcement, crime procedural, engineer, programmer/decoder, murder, mystery, age gap, interracial, dirty talk, spanking, outrageous flirtation

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Synopsis

A dead intruder. A missing scientist. A terrified child. No one wants a dramatic case first thing on a Monday morning, but that’s exactly what Detective Inspector Jacob Ofori got. It should be open and shut, but scientist Tom Sanders is nowhere to be found, a dead man seems to have appeared from thin air, and the Temporal Research Institute—Sanders’s company—is strangely uncooperative about assisting with the case. Jacob’s only source is TRI engineer, Kit Rafferty. He clearly wants to help, but there’s only so much the man can and will tell him. As more and more impossible questions mount up, Jacob finds himself facing a reality that could change his world.

Excerpt

Time Lost C.B. Lewis © 2020 All Rights Reserved Chapter One At first, everyone assumed it was a burglary. The postman was the first on the scene. He’d arrived early in the morning to make a delivery to the house in question and found the front door wedged open. No one answered when he rang the bell, so he called the police. The two constables arrived to investigate, and they were the ones who found the body. It escalated after that. Not even noon, Jacob thought grimly. Hell of a way to start a Monday. His autopod shuttled along, arcing off from the main highway. As much as he missed manual controls of old-fashioned cars and early autocars, he appreciated the driverless function of the pod because it gave him time to skim through the images from the crime scene en route. He wouldn’t get a feel for the scene until he got there, but the images let him know what he was about to walk into. There were signs of a struggle in the room where the body was found, and plenty of blood, but the rest of the house seemed undisturbed. “Control to Delta Seven. ETA to destination?” Jacob leaned forward and cleared the images from the display on the windscreen, bringing up his location on the map. Beyond it, he could see the country roads through the glass. “ETA fifteen minutes, Control,” he replied, then muttered under his breath, “Into the backside of nowhere.” It was half an hour beyond the miles of sprawling suburbs of the city in the middle of green fields and close to a forest. The nearest amenities had to be at least four miles from the building. He shook his head. What kind of person chose to live all the way out there anymore? It wasn’t as if there were a shortage of housing in the city. A chime indicated another image had been received. Jacob opened it up and leaned forward, frowning. A door, barely visible, blended into the pattern of the wall. No handle, no visible hinges. “You seeing this, sir?” Constable Foley’s voice rang through the speaker. “I am indeed, Foley,” he said, widening the image. “Is that a safe room?” “Looks that way, sir,” the constable replied. “The dust in front of it suggests a box was moved and recently. Looks like someone might be in there.” Smart girl, Jacob thought with approval. “Any response?” “Not yet, sir, but if they were attacked—” “They might not be capable of replying,” Jacob finished. “Keep trying.” He minimised the image and looked out through the windscreen. “I have visual on you, Foley. Be with you soon.” Ahead of him, the house was visible between the trees. The red brick structure had to be at least two centuries old, but even from a distance, the modern touches were obvious. The windows were thick and secure. The roof had been replaced with faux slate. The autopod purred to a halt beside the four other vehicles lining the gravel courtyard, and the door slid aside. Jacob stepped out and glanced at the other vehicles. He recognised the coroner’s transport pod, and the standard blue-and-white- patterned squad pod, but the other two were probably the homeowner’s. Foley opened the front door to greet him. Half his age, she hadn’t been with the force long enough to be as jaded as him yet. She smiled in greeting. “Morning, sir.” He winced. “Say afternoon. It makes it a little more bearable.” She laughed. “You want a summary, sir?” “I read up on it on the way over. Any word on the owner?” “Thomas Sanders,” Foley said, leading him toward the house. “Forty-eight. Widower with one young son. He’s a well-reputed scientist and engineer. High up in some kind of historical and scientific research program in the city, the Temporal Research Institution.” “Have you been able to make contact with him?” Foley shook her head, her sandy ponytail swinging. She offered him overalls to cover his suit. “We’ve tried his business and private numbers. His colleagues said he’s been on a leave of absence for health reasons for several weeks. Our best bet is the safe room.” “Any sign of the son?” “We assume he’s with his father,” Foley replied. “Do we have an ID for the body yet?” She hesitated in the hallway. “That’s the strange thing, sir. We can’t find anything on him. His prints aren’t in the system. No DNA trace either. We still need to run facial recognition, but so far, we’ve got nothing.” “That’s not unusual.” Foley looked at him. “There’s something off about it all. I’ll show you.” The house was spacious inside. The lower level was split into four rooms, all branching off from a wide, sunlit hall. Foley led him down the hall and to one of the rooms at the back, her covered boots thumping on the wooden floors. Jacob stopped in the doorway, taking a moment, then stepped across the threshold. The crime scene team was still at work. The room appeared to be some kind of laboratory with workbenches running along one wall. Another wall was covered in old-fashioned whiteboards with all kinds of incomprehensible text and codes marked on them in half a dozen colours. Jacob studied all of it for a moment, but whatever Sanders was working on, it was far beyond Jacob’s barely adequate physics A level. There were little machines here and there, suspended from the boards by wires. Spools of wire and gears were scattered across the floor. Several boxes had been upended from shelves and lay on their sides. In the middle of it all, the body lay face down on the floor, a bloodied hammer close at hand. Danni Michaels was working on the body and glanced up with a nod. “Sir.” “Cause of death?” Jacob said, keeping his eyes off the dead man’s face. “Looks like blunt force trauma,” Danni replied, nudging her magnifying glasses up her nose with her knuckles. “I don’t think it’s a wild guess to say the weapon was that hammer. It was a single blow, landed here.” Jacob gritted his teeth and looked. The left side of the man’s forehead was ruptured. His eyes were open, and he had an expression of surprise on his rigid, bloody face. He was young. Maybe thirties. Dark-haired. His eyes were dark, the pupils flared wide open, but death sometimes did that. Blood had spread in a wide, sticky pool around his body. Jacob swallowed down the familiar rising acid. Christ, he hated the messy ones. He glanced around the room. A pair of slippers, several steps away from the blood pool, had left bloody prints on the polished floor. The owner must have kicked them off, and they’d ended up at least three feet from each other. Not good shoes for running, slippers. If he—men’s slippers, size nine approximately—had already knocked down the man on the floor, then there had to be another assailant whom he was running from. “Any sign of this man’s accomplice?” “Accomplice?” Foley asked. Jacob gestured to the slippers. It was easier than looking at the body. “You don’t try and run from an unconscious, nearly dead man. There was someone else here.” “We haven’t seen any sign of anyone else,” Foley replied. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t even notice that.” He offered her a brief smile. “That’s why I’m a DI, Foley.” He motioned to the body. “You said there was something off?” Foley nodded, crouching by the body. “Take a look at his right eye.” Jacob went down beside her, propping his forearms on his knees. It took him a moment, but then he saw what she was pointing out: The pupil wasn’t blown. There was no iris at all. “What the hell…” He leaned closer. “Michaels, can I borrow your magnifiers?” She handed them over and obligingly shone the torch over the man’s eyes. “Clever, isn’t it?” Jacob peered down and frowned. “A synthetic bionic eyeball? Is that even possible?” Michaels shook her head. “I’ve heard of people developing them, but I’ve never heard of any successful trials.” She squatted by the body and grinned. “I can’t wait to get it out and see what it’s made of.” “And there’s one of those images I didn’t need,” Jacob murmured, peering through the magnifier again. The pupil seemed to be a focusing lens. High-quality, high-end technology. “Foley, have you checked anywhere that might carry tech this advanced?” “We’re putting together a list,” she said. “But from what we’re hearing back, this is off the charts, sir. No one has heard of technology like this before, or if they have, they’re not telling us about it.” He straightened up. “You said this Sanders was a scientist?” “Doctor in physics and engineering,” she confirmed. “Could he have made something like this?” She hesitated. “From all accounts, he didn’t deal in human biology or bio-artificing.” “Doesn’t mean he couldn’t.” Jacob ran a hand over his face. “Well, if we can’t find this man by standard identification, maybe we can find him by the eye he doesn’t have. Danni, we need all the information you can get us as soon as possible.” “Sir,” Danni said at once. Jacob turned to Foley. “Where’s Singh?” “Still trying to get into the safe room.” She jerked her head. “This way.” The safe room was up the stairs in what appeared to be a playroom. Windows lined one of the walls, the others covered in posters and drawings. Kids’ toys and games were scattered all over the place. Singh was working his way along the one blank wall with a scanner. Jacob took in the mess. “You said Sanders has a son?” “Ben,” Foley confirmed. “About eight?” Foley looked at him in surprise. “Seven and a half. Is this another one of those detective things?” Jacob chuckled. “This time, it’s one of those dad things.” Singh glanced over his shoulder at them, sighing in frustration. “Foley, I know you said to scan for a high intensity of fingerprints on the wall, but this whole wall is fingerprints.” He nodded at Jacob. “Afternoon, sir.” “Singh.” Jacob approached, studying the wall. “It’s very smoothly done, isn’t it?” He rubbed his short beard thoughtfully with his fingertips. “No visible buttons or latches anywhere?” “None we could find,” Foley said. “I thought it might be a pressure-point system, but seems not. We requested an expert, but they’ve been delayed.” “I think we need to un-delay them,” Jacob said, touching his earbud to activate it. “If Sanders is wounded and inside there, we need to get him out. If not, we need confirmation, because this could be an abduction.” While they waited, Jacob had gone down to the laboratory to take another look at the whiteboards. He didn’t see what it had to do with Sanders’s work at the Temporal Research Institution. A quick search suggested the institution specialised in identifying historical discrepancies and confirming historical events. It could be something to do with locating old records and creating algorithms, he supposed. You would need a specialised engineer to do that. “Sir?” Jacob turned. “Foley?” “The smith is here. I thought you might want to be present if he can open the door.” They headed back up the stairs to the playroom. The body had been removed in the hour before the locksmith arrived, the crime scene unit now working their way out from the house across the grounds, searching for trace evidence of the intruders. The locksmith was already working on the wall with a scanning device. “Apparently,” Singh said, joining them, “all safe room doors come installed with a registration chip, in case the mechanism needs to be deactivated in an emergency.” “Not unlike this,” Jacob observed. “Useful.” The locksmith glanced over. “It’s a recent make. Give me two minutes.” In the end, he took less than thirty seconds, and the door swung outward. Inside, there was a room big enough for a family, but only one person was there. A small tawny-haired boy shrank back into the corner of the room, his arms wrapped around his legs, his face bone-white. Jacob motioned for the smith and the two constables to back off, and crouched a couple of feet away from the door. “Hey,” he murmured. The boy was shivering, and tears rolled down his face from swollen, red-rimmed eyes. Jacob took out his badge, laid it on the floor, and slid it across to the boy. “It’s okay. I’m a policeman. My name’s Jacob.” He watched as the boy tentatively leaned forward and looked at the badge. “Are you Ben?” The boy nodded. “Where’s my dad?” His voice shook as much as he was. “We’re trying to find him now.” Jacob offered a hand. “Do you want to come out? You don’t need to stay in there.” “Dad told me to stay here.” Ben wrapped his arms tighter around his legs. “He told me to, until he came to get me.” “I know.” Jacob knelt and sat back on his heels. “We want him to come and get you, too, Ben, but right now, I think he’d want you to be safe, don’t you? How about we keep you safe?” “P-promise?” Jacob nodded. “Promise.” Ben got unsteadily to his feet. His trousers were sodden, and there was vomit on the front of his shirt. The poor kid must have been terrified. Jacob knelt up, offering both his hands, and Ben’s icy fingers wrapped around his. “There you go,” Jacob said as gently as he could, drawing Ben back out. “You’re safe now.” The little boy gave a sob and stumbled forward and wrapped his arms around Jacob’s neck, clinging to him. Jacob scooped him up and rose to his feet with the boy in his arms. He rubbed his hand in circles on Ben’s back. “You’re okay,” he murmured. “You’re okay.”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Amazon

Meet the Author

C.B. Lewis has been making up nonsense since she was able to talk. Now, she puts it into computers and turns it into books. She is chuffed to bits to officially be yet another one of the collective of authors from Edinburgh. Find C.B. Lewis on Facebook.

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Rainbow Snippets September 5-6

9/5/2020

2 Comments

 
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​It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets! The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ+

Today, I'm sharing another snippet from The Sorcerer's Guardian, the last of my former DSP titles to be rereleased. It will be back out in the world on September 14th, and it has a gorgeous new cover by Natasha Snow. The Sorcerer's Guardian is an opposites attract fantasy romance between an arrogant sorcerer and a loyal guard captain sent on a mission for the crown. They spend a lot of time clashing with each other and manage to tumble into love along the way. I skipped just a little bit ahead after the last two snippets. Loriot wants sleep more than anything, but he has to see someone else first.
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​Trudging up the stairs took the last of his energy, but he forced 
himself to bypass his own bedchamber. He couldn’t go to bed without seeing Alain. Not after so long away, not even if it hadn’t been very long. The door to the room at the back of the house was partially open. He peeked in as he pushed it open the rest of the way. The room was tidy, except for a veritable city built of blocks in the middle of the rug. The nursemaid noticed him first, but Alain wasn’t far behind. He looked up, his bright-green eyes—twins of Loriot’s own--lighting up, and something inside Loriot melted, just as it always did under those eyes.

​
“Papa!”

You can find more about The Sorcerer's Guardian here. The book is currently 30% off at NineStar Press, along with all of my others, and if you preorder there, you'll have it three days early. Thanks for reading today, and I hope you're all staying safe and well!
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    Antonia is a writer and a reader and a copy editor/proofreader. She loves books, travel, art, photography, baking, pasta, and shoes.

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