Monday August 28, 2023
Welcome to HERE BE NEWS, where each monday we bring you all the latest from the fantasy romance authors at Here Be Magic:
Tuesday August 22, 2023: PG Forte discusses reviving a series twenty years later.
A Sight to Dream Of was the second book I ever finished writing. The question uppermost in my mind the entire time I was working on it was, "I did this once, but can I really do it again?" Spoiler alert: I could.
This title is scheduled for re-release in October. In the meantime, check out book one in the series, Scent of the Roses, which is available for pre-order now. https://books2read.com/u/4EpR5Y
A Sight To Dream Of
Oberon Book 2.0
Marsha Quinn is used to being called a witch. After all, her abilities as a psychic make a lot of people uncomfortable. But no one has ever called her an angel before!
Falling in love was not a possibility she'd ever envisioned, until Sam the skeptic arrives in Oberon, and teaches her to see past the scars she carries, and the lies he's told her, to the love that lies within their hearts and minds.
Excerpt:
Her conversation with Nick weighed heavy on Marsha’s mind as she drove out to Hidden Canyon later that afternoon. The closer she got to Celeste’s cabin the worse she felt. These trips out here always made her melancholy now. Celeste’s cabin. She really couldn’t think of it in any other way. She had only been there a handful of times in the last few months. She felt bad about that, but it was just too painful to come any more often than that. Celeste would understand how it was. At least, she hoped she would.
The heat wave that had been predicted for days, had finally materialized. Bright September sunlight poured down into the canyon, filtering through the branches of the tall trees that surrounded the cabin to gild the glade with its warm, golden glow. The grass of the lawn, and the cedar shake roof blazed with light. In between the trees to the rear of the clearing, she could see even more light reflected on the rippled surface of the creek, and glancing off the white granite boulders. Dragonflies danced in the air around her, their wings iridescent flashes of brightness surrounding the brilliant reds, blues and greens of their bodies.
Guilt stung her anew when she saw how overgrown everything had become. She really should have come out here more often. She should have sent someone out, if she couldn’t have come herself, to at least cut the grass! As it was, she’d let Celeste’s gift to her lie empty and neglected.
Oh, God. Celeste, I am so sorry. So very sorry.
She was so wrapped up in her mournful thoughts, she was almost on top of Sam before she noticed him. He’d been crouched on the lawn, examining something there. He got to his feet when he saw her; rising up out of the sun-gilded grass in one swift, graceful motion, his very presence an assault on all her senses.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this attracted to a man. Had she ever been? He was wearing black again she noticed, absorbing every detail in a single, greedy glance. Black chinos, a black and silver belt, and the same silver and turquoise jewelry he’d worn yesterday. The first two buttons of his collarless shirt were open, and the sleeves were rolled up almost to his elbows. His hair was loose today, falling in smooth silver waves to lie about his shoulders. He looked more like a wizard than ever, she thought, except that his eyes had lost a little of the guarded, inscrutable look she had noticed from time to time the day before. The eagerness that glowed in them today made him even more attractive.
“This place is incredible,” he announced without preamble. “I hadn’t even noticed the other day, but...there are flowers in the grass. Look.” He held out his hand, and she moved closer, disarmed by his enthusiasm.
“It’s a violet,” she said after she’d examined the little yellow blossom. “Kind of unusual, for this time of year, I guess. But there must be lots of them, they spread pretty aggressively. They’ll probably take over the whole lawn eventually, if I let them.”
“And this is a bad thing?” he asked, with a disbelieving smile. “I mean, why wouldn’t you want them to? They’re so pretty.” He looked around, in wonder. “What is it that smells so good?”
“Probably the incense cedars,” she answered, returning his smile. “Those big trees there and there and over there...” She felt another pang of loss, as she pointed out the trees that Celeste had always referred to as the guardians of the property.
“What about that one?” he asked, indicating the largest tree in the glade.
“That’s a Jeffrey Pine. We don’t really know how it got here. It normally only grows in the Sierras. Its bark smells like vanilla.”
He looked around startled. “A vanilla scented pine tree?” he asked, bemused. “Can there really be such a thing?”
“See for yourself,” she suggested, enjoying his reaction. He stood hesitant for a moment then turned and stalked quickly across the lawn. She followed more slowly, picking her way among the clover and the violets and the delicate patches of phlox, chamomile and thyme that laced the lawn. She stopped a few feet away, mesmerized by the sight of him. His face, held only inches from the trunk of the pine tree, was taut with concentration, his eyes were closed, and his hands clutched at the tree as though he would divine all its secrets in that single touch. He looked like Prospero, attempting the spell that would free Ariel.
He stood so a long moment, and then his eyes opened and he turned his face to her. “You’re right. It does.”
He left the tree and came to stand directly in front of her. “Do you know all these plants?” he all but demanded.
“No, not all. But a lot of them, I do. My father was always very big on nature walks when my sisters and I were kids. He loved introducing us to new plants. And, of course, I was here when Celeste planted most of these, so that helped, too.” She pointed out the scarlet lobelia, the fireweed, the blue-eyed grass. “It’s really beautiful in the springtime,” she told him. “When the redbud and the bitter cherry and the ceonothus are all in bloom.”
“Hell, it’s beautiful right now. I had no idea there could be so many things flowering in September. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you, growing up around here. I’ve never seen anything like this place.”
His eyes refocused on her then, his face suddenly as intent as it had been a moment before with the tree, and the look he gave her caused everything inside her to go still. She held her breath and waited, as though for some sort of judgement.
“It suits you,” he said at last. “It really does. You fit right in with the rest of it, somehow. Unexpected. Lovely. Maybe just a little bit unreal.”
Marsha felt herself blushing. She didn’t know how to respond to such an assessment. She seized on one of his words in an attempt to change the subject. “But you were expecting me, right? I thought we’d agreed last night that I’d come out here today?”
He smiled at that, his eyes gleaming with amusement, and she felt a small glimmer of annoyance. Damn it, she was the one who was supposed to be able to read minds. Yet, he seemed to be doing a pretty fair job of reading hers.
“Right,” he answered, and then added unnecessarily. “Not what I meant, of course.”
Scent of the Roses
Oberon Book 1.0
For years, Scout Patterson has tried to run from the mistakes in her past. Now, she's coming home--to face the ghosts she's never laid to rest, and the love she thought she'd lost forever.
Reawakening that love would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, love is not the only emotion that can last forever.
Memories and dreams are the only things that have gotten Nick Greco through the past twenty years. Memories of the girl he loved and lost, and dreams of what his life would be like, if he could only find her again. And if he can bring himself to believe that anything she tells him is true.
Can the star-crossed lovers put aside the hurt and distrust they still harbor toward each other? Or will the evil which already nearly destroyed them once, triumph yet again?
Pre-Order now at: https://books2read.com/u/4EpR5Y
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