Saturday 30 November 2019

@AnnaCampbellozCheck out Anna Campbell's fabulous book – Mistletoe Wishes: A Regency Christmas Collection #RegencyRomance #Christmas


Mistletoe Wishes: A Regency Christmas Collection
By Anna Campbell

Six breathtakingly romantic Christmas treats from Anna Campbell, together in one collection at last – and all at a bargain price!

The Winter Wife: Will an unexpected meeting on Christmas Eve deliver a second chance at love?

Her Christmas Earl: To save her sister from scandal, Philippa Sanders ventures into a rake’s bedroom – and into his power. Now only a hurried Christmas marriage can rescue her reputation.

A Pirate for Christmas: What is vicar’s daughter Bess Farrar to do when the dashing new earl, the man gossip paints as a ruthless pirate, kisses her on their first meeting? Why, kiss him right back of course!

Mistletoe and the Major: After years of war, Major Lord Canforth returns to England a hero. Now he faces his greatest battle—to win the heart of the wife he hasn’t seen since their wedding.

A Match Made in Mistletoe: Serena Talbot makes a wish on the mistletoe—but the mistletoe gets it wrong! A Christmas of chaos and confusion lies ahead. Will mistletoe magic lead to a happy ending?

The Christmas Stranger: At Christmastime, a stranger crossing the threshold means good fortune. But is Josiah Hale’s arrival lucky for Maggie, the girl Christmas forgot?

Excerpt

Flick’s lips turned down in a self-derisive smile. “I owe you an apology. That was a poor welcome I gave you. An empty house, and a wife stinking of the stables.”

Actually when he’d first touched her, Canforth had caught the scent of crushed flowers and something that was Flick alone. He’d remembered that fragrance immediately—it would always be the aroma of heaven. There might have been a hint of horse and hay, too, but he hadn’t cared. He’d been too busy fighting the urge to bury his face in her hair and tell her how much he’d missed her. Which would have ruined things between them forever. If he leaped on her like a starving wolf the minute he came home, she’d run for the hills.

“It’s still my home, empty or not, and I gave you no warning I was coming. But you haven’t told me why you’re spending Christmas alone.”

She took another sip of wine. “I didn’t feel like going through all the hullabaloo this year. It…it seemed easier to miss you here at Otway than in a noisy, happy crowd of people, however much I love them.”

Shock made him sit up straight and stare at her. “You missed me?”

The question surprised her. “Of course.”

“But I’ve been away for ages.”

She gave a grim laugh. “I know.”

By Jove, that was dashed nice to hear. Dashed nice. To think, she’d missed him. Perhaps his case wasn’t quite as hopeless as he thought. He leaned back and stretched his legs toward the fire. “Well.”

A smile lit her eyes to burned caramel. “Well, indeed.”

She set aside her wine and picked up her sewing, as if she hadn’t changed his world in the space of a second. “It means a plain Christmas dinner, I’m afraid. A returning hero deserves to have all the stops pulled out.”

Another silence fell, this one more comfortable than the last. Canforth finished his wine and let its warmth fortify the warmth seeping into his blood with every moment in his wife’s presence. For years, he’d been cold and lonely. Was his exile finally at an end?

He’d had no idea what welcome awaited him at Otway Hall. But this hadn’t been it.

Although so far, he had no complaints. He and Flick had never managed a proper conversation before. He prayed this was only the first of many to come.

“Compared to some of the places I’ve been since I left you, this is luxury indeed,” he said, as if there had been no break in the conversation. She’d been brave enough to admit she’d missed him. He could be brave, too. “And having you to myself for a few days without worrying about an army of servants or an influx of guests is perfect.”

She looked up quickly. “Really?”

“Really.”

She drank from her wineglass to hide another blush. And he still found it charming. “Would you like to go to the midnight service?”

He shook his head. “I’d rather keep my head down for a couple of days, before the villagers discover I’m back. Is that too ungodly?”
“No, it makes perfect sense. If you’d come back to a house full of servants, keeping your arrival quiet would be impossible. But Biddy and Joe won’t gossip, and this gives you a chance to settle in without anyone bothering you.”

Not quite true. His wife bothered him a great deal. “Will you go?”

“Oh, yes. I have so many reasons to be thankful.”

She smiled, and his lingering misgivings about the future faded to a distant rumble. He was home. He had time to make everything the way he wanted it.

Pick up your copy of
Mistletoe Wishes: A Regency Christmas Collection



Anna Campbell

ANNA CAMPBELL has written 10 award-winning historical romances for Grand Central Publishing and Avon HarperCollins and her work is published in 22 languages. She has also written 23 bestselling independently published romances. Anna has won numerous awards for her Regency-set stories including Romantic Times Reviewers Choice, the Booksellers Best, the Golden Quill (three times), the Heart of Excellence (twice), the Write Touch, the Aspen Gold (twice) and the Australian Romance Readers Association’s favorite historical romance (five times). Anna is currently engaged in writing the Lairds Most Likely series which starts with The Laird’s Willful Lass (2018). When she’s not travelling the world seeking inspiration for her stories, she lives on the beautiful east coast of Australia.

Connect with Anna: Website • Facebook • Twitter • BookBub • Goodreads.

Friday 29 November 2019

Check out Julie Whitley's fabulous book — Secrets of the Home Wood:The Sacrifice #ChildrenFiction #fantasy @AuthorJWhitley



Secrets of the Home Wood: The Sacrifice
By Julie Whitley


For Jonathon, the Home Wood that border his grandfather’s farm has always been a source of mystery and dread. Strange half-heard rumours passed among aunts, uncles and cousins never quite add up.

More than twenty years ago, his father—when he was Jonathon’s age—was swallowed up by the Home Wood for more than a day and came back badly injured. That was when his grandfather forbade any family member from venturing back there.

And so when from his bedroom window one morning, Jonathon sees his father once again cross into the Home Wood, he knows something is very wrong. Deceiving his grandfather, Jonathon sets out after his father and makes his way, for the first time in his life, into the woods.

What he finds there is beyond even his wildest imagination.


Excerpt

Do I want to be dinner? Cripes, what kind of question is that?

Jonathon passed an assessing glance over what held Pugg fast. The world, at that moment, consisted of Pugg’s alarmed face and an intricate trap the size of a bus woven between the branches of the tree. Jonathon’s heart thudded against his breast bone. He drew in a breath and began to slash at the sticky web. He struggled to maintain a determined focus as he sawed with all his strength on the hater-sized strand of the web that kept the warrior captive. Jonathon blocked out Pugg’s tension and the hissing, clicking sound from the higher branches. Clicking? it sounded like giant castanets. he cut harder. With a grunt he was through. Another down. he moved to the next while trying to stay clear of the sticky strands himself.

The clicking grew closer. Jonathon avoided looking at Pugg’s face and continued to hack until he had made a hole large enough for Pugg to drop through. the boy grabbed one of the warrior’s legs to guide him.  He pulled hard but Pugg didn’t move.

Jon looked up. The web had stuck under one of Pugg’s arms. The warrior’s eyes were hug and black, pupils fulled dilated, as he cast a quick glance down at Jonathon. Jon followed the direction of Pugg’s stare. Two enormous hairy legs pushed aside the leafy branches above him and revealed the clicking’s source.

The razor fangs and mandibles of a black spider smacking together in ravenous anticipation, red eyes aglow.

The beast was the size of a bull elephant.

Pick up your copy of
Secrets of the Home Wood: The Sacrifice


Julie Whitley

Julie Whitley is a retired nurse who lives with her husband and mother in what was a small village, now incorporated into a city. She is the mother of a beautiful daughter and grandmother of two grandsons, with whom she loves to spend all her spare time. As well as writing, Julie is an artist, painting in oils and watercolour. Secrets of the Home Wood: the Sacrifice is her first novel and represents a labour of love over twenty years in the making.
The sequel, The Stalker, will be ready for launch soon.

Connect with Julie: WebsiteBlogFacebookTwitter.