Seven Souls A Leaping selected.
Joyfully Reviewed, a rockin’ romance review site, selected SEVEN SOULS A LEAPING–an anthology I wrote with Heather Long and Lisa Pietsch–as a BEST OF 2011. Woo-hoo! Yowza! and Hip-Hip-Hooray! ….followed by a heavy sigh and a lowering of the raised fist. Seven Souls A Leaping is no longer available to readers because the publisher has since gone out of business. The anthology has three really good stories. Really. My contribution was a novella entitled Star Light, Blood Bright.
My story nestled between the other two stories, all of which were connected by the theme of a serial killer, Jeffrey Wiles. In the first story by Lisa Pietsch, entitled Frozen Hell, Wiles is a living killer on the loose. Pietsch’s main character, Duncan MacDougall, is the brother to my main character Samantha MacDougall. Together with their cousin, Tara Conroy (who is the star of Heather Long’s 13th Night), they run the New England New Age Investigations company. By the time I catch up with Wiles, he’s been killed by Lisa’s character, Detective Danyelle Roy. But my character can see auras and soon realizes that wicked Wiles is hopping bodies to continue killing. In 13th Night, Tara uses her connection to the ghostworld to battle Wiles to obliteration.
Star Light, Blood Bright is the 2nd tale.
So, the book is gone. But the story lives on. I’m rewriting Star Light, Blood Bright as a standalone. The best news is that I can change the title. What do you think of Starry Nights? Here’s a blurb and an excerpt. Hopefully, the story will live on. Stay tuned…
Samantha MacDougal can see auras. Her gift usually helps her pursue rascals and wraiths for her family’s business, New England New Age Investigations. But when she begins to track Satanic serial murderer Jeffrey Wiles along icy Boston streets, her own life’s light is in danger of being extinguished. She is alone in her struggle until handsome Boston detective Ike Marshall mysteriously provides a supernatural shield of light that warms her as never before.
EXCERPT:
Ike and Sam stood face-to-face in front of the fireplace, her elbow still gripped in his fingers. A log hissed in the flames. He released her arm. Sam gazed back at him, searching his head for the spikes of tall light she had seen before. He was invisible, not as in the auras that were lost because of encroaching death but because she knew Ike’s aura was somehow inaccessible to her.
Isn’t this what she had wished for? A relief from the constant burden of auras. Yet, she still pulled back from him. She had to get away from him and from everyone. She would find Wiles on her own, because she was the only person who saw him as he truly was. Raw, splintering hatred that was visible only in that ceaseless guttering of charcoal sparks.
Sam smiled and absently massaged her elbow where the feel of Ike’s fingers was still warm. “I don’t think so, Ike. Stow the pity for me. I don’t need you. I’m better by myself.”
“You’re coming with me, Sam, even if I have to carry you out of here.” He gestured with a sweep of his long arm toward the kitchen, now cluttered with both uniformed and plainclothes law enforcement. “And not one of these guys will do anything to stop me.”
Sam half-smiled in spite of herself. She cocked her head and the look of earnest intensity on Ike’s stern face, like a warrior who moves forward to the front lines of a battle and will not surrender, sent a lariat of energy through the air that linked them one to the other.
“Give me one good reason why I should.”
Ike stared at her and the thin skin beneath his eyes tensed as though he felt the same energy and didn’t quite understand it. Sam was entrenched in her decision to go it alone, determined to send well-meaning Ike on his way, until he spoke the only words that made sense.
“I think we’re stronger together.”
Out & About with Writers | Kellyann | 
May 10, 2012 10:14 am | 
Comments (0) 
Subscribe
