Excerpt & Giveaway! Wolf Creek by Nikko Lee

Being the Silverbane pack's omega is killing Josh. His plans to escape are foiled when he is blackmailed into finding a new alpha capable of controlling the largest pack in New England before the Amazons cull it. Josh has no clue how he is going to accomplish this task, let alone stay out of the sights of his power-hungry cousin, Bryce, who is convinced he is the pack’s next alpha. 

Josh befriends Andrea, an erratic Amazon trainee, who talks to the ghost of her dead mother and has her own agenda when it comes to the wolf pack. When he is rescued by Gavin, a handsome park ranger driven to live in the furthest reaches of civilization, Josh feels a pull toward him that is more than just physical attraction. The three develop a bond that is stronger than friendship and tested at every turn. 

With the help of his new family, Josh must find the strength within him to save the Silverbane pack and defeat the evil that threatens to turn them into killers. Only then can he finally be free.

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“I don't know about this.” Josh waited with Andrea outside the ranger station.

Gavin would be off duty in a few minutes. Andrea's harebrained scheme was the only plan they had time for. Instead of slowly baiting Gavin into revealing his true nature, they were going to have to shock him into it, but Josh was starting to have doubts.

“What if he isn't a werewolf?”

Andrea frowned.

“Okay, what if he is and he tries to kill me?”

“I'll protect you,” Andrea said, but it didn't give Josh much assurance.

“Have you ever won a fight against a werewolf?”

Andrea tore her shirt at the collar, then unbuttoned her jeans.

“Almost,” she said with a smile.

Josh didn't have another second to protest. Andrea pulled him against her so suddenly that their lips collided and her teeth cut into his lips. Just as suddenly, she was pushing him away and screaming.

“No!” Andrea fought to get away from him without really letting go of him. She shook him back and forth. “You're hurting me!”

Then, Josh was being hurled backwards.

“What the fuck is going on?” Gavin shouted.

Josh scrambled to his feet.

“I don't know,” Andrea said through sobs. Blood smeared her lips and tears drenched her cheeks. “He said he wouldn't share me, that I was his.”

As ridiculous as it sounded, Gavin looked utterly convinced that Josh had attacked Andrea. Gavin's chest expanded from more than just heavy breathing. The fabric of his uniform strained against flexing muscles, but it was the wild look in his eyes that worried Josh. Gavin was on the verge of losing control. He actually looked like he could transform.

“Go inside,” Gavin said to Andrea, without taking his eyes off Josh. “I'll deal with this bastard.”

Josh scrambled backwards as Gavin stalked toward him. The normally good-natured ranger was seething with rage. His soft brown eyes were hard and flinty.

“I told you to stay away from her.” He hauled Josh up by his collar and threw him against a tree.

Josh cowered against the tree trunk and waited for the inevitable beating. Gavin loomed over him, his breathing ragged, but no blows came. He seemed to be struggling within himself, his hands clawing at the tree bark and his eyes shut. Josh could see him regaining control over his anger. If he didn't act soon, Gavin would calm himself enough that Josh would never know if he could save the pack.

“She's mine,” Josh said. It was a timid challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. “I saw her first. I'm not going to give her up without a fight.”

He stripped off his shirt and tried to remember how Silverbane looked just before he transformed. At a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter, Josh wouldn't have been surprised if Gavin laughed at him. But Gavin was lost to his anger, taking off his shirt and backing away, ready to fight. 

“Come on,” he said, and motioned for Josh to attack him. “Let's settle this.”

The air was electric on Josh's skin. He could feel the gravel shift under his feet. He smelled the forest behind him and the testosterone of the menacing male in front of him. For the first time in his life, he was going to have to fight to save those he cared about. Even if it meant getting hurt or dying, Josh had to bring out Gavin's beast and test him as Elaine would.

He took a swing at Gavin, but Gavin had already moved to the side. A crushing pain in Josh's ribs was followed by a blow that knocked him from his feet, and he scrambled to put space between them. There was no doubt that Gavin could best him in a fist fight. The only other person Josh had ever taken a swing at was Andrea, and she had dealt with him like he was no more than a child throwing a temper tantrum.

If he was going to challenge Gavin, Josh had to transform. He felt close to it. His muscles ached to expand. Inside his body, he felt the howl of the beast that cried to be set free but refused to break the invisible pack bond that held it in check. The full moon was so close. Even Elaine and Bryce looked ready to heed its call earlier. Why couldn't Josh? 

Gavin attacked, but it was Josh's turn to evade. He might not be a fighter, but he was an expert in avoiding getting hurt. The more he evaded Gavin, the angrier Gavin got. His body was beginning the transformation. The seams of his pants split and the leather of his boots creaked under the force of expanding feet.

“Fight me.” Gavin's voice was little more than a barely intelligible grunt. “Fight.”

As close as he was to transforming, something was holding him back. Maybe he didn't have control over it. 

Josh had seen teenage pack members experience their first transformations without a command from Silverbane. It was a struggle that could last hours. His own first time had come at Silverbane's command. He'd been fourteen, older than most werewolves who transformed when they reached puberty, and even after he'd taken wolf form, he had cowered until Silverbane released him.

Gavin's swings were faster and harder, but less coordinated. It was getting harder for Josh to predict where they'd come from and how to avoid them. Josh had only transformed a handful of times under Silverbane's command. Now that his alpha was gone, he had to find out if Gavin was his new alpha.

“You want me to fight?” Josh said stepping out of the way of a wild haymaker.

“Yes, fight me now.”

The pull from Gavin was undeniable. Josh realized then that there was nothing he could refuse Gavin; not because he was infatuated with him, but because Gavin was his alpha. Josh would do whatever it took to satisfy him. Right now that meant having the strength to give him the fight he needed.

The author is a scientific curator who enjoys writing genre fiction from erotica to horror under the pen name Nikko Lee. Born in Canada, she moved to Maine after completing a PhD in Zoology and her post-doctoral training. She resides near Bar Harbor with her husband, daughter, two cats and malamute. The author blogs about hiking, writing and science at www.nikkolee.com.

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Book Spotlight & Guest Post! Asylum: A Mistery by Jeannette De Beauvoir

Martine LeDuc is the director of PR for the mayor's office in Montreal. When four women are found brutally murdered and shockingly posed on park benches throughout the city over several months, Martine's boss fears a PR disaster for the still busy tourist season, and Martine is now also tasked with acting as liaison between the mayor and the police department. The women were of varying ages, backgrounds and bodytypes and seemed to have nothing in common. Yet the macabre presentation of their bodies hints at a connection. Martine is paired with a young detective, Julian Fletcher, and together they dig deep into the city's and the country's past, only to uncover a dark secret dating back to the 1950s, when orphanages in Montreal and elsewhere were converted to asylums in order to gain more funding. The children were subjected to horrific experiments such as lobotomies, electroshock therapy, and psychotropic medication, and many of them died in the process. The survivors were supposedly compensated for their trauma by the government and the cases seem to have been settled. So who is bearing a grudge now, and why did these four women have to die?

Not until Martine finds herself imprisoned in the terrifying steam tunnels underneath the old asylum does she put the pieces together. And it is almost too late for her...in Jeannette de Beauvoir's Asylum.

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Why Read About Murder?

My mother was a voracious mystery reader, and it is thanks to her that I “met” many of the authors who are still among my favorites: Mary Stewart, Josephine Tey, Mignon G. Eberhart, Rex Stout, Michael Innes, and many, many more. Her side of my parents’ bedroom was always heaped up with books: books sliding onto the floor, books placed in precarious and untidy piles, books tucked under tissue boxes and bedside lamps.

And a few of them, it has to be said, had some pretty lurid covers. This was the 1960s, and it was a time of realism. Women in tight sheath dresses being menaced by suit-wearing gunmen. Blood spilling out across a bright book jacket. A frightened figure running through the woods. And I can remember, too, visiting her bedroom (in her absence, of course) and being just a little distressed that she seemed to welcome so much violence into her world.

I was reminded of that recently when I was watching a TV program with a friend—one of the death-porn shows like Criminal Minds, I think—and there was a moment of particular gruesomeness. My friend turned to me and said, “Tell me again, what it is you like about this show?”

Right. There it is. Death as entertainment. On the surface of it, we mystery readers really, really like to read about death. Suspicious deaths, orchestrated deaths, clever deaths, carefully planned deaths. What is up with that?

Not to sound too trite, but I think that part of the answer at least is that murder ups the ante. Sure, there are mysteries that are about embezzlement, stolen treasures, and missing pets; but nothing holds our attention the way a murder mystery does.

Part of it, no doubt, is the escapism it offers. After all, stolen items and runaway pets are, unhappily, part of our normal lives. You read about someone embezzling retirement funds, and you start worrying about your own. You read about someone not clicking the lock so the dog got out, and you find yourself checking your own door. But the reality is that even when someone is killed and we read about it in the papers, it’s quite different from something investigated by Miss Marple or Lord Peter Wimsey. Most murders—at least the ones we know about—are shabby affairs, not particularly clever and not particularly interesting: they have more to do with drug deals, turf wars, or robberies gone bad than they do with intricate planning and hidden motives. 

So to read about diabolical motives and careful plotting takes us somewhere we’re not likely to ever go in Real Life. And that’s one of the functions of fiction, isn’t it? To transport readers to a different world?

But there’s more to it than simple escapism: other popular genres, like science fiction and romance, do the same: they also offer a few hours’ respite from our daily stresses. No; I think I need to go back to my original thought, which was that murder ups the ante. It’s the one thing that we have in common, after all: the certainty of death—and our fear of it.

It’s a truism that being exposed in a benign way to something we fear allows us to vicariously experience—and deal with our terror of—things that go bump in the night. It explains the popularity of horror flicks … and it also contributes to our love of murder mysteries. They provide an intellectual exercise as well as giving us that frisson, that ability to dip our toes into the cold water and squeal and then go back to Real Life... even as we confront our fears of death actually ever happening to us. 

Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps reading—and writing!—murder mysteries is simply a more genteel way of tapping into the apparent need for violence that humans experience: a kinder, gentler Coliseum. It’s possible, but I don’t think so; our violence comes to us wrapped in velvet shawls and locked rooms, in perfume wafting on the air and clever sarcastic protagonists outsmarting the police. We’re intellectual voyeurs rather than sadists.

And now, as my own side of the bed has come very much to look like my mother’s, I too pick up tales of death on the high seas, death in discreet drawing-rooms, death hidden in a poison cup, and these stories lull me to sleep just as they did her. Why read about murder? It sure beats sleeping pills!

Jeannette de Beauvoir is the author of ASYLUM, available from St. Martin’s/Minotaur. Read more about her at www.JeannetteAuthor.com.

JEANNETTE DE BEAUVOIR is an award-winning author, novelist, and poet whose work has been translated into 12 languages and has appeared in 15 countries. She explores personal and moral questions through historical fiction, mysteries, and mainstream fiction. She grew up in Angers, France, but now divides her time between Cape Cod and Montréal. Read more at www.jeannetteauthor.com

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Excerpt, Author Interview & Giveaway! Discovery, Drakyl Ranch #1 by Thianna Durston

Warning: This book is a paranormal m/m romance with some horror elements. It also crosses cowboy and vampire genres. If you don’t think cowboys look hot with fangs, you’re missing out.

Living in Montana and working the ranch is all Aaron wants to do for the rest of his life. Diagnosed as allergic to the sun thirteen years previous, every day is a struggle to get out of bed. Having to wear long-sleeved shirts, gloves, and even material to cover his face from the effects of the sun, just makes it all worse. Now, in his thirty-second year, he is sure this will be his last summer. While he hates it, he knows he needs to come to terms with the truth and put things in order for his younger cousins. Before he does so, he heads out for one night of pleasure before facing what’s coming.

Jaret loves excitement and new adventures. For over five hundred years, he has sought them out. In Montana on a whim, he comes across someone he doesn’t expect, someone who makes him feel things he does not understand and does not want to give up. In no time at all, he feels like he cannot live without Aaron. The only problem is Aaron doesn’t know who he is, what he is, nor that he isn’t going to die. Not on Jaret’s watch. With a plan to help the other man discover who he is in place, he only has one thing to worry about: whether an ancient enemy will come and destroy everything he now holds dear.

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“You’re not going to die, Aaron.”

“You don’t know that. This sickness, ailment, curse…whatever the fuck it is. It’s gettin’ worse. And it’s changin’. Morphin’ into somethin’ scary. My nightmares lately have been horrible.”

“What kind of nightmares?” Of course, Jaret knew. They were the same kind all of them had during the change. Fire and ice as the body went through horrendous chills and soaring high fevers. They would only stop once the change was complete. For after that, there was no real sleep anymore.

“Bein’ caught on high mountains, pelted with snow. Of the forests here bright with orange fire. Of you—” His voice broke. “Callin’ out my name only I’m no longer here to respond.”

“Babe,” Jaret said in a soft voice, not understanding why but knowing he was closer to this drakyl than he had ever been to anyone. “We’re going to get you cured. Then you can come out with me at night. We’ll keep the place predator free while your cousins slave in the sun. How does that sound?”

A sad attempt at a laugh left the other man’s throat. “Promise me you won’t leave until I’m gone?”

Fury swept along Jaret’s veins. Anger at the sun, the fact the man next to him was terrified, and at Davis for not explaining to the poor man earlier what he was. But mostly, he was furious at himself for not telling Aaron the truth. Leaning in, he placed his nose against Aaron’s. “I promise you,” he said in a deep growl, “that you are not going to die, Aaron Drakyl. I won’t let it happen.”

Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Thianna Durston author of Discovery.

Hi Thianna, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.

Do you buy a book because of the cover, the blurb, or something else?

 There are several ‘things’ that will encourage me to buy a book. If I am unfamiliar with the author, the cover is the first line of defense. If it turns me off, I won’t go any further. However, if I like it or if it intrigues me, I will read the blurb. If the blurb truly captures me, I’ll buy it. But if I’m still iffy, I’ll download a sample. There are very few authors who are ‘auto buys’ for me. Jordan. L. Hawk, M.L. Ryan, and Andrew Grey are the only three who I do not have to read the blurb to snatch up their works. But Heidi Cullinan’s definitely getting close to that. Especially her Love Lessons series – I love Walter Lucas.

What does ‘romance’ mean to you? 

That’s a hard word to define. In terms of romance in books, it means the couple needs to grow, have troubles, and come out on top and together. I love imperfect heroes who either have to overcome their faults or who have a partner who learns to either just accept or outright love that fault.

What are your current projects? How much time do you have?

 *grins* Besides finishing the next 5 books in the Drakyl Ranch series, I’m also working on book 5 of a contemporary M/M romance series of which the first two are contracted with Dreamspinner Press and the 3rd and 4th books have been submitted. I’m also working on a book for Dreamspinner’s new Dreamspun Desires line which I’m excited about. Also, I’m heading up a multi-author M/M action/suspense romance series that will debut in about a year.

What is the most difficult part of writing for you? 

Writer’s block. Some say it doesn’t exist – I say bah! Some books flow so well, but others? Not so much. I’m a pantser so I don’t plot beforehand. My muse works through me and the story goes from the ether through my fingers into the computer. When those characters stop talking? It’s pure torture. Especially when that manuscript is due.

Tell us something about yourself that would surprise people. 

I’m a perfectionist and not necessarily in a good way. I don’t care how other people do things but I’m a bit hard on myself if I don’t get something right the first time. It can get so bad that if I’m in a crowd and someone asks me a question, I literally can suffer through brain freeze where I can’t think of an answer. Even if the question is simple. 

Thianna loves to write strong stories with even stronger heroes. While all of her books have an erotic overtone, it is the story that is the most important to her. “The story should be able to stand on its own. The erotic elements are an add-on.” 

She enjoys writing about couples with kink, paranormal couples, and straight out strangeness. But more on that later… You can find her at mm.thiannad.com.

She also writes m/f under the name Thianna D.

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Book Blitz & Giveaway! The Same Deep Water by Lisa Swallow

Sometimes, believing the lies we tell ourselves is easier than dealing with the truth. Once, I wanted to die. That was the night I met Guy. The strange man with flowers stepped from the shadows and saved my life. Guy. Dimpled smile. Body of a surf god. Smart and funny. Running out of time. We became travelling companions through life, ticking off items on our bucket lists. I’d hidden from happiness for years and kept my life under strict control. Guy showed me how to step into the world and experience more, he brought light into the shadows and helped me through the darkness. I became Phe again. I lived. There’s just one problem. We fell in love and this wasn’t part of our plans. I thought we could face the future together, but Guy has a secret which changes everything.

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Lisa is an author of new adult romance and writes both paranormal and contemporary, often with a side of snark. Lisa is originally from the UK but moved to Australia in 2001 and now lives in Perth in Western Australia with her husband, three children and dog.

   

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Excerpt, Playlist & Giveaway! Deathless & Divided, The Chicago War #1 by Bethany-Kris

Lies and love. This is how a war starts.

A life for a life. That’s the mafia way. Damian Rossi owes his life to a man who is ready to collect. That payment comes in the form of an arranged marriage to the daughter of another leading family in the Chicago Outfit. He’s ready to follow through, even if that means making sure Lily knows she’s his.

Lily DeLuca isn’t being given a choice. Forced home to marry a man she doesn’t know and back into a life she’d rather forget, her world is full of half-truths, buried pain, and uncertainty. But Damian is nothing like she expects. His motives aren’t clear. Her beliefs are being tested.

When it comes to this world, no man can be trusted. Someone is ready to flip the Chicago Outfit on its side all for the promise of something better. But no one runs a clean game and these men play for keeps. When blood begins to paint Chicago red, four families will be divided by loyalty, hatred, and revenge. There is no hiding. There is no safety.

No one is deathless.

No one.

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Lily hugged the dress shirt tighter around her frame, well aware it did nothing to hide the expanse of her bare legs as she padded down the short hallway of an unfamiliar apartment. With sleep-tousled hair, weary eyes, and a sinking feeling in her stomach, she kept moving to find the sweet smell of coffee wafting. 

She remembered the night before clearly. She hadn’t tumbled into an unfamiliar bed out of drunken stupidity, but instead, climbed under Damian Rossi’s sheets without so much as an argument. Then again, he took the guest bedroom. 

Why he just didn’t take his own bed and gave Lily the guest bed, she wasn’t sure. 

The tiny kitchenette gave a view of the large living room. Lily damn near tripped over her own two feet at the sight of Damian bare-chested with track shorts riding low on his hips. With every pull as he lifted his fit, muscled frame over the bar set between the doorjamb of a connecting room, his body barely reacted to the exercise. Like it was nothing at all, he did several sets of chin-ups while he watched a news program turned on low. 

Lily’s throat went dry. 

The expanse of his muscled chest drove straight down over a railroad path of abs into the hard cut V of his groin. Damian’s skin was clean of any ink and other than a small scar on his right pec, his body was unblemished. The slightest sheen of perspiration dampened his skin while his dark hair fell over his gaze glued on the flat-screen. Any female within the vicinity of this man looking like he was right then would probably throw themselves at him. He was the perfect vision of a male personified. Sex on fucking legs right there in flesh and blood. 

Even Lily found herself shifting on the spot and rubbing her thighs together to soothe the sudden ache between her legs. 

Jesus Christ. 

What was wrong with her? 

I want you to come to me willingly. 

Lily sucked in a breath and forced the sudden desire pooling in her stomach away. 

She couldn’t help but wonder how this ridiculously attractive man seemed to go as unnoticed around people as he did. How could he slip into a crowd and disappear when he practically screamed for someone to look at him?

Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to three young sons, one cat, and two dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a hubby calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find the time. To keep up-to-date with new releases from Bethany-Kris, sign up to her New Release Newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/bf9lzD

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Excerpt & Giveaway! Keeping House, Truth or Dare #1 by Lee Brazil

Mischa knows his brothers are up to something. He doesn't realize it will lead him to Donovan Holloway and change his carefree lifestyle forever.

Having grown up in a free-love hippie commune taking care of the parents who should have been taking care of him, Donovan Holloway, advertising executive, newly made vice president of the company where he’s worked for twenty years, has come a long way. He’s worked hard to put himself through school and achieve the American dream. All he’s ever wanted is a normal family life—house in the suburbs, two cars, two kids, a shaggy dog. A family to come home to, to care for, to care for him has been his dream since he was a small boy.

Green-eyed, liberally pierced, black-haired, Mohawk-wearing spoiled youngest son of a Hollywood producer and his actress wife, Mischa Blake has made a terrible mistake. In a fit of childish pique, he’s accepted a dare from his older brothers. The dare? Live on his own, supporting himself completely, for a year without accessing his trust fund. No problem. Except Mischa has never worked a day in his life, hasn’t finished college, and has absolutely no skills to bring to the table.

When he sees Donovan’s ad for a housekeeper/gardener, he has nothing to lose by applying, because really…how hard can it be?

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Donovan Holloway flung the heavy oak front door of his new dream home open with a thud. He peered out at the extremely tardy final interviewee for the position of housekeeper and groaned inwardly. The person on the other side of the door was not the one he'd been expecting.

"Yes?" He didn't have time for neighborhood boys selling magazines, cookies, or candy bars, even if they were sexy as hell. The person at the door might, might, have been seventeen. He should just shut the door and hope the kid went away. On second glance, shutting the door on temptation incarnate seemed like a damn good idea.

Wearing a tight black T-shirt, black skinny jeans, and black skate shoes, his visitor carried a skateboard under one arm and a black backpack hung off the other. His head was shaved on both sides leaving a strip down the center that was ink-black and, despite the rain, stood in four-inch porcupine spikes. He was pale, eyes red-rimmed, and literally drenched. Damn. That wet look sure was effective. Pervert! He snarled at himself. Note to self— get out of the office and get laid this weekend.

Donovan stepped back, prepared to slam the door, but something sad in those green eyes gave him pause. "Hey, are you all right? Do you need help?" He scanned the quiet neighborhood, looking for a reason the kid might be knocking on his door, envisioning gangs of hoodlums stalking the as yet silent boy through upscale neighborhoods.

He shuddered and then swallowed audibly before speaking. "I'm Mischa Blake."

Donovan stared uncomprehending.

"Mikhail?" Deep green eyes stared at Donovan expectantly. When no response was forthcoming, he added, "Michael? Blake? I have an interview?"

Donovan shoved his hand into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a pink phone slip from his secretary. M. Blake was his sixth scheduled interview for the position of housekeeper/cook/gardener.

The first applicant, a beady-eyed battle-axe, had taken one look around his yard and at the clutter in his house yet to be unpacked and announced that she most emphatically did not work for pigs.

He knew the place was a mess. He'd found his ranch style house on the market at the right price and decided to celebrate his recent promotion to vice president of the advertising agency where he'd worked for the past twenty years by moving out of the tiny apartment he'd lived in for years and into a real home. It was the house he'd imagined so often as a kid, boasting a large yard, open floor plan, huge kitchen, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, gorgeous picture windows, and vaulted ceilings.

Of course, in his childhood fantasies, the house had been occupied by him, and a beautiful wife—a golden-haired, blue-eyed, petite Florence Henderson look-alike—and a bevy of beautiful, intelligent children. He'd suffered a minor setback at seventeen when he discovered he was gay, but after due consideration, he’d replaced Florence with Phillip Henderson and been instantly back in business.

The housekeeping candidate hadn't cared about his dream-turned-nightmare. She'd flounced out before he could even give her the job description. The second applicant had sat sipping coffee in his office, murmuring noncommittally in response to his job description for several moments. He nurtured high hopes for the middle-aged lady, until she abruptly interrupted him to demand, "Are you one of them? Because I'm looking at you, and I'm guessing, Myrtle, he's one of them. You're a gay man, aren't you?"

He'd sat in stunned silence, mouth hanging open a bit too long as she began to spout fire and brimstone and call upon God to wreak his vengeance on all sodomites. She'd still been spewing vitriol as he clasped her elbow and hustled her the few feet from his home office to the front door and out onto the sidewalk.

"I'm looking for someone to cook a few meals and scrub the toilets, not validate my existence!" he called after her as he slammed the door.

The third applicant hadn't spoken a word of English, and since he had zero chance of learning to speak Hmong, he'd nodded, shaken his head and hustled her out the door as quickly as he could as well. The fourth applicant had been a no-show. It was depressing. He'd really screwed up his chances of fulfilling his lifelong dream by purchasing the house before he'd found the Phillip Henderson to manage it!

Hiring a housekeeper to manage his home life much as his secretary managed his business life was a brilliant option. The housekeeper could handle the dream house that had become a nightmare, and he could concentrate on finding that Phillip Henderson after he got his work life sorted out again.

Instead, the only candidate he would even consider hiring had been the fifth. She'd been a perfectly wonderful grandmotherly type who'd labeled him adorable and patted him on the cheek like he was a six-year-old boy instead of a forty-year-old businessman. He'd fallen more than a little in love with her right at the moment her soft wrinkled hand patted his cheek so sweetly. Unfortunately, she looked to be about ninety-six, and delicate—as though her spun sugar white hair would melt in the rain. He'd have felt guilty as hell asking her to clean up after him. He'd kept her number, just in case he could come up with a reason to invite her back over after his house was in order. She'd be the perfect grandmother figure for the children he had yet to adopt. Phillip Henderson, where are you?

Sighing, he looked up from the scrap of paper. "You're applying to be my housekeeper?"

Somewhere in a small town in up-state New York are a librarian and a second grade teacher to whom I owe my life. That might be a touch dramatic, but it's nevertheless one hundred percent true. 

Because they taught me the joy of reading, of escaping into worlds crafted of words. 

Have you ever been nine years old and sure of nothing so much as that you don't belong? Looked at the world from behind glasses, and wondered why you don't fit? 

Someone hands you a book, and then you turn the page and see… There you are, running from Injun Joe in a dark graveyard; there you are fencing with Athos; there you are…beneath the deep blue sea- marveling at exotic creatures with Captain Nemo. 

I found myself between the pages of books, and that is why I write now. It's why I taught English and literature for so many years, and it's why my house contains more pounds of books than furniture. 

If I'd had my way, I'd have been a fencer…or a starship captain, or a lawyer, or a detective solving crimes. But instead, I am a writer, and I've come to realize that's the best thing in the world to be, because as a writer, I can be all those things and more. 

If I hadn't learned to value the stories between the pages, who knows what would have happened? Certainly not college…teaching…or writing.

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