My idea of a great weekend involves time spent outside,
renewing my connection to nature. This weekend, for instance, approached
greatness. I got to play in my big vegetable garden, weeding, fussing over my
plant babies, and harvesting peas, herbs, lettuce, and Asian greens of several
kinds. I went for a hike in the nearby state park with my husband (our
tenth anniversary’s June 20th and we still hike hand in hand where
the trail permits). My husband and I lit a fire in the fire pit and sat on the
back deck, sipping hard cider, listening to the peepers in the pond across the
road, and watching the stars come out. The only thing that would have made the
weekend better would have been time on the beach—if you look at my Website,
you’ll notice the ocean background and the photograph of me on the beach—but
time didn’t permit. (In case you’re curious, my favorite beach is in Ogunquit,
Maine, about 2 hours from our house.)
Maybe spending all
that time in the great outdoors explains why, when I sat down to write today, I
felt serene and centered and was able to let the words flow like water. I
recently came back from a great vacation in New Orleans. It was an amazing
experience, one I wouldn’t trade for the world, but all that time in a city
left me badly in need of getting my hands in the dirt, of listening to the
birds, of moving on a rocky trail instead of a sidewalk.
I scarcely live in the wilderness. The big garden is on a
quarter acre lot in a town halfway between Boston and Providence. But the
racket of birds behind the house, the peepers, the garden, all keep me grounded
and productive.
Maybe the “call of the wild” explains why I write so much
about shape-shifters—they’re called duals in my world—and witches who work with
the forces of nature. On July 17, the third book in my Duals and Donovans: The
Different series, Fox’s
Folly, comes out from Samhain Publishing. Unlike the first two books in the series, Lions’
Pride and
Foxes’
Den, both of which were firmly rooted in rural settings, Fox’s Folly takes place in a city. Takes place in Las Vegas, in
fact, where glitz and glitter rule, where nothing is quite what is seems, and
where Paul, a young witch who’s been summoned from his family home in rural
Oregon to track down a magic-using serial killer, is distinctly uneasy and
having trouble tapping into his magic. Luckily he meets Tag, a fox dual. Hot
sexual attraction flares instantly between the two men, but as they work
together to track down the serial killer, Paul and Tag realize there’s more
between them than lust. In the scene below, Tag uses their emotional connection
to help Paul tap into the magic of nature in the heart of Las Vegas—a need
that, in my own non-witchy way, I understand.
This book is a prequel to Foxes’ Den.
Available from Samhain Publishing
Blurb: What
happens in Vegas lasts forever…if you’re lucky.
Las Vegas is
the wrong place for an inexperienced witch like Paul Donavan. But he has no
choice; his family owes a debt of honor to a half-fae casino owner, whose
guests have been dying under mysterious circumstances. The normy police haven’t
connected the dots between the deaths, and the owner has called in his marker.
When Paul
literally runs into fox dual Taggart Ross, the instant, powerful attraction
between them bristles with red flags. Not only should there be no sparks
between him and this “hillbilly with a tail,” the fact is a dual couldn’t have
committed murder-by-magic. But until he’s got proof, caution rules.
Tag’s own
suspicions are on high alert. Magic killed his favorite uncle, and Paul, who
senses Tag’s dual nature way too easily, should be a prime suspect. Except
Tag’s libido responds to the witch in a way that shouldn’t happen.
Whatever this
thing is between them, the raw sexual energy feeds a power that becomes their
best hope of drawing out the killer out before he, she, or it strikes again. Until love gets involved, and things get real
complicated, real fast…
EXCERPT
The familiar powers of earth, air, water and living things Paul could tap in Oregon were far away, and the analogous powers felt far away here in the heart of a city forced to bloom in the desert. “It’s dead here,” he muttered. “No life, just concrete and steel and plastic.”
The familiar powers of earth, air, water and living things Paul could tap in Oregon were far away, and the analogous powers felt far away here in the heart of a city forced to bloom in the desert. “It’s dead here,” he muttered. “No life, just concrete and steel and plastic.”
“Thought so too, when
I first arrived. But it’s not dead, just dry and citified.” Tag took his hand.
“You’re telepathic, right? I’ve heard duals are hard for humans to read because
we think differently than humans do. But you’re not like most humans. You get nature, feel it in your body the way
we do. I think you’ll understand enough.”
Tag pulled him in for a quick, thorough kiss that lit both
red magic and simple desire. “Come on in, Paul,” he whispered, his
bourbon-and-smoke voice inviting so much more. “Experience Las Vegas the way I
do.”
Paul wasn’t used to stepping into anyone’s head but his
twin’s—and he tried to avoid doing the whole Vulcan mind-meld thing with Portia
when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Among witches, high levels of telepathy
were considered more a disability than a gift, and while his was nowhere near
as strong as Portia’s, he still kept it locked down most of the time, especially
around normies, who leaked thoughts and emotions without realizing it.
And his witch-sight was too damn strong. Even when he wasn’t
trying to use it, he still saw auras and essences as clearly as he did the
solid objects everyone could see. The idea of probing with it, in this city of
fools…
But Tag was with him. Tag said he saw more to Las Vegas than
he did, and everyone knew duals didn’t lie.
Paul opened his mind and his witch-sight to the man in his
arms and the city around them.
Life. Las Vegas
was full of foolishness and a sad, desperate greed for material gain and a kind
of packaged fun that Paul, with his witch upbringing and his inclination to
seriousness, didn’t understand. But as easily as he could dismiss so much of
Las Vegas as false, Tag, with his keen dual senses, perceived things
differently. And the witch-sight, fully engaged now and irresistible,
seductive, showed him more.
Disjointed sensory images: hawks circling above the Strip,
stars only a dual could perceive against the brilliant lights of the city, the
smells of crowded humans, ugly in the aggregate but each one individual, full
of life, telling its own unique story. The desert outside the city was full of
life in its own right, though it was a sere, austere kind of life, different
from the lushness he was used to at home or in Ireland, or that Tag knew from
the mountains of Tennessee. Living energy flowed everywhere, whether it was
people enjoying touristy pleasures—the pleasures might be phony on some level,
but the enjoyment of getting away and doing something new and different was
real—or the two housekeepers making out in the supply closet on the next floor
below them, or the Las Vegas residents going about their daily lives, far from
the Strip. The plants in the city’s various gardens and the water flowing
underground had their own energies. Even house pets and performing animals
contributed. Tag’s wordside wasn’t consciously aware of most of it, but his fox
perceived the web of energy and life on a level beyond words, and, linked to
the fox’s keener senses, Paul’s witch-sight became something greater.
He swayed. The world dimmed except for the magical energies
that linked everything, absolutely everything, even the dead trees used for
furniture, even the unimaginably ancient life that had become oil and since
then plastic.
He’d heard about this, heard that the right lover could
bring this dizzying clarity, but he’d never known anyone who’d actually
experienced it, even those happily married to the witch of their dreams.
He woke on the floor of the fae circle, vision blurred by
the swirling colors of witch-sight, power thrumming in his veins. Tag knelt
next to him, holding him, his gorgeous face fraught with concern. “What the
hell…”
“Power surge,” Paul croaked. “It’s good, or it will be once
my eyes focus and my nerve endings stop jangling. Thank you. You helped me find
the power.” He drew Tag down to him and into a deep kiss, passionate for its
own sake, not intended to lead further but to hint at some of what was in his
heart.
Hope you enjoyed. I’ll be giving away an advance
copy of Fox’s Folly on my Website. Go
leave a comment here or on the giveaway blog post before July 18 for a chance
to win!
_________________________________
Teresa
Noelle Roberts
Damn, that was good. Now I want to read it! When does it come out? July 17? A week. I can hold out for a week. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteSuhayma