Double Excerpts!!

Happy snowy Thursday from rural Indiana!! I am on day four of my retirement from my former HR career and am finding so much to do! With the bookstore coming along, four works in progress, planning for the garden and farm stand, my spiritual/mediumship business and catching up on household projects...I am super busy!!

In my last blog, I believe I promised a sneak peek into what I am working on...well...I'm going to give you a bonus today and share two different book excerpts...

Starting off with the fifth book of my Blood Reckoning series...the vigilante vampires out of New Orleans...I bring you Reprisal...with a female vampire:

The swish of an alligator skimming along the top of the murky swamp water reminded her it was about time to go hunting down her prey. From where she sat on the weather worn boards of the dock attached to her piling house in the swamp, the moon was just starting to become visible over the cypress trees. The sounds of night were starting to break into a cacophony of melodies. Creatures who only came out once the light of the sun dropped out of sight and the darkness enveloped the swamp and bayou where only the strongest survived.

She folded her pale, slender legs up and rested her chin upon the firmness of her knees. Her black hair tumbled in disarray around her narrow shoulders and her dark eyes watched as a pirogue cut across the surface of the water from the lot where the swamp dwellers parked their vehicles. Where her own car waited. Even though she really didn’t need a car to get where she needed to go. Even after close to three hundred years, it still gave her a thrill that she could walk on water and run at the speed of light. There were few who knew that about her. And most of them were already stuffed in a stifling tomb at one of the cemeteries in New Orleans.

But there was one. The one who pushed the pirogue toward her right now. One who understood that the importance of what Angelique Moreau did far outweighed the knowledge of what she was. Something that humans would rather destroy because they didn’t understand that not all creatures of the night were to be feared. Well, unless you used fear and violence to control others. Then, you should be scared. Very scared.

A little back story on this...several years ago I took a New Orleans vampire tour with a group of author friends and got to hear about the casket girls of Saint Urulines Convent. Thus, Angelique Moreau was created from that story. I anticipate being able to complete and release this one before me and my author friends go for our little retreat in New Orleans later this spring...so stay tuned...

The second excerpt I'm going to share with you is from my very first non-fiction book. My closest friends know this about me...but most of my readers may not...but I'm also a clairvoyant medium. Yes, I communicate with the spirit world. And as I look back on my life, I've probably been able to do this since I was a child. Being this way probably explains my drive to write paranormal romance and thrillers over my occasional contemporary, small-town romances. For those of you who may be interested, I do have a website called Green Witch Medium that you can find at https://www.greenwitchmedium.com as well as a Facebook page under the same name. I do have a blog there where I share topics in spiritualism, green witchery, and other tidbits. I am available for clairvoyant readings which you can schedule through my website and Facebook. So, with no more delay...here is an excerpt from my upcoming I'm Not Crazy...I'm Clairvoyant:

Outside the darkness of the bedroom, a full moon shone through the curtains. Through the open windows, I could hear the sounds of the things that only whispered at night. Crickets. Frogs. The screech of an owl. Occasionally a car. And from the living room, I could hear the eleven o’clock news that my dad and mom were so fond of watching. I had no idea what was so important about watching that stupid news every night. It was always bad news anyway. All the talk of our soldiers getting killed in Vietnam and that bald-headed president claiming to be sad about it. I couldn’t understand why he just didn’t bring our soldiers home. My dad said that he could. Well, why didn’t he? Adults made no sense to me.

I pulled the covers tightly around me. Sure, it was hot here because it was summertime, but I didn’t want anything to get me. Like ghosts. My mom told me there was no such thing as ghosts. But, on nights like tonight when the moon lit up my room, that woman always showed up in the corner and when she did, the room got cold. It didn’t matter how hot it was outside or inside.

She never said anything to me. She just stood over there in the corner and stared at me. Her dark clothes and hair and face as white as a sheet. I hoped she would stay away tonight. She scared me.

I felt her before I saw her and pulled the covers over my head. Maybe if I did that, she would just go away. If she couldn’t see me hiding under the covers she might go bother someone else. Unfortunately, I was a curious child and couldn’t stop myself.

I peeked out from beneath the covers and as my eyes adjusted to the change from my pitch-black hiding place to the moonlit room, she came into focus. Standing there in the corner of my bedroom. I shivered and could have sworn she moved. No. Surely not. Oh shoot! She moved! And she was coming toward me! I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“Mommmmmyyyyy!!!”

There, you have it. Two excerpts to pique your curiosity. As far as the non-fiction one, it's a first for me and I'm really nervous about sharing a portion of my life that some people may ridicule or judge. But it is who I am and one of the many things that drives me in my current journey in this human world. I think this book will probably release later this year. As in much later. Again, those who follow my blog will be the first to know.

Well, I have a grant application to complete for our grand opening literary event in April, and I have a class tonight at my mentor's house at Camp Chesterfield, so I'm going to sign off for now. Hope you are all having a fantastic week and are taking advantage of some quiet time to read!