Teaser #1

Silver Hollow is close to being published. All we lack is the revised blurb (because let’s face it, most of us are not so good at writing summaries of our own work as we like to think) and then it’s a go! I cannot wait to share this book with the world. But meanwhile, here’s the first teaser trailer. 

His fingers left bloody streaks upon her perfectly fashioned cheeks, blood yet pouring from the wound in her side. Tears blurred his vision until he could see little, until he could only see flashes of their time together in his mind…Until—

“Richard, you backstabbing coward!” Lord Rupert’s shirt had been torn during their duel hours before. He had been lying dead on the battlefield the last time Richard saw him. Pale as his countenance was, thick chest heaving, how was the blasted devil still alive? Rapier brandished, he cut through the air as he continued his tirade. “How dare you tell me lies when all I ever showed you both was kindness?”

 

Richard clutched the motionless form of his love even closer. “Kindness?” Were they back to this again? “You named us as spies to the Emperor! We’ve been running for our lives ever since! How can you still name us your friends?”

Rupert towered over them both, ominous, spittle coating his words. “She never loved you! Have you not realized yet your precious Mary is the Lady Desdemona? That she lured you to her, making you all believe she wanted to betray her own countrymen, when she has been my wife these two-and-ten years?”

Richard trembled, shook as a beast roared inside of him. His voice sounded with the distant cannon yet overpowered it. “LIES!”

“Bah!” Lord Rupe—

 

Pausing, Amie stared at the mostly blank white screen and the blinking cursor waiting for her next move. She’d been attempting to write for the last two hours and rewritten the same paragraph at least ten times. Giving up, she let out a small scream of frustration, and snatched up the lost key to twirl between her fingers again. In the short hours since she’d discovered it the silvery metal had become something of a good luck charm. It also had the knack of continuously reminding her of the Englishman and consequently her father’s ring and Uncle Henry’s letter.

Amie sank back into her chair, arms falling upon either side of the leather rest. “The old codger’s out of his mind!” she grumbled to the half-full screen of her laptop. The tickets hidden in the envelope were for tomorrow night. No doubt they had cost the old man a fortune, therefore making her feel even guiltier for wanting to refuse.

Bet he had a blast orchestrating that one.

Tilting her head back, she twirled, eyes focusing on the Christmas lights she had yet to box up. She had always loved Christmas lights. In high school she had pinned them up around her room, refusing to take them down after the holidays, though her mother laughed and protested. Amie won, of course. She had always got what she wanted then.

Uncle Henry had been nothing more than a part of the occasional cursory mention of her father’s past. The rare occasion she dared ask him anything, Drustan would grow silent, and then change the subject. So few answers had she gleaned from him, she hardly knew anything about him. Only that he was her father’s elder brother and still lived on their family estate back in northern England.

Amie’s father had been raised in an isolated estate in the countryside, a place he had despised so much he ran away and caught a ride to the States the first chance he had. If Mother ever learned anything else of Uncle Henry she never told Amie. There were times Amie had forgotten the man existed, until that day, ten years ago, after he learned of his brother’s death.

Amie frowned, grabbing her ceramic mug off her desk, and with a last groan for her laptop stood and walked purposefully to her small room. With another strand of Christmas lights to guide her way, she knelt before her ceiling-tall wardrobe. It was an old thing her father once bought for her to add to the family collection of antiques, but she had always kept her treasures within it instead of clothing. She pulled open the bottom drawer and set her mug to the side. Riffling through keepsakes and small treasures, she eventually uncovered an even older folded sheet of parchment paper.

She froze as memories claimed her…

Of the horrid night she spent in her parents’ countryside home, Jo and Faye already asleep on her bed after a long day of tears and pain. It was only then she had dared open the strange letter an even stranger man had handed her at the funeral. Inside was an offer too bizarre to believe. Uncle Henry was asking her to come and live with him in England, had even put her plane and train ticket in the envelope. She had torn up the tickets in anger and buried the letter in her stash of old papers immediately.

Her eyes scanned over the words ten years later once more.

 

“I have no doubt my brother has shared little with you of our ancestral home, or the legacy you share, dearest Jessamiene. He held little love for our world and its responsibilities. My deepest regret in learning of his passing is that I never had the chance to tell him how important he was, how he will always be my brother. I wish for you to know the truth, Jessamiene, to grant me peace in my old age, yet also to know you.

I wish to share our legacy with you, should you choose to accept it. I wish to give you the answers your father has been unable to. I know the sacrifice you will make to come, and I do not view lightly the circumstances you find yourself in.

At present my own circumstances are difficult at best. It cost me more than I can say to be certain this parchment met your hands. I pray you guard it, dear one, but follow my instructions and all will be revealed…”