Summertide Echoes by Margaret L. Carter is a Book Heaven Wednesday pick #pnr #paranormalromance #newrelease #bhw
How can they settle the clash over their shared property without ruining any hope of a shared life?
Title: Summertide Echoes
Author: Margaret L. Carter
Genre: light paranormal romance
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb:
Joyce Walton wants to sell the vacation cabin she and her childhood best friend, Mark Girard, inherited together. The money will make her long-cherished business plan come true. To her shock, he’s determined to hang onto the place. Although they’ve drifted apart in recent years, she still cares for him. She’s always counted on his support, so why can’t he understand the urgency of her need? Mark believes his younger sister, who died in her teens, lingers on the property, visiting him in dreams at the cabin but nowhere else. He struggles with severing this last remaining tie. Yet he doesn’t want to hurt Joyce, especially when his old feelings for her reawaken. After encountering the ghost of their old Saint Bernard and dreaming of Mark’s sister, Joyce accepts the reality of the supernatural manifestations. Why are the two spirits haunting the cabin? On top of that, she’s falling in love with Mark. How can they settle the clash over their shared property without ruining any hope of a shared life?
Excerpt:
Joyce poured a glass of bottled iced tea and settled in a lawn chair on the front porch with the paperback mystery she was currently reading.
Her attention wandered from the page only when fading daylight made it hard to focus. As she glanced up to rest her eyes, she caught sight of movement among the trees. An animal? A doe strolled into view, picking her way around the edge of the clearing, with occasional pauses to nibble leaves on low-hanging branches. Joyce held still to avoid scaring her, although this close to the national park most deer didn’t tend to be wary of humans. Seconds later, though, the doe’s head shot up, and she dashed into the woods.
Joyce caught her breath in surprise when the Saint Bernard she’d seen twice before emerged from the undergrowth, chasing after the deer. He disappeared under the trees but reappeared in less than a minute, apparently giving up the pursuit. He ambled up the path toward the cabin.
She moved cautiously from the chair to the top step, stretching a hand toward the dog. “Hi, there. Nice of you to visit. I wonder where you live.”
Instead of veering away this time, he walked straight to her, tail wagging and tongue hanging out. Strangely, she didn’t hear panting. Nor did she feel warm breath on her skin as she reached for his collar to check the tag.
Her hand passed through him as if he were a hologram. Or a hallucination.
He couldn’t be. Ms. Ortega and Mark had seen him, too. She snatched her hand back. “Bruno?” Hesitantly Joyce fumbled for the collar again. Again she touched nothing. The dog licked her, but she didn’t feel a wet tongue. Instead, a dry chill enveloped her fingers.
This can’t be happening. She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, he was still there. A second later, though, he vanished. He didn’t run into the woods and fade out of sight among the trees but blinked out of existence like a popped bubble.
Her legs wobbled, and she folded into a heap on the porch steps. Did I dream that?
She didn’t bother with the pinch test. She smelled the mountain laurel blossoms. A breeze rustled the trees and cooled her skin. The boards of the wooden steps felt rough against her thighs. “Bruno? If you’re really here, come back.”
No response, of course. After steadying herself with long, shuddering breaths, she returned to the chair and picked up her abandoned glass of tea. When she gulped a swallow of it, the tinkle of ice and the chill of the liquid flowing down her throat confirmed she was awake.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
https://wildrosepress.com/product/summertide-echoes/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F4Q7PV33/thewildrosepr-20
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/summertide-echoes-margaret-l-carter/1147282912?ean=2940184691077
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/232352365-summertide-echoes
Author Biography:
Reading Dracula at the age of twelve ignited Margaret L. Carter’s interest in a wide range of speculative fiction and inspired her to become a writer. Vampires, however, have always remained close to her heart. Her first published book was an anthology of vampire stories she edited, Curse of the Undead. Her work on vampirism in literature includes Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics, The Vampire in Literature: A Critical Bibliography, and Different Blood: The Vampire as Alien. She holds a PhD in English, and her dissertation contained a chapter on Dracula. In fiction, she has written horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance on vampires, werewolves, Lovecraftian entities, and other “monsters.” Her stories have appeared in various webzines and anthologies, including several of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover and Sword and Sorceress volumes. Her vampire novels include Dark Changeling and its sequel, Child of Twilight, now available in an omnibus edition, Twilight’s Changelings, as well as several vampire romances. With her husband, Leslie Roy Carter, a retired naval officer, she co-authored a fantasy series beginning with Wild Sorceress. Her recent novellas include a Christmas paranormal romance, Chocolate Chip Charm; a spring-themed contemporary fantasy, Bunny Hunt; and a Christmas historical romance novella, A Ghost in the Green Bestiary. Her most recent novel, Against the Dark Devourer, is a dark paranormal romance with Lovecraftian elements. She and Les, who live in Maryland, have four children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Please explore love among the monsters at Carter’s Crypt:
http://www.margaretlcarter.com
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