Excerpt Week

MARRED Excerpt – Sue Coletta

/ Sue Coletta / 32 Comments

ONE

Sunday

1:30 P.M.

I used to believe people were inherently good, if only at their core. I saw the brokenness of the homeless. The, if only he caught a break. . . I respected the overachiever in the football star, hoping for Daddy’s approval even though he knew he’d never get it. I saw the heart of the sinner. The souls of lovers. The shattered dreams of an abandoned child. I saw good in evil. Spirit in the unholy. The complexities of love, marriage, life. Hell, I welcomed the challenge. I had hopes and dreams and affirmations. I did.

And then, that all changed. My views shattered. Or maybe, my eyes finally opened.

That’s what Niko would say. Though now, devastation also fills his eyes. He no longer looks at me as his optimistic wife who loves life. I miss our blissful marriage. I miss our baby. I miss my blindfold. Oh, how I wish I could put it back on. Most of all, I miss. . . me.

Now, I’m just trying to survive. And so, I go through life on autopilot.

***

Clutching a load of laundry I hobbled down the stairs. A white-hot pain shot to my right knee and folded me in half. The basket of clothes tumbled down the stairs– socks, T-shirts, jeans, shorts and Niko’s sheriff’s uniform strewn about the living room floor.

I fell back against the stairs. Twined my arms around the railing and stared at the white lines on my forearms left by the knife. The thick scar on my neck tugged at the skin as I straightened. Even after three long years and hours and hours of counseling, one small reminder– the sight of my scars– made me relive that night over again. I still could not get past what that man did to me.

The phone startled me when it rang. Continue reading →

Excerpt #3 from Summer Magic: Poems of Life & Love

/ Marcia Meara / 6 Comments

It’s fun to have a chance to share a bit of poetry on here. I’ve always loved it, but in today’s world, far too few take the time to enjoy the sound of words, and the shape of a poem, which to me is an integral part of what it says. Even though I’m not great at it, I enjoy writing poetry far too much to ever quit. The last one I shared was about love and hope. This one is about betrayal and loss.

The Last Rose

Late July, and
The day drowses,
Air heavy and still.
Bees moving slowly from
Flower to flower,
In a dance weighed down by heat.
Sleepy hours spent dreaming, longing
For other places, other chances.
Anything better
Than one more day
Spent under this weight,
With movements made slow,
Like easy prey.

He walked out of the dust
And into the garden,
The answer to a prayer.
Wickedly handsome, he came to her with
A smile full of promises she chose to believe.
Take me away, she begged.
Yes, he whispered, of course.
Whatever you want, my beautiful girl.
He gave her dreams of cool, green hills
And kisses that tasted of summer peaches.
Sweet lies on a sweeter tongue,
Promises whispered with hot breath,
Against already burning skin,
And everywhere, the smell of roses
Thick on the summer air.

But winter came,
Bringing brittle wind
Seeping under the sill,
As cold as hungry lies
Told when the sun was warm.
Her heart is a frozen stone
In the center of her breast,
The chance of rescue,
Gone. Forgotten.
A faded rose in a dry vase
Drops one last petal to the floor,
As gray as her life
In this barren room.
Empty promises fled
With the summer sun,
And left nothing behind
But dead dreams and dying hope,
Gasping and huddled
Against the bitter
Cold.

 

Excerpt 2 from THE PRINCE’S MAN, #EpicFantasy by Deborah Jay. #readers #books

/ Deborah Jay / Debby Lush / 5 Comments

Yesterday I shared a snippet of dialogue from the first meeting of the two main characters in THE PRINCE’S MAN.

Today we have an action sequence. To set the scene, Rustam and Lady Risada are fleeing an enemy’s lands, burdened with an unconscious elf they have just rescued from a dungeon.

Enjoy 😀

ChapterHeader

Rustam tightened the horses’ girths while Risada filled the canteens. They had just remounted when thundering hooves pounded down the slope behind them and three riders burst into the clearing.

On the edge of his vision Rustam saw Risada drop the bay mare’s reins, draw her dagger and raise a blowpipe to her lips in one fluid set of movements, while he struggled awkwardly to free his sword from the saddle scabbard beneath his left thigh.

Nightstalker pranced eagerly, destroying the tiny moment of concentration he needed to snap his mind into high speed. The elf bounced in front of him, blocking his view. He cursed and curbed the mare sharply. She half reared in protest.

The glint of a blade sliced towards him. Rustam threw himself sideways just as Nightstalker squealed and lashed out with her hind feet. Already off balance, Rustam slithered from the saddle pulling the elf with him, and they crashed heavily to the ground. Continue reading →

Excerpt from Hunter, Riverbend Book 2

/ Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

Those of you who have read Swamp Ghosts and keep asking when Hunter is coming out will be glad to know it’s still on schedule for a late summer, early fall publication date. And just as a special treat for ya, I’m sharing the Prologue here today. This is a Work In Progress, so it will no doubt be tightened and polished a good bit in editing, but here’s the rough draft. Enjoy!

***

Dawn, March 20, 2014
~~~

EVERYTHING WAS PAIN. Everything he felt, everything he remembered. Pain, and pain, and pain. His dreams were filled with sounds of agony, screams ricocheting through his head. And blood. Rivers of blood, forming scarlet, coppery-scented puddles that spread across the darkness.

He woke up on his knees, vomiting into the grass. Afterward, he crawled back up onto the park bench, mouth sour, and head throbbing. Shivering, he tried to push the dreams away, but they weren’t ready to let him go.

Something bad, that was the  problem. He had done something bad. Worse than bad. Something unthinkable. He understood that his crime was the root of all his dreams, and if only he could remember, he’d know what he needed to do next. But when he tried to get it straight in his head, the screams would start again, followed by that God-awful, unrelenting pain.

As the day dawned around him, he huddled bent over on the bench, the smell of cheap whiskey on his breath, and sledgehammers pounding inside his skull. He scrubbed at his eyes, as though that would wipe away the images of all that blood, and make the last echoes of those agonized screams disappear. His only clear thought was how to make it all end. Something—someone—needed to die. Fight fire with fire, blood with blood, pain with pain.  Oh, yes. That was the answer.

Shuffling to his unsteady feet, he walked through the morning mist. He had no idea what state he was in, let alone the name of this little town, but he heard the unmistakable whoosh of cars speeding down a highway. In five minutes, he stood by the edge of the southbound lane, holding out his thumb. Instinct told him the direction to travel, and desperation kept him upright, as he waited for the ride that would take him where he needed to go. His plan was simple. If death would bring an end to this pain, then someone was going to die.

Edgelanders Excerpt

/ Jenny / 2 Comments

Excerpt week is such a great idea! Thank you, Marcia, for nudging me out of my winter cave to join in the fun.

Here’s a snippet from the first book in my Serpent of Time series, Edgelanders, classified within the high fantasy/romance category.

edgelanders cover

“What are you?” he whispered.

“Looks like a dead girl to me.” Rue’s shadow blocked the light of the moons, fell over the girl and darkened the bright perfection of her face.

“No.” He shook his head, a sweaty wisp of black hair falling into his face. “Not dead.” He’d almost said not a girl, but how could he possibly know that for sure? She smelled human, but there was something else in her blood, something familiar, something savage that whispered words to his soul he couldn’t understand.

Why couldn’t Rue smell it? She was a master huntress, could track a rabbit to its warren from five miles away, but she seemed completely unaffected by the power he could feel in that girl. Rue had known others like that girl, before he was even born. Surely the familiarity of her scent was not lost on his sister’s keen senses.

“Well, she will be soon enough. I can smell death on her. Leave her,” she said. “We need to secure the perimeter. Drive whoever owns that pack of hounds you just tore apart from our lands before they come looking for their dead girl and lay her murder on our doorstep. The last thing we need right now is an inquiry.”

“I won’t leave her here to die,” he refused.

And that was exactly what would happen to her if they just walked away. That beautiful little flower would breathe her last and her pale face would haunt his every moment until the day he died. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to take her home.

“I… I just can’t.”

His hand fell away from her cheek and he tucked it gently behind her neck before sliding it further in to lift her upper body from the mud. He shoved his other arm beneath the backs of her thighs and then heaved her weight against his chest as he rose.

“I’m taking her to Rhiorna. She can heal her.”

“Are you stupid? Wait, don’t answer that,” Rue smirked down at him. “Leave her, Finn. You know the laws. She is an outsider. She has no place here, and if she dies on our land, that is her own fault. Besides, what is that old witch going to do? Nothing. She hasn’t done anything useful since…” Her words faded into the low whisper of the wind, but Finn didn’t wait for her to finish.

“I don’t care about the laws!” he roared. “I’m not leaving her to die.”

“Finn, I can’t let you take her. I’m sorry.”

“I’d like to see you try to stop me.” Shifting her weight against his chest, she felt light as a feather in his arms; her body nestled perfectly against his as if she’d been made to fit in his arms, made to be carried that way by him and only him.

“Finn…”

He was already walking, northwest toward Drekne. He’d gone several paces before his sister’s frantic footsteps quickly fell in behind him. Rue may have been his elder, but she was half his size, and when her hand came down on his shoulder to try and spin him around, he jerked it off and rounded to face her with fire in his eyes.

“Don’t, Rue. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”

“What? You’re going to challenge me over some… some stranger? Some half-dead girl? I can’t let you take her into the village. It is forbidden. The council…”

“Damn the council.”

“Damn the council? Damn the council?” She brought her hand down again, gently this time, silent pleading in her bright silver eyes as she tried to sympathize with his plight. “I know you like to rile them up, to get under their skin and show them you’re not a pup to be pushed around anymore, but this… Finn, this is madness. They will put you in silver chains and drag you into exile. Not even Viln will be able to save you this time.”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?” she shrieked. “How can you not care? About your own brother, about me? There will be consequences for this.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” No one would understand; they never did.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t understand. This girl, who is she to you? No one, Finn. A human, a stranger.”

“She’s not human,” he muttered, but Rue hadn’t heard him.

“I will not let you throw away your life here with the pack for some stranger.”

“You can’t stop me,” he shrugged her hand away again. “I’d advise you not to try.”

Edgelanders is available digitally on Amazon: Amazon, Amazon Australia, Amazon UK, Amazon Brazil, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon India, Amazon Italy, Amazon Spain, Amazon Japan, Amazon Mexico. Members of the Kindle Unlimited program can borrow this book and the sequel, Sorrow’s Peak from the Lending Library with their membership.

 

A Note on Excerpt Week

/ Marcia Meara / 3 Comments

Hi, Folks!

I’m having a good time with Excerpt Week, though I wish more of you were playing. Come on, don’t be shy! We want to read…and SHARE…what you’ve written. A couple of points I need to make though:

1. If you area not a regular contributor to The Write Stuff, you can still share an excerpt from your books. Please email me at mmeara@cfl.rr.com and I’ll tell you how. It will work much better than trying to share in the comments section. I promise to post for you, or to tell you how to become a contributor so you can do it yourself.

2. I reserve the right (I’ve always wanted to say that) to insert the “Continue Reading” break into the middle of longer posts, though I probably won’t do it until the front page of the blog starts to fill up. This is just so that other posts don’t get lost. You won’t lose your readers, as they can click to see the rest of your excerpt or post. When it’s a slow day, this isn’t an issue, but as more posts come in, it helps keep things visible.

3. As you read and enjoy these exerpts, please, please remember to SHARE with all your friends. Reblog, post on Facebook, Tweet them out, email links to friends you think would be especially interested…whatever you want. But the main reason this blog exists is for writers to help writers, and that includes sharing far and wide to put writers in front of potential readers. We’ll all do the same for you, when you post.

And that’s it. Enjoy all the goodies our group has to offer! We are a widely diverse and interesting bunch, here. And take advantage of this chance to share your own work, whether published yet, or not. Let’s get your name out there!

As you were, people!

Excerpt from Dead Girl in a Charleston Marsh

/ Marcia Meara / 2 Comments

Author Eldon Brown shared a table with me at the St. Cloud Author Symposium a few weeks ago, and would like to share an excerpt from his mystery, Dead Girl in a Charleston Marsh. Here you go, Eldon. Enjoy, folks!

…The marsh often yielded small treasures which lodged among the tall cattails. Ben spotted something gray and large, ebbing at the edge of the marsh. Might be a dead gator he thought. He approached with caution, realizing that the creature might not be dead. He picked up his newly found paddle to use against the animal; just in case. He hoped it was dead, as he could sell fresh gator, for a dollar a pound, to a local butcher. Simpson reduced speed and carefully approached the floating mass but it was not a gator. Just some old clothes, he surmised. Sadly, he put his paddle down. Someone just too lazy to phone Salvation Army. He prodded the wet mound with his long handled net. The mass moved slightly, bobbing in the Mercury’s prop wash. It turned just enough that a bloated face suddenly appeared and then, freed from the cattails, it rolled over and began a lonesome voyage down river. Simpson fought the nausea that almost overcame him. His heart raced and he began to shiver. He was cold, yet he perspired. He knew that no life remained in the body which now floated away. The swollen face was gray and bits of skin were torn away where the crabs had been feasting.

Dead Girl in a Charleston Marsh is available on Amazon in both print & Kindle formats.

 

#Excerpt week – THE PRINCE’S MAN by Deborah Jay #EpicFantasy #readers #books

/ Deborah Jay / Debby Lush / 4 Comments

rsz_3pm-ebook_flat_2Stepping up to the plate 😀

Thanks Marcia for this great idea – sampling authors we’ve not met before.

So here is a little teaser snippet from THE PRINCE’S MAN, a novel best summed up as ‘James Bond meets Lord of the Rings’.

Excerpt – THE PRINCE’S MAN

“Dart, meet Charmer. Charmer, meet Dart.”

            Rustam looked pleadingly at Halnashead. “You’re joking, surely? You must be. She can’t be Dart; she’s—”

            “What?” cut in Lady Risada. “A woman?”

            “No! Well, yes. I suppose so.” Rustam shifted uncomfortably, his mind reeling as it tried to adjust to the concept of a noblewoman as a player. Female servants on occasion, yes. But a lady?

            He glanced aside at the lady in question. She stared coldly back.

            “Please, please!” Halnashead drew their attention. “I want you two to get on with each other. Does it surprise you so much, Rusty?”

            “Rusty?” echoed Lady Risada derisively.

            Taken aback by the lady’s obvious animosity, Rustam considered the prince’s question. “I suppose it shouldn’t. With her court position, the lady has access to all levels of nobility; certainly a great asset to your Highness.”

            “And don’t you forget it, dancer boy,” muttered Risada.

            Halnashead frowned. “Be nice, Risada. Rustam is my most skilled agent.”

            “Most skilled womaniser, you mean!”

More to follow tomorrow…

Excerpt #2 from Summer Magic

/ Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

For those of us here in central Florida, where the temps reached into the 80’s today, this isn’t so far away. For those of you still suffering from frostbite and chilblains, maybe this will give you hope that summer will come again. 🙂

The Sound of Dreams Coming True

Side by side,
They recline,
Deckchair wood
Warm against their
Shoulders.
Eyes closed,
Almost dozing in
Late afternoon shade,
The humid sounds of August
Sluicing over them
Like warm water
On even warmer skin.
Old Summer is singing.

Listen, he says,
Do you hear it?
Um-hmm, she answers,
As a bird pours
Liquid notes into the
Emerald and ochre of the garden.
What is that, he asks.
It’s the cardinal, Love,
Calling his mate.
They’ve built a nest in
The mock-orange,
This year.
Ah.

Listen, he says again,
As a soft hum
Grows around them,
Swelling into a
Chirring rhythm,
Which fills the air with
A noise as familiar 
As summer, itself.
What is that, he asks.
Katydids, she says,
Reaching for his hand,
They’re singing songs of
Love just for us.
Ah.

Listen, she says,
Kissing his fingers,
As a little girl laughs,
Chasing fireflies
With her big brother.
Do you hear it, Love?
Do you hear the sound of
Dreams coming true?
I hear our children,
Playing late on a summer’s eve,
He says, turning to
Look at her soft smile.
Yes, she replies . . .
Exactly.
Ah.

***

Summer Magic: Poems of Life & Love is available on Amazon for download  to Kindle

Excerpt from Swamp Ghosts

/ Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

cover2at304.jpg

You guys have been warned. If nobody else is posting excerpts (and maybe even if they ARE), I’ll fill in the blanks for the whole week. I’ve got 3 novels and a book of poetry out, plus a new work in progress. I have LOTS I can share. Creepy stuff, like this prologue, romantic scenes, funny scenes, scenes from the 60’s, scenes with no redeeming social value at all…you get the picture. And without further ado, here…in its entirety, because there’s really no good place to break this one…is the prologue from Swamp Ghosts. When someone else posts today, I’ll split it to take up less room. For now, it’s all right here on the main page. 😀 Enjoy! Shiver, if you like. It’s encouraged. (And you have my permission to buy the book to see what else happens. 😀 Link is at the bottom.)

…

THE CAR BUMPED and rocked as he drove down the rutted dirt road, steering by a wash of silver light from the gibbous moon. Only a few more nights until it was completely full, making the road nearly as bright as it would be by day, but there was still enough light tonight to see that the way ahead was clear—except for the tall grasses and weeds, indicating no one had driven the road in a long time. That was all the visibility he needed. Not much chance of meeting anyone along such a remote stretch of river, anyway, especially since the state had bought this entire tract of land a few years ago, and chained off all the roads, posting No Access signs everywhere. Still, he wasn’t going to tempt fate by turning on his headlights. Not with what he was carrying in the back on this summer night.

Should be nearing the old canoe launch any time now. Continue reading →