Ladies and Gents of the Lair, this post is going to be a little different than the usual... Make sure to keep scrolling because Ms. Anne Gimpel has let me share with you two books instead of one!!! :)
Enjoy!
A Time for Everything
Ann Gimpel
Blurb:
Siobhan
Macquire’s fortune has attracted a string of men who are out to drain her for
everything they can get. Her last boyfriend was no exception. Furious at being
used—again—she goes for a walk in the Highlands.
With the
weather worsening, she wanders alone for hours. She’s soaking wet and starting
to get scared when someone calls out to her. A striking-looking man emerges
from the mist. Except there’s something wrong. His kilt is way too long and he
talks with an archaic accent. Siobhan soon finds herself not only lost in the
countryside but also in time.
Excerpt:
Sam pulled the draw cords of her hood
tighter, squinting against driving rain. She shivered, willing her legs to move
faster. Even in the northern latitudes, it got dark eventually during what
passed for summer, and the light was definitely fading. One foot sloughed into
a hole. Cursing roundly, she yanked it out, noting the mud added what felt like
ten pounds to her tired leg. Going on a ramble—as the locals called it—by
herself had seemed like a good idea earlier in the afternoon. Now she wasn’t so
sure. It had been hours since she’d seen another soul. The air felt heavy—and
threatening, somehow.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scolded
herself. “My imagination’s off the clock, working overtime.”
A flash off toward the river was
followed almost immediately by a rumbling crash. It started raining harder. The
sky lit again, casting the wet greenery and surrounding mountains in a macabre
glow. Thunder sounded so loud it made her ears ring. The next lightning flare
sparked off a rock not twenty feet away. Sam’s heart sped up. She stared at the
mountains ringed about her. Why wasn’t the storm up there? Lightning was
supposed to be drawn to high points, not meadows saturated with water.
As if determined to prove her wrong,
another flash struck the ground off to her left. She threw her hands over her
ears but the thunder reverberated in her brain as if someone had struck an
anvil right next to her. Shaking her head to try to make her ears stop hurting,
she started walking again. Lightning struck inches from her feet. Sam lurched
to a stop, blinking to clear the afterimage. Even as wet as it was, the air
felt electrified, thick with sharp edges. She could almost see marauding
electrons reaching for her, hungry little mouths wide open.
Fear raced along her nerve endings,
making her feel as if she’d downed half a dozen double espressos in a row. The
breath whooshed out of her and her head spun crazily.
The
storm’s trying to kill me.
Oh,
please, she answered
herself. Sam hated her tendency to engage in two-way inner dialogue, but she’d
done it all her life.
An excruciating twenty minutes and half
a dozen lightning strikes later, she thought it might be safe to move. It was
raining like a son of a bitch, but after striking what looked like a circle
around where she stood, the electrical part of the storm had left as quickly as
it had come.
Guess
the storm gods didn’t want me, after all.
Why
should they? No one else does.
Sam sank into a funk. Shit, could I possibly be any wetter?
Weather in the British Isles had been particularly wretched this summer. “Yeah,
sort of like the rest of my life,” she muttered as she tried to assess if she’d
be better off staying on the track or cutting cross-country toward where she
thought a roadway was. Resolutely, she struck out for the road and promptly
stepped into calf-deep water. It ran over the top of her boot and soaked her
thick, woolen sock before she could jerk her foot back to solid ground.
So
much for that idea.
Obviously, there’d been so much rain the ground on both sides of the track had
turned into a bog. She’d never seen one before this trip to Scotland. They were
hideous. Miles of saturated ground with water deep enough to reach her knees in
some places. Sam glanced at her watch and groaned. She’d been walking for close
to five hours. No wonder it was getting dark. The village she was aiming for
shouldn’t actually be all that far away. In fact, she should have been there
long since. About to tuck her watch back under her sleeve, she took one last
look at it and realized the second hand had stopped. She tapped the crystal
with her finger but nothing happened.
Crap!
Wonder when it quit? Must be the damp.
Yes, another less pleasant voice piped up, it also means I have no idea how long I’ve
been walking. Peering through mist-shrouded countryside, she looked for
some signs of Beauly Village but all she saw were sheep.
Sam told herself to keep walking. It
wasn’t as if there was anywhere she could even sit to consider her options.
Everything dripped water. Her jacket and pants, which had always provided
adequate protection from the elements back in the States, were woefully
inadequate here. She was afraid to pull out her cell phone. Electronics and
water definitely weren’t compatible. Yeah,
just look what happened to my watch. Dark thoughts crowded her mind. Why
had she thought it would be romantic to spend a year in Scotland?
You
know why, an inner
voice—the nasty one—sneered. It was your
infatuation with Clint. Sam gave her resident maven a point for accuracy.
Clint, with his spiffy Scottish intonations, dreamy blue eyes, and red-blonde
curls, had sweet-talked her into bankrolling a trip to his home. Between his
ever-so-broad shoulders, washboard abs, and nice, tight ass, he’d barely let
her out of bed for a month. By the time she’d figured out the reason he had so
much time on his hands was because he didn’t have a job, it was too late. She
was head over heels in love. And hoping desperately that this time it would
lead her to the altar. After all, it wasn’t as if he had to work. All he needed
to do was treat her like a queen. She had plenty of money for both of them.
Eager to grant her prince whatever he
wanted, she’d readily agreed when he’d talked longingly of going back to
Scotland for a while. Except he’d had a personality transplant practically the
second they’d landed in Glasgow. In the month-and-a-half since they’d arrived,
she’d scarcely seen him. He was always off with his mates, as he called them, drinking or climbing. There were weeks
when he hadn’t returned to their rental flat in Inverness at all. Worse, she
suspected some of those mates were
gay. When she’d asked him if he swung both ways his eyes had turned to blue ice
chips. He’d twisted away and slammed out of the house. That was the last time
she’d seen him.
Water ran off the bill of her hood.
Some of it dripped into one eye. “Oh to hell with it,” she snarled. “I’m
catching the first plane out of here—without him.” She sighed, feeling sad and
angry by turns. Clint was far from the first man who’d taken advantage of her.
As soon as they found out she was an heiress to a whiskey fortune, they
promised her the moon and then fleeced her for everything they could get. She’d
gotten pretty cagy in the years between sixteen and her current twenty-five.
She’d even rented a modest apartment in Seattle and pretended she lived there
when she met someone new.
Eventually, though, when she thought a
guy might be different, she took him to the Capitol Hill mansion she’d
more-or-less inherited after her parents relocated to one of their many other
homes. No matter how promising a relationship looked, the truth of that
rambling mansion was always the beginning of the end.
************************************************
Gabrielle's Cauldron
By Ann Gimpel
Publisher: Liquid Silver Books
ISBN: 978-1-93176-119-2
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Gabrielle McCallaghan just lost her
job. Seeing the writing on the wall, she quit to spare her uncle the
embarrassment of having to fire her. With her bond fairy on her shoulder, she
strides through a crowded neighborhood contemplating her options.
Out of nowhere, a gorgeous, full blood
magic wielder appears and makes a beeline right for her. Gabby knows her hybrid
witch magic is no match for his, so she tries to evade him. The fairy does her
best to help, but the contest is laughable. Even in his human form, the
wolf-man is still stronger than she ever dreamed of being.
It doesn’t take long before Gabby is
drawn into a deadly game of intrigue that started over a thousand years before.
The stakes are high and the timing abysmal, but she finds herself falling in
love in spite of herself. Can she and her full blood lover make a life for
themselves? Or will the long-running battle between full bloods and hybrids
pound the fragile bond between them to dust?
Excerpt:
Gabrielle shook her head. She was
shocked at how eager she was to be free of Brad and this office. Now that the
possibility of independence sat there, beckoning to her, she couldn’t resist.
“Thanks, Uncle Brad. You’ve been more than kind to me.”
He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said,
voice surprisingly gentle, “keep in touch. If you stop by tomorrow, I’ll have
your check for this last week.”
Gabrielle knew how little she’d done.
“That’s okay. I’ll just grab my things and be out of your hair. I—” but she
didn’t know what else to say. Suddenly uncomfortable, she turned away from her
uncle and went to clear her few possessions out of her desk. After
inadvertently slamming her long, dark hair in a desk drawer, she pulled it into
an untidy pony tail. Ten minutes later, she let herself out the swinging glass
door adorned with BRAD MCCALLAGHAN, CPA, in faded, dark blue letters.
“That wasn’t very smart,” she muttered
to the pixie sitting on her shoulder. “What am I going to do now?”
Doesn’t matter, I’m free.
“No, we’re free,” Amalia corrected. The
pixie was clearly in mind-reading mode. "It hasn’t been any fun at all
being your bond fairy ever since you took that job. All you’ve done is grump
around, hating life.”
Gabrielle stared balefully at the
pixie. “You need to keep your opinions to yourself.”
“Why?” Amalia crossed one leg over the
other. The foot that dangled beat a tattoo against Gabby’s breast.
“Never mind.” Knowing it would be
wasted breath to try to get the pixie to do anything but what she wanted,
Gabrielle sucked in crisp autumn air and walked toward the bus stop. It felt
good to be outside. Not living a lie anymore was a big relief. She’d struggled
with guilt for months about her antipathy for Microsoft Excel, Turbo Tax and
Tax Cut. At least that part was over.
Strangers swirled around her. Seattle’s
Capitol Hill was always full of people. Gabrielle looked longingly at a
Starbuck’s sign, but three dollar coffees weren’t part of her new austerity
plan. Actually, neither was the bus. What she needed to do was walk home. She
had the time. And lower Queen Anne Hill wasn’t all that far away. She could be
home in an hour.
What a joke. I have nothing but time
now. Maybe if I walked more, I could get rid of some of this blubber. She
tugged at the too-tight waistband of her too-short dark green skirt. Sitting
eight hours a day hadn’t improved her figure at all. Gabrielle knew her height
masked extra pounds; she also knew she’d gained a good ten since she started
working for her uncle.
“Don’t stare,” Amalia hissed, sea-blue
eyes wide with apprehension, “but that looks like trouble.” The pixie always
reverted to mind speech when she felt threatened. Good thing too. Her constant
dialogue had gotten Gabrielle into trouble more than once when someone had
assumed she was the source of some smartass comment or other. Not all humans
could hear pixies. It depended how much magic they had. The problem was when a
person had no idea they had magic, but had been blessed—or cursed—with just
enough to hear fairy chatter. Those folk were the ones who’d ended up in
asylums a hundred years ago. Now doctors just crammed them full of mind-numbing
drugs.
Gabrielle’s head snapped up. A hunk of
a man who radiated power—wore it like an aura that screamed how much clout he
had—strode down the opposite side of the street as if he owned the world.
Coppery hair fell nearly to his waist. Well past six feet, he was dressed like
a pirate in a cream-colored shirt with full, old-fashioned sleeves, a dark
brown leather vest, and tight-fitting, black leather pants that left very
little to the imagination. Knee-high boots of buff-colored suede fit over the
pants. Apparently feeling her gaze on him, he slowed, head turning from side to
side. Gabrielle could have sworn he was scenting the air like a dog.
“What is he?” Gabby sent. “I know he’s
a full blood, but what kind?” Because pixies were entirely magical just like
the full bloods, they were often quicker on the uptake. Gabby was a hybrid and
her human blood often got in the way.
“Warg. He can see me, Gabby. Do
something.” Amalia’s nails dug into her shoulder.
The pixie’s words had barely registered
when a wolfish amber gaze settled on Gabrielle, boring into her. Heart racing,
she ducked into the first shop she saw.
“Are you all right, miss?” A shopkeeper
hurried over. Dyed red hair spiked in curls that fell past her shoulders.
Sharp, green eyes took in Gabby and her off-the-rack J.C. Penney’s clothes.
Gabrielle looked around and saw she’d
entered a lingerie store, and a pricey one at that judging from the tags
hanging off flimsy bits of silk. She tried to quiet her breathing. “Yes. Just
thought I’d, uh, look around a bit. I have a friend who’s, ah, getting married.”
She offered up what she hoped was a convincing smile, reinforced by the tiniest
leave me alone spell. The last thing she needed was for the salesclerk to boot
her out of the store.
“There you are, darling.” A cultured
baritone rang from the doorway. The voice had a definite German accent. “Nice
of you to shop for something to entertain me.” The warg moved to her side and
slid a hand under her elbow. A blast of sexual energy set Gabby’s nerves on
fire. Her nipples pebbled instantly and her skin tingled with promise. Mostly
so she wouldn’t throw herself into his arms, she took a step away and tried to
settle her heart back into a normal rhythm. But the warg’s heat—and a delicious
musky scent—followed her.
The shop girl’s eyes grew huge. She was
practically salivating. Gabby could tell she was struggling to keep her gaze
above the warg’s waist. “Welcome to my shop, sir,” she cooed. “We have things
for men too.”
He raised a well-formed eyebrow. “Yes,
dear. Your whole shop is actually for men.”
**************************************************
About the Author
Short Bio:
Ann Gimpel is a clinical psychologist, with a Jungian
bent. Avocations include mountaineering, skiing, wilderness
photography and, of course, writing. A lifelong aficionado of the
unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her
short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies. Two
novels, Psyche’s Prophecy, and its sequel, Psyche’s
Search, have been published by Gypsy Shadow Publishing, a small press.
A husband, grown children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out her
family.
www.anngimpel.com
http://anngimpel.blogspot.com
http://www.amazon.com/author/anngimpel
http://www.facebook.com/anngimpel.author
@AnnGimpel (for Twitter)
Long Bio:
Ann Gimpel is a mountaineer at heart. Recently retired
from a long career as a psychologist, she remembers many hours at her desk
where her body may have been stuck inside four walls, but her soul was planning
yet one more trip to the backcountry. Around the turn of the last century (that
would be 2000, not 1900!), she managed to finagle moving to
the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with the mountains. It was during
long backcountry treks that Ann’s writing evolved. Unlike some who see the
backcountry as an excuse to drag friends and relatives along, Ann prefers her
solitude. Stories always ran around in her head on those journeys, sometimes as
a hedge against abject terror when challenging conditions made her fear for her
life, sometimes for company. Eventually, she returned from a trip and sat down
at the computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged. Oh, it
wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. And, she learned a lot between
writing that novel and its sequel.
Around that time, a friend of hers suggested she try her
hand at short stories. It didn’t take long before that first story found its
way into print and they’ve been accepted pretty regularly since then. A
trilogy, the Transformation Series, featuring Psyche’s Prophecy,
Psyche’s Search and Psyche’s Promise is complete. The
initial two books have been published, with the final volume scheduled for
release in 2012. One of Ann’s passions has always been ecology, so her tales
often have a green twist and the Transformation Series is no exception.
In addition to writing, Ann enjoys wilderness photography.
Part of her website is devoted to photos of her beloved Sierra. And she lugs
pounds of camera equipment in her backpack to distant locales every year. A
standing joke is that over ten percent of her pack weight is camera gear which
means someone else has to carry the food! That someone else is her husband.
They’ve shared a life together for a very long time. Children, grandchildren
and three wolf hybrids round out their family.
And remember... Always keep it Dirty, Smutty & Hussy!
