Other Books by #MFRWAuthor October's Author Andrea Parnell

AUTHOR: ANDREA PARNELL

The Colonial Period in American history is a time of fascination for me. I love meeting and creating characters who play out their lives and adventures in that era. You’ll meet a few of them in my novella,

DARK PRELUDE 

Handsome sea captain Roman Toller and his irascible brother Morgan make their appearance in London some days before boarding the Eastwind for a journey to their Uncle’s private island off the Georgia colony of 1751.  Their days are spent indulging in food and drink, their nights in debauchery with the maid of the day.

Across London, lovely and resourceful Silvia Bradstreet is scrapping to keep her life together until she can escape on the same ship.  Her days are occupied with work and worry, her nights with fear and dread of her Uncle Hollister who has made her a servant in his home. 

That the three of them should meet is inevitable, but how and when becomes a study in fate, a glimpse of how a single event can change everything. 

Read DARK PRELUDE as a Free download from Amazon

Continue the adventure in DARK SPLENDOR.

DARK SPLENDOR

She crossed an ocean to find a new start in life.
Instead, she was caught in web of danger, seduction, and deceit...

At Serpent Tree Hall, nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted—including the man she loves.

Lovely young Silvia Bradstreet comes from London to an isolated estate off the coast of colonial Georgia to be an indentured servant. But a far different fate awaits her. Clothed in finery and pampered like a queen, she finds herself a pawn in the devious schemes of Wilhelm Schlange, master of Serpent Tree Hall, as he manipulates the family members who hope to inherit his vast fortune.

Haunted by ghostly dreams and threatened by the island's deadly secrets, Silvia cannot trust her own senses, nor anyone around her. Most of all, she dare not trust her growing passion for Schlange's nephew, handsome sea captain Roman Toller. His lips move like a hot flame over her flesh and draw the very breath from her body. She wants to believe Roman cares for her, but how can she be sure? Is he Silvia's only hope of escaping her dark fate—or is Roman leading her to destruction?

PRAISE FOR DARK SPLENDOR

“An entertaining blend of eerie shadows and romantic interludes. An excellent Gothic romance.”
—Publishers Weekly

AVAILABLE

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READ AN EXCERPT

A cry of admiration came from Silvia's lips. She had never dreamed of such elegance. Suspended from the wall on each side of the foyer were large gilt-and-crystal candelabra. They were formed of golden snakes, heads carved to hold the candles and tails twisted together against the leafy design of the base which fastened to the walls.

Silvia stared questioningly at the woman who had shown her in. She could not imagine that any place in Europe could be more beautiful.

A slight, brief smile formed on the other woman's thin lips. A look of satisfaction gleamed faintly in her narrowed eyes as if she were pleased with Silvia's reaction. A rustle sounded from her taffeta skirts as she moved to stand in front of Silvia.

“I am Vivien,” she said. Her eyes were little black lights set deeply in her face. “Mr. Schlange instructed me to take you upstairs where you can rest and get settled.” She started to move away but added briskly, “Mr. Schlange apologizes but he is ill and cannot greet you himself.”

Silvia lifted her brows sharply and turned her attention to Vivien at that pronouncement.

“I trust his illness is not serious,” she stated, the concern showing in her eyes as they met Vivien's.

Now that they were near the stairs and in the full flood of light, Silvia noted the pale contrast of Vivien's skin with the darkness of her hair. She wore it tight against her scalp and fashioned into a ball neatly covered with a black mesh at the back of her head. Her simply styled dress was of a green color so dark as to be almost black. With it she wore a crimson rope, a sort of belt, around her waist, and from the jangle when she walked, Silvia thought it must hold a number of keys which were hidden in her pocket.

“Mr. Schlange is old and tires easily,” Vivien responded as they stood at the foot of the stairs. She paused. “And all must wait until he is strong again.”

Silvia waited, expecting Vivien to explain what all must wait for, but was disappointed when instead the woman spun around and began to climb the stairs. Silvia quickly followed, her mind filled with unanswered questions. Who was Vivien and what was her position? Perhaps she should ask, she thought reflectively.

She had climbed only three or four steps when she caught a glimpse of someone in a room that opened off the foyer. His back was to her, but instantly she knew the sweep of his broad shoulders, the aloofness of his carriage. Roman Toller.

Her body stiffened in shock, but not before a sound of surprise escaped her lips.

“You!” she cried out.

 





More about Andrea


Always a romantic, Andrea Parnell enjoys creating characters whose passions for life and for matters of the heart run deep.  When she isn’t at work on a novel or learning the inroads of social media, she is taking a walk in the woods, tending her flowers or enjoying the serenity of a cup of tea on the patio. 

She is the author of twelve novels. Her works include historical and contemporary romance. Additionally, she has published short fiction and articles. Her books have received the Maggie, Romantic Times Reviewers Choice, and other awards, and have been favorably reviewed in Publishers Weekly.

Andrea lives in Georgia with her husband and two cranky but indispensible cats.  She invites everyone to download a free copy of her novella Dark Prelude, available at major eBook stores.

Connect with Andrea

Blog AndreaParnell.com

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Twitter @AndreaHParnell

Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/andreaparnell9/

#Thursday13 Favorite Movies @AshleyLadd #MFRWauthor

MFRW Author Ashley Ladd shares her 13 favorite movies.
Ashley lives in South Florida with her husband, five children, and beloved pets. She loves the water, animals (especially cats), and playing on the computer. She's been told she has a wicked sense of humor and often incorporates humor and adventure into her books. She also adores very spicy romance, which she weaves into her stories.

AMAZON  |  BLOG  |  FACEBOOK  |  TWITTER  |  GOODREADS

I love stories - obviously as I'm a story teller. I can watch these movies over and over. These are my thirteen favorite movies...

The Mummy

While You Were Sleeping

Battleship

Independence Day

Pillow Talk

Pirates of the Caribbean

Pride and Prejudice

Gone With The Wind

Glass Bottom Boat

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Raiders of the Lost Ark

The Rocketeer

Back To The Future

Ashley recently released Cooking Up A Storm, an Erotic GLBT Contemporary Romance with Totally Bound.
Brooks and Rique desperately want to win the head chef’s position offered by an eccentric millionaire Jonah Verleun on his beautiful, private but peculiar island that includes a zoo full of exotic animals, an amusement park and a monster shark tank beneath Jonah’s bedroom floor. While Brooks wants the job to escape his heartache and the lover who thwarted him, Rique is hiding from the mob, hoping to live long enough to pay them off with the prize winnings. Fierce competitors, they cook up a storm in a series of cooking challenges while trying to turn down the heat on their intense attraction. When a hurricane strikes the island, the storm Rique has been cooking up explodes, and no heart—or body—is safe. Brooks and Rique desperately want to win a coveted chef’s job offered by an eccentric millionaire in paradise. Even more, Rique desperately wants to stay alive.

BUY LINK

EXCERPT

They ran, hunched over, zigging and zagging as bullets flew around them. Rique damned himself for putting Brooks in this mess. He wondered if the mob held the others prisoner and that’s why they didn’t answer the door.
He turned the first corner they came upon and then the next. He stopped dead and the air left his lungs. A moment later Brooks ran into his back almost knocking him over. He swayed dangerously but managed to stay upright and spread his arms wide to keep Brooks from stumbling forward.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. One of Jonah’s tigers lay in their path crouching low, baring his teeth, and eying them as if they were dinner.
He tried to quell the jitters attacking his stomach so the animal wouldn’t smell his fear then whispered to Brooks through clenched teeth, “What do we do now? Freeze or run?”
“Run. But where?” Brooks whispered back, a frown trembling on his lips.
“To the closest protection.” He prayed their hunters had lost them, that they wouldn’t run back into a barrage of bullets. As Rique bunched his muscles to run, already feeling the animal’s fangs ripping into him, he noted how the tiger’s thick muscles corded in his shoulders, and how saliva ran down his snarling lips.
“Dear God, we’re going to die.” Panic laced Brooks’ voice. “If we get out of here alive, let’s both turn down the job and move in together.”
Swallowing hard, Rique couldn’t reply so he nodded. Besides, as much as he wanted to live with Brooks, he couldn’t do it as long as he was indebted to the mob. However, the point was moot. He couldn’t see a scenario in which one of them didn’t die in the next five minutes.
Feeling responsible, Rique couldn’t let anything happen to Brooks as long as he was alive. He would take on the tiger giving Brooks time to reach safety. “On the count of three, run!”
As Rique whispered, “One,” hisses, then a blood-curdling growl wrenched the air. It was a different sound than the tiger was making. Then a crocodile bellowed and jumped out of the bushes and snatched the tiger by its belly. As it dragged the struggling creature back to the bushes, the tiger howled in surprise and pain. It clawed the air in vain as the reptile’s powerful jaws clamped tighter biting through flesh and bone.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Chaperoning Paris @VictoriaPinder #MFRWauthor

MFRW Author Victoria Pinder released Chaperoning Paris, a Mainstream Contemporary Romance, with Soul Mate Publishing in June 2014.

Gigi Dumont never forgot how she walked away from the only man she ever loved.

She’s a teacher who has led her students to the finals of an international French competition to be help in Paris. The night before the trip, the principal tries to cancel the trip before he, in turn, loses his job to her high school boyfriend, Sean Collins.

Sean Collins has survived cancer, a divorce, and Gigi having aborted their child back in high school. He assumed he’d hate her, if they ever crossed paths again. But he discovers she’s exactly what he wants.

When Gigi and Sean are stuck together for a week in Paris, Gigi feels she has lost all her control. How can she survive her attraction to Sean? The man’s sexier now than he was back in the day, and once upon a time, he’d had her heart. She finds herself falling for him, even knowing forever is impossible.

AMAZON

Excerpt

Payback time. Standing in his mother’s kitchen, Sean Collins smiled as he hung up the phone.
He hovered at the phone for a moment, then charged along the carpeted hallway to his bedroom. In a flash, he changed from his T-shirt and jeans into his black pin stripe king-of-the-business-world suit complete with black tie and shiny black shoes.
Finished dressing, Sean jittered at the door and listened to his son talking nonstop to his mother upstairs. His skin tingled and he closed his eyes. At least moving to his parents’ country estate where he had grown up on Cape Cod had been good for everyone.
Breakfast could wait. He grabbed the keys on the counter downstairs, and he called upstairs, “I’m leaving. I won’t be gone long.”
Last year, the school principal had fired him with bogus charges. Sean had sworn on every holy book that he’d been fired because his doctors had discovered cancer in a routine physical exam.
The sickness sucked. But he’d survived. And now he used his vast wealth to get what he wanted. No teacher should be treated so callously. He had taken the job at the time to prove to himself he had more choices than being the chief financial officer of his father’s corporation.
He set his jaw and walked outside to his car, where the smell of freshly cut grass hit his senses.
The moment he stepped outside and headed toward the garage, Sean stared at the vast forested area on the property for a moment and pressed his lips together. Trees made sense. Women never had. His luck with women had been bad from the start. His first girlfriend, Gigi Dumont, had left him for parts unknown, and then later his wife, now his ex, Jennifer, had also left. She’d played with a whole set of loose scruples. But Jennifer hadn’t hurt him, not like Gigi had. Sean rolled his shoulders. Why did everything in his life always seem to go back to Gigi leaving?
He fished out his keys from his pocket. And now Gigi had moved back into the house next door.
Sean opened the garage door. A quick click of a button and the gate lifted.
Last night he hadn’t slept. Today his shoulders were straight. This moment had nothing to do with women and everything to do with justice. His fingers traced the shiny finish of his brother Gerard’s Aston Martin. Without blinking, he opted to borrow the car. He’d be early and outshine everyone else. Gerard had offered to loan it to him specifically for today. Sean licked his lips and turned the key, igniting the engine, and took off.
A daydream flashed in his eyes. Principal Murray’s jaw dropped to the ground in shock the second Sean stepped inside the office with the papers.
Sean clutched the wheel. He intended to twist the knife even further. People like Mr. Murray gave businessmen around the world the reputation of cold, heartless automatons, especially when he claimed the firing had been over “job performance.” Every one of Sean’s students had passed the state assessments.
Now, Sean ran the finances for his parents, his father’s company, and his brothers. The support of his family to get him through cancer treatments had been phenomenal, but what if he hadn’t had that support? What if he’d had no money to pay for treatments? He’d be dead because the principal had fired him due to the insurance increases. Well, now Sean had a better solution.
He sped down the country road for the half-hour trip. During his horrible marriage to Jennifer, he’d worked as a teacher, and his students had achieved both academic and social successes. Jennifer had been the nightmare that drove Sean away from Collins Industries, Collins Enterprises, Collins Investments, and Collins Mutual, to list a few of his father’s multiple companies. Post divorce and cancer, Sean had made the decision to offer employees packages in cases of sickness. Anyone who worked for him would now receive a payoff equal to the job performance done over the years as part of a settlement. Money paid hospital bills.
Sean’s stomach clenched as he gazed at the sign for the Barnstable Charter High School parking lot. Sean parked Gerard’s fancy lawyer wheels that screamed “out to impress” right next to the about-to-be-sacked principal’s BMW sedan. The Aston Martin made the perfect goodbye gesture. Murray had been outclassed.
Sean leaned forward in his seat, refusing to feel guilty. He waited for the school bell to ring and watched students bounding outside.
Unlike most people, his family had money, and normally he wouldn’t like flaunting wealth. His Jeep Wrangler suited him just fine, but today he needed to look like the elite businessman he was. He stepped out a minute later, and in a fast walk, he strode down the halls. Sean winked the second he saw the school guard’s shocked face.
“You had cancer?” asked the older African American lady who coached the wrestling team.
“Yes, I did. I’m better now,” Sean said, smiling.
He inclined his head and passed the security desk then Sean turned right toward the principal’s office.
In his briefcase he carried the school board’s ruling and the proof of sale of the school to Collins Enterprises. Barnstable was a private school that followed school board law. The sale to his company had been finalized, but Sean had insisted on telling Murray in person. The minutes of the meeting would be posted at one that day. Victory waited for him, and justice tasted better than homemade chocolate chip cookies.
In the office, the overqualified secretary, Mattie, dropped her pencil on the floor. Sean made eye contact with her and the older woman smiled back. Then he picked up the pencil in stride, and handed it back to her. She opened her mouth to speak, and he shook his head, placing his finger over his lips to silently request her silence.
She smiled her response and swiveled her chair back to her computer.
He had seen Mattie in action and understood the older woman had known how to treat people more than anyone else in the office.
Outside the principal’s door, Sean straightened his tie into perfect alignment. His heart rate sped up and his entire body became alert then he heard her voice.
Gigi, or should he say, Giovanna Dumont. Her quiet, sweet voice unmanned him, making his palms sweat. Why would she be here? And how could she still steal his breath away?

About Victoria Pinder
Victoria Pinder grew up in Irish Catholic Boston then moved to Miami. Eventually, found that writing is her passion. She always wrote stories to entertain herself. Her parents are practical minded people demanding a job, but when she sat down to see what she enjoyed doing, writing became obvious.

The Zoastra Affair, Chaperoning Paris, Borrowing the Doctor, and Electing Love, Mything the Throne and Favorite Coffee, Favorite Crush will be published in 2014.

Now she is represented by Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary Agency. Also she’s the Vice President for the Florida Romance Writers. Her website is www.victoriapinder.com.