During the month of October, I’m sharing excerpts on Throwback Thursday from my novelette, novella, and novel that have paranormal-lite storylines.
I call them ‘lite’, because the paranormal elements aren’t scary. They’re otherworldly. I don’t write scary/horror stories, and I don’t read or watch scary/horror, because…well…it scares me. hahahaha
The excerpt I’m sharing today is from my novella, Give Me Tomorrow. This story is set in northeastern Colorado c. 1990. The 1990 date isn’t far enough in the past to be considered historical, but neither is it contemporary.
BLURB
Vampire Melissa Price’s heart has hardened to an empty shell of remembered love. Lifetimes of experience and self-preservation have taught her that relationships serve only two purposes—sustenance and superficial companionship. Her work as a veterinarian gives purpose to her solitary life, but three hundred years of loneliness catches up with her when she responds to an emergency call and meets the least likely man to bring down the wall of her emotionless existence.
Jaxon Granger is part-owner of his family’s thoroughbred racehorse boarding and layover facility. His world revolves around his business, family, and a penchant toward hedonism. Horses are his life and womanizing bachelorhood is his religion. He boasts that there isn’t a woman alive who can make him a one-woman man.
That is, until he falls for a woman who isn’t alive—in the strictest sense of the word.
EXCERPT is General audience-appropriate
NOTE: The story, however, is for Mature Readers.
“It’s after one. How about an early morning snack? Coffee? Sandwich? Something stronger?”
“Coffee will do,” Lissa said.
“Drive over to that tan stucco and brick house. I’ll close-up and be right there.”
Satisfied all the doors and stall gates were secure, Jax locked up then walked across the yard under the blue-white glow from the mercury vapor yard lights. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and hunched his shoulders against the biting wind and snow flurries. Passing the vet truck, he glanced inside, expecting to see Lissa waiting, but the truck was empty. Maybe she’d gone inside. Crossing the redwood deck, his hand was on the screen door handle when she spoke.
“We overlook and take for granted that with which we’re most familiar.”
Jax whirled, searching for the source of the disembodied voice.
Lissa materialized from the darkness with the ethereal grace of a phantom shadow floating on a night breeze.
“Where were you hiding?” He’d have sworn there was nothing there a second ago.”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was right here beside the house in plain sight if you’d have only taken the time to see, which isn’t the same as looking.”
Her face reflected an eerie, bloodless-corpse-aura under the mercury lighting, and the sight sent a shiver scuttling down his spine.
“Something wrong?”
Jax opened the door, shaking off his uneasiness with a dismissing wave. “Naw. It’s just these yard lights make you look like something out of a horror movie.”
“That’s not very complimentary.”
Give Me Tomorrow is available on Amazon.
Until we meet again,
