Dark Moon Falls, a boxed set containing 15 novellas written by 15 different authors, is set to (finally!!) release on November 12, 2019. What’s so cool about this boxed set, you ask?
Well, it’s about wolf shifters, for one. It’s based in the Pacific Northwest. You know, where Twilight was based. There are witches. Action. Suspense. Sexy times. Hot alphas. Strong women. Great stories.
And they’re all based in the same town, occurring at the same time, affecting the same characters.
Curious yet?
Here’s what mine’s about:
She’s back.
His high school sweetheart. The love of his life.
The woman he let go because she needed to find herself.
Looks like she found herself back in Dark Moon Falls.
She also found herself an enemy.
And even though Lyall swore he was through chasing someone who didn’t want to be caught, he sure as hell was going to protect her from danger.
He’d figure out how to protect his heart later.
When she left town again.
And here’s a little teaser, for your reading pleasure:
Oh hell.
“Listen, Lyall, I know we didn’t work out so well the last time, but I was thinking—”
“Hey.”
Like a siren’s song, that voice pulled Lyall’s attention to the woman who had stepped up to the end of the bar. Her eyes looked sleepy and her hair was mussed, but not so much that it looked bad, more like it reminded him of all those times over the years they’d slipped upstairs for a quickie when he was supposed to be tending bar.
Her dark curls were pulled back into a loose ponytail at her neck, and she wore a striped T-shirt dress that fell to mid-thigh. There were a pair of bejeweled flip-flops on her feet. She’d put gloss on her lips and maybe some mascara on her lashes, but otherwise, she wasn’t nearly as made up as she was when she’d arrived in town earlier in the day.
Damn, he liked her like this. Natural. Real.
Or at least, that’s how it felt to him. This was the Natalia he’d known all through high school. The smooth, sophisticated woman who walked into his bar earlier was what Lyall liked to think of as Dallas Natalia. The woman who left him for greener pastures that, based on the sadness in her eyes, she hadn’t yet found.
Probably because there wasn’t any grass greener than right here in Dark Moon Falls.
Ava snorted and swirled her drink. “Oh. You’re back. Noticed you weren’t at the burning ceremony.”
Natalia winced.
“Knock it off, Ava,” he snapped.
Ava studied Natalia while sipping her drink.
“You want something?” Lyall asked Nat.
“I’m good right now. Can I help with anything?”
She wanted to stay busy. Was that because of her grief over her aunt or stress over the destruction out at the farm or because she’d just taken a nap in his bed and maybe being there reminded her of all the good times she’d walked away from?
Probably the first two, but he really wanted it to be the third option.
“You’re going to work? Here?” Ava asked.
Since he couldn’t just shut down the bar whenever Natalia breezed into town, it wasn’t unusual at all for her to help out while she waited for him to close each evening. She bussed tables, took drink orders if it was busy enough, and sometimes she even stepped behind the bar and helped him pour drinks. The first time she’d done it, he’d joked that they made a good team, that she should move back and help him run the bar.
She’d taken off that night, a day earlier than she’d planned.
Mental note: no jokes about running the bar together this time.
“I help out where I can,” Natalia said.
“Oh gods, please don’t tell me you’re moving back,” Ava said, taking another swig.
Natalia eyed Ava’s drink. Even though she used to deny it when she lived here and quit talking about it altogether after she left, Natalia was an incredibly powerful witch. Ava, most likely, had no idea, but Lyall was pretty sure Nat was contemplating using some of that magic now.
He placed his hand on the bar, his arm something of a barrier between the two of them. “No, she isn’t. She’s just here to settle her aunt’s estate.”
“I heard somebody trashed the place,” Ava said. She didn’t sound sympathetic or sad.
“News travels fast around here,” Natalia remarked.
Ava shrugged.
“That’s one thing. about small towns,” Natalia continued. “Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”
Ava took another drink and didn’t respond.
“And even if you’ve been gone for a while, say, a few years, all you have to do is stop by the Hot Joy Café and Joy Darling fills you in on whatever you missed.”
Lyall narrowed his eyes. What was she getting at?
“For example,” Nat continued. “I know how many men you’ve hooked up with in the last ten years.”
Lyall’s heart rate kicked up its pace. Ava’s lips curled into a catlike smile.
“And I know that Lyall was one of them.”
“Nat—”
Ava cut him off. “Hey, it’s a free country. And he’s obviously a free man. You’re the idiot who took off and left him behind.”
Natalia stepped around him and leaned over the bar so that she was eye to eye with Ava. “Well, now I’m back. And until I leave again, stop throwing yourself at him like a desperate old maid.”
Ava opened and closed her mouth several times, but no words tumbled from her lips.
Natalia touched the top of the rosemary sprig in Ava’s glass. “Also, I just want you to know that this garnish contains a love potion. You are going to fall madly and deeply in love with whoever you hook up with next, regardless of his feelings on the matter.”
Ava’s eyes went so wide they looked comical. She clambered off the stool and speed walked to the door.
Lyall grabbed the drink and dumped what was left into the sink under the bar. “You lied to her, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
He shook his head. “Why, Nat? Why the hell act all jealous girlfriend and scare her off when you know damn well you and I aren’t going to hook up? Not to mention, you’re going to leave again. So what the fuck was the point of all that?”
“I—I just…I don’t know.”
“So no point is what you’re saying. You’re fucking with her head, and mine, for no reason? Jesus, Nat, I thought you were better than that.”
He reached under the bar and snagged the bottle of Maestro Dobel.
“Here, just take it. There’s no point in my hanging onto it anymore.”
Grab your copy HERE so that it’s on your ereader as soon as you wake up on November 12th!
Happy reading!
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