Thanks for stopping by! For this leg of the blog hop I'll be introducing you to The Parting Gift. My first publishing venture, co-written with Rachel Van Dyken and originally published by Astraea Press (now CleanReads.com).

Here's the blurb:

Blaine Graham lost his mother when he was the tender age of eleven. Grief over the loss drove a wedge between him and his father, and soon proved too difficult for him to deal with. At the age of sixteen, he falsified his papers and made the trip across the border into Canada with his best friend to join the Royal Canadian Air Force and enter the war in Europe as a pilot. Ten years later Captain Graham finds himself flying commercial jets in Boston – his estranged father and his past life all but forgotten, until the day he receives a telegram from his dying father asking him to come home.

The persistent Mara Crawford, a live-in nurse, has experienced her fair share of loss as well. Her attachment to Blaine’s father drives her desire to bring reconciliation between the two men before time runs out for her patient. But her best laid plans didn’t include falling in love again.

Check it out at: Amazon         Barnes&Noble

Enter the giveaway in the margin. Have a wonderful day!
Please check out the next link in the blog hop.

Raif and Me: Part 4

It's back around to me again.

I've been working with my two friends, Kelly Martin and Wendy Knight, on a pass-around writing experiment. And this story has definitely taken some surprising turns already.

Need to catch up?
Read Part One here.
Part Two here.
Part Three here.

And without further ado, Part Four:

I knew I couldn’t. No matter what the Cooperation said. Not with him this close. Not with the memory fresh in my mind.

“They want you back, Raif.” I whispered it, but I knew they were listening. “They aren’t too particular about how they get you.”

His eyes betrayed no emotion.

“Why now?” It came out a growl that reverberated deep in my own soul. “Six years, Tabitha. That’s how long you’ve been watching me. Why now?”

“I-I-I don’t know.”

He stepped closer.

I couldn’t breathe. I could only stare into his eyes and hope he heard the things I couldn’t say. Not with the Cooperation listening. And shouting. So much shouting.

I knew they were sending back up. I had failed in my task. But I didn't care. I was under Raif's spell. Exactly where I'd wanted to be since the last time he'd held me.

His breath was warm on my forehead. He lifted his hand slowly to my face. I closed my eyes in anticipation of the familiar touch.

The touch I had craved for the last six years.

But it wasn’t familiar.

Instead of the velvet warmth I remembered, the cold distant texture of a black leather glove caressed my cheek. Raif gingerly pushed my hair behind my ear. My eyes shot open the moment I knew, but it was too late. He ripped out the earpiece by its roots before I could react, sending me spiraling into darkness.

I heard a blood curdling scream, then just as I fell into the thick haze of black silence, a whisper that sent a jolt down my spine.

“I’m sorry, my love, but justice will be served.”

Stay tuned for Part Five, coming next week from Wendy Knight.

Discord: The Judgment of Paris

Raif and Me: Part 1 — a Pass-Around Writing Experiment

Just for fun, two of my friends (Kelly Martin and Wendy Knight) and I have decided to do a pass-around story. I'm starting it off with the section below, and each of them will take a turn picking up where the person before them left off and just take the story where it leads them.

Without further ado, I offer you the first installment of Raif and Me — a Pass-Around Writing Experiment.

Raif Michaelson's routine never changed. On Mondays, he left the house at 8:07 and walked three blocks to the bus stop on the corner of Elm and 17th. He sat with his backpack hugged tightly to his chest and waited exactly six minutes for Bus #12 to arrive. When he boarded the bus, he sat close to the window in the third seat back on the left hand side. Then he read twelve pages in Plato's Republic.

The same twelve pages every Monday.

At the bust stop at 35th and Longfellow, Raif disembarked and walked 132 steps to the Walker Building, entered through the middle doors, stopped and sanitized his hands at Sanitizing Station 4, then disappeared around the corner to the right.

He reappeared at precisely 4:12 in the afternoon, repeated his hand sanitization at Station 4, opened Plato's Republic, and left the building through the single door on the left, walked 137 steps to the bus stop at 35th and Longfellow without looking up from his book once.

Bus #71 arrived nine minutes later. He read fifteen pages in his book — the same fifteen pages every Monday — and was dropped off three blocks from his house at 5:03 P.M.

That's just Monday, but I can tell you that the only thing that changed from day to day, Mondays through Fridays was the pages that Raif Michaelson read in Plato's Republic.

On Saturdays and Sundays he never emerges from his house.

How do I know? That's your next question.

I'm Tabitha Charles. Some might call me a stalker. I prefer to think  of myself as a Raif-ologist.

For the last six years, I have lived and breathed Raif Michaelson. Call it an obsession if you'd like. I've studied him intently. Every move he makes. And what I've found is unwavering predictability.

That's why when Raif Michaelson, dressed all in black, emerged from his house at 7:07 P.M. on Friday, October 31st, I was completely taken by surprise.

I can't wait to see what the next installment holds!

Some time in the next week, Wendy Knight will add her part, continuing the saga. Please look for it on her blog at www.wendyknightauthor.blogspot.com.

Shattered Assassin: Cover Reveal

WonHundred Word Wednesday: The Trap

THE PINK GLOVE LAY ON THE GROUND, ALMOST COVERED by mud. But Darwin saw where she had dropped it and the sly glance over her shoulder as she crossed the road, tugging her skirts to avoid the muck. She had meant for him to see — as close to an invitation as he would get.

Darwin didn’t wait to be told twice. He bounded into the busy street, narrowly missing the dairy wagon. He scooped up the glove and shook it, spattering mud all over his clean shirt.

“Miss!”

She looked at him through dewy lashes.

“I believe you dropped this.”

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Starimprint

The Mythology Files: Aphrodite

I am Aphrodite.

I see you staring. Go ahead. Stare. You’ll never see anything this hot again as long as you live. That’s a fact. Carve it into stone, baby.

Oh wait! Been done.

Venus de Milo ring any bells?

Speaking of ringing bells… Alexandros of Antioch, the sculptor… well, I’m not really a girl who kisses and tells… What am I saying? I totally posed for that statue. He was never very good at carving hands.

You wonder why I can do that. Don’t you? Be unfaithful to the husband I was given to? Hephaestus. The god of fire and metalcraft. One of the strongest of the gods, if you ask me. He is also the kindest. I don’t deserve him.

And he doesn’t deserve me.

I have a reputation to maintain. Love and beauty.

You think I’m vain.

It’s okay. I know what the other goddesses say about me. That I’m vain and I have a one track mind. The gods, on the other hand, say… other things.

The truth is I’m lost.

I don’t know where I came from or how I got here.

The others — they all have a history, a lineage. They can trace their ancestry back to Gaea, the Great Mother.

What’s my story?

I floated up on the shores of Olympus on the foam of the sea. That’s it.

No mother or father. Nothing.

So why did they accept me as one of them?

Because I’m beautiful.

It’s all I’ve got. It’s all they see. I lose that one thing, and I will shrink back into oblivion, return to wherever it was that I came from.

Hephaestus doesn’t deserve the kind of baggage I bring. He is a gentle, sweet, giving soul. All I know how to do is take. I know it sounds heartless, but if I stop now, I will lose everything.

So to concede the apple to any other goddess? Yes, even to the queen… I can’t risk it.