Uncaged Book Reviews

ISSUE 46 | MAY 2020

Heartfelt Thanks to Essential Workers

note from the e d itor T

his month I’d like to send out some thanks to the essential workers that have continued to put their own health on the line to continue working during this pandemic. From truckers to health care workers, to delivery drivers and grocery clerks. My daughter is an essential worker so I understand the risks they take.

Be kind to your retail people who are still going to work each day and thank them for working. I know the pandemic can be stressful, but we need to do our part too.

Thank you also to the authors this month in Uncaged. One of the funnest interviews I’ve read in a long time is from Joe Barrett.

From his characters with inappropriate behaviours, to a teenage daughter - I am definitely planning on picking up one his books. If he can make me laugh out loud in an interview, I’m sure his books will be a lot of fun.

Here on the farm things have been progressing along well. A new pasture is up and the horses love it. So now I have the great problem that most horse people want - is I have almost too much pasture space. I can work on my older fence and the old pasture will recover so the horses will have two great spots. Soon we will be putting in our big gardens - and this year we are expanding those. We have some young helpers this year so I’m hoping for a good year.

Uncaged Book Reviews readership is up dramatically. New readers are finding the magazine and discovering new authors.

Uncaged will continue to bring the best possible content as usual.

mind. You don’t just see a commercial on TV one time and remember it, right? So we will continue to try and provide the best bang for your buck and get the most eyes we can on your work. Uncaged is supported through advertisements, but the prices will not increase in 2020.

Feature author openings are available now for the rest of 2020, so if authors have a book that is releasing this year, give me a shout and we will see what we can do - most of these spots fill up pretty quickly - so don’t be afraid to contact me.

Unfortunately, Tier 2 review requests will remain closed until further notice. That review Tier is only open to Feature Authors at this time. Uncaged is always open to bringing on new reviewers, so if you’d like to get books for free in exchange for an honest review, please email me at Cyrene@ UncagedBooks.com Enjoy the May 2020 issue of Uncaged Book Reviews and stay safe and healthy!

We will be continuing with the “Buy 2, Get 1” promotion we’ve been running. It really does help from a marketing standpoint, to have an advertisment run three months in a row - to repeat in the readers

X cyrene 4| uncagedbooks.com

contents featureauthors Cerise DeLand 12 historical romance 24

Meara Platt

38

Madeline Martin

44

Lynda J. Cox

60 70

Issue 46 | May 2020

FangFreakinTastic Breezy Jones 118 paranormal romance

catchup 32 Linda O’Connor

Linda is back with her new book and some advice as a doctor about COVID-19

historical romance

medieval romance highlander

historical western romance

Raisa Greywood

contemporary erotic

Judith Keim

contemporary romance

80

Haley Rhoades

88

Kathrin Hutson

102

G.S. Kenney

110

Joe Barrett

76 Teresa Keefer

Teresa returns with a look at her latest release, Ruby’s Revenge

showcase

54

scifi

satire

Life, A Bit More?

authors and their pets

56

Uncaged’s Feature Authors introduce you to their devoted writing buddies, and the devotion goes both ways.

4 7 122 128 132

Note from the Editor Contributors|Partnerships Uncaged Reviews Fang-Freakin-Tastic Reviews Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews

contemporary romance

scifi thriller

Andrew Thomas Elder

Uncaged on Instagram

Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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Contributors | Partnerships

Follow Uncaged on Facebook

Paranormal lover’s rejoice. Uncaged review contributors.

A blog for horror fans. Uncaged review contributors.

A little bit of everything. Uncaged review contributors.

If you’d like your banner here, please email me at UncagedBooks@gmail.com Issue 46 | May 2020 |

7

upcomingconventions Most upcoming conventions through June 2020 have been cancelled because of the pandemic. Uncaged will monitor the scheduled conventions and remove/add as the information becomes available. At the time of this publication, the conventions listed are still scheduled, but be sure to check their websites as the time gets closer to the event.

All About the Indies July 11, 2020 Arlington, VA https://aaibookexpo.com/

Writers on the River July 18, 2020 Peoria, IL https://writersontheriver.com/

Literary Love Savannah July 29–August 3, 2020 Savannah, GA https://blueflamesabove.wixsite.com/literarylovesavannah 8| uncagedbooks.com |

Romance GenreCon August 6–8, 2020 Kansas City, MO https://www.mymcpl.org/events/romance

Indie Bookfest Orlando August 27–30, 2020 Orlando, FL http://indiebookconvention.com/

Penned Con (2021 will be the final year) September 17–19, 2020 St. Louis, MO https://pennedcon.com/

Cancelled for 2020

feature authors

Cerise DeLand

Meara Platt

historical romance

Madeline Martin

Stay Connected

cerisedeland.com

cerise d elan d

Uncaged welcomes Cerise DeLand

C

erise DeLand loves to write about dashing heroes and the sassy women they adore. Whether she’s penning historical romances or contemporaries, she’s praised for her poetic elegance and accuracy of detail.

An award-winning author of more than 60 novels, she’s been published since 1990 by Pocket Books, St. Martin’s Press, Kensington and independent presses. Her books have been monthly selections of the Doubleday Book Club, Rhapsody Book Club and the Mystery Guild. Plus she’s won countless 4, 4.5 and 5 star rave reviews from Romantic Times, Affair de Coeur, Publishers Weekly and more.

To research, she’ll dive into the oldest texts and dustiest library shelves. She’ll also travel abroad, trusty notebook and pen in hand, to visit the chateaux and country homes she loves to people with her own imaginary characters.

And at home every day? She loves to cook, hates to dust, lives to travel and go to Jazz class once a week!

12 | UncagedBooks.com

Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! 2019 was a very busy year for you on the publishing front, and you don’t seem to be slowing down! Can you tell readers more about The Christmas Belle’s series?

I’m fortunate that I’m at a golden age with good health, an empty nest, a healthy husband, a rambunctious greyhound-mix doggie—and a lot of imagination. Having started in publishing with traditional houses, I now self-publish and love the freedom. While I’ve whittled my genres down to historical romance—Regency and Victorian—I have a passion for World War One era that has led me to become an expert on American nurses who served in France during that conflict. So with that knowledge, I serve as the Curator for the United States World War One Centennial Commission on the Army Nurse Corps.

The other side of my brain loves Regency romps too.

So CHRISTMAS BELLES was a hoot to write. Setting up the series where a countess wants to marry off her three nieces, I realized soon that I had at least 6 books here! The last was a real chuckle to write because that hero is in his 60s and so is his love interest, the countess! Love is not just for the 20-somethings!

And AUNT GERTRUDE’S RED HOT CHRISTMAS BEAU has turned out to be a hit with thousands of readers!

Uncaged:One of your series, Those Notorious Americans, sound very intriguing to me, as a reader that reads a lot of historical romances, because even though most of the books I read are based in England or Scotland, my reading “accent” is still American.

Can you tell us more about this series?

My London publisher asked me to write this series a few years ago and so I began with the concept that this would be a family saga, wherein a Civil War blockade runner took his children abroad to enjoy the culture and riches he had earned. I’ve had a marvelous time researching this, going to Montmartre and living there as did one of my heros, my sculptor who is modeled

on Rodin (DARING WIDOW). I’ve also thrilled to take my readers into the Paris Opera Garnier, to the seaside resorts of Deauville and to the palaces and country homes of the English nobility. The whole series has been a travel- research extended trip that has fulfilled my author’s need to depict true-to-life atmosphere with my flights of fictional fancy.

Very soon, I finish the fifth in this first generation with the debut in the late spring of RAVISHIING CAMILLE. The heroine of this is the youngest sibling and she is quite a rebel, an author of gothic novels and in her spare time, an activist for women’s rights!

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | I’m tickled to start this new Regency romcom series, FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FROLIC, about a group of friends who attend a May Day event and land in the laps of the men they adore! I do enjoy comedy and like to make it viable with a proper mix of tragedy.

After these 5 books, I’m into a Regency romantic suspense series, SPIES AND HELLIONS, about a group Englishmen who need the services of the most irresistible hellions in the realm to bring down a ring of Napoleon’s nefarious spies.

I’ll write those as I also do my second generation of THOSE NOTORIOUS AMERICANS, starring a few of them as they fight in World War One. They will become spies, nurses, pilots, doctors and a very famous artist who makes masks for those horribly disfigured by shrapnel and bombs.

Uncaged: Have you attended any in-person signing events? If not, is that something you would enjoy doing?

I’ve done hundreds of signings, speaking engagements and taught writing classes, too. And as an expert on Army Nurse Corps for WWI Centennial Commission, I often speak about those 44,000 women who so bravely traveled to a foreign country during that conflict to save American Doughboys. Under my real name, Jo-Ann Power, I wrote HEROIC MEASURES, a novel about a group of friends who volunteer in 1917. Soon I finish two more stories about courageous women who volunteered during that war. One stars a young woman who became a ‘Hello, Girl’ for General Pershing’s telephone communications staff. Another stars an American doctor who went abroad at her own expense to treat those men who needed a new kind of repair we now term plastic surgery.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

Just like my real children who have shocked me?

14 | UncagedBooks.com

Yes! My characters often shock me with their actions! I can outline a book from here to heaven, but still someone takes a turn I didn’t expect. In LADY FIONA’S TALL, DARK FOLLY, her mother has dementia at the beginning of the book. By mid-novel, she has become more psychotic. I had to give her motivation...and that was a shock to me—and her daughter the heroine—too.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

I am a fierce cook! I descend from my office on the second floor of our home each night and go to work in a flurry! Hubby says I toss knives and twirl pans. (He exaggerates!)

Recipes? Few! I go at it like a French woman, shopping as I wish for ingredients every few days and try-

ing anything. I’ve worked at perfecting a few dishes.

In fact, I am now fabulous (I do not blush to say) at French Beef bourguignon and Trout Meunière! The dishwasher (guess who that is) is well occupied, but often so happy he doesn’t mind the build-up!

An East Coast gal who moved to Texas, I have tried for the past 25 years to grow vegetables in the south Texas soil. Sigh. Texas, my friend, is cattle country for a good reason! The soil is rock-laden.

The result? I’m down to herbs. Lots of herbs! Fresh basil, mint and oregano put a smile on my face.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

Success for me has two highs. When a reader writes to

| CERISE DELAND | me to say how he/she enjoyed the book and tells me why. The quality of my writing or a historical fact or perspective he or she just learned are the two that make my day.

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

Always an avid reader, I continue now with more books on my Kindle than I can count. I am peripatetic about what genre I want to read on any given day and go with my ‘mood.’ At the moment, I seem to be in the mood for period mysteries.

Do I love print books? I do. I love the way print books smell and feel, but I adore the digital ability to buy what I want when I want it and when I want to read it!

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

I love to hear from fans, but I like to include them, too, in what I do and how I do it! So I run a weekly tea party on Facebook each Wednesday at 5. But I am expanding my YouTube Channel that I call, TRAVELS WITH CERISE! There I post my videos of the country houses and churches and chateaux I’ve visited and do presentations to inform my readers about what I’ve learned, too.

One lovely piece is the 360 degree video I did of the statues of King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, in the French church, the Basilica of Saint Denis, in Paris where their remains are buried.

Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR |

Enjoy an excerpt from Lady Fiona’s Tall, Dark Folly Lady Fiona’s Tall, Dark Folly Cerise DeLand Historical Regency/Humor Romantic comedies where every lady lands in the lap of the right beau for her!

Can this be love? Or just a dizzy spell?

Can you fall in love at first sight…twice…with the same man?

Lady Fiona Chastain goes to her Aunt’s and Uncle’s May Day Frolic to brighten her dull existence...and distract her from her poor marriage prospects. When her coach breaks down and the man who rescues her is the very one she’s yearned for these past six years, she’s angry with him for his dismissal of her. Still she falls for his easy charm.

Then she learns his name and she’s appalled that his family is among her father’s enemies. Dashing, tender Rory Fletcher, the earl of Charlton, is the one man she must never love!

But her heart is committed.

So is his!

Can their love conquer old hatreds?

Or are some family feuds too bitter to resolve?

Excerpt By the time Fifi descended the main staircase for breakfast, she had made three vows to herself.

In the wee hours of the night, she had come to terms with who she was, her failings, and who she wished to become. At twenty-four, a spinster, responsible for her ailing mother’s welfare, and awaiting their solicitor’s discovery of the whereabouts of her father’s heir, she had no business 16 | UncagedBooks.com

frittering away money or gambling. She must apply herself to the quiet comportment that would bring serenity to the rest of her days. That meant being proud of herself in all things. Her motto to live like no one need approve was one to serve her well and truly from now on. She would live like no one need approve of her, but her!

And so she would take steps henceforth to act with integrity.

First, she would seek out Diana before all the guests set off to the village this morning for the May Day festivities. Another apology would be her first priority. But second, she would give her friend a more precious vow. She would not play cards again. She would not gamble with other people’s money or reputation.

And in so doing, she would not wager her own. No matter the lure of fortune to be won. No matter her tenuous impoverished state. She would adapt. What was the value of money compared to a fine character?

Her second decision was to resolve her differences with her cousin Esme. Her motivation was not simply that Fifi had discovered that Charlton, not Northington, was the man she’d fallen for years ago. Her decision was prudent, given that all these years she had unfairly judged Esme, thinking her not just unworthy of a socially prominent husband, but also incapable of caring for one man. This morning, before the village frolic, Fifi hoped she might talk with Esme and change their relationship forever more.

Fifi limped toward the breakfast room, but paused when she heard male voices. She squeezed shut her eyes. If the men inside were Collingswood and Charlton, she would offer her apologies to them as well. She couldn’t remember if she had done that last night, but certainly, they merited her words of regret.

She rounded the doors and, just as she thought, the two men were at table. At sight of her, both got to their feet. She extended her hand to indicate they need not rise, but Charlton was at her side, pulling out one chair for her.

“Please, Lady Fiona, do join us.” She would sit next to him and across from Collingswood.

A footman was in attendance but he quickly resumed his post by the sideboard and picked up a coffee pot.

Charlton leaned toward her. “Shall I prepare a plate

| CERISE DELAND | for you, Lady Fiona?”

“Thank you, no, my lord. I will have coffee first and then do that myself.” She was used to doing for herself. All her life. Her father had ignored her.

Her mother had criticized her at every turn. Fifi had learned to do for herself. Choosing her clothes, her maid, her French tutor, her books and even her finishing school, she prided herself on being herself and making choices that gratified her. Today she was simply perfecting that practice. Live like no one need approve. “I must ask both of you please to pardon my behavior of last night. I was very wrong to make such a statement about Lady Saunderson. She is a friend of many years’ standing and I am ashamed to have humiliated her so.”

Collingswood sat with compassion lining his handsome features. “I talked with her afterward. She bears you no ill will. She declares your abilities at cards were skills she taught you. She blames herself.”

“She must not, sir. What I did last night to allow myself to be carried away with ruthless abandon was irresponsible. I will not do it again. In fact, I vow never to play cards again.”

“A bit extreme, don’t you think, my dear Fee?” She turned to the sound of Diana’s voice. “I don’t.

Last night was not the first time I’ve acted rashly.

It was not the first time I’ve been guilty of hurting another.”

“Say no more. Please.” Diana came to pull out the chair beside her, sit and take her hand. “You have declared your sorrow to me and I accept. I think you are right about playing cards with anyone. And I, like you, will not do it again. Over the years, I’ve lost money I shouldn’t have. I played so ruthlessly that I’ve lost friends I shouldn’t have. So I am at fault too and now I will hear no more of this. We are both resolved to give up our dastardly ways and that makes this a good spring morning to begin anew, don’t you think?”

“I do, indeed.”

Diana’s hazel eyes twinkled. “Wonderful. Now! I am ravenous.” She pushed back her chair and went to the sideboard.

“How is your ankle this morning?” Charlton asked Fifi.

“A bit better.” She shipped her rich hot coffee, satisfied so far with the results of her conversations.

“You still limp.”

“I do. But the swelling has diminished.”

“A good sign.”

“We thought,” said Collingswood, “we’d ask Lord Courtland if we might use his pony cart to take you to the May Day frolic this morning.”

“Kind of you, thank you. I did not plan to go.”

She’d be a spectacle in that cart and she didn’t want extra attention on her infirmity.

“But in the cart,” said Charlton, “you’ll be comfortable. I will assist you.”

“Thank you, but there is no need.” Indeed, she had to refuse him for that was the substance of her third decision. She had to dissuade Lord Charlton—enchanting Rory—from his attentions to her. Love at first sight was a romantic illusion.

She had no right to believe in such fantasies. Her life had always been colored by the harsh lights of reality. A father who abused her mother. That lady’s acquiescence. Her own defiance of her father, threatening to his bravado. She was no young woman capable of believing in love at first sight or second or eternal. So she must send dear Rory on to another lady who could accept him, value him, match him in gaiety and ardor. She had neither equal to his charm. “I will remain here and read a good book.”

Disappointment fell over his face like a shroud.

Silence grew among the four. Though Diana and Collingswood carried on, the quiet spells were awkward.

“Shall I meet you in the foyer to walk to the village, Lady Saunderson?” Collingswood asked her when they had finished their breakfasts.

“I’d like that.” She checked the clock on the mantle. “In an hour?”

He agreed and with a knowing glance at Charlton, he followed Diana to the hall.

Fifi took the last remaining bites of bacon and egg, in a hurry to leave quickly and write that note to Esme.

“Finished?” he asked, sounding peevish.

She glanced at him and he scowled at her.

Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | Very well. She shot to her feet. She’d end this right here and now. “I am. Good morning to you, sir—“ He hauled her into his arms and a strode toward the hall. “It is not a good morning at all!”

She sought purchase wrapping her arms around his shoulders and prayed no one was in the hall to witness this. “You must put me down!”

“Why?” He took the stairs. “So you can run away?”

His — eyes bored into hers. She’d not do well to argue with him often. He showed her a wall of integrity that she might never breech—and an anger she might never protect against.

“I am not running, sir! I will not. I showed you that this morning. I apologized. Diana accepted.

Collingswood also. You did too! What is your problem?”

He set his jaw and fumed.

Oh, it was the day! Her accident! The pain. This man—and all he awakened within her. Hope, need, want…a yearning for…

This man who held her so tenderly, who treated her so reverently.

He took the stairs with speed and precision.

Though she held tightly to him, her arms around his neck, she knew this would be the last time he held her. How could he even think of wishing to hold her from now on? She was a flawed creature.

“Open the door,” he told her when they arrived at her rooms.

She twisted the handle, ready to be deposited to the floor…but he shouldered his way in, kicked shut the door and marched straight past her sitting room and into her bedroom.

There, he plunked her atop the gold satin counterpane and went to the windows where he crossed his arms, then whirled to confront her.

“Thank you, you may go,” she said as he seemed to search the room, strode to one corner and poured two glasses of water from the glass pitcher.

Then he brought her one. “Drink it.”

She opened her mouth to object, then shrugged and did as he bid her.

He put both glasses to a table, then sat beside her 18 | UncagedBooks.com

on the edge of the bed. “Tell me about your gambling.”

She glared at the ceiling. He would drag on this humiliation?

“Tell me.”

She huffed and lifted both hands in exasperation. “I love it. I shouldn’t. I’m good at it. Diana taught me much. So did my old nurse. Pinters was her name.”

“Why?” “Because I was bored.”

He knit his brows. “As a child?”

“I needed an activity to take my mind from my worries.”

“I see. So your nurse taught you how to play or how to cheat?”

“I do not cheat. I know how to count cards. Mine.

Yours. Everyone’s.”

“It’s a skill.”

“Yes,” she said, “and it can be learned!”

“So you did. And what have you won over the years?”

“Why? Do you want me to return it all?”

He reproved her with a look. “Don’t be funny. I’m not. I’m trying instead to understand you. Your winnings, please?”

She winced. Ran a hand through her hair and began to pluck the pins from her coif. She hated fancy coiffures and tightly bound hair, tightly bound corsets, tightly bound women and suffocating rules. She’d obeyed all of them to what avail? Curse it ! Her long dark hair cascaded around her shoulders in thick heavy coils. She massaged her head, spread out her curls, free of the restrictions, and stroked strands of it, recalling what she’d won. “Money. I won money, mostly. A hundred here. Fifty there. I usually donated it to the Foundling Home in Bath. Poor innocents, they need much, you know. But lately, my mother and I run short of funds. Since my father died, we live on an allowance that he ordered for us.” Penny-pincher that he was, her sire ordered his solicitor to search for the new rightful earl who, according to his mother, lived in the American State of Massachusetts.

“Anything else?” Rory pressed.

She sniffed. “Last month, I won a cow but I did not take her home. Where would I put her, eh? In the pink parlor?”

| CERISE DELAND | “What did you do with her?”

“Gave her back to Mister Wiggins who owned her! I can’t feed a cow. Or milk her.”

“Why do you gamble?”

Ah. He was attempting to discover if she worked the cards to satisfy an addiction. Well, she picked up a deck to experience a euphoria, but not for the type he understood. “I don’t…gamble.”

“How’s that?”

“I…play!”

“Explain it to me.”

If he were any other man, she would have shown him the door. Injured ankle. Kindness to her. His charm, notwithstanding.

“I know how to play well. With insight and skill. I can count and see what others have. And I use that to my benefit. My ability makes me strong. Competent.”

“You are that without gambling.”

“Kind of you to say, sir. But let’s be honest, you have known me less than one day.”

“I have known you well enough that you told me how you dance with abandon.”

“Oh, Rory.” Tears surprised her. She brushed at them.

“That is a saying.”

“Yes. Which comes from the need to be free.”

She nodded and glanced at her clasped hands.

He took them both in his. “Free of what, Fee?” She met his gaze.

“Of what must you be free?”

“Such a long tale. You would be bored.”

“I doubt it.”

“No.” She wouldn’t give in.

He tugged at her hands. “Look at me. Why do you tell yourself to ‘sing in the dark’?”

“You intrude.”

“I do. I know I do. But I care for you, Fee. I will intrude because to sing in the dark is what one does when all else in the world offers no sights, no sounds, no pleasures save those you can count on within yourself.”

She sucked in air that he could typify her feelings so well.

He slid closer, his body’s warmth the soft caress of one human to another. “If you must tell yourself to ‘live like no one need approve’, then that is bravery in its rawest form.”

“Or justification for any act.”

“Not to you, my darling, Fee.” He slipped his fingers into her hair, the powerful claim of his hands on her head a caress of pure pleasure. No one had ever touched her head and given her such relief from her hard realities. “For you, it was another statement of your courage. If no one need approve of you but you, then your soul’s journey must be complete.”

She sighed and he gathered her against him. “The only task remaining is to find another who dances with abandon and sings in the dark with you.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and allowed herself the heady sensations of his presence.

He lifted her chin. “I adore you, Lady Fiona Chastain. Your quiet demeanor. Your love of your friends. Your madness at cards.”

“You don’t think me ready for Bedlam?”

“Perhaps,” he said and she snorted. “Even if you did qualify, you mustn’t go.”

“No? Why not?” He was toying with her.

“I cannot visit you there.”

She scoffed. “You’d wish to?”

He went quite still, his gaze upon her mouth. “I’d have to move in with you.”

“Never!”

“Otherwise, how could I kiss you?”

“You could do that now,” she said with breathless ease, her heart pounding in anticipation.

“Might I?” he asked, ever the gentleman.

“At any minute.” She cupped his nape and drew him down with her to the bed. “Like this,” she murmured as she gave into the desperate need to brush her lips on his.

And oh, his mouth was heaven on earth. Soft, deliciously firm. His tongue darted out to play with hers. The dance was one she’d never enjoyed with any man. But he was determined, devoted.

“Darling Fee,” he groaned and captured the back of her neck to bring her to him. “You taste divine.”

He nipped her and licked her. Then he crushed her to him and kissed her lips as if he’d never done it before with any woman.

His hands were on her breasts, shaping and stroking, sliding down her torso to her hips. He grasped Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | her thigh and lifted it so that he sank between her legs. There against her core, she felt the hard evidence of what this morning had earned her.

A man. Hers. All hers. Ready and primed to claim her. More than that, a man who understood her.

He rained kisses down her cheeks and jaw, down her throat and across the bodice of her gown. “I love the blue,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “I want to love what lies beneath it more.”

She cupped his cheeks, his words an aphrodisiac to her troubled day and her disastrous lonely life. She gave him kisses, a thousand.

And he stopped her, a hand to her cheek. “My darling Fee, stop.”

No. * *** He caught her hand. “Yes, my darling. Stop.”

Disappointment flashed across her brow.

“Oh, my sweet.” He chucked her under the chin and wished he might discard his ethics and indulge his body as it screamed to do. “Don’t look at me like that. You tempt me so.”

She circled both legs around his to bring him closer.

He closed his eyes to gain some strength to resist her. “But we will not do this.” He took her lips in a swift hot brand. “I want you. Make no mistake. But there is much to do for us.”

“I don’t follow.”

He traced the outline of her sensuous mouth. “I will have you and soon. But as my own to claim.”

Shock had her open-mouthed and staring at him.

“You thought I’d kiss you in your bed and take you without benefit of any clergy?”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

He put a fingertip to her lips. “A good thing. To a point.”

He seized her lips in a ravenous kiss. Her mouth was every lovely promise of sexual delight he’d ever hoped for. She was willing, eager, a sinuous grace in his embrace. He had to stop this and pushed to one side, his arms still full of her.

He kissed the tip of her pretty nose. “I’m very surprised by this myself, my darling. But I have learned the value of patience and prudence. I want 20 | UncagedBooks.com

you with speed. And it will be so. A special license could take me a few days to obtain and then there is the matter of telling my mother and my sister.”

She still looked dazed. “Of course.”

With her cheeks rosy from his kisses and her mahogany hair wild upon the golden counterpane, she was a bewitching beauty. To watch her pant, her full breasts rise and strain against the fabric in want of him, was to curse his decision to be true to his morals. “I think I must not only leave you to your bed alone, my girl, but write to my mother and sister to tell them of my decision.”

He rose from the bed, tugged his frock coat and waistcoat into place and smiled at her.

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

“I am surprised too, my darling.” He leaned over her and kissed her deeply, swiftly on her luscious lips.

He ran his fingers through her hair. “But you are shocked, too. You want me, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes.” She sounded fierce, her nails digging into his frock coat.

He kissed her, their tongues playing again, his strength dying in her embrace. “I will come for you before nine to go to the village.”

“No! No,” she said as she pushed up. “I do not wish to go. Besides, I had hoped to meet my cousin, Esme.

We have much to remedy, she and I, and I will be in no mood to watch the May Pole dancers.”

“I see. Very well, I will see you at luncheon then. And I will carry you down. Ah, ah. No arguments.” He smiled, well pleased with himself this morning. Then he strode to the hall door.

“Rory!” She called to him.

His mind full of words to write to his mother, he whirled to face his intended bride. “Yes, my darling, what?”

“Did your father love your mother?”

That struck him as endearing…and odd. “Cherished is the word I would apply.”

She shot a hand against the jam, as if to hold herself up.

“And yours?” he asked, thinking he’d get as light a response.

“Cherished is very last word I could use.”

She said it with such vehemence, he cocked his head,

| CERISE DELAND | alarmed. “Fifi?”

“No! I’ll not explain, Rory. Not now. Do not—” She put a hand to her forehead. “Do not ask me. Go. Go to the frolic. I will see you later.”

She had drawn boundaries and he dare not cross them.

He’d make her his wife first. Then talk to her again.

Excerpt, ©Copyright 2020, Cerise DeLand, All rights reserved. Printed with permission.

COMING SOON:

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MEARA P L AT T Uncaged welcomes Meara Platt Uncaged: Welcome back to Uncaged!

Your latest release, The Scent of Love is part of a series, The Book of Love. Can you tell readers more about this series and the latest book? How many more books are you planning in the series?

M

eara Platt is a USA Today bestselling author and an Amazon UK All-star. Her favorite place in all the world is England’s Lake District, which may not come as a surprise since many of her stories are set in that idyllic landscape, including her award-winning paranormal romance Dark Gardens series. If you’d like to learn more about the ancient Fae prophecy that is about to unfold in the Dark Gardens series, as well as Meara’s lighthearted, international bestselling Regency romances in the Farthingale series, Book of Love series, and the Braydens series, please visit Meara’s website at www.mearaplatt.com.

Stay Connected

mearaplatt.com

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It is so nice to be back chatting with you and I must thank you again being so generous in your comments about my Farthingale series! The Book of Love series is very much along the same lighthearted, romantic and madcap style, and I think Regency is the perfect vehicle for witty dialogue, manners and mayhem within this elegant society. Think My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Pride & Prejudice. Big, loving and meddlesome family, but within the cultured backdrop of Regency England.

The idea for the Book of Love series came to me while I was at a book fair. I happened across a book written by a neuroscientist that dealt with the brain patterns and chemical reactions of the body involved in creating the feeling of true love. BOING – my eyes bulged. Everybody is curious about what makes people fall in love. As a romance writer, I know my readers are interested specifically in what makes a man fall in love? So I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if three friends, Olivia, Poppy, and Penelope, all young ladies about to make their debut in Regency era society, got their hands on an ancient book called The Book of Love and decided to test out its theories on what makes a man fall in love? Then they could go after any man they wanted

and snare the duke, marquess or earl of their dreams.

But first, they have to test their theories out on some unsuspecting “test frogs” because they can’t make mistakes when they go after their real targets. So, who are they going to use? Well, why not Penelope’s older brother and his two friends? Let the romantic mayhem begin! Olivia goes first (The Look of Love) and she is paired with Beast, a big, hunky, battle-scarred duke, the one man every woman in England wants. But she’s known him since he saved her from drowning when she was a little girl. He’s safe, right? NOT! This series was so popular, I wrote three more stories, this time with Poppy’s sister Violet and two of their cousins, Belle (Bluebell) and Honey (Honeysuckle).

Poppy, Violet, Belle, and Honey are Farthingales – so yes, I couldn’t resist writing more of the sweet, innocent debutantes in that family who seem to attract trouble wherever they go. Of course, I had to match them

with big, hunky alpha heroes who are often battlehardened and worldly. Do these alpha hunks stand a chance against these innocents? No way! They are going to fall fast and hard. The Song of Love which is Violet’s story is nominated for a RONE award.

The opening chapter is probably one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever written, which is saying something because these books all contain humor.

I’ll be writing three more stories in this series, so we’ll be up to nine books. This time the heroes will get their hands on this supposedly magical book and we’ll see what mayhem develops.

The first five books each have one of the five senses in the title because this is how we are first attracted to someone. Sight, Touch, Taste, Hearing, Scent. We use our senses to form our opinion. Is this person a prospective mate? The Scent of Love is my latest

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | release in the series, and I added a little twist in the story. The heroine, Belle Farthingale, has just been given The Book of Love, but she was a sickly child and still suffers from occasional attacks of what we know as asthma, so she’s been raised believing no man could possibly love her. The utterly swoon worthy hero, Finn, is head over heels for her, but he knows that she will never accept his love until she learns to love herself. So, the question for this story is not how do I make a man fall in love with me?

Rather, it is Finn’s question, how do I make Belle learn to love herself?

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I’m finishing The Kiss of Love which is Honey Farthingale’s love story, book 6 in the Book of Love series. These are all stand-alone romances, and a reader will have no trouble following any of the stories. But with any series, to catch the full flavor and pick up on the secondary characters and all the atmosphere built around them, start at the beginning. Since this series is in Kindle Unlimited, it’s a great way to binge read these light and funny romances.

Next, I’ll be turning to my “dark” side to write Book 5 in my gothic/fantasy Regency series called the Dark Gardens series. My readers have been incredibly patient with me, so I am thrilled to reveal here that Garden of Angels will be coming out this year. This series is set in England’s charming Lake District, but I’ve taken simple landmarks and turned them into portals for Fae and demons. Beware the red mountain known as Friar’s Crag which serves as a demon portal into our world. The bluebell gardens at St. Lodore’s Vicarage in the quiet village of Borrowdale serves as the Fae portal. You’ll meet Dragon Lords and a Fae king and his warriors along with a couple of Regency dragonshifter dukes. And I promise, this all pops out of my sober head. No drugs, alcohol, or other weird substances involved!

Garden of Angels will be Dragon Lord Mordain’s story. He is the red dragon and the son of the Fallen Angel. There will be a battle royal between the 26 | UncagedBooks.com

forces of good and evil. Whose side will Mordain take?

Get ready for some very sexy alpha bad boys and the sweet Regency heroines who tame them.

Uncaged: You live in New York, how has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

Oh, my. An excellent question. I am managing partner in a small law firm in NYC and we have basically been shut down since mid-March. Courts and government offices are all closed since that time and will not reopen until after April. I had a three-hour round trip commute each day. Trains and subways. No more until we have the all clear. I work from home doing as much as I can so that when things reopen, we can move ahead.

But we take the self-quarantine very seriously. For me, it is not a hardship. My practice is solid and I have clients who have been with me for decades. But for the younger generations who are starting jobs, just bought houses, just had children, or live paycheck to paycheck – very hard. We do not go out to eat, but order in from our local restaurants because it is so important to support them through this difficult period. We’ve always washed hands regularly, so now we do it a little more often, wipe down our counters and our food containers.

Keep our social distance from neighbors. That is much harder to do in NYC, but people are doing it the best they can. It is heartbreaking to see this vibrant, active city look like a ghost town now. I look forward to the day everyone is back and complaining about the traffic, the crowded subways, the late trains!

The silver lining for me is that I now can write full time every day, and this is what I do. It’s allowed me to get ahead on my writing schedule. I am very lucky to be able to do this, but do hope we get back to normal very soon.

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

From the past, William Shakespeare (whoever he may really be) absolutely. His work will live on forever.

Nostradamus, although that would be one wild conversation! John Steinbeck. Joseph Conrad (loved Nostromo). JRR Tolkein absolutely! What a brilliant world

| COLLETTE CAMERON |

he created! As for present day authors, I am blessed to say that I have met most of the romance authors I admire, but I’d love to have lunch with them any day!

For medieval, it’s Kathryn LeVeque. Her books are addictive. Her heroes and battle scene depictions are amazing. For Regency, Elizabeth Johns, who is an extraordinary writer and human being. Mary Lancaster and her Wicked series – so addictive also. Her writing just sweeps you along on a gentle current. Highlander, Caroline Lee for her Jewels series. Paula Quinn for her dragons. So many others – I’d love to have lunch with all of them because they are so incredibly creative and talented. I actually met Tom Clancy years ago as I stood on the train platform waiting for my commuter train to NYC. He was doing research for one of his books and asked me about the major airports, the traffic, the hotels where pilots would stay. Such fun talking to him! Did I tell him I was also a writer? No! I was too embarrassed.

I hadn’t sold a book yet and he’d already written dozens and sold millions.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

I love this question! My characters speak to me all the time, starting with Lily Farthingale from My Fair Lily. She is this brilliant, Regency nerd who knows everything about books and nothing about men. I kept trying to give her a scholarly hero and she kept yelling at me – “no, I want that sexy Highlander”. So, she got her way and Ewan Cameron and his wayward sheepdog Jasper became her heroes. Most recently, I encountered this with Thomas Halford, Earl of Wycke who was a secondary character in The Taste of Love. He was also pursuing my heroine, Penelope. He was a nice guy, Issue 46 | May 2020 | 27

| FEATURE AUTHOR | the sort on paper whom she should love. He didn’t win Penelope (but he didn’t really love her, figured it was time to get married and she was the sort of girl he should love). I tried to set him aside when Taste was done, but he kept talking in my ear. “I’m not going away. I know who I want. I want Honey Farthingale.” Same for The Scent of Love. I tried to match Belle with Finn’s brother, Ronan. Uh, uh. No way. Finn wanted her and no one else was going to have her.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

Ha, ha! Sit on the couch like a slug and watch tv, preferably with chocolate and a Coca-Cola close at hand. But I do get out occasionally, and it may come as no surprise considering my Farthingale heroines all have flower names, that I love gardening. Flowers in bloom just make me happy. Whatever is going on around me, looking out my window at the flowers, or planting them, pruning them, digging in the earth, eases my mind.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

Success for me has many facets. It’s about writing the best book I can and getting it out for readers to enjoy. It’s about sharing the love of historical romance with other authors and readers. It’s about appreciating everyone from cover artist, marketer, formatter, editor, publisher, readers who take the time to read and review my books, and readers who simply are willing to try my stories. They all put their hearts into making my books beautiful and getting them seen. I’m so grateful they allow me to write down all that is rattling in my head.

They understand me and my characters, and jump right into these worlds with me. Success is forming friendships within this wonderful community. The best reward is probably knowing I have touched the heart of a reader and made them laugh when life around them is hard and has given them reasons to cry. My father was the kindest man I’ve ever known, not a pushover by any means. But he made 28 | UncagedBooks.com

| MEARA PLATT | me appreciate the power of a kind gesture, no matter how small you think it is. It is huge to the person in need of it at the time. To be able to put a smile on someone’s face when they might otherwise be crying, that’s success to me.

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I prefer ebooks and I have dozens lined up at any time because I love to read. I enjoy audiobooks in the car, but I spend (or did before the virus hit) five days a week commuting by train and do very little driving. I have shelves full of those grand old paperback romances, the ones with Fabio covers and women with their boobs a hair’s breadth from spilling out. I can’t bring myself to get rid of them, but now I am primarily an ebook reader. I just finished Elizabeth John’s Duke of Knight and before that I was reading Alexa Aston’s To Heal An Earl. Next up is more in Kathryn LeVeque’s Executioner Knights series. Historical romances are wonderful, they take me on a journey and put me in a happy place.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

To my fans – thank you! I treasure your faith in me.

I love that we can share laughter, Regency mayhem, or sexy dragons flying around the Lake District. I love when you reach out to me. I always feel that if anyone is kind enough to take the time to message me or post on my page, I can take the time to answer them. And may we have lots of rollicking fun together!

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| FEATURE AUTHOR |

Enjoy an excerpt from The Scent of Love The Scent of Love Meara Platt Historical Regency Will The Book of Love work its magic on Belle and Finn?

Belle Farthingale knows something is wrong in the family business and is worried her father has gotten in over his head.

She needs Finn Brayden’s help to get him out of trouble, but after their humiliating encounter at Lady Dayne’s tea party, will he ever speak to her again?

Finn Brayden has one rule - never mix business with pleasure. But that rule is about to be shot to bits by the luscious Belle Farthingale. There’s something about her that he can’t resist. She gets his heart thrumming and senses reeling.

When she comes to him seeking help, why does he suddenly feel he’s the one in need of protection? Belle is very persuasive and he’s in danger of falling in love.

Excerpt London, England May 1820 Finn Brayden had only himself to blame for being caught quite spectacularly in Lady Eloise Dayne’s flower garden in the midst of her tea party with Belle Farthingale in his arms. She wasn’t in his arms precisely, more twisted under his body.

He hadn’t been kissing her, either.

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Nor had he...there was no polite explanation for what he had been doing.

He and Belle had not even been properly introduced.

Not that a proper introduction would have fixed anything.

“Chipping Way curse,” he heard someone mutter as a gathering crowd began to close in around them.

“No, it’s that book Violet gave her only this morning,” Hortensia Farthingale intoned in her doom-and-gloom, dowager voice that was immediately recognizable. “I knew it would lead to disaster.”

Finn growled. “Can you not see? She’s having trouble catching her breath. This is no jest. Fetch her sister.

Quickly!”

He stared down at Belle, this girl who had accidentally spilled tea down the front of his trousers, setting off this series of innocent events that might end up in her ruin. Of course, no Brayden would ever allow such a thing to happen.

Braydens were honorable.

He—damn it—would not be the cause of Belle Farthingale’s fall from grace.

“You seem to be having trouble breathing as well, Finn,” someone intoned.

“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t.

After spilling his tea, and while muttering effusive apologies, Belle had unthinkingly reached out to blot the spill with her handkerchief. That was when her hand accidentally touched him where no gently bred young lady should ever touch a man who was not her husband.

His bollocks were now on fire.

| MEARA PLATT | Well, not literally on fire.

There was no scandal.

Whether it was because of the tea or Belle’s touch, he did not know.

Only the scent of grass and flower blossoms and...

Belle smelled nice, too. Sweet and subtle as a lavender flower.

Realizing what she’d just done, she’d stopped breathing. Utterly and completely. Restoring air to her lungs was all that mattered to Finn right now. They’d sort the rest out later, assuming there was anything to be sorted out. “Belle, speak to me. Please.”

He tried to keep his voice calm, but the blood was pumping hard through his veins, and he found himself anything but in control. To his relief, she finally began to inhale. Well, more of a wheeze. He glanced up at the group gathered around them. “Where is her sister?”

He scowled at the incorrigible snoop. Was she seriously going to ruin Belle when the poor girl was in obvious physical distress? ©Meara Platt All Rights Reserrved Printed with permission

DON’T MISS THE FULL SERIES

He’d heard sitting up helped when someone was in this sort of distress, so he carefully propped Belle up, allowing her to rest in the circle of his arms. “Take slow breaths. There. Well done. Try to take another. I won’t leave you. You’ll be all right.”

He repeated the words, for he noticed they were having some effect. Her chest was heaving less now, and her erratic heartbeat appeared to be regulating.

“Belle!” Honey Farthingale rushed toward them.

Finn felt a flood of relief. “Your sister wasn’t breathing. I didn’t know what to do.”

NEW RELEASE

“Oh, dear. It happens sometimes. I think she’s coming out of it.”

Belle must have heard her and responded in a strained, raspy voice. “I am.”

Finn wasn’t so sure, for she was trembling violently, and her breaths were not all that steady. He caught sight of London’s most prolific gossip, Lady Phoebe Withnall, staring at him with her beady eyes. “Why are your pants wet?” Her nose twitched as though she’d caught the scent of scandal.

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C ATC H UP

CATCH UP WITH LINDA O’CONNOR AND HER LATEST RELEASE IN THE DR. BROGAN CORKIE MATCHMAKING DOCTOR SERIES

Uncaged welcomes back Linda O’Connor Uncaged: Can you tell your readers more about the series, “Dr. Brogan Corkie Matchmaking Doctor” and the latest book that will release in May, Don’t Forget the Dog? I’d love to! I originally had the idea for this storyline two years ago. I frequently see patients with infectious illnesses (understatement now) and advise them to stay home from school or work until they’re no longer contagious. It’s not always easy for working parents to take time off to be with their little ones who are sick. It also can be difficult for someone living on their own to cope when they don’t feel well.

I thought caring for someone who is temporarily ill would make a great job for a retired doctor. (I write romantic comedies so the illnesses are never serious or heartbreaking.) A doctor wouldn’t be daunted by the illness. That’s how Dr. Brogan Corkie’s character came to life. When I started writing, I ended up giving Brogan a hobby – she enjoys cooking and catering for people – and that became her second career. I “upgraded” her M.D. from Medical Doctor to Matchmaking Doctor.

Brogan became the romantic catalyst – she brings couples together and then through good advice and a warm heart, she uses her cooking, medical – and matchmaking – skills to weave love and romance into their lives.

And throughout the series, Brogan’s own heart gets tangled up in romance, too. ’Cause you know – medicine is a work of heart.

Uncaged: Are you planning on more to this series?

Can readers read the books in this series as standalones?

Right now I’m planning to write 4 books in this series.

Don’t Forget the Dog is the second book of the series.

They are all stand-alone happily-ever-after stories with unique couples, but Brogan’s own romance over arcs through all 4 stories. Don’t Drop the Baby is the first book, Don’t Unravel the Past is the third and will be released on August 4, and the fourth, a Christmas story, is planned for November. I still have to write that one. :D

| LINDA O’CONNOR | Uncaged: You are also a doctor, so thank you for your service in these trying times. What words of professional wisdom can you give to readers about the COVID-19?

Where do I begin? Haha There are two pieces of advice I would pass on. The first is to stay active. Stay home. Stay safe. Stay active.

It doesn’t have to be much, but you need to keep moving. With a sedentary lifestyle there’s a risk of developing a DVT (deep venous thrombosis) - a blood clot in your leg. The problem (and it’s a big one) is that it can dislodge and travel to your lungs.

Then it’s called a pulmonary embolus and presents with chest pain and shortness of breath (no fever and no cough so at least it’s slightly different from COVID-19 but not good news either). A PE (as we call it in the biz) can occur in sedentary people after as little as a 5-hour airplane ride or after 2 days lying in bed after surgery. It usually happens about 5 -10 days later. So I’m a bit worried about all the TV/ movie binge watching that’s happening.

The good news is that it’s mostly preventable. You just have to move. So now is the time to take all the clothes off the treadmill and rowing machine stashed in the basement/corner and use it for support when you do your squats. :D If you have kids play Simon Says, Red Light/Green Light, and Please May I, dance, do the Hokey Pokey, teach them the Macarena, play charades - it will do you good! You can even stretch, walk around your house every hour, go up and down the stairs a few times...did I mention dancing?

If you’re feeling stressed, an hour of physical activity will help - and the benefits go beyond the hour that you’re active. Walk, bike, jog - try to find something you enjoy and make it part of your routine.

Start small if it seems overwhelming, but a bit of fresh air and exercise is what the doctor is ordering!

The second piece of advice I have is to try not to worry about being productive right now. It’s a Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| CATCH UP | chaotic time as everyone adjusts to a new lifestyle – safe at home – and often grieving the loss of life and freedom as we knew it. It’s enough to wade through it without putting pressure on yourself to be constructive. Maybe right now isn’t the time to learn a new language, write a novel, or teach your child the whole curriculum. If keeping busy helps you relieve stress, then that’s great. But if you’re already stressed it might be better to just focus on your health, slow things down, count your blessings, and take things a bit easier. You don’t need the extra pressure of trying to achieve something.

Getting through this without mental health issues is an achievement in of itself.

Uncaged: Are there any promotional events for 2020 that are on hold for now because of the pandemic?

Yes. I was invited to present a self-publishing workshop at the Limestone Genre Expo in Kingston, Ontario in June and that is on hold. I’d also hoped to be a speaker at the Toronto Northern Hearts conference in September and they’ve already decided to change the format to a retreat for local writers.

Even the local Women’s Art Festival to be held in the summer is up in the air. But I am getting better at e-talking and video-conferencing with readers and other authors!

A

ward-winning author Linda O’Connor started writing romantic comedies when she needed a creative outlet other than subtly rearranging the displays at a local home décor store.

Her books have enjoyed bestseller status.

When not writing, she’s a physician at an Urgent Care Clinic. She shares her medical knowledge in fast-paced, well-written, sexy romances – with an unexpected twist. Her favourite prescription to write? Laugh every day. Love every minute.

lindaoconnor.net

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Enjoy an excerpt from Don’t Forget the Dog Don’t Forget the Dog Linda O’Connor Contemporary Romance/Humor/Medical Dr. Brogan Corkie is happily semi-retired from medicine and now has time for other hobbies. Her passion for food is second only to her skill at matchmaking!

Blaine McKinnon, owner and executive chef of an upscale restaurant in Mapleton, has an adorable Old English sheepdog named Tacos. Brogan is roped into dog-sitting Tacos at Blaine’s house. The upside is the spectacular kitchen at her disposal.

Dr. Sabrina Langfield, a newly minted doctor, is in a bind when her mom, Rue, falls and fractures her wrist. Brogan offers to help and does double-duty looking after Tacos and Rue. Blaine and Sabrina were high school sweethearts but parted ways when Blaine pushed Sabrina to pursue a career. Sabrina hasn’t seen him since, but Rue is a huge fan and frequents his restaurant. Rue’s biggest regret is her part in Sabrina and Blaine’s break-up, and with Brogan’s help, she’s determined to get them back together. It might not be that easy – Sabrina is wary of Tacos and, more pressing, she’s decided to move a four-hour flight away to do five more years of training in emergency medicine.

Will meddlesome matchmaking, Blaine’s persuasiveness, and – don’t forget the dog – Tacos’ sweet nature be enough to convince Sabrina to stay?

Excerpt Rue stepped inside. She brushed a hand down Blaine’s arm and then opened her arms for a hug. “You’re so sweet to welcome me into your home.” She squeezed him tight with her left arm. Her casted arm fell to her side.

| LINDA O’CONNOR | “Not even a question.” Blaine closed his eyes briefly as Rue held him. “I was sorry to hear about your accident.”

“A bit of a busted wing, but no worries, I’ll fly again.” Tacos nudged against them and Rue broke contact. She held out her hand for Tacos to sniff and then rubbed him behind the ears. “Look how you’ve grown, Tacos. Do you remember me? Still so cute.” She bent and put her face in Tacos’s fur when Tacos tried to lick her.

Blaine turned to Sabrina. “Are you going to hover on the doorstep or come inside? You’re letting all the heat out.”

Sabrina stamped her feet to knock the snow off her brown suede boots and then stepped inside and shut the door, avoiding eye contact with him. She brushed at the snow on her tailored wool coat.

Blaine watched her with a half smile on his face.

“Looks like you missed a snowflake.”

Sabrina’s jaw clenched. She held out a bag. “My mom’s things.”

He raised an eyebrow. Rue reached around him and took the bag. “Thanks heaps, dear.”

Tacos skipped over to sniff Sabrina.

Sabrina took a step back to avoid him. “Don’t forget to take your pain pills regularly today, Mom. Don’t wait for the pain to become intolerable. And get some rest.”

Blaine pulled Tacos away from Sabrina and interjected. “Rue, have you met Brogan Corkie? Brogan, Rue Langfield.”

Brogan stepped forward. “Hello. I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Sorry, I should have introduced you,” Sabrina Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| CATCH UP | mumbled. She loosened the belt and undid the top buttons of her coat. Underneath she wore a crisp white blouse and a navy blue pencil skirt.

fume she wore. It took him back eleven years, and he almost lost his train of thought. “Eating for pleasure is just as important.”

Rue held out her hand to shake and then smiled crookedly and waved it instead. “I’m delighted to meet you, too. Sabrina told me that you work with her at the clinic.”

Sabrina stiffened at his touch. Her back was ramrod straight. “Proper nutrition gives you the energy to enjoy what gives you pleasure.”

Blaine’s head swivelled between them. “Is that so?”

Brogan smiled. “I do, or rather I did. I’m semiretired now, so I’m not there as often.” She turned back to Rue. “My new passion is cooking, and I’m hoping you like to eat.”

Rue removed her knitted wrap and matching cap and tossed them on a chair. The loose-fitting caftan she had on flowed to her ankles and covered her cast in a tie-dye rainbow of colours. Her dark hair, with wisps of grey, fell in a long braid down her back. “I love to eat. We should get along famously.”

Brogan smiled. “Have you seen Blaine’s kitchen?

It’s to die for.”

“Show me.” Rue put her arm around Brogan’s waist as they walked down the hall. Tacos trotted happily beside them. “You’re not one of those New Age, plant-based, vegan, health food nuts, are you?” Rue asked as they moved out of earshot.

Sabrina didn’t catch Brogan’s answer, but she winced when their laughter filled the air.

Blaine leaned against the wall. “I take it you’re still a plant-based, vegan, health food nut.”

Sabrina raised her chin. “There’s nothing wrong with choosing foods wisely to optimize health, despite what my mother thinks – or you, for that matter.”

He stepped closer and brushed at the snow melting on her neat ponytail. He could smell the per36 | UncagedBooks.com

Her message and her body language read prim and proper, but her husky voice was pure sex. His body responded, and he leaned closer. “What gives you pleasure these days?”

She stopped him with a pointed finger jabbed into his chest and raised her chin. “Shouldn’t the question be who is giving me pleasure?”

Blaine jerked back, her words stopping him more effectively than a slap. He’d been fairly confident she hadn’t been dating anyone. He had a front seat window to the ticker tape of her life through Sabrina’s mom, who was a regular at Fire and Ice. There hadn’t even been a whisper of Sabrina dating, and even though two people couldn’t be any more different, Sabrina and her mom were still tight. There was no way Mrs. L wouldn’t know. He glanced at Sabrina’s left hand.

No ring. She was baiting him, but he couldn’t deny the relief that coursed through him. He narrowed his eyes at her sublime expression and had to ask. “Who is giving you pleasure?”

Sabrina smiled slowly, her emerald eyes silently mocking him. “I would say that’s none of your business.”

She buttoned her coat. “I’ll pick my mom up after work at six.” She opened the door. “See ya.” She pulled the door shut behind her.

Blaine stood in the foyer and, with a shake of his head, smiled reluctantly. Round one to Sabrina. She was still sassy, sexy, and smart – exactly why he loved her. Game on.

ma d eline martin

M

adeline Martin is a USA TODAY Bestselling author of Scottish set historical romance novels filled with twists and turns, adventure, steamy romance, empowered heroines and the men who are strong enough to love them.

She lives a glitter-filled life in Jacksonville, Florida with her two daughters (known collectively as the minions) and a man so wonderful

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he’s been dubbed Mr. Awesome. She loves Disney, Nutella, cat videos and goats dressed up in pajamas.

She also loves to travel and attributes her love of history to having spent most of her childhood as an Army brat in Germany.

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MadelineMartin.com

Uncaged welcomes Madeline Martin Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! Your newest book, The Highlander’s Lady Knight, releases on April 28th and is the 2nd book in the Midsummer Knights series. Can you tell readers more about the series and the latest book? How many books are planned for the series?

Thank you so much for having me! This is actually a multi-author series that is being released every two weeks by myself and six other authors, Kris Kennedy, Eliza Knight, Lori Ann Bailey, Terri Brisben, Laurel O’Donnell and Madeline Hunter. The premise of the series is set at a medieval tournament where there is jousting, a melee and, of course, some treason…

paper, it’s definitely been a little more crowded at home than I’m used to. LOL My minions have been doing school at home and have been largely independent with it (thank goodness!). However, when their school work ends, my youngest wants all of my time. It hasn’t been great for my productivity, but it’s been so wonderful getting to play games and go on bike rides with her. I’m really cherishing all of this bonus time with my family.

I’ve also added a new task onto my day – nightly sewing of masks. I’ve always been someone who feels better when I have an actionable item in dif-

In The Highlander’s Lady Knight, my heroine, Isolde, is left with no one to defend her honor, so she decides to take her brothers armor and attend the tournament as him so as to defend herself. The hero, Cormac, knows Lady Isolde has a considerable dowry, one that could help save his people, and is determined to marry her.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

Last year I released a medieval romance series called the Borderland Ladies about noblewomen who live on the dangerous border between England and Scotland who are trained to fight like warriors. This year, I’ll be doing a spinoff series called the Borderland Rebels where we explore the lives of Scottish rebels. I just finished the first book, Faye’s Sacrifice, where Faye is abducted and forced to wed the man she’d been betrothed to when they were both children. The marriage is supposed to temper the feud that’s been going on between the Sutherland and Ross clans for generations, one that originated in The Highlander’s Lady Knight. I’ve been really enjoying writing all the action and danger and, of course, passion!

Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

Aside from the perpetual fear of running out of toilet

ficult times. For me, sewing masks to donate locally to hospitals and grocery stores helps soothe my ruffled feathers in these trying times. My skills on the sewing machine are pretty basic, but I found an easy accordion style mask pattern on Youtube and work on them at night while my family watches TV on closed caption so they know what’s going on despite the intermittent whirr of my sewing machine LOL Uncaged:Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

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| FEATURE AUTHOR |

I’d love to get to sit down with Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was my favorite author when I was a girl. In fact, my mom even bought me a bonnet and calico print dress and I spent countless hours running around barefoot in the backyard being Laura. She brought the past to life for me and it really rooted itself in my heart.

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Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

Ugh. ALL THE TIME! I plot out my books extensively every time I start on a new book. About 30% of the way through, my characters start to veer off course. By the end of the book, I’m scrambling to find a way to get

them out of the impossible place I’ve stuck them in. I swear, that impossible place always sounds good when I’m writing it until I realize I have to get them out!

LOL Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

When the world is back to its normal place, I love to go to Disney World. We are annual pass holders and usually go about once a month. I love that wonderful time with my family where there aren’t electronics or distractions, just us and magical fun.

| MADELINE MARTIN | it’s an inadequate milestone. We are our worst critics, aren’t we?

I think at its core, success for an author is writing a book that hook people. If I’ve made you connect with a character or have caused your heart to race a little faster or brought tears to your eyes, I’ve done my job. ;) Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I listen to audiobooks more than anything with physical books being my next favorite. With my girls still being young and somehow managing to pack my days full constantly, listening to books is the only time I have a chance to read more times than not.

I’m currently listening to The Whispers of War

by Julia Kelly. I really enjoy books about life during WWII and actually am writing one now that is called The Last Bookshop in London.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

I really enjoy spending time with my family as much as possible. Even little things like playing games or taking painting classes or cooking together make me so happy.

We also have beautiful sunsets in our backyard and having a glass of wine while watching the sun set with my fiancé is the just the most wonderful thing ever!

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to read my books. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a writer and every one of you who buys and reads my books make that possible.

You can follow me on any social media platform, though I confess, I’m most active on FB.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

I think a lot of authors have a tendency to downplay their success, so this is a hard question to answer. My milestone moves every time I hit one and justify why Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR |

Enjoy an excerpt from The Highlander’s Lady Knight The Highlander’s Lady Knight Madeline Martin Medieval Romance/Highlands Blurb: She wants to save her honor..

Lady Isolde Maxwell‘s brother is more inclined to marry her off rather than defend her honor, leaving her to take matters into her own gauntlets. After stealing his armor, she heads to the Rose Citadel tournament to fight for her freedom from a man she never agreed to wed. Yet, even as Isolde is trying to escape one man, another has set his sights on her, one who is determined to catch her attention and one she cannot help but crave.

He wants to save his people..

When yet another failed harvest threatens the welfare of his clan, Cormac Sutherland, Chieftain of the Sutherland clan needs a solution to save his people. When his twin brother proposes they attend a tournament in England and steal the betrothed noblewomen from men of their rival clan, Cormac is skeptical, especially given his lacking skills at wooing. However, once he gets to know Lady Isolde, he finds she not only earns his respect, but also stokes his passion.

Can their love do both?

When intrigue and betrayal come into play and a challenge threatens one’s greatest love, can Cormac and Isolde survive the tournament with 42 | UncagedBooks.com

their hearts and lives intact?

Excerpt Isolde’s mouth quirked in a little smile he wanted to taste.

Cormac cradled her carefully with his fingertips by her waist and jaw. An ache settled within him, a powerful longing for this woman who had been left to care for herself when no one else would do so. A woman whose strength took her where a lady should not have to venture. A woman who had risen to the occasion regardless.

Her tongue ran along her lower lip, leaving it glistening with temptation, and her eyes found his once more. “Cormac,” she said quietly.

“Isolde.” Her name came out sounding gruff with the force of his need.

She edged closer to him, so her chest nearly grazed his. His heartbeat thundered in his ears and matched the pulse of desire in his groin. He should remove his hands from her, walk away and never look back.

She was not meant for Brodie, but nor was she meant for him. Not when he had need of her wealth. Not when he would be using her for land and coin as others in her life had.

He would not kiss her. Nor touch her. Nor long for her.

Then he made the mistake of looking into her eyes. Dark lashes rimmed such an exquisite blue that he felt himself tip into them and become lost with no desire to be found again. Her rose perfume intoxicated him like the strongest Highland whisky. Aye, he should leave, and yet he could not walk away.

feature authors

historical western | contemporary erotic

Lynda J. Cox

Raisa Greywood

lyn d a j . co x Welcome Lynda J. Cox Uncaged: Welcome back to Uncaged! Your latest release, Outlaw’s Redemption is the 2nd book in a series. Are you planning on more to this series?

L

ynda J Cox was born on the south side of Chicago into a family of staunch White Sox fans and political junkies. Sadly for her family, Lynda bleeds Cubbie blue and she refuses to discuss politics. Some things are just better left unsaid. She grew up on a steady diet of syndicated Western TV shows, John Wayne movies, and the Sunday night staple of Lassie. She blames those influences for her writing choices and the dogs she loves.

Even though Lynda has never lived in Wyoming, she will be the first one to tell you that is where her heart is. Her favorite place to be is either Laramie or up in the Snowies, sitting on a quartzite boulder and looking at the reflection of Sugar Loaf and Centennial Peak in an alpine lake. Those mountains and the Laramie valley are her soul’s lodestone.

Stay Co n n e c te d

lyndajcox.com

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Yes, I am. I actually get to write the final book in the series. I’m writing it now. Redemption finally comes to the whole town of Redemption Bluff in the form of a Pinkerton agent turned lawman. It starts out a little dark, but I promise the HEA is there. I can’t thank Kari Trumbo enough for inviting me to play in her little world.

Uncaged: What inspires you to write in the western historical genre?

I honestly grew up watching westerns in syndication on WGN as a kid. WGN was a local, independent television station in Chicago. I loved the sense of justice in those syndicated series, that the good guys had a code of honor, and you knew who the bad guys were. I try not to be so cliched in my writing, but I also bring those standard tropes into my writing.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I’m working on two books—one for the Redemption Bluff series and I’m lucky enough to write the book that will close out this part of the series, and I’m writing what will probably be my last book in the Brokken Road series. That’s a bit bitter-sweet, too, because I’ve come to like that little town the other authors in that series and I have created.

Uncaged: As of right now, you are planning on attending Wild Deadwood Reads in June. What are you most looking forward to with this event?

Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | Can I say just getting out of the house other than for a weekly run to the grocery and feed store?

Other than that, I am looking forward to seeing friends—both authors and readers. Chatting on Facebook or even on the phone just isn’t the same as being in the same room and laughing together.

Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

I’ve been an introvert most of my life, but I did like to get out of the house once in a while. What I miss and what’s changed is I’m not planning which dog shows I’ll be going to in the next couple of months.

Those are a large part of my late fall, winter, and early spring plans—and that all went out the window in February.

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

I’d love to sit and have lunch with Albert Payson Terhune—the author of Lad: A Dog. Yeah, that would kill two birds with one stone. I’d love to know what his writing schedule looked like and pick his brain about the state of the collie in the early 1900s. His Sunnybank collies competed often with the collies that J.P. Morgan imported (yes, THAT J.P. Morgan) and I would love to know his thoughts on his competition, too.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I’m predominantly a “by the seat of my pants” writer, but I do try to have at least a vague outline of where the book needs to go—and usually about chapter 3 or 4, one of them goes somewhere I never even envisioned. It’s frustrating…create a compelling back story for them, raise them right, and as soon as they’re turned loose on the page, they go off in a completely different direction.

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Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

This time of year, I’m brushing out shedding collies.

It’s actually quite relaxing. When I’m not doing that, I’m working with puppies, teaching them how to be show dogs, how to be good companions, and playing with them.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

Success isn’t really about getting paid to write (though, that is a nice side to this profession). To me, it’s hearing from a reader that they couldn’t put my book down, or that I’ve touched their heart in some manner. Isn’t that what romance is all about?

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physi-

cal books? Are you reading anything now?

Ebook or physical…I can’t listen to an audiobook. For some reason, and it doesn’t matter how good the narrator/voice actor is, listening to a book puts me to sleep.

That isn’t a good thing when I’m driving down the road.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

A friend of mine who was an author and passed away within the last year, used to say that readers gave her the gift of her career. I’ve adopted that slogan. Without readers, I wouldn’t have a career that I love and for those people who read my books, I am grateful and so very thankful.

| LYNDA J. COX |

Enjoy an excerpt from Controlled Burn Controlled Burn Lynda J. Cox Historical Western Romance

A freak accident takes away every memory of Allison Adams’s life for the past decade.

It also leaves her sightless.

She isn’t sure of anything, not even who she has been for the past ten years, but when the man claiming to be her husband holds her, it feels familiar and right. How can she be certain this is where she belongs?

Sharing his life with the woman he adores and their two children has given A.J. Adams the strength to keep his demons buried. When a murderous specter from the past rises, igniting new challenges, everything A.J. cherishes hangs in the balance. To win Allison’s love again, he’ll battle those demons. Fortunately, surrender has never been in his vocabulary.

Is there any chance to regain sight of their past and see a way to a shared future?

Excerpt The evil men do lives after them. ~~William Shakespeare Chapter One Town of Federal, Wyoming Territory, Mid October The ride into town from the Heart Bar A had done precious little to cool Allison Adams’s temper.

While she selected the items she needed to bake her husband’s favorite pie, she silently berated herself for even considering crafting the confection. It shouldn’t matter if it was for his birthday.

How dare he accuse her of not taking his wishes Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | into consideration? To the best of her knowledge, it still took two for a woman to find herself in a delicate condition.

No matter how much she tried to impress on A.J. that every pregnancy was different, he remained adamant. No more children. How could he be certain she would have the same problems this time as she had delivering Jamie? Unconsciously, she covered her abdomen with her forearm, as if she could shield this child from the hateful words she and A.J. had hurled at one another a few hours before.

“Are you Mrs. Allison Adams?”

The unfamiliar voice interrupted her angry thoughts. Allison stopped, shifted the burlap sack full of items she had purchased, and turned. The lowering sun behind the man’s shoulder hid his features. A little taller than she was, sturdily built even though his stomach appeared to be going to paunch, nothing about him lent itself to a sense of recognition. He stood deep enough in the shadows of the small alleyway between the milliner’s and the general store that she hadn’t noticed him.

The hair on the nape of her neck lifted and she instinctively took a step back.

“I’m Mrs. Adams.”

“Ma’am, I’m Dale Thompson and I’ve been asked to deliver a message to you.” Thompson drew a long breath, then said, as if he was reciting a soliloquy from a stage play, “Mr. Gene Oakten requests the honor of your presence—” If that vile man thought she was going to willingly see him ever again…

“Oakten can go straight to hell.” She didn’t even flinch with her own use of vulgarity.

Without even batting an eye, the man continued. “—to negotiate the return of your children, Pamela and James.”

Pammy. And Jamie. She clutched the burlap sack convulsively. Her stomach sank past the soles of her shoes. “Where are my children?”

“I have been instructed to take you directly to them. Please come with me. Quietly.”

Allison looked up and down the usually busy Federal Avenue, the main street of the town. Panic 48 | UncagedBooks.com

stole her ability to think. Several blocks away, the bell on St. Margaret’s Catholic Church tolled four times.

Where was everyone? Surely the whole town wasn’t already at supper. Desperation tightened her throat. “I have to go to the livery to get my mare.”

A mocking smile twisted Thompson’s face. “Ma’am, your horse is hitched in front of the bakery. I’ll walk you to that flashy sorrel of yours.”

No matter how angry they had been with one another, as soon as A.J. realized she and the children were missing, he would turn the town upside down. That certainty did nothing to relieve the panic twisting her insides into knots. Her mind raced. How could she alert A.J. she had been abducted and even leave a marked path to follow? As inconspicuously as possible, she let one of her riding gloves slip from her fingers. If she pretended she didn’t notice it falling, hopefully Thompson wouldn’t either.

As she swung up into the saddle, Thompson handed Allison her thin leather glove. “I believe this is yours.”

His hand dropped onto the hilt of a terrifying large knife at his waist.

“I didn’t realize I dropped it. Thank you for returning it to me.”

His mocking smile returned, more frigid than before.

Allison gulped as if she could choke down her mounting fear. A.J. had accused her just that morning of being a terrible liar when she had tried to keep a secret.

She ducked her head and blinked away frightened tears.

Table Mountain filled the horizon as Thompson led her higher into the mountains that rose between Federal and Laramie. She swallowed bitter tears. That flat mesa had meant safety and security. Now, it loomed dark and threatening. At one point, Thompson trailed a small tributary of the Lodgepole Creek. When he finally reined his horse to a halt, she knew they were on Lazy L land, and had been for nearly half an hour. The landscape in front of them was broken and desolate, the result of too many years of digging out the earth in an attempt to strike silver. Thompson had led her to an old, played-out mine that Rachel Taylor’s father had tried to blast shut more than two decades ago.

Thompson dismounted and gestured for her to do the same.

| LYNDA J. COX | “My children are in there?” Her skin crawled with the thought of her babies within the depths of that dead place.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he started toward the boarded-up entrance to the mine. What appeared to be a solid, wood wall from a distance revealed itself on a closer approach to be a door. Thompson pulled the entry open, its hinges silent and well-oiled. He lifted a lantern off a hook just inside the disguised entrance, struck a match, and touched it to the wick.

Yellow light flickered until he lowered the globe over the flame.

“They’re this way,” he said and began to walk away.

Allison had no choice but to follow him into the darkness.

To her right, the desiccated hulk of a buckskin horse kept an eternal vigil. The back half of the animal, trapped under a massive pile of stone, gave the dead animal the appearance of attempting to crawl its way from the rocks. A few more steps into the blackness and another dead horse came into the pitiful small circle of illumination. Allison stumbled over the uneven flooring and caught herself on the animal’s remains. She recoiled, barely keeping a scream contained when the dried-out carcass collapsed into dust.

Thompson never even hesitated. She scrambled to catch up to him, the terror of being lost in the total darkness choking her. Thick timber beams she could barely see in the dim light groaned and falling stones clattered in the darkness. If Thompson used anything to help navigate his way into the depths of the mine, she couldn’t discern it. After what felt like an eternity, a soft luminosity began to fill the end of the tunnel and a few paces later, the passageway ended at an immense subterranean cave. Massive roughed out wood supports shored up the walls and ceiling of the hollowed out opening.

The light of a single lantern revealed her children held prisoner in a metal cage. For no more than a second, though it felt as if it was her whole life, Allison couldn’t move. Pamela’s frantic head tossing, and James’s garbled cries broke her immobility. She leapt across the distance, tugging futilely against the padlocked opening.

“This might be of some help.” The heavy Georgia

drawl was something she had hoped to never hear again. The last time she heard it, the owner of that voice was negotiating to keep his neck from being stretched.

Allison spun around and backed as far as she could, prevented from moving away any further by a wall of the cage. “Let my children out of there. Whatever it is you want, you don’t need them. Let them go.”

“Sadly, I need them. And you.”

Thinner than she remembered—to the point of skeletal—his hair now white with some grey, Gene Oakten stood a few feet from her, holding out a large key. He held a heavy revolver in his other hand. The smile stretching across his mouth gave his face a cadaverous appearance. Breathing became difficult with the fear clawing at her throat. All she could do was shake her head in mute denial.

“As I live and breathe, you haven’t changed one iota, Mrs. Adams. Married life and motherhood most certainly agrees with you.” His feigned pleasantry was all the more terrifying for its insincerity. His gaze skipped over her frame. “My, that is a very becoming outfit. Is that an ermine collar?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer, not that she could. She couldn’t force a single word past the block of ice damming her throat.

“You have become every inch the lady that you passed yourself off as. Velvet riding habit, wool cloak, leather gloves. And, what an adorable little confection of a hat. But, we both know you’re not a lady, are you? We both know what you let that boy do with you in Georgia. I’ve always wanted to ask what you were really teaching him.”

Anger melted the ice and she couldn’t stop from blurting out, “You are no more than filthy, white trash.”

His smile broadened, grew colder. “Ah, but money buys respectability. And the gold that went missing near Clayborne certainly bought you respectability at the cost of another woman’s life. I wonder if he compares you to her. Remind me to have you ask your husband just where that gold Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | truly is hidden.”

Allison risked a glance at her children. Tears tracked Pamela’s face and she and James were ashen. “Is that what this about? There never was any gold hidden at Clayborne.”

“That’s not what your husband told me.” Oakten paused and his emotionless gaze turned on her children. “If you’ll step aside, I’ll open that for you and you can go take those gags and ropes off your children.” The patently false concern in his voice increased the terror clouding her brain and tightening her chest.

Allison managed to shake her head. “Just let them go. They’re only children. Let them go, please.” She didn’t even know why she pleaded with him. As if he had any compunction against harming children. He’d proven more than once killing children didn’t bother him. She wrapped her arms around her stomach.

Oakten’s voice hardened. “Move aside, Allison.

Or—” he gestured with the muzzle of the revolver “—I’ll shoot that handsome little man who is the very image of his father. And, then, I’ll shoot that raven-headed little lass.”

The frightened cries from her children were audible through their gags. Her legs felt as if they were made of wood but she took several steps to the side. The loud clattering of the tumblers in the lock echoed in the chill of the cave. As with the door at the entrance to the mine, the hinges on this portal didn’t squeak or squeal.

Allison rushed in and dropped to her knees by Pamela and James, tugging the gag first off James and then Pamela. James flinched when the door clanged shut. The chattering metal as Oakten twisted the key made Allison pause, then with a resolution she didn’t feel, she continued to pull at the knots binding her son. She unsuccessfully kept her own tears at bay when Pamela whispered, “I’m scared, Momma.”

Allison rained kisses down on her daughter and son. “It’s going to be all right,” she said, not knowing what else to say. She pulled back from the children, staring at Pamela. Her long hair was gone and the shortened length curled. “What hap50 | UncagedBooks.com

pened to your hair?”

The girl shoved a finger in their abductor’s direction.

“He cut my braid off!”

“Pa’s going to save us,” James said. Allison wished she felt the same confidence. She had no doubts that A.J. would come to attempt to rescue them, but at this point, it was two against one when he did arrive.

Oakten laughed when James repeated, “Pa will save us, Momma.”

“He will try,” the man said. A chill crept over Allison with the unspoken but implicit threat in his words.

She looked over her shoulder to see him rifling through the burlap sack Thompson had taken from her in town. She had no idea what he expected to discover in the depths of that bag. Her gaze was drawn to the other side of the large cave and locked onto what appeared to be shackles bolted into one of the thick ceiling braces. A new dread washed over her with crippling intensity. The hurtful words she had thrown at A.J. that morning rasped against her, sharper and more painful than when her anger seethed.

“It appears you were planning on a special pie, Allison.” The conversational tone of Oakten’s voice pulled her attention from the metal restraints and her self-recrimination. “I would even venture a guess that it’s a chess pie with pecans judging by what’s in this bag.”

“We were going to help Momma make it,” Pamela said, “for Pa’s birthday. It’s his favorite. Mister, I want to go home.”

Allison shushed her daughter and glared at Oakten.

Her anger that this man was once more terrorizing children, and this time the children were hers temporarily quelled her dread.

“Pamela,” he said, as he walked closer to the cell, “I promise if your father does what I expect him to do, you will be able to go home and help your mother bake that pie.”

If A.J. did as Oakten expected, they wouldn’t be baking a pie for him. There was murder in this vile man’s plans of that much she was certain. “Why are you doing this? No one knew you were here. You could have just left and been able to live the rest of your life somewhere far from here.”

“The rest of my life.” His laugh held no amusement.

| LYNDA J. COX | “I’m dying, Allison. According to the doctor at that lovely prison in Laramie City I have six months left.

But, before I die, I’m going to finish what I should have done decades ago. You and your husband ruined my life. I intend to destroy the both of you.” **** Two whole days...He hadn’t slept, had been unable to force himself to eat, and he was fairly certain he’d worn an inch’s deep groove into the floor of the jail with his pacing. The last words he snapped at Allison two days before burned as intensely as acid on his conscience.

The bells over the door jangled and he turned, hope dying when only Harrison Taylor entered.

“Anything?” A.J. couldn’t keep the panic from his voice.

Harrison shook his head and held the door open for his new deputy, Colt Evans. “Just what we already know. Pammy and Jamie never got to school the other morning and the last person to have seen Alli was Thom when she left the general store, the same day they disappeared. He says she left a little before four and I’ve got no reason to doubt him.”

A.J. propped his cane against the wall, sank into the chair behind the marshal’s ancient desk and dropped his head into his hands. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me Oakten escaped?”

“That was nine months ago.” The sound of liquid pouring into a container filled the silence. “I didn’t know about it for almost a week after he escaped. We both know he’s got an axe to grind with you so when he didn’t show up here, I just figured he left the area.

I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that he’s involved or that they were even abducted.”

“You think she took the children and left me?”

A.J. raised his head, staring across the room at his friend. “I don’t believe you think that and I know she wouldn’t do that. So that leaves abduction, Harrison.

Period.”

“I’m inclined to agree with the judge,” Evans said as he poured a cup of coffee. “Nothing is missing from the house and what she got at Burlington’s isn’t something a woman planning to light out with two kids would have bought.”

Taylor set a full mug in front of A.J. “Let’s assume

Oakten’s involved.”

“You know as well as I do he is involved.” He should have killed the bastard ten years ago and just let the chips fall where they may.

“For the sake of the argument, hear me out.” Taylor sighed and made his way to the windows at the front of the jail. “If it’s Oakten and he does have them and they’re still around here, he would have to be within half a day’s ride, to allow for Pammy and Jamie to vanish on the way to school and still give him time to get back to town to take Allison later in the same day. Colt and I checked every abandoned homestead around here. Drake and Ben are checking all the line shacks.”

“You can’t convince me it’s not him.” A.J. shot from the chair, unable to sit still any longer.

“Damn it, Harrison, if you didn’t think Oakten’s involved, you wouldn’t have insisted I stay in town to keep tabs on me.”

Taylor shifted his gaze across the room. A.J. said, repeating himself, “She didn’t take the children and leave me.”

A chair in the back corner of the room creaked, drawing A.J.’s attention to the deputy.

“I’m not discounting what you’re saying about your wife and kids or even this Oakten character, Judge.”

A.J. winced as the deputy emphasized his elected office, reminding him protocol demanded he be guarded in instances like this.

“From what I’ve been told about this sidewinder, you’re the one he wants. Not them.” Evans took a long drink from his mug. “If you stayed out at your ranch, you played right into his hand.

From where I’m sitting, he’s got the deck stacked against you. You need to let the marshal and me take care of this.”

A.J. picked up his cane. He looked out the windows, noting the long shadows creeping across the street. Any other day, he’d be in the kitchen watching Allison finishing up supper preparation, or in the study with Pammy and Jamie while they did their homework. Frustration painfully tightened his throat and a sense of helplessness bordering on desperation made his vision swim. “I’m Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | going to my hotel room.”

“I’ll walk with you,” the deputy said.

A.J. looked over his shoulder. The aura of “shootist” still clung to Taylor’s deputy. It wasn’t anything more than the way Colt Evans had of sizing up a room with a single, sweeping glance, a cagey tautness to his movements, and the easy manner he wore his heavy revolver low and loose. “No. I’d rather you didn’t.”

Taylor met his gaze across the room. “A.J., that’s not—” “I’m aware it’s neither protocol nor a good idea.”

He pulled the door open. “If you hear anything, you know where to find me.”

The walk from the marshal’s office to the Americana Hotel took him down Lincoln Avenue. He paused on the boardwalk when the bell on St. Margaret’s tolled six times. If he hurried, he could be in time for Vespers. A.J. shook his head. There was no point. He’d concluded a long time ago that the Almighty apparently had better things to do than listen to his prayers.

He walked up the stairs of the wide veranda of the Americana and into the vestibule of the hotel.

A single nod acknowledged the clerk’s greeting.

The thick carpeting underfoot muffled the thud of his cane. Deep in thought, he unlocked his room, stepped in and shut the door behind him.

He scanned the room and his heart lodged in his throat. On the small table under the window a massive knife had been stabbed deeply into the wood. The blade pinned a long length of braided black hair, one end tied with a familiar red satin bow. He had watched Allison tie that ribbon around the end of Pamela’s braid just days ago.

A piece of paper was held in place with the knife and under the braid.

A.J. didn’t work the blade loose. Without dislodging the braid from the knife, he moved the length of his daughter’s hair off the page. Every 52 | UncagedBooks.com

word written on the paper felt as if that knife was slashing across his very soul. “In due time, we will negotiate my terms for the release of your little family. When that time arrives, you will come alone. If you do not, you will never see them alive again and I will return them to you in small pieces.” Oakten’s signature filled the bottom half of the paper.

He steadied himself on the edge of the table, lightheaded and sick to his soul with the images flooding his mind. He forced those imaginings into a dark recess where other, older nightmares resided. With a grim determination, he straightened and made his way as quickly as he could to the desk clerk. “Noah, did you let anyone into my room?”

The boy shook his head. “No one’s been here all day.

It’s been really boring.” He held up a book. “I’ve got most of this read today. Is there something wrong?”

“Send your brother to the marshal’s office and tell him to tell Taylor to come here.”

A.J. went back to his room. He didn’t bother shutting the door. Instead, he collapsed into the ladder-backed chair near the window and stared at the grotesque arrangement pinioned to the table. That he’d been followed and watched by Oakten returned the lightheadedness. How long had that bastard watched Pamela and James and Allison before he had abducted them? Bile rose in the back of his throat with the thought of Oakten even touching them.

It wasn’t long before Taylor, Evans, and A.J.’s younger brother, Drake, arrived. He didn’t get up when they came into the room. “It’s Oakten.”

The three men stood just inside the door, their attention on the table. Drake moved first, but only to close the door. Evans reopened the door and dropped to a knee to study the jamb and latch. Taylor crossed the room and leaned over the table. “Sweet Jesus,” he said. “We searched everywhere.”

“Apparently not everywhere.” A.J. stood. “I’m going home. He’s been following me, so he’ll know I’m there. And none of you are going with me.”

“No, you’re not.” Taylor shook his head. “You’re staying right here.”

“Unless you plan on arresting me, you can’t make

| LYNDA J. COX | me stay in town.” A.J. walked to the door. “That son of a bitch has my wife and my children. I will not jeopardize them.”

Drake grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall. “You can’t go back to the ranch.

Everyone in town becomes a de facto deputy, to let Harrison or Colt know if they see anyone new or anything that doesn’t seem right. That’s over one hundred pairs of eyes and ears that we won’t have if you’re at the ranch.”

“Someone got into this room without being seen.”

A.J. flung his brother’s restraint off. “I intend to do exactly what he wants. I’m doing this alone, Drake.”

Drake shoved him backward again and pressed his forearm across A.J.’s chest, just below his throat.

“Don’t make me hurt you. You’re not leaving town.

If I have to help Harrison drag you to the jail, I will, and I’ll come up with any charge I can to keep you in a cell.”

“You can’t charge me with anything. You gave up being prosecutor a few years ago.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t remember charges to have Harrison file against you. And, I’ll do it, if it means we keep you alive.”

“What would you be doing if some madman had Jessie?” A.J. asked, and shoved his brother, attempting to break Drake’s restraint. He ceased the struggle when Drake merely leaned more of his weight against his forearm.

Evans rose to his feet. “I know how whoever it was got in. There’s fresh gouge marks in the wood and scraping the metal on the latch.” He nodded his head at the upright, embedded blade. “Probably with that knife.”

Ben Hauser, foreman at the Lazy L and occasional deputy for Taylor, chose that moment to walk in. He glanced at A.J. and Drake, pausing to ask, “What did you do now, Johnny Reb?” A.J. didn’t have a chance to answer before Harrison said, “Ben, I need you to go to the saloons and ask if there’s been anyone new in town. Chat with some of the doves, too. Talk to Rose, too. I swear that old dove knows more about what goes on in this town than I do.”

Ben nodded. “I can do that. Anything else? Like stop at Morris’s and have supper sent to the jail? It looks like you might be taking Johnny there into custody.”

Drake eased the pressure holding A.J. prisoner against the wall. He shoved his brother away and straightened, glaring at Drake the whole time. A.J. tugged on the front of his shirt, adjusted the fabric and ground out, “He’s not taking me to jail.”

“Don’t push me on that.” Harrison glanced over his shoulder at the table. “I know your proclivity to be a hero.”

“He has—” “We got that, A.J.” Taylor gestured to the table.

“Now let me do my job to keep you protected and get your wife and children back to you. Alive and in one piece.”

A.J. struggled to pull a breath in and couldn’t.

All the fight drained from him. He nodded then dropped his head. Silence filled the hotel room until Taylor clamped a hand onto his shoulder and said, “We’ll find them and bring them back to you.”

He lifted his head and met the marshal’s gaze when Taylor added in an undertone, “If this was Rachel and my kids…”

“You’d be doing exactly what you won’t let me do.”

“Yeah, I would. And, I’d be going out of my mind.” Taylor’s voice firmed and he released A.J. “Colt, get about ten men together. We’re going to need two or three to work in shifts on the roof of the Cattleman’s Association building. I know we can put a couple in Doc’s office. Cole will probably be one of them. And, talk to Father O’Cleary.

Ask him if we can put a man up in the bell tower at St. Margaret’s.”

Evans turned to leave. He paused when the marshal added, “And, do this very quietly.”

The deputy glanced over his shoulder, a large grin breaking. “I was planning on putting up posters all over town asking for volunteers.”

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showcase

Andrew Thomas Elder Life, A Bit More?

Life, A Bit More?

Andrew Thomas Elder Poetry The life of a veteran will forever be changed by the experiences he or she will encounter on every tour of service rendered. There are challenges that would forever haunt them, especially of loses. Life: A Bit More? is a book of one veteran’s way of coping with his own personal tragedy: being rendered a double amputee.

U.S. Review of Books “Life is always good, even through trials and tribulations.”

This work is a compilation of experiences in poetry form that read like prose and with titles that are arranged in alphabetical order. Each is meant to emphasize faith, hope, and love in daily life. Most are focused especially on lifechanging cogitations and events. The author strongly emphasizes the need to take all issues of faith, fear, hatred, and all other emotions and weaknesses to “YHWH,” which are the four consonants of God’s name in Hebrew.

Elder writes that he became a double amputee thirty-five years before, at age nineteen, after an accident. His faith strengthened to the point that it became unquestionable after he prayed about his issues of physical, mental, and emotional horrors to God and found peace, 54 | UncagedBooks.com

love, and the power to forgive the driver who had caused his injuries. Included in the poems that Elder wrote about his experiences are some about another group of people who face similar traumas and trials: military veterans. The poems include such standouts as “Ink and Paper,” “Optimism vs.

Pessimism,” “Recycling All Our Stuff, Especially Our Souls,” “Trials and Tribulations,” and “Shema!

The Shema and Its Meaning.” The latter poem’s focus on the Shema (Hear, O Israel!), a foundation of Jewish prayers and a section of particular significance to the Torah, may resonate with Jewish readers especially. The passages end in “Amein,” of which some interpretations are “’So be it’ or ‘verily and surely’ is.” According to some interpretations, “Amein” and “Amen” differ, as the phonetic spelling is actually “aw-mane” rather than what is typically heard in standard English usage.

According to the author’s tradition, true prayer requires faith, discipline, and knowledge. However, faith is the most important of the virtues. Some of the thoughts and prayers are simple and direct.

Others focus on wordplay or definitions, while still others on just hanging on when a person questions their own or life’s value. All are consistent with the author’s declaration of his faith as the cornerstone of his rehabilitation. Elder believes that anyone can experience the enlightenment and should because to experience that faith is the most important aspect of life. Simultaneous with his particular ministry is his definition of himself as “a regular guy who is relearning life as a double amputee with His help, and being very grateful for every day.”

Elder expresses his hope that his poetry will inspire, motivate, and be inspirational to others. The poems and the author are worth reading and learning about, respectively, for the human experiences and common sense that they express while encouraging readers to develop faith and spiritual development.

In doing so, people are able to overcome even the most devastating situations. In some of the descriptions of his paths to coping with and

appreciating life, Elder’s writing is reminiscent of that of Helen Keller, a person who experienced severe disabilities and faith, and who wrote much about her interpretation of her life to inform and educate others, Elder’s and Keller’s writing is similar in the expression of their joy in living, belief in the strength of the human spirit, and faith in the spiritual healing power of God.

A

ndrew offers his book encouragement to those who facing the darkness of their personal tragedy, wishing to impart a little light of hope.

Being a person struck with tragedies himself, Andrew still believes life is meant to be filled with hope and love and with the help from the Man above.

andrewthomaselder.com

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andrewthomaselder.com

CERISE DELAND & Bert

Part greyhound, Bert is a whiz at running.

That’s because he loves cheddar cheese and pasta! Bring on hamburgers too!

KATHRIN HUTSON & Sadie & Brucewillis

JOE BARRETT & Peanut

My son Joe has a nut allergy as well as a dog allergy. When we got a hypoallergenic Maltipoo a few years back, we decided to name it Peanut to remind my son of both allergies. It seemed funnier at the time.

JUDITH KEIM & Winston & Wally

This is Sadie (8) and Brucewillis (5). Sadie loves water, napping on yoga mats, and snuggling our three-year-old on the couch. Brucewillis knocks his head against every corner and doorway, thinks he’s 15 pounds, and wags his tail at anything that moves.

56 | UncagedBooks.com

I’m a Dachshund Mommy and have been for many years. I always say that our first child was a dachshund, way back when.

Now, Winston is our 13- year-old, longhaired, American Cream dachshund and Wally is our two-year-old, smooth-haired Blue Dapple dachshund. Most of my followers know all the trials of bringing Wally into our home and disrupting the “King of the Castle,” Winston. It’s been a lot of work and a lot of fun as both needed surgery soon after we got Wally.

A U T H O RS A N D T H E I R P E TS Pets and companions come in many shapes and sizes. From furry to feathered to hairy and scaley - there is a place for all of them. Authors have a special relationship with their pets - whether they remind them to get up and take a break or they inspire their writing. Meet the critters that share their love and devotion to Uncaged Feature Authors.

RAISA GREYWOOD & Marley

ride, go on fox hunts, and he’s a pretty decent dressage horse. We even tried barrel racing once! Marley is also an amazing horse for pony rides. He loves kids, and they love him right back. We adore our drafty boy!

Of course, we’re both getting a little older, so our time chasing hounds over hill and dale is done, but I still love spending time with him.

I’m very pleased to introduce Marley, the Clydesdale. Marley came to us as a rescue and was intended to be my then seven-year-old daughter’s in lieu of a pony. Seventeen years later, the daughter is off doing her own thing, but I still have the horse.

He has never once refused to do anything I’ve asked of him. He can pull a carriage, trail Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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HALEY RHOADES & Nala

LYNDA j. COX & Vander

This is my fur-baby, Nala the Pomsky. She’s four-years-old and spoiled rotten. As we are now empty nesters, we dote on her like a child. She loves car rides, especially in the convertible. Her mother is a Husky and father a Pomeranian. She’s just like our Siberian Huskies we’ve had in the past. She’s caring, smart, and active. She loves attention and begs strangers to pet her. She inspired me to place a dog in each of my stories. I share ways in which dogs can enrich the characters’ lives, in hopes my readers will choose one for themselves.

Vander—known formally and to the American Kennel Club as GCHP Bandor’s the Wyching Hour has come with me to Wild Deadwood Reads for the previous two years. He’ll be attending with me, again. He started attending dog shows when he was six months old and in December, he was officially retired from being campaigned for a coveted top ten placement.

Honestly, he has nothing left to prove to anyone, especially me. He’s been ranked in the top ten since 2012 and he finished 2019 as the number 6 smooth collie in the country. In 2019, he won every national ranking point as a veteran. He’s produced champion offspring. He’s taken me to California for our National specialty. He’s taken me to New York City when he earned an invitation to compete at Westminster Kennel Club. But, as far as I’m concerned, his greatest accomplishment is that he’s my constant companion and my heart dog.

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MADELINE MARTIN & Ink

CYRENE & Kiah & Ziva I have a mob of pets. Mainly because I seem to like them more than most people, at least that’s what my family says. I will feature one each month - and you can get a small peek into the life I lead on a small farm.

For my 40th birthday, my fiancé felt so bad that we couldn’t go anywhere or have a party due to social distancing and is giving me the best gift ever: a kitten! My friend is a foster mom for cats, so I immediately reached out to her and will be getting this sweet girl in about 4 weeks when she’s old enough. With the marking on her face, I have the perfect name for this future writer’s cat: Ink.

Kiah and Ziva are sisters that were found in a snowy ditch near Memphis, TN as very young puppies, not more than 4-6 weeks old. A friend of ours picked them up and took them home to his wife. Tim and Ellen took great care of them trying to find them a home. When they exhausted most of their possiblities and not being able to keep them for themselves from a limitation (they had 4 dogs of their own), I told Ellen that I would take them if we could find a way to get them to Wisconsin. Well, Tim and Ellen did the impossible. They drove over half way from their home in Mississippi, to near Springfield, IL - where we met them. These two dogs are the heart of our home, and we are so thankful to Tim for picking them up, and for Ellen’s love until they became our new family members.

Today, they sleep on my daughter’s bed with her and in some really dark moments of her life, she said these dogs brought her out of a depression. So they own our hearts, and although they are not friendly to most strangers, they give their love freely to us and we are honored that they chose to love and trust us after a bad start in life.

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raisa greywoo d

A

uthor of filthy smut, empty nester, and cat snuggler.

Raisa has worked as a teacher, an actuary (her husband called her a bookie – which isn’t too far from the truth), mother, scout leader, and is now enjoying semi-retirement writing the books she always wanted to read.

She is already busy planning the next book in the Secret Life of Anna Goode series and has plans for many more books in the future.

Stay Co n n e c te d

raisagreywood.com

Uncaged welcomes Raisa Greywood Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! On your website, your newest book, releasing May 17th, says: Sexy Scoundrel is a standalone story inspired by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward’s Cocky Bastard. It’s published as part of the Cocky Hero Club world, a series of original works, written by various authors, and inspired by Keeland and Ward’s New York Times bestselling series.

Can you tell readers more about the series and your book?

I was thrilled to be allowed to participate in this exciting project. The original series is a set of 60 | UncagedBooks.com

loosely related books, tied together by a… goat. And of course, I had to feature Pixy in my story as well.

As an animal lover myself, I lit upon Aubrey Bateman’s Park Street Animal Shelter from Cocky Bastard as the basis for my work. While some larger shelters accept large animals, most lack the facilities for it. They rely on volunteer foster homes to take care of at-risk livestock and other animals who can’t be housed in a shelter. There is also a growing population of animal actors, including exotics, who have specialized needs. My heroine, Carlina, is Park Street’s large animal foster mom.

Sexy Scoundrel begins with Aubrey talking her into taking an elderly lion who was used in the entertainment industry. As you can probably guess, a lion is expensive to feed, especially one with agerelated health issues. That’s where my hero, Giorgio, comes in. He has the money to burn, and his brother Antonio is Leonard the Lion’s biggest fan.

The enemies to lovers trope is my favorite to write, and of course I had to use it for Sexy Scoundrel. The sparks fly between Carlina and Giorgio, tempered

by Antonio and Leonard himself. I’ll let you read for yourself to find out what happens next.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I’m working on a couple of different things right now! My passion project, Wicked Savage, will be the fourth in the Wicked Magic series, and features Feather and Rizan, who I introduced in the third book, Wicked Fire. Rizan might be a dragon, but he’s not the savage part of this story, and I can’t wait to share it! Paranormal and urban fantasy are my first loves, and I’m thrilled to write about these fascinating, complex characters. I hope to release Savage in mid-summer.

My second project is super-secret. I can’t tell you much about it, aside from this. I’m working with three other amazing authors on a quartet featuring four somewhat older heroes who make a pact together. Look for the quartet to release in early fall.

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | Uncaged: As of right now, you are planning on attending Wild Deadwood Reads in June. What are you most looking forward to with this event?

I’m very excited about going to Deadwood! Years ago, my husband and I took our daughter on a driving trip across country, starting in Ohio and ending in San Francisco. Western South Dakota was our favorite stop, and we’ll recreate this epic journey in June – with a few changes. The daughter isn’t ten anymore, and is now living and working in Missouri. It’s kind of on the way, so we’ll stop to pick her up. She’s looking forward to having a cocktail with us in the Full Throttle Saloon – something we didn’t do on our last trip. Aside from having the chance to meet other amazing authors and readers, this will likely be our last “family driving trip” and I’m stupidly thrilled about it.

I’ll also be attending Delightfully Dirty in Dallas in August, but without the family.

Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

Well, as an author, it really hasn’t. I still spend most of my time in yoga pants and a messy bun, holed up in my writing cave. However, I have a part-time job working in a grocery store. My husband has asthma, and I’m on the last few days of short-term leave. I haven’t decided if I will go back. It’s scary out there, and my husband’s continued good health depends on me not bringing anything home to him.

My husband is having a harder time. He’s working from home, with limited access to his company network, and he’s going a little stir-crazy. The television is on much more than I’m used to, for one thing. We’re managing though.

I’m also coming up with ways to empty my cupboards and freezer of stored food. Some of my efforts are less than successful, but edible. I really do NOT want to go into a grocery store right now.

I made jambalaya the other day with a couple of cans of tomatoes, instant brown rice, a bag of 62 | UncagedBooks.com

frozen shrimp, and a package of smoked sausage from the back of my freezer. Despite not having celery, bell pepper, or onion, it wasn’t half bad.

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

I’d love to have lunch with Stephen King. I dabble in horror here and there, and I’d be delighted for the opportunity to pick his brain on how to scare people.

Kresley Cole and Gena Showalter. Instead of lunch, I’d make a massive pitcher of cosmos and ply them with martinis to see what sort of scarily, horrifyingly awful heroes we could make sexy. I’d also invite Anne Rice, Anais Nin, and Virginia Woolf. My husband says the police will probably be called, but it would be an epic party. We’d have to eat at some point, so I’d order Senegalese from my favorite carryout and we’d feast on neme and grilled lamb.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

Almost every time. Characters in books never behave the way you expect them to, and I’ve learned to let them have their say and cut it later. Otherwise, they drive me crazy. Sometimes, they take the story in a different direction that actually works better than what I planned.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

I play with my pets, read, and watch old Monty Python.

If The Princess Bride comes on, I am never too busy to turn it off, and I sometimes sneak references to it into my books.

I also love to play Wizards Unite. It’s the Harry Potter version of Pokémon Go. I’m a Ravenclaw, by the way.

My husband and daughter are both Slytherin.

| RAISA GREYWOOD | Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

Success is making one person email or message me telling me that my work made a difference in their life and they want to read more. Of course, the corollary is making someone call me a “sick puppy” after reading my horror work. That also makes me very happy.

I think I’m the luckiest person in the world. People pay to read my ramblings!

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I read ebooks almost exclusively, audiobooks when I’m walking. I used to read print books, but as I’ve aged, my vision has gone wonky and the print is SO danged small!

Unfortunately, I don’t get to read as much as I used to.

Right now, I’m reading Loki Renard’s Humans Must Kneel. That woman can write an awesome alien.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

Stay safe and love each other.

COVID-19 will eventually pass. It might leave the world a little different, but we can all adapt. Read something sexy, or scary, or uplifting – whatever your favorite genre is, read it. If you have kids at home, love on them even when they’re driving you nuts. They’ll be gone to live their own lives faster than you can blink.

This is the time to binge Netflix, relish the opportunity to be lazy, and enjoy the simple things. Take a walk.

Get outside and enjoy it. Laugh at your coworker on Skype meetings when his cat knocks his week’s work off his desk. Grow out that beard, reshape your eyebrows when no one can see you being awkward.

Rock the messy bun. Day drink. Learn to make the perfect poached egg. This is the spring of self-care.

Enjoy an excerpt from Sexy Scoundrel Sexy Scoundrel Raisa Greywood Contemporary Erotic Carlina Pérez is in way over her head. Unexpectedly jobless and fostering an exotic pet with an insatiable appetite, this pastry chef needs a new gig faster than she can whip up a batch of scones. But when she’s tapped to serve as the personal chef to a haughty tabloid regular, she only considers the job out of sheer desperation. After all, Giorgio Acardi may be filthy rich and intoxicatingly handsome, but he’s also a firstclass scoundrel.

Giorgio Acardi has it all: money, fame, an endless string of beautiful companions, and the respect of his colleagues and rivals. From the outside looking in, his life is perfect. So perfect, in fact, that he’s even got his eye on a new personal chef. She’s talented and gorgeous, and it shouldn’t make a difference whether she hates him or not as long as she does the job. But there’s something about Carlina that Giorgio just can’t resist, and he hasn’t enjoyed success by backing down from a challenge.

Excerpt Carlina

Chapter 1

Biting my lip, I tightened my grip on the pastry bag filled with bittersweet ganache and piped a heart on the top of a chocolate cupcake. My friend Aubrey called them orgasm by chocolate, but I wasn’t about to tell anyone that.

“Mark’s going to pop a blood vessel if he sees you making those,” Ted, one of the sous chefs, warned, Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | his brown eyes flashing worry at me. Older, with the gnarled, scarred hands of a career chef, Ted had been a cook in the Navy once upon a time and still wore his dark hair in a neat crew cut.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me,” I muttered. “We’ve already had six cheese platters sent back. Nobody wants them and we don’t have anything else. I have no idea why he decided a prix fixe menu was a good idea.”

The head chef, who also happened to be my exboyfriend, Mark, had declared the diners could eat the leftover cheese platters from the night before, calling it a fusion edge or some such bullshit. As the pastry chef for La Panache, it was my job to ensure our guests finished their meal with something nicer than salty cheese and fruit a day or five past its serve-by date. It probably wasn’t unsafe to eat, but it was definitely unappetizing.

Ted shrugged and turned back to chopping parsley. “He’s trying to get rid of all that fish he bought from the wholesaler before we have to throw it out.”

I grunted in acknowledgement and decorated a second cake before plating them. After adding few swirls of raspberry syrup and a dot of crème fraiche, I handed them to the server.

Ten minutes later, orders started pouring in and I was too busy piping ganache to notice the quiet chill that descended on the kitchen.

“Would someone care to tell me why my customers are eating chocolate after a hundred dollar a plate fish course?”

I stiffened at the sound of Mark’s voice, but kept decorating cupcakes. “We had too many complaints about the cheese trays. I made these instead.”

“Ah, Carlina, my little problem child, did you have my permission to change my menu?” Mark asked, his blond hair slicked back from his chiseled face. He was the quintessential surfer boy, muscular and sun-kissed. Unfortunately, he had the personality of an overbred Chihuahua.

“No, but you always tell us to keep the customers 64 | UncagedBooks.com

happy. These cupcakes are keeping them happy.”

He moved too close, his warm breath on the back of my neck making my hair stand on end. We’d been lovers once upon a time, starting in culinary school. Mark wasn’t much of a cook, and borrowed more than a few of my recipes. I hadn’t minded back then because it meant we could graduate together. It wasn’t any trouble to create two recipes for each exam and he was competent enough to follow directions for practicums.

We’d started La Panache with my recipes and a fat inheritance from his uncle.

I thought it was going to be happily ever after, but Mark was just as careless with my heart as he was with a salt shaker and dumped me for an underwear model.

Unfortunately, we had a contract with three years out of the original five remaining. I couldn’t afford to buy it out, so I was stuck with him unless we both agreed to terminate it. He knew it, and took every opportunity to bully me.

I’d been so excited about going into business with Mark, I hadn’t even read it. Instead of receiving a percentage of the profits, I got a flat wage of about thirty percent less than industry standard. Thankfully, there was no mention of me giving him any new recipes in that damned piece of paper I’d signed—a fact that was explained to me by Aubrey Bateman, lawyer extraordinaire, and my best friend.

When I refused to give him more, Mark made it his life’s mission to make me miserable. I wasn’t even mad about the recipes. I mean, yeah, it hurt, but the great thing about working with food is that there’s always another dish. With enough imagination and a decent education in food science, a good chef can turn the humblest of ingredients into haute cuisine without trying too hard.

“Adults don’t eat cupcakes. You get them out of plastic bags from industrial bakeries. How dare you serve them here and ruin the ambiance of my creation?”

I rolled my eyes and handed the tray of cupcakes to a server. “Francis, you don’t have ambiance. You have a dozen tired recipes you use over and over and a shitload of overpriced pears that are going bad. If you didn’t have a stick up your ass, you’d have realized

| RAISA GREYWOOD | pear tartlets with candied ginger might have gone over a little better than salty cheese and mushy fruit.”

I loved calling him Francis. It was his last name, but also the name of the villain from Deadpool. We saw the film when it came out and he’d been pissy about it ever since. It really was a shame he was so easy on the eyes and had the body of a god. No man who looked that fine should be such an a**hole.

“You ought to remember that recipe,” I added, leaning against the saucier’s workstation. “It was my semester final in our second year and is on the menu here.”

I crossed my arms, knowing the reminder would drive Mark nuts. He always hated when I mentioned the recipes I created. Usually it made him stomp off to his office in a full-blown snit.

But not this time.

A gleam of porcelain flashed, spinning toward me. I dropped to my knees as my coworkers cried out in horror. A plate shattered against the wood, barely missing my face and raining broken shards of china over my head.

“Did you seriously just throw a plate at me? Are you five?” I yelled, getting to my feet. When I took a step toward him, he grabbed a fish knife.

“I forgot how good you look on your knees.” Mark smirked at me as he fingered the thin blade. “You’re fired.”

I tossed my hat and apron at his feet, letting shards of broken china fall to the floor. I was too thankful to mention that he couldn’t legally fire me. It was close enough. “It’s about damned time. Had I known cupcakes would make you let me out of our contract, I’d have baked them ages ago.”

Turning my back on him, I walked out, even though the space between my shoulder blades itched. I wouldn’t put it past him to stab me in the back. He’d done it before, but not quite as literally.

He chased me into the break room, unwilling to let anyone have the last word, as usual. “And don’t think I

won’t blackball you, Carlina Pérez,” he shouted.

“You also owe me for the time left on the contract.”

“You’re going to try blackballing me for making something your customers actually wanted to eat? Let me know how that works out for you.”

I grabbed my purse and jacket from my locker, wondering if he’d left that fish knife behind.

When I turned to face him, his hands were thankfully empty. “You purposely served rotten fruit and questionable fish, then threw a plate at me and dissolved our contract in front of half a dozen witnesses who all hate you. I don’t owe you shit.”

Carrying grudges was a waste of time, but I made an exception for Mark. There was one thing he’d forgotten in his attempt to be a dick. The walls of the break room were barely more than cardboard and adjoined the restaurant. I walked out, going straight through the dining room.

Every eye in the place was on me. I smiled brightly and said, “Sorry about that, folks. I’m sure the fish was fine, but y’all might not want to get too far away from a bathroom for the next few days.”

I left La Panache for the last time, a smile on my face even though I had no idea how I was going to pay my bills. The restaurant industry was tight and one bad word about a chef could destroy a career. Mark was vindictive enough to do it too.

Maybe it was time to get out of the business. I’d always harbored dreams of starting a catering service. Just me, quality ingredients, and personal relationships with my clients. I unlocked my truck and got in, sighing in resignation.

Dreams required money I didn’t have. More than anything, I needed a new kitchen that was up to code for commercial cooking. I had a contractor friend estimate it once and the price he’d quoted about gave me a heart attack.

Urban sprawl from Dutch Village was killing me.

McMansions had sprung up like toadstools all over Diamond Valley Lake, increasing property values to the point where my taxes were sucking the life from me. I could barely go a week withIssue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | out at least a dozen calls from greedy developers foaming at the mouth at the thought of my hundred-acre parcel complete with pond and woods.

I’d even gotten several calls from Acardi Development with a staggering offer to buy the place to turn it into a resort. That might have been better than subdividing it into postage stamp sized housing lots, but I wasn’t interested. The property had been in my family for generations and I wasn’t about to be the one who let it go. But if I didn’t find a job quickly, I might be forced to.

Still, Giorgio Acardi, the owner, was good for a few minutes of entertainment in the checkout line of the supermarket. He was photographed doing something silly with a different woman almost weekly.

I turned up the radio and got on I-79 headed toward Diamond Valley Lake. The commute winding through the San Bernardino foothills was one thing I wouldn’t miss.

Giorgio I scowled down at the remains of my meal and pushed it aside. Even before the cute brunette in chef’s whites had questioned the freshness, I’d wondered if I was eating tuna from a can. It had been plated well and the sauce was a divine creation of Meyer lemon, dill, and cream, but nothing hid the lackluster taste and texture of poorquality fish.

The pastry chef was adorable though. She had a little smudge of chocolate on her cheek that matched the color of her eyes and tawny golden skin with a thick braid hanging almost to her waist. Although she looked familiar, I couldn’t place where I’d seen her.

My date for the evening, Sara Miller, was a lovely bit of arm candy. Tall and blonde with a gym body and enough money for an expansive designer wardrobe, she was perfectly groomed and beautiful.

It was a shame. Along with being a gifted investment broker, Sara was brilliant, witty, and the 66 | UncagedBooks.com

perfect date for a business function. I thought there might be a decent conversationalist under her brittle façade, but every time our conversation started getting interesting, she’d change the subject. I wanted to talk about something besides work and our next sexual interlude, but Sara wasn’t having it, even after over a month of dating me.

Besides, Antonio didn’t like her. Of course, my brother never liked my dates, even the few who had taken the time to talk to him. Sara had tried, which garnered her my respect.

Wrinkling her nose, she pushed her plate away. “We should leave. It probably isn’t a good idea to finish this.”

“All right.” I lifted my hand, summoning a worried server whose name tag read Lisa. “Check, please.”

“Of course, sir,” she murmured, handing over a slip of paper from her pocket. “I’ll take it when you’re ready, but please accept my apologies for your meal.”

I nodded and handed her my black Amex. “I might not be willing to recommend the food, but the service has been exemplary.”

Giving me a relieved smile, Lisa said, “Thank you sir, I’ll be right back.”

As I waited for Lisa to return, the head chef tried to take a beautifully plated chocolate cake away from an elderly woman, a smarmy grin on his face as he explained that it wasn’t on the menu. She growled, a low, throaty sound that surprised me, and wrapped her arm around the plate. When the chef tried to take it again, she grabbed her cane and whacked his knee, making me bark out a laugh.

Lisa returned a few minutes later with the receipt and a Styrofoam box. “I packed up two of Carlina’s cupcakes for you before the head chef throws them out,” she whispered. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Setting the box on the table, I resisted the urge to find out what made such a staid elderly lady turn violent and focused on getting my bill paid so I could take Sara home.

As we left, I detoured, catching Lisa’s attention.

Leaning close, I whispered, “There’s enough in your tip to cover the shortfall for the other servers.”

I hurried out before she could say anything. I’d waited tables a time or two and knew what it was like.

| RAISA GREYWOOD | Judging by some of the expressions I saw, the servers were going to take the brunt of the abuse for the meal. Lisa had been engaging and friendly and didn’t deserve to get shorted because of a bad chef.

“Do you have plans for later?” I asked Sara while we waited for my car to be brought around.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” she murmured.

“Big day tomorrow.”

Clyde Dennison, who had driven for me for years, held the door for Sara and gave me a familiar look of placid disinterest. “Miss Miller’s apartment?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Very well, sir.”

I settled into the back seat next to her, then leaned over to nibble at the shell of her ear. “I bet we can think of something fun to do with that cake.”

Although she didn’t move away, her shoulders stiffened. “I’m afraid not. I have an early meeting in the morning, so I’m going to get a good night’s sleep.”

Winking at me, she added, “And maybe a peanut butter sandwich.”

“Sorry about that. If I’d realized the food was so bad, we’d have gone elsewhere.”

“I was the one who suggested it,” she countered.

“It’ll be my fault if we both end up with food poisoning.”

“How about tomorrow?” I asked, nipping a little harder. Sara wasn’t into bondage games, but she enjoyed things beyond vanilla sex. Nibbling the sweet spot under her ear usually made her melt.

Truly, she’d be perfect if I could get her to open up to me. I liked spending time with her, despite her reticence.

“I have other plans.” She scooted away from me and stared out the window.

Resisting the urge to ask her if there was a night she didn’t have plans, I let her go, knowing she’d be ghosting me at the earliest opportunity. I tried not to feel insulted, but I wondered what made her change her mind.

When we reached her apartment building, Sara climbed out of the limo without waiting for Clyde.

Instead of shutting the door, she leaned forward, exposing her lovely cleavage.

“Thanks for dinner,” she murmured. “I’ll call you sometime.”

The door closed with a soft click and she walked away, leaving me shaking my head. I wasn’t sure what to do. If it was me doing the breaking up, I’d have my secretary send her a parting gift. I wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for her dumping me.

“Home, Mr. Acardi?”

“Yes, please.” The car pulled away from the curb and I laid my head back against the seat, still wondering why Sara had decided to break off our relationship. It was hard not to take it personally, but there were plenty of other women out there. The next would come along soon enough.

Mr. Dennison dropped me off at the front door and I opened it as quietly as I could. Antonio had ears like a bat and I didn’t want to wake him if he was already asleep.

I found my brother sprawled on the living room floor watching Hercules. He wore a pair of my old sweats and a Leonard the Lion t-shirt more than a few sizes too small for him. Although he’d outgrown it years ago, he refused to part with the threadbare shirt. It was his favorite, and he was Leonard’s biggest fan. I’d had no luck finding a duplicate in an adult size.

Sitting next to him, I handed him the box of cakes.

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | “I brought you something, Antonio.”

“You always eat yuck,” Antonio said, his words slow and deliberate. “I want chicken nuggets.”

“What did Mrs. Dennison make for you?” I asked.

“Corn dogs and French fries. They were good, but we ran out of ketchup.”

I sighed and resisted rolling my eyes. Our mother had been one of the finest cooks in the world and my brother subsisted on frozen junk food. I was beginning to wonder if I should hire a private chef to tempt him into better eating habits. Antonio could be very stubborn about food.

“Well, I brought home chocolate cake. You can have it for dessert if you promise to eat something healthy for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Mrs. Dennison let me buy French toast sticks at the store today. I ate them for lunch.”

Mr. and Mrs. Dennison were longtime, devoted employees, but Julie Dennison spoiled Antonio like crazy and she wasn’t much of a cook. Giving up, I sat on the floor with Antonio as he opened the box of cakes. Using his fingers, he picked one up and took a huge bite.

His almond shaped eyes opened wide and he stared at the cake in his hand as if it was his new best friend. Chewing slowly, he let out a low moan of pleasure. “Gio, I promise to eat broccoli every day if I can have this for dessert.”

I watched in shock as he set the rest of the cake back in the box and closed it reverently. “I’m going to save the rest to make it last longer.”

“What did it taste like?” I asked, nonplussed by his reaction. Antonio never, ever put something sweet away, and he hated broccoli.

“You didn’t have some?”

“No. I brought them home for you.”

He opened the box again and handed me the one 68 | UncagedBooks.com

he’d already sampled. “You can have a small bite.

But not too big, okay? We have to save them for tomorrow so we can share them again.”

Nodding, I accepted the half-eaten cake and took a tiny nibble. Bittersweet chocolate with the essence of vanilla swirled over my taste buds and I registered the slight sting of cayenne an instant before it was soothed with cream. The cake was densely rich, and sweet enough to balance the bitter chocolate ganache.

I echoed Antonio’s moan and forced myself to put the cake back in the box before I devoured it. As much as I wanted to cram the whole thing in my mouth, I wouldn’t disappoint my brother like that. I bit back a grin, remembering the elderly lady and her cane.

I’d have shoved that stick straight up the chef’s ass if he’d even considered taking that cake away from me.

The pastry chef from La Panache wouldn’t be out of work for long. There was just one problem—I didn’t remember her name. I yanked out my phone and called up the restaurant’s website, praying she’d be listed as one of the staff. To my delight, her picture came up along with her name. Carlina Pérez. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t place where I’d heard it.

I turned the phone to Antonio and said, “This is the lady who made them. If I hire her as our chef, do you promise to eat what she cooks, even if it’s vegetables?”

“Cross my heart, Gio. I promise.” He looked down at Carlina’s picture and added, “I like her face. She’s pretty.”

Antonio had never once called any of my dates pretty. I took another look at Carlina, wondering what he saw. She was girl next door cute. Large dark eyes twinkled mischievously under arched brows. Her smile revealed an enticing little gap between her front teeth and a dimple in her right cheek. I closed the browser. It didn’t matter what she looked like. I needed a cook, not a wife.

feature authors

contemporary romance

Judith Keim

Haley Rhoades

J

udith Keim enjoyed her childhood and youngadult years in Elmira, New York, and now makes her home in Boise, Idaho, with her husband and their two dachshunds, Winston and Wally, and other members of her family.

While growing up, she was drawn to the idea of writing stories from a young age. Books were always present, being read, ready to go back to the library, or about to be discovered. All in her family shared information from the books in general conversation, giving them a wealth of knowledge and vivid imaginations.

A hybrid author who both has a publisher and selfpublishes, Ms. Keim writes heart-warming novels about women who face unexpected challenges, meet them with strength, and find love and happiness along the way. Her best-selling books are based, in part, on many of the places she’s lived or visited and on the interesting people she’s met, creating believable characters and realistic settings her many loyal readers love. Ms. Keim loves to hear from her readers and appreciates their enthusiasm for her stories.

S t ay C onnec t ed

ju d ith k eim Please welcome Judith Keim

judithkeim.com

Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! Your latest book, Home at Last released on April 13th and is the 3rd book in a series. Can you tell readers more about the book and the series? Can they be read as standalones?

young woman, inherits the Chandler Hill Inn and Winery in the 1970s after her young military husband dies.

Book #2, COMING HOME is the story of Cami Chandler, who comes home to Chandler Hill after the death of her grandmother, Lettie, as she’s always promised.

Book #3 HOME AT LAST, is Lulu Kingsley’s story.

Lulu discovers Cami, the sister she’s always wanted.

Home at Last is set in the Willamette Valley in Oregon and concludes the series that began with Book #1 GOING HOME, in which Lettie Chandler, a

All of the stories are part of a series but readers have enjoyed reading each book alone too. Usually if someone has read HOME AT LAST first, she ends up read-

70 | UncagedBooks.com

ing the other two books.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I’ve started a new series that takes place in Palm Desert, California. It is another 3-book series about three women – Rose, Lily, and Willow, who return to the Desert Sage Inn to help the dying owner fight to retain the upscale style of the hotel even though it’s being sold. All three women have their own stories to tell about knowing Alec Thurston, the owner of the hotel.

I’m also writing a Christmas Book as part of a five-book group with four other authors. I think it’s going to be a big success! The group of sweet books is part of the Soul Sisters at the Cedar Mountain Lodge. When a wedding is called off for one of the four sisters, the family decides to go ahead and stay at the Lodge as they’d planned as part of the wedding.

All kinds of exciting surprises happen to them. My story is CHRISTMAS KISSES. Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

Surprisingly, the pandemic hasn’t been a big adjustment because as many other authors, I’m usually at home working. I have missed going to the gym and meeting my coffee group on Wednesday mornings.

But Zoom has helped.

Uncaged: On your website, you state that you have released books both with a publisher and as self-publishing. What are the advantages to each for you?

Two of my books, FAT FRIDAYS and SASSY SATURDAYS are published by a publisher. All the rest of my twenty books so far are indie published. While there are some marketing advantages with a publisher,

I’ve found that I really like publishing books independently. Book covers, dates of release, frequency of release are all in my hands, not at the whim of someone else. That being said, no matter what, writing and publishing a book is difficult. It usually takes a minimum of three months to write a first draft. From then, it’s another couple of months of rewriting, editing, rewriting, marketing, marketing, marketing to get a book ready to come out and then released.

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | I’ve “met” Nora Roberts at a book signing and would love to talk to her about a number of things.

Woman of Substance is one of my all-time favorite books, so would love to talk to Barbara Taylor Bradford. Erma Bombeck would be so fun to talk to. As you can see, my interests are many, as well as my admiration for so many authors. I loved seeing the movie, Little Women, and would love to talk to Louisa May Alcott and, of course, who wouldn’t like to talk to Charlotte Bronte.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

I’m a pantser, so my characters always surprise me. Sometimes it’s good; other times I must rein them in. But before I even begin a book I like to really know my characters by doing character sketches and writing up little backgrounds on them.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

My husband is a great cook so we enjoy relaxing in the evening with a nice dinner. As most authors do, I read whenever I can and I enjoy movies.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

For me, success as an author is bringing joy to others who find something in my books that makes them think about or feel better about their own situation. My stories have been described as sweet and uplifting, bringing real characters and situations into reader’s lives, ending with the gift of hope. If I can do that for any reader, I will consider myself a success.

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I’ll read or listen to any book I can. I used to 72 | UncagedBooks.com

| JUDITH KEIM | prefer physical books and still like the feel of them, but reading books on kindle is very convenient. My husband and I listen to audio books when we travel.

By the way, all of my books are available on Audible and ITunes.

At the moment I’m in the process of reading three ARCs for fellow authors.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

I love my readers and love to hear from them. I consider many of them new friends. So, don’t hesitate to send me a message from my website. I answer all of them on my own.

Enjoy an excerpt from Home at Last Home at Last Judith Keim Contemporary Romance Louise “Lulu” Kingsley is thrilled to discover after years of wishing for a sibling, Cami Chandler is her half-sister. When Cami invites her to live with her at Chandler Hill, Lulu jumps at the chance to leave behind all the heartache in her recent life. Not the spoiled little rich girl the media would like everyone to think, Lulu digs into marketing for the inn and winery, feeling more comfortable there than she ever did in California with her political father. Better yet, her mother is becoming a stronger, happier person and shares the idea of becoming part of a new family. Even though Lulu is aware that Miguel Lopez is the kind of guy who represents everything she’s tryIssue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | ing to forget, she’s attracted to him. Following a heartbreaking situation, she steps away from their relationship. Lulu settles in at Chandler Hill, coping the best way she knows—by working hard. But when Cami’s beloved grandfather, Rafe, has a stroke, Lulu realizes life is short and knows she must make things right with Miguel, and learns that home is where your heart leads you.

Excerpt CHAPTER ONE Louise “Lulu” Kingsley sat on the deck of Camilla Chandler’s home and wondered how she could be so lucky to live in a place like the Willamette Valley, Oregon. The journey to reach this point had been more than painful—it had almost destroyed her. But, here at Chandler Hill, she felt she might have found her true home at last.

Staring out at the rolling hills and the rows of grapevines devoid of their fruit after the harvest, she saw the goodness of the land, its beauty, and, most of all, the comforting prospect of more harvests to come. She thought of this continuity of life as a renewal of her own.

If Cami hadn’t offered her a place to stay and a job in a new location, Lulu wasn’t sure she could have survived the last year of family scandal and misfortune. For anyone who didn’t know much about her, they’d think her life was a privileged, easy one as the daughter of a rich, powerful man who’d one day wanted to run for president of the United States. But the man who tied her to her newly discovered half-sister was a man of too many appetites, and his actions had hurt others, including her fragile mother and her.

The understanding shown by the half-sister she’d never known growing up meant the world to her.

Cami came from a long line of kind, generous Chandler and Lopez families. Living and working at the Chandler Hill Inn and Winery was more than an ordinary existence. For Lulu, it meant finding a loving place in the world, one she’d desperately 74 | UncagedBooks.com

needed.

“I thought I’d find you here,” said Cami, stepping onto the deck and standing behind her. “I love to sit here and gaze out at the land. It’s very peaceful toward the end of the day and, as always, I think of Nonnee. My grandmother’s love of the land was the foundation for everything that’s been done here with both the inn and the winery.”

Lulu turned around in her rocking chair and smiled up at Cami. Not much older than she, Cami’s big heart matched her usual smile. Though Cami wasn’t as tall as Lulu and had totally opposite coloring, their facial features were astonishingly alike. Among other things, they shared a tiny quirk—misshapen earlobes, a genetic inheritance from their father. Lulu wished she had strawberry-blond curls like Cami and her grandmother, Lettie Chandler, but Lulu’s hair was straight and dark.

Cami took a seat in a chair next to her. “Gwen is very pleased to have you assist her at The Barn. I explained it was only temporary, that you’d agreed to handle our marketing program. But with the holiday season not that far away, I understand both she and I will need your help until after the New Year.”

“I love being part of the staff,” said Lulu, meaning it.

Cami gave her a tender smile. “Sweetie, you’re much more than one of the staff; you’re family. We intend to use your marketing and sales skills here at the inn and the other two wineries now associated with Chandler Hill.”

A warmth filled Lulu. Being part of a real, healthy family was such a gift. An only child after the death of her younger brother, Teddy, at the age of ten, she’d always longed for siblings. Cami’s grandfather, Rafe, was a wonderful man who’d been very kind to her.

They’d formed a bond over the fact that her father and Autumn Chandler, Lettie and Rafe’s daughter, had met and fallen in love, producing Cami. The rest of Cami’s family consisted of people who weren’t related by blood, but were still a close-knit group.

Cami nudged Lulu’s arm playfully. “By the way, I think Miguel was disappointed you weren’t at the strategy meeting today.”

Heat flooded Lulu’s cheeks. Miguel Lopez was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. Like his

| JUDITH KEIM | great-uncle, Rafe, he had hair so dark and shiny it resembled the wings of a blackbird or the smooth coat of a panther. She couldn’t decide which. His straight nose, dark, intelligent eyes, and full, kissable lips had every young woman in the valley swooning in the wake of his sexy butt. Those were the very reasons Lulu had no intention of ever getting involved with him. His easy ability to attract others reminded her too much of her father.

“How did the meeting go?” Lulu asked. “Are the three different vineyards able to establish a joint purchasing program for supplies, advertising, and other services?”

Chandler Hill, Taunton Estates, and Lone Creek Winery were all part of a group set up under one umbrella for financial purposes. Cami’s fiancé, Drew Farley, along with Dan Thurston, Adam Kurey, and Miguel, had formed a partnership to buy the Lone Creek Winery after a fire had destroyed sections of vines in its acreage.

“We’re ironing out details to combine some of the operations, but yes, it’s moving forward. With you about to begin handling the marketing for all three, it simplifies those matters.” Cami grinned at her. “So glad you’re here.”

The sound of someone approaching sent Sophie, Cami’s black-and-tan miniature dachshund into motion. She barked and ran to greet Rafe.

“Hi, come join us,” said Cami. She rose and pulled a chair over for Rafe. “The sun will be setting soon, but it’s still pleasant outside for this time of year. In fact, I was thinking of staying here for a while and tasting a new pinot noir release from Taunton Estates.”

Her eyes sparkled as she teased him. “You, as owner, might want to judge it for yourself.”

Rafe laughed. “I think I should, especially if it means I get to spend time with my two favorite women.” His gaze swept over them, bringing a smile to all three.

It was this kind of banter that Lulu loved most. Rafe was such a decent person. In his seventies, he was a quiet man who lived and loved and worked hard. He still mourned Lettie Chandler, who’d passed away over a year and a half ago. She had been and still was the love of Rafe’s life. Lulu was grateful to have this wonderful man part of her life, especially after the scandal involving her father.

DON’T MISS THESE TITLES:

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CATC H UP 76 | UncagedBooks.com

| TERESA KEEFER | Catching Up with Teresa Keefer Uncaged: Can you tell your readers more about your latest release Ruby’s Revenge?

Ruby was born on the wrong side of the tracks, but she was determined not to stay there. Beautiful, intelligent and pushed to the edge by her circumstances, she does what she has to do in order to gain custody of her siblings after the violent murder of her mother. Motivated by her deep desire to be a high-powered attorney someday, she goes after what should have rightfully been hers. From small-town Texas to the mysterious and steamy New Orleans and finally to the wide-open spaces of Wyoming, Ruby ends up right where she deserves to be.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I just finished up my contribution to the Getting Wild in Deadwood Anthology with Finding Elsie about a girl who goes in search of herself after being left at the altar and finds a whole lot more in the form of a sexy knight on a shiny black Harley Davidson. I’m taking a brief break and then I’m going to start work on Making Magick which will be the fourth of my Magick series of books. In Making Magick a wholesome young witch moves into an abandoned farmhouse left to her by a distant aunt. She finds herself frequently the target of barbs from her closest neighbor, a disillusioned widower with a troublesome young boy who is hell bent on stirring the pot between the two.

Uncaged: Are there any promotional events for 2020 that are on hold for now because of the pandemic?

As of right now, the only event I had planned on is Wild Deadwood Reads. My fingers (and toes) are crossed that the event will not get cancelled. This will be my fourth year in attendance at the event.

A

mazon Erotic Horror bestselling author Teresa Keefer writes both contemporary and paranormal romance. When she isn’t writing or working at her day job in the human resource field, she enjoys cooking, gardening, crafts, and caring for the menagerie of animals she lives with in the rural Hoosier state area.

A spiritualism scholar, Teresa has had some interesting conversations with the spirit world.

As an indie author, she enjoys traveling to book signings and meeting new readers.

teresakeeferauthor.weebly. com

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| CATCH UP | Ruby’s Revenge Teresa Keefer Romantic Suspense Ruby Page was born on the wrong side of the tracks...but she was determined not to stay there.

Despite the violent loss of her mother at the hands of her stepfather followed by the cruel act of two of her highschool classmates, she starts on her journey of making her dreams of being a prominent woman attorney a reality. But those dreams will come at a cost. Would she be able to overcome all the obstacles in her path to finally find everything she ever desired? Or would her acts of vengeance destroy everything she held dear?

Excerpt he stood looking out across the vast land as the sun set in a riot of oranges, purples and golds.

From her place in front of the wide picture windows, she wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to stave off the chill of the room. These rolling acres would be covered with snow soon, but she would be safe, secure and warm in the comfort of this home she had done so many things to attain.

Her dark hair cascaded down her back and around her shoulders with just the slightest tint of red and her lithe body was clad in a pair of well-worn jeans tucked into the expensive leather boots she had purchased in Mexico. Her flannel shirt fit her like it was made especially for her, and the conch belt imbedded with turquoise was cinched around her slim waist.

Footsteps fell heavily across the floor behind her and she smiled as she saw his reflection in the glass. Tall, dark and muscular, he had just come in from feeding the horses in the stables. She could smell the sweet fragrance of hay mingling with traces of his cologne.

When he put his hands on her shoulders, she leaned back against him and let the warmth of his body penetrate her clothing. He was all the heat she needed now.

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“I can’t believe you haven’t started a fire. It’s mighty nippy in here.” His lips brushed the top of her head.

“Would you like me to do it?”

She nodded. “Yes. Please. That would be nice. I sent Maria home for the night so we could have the house to ourselves.”

“After the past few days, I would welcome the peace and quiet.”

The last few days. For her they had been endless. Between Guy’s friends and family sniffing around for anything they could find to discredit her and the attorneys finally reading the will to the dismay of all who had been seated around the dining room table, she was glad to see them all go. And as soon as they were out of her hair, she had gone up in the master bath and drawn a tub full of hot water and sunk beneath the surface, allowing the fragrant bubbles to wash away all the dirt she felt had accumulated over her body for the last fourteen years. Then she had called him. Told him it was over, and he could come to her. Told him the private plane would be at the airstrip outside town.

He had politely declined, instead opting to drive his own truck across three states to be with her.

It had given her time to clear out all Gus’s belongings. She had burned them. Then she set Maria on the task of cleaning the ranch from top to bottom so that not one iota of a reminder of his dreadful cigar smoke or what she referred to as his old rich man’s cologne lingered anywhere in the house. She had tossed the flowers leftover from the funeral and called the florist to have them bring fresh ones. Bright ones. Ones that reminded her of the days when she had been young and innocent running barefoot in the meadow behind the broken-down old trailer that she had once called home. Before she had been used and abused and everything had been taken from her.

H

aley Rhoades’s writing is another bucketlist item coming to fruition, just like meeting Stephen Tyler and skydiving.

As she continues to write romance and young adult books, she plans to complete her remaining bucket-list items, including ghost-hunting, stormchasing, and bungee jumping. She is a Netflixbinging, Converse-wearing, avidly-reading, traveling geek.

Haley’s guilty pleasures are Lifetime and Hallmark movies. Her other loves include all things peanut butter, Star Wars, mathematics, and travel.

Haley resides with her husband and fur-baby in the Des Moines area. This Missouri-born girl enjoys the diversity the Midwest offers.

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H aley rhoa d es Uncaged welcomes Haley Rhoades Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! You just released Bend Don’t Break: 7 Deadly Sins: Envy. Can you tell readers more about this book?

Bend Don’t Break is the first book in a series of standalone books, each with a theme of the 7 Deadly Sins: Envy, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Wrath, and Lust.

In Bend Don’t Break we meet Schuyler, a twenty-fouryear-old college senior in the last weeks of her final semester of college. A horrible wreck took away her hopes of a family of her own and forced her to take time off from college to heal. In her efforts to heal, she writes off relationships, feeling no one deserves to live a life without children for her. But when Schuyler meets Calvin, she must find a way to carve a different future out or give up on her chosen career path and family goals.

Is his love enough for her to take a chance?

Uncaged: Are you planning on more in this series, or is this a standalone?

This is a series of stand-alone books. I am currently working on Greed and Gluttony in this series.

Uncaged: You also have another series out, the Locals Series. Is this a complete series or will you go back to it?

As of now, that series is complete with four books. I’ve jotted ideas for a holiday novella that I may publish in the years to come.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

In the 7 Deadly Sins Series, I am currently writing a book on Gluttony that starts in Las Vegas. The other

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book I’m currently outlining for is Greed set in Des Moines, Iowa. Each book in the series will follow a couple as they work past the sin and attempt to start a new relationship. Of course, each will have a HEA. Uncaged: As of right now, you are planning on attending Wild Deadwood Reads in June. What are you most looking forward to with this event?

This will be my first time at the event. I’m very excited, as I’ve followed the Facebook pages and enjoyed the photos from past events. My husband will be attending with me. We love history and travel. This will be our first trip to the area, so we plan to take in many of the sights while we extend our stay by a few days. I love meeting fans and new readers at events. My books are my babies, and I love to discuss and share them.

Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

To be honest, it has been very difficult for me. I am considered high-risk as I have Lupus and other medical conditions. I had pneumonia and was sick at home from the first week of February, so my social distancing started a month before everyone else. My adult sons no longer live with us, and my husband works a little from his home office, but most days is out of the house.

It’s lonely—but I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. I’ve made an effort to text or video call family members weekly as we can’t visit each other.

I take many walks each day with our fur-baby Nala, a Pomsky. I miss the ability to dine in an environment other than our home, walk the aisles of department stores, and plan get-togethers with family and friends.

I’ve found the change hinders my writing. I’ve always been able to write to work through my feelings in journals or to tell stories. For the first time in my life, I’m blocked. I can only make a list or a couple of notes before my brain no longer controls the pen. I’m not giving up; I’m taking baby steps each day to continue to work on my story ideas. I’m anxiously awaiting the day that I can’t stop writing again, the days I forget to eat, and the nights I can’t stop until I get it all saved.

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you

love to sit and have lunch with and why?

John Green-I love to read young adult and new adult stories. It’s my goal to branch out into these genres. I’d love to discuss his character Alaska and Will Grayson from my favorite books: Looking for Alaska and Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Colleen Hoover-I could not put down her recent novel Verity. It’s far from your normal romance book. Her Slammed Series will always hold a place in my heart. Every fall when others carve pumpkins it reminds me of her books and the meaning of “carving pumpkins” in her books.

Kristen Ashley-I want to be a Rock Chick. I confess I’ve read the series and listened to the audiobooks many, many times.

Jamie McGuire-Her Maddox brothers haunt many of my dreams. I find myself pointing out a guy in Issue 46 | May 2020 | 81

public that reminds me of her Maddox brothers characters. It all began with Beautiful Disaster.

Cambria Hebert-In her Hashtag Series, I found Rimmel’s character similar to me. I often let my nerd-flag fly.

Sorry, there’s no way I could choose just one or two.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

Often. Although I outline the book and develop the story line, I allow the story to shape itself as I write. I contemplate the change and new direction this takes the story, before I continue to write on the new path. Sometimes I even discuss it with my husband or a beta reader. More times than not, the characters control my stories.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

I walk my dog (Nala), attend sporting events (Go St. Louis Cardinals & GO CHIEFS!) with my

husband (Jamie), and two adult sons(Carter and Peyton), take drives in my convertible, and attend concerts. I enjoy binging my favorite movies and series: Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Star Trek, Hallmark holiday movies, and many more. I love 82 | UncagedBooks.com

| HALEY RHOADES | May as it starts with 5/4: Star Wars Day, 5/5: Cinco de Mayo, 5/6: My birthday, followed quickly by Mother’s Day. For me it’s 2 weeks of celebrations.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

Success to me is each individual book sold. I celebrated the first book I sold on Amazon, first review from someone I didn’t know, first book sold outside the United States, and many other milestones along the way. I think success is writing a book that others purchase and enjoy, and I love it.

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I prefer reading eBooks. On the rare occasion I hold a physical book in my hands, it takes weeks for me to read it. On my devices, the book is always with me, and it takes only days. When I love a book or series, I usually read it two or three times, then buy an audio copy of it. Then I enjoy listening to it as I drive, clean, or soak in a bath. I find something new each time I make my way through its pages. I just finished reading the Virgin River Series. It’s a very, very long series and I loved every single book.

I highly recommend it. Currently I’m listening to Kristen Ashley’s Rock Chick Series because it always cheers me up and we all need that right now.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

Fans, not just mine, please share your favorite books with family and friends. Reviews help people you know and those you don’t. Remember authors need and live for reviews. A few words along with a star ranking can lift our spirits, turn our day around, and spark us to keep writing. Generally, Amazon, Goodreads, and BookBub are the preferred reviews authors need, but comments or sharing on all social media helps, too.

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| FEATURE AUTHOR |

Enjoy an excerpt from Bend Don’t Break: Envy Bend Don’t Break Haley Rhoades Contemporary Romance When lust meets fate, the seven deadly sins await.

It’s a living, breathing beast, churning tumultuously within me. It never rests; it shows its head daily as I encounter ghosts from the life I wanted but was ripped away from me.

When Schuyler meets Calvin, she must find a way to carve a different future out or give up on her chosen career path and family goals. Is his love enough for her to take a chance?

Excerpt Chapter 1 Schuyler Every three months, I’m forced to endure this torture. Once I check in at the reception counter, I assume an empty seat in the crowded waiting room.

Amongst those waiting, I’m the outlier. Though I may not look any different, my appointment is the opposite of all the other patients waiting. Bile coats my throat, and my heart aches with jealousy.

I grind my teeth as I fight back tears. My blood pulses loudly in my ears. I attempt to breathe through my nose in hopes of keeping my pain from showing, from spilling out for all to see. I won’t rain on their parade, dampen their excitement. I might hate them for having what I cannot, but I’m not evil. I’ll keep a tight lid on my pain.

I try to focus on reading my current book in my Kindle app, but my eyes can’t help but wander.

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They want to witness what my heart longs desperately for. Directly across from me, an excited young couple with a toddler coo into a baby carrier while they wait for their six-week checkup. On the beige wall behind them hangs a picture, stretched on canvas, of a newborn in a pink knitted diaper cover.

There is a pink bow in her hair, and she’s napping on a furry, white blanket. Even in all my emotional pain, I must admit it’s a precious portrait.

On my right, a twenty-something woman caresses her large baby bump while smiling at the infant and mother next to her. She’s clearly near the end of her pregnancy. To my left, another woman, who appears to be near my age, barely has a pregnancy bump. An older woman sits with her, perhaps her mother. Both talk animatedly with smiles upon their faces. I can’t help but overhear their plans to shop for the baby’s bed after this appointment.

Everywhere I glance, excited families and pregnant women look forward to their appointments today.

Every wall displays newborns in delicate poses. On tables and between sets of chairs are expecting mother and parenting magazines. Clear, plastic stands hold pamphlets on infant formula while business cards for pregnancy massages and photographers are scattered about the room.

In the far corner of the room, a small bin of toys is available for waiting children. One child carries toy after toy over for his parents to see. They remind him he gets to see the baby at today’s visit, but that seems of little interest to him. I avert my eyes downward in an attempt to control my rising emotions only to find two discarded Cheerios upon the carpet. Everywhere I look, I find women and families ready to embark on a joyful journey.

I will never experience such a journey; for that, I am jealous. This reminder, while sitting in the waiting room every three months, does nothing to quell my pain. Instead of allowing me to move on, it ensures I revisit my pain over and over.

Fifteen minutes pass before a nurse peeks through the open door, calling my name. Happy to escape the waiting room, I quickly follow her to the scale and down the hallway. She pauses near the end, turning around, her face scrunched. Her fair complexion fails

| HALEY RHOADES | to hide the rising blush in her neck and face.

“I must have walked down the wrong hall,” she informs me, shrugging her shoulders. “I apologize; I started this week.”

I follow her in the other direction to the correct exam room. I step up to sit on the exam table, and I cringe at the rustling white paper. While the nurse records my vitals, I note her name tag states her name is Lyndon.

“When was your last period?” she asks.

Seriously? Why not just slap me in the face? She clearly did not read my chart.

“I’ve had a hysterectomy,” I state. It takes all my willpower not to growl at her.

Lyndon scrunches her brow as she flips through my chart. Still browsing, she asks, “Then, why are you getting a depo shot?” She stops rustling papers and looks to me for the answer.

“I still have one ovary,” I explain, my eyes surveying the tile floor. “The depo helps keep the cysts from growing as they did in the past, and by keeping the ovary, I don’t start menopause.”

“I see.” She nods, looking back to the chart. “That makes sense; I’ve just never seen such a case.”

Rage builds inside my belly, my face burns, my ears are hot, and I’m grinding my teeth. I will not cry; I will not cry. I force breath through my nose in hopes of fighting back the tears threatening to fall. I just need my shot. Give me my shot so I can get out of here.

“Are you sexually active?” the nurse asks while putting on her blue latex gloves.

How should I answer her question? I could say, “I should be; I’m 23 years old.” If I say ‘no,’ will she pity me? I could retort, “Does my vibrator count?”

“No,” I finally reply, and she documents my answer in the chart.

Finally, she takes the syringe in hand. That’s my cue to stand and bare my hip to her.

“Left side this time,” she prompts, and I comply.

“You’ll feel a pinch.”

And just like that, we’re done. With the billing sheet in hand, I walk to the desk to check out. It takes too long to make the next appointment for three months and get out of the office; I can’t do it fast enough. Of course, I’m not alone in the elevator–a pregnant cou-

ple, wearing wide smiles, joins me. I don’t think they realize I’m riding with them. Will the torture ever cease? It’s a vicious cycle I’m doomed to relive on a loop for the next thirty years. It’s a slap in the face. Is God punishing me? Did I do something to deserve this? The wreck left me with scars and stole any hopes I had of starting a family.

DON’T MISS THESE TITLES:

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feature authors

scifi thriller | scifi | satire

Kathrin Hutson

G.S. Kenney

Joe Barrett

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I

k athrin hutson

nternational Bestselling Author Kathrin Hutson has been writing Dark Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and LGBTQ Speculative Fiction since 2000. With her wildly messed-up heroes, excruciating circumstances, impossible decisions, and Happily Never Afters, she’s a firm believer in piling on the intense action, showing a little character skin, and never skimping on violent means to bloody ends.

In addition to writing her own dark and enchanting fiction, Kathrin spends the other half of her time as a fiction ghostwriter of almost every genre, as Fiction Co-Editor for Burlington’s Mud Season Review, and as Director of TopShelf Interviews for TopShelf Magazine. She is a member of both the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Horror Writers Association. Kathrin lives in Vermont with her husband, their young daughter, and their two dogs, Sadie and Brucewillis.

Stay Co n n e c te d

kathrinhutsonfiction.com

Please welcome Kathrin Hutson Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! Sleepwater Static will release May 26, and is the 2nd book in the Blue Helix series. Can you tell readers more about this book and the series?

Releasing Book 1 of the Blue Helix series, Sleepwater Beat, was a really big deal for me. Beyond that book being my first attempt at Dystopian Sci-Fi, it reflected more about my personal life and the experiences I’ve had than anything I’d written up to that point. Book 2, Sleepwater Static, feels just as big but in some very different ways.

Sleepwater Static follows Bernadette Manney—supporting character from Book 1—to highlight more of Sleepwater’s “matriarch” figure, her life, her past, and how Sleepwater as an organization of people with this supernatural ability of “the beat” started.

And it illuminates the high stakes and consequences that Bernadette’s group of Sleepwater faces when they realize just how hostile the world has become toward people like them.

In addition to being a suspenseful Dystopian series (which I’ve been told reads like a Thriller at times), Blue Helix focuses on highlighting discrimination in so many of its myriad forms and within a wide range of marginalized communities to—hopefully— show discrimination in a different light. To parallel the experiences of marginalized people in our world with the experiences of one more fictional community telling Sleepwater’s story. While Sleepwater Beat focused more on the LGBTQ community, the homeless, drug addicts and addiction survivors, broken homes, and people living on the fringes of society, Sleepwater Static directly approaches issues of race, racism, and interracial families to further explore these topics through the fictional group of people who have this supernatural ability.

Sleepwater Static definitely has a lot to say, as does the entire Blue Helix series. Thus far, I’ve been told that these things have been blended and approached in a way that allows them to become accessible to a Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | ride range of people through the avenue of being an entertaining story. First and foremost, that’s what’s most important to me, and I’m so excited to hear what readers think of this next book in the series.

Uncaged: You have a couple other series running also, can you tell readers more about those series?

The Gyenona’s Children duology (Daughter of the Drackan and Mother of the Drackan) was my very first series—Grimdark Fantasy described as “The Jungle Book meets Kill Bill… with dragons!” This series kicked off my author career with Daughter of the Drackan, which became an Amazon Bestseller in Dark Fantasy within its first year and was an AwardWinning Quarterfinalist in the 2019 Epic Fantasy Fanatics Readers Choice Awards. It’s not for the faint of heart (none of my work is) and looks at the human race as a whole from a completely different, “not entirely human” perspective. With dragons.

So for anyone who loves rich world-building, Epic Fantasy, lots of action with blood and gore, and a fierce female lead with a wildly feral disposition, this is a great place to start.

The Unclaimed Trilogy is my other current series.

This is also Dark Fantasy but in a much lighter vein than Gyenona’s Children.

All three books follow Kherron, an institutionalized and newly freed blacksmith who finds himself dropped into the center of an immortal war when he becomes the caretaker of an omniscient being—“One woman with the mind of a 90 | UncagedBooks.com

child, and the world’s ancient secrets are trapped within her.” I had a great time taking Kherron through trial after trial in The Unclaimed, and this series is definitely more suited for readers who enjoy the darkness in Fantasy but who may be a bit… squeamish, otherwise.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I’ve got two new series in the works right now. The first is Vessel Broken, which takes place in The Unclaimed universe but with completely different characters. Book 1, Imlach Fractured, opens right at the end of Book 3 of The Unclaimed. This series, however, is incredibly dark and violent—perhaps my darkest yet. It’s also my second series writing queer characters into speculative fiction, and Imlach Fractured is slated for release in October 2020.

I’m also working on a fun new Dark Urban Fantasy series, Accessory to Magic. “An apprentice witch with a criminal past inherits a magical bank that can think for itself. And the clientele are almost as dangerous as what’s inside their safety deposit boxes.”

I’ve been pretty hush-hush about this new series overall, but I can say that Book 1, The Witching Vault, will be releasing before the end of the summer.

Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

I am incredibly fortunate to be able to say that this answer to this question is: Not that much.

I’ve been writing fiction full-time from home since January of 2019, and my husband was able to stop working to be a stay-at-home dad like he’d always wanted last October. I still work my regular 60-hour workweek in my home office, with two days off a week, to write my little heart out. Plus, I’ve always been a rather extreme introvert, so I never really left the house much anyway (most of the time when I did, it was at my husband’s prompting).

The biggest change has come from having our three-

year-old daughter at home 24/7 during the pandemic.

We’ve managed to keep ourselves occupied with games, baking, make-believe, audiobooks, reading (I’m proud to say my three-year-old reads full books on her own), and most recently getting outside to hike. That last part’s been very difficult as we’re still not completely out of cold, cloudy weather in Vermont. We’re itching to spend more time outside without freezing.

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

Stephen King. Number One. He’s been one of my favorites for a very long time, and his Dark Tower series is also number one on my list (I’m currently reading through it for the tenth time). I like to imagine myself staring at him creepily until one of us breaks down (and of course, in my imagination, I’d win). But then I return

| KATHRIN HUTSON | to reality and realize it would just be a fun conversation, creepiness notwithstanding.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

Short answer: yes. All of them.

I’ve always been a “pantser” when writing. More recently, I’ve begun to “outline” my books, and I use that term very loosely. This is mostly just writing the beats out first (a plot summary of seven to ten thousand words, depending on book length), which allows me to write even faster. But I never know all the details before I begin. The most exciting part of writing, for me, is not knowing everything that’s going to happen. The characters surprise me every single time, and sometimes, even the plot changes

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | from what I’d originally laid out.

The most surprising thing a character has done against my original intention was to change the entire core of who they were supposed to be within the story. One character in The Unclaimed trilogy was supposed to be “one of the bad guys”. When I got to writing his scene, he actually became a benevolent guide for the main character, and I ended up writing him into something of a timeless, heartbreaking love story on the side.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

Reading has always been my number-one choice when it comes to relaxing and getting out of my head. That continues to be an incredibly important pastime for me, especially with all the writing I do.

Reading “fills up my battery”, so to speak. I’d run out of ideas and stamina if I didn’t have inspiration and enjoyment to draw from in other people’s incredible works.

I also really love hot baths (and reading in them), plus hikes up in the woods. Actually, as I’m sitting here writing this, I’m feeling entirely relaxed after the long hike I took with my family this morning during one of the very few sunny days warmer than 30 degrees in the last six months.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

In a nutshell, success looks like writing great stories that people enjoy, appreciate, and want more of. In the beginning, I didn’t set out writing fiction with grand designs of being hugely famous and becoming a millionaire (though I probably wouldn’t say no to either of those things). But honestly, at this point, I have to say that I’ve reached my own personal goals of “success” as an author. I write fiction full-time to support my family. It’s also the one thing I love to do so much that I can handle writing 60 hours a week without ever feeling like I’m “doing work”. And while I still have so much more 92 | UncagedBooks.com

to write and so much farther to go in my career, I have readers who go through everything I write, who contact me to tell me how much they enjoy my stories, and in many ways, that’s worth more than I ever expected.

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I prefer physical books. There’s just nothing quite like them. But I do also have a Kindle Paperwhite and read that quite frequently (I tend to reserve buying physical books for those I know I really love and will read again and again. Plus, my husband’s tired of packing up my home library and carting it across the country with us every time we move). Audiobooks are wonderful too, though I’ve only listened to them during long cross-

| KATHRIN HUTSON | country drives to either move or visit family. We do a lot less of that now with a young child, but I anticipate bringing that back into my life in the future.

Like I’ve said before, I’m re-reading Stephen King’s Dark Tower series for the tenth time right now. I’m almost finished with Book 4, Wizard and Glass.

It used to be my favorite of the 7-book series, but now I think that might be changing. I get something different out of this series every single time I read it, so it’s no surprise that my favorite books change.

For anyone who hasn’t dived into this series, I just can’t recommend it enough. Even if you’re not into horror, it’s good. The Dark Tower is more like Dark Fantasy (what I write) anyway, but it’s so much more. You’ll have to take the plunge to find out.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

I always love to tell my fans to please reach out and email me. Send me a message on social media. Reply to my newsletters if you’ve subscribed to them. I make it a point to reply to every single fan email and message I receive, because I know how awesome it is to hear from my favorite authors when I write to them. And, of course, I am always down to geek out about favorite reads and great series, shows, and movies. If you visit my Facebook page, you’ll get a pretty good idea of my tastes right away.

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| FEATURE AUTHOR |

Enjoy an excerpt from Hollow Stars Sleepwater Static Kathrin Hutson LGBT SciFi/Thriller They say home is where the heart is. Now that Sleepwater’s on the run, home is just another place to hide.

Wyoming’s Sleepwater chapter is on the run, hunted for their ability to spin a beat. With little time to mourn the members they’ve lost, Bernadette Manney takes the group to the one place she swore she’d never see again: the cabin in Hollywood, South Carolina.

It’s remote enough to lay low and catch a break, but not for long.

Their beats are condemned as mutations, radical terrorist tactics, and felonies punishable both by and outside the law. Bernadette thought Sleepwater would be safe here, but returning to her Southern roots unleashes more demons than she left behind. Her past, her love, and even her own flesh and blood won’t let her move on through a venomous society intent on rooting out her people. Now, to bring a mother’s first child safely into an unsafe world, Bernadette must face her own shame from before Sleepwater itself was born. But redemption and forgiveness may be too much to ask, and it may just be too late.

Excerpt Excerpt: Chapter 14 (altered from published edition to remove strong language) “CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE doin’ this.” Darrell shut the driver-side door of his Monte Carlo and stuck his hands in his pockets. He took in the sight 94 | UncagedBooks.com

of the upper-middle-class neighborhood in Vincent, Alabama with the same careful, calculated consideration with which he studied everything else he didn’t know inside and out.

Bernadette smirked and stepped up onto the sidewalk, her moccasin shoes crunching across a few scattered pieces of mulch from the landscaped yard. “See? The drive wasn’t all that bad.”

“Yeah, you could just keep drivin’ and drivin’ forever, couldn’t you?” He walked around the front of the car and joined her on the sidewalk. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you just kept drivin’ on without me, B.” She feigned insult and let her jaw drop, then laughed and hooked her arm through his. Those hands never left his pockets. “I would never do that. What’s the point of going… wherever without you?”

Darrell shrugged a little as they moved up the sidewalk beside the long line of cars parked at the curb.

“Just to go, I bet.” When he cocked his head and turned it just a little toward her, they shared a subdued laugh.

“Well as long as you keep making drives like this with me, I won’t have to go drivin’ off by myself. And you’re gonna freak when you see what these people are up to.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m tryin’ to forget about.” They passed the first house at least three times the size of their Charleston apartment, and he cleared his throat.

“You sure I’m even supposed to come to one of these things, B? I ain’t… working with the same kinda words as y’all. If they’re tryin’ to keep it low, how’s somebody like me gonna fit into a shape I ain’t got?”

Bernadette’s eyes widened, and she looked up at him.

The man stared straight ahead, pursing his lips a little.

“Hey.” When she tugged on his arm, he sniffed and turned his head, his gaze lingering down the street as if he were only halfway listening to her. She knew he just didn’t want her to see in his eyes what they’d already both heard in his voice. Then he met her gaze with a raised eyebrow, which he’d always failed at passing off as indifference. At least with her. “You coming here with me is just like me walking down the street with you to Benny’s for a cookout. Are you gonna try telling me I didn’t belong there however many times we’ve gone?”

| KATHRIN HUTSON | “Naw, that ain’t the same.”

Bernadette tried to hold back her laughter and managed to squish it down into a quick exhale through her nose. “Then go ahead and tell me how it’s different.”

“Those boys love you, B.” “So do their wives and little Jackson. Monique.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Everybody loves you.” Darrell snorted and rolled his eyes back toward the end of the block, searching for something neither one of them understood. “But it’s different is all.”

“How?” “See, now you’re pushin’.”

She did laugh this time. “I’m not pushing.”

“Now, don’t go—” “I’m not pushing.” Grinning up at him, Bernadette grabbed his bare arm beneath the t-shirt sleeve with both hands, one of her elbows still linked through his. “But if you want me to understand what you’re tryin’ to say, you have to actually say something.”

An indignant sigh puffed through his loose lips, and his dark-brown eyes swept across the street from one house bordering on intimidatingly large to the next.

“We just chill at Benny’s.”

“We’re chillin’ here too.”

“No, I mean where a brother can bring his woman and hang and not care about what anyone else is tryin’ to do.”

Bernadette raised her eyebrows and nodded, though she knew they hadn’t gotten to the heart of what made his whole body cringe on this sidewalk. Darrell hardly showed any of that discomfort just looking at him, but she could feel the tension in the flexed muscles and twisted sinews of his bicep beneath her hands. “This isn’t one of those kinda parties. No one’s trying to do anything. They wouldn’t have invited us—both of us—if there was somethin’ else going on.”

“See, and then that just means it’s for show, don’t it?

Y’all sit around and talk, like you do, and all those people get to see what you can do and everyone else.

How am I gonna be in all that? Just stand in the back like someone’s payin’ me to wait there while y’all take y’all’s sweet time with the rest? I got no business showin’ up here, B.”

“You think you’re too different for anyone to want you in that house?” Bernadette nodded toward the next house over, with the white siding and the navy-blue shutters and trim. Darrell just jerked his eyebrows up and pressed his lips together so tightly, they all but disappeared. “Okay, go ahead and tell me I didn’t have any business sittin’ in a chair on Benny’s back porch.”

“That’s not—” “Fine. I’ll make it easier.” Bernadette slid a hand up his arm and pressed herself against him, craning her neck to look up at him despite the fact that he was busy staring at nothing down the street again. “If you can tell me that a white girl who left everything to be with you, without a second thought, doesn’t belong at a cookout with no other white faces, then okay. I’ll tell you you don’t belong at a party where you might be the only person who can’t do something special with their words.

Go ahead and tell me that’s the truth, and we’ll get back in the car.”

Darrell cleared his throat. “They’re not the same, B. The folks at Benny’s already know you.”

“Not before I met them. At Benny’s.” A stunned, reflective silence hung between them. Cicadas droned in the background. Muffled, fast-paced music flared up from the house just down from where they stood. When Darrell took a deep breath and finally met her gaze full-on, she knew she’d hit a mark inside that quiet, calculating mind.

“Benny invited both of us that first time, and we were invited together to this thing too. This isn’t any different than one of those cookouts, got it?”

He studied her gaze and blinked slowly, like he still couldn’t believe he’d let her talk him into this. “’Cept for the size of these houses.”

That was it. That was all either of them needed to keep moving forward. Bernadette snorted and gave his arm a little tug as she moved down the sidewalk toward the white house. He hadn’t completely relaxed, but his elbow had a little more give to it now, and she couldn’t ask for anything more than that. She didn’t have to.

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | trim, which was now clearly the source of the muted music on the other side of that navy-blue door. Bernadette stared at the dark paint before reaching up to press the doorbell set in the brick wall, also painted white. A round of laughter bubbled up from inside the house, then the doorknob turned, and the door opened.

The woman on the other side of it looked everything and nothing like what Bernadette had expected—skin the same light-brown as the sunset reflecting off Folly Beach, black hair falling in tight ringlets around her shoulders, shining eyes that wavered somewhere between hazel and amber. Her lips parted in a wide grin, and she glanced from Bernadette to Darrell and back again. “Bernie?”

“Hey. This is—” “Darrell, yeah. Janet’s told me all about you. I’m Donna.” She stuck out a hand toward Darrell first, who accepted the handshake and blinked quickly a few times. The corner of his mouth twitched up into an approving smile when Donna reached out for Bernadette’s hand next and pulled her inside.

“Wait ‘til we show her y’all actually showed up.

I swear, that woman’s gonna kill me with how much she worries ‘bout everything. It’s good to finally have you up here with us. Both of y’all.”

With her arm around Bernadette’s shoulder, Donna turned back to shoot Darrell a crisp nod. He chuckled and dipped his head, and the only thing Bernadette could do was offer him a playful, justgo-with-it shrug.

Their hostess led them into a huge living room that looked like something straight out of House Beautiful—all neon colors and geometric patterns. Donna’s arm slid across Bernadette’s back before the woman raised both hands and clapped once. “Listen up! Y’all aren’t gonna believe who decided to finally come check out Vincent. Bernie and Darrell, y’all. All the way from Charleston.”

It wasn’t quite a cheer—more like at least twenty people all calling out to Bernadette and Darrell like they’d met before and wasn’t this a surprise?—but it made her laugh all the same. She raised a hand, grinning, and all Darrell could do 96 | UncagedBooks.com

was jerk his head back in acknowledgement, failing to hide a surprised, disbelieving smile of his own.

“See?” Bernadette bumped her shoulder against his arm and nodded toward the room and everyone in it who’d gone back to their previous conversations.

“Literally with open arms.”

Darrell finally took a hand out of his pocket and settled it on the small of her back, then leaned in to mutter, “We’ll see. S’long as you don’t go gettin’ us into too much trouble.” Despite the way that could have sounded, if he were saying it to anyone else, she just rolled her eyes and still couldn’t get rid of that grin.

Darrell chuckled and kissed her temple, then a woman in tight black spandex practically ran toward them.

“You made it!” Janet was at least five years older and a lot less uncertain-looking than the last picture she’d sent in one of her letters, but she had the same straight brown hair so dark it was almost black, same strikingly pale skin even lighter than Bernadette’s, same gray-blue eyes and lopsided smile.

“I’d be a total airhead to pass this up. Stayin’ in y’all’s house, getting to finally meet everybody.”

“This is… wow. I mean, yeah. You’re really here.” Janet’s surprise bloomed into a grin, though she stared at Bernadette with an unexpected intensity that just made Bernadette want to laugh. And it lasted long enough to make Bernadette think there was something else going on. Then Janet blinked quickly and shook her head with a little chuckle. “Well hurry the hell up and come here.”

Bernadette stepped into the other woman’s arms and in no way expected such a warm, tight, almost desperate embrace. But it felt right, after almost ten years of writing each other at least once a month, sometimes twice. She already knew everything there was to know about Janet Hammel and the life she’d spent those ten years building for herself here in Vincent.

Except for just what, exactly, that desperation in Janet’s hug was really trying to say.

Then the woman pulled back, tucked a strand of Bernadette’s blonde hair behind her ear, and laughed at herself for doing something like that without even thinking about it. “I just can’t believe it. You’re actually here. Oh, and Darrell. I can’t even tell you how good it is to finally meet you.”

| KATHRIN HUTSON | Janet leapt away from Bernadette to spread some of her oddly focused attention elsewhere. “That’s a big deal, man. Making the drive out here with her to meet a bunch of folks you don’t even know.”

“Yeah, long drive.” Darrell smirked and held out his hand. “I’m guessin’ you’ve heard all about me too.”

“Enough to not be insulted by a handshake.” Janet slapped the back of his hand and spread her arms.

“Put that thing away. I only do hugs.”

He hissed out a sigh through his smile and leaned in for a quick, slightly awkward embrace from the woman who only knew everything about him through hundreds of handwritten letters. Meeting Bernadette’s gaze with wide eyes, he muttered, “She only does hugs.”

Janet patted his back a few times, then stepped away and stuck her hands on her hips. That lingering gaze of hers found a home again on Bernadette, only this time it covered the woman from South Carolina from head to toe in approval before Janet laughed and shook her head. “Come on. Y’all need to meet everyone else. This is… ah!”

She waved them after her, and when Darrell raised questioning eyebrows, Bernadette lifted one shoulder in half a shrug and slipped her hand into his. They followed Janet farther into the living room than just the first few feet and got introduced all around.

Phil from Houston dipped his head, his eyes crinkling as he grinned, both thumbs stuck through the beltloops of his jeans. All he was missing were a giant, shiny belt buckle and a Stetson.

Alice and Tom had stopped by from their visit with family just outside Birmingham. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed couple looked so much alike, Bernadette wondered if they were siblings until they moved on and she saw Tom’s hand slip into the back pocket of Alice’s high-waisted jeans.

Jiyun’s pitch-black hair hung in a shimmering bob around her golden-toned face, straight bangs hovering just over her slowly dipping eyelashes. Her lips never parted as she smiled at the newcomers and shook their hands with thin, cold, limp fingers.

They met Tiffany from Chicago, Andrés from Brooklyn, Raymond with a five-inch mohawk from much closer in Atlanta, Marcus and Damien from San

Francisco who looked nothing alike but were definitely a couple, and wasn’t it a trip that those two had been in the Golden State with Charles at the same time he was still in Oakland?

Darrell looked a little more relieved, just a little more comfortable, when Janet brought them around to shake hands with Charles and Anton and Latisha. The man about ten years older than everyone else here nodded at Darrell and stuck out his hand. “Charles.”

“Darrell.”

The shake was firm and quick and over with in a second. “Good to have you here, brother.”

“Yeah, man.”

“Real good.” Charles slapped a hand on Darrell’s shoulder. “Donna was just talkin’ ’bout a brother playin’ sax with Woodson Blues. That you?”

Darrell hissed and dipped his head to scratch the back of his neck. “Been about a year, now. Yeah.”

“No kiddin’. You bring that horn up with ya from Charleston?”

Laughing, Darrell just barely shook his head.

“Didn’t think it was that kinda party, man.”

Charles let out a sharp bark of a laugh and readjusted his black leather jacket over his black button-up shirt. “That’s fine, man. You breakin’ it down with Woodson Blues. Real fine. I’ve heard good things.” “’Preciate it, man.”

“Not that kinda party…” With another laugh, Charles lifted his head and turned around to call out to the room, “Donna. You didn’t think to ask the man if he wanted to jam a little at one of these things?”

From the other side of the room, Donna flung a hand into the air. “Not that kinda party, baby.”

“Not that kinda party.” Charles laughed, cleared his throat, and cocked his head, jerking his finger up and down not directly at Darrell but at least toward him. “I tell you what. Maybe it’s not that kinda party, but I might just do a whole lot to see Woodson Blues up close.”

Bernadette squeezed Darrell’s hand. “Come down to Charleston. They’re playing all the time.”

“That right? You ever get outta the state?”

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | “Once or twice.” Darrell stared at the floor and nodded slowly. “Went out to Atlanta couple weeks ago.”

“Well, you make it over just a few state lines, and you might see my face. Excuse me.” With another pat on Darrell’s back, Charles stepped back and disappeared somewhere else in the house.

A loud, unabashed explosion of laughter came from behind them, where Donna had her arm around Janet’s shoulders now, pulling her partner closer and shaking a playfully warning finger at whoever had made her laugh like that. Then the women steered themselves back toward Bernadette and Darrell, their heads bent toward each other. Janet grinned as Donna muttered something fierce and quick and obviously meant to be private. Then they reached their newest guests, and Donna shoved her free hand into her pocket.

“What do y’all think so far?”

Bernadette smirked. “Y’all squeeze a lotta people into this house.”

“Aw.” Donna chuckled and tipped her head toward Janet. “She’s so new. This is nothin’, Bernie.

Come back when we got people gathered around for something a little more… productive. Then you’ll see. This is just for fun.”

Janet met Bernadette’s gaze and offered a little smile through pursed lips, her eyes slowly widening. “That’s how she gets ya.”

“What’s that?” Donna stared at her partner, feigning surprise.

“It’s all fun and games at first.” Janet lurched forward just a little, like she’d just swallowed her own laughter, and lifted two hands with curved fingers. “Then the claws come out.”

“What?” Donna clicked her tongue and shook Janet a little by the shoulders. “Girl…”

“Just sayin’.”

“Mm-mm.” Shaking her head, Donna looked up at Bernadette and winked. “Somethin’ to think about. Hell, Darrell, you come too. See what we’re all about when we get down to business, huh?”

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apologetic.

“He knows that. Don’tcha, D?” The man just cleared his throat and slipped his hand back down to the small of Bernadette’s back.

“See? He’s got the right idea. Just say nothin’.”

Donna pointed at him and turned her head away in a warning sideways glance. “Don’t go provin’ me wrong, now. Can I get y’all anything to drink? We put water and tea out so far. The rest comes later.”

“Hey, let the man have a drink, babe.” Janet gestured toward him as her partner leaned away, getting ready to head toward wherever these drinks had been put out for the guests. “He’s not sittin’ down to tell a story.”

“Huh.” Donna looked him up and down, then chuckled. “I wasn’t even thinkin’ about that. You a whiskey man?”

“If that’s what y’all got, I am.”

“You know, I like him.” Donna shook her finger at him again, stepped away, then stopped herself and leaned back in, slapping Darrell’s arm with the back of a hand. “Don’t let any of these other fools know what you got in your cup, yeah? Then everybody’s gonna want to start breaking the rules.” Her head moved in an exaggerated swerve as she spoke, her tight curls bouncing back behind her shoulders. Then she let out another unabashed laugh and darted out of the living room.

“You hear that?” Darrell dipped his head toward Bernadette and looked like he might actually prefer to stand in the back while everyone else did what they’d come here to do. “You brought me to a party with rules.”

Before Bernadette could come up with something smart enough to say back, Janet leaned toward them, shaking her hand back and forth. “Y’all can just ignore whatever she says about rules, okay? And Darrell, you’re pretty much exempt from all of them, even if we took ‘em seriously.”

“Huh.” He seemed on the verge of laughing beneath the confused frown he sent her way. “First time someone’s given me a free pass.”

Janet’s next chuckle, embarrassed and apologetic and self-critical, sounded a little too out of place for the high energy filling her living room. “No, I just

| KATHRIN HUTSON | mean… you know. Donna likes to get everybody together and have like a… story time.”

He leaned back and brought his hand up from Bernadette’s back to her shoulder. “You hear about this?”

“Nope.” It was all she could do not to laugh at the obvious layers of confusion being tossed between the three of them like randomly flung darts. “There’s a story time, Janet?”

“Uh… well, yeah. You know, the special kind. That we…” She gestured to herself and then Bernadette, biting down on her bottom lip. “Booze makes it impossible to do anything with our words, so we wait until all the… stories are over. And Darrell doesn’t have a—” “Naw, I get it.” Now Darrell was trying not to laugh.

“Sure. I can’t do what y’all do, and that’s fine. Means I get a drink, and I ain’t gonna try askin’ for anything else.”

The fact that Bernadette honestly couldn’t tell if he was put out or put at ease by the whole thing surprised her. Darrell just shook his head and rubbed his hand back and forth across his mouth, which made figuring out what he was thinking that much harder.

“Oh, don’t… We definitely want you here.” Janet’s brows drew together in concern. “Please don’t think that’s even a thing. It’s incredible that you both came—” “Hey, it’s chill.” Darrell swallowed and spread his arms. “I’m good. Just get a”—he chuckled through the words—“little liquor in me, I’ll be all smiles.

‘Cause we about to sit around and get told all kindsa crazy stuff, ain’t we?”

Janet’s eyes widened again at Bernadette, then both of them burst out laughing. Their hostess ran a hand through her straight, nearly black hair and shrugged.

“Something like that, yeah.”

Glancing at the ceiling, he pulled Bernadette toward him until she wrapped her arms around his waist, still laughing. Janet looked them over, smiling, then her face lit up when Donna stepped back into the living room with two red plastic Solo cups. “Okay, get ready.”

“For the whiskey man.” Donna thrust one cup toward Darrell so quickly, it almost splashed all over him and Bernadette both. He took the cup, and Donna

laughed when she extended the other one toward Bernadette. “Y’all just made the drive, so I figured it was safer to go with, uh… sugar and caffeine for you, honey. We’ll get to the good stuff.

Don’t worry.” She winked when Bernadette took the cup from her, then walked past all of them, smacking Janet’s ass on her way toward the rest of their guests.

Janet’s mouth fell open in a shocked smile, and she turned to watch her partner lift both arms into the air to grab everyone’s attention.

“All right, y’all. We’re done talkin’, but we’re not done talkin’. Know what I’m sayin’?” The separate conversations died down into small, knowing chuckles. “Y’all get your asses into a seat or a lap or whatever the hell you’re least likely to fall out of. We’ll kick this off the way we do, huh?”

“Amen,” someone called from the other side of the room.

Donna cocked her head and pointed. “Aw… not yet.”

“Grab a seat,” Janet said, gazing back at Bernadette over her shoulder. Then she nodded and headed across the living room, where Donna pulled her down into her lap and leaned toward the man sitting beside her to say something that made them all laugh.

“Where do you wanna sit?” Bernadette found Darrell staring into his red Solo cup, expressionless but for his incredibly wide eyes.

“Woman’s tryin’ to get me wasted.”

“What?” She stood on her tiptoes to peer over the rim of his cup, which was in fact filled over halfway with whiskey. “Oh, man. Is that just straight whiskey?”

He took a sip, swallowed, licked his lips, stared straight ahead at the opposite wall. “Uh-huh.”

Choking back a laugh, Bernadette pulled him around the few extra chairs dotting the living room, all of the seats more or less arranged in a circle with only the black coffee table with neongreen stripes left in the center. “You’ll be fine.

Just maybe set it down once someone starts talking.”

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | cup.

The only seat left was a purple armchair with orange armrests and room for one person. Darrell slowly lowered himself into it and pulled her toward him with a hand on her hip until she opted instead to sit sideways on the armrest.

“Why you wanna sit up there when you got the best seat in the house right here?” Darrell gestured toward his lap and almost had her convinced that she’d hurt his feelings.

“I don’t want you spillin’ that drink all over me when it drops outta your hand. I’m serious. You should put it down. At least until you hear whoever’s first.”

Darrell clicked his tongue at her, took a surprisingly long pull of whiskey, and set the plastic cup on the carpet. A quick, sharp sigh escaped him as he reached for her hips again with both hands. “The things you make me do for you, girl.

I swear.”

“I didn’t make you do—” She shrieked when he yanked her backward off the armchair and into his lap, then she burst out laughing. His lips on hers smothered the laugh. Darrell tasted like way too much whiskey and a little of the po’boys they’d picked up on the drive, but she kissed him back and slung an arm around his neck.

“Hey, South Carolina!” Across the room, Donna clapped her hands and leaned forward, chuckling.

“We didn’t invite y’all out here to put on a show.

That comes later.”

Laughing through her nose, Bernadette pressed her lips even harder against Darrell’s and held his face where it was before finally letting go. He cleared his throat and tried to lean over her in his lap. “Where’s that drink?”

“No.” His smirk gave him away, though he stared at the coffee table now and sat back in the armchair, his hand sliding up onto her thigh. Donna started talking, but the only thing Bernadette heard was Darrell’s voice whispering in her ear. “You ever been to something like this?”

She licked her lips and shook her head, forcing herself not to react to his hand.

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“Then if I get all messed up from whatever kinda stories these people got comin’, I’ma need you to fix me.” His hand kept moving slowly up her thigh, then he pinched her.

She slapped his hand, making him chuckle, and leaned back to look up at him; she could only see his lips without twisting her neck so far around that it hurt. “I’ll break you first if you don’t stop.”

“Mm-hmm. Trouble.”

“Shut up.”

Darrell’s mouth twitched into a tiny, secretive smile while he stared at the coffee table. Though she tried to split her mind and use half of it to focus on Donna’s introduction to whatever they’d just sat down to do, she could only focus on those lips.

DON’T MISS THIS TITLE:

A

uthor G. S. Kenney writes romantic speculative fiction novels. Her first science-fiction romance novel Freeing Eden, published by Soul Mate Publishing, was a 2018 RWA Golden Heart® finalist. The Last Lord of Eden, the second novel in the Ascent of Eden series published by Soul Mate, is now also available.

G. S. Kenney started reading early, and never stopped. In kindergarten, drawn in by a book with a picture of three witches at a cauldron, she learned to read by starting with Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Now she writes stories of her own (and still loves Shakespeare). Interested in many fields, she studied the “Great Books” at St. John’s College, architecture at Harvard, and financial planning at Boston University. She has also conducted post-doctoral research in psychology at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, and developed software systems.

In addition to writing, G. S. Kenney is an avid photographer and world traveler, along with her husband, the love of her life. When not “on the road,” they reside in Marin County, California, where a dream of having a lemon tree of their very own has somehow morphed into an entire citrus orchard. They have two children, a granddog, and two grand-cats. And a wonderful, tiny grandson, their newborn first.

Stay Connected

gskenney.com

G.S. Kenney Uncaged welcomes G.S. Kenney Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! The Last Lord of Eden released April 8. Can you tell readers more about this book?

This book is one of my favorites. In it, Kell—the clone who was just discovering his own unique identity in the previous book, Freeing Eden—now comes into his true adulthood, a world of difficult personal choices with consequences he will have to take responsibility for.

Zara has a quandary of her own. She’d imagined that she and Kell were moving into their well-deserved

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happily-ever-after when they left Eden, but instead he’s accepted a situation where, in order to keep her safe from the danger he faces, Kell feels obligated to push her away. And so Zara is faced with a choice between waiting for Kell, however long it may take him, or moving on with her own life.

This is a romance, and so it’s no spoiler that Kell and Zara find a way to be together at the end, but the path is complicated, and they are both changed on the journey.

Uncaged: What inspires you to write in the SciFi genre? Are you team Star Wars or team Star Trek? Or both/neither?

I was quite taken with the first Star Wars or three, but I couldn’t keep going with it. I do like the Star Trek series quite a bit. In fact, recently, while sheltering in

place together, my family and I watched Star Trek Picard. But I’ve been a science-fiction fan for a lot longer than that. Since elementary school, really.

I read stories by many of the great science-fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century. I loved the world building, the sheer audaciousness and delight of it.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I recently completed a book in which a time-traveling historian of the thirty-third century on Earth searches for, and finds, a seminal figure of the twenty-fourth century. There’s attraction and deception— all the good interpersonal stuff—as they interact to settle his world back in the second millenium B.C., thereby inadvertently bringing about the events he

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Now, I’m working on a prequel to that book.

ent. I find I am more conscious of how much there is to be grateful for—all the important things it used to be so easy to take for granted.

The beautiful views from every window of my hilltop house; each passing friendly encounter with a neighbor (even at six feet distance or more, of course); the clean, fresh springtime air on my walks; every person who contributes to bringing fresh produce from the farms to us; the way so many ordinary people have stepped up to help one another in this difficult time . . . I could go on and on (a fault of mine)!

Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

In so many ways! Sometimes I feel like we’ve all moved into a science-fictional universe not quite our own.

Assuming that there would be no language barrier, I just might put Leo Tolstoy first. War and Peace could be my all-time favorite novel in the way that it combines deep philosophy and faith along with a terrific love story.

And I understand that Tolstoy himself was a pretty amazing character as well. (Sometime, at a separate lunch, I’d love to hear from Tolstoy’s wife, too.)

William Faulkner would have to be near the top of my list because he manages to combine gorgeous prose with rip-your-heart-out stories. I’ve always been a sucker for people who can speak in complete, organized paragraphs. I wonder if he did. He sure writes that way.

plays a key role in on Earth in his time. I love all the twisty convolutions of a good time-travel tale, and I’m so thrilled to have written this one!

My husband, who works part time but often travels for work, is now home with me full time. And our daughter, who lives in San Francisco, came out here to stay in Marin with us as soon as the shelter-inplace went into effect. So in a household that used to often comprised only me, we now have three of us and a dog full time. Fortunately, we are all healthy and in good humor!

And that’s another way in which my life is differ104 | UncagedBooks.com

I’d love to have lunch with Ursula LeGuin, too. I’ve

read a lot of her blog as well as her books, and I’m a huge fan of hers. She has amazing sensitivity to deep, ethical issues, and yet is not the least pretentious in presenting them. And she’s such a delightful person!

Oh dear, I’ve chosen a lot of dead people, haven’t I! Among the living, let me add Ann Tyler. Her characters are so quirky and unique, and so real, and she treats them with such love and tenderness.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

This question resonates with one of the themes of this series of books, namely, the Garden of Eden. I’m not entirely a “plotter,” so my beginning intentions do leave my characters some leeway, that is, the ability to make some of their own choices. And some of those choices

| G.S. KENNEY | might not be a good idea. I can think of at least one instance in each of Freeing Eden and The Last Lord of Eden where one of my main characters has been tempted. And, as in real life, temptation can be hard to resist. Fortunately, though, my characters navigated their way through their particular dangers a little more successfully than Adam and Eve did.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

I have a lot of interests in addition to writing. Just about anything that has to do with good food and drink is on my list: going to farmers markets (there are two year-round markets within walking distance of my home); cooking, especially when my husband and I are cooking together; and winetasting, easy to do here in northern California!

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | My husband and I also like to travel, not that we’re doing any of that right now, of course. But being semiretired, we used to plan to go on two trips abroad a year—and I assume we will again, sometime. In 2019, we visited Corfu and Albania in the spring, and Basque country in September. Unexpectedly, we then had a chance to visit Vietnam and Laos in December. Getting to know more about our small planet is wonderful, but three trips in one year was definitely too many!

But that brings me to photography. I am a very visual person, and I take pictures of everything all the time. I must have hundreds of photos of the beautiful view from my deck and flowers I’ve seen while walking. I am slowly blogging my way through the photos from the trip to Vietnam and Laos.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

What I really care about is sharing my stories with the people who will enjoy them. It makes me so very happy when a stranger says to me that they read my book and loved it—or writes a positive review. I am thankful every day for the gift of storytelling, and publishing my books is a way of giving back to the world.

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I like all three! But mostly, I use audiobooks because I can read while out walking, which can easily occupy an hour and a half or two hours a day.

I read everything from serious nonfiction to action thrillers to cozy romance. And, of course, science fiction and fantasy. I just finished listening to William Gibson’s The Peripheral, and I’m also savoring Jeff Wheeler’s Harbinger series, which just gets better and better. At the moment, I’m listening to So You Want to Talk about Race, by Ijeoma Oluo.

It’s like engaging in a kind but no-punches-pulled conversation with someone who cares enough about you to tell you the utter truth about themselves.

Definitely thought-provoking.

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In print, I just finished Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, by John McPhee, which is as much about McPhee’s experiences and the people he met while writing for New Yorker magazine as it is about the writing process, per se. And his writing is lovely!

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

Mostly, I’d like to say, “Thank you!” We have worlds in common, and I am grateful for your appreciation and support. If you’d like, you can find me on my website at https://www.gskenney.com, and there are links there to sign up for my newsletter and to visit my blog. I am also on Facebook as G.S.Kenney_Author. More rarely, I visit Instagram and Twitter as @gskenney.

Enjoy an excerpt from Freeing Eden Freeing Eden G.S. Kenney SciFi The world of Eden is in crisis. Politicians throughout the galaxy demand the psychic-power producing drug that grows only on Eden. And the demand is skyrocketing.

Adopted son of Eden’s previous warlord, peace-loving Kell has inherited dominion over the planet and is determined to keep it free. When he discovers that his uncle, the warlord’s brother, has teamed up with a powerful drug lord to seize Eden’s priceless harvest, Kell will stop at nothing to prevent them—even if it means he must become a death-wielding champion.

Only Zara can protect Kell from what he is becoming, but as danger looms, he pushes her away to keep her safe. Too far away. When his efforts are not enough to save his beloved planet, Zara will do anything to bridge that distance. Will she succeed in

| G.S. KENNEY | was blind.

time?

Excerpt Beyond a set of open bronze doors cast with scenes of ancient battles, the king’s audience chamber seemed dark and forbidding. Kell paused just before the spot where he’d have to announce himself to the sentry and straightened the fall of his half-cape.

Lucia squeezed his arm, a smile telegraphed through fingertips. “I will introduce you,” she said. “Your job is to project confidence. Are you ready?”

Ready? No, he was not. His stomach was clenched into a tight fist. But he would never be more ready, so there was no sense in waiting. He took a deep breath and patted Lucia’s hand where she touched his arm.

Lucia, who in the one day she had known him, had taken him into her hearth and her heart and accepted him as her adopted grandchild and her son’s heir.

Lucia, whom he was quickly coming to love as the mother he’d always wanted but had never had.

He glanced at her. Her hair was pure white, her face almost unlined, her blue eyes so pale they were nearly colorless. Her skin had the transparent quality of fine milk opals, an albino. She was small-boned and delicate, but not frail. She stood straight and wore an expression of grim resolve.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.”

They moved forward.

The sentry bowed to Lucia. “Your Highness.” He cast Kell a sideways, puzzled look.

Lucia brightened, recognizing the voice. “Clovis.

Good to see you again.”

See. She’d used that word with him, too, when he’d first arrived at her hearth. But he’d noted the questioning lift of her hand and the way that she’d looked slightly beyond him, and he’d understood that Lucia

And yet she saw many things so clearly. He had guided her questing fingers to his face, and before Kell could find the words to tell her, she had known that her son Reuel was dead, known it from the tears her fingertips touched on his cheek. She had sensed, too, the depth of the bond that had knotted Reuel and Kell together, sensed it by the patterns of Kell’s speech, his turns of phrase, his occasional slipped “Mama” that should have been “Grandmother.”

“May I introduce you and . . . your escort, my lady?”

“You may tell the king I am here,” Lucia said. “I shall introduce the gentleman myself.”

They followed the sentry in, Lucia’s hand resting lightly in the crook of Kell’s elbow. Unlike Lucia’s hearth, the audience chamber was formal and uninviting. Serpentine columns twisted to the high ceiling. Narrow, tall windows let in only indirect light. Lamps placed regularly along the thick walls lit the place in a twilight of long shadows. There were tapestries on the walls, but the floors were bare marble, the tiles polished, slippery, and cold.

The room smelled subtly of air trapped too long behind closed windows and doors, faint traces of perfumes and sweat. Perhaps two dozen people stood in small groups, talking quietly.

“The dowager Queen Lucia,” the sentry announced.

His Royal Majesty King Paul III of Thar-in-Kestra rose from his throne and welcomed her correctly but coolly. “Good morning, Mother.” His eyes drifted to Kell, seemed to find nothing of interest, and returned to Lucia.

The king could almost have been an older version of Reuel, with curly red hair and a neatly trimmed beard that were both now heavily salted with gray.

His pale gray eyes were hard and intelligent.

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | Reuel had disliked and distrusted Paul; Kell felt those emotions, but knowing they were his father’s and not his own, he ignored them. He hoped that perhaps, someday, Paul would come to accept him as family, and Kell might enjoy with him the parental closeness that had been cut so short with Reuel. He would like that very much.

Like his mother, the king was dressed in gold. He wore a cloak of purple satin trimmed in ermine and a diadem ornamented with precious stones of many colors. He outshone his courtiers, though they too were dressed in bright colors with threadof-gold. Kell had made an effort to dress richly, but unsure of his own taste, he’d followed his father’s preferences. In Reuel’s black clothing made of densely woven Almayan silk and studded with onyx, he felt a bit like a crow among peacocks.

“Good morning, Paul,” Lucia said. “There’s someone I would like you to meet.”

The king glanced at Kell, then looked back at his mother as if surely, whoever she wanted him to meet, it would not be this insignificant young man.

He raised an impatient eyebrow.

“This is Kell son of Reuel son of Jared,” she said.

As he had been instructed, Kell bowed, but not too low. He couldn’t hold back an anxious smile. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Uncle.”

The color drained from Paul’s face. He stood and walked slowly down the two steps from the throne area to the floor of the great room. No one else moved. The king circled around Lucia and Kell, as if trying to determine whether they were holograms or real people.

“If this is your idea of a prank, Mother . . .”

A spark of the anger Reuel had nurtured in him flared. Kell didn’t want Lucia—or anyone else— to take blows intended for him. He stepped forward, crossing his arms. “It’s not a prank.”

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“You,” the king said, his voice hardening to frost, “will address me as Your Majesty.”

“That is not the protocol,” Kell shot back. “I am a member of your family.”

They stared at each other, and then Paul saw Reuel’s signet rings, the larger on Kell’s index finger and a smaller one with an identical design on his fifth finger.

The king started slightly. “In that case, you will address me as Uncle,” he said. “Who the hell are you, and where have you come from?”

“I am Reuel’s adopted son—and heir,” Kell said. “He adopted me some three years ago on Lesurat. I’m sure you’ll check the records. You’ll find them in order. I come from Eden, where my father wished me to be lord after him.” All of which was true, as far as it went. Kell bowed his head and added, “I’m sorry to tell you that my father is dead.”

“Eden was to be mine if Reuel died before me!”

“Only if he had no sons, dear,” Lucia said. “And as you see, he has Kell.”

“Thank you for that reminder, Mother,” said the king.

“We will, of course, check the records on Lesurat, and we will also see what the world government has to say about allowing the franchise to fall to an obviously inexperienced newcomer. You may leave now. Both of you.”

Good day, Uncle, Kell thought, his heart sinking. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, too.

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joe barrett

A

ward-winning author Joe Barrett has spent the past twenty-five years as a chief executive of entrepreneurial organizations ranging from private, venture-funded companies to large publicly-listed multinational corporations. He has been a frequent speaker at National Retail Federation conferences and has sat on the boards of several for-profit and non-profit companies. His first novel, Managed Care, won the Maxy Awards “2019 Book of the Year” and the Pencraft Awards “Best Fiction Book of 2019”. His second novel, Daisy in the Doghouse, was a 2019 Pencraft Award winner in the “Fiction-Humor” category. His short fiction has been published in Iconoclast, The Storyteller and The Palo Alto Review.

He lives with his wife and two children in South Tampa, Florida.

Stay Connected

Please welcome Joe Barrett Uncaged: Welcome to Uncaged! You have a new book releasing May 7, called Unplugged. I read the synopsis and it sounds funny and different. Can you tell readers more about the book?

Thanks! I guess I’d describe Unplugged as a kind of offbeat, coming-of-middle-age novel in the dark satire genre. By the time he’s thirty, protagonist Dan Johnson has gotten everything that he always thought he

wanted in life. He’s sold his software company for nine figures, his fiancé is the envy of everyone he knows, and he’s just purchased a five-story harborfront brownstone in a hip Jersey City neighborhood.

But when the reader meets Dan, he’s struggling with the fact that getting everything he always thought he wanted just isn’t making him happy. In fact, he doesn’t feel anything at all. On the back of this realization, Dan makes the extreme life-decision to abandon everything that was his old self – breaking up with his fiancé and unplugging from all forms of digital technology. What follows is a screwball journey of self-discovery, fueled by an epic case of mistaken identity and a cast of bizarro characters, as Dan tries to reconcile himself with the type of person that he wants to be and the type of life he wants to lead.

These days it feels like people are so inundated with superficial and unrealistic versions of what it means to be happy – billionaire CEOs as role models for success, photoshop supermodels as role models for how to look and who to date, internet and realitytelevision celebrities as role models for popularity.

And at the same time, daily-wear digital technology and social media can turn life into an endless stream of distractions, so that people never take the time to ground themselves and think about what it means to be really happy and to be a good person. So, I thought it would be interesting to write a novel from the perspective of a character who has achieved what a lot of people think of as the modern version of success – but who discovers emptiness instead of happiness when he gets there, and decides to leave the “top of the world” in order to find a world that really matters. That said, it’s also very light and weird, so I hope people will find it entertaining.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

Right now, I’m working on a fourth stand-alone novel about a retired hedge fund manager whose exwife moves into a house across the street from him following their divorce. Similar to my first novel, Managed Care, this is a character-driven story told Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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| FEATURE AUTHOR | from the perspective of three protagonists: the retired hedge fund manager, his fourteen-year-old daughter who lives across the street with her mother, and a fourteen-year-old boy who is their neighbor. Like my first three books, it’s a dark satire, which appears to be the only genre I am capable of writing in.

Uncaged: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed your lifestyle?

Well, like everyone else, I don’t get out much anymore. Going on our fourth week of social distancing, my family and I are doing our best to remain positive and upbeat. In terms of lifestyle, I retired from business a few years ago and it’s been challenging trying to write with my wife and kids in the house all day – but it’s a minimal inconvenience compared to all of the sacrifices and work being done by healthcare professionals all over the country. So, huge thanks and much love to everyone

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on the front lines of the healthcare system as we get through this!

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

Vladimir Nabokov, J.P. Donleavy, Nick Hornby and Jonathan Tropper – all of whom have made me laugh out loud at inappropriate times, like on a plane or in a library. I’d probably want to have lunch with Nabokov separate from the other three, because I don’t think anyone else would be able to get a word in otherwise.

Uncaged: Have any of your characters ever done something that you didn’t intend when you began?

Honestly, I have very little control over what my characters do, and very often I find their behavior appalling.

I feel like my conscious brain’s contribution to writing is to just kick-start dialogs and scenarios for my characters. Then I pretty much sit back and try to record

what these characters do. It’s unfortunate because, by the time I’m about a third of the way through a novel, it becomes very hard to shut these characters up. So, as a story progresses, my writing sessions become longer and longer just so I can keep up with the inappropriate idiots living in my head. This is why, by the end of a book, I typically resemble someone trying to kick a particularly nasty heroin addiction. I have been told that this is not the same for all writers.

Uncaged: What are some things you like to do to relax when you aren’t writing or working?

My family and I moved from New Jersey to South Tampa last year, so I’ve really been enjoying outdoor activities throughout the past winter, such as long walks with my awesome wife and biking along the bay. I also spend a lot of time discussing books and story ideas with my son, who is fourteen and also a writer (he just won a Silver Key award for one of his short stories!) I don’t spend as much time as I used to with my daughter, who is fifteen and therefore wants nothing to do with me.

Uncaged: What does success as an author look like to you?

Great question! This is going to sound really naïve, but when my first book was published I was very surprised at how incredibly vulnerable and exposed I felt. My very first professional review totally trashed my book,

| JOE BARRETT | and the reviewer really seemed to enjoy trying to make me feel bad for writing it. Luckily – and I really believe that’s what it is, luck – my book landed in the hands of lots of people who did enjoy it, and it won a couple of “book of the year” awards. But the whole experience with that terrible first review really shaped my perception of success as an author.

For me, success as an author is putting the work in to make your story as perfect as it can be, and then being brave enough to put yourself out there. For me, it doesn’t matter if you sell millions of copies or only touch a few other human beings who connect with your work – as long as someone is touched by your work, I feel like you’ve succeeded.

Uncaged: Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

For a long time, I was a hold-out for physical books, but I used to travel frequently so I eventually picked up a Kindle. And I’ve never looked back. Books are heavy when you’re on long business trips. I’m not a huge fan of audio books because I rarely find that the narrator’s voice is in sync with how I’d imagine the characters, but they can be nice for a long road trip.

Uncaged: What would you like to say to fans, and where can they follow you?

I wish I could send a huge gift basket to every single person that has left me a review and rating on Goodreads and Amazon. Seriously, if I could, I would buy them all new cars. But in lieu of that, I’d just like to extend a lot of deep and heartfelt gratitude to every reader who has taken the time to review and rate my books. You people are awesome!

I’m horrible at self-promotion, so I guess the best place to follow me is on Goodreads, Amazon and BookBub. And lastly, thank you very much for this interview Uncaged Book Reviews!

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| FEATURE AUTHOR |

Enjoy an excerpt from Unplugged Unplugged Joe Barrett Satire Fiction The only problem with getting everything you ever wanted is that it forces you to reassess everything you ever wanted in the first place.

Thirty-two-year-old Dan Johnson has it all; a nine-digit net worth, a gorgeous fiancé and a luxury riverside brownstone. The only problem is, he doesn’t want any of it. And the endless distractions of digitized society give him no head space to figure out what he does want.

So, Dan unplugs. He abandons all things digital technology, effectively retreating from society to live an analog lifestyle geared at perfecting the art of avoidance. When a case of mistaken identity launches Dan into a series of bizarro relationships and absurd events, it represents an unexpected path to reconnect him with a world he never knew existed.

Dark, offbeat and laugh-out-loud funny, Unplugged is a coming of middle-age story about finding authentic connections and meaning in today’s hyper-digitized society.

dread.

“Baby, it’s me!”

She doesn’t know I’m here. How could she know I’m here? I don’t move a muscle.

“Come on, baby! Open the door! It’s me!”

I hear a fistful of pebbles smack onto the lower windows of the building. It’s probably just the secondfloor windows. Clancy hasn’t got much of an arm.

And since the second-floor is divided into two apartments directly above the front door, I’m not sure if she’s strafing Marc’s apartment or Linda’s apartment or both. But it only matters if she cracks the glass because Marc and Linda are single young professionals who work normal Manhattan hours and it’s not yet three p.m.

I exhale slowly. Weigh my options.

“Baby! Are you home!? Baby!”

More pebbles hitting glass. Who stands on a sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon throwing fistfuls of gravel at the windows of a brownstone? After all these years, Clancy still has the ability to mortify me like nobody else in the world. That must mean something.

“Hey, there, cutie-pie!” I hear a window slide open, one floor below me. Sluggo. He shouts from his thirdfloor window, “You want me to buzz you in?!”

“Baby!”

“Oh, hey, Sluggo!” Clancy shouts back sweetly. His real name is Mike, but everyone calls him Sluggo because he looks exactly like this character from an oldtime comic strip called Nancy. The fact that it’s such an esoteric reference speaks to how much he looks like this Sluggo character. And it’s not a good look.

Go ahead and Google it.

And I cringe. I have developed a Pavlovian response to the term of endearment “baby.” Instant

“Cutie-pie, when are you gonna forget that bozo upstairs and start taking the elevator to floor three?!”

Excerpt Chapter One

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| JOE BARRETT | “Sluggo, you rascal!” Clancy shouts playfully. I could vomit.

her, because asking would make me feel like I’m the pervert.

And now I have to get involved because Sluggo has no problem engaging in a full-on third-floor-tostreet dialogue at high volume. And that’s not fair to the neighborhood moms. I walk to the front of my apartment and slide my window open.

Anyway, intentional or not – almost definitely intentional, I think – what Clancy does to grown men is make them feel the way puberty-aged boys would feel about a middle school teacher that’s Disney princess hot and remarkably careless in terms of keeping her private parts covered.

“Oh, there you are!” Clancy shouts, all cutesy-like, as if she’s talking to a kitten. “Hey, baby!” She’s bouncing up and down, waving at me from the sidewalk. What Clancy looks like is a nineteen-fifties movie star, updated for the new millennium. Think Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield, re-scaled for two-thousand nineteen.

Take how she’s dressed right now. You lay Clancy’s clothes out on a bed and you’d think someone was screen dressing a right-wing television personality. You’ve got two strings of pearls. You’ve got a wide-collared white knit sweater with short sleeves.

You’ve got a Laura Ashley lightweight skirt, dark blue with big white polka dots. You’ve got snowwhite tights - not stockings, like a normal woman would wear. She’s wearing tights, like a child who’s dressed up for church.

But you put these clothes on Clancy and it’s a wet dream come true for any guy who struggles with repressed mommy fantasies, which – keeping it real – is probably all guys in some shape or form. Clancy’s two strings of pearls hang just a bit too tight, not quite a choker, but definitely not country-club loose.

And they do just enough to attract eyes to the neck of her knit sweater, the collar so wide as to allow clear and frequent visibility of a lightly laced, sheer white bra that strains to contain two of the most spectacular breasts in the world today. The Laura Ashley lightweight skirt, which no one would ever confuse with a miniskirt, is just short enough to billow with the slightest breeze or twirl, revealing the opaque whiteness of her tights and panties with a frequency that you would think is intentional. And it probably is. Maybe it is. I’ve never gotten up the nerve to ask

When we first started dating, this whole accidental exposure schtick bothered me. After a couple of years, I have to admit, it kind of turned me on.

But lately I’m just over it. And even though we dated for four years and were engaged for eight months, I never spoke to her about it.

Makes me wonder if we ever had the slightest clue what real intimacy is all about.

“Aren’t you going to buzz me up?!” Clancy shouts.

I look down at her, slide my index finger across my neck in an aggressive throat-slashing gesture.

Clancy’s mouth drops open. Score. Then she smiles at me, as if we’re sharing a joke. Take back the score.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Clancy yells, oblivious to how many innocent, well-to-do mothers are negotiating nap time with their toddlers on this high-end Jersey City waterfront block.

“It means we’re not on Staten Island,” I reply, my voice loud enough for her to hear but still an octave or two below an actual shout. “We don’t scream at each other from streets and windows around here.”

“I got no problem with window-to-street dialogue, cutie-pie, if that’s…” Sluggo shouts and lets the balance of his sentence hang. He’s got the same view of Clancy that I do – her wide collar hanging so loose below us that, even from our height, Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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you can see the outlines of pink nipples pressed tightly against her sheer bra. Honestly, I’ve known no other woman so adept and consistent in doling out the cheap thrills.

Sluggo has freely admitted to me that he is deeply in love with Clancy. Just like pretty much every repressed male is in love with Clancy. Every repressed male except for me. The irony is not lost.

I point down at Clancy and then point to the front door, shut the window, walk to the buzzer.

All the other tenants in the building have video buzzer tech that lets them see who’s in the vestibule, talk back and forth, open the door – all from their smart phones. My buzzer, it’s a custom job.

Restored, actually. From the building’s original buzzer system, installed at build in the nineteenfifties. Fortunately, contractors never tear out old wiring systems when buildings are updated, because… why bother? So I just had my contractors patch up some of the prior electrical work and, bingo, it’s as good as old. The buzz is so loud that I can hear it clearly through my open fourth-floor window.

Clancy takes the elevator to the third floor, walks down the hall and then up the stairs to my door.

The elevator no longer goes to the fourth floor.

Another of my custom jobs.

“Open up!” Clancy shouts.

“It’s not locked,” I shout back, my voice echoing off the exposed brick walls of my enormous apartment.

“Come on. O-pen up,” Clancy whines. She can’t figure out how to work the crossbar handle mechanism on my giant, industrial steel front door. Or she’s afraid of getting her hands dirty while trying.

Either way, she continues to stand in the hallway, banging on the door, while I deliberate just letting her bang-away until she tires out and goes home.

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so much less than Clancy making a scene from the street. But I’m fooling myself. She’s not going anywhere. Eventually I open the door.

Like a Japanese anime character, Clancy’s face is a hyperbole of joy when she sees me, but her wideeyed look quickly collapses into a hyperbole of misery when she looks past me, into my apartment. And like any hyperbolic cartoon, I’m pretty sure neither of her looks reflects any deep feelings going on inside of her. I mean, cartoons don’t have deep feelings, right?

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fang-FREAKIN-tastic reviews

feature author

Breezy Jones

I

live in a teeny tiny town in Florida with my husband, daughter and three fur babies, as a stay at home mom. If you asked me what first got me into writing I would tell you it was over the ending of Divergent which was and still is my favorite book. The first person to suggest that I should write my own book I remember laughing but one thing led to another and I ended up giving it a shot.

When I’m not writing, I split my time among my many hobbies; reading, repainting dolls, makeup and graphic design, just to name a few. All of which comes at a cost; coffee and wine. While writing hasn’t always been my goal, I’ve fallen in love with building a world from nothing and watching it come to life.

Enjoy an excerpt from: Blood Surfer

B ree z y J ones Stay Co n n e c te d

Winter’s Rise Breezy Jones Paranormal Romance Christmas is for losers...

It’s bad enough Nina Winters is failing epically at being a werewolf - throw in corny songs, hot cocoa, and snow angels, and she’s on the brink of insanity.

The last thing Nina needs is self-proclaimed ‘Christmas Miracle’ Ryker to show up

and tangle her tinsel.

Between pack dynamics, Genies, and Christmas Fae, Nina and Ryker have to fight for their lives and their burning attraction for each other.

Excerpt

breezyjauthor.com

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Ryker sighed. His footsteps were light as he closed the distance between us and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “You’re not going to hurt anyone.

| BREEZY JONES | Werewolves are in control when they shift. You won’t kill out of instinct or bloodlust, not like vampires.” I looked away, unable to meet his eyes, and he continued, “You don’t normally have the urge to kill do you?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said my words just a whisper.

“It must have been scary for you, shifting and not really knowing what was happening or what would happen.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” he added.

His eyes held mine, lingering on my lips a second longer than necessary, and I nodded, not trusting my voice.

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Ryker tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes.

“I’ll show you how to run with the pack. How to shift faster, and I promise you don’t have to worry about hurting anyone. Ever.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, and Ryker smiled, a full genuine smile as he pulled his finger in an x motion across his chest.

“Cross my heart.”

I sighed, nodding.

He leaned down, closing the short distance between us. Electricity sparked under my skin as I gazed up into his golden eyes. Fire burned behind them, and I could swear I felt the heat of their flames.

But I held back, bracing myself for that moment when he’d pull away—just like he had all the times before.

Then his lips covered mine.

Not innocently, like a tease, but hot, fiery, passionate—and demanding. Surprise registers, shocking me into stillness, and then my own desire kicked in and I felt my arms wind up and around his neck, pulling him in as I pressed my body against his. Kissing Ryker was an entire-body experience. Within seconds, all my senses had been seduced and I could no longer think straight.

“Nina,” he whispered against my lips, prolonging each letter as if to savor them. I smiled against his mouth, my heart fluttering at his voice as I brought both hands up to clasp his face. Never before had my name ever sounded so wonderful coming from his lips. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

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Uncaged Reviews Kiss of Fire

Deborah Cooke Paranormal Romance For millennia, the shape-shifting dragon warriors known as the Pyr have lived peacefully as guardians of both the four elements and the earth’s treasures. But now the final reckoning between the Pyr, who count humans among the earth’s treasures, and the Slayers, who would eradicate both humans and the Pyr who protect them, has begun…

Uncaged Review: This dragon shifter romance is a bit different than most I’ve read – and the concept is original, execution could use some work, but I did enjoy the story. There were many things I liked, and some I didn’t. A pro and a con: The characters. I both liked them and didn’t almost at the same time, or within a few pages. And I think that had a lot to do with the inconsistencies, for example, early on, it states that Quinn rarely needs sleep – but then a chapter or so later, he’s groggy from lack of sleep. Or Sara, agreeing to stay in her shop until Quinn can escort her – and an hour later leaving without him. But I didn’t dislike them, I just think the author needed to pin them down a bit better.

As for the storyline, it was OK, and the dragon fighting was pretty good. In this world, there are “Slayers” – which are dragons that have gone dark and trying to kill off both the good Pyr (the dragons that protect the earth and humans) and the humans. The sex scenes were really pretty blah too, if you are going to have a graphic sex scene, then do it justice, but it was almost as if the author was embarrassed to write it. But all in all, the book was entertaining.

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Hunting Avery Zoë Normandie Romantic/Military Suspense Always in control, always tough US Navy SEAL Mason Ajax is forced to take a knee - to breathe, and feel part of the world again. The exotic tropical paradise of the Maldives are a good start. A post-tour decompression he’s never had.

Ankle deep in beachy white sand, someone too good to be true falls from the flawless blue sky and disrupts him. Who the hell is she?

Uncaged Review: At first, this book started pretty slow and cliché, but after a few chapters, it got a hold of my attention and I looked forward to continuing reading it whenever I had to put it down. Mason is on a leave from the SEALs and to decompress in the Maldives, a tropical paradise. He’s hoping that the time off will bring back a connection to the world he feels he’s lost.

Along comes Avery, a perfect distraction in Mason’s mind that could help make his time off a lot more enjoyable, but Avery is not all that she seems….she’s an experienced agent and she’s after her promotion and Mason is her target.

The character chemistry is spot on, and the suspense keeps the tension. The two of them will question everything that they are as they fight their attraction to each other. This is a first book in a series, and it’s a solid start as the reader peels the layers of the deceptions and lies and uncovers the truths - a good recommendation for romantic suspense lovers. Reviewed by Cyrene

Fallen Reign Nazri Noor

Urban Fantasy Half human, half angel, 100% pissed off.

Mason Albrecht’s life changed the day the angels tried to kill him. As the son of a fallen angel king, Mason is an abomination, one who can command the Vestments, divine arms and armor summoned from heaven’s own arsenals.

And everybody wants a piece: death witches, demon princes, even deities of ancient myth.

Uncaged Review: When I first started this book, I wasn’t feeling the main character at all. It was a true slow starter for me. One of the things that may have made this better starting out for me, is this is a spinoff of a popular series, in which the world is already built. Here I think I was left hanging a few times, since I haven’t read the original series. But bear with me, the book does find its way, but it’s a sluggish start. When everything finally clicked in place for me and the character seemed to find his voice, is when everything starting picking up. And I’m glad I hung in with the story – there is some nice action and another one of those odd rag tag group of friends you find in urban fantasies, but it works. Lots of humor, some good original takes on demons, Nephilim and angels and plenty of action.

I think this is a solid 4 Star read for me, and I do believe I will go back and read the original series and keep going on this spin-off also. Reviewed by Cyrene

The Beauty Bride Claire Delacroix Medieval/Scottish Historical More cherished than gold are the Jewels of Kinfairlie, and only the worthiest may fight for their love...The Laird of Kinfairlie has unmarried sisters, each a gem in her own right.

And he has no choice but to see them all wed in haste.

Lady Madeline’s heart is not for sale...especially not to a notorious outlaw like Rhys FitzHenry.

Yet Madeline’s hand has been sold, to none other than this battle-weary warrior with a price on his head.

Uncaged Review: So this story is an OK read for me. One of the reasons is that Rhys was never truly lovable to me. I never got attached to him at all. And Lady Madeline’s brother is a real piece of work. Now understanding that the author kept the beliefs in the time period, so any feminists out there may be a bit taken aback by the treatment by the male characters. I like that the author stays in tune with the times, but let’s face it, we are reading a fictional fantasy story, and it’s been romanticized for the modern day romance lovers and to be palatable to the masses, but Rhys was never truly a character that I was attached to. And what’s with the little fairies? There was never anything very useful for these in the story.

With all the cons said, I did think the story was entertaining, even though most of the male characters were a bit dull, the sisters were terrific and the suspense around Madeline’s heritage and Rhys supposedly acts against the King are enough to keep you reading. All in all, it’s a decent historical romance that was a nice interlude.Reviewed by Cyrene

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Uncaged Reviews Her Seafaring Scoundrel Sophie Barnes Historical Regency The last thing she wants is a husband...

Least of all one determined to win her heart...

Lady Cassandra has no desire to marry. But when Captain Devlin Crawford brings scandal to her doorstep and offers salvation, she cannot say no. Not with her daughter’s future at stake. So she decides to accept Devlin’s offer, provided he agrees to never being intimate with her. For although Cassandra is drawn to Devlin, she refuses to dishonor the memory of her one true love.

Uncaged Review: I’ve always enjoyed the books at sea, it always adds an extra layer of intrigue to historical romances, and takes you away from the stuffy ton for a time. When Devlin returns home from his travels at sea for a short time, he’s roped into going to a ball by his mother, who is doing her utmost best to get him married, which is definitely not anything that interests Devlin. But when he’s talking to his brothers – he overhears a stodgy lady of the ton gossiping about Cass, a woman who has been scorned by society by having a child out of wedlock and a longtime friend of Devlin and his family. He confronts the gossiper and puts himself and Cass, into a situation.

I liked the characters, they were well matched, and secondary characters were spot on. There is a slow building romance and some humor to keep the reader smiling. The sex scenes were a bit lackluster, but for readers that prefer a cleaner romance, this one will fit that bill well. I also really enjoyed the epilogue that neatly wraps up this adventure. Reviewed by Cyrene

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Her Wicked Ways Darcy Burke Historical Regency She was his savior…

Banished from London for her reckless behavior, Lady Miranda Sinclair is robbed by a dashing highwayman en route to the country. By offering him a kiss in lieu of the jewels she had to leave behind, she commits the very type of act that caused her exile. When her dour guardians extend her punishment to performing charitable work at the local orphanage, she’s further tempted by the home’s owner, a provincial gentleman who stirs her passion.

Uncaged Review: This was really different than most regency romances, and it started out with a robbery by some highwaymen to a traveling group escorting Lady Miranda to the country, as is her punishment for being reckless back in London. So Miranda’s father sends her to her stuffy aunt and uncle’s place and she’s to do charity work. Little known to her, is that the man who runs the orphanage is one of the highwaymen that robbed her.

This was not a favorite regency I’ve read, but I liked it well enough. I liked the originality of the circumstances and I liked the growth that I saw in both Lady Miranda and in Fox. I didn’t have a deep connection to either of the main characters, especially in the beginning where they each saw the other as an opportunity. But the story does get moving quite well in the back half of the book. Reviewed by Cyrene

Irresistible Demise Carly Spade

Paranormal Romance If you’re looking for the kind of story about a naïve virgin who doesn’t like alcohol, scrunches her nose at cigarettes, or doesn’t believe vampires exist…this isn’t the story for you.

Oh, vampires? I know they exist because I had the displeasure of meeting some when I was a kid. Don’t worry, they’re all dead.

I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a red-blooded woman with a “glamorous” bartending job at a place called After Midnight, and I thought fangers were but a distant memory.

Until he walked in.

Uncaged Review: This book was a nice surprise for me. I liked the original premise of the supernatural world, and even though werewolves and vampires have been written together for a long time, this has a refreshing fresh take. The characters are well matched up, including the snarky heroine and her friends.

When she re-encounters vampires (and werewolves) she is tossed into the middle of a storm that no one knows why she is a target, but the vampire Marcus and the werewolf pack come to a truce to protect her and her friends. This part was very unclear in the beginning, as to why she was drawing so much attention and why the supernaturals wanted to protect her.

The mystery does show itself, and it’s actually a fun ride getting there. The chemistry between Marcus and Freya works well.

This book has some good action, a fun dialog at times and some smoldering scenes and I’m glad I took the chance on it. Reviewed by Cyrene

Lucas’s Lady Caroline Lee

Historical Western Lucas Ryan has a problem. A problem with rustling and landgrabbing on his ranch, which his mother promised would go away as soon as he got married and produced an heir. So he’s sent off for a mail-order bride who won’t ask questions and wants a baby as much as he does.

He just doesn’t expect to fall for her.

Uncaged Review: Lucas believes that getting married and having an heir will solve his problems with his ranch, so he sends off for a mailorder bride. Shannon accepts his proposal and takes the trip with her older sister by train to wed Lucas. Shannon never believed she would ever be able to fulfill her dream of being married with a family because of a large birthmark on her cheek.

This story follows the typical formula for a mailorder bride romance, bride and groom meet on their wedding day, all the awkward moments of getting to know each other, and toss in some danger to make them both realize that they fell in love. All that is here, but it works. It’s a charming story with a few twists, but nothing overly alarming. I would have liked a better descriptions of the home and the ranch, but the book turned into a nice, feel good story with a nice epilogue. This is a clean romance, so those that prefer sex behind closed doors will enjoy this one. Reviewed by Cyrene

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Uncaged Reviews Body Language Marylee MacDonald Contemporary Short Stories

Crimson Roses Tess Thompson Romantic Suspense

Life-changing moments. Impassioned encounters. Twelve stories at the crossroads of heartbreak and desire.

She can’t outrun the nightmare from her past—

When a long-lost love comes knocking, a loyally wedded rancher is tempted by old passions. A bartender wrestling with sobriety is pushed to the edge by a familiar barfly. After her husband’s death, a famous composer struggles to write a single note.

Uncaged Review: Normally, I’m not a huge reader of short stories. Mainly because I’m a reader that likes to get to know the characters and when it all goes right, get immersed into the world that I’m reading and short stories can’t do that by their own limitations. But…these stories do one thing, they make you feel. From difficult relationships to losing someone you love to finding yourself, these stories pack a lot of emotion into their pages. The stories are very complete for what they are, and I enjoyed them all, for different reasons. Well worth picking up and spending a couple hours with. Reviewed by Cyrene

Pepper Chan tried to leave the scars of her abduction behind her when she joined her current veterinary practice. However, a chance encounter with Roddy Eastman, the brother of her former best friend, leaves her shaken and desperate to keep her distance. The last thing Pepper wants to do is relive the terrible ordeal from so many years ago. Her kidnapper was never caught, and Pepper is afraid to trust anyone.

Uncaged Review: First off, I never knew that red roses (crimson variety) are represented at funerals and have the meaning of mourning or sadness. Seriously, I always thought they were the flower of love.

Shows what I know, and also shows I can learn new things by reading fiction. So let’s get to the story.

Normally, I shy away from suspense and mystery – mainly because I’m pretty good at guessing the culprit too soon and then it’s not as thrilling later on.

But this book held my interest and I didn’t guess all the different twists and turns until much later than normal. The characters are well written and likeable, and you will push for Pepper and Roddy.

One of the great parts about this book, is how a lot of incidents that happen within the story will all tie together in the satisfying ending. Suspense lovers should not miss this one. Reviewed by Cyrene

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Return to Me L.M. Spangler

Fantasy Romance/Short Her secret tore them apart.

Naida Bouche foolishly thought she could live only as a human. Her true nature hung over her like a thunderhead, driving a wedge between her and her husband.

Cooper Martin had no idea why his ex-wife divorced him.

He’d treated her like a goddess, and they had no problems in the intimacy department.

Fate brings them together again. Old emotions flare to life. Can Naida see beyond her self-perceived faults and allow the flames to reignite the love she and Coop feel for one another?

But what happens when I can’t fulfill my end of the deal?

Uncaged Review: This book could easily been a full length novel, the way it sits now being a short story, is you don’t get the back story of this couple at all.

The reader and Cooper himself have no background on why Naida left him in the first place. With that said, this is still a very good short. Even with the limitations on the character development, you get a good sense of who they are anyhow. I can’t get into the storyline as it would give spoilers, but these two were meant to be together and you are rooting for that HEA all the way through. So if you have an hour or so to get in a quick read, this won’t disappoint.

Reviewed by Cyrene

Turning the Hourglass M.J. Keeley SciFi/Time Travel

Historian Dyrne Samson doesn’t want to read about the past anymore. Now he visits it.

Abandoning University lecturing, he joins a classified research organisation, hidden beneath the streets of New London. Their time-distortion pods let him witness crucial moments throughout history. But when observing the past, Dyrne discovers that he can also change it. Of course, visiting events from his own life is forbidden – the only reason he can’t return to the day he’ll never forget… unless he can manipulate the rules.

Uncaged Review: A new take on time travel, and Dyrne is a professor at a University and discovers a research group hidden beneath the streets in New London where time pods can have him observing the past. But when he finds out he can see AND make changes to the past, but the question is not if he can or not but should he? Is it a moral or amoral? How will it affect the future? This is a very well written story that takes you into each of the travels and you don’t feel like you are only reading but you feel a part of the story traveling along with Dyrne. Some areas within the book were a bit slow but it would get back on track quickly enough. There were some things that the storyline could have been buttoned up a bit better, but all in all, this is a pretty cool take on time travel and may have you thinking differently about ghosts in the future also. But make sure you are paying attention as if your mind wanders a bit when reading, you may miss something crucial.

If you like a story that will carry with you after you are finished reading, then this one will probably do that for you. Reviewed by Cyrene

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Fang-Freakin-Tastic Reviews A Night at the Asylum Jade McCahon Children’s Paranormal

Sara Featherstone is a loser.

At twenty she is still indentured to her parents, her best friend is a closet clairvoyant, and her long time boyfriend just dumped her and refuses to tell her why. Five years ago her world ended with her brother, Tommy, running his motorcycle into a tree, and the life she might have led had never started.

Fang-Freakin-Tastic Review: This book itself is sort of weird, but in a good way. There are all kinds of crazy things going on, and you really want to pay attention.

This book is well written, the characters are adequately developed, and the world building is pretty good. I enjoyed this book and the story without a doubt. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader engaged and wondering what will happen next, to whom, and what this will mean for that person. You are constantly kept guessing, and I loved that aspect of the book.

This book really is action packed. Jade McCahon’s writing style is awesome. She has a way of building her characters so you know enough to love them (or hate them), but still want to know more about them. I would like to know more about Emmett or Cole. Jamie was a total surprise for me.

The one thing I can say I didn’t like was how much time WASN’T spent in or at the Asylum.

From the title, I got the impression that the majority of the story would take place during a NIGHT at the ASYLUM, when in fact, they are only there for a short time at night, and for a bit of time during the day. It doesn’t take away from the story or the writing, but it was something of a disappoint-

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ment.

In the end it wasn’t a huge surprise to find out who the “bad guy” was, but in my opinion, that isn’t what the “climax” was about. There were so many aspects to the climax that the revelation of the bad guy wasn’t the point anyway.

I think people of almost any age can enjoy this book.

It’s not got an overly complicated storyline, but isn’t so basic you feel like you are reading a middle school book. There isn’t much sexual content, but there is some violence, so be warned of that.

Overall, this book is more creepy than anything else, and I thought it was pretty cool. I’d really like to visit the Asylum in this book if it actually existed. I love spooky things like that.

Cow Made God & Other Abominations Mark Nye Horror Shorts

sions.

faint of heart, and you may want to avoid it if you have a weak stomach. But it’s really entertaining and fun.

A Collection of twisted, disturbing and downright weird stories about bovine abominations, a woman’s love for her cow, zombies, the birth of the anti-christ, and a trip through purgatory....among other disgusting and degenerate diver-

Also contains a cow themed bonus story by Matt Shaw and a short story sequel to one of my all-time favourite books Meat, Leftovers by Michael Bray.

Fang-Freakin-Tastic Review: What a strange and unusual book. I’m not sure what I expected, but I doubt it was this. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.

I loved the book. I’m just not sure there are words to really prepare someone for what this book is like.

It’s written really well. Each story is unique in its own way, and the reader never knows exactly what they are going to get from one story to the next. They are all tied together in some minor way (cows). One of the things I really enjoyed was just how different it was. I can’t say there was anything in this book that was anything like something I’ve read before. I love that. It’s nice to see something different for a change.

This book is twisted and sometimes gross, but I loved every minute. There were several stories that left me with questions at the end that I’m dying to get answers for but the author leaves it up to the reader to come to those conclusions. Which I both love and hate lol.

Ultimately, this really is a great book. It’s not for the

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Fang-Freakin-Tastic Reviews Crazy Ex-Ghoulfriend Angela Roquet YA Paranormal A zombie at prom. What could go wrong?

Janie Parker is in love with the boy next door, but he’s dating Miss Popular. That is, until she wraps her car around a tree and bites the dust. Just when things settle down and Janie thinks that she might have a shot at going to prom with the boy next door, Miss Popular comes back from the grave, and she’s one crazy ex-ghoulfriend.

Fang-Freakin-Tastic Review: Crazy Ex-Ghoulfriend is one of those books that makes you glad you are no longer in high school. It’s got your typical popular girl vs nerd girl conflicts but with the added benefit of the popular girl becoming a zombie and trying to give her forcing her into a makeover. It’s full of the life lessons we have all heard and hopefully learned, but it never hurts to be reminded.

Janie is “love” with Wayne. They have been friends since childhood and are neighbors. After Wayne is in a car accident with his girlfriend and Queen Bee, Matilda, due to drinking and driving (MESSAGE!), he finds himself in the hospital, and his girlfriend is dead. Janie becomes Wayne’s shoulder to cry on essentially and things start to progress when Wayne shows an interest in Janie in a hilarious first kiss type scene.

When Janie comes home to find stinky zombie Matilda lying on her bed, the real story gets started. Up until this point, Janie has been struggling with emotions that I will admit, are somewhat familiar to me.

She isn’t sad that Matilda died. She’s happy about it. But let’s face it, Matilda tormented her and made

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her life hell, creating a division in her friendship with Wayne. I hate to admit it, but I think I would feel the same way. No one wants to feel the way Matilda made Janie feel, and I think she is justified in her feelings. At least she didn’t fake it and pretend to be Matilda’s BFF like it seems so many people do when someone dies.

Matilda’s master plan is to make Janie popular so she can become part of the prom committee, suggest a masquerade type them so that Matilda can attend the prom with Wayne, her “one true love”, and everyone lives happily ever after. Barf. There are some pretty obvious holes in Matilda’s plan, but hey, she’s a teenager, of course she didn’t think things through completely.

As Janie’s popularity grows, so does her head. It is the usual story of the unpopular girl gets a makeover and everyone starts noticing her. She forgets who her real friends are (MESSAGE!). She learns lessons along the way of course and all is right in the world.

Overall this was a cute book. I liked the story and it kept my interest throughout the whole book. I didn’t feel like there were any lulls in the story, and while many of the characters were pretty one dimensional, it is understandable because the story is more about Janie and Matilda than it is about the other characters. I do think I would have liked a little more back story on why Matilda was the way she was, but even without that information, we can still see who and why she is, at least to some degree.

This book is appropriate for most teens and isn’t bad to read as an adult. It reminded me in some way of the movie Jawbreaker, where they turn the ugly duckling girl into a beauty and she becomes someone else entirely. It sends positive messages to girls of all ages, and there are not quite enough books today that do that sort of thing. I will be trying to convince my 13 year old to read it.

The Reluctant Reaper Gina X. Grant Humorous Fantasy

Kirsty d’Arc is enjoying life, until someone she trusts hijacks her soul in this first installment of The Reluctant Reaper series. To escape Hell’s inferno and gain revenge, Kirsty must partner with the very Reaper who scythed her—the hunky dead poet

Dante Alighieri.

Life for Kirsty d’Arc might not be perfect, but it’s far from hellish. She likes her job, has a great BFF, and truly admires Conrad, her boss. But when she dives in front of a lunatic’s blade to save him from certain death, she finds out Conrad isn’t so admirable after all. In fact, he’s traded her soul to the Devil!

Fang-Freakin-Tastic Review: There isn’t really much to say about this book without giving too much away. It was an easy and fun read. If you are looking for something deep and meaningful with complicated storylines and extensive amounts of conflict and action, this book isn’t the one you’re looking for. I don’t think this book was meant to be anything other than a quick and sweet story.

In the beginning of the book we are introduced to Kirsty, a young woman who has worked hard at her career to get where she is. She works for her best friend’s father, Conrad’s, company and seems to have a bright future ahead of her. She is a fairly shallow character; all she seems to care about is herself and advancing herself.

Hell is full of paperwork and forms that must be filled out for an appeal and the waiting room has a hell of a line, hehe get it? Hell of a line? Lol, I slay me! I suppose paperwork is much better than fire and brimstone!

This hell is much different than the hell we are taught about. Grant creates a Hell that is both strange and creative. It’s almost hypocritical in some ways.

While she is waiting for her appeal to go through, Kirsty decides to make the best of things while she is stuck in Hell. She makes friends, gets pretty close with Dante, the reaper who collected her soul. He lets her move in with him while she is waiting. By the way, Dante, is THE Dante. The one who wrote Inferno.

She does whatever she can to ensure that Conrad is going to get what he deserves for tricking her the way he did.

In all honesty, there were times where I forgot they were supposed to be in Hell. It just seemed like they were just living somewhere else. There wasn’t the despair and horrors that one will usually associate with Hell. It seems more like what I always imagined Purgatory. A lot of waiting. In some ways that bothered me, but the storyline in and of itself was cool.

This book had some creative ideas going on, and could make you really think. I did like the ideas that Grant introduced as far as reincarnation and such. It was almost sweet in some ways. The images of Hell were pretty funny.

This wasn’t an amazing book, but I enjoyed reading it, and the writing and ideas presented were good. I would suggest this book to someone looking for something of an upbeat book, without high expectations.

In a rare attempt to do something for someone else, she accidently ends up trading her soul to the devil instead of letting him take her boss’s. I guess she didn’t take the guy in the robe with the scythe seriously.

Now she must find a way to escape hell and revive herself from the coma she is in on earth. Unfortunately for her,

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Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews A Song for Bill Robinson Chantelle Atkins Children’s Drug Use Fiction

Death on the Danube Jennifer S. Alderson Travel Humor/Mystery

Tensions are building on the notorious Holds End estate.

Who knew a New Year’s trip to Budapest could be so deadly? The tour must go on – even with a killer in their midst…

The local community centre is fighting for survival and the murder of 15-year-old Lewis Matthews remains unsolved…

Amy’s Review: heart-wrenching and heart fulfilling!

Atkins pens a magnificently raw and intense story in A Song For Bill Robinson. I like that there are multiple layers to this story, and it definitely is well-written. I am a fan of Atkin’s work, and I just knew this would be a great story. Atkin’s has a way of writing that keeps the reader engaged, as social issues, and life’s journeys are explored. Bill Robinson is a great character, and definitely unforgettable. The characters are well-rounded and have a lot of depth. Atkins is not afraid to write gritty, and raw characteristics and actions of the characters. It is always a joy to read this author’s stories. This author is not just a writer but a great storyteller. Magnificent story, kept this reader turning the pages. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.

Last Orders by Ted Tayler

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Amy’s Review: Another intriguing mystery from Alderson!

Alderson pens an intriguing story in Death on the Danube, which is the start of a new series from Alderson. It’s a cozy mystery, and I enjoy this genre. I was excited to read another book from Alderson. I am a big fan of her work. Alderson brings the stories to life. Alderson introduces the reader to Lana, and how she ends up in the middle of a murder mystery with the suspects. It’s fun and interesting, and the story is so great to follow. Alderson always writes a great mystery, and I loved this book. It was one that kept this reader turning the pages, reading every word, and sometimes flipping back to the previous page to read it again. The author uses her knowledge of travel and location to paint the perfect scene for murder and mystery. Each character had depth, and his or her own discerning traits, which made the mystery all the more engaging. This story was intriguing and kept the reader guessing. It’s a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. This author’s characters develop and interacts well with the other characters. As always, it is a joy to read Alderson’s work. You never know what will happen next as she brings the reader on a wonderful journey to figure out the mystery. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.

Trial of Injustice T.K. Ware Suspense GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT On a Thursday morning in Banker, Alabama the body of a twenty-one year-old woman was discovered murdered. After the police and forensics inspected, with the help of eyewitnesses and fingerprints, the man responsible for the heinous crime was identified as Pastor Thaddeus Ganvis.

Amy’s Review: Another magnificent read First, Ware has a way with words. The stories being told are magnificent and intriguing, keeping me turning the pages. I am a big fan of Ware’s work, and Theodore ESQUIRE The Trial made me continue to love his work. The characters were well-developed and very interesting, each one having their own personality, strengths and weaknesses. This author brings the story to life. It is always a joy to read this author’s stories. This author is not just a writer but a great storyteller. An enjoyable journey. The thrills and intrigue is written clearly and the characterizations are engrossing. Love this story. The author’s technique of intense characters and great plotlines is a gift. “She flinched at every sound, thinking it was a hitman sent by Dave and Burg Law Firm. She closed the curtains and double checked the lock on the door.

Guilt pulsated in her veins. As regret mounted, tears of sorrow streamed down her cheeks.” Yes, he does have a grand way with words. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is highly recommended by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews, as with all of Ware’s works.

Fatal Decision Ted Tayler Crime Thriller Gus Freeman is a retired Detective Inspector who has spent the past three years alone.

Freeman’s wife, Tess, died from a brain aneurysm six months to the day after his retirement.

He is still coming to terms with his enforced solitary existence.

Amy’s Review: Wonderful new book from Tayler Tayler pens a magnificent story in Fatal Decision, a book in his new series The Freeman Files. If Tayler writes it, I read it. I read all of his books from his other series, The Phoenix Series. I was very anxious to read this one when requested. Gus is a great character. He’s a recent widower, and retired police. Gus is a multi-dimensional character, that is not only called back to help solve a crime, but also dealing with his own personal issues. It is always a joy to read this author’s stories. This author is not just a writer but a great storyteller. Magnificent story, kept this reader turning the pages. A definite attention grabber.

The thrills and intrigue is written clearly and the characterizations are engrossing. Love this story.

It’s a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. I look forward to reading more by this author, especially in this series.

This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.

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Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews Last Orders Ted Tayler Crime Thriller A newly-formed Crime Review Team is investigating cold cases that defied their colleagues.

Austerity cuts mean that Gus Freeman only has a team of three to assist him.

DS Alex Hardy - a police pursuit motorcyclist, currently uses a wheelchair as he recovers from a high-speed accident.

Amy’s Review: Another great thriller First, Tayler is an excellent writer and storyteller.

I am a big fan of his work, first the Phoenix series, and now, his new series, The Freeman files.

Gus is an unforgettable character, and I’ve gotten attached to him. Tayler knows how to tell a story, and this new one, is thrilling and exciting, and in some ways, makes you hold your breath. Magnificent story, kept this reader turning the pages. A definite attention grabber. The thrills and intrigue is written clearly and the characterizations are engrossing. The Crime Review Team is an amazing team with different backgrounds, and yet, they work well together, especially when focused on the murder of Trudi. It’s a great story. Magnificent indeed. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.

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Orphic C. J. Rodgers YA Fantasy Being an outsider amongst family can be very lonely, Rose knows this well. Sticking to her routine helped keep her out of the way, from constant glares and questions regarding the gifts she did not possess. As Rose got older, anger and resentment fueled growth as she sparred in the arena, the one place where she was better than her faultless stepbrother.

Amy’s Review: Great Read Rodgers pens a grand story in Orphic. It’s a great fantasy slash coming of age story. I haven’t read anything from this author before, and I really enjoyed Orphic. Rose is a very interesting character, making the reader not only caring about her, but investing in the story to see how it works out. The story brings in the believable, even if almost impossible. Though it’s a fantasy, it is relatable and this reader enjoyed this story. There is more to the story than first known to the reader and Rose, and that adds to the anticipation. This story was intriguing and kept the reader guessing. It’s a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. This author’s characters develop and interacts well with the other characters, especially her relationship with family. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.

The Cold Hearth Garth Pettersen Viking Historical Romance “The sons of Cnute are dead men.” The dying words of his brother’s assailant travel across the North Sea to the English Midlands.

Harald, the king’s second son, receives the warning while rebuilding a hall where he hopes to farm and lead a peaceful life with Selia, his Frisian wife. But as the hall nears completion, they learn the family who lived there before them all perished in a single night of bloodshed.

Could the grounds be cursed?

Amy’s Review: A grand story Pettersen pens a grand story in The Cold Hearth. I have read stories from this author before, and I really enjoyed it, so even though I have no expectations when I read a story, I wasn’t disappointed. The story is filled with curses, secrets, and shadows that are affecting the desire of a life in peace. The characters were intense and fit this story. I really enjoyed Harald’s relationships, and his determination. The story brings in the believable, even if almost impossible. A very well-written story, and I enjoyed it. Yes, a definite enjoyable journey. This story brings the reader into the middle of the secrets and lingering history of death as it affects Harald and his wife. It’s a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. The story brings in not only the curse but the culture and beliefs of the characters, as they try to figure who to trust, and who not to. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.

The Donation Man Judy Snider Psychological Thriller WHAT IF YOU SAID, “NO”, WHEN YOU WERE CALLED TO ASK FOR A DONATION, AND SUDDENLY YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER? Detective Sam and Newsperson Reggie, beloved characters from Too Late to Run return to be embroiled in a web of terror..

Amy’s Review: Excitingly thrilling The book intrigued me when the author was nominated for a showcase of Indie Author Appreciation Month in September of 2019 on my author blog, and the author was nice enough to share the story with me for a review. Snider pens a thrilling story in The Donation Man. This story was very relatable, and I really enjoyed the premise of the story. Magnificent story, kept this reader turning the pages. A definite attention grabber.

The thrills and intrigue is written clearly and the characterizations are engrossing. Love this story.

If you love a good psychological thriller, this book should be next on your list. The action and storyline was a great pace for the story, and it added to the suspense of the story. There is a great balance of plot lines that keep the reader interested. I have fast become a big fan of Snider. I look forward to reading more by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews.

Issue 46 | May 2020 |

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