Hi, everyone. This week’s sample is from my multi-award winning historical paranormal, Bayou Fire. Enjoy!
Evangeline heard the murmurs at her coming-out ball before she saw him.
“Alcide Devereaux is here,” Juliette Dubois squealed as she went by on her way to the punch bowl. Her blonde hair was tied up in an Apollo knot, and she wore a green-sprigged ballgown with sheer lace idiot sleeves. Juliette was always at the height of New Orleans fashion. “He’s sure to be the catch of the Season now.”
Evangeline wanted to be unsurprised by the news; Antoine, Alexandre, and their father Edouard had all succumbed to yellow fever that summer. Alcide had been away from the Quarter for almost ten years, coming back to help his mother and claim his inheritance. And, of course, Marie Laveau had hinted broadly at Alcide’s attendance. Still, she couldn’t wait to see the man on whom her childhood hopes had set. She wondered whether she would even recognize him.
Evangeline and her father led out the reel, and she found herself watching the crowd. Luckily, she knew the steps so well that no one noticed her attention was elsewhere. It was one of the skills she’d learned in Paris that stood her in good stead.
There he was, leaning against a wall and watching the dancers. Alcide was still taller than just about every other man in the room, but now he was lean, his skin bronzed by the sun. His hair was slicked straight back with macassar oil; none of those silly curls over his ears that the other men sported. He also had a thin, closely trimmed black mustache but no beard. For those things alone he would have stood out from the other men, but there was also an air of fearlessness about him that none of the others possessed. Gone was the soft, coddled planter’s son. Evangeline had heard that he’d been at sea or some such before reading the law up in Illinois among the American Yankees. It seemed impossible, but the man was even more handsome than the boy she remembered. His sharp profile and steady gaze put her in mind of a hawk watching for likely prey.
Want your own copy of Bayou Fire? Here are the back cover copy and purchase links.
Diana Corbett’s childhood was plagued by unceasing dreams of smoke and flames. The nightmares went away, until the noted travel writer’s first night on assignment in Louisiana … when they returned with a vengeance. Could the handsome Cajun, Amos Boudreaux, be the key to unlocking the secret of BAYOU FIRE?
Award-winning author Sharon E. Cathcart presents her first full-length historical paranormal tale, set against the backdrops of modern-day and 1830s New Orleans.
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