Hot off the press! Today it’s my pleasure to feature Marsha
A. Moore’s new release, Witch’s Moonstone Locket, book one in A Coon Hollow
Coven Tale.
Genre: New Adult Paranormal Romance
Date of Publication: March 24, 2015
Word Count: 94,000
Book Description
Twenty-three-year-old Jancie Sadler was out of the room when
her mother died, and her heart still longs for their lost goodbye. Aching to
ease her sorrow, Aunt Starla gives Jancie a diary that changes her entire life.
In entries from the 1930s, her great grandmother revealed how she coped with
her own painful loss by seeking out a witch from nearby Coon Hollow Coven. The
witch wore the griever’s moonstone locket, which allowed whoever could unlock
its enchantment to talk with the dead.
Determined to find that locket, Jancie goes to the coven’s
annual carnival held in her small southern Indiana town of Bentbone. This
opposes her father’s strict rule: stay away from witches. But she’s an adult
now and can make her own decisions. She meets Rowe McCoy, the kind and handsome
witch who wears the moonstone. He agrees to let her try to open the locket, but
they’re opposed by High Priestess Adara and her jealous desire to possess him.
Desperate for closure with her mother, Jancie persists and
cannot turn away from a perilous path filled with magic, romance, and
danger.
Available at Amazon.
Excerpt from Chapter One: Great Aunt Starla’s Cornbread
Warm rain mixed with Jancie’s tears, and she rose to stand
beside her mother’s grave. Not ready to let go, she bent at the waist and her
fingers followed the arc of her mother’s name—Faye Sadler—in the headstone. She
knew the unyielding shape well. The word goodbye stuck in her throat. She’d
said it aloud many times since her mother died almost a year ago, only to have
the cemetery’s vast silence swallow her farewells. Rain beaded on the polished
granite. Her hand, bearing her mother’s silver ring, slid down the stone and
fell to her side.
If only she could’ve said goodbye to her mother before.
After years of caring for her mom while she suffered with cancer, Jancie had
missed the final parting moment while getting a quick bite of dinner. The pain
still cut like a knife in her gut.
On foot, she retraced the too-familiar path toward her work
at the Federal Bank. Although she’d landed a job as manager at the largest of
the three banks in the small town of Bentbone, the position was a dead end.
Within the first six months, she’d mastered all the necessary skills. Now,
after a year, only the paycheck kept her there.
Jancie turned onto Maple Street. As usual, wind swept up the
corridor, between old shade trees protecting houses, and met her at the top of
the tall hill. September rain pelted her face and battled the Indian summer
noontime temperatures. She zipped the rain parka to keep her dress dry, pulled
on the strings of the hood, and corralled strands of ginger-colored hair that
whipped into her eyes. Once able to see, she gazed farther into the valley,
where the view spanned almost a mile out to the edge of town. Usually, farmers
moved tractors across the road or boys raced skateboards and bikes down Maple
Street’s long slope.
Today, on the deserted acreage just east of Bentbone, people
moving in and out through a gate of the tall wooden fence breathed life into
the rundown carnival. Surprised, Jancie crossed the street for a better view.
She’d lost track of time since Mom passed. The coming Labor Day weekend in
Bentbone meant the valley coven’s yearly carnival. She and her close group of
girlfriends always looked forward to the cute guys, fair food, and amazing
magical rides and decorations…even if her father didn’t approve of witches or
magic. The residents of the sleepy town awoke to welcome a host of tourists
wanting to see the spectacle created by the witches of Coon Hollow Coven.
Somehow, Jancie had forgotten the big event this year. Last
year, she didn’t go since Mom was so sick and couldn’t be left. Jancie sighed
and turned onto the main street toward the bank. She’d lost so much since her
mother passed. Really, since the diagnosis of cancer.
At that time, four years ago, Jancie withdrew as a sophomore
from Hanover College, a select, private school in southern Indiana near the
Kentucky border—too far away. Instead, she returned to stay with her mother and
commuted to Indiana University. Balancing hours with the home health care
nurse, Jancie had few choices of career paths. Not that it mattered, since her remarried
father expected her to find a job in Bentbone and continue taking care of her
mother. Despite the sacrifices, Jancie loved her mother, who’d always managed
money for a few special things for Jancie—a new bike, birthday parties, prom
dresses—even though their income was tight. Mom had paid for her tuition and
listened to every new and exciting college experience.
Jancie smiled at the memory of Mom’s twinkling brown eyes,
that mirrored her own, when she asked about what happened during the day’s classes:
if Jancie liked the professor; if she’d made new friends.
When she rounded the last corner, her thoughts returned to
the work day. At the bleak, limestone bank building, reality hit. Jancie pulled
against the heavy glass door, and a gust swept her inside. She peeled off the
drenched jacket and hung it on the coat rack of her small, plain office. At her
desk again, she took her position.
Through the afternoon’s doldrums, punctuated by only a
handful of customers, her mind wandered to the carnival. She’d gone dozens of
times before and loved it. But since Mom passed, nothing seemed fun anymore,
like she couldn’t connect with herself and had forgotten how to have a good
time. She organized a stack of notes, anything to put the concern out of her
mind.
***
After work, Jancie drove her old blue Camry the five miles
to the other end of town where she lived in her mother’s white frame house, the
home where she grew up, now hers. Glad to own her own place, unlike her friends
who rented, she’d made a few easy changes. In the living room, a new brown
leather couch with a matching chair and ottoman. She replaced the bedroom
furniture with a new oak suite for herself in what used to be her mother’s
room. With pay saved from the bank, Jancie could remodel or build on, but she
didn’t know what she wanted yet. Her great aunt Starla had told her to just
wait and hold onto her money; she’d know soon enough.
Pouring rain soaked the hem of her dress as she darted
between the garage shed and back stoop of the small ranch house.
Glad she’d chosen to get her run in this morning before
work, she changed into cozy sweats, pulled the long part of her tapered hair
into a ponytail, and headed for the kitchen.
Her phone alerted her of a text, and she read the message
from her friend Rachelle, always the social director of their group: R we going
to the carnival?
Jancie typed a response. I guess. R Lizbeth and Willow
going?
Yep whole gang. What day?
Don’t know yet. Get back to u. Jancie worried she’d spoil
their fun. Even though they’d all been her best friends since high school and
would understand her moodiness, she didn’t want to ruin one of the best times
of the year for them. Since Mom passed, they’d taken her out to movies and
shopping in Bloomington, but this was different. Could it ever match up to the
fun of all the times before? “I don’t know if I’m up to that,” she said into
open door of the old Kenmore refrigerator while rummaging for leftovers of
fried chicken and corn.
The meal satisfied and made her thankful she’d learned how
to cook during those years with Mom. Not enough dishes to bother with the
dishwasher, one of the modern upgrades to the original kitchen, Jancie washed
the dishes by hand and then called Starla. When she answered, Jancie asked,
“Can I come over tonight? There’s something I’m needing your opinion on.”
“Why sure, Jancie. C’mon over,” the eighty-five-year-old
replied with her usual warm drawl. “Are you wantin’ dinner? I made me some soup
beans with a big hambone just butchered from Bob’s hog. My neighbor Ellie came
over and had some. She said they were the best she’s eaten.”
Jancie glanced at the soggy rain parka and opted for an
umbrella instead. “No, I just ate. Be right over.” Keys and purse in hand, she
hung up and darted for the shed.
Five minutes later, she turned onto the drive of the
eldercare apartments and parked under the steel awning where Starla gave her a
whole arm wave from her picture window. Jancie made her way to number twelve on
the first floor.
The door opened, and Starla engulfed Jancie in a bear hug,
pulling her into the pillow of a large, sagging bosom. Starla smelled of her
signature scent—rosewater and liniment.
Jancie had loved her great aunt’s hugs as long as she could
remember. Stress and worry melted away, and she hugged back. Her arm grazed
Starla’s white curls along the collar of her blue knit top embroidered with
white stars—her great aunt’s favorite emblem.
“It’s so good to see you. Come sit a spell, while I get us
some iced tea.” Starla pulled away and gestured to the microsuede couch
decorated with three crocheted afghans in a rainbow of colors. “I thought we
were done with this hot weather, but not quite yet. That rain today’s been a
gully washer but didn’t cool things off much.” The large-boned woman scuffed
her pink-house-slippered feet toward the kitchen. “Would you rather have pound
cake from the IGA or homemade cornbread?”
Jancie laughed and followed her into the kitchen. She
wouldn’t get through the visit without eating. “You’re just fishin’ for a
compliment. You know your homemade cornbread is better.”
Starla arranged plates with thick slices of warm cornbread
and big pats of butter on top, while Jancie transferred the refreshments to the
aluminum dinette table.
“With your hair pulled back like that, you’re a dead ringer
for your Ma. So pretty with that same sweetheart-shaped face.” Starla folded
herself onto a chair beside Jancie. “You look to be getting on well…considering
what all you’ve been through.”
“I’m doing okay,” Jancie said through a mouthful of the
moist cornbread. She washed it down with a swallow of brisk tea that tasted
fresh-brewed. “But sometimes, lots of times, I feel lost, like I can’t move
on.” She ran a hand across her forehead. “I didn’t get to say goodbye. I spent
time with her through all those years, and it shouldn’t matter, but it does
every time I visit her grave and most every night in my dreams.”
“Oh, honey. I know it hurts.” Starla smoothed Jancie’s
ponytail down the middle of her back and spoke with a voice so slow and warm,
it felt like a handmade quilt wrapping around her. “You spent all that time and gave so much.
Just like when I cared for my husband some twenty years back. I know. I never
got the chance to tell Harry goodbye either. Time will heal all hurts.”
Jancie looked down at the marbleized tabletop to hide her
teary eyes. “I don’t think I’m ever going to heal, Aunt Starla. I don’t know if
I can ever move on.”
“There is one thing you can try. I’d have done it, if I’d
have known before decades softened my aching heart. Way back, I was desperate
like you.”
Jancie looked into Starla’s blue-gray eyes, set deep inside
wrinkled lids.
Her aunt leaned closer. “Not many know about this,” she
whispered as if someone outside the apartment door might hear. “There’s an old
story about how a member of the Coon Hollow Coven, one who’s recently lost a
loved one, is made the teller of the moonstone tale.”
Jancie rolled her eyes. “That’s just a silly story, one of
lots that Mom and Dad told to scare me when I was little, so I’d stay away from
the coven. When the moonstone locket opens at the end of the tale, you’ll get
your wish but also be cursed.”
“Oh no.” Starla shook her head and pushed away from the
table. “Let me get Aunt Maggie’s old diary. I got this in a box of old family
things when Cousin Dorothy passed. ” She lumbered to her spare bedroom and
returned with a worn, black-leather volume only a little larger than her wide
palm. Once seated, she thumbed through the yellowed pages. “Here.” She pointed
a finger and placed the book between them.
About the Author
Marsha A. Moore loves to write fantasy and paranormal
romance. Much of her life feeds the creative flow she uses to weave highly
imaginative tales.
The magic of art and nature often spark life into her
writing, as well as watercolor painting and drawing. She’s been a yoga
enthusiast for over a decade and is a registered yoga teacher. After a move
from Toledo to Tampa in 2008, she’s happily transformed into a Floridian, in
love with the outdoors. Marsha is crazy about cycling. She lives with her
husband on a large saltwater lagoon, where taking her kayak out for an hour or
more is a real treat. She never has enough days spent at the beach, usually
scribbling away at stories with toes wiggling in the sand.
Every day at the beach is magical!
Website: http://MarshaAMoore.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MarshaAMoore
Google +: http://google.com/+MarshaAMoore
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/marshaamoore/
Amazon author page:
amazon.com/author/marshaamoore
Goodreads author page http://www.goodreads.com/marshaamoore
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