Bewitching Blitz Self Publish Now By E. Van Lowe

Self Publish Now: The Underground Playbook to Get You Writing, Finishing, and Self-Published NOW

By E. Van Lowe

Genre: Non-fiction/Self-help

Publisher: EViL E Books

Date of Publication: May 2, 2018

ASIN: B07CTFRGP3

Number of pages: 67

Word Count: 16,043

Cover Artist:  Venkateshvinod

Book Description:

This tiny book contains my step-by-step, easy to follow system for getting your book written and self-published NOW. It's probably the most complete, no-nonsense guide to self-publishing available.

I take you on my personal journey, from an abject failure living in the Bronx with no future to speak of to becoming the writer I always dreamed of being--writing bestselling books, movies, and hit TV shows. I tell you how I went from dreamer to having money in the bank and fans around the world.

I tell you in my straight forward style what's holding you back from writing success, and give you the kick in the butt, plus all the tools you need to self-publish NOW. I tell you how I got where I am, but more importantly, how you can get there. 

Amazon

Excerpt:

It was 7:30 a.m. Monday morning. The alarm clock had gone off half an hour ago, yet no matter what I told myself, I just couldn’t get out of bed. I should have gotten up and started getting ready for work as soon as the clock went off.  That was normally how I did it.

Something was wrong.

As I lay there, I took inventory of myself. I wasn’t sick. It wasn’t a hangover. Truth is, I wasn’t actually tired, although every muscle in my body seemed wracked with fatigue.  I was sweating.

I thought back to Sunday morning.  I felt great when I got up on Sunday.  I was up early.  I read the paper, I played with my son, and we all went to church. 

We had brunch in Manhattan after church, and spent the warm afternoon in Central Park near the Merry-go-round.  My son loved to go to the merry-go-round. He didn’t like to ride it. He said it made him dizzy, but he loved being in the presence of all the energy exuded by the kids. He feasted on it.

Around 4 p.m. I started feeling a bit sluggish.  It increased gradually, and by bedtime, I was exhausted. I had developed flu like symptoms.

As I lay there that Monday morning, I realized it was around 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon when I started thinking about my job.  On Sunday evening as I prepared my route for the following day, I started feeling a sense of dread. 

I quickly diagnosed myself with a malaise felt by millions nationwide. My illness was that I dreaded going to work. I hated my job.

I asked myself “how did this happen?”  I had a dream job.  At least it was a dream job for a guy from where I’m from. I was the envy of all my friends. I was both proud and excited when I landed the job a few years earlier.  Back then, I couldn’t wait to go out into the field. WHAT had changed?

Hi, my name is Ehrich Van Lowe (pronounced Eric. My friends call me E.) and I am a writer. I’ve spent most of my working career writing professionally, and loving it.  I’ve written for big publishers, small publishers and I’ve self-published. I’ve written blog posts and articles in magazines.

I’ve written for the theater, I’ve written poetry, and I’ve written for TV and film. I’ve won many writing awards including being nominated for the Emmy Award and the Oscar, all for my writing.  I have written bestselling novels and hit TV shows. I am a working writer who has had, and still enjoys a wonderful and rewarding career.

But on that morning, a long time ago, I was a twenty-three year-old nobody who had abandoned my dreams.

 If you are a writer trying to figure it all out, or a failed writer, or a would be writer, I wrote this book for you. I hope you will read it from beginning to end. There are a few things I’d like to tell you that I believe can help launch your writing career, and keep you from years of not realizing your dream.

Much of what you are about to read in this book you have never heard before.  Some of it you have, but not from me. The purpose of this book is to get you comfortable with the idea that you, yes YOU, can actually become a published author and make money. It’s also to give you some tools you can use to get your writing career going, and not just going, but going quickly and successfully.

About the Author:

Ehrich Van Lowe, aka E. Van Lowe is an award winning television writer, screenwriter, bestselling novelist, and writing coach with over 30 years earning his living as a writer. He is a six figure author, and a seven figure entrepreneur. He knows how to be successful.  He has taken clients from having no knowledge of the business, to earning a living, to becoming bestselling authors.

Blog: http://authorprosperityblog.com/   

Website: http://evanlowe.com/

Twitter @Evanlowe

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/author.e.vanlowe/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fivestepscourses/

Bewitching Blitz The Red Queen by S. Nano

How ‘Alice in Wonderland’ inspired my erotic novel: Part 2

It wasn’t just the characters in Lewis Caroll’s classics ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ that I drew inspiration from when writing my own BDSM/fetish reinvention of them.

One of the reasons why the Alice stories provide such brilliant scope for a reimagining as a fetish wonderland is the way in which you can suspend and manipulate time and place.  They provide a vast canvas to work from in which the author is not constrained by time or a formal structure.  Does anybody bother to ask how long Alice was in Wonderland for?  No, of course not, because it’s irrelevant; the nature of the world is such that you suspend belief and, with that, any sense of an arc of time you have to conform to.  Similarly, my main character, Kim, can pass through this bizarre fetish world without the author or reader needing to be concerned about how long each of her encounters lasted or bothering about whether she gets any sleep!  The Alice books provide a framework where none of that matters.

The Alice books also create a fantasy logic-defying world where anything can happen.  This works perfectly for the world I wanted to create.  The character of the Red Queen can appear in different guises and costumes without having to conform to a sense of place, moving through her world making appearances in places where it should be physically impossible.  

Another literary device used in the Alice books is that of the story within a story. For example, there is the mouse’s tale or ‘tail’, there is the mock turtle’s story and then, of course, Tweedledum and Tweedledee relate the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter. 

There are many other places where a verse or piece of story is injected into the main narrative.  I like this as a literary device and love story cycles like the ‘Tales of the Arabian Nights’ where stories weave seamlessly in and out of one another. So, it seemed natural for me to introduce the idea into my book. 

This also helped me with a problem with the structure of the story, in particular resolving how I could work Kim’s back-story into the book.  This sub-theme of the book was important for explaining why Kim had been chosen to serve the Red Queen and, therefore, building a story around her past, which would make the book more than a simple description of a series of fetish/BDSM encounters. Kim’s past is related in a series of ‘stories within a story’ revealed by the black cat, one of the characters in the book, and finally by the Red Queen herself.  Within the context of the Red Queen’s fetish, fantasy, logic-defying world these stories, which actually had their origin in a completely different story cycle, worked perfectly to provide an explanation as to why Kim had been chosen by the Red Queen and brought into her world to serve her.  This was made possible because the structure of the original Alice books allows the absurd to be believable if you’re prepared to enter into the magic and strangeness of the story

Part 1 of ‘How Alice In Wonderland inspired my erotic novel’ is on the Beauty In Ruins blog page: https://beauty-in-ruins.blogspot.com/

The Red Queen
Adventures in Fetishland
Book One
S. Nano

Genre: BDSM/Fetish/Fantasy

Publisher: eXcessica

Date of Publication: 18th May 2018

Word Count: 78,000

Cover Artist: Kevin Blisse

Tagline: A girl’s journey into submission in a BDSM/fetish fantasy world.

Book Description:

In this BDSM reinvention of Alice in Wonderland, Kim’s life takes an unexpected twist when she is taken from the massage parlour where she works into a fetish fantasy world ruled over by the Red Queen, a powerful dominatrix.

There, an intense psychological drama is played out between the two women as Kim enters a journey into submission.

The Red Queen assumes different characters who torment Kim in a series of trials ranging from the funny and strange to the sadistic and erotic. Kim is lured deeper into this world by hints the Red Queen knows something about her past.

Why has she been chosen to serve this powerful female? Why is the Red Queen so interested in her? When Kim finally finds out the truth, it is shocking and bizarre.

Reviews

Wow, this book starts off hot and it doesn’t let up for a moment – Raunchy Reader

This is a powerful read, and one that demands you submit yourself to the power of the tale– Bending the Bookshelf

This book grabbed my attention from the first page and had me staying up late in the night to read more…Uber hot book. Whew!! – Erzabet Enchantments

O.M.G!! This book is kinky and hot.  – Books, Books and More Books

Excerpt:

The metal tips of her stiletto shoes clicked against the black-and-white chequer-board floor tiles; each step instinctively, without thought or effort, alternating between black and white. As she made her stately progress across the tiled floor, she mused on the aptness of the symbolism that reflected the extremities of the world she inhabited and held sway over: darkness and light, cruelty and kindness, pain and pleasure, humiliation and reward. She commanded over her domain like a chess master playing a twisted and beautifully imagined chess game in which she, the Red Queen with a black heart, orchestrated proceedings and her slaves were pawns. She stood before her gothic mirror and admired her image reflected within its black cast-iron frame. The Queen of Hearts was ready.

“How do I look Duchess?” she asked, turning to her transvestite companion and lady-in-waiting.

“I’m speechless, madam, really I am. You look absolutely stunning, a true fetish red queen,” she answered.

She examined her image in the mirror carefully appraising every detail of her dress and make-up to ensure it met her exacting standards. She held her body upright and smoothed the shiny metallic red PVC panel of the ankle-length skirt, straightened her ruby encrusted tiara and made a final adjustment to the black heart-shaped choker around her neck. Yes, she thought, she looked perfect. 

She turned and stepped off the black-and-white floor tiles taking a few steps to face one of the male slaves who served in her realm. His wrists were secured with leather cuffs, which had a rope attached to them and threaded through a metal ring fixed into the ceiling pulled tight so that his arms were stretched out. His ankles were similarly bound in leather cuffs and secured to rings set in the floor, his legs stretched just wide enough to cause discomfort but for the soles of his feet to lie flat on the black carpeted floor.

Hanging from him his balls was a large cast-iron ball weight forged into the letter ‘N’. ‘N’ for Nemesis, the Queen of Hearts smiled to herself, the name taken from the Greek goddess of fate and retribution and one of the personas she adopted in the fetish fantasy realm she had created and ruled over. She lifted the weight up and traced her finger along the letter and then let it drop heavily. The blindfolded man gasped as the velocity of the falling weight stretched his balls. The Red Queen merely laughed sadistically at his predicament. She gestured to the Duchess who, silently and secretly, stood behind her helpless victim and lifted the blindfold from his eyes to reveal the vision of his mistress transformed into the Queen of Hearts.

The cruel piercing blue eyes, framed in ruby streaked ebony hair, met her victim’s as the blindfold was removed permitting him to feast his eyes on her. He gasped and then moaned in homage at the formidable and ravishing presence before him. She stood there, her heaving cleavage held tight in a shiny electric red PVC bodice festooned with black hearts and framed with a ruff in gold. This is the part I love, she mused. The look in their eyes when she reveals herself; that look of mesmerised devotion mixed with fear, fear of the unknown, fear of the seductive torment they know she is capable of inflicting on them. 

“So, are you ready to submit to the Queen of Hearts?” her voice whispered with more than a hint of playfulness mingled with the malice.

“Yes mistress,” was the breathless reply.

“Mistress?” the inflection of her voice was raised and indignant, “Do you think that’s the correct form of address for the Red Queen?”

“No your majesty. I mean your majesty. Of course, I mean your majesty.”

About the Author:

S. Nano is a writer of erotic stories with dark and exotic content in fantasy or historical settings drawing on the themes of female domination, BDSM and fetish but often with a seam of quirky humour running through them.

Adventures in Fetishland Book One: The Red Queen is the 2nd edition of his first full length novel. ‘Mistress of the Air’, a comic, Steampunk, erotic adventure and ‘La Contessa’ a BDSM novel set in 18th century Venice have also been published by eXcessica. His novellas and short stories have been published by Xcite Books, House of Erotica, Forbidden Fiction, Coming Together and Greenwoman Publishing.

He is a regular participant in reading slams at ‘Smut by the Sea’ and similar events in the UK, contributing a workshop ‘Kinking Up the Past’, on getting inspiration for erotic stories in historical settings, in 2015.

He has been known to dress up as a Fetish Hatter to promote his work.

Web site: http://www.slavenano.co.uk/writing

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nano.vaslen

The Setting of Only the Beginning by Daphne Dubois

I wrote Only the Beginning as a thank you to all the Wattpad followers who gave so much love and support to my first romance novel, The Right Fit. And when this book took off in popularity as well, I just had to get it published too!

The novel is set in my own beautiful city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Many of the places Melissa and Craig visited were inspired by real businesses and destinations. Below I’ve listed the name in the book with its real life counterpart. I hope you’ll enjoy this love story as well as the backdrop of Halifax!

The Chestershire Hotel, where Melissa first meets Craig, is inspired by The Lord Nelson Hotel.

The office building containing Donaghy Inc. is fashioned after the two towers of Purdy’s Wharf on Lower Water Street.

The Farmers’ Market is real as well as The Public Gardens, but unlike the story, it closes at sundown.

The Halifax Public Library on Spring Garden Road is also real and if you do visit Halifax, you must take in this beautiful building. It opened in December 2014, replacing the older library and has since won the Lieutenant Governor’s Design Award in Architecture for 2014 and a Governor General's Medal in Architecture in 2016.

Tableau, the restaurant Sue Yin and Lance have their rehearsal dinner, in real life is called The Kitchen Table and is located on Gottingen Street. I have had the pleasure of eating there twice and each time is a culinary experience—another must visit if you find yourself on the East Coast.

Just Desserts, the restaurant that Melissa and Brooke meet up for breakfast is inspired by Sweet Hereafter Cheescakery on Quinpool Road. And yes, it’s only cheesecakes on the menu and it’s amazing. 

Lastly, The Wallington House, the historic inn that Sue Yin and Lance had their wedding is based on Haliburton House on Morris Street.

Halifax has so much more to offer, but it was impossible to fit every place in the novel so you’ll just have to visit for yourself!

Only the Beginning
Daphne Dubois

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Wild Rose Press

Date of Publication: 25 April 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5092-2034-2

ASIN: 978-1-5092-2035-9

Number of pages: 264

Word Count: 63,300

Tagline: Taking your best friend’s place on a blind date to let the guy down easy was the plan, taking him to bed wasn’t!

Book Description:

After a heartbreaking betrayal, Melissa Legacy shuns romance. So when her best friend joins the Lovers Oasis website and fears her fiancé will find out, Melissa agrees to meet the anonymous Romeo, prepared to explain her friend’s change of heart—then she sees him.

Failing restaurant entrepreneur, Craig Wheaton hasn’t been home since his mother’s tragic death. Now he’s back to confront his demons and stand beside his brother as best man. Dreading the reunion, he agrees to meet his avatar lover, but at the last moment he reconsiders the arrangement—until he lays eyes on her.

When Craig assumes Melissa is his online consort, she impulsively plays along, resulting in an afternoon of unexpected intimacy. But with Melissa using her friend’s identity and Craig dealing with a family fallout, is a future together impossible, or will they discover that love at first sight is Only the Beginning?

Amazon

Excerpt:

Melissa blinked a few times, trying to remember the dream. A sense of bliss made her smile into the pillow. She was warm and the bed covers were tucked around her like a cocoon. It must be Saturday, she thought.

There was a shift in the bed behind her, followed by a low sigh.

She froze. In a series of flashing images, it all came back.

The pub. Craig. The intense stare of his eyes. The way he’d kissed her as he unzipped the back of her skirt. He made her feel like she was the most desirable woman on the planet, that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep touching her.

And she’d reciprocated, opening up to him, losing all her inhibitions. She imagined this was what Lovers’ Oasis was like. The anonymity combined with the fantasy created a freedom Melissa had never experienced before, not ever.

But now reality set in. She’d woken naked, next to a man she barely knew and the earlier courage she’d felt—the reckless delirious abandonment that augmented her physical enjoyment of the afternoon encounter—had morphed into terrified embarrassment.

There was only one choice—she had to leave before he woke. Slowly, she slipped one leg out, her foot searching for the floor. Then she inched her way to the edge of the bed, carefully making sure not to jostle the mattress.

She stood, completely naked, looking down at Craig. He was on his back, one hand was on his chest gently rising and falling as he slept. The sheets pooled at his waist. His face was completely relaxed, his mouth opened slightly, lips parted.

A warmth began to stir inside her, remembering how those lips felt. He’d memorized each of her breasts with his tongue as his fingers slipped down her belly then nestled between her thighs. She’d come for him, then. So quickly…so easily.

Her purse buzzed from the floor making Melissa jump. It sounded like a marching band had exploded through the door. She crouched down and lunged for the purse, grabbing the phone and silencing it. Melissa waited, but there was no movement from the bed. A quiet breath eased through her pursed lips. She read her phone; there were multiple messages from Brooke. The last one was marked “urgent.”

—Where are you?—

About the Author:

Daphne Dubois writes contemporary romance and believes the right book at the right time can make all the difference. When she's not putting her characters in compromising positions (ahem), she works as a registered nurse. A member of the Writer's Federation of Nova Scotia, she lives in Eastern Canada, the most romantic place in the world.

Website: http://bethanymyers.blogspot.ca/

Twitter: @br_myers

Author Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BRMyersAuthor 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16265560.Daphne_Dubois

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/brmyers/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brmyerswriter/

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ARK by Jesse Miller

ARK

Jesse Miller

Genre: Literary Fiction

Publisher: Common Deer Press

Date of Publication: May 15, 2018

ISBN: Hardcover ISBN: 978-988761-08-4

Paperback: ISBN: 978-1-988761-07-7

E-Book ISBN: 978-1-988761-09-1

Number of pages: 162

Word Count: 45k

Cover Artist: Ellie Sipila

Book Description:

Imagine the son of Cinderella and Noah. That's Alabaster Ash, professional window washer and amateur foot fetishist, thrall to his three physically fit, brutally aggressive stepsisters.

After polishing foot after foot of glass in the gingerbread city of Candyland and cleaning up after the “wicked stairmasters,” he haunts the bars and streets looking for love and appreciation -or a really nice pair of feet.

Like it or not, Alabaster finds himself reliving and reimagining his parents' lives as he roams from bar to bar, from thrill ride to stunt show in the linguistic funland that is ARK.

Common Deer Press

Excerpt:

Ground squirmed past the windows, shuffling racks of bones and skulls under the soptoil as clouds crept along the horizon. On the bus, all the windows let in cold air and hung like a racked row of ice cubes in a tray, but I barely cracked the bottle.

Out I poured when the doors opened, unable to feel my legs, unable to see the ocean, but I could smell the salty marsh marching wet blue harridans, swiping and batting the spit, pushing the blood and saltboxing up fatjuices into my sinuses.

Jammed a kwata in the belly box and engaged the line.

–Hello?

–I’ve arrived. I’m here.

–That’s great. I bet a little walk will feel like a little slice of heaven, eh?

–I suppose.

–Well, I’ll leave the light on for you, Buddy.

I slid on my gloves and tried not to flinch at the sudden mustering of prickly discs skipping to my face. I leaned in hard and clacked through town, blackened and boarded and unblinking, barely wicklit. Smatter rooms to let. Ingrown hairs. Offseason. Unseasoned in the savorless in and out drag of the tonguetide. I dashed through a carless parking lot and into an astralamped glass meadow jotting down quivering blue starlight ink- puddles into suckshifts of snowhunchbanks humpbacking the outermost stretch of tideland. To the left, a skit of cloven unguals stirred it seemed, crunchy, but I only got half an ear worth and couldn’t noctoscop the goings-on of could be caribou or elk or deer bowing their head, bowing their head before the almighty peering down hard and in, like the retractable Polton and Crane lamp in the dentist’s office that hangs my mouth open.

Inside the blackness, the stickiting, ricketing pickets of thickets wiggle on their dicot studs without me seeing, while they shot out the other side and stitched a black curtain against the edge of the rest of the world. I clacked another mile stretch as brine wafers tickled my ears and swizzled my nos- trils while Lawrence Welk drift popping jollyjawdropping orbs uncorked across my field of vichy.

Estrella’s was a lighthouse, though not the vertical variety. But it glowed.

Light hung out over the glass and flabbed fat, hotwhite dough out the sides as I took up her street. This was another gingerbread house, hundreds of miles from home, though this one in earshot of the beach. I rang and rang and rang and then just opened the door.

About the Author:

Jesse Miller is the author of Unwrap Your Candy and the forthcoming ARK, both available from Common Deer Press. He is a Visiting Assistant Lecturer in English at the University of New England.  He lives in the great city of Portland, Maine with his wife, two cats, and dog. Jesse roots for the Red Sox.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jesse.miller.967

Website: https://www.jesseemiller.com/

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The Enchanted Garden Café by Abigail Drake

The Enchanted Garden Café

South Side Stories

Book One

Abigail Drake

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Publisher: Kindle Press

Date of Publication: May 1, 2018

ASIN: B079ST8JW1

Number of pages: 272

Word Count: 89,000

Cover Artist: Najla Qamber

Tagline: Something magical is happening in the garden.

Book Description:

For her sixth birthday, Fiona Campbell’s mother, Claire, made her a peace sign piñata filled with wishes for a better planet instead of candy. When she got her period, her mother held a womanhood ceremony at their café and invited the neighborhood. On her sixteenth birthday, they celebrated with a drum circle.

Fiona grew up trying to keep the impulsive Claire in check, and their struggling café afloat. She plans to move out, but first must find a way to stop a big corporation from tearing down their business and destroying her mother’s livelihood.

Claire thinks karma will solve their financial and legal problems. Fiona prefers a spreadsheet and a solid business plan. The last thing she has time for is Matthew Monroe, a handsome complication who walks through their door with a guitar on his back and a naughty gleam in his eye. But when disaster strikes, and Fiona’s forced to turn to him for help, will she learn to open her heart and find she can believe in something magical after all?

Amazon

Excerpt:

Falling in love is like baking.

Results may vary with experience.

~Aunt Francesca~

Chapter One

            I opened the box and stepped back, tripping over a pile of Himalayan wind chimes I’d left lying behind me on the floor of the shop. They clanked in a discordant melody as I untangled them from my feet.

            “What the heck?” I asked, ignoring the chimes and focusing on the parcel that had arrived in the mail earlier that morning. Tiny stone phalluses in various shades of gray filled the container to the brim. Checking the return address, I noticed the shipping cost and wanted to cry. Most of our inventory budget for the entire month had been used to mail this one small box halfway around the world.

            “Mom, what exactly did you order from Inuyama, Japan?”

            My mother popped her head around the corner, a bright smile on her face. “Did they finally arrive, Fiona? I’ve been waiting for ages.”

“For stone penises?”

Why was I even surprised? This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. My mother, Claire de Lune Campbell, had never been the master of impulse control, and she had a history of making very poor decisions. She’d been born Claire Campbell and added the “de Lune” in, what I can only guess, was a moment of pot-induced inspiration. The pot no longer played a part in her life, but the total inability to make common-sense decisions remained.

            Mom picked up one of the stone penises, a happy twinkle in her eye. “Aren’t they lovely?”

On the outside, Mom and I looked alike. The same blonde hair, the same blue eyes, the same stubborn tilt to our chins, but there the resemblance ended. Mom was as happy and bright as a butterfly landing on a flower, and she had the same level of fiscal responsibility. I stressed about everything, especially money, but I had good cause.

My mom owned and operated the Enchanted Garden Café, where we served food, coffee, and specially blended teas and sold unusual items in our small gift shop. Nestled in the middle of the South Side, the funky hippie district of Pittsburgh, it was the perfect spot for my mom but a constant source of anxiety for me.

I wiped sweat from my face and brushed off my clothing. Dust covered my T-shirt and shorts, and some kind of stone powder had fallen out of the box from Inuyama onto my tennis shoes. Mom, glowing in a dress made from recycled saris, didn’t have a speck of dust on her, but she hadn’t handled the phalluses.

Kate, the girl who worked behind the counter, came over to us, her blue eyes alight with curiosity. “I want to see them,” she said. Mom handed her one, and she studied it closely, peering at it through the thick black frames of her retro hipster glasses. Her ebony hair was pulled off to the side in a low ponytail, and her colorful tattoos peeked through the crocheted black cardigan covering her pale skin. “At least they are anatomically correct. Look at those veins.”

            My cheeks grew warm, and Mom smiled, putting a cool hand against my face. “Aww, Fiona is blushing.”

            “No, I’m not. It’s hot in here.”

            “Of course it is,” she said, making me feel twelve instead of twenty-five, but it was hot for early June, and the air-conditioning was broken. Again. Even with all the windows open, it still felt stuffy.

            I ignored her and picked up a penis. “What are these things anyway?”

            She beamed at me with pure, unfiltered happiness. “Fertility charms from a little shrine in the mountains of Japan. They have a big festival there every year. I went once.”

            She sighed, most likely remembering happy times at the fertility festival, and went back to the kitchen. I looked at Kate and rolled my eyes, making her snicker, before getting back to work. The fertility charms came in all sizes and seemed handmade. I just wasn’t sure how to sell them or where to display them in our shop.

            A Victorian eyesore, the café was painted on the outside in what once had been a mix of bright pink and various shades of green. The pink had faded to a dull rose, and the green looked like the color of old limes just before they rotted. It needed work and a fresh coat of paint, but instead of doing so, we spent our money on phalluses from Japan. That was how things worked with my mother. No planning. No rhyme or reason. No logic. No rational thought.

            The bell above the door tinkled, and I turned, a penis in each hand, as a stranger walked into the shop. I couldn’t see his face at first because the sun was at his back, but he carried a guitar case. A sure sign of trouble.

            “Hello,” he said as he came closer.

He had straight dark hair that brushed his shoulders, brown eyes, and a goatee. He reminded me of a sexy, naughty French pirate, and I knew his kind well. Close to my age, he was definitely one of the artsy, flighty types who always hung out around my mom. I could spot them a mile away.

            “Holy guacamole, if he were any hotter, I’d need new underwear,” whispered Kate, taking off to the back of the shop and leaving me alone to greet the stranger.

About the Author:

Abigail Drake is the award-winning author of twelve novels, including three young adult books under the name Wende Dikec. She has spent her life traveling the world, and collecting stories wherever she visited. She majored in Japanese and International Economics in college and worked in import/export and as an ESL teacher before she committed herself full time to writing. She writes in several romance genres, and her books are quirky, light, and fun.

Abigail is a trekkie, a book hoarder, the master of the Nespresso machine, a red wine addict, and the mother of three boys (probably the main reason for her red wine addiction). A puppy named Capone is the most recent addition to her family, and she blogs about him as a way of maintaining what little sanity she has left.

She is a member of Pennwriters, RWA, Three Rivers Romance Writers, Mindful Writers, Women's Fiction Writers, and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She teaches writing to children, and her non-fiction article about the life of a child in Istanbul was published in Faces Magazine (an imprint of Cricket Magazine) in February 2016.

Newsletter: http://madmimi.com/signups/181796/join

http://abigaildrake.com

https://www.facebook.com/abigaildrakewriter/

https://twitter.com/DrakeAbigail

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14932644.Abigail_Drake

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