Witch’s
Cursed Cabin
Coon
Hollow Coven Tales
Book
Two
Marsha
A. Moore
Genre: Paranormal romance
Date of Publication: 4-27-16
Number of pages: 380
Word Count: 111,000
Cover Artist: Marsha A. Moore
Book Description:
Eager to be on her own away from
home, twenty-year-old Aggie Anders accepts a relative’s invitation to live in
Coon Hollow Coven. Although she’s a witch from a different coven, what locals
say about the Hollow confuses her. How can witchcraft there live and breathe
through souls of the dead?
Aggie’s new residence in this
strange southern Indiana world is a deserted homestead cabin. The property’s
carriage house serves as the coven’s haunted Halloween fundraiser. It’s a great
opportunity for her to make new friends, especially with the coven’s sexy new
High Priest Logan.
But living in the homestead also
brings Aggie enemies. Outsiders aren’t welcome. A cantankerous, old neighbor
tries to frighten her off by warning her that the homestead is cursed. Local
witches who practice black magic attempt to use their evil to drive Aggie away
and rid their coven of her unusual powers as a sun witch.
Determined to stay and fit in,
Aggie discovers not only that the cabin is cursed, but she alone is destined to
break the curse before moonrise on Samhain. If she fails, neither the living
nor the dead will be safe.
A
note to readers: the books in the
Coon Hollow Coven Tales series are written to be read in any order. The series
is about one community, and its residents may pass in and out of various books,
but each book has its own unique and special story to be told.
About the Coon Hollow Coven Tales Series
The series is about a coven of
witches in a fictitious southern Indiana community, south of Bloomington, the
neck of the woods where I spent my favorite childhood years surrounded by the
love of a big family. The books are rich with a warm Hoosier down-home feel.
There are interesting interactions between coven members and locals from the
nearby small town of Bentbone. If magic wasn’t enough of a difference between
the two groups, the coven folk adhere to the 1930s lifestyle that existed when
the coven formed.
Book One
Excerpt
from Chapter One: The Homestead
A shove of my
shoulder pried the rusty hinges on the heavy log cabin door loose. I flung my
blond braid to my back and peered inside. Beings and critters, alive and furry
as well as undead and translucent, flew, crawled, or slithered across dark
recesses of the hallway, sitting room, and stairwell.
“You weren’t
kidding. This place is haunted.” I shuddered and looked over my shoulder at
Cerise. She looked perky as always with her dark bobbed hair and lively brown
eyes beneath horn-rimmed eyeglasses. “Were those things relations or varmints?”
I took a cautious step over the threshold to escape the blustery weather and
unbuttoned my corduroy jacket.
“Oh, both,
Aggie. Ghosts of witch kin and their talking animal familiars,” she said and
moved past me to lift sheets off the sitting room furniture.
I raised a brow,
curious about what talking familiars were but was too afraid to ask. She didn’t
seem to think they were bad, and I needed a place to stay.
Cerise dropped
the sheets in a pile and wiped her dusty hands on her skirt. “Those sorts of
ghosts are in all the homes here in Coon Hollow Coven. Maybe some animal
spirits, too, from the surrounding woods. This property has at least fifty
acres of forest. The ghosts are harmless, part of the family. At least no
neighbors have complained, that I’ve heard.”
Eyeing corners
of the parlor and the length of the hall, I wondered if I could ever get used
to living with ghosts of people who’d lived here before. In New Wish, Indiana,
where I’d spent my entire twenty years, we only had an occasional ghost.
Usually lost souls who, for some reason, hadn’t found their peace before death
took them. Most times, those folks had been tormented by darkness and
experimented with black magic while they’d lived. Or so Mom told me, but I
always thought that was just her way of keeping me in line.
I pushed those
thoughts out of my head. I wanted a place of my own more than anything else,
and not in the tiny town of New Wish where everyone knew me…or thought they
did. They all said I was the spitting image of my Aunt Faye, with the same
light blond straight hair, deep blue eyes, dark brows, and quiet personality.
Everyone thought I’d grow up to be like her with a houseful of kids, seven or
more. Fact was, they didn’t know me. I wasn’t sure I even knew myself. There
was so much I wanted to learn and do that wouldn’t happen if I stayed at my
parents’ home.
Cerise struggled
to open the stuck window. “Aggie, can you help me here? Some fresh air might
tempt a few spirits outside. This place has been vacant since my mother passed
in 2009. We might find just about anything in here after five years.”
Flash Fiction by Marsha
A Moore
Hello!
I’m Marsha A. Moore and it’s great to be here and share some Samhain fun! I’d
like to share with you one of my very popular mini-stories from my collection
of fantasy flash fiction Tea Leaf Tales.
Tea Leaf Tales: The Necessary Practice Halloween Growl
“Oh,
come on, Grindor,” I pleaded for the third time.
“Not until Halloween,” he replied with a terse snap, his face stoic,
his body frozen.
“Just one pre-Halloween scare.” I climbed beside him and peeked
over the fence.
“There’s a teenage boy walking this way toward your gate who’d
make a great practice target.”
“Nope,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to knock me off balance
with his left wing.
“It’ll feel good to do just one little growl.”
A whiz of loud pops sailed inches above my head, and I jumped
behind my griffin guardian who spread his protective wings wide.
The teen burst through the open gate, gun in hand, and Grindor let
out a horrific roar, so loud that my teeth rattled.
From behind, I winked at the boy with the bb gun, my five-dollar
bill showing in his jeans pocket.
Tea
Leaf Tales is a series of original
ten-sentence short stories by Marsha A. Moore, relating to photos/scenes that
resonate with her.
Visit
Marsha’s website www.MarshaAMoore.com
to read more archived episodes of the Mercantile
of Tea Leaf Tales and watch her blog for new episodes.
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 spark
life into her writing, as well as other pursuits of watercolor painting and
drawing. She’s been a yoga enthusiast for over a decade and is a registered
yoga teacher. Her practice helps weave the mystical into her writing. After a
move from Toledo to Tampa in 2008, she’s happily transformed into a Floridian,
in love with the outdoors where she’s always on the lookout for portals to
other worlds. Marsha is crazy about cycling. She lives with her husband on a
large saltwater lagoon, where taking her kayak out 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!
Mailing list: http://bit.ly/MarshaAMooreList
Website: http://MarshaAMoore.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MarshaAMoore
Google +: http://google.com/+MarshaAMoore
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/marshaamoore/
Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/author/marshaamoore
Goodreads author page http://www.goodreads.com/marshaamoore
No comments:
Post a Comment