Sunday Snippet: Haunted Hideaway

Whew. It's been a week. My washing machine saga continued, and I finally called it. Investing in a new machine, hopefully in the near future before my laundry pile grows exponentially into a mountain.

I finally finished the very, very long proofread and thankfully should have the final queries answered this weekend. I have a new holiday manuscript for copyediting and it's about halfway complete. Have I mentioned I love holiday stories?

Not a bad week of viewing. I got a few extra shows watched this week.

Caught the second episode of My Life Is Murder and thoroughly enjoyed it. I've mentioned how much I love the characters, but Madison had such a great role in this week's episode.

Watched another Best in Paradise. This episode introduced Martha and I enjoyed her run on the show with Humphrey.

Finished the two-part episode of Death in Paradise where Florence says goodbye for a while. Such a sad but great send off for her.

Started another episode of Elementary. Should have it finished up later tonight. I'm quite enjoying this second season so far.

Caught another episode of The Batman and remembered it from the first watch I did. Excellent story that dives into the symbiotic relationship between Batman and his rogue gallery.

That's pretty much it for the life update. Tonight's post is from Haunted Hideaway, a novella that features a ghost bringing a couple together.

Here's the miniblurb:

Harley Rand meets Ruck Tate when she moves back to her small hometown and leases an apartment in a historic village. Little things happen from the moment she moves in—items mysteriously end up in different locations, the doorbell rings and no one is on the other side, and random things go wrong in the apartment. Intrigued, Harley dives into the history of the buildings in the village and discovers a few fun facts and a couple of unsettling ones … like the building is probably haunted. Harley believes in ghosts but has no idea how to broach the topic with the handsome superintendent. She may not have to … Ruck has a few secrets he's not quite willing to divulge, even to the lovely new tenant.

And a preview snippet…

Ruck drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Figures she's as hot as she sounded on the phone." He'd rather hoped she would be unattractive and less his type.

Nope. Harley Rand hit all the ticky boxes. Sense of humor. Total confidence. A smokey voice that had a touch of sass to it. One that also revealed more about her than she probably wanted.

Yep. He could totally fall for the new tenant in apartment three. Too bad she had about zero interest in dating anyone. Not with a bad breakup being part of the reason she decided to return to her hometown.

Ruck grunted. "The guy who let her go is an idiot." Or maybe just blind.

None of Ruck's business. Except she'd been open about the need for a fresh start. And her plan to avoid getting tangled up in a relationship.

Ruck understood … to a point. He'd had five terrific years with his wife before an icy road and a reckless driver took her life. Grief had a hold on him for the first three years after the accident. He'd slowly emerged on the other side and while he didn't go out often, he'd tested the waters a few times over the past twenty-four months.

Pulling into the parking lot of the foundation office, he cut the engine. "Too bad the first person to really strike my fancy wouldn't be interested." Slipping out of the cab, he headed for the door next to the maintenance bay to get some equipment to tend the huge planters by the visitor center.

An eerie thought struck him. He probably should've warned Harley about the possibility of weird sounds at odd times during the day and night. Then again, she'd mentioned working there back in the day. Maybe she already had experience with the old building's quirks.

Ruck snorted. "I'd bet there's one thing she didn't have to deal with back then…" And hopefully she wouldn't have to now.

But he wouldn't hold his breath. Only a matter of time if he didn't miss his guess.

I love working with an established location and adding fictional elements to the story. So much fun!

 

That's it for this week.

Cheers!

Skye