I’ve got a massive backlist out there, but I’m focusing mostly on my indie releases now, which a lot of my readers haven’t heard of yet. So we’re going to be putting up excerpts of the indie work I’ve done—both full length and short collections, each Wednesday, to encourage you to give my new work a try.
Today’s excerpt comes from Holiday Spirits.
Series Page: Chintz ‘n China
Book Page to find buy links: Holiday Spirits
Nanna had lived with my parents when I was little. My mother had gone to work in my father’s store, and Grandma took care of my sister Rose and me. My father had constantly complained about what he called the peasant-food smell, but beneath all the griping, he was grateful for her help. But his mother had gone to war against her. The War of the Grandmothers, I called it. Grandma McGrady was lace-curtain Catholic, and she was certain that Nanna was going to ruin us and send us all to hell, if she didn’t poison us first with her cooking. Rose had taken after the McGradys, but I had clung to Nanna. And Nanna was my champion.
One day, Nanna had called me into her room and she pressed her finger against her lips. “Hush, and shut the door.”
I did, then wandered over to her bed, where she was sitting with a beautiful trunk next to her feet. She motioned for me to sit down beside her. “Watch.” She carefully reached inside the trunk—which held several folded aprons—and pointed to a spot near the corner. Another moment and she had triggered a hidden latch. She lifted the bottom out of the trunk and I saw several beautiful pendants, a dagger, and other odds and ends.
“Emerald, you must remember this. One day, this trunk will belong to you, along with everything in it. If you’re still young, you must never show your parents what’s inside the secret compartment, and you must never let anybody else see it until you are out on your own. You know what these things are, don’t you?”
I nodded, solemn and wide-eyed. “They’re your charm tools.”
“Right. They’re for charming and bewitchery. But you don’t touch them till you’re grown, except when I ask you to. All right?”
