Today Madi and I would like to invite you into the world of Everland and our series Once Upon a Time.
Once Upon a Time is a series based on traditional fairy tales. But these aren’t your children’s bedtime stories! With a sexy, sometimes kinky, always heartwarming twist, we’ve reinvented Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White. So far we’ve published three in the series at Cobblestone Press. Midnight Hour, Midnight Moon, and Midnight Mine. Midnight Deal will be coming this summer at Cobblestone Press.
http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/author/madisonlayle&annaleighkeaton.htm
Cindy cares for her stepmother and sisters because she’s the oldest daughter, but they can’t understand why she’s determined to hide at home away from the snickers of gossipy townsfolk.
As Everland’s most eligible bachelor, Maxwell has been able to dodge the marital bullet. He needs a special kind of woman—one who doesn’t fear his darker, dominant sexual needs—one he can trust with his heart.
The mysterious beauty who appears at his father’s annual masquerade fulfills him like no other. When she disappears at midnight, he vows to find her, bind her, and never let her go again.
Jacqueline Beaumont disappeared ages ago, cursed into a lonely existence of moonlit shadows and eternal heartache. Her only sanctuary has been her dilapidated ancestral home, but a new owner threatens to change that.
Thomas Princeton returns home to renovate the Beaumont plantation, its halls haunted by a mysterious beauty and its lands claimed by a precocious, black-haired beast.
He must collar the beast and gain the beauty's trust to win her heart and find true love, but the beauty and the beast share a secret, and she’s determined to run him off…if only he weren’t so incredibly sexy.
Sylvia White is ready for a change. Growing up as the only girl in a motherless family of seven boys, she filled the role of keeper of the home. Now, in her twenties, she wants more for herself, but how is she to step beyond the overbearing men in her world and make a life for herself?
Richard Princeton has returned to Everland to run the family mine and atone for the ill will he’d held against his parents for so many years. But bad things happen when he meets the woman of his heart and his mother doesn’t approve.
Excerpt of Midnight Hour:
Marie Laveau didn’t look up at first when she heard the jingle of the bell on the door, but then she remembered what day it was.
Business had trickled to zilch earlier in the day because of that damn masquerade ball.
Everyone, except her, was expected to attend. She hadn’t set foot back on the Princeton estate in decades, not since that fateful night…. And she wouldn’t go back, not even if the patriarch hand delivered a gilded invitation on bended knee.
The sound of footsteps slowly meandered down the aisles.
Who could that be at this hour?
She should’ve told Rupert to turn the sign in the door to Closed after he finished sweeping up. Where was that no-account nephew of hers? The least he could do was be here to deal with whoever was here so she wasn’t interrupted in the middle of a very important task.
Grumbling to herself, she set a glass bottle and measuring spoon aside. She had to get the ingredients right, or her latest elixir wouldn’t have the potency needed to accomplish her special client’s needs.
A glance around for her nephew revealed the identity of Laveau’s latest customer.
Marie didn’t know whether to be elated or not.
Cindy was an enigma. The kindly daughter of a no-good, double-crossing merchant…
How dare he not pay after—
She gritted her teeth against the memory that was as fresh and bitter to her as the day she’d first laid eyes on the wealthy widower’s sickly little girl, now a spinster who was browsing a display of all-natural, herbal remedies for joint pain. For herself or someone else?
Marie dismissed the passing question from her thoughts as her temper simmered over past wrongs. What did it matter who suffered such aches; they were nothing compared to the debt that family owed her.
She straightened the wrinkles out of her billowy garment and pasted on a smile for the child—well, not a child, although everyone was infantile to someone who’d been on the planet as long as Marie had. Though she’d lost her youthful beauty long ago, her strength and longevity lay in the dark magic that was her passion and the foundation of her livelihood, albeit hidden behind the more respectable façade of an herbal shop.
Cindy limped around the corner, looked up at Marie’s approach, and smiled with a genuine, good-to-see-you gleam.
Marie’s smile felt frozen to her skull, until she gave into the urge to glance down at the girl’s odd-looking shoes.
It’s a shame I can’t take credit for such successes! And to think the incantation she’d uttered so long ago was still in effect and as strong as ever.
“Cindy, what a pleasant surprise. What brings you by my establishment on this snowy evening?”
“I’m here to pick up some more medicated lotion for Mom.”
The old bat that was the girl’s stepmother was a harmless simpleton who was more of a burden to the family than an asset.
“Top shelf to your right, dear,” Marie said helpfully. At least the girl’s continued business made up for some of the riches her father had failed to deliver.
When Cindy turned away, Marie let her gaze settle on the girl’s feet, and she smiled. The girl’s father had been right when he’d accused Marie of causing the changes in his daughter’s leg that ended her dreams of dancing. Such a simple little spell. Payback for short-changing me. She’d denied it of course, and reveled in the agony on the man’s face as he realized there were some things his precious money couldn’t buy.
She’d wanted to curse the man himself after he’d lashed out at her over the loss of his wife. Marie had tried to save the woman’s life and had saved the baby—the very girl who now stood before her—but had the man thanked her? No. He’d offered her any price to brave that bad storm and act as midwife to his ailing, expectant wife. She’d done her best, but her magic hadn’t been strong enough to prevent fate that night.
She’d vowed to make him pay after she’d found herself hustled from the Tudor-style house. And she had, in a manner of speaking, though it had taken a while to discover the right spell and get close enough to the child for it to work. She still remembered the day she’d happened upon the girl picking flowers along the path to market.
“I’ll take the larger jar.” Cindy held out her choice to Marie with a smile.
The curse hadn’t altered the girl’s demeanor, though Marie had believed it would make the child at least a little bitter. That it hadn’t surprised her.
“Why are you not getting ready to go to the ball?” Marie asked as she headed behind the counter with the jar to ring up the purchase. “You caught me about to close up since everyone in town is going.”
When the young woman’s gaze refused to meet her own, Marie suspected she’d needled the right wound.
“My sisters will represent the family at the event tonight. I’m needed at home.”
Unwilling to let it go, Marie became blunt. “No need to fib, dear. I understand.”
Cindy’s gaze shot to hers, and Marie wanted to smirk. “Fib? But I—”
“Such a fancy ball it will be, all the music and dancing, and you would feel uncomfortable, of course, with your condition.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Oh, I admire you, Cindy,” Marie hurried to say. “You’ve made the best of what you were given, never complaining, but you need not sugarcoat the truth when I can see it bothers you at times like this. We’re all human after all. It’s perfectly understandable to want what we don’t have. But what if I said I could help you go to that ball…just one night…where you could be bold and brazen if you wanted to be, your identity hidden behind a masquerade mask?”
Cindy smiled and shook her head. “I won’t deny that I’ve dreamed of going to lavish events or… No. A mask won’t hide my lame foot or give me the grace of a dancer. I think it’s best I let my sisters—”
“No, the mask won’t, but a magical pair of slippers would do the trick. For the right price, of course. I wouldn’t offend you by offering charity.”
“Slippers?”
Marie smiled. “The magic wouldn’t be permanent,” she warned. No, Marie didn’t want to permanently remove the spell that handicapped the girl. “And you’d have to remove the shoes before the final stroke of midnight or risk serious damage to your feet.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m saying that I could lease to you, for one night, a pair of magical slippers that would transform your malformed limb to match the other—just until midnight—and give you this one night of freedom to do whatever you want. Run. Dance. Experience life as you never have but always wanted to. What do you think?”
Once again, I invite you to http://www.laylekeaton.com/ to get to know us better, read more excerpts, join our contests, and take our polls.
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