Beyond Summerland

 Welcome to my showcase for Beyond Summerland which is been hosted by HarperCollins and Harlequin 

BEYOND SUMMERLAND 

Author: Jenny Lecoat

Publication Date: July 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781525831546

Format: Trade Paperback

Publisher: Harlequin Trade Publishing / Graydon House

Price $18.99

Buy Links:

HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/beyond

-summerland-jenny-lecoat 

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/beyond-summerland-

original-jenny-lecoa

/20584186?ean=9781525831546&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw

4MSzBhC8ARIsAPFOuyV8reD_X-_ljxSg0efM8nCc0AcedjI54-EPfezpM0W

6G9GMuBPYESMaAqrwEALw_wcB

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/beyond

-summerland-jenny-lecoat/1144022096 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Summerland

-Jenny-Lecoat/dp/1525831542 

1

Jersey, Channel Islands

June 1945

Excitement billowed down the street. It poured out of every doorway and 

crackled in the air, tickling the back of people’s necks, beckoning everyone into this 

thrilling, historic morning. And what a morning! Yesterday’s storm had vanished north

over the English 

Channel, leaving bright sunshine and a powder blue sky. Now the whole of St Helier was 

waiting, rinsed and gleaming, impatient with anticipation. A stiff southwesterly gusted through 

the streets of the town, carrying on it the faint murmur of a distant, chattering crowd, and

 standing on her front path to breathe it all in, Jean felt a surge of genuine optimism. 

She ran her fingers through her mousy hair to revive its sagging shape, tugged at

 her jacket to make sure that the moth hole in her blouse was hidden, then called 

back into the house:

“Mum! Hurry up, or we’ll get stuck at the back.”

Violet Parris shuffled out, her ancient leather handbag perched carefully on her arm. 

Jean watched as she turned, methodically, to lock the Chubb. It was a habit that recent

 years had ingrained, and with pilfering still rife around the parish, it made sense to be

 cautious, though everyone missed the days of open front doors. “Things will settle

 down by Christmas,” people kept saying. And perhaps they would. Jean took in the

 pallid face beneath the battered felt hat and considered what a frail, brittle figure her 

mother cut these days, the anxious, darting eyes and slight stoop of constant burden more 

pronounced in sunlight than in the gloom of the house. Certainly, most people would have guessed

her to be older than forty-six. But then, Jean supposed, every living soul on this island

 had aged a lifetime in the last five years. She felt a sudden urge to reach out and hug 

her mum tightly but, knowing Violet would balk at such a display, offered her arm instead.

They set off at a pace that Jean calculated her mother could maintain for the half-mile walk. 

The street was filled with the sound of garden gates clanging as women shooed husbands and 

children onto the pavement, reknotting ties and smoothing errant hairs before scuttling toward the 

town center. One or two of them carried folded Union Jacks ready to unfurl at the crucial moment,

and Jean felt a pang of envy; their own flag had been used for kindling back in the winter, and no replacements could be bought now. But then, it would be inappropriate 

or the family to appear in any way frivolous. Jersey was a small island. People 

liked to talk.

By the time they reached the end of Bath Street, the roads were already thick

 with people heading for the Royal Square. At the corner of the covered market on 

Halkett Place, two streams of moving bodies became a human river, pushing the two

 of them along like paper boats, and Jean wished again that they had set off earlier. As a 

woman behind stumbled slightly, forcing them both forward, she felt her mother’s fingers

 tighten on her arm; quickly, Jean tugged her away from the melee toward a quiet side street 

and leaned her mother against the concrete wall, supplying a handkerchief, which Violet 

immediately dabbed across her forehead.

“All right?”

Violet shook her head. “So many people. Why didn’t we go down the Albert Pier,

see the SS Jamaica coming in, or find a place along the Esplanade?” Jean, who had

 suggested

these exact choices last night, merely took the dampened handkerchief back and tucked it into

her sleeve. As she did so, her eyes fell on the shop front, a small bakery set halfway down the

 turning.

 The display window had been boarded up to replace the shattered glass, but evidently the vandals

had returned for a second visit, because now a huge swastika was painted on the plywood in black pitch. She glanced at her mother and saw that she too had become transfixed by it.

Violet jerked her chin a little. “Collaborators.” Jean nodded. What had the proprietors done to

earn such a reputation? Had they served German soldiers their bread? Fraternized with them? 

She imagined the angry faces of men rushing toward the shop in the dead of night, bricks and

 rocks in their hands. What had happened to this island in such a few short weeks?

Liberation Day, less than a month earlier, had been the most significant, emotional

 event that any islander, young or old, had ever experienced. The most longed-for day in their

 history had come at last, and, with the arrival of a British task force in the harbor and the official

surrender of the German military, five brutal years of Nazi occupation had finally come to an end.

 So long and arduous had the Occupation been—Jean was a schoolgirl of just fourteen 

when it began—

that for the first week of freedom she had found the transformation impossible to take in. To be able to

 leave the house without curfew…to speak fearlessly on the street without fear of spies or listen

 to the BBC news on a neighbor’s radio! But best of all was the joy of eating a proper meal again, as the British army unloaded crate after crate of supplies, and the Red Cross ship 

Vega brought more relief parcels. Given the near starvation of the previous year,

 extravagances such as tinned meat, lard for cooking, sugar and tea had moved them

to tears of relief as they unpacked their box. The taste of raspberry jam, spooned 

straight from the jar in a moment of pure elation, would stay with her forever.

Yet those early days had also brought bewilderment. After years of inertia, with 

entire months punctuated by nothing but the tedious struggle for food and fuel, 

Liberation brought a tornado of welcome but exhausting developments. They had dutifully 

exchanged their reichsmarks for sterling at the local bank and watched the mines being 

cleared from the beaches; they had read public announcements that the non-native islanders 

deported by the Germans in the autumn of 1942 had been flown back to England, and that

 their return was imminent. They had even received, at long last, a letter from Jean’s older 

brother, Harry, released from service and now back home with his own family in Chelmsford. 

Horrified at the long-belated news of his father’s arrest, Harry spoke of his frustration at being

 cut off from all island information for so long but, to Jean’s delight, promised that he would 

visit as soon as regular transport services resumed. Encouraged by a sense of returning normality,

she and her mother would sit at the kitchen table of an evening, cutting out every significant 

article from the Evening Post and pasting them all into a scrapbook for posterity. And as they 

pasted, in a whispered voice too soft for the fickle fates to hear, Jean would dare to speak of the 

coming weeks and the news from the continent that even now might be on its way. Violet would

 nod and smile, but rarely responded. Hope, Jean calculated, was too heavy a burden for this 

exhausted woman in the final length of a horrendous journey; better for Jean to button her lip

 and direct her own dreams into the rhythmic movements of her pasting brush.

Not all the recent news was good. Among the celebratory headlines and the public

 announcements had been other, troubling pieces. Dreadful photographs of murderous

 Nazi camps where untold numbers had died. Accounts of local “jerrybags”—island women 

who slept with German soldiers—chased through the streets by marauding gangs who shaved 

their heads 

and stripped them naked. Reports of the island’s insurmountable debts. And one terrifying

 front-page report of a local father and son, deported eighteen months earlier, who had both

 perished during their incarceration. After reading these, Jean would retire to her bed and lie 

awake for hours in the grip of a dark, low-level panic, until falling into a fitful sleep

just as the sun rose. 

She 

told no one about this, especially not her mother. She could not pinpoint the exact moment 

when she had assumed the maternal role in their relationship, and suspected it had crept up 

on them over many months. But Jean now knew instinctively that her mother’s shaking fingers 

indicated that Jean would need to peel the vegetables for dinner, or that Violet’s single, hot tear 

on her book’s page in the quiet of the evening required a hot drink and an early night. There w

ould be time 

enough for her own feelings, Jean told herself, when this nightmare came to an end, 

which it

 surely would soon. So today, despite the sight of the boarded-up bakery and the unsettling 

feelings it brought, Jean squeezed out a comforting smile and placed a hand on her mother’s arm.

“We can just go home now, if you want.” Jean thought of their still, gray kitchen at the rear

of the still, gray house and dreaded her mother’s nod. But Violet just gave a little frown.

“No, we’ve come this far. Come on.”

The Royal Square was, as expected, heaving with people.

Men, women and children were squashed together like blades of grass and stewards 

had placed barriers across the middle of the square to contain the crowd. Jean dragged

her mother through the jostling bodies and, instructing Violet to hang on to the back of her 

jacket and not let go, began to slither her way through the crush, making the most of any tiny gap.

 She smiled helplessly at any gentleman in her path until he retreated, and threw apologetic 

backward 

ooks when she trod on someone’s foot or dislodged their hat, until they found

themselves only two heads back from the barrier just as the official cars pulled into the square. 

A huge cheer tore through the crowd, and by standing on her tiptoes and craning her neck

 Jean managed to find a sliver of a clear view.

The cars lined up outside the library. A young, uniformed Tommy opened the door of the

 shining black Ford. And suddenly there they were. Right there on the pavement in front 

of the States of Jersey government buildings, not thirty feet away, all the way from 

Buckingham Palace—the King and Queen! Jean gazed at King George, resplendent in

 his uniform, as he was greeted by low-bowing Crown officials. The Queen, magnificent

 in a feathered tam hat and draped decorously in a fox fur, accepted a huge bouquet of Jersey

 carnations, waving graciously. The cheers around the square were thunderous now, with 

snatches of patriotic songs breaking out here and there. Jean looked at her mother 

and saw her own excitement reflected back. But at that moment a woman next to

them wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and grinned at Violet.

“Isn’t it marvelous? I can’t believe it!’

Jean felt her mother’s body stiffen beside her as she dredged up a suitable courtesy. 

“Yes, wonderful.”

“It’s over, really over! We can start living again!”

Jean watched Violet’s mouth turn to a grim line of sandbagged wretchedness. 

By the time her bottom lip began to tremble, Jean knew it was over—public tears were

 a humiliation that could not be tolerated, and the window of fake composure was closing fast. 

With one last reluctant look at the royal couple, Jean put her arm around her mother’s 

waist and pushed out through the crowd until they were both back on the high street,

 breathless and unsteady. In the doorway of a shop, shielding her from passersby,

 Jean again offered her handkerchief, and this time Violet pressed it across her face

 as she sobbed into it for several moments, emanating tiny stuttering sounds

 like a wounded animal. Eventually the shaking eased, and she took a deep breath.

“Sorry. It was just what that woman said.”

Jean rubbed her arm. “I know. But it can’t be long now. For all we know Dad’s

 already on his way home. Could be out there on a boat right this minute.”

Violet nodded and managed a small wet smile. Jean, working hard to hide her 

disappointment at missing this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, again offered her arm, and 

the two of them began the slow walk back to the house, Jean’s mind whirring. Was it

 right to offer such 

optimism? No one knew if her father was actually on his way home. It was fifteen months

since he’d stepped onto that German prison boat, headed God knows where. Twelve months 

since his last letter. And not a word from the authorities since Liberation. She told herself

 they had no choice but to believe, but one thing was certain—the Occupation

 was far from over. Not for them.

Excerpted from Beyond Summerland by Jenny Lecoat. Copyright © 2024 by

 Jenny Lecoat. Published by Graydon House Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Book Summary: 

Beatriz Williams meets Laura Spence-Ash in this fast-paced and tension-filled

novel about secrets and betrayal in a small community recovering from war, and

the two young women at the center of a volatile mystery.

In June of 1945, Jersey is in the midst of change as the German occupation of the

Channel Islands comes to an end. However, demands for punishment are rising for those

suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. Neighbor turns against neighbor as distrust flourishes

and accusations fly, especially towards women who had romantic relationships

with the German soldiers.

When Jean Parris learns that her father, who died in a German prison, was reported to the

Nazis by an anonymous woman, her rage hits a boiling point. The suspect, Hazel Le Tourneur,

denies the accusation but has a motive for wanting Jean's father gone. Then, when Hazel catches

Jean secretly meeting with a German soldier, the women form an unexpected bond in the face

of ruinous consequences. With tension running high and secrets at every turn, the truth behind

the accusations may be more complicated than anyone could imagine.

Social Links:

Author website: https://www.jennylecoat.com/  

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author

/show/20096261.Jenny_Lecoat?from_search=true&from

_srp=true  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JennyLecoat 

 Jenny Lecoat was born in Jersey, Channel Islands, where her

parents were raised under German Occupation and were involved in resistance activity.

Lecoat moved to England at 18, where, after earning a drama degree, she spent a decade on

the alternative comedy circuit as a feminist stand-up. She also wrote for newspapers

and women's magazines (Cosmopolitan, Observer), worked as a TV and radio presenter,

before focusing on

screenwriting from sitcom to sketch shows. A love of history and factual stories and

a return to her island roots brought about her feature film Another Mother's Son (2017).

She is married to television writer Gary Lawson and now lives in East Sussex. Her debut novel,

The Girl from the Channel Islands, was an immediate New York Times bestseller.

The Paris Widow

 Welcome to my showcase for The Paris Widow which is been hosted by Park Row Books, Hanover Square Press, MIRA Books, Graydon House, Canary Street Press ,HarperCollinsPublishers | Harlequin Trade Publishing

 

Prologue

Nice, France

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

—Oscar Wilde

At Nice’s Côte d’Azur Airport, the pretty woman coming down the jetway looked like every other bleary-eyed traveler. Rum­pled T-shirt over jeans with an indeterminate stain on the right thigh, hair shoved into a messy ponytail mussed from the head­rest. A backpack was slung over her right shoulder, weighed down with items that weren’t technically hers but looked like they could be. She’d sorted through them on the seven-hour flight, just long enough to make the contents feel familiar.

“Don’t lose it,” the Turkish man said when he hung it on her arm, and she hadn’t.

The jetway dumped her into the terminal, and she trailed behind a family of five, past gates stretched out like spider legs, along the wall of windows offering a blinding view of the sparkling Mediterranean, a turquoise so bright it burned her eyes. The backpack bounced against her shoulder bone, and her heart gave a quiet, little jingle.

She made it through passport control without issue, thanks to her careful selection of the agent behind the glass. A man, first and foremost. Not too old or too young, not too hand­some. A five to her solid eight—or so she’d been told by more than one man. This one must have agreed because he stamped her passport with an appreciative nod. French men were like that. One smile from a woman out of their league, and they melted like a cream-filled bonbon.

She thanked him and slid her passport into her pocket.

In it were stamps to every country in Europe and the Americas, from her crisscrosses over every continent in­cluding Antarctica, from her detours to bask on the famous beaches of Asia, Australia, the South Seas. More than once, she’d had to renew the booklet long before it expired because she’d run out of empty spots for customs agents to stamp. She was particularly proud of that, and of how she could look any way you wanted her to look, be anyone you needed her to be. Today she was playing the role of American Tourist On A Budget.

At baggage claim, she slid the backpack down an aching shoulder and checked the time on her cell. Just under six hours for this little errand, plenty of time assuming she didn’t hit any unexpected roadblocks. If she didn’t get held up at customs, if the taxi line wasn’t too long, if traffic on the A8 wasn’t too awful, which it would be because getting in and out of Monte Carlo was always a nightmare at this time of year. If if if. If she missed the flight to London, she was screwed.

A buzzer sounded, and the baggage carousel rumbled to a slow spin.

At least she didn’t look any more miserable than the people milling around her, their faces long with jet lag. She caught snippets of conversation in foreign tongues, German, Ital­ian, Arabic, French, and she didn’t need a translator to know they were bitching about the wait. The French were never in a hurry, and they were always striking about something. She wondered what it could be this time.

Thirty-eight eternal minutes later, the carousel spit out her suitcase. She hauled it from the band with a grunt, plopped the heavy backpack on top and followed the stream of tour­ists to the exit.

Walk with purpose. Look the customs agent in the eye. Smile, the fleeting kind with your lips closed, not too big or too cocky. Act breezy like you’ve got nothing to prove or to hide. By now she knew all the tricks.

The customs agent she was paired with was much too young for her liking, his limbs still lanky with the leftovers of pu­berty, which meant he had something to prove to the clus­ter of more senior agents lingering behind him. She ignored their watchful gazes, taking in his shiny forehead, the way it was dotted with pimples, and dammit, he was going to be a problem.

He held up a hand, the universal sign for halt. “Avez-vous quelque chose à déclarer?”

Her fingers curled around the suitcase handle, clamping down. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I don’t speak French.”

That part was the truth, at least. She didn’t speak it, at least not well and not unless she absolutely had to. And her rudi­mentary French wasn’t necessary just yet.

But she understood him well enough, and she definitely knew that last word. He was asking if she had something to declare.

The agent gestured to her suitcase. “Please, may I take a look in your luggage?” His English was heavy with accent, his lips slick with spit, but at least he was polite about it.

She gave a pointed look at the exit a few feet away. On the other side of the motion-activated doors, a line of people leaned against a glass-and-steel railing, fists full of balloons and colorful bouquets. With her free hand, she wriggled her fingers in a wave, even though she didn’t know a single one of them.

She looked back at the agent with another smile. “Is that really necessary? My flight was delayed, and I’m kind of in a hurry. My friends out there have been waiting for hours.”

Calm. Reasonable. Not breaking the slightest sweat.

The skin of his forehead creased in a frown. “This means you have nothing to declare?”

“Only that a saleslady lied to my face about a dress I bought being wrinkle resistant.”

She laughed, but the agent’s face remained as stony as ever.

He beckoned her toward an area behind him, a short hall­way lined with metal tables. “S’il vous plait. The second table.”

Still, she didn’t move. The doors slid open, and she flung an­other glance at the people lined up outside. So close yet so far.

As if he could read her mind, the agent took a calculated step to his left, standing between her and the exit. He swept an insistent arm through the air, giving her little choice. The cluster of agents were paying more attention now.

She huffed a sigh. Straightened her shoulders and gave her bag a hard tug. “Okay, but fair warning. I’m on the tail end of a three-week vacation here, which means everything in my suitcase is basically a giant pile of dirty laundry.”

Again, the truth. Miami to Atlanta to LA to Tokyo to Dubai to Nice, a blur of endless hours with crummy movies and soggy airplane food, of loud, smelly men who drank vodka for breakfast, of kids marching up and down the aisles while everybody else was trying to sleep. What she was wearing was the cleanest thing she had left, and she was still thousands of miles from home.

She let go of the handle, and the suitcase spun and wobbled, whacking the metal leg of the table with a hard clang. Let him lug the heavy thing onto the inspection table himself.

She stood with crossed arms and watched him spread her suitcase open on the table. She wasn’t lying about the laundry or that stupid dress, which currently looked like a crumpled paper bag. He picked through her dirty jeans and rumpled T-shirts, rifled through blouses and skirts. When he got to the wad of dirty underwear, he clapped the suitcase shut.

“See?” she said. “Just a bunch of dirty clothes.”

“And your other bag?”

The backpack dangling from her shoulder, an ugly Tumi knockoff. Her stomach dropped, but she made sure to hold his gaze.

“Nothing in here, either. No meat, no cheese, no forgot­ten fruit. I promise.”

She’d done that once, let an old apple sink to the bottom of her bag for a hyped-up beagle to sniff out, and she paid for it with a forty-five minute wait at a scorching Chilean airport. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.

“Madame, please. Do not make me ask you again.”

The little shit really said it. He really called her madame. This kid who was barely out of high school was making her feel old and decrepit, while in the same breath speaking to her like she was a child. His words were as infuriating as they were alarming. She hooked a thumb under the backpack’s strap, but she didn’t let it go.

And yet what choice did she have? She couldn’t run, not with those senior agents watching. Not with this pubescent kid and his long, grasshopper limbs. He’d catch her in a hot second.

She told herself there was nothing to find. That’s what the Turkish man had promised her with a wink and a smile, that nobody would ever know. He swore she’d cruise right on through customs. And she had, many, many times.

As she slid the backpack from her arm with another dra­matic sigh, she hoped like hell he wasn’t lying. “Please hurry.”

The agent took the bag from her fingers and emptied it out on the table. He took out the paperback and crinkled maga­zines, the half-eaten bag of nuts with the Japanese label, the wallet and the zippered pouch stuffed with well-used cosmet­ics that had never once touched her face. He lined the items up, one after the other, until the contents formed a long, neat row on the shiny metal surface. The backpack hung in his hand, deflated and empty.

She lifted a brow: See?

But then he did something she wasn’t expecting. He turned the backpack upside down, just…upended the thing in the air. Crumbs rained onto the table. A faded receipt fluttered to the ground.

And there it was, a dull but discernible scraping sound, a sudden weight tugging at the muscles in his arm, like some­thing inside the backpack shifted.

But nothing else fell out. There were no internal pockets.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” With a clanging heart, she pointed to the stuff on the table. “Can I put that back now? I really have to go.”

The agent stared at her through a long, weighted silence, like a held breath.

Hers.

He slapped the backpack to the table, and she cringed when he shoved a hand in deep, all the way up to his elbow. He felt around the sides and the bottom, sweeping his fingers around the cheap polyester lining. She saw when he made contact with the source of the noise by the way his face changed.

The muscles in her stomach tightened. “Excuse me, this is ridiculous. Give it back.”

The agent didn’t let go of the backpack. He reached in his other hand, and now there was another terrifying sound—of fabric, being ripped apart at the seams.

“Hey,” she said, lunging for the backpack.

He twisted, blocking her with his body.

A few breathless seconds later he pulled it out, a small, flat object that had been sewn into the backpack lining. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Almost like he’d been looking for it.

“What is this?” he said, holding it in the air between them.

“That’s a book.” It was the only thing she could think of to say, and it wasn’t just any book. It was a gold-illuminated manu­script by a revered fourteenth-century Persian poet, one of the earliest copies from the estate of an Islamic art collector who died in Germany last year. Like most of the items in his collec­tion, this one did not technically belong to him.

“I can see it’s a book. Where did you get it?”

Her face went hot, and she had to steady herself on the metal table—the same one he was settling the book gently on top of. He turned the gold-leafed paper with careful fin­gers, and her mind whirled. Should she plead jet lag? Cry or pretend to faint?

“I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

This, finally, was the truth. Today was the first time she’d seen the book with her own eyes.

The agent looked up from the Arabic symbols on the page, and she didn’t miss the gotcha gleam in his eyes. The way his shiny forehead had gone even shinier now, a million new pin­pricks of satisfied sweat. His gaze flitted over her shoulder, and she understood the gesture perfectly.

He was summoning backup.

She was wondering about French prison conditions.

His smile was like ice water on her skin. “Madame, I must insist you come with me.”

 

Excerpted from THE PARIS WIDOW by Kimberly Belle. Copyright © 2024 by Kimb 

Prologue

Nice, France

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

—Oscar Wilde

At Nice’s Côte d’Azur Airport, the pretty woman coming down the jetway looked like every other bleary-eyed traveler. Rum­pled T-shirt over jeans with an indeterminate stain on the right thigh, hair shoved into a messy ponytail mussed from the head­rest. A backpack was slung over her right shoulder, weighed down with items that weren’t technically hers but looked like they could be. She’d sorted through them on the seven-hour flight, just long enough to make the contents feel familiar.

“Don’t lose it,” the Turkish man said when he hung it on her arm, and she hadn’t.

The jetway dumped her into the terminal, and she trailed behind a family of five, past gates stretched out like spider legs, along the wall of windows offering a blinding view of the sparkling Mediterranean, a turquoise so bright it burned her eyes. The backpack bounced against her shoulder bone, and her heart gave a quiet, little jingle.

She made it through passport control without issue, thanks to her careful selection of the agent behind the glass. A man, first and foremost. Not too old or too young, not too hand­some. A five to her solid eight—or so she’d been told by more than one man. This one must have agreed because he stamped her passport with an appreciative nod. French men were like that. One smile from a woman out of their league, and they melted like a cream-filled bonbon.

She thanked him and slid her passport into her pocket.

In it were stamps to every country in Europe and the Americas, from her crisscrosses over every continent in­cluding Antarctica, from her detours to bask on the famous beaches of Asia, Australia, the South Seas. More than once, she’d had to renew the booklet long before it expired because she’d run out of empty spots for customs agents to stamp. She was particularly proud of that, and of how she could look any way you wanted her to look, be anyone you needed her to be. Today she was playing the role of American Tourist On A Budget.

At baggage claim, she slid the backpack down an aching shoulder and checked the time on her cell. Just under six hours for this little errand, plenty of time assuming she didn’t hit any unexpected roadblocks. If she didn’t get held up at customs, if the taxi line wasn’t too long, if traffic on the A8 wasn’t too awful, which it would be because getting in and out of Monte Carlo was always a nightmare at this time of year. If if if. If she missed the flight to London, she was screwed.

A buzzer sounded, and the baggage carousel rumbled to a slow spin.

At least she didn’t look any more miserable than the people milling around her, their faces long with jet lag. She caught snippets of conversation in foreign tongues, German, Ital­ian, Arabic, French, and she didn’t need a translator to know they were bitching about the wait. The French were never in a hurry, and they were always striking about something. She wondered what it could be this time.

Thirty-eight eternal minutes later, the carousel spit out her suitcase. She hauled it from the band with a grunt, plopped the heavy backpack on top and followed the stream of tour­ists to the exit.

Walk with purpose. Look the customs agent in the eye. Smile, the fleeting kind with your lips closed, not too big or too cocky. Act breezy like you’ve got nothing to prove or to hide. By now she knew all the tricks.

The customs agent she was paired with was much too young for her liking, his limbs still lanky with the leftovers of pu­berty, which meant he had something to prove to the clus­ter of more senior agents lingering behind him. She ignored their watchful gazes, taking in his shiny forehead, the way it was dotted with pimples, and dammit, he was going to be a problem.

He held up a hand, the universal sign for halt. “Avez-vous quelque chose à déclarer?”

Her fingers curled around the suitcase handle, clamping down. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I don’t speak French.”

That part was the truth, at least. She didn’t speak it, at least not well and not unless she absolutely had to. And her rudi­mentary French wasn’t necessary just yet.

But she understood him well enough, and she definitely knew that last word. He was asking if she had something to declare.

The agent gestured to her suitcase. “Please, may I take a look in your luggage?” His English was heavy with accent, his lips slick with spit, but at least he was polite about it.

She gave a pointed look at the exit a few feet away. On the other side of the motion-activated doors, a line of people leaned against a glass-and-steel railing, fists full of balloons and colorful bouquets. With her free hand, she wriggled her fingers in a wave, even though she didn’t know a single one of them.

She looked back at the agent with another smile. “Is that really necessary? My flight was delayed, and I’m kind of in a hurry. My friends out there have been waiting for hours.”

Calm. Reasonable. Not breaking the slightest sweat.

The skin of his forehead creased in a frown. “This means you have nothing to declare?”

“Only that a saleslady lied to my face about a dress I bought being wrinkle resistant.”

She laughed, but the agent’s face remained as stony as ever.

He beckoned her toward an area behind him, a short hall­way lined with metal tables. “S’il vous plait. The second table.”

Still, she didn’t move. The doors slid open, and she flung an­other glance at the people lined up outside. So close yet so far.

As if he could read her mind, the agent took a calculated step to his left, standing between her and the exit. He swept an insistent arm through the air, giving her little choice. The cluster of agents were paying more attention now.

She huffed a sigh. Straightened her shoulders and gave her bag a hard tug. “Okay, but fair warning. I’m on the tail end of a three-week vacation here, which means everything in my suitcase is basically a giant pile of dirty laundry.”

Again, the truth. Miami to Atlanta to LA to Tokyo to Dubai to Nice, a blur of endless hours with crummy movies and soggy airplane food, of loud, smelly men who drank vodka for breakfast, of kids marching up and down the aisles while everybody else was trying to sleep. What she was wearing was the cleanest thing she had left, and she was still thousands of miles from home.

She let go of the handle, and the suitcase spun and wobbled, whacking the metal leg of the table with a hard clang. Let him lug the heavy thing onto the inspection table himself.

She stood with crossed arms and watched him spread her suitcase open on the table. She wasn’t lying about the laundry or that stupid dress, which currently looked like a crumpled paper bag. He picked through her dirty jeans and rumpled T-shirts, rifled through blouses and skirts. When he got to the wad of dirty underwear, he clapped the suitcase shut.

“See?” she said. “Just a bunch of dirty clothes.”

“And your other bag?”

The backpack dangling from her shoulder, an ugly Tumi knockoff. Her stomach dropped, but she made sure to hold his gaze.

“Nothing in here, either. No meat, no cheese, no forgot­ten fruit. I promise.”

She’d done that once, let an old apple sink to the bottom of her bag for a hyped-up beagle to sniff out, and she paid for it with a forty-five minute wait at a scorching Chilean airport. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.

“Madame, please. Do not make me ask you again.”

The little shit really said it. He really called her madame. This kid who was barely out of high school was making her feel old and decrepit, while in the same breath speaking to her like she was a child. His words were as infuriating as they were alarming. She hooked a thumb under the backpack’s strap, but she didn’t let it go.

And yet what choice did she have? She couldn’t run, not with those senior agents watching. Not with this pubescent kid and his long, grasshopper limbs. He’d catch her in a hot second.

She told herself there was nothing to find. That’s what the Turkish man had promised her with a wink and a smile, that nobody would ever know. He swore she’d cruise right on through customs. And she had, many, many times.

As she slid the backpack from her arm with another dra­matic sigh, she hoped like hell he wasn’t lying. “Please hurry.”

The agent took the bag from her fingers and emptied it out on the table. He took out the paperback and crinkled maga­zines, the half-eaten bag of nuts with the Japanese label, the wallet and the zippered pouch stuffed with well-used cosmet­ics that had never once touched her face. He lined the items up, one after the other, until the contents formed a long, neat row on the shiny metal surface. The backpack hung in his hand, deflated and empty.

She lifted a brow: See?

But then he did something she wasn’t expecting. He turned the backpack upside down, just…upended the thing in the air. Crumbs rained onto the table. A faded receipt fluttered to the ground.

And there it was, a dull but discernible scraping sound, a sudden weight tugging at the muscles in his arm, like some­thing inside the backpack shifted.

But nothing else fell out. There were no internal pockets.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” With a clanging heart, she pointed to the stuff on the table. “Can I put that back now? I really have to go.”

The agent stared at her through a long, weighted silence, like a held breath.

Hers.

He slapped the backpack to the table, and she cringed when he shoved a hand in deep, all the way up to his elbow. He felt around the sides and the bottom, sweeping his fingers around the cheap polyester lining. She saw when he made contact with the source of the noise by the way his face changed.

The muscles in her stomach tightened. “Excuse me, this is ridiculous. Give it back.”

The agent didn’t let go of the backpack. He reached in his other hand, and now there was another terrifying sound—of fabric, being ripped apart at the seams.

“Hey,” she said, lunging for the backpack.

He twisted, blocking her with his body.

A few breathless seconds later he pulled it out, a small, flat object that had been sewn into the backpack lining. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Almost like he’d been looking for it.

“What is this?” he said, holding it in the air between them.

“That’s a book.” It was the only thing she could think of to say, and it wasn’t just any book. It was a gold-illuminated manu­script by a revered fourteenth-century Persian poet, one of the earliest copies from the estate of an Islamic art collector who died in Germany last year. Like most of the items in his collec­tion, this one did not technically belong to him.

“I can see it’s a book. Where did you get it?”

Her face went hot, and she had to steady herself on the metal table—the same one he was settling the book gently on top of. He turned the gold-leafed paper with careful fin­gers, and her mind whirled. Should she plead jet lag? Cry or pretend to faint?

“I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

This, finally, was the truth. Today was the first time she’d seen the book with her own eyes.

The agent looked up from the Arabic symbols on the page, and she didn’t miss the gotcha gleam in his eyes. The way his shiny forehead had gone even shinier now, a million new pin­pricks of satisfied sweat. His gaze flitted over her shoulder, and she understood the gesture perfectly.

He was summoning backup.

She was wondering about French prison conditions.

His smile was like ice water on her skin. “Madame, I must insist you come with me.”

 

Excerpted from THE PARIS WIDOW by Kimberly Belle. Copyright © 2024 by Kimberly Belle. Published by Park Row Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

THE PARIS WIDOW 

Author: Kimberly Belle

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

ISBN: 9780778307976

Format: Trade Paperback

Publisher: Harlequin Trade Publishing / Park Row Books

Price $18.99

Buy Links:

HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-paris-widow-kimberly-belle?variant=41107486801954 

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-paris-widow-original-kimberly-belle/20673937?ean=9780778310723

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-paris-widow-kimberly-belle/1144012778?ean=9780778307976 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=paris+widow&i=stripbooks&crid=4KU7XSQ0O5YV&sprefix=paris+widow%2Cstripbooks%2C83&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 

Social Links:

Author website: https://www.kimberlybellebooks.com/ 

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/kimberlybelle 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KimberlySBelle 

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

Book Summary: 

From USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Belle comes a deliciously twisty new thriller following a married couple vacationing in Paris whose trip takes a dark turn when the husband goes missing, dredging up secrets from both of their pasts, perfect for fans of THE PARIS APARTMENT.

When Stella met Adam, she felt like she finally landed a nice, normal guy – a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. She loves knowing she can always depend on Adam, which is why when he goes missing during a random explosion in Paris, she panics. Right after what is assumed to be a terrorist attack, she’s interviewed live on TV by reporters, begging anyone who knows anything about her husband’s whereabouts to come forward and is quickly dubbed “The Paris Widow.”

As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer in the black market for priceless antiquities, making deals with very high-profile and dangerous clients. Reeling from this news and growing suspicions about her husband, Stella can’t shake the feeling that she’s being followed. And with Adam assumed dead, she realizes that whoever was responsible for the bombing will come after her next. Everything – and everyone -- that Stella has tried to keep in her duplicitous past might be her only means of survival and finding out what really happened to Adam.

An irresistible and fast-paced read set in some of Europe’s most inviting locales, THE PARIS WIDOW explores how sinister secrets of the past stay with us – no matter how far we travel.

Author Bio:

Kimberly Belle worked in marketing and nonprofit fundraising before turning to writing fiction. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Kimberly lived for over a decade in the Netherlands and currently divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam. She is the bestselling author of The Marriage Lie, Three Days Missing, Dear Wife, as well as The Last Breath, The Ones We Trust, Stranger in the Lake, My Darling Husband, and The Personal Assistant.

In the Hour of Crows

 Welcome to my  showcase of In the Hour Of Crows which is been hosted by ark Row Books, Hanover Square Press, MIRA Books, Graydon House, Canary Street Press , HarperCollinsPublishers | Harlequin Trade Publishing

PROLOGUE

I was born in the woods in the hour of crows, when the day is no longer but the night is not yet. Grandmama Agnes brought me into this world with her bare hands. Just as her mother had taught her to do. Just as the mother before her taught. Just as she would teach me. Midwife, herbalist, superstitionist—all the practices of her Appalachian roots passed down for generations.

And a few new tricks picked up along the way.

Before Papaw died, he warned me Grandmama Agnes was wicked. He was wrong. It wasn’t just Grandmama who was wicked; so was I.

I knew it was true the night those twin babies died.

“Weatherly,” Grandmama’s sleep-weary voice woke me that night long ago. “Get your clothes on. Don’t forget your drawers.”

My Winnie the Pooh nightgown, ragged and thin, was something pillaged from the free-clothes bin at church. Laundry was hard to do often when water came from a well and washing powders cost money. So we saved our underwear for the daytime.

My ten-year-old bones ached from the death I talked out of the Bodine sisters earlier that day, the mucus still lodged in my throat. I barked a wet cough to bring it up.

“Here.” Grandmama handed me a blue perfume bottle with a stopper that did not match. I spat the death inside the bottle like always. The thick ooze slipped down the curved lip and blobbed at the bottom. A black dollop ready for someone else to swallow.

It smelled of rotting flesh and tasted like fear.

Sin Eater Oil, Grandmama called it, was like a truth serum for the soul. A few drops baked into a pie, you could find out if your neighbor stole your garden vegetables. Mixed with certain herbs, it enhanced their potency and enlivened the superstitious charms from Grandmama’s magic recipe box.

On a few occasions—no more than a handful of times—when consumed in full, its power was lethal.

Out in front of our cabin sat a shiny new Corvette with hubcaps that shimmered in the moonlight. Pacing on the porch, a shadow of a man. It wasn’t until he stepped into the light did I catch his face. Stone Rutledge. He was taller and thinner and snakier back then.

Bone Layer, a large hardened man who got his name from digging graves for the cemetery, dropped a pine box no longer than me into the back of our truck. He drove us everywhere we needed to be—seeing how Grandmama couldn’t see too good and I was only ten. The three of us followed Stone as his low-slung car dragged and scrapped the dirt road to a farmhouse deep in the woods.

An oil-lit lamp flickered inside. Cries of a woman in labor pushed out into the humid night. Georgia’s summer air was always thick. Suffocating, unbearable nights teeming with insects hell-bent on fighting porch lights.

A woman at the edge of panic for being left in charge greeted us at the door. Pearls draped her neck. Polish shined her perfect nails as she pulled and worked the strand. Her heels click-clacked as she paced the linoleum floor.

Grandmama didn’t bother with pleasantries. She shoved on past with her asphidity bag full of her herbs and midwife supplies and my Sin Eater Oil and went straight for the woman who was screaming. Bone Layer grabbed his shovel and disappeared into the woods.

In the house, I gathered the sheets and the clean towels and boiled the water. I’d never seen this kitchen before, but most things can be found in just about the same place as any other home.

“Why is that child here?” the rich woman, not too good at whispering, asked Stone. Her frightened eyes watched as I tasked out my duties.

“Doing her job. Drink this.” Stone shoved a glass of whiskey at her. She knocked it back with a swift tilt of her head, like tossing medicine down her throat, and handed back the glass for another.

Tiptoeing into the bedroom, I quietly poured the steaming water into the washbasin. The drugged moans of the lady spilled to the floor like a sad melody. A breeze snuck in through the inch of open window and licked the gauzy curtain that draped the bed.

When I turned to hand Grandmama the towels, I eyed the slick black blood that dripped down the sheets.

We weren’t here for a birthing.

We were called to assist with a misbirth.

Fear iced over me when I looked upon the mother.

Then, I saw on the dresser next to where Grandmama stood, two tiny swaddles, unmoving. A potato box sat on the floor. Grandmama slowly turned around at the sound of my sobbing—I hadn’t realized I’d started to cry. Her milky white eyes found mine like always, despite her part-blindness.

Swift and sharp she snatched me by my elbow. Her fingers dug into my flesh as she ushered me over to the dresser to see what I had caused.

“You’ve soured their souls,” she said in a low growl. I looked away, not wanting to see their underdeveloped bodies. Her bony hand grabbed my face. Her grip crushing my jaw as she forced me to look upon them. Black veins of my Sin Eater Oil streaked across their gnarled lifeless bodies. “This is your doing, child. There’ll be a price to pay for y’all going behind my back.” For me, and Aunt Violet.

Aunt Violet took some of my Sin Eater Oil weeks ago. I assumed it was for an ailing grandparent who was ready for Jesus; she never said who. She said not to tell. She said Grandmama wouldn’t even notice it was missing.

So I kept quiet. Told the thing in my gut that said it was wrong to shut up. But she gave my Sin Eater Oil to the woman writhing in pain in front of me, so she could kill her babies. Shame welled up inside me.

Desperately, I looked up to Grandmama. “Don’t let the Devil take me.”

Grandmama beamed, pleased with my fear. “There’s only one way to protect you, child.” The glint in her eyes sent a chill up my spine.

No. I shook my head. Not that—her promise of punishment, if ever I misused my gift. Tears slivered down my cheeks.

“It wasn’t me!” I choked out, but she only shook her head.

“We must cleanse your soul from this sin and free you from the Devil’s grasp. You must atone.” Grandmama rummaged through her bag and drew out two items: the match hissed to life as she set fire to a single crow claw. I closed my eyes and turned away, unable to watch. That didn’t stop me from knowing.

The mother’s head lolled over at the sound of my crying. Her red-rimmed eyes gazed my way. “You!” she snarled sloppily at me. Her hair, wild, stuck to the sweat on her face. The black veins of my Sin Eater Oil spiderwebbed across her belly, a permanent tattoo that matched that of her babies. “The Devil’s Seed Child,” the lady slurred from her vicious mouth. The breeze whipped the curtains in anger. Oh, that hate in her eyes. Hate for me.

Grandmama shoved me into the hall, where I was to stay put. The rich woman pushed in. The door opened once more, and that wooden potato box slid out.

The mother wailed as the rich lady cooed promises that things would be better someday. The door closed tight behind us, cries echoing off the walls.

I shared the dark with the slit of the light and wondered if she’d ever get her someday.

Quick as lightning, my eyes flitted to the box, then back to the ugly wallpaper dating the hallway. My curiosity poked me. It gnawed until I peeked inside.

There on their tiny bodies, the mark of a sinner. A crow’s claw burned on their chest. Same as the Death Talker birthmark over my heart. Grandmama branded them so Jesus would know I was to blame.

That woman was right—I was the Devil’s Seed Child.

So I ran.

I ran out the door and down the road.

I ran until my feet grew sore and then ran some more.

I ran until the salt dried on my face and the tears stopped coming.

I was rotten, always rotten. As long as my body made the Sin Eater Oil, I’d always be rotten. Exhausted, I fell to my knees. From my pocket, I pulled out the raggedy crow feather I now kept with me. I curled up on the side of the road between a tree and a stump, praying my wishes onto that feather.

Devil’s Seed Child, I whispered, and repeated in my mind.

It was comforting to own it, what I was. The rightful name for someone who could kill the most innocent among us.

I blew my wish on the feather and set it free in the wind.

A tiny object tumbled in front of my face. Shiny as the hubcaps on Stone’s car. A small gold ring with something scrolled on the flat front. I quirked my head sideways to straighten my view. A fancy script initial R.

“Don’t cry,” a young voice spoke. Perched on the rotting stump above, a boy, just a pinch older than I. Shorn dark hair and clothes of all black.

I smiled up at him, a thank-you for the gift.

“Weatherly!” A loud bark that could scare the night caused me to jump. Bone Layer had a voice that did that to people, though he didn’t use it often.

Over my head, a black wisp flew toward the star-filled sky, and the boy was gone. I snatched up the ring and buried it in my pocket as Bone Layer came to retrieve me. He scooped me up as easy as a doll. His shirt smelled of sweat and earth and bad things to come.

Grandmama’s punishment was meant to save me; I leaned into that comfort. Through the Lord’s work, she’d keep me safe. Protect me. If I strayed from her, I might lose my soul.

Grandmama was right; I must atone.

The truck headlights pierced the woods as Bone Layer walked deeper within them. Grandmama waited at the hole in the ground with the Bible in her hand and the potato box at her feet.

Stone and the rich woman watched curiously as they ushered the mother into their car. The wind howled through the trees. They exchanged horrid looks and hurried words, then fled back into the house, quick as thieves.

Bone Layer gently laid me in the pine box already lowered into the shallow hole he done dug. Deep enough to cover, not enough for forever.

“Will they go to Heaven?” I asked from the coffin, as Grandmama handed me one bundle, then the other. I nestled them into my chest. I had never seen something so little. Light as air in my arms. Tiny things. Things that never had a chance in this world. They smelled sickly sweet; a scent that made me want to retch.

Grandmama tucked my little Bible between my hands. I loved that Bible. Pale blue with crinkles in the spine from so much discovery. On the front, a picture of Jesus, telling a story to two little kids.

“Will they go to Heaven?” I asked again, panicked when she didn’t answer. Fear rose up in my throat, and I choked on my tears. Fear I would be held responsible if their souls were not saved.

Grandmama’s face was flat as she spoke the heartless truth. “They are born from sin, just like you. They were not wanted. They are not loved.” Her words stung like always.

“What if I love them? Will they go to Heaven if I love them?”

Her wrinkled lips tightened across her yellow and cracked teeth, insidious. “You must atone,” she answered instead. Then smiled, not with empathy but with pleasure; she was happy to deliver this punishment, glad of the chance to remind me of her power.

“I love them, Grandmama. I love them,” I professed with fierceness. I hoped it would be enough. To save their souls. To save my own. “I love them, Grandmama,” I proclaimed with all my earnest heart. To prove it, I smothered the tops of their heads with kisses. “I love them, Grandmama.” I kept repeating this. Kept kissing them as Bone Layer grabbed the lid to my pine box. He held it in his large hands, waiting for Grandmama to move out of his way.

“You believe me, don’t you?” I asked her. Fear and prayer filled every ounce of my body. If I loved them enough, they’d go to Heaven. If I atoned, maybe I would, too. I squeezed my eyes tight and swore my love over and over and over.

She frowned down on me. “I believe you, child. For sin always enjoys its own company.”

She promptly stood. Her black dress swished across the ground as she moved out of the way. Then Bone Layer shut out the light, fastening the lid to my box.

Muffled sounds of dirt scattered across the top as he buried me alive.

 

Excerpted from IN THE HOUR OF CROWS by Dana Elmendorf. Copyright © 2024 by Dana Elmendorf. Published by MIRA Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

IN THE HOUR OF CROWS 

Author: Dana Elmendorf

Publication Date: June 4, 2024

ISBN: 9780778310495

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Harlequin Trade Publishing / MIRA

Price $28.99

Buy Links:

HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/in-the-hour-of-crows-dana-elmendorf?variant=41105349050402 

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/in-the-hour-of-crows-original-dana-elmendorf/20588600?ean=9780778310495

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-the-hour-of-crows-dana-elmendorf/1144020590?ean=9780778310495 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=in+the+hour+of+crows&i=stripbooks&crid=2L6W8I50ZU8NA&sprefix=in+the+hour+of+crow%2Cstripbooks%2C93&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 

Social Links:

Author website: https://www.danaelmendorf.com/p/home.html 

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12099732.Dana_Elmendorf  

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

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

Book Summary: 

An engrossing and atmospheric debut that follows young Weatherly Wilder as she uses her unique gift to solve her cousin’s mysterious murder and prove her own innocence, set in the beautiful wilds of Appalachia and imbued with magic realism.

In a small town in rural Georgia, Appalachian roots and traditions still run deep. Folks paint their houses blue to keep the spirits way. Black ferns grow, it’s said, where death will follow. And Weatherly Wilder’s grandmother is a local Granny Witch, relied on for help delivering babies, making herbal remedies, tending to the sick—and sometimes serving up a fatal dose of revenge when she deems it worthy. Hyper-religious, she rules Weatherly with an iron fist; because Weatherly has a rare and covetable gift: she’s a Death Talker. Weatherly, when called upon, can talk the death out of the dying; only once, never twice. But in her short twenty years on this Earth this gift has taken a toll, rooting her to the small town that only wants her around when they need her and resents her backwater ways when they don’t—and how could she ever leave, if it meant someone could die while she was gone?

Weatherly’s best friend and cousin, Adaire, also has a gift: she’s a Scryer; she can see the future reflected back in a dark surface, usually her scrying pan. Right before she’s hit and in a bicycle accident, Adaire saw something unnerving in the pan, that much Weatherly knows, and she is certain this is why the mayor killed her cousin—she doesn’t believe for a moment that it was an accident. But when the mayor’s son lays dying and Weatherly, for the first time, is unable to talk the death of him, the whole town suspects she was out for revenge, that she wouldn’t save him. Weatherly, with the help of Adaire’s spirit, sets out to prove her own innocence and find Adaire’s killer, no matter what it takes.

Author Bio:

Dana Elmendorf was born and raised in small town in Tennessee. She now lives in Southern California with her husband, two boys and two dogs. When she isn’t exercising, she can be found geeking out with Mother Nature. After four years of college and an assortment of jobs, she wrote a contemporarty YA novel. This is her adult debut.