Saturday, August 2, 2025

The Dead Come to Stay

 Welcome to my blog stop for  The Dead Come to Stay which is been hosted by  Harlequin Trade Publishing | Hanover Square Press




The Dead Come to Stay

By Brandy Schillace

On Sale: August 5, 2025

Imprint: Hanover Square Press

Hardcover 




Buy Links:

HarperCollins https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-dead-come-to-stay-brandy-schillace?variant=43118709571618 

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1335121870/keywords=mystery%2Bbooks?tag=harpercollinsus-20 

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dead-come-to-stay-brandy-schillace/1146233457 






The man on the doorstep of Jo’s cottage dripped rainwater; it trickled from wet-plastered hair to overcoat gun flap and onto the overnight bag clutched under one arm. Jo had remembered to say hello, but that didn’t stop him staring at her, all wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He reminded her of a disheveled pigeon after colliding with a windowpane.

“Mr. Ronan Foley?” Jo asked, stepping back to give him entry room.

“I—Yes.” He shuffled onto the flagstone cottage entry. “I—I thought keys would be in a lockbox?”

“Um?” Jo had practiced every opening line, but not this one. She blinked twice. “I have the keys for you. It’s for an attic en suite . . . in my . . . house.”

“You live here?” The way he looked around himself wasn’t entirely complimentary; Jo chose the high road.

“Don’t worry! You’ll have total privacy,” she insisted. That was the point of going through all that trouble of installing a full bath on the second level (including hoisting a freestanding tub through the attic casements, quite a feat when you’re five foot four and one hundred fifteen pounds soaking wet).

“Of course, of course,” muttered Mr. Foley. “You . . . meet all your guests in person?”

Jo decided not to tell him he was her first guest. Or that she’d locked her knees to keep from bouncing up and down with nervous energy. She also fought to urge to ask if he was Irish. In- stead, she dangled the keys.

“The door at the top of the stairs locks with the minikey,” she said. “The brass ones are for the front door and dead bolt.”

“Thank you, Ms…?”

“Jones. Jo Jones.” She smiled, probably a little too much. He had a broad face and smile lines, but he wasn’t smiling now. “Al- ways ask if you can get them something,” Tula had said when she informed her about her decision to rent the cottage. “It’s welcoming.” Wise words from the Red Lion innkeeper and the one person Jo considered a truly close friend. She might have suggested what to offer.

“I could get you . . . something? I can cook. Well. I can warm things up. Actually, I can drive into town and get food. Or maybe you’re thirsty?”

“Tea,” the man said, and of course he would say tea. They were in Yorkshire.

“Yes! Yes, that I can do. And cookies. You don’t call them cookies—but little shortbreads with the jam in the middle?”

Maybe it was the fact that Jo had forgotten to call them tea biscuits, or maybe it had to do with the fact she wasn’t taking breaths between sentences, but the startled pigeon suddenly began to  laugh. It worked a change in him, shaking all the stiffness out.

“Tea biscuits. You’re American—you are, aren’t you?” “Erm” was the best she could do, but now, now he smiled. 

“Delighted,” he said, shaking her hand. “May I?” He pointed up the stairwell, but Jo looked at his wet mackintosh. Obviously, he needed to clean up. And she should, as they say, put the kettle on instead of jawing at him like an idiot. He hadn’t actually waited for an answer, though, just gave the keys a jingle and disappeared up the stairs.

This wasn’t how she’d pictured her first experience as a host— and she’d run every possible scenario right down to the mise-en-scène. She’d try again when he came downstairs. Better make it a big plate of biscuits.

* * * 

Jo hadn’t wanted to rent out her little cottage, but the attic was empty, and her bank account soon would be as well if she didn’t find some work. A year ago when she’d first moved to England, Jo had envisioned herself freelance editing, but that still hadn’t taken off yet. Plus, she had been spending all of her time in the Abington Archive searching for any scant information about her ancestors with the long-suffering elder museum curator, Roberta Wilkinson. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly a moneymaking endeavor. It was obsession.

But she couldn’t help it: Jo had moved to the Ardemore property last year in a surprise inheritance following the death of her mother, who conveniently never mentioned that her will would leave Jo with a giant crumbling manor home (unlivable), the small cottage attached (slightly more livable) or the gardens upon which they were built, which turned out to be quite famous. The cottage made for a simple, straightforward home that suited Jo nicely, but she’d learned in a hurry that the manor across the hill housed only secrets.

The mysteries of her ancestors William and Gwen, for ex- ample, who had lived in the estate house a century prior. They were lord and lady so to speak; their portraits had hung regally in the estate house as a constant reminder of their strange marriage and even stranger living arrangement with Gwen’s sister, Evelyn. Some handwritten letters revealed that Evelyn and William were having an affair. How much sister Gwen knew about it all was unclear.

Jo had been the one to bring all this to light last year when she discovered, buried beneath the crumbling estate, the remains of Evelyn herself—and the telltale signs of pregnancy etched in her bones. Curiously, no remains of a child were found with her, only a hope chest filled with baby clothes buried in the garden and the letters between her and William.

The questions surrounding the strange love triangle at Ardemore estate a century ago and what exactly happened to Evelyn’s child haunted Jo, but the constant dead ends threatened to drive her mad. Even Roberta, who worked in a museum after all, was ready to let it go.

“Face facts,” said the crusty old woman; the Ardemores had always been a “bad lot” who didn’t care about community, and Evelyn and her baby “obviously” died in childbirth. Time to focus on the better part of the Ardmore property: Jekyll Gardens, about to open to the public in an event that would be historic for the town of Abington.

The kettle whistled and Jo jumped; she usually tried to stop it before the unholy screech. She poured hot water in the pot and steeped; if her sojourn in the north of England had taught anything, it was to never leave the tea bag in.

Her guest was awkward. But so was she. This could work.

She reached into the cupboard for the package of Jammie Dodgers. Jo bought them because, as a New Yorker, “Dodgers” would always mean Brooklyn, even though they had been in LA since 1957. Of course, there was the Artful Dodger, too, from Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. A silly name for cookies, maybe, but the mix of American baseball and Victorian pickpocket ap- pealed to her sense of incongruity.

She emptied the whole box onto the tea tray, and by the time she reached the living room, the man was standing in front of her. Clean and tidy and now in proper lighting, he offered her the chance for a better look.

Face: full, square at the jaw. Hair: dark and wet, combed back behind the ears. Mud-flecked black trousers had been changed to another pair, also black. Rather baggy. The blue button-down shirt was damp at the collar.

“How long were you standing in the rain?” Jo asked. “You were very wet.”

“Sorry? “Oh. Yes. It’s—I didn’t have an umbrella.” He touched the curl at his temple with a wandering fingertip.

Had she been rude? She held out the plate of biscuits to offer him one. He gave her the smile again. Salesman smile, she thought, but his eyes settled on the Dodgers with evident plea- sure.

“You’re out of the way, living up here.”

“Sort of. We’re close to the trails, though, and you can’t get any nearer the Jekyll Gardens.” Jo flapped a hand toward the window. “You’ll practically be on the doorstep for tomorrow’s opening ceremony.”

That had been the entire point of finishing preparations for renting the cottage by May: the Jekyll Gardens Opening Celebration. Jo may have lost her ancestral home to a fire, but finding out that it was built on a garden designed by the renowned Gertrude Jekyll   Well, it was one for the books. The falling-down house at the edge of town had suddenly become a site of national historical significance. The whole National Trust seemed to have checked into the Red Lion inn.

“You’re lucky,” Jo added, hugging her knees in the rocking chair. “I barely got the weblink up before you booked in— otherwise there’d be stiff competition for a room, I’d bet.”

He hadn’t answered either comment, or her attempt at a joke, just chewed a sticky biscuit and drank tea. Jo felt a prickle run down her spine; was she not supposed to make chitchat? Wasn’t that part of hosting duties? He’d looked at the clock twice, but after swallowing, he refocused on her.

“I’m afraid I didn’t know about it. Just traveling through on business.”

“Oh! But you’re here at just the right time! The National Trust is opening the garden tomorrow — it’s where the manor house used to be. Big party!”

“Sorry, a manor? I didn’t see anything nearby . . .”

Jo jumped up and joined him by the window, pointing to the dark distance. “Well, you can’t really see it from here. But just beyond the trees is Ardemore House. What was once Ardemore House, at least.”

“So, it’s a ruin?” her guest asked, and gulped his tea.

“Well, it is now. It was deserted for almost a century. The property was supposed to be in the care of my uncle Aiden in the nineties, but he never really tended to it. Didn’t even live here, in fact.” 

Jo looked up to see her guest gaping at her and stopped short. “So you are a newcomer to Yorkshire, then?” he asked. Jo al- most laughed. He wasn’t exactly hanging on every word, was he? “A yearling, I guess,” she admitted. “I came here to start over after my divorce and the death of my mom last year. I didn’t realize inheriting the estate would be so . . . complicated.”

She felt herself at risk of rambling again, so she pulled out her phone and flipped to her photo library. “Here’s the Ardemore House before. Here it is after the fire last year, still smoking. I was inside it when it burned down.”

“You—What?”

Jo’s finger kept swiping through the pictures. “That’s the gar- den workmen over summer, and here is the original Gertrude Jekyll plan, and this—” Jo stopped at last on the National Trust page “—this is the announcement of its opening tomorrow! I’m sort of, em—part of the—committee.”

Mr. Ronan Foley looked down dutifully at a bright summer green event ad: open time at 10:00 a.m., official ceremony at noon, under pavilion, rain or shine. He didn’t say anything. Again. And Jo felt her heart hammering. Uncertain about chit- chat, she’d instead launched into full-blown special interest lecture. Nice, Jo.

Or was it her reference to the fire? She’d got used to everyone knowing about all of that; it had caused quite a commotion in Abington. There’d even been interviews for the paper.

“Very interesting.” His eyes roved about the room in a full circuit. Then he smiled, genuinely and wide. A surprised smile. “Well, it would be my pleasure to come.”

Crap, Jo thought. She’d got a hapless rain-soaked business- man who booked the cottage only because he couldn’t get into a hotel. 

And now she’d accidentally invited him to the gardens.

“You know, you really don’t have to—” she began.

“No, I do. It’s a wonderful idea. So many locals will be there, new people to meet. You can expect me  ” His eyes strayed to the enormous painting over the fireplace even as he spoke. “My goodness. Beautiful painting.”

Evelyn’s portrait. It would be hard to miss. The near-life-size painting took up most of the chimney. The gilt frame glinted, offering the perfect contrast to the moody scene within: a woman with strange, distant eyes, a face simultaneously demure and retiring, fierce and resistant. She sat against a back- drop of flowers—yet the sky was a haze of storm.

“Yes. Evelyn Davies,” Jo said. “An ancestor.”

Do not recite your family history. Do not mention that she was buried under the house.


From THE DEAD COME TO STAY  by BRANDY SCHILLACE. Copyright 2025 by BRANDY SCHILLACE. Published by Hanover, an imprint of HTP Books/HarperCollins.  





bout the book: 

A delightful new cozy crime novel from the award-winning author of the "twisty, engaging, and thoroughly unexpected" (Deanna Raybourne) The Framed Women of Ardemore House

An amateur autistic sleuth. A wry English detective. A murder case that thrusts them both into the wealthy world of the rare artifacts trade...

Jo Jones can't seem to catch a break. Trading in city life for the cozy, peaceful hills of North Yorkshire to take over her family estate should have been a chance for a "fresh start.” Instead, she's been driven further into the past than she thought possible -- and not just her own. The estate property is littered with traces of ancestors that Jo never knew existed, including the mysterious woman in a half-destroyed painting – and hints about Jo's late uncle, who may hold the key to her cryptic family history. Then there’s the gossipy town politics Jo must constantly navigate as a neurodivergent transplanted American… And of course, the whole murder business.

When prickly town detective James MacAdams discovers a body in the moors with coincidental ties to Jo Jones, they're forced to team up on the case. The clues will lead them into the wealthiest locales of Yorkshire, from sparkling glass hotels to luxury property sites to elite country clubs. But below the glittering surfaces, Jo and MacAdams discover darker schemes brewing. Local teens, many of them international refugees, are disappearing left and right, and each case is somehow linked to a shady architectural firm -- which also happened to employ the dead man from the moor-side ditch.

What begins as  bizarre murder case quickly plunges them both into the black market world of rare artifacts and antique trading... and a murderer who will do anything to cover it up.










Social Links:

Author Website: https://brandyschillace.com/ 

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/bschillace.brandyschillace.com 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeculiarBookClub

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


About the Author: BRANDY SCHILLACE is the author of several works of nonfiction, including Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher. She is the creator of Peculiar Book Club, a twice-monthly live-streamed YouTube show. A former professor of English and gothic literature, she writes about gender politics and history, medical mystery, and neurodiversity for outlets such as Scientific AmericanWired, CrimeReads, and Medium. She is also autistic, though has not (to her knowledge) been a suspect in a murder investigation.


Saturday, July 5, 2025

GRAVE BIRDS

 Welcome to my showcase for  GRAVE BIRDS which is  been hosted by  HarperCollins

Hanover Square Press | MIRA | Park Row Books 



Title: Grave Birds

Author: Dana Elmendorf

Publication Date: July 1, 2025

ISBN: 9780778387473

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Harlequin Trade Publishing / MIRA

Price $28.99


Buy Links:

HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/grave-birds-dana-elmendorf 

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/grave-birds-original-dana-elmendorf/21769936

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grave-birds-dana-elmendorf/1146225172 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Grave-Birds-Novel-Dana-Elmendorf/dp/077838747X 



PROLOGUE


Sometimes the dead have unfinished business. “You see it, don’t you, Hollis?” Mr. Royce Gentry’s deep, rumbling voice stamped the air with white puffs. He squatted

low next to my chair and nodded toward my grandaddy’s grave where his coffin was being lowered into the ground. The men, Grandaddy’s dearest friends, slowly filled in the dirt, one mournful shovelful at a time.


Cold frosted the morning dew into a thin white crust that covered the grass. There, off to the side, was a little bluebird, tethered to the earth by an invisible thread. It twittered a helpless, frantic sound as it desperately flapped, struggling to get loose. Delicate and transparent, it looked as if it was made of colored air. Muted, so the hues didn’t quite punch through. It was a pitiful sight, the poor thing trying so hard to get back up in the sky.


A ghost bird, I had first thought when I saw it. Until I looked around and found there were many, many more in the cemetery. 


It was a grave bird.


I swallowed hard and pretended I didn’t know what Mr. Gentry was talking about. “No, sir. I don’t see nothing,” I said as I continued to stare at the phantom.


He gave me a scrutinizing look. He saw the lie in my eyes. But he let it go, for the now anyways.


I was only eleven; I didn’t want to admit I was different. But I knew I was whether I liked it or not and would always be.


I had never so much as uttered a hello to Mr. Gentry until five days before. He’s the one who pulled me from the freezing river and brought me back to life. Not by means of magic or a miracle, but with science: medical resuscitation for thirty-two minutes.


But a miracle happened all the same.


The adults stood around my grandaddy’s grave, murmuring their condolences to my granny and my momma. It was that awkward moment after a funeral is finished where everyone seemed lost about what to do next, but we all knew we were going back to Granny’s house to a slew of casseroles and desserts that would barely get eaten. Two of my distant cousins, bored from the bother of my grandfather dying, kicked around a fallen pine cone over an even more distant relative’s nearby grave. Mrs. Yancey, our neighbor up the road, had just taken my twin brothers home since they were squalling something terrible, confused as to why we would trap Granddaddy in the ground. I watched as Mr. Gentry talked closely to Mrs. Belmont’s son, who was visiting from New York City, but his flirting, normally an immersed habit, was on autopilot as he watched me watching the grave bird. Could Mr. Gentry see it, too?


Mr. Gentry was a Southern gentleman, who put a great deal of care into perfecting the standard. His suits were custom-made from a tailor in Charleston, who drove up just to measure him,

then hand-delivered the pieces when they were finished. It didn’t matter your standing in society, Mr. Gentry treated the most common among us as his equal.


He lived a lush lifestyle, filled with grand parties attended by foreign dignitaries, congressmen and anyone powerful he could gain favor with. Several times a year he traveled across Europe,

something his job as a foreign consultant required of him. His friends, just as colorful as him, lived life to the fullest. A dedicated husband once, until his wife found interest in someone half her age. His two grown daughters, who didn’t respect his choice in who to love, eventually wanted nothing to do with him. I think it left a big hole in his heart and what drew him to help our family out.


In the weeks after the funeral, Mr. Gentry began to fill the empty space in our lives where Grandaddy once stood. It started with an offer to cover the funeral costs, a gesture my granny refused at first, but it was money we didn’t have and desperately needed. Then it was the crooked porch he insisted on fixing. Rolled up his starched white sleeves and did it himself, like hard labor was something he was used to doing. The henhouse fence got mended next. A tire on the tractor that hadn’t run in a year was replaced. Then our bellies grew accustomed to feeling full on fine meals he swore were simply leftovers from his latest dinner party. They were going to be tossed, and we were doing him a favor by taking them off his hands. Beef Wellington, with its buttery crust and tender meat center, so savory I’d melt in my chair from the sheer bliss of a single bite. It felt sacrilegious to eat lobster bisque from Granny’s cracked crockery, but that didn’t stop me from slurping up every last creamy bite. And nothing yanked me out of the bed faster than the sweet buttermilk and vanilla scent of beignets. If a stomach could smile, I’m sure mine did. And often, whenever Mr. Gentry needed his fridge clear.


There’s a bond that comes with somebody saving your life. Our friendship became something built on the purest of love. Where he had stepped into my life and filled the important role my grandaddy had once represented, I helped him heal the ache from being denied the chance to be a loving father.


A few months after my grandfather was put in the ground, Uncle Royce—who he eventually became—took me back out to the church’s cemetery. He sat me down on the graveyard bench, a place you go when you want to sit a spell with the dead. The mound of dirt from my grandfather’s grave had rounded from the heavy rain, slowly melting back into the earth.


He told me what I already knew, that I would be different now after the accident. He knew because the same thing had happened to him.


“You and I share something special,” Uncle Royce started his story. We were two people who had been clinically dead then brought back to life. Lazarus syndrome he said they called

it. Only months ago for me. Near forty years for him.


He had died for twelve minutes. Knocked plum out of his shoes when a car hit him at twenty-two

years old. He says he stood over himself, barefoot, watching them work on his body. He thought he was going to ascend into the bright light but instead was sucked back into his body and woke up a few days later in the hospital.


A chill shivered up my spine: it was almost exactly what I had experienced.


I had felt myself float up and away from the river; I was no longer cold and wet. Sad or scared. An aura of peace enveloped me—or rather became me.


It had seemed like I hovered there forever in that state of infinite understanding. A warmth emanated from above, a light formed from all that came before me.


From the bright light my grandfather’s voice reached out. His gentle words, simply known and not heard, urged me to go back. It wasn’t my time yet. My place was still at home.


In a swooping rush, I was vacuumed back inside myself. I spat up a gush of water. My lungs burned. My body was freezing cold again. And Mr. Gentry was smiling down on me saying, “That a girl. Get it all out.” Far off down the road an ambulance cried that it was coming.


“You know what I think they are?” Uncle Royce said now, pointing to all the birds who were trapped, defeated, most of the color leached from their feathers. I didn’t say anything, still not

wanting to confirm that he was right, that I could see them. I just listened. “I think they’re a kind of representation—a manifestation— of the dead’s unresolved issues.” I didn’t know what

he meant by that, but it sounded heavy and important, and that felt about right.


I could see it, in a way. Granddaddy had been mad at me before we went off the bridge. I’d stolen a gold-colored haircomb, complete with rhinestones across its curved top, as pretty as a

peacock’s feathers, from Roy’s Drugstore. When Granddaddy found out, he had yanked me up by the arm, angry that the preacher’s granddaughter would shame her family in such a manner.


He was scolding on the truck ride home when I started crying about not having pretty things like the other girls at school. He paused his lecture for a minute, and I could tell this bothered him; I could see the way it saddened his eyes. He was the preacher at a poor country church where shoes were often scuffed, clothes mended instead of replaced, and a good meal was something scarce. Family and Jesus were what was important. I found I felt small next to all the wealthy girls who attended the big, fancy church with their new shoes, their starched dresses, the silk ribbons in their hair. It made my poverty stand out, and I didn’t like it.


Then Granddaddy said envy was one of the seven deadly sins, and I was setting myself up for a lifetime of grief by wanting others to love me for what I had instead of who I was. Shame welled over me, whether he intended it to or not. 


I was crying something fierce, but I knew he was right.


But hard lessons aren’t easy to accept. Instead of apologizing or even letting him know I understood, I told him I hated him. Screamed it as loud as my young lungs could. Couldn’t say who it shocked more, him or me. I wished those words back into my mouth as soon as they were out.


But it was too late.


A construction truck crossed the road on our right, not waiting long enough for other cars or paying enough attention. It smashed into the side of our truck and pushed us over the railing

and off the bridge, down into the Greenie River.


“You should tell him you forgive him,” Uncle Royce said, pointing to the mound of earth under which my grandaddy now lay.


“Forgive him?” Clearly, he didn’t understand. I was the one who’d stolen something, who’d made my own grandaddy so ashamed, so disappointed. I was the one who’d spewed words of hate in our last moments together.


I had survived, and my grandaddy was dead.


If I hadn’t have stolen that comb, he never would have come to town to fetch me. 


He never would have died.


“He doesn’t want you to think it’s your fault. He feels bad he scolded you so severely over stealing that haircomb.”


I turned my head slowly toward Uncle Royce. He couldn’t have known about the comb: no one did. “How do you know about that?” I said on whispered breath, almost too faint to hear.


He looked me straight in the eye. “Because his grave bird

showed me.”


Excerpted from GRAVE BIRDS by Dana Elmendorf. Copyright © 2025 by Dana Elmendorf. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollins.




Book Summary: 

Grave birds haunt the cemeteries of Hawthorne, South Carolina, where Spanish moss drips from the trees and Southern charm hides ugly lies. Hollis Sutherland never knew these unique birds existed, not until she died and was brought back to life. The ghostly birds are manifestations of the dead’s unfinished business, and they know Hollis and her uncanny gift can set them free.

When a mysterious bachelor wanders into the small town, bizarre events begin to plague its wealthiest citizens—blood drips from dogwood blossoms, flocks of birds crash into houses, fire tornadoes descend from the sky. Hollis knows these are the omens her grandfather warned about, announcing the devil’s return. But despite Cain Landry’s eerie presence and the plague that has followed him, his handsome face and wicked charm win over the townsfolk. Even Hollis falls under his spell as they grow closer.

That is, until lies about the town’s past start to surface. The grave birds begin to show Hollis the dead’s ugly deeds from some twenty-five years ago and the horrible things people did to gain their wealth. Hollis can’t decide if Cain is some immortal hand of God, there to expose their sins, or if he’s a devil there to ruin them all. Either way, she’s determined to save her town and the people in it, whatever 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 contemporary YA novel and an adult fantasy.

Monday, June 2, 2025

SEVEN YEAR ITCH

 Welcome to my showcase for Seven Year Itch which is been hosted by   HarperCollins and Harlequin 






Seven Year Itch

Amy Daws

On Sale Date: June 17, 2025

9781335475862

Hardcover

$30.00 USD

384 pages



BUY LINKS:

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

seven-year-itch-amy-daws?variant=43171232415778 

Bookshop.org: 

https://bookshop.org/a/397/9781335081612 

B&N: 

http://aps.harpercollins.com/hc?isbn=9781335081612&retailer=barnesandnoble 

Books A Million: 

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9781335081612 

Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=9781335081612&tag=hcg-02-20 



Prologue ALONE AND LOOKING TO BONE! LOUDMOUTHED MOUNTAIN MAN SEEKS FIERY FEMALE TO STEAM UP HIS LOG CABIN Calder, 35 years old 🎓 Fletcher Mountain University đź’Ľ Full-time cat daddy with a side-hustle in screwing and nailing 📍 14 miles away Height: 6'3" at the doctor, 6'5" at the bar Eyes: Blue and Full of Feelings Body: Toned and overly inked to conceal my real personality Personality: My mom says I’m great 🍆 Size: Not as big as my brother Luke’s but honorable mention What I do on a typical day: Mountainside strolls with my cat strapped to my chest. Self-summary: I might be tall, tattooed, bearded, and all the classic things one might look for in a rugged mountain man . . . but like an onion plucked from the soil, you must peel back the dirty layers to see the moist inner belly that shows my true essence. I’m not a “go with the flow” kind of guy. I catch feelings with direct eye contact. If you don’t text me back within an hour, I’ll probably cry a little before showing up to your house to see if you’re cheating on me. I once had a girl hold the door open for me, and afterward I asked her, “What are we?” The other day, a bartender poured me the wrong beer and let me drink it for free . . . it was a weird way for him to propose, but I said yes. If you like the taste of my potent onion, swipe right and let’s giggle and make some soup together. Chapter 1 CAT DADDY Calder “What the actual fuck,” I state out loud, and my cat, Milkshake, lets out a high-pitched meow from where she sits on my naked chest. I sit up, clutching her black-and-white fur to me for comfort as I use my free hand to scroll through my Tinder account. “Have I been hacked?” My eyes scan over the contents of my dating profile, knowing damn well I didn’t write a single word of this. Catch feelings with direct eye contact? I don’t catch feelings. I catch boners with a light breeze. I catch ladies’ attention with my tattoos and muscles. Feelings? Fuck feelings! “Can Tinder profiles get hacked?” I ask Milkshake who tips her head up to me and drags her sandpaper tongue over my beard. “Who gives a fuck about someone’s dating life enough to mess with their profiles? There has to be way cooler things to hack.” I quickly check my other hookup apps that I keep armed and ready at all times and see the same long-term relationship bullshit spewing out of every one of them. Make some soup together? My God. This is the complete opposite of what I look for in these apps. I’m very clear about that. Who the hell did this? I reread the penis-size line, and my eyes narrow. “Fucking Luke,” I growl and stand up from the sofa to stomp across the knotty pine flooring of my small cabin. I glance out the window that faces uphill to see if his truck is here as I drop a soft kiss to my cat’s ear. “Someone’s gonna die today,” I coo in a saccharine voice to my girl. Without putting a shirt on, I throw the baby carrier on my chest and stuff Milkshake inside. That was the only part of the hacked profile that was true, but dammit, little fuzz loves being outside. And there’s way too much wildlife around here to let her run free. So when my future sister-in-law, Trista, gave me a cat carrier to help Milkshake enjoy the great outdoors safely, that meant I turned into a big, tatted mountain man who wears a cat more often than not. Come at me. Fuzz gets to enjoy the fresh air and mountain scenery, and I get to sleep at night, not worrying she’s going to get eaten by the coyotes that roam the dense forest surrounding us. Milkshake secure, I storm out in the bristly early March temperatures, the cool air doing its best to cool down my fiery temper as I make my way to Luke’s to tear him a new asshole, but an errant thought stops me in my tracks. I pivot to look downhill at the cabin on the other side of my place. Maybe the Luke dick-size comparison on my profile was a diversion to get me off my older brother Wyatt’s trail. I certainly have payback coming from Wyatt after posting a Help Wanted ad for him last year at the local bar when he was looking for a baby mama. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t work. The fucker is probably tucked inside his architecturally obnoxious cabin cuddling his fiancĂ©e and their nearly three-month-old daughter, Stevie, in front of his stone fireplace, watching the snow melt outside the window. Gives me the ick. My brother went from never wanting a wife so much that he was looking for a surrogate to have a baby for him to now preparing to fly us all to Mexico so we can watch him marry his incubator-turned-fiancĂ©e in a couple of weeks. It’s enough to make a guy puke. Not that I dislike Trista. She’s cool, and I’m low-key obsessed with my niece that she gave birth to a few months ago. The two of them are fine additions to Fletcher Mountain along with the pick-and-mix assortment of farm animals that keep showing up in the red barn located down the drive. But my two brothers and I made a pact nearly a decade ago: us three and this mountain. No one else. Now we have a soon-to-be wife for Wyatt, a baby niece who has us all wrapped around her finger, eighteen random animals including a horse with a tongue deformity, and probably a fucking partridge in a pear tree somewhere in that barn. Wyatt is a sellout. My eyes shift to movement in the distance, and I see Trista emerge from the Dutch doors of the barn. She has a baby carrier strapped to her chest, and I decide to let Wyatt live for a few more minutes while I investigate. Feeling Milkshake purr against my chest, I beeline straight to the barn, my boots crunching over melted snow as I intercept Trista walking back up toward her and Wyatt’s cabin. “What do you know?” I bark, my eyes narrowing on my brother’s woman. Trista smiles as she glances down at my pussy. “I knew Milkshake would love that cat carrier, for one.” I dig my calloused fingers into Milkshake’s cheek, and her purr quickens as she nuzzles into my chest. “This isn’t about my cat, and you know it.” Trista’s smile drops, and she hits me with a scolding look. “Calder, it’s barely nine in the morning. I had this feral little animal on my tits four times last night. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.” “My dating profiles have all been fucked with, and I want to know who did it. My guess is your soon-to-be husband.” “What does it say?” she asks, her eyes narrowing curiously. I pull my phone out of my pocket to show her the proof, and her face lights up as laughter bubbles out of her. “This definitely looks like payback from Wyatt.” “That’s what I thought,” I grind out as I turn toward my brother’s house. He must pay for his crime. “Sorry, Stevie. Your dad is going to be out of commission for a while.” “Although you know who else it could have been . . .” Trista’s voice stops me in my tracks, and I turn on my heel with a frown as she adds, “Your niece.” “Stevie’s too damn young to be on Tinder,” I exclaim, my eyes dropping down to the mound of chestnut curls sticking out from her little stocking cap. Her hair is wild and unruly just like Trista’s. “Not this niece, you moron,” Trista bites back a bit too comfortably. She’s definitely not the type of sister-in-law you can fuck with. She puts me and my brother Luke in our place whenever the mood strikes her. I kind of love that about her. She pats her daughter’s back and adds, “I’m talking about Everly.” My brows furrow. “Everly is at college in Ireland.” “They have the internet there, Calder.” My mind races with this new possibility I hadn’t considered. How did my nineteen-year-old niece hack my dating profiles? In fairness, my password might be easy to guess. Milkshake1234 isn’t exactly a high-security option. And Everly was the one with the idea to do the baby mama Help Wanted ad for Wyatt last year when he was looking for a surrogate. I just helped her jazz it up a bit. I shake my head and refocus. “But why would she sabotage my dating profiles?” “Maybe she wants you to find a nice girl to bring to the wedding, not some rando from Tinder? I mean . . . we all have to hang with whoever you and Luke bring to this villa we’re staying at in Mexico. Not to mention Stevie will be there, your mother, and your eight-year-old nephew, Ethan. A random Tinder hookup doesn’t sound super family-friendly.” “Trust me, whoever I find won’t be there for the family vibes.” I waggle my brows suggestively. Trista rolls her eyes and rubs Stevie’s bottom. “Can you not speak that way in front of my daughter, please?” “My daughter doesn’t mind one bit.” I match Trista’s protective stance with my own fur baby. I move closer to lean in and whisper into my sleeping niece’s ear. “It’s best you learn young, lil Stevemeister, that your uncle Calder is a stallion.” Trista groans and makes her way up toward their house. “Calder, I don’t know who messed with your profiles, but if you have to go to Tinder to find someone to bring to our wedding, maybe you don’t really need to bring anyone at all.” My eyes narrow on my retreating future sister-in-law. She might have a point about Tinder not being the right place for me to find a date for a destination wedding. But she’s wrong about me not bringing a date. Luke already has his plus-one lined up, and our oldest brother Max down in Boulder has been wifed up for years. Wyatt will be busy being a groom. If I don’t bring a plus-one, that means I’ll be my mother’s date, and as much as I love my dear mother . . . I can’t stomach the idea of dancing with her or my niece all night long. I need to find someone to bring with me on this damn trip. I turn and gaze at the tiny mountain town that rests at the bottom of our long and winding gravel lane. Perhaps Tinder is casting too wide a net. Maybe it’s time to look a bit closer to home. Jamestown ain’t much to look at. It’s a little hamlet of Boulder—an isolated and somewhat dilapidated sanctuary for weirdos who want to stay weird. It’s full of loners. Trailblazers. People who don’t want to be found and don’t mind a bit of inconvenience—be that limited grocery supplies, weather that snows us in for a week, or cell service that goes in and out. Jamestown is our sanctuary. And it’s the place Wyatt, Luke, and I have called home for over a decade now. Unfortunately, the population doesn’t even hit three hundred souls, so the pickings are slim. My brothers and I learned that quickly when we first moved out here. Things ended real messy back then, and the three of us made a pact to not test the waters in Jamestown ever again . . . but surely enough time has passed now. I mean hell, Wyatt’s on his way to getting married anyways. Maybe it’s time to shop local again. Excerpted from SEVEN YEAR ITCH by Amy Daws. Copyright © 2025 by Amy Daws. Published by Canary Street Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.




ABOUT THE BOOK:


"Deliciously funny and spicy." -Elsie Silver, New York

Times bestselling author



Alone and Looking to Bone! Loudmouthed Mountain Man Seeks

Fiery Woman to Grow Old With.


I might look like a tall, tattooed, bearded neanderthal...but like

an onion, I have layers. Swipe right if you like a proud cat daddy who

catches feelings after direct eye contact.


All I wanted was a casual plus-one to my brother's destination wedding,

but those idiots on my family tree hacked my dating profile and sabotaged

my quest for the perfect weekend fling. Now I'm stuck on a tropical vacation

with only my hand to keep me company.


Until I’m forced to share a room with the bane of my existence: my sister

in-law’s best friend.


Dakota has hated me for the past seven years. I wasn’t losing much sleep

over her screaming rants because she was some other guy’s problem. Or

she was, until she got divorced.


Being stuck in paradise with a woman who loathes your very existence

doesn't sound hot, but after an unexpected moment in our shared palapa

she starts screaming at me in a different way.


What happens in paradise stays in paradise. That is, until Dakota shows

up on my mountain with a proposition: be her wingman to help her

regain her pre-divorce confidence.


Suddenly, Dakota’s not just the person I love to fight with. She’s

the woman I want everything with. 


Perfect for fans of:

  • Enemies to Lovers

  • Small Town Romance / Vacation Romances

  • Quirky Animals

  • Meddling family

  • Meghan Quinn and Tessa Bailey



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


National bestselling author Amy Daws writes spicy love

stories that take place in America, as well as across the pond. When

Amy is not writing, she’s likely making charcuterie boards from her home in

South Dakota, where she lives with her daughter and husband.

SOCIAL LINKS:

Author website: https://amydawsauthor.com/ 

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amydawsauthor 

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

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/amydawsauthor/ 

The Dead Come to Stay

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