BOOK INFORMATION
TITLE –
Night Magic
SERIES – Magic Series
AUTHOR – Susan Squires
GENRE – Contemporary Paranormal
Romance
PUBLICATION DATE – September 8,
2014
LENGTH (Pages/# Words) - 374
pages, 110,000 words (including excerpt from next book)
PUBLISHER – Susan Squires
COVER ARTIST – Rebecca Poole -
Dreams2Media
BOOK SYNOPSIS
DESTINY ISN’T
CALLING. Kemble Tremaine is thirty-seven. He knows he’ll never
get magic like the rest of his family. The Merlin gene has passed him by. No
true love, no magic power to help the family in their fight against the
descendants of Morgan Le Fay. Since it doesn’t matter who he marries, he asks
his sister’s best friend, Jane. At least he’ll be rescuing her from a horrible
home life.
CINDERELLA MISSES THE
BALL. Jane Butler has loved Kemble since she was twelve years
old. She’s well aware he’s not marrying her for love, but she hopes she can
make him comfortable.
HAPPINESS IS
RELATIVE. Comfort isn’t on the menu for the Tremaines. Kemble’s
sister has been having visions of tragedy. The family finds one of Merlin’s
precious artifacts, meant to increase the power of those with magic. Morgan and
her Clan want it too. They can’t be far behind. Can Kemble and Jane find
destiny in the face of danger and even death?
BUY & TBR LINKS
EXCERPT
Kemble strode
around the car without a word, got behind the wheel and slammed the door. His
lips were a thin, determined line. Then he seemed to see her for the first
time. “Jane, that…that cheek looks really painful.” His face contorted with an
angry look. “I should have been over here first thing this morning.” He was
angry with himself, of course.
“I could have gone to the doctor if I needed to, you know,”
she said.
He snorted. “You never want anything for yourself, Jane.
I’ll take care of that too.”
What did he mean by that? The motor purred to life and
Kemble put his arm over the back of her seat to turn and look out the rear
window as he backed out. His fingers brushed her shoulder. She closed her eyes
as the sensation shot up her spine. Did he have to be so careless?
As they turned onto Palos Verdes West she glanced over to
him. He was fairly vibrating with…nervous tension? Determination? She couldn’t
quite figure it out. He surprised her by sliding into the little shopping
center behind the Admiral Risty, an old-school, red-booth dinner place with a
wide-water view of the Pacific. “Aren’t you going to be late for dinner at
home?”
“Yes, I am.” He nodded his head convulsively. The man was
sweating.
“You want to loosen the tie or something?” He really looked
like he was about to choke.
“No.” He took a big breath and let it out slowly. Then he
turned to her. “I have something I want to ask you, Jane. And I don’t want you
to say anything until I’m done explaining.”
“Uh. Okay.” Jane was getting a very bad feeling about this.
It was going to be something about what he wanted to do with her mother. She
just knew it. And she wouldn’t be able to accept his largesse, so he’d try to
bully her into it.
He looked out over the parked cars. “I’m never going to get
magic. I talked to Senior and he agrees. We think the gene is recessive in me.
I’ve known it for a while.”
She started to protest, but he held up a hand. It was
shaking a little. That stopped her far more effectively than anything he could
have said. He wasn’t the kind of guy to tremble.
“So.” He acted as though that settled everything. “So he
agrees that I ought to get on with my life. Settle down. And if I’m not waiting
for the bolt of lightning, well, then I can marry whomever I want. So I’m
asking you.”
Jane felt like she’d been struck deaf, dumb and blind by
that lightning bolt. Kemble was… asking her to… marry him? After all these
years, he’d realized he loved her…
“Now don’t say no,” he rushed on. “Just because we’re not in
love doesn’t mean this can’t work out. You need a refuge Jane, and if we marry,
I can give that to you.”
Jane carefully shut her mouth, though that didn’t mean she
could breathe.
Kemble looked down at his hands, still on the steering
wheel. “The family already loves you. And I’ll make sure your mother is taken
care of. Enough money cures everything, Jane, and if it’s one thing I have,
it’s money.” His eyes were so earnest it might break her heart.
He’d given up. So he might as well marry her. Something
heavy sat on her chest.
He got an anxious look. “So…uh…what do you think?”
She hardly trusted herself to speak.
“Oh. Wait.” He lifted his hips to get his hand into the
pocket of his slacks, and drew out a small square velveteen box. It said the
name of the department store at the top of the hill on the bottom. He fumbled
with it until he got it right side up and popped it open. A diamond ring
gleamed in the rosy light of the setting sun. The setting was simple, just a
band with three medium diamonds set in it. They glinted in the afternoon light.
“I didn’t think you’d want one of those big diamonds that
are always catching on everything. These… these are nice stones though.” He
cleared his throat.
It was actually just the kind of ring she would want the man
she loved to give her. But not like this. She took a breath. “Kemble, you don’t
want to marry me.” It took all the courage she had to speak those words.
“But I do,” he protested. “You’re perfect. You’re smart.
You’re a calming influence on the family, especially the younger ones.” His
voice softened. “And marrying me will give you a place, Jane. Let me take care
of you.”
She couldn’t marry Kemble when he didn’t love her. That
would be too selfish.
He put the box with the ring on the dashboard and took both
her hands in his larger ones. After the shock that went straight to her groin
and the points of her breasts, what she noticed was that the warmth, the slight
moisture born of his anxiety, enveloped her with his inherent goodness. She
felt…maybe not loved, but at least treasured. “I need you, Jane,” he said. “And
I think you need me too. Sometimes life just provides solutions we aren’t
expecting.”
The words were simple, spoken from his heart. He needed her.
It was the one ploy that might get her to agree to this. She couldn’t bear how
unhappy he’d been lately. Maybe this solution freed him from the razor-sharp
pain of wondering if magic would ever happen for him, thinking he’d never be
good enough. She wanted to believe that, because suddenly, she wanted to throw
all sense and caution off the cliffs at the Breakers and accept him. Married to
Kemble Tremaine, just as she’d dreamed since she was fourteen. A real member of
the Tremaine family, with a right to make tira misu for their dinner or cut
fresh flowers for the table.
There was another problem. “What if you find your destined love
after we’re married?”
“Never going to happen.” He shrugged as though it didn’t
matter to him. But in his blue eyes she saw that it did. He wasn’t over
mourning his loss yet.
But maybe someday he could be. Maybe time would heal his
regret. Maybe they could have something together, if not true love, then
companionship, respect. That was more than she was like to have any other way.
“You have to promise me something, Kemble Tremaine.”
“Anything.”
He didn’t mean that, of course. He couldn’t give her the one
thing she really wanted. And God, he was so close to her, he was overwhelming
any sense she had at all.
“Promise that if you ever do find the one really meant for
you, you’ll tell me. I’ll set you free the next moment with no regrets.” Well,
none she wouldn’t have anyway, whether she married him or not. She’d always
regret he didn’t love her.
His brows drew together sharply. He really hadn’t thought
this out, had he?
Finally he nodded. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Does that
mean you will do me the honor of being my wife?”
God help her. She nodded.
AUTHOR BIO
NYT
Bestselling author Susan Squires published twenty-two novels and novellas with
Dorchester Publishing and St. Martin’s Press, as well as self-publishing her
new Magic Series. She’s won the Golden Heart and the Holt Medallion, been a
finalist in the Rita contest and garnered several Reviewer’s Choice awards from
Romantic Times BookReviews. Publisher’s Weekly named Body Electric one of the
most influential mass-market books and One with the Shadows a Best Book of
Year. She lives at the beach in Southern California with her husband, who is
also a writer, and two Belgian Sheepdogs who help her by laying their chins on
the keyboardddddddd.
Thanks so much for hosting! I hope you all enjoy reading about the Tremaine family as much as I enjoyed writing about them. This is the first series I've written that benefits from reading in order. If you are new to the series, you might want to start with Do You Believe in Magic? (It's $.99 right now over at Kindle.) It's the story of the bad boy brother...because why wouldn't you start with the bad boy?
ReplyDeleteI love to hear from readers at any of the above links...
Susan