When a pair of magical skates helps me find my fated mates, the last thing I expect is to get rejected, betrayed, and framed for a crime I didn’t commit.
I moved to Silver Springs to escape my past. Fell in love with the small supernatural town. Made friends with its quirky residents. Even got my dream job.
But just when life’s finally looking up, disaster strikes. The cleaning company I work for falls under threat, and I’m framed for a crime I didn’t commit.
Then, I find my fated mates:
• A shifter hockey player who knows how to handle his stick. • A sweet journalist who shifts into a block of ice but is oh so hot. • And a mage detective who already broke my heart once.
This should be the happiest time in my life, but my mates reject me, one by one.
As the new life I built starts to crumble around me, can I work things out with my mates and catch whoever framed me? Or will I end up broken-hearted, alone, and behind bars? Because I may be the best magical maid in town, but my life is one mess no spells in the world can fix.
If you like sassy witches, wonky magic, panty-melting fated mates, and intriguing mysteries, you’ll love this steamy, laugh-out-loud paranormal romantic comedy with all the feels!
Wynter is a standalone in the Silver Springs shared universe and comes complete with a happily-ever-after.
I take a deep breath and stare at Terence like I’ve seen a ghost. Though technically, I have. Not because he’s dead, though I kind of wish he were. Okay, maybe not dead, dead. But missing a limb. Or at least a pinkie.
Either way, he’s dead to me. That and it’s what everyone else called him. Ghost. Though he is the furthest thing from pale. Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. He looks exactly like I remember him, and nothing like it. Older. Harsher. More unforgiving. Scratch that. Unforgivable. Because after what he did…
He pulls off his winter gear, and my brain short-circuits. First his hat, revealing hair cropped short, not long and unruly like I remember. Then gloves, with all ten fingers still intact. What? A girl can dream.
He takes off his coat next, and that dream? It starts to feel more like a nightmare. The kind that starts with Cleanly Den clients getting robbed and ends with a hotter-than-ever Terence. No, scratch that. Ghost.
The muscles underneath his sweater bulge, and I get this sudden urge to peel it off. Only out of curiosity. Morbid curiosity. Because I’m not attracted to him. Nope. Not one bit. I’ve ridden on the Ghost train once. Had a one-way ticket to Heartbreak Town. I do not need a repeat.
Then, his sleeve rides up, showing off a strong, inked forearm, and my heart nearly stops. The Terence I knew did not have tattoos. The Ghost standing in front of me has swirling flames disappearing beneath black fabric.
I take him in—okay, fine, I stare—until he finally, finally, notices me.
“Wyn?” His eyes widen as he gapes at me like he’s the one who’s seen a ghost. Yeah, I know. I’m hilarious.
I’d roll my eyes at myself if I weren’t using all that energy to levitate. That and to keep my Mood Tea from glowing red. As in red with desire, because knowing Ghost is a Hole with a Capital Ass doesn’t stop me from wanting him.
So I focus on channeling turquoise instead. Calm, serene, indifferent turquoise. Because my go-to happy pink or excited silver won’t do. Terence—Nope. Ghost. Just Ghost—doesn’t deserve either one. He gets to see how little I care. And that he no longer has the power to hurt me.
I guess my heart doesn’t get the memo because the turquoise starts to darken. It’s a momentary lapse in magic—one Ghost doesn’t notice. And if he does? He’s one of the few people who know I can manipulate Mood Teas, so he wouldn’t trust it anyway.
Which is why I do the one thing I do best. I bluff.
“Well, if it isn’t Terentius White,” I say brightly. Like I’d read his name straight out of the Academy Yearbook. Not that we had a yearbook. Kind of defeats the purpose, when it’s not even supposed to exist.
Mia Harlan lives in Canada with her husband (who’s definitely Not a Vampire) and their adorably fluffy cat. They recently welcomed a Mini Mortal (a baby girl) into the world and are happy to report she doesn’t have fangs. Mia is a librarian by day and an author by night. She’s been reading romance since she turned thirteen and published her first one in mid-2019. She writes humorous, quirky (and mostly paranormal) reverse harem romance.
Running into a man once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times makes it fate… right?
Unless he is now your grumpy boss who holds the future of your fading dance career in his hands. And you hooked up with him when he was just a mysterious stranger rescuing you…
My life is a hot mess. I’m Dakota Tanner and I speak before I think, I spend before I earn, and I live totally in the moment. Which is why I’m down and out in need of a major life makeover. Cue the hot guy who has it all together and makes my toes curl in bed. Who then disappears before I wake up. When he reappears five months later as head coach of a pro football team he wants a secret romance (aka a no-one-can-ever-know bangfest) while I’m a nanny for his wild-child daughters.
I should say no. But he just might be my one true love … or my biggest mistake yet.
I hadn’t counted on someone being right at the bottom of the railing, pressed against it, holding a drink.
There was no way to stop myself. I tried, attempting to jump off the railing, but my timing was off. I was going too fast, and before I could maneuver, I just plowed into the back of him. As if he had sensed movement behind him, he turned exactly at the moment of collision. My center of gravity was off and I was falling head down.
I took an elbow to the chin.
And a martini in the face.
Vodka went into my mouth. Not bad.
Vodka went up my nose. Not great.
Vodka went in my eye. That freaking sucked. “Ow!”
I grabbed the guy around the midsection and tried to find my feet. My eyes were closed against the blinding, stinging liquid. Damn it. It was a dirty martini. Olive juice on top of vodka really was a bad combination. In my eye, anyway. I licked it off my lips.
“Are you okay?”
I couldn’t see shit, eyes watering viciously and still primarily closed, but I managed to right myself to a standing position. “I think so.”
Except for the fact that a giant manhand was on my face, attempting to wipe away the spilled drink. It almost made me lose my balance all over again.
I took a step back to escape the swiping.
“Dakota?”
The man knew my name. Thank God. That would be way less embarrassing than running into a total stranger. Unless it was the landlord because I owed him two hundred bucks. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to know because my eyes were still stinging and I had zero visibility. But I used my knuckle and dried my tears.
My words died when I realized who this guy was.
It was him.
Brandon.
The man who had helped me escape my surprise wedding and taken me ice-skating at Rockefeller Center.
Standing there in a navy button-up shirt over tight black jeans that showed off his muscular build. Looking big and broad and sexy as hell. His eyes were wide in recognition.
“Dakota,” he murmured again, this time without question.
His tone was so pleased, so sensual, so intimate, like we had shared something more than one hot kiss under the mistletoe, that I nearly had an orgasm listening to him.
“It’s you,” I said, because I’ve always wanted to say that. They do it in movies all the time, and never, ever, in real life is there an opportunity to say something as dramatic as “it’s you.” But this was my chance and I took it. I had been absolutely sure I would never see this man again and yet, here he was standing in front of me.
USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has since written over seventy-five novels and novellas in the romance and mystery genres. Erin has a special weakness for high-heeled boots, martinis, and Frank Sinatra. She lives with her renovation-addicted husband (he built her a bar, so it’s all good!) and their blended family of kids and rescue dogs.
Title: The Jade Talisman Author: Alanna MacKenzie Series: The Jade Chronicles #2 Genre: Dystopian Science Fiction/Fantasy
A talisman. A song. A story about time itself, as it moves through each winding branch in the tree of life.
It is the year 2762 in the Empire of Khalendar, and AI Masters rule the civilized world, striving to crush all dissent. But they have not yet managed to quell the Jade Rebellion or its leader, Walter Saltanetska. The Jade Queen, once a prison ship commandeered by the AI Masters, is now a rebel stronghold. Walter and his companions have sailed all the way to Vei’arash, a lush island reputedly home to exiled dissidents and evil shamans. Their mission is to fulfill a pact with their Mage allies—to find animal spirits exiled to Vei’arash long ago by the AI Masters.
As the rebels plunge deeper into the jungle, physical laws are upended. The plants and animals of the rainforest are inextricably linked to divine beings. The most powerful of these beings entrusts Walter with an enchanted gemstone, the Jade Talisman, that warps the basic rules of time and space.
The Talisman allows Walter to gaze into a mesmerizing labyrinth of future possibilities. But the visions it offers up are troublingly dark, giving Walter insight into the deepest recesses of the human soul. While he needs to remain emotionally distant from them, he cannot. The people in these visions are not strangers, but Walter and his loved ones. This gift proves to be a crushing burden, and Walter desperately longs for an ordinary life. But there is no going back…
The gripping sequel to The Jade Rebellion, The Jade Talisman is a tribute to the perseverance of spirituality in a world dominated by the cold logic of artificial intelligence.
Alanna Mackenzie lives in Vancouver, Canada. She holds degrees in History, French studies, and Law from the University of British Columbia. An environmentalist at heart, she believes in using the law as a tool for social and environmental change. When she is not pursuing that passion, she can be found brainstorming the next chapter in her novels, playing Irish fiddle tunes on the violin, and hiking West Coast trails.
