Chenoire
Susannah Sandlin
Genre: Paranormal
Romance
Heat level: mild
Publisher:
StoryFront
Date of
Publication: December 18, 2013
ASIN: B00GMTVZYI
Number of pages: 50
Word Count: approx.
15,000
Book Description:
When Faith
Garrity’s twin sister died, she lost a part of herself. Unable to move past the
pain, the once-driven ornithologist is at risk of losing her career as well. To
save her job, she heads to the oil-ravaged wetlands of Louisiana. There, in the
bayou community of Chenoire, she encounters the handsome but guarded Zackary
Préjean, still suffering from a great loss of his own.
She’s drawn to
Zack, but soon finds that the Préjean family isn’t what it seems… They have
dangerous secrets—and deadly enemies. Caught up in a feud that threatens the
area’s uneasy truce, Faith and Zack must learn to trust each other. Survival
will require enormous sacrifice, but it just might also give them both a way to
move on.
Short Excerpt:
Zack Préjean wiped
the blood from his skinning knife onto the faded blue bottom of the apron he
wore, scanning the bayou that backed up to his papa’s back porch. Something had
drawn his attention, but he couldn’t figure out what.
He’d been working
on the small gator for half an hour, figuring to take off enough fresh meat for
dinner and prep the rest to deal with later—it was too small for the skin to be
worth much. The calls and caws of the birds and cackles of swamp hens soothed
him, and God knew he needed soothing. Spending the whole month of gator season
at Chenoire wasn’t what he wanted to be doing. But Papa had asked him outright
for help, and he had to honor that.
Finally, he figured out what had caught
his attention; the bayou was too quiet. He wedged the knife through his apron
ties, covered the gator with a towel, and closed his eyes to focus on what he
could hear. Footsteps coming from the path leading down to the house—heavy
ones, stirring up a whiff of anger.
Zack tripped on his way through the
kitchen, catching his toe on the edge of a chair because he’d been staring out
the front window instead of watching where he was going. All this family time
must be getting to him, because for a moment he swore he’d seen not a man on
the path that angled toward the small circle of houses where the Préjeans had
lived for generations.
No, he thought he’d
seen an angel.
Except angels didn’t stomp their feet,
curse like sailors, and swat at bugs, which is what this one appeared to be
doing. What the hell was a woman doing on foot way out here at dusk?
Crossing his arms over his chest, Zack
leaned against the frame of the front door, silent and still, waiting to see
what trouble she brought. She looked like a city woman, and city women always
brought trouble.
He couldn’t keep the grin off his
face. Whatever else she was, his citified swamp angel was pissed off and dirty
as sin. Bits of mud flaked off what might be a long, lean pair of legs
underneath the grime that covered her from her shoes to the bottom of her khaki
shorts—or maybe they were mud-covered black shorts. Hard to tell. Her hands
flew around her head, batting at what Zack knew were probably the armies of
tiny no-see-ums that swarmed near the small stand of trees this time of day.
Occasionally, she swatted at her own head, giving her short blond hair a
disheveled look he’d mistaken for a halo.
“Damned gnats. I’m gonna—” The angel
finally spotted him and stopped in her tracks, dark-blue eyes growing wider as
her gaze dropped from Zack’s face to the vicinity of the knife.
He cleared his
throat and stifled the laugh that threatened to escape. “You lost, Angel?”
About the Author:
Susannah Sandlin
writes paranormal romance and romantic thrillers from Auburn, Alabama, on top
of a career in educational publishing that has thus far spanned five states and
six universities—including both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her bilingual.
She grew up in Winfield, Alabama, but was also a longtime resident of New
Orleans, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love
of SEC football, cheap Mardi Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a stick. She’s
the author of the award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series, a
spinoff novel, Storm Force, and a new romantic thriller beginning this month
with Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Writing as Suzanne Johnson, she also is the author
of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series.
Website: http://www.susannahsandlin.com
Character Interview:
I would like to welcome Zack and Faith from Susannah Sandlin's Chenoire for stopping by today for an interview.
What is your name? Do you have a nickname?
He said:
Zackary Prejean, and I’d just as soon you didn’t call me anything. But “Zack”
works.
She said:
Faith Garrity. It’s kinda hard to shorten “Faith,” and my twin sister is
“Hope.” We always laughed that it’s a good thing we weren’t triplets or we’d
have a “Charity Garrity” on our hands!
What is in your refrigerator right now?
Zack said:
Let’s see…some gator meat that needs to be ground into sausage. Louisiana Hot
Sauce. Tasso. Leftover red beans from…oops, think those are moldy. Abita Beer.
Faith said:
Three Lean Cuisines and some leftovers from Price’s Barbecue House—Brunswick
stew and pulled pork and potato salad. You know, which have to be followed by
Lean Cuisines.
Who are the people you’re closest to?
Zack said:
My family. I’ve kind of pulled away from people lately. Used to be my dad and
my four brothers. I guess they’re still closet, but not so much my dad’s new
wife.
Faith said:
My twin sister Hope. Sounds funny to say that. I know she died, but I still
talk to her and still hear her inside my head. She was the sensible twin, or at
least that’s her story.
What is your biggest fear?
Zack said:
That someone will find out about the secrets in Chenoire and put everybody in
danger. We don’t like outsiders.
Faith said:
That I’ll lose my job as a biologist. Things have been tough since Hope died,
and I have one last chance to pull my life back together. I hope I can do that
in Louisiana, doing field research. Although I’m kinda scared of alligators.
What is your greatest regret?
Zack said:
That I never told my mom how much I loved her before she died in Hurricane
Katrina.
Faith said:
That I never told Hope how much I loved her.
What quality do you most like in a man/woman?
Zack said:
I don’t much like city girls; they’re Trouble. Give me a girl from the bayou
country who knows how to skin a gator and live on the water.
Faith said:
Somebody who loves animals and has a sense of humor.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Zack said:
“Yeah you right.” It’s a local thing.
Faith said:
“Seriously?” I mean that is my overused word: Seriously.
Giveaway:
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