Sons
of Sanctuary, Book
1
Victoria
Danann
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: 7th House Publishing,
Imprint of Andromeda LLC
Date of Publication: June 16, 2015
Number of pages: 300
Word Count: 90,000
Cover Artist: Victoria Danann
Book Description:
Brigid Roan is a graduate student
at the University of Texas. She had no trouble getting her thesis approved, but
finding a Hill Country motorcycle club willing to give her access to their
lifestyle had started to seem impossible. Then she got a lead. A friend of a
friend had a cousin with ties to The Sons of Sanctuary.
What she wanted was information to
prove a proposition. What she didn’t want was to fall for one of the members of
the club. Especially since she had set out to prove that motorcycle clubs are
organized according to the same structure as primitive tribal society.
Brash Fornight was standing in line
at the H.E.B. Market when his world tipped on its axis. While waiting his turn
to check out, his gaze had wandered to the magazine display and settled on the
new issue of “NOW”. The image on the cover, although GQ’d up in an insanely
urbane way, was… him.
After reading the article, Brash
threw some stuff in a duffle and left his club, The Sons of Sanctuary, with a
vague explanation about needing a couple of days away. He left his Jeep at the
Austin airport and caught a plane for New York, on a mission to find the guy
who was walking around with his face.
Two brothers, one a player, one a
playboy, are on a collision course with destiny and a woman who thought she won
a prize when she was allowed a look inside the Sons of Sanctuary MC.
Excerpt
“Sir?” Brash
Fornight gradually became aware that someone behind him in the grocery checkout
line was trying to get his attention. “Sir?” He refocused and glanced behind
him. The woman leaning on a cart overflowing with chip bags and cookie boxes
nodded toward the cashier indicating that it was his turn to move forward.
Brash looked her in the eye and had to give her props. Most people wouldn’t
have the balls to try to herd a guy wearing Sons of Sanctuary MC leather.
The club employed
a woman who cooked and did grocery shopping several times a week as part of her
job description, but Brash didn’t like to explain his relentless craving for
peanuts and he liked being teased about it even less. He didn’t know whether it
was the Vitamin B or the fat or just because he liked the taste, but he
couldn’t imagine going a day without them.
That’s how he came
to be standing statue still In the grocery checkout line, being prompted by
some woman with more nerve than sense. While he was waiting, his eyes drifted
over the magazine display and settled on the cover of “NOW”, on the Most
Eligible Bachelor edition no less. The debonair figure staring back was wearing
Brash’s own face and body. He looked different with short hair and a four
thousand dollar suit with the shirt fashionably open at the neckline, but the
similarity was inescapable.
On impulse he
grabbed the magazine and tossed it onto the conveyor belt with his week’s stash
of peanuts.
He stuffed the
bags into the saddlebags of his bike and roared toward home, nervously tapping
his fingers on handlebars at red lights, riding on shoulders to keep from
slowing down. He was anxious to get to the privacy of his own room and read
about Branach St. Germaine.
Two beers, one jar
of peanuts, and one “NOW” article later, Brash was sitting on the edge of his
bed looking at the wall, seeing nothing but his own heavy thoughts. He pulled
out his phone, looked up a website, and waited on hold for ten minutes to hear
the time of the next flight from Austin to New York.
There was a flight
to Newark in a little over three hours. He looked at his watch and calculated
the time it would take to drive from Dripping Springs at that time of day. As
he booked the flight, he stood up, walked to the small closet, grabbed a duffel
bag, and began shoving stuff into it. Ten minutes later, he closed his door and
locked it, threw the duffel over his shoulder, and headed straight for the
office downstairs. He dropped the duffel on the hallway floor beside the closed
door and knocked.
“Yeah?” Brash
looked inside, glad that his dad was by himself, and stepped in. “What’s up?”
“I’m takin’
personal time, Pop. Gonna be gone for a couple of days.”
“What the hell is
‘personal time’?”
The gruffness made
Brash smile. “It means I’m not gonna be here if you call and I’m not tellin’
you why.”
The Sons of
Sanctuary President looked up at Brash, over the top of his readers, and
narrowed his eyes. “You got a secret?”
“Everybody’s got
secrets.”
Brandon Fornight
studied his son for a minute. “True enough. Is it the kind of secret that could
affect this club?”
Brash shook his
head. “Don’t see how.”
“Well, then. See
you… When did you say you’d be back?”
“I didn’t.”
“Bein’
purposefully vague, are you?”
Brash grinned.
“That’s why they call it personal time. But I expect to be back Friday.”
“You gonna have
your phone with you?” When Brash nodded, Bran looked back down at his ledger in
a deliberately dismissive gesture. “Well, get outta here then.”
Brash parked his
bike in the airplane hangar. The structure had already been on the property
when the club had bought it and turned it into a compound twenty years earlier.
They used part of it for vehicle maintenance and repair and part for parking.
Some of the guys
who were working looked over and shot curious glances his way when Brash threw
his duffel into his pickup and started it up, but it wasn’t their way to ask
questions. The Sons figured that if somebody wanted you to know something,
they’d tell you.
Brash took a cab
to a midtown hotel, wondering all the way why human beings would choose to live
in such a place. As he slid his credit card across the hotel counter to the agent
on duty, he glanced at the name, Brandon Fornight. It seemed unlikely that it
was a coincidence that that the mysterious look-alike’s first name began with
the same four letters. He ordered room service and pulled out his laptop.
Getting intel on
the guy didn’t take advanced ops. Within an hour Brash knew where Brannach St.
Germaine worked, what kind of car he drove, what kind of women he dated, who
his tailor was, and where he liked to dine. There was no shortage of photos
online, but the one that grabbed his attention wasn’t one of the many with
starlets or debutantes on his arm. It was the one taken with his arm around his
mother as they were arriving together for some red carpet fundraiser. Brash had
an almost irresistible compulsion to reach up and touch her face on the screen
in front of him.
The knock on the
door signaled that room service had arrived. It cost a fortune, but looked and
tasted like shit. So he closed the computer and went out for a walk to clear
his head and find something edible.
Author Bio
Her Knights of Black Swan series
won Best Paranormal Romance Two years in a Row (2013, 2014). ~Reviewers Choice
Awards, The Paranormal Romance Guild.
Victoria’s paranormal romances come
with uniquely fresh perspectives on “imaginary” creatures, characters, and
themes. She adds a dash of scifi, a flourish of fantasy, enough humor to make
you laugh out loud, and enough steam to make you squirm in your chair. Her
heroines are independent femmes with flaws and minds of their own whether they
are aliens, witches, demonologists, psychics, past life therapists, or
financial analysts from Dallas. Her heroes are hot and hunky, but they also
have brains, character, and good manners – usually – whether they be elves,
demons, berserkers, werewolves, or vampires.
The first book of the Knights of
Black Swan Paranormal Romance Series, My Familiar Stranger, was nominated for
Best Paranormal Romance of 2012 by both Reviewers’ Choice and Readers’ Choice
Awards. All of her books have opened on the Amazon Best Sellers list and earned
Night Owl Reviews Top Pick awards.
Many have appeared on Listopia Book
of the Month as #1 across all genres.
For books published in 2013, Black
Swan won three awards.
1. Best Paranormal Romance Series
2. Best Paranormal Romance Novel –
A SUMMONER’S TALE
3. Best Vampire~Shifter Novel – MOONLIGHT.
In 2014, Solomon’s Sieve won Best
Vampire Novel.
Photo- If
you’re interested in me personally, I am also a classically trained musician
who defected to Classic Rock and that’s my first love. Yeah. Even more than
writing.
This
is Roadhouse, the very best in Classic Rock, taken near The Last Concert Cafe,
Houston Texas, 2011. I was the utility player which means I played rhythm
guitar, keyboards, sang backups and a few leads.
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