Love Never-Ending

This coming Friday, January 30th Love Never-Ending, the fifth book in the Mystic Valley series will be released. In honor of my new release, I'm posting an excerpt from Love Never-Ending.

In this snippet, Bishop, newly arrived in the valley, is struggling to cope with the strange inhabitants and surroundings.

With growing confusion, Bishop watched the two men trot off in the same direction that Wrenna had gone. The strange turn of events had no sane explanation. His brother and sister-in-law were here—and yet, not here. He couldn’t fathom any process that could turn the skin blue, grow fangs and change the shape of ears. For a wild second he considered the possibility of some alien body snatchers and then realized how silly that sounded.

Their small group was moving along a rough path that ran through a forest. He caught glimpses of strange trees and weird flowering bushes. Very little looked familiar. Then they passed a pale blue domed building. A low stone wall separated the neat yard from the surrounding woods. Blue and green birds about the size of chickens pecked at seeds and worms in the front yard.

“What are those?” he muttered just before tripping over a tree root.

One of the red-haired twins tossed a glance over his shoulder and answered, “Peekies. They lay eggs.”

“Peekies.”

“Think of them as blue or green chickens.” Jade grinned at him, flashing her dainty little fangs, and observed, “Lots of strange stuff, huh?”

“You’re blue, you know.”

“I believe that you mentioned that once or twice.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Not so much. I’m sure there are worse things.”

“Name one.”

“Being blind.”

There was a long silence. Then Bishop said, “I’m sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

“I believe you.”

They were approaching a scattered group of domes that were situated around a wide green lawn. “How did you find this place, Jade?”

“We arrived the same way you did, Bishop. Actually, we were also greeted by Dai.” A small secret smile flickered across her face. “We were stark naked at the time.”

“I’m not far from that myself,” he groused. “Trav snatched me out of bed in the middle of the night.”

“Really? Why would he do that?”

“Because he lost his mind.”

“Yes, well. That would explain it, I suppose. How did you come to be in the cave?” she asked with irritating calm. He wanted her to be excited or appalled or show some emotion. Instead she acted like strange people dropped in every day.

“Trav has a price on his head and he thought the cave would be a safe place to hide.” Bishop gave her a quick rundown of his adventure after his abduction.

“Fascinating.”

“Not as fascinating as this place."

And then things start to get interesting...

anny