Delighting
in Your Company
A Haunting Romance
By Blair McDowell
What more could a girl ask
for?
When Amalie Ansett visits her elderly cousin on the small
Caribbean island of St. Clements, the last thing she’s looking for is romance.
Just out of a disastrous marriage, she’s ready to swear off men forever.
That is until she meets local plantation owner, Jonathan
Evans.
He is tall, good looking, intelligent and incredibly
sexy.
What more could a girl ask for?
An unsolved murder … Then Amalie discovers that the man she
loves is a ghost. Only she can see and hear him. Perhaps he is real to her
because Amalie is the image of her distant ancestor, Jonathan’s bride in that
earlier time.
Jonathan was murdered two hundred years ago, and has no
knowledge of who killed him or why. A perilous trip to the past… When Jonathan
asks her to help him by returning with him to his past, Amalie is torn. If she
helps him solve the mystery surrounding his death, she could lose him
forever.
If she doesn’t, she is stuck with a ghost for a lover. And a
love that crosses the boundaries of time.
To save Jonathan, Amalie agrees to travel with him back in
time to the Caribbean of the 1800’s, when sugar reigned supreme and the slave
trade was making fortunes for wealthy planters and ship owners. Her adventures
there include a slave uprising, murder, deceit and an enduring love that
crosses the boundaries of time.
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVNFrYFP2Ws
Excerpt
He was real. Jonathan Evans was what? A ghost, a spirit, a jumbie? But
to her he was real. True she couldn’t touch him. She had a fleeting thought
that that was a pity. She would rather have liked to touch him. But how could
she help him? She wasn’t that other Amalie, no matter what he thought. She
couldn’t be, could she? And yet where had those memories of Ansett Plantation
come from?
Josephina arrived at the table for breakfast at that moment and all
thoughts of ghosts had to be put aside.
“What are your plans for the day, my dear?”
“I’ll spend the morning working in the archives again, and then this
afternoon I guess I’ll just swim and read as usual.”
“Could you run me up to town before you begin? I need to see my
solicitor.”
“Of course.”
It was mid morning when Amalie entered the basement room at the Museum.
“You!” Amalie looked at Jonathan, perched on her stool, his hair
falling over his forehead, his elbows on the table, his long legs stretched out
in front of him. He was whistling softly. That same elusive tune.
“You’re rather late getting here. I’ve been searching for evidence.”
She stared at him. He looked so real, so alive.
Reading her thoughts he said, “Jonathan Evans, in the flesh. Except
that, unfortunately, I’m not in the flesh. If I were I could kiss you as I
should very much like to.”
Amalie flushed. The thought of being held in those arms, caressed,
kissed by those lips…she turned her thoughts hastily away from that direction.
“What’s that tune you’re always whistling?”
“Greensleeves.” He sang a phrase, his voice low and melodious.
“Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously,”
He sighed. “You used to
sing it.”
“I used to sing it?”
“You used to sing it.”
“It must have been the other Amalie who sang it. But I know it from
somewhere. I’m not sure where.”
She finished the stanza in her light soprano,
“While I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company…”
Jonathan looked long at her. “Of course you know it. You are one with
her. Why do you find this so hard to accept?”
Amalie just shook her head. How could she possibly be a woman who died
two hundred years ago? She was
alive. She was born in the twentieth century. For that matter, how could she
possibly be holding this ridiculous conversation with a ghost?
About the Author:
I
started to write soon after I found my first pencil. But I began to write for
publication about 30 years ago -- professional books. I wrote six of them, all
still in print and still in use. Only lately have I turned to fiction.
I'd have done it a lot sooner if I'd had any idea how much
fun it was! I’ve lived in many different places. The US -- Certain cities call
to me. I love San Francisco and Seattle and the wonderful Oregon Coast.
Australia -- among the most open welcoming people in the world, and a wide open
young country with incredible land and sea scapes, with amazing animal and bird
life right out of science fiction.
Canada -- HOME. The place where I belong. I travel a lot. I
usually spend the month of October in Europe, Greece or Italy, and the winter
in a little house I built many years ago on a small non-touristy Caribbean
Island. I have worked and studied in many places -- Hungary, Australia the US
and Canada, and have spoken in most of the States and Provinces as well as
Taiwan and various cities in Europe.
I enjoy being surrounded by cultures other than my own. I
enjoy my own as well -- but variety is indeed the spice of my life. I keep busy
-- and I love my life. I love meeting the people who come here to the west
coast of Canada and stay in my B&B. I love traveling after the tourist
season is over.
And I love writing. My interests?? Music, especially opera,
reading everything in print, and Writing. And walking on the beach and
swimming. At one point I had hoped to swim in every major sea and ocean. I've
realized that may not be possible in one lifetime -- but trying has been fun!
Google+:
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Blogger: http://blairmcdowellauthor.blogspot.ca/
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