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So, my assignment, should I choose to accept, is to share five things you’d probably never guess about me. That leaves out such facts as my love of history, romantic movies, and Colin Firth. And don’t even get me started when all three of those unite to create one enormous emotional “Awww” moment. No, you want five things you’d never ever begin to guess so here goes in no particular order or significance…
1) I live in the house I grew up in. Yup, that’s right. I moved in when I was six and never moved out. Well, maybe for college and then there were those lost years while I banged around trying to tell myself I loved the hustle and bustle of suburban life. It didn’t work, and so I came home, settling back into my childhood home as if I’d never left. Despite the endless to-do list that goes along with maintaining a house built while John Quincy Adams was president, I love the sense of continuity that comes with roots dug fifty years deep in the same place.
2) I listen to sports radio while I work. Ok, well, maybe that’s not completely accurate. I tend to listen to movie soundtracks while I write. But if I’m in my office sifting through the unending list of chores that spring up in writing’s wake, there’s nothing I like more than to listen to reports on how my beloved Ravens plan on bouncing back from a dismal season or opinions on whether the O’s can hold onto their tenuous grip of first place in the AL East to make it into the playoffs.
3) I am a huge fan of The Andy Griffith Show. OK, again maybe not completely accurate. Once Deputy Fife left Mayberry, the show lost some of its sparkle as no one could match the amazing straight man/comic chemistry he had with Griffith. Did the show portray an unrealistically rosy vision of small-town America? Sure. But it imparted its sweet message with subtle humor and eminently quotable one-liners. As Barney Fife might say, “Well, some of us got it, some of us ain't.”
4) I’ve never read To Kill A Mockingbird. Don’t tell my brother who is a HUGE Harper Lee fan, but somehow I managed to get through high school and college without once cracking open that American classic. Silas Marner, Bridge Over San Luis Rey, Catcher In the Rye, Jane Eyre, 1984; all parsed and picked over in many a Lit class, but for some reason no professor ever assigned it, and I never picked it up on my own, probably because I was busy scouring the library for sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, and romance. Sorry, Chris. Don’t disown me.
5) Last but not least, I have four middle names. As the only daughter among a sea of sons, my parents chose to saddle me with every girl’s name they had stored up for the long anticipated occasion. Thus when you add my first name, maiden name, and last name to those four middle names, I can go toe to toe with any royal offspring you throw at me.
So, there you are—five things you’d never have guessed about me…
…Surprised?
Cornwall, 1940. Back in England after the harrowing evacuation at Dunkirk, WWII Red Cross nurse Anna Trenowyth finds herself unexpectedly assigned to Nanreath Hall-her dead mother's childhood home. All Anna has left of her mother, Lady Katherine Trenowyth, are vague memories that tease her with clues she can't unravel. Anna knows this could be the chance for her to finally become acquainted with the family she's never known-and to learn the truth about her past.
Cornwall, 1913. In the luxury of pre-WWI England, Lady Katherine Trenowyth is expected to do nothing more than make a smart marriage. When Simon Halliday, a bohemian painter, enters her world, Katherine begins to question the future that was so carefully laid out for her. Her choices soon lead her away from the stability of her home and family toward a wild existence of life, art, and love.
As Anna is drawn into her newfound family's lives and their tangled loyalties, she must decide if the secrets of the past are too dangerous to unearth…and if the family she's discovered is one she can keep.
Enjoy an Excerpt:
Buildings leaned drunkenly on their foundations, their windows blown out, doors knocked from hinges. A jagged gap like a missing tooth was all that was left of the butcher’s shop. The pub looked comfortingly unscathed until she approached, then she noticed a tumbled slide of bricks and shingles where the roof had collapsed. A gleam of brass railing poked up through fallen plaster and splintered beams. A pint glass stood half-filled on a table in a corner. A dart stuck dead center in the dartboard still hanging on the back wall.
Ten paces. Twenty. The damage greater, the houses tumbled and spilled like a child’s toppled building blocks. Smoke hung low like a morning fog across the Thames. A few firemen replaced their hoses upon a truck. A policeman unrolled a coil of rope across the pavement where a set of marble steps led to . . . nothing.
No.
Anna’s chest tightened. Her throat closed around a hard painful knot. Pain lanced down her leg, buckling her ankle. The awkward weight of the valise knocked her to her knees. Dirt bit into her skin, scraped her hands raw. She retched, but there was nothing in her stomach except the weak tea she’d drunk this morning on the train. Still, she felt her insides shriveling, darkness crowding the edges of her vision.
It couldn’t be. There was some mistake. She was having another nightmare. She would open her eyes to see curtains at the windows and geraniums on the stoop. Graham and Prue standing on the steps to meet her.
“Here now, miss. Are you all right? You took a nasty spill on these cobbles.”
About the Author: Alix Rickloff is a critically acclaimed author of historical and paranormal romance. Her previous novels include the Bligh Family series (Kensington, 2009), the Heirs of Kilronan trilogy (Pocket, 2011), and, as Alexa Egan, the Imnada Brotherhood series (Pocket, 2014). She lives in Maryland with her husband and three children.
Website:
www.alixrickloff.com
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