I want to thank everyone for the many fantastic reviews I’ve received for The Dark Huntsman. Each one makes me smile, and I know that you are giving other readers a wonderful opportunity to see how much you loved the book. If you enjoyed Prince by Blood and Bone please consider lending it to a friend or leaving a review on sites like Amazon, Goodreads, Librarything and Shelfari. Spread the word of what you like to read. Your reviews help other readers discover new authors and new books to love.
Cheers!
Jessica Aspen
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More spicy, paranormal, romances available from Jessica Aspen:
Tales of the Black Court
Book One:
The Dark Huntsman:A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-989958-2-0-5
ISBN Mass Market Paperback: 978-0-989958-2-0-5
An evil queen, a dangerous man, and a witch, tangled together in a tale of Snow White...
Desperate to save the last of her family from the murderous Faery Queen, Trina Mac Elvy weaves a spell of entrapment. But instead of a common soldier, the queen has released the Dark Huntsman, a full blooded fae with lethal powers.
Caged for treason, Logan Ni Brennan, is ready to do anything to win free of the manipulative queen, even if it includes running a last errand for her…murdering a witch. The sight of Trina, ready to fight despite the odds, gives him another option: use the witch as a chess piece, put the queen’s son on the throne, and bring down the queen forever.
As the queen slides into insanity and her closest advisor makes plans to succeed to the throne, Logan secrets Trina away in the enchanted forest and makes a decisive move in his dangerous game of manipulation. But the gaming tables of fate turn on him, and when Trina’s life is threatened he discovers he risks more than his freedom…he risks his heart.
Dare to enter Jessica Aspen’s world of steamy, fantasy romance in her new twisted fairy tale trilogy: Tales of the Black Court…
*2014 RONE Award Finalist
*2014 Golden Quill Finalist, Desert Rose RWA
Twisted Tales: Come Into the Woods
Dare to discover Jessica Aspen’s twisted, new adult, fairy tale romance novellas. Warning! They’re spicy!
Little Red Riding Wolf
AISN: B007BS1E54
Fraternizing with humans is taboo, but when feisty werewolf, Red, runs into hunky new forest ranger Evan Brewster, she jumps on the opportunity to let loose her desires. Evan is stoked when he meets the petite red haired hottie, and combined with his new discovery of wolves in Colorado, thinks his career and life are made. Then Red pushes him away, her hostile brother threatens his life, and things spiral out of control. Caught between her sexy lover and her pack can Red trust Evan with her secrets, or must she sacrifice her human lover and her heart?
*Honorable Mention Passionate Ink's 2011 Stroke of Midnight Contest
*2013 Golden Quill Contest Finalist, Desert Rose RWA
*Award of Merit Hold Medallion 2013 Contest
Check it out on Amazon.
Snow and the Seventh Wolf
AISN: B00B36DCTQ
Exiled for attempting to kill his sister’s lover, the last thing Seth needs is to be saddled with a human. But Seth can’t turn his back when he discovers Snow fleeing from her avaricious step-parents murder plot. Isolated in a cabin in the woods, Snow attempts seduction and Seth discovers even werewolves are vulnerable to passion’s temptation. Seth’s angry struggles against his desire drive him away, but his over-protective alpha nature won’t let him abandon a female in distress. With Snow in danger again, can Seth overcome his prejudices in time to save Snow from her step-parents’ evil plan?
Check it out on Amazon.
Goldi and the Bear
AISN: B00E3FOQQW
Goldi Lycan's life is falling apart. Her dad’s gone wild wolf, her house is under threat of foreclosure, and the only one she can turn to for help is her high school boyfriend whose heart she crushed.
Goldi's father is missing. She needs his signature and the money he's hidden or the bank will foreclose and sell to a buyer she suspects is her ex-boyfriend, whose heart she crushed in high school. Zeke has a secret. He's never stopped loving Goldi or forgotten their steamy nights together and he's determined to make her pay. When Goldi is injured in a Rocky Mountain blizzard she's forced to take shelter in Zeke's empty house. But look out! When Zeke arrives home to find a naked she-wolf in his bed, all hell will break loose.
*Colorado Romance Writers 2014 Award of Excellence Finalist
Check it out on Amazon.
GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
Excerpt: chapter one
No footprints, no body, no woman…nor any sign there’d ever been one.
Shaking, Jen got out of the small rental car and looked again. The frigid air caught in her lungs and, for a moment, she suffocated on her own breath.
Then she exhaled. And it was okay. She could breathe again.
A chilly gust of wind blew snow down the empty road. She walked back a few feet and searched the unmarked snow crowded close under the dense brush and trees of the road’s shoulders, but couldn’t find anything. Unable to get warm she pulled her wool coat close around her, checking the steep ditches again, and again, making absolutely sure that there was no body, bleeding and tossed to the side. Or buried in the snow.
There wasn’t. Her expensive leather boots soaking wet she stumbled back into car. With numb fingers she turned on the heat, reclined the seat and closed her eyes. Took a moment, just to breathe.
There hadn’t been a woman, wide-eyed, white skinned, and dripping with mud, standing in the middle of the slick, snow covered road. It was just her nerves.
But it had been so real.
She went back through it. She’d been driving down the narrow road, heading deeper into the tangled bare branches of winter New England. She’d risked a glance at the overcast sky. Only mid-afternoon, but the heavy cloud cover and tall trees pressing in from the sides made it seem like nighttime was approaching fast.
And then, she’d looked back at the road. A woman in a long, dark dress stood dead center in the curve.
Jen screamed and turned the wheel, pushing her right foot down hard on the brake. The tires shrieked, and the car skidded, the end fishtailing around and spinning in a 360 turn.
She hung on. Trees flew by in a blur and she caught a vague impression of a frightened face.
The car slowed its spin. Her heart pounded in her throat, scratching and clawing in a race to get her somewhere, anywhere but strapped into the seat of a car she barely knew how to drive.
“Holy crap!” She turned her head from side to side, frantic and searching the empty snow-covered road.
“Turn right, now,” the smooth voice of the GPS interrupted. The car slid way too close to the gravel edge before reaching a shuddering stop.
“You are missing your turn. Turn right, now.”
Jen slammed her fist onto the dashboard. “If I turn now I’ll be stuck in the ditch.” She shook her aching hand and unbuckled her seat belt.
“You are missing your turn. Turn right, now.”
�
��Shut up,” she said and turned off the car. She got out. “Hello?” Her whole body quivered, adrenaline shaking her already shot nerves. “Are you hurt?”
But no one had answered.
Eyes back open, the shaking almost gone, she moved the seat back in the upright position and took a last look at the side of the road. In case she’d been wrong and there really was someone there. She’d been right, it was her over-stimulated nervous system. Not unexpected given the last few months, and especially the stress of the last week. She needed more sleep.
It was good she’d stopped, she was lost anyway. There was no right turn anywhere in sight and her GPS clearly thought there should be.
She grabbed her binder and flipped to the correct tab, sorting through the carefully constructed file of downloaded instructions the real estate agent had sent her. She had them on her laptop and her phone, but she’d printed everything out, just in case.
This was the boonies, miles away from Boston, and she’d planned every step of her first vacation by herself. Just as she’d planned every detail of her now non-existent wedding down to the customized candies she’d had to have re-printed. Lately it seemed like everything she touched fell apart. Maybe her mother was right and she was a failure.
Even her vacation was going to hell and she hadn’t even gotten to her first night. She might as well face it, her life sucked.
“You have stopped in the wrong location. Back up fifteen feet and turn right.”
“Grrr.” Jen barred her teeth at the GPS and scanned her printed map. “There’s no right turn there,” she told the screen. “Just more fricking trees! I think I’m lost.”
But it didn’t answer. If her mother were here she’d be telling her, “I told you not to go on this trip. You barely know how to drive.”
Living in Boston she walked or took public transit anywhere she needed to go. Or Jason drove her. This time she was determined to drive herself, but the car had been a challenge and the snow a disaster.
Just once, couldn’t the woman get it wrong?
Jen peered at the mileage counter she’d set when she’d turned left at the last turn. If the GPS was right, this was the spot.
But it wasn’t. It was a dense tangle of pine trees and barren black shrubs. Not the rural sanctuary she was now twenty minutes late in finding. She read the careful instructions from the realtor, Mrs. Castlebury.
Turn left and drive ten point two miles, you’ll drive over the bridge and see the house on the right. It’s the first house on the drive. I’ll meet you at 2 pm, sharp.
She sagged in her seat. She was beat. The GPS and the map both showed her she was incapable of doing something so simple as taking a vacation on her own and she wanted to scream in frustration that her mother would be pleased.
The little message envelope on her phone blinked at her. Even though she didn’t want to do it she called in and listened to five messages from her mother. Every one of them telling her to get back to Boston. That she was crazy to be driving up to the country on her own in the middle of December. Every one of them telling her she should be going to the wedding, causing a ruckus, and begging Jason to take her back.
But those weren’t the worst messages.
Her pulse throbbed in her temple.
The worst ones were from her best friend, Samantha. She deleted them after listening to the first one and instead dug through the binder for Mrs. Castlebury’s phone number. She’d have to call the realtor and admit she was lost. She dialed the number. Before she could hit send the phone rang and her finger automatically picked it up. “Hello?”
“Jen? Thank God!” Samantha’s upper-class Bostonian accent cut into the car’s quiet. Jen clenched the phone and hung on through Sam’s frantic spew of words. “Where are you? The dress shop called and said you haven’t picked up your maid-of-honor dress, and Susan said you’d called and told her she’d have to handle the bachelorette party. What’s up?”
“I…”
“I need you! You’ve planned everything. Jason and I are depending on you to run the wedding for us.”
Yes they were. Her best friend and her ex-fiance had somehow manipulated her into giving them all the reservations and plans for the perfect Christmas wedding. The wedding she’d planned for herself and Jason. The wedding it had taken her two years to set up, with the best church, reception hall, and caterer. The wedding where she was supposed to be the bride and Jason was supposed to be the groom.
She’d done her best to keep it all inside, but it burned.
Samantha kept talking, as if Jen were listening. “Where are you, anyway? I called your mother and she said you were driving to Timbuktu.”
She was escaping. That’s what she was doing. For the first time in her life she was standing up for herself. Okay, she was running away. But what she wasn’t doing was hosting any parties. Or overseeing a wedding that should have been hers, but instead belonged to two cheaters.
Tears welled up and she pressed her eyelids down in an attempt to keep the moisture stuffed inside, where it belonged.
“Jen? Are you there? Your mother’s worried about you.”
“She thinks anything outside of Boston is the end of the world,” Jen choked out.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“It sounds like you’re crying. I thought you were okay with this. You told me you were going to dump Jason anyway. You told me that he and I were perfect for each other.”
“You are,” she said.
And they were. Two backstabbing social snobs who wanted nothing more than to make money and spend it. They were perfect for each other.
“Jen?”
“Listen, I’m fine. But I’m not going to be there. Susan is taking care of everything.”
Thank God for Susan’s understanding. She’d helped Jen make the plan, and pushed her to execute it.
“You’re breaking up,” she lied to Sam, faking the crackling noises like they did on TV. “I don’t think there’ll be any reception where I’ll be. Have a great time, and congratulations.”
She hung up before Sam could get out another word. The rush of tears broke loose, pouring down her face.
She didn’t even know why she was crying. Jason hadn’t loved her and she hadn’t loved Jason. She wasn’t even sure why Samantha was her best friend, except they’d always been that way. Sam was the girl at school her mom had approved of, rich and socially acceptable. Like everything else in Jen’s boring, follow-the-rules life. Until she’d found Jason and Sam in bed together, she’d just gone with the flow. Done what was expected of her. Gone to school. Got a respectable degree. Got engaged to the son of a family friend. And it had worked. She’d had a fiancé, a wedding, a plan.
Now, here she was, barely six months out of college with nothing. No wedding. No future. No plan. Her tiny job at the tiny historical museum, the job that was the perfect job for a rich man’s wife, would never support her in Boston. All her friends were Sam and Jason’s friends. Her whole life was now Sam and Jason’s life. She was lost, spun out on the side of a country road, seeing things. And even the GPS knew she was a loser.
Well, she’d prove the technology wrong. She’d prove everyone wrong. Jen wiped her tears and searched her directory for Mrs. Castlebury’s number. She’d call for directions. Her finger hovered over the little green icon.
Her mother’s voice rang in her head, telling her she should just admit it: all women were better off with a strong, rich man to take care of them and she wasn’t any different. She couldn’t even drive a few hours away from the city by herself.
Lifting her chin she tossed the phone into the passenger seat and started the car back up.
She didn’t need any stupid directions. She could do this. Her mother, her ex-fiance, Sam. Everyone back in Boston thought she was nothing on her own. And if she gave up now she might as well turn around and admit they were right.
“You have passed your destination. You may be lost.”
“Oh, shu
t up!” Jen jabbed at the GPS, and shut the thing off. “I may be lost, but I’m not giving up.”
This was her only chance to survive Christmas this year. She refused to turn tail and run back to Boston—where her life was a mess and everyone knew it. She’d stay here on her own and do what she wanted to do. And while she was at it, she would prove to everyone that she didn’t need a man to survive.
Maybe she’d even prove it to herself.
Discover GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST, due to be released July 2014
on Jessica’s website http://jessicaaspen.com
or whichever fine retailer you purchased this book.
Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) Page 29
