Witch’s
Moonstone Locket
A
Coon Hollow Coven Tale
Book
One
Marsha
A. Moore
Genre: New Adult
Paranormal Romance
Date of
Publication: March 24, 2015
Word Count:
94,000
Book
Description:
Twenty-three-year-old
Jancie Sadler was out of the room when her mother died, and her heart still
longs for their lost goodbye. Aching to ease her sorrow, Aunt Starla gives
Jancie a diary that changes her entire life. In entries from the 1930s, her
great grandmother revealed how she coped with her own painful loss by seeking
out a witch from nearby Coon Hollow Coven. The witch wore the griever’s
moonstone locket, which allowed whoever could unlock its enchantment to talk
with the dead.
Determined to
find that locket, Jancie goes to the coven’s annual carnival held in her small
southern Indiana town of Bentbone. This opposes her father’s strict rule: stay
away from witches. But she’s an adult now and can make her own decisions. She
meets Rowe McCoy, the kind and handsome witch who wears the moonstone. He
agrees to let her try to open the locket, but they’re opposed by High Priestess
Adara and her jealous desire to possess him.
Desperate for
closure with her mother, Jancie persists and cannot turn away from a perilous
path filled with magic, romance, and danger.
Warm
rain mixed with Jancie’s tears, and she rose to stand beside her mother’s
grave. Not ready to let go, she bent at the waist and her fingers followed the
arc of her mother’s name—Faye Sadler—in the headstone. She knew the unyielding
shape well. The word goodbye stuck in her throat. She’d said it aloud many
times since her mother died almost a year ago, only to have the cemetery’s vast
silence swallow her farewells. Rain beaded on the polished granite. Her hand,
bearing her mother’s silver ring, slid down the stone and fell to her side.
If
only she could’ve said goodbye to her mother before. After years of caring for
her mom while she suffered with cancer, Jancie had missed the final parting
moment while getting a quick bite of dinner. The pain still cut like a knife in
her gut.
On
foot, she retraced the too-familiar path toward her work at the Federal Bank.
Although she’d landed a job as manager at the largest of the three banks in the
small town of Bentbone, the position was a dead end. Within the first six
months, she’d mastered all the necessary skills. Now, after a year, only the
paycheck kept her there.
Jancie
turned onto Maple Street. As usual, wind swept up the corridor, between old
shade trees protecting houses, and met her at the top of the tall hill.
September rain pelted her face and battled the Indian summer noontime
temperatures. She zipped the rain parka to keep her dress dry, pulled on the
strings of the hood, and corralled strands of ginger-colored hair that whipped
into her eyes. Once able to see, she gazed farther into the valley, where the
view spanned almost a mile out to the edge of town. Usually, farmers moved
tractors across the road or boys raced skateboards and bikes down Maple
Street’s long slope.
Today,
on the deserted acreage just east of Bentbone, people moving in and out through
a gate of the tall wooden fence breathed life into the rundown carnival.
Surprised, Jancie crossed the street for a better view. She’d lost track of
time since Mom passed. The coming Labor Day weekend in Bentbone meant the
valley coven’s yearly carnival. She and her close group of girlfriends always
looked forward to the cute guys, fair food, and amazing magical rides and
decorations…even if her father didn’t approve of witches or magic. The
residents of the sleepy town awoke to welcome a host of tourists wanting to see
the spectacle created by the witches of Coon Hollow Coven.
Somehow,
Jancie had forgotten the big event this year. Last year, she didn’t go since
Mom was so sick and couldn’t be left. Jancie sighed and turned onto the main
street toward the bank. She’d lost so much since her mother passed. Really,
since the diagnosis of cancer.
At
that time, four years ago, Jancie withdrew as a sophomore from Hanover College,
a select, private school in southern Indiana near the Kentucky border—too far
away. Instead, she returned to stay with her mother and commuted to Indiana
University. Balancing hours with the home health care nurse, Jancie had few
choices of career paths. Not that it mattered, since her remarried father
expected her to find a job in Bentbone and continue taking care of her mother.
Despite the sacrifices, Jancie loved her mother, who’d always managed money for
a few special things for Jancie—a new bike, birthday parties, prom dresses—even
though their income was tight. Mom had paid for her tuition and listened to
every new and exciting college experience.
Jancie
smiled at the memory of Mom’s twinkling brown eyes, that mirrored her own, when
she asked about what happened during the day’s classes: if Jancie liked the
professor; if she’d made new friends.
When
she rounded the last corner, her thoughts returned to the work day. At the
bleak, limestone bank building, reality hit. Jancie pulled against the heavy
glass door, and a gust swept her inside. She peeled off the drenched jacket and
hung it on the coat rack of her small, plain office. At her desk again, she
took her position.
Through
the afternoon’s doldrums, punctuated by only a handful of customers, her mind
wandered to the carnival. She’d gone dozens of times before and loved it. But
since Mom passed, nothing seemed fun anymore, like she couldn’t connect with
herself and had forgotten how to have a good time. She organized a stack of
notes, anything to put the concern out of her mind.
***
After
work, Jancie drove her old blue Camry the five miles to the other end of town
where she lived in her mother’s white frame house, the home where she grew up,
now hers. Glad to own her own place, unlike her friends who rented, she’d made
a few easy changes. In the living room, a new brown leather couch with a
matching chair and ottoman. She replaced the bedroom furniture with a new oak
suite for herself in what used to be her mother’s room. With pay saved from the
bank, Jancie could remodel or build on, but she didn’t know what she wanted
yet. Her great aunt Starla had told her to just wait and hold onto her money;
she’d know soon enough.
Pouring
rain soaked the hem of her dress as she darted between the garage shed and back
stoop of the small ranch house.
Glad
she’d chosen to get her run in this morning before work, she changed into cozy
sweats, pulled the long part of her tapered hair into a ponytail, and headed
for the kitchen.
Her
phone alerted her of a text, and she read the message from her friend Rachelle,
always the social director of their group: R we going to the carnival?
Jancie
typed a response. I guess. R Lizbeth and Willow going?
Yep
whole gang. What day?
Don’t
know yet. Get back to u. Jancie worried she’d spoil their fun. Even though
they’d all been her best friends since high school and would understand her
moodiness, she didn’t want to ruin one of the best times of the year for them.
Since Mom passed, they’d taken her out to movies and shopping in Bloomington,
but this was different. Could it ever match up to the fun of all the times
before? “I don’t know if I’m up to that,” she said into open door of the old
Kenmore refrigerator while rummaging for leftovers of fried chicken and corn.
The
meal satisfied and made her thankful she’d learned how to cook during those
years with Mom. Not enough dishes to bother with the dishwasher, one of the
modern upgrades to the original kitchen, Jancie washed the dishes by hand and
then called Starla. When she answered, Jancie asked, “Can I come over tonight?
There’s something I’m needing your opinion on.”
“Why
sure, Jancie. C’mon over,” the eighty-five-year-old replied with her usual warm
drawl. “Are you wantin’ dinner? I made me some soup beans with a big hambone
just butchered from Bob’s hog. My neighbor Ellie came over and had some. She
said they were the best she’s eaten.”
Jancie
glanced at the soggy rain parka and opted for an umbrella instead. “No, I just
ate. Be right over.” Keys and purse in hand, she hung up and darted for the
shed.
Five
minutes later, she turned onto the drive of the eldercare apartments and parked
under the steel awning where Starla gave her a whole arm wave from her picture
window. Jancie made her way to number twelve on the first floor.
The
door opened, and Starla engulfed Jancie in a bear hug, pulling her into the
pillow of a large, sagging bosom. Starla smelled of her signature
scent—rosewater and liniment.
Jancie
had loved her great aunt’s hugs as long as she could remember. Stress and worry
melted away, and she hugged back. Her arm grazed Starla’s white curls along the
collar of her blue knit top embroidered with white stars—her great aunt’s
favorite emblem.
“It’s
so good to see you. Come sit a spell, while I get us some iced tea.” Starla
pulled away and gestured to the microsuede couch decorated with three crocheted
afghans in a rainbow of colors. “I thought we were done with this hot weather,
but not quite yet. That rain today’s been a gully washer but didn’t cool things
off much.” The large-boned woman scuffed her pink-house-slippered feet toward
the kitchen. “Would you rather have pound cake from the IGA or homemade
cornbread?”
Jancie
laughed and followed her into the kitchen. She wouldn’t get through the visit
without eating. “You’re just fishin’ for a compliment. You know your homemade
cornbread is better.”
Starla
arranged plates with thick slices of warm cornbread and big pats of butter on
top, while Jancie transferred the refreshments to the aluminum dinette table.
“With
your hair pulled back like that, you’re a dead ringer for your Ma. So pretty
with that same sweetheart-shaped face.” Starla folded herself onto a chair
beside Jancie. “You look to be getting on well…considering what all you’ve been
through.”
“I’m
doing okay,” Jancie said through a mouthful of the moist cornbread. She washed
it down with a swallow of brisk tea that tasted fresh-brewed. “But sometimes,
lots of times, I feel lost, like I can’t move on.” She ran a hand across her
forehead. “I didn’t get to say goodbye. I spent time with her through all those
years, and it shouldn’t matter, but it does every time I visit her grave and
most every night in my dreams.”
“Oh,
honey. I know it hurts.” Starla smoothed Jancie’s ponytail down the middle of
her back and spoke with a voice so slow and warm, it felt like a handmade quilt
wrapping around her. “You spent all that
time and gave so much. Just like when I cared for my husband some twenty years
back. I know. I never got the chance to tell Harry goodbye either. Time will
heal all hurts.”
Jancie
looked down at the marbleized tabletop to hide her teary eyes. “I don’t think
I’m ever going to heal, Aunt Starla. I don’t know if I can ever move on.”
“There
is one thing you can try. I’d have done it, if I’d have known before decades
softened my aching heart. Way back, I was desperate like you.”
Jancie
looked into Starla’s blue-gray eyes, set deep inside wrinkled lids.
Her
aunt leaned closer. “Not many know about this,” she whispered as if someone
outside the apartment door might hear. “There’s an old story about how a member
of the Coon Hollow Coven, one who’s recently lost a loved one, is made the
teller of the moonstone tale.”
Jancie
rolled her eyes. “That’s just a silly story, one of lots that Mom and Dad told
to scare me when I was little, so I’d stay away from the coven. When the
moonstone locket opens at the end of the tale, you’ll get your wish but also be
cursed.”
“Oh
no.” Starla shook her head and pushed away from the table. “Let me get Aunt
Maggie’s old diary. I got this in a box of old family things when Cousin
Dorothy passed. ” She lumbered to her spare bedroom and returned with a worn,
black-leather volume only a little larger than her wide palm. Once seated, she
thumbed through the yellowed pages. “Here.” She pointed a finger and placed the
book between them.
About
the Author:
Marsha A. Moore
loves to write fantasy and paranormal romance. Much of her life
The magic of art
and nature often spark life into her writing, as well as watercolor painting
and drawing. She’s been a yoga enthusiast for over a decade and is a registered
yoga teacher. After a move from Toledo to Tampa in 2008, she’s happily
transformed into a Floridian, in love with the outdoors. Marsha is crazy about
cycling. She lives with her husband on a large saltwater lagoon, where taking
her kayak out for an hour or more is a real treat. She never has enough days
spent at the beach, usually scribbling away at stories with toes wiggling in
the sand.
Every day at the
beach is magical!
Website: http://MarshaAMoore.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MarshaAMoore
Google +: http://google.com/+MarshaAMoore
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/marshaamoore/
Amazon author
page: amazon.com/author/marshaamoore
Goodreads author
page http://www.goodreads.com/marshaamoore
Tour
giveaway
For the 2-week
tour starting April 20th
5 copies of
Witch’s Moonstone Locket: A Coon Hollow Coven Tale
1 $20 Amazon
gift card.
Thanks so much for sharing about my release today!
ReplyDeleteA good excerpt! Congratulations, Marsha!
ReplyDeleteThanks lots, William!
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