LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT? (and a giveaway!) by CHERYL PIERSON

Do you believe in love at first sight? Can it happen? More importantly, can it last over the long haul of the ups and downs of a relationship?

Throw in a few obstacles from the very first meeting of the hero/heroine, and the relationship becomes even more intriguing.

In my novella, EVERY GIRL’S DREAM, that’s just what happens. (Every Girl's Dream was previously published with Victory Tales Press, and has recently been re-released with Prairie Rose Publications!)

Sheena McTavish, a young Irish girl, has been raped by the son of her father’s employer. Now, with a baby on the way, Sheena is given an unthinkable choice: give her baby to the father’s wealthy family to raise, or travel to New Mexico Territory by stagecoach to live with her aunt and uncle until her child is born. At that point, she will have to place it in a nearby orphanage.

Desperate to buy some time and protect her baby from its father, she chooses to travel west. Alone and afraid, she starts on the journey that will change her life forever. Before Sheena’s stage leaves, she meets handsome Army scout Callen Chandler. The attraction is there, even under difficult conditions.

As the story progresses, Sheena must learn to trust again, and Cal begins to realize he doesn’t have to live the solitary existence he’s endured up to now. Being half Comanche has left him with no place in either world—white or Indian. When Sheena comes along, everything changes…for both of them.

>

I WILL BE GIVING AWAY PDF COPIES OF EVERY GIRL'S DREAM TO TWO LUCKY COMMENTERS TODAY! BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR COMMENT!


To check out the rest of my work, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/author/cherylpierson

I’ll leave you with an excerpt of EVERY GIRL’S DREAM, available now for only $1.99.

Cal is a half-breed U.S. Army scout, who has just rescued Sheena, the heroine, from a Kiowa attack on the stagecoach she was in. They had met briefly the morning before, and as luck would have it, Cal comes upon the stage after the Kiowas have attacked and are getting ready to ride away with Sheena. He tells them he and Sheena are married and the Kiowas reluctantly let him take Sheena, but then…

Cal felt…something. His back tingled as he waited for the stinging burn of a shale arrowhead. He risked a glance backward, and saw the Kiowa leader’s stare heavy upon him.

“Sheena, hold on tight.”

“The baby—”

“I know, sweetheart. We won’t ride hard any longer’n we have to. Lowell’s Ridge is only about four miles away.” A very long four miles.

She nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry, Callen.”

“No call for that.”

“You came for me.”

He smiled at that. There was a small amount of disbelief in her tone, overshadowed by a huge amount of wonder. Who wouldn’t come for her?

“You could be killed because of me,” she said softly, as if she had only just realized it. She laid her hand over his, and in that moment, he wondered if dying for her would be worth the twenty-seven years he’d lived so far.

His heart jumped at her touch, then steadied. But as he risked another glance back, he saw exactly what he’d feared. Two of the braves were mounting up, and they weren’t riding the opposite way. “That still might happen,” he murmured.

He leaned forward, trying to protect Sheena with his body as he slapped the reins against the horse’s side, urging him into a lope, then a full-out run.

The Kiowas were close behind them. There must have been dissension among them. The leader had seemed content to let him take Sheena and ride away. One of the others must have disagreed with that decision.

Cal reached to pull his revolver from his holster.

They were strangely quiet, he thought.

The first bullet cracked from behind them, and Cal reflexively bent lower. The bullet whined past his ear like an angry bee.

Sheena gasped. He fired off a shot and got lucky. One of the warriors screamed in agony and fell from his saddle. But the other rode low, hanging onto the side of his mount. And he kept right on coming.

The next bullet sang over Cal’s head. He concentrated on eating up the miles to Lowell’s Ridge. Riding double was slowing them down considerably. Sheena’s body was tense beneath the shelter of his own. Fragile, but strong. Delicate, but determined. His hand splayed over her stomach, holding her close, cradling her from the jarring of their wild ride.

A whoop from behind them accompanied the crack of a rifle, and this time, the Kiowa warrior’s bullet found its mark. A bolt of fire seared through Cal’s right shoulder, and for a minute, the pain was so strong he almost sawed back on the reins. But at his harsh curse, Sheena glanced up at him, her hand instantly clamping tightly over his. The reins were still wrapped in his fingers, but Sheena kept her hand on his, reminding him to let the horse have his head and continue their flight for freedom.

“Hang on, Cal!”

The pain was so breathtaking he could do nothing but nod his understanding.

“Dammit!” she cursed. That almost made him smile, but the agony in his shoulder surged up and stole his breath again as the horse’s hooves pounded the ground below.

The road was not much more than a trail, and where it narrowed, branches reached out to scrape and snarl in hair and clothing, scratching their faces as they blindly rode toward safety.

www.prairierosepublications.com

THE "LOOK" CHALLENGE by Cheryl Pierson

“Look” is one of those words for which writers are always on the lookout. Like other words related to the senses, “look” can distance readers from the point-of-view character’s experience, so we try to use it with caution. The Look Challenge is a game writers play to remind us to keep an eye out for the overused word and replace it with something more evocative when appropriate. The rules of the Look Challenge require us to find the first occurrence of “look” in one of our works in progress, and then post that sentence and the surrounding paragraph(s).

The Look Challenge is only a beginning for us to try to find our overused words as

writers—and kind of a fun game to play. I have to say, it is a word I have to be careful of in my writing because I do tend to use a lot of facial expressions when I describe my characters, and for me, the characters’ eyes are so important! You can also use this challenge for other sensory words (heard, felt, etc.) that "distance" the reader from the character.

Just for fun, I’ve gone back into some of my current soon-to-be released galleys and WIP manuscripts and checked for the first showing of the word “look”, or any of its variations. I’ll share some of those with you now, and writers, please feel free to do the same in your comments! I’m always curious about how others are doing with these same issues we all have and how they “fix” them!

Here’s mine from Gabriel’s Law, one of my western historical WIPs that placed third in the SARA MERRITT contest a couple of years ago. Half-breed gunfighter Brandon Gabriel is being attacked by the men of the town who hired him to get rid of a gang. Now that the gang is gone, they don’t want to pay him. This is the first occurrence of “LOOK” and I was pretty proud that it didn’t show up until page 3-4.

He shook away the memory as the whip found its mark again, this time across his neck and shoulders. Smith roared in pain as the backlash caught him on the cheek. But Brandon made no sound. His harsh training had been equal in both worlds, Comanche and Anglo. He clenched his teeth and bit back his groan of pain.

They converged on him, and he was almost thankful. At least, they were finished with the whip. Now, it would only be a matter of time. Still, he fought as they tried to grasp his arms. They struggled for several minutes before subduing him, four of them holding his arms pinned behind his back, forcing him to stand.

Arnold Smith’s florid features swam into his view, redder than usual...he was looking at him through a haze of his own blood.

“You understand, don’t you, Gabriel?” Smith asked. “It’s just business.”

This snippet is from my upcoming October 2012 release, TEMPTATION’S TOUCH. It’s a contemporary romantic suspense. Recently divorced Kendi Morgan rushes out in the darkness to give some high school kids who constantly party on her land a piece of her mind. Only, instead of the teenagers, she finds that she has instead come upon two men murdering a third. In horrified silence, she watches, unable to do anything about what she sees…until the killers drive away and she realizes that the victim may not be dead after all. This didn’t show up until page 7! Doing better!

For an instant, she hesitated about shining the light higher, onto his face. If the murderer had shot him in the head, she wasn’t sure she could look at that. But she had to know if he was dead.

“What else could he be, Kendi?” she whispered to the wind.

Her lips compressed tightly. She took another hesitant step forward, shivering from cold and nerves.

Lightning flared, followed by a roar of thunder, and Kendi flinched. In the sudden brightness, she thought she had seen the man move. But that was impossible. He was dead. She had helped kill him by not diverting the attention of the two goons who had murdered him. That, she would never forget as long as she lived.


This last snippet is from my holiday novella A NIGHT FOR MIRACLES that will be re-released with a new publisher, WESTERN TRAIL BLAZER, this fall.

When widow Angela Bentley takes in injured ex-gunhawk Nick Dalton and three orphans on Christmas Eve, she is determined only to lend a hand where needed. But when the children drag in a small, scraggly Christmas tree, Angela finds herself wanting to create a memorable holiday for them. Can these visitors become the family she longs for? For those who believe in miracles, anything is possible--even true love, in the most unlikely circumstances.

The girl’s shy expression had turned to one of hopeful expectation, her cornflower blue eyes lighting with genuine joy. Angela gave her a nod, her gaze returning to settle on the man. In the striking depths of his sapphire eyes, Angela saw a personal agony with which she was familiar, a pain completely separate from the physical wound he had suffered.

A wound to his soul.

It drew her to him in spite of her intention to remain aloof. She placed a steadying hand on his side. He muffled a groan and stiffened at her gentle touch. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. He looked to be in much worse shape than she had first thought. When Angela drew her hand away, it was smudged red-brown in the fading light, and sticky with his blood. He took a shallow breath, raspy and ragged.

The older boy looked at her, eyes wide.

“Let’s get him inside,” she said, hiding most of her alarm. The stranger slid from the saddle with a harsh groan.

I hope you all have enjoyed my “LOOK” Challenge snippets. I had fun with this, and

will continue to be on the “LOOKOUT” for more instances of using “LOOK.” Please feel free to join me in posting your snippets from a current WIP or recent release. Give us a LOOK at how you use LOOK. LOL

GABRIEL’S LAW will (hopefully) be available in 2013.

TEMPTATION’S TOUCH will be available October 24, 2012 in both print and e-book format.

A NIGHT FOR MIRACLES will be available in time for the holidays this year as well.

For all my short stories, novellas, novels and other works in anthologies and collections, please click here:
https://www.amazon.com/author/cherylpierson