Book Excerpts

No one sees me. They walk right by me and don’t even know I am here. I’m invisible. But that’s all going to change today. The woman who has agreed to marry me will be here soon. The world will finally know someone cares about me. It was worth all my savings to bring her across the border. I’m tired of being alone. Being nobody. I’m getting married. I won’t be invisible anymore—at least she’ll see me.   Maria Martinez lay flat on the dust-covered wooden planks, her right eye pressed against the hole in the floor of the aban- doned house. Pedro won’t find me here. I’ll win this time. A sneeze welled up in Maria, and she fought to stop it. She couldn’t. Quickly she looked through the small opening to make sure Pedro hadn’t come and heard her. Her older brother...

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. “Hold the elevator,” Maggie Sommerfield called out, rushing toward it while juggling three sacks full of heavy books. With a glance at the wall clock near the stairs she usually took to City Hall’s third floor, she noted her timing was worse than she thought. Now she was going to be late to Bienville to help set up the belated wedding reception for her boss and mayor, Ruth Sommerfield, and her uncle Keith. Her cousin, Kim, who was hosting the party with her, wasn’t going to be happy. She should have waited until later to bring the books to City Hall. Committed now, Maggie stepped onto the elevator and immediately set her sacks on the tiled floor, her arms beginning to ache from...

Excerpt from Love Gone to the Dogs by Margaret Daley: When Leah Taylor heard the pounding on her front door at seven o’clock in the morning, she jumped, nearly sloshing her coffee all over her hand. Did burglars now announce themselves before stealing a person blind? No one else in his right mind would be out visiting at this time. Carefully, so as not to spill the hot brew, she placed the mug on the kitchen counter and made her way toward the insistent pounding that she was sure was waking up the whole neighborhood. She peered out a narrow slit in her mini blind and saw an enraged, huge man standing on her front porch with a shredded newspaper in one hand. The other was clenched at his side. He wore practically nothing except a pair of jean shorts. He...

Clasping the strap of her purse so tightly pain zipped up her arm, Kim Walters zeroed in on Zane Davidson, the man she had avoided for the past three years since he had returned to Hope, the man who had broken her heart. The man she wished she never had to talk to again. But he was her last hope to get her house repaired at a price she could afford. Before she lost her nerve, she crossed the parking lot of the hurricane-damaged school building where she was a third-grade teacher. I can do this. But her step faltered the closer she came to Zane. The fingernails on her hand around her purse strap dug into her palm. This is crazy. Maggie is wrong. My cousin is an eternal optimist. Surely there’s another solution to getting our home restored. Kim halted,...

Rose gripped her cell phone so tightly her muscles ached. “Where are you, Lily?” “At—Nowhere Motel.” A sob caught on the end of the last word. “Help—me.” Lily’s breath rattled, followed by a clunking sound as though she’d dropped the phone. Rose paced the small bathroom at Beacon of Hope. “Lily?” Sweat coated her palms, and she rubbed her free hand against her jeans. Silence taunted her. What have you done? But the second that Rose asked that question, an image came to mind of her friend lying on the dingy gray sheets in the cheap motel, wasted, trying anyway she could to forget the horror of her life. “Lily, talk to me. Stay on the line.” Pulling the door open, Rose entered her room. When she saw her roommate, she came to a stop. Cynthia’s wide-eyed gaze fixed...

When you’re desperate, you do things you’d never do otherwise, Ellie Winters thought as she spied the neon sign that might possibly lead to her salvation. American Bar, Hotel Grande Costa. Dressed in a blue satin jump suit, she paused in the doorway to the bar and glanced over her shoulder to see if those two goons—King Kong and Godzilla—were still following her. They were. Her heart beat faster. Her throat went dry. This wasn’t turning out the way it was supposed to. Her new job was supposed to be an adventure in a country she’d never been to. Instead, she felt trapped and that frightened her enough to seek help from a total stranger. Now all she had to do was find that stranger. Ellie moved farther into the room, scanning the dimly lit bar. She had to come up...