Formats available: ebookGenre: Contemporary romance
Series: The Minaldi Legacy #1
Length: 226 pages
Publisher: Lakehouse Press
Date Released: September 14, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
As a little boy, Luca Minaldi was told he was a monster.
As an adult, he knows it is true.He lives in Malta, a fairytale-like place filled with sunshine and sea, beauty and secrets. And Luca’s darkest of secrets is the best kept of them all.
Eva Talbot arrives in Malta for the summer to finish up her doctoral dissertation. When she meets Luca, a mysterious and handsome shipping tycoon, there is an instant attraction, a disturbing and beautiful energy that she has never felt before. But she senses the darkness that lives within him.
Eva is hired to care for his mother, who suffers from dementia, but it is Luca who Eva will eventually risk everything to save. Her life becomes a swirling chaos of darkness and romance, of secrets and mystery. And the question that emerges will become the most important answer of all.
Can she save Luca from the darkness that plagues him without losing herself?
The answer is a matter of life or death.
As part of the Kismet Book Tour for Courtney Cole’s new book, Of Blood and Bone, I’m absolutely thrilled to present a teaser to give you just a taste of this fantastic contemporary romance that has touches of mystery and darkness. I hope it will whet your appetite for the book tour, and for my review on October 16.
Prepare to be teased…
“Can you start at the beginning?” I ask. He nods.
And so he tells me of life at Chessarae. Of being a child here, with a mother who was distant and detached and a father who was never home. Luca knows why now, because Nicolas was increasingly confined to the cave in the maze, more and more as his life progressed. But since the Minaldis do not speak of their curse, not even to each other, he didn’t understand as a boy. He felt abandoned and alone.
Luca Minaldi may be confident and powerful on the outside, but on the inside he is a broken little boy. And with each word that comes from his mouth, from his perfectly formed lips, I feel my heart constrict just a little more until it is difficult for me to speak, to ask him questions.
“When did you understand what was happening to you?” I ask. It’s hard to formulate sound around the lump that has swelled in my throat.
“I always knew,” he answers, quiet in this large room. He gets up and pours us each a glass of Scotch, moving fluidly. He takes a gulp of his and I grip my cold glass tightly.
“I always knew. My mother told me at a very young age that there was something wrong with me, that I was a monster like my father. My brothers and I had a nurse who stayed with us in our wing. If we showed signs of sleepwalking or something similar, she was instructed to tie our hands to our bed and not allow us to leave until it had passed. As time went on, it was clear that it only afflicted me. My brothers were normal.”
A tear slips from the corner of my eye now as I picture Luca as a boy, terrified and alone in the darkness of his room, tied to his enormous bed.
“Luca… I…”
I can’t speak any more. The words won’t come. And another tear slips down my cheek. My eyes are hot and burning, so I close them.
Courtney Cole is a novelist who lives near Lake Michigan with her small domestic zoo (aka family), her pet iPad and her favorite cashmere socks. She’s always working on her next novel. To learn more about her, visit www.courtneycolewrites.com
