Monday, December 5, 2011

CALLING HOME (A Destiny's Child Book): What it's all about!

Hey beautiful people

My name is Zee Monodee, and I've been a Noble Romance author for some 8-9 months now (my first release, Walking The Edge - Corpus Brides: Book One, allowed me to score a Hot New Talent slot with Noble, for which I'll be eternally grateful!) ...

... and today, my second book with Noble came out, titled Calling Home (A Destiny's Child Book), and it's a sweet romance novel about an uptight forensic pathologist, a young and handsome village doctor, and the tween girl who brings them together.

There's so much I can tell you about this story, but let me ask you a question:

Have you ever desired something, more than your own life?

Now what if you got that something, loved it, cherished it, built your life around it ... to then have it snatched out of your grasp?

Your world is dark, bleak, without meaning ... so you shatter inside, but keep a strong front going on, because you need the world to believe you are bucking up and holding on...

And then, through a twist of Fate, when your life never looked bleaker, when you have convinced everyone, including yourself, that your strong front is unbreachable...

You get that something back...!

Wouldn't that spin you on your axis, take the world you've carefully crafted and crash it to shards? What becomes of you in this whole maelstrom? How do you cope?

All these questions, my heroine, Margo Nolan, faces them. All Margo ever wanted was to care for Emma, the baby she was bringing up like her own. But Fate snatched the child away, and Margo made do. She built her life, threw herself into her job, became a force to be reckoned with in her field. Aligning herself upon her job protocol helped - as a forensic pathologist, she knows that "...emotion is something foreign; cold, rational facts and proof guide everything. Brain over heart, always ..."

And then emotion slams home, the day Margo lands custody of the daughter of heart, the one she had to give up!

But hasn't she moved to an irreversible point now, squelching her heart so much that she doesn't know the meaning of 'feeling' any longer?

What about the woman in her, the one she also never allowed to the fore? What if she decides to make a play for existence... when Margo meets the handsome, sexy - and much younger! - village doctor, Jamie Gillespie?

Thankfully for Margo, Jamie steps into her and Emma's lives, and starts them on the path to a true, 'feeling' mother and daughter relationship. And it appears the cute doctor is also smitten with Margo...

Will she give in... trust in her heart... finally be calling home?

Catch the answer to all these questions in a copy of the book, available here on the Noble Romance website!

Here's a snippet from Chapter 1:

Chapter One

Emotion is something foreign; cold, rational facts and proof drive everything. Brain over heart, always.

Every forensic pathologist knew his or her work boiled down to that line of conduct, and Margo Nolan lived her life by the principles of her job. Emotion used to be an unfamiliar concept most of the time, except for the rare occasions when the pain would tear through her, when she was unable to tamp the suffering into submission. Pain, the sharp, visceral, abject torture that gripped her every time she thought of Emma, during all those years she was away from the daughter of her heart. Lately, pain sliced through her every time her gaze landed on the pretty girl, fast blossoming into a beautiful young woman.

How many years we've lost . . . . If only I'd sought her out . . . .

But she couldn't—shouldn't—think of that then. No—there were more pressing matters at hand.

Margo's feet slowed in the lobby that also served as Dr. Gillespie's waiting room. He was the only doctor in the little village, Camberry, just outside London in the county of Surrey, where Emma, and lately Margo, too, lived. Like most country doctors, he operated his practice from his house. Emma had been sick at school that day, and had been sent to see him.

Under Margo's stilettos, the wood planks of the big Victorian manor didn't even creak or groan—strange, as old houses always had a telltale creak or two in the parquet. Or maybe her step remained light enough not to evoke any sound from the dark surface, worn smooth from years of foot traffic in that very lobby. No place echoed the click-clack of high heels louder than a morgue. Margo had learned how to keep her tread soft under any circumstance. Despite the high-gleam polish on the wood, her feet didn't skid on the glossy surface as she glided, more than walked, across the boards. Whiffs of beeswax and lemon wood polish tickled her nostrils—a completely different scent from the usual sterile tang and formaldehyde-permeated atmosphere at the morgue.

Margo stopped at the doorway that led into the anteroom to the doctor's office. Her gaze lingered on Emma, asleep on a high-backed, plush sofa. In slumber, the girl's dainty features still showed the sweetness of childhood. So very much the likeness of the chubby-cheeked cherub with corkscrew, auburn curls Margo had had to leave seven years ago—

Don't!


Today she was back with Emma, trying her damndest to bridge the gap between ages four and eleven, the time she hadn't been there for the girl. Not by choice—

Stop!

Margo straightened when a dark, looming shadow crept up on the tween. All her senses shot on high alert; she bristled, and her hands closed into fists.

The man, tall and imposing in the semi-darkness, bent and placed a hand on Emma's forehead.

Who on Earth is he? And why is he touching her?

"What do you think you're doing?" Margo crossed the distance to stand between her daughter and the stranger. She shouldered him aside, before folding her body protectively over the top of the armchair.

Her gaze raked over him, taking in the faded, threadbare-at-the-knees jeans, the hint of a dark T-shirt under the baggy, slate-grey jumper with a hoodie that obscured his face.

Who is this hooligan? What's he doing here?



*** End of excerpt ***


Catch the rest of Chapter 1, and your very own copy of the book, on the Noble website!

Thanks for having allowed me to share my big day with you today!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

2 comments:

J.S. Wayne said...

Hi, Zee!
Great excerpt. Looks like you've brought us another winner! Hope you had a great and successful release day! :D

Zee Monodee said...

Thank you JS! XOXO