New Release: Gunnysack Hell by Nancy Brashear #thriller #giveaway

My friend Nancy Brashear’s first novel, Gunnysack Hell, a psychological thriller, was recently published by The Wild Rose Press (https://www.thewildrosepress.com/). Read to the end to enter Nancy’s drawings.

Gunnysack Hell cover

Blurb:

“There’s more to fear in the desert than scorpions and rattlesnakes.”

It’s the summer of 1962, middle of the Cold War, and the O’Brien family has moved off-grid to the Mojave Desert in Southern California. After all, the desert has to be a safer place to raise a family than the crime-ridden city, and there they can build a new future.

But evil also stalks dusty desert roads, and eight-year-old Nonni finds herself harboring a terrible secret: Only she can identify the predator who has been terrorizing the community. And he knows where she lives.

Buy links:

Barnes & Noble buy link: (Barnes and Noble) Gunnysack Hell: Nook and Paperback
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gunnysack-hell-nancy-brashear/1138547553

Amazon buy link: Gunnysack Hell: Kindle and Print
https://amzn.to/3pFfBpk

Apple iBook buy link: https://books.apple.com/us/book/gunnysack-hell/id1546966537

Excerpt:

I read this morning that Donald Fricker was granted parole after serving twenty years in prison. Once I saw his name in print, the decades disappeared in the flick of a newspaper page. My childhood flooded back to eight-year-old me, too scared to identify him and save my family.

It was May of 1962. My family had recently moved to our new home, our grandparents’ one-room homestead cabin in the California high desert with tarpaper and chicken-wire lining the walls. It never occurred to me to ask my father why we had moved from our three-bedroom suburban home by the beach to “off the grid.”

All I knew was that we used kerosene lanterns, the chemical outhouse under the tall water tank, a wood- burning stove, and an old-fashioned ice-box that our father replenished daily with a big block of ice from Jolly’s Corner.
Tessa, my six-year-old sister, and I walked home alone, every school day, from the bus stop, a mile and a half down an isolated dirt road.

That’s when it happened, the thing that changed our family. I’ll never forget that day. I protected Tessa even though I broke all of my promises to Mama I’d made just the night before. To walk directly home from the bus stop, not to talk to strangers, and to stay away from open wells.

That afternoon, when the bus’s hissing air brakes signaled our stop, we leapt from the bottom step onto the dirt shoulder of the road.

I picked the perfect stone from the side of the road. It had to be small and round, with no sharp edges, and light enough to kick all the way home.

Tessa followed on my heels, talking my ear off, and stepping on the heel of one of my tennies. “Gave you a flat!”

Back off!” I glared at her. Mama said those shoes were like gold, and we were to protect them. I gave the rock a punt and forged ahead.

Oblivious to things going on out there in the desert, we were lulled into a sense of safety and routine. Like Eve, we didn’t feel the danger around us until it was too late to escape. Instead, I should have been paying attention to the truck following us slowly.

Down the deserted road.

Yes, this is our story.

My story.

Endorsement: “I can’t recall the last time I was so impressed with someone’s writing style. It’s pure genius! Gunnysack Hell, told through the various family members’ point of view, takes the readers down a tunnel filled with mystery, thrills, and excitement. This masterpiece is not to be missed.”~L. C. Hayden, Award-winning and best-selling author, http://www.lchayden.com/

(The Harry Bronson Thriller Series, When Memory Fails as seen on NBC and ABC, and others)

Author Nancy BrashearAbout the Author:

Nancy Brashear lives in Orange County, California, with her husband, Patrick, and their rescue dog, Goldie, where her grown children and seven grandgirls have supported her writing adventures. A professor emeritus in English, she has published short stories, poems, academic articles, textbook chapters as well as website content and writing projects with educational publishers. Gunnysack Hell is her debut fiction novel and was inspired by a true-crime event. And, yes, she did live off-grid with her family in a homestead cabin in the Mojave Desert when she was a child. Visit www.nancybrashear.com to learn more.

Goldielicks

It looks like Nancy’s dog Goldie has the same shoe fetish my Callie does.

Find Nancy online:

Author website: www.nancybrashear.com
Author FB: www.facebook.com/nancybrashearauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nancybrashearauthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drnancybrashear
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/nancy-brashear
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Brashear/e/B083JNZGPR%3F
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/nancybrashear/

Ready or Not! coverAlso by Nancy Brashear – Ready or Not: A Creepy, Retold Fairytale for Grownups
https://amzn.to/3reLgOK

Enter Nancy’s Free eCopy Giveaway Drawing of Gunnysack Hell at her website (ends February 26) by leaving your name and choice of the version you’d like if you’re one of the three winners: Mobi (Kindle), ePub (Nook), or PDF! Winners will also be mailed a postcard of Gunnysack Hell.
(https://www.nancybrashear.com/february-drawing-for-free-e-copy-of-brashears-gunnysack-hell-ends-feb-26/)

Enter new Rafflecopter drawing (ends March 7) by following Nancy Brashear on Amazon to enter (and meet new authors and their books, too):
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e226730a70/

Celebrate Safely This #ValentinesDay: Dine In and #ReadaRegency

Book Heart graphic

Though things are looking up, the world is still in a pandemic, and life has yet to return to normal. The temptation to celebrate holidays in the usual manner is ever-present, but not necessarily safe, and not even possible with many restaurants limited to outdoor or takeout and delivery dining. Here is my tip to celebrate Valentine’s Day safely in 2021.

For some couples, Valentine’s Day used to mean an expensive candlelit dinner with wine and flowers on the table. But in these days of the coronavirus pandemic, indoor dining can be in short supply.

Why not plan a romantic dinner at home? Light the candles, pour the wine, and if you don’t feel like cooking, order takeout and serve it on the good china!

Afterwards, curl up in front of the fireplace, if you have one, and snuggle together.

And another tip: Valentine’s Day can be any day of the year when you’re in love.

Recently I was asked about my favorite part of being a romance author.

Creating happy endings for my characters. Life doesn’t always work out that way, but we can always escape into a fictional world where everything works out the way it should, as it does in my Regency romance, Lady Elinor’s Escape.

Lady Elinor graphic w roses

Book Blurb: Lady Elinor Ashworth always longed for adventure, but when she runs away from her abusive aunt, she finds more than she bargained for. Elinor fears her aunt who is irrational and dangerous, threatening Elinor and anyone she associates with. When she encounters an inquisitive gentleman, she accepts his help, but fearing for his safety, hides her identity by pretending to be a seamstress. She resists his every attempt to draw her out, all the while fighting her attraction to him.

There are too many women in barrister Stephen Chaplin’s life, but he has never been able to turn his back on a damsel in distress. The younger son of a baronet is a rescuer of troubled females, an unusual vocation fueled guilt over his failure to save the woman he loved from her brutal husband. He cannot help falling in love with his secretive seamstress, but to his dismay, the truth of her background reveals Stephen as the ineligible party.

He handed her the basket of flowers, then shrugged out of his coat and handed it and his hat to Peggy O’Shea. She gave him a flirtatious smile in return before hanging the wet items on a nearby rack.

Elinor stepped forward. “Flowers, Mr. Chaplin?”

He turned toward her. “Ah, Mrs. Brown. Yes, I thought these spring blossoms just the thing to brighten Madame Latour’s shop on such a dismal day.”

“How very kind you are,” said Ellie. “But an entire basketful?”

He smiled. “The young girl selling them was in despair over the lack of customers. She appeared to be almost drowned and nearly in tears, so I bought all she had, including the basket.”

“And paid far more than they were worth, I am certain,” Elinor murmured.

“Did you say something, Mrs. Brown?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Nothing of importance.”

He rummaged through the basket and produced a nosegay of bluebells, which he presented to Dolly. “These are for you, to match your eyes.”

Her blue eyes grew wide with wonder as she accepted the nosegay. “Oh, sir, no one ever give me flowers afore.”

“Well, I am certain this will not be the last time,” he said gallantly. Ignoring Dolly’s worshipful look, he returned to the basket for another nosegay, white violets this time, which he gave to Peggy.

She bobbed him a curtsy. “Oh, thank ye, yer lordship.”

He gave her a warm smile. “You are very welcome, Miss O’Shea. But I am not a lord, merely a mister.”

“No matter. ’Tis a fine gentleman ye are, to be thinking of us working girls.”

“Girls, why do you not go on home?” Mimi asked. “You have all worked so very hard today, and there will be no more customers, n’est-ce-pas?”

With glad smiles for Mimi, and more thanks and curtsies for Stephen Chaplin, the girls donned their cloaks and left the shop.

“I will get a vase for these lovely flowers,” Mimi said. “Please come into the parlor, Monsieur Chaplin, and warm yourself by the fire. I have made the coffee and there is water for tea.”

“Thank you,” Stephen Chaplin said. He delved into the basket one last time before handing it to Mimi. As she left the room, he handed Elinor a bunch of purple violets.

Elinor held them to her nose and breathed in the sweet, delicate fragrance. “‘A violet in the youth of primary nature, forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,’” she quoted.

“‘The perfume and suppliance of a minute; no more,’” he added softly.

Startled, she gazed into his warm honey-brown eyes and her pulse began to race. She would have to guard her heart around this man? Why did he have to have such an effect on her? Was it simply because he was the only eligible gentleman she had ever known?

No, a gentleman who brought flowers to poor shop girls and quoted Shakespeare was surely out of the ordinary. What a catch he would be for some young lady. But of course, not for her.

Buy at Amazon or read for free with KU: http://amzn.com/B00CHSNEII

Wishing you a safe and happy Valentine’s Day!

Linda