Seeing and touching this gown made her feel connected to her mom’s passion for vintage haute couture fashion. She had been the epitome of beauty and had taught Athena to appreciate the grace of this lost world.
She ached to slide her body up and through the princess-style dress the way Bertha would have done. She ran the old, soft silk tulle along her neck and arms, loving the feel of it.
Drawn by the exquisite detail of the double white net ruffle around the hem, she sank down upon her knees and then lay on her back. She scooted beneath the skirt to look up at the white taffeta lining. She brushed her hot cheek against the cool fabric and sighed.
It felt so cool, so comforting she didn’t want to move. The dress fell around her like a wedding veil, beautiful yet protective. She felt content to merely lie beneath the gown, breathing in its history. She wanted to stay here forever, safe in Bertha’s kinder, gentler world. She heard a string quartet playing a waltz like they would have done that afternoon in London for Bertha. Athena closed her eyes, lost in the music, lost in a world she adored. Far away from the reality of the last few months.
She floated in peace until the musicians started repeating the same stanza, over and over and over again. She opened her eyes, angry at this rude, discordant interruption of her bliss.
“Athena! Athena! Athena! Can you hear me? Athena! Athena!” Bridget called excessively. “Come out from under that skirt. You’ve been lyin’ there for an hour!”
Athena tried to shake off Bridget’s strong hands tugging at her ankle, but she couldn’t. “No, I don’t want to come out. I like it here,” she shouted back.
“Athena, if you don’t come out, I’m comin’ in after you,” Bridget called and gave another hard tug at Athena’s foot.
Not wanting to be rude, Athena sighed and crawled out. After all, she loved Bridget—at this moment she loved everyone.
Blinking, she looked up.
It isn’t Bridget!
Bertha Palmer, Chicago’s proud social queen of the late 1800s and early 1900s, stood smiling down at her.
Athena screamed, scrambling to her feet. “This isn’t a time capsule, it’s a time warp! Bertha, you’re really here!”
Joy exploded through her hot, throbbing body. She gripped Bertha’s small, cool hands. “My mother loved you and what you did for Chicago. She loved powerful women of the past who blazed a trail for the rest of us.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a blur of movement, like someone else had come. She looked around but couldn’t focus her eyes. She shook her head, trying to stop the slowly spinning world. “Is someone else here, too?” She looked toward the last shimmering mannequin and blinked. Jackie Kennedy, wearing her famous blue pillbox hat and coatdress, stood watching her.
“Jackie, you’re here, too!” Athena called to her. “Mom said you were just like Bertha and knew the power of dress.”
The world spun faster and faster, making Bertha blur and Jackie vanish. Fearful she’d lost both of them, Athena gripped Bertha’s hand tighter. “Where did Jackie go?”
“Come with me, Athena. I saw Jackie go this way, toward the front.”
She laughed in relief and joy, twining her fingers through Bertha’s and running with her toward the harsh fluorescent lights in the decontamination chamber.
Outside, the sky looked so penetratingly blue its brightness hurt her eyes. She squeezed her lids closed. “I can’t see Jackie anymore. Which way did she go?”
“I see her, Athena. This way. Climb into the back seat of the car and we’ll follow her.”
Athena opened her aching eyes the tiniest bit to glance up at Bertha. For a brief instant a vivid gold encircled Bertha’s curls like a halo. Athena sighed. “You look just as beautiful as I knew you were. You were Mom’s absolute favorite. She called you Chicago’s angel.”
“That’s nice. In you go, Athena.”
The back seat smelled like new leather. Athena’s lids felt too heavy to leave open. She closed them just as she heard the loud, powerful car motor roar to life.
“Can you still see Jackie?” Athena whispered, so tired she couldn’t lift her head.
“Yes. Don’t you worry. Everythin’ will be fine. You rest now. I’m turnin’ on some nice, soothin’ music for you.”
Athena floated in a strange twilight contentment more profound than she’d experienced beneath Bertha’s exquisite gown. This time when the music came, it had words. “God Bless the Child.”
“I love this song.” The words vibrated through her head, and she began to hum the tune to herself. A burst of energy and joy exploded through her blood. Her voice sounded so pure and true and golden, she let the words pour from her throat.
Holding the last note, she lost track of her breathing. The twilight world behind her eyes swirled crazily around, blue, purple, orange, and, at last, a cool blackness. She rested again, floating contentedly in silent bliss.
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Sherrill Bodine
Dear Reader,
One of my favorite things about writing is taking real people and mixing and matching their body parts and personalities to create characters who are captivating and entirely unique. And of course, I always set my books in my beloved Chicago, sharing with all of you the behind-the-scenes worlds and places I adore most.
But in ALL I WANT IS YOU, I couldn’t resist sharing one of my other passions: vintage jewelry.
Thanks to a dear friend I was able to haunt antique stores and flea markets all over the city, rescuing broken, discarded pieces of fine vintage couture costume jewelry and watching her repair, restore, and redesign them. She gave these pieces new life, transforming them into necklaces, bracelets, and brooches of her own unique creation, and it was an amazing thing to see.
I just knew my heroine, Venus Smith, had to do the very same thing, and thus her jewelry line, A Touch of Venus, was born.
And of course it seemed only fitting that Venus’s designs end up in Clayworth’s department store, the store I created in my previous book, A Black Tie Affair, which is a thinly veiled Marshall Fields, Chicago’s late great iconic retailer. Of course, the most delicious part is that Clayworth’s is run by Venus’s archenemy, Connor Clayworth O’Flynn, the man who betrayed her father and ruined his reputation. And yes, you guessed it—sparks fly between them, igniting into a fiery passion.
But this book isn’t just the product of my imagination. Readers have been so kind, telling me the most amazing stories that have transported me to fascinating places, and I want to take all of you with me!
When someone shared with me the legend of the “Angel of Taylor Street,” I fell in love with the story and couldn’t resist using it myself. The Angel of Taylor Street was a person or persons who for decades did good deeds for strangers without ever asking anything in return. I changed the character to the Saint of Taylor Street in ALL I WANT IS YOU, and now it’s an important part of Venus and Connor’s story.
But that isn’t the only one. Did you know there’s a private gambling club hidden beneath the parking lot of an old Chicago restaurant, one that’s been in business since our gangster days? I didn’t either, until someone tipped me off. Of course it is the site of a fabulous adventure for Venus and Connor. It is just a hint of Chicago’s inglorious past, but this time it has a positive spin—I promise!
I hope you’ll enjoy Venus and Connor’s story in ALL I WANT IS YOU. Please come visit my website at www.sherrillbodine.com. I’d love to hear from you!
Xo, Sherrill
From the desk of Kendra Leigh Castle
Dear Reader,
“Dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”
I heard the voice of Peter Venkman in my head a lot as I was writing MIDNIGHT RECKONING, the second book in my Dark Dynasties series. That’s because his little quip there is the basis for the story. Well, maybe not the mass hysteria part. But I did want to see what would happen when one of my cat-shifti
ng vampires met a gorgeous woman who wasn’t just out of his reach, but out of his species entirely. This is a tale of cat vamp meets werewolf, and relationships don’t come with more built-in baggage than theirs.
I love a good star-crossed relationship, as long as it works out all right in the end (I still suffer traumatic flashbacks from Romeo and Juliet), but writing one turned out to be more difficult than I’d imagined. I’m perfectly happy to torment my characters from time to time, but the deck was so stacked against these two that even I was sometimes left wondering how they could possibly work things out. You see, Jaden Harrison and Lyra Black are natural enemies. In their world, vampires and werewolves don’t mix, period. While the vampires rule the cities, the wolf packs keep to more rural areas, and the enmity between the races is strong despite years of relative peace between them. The wolves think the vampires are arrogant, worthless bloodsuckers; and the vampires think the wolves are wild, unruly, violent beasts. Each race steers clear of the other, so the chances of Jaden and Lyra ever meeting were incredibly slim. But they did… and it left quite an impression.
If you’ve read Dark Awakening, you’ll remember the beautiful she-wolf who stalked off after Jaden insulted her. What she was doing in a vampire safe house was left a mystery, but in MIDNIGHT RECKONING, you’ll discover that Lyra has much larger problems than one rude vampire. She’s the only child of her pack’s Alpha, and the natural choice to fill his shoes when he steps down. There’s just one problem: Lyra is female, and werewolf society is patriarchal, with some archaic notions about a woman’s place that would horrify most twenty-first-century women. But this is Lyra’s family, Lyra’s world, and rather than desert them she’s determined to make them see her value. She wants to win the right to lead at the pack’s Proving… but to do so, she’ll need to learn to fight in a way that evens the playing field. Finding someone to teach her seems hopeless as the clock ticks down, until a chance encounter with an unpleasantly familiar face leads to unexpected opportunity… and a very unlikely teacher.
The wolf and the cat together are a volatile mix of confidence and caution, brashness and reserve, unrestrained ferocity and quiet intensity. Their interaction is frowned upon, and a relationship between them is strictly forbidden. But a blue-eyed Cait Sith is hard to resist for even the most stubborn she-wolf, and it isn’t long before both Lyra and Jaden start to wonder if there might not be a way around the traditional “fighting like cats and dogs” arrangement. That is, if the forces working against them from within the pack don’t end Lyra’s chances, and her life, first.
How Lyra and Jaden find their way to each other, and whether Venkman was right about canine/feline love affairs being a harbinger of the apocalypse, is something you’ll have to read the book to find out. But if you’re a fan of the sparks that fly when opposites attract, you’ll want to come along and visit the Pack of the Thorn, where a vampire cat without a cause has finally met his match.
Enjoy!
From the desk of Rochelle Alers
Dear Reader,
You’ve just picked up a very special novel, one that has lingered in my heart for ages.
SANCTUARY COVE, the first book in the Cavanaugh Island series, not only comes from my heart, but connects me to my ancestral roots.
Set on a Sea Island in the Carolina lowcountry, SANCTUARY COVE envelops you with the comforting spirit of a small town, where the residents cling to old traditions that assure a slower, more comforting way of life. Drive slowly through quaint Main Street, and you’ll sense a place where time seems to stand still. Step into Jack’s Fish House and be welcomed with warm feelings and comfort food. Sit quietly by the picturesque harbor and listen to the natural ebb and flow of nature.
The Cove draws recently widowed Deborah Robinson into its embrace, offering a fresh start for herself, her teenaged son, and her daughter. Her grandmother’s ancestral home reaches out to her, filled with wonderful childhood memories that give Deborah the strength she needs to face her future.
When Dr. Asa Monroe arrives at the Cove, he’s at a crossroads. The loss of his wife and young son in a tragic accident has devastated his world, sending him on a nomadic journey to find faith and meaning. And as he spends the winter on the Cove, he discovers a world of peace that has eluded him for more than a year. When he meets Deborah, he realizes not only that they are kindred spirits, but that fate might grant him a second chance at love. When friendship gives way to passion, Deborah and Asa find their greatest challenge is hiding their love in a town where there is no such thing as a secret.
The residents of the Cove are loving, wonderful, and quirky, just like the relatives we love even when they embarrass us at family reunions. So come on home and meet Asa, Deborah and her children, and a town full of unforgettable characters that will make you laugh, cry, and long for island living. Sit down with a glass of lemonade, put your feet up, and let life move a little slower. Enjoy the magnificent sunsets, the rattle of palmetto leaves in the breeze, and the mouthwatering aroma of lowcountry home cooking. If you listen carefully, you’ll even hear a few folks speak Gullah, a dialect that is a blend of English and African.
And don’t forget to look for Angels Landing, the second novel in the Cavanaugh Island series, coming in the fall of 2012.
Read, enjoy, and do let me hear from you!
[email protected]
www.rochellealers.com
SUIT UP FOR A BLACK TIE AFFAIR
“A second-chance-at-love thriller… fans will enjoy Ms. Bodine’s entertaining joy ride.”
—Midwest Book Review
“A Black Tie Affair is a charming romantic romp I thoroughly enjoyed… Sherrill Bodine has found a way to open a glamorous world everyone can delight in.”
—Blogs.PublishersWeekly.com
“A light, little romance… a fun way to pass an afternoon.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Great read… fast, and oh so romantic… I’m a fool for romance, so I fell under the spell of Sherrill Bodine immediately.”
—TheReviewBroads.com
“Wonderful characters… I can’t wait to read about what’s happening in Chicago with Ms. Bodine as my guide!”
—NightOwlRomance.com
“Simply fun… This one will bring a smile to your face and perhaps bring up a memory or two.”
—BookJourney.wordpress.com
“A Black Tie Affair is a light, fast read with several moments that made me laugh out loud… a light read with bit of love and romance lightly sprinkled with mystery.”
—FictionVixen.com
“If you like fashion, romance, mysterious toxins, erratic and funny behavior coming from otherwise staid people, and two people who are meant to be together, then you probably will enjoy reading this novel.”
—CoffeeTimeRomance.com
“Ms. Bodine’s readers will appreciate the buildup of this romance and the time that she spends pulling us into her tale.”
—SuspenseRomanceWriters.com
“I highly recommend this book with a 5/5 rating. It has some adventure, romance, and fiction based on factual incidents and places.”
—SAHMReviews.com
“A light, frothy romance with enough substance to keep the reader interested. Fashion history can be fascinating and Bodine makes that the center to A Black Tie Affair.”
—JandysBooks.com
“Filled with intrigue and intricate details and real emotions… and enjoyable read.”
—MiddayEscapades.com
“What makes this book stand out for me was the author’s ability to use internal thoughts and punch them into stellar one-liners. It made the characters so much more dimensional, complete with lovable flaws. You really found yourself relating to them and rooting for them. Recommended!”
—BookPleasures.com
“Oh, but I loved this book. Ms. Bodine has a way of bringing you into the world of high fashion couture dresses and making any girl feel all giddy inside. This was a light, fluffy romance, with gr
eat characters, witty banter, and an underlying mystery to solve… a very enjoyable read.”
—BookWormyGirl.blogspot.com
TALKING UP THE TALK OF THE TOWN
A Cosmopolitan Red Hot Read
“4 Stars! A funny, energetic, and charming story that’s sure to entertain many readers… The depth and reality of Bodine’s characters make the story come alive, and readers will finish the novel with a happy feeling inside.”
—RT Book Reviews on Talk of the Town
“Fun, fresh, and entertaining, Bodine’s work sparkles for those who like a little dish and a little romance.”
—Parkersburg News and Sentinel (NC)
“I love this book! Fizzy, frothy fun expertly blended with sexy romance, powerful friendships, much warmth, and lots of laughter. Don’t miss this witty and wonderful page-turner.”
—Barbara Bretton, New York Times bestselling author of Casting Spells
“Charming and a fun escape.”
—JandysBooks.com
“What a hoot! Laugh-out-loud rollicking romance… Juicy gossip, fashion advice, delish recipes, and sexy romps; Talk of the Town is destined to be the talk of romance readers everywhere!”
—SingleTitles.com
“I thoroughly enjoyed Talk of the Town.”
—ArmchairInterviews.com
Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
CHICAGO JOURNAL & COURIER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
All I Want Is You Page 28