Happy Dance - Or how to turn a day around

I had one of those days yesterday, you know the kind where you just want to crawl under your duvet and block out the world. Those that follow me on Twitter and Facebook got a lot of moany posts to contend with first thing.

Waking up to your 14 year old daughter crying her eyes out is never a good start. I must admit I rolled my eyes, wondering what latest teenage trauma had befallen her now. That is until I heard this conversation.

Daddy: "What's the matter. Why are you crying?"

*unintelligible mumble*

D: "I can't hear you. Calm down, what's the matter?"

R: "I can't move my neck."

D:"What do you mean you can't move your neck. Not at all?"

*more sobbing*

R: "I heard a crack and now I can't move. I can't get up."

Needless to say I jumped out of bed to see what the heck was going on. Sure enough she couldn't move her neck at all, couldn't lift her arm, and her shoulder was all twisted.

Cutting a long story short, Hubby took her off to A&E and she was diagnosed with a massive muscle spasm, starting from her collarbone, going over her shoulder and down along her spine towards her bottom. You can imagine the agony she is in. She has to exercise slowly and take painkillers, but it can take up to two weeks for her to be back to normal.

Now if that wasn't bad enough, a little while later I'm in the bath room brushing my teeth and suddenly the baby is screeching, and I mean screeching. 


My nine year old screams.
"Get off his head! OMG! You're standing on his head!"

I fly to the living room and she is holding a screeching little budda, the four year old is shaking and keeps saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Poor lil budda has the imprint of 4 year old's trainer on his head. Thankfully he is fine, as he was in his bouncy chair. (Still not entirely sure how you can stand on someone's head when they're in a bouncy chair, mind you)

But, yes, you know that duvet option looked more and more attractive.

School run over with we went to baby massage and I relaxed. Nothing quite like naked, scrummy, if still red headed  baby, and all that skin to skin contact to calm a harassed mummy down. Though I did still wonder when the third thing was going to strike...

And then I got home and checked my e-mail. I'm scrolling down and there is a reply from Evernight, marked SUBMISSION and I think to myself, surely not. I had only send the ms off the evening before.

But, guess what? Lots of squealing and excited ringing of hubby and texting to friends later, it finally sunk in that my third thing that day was the acceptance to Lure Of Forever.

This is the follow up to Lure Of The Blood and it's Lucas' story.

Here is the unedited blurb.


You'd think a three thousand year old vampire would believe in forever. Not Lucas. He has an escaped demon to hunt and no time for the follies of humankind. When strip-o-gram Coralie arrives on his boat, she awakens human instincts long buried, and protecting her becomes of paramount importance.

Coralie, standing in for a friend, is mortally embarrassed at having stumbled onto the wrong boat. The vampire wannabe she encounters makes her body sing in ways she never thought possible. Finding out that he is indeed the real thing throws everything she ever believed in into doubt.

With the demon closing in and the future of humanity in peril will they manage to find their forever?

Sound good? 

This story is darker than Lure Of The Blood was and poor old Lucas and Coralie... I do torture them rather a lot!

Readers will also learn more about Ion and Marnie and I have plans for at least one more in the Lure Series, as it's now known. What can I say, the more I wrote, the more back story came to me. Joys of being a panster and all that. Really, who knew that Ion's second in command has such a tragic past, but that's for book three.

For now, here is a bit of Coralie's and Lucas' first meet. Unedited and subject to change. Enjoy :-)

The creaking lantern lighting the canal boat suddenly appearing round the corner announced her destination. Right, here went nothing. She pushed her sodden strands of chestnut hair out of her face, tossed the useless coffee into the canal, and straightened her shoulders better to show of her cleavage.

Before she could wrap on the door it swung open and Coralie's jaw hit the floor. Good God, what was going on here?

The man standing in the open doorway had to be at least six foot three of sex-on-legs, drop-dead-gorgeous male in tightly packaged designer jeans. The light spilling out of the door silhouetted the broad shoulders and muscled torso, tapering off to lean hips and strong thighs, ending in Italian designer shoes. Who wore designer shoes on a blinking canal boat?

Before she could voice that opinion however, the man grabbed her round the waist with a growl that trembled through every fiber of Coralie's body and shoved her into the bright interior with a muttered French curse.  She collided with another, extremely warm male chest, and looked up into amused silver grey eyes.

"Forgive my friend Lucas. He's just had some bad news."

Oh wonderful, another mountain of a man. His rugged features held an appreciative smile as he ran his eyes slowly over her body, before he winked at her and let her go. She stepped back, unease travelling down her spine. The boat was filled with several more eye watering examples of wannabe Chippendales and one ethereally beautiful blonde woman, who's assessing ice cold blue stare made Coralie feel as though she was dessert. All too aware of her half naked get up she wished she'd brought a coat to hide behind.  To top it all, she was dripping water on the immaculately polished oak flooring.

"Oh, is it snack time? You could have found something cleaner…"

Cleaner? Who did this woman think she was? And what did she mean snack time? The tendril of unease increased and Coralie shook her head. She shouldn't have watched that old horror movie last night, clearly. Were those fangs in the woman's mouth? A quick glance round showed that half of the other people also sported fangs and the mountain she'd stumbled against didn't look amused anymore. At least he wasn't sporting fake teeth. Thank the Lord for small mercies.

 Oh good God, I've walked into a boat full of wannabe vampire loonies! It isn't even Halloween for pity's sake. Coralie took another step back that brought her into direct contact with Mr. Super Gorgeous.  He looked positively murderous, his moss green eyes glittering in barely suppressed fury as he shoved one hand through his mob of black hair, and Coralie groaned to herself. That bed hair looked way too sexy. She could almost forgive him the fake teeth he was also sporting. Typical, the first man in ages to make her libido sit up and take notice, and he was some sort of weirdo with a vampire fetish.

"Ok, you … you… whatever you may be," Coralie pulled her shoulders back and tried for a seductive smile. The sooner she did her number the better and she could get away from these – people. Calling the murderous looking hunk, whose seductive gaze now settled fully on her, a crank pot would probably not earn her a generous tip. "Just tell me who the birthday boy is and I'll be out of your hair."

"Birthday boy?" He growled the words and butterflies settled in Coralie's stomach. His eyebrows drew together as he glared at her.

Heaven help her - that deep, slightly accented voice came straight out of every one of her fantasies. Too bad the man himself was not only weird but also clearly not the brightest fish finger in the pack.

"Yes, the birthday boy. Believe it or not, I don't normally run around dressed like at a third rate hooker." She pointed to her lace up ivory top and short black skirt that made up the French maid's outfit; she'd just about managed to squeeze into. "And I don't go knocking on strange men's doors for the fun of it. You booked a strip-o-gram for the birthday boy, so tell me who he is, so that I can get this over with."

And please stop staring at me as though you've never seen boobs before.

He had stopped glaring at her during her little speech and his eyes weren't frosty anymore. Quite the opposite in fact, if the way her body reacted to him was anything to go by. Damn it all, what was wrong with her today?  This was all Jerry's fault. She had to find herself a decent job and not rely on Coralie to bail her out all the time – not that Jerry could be blamed for little Suzie's chicken pox taking a turn for the worse, but still. Now what was he saying?

It was his turn to stare at her as though she wasn't quite right in the head. Thankfully the slightly puzzled expression on his face meant she could breathe normally again. It had to be the fact that she had been caught in the rain in this ridiculous outfit that made her feel all strange. She was probably coming down with the flu, yes that had to be it, nothing at all to do with the man addressing her again in that to die for voice.

"Are you suggesting I would call a strip-o-gram?"

He sounded positively offended, whilst mountain behind him erupted into gales of laughter.

COPYRIGHT Doris O'Connor 2012