Spotlight: Loki Ascending by Asa Maria Bradley

LOKI WANTS TO END THE WORLD

Only they can stop him—but at what cost?

Although Scott Brisbane is human, he’s developed an inner warrior—a berserker that wants to claim Irja Vainio as his own.

Irja is an immortal Viking healer, but she hasn’t used her true powers for centuries. The last time she did, someone close to her ended up dead. So instead she relies on medicine and science to protect her tribe while denying her feelings for Scott.

But the Viking warriors are falling mysteriously ill, and withou

Excerpt

Irja took another breath. Beyond the Norse magic borders that protected the house, shades of red and orange twirled and swooped, undulating like a giant caterpillar across the landscape. This was the native magic of the Arizona desert. It lacked the ordered structure of the Norse spells, and its untamed nature made it powerful and unpredictable. 

As if the energy noticed Irja tuning in to its presence, the twisting and twirling stopped. She held her breath. The red enveloped the orange and together they became a hot glowing ball. From this bright sphere, tendrils of red energy extended toward Irja, beckoning to her. In her sleep-deprived state, she almost lowered her shielding as if she were about to harness the energy and refill the wells inside her that had been empty for millennia. She’d given up practicing magic when she was a little girl. The power always demanded a sacrifice and usually the price was too steep to pay, as she had painfully learned.

Her berserker stirred and growled. The warning from her inner warrior spirit snapped Irja back into control, and she quickly reinforced her shields against the magic’s pull. The effort required more energy than it should and she grimaced.

The quiet swoosh of the door opening had her quickly schooling her features before turning to greet whomever had joined her. “King Erik,” she said and bowed her head.

“Please. No need for formality. There are important things we must discuss, and I’d rather you just spoke freely. If I have to follow court protocol, it will take forever.”

Irja raised her head to find his cornflower-blue eyes lit with humor, but the strain around the corners showed the king’s worry. He was taller than her six-foot frame by about two inches, and she had to tilt her head back a little to meet his gaze. “As you wish.” Suddenly, she swayed on her feet and gripped the railing. What had she been thinking, leaving herself so unguarded that the magic could seek her out?

The king reached out and gently grabbed her elbow, steadying her. “Are you okay, Ms. Vainio?”

Irja wiped her forehead and forced a smile. “Please call me Irja. I’m just tired.” Hopefully, the king would believe her lie. Sweet Freya, she couldn’t afford to be that careless. She needed to be extra vigilant here. Washington State’s volcanic rock’s magic was easy to shield herself against after living so many years within it. The ancient Sedona red desert’s magic was hundreds of millennia older and so very wild and free. It would tempt the most disciplined practitioner with its promise of raw power.

“Irja,” the king repeated. “Then you must call me Erik.” He released her elbow.

That would probably never happen, but Irja nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t have any good news. I still don’t know what’s wrong with your warrior. My main concern right now is to reduce her fever. I have given her modern drugs as well as herbal remedies, but so far, I haven’t seen results. She is still very agitated, so I gave her a mild sedative to make her rest.”

“It is a comfort to me and my tribe just to have you here to take care of Kari. Odin willing, she will recover and fight again.”

Irja forced a smile on her face, but the truth was that she had no idea how to wake Kari or lower her temperature. In her current state, the high fever might severely damage that Valkyrie’s cognitive abilities. The extreme temperature was literally cooking the warrior’s brain. It was tempting to open herself up to all the glorious red-hot magic just beyond the walls. To allow that energy to flood her body and channel it into a healing burst of power that could possibly cure the feverish Valkyrie. But the magic burst could just as easily kill Kari. Or someone else.

She had once been young and cocky when it came to her abilities. Now she lived with eternal guilt and the goddesses’ punishment of a painful void inside her because she could never again risk to fill it with the energy of magic.

The pause in conversation was dragging into awkward territory, and Irja searched her mind for something to say, but she was too tired to get her thoughts to cooperate. Luckily, something distracted the king from scrutinizing her face, and he turned away.

“The warriors I’d sent tracking the wolverines are back from the desert,” he said just as the gate in the concrete wall opened. The king lifted a hand to shield his eyes and peered into the courtyard.

Irja mimicked his gesture and discovered her twin brother, Pekka, striding through the opening, closely followed by Ulf and a red-haired Viking she hadn’t met before. But it was the man bringing up the rear of the group that drew her attention. Scott’s physique had filled out in the year and two months since she’d last seen him. His athletic build spoke more of endurance than brute strength, but his shirt stretched over broad, defined shoulders and a well-muscled torso. Her berserker stirred.

“Excuse me,” King Erik said. “I must go ask the warriors about their mission.”

“Of course,” Irja mumbled. Her gaze lingered on Scott. As was always the case when she was near him, she couldn’t look away. He was her queen’s brother and had been her patient at one point. Both were excellent reasons for ignoring the restless feelings he always stirred within her. So she did what she always did when strong emotions threatened to rise—she retreated behind the protective walls she’d long ago learned would shield her from heartache and painted a blank expression on her face. But she still couldn’t look away from the dark, curly-haired man walking across the courtyard. 

***

Excerpted from Loki Ascending by Asa Maria Bradley. © 2019 by Asa Maria Bradley. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

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About the Author

Originally a native of Sweden, ASA MARIA BRADLEY came to the United States as a high school exchange student, but decided to stay for the next couple of decades and add a few more degrees. She now lives in the Pacific Northwest. Learn more about the author at asamariabradley.com.

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Spotlight: Can’t Buy Me Love by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

Can’t Buy Me Love
Janet Elizabeth Henderson
(Sinclair Sisters Trilogy, #3)
Publication date: December 25th 2019
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary, Romance

Three awesome series meet in one explosive book!

It turned out hell was a small town in the Scottish Highlands. Oh, sure, the locals called it Invertary, but Agnes Sinclair knew better—the town even had an old woman everyone called Satan. If that wasn’t a sign she was in hell, she didn’t know what was. All Agnes had ever wanted was to get out of Scotland, and now she was stuck there with no escape. And all because of one teeny, tiny incident (he totally deserved it!) that got her blacklisted in the hotel industry. Now, her only career option is managing a hotel owned by a guy who looks like Disco Santa, in a town where everyone marched to their own damn beat. And, as if being trapped in hell wasn’t bad enough, a spate of thefts at the hotel makes the owner call in a member of Benson Security to help her get to the bottom of them. Agnes doesn’t need help. She especially doesn’t need it from a sexy single father whose every breath tempts her to reevaluate what she wants out of life. A man who makes her wonder if Invertary is where she truly belongs.

***This is a full length, standalone romance with an HEA***
**It includes characters from the Invertary (Scottish Highlands) series and the Benson Security Series**
*You don’t need to have read any other books in any series to enjoy this one!*

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—

EXCERPT:

This is the start of the book, where we find out the heroine is in a job she doesn’t want and the hotel she works in has been suffering a spate of thefts since she started. No clues for guessing who’s suspect number one! So, the hotel owner calls in a member of the local security team to look into things. And Logan and Agnes do NOT hit it off!

It turned out the Catholics were right—purgatory was real. And it was a small town in the Scottish Highlands. Oh, sure, the locals called it Invertary, but Agnes Sinclair knew better. She wasn’t fooled by the picturesque loch or the rows of crooked white houses. Invertary was where souls came to have the hope sucked out of them—or whatever it was that happened in purgatory. Not being Catholic, Agnes wasn’t sure what went on there, but with a name like purgatory, it couldn’t be good. All she knew for sure was that she’d only been in town for three weeks, and already she’d lost the will to live.

“You called a security firm to investigate me?” She glared at her new boss, Dougal Jamieson, the owner of Invertary’s only hotel, and he didn’t even squirm.

He tugged down his red tartan waistcoat, which he’d teamed with a pink button-down shirt, and glared back. “I called them in to investigate the thefts. The ones you informed me were happening. Was I supposed to ignore them?”

“You were supposed to let me do my job and investigate them myself. That’s why you employed a hotel manager. To free you up to take care of the pub and build your new conference center.” The conference center that was still in the planning stage because the land Dougal needed to build it was being held hostage by an old woman the town called Satan. Which seemed appropriate, because if this was truly purgatory, Satan should live in it. Right? She really needed to find a Catholic and have them explain this stuff to her.

“You might be the day-to-day manager, but this is still my business,” Dougal snapped.

It was clear to Agnes, after only three weeks in the job, that Dougal didn’t actually want to let go of the responsibility of managing his hotel. So he’d taken to managing her instead.

In detail.

Every.

Single.

Day.

His micromanagement was beginning to make her skin crawl, and the urge to gag him and lock him in a closet grew stronger by the minute.

Dougal’s white brows furrowed as he huffed a breath that made his matching mustache and beard flutter. Her boss was Santa dressed as Elton John, with a booming voice and a deep Highland burr. Talking to him was like having a bad acid trip.

It was on the tip of her tongue to demand to know why he’d hired her when he seemed so set on doing the job himself. But Agnes already knew the answer—her sister’s husband had talked him into it. Yep, that’s how pathetic she’d become. Even though she’d spent ten years studying part time to get a degree in hotel management and had countless hours of practical experience under her belt, she needed her sister to find her a job.

There were days, like this one, when she second-guessed the decision that’d landed her in her current predicament. She’d been offered a job managing a large hotel that was part of a famous chain, and all she’d had to do to secure the position was have sex with the owner. Agnes had politely declined, kicking his nuts into next week as she did so. Less than twenty-four hours later, she’d been blacklisted throughout the entire UK hotel network. Which had led her to this moment—a face-off with disco Santa.

She should have had sex with the creepy hotel owner.

Taking a fortifying breath, she reached deep for what little patience ran in her genes. “I know this is your hotel, and I understand that I work for you. But I just want the opportunity to do my job before you decide you need someone else to do it for me.”

“This isn’t a judgment of your abilities.” Dougal’s voice reverberated off the walls. “It’s an attempt to give you some help. Benson Security can investigate the thefts while you manage the hotel.”

What was left hanging in the air between them was the fact the bulk of the thefts had only started when she’d arrived in Invertary. She looked her boss straight in the eye. “I’m not the one stealing from you.”

He smacked a beefy hand on her desk. “Did I say that?” He turned to the man leaning in the doorway. The man Agnes had been steadily ignoring since he’d arrived with her boss ten minutes earlier. “Did I, at any point, suggest my manager was stealing from me?”

Agnes tossed her long, straight blonde hair over her shoulder, folded her arms over her gray suit jacket, and tapped her toe. Yes, what exactly did the almighty ‘security specialist’ think of this situation?

The corner of the man’s mouth quirked as he uncrossed his arms and ankles and stepped into the room. At about five foot eight or nine, he wasn’t massively tall, but he would still tower over her. He wore a black long-sleeved tee with the sleeves pushed up, a pair of dark blue jeans, and brown suede boots. His thick, mahogany hair, shorter at the sides, was pulled back in a rough right parting. He reminded her of a younger Tom Cruise. Only with a nose that’d been broken at some point and set crooked. They shared the same lean, muscled physique, and the same amused sparkle in their eyes.

“What I think,” he said, “is that we all need to take a step back and calm down.”

And that was all she needed to hear to know he was an ex-cop—it was in his tone. The same tone she’d heard many times over the years. Perfect. This was just what she needed.

Author Bio:

Janet is a Scot who moved to New Zealand fifteen years ago. Among other things, she’s been an artist, a teacher, a security guard at a castle, a magazine editor, and a cleaner in a drop in center for drug addicts (NOT the best job!). She now writes full-time and is working on her 19th book. Her books have won several awards, including the Daphne du Maurier award for excellence in mystery and suspense. When she isn’t living in her head, she raises two kids, one husband, and several random animals. She survives on chocolate and caffeine.

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Cover Reveal: Alexei by Brenda Rothert

Alexei

 I guess the party’s over—for now.  

When I wake up in the hospital after a DUI car crash, my new NHL team owner gives me an ultimatum – get sober or get packed for the minor leagues. So I talk the talk and go to rehab. I plan to breeze through, get sprung in 30 days or less and hit the road with my new team, the Chicago Blaze. All I have to do is charm my attractive, uptight rehab group leader into thinking I’ve changed—how hard could it be?

Graysen

 I see right through Alexei Petrov.

My calling to save addicts from themselves before they self-destruct is deeply personal. Alexei’s hot and successful, sure. But he’s not okay, and he’s got a lot of work to do before graduating from my group. No one’s ever tested my boundaries like he does, though. I fight my desire and keep things professional, because the stakes couldn’t be higher—it’s not just my job that’s on the line, but also his life. The deeper we fall, though, the more he makes me question the mantra I live by: never trust your heart to an addict.   

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About the Author

Brenda Rothert is an Illinois native who was a print journalist for nine years. She made the jump from fact to fiction in 2013 and never looked back. From new adult to steamy contemporary romance, Brenda creates fresh characters in every story she tells. She’s a lover of Diet Coke, chocolate, lazy weekends and happily ever afters.
Website: http://brendarothert.com/

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Spotlight: The Kill Club by Wendy Heard

Summary:

A haunting thriller about a woman who attempts to save her brother's life by making a dangerous pact with a network of vigilantes who've been hunting down the predators of Los Angeles.

Jazz can’t let her younger brother die.

Their foster mother Carol has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time.

Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her, people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to murder the abuser of another. They're taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los Angeles—dubbed the Blackbird Killings. If Jazz joins them, they’ll take care of Carol for good.

All she has to do is kill a stranger.

Jazz soon learns there's more to fear than getting caught carrying out her assignment. The leader of the club has a zero tolerance policy for mistakes.

And the punishment for disobeying orders is death.

Excerpt

THE CEILING ABOVE the crowd sparkles with strings of golden lights. They twinkle just bright enough to illuminate the faces. I adjust a microscopic issue with my toms and run my fingers through my bangs, straightening them over my eyes. The guys are tuning up, creating a clatter of discordant notes in the monitors. When they’re done, they approach my kit for our usual last-minute debate about the set list. Dao humps his bass in his ready-to-play dance, black hair swishing around his shoulders. “Dude, stop,” Matt groans and readjusts the cable that connects his Telecaster to his pedal board.

“Your mom loves my dancing,” Dao says.

“You dance like Napoleon Dynamite,” Matt retorts.

“Your mom dances like Napoleon Dynamite.”

Andre raises his hands. “Y’all both dance like Napoleon Dynamite, and so do both your moms, so let’s just—”

I wave a stick at them. “Guys. Focus. The sound guy is watching. We’re three minutes behind.” I have no patience for this shit tonight. This all feels extra and stupid. I should be doing something to help Joaquin. His dwindling supply of insulin sits at the front of my brain like a ticking clock.

The guys get into their spots, the distance between them set by muscle memory. Andre leans forward into the mic and drawls, “Arright DTLA, lez get a little dirty in here.” His New Orleans accent trickles off his tongue like honey.

The room inhales, anticipates, a sphere of silence.

“Two three four,” I yell. I clack my sticks together and we let loose, four on the floor and loud as hell. I’m hitting hard tonight. It feels great. I need to hit things. My heart beats in tempo. My arms fly through the air, the impact of the drums sharp in my joints, in my muscles, the kick drum a pulse keeping the audience alive. This is what I love about drumming, this forcing of myself into the crowd, making their hearts pound in time to my beat.

Dao fucks up the bridge of “Down With Me” and Andre gives him some vicious side-eye. The crowd is pressed tight up against the stage. A pair of hipsters in cowboy hats grabs a corresponding pair of girls and starts dancing with them. I cast Dao an eye-rolling look referring to the cowboy hats and he wiggles his eyebrows at me. I stomp my kick drum harder, pretending it’s Carol’s face.

The crowd surges back. Arms fly. A guy in the front staggers, falls. A pair of hands grips the stage, and a girl tries to pull herself up onto it.

Matt and Dao stop playing. The music screeches to a halt.

“What’s going on?” I yell.

“Something in the pit,” Dao calls back.

Andre drops his mic and hops down into the crowd. Dao and Matt cast their instruments aside and close the distance to the edge of the stage. I get up and join them. Together, we look down into the pit.

A clearing has formed around a brown-haired guy lying on the floor. Andre and the bouncer squat by him as he squirms and thrashes, his arms and legs a tangle of movement. Andre’s got his phone pressed to his ear and is talking into it urgently. The bouncer is trying to hold the flailing man still, but the man’s body is rigid, shuddering out of the bouncer’s grip. He flops onto his back, and I get a good look at his face.

Oh, shit, I know this guy. He’s a regular at our shows. He whines and pants, muffled words gargling from his throat. Some of the bystanders have their phones out and are recording this. Assholes.

The man shrieks like a bird of prey. The crowd sucks its whispers back into itself, and the air hangs heavy and hushed under the ceiling twinkle lights.

Andre is still talking into his phone. The bouncer lifts helpless hands over the seizing man, obviously not sure what to do.

I should see if Andre wants help. I hop down off the stage and push through the crowd. “Excuse me. Can you let me through? Can you stop recording this and let me through?”

I’m suddenly face-to-face with a man who is trying to get out of the crowd as hard as I’m trying to get into it. His face is red and sweaty, his eyes wild. “Move,” he orders me.

Dick. “You fucking move.”

“Bitch, move.” He slams me with his shoulder, knocking me into a pair of girls who cry out in protest. I spin, full of rage, and reverse direction to follow him.

“Hey, fucker,” I scream. He casts a glance over his shoulder. “Yeah, you! Get the fuck back here!”

He escalates his mission to get out of the crowd, elbowing people out of his way twice as fast. I’m smaller and faster, and I slip through the opening he leaves in his wake. Just before he makes it to the side exit, I grab his flannel shirt and give him a hard yank backward. “Get the fuck back here!” I’m loose, all the rage and pain from earlier channeling into my hatred for this entitled, pompous asshole.

I know I should rein it in, but he spins to face me and says, “What is your problem, bitch?” And that’s it. I haul back and punch him full in the jaw.

He stumbles, trips over someone’s foot and lands on his ass on the cement floor. His phone goes clattering out of his hand, skidding to a stop by someone’s foot. “The hell!”

“Oh, shit,” cries a nearby guy in a delighted voice.

“Fucking bitch,” the guy says, and this is the last time he’s calling me a bitch. I go down on top of him, a knee in his chest. I swing wild, hit him in the jaw, the forehead, the neck. He throws an elbow; it catches me in the boob and I flop back off him with a grunt of pain. He sits up, a hand on his face, and opens his mouth to say something, but I launch myself off the ground again, half-conscious of a chorus of whoops and howls around us. I throw a solid punch. His nose cracks. Satisfaction. I almost smile. Blood streams down his face.

“That’s what you get,” I pant. He crab-shuffles back, pushes off the ground and sprints for the exit. I let him go.

My chest is heaving, and I have the guy’s blood on my hand, which is already starting to ache and swell. I wipe my knuckles on my jeans.

His phone lights up and starts buzzing on the floor. I pick it up and turn it over in my hand. It’s an old flip phone, the kind I haven’t seen in years. The bright green display says Blocked.

Back in the pit, the man having a seizure shrieks again, and then his screams gurgle to a stop. I put the phone in my pocket and push through the onlookers. I watch as his back convulses like he’s going to throw up, and then he goes limp. A thin river of blood snakes out of his open mouth and trails along the cement floor.

The room echoes with silence where the screams had been. A trio of girls stands motionless, eyes huge, hands pressed to mouths.

The flip phone in my pocket buzzes. I pull it out, snap it open and press it to my ear. “Hello?”

A pause.

“Hello?” I repeat.

A click. The line goes dead.

A set of paramedics slams the stage door open, stretcher between them. “Coming through!” They kneel down and start prodding at the man curled up on the concrete. His head flops back. His eyes are stretched wide and unseeing, focused on some point far beyond the twinkling ceiling lights.

Next to him on the concrete lies something… What is it? It’s rectangular and has red and—

It’s a playing card.

Excerpted from The Kill Club by Wendy Heard, Copyright © 2019 by Wendy Heard. Published by MIRA Books.  

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About the Author

Wendy Heard, author of Hunting Annabelle, was born in San Francisco and has lived most of her life in Los Angeles. When not writing, she can be found hiking the Griffith Park trails, taking the Metro and then questioning this decision, and haunting local bookstores.

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Cover Reveal: Let It Snow: A Christmas Novella by Kristie Leigh

Let It Snow: A Christmas Novella
Kristie Leigh
Publication date: December 11th 2019
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Coming home for the holidays after eight long years to say goodbye, I found myself saying hello.

Melissa—or Missy as I remembered her—had had a crush on me. But being a typical eighteen-year-old, I didn’t pay much attention to the blushing twelve-year-old.

I walked away without so much as a backwards glance. But now? Now I can’t tear my eyes away.

Gone was the girl with braces and pigtails…in her place was a woman who took my breath away.

I just had to prove to her I wasn’t the same guy I was back then. I prayed for a Christmas miracle, but I never expected this.

Her.

Us.

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Author Bio:

I'm a feisty redheaded Canadian/American who fell in love with romance novels when my friend Phil bought me a Kindle that hasn't left my side since.

My favorite books to read are anything taboo and super sick and twisted. I'm not sure I will ever
write anything dark, but I would love to give it a shot one day.

I live in South Florida with my high school sweetheart and three kids.

I grew up in Burlington, ON, Canada but made the move to South Florida in 2013 and definitely don't miss the snow.

I'm not sure where this writing journey will take me but either way, I know it will be a fun new adventure, and I'm super excited about it.

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Spotlight: If You’re Reading This… by Alex Tveit

If You’re Reading This…
Alex Tveit
Publication date: December 8th 2019
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

The last thing that sixteen-year-old Petter expects while sitting on an airplane is an email from his father. Especially since his dad died of cancer five weeks earlier.

As if that emotional rollercoaster wasn’t enough, Petter’s mother thinks it’s a good idea to move them across the world from Norway to her childhood home outside of Boston.

Using emails sent from beyond the grave, Petter’s father tries to remain a source of guidance and life lessons for his son. Hidden among these teachings are also clues leading Petter out on an adventure. The last one that he would ever have with his father.

Then Petter meets Max. She joins him on his quest and becomes a bright spark of color in a world that moments before seemed very grey.

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—

EXCERPT:

“This old thing is yours?”

“Yeah. Ol’ Bets and I have been together for a good couple of years now. Why, something wrong with her?”

“No, of course not. Just didn’t think it was your type, that’s all.”

“Ahh, so I have a type already, huh?” she looked him up and down as they got into the truck.

“Well, no, I…” he stuttered.

“Relax Norseman, I’m just messing with you. But really, what type of car did you picture me with?”

“I don’t really know. Not a beat-up old truck. Maybe a Prius or something?”

“Did you hear that, Bets? Old and beat up! Don’t you worry, I have your back.” She affectionately stroked the dashboard. “I guess a Prius isn’t the worst image I could be matched with. But I love my ol’ Bets to bits.” She smiled looking over at Petter as he got into the passenger seat.

“Hmm, now what would you be?” she asked.

“I can’t drive, so no real option yet.”

“Can’t drive? What do you mean?”

“The age limit is eighteen in Norway, so I haven’t really driven yet. I only had a small Vespa.”

She burst out in laughter.

Petter wilted a bit a bit at the laughter. Though as he was looking at her, he realized her laughter wasn’t her being mean.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, still curious.

“Well, I just had this image of you, long legs and all, cramming yourself onto this tiny little bug of a moped. Funny, that’s all,” she kept on laughing as the truck grudgingly picked up speed on the ramp leading onto the highway.

Petter had always felt like he was horrible at giving great first impressions. He had always admired the people who were virtual comedians, offering a plethora of jokes. He would have loved to have been known as the funny guy. But his jokes always came to him hours later when he was preparing for bed, and even then, they were never the rolling on the floor kind of funny.

“Maybe a Corolla,” he said after a few quiet moments.

“What?” she asked.

“My car type. A Corolla, or maybe a Volvo, safety and all. I don’t think I’m cool enough for a muscle car, nor flashy enough for a sports car. Always feel like those cars are more suited to a Biff than a Petter.”

“McFly?! Hello? Hello? Anybody home? McFly?!” Max suddenly exclaimed in a theatrical voice.

“What the hell was that?” Petter burst out, unable to stifle his laughter.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know the movie Back to the Future? Because it’s one thing to mock ol’ Bets, which is understandable since she has to be given time to grow on you. But if you don’t know the magic that is Marty McFly, you and me are gonna have a problem.”

Petter couldn’t stop laughing, especially since the trilogy was one of his dad’s favorites, and one that they had seen together a billion times.

He tried to put on his deepest machine sounding voice. “My name is Lord Vader. I am an Extraterrestrial from the planet Vulcan,” his laughter broke through at the end, making it a squeaking finish.

She laughed. “Ahh, there is still hope for this young Padawan.”

So maybe he wasn’t a comedian, but at least he had managed to survive the dreaded first impression. Max was definitely someone he wanted to get to know more, and he had to remember to thank his mom for finding her as a tutor.

“So, you’re headed into your last year of high school?” he asked, looking over at her, just as the sleeve of her navy denim spring jacket fell down a couple of inches, revealing a scarred wrist. He tried to look away fast enough. But as she glanced down at the exposed wrist, he knew she had caught him staring, though she didn’t try to cover it.

“Yeah. One year until I’m free,” she responded. The laughter in her voice had disappeared in a split second.

He wanted to ask about the scar but felt like a mountain was in front of the subject. What if it was self inflicted? What if she didn’t want to talk about it, and then she would cancel the tutoring. He didn’t want to mess up, which led him to not saying anything at all. The next few minutes that passed seemed like hours to Petter. The entire time he was trying to come up with something to say. His mind raced between the scar and topics for small.

“Petter?” She said his name, but jumbled and awkwardly. He knew that his name was difficult to say for English speakers, given the lack of rolling r’s in the language. She tried again, speeding it up, slowing it down. He noticed that he liked that she was playing around with the pronunciation, so he didn’t interrupt until she went quiet.

“I don’t mind if you call me Peter. Five people have already given up and called me that, so maybe I should just change it while I’m here, to make it easier.”

“That’s rubbish. You don’t change your name or who you are just because other people have a difficult time with it. Now, say it again, and again, and again, until I have it right.”

It wasn’t a very stimulating conversation, but the rest of the ride was spent throwing his name back and forth and having her grrrrr like a tiger to learn to roll the r in his name. She actually got it pretty damn close to being right, just as the GPS on her phone called out, “You have arrived at your destination.”

Author Bio:

Alex Tveit grew up just outside of Oslo, Norway. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada and has authored several children's books, as well as other works of fiction and non-fiction.

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