Publication date: October 3rd 2023
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Women’s Fiction
Synopsis:
Family.
They’re always meddling in your love life
Even after they’re dead.
Brooklynite-and genealogist-Ingrid Ekstrom accepts a surprise request from her typically estranged family: to become the live-in caretaker of their shared historic house in the sleepy Jersey Shore town of Aegir Haven. A fun-loving cousin is quick to introduce Ingrid to the local handyman and bluegrass musician. As he fixes up the place, Ingrid digs into the house’s past and learns about the family she barely knows.
And then Mormor-her long-dead grandmother-shows up, acting as though not being in the spirit realm is perfectly normal.
Ingrid’s always yearned for stronger family connections, and it’s nice having Mormor around. Mormor tries to set her up with a young real estate attorney who’s closer to her more thunderous, god-like personal standards than the musician with keen senses Ingrid is falling for. As lore and legends mingle with real life, she’s torn. Mormor’s fantastical family sagas can’t actually be true, right?
Excerpt
Kurt comes darting around Cas and Svea, kicking sand behind him with each pounding foot. I turn my head and raise my arm to block the sand spraying up in the air from his knee slide to the blanket. My eyes steady on Yale dragging a stumbling Erik lot and taking his keys. Good. Two less people to worry about.
“Hey, you good?” Kurt asks.
The mess that is Erik is ejected from the beach and taken out to the parking lot. Yale shoves him into a cab. I turn back to Kurt and find his face a few inches from my own. My cheeks warm as I feel his gaze on my cheek. I lean back on my hands, creating a little extra space.
“Yeah, he didn’t bite me.” Thank goodness.
“You are being a little too nice about this,” Kurt says. “Anyway, Yale sent Erik home to sober up. He can be a real dick.”
“Oh good, this wasn’t special for me.” I rub my hand across my forearm and watch his eyes absorb the stars. “He was almost normal at Svea’s.”
Kurt raises an eyebrow and takes a cloth from his pocket. He waits for the water to rush up to the edge of the boundary line to dampen the linen handkerchief. With the gentlest of touches, he dabs the salty water on my cheek to further scrub off Erik’s DNA.
“Thanks. Aren’t you guys supposed to be playing?” I take the handkerchief and scrub harder at my cheek.
“A friend needed help,” he says. “And another one looked upset.”
“You are friends with Erik?” Dumbfounded doesn’t even begin to properly express my inability to comprehend a friendship between these two.
He shrugs and sits on the sand next to the blanket.
A quick look around reveals Svea waving her fingers at me with a big grin while Cas wraps his arms around her. The two turn and look out at the ocean.
Kurt gestures to the cloth. “Can I sit on the blanket?”
“Absolutely, but we may need to move back.” The edge of a wave graces our toes.
“Nah, we’ve got plenty of time till the tide gets higher.” He’s quite sure of himself. The heat from his bare arm radiates through my sweatshirt while he repositions his legs in the sand.
“This is nice,” he says. “Nice to actually sit and enjoy instead of entertain.”
His presence is a little too comforting. After the last blanket visitor, I should keep my guard up, but he’s so gentle and warm. The strong wind smacks at my damp face, and I shiver.
“How rude of me,” he says, removing the sweatshirt from his shoulders. “Take this. You can layer it.”
He loops the sweatshirt up over my back and hesitates for a second. I inadvertently lock eyes with him. I should look away. His gaze makes me want to make good-bad decisions, and the flecks of rainbow within them seem to make time stand still.
He leans forward and pulls the sweatshirt higher on my shoulders. His cheek graces mine, and he hesitates. His hot breath sends warm tingles across my chest and down my arms, while a petulant curl falls to the front of his forehead from beneath his bowler cap. A gentle lean forward would contribute the last ten percent needed to test how soft his lips are. A tiny lean—but if I’m reading this moment wrong, I’m no different from Erik.
A gust of wind rushes between us, blowing his cap backward. He hugs his sweatshirt against my back to keep it from flying away. I peek through flying sand to the bar where cups and bottles fly across the beach. A giant wave, much too high for a gentle entrance of the tide change, crashes over our bodies, forcing us apart. The water recedes, along with all the feelings of heat or any type of imagined chemistry that was brewing. The cold air pushes through my drenched clothes, and my teeth chatter. A smaller wave comes forward and slaps at only my feet.
“Man, what was that?” Kurt yells against the wind. “Someone’s mad.” He gestures out to the sea.
I sit up and pull bits of seaweed off my soaking wet jeans. Kurt reaches across to my head and pulls off more flecks of what I really hope is seaweed or sand. Between laughing so hard and the sharp sting of the blowing salt, I shed tears.
Svea stands over me and blocks the path to the stars. In the scheme of unfair—I am a haggard, shivering wet mess and she has not a drop of water on her.
“How did that even happen?” She drapes a spare blanket over my numb shoulders. “Do you want some water?”
I glare at her.
“The drinking kind,” she says, unable to stifle her laughter.
“Stronger. I need a stronger drink than water.” Kurt spits sand from his mouth back onto the beach.
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