⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐If They Can't Kiss Right: Surviving Online Dating by Shannon Yingst @syingster #nonfiction #IfTheyCantKissRight

 

Online dating is a headache, live vicariously through someone else’s experiences to make yourself feel better…

By Shannon Yingst

IF THEY CAN'T KISS RIGHT: SURVIVING ONLINE DATING, Creative Nonfiction, Tyburn Hill Media Co., 150 pp.

Online dating: the new way of life. It seems like the only logical way to meet people anymore. The rest of our lives are on the internet, so why not our love lives too? Because if you wait for your friends to set you up, you’ll only be disappointed with their choice of Roger from accounting, the epitome of mouth breathing, booger eating morons.

Fortunately, there are no Rogers from accounting in this tale. There are, however, many other bad choices. But along the way, I learned what I want, and what I don’t want in a relationship. I learned good qualities to seek and bad qualities to leave behind. I also learned a lot about myself in the process, too. The biggest gain I got from my foray into online dating, though? Writing this book and passing along some of the life lessons I discovered through a painful trial-and-error process.

If you think your dating life is bad, take a gander at mine. Relive the awkward moments, soak in the unnecessary drama, and don’t forget to learn a thing or two. Men and women alike will be able to read this and take-home solid dating advice for the future.

Laugh. Learn. Love. Question why some humans are so insane. Maybe even see yourself in some of the pages. But above all, take to heart all the things I figured out along the way. It’ll save you the heartache and trouble. Trust me.

Chapter 1: Oceans Away

I spent three years of my life in a negative relationship with a man that lived over three thousand miles away, in the UK. Miles and miles of ocean and land separated us, but I thought he was the only man that would ever love me.

            Always the fat girl in class, my life revolved more around making others laugh rather than pursuing crushes. That is not to say I didn't try chasing them anyway. I knew the outcome, though: the boys always liked the other girls, the skinny girls. Me? I was the ‘fun friend’. My yearbooks are filled with homages to my sense of humor and even sometimes to my friendly nature. Other girls were told to call the boys over the summer, reminded of their beauty, and endlessly complimented. My sense of humor was about all anyone ever noticed about me.

            "Am I ugly?" I would ask close friends. No matter what age, I always got the same answer in some form or another.

            "Don't be ridiculous. You're really funny and that counts for a lot." They would smile wide with kind eyes, avoiding mine. My question never directly answered. I began to think this was all for me – humor. My only redeeming quality. I would never be ‘pretty’ in a conventional sense.

            Now this isn't to say that beauty and boys are everything in life. I can guarantee you that they will never be everything in your life. They aren’t in mine. They are a side mission, not a main quest. However, I wanted nothing more than to find a man to join my story, to build along with me. I think we all want someone with whom to share our journey.

Right now, you’re reading this book for one of three reasons. Reason A: the humor in which each story unfolds - a good laugh is great for your skin* (*not medically proven.) Reason B: you want to avoid some of the same speed bumps I hit and save your sanity. Reason C: you want to see if our stories match and make sure everything is going as normal as possible. Relatively speaking. I don’t really mind whichever reason it is, but I do hope you gain something from my tale, and my sage wisdom. That being said, let me take you back to where this all started.

Desperate to fill that superficial abyss, I landed with the man from England.  

            We agreed that we would never see other people. We agreed it was a real relationship, despite only seeing each other twice a year, during my Christmas break from college and in the summer after school ended. He could easily get time off work, and spent most, if not all of it, with me. Looking back now, I'm not sure if it was selfish of me to take all his vacation time. Of course, he never let me forget how much it cost his wallet. Never mind that I worked all summer long and was barely able to afford my trip to him come December.

            Yet, no matter what, no matter how much each of us spent, it was never enough. The heartbreak we had to suffer each time the trip came to a close was immensely painful. It was like taking down decorations after a holiday: you're happy to get back to normal life, but some of the flair is missing and you feel it every day it's gone. Except with the relationship, things never went back to that sense of normalcy. It just got harder as the days went.

            The drives back to the airport were always quiet. Our last moments together for months and we spent them in silence with the occasional sniffle as we held back tears. The last time we were together (before we decided on a major change), I couldn't stop crying. I held onto him in the airport and repeated the same sentence over and over for five minutes straight.

            "I don't want to leave you," my voice whimpered between chest-deflating sobs. He would rub my back and rest his cheek on the top of my head cooing a shush. His tears hit my hair faster than my tears soaked his shirt. Maybe we both knew it was the end for us. There had to be something in us knowing we would never do this again. The painful goodbyes were over. We would never watch each other walk away into the long airport security lines again.

            "Hey, look at me. The next time you're on a plane here will be the last time you fly alone. Next time, I'll be with you. And every time after that. It will be us. Together." He kept his words hushed. Not because he didn't want anyone else to hear, but because he was doing his damn best to soothe my blubbering self. I nodded, wiping tears off my red-blotched cheeks. My hand gripped the handle of my suitcase and I felt the heaves within my chest slow. That was the last time I was truly in his arms. The last time the emotion had any real meaning. It was mere weeks later it ended.

            After that big change I mentioned.

            I had planned to leave behind the United States to be with him in England. My family, friends, my entire life would change in order to be with this man I had fought with more times than dreams of him filled my mind. Ironically, I often made up dreams to tell him because he would tell me about ones he had involving me. My mind wandered during the day, but come night, my subconscious never even bothered. I had more dreams about hockey players that I'd never met as opposed to the man I planned on spending the rest of my life loving. That probably should have hit me like a ton of bricks, but it didn't. In the end, it came down to one mistake. That one mistake showed me everything I overlooked. Everything I pushed aside because I thought he was it, my only one. 

            In our last seven weeks together, we tested everything we knew about being in a relationship. We never spent more than three weeks together at a time over our three year stint. Yet here we were, getting ready to be together for a large block of time. He was in America for two weeks to see me graduate from college, and then I flew back with him to spend five weeks in England. And if that went well, it was going to be forever.

My time staying with him was amazing at first. He would wake up and kiss me goodbye as he left for work. I would have dinner ready for when he got home. Minus the night his roommate told me the cooktop was on low when it was actually on high and it burnt the meatballs beyond recognition. Everything seemed perfect.

            But, as everyone knows, perfect can't last.

            We began fighting. Stupid, pointless, absurd fights. One night he was in his kitchen, running around trying to make a nice dinner for the two of us. He was sweating and overwhelmed. When I offered help, he took it, but criticized every single thing I did.

            "Can you knock it the fuck off?" My voice was straight and low, my hands steady on the knife and cutting board.

            "I just want the carrots cut thicker." His jaw was squared, eyebrows furrowed.

            "There isn't enough time to have thick-cut carrots cook. We need them thin because everything else is already done. I'm not an idiot, I can cut carrots." My eyes closed, but I still could feel the heat in the kitchen adding to my already boiling blood.

            "I don't want thin carrots."

            "Well I'm not waiting all day for thick carrots to cook."

            "Then get out of the kitchen." He took the carrots off the cutting board and waited for me to leave. I went upstairs to his room and sat on the bed staring out the window. An hour later, he came into the room slowly and placed a plate down in front of me on the bed before turning on the TV. I heard his fork hit the plate and then he started chewing with his mouth open. A habit I hadn't noticed before spending that kind of time together, but it grew more and more annoying each day. I think he picked it up from his roommate because I didn't remember this habit when we were first together.

Maybe I was blissfully unaware before, and now was slowly falling out of love. Maybe the fight just opened my eyes a little wider to all the flaws. Either way, there they were, on display. Crowned by that horrible smacking of open-mouth chewing. And don’t tell me the sound of a human chewing like a cow is sweet and endearing. Because it’s not. At least to me. After a few minutes, he stopped and angrily sighed. "Aren't you going to eat? I cooked a nice meal."

            "I'm not hungry, thanks."

            "Are you fucking kidding me?" The bed shook as he stood in a huff. He threw his fork onto the plate with a loud clink. I saw his hand reach over and snatch the plate from in front of me and, in a blur, threw it behind me into the trash can with such force that it broke into a ton of pieces. Food and broken plate scattered all around, and a few bit even landed in the trashcan. He stormed off with his plate and didn't come back to the room until I had fallen asleep, and was gone by the time I woke up the next morning.

            It was that night and the following night I was so upset that I forgot to take my birth control. That second night without birth control, we also had sex. I was still upset, but wanted to make him happy, so I pretended to be okay. Unfortunately, we had decided not to use condoms anymore. We were in a committed relationship, both clean…and both so stupid. He told me that condoms hurt him and made it harder for him to stay erect. I foolishly let him go without one. Yet when the pregnancy scare happened, all of the blame went to me. He only had one thing to say about the whole thing.

            "You have three choices: keep it, abort it, or give it away. I'm not comfortable giving it away and we can't be together if you keep it." So, only one choice, really. He offered no support, no kind words, nothing to help me feel less trapped. He blamed sleepless nights on me and piled all of his stress on this accident. It wasn't a mistake we both were in together, it was all on my shoulders. He started ignoring me. Days would pass without him even sending a smile. 

            When I found out I wasn't pregnant, it was the beginning of the end. Nothing ever felt the same after that. Eventually I told him I wasn't moving to the UK. I couldn't. Not if he was going to blame me for every mishap, isolate me, and make me feel like nothing more than a mistake. There was nowhere I could go, no friends or family to rely on if he were to tear me down like that again. After I told him all of this, all of the empty feelings and worry I had about moving there to be with him, about how I didn't think I could do it, he responded with, "Okay, it's over."

            I've had problems with self esteem my entire life from being overweight. It affected me in ways you could never imagine. As I write this sentence now, I feel the dread of a ‘not good enough’ mental breakdown creeping up. It always lurks in the back of my mind, waiting for the perfect time to leap and sink into the depths of my heart where no daylight can get, no matter how bright it shines. I end up drowning in the warm sunlight while my still beating heart continues to pump cold thoughts. Never good enough is not a good slogan for yourself.

You are always good enough. Always. I promise.

            It was only a week after getting back to the States when I wanted to see what was out there for me, for an overweight twenty-something. It hit me hard, the idea that guys could still like me despite the way I look. Despite my weight, despite my less-than-average face. Despite that, and despite my own person reservations, I am considered desirable. Maybe not as much as other women, but enough to get me laid. Apparently. 

            However, time for a 180 as I turn this sob story into a continuous ‘what the fuck’ moment.

            Let me show you the world of dating apps and what actually happens when people say ‘I totally want to date’ and then live on that lie for months while they awkwardly spend time and money on someone for an entirely too expensive, and mediocre, fuck.

            It's really not as glamorous as movies and TV make it out to be. It's mostly a lot of ‘what do I do now’ moments, followed by naked escapades, and confused drives home where you laugh out loud at yourself with a little bit of crying. Or maybe a lot of crying. It all depends, you know?

            Here is where I beg any family members to stop reading. Seriously. Please.

            To the rest of you: join me. Marvel in my disasters. Take notes. I have plenty of excuses for getting out of bad dates, examples of what not to do, and little tidbits of life advice I'm sure you'll want to take along with you in your pocket right next to your condom. Don't do everything I did. Or do, I'm not your mother. Maybe by the end of this, you'll feel like an amazing person with new found confidence gained from reading about how I found confidence. Or you gained it because you feel better than me after all my stupid mistakes. Either way, congrats!

            Disclaimer: The rest of these pages contain copious amounts of profanity, crass behavior, and graphic descriptions of sex. I’m not going to apologize if you get offended, but I did warn you.

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Shannon Yingst is a woman with dreams far beyond her reach. Not because she isn’t ambitious, but because she is short, and her dreams are on the high shelves. On her tip toes reaching for those dusty aspirations, she hopes to achieve the daunting task of entertaining the masses with the written word. Shannon likes to write while listening to Star Wars soundtracks, stand outside while it snows, and get confused playing board games. She would love to spend her days reading on the beach with a waiter bringing her frozen margaritas and snacks as the sun moves about the sky, but for now, she will continue to work at her desk in Jersey.

If They Can’t Kiss Right: Surviving Online Dating is her latest book.

You can visit her blog at https://waitstophelp.blogspot.com/ or connect with her on Twitter.

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⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐Through Dangerous Doors by Robert Charles Lee #memoir

The story of a man who is looking back from the perspective of a person who is in peace, having realized he found what he spent most of his life searching to find…

By Robert Charles Lee

THROUGH DANGEROUS DOORS, Memoir, Wido/E.L. Marker, 212 pp.

In a life defined by risk, Robert Charles Lee experiences a poor and free-ranging childhood in the racist South of the 1960s. After his father dies, the family grows dysfunctional. As a result, teen-age Robert seeks sanity and solace by rock climbing solo and driving cars fast. He wins a scholarship and graduates from university, but still seeks to escape the South.

Moving to Alaska and the Western US, Robert works in a series of dangerous and brutal jobs. He meets and marries Linda, who enjoys climbing and skiing difficult mountains as much as he does. Simultaneously, Robert trains in the science of risk to become a respected professional risk scientist.

Robert shares his remarkable story as he guides the reader through a series of dangerous but rewarding doors, culminating in a vivid journey of adventure and risk.

Praise

“Through Dangerous Doors is an engaging and snappily written reflection on a life charted by risk. Like the dangerous mountains he eventually comes to climb, Lee’s need to be on the edge and in the flow guide him on a fascinating ascent up the American socio-economic pyramid, a challenging mountain in itself, and geographically from the lowland South to high country of the North. Small wonder that when Lee and his wife arrive in Calgary, Alberta to live for a decade they immerse themselves in what Lee wisely comes to realize is one of the most dangerous, yet spiritually rewarding mountain ranges in the world – the Canadian Rockies. Lee’s lifelong evaluation, and refinement of, the risk versus reward calculation is educational. And I love the way he calls poppycock when he sees it. Lee shares life lessons that were hard won and valuable to all.” – Barry Blanchard, UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide, author of The Calling – A Life Rocked by Mountains, winner of the Boardman-Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature

“Much more than a book on mountaineering, Robert Charles Lee’s memoir delves deeply into the relationship between risk and reward, exploring the things we can control and those we can’t. His journey of self-discovery has resulted in a thoughtful meditation on the nature of adventure and what makes for a life well lived. Lee’s story will resonate with any readers who have experienced the incomparable satisfaction of challenging themselves while at the same time understanding the wisdom of respecting their limits.” –Scott Zesch, author of “The Captured,” winner of the TCU Texas Book Award

“This is a memoir like few others, in that the author is intent on beseeching his readers not to follow the example of his own life. The story he tells shows that this is very good advice indeed, but nevertheless his tale of improbable escapes from one looming disaster after another is both instructive and entertaining.” – William Leiss, Queen’s University, author of: In the Chamber of Risks: Understanding Risk Controversies, Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk: The Perils of Poor Risk Communication, and Risk and Responsibility

“In this engaging and very readable memoir, Robert Lee reminds us that life IS risk. Humans only continue to learn, grow and evolve through facing and conquering risks. Whether the risks are involuntary or voluntary, Lee aptly emphasizes that the key to survival, or even thriving, is how we choose to understand and manage those risks. While Lee’s recounting of his numerous climbing risk adventures reflects his personal approach to risk and risk management, his stories will resonate strongly with anyone who seeks the challenge and stimulation of being a ‘risk taker’. This book will ultimately make you examine more closely your own life in relation to the risks you choose or don’t choose to undertake.” – Cindy Jardine, University of the Fraser Valley, world record skydiver 

“As autobiographies like Educated and The Glass Castle have taught us, growing up through hardship can be remarkably annealing. So too in this disarmingly honest memoir, where Lee relates his annealed response. He adeptly strings us along his extraordinary lifepath from childhood until retirement using an idiosyncratic lens: A meditation on risk serves as Lee’s through-line, one informed by his career in risk analysis. Sit and enjoy the windfall of a raconteur relaying how he and his fellow travelers have encountered and responded to risks. Many encounters, like his vivid recounts of ice and mountain climbing, are quite intense. We get a taste of life as a forester, psychedelic-explorer, musician, academic, blessed husband and alpinist.  Some entrancing events, nicely infused with a humble `stock-taking’ of the cards that were dealt, and the choices made. An extraordinary story that resonates beyond risk.” – Kevin Brand, University of Ottawa

““Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” wrote Helen Keller in her passageway focused book The Open Door. Metaphorical passageways hurtle us in and out of the risky exploits of Mr. Lee in Through Dangerous Doors. Climbing on a glacier or rappelling down a mountain, Lee shows us the thrill of daring adventure. But risk is not the goal, it is the price paid for adventure – and sometimes that price is too high. Lee helps us see that managing risk, sometimes with tools or technology and sometimes by knowing when to say no, is the key to continuing to be able to pass through new doors.” –  George Gray, George Washington University, co-author of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You

I’m a tired, cold, wet sponge. My co-workers are losers, addicts, and criminals who work hard, nonetheless. Most are always stoned on something. I’m encased in rubber from head to toe, with wool underneath. The smell of wet vegetation permeates everything. It’s always raining, and never warm. I’m in virgin wilderness, moss-covered primordial forest never seen by humans. The streams are choked with salmon during spawning. Some days, I see a dozen or so nine-foot-plus Alaskan brown bears, thousand-pound monsters who have never seen humans and who’re afraid of absolutely nothing. They can kill with one swipe of their eight-inch wide paws, armed with claws like curved daggers. I carry a bolt-action rifle chambered for .375 H&H Magnum 300 grain bullets for bear defense. I’m reluctant, but I slosh through the door to woods work.

***

Upon arrival in Ketchikan, I was told no logging jobs were available. Many people who work for or with the US Forest Service refer to the agency as the Forest Circus. The logger I spoke to explained he hadn’t won an expected Circus contract, and he’d had to lay off workers. This put me in a bit of a sticky wicket, as I had no return ticket and little money. If this had happened later in life when I was more confident, I would’ve wrested a return ticket out of the man. My life, however, would’ve proceeded in a completely different direction, so I’m glad I didn’t wrest anything.

 

The lack of logging jobs was actually a fortunate turn, as logging is particularly dangerous. I flew back to Juneau, where there were other jobs. I worked for a few months for minimum wage in a Forest Circus visitor’s center at Mendenhall Glacier, a stop for busloads of well-heeled cruise ship tourists. I couldn’t afford rent. I’d expected to live in a logging camp, but I was able to use temporary government housing in Juneau.

 

The only people who lived in Juneau seemed to be those who didn’t fit in anywhere else. Fishermen and loggers came into town and blew their entire paychecks drinking and whoring. The town smelled like fishy moss, or mossy fish. Bald eagles dumpster-dove, competing with the ravens. It felt like time travel back to a wilder era.

Tiring of cleaning up tourist trash and actual crap, I capitalized on a forestry course I took at State, and switched to a surveying job. Surveying in those conditions wasn’t any more pleasant than logging, but at least the work itself was easier and a bit safer. Survey crews laid out the boundaries of future logging areas in virgin wilderness with compasses and chains (long tape measures). This was way before Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Once logged, the areas are called clear-cuts. All marketable trees are felled, then skidded down to the ocean and floated to mills. Surveying was my introduction to woods work.

 

The crew flew from town to the field camps in small float planes, flown by crazy-ass bush pilots whose idea of fun was diving toward and buzzing whales, mere feet above the waves. The camps looked like sets from the Robert Altman movie M.A.S.H. Miserable workers living in miserable canvas tents in miserable, sopping wet forest. We suffered from gastrointestinal illness much of the time, due to fecal contamination or camp crud. It was difficult to obtain fresh food except for fish.

 

We flew to the survey line most days in Vietnam-era Bell Huey helicopters, piloted by freaky Vietnam vets who were usually drunk or stoned. Decapitation during loading was a concern for tall people like me. Crosswinds off the glaciers above the forest zone pummeled the aircraft. The helicopters pitched and yawed wildly once they took off and rose above the treetops. None of us ate breakfast before going to work. The pilots yelled at us in our headsets to shut up so they could concentrate in such conditions.

 

The pilots often landed in muskeg, as these were the only open areas. Few things were more unpleasant than stepping out into a bog and sinking down, OTT or over-the-top of our knee-high rubber boots, into the cold peaty water. Then we’d have to take off our helmets and reeking, fireproof onesies with the rotor screaming in our ears.

 

I was concerned about some of the workers carrying rifles. Many had never hunted or even fired a weapon, yet the government handed them powerful firearms used to hunt the largest game on Earth. Training for shooting a charging bear, dodging-and-weaving through thick forest, consisted of the crew chief setting up a stationary cardboard box fifty feet away and instructing the shooter to fire away. Fortunately, nobody on my crew ever shot a bear or human. Capsaicin bear spray, a much more effective defensive weapon, had yet to be invented.

 

Much of the work involved just making it through the day without getting killed by ursine monsters or other means, or going rain-insane. Everybody had different coping mechanisms. Being in a stoned state made the work less pleasant for me, as the days seemed much too long, and I tended to focus on my physical misery. I’d wait until I was in the tent at night to light up. I felt overwhelming relief lying stoned next to a glowing wood stove in a dry tent.

 

Working in such unpleasant surroundings, with many unpleasant people, required a simultaneous mix of inward retreat and congeniality. I’d done plenty of hard work before this, but not at such a high level of wretchedness.

 

There were, however, occasional moments of transcendence. As long as I accepted the suffering, there were fine rewards: Spawning female salmon leaping over dams of their dead and rotting sisters who didn’t make it. A gigantic brownie, sitting on his haunches eating caviar from the gravid belly of a salmon he’d just snagged and ripped open with a single claw. Impromptu sight-seeing tours over pristine fjords, provided by the heli pilots when they had extra fuel. Keeping my shit together while hiking, camping, and tripping on psychedelics on my days off; lever-action Guide Gun on my pack or next to my sleeping bag, loaded for big bear. Hikes along wild beaches choked with giant driftwood, making way for the occasional lumbering bear. Glorious views of the Juneau Icefield and the coastline, achieved by bushwhacking (trail-less hiking through bush, which whacks the bushwhacker) and scrambling (easy, un-roped rock climbing) up unclimbed and unnamed peaks on rare, precipitation-free off days. My first aurora borealis, witnessed on a rare clear night from the deck of a ferry plying between islands, miles from any shore lights. It was astounding. A yellow-green corona originating from overhead like divine rays of love, an LSD trip without drugs.

 

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Wido Publishing

Robert Charles Lee is a retired risk scientist with over twenty-five years of academic and applied risk analysis, decision analysis, and risk management experience in a wide variety of contexts. He has authored over one hundred peer-reviewed scientific works, as well as over one hundred technical reports for industry and government agencies. Prior to the professional risk work he worked in laboratories a bit, but otherwise was a manual laborer until he reckoned that he could use his brain for a living.

Robert has a BS in Botany, a BS in Science Education, an MS in Environmental Health, and a Certificate in Integrated Business Administration. He is ABD (all but dissertation) in a Toxicology PhD program. He is an ordained Minister and has an honorary Doctorate of Metaphysics from the Universal Life Church and is a Member of the Nova Scotia L’Ordre du Bon Temps, or Order of the Good Time.

He was born in North Carolina and lived there for over twenty years, but has since lived in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Alberta. He was also homeless for a time while a laborer in the Western United States. He currently resides in Colorado.

Robert and his wife Linda have climbed hundreds of technical and non-technical mountain, rock, ice, and canyon routes, hiked thousands of miles in several countries, and skied many miles of vertical feet at resorts and in the backcountry.

Robert is an avid amateur photographer, largely of outdoor subjects. He is a musician who plays hand, stick, and mallet percussion, and who can sing, but rarely does for unclear reasons. He is an amateur sound engineer and producer and has recorded more than a thousand written and improvisational instrumental pieces with other musicians to date. He was trying to learn to relax in retirement, but then he discovered non-technical writing. He has written a memoir and a poetry collection and is working on short stories.

Through Dangerous Doors is his latest book.

Visit his website at https://robertcharleslee.com or follow him on Goodreads.

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⭐Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tour Kick Off⭐The Witch of Rathborne Castle by Virginia Barlow @virgini35142126 #paranormalromance #TheWitchofRathborneCastle

 

Lady Jane Lenwood is surrounded by treason, lies, and a handsome stranger with a secret but she has one of her own, the ability to see the past or future with one touch…

By Virginia Barlow

THE WITCH OF RATHBORNE CASTLE, Paranormal Romance, The Wild Rose Press, 330 pp.

Lady Jane Lenwood is abandoned and alone in an empty castle in the middle of a dark twisted forest. The locals call her a witch because she has the “sight.”

When a wounded stranger is found within the gates, she is warned he carries secrets and their lives will be intertwined.

Lady Jane walks with a limp following a riding accident the night her mother left her. And had given up on having a normal life. She blames her misfortune on the current Duke of Rathborne.

Max Radley is sent by the king to find a traitor. His search leads him to Rathborne Castle and the beautiful woman living there. He must keep his identity a secret in order to find the traitor.

Lies, deception, and a grand scheme to relieve him of his wealth have the real villians framing him for treason.

Only Jane and her supernatural ability can save him, but in order to find the answer she must face her past and the feeling she has for him.

PRAISE

The Witch of Rathborne Castle is a riveting historical paranormal romance from start to finish. I hadn’t read more than a few pages before I was hooked. The plot unfolds at a nice easy pace with descriptive narration and a heroine to root for. Lady Jane is a mysterious character and her backstory plucked at my heartstrings. Max is a hero on a mission. Can he root out the traitor? The stakes are high for both Jane and Max which added to the anticipation. I did find the obstacles Jane and Max have to face a little over the top. But with each obstacle, they drew closer as a couple. There’s a wonderful gothic vibe to this story. There are quite a few twists I didn’t see coming, especially near the end. I may have gasped a few times. The ending was so unexpected, I got a little emotional. The Witch of Rathborne Castle is an engrossing historical romance with paranormal elements I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Fans of both historical romance and paranormal romance will love The Witch of Rathborne Castle. Reminiscent of classical historicals romance from the ’90s, The Witch of Rathborne Castle will sweep the reader away. Highly recommend! – N.N.Light’s Book Heaven Five Star Review

Alfred placed the candle back on the wall and reached for a clean blanket. He covered the man. “There is something familiar about him. Did you learn anything?”

“I know how he came to be here, but not who he is,” Jane murmured. “It was the strangest thing, Alfred. When I touched him, I saw what happened. It was not a whisper in my mind.” She gazed at the stranger.

     He shall be your lover…

She jerked back as if she were burned. “He cannot stay. He is to leave as soon as he can travel.” Jane rose and turned toward the door, easing her twisted leg before her.

“My lady, I thought you were urged to help him. What changed?”

Your lives are twisted together as your bodies shall…

Jane stopped in her tracks. “We have little enough to eat as it is. We do not need another mouth to feed.” She turned to Alfred. It was a feeble excuse, but it was all she had. She would not reveal the reason for her anxiousness.

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I love being an author. It’s all about where your characters lead you. I start with a general idea. As the story unfolds, I type as fast as I can in hopes I keep up with my characters. They have had me jotting on napkins, making notes while I’m waiting in a line, and waking me up in the middle of the night. The hard part is always the ending. My characters live with me and when I reach the end of the story, it is hard to say goodbye. Sometimes, I let the story sit for a few days to make sure I’m okay with them leaving home to get published. Kind of like when you kids move out. LOL

I enjoy my grandchildren, and the time I share with them. They make me smile with their antics. I like to quilt, crochet, knit and sew. Cooking and baking are occasional itches I scratch. The rest of the time, they are necessary evils. LOL.

My greatest support comes from my husband. He has been my sounding board for all my stories. My daughters are also a great support to me. I couldn’t do it without my family.

Virginia Barlow’s recent release is the paranormal romance, The Witch of Rathborne Castle.

You can visit Virginia’s website at https://www.virginia-barlow.com or connect with her on Twitter, Goodreads and Facebook.

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