Monday Mayhem – Memorabling

The Gilmore Girls fans in the crowd will know that the title is no typo. The rest of you should go watch season 1. At least, I think it was season 1….

It seems my memory is shot these days. As a matter of fact, I’m feeling pretty proud of the fact that I remembered to do this post, since I’ll be car-bound most of the day. So before I forget, here are a few things I want to share with you:

Coming in June from TMP – The Wedding Collection. Includes my story, ‘Always the Groomsman’
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Want a taste?
Things weren’t going the way he planned, but Tom Sullivan was getting used to the phenomenon. Life as he once knew it went kerblewie the first time he kissed Maggie McCann. This latest spin in the cosmic Cuisinart should have been a cakewalk. Still, he stood there at the end of the counter befuddled, betrothed, and—if the woman currently kneeling on a grimy Dunkin Donuts bathroom floor had anything to say about it—possibly soon-to-be-beheaded.
Just finishing edits on Long Distance Love – the collection of Jack and Ellie stories. I think you’ll like the way their story comes full circle. Look for it in August 2013.
Working on Containment. That’s the best I can say at this point. It’s been a difficult story to write. I’ve hit a couple of walls, but I think I might have found a way to smash through. Stay tuned.
And last, but certainly not least, I want to take a moment to honor the memory of all the brave men and women who have given their lives to protect our way of life.
One day seems a humble thank you, but your legacy beats in the hearts of a grateful nation.
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Monday Mayhem – Big things, wow things

I’m on the road this week, but I wanted to share a little news. In case you missed my squeeing across multiple social media platforms….

Commitment has been chosen as a finalist in the Single Title category of the GDRWA Booksellers Best Awards!

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The winners will be announced in July, but check out the fabulous company I’m keeping!
The Greater Detroit RWA would like to congratulate all the finalists for the 2013 Booksellers Best Award Contest.  Winners will be announced at a private reception in Atlanta at the RWA National Conference in July.
 
The finalists are listed below.    * denotes a Best First Book finalist
TRADITIONAL
Snowbound in the Earl’s Castle – Fiona Harper
Bet You’ll Marry Me – Darlene Panzera – *
The Nanny Who Saved Christmas – Michelle Douglas
Kincaid’s Hope – Grace Greene
The Rebel Rancher – Donna Alward
 
SHORT CONTEMPORARY
The Doctor’s Not So Little Secret – Cindy Kirk
Redemption of a Hollywood Starlet – Kimberly Lang
The Good, The Bad and the Wild – Heidi Rice
Enemies at the Altar – Melanie Milburne
Christmas Conspiracy – Robin Perini
 
LONG CONTEMPORARY
The Marriage Bargain – Jennifer Probst
The Long Way Home – Cathryn Parry
When Lightning Strikes – Brenda Novak
More Than A Kiss – Stacey Joy Netzel
Far From Perfect – Barbara Longley
 
SINGLE TITLE
The Reason Is You – Sharla Lovelace – *
Commitment – Margaret Ethridge
A Man of Honor – Loree Lough
Back To You: Bad Boys of Red Hook – Robin Kaye
Just Down The Road – Jodi Thomas
 
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Dancing With Danger – Laura Sheehan – *
Revenge – Dana Delamar – *
Death of a Beauty Queen – Mallory Kane
Deadly Dance – Dee Davis
Dangerous Affairs – Diana Miller – *
 
SHORT HISTORICAL
Lessons In Loving A Laird – Michelle Marcos
Lady of Shame – Ann Lethbridge
Too Tempting To Resist – Cara Elliott
The Homesteader’s Secret – Lacy Williams
Return of the Viscount – Gayle Callen
 
LONG HISTORICAL
Twas The Night After Christmas – Sabrina Jeffries
Sweet Deception – Heather Snow
The Promise – Kate Worth – *
Highland Surrender – Tracy Brogan
When You Give A Duke A Diamond – Shana Galen
 
INSPIRATIONAL
The Rose of Winslow Street – Elizabeth Camden
Short Straw Bride – Karen Witemeyer
Twin Peril – Laura Scott
Christmas Roses – Amanda Cabot
Devotion – Marianne Evans
 
PARANORMAL/TIME TRAVEL/FUTURISTIC
Love, Eternally – Morgan O’Neill – *
Vengeance Born – Kylie Griffin – *
Flirting with Fangs – Peg Pierson – *
A Soul For Chaos – Crista McHugh
Gather The Bones – Alison Stuart
 
EROTIC
Circle of Deception – Carla Swafford
Playing To Win – Jaci Burton
Circle of Danger – Carla Swafford
Hidden Paradise – Janet Mullany
A Little Wild – Kate St. James
 
NOVELLA
The Governess Affair – Courtney Milan
Be My Texas Valentine – Jodi Thomas
Rising Above – Stacey Joy Netzel
Once Upon A Frontier Christmas – Debra Cowan
Miracle in New Hope – Kaki Warner
 
YOUNG ADULT
Pushing the Limits – Katie McGarry – *
Riley’s Pond – Harley Brooks – *
The Mephisto Kiss – Trinity Faegan
Forgiven – Jana Oliver
Courtship and Curses – Marissa Doyle

Squeeeeee!

To celebrate, I’m going to give away a $10 Amazon gift card to one lucky commenter. Tell me, have you read any of the books selected? Any on the list you’d like to try? Comment and I’ll draw a winner next Sunday, May 26, 2013.

Release day! Love Letters Volume 2 now available!

Love Letters Volume 2: Duty to Please

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Discover four sexy stories with a military twist in Love Letters Volume 2: Duty to Please.

E Is for Entice by Emily Cale
Coast Guard Petty Officer Evan Marshall knows it won’t be easy proving to his hometown that he’s matured–especially his former girlfriend, Ciara Knowles. Though they soon re-create some very hot memories, it may take a disaster to truly bring them together.

F Is for Fallout by Ginny Glass
When Spencer Corwin returns from Iraq, all he can think about is finally meeting the woman he’s been corresponding with in the flesh. But will their red-hot passion survive the fallout of learning they’ve both been living a lie?

G Is for Gun-Shy by Christina Thacher
Colonel Jack Travis doesn’t want to be partnered with buttoned-up military strategist Davina McCall–even if she’s the sexiest woman he’s ever seen. When a freak storm traps them in Jack’s cabin, the buttons start coming undone…and things really start heating up.

H Is for Hotshot by Maggie Wells
Smoke jumper Luke Whitehawk usually fights fires–when he’s not fighting his sizzling attraction to pilot Tara Ferris. And Tara’s determined that this is one battle Luke is destined to lose…

Also available in audiobook format from Audible!

Smokin’ Hot!

I’m at the Smokin’ Hot Firemen blog today for a little howdy-do.

Stop by and say hello, but remember, they think I’m just Maggie who writes funny little stories of women dropping their towels when firemen bust down their door. 

Don’t blow my cover.

Speaking of covers…Yum!

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Shout it! Shout it! Shout it out loud! An audiobook contest.

The winner is: Laurie! Congrats! Your audiobook is on it’s way!

Look! Love Letters Volume 1: Obeying Desire is now available as an audiobook!

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Eeep! I’m so flustered by the thought of someone reading my story aloud I don’t think I can listen. That’s why I’m going to have to gift a copy to someone so they can tell me how it sounds.

Want it to be you? I’ll give you three ways to enter:

1) Comment below and whisper the naughtiest thing you’ve ever said out loud.

2) Like my Facebook page and say hello.

3) Tweet this to the world: Hey, Mags! I want to listen to Love Letters Volume 1: Obeying Desire! @MaggieWells1 @GinnyGlass @ChristnaThacher @EmilyCale #LoveLetters

You can do any or all of the above to enter. Entries close 5/17/13 at 11:59pm CDT. I’ll pick a winner on Saturday and announce it on my Weekend Writing Warriors post on Sunday.

Good luck and happy listening!

Monday Mayhem – Sharon B freaks out

When I talked to Sharon Buchbinder about doing a little guest stint on my blog I offered her the chance to play two truths and a lie with y’all. Apparently that wasn’t very kind of me….

Play along, will ya? I think she’s on the edge.

Truth-Truth-Confabulation

When Margaret shared that her blog was now featuring author guest posts with two truths and a lie, I had writer’s block for the first time in years. Normally, I have what I call writer’s logorrhea, which Miriam Webster’s online dictionary defines as “excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness.” Yes, even my academic pals have marked up my work with the dreaded words, “over writing.” I paced the room, wrung my hands, and moaned, “Why me? Of all the writers in all the blogs in all of the world, why did Margaret do this to me.” See. I over write. And then I have to KILL MY DARLINGS.

So, on that note, I now present two truths and a confabulation involving my book babies and killing my darlings. I leave it up to you to guess which one is the lie. From those readers who correctly identify the confabulation, I will award the winner’s choice of a book from my backlist.

1.  The only problem I had with Desire and Deception was getting an agent, editor or publisher to give it a read was because it had “too much sex.”  When I submitted it to an erotic publisher, the editor liked it, but complained it had too little sex.

2.  Some Other Child is based, in part, on growing up the child of a sociopath.  My mother taught me not to pay parking fees and to use American Sign Language to pretend I was deaf when confronted by angry attendants. I deleted the scene where she kept a shovel and newspaper in the trunk of her car so she could steal plants when I saw ones she liked.

3.  Obsession originally came in at 100,000 words. After three rounds of revisions, and a virtual blood bath of killing darlings, the book is now 70,000 words long. Many of the words were related to hot monkey sex in Mexican jungles and expletives in English, Spanish, and Russian.

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

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Now Available from The Wild Rose Press: OBSESSION

A year after a barbaric childbirth, complete with a near-death experience and an encounter with her guardian angel, Angie Edmonds is just happy she and her son, Jake, are alive. She’s finally in a good place: clean, sober, and employed as a defense attorney. But at the end of a long work day, she finds herself in a parent’s worst nightmare: Jake has been kidnapped and taken across the Mexican border by a cult leader who believes the child is the “Chosen One.”

Stymied by the US and Mexican legal systems, Angie is forced to ask the head of a Mexican crime syndicate for help. Much to her chagrin, she must work with Alejandro Torres, a dangerously attractive criminal and the drug lord’s right-hand man. Little does she know Alejandro is an undercover federal agent, equally terrified of blowing his cover—and falling in love with her.

~~~~~~~~~~

Author Bio and Links

After working in health care delivery for years, Sharon Buchbinder became an association executive, a health care researcher, and an academic in higher education. She had it all–a terrific, supportive husband, an amazing son and a wonderful job. But that itch to write (some call it an obsession) kept beckoning her to “come on back” to writing fiction. When not attempting to make students, colleagues, and babies laugh, she can be found herding cats, waiting on a large gray dog, fishing, dining with good friends, or writing. You can find her at www.sharonbuchbinder.com

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Where Sharon Buchbinder can be found on the Internet

Website/Blog http://sharonbuchbinder.com/blog/

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001IODIE2

Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4417344.Sharon_Buchbinder

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sharon.buchbinder.romanceauthor

Twitter @sbuchbinder https://twitter.com/sbuchbinder

The Wild Rose Press http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/

Book Trailer for OBSESSION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1kujUWoGbk

Book Trailer for DESIRE AND DECEPTION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drjvWmZEHrU&feature=player_embedded

Book Trailer for SOME OTHER CHILD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EMvzxE-iBY

Cover reveal!

I’m home from RT13 and I have so much to share!

First, MR. MAYHEM (Book 5 – Hot Nights in St. Blaise) is released!

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If you haven’t had a taste of the delicious Dr. Marc Mayhew, be sure to check out my Weekend Writing Warrior posts. The man is made of yum!

And if that wasn’t exciting enough, I got the cover art for June! Check out the gorgeousness that is BUSTIN’ OUT ALL OVER!

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Terri Ecklund wishes she’d never agreed to be Miss June. As billing manager for SBRMC, she could appreciate that the damn thing had raised a healthy amount of money to fund hospital improvements, but it also cost her big. She could deal with the sly snickers, crude jokes about her ‘assets’, and the perfect strangers whistling ‘June is Busting Out All Over’, but her boyfriend couldn’t.

When the pro-fisherman she hooked long ago cuts bait and takes the contents of their joint bank account with him, Terri scrambles to patch the pieces of her life back together but not before tearing a strip off the smarty-pants internet genius who set the The Men and Women of St. Blaise Regional Medical Center up to go viral.

Internet millionaire and St. Blaise native Quent Halliday nearly swallowed his tongue when Terri Ecklund, St. Blaise, Missouri’s god-given rebuttal to Pamela Anderson’s plastic surgeon, stormed into his St. Louis office spitting nails over the loss of her almost-fiancé.

Drawn to the sparks flying from her eyes and the lure of her bountiful curves, clever Quent knows the opportunity of a lifetime when he sees it. Without hesitation he drops everything to chase after the girl of his fantasies, and when he catches her, they’re both shocked to discover he may just be the man of her dreams.

Whooooo hoo! I can’t wait to share it with y’all!

Monday Mayhem – Recovery

Hello! I’m home from Kansas City and recovering from my very first Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. Here are a few of the highlights:

First, check out this room key!

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Whew! Thank you, Jaci Burton!

I got a chance to catch up with some old friends like author Beth Kery (Because You Are Mine)

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And my TMP pals Grace Greene (Beach Rental) and Ruth Hartman (rescued by a Duke)

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I also got to spend time with some new friends from the Contemporary Romance Cafe.

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Leah Brammel, me, Lynda Aicher, Samantha Ann King

And spend time with my partner in crime, Emily Cale (Power Play & Love Letters anthologies)

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I took part in the EXPO signing on Thursday afternoon

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Where I was lucky enough to be sandwiched between Alyssa Everett (Lord of Secrets) and Jennifer Estep (Elemental Assassins series).

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Pulling a selfie with Alyssa Everett

I met tons of fabulous authors and readers, got to put faces in the places where only Twitter icons existed before, talked myself hoarse, and managed to slip out for a little lunch with my pal Angel.

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And that is how I spent my spring vacation. I’m home today, petting the bunny, flirting with the hubby, and processing load after load of laundry. So… how about you? Do anything fun while I was gone?

 

RT 2013 – Day 5

I’m at the Romantic Time Booklovers Convention in Kansas City this week. To Celebrate, I thought I’d post a bit from one of my books each day that I’m away. Looking for one of my books? You can find them all on my page at All Romance eBooks!

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Today I’m featuring Spring Chickens

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You don’t have to be a spring chicken to fall in love.

 

The residents of Heartsfield, Arkansas think Lynne Prescott has it all. The wealthy suburban divorcee captures everyone’s attention when she blows into town to dispose of the family farm. But her nosy new neighbors don’t know she ran away from home.

 

Bram Hatchett’s interest in buying the land adjoining his farm is yesterday’s news, but the handsome widower’s inability to contain his attraction to the land’s beautiful owner quickly becomes fodder for the local gossip mill.

 

A rickety old porch and a disturbing decrease in the poultry population bring them together—but with wagging tongues and grown children against them, Lynne’s inclination toward flight comes smack against Bram’s aversion to fight. Can they whittle away the secrets of the past in order to scratch out a future together?

And here’s an excerpt!

The photograph of her aunt with his uncle served as an easy out. Lynne laughed and shook her head. “I found something I wanted to show you.”  She offered it to him with a sheepish smile.

Bram took the snapshot, shooting her a wary glance before lowering his eyes. The glimmer of a smile twitched his lips then blossomed. “This is them,” he said in a soft, reverent tone.

“I know. Look at how happy they were.” He squinted and stretched his arm, leaning back until he could focus. “Wanna borrow my glasses?” she asked, waving the drugstore readers in his direction. His glare might have leveled a lesser woman, but she figured she’d already shown him her worst. She flashed her biggest grin. “Need longer arms? Want me to hold it over here?”

He snatched the glasses from her hand and slipped them onto the end of his nose. “Hell to get old,” he grumbled, moving the photo closer until he found the right spot.

She leaned against the doorframe. “Tell me about it.”

Bram whipped the glasses from his face and handed them back to her with the photograph. “I usually don’t need them. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Chirping keep you awake?” she asked with a wry smile.

He chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t keep my chickens in the kitchen.”

“Smart man.”

RT 2013 – Day 4

I’m at the Romantic Time Booklovers Convention in Kansas City this week. To Celebrate, I thought I’d post a bit from one of my books each day that I’m away. Looking for one of my books? You can find them all on my page at All Romance eBooks!

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Today I’m featuring Commitment – an All Romance eBooks best seller!

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Tom Sullivan wants a woman who is willing to accept him as he is. The successful divorce attorney has seen enough of the flip side of love to know better than to promise forever. Women have tried to pin him down, but none have managed to make it stick.

Until Maggie McCann.

Maggie is only interested in one thing. Her fortieth birthday is looming and the tick-tock-tick-tock in her head means her biological clock is about to strike midnight on her dreams of finding Prince Charming. Armed with a new plan for her happily ever, she foregoes the Fairy Godmother routine and makes an appointment with a fertility clinic for a rendezvous with a sperm donor.

The last thing Maggie needs is to get mixed up with a player like Tom Sullivan.

A chance encounter and the opportunity to scratch a decade-long itch prove irresistible, and what starts as a one-night stand turns into a game of cat and mouse when Tom learns of Maggie’s plan to start a family on her own.

To Maggie, messing with a guy like Tom Sullivan is the single-girl equivalent of playing with fire, but she convinces herself to take what she can get for as long as she can and expect nothing more. But Tom falls hard and fast for Maggie, and now that they’re planning to have a baby together he starts banking on his own a happily ever after.

And here’s an excerpt!

The kitchen gadget aisle of Bed Bath & Beyond isn’t the place to make major life decisions, but there she was—there it was—staring her right in the face.

“No.”

The word popped out of her mouth before it registered with her brain. Maggie McCann glared at the plastic tube then turned away, feigning interest in a set of matched measuring cups until she could gather her wits. The answer wasn’t unreasonable. The thought was ridiculous, the location…highly inappropriate.

Inappropriate, but not unusual. A born nester, Maggie liked taking a spin through the house wares super-store. She found it relaxing. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to have a real nest to feather. Not that the apartment above her shop wasn’t real. The entire brick and mortar building was very real. She had the gigantic mortgage to prove it. But she wanted a house, no, a home.

Maggie didn’t consider her forays into this Valhalla of domestic bliss a stop gap. These excursions were not a desperate attempt to fill an empty life with candleholders, no matter what Oprah implied. She just had an itch for Egyptian cotton, and the best way to scratch that itch was by indulging her yen for plush, thirsty bath sheets. Hell, the terry cloth tantalizers practically leapt from the shelves and into her arms, desperate to be the towel she wrapped around her bubble bath-scented body. Maggie clutched the latest volunteers to her bosom. How could she deny them their destiny?

Under normal circumstances, she didn’t bother with the kitchen section of the store. Maggie shopped to satisfy her bed and bath jones. She considered anything that required her to spend time slaving over a hot stove definitely ‘Beyond’, but her ancient can opener was grinding to a slow and painful death.

Sadly, Fred was the only one around to witness her heroics when she called ‘Clear!’ and jolted the appliance back to life with a stout slap. Not that he cared about her histrionics. The only thing that ever concerned Fred was his next meal. The longer she took to serve him, the louder his complaints. Just that morning, in the midst of her appliance saving routine, the overstuffed tabby took his dissatisfaction out on her by stepping on her toes, butting her with his head, and nudging her with his bulky body before he resorted to violence.

The pebbled scratch on her ankle itched. She wanted to blame cat scratch fever for the heat coursing through her body, but she knew Ted Nugent didn’t hold the answer. Panic clawed at her throat. Maggie focused on every piece but the one that called to her. She scanned the rows, desperately searching for the fancy hand-held can opener she’d seen advertised on TV—the one that guaranteed a soft silicone grip and safely rounded edges.

She spotted her quarry and stretched to yank the package from the wire hook. It clung for dear life, almost as if the damn thing sensed it was doomed to an existence filled with tomato soup and economy-sized cans of Gourmet de Gato.

“Join the club,” she muttered.

Maggie gave the opener another yank and it surrendered, sending her stumbling into a display of mixing bowls. She gasped and flailed. The turquoise towels she’d taken hostage in the bath department fell to the floor in a heap. She caught the edge of a shelf and the can opener landed on the heap of terrycloth with a muffled plop.

Above her head, the rattle of plastic and cardboard warned of imminent disaster. Maggie groaned in surrender as bubble-packed kitchen gadgets began to rain down from over-stocked hooks. A torrent of teaspoons and tablespoons clattered against the flour sifters, colanders, and measuring cups lining the bottom shelf. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes popped. A melon baller teetered on the edge of its hook, telegraphing its intent.

“No, don’t jump!”

It didn’t heed her plea. On its descent, the thick silicon handle caught the top of the package on the rung below. Maggie winced as she made eye contact with the dastardly implement again. The cardboard backing swung wildly, rocking to the tip of the prong.

“Oh no….”

Maggie stared in horror as it let go. The bulbous rubber ball caught the edge of a mortar and pestle set and sent the plastic tube bouncing in her direction. Her grip on the shelf tightened as her knees buckled. She blinked in dismay when the taunting tool defied all laws of physics by landing face-up, its tapered tip pointing directly at her.

She stared down at the turkey baster, blinking back the hot rush of tears prickling her eyes. “No.” Her whispered refusal lacked conviction, and she knew it.

“That’s okay. It happens all the time.” A woman in a blue polo shirt hurried over. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“No.” Maggie shook her head to clear it. “I mean, yes. Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about the mess.”

“Sometimes the stockers get a little overzealous,” the woman said, offering an apologetic smile. “I hope you weren’t hurt.”

“No, not at all.”

Pulling a card from her pocket, the woman stepped over the forgotten towels. “I’m Jackie Dunforth, Store Manager. Take that up front and tell them I said to give you twenty percent off your purchase.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary—”

“You almost got sliced by a grater. It’s the least I can do.”

Maggie bent to scoop her selections from the floor, carefully avoiding the turkey baster as she groped for the can opener. “Thank you.” She juggled her purse, towels, can opener, and business card.

She didn’t bother shaking her hair back from her face when she straightened, hoping a curtain of hair might camouflage her flaming cheeks. “Sorry,” she whispered again and slinked away.

“Oh! Ma’am?” The manager’s voice rang out, echoing through the aisles. A grimace twisted Maggie’s lips. She turned, eying the store associate warily. The woman held up the turkey baster, waving the damn thing in the air like a flag for all to see. “Did you forget this?”

Maggie shook her head a tad too vehemently. “No!” The woman took a quick step back, a puzzled frown creasing her brow. Dragging in a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and tossed her hair. “I don’t need it, and it’s not my fault if the damn thing is suicidal.”

With that, Maggie McCann, towel tramp and candle craver with an itch for Egyptian cotton, turned on her heel and fled from the beyond and the terrifying thoughts a taunting turkey baster implanted in her mind.