Excerpt Tour: The Park Street Secrets

by Yvonne Van Lankveld

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GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

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BLURB:

A historic government office and police station in Niagara Falls, Ontario is redeveloped into seven condominiums. Some new residents have ties to its cultural heritage, while others bring secrets to keep there.

Siblings Lily and Rose must cohabit for one year or lose their inheritance, despite their animosity toward each other. Gracie Sheehan is determined to make a fresh start after many unexpected events force her to question her values and life goals. Young lovers move down the hall from a self-serving customs broker who always gets whom and what he wants.

Mix these unique characters with a medley of others, add a building manager with secrets of his own, and discover how Park Street becomes a chaotic blend of love, betrayal and the need for human connection.

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EXCERPT (Exclusive Excerpt):

Mitch hesitantly accepted her offer to complete his report at her kitchen table. She watched him quietly as he rambled through a standard series of scripted questions. He reassured her repeatedly that she was safe. She wore the same ivory flannel housecoat which smelled of the same detergent she used when they were married. When she leaned forward, he caught a whiff of her hair, clean and slightly damp from her bath. She always bathed at night, and based on her scent, still used the same soap. She was barefoot, and he saw her toenails were painted pink. Something new. She never painted them before. She watched him looking at her feet. 

“The boys gave me a gift certificate. They said I needed to do something nice for myself,” she said. 

He looked around and remembered. Memories, lots of them, including endless arguments in this kitchen. 

“They were right,” Mitch replied, as he felt a small stirring, unexpected and unprovoked. 

Georgia felt it, too, and as quickly as their eyes met, they both looked away. Mitch stood up and put his empty coffee cup, the same one he had used for years, among the dirty dishes in the sink. Georgia stayed in her chair, her back towards him. He inhaled the scent of her hair and paused. An unexplained, stupid thing to do. No reason for it. He thanked her for the coffee.

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Yvonne Van Lankveld's love of words began in childhood. As a nurse, her writing skills earned her acclaim in many clinical settings, however she never lost her desire to become an author.

The Park Street Secrets is her second novel, which she wrote during the pandemic. Her first book, The Road to Alright was originally published in 2019. She is working on her third fiction novel, Follow Polly's Lane. Yvonne lives in Ridgeville, Ontario with her husband.

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Yvonne Van Lankveld will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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VBT: Love Tools

by Isobel Reed 

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GENRE: Contemporary Romance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 BLURB:

When city girl Lily shows up in Bluestone County, cocky cowboy Jake reckons it won’t be long

until she hightails it back to London. It didn’t matter that his heartrate spiked whenever she was

nearby. Or that he couldn’t get her out of his head. Because Jake was the king of casual and

Lily was apparently the queen of picking the wrong men. 

 

Excerpt:

“You about done checking me out darlin’ or do ya want me to turn around and show you the

back?” Her face flamed as her eyes flicked back up to his face and she caught sight of his cocky

grin. Before she could attempt to deny what she’d been doing, his expression turned more

serious as he took his turn running his eyes up and down her. “I didn’t know Matt had a

daughter.”

Surprise, surprise.

“No s***. He wasn’t exactly father of the year.”

Lily couldn’t help but think of the irony. Her father had become friends with some guy young

enough to be his son, yet he still couldn’t quite be bothered to pick up the phone and call his

own daughter.

His smile became crooked as his glare intensified. “You always swear like a trucker, darlin’?

Here, I thought English women were all class and manners.”

Is he being serious?

Letting out a huff, she couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy, “I’m sorry, have I stepped into the

past? Are you gonna ask me why a little woman like me isn’t married next?”

“Alright sweetheart, calm down.” He sniggered, clearly amused by the steam coming out of her

ears.

Stepping closer to him, she tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “I’m not or will I ever be your

sweetheart. Now if you don’t mind, you need to get the hell out of my store before I call the

police.”

Isobel was born and raised in London. She still lives along the River Thames with her husband

and her substantial book collection. Ever the hopeless romantic, she fell in love with the genre

from a young age and was inspired to write her own stories. When she's not feasting on

romantic comedies or binge reading her hoard of contemporary romance novels, Isobel is

writing.

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Book Blast: Avalon

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Vanessa Morgan will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Avalon is now also available in French!

Some cats need nine lives to make a difference. Avalon only needed one.

From Amazon bestselling author Vanessa Morgan, Avalon is the heartwarming and once-in-a-lifetime love story of a girl and her neurotic Turkish Van cat.

With humor, the author details how Avalon made other creatures cringe in distress whenever he was around, how he threw her dates out by means of special techniques, and how he rendered it almost impossible for her to leave the house. Avalon was so incorrigible that even the landlord ordered to get rid of him. But beneath Avalon's demonic boisterousness, Vanessa recognized her own flaws and insecurities, and she understood that abandoning Avalon would be the worst she could do to him.Thanks to her unswerving loyalty, Avalon transformed into a tender feline and even landed a major role in a horror movie. In turn, Avalon made it his mission to be there for his human companion.

Avalon is a memoir for anyone who has ever been obsessively in love with a pet.

Read an Excerpt

Ignoring the neighbors’ cats had diminished Avalon's jealousy, but with four more beings in the apartment demanding my devotion, Avalon's reality was still a far cry from his personal utopia, and new pet peeves were routinely added to his usual problem-seeking behavior.

Small changes often caused major disturbances. When we removed a DVD from the cupboard, or put a pen on the living room table that he wasn’t used to seeing there, Avalon pitched himself near the problem area and vocalized his complaints as if he was a muezzin calling to prayer. He only stopped if the space returned back to normal.

Intelligent and calculating as he was, Avalon had also developed a technique to prevent Ballon and Tigris from using his litter boxes. Each time he heard the scratch scratch scratch in the litter, he settled into attack mode behind the bathroom wall, wiggled his behind, and leapt onto the other cat as soon as it emerged, making it jump. It worked every...single... time. Proud, Avalon walked away from the crime scene with his nose pointing airwards.

Borat, our guinea pig, was initially the best one off, but ended up the most miserable. What kept him safe at first was Avalon’s fear of rodents. Cats may be considered deadly predators, killing a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year in the United States alone, but whenever Borat had free range inside the apartment, Avalon went in a large circle around him, avoiding him at all cost.

Eventually, Avalon ferreted out a way to make Borat twinge in distress whenever he approached. It started when I taught Avalon not to throw up on the bed and carpets. Those lessons must have been meaningful, because Avalon didn’t vomit in those places anymore. Instead he aimed for the guinea pig'shead. As soon as he felt a hairball mounting, Avalon ran as fast as he could toward Borat's cage, leaned in, and puked his heart out.

About the Author:

Vanessa Morgan is the editor of the movie reference guides When Animals Attack: The 70 Best Horror Movies with Killer Animals, Strange Blood: 71 Essays on Offbeat and Underrated Vampire Movies, and Evil Seeds: The Ultimate Movie Guide to Villainous Children. She also has had one cat book (Avalon) and four supernatural thrillers (Drowned Sorrow, The Strangers Outside, A Good Man, and Clowders) published. Three of her stories have been turned into movies. She has written for myriad Belgian magazines and newspapers and introduces movie screenings at several European film festivals. She is also a programmer for the Offscreen Film Festival in Belgium. When she's not working on her latest book, you can find her reading, watching movies, eating out, or photographing felines for her blog Traveling Cats.

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The French version of the book can be purchased at Amazon for only $0.99.

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