Welcome to author Amy Rae Durreson joining us today to talk about new release “Spindrift”.
Welcome Amy Rae 🙂
Blurb:
When lonely artist Siôn Ruston retreats to the seaside village of Rosewick Bay, Yorkshire, to recover from a suicide attempt, he doesn’t expect to encounter any ghosts, let alone the one who appears in his bedroom every morning at dawn. He also doesn’t expect to meet his ghost’s gorgeous, flirty descendant working at the local museum… and the village pub, and as a lifeboat volunteer. But Mattie’s great-great-grandfather isn’t the only specter in Rosewick Bay, and as Siôn and Mattie investigate an ill-fated love affair from a bygone era, they begin a romance of their own, one that will hopefully escape the tragedy Mattie’s ancestor suffered. But the ghosts aren’t the only ones with secrets, and the things Siôn and Mattie are keeping from each other threaten to tear them apart. And all the while, the dead are biding their time, because the curse of Rosewick Bay has never been broken. If the ghosts are seen on the streets, local tradition foretells a man will drown before the summer’s end.
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“I’m not scared of ghosts,” Mattie said.
Siôn couldn’t keep the incredulous look off his face, though he managed not to say anything.
Mattie grimaced. “Okay, apart from that thing where I ran away like a scared rabbit when I actually came face to face with one. Why don’t I carry the stuff, and you can walk with me and intimidate the ghosts with your glare?”
“I glare?” Siôn said in surprise, and Mattie laughed.
It seemed like a truce had been declared. They walked quietly through the village, and it wasn’t until they were settled in the pub garden, on a terrace overlooking the mouth of the beck, that Siôn said, “I think there might be a second ghost.”
Mattie had just been lifting his pint, but he put it down at that. “Seriously?”
Siôn told him about what he had seen in the water, and the noise behind him on the quay.
“Shit,” Mattie said and took a deep swig of his pint.
“The thing is,” said Siôn, who had been thinking about it during his quieter moments all afternoon, “I don’t think they’re malicious. Unnerving, certainly, but they don’t seem to intend any harm.”
“You nearly ended in up A&E with concussion.”
“Because I was clumsy and surprised. It’s not like he climbed out and pushed me over.” Siôn thought about that for a moment and grimaced. “Damn. That’s going to keep me awake tonight.”
Mattie opened his mouth, stopped, took a deep breath, and then sipped his drink without saying a word.
Siôn glanced back out to sea and, very quickly, down at the water, because he was never again going to get this close to the edge without checking to see if something was climbing out to get to him.
“Have you ever seen a ghost before?” Mattie asked.
Siôn hesitated, thinking of that day on the bridge when, lost in exhaustion and lethal loneliness, he had seen his own ghost in the mist. Did that count?
No one else had seen the dead man in the water. He hadn’t considered that before, and an old dread knotted in his gut. Maybe it was madness after all. Maybe Mattie was mad too, or just humoring the crazy man who lived upstairs.
Luckily, their food arrived then, carried by a cheerful blonde girl who stopped to banter with Mattie for a minute, which let Siôn regain his composure. Once they had settled into eating, he said carefully, “Why do you ask?”
“Well, either the ghosts are connected to each other, or two separate ghosts have latched onto you.” Mattie paused with a forkful of scampi halfway to his mouth. “Hark at us—talking like this is normal. I don’t know why I’m trying to find some logic in it.”
“Everything’s logical, really,” Siôn said defensively. He liked logic.
“Bloody boring world that’d be. But if there is a pattern, it might help to know.”
“Help?” Siôn repeated, resisting the urge to drop his face into his plate of mussels. “Help with what?”
“Well, they must want something,” Mattie said. “If we can work out why they’re haunting you, we might be able to figure out what they want—then we can get rid of them.”
“Unless they just want to scare us,” Siôn said. He didn’t think anything was as simple as Mattie’s explanation made it sound.
Mattie sighed heavily. “That’s right pessimistic, that.”
Siôn shrugged. “Easy solutions always leave people disappointed when they fail.”
“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Mattie grumbled, “because the negativity is so not sexy.”
“I’m not pretty,” Siôn said, so baffled that he stopped eating with his fork halfway to his mouth.
Mattie groaned and smacked himself on the forehead. “Sorry. Not meant to be flirting. Sorry. Damn it. I never bloody learn.”
Siôn was too confused to care about the flirting thing. “Do you hit yourself in the head a lot? I’m not pretty.”
Mattie gave him a puzzled look. “Is it the word? You’re gorgeous. I noticed you the first time I saw you painting.”
Siôn stared at him. As a student, on a good day, he’d pulled off ethereal, which you could do if you were eighteen and blond and rake thin, but it wasn’t a look that aged well. These days he just looked washed-out and tired.
“You clearly have some very strange kinks,” he said. Mattie made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat.
“Dude,” Mattie said, which was another word that just sounded wrong in a Yorkshire accent, “if someone compliments you, just say thank you. It’s not an insult, and you are bloody good-looking. You’ve got that whole Brideshead thing going for you, and a bit of tragic artist mixed in to sex it up. If I looked like you, I’d never have to put any effort into pulling again.”
Siôn thought about the word “tragic” and all it implied, and gritted his teeth. “Thank you, Mattie,” he grated out. “Now could we please go back to talking about the ghosts?”
Amy has a terrible weakness for sarcastic dragons, shy boys with sweet smiles, and good pots of tea. She is yet to write a shy, tea-loving dragon, but she’s determined to get there one day (so far, all of her dragons are arrogant gits who prefer red wine). Amy is a quiet Brit with a degree in early English literature, which she blames for her somewhat medieval approach to spelling, and at various times has been fluent in Latin, Old English, Ancient Greek, and Old Icelandic, though these days she mostly uses this knowledge to bore her students. Amy started her first novel twenty-one years ago and has been scribbling away ever since. Despite these long years of experience, she has yet to master the arcane art of the semicolon.
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