Today, friend, I am excited to introduce you to my fellow Liquid Silver Books author Danita Minnis! Her wonderful paranormal romance debut Falcon's Angel is being released May 28, and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy! Check out her beautiful cover, read on for a blurb and excerpt and get to know my pal Danita!
Danita, the floor is yours!
Hello
and Welcome!
Like
reincarnation, mystery, chills and hunks? My debut paranormal romance novel Falcon’s
Angel is for you!
Bio
After
a jaunt on New York City’s nightclub singing circuit and all too realistic
forays into the health field as a risk manager in South Florida hospitals, I
turned back to my passion of writing with determination!
I’ve
always been an insatiable reader of romance, which for me signifies hope and
the affirmation of life through love. A powerful human need, love is the purest
form of communication. I love creating the worlds my characters live in!
Favorite
saying:
Chivalry is NOT dead, ladies!
Falcon’s
Angel – blurb
If
Angelina had her way, she would not be the daughter of a dynasty. She would go
to Italy and spend all her time playing her Stradivarius on the steps of the
Pantheon.
If
Falcon had his way, she wouldn’t be a thief, they wouldn’t be lying to each
other and a devil-worshipping cult would not want them dead.
Falcon’s Angel is sexy and
funny, with plenty of action and lots of surprises along the way. Romance finds
my version of James Bond as the Falcon tracks the stolen violin to the Naples
Conservatory in Italy.
Falcon’s
Angel is a paranormal romance of a love that ended in tragedy in eighteenth
century England. That love is tested in a fight of good versus evil some two
hundred years later.
Falcon’s Angel
- Excerpt
Naples, Italy
Falcon stood in the shadowed courtyard of
the Naples Conservatory.
She left the building right on schedule.
She had arrived early and stopped by the panetteria to pick up breakfast. She
preferred the sweet rolls. When she left the music school, it was near dark.
Her schedule of classes wasn’t that bad.
It was the time she spent practicing alone in whatever unoccupied classroom she
could find that kept her there all day. She was dedicated, and very beautiful.
She had bumped into him in the hall two
days ago on her way to class, “Scusi, Signore.” He did not know which was more
shocking; the sound of her rich contralto or those huge liquid gold eyes, a
striking contrast to the midnight waterfall rippling down her back.
He had purposely stepped in her path that
day to confront her about the Stradivarius she carried. When he got a better
look at her, he smiled “Perdonami,” and let her pass. Her lithe form glided
down the hall.
If this goddess is a thief, she won’t
have to take anything from me. I’ll give her whatever she wants, and more.
Although he allowed her to see him just
that once, he had been watching her ever since. He did not know her name yet,
but he called her Angel. Her unusual eyes made her seem like a fairy. Her fluid
grace only enhanced the impression of an ethereal wood sprite.
The warm breeze lifting her summer print
skirt silenced those thoughts.
Damned if he was not holding his breath
waiting for the end of those legs before the gentle curve of her hips.
She crossed the darkening piazza and her
full breasts danced under the white camisole top, making his mouth water. She
was on her way home now.
She was staying at the Casa di Città on Piazza
Avellino and now so was he. The apartment, a few avenues away from the
Conservatory, was in the cultural Greco-Roman district, where the buildings
themselves looked like archaeological finds.
Falcon emerged from the cluster of fig
trees in the courtyard. He stopped when a man exited a side door off the
Conservatory. The man started walking behind Angel.
Turning toward the fountain in the
courtyard, he gave the man a head start. He fell in step behind the man, who
carried no books, no instrument. Is he a teacher, or a lover? No, not a
lover. The man didn’t even call out to the girl. He did not know her.
Falcon strolled along, looking into shop
windows he passed. The man ignored a streetlight, but Falcon stopped, making
sure no one followed him. With an idle shift from side to side, he waited for a
car to cross the intersection.
Across the street, a teenager sat on the
steps of a closed shop. He’d been there for the last few days. The car stopped
at the curb in front of the teenager.
Someone should pick him up.
He would not jeopardize his cover for
drug trafficking. He would leave that to the local polizia.
The light changed and Falcon crossed the
street, satisfied that the man following Angel was alone.
They were walking through the ancient
Roman marketplace, which was deserted now. When the girl got closer to the
church built on the site of an old temple, the man began to close the distance
between them.
Falcon shook his head as she reached the
church corner. She never noticed the man who was just a few feet behind her
now. When the man pushed her into the gloom around the church corner, they were
lost from his sight. The girl screamed.
Sprinting, he rounded the corner. About
ten feet away, the man was trying to wrestle the violin case from her against
the wall.
Falcon pulled out his gun and aimed. “Let
her go.”
The man turned toward him, and the girl
pulled at his ear. The man bent, holding his stomach. He made an inarticulate
sound before running away along the side of the building into the darkness.
Falcon darted past the girl and followed
the man into the shadows.
What the hell?
Something flitted overhead, darker than
the darkness in which he now stood alone. He pointed the Glock upward even as a
figure walked up the side of the building. It looked like a black cloud but
more solid than it should be.
Before he could get off a shot, the
darkness disappeared over the side of the roof.
Staring at the dead end in front of him,
Falcon put his gun away. No doors or windows on either side.
Where is the guy? Must be a hidden door somewhere, he’d check it out later.
Falcon turned back toward the girl.
Beyond her, across the street, the man he had been chasing got into a car.
“No way,” he murmured as the car sped
off. No way could the man have gotten past him in the alley.
The girl had both arms wrapped around the
violin case in front of her. She was leaning against the church wall, crying.
A street lamp flickered on above them,
belatedly bathing the passage in revealing light. She did not seem to realize
that he was there.
“Did he hurt you, Signorina?”
She looked up. He lifted his gaze from
her heaving chest.
“Grazie,” she whispered, wiping her face
with the back of her hand. She shook her head. “I am fine.”
“You should not be walking alone at
night.” The harsh reprimand in his voice surprised him. She was very young. Her
tears wrought such vulnerability that he softened his tone when he came to
stand in front of her. “Do you know that man?”
“No, I have never seen him before. But ...
he knew me.”
“What did he say to you?”
She looked down at the violin.
He stared at her until she looked up. Ah,
she had just found her story. It was in her eyes, and it was not the truth. The
fear in her eyes told him that story would never change.
“He didn’t say anything, but the way he
looked at me...”
Her chest heaved again. He almost smiled;
she was having a hard time with this lie.
She stared at him. “You are from the
Conservatory. I saw you the other day.”
“Antonio Russo, Tony to my friends.” She
did not hesitate to shake his hand, and he did smile then. She might be lying
to him but at least she did not see him as a threat. She continued to stare at
him. She must want more. “I’m taking classes at the Conservatory,” he added. “I
play piano.”
“Oh yes, I’ve seen you in Signor
Gattano’s class.”
He had signed up for the class because it
was right next door to hers. So, she had noticed him, too. He smiled wider.
“Signorina, I could call you Bella, but
that would not satisfy my curiosity.”
She lowered her eyelashes over cheeks
flushed the color of the terracotta tiles on his mother’s sunlit patio in Tuscany.
She tanned well for one so light. He almost lifted his hand to touch her cheek.
There would be little satisfaction in knowing her name now that her skin was
singing a siren’s song to him.
“My name is Angelina Natale.”
“Ah. You are an angel, after all. I have
not seen you around here for very long. Did you just fall from heaven?”
He watched her full lips while the sound
of earthy laughter, though shaky, amped up the adrenaline coursing through his
veins. A vision of her lying naked beneath him, her golden eyes glazed in
passion, teased him.
“I am from England. I’m here for the
symphony.” Her Italian was excellent.
“Angelina Natale, I would be honored if
you would let me escort you home.”
She put the violin case under one arm. “I
would like that.”
There was blood on her closed fist.
“Are you hurt?” He moved closer.
She moved her hand behind the folds of
her skirt and backed into the wall.
He waited, leaning his hand against the
wall above her head, inhaling her perfume. A beguiling combination of ... amber,
apples and musk. The scent suited her, organic, delicious. He wanted to lift
her skirt right now and take her against this wall, those long legs wrapped
around him.
Angelina examined the buttons on his shirt
that were in such close proximity. Stepping away from him would be cowardly,
and he would guess she was made of sterner stuff. When she looked up it was
with the defiance he expected from a cornered tigress.
He held her gaze, reaching behind to
bring her fist out from the folds of her skirt.
The bloody gold in the center of her palm
was a heavy medium-sized loop engraved with a stylized dragon. She had pulled
it from the man’s ear and he had not made a sound.
“A memento?” He whispered in English
close to her lips.
“I don’t want it. You can have it,” she
answered in her native tongue. Now, that was the truth. Her British accent was
tinged with a weary sadness. He wanted to pick her up against his chest and
carry her home.
She had courage. Even while his mind
worked to figure out what her role was in the mystery of the Stradivarius, he
admired that.
He couldn’t leave her alone now. Not on a
street where men escaped him when cornered in an alley and black clouds slid up
church walls.
“Are you hungry?” Their lips were inches
apart and he wanted to kiss her, but that would have to come later.
“I forgot about lunch. I had caffe at four. I’m
starving,” the beautiful tigress admitted.
