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But what does she want? The perfect husband turns out to be less than ideal. She adores the small children she teaches but the idea of being a mother fills her with joy. Meanwhile, her homeland is gripped by fear of a Mongol invasion and she can’t stop crying about everything now that she’s with child.
Then a friend suggests the ever-caring Coral possesses a power well beyond what she or anyone else imagines. Does she? And why is the idea so appealing?
When Coral’s big sister loses faith in the army and decides to craft a way to use magic to save Ilari from the Mongols, she decides Coral’s formidable talent is what the realm needs. Can Coral raise a baby, placate an absent military husband who thinks he’s stopping the invasion, and help her sister save her homeland?
An ank later, during one of the worst storms of the winter, Davor proposed marriage.
The two of us drank red wine in his tent, huddled together under furs as the winds howled outside on a particularly brutal winter night. My lunch had been sparse and I was hungry, so I tore into the smoked ham he’d brought for our dinner, paying more attention to it than to his words, while hoping his tent could withstand the storm.
“Once I made up my mind, I was so anxious to get over here and do this,” he laughed. “I should have waited for a calmer evening.”
“Anxious to do what?” Had I missed something?
“Sweetheart. If you could leave the food alone for a bit, I’m trying to tell you I’d like to marry you.”
“Marry me? You want me to be your wife?” I dropped the meat onto the floor of the tent.
He laughed again. “Yes, that’s usually what marriage means. Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been getting pressure from the Royals for a while now to settle down and recently they’ve gone so far as to imply further career advancement depends on it. Normally that kind of pressure, especially from them, would make me livid. Lucky for me, though, I’ve become quite taken with you. You may be a simple farm girl but your one of the kindest women I’ve ever met. I think a man could do far worse, you know?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
And I didn’t. This was the desired outcome, wasn’t it? Yet perhaps his proposal had included a little too much honesty.
“Say yes,” he suggested.
“I’m … honored. It’s just that this all began so strangely. My family doesn’t even know about you. I’ve never met yours. There’s so much we’ve never talked about…”
In fact, he and I had talked about very little. Talking wasn’t a big part of our relationship.
He held up a hand to stop me, a trace of irritation creeping into his voice.
“I know these things. We’ll do this slowly, Coral, as slowly as you need. You agree to marry me now and we’ll invent a more proper meeting and courtship we can tell everyone about. We’ll discuss anything you think is important. But by spring, let's be looking forward to our nuptials. Okay?”
“Yes. Of course, yes.” What else could I say? I suppose I had my reservations, even then, but he looked so earnest and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
She’s made a lot of stops along the way to writing these novels. She’s lived in seven cities, visited forty-six countries, and worked as a waitress, technical writer, and geophysicist. Now she answers a hot-line. Along the way, she’s lost several cats but acquired a husband who still loves her and three kids who’ve grown up just fine, both despite how odd she is.
All her life she has wanted to either tell these kinds of stories or be Chief Science Officer on the Starship Enterprise. She now lives and writes in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where she admits to occasionally checking her phone for a message from Captain Picard, just in case.
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Author Blog: https://sherriecronin.xyz/
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ReplyDeleteGreat excerpt
ReplyDeleteI liked the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteWhat was your favourite country that you visited
ReplyDeleteMost of them are my favorite while I'm there. If I had to pick three, though, I'd say Brazil, Portugal, and Indonesia. In all three cases it had to do with the people.
DeleteGreat excerpt and giveaway. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for having me here today!
ReplyDeleteSounds like such a good book.
ReplyDeleteGreat post - I enjoyed reading it!
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