Unfinished Business series, book 3
by Carole Ann Moleti
by Carole Ann Moleti
Genre: Light Paranormal Romance
Mike and Liz thought they'd gotten control of the specters haunting the Barrett Inn. But things get very complicated when they're the ghosts from your past life. The Category Five Hurricane bearing down on Cape Cod appears to be headed directly for them--or has it been spawned from inside them? Knowing it’s their last chance to end the hauntings, Mike and Liz must decide whether to run or to defy evacuation orders. Will they survive the storm?
EXCERPT #1
The engine whined and strained. The boat spun in the eddy, and Liz’s knuckles went white trying to prevent the steering wheel from spinning. Sandra looked like she was going to puke. Harley looked like he wanted to jump overboard.
“Liz, move over to the next seat but keep your hands on the wheel until I get there. Sandra, you and Harley get underneath the cabin into the berths, one on each side, and keep your heads down. We’ve got to stay balanced. This is going to be a rough ride.”
Mike got his ass in the seat, turned catty corner into the waves, and gunned the engine. The Whaler, made for stability in the surf, cut through it but crashed and rocked wildly between the swells. An air horn rolled back and forth across the deck, adding the effect of a ticking clock to an already nauseating ride.
The cuddy cabin kept the worst of the spray off them, but Mike had to unzip his roof panel and stand up to see over the salt encrusted windshield. A wave lifted the entire boat out of the water.
“Hang on!” He crouched and braced for impact. I hope everyone is where they’re supposed to be or we’ll flip. His lungs were about to burst.
The door thudded from side to side in knee-deep water. The motor bobbled and threatened to stall as the propeller came out of the water. He’d been out in weather this bad, but his two-way radio had been on and someone knew where he was.
EXCERPT #2
He passed the living room where the flashback of an emaciated Mary, in a hospital bed, being tended to by a hospice nurse, wiped all the good feelings away. He pushed past it, into the kitchen.
Mary stood at the stove, stirring and filling bowls with noodles and dumplings and gravy. He smelled lily of the valley, her favorite perfume. Wine-tinged bile rose into his throat. The light dimmed, and all the other voices in the room went silent as she hummed some catchy 80’s tune. The glass fell from his hand and shattered, but he didn’t hear the glass breaking or feel the blood-red wine soaking his feet.
“Dad! You okay?” Allison ran toward him.
The room brightened. “Yeah, my hands were still wet.” He eased himself down to the floor to pick up the glass shards.
“Careful, don’t cut yourself.” Mary knelt beside him. Her hair smelled like lily of the valley as it brushed his cheek.
Mike reached for her, and tumbled into the void when she vanished. He landed on the heel of his hand, miraculously avoiding the splintered glass, coughed, and shook it off. “Get me a paper towel. Damn. Waste of good wine.”
Jay stared. Dana brought a roll of paper towels.
Allison mopped up the spill. Concern etched her face. “Dad, you’re exhausted!”
His cheeks burned, and his hear raced. Mike tried to act nonchalant and hauled himself up. “Yeah, I’m tired. And hungry. Let’s eat.”
Liz Levine is convinced her recently deceased husband is engineering the sequence of events that propels her into a new life. But it’s sea captain Edward Barrett, the husband that died over a century ago, who has returned to complete their unfinished business. Edward’s lingering presence complicates all her plans and jeopardizes a new relationship that reawakens her passion for life and love. What are Captain Barrett’s plans for his wife, and for the man who is the new object of her affections?
Mike and Liz Keeny are newlyweds, new parents, and the proprietors of the Barrett Inn, an 1875 Victorian on Cape Cod, which just happens to be haunted— by their own ghosts from past lives. The Barrett Inn had become an annex of Purgatory, putting Liz and their infant son in danger. Selling the historic seaside bed and breakfast was the only answer, one that Liz and her own tortured specter refused to consider. Were Mike and Liz doomed to follow the same path that led to disaster in their previous lives? Was getting out, getting away, enough?
Carole Ann Moleti lives and works as a nurse-midwife in New York City, thus explaining her fascination with all things paranormal, urban fantasy, and space opera. Her nonfiction focuses on health care, politics, and women's issues. But her first love is writing science fiction and fantasy because walking through walls is less painful than running into them.
Books One and Two in the Unfinished Business series, Carole's Cape Cod paranormal romance novels, Breakwater Beach and The Widow's Walk, were published by Soulmate. Book Three, Storm Watch, is due out June 28,2017.
Urban fantasies set in the world of Carole's novels have been featured in Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, and Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires.
Carole also writes nonfiction that ranges from sweet and sentimental in This Path and Thanksgiving to Christmas to edgy and irreverent in the Not Your Mother's Books: On Being a Mother and On Being a Parent.
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