Top Five List of Requirements
for a Female Friendship
For the record, I’m happily
married and live with two young adult sons. Harmoniously. Really. Doesn’t make
a whiff of difference we easily converse. I need women’s opinions. Female friendship
rates top honors in my personal life. My writing reflects that. Handsome heroes
play center stage, but BFF’s are a close second. They rescue, support, and call
out bad decisions on each other. The Hitman’s Mistake and Torn by
Vengeance tell the stories of two female friends who are polar opposites in
personality. What they share are unbreakable bonds of trust and loyalty. Here’s
my top five list on what female friendship means to me:
1. Fully present when I need them. Not on the phone texting or checking out the butt on the guy getting in the car across the street. I believe women fall into two groups: male centered and women centered. I love my men, but I don’t need their constant attention. You can do the math.
2. Doesn’t judge me or share my deepest, darkest, or weirdest thoughts. With anyone. If I can’t confide in my friend and trust that she’s a virtual vault, we’ll never be close.
3. Communicates misunderstanding and shares responsibility if appropriate. “Ouch,” makes a great reset when a conversation heads south. I will gladly admit I’m wrong, but I’m a Libra, so I expect my friends to do the same.
4. Revels in the ability to laugh until they snort, choke, or produce tears. I need laughter. The world needs laughter. Need I say more?
5. Time and distance don’t matter. We can reconvene after years apart, share memories, or begin creating new ones and step gleefully back into #4. Rinse and repeat.
I delight in the company of
women from 15 to 95 years young who are/were supervisors, cabinet makers, writers,
engineers, asset protection gurus, foundry managers, cowgirls, editors, divinity
scholars, apparel designers, nurses, and graphic artists. The common
denominator is that they all take pride in their talents and build up other
women. Surround yourself with positive people, you’ll never feel empty inside.
Happy trails, Sally
Torn by Vengeance
Series Name: Love Thrives in Emma Springs
**Genre: Clean (sensual without intimate scenes) Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
Look over your
shoulder, he’s watching.
Corrin
Patten is solidly on a path to make partner in a prestigious Seattle law
firm when an ominous threat from her past turns deadly. She can handle
circumstances necessitating a temporary move to the backwater town of Emma
Springs, but its charming physician is another matter, as she’s issued a
permanent moratorium on men.
Dr.
Kyle Werner revels in trust from patients he regularly treats in a community
he's never wished to leave. Yet, Emma Springs lacks one thing, a woman to share
his perfectly bucolic life. He's read about pheromone attraction, but never
experienced desire until meeting Corrin. They make an unbeatable team, but
convincing her that his interest is sincere while they dissect layers of deceit
requires the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel.
Can they defeat the wealthy stalker bent on mistaken
revenge against Corrin and destruction of the peaceful Montana setting? If
you thrive on tenacious heroines, sizzling attraction, and a shadowy villain
with a grudge, you’ll love this prescription for thrills.
Watch for The
Targeted Pawn, Rane and Elon’s story of smoldering romance, calculating
villains, and rescued animals featured in another escape to Emma Springs.
A Seattle lawyer must trust a hunky Montana doctor for help when a secret from her past threatens her career and his town.
Buy links:
Torn by
Vengeance:
Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P1D33K1
Excerpt:
A smile rose to H.P.’s lips as he pictured Corrin’s shock when
he took her down just before she hit her goal, precisely what she’d done to him
after the boat ride.
He’d waited in the shadows for the right moment to sign Corrin
Patten’s death warrant. Next, he’d watch her walk to the gallows.
***
Turbulence dropped the airplane, digging Corrin’s seatbelt
deeper into her roiling stomach on the Thursday morning flight. The tray table
above her knees rattled. She scrunched her eyes shut to block out the memory of
being trapped in another rocking, bobbing seat, and dug her fingernails into
the armrests.
The plane lurched—pitching and thrusting her like the speedboat
ride ten years ago when it jetted through white caps. The horrible trauma
surfaced, and with it, an image of the pervert who’d destroyed her innocence.
The shuddering stopped. A hand touched her arm. She raised her
fist, ready to break free and fight again.
But the stranger’s fingers on her forearm didn’t boast a
dagger-shaped ruby ring. No vice-grip pinned her in a boat’s bucket seat. She
gasped for air.
“Hey, are you okay?” her seatmate questioned.
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “Nervous flier.”
He nodded and returned to his magazine.
The airplane bounced twice on the runway, and taxied to the
terminal.
A wave of jitters hit. Miranda would be shocked to see her in
Montana. The last time they’d talked, they’d planned to meet in Seattle, prior
to her testimony.
“Spontaneous and Corrin Patten never grace the same sentence,”
her BFF frequently joked. Well, today she’d refute Miranda’s statement. She shoved
legal files into her bag on the floor and checked outside. Beyond the
tarmac-and-boondocks version of an airport, Montana stretched in a wide expanse
of snow-dusted, midday tranquility. Cows stood in a field off to one side,
ignoring the buzz of the planes.
All those years ago, buzzing, waspish tongues in Ebony Cove
hadn’t affected her either, until she’d lost her childlike naiveté on that
horrible afternoon.
Suppressed images of those falsely smiling lips whispering
insults dotted her memory again like the cow pies dotting nearby pastures. Queasiness
hit.
She wasn’t the ragtag kid anymore, wondering if she’d scrape
together dinner for her siblings—wondering if the neighbor’s steers would
trample her as she collected fallen, unwanted apples from the orchard where
they grazed.
If her sister-of-the-soul, Miranda, hadn’t frantically called,
she’d never have flown here to offer moral support and informal legal coaching.
The clatter of luggage and bodies charging the aisle announced
the airplane cabin exodus.
She frowned and rose from her seat.
Twenty rows up, the paunchy guy in First Class who’d bolted late
onto the Seattle to Three Falls flight turned and eyeballed her again. He
caught her looking and headed out the forward exit.
Bristling alarm sent cold chills down her spine. Colder than
jumping into Puget Sound to escape the boat attack. She’d blocked the blasted
memory for years, but today it flooded her brain.
Tome Tender 5 Star Review excerpt: “From the start, feel
the darkness of well-aged evil, as the suspense builds somewhere just out of
our view. Then feel the lightness of that tentative dance of romance as two
people find that special attraction, tiptoeing around the obvious.” https://t.co/JrzkFihAyr
Carol Kittie 5 Star Review: https://carolkittie.com/2019/05/22/torn-by-vengence-love-thrives-in-emma-springs-book-2-by-sally-brandle/
About the Author
Multi-award winning author Sally Brandle weaves slow-burning
romance into edgy suspense stories. Sally left a career as an industrial baking
instructor to bring to life stories motivating readers to trust their instincts.
Her rescue Aussie is her companion during long spells of writing or afternoons
spent riding on the wind with her twenty-nine year old Quarter Horse. Sign up
for her newsletter at www.sallybrandle.com for freebies. The Hitman’s Mistake opens her Love Thrives in Emma Springs
series of stories (sensual without intimate scenes). Torn by Vengeance, Book 2, continues showcasing friendship,
courageous women, and the men who deserve their love. The Targeted Pawn, Book
3, releases 3/2020.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sallybrandle
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sallybrandle/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/sallybrandle/
Sally’s Blog link: https://smpauthors.wordpress.com/author/sallygfrog/
Website: http://www.sallybrandle.com
1 comment:
Thank you, Dawn. I appreciate your support of authors.
Happy trails, Sally
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