Two Excerpts from Catherine Stine's Witch of the Cards #historical #fantasy #witches

“Oh, Ivy?” Mr. Dune implored. He grabbed a card deck from a basket on a shelf. In three long strides, he was in front of me, looking as imposing and dashing as he had when we’d entered his establishment. “I want you to have this.” He held it out. 

One of his illustrated Tarot decks wrapped in cellophane! A hot flush of pleasure and embarrassment shivered up my neck. “Oh, I couldn’t, really.” I didn’t even know him. Why would he do this? “It doesn’t seem right. I can’t pay you.”

“I insist.” He held it out further, the light glinting off his silver fox-head ring.

***

“Have you always had a talent for the unseen?” Peter asked me.

“Whatever do you mean? It was you who saw things that weren’t there.” I had to right myself because I was swooning and swaying so much I nearly fell into his lap. 

“But it was you who eked it out of me.”

“Little old me?” I giggled.

Fiera was born a sea witch with no inkling of her power. And now it might be too late. 

Witch of the Cards is historical, supernatural romantic suspense set in 1932 on the Jersey shore. Twenty-two year-old Fiera has recently left the Brooklyn orphanage where she was raised, and works in Manhattan as a nanny. She gets a lucky break when her boss pays for her short vacation in Asbury Park. One evening, Fiera and her new friend Dulcie wander down the boardwalk and into Peter Dune’s Tarot & Séance, where they attend a card reading. 

Fiera has always had an unsettling ability to know things before they happen and sense people’s hidden agendas. She longs to either find out the origin of her powers or else banish them because as is, they make her feel crazy. When, during the reading, her energies somehow bond with Peter Dune’s and form an undeniable ethereal force, a chain of revelations and dangerous events begin to unspool. For one, Fiera finds out she is a witch from a powerful sea clan, but that someone is out to stop her blossoming power forever. And though she is falling in love with Peter, he also has a secret side. He’s no card reader, but a private detective working to expose mediums. Despite this terrible betrayal, Fiera must make the choice to save Peter from a tragic Morro Cruise boat fire, or let him perish with his fellow investigators. Told in alternating viewpoints, we hear Fiera and Peter each struggle against their deep attraction. Secrets, lies, even murder, lace this dark fantasy.

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One $40 gift card, two hand-painted heart-boxes (by Catherine) with secret treasure inside, one signed paperback of Dorianna by Catherine Stine, one signed paperback of Witch of the Cards by Catherine Stine, one brand new collector Tarot deck along with an envelope full of special swag!

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I had the honor of meeting Catherine in person on Saturday, April 2 at the Roanoke Author Invasion. It was awesome to meet her, and I'm looking forward to reading my signed copy of Witch of the Cards soon.