Title: Hearts Unloched
Author: Claire Gem
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Blurb: A psychic interior designer reluctantly agrees to renovate a sexy investor’s abandoned hotel on Loch Sheldrake, a lake rumored to have once been the mob’s body dumping ground.
Interior designer Kate Bardach loves her single girl’s lifestyle, living in Manhattan and spending weekends at her lake house. She’s passionate about her career, too–reinventing old buildings. But there are some projects she can’t take on because of the spirits trapped inside. Kate is psychic–she sees dead people.
Marco Lareci is one of Wall Street’s most successful–and sexy–investment brokers who’s achieved all of his life’s goals. Except for finding his soulmate. His latest project, an abandoned resort on Loch Sheldrake, needs a savvy designer to transform the crumbling complex into a boutique hotel. When Marco meets Kate, he can’t believe his luck. She’s the perfect match for his business and his heart.
Marco’s body excites Kate even more than does his renovation project. But he wants more than a casual relationship, and she’s not willing to give up her freedom. Plus, the haunting at Marco’s resort, a bonafide poltergeist, affects her on an intensely personal level. Kate’s aunt disappeared from the place fifty years ago.
If you love intense romantic novels, and elements of romantic suspense and paranormal romance, you will love Hearts Unloched.
Excerpt:
(Leah is the poltergeist spirit in Hearts Unloched.)
Another odd sensation began under Kate’s bare feet. A chill ran up her entire body, prickling her scalp. Cold. Wet. Icy water squished up between her toes.
As she looked down to investigate the cause, her gaze strayed across her fingers now lying atop the old book. She blinked, her vision momentarily blurring before clearing again. And Kate froze, shock and confusion turning her to stone.
Kate was a French manicure kind of gal with pale, translucent pink covering all but the opaque, pure white, squared tips of her nails. The fingers she was looking at now sported nails clipped much shorter, filed into rounded ovals, and painted with bright-red polish. And there was a ring on the left hand.
A vintage diamond baguette nestled among white-gold petals and more diamonds. Exactly like the one Leah described in her letter to Joan.
Kate staggered backward, staring in disbelief at her hands. Not her own, but these hands. Her Aunt Leah’s hands. When she turned them over to study the palms, she gasped when she realized they were streaked with blood. She shrieked, a sudden wave of bile rising into her throat.
Shudders of revulsion racked her body as she desperately swiped them against the front of her terry robe. But the robe felt suddenly petal-soft, silky, and smooth. Kate looked down to see she was no longer wearing terry cloth, but fluffy, white fur.
Her scream reverberated through the empty cottage. Somewhere deep in her brain, she knew what was happening. This was another vision, another direct contact from her aunt’s spirit. She struggled to slow her racing thoughts and regain control over her own body. Sucking in a deep breath, she raised her face toward the mirror over the hall table.
Her reflection wasn’t there. Like the blank television screen in her apartment the night after she entered the Redman, the mirror showed nothing but black and white static. Kate heard the hissing of white noise. Until the voice, sounding like her voice, broke through the static once again.
Find me.
And suddenly, there it was. Her image? Or her Aunt Leah’s? The woman in the mirror was translucent, wavering like a candle flame, or as if she were under water.
As if she were under water. She is under water. Lying lost, forgotten, and abandoned on the bottom of Loch Sheldrake for over fifty years.
Find me.
A strangled sob broke from Kate’s throat as she staggered away from the mirror. When would this nightmare end? She squeezed her eyes shut and fisted both hands until the nails bit painfully into her palms.
When the doorbell rang, she shrieked again and wrapped her arms around herself. What now? What horrible image would she find if she opened the door, or even dared to peer through the peephole?
But seconds later, the bell rang again, followed by pounding and a man’s frantic voice.
“Kate! Kate, open up. What’s happening in there?”
Purchase Link(s):
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1TkE8fv
Createspace: http://bit.ly/1qJl5QS
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2ag8oHG
AllRomanceEbooks: http://bit.ly/2aJNIdG
Author Links:
http://www.emotionalcontemporaryromance.com
http://www.eratopublishing.com
blog.clairegem.com
Thank you for hosting me, Kate!
Thank you for being a guest, Claire!