"This chilling new paranormal series takes romantic suspense to a new level of merit."
Reviewed by Mandy Burns
Posted February 13, 2010
Romance Paranormal | Romance Suspense
Marley Millet was born into a family with unique paranormal
capabilities that date back hundreds of years, enriched
with history and a dark curse. She can speak to family
members using her thoughts with her personal talent being
the ability to leave her body and visit other places. Law
enforcement uses her gift to find missing persons, but
recently she realizes her experiences are forcing her to
engage in an old feud involving women disappearing who are
showing up murdered. Understanding that most of the
population do not believe in even the basic psychic gifts,
she feels she must go to the police with her information.
The detective she talks to is skeptical, but the reporter
in his office is more receptive and offers to work with
Marley. Gray Fisher goes to his friend and ex-colleague, a
detective, with his concerns that the women he is using for
his article are disappearing. To his dismay, he becomes the
prime suspect. The leads are extremely thin, until a red-
haired, green-eyed beauty shows up claiming she has
information to help guide them to the missing women.
Unfortunately, her information is from some psychic
phenomenon she has experienced, which seems far-fetched.
But she fascinates him on a deep, emotional level; he needs
to learn more about her. His opportunity presents itself
when she starts asking questions regarding the missing
women. His instincts tell him to stay with her and protect
her because danger is right around her corner. Stella Cameron's first Court of Angels novel is fun
and witty with strong characters and an intense plot. I
look forward to the next one! A great read!
SUMMARY
Born of an ancient family of clairvoyants, Marley Millet
finds that her psychic gift is both unsettling and
incredibly dangerous. She never wants to "travel" again—but
the choice is not hers to make. After glimpsing the fates of two missing New Orleans jazz
singers, Marley knows she has no choice and must speak up
before more women disappear. Flinty cop-turned-writer Gray
Fisher, who interviewed both chanteuses before they
vanished, takes a special interest in Marley's incredible
story—and in Marley. Scouring the wild clubs of the French Quarter, Marley and
Gray make an unlikely and uneasy team. But their
determination is matched only by the heat between them…and
the evil they have uncovered.
ExcerptChapter 1A woman would die. Unless Marley Millet could find the victim, and quickly, it
would be too late. Marley was convinced this was true and
that she was the only one who could help. In her crowded workroom on the third floor of J. Clive
Millet, Antiques, on Royal Street in New Orleans, Marley
paced in small circles, desperate for insight that would
tell her how to find and rescue an innocent marked for murder. On her workbench stood a red lacquer doll house, an
intricate piece of nineteenth century Chinoiserie placed in
her hands by a stranger for safe and secret keeping. She
hadn’t and still didn’t know why, except that the house was
the portal that led to a place of great danger for some.
Above the curvy roof with flaking gilt twirls at each
corner, a whirling sheath of fathomless gray took more
definite shape, like a vaporous tornado. It shifted until
its slenderest part disappeared through a wall of the doll
house and the gaping maw at the other end crept closer to
Marley. A current began to suck at her like a vast, indrawn
breath The decision to stay or give in and be pulled away, her
essence drawn out of her body, was still hers. Whispers came, a word, and another and another, never
growing louder only more intense. Marley pressed her hands over her ears but the sounds were
already inside her head. The few whisperers became a crowd,
and although she could not make out much of what they said,
she knew they were begging. The Ushers, as she knew the
voices, wanted her. They needed her. They were the last,
invisible advocates for a life on the edge of an unnatural
death, calling for Marley to witness a crime in progress.
Witness, and act to save the victim. Almost two weeks earlier, she had done as they asked and
traveled away from her body to a place she did not know, and
a woman she did not know. Evil had permeated the atmosphere
there and Marley knew a murder was planned. “You left her to die.” This time the Ushers spoke
clearly. “I don’t even know who she is.” Her own voice sounded huge. “You saw her.” “But I only saw the inside of a room. I don’t know where it
was.” The whispers softened and became a gentle hum. And Marley
let out a long, emptying breath. Another word came to her
clearly, “Please.” A woman spoke. It could be the victim. Perhaps it was not too late. Yet. Marley expected the unexpected. She always had, day-by-day,
from her earliest recollections. Today was no exception, but she needed to decide what to do
next without pressure from the sickening emotion she felt now. Winnie, her Boston Terrier, placed herself in Marley’s path
and stared up at her. Black and shiny, the expression in
Winnie’s eyes was almost too human. The dog was worried
about her beloved mistress. Another step forward and Winnie
flopped down on Marley’s feet, which meant she was imploring
her boss not to leave her body. The dog had an uncanny way
of sensing problems for Marley. “Not you, too,” Marley said. “I need answers, Winnie, not
more confusion. Now concentrate,” she told herself.
“You’ve got a major problem.” On that Sunday afternoon in June, Marley wrestled with a
warning she’d received less than a week ago. Her Uncle Pascal, current steward of J. Clive Millet
Antiques, had called her to his top floor apartment.
Speared by one of his most heated green stares, he had kept
her there for more than an hour. “Tell me you will do as you’re told,” he had said,
repeatedly. “I don’t meddle in your affairs, but it is my
job to watch over you. Certain alarms have been raised and
I will not have you straying into dangerous territory. Defy
me and I shall . . . I shall have to rethink my trust in you.” By “alarms,” he meant that although she hadn’t told him
about the red house she had been given, or what had already
happened, he had sensed a distance in her. He suspected she
might be playing around with portals to other realities
again and said so. He had not explained why he thought so.
And Marley had been just as calm about not admitting she had
not only encountered a portal, but it had already led her on
a journey she could not get out of her mind, day or night.
All she had told her Uncle Pascal was that she was working
hard and that long hours sometimes left her distracted.
That was true, if not very helpful to her uncle. Where
day-to-day issues were concerned, the Millets were in charge
of their own actions, but Pascal had the final say in their
powers threatened their safety. Marley had been tempted to push him for an explanation of
how he might make her regret disobedience, instead she had
lowered her eyelashes and made a subservient sound. “Good, good,” Uncle Pascal had said, expanding his muscular
chest inside a green velvet jacket. “You are a kind girl.
You four girls make a poor bachelor uncle think he’s done
fairly well bringing up his brother’s children safely.” He
smiled at his mention of ‘you four girls,’ by whom he meant
Marley and her three sisters, but had then given her a
slight frown which they both understood that her
outlandishly talented maverick brother, Sykes, was not a
subject for discussion that day. That had been then, when she wanted to please someone who,
unlike her parents, had always been there for her. This was
now, days later, and the curiosity that came with her
ability to be called away from her body, to travel
invisibly into another location, was once more too
provocative to ignore. Marley crossed her arms and stared at the doll house. The
trembling cone of whirling matter sparked flashes of green,
then blue. It was unlikely that more than a handful of
people anywhere would be able to see the manifestation at
all. Unlike aura readers, energy sentients were rarer than
goldfish teeth. She was one of that elite number and
brother Sykes, hidden away wherever he had his
mystery-shrouded sculpture studio, was another. Marley wasn’t a child. She was thirty and her irresponsible
parents had been exploring the world for twenty years. The
only way any of Antoine and Leandra Millet’s offspring
managed to see them was by tracking them down in distant
places. Marley’s older sisters, Alex and Riley, were in
London with their parents right now. Even if A and L, as
the rest of the family dubbed them, were supposedly
searching for the key to neutralize a family curse, who
cared what they might think about the way their children
lived, or how careful they were or were not? But in a weak moment before his piercing stare Marley had,
more or less, given her uncle the impression that if she
encountered even a hint of subversive force, no matter how
alluring she might find it, she would turn her back on
whatever it was at once. Boring. Uncle Pascal was not a man to be easily frightened or to
give fanciful warnings. Marley knew she could wriggle out
of the agreement she’d made with him, but if she
defied him and went too far with an experiment, her life
might be changed forever. In fact, her life could well be over. On the other hand, it did not have to be and she was hearing
seductive whisperings from The Ushers, the invisible forces
that were her companions when she heeded their cries and
went traveling through parallel time. The Ushers were back after only days. They never came
unless she was needed, always somewhere right in New
Orleans, always immediately. On this humid afternoon, a
great urgency lapped at her. Like a whirlpool, the funnel into the doll house spun faster
and faster. Soft, faintly vibrating, this apparition was
familiar, as were the increasingly desperate waves of
sensation beckoning her closer. Apart from brushes with malignant spirits who tried to block
her path, she had never encountered real danger on her
journeys. But she did know of the terrible threat she
faced. If she ever lost her way back, her soul could be
forever separated from her life, from her living body. She
would known manic terror while she searched for a way to
return. If she failed, she would forever toss free, carried
by the demanding currents of those on the edge of death and
begging her to save them? During each of her earlier travels she had done good things,
brought about rescues for people who would never even know
her name–until her most recent transfer through a parallel
space, the one she had not mentioned to her uncle. She had lied by not talking about it and guilt didn’t make a
comfy companion. Despite the cry she had heard only moments ago, Marley
believed that someone in New Orleans, a woman she had been
called to help, must be prematurely dead by now. Without
knowing who the victim had been or exactly what happened to
her, Marley was convinced she had kept company with a
victim’s final heartbeats, seen through her now-dead eyes. At her feet, satiny black and white and giving off waves of
displeasure, Winnie snuffled irritably. The dog was a
barometer of Marley’s moods and objected to these moments
when she sensed she was not uppermost in her favorite
person’s mind. Winnie was ignoring her constant companion,
a huge plastic bone, and this was a sure sign that she
wasn’t happy. Absently, Marley used her bare toes to squeeze one of
Winnie’s feet. What if the woman hadn’t died? What if she was still alive
and reaching out, one last time, for help? Marley switched off the lights over her bench and
reluctantly made her way between aged pieces of furniture
and objets d’art awaiting her attention. She was known as
one of the best restorers of antique lacquer and gold leaf
in the city. Her door onto a tiny landing outside was shut. Stained
glass panels, richly emerald, ruby, sapphire and amethyst,
glowed, dappled faint colors on the dusty wooden floors in
the dim workroom. For some seconds, Marley rested her hand on the latch. Then
she turned it, thumped the heavy bolt home. Anyone trying
the handle from the outside would know to leave her alone. She retraced her steps and stood in front of her bench
again. All around her, the air buzzed and popped. Here and
there she caught sight of partly formed faces, their mouth
open as if calling out. Slowly, her feet and legs heavy, Marley stepped backward,
once, twice, three times until her calves bumped into her
cracked, brown leather wing chair, and she sank onto the seat. “Don’t go,” she told herself aloud. Too late. The separation had already begun. Luminous green
brushed the tunnel, spun quickly and turned the vapor to
shimmering water. Inviting. Marley felt it’s
warmth, it’s temptation. She touched it with her
fingertips, drew it open wider. It’s matter adhered to her
skin. Her own weight slipped away and she was free, gliding
through the iridescent tunnel toward a pulsing black membrane. The membrane opened, slid apart like the aperture in a
camera lens. Scents of age and dampness rushed at her. Wetness shone in grimy rivulets on the concrete walls of an
empty room. This was the room she had been in last time.
Ahead of her the door to some sort of compartment–or
locker--stood wide open, a thick, heavy door with no handle
on the inside. In the opening a woman in red gradually appeared from clouds
of icy mist. Not the same woman as the last time. Dark-haired as the other had been, rather than being
striking and voluptuous with a single black birthmark above
her mouth, this time the facial features were pointed, the
eyes large beneath thickly painted lashes Behind her thin
figure, the mist hovered around hooks hung from a slowly
revolving rod, and billowed over white, rectangular boxes
placed in a precise row. Shapes, indistinct, swung heavily just out of clear sight.
Marley thought they were suspended from the hooks. She shivered. Cold struck painfully into her brain. She
should go back but she could not look away from the woman,
from her pale, pleading face. Then the woman smiled. She cocked her head to one side,
listening to a deep voice as mellifluous as warm honey
falling from a crystal spoon into a golden bowl. The voice
said, “Come to me, child.” Nodding, the woman appeared in a trance. The voice darkened, caressed but with force. “Join me,
child. Now. Come to me, now.” And she began to drift away, back into the space behind the
heavy door. “Wait!” Panicked, Marley moved her presence forward. “Let
me help you. Come with me.” From experience, she knew she
couldn’t be heard and that only if she managed to bring help
from the real world to this place would there be any help
for the woman. But there were no clues as to where she was. The door began to close and Marley could scarcely breathe.
She thrust herself forward, clawing at air as if it would
help her move faster, and she collided with the creature in
red. Instantly she felt consumed into rigid flesh,
bone-cold flesh, and she cried out, “I must go back.” The wrench to separate again sapped her consciousness. She
could not slip into sleep here, must not. The Ushers
mumbled very close and Marley focused on their sounds. She
gathered strength and once more she heard the thump, thump,
thump of a heartbeat that was not her own, and saw through
eyes that didn’t belong to her. This woman wasn’t yet dead,
then. She struggled, staring ahead, willing herself to break
free. And as she did she cried out to the woman, “Hold my
hand. Come with me now.” While she talked, she searched
around for any clues to her location. Nothing. Her fingers, repeatedly reaching for the woman, came back
empty each time. A man stood with his back to her, a tall, dark-haired man,
with wide shoulders and a straight, unyielding spine. He
had a different substance and dimension from either the
woman or their surroundings. Marley had started to shift. Faint warmth entered her, and
she caught sight of the funnel regenerating, its direction
switched so that the large opening faced her again. Still
vaporous, it took on the green tint. Thrusting forward like a swimmer with the pool wall in
sight, she made to pass the man and he looked at her over
his shoulder. For one instant she cringed at the directness
of his gaze, the hardness of a mouth that should be
beautiful, despite a thin white scar that slashed through
both lips and upward across one cheek in several slashes. But he couldn’t see her, could he? She must be imagining
that he was staring at her. Marley gave a last, horrified look to where the woman had
stood, only she had disappeared. A last thought as she felt
a familiar, dragging pull, was that she knew why the man
seemed out of place: She saw him not in color as she did the
rest her surroundings, but in the gray shades of a black and
white photograph. And as she stared at him his face changed
again. The corners of his mouth tilted up and the scars faded.
What do you think about this review?
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: This chilling new paranormal series takes romantic suspense to a new level of merit.
Wow! This sounds really good. Thanks for the excerpt. (JoAnn White 12:20pm March 10, 2011)
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