Travel into the past to rescue the future… Brook, a nature-loving scientist from a bleak future, develops a time travel tablet to investigate organic farming practices from the past. But just before she leaves, a necromancer curses her with a sleep and travel spell to move her into another time every four weeks, for eternity. During her pressured journey of discovery, she stumbles across Sawyer, an orchardist specializing in Biodynamic and Organic Agriculture, and falls in love. Before their precious time together runs out, can they break the evil spell and save the doomed environment?
Natural Awakening
Give us the one to two sentence tagline for your book.
Travel into the past to rescue the future…
What is your favorite scene/moment in your book?
When Sawyer (hero) and Brook (heroine) realise the significance of their matching birthmarks.
How do you use magic in your book?
Oh yes! I have a necromancer character who casts a spell on Brook (lead female) preventing her return to the future. Her friend also provides a special ointment to detect when Brook meets her soulmate.
Would your hero enjoy pumpkin spice lattes, candy corn, or apple bobbing?
Apple bobbing, hands down!
What costume would your heroine wear to a halloween party?
Brook would definitely go fetish wear, kind of like a sexy Morticia Addams or Lily Munster.
Is this book a spooky/scary PNR, or a cozy/snuggling with a monster PNR?
It’s an edgy, erotic, time travel romance.
What is your favorite monster to write?
Vampires, and I quite enjoyed writing the necromancer character!
If you had to pick, would you rather have fangs, claws, or wings?
Wings. Flying would be awesome!
Natural Awakening
Excerpt
The persistent bleat of Sawyer’s mobile phone alarm shook him from sleep. He really needed to change the annoying tune. But it did its job. Not much else could drag him out of the depths of suspended consciousness.
He rubbed his eyes, threw back the covers, and stretched. The chilly air sent a domino of goosebumps along his naked body. Yet his infinity heart-shaped birthmark defied the cold, growing hot and itchy—an absolute and unexpected first.
Normally it just sat there, doing nothing except marring his otherwise perfect skin and reminding him of his mother’s premature death. He scratched the bloody, cursed blemish until it hurt.
Stupid thing.
After a quick shower, he rubbed some aloe vera onto the blasted annoying blotch, but it didn’t settle down. No one in his family had anything like it, as though fate had special plans for him and stained his skin with his very own, unique marking. He had avoided tattoos and escaped injury and sickness-related scars, had evaded markings in every other way except through his genetically branded skin.
Dressed in his well-worn work jeans, black t-shirt, and Akubra hat, he strode outside to check on the beehives. He crossed the yard, detouring past his buckwheat crop, the lemon and orange trees, through the apple orchard, and stopped.
At the foot of the oldest, most magical tree, a pale, beautiful woman lay asleep in amongst the fallen, white blossoms, her honey-colored hair fanning across the gnarled roots.
A jolt of blinding white heat engulfed Brook’s body and her eyes snapped open. Where was she? Her orientation fog dissipated like mist in the early morning sun. Forest floor, Red Hill, 2019. She sat up and patted herself all over, her sheer lacey dress still intact, her heart still beating an erratic, post-transition rhythm.
“Can I help you?” A strong, deep masculine voice dripped over her like chocolate-coated decadence.
She gasped and glanced up, a gorgeous man crouching before her. A dark-brown-haired, sage-green-eyed cowboy, going by the hat. And whoa, what a delicious specimen. She should really add him to a human-male-from-the-past species sample list but … no time. She hardly had a moment to focus on her nature project.
“Are you okay?” He used that speak-right-to-her-sex voice again.
She took in a long, restorative breath of salt-tinged sea air. “I think so.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked, real concern in his eyes.
“No.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Brook.”
He scratched his left hip, extended his large, calloused hand, and covered hers in a firm, warm grip. “Sawyer. How did you get here?”
His electrifying touch sent sparks straight to the birthmark on her right hip. “I travel for a living.” Time travel to be exact.
Sandra Carmel
Sandra Carmel is an Australian author of racy, flirty and downright-dirty romance novels, novellas, short stories and poetry, who enjoys stimulating herself and others with words. An obsession with Jane Eyre, and her infatuation with Mr Rochester, were key motivators in commencing her romance writing journey. So far, she has taken the scenic route from steamy paranormal to sci-fi to contemporary, creating provocative stories that delve beneath the surface of desire. She reads and writes a lot, frequently disrupted by her ever-attentive, cheeky cats, and sinfully amorous array of book boyfriends.
Ellen Mint 