Hi everyone ♥
Today’s post includes another snippet from my newest release WHISPERS OF HER MEMORIES. The story is set in New Zealand, South Island.
♥ ENJOY ♥
Today’s Hook
Exhaling deeply, she stood as well, took all her belongings, and followed the crowd. Her heart raced as she moved along with all the other passengers, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. This was it. Her opportunity for a change, a new beginning, and she wasn’t going to let this slip through her fingers. Mallory stepped off the plane and down the stairs onto the tarmac. A crisp breeze that carried a scent of fresh mountain air combined with the sharp tang of jet fuel made her shiver. She wished she could thank her mystery grandmother for leaving her a house. Why had her mother kept her a secret? Why hadn’t she ever mentioned her? A twinge of sadness trickled through her, thinking of her mum, who had lost her life two years earlier. The loss was still raw for Mallory. One moment, her mother was full of life, laughing over breakfast, and the next — gone. An aneurysm, the doctors had said. No warning. No time to say goodbye. Barely fifty years old, and everything changed in an instant. Her throat tightened as she navigated through the queues for immigration and passport control, remembering the loneliness that had followed. It had hit her hard. Her mother had been her world, her anchor. There was no one else. She’d never known her biological father, who’d been just a fleeting moment in her mother’s life and who she had never talked of. But that never mattered. They’d been a team, always together, always enough for each other. Mallory wouldn’t complain. Her childhood had been a blur of love, laughter, and many wonderful memories. And then Jacob came into the picture. Her mother’s face would light up around him as if she’d found another piece of happiness. They still had their fun, their inside jokes, their easy bond. Mallory smiled at the memory, and a bittersweet warmth filled her chest.
Blurb
Mallory O’Neill swaps the buzz of Melbourne for the quiet shores of Anahera Bay, New Zealand, hoping for a fresh start… not secrets and surprises. But the crumbling seaside cottage left to her by Sofia—the grandmother she never knew—holds more than just dust and disrepair. It holds the key to a family history her late mother never spoke of.
As Mallory pieces together Sofia’s past, she faces the doubts of old friends and the arrival of an unexpected stranger. Along the way, she finds friendships among the locals, but she also meets resistance from the brooding handyman, Cameron Quinn, a man haunted by his own past.
When faded letters, old photographs, and buried truths come to light, Mallory and Cameron find themselves drawn together by grief, memory, and a spark neither of them expected.
