It's here! Rebecca beat me to the punch by pre-reviewing yesterday, but I wrote this blog and, by Castiel, I'm going to post it. My first self-published Talbot's Peak novel, The Mountain Lion King, is now up at Smashwords and Amazon. It should be up on Barnes & Noble, Apple, and your favorite e-book outlet within a week or so.
Cougar shifter Rick Donnelly is happy living alone on his mountain and isn't looking for company. Then company literally falls into his lap, in the form of tiger-shifter Nilambari, who's fleeing from her arranged marriage to the vicious Ravi Ghan. Rick has no love for tigers, but for this terrified tigress he's willing to make an exception. Provided he can defend them both from Ravi, who's not about to let his bride-to-be go without a fight.
Regular readers will know this book began as a series of posts here on the blog. The original, now-rewritten opening can be found here. Plus, here's a new snippet to whet your appetite:
Excerpt
Rick stepped in from a night in the foyer and stopped dead. Now here was something you didn’t wake up to every day: a woman trying to wipe the dirt off cave walls. She’d already swept the floor. He could easily picture the bedchamber scrubbed to within an inch of its life, the bed neatly made. “You’re up early,” he said cautiously.
“You’re up late,” she countered. She continued to dust and straighten. “Would you like tea?”
“No tea.” He stared about. Son of a gun, it really did look better in here. But just the same … “You don’t need to do this. Really.”
“I do,” she said. “Really. Do you never clean in here?”
“It’s a cave. You can’t clean a cave.”
“You can make it cleaner. This also.” She reached into a pile she was building on a chair and held up one of his shirts. “This needs to be washed, and the others too, and my own clothes. The sheets should be changed as well. Is there a stream or pool where I might launder them?”
This, Rick thought, is what happens when you let a woman into a bachelor den. He expected to find curtains hanging, and his kitchen didn’t even have windows. Part of him was pleased and touched she’d go to so much trouble. The rest was just bemused.
“Okay, okay. We’ll go into town. They have a laundromat.” Wait. Did he have any change? Scat. Civilization got complicated after a while. That was one reason he had abandoned it. “Just stop sweeping, all right?”
Nilambari’s eyes lit up. She set the broom aside. “Can I visit with Mrs. McMahon? She’ll know what herbs can be harvested here, and what plants are edible. I need to learn this. I will also need a bath.”
“What for?”
She stared at him as if he’d gone insane. “Mrs. McMahon is a fine herbivorous woman. I can’t go before her with fresh blood in my scent. It would be rude.”
Rick made a face. A bath? Wasn’t that why cats had tongues? Anyway, Elly was married to a wolf. He doubted if she found Vern’s scent insulting. His eating habits, maybe.
Still … Rick reminded himself he was speaking to a young female. Their thought processes differed from normal creatures’. “I suppose I’ll need a bath too?”
Nilambari fixed that young female stare on him. Rick gave in. “Fine. No time like the present. The pond should do, now that the horses are gone. Let’s get this mess over with.”
Heat level: mild. Cover by Serena Shay. Nice, no?
