Safe Harbor (44 page)

--
Publishers Weekly

In 1692,
Salem
,
Massachusetts
was the setting for the infamous
 
persecution of innocents accused of witchcraft.
 
Three centuries later, little has changed.
 
Helen Evett, widowed mother of two and owner of a prestigious preschool in town, finds her family, her fortunes, and her life's work threatened —all because she feels driven to protect the sweet three-year-old daughter of a man who knows everything about finance but not so much about fathering.

Selec
t
here
to
read two sample chapters
of Beyond Midnight.

Embers

"
A deft blend of mystery and romance … sure to win more kudos"

--
Publishers Weekly

To Meg Hazard, it seemed like a good idea at the time: squeezing her extended family into the back rooms of their rambling Victorian home and converting the rest of the house into a Bed and Breakfast in the coastal town of
Bar Harbor
,
Maine
.
 
Paying guests are most welcome, but the arrival of a
Chicago
cop on medical leave turns out to be both good news
and bad news for Meg and the Inn Between.

Sele
c
t
here
to
read two sample chapters
of
Embers
.

Time After Time

"As hilarious as it is heart-tugging ... a rollicking great read."

--I'll Take Romance

In Gilded-Age Newport, an upstairs-downstairs romance between a well-born son and a humble maid is cut short of marriage.  A hundred years later, the descendants of that ill-fated union seem destined to repeat history.  Or not.

Selec
t
h
e
re
to read two sample chapters of
Time After Time
.

A Charmed Place

"Buy this book! A truly fantastic read!"

--
Suzanne Barr
,
Gulf
Coast
Woman
 

USA
TODAY
bestselling author Antoinette Stockenberg delivers an original and wonderfully romantic story of two people -- college lovers separated for twenty years -- who have the chance to be happy together at last.
 
But family, friends, an ex-husband, a teenaged daughter and an unsolved murder seem destined to keep the lovers star-crossed, until Dan takes up residence in the Cape Cod lighthouse, with Maddie's rose-covered cottage just a short walk away ...

Beloved

"
Richly rewarding
… a novel to be savored
.
"

--
Romantic Times Magazine

A
Nantucket
cottage by the sea: the inheritance is a dream come true for Jane Drew. Too bad it comes with a ghost —and a soulfully seductive neighbor who'd just as soon boot Jane off the island.

Emily's Ghost

RITA Award Winner

"Booksellers' recommended read."

--
Publishers Weekly

A showdown between a U.S. Senator (with a house on
Martha's Vineyard
) who believes in ghosts and a reporter who doesn't.
 
What could possibly go wrong?

USA Today bestselling novelist Antoinette Stockenberg grew up wanting be a cowgirl and have her own horse (her great-grandfather bred horses for the carriage trade back in the old country), but the geography just didn't work out: there weren't many ranches in
Chicago
. Her other, more doable dream was to write books, and after stints as secretary, programmer, teacher, grad student, boatyard hand, office manager and magazine writer (in that order), she achieved that goal, writing over a dozen novels, several of them with paranormal elements. One of them is the RITA award-winning EMILY'S GHOST.

Stockenberg's books have been published in a dozen languages and are often set in quaint
New England
harbor towns, always with a dose of humor. She writes about complex family relationships and the fallout that old, unearthed secrets can have on them. Sometimes there's an old murder. Sometimes there's an old ghost. Sometimes once-lovers find one another after half a lifetime apart.

Her work has been compared to writers as diverse as Barbara Freethy, Nora Roberts, LaVyrle Spencer and Mary Stewart by critics and authors alike, and her novels have appeared on bestseller lists in USA Today as well as the national bookstore chains. Her website features sample chapters, numerous reviews, many photos, and an
enchanting Christmas section.

Visit
her
website at
antoinettestockenberg.com
to r
ead sample chapters of all of her books
.

If you enjoyed reading this novel, please "Like" Antoinette Stockenberg's Facebook author page!

Antoinette Stockenberg

"
An addictive, captivating story of love, family and trust.
"

--
Romance Reviews Today

Laura Shore has fled her humble past on Cape Cod and made a name for herself on the opposite coast.  But when she returns and joins forces with her two siblings to try to save Shore Gardens, the failing family nursery, she finds that she hasn't left the past behind at all.  Kendall Barclay, the town's rich son and her childhood knight in shining armor, lives there still, and his hold over Laura is as strong as ever.  Like a true knight, he's attentive, courteous, and ready to help -- until a
murder is uncovered
that threatens the family, the nursery, and Laura's deepening relationship with him.

Prologue

The day after eighth-grade graduation was the best and worst of
Kendall
's life.

He was minding his own business, which happened to be tracking down a snowy owl that had been sighted in a woods just outside of town, when he heard boys' voices farther up the trail.

He was sorry to hear them. He didn't want to be caught with a pair of expensive binoculars around his neck and looking for birds, so he got back on his bike with every intention of leaving the way he had come: quietly. As he pedaled off, the voices got more shrill—whoops and yelps, the sounds of small-town kids on the warpath. He would be fair game for them, he knew from experience, so he picked up his pace.

And then he heard the scream. It was a girl's cry, frightened and angry at the same time, and it sent chills up his back and arms. He slammed on the brakes so violently that his bike skidded on the soft path and went out from under him, falling on top of him and scraping across his pale, thin legs.

He righted the bike, but his hands and legs were shaking as he mounted it again and set off in the direction of the scream. Part of him was hoping and praying that it was all just fooling around; but part of him knew better.

He found them in a clearing next to the trail where he knew kids liked to hang out drinking and smoking—and, he had always assumed, having sex. Four boys had a girl cornered.

She was standing in front of the campfire rocks. Ken couldn't see her very well because she was shielded by the four boys. They were practically shoulder to shoulder, but one pair of shoulders stood higher and broader than the rest: they belonged to Will Burton, the doctor's son, a bully who had squeezed more than one allowance out of Ken on a Friday afternoon. Will's younger, red-haired brother Dagger was there, too, and two other kids
that
Ken didn't recognize.

"Hey!" he yelled at their backs, almost before he could think about it.

They all turned around at the same time, surprised and therefore pissed. But Ken wasn't looking at them, he was looking at her. He was stunned to realize that she had breasts; how had he never noticed that? She was clutching her torn shirt to herself, but he could see her dark pink nipple. Instantly he looked away. When he looked back again immediately, he saw that her face was all flushed and her cheeks were wet, and he felt desperately ashamed.

"Leave her alone," he said in a voice filled with fury.

Will
Burton
just laughed. "Ooh, I'm scared. What're you gonna do? Run and tell your daddy?"

The other boys snickered and approached him as he stood astride his bike.

He could have taken off. He didn't, because he wanted her to make a break for it. But she stayed right where she was! He couldn't believe it. She wasn't moving. It was like she was hypnotized or paralyzed or something. She was looking straight at him and nobody else. He was ashamed in advance for what he knew was going to happen to him.

He became aware of the crack of branches underfoot as one of the boys he didn't know took up a position behind him. Instinctively he glanced over his shoulder at him. At the same instant, Dagger Burton grabbed his binoculars out of his bike basket.

Dagger turned away and aimed the binoculars straight at her breasts while Ken and the others remained in their standoff. Everything seemed to go on hold while Dagger did his thing.

"Shit, I can't see anything," Dagger said after fiddling with the adjustments. "Everything's blurry. I must be too close."

Stupidly, Dagger began backing away from her in an attempt to get in better focus.

So that left three.

"Leave her alone," Ken said, controlling the quaver that hovered at the back of his voice. "Get out now, and I won't tell anyone."

Will
Burton
was only a year older than Ken but just then seemed twice his size, minimum. He snorted and said, "Who's gonna make me? You—Skinnykenny? What a dork."

Ken tried to make his voice sound strong. "Leave her
alone."
But his voice broke and the last word came out like a hiccup, and everyone laughed, except her, of course.

He didn't dare look at her; he was so totally mortified. For her, for him, for both of them. He was rich and she was poor, but at that moment both of them were equals.

Hulking Will Burton waited until the snickers died down, and then in a voice that was way calmer and deeper than Ken's, he said: "Dork."

It was true. Ken was a dork; he knew he was a dork. But there was something about being called one in front of
her
that made something inside of him snap. He threw down his bike and went wading into Will Burton: head down, arms flailing, landing punches half in the air. But he made contact, too—for the stolen allowances, for the snickers, and mostly for that exposed nipple, which he knew was now burned into his memory for life. He hated them all, hated them for their contempt for anyone who wasn't as cool as they were.

They punched him and kicked him and he tasted his own blood, but still he kept flailing. His eyes were shut, so he couldn't tell if she was taking off or not. Before he could get the chance to look, he felt a hard whack on the back of his head—he was pretty sure, from his brand-new binoculars.

A Month at the Shore, available for your Nook April 2012.

Antoinette Stockenberg

Wonderful, witty, humorous writing

--The Romance Reader
 

KEEPSAKE ... a postcard-perfect town in
Connecticut
. When stonemason Quinn Leary returns after seventeen years, he has one desire: to prove his father's innocence of a terrible crime committed when Quinn and Olivia Bennett, town princess, were high-school rivals. Class doesn't matter now but family loyalties do, and they're fierce enough to threaten the newfound passion between two equals.

Prologue

The women of
Keepsake were afraid.

Young mothers moved cribs into their bedrooms for the night, and grandmothers jammed kitchen chairs against their back doors. Teenage girls agog with terror talked late on the phone with their very best friends, while their older sisters who lived alone made their boyfriends promise to stay over. The news that morning had sent shock waves of anxiety from Elm to upper
Main
: Alison Bennett's death was no suicide at all, but cold-blooded murder.

If Alison wasn't safe, who was? Her father was strict, her uncle was rich. She was the last girl in
Connecticut
anyone would have expected to find hanging from a rope above a quarry on a cold October night. That was the consensus as people turned off fewer lights than usual and tried to sleep.