Picture

Hearts Unloched by Claire Gem
Supernatural Suspense 
 
Ghost #BookHugs #supernatural #romanticsuspense  

Winner 2016 New York Book Festival
Finalist 2017 RONE Awards  
Book trailer: http://bit.ly/1T8Vzzz
Buy Link: http://amzn.to/2st37H6 


Picture

Blurb:
A psychic interior designer reluctantly agrees to renovate a sexy investor’s abandoned hotel on Loch Sheldrake, a lake rumored to have once been the mob’s body dumping ground.

Interior designer Kate Bardach loves her single girl’s lifestyle, living in Manhattan and spending weekends at her lake house. She’s passionate about her career, too–reinventing old buildings. But there are some projects she can’t take on because of the spirits trapped inside. Kate is psychic–she sees dead people.

Marco Lareci is one of Wall Street’s most successful investment brokers who’s achieved all of his life’s goals–except for finding his soulmate. His latest project, an abandoned resort on Loch Sheldrake, needs a savvy designer to transform the crumbling complex into a boutique hotel. When Marco meets Kate, he can’t believe his luck. She’s the perfect match for his business and his heart.

Marco’s body excites Kate even more than does his renovation project. But he wants more than a casual relationship, and she’s not willing to give up her freedom. Plus, the haunting at Marco’s resort, a bonafide poltergeist, affects her on an intensely personal level. Kate’s aunt disappeared from the place fifty years ago.

Will the spirit doom Kate and Marco’s love, or drive them closer together?


Excerpt:

A whirling dizziness overtook Kate, and suddenly, she was inside the building, standing in the lobby directly beneath the chandelier. Moonlight twinkled on its crystals in the darkness—a darkness thicker and deeper than ebony velvet. And the flashes of light dancing over her face and arms and all around her feet on the diamond-patterned carpet challenged her equilibrium, and she staggered.

But there was nothing to grab on to. She was lucky she didn’t topple to the floor. She recovered, though shakily, as the sparks of light began to organize and whirl around her, like a cyclone whose eye was her. The ringing in her ears grew louder, almost painful.

A sound behind her, coming from the direction of the ballroom, was like the hissing of a hoarse whisper. She turned as if in slow motion, dream-like and unafraid. Somehow she knew, felt deep in her heart, whatever was here wouldn’t harm her.

But the entity definitely wanted something. Wanted to share their pain with her. That’s why it had blasted her with its agony the first day she’d stepped over the threshold. How long, she wondered, had it been since this spirit could unload some of its misery on a living being? Kate often became their conduit: the only release for the suffering so many trapped souls endured, endlessly through time.

The definition of Hell.

In the blackness, she could barely distinguish the arched entryway to the ballroom. Peering across the empty space and through the far wall of glass, she could see the lake, lights glowing on the opposite shore and dancing in long streaks on the surface of the water. She didn’t make out the shape, silhouetted by the oval arch, right away. Her sight had blurred, and she lifted her hands to rub at her eyes. When they blinked open again, it was there.

Her breath caught in her throat as she realized it was large, at least in breadth, its surface thick and fuzzy. Her first thought was bear. But then a dripping sound filled her head, and she imagined more than saw something—what? Water? Blood?—streaming down off the apparition’s surface in dull, thudding thwops on the carpet. The sickening sound grew louder and louder, hurting her ears, and panic began to take hold.

Her own heart raced, and she was gasping for breath, as if she’d run a mile in heavy gear. Sparkles again filled her vision, but not from the flashes of light snapping wildly off the chandelier over her head.

Kate slapped both hands over her ears and screamed.

Yet, easily overriding her own horrified voice, two words resounded in her head. The same way as they had the night in her apartment. Echoing, pitiful. As though the voice emanated from down the other end of an underwater drainage pipe.

Find me. Find me. Find me.

Her breath hitched, and she gave in to the terror. All sounds silenced, and everything around her went black. 

Picture

About The Author: 

Claire is a multi-published, award winning author of five titles in the genres of contemporary romance, supernatural suspense, and women’s fiction. She also writes Author Resource guide books, and presents seminars on writing craft and marketing.
 
Her supernatural suspense, Hearts Unloched, won the 2016 New York Book Festival. Her women’s fiction, The Phoenix Syndrome, was a finalist in the National Reader’s Choice Awards, and her contemporary romance, A Taming Season, was a Literary Award of Merit finalist in the HOLT Medallion Awards.
 
Creating cross-genre fiction she calls “supernatural suspense,” Claire loves exploring the paranormal and the unexplained, and holds a certificate in Parapsychology from the Rhine Research Center of Duke University.
 
A New York native, Claire has lived in five of the United States and held a variety of jobs, from waitress to bridal designer to research technician—but loves being an author best. She and her happily-ever-after hero, her husband of 39 years, now live in central Massachusetts.
 
Claire is available for seminars & media interviews, & loves to travel for book promotional events.
 
Media Links
 
Website:                      http://www.clairegem.com
Blogs:                         http://www.clairegem.wordpress.com
                                    http://www.hauntedpathways.wordpress.com
Facebook:                   http://www.facebook.com/clairegem.author
Twitter:                       http://www.twitter.com/gemwriter
Goodreads:                 https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8284235.Claire_Gem
Amazon Author Page: http://amzn.to/2nabvbm
Youtube Channel:       https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO-vB7WDZhEQ8U4YpC937ng