Monday, December 29, 2014

GETTING IT RIGHT with Christi Williams



Last of a long line of agrarian witches, Selene Pertunda thinks she will never meet the right man...until with the help of a little magic, she finds Beck McNeal.

Named for the Goddess of Desire, can she dream of lasting happiness with only one man?

   Selene Pertunda has no trouble attracting a man. She just can’t seem to find the right one. From abusive husband Robert to tattooed bad boy lover Kevin, Selene draws men to her like bears to her honeypot. The problem is that none of them proves to be a good fit.
   Sure she will never find a shared happiness, Selene has no way to suspect she’s drawn the attention of a powerful goddess. So she scoffs at the idea that the handsome man who begins to  play a large part in her life could be her destiny. After all, what could worldly, educated Beck McNeal want with a small-town girl like Selene?
   Selene and Beck try to their best to resist the inexplicable mutual magnetism flaring between them. But can two ordinary people avoid the decree of the Goddess of Desire?

Excerpt:


Powell County Library
Magickal! Mystical! Metaphysical Fair

Selene rolled her eyes after scanning the posterboard sign propped next to the door of the library’s meeting room. In this era of online information, the local library must really be hurting for walk-in patrons if they had to resort to this sort of entertainment. She herself had almost had to be dragged here. The last thing she wanted right now was to have her palm or her aura read. In fact she refused to even consider it. Deep inside, where the truths she was afraid to examine resided, she knew all the indications for the unhappy ending she predicted for herself could be revealed today if she let her guard down.

Inside the meeting room, Selene and her long-time friend Sarah stood in front of a plastic folding table draped with a blue silk shawl and printed with silver stars and white crescent moons. Really, could it get any more phony? Selene thought. But Sarah giggled and nudged Selene, wanting to continue. A woman with shoulder length dark hair and piercing dark eyes watched them from the other side of the table, her hands toying with an oversized deck of cards. 

“You first,” Sarah said.

“I only came here today because you wanted to, Sarah,” Selene answered. The woman seated behind the table continued to watch them closely. Sarah’s fidgeting and giggling made Selene feel like a teenager, definitely not a good thing in her estimation. “I worked late last night. I’m tired. Let’s just get this over with so I can go home to bed.”

“Sit down,” the woman seated behind the table invited, gesturing to the chairs placed in front of the table.

Selene glanced at the woman, certain she would see it was Sarah being addressed. But instead the tarot card reader looked directly at Selene. A shiver ran down Selene’s back at the woman’s unblinking dark-eyed scrutiny.

Selene shook her head. “I don’t want my fortune told.”

“Maybe you should allow me to take just a peek at the cards for you,” the woman insisted in a soft voice. “There might be interesting things in store for you. Things that you’ve never dreamed possible.”

“Right. Like what? Tall, dark, and handsome?” It sounded to Selene’s own ears like she was sneering at the woman’s talent, so she probably was. No, she definitely was. But the woman didn’t seem to take offense. “You never know,” the card reader answered softly.

Selene shrugged, turning her back and walking away, beginning a slow circuit of the other offerings lining the meeting room’s walls while she waited. Sarah took the proffered seat across from the tarot card reader and immediately became engrossed in whatever the woman proceeded to tell her.

Selene kept moving, afraid if she sat while she waited for Sarah she would fall asleep. Reiki she read on one card atop a blanket-draped bench. Life force healing through the laying on of hands.

Reflexology was printed on another sign taped to the door of a smaller adjacent room. Reflexes in the hands and ears and especially the feet correspond to every part, gland and organ of the body!

There were tables for Hypnosis. ForCrystals and Meditation, and one for a devotee of something called Spirit Guides. That particular woman came prepared with large fold-out displays that explained how to identify and understand the messages sent by spirit animals to humans.

Part of her bored, a small part fascinated, and a large part amused, Selene wondered how these practitioners of alternative therapies managed to survive in southwest Wyoming. They must constitute a veritable underground belief system in a place populated by rough oilfield workers and their giant pickup trucks.

Only one of the many exhibitions caused Selene to stop long enough to actually read any of the literature scattered across the table top. Ghosts explained how the belief in spirits was ancient. Practices of spiritualism and ritual magic were not just intended to return restless spirits of the dead to their repose, but for the living to interact with them.

The explanation caught her attention because it jibed with her own beliefs. Animism one page of a brochure read: the belief that spirits existed in all things, animate or inanimate. The universe itself possessed a spirit, and the spirit of everything combined was universal. Selene knew this to be correct because her nona had told her so.

Selene was the last of a long line of streghe or nature witches. With a history stretching back before the time of the Etruscans, the old knowledge was now almost buried by the avalanche of Christian doctrine blanketing thefertile valleys of the Dolomites. By the time the belief filtered down through the years and distance from Europe to reach Selene the flame burned so low it had almost guttered out.

But not quite. She still believed in the ancient agrarian spirits, the gods and goddesses of Nature and fertility, agriculture and fecundity. Even though she lived in the dry high desert and had for her whole life. Even though her last true link with the old religion, her nona, had been dead for twenty years.

And that’s why, when she completed the circuit of the room and stood once more before the dark-haired psychic, almost against her will Selene extended her hand to receive the business card the woman held out to her:

Tarot  * ) Divination ( * Clairvoyant
* ) Spells ( *
* ) Spiritual Healing ( *
20 years’ experience
Madame Fortunata

“Call me,” Madame murmured, her finger tapping the card where her phone number was printed. “Make an appointment. Please. I can help you.”

In spite of the pull of modern rationality and the tendency to disbelieve, the inner voice strongly urging her to run before she made a choice whose consequences she couldn’t control, Selene stared helplessly into the deep pools of the woman’s hypnotic eyes. “All right” she was aghast to hear herself agreeing.
) * (

Getting It Right is the first novel-length work in the Wyoming Series of contemporary romances by Christi Williams.

Amazon link for Getting It Right

Other books by Christi Williams:

   "To the One I Never Forgot" is a short story that launched the Wyoming Series. Gianna and Zack were too young for love when they were separated. Now, all grown up, can Gianna be reunited with the one she never forgot?

Christi Williams is also the author of two novels and a novella in the Hawk Point Romances series. Take a Chance on Love is the story of the chance encounter of widowChancie de Leur and hot Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper Micah Taylor. Perilous Promises is Perris and Noah Dalton's story of recovery from breast cancer and the effort to revive their formerly wonderful marriage. The novella Clay's Quest is the tale of a hot Wyoming cop who comes up with a wacky plan to save his marriage when he just won't accept that his beautiful wife wants to find someone else to father her baby.

Christi writes sensual, entertaining love stories of unforgettable modern Western men and women. Readers say...Sensual: "Taken a touchy subject and made it heartfelt and humorous, but she's made it H.O.T.!!" Humorous: "Cracked me up!" Love: "To be loved like that!" Stories: "Character driven fiction."


 Links to Take a Chance on Love:

Links to Perilous Promises:

Links to Clay's Quest:

Link to “To the One I Never Forgot”:

2 comments:

  1. Enjoyed the excerpt from Christi Williams! Her character Selene's life prior to finding true love-- drawing men to her like bears to her honeypot-- so cute!

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  2. Thank you, Suz, for featuring Getting It Right on your blog. And thank you, Kathleen Rowland, for the nice comment!

    ReplyDelete