EverWriting @ Leigh Verrill-Rhys

For the final Sunday Snippet in August, I’m sharing a short section from my serial novel, Nights Before, ‘Twas the Night Before Mother’s Day, the third story in the series and showing off the new covers in celebration of the series now being available on Amazon. The fourth book in the series, ‘Twas the Night Before Labor Day, will be released on September 1st.

Jocelyn Tavers faces her 26th birthday, falling on Mother’s Day, at the same time as she wonders what happened to a certain officious lawman and a certain deserter father remembers her birthday after only fifteen years of neglect. 

…”A pound of dark chocolate covered cherries doesn’t give you nightmares. New knowledge base item. A pound will make you too sick to sleep. With that hard won information well engrained, Jocelyn had lost her craving for chocolate of any kind.

“In spite of the excessive obsessive revisions, Moonstalker had come in under the wire and tonight her dubious pleasure was to escort Gordon Fieldcott to the Book Launch and party at his department’s library. Suggesting to Daven he was a better choice had earned her double duty. Not only did she have to chaperone, she had to chauffer. “As was his wont, Gordon was too nervous to drive. With only a shelf full of books to his credit, he couldn’t face the drive to Brunswick or be trusted to get there on time on any alternative mode of transport. “Jocelyn wanted to push him out of her snazzy 4×4 and make him hitch. He wasn’t talking. He was staring. And staring. And staring. “There wasn’t much fun in the fact that this year of all years her birthday fell on Mother’s Day when she didn’t have a mother. Last year hadn’t been all that great either, coming on the heels of her mother’s diagnosed death sentence. “The bouquet of lilies and calendula had sat on the table in the front room. Neither of them could endure looking at it for long. It was too beautiful, too hopeful, too life-affirming and Jocelyn was sorry she had done such a thoughtless thing. The bouquet became a funeral wreath and by the time the water dried up and the flowers wilted and browned, the front room door had been shut for a month. “They didn’t need that room anymore. Maisie stayed in the kitchen or her room, moved from upstairs to the back of the rented house so that she wouldn’t have so far to walk when Jocelyn called her to a meal. “The slush pile reader job hadn’t been hard to leave, but coming home for this reason took the spunk out of her. Both of them dragging themselves around the small house like too old women. Maisie Tavers was only fifty-two.” — ‘Twas the Night Before Mother’s Day, Nights Before #3