Book Excerpt: Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

“Local Woman Missing,” the latest book by author Mary Kubica, is about a woman named Shelby Tebow, who is the first person in the book to go missing, then the missing women start popping up when another woman, Meredith Dickey, and her young daughter, Delilah, go missing not too far from where Shelby disappeared. After relentless searching for the missing women, the cases eventually go cold, and then eleven years later, Delilah returns, much to everyone’s shock. While everyone wants to know what’s happened to her, the mystery begins to unravel with chills and thrills.

Author Mary Kubica is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of six novels, “The Good Girl,” “Pretty Baby,” “Don’t You Cry,” “Every Last Lie,” “When The Lights Go Out,” and “The Other Mrs.” Kubica is a former high school history teacher, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives with her husband and two children outside of Chicago. Her recent novel, “The Other Mrs.,” has been made into a film, coming soon to Netflix. Her novels have sold over two million copies worldwide. “Local Woman Missing” is her seventh novel. Read an exclusive excerpt from Kubica’s “Local Woman Missing” below. Purchase “Local Woman Missing” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, or IndieBound.

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Book Excerpt: The Clover Girls by Viola Shipman

Author Viola Shipman‘s latest novel, “The Clover Girls,” is a sentimental ode to friendship and family, filled with memorable magic summer moments. “The Clover Girls” is set around childhood friends who are approaching middle age, and want to rediscover their dreams when they were campers in 1985.

The book centers around Elizabeth, Veronica, Rachel and Emily who met at a camp as young girls in 1985, and called themselves “The Clover Girls” after their cabin name. Although life happens for each of the young women, facing their own set of challenges, with family, aging, and losing sense of self, Elizabeth, Veronica, and Rachel receive a letter from Emily. The letter indicates that Emily has terminal cancer, and wants them to reunite at the camp that brought them together to scatter her ashes. When the three meet at the property, another received letter from Emily arrives, letting them know that has purchased the camp, and it belongs to all three of the girls. This reuniting encourages the women to find who they are again, their lost dreams and becoming who they always wanted to be.

Author Viola Shipman – photo by Kym Heiser

About the author:

Viola Shipman is the pen name used by Wade Rouse, who’s a popular, award-winning memoirist. Rouse chose his grandmother’s name as his pen name to honor her and her memory, along with incorporating them into his writing. He’s also the author of The Summer Cottage, including The Charm Bracelet, and The Hope Chest. He divides his time between Saugatuck, Michigan, and Palm Springs, California, and has written for People, Coastal Living, Good Housekeeping, Taste of Home, among others, and is a contributor to All Things Considered.

Purchase The Clover Girls on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Target, Walmart, Harlequin, Indiebound, Google, and Kobo.

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Book Excerpt: T.A. Willberg’s ‘Marion Lane And The Midnight Murder’

Author T.A. Willberg‘s latest book, Marion Lane And The Midnight Murder takes readers into the secret tunnels of London existing beneath the city streets. Within are a mysterious group of detectives solely recruited for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries; together they use their extensive skills and unique gadgets to solve crimes that consistently stump Scotland Yard. One night in April 1958, a filing assistant receives a letter indicating a warning, along with a name, a time, and a place. The assistant is determined to investigate, but the room is empty. At midnight, on the dot, she is murdered by a killer she can’t see. It becomes apparent that the person who killed the filing assistant works among Miss Brickett’s, casting an intoxicating whodunnit. In comes Marion Lane, a first-year-Inquirer-in-training, who delves deep into the investigation, and when her friend is framed for the from, she sets out to clear his name, and sift through the hidden alliances at Miss Brickett’s, along with secrets dating back to World War II.

Author T.A. Willberg was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and has her masters degree in chiropractic from Durban University of Technology. Marion Lane And The Midnight Murder is her stunning debut novel, launching her eventual books of detective series. She lives in Malta with her partner.

Photo by Wentzil Olivier

Purchase the book at any of the following links:

Read an excerpt from Marion Lane And The Midnight Murder below:

THE SECRET STEALER

Somewhere in London
Friday, April 11, 1958
11:40 p.m.

Envelope encased, the carrier cylinder traveled through miles of pneumatic pipes from its place of origin to the dark, deep dungeon of the Filing Department—falling neatly from the end of the pipe and into the corresponding receiver box, as if by some magical, invisible postman.

A bell chimed as the envelope landed in receiver box fifty-five.

Michelle White’s eyes shot open as she lurched back from the edge of sleep. She blinked at the flashing yellow light on the noticeboard above her. It was her job to ensure all letters were sorted out the minute they arrived: those that met agency requirements were to be organized by date and slipped into the Inquirers’ in-box for later investigation. Those that did not went straight into the rubbish bin, and those of which she was unsure what to do with, into a looming pile on the desk. But crime and crookedness had been on the decline the last few weeks in London and so, assuming the letter would be a lead on something petty, Michelle White staggered across the Filing Department in no particular hurry.

She lifted the lid on receiver box fifty-five, the endpoint of a six-mile pneumatic tube that fed off from a letter case hidden in Passing Alley in Farringdon.

Envelopes and letters pulled from the receiver boxes were usually addressed to the agency in general: Dear people under the ground, or similar.

But tonight was different.

To Miss M. White, Inquirer.

It was odd, yet she couldn’t help smile at the thought of it. Michelle had once dreamed of becoming an Inquirer; she had come so close to the reality, too. But she was just not good enough. Not clever enough, not brave or talented enough. Not quite anything enough.

Ten years ago, at the age of twenty-two, she’d been recruited from a textile factory where she’d toiled long hours as a quality control assistant. But like everyone who came to work in the sunless labyrinth, Michelle had swiftly and without much consideration renounced the liberties of her previous, lackluster life in exchange for the opportunity to begin a new and thrilling vocation as an Inquirer, where she’d hoped to finally make use of her very particular set of skills.

But things had not quite turned out that way, which is why—instead of scouring London’s streets for criminals and delinquents—Michelle had ended up here, spending her evenings as the night-duty filing assistant in the establishment’s dullest department. In fact, had it not been for her other, far more satisfying role—that of Border Guard, protector of the secret—then perhaps she would have quit years ago.

But now Michelle wondered, as she stared at the envelope in her hand, how whoever had sent it knew where she worked or why they had considered her the worthy counsel of their troubles. She ran her thumb over the words—Miss M. White, Inquirer—as if they might be absorbed through her skin and become true.

For a moment, she was reluctant to open the envelope, concerned it might be a joke. One of the young apprentices playing a trick. She clenched her jaw at the thought, breathed, then entered the letter’s details into the register file: time and date received, receiver box number and her initials. But when she opened the envelope and read the final detail—the nature of the inquiry—her breath began to quicken.

The letter was short. A name, a time, a place and one simple revelation. And yet it unleashed a torrent of angst.

Several weeks ago, something had gone missing from her handbag—something invaluable, irreplaceable, something that might dredge up a secret long since buried across the Border. At first she’d been so certain of who had taken it, and for countless nights thereafter she’d turned in her sleep, anxious the nasty thief would soon come looking for the paired device she kept locked in her private office, and with that the secret would be uncovered.

But if the letter she’d just received was to be trusted, Michelle’s anxieties had been misplaced—the secret had already been discovered. She wasn’t sure how, or even why, but if she followed the letter’s directions, she might soon find out.

Though sirens of warning blared in her head, Michelle had already made up her mind. Of course she could take the letter to someone more qualified than herself, but it had been addressed to her—whoever had sent it had entrusted her with this, a most precious and urgent secret. And besides, as the letter had said, if only for tonight, Miss White was an Inquirer.

As instructed, she lit a match and held the letter under the flame. Once the paper had turned to ash, she packed up her things, grabbed her handbag, locked the office and rushed up the staircase toward the library. She stopped at the lock room gate, far on the other side of the grand hall of glorious bookshelves. The gate was ajar, just as she’d expected.

She stepped inside, pausing immediately as a wave of something cool and cutting passed in front of her, a curious thing. She rubbed her eyes and looked around the dully lit room, at the hundreds of steel drawers, safes in which were kept the agency’s most hallowed files and documents. The lock room, with its thick walls and high ceiling, was always chilled, but tonight it felt particularly so.

Crack.

Something split from the wall behind her. She turned to the sound but saw only a shadow move across the room and something that looked like a large black box being removed from inside the wall. She hesitated, then moved a little closer. But it came again—a wave of cool air, dancing in front of her. She dabbed her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve; they were now surely playing tricks on her, for everything had turned to a strange blur of nothing. Michelle started to panic, her thoughts as unfocused as her eyesight. Her head began to spin. Her limbs to tingle. This might have been the moment she ran for her life, out of the lock room and away from the evil she now knew had been waiting for her there. But terror had immobilized her. There was nothing she could do to get her legs to move, not even when she heard the rush of footsteps, some behind her, some in front. Not even when she felt the brush of air against her neck.

“What’s happening,” she asked in a staggered groan. “I know you’re there…I know it was you…” She trailed off, the words in her head no longer making sense.

She dropped her handbag. Something hard rolled out and across the floor. She was too disorientated to realize what it was.

In a drawn-out moment that seemed to last forever, Michelle’s senses grew dull and viscous. She could no longer trust her eyesight, her ears. She might have seen an amorphous shape crouching in front of her. She might have seen it lift something from the floor. Certainly, however, she felt the sharp burn of a cold, ragged blade as it sunk quickly and easily through the delicate skin across her throat.

Warmth, darkness and nothing more.

Excerpted from Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder @ 2020 by Tessa Gukelberger, used with permission by Park Row Books/HarperCollins.

Connect with T.A. Willberg on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Excerpt from author Christina Dodd’s new thriller ‘Wrong Alibi’

New York Times bestselling author, Christina Dodd‘s new book has been described as “edge-of-the-seat suspense” (Iris Johansen), along with “brilliantly etched characters, polished writing, and unexpected flashes of sharp humor that are pure Dodd” (ALA Booklist). Dodd has written fifty-eight books and has even been featured as a clue in the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle.

With her latest book, Wrong Alibi, an all-new thriller featuring a strong, no-holds-barred female protagonist with eighteen-year-old Evelyn Jones who snags a job in a small town in Alaska, working for a man, named Donald White, who’s isolated in his mountain home. The man suddenly disappears, and Evelyn faces charges of theft, embezzlement, including a horrific double murder. She protests and fights for innocence to no avail, and ends up facing life in prison after being convicted. However, as fate would have, things happen, and she ends up on the run. She ends up hiding, away from family and anyone remotely close to her, working under an alias at a wilderness camp. While working under her alias, she’s determined to achieve justice, clear her name and recover her innocence, and conduct her own search for the brutal killer.

When the day comes that Donald White suddenly returns, Evie returns from hiding, and she becomes the hunter. However, more dark forces come into play, and she has to unravel evidence on her own before she gets even more blood on her; that of her family.

Keep up with Christina socially through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Purchase Christina Dodd’s Wrong Alibi via the following:

Read an exclusive excerpt from Christina’s Wrong Alibi below:

Chapter 1

ALASKA

Midnight Sun Fishing Camp

Katchabiggie Lodge

Eight years ago

JANUARY.

Five and a half hours a day when the sun rose above the horizon.

Storm clouds so thick, daylight never penetrated, and night reigned eternal.

Thirty below zero Fahrenheit.

The hurricane-force wind wrapped frigid temperatures around the lodge, driving through the log cabin construction and the steel roof, ignoring the insulation, creeping inch by inch into the Great Room where twenty-year-old Petie huddled on a love seat, dressed in a former guest’s flannel pajamas and bundled in a Pendleton Northern Lights wool blanket. A wind like this pushed snow through the roof vents, and she knew as soon as the storm stopped, she’d be up in the attic shoveling it out.

Or not. Maybe first the ceiling would fall in on top of her.

Who would know? Who would care?

The storm of the century, online news called it, before the internet disappeared in a blast that blew out the cable like a candle.

For a second long, dark winter, she was the only living being tending the Midnight Sun cabins and the lodge, making sure the dark, relentless Alaska winter didn’t do too much damage and in the spring the camp could open to enthusiastic fishermen, corporate team builders and rugged individualists.

Alone for eight months of the year. No Christmas. No New Year’s. No Valentine’s Day. No any day, nothing interesting, just dark dark dark isolation and fear that she would die out here.

With the internet gone, she waited for the next inevitable event.

The lights went out.

On each of the four walls, a small, battery-charged nightlight came on to battle feebly against the darkness. Outside, the storm roared. Inside, cold swallowed the heat with greedy appetite.

Petie sat and stared into a dark so black it hurt her eyes. And remembered…

There, against the far back wall of the basement, in the darkest corner, white plastic covered…something. Slowly, Petie approached, driven by a terrible fear. She stopped about three feet away, leaned forward and reached out, far out, to grasp the corner of the plastic, pull it back, and see—

With a gasp, Petie leaped to her feet.

No. Just no. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—replay those memories again.

She tossed the blanket onto the floor and groped for the flashlights on the table beside her: the big metal one with a hefty weight and the smaller plastic headlamp she could strap to her forehead. She clicked on the big one and shone it around the lodge, reassuring herself no one and nothing was here. No ghosts, no zombies, no cruel people making ruthless judgments about the gullible young woman she had been.

Armed with both lights, she moved purposefully out of the Great Room, through the massive kitchen and toward the utility room.

The door between the kitchen and the utility room was insulated, the first barrier between the lodge and the bitter, rattling winds. She opened that door, took a breath of the even chillier air, stepped into the utility room and shut herself in. There she donned socks, boots, ski pants, an insulated shirt, a cold-weather blanket cut with arm holes, a knit hat and an ancient, full-length, seal-skin, Aleut-made coat with a hood. She checked the outside temperature.

Colder now—forty below and with the wind howling, the wind chill would be sixty below, seventy below…who knew? Who cared? Exposed skin froze in extreme cold and add the wind chill… She wrapped a scarf around her face and the back of her neck. Then unwrapped it to secure the headlamp low on her forehead. Then wrapped herself up again, trying to cover as much skin as she could before she faced the punishing weather.

She pointed her big flashlight at the generator checklist posted on the wall and read:

Hawley’s reasons why the generator will fail to start. The generator is new and well-tested, so the problem is:

LOOSE BATTERY CABLE

Solution: Tighten.

CORRODED BATTERY CONNECTION

Solution: Use metal terminal battery brush to clean connections and reattach.

DEAD BATTERY

Solution: Change battery in the autumn to avoid ever having to change it in the middle of a major fucking winter storm.

If she wasn’t standing there alone in the dark in the bitter cold, she would have grinned. The owner of the fishing camp, Hawley Foggo, taught his employees Hawley’s Rules. He had them for every occurrence of the fishing camp, and that last sounded exactly like him.

The generator used a car battery, and as instructed, in the autumn she had changed it. This was her second year dealing with the battery, and she felt secure about her work.

So probably this failure was a loose connection or corrosion. Either way, she could fix it and save the lodge from turning into a solid ice cube that wouldn’t thaw until spring.

That was, after all, her job.

She shivered.

So much better than her last job, the one that led to her conviction for a gruesome double murder.

“Okay, Petie, let’s grab that metal battery cleaner thingy and get the job done.” Which sounded pretty easy, when she talked to herself about it, but when she pulled on the insulated ski gloves, they limited her dexterity.

Out of the corner of her eye, a light blinked out.

She looked back into the lodge’s Great Room. The nightlights were failing, and soon she really would be alone in the absolute darkness, facing the memories of that long-ago day in the basement.

Good incentive to hurry.

She grabbed the wire battery connection cleaner thingy and moved to the outer door.

There she paused and pictured the outdoor layout.

A loosely built lean-to protected the generator from the worst of the weather while allowing the exhaust to escape. That meant she wasn’t stepping out into the full force of the storm; she would be as protected as the generator itself. Which was apparently not well enough since the damned thing wasn’t working.

She gathered her fortitude and eased the outer door open.

The wind caught it, yanked it wide and dragged her outside and down the steps. She hung on to the door handle, flailed around on the frozen ground, and when she regained her footing, she used all her strength to shove the door closed again.

Then she was alone, outside, in a killer storm, in the massive, bleak wilderness that was Alaska.

Photo provided by L. Bourne

Interview: ‘Pretending’ author Holly Bourne chats about writing, inspiration, and her giddy, emotional journey

In author Holly Bourne‘s US debut novel, “Pretending,” tells the story of a woman attempting to move after a traumatic relationship, and then pretends to be “the perfect girl” as payback, but that doesn’t go exactly as plan when her emotions get in the way. She meets a guy who was looking for something himself, the perfect “partner in crime” so-to-speak, and when Joshua and April meet how long will they keep up these pretenses until they eventually cave and give in to honest, real emotion?

Author Holly Bourne is based in the UK and has had several bestselling YA and Adult Fiction novels in her homeland; she’s also an Ambassador for Women’s Aid. She was Author of the Day at the London Book Fair, and was named by Elle Magazine’s weekly podcast as one of “Six Female Authors Changing the Conversation in 2019.” She chats about her debut novel and the characters she created, her emotional journey as a writer, and much more.

Purchase Pretending via the following links below:

When did you first begin to craft Pretending?

Holly Bourne: I wrote it during this endless London heatwave in the summer of 2018. It was the perfect writing weather for the story, as it reflected the stifled energy of April’s unprocessed trauma. Weirdly, the weather finally broke the day I typed ‘The End’ in August.

Where did you receive your inspiration to create Pretending?

Holly: My inspiration for Pretending came in the form of the opening line, which sets up the opening chapter and April’s conflicts. I was coming home from London late one evening and got really aggressively sexually harassed by someone at a train platform. When I told him to leave me alone, the guy got even nastier, and followed me, shouting abuse until I fled to my train. Once I was safely onboard, I was shaking with rage, and the character of April came to me. I pulled my laptop out of my bag, and typed the words ‘I hate men.’ The first chapter was finished by the time I got home.

Are you a pantser or a planner? Or somewhere in between?

Holly: I long to be a planner. I try so hard to be a planner, but my first drafts always take on a life of their own and refuse to follow my plot points. It makes redrafting much harder, but I’ve learned to just accept this is my process, and it does always work out in the end.

Describe the emotional journey for you, as a writer, when finishing your novel.

Holly: Absolutely terrified, and yet bursting with pride. I’m so happy with what I’ve achieved with Pretending, and how I hopefully managed to write a book that pulls readers into the head of someone with trauma. But, I’m also painfully aware of how much we still judge and blame victims, and feel fiercely protective of April and her story. So, having the book going out into the world is a mixture of very strange, and often conflicting emotions.

On a typical day, how much time do you spend writing?

Holly: I try to write 2,000 words a day, five days a week. Some days, I’m done by ten am and feeling very smug about it. Other days, I’m still at my laptop, swearing profusely, at gone 11pm.

Who is in the cast of characters that readers will meet in Pretending?

Holly: You have April – who is darling, but damaged. And then you meet her ulter-ego, Gretel, the perfect woman April pretends to be so she can finally feel some power. Then there’s Gretel’s love interest, Joshua, who April starts falling for, even though he’s supposed to be a social experiment. I also love April’s wonderful housemate, Megan, and all April’s colleagues at the charity where she works.

Tell us, readers, what your main protagonist, April is like.

Holly: She’s hugely vulnerable, and she knows it, and hates that about herself, and wishes she could be stronger. But, once you learn more about her, her vulnerability makes total sense. What I love about April is, until her Gretel revenge plan kicks in, she’s never let her trauma negatively impact anyone else. She’s caring, and gives back, and is kind and glorious. It’s just such a shame she can’t realise how great she is, and that she makes the drastic decisions she does.

Was it difficult to create your character April and her double life?

Holly: One of my biggest hurdles in the manuscript was making the ‘Gretel’ storyline seem plausible. Initially it felt so nuts – a woman pretending to be a totally different person on dates. Until I realised, to some extent, we all behave that way when we’re trying to find a romantic partner. We’re all pretending to be what we believe is romantically acceptable – hiding all the darker, more complex parts of us, under a rug and hoping our crush never finds out what we’re really like. Once I got there, the story got much easier to write.

What was the publishing journey like for your American debut?

Holly: I’ve actually had over ten books published in England, but this is my first American deal! So the journey has been a mixture of huge highs, and then general disappointments. The US market is a huge deal, and I’m delighted to have finally been published there. I think I owe a LOT of Fleabag. She has whetted US audience’s appetite for the slightly more cynical sharpness a lot of UK writers use.

Describe your writing style using three words.

Holly: Confronting emotional honesty

What is your advice for aspiring writers?

Holly: You do you. There’s no point comparing yourself to other writers. You will never be able to write like them because you’re not them. So embrace that only you can write how you write, and that’s special, and, if you believe in your voice and your story, one day someone will be comparing themselves to you!

What future projects do you have coming out soon?

Holly: I actually have a Young Adult book coming out in the US in December called ‘It Only Happens In The Movies.’ It’s about two teenagers who fall in love working in a small-town cinema, and how real love is never how it comes across in romantic films.

Where can readers find you and your work online?

Holly: I’m on Instagram at lot – hollybourneYA. And Twitter less, because everyone needs to calm down! But @holly_bourneya.

Share something your readers wouldn’t know about you.

Holly: I absolutely hate buttons. They make me feel queasy. And I can never wear any clothes with buttons on them.

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Excerpt: The Summer Set by Aimee Agresti

Newly released The Summer Set by Aimee Agresti is set in the Berkshires where celebrities Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lauren Graham, and Chris Pine have performed, features all of the needed elements of a great romantic comedy, featuring salacious Hollywood gossip and Broadway aficionados. The Summer Set’s main protagonist is Charlie Savoy, who was once one of the top Hollywood elite, and now, ten years later, she’s close to forty and forced out of the film world. She finds herself back where her career was launched, in the Berkshires, at the summer Shakespeare theater, where her first love, Nick, is the artistic director. Charlie finds herself developing new friendships, bonding with fellow celebrity actors, and finds that her spark with Nick hasn’t died. Then, Charlie has an old rival, Hollywood’s current “It Girl,” show up, and Charlie finds herself in competition with not only the newest “It Girl,” but in career and love.

Aimee Agresti by Abby Greenawalt

I MISSED YOU TOO

Charlie studied herself in her bathroom mirror. In just a week her bruised eye had faded to the dull gray of rancid meat, now easily disguised by concealer. She flat-ironed her raven hair, securing it in a sleek, low ponytail, then rummaged the closet for her most professional-looking getup: that slim black suit, pale pink silk blouse with the bow at the neck and the stilettos she only wore when she felt compelled to impress. Her wardrobe from that perfume ad a decade earlier but timeless nonetheless, just like the moniker that had been etched in script on the curved bottle of the fragrance.
Outside, Boston did its best impersonation of her supposed hometown, London. (Though she had lived away from there enough during childhood to have eluded the accent.) The dreary May rain made her think of her mom: the estimable Dame Sarah Rose Kingsbury. News of Charlie’s incident had warranted mentions in a few celebrity weeklies and, unfortunately, made the hop across the pond. Her mother had called, texted and finally, after no response, emailed: Charlie, Did you receive my voice mail and text? I trust you’re alright. Another of your stunts? Please respond. Love, Mum. Her mom’s correspondence always scanned like a telegram, full of stops and full stops—much like their relationship itself. Charlie, reveling in being briefly unreachable and not in the mood to answer questions, hadn’t yet bothered to replace her phone and had indeed missed the call but wrote back assuring her mom that she was fine, though the accident had not, in fact, been performance art.
By the time Charlie reached the foreboding Suffolk County Courthouse, her lawyer/friend Sam—who had shepherded her through the theater purchase (while questioning her sanity)—was already there pacing, barking into her phone.
“This should be easy,” Sam told her, hanging up, hugging her while scrolling her inbox. Sam wore suits and radiated responsibility, two things Charlie found comforting in a lawyer. “Be contrite and it should be open-and-shut for community service.”
The sterile courtroom’s pin-drop silence made Charlie shiver. Next to her, Sam tucked her phone in her bag and rose to her feet, gesturing for Charlie to stand as the judge materialized at the bench. Charlie found it oddly reassuring that the judge was the kind of woman who wore pearls and a frilly collar outside her robe.
“You were okay with my email, right?” Sam whispered, as they sat again.
“What email?” she whispered back.
“My email. An hour ago? You have got to get a new phone,” Sam scolded.
“I know, I know—”
“There was this arrangement, last minute, I hope you’ll be amenable to but—”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie pleaded.
The judge had begun speaking, so Sam hushed her. Too late.
“Ms. Savoy, this is the part where I get to talk.” The judge looked up from the paper she had been reading aloud. “Maybe it was different in your episodes of Law & Order?”
“No, ma’am, I mean, Your Honor, sir, ma’am, no,” Charlie stumbled. She had been wrong about the judge. The woman continued on about the damage Charlie caused and the significant hours of service required like Charlie was the honoree at one of those Comedy Central roasts, albeit one that could end with her in a jail cell.
Until finally, the judge cut to the chase: “…an assignment has presented itself,” she said slowly. “Which will make fine use of Ms. Savoy’s expertise…” Charlie caught Sam’s side-eye. “So Charlotte Savoy shall be required to complete sixty days with the Chamberlain Summer Theater in—”
“NO!” Charlie expelled the word, an anaphylactic response. The judge scowled as though jail might still be an option. “Sorry, Your Honor, I just mean—can I object?” Sam shot her a lethal glare. “It’s just that, well—” Charlie tried again as a door at the back of the courtroom creaked open, footsteps echoing. She turned to discover the equivalent of a ghost.
Nick Blunt—director, ex, first love, disappointment, invertebrate—heading her way.
“Mr. Blunt, thank you for joining us,” the judge said, unimpressed.
Charlie’s posture straightened, heartbeat ticking faster than seemed medically sound. She felt betrayed by her own being, muscles, nerves, ashamed of this reaction.
“Sorry, Your Honor,” he said in that deep rasp.
Charlie wished she hated that voice. And it seemed an abomination that he could still be attractive—physically at least.
Rugged with an athletic build, he wore black jeans, a blazer and aviator sunglasses, which he pulled off as he walked (pure affectation since, to her knowledge, it was still raining outside), tucking them into the V of his slim sweater.
He took his place beside Charlie, flashing that smile he deployed when he aimed to be his most charming.
“Hi there,” he said, as though surprised to be meeting this way.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a cape?” Charlie rolled her eyes, focused on the judge reading again, and returned her body to its proper slouch, recalibrating her expression between boredom and disgust.
“I missed you too, Charlie,” he whispered back.
From the corner of her eye, Charlie spotted the sharp beak of that tattoo—the meadowlark—curving around from the back of his neck. It was still there, which gave her a pang of affection, a flare-up she forced herself to snuff out. She imagined how they might look to those few people sitting in the rows behind them. Nick and her with these identical birds inked onto the backs of their necks, midflight and gazing at each other anytime he stood on her right side, as he did now. Mirror images, bookends, the birds’ once-vibrant golden hue as faded as the memory of the hot, sticky night she and Nick had stolen away from campus to get them together.
Over the years, she had considered having hers removed or morphed into some other design, but why should she? She liked it. At face value. Charlie sighed again, more loudly than intended, as her mind sped to how this summer would now be.
“Ms. Savoy, is there a problem?” the judge asked, irked.
“Your Honor, I just wondered—is there a littered park or something? Instead?”
“We’re fine, Your Honor.” Sam patted Charlie’s arm in warning.
“Ms. Savoy will report to service June 1.” The judge slammed the gavel, which, to Charlie, sounded like a nail being hammered into a coffin.
“I had a client last week who’s cleaning restrooms at South Station this summer,” Sam said apologetically as they walked out.
Charlie just charged ahead down the hall, an urgent need to escape, her mind struggling to process it all.
“So, craziest thing happened,” Nick launched in, catching up to them at the elevator. “I was reading the news and saw about your little mishap—” He sounded truly concerned for a moment.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t have a Google alert on me,” Charlie cut him off, stabbing the down button too many times.
“You always were a terrible driver—”
“That river came outta nowhere—”
“But a stellar swimmer—”
She nodded once. She couldn’t argue with that.
He went on, “So I made a few calls and—”
“Don’t be fooled by…that.” She waved her hand back toward the courtroom. “You need me more than I need you.”
The elevator opened.
“We’ll see about that.” He let them on first. Charlie hit the button again-again-again to close the doors, but he made it in. “How long has it been, anyway?”
“You know how long it’s been,” she said as the doors closed so she was now looking at their reflection. It had been six years, three months, two weeks and two days since they last saw each other. At the long-awaited premiere for Midnight Daydream—which should’ve been a thrilling night since a series of snags had pushed the film’s release date back two years after filming. But instead of celebratory toasts, it had ended with a glass of the party’s signature cocktail—a messy blackberry-infused bourbon concoction the shade of the night sky—being thrown. In retrospect, she thought, there’d been so many signs the movie was cursed.
“You’re just mad your self-imposed exile is over.” He smirked.
“Always with the probing psychoanalysis.” She watched the floor numbers descend, doors finally opening.
Sam scurried out ahead of them. “My work here is done. I’m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do.” She gave Charlie an air-kiss before striding off.
“Wait, no, I just need to—” Charlie tried to stop her, but Sam had already hopped in a cab.
“So, I have an office not too far, off Newbury Street, off-season headquarters for Chamberlain—” Nick started.
“Luckily you’re usually phoning it in, so I haven’t had the privilege of running into you around town.” She walked ahead in the cool, pelting rain.
He stayed where he was. “I’d invite you out for a drink—”
“It’s, like, 10 a.m. That’s too early. Even for you—” She glanced back.
“Summer is gorgeous in the Berkshires, as you may recall,” he shouted, sunglasses back on, absurdly, and that smile again. “Welcome back to Chamberlain, Charlie.

The Summer Set

Aimee Agresti is the author of Campaign Widows and The Gilded Wings trilogy for young adults. A former staff writer for Us Weekly, she penned the magazine’s coffee table book Inside Hollywood. Aimee’s work has also appeared in People, Premiere, DC magazine, Capitol File, the Washington Post, Washingtonian, the Washington City Paper, Boston magazine, Women’s Health and the New York Observer, and she has made countless TV and radio appearances, dishing about celebrities on the likes of Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, E!, The Insider, Extra, VH1, MSNBC, Fox News Channel and HLN. Aimee graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism and lives with her husband and two sons in the Washington, DC, area.

Connect with Aimee on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. Purchase The Summer Set at Harlequin, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-A-Million, and Powell’s.

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