Maggie Blackbird

Book Hooks is a weekly meme hosted by Marketing for Romance Writers as part of the MFRW Authors Blog. Readers can jump from one author to another who share hooks from their current WIP (work in progress) or any previously published books.

For this week’s edition of Book Hooks, I give you a teaser from Born for This, book one in the Maizemerized series, a time-travel, historical romance, and a recipient of Extasy Books’ Editor’s Choice Award.

She’s always been obsessed with her ancestors, and now he’s offering her a chance to live with them…forever.

Second-year university student Edie Whitecrow gobbles up each course on Indigenous studies.  If only she could experience the lives of her Anishinaabe ancestors instead of reading about them.  On her way to a Halloween party decked out as a historical Ojibway maiden, she spies a corn maze in a spot known to be barren.

A scarecrow figure beckons Edie to enter with the enticing offer of making her biggest wish come true.  She jumps at the chance and finds herself in the past, face to face with the man who haunts her dreams—the handsome brave Thunder Bear.  He claims he’s spent twelve years waiting for Gitche Manidoo to send her to him.

Life in the eighteenth century isn’t what Edie romanticized about, though.  When her conscience is tested, she must choose between the modern day or the world of her descendants—where the man she was created for resides.

Genre(s): Time Travel, Historical Romance, Contemporary Romance, First Nations, Cultural, Adult.
Heat Rating: Level 3
Publication Date:  October 29, 2021
Publisher:  eXtasy Books

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Fire Woman glanced over her shoulder at her mother heading for the wigwam of the grandparents’. The word Mother sat on her lips, but Fire Woman did not dare yell. Everything was happening quietly, and the silence hanging in the air was like the moisture in the atmosphere before the arrival of a vicious thunderstorm.

Other people were sneaking from their wigwams, men with their bows and arrows or muskets. The Dakota were out there somewhere. They were the ones making the birdcalls.

She stood outside the wigwam where Charlot had entered to get his musket.

A shot rang out. The most bloodcurdling howl Fire Woman had ever heard in her life stood the hairs on the back of her neck and sent a spasm of fear down her spine. Charlot appeared and raced them into the bush. He cradled the butt of the musket in the crook of his arm.

“Run. Run fast,” he urged her.

Screams echoed through the air. More war whoops followed. Then the loud blasts from the muskets joined in on the once peaceful early morning. Dawn was beginning to break. There wasn’t enough light to see, but Charlot kept them moving at full speed, not once looking back.

He gripped her hand so tight, what nails he had dug into her palm.

Twigs whipped Fire Woman’s face. She didn’t have time to wince from the scratches. Her heart seemed to be beating in her throat, and her lungs threatened to explode from the rush of air moving along her windpipe.

In the darkness, a sense of déjà vu draped her in its suspicion. There was something familiar about their trek. Wait. She had made this journey twice now with Thunder Bear, even though their jaunts had happened during the day. Charlot was taking her to where she’d first stepped from the portal. Her mind rolled back to her husband’s hushed words to Charlot inside the wigwam, and how Thunder Bear had also wanted to speak to her father.

Charlot was moving them so fast, she couldn’t throw on her brakes to stop them, but she finally managed to dig her heels into the earth.

“What are you doing?” Charlot craned his neck.

“I…I know where you are taking me. I will not go back.” She gritted her teeth.

“I am only following the instructions of your husband. He said for me to take you there, for your safety will be guaranteed. He said it is imperative you live. Now come. Do not argue. Obey the words of your husband.”

“I will not go on without him.” Fire Woman raised her chin.

“He has ordered you to follow my direction.” Charlot’s jawline stiffened in the shadows of the early morning. “Now obey as a good wife of a warrior should.”

A lump built in Fire Woman’s throat. Thunder Bear would not ask this of her unless he knew what the outcome could possibly be on their village. For all she knew, the Dakota could have arrived in huge numbers. Massacre Island rolled in front of her eyes.

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