CROSS
THE OCEAN
By
Holly Bush
BLURB:
1871 . . . Worlds collide when American
Suffragette, Gertrude Finch, and titled Brit Blake Sanders meet in an explosive
encounter that may forever bind them together. Gertrude Finch escorts a young
relative to London and encounters the stuffy Duke of Wexford at his worst.
Cross the Ocean is the story of an undesired, yet undeniable attraction that
takes Blake and Gertrude across an ocean and into each other’s arms.
EXCERPT:
London 1871
“Pardon me?”
The starch in Mrs. Wickham’s black dress seemed to
wilt as she quivered. The soft folds of her jowls shook. “The Duchess is not
coming down, Your Grace,” she repeated.
The Duke of Wexford stood stock-still. The guests
were to descend on his ancestral home in a matter of moments. The candles lit,
the buffet laid, the flowers had bloomed on cue. The last remaining detail was
the receiving line.
“Mrs. Wickham. There is a small matter of greeting
two hundred and fifty guests arriving momentarily. The Duchess needs to attend
them,” Blake Sanders, the Eighth Duke of Wexford, said sternly to his
housekeeper.
When the woman had announced his wife would not be
joining him, Sanders was certain he had not heard correctly. The Duchess knew
her duties, as did he. He turned
abruptly to the staircase and stopped as a shiver trailed down his arms. He
turned back. The rotund woman had not moved other than the flitting of small
hairs peeking out of her mobcap. After
twenty-five years of service to his family, he supposed she stood rooted for
good reason.
The Duke spoke quietly. “Is there a problem
conveying this message, Mrs. Wickham?”
The woman swallowed. “Yes, Your Grace. There is.”
“What is it, Mrs.
Wickham?” he asked.
It was then he noticed a folded piece of paper in
the woman’s hand. As with most lifetime retainers, he had seen worry, seen
anger and joy in her face. But never fear. And it was fear indeed that hung in
the air, widened her eyes and had the missive shaking in pudgy fingers.
AUTHOR
INFORMATION:
Holly Bush was born in western Pennsylvania to two avid readers.
There was not a room in her home that did not hold a full bookcase. She worked
in the hospitality industry, owning a restaurant for twenty years and recently
worked as the sales and marketing director in the hospitality/tourism industry
and is credited with building traffic to capacity for a local farm tour,
bringing guests from twenty-two states, booked two years out. Holly has
been a marketing consultant to start-up businesses and has done public speaking
on the subject.
Holly has been writing all of her life and is a voracious reader
of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, particularly political and
historical works. She has written four romance novels, all set in the U.S. West
in the mid 1800’s. She frequently attends writing conferences, and has always
been a member of a writer’s group.
Holly is a gardener, a news junkie, has been an active member of
her local library board and loves to spend time near the ocean. She is the
proud mother of two daughters and the wife of a man more than a few years her
junior.
@hollybushbooks
Amazon:
Itunes:
Holly is giving away a $50 gift certificate from Amazon or B&N to one lucky reader so follow her tour and go to http://bit.ly/1enTE1Thttp://bit.ly/1enTE1T for your chance to win.
You can find her schedule at http://bit.ly/15AHNxY
Being a "news junkie" must actually be helpful at times for a writer.
ReplyDeletemarypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com
Thank you for hosting today.
ReplyDeleteGood morning Elaine and thanks for hosting me! It is helpful, Mary, to be a news junkie, I think. I like to watch how people react to events and how the events work out. There's always drama!
ReplyDelete