Welcome to Charity Sunday for October. On the last Sunday of each month, I showcase a worthy cause here at Beyond Romance, and commit to donating to that charity for each comment I receive. It’s my small attempt to increase awareness about the many ways people work, worldwide, to improve the lot of humanity. My hope is that some of the people who visit will be inspired to give a bit of themselves: to share the post with their friends, to make their own donations, to think about the lot of people who might be less fortunate, to reach out... to share their own unique light.
Meanwhile I also include an excerpt, so that the post can do double duty as a marketing effort. I do this largely to attract visitors and to encourage other authors to join the event.
If you want to be notified about Charity Sundays, please join my VIP email list. Just click here: https://lisabetsarai.eo.page/kqyq4
Everyone who subscribes gets a free copy of my paranormal erotic romance The Eyes of Bast.
My selected charity today is Voices of Children Ukraine. It has now been more than five years since Russia attacked Ukraine; day after day, the war grinds on. It’s hard for everyone, but children especially suffer. Instead of the security they need and deserve, they have uncertainty and fear. Many have lost parents or other family members. Tens of thousands are internally displaced, forced to evacuate when their homes are destroyed.
Voices of Children provides support and therapy for some of these children. They work with a range of other philanthropic partners to make contact with children at risk, to evaluate their needs, and to provide safe spaces for these kids to live and to grow.
Please spend a bit of time at their website. You may never have heard of them before, but I think that, like me, you’ll find their work inspiring.
I will donate two dollars to Voices of Children for every comment I receive on this post between today and the next Charity Sunday event.
Since I’ve already mentioned The Eyes of Bast above, I’ll give you a sneak peek into that book. It’s actually perfect for Halloween, featuring as it does a cat shifter, a curse, and a powerful, thoroughly evil sorceress.
Blurb
When instinct tells Shaina to visit the feral cat trap she’s set in Central Park, she listens to that inner voice. The sleek black cat she finds has a terrible secret. Tom is an unwilling shape shifter, cursed by a sorceress who craved a human plaything. Shaina vows to defeat the vicious but seductive witch and save the man she believes is her soul mate—though it might mean losing him forever.
Rave Reviews for The Eyes of Bast
The Eyes of Bast is hard to put down once you start reading it. Between highly arousing sex scenes and nail-biting suspense, it'll keep you turning pages until the very satisfying ending. ~ Ria Restrepo, Amazon (5 stars)
What I DO want is extremely hot sex between one man and one woman, and plenty of it, as they fall in love. And WOW! Does this book have that! ~ Fiona McGier, Amazon (5 stars)
Lisabet brings it all together seamlessly: mystery, thriller, paranormal, black magic, shape shifting, smoldering sensuousness, hot, hot sex and a touching love story. This one has it all. Really enjoyed it. ~ Max Lemberger, Amazon (5 stars)
I picked up this novella, meaning to read the first chapter or two in the time I had before I had to be somewhere. Needless to say, I read a lot more than I intended, and I was very late. ~ Cheyenne Blue, Goodreads (5 stars)
Excerpt (Rated R)
By the time we emerged from the theater, dusk was near. We parted at the subway, she heading downtown, me heading up. The train was crowded with people dressed up for the evening. Everyone seemed so cheerful. I couldn’t help but smile.
I slipped my key into the front door of my building, thinking about ordering Chinese for dinner. All at once, I heard someone call my name. I glanced around. Aside from an old woman walking her golden retriever, the sidewalk was empty.
Weird. But then it had been a weird twenty-four hours.
Go check the old elm.
I swear, the voice was clear as crystal in my mind. Lack of sleep, I told myself. Or stress. The cage is still in my apartment. There won’t be anything there. But the urge to go back just wouldn’t let go.
Trust your instincts. With a sigh, I turned and headed for the park, pulling my mace out of my purse as I walked.
The sky was still light enough for me to see shapes and shadows, even under the trees. As I’d expected, the area beneath the elm was empty, the grass trampled from my previous visit. Of course, no cats revealed themselves. If there were ferals around, they’d be hiding in the underbrush, wary of my scent and the sounds I made, despite my attempts to move quietly.
Tom wasn’t afraid of me. The thought made me ache. He’d been such a gorgeous, affectionate cat. I hoped he was okay.
“Hello.” The voice was male, low and throaty. I jumped and whirled around.
A man stood behind me, a fairly young man with sleek, dark skin and a wide, shy smile. Although his body appeared to be fit and muscular, he held himself in an awkward manner, as if he had some subtle handicap. His arms hung at his sides, his hands clenching and unclenching as though he didn’t quite know what to do with them.
I gripped my mace more tightly. He didn’t appear at all threatening, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Um—what are you doing here?”
“Nothing, nothing…” He shrugged and scratched the curly black locks that covered his head. “I heard your voice. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Had I spoken aloud? I returned his smile, still uncertain whether I should trust him. “I’m fine. Just taking a walk.”
“It’s not safe here after dark, you know.”
His earnest tone made me chuckle. I held up the can of mace. “I can take care of myself.”
Worry furrowed his high forehead. “That won’t help against some of the things that come out at night.”
A chill shot through me. I shook it away. “I was just headed home anyway.”
“Good. You should be careful.” His smile returned, melting my last vestiges of suspicion. He pronounced his English with a precision that made me wonder if he spoke something else as his native language. It wasn’t exactly an accent, but I could tell he wasn’t a native New Yorker.
“What about you?”
“Oh, I know my way around here,” he answered. He ran his fingers through his curls and arched his back a bit, as though stretching. Despite that odd awkwardness, he was lithe and graceful. A brief pang of desire shot through me. “And I have excellent night vision. Exceptionally sharp hearing too.”
I couldn’t figure out why, but something about him felt familiar. “Have we met before?” I asked then cringed, realizing it sounded like a pick-up line. “I mean…um… I don’t mean…” Hot blood climbed into my cheeks, though the shadows were probably too dense for him to detect my discomfort.
His bold laugh rang out in the growing darkness. “Maybe we have met,” he said. “I live in the neighborhood. Do you?”
“Pretty close,” I answered, alarm bells sounding in my head. No matter how handsome and charming he was, I wasn’t about to give him my address.
“Well, then, you never know. You said you were heading home. May I walk with you?”
“Um… Actually…”
He took my arm without waiting for my permission.
His touch stopped me cold. It drove out rational thought. As if someone had turned on a faucet, hormones poured into my blood. My nipples tensed and my lower lips grew plump and slick. Fire tipped the fingers resting on my bare forearm. I gasped, staring up in wonder at his strong, even features, overcome by his imminent maleness.
I wanted to stretch out in the grass and pull him down on top of me. I was dying to feel his weight on my chest, his hardness probing between my thighs. Skin on skin was what I craved, with an urgency I’d never experienced in my all my twenty-eight years.
His nostrils flared and I knew he’d caught the ocean scent rising from my sex. I could smell it myself. My saturated panties and jeans were no barrier. He grinned, revealing teeth so white they gleamed in the twilight gloom. I shuddered with need, imagining those teeth tearing my flesh, and stumbled on the gravel path.
“Are you all right?” he asked. He released his grasp to search my face, concern evident in his eyes. The blaze raging through my body subsided slightly.
“Ah… I think so. I’m dizzy…” I wasn’t lying. The world swung around us, tree canopies whirling overhead. Gradually, the universe settled back into place. My heart rate fell to something close to normal. My nipples still ached for contact, though. My clit pulsed, the seam of my jeans kindling sparks every time I moved. “I’ve… I’ve got to go.”
I started down the path, forcing myself to move away from him and his perilous magnetism. It might have been the most difficult thing I’d ever done
Please leave a comment. It’s a small thing, but every generous act is strike against darkness.
And please do visit the other authors participating in today’s Charity Sunday event!
