Monday snippet!

A few years ago when shapeshifter romances were becoming all the rage, I wrote A Small Degree of Hope. Not your standard warm and fuzzy hero, Griff is an alien reptile, who has the ability to shift into a human appearance.

Worse yet, his species is trying to turn human women into reptiles for mating purposes. Kylie Sanderson is part of the crack team investigating the case, and she becomes involved in a way she never imagined in her worst nightmares.

With that said, here’s today’s snippet:

Griff said, “While you were at the hospital, I tracked my brothers who fled when you were rescued. They have not withdrawn far.”

That raised her eyebrow. “You knew where they were, and you didn’t tell SIRT?”

“I was not sure I could trust them. While they had you, I had to be cautious.”

There it was again, that almost tender sound to what he said. Like when he’d pledged his loyalty to her a few moments before. Did he know the feelings she held for him, the effect he had on her? She’d been comfortable, held in his arms but she intentionally hadn’t defined their relationship.

In the hospital, she rationalized his role as mentor, perhaps, or a co-participant in experiments. He’d been necessary to explain the differences between reptile and human as he knew them for medical necessity.

But here, as they hid together from the forces massed against them, she knew in her heart that this was different. She was drawn to him, not by necessity, but because some tenuous feelings had evolved between them. He had been there, each step of the way. He hadn’t abandoned her, like her father, or turned on her, like Jaco. He’d stayed by her side, good or bad.

For better, or for worse, in sickness and in health…

That was the standard, wasn’t it? When you mated/married, you took each other with all the foibles as well as the high points, and you did what you could to support the other person through the bad times.

And these were bad times.

A SMALL DEGREE OF HOPE is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online and retail booksellers. Enjoy!

“Spay/neuter” goes beyond Bob Barker

Remember when Bob Barker closed out every episode of THE PRICE IS RIGHT by exhorting his viewers to spay and neuter their pets?

So my readers may have noticed I’ve taken on a new cause– helping shelter kitties. (see THE TROUBLE WITH CATS, above)  Asheville in general is a serious spay and neuter territory, but all the same, spring into summer is called “kitten season” for good reason. Here’s a graphic that shows exactly why it’s a problem:

Do you have the money to pay for 2 million cats–food, water, vet, toys, litter, etc? Well, neither do the shelters, even with foster parents, even with adoption events, even with the resources they can beg borrow and steal.

So PLEASE. Take care of your pets and also let the local feral cat colony specialist know about wandering kitties. They will trap, neuter and release, to help keep down the number of kitties who may eventually end up being euthanized because there is just no one left who can take them.