Showcasing author Christine Lindsay, Part Three

Again, please welcome Christine!

CAPTURED BY MOONLIGHT Book 2 of the series Twilight of the British Raj by Christine Lindsay

Prisoners to their own broken dreams…

After a daring rescue goes awry, the parched north of India grows too hot for nurse Laine Harkness and her friend Eshana. The women flee to the tropical south…and run headlong into their respective pasts.

Laine takes a new nursing position at a plantation in the jungle, only to discover that her former fiancé is the owner…and that Adam has no more to say to her now than he did when he crushed her years ago. Why, then, is she still drawn to him, and to the tiger cub he is raising?

Eshana, captured by her traditional uncle and forced once more into the harsh Hindu customs of mourning, doubts whether freedom will ever again be in her future, much less the forbidden love that had begun to whisper to her. Is faith enough to live on? Or is her Savior calling her home?

Amid cyclones and epidemics, clashing faiths and consequences of the war, will the love of the True Master give hope to these searching hearts?

Click here to view the book trailer: CAPTURED BY MOONLIGHT.

READER REVIEW:

In Captured by Moonlight, Christine Lindsay sweeps us away to the exotic, hauntingly beautiful land of India -- of women in colorful saris, mango, coconut, and banana groves, plantations where elephants, tigers, and leopards roam in the nearby jungles -- and the scent of spices, jasmine, and mimosa permeating the air. Amidst all of the majestic beauty, however, lie many dangers...of religious and political unrest, life threatening storms, and the dreaded cholera.

Eshana, a beautiful, young widow, only wishes to serve the Lord and the needy women in the mission house, and her best friend, Laine, an English nurse, is masking her broken heart by administering healing to others. Laine is caught disobeying the rules and is sent to a plantation in Madras to work with a missionary doctor and his sister who treat cholera victims. Madras, where her heart had been shattered to pieces after the war by her first love -- Madras, a place she has no desire to return to -- ever. Once there she encounters many dangers, not the least of which include dangers of the heart as two men vie for her love, a cholera outbreak, and a life threatening storm.

And in the beautiful, romantic setting of white sand-filled beaches and moonlit nights, is it even possible that Laine's heart might be captured by love once again? What secrets is the owner of the plantation hiding in the surrounding outbuildings...and what of Eshana, who has fallen into sinister hands? Will Laine and the handsome Sikh doctor who has fallen in love with Eshana find her before it's too late?

I have ten authors who are my favs...with Shadowed in Silk--Book One and Captured by Moonlight--Book Two, Christine Lindsay has made it into my top five! I was captivated from the very first chapter of this exciting sequel with its unpredictable storyline which may easily be read as a stand alone. I loved the courageous characters--especially their dedication to put others first, and oh, the romance made my toes curl, my eyes fill with tears, and left me with the goose bumps! The author's use of imagery was second to none, and I could see the beauty of India in her descriptive prose. On my fav list of 2013 goes Captured by Moonlight! Very nicely done, Ms. Lindsay!---Diana Flowers (Top Amazon Reviewer)

Captured by Moonlight is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Deeper Shopping Christian Bookstores.

Excerpt from Captured by Moonlight

Amritsar, Northern India, Late October, 1921

If the head woman from the temple looked in her direction, Laine Harkness wouldn’t give two squashed mangoes for her life, or Eshana’s. Laine could never be confused for an Indian, but with the tail end of this cotton sari covering half her face, and her brown eyes peeking over, she simply had to blend in. Still, any minute now that hatchet-faced female standing guard to the girls’ quarters could let out a pulse-freezing yell.

A sudden blare of a conch shell from within the Hindu temple stretched Laine’s nerves. She and Eshana must be mad to risk this exploit again. The principal matron at Laine’s hospital would give her a severe reprimand if she ever found out. More likely sack her. If either she or Eshana had any sense at all, they’d turn around, go back to the mission, and mind their own business.

But a line from Wordsworth, one of Adam’s favorites, ran through her mind...little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love...

Blast! She wouldn’t call what she and Eshana were about to do little, but please let it be unremembered. Unnoticed would be better still.

Nudging Eshana in the side and closing her mind to the writhing creatures in the burlap bags they carried, she hissed into Eshana’s ear. “Well off you go. You’ve got yours to dispose of, and I’ve got mine. Just please keep that guard distracted.” Laine jutted her chin toward the obese head woman waddling around in a sari stained down the front with betel juice. Every once in a while she would take her long wooden club and rap on the doors of the hovels.

Eshana hurried through the narrow alleyway toward the guardian of the temple girls, carrying a burlap sack similar to Laine’s.

On the opposite side of the bazaar, the globelike spires of a temple devoted to a Hindu goddess poked above nearby rooftops. Like a multi-tiered cake decorated in a variety of colored icings—pinks, blues, orange—the temple enticed like a sugary concoction.

But from there the loveliness ended. In these alleyways behind the temple, the pervasive scent of incense and stale flowers mixed with the reek of human misery. Girls who should still be playing with toys, and some a little older, chatted with one another. Many of the paint-chipped doors were closed, imprisoning within those adolescent girls forced into ritual marriages to a Hindu deity.

Laine flattened herself against a peeling plaster wall to watch Eshana shake out the contents of her sack at the base of a cluster of clay pots. Now she waved her hands about, talking in rapid Hindi to the older woman. Good girl, Eshana, that’s the ticket. Laine’s stomach writhed in rhythm to the creature in the bag she carried. She strengthened her grip at the top of the sack though the drawstring had been tightly pulled.

Sure enough the head woman stomped off with Eshana and began to clatter around the pots with her club, giving Laine the moment she waited for. Sixth door from the end on this side, Eshana had told her. Eshana had been visiting the inhabitants of this alley on a regular basis in an attempt to give them some sort of medical aid.

Laine hunched down at the correct threshold. A gap of five or so inches between the door and the mud floor of the girl’s hovel afforded her the needed space.

The low voice of the so-called midwife seeped out. Midwife, my eye. Nothing more than witch doctors with their foolish notions that no water should be given to those giving birth and that the mothers be kept in dark rooms with filthy concoctions of ash smeared over them. Laine shut her mind to the atrocities of how they forced a baby out if it took too long to be delivered.

She kneeled at the bottom of the closed door. With a deep swallow and shudder, she slotted the top of the sack into the gap below the door. With her other hand she eased the drawstring, loosened the bag’s opening, and jumped back to flatten against the wall.

Another shudder rippled through her as she waited. Nothing. Her gaze flitted from the ground to the flat rooftops of this rancid boil of a place. Where had the horrible, disgusting creatures gone? Oh please don’t come out at me.

At last, screams from inside room number six shattered the sleepy deadness of the afternoon.

“Snake!” one woman screeched in Hindi.

Another cry pierced the air. “A cobra!”

They tumbled from the room, and with a gulp Laine slipped inside. “They’re not poisonous. They’re not poisonous,” she repeated to bolster her flagging courage. But she had no time to worry where the rat snakes had wriggled off to.

She went still. There lay the girl.

So small for fourteen, lying on a heap of rags stained with water and blood. She peered at Laine with eyes soaked with pain. There was no time to waste. Laine picked up the girl and, cradling her in her arms, ran from the hovel. The young mother weighed no more than a ten-year-old. All skin and bones except for the mound that was a baby in her womb. The girl batted at Laine’s arm as ineffectually as a wounded bird against a tiger.

Christine Lindsay is an Irish-born writer, proud of the fact that she was once patted on the head by Prince Philip when she was a baby. Her great grandfather, and her grandfather—yes father and son—were both riveters on the building of the Titanic. Tongue in cheek, Christine states that as a family they accept no responsibility for the sinking of that great ship.

It was stories of her ancestors who served in the British Cavalry in Colonial India that inspired her historical series Twilight of the British Raj of which Book 1 Shadowed in Silk has won several awards, and Book 2 Captured by Moonlight. Christine is currently writing the final installment of that series called Veiled at Midnight to be released August 2014.

Also coming out February 2014 is Londonderry Dreaming, a romance novella set in Londonderry Northern Ireland, not far from Christine’s birthplace.

Her newest release is a short Christmas story, Heavenly Haven, was released as an Ebook Oct. 15, 2013.

Christine makes her home in British Columbia, on the west coast of Canada with her husband and their grown up family. Her cat Scottie is chief editor on all Christine’s books.

Please drop by Christine’s website www.christinelindsay.com

Follow her on Twitter and be her friend on Pinterest and Facebook

TEASER from Out of the Ashes

My FIRST book since cancer is about to release! Want a taste of what's to come? Scroll down to read the opening of Chapter One from OUT OF THE ASHES.

The book opens with a note to my readers:

Dear Readers:

Had it not been for the Lord and the many thousands of people who prayed me through cancer, this book never would have been written. If you’re one of the people who prayed for me, thank you. Mere words aren’t enough to express my gratitude.

Having emerged back onto the writing scene after the two-year battle, and feeling rather beat up after the long fight, I needed something with a happy ending. Like a fairytale. Think Cinderella. That’s what this book is, something bright and cheerful. So, Out of the Ashes is a lighter read than my other books: The Master’s Wall, Yahshua’s Bridge, and even Walks Alone.

What a blessing it has been for me to have the strength to write Nathaniel and Amelia’s story. Thank you, precious readers, for walking with me as I dig my way out of the aftermath of this battle one step at a time. Or shall I say, one page at a time.

Blessings,

Sandi Rog

Book Jacket Description

A stranger. A kiss. A shotgun wedding.

NATHANIEL WARD, wealthy entrepreneur, needs a wife. But he’s not interested in the preening, high-society women who are offered to him on a silver platter. He wants one woman, and one woman alone: the girl who gave him all the money in her reticule years ago when the Great Chicago Fire left him destitute. He sets out to find this woman and discovers she’s unattached. There’s only one problem, a shotgun wedding may be able to bind them, but will he ever be able to win her heart?

AMELIA E. TAYLOR blows a kiss to a street rat. Little did she know, years later that kiss would follow her to Green Pines, Colorado. When a handsome stranger arrives in her hometown, she guards her heart from the stirrings this man ignites. Despite society’s disapproval of spinsterhood, she is determined not to marry, having witnessed first-hand the lack of love and horrors that accompany marriage. But will a shotgun wedding reveal blessings that arise out of the ashes?

Chapter One

Green Pines, Colorado, 1882

Gun smoke burned Amelia’s eyes and her ears still rang. She blinked the tears from her lashes.

“Do you, Nathaniel Ward,” the preacher scowled, “take Amelia Taylor to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Amelia’s father cocked his rifle and aimed it at the reluctant groom.

“I do,” Nathaniel said, his voice firm and unwavering. Despite her father’s threats, Nathaniel’s very presence exuded power, his raised chin, broad shoulders and wide chest unflinching against the barrel of the rifle.

Amelia didn’t dare look up at him. What must he be thinking? How many women had hoped to get him this far, and now, here she stood where most women dreamed of standing—shotgun wedding, or not. If only she could melt into the parlor’s wooden floor like the candle burning in the nearby lamp. Or disappear like the smoke. Disappear into nothingness, with no remnant left of her existence.

“Do you, Amelia Taylor, take Nathaniel Ward to be your lawfully wedded husband?” The preacher’s words rushed over Amelia like a gush of foul air.

She stood paralyzed, unable to speak. She’d vowed never to marry. How would she bear this cross? She’d seen enough loveless marriages in her life to know it wasn’t worth the heartache, despite the shame of spinsterhood. And now, to be forced on a man? What miseries awaited her? Abuse? Neglect? Slavery? Any man in his right mind would despise her for the rest of his days. It would be impossible—unthinkable—to procure his affection … his love.

The minister, still in his nightclothes, cleared his throat. His wife, holding up the lantern, glowered from behind him.

Amelia swallowed, darting a glance at her terrifying father. With a snarl, he narrowed his eyes at Nathaniel and pressed closer with his rifle. Would he put another hole in the preacher’s wall? Or Nathaniel’s chest?

“Amelia, girl.” Her father’s voice sent a shudder down her spine as it echoed through the quiet house. “You know, I always keep my word.” He’d threatened to kill Nathaniel if she refused to be his wife.

“I do,” she said, her voice small and trembling, quite the opposite of the man next to her. The horror, the shame. How did her life come to this?

“I now pronounce you man and wife.” The minister slammed his Bible shut and pointed it at her father. “Now get out!”

Shadows clouded Amelia’s vision, and her legs wobbled like those of a newborn calf. Her knees buckled, but rather than landing on the hard floor, she found herself caught in Nathaniel’s strong arms.

Now her husband.

Chicago, Illinois

Nine weeks earlier.

“You’re the most stubborn man I know,” William Goldman said to Nathaniel as they made their way through the ballroom.

The music and thick perfume nauseated Nathaniel. He never cared for tobacco, but in comparison to the party, he wished he had an excuse to leave and join the men in the smoking room. He could join the other men for cards, but William insisted that Nathaniel walk with him.

So now, he walked amidst the preening women and their mothers. He kept his hands behind his back, trying to forget the fact that he wore coattails and should be dancing. He’d already shared a number of dances, but the women were all the same: pretentious with money-hungry claws. He may now be wealthy, but if they knew he was once a street rat, they’d scurry in the opposite direction. They just assumed he was William’s apprentice, now assistant. Which he was, but they didn’t know the whole story. Only William knew, and he didn’t belittle Nathaniel for it.

Charlotte fluttered her dark, long lashes in his direction and flashed him a demure smile. He’d already danced with her twice, the second time he’d been bamboozled into an extra dance by the mother. He nodded toward her, trying not to be rude, but kept on walking.

“You see?” William motioned with his bearded chin to the high-society woman. “There’s a fine catch, right under your nose, but your stubborn pride keeps you from hooking it.”

Nathaniel blew out air between his teeth. “Why the urgency to marry me off?”

They stepped onto a terrace, and William with his paunch belly faced him. “I’m not getting any younger. I want grandchildren.”

Nathaniel studied his old friend. His green eyes reflected remorse. Nathaniel knew he missed his own children.

“When I first offered to let you live with me, you refused, saying you didn’t take ‘handouts.’ I call that stubborn pride.” William straightened and harrumphed. “Thank the good Lord you had enough sense to take the job I offered you.” Leaning on his cane, he reached out and patted Nathaniel’s arm, his gold ring catching the moonlight. “But the truth is you’ve always been like a son to me. You’re the only family I have, and until you locate your brother and sister, I’m all you have.”

It always pained Nathaniel to think of Michael and Rachel. With William’s help, he’d sent detectives all over the country in pursuit of his siblings, only to discover they were nowhere to be found.

“I’ll marry,” Nathaniel said, resigned. “But not any of these women.” He pointed with his thumb to the ballroom.

William straightened. “What’s wrong with these women? They’re of good breeding. And if not these, then who else is there?”

“There’s someone I met while on the streets.” What was he saying? How would he find her? What if she was already married? And what if she’d turned out like all these other rich snobs? Certainly her father and mother would have prepped and preened her the same way.

“A woman you met on the streets?” William raised a white brow. “Surely, you have better taste, better sense!” He puffed up his chest, clearly insulted by Nathaniel’s rejection of the delicacies he set before him in the other room.

“I was twelve, and she was eight or nine.”

“What? You’re holding out for a little girl?”

“She’s a lady.” Nathaniel chuckled. “My hope is, more of a lady than anyone we can find here.”

He prayed he was right. After all, how many of these women as girls would have dared chase down a street rat to give him their money?

“Does this woman have a name?” William eyed him beneath his bushy brows.

“Amelia E. Taylor.” An uncontrollable grin tugged on Nathaniel’s lips. He’d never spoken her name out loud. But he’d never forget her name. Never forget her kindness and … the kiss.