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A Stranger is Watching - snippet from new #Fantasy Romance for #WeWriWa and Snippet Sunday

Welcome to another Sunday with Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday . Reading is a safe pastime during the pandemic. Sample the work of a new author. Read snippets of stories in different genres.

I’m posting snippets from my new fantasy about a witch and an elf. The book is due to release next Wednesday (Feb. 3rd). The main character, Bridget Bramble, flees her home when invaders plunder the village and kill her brother. Her great-grandparents traveled from the fabled land of Oakenwald where men and elves live in harmony and she decides to backtrack along their path with the aid of their travel journal. After traveling alone for 6 days, she has encountered an obstacle in the form of a landslide that blocks the trail. But somebody is watching her.

You can read last week’s snippet at https://auroraspringer.blogspot.com/2021/01/danger-in-shadows-snippet-from-new.html

The final line was: A hooded figure stood in the shadows under the trees.

She stifled a startled gasp. How long had this person been watching her? In this wild region, any stranger might be a threat. Under cover of her cloak, she gripped the handle of her dagger. The blade was sharp, yet it was little defense against a larger and stronger opponent. Subterfuge was her best weapon.

The mysterious individual stepped out of the shadows. The person brushed off the hood to reveal a solemn face as smooth as a boy’s, cold gray eyes and long pale hair. The man was tall and slim. His hands hung at his sides, empty of weapons, although a bow was strapped on his back and a sheathed sword hung on his belt.

That was the official 10 lines, but I’m sure you’d like to read a little more. It’s slightly shortened.

He wore a lichen-gray cloak pinned with a bronze brooch fashioned like an oakleaf. Under the loose fold of his cloak, his tunic was the deep blue-green of pine needles, an unusual color for a dyer to achieve, and his nether garments were bark-brown trousers.

He stood on the edge of the trail and stared at her. His cool, handsome visage offered no hint of emotion.

Who was he and what did he want? The longer she gazed at him, the more she sensed his strangeness and a tickle of magic like she felt on touching her locket. Was he a human male or something else? In a flash of insight, she guessed the origin of his weirdness. He must be an elf. How marvelous.

Fantasy romance. A young witch escapes the destruction of her home and embarks on a perilous quest for the fabled land where elves and humans live in peace.

In a land threatened by cruel invaders from the east, Bridget Bramble lives in a small village where she barters herbs and carved buttons. When marauders target her village and murder her family, she flees into the woods. Armed with her Granny’s advice and a bag of magic buttons, she sets out on the perilous journey to Oakenwald, the fabled land where elves and men live in harmony. As she travels farther from home, she encounters malicious creatures from the worst kind of folktale.

Lost in the foothills of the mountains, Bridget meets the elf, Windswift the Wanderer. He offers to guide her across the mountain range. But what is the elf doing in human lands? Can an ordinary, or almost ordinary, human girl trust a cold hearted elf to lead her to safety?

Epic fantasy adventure and romance with darker overtones. This story weaves elements of folklore and a quest for a safe haven in a land where magic is real.

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