#WeWriWa: ONE RED SHOE - Off to NYC

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors where authors share an 8 - 10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other authors. You can find them here.

Apologies for being AWOL for the past 2 weeks. Life got in the way. Today, I'm sharing a snippet from my romantic suspense, ONE RED SHOE. In August, I received the rights back from the publisher, and I'll be reissuing it next week. This snippet is how the story begins.

Please excuse the creative punctuation, necessary to keep this within the guidelines. It's also edited some from the original.

“Daria Jean, you are not going to New York City and that’s final.”

With a thudding heart and sweaty palms, Daria Mason zipped shut her suitcase and gritted her teeth, “Jimmy, we’ve been over this before.”

Only about twenty times.

She lifted the suitcase off her twin bed, and since Jimmy blocked the doorway, the other boys who crowded behind him in the hall couldn’t rush in—either to help or hinder. It was a sign of Jimmy’s discombobulation that he didn’t march in and grab the suitcase out of her hands.

She took one last look around her bedroom for anything she might have forgotten. In that fleeting moment, she realized her room looked faded and worn. With the exception of her computer desk where the doll’s house her father built used to be, the room looked exactly the way it had on her thirteenth birthday. Same twin bed, same wallpaper and curtains she and her mother had chosen for that landmark birthday. No wonder the boys still treated her like she was thirteen instead of six months shy of the Big Three-Oh.

Blurb:

Wannabe writer rescues wounded spy while risking her heart.

Daria Mason’s life is too predictable. Nothing ever happens in her small Iowa town where everybody knows everybody else. But when she travels to New York City looking for a little excitement, she never expects to bring home a wounded spy.

From the moment agent Sam Jozwiak steals intel vital to US security from a Russian Mafia kingpin, Murphy’s Law takes over. No matter how he covers his tracks, the kingpin’s assassins find him. What’s worse than getting shot in the butt? Accepting help from an Iowa tourist.

Sam and Daria flee cross country with the assassins right behind them. Sharing danger and excitement—and a few kisses—with Sam soon has Daria convinced he’s the man for her. He thinks she’ll be better off once he’s out of her life for good. With their lives on the line, can she convince him they belong together?

Be sure to check out the other WeWriWa authors.