I love all things pumpkin. Nothing says fall like the orange
gourd roasted with warm spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Fall in
Kentucky starts between September 21st and 23rd,
depending on lunar cycles and moon placements but our pumpkins don’t mature
until later. While the average pumpkin reaches ripeness between the end of
August and the end of October in the USA, our growing season has shifted later
with climate change. It is not uncommon for kids to play outside in
short-sleeved shirts and shorts in December. Last year my pumpkins didn’t turn
orange until the week before Halloween. I wasn’t worried because historically
Jack-o-lanterns were carved from turnips, potatoes, and apples.
However, I am dismayed to report that the national coffee chains in my area don’t serve pumpkin-spiced lattes after Halloween. The official coffee house pumpkin season goes from August 1st to October 31st…when the bulk of USA’s pumpkins aren’t mature. Growing up, November was pumpkin spice season because we needed to process all the innards from the jack-o-lanterns. Why else serve pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving? With the rush to be the first to serve pumpkin treats, we have shifted the autumnal season into our hottest season. When the weather is consistently in the high nineties Fahrenheit, there’s no way I’d savor a steamy pumpkin coffee. Would you?
Don’t get me started on the Peppermint Mochas, Holiday carols, and Christmas trees in retail stores today. Bah Humbug, until December, please!
Well, if you can’t beat them…join them. Introducing the Monsters and Mistletoe Book Fair (cue off-key Jingle Bells) where your favorite winter, holiday, and Christmas monster romances bring the heat…before you turn on your furnace for the season. My snow monsters will take you on Arctic adventures, months before a flake falls in Kentucky to set the winter wonderland ambiance…as your leaves fall from the trees.
Featured in the Monsters & Mistletoes Book Fair is Betrothed to the Yeti: A Monster Brides Romance.
Here is an excerpt of this Cinderella-retelling set on the icy moon of Enceladus…
“I crept closer than I intended,” I whisper in a husky voice
that I’ve never used. “I’m too short to reach the bottom and…I don’t know how
to keep my face above the water’s surface.”
“I think you
found where you are meant to be,” he replies. “Don’t you agree?
“What are
you asking of me?” I search his face for clues, but his eyes are too alien to
read. Each emotion flits across his features too fast. It’s like traveling to a
foreign village where the customs and dialect hold you in a silent, intangible
prison.
“Stay,” he
pleads. “Be my partner. Let me provide for you. Allow me to learn more about
humans from you. Be the center of my world and the object of my endless
fascination.”
“You want
to learn from me? I know goats, cheese, starvation, and cold…endless cold. How
can I repay you? The warmth alone is worth more than what I can teach you.”
Betrothed to the Yeti is available on Kindle Unlimited in
eBook form as well as in paperback form at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Or you can visit the Monsters & Mistletoe Book Fair! Ho, Ho, Ho!
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