Xcerpt or excerpt as it’s more commonly spelled (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) is for a snippet from Tidal Whispers, the paranormal romance anthology coming in early June from J Taylor Publishing.

Here’s the overall skinny on the entire anthology:

Tidal Whispers

by Jocelyn Adams, Claire Gillian, Julie Reece, Kelly Said
Release Date: June 4, 2012
Target Reader: Adult
Keywords: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Romance, Romantic, Urban Fantasy

Description

Heart’s Desire by Julie Reece
After a terrible accident, Tessa returns to her family beach house to heal. She doesn’t expect to see her first summer crush from seven years before. Cameron, though, reappears and ignites a relationship that’s far more intense than ever before. The only problem? Summer is once again coming to an end, and this time, Tessa will have to decide whether to choose life with Cameron or to never see him again.

The Sweetest Song by Claire Gillian
Under Poseidon’s rule, Circe is the most destructive siren in the Pacific ocean, her songs luring ships and their crew to their watery graves. Not Otis, the best halibut fisherman in the Alaskan waters. His ship, the Calypso, has avoided disaster each time Circe set her sights on him.

Given one last chance to deliver Otis to Davy Jones’ locker, Circe takes to land to waylay the handsome captain. Instead, it may be Otis himself who hooks the Siren.

Pearl of Pau’maa by Kelly Said
Should Miki choose to wed the local wealthy boy she doesn’t love, her stomach will stop grumbling. Her soul, however, will suffocate. With one last opportunity before she must concede, she sneaks off for a final dive to her hidden crate at the bottom of the seabed. What waits for her is more than a captured lobster. It’s a treasure she cannot claim without great sacrifice or true love.

The Undergarden by Jocelyn Adams
Nixie, a water sprite, lives a solitary existence as she struggles to understand the strange world beyond her waters.  When she meets one of the pink ones, a curious boy named Wyatt, their friendship blooms into a love that can exist only upon the sands that divide his solid ground from her underwater paradise. Some love, though, once born, cannot be undone, even in the face of death.

And here’s the Xcerpt from The Sweetest Song, my short story:

“Three, Circe …” Poseidon, God of the Sea, trailed off with an exaggerated sigh, his fleshy lips in a moue of implacable disappointment. “Three times you have failed to shipwreck the Calypso.” He waved the same number of chubby fingers in the air, an oversized ring on the middle one. “Three! What have you to say in your defense this time?”

Circe shifted from foot to foot on the tiny reef where she stood—a jagged-edged perch from which she sang songs meant to lure ships to their hull-splitting doom.

A part of her couldn’t help but think Poseidon had been waiting for the first opportunity to reel her in. Despite being required to shipwreck more than any other siren in the Pacific—a quota Poseidon upped every year—she had managed to avoid his lascivious clutches. She feared she had reached the end of her tether.

She swung her hip-length mane of ebony hair over one shoulder before bowing her head in penitence. He was right, though. The commercial longliner should not have slipped away from her thrice.

Poseidon shook his head. “You used to be the best, but your botched attempts to shipwreck the Calypso make us all look bad. And, my dear, I really cannot have that. As you know, I have a reputation to uphold.” He bent down to consult with his accountant—a one-eyed merman named Cyrus and the biggest sycophant in the sea.
[…]

I hope that encourages you to want to read more.  Excerpts from my three co-authors’ stories can be found on J Taylor’s blog. All magnificent stories that I’m proud to nestle in between.

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And…in other news, I’m a guest on Doctor’s Notes blog today! Check it out. <<-Click button.

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