Jenyfer Matthews

Kathleen Coddington has been writing romance on and off for 15 years. Her first book, a paranormal romance, Witch Ball was published in 2007 by Cerridwen Press. Her second book, Mistress of Deception, a historical romance set in Italy in 1501, also from Cerridwen Press, came out in April of 2008. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and the Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers. In 2001 she won second place in New Jersey Romance Writers ‘Put Your Heart In a Book’ contest and in 2004 she placed second in the Golden Rose. While a member of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group she served at various times as VP, secretary and treasurer.

A retired school librarian, Kathleen enjoys reading and travel. Members of two Civil War reenacting units, she and her husband are frequent lecturers at schools and historical societies. She has also published several articles about the fashions of the mid-19th century. She and her husband and three cats live near their son in a tiny town in eastern Pennsylvania where she teaches a novel writing course at the local community college.

From Fallen Angels Reviews
Kathleen Coddington is an amazing story teller. {…} Mistress of Deception had adventure, deception, intrigue, romance and a whole lot of goodness. I can’t wait for the next Kathleen Coddington book to come out. For anyone who loves a good-quality novel than you need to pick up a copy of Mistress of Deception.

Mistress of Deception
Kathleen Coddington

Fleeing her half brother Paolo after his attempt to have her murdered for her dowry, Isabella D’Angelo disguises herself and heads to her uncle in Rome. The journey is full of danger to both her life and her reputation.

Marco Galleazzo is on his way to Rome on an important mission. When he saves Isabella from a group of drunken mercenaries, she begs him to take her with him. Even after he discovers his newly acquired body servant is really a woman, the fear in Isabella’s eyes compels him to help her even as he fights his growing attraction to his mysterious companion.

During the long journey their mutual desire eventually ignites passions neither of them can deny. Isabella longs to tell Marco the truth about herself, but Paolo’s treachery still haunts her. If she doesn’t find the courage to trust Marco, the web of lies she’s created is sure to destroy the love blossoming between them.

And in the middle of that web—Paolo waits.

Excerpt from Mistress of Deception

Something cold and wet brushed Isabella’s cheek, waking her. Swatting sleepily at her cheek, she rolled over and tried to recapture the lingering wisps of a very pleasant dream but the cold, wet touch followed. “Go away Dido,” she murmured. A drop of chilly liquid landed on her ear and trickled down inside.

Irritated, she wiped it away and sat up, expecting to come nose to nose with her pesky mare. Instead, she was nose to scale with two large, dripping fish, dangling from a line held firmly between lean, tanned fingers. She tilted her head back, her gaze moving slowly upward past taut thighs and a muscled torso beneath a black doublet to rest at last on Marco’s face.

“Waking you up so that you can perform your duties is becoming a habit,” he remarked as he dropped the cold fish into her lap.

She stood up, holding the line gingerly between two fingers, her nose wrinkled in distaste. “Where did you get these?”

“While you and my friend over there were sleeping like the dead, I did some exploring.” He pointed over his shoulder. “There’s a stream over there behind those trees. Fortunately, I always carry hooks and line with me when I travel.”

She raised the fish, shuddering at the glassy eyes and thrust them at him. “They’re very nice,” she said with what she hoped was an admiring smile. “You may have them back now.”

He pushed the fish firmly back at her. “I caught them. You clean them.” He handed her his knife. “Better build a fire first. By the time you finish cleaning the fish the coals will be hot enough for you to cook them for dinner. Don’t take too long. I’m starving and I’d wager that when Georgio wakes up he will be too.”

Her mouth fell open. Build a fire? Clean fish? “Signori?” She hesitated not sure how to tell him she hadn’t any idea how to do either.

Marco stared at her an inscrutable expression on his face. “Let me guess. You don’t know how to build a fire.”

She shook her head.

“All right, I’ll build the fire while you clean the fish. I suggest you watch how I do this so that you can do it in the future.” He knelt and began clearing a space for the fire. A few moments later, he sat back on his heels and glanced up at Isabella who still stood motionless, fish in one hand, knife in the other. “I take it, you don’t know how to clean fish either,” he stated, his voice tinged with careful patience. Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug.

“How can you have been raised on a farm and know nothing about cleaning fish?” he demanded as he stood and brushed his hands on his thighs. “Surely your family butchered animals. There must have been the occasional rabbit.”

She shifted uneasily searching for a plausible answer to his questions. “We never ate fish,” she finally mumbled, unable to think of a better explanation.
Marco looked stunned. “Well, what did you eat?”

“Bread, signori. And cheese. When we did have meat my father butchered it. I did mention I sold our farm.” She flashed him an embarrassed glance from beneath her lashes. “Now you know why. I get sick at the sight of blood.”

Marco shook his head. “Well, it’s time you got over that. I’ll build the fire but you, Sandro, are going to clean these fish. I’ll tell you what to do but you’re going to do the work. Understood?”

She nodded. The thought of touching the fish made her stomach roll but she’d do almost anything to distract him from more of his probing questions about her past.

Following his terse directions, she laid the fish on the ground and prepared for the ordeal. Clamping her lips together, she grabbed for one of the fish. After removing the hook, a disgusting task that sent shudders through her, she flipped the fish over. Getting a firm grip on the hilt of Marco’s knife, she jammed it into the fish’s belly and sliced it open. Gray-green guts spilled out and landed by her knee.

She swallowed hard, her gaze riveted on the slimy entrails. Then the smell assailed her. Sweat sprang out on her forehead. Her stomach rolled and bile burned the back of her throat. She tried to stand up but her legs wouldn’t hold her. The black specks swimming before her eyes became a spinning vortex that sucked her down into blackness.

After a time, light began to beat against her eyelids, forcing her to open her eyes. The first thing she saw was Marco’s concerned gray eyes gazing down at her. “What happened?”

“You passed out.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’m beginning to understand why you sold that farm of yours.”

Suddenly she felt his hands loosening the ties on her shirt. In another moment he would see the bindings around her chest and her secret would be revealed. She grabbed his hands. “Stop that.” Her voice slid up an octave. “Leave me be. I’m fine. I’m fine.” Shoving his hands away, she struggled to sit up.

“Easy, Sandro.” He slipped an arm under her shoulder. “If you move too fast, you’ll keel over again. Take a moment to catch your breath.”

She followed his advice and rested her forehead on her bent knees. Her position also allowed her to discretely tie the laces of her shirt. The panicked beating of her heart began to ease as she realized her secret was still safe. Composed once again, she raised her head.

Marco had finished the task of cleaning the fish and was threading them on a long stick. “I haven’t been much help, have I?” she asked with a small sigh.

He glanced up from his work, his fingers slowing as he considered her question. “You have a lot to learn. But I knew that when I agreed to bring you along. You’re a farmer’s son, not a trained body servant, so I can’t get too upset by your blunders.”

She flashed him a grateful smile. “If you tell me how to do it, perhaps I could cook the fish for you, signori.”

Marco shook his head vigorously. “No thank you, Sandro. I’m looking forward to eating these. You might drop them into the fire. Or worse yet, keel over again and fall into the fire yourself. I think it would be best, if you just sit over there, out of the way.”

She nodded meekly and remained seated, watching him arrange the fish over the fire. Acting the part of a servant was turning out to be nearly as troublesome as maintaining her disguise. Still, she was determined to keep up her end of the bargain. She just prayed it didn’t include anymore fish.

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I’ve hesitated to recount the following story because amusing as it is, I have no real way to verify its authenticity. I’ve heard it from a couple of different people, told as an example of local cultural beliefs. The last time was from an American acquaintance who is married to an Egyptian man. She told it firsthand as it happened to her.

The majority of Egyptian are Muslim and all Muslim boys are circumcised when they are born. My friend was in the hospital with her son for his circumcision. After the procedure was finished, a nurse came to her with a specimen jar with a bit of something floating in liquid.

“What’s this?” she asked, as the nurse handed it to her.

“The foreskin,” the nurse answered. “In Egypt, we throw it in the Nile. For luck and long life.”

My acquaintance was fairly horrified but smiled and took it. I think she actually flushed it. (That’s one way to get it to the Nile.)

The population of Egypt is approximately 80 million. Let’s assume that half of the population is male. Let’s further assume that of this half not all the men are Muslim and of course the families of some portion of this half won’t subscribe to this sort of folk wisdom. That still leaves a lot of foreskins to be thrown in the Nile! The fish in the Nile must be loving life!

Yet another reason (aside from various forms of pollution) not to eat anything that comes out of the Nile.

Now do you understand how difficult it would be for me to personally verify this story?

On another topic…

The Friday Feature will continue all summer! Don’t forget to stop by this weekend when author Kathleen Coddington is here with her historical romance, Mistress of Deception.

My husband brought home a bag of postcards from work a while ago. They’d been donated to the library but the library had no use for them – there aren’t rare or collectible. I looked through the bag eagerly. I love old postcards.

This bag was a treasure. Most aren’t dated, but are probably from within the last twenty years or so. I was happy to discover there were duplicates of many of my favorites. What fun it will be to finally send these on their way somewhere!

I picked out a few of my favorites to share with you. It seemed fitting as I’m traveling now and will likely be sending a few postcards myself. Not sure if I’ll use these this time…I’m tempted to frame some of them. I only wish I could see the original art work from which these were produced.

(Click on any of the images below to see a larger version.)

“Old Cairo” by Camilia El Madani
pastel on paper

Sabil-kuttab of Ruqayya Duda, 1761
from Robert Hay’s Illustrations of Cairo

Minarets of El Monayyad Mosque, Bab Zuweilah, Cairo
by Owen B. Carter

Temple of Karnak

The Nile and Luxor Temple


These last three I liked because they were so bright and cheerful. I can’t read the writing on the backs of the cards but I assume they are from Pakistan. There were groupings of cards from different places and these two seemed to fit best with the Pakistan group. (Please correct me if I’m wrong!)



(This one has a dull gold metallic background)





This last one made me smile. We saw many a large truck in the United Arab Emirates decorated in a similar way, driven by Pakistani drivers…

CANDACE SAMS (also writing as C. S. Chatterly) graduated from Texas A&M University with a BS in agriculture. She worked as a police officer with the State of Texas, the San Diego Police Department, and in a teaching capacity for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. Candace is the senior woman on the US Kung Fu Team (three black belts), and has been awarded the Medal of Putien and the Statue of Tao by the Chinese Martial Arts Confederation in Quanzhou, China. She holds international martial arts titles, and is an award-winning fiction author. Contact her through her web site.

Satyr
~ Sixth Book in the Tales of the Order series ~
by Candace Sams

Since his wife died, Soland Leigh’s daughter Autumn has been his whole world. Now, though, the time has come for him to step up and behave like the leader of the Satyrs that he is. The Order (of magical creatures) has acquired additional acreage next to their forest and it’s up to Soland to make the new land habitable.

The only person Kyndall Taylor trusts is Lady Anna, her elderly employer. But lately Anna’s behavior has been strange—she has gifted all her land to a strange woman called Shayla and replaced her staff with a steady stream of odd people from deep in the forest. One such character is Soland. When Kyndall is assigned to care for Autumn while Soland works on the land, the two adults find common ground—and a growing mutual attraction. But Soland is very secretive, too…and the Sorceress seems to have plans of her own

Satyr
Excerpt

As Kyndall kept walking and considering her fate, the sun slipped farther into the horizon. The sound of a car engine halted her progress. Two headlights could be seen coming up the drive. And she knew from past experience exactly to whom the old truck belonged.

“Oh great!” she muttered to herself. “Not them again.” The truck came to a shuttering halt about forty feet in front of her. Two fat, balding men got out of the cab and one who was even larger jumped out of the bed. Since it was far too late to hide in the brush or obscure herself some other way, Kyndall stood her ground. Bullies were no new experience. She’d dealt with them all her life.

“Well, well. Fancy seein’ the lovely Ms. Taylor out for a nice evenin’ walk. Eh, m’ lads?”

Kyndall pasted on her fiercest expression, one she’d been told could melt steel. “What do you want, Ed? The constable has told you to stay off Lady Dunnemore’s land.”

“We ain’t hurtin’ nothin’. Just out for a bit of a drive. Lady Dunnemore wouldn’t begrudge some folks from town a small thing like that, now would she?”

She knew the men were circling her. Ed and his brothers were nothing but cowards. But she also knew she could handle it. She’d dealt with much worse. “Something tells me you aren’t out for just a drive, Ed.”

“Ohhhh, you ‘ear that, m’ lads? Ms. Taylor don’t think we’re out drivin’.” Ed heard his brothers laugh and he continued. “It’s a shame a lovely piece like you ‘as got nothin’ better to do than look after an old woman and walk up and down roads at night. All by ‘erself.” He paused to move closer. “Now if you was to be more friendly like, m’ brothers and me could show you a better time than what you gets ‘ere.”

“Why do I doubt that?” Kyndall snorted and looked the men up and down in the most arrogant fashion she could muster. “You can’t even spell what you want to do.”

“Now don’t be that way, m’ pretty. Once we get better acquainted, you’d like me an’ my brothers right well. In fact, you could call it a bit o’ diplomacy. Brits and Americans. Good old chums, we are.” He moved very close to her, picked up a strand of long red-brown hair and stroked it with his thumb.

Kyndall immediately slapped his hand away with one hand, then backhanded him in the face with the other. “Touch me again, and I’ll break your ignorant neck.”

A sound from the back of the truck caught Kyndall’s attention. Something was thrashing about as though it was unused to being where it was. Before Ed could recover or move to block her way, Kyndall walked past him to the bed of the pickup. She threw a tarp off an old wire cage and looked inside.

“You son of a bitch!” She immediately opened the door to the cage and let the large hare inside jump from its confinement and straight to freedom. It ran into the nearby woods as fast as its paws could move it. Kyndall immediately stalked back to where Ed stood, still rubbing his face. His brothers were laughing uproariously at his expense. “Don’t you ever catch another animal on Dunnemore land again, or I’ll cut your balls off!” She pushed him backward to make her point then walked past him.

Angered by the threat to his masculinity and of being spoken to in such a way by a woman, Ed grabbed her arm as she started to walk away. He opened his mouth to speak, but never saw the very large fist hurtling toward the middle of his face. He landed on his back a good ten feet away, while his brothers backed up and scrambled to help their sibling off the ground.

Soland planted his feet firmly, ready for a counterattack. “You’re on land that doesn’t belong to you. And the woman has already told you once to keep your hands off her.” He ground his teeth, clenched his fists and hoped the idiot would get up and try something. It had been a long time since he’d fought anyone other than for sport. And beating an outsider would please him no end. Especially a poacher. As far as he was concerned, they were among the lowest life forms on Earth. His blood boiled at the thought of innocent animals being frightened and trapped by men who didn’t give a damn about the pain the creature would suffer before death. Poachers often used traps that were as cruel as anything he’d ever seen. But that was the way of outsiders.

Ed backed up, blood spewing from his injured nose. “You’ll ‘ear from us again,” he promised as his brothers hauled him toward the truck. “It ain’t over.”

Kyndall watched as the truck backed up, turned in the narrow road and headed away at a fast clip. She expelled a deep breath and turned to face her unwanted ally. “Thanks for the help, but I can take care of…” she stopped. Whatever she might have said floated off to infinity, never to be uttered. Before her was the largest man she’d ever seen in her life. At least six feet, six inches tall, he had shoulders as wide as the Hoover Dam, a narrow waist and long brown hair that had been tied back and fell over one shoulder to the middle of his chest. Looking him over quickly, she saw hands that could have easily broken Ed’s neck with a simple snap. His blue cambric work shirt, jeans and hiking boots hugged his massive body like sandwich wrap. There wasn’t much of his defined musculature that was left to the imagination. And nothing she could have imagined would have been more ruggedly, ungodly handsome.

Soland arched one brow and looked the tall, slender woman up and down. In the evening sunset, her eyes were an unholy aqua color. They almost glowed in the evening light. Straight auburn hair fell from a side part to just below her shoulders. She had a face very like the models he’d seen in magazine ads. Her high cheekbones, full lips and strikingly fair complexion were all flawless. It was a countenance that could turn a man inside out with desire. And she had guts but absolutely no sense. “You have a nice backhand, woman. But you might want to be careful when you choose to use it.”

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One of the things I think is an important part of motherhood is teaching your children the skills they will need to be independent, well-adjusted, functional adults one day. You know, little things like how to do laundry and basic cooking skills. My daughter is only just shy of 8 and my son is 5 but you can never start too early with these things – especially since they still think this stuff is fun.

(And if I get a little cheap domestic help during the course of their training, who can blame me? They are legal citizens and besides — I MADE them.)

I recently started paying my daughter to do a few simple things : make her bed in the morning, put her dirty clothes in the hamper and put her shoes away. Some may call the allowance she earns a bribe, but I prefer to think of it as part two of the life lesson – money management. With the pittance she makes she’s getting a bonus lesson of delayed gratification in the process.

She should be thanking me for all this wisdom.

My son has more of an affinity for the kitchen. I think it’s all the buttons and knobs and potential for noise. What is it about men and gadgets? Even at his tender age, he’s mastered the microwave and likes to turn the knob on the food processor (with proper supervision of course!).

One lesson that has been difficult for the little man to grasp is that he doesn’t actually need to take a new cup every time he wants a drink of water. I’ve tried to explain to him that he can simply keep the same cup and use it again and he looks at me in puzzlement and says, “huh?” Maybe if I told him he could store it in the microwave between uses it would sink in better?

Neither one of them can seem to remember to flush the toilet consistently either, but I digress…

The other lesson my son found a bit above his head was making ice. What is it about ice that confounds so many people? It’s a simple recipe : fill tray with water and put in freezer. I’m going to keep working on that one though. Honestly, how many of you out there wish your mother-in-law had driven that (or any of these) lesson(s) home?

Stop by over the weekend and say hello to fellow author Candace Sams, here with an excerpt of her book Satyr. I’m going to sneak away on Saturday to embark on my summer “vacation” (truly, I won’t get any rest until school starts again!), but never fear! I’ll be popping in from time to time and the Friday Features will continue all summer.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Do you have an inner voice? One that talks to you and gives you glimpses of what will happen next? I’m not claiming psychic power – nothing as powerful as that. What would you the small-time flashes I experience? Intuition?

My voice never tells me anything truly useful like a lottery number. But often someone will spring to mind and I’ll think, “hmmm…I haven’t heard from X in a while, I should call/email them” and within minutes that person will either call or pop into my inbox.

I took my children to a July 4th party sponsored by the US Embassy in Cairo over the weekend. Upon entering the grounds, everyone was assigned a wristband – for security reasons and also a door prize. During the first round of door prizes awarded, they called out each prize before they called the winning number. One prize up for grabs was a year’s membership to a local Curves gym. I thought to myself “just what I need – if I won that I’d never have an excuse not to exercise again!”

Who do you think won that prize??(!!)

Sometimes I get sudden flashes of accidents that might occur. Like a few months ago when I was in the kitchen at dinner time chopping ears of corn in half. I thought to myself, “self, you better be careful or you’ll cut off your finger”. I apparently didn’t heed my own warning because moments later I chopped a significant chunk off the end of my index finger – and I have the scar to prove it.

I’m getting better about heeding the flashes of insight as they occur – particularly when they relate to an injury that might befall my children. What about you guys? I don’t often hear men claiming flashes of insight like these – is it really just a woman thing?

I finished Gone with the Wind over the weekend. What can I say except WOW.

What. A. Great. Book.

I’m not going to say that I didn’t still get tripped up by a few technical glitches here and there, but once things got going, I just couldn’t put the book down. Scarlett is such a wonderful anti-hero. She is awful and selfish and rude to everyone around her, has no insight into human nature at all – hers or anyone else’s – and yet at the end I was still rooting for her to get Rhett back. It’s not easy to create a character like that.

Normally when I finish a book that I really enjoy, I immediately turn back to page one and start over again. This book is too long and I have too many other things on my TBR pile at the moment for me to start over with Gone with the Wind.

But it definitely has a place on my keeper shelf.

To the Discerning Reader Who Has Sought Out This Website,

I believe you were expecting to read correspondence from Kate Dolan, who writes Regency romances as well as other books that are not worth mentioning.

However, while she was supposed to be preparing this message, she was actually on holiday, traveling to a region of the southern United States known as Louisiana, where she consumed entirely too many intoxicating beverages. This was a family affair from what I understand, though whether it is Kate who is a bad influence on her family or the other way around is not clear. In any event, I believe she is in no condition to be communicating with the public. Therefore, I have decided to step in and take her place.

My name is Helen Wright. I can see you raise an eyebrow, so do not deny it. I fully realize it is improper for a young lady to introduce herself to strangers, but I must admit that I don’t care a whit.

And to be honest, no one else will care, since I am never invited out. I believe most people are afraid of me because I care more for science than appearances. My friend Sophie is concerned that I might set my tucker aflame with one of my combustion experiments. Or so she says. I think she wants me to stop setting fires in my room because of the smell.

Or was it the smell of mold she objected to? I cannot remember. I keep telling her there is much to be learned, but I see from the disapproval in her eyes that she does not believe me.

She is reading this over my shoulder and says she does believe me and that it is the maids, and not her, who keeps throwing out my collection of moldy toast rinds.

I tell her to go back to writing to her sweetheart and she makes a face at me because the letter she writes is not to him but to her aunt. I believe she and her sweetheart are after having a row about something he either did or did not say to her satisfaction. The two of them are forever arguing over something but I suspect they will marry each other anyway, just to spite Sophie’s parents.

Oh, dear. Sophie’s mother has just come to inform us that we must leave off with our correspondence and tell our maids what to pack for a journey to the country.
It seems that Sophie was not quick enough with her letter, and her aunt has already ceased to be among those capable of reading letters.

That is not the reason we travel to the country, of course. But Mrs. Bayles had been waiting on her sister during her illness, and now that the esteemed aunt has finally died, after rehearsing for the occasion so many times, Mrs. Bayles is back home and ready to set out.

I believe we travel to the home of some friends that nobody seems to know very well to meet a suitor whom nobody knows at all. He’s a baronet, so the family wishes to attach one of their daughters to him before he changes his mind. I do not think Sophie will be too amenable…

________________

Helen Wright is the frustrated “bridesmaid” (friend or sister of the heroine and not likely to get her own book) of the Cerridwen Cotillion Regency romances A Certain Want of Reason and The Appearance of Impropriety by Kate Dolan. Although Helen has complained that she never gets to tell a story from her point of view, the author believes that Helen would not actually enjoy being a romance heroine, as it might involve kissing a young man.

The Appearance of Impropriety
by
Kate Dolan

Blurb

When Sophie Bayles inadvertently ruins a young man’s chance for employment, she sets out to find him a new position. Even though he doesn’t want her to.

With the war over, Lieutenant Heyward Elliott needs work. The job hunt is made no easier by the meddling of Sophie, who is all smiles and helpfulness one minute and snobby and argumentative the next. Complicating matters is her constant companion Helen, a strange young lady with a propensity to drop eggs on people in the name of science.

Sophie tries to do the right thing, but gets all the wrong results. Her attempts to find employment for Lieutenant Elliott produce one disaster after another, until he finally orders her never to help him again. But when he is arrested on false charges, she and Helen at last see a way to even the score, by clearing his name and reputation.

Unless they lose their own in the process…

The Appearance of Impropriety

Excerpt:

“Did that make it better or worse?” Helen asked as they settled back against the cold seats of the carriage. The glass in the lantern rattled and the flame of the candle jerked as the coach started forward.

“I’m sorry?” Sophie had no idea what she was talking about. Well, actually, if Helen was thinking about the same thing that she was, then she knew exactly what Helen was talking about. But Helen was never thinking the same thing as anyone else.

She leaned forward, her breath leaving a faint cloud that hung between them. “Your fascination with Lieutenant Elliott. Has it increased now or was the kiss sufficient to satisfy your curiosity?”

“Helen! Y-you said you would not tell anyone.”

“And so I will not. I am merely asking you a question.”

“Yes.”

“That response was not specific enough to sufficiently answer the question.”

“I know.”

Helen sat back in her seat with a sigh of exasperation, her lips drawn together in a thin line. “You must decide, Sophie. Either we help the lieutenant tonight or you put him from your mind and let him get on with his life without you.”

“You make it sound as if I have a negative effect on his life. Well, I suppose I have in the past, but I can improve things for him, I know I can.”

Helen shook her head. “I saw the look on his face when we left. You can make things much worse for him.”

“Oh no, it was nothing. A momentary indiscretion. The heat in the room.”

“It was freezing in there.”

“That’s just it. The lack of heat forced us to do something that we would not have otherwise… It was a momentary lapse of reason.”

“An experiment of sorts?”

“Exactly.”

“The man is not a toast rind, Sophie. Do not repeat that experiment again.”

Sophie squirmed in her seat. Why did Helen suddenly feel the need to defend the lieutenant? After all, it was her modesty that had been compromised.

Or was it? She could not really be certain who had moved first. He was so close and then it just happened, like a storm cloud spilling over with rain. Something that could not be stopped.

Why would it be so terrible to try it again? Helen always repeated her experiments numerous times. And she was fairly certain her own experiment had been much more enjoyable.

Was it indeed just an experiment? Or did she want to kiss the man because she was falling in love with him? And what good would it do to love a man should could never marry?

She started to squirm in her seat again. “Ahem. Helen, why did you say we must help the lieutenant tonight? Surely we will need time to plan what we intend to do.”

“So you’ve decided then?” Helen had a warning look in her eyes. “The lieutenant will not simply be an experiment for you? A charitable project?”

“Y-yes, of course.” The hairs on the back of her neck pricked up. What was Helen suggesting? That in order to help the man she needed to make some sort of commitment to him? Were not finding him employment or clearing his name of false charges admirable enough goals on their own? Any sort of personal commitment—the word “engagement” screamed through her mind—was really out of the question. It was inconceivable. His station was so far below hers that she had not even considered the matter.

Not seriously, anyway.

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The mango tree at the neighborhood recreational facility is heavy with fruit. If you look closely, you can see the first blush of red on them. There are tables arranged in the shade the tree provides, but these days you sit there at your own risk.

Ever been hit in the head by a mango?

I have to say that though my children dearly love mangoes, I’ve never really learned how to deal with them. I’ve bought them a time or two and never been able to satisfactorily serve them. I see other people serve them in cubes or slices. I think I wait until they are too ripe. Mine always come out as mush.

Instead, I’ve always bought mango juice. It’s pretty thick stuff on its own, often pouring with large chunks. I like to put it in a blender with some orange juice to thin it down a bit. Or freeze it in an ice tray and use it as thickener for a smoothie.

But in light of the bumper crop before me, I think I figure out how to deal with them. They are quite tempting, aren’t they?

Please stop by this weekend and say hello to author Kate Dolan who will be here this weekend with her historical romance The Appearance of Impropriety. You won’t want to miss the excerpt – it sounds wonderful!