I’m not ready. I’ll be XX 1/2 on October 5 (that was an important day when I was younger – turning a 1/2 year older – not so much anymore). And no, the first two numbers don’t count!

I do have some exciting stuff coming up in October. Since it’s Halloween month, I’m putting my ghost story, Wraith’s Heart, on sale for $.99 from October 1-7. 

I’ve also combined all of my Christmas stories into one volume, A Collection of Christmas Stories, and it’s available in paper to fill someone’s stocking and also an eBook at Kindle. Check out the cover, my amazing cover designer, Robert, put all kinds of Easter eggs around it for you to find.

Don’t get after me for planning for Christmas already. It’s the secretary in me, needing to be prepared for whatever’s coming up (I was never a Boy Scout). Also helps with paying the bills . . . Just sayin’ . . .

Actually Fall is my favorite time of year, so I’m juiced. The heat has finally broken and my favorite colors start decorating the mountains near me. Need to plan at least a day trip up to check it out.

Also this October on the 13th is the Heart of the Carolina Annual All Day Conference and this year we’ve got Sabrina Jeffries and Sarra Cannon coming to speak. It’s for writers of any genre or writer-wanna-bes. Go here for more details, as I write this there’s still a little room, so come on down.  Also on October 20, I’ll be selling and signing books at the Guilford College United Methodist Church’s bazaar. Stop by and say hi!

The third and final volume of The Melting Series is now available. The Cohesion is back today with a new cover and re-edited with new content.  

Buy links are here – Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd

Here’s an excerpt-

Rachel Gerhart lay in her bed. Morning was still distant and she’d regret lying here awake when dawn arrived, but she couldn’t sleep.

They were coming—she could feel them. They had left the camp in Tennessee. Sidwas coming. No one knew how long the trip from Tennessee would take or how the roads had held up during the winter, but they were on their way.

She’d never admitted she was having the dreams. David and Tim talked about the ability so matter-of-factly, like what they were feeling was normal or something. How could something like this be normal? How could she see into anyone else’s dreams? But she did.

Amanda thought the ability was a leftover from the virus that had killed everyone after the glaciers in Alaska had melted. She thought Rachel’s brain chemistry had been altered when she was merely a child by a form of the virus that had killed her parents. If she was right and Rachel had always done this, which would explain a lot of her problems in the myriad foster homes she’d survived. She had known what people were thinking sometimes, how they felt. She’d been too young and stupid to hide what she was doing at first, but she’d finally caught on. No wonder her foster parents had been uneasy around her. This dream thing was new though.

Keeping away from people had always helped. Being alone was better than being with most of the people she’d known. But she’d been able to sense when people wanted to harm her from the beginning and that had been a good thing. A foster father who wanted more, foster mothers who only wanted the money. Oh, there were decent ones too, but she’d been shifted around too much to rely on them. She’d made herself as invisible as possible at school. Rachel had worked hard at that.

Maintaining a solid B had kept her under everyone’s radar. If she had occasionally dipped into someone else’s thoughts on some exams, it was never to get an outstanding grade. She understood the question better after those little dips anyway. The students were better teachers than the teachers in a lot of cases.

Staying invisible had been harder as she’d grown and her body had changed. She’d tried to wear clothes that did not enhance things, but there wasn’t money for new wardrobes and things got tight. And people noticed redheads. She stayed as plain as she could. At least she had been able to know for certain that the jocks and popular kids hadn’t really cared about her as a person and not fallen for their shit. No, alone had always been better.

So why were visits to Sid’s dreams so important to her?

The whole series is back – if you liked Nora Roberts’ Year One– check this out!

Hope you enjoy!!

I’m happy to announce that The Progression is now available again! It has a lovely new cover by Robert Steele and has been re-edited. The Infection (Book One) came back out May 1 of this year and I’m hoping to get The Cohesion (Book Three) out before Christmas. I’ll have a cover reveal soon!

The Infection is on sale for $.99 to get you ready for The Progression, August 1-5, so check it out!

August is a good month for writing for me – it’s the book birthday for Mac’s Family, Red Shoes and Small Changes. Maybe it’s the heat because I don’t go outside when it’s that hot and therefore get more done.

Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd

Excerpt –

Meg Adams left the meeting with a profound sense of depression. She hadn’t spent much time with Dr. Sutton, Amanda, as things got busier and none with her partner, David Morrow, but to know they had really left, escaped, along with Joe Dula who had worked here long before her, made all of the hardships more real. She straightened her shoulders and took a steadying breath.

She would handle this too, she had no choice, but she would miss Amanda’s friendship and support. She’d been glad to be here at the CDC when the pandemic broke out. She’d accepted the safety of the place, the security of the vaccine. Amanda had been the only doctor to really talk to her and the staff, explaining things to them as if they too were important to the project. Meg had listened to Amanda in several meetings, her passionate attempts to get some relief for Meg’s group falling short. Would anyone speak up for them now? Would they listen to her?

It was almost funny, she had been the office manager, not head of facilities, and she knew nothing about plumbing except to stop her toilet from running at what used to be her apartment. Now she supervised such a variety of skills it was a joke. Goodness knew she understood responsibility. She’d had to take charge for as long as she could remember, but this . . . Fortunately her group didn’t need a lot of hands on from her. They understood what was really happening and kept at it.

But for how long?

It wasn’t like a paycheck meant anything anymore. There was nothing to buy. Food and shelter were all that mattered, despite what the officials said. Those two items were about the only things that kept people here for now.

The powerful men that had come down from DC were taking over. She supposed that was what they did best, but they would have been more help outside of meetings. Connor Nash, from South Carolina was troubling, though she couldn’t put her finger on why exactly. She knew nothing about his background or politics but something about him scared her. Looking into his eyes had been like looking into the eyes of the shark at the aquarium, empty, and somehow malevolent. He had his little entourage of fellow congressmen, Leonard Burton and Elsworth Keithley and their aides. They were about the same age and thought alike. There was trouble coming and Meg couldn’t see a way to stop it, because she couldn’t see what it would be.

A movement caused her to look down the hall. She brushed her curly dark hair out of her face to get a better look. A man in military fatigues observed her. He had the short military cut to his dark hair but at this distance she could make out few details. He did look muscular, strong. Meg’s lungs refused to function for an instant. There was no one else around. She was vulnerable. Had she seen him before? As her breath returned she felt herself calm, his stance wasn’t menacing as much as protective. Or was she naive? Who was he?

HEAVEN-SENT WARRIOR by Nancy Lee Badger  

Donna Steele was with me last July when I decided to pitch a story to an editor from Soul Mate Publishing. Donna and I drove from North Carolina to Orlando, Florida to attend the Romance Writers of America annual conference. I brought with me a story I had written many years before. I never published it because it differed from my other published novels. I am known for Scottish characters or shape-shifting Scottish dragons.

However, this character screamed to be brought to life, and a French hero waking up inside a French sculptor’s statue made sense. I reworked my heroine. She is American, and of Scottish descent and is actually half Fae. Heaven-sent Warrior, is a full-length paranormal romance set in present-day North Carolina. I am working on the second book in my Warriors in Bronze series for Soul Mate Publishing. Heaven-sent Highlanderwill also be released later this year.

Book Blurb for Heaven-sent Warrior

Henrí Chevalier’s last memory, before stumbling naked into a museum’s moonlit garden, was Auguste Rodin and his dusty Paris studio in 1886. To escape his broken heart, Henrí volunteered to sleep inside a statue until needed. Expecting to die, he discovers he must learn to use the unexpected powers Heaven has given him. Without them he will fail his mission against otherworldly creatures, such as demons and faeries.

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Kenzie Mackintosh, a dedicated art museum’s curator, spies a naked man hiding among bronze statues. A quick glance ignites desire within her, but she is too tied-up in work to act on it. Unaware of her fae heritage, their relationship heats up as he disrupts her job. While Henrí tries to process modern buildings, cars, and a broken elevator, a demon attacks and forces Henrí and Kenzie to enlist the aid of her powerful fae relatives. When the demon possesses the body of her ex-lover and threatens to kill him, then use her to take over the world, Henrí and Kenzie must learn to trust each other, even if Kenzie’s death might be the only answer to the world’s salvation.

Excerpt

“A demon in first phase is basically fog. A mist. The knocking on your door was caused by something solid, like a body. A body the demon must have stolen. My understanding of the time line is flawed. Neither of us shall sleep well tonight, since he must have escaped the reflecting pool hours before I awoke from my—”

“My reflecting pool?” Kenzie’s mind raced. Mist? A stolen body? The story line Henrí spouted didn’t make sense, except . . . she sniffed the air.

“What is wrong, Kenzie?”

“Warren’s aftershave. How odd to smell it now.”

“Warren? That man who interrupted our intimate meal?” Henrí’s sly grin nearly pushed her thoughts in another direction entirely.

“Right, Warren Haskell.”

Henrí turned away and tucked his shirt into the waistband of his jeans, then hurried to the door, turned the lock, and walked out. He darted down the stairs, and his footsteps faded.

Unwilling to see what lay at the bottom of the stairs, in case it was Warren, Kenzie cleaned off their plates and set them in the sink. She started to finish the last of her milk, but emptied it and Henrí’s glass down the drain, glad she’d had no wine to share. They would both need their wits tonight. Henrí’s voice, chanting something in French, wafted up the stairs.

“This is a dream, or a nightmare,” she mumbled.

Find all Buy Links here: https://nancyleebadger.blogspot.com/p/books.html

Stop by my blog for a chance to WIN one of my HEAVEN-SENT WARRIOR…Clay, Candy & Love Notes(no purchase necessary) https://nancyleebadger.blogspot.com/p/contests.html

More About The Author  

Nancy Lee Badgergrew up in Huntington on New York’s Long Island. After attending Plymouth State, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Art Education and met and married her college sweetheart. They raised two handsome sons in New Hampshire, where Nancy scoured the countryside for rusty old milk cans. She cleaned them and painted them as beautiful porch or living room decorations. She also created lap quilts to keep her family and friends warm during bitter cold winters. When the children had left the nest, and shoveling show became a chore, she retired from her satisfying job as a 9-1-1 Emergency Medical Dispatcher and moved with her husband to North Carolina, where she writes full-time

Nancy is a member of Romance Writers of America, Heart of Carolina Romance Writers, Fantasy-Futuristic & Paranormal Romance Writers, and the Triangle Association of Freelancers. She loves to travel and attend Scottish Highland Games and is never far from her laptop. She finds story ideas in the most unusual places. Connect with Nancy here:

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