In my romantic suspense novel, Triptych, Miranda,
Honor and Sybil Cabot live in a Queen-Anne style mansion overlooking the
Potomac River. The mighty Potomac, the fourth largest river on the east coast,
runs 383 miles from Fairfax Stone, WV to Point Lookout, MD where it flows into
the Chesapeake Bay, the “Mother of Waters.”
Along its shores sit some of the most historic and beautiful
cities in the United States—Washington DC being the star. Along its banks you
can find the colonial cities of Georgetown and Alexandria, as well as George
Washington’s home, Mount Vernon. North of the city lies the Great Falls.
Miranda and her sisters live just below Great Falls, in the
bend where the Three Sisters, tiny rocky islets in the middle of the river,
lie. The rocks are the stuff of much legend, usually involving drownings and
tragic endings. In this excerpt, Miranda tells the story of the three Indian
maidens.
Triptych, by M. S.
Spencer
Ebook 67,300 words;
Print 213 pp.
Romantic
suspense/Adventure
M/F, 2 flames
Blurb:
Take lost masterpieces, brilliant inventors, and stolen
prototypes. Add the Three Sisters, Indian spirits who guard the Potomac River.
Stir in three sisters and their lovers. Result? Jealousy, sex, genius, larceny
and love. Who will end up with whom, and will the Three Sisters take another
life as the legend demands?
Buy Links:
Triptych is available
in both eBook and Print-on-Demand.
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/591713
AllRomanceEBooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-triptych-1923917-149.html
Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/5846670
Excerpt (G): The
Three Sisters
The Three Sisters. Miranda sat on an old
wrought iron bench by the flower garden and gazed down at them. So many stories
had settled on the three islets that rise some ten feet above the water at a
bend in the river. There was the one about the three Catholic nuns who drowned.
I never liked that version. Sybil’s favorite came from the local
Necostin Indian tribe, because, she said, it reminded her of their own father,
the Great White Hunter. Foolish girl. She often asked Miranda to tell it
on long summer evenings as they tended the fire pit on the patio.
“Come on, sister mine. Tell it again. You
do it so beautifully.”
Miranda, as usual, would oblige. “Long
ago, an Indian maiden fell in love with a white settler, but the chief, her
father, refused to allow their union. One night she made up her mind to defy
him and swim across the river to meet her lover. As she neared the middle of
the channel, her foot caught in one of the jagged rock fissures that rise from
the bottom. Her two sisters swam out to save her, but a great storm blew up.
The fierce wind gusted across the water, summoning a huge wave that roared down
from the canyons. It pulled all three sisters under, where they drowned. But—”
“This is the best part,” Sybil always
interrupted at this point.
“—but, the Great Spirit had mercy upon
them, and transformed them into the three rocky islets we know as the Three
Sisters.” Here she would lower her voice dramatically. “There are some who
claim that late at night, when the rumbling noises of the city wane, you can
hear their lonely moans wafting across the still waters. Others believe that,
to avenge their deaths, they will pull under and drown any man who tries to
cross the river there.”
Three
sad sisters, three lonely sisters. Just like us. Miranda rose from the
bench, picked up one of Sybil’s pebbles, and threw it hard over the cliff.
Moping wouldn’t help her move on.
About the Author
Although
she has lived or traveled in every continent except Antarctica and Australia
(bucket list), M. S. Spencer has spent the last thirty years mostly in
Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant, speechwriter,
editor, birdwatcher, kayaker, policy wonk, non-profit director and parent. She
has two fabulous grown children, one fabulous grandchild, and currently divides
her time between the Gulf coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine.
Contacts
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Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/msspencerauthor/
About.me: http://about.me/msspencerauthor
Tsu.co : http://www.tsu.co/msspencerauthor
Linked in: www.linkedin.com/in/msspencerauthor
AUTHOR
PAGES:
I
Heart Book Publishing:
Amazon
Author Page:
GoodReads:http://www.goodreads.com/msspencer
Thanks for having Miranda and the 3 Sisters here today, Tracey. I hope your readers enjoy the excerpt and hunger for more! M. S.
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