Series: Chammont Point #1
Publication date: April 27th, 2021
Synopsis:
Marketing executive and mother of two, Jade Kelly can now add cancer survivor to her list of successes. But while her life looks good on paper, four months out of treatment, Jade realizes she hardly knows her college-age children and she and her husband Nick are little more than housemates.
Determined to start over, Jade schedules a family vacation to a lakefront cabin. When her kids bail and Nick stays home to handle a last minute work crisis, Jade heads to Chammont Point alone, determined to dust herself off and figure out what to do with the rest of her life.
While she's away, the life she thought she had unravels. Secrets, lies, and old wounds drive Jade into new adventures and new relationships. With the help of family and new found friends, Jade learns starting over sometimes means finding a brand new restarting point.
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Excerpt
Jade walked to the banister and rested her hands on the cracked and weathered wood. There wasn't a single car horn or airplane or siren to be heard. Birds chirped happily, bugs buzzed, and if she listened closely, she could hear the faint sound of water lapping the shore.
Hoping to get a better look at the lake in the distance, she leaned forward and bent at the waist to see under the branches. Her nice, relaxing, meditative breath came to a startling end at the sound of cracking wood. A scream of surprise surged from Jade and echoed around the cove as the banister gave way, sending her hurtling toward the ground.
Like some kind of surreal survival instinct kicking in, her mind flashed to those action movies her sons watched so often. In the seconds between falling through the banister and crashing to the patchy grass below, she decided the only way to come out of this unscathed was to do one of those rolling landing things she'd seen Angelina Jolie do a thousand times on-screen.
Jade managed to get her hands and feet in place, expecting to flip over and somehow land in a pre-sprint pose that would magically absorb the pain. If she were a stunt double in Hollywood, she might have nailed it. Instead, she landed hard, twisting her left ankle and bashing her face into the patchy grass. Since she didn't roll, or even come close to it, her chest smashed into the ground as hard as her cheek had. The oxygen pushed from her lungs in a painful rush, leaving her in a gasp, and her left ankle instantly started to throb.
She lay there, too stunned to move, trying to figure out exactly where she'd gone wrong with her landing and if anything had been seriously damaged in the process. Damn it. This hadn't exactly been a stellar start to her vacation. Every attempt at breathing she made felt like a weight pressed on her chest. The wind had been knocked out of her and her ankle hurt like hell, but Jade was certain the only thing broken was her intent to make the best out of this stupid vacation.
"Don't be dead," a woman said from what seemed like a million miles away. "Don't be dead." Then she said something in a language Jade didn't understand. She though it might have been Spanish, but the voice was so far away and the ringing in her ears was so loud, she couldn't be sure.
Seconds later, someone grabbed Jade's shoulder and flipped her onto her back. She barely had time to process what was happening before a woman dressed in a blindingly incandescent yellow shirt leaned over her. Firetruck red hair had been curled into victory rolls on top of the woman's head, making her look like a comic book throwback to the 1940s. The woman's eyeliner flared out into long wings, and her lipstick matched her hair.
Jade squinted her eyes, mostly out of confusion. Perhaps she'd hit her head harder than she'd realized.
"Don't worry. I know CPR," the woman announced and then took a deep breath.
Jade tried to explain that she didn't need CPR, but she hadn't caught her breath yet. Her protest came out soundless. Not even a whisper left her lips. However, she swatted the woman's hand away before she could pinch Jade's nose.
As Jade attempted to sit, the colorfully dressed woman pushed her back, hands planted hard on her shoulders, and stared into her eyes.
"Don't move," the woman warned with a dire tone. "You could have internal bleeding."
"I don't," Jade said, though her words were barely above a breathy hiss.
"You don't know that," she insisted.
Jade took another deep, painful breath. Though her diaphragm still wasn't working right, she got enough air into her to say, "I'm fine. Who are you?"
The woman pressed a hand with long red fingernails to her chest and said, "I live next door. I was on my way over to introduce myself when I saw you fall. You looked like a baby bird testing out your wings. Except they usually fly, you know. You just kind of..." She slapped her hands together to demonstrate Jade's far from graceful landing.
Jade scowled and turned her attention to her palms.
As a teen, Marci Bolden skipped over young adult books and jumped right into reading women's fiction and romance novels.
Marci lives in the Midwest with her husband, two kiddos, and numerous rescue pets. If she had an ounce of will power, Marci would embrace healthy living but until cupcakes and wine are no longer available at the local grocery store, she'll put that ambition on hold and appease her guilt by reading self-help books and promising to join a gym "soon."
A great romance read with plenty of heart and characters you really care about. ‘Point’ taken!
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