Ghost Notes by Beth Henderson is a Mystery and Suspense Event pick #romanticsuspense #giveaway
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  • N. N. Light
    • Aug 9, 2023
    • 5 min read

Ghost Notes by Beth Henderson is a Mystery and Suspense Event pick #romanticsuspense #giveaway



Title: GHOST NOTES


Author: Beth Henderson


Genre: Romantic Suspense


Book Blurb:


Jace Hastings, rising music star, is presumed dead in a vehicle collision, courtesy of a stalker with deadly designs. Ten years later, P.I. Gaelen Wyndom can’t believe someone wants her to find him.


Excerpt:


While she’d been engrossed with the recording, Gaelen realized Rika and C.C. had moved to the baby grand and were sorting through sheet music. She bolted from the booth without glancing to the aisle and nearly knocked a waiter off his feet. The tray of drinks he’d been balancing tipped. Gaelen hissed in a breath as a variety of soft drinks and crushed ice soaked the front of her suit jacket and skirt. She staggered back into the table behind her hard enough to have coffee washing over the table—and her cell.


“Oh, sh—sorry,” the waiter said. “I didn’t realize you were getting up.”


“Wasn’t your fault. I wasn’t looking to see if there was traffic,” she insisted. The smile of apology she gave him was probably as soggy as her damp clothes. “Can you direct me to the restroom so I can clean up a bit? And be sure to give me a tab for the spilled drinks.”


“We never charge for spilled drinks at C.C.’s,” he said. “Mind your step. You don’t want to slip on a clump of crushed ice.”


Gaelen thanked him when he directed her toward the restrooms and apologized for giving him more work. As he hunkered down to scoop up ice slush with his hands, she noticed he’d received his own baptism in their collision.


She dripped as she moved down the hall, feeling like a fool. She’d made it partway to the ladies’ room when a glob of melting ice slipped from her collar to slide inside the buttoned front of her jacket. Startled, Gaelen gasped and stopped, hoping to…well, she wasn’t sure what. She was damp and further chilled by the cranked-up air conditioning. At least the lining of the jacket kept it from clinging as a blouse or dress would have.


It was only when a man asked, “Is there something I can do for you?” that she realized she’d stopped across from an open door. A brief glance inside the room identified it as an office. The man behind the desk had rolled back the cuffs on his dress shirt and loosened the tie at his unbuttoned collar. He wore glasses but seemed to have slid them down his nose to look over the top as he peered at a computer on his right. His hair looked like he might have run his hand through the light brown locks for some reason. She’d done so with her own hair often enough—usually in frustration.


“Oh, no. Sorry. I’m enroute to the…well, to get a little less sticky. Totally fine otherwise.” She turned to dash into the washroom, then paused and looked back at him. “I told the waiter to bill me for the drinks that were spilled when I bumped his arm. It wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t looking where I was going.” With that clarified, she hoped, Gaelen nearly ran the rest of the way.


#


Pel stared at the spot recently vacated by the attractive brunette in the hallway.


She’d definitely intrigued him in their short exchange. If he offered to compensate her with free cleaning for her suit, would she accept? Probably not. However, he could give her something that she’d likely accept the loan of and give her a reason to return. He hoped.


Pel pushed away from the desk, headed to the wardrobe unit that housed his spare clothing and backup apparel for waitstaff in need of immediate replacements. When she exited the ladies’ room, he had a shoulder propped on the office doorjamb, his weight on his good leg and the surgically reconstructed one bent at the knee.


She stumbled to a stop when she saw him waiting, folded shirt in hand.


“I can’t do anything about your damp skirt, but this might keep you from getting a chill otherwise,” he said, holding the folded shirt out to her. “You can return it the next time you visit C.C.’s. It’s a spare I keep on hand for when I’m the staff’s target.”


Her lips twitched in amusement, but her eyes had widened at the offer. They were a lovely shade of blue, as though the Arizona sky at midday had served as tincture in constructing them. There was a touch of embarrassed rose in her cheeks. Her neck was long, pale, and made for a man to taste as he nibbled his way to her delectable and earring-free lobe.


“Thank you,” she murmured, accepting the loan.


“I have more, but consider this a gift,” Pel insisted and reached aside to snag a carryout bag with the C.C.’s Place logo on the side. “Call it luggage for your damp things.”


That won him a full smile as she accepted it. “You obviously know the way to a woman’s heart,” she said, the promise of a laugh in her voice. “Listen, while this sounds like a really bad pick-up line, and that’s not my intention in the least…”


“No woman’s tried to pick me up in a long time,” he told her. “Go ahead. Shoot. It’ll do my ego wonders.”


She grinned at the lie.


“It’s the least I can do to show my appreciation over the loan of your spare shirt.”


“So, what’s the line?” he asked.


She tilted her head to the side. The sweep of chestnut hair swung with the motion. “Have we ever met before? There’s something familiar about you, but I can’t put my finger on it.”


Warning bells clamored in his mind.


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What makes your featured book a must-read?


Actually, I liked the idea of having a reversed roll with the heroine protecting the hero from the man who had nearly killed him ten years earlier. But that wasn’t enough, so she discovered that her husband, who trained her to be a PI, hadn’t been killed while attempting to rescue a kidnapped child but had been murdered five years earlier. Both Gaelen and Pel/Jace Hastings needed something more than the lives they’d each been living. Her working for the father-in-law she despised and him having given up music and staying constantly on the move to stay alive. They needed not only to fall in love, they needed to rebuild their lives. It meant Pel had to get back on stage as Jace Hastings to lure his enemy from hiding, and Gaelen to shake free of her boss to both protect Pel and dig into her late husband’s murder. It really got fun when I started killing off more characters along the way!


So why is Ghost Notes a must-read? Well, for the characters and convoluted mystery to be solved, of course!


Giveaway –


Enter to win a $35 Amazon gift card:



Open Internationally.


Runs August 8 – August 21, 2023.


Winner will be drawn on August 22, 2023.



Author Biography:


Beth Henderson’s career as a published author began with a romantic-suspense story in 1990. Since that time, she’s gone by many different names on the covers of books and written in many genre niches. While Ghost Notes was her thirty-seventh novel to be published, she’s turned in another three novels to her publisher already, though they are under another of her pseudonyms.


Social Media Links:


Twitter: @Beth__Henderson

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