New Release | Shattered Promises by Bestseller @LindaTrout2 #romanticsuspense #newrelease #bookboost
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    • Oct 11, 2022
    • 5 min read

New Release | Shattered Promises by Bestseller @LindaTrout2 #romanticsuspense #newrelease #bookboost



Title Shattered Promises

Author Linda Trout

Genre Romantic Suspense

Publisher The Wild Rose Press


Book Blurb



Miranda Johnson loves the life she has carved out as an artist, but she never expected to see her former lover again. Can they reconnect and move past the hurts each inflicted on the other, or will the secret she has kept from him all these years cost them everything?


Excerpt


Randi fought for breath as all coherent thought evaporated into thin air. Black dots danced before her eyes and, for a moment, she thought she might pass out. Her eyes hadn’t deceived her earlier. Wade Malone was actually here.


But this wasn’t the skinny young man who had gone on that mission trip. Now, his body was fuller, broader. He was the same height, all six-foot-two of him, and his hair was the same sable color she remembered. Memories of his touch, his kisses, the love radiating from his deep blue eyes, assaulted her.


The Wade Malone she’d known had been kind, caring, loved life and always had a smile on his face. He loved people and would do anything to help them. That wasn’t the man who stood in her yard. This man looked at her with a surprised recognition, then just as quickly, disgust, if not outright hate.


A whimper welled up in her throat.


How could he be the same man who’d left her? The man she’d known had professed his undying love, yet had never returned. Had he found another woman and made his home in Columbia? Did he have children? Other children, her heart whispered.


The urge to run to him was tempered by his hard expression and the thin set of his lips. He had no idea of what she’d been forced to live through. Did he even care?


Shunned by her overly zealous and fanatically religious parents, Randi had been forced out on her own. At nineteen, she’d been naïve and had struggled until a kind soul had pointed her toward an organization that helped unwed teen mothers. In the end, she’d given up her baby.


All because he’d misled her. Had his lies simply been to sleep with her before he left? Would he have come back if he’d known she was pregnant? All the months of hoping to see him again, to have him rescue her so she wouldn’t have to give away their child still taunted her dreams.


Where were you when I needed you most? she wanted to shout in his face.

Too shocked to say anything, she was stunned when Wade ignored her, pivoted and walked away. No hello, how are you.


No explanation of where he’d been all these years.


She barely registered the sheriff as he also left without a word. Stealing a look at Wade’s retreating back, she staggered inside the house, locked the door and slid to the floor.


It had taken her years to get over him. After giving birth to their child, she’d come to Rock Ledge to care for her sick maternal grandmother. Then, after Granny Woods’ death, Randi had inherited the house and property. Since her parents had made it abundantly clear she wasn’t welcome back in Tulsa, she’d gladly stayed. She’d relished the seclusion and the bittersweet memories made with Granny. She’d healed here, made a place for herself.


But after seeing Wade for the first time in years, she felt truly alone. Despair threatened to overwhelm her until Sebastian, her overweight cat, climbed into her lap. She automatically scratched between his ears, his favorite place besides his belly. His loud purr made her smile.


“If I thought it’d do any good, I’d put you on a diet.” She laughed at him as she adjusted him more evenly across her lap while she stretched her legs out. A Russian Blue, he was unusually large. She’d rescued him from the animal shelter when his previous owner didn’t want him. “Too big” and “eats too much,” the woman had said.


“I got the better end of that deal, didn’t I?” She lovingly scratched his back with long, gentle motions. The other woman’s junk was Randi’s treasure. His constant purring relaxed her, pushing the morning’s events to the back of her mind.


After the cat had gotten his fill of attention, he jumped off her lap, then proceeded to pad to the kitchen and his water bowl. “Rotten cat,” she muttered. Despite his being so spoiled, Randi wouldn’t trade him for the world.


She stood and stretched the kinks from her back. How long would it take to clean up the wreckage? How long would all the people be around? She loved the solitude and remoteness of her home, but for the time being it was a beehive of activity.


Even though the forest would eventually reclaim the charred and broken land, Randi didn’t want a constant reminder of what had happened staring her in the face every time she walked out her front door. As soon as possible, she’d have plants, shrubs and trees planted to camouflage the makeshift road they were building. Still, she didn’t think she’d ever recover from what she had seen.


She started thinking of the best way to honor those whose lives had been lost. Making a permanent shrine wasn’t something she wanted to do. That would only encourage people to return here again and again. Holding a memorial for the families after the cleanup was done, though, would be something she’d be more than willing to host. If she’d lost someone on the plane, morbid as it was, she’d want to visit the site where they died—to be able to say goodbye to their spirit there.


And then there was Wade. Somehow, she’d have to find a way of dealing with her emotions…and him.


Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)













Special Giveaway:


For following Linda on either Facebook or Twitter, she will be giving away a copy of the first story in this series, Tangled Promises, in eBook format.



Author Biography


An Award-Winning and Amazon Bestselling author, Oklahoma native Linda Trout loves Happily-Ever-Afters. She counts herself lucky to having grown up in a small farming town with small town values. Getting lost in a good book is one of her favorite pastimes so it was natural that she turned to writing, creating intriguing stories of her own. Between her numerous cats, who think they have to help her write, and traveling to various parts of the country, she’s working on her next novel.


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