#BookSpotlight – “Cowboy Desire” by Alice Renaud and others

Blurb for Cowboy Desire

Cowboy Desire is an eclectic assortment of short stories. Including contemporary, historical, fantasy, and even outer space romance, Cowboy Desire offers fourteen stunning short stories.

These fourteen authors provide a range of sweet to sexy stories all with a cowboy theme. They feature strong men and women battling the weather and dangerous terrain, here on earth and in outer space.

The collection is as diverse as the authors who wrote them. Here’s a chance to discover new talented authors and the characters they create. Within these pages, there are blends of tender, often moving, thought-provoking and downright sexy stories.

Blurb for Space Cowboy Blues

Josh is a space cowboy. His job? Taming alien species. But on the blue planet Albastra, the beautiful Melynas is more than a match for him. He’d love to get close to her… but everything on Albastra is lethal. Including her…

Buy Links

https://amzn.to/2LmdUhD

Excerpt 

Melynas gestured at the plain below them. Josh followed her gaze and froze, mute with shock. Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him. Or maybe an alien virus had fought its way through his protective clothing and was messing with his brain. The animals grazing down there couldn’t be unicorns. No friggin’ way. “What are these creatures?” 

Her face shone with pride. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they? We call them hunoowins. It translates as “single horn.””

So he wasn’t dreaming. He gazed at the graceful creatures with the pointy horn on their head, torn between wonder and amusement. “Well I’ll be darned. Blue space unicorns.” He had truly landed in a fairy tale, stranger than any of the stories Gramps used to tell him when he was little. “Can they be ridden?”

A wistful expression came over her face. “The males of my species used to – long ago – if the paintings in the old city are to be believed. But no one has ridden a hunoowin for a very long time.” She gave him an appraising look. “The settlers hope that you can tame one. To see if they can be used like horses on Earth.”

Josh studied the unicorns. They looked like horses all right, but the horns were long and sharp. They could easily skewer a man if they wanted to.

“Are you going to get close to them? I’ll understand if you don’t want to. It could be dangerous.” Melynas’s voice was soft, but there was a challenge in her dark gaze. And Josh could never resist a challenge.

“I’ll have a go. Call the ship if I get injured, there’s a medic robot on board. It knows how to patch me up.” 

Without waiting for her reaction, he strode down the hillock towards the herd. Time to show this local beauty what a real cowboy was made of.

Anxiety snaked through Melynas’s stomach. What had she done? She hadn’t really believed that Josh would approach the hunoowins on his own, on foot and unarmed. She’d thought that he’d go back to his ship to get a robot, or a weapon at least. She shouldn’t have incited him to go near the herd with no protection other than his flimsy suit. The hunoowins were gentle creatures, but if they took fright, they could easily trample him or gore him with their horns. The fear spread to her legs, turning them into jelly. “Stop!” she cried, but her shout was carried away by the wind, and Josh clearly didn’t hear her through his mask.

He was moving slowly towards the lead hunoowin. Melynas wondered if he knew she was the matriarch, leader of the herd. But he’d never seen the animals in his life, how would he know their habits? 

The tall female hunoowin glared at him and lowered her horn. Melynas’s breath stuck in her throat. She could only wait, frozen with fear, as Josh stood his ground and stared his blue death in the face.

Seconds passed, which felt like hours. Then the hunoowin lifted her head. Her wary gaze never left Josh, but she didn’t bray in alarm or start a stampede. Melynas exhaled. Now, surely, Josh would back off and return to the safety of the hillock.

Instead, he edged closer to the animal, so slowly it seemed he was barely moving at all. When he was but a few inches away, he lifted his right hand and presented it to the hunoowin, palm up. 

Melynas’s muscles tightened as fresh anxiety squeezed her chest. What on Albastra was he doing? The matriarch’s sharp teeth could snap his fingers off.

The hunoowin sniffed Josh’s hand. Then she licked it.

Bio

Alice lives in London, UK, with her husband and son. By day she’s a compliance manager for a pharmaceutical company. By night she writes fantasy romance about shape shifting mermen, water monsters and time-travelling witches. Her first book, “A Merman’s Choice,” was published in January 2019 by Black Velvet Seductions. It is the first book in a fantasy romance trilogy inspired by the landscapes and legends of Brittany and Wales. The second and third books, “Music for a Merman,” and “Mermaids Marry in Green,” are out now. Alice has also contributed short stories for the BVS anthologies “Mystic Desire” and “Desire Me Again,” both available now, and “Cowboy Desire,” on pre order now, release date 1 April. Alice loves reading and writing stories, and sharing them with anyone who’s interested!

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AliceRenaudAuthorRomance/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alicerauthor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-renaud-author-4219b6166/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18670218.Alice_Renaud

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/alice-renaud

Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Alice-Renaud/e/B07L52P17B

Website: https://nomadauthors.com/alicerenaud/alicebooks.html