Guest Post: A Winter Knight by Barbara Bettis

I'm please to have Barbara Bettis on my blog talking about her release: A Winter Knight

Tell us a little about yourself:

I’ve finally retired from teaching English and Journalism at a local four year college and, after early retirement there, taught a few more years at a nearby two-year college. Before that, I worked for small daily newspapers so my two sons could grow up in a small town, and was a stringer for the AP, the Kansas City Star, and the Little Rock Democrat-Gazette. While working toward my doctorate, I wrote feature articles for area magazines and edited a local weekly in summers because I believed journalism was (is) a subject one must keep up with in real time if one is to teach it. Although my doctorate was in higher education, my major was in journalism and my dissertation was in Journalism Ethics. I still have a fierce devotion to the ‘old style’ journalism traditions of accuracy, fairness, telling all prominent sides of a story, and avoiding fallacious reasoning. (That last, certainly, is not easy to do!) I six grandchildren and they are absolute delights.

What do like the most and the least about writing?

The most: creating stories and seeing characters come alive.

The least: promoting after the book is finished.

Give us a peek into your latest published work?

He’s running from his past; she’s running from her future. But on a snowy winter night, they find each other and the surprising gift of love.

Sir Nicholas has given up on marriage. These days he’s content to captain his friend’s troops and avoid entanglements—until one winter night when he rescues a half-frozen woman from a snowstorm. Her irrepressible spirit and kindness to others reminds him that all ladies aren’t like his former intended, who wed his brother while Nick was on crusade. But he can’t open his heart to Lady Clare. She’s bound to another, and Nick won’t forfeit his honor.

Even if she were free, he has nothing to offer but love, and this lady deserves everything.
Lady Clare’s dying grandfather has arranged her betrothal, but the arrival of the man she’s to wed sends her fleeing into a snowstorm. Injured when her horse stumbles, she’s rescued by a mysterious knight. She recovers at his run-down manor, safe at last—until her betrothed tracks her down two days before Christmas. Trapped at home with the wedding imminent, she longs for the winter knight she’s come to love.

Only a miracle can bring Clare and Nick together. But at Christmas, anything is possible.

What’s next on the writing horizon for you?

I’m finishing a short story that will appear  in collection of short stories about Feisty Heroines. That’s currently on pre-order for 99 cents.

Excerpt:

The strange horse fidgeted in the bailey, tossing its mane and stomping the new white fall into mud. The stable lad grasped the reins and murmured to the nervous animal. After a few token twitches, it settled in to nose against the boy’s shoulder while Nicholas removed a bag from one side of the saddle. He pulled open the cord and peered inside. Tom had been right. A lady’s garments.

Nicholas swore under his breath. What feather-brained female would venture out in a storm with such few belongings? Any lady he’d ever known traveled with trunks of adornments.

No ignoring the evidence. Some lady or her attendant was likely trudging through the frigid December night after being tossed from this mount.

“Merde!” He sighed and ducked his head, then muttered another curse when kernels of icy snow melted down the back of his neck.

He had no choice. Couldn’t leave anyone to wander around in this weather. And a lady, at that. If God had any mercy, He’d see the lady’s party found her first. What would Nicholas do with her at the ramshackle manor he’d been tasked with putting to rights? You could do only two things with ladies—marry’em or mount’em. He’d sworn off the first and was too damned cold for the second.

Buy Links:

AMAZON: https://amzn.to/356xovq

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