An Involuntary Spark

By V.C. Archerly

Book #1 in the Summerhouse Series.

Amiira Barnes needs a fresh start. Too much in her life is unraveling at a steady pace and she can't seem to catch her breath or proper footing. She is beautiful, tenacious, witty and honest, and some of those qualities are tested as she deals with a recent breakup from a man who was hiding a damaging secret.

Amiira embarks on a journey as she takes up residence at a summerhouse nearby, as a home away from home, for the weekends. She is sure it is just what she needs to get her mind off of her tumultuous mess of a life. Will that summerhouse, and the people in it, help her or provide even more complications?

A wild mix of emotions, twists, chemistry, longing, and uncertainty, "An Involuntary Spark" is the quintessential summer read, and the first book in the Summerhouse Series. Amiira will be faced with many obstacles and choices. Stay tuned to find out whether she will trust herself, deny connections or slip deeply into self loathing.

Read the preface for FREE here: goo.gl/CyEOUe

• Language: English
• Publisher: V.C. Archerly
• Release date: Mar 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310732898

V.C. Archerly

Author, Foodie, Word connoisseur, Dreamer. Check out An Involuntary Spark on Amazon, which is book #1 in the Summerhouse series!

Book preview

Chapter 1

There are so many questions in life that need answers that aren't always readily available. Questions like, what percentage of our experiences are happenstance and what percentage is fate? Why can't we sometimes tell the difference? And if we could, what would that change? Amiira Barnes was wrestling with this very notion as she sat idly at her desk in her immaculately decorated office.

So much of her day to day exterior she prided on her backbone, her tenacity and her hard work. But sometimes certain things would fall into her lap that she didn't necessarily want, wasn't aptly prepared for and didn't quite know what to do with. This had been her unfolding dilemma over the past couple of weeks. While her professional life was thriving, her personal life was in a bizarre and tenuous place.

She'd just broken it off with a man whom she'd been relatively crazy about, when she had found out one perplexing and deal-breaking fact about him: he was married. Amiira shivered against the thought every single time she recalled it. She'd always thought highly of herself for having immense integrity and strength of character. So the fact that she had been carrying on with a married man for months, until she had found out the truth, made her invariably distressed and upset.

What made it all the more jarring was how hard it had been for her to break it off with him.

Especially considering that they worked together, and his position at the company was decidedly more cemented and his pay grade was exceptionally higher. Granted, he wasn't her direct boss, which Amiira was thankful for and had made completely cutting things off, a bit easier; he was still one of the board members of the consulting company she worked for, and had much esteem throughout that building and in those halls.

It was difficult for her to be at work sometimes because she found herself riddled with trepidation that she'd see him turning a corner and they'd lock eyes. No need for awkward run-ins with ex-lovers while she was at her highly prestigious job.

Sometimes her choices, especially in the love department, left much to be desired.

This was part of the reason that she sat, gazing at her sleek computer, and racking her brain on ideas to get herself out of her own self imposed rut. She thought about taking a vacation. Just up and booking a flight to Spain. But she didn't want to run away from work, per say. She had too much pride for that. Amiira just wanted a distraction. A distraction that would serve and heal her. Something that would balance her life back in favor of some kind of normalcy, that she had inadvertently lost when she'd allowed herself to be swept away by the much older gentlemen whose office resided two floors above her own.

It didn't help that Amiira had a very puzzling and disconcerting history when it came to relationships, and at 32 years old, she was starting to feel the societal pressures to actually get it right and settle down. The trouble had never been in finding someone to spend time with and to enjoy. It was finding the correct one; that she struggled with endlessly.

She was to the point where she was becoming a bit doubtful and a smidgen of bitter. She'd never let on to this with any of her friends or her family members, who were all practically lining up to set her up with a slew of guys whom they deemed worthy. Amiira had been on enough unsuccessful blind dates to detest the option altogether.

So yes, her love life was a heaping pile of rubble, and too much of her focus had been on it lately. She just wanted to go somewhere where she could relax, and unwind and have a good time.

Or maybe she just needed a hobby.

Either way, something had to give because her threshold for her own displeasure and unhappiness was becoming increasingly low.

Amiira fiddled with her keyboard as she typed a few things into her search engine. Her long and agile, perfectly manicured fingers grazing over the keys in a quick and expert manner.

She attempted to search for options that sounded exciting, foreign and interesting. She was still on the fence about packing up and taking off for a complete vacation because she didn't want to take any time off.

Something caught her eye on the screen, as she moved her cursor towards the link that