A Spontaneous Kind of Romance: Marnie and Zane Stories: A Collection of Romantic Spontaneous Stories Presented by Infinite House of Books

By Shannon Muir

Zane Brighton opened up Marnie Hawklin's eyes to the possibility of love when they met in A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF HOLIDAY. In this follow-up collection of three short stories, Marnie struggles with taking those next steps toward meeting Zane, despite the encouragement of her friend Sophia. Distractions by a co-worker and a quest to answer questions about her mother's past look like they may be obstacles in their getting together. Will Marnie and Zane be brought closer together or farther apart? Contains the stories "Missed Opportunity" and "Love at First Sight" which were both previously released as web serials, along with the story "Love is a Mystery" exclusive to this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shannon Muir
• Release date: May 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463596913

Shannon Muir

SHANNON MUIR's short stories include suspense and mystery elements such as those found in her first full-length story from Pro Se Press, CHARLES BOECKMAN PRESENTS DOC AND SALLY IN "THE DEATH OF BUDDY TURNER". Additionally, she's written short stories for Pro Se Press such as “Tragic Like a Torch Song” in THE DAME DID IT from Pro Se Press, "Pretty as a Picture" in the anthology NEWSHOUNDS, “Tropical Terror” in CRIME DOWN ISLAND and “Hidden History” in EXPLORER PULP. She’s also written the Single Shot New Pulp tale “Ghost of the Airwaves,” a short story offered in electronic format only from Pro Se Press.From her personal self-published projects, her best known titles in this area include the rural crime series THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA.In other genres, Shannon's published short stories include “Meeting the Monster” in the Emby Press anthology SUPERHERO MONSTER HUNTER: THE GOOD FIGHT and "Cover Story" in ARIA KALSAN: MYSTERIES OF THE FUTURE.Shannon holds a BA in Radio-TV and English from Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington, which she considers to be her hometown. She also holds an MA in Communications from California State University, Fullerton, along with additional education in screenwriting, project management, library technician studies, and most recently a certificate earned with distinction in General Business with Emphasis in Marketing from UCLA Extension. Currently, she is working on a Masters of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University.She is married to FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY collaborator and fellow author Kevin Paul Shaw Broden. They live in California in the United States.She is a member of Sisters in Crime (national, Guppies, and Los Angeles, where she also served on the Los Angeles board for a two terms beginning in 2018), as well as the Toastmasters4Writers Chapter of Toastmasters International (where she serves as chapter Secretary), Women in Animation, and a Professional member of ASIFA-Hollywood.

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COPYRIGHT

A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF ROMANCE - MARNIE AND ZANE STORIES

A Collection of ROMANTIC SPONTANEOUS CHOICES Stories Presented by INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS

By Shannon Muir

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Shannon Muir.

First Smashwords publication May 2018.

This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be given away or resold to others. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy from Smashwords.com or vendor partners. If you want to share this work with others, please purchase a copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of artists and creators.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF ROMANCE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF ROMANCE: LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF ROMANCE: THE MYSTERY OF LOVE

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR – A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF HOLIDAY

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR – DREAMER SHORES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A while back I spontaneous wrote a holiday novella as an experiment, inspired by a few pieces of discarded items I saw on a walk around my neighborhood. The characters I made up I’d designed just to service the plot idea building up around them; I hadn’t done an extensive amount of development on them. Then something unexpected happened – the characters grew on me.

At first, I just tried to set doing anything with them aside. Then, I started to realize people steadily kept buying the e-book novella A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF HOLIDAY all throughout the year. So, I decided to get to know the characters a little better. At first, I thought of doing a second novella, but then realized I needed to get to know the characters’ backgrounds better

That led to the three short stories in this collection. The first, Missed Opportunity, I wrote as a short web serial to try and figure out what happened in the few weeks before Marnie and Zane met up again in the epilogue of A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF HOLIDAY; it didn’t seem she would wait that long to call, so something must have gotten in her way and this small story explored that issue. The next short story, Love at First Sight, also began life in a web serial format and actually came out prior to Missed Opportunity, but when I was done with Love at First Sight I realized some unanswered questions needed to be dealt with to bridge the gap.

The last story, Love is a Mystery, is only available in this collection. I’d started some short-short stories available in the e-book DISCOVER WORDS about a pair of librarians named Blake and Bry (the latter being Briar Rose Grey, a secondary character from THE PHOENIX BURNS). However, I came to realize three things: the main thing was that Blake and Bry as characters weren’t having the chemistry I’d hoped for, and that she probably really belonged back in with the PHOENIX characters. Also, I started to feel that certain parts of Blake’s backstory and certain elements of Marnie’s mother’s past allowed for a natural intersection. So, I decided to try and write a piece that would allow for Bry’s separation from Blake while introducing Blake to Marnie and Zane’s universe. All things considered, I’m pleased with the results an both characters are well positioned to go the kinds of directions I need them to go, without being weighed down by one another.

I hope you enjoy these spontaneously written short stories as we follow Marnie and Zane’s very slow steps towards dealing with their feelings together. I’ve got more planned to come and I hope to get to it soon. Thank you so much for reading.

Shannon Muir

Glendale, CA

May 2018

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A SPONTANEOUS KIND OF ROMANCE: MISSED OPPORTUNITY

You need to contact him, Marnie’s friend Sophia insisted. It’s almost Valentine’s Day. It’d be the perfect reason to locate him again. You know where he works.

I don’t want him thinking I’m a stalker, Marnie insisted to her friend. And I also don’t want to make my new boss unhappy with me. I’m so glad that you encouraging me to help out at the homeless shelter resulted in my being able to end up with this new job and meet Zane at the hospital. I’m too scared of ruining everything.

Listen, Marnie, if you stay scared of everything all your life nothing will ever happen.

And what if I make a mistake? Marnie insisted, her fears not quelled.

"We all make mistakes, Marnie. Even me. But we need to strive for doing the best we can in the face of them. Do you want me to go to