The Lightning Festival

By Kari Kilgore

A Strike of Magic

 

Zach Seagon loves the unusual town of Lightning Gap. The only place he feels at home.
Graham Cassoni welcomes the change of pace of mountain life.  A chance to start over.
When their eyes meet, an undeniable spark flares to life.
Will Zach and Graham realize the change they really need is each other?

 

An excerpt from The Lightning Festival:

 

A Spark of Magic

 

This new guy must be the caregiver, the one Craig Douglas had found to help out.

The younger Mr. Douglas hadn't mentioned hiring a knock-out gorgeous caregiver while he was at it.

From Zach's spot about twenty feet away, he saw curly brown hair and skin nearly as dark. About his own height, and built solid and strong, like he spent time hiking or biking or something equally enticing when he wasn't helping care for the sweet Douglases.

Mystery Gorgeous Guy looked up at Zach and smiled, and the setting sun highlighted perfect teeth, full lips, and swoon-worthy bright green eyes. Nature's own spotlight created to entice Zach even more.

The delightful waves of heat floating through his body told him he was about to experience the best Lightning Festival ever. Or, he was about to get himself into heartache territory.

Either way, in the warmth of that amazing smile, he was willing to take the chance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Nov 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393771289

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

The Lightning Festival

For Jason

---

Who loves the magic of storms as much as I do

The Lightning Festival

Kari Kilgore

Spiral Publishing, Ltd.

Chapter 1

Even on days he considered pulling up stakes and finally moving away from his hometown, Zach Seagon had to admit Lightning Gap was absolutely gorgeous. Tucked away high in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia, the views were breathtaking year-round. But autumn was when the little alpine tourist town truly put on a show.

All the multicolored Victorian houses along the main street were nearly as dressed up as the mountains. Broad porches with pots full of mums as vibrant as the turning leaves. Orange, yellow, and white pumpkins freshly carved from the Halloween contest just passed, with each winner’s ribbons proudly displayed. Several of those grand old houses had carvings under the topmost eaves, with apples and corn and acorns and gourds the most common.

A delightful variety of skeletons posed on porches, in yards, even on sidewalks and all the way down to the storefronts and the old brick school and church buildings on Main Street. Some wearing clothing, some bone-white naked, and everything in between.

For some strange reason almost all of them wore shoes.

Skeletons watering the mums. Gathering up piles of leaves. Checking mailboxes. Snuggling like sweethearts on park benches. Sitting in parked cars gripping steering wheels, as well as working under cars in stained mechanic’s coveralls. Zach’s favorites were a group reading on the porch of his grandparents’ bookstore, all of them clutching open books and wearing vintage clothing (from the neon-glowing 1980s this year). They even had cups and saucers on the