Snippets In Time: Book Bites 2

By S. R. Mallery

Like Murder Mysteries? Time Travel? Historical Fiction? Teen/Family Issues? Cockatoo & Cat Humor? Award-winning, USA Today Best Selling author, S. R. Mallery, presents her second collection of excerpts from some of her newer books––topped off with a couple of short stories.

From her award winning Brooke & Abby cozy mystery series, where going back in time helps solve modern cases, to her award winning Gambit House witch series which also involves time travel, mystery, and romance. Her western romance sequel, "Ellie & The War On Powder Creek" continues on from her "The Dolan Girls" saga. Then comes two complete short stories: Her "On Being Jen" is a Twilight Zone version of how a teenage girl battles envy, and the award-winning short story, "Charlotte," is an alternative route to a true event during the French revolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. R. Mallery
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201430856

S. R. Mallery

A USA TODAY Best Selling author and two-time READERS' FAVORITE GOLD MEDAL winner, S. R. Mallery--as her fans say--"brings history to life." They say I'm as eclectic as my characters. I've been a singer, a composer, a calligrapher, a quilt artist, and an ESL/Reading teacher. But it is the world of writing historical fiction and time travel that I feel I've truly come "home." Why? Because then I get to do my second love: Research.  

Book preview

TEA, ANYONE?

Book 1 Brooke & Abby Cozy Mystery Series

At first Brooke and Abby aren’t totally in sync

Today was the day. After Brooke researched the list of psychics Abby had claimed helped the police, she and Henry persuaded Larry to set up an appointment with Chief Bruner, to talk about the new cloth sack murder case––with Abby. But as she and her neighbor drove to the small police department’s headquarters, someone help me popped up in Brooke’s mind at least three times.

From the start, the ride over didn’t look promising. First off, Abby didn’t pick up Brooke in her great-uncle’s fabulous looking Packard. That would have been cool. No, Abby’s car du jour was a red 1979 Toyota Corolla rust bucket, pinging and rattling everywhere as she maneuvered through Hillside’s side streets.

The more Brooke watched her neighbor at the wheel, the raspier her breaths became. Abby’s driving? Complete disaster. Turning constantly toward Brooke as she chatted away, at one point she even gestured toward some trees. Okay. But then the car also started to steer toward them as well.

Ever notice how those trees look like they’re touching the roof? Abby asked.

No way was Brooke going to look at the stupid trees. Let’s just get there in one piece, okay? she snapped. Able Abby? This is suicide.

Yes, Brooke. Abby clutched the wheel tighter. Then giggled.

It turned out that was just the beginning. Abby’s parallel parking reached a whole new level in the Driver’s Not To Do Manual. Humming, she seemed to enjoy sawing her way into a curbside parking space. Completely off track with her first back up, she then moved forward two inches, backed up again. When she obviously realized she was still off, she repeated the whole procedure––six more times.

I think we’ve arrived, Brooke said finally.

You sure? Abby asked, looking like she was happy to do another five rounds.

Yes, we’re definitely here, Brooke practically growled.

In the lobby, Brooke, still breathing hard, pushed the elevator’s UP button once. Then again. And again. And again, faster and faster, Morse-code style.

I think the elevator has heard you, Abby said softly.

A taste of Abby going back in time

That’s a start. She studied the cards before her. Stroking each picture lightly, her eyes slowly rolled closed. Fit me into 1700s’ Boston, she said in an alto-timbered voice. Put me where I can find out something for Brooke. Send me back...send me...

Now she was falling, falling into a dark place, where the air suddenly seemed warm and heavy, no longer cold and thin. Where gentle crackles and hisses swirled all around her, and her body floated up above the real Abby sitting in the car’s front seat––like an astral projection. She watched the normal Abby below her, not doing anything special, just rocking back and forth gently, as if praying. Then, without warning, her spiritual body drifted away to a place where she was suddenly jerked this way and that, then catapulted toward pitch-blackness, with only a hint of flashing colored lights in the distance.

The forces propelling her grew stronger and stronger, until just as abruptly, she was let go, and with one explosive whoosh sound, she landed on her feet somewhere––hard.

Through the cigar-smoky haze, Abby found herself standing in an old, eighteenth-century establishment. According to a placard over the fireplace, it was named the Green Dragon Tavern. That instantly sparked a fact tidbit she had learned from her college days. I’m in Boston, and this is the headquarters of the American Revolution!

More facts cascaded through her mind now, about how the very room she was in had served as a meeting place for Masons and general customers. But below her was another room. The important basement one. Wow. Is Samuel Adams leading a meeting right now?

She continued to scope things out. Dark olive green surrounded her––on the walls behind paintings and on the moldings bordering each doorway. Also, around her were plenty of square, wooden tables, dimly lit by tall, thin candles, secured in their clunky holders. And as the loud, boisterous men, dressed in buckskin breeches, vests, and flowing shirts, lifted their pewter mugs to blast out raucous jokes and drunken statements, her ear drums felt as if they would surely burst in a matter of seconds.

No snuffboxes or powdered wigs for this unruly crowd of undoubtedly hard-working, musket-touting Bostonians. Several of the customers flitted here and there with an exhausted-looking tavern wench, who rushed about, trying to serve demanding men guzzling as many drinks as they could get down their gullets. With her cotton head cap slightly off kilter, her hair tendrils framing her face and wet from sweat, she made Abby think about how far women had come. Or had they? She flashed on a college friend waiting on tables, who, except for the colonialist outfit, had shown the exact same exhaustion.

Robbie! a pot-bellied man in a sleeveless leather jacket cried, his voice gruff, his appearance even gruffer. "Where in the world have you been? I have spent half the morning waiting on you, lad. You