Book Extract: The Starling Dance by Lucy Elena
I’m pleased to be welcoming Lucy Elena to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, The Starling Dance.
In a sweltering Roman summer, Laure is trying to start a new life. But can she manage in a city where walls have ears, trees have eyes and even the birds are acting strangely?
It’s been exactly one year since the shit hit the fan and Laure’s anxiety exploded into a full-blown burn out. In search of a new start she’s moved to Rome – pasta, Aperol and sunshine should make everything better, right?
But with her 30s around the corner, la bella vita isn’t going to plan.
- Her boyfriend, the dreamy Davide, has disappeared (Either Laure’s been ghosted or he’s accidentally fallen off a cliff – hopefully)
- She wants to murder her neighbours: their arguments are keeping her up all night.
In her local café, Laure meets a handsome stranger and the sparks fly, that is until she finds herself caught in a big lie.
‘Hmmm, it’s not ideal,’ says her best friend Eva, as she puffs on a spliff in the bathtub.
Just as things are heating up, a talking tree enters the fray (as if this Roman summer wasn’t weird enough, just ask the birds).
That tree is Viviano, a dynamic and adventurous street performer who poses around the Eternal City dressed as a tree, well, sometimes a cat too and sometimes a ripe tomato. He could be thriving in life but something is holding him back. One thing is certain though: he wants to meet Laure.
Will Laure find her path? Will she accidentally put pineapple on a pizza? And is there a real love story to be found in the surreal swirls of the Italian capital?
The Starling Dance is a love story full of quirk, humour and heart-warming characters, each trying to overcome their personal obstacles and demons to give themselves a chance at life and love.
Lucy Elena is a journalist who has worked across Europe and Latin America. The Starling Dance is her debut novel. It was initially dreamt up as a film while Lucy was working in Rome and became interested in the street artists she passed every day on her way to work, eventually getting to know them. The artsy film of her imagination never materialised but The Starling Dance was born in the form of a book, with a big dose of love, fun and healing thrown in for good measure.
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Lucy Elena has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy it.
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In this extract our main male character, street performer Viviano, has come to meet his friends at Rome’s picturesque Gianicolo Hil. It’s a chance for the reader to get to know Viviano better and see him in a more relaxed environment, on days when his mental health challenges are not flaring up. Even in the company of his friends, Laure – Viviano’s love interest, is never far from his mind. We also learn a bit more about Viviano’s best friend Mickey, a migrant from Senegal.
Viviano leapt high above the city skyline and landed on the thin elastic band. Up and down he bounced until the rush of adrenaline had worn off and a steady balance returned.
The scent of pine perfumed the air and, in the distance, Rome’s jigsaw of buildings stretched for miles, shrouded in a golden pink light.
Viviano had spent the day dressed as a caramel-coloured cat, attaching his slackline between buildings and balancing for hours in various feline poses. Occasionally, he performed a trick or purred at passers-by – Leonardo the cat was always a crowd pleaser.
But work was over now. With three friends – Mickey, Juan Pablo and Elena – he had ventured up to the top of the Gianicolo Hill, a viewpoint over the whole city.
As was customary, they had tied the slackline daringly high between two large parasol pines. The concentration needed to maintain balance challenged Viviano, forcing his mind to focus. Today he was working on a backflip.
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Book Extract: The Amalfi Secret by Dean and Catherine Reineking
It’s a pleasure to be welcoming Dean and Catherine Reineking to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for their book, The Amalfi Secret.
For readers who love thrillers grounded in human emotion and history, The Amalfi Secret by Dean and Catherine Reineking delivers a captivating blend of mystery, betrayal, and courage.
When Gabe Roslo’s long-awaited reunion with his grandparents in Amalfi turns to tragedy, he’s left with more questions than answers. A cryptic diary, hidden codes, and whispered secrets soon point to something far greater than a family mystery—an international web of power and deceit with roots in history itself. With Anna, a quick-witted Roman local, Gabe dives into a dangerous pursuit that tests every instinct and challenges his idea of truth. From the cobbled streets of Amalfi to the political undercurrents of Rome, their search exposes the cost of uncovering secrets others will do anything to keep buried.
Dean and Catherine have shared an extract from The Amalfi Secret with us today. We hope you enjoy it.
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1
Post-September 11, 2001
The lone fisherman realized the time was approaching. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Pulling his woolen cap down against the chill of the autumn night, he chuckled as he mused about the interesting character who’d approached him at the docks that afternoon.
Who am I to ask questions? he thought. After all, he’d been pulling in only small catches lately. Seemed like an awfully simple, if mildly inconvenient, task for the amount of cash the stranger had offered.
As he maneuvered his small, wooden rig along the coastline, the lights of the Amalfi Hotel emerged from the blackness. He guided his boat into position and scanned his surroundings. No one else was fishing the waters below the hotel. He was alone.
When he cut the engine, he could see a party in progress on one of the balconies. It appeared to be in full swing with loud, raucous voices. He unfolded his fishing net and hoped they’d be too drunk to notice him.
He checked his watch again and surveyed the rest of the hotel. Many of the windows were already dark. A lone person was standing on the balcony one floor above the party. He was leaning on the banister and watching the boisterous activity below.
by Book Extract: Abracadabra by Evanne Hardin Gray
I’m very excited to be welcoming Evanne Hardin Gray to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for Abracadabra.
In the spirit of Practical Magic and First Frost, a modern-day magic folk tale weaves a fantasy of love, secrets, spellbooks, and family bonds into evocative prose ….
It’s common knowledge in Duran Hill that some women in the Kinley family have certain gifts … and certain curses … running through their bloodlines. But for three sisters in all but name — Rachel, Juliette, and their cousin Sylvia — the ties that bind them close as ivy throughout their childhood are pulled apart in adolescence when both the gift and curse of that power is revealed between them.
Since that fateful incident, sensible Juliette has tailored a perfect and perfectly-ordinary life which unravels after she marries — and loses — the love of her life. Sylvia, drawn to the dark side, sets up a shop that caters to all the mystical powers the latter generations of the Kinley family shunned. And Rachel, the wild child, in whom its magic seems to create a charmed life, is a carefree wanderer who finds herself suddenly drawn home again.
Her arrival will stir old rivalries and test forgotten bonds in the brief span of a few weeks. But when an old friend in desperate trouble seeks her out, she will impulsively unleash the dangerous secret behind their power: one which has lain forgotten in the Kinley house for two generations.
From the Siren’s song of a dead man’s violin to a jar full of harmless-looking buttons, nothing under the shadow of the family’s roof is what it seems — nothing in their bloodline is safe from the dangerous past.
For Juliette, it brings a test of whether love that has withered can bloom again. For Sylvia, a question of whether a dangerous mistake can only be endured until it destroys you. And for Rachel, the choice is the price between the future of the souls she loves most in life and a powerful force that both makes her the enigma she is — and makes to destroy her like embers caught in a firewind.
Against the backdrop of Southern charm, Scottish superstitions, and bewitching romance, ABRACADABRA casts a spell which cannot be undone, from the ache of lost love to the familial links between souls which go as deep as blood and bone.
Evanne Hardin Gray has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
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Thank you so much for this chance to share an extract from my novel Abracdabra with all the readers at Novel Kicks. It’s a spooky new read perfect for fans of Practical Magic. In the following scene, sisters Rachel and Juliette find themselves reluctantly consulting a medium over a haunting in their old family home.
They end up in the parlor, which Rachel thought of as “the purple room” as a child, a name inspired by the heavy wine-colored drapes, and the various maroon and plum shades of velvet covering the furniture. It is the nearest seating area to the formal dining room, which Rachel was glad is not the scene of this seance.
by Book Extract: Fatal Equation by Gethyn Jones
I’m excited to be welcoming Gethyn Jones to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, Fatal Equation.
Aged just 16, Ali Kurmi was exiled to Portsmouth by his despicable, sweaty, arrogant, bully-of-a-rich businessman father, to protect the family name. Now in his thirties, Ali’s forced to work as an unofficial bailiff for his father’s property company. The only things keeping him going are his songwriting and DJing.
Laura O’Brien, a former journalist from Dublin is a looker and defies her 52 years – made even more remarkable by her tragic back story. Fate strikes again as her renowned husband of just four years, racehorse breeder Frank O’Brien, collapses and dies of a brain aneurysm. It leaves her broken-hearted, but very rich. Determined to avoid returning to the bottle, and egged on by her sponsor, the enigmatic Alice Kingston, Laura leaves Tipperary to start afresh in Hampshire.
This is the story of Ali and Laura – how they got together – and how they navigate their way through a seemingly endless number of cruel and unlikely twists and turns – that threaten their relationship – and their lives.
Gethyn has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy it.
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Blurb: Laura O’Brien, a wealthy widow in her fifties, didn’t expect to fall in love again – especially not with a 35-year-old British-Indian songwriter. But when she meets Ali Kurmi, a corporate DJ with his own deeply troubled past, everything changes.
Together, they start to build a life filled with creativity, passion, and purpose. Yet danger still lurks in the shadows – Stephanie, Laura’s scheming stepdaughter, wants blood. Fuelled by greed and resentment, she’s plotting something deadly … and failure isn’t an option.
Set between rural Hampshire and Tipperary, Fatal Equation is an emotional rollercoaster of love, ecstasy, frustration, obsession, and revenge.
… a book that blends the warmth of a feel-good romance with the chilling edge of a thriller …
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Announcing to your partner that you’ve become a father with one of your ‘exes’ is never going to be an easy conversation. Ali has been very open with Laura about his previous love life – which inclded a long time with Becky Davies. It was a mutually satisfactory ‘friends with benefits arrangement’. When Ali met Laura, his relationship with Becky ended abruptly – until yesterday when his pal Club Manager Dom contrived to get them to meet up again. It was then that an extremely dishevelled-looking Becky dropped the bombshell.
Ali leans in close to the bathroom mirror, pulls both eyelids down and grunts. He turns his head to the right and then the left. He’s never gone for the George Michael look – the five o’clock shadow. Too much work to keep tidy; so, clean-shaven it’s always been.
He’s had a restless night, hardly surprising under the circumstances. To wake up one day and discover that you’re the father of a three-week-old child that you knew nothing about, is understandably mind-blowing.
He shaves, brushes his teeth, smiles to check them and walks back into the bedroom.
‘How are you my gorgeous daddy-o?’ says Laura teasingly, from somewhere under a pillow.
‘I’m fine. Are you still OK with all this?’
by Book Extract: Serves You Right by Orion Gregory
I’m so excited to be welcoming Orion Gregory to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, Serves You Right.
Justice isn’t blind in Orion Gregory’s Serves You Right—it’s calculating, ruthless, and watching every move.
Sydney Livingstone thought she’d found the perfect reset when she traded professional tennis for a badge in Walsh County. With her fiancé Enzo at her side and the promise of small-town calm, she expected routine cases and a sense of purpose. Instead, a vigilante calling himself The Enforcer shatters that illusion. His attacks leave behind bodies and chilling manifestos, and his reach extends further with each strike. Sydney’s badge makes her both investigator and target, drawing her deeper into a deadly game.
As media swarms the county and fear fractures the department, Sydney faces mounting suspicion that the danger may not only be outside, but within the very force she joined. Evidence points too close for comfort, colleagues grow wary, and a stalker begins haunting one of her fellow officers. With every step, Sydney must weigh loyalty against survival and uncover the truth before she becomes the next victim.
Orion has shared an extract from Serves You Right with us today. We hope you enjoy.
(Warning: Language.)
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He looked over at Andrea, who was happily finishing a chili dog next to a side of circular, mangled fries. She was saying something about changing the drapes in the front window of her house, but Frank wasn’t listening.
His hamburger looked nauseating. Even the idea of taking a sip of beer made him want to vomit. The smell was now all-encompassing.
A pair of young boys chased each other, darting between tables. One bumped their table, causing some of Frank’s beer to spill.
“Undisciplined brats,” he muttered. “Can you imagine what kind of adults they’re going to be?”
Murderers? Spouse killers?
There goes Sheila again, funneling bullshit into my mind.
“We were all there once,” said Andrea. “Just ignore them.”
Frank smiled, wondering how Andrea wasn’t overcome by the disgusting smell. “You know what, I’m not really hungry,” he said. “I’m going to throw this stuff out.” Distracted by the unpleasant odor, Frank forgot about the possibility he was being followed. He fell into line behind two teenagers who were attempting to shove their trash inside an overflowing receptacle. The park seemed to be growing more crowded by the minute.
The park noises consumed Frank’s thoughts. Ice cream machines revved crazily in a high pitch, barbeque grills hissed louder than usual, and soda machines buzzed. Kids squealed at their parents while nearby game operators hollered at customers to step forward and win prizes.
He glanced upward, noticing hot-air balloons in the distance, moving toward the theme park. They were decorated with bold, contrasting colors. The late afternoon sun cast its light onto them, creating a living rainbow of color in the open air.
by Book Club
