*Holiday Spotlight* In the Cards by Nicky Charles and Jan Gordon

Author: Nicky Charles & Jan Gordon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Published: November 1, 2015
Pages: 130

Synopsis

There are regulations governing the relationship between a guardian angel and their charge, boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. So what happens when a guardian angel falls in love with his current assignment? And when the human returns those feelings, how many rules will that guardian angel break in order to save his love? Alex and Emma are caught between two worlds. Will their love be enough?

"In the Cards" is a Christmas novella by Jan Gordon and Nicky Charles, both of whom are venturing into new ground with this angelic tale.

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Excerpt

“Michael.” “Alex.” Michael acknowledged the greeting and gave a nod indicating the other man should take a seat. The GA complied and Michael eased back in his own chair, allowing himself a moment to appreciate how the soft leather conformed to his contours. One of the perks of the job, though it hardly compensated for the weight of responsibility he carried. Managing a squadron of guardian angels wasn’t for the faint of heart. So much depended on matching the right human to the right angel. A mistake on his part could have consequences that would domino down through the centuries. Like a house of cards, one person’s life supported all those around it. If removed too soon, without proper precautions, the whole thing could collapse. Yet, conversely, too many cards in one place could have the same result. A balancing act, that’s what it was. Yes, the proper angel for the job… “Do you have a new assignment for me?” Alex seemed to anticipate the reason for their meeting. “Could there be any other reason I’d send for you?” Michael raised a brow and enjoyed watching the frown that flitted over the guardian angel’s face before his expression cleared. More than once, he’d had to call Alex on the carpet for his unorthodox approach to an assignment. “Not that I can think of.” “Or at least not that you’ll admit to,” Michael murmured as he reached for a file of papers that were neatly stacked on the corner of his desk. He took a moment to flip through the pages, lips pursed, before handing it over to Alex’s outstretched hand. “Her name is Emma.” “A girl?” Alex flicked the file open, barely glancing at the contents. “A woman. She’s twenty-seven.” “Occupation?” “It’s in the file, if you’d take the time to read it yourself.” He chided the GA lightly before answering. “For the record, she’s an accountant.” “Oh.” A hint of disappointment tinged Alex’s tones. “Is that a problem?” “No. Not really. I was just hoping for something a bit more exciting. Most of my cases have been pretty straightforward lately.” “Well,” Michael made a show of furrowing his brow. “If this case doesn’t suit you, I seem to recall there’s a mall Santa who will be in need of a guardian angel. Someone to help him with all those children…” He let his voice trail off before fixing a hard stare on the man before him. “Would you be more interested in that job?” “You’re kidding, right?” Keeping his expression bland, Michael secretly smiled. He possessed an excellent poker face and sometimes enjoyed watching the GAs try to second guess him. After a moment of studying him, Alex sighed, apparently not willing to call his bluff. “No, thanks anyway.” Alex made a face while rising to his feet. “On second thought, I’ll stick with the accountant.” Michael nodded. “Excellent choice. She really does need you.” “What’s the situation?” Alex paused, his hand on the door. “She’s scheduled to die.”

About the Authors

Nicky Charles is an independent writer/publisher who became an author quite by accident. She always saw herself as a ‘reader not a writer’ and can thank—or blame, depending on the day—her friend/editor and fellow author, Jan Gordon, for the career she now finds herself immersed in. The tale goes something like this: In January of 2009, Nicky penned a fanfiction for an old TV series, “Scarecrow and Mrs. King”, and soon became ‘hooked’ on story-telling. She joined a fan-based group for the show and through there met Jan Gordon. It was an idle comment made by Jan during a review of Black Silk (Jan’s newly published book) that inspired Nicky to write her first original story. Over the course of the next two months, she hastily scribbled down a suspense-driven romance entitled Forever In Time and presented it to the world in August of 2009. Soon after, she wrote The Mating, a paranormal romance and followed it up with The Keeping and The Finding. The three stories formed a loose paranormal trilogy called The Law of the Lycans. Nicky continues to expand the Lycan series and has a long list of possible plots waiting in the wings. Nicky works full-time and writes in her off-hours, few though they may be! In the next few years she hopes to retire from her day job and concentrate more of her energy on her new passion of writing. When she writes, Nicky sees the story unfolding in her head like a movie and tries to include enough detail so that readers can ‘see’ the story just as she does. The sights, sounds, smells and sensations of a scene are almost as important to her as the actual plot. Creating main characters that are ‘real’ is also something she strives for. Nicky tries to make each character different, to give them an interesting backstory, to make their actions and feelings logical and to hopefully make the reader actually care what happens to the people in the story. Nicky lives in Canada and tries to stick to Canadian spelling and punctuation in her work, in support of her country. She is an avid supporter of animal shelters, nature conservancy, food banks and a variety of other charities. Currently she has two ‘inside’ cats and one official ‘outside’ cat though a number of strays seem to take up residence in her garden each year. When not writing, Nicky enjoys reading – though she often bemoans that she seldom has time for it any more. Her favourite authors are Elizabeth Peters, S.C. Stephen and Cherise Sinclair. She also enjoys spending time out in nature, gardening, taking day trips and eating dark chocolate. Jan Gordon grew up in London, England, and emigrated to Israel in her early twenties. After many years of working as a secretary in various media companies, both in the U.K. and Israel, she took time off to raise her two sons. In 2006, after many years of reading fanfiction for an old American TV series, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, she decided to pick up her pen, or rather her keyboard, and wrote her first story, a collaboration with another fanfiction writer, Amy F. (TwoPhantoms1), and the writing partnership of The Yank and The Brit was born. Three years later Jan answered a writing challenge on a fan site for that same TV show and wrote a short original piece and posted it to the group. The characters in that story wouldn’t leave her alone and eventually she gave in and wrote their story. That story was “Black Silk”, a paranormal romance about were panthers.

Jan posted “Black Silk” on the fan site and it received such a good reception from the other members, she branched out and posted it on other sites, including Smashwords. One of the members of the fan site, another fanfiction writer, Charlie, made a comment in her review of the shifter story that sparked an idea, and in reply Jan told her she should use that concept in a story because it sounded fantastic. That ‘idea’ became “Forever In Time” by, the newly named, Nicky Charles. After Nicky’s first two books, Jan started working with her as editor and neither has looked back since. Jan has since written “Life In The Shadows”, a paranormal romance anthology and a prequel, of sorts, to “Black Silk”. Nicky Charles collaborated with Jan on one of the stories in “Life In The Shadows” which combined her wolves and Jan’s panthers. They enjoyed the endeavour so much that they decided to repeat the experience – the result was “In The Cards”. Jan Gordon now lives in Jerusalem, Israel, with her husband and two adult sons. She and her husband often travel to North America and the U.K. to see family and friends. Although Jan both writes and edits paranormal romance, she rarely reads that genre for pleasure. Since discovering author Georgette Heyer as a young teen, her passion for reading Regency romance has never dimmed. Apart from reading, which she does whenever time allows, her other favourite pastimes are cooking and doing Pilates.

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