Excerpt: Aphrodite's Tears

Description:

In ancient Greece, one of the twelve labours of Heracles was to bring back a golden apple from the Garden of Hesperides. To archaeologist Oriel Anderson, joining a team of Greek divers on the island of Helios seems like the golden apple of her dreams. Yet the dream becomes a nightmare when she meets the devilish owner of the island, Damian Lekkas. In shocked recognition, she is flooded with the memory of a romantic night in a stranger’s arms, six summers ago. A very different man stands before her now, and Oriel senses that the sardonic Greek autocrat is hell-bent on playing a cat and mouse game with her. 

As they cross swords and passions mount, Oriel is aware that malevolent eyes watch her from the shadows. Dark rumours are whispered about the Lekkas family. What dangers lie in Helios, a bewitching land where ancient rituals are still enacted to appease the gods, young men risk their lives in the treacherous depths of the Ionian Sea, and the volatile earth can erupt at any moment? Will Oriel find the hidden treasures she seeks? Or will Damian’s tragic past catch up with them, threatening to engulf them both?

Author bio:

Hannah Fielding is an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: writing full time at her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breath-taking views of the Mediterranean.

To date, Hannah has published six novels: Burning Embers, ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’, set in Kenya; The Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story that is beautifully told’ set in Italy; the Andalucian Nights trilogy (Indiscretion, Masqueradeand Legacy), set in sultry Spain; and Aphrodite’s Tears, set on the Greek islands, which won Best Romance in the 2018 NIEA Excellence Awards and the 2018 International Book Awards.

 

Links

Author's website

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Amazon

Amazon UK

Excerpt
Oriel had been sitting on the boulder for a long time, gazing distractedly towards the water, when she became vaguely aware of something moving in the shallows. The moon had by now disappeared behind a bank of cloud, extinguishing the glitter of the waves and the silvery patina on the rocks. The shift in darkness of the night sky made it difficult to see what had rippled the surface of the water. Frogmen night diving, she thought, or the slight undulation of the sea in the warm, salty breeze. Oriel didn’t give it another thought, returning her attention to the winking lights of fishing boats on the horizon – and then, abruptly, he emerged ...

It was a man, but not one wearing a wetsuit, flippers or oxygen mask; this one was almost naked, his modesty barely protected by what could only be defined as an apology for a low-rise brief. He was no mere trick of the light. Sleek and glorious, he was suddenly hurtling out of the water, throwing spray off his body like Poseidon rising from the waves.  

Oriel’s breath caught in her throat as she watched him, a small frown crinkling her brow. A curious sense of apprehension seeped into her veins. In the near-darkness, he looked large, rather menacing, and disturbingly masculine as he strode through the shallows. There was an air of unquestioned dominance about this man, an arrogant power that expressed itself in the controlled motion of his body as he sauntered onto the beach. 

For that fateful minute, she was totally helpless, in the grip of emotions too basic to be controlled by rational thought. Instead of turning to leave quickly, she continued to stare at the stranger who had materialized like a Greek god wading from the depths of the sea. The moon slid into view again, throwing a wash of silver over long muscular legs and narrow hips, wide shoulders and a sculpted torso, all combined in a vibrantly athletic stance. As his approaching form became more discernable, each smooth, fluid curve of muscle, each long line of sinew and bone, and each angular feature glistened with a radiance that stabbed Oriel straight to the heart. Hair as dark as the devil’s soul was dripping wet across his forehead and he lifted his hand to slick it away from his face, the moonlight catching every droplet that glittered like tiny diamonds across his skin. 

All at once, Oriel gathered her wits, conscious that she too was only lightly clad with just a muslin sarong covering her bikini. She remembered her mother’s warning that it wasn’t wise for a woman to venture alone on a deserted beach, and she stood up to hurry back to her hotel, quickly tucking the letter and photograph into her sarong. 

Too late! She had barely taken a step before she found herself confronted by the tall, dark figure. Well above the average height of other Greek men, he towered over her, a dark silhouette against the moonlit sky. His eyes gleamed like steel against his deeply tanned skin as his gaze wandered over her, then rested upon her hair falling heavily down her back, pale and shining as the moon on the water. He had a strong masculine face, rather insolent and somewhat primitive – so much so that despite the tinge of fear fluttering through her, Oriel couldn’t help but feel mesmerized by this Adonis. 

‘What brings a beautiful girl to such a deserted place on this enchanting night?’ he asked in English. His obvious Greek accent gave a delightful, smoky edge to his deep voice, and it sent an involuntary warmth up her spine. Slicking back his dark wet hair once more, he studied her openly. ‘You look like the ocean nymph, Calypso, waiting for Odysseus on your island, ready to bewitch him with your mesmerizing voice.’

Oriel had been too startled, too alarmed to reply at first. His comment was unexpected, and those glittering grey eyes seemed to hold her prisoner, flickering with amusement and something more intense. It was she who was bewitched.

‘I thought I was alone,’ she said, finally finding her voice.

His mouth quirked. ‘So did I.’ He nodded behind him. ‘I dropped anchor back there to come in for an evening swim. It’s been a hot day.’ His eyes returned to her, intent and appraising.

Oriel’s gaze flitted away and caught sight of a small boat, moored next to the rocks on her left. Partially obscured by the craggy ridge that shaped the deserted cove, only the top of the sail was visible, billowing gently in the balmy breeze. She’d been too preoccupied by her brooding thoughts to notice its arrival.

She felt an urge to push past this handsome stranger and run away to the safety of her hotel bedroom, but something about this man had held her there, transfixed. The intriguing power of his personality gripped her imagination. This stranger could have stepped straight out of Homer’s Odyssey. 

A silky platinum lock slipped from the scarf Oriel had tied around her head in a band to keep her heavy, tumbling mane in place, and the breeze blew it across her face. He reached out a bronzed hand with tapering long fingers and lightly pushed the strand away, before caressing the length of her hair almost reverently. There was a sultry burn now in the gaze that wandered from her hair to her mouth, settling on Oriel’s wild doe eyes, which stared back at him. Her stomach curled with instinctive heat. 

She felt the impulse to escape, like a fawn fleeing into the brush. Instead, she stood there, pulse racing, her legs trembling as an unfamiliar exquisite sensation flooded the lower part of her body. It was madness! Never before had this sense of danger – of seduction – hit her with such potency. Surely it was the island air that had gone to her head like an enchanted potion. 

The dark waves murmured on the sand, their gently rolling edges lit a luminous blue under the moonlight. Everything was cloaked in unreality, and it was as if the two of them were caught in a dream. Oriel sensed that the mysterious stranger before her was also aware of the extraordinary atmosphere that engulfed them. 





Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.