Title: How (Not) to Kiss a Toad
Series: Cindy Eller Cupcakes #1
Author: Elizabeth A Reeves
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: self
Format: Ebook, Paperback
Length: 315 pages
Buy Links: Amazon
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Book Description:
Life isn't
always sweet for magical baker, Cindy Eller. All her life she's been cursed--
every man she's ever kissed has turned into a toad. Love isn't likely to come
her way, she knows.
If that
weren't a big enough problem, her 'curse' has come to the attention of the
Council of Magic and she may never be able to use her powers.
Enter the
perfect man-- handsome, sweet, and loves food just as much as Cindy does. It
would seem to be a match made in Heaven, or is it?
Cindy isn't
the only one keeping secrets.
With toads,
cupcakes, romance, magic and ice cream, life never has time to get dull!
About the Author:
Legend has it
that Elizabeth A Reeves was born with a book in her hands and immediately
requested a pony. Though this story is questionable, it is true that books and
horses have been consistent themes in her life. Born in Massachusetts, she was
quickly transplanted to Arizona by a professor father and creativity-driven
mother, who is the one responsible for saying ""If you can't find a
book that you want to read, write a book you want to read.""
In her spare
time, she likes to knit, weave, hatch chickens, and chase after her husband and
four sons.
Please Join Elizabeth at
her blogs:
This is a fun readalong tour and every stop will have a different excerpt! Here is the tour schedule followed by my excerpt today!
June 3rd- Paranormal Romance Fans for Life (Excerpt #1)
June 4th- My Seryniti (Excerpt #2)
June 5th- Deal Sharing Aunt (Excerpt #3)
June 6th- Gimme The Scoop Reviews (Excerpt #4)
June 7th- A_TiffyFit's Reading Corner (Excerpt #5)
June 10th- I am, Indeed (Excerpt #6)
June 11th- Simply Infatuated (Excerpt #7)
June 12th- Bea's Book Nook (Excerpt #8)
June 13th- Literal Hotties Naughty Book Reviews (Excerpt #9)
June 14th- Total Book Geek (Excerpt #10)
Weeks into my early employment as a pastry chef, I had
discovered that my, rather capricious, magic had been drawn to the
pastry-creating process. Somehow my basic pastry skills and small gift in magic
had combined to make me something more, a bit of a pastry genius.
Sometimes I thought that this exercising of my meager magic
talent was the only reason my mother didn’t drag me kicking and screaming back
to law school or into some ‘better’ profession, more suited to a child of her
loins. Only here, with flour on my hands, did my magic really shine, sometimes
quite literally.
My mother was proud of her long legacy of magic. In our quiet
community she was considered to be the strongest practitioner in the entire
Southwest. Her magic was of the Earth type. She could grow any plant in her
extensive gardens. She could even start a small earthquake when truly annoyed
(She didn’t ‘get angry.’ That would have suggested she didn’t have mastery of
herself, which no one who knew her would ever even insinuate).
She had always blamed the capriciousness of my magic ability on
the elusive father-figure I had never met. A long series of men had come into
my mother’s life, and left, starting with my own father, whom she stayed
resolutely silent about.
I had five half-sisters. Only the twins had the same father.
Currently Mom was married to the head of the Western Magic Counsel, which meant
she had been calling me with tons of ‘job opportunities’ she felt would be
better for me than the bakery. The only thing that helped me keep my patience
with her was that she always finished our conversations by asking me to send
her a box of my goodies.
It tickled my vanity that even she couldn’t resist my baking.
My magic never worked the same way in two pastries. In some it
could intensify flavors, others, well... my lemon meringue pie had a tendency
to make people remember the very best day of their lives while they were eating
it.
So, as I worked there was always a presence of magic in the
air. It shimmered through everything in the bakery, enhancing, changing, and
making sure every texture was right. My pie crusts were always perfect and my
soufflés never fell. My oven always had exactly the right temperature, and I
almost never burned anything.
