At Meilori's: SECONDHAND SHOES cover reveal!

I looked at Roland's laptop.

Man, he was trusting me to write a good post for Shelly Arkon and her cover for her book, SECONDHAND SHOES.

The candle at Captain Sam's table flared, pushing the creeping shadows reluctantly away. 

The leaves of the two near-by palms hissed through the dark air like claws through desert sand.  Alice sat down beside me.  Sfumato.  How did she wiggle without moving like that?

Alice breathed, "Why are the candles at those other tables so small, their light so feeble, Victor?"

I made a face. "The candles are really the souls of the men sitting at them."

"Oh, my!"

Thea Gilmore was singing "COFFEE AND ROSES."  Two drunk city councilmen were marring her song with their loud voices.

Alice frowned, "Obviously, they have no ear for music. Fitting that they have no ears at all."

She left for a little fast food.

I started typing:

"Secondhand Shoes Cover Reveal and Something Borrowed Giveaway

Today, Shelly Arkon is doing another cover reveal to Secondhand Shoes.

She’s also giving away three books from the Twilight Series and eight books from the House of Night Series."
 

Father Renfield sat down with the candlelight striking fire from his canines. "I detest those books about that sparkly pedophile."

Oscar Wilde sat on the other side of me. “It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”  

I nodded and kept typing:
 

" In order for your name to be put in the drawing you must promise to Tweet, Facebook, and Google +1 this

and leave a comment in the box that you did so along with your email,

which series you would like,

and what you borrowed on your wedding day to wear down the aisle."
 

Oscar's eyes danced. "What will you borrow for your wedding day, Victor?"

Alice slipped between him and me to breathe in my ear.  "Victor is living on borrowed time as it is."

Alice giggled,  "At least I hope they will not be secondhand bridal shoes that did not fit like Shelly's heroine, Lila."

Renfield raised an eyebrow.  "You've read her book already?"

"Oh, yes. Twice."  Alice slipped her copy from her dress's side pocket.

Oscar smiled wide. “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” 

I went back to typing about Shelly's drawing:
 

"There will be no rafflecoptors or anything like that. She’s pretty much a self-admitted "techno-moron." 

(Alice giggled, "Isn't that British for Victor?")

On Friday, October 19^th, Shelly will reveal two winners over at http://secondhandshoesnovel.blogspot.com/
 

Oscar snatched SECONDHAND SHOES from Alice.  "Here, let me read a bit of it aloud."
 

A light wind blew my hair across my face. I looked at the sky. Dark clouds coming up I-75. I looked at the woods. Probably a million snakes in there, I thought.

“Don’t be afraid, Lila,” the ghost of Gram said.

A half-dozen sparrows flew from around the front of the diner, low to the ground, and into the woods. I followed them in through the ferns bordering the pavement and into the trees. My lacey arm caught on a cypress branch ripping a portion of my sleeve from me.

I walked for at least a half hour. When Max and I left the wedding, it must’ve been mid-eighty degrees. It warmed up since then like twenty more. That was a Florida July for you. The humidity made it almost unbearable.

I was sweating, my bodice soaked. The money inside my bra stuck to my skin. It itched. The lace on my one arm and back itched more. I smelled no better than Max did when he got home from work and every winged insect buzzed around me. I smacked at them. A big, black horsefly really liked me. It wouldn’t go away. I thought of Max.

My blisters and toes screamed pre-, mid-, and post-step. The balls of my feet, too. The three inchers got caught in vines, branches, and mole holes. It took a lot to stay upright in the deep leaves.

I considered taking my shoes off, but there might be hook worms or some jungle ameoba waiting to feast on my leg muscles, and I needed my legs to get me out of this mess. Mom scared me out of going shoeless when I was little, and I’d never gone barefoot except on Mom’s clean carpets and disinfected floors. I wore shoes or slippers at Cynthia’s. Her mother didn’t vacuum every day. Nor did I taste Pine Sol in the back of my throat at her house.

A hawk flew down out of nowhere and landed on the ground in front of me, tilted its head, and blinked its eyes at me.

The hawk jumped up and down, flitting its wings. He turned and squawked.

“You want me to follow you?”

It hopped onward, looking back at me every third or fourth bounce.

From not too far behind me a male voice bellowed, “Lila!”
 

Oscar leapt from the chair.  "I must publish this in the Shadowlands!"

Alice blustered, "Under your own name?"

Oscar winked at her.  "Why of course! There would be no fun to it otherwise."

I started to go after his departing figure, but Renfield waved me back.  "Too late."

He held up another copy of SECONDHAND SHOES.  The author on the cover?  Oscar Wilde.

I hung my head and groaned, "Roland and Shelly are going to kill me!"

{Everyone else is doing Shelly's Cover Reveal Friday, but Victor always has to rush things!}