Snippet Sunday: The Edge of the Earth

Hey, didja know I write vanilla erotic romance too? Didja? Didja?

If you follow my blog you probably do. Actually, I’ve only written one so far, under the pseudonym Molly Joseph, but I plan to write more in the future. To me, it’s all about the alpha male, whether he’s kinky or vanilla. Sometimes a story simply doesn’t work in a BDSM framework, which is what happened with The Edge of the Earth.

The Edge of the Earth is about a well-traveled (and alpha!) linguist named Dr. Will Mayfair, and a home organizer named Charlotte Rowe.  Charlotte’s not exactly the adventurous type, although she’d like to be, so she agrees to travel to a small Caucasus republic to help Will translate an obscure historical document.  Trouble is, Will doesn’t realize someone so…female…is coming until she shows up.

Things get a lot worse before they get better–this was written by me after all! I think The Edge of the Earth might be in the running for Most Trauma Survived Before Happily Ever After, but along the way, Will and Charlotte learn a lot about love, life, and the power of forgiveness.

But before that, there’s the scene where Will realizes his research partner has sent over a young, attractive, slightly OCD female to assist him rather than the rugged male translator he expected to meet. The area, unfortunately, is not safe for women, and he decides he must send her home. (SPOILER: She ends up staying!)

     Dr. Mayfair looked back at her over his shoulder, then turned around and spoke loudly and sharply into the phone in a language she didn’t know. Russian, maybe? She tried not to think about how firm and strong his ass looked in his cargo shorts, because, of course, that would have been totally inappropriate. For a while, he paced back and forth along the gravelly asphalt, then he stopped and shook the phone at the sky, yelling out more foreign-sounding expletives.

     “Is everything okay?” Charlotte asked.

     He spun to look at her with a growl of frustration. “Welcome to the Caucasus. Majestic Land of Dropped Calls.” He must have gotten Ivo back on the line then, because the streams of angry language burst forth again. Surprise on top of dissonance on top of anomaly. A few minutes before, he’d spoken to her in the most proper, clipped English, and now he ranted in Russian like a native, spitting out the deep vowels and intonations that were also present in the dialect she knew. She found all of it deeply disturbing. She was used to order and politeness. She’d expected a cordial welcome from a smiling academic who looked very much like Ivo, not an extremely hot man cursing a blue streak in Russian and waving around a phone.

     “Fuck it. Jesus Fuck,” he said, apparently in closing, since he pocketed his phone. He turned to her, shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Okay. I’ll drive you to Krasnodar, to the airport there, although I’m not sure we’ll find you a flight out tonight.”

     She gawked. “What are you talking about?”

     “Your return trip.” Anger and disappointment warred for a moment on his face. “I’m sorry, but you have to go home.”

     “Home?” Charlotte looked down at the bags by her feet. “I’m not going home. I came here to help you. You’re Dr. Mayfair, aren’t you?”

“Call me Will.” He leaned down to pick up her suitcase and shoulder bag. “And you are going home, I’m afraid. Car’s over there.”

     She yanked on the strap of her bag, arresting him mid-step. “There’s no way in hell I’m getting back on a plane right now. Just—stop for a minute.” She fought with him for her luggage, trying not to stare at the impressive musculature of his arm. “I thought you needed me. I thought you searched for months to find someone who knows this dialect you’re studying.”

     He gave her a hard look. “We did, which is the only reason I can think that Ivo would bring you here. He told me your name was Charlie Rowe. I assumed you were a guy. But you’re a…woman.” His eyes slid over her, from her travel-worn hair to her sensible Born shoes.

     “And this is problem because?” she asked, bristling.

     He didn’t answer until his gaze snapped back to her eyes. “It’s just a problem. Trust me.”

The Edge of the Earth is a really special book to me because it contains a lot of deeper themes about life that I’d always wanted to write about. It’s a sweet love story too, a story about how sometimes the most wonderful things are the things we must fight for the hardest. I hope you’ll give my vanilla stuff a try. There’s no whips and chains, sure, but that Dr. Will can be pretty alpha when he wants to be. 😉 Click the book below to see a blurb and buy links!click for buy links and blurb

12 thoughts on “Snippet Sunday: The Edge of the Earth

  1. I’m reading Lily right now then Edge will be my last book by you …I love your writing. I took the keirsey test and I too am a infj…I think that’s one of the main reasons I enjoy your books so well. The details and the little things that draw these ppl together is what seperates your writing from others, at least for me. I get a soul connection when I read your stuff. I’m so looking forward to seeing your next book. Thanks for taking the time to share what’s in your head with us. O, btw I just finished kelseys story and I swear the scence with the poka dot panties. I giggled cause I seem to remember seeing a newly certain red haired girl own the same pair on fetlife! Lol anyways happy Sunday to you and be safe on ur trip.

    1. Oh, a soul connection. How wonderful! I’m glad you feel that way. I do think my INFJ status informs a lot of my life as a writer. In fact I read somewhere that even though INFJ is a relatively small section of the population, a large percentage of them are writers…something to do with having brains that were capable of fitting out a complex story. I know when I’m putting the stories together in my head, sometimes it does seem like a puzzle that just falls into place. I love my brain, lol.

      And yes, I may have based those polka dot panties on a pair of my own. HAHAHAHA.

    1. As always you are making me giggle. Actually, this is funny, but the hero in Waking Kiss was just teasing the heroine about crying until dehydration. I think you’re reading my brain waves!!

      Waking Kiss has a Brazilian character in honor of you. 🙂 He is a friend of the hero and he starts out as kind of an ass but he turns into a great guy over the course of the book…I think he’ll end up getting his own book!!!

      1. That is surely the nicest thing that anyone did in my honor, not that I recieved many, but even if I get lots of honors in the future, it still be in the top <3. And I long for your next book, it will be the first in my kindle.

        But, you know, I don't speak english very frequently, so it's kinda natural to me talk like your characthers, cause they like "the mirrors" I got. When true blood season is airing I talk just like Laffayete, basically cause curses in english are lot funnier than in Portuguese PLUS my parents don't understand it.

      2. Oh, I think that’s neat that you pick up the speech of other characters. I love Lafayette, lol. It’s an added plus that your parents don’t understand. HAHA.

    1. oh, you are going to lurve this one, Jenny! I’m working hard on it now to get it perfect for release. By the end of February for SURE. Maybe sooner!

  2. This book was amazing your best hands down time to do some art for it lol …I’m hoping someone sees this book and wants to make a movie …. Annabel it is that good of a book.

    1. Aw, thanks Jenny. It’s so funny you said that because I used to be a screenwriter and this was a story I’d originally written as a screenplay, like, five years ago. So it came to me as a movie in my head and when I wrote it everything was very visual… It would make a very beautiful movie, I think. 🙂

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