Copper Cookware Contest Plus a Mini-Excerpt from Gone With a Handsomer Man

The pub-date for Gone With a Handsomer Man is almost here! There's still time to enter the copper cookware contest.I'm counting the days until the launch party.



Here's a mini-excerpt from Chapter 5 in GWAHM. Without giving away any spoilers, this chapter involves Teeny Templeton, the main character of GWAHM, who needs a place to spend the night. The following scene describes a (fictional) pink house on Rainbow Row in Charleston's historic district:

Photo (c) Anweber - Fotolia.com
I walked past an oval staircase. Paintings of angry-looking women stared down from the walls, silently warning me not to touch anything. I’d never seen this much finery, not even at Miss Dora’s home, and it scared me.
I stopped in front of a table and dropped the tasseled key chain into a crystal bowl. A piece of glass chipped off and skittered to the floor. I leaned over to examine the bowl. Waterford. I’d been in the house three minutes and I’d already damaged a priceless artifact.
I squatted beside the staircase, fit my inhaler into my lips, and sucked in the bitter Ventolin. I was dying for a cup of tea but when I get tired, I get clumsy. Even if I drank water from the tap, I’d break the faucet. If I stayed longer than a night, I’d want to cook barbecued ribs and fry a batch of coconut shrimp, but a house like this cried out for cheese soufflé and cold watermelon soup.

Photo (c) Maksim Shebeko - Fotolia.com
I couldn’t see myself cooking here. I’d inherited the untidy gene—all the Templeton women had it. We cooked from scratch, creating feather-light biscuits. But we also made epic messes.
I wasn’t built for high class living. I let the dishes pile up in the sink; I didn’t always eat at the table. Home was a place where I could eat Oreo Cakesters in bed. Only I couldn’t get home. And I was stuck in a museum.

To learn more about Teeny and to read about the latest Okra Picks, visit Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. They've chosen Gone With a Handsomer Man as a Spring Okra Pick.