Title: Winter at the Light
Author: Stephen B. King
Genre: Romantic Suspense, Romance
Book Blurb:
Forbes Lighthouse is a dangerous place. Twenty-year-old Molly McLaren agrees to tend the light when her father breaks his leg, so she leaves behind the city and her nursing career. Molly dreads the thought of three months as the sole inhabitant on the tiny island, nineteen nautical miles off the rugged coastline of Augusta in Western Australia. Molly discovers she enjoys the solitude, and when a massive storm arrives bringing a life raft, Molly risks her life to save the unconscious man inside. On waking, he says he has lost his memory but as Molly nurses him back to health she wonders if he has. When the storm finally clears, Molly has fallen for the man she's nicknamed John, but still has doubts about his honesty. The real danger arrives with two men who are searching for her mystery man. They want to kill him and anyone else who can identify them, and Molly quickly learns; on a lighthouse, there is nowhere to hide.
Excerpt:
Molly looked out of the windows and saw an incredible sight. Forbes Reef was instantly lit up by three forks of lightning, which simultaneously streaked from the sky. They snaked across the darkened clouds and hit the reef and ocean all around her.
In the harsh, blinding flash, she could see the rain being driven at a forty-five-degree angle by the wind, and as the glare died down, it was replaced with the sweeping beam radiating outward from the light in the watch room.
“Wow, Molly, my girl, that is some sight,” she uttered.
As her eyesight followed the beam, in the murky distance beyond the shoal, she could see the waves were mountainous as they rose and fell upon themselves to boil and bubble then rise again. It was as if the howling wind was stealing away the white caps from their tips to add to the torrential rain.
Molly no longer felt scared. The fear was replaced with awe and appreciation for nature’s beauty and wrath. Her eyes followed the revolving ray of light, loving everything illuminated in its glow, as thunder crashed overhead again. This time it didn’t make her jump. Molly realized she could no longer hear the wailing. It was probably just the wind through the lean-to all along, she thought.
A lightning fork flew from the clouds and disappeared into the heaving seas to her right. Then came another to her left. “Oh, my goodness,” she exclaimed, “I’m so glad I’m here to see this; it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”
Molly felt warm wearing the oilskin and shrugged it off; it had become superfluous because she didn’t need to go out on the balcony. Molly could see all she needed to from inside. And there was still no sound of screaming. For a moment she hoped that wasn’t because whoever made the noise had died or passed into unconsciousness. Nature’s light show will show me all I need to see, especially with my binoculars, she decided.
Molly unhooked the Weiss Glasses, strung the lariat around her neck, and raised them to her eyes just as another obliging explosion of light flooded out from a twin fork. Under the magnification, everything became more evident, and even more visually spectacular, as she scanned the three hundred and sixty degrees around the island. Using the recurring lightning flashes and rotating beam from beside her, Molly’s vision was crystal clear in the harsh, stark black-and-white view.
Molly was diligent and pleased with her sense of responsibility as she studied every rock and crevice on the island and surrounding reef her from her vantage point. She paid particular attention to the rocks around the cave knowing full well she was only doing that because of the ghost story she’d heard over lunch. Once completed, Molly turned her attention to the reef, her gaze traversing across it slowly as she allowed for the waves to subside so she could see behind them when they receded. She took her time, enjoying the task, and had no idea how long her vigil lasted. When she finally lowered the binoculars, she was satisfied there was no one in trouble. There was no shipwrecked boat that had run aground, and no one lay injured on the rocks screaming for aid, so the wailing noise was nothing more than a trick of the wind.
After breathing a long sigh of relief, Molly turned and hung up the glasses. She realized she was no longer tired and made a spur of the moment decision to stay for a while longer.
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Why is your featured book a must-read?
Why is WATL a must-read? Boy tough question. It’s a love story, a historical story of lighthouse keeping in the 1950’s and a thriller with a young woman facing two men who want to kill her and her mystery man. I think it’s the perfect beach read – honestly.
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Author Biography:
I left Perth, Australia to go East and find fame and fortune in the music business as a long-haired rock guitarist. I wrote poems and music, and my band used to open for some pretty big groups in my wild days. I gave it all up for love and got married (as you do when the right one comes along). Then, real life took over, children came along and I threatened to write a book for so many years my long-suffering wife eventually pushed me into it by buying me a laptop and said: "No more excuses, do it." And so began this amazing journey. My first book, Forever Night, was contracted and published by now defunct Totally Entwined Group 's Evidence Press. It features a returned veteran soldier who has suffered horrifically, physically and mentally to become a serial killer while hunting for his runaway wife. As an SAS soldier he is far more highly trained to kill and survive, than the cops are trained to stop him. If you enjoy dark, Scandinavian type crime thrillers, you will love this story. That was followed by a trilogy, about the rise of a cop through the ranks from Detective to Detective Inspector, when his world falls apart. Domin8, is about a married man who is drawn into the dark world of online dating, until someone starts murdering his lovers. The Vigilante Taxi features a man who knows tragedy, his life has been full of it and with nothing to live for he becomes a vigilante during the night shift while driving his cab. When he falls in love, and wants to stop, it's too late; the cops and an underworld figure are closing in. Burial Ground, is about newly appointed Detective Inspector Sam Collins, who is handed the job of finding a serial killer who has been killing and burying his victims in an old disused gravel pit for seventeen years. He is a close to a pure psychotic evil as you will find, worse then Hannibal Lecter, or anything from the mind of the great Stephen King. Repo saw me return to two characters from Forever Night. New private investigator husband and wife sleuths trying to save a man from jail for a murder he did not commit. He returns home from working in a mine to find his wife gone, bank accounts empty, and fully restored classic muscle car repossessed. When his wife's body is found, he is arrested for murder. Dillon and Jayne enter a world of illegal poker games, protected by the underworld, to find the real killer and free their first client. Next, I wrote a beautiful love story/thriller about Jenny, who travels in time to come back to save the world from an all consuming blight that was genetically modified. She falls in love in the past, but can only stay for thirty-three days. This was published by: The Wild Rose Press of NY. I am very proud to say this book has been a finalist in three US literary awards and won the N.N. Light Book Heaven award for 2019 for Time Travel/ Time Travel Romance/Thriller I now have a trilogy published with TWRP, called The Deadly Glimpses. Book 1 is called Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer, and has just been released. Book 2, Glimpse, The Beautiful Deaths is due out soon and book 3, Glimpse, The Tender Killer will be released in three months. The trilogy follows the fortunes of two married colleges who are attracted to each other while working together to track down three murderers. What will the effect be on their marriages, and their relationship if they act on the desires they have? I was thrilled when a recent reviewer likened Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer to Seven, and the Saw films, and I take that as very high praise indeed. The trilogy is growing with a two new additions being released soon, Glimpse, The Angel Shot, and Glimpse, Friday the 13th. Winter at the Light is a suspense story set in 1952 on a remote lighthouse, where 20-year-old Molly learns there is nowhere to hide on a lighthouse. Released on August the 10th 2020 many people have told me this story would make a fantastic film. Thrillers and crime genres have always fascinated me, and in particular, the dark world of serial killers. I love a good, unputdownable, thriller. You know, the kind you just want to read one more chapter of at three in the morning before bed, but you have to be up at six to go to work. Have I succeeded in creating stories that can take people to that place? Boy I hope so. Check out my website and blog for fee stories and previews. www.stephen-b-king.com Happy reading Steve
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