Spent Identity by Marlene M. Bell is book 2 in the Annalisse Series. It's a Mystery/Suspense. It's Available Now so what are you waiting for go get your copy today! Keep reading for an excerpt & giveaway!
Title: Spent Identity
Series: Annalisse #2
Author: Marlene M. Bell
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Release Date: December 11, 2019
To find her missing aunt, she has to unearth the secrets of the past. But lies and deceit run though the very heart of their town…
What started out as a promising relationship with adventurer and tycoon Alec Zavos has fizzled into an uncertain future for antiquities expert Annalisse Drury. Returning to Walker Farm in Upstate New York to see her Aunt Kate should have been a welcome homecoming and distraction.
Instead, she finds the childhood home she expected to inherit is for sale, without her permission. What’s worse, Kate’s ranch manager makes a gruesome discovery in the barn: the body of an unidentified man, dead by foul play.
Annalisse turns in Alec’s direction for help. She and her aunt shelter on his estate in the Catskills while the authorities canvass the scene. But when Kate herself disappears without a trace, Annalisse fears the worst: that one of the many secrets of her hometown has ensnared her family—a secret someone is willing to kill for to keep hidden.
Split rail fencing whizzed past Annalisse in a blur. Hundreds of stained boards melted into each other in her sprint to catch up to Ethan.
He ran yards ahead in the long breezeway leading from the house to the big barn. Kate was breathing heavily behind Annalisse.
Closer to the barn, the air was heavy with the undeniable odor of advanced decomposition, a ripe chemical cocktail so powerful she had to stop to cough and cover her nose.
Who died in the barn? She stumbled in the dirt tracks left by farming equipment and twisted her ankle in a hole. Reaching for the nearest post, she held on, closing her eyes, un able to take another step.
Ethan trotted back to her. Annalisse, did you hurt yourself? His words heated her neck. Need a minute. Her forehead rested against the grooves where she welcomed the rough edges and oily scent of treated wood.
Sprinting on a cup of Kate’s coffee wasn’t too swift. Got a case of the colly-wobbles myself. Ethan’s tight-lipped smile offered little sympathy. Colly-wobbles? Annalisse smiled back, guessing his slang meant he felt as horrible as she did. Kate appeared behind her, out of breath. No time to dally.
Don’t like tracing my steps twice. It’s supposed to be over ninety today. That person isn’t going to smell any fresher by noon. Step it up.
Remember what the doc said. I don’t keep the AED in the barn. Annalisse backed against the post, rubbing the soreness out of her ankle. I don’t plan to use one, and the guy over there’s too dead to need one.
Kate pointed toward the barn, then she asked Ethan, Anyone we know? Shouldn’t we call the coppers? He lifted his phone from a pocket. Just like Ethan—straight out of a Dick Tracy flick.
Ethan’s little house was a museum of action heroes and crusaders. Pristine comic books—American, Japanese, and nineteenth-century penny dreadfuls from the UK—were in clear protective sleeves on every tabletop and free counter space. The mark of a true collector.
He ran yards ahead in the long breezeway leading from the house to the big barn. Kate was breathing heavily behind Annalisse.
Closer to the barn, the air was heavy with the undeniable odor of advanced decomposition, a ripe chemical cocktail so powerful she had to stop to cough and cover her nose.
Who died in the barn? She stumbled in the dirt tracks left by farming equipment and twisted her ankle in a hole. Reaching for the nearest post, she held on, closing her eyes, un able to take another step.
Ethan trotted back to her. Annalisse, did you hurt yourself? His words heated her neck. Need a minute. Her forehead rested against the grooves where she welcomed the rough edges and oily scent of treated wood.
Sprinting on a cup of Kate’s coffee wasn’t too swift. Got a case of the colly-wobbles myself. Ethan’s tight-lipped smile offered little sympathy. Colly-wobbles? Annalisse smiled back, guessing his slang meant he felt as horrible as she did. Kate appeared behind her, out of breath. No time to dally.
Don’t like tracing my steps twice. It’s supposed to be over ninety today. That person isn’t going to smell any fresher by noon. Step it up.
Remember what the doc said. I don’t keep the AED in the barn. Annalisse backed against the post, rubbing the soreness out of her ankle. I don’t plan to use one, and the guy over there’s too dead to need one.
Kate pointed toward the barn, then she asked Ethan, Anyone we know? Shouldn’t we call the coppers? He lifted his phone from a pocket. Just like Ethan—straight out of a Dick Tracy flick.
Ethan’s little house was a museum of action heroes and crusaders. Pristine comic books—American, Japanese, and nineteenth-century penny dreadfuls from the UK—were in clear protective sleeves on every tabletop and free counter space. The mark of a true collector.
©Marlene M. Bell 2020
Annalisse #1
People die, but legends live on.
New York antiquities appraiser Annalisse Drury recently lost her best friend to murder. The killer’s identity may be linked to her friend’s expensive missing bracelet—a 500-year-old artifact that carries an ancient curse, one that unleashes evil upon any who dare wear the jewelry created for the Persian royal family.
Weeks later, Annalisse sees a matching necklace at a Manhattan gallery opening. She begs the owner to destroy the cursed piece, but her pleas fall on deaf ears—despite the unnatural death that occurs during the opening. With two victims linked to the jewelry, Annalisse is certain she must act.
Desperate, Annalisse enlists the gallery owner’s son to help—even though she’s afraid he’ll break her heart. Wealthy and devastatingly handsome, with a string of bereft women in his wake, Greek playboy Alec Zavos dismisses Annalisse’s concerns—until his parents are ripped from the Zavos family yacht during their ocean voyage near Crete.
Annalisse and Alec race across two oceans to save his mother, feared dead or kidnapped. When the killer changes tactics and goes after Alec behind Annalisse’s back, can her plan to rescue Alec’s mother save them all?
Hold on for a heart-thumping, thrilling adventure through exotic lands in this fast-moving romantic suspense mystery by Marlene M. Bell.
Marlene M. Bell is an award-winning writer and acclaimed artist as well as a photographer. Her sheep landscapes grace the covers of Sheep!, The Shepherd, Ranch & Rural Living, and Sheep Industry News, to name a few.
Her catalog venture, Ewephoric, began in 1985 out of her desire to locate personalized sheep stationery. She rarely found sheep products through catalogs and set out to design them herself. Order Ewephoric gifts online or request a catalog at TexasSheep.com.
Marlene and her husband, Gregg, reside in beautiful East Texas on a wooded ranch with their dreadfully spoiled horned Dorset sheep, a large Maremma guard dog named Tia, along with Hollywood, Leo, and Squeaks, the cats that believe they rule the household—and do.
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