Hello from Perth... where I'm counting the days until the release of A FONDANT FAREWELL: Enchantments & Endings (Book 9) - the final volume in the "Bewitched by Chocolate" series! This final title is really two books in one volume so I just wanted to remind you that the price of the ebook will be going up after release. However, the price is discounted on pre-order to enable you - my "superfans" 😉 - to get it at an Early Bird
Rate: PRE-ORDER NOW: Amazon US |
Amazon UK | Amazon DE **
Unfortunately, the print edition is not available on pre-order. In any case, the price of the paperback will be determined by the cost of printing, since this book will be a LOT more pages!
Oh - and I realised that I hadn't even shown you the final cover for Book 9 yet... Ta da! What do you think? I really wanted to get Ferdinand on the cover too but unfortunately, there just wasn't the space! 😜
If you'd like to catch up on the series before the release of the last book, here's a link to the earlier volumes: "Bewitched by Chocolate" Mysteries Kindle & Paperback: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE Audiobook: Audible US | Audible UK
I was having an online mooch on Etsy the other day (as you do 😉) and couldn't believe my eyes when I suddenly saw a furry shape with big black eyes, enormous fox-like ears and little bat wings... OMG, it was like 'baby Viktor' in the flesh!!
Now, anyone who knows me knows that I almost NEVER impulse buy anything. In fact, I'm an online retailer's nightmare because I'm the kind of person who will put things in my cart and then leave them in there for at least a week (sometimes more!) while I "think about it". 😉
I will research endlessly to make sure I've checked all the other options out there and I rarely buy anything that doesn't have some kind of practical value... Often (after asking myself 64 times: "Do I really need it??") - I will end up taking the item out of the cart again. And all the typical retailers' tricks ("last 1 in stock!" ... "here's an extra 5% off"... "sale ends tomrrow!", etc, etc) - don't work on me. It's the complete opposite of my husband who always buys the first thing he sees, can't understand why I would want to check every other shop out there to see if there are better options and is always worried: "Quick, buy it! What if they run out of stock??" As you can imagine, there are a lot of healthy arguments when we go shopping together! 😄 Are you like this too with your partner?
But this time... OMG, this baby fruit bat was so cute I just couldn't resist! It was a bit of an extravagance but he's handmade, one-of-a-kind and it really was as if someone had conjured Viktor into life! 😊
There was a cage covered with a towel sitting on the examination table in the consulting room. Caitlyn tiptoed over and lifted the edge of the towel to peer underneath. She’d expected to see poor Viktor huddling in fright—instead, she found a fat little
fruit bat hanging by one claw from the top of the cage, his leathery wings wrapped around himself and his eyes shut in an expression of contentment as he snored softly. From the look of his plump stomach and the pieces of banana littered around the floor of the cage, Viktor had gorged himself and then fallen asleep. Argh! She couldn’t believe that she had been so
worried about the old vampire and, all this time, he had been happily stuffing his face and having a nap! Still, she couldn’t leave him here—sooner or later, his real identity would be discovered. She reached for the cage door but before she could unlatch it, the door to the consulting room opened behind her. She whirled around to find the vet standing in the doorway, looking at her in surprise. “Caitlyn! What are you—” “Oh! I…um… heard that they found a bat… I’ve always loved bats so I just couldn’t resist popping over to take a look,” she babbled. “Er… that is, I hope you don’t mind…?” “No,
that’s fine, although I hope you haven’t tried to touch it. Bats have been known to bite and scratch, and they do carry diseases, such as rabies—” “Oh… no… I’ve only had a peek under the towel.” “Right. Well, let’s have a look at it…” said the vet,
coming forwards and pulling the towel off the cage. “My goodness, he’s got the most enormous fangs!” he said, staring at the yellow things on either side of the bat’s mouth. Caitlyn realised that they were Viktor’s new fangs, looking incongruously large protruding from the edges of his mouth. “The poor thing… they must have somehow become very overgrown, although I
can’t understand how. Bats don’t have continuously growing teeth, like rodents, you know, and if anything, they suffer more from their teeth wearing down than anything else." The vet scratched his head, then shrugged. "Ah well, never mind… we’ll fix them so that he’s more comfortable—” “What are you going to do?” asked Caitlyn in alarm as the vet reached for a pair of metal
clippers. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m just going to trim them down—” “What?” Caitlyn stared at him in dismay. Viktor would have a fit if the vet clipped off his precious new fangs!
You know, an author often feels about their characters the same way a mother feels about her children: you love them all and you're not really supposed to have any favourites. 😉 But I have to confess that - out of all the characters I've created - I have the softest spot in my
heart for Viktor. There's just something about him that always puts a smile on my face (and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Pearl's rendition of him in the audiobooks!). Besides, this felt like it was "meant to be" - that I should just happen to see "him" on Etsy when I was wrapping up the series. So yes, I made a rare impulse purchase! "Baby Viktor" was created by a Canadian polymer clay artist & doll maker (here's her Etsy shop, if you're interested: Magic by Marybeth ) so it took a while for him to be shipped around the world to Australia... but he finally arrived safe and sound... Muesli wasn't quite sure what to make of him at first, though - haha! 😄
She wasn't too thrilled about him sharing her bed at first but she soon warmed up to him. Aww, come on - who wouldn't fall in love with that face? 😁
. By the way - for those who are totally lost by now and thinking: "Whaaat?? Who on earth is Viktor?" - he's a character from my Bewitched by Chocolate mysteries: a tetchy old man in an ancient black suit, who also happens to be a 634-year-old vampire... who shape-shifts into a little fuzzy fruit bat and spends a lot of his time asking random strangers if they've seen his lost fangs! 😄 I'll leave you today with the rest of that scene, as the vet approaches brandishing the metal clippers...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The fruit bat gave a horrified squeak and began struggling furiously. The vet looked at it in astonishment and laughed again.
“If I didn’t think I was going crazy, I’d swear that he understood me,” he said with a chuckle. He tucked the folds of the towel more tightly around the fruit bat. “Now, little fellow… if you’ll just hold still for a moment—” “Wait! Um… er… are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Caitlyn, hovering around
him and resisting the urge to snatch the bat out of his hands. “Oh yes, I do it all the time for hamsters and rabbits with overgrown teeth. Don’t worry; it only takes a moment…” He lifted the clippers and bent over the bat. Caitlyn looked
frantically around. She needed to find a way to distract the vet… she was just wondering if she could risk shoving one of the metal trays of veterinary tools off the counter and onto the floor when the door to the room was flung open. The veterinary nurse stood in the doorway, panting. “David! A puppy’s been brought in with its head stuck in a flower pot. It’s really
panicking and the owners are very distressed.” Caitlyn could hear the sound of frantic barking, mingled with raised voices and a child crying, coming from the reception down the corridor. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the vet put the clippers down. “Oh dear… I’ll come right away. Here, can you put the bat back in the cage for me?” He folded the towel over the bat and handed the bundle to the vet nurse before hurrying out. The girl held the bundle at arm’s length for a moment, eyeing it uncertainly, then turned towards the cage. Caitlyn's heart sank. Oh no! She couldn’t let them put Viktor
back in the cage again! She started to say something but, before she could speak, the bundle in the towel began to quiver and shake. “Wh-what’s happening…?” the vet nurse cried, dropping the bundle on the examination table in alarm. The
folds in the towel moved as the bundle grew larger and larger… and the angry squeaking began to sound more and more like an irate human voice… The next moment, the towel slipped off the balding head of a very old man. He was dressed in an ancient black suit and high-collared shirt, with an old-fashioned cravat, and he looked grumpily around. “Really! It is preposterous, the
way I have been treated!” he said, jutting his bottom lip out in an aggrieved fashion. The vet nurse gave a scream, and reeled back, staring at the old man sitting on the consulting table. “Oh my God!” She gaped at him. “How… Where… Who are
you?” Viktor climbed laboriously off the table, dusted himself off, and glowered at her. “My name is Count Viktor Dracul, of the Megachiroptera Order, Ancient Guardian of the Other Realms… and I would thank you to stop manhandling me, young lady!” Caitlyn groaned. “Viktor, I don't think this is the time to start introducing yourself in such detail.” “Eh? And why not? I have nothing to be ashamed of.” He drew himself up proudly. “We vampires are a noble race—” “What? Did
you say you're a vampire?” The vet nurse gave him a suspicious look. “Wait a minute… you’re having me on, aren’t you? Is this like one of them pranks on the telly? You set me up!” She looked quickly around the room, as if checking for hidden cameras. “This is some kind of joke, isn’t it? Just to humiliate and embarrass me—” Viktor bristled. “I am most certainly not a joke.
And as for humiliation, I am the one who has been poked and prodded in the most demeaning way.” He fingered his jaw gingerly. “Really, the indignities I have had to suffer—” “Oh my God! Are… are those real fangs?” The vet nurse stared at the yellowed tips visible at the corners of the old vampire’s mouth.
“Of course they are real!” snapped Viktor. Then he conceded, “Well, they are not my original fangs. I lost those fighting a Siberian bolotnik and had to resort to vampire dentures for a few decades… ugh, dreadful things—gave me terrible breath… I did get a pair of new fangs inserted at the beginning of the century, although, I have to say, the dentist was an utter nincompoop! Had no idea what he was doing: fangs kept
falling out all the time!” He felt his jaw again. “These new ones seem all right so far, though. New dentist chap in Transylvania. He’s done a lot of work with werewolf teeth and ogre underjaw and seems to know his stuff…” He stuck his scrawny neck out and bared his teeth in the girl’s face. “What do you think?” The vet nurse stared at the long yellow fangs protruding from
his sunken gums, then her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted dead away. (from Double, Double,Toil and Truffle (Bewitched by Chocolate Mysteries #6))
Thanks for reading - talk soon!
Hsin-Yi
(H.Y. Hanna)
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