Canticle
Caster Prophecy Book 1
by LaVerne Lewis
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Print Length: 214 pages
Publication Date: October 28, 2019
She's a human with a busted ticker. He's an ancient warlock. The only thing they have in common are birthmarks that flare to the point of pain when they're together. But fate has other ideas…
Studying abroad despite her advancing heart disease, Leilani Gibson squeezes all the joy she can out of life. Literally bumping into the most handsome guy she's ever seen while Christmas shopping should be the best thing that's happened to her in quite some time, but she knows he'll disappear when he discovers her secret.
Born into a family of Casters, Stellan Kierkegaard lives his life away from the reminder that he alone is the only one un-mated in his coven. When he collides with Leilani at a Montreal mall, his gallant attempt to get her to the hospital when she succumbs to congestive heart failure takes an unexpected turn. Now he’s forced to withhold some secrets of his own.
Stellan poses as Leilani's fiancé until she gets the medical care she needs, but the more time they spend together, the more intense their feelings become as their birthmarks flare. If Caster prophecy is to be believed, and this reaction is only triggered in true soul mates, they must hide this fact from a trio of zealous Caster royals who have been tricked once.
The Caster couple who bears the foretold birthmark is prophesied to knit dark and light covens to lead the Caster World. Yet how can this be when Leilani is by every indication, mortal?
Leilani felt like Cinderella as they wended their way through the streets of Montreal to their destination. Neither Stellan nor Eija had breathed a word of where they were going. She had been clueless until they turned onto rue Saint-Catherine Ouest.
“Are we going to see The Nutcracker?” she asked excitedly. She could see La Place Des Arts up ahead in all its avant-garde architectural beauty. For weeks, she had heard about the production by Fernand Nault being presented by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal.
“That’s the plan,” Stellan said with a self-satisfied smirk.
“I told you she would love it, Stellan,” Eija said from the back seat.
“This is awesome. Thank you both, so much,” Leilani gushed. “I’ve seen it performed by the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. PNB presents the Stowell/Maurice Sendak production, but I’ve been told that Fernand Nault’s production is spectacular. The dancers of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal are so talented.”
Stellan expertly maneuvered through the traffic and quickly found them a plum parking space despite the throngs of ballet attendees swarming all of the available entrances to the garage. Before Leilani knew it, they were in the car park in the basement of La Place Des Arts. Stellan extended one arm to Leilani and the other to Eija and escorted them both through the halls moving with the steady flow of ballet goers walking in the same direction.
They had only been walking for few seconds when Eija got a faraway look in her eyes and stopped. Stellan seemed to know what was happening and pulled them both gently out of the flow of traffic.
“Is Eija okay?” Leilani whispered, looking back and forth between him and his dazed sister.
“She’s fine,” Stellan said. “Eija just believes that you shouldn’t walk all the way to the hall. She is seeing you being carried away in an ambulance.”
“But I feel great.”
“I’m rarely wrong, Leilani,” Eija said as her eyes focused again. “You should let Stellan carry you.”
“That would be so... embarrassing,” Leilani argued.
“I can get a wheelchair from the concierge,” Stellan offered.
“Really?” Leilani scoffed. “Neither option is appealing.”
“The choice is yours, love,” Stellan said sternly. “I will honor either option you choose…or I will choose for you.”
“Oh my God,” she said, her face warm from embarrassment. “Is this what I have to look forward to? Visions, threats, and ultimatums?”
“Only when your stubbornness compromises your health and safety,” Stellan said with a smirk. “Really, Leilani, does the idea of being in my arms appall you so greatly? I could carry you around the world and never grow tired.”
“I just don’t like looking like an invalid.”
“All the more reason to let Stellan carry you,” Eija said. “Most people will probably view it as romantic.”
Before Leilani could mount another protest, Stellan literally swept her off her feet. She had no choice but to wrap her arms around his strong, broad shoulders and clasp her hands behind his neck as he carried her bridal style through the halls of La Place Des Arts.
After a few seconds of being in her beautiful Caster’s arms, she relaxed and her blush dissipated. Eija floated effortlessly beside them, smiling and nodding at the smiles, cat-calls, best wishes, and strange looks they received from people in the halls as they made the several minute trek to La Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier. She spotted the entrance sooner than expected and was relieved that he would finally be able to put her down.
Their seats were on the Corbeille Level, Loge 1, which was a private box seating eight people. They took seats one through three in the very front of the box, and Leilani had a sneaking suspicion that Stellan had purchased the entire box for the night. Eija’s cell phone must have alerted her silently, because she took it, excused herself, and slipped quietly out of the theater.
Leilani took Stellan’s hand in hers and leaned toward his ear. “Thank you for carrying me. It would have been a shame for me to get sick and miss this.”
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and whispered back to her, his lips perilously close to her ear. “You’re very welcome, Leilani. Carrying you was my pleasure.”
“But I know that pleasure was not without pain for you.”
“Philosophers have long hypothesized that the sensations of pain and pleasure are part of a continuum. I gladly embrace that theory for you.”
She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. “I don’t know if I deserve the sacrifices you are making for me.”
He enclosed her warm hand in both of his. “One day I shall recount for you all the sacrifices you are making for me.”
Leilani felt lost in his eyes for several seconds, then she blushed and glanced away. “Did you know that although E.T.A. Hoffman wrote the story upon which this ballet was based, the dance as it is choreographed today was written by Marius Petipa and follows a revision of the original story written by Alexandre Dumas?” she asked conversationally.
“Dumas was quite a colorful character, and he contributed much to French Literature. We have several of his first editions, in addition to the copy of The Count of Monte Cristo you saw today,” Stellan replied.
“I love his work,” Leilani said. “You said, ‘we.’ Does your family have as extensive a book collection as you do?”
“When I said we, I was referring to you and me,” he said, his blue eyes locking with her brown ones. “I have no doubt that you will be my spirit wife soon, so what’s mine is also yours.”
Leilani was rather stunned by that admission, on both counts. He literally viewed her as someone with whom he wanted to have a long-term relationship. Conversely, she didn’t want to think about how wealthy he was and how that could change her life.
“What exactly does a Caster do for income?” she asked. “I mean, you don’t seem to have a job—you never talk about working.”
“My family and I, at Eija’s direction, have made strategic investments through the years that have proven to be quite lucrative for us.”
Eija returned then and took her seat next to Leilani, having picked up on Stellan's words, she said, “Yes, they use me like a fortune teller, Leilani, a veritable personal stock broker,” Eija quipped playfully. “But I don’t mind. I would do anything for my family, and that includes you, too, now.”
Sitting between Stellan and Eija, Leilani had never felt more pampered or protected, at a ballet—with two Casters, no less. They listened to the music of Tchaikovsky as the ballet began.
Leilani thrilled at the lavish sets, shimmering costumes, comical scenes, sparkling ballet form, and enchanting colors and lights. Leilani could only hope that her saga would end as happily as Clara's.
Opus
Caster Prophecy Book 2
Publication Date: November 28, 2019
When the most precious Caster artifact goes missing, its retrieval becomes the difference between peace and civil war.
Powerful warlock, Stellan Kierkegaard was united with his Caster’s Canticle in Leilani Gibson, whom he believed to be human, but is actually an equally powerful Caster who’s been raised by human parents. During surgery to repair Leilani’s severely damaged heart, the power which someone had been siphoning from her since childhood was returned, revealing her true nature.
Now, the Kierkegaard coven is on the run from their governing body, The Hemlock Society, and the unknown person or persons who plotted to relieve Leilani of her power. Shortly after learning that the second half of the Caster Prophecy, the Caster’s Opus, has been stolen from the Hemlock Society in Stockholm, Leilani is kidnapped, sending Stellan into a Caster rage.
Will Stellan and Leilani retrieve the Caster’s Opus in time to join the Dark and Light covens together as prophesied, or will the Caster World descend into chaos?
Masterpiece
Caster Prophecy Book 3
Publication Date: December 29, 2019
Ruling the Caster World proves dangerous, but is it as dangerous as a little-known prophecy which could be the final triumph?
Stellan and Leilani Kierkegaard balance marriage, governing an underground race of magical beings, an investigation to discover who her biological parents are, all while completing their matriculation at an Ivy League school. It seems all too easy until their lead Caster investigator turns up dead, and every conceivable clue leads back to someone trying to keep her parents’ identity a secret.
When Leilani’s grad school bestie learns the secret they’re sworn to keep at all costs, things get even more interesting in their world, particularly, the fact that her in-laws may not share her views, or fondness for humans, when it comes to the existence of Casters in a world dominated by them. Combine all this with the discovery that there’s yet another prophecy which must be fulfilled in order for them to reign over the Caster World in relative peace and prosperity.
Will Stellan and Leilani have to make the same choice her Caster parents had to make to safeguard their legacy, or will prophecy protect their Masterpiece?
LaVerne Lewis grew up watching shows like Dark Shadows, Bewitched and later Charmed and Supernatural. Her favorite authors in the genre include Anne Rice, Stephen King, Karen Marie Moning and J.R. Ward which cemented her fondness for Urban Fantasy and the Paranormal. While she works by day in an office writing dry contract language, her love for Urban Fantasy compelled her to pursue writing the types of books she loves. Now she writes her own Paranormal Romance novels in the hope that someday her name will be synonymous with her idols’.
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