Amey Zeigler's Other Published Work

Amey, it's so great to have you on The Wylder West blog this week! Thank you for joining us! 

We've heard a bit about Wylder Bride and I think it's fair to say you've got most of us completely intrigued! This one is definitely going on my must-read list. 

Do you have any other published work?

I have two other novels and two novellas. The Swiss Mishap won third place in a Book Buyer's best contest for Contemporary Romance. And August Blues is my most recent release. It’s about a romance writer who meets the critic who panned her book and he’s hot.

They both sound wonderful! 

Thank you for this excerpt from The Swiss Mishap: 

Marie Claire hung up, a huge grin on her face. “I sent your CV to Eve Claremont. Eve agrees to you give interview. Her English communication is trés bien...better than mine.”

Madame Claremont will interview her? A nervous shiver filled her horribly stressed body. Just then, the door opened again.

Out came a pencil-thin woman in a pencil-line skirt, with pencil-lined eyebrows. Behind her trailed a gorgeous man in a suit—if one could say a man was gorgeous—with dark, serious eyes and angular features. He consulted his phone. Lainey was glad he didn’t glance at her. He was the type of guy who would make her blush if he caught her staring at him.

Just then, his gaze met hers, an intense, meaningful stare. Blushing, she ignored him giving her a once-over and focused instead on the woman. Legs shaking, gratitude swelling her heart, Lainey stood and held out her hand. “Thank you for taking the time to interview me, Madame Claremont.”

The woman’s too-big eyes widened in disdain. Lainey might wither right on the granite. Should she have said it in French, not English? Was it rude of her to greet someone in English in a foreign country?

The ringing in Lainey’s ears grew louder. Voices sounded strangely far away. She was just about to repeat herself in French when the woman eyed the man behind her. In fact, everyone stared at him. Their gazes met. His eyes were even darker than her own chocolate brown, and his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“I am Yves Claremont,” he said in English.

In French, “Yves” sounded like “Eve.”

Heat flashed Lainey’s face. The ringing in her ears increased into deafening numbness. M. Claremont’s gorgeous features disappeared into darkness.

And this excerpt from August Blues:

“Can I help you?”

The voice startled her. Peering through the shelves to a darkened far corner, she noticed a cash desk. But the shelves blocked the bearer of the voice. “Just looking,” she called back.

A creak of a chair signaled movement. Then a man appeared at the end of the aisle.

His green-and-red plaid flannel shirt draped across broad shoulders. After sliding up a pair of glasses, he tucked his hands into his jean pockets.

A pair of perceptive and penetrating steel-gray eyes beamed behind the lenses, yet they seemed haunted by sadness. His face held wisdom enough to be out of his early twenties but wasn’t wrinkled enough to be too much older than Annie.

“Looking for anything in particular?” he asked.

She didn’t know what she was searching for—a sign to continue or a sign to quit? “Do you have any Hank Shaw books?” His works would be in an older store like this. He started writing more than three decades earlier at the height of horror films and novels. The man raked his fingers across fine, straight hair but it did little good. It all fell back exactly where it had been.

“You a Hank Shaw fan?” His eyes brightened.

He was attractive, in a country-bumpkin way. Annie didn’t know why the thought crossed her mind. For all she knew, he could be married. “I love him.” She squished her eyes in a slightly sarcastic way.

“Me, too.” He led her to the right of the cash desk. “Here’s our collection.”

He passed a bank of low shelving with a rainbow of her father’s titles.

“And here.” He thumped a credenza with a glass case full of books. “We even have signed first editions.”

She noted his use of “we.” Definitely married. Although he didn’t wear a ring. But a ring was only one indicator of unavailability.

She squinted into the darkened shelves of the credenza, blocking out the reflection of the windows behind her to read the titles. Her heart squeezed. Her childhood memories swirled before her. His book tours flashed in her mind. Every time one of these came out meant he left. His leaving meant Mom crying.

“Hank Shaw is one of the greatest writers of our time.”

She raised her gaze. The man’s eyes lit with fire.

He leaned closer. “His prose is incredible, and the sheer amount of thought for his characters is amazing, don’t you agree?”

A tinge of pain swept over her heart. Her review still rubbed her too raw. Hank Shaw wasn’t perfect. She knew how many mistakes he made. She edited his work, for crying out loud. But she couldn’t tell him that without exposing her identity, and she didn’t want to open that weird door between them. “You don’t think his plots lack direction? He’s obviously not a plotter. His stories ramble in places and leave threads hanging.” The man nodded. “Maybe a few years ago, but he’s tightened his storytelling. Besides, dangling threads are common in horror.”

Clearly, this man could see no wrong in Hank

Shaw. His whole face brightened in childlike simplicity. Yes, he was quite attractive.

“His genius continually improves.”