Curse of the Marhime, Now in Print!

Curse of the Marhime: Excerpt and Reviews

A Wild Rose Press Release: Curse of the Marhime
Book I, The Roma Wolf Tales Series
Print ISBN 1-60154-353-0

Print Release Date: December 12, 2008

Available at:
The Wild Rose Press
Amazon.com

Blurb:
A routine visit to the grocery store and a chance encounter with a psychic plunges Pita Sedgwick into a dark world of shape-shifting, magic, and Gypsy lore. Pita finds herself on a plane to Romania, seeking the answers to her mysterious birth and in search of her biological family.

Fate intervenes in the form of handsome seatmate, Niko Ionesciu. Pita is sure she’s found love and her history. But as her innocent fact-finding mission spirals into a dangerous game of revenge and deceit with the Gypsy Matriarch, the psychic’s words come back to haunt her. Can she trust the people around her with her terrifying secret or will the search for her family end in the ultimate betrayal?

Excerpt:
After two stopovers and one plane change, Pita
settled in for the next leg of the journey. She’d
finished her novel long ago and had stopped in one of
the airport shops in Toronto and picked up a couple
of magazines and another book.

Some passengers looked familiar, but many
faces were different now. Her seatmates, the elderly
couple seemed to be gone or at least not seated
anywhere near her. This plane was a little smaller
and had only two seats on either side of the aisle, the
one next to her remained empty.

Absently, she fingered through one of the
magazines when someone plopped down beside her.
She glanced up into a face whose smile was so
infectious and openly shy, that she instantly found
herself returning the smile. “Hi.”

His hair was dark-blond and longish, not quite
shoulder length. Little crinkles formed at the
corners of his eyes when he smiled, and he had a
dimple on his chin. She had an urge to reach out and
touch a finger to that dimple. God, he is so cute. A
flush of heat exploded in her as her eyes locked onto
his hazel ones.

“Hello,” she said in return and tightened her
grip on the magazine. She wanted to reach up and
push his wayward hair out of his ruggedly handsome
face. And to make matters worse she wanted to kiss
that adorable lopsided smile right off his face. Oh my
god, get a grip. What is wrong with me?

“Don’t let me interrupt you.” He glanced down at
the magazine in her lap. “You were reading.”
Something seemed familiar about him, but she
couldn’t put a finger on it. Pita detected a slight
Eastern European accent. She blushed and
concentrated on closing the magazine in her lap to
regain her composure. Her reaction to him bordered
on odd, and she couldn’t even find the correct words
to describe it. Something tugged deep within her,
some primal response to this man. Bigger than lust.
It unhinged her.

“No, you’re not, interrupting, I mean… I was
just flipping through it waiting for takeoff for
the…um…the umpteenth time,” she smiled again,
hoping to conceal how he unnerved her.

“You’re American?”

“Yes. I’m from Montana.” Pita answered. Why is
it I turn into an idiot around good-looking men? Get
a grip. “My name is Pita.” She extended a hand to
him.

He took it, and Pita felt an odd vibration, a rush
of…power? A surge shot straight up her arm that
washed into her torso. It was the strangest
sensation, not in any way painful, just odd. They
stared at each other for long seconds before he
answered.

“I’m Nikolae Ionesciu, very nice to meet
you. Please, call me Niko.” Again, that shy
disarming smile. He had a small scar on his upper
lip but it only added to his good looks.

Pita blushed again and looked down into her
lap, so he wouldn’t notice. The jolt she felt from the
brief touch was compelling. It vibrated through her
arm like the aftershock of an electrical current. He’d
felt it too, she’d seen it in his eyes. She picked the
magazine off her lap and slipped it in the slot on the
seat in front of her for something to do. No denying
she was attracted to him, but the strange sensation
that passed between them had nothing to do with it.
She knew—no felt instinctively— without a doubt,
this was something entirely different.

“Where are you from? Your accent…” Pita
considered a moment. “Slavic? Perhaps somewhere
near Romania?” She guessed. “My best friend was
born there. Her parents have a similar accent.”

“I was born in Hungary but grew up in Northern
Romania just over the border between the two
countries.” He explained. “I travel between the
United States and Romania often these days.”
“That explains your almost perfect English.”
Pita grinned. She loved the husky timbre of his
voice. Its slightly raspy baritone caressed her
senses—soft, sensuous.

The stewardess passed by, advising everyone to
buckle their seatbelts, that the plane would be
taxiing for take off in a moment.
Pita busied herself with the seatbelt and locked
the little tray in place. Niko bent to place his
backpack under the seat in front of him then buckled
himself in. He pushed back the hair that had fallen
into his face when he’d bent down. Pita wondered
what it would be like to feel that hand touch her
face, her neck, slide down her...

Oh God, what is the matter with me?

The plane lurched forward and began its taxi to
the runway. She relaxed into the seat and waited for
the usual rush when the plane sped up and then left
the ground. Better to concentrate on that than what
she’d been thinking a moment ago.

“Here we go.” He commented.

“Hmmmm…” she responded glad that of all the
seats in the plane his was beside her. The plane
picked up momentum and lifted off the runway and
into the night.

Reviews:
"CURSE OF THE MARHIME was an awesome book…Niko had the right amount of heart and strength to become one of those memorable heroes. I cannot wait for book two!"

Review by ~Megan
Bitten by Books
***
"CURSE OF THE MARHIME has instances that gave me tingling sensations down my spine. I was completely drawn to the storyline and love the little dark moments. From the shape-shifting, the gypsies, and the wolves, I found this an incredible read…If the first book is this awesome, I can hardly wait for the others in the series."

Reviewed by ~Cherokee
Coffee Time Romance
***
"Dayana Knight's CURSE OF THE MARHIME is the first in her Roma Wolf Tales series. With plot twists and turns aplenty, the ups and downs in the book make reading it an intellectual rollercoaster...I just love a book that keeps me guessing and if the first is anything to go by this series definitely will."

Reviewed by ~Valerie
Manic Reviews
***
“CURSE OF THE MARHIME blends a strange, almost magical aura to contemporary times.
Pita Sedgwick has no need of fortune-tellers, but the one that accosts her so adamantly in the grocery store fills her with questions and foreboding. In moments, her ho-hum life begins to change. Ominous symbols reach out from her mostly hidden past.
Throughout, Pita has a valuable friends, unexpected guides… and the love of her life (And he truly is a dream lover: wonderful heroic, and so much more than merely human – but I refuse to give away the magic of this particular secret!) But, will her quest supersede all?
This is not entirely a dark, sinister tale. There are some lighter moments, and certainly some wonderful, heartfelt and heartwarming moments…
In this unpredictable novel of love, desperation, and triumph, Dayana Knight has woven a thrilling and unpredictable tale. The pace is fast, descriptions clear, and the characters – even secondary characters – are wonderfully developed."

Review by ~Snapdragon
The Long and Short Review