Hey
there! I'm M.J. O'Shea, and I just wanted to share an excerpt from my current
book, A Little Bite of Magic, that
comes out April 30th from LooseId!!
In a family full of powerful witches, Frankie
Vallerand is the black sheep. He doesn’t care about honing his magic. All he
wants is to open up a restaurant and spend his days serving up delicious food.
But when he sees a customer crying and wishes for her to be happy, he
inadvertently transforms his old wooden soup spoon into a wand, and realizes
that maybe a little bit of kitchen magic is just what his customers need.
Addison Allbright is The Phantom Foodie, an
anonymous food critic notorious for his scathing reviews. For most people,
being paid to eat would be a dream job. Not for Addison. He doesn’t care for
overpriced designer food. He’s a tea and toast kind of guy. Until both the food
and the owner of L’Osteria Di Pomodoro sweep him off his feet and throw his
neat, orderly life completely off-kilter.
Frankie isn’t sure how to tell Addison he’s a
witch, or that he charmed Addison’s food the night they first met, without
sounding totally crazy. But little does he know that Addison has secrets too.
Not only did he snark Frankie’s restaurant in his last review column, he’s also
engaged to be married…to a woman.
Frankie
Vallerand has just purchased an old dilapidated restaurant. It might look like
a rat infested hole, but he thinks it's perfect…. With a little touch of magic.
* * * *
The old place needed
some work. That much was certain.
Frankie cringed at the
sagging turn-of-the-century plaster walls. They’d faded over time into a color
something like that of an old, worn-out sock. Not what he’d call appetizing.
The floors hadn't fared much better—speckled linoleum, worn away in the corners
and riddled with small, suspicious bite marks. He didn’t want to think too hard
about the bite marks. Probably rats. Frankie hated rats.
A pitted aluminum door
at the threshold between the dining area and his future kitchen swung back and
forth on one rusted hinge. It swayed precariously in a brisk afternoon breeze
that suddenly swept through the building. Frankie gave the heavy old door a
gentle push, afraid it might come off its remaining hinge completely. It would
be his luck to have the behemoth fall off and land on his foot. Frankie didn’t
have the time for injuries, didn’t have time for anything that could get in his
way.
There was magic to be
done.
At least the kitchen was
large—perhaps a bit too large for one cook, but Frankie couldn't complain. It
had cavernous ceilings—which must have been hidden in the main room by those
awful mildewy acoustic tiles. Those tiles would be the first on his list of
things to go. A huge pot rack hung, rusted and barely grasping the hook screwed
into the ceiling nearly twenty feet above. The floor was flagstone, and the
sinks deep and cast iron. The ancient beast of a stove top might have looked
archaic, but it was exactly what Frankie wanted, lit from below by a wood fire
for that old-world, homemade taste. He loved the brick walls and the big old
wood-fired brick oven.
The butcher-block island
just needed a little (or perhaps a lot of) elbow grease, and it too would be
perfect...someday.
But it was no wonder why
he’d gotten the old restaurant so cheap.
“Isn’t it great, Dom?”
Frankie turned to look at his best friend from culinary school. He didn’t need
to hear Dom’s answer; his skepticism could be felt thick in the air.2 M.J. O'Shea
“You’re nuts, Frank.
This place is a rat trap.”
Dom had come along for
moral support. Some kind of support. Frankie elbowed him in the side. “No, it’s
L’Osteria di Pomodoro.” Frankie had come up with the name years ago when he’d
been surfing the Net, looking for cooking-school applications and dreaming the
far-off fantasy of owning his own restaurant.
Dom snorted. “More like
L’Osteria di Shithole.”
Frankie pushed him.
“Screw you. I didn’t stomp all over your dream of becoming a corporate food
minion.”
“But dude, you’ve got
powers. You wouldn’t have to be a minion. You could be a corporate food god.”
Frankie shot Dom a quick
glare. “Hey! Ix-nay on the owers-pay, right? You know I wasn’t supposed to tell
you about that.” Damn, he wished he hadn’t told. No one was supposed to know,
family rules and all that. It wasn’t like he used his powers anyway, at least
the few he'd managed to inherit.
“But can’t you do all
that woo-woo shit?” Dom made a wiggling motion with his fingers. “You want me
as head chef. Hire me today,” he intoned.
Truth was, it was harder
to charm humans than most would think. They were pretty stubborn creatures.
Besides, he didn’t want to go that route. Much to his family’s chagrin, Frankie
had left Louisiana and his big overbearing family for the West Coast at
nineteen. He didn’t plan on returning to the South, or his family, anytime
soon. Making gorgeous food was the only magic Frankie was interested in.
“I told you, I'm not
doing that stuff anymore. I also told you I’m not supposed to talk about it.
You never listen to me.”
Dom snorted. He picked
up a mangy old wooden spoon and dropped it back onto the butcher block. A puff
of dust exploded into the air and practically danced, glimmering in the
afternoon sun that streamed in from the high casement windows. “It’s not my
fault you’ve got loose lips after a shot or two of Patrón.”
Frankie sighed at the
memory of the very convincing demonstration he’d given Dom of his powers. He’d
acted like a flaming moron that night and had paid the price dearly with his
family the next day. It really wasn’t his fault, he’d tried to reason with
himself as his mother had given him the tongue-lashing of the century. Witches
didn’t have a high alcohol tolerance. And as much as he tried to deny it,
that’s what Frankie was and always would be.
A witch.
If
you liked it, here's where to read more:)
About
the Author:
I’m Mj O’Shea, author of erotic romance–well all
sorts of romance actually, that’s just what’s been published so far!
I grew up, and still live, in sunny Washington
state and while I love to visit other places, I can’t imagine calling anywhere
else home.
I spent my childhood writing stories. Sometime
in my early teens, the stories turned to romance. Most of those were about me,
my friends, and our favorite tv stars. Hopefully, I’ve come a long way since
then…
Right now, I have four books published through Republica
Press, but I’m constantly working on new projects.
When I’m not writing, I love to play the piano
and cook and paint pictures…and of course read. It’s nearly impossible to work
on my own writing when I’ve gotten myself hooked into a great new book:) I like
sparkly girly girl things, own at least twenty different colored headbands, and
I have a little white dog with a ginger eye spot who sits with me when I write.
Sometimes she comes up with ideas for me too…when she’s not napping.
And
here are my links!
Babes in Boyland http://mjandpiper.blogspot.com
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/mj.oshea.5
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