Welcome to the exclusive cover reveal of JL Merrow’s Wight Mischief, coming soon from Dreamspinner Press in its second edition publication! We have an exclusive excerpt to share with you as well as a giveaway, so be sure to check out the Rafflecopter widget for all the details!

Hi, I’m JL Merrow, and I’m delighted to be here today to reveal the lovely new cover for Wight Mischief, which is due out from Dreamspinner Press on 1^st June 2018. It’s a novel dear to my heart, set as it is on the island I grew up on, and it’s great to see it come out in second edition after being unavailable for more than a year.

The book’s been completely re-edited, and one or two changes have been made, but the storyline hasn’t changed substantially from the first edition.

About the Book

Cover Design: Anna Sikorska // Tiferet Design

Pre-order Links Dreamspinner Press: eBook || Paperback

Blurb: A ghost of a chance at love.

Personal trainer Will Golding has been looking forward to a getaway with his best friend, Baz, a journalist researching a book on ghosts. But on the first day of their camping trip on the Isle of Wight, Will takes a walk on a secluded beach and spies a beautiful young man skinny-dipping by moonlight.  Ethereally pale, he’s too perfect to be real—or is he?

Lonely author Marcus Devereux is just as entranced by the tall athlete he encounters on the beach, but he’s spent the years since his parents’ violent death building a wall around his heart, and the thought of letting Will scale it is terrifying. Marcus’s albinism gives him his otherworldly appearance and leaves him reluctant to go out in daylight, his reclusiveness encouraged by his guardian—who warns him to stay away from Will and Baz.

The attraction between Will and Marcus can’t be denied—but neither can the danger of the secrets haunting Marcus’s past, as one “accident” after another strikes Will and Baz. If they don’t watch their step, they could end up added to the island’s ghostly population.

The Excerpt

On an Isle of Wight camping holiday, Will takes a midnight walk along the beach—only to find he’s not alone:

Will cast his gaze around, admiring the way the moonlight glinted off the water. Funny how the sea always seemed so much more peaceful when it was dark—Will was willing to bet that was when most maritime disasters happened too, with people lulled into a false sense of security by the gentle tumble of the waves.

When he’d been a kid on holiday on the island, his mum had sometimes taken him to the beach in the evening. With most of the other tourists gone, it’d been a great time for a swim. The water was still relatively warm from the heat of the day, and the setting sun cast a soft glow over them. He’d never swum when it was completely dark, though. Will wondered what it’d be like. Probably a bit disorienting, although not so bad when the moon was full, like tonight. Dangerous, mind. What if the moon went behind a cloud and you couldn’t tell which way the shore was anymore?

Will stopped dead as he spotted someone in the water, as if conjured up by his thoughts. Or was it just a trick of the shadows, conspiring with Will’s imagination? The figure’s skin shone ghostly pale, and he was naked. Will looked down at his own arms. The moonlight might have lent him a fish-belly complexion, but Will’s arms looked solid and real in a way that the figure in the water… didn’t. Even his hair was bright white—and as Will’s gaze dropped unstoppably to the figure’s crotch, he could see no darker patch there. The man—boy?—was slender, almost elfin. He was walking out into the water, arms spread wide as if to welcome the sea’s embrace.

He was beautiful: impossibly perfect, from his too-pale hair to his lean, sculpted legs, now knee-deep in the water. Could he possibly be real? Or—Will’s heart gave a jump—could one of Baz’s stories possibly be true? Could there really be such things as ghosts?

Will took an involuntary pace forward—and bit back a curse as his foot slipped with a clatter of stones, ending with him sitting down heavily on the shingle. Scrambling to his feet as quietly as he could, Will realized his caution was too late. The figure had disappeared. For a moment, Will thought of going down to the water’s edge to try to see it again—but then a cloud drifted over the moon, and left him in absolute blackness. Shivering, Will turned back the way he’d come.

About the Author

JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea.  She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.

She writes (mostly) contemporary gay romance and mysteries, and is frequently accused of humour.  Her novels have won Rainbow Awards for Romantic Comedy, and have been EPIC Awards finalists.

JL Merrow is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, International Thriller Writers, Verulam Writers and the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.

The Giveaway

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