Seduced by Moonlight (Arabesque)
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Janice Sims is author of more than twenty titles and feels as if she's just getting started. She has been hooked on writing since she was seven years old, more years than she'd care to admit to, and the desire to create is still burning brightly. Her characters, plots, and settings feel real because they're inspired by real people, situations, and locations. So don't be surprised if you see yourself in one of her books.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Harrison Payne walked through the crowd in the ballroom of the Karibu Resort in Vail, Colorado, on ski season's opening night. Every year, he got an adrenaline rush knowing that the resort was booked for the entire season, which began in mid-November. Hundreds of guests would be staying there for the next one hundred and sixty-six days.
Harry had opened the resort five years ago. In the beginning there were just fifty suites and ten hotel rooms. Today the Swiss chalet-style resort had one hundred and fourteen luxury suites and sixteen hotel rooms. And this season they were offering ten two- or three-bedroom condominiums for larger groups who wanted more privacy.
At forty-two, Harry had already enjoyed one career: he was retired from professional football. One of the few black quarterbacks, Harry was proud to have played with the Denver Broncos the last nine years of his career. Although he was a Kentucky native, Coloradans had adopted Harry as their own, and loyally frequented his resort.
He saw plenty of locals in the crowd tonight, many of whom could not let him pass them without a "Hey, Harry!" or a fond pat on the back.
He was looking for his date, Marcia Shaw. He and Marcia had been going out for three months. She was a news anchor for a Denver station. Smart, attractive and just the right age to be seriously looking to settle down, Harry thought she was perfect for him.
Harry had this "life timeline" in his brain. When he was a football star in high school, he'd said that by the time he was twenty-five he would buy his mother a house. He had met that deadline. By the time he was thirty-five, he vowed, he would be financially solvent. He was a millionaire many times over by his thirty-fifth birthday. And by the time he was forty-five he would be married with children. He'd put off getting married this long because he was of the mind that when a man married, his wife should take precedence over everything else in his life. Therefore, his business had to be in good standing before he married anyone. Plus, since his own father died when he was a small child, he wanted plenty of time to spend with his kids.
Now that he was forty-two he felt an urgent need to find that special someone and start working on fulfilling the last item on his timeline agenda.
The orchestra was playing "Clair de Lune" and the beautifully dressed guests were either dancing or standing on the sidelines conversing, with small plates filled with appetizers and glasses of wine balanced in their hands.
Harry saw Marcia across the room chatting with another woman. He made a beeline for her, but was waylaid by John Santiago, founder of a Denver ski club for minority kids. Harry knew John well because he'd donated his time and money to the club over the years. He had even hired some members of John's group to work at the resort over the weekend, giving beginning ski lessons to children of his guests.
"Harry, could I have a word with you?" John asked with a serious look on his medium-brown face. John was five-ten and stocky with powerful shoulders and great arm and leg muscles honed from skiing, no doubt.
Harry was six-two and athletically built. Every morning— Monday through Friday—he still got up and jogged, even though his knees were beginning to give him problems. He spent at least an hour in the gym seven days a week. Both men were wearing tuxedos for the black-tie event.
"Sure, John, what's up?" Harry casually inquired, his thick brows raised.
John took a DVD in its plastic cover from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Harry. "I've never asked you to do this before, Harry, but this girl is special. She's a downhill racer. I think she has the talent to qualify for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but she needs a sponsor. You know what that means—she needs financial backing and the use of Karibu's facilities."
Harry started to say something, and John cut him off with "I don't want you say anything right now. Just look at this DVD, and I'll get back to you later. She's only seventeen and in her last year of high school. She lives with her mother, who's a nurse at a Denver hospital. Single mom, but she's done a great job with Danielle. That's the kid's name, Danielle Washington."
John smiled. "I'm gonna get out of your hair now." He looked around them. "Great turnout tonight, Harry."
"Yeah, thanks," Harry said, wondering what he was getting himself into.
John disappeared into the crowd and Harry continued across the room. Marcia was no longer where he'd earlier spotted her. He kept walking in that general direction anyway and saw her standing in an alcove adjacent to the white brick fireplace.
Her back was to him, so she didn't see him approaching. He could hear her distinctive voice quite well, though. "I agree, Harry's a great guy, but he's too attached to his mom. Can you believe he phones her every day? My mother would have a heart attack if I started phoning her that often." She laughed uproariously as her friend joined her.
Harry stopped in his tracks, unable to resist listening to the rest of the conversation. How could she think he was a momma's boy? Sure, he phoned his mother every day, but that was because his mother was recovering from cancer surgery and he was worried about her. He had tried to talk her in to coming out to Denver to have the surgery and recuperate so he could keep an eye on her, but Mildred had flatly refused.
She preferred to stay in her Louisville, Kentucky home where her daughter, Susanne, Harry's younger sister, could walk across the street from her house to check on her mother each day. Harry could understand so he hadn't tried to bend his mother to his will.
"I like it when a man's devoted to his mother," said Marcia's friend. "If he treats his mother well, he'll treat me well."
"That's not always true," said Marcia. "If a man wants to be with me, I need to be number one in his heart. I don't want an old lady beating my time!"
"Girl, you need to quit," chuckled the friend, obviously enjoying their conversation. "If I had a man like Harry Payne, I wouldn't be complaining about the time he spends on the phone with his mother as long as he spends time with me in the bedroom. Tell me you've seen his bedroom." She waited expectantly.
Harry held his breath. He had never been able to put up with a woman who discussed their sex life with anyone. Not her best girlfriends. Not her sister, nor her mother. That was private. He considered sex a sacred thing between a man and a woman. Unlike some of his male friends, he never talked about how a woman performed in bed with him.
"I have no complaints there," Marcia confided conspira-torially. "He's the best lover I've had in a long time. But Marcia needs to be the queen in his heart as well as in his bed. I will not share him with his mother. I won't have her taking away my time!"
Harry turned on his heels and walked back in the direction he'd come. He didn't want to hear any more. In fact he wished he hadn't heard as much as he had. Here he was thinking that Marcia Shaw was a sweet, unselfish woman with whom he had a lot in common, only to find out that she was jealous of the time he spent talking to his mother. In his opinion Marcia's behavior smacked of a woman who was insecure and immature.
He sighed deeply. When you were past forty, it was definitely hard to find a woman worth taking home to Mom. He supposed he could give up and marry some bimbo with hips built for breeding who was just in it for the money and the big alimony after the divorce five years down the road. But he truly wanted someone he could love. Someone who could love him for himself and not for what he could give her. Was that too much to ask for?
It's freezing out here! Cherisse Washington thought as she wrapped her arms around herself. The pashmina shawl around her shoulders wasn't doing much to keep her warm. But she couldn't stand to be inside a moment longer. Why had she let Sonia talk her into coming? She could have been at home, curled up with a good book. Instead she was in Vail at "the hot resort," as Sonia had put it. Opening night promised to be filled with plenty of unattached men looking for unattached women. Sonia had already hooked up with someone: a computer programmer from Denver who had also had the bright idea to spend his Saturday night looking for love.
If Cherisse hadn't given Sonia a ride, she would have been in her car by now on her way back to Denver. But she wasn't about to leave her best friend stranded.
So she'd come out on the balcony to fortify herself with a bit of fresh air before returning to the ballroom, and the awkward advances from men who were more out of practice than even she was when it came to talking to the opposite sex.
The moon was about the best thing she'd seen tonight. It was full and bright, the color a pale yellow. She could see the smiling face of the man in the moon. She could almost feel the warmth of the moonlight on her skin. Closing her eyes, and tilting her head back, she imagined she could feel the moonbeams dancing on her face.
"What are you, a stargazer or just a moonbeam bather?" asked a deep male voice from behind her.
Cherisse's eyes flew open, and she turned to face a tall strikingly handsome man. She had no idea he was actually the host Harrison Payne. She didn't follow football and had never been to the Karibu Resort before tonight so there was no reason that she would recognize him.
She didn't follow football because she'd had enough of the game when she'd been married to Charlie Washington, a professional football player and her ex-husband for the past ten years. She'd married him at nineteen and divorced him at twenty-seven when he hadn't been able to put his family—Cherisse and their daughter—before his gambling habit. She sometimes missed Charlie, but she didn't miss football.
As for the Karibu Resort, she had heard it was African-American-owned, and that was all she knew about it.
The guy was tall and muscular. From what she could see of him, he had a square-jawed, clean-shaven face and short, neatly cut hair. He smelled nice, too. "The moonbeam...
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More About the Author
I've always loved stories. When I was too young to read I loved listening to my parents and grandparents tell stories. I come from a family of storytellers. On lazy Sunday afternoons we would sit on the porch and the adults would try to top each other with outlandish tales. Some of them had a moral, some were funny, some were scary but all of them were completely enthralling. When I learned to read you could always find me with a book in my hands. The library was my favorite place in the world, and it still is. From the time I was seven, I was writing my own stories. At first they were very short and usually mimicked some fairy tale I'd read or heard. Then when I was in high school I started writing longer stories with romantic themes. A shy, awkward teen, the heroines in my stories were never like me, they were outgoing, together, and always got the cute guy. To date, I'm the author of sixteen novels and nine short stories that were included in some very interesting anthologies. I am blessed to be able to do what I was born to do: write. Because I never take my blessings for granted, I work hard at my craft and I hope it's reflected in the stories I produce. Ultimately, I write stories that I want to read. I'll say to myself, "You know, I've never read a book about African American shapeshifters, or a book in which the sea is so prominent it's like one of the major characters." So I wrote OUT OF THE BLUE. I hope you'll read it if you haven't had the chance to do so. Or I'll think to myself, "What if angels and humans mated and their offspring were still living on Earth?" So I wrote AVENGING ANGEL in the anthology, CREEPIN'. Ideas come to me in the strangest ways. Sometimes I dream them up, literally. I've always had very vivid, colorful dreams. They're better than any movie. And I remember every detail of them when I awaken. This is why I keep a dream journal. And I always suggest to aspiring writers that they keep one. You never know where your next idea is going to come from. Most of all, though, my ideas come from everyday people. Normal people who are really much more interesting than they think they are. I believe we are all special and we all have a story to tell. What's yours?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Seduced by another wonderful Janice Sims novel,
By Cynthia Jeffries "readerwriterone" (Capitol Heights, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Seduced by Moonlight (Arabesque) (Mass Market Paperback)
Mothers everywhere understand what it is like to give 150 percent to support their offspring in their endeavors while working at a fulltime career outside of the home and another one inside the home, particularly when doing so without the avid support (moral, financial or otherwise) from the fathers. Critical to that survival is a support system generally known as family, particularly grands. The grands become the hub of the universe and the single parent and offspring revolve around that hub. That real life dynamic is so beautifully recounted in Seduced by Moonlight.
We all know these people. A supportive mother, hardworking daughter and a granddaughter involved in what maybe an exciting career track. This is such a universal story in the Afro-Am community and it takes a literary artist like Janice Sims to tell this story on every level. On the surface, Seduced is another fabulous Janice Sims novel that lifts our spirits and takes us away to wonderful locations and new experiences. However, the astute avid reader understands what Ms. Sims real messages are about . . . real life among the masses.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Baby, It's Cold Outside,
By
This review is from: Seduced by Moonlight (Arabesque) (Mass Market Paperback)
Ever since Cherisse Washington divorced her husband, she has had little time or inclination to date much. In Seduced by Moonlight by Janice Sims, things are about to change for the hardworking supervisor nurse. Cherisse threw her all into raising her now 17 year-old daughter, Danielle, a future Olympic skier. Danielle has an opportunity to have the best training under a great sponsorship but Cherisse is not prepared when the sponsor turns out to be the sexy, handsome brother she met on the terrace at a party one night. Harry Payne, a former football player, runs a lucrative resort and is an astute businessman. He also has a girlfriend, local newscaster in Denver, and a desire to get married, but does not feel that she is "the one." But there is something about the mother of the girl he is going to sponsor, with her quirky sense of humor and beautiful legs.
Cherisse reluctantly gives her heart to Harry, but there is a small problem that could be a big one. Her ex is back in her life, living in her house! He had also been a football player and got sidelined with gambling debts. Now he has a chance for new job and new lease on life---and he wants his family back. Not one to kowtow to what are considered traditional storylines for African Americans, Sims has written romantic stories of blacks in Scotland, a series about African-American owned vineyards, and a lady oceanographer. This setting in wintertime Colorado is no exception. She has a way of making one believe these characters own these roles. Fans of Sims will recognize and appreciate her penchant for compelling secondary characters, unconventional settings, humorous scenarios and sensual, romantic settings. A nice book to warm up with on a cold night. Dera R. Williams APOOO BookClub
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Seduction On The Slopes!,
This review is from: Seduced by Moonlight (Arabesque) (Mass Market Paperback)
Cherisse Washington (a.k.a. Cheri) is a devoted mother, nurse, and daughter. Her 17-year- old daughter is an avid skier who just may make it to the Olympics. Her coach has found her a sponsor because even on a head nurse's salary, Cheri could not afford to support her daughters dreams financially. When Cheri and her daughter meet her sponsor, ex football great turn resort owner Harry Payne, Cheri realizes that Harry is the same wonderful man that she meet under the moonlight a week prior. Harry Payne has a timeline and has meet every goal on that timeline. The next goal is marriage. Harry has just got to find the perfect woman. When he meets Cheri he thinks maybe she's the one, but he is unavailable. A turn of events and a huge coincidence finds him face to face with the woman he can't stop thinking about. What great luck! Maybe?
Seduced by Moonlight is a wonderful book. The main storyline is written and the mature main characters are refreshing . One of the secondary storylines is about divorce. Sims does a wonderful job of portraying the relationship in a very civil manner, which is a very refreshing change. Sims also portrays the blended family in a very positive light. Good read! Reviewed by Tenecia for Urban Reviews
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