Weekend Writing Warriors #SnippetSunday #NaNoWriMo

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Sign up below with your name, blog and email and share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Your post needs to be live between 12:00 noon on Saturday 11/05/16 and 09:00 AM on Sunday 11/06/16. Visit the other participants on the list and read, critique and comment on their 8sunday posts.

Spread the word, share the love, warriors. Twitter hashtag #8sunday. 

It's NaNoWriMo, and my very first time participating in it, so of course you will be getting excerpts from my WIP, a novella, Stolen Secrets! If you have been following Book II of my Illuminati series, The Tree of Life, you will know that I just introduced a minor character, Prince Mikhtar,  who appears in both Book I, The Book of Life, and Book 11, of the Illuminati Series. He is also the hero of a Romance Fantasy Novella I am writing for NaNoWriMo, a little spinoff adventure! In it, Isis has sent him to retrieve a chalice to be used in a ceremony that will break the spell the jinni, Ornias (from my short horror story) has cast upon the Ring of Solomon, before their mortal enemy, Set, can get his hands on it. The heroine, Lady Isabella Valentine, has been hired to retrieve the same artifact from an anonymous benefactor,  who has sent a helper, David Khoury, to assist her on the archaeological dig. Here’s a bit from the beginning . . . (*Note: It's NaNo, so may be a bit rough in spots.)

Stolen Secrets

             Everything about the shop was irregular, including the displays which projected at odd angles, supported by ornate wooden brackets and the occasional book case or other Egyptian artifact. Its merchandise had been collected and added to over a lifetime of adventures, and the resulting displays were vastly eclectic and often mismatched and even mysterious. The windows of the cluttered antiquities dealership, not yet shuttered, allowed slanted sunlight to illuminate dust motes, thick and insidious, seeking every crevice and ornate feature in which to drift. Brushing her hand across the table to clear it of its most recent layer, Isabella unrolled the map and traced the route with her fingertip.
              She heard the bell above the front door jingle, and sighed. Five minutes later and Misha would have arrived to clean and bar the entrance, and then she could begin preparing for the dig of a lifetime. This incredible new commission would reward her with financial independence and the ability to pursue her lifetime archaeology passion full time instead of being stuck in this dusty little antiquities shop her father left her, eking out a living selling trinkets to tourists.
              “Hello, anyone around?” a deep male voice called from the front of the shop.
              “Coming,” Isabella replied, rerolling the map and tucking it into the pocket of her skirt before hurrying from behind the curtain at the rear, to greet the latecomer, who surprised by being an incredibly handsome man, and what was most surprising was that he was the second such incredibly sensual man to enter her establishment that very same day.
              “There you are,” said the tall Bedouin, flashing straight white teeth a dentist would love, which contrasted beautifully against his tanned skin and the Indigo dyed blue of his robes, and which Isabella certainly noticed. “I’ve come to offer you an incredible sum for the most exciting archeological dig you have ever been on!”

I hope you enjoy the snippet I posted for Elizabeth! Be sure to visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors and #SnippetSunday Authors for more great reads. Elizabeth has been having problems posting on some blogs, especially on blogger, ever since she signed up for Gavatar and she can't seem to change it. It just won't recognize her, even when she signs in. But, she did read everyone's snippet and tried to post on them all last week!!  :(