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    Under Your Spell: A Penbrooke Ridge Story
    Under Your Spell: A Penbrooke Ridge Story
    Under Your Spell: A Penbrooke Ridge Story
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Under Your Spell: A Penbrooke Ridge Story

    By Imogen Markwell-Tweed

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Moira Stone has a secret. She’s in love with her best friend, Cecily. She’s hidden it well enough — after all, they’ve been best friends for eleven years, and it hasn’t come up. It would just complicate matters and, really, Moira is happy. She’s got an okay job, and she’s got Cecily and Cecily’s daughter, Ashton, the best little goddaughter anyone could ask for.

    But when an accident leads to the reveal that both Moira and four-year-old Ashton have magical powers neither knew about before, Moira and Cecily’s worlds as they know them get turned upside down. When Ashton goes missing, Moira is the only one who can find her. She has to deal with not only this new magic and the questions it raises but also her ever-growing feelings for Cecily if she’s ever going to find Ashton. With family and love on the line, Moira has to act fast and learn how to channel the power she has inside.

    This contemporary paranormal romance is the first in the Penbrooke Ridge series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Shorts
    Release dateNov 17, 2020
    ISBN9781094414935
    Author

    Imogen Markwell-Tweed

    Imogen Markwell-Tweed is a queer romance writer and editor based in St. Louis. When she's not writing or hanging out with her dog, IMT can be found putting her media degrees to use by binge-watching trashy television. All of her stories promise queer protagonists, healthy relationships, and happily ever afters. @unrealimogen on Twitter and Instagram.

    Read more from Imogen Markwell Tweed

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    Reviews for Under Your Spell

    4.5/5

    11 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5
      The characters were so well written. I enjoyed everyone especially Ashton, she’s so cute and adorable. We all need a flower crown.
    • 5/5
      Imogen, you have stolen my heart.
      People, this is an amazing tale. I know that because when I find something I love, I read slower and slower to make it last longer and I savored every well written word.
      Congratulations Imogen, it's a winner.
    • 5/5
      Such an interesting world to jump into. I'm loving this setup and can't wait to read the rest of the series

    Book preview

    Under Your Spell - Imogen Markwell-Tweed

    The Power Inside

    Moira Stone is in love.

    She’s been careful to not tell anyone. Even her cat, Clark, is in the dark. Knowledge is power and power is dangerous. She’s learned that from the superhero movies she’s seen over the years. She’s not going to just tell anyone old person that she’s in love. Love is easily exploitable. That she has learned from the thriller movies she’s seen.

    Moira would tell someone, if she thought the information relevant. It’s just… who needs to know? Maybe someone that she was dating, but she’s not dumb enough to date while in love. That is a recipe for late-night weeping and gaining twenty pounds. She’s considered telling her best friend, but the trouble there is that the person she is in love with is her best friend.

    See? It’s messy. So Moira just smooths her lips together, counts to five under her breath, and then shakes her head demurely.

    No, Auntie. No boyfriends yet.

    Auntie Marie would keel over in this sandwich shop if Moira told her the truth — that there will be no boyfriends ever, not just because she’s in love with her best friend, but because her best friend is gloriously and blessedly a woman.

    Auntie Marie doesn’t need to know that. Their twice-annual lunch is about pleasantries and reducing the guilt that Moira feels because of the six months between each visit. Killing the woman with a gay-induced heart attack is absolutely not on the agenda.

    Auntie sighs. It’s long and put-upon, conveying a sense of disdain that took roughly six decades of displeasure to perfect. Moira would be impressed if it weren’t always directed at her.

    Moira shoves a few french fries in her mouth. She chews as slowly as she can without it looking obvious, just to buy herself a little bit more time.

    "You’re not exactly young, Moira." Auntie sniffs, looking at her like she’s somehow disappointed her for aging. An involuntary, compulsive action, by the way. It isn’t Moira’s fault she keeps getting older.

    Auntie, as always, thoroughly disagrees.

    Moira follows her chew with a slow swallow and a long sip from her lemonade. You’re very right, Auntie.

    "Life goes by fast, Moira, and one day you think it’s fine to be so… judgmental and picky —"

    Yowza, don’t hold back, Moira mutters.

    Auntie continues as if Moira hadn’t spoken, "— but the truth of it is that you can’t afford such petty things. You’re going to end up alone."

    Moira pops another fry in her mouth. And what a terrible fate that would be.

    Auntie’s inability to pick up on sarcasm saves the day yet again. Indeed.

    She reminds herself, as she often has to, that this woman raised her. That this woman, despite all of her flaws, and all of the flaws she sees in Moira, did go spectacularly out of her way to take care of Moira when she really, truly did need someone to do that. She reminds herself that the woman means well, but is just… stubborn. Opinionated. Afraid.

    When Auntie shakes her head and mutters, Indeed, a second time, Moira reminds herself of these things.

    As she often likes to do, Auntie lets the disappointment fill the silence. It’s weighted and thick, like summer air, but it’s also familiar, so Moira lets the humidity wash over her.

    When enough time has passed that Auntie won’t think she’s being dismissive, Moira pointedly asks about Auntie’s church group and the woman launches into a spiel that takes up the rest of the conversation. They finish their lunch. Moira promises to call and Auntie pretends to not know it’s a lie.

    Then, blessedly, it’s over.

    Moira thanks the gods above and below that she can cross Auntie Judgment off her to-do list until November. She leaves the restaurant and heads in the opposite direction of her apartment. Cecily’s house is closer by two miles and she’s promised to have booze and pie waiting for Moira if she manages to not make a scene this time. And look at that. Apparently, at twenty-nine, Moira has finally managed that oh-so-elusive skill of keeping her mouth shut.

    She pops into Piper’s Peonies to grab some flowers. The sales assistant is new, a little teenager who jumps when the bell chimes, and she points at the bouquets on sale. Moira says, What the hell! and buys a sleeve of cookies, too.

    She holds the flowers — yellow and pink and very pretty, but hell if Moira knows what kind they are — underneath her arm while she pays. She tips fifty percent, the relief of the luncheon being over good enough reason to splurge.

    It’s like the whole world has noticed Moira’s lift in mood, and is responding accordingly. The sun seems brighter, the sky bluer, and the people on the street, when they pass her, seem to spark awake and smile at her. It had been so gloomy earlier, a depressing day for a depressing lunch, but now things have seemed to perk up. Moira smiles. The flowers in her hands sway in a light breeze she barely feels, as if responding to her smile.

    When she gets to Cecily’s block, she swears she can smell the pies.

    Cecily has been Moira’s best friend since they met freshman year of college. They’d been alone in the union when the fire alarm went off, prompting the other floors of the building to evacuate in an exhausting flurry. Moira had been three hundred words away from finishing her history midterm. Cecily had five energy drinks on her table, so gods only knew what she’d been working on. Moira tilted her head; Cecily jutted her chin. They both nodded. With firm, unrelenting eye contact, a decision was made between the two. They were going to stay.

    She’d always been able to tell when real fire was near, and she was absolutely confident that it was just a drill. And, hey, what d’you know? She’d been right.

    The two have been inseparable ever since.

    She opens the gate and lets herself be dramatic, lets herself feel the way that the air shifts and the world readjusts when she steps foot

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