Excerpt: Stolen Obsession by Marlene M. Bell

About the Book:

http://www.marlenembell.com

“Debut author Bell delivers a great, slow-building romance, gently examining her characters’ painful pasts.” — Kirkus Reviews 

People die, but legends live on.

New York antiquities appraiser Annalisse Drury recently lost her best friend to murder. The killer’s identity may be linked to her friend’s expensive missing bracelet—a 500-year-old artifact that carries an ancient curse, one that unleashes evil upon any who dare wear the jewelry created for the Persian royal family.

Weeks later, Annalisse sees a matching necklace at a Manhattan gallery opening. She begs the owner to destroy the cursed piece, but her pleas fall on deaf ears—despite the unnatural death that occurs during the opening. With two victims linked to the jewelry, Annalisse is certain she must act.

Desperate, Annalisse enlists the gallery owner’s son to help—even though she’s afraid he’ll break her heart. Wealthy and devastatingly handsome, with a string of bereft women in his wake, Greek playboy Alec Zavos dismisses Annalisse’s concerns—until his parents are ripped from the Zavos family yacht during their ocean voyage near Crete.

Annalisse and Alec race across two oceans to save his mother, feared dead or kidnapped. When the killer changes tactics and goes after Alec behind Annalisse’s back, can her plan to rescue Alec’s mother save them all?

Hold on for a heart-thumping, thrilling adventure through exotic lands in this fast-moving romantic suspense mystery by Marlene M. Bell.

“An irresistible page turner and a successful melding of thriller and romance. With a splash of international adventure and plenty of surprises, Stolen Obsession is an entertaining read and a great beginning to the Annalisse Series.” — Self-Publishing Review, ★★★★½

Awards
The 2018 IndieReader Discovery Award (IRDA) for Best Fiction Cover
The 2018 Independent Book Award for Best Fiction Cover

Read an Excerpt:

Featured in June/July Issue: Summer Reads

Cursing under her breath, Annalisse saw her prized possession, a two-foot bronze statue of a shepherdess with a pair of sheep grazing near her feet, lying on its side next to a toppled plant stand. An expensive work of art from Florence she’d had no business buying, but she couldn’t resist. When Generosa had called from Italy describing it, Annalisse had to have it. Everyone who knew her well understood her love for sheep. Even if she’d declined Generosa’s offer to bring it back for her, she’d felt certain the bronze would end up in her hands eventually. 

Alec waited by the stairs and whispered, “Your bedroom up there?” He pointed upstairs. 

She nodded, lifted the mahogany stand upright and, with both hands, replaced the hefty bronze to its rightful place next to the desk. 

“Stay downstairs. You’ll be safer. I won’t be long, and I’ll look for your cat.” Alec hit the first step. 

“Be careful.” 

Whoever destroyed her home had acted with malice. They had her personal data and internet search history, where she shopped online, email correspondence as well as business contacts. A privacy breach she couldn’t afford. Compiling a list of possible suspects in her head, she felt so violated, even more so than by what had happened with Peter. Names and faces blurred together. With fingertips pressed at her temples, she willed the jackhammers in her head to stop. 

Raising her arms, as if a make-believe thief told her to, she said, “I give up. I may as well set a match to this place, for all the good it’s going to do me now.” 

Alec uttered a sentence upstairs she couldn’t make out. 

“Alec, did you find Boris?” 

The sound of shuffling filtered downstairs then a thump. 

“Alec, what fell?” Annalisse looked up at an empty landing. 

The unnatural silence pricked the hairs straight out on her neck. “Answer me.” 

A mechanical voice broke the silence. “Don’t move.” 

She stopped breathing and froze, afraid to look up, but then looked anyway. 

A figure in a brownish ski mask… 

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