Warm Up Your Winter II - The Snow Bride is out at Amazon

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?

In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.

Now out at Bookstrand Publishing 2011
Order here.

Now out at Amazon, too!
Buy the ebook:

Amazon Kindle (US)
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Read Chapter One

Here is another new excerpt to tempt you:

Elfrida stirred sluggishly, unable to remember where she was. Her back ached, and the rest of her body burned. She opened her eyes and sat up with a jerk, thinking of Christina.


Her head felt to be bobbing like an acorn cup in a stream, and her vision swam. As she tried to swing her legs, her sense of dizzy falling increased, becoming worse as she closed her eyes. She lashed out in the darkness, her flailing hands and feet connecting with straw, dusty hay, and ancient pelts.

“Christina?” she hissed, listening intently and praying now that the monster had brought her to the same place it had taken her sister.

She heard nothing but her own breath, and when she held that, nothing at all.

“Christina?” Fearing to reach out in this blackness that was more than night and dreading what she might find, Elfrida forced herself to stretch her arms. She trailed her fingers out into the ghastly void, tracing the unseen world with trembling hands.

Her body shook more than her hands, but she ignored the shuddering of her limbs, closed her eyes like a blind man, and searched.

She lay on a pallet, she realized, full of crackling, dry grass. When she scented and tasted the air, there was no blood. She did not share the space with grisly corpses.

I am alone and unfettered. Now her heart had stopped thudding in her ears, she listened again, hearing no one else. Chanting a charm to see in the dark, she tried again to shift her feet.

Light spilled into her eyes like scalding milk as a door opened and a massive figure lurched across the threshold. Elfrida launched herself at freedom, hurling a fistful of straw at the looming beast and ducking out for the light.

She fell instead, her legs buckling, her last sight that of softly falling snow.



* * * *



Magnus gathered the woman before she pitched facedown into the snow, returning her swiftly to the rough bed within the hut. Her tiny, bird-boned form terrified him. Clutching her was like ripping a fragile wood anemone up from its roots.

And she had fought him, wind-flower or not. She had charged at him.

“I wish, lass, that you would listen to me. I am not the Forest Grendel, nor have wish to be, nor ever have been.”

Just as earlier, in the clearing where he had first come upon her, a brilliant shock of life and color in a white, dead world, the woman gave no sign of hearing. She was cold again, freezing, while in his arms she had steamed with fever. He tugged off his cloak and bundled her into it, then piled his firewood and kindling onto the bare hearth.

A few strikes of his flints and he had a fire. He set snow to melt in the helmet he was using as a cauldron. He swept more dusty hay up from the floor and, sneezing, packed it round the still little figure.

No beast on two or four legs would hunt tonight, so that was one worry less. Finding this lean-to hut in the forest had been a godsend, but it would be cold.

Magnus went back out into the snow and led his horse into the hut, spreading what feed he had brought with him. He kept the door shut with his saddle, rubbed the palfrey down with the bay’s own horse blanket, and looked about for a lantern.

There was none, just as there were no buckets, nor wooden bowls hanging from the eaves. But, abandoned as it surely had been, the place was well roofed, and no snow swirled in through the wood and wattle walls. Whistling, Magnus dug through his pack and found a flask of ale, some hard cheese, two wizened apples, and a chunk of dark rye bread. He spoke softly to his horse, then looked again at the woman.

She was breathing steadily now, and her lips and cheeks had more color. By the glittering, rising fire he saw her as he had first in the forest clearing, an elf-child of beauty and grace, a willing sacrifice to the monster. Kneeling beside her, he longed to stroke her vivid red hair and kiss the small dimple in her chin. In sleep she had the calm, flawless face of a Madonna of Outremer and the bright locks of a Magdalene.

He had guessed who she was—the witch of the three villages, the good witch driven to desperation. Coming upon her in that snowfield, tied between two trees like a crucified child of fairy, his temper had been a black storm against the villagers for sparing their skins by flaying hers. Then he had seen her face, recognized that wild, stark, sunken-cheeked grief, seen the loose bonds and the terrible “feast,” and had understood.

Another young woman has been taken by the beast, someone you love.

She—Elfrida, that was her name, he remembered it now—Elfrida was either very foolish or very powerful, to offer herself as bait.

4.5 Blue Ribbons from Romance Junkies for 'The Snow Bride'

Good reviews are coming in for The Snow Bride. The latest is a 4.5 Blue Ribbon one from Romance Junkies:

A magical read, THE SNOW BRIDE is an intriguing, passionate historical romance that will keep you up late into the night, avidly turning pages to see what happens next. Magnus and Elfrida are two ideally suited people. They put others first before themselves and are able to see the hidden qualities in people. Although Christina was described as being beautiful, I did not like her as much as I liked Elfrida. She seems a little selfish to me. Despite a language barrier, Magnus and Elfrida were able to overcome it, with a language they claimed as their own. Packed with dreams, curses, magic, kidnapped brides, mystery, humor, complex characters, clever banter and true love, this story is a wonderful escape into the land of witches, knights and forever after love. I absolutely enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more works by talented author Lindsay Townsend. - 4.5 Blue Ribbons.

Available now for all ebook formats from Bookstrand.

Warm up your New Year - 'The Snow Bride' is out today!

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?

In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.

Now out at Bookstrand Publishing 2011
15% discount until January 3! Order here.

Read Chapter One

Here is another new excerpt to tempt you:

She smiled, and he could see her smile. “Magnus.” She stroked his hair. In this kind semi-dark, oily blackness, he could feel whole again, and then, as she skimmed herself on top of him, he recognized that she made him whole. They could be in bright summer sun in an Eastern pleasure garden and he would feel needed, handsome, desired.

She truly wanted him, he thought in wonder, as she undid his tunic and fumbled with his belt, whispering, “Let me, let me, you are so big, my lovely troll...”

She kissed him on his mouth, jaw, chin, throat, and chest, light, swift embraces that poured heat and honey into him. Her hands trailed up his arms and legs, down his flanks and across his belly.

She was shy and bold together. “Do I do right?” she whispered, and he nodded and caressed her in return, delighting in her sleek, lithe shape, though all too soon, she lifted his hand away.

“Do I do right?” she asked again. “Only, I have not, not...” she paused as if seeking words, and he understood at once.

His bold, shy, loving little witch was a virgin.

And she chose me.

The brutish part of him wanted to holler her name to the rafters and make her his at once, but Elfrida needed more than that, far more. Her first time, he thought tenderly, shaken out of any doubts of her wanting him by her own brave, sweet admission.

“Never fret, my sweet, we shall do well together.” He slowed his caresses, wanting her to delight in them and to take only pleasure, never pain or fear, from their union.

“You are too sweet in your favors,” she breathed as he touched her. “You make me forget and stop—Magnus!”

She shuddered above him as he lightly tongued her breasts, her head falling back as she surrendered to the moment.

His desire was strong, but he told himself to forget it. He knew Denzil was out there in the hall, prying and spying, even if he had a girl of his own, but told himself to forget that, too.

Love Elfrida as she deserves to be loved.


Feeling took the place of thought. He gathered his witch-lass close and turned her to her side, shielding her from greedy eyes with his own rough body.

He nuzzled her breasts and settled her in the crook of his arm, running his fingers slowly down the smooth links of her spine. He heard her swallow and felt about for his flagon, offering it to her.

She gulped a draft and spluttered thanks in her own dialect, her voice strangled into a gasp as he dripped the mead onto her nipples and tenderly licked it off her. She raked at her clothes and his, endearingly clumsy in her need, slipping her hands into the revealed gaps in his tunic and braies to touch and caress him. By the single torchlight he saw her eyes, wide with looking—she could not see enough of him. And she kissed his arms and legs, once even his peg leg, and flicked her hair teasingly across his loins, too diffident to caress him intimately, without invitation.

Warm up your winter: 'The Snow Bride'

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?

In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.

Coming Dec 27th from Bookstrand Publishing 2011
15% discount until January 3! Pre-order here.

Read Chapter One

Here is another excerpt to tempt you:

Magnus was worried. The fire he had made should have brought his people. It was an old signal, well-known between them. His men should have reached the village by now—that had been the arrangement. They were bringing traps and provisions in covered wagons, and hunting dogs and horses. He had been impatient to start his pursuit of the Forest Grendel and so rode ahead, returning with the messenger until that final stretch when the man turned off to his home. He had ridden on alone, finding the wayside shrine.

But from then, all had gone awry. Instead of the monster, he had found an ailing witch, and the snowstorm had lost him more tracks and time.

Magnus shook his head, turning indulgent eyes to the small, still figure on the rough pallet. At least the little witch had slept through the night and day, snug and safe, and he had been able to make her a litter from woven branches. He would give his fire signal a little longer and then return Elfrida to her village. There he might find someone who could translate between them.

Perhaps she did have power, for even as he looked at her, she sat up, the hood of her cloak falling away, and stared at him in return. She said something, then repeated it, and he drew in a great gulp of cold air in sheer astonishment, then laughed.

“I know what you said!” He wanted to kiss her, spots and all.

He burst into a clumsy canter, dragging his peg leg a little and almost tumbling onto her bed. She caught him by the shoulders and tried to steady him but collapsed under his weight.

They finished in an untidy heap on the pallet, with Elfrida hissing by his ear, “Why have you done such a foolish thing as to burn all our fuel?”

He rolled off her, knocked snow off his front and beard, and said in return, “How did you know I would know the old speech, the old English?”

“I dream true, and I dreamed this.” She was blushing, though not, he realized quickly, from shyness.

“Why burn so wildly?” she burst out, clearly furious. “You have wasted it! All that good wood gone to ash!”

“My men know my sign and will come now the storm has gone.” He had not expected thanks or soft words, but he was not about to be scolded by this red-haired nag.

“That is your plan, Sir Magnus? To burn half the forest to alert your troops?”

“A wiser plan than yours, madam, setting yourself as bait. Or had your village left you hanging there, perhaps to nag the beast to death?”

Her face turned as scarlet as the fire. “So says any witless fool! ’Tis too easy a charge men make against women, any woman who thinks and acts for herself. And no man orders me!”

Magnus swallowed the snort of laughter filling up his throat. He doubted she saw any amusement in their finally being able to speak to each other only to quarrel. Had she been a man or a lad, he would have knocked her into the snow, then offered a drink of mead, but such rough fellowship was beyond him here.

“And how would you have fought off any knave, or worse, that found you?” he asked patiently. “You did not succeed with me.”

“There are better ways to vanquish a male than brute force. I knew what I was about!”

“Truly? You were biding your time? And the pox makes you alluring?”

“Says master gargoyle! My spots will pass!”

“Or did you plan to scatter a few herbs, perhaps?”

He thought he heard her clash her teeth together. “I did not plan my sickness, and I do not share my secrets! Had you not snatched me away, had you not interfered, I would know where the monster lives. I would have found my sister! I would be with her!” Her voice hitched, and a look of pain and dread crossed her face. “We would be together. Whatever happens, I would be with her.”

“This was Christina?”

“Is Christina, not was, never was! I know she lives!”

Magnus merely nodded, his temper cooling rapidly as he marked how her color had changed and her body shook. A desperate trap to recover a much-loved sister excused everything, to his way of thinking.

She called you a gargoyle! This piqued his vanity and pride.

But she does not think you the monster, Magnus reminded himself in a dazzled, shocked wonder, embracing that knowledge like a lover.

A sweet Christmas fantasy - with hot chocolate

I wrote 'A Christmas Sleeping Beauty' as my take on a fairy story and as a piece of historical fantasy - which is where the hot chocolate comes in. (Hot chocolate, or rather cocoa, is my favourite Christmas drink.)

Today 'A Christmas Sleeping Beauty' is published by MuseItUp.

Handsome, confident, a touch arrogant, Prince Orlando thinks that now he has found Sleeping Beauty, his kiss will wake her at once. When it does not, he realizes he has much to learn about life, and love.

Princess Rosie, trapped in her enchanted sleep, dreams of a mysterious man. Is he a rescuer, or a nightmare? She must fight to recover herself, and all before Christmas, for time is running out.

To read an excerpt and buy the ebook at $2.50, please go to http://www.lindsaytownsend.net/2008/04/christmas-sleeping-beauty.html

'The English Daughter' - Romantic suspense reissued by Lysandra Press

Young widow Val Baker restores musical instruments, but fears her relationship with her Greek-Italian family on Corfu is broken beyond repair.

Returning to the island to work on a rare piano belonging to her Greek friend Alexia, she finds her dreams haunted by memories of Hilary; a young English girl raped and murdered ten years before. Val determines to uncover the truth about the case, and set to rest her own doubts about the involvement of her father, Yiannis, and half-brother, Markos, both policemen who were involved in the original investigation.

Joined by her friend Harry, Val begins to unravel the threads. When two strange tokens arrive, one for Alexia's daughter Chloe and one for Val, it becomes clear that Hilary's unknown killer is on Val's trail. Her search for the truth becomes a race for life.

Previously published by Severn House.
Reissued as an ebook by Lysandra Press 2011.
£2.99.

Buy the ebook now:  Lysandra Press

Read Chapter One

Another excerpt:

They returned to an arcaded street where they could stroll side by side, and Harry released Val’s fingers. Perversely, Val was disappointed.

‘Wait, please.’ Harry crouched in the middle of the alley to retie one shoelace. Steve and Judith pushed round them. Judith, counting caged birds, called, ‘There’s another!’

Staring down at Harry, Val wondered if he was trying to put her off balance. Even as she thought it, he glanced up, straight at her. ‘How about that visit to your workshop right now?’

‘No cemetery?’ Val teased back.

Harry laughed, but said, ‘Or you go on alone there, if you want. Time in your own place.’ He rose, looking her up and down, his face hardening. ‘You’ve had enough today.’

Did she trust Harry? Could she really rely on him?

‘Val.’ Harry’s voice returned Val to the middle of the alley. ‘What do you say? A simple yes will do.’

Since when did he become so bossy? Val marvelled, uncertain what to make of this new Harry. She opened her mouth but was forestalled by Judith. Her daughter ran back up the street and cannoned into her legs.

‘There’s a poster round the corner of Beauty and the Beast! Can we go, Mummy, please?’

Val drew Judy out of the road and knelt in front of her daughter. Had she and Judith been alone, she would have happily gone to see her child’s favourite film, but asking Steve or Harry to do so was unfair.

‘Judy, I don’t think—’ she began, when Steve touched her arm.

‘It’s no problem,’ he said, quietly. ‘There’s a film starting in about twenty minutes. Won’t do me any harm.’

Harry took out his wallet and thrust a wad of euros at Steve. ‘Have an ice-cream while you’re about it,’ he remarked, nodding at Judy.

Val admitted it made sense. Her workshop really wasn’t the place for Judy and they all needed a lift after that family reunion.

‘Right, but come straight back to the workshop as soon as the film’s over. You’re clear about the address? And you know where you’re going?

‘You put Steve up to that,’ she said, waving them off, watching until they had turned the corner.

‘Did I?’ Harry was looking past her, right over her head.

‘What?’ Val turned, her eye drawn to a poster celebrating the return of the ‘International Performer’ Stefan Gregory to Corfu. Hear him live at the Achillion! the poster proclaimed, a horrible irony. ‘I need a newspaper, Harry.’

‘There’s a little shop three doors down. I’m sure they’ll sell them.’ Harry stepped round Val and was off. ‘You’ll translate the crime reports?’ he called back. ‘I still don’t read Greek so well.’

Val trotted to catch up. ‘Why do you want to know?’

Harry swung round. ‘No, Val. The question is, why do you?’

‘Why are you still thinking like a policeman? You’re as bad—’ Val stopped the rest of the complaint. She didn’t want her father or Markos shadowing them, least of all Markos.

As bad as Nick, finished Harry in his own mind. Maybe he should go after Judy and Steve. The rest of this evening was going to be a bust.



‘This is it.’ Val set her shoulder to the workshop door.

‘Good God,’ Harry said.

‘You like it?’ Val was surprised. Most visitors to Nonno’s workshop were overwhelmed. Nick had said, ‘How do you move in here?’ but Harry entered the room as she did, with a quiet confidence.

They breathed in together, sharing the scents of resin, polish and wood. His eyes were everywhere, taking in the dismantled pianos, lighting on the old hard swatches of felt, sweeping to the stone sink in the corner and up the walls with their shelves and tools. He turned about in a circle.

‘Whenever I picture you at work, I’ll always see you here.’

Val nodded, swallowing. She was foolishly touched by Harry’s sensitivity and ashamed of her earlier churlishness. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize. You say sorry far too much.’

She walked over to him. ‘Bend down - you’ve got a cobweb.’

Harry half crouched and she lifted spider and web off the bronzing temple close to his left ear, marvelling at the Viking hair, the thick golden brows and eyelashes, pitying his slightly receding hairline. She dangled the spider on the closed shutters, startled by her own disappointment that Harry had made no attempt to touch her in return.

The heat’s getting to me, she thought, turning from the shutters straight into Harry’s arms.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Hello back.’ Aware that the next move must come from her, she transferred the local newspaper from her left hand into both hands, gripping it in front of her, and rested her head against his breastbone.

There was no sense of wonder, or fireworks, as there had been with Nick. Val was oddly divorced from her senses. She didn’t want more than this floating peace. ‘I can’t—’

‘Sssh. It’s all right.’ He brushed her jaw with his fingers, seeking her chin to raise her head. ‘I only want to look at you.’

‘You’ve seen me lots of times,’ Val muttered at his stomach.

‘True, but not here.’

‘We’re not in Fenfield,’ she agreed, and lifted her face to his.

In the distance there was a knocking. Val didn’t connect it with the workshop until Harry placed a warning finger on her lips.

‘Let me in!’ Markos hammered on her door. As Val tensed, he kicked the solid black wood of the outer door and left without noticing that it was unlocked.

‘That was lucky,’ Val said, as his pounding feet faded away.

Harry spread a hand across the middle of her back and teased her closer. ‘You’ve already told me about Markos, but am I missing something?’

Val batted him with the paper. ‘Stop being a copper. It’s not important.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Leave it alone, Harry.’

‘Fair enough, Val.’ He released her and strode to the window, strumming his left hand down the length of one shutter. ‘What about that newspaper report you wanted to see?’

Sensing that even this activity would be the prelude to more questions, Val spread the paper on the bench. Harry came to stare over her shoulder.

‘Well?’ he prompted above her, leaning on his braced arm, his palm spread on the bench amongst a tiny, forgotten pile of old wood shavings.

‘It says very little.’ Even as she scanned the pages covering the latest murder, she wondered just how much her companion understood. Not only about the body found at the Achillion.

‘A young woman’s naked body, discovered amongst trees in the grounds of the Achillion,’ she paraphrased. ‘No one seems to know who she is, what nationality. It says she died of a broken neck.’

‘Her killer must be physically strong, then,’ said Harry.

Val’s fingers traced the lines. ‘The paper speaks of other wounds that the police won’t disclose. It doesn’t say she was raped, but people are already talking about the Achillion killer striking again.’

‘How many times has this happened? Bodies of naked young women found in a well-known beauty spot?’

‘I wouldn’t call the Achillion beautiful.’

‘Tourist spot. Whatever. What’s going on, Val? When Markos trumpeted his news, you went white.’

Why did she feel tempted to confess? ‘It was years ago,’ she said, covering her confusion by folding up the newspaper. ‘An English tourist called Hilary Moffat was killed here. She vanished from Corfu town and was found raped and murdered in the grounds of the Achillion the following night.’

‘What distances are we talking here? Between Corfu town and the Achillion?’

‘About ten kilometres. An easy road south.’

‘So it’s likely the killer had some kind of transport. And possibly an appealing manner, to lure the girl into it?’

‘I should think so.’ Val had considered these points long ago. ‘It would be hard to snatch someone off the streets: too many people would see.’

‘Were there any suspects the first time?’

Val shook her head. ‘I don’t know. The newspapers never mentioned anyone. No one was charged.’

‘And the first victim was also naked?’

Val nodded, blushing as Harry looked at her, his head tilted to one side so that he could see all her face.

‘You knew her.’

‘She was a music student like me, that’s all.’

She expected more  what, she couldn’t say. More questions, possibly. Instead, Harry’s face closed down as she spoke.

‘I see.’ He returned to his vantage point beside the shutters.

‘What? What do you see?’ Val became more exasperated as Harry smiled  and not a pleasant smile.

‘Not comfortable, is it, being shut out?’

‘I’m not . . . It’s difficult . . .’ Val stammered, alarmed by her unexpected wish to please Harry. ‘I’m probably crazy, anyway. Too many dreams.’

Harry wandered back to her, reached under the bench and lifted out her tall stool. ‘Why don’t we start again? You sit here and explain as much as you feel easy to tell me.’

Val sat on the stool and glanced at her watch.

‘We’ve plenty of time. The film won’t have started yet,’ Harry coaxed.

‘I know.’ Anxious about confessing her involvement with Hilary, Val chewed on her lower lip.

Harry crossed the stone flags yet again and peered through the gap in the shutters. ‘Nothing you say will change my good opinion of you— Hello! There’s someone outside. He’s coming here.’

A brisk rattling at the inner door.