Bird Of Prey
Series: Sémya Slotin Mystery -
Book One
Mystery
Romance
By
Danielle-Claude Ngontang Mba
Release date: October 7th
(paperback)
Release date: October 15th (ebook)
Release date: October 15th (ebook)
Buy Links
This
was supposed to be an easy case…
Sémya
Slotin had spent the last three years living in London with her best friend
Polliannah Koch staying away from solving cases. After Hawaii, she was taking a
break from puzzles, cases and mysteries that could potentially get her killed.
Instead, she had been doing her second and third favorite things, drinking and
selling expensive vintage wines and having earthshattering sex with the
mysterious, sexy, beautiful but ever so secretive Josh Heinz. Life in London
was good….until her funds ran out. Too much wine drinking, not enough wine
selling!
What
Sémya didn’t see was her stumbling on the fresh corpse of supermodel Johanna
Cartier. She didn’t think that male model turned fashion designer Julian
Marais-Caldwin, who also happened to be Sémya’s ex, would be suspected of
brutally murdering her. Johanna was his girlfriend, his muse and he loved her.
Sémya didn’t see the dead bodies piling up or the conspiracy theories.
Sémya
was a little rusty. But then again, it was supposed to be an easy case and she
was going to solve it. One vintage wine at a time… Sémya Slotin was officially
back in business!
Prologue
Saint-Bruno-Des-Anges
September 1998 (South of France)
Jojo
crawled on the floor as fast as her weak body would allow. She had been sick
all day. She couldn’t keep anything she was eating down and she didn’t
understand why. Too late… she started to convulse in front of the bathroom door
and the entire content of her stomach came out. “Catherine!” she said after she
was done. “I’ve made a mess again.”
“Poor
child,” Catherine said and helped her back to her bed. Jojo smiled. She was
lucky to have Catherine with her. She was her best friend, an older sister and
her family. “Drink some tea. Your stomach will feel better soon.”
“Thank
you, Catherine. You’re a godsend.” She slowly drank the tea under Catherine’s
watchful stare. It tasted bitter but if Catherine said that it was good for
her, she had no reason to think otherwise. She then closed her eyes and fell
asleep.
Catherine
knew that she needed to act fast. The appointment was in less than an hour.
Jojo would not be waking up anytime soon, if ever again. She had been
hallucinating for days. Catherine was
convinced that Jojo didn’t even know how long she had been in bed. But her
suffering would be over soon. The tea she had given her should be
finishing the job.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair
was as black as Jojo’s now and the same length. They always had similar
sparkling green eyes and the same smile. Even people in the village thought
they were twin sisters. Catherine quickly put her hair up the silly way Jojo
always preferred before leaving their small cottage.
“Hello
Jojo,” her next-door neighbour said.
“Hello!”
Catherine replied. They had been living here for more than a year. Mrs.
Beauvais should have been able to recognize her. Her smile grew wider. That was
a good sign.
“How’s
Catherine today?”
“Still
in bed I’m afraid.” Catherine got into their car. “I have a meeting in Nice.
I’ll speak to you later.” She drove away happy to have fooled at least one
person so far.
“You’re
still alive!” Catherine exclaimed when she saw Jojo shaking on her bed.
Jojo
frowned back. “I’m seeing double, Catherine. You look just like me. And what
happened to your brown hair?” she asked. She tried to reach out for the other
her but lifting her arm was too hard. “What is happening to me?” she cried
but no tears came out. She was so thirsty. She was in so much pain and so
tired. “Maybe we should call for help?” she let out, her throat hurt and was
burning.
“You’re
hallucinating again, Jojo. It hasn’t even been more than a day. You will be
fine tomorrow. I’ll get you some tea,” Catherine told her.
But something in Catherine’s voice scared
Jojo. She was lying to her. She wasn’t getting better, she was getting worse.
How long had she been trapped in their home? She was supposed to go to Nice and
pick up her contract. Catherine came back and even through her haze, Jojo could
see that she had a big bruise of her face. “What happened?” she managed to
mutter while avoiding the tea.
“I
wasn’t convincing enough. Next time I’ll be more prepared,” Catherine gritted
back. She held Jojo by her hair and forced her to drink the tea. “It’s for your
own good.” Her eyes were cold. No trace of the nice gentle Catherine she had
been living with for the past year. That woman was a stranger. Maybe she had
always been one… what did she really know about Catherine Dubois?
“Why
are you doing this to me, Catherine?” Jojo asked as she shook so violently that
she ended up on the floor. She was alone…would this nightmare ever end? How
long had she been on the floor like this? Flames started to grow around her…
was it her imagination? She started to choke as heat was entering her lungs and
she felt her life leaving her body… I’m only sixteen… I’m only sixteen and
my life hasn’t even begun yet… It can’t be over yet…
AUTHOR BIO
Meet Danielle-Claude Ngontang Mba
The Author, The Blogger, The Cheeky Reviewer
 |
| Have you held an Olympic Torch before its departure to Athens? |
“My life journey is like my playlist, amazingly unique but full of contradictions with surprising joys with every song...”
I was born in Quebec City, Canada from Gabonese parents but grew up in Paris and Libreville the Gabonese capital until the age of 18. Are you yawning yet? I am...
I moved back to Canada in 1999 after high school in Libreville to study Cinematography and Digital movie production in Laval University in Quebec then The International Academy of Design and Technology in Toronto. After graduating in 2003, I decided to sell my soul to the corporate world and worked in the Benefit Outsourcing Industry for seven in Toronto before reconnecting with her first passion writing.
"A teacher told me in high school that people didn't read anymore so I decided that I would make movies instead...so that didn't stick…"
I finally went back to school to study creative writing at Georges Brown College in 2010 and 2011. I started to write The Coulda Woulda Shoulda Song Series as an assignment and finished Book One in late 2011 before moving to London.
And the rest as they say is history... Almost two years later, I'm in London and wrote three novels: This Could Have Been Our Song! A coulda woulda shoulda ballad... (Book one) currently available on amazon and soon in iTunes, Kobo, Barnes and Nobles and Smashwords. The sequel This Would Have Been Our Song! Catchy tune and dancers tales will be release in January 2014. Bird Of Prey, my first mystery novel will be release in October 7th, 2013 on paperback before its wide release in November 25th, 2013. It will be followed by The Plot Thickens (a novella) in January 2014 and Polliannah Got Married! in April 2014 or earlier.
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