FREE TODAY ONLY :: Frostbite by Ofelia Gränd #GuestPost #Excerpt #Free
✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hello everyone! Thank you, Addison, for allowing me to steal a spot on your blog 🥰
I’m Ofelia Gränd, and I write both paranormal and contemporary MM Romance stories. Most often, I write as Holly Day, and it’s been a year since I had my last release as Ofelia. BUT now it’s time!!!
I’m with JMS Books, and for the last few years, they’ve arranged an Advent calendar with one free lgbt+ book per day from 12:00 AM EST to 11:59 PM EST. It’s only free for one day, so you have to be quick and grab it while you can 😊
Today is my day! Frostbite is a short contemporary story about Noel who has a cold case podcast with his best friend Thea. He loves it. Who doesn’t love murder boards and making timelines? There is no better thing. If you can do it with your best friend while having wine and chocolate, all the better!
Noel is about to interview a woman about the night when her best friend disappeared thirty-seven years ago, but when he arrives, he finds her tied to a chair. And in the next moment, someone shoots her.
Noel flees, rushes away from the room, and hides in the cellar. Normally, he’d have called his brother, Matt, who works in law enforcement, but he’s away on an undercover mission. Before he left, he forced Noel to make a promise. If he got into trouble, he should call Bo Nicholas – detective, asshole, Matt’s best friend, Noel’s nemesis, and the person who stars in most of his X-rated fantasies. He’d rather die than confess to the last part.
Reluctantly – but really, when you’re about to be murdered, you don’t have many choices – he calls Bo. Bo doesn’t believe him and takes his sweet time to rescue him. When he finally realizes Noel wasn’t making shit up to get his attention, he snaps into action and tries to get Noel to go into hiding since the murderer knows who he is now.
But… Noel is reluctant to leave Fluffers, his fish, alone over Christmas. What kind of pet owner would do that?!
If you’re in the mood for a short, rather silly, murder mystery, make sure to grab it today when it’s free! Tomorrow, it’ll be available in the shops at a regular price.
Frostbite
by Ofelia Gränd
🛒 Grab it here:
Blurb
Murder isn’t as much fun as it’s made out to be, neither is being rescued by a grouchy cop.
All Noel Chance wanted to do was ask a woman a few questions about a kidnapping that took place thirty-seven years ago for his cold case podcast. He didn’t think someone would shoot her right in front of him.
While hiding from the murderer by the dill pickle in the food cellar, he calls Bo, his brother’s best friend, who is a cop. Bo takes his sweet time to come to the rescue, and once he does, he’s surprised Noel was telling the truth.
Bo then kidnaps him and takes him to his cabin in the woods while the police investigate the murder. Okay, maybe it isn’t kidnapping, and more a case of keeping him safe, but still. What is he to do with a hot but grumpy man in a cabin with only one bed?
Excerpt
Bo hadn’t more than turned the key in the ignition before Noel pressed his phone to his ear.
“How’d it go?”
He could hardly decipher the words since Thea was chewing on something. “Not great. She died.”
Silence.
“Come again.”
“If only I’d come once.”
Bo slowly turned his head to look at him, and Noel snapped his fingers and pointed at the street. Idiot had to watch where they were going or this would be the day he died for real, not only almost-died. Shit, he’d have to call Dad too. This would not go down well.
“Yeah, I hear ya. So what happened?”
“I recorded it to the cloud, so you can listen, and I sent a copy to this super nice detective named Sanders. I think I’m gonna ask him to marry me.” He glared at Bo, but this time he ignored him.
“Why would you send a copy to the nice detective?” Thea bit into something crunchy. An apple, perhaps, or maybe a carrot.
“Oh my God, Thea! I had splattered brain on my cheek.”
She choked, then coughed. Noel waited and wondered how long he should stay on the line before hanging up and calling an ambulance.
The coughing ceased, and she wheezed into the phone. “You had brain matter on your cheek.”
“It might not have been brain. I’m not sure. But blood at the very least. And spiderwebs in my hair. It was awful.”
Bo glanced at him, but this time he focused on the road again before Noel had to snap at him.
“Okay, start at the beginning.”
“Short version. You can listen to the recording once we’ve hung up, and then we’ll set up a murder board.”
“A murder board? For Pamela Hawk?”
“No, for Cynthia Harris.”
There was a small gasp. “She’s dead?”
“Yeah, I showered in her blood.”
Bo might have sighed, but Noel pretended not to hear him, and if he hadn’t heard him, it hadn’t happened.
“From the beginning.” Thea took on her stern tone, and he wished he’d been there with a bottle of wine and chocolate. A tremor ran through him, but he refused to give in to it while Bo was nearby, so he cleared his throat and tried to focus.
“I went there, but she didn’t open when I rang the door. So I went around the back—”
“Why? Who goes around the back of the house in December? People aren’t out in their backyards when it’s snowing.”
“I don’t know why, but I did.”
She hummed.
“When I got there, the patio door was open, and I found it weird, so I went inside and more or less shouted I was Noel Chance from Chance Leads. I heard a muffled sound and figured she had fallen and needed help or was sick or something.”
She made another sound of agreement, and Noel relaxed a fraction. Thea got it. She’d have run in too.
“I followed the noise into the living room. She was sitting on a chair with her back to me, so I… rushed in. The same moment I reached her, someone shot her in the forehead. It’s splattered on me, Thea.” His voice might have cracked a little on the last part, but he pushed on before Bo could notice or Thea could jump on it. “I ran. The man raised the gun again, so I got myself out of the room and ran toward the basement. I found a food cellar and crawled into a corner and got spiderwebs in my hair.
“Ugh, that sucks. I hate the way it sticks to you.”
“Right! Like fucking glue.”
Bo took an unnaturally deep breath, and Noel glared at him. He focused on Thea again. “I couldn’t call Matt.”
“Right, fuck, baby. How did you get out? Did you call Jack?”
“No, I’ll call him next. I called…” He scrunched his nose. “Bo.”
Thea cough-laughed. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did. I promised Matt. I never intended to keep the promise, but I called him.”
Thea groaned. “And he hung up?”
“Amazingly enough, he didn’t. He didn’t believe me and stopped for fucking doughnuts on the way over there, not caring in the least I was hanging out with a murderer in the basement. Maybe he thinks I’d do well in the role of a too-stupid-to-live hero who spends his afternoons in a horror basement with a killer. But hey, I’m still alive, so I think Matt will forgive him.”
Bo’s hold on the steering wheel tightened.
“The fucking bastard.”
Noel hoped he heard Thea through the phone. He should’ve put her on speaker. “Mmm.”
“But you lived, so clearly you aren’t too stupid. I’ll have you know I was aware all along. I don’t hang out with idiots, and finding somewhere to hide is always the better option.”
Noel hummed. Yeah, maybe he wasn’t too stupid to live.
“So now you want us to solve her murder?”
“Well… since I introduced myself, and therefore, by extension, you to the murderer, I think it’s in our best interest he’s caught.”
Silence stretched longer than ever before during a conversation with Thea. “Fuck.”
“Yeah. Do you think you could stay somewhere else for a few days? And someone needs to feed Fluffers.”
“What? Where are you?”
“Bo kidnapped me. I escaped the murderer but not the ice queen.” Oops, he shouldn’t have said the last part while Bo was within hearing distance. He refused to look his way despite feeling his gaze on him.
“Shit, Noel, do you know how to treat frostbite?”
“Soaking in warm water, but I don’t know if there is any warm water where we’re heading. You can still see where my phone is, right? We still have the connected devices thing?”
“Of course.”
“Good, because I think he’s taking me into the woods.”
Bo groaned, an interesting sound when coming from him.
“Never let them take you to a secondary location! You know this, Noel. Kidnapping 101. We did an episode on it.”
Noel slumped against the door, resting his forehead against the cool window. “Yeah, I know. But Matt trusts him. What was I to do? I tried to get Sanders to take me, but he had a plane to catch.”
“For fuck’s sake, Noel!” Bo’s snarl made him jump, and he glared at him.
“Hey, I’m having a private conversation here. Close your ears.”
About the Author
Ofelia Gränd is Swedish, which often shines through in her stories. She likes to write about everyday people ending up in not-so-everyday situations, and hopefully also getting out of them. She writes romance, contemporary, paranormal, Sci-Fi and whatever else catches her fancy.
Her books are written for readers who want to take a break from their everyday life for an hour or two.
When Ofelia manages to tear herself from the screen and sneak away from her husband and children, she likes to take walks in the woods…if she’s lucky she finds her way back home again.
