Top Ten Tuesday: 31-12-2024: Stormy Books
Blog Tour ~ A Buckeye Falls Christmas by Libby Kay ~ Excerpt || Giveaway
First Chapter First Paragraph Thursday Intros ~ Murder at Wintertide by Fleur Hitchcock

The pale painted boards of the deckchair hut shone through the scribbles of snow falling on the shore. Something else showed through too, something grey, drifting in and out in the surf.
Only the sea crows saw it.
The Christmas trees leaning from the buildings became brighter, the amusement arcade music became louder and a single dog walker stopped and peered towards the unfamiliar object caught in the tide.
She paused, and eventually, her dog at her side, walked over the shingle and stopped. She examined the thing at her feet.
She’d taken it for a bird, but it wasn’t a bird.
What she’d thought were seagull wings was a grey hoody with white sleeves.
And, lit by the pretty lamps behind her, was a body, drifting in and out, in and out.
GRR Tours 12 Tour Days of Christmas: A Christmas for Holly by R.J. Scott
First Chapter First Paragraph Thursday Intros ~ Cruel Winter With You by Ali Hazelwood

In an ideal world, Marc Compton would be acting like a total dick.
I’m not asking for much. Some gloating, maybe. Obnoxiously raised eyebrows. A sneered, “Well, well, well. Look who showed up unannounced on Christmas Eve.” I’m not picky: any of the above would make me feel exponentially better about the situation.
But no. Marc opens the front door in a blaze of towering midwestern good looks, and when I look up at his handsome face, all I can detect is genuine surprise to find me standing on his parents’ snow-covered porch.
Surprise that quickly morphs into worry.