Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Gale's Gift
    Gale's Gift
    Gale's Gift
    Ebook55 pages47 minutes

    Gale's Gift

    By Beth Alvarez

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    There’s nothing Morghram hates more than storms, but when he sees a woman trapped in the sea with a wild storm fast approaching, fear of foul weather must be pushed aside.

    But saving Eona’s life means getting tangled in her business. Shipwrecked in pursuit of the thief who ruined her life, her escort is lost, leaving her to pursue justice alone.

    Adventure isn’t high on the list of things Morghram is looking for, but Eona’s promise of rich rewards could change his life, restoring the comfortable lifestyle stolen by the wartime injury that forced him to forsake his career.

    Though tired and past his prime, his sword is king’s steel, and the scars on his body prove his skill was hard won. Together, they may just stand a chance.

    Gale's Gift is a novelette approximately 13,000 words in length.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBeth Alvarez
    Release dateOct 1, 2015
    ISBN9781311720887
    Gale's Gift
    Author

    Beth Alvarez

    Beth Alvarez is an Illinois native living in Memphis, Tennessee, along with her husband, daughter, a Siberian husky, and a very mean cat. A visual arts major, she formerly worked as a freelance graphic designer. Against all advice, she makes her own book covers.Reading The Hobbit led Beth to fall in love with fantasy at age 8. She later developed a love for vampires and the supernatural, which is unsurprising, given she never outgrew the goth phase.In her free time, Beth enjoys drawing, hitting the road in her beloved Mustang, sipping tea, sewing for her Asian ball-jointed dolls, and making her prior-Marine husband spar in the kitchen for sake of writing more convincing combat scenes.She can be contacted via her website, where you can find her personal blog, and also sign up for bonus content and advance notification of new and upcoming titles:http://www.ithilear.com/newsletter.html

    Read more from Beth Alvarez

    Related to Gale's Gift

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Skein Is land

      Nov 6, 2019

      Skein Is land
      6 min read

    • Article

      Selkie

      Feb 3, 2022

      Selkie
      10 min read

    • Article

      Better A Duffer Than Drowned

      Jan 22, 2020

      ON New Year’s Day, our friend Roger led a posse to the beach to expunge the last traces of hedonism and 2019-ishness. He likes to greet the New Year with an icy plunge, which brings him down from London and allows us to see him every year. Dr Bowdler

      2 min read

    • Article

      More Things In Heaven

      Dec 10, 2021

      It’s the deep mid-winter, when sailors check their warps, settle down in lamp-lit saloons, top up their bogey stoves and pour themselves a dram. If they’re in tune with the outside world, they’ll also shut off the flickering screens, kill the music m

      5 min read

    • Article

      New Land

      Oct 13, 2017

      New Land
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Ferryman

      Oct 26, 2020

      At the end of the summer, when the high tide of tourists had gone out but autumn proper was still a few weeks away, the foot ferry still ran on the August timetable. It was always dead quiet when he made the first run over to Fowey from Polruan; even

      6 min read

    • Article

      Life On The Wing

      Nov 12, 2020

      One of the happier surprises in a world of ever-increasing hyperbole is to discover an unassuming book written by a man who has no plans to be Yachtsman of the Year. His boat is unlikely to make headlines, yet his clarity of mind and joie de vivre br

      7 min read

    • Article

      Read A Sneak Peek of IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES

      Sep 6, 2023

      The murderer arrived by boat. He came gently, with a soft tread and beautifully clean hands. He strode past a group of men and women hauling in a catch of fire-fish, his knife out of sight in his pocket. They glanced round at him, but he only nodded

      4 min read

    • Article

      Practicing

      Mar 15, 2018

      This would have been her favorite season in the Allegheny woods. The shadows of the trees were rickety, and the wind had sap in its scent. But last week, Ty had left; now one day decayed into the next. Their house was abandoned. Only their father, si

      18 min read

    • Article

      Queen Of Salt

      Feb 6, 2020

      Queen Of Salt
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Galápagos Mermaid

      Apr 1, 2023

      The Galápagos Mermaid
      9 min read

    • Article

      Climbing Mount Cameroon

      Nov 18, 2019

      In 1895 Mary Kingsley became the first woman to climb Mount Cameroon. Her apparel was unlikely: long black trailing skirt, tight waist, high collar, a small fur cap, lace-up shoes and a parasol. In every respect she was unusual. With no formal school

      4 min read

    • Article

      Holding Power

      Sep 11, 2020

      Holding Power
      5 min read

    • Article

      There Is No Crime Here

      Jul 18, 2023

      There Is No Crime Here
      5 min read

    • Article

      Sabotage In Stormy Seas

      May 23, 2019

      THE SHADOW IN THE SANDS First published by Headline in 1998. Currently available via Kindle, £4.64 Gloria was thundering under bare poles into a night no less black than when I had last seen it. The wind felt softer, which is always the way when that

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      May 1, 2019

      “My arm is so brown and so beautiful,” is a thought I haveas I’m about to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.I look at it a moment in the soft glow, and see it, briefly,as though it belonged to someone else. A reddishkind of brown, like a toasted almo

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Visitors

      Mar 1, 2023

      The Visitors
      4 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Oct 28, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Oct 28, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Best Rain in Literature

      Apr 14, 2020

      The Best Rain in Literature
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      Temptation

      Dec 28, 2021

      Temptation
      6 min read

    • Article

      Milla’s Dandelion

      Sep 10, 2022

      The sun blinded Alchemilla as she entered the meadow. It was hidden deep in the forest, too deep for anyone to venture in without a reason. She didn’t mind the isolation, and if anything, it made her work easier. After her eyes adjusted, she took off

      12 min read

    • Article

      An Everlasting Call

      Sep 9, 2020

      An Everlasting Call
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Selkie Moon

      Dec 3, 2020

      The Selkie Moon
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Gale's Gift

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Gale's Gift - Beth Alvarez

      CHAPTER 1

      Clouds with undersides like gray silk cloaked the sky, the cool ocean breeze carrying the scent of rain. Rainstorms were nothing to be concerned about, but there were more clouds farther behind, riding low on the wind and piling on top of themselves until they turned black.

      It was storms like those Morghram hated.

      Lightning crawled along the bellies of the thunderheads, though they were yet too far off for thunder to be heard. The winds were still easy, but the pre-storm stillness would come soon enough, and who knew what sort of gale would follow? He couldn't see any rotation in the clouds from where he stood atop the cliff, but he'd heard tales from sailors about hurricanes with an eye as wide as the harbor. But a grown man didn’t fear something so simple as the weather; he disliked it, instead.

      Shaking his head, he turned back to his window and lifted another plank of pine. He'd lived on the cliff-top above the beach since retiring from the Royal Army, and if he didn't like storms, he'd at least grown used to them. The front of his house faced the sea and he'd added bars beside the windows long ago. Sliding boards behind them wedged the planks between the bars and the shutters, deterring damage. The windows were not fine glass, the panes filled with ripples and bubbles, but they were glass; a commodity he was fortunate to have. So he barricaded both windows with care and dusted his hands together before he looked back to the storm.

      Foam capped the waves in the distance and small fishing boats hastened back to the long piers that lined the shore. But there was something else amid the waves, something small and pale. At first he thought it a pelican or some other sea bird, but it wasn't graceful; it floundered in the water, slipping beneath the surface and then clawing its way back up, slower and weaker each time. A person, he realized. And all the fishing vessels had already moored.

      Morghram was not young any longer, a few years past his prime and looking more weathered than that, but he was spry, and the carved stairs that led from the cliff-top village to the sandy shore beneath were not far from his home. He took them by twos, watching the bobbing figure in the sea all the while, his breath catching every time it sank beneath the waves.

      He had only a small boat—one he'd built with his neighbor that they shared between them—but it was better than none. He cast off forcefully, leaping into the boat and sparing only a grimace for the stabbing pain of landing on his bad leg.

      Thunder growled in the skies overhead, the air growing still though the waves before him raged. Grinding his teeth, he tried to ignore the building storm and focus on each sweep of the oars.

      Stroke.

      One to carry him up a swell, another to descend.

      Stroke.

      One to make up the distance he'd lost, one to climb again.

      Heat burned in his back and his shoulders, the sound of the waves and his own breath drowning out the crackling lightning overhead. The waves pushed against him and rowing through them took every ounce of power he had, though as he grew closer to the figure stranded in the water, his determination grew.

      It was a woman, fair-haired and clad in pale blue silk, clinging to a piece of wreckage. Hope and desperation lit her eyes when she saw him, but it was all she could do to hold on. The waves threatened to tear her raft from beneath her. The weight of her gown tried to drag her to the bottom.

      He drew the small boat as close as he could manage. Diving in to lift her was out of the question, the angry sea eager to sweep

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1