#Holiday Recipe: Easy Chocolate Pie and An #Excerpt To Save a Lady

#Holiday Recipe: Easy Chocolate Pie

You need a baked pie crust.   (For me, that definitely means store-bought.)

You mix together:  3 tablespoons self-rising flour, 3 tablespoons cocoa, 1 cup sugar

Separate 3 eggs.  Mix the egg yolks with 1 ½ cups of milk and tsp of vanilla.

Add to the dry ingredients, add a dash of salt. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in saucepan, add mixture and cook until thick, stirring constantly.

Pour into baked pie crust. Then make meringue using the three egg whites and 2 tablespoons sugar. Use mixer on high to beat egg whites until fluffy, add sugar, and continue mixing until peaks are formed.

Spread meringue on top of pie and bake at 350 until lightly browned.

A DARING MASQUERADE

A move from Paris to New Orleans brings disaster to Elise Plaisance’s predictable life as a lady’s maid. The son of her grief-stricken mistress disappears, and Elise becomes involved in a web of deceit when she turns to a cunning gentleman for help finding the missing boy.

A CAPTAIN BEWITCHED

Captain Jesse Cross has journeyed to New Orleans with General Jackson’s army, but his biggest battle is one of the heart when he falls for a French girl cloaked in mystery.

With the city on the brink of war, their romance is born in the darkness of a moonlit courtyard and never meant to last forever.

A FUTURE IMPERILED

Deceived by an adversary and haunted by her tragic past, Elise must risk everything to rescue her mistress’s son before all is lost, and Jesse knows he has to stop her even if it means sacrificing his life to save a lady.

Excerpt:

He tugged her onto the banquette where a street lamp hung from a rope suspended across the street. A haze of light shimmered through the fog. He stepped back to get a better look at his quarry.

A black hooded cloak, with beaded trim, shrouded her from head to toe. An excellent garment for pursuing a man in the dark. The deep hood obscured her face, except for the half mask she wore. The sparkling gemstones scattered across her silver mask winked at him.

He couldn’t believe a woman was out at this late hour following him.

You could expect anything to happen in this bizarre city.

He shoved his pistol in his waist belt. He figured he knew who was behind this caper. “Bonnard hatched this little plot, didn’t he?”

His cousin, Lieutenant Bonnard Reid, had been enthralled by the numerous whorehouses in the city. Bonnard acted like a kid running from one candy shop to another. He visited a different whorehouse every night and returned bragging about how the women were so adept in the art of pleasure.

Bonnard had begged Jesse to join him on his escapades, but Jesse had been too busy setting up the general’s headquarters. He figured his cousin had taken the matter into his own hands.

“Wait until I see him tomorrow. He won’t pull a stunt like this again.”

“I do not know the man you call Bonnard.” She repeated the name awkwardly.

He frowned. “But you are here intentionally?”

“Oui.” She stepped forward, closer to him.

The seductive scent of flowers and musk intoxicated him. Like her face, her body was hidden. It was all shadows and secrets beneath the cloak except for the flirty mask with its twinkling gems, but his imagination pictured her as a beautiful woman. Nude, of course.

“I am your liaison.” Her sensual voice was a mere whisper carried in the wind.

“Liaison?” The implication was so intimate that it aroused him. He reminded himself she could look like a toad for all he knew. She could have a husband and ten kids waiting at home for her.

Purchase link for To Save a Lady: http://amzn.to/1tz2HIq

Patricia Preston is a Southern author who writes historical and contemporary romance as well as humorous Southern fiction. Her publishers include New Love Stories, True Romance, Affaire de Coeur, Cloverdale Press, The Blue and Gray Magazine, Sea Oats Review, and Carina Press. She won William Faulkner Award for Short Fiction, the Lone Star Writing Competition for Historical Romance, and Harlequin’s World’s Best Romances Short Story Competition.

Her current titles include a historical romance, To Save a Lady, two humorous short stories, “The Yard Sale” and “Laid to Rest” available on Amazon, and a historical novella, Almost an Outlaw.

For info on new releases and contests, sign up for her newsletter

Visit her Webpage

Follow her Twitter

Like her page Facebook