Guest Author Leisl Leighton with new release CLIMBING FEAR

Set against the stirring Victorian Alps, comes a suspenseful novel of recovery and new beginnings from a talented new voice in Australian rural fiction. Perfect for readers of Sarah Barrie and Nora Roberts.

We’re thrilled to showcase Australian author Leisl Leighton and her new release Climbing Fear

OUT NOW 
in paperback and eBook

His beloved home is under threat and with it the beautiful, haunted woman he’s never been able to forget …

X-Treme TV sports star Reid Stratton has everything – until his best friend falls to his death on a climb while shooting their show. In the fierce media fallout, Reid begins to question everything about himself. Crippled by a new fear of climbing, Reid returns to CoalCliff Stud, his family’s horse farm, to recover.

Single mother Natalia Robinson is determined to start afresh, away from the shadow of her past. A job at CoalCliff Stud where she lived as a child is the perfect opportunity to live the quiet life she always wanted. But she is unprepared to see Reid, and is even more unprepared for the passion that still burns between them.

But after a series of menacing events threatens the new home she is trying to build, Nat realises that Reid is the only person she can rely on to keep her and her daughter safe. Together, Reid and Nat must face the pasts that haunt them if they are to survive the present and forge a future of hope.

Leisl Leighton

Award Winning Australian Author of Romantic Suspense

Climbing Fear – new release in paperback

A homecoming.
A rekindled passion.
An unseen danger.

Read a few words from Leisl and read an excerpt from Climbing Fear

Buy Climbing Fear

A few words from the author

Award winning author, Leisl Leighton, is a tall red head with an overly large imagination. As a child, she identified strongly with Anne of Green Gables, and like Anne, is a voracious reader and born performer. It came as no surprise when she did a double major in English Literature and Drama for her BA and Dip Ed, then went on to a career as a performer, script writer, script doctor, stage manager and musical director for cabaret and theatre restaurants.

I was brought up in the city, but am a country girl at heart. Most holidays when I was a child were spent in the country – mostly in the mountains or by the beach – but I always loved the mountains and countryside the most. My favourite kind of holiday is either going skiing or on a horse riding trek or going on a driving holiday through the country. In fact, we took my two boys on the ultimate driving holiday a few years ago in New Zealand through both North and South Islands spending most of our time in their amazing countryside and most particularly, their mountains. It was summer, so we didn’t get to ski, but we did enjoy horse riding, white-water rafting and caving among other things.

This love of the mountains and the countryside seems to constantly work its way into my novels. My paranormal novels are set mostly in the Victorian countryside and glory in the beauty of the scenery and the heady atmosphere that is just naturally there. My romantic suspense novels are set in the countryside, particularly the Victorian mountain regions and are in some ways a little love story to the weight of their history and mist shrouded peaks and sharp crags – they just make me think of secrets and whispers and mystery. They are breathtaking and I can’t help but feel inspiration enveloping me and sinking into my pours every time I’m in or near the Southern Alps.

Climbing Fear was born out of this love of the mountains mixed with my love of horses and memories of a country horse riding camp I attended throughout my teens as well as a couple of horse treks I have been on. It’s set in Walhalla because when I sat down to write Reid and Nat’s story, it wouldn’t let me set it anywhere else. I had visited Walhalla years ago when I was tour managing a theatre restaurant show through country Victoria, and the memory of the delightful town and the bushlands and mountains around it just stuck with me. My muse just had to have CoalCliff Stud set nearby to take advantage of its mysterious hills and bushland that whispered so many stories to me when I visited there.

It did prove a challenge because despite its hilly terrain, the rock is not the kind that can be safely climbed so I had to find other ways my hero, Reid, could learn his love of climbing that took him around the world and then back home after tragedy strikes. But it was worth the effort because for me, Walhalla and its surrounds are the perfect place for CoalCliff Stud and the stories I am telling of the people who live there.

I hope readers feel its beauty and mystery and come to love it just as I do.

Leisl

Excerpt from Climbing Fear

‘Right. Here goes nothing.’ Or something. Reid really hoped it was something.

He dipped his hands into his chalk bag to cover them with the dust. Shaking off the excess, Reid then stepped up to the rock face and took a deep breath. His lungs filled with the scent of dirt and lichen and the sharp scent of the eucalypts that gave the Blue Mountains their moniker. In the distance a bird cawed, the sound echoey and lonely. He couldn’t take any notice; he had to concentrate on the wall of rock before him.

Heart pounding, he rolled his shoulders and tried to ignore the perspiration trickling down his forehead, his back. His palms itched. This was the moment of truth. His moment of truth.

He should probably have got Steve and the production crew involved in this climb, to capture his big comeback for posterity—undoubtedly it would bring in the ratings—but he’d wanted to do this in private. No cameras. It seemed right somehow for his first climb after the accident. For once he didn’t want to show off for the world. He could just imagine what Luke would have said about that.

But then, Luke couldn’t say anything. He was dead.

Reid shuddered, a cold sweat prickling his skin. Don’t think of that. Think of the climb. Only the climb.

Only the climb. It had been their mantra and had served him well through championships and their TV show, but now the words hung empty.

Race you to the top. The echo of Luke’s voice rang in his ears. He shook his head and looked up at the wall of rock in front of him. The Gorgon. He’d done this traditional, one-hundred and seventy metre climb at the Dog Face many times before—the view from the top when you trekked to the lookout was one you could breathe into your soul and keep with you forever.

The climb he’d chosen wasn’t a difficult one for a pro like him—nothing like the type of climb he and Luke had become famous for chasing—but a good solid one to cut his teeth on. And if he was to get their TV show up and going again, he needed to do this. He and Steve were planning a charity climb in Luke’s name; he’d ascend the soaring pristine lines of the Gorge at Mt Buffalo—Luke’s favourite place to climb and where they first filmed themselves in the act to post it online.

‘Right.’ He clapped his hands together, the chalk blooming up making his nose twitch. ‘One grip at a time.’

Careful of the vegetation and loose scree under his feet, he reached, took the first hold, fingers gripping over the small ridge of rock, and pulled up. He settled his feet into grooves in the striations of the sandstone—the first pitch was up a clean wide crack with a small roof six metres up. He should, as a solo climber, put in anchor points every two metres, but his plan was to test himself a little with a free climb to that point then he’d anchor in after he reached the roof. Sweat prickled on his brow and down his back but he ignored it. There was no reason to not do this. It was nothing like his last lead-climb with Luke. What had happened then was …

He swallowed hard, pushing the image away. This climb was as safe as safe could get. And even though he’d bought new nuts, chocks, cams, carabiners and rope, he’d checked it all a hundred times before getting here and again once here. They were safe. Nothing would break. He was good. He needed this. He reached for the next hold, gripped, found a foothold, pushed up and grabbed the next grip. Easy. There was no reason for his heart to be a thunder of hooves in his chest. For his breath to be coming in short-sharp gasps, razoring his throat, as if he’d just run the London Marathon. No reason for sweat to be dripping off him. Nor for the ghost pain to be driving through his shoulder like an ice spike. His shoulder was healed and aside from the pull of the scar tissue, it shouldn’t be hurting. It was strong. He’d worked hard to make it strong again. Why else had he done that if not to get back to this?

Push through, Stratton. Eye on the prize. Think of the climb. We can do this.

He blinked the sweat out of his eyes, rubbing his face against his shoulder before he pushed up for the next grip. Two more and he’d reach the roof where he’d put in his first anchor. After that, there was only a few tricky moves past the roof before the fairly easy rise up the corner crack to the plateau which signalled the end of the first pitch. Easy-peasy.

He settled his toes firmly in the thin ridge of rock, feeling the dig of the sharp stone through his thin, flexible rock-climbing shoes, before reaching up again. His fingers found purchase on a little jut of weathered stone just below the roof.

He pulled up. Rock crumbled through his fingers. He made a desperate grab for a nearby small ridge in the rock, but his foot slipped before he could latch on. He was hanging, just the one hand clutching onto the rock face. Scrabbling at the rock wall, with hand and feet, he tried to find the other holds again, but it was as if the rock face had become a sheet of marble, smooth and slick. Nothing could be found. Nothing. His shoulder was screaming, the pain spiking through him. His fingers were sliding off the rock. He couldn’t hold on. He was going to fall. Going to fall.

His mind blanked but somehow, his body knew what to do. One foot found purchase and then the other; even his untethered hand soon found a hold. The hold was filled with crumbling rock. He needed to reach his brush to clear it out, make it a better hold, but the chill of panic froze his every muscle. He clung to the wall, his face pressed against the sharp edges of rock. He couldn’t move. Not up, not down. Shit, shit. He was breathing too fast, becoming dizzy. He had to get a hold of himself or he would fall. He was only about five metres up, not too high. He should put in an anchor, tie off a rope and abseil down.  Not a controlled fall but not deadly. Yes, that’s what he should do. Except he couldn’t move a single bloody muscle.

‘Shit!’

All about Leisl

Award winning author, Leisl Leighton, is a tall red head with an overly large imagination. As a child, she identified strongly with Anne of Green Gables, and like Anne, is a voracious reader and born performer. It came as no surprise when she did a double major in English Literature and Drama for her BA and Dip Ed, then went on to a career as a performer, script writer, script doctor, stage manager and musical director for cabaret and theatre restaurants.

After starting a family, Leisl stopped performing and began writing the stories plaguing her dreams. She is addicted to the Syfy channel, her shelves are full of fantasy, paranormal, Sci-fi and romance books and DVDs, she sometimes sings in a choir, has worked as a swim teacher, loves to ski and horse ride, and has been President of Romance Writers of Australia from 2014-2017. She now has a Graduate Diploma in Publishing and Communications (Advanced) and continues to write novels and also helps other writers make their manuscripts shine with her manuscript assessing and mentoring services.

Leisl is the author of the paranormal Pack Bound Series, romantic suspense novels, Dangerous Echoes (Book 1 in the Echo Springs Series), Climbing Fear and Blazing Fear (Books 1& 2 in the CoalCliff Stud Series.) Most recently, she has been a finalist in the 2019 RUBY Awards (for Moon Bound), a finalist in the 2019 ARRA Awards (for Climbing Fear) and longlisted for the 2019 (Dangerous Echoes) and 2020 (Climbing Fear) Davitt Awards.

You can catch up with Leisl at

www.leislleighton.com,  Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram and on Twitter @LeislLeighton

Leisl’s books

CoalCliff Stud series book #1

*ebook and paperback

Set against the stirring Victorian Alps, comes a suspenseful novel of recovery and new beginnings from a talented new voice in Australian rural fiction. Perfect for readers of Sarah Barrie and Nora Roberts.

His beloved home is under threat and with it the beautiful, haunted woman he’s never been able to forget …

X-Treme TV sports star Reid Stratton has everything – until his best friend falls to his death on a climb while shooting their show. In the fierce media fallout, Reid begins to question everything about himself. Crippled by a new fear of climbing, Reid returns to CoalCliff Stud, his family’s horse farm, to recover.

Single mother Natalia Robinson is determined to start afresh, away from the shadow of her past. A job at CoalCliff Stud where she lived as a child is the perfect opportunity to live the quiet life she always wanted. But she is unprepared to see Reid, and is even more unprepared for the passion that still burns between them.

But after a series of menacing events threatens the new home she is trying to build, Nat realises that Reid is the only person she can rely on to keep her and her daughter safe. Together, Reid and Nat must face the pasts that haunt them if they are to survive the present and forge a future of hope.

CoalCliff Stud series #book2

*eBook only

Fire stole his past – now it is threatening to burn everything, and everyone, he loves. All over again…

Flynn Findlay likes everyone to think he’s in control, but the death of his wife during the bushfires six years ago changed everything. Now, even though it feels like a betrayal, Flynn can’t seem to escape his growing feelings for the beautiful new doctor in town. He’s never felt as truly alive as when he is with Prita – even his fear of fire doesn’t seem as bad.

Dr Prita Brennan is ready for a fresh start in Wilson’s Bend with her adoptive son, far from her overprotective family. It would be perfect, except some of the locals don’t like the changes she’s making to the practice. One of them is even making harassing calls. The handsome local horse stud owner, Flynn, is a further complication she doesn’t need right now.

But when harassment escalates to arson, to save the horse stud and their children, Flynn and Prita must work together to figure out who is after her – and why they are trying to burn to the ground everything she touches.

Buy the eBook

Echo Springs series Book #1

*eBook only (also available in paperback in an anthology with authors Daniel De Lorne, Shannon Curtis and TJ Hamilton)

Blue lights in the red dust…

Echo Springs on the edge of the outback – a town where everyone knows your name, and your business. But the wholesome country living and welcoming community aren’t what they used to be. Echo Springs has a dark underbelly, and it is seeping ever outward.

Brilliant forensic pathologist, Erika Hanson, fled from Echo Springs as a teenager, leaving behind a past of tragedy and pain. But when local police announce they’ve found her beloved brother’s body in a meth lab explosion, she knows she must return to clear Peter’s name and find out what really happened. Because Peter would never get involved with the drug tag sweeping across the small town of Australia and destroying lives.

Hartley Cooper has a past with Erika Hanson, but that’s not going to keep him from doing his job. He’s seen what grief can do, and denial is only the first step. But Erika is convinced that Peter can’t be involved, and her meticulous, professional skills start to convince Hartley as well. When Erika’s digging and questions get too personal, the town turns against them, Hartley knows Erika might run again. But this time he’s ready. And he’s not going to let her go.

Buy the eBook

Buy the paperback anthology

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