NECESSARY DETOUR is On Sale!

Amazon Encore, an Amazon Imprint, has put my book Necessary Detour on sale at 99cents!
Ever wonder what it feels like to be a celebrity rock star?

With 151 reviews at 4.6*****, this Romantic Suspense #1 Bestseller is a great bargain.

"Necessary Detour thrills with a rush of page-turning suspense and sexy twists!"
 ~ Ann Charles, USA Today Bestselling Author of the Deadwood Mystery Series


Here's the first few lines of the book to see if you connect with my writing style:

Click Here to Find the Novel on AMAZON  www.bit.ly/NecDet

Chapter 1

Goldy walked onstage to the thunderous screaming of the Los Angeles crowd. The explosion of applause inside the Staple Center was the tangible evidence of their love for her; love that had fueled her drive over the years to get to this point. Soon she would desert them.

      “Necessary Detour,” she mouthed off microphone, not waiting for Burn’s reaction. They hadn’t played the hit song since she and Burn vowed to never give it credit again. But tonight, it was the only appropriate song for their final encore. If someone was going to kill her, she’d damn well have the last word.

     Grabbing the downstage microphone, she scanned the front row of the Staple Center Arena. “You are insatiable!” she shouted to the 60,000 people who were on their feet, shouting for their beloved rock star to do one more song.

      “Necessary Detour!” Burn yelled to the band. “1,2,1,2,3.” The opening chords filled the cavernous arena and the crowd roared.

     Goldy wasn’t smiling as she strutted along the cat walk, spotlight in her eyes, staring out at the sea of pumping fists. “If you’re out there Shakespeare, this one is for you.”

     The intro played twice before Goldy jumped into the lyrics she’d written about her stalker who’d become known as ‘Yellow’ by the band – named from a fan’s feeble attempt to emulate Goldy’s platinum hair, kohled eyes, thigh high gold boots and signature arm cuffs. It was pitiful to watch Yellow let her fan worship overtake her and jeopardize her Goldy’s life.

     “You think you got me.

     You think we’re done.

     I’ve only started

     And it’s not fun.

     You make me see,

     The other side

     It’s not pretty

     But I’m not one to hide”

     At first it was amusing to see Yellow in the front row of Goldy concerts around the LA area. The band commented on how she must blow every paycheck on tickets. Then everything changed.

     After a show in Pasadena, Goldy was signing autographs for a group of fans when Yellow pushed her way to the front and flicked out a pen knife. In gushing adoration, she asked Goldy for an autograph in cuts on her scarred forearm. Two body guards reached to grab her but Goldy held them back with a single look, then took the penknife from Yellow’s hand and closed it. She girl was obviously high on something, rambling about how she’d never be complete without something permanent from Goldy.

     “I’ll sign your arm but with a marker.” Goldy’s voice was audible only to Yellow.

     “No. Cut me!” Tears streamed down the young girl’s pitiful face. Her eyes were as big as poker chips, her hair teased and wild.

     A bodyguard moved in to take the knife, lurking just between the two women, as if ready to spring.

     “What’s your name?” Goldy asked.

     “My name is Goldy.”

     “No, my name is Goldy. What’s your name?”

     Just as the bodyguard moved in to take the fan’s arm, her face changed frighteningly fast, as though rejection had arrived to take her under. Her gaze measured Dwayne, the towering guard, as if planning how to take him on. She spit a huge gob of saliva in Goldy’s face and made a record breaking exit, disappearing into the mass of fans. Dwayne radioed security but she was gone.

     “You say you love me

     But do you know

     That all you bring

     Is the need to have control

     I’m done with looking

     For your face

     You can stay down

     In your hiding place” 

     A warrant went out for Yellow’s arrest when she planted a bomb under Goldy’s tour bus. ‘Necessary Detour’ hit number one on the charts and shortly after, Yellow quietly slit her wrists in the front row of a Goldy concert and bled to death.

     The next few bookings were cancelled while Goldy questioned her own sense of morality. After a week of soul searching, America’s beloved rock icon dropped the song from her repertoire.

     One way or another, this would be the last time anyone would hear her sing these words.

     “I’m giving back

     The fear you want

     We’re ending this now,”

     Goldy’s voice rose with intensity as she jumped an octave.

     “It won’t be long….”

     Burn’s guitar screamed as he poured himself into a frenetic guitar solo.

     Prancing across the massive space that she’d owned for two decades, Goldy had to believe that Shakespeare wouldn’t take her out with a bullet. Shooting wasn’t his style. What had he meant in the last letter, saying he’d take her out at the end? Maybe it was written only to create false confidence.

     Goldy gestured to the crowd, not knowing if she was staring into the face of the demon. Tonight she dared any one of them to take her on.

     “It’s a necessary detour,

     No more spinning round,

     It’s a necessary detour

     Now you’re going down

     You shouldn’t have started this,

     I’m fighting back,

     Shouldn’t have taken on

     The qualities you lack,

     I’m here to warn you,

     You better give,

     If you don’t walk away

     You’re not gonna live

     To tell the tale of me,

     Because this detour’s…necessary”

 

     A dozen FBI agents peppered the audience, looking for anyone suspicious; anyone who looked like they might have written six months’ worth of heinous letters that threatened to torture Goldy with unimaginable creativity. Trickling acid along her face, then watching her melt was Shakespeare’s style--capture, torture, then relish in the hours, possibly days, that it took him to claim her life. That was his “fondest wish.”

     Burn’s ripping guitar wrapped up the instrumental, once again proving he was one of the world’s best guitarists. He’d been an unintentionally horrible husband – negligent and unfaithful. Everything they’d been through as a couple had been necessary to achieve this end result, though, and being Goldy had been a sweet ride for a very long time. Too long, in some ways.

     She moved to stage left where a stray bullet wouldn’t hit anyone else. If Shakespeare chose to break character she sure as hell didn’t want an innocent to suffer. With one verse left, Goldy pulled the microphone away from her lips to make a powerful run to the end and, as she did, a shot of electricity domino’ed from her hand, along her arm and hit her torso like a jack hammer. The pain was formidable. Goldy’s brain got the message and her hand flew open to drop the microphone on the stage floor. Her first thought was to finish the song. Get the last line beyond her lips. Pretend nothing is wrong.

     As she ran to Burn’s microphone, she was acutely aware of the other one lying behind her on the stage like the pariah it now was. Soon the FBI would be all over the stage, if they weren’t already running toward her. Goldy noticed Agent Gateman waving frantically from his post offstage, two seconds from shutting everything down.

     She shook her head and him, her steely gaze telling him to wait. Her left arm hung limp as she picked Burn’s microphone off the stand with her right hand. The band continued on like the pros they were and, hearing the approaching notes, she took a deep breath.

     “It’s a Necessary Detour,

     You gotta know

     It’s a Necessary Detour

     This detour’s ……..Necessary!”

      Goldy’s punched the air with her good arm, positioned her legs wide apart with her head tilted back. This had always been her trademark pose. It punctuated the final moment of any concert. The band laid their instruments on the stage and came out from behind, clapping with the audience in their adoration of Goldy.

     With the emotion of the moment and the pain in her arm, she fought tears. Moving upstage to the edge, she held her arms out to receive their love, then brought the microphone in to her words. Her arm still worked, it just felt strange, weakened. “Goodnight everyone!” she shouted above the din. “I – HAVE – LOVED – YOU!” Gold confetti rained over the masses and as always in the final moments of her concert, Goldy reached to get something from a security man and spun a gold Frisbee into the crowd. A disc that contained a voucher for a family vacation in Hawaii.

     Applause filled the arena’s rafters. “Goldy! Goldy! Goldy!”

     The rock star waved one last time to the people who’d been her reason for almost everything in the last twenty years and then turned to leave the party while she was still having fun. Cradling her arm, Goldy ran offstage and was immediately flanked by two paramedics who caught her just before her multi-million dollar backside hit the floor in a faint.

CHECK IT OUT! 99 Cents!

    www.bit.ly/NecDet

ENJOY, my friends!

Kim 

Mystery/Suspense/Paranormal Love Story

Nominated for BEST INDIE FIRST BOOK by Indie RomCon

Amazon Bestselling Author Kim Hornsby

THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE

Without a recovered body Tina Greene can't accept the presumed surfing death of her husband, Hank. Months after signing the death certificate, she trades mourning for saving her Maui dive shop from bankruptcy. When Jamey Dunn walks back into her life things take a strange turn. Dreams of Hank have the dive instructor questioning her sanity and leaning heavily on Hank's best friend, Noble. Jamey and Noble clash at every turn, both desperate to help Tina. When Jamey suspects Tina's strange dreams hold clues to Hank's disappearance, he must reveal his unbelievable ability to visit dreams. Trusting the man who betrayed her years before doesn't come easily for Tina when the decision to let Jamey enter her subconscious has a price. As Tina, Noble and Jamey decipher the mystery of Hank's disappearance, grave danger sets in to reveal that one person is a traitor, one is flirting with insanity and one is an impostor.

146 Reviews on AMAZON- Mostly 5 STAR

Book Trailer on YouTube

REVIEWS

A mysterious skill that straddles the line between paranormal and possible, a woman mourning her husband lost at sea, and the sunny embrace of Maui all come together in an evocative narrative that quickly becomes a real page-turner.

Lisa Costantino, Author of Maiden's Veil, Chanticleer Top Pick Women's Fiction 2012

Kim Hornsby's "The Dream Jumper's Promise" is a fantastic, compelling novel. It straddles the boundaries between genres - it's got elements of romance, mystery, suspense and also the supernatural, and the author brings them all together very satisfyingly.

James deBenedetto, Author of The Dream Student

This is a perfect summer read or when your winter nights get too long. Romance, mystery, gorgeous setting brought to a magical life. Kim has a way of bringing her characters to life and making them feel normal but special with real heart. That's rare these days. Nice mix women's fiction light with a twist of magic/psychic without being heavy handed so the 2nd chance love story stays the main focus. The surprises at the end are worth the wait!
Christine M. Fairchild, Author of Suspense/Thriller An Eye For Danger, The Goliath Conspiracy


Priced to allow anyone with a mobile device and three dollars, to have a copy
Also available in Print and soon to be available in Audible

Sample- The Dream Jumper's Promise

Chapter 1

A shadow moved past the front window of Tina and Hank’s Dive Shop. The door opened, the overhead bell jingled, and a Maui Cop entered the store. The uniform, gun at the hip, even his downcast eyes were all familiar sights. In the last ten months, Tina had seen more than she wanted of Maui’s finest, and they hadn’t come through when she most needed them.

“The sharks will get the body,” they’d said.

Everyone believed Hank was dead, but she wasn’t convinced. Not yet, even though the search had been abandoned after only one hundred and sixty-eight hours—ten thousand and eighty excruciatingly long minutes of hoping.

Her dog, Obi, trotted over to the policeman, as if the man wasn’t seconds away from pounding another nail in Hank’s empty coffin.

“We found your husband’s wallet.” The leather in the cop’s outstretched hand was a small but powerful reminder of Hank. Memories meteored towards her—his gypsy-black hair and twinkling eyes. At the beach, driving his truck, smiling from their bed.

She cupped the wallet in her small hand and closed her fingers around its edges. For all that remained of a dynamic man, it was surprisingly light.

“Where?” She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.

“Off the path, above Honolua."

No one takes a wallet surfing. “Thanks.” It would hold his credit cards, medical insurance card, driver’s license, dive instructor card, all part of Hank’s life on Maui. A life he’d cherished. Married only sixteen months, would a man simply abandon his wife and a charmed life in Hawaii without a word?

The faint chugging of the air compressor in the shop’s back alley broke through her thoughts. Katie, her shop girl, was in the back alley filling scuba tanks. Tina looked around to see the policeman had gone. She pulled the driver’s license from its slot and grains of sand fell, sand that Hank might have touched before he went into the water that day.

 “Did I hear you talking to someone?” Katie popped in from the back room, her blond hair swinging.

“Police.” Tina held up the wallet. “Hank’s.”

Katie froze.

Someone barely of drinking age would know little of consoling a thirty-four-year-old widow. “Katie, can you do the coffee run now? I’ll finish filling the tanks if you’ll get me a double.” Tina needed something and she hoped it was just coffee.

She walked through to the back alley and lowered herself to sit on an overturned milk crate, waiting for the group of submerged scuba tanks in a metal trough to fill to 3000 psi. Leaning against the wall, her gaze drifted towards the sky. The gray clouds held in the humidity like a wool blanket, and sweat trickled down the small of her back into the waistband of her board shorts.

This new turn of events didn’t completely eliminate the possibility that Hank might have faked his own death. He was smart enough to know credit cards were useless to someone who wanted to disappear. Still. The wallet felt cool in her hand. She’d have to tell Noble it turned up. Open that bag of snakes. Poor Noble.

She extracted a picture tucked into a fold of the wallet and a stab of loneliness shot through her. In it she and Hank were smiling from a sun-drenched, black-sand beach in Hana. She fit perfectly into the curve of his long, lean body. Like phantom pain in an amputated leg, the memory of how it felt to tuck in under his shoulder lingered. They’d driven to the sleepy town of Hana, that day, with their best friend Noble and a girlfriend, hoping to take a break from the craziness of the Lahaina scene. Back when she knew he loved her, beyond any doubt.

But now there was doubt. Especially when days before his death, he’d said, “No matter what, always remember how much I love you.” She’d thought he was worried about how their relationship would change when she got pregnant, a plan they were working on with feverish diligence. “Silly man,” she said, kissing him.

Tina tucked the photo back in the wallet. Memories would drive her crazy if she didn’t get a grip soon. A deep breath revealed the scent of plumeria flowers from the tree across the laneway at Mr. Takeshimi’s house.

Watching the elderly neighbor sweeping the porch of his pristine cottage, his broom swishing a gentle rhythm, she called out. “Hey, Mr. T.”. He was a fighter, still holding onto his real estate despite million-dollar offers. Hank’s plan had been to buy the house and open an art gallery. But now she was in debt and that plan was long forgotten. Someone would come along eventually and make it a tacky T-shirt shop. Or a competing dive shop.

When Mr. T. straightened, Tina increased her volume. “Big storm coming in."

He nodded. “Doesn’t scare me.”

No, it wouldn’t. He’d endured World War II as a Japanese American in Hawaii. Sixty-one years after the Pearl Harbor attack, he was sweeping his porch. He stared at her, his face a question in waiting.

“Me neither.” She tried to believe in her own words.

Mr. Takeshimi nodded, as if this explained something. “Fall seven times and stand up eight, Tina.” Japanese proverbs lived on the tip of his tongue. He’d once said, “Good things come to those who wait,” and then Hank came into her life.

She stood. “I’m up. Thanks, Mr. T.” She smiled his way, knowing he’d worry without it.

Back in the shop, Tina met the gaze of a fist-sized octopus in one of the aquariums. Staring directly into the cephalopod’s eyes, she tried to convey an apology. Five days in an aquarium was too long for an intelligent creature. “I’ll see you get released today. I’m sorry it’s been so long, Mr. Oc.”

It was eight a.m. Time to open the store for the day. Flipping the wall switch, she illuminated all six fish tanks to create the underwater look to her Lahaina Towne shop. Over two years before, Hank had installed the wall of sixty-gallon aquariums to stylize the store and lure customers in. Even during the recent shutdown, the tanks had been maintained and viewed through the windows, still colorful, the fish vibrant, even though Hank was dead.

Walking around the room, she noticed the octopus watching her. Its scrutiny made her feel like she was not only being watched, but judged. A ridiculous thought. She tilted her head and contemplated what it must be thinking. “Being caged sucks,” she said, not necessarily to the octopus.

The pit mix, Obi Wan, bared his teeth in a smile, his usual reaction to any word ending in ‘uck.’ “It’s okay. Mommy’s having a good day.” She scratched behind her dog’s ears, his favorite spot, and then moved to the back room. Tucking the wallet in the top drawer of her messy desk, her palm lingered on the metal front in silent apology to Hank for shutting him away.

 “Here, Boss.” Katie entered the back room and then set the double espresso with extra sugar on the desk. Ever since her boyfriend, Ned confessed that her constant talking drove him crazy, Katie had been trying to use fewer words.

“Thanks, Katie.”

Katie hovered over Tina, her smile hinting at all the unspoken sentences rattling around inside her mouth.

Tina arched her brows in question. “Just say it Katie. I won’t tell Ned.”

“Uncle Jamey’s coming today.” The words shot from Katie’s lips like dice thrown on a table.

“Your uncle from Seattle?” She nodded. “My offer stands. Tell him he can dive free on slow days.” A soldier on leave from Afghanistan could dive on her nickel any day there was space. “He might have to wait until this Kona storm blows through.” Bad conditions would put a halt on diving for the next few days. Katie beamed and skipped into the next room, a sunny influence to have around.

Tina took a sip of the steaming coffee and wondered which problem to tackle first. The desk was littered with bills and phone messages from creditors but before she could open another letter from the bank, Katie’s scream made her fly out of her chair and run into the next room. She rounded the doorway to see a man grab Katie roughly and lift her off her feet. The scream turned to a squeal that ended in a giggle. This was not Ned, who was lean and scruffy and always looked like he just woke up. This was an adult--tall, with sandy-colored hair on the long side of a crew cut and muscular arms. His crisp white T-shirt reading Maui Parasail stretched across a broad back.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” Katie pulled away from the hug. “I miss everyone, you know? How is everybody? I mean really. How’s Dad and Grandpops?” She stopped to take a breath as her resolve to use fewer words went flying out the window.

“Everyone’s good."

Katie did a little happy dance, her smile stretching from ear to ear. “I hoped you’d call this morning. I was just telling my boss that you’d come today. The diving isn’t looking good. I’m sorry about the storm coming in and Tina said it’s not likely we’ll dive tomorrow but the weather here can change in a few hours, just like Seattle.”

Tina stepped forward, knowing an interruption would be necessary. “You’re Katie’s uncle, I presume.” She extended her hand.

As the man turned to face her, Tina froze. It had been a while, but she knew this person well enough to know that when he slept on his back, he snored. And that he had a small birthmark shaped like South America below his belly button. Far below. She’d once pointed to Tierra del Fuego, and then inched southward, with her tongue.

His slightly lopsided smile was achingly familiar and once so dear to her, her breath now caught in her throat and produced a tiny warble that she hoped was inaudible. Even though she’d changed in ten years, he must recognize her too. As their palms made contact, Tina felt a powerful surge pass between them, almost like an electric shock. Her eyes widened as a curtain of darkness moved in front of her vision and blackness invaded.

“Kristina?” The familiar timbre of James’ voice sounded far away, muffled, as she fought for consciousness. Sinking to the floor, the last thing she felt was his arm moving behind her back.

Curious? Check it out on Amazon!

The Dream Jumper's Promise

Kim Hornsby is also the author of Best Selling Romantic Suspense novel Necessary Detour, published by The Wild Rose Press and available on Amazon, Sony, Kobo, iTunes, Nook, in print and Audible Amazon.