You know the drill!  Here's the first chapter of Trouble in a Bottle, the second book in the Forgotten Hollow paranormal cozy mystery fantasy series!

Ceian, Betsy, and all the animals (PUPPIES!) are off having another adventure where Earth crimes collide with ones from off-planet!

The ebook releases September 18th and can be preordered here.

Here's Chapter ONE!

It hadbeen a blindingly busy day at my teahouse, The Fainting Goat Tea and Spice.We’d been open for a month, and I’d almost felt like I had the swing of things.A week ago, birders came in for an odd migration. Apparently, this year wasunusual in the arrival of some sort of rare coastal seabird, and the birdersflocked, no pun intended, to Forgotten Hollow.

I’d livedin Forgotten Hollow for a whopping four and a half months but had somehow notknown about this bird.

I likedbirds, I guess. Never really thought about them. But now it was their fanciers,or at least a small group of them, that I could do without.

I stumbledto the front door of my cottage, wanting nothing more than to collapse on thesofa and watch I Dream of Jeannie with a frozen dinner and ice cream. A glanceacross the yard showed me that the barn door was open, so most likely Tiberiusand his goat friends were inside. My friend Keith had created an automatic dooropener for the barn to allow Tiberius to get in and out at will.

Tiberiuslooked like a large goat. In reality, he was a jinn, like me, and not fromEarth. Unlike me, his natural form was seven feet tall, blue-skinned, withwings that reached about ten feet in width. I looked like a tall, green-eyed, slightlyexotic woman of possibly East Indian descent.

I am aparolee here on Earth. After serving a hundred years in my bottle, for a crimeI knew I didn’t commit, I’d been released here to prove that I could be afunctioning member of a society. Any society. The Eltrisphere, a collection ofworlds far from this star system where Tiberius and I came from, discoveredEarth a few hundred years ago.

No one couldfind a good use for it, so they made it their secret parolee test grounds. Theyalready had plenty in our own system, but enjoyed branching out.

The humanshad no idea of any of this, and I had to keep it that way.

The onlyhuman person in Forgotten Hollow, or at least human-looking, who knew about theEltrisphere or me was Keith. An aging hippy and a citizen of the Eltrisphere, he’dbeen secretly living on Earth for over forty years and was currently dating mydear human friend Betsy.

Keith andI worked hard to keep Betsy, Martha, and Jamie, along with the rest of the townof Forgotten Hollow, from finding out anything about us or our worlds.

It was fortheir safety as much as or more so than ours.

Tiberiuswas supposed to be my guard during my parole, and he still was—but he annoyedthe wrong people on the Eltrispherian High Council, and so they changed himinto a goat whenever he was awake. He became himself as soon as he fell asleep.

Nothelpful and a big nuisance.

I lookedaround for the orange feline menace, but Lucie might be in the barn too. Thepuppies and their mom, Hadari, also from the Eltrisphere, were hiding in asection of tall grass in the abandoned next-door yard, but they kept jumping ateach other and giving themselves away.

All wasright with my world, aside from my complete exhaustion. With a nod at the yard,I opened the door, dropped my keys, and started swearing.

Thecontents of my cottage were floating. Mostly in the location they would normallybe, but far closer to the ceiling than they should be.

My swearsturned to screams as my jinn bottle dove toward my head. I caught it in onehand and shut the door with the other. I now had a gate on my driveway, sogetting to the cottage unannounced was difficult, but not impossible. Who wouldsneak into my cottage and put a spell on everything? Keith, Lucie, and I shouldbe the only magic users in Forgotten Hollow. Keith was currently out of town,but should be home soon. I seriously doubted he would do this.

I didn’tsee the cat, but I yelled anyway. “Lucie? Are you doing this?” My bottle, farprettier than the one on that TV show, tried to pull free a few times, butfinally settled down.

Lucielooked like a regular Earth cat, but he was also from the Eltrisphere. UnlikeTiberius, cat was his natural form, and a month ago, he and I both regainedaccess to our magic. I’d been taking it slow and only rarely using magic. Thehundred years that I’d spent in my bottle as a prisoner were without magic.When I first arrived here, I’d had my magic back for a few hours, but then my keeper,a cranky cherub named Xieth, took it from me, along with Lucie’s.

Tiberiuslooked like he should be magical, but he wasn’t.

Clutchingmy bottle and ducking when belongings hovering in the air swung too low, Istalked around the cottage.

Luciedidn’t have an approved way into the cottage if I was gone, but even before hegot his magic back, he could pick locks alarmingly well.

The livingroom, kitchen, bathroom, my bedroom, and the guest room were all empty. If itwasn’t him, what happened to my stuff? Flying household goods weren’t common onEarth or the Eltrisphere.

Everythingwas slowly lowering when I heard the most annoying sound ever. The chime thatindicated Xieth was calling to me.

I triedpushing the bookshelf to the floor. Xieth’s appearances came through a framed landscapepainting of my bottle in a field on the wall, and the bookshelf would benoticeable if it were still floating. I had a minute or two to make things looknormal.

Or saygoodbye to my magic. And possibly my parole on Earth.

I took afew calming breaths as I tried to think of a spell to lower my belongingswithout smashing them to the ground.

As one,everything drifted back to its place, and Xieth’s horrible visage took over thelandscape painting. I put my bottle back on the bottom shelf of the bookcaseand stood up to face him.

“Ceian?What took you so long? Has something happened?” He scowled as he looked aroundwhat he could see of my living room.

I gave himmy best exasperated and exhausted frown. “I was trying to get inside. It's beencrazy at work.” My being successful in a business was part of my parolerequirements. It was added proof that I was safe to return to the Eltrisphereworlds as a functioning member. I’d always liked tea and exotic spices, sothat’s what I went into.

“Hmmm,nothing else? You seem frazzled.” He waved the fingers of one pudgy hand at me.

I put myhands on my hips. “It’s been a rough week at the teahouse. I told you two daysago about it.” Okay, I’d barely started whining at him about the birders whenhe cut me off and ended the call. But he often didn’t listen to me unless itwas information he wanted.

A monthago, Xieth found out about some nefarious things occurring on Earth, ones notinvolving humans. I was still his parolee, but myself, Tiberius, and even Luciewere Xieth’s eyes and ears down here now.

“Ah, yes,well. Anything else? Anything important?” He was already looking down athis desk for whoever he had to annoy next.

“Nothingimportant for you.” I had to watch my words, and as it was, I did feel a slighttightening in my throat. Jinn couldn’t lie, not if we knew the truth. It couldchoke a jinn until they passed out or died. Or so the old stories said. I hadno intention of testing them.

It waseasier, in a way, to get around it with humans. But citizens of the Eltrispherewho knew of jinn restrictions could use it against us.

However,having Keith in my corner had proven helpful. He was a slanaigh, a species of powerfulempaths and magic users, and had no problem with lying. He’d also been marriedto a jinn until she passed away long before he came to Earth. He would step inwhen he could, when dealing with people in Forgotten Hollow, to keep me fromhaving to tell the truth or choke to death.

“Hrmph.” Xiethwaved his left hand dismissively and held up a sheaf of papers. “Keep meupdated on anything odd. Carry on.” He cut the call before I could respond.

I waiteduntil the landscape painting reappeared and then flicked a switch on the side.I’d accidentally left the screen blocker off this morning, which meant Xiethcould have popped in while things were flying about. I’d make sure not to dothat again.

A whileago, Keith had made a blocker so that Xieth couldn’t listen without the screenbeing open. Then, a week ago, he added the screen blocker. When in place, Xiethcouldn’t pop in until I cleared it.

On a daylike today, that could have been catastrophic, but I didn’t want to use it toooften, as both Keith and I were worried that Xieth would figure it out.

And alsorealize that it was beyond my current magical ability. He had no idea aboutKeith being on the planet, and we needed to keep it that way. But between the crowdsat the teahouse and whatever set off my possessions and furniture flying, I waswilling to risk the block for a few days.

I pulledout my cell phone and called Keith. Only got his answering machine. Before he lefttown for something a few days ago, he’d been working on fixing up the propertynext to mine. Hadari and her pups lived there some of the time, my barn therest of the time. I was slowly introducing the massive black-and-tan Hadari andher startlingly fast-growing puppies to the citizens of Forgotten Hollow as mynewly adopted dogs.

The onlyproblem was that when I first met Hadari, she was called Brutus and was ownedby a human criminal. A lot of convincing was taking place to make sure peopledidn’t think they were the same dog. My three besties, Betsy, Martha, andJamie, were all sure that Hadari was much prettier than Brutus. Not to mention,Brutus had clearly been a boy.

All threebelieved it completely, even though none of them had ever seen much of Brutus.No magic needed, simply the power of suggestion, combined with adorable puppies.

I gave mycottage another round of checks to see if anything could have caused theflying. But didn’t find anything. Now that everything had landed, not a stitchwas out of place. I should be more worried about it, but after this past week,I was too exhausted to care.

Why peoplewho were in a rush to watch birds wanted to go to a teahouse every day was waybeyond me.

Teas werefor leisure, catching up with friends, and relaxing. Not seeing how quickly thetiny sandwiches and sausage rolls could be ingested and tea downed beforerunning out looking for the lily-bellied sap sucker. Or whatever the rareseabird’s name was.

It wasn’tthe bird’s fault, but some of the people chasing them so annoyed me that Icouldn’t keep the birds’ real name in my head for more than a few moments.

Hannahsaid I had a mental block and not to worry about it.

As ifthinking of her triggered it, my cellphone rang. It was Hannah.

“Ceian! Iwanted to see if you’d like to drop by for dinner and try my new fruity andfabulous pie? Betsy and the girls said they’d be here in half an hour.”

Hannah wasthe owner of Hannah’s diner, the single most delicious place to eat in town, inmy opinion. I glanced at my freezer, thought of the bland frozen food inside,and smiled. “I’d love to. Let me take a quick shower, check the animals, andI’ll be on my way. Thank you!”

“See youthen! Ride safe!” She ended the call, and I ran for the shower. Yes, I shouldstay home and work out logistics for the next birder invasion at the teahousetomorrow, but the temptation of an amazing homemade meal and a new type of piewas what this crazy day ordered.

Showeredand changed, I reconfirmed that the switch blocking Xieth was in place, then lockedup the cottage and ran to the barn.

I wasn’tworried about Lucie; he did what he wanted, like Earth cats. But Tiberius was adifferent issue. He had been a centurion guard before this goat thing happenedand still had that mindset.

Sometimeshe forgot he was a goat.

Myswearing when I pushed open the barn door completely might have been heard onwhatever distant planet Xieth lurked on. The place was in shambles, and therewere no goats in sight.

“Tiberius?Where are you?” A month ago, I’d ended up with half a dozen normal Earth goats.Tiberius wasn’t as happy as he would have been with a group of armedcenturions, but he found company in the goats. But not a hoofed foot was insight.

Damn it. Iwasn’t up for another round of evil people trying to get to me by grabbing myfriends. I ran around to the side of the barn and found Tiberius and the sixEarth goats snacking on the long grass that grew there. Or had grown there. Itwas over half gone now. I’d meant to trim it, especially since we seemed tohave a lot of secret meetings out there in the past.

He lookedup with a clump of grass in his mouth. “What? You were taking too long to trimthis.” He swallowed. “And it’s tasty.”

“Whathappened in the barn?”

He gave agoat version of a shrug. “Lucie was up to something. Chased a bird or two intothe barn, then they all took off.”

I rubbedmy eyes. With my luck, my non-Earth cat was chasing some very rare Earth birds.“How long ago?” My stomach growled and reminded me that I needed food.

“Two hoursago? Maybe?”

No waythat I could catch up or even try to find him. “Okay, I’m going to Hannah’s. IfLucie comes back before me, tell him to go into the cottage and wait for me.” Inodded at one of the goats who glanced up, then went back to eating. The Earthgoats didn’t seem to care that Tiberius spoke to me, but they also usually ignoredme unless it was feeding time.

Leavingthe goats, I got my bike and walked to Hadari’s yard. Hadari and her babieswere hoxien wolves. Massive black and tan dogs that looked like a BerneseMountain Dog mixed breed; at least that was what Martha said when she saw them.

They werealso one of the most universally feared animals in the Eltrisphere and shouldnever have been brought to a planet like Earth. Two of the puppies, Hadari saidthey hadn’t chosen their names yet, bounced out of the grass at my approach,then dove back in. Hadari got to her feet with a wide doggie grin.

“Leavingagain?” Her English was still hesitant sometimes, but much stronger than it hadbeen. She usually spoke one of the common Eltrisphere languages, Sihlia toTiberius and her puppies. Neither could be spoken in front of humans forobvious reasons.

“Yes,dinner. Can you keep an eye out for Lucie? I think he’s getting into troublesomewhere.” I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t been the one behind my possessionsfloating, but I had no idea as to the why of him doing it.

“Gladly.”Her toothy grin broadened. Unlike many human cats and dogs, Hadari and Lucieusually got along, and he often babysat the puppies. But Hadari was extremelyaware of his ability to get into trouble.