Over the Faery Hill
Magical Midlife Misadventures
Book 1
Hart, Jennifer L./ Over the Faery Hill
1. Paranormal—Fiction. 2. Women’s—Fiction 3. Fae—Fiction 4. North Carolina—Fiction 5.Time Travel—Fiction 6.BBW—Fiction 7. Romance—Fiction 8.Gymnastics—Fiction 9. Women’s Friendship—Fiction 10. Women’s Divorce—Fiction Title.
A mountain of regrets. A bargain with a mischievous faery. Could tinkering with her past create a better future?
Joey Whitmore longs to escape her dead-end world. Facing a midlife crisis at age forty-two and still living with her mother, getting fired from yet another job is the proverbial last straw. So when a fae trickster in human guise offers a chance at changing her history, she figures there’s nothing left to lose.
Though skeptical of his magic, Joey accepts the sly prince’s enchanted hourglass and begins a reckless journey back in time. But as she tries to act as her own fairy godmother and reverse her mistakes, her blundering interference causes a chain of catastrophic consequences.
Will Joey’s attempts to alter her deadbeat destiny end up erasing her entire existence?
Over the Fairy Hill is the first entry in the Magical Midlife Misdventures paranormal women’s fiction series. If you like relatable characters, paranormal twists, and laugh-out-loud humor, then you’ll love Jennifer L. Hart’s endearing tale.
Buy Over the Faery Hill to grant a bag full of dubious wishes today!
Chapter 1
“If its got tires or testicles, its gonna give you grief.
That’s why I always neuter the dogs.”
-Notable quotable from Grammy B
“Joey, you’re fired.”
I stared over the paper-strewn desk to where my employer—now ex-employer—Rodney Carmichael squatted like a homely little toad. Surely, I had misheard what he just said.
“If this is about the plates that I broke last week, I told you I would pay for them.” I pasted a smile on my face and tried to look like the epitome of an excellent waitress. “It was an accident.”
Because my bad wrist had locked up at precisely the wrong moment when I had been transferring the stack of plates from the dishwasher to the service line. The crash heard ‘round the mountain. As was the nature of small Southern towns, my mother heard about it before my shift ended.
Rodney removed his glasses and polished them with the tail of his untucked shirt. “It isn’t just that. You’re always late—”
“My car got impounded. I had to use my mother’s and it wouldn’t start.”
He sighed, effectively shutting off my protests. “And I’ve had complaints that you were rude to customers.”
“They were jerks! They left me a twenty-seven-cent tip on a forty dollar bill!” And one of the boneheads had swatted me on the ass. Twice.
Rodney put his glasses down and just looked at me. Outside birds twittered in the trees, a promise of spring that was still a month and a half away. In the kitchen, I heard Steve say something to Amanda. The scent of homemade chili filled the space. Steve’s chili was a local treasure, especially on a brisk winter day. I’d been looking forward to having it for lunch but my stomach had morphed into a ball of ice.
“Can I at least finish my shift?” I needed those flimsy tips if I ever wanted to see my beloved VW bug again.
Rodney shook his head and sighed as though he didn’t have a choice and he was the misaligned party. “Greta is coming in to cover for you. Joey, I’m sorry. We gave it a shot. It just didn’t work out.”
I put up a hand. He could feign sympathy all he liked but that wouldn’t change my reality.
That Joey Whitmore had been fired from yet another job.
Rodney handed me an envelope. “I wish you luck.”
“Luck, right,” I snorted. But I took the envelope. Pride wasn’t a luxury I could afford.
Slowly, I rose to my feet and shuffled out of the office and into the hall closet where I’d stashed my purse, coat, and umbrella not even ten minutes ago. The mirror on the door presented me with my reflection. Gray roots showing about two inches long against my dark brown mop of hair because I hadn’t had time to grab dye from the pharmacy. Crow’s feet around my blue eyes. A big bump on my nose from where it had been broken at the same time as my wrist. A mouth that had forgotten how to smile. Sagging D cups, a midsection that looked like rising bread dough, and stretched the scoop neck t-shirt with the restaurant’s logo. I felt a hundred years old, not the smidge past forty that I was.
Could humans age in dog years?
“Look at the bright side,” I said then tried to find one. Nothing came to mind. “You can legally drink?”
There. Bright side. Nailed it.
I glanced back toward the kitchen where Amanda and Steve were busy with prep for the lunch rush. The factory across the road would be emptying out in fifteen minutes. All the hungry recycling workers would descend on the diner, which was little more than a greasy spoon for chili cheese dogs and pie to clog their arteries before returning to saving the planet one pickle jar at a time.
Not wanting to see their pity, I decided not to draw out a goodbye. I’d only worked at the place for three weeks. We weren’t exactly lifelong chums.
After stuffing the envelope inside my coat pocket, I pushed out of the rear door to the small battered deck and down the three steps that led to the gravel parking lot. I didn’t look back at the diner, didn’t want to see the patrons eating in the big picture window. Happy people who would head home or back to work, who had lives that were moving steadily forward.
Mine seemed to be on a broken conveyer belt that no one made parts for anymore. Back home to mom’s house with the unwelcome news that her divorced and damaged daughter would be crashing with her for another few months.
A chill that had nothing to do with the January mountain wind rolled through me at the thought of that conversation.
I unlocked the driver’s side door to mom’s ancient Buick, dropped my bag on the passenger’s seat, and then inserted the key and turned.
Nothing. Not even any spluttering to indicate that the primeval engine was at least giving it the ‘ol college try. I huffed out a breath and then gave it another go. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
I let loose on a string of cuss words that would make a sailor blush and pounded on the steering wheel hard enough to bruise my hand. My bad wrist sang out at the abuse and I slumped forward. Utterly defeated.
My luck. My shitty shitty luck had struck yet again.
Someone rapped on my window and I glanced up, startled.
Bright blue eyes stared down at me from a stranger’s face. He wore battered jeans and a black and white checked flannel coat with a heavy lining to combat the winter chill. No hat or gloves. He must be a native. Odd that I had never seen him before. Our mountain town was tiny and I’d lived here all my life.
His expression read as concerned, though there lurked a twinkle of mischief in those eyes. He made a motion to indicate that I should roll down the car window. After a moment’s hesitation, I did.