WordCrafter Press Fiction
Fiction by B.T. Clearwater
Smothered
Annie Brown’s life could use some renovation. She’s in trouble at work, her ex-boyfriend is stalking her, and she’s just inherited a dilapidated Victorian home in Denver from her late mother, who hasn’t quite moved out yet. So, the last thing Annie needs in her life is a man, but when handyman Mike Tolbert comes to fix her dishwasher, she lets him demo her doubt.
Mike doesn’t exactly need the distraction of a relationship himself. An Iraq War combat veteran, Mike suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. His wife took their daughter and left him to struggle with making ends meet. Yet something about Annie snags his heart and he finds he cannot walk away from her.
As Mike and Annie get to know one another, they discover Annie’s mother doesn’t approve of their relationship, and she’s willing to cross from the realm of death to that of the living to control her daughter. With the ghost of her mother haunting them, Mike and Annie face his PTSD, her troubles at work, and a deadly plot to steal her childhood home, all while fighting to keep their love alive.
Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/Smothered
Short Trailer
Reviews for Smothered
To be fair, it’s a ghost story and I wouldn’t normally have chosen it from a library shelf but, I browsed a few pages, and before I knew it I was off and going. It involves an old house, and a couple of engaging characters, Annie and Mike. She’s not in a good place and he’s divorced and a victim of PTSD. He currently scrapes a living as a handyman, and pays alimony and child maintenance which he can barely afford. She urgently needs repairs doing to her childhood home, to enable her to keep it following the death of her mother. Hence the two meet.
The ghost? A somewhat malevolent mother, who endeavours to drive men away from her daughter, and her former home. I’ll not tell you any more and spoil the story for you, but I was surprised to find myself scrolling rapidly into each succeeding chapter, in pursuit of an increasingly unlikely happy ending. Whether I found one or not, you’ll have to read the book to find out. But I might just have become a convert to online reading. In small doses anyway. So, many thanks to Kaye for introducing me to the author B. T. Clearwater, whose book you can, of course, purchase. Happy reading everybody!
http://stillrestlessjo.com/2026/06/20/smothered-a-brief-book-review
Excerpt Reading – “Annie’s Opening Scene”, narrated by Kaye Lynne Booth
Excerpt Reading – “Annie & Mike’s Meet Cute” , narrated by Kaye Lynne Booth
Excerpt Reading – “Mike’s Flashback”, narrated by Jeff Bowles
Excerpt Reading – “Mother”, narrated by Jeff Bowles
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Rise and Fall
Coming in May 2027
About B.T. Clearwater
B.T. Clearwater grew up writing stories, winning Literary Student of the Year for Lake George Central High School in 1984. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Western State Colorado University, graduating both Summa Cum Laude, and is a two-time alum of the Superstars Writing Seminars run by Kevin J. Anderson. B.T. routinely judges the Zebulon writing contest for Pike’s Peak Writers, and has published fiction under the science fiction, fantasy, romance, western, horror, and crime genres under different pen names. B.T. Clearwater lives in Colorado Springs with a dog, a cat, and a cast of fictional characters for company.
