Bad Luck with Leprechauns (Ebook)

One woman who loves everything Irish.
One accidentally performed charm to summon leprechauns and luck.
And a secret crush called upon to save the day.

Okay, in my defence, I didn’t know what I was doing—if I even did perform that ancient magical charm last summer.

I mean, I barely even believe in this magical realm stuff my friends are always talking about. How would I summon leprechaun luck?

Or this leprechaun who’s standing on my bed, shaking a pair of shoes at me, and telling me I have to fix some sort of weird magical world imbalance I created.

Right.

And that was before my fairy godmother showed up, telling me I couldn’t wish the leprechaun away.

Lovely. But it was worth a try.

Apparently, it’s up to me to fix things in the leprechaun world. But how do I do that when I barely even believe he’s real?

(Except the way he keeps stealing my best shoes feels pretty real.)

There’s only one thing I can think to do—and that’s to call up my secret crush Caleb who understands Irish legends.

Hopefully, this quiet Irishman will know what to do. As long as he doesn’t think I’m as crazy as I sound and hang up the phone…

This is a slow burn romance with magical realism for readers who like sweet, closed door rom-coms with cinnamon roll heroes, secret crushes, and forced-proximity, quest-like romantic stories filled with twists, turns, humour and lots of heart.

Sneak peek from Bad Luck with Leprechauns:

Today. 7:30 a.m. St. Patrick’s Day (Saturday, March 17)
~ Samantha ~

I pulled the pillow further over my head to muffle the sound of Felipe trying to make his shoebox bed more comfortable. For all I knew, the small squirrel was eating it. I tucked my feet closer to my body as the critter poked at me, hoping he’d go away so I could return to the dream I’d been having about Caleb, our neighbour with the lovely, rich Irish brogue. He was one of those still-waters-run-deep type of guys who let the world come to him, which left me intrigued, as well as a little off balance.

What was a man like him thinking? Did he believe my lightheartedness was frivolity and shallowness the way my father did? Or was he more similar to the man in my dream, the one who understood the real me?

In my dream, when Caleb had looked at me, he’d seen me. Like, really seen me, and he’d liked me all the more for it. We’d laughed and talked, opening up to each other. It was perfect and comfortable, and I wanted to return to the dream and never wake up.

Wait.

It had been a dream.

Caleb was no longer my downstairs neighbour, because I no longer lived with my friends. And Felipe, our little ground squirrel friend was now happily living with Tamara out in the country.

Who—or what—was poking at my feet?

Heart thumping, I pulled the pillow off my face and peeked out. It took a moment for my eyes to focus, and I lifted my head up higher, unable to make sense of what I was seeing.

It wasn’t a squirrel or even a friend with the code to my condo.

It was a two-foot-tall…leprechaun?

I propped myself up on one elbow, and my long curls, now streaked with the green dye I’d had put in a few days ago to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, obscured my line of vision.

I had to still be dreaming. My fantasy about Caleb must have naturally shifted into something else Irish-themed. Only, instead of almost-kissing a hunky Irishman with lovely green eyes, I had a leprechaun standing on my bed.

I mentally snapped my fingers. I knew why I was conjuring leprechauns. It was St. Patrick’s Day and, as they were well-known for their gold, I had drifted into dreaming about them to try and forget the difficult conversation with my father last night. He’d lectured me about earning my own way, believing that I still relied on my family’s financial good luck.

Little did he know that since last summer, I had been doing all sorts of amazing things with the monthly stipends he gave me. Yes, a small portion of it went toward topping up my condo’s mortgage payments but, more importantly, I was the anonymous donor who’d brought the fundraising thermometer to the top so the Humane Society could reroof their shelter. And before that, I’d given a session on basic money management to single parents at a family shelter, and then had been the angel donor who’d brought in boxes of new shoes for them to wear to job interviews while they literally got back on their feet.

The conversation with my dad, and his perception of me as a bit of a frivolous flake, had really bothered me. Lately, he’d been angling to cut me off, just as he had with my mom when they’d divorced years ago. And that was fine. I was an adult, and shouldn’t be getting an allowance any longer. But the threats somehow felt like they were about more than just money, and I’d gone to bed in a foul mood.

Obviously, my lovely brain was trying to make me feel better by giving me a dream about gold-bearing leprechauns.
But this small man standing on my bed looked so real. It was clear my imagination was on break, though. He looked so much like a typical leprechaun with his reddish hair and green velvet outfit. His black leather shoes were polished to a fine shine and had a pilgrim buckle in gold which matched the buckle on his nifty green felt hat. He was definitely a leprechaun. But how could he be here?

I rolled back onto my side. Before the almost-kiss with Caleb, I’d been having the best dreams about shoes. Maybe I could become a shoe designer, and stay in this condo instead of selling it if my dad cut me off. After all, I’d only been living here for a few months—since my boyfriend, Malachi, and I had broken up. Selling it so soon would be a poor financial decision.

“Ye daft human!” the leprechaun said. “Ye performed a luck charm, but ye have not claimed the luck and it has been drained from us.”

He had an adorable Irish accent, but he was making no sense. It was definitely time to return to the Caleb dream.

“I said…” the leprechaun raised his voice.

“Right, right. I heard you, but I don’t really believe in you, so good night.” I dragged the pillow back over my head to block out the morning light filtering into my room.

My friends claimed they had a fairy godmother named Estelle. And while I wanted to believe in the magical world—and sometimes succumbed to a touch of belief—it was all too far-fetched to maintain.

Like, come on. There was no way the leprechaun standing on my bed was real.

“Ye opened the threshold. What do ye have for us?” the small man demanded. “Why did ye summon the luck with yer coin, and then not claim it?”

I lifted the pillow again and peered at him. The leprechaun was holding up a dirty loonie.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumbled sleepily. My imagination was getting weird. “I want to go back to the dream where Caleb almost kissed me.”

Mm. Caleb. He would understand what was going on. According to my friend Tamara, who used to chat with him in the apartment lobby, he held some Irish superstitions from back home. Then again, none of this was real, so…

Something dropped on the covers beside me, and I opened one eye, then the other. I was staring at a familiar-looking pair of shoes. Black and grey leather, Oxford-style lace-ups with fine stitching. Vintage. Rare. Handcrafted almost a hundred years ago by a Canadian shoe-making legend.

“Where did you find these?” I’d been beating myself up since last August for leaving them hanging in the park’s tree. By the time I’d remembered them and gone back, they’d been gone.

Now here they were!

I reached for them, but the leprechaun was faster, snatching the shoes to his chest. “This be me offering.”

“You’re offering them to me?”

“Ye put them in our tree for me kind when ye summoned our luck!”

“What are you talking about? Did you take them? Because those are mine. I special ordered them.” I was still puzzled, as well as miffed, over how I’d forgotten them in the park. I never forgot about shoes.

The small man shook the Oxfords at me, and my heart gave a loud, echoey thump-thump. The kind of thumping that happens before panic sets in. The kind where your brain is starting to click that things aren’t right, and that this might actually be real, and you might be in danger and that it was time to choose between fight or flight. Or freeze. Flail. Freak out. Something that started with an F.

This was not a dream. This was real. He was real.

My friends believed in magical beings. Fairy godmothers, witches, Roman gods and Santa Claus. Me? I’d laughed, and called them crazy, while being secretly envious because the magical world had chosen them.

Now I was crazy. I had a real, live leprechaun in my room. I closed my eyes tight, then opened them again.

He was still there.

I sat up and reached out to touch him to make sure this wasn’t simply a very vivid dream, and he flinched, scowling at me. His emerald velvet jacket felt real. I eyed the pair of vintage shoes in his arms. I’d ordered them online last summer, but had misplaced them—twice. First, by sending them to my old address. Then second, by forgetting them in the tree. They’d been very expensive, and a gem of a find, and it was unnerving that after losing track of them, they were now reappearing along with what appeared to be a leprechaun. Especially since he seemed to think the shoes were some sort of offering for him to keep.

“I think we’re misunderstanding each other,” I said evenly. “I special ordered these for myself, and I appreciate you bringing them back to me.”

I slowly put my hand out, palm up, hoping he’d return the Oxfords to me.

“No, my wee lass.” He shook the shoes at me with a startling impatience. “These be an offering. Don’t ye try to fool or kidnap me. Ye’ve already done enough to us.”

“Fine.” I’d figure out another way to get them back.

The leprechaun stood on the bed, his clever eyes watching me. “What do ye have for me?”

“Nothing.”

“I said, what do ye have?”

“Why would I have something?”

“That’s how this works. Ye made yer offering, did the charm, took our luck, and now ye give back.”

“I just put a new roof on the Humane Society. I gave back.”

“To us!” he demanded. “Ye’ve hurt us by not claimin’ yer luck.”

I clutched the covers against my chest. “You aren’t real. Go away.” I waved a hand. “Shoo!”

He paused, head tipped to the side. “Shoe?” He pivoted, taking in my room. He spied my ditched suede high heels with the gemstone hearts beside the bed, then the small display shelf with some of my favourite shoes. His grip on the ruined pair of loafers in his arms slackened when he spied the full rack of gorgeous designer footwear visible through my open closet door. His voice became reverent as he repeated, “Shoes.”

Then he was off the bed, rummaging through my footwear collection with a fervor that reminded me of myself at a shoe sale.

With his back to me, I slowly reached for my phone and opened up the group chat me and my friends shared. Unless this truly was just a very vivid dream—how I hoped it was!—I had a feeling I was going to need their magical-world experience to rid me of this leprechaun.

Find out what happens next--order your copy of Bad Luck with Leprechauns and dive in!