Roxanne Rhoads's Blog, page 414
October 31, 2014
Halloween Spotlight and Huge Giveaway Dark Curse by Isaiyan Morrison
Dark CurseDeamhan ChroniclesBook 2Isaiyan MorrisonGenre: Adult Paranormal
ISBN 069226325X ISBN 13 978-0692263259ASIN: B00MO1T7O8
Number of pages: 202Word Count: 79,000
Cover Artist: John Cosentino
Book Description:
The Deamhan world is in disarray. Freed from Limbo, Lucius, the once feared and Ancient Lugat, goes on a killing spree to wipe out any remaining traitors in the city of Minneapolis.
Meanwhile The Brotherhood's return along with the growing population of vampires riles up the remaining Deamhan who choose to stay behind rather than abandon the city. The body count continues to pile up forcing both humans and Deamhan to pick a side.
Either allow Lucius to free the Pure Ones, the first living Deamhan from Limbo, or take him out and cripple their already fragile presence in the city.
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/_Qbm8FQCXVE
Amazon Print Amazon Kindle
Excerpt: Anastasia's eyes meandered over them. They were young, no older than ten years max. When she attempted to scour their minds, a barrier blocked her. The female Ramanga rushed at Anastasia in Deamhan speed but she quickly moved out of the way, grabbing the back of her shirt and tossing her several feet in the air and onto the roof of a parked car. The Metusba catapulted himself at Remy but he jumped several feet into the air, avoiding his attack.Anastasia rushed at the Metusba and she sank her teeth into the base of his neck, ripping at his flesh. He screamed, pushed her away, and fell to the pavement on his knees. From the roof of the car, the Ramanga flew at Remy with fists raised and her mouth opened, revealing her fangs. “I've never hit a pretty woman before.” Remy smiled. She swung and he ducked, feeling the brisk wind travel over his head. Her punches continued nonstop but with each punch Remy evaded, the faster the punches came. He finally found an opening and his fist connected with her stomach. The Ramanga's feet wavered but she immediately found her footing and she swerved to the left, avoiding Remy's rising left punch. She raised her knee, striking Remy's in the chin and he fell back on the pavement. She quickly maneuvered herself on top of him, striking him over and over again with her fists. Remy's head jerked from right to left, feeling his cheeks burn with each hit until Anastasia wrapped her arm around his attacker's neck and threw her off of him.She helped Remy to his feet and they ran off in Deamhan speed with the two Deamhan following them. Their stride took them under a freeway, splashing through knee high water, and they turned sharply left. They passed through stop and go traffic, side streets, sidewalks, and eventually near the banks of the Mississippi River.They took the river south, leaving the city, and entered a desolate area filled with rotting cornstalks and farmhouses. They stopped in the quiet area, being only a few miles from Blind Bluff Manor. They turned around but the two Deamhan were nowhere in sight.“That wasn't hard.” Remy scanned the area across the river. He looked to the left at the tall dirt and rock infested embankment. “I think we lost them.”Anastasia wasn't so sure. She looked up just in time to see the female jumping down at them. She tackled Anastasia and they both fell into the wild currents of the river.Anastasia felt the coolness of the water streaming over her face and into her ears. It was an awkward position, knowing that neither of them would drown because Deamhan didn’t breathe. She pushed the female back and she jumped out of the water, just in time to see the male, also in midair, and his right leg connect with the side of her face. She landed on the sandy shore, swallowing a handful of sand. She turned over to see the female towering over her with a raised stake. For a second Anastasia’s eyes filled with uncertainty. Stakes were meaningless, unless the female aimed for her heart. However, if the female's goal was to incapacitate her, she would strike elsewhere, leaving Anastasia alive for them to toy with. Remy rushed toward the female but she immediately turned, burrowing the stake into his left shoulder. He stumbled back and the female grabbed the stake, dislodging it, and struck again, hitting just beneath his heart.Anastasia found her chance to make her move. Brandishing her teeth, she bit down into the female's neck and she pulled back, ripping flesh from bone. Blood gushed from her wound and she fell to the sand. Again, Remy and Anastasia took off down the banks of the Mississippi River. The river curved and winded around, bringing them to another remote spot. This time a freeway ran on both sides of the river with a bridge slightly above them. Anastasia stopped, noticing that stars no longer dotted the sky. In the darkened horizon appeared a tint of red, signaling sunrise. She had to finish this now and get to Blind Bluff Manor. They climbed the embankment and approached the freeway. They ran through the traffic, dodging semi-trucks, cars, and other passing vehicles until they made it to the other side.Remy held his chest and he bent over. “Good thing these Deamhan can't aim to save their life.” He coughed.Anastasia examined his wound. “You'll heal.”They heard the swift steps of the two Deamhan approach them. Again the male launched himself at them but Anastasia tossed him aside. He slammed into a nearby abandoned granary and Anastasia looked from the corner of her eye, seeing the female raise her stake, aiming for Remy's back.Anastasia quickly moved and she caught the female by her wrist before the stake made its impact. With her other hand she plunged her fist through the female's chest, reaching her heart. The female's eyes widened and she snarled before Anastasia ripped her heart from her chest. The Ramanga dropped to the ground and her body slowly began to dissolve into a puddle of blood, dust, and bone fragments.Anastasia turned her attention to their male attacker, watching him limp toward them. Dark blood poured from his mouth and a long piece of wood protruded from his stomach. She walked calmly over to him. His heavy eyes wavered. “You failed.” She plunged the stake into his heart and nonchalantly she returned back to Remy, uninterested in watching the Deamhan's body wither away. In the distance she heard a male’s voice coming from a small house on a hill. The front door opened and she saw the outline of a farmer gripping a shotgun in hand.“Let's get going. We don't have much time.” She wrapped Remy's arm around her shoulder. She took one final look at the remains of their two attackers before sprinting in Deamhan speed for Blind Bluff Manor.
About the Author: Isaiyan Morrison was born and raised in Minnesota. She moved to San Diego, California while in the Navy. She now resides in Texas with her two cats, a pit bull dog, and two guinea pigs. Dark Curse is the second book in the Deamhan Chronicles.
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/isaiyanmorrison
Facebook Deamhan Page: http://facebook.com/deamhanchronicles
Twitter http://twitter.com/isaiyanmorrison
Website: http://isaiyanmorrison.com
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7163501.Isaiyan_Morrison
Google+ : https://plus.google.com/u/2/b/112494687658017649418/+Isaiyanmorrison/posts
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 6 Guest blogFang-tastic Bookswww.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
October 7 SpotlightShare My Destinyhttp://sharemydestiny.blogspot.com
October 8 InterviewPembroke Sinclair. www.pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com
October 9 Guest blogSBM Book Obsessionhttp://sbmbookobsession.blogspot.com/
October 10 SpotlightBookaholicshttp://leodinzlyandra.blogspot.com
October 13 Guest blogRoxanne’s Realmwww.roxannerhoads.com
October 14 SpotlightJodie Pierce's Ink Slinger's Blogjodiepierceauthor.blogspot.com/
October 15 InterviewBewitching Book Tours Magazinewww.issuu.com/bewitchingbooktours
October 16 ReviewParanormal Romance and Authors That Rockwww.pratr.wordpress.com
October 17 SpotlightThe Creatively Green Write at Home Momwww.creativelygreen.blogspot.com
October 20 Top Ten ListDarkest Cravingswww.darkestcravings.blogspot.com
October 21 Character InterviewAuthor Karen Swartwww.authorkarenswart.blogspot.com
October 22 InterviewEclipse Reviewswww.totaleclipsereviews.blogspot.com
October 23 SpotlightSoaring Eagle Publicitywww.soaringeaglepublicity.com
October 24 SpotlightEmma Weylinhttp://emmaweylin.com/
October 27 SpotlightSizzling Book Blog http://chelssizzle.blogspot.com/
October 28 SpotlightLisa’s World of Bookswww.lisasworldofbooks.net
October 29 SpotlightSapphyria's Book Reviewshttp://saphsbookblog.blogspot.com/
October 30 SpotlightRoxanne’s Realmwww.roxannerhoads.com
October 31 Halloween SpotlightFang-tastic Bookswww.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
November 3 Guest blogMythical Bookshttp://mythicalbooks.blogspot.ro/
October 30, 2014
Read Pink® in Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Read Pink® in Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Support the Next Chapter in Innovative Research
Penguin Random House Marks Five-Year Partnership Milestone and $125,000 in Donations to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation®
What’s black and white and pink all over? The initiative by Penguin Random House called Read Pink® in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October)!
Today the scientific community has left behind the “one-size-fits-all” breast cancer treatment to emerge with targeted, more effective therapies. As a result, after remaining stagnant for more than 50 years, the death rate from breast cancer has decreased by 30 percent. The Read Pink® initiative by Penguin Random House is proud to be part of this exciting new chapter in the fight against breast cancer, supporting the bold research of The Breast Cancer Foundation® (BCRF), while leveraging its passionate readers to help increase awareness and education about the disease. This literary embrace of a life-saving cause has resulted in nearly 1.5 million best-selling novels shipped with Read Pink seals and information about BCRF across all five years of the promotion.
Penguin Random House is thrilled to partner once again this year with BCRF, as 91 cents of every dollar spent by BCRF is directed towards breast cancer research and awareness programs.
The $25,000 donation that Penguin Random House contributes, regardless of sales, provides vital funds to support the mission of BCRF.
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Penguin Random House’s Read Pink® editions, we are featuring a few participating authors and what Read Pink® means to them…
Beatriz Williams (2014 Read Pink® Spokesperson), A Hundred Summers “Every life lost to breast cancer leaves behind a hole that can never be filled again: a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend, an aunt, a grandmother. I’m so grateful for organizations like The Breast Cancer Research Foundation for their efforts to find a cure for this devastating disease, and honored to support breast cancer awareness, detection, and research through Penguin’s READ PINK program in 2014. With your help, we can move closer to the day when breast cancer leaves behind only survivors.”
Karen White, The Time Between “Since 1989, death rates from breast cancer have been decreasing due to earlier detection and improved treatment because of the efforts of organizations like The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Books have always been an important part of my life, and I am honored that my book will be part of Penguin’s Read Pink program that supports breast cancer awareness and research through reading. It is my greatest hope that through efforts like this we might find a cure within my lifetime.”
Nora Roberts, Sea Swept and The Witness “To all the moms and daughters, wives and sisters, lovers and friends, Read Pink is here for you and yours. Help support breast cancer awareness and the strong, brave women who fight or will fight this disease and Read Pink in October.”
Catherine Anderson, Perfect Timing “I am so delighted to be included in the Read Pink campaign again this year with Perfect Timing being featured, along with so many other great books, to raise funds for breast cancer research. I can remember when a diagnosis of breast cancer was often equivalent to a death sentence. Nowadays, the survival rates have increased greatly, and I personally know women who have prevailed over this terrible disease. Sadly, I’ve also known a few women who lost the battle. So I call upon all of you to join ranks with me and countless other women in a war to defeat breast cancer. ‘Read Pink! Buy books bearing the Read Pink logo as gifts for the women you love.’ By standing together as sisters, we have it within our power to make a huge difference!”
Jayne Ann Krentz, Dream Eyes “This is the time of year when we celebrate the progress that has been made in the battle against breast cancer and acknowledge the work that lies ahead. No, we aren't there yet. There's a long way to go. The greatest weapon we have to fight this disease is research and research costs money. That is why this breast cancer awareness campaign is so important and why I am proud to participate.”
Marie Force, I Want to Hold Your Hand “I’m so thrilled to be part of the Read Pink effort to help raise awareness and funding for breast cancer research. I hear frequently from romance readers who tell me my books and those of other romance authors have helped them get through breast cancer treatment. I want to hear from fewer of them in the future. I want to hear they took our books on fabulous vacations rather than treatments. Please Read Pink in October to support all the courageous women fighting this disease and to fund critical research. Thank you for Reading Pink!”
Full List of 2014 Participating Authors: Jojo Moyes, The Last Letter from your LoverKaren White, The Time BetweenNora Roberts, Sea Swept and The WitnessJennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln’s DressmakerBeatriz Williams, A Hundred SummersWendy Wax, While We Were Watching Downton AbbeyCatherine Anderson, Perfect TimingMarie Force, I Want to Hold Your HandJanet Chapman, The Heart of a HeroLisa Gardner, MacNamara’s WomanJayne Ann Krentz, Dream Eyes
Mark your calendars and remember to join in the conversation with @BerkleyRomance and @PenguinGroupUSAon Twitter in October. Make sure to use the hashtag #ReadPink!
For more information about the Read Pink initiative and to view a complete list of the participating retail outlets, please visit penguin.com/readpink.
Read Pink® Blog Tour SchedulePlease support the blogs taking part in this special, Read Pink® Spotlight Tour!
October 1 – Exclusive guest post with spokesperson Beatriz Williams on LizandLisa.com *** September 22 Cheryl's Book Nook; The Readers Den; Gone with the Words; Pretty Sassy Cool
September 23 Reading Reality; You Gotta Read; Adria's Romance Reviews
September 24 Kimberly Faye Reads; Nicely Phrased; I Smell Sheep
September 25 Romance Junkies; To Read or Not To Read; A Southern Girl’s Bookshelf
September 26 Cindy's Love of Books; Chick Lit Plus; The Book Reading Gals
* September 29 LitChat; Melissa's Eclectic Bookshelf; Chris Book Blog Emporium
September 30 Reality Bites! Let's Get Lost!; Grave Tells; Britt's Book and Life Blog; Sincerely Stacie
October 1 Cocktails and Books; The Reading Nook Reviews; 2Bookaholics; Wit & Sin; Raw Books
October 2 SOS Aloha; Bookish Things & More; Shayna Renee's Spicy Reads
October 3 Dew on the Kudzu; Peace Love Books; Grown Up Book Reviews
* October 6 My Book Addiction and More; Book-alicious Mama; Chick Lit Central
October 7 A Dream Within A Dream; Thoughts in Progress; Mundie Moms
October 8 Flirty and Dirty Book Blog; Readers Live A Thousand Lives; That's What I'm Talking About
October 9 Book Lovin' Mamas; Lori's Reading Corner; The Book Reading Gals
October 10 Supernatural Snark; Once Upon a Twilight; Expressions of a Hopeful Romantic
* October 13 Fallen Angel Reviews; Parajunkee's View; As I Turn the Pages
October 14 Reading in Black & White; Keepin It Real Book Blog
October 15 ABCD Diaries; Fictional Candy; Paranormal Book Club
October 16 Sexy Bibliophiles; Book Sniffers Anonymous; Sexy Book Reviews By Shelly & April
October 17 Wicked Lil Pixie; The Book Swarm; Addicted 2 Novels; Stephanie’s Book Reports
* October 20 News & Sentinel, “Book Nook”; The Reading Café
October 21 The Book Bellas; The Book Cellar
October 22 The Novel Life; My Book Muse; Confessions of a Y.A. & N.A. Book Addict
October 23 Rock Stars of Romance; Silver's Reviews; Journey of a Bookseller
October 24 Sunshine & Mountains* October 27 Bewitched Bookworms; Ramblings From This Chick
October 28 Reading in Pajamas; Turn the Page
October 29 Michelle & Leslie's Book Picks; Stuck In YA Books; Reviews by Tammy & Kim
October 30 Fang-tastic Books; No BS Book Reviews; Marie’s Cozy CornerSmut Book Junkie Book Reviews
October 31 In Shadows; Love Romances & More
Great Halloween Horror Movies with Mimi Sebastian
Happy Halloween!! When my six year old finally collapses from his sugar-induced frenzy and falls asleep, I like nothing better than to settle on the couch with a glass or two of wine, and watch a few Halloween scary movies, particularly ones that give me a Halloween thrill and drive me to spasmodically gnaw on mass quantities of Tootsie Rolls: spooky music, creepy shadows, the things you’d want to encounter (or not) in a haunted house, and then some. Narrowing the list down to ten was excruciating. I wanted to include some more contemporary films in with the classics. I know I left out lots of great, creepy movies. Please chime in the comments with some of your favorite Halloween watches!
Scream. Really an appropriate title. Lots of people scream. Drew Barrymore screams. How was that for an unexpected GOTCHA right at the beginning? Surely they won’t kill a famous actor such as Barrymore so soon. Wes Craven must have giggled himself silly when he thought of that one…or he screamed. I screamed. We all screamed for Scream. Another iconic horror director, Wes Craven, revived the slasher genre in a unique, meta way and provided some good scares with a cool twist at the end. (I was torn between including Scream and his other classic, Nightmare on Elm Street.)
Halloween. The granddaddy of them all. Carpenter does an excellent job of setting mood and tone. (I mean whose skin doesn’t crawl when they hear that piano riff?) And Donald Pleasance is creepy even when he’s playing a good guy. There’s a subtle beauty to Carpenter’s stuff (except for maybe The Thing). Carpenter does not show the rending of flesh in Halloween, yet I felt it, and when I think of that movie, I always seem to remember lots of gore. That’s skillful filmmaking.
Fright Night. Chris Sarandon gives one of my favorite vampire performances ever. “You have to have faith for that to work on meeeeeee.” There are so many amazing scenes, moments in this movie that elevate it beyond teen horror camp. Roddy McDowell as the washed up Vincent Price-ish, tv personality, Peter Vincent Vampire Killer. And an often overlooked but great performace by Stephen Geoffreys as Evil Ed. A great character not given justice in the remake. The scene where he visits Peter Vincent after becoming a vampire was chilling.
Evil Dead. Did Sam Raimi know when he filmed his low budget masterpiece, that it’d become one of the iconic movies of its genre, inspiring many more to come? You can’t beat Sam Raimi for campy, no holds bared horror blood fest. And Bruce Campbell is fantastic. Raimi apparently used his own brand of method acting to inspire real fear in the actors. For example, he flung real glass at them during filming. Bruce Campbell sprained his ankle during filming and Raimi would poke at the aching wound to elicit emotional responses. No wonder Campbell went totally nuts.
Evil Dead 2, also great, is streamable on Netflix.
Psycho. So ahead of its time. The birth of the slasher, this movie list alone contains movies with elements inspired by Psycho. Jerky camera work, and super creepy score. And oh how Hitchcock loves to manipulate the audience. That movie unsettled me. And once again, no gore, but talk about messed up mom and son Oedipal horror. I always say Dario Argento and Clive Barker are wonderfully disturbed, but Hitchcock definitely is the godfather.
The Conjuring. I’d been waiting for a great, contemporary Amityville Horror type movie to come along and The Conjuring did a great job providing scares and a rather intense, horrifying final act. I wanted to scream in delight just in the way the film opened. Before the credits stopped rolling, they hit us with that creepy music that harkens back to some of the classics, like Omen and The Exorcist, and slithers into the primal parts of the subconscious. Then Wan gives us Annabelle’s creepy eyeball then more creepy music. Then we meet Ed and Lorraine Warren and get their story typed on the screen in Courier because you know it’s scary if written in Courier. James Wan studied the masters. Oh, he also provides a great horror movie teaching point: take family dog along when house hunting. If dog is afraid, do not buy the house.
Have you seen a picture of the real Annabelle? She’s a big Raggedy Ann doll. Someone gave me a big Raggedy Ann doll as a Christmas gift when I was a kid. She sits in the closet in my old room at my parent’s house. I will never remove her from the closet in my old room at my parent’s house. If my parents ever sell the house, I will tell the new owners to never remove the giant Raggedy Ann doll from the closet.
House of the Devil. I watched a lot of weird, atmospheric horror movies as a kid in the seventies. It’s probably what warped me. Ty West does an excellent job of recreating that same mood in House of the Devil. It’s a slow burner but does it burn and the climactic ending is both horrifying and shocking.
Dracula. Todd Browning’s classic still holds up, in part due to Bela Lugosi’s haunting, wonderful performance as our beloved Count. The opening scenes are still some of the best in any movie. Very atmospheric, macabre, lovely.
The Changeling. A damned good haunted house movie with a tragic, great story and rewarding reveal at the end. George C. Scott gives a great performance as the tortured John Russell, recovering from the death of his wife. Peter Medak, the director, carefully layers on the creepiness leaving us completely unsettled without quite knowing why.
The Others. I figured this one out half way through the movie, but it still didn’t ruin my enjoyment. The overall canvas of this movie was painted in chilling, beautiful images. Just the scene where the weird people approach the house from the outside. Yikes! Wonderful creepy stuff.
And for fun, with the kiddies: Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, and The Adams Family.
The Necromancer’s BetrayalThe Necromancer SeriesBook 2Mimi SebastianGenre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Publisher: ImaJinn/Belle Books
ISBN: 978-1611945119ASIN:
Number of pages: 226
Cover Artist: Debra Dixon
Book Description:
Her powers have been hobbled. Her enemies are growing stronger.
Old loves challenge her. And her worst betrayer may be herself.
Necromancer Ruby Montagne is battling for her life in the realm of demons. Unfairly branded for the death of a fellow necromancer, she’s got to prove her innocence without the full use of her magic. And the real culprit is still on the loose.
While someone is stalking her friends among the witches, Ruby searches for answers inside the dark intrigues of both the demon and necromancer worlds. Ruby must confront this new, sinister threat while reconciling her feelings for her former lover, a demon warrior. Only it’s difficult . . . because a sexy vampire is making it clear that he’d like to be a lot more than just friends.
The competition for Ruby’s trust heats up as the enemy pushes her toward a dark side that could threaten the entire realm. Yet what can Ruby do when she’s not even sure what she is? With the fabric separating the realms at stake, she must decide whom to trust. But will the ultimate betrayal be her own?
Available at Amazon
About the Author:Mimi Sebastian raised herself on books and the strange and unusual, and an unhealthy dose of comics and movies. When a career as a punk guitarist failed to materialize, she completed her degree in urban planning, spent two years in the Ivory Coast with the Peace Corps, and another three years in Brazil. By day, she debates the merits of transport oriented development, by night she writes about necromancers and pirates. She’s convinced she could live off coffee, ice cream, and comic books, but is sure only one of those is good for her health.
She's a member of Romance Writers of America and the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of RWA. A transplant from the beaches of Florida, Mimi now wanders the desert in Phoenix, AZ, and attempts to balance writing with a day career, fantastic family, and household diva: her Amazon parrot.
www.mimisebastian.com
https://www.facebook.com/NecromancerSeriesMimiSebastianAuthor
https://twitter.com/SebastianMimi
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/13508578-mimi-sebastian
a Rafflecopter giveaway
September 5 InterviewAngel’s Guilty Pleasureshttp://angelsguiltypleasures.com
September 10 Guest blogThe Creatively Green Write at Home Momwww.creativelygreen.blogspot.com
September 12 SpotlightQueen of All She Readshttp://queenofallshereads.blogspot.com/
September 17 Guest Blog Books and Taleshttp://booksandtales.blogspot.co.uk/
September 18 SpotlightJodie Pierce's Ink Slinger's Blogwww.jodiepierceauthor.blogspot.com
September 22 InterviewCBY Book Club www.cbybookclub.blogspot.co.uk
September 23 InterviewUrban Fantasy Investigationshttp://urbanfantasyinvestigations.blogspot.com/
September 24 SpotlightCover Reveals http://CoverReveals.blogspot.com
September 30 SpotlightDeal Sharing Auntwww.dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com
October 7 SpotlightBooks Directhttp://booksdirectonline.blogspot.com.au/
October 10 SpotlightShare My Destinyhttp://sharemydestiny.blogspot.com
October 14 Guest blogRoxanne’s Realmwww.roxannerhoads.com
October 17 Guest blogSun Mountain Reviewshttp://sunmountainreviews.wordpress.com/
October 20 SpotlightBooklover Sue http://bookloversue.blogspot.com
October 29 Guest blogPembroke Sinclair www.pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com
October 30 Guest blogFang-tastic Bookswww.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
Interview and Giveaway with Christian Brown
Can you tell readers a little bit about yourself and what inspired to write in this particular genre?
I’ve always had an interest in mysteries, magic and the unexplainable. Exploring the unseen, if only speculatively, is a natural inclination for me.
What is it about the paranormal, in particular vampires, that fascinates you so much?
Well, in Feast of Fates, there aren’t vampires per say. There are two Immortal Kings who are bound through rites, millennia of brotherhood and the exchange of vows, magic, and yes, blood. Personally, I think it boils down to blood being one of the oldest known reagents for rituals and spells. Blood is a substance often associated with the essence of a person: their life-force, their passion. So it seemed natural to me that these two men—Magnus and Brutus—should share blood.
What inspired you to write this book?
Oh my, don’t have time for the long answer. I’ll give the short answer then. I’ve always had this world, or some variant of it in my head. Years ago, when my mother became ill from cancer, I quit my job to care for her and had plenty of down time during her hospital stays that I could use to finally finish that story I’d been messing around with. When all was said and done, it turned out to be a novel!
Please tell us about your latest release.
Feast of Fates is a love story: familial, romantic, love when it is twisted to hate. In Feast of Fates, we follow the adventures of Morigan, and her first love with a man (sort of) who thought he would never love again. Because this is an epic fantasy, with grand plotlines and schemes, I thought that it was important to start small, with this one chance encounter that leads to something beautiful and terrifying—for them both.
Do you have a special formula for creating characters' names? Do you try to match a name with a certain meaning to attributes of the character or do you search for names popular in certain time periods or regions?
Most characters from the eastern side of the world, where there is a great forest named Alabion, have pseudo-Celtic onomastic qualities: Caenith, Macha, and so on. Occasionally, I’ll use a Native or Inuit modified name, because I am somewhat familiar with those cultures. Elsewhere, I tried to stick with modified Anglo/ English names, because it’s simpler. I think that fantasy, and transporting a reader to another world can be complicated enough without worrying about how to pronounce something eighteen syllables long with various phonetic inflections.
Was one of your characters more challenging to write than another?
Most of the characters wrote themselves, and I really, truly love each one. Elissandra, possibly, was trickier to write, since her motivations are quite cloudy.
Is there a character that you enjoyed writing more than any of the others?
I do love to write villains. Not the cartoon kind, but the sort with heart, and convincing motivations—however twisted.
Do you have a formula for developing characters? Like do you create a character sketch or list of attributes before you start writing or do you just let the character develop as you write?
No formula. Pure improvisation, followed by drafting to refine their speech and personality.
What is your favorite scene from the book? Could you share a little bit of it, without spoilers of course?
I think that almost any scene between Morigan and the Wolf has a delicious kind of tension to it. Their love story is quite pure and adult (not XXX—though the Wolf is a carnal creature in general). Perhaps the scene where she demands to see his “second self” is one of my personal favorites.
Did you find anything really interesting while researching this or another book?
I had to research and learn some Gaelic for the language used here and there in the book. Interesting alphabet and phonetics. Quite different from English.
What is the most interesting thing you have physically done for book related research purposes?
Does absolute sleep deprivation count? J
Can you tell readers a little bit about the world building in the book/series? How does this world differ from our normal world?
Well in Geadhain (that’s the world), there are fantastical elements, although the general level of technology—or technological and “magikal” fusion, in this case—is slightly more advanced than on Earth. We have a society at a relative level of peace between diametrically, morally opposed nations. An uneasy peace. Against this political backdrop we also have the clash of old world ideals and new world advancement and technomagik. So there’s a lot of underlying tensions in the world to explore.
With the book being part of a series, are there any character or story arcs, that readers jumping in somewhere other than the first book, need to be aware of? Can these books be read as stand alones?
I would not advise reading the books as standalones. Each book has a specific beginning and end (no cliffhangers), but they are part of a larger story.
Do any of your characters have similar characteristics of yourself in them and what are they?
I think it’s safe to say that all writers have a little bit of each of their characters in them—good and bad J
Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? How do you deal with it?
No, but I do get burned out and need to take a break from writing every now and then. Usually, this happens after finishing off a manuscript.
Do you have any weird writing quirks or rituals?
I need to exercise, shower and eat, in that order, before I begin to write. I also write in a shift from 7am-5pm shifts. I treat writing the same as I would treat any job, albeit one you enjoy.
Do you write in different genres?
Currently, I am laying out the groundwork for a horror/ YA novel.
Do you find it difficult to write in multiple genres?
I think most fiction crosses multiple genres. I would be afraid of boxing myself into one market or niche.
When did you consider yourself a writer?
When I was very young, I wrote story after story in large, green school notebooks—never kept any of them, sadly. In my twenties, I mostly wrote poetry, even though I dabbled in a pre-draft of this novel for many, many years.
What are your guilty pleasures in life?
Bad food and bad movies.
Other than writing, what are some of your interests, hobbies or passions in life?
Fitness, video-games (in moderation), spending time with my family, reading, the occasional outdoorsy thing, playing with my adorable cats.
What was the last amazing book you read?
Right now I’m reading “Servant of Fire”, by Simon J. Cambridge, and I’m enjoying it quite a lot.
Where is your favorite place to read? Do you have a cozy corner or special reading spot?
Nothing beats being in bed with a nice cup of herbal tea and a good book (or e-book).
What can readers expect next from you?
The second installment of Four Feasts Till Darkness is out just after Christmas. I’m also working with a number of very talented artists to do a media/ cover refresh on the website and other FoF associated materials.
Where can readers find you on the web?
christianadrianbrown.com
Would you like to leave readers with a little teaser or excerpt from the book?
Since I mentioned it, I’d like to share the scene where Morigan first witnesses the Wolf’s transformation.
Morigan took the bracelet. “I accept your offering.” The Wolf’s face lit and she thought that he would leap at her. “Yet first, I have a request.” “Anything, my Fawn.” “I would like to see…what you are. The second body that shares your soul. Show me your fangs and claws,” she commanded. Perhaps it was the steadiness of her voice, how she ordered him to bare himself as if he belonged to her that made the Wolf’s heart roar to comply. He did not shed his skin but for the whitest moons of the year, and even then, so far from the city and never in front of another. In a sense, he was as much a virgin as she. With an unaccustomed shyness, he found himself undressing before the Fawn, confused for a speck as to who was the hunter. The flare of her nostrils, the intensity of her stare that ate at him for once. I have chosen well for a mate. She is as much a Wolf as I, he thought, kicking off his boots and then shimmying his pants down to join the rest of his clothing. No bashful maiden was Morigan, and she did not look away from his nakedness, but appreciated what she saw: every rough, hairy, huge bit of him. He howled and fell to all fours. Bones shifted and snapped, rearranging under his skin like skeletal gears. From his head, chest and loins, the soft black hair thickened and spread over his twisting flesh. His heaving became guttural and sloppy, and when he tossed his head up in a throe of agony or pleasure, his beard had coated his face, and she noticed nothing but white daggers of teeth. Wondrously Morigan witnessed the transformation, watched him swell with twice the muscle he had possessed as a man, saw his hands and feet shag over with fur and split the soil with black claws. Another howl and a final gristle-crunching shudder (his hindquarters snapping into place, she thought) signified the end of the change. Her dreams did not do Caenith justice. Here was a beast twice the size of a mare with jaws that could swallow her to the waist. Here was a monster that had stalked and ruled the Untamed. A lord of fang and claw. The birds and weaker animals vanished, knowing a deadly might was near. Around her, the Wolf paced; making the ground tremble with power; ravishing her with his cold gray gaze; huffing and blasting her with his forceful breaths. While the scent of his musk was choking, it was undeniably Caenith’s, if rawer and unwashed. Morigan was not afraid, and was flushed with heat and shaking as she slipped the bracelet on and knelt. She did not flinch as the Wolf lay behind and about her like a great snuffling rug and placed his boulder of a head in her lap. No, she stroked his long ears and his wrinkled snout. A maiden and her Wolf. Soon the birds returned, sensing this peace and chirping in praise of it. And neither Morigan nor the Wolf could recall a time—if ever there was one—where they had felt so complete.
Feast of FatesFour Feasts Till DarknessBook OneChristian A. BrownGenre: Fantasy Romance
Date of Publication: September 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495907586Number of pages: 540
Word Count: 212K
Cover Artist: Brian Garabrant
Book Description:
"Love is what binds us in brotherhood, blinds us from hate, and makes us soar with desire.”
Morigan lives a quiet life as the handmaiden to a fatherly old sorcerer named Thackery. But when she crosses paths with Caenith, a not wholly mortal man, her world changes forever. Their meeting sparks long buried magical powers deep within Morigan. As she attempts to understand her newfound abilities, unbidden visions begin to plague her--visions that show a devastating madness descending on one of the Immortal Kings who rules the land.
With Morigan growing more powerful each day, the leaders of the realm soon realize that this young woman could hold the key to their destruction. Suddenly, Morigan finds herself beset by enemies, and she must master her mysterious gifts if she is to survive.
Available at Amazon and Createspace
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/8E_RVXgpqB8
About the Author:Christian A. Brown has written creatively since the age of six. After spending most of his career in the health and fitness industry, Brown quit his job to care for his mother when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2010.
Having dabbled with the novel that would eventually become Feast of Fates for over a decade, Brown was finally able to finish the project. His mother, who was able to read a beginning version of the novel before she passed away, has since imbued the story with deeper sentiments of loss, love, and meaning. He is proud to now share the finished product with the world.
http://christianadrianbrown.com
https://twitter.com/AuthorChrisAB
https://www.facebook.com/ChristianAdrianBrown
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8422242.Christian_A_Brown
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105782095673393074893/about
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 13 InterviewPembroke Sinclair www.pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com
October 14 Spotlight3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too! http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com
October 15 Guest blogMy Book Fairyhttp://mybookfairy.blogspot.com/
October 16 InterviewEclipse Reviewswww.totaleclipsereviews.blogspot.com
October 17 Top Ten ListDarkest Cravingswww.darkestcravings.blogspot.com
October 20 InterviewDeal Sharing Auntwww.dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com
October 21 Character InterviewAuthor Karen Swartwww.authorkarenswart.blogspot.com
October 22 SpotlightBabyCakes Book Bloghttp://cawilcoxson.wordpress.com/
October 23 reviewfeedmeinbookswww.feedmeinbooks.wordpress.com
October 24 SpotlightDeb Sandershttp://DebSanders.com
October 27 Guest blog and reviewDark Side of Romancehttp://www.darksideofromance.com
October 28 Interview Cabin Goddesshttp://cabingoddess.com
October 29 SpotlightLisa’s World of Bookswww.lisasworldofbooks.com
October 30 InterviewFang-tastic Bookswww.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
October 31 SpotlightThe Creatively Green Write at Home Momwww.creativelygreen.blogspot.com
November 3 SpotlightCassandra M's Place www.cassandramsplace.com
November 4 Guest blogRoxanne’s Realmwww.roxannerhoads.com
November 5 Guest BlogMarsha A Moorehttp://marshaamoore.blogspot.com/
November 10 SpotlightSizzling Book Blog http://chelssizzle.blogspot.com/
Guest blog and Giveaway In the Dark by Jen Colly
The Cities Below
In the Dark is the first in The Cities Below series. I’m sure you’re wondering… Which cities? Below what?
I see I've got some explaining to do, so let's talk vampires. What if vampires are real? Not were real in the past, but arereal today. I certainly haven't seen any. So where are they? Simple. They live out of sight, in underground cities. Several such cities are scattered throughout Europe, but France holds the largest population with two cities in the north, one in Paris, and another farther south. In the Dark brings you to Balinese, the largest vampire city in Europe.
Easy to find, right?
Perhaps. One can easily spot the old chateau sitting on the countryside of northern France. A road passes by a good distance away, clipping the edge of the forest to its south. To the average eye, the chateau seems abandoned, which is just as well. Unless you're a vampire, you'll never get inside. The gate is guarded. Now, should you be a vampire, you're welcome inside. The dank corridors beneath the ground level are further degraded than the chateau above. Crumbling walls, debris covered floors, and low arches stretch on and on. These are the perimeter corridors, designed to deter any unwanted guests. Ready to turn back yet?
Balinese
The interior heart of this city? A palace fit for a king. Originally built in the early 16th century, Balinese has grown immensely over the years. The foyer outside of the dining hall, embellished with shining marble floors, the ceiling and doorways trimmed in gold, is a shining example of their intentions to stay in the city they love. Balinese is a fully functioning society, not much different from the humans above. Each vampire city has its own stable government, and laws specific to that city's particular needs. Guardians protect the city, and enforce vampire laws. Should you, as a human, enter one of these cities on your own accord, the last sight you'll see is a Guardian's sword in your chest.
You've been warned.
In the DarkThe Cities BelowBook 1Jen CollyGenre: Romance, Sci Fi &Fantasy
Publisher: Kensington Publishing/Lyrical Press
Date of Publication: November 3, 2014
ISBN: 9781616505196
Number of pages: 190Word Count: 60,000
Cover Artist: Renee Rocco
Book Description:
Soren and Faith must find a way to survive the evil and darkness.
Faith’s spur of the moment vacation, meant to free her and boost her spirits, has left her lost on the streets of Paris. And apparently, Paris is populated with something more than just humans. Vampires, suave, seductive and oh so sexy, and one such warrior vampire has set his sights on her.
When Soren hears Faith’s terrified screams, he rushes in and saves her life without considering the consequences. Two problems: one, she’s a human and clearly aware of his vampire qualities, and two, the men who attacked her were not men at all, but demons. Their target, his beloved underground city of Balinese. He can never let Faith go home again, but can she learn to love his people...love him?
Available at Amazon
Excerpt:
Faith looked up at the silhouette of a man curled over her, his head barely blocking the raindrops pelting her face. She was moving, her feet were not, and the city was sideways. The foreign world passed by her, the images coming slowly, as if she were seeing everything through someone else’s eyes. She was numb, her muscles from cold, her mind from shock. Her memories seemed intact, scrambled and hazy, but intact. She remembered being afraid of flying on the airplane, and the taste of the ginger gum that kept her nausea at bay. She’d been lost in the rain on the way back to her hotel. Then two men had trapped her in an alley. Her shoulders and ribs shuddered with chills powerful enough to make her teeth rattle. She fought through it, lifted her head and looked down at her hands. “My purse.” The words didn’t come out right. Her jaw refused to open, and her lips had difficulty forming the simple words. She tried again. “Took my purse.” “I have it. You need to be warm and dry right now,” the man said, keeping up his pace, never once looking at her. By the sheer confidence in his husky tones, without a doubt, this was the man who had saved her. That intense look on his face was nearly the same as when he’d pulled the muggers off her, driven them into the wall. It was oddly comforting, at the moment. Tall buildings, probably homes, surrounded her, swaying in her field of vision as he strode along. Light peeked through several arched windows, yellow and warm. He entered one of the larger buildings as if he owned it and carried her past several numbered doors to the end of the hallway, where he started down a creaking set of stairs. Suddenly she feared falling down those stairs, but her shuddering muscles wouldn’t allow her to hold on tighter. She closed her eyes and trusted him not to drop her. After the last step had been left behind, she took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and almost wished she hadn’t. The basement hallway was musty, and each bare light bulb they passed only revealed cracks chasing each other across the ceiling. He stopped, pressed her against a green door as he fished for the doorknob with the hand supporting her legs. “Put me down,” she said, trying to help, and fully expecting him to drop her to her feet. He fought with the knob until it finally gave and carried her inside, then kicked the door shut behind him.
About the Author:Jen Colly is the rare case of an author who rebelled against reading assignments throughout her school years. Now she prefers reading books in a series, which has led her to writing her first paranormal romance series The Cities Below. She will write about anything that catches her fancy, though truth be told, her weaknesses are pirates and vampires. She lives in Ohio with her supportive husband, two kids, one big fluffy dog, and four rescued cats.
Website: www.jencolly.weebly.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jen.colly.1
Twitter: www.twitter.com/collyjen
Blog: www.jencolly.weebly.com/the-jen-life-blog
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 27 Spotlight and reviewCorazones Literarios http://corazones-literarios.blogspot.com
October 27 InterviewThe Creatively Green Write at Home Momwww.creativelygreen.blogspot.com
October 28 SpotlightRomantic Reads and Suchhttp://romanticreadsandsuch.wordpress.com
October 28 SpotlightAnya Breton Author's Bloghttp://blog.anyabreton.com
October 29 SpotlightLisa’s World of Bookswww.lisasworldofbooks.net
October 30 Guest blogFang-tastic Bookswww.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
October 31 SpotlightRoxanne’s Realmwww.roxannerhoads.com
November 3 Top Ten ListDarkest Cravingswww.darkestcravings.blogspot.com
November 4 SpotlightHouston Havens http://houstonhavens.wordpress.com
November 5 InterviewPembroke Sinclair. www.pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com
November 6 Guest blog and reviewDark Side of Romancehttp://www.darksideofromance.com
November 6 ReviewShut Up & Read http://shutupandreadgroup.blogspot.com/
November 6 SpotlightBabyCakes Book Bloghttps://www.facebook.com/BabyCakesBookBlog1
November 7 Guest blogARe Cafewww.AReCafe.com
November 7 Reviewfeedmeinbookswww.feedmeinbooks.wordpress.com
November 7 Spotlight/ExcerptReading Addict http://readingadd.blogspot.ro/
November 10 Spotlight and reviewCoffee Addicts' Book Reviews http://www.selenityjadebooks.wordpress.com/
November 10 SpotlightShare My Destinyhttp://sharemydestiny.blogspot.com
October 29, 2014
Burn For Me: A Hidden Legacy Novel By Ilona Andrews
Burn For MeA Hidden Legacy NovelBy Ilona AndrewsOn-Sale 10/28/2014ISBN: 9780062289230
Book Description:
Nevada Baylor is faced with the most challenging case of her detective career-a suicide mission to bring in a suspect in a volatile case. Nevada isn’t sure she has the chops. Her quarry is a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, who can set anyone and anything on fire.
Then she’s kidnapped by Connor “Mad” Rogan-a darkly tempting billionaire with equally devastating powers. Torn between wanting to run or surrender to their overwhelming attraction, Nevada must join forces with Rogan to stay alive.
Rogan’s after the same target, so he needs Nevada. But she’s getting under his skin, making him care about someone other than himself for a change. And, as Rogan has learned, love can be as perilous as death, especially in the magic world.
Chapter 1
All men are liars. All women are liars, too. I learned that fact when I was two years old and my grandmother told me that if I was a good girl and sat still, the shot the doctor was about to give me wouldn’t hurt. It was the first time my young brain connected the unsettling feeling of my magic talent detecting a lie to the actions of other people.
People lie for many reasons: to save themselves, to get out of trouble, to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Manipulators lie to get what they want. Narcissists lie to make themselves seem grand to others and themselves. Recovering alcoholics lie to safeguard their tattered reputations. And those who love us most lie to us most of all, because life is a bumpy ride and they want to smooth it out as much as possible.
John Rutger lied because he was a scumbag.
Nothing about his appearance said, Hey, I’m a despicable human being. As he stepped out of the hotel elevator, he seemed like a perfectly pleasant man. Tall and fit, he had brown, slightly wavy hair with just enough grey on his temples to make him look distinguished. His face was the kind of face you would expect a successful, athletic man in his forties to have: masculine, clean-shaven, and confident. He was that handsome, well-dressed dad at the junior football league yelling encouragements at his kid. He was the trusted stockbroker who would never steer his clients wrong. Smart, successful, solid as a rock. And the beautiful redhead holding hands with him was not his wife.
John’s wife was named Liz, and two days ago she hired me to find out if he was cheating on her. She had caught him cheating before, ten months ago, and she’d told him that his next one would be his last.
John and the redhead drifted across the hotel lobby.
I sat in the lobby’s lounge area, half hidden behind a bushy plant, and pretended to be absorbed in my cell phone, while the small digital camera hidden in my black crocheted purse recorded the lovebirds. The purse had been chosen precisely for its decorative holes.
Rutger and his date stopped a few feet away from me. I furiously shot birds at the snide green pigs on my screen. Move along, nothing to see here, just a young blond woman playing with her phone by some shrubbery.
“I love you,” the redhead said. True. Deluded fool.
The pigs laughed at me. I really sucked at this game. “I love you too,” he told her, looking into her eyes.
A familiar irritation built inside me, as if an invisible fly was buzzing around my head. My magic clicked. John was lying. Surprise, surprise.
I felt so sorry for Liz. They had been married for nine years, with two children, an eight-year-old boy and a four- year-old girl. She showed me the pictures when she hired me. Now their marriage was about to sink like the Titanic, and I was watching the iceberg approach.“Do you mean that?” the redhead asked, looking at him with complete adoration.
“Yes. You know I do.” Magic buzzed again. Lie.
Most people found lying stressful. Distorting the truth and coming up with a plausible alternative version of reality required a good memory and an agile mind. When John Rutger lied, he did it to your face, looking straight into your eyes. And he seemed really convincing.
“I wish we could be together,” the redhead said. “I’m tired of hiding.”
“I know. But now isn’t the right time. I’m working on it. Don’t worry.”
My cousins had run his lineage. John wasn’t connected to any of the important magical families whose corporations owned Houston. He had no criminal history, but still something about the way he carried himself set me on edge. My instincts said he was dangerous, and I trusted my instincts.
We also ran a credit check. John couldn’t afford a divorce. His record as a stockbroker was acceptable but not stellar. He was mortgaged up to the gills. What wealth he had was tied up in stocks, and divvying them up would be expensive. He knew it too and took pains to cover his tracks. He and the redhead had arrived in separate cars twenty minutes apart. He’d probably let her leave first, and, judging by the tense line of his back, this open dis- play of affection in the lobby wasn’t part of his plan.
The redhead opened her mouth, and John bent down and dutifully kissed her.
Liz would pay us a thousand dollars when I brought her the proof. It was all she could get her hands on without John knowing about it. It wasn’t much, but we weren’t in a position to turn down work, and as far as jobs went, this one was simple. Once they walked out of the hotel, I’d leave through the side exit, notify Liz, and collect our fee.
The hotel doors swung open and Liz Rutger walked into the lobby.
All my nerves came to attention. Why? Why don’t people ever listen to me? We had expressly agreed that she wouldn’t do any sleuthing on her own. Nothing good ever came of it.
Liz saw them kissing and went white as a sheet. John let go of his mistress, his face shocked.
The redhead stared at Liz, horrified.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” John said. It was exactly what it looked like.
“Hi!” Liz said, shockingly loud, her voice brittle. “Who are you? Because I’m his wife!”
The redhead turned and fled into the depths of the hotel. Liz turned to her husband. “You.”
“Let’s not do this here.”
“Now you’re concerned with appearances? Now?” “Elizabeth.” His voice vibrated with command. Uh-oh. “You ruined us. You ruined everything.”
“Listen . . .”
She opened her mouth. The words took a second to come out, as if she had to force them. “I want a divorce.” I’ve been working for the family business since I was seventeen, and I saw the precise moment adrenaline hit John’s system. Some guys get red-faced and start scream- ing. Some might freeze—those are your fear biters. Push too far and they will go crazy. John Rutger went flat. All emotions drained from his face. His eyes opened wide, and behind them a hard, calculating mind evaluated the situation with icy precision.
“Okay,” John said quietly. “Let’s talk about this. It’s more than us. It’s also the kids. Come, I’ll take you home.” He reached for her arm.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed.
“Liz,” he said, his voice perfectly reasonable, his eyes focused and predatory, like the hard stare of a sniper sight- ing his target. “This isn’t a conversation for the hotel lobby. Don’t make a scene. We’re better than that. I’ll drive.”
There was no way I could let Liz get into his car. His eyes told me that if I let him gain control of her, I would never see her again.
I moved fast and put myself between them. “Nevada?” Liz blinked, thrown off track. “Walk away,” I told her.
“Who is this?” John focused on me.
That’s right, look at me, don’t look at her. I’m a bigger threat. I body-blocked Liz, keeping myself between them. “Liz, go to your car. Don’t drive home. Go to a family member’s house. Now.”
Muscles on John’s jaw bulged as he locked his teeth. “What?” Liz stared at me.
“You hired her to spy on me.” John shrugged his shoulders and turned his neck like a fighter loosening himself for a fight. “You brought her into our private life.”
“Now!” I barked. Liz turned and fled.
I raised my hands in the air and backed away toward the exit, making sure the camera in the hotel lobby had me in plain view. Behind me the door hissed as Liz made a break for it.
“It’s over, Mr. Rutger. I’m not a threat.”
“You nosy bitch. You and that harpy are in it together.”
At the desk the concierge frantically mashed buttons on a phone.
If I’d been on my own, I would have turned and run. Some people stand their ground no matter what. In my line of work, a stint at the hospital, coupled with a bill you can’t pay because you’re not working, cures that notion really fast. Given a chance, I’d run like a rabbit, but I had to buy Liz time to get to her car.
John raised his arms, bent at the elbow, palms up, fingers apart, as if he was holding two invisible softballs in his hands. The mage pose. Oh shit.
“Mr. Rutger, don’t do this. Adultery isn’t illegal. You haven’t committed any crimes yet. Please don’t do this.”
His eyes stared at me, cold and hard. “You can still walk away from this.”
“You thought you could humiliate me. You thought you’d embarrass me.” His face darkened as ghostly magic shadows slid across his skin. Tiny red sparks ignited above his palms and flared. Bright crimson lightning danced, stretching to the tips of his fingers.
Where the hell was the hotel security? I couldn’t take him down first—it would be an assault, and we couldn’t afford to be sued—but they could.
“Let me show you what happens to people who try to humiliate me.”
I dashed to the side.
Thunder pealed. The glass doors of the hotel shattered. The blast wave picked me up off the floor. I saw the chair from the lounge fly at me and I threw my hands up, curling in midair.
The wall smashed into my right shoulder. The chair hit my side and face. Ow.
I crashed down next to the shards of a ceramic pot that had held a plant two seconds ago, then I scrambled to my feet.
The red sparks ignited again. He was getting ready for Round Two.
They say a hundred-and-thirty-pound woman has no chance against an athletic two-hundred-pound man. That’s a lie. You just have to make a decision to hurt him and then do it.
I grabbed a heavy pot shard and hurled it at him. It crashed against his chest, knocking him off balance. I ran to him, yanking a Taser from my pocket. He swung at me. It was hard and fast, and it caught me right in the stomach. Tears swelled in my eyes. I lunged forward and jammed the Taser against his neck.
The shock surged through him. His eyes bulged. Please let him go down. Please.
His mouth gaped open. John went rigid and crashed like a log.
I knelt on his neck, pulled a plastic tie from my pocket, and wrestled his hands together, tying them up.
John growled.
I sat next to him on the floor. My face hurt.
Two men burst from the side doors and ran to us. Their jackets said security. Well, now they show up. Thank God for the cavalry.
In the distance police sirens blared.
Sgt. Munoz, a stocky man twice my age, peered at the security footage. He’d watched it twice already.
“I couldn’t let him put her into the car,” I said from my spot in the chair. My shoulder hurt and the handcuffs on my hands kept me from rubbing it. Being in close proximity to cops filled me with anxiety. I wanted to fidget, but fidgeting would make me look nervous.
“You were right,” Munoz said and tapped the screen, pausing on John Rutger reaching for his wife. “That right there is your dead giveaway. The man’s caught with his pants down and he doesn’t say, ‘Sorry, I fucked up.’ He doesn’t beg for forgiveness or get angry. He goes cold and tries to get his wife out of the picture.”
“I didn’t provoke him. I didn’t put my hands on him either, until he tried to kill me.”
“I see that.” He turned to me. “That’s a C2 Taser you’ve got there. You do know range on those things is fifteen feet?”
“I didn’t want to take chances. His magic looked electrical to me, and I thought he might block the current.”
Munoz shook his head. “No, he was enerkinetic. Straight magic energy, and education to use it, courtesy of the U.S. Army. This guy is a vet.”
“Ah.” That explained why Rutger went flat. Dealing with adrenaline was nothing new to him. The fact that he was an enerkinetic made sense too. Pyrokinetics manipu- lated fire, aquakinetics manipulated water, and enerkinet- ics manipulated raw magical energy. Nobody was quite sure what the nature of that energy was, but it was a relatively common magic. How in the world did Bern miss all this in the background check? When I got home, my cousin and I would have to have words.
A uniformed cop stuck his head in the door and handed my license back to Munoz. “She checks out.”
Munoz unlocked my cuffs, took them off, and handed me my purse and camera. My cell and my wallet fol- lowed. “We have your statement, and we took your memory card. You’ll get it back later. Go home, put some ice on that neck.”
I grinned at him. “Are you going to tell me not to leave town, Sarge?”
Munoz gave me a “yet another smart-ass” look. “No. You went up against a military-grade mage for a grand. If you need the money that bad, you probably can’t afford the gas.”
Three minutes later I climbed into my five-year-old Mazda minivan. The paperwork described Mazda’s color as “gold.” Everyone else said it was “kind of champagne” or “sort of beige.” Coupled with unmistakable mom car lines, the minivan made for a perfect surveillance vehicle. Nobody paid it any mind. I once followed a guy for two hours in it on a nearly deserted highway, and when the insurance company later showed him the footage demonstrating that his knee worked just fine as he shifted gears in his El Camino, he was terribly surprised.
I turned the mirror. A big red welt that would mature into one hell of a purple bruise blossomed on my neck and the top of my right shoulder, like someone took a hand- ful of blueberries and rubbed it all over me. An equally bright red stain marked my jaw on the left side. I sighed, readjusted the mirror, and headed home.
Some easy job this turned out to be. At least I didn’t have to go to the hospital. I grimaced. The welt decided it didn’t like me grimacing. Ow.
The Baylor Investigative Agency started as a family business. We still were a family business. Technically we were owned by someone else now, but they mostly left us alone to run our affairs as we saw fit. We had only three rules. Rule #1: we stayed bought. Once a client hired us, we were loyal to the client. Rule #2: we didn’t break the law. It was a good rule. It kept us out of jail and safe from litigation. And Rule #3, the most important one of all: at the end of the day we still had to be able to look our reflections in the eye. I filed today under Rule #3 day. Maybe I was crazy and John Rutger would’ve taken his wife home and begged her forgiveness on bended knee. But at the end of the day, I had no regrets, and I didn’t have to worry about whether I did the right thing and whether Liz’s two children would ever see their mother again.
Their father was a different story, but he was no longer my problem. He made that mess all on his own.
I cleared the evening traffic on I-290, heading north- west, and turned south. A few minutes later I pulled up in front of our warehouse. Bern’s beat-up black Civic sat in the parking lot, next to Mom’s blue Honda Element. Oh good. Everyone was home.
I parked, went to the door, and punched the code into the security system. The door clicked open, then I let myself in and paused for a second to hear the reassuring clang of the lock sliding home behind me.
When you entered the warehouse from this door, it looked just like an office. We built walls, installed some glass panels, and laid down high-traffic beige carpet. That gave us three office rooms on the left side and a break room and large conference room on the right. The drop ceiling completed the illusion.
I stepped into my office, put the purse and the camera on the desk, and sat in my chair. I really should do a write-up, but I didn’t feel like it. I’d do it later.
The office was soundproof. Around me everything was quiet. A familiar, faint scent of grapefruit oil in the oil warmer floated to me. The oils were my favorite little luxury. I inhaled the fragrance. I was home.
I survived. Had I hit my head on the wall when Rutger had thrown me, I could’ve died today. Right now I could be dead instead of sitting here in my office, twenty feet from my home. My mom could be in the morgue, identifying me on a slab. My heart pounded in my chest. Nausea crept up, squeezing my throat. I leaned forward and concentrated on breathing. Deep, calm breaths. I just had to let myself work through it.
In and out. In and out. Slowly the anxiety receded. In and out.
Okay.
I got up, crossed the office to the break room, opened the door in the back, and stepped into the warehouse. A luxuriously wide hallway stretched left and right, its sealed concrete floor reflecting the light softly. Above me thirty-foot ceilings soared. After we had to sell the house and move into the warehouse, Mom and Dad considered making the inside look just like a real house. Instead we ended up building one large wall separating this section of the warehouse—our living space—from Grandma’s garage so we didn’t have to heat or air-condition the entire twenty-two thousand square feet of the warehouse. The rest of the walls had occurred organically, which was a gentle euphemism for We put them up as needed with whatever material was handy.
If Mom saw me, I wouldn’t get away without a thor- ough medical exam. All I wanted to do was take a shower and eat some food. This time of the day she was usually with Grandma, helping her work. If I was really quiet, I could just sneak into my room. I padded down the hall- way. Think sneaky thoughts . . . Be invisible . . . Hope- fully, nothing attention-attracting was going on.
“I’ll kill you!” a familiar high voice howled from the right.
Damn it. Arabella, of course. My youngest sister was in rare form, judging by the pitch.
“That’s real mature!” And that was Catalina, the seventeen-year-old. Two years older than Arabella and eight years younger than me.
I had to break this up before Mom came over to inves- tigate. I sped down the hallway toward the media room.
“At least I’m not a dumb ho who has no friends!” “At least I’m not fat!”
“At least I am not ugly!”
Neither of them was fat, ugly, or promiscuous. They both were complete drama queens, and if I didn’t quash this party up fast, Mom would be on us in seconds.
“I hate you!”
I walked into the media room. Catalina, thin and dark- haired, stood on the right, her arms crossed over her chest. On the left Bern very carefully restrained blond Arabella by holding her by her waist above the floor. Ara- bella was really strong, but Bern had wrestled through high school and went to a judo club twice a week. Now nineteen and still growing, he stood an inch over six feet tall and weighed about two hundred pounds, most of it powerful, supple muscle. Holding a hundred-pound Ara- bella wasn’t a problem.
“Let me go!” Arabella snarled.
“Think about what you’re doing,” Bern said, his deep voice patient. “We agreed—no violence.”
“What is it this time?” I asked.
Catalina stabbed her finger in Arabella’s direction. “She never put the cap on my liquid foundation. Now it’s dried out!”
Figured. They never fought about anything important. They never stole from each other, they never tried to sab- otage each other’s relationships, and if anyone dared to look at one of them the wrong way, the other one would be the first to charge to her sister’s defense. But if one of them took the other’s hairbrush and didn’t clean it, it was World War III.
“That’s not true . . .” Arabella froze. “Neva, what happened to your face?”
Everything stopped. Then everyone said something at once, really loud.
“Shush! Calm down; it’s cosmetic. I just need a shower. Also, stop fighting. If you don’t, Mom will come here and I don’t want her to—”
“To what?” Mom walked through the door, limping a little. Her leg was bothering her again. Of average height, she used to be lean and muscular, but the injury had grounded her. She was softer now, with a rounder face. She had dark eyes like me, but her hair was chestnut brown.
Grandma Frida followed, about my height, thin, with a halo of platinum curls stained with machine grease. The familiar, comforting smell of engine oil, rubber, and gun- powder spread through the room. Grandma Frida saw me and her blue eyes got really big. Oh no.“Penelope, why is the baby hurt?”
Best defense is vigorous offense. “I’m not a baby. I’m twenty-five years old.” I was Grandma’s first grandchild. If she lived until I turned fifty, with grandchildren of my own, I’d still be “the baby.”
“How did this happen?” Mom asked.
Damn it. “Magic blast wave, wall, and a chair.” “Blast wave?” Bern asked.
“The Rutger case.”
“I thought he was a dud.”
I shook my head. “Enerkinetic magic. He was a vet.”
Bern’s face fell. He frowned and marched out of the room.
“Arabella, get the first-aid kit,” Mom said. “Nevada, lie down. You may have a concussion.”Arabella took off running.
“It’s not that bad! I don’t have a concussion.”
My mother turned and looked at me. I knew that look.
That was the Sgt. Baylor look. There was no escape. “Did paramedics look at you at the scene?” “Yes.”
“What did they say?”
There was no point in lying. “They said I should go to the hospital just in case.”
My mother pinned me down with her stare. “Did you?” “No.”
“Lie down.”
I sighed and surrendered to my fate.
The next morning I sat in the media room, eating the crepes and sausages Mom made for me. My neck still hurt. My side hurt worse.
Mom sat at the other end of the sectional, sipping her coffee and working on Arabella’s hair. Apparently the latest fashion among middle schoolers involved elabo- rate braids, and Arabella had somehow cajoled Mom into helping her.
On the left side of the screen, a female news anchor with impossibly perfect hair profiled the recent arson at First National, while the right side of the screen showed a tornado of fire engulfing the building. The orange flames billowed out the windows.
“It’s awful,” Mom said. “Did anybody die?” I asked.
“A security guard. His wife and their two children came by to drop off his dinner and were also burned, but they survived. Apparently Adam Pierce was involved.”
Everyone in Houston knew who Adam Pierce was. Magic users were segregated into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime. Born with a rare pyrokinetic talent, Pierce had Stainless Steel classification. A pyrokinetic was considered Average if he could melt a cubic foot of ice under a minute. In the same amount of time, Adam Pierce could conjure a fire that would melt a cubic foot of stainless steel. That made Pierce a Prime, the highest rank of magic user. Everybody wanted him— the military, Home Defense, and the private sector.
A wealthy, established family, the Pierces owned Fire- bug, Inc., the leading provider of industrial forging products. Adam, handsome and magically spectacular, was the pride and joy of House Pierce. He’d grown up wrapped in tender luxury, had gone to all the right schools, had worn all the right clothes, and his future had had golden sparkles all over it. He’d been the rising star and the most eligible bachelor. Then, at the ripe age of twenty-two, he’d given them all the finger, declared himself a radical, and gone off to start a motorcycle gang.
Since then Pierce had been popping up in the news for one thing or another, usually involving cops, crime, and antiestablishment declarations. The media loved him, be- cause his name brought ratings.
As if on cue, Pierce’s portrait filled the right side of the screen. He wore his trademark black jeans and un- zipped black leather jacket over bare, muscled chest. A Celtic knot-work tattoo covered his left pectoral, and a
snarling panther with horns decorated the right side of his six-pack. Longish brown hair spilled over his beauti- ful face, highlighting the world’s best cheekbones and a perfect jaw with just the right amount of stubble to add some scruff. If you cleaned him up, he would look almost angelic. As is, he was a tarnished poseur angel, his wings artfully singed with the perfect camera shot in mind.
I’d seen my share of real biker gangsters. Not the week- end bikers, who were doctors and lawyers in real life, but the real deal, the ones who lived on the road. They were hard, not too well kept, and their eyes were made of lead. Pierce was more like the leading man playing a badass in an action movie. Lucky for him, he could make his own background of billowing flames.
“Hot!” Arabella said. “Stop it,” Mom told her.
Grandma Frida walked into the room. “Oooh, here is my boy.”
“Mother,” Mom growled.
“What? I can’t help it. It’s the devil eyes.”
Pierce did have devil eyes. Deep and dark, the rich brown of coffee grinds, they were unpredictable and full of crazy. He was very nice to look at, but all of the images of him looked staged. He always seemed to know where the camera was. And if I ever saw him in person, I’d run the other way like my back was on fire. If I hesitated, it would be.
“He killed a man,” Mom said.
“He was framed,” Grandma Frida said. “You don’t even know the story,” Mom said.
Grandma shrugged. “Framed. A man that pretty can’t be a murderer.”
Mother stared at her.
“Penelope, I’m seventy-two years old. You let me enjoy my fantasy.”
“Go Grandma.” Arabella pumped her fist in the air. “If you insist on being Grandma’s little stooge, she can do your hair,” Mom said.
“We will return to the investigation on the arson after the break,” the news anchor announced. “Also, iconic downtown park infested with rats.”
The image of Bridge Park popped on the screen, its life-size bronze statue of a cowboy on a galloping horse front and center.
“Should Harris County officials resort to drastic measures? More after the break.”
Bern walked into the room. “Hey, Nevada, can I borrow you for a moment?”
I got up and followed him out. Without saying a word, we went down the hallway and into the kitchen. It was the closest place where Mom and Grandma wouldn’t over- hear us.
“What’s up?”
Bern ran his hand through his short, light brown hair and held out a folder. I opened it and scanned it. John Rutger’s lineage, biography, and background check. A line stood out, highlighted in yellow: Honorable Discharge, Sealed.
I raised my finger. “Aha!” “Aha,” Bern confirmed.
Usually employers liked hiring ex-servicemen. They were punctual, disciplined, polite, and capable of making quick decisions when needed. But combat mages sent the typical HR manager running in the opposite direc- tion. Nobody wanted a guy stressing out in their office when he had the ability to summon a host of bloodsuck- ing leeches. To circumvent this issue, the Department of Defense started sealing records of some combat-grade personnel. A sealed record didn’t always meant combat- grade magic, but it would’ve given me a nice heads-up. I would’ve approached Rutger’s situation from an entirely different angle.
“I screwed up.” Bern leaned against the counter. His grey eyes were full of remorse. “I had a modern history exam. It’s not my strongest class, and I needed at least a B to keep the scholarship, so I had to cram. I gave it to Leon. He ran the lineage and the background check, but forgot to log in to the DOD database.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. Leon was fifteen. Getting him to sit still for longer than thirty seconds was like trying to herd cats through a shower.
Bern rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No. It’s not okay. You asked me to do it. I should’ve done it. You got hurt. It won’t happen again.”
“Don’t sweat it,” I told him. “I’ve missed stuff before. It happens. Just make it a point from now on to check DOD. Did you get a B?”
He nodded. “It’s kind of interesting, actually. Do you know that story about Mrs. O’Leary’s cow?”
I used to really like history. I even thought of getting a minor in it, but real life got in the way. “Didn’t she knock over a lamp in the barn and start the Great Chicago Fire sometime in the 1860s?”
“In October of 1871,” Bern said. “My professor doesn’t think the cow did it. He thinks it was a mage.”
“In 1871? The Osiris Serum had barely been discovered.”
“It’s a really interesting theory.” Bern shrugged. “You should talk to him sometime. He is a pretty cool guy.”
I smiled. It had taken me four years, including every summer, to limp my way to a criminal justice degree, because I’d had to work. Bern got an academic scholar- ship because he was smarter than all of us combined, and now he was doing well. He even liked at least one of his classes outside his major.
“There is more,” Bern said. “Montgomery wants to see us.”
My stomach did a pirouette inside me. House Montgomery owned us. When savings and the money from the sale of our home hadn’t been enough to cover Dad’s medi- cal bills, we’d sold the firm to Montgomery. Technically, it was mortgaged. We had a thirty-year repayment term, and every month we squeaked by with the minimum payment. The terms of our mortgage practically made us a subsid- iary of Montgomery International Investigations. Mont- gomery had taken very little interest in us up to this point. We were too small to be of any use to them, and they had no reason to bother us as long as the check had cleared, and our checks always cleared. I made sure of that.
“They said ASAP,” Bern said. “Did it sound routine?”
“No.”
Damn it. “Don’t tell Mom or Grandma.” He nodded. “They’ll just stress.”
“Yes. I’ll call you as soon as I find out what this is about. Hopefully we just forgot to file some form or some- thing.”
I was almost to the door when he called, “Nevada? John Rutger’s wife wired the money. A thousand dollars, as agreed.”
“Good,” I said and escaped. I needed to brush my hair, make myself presentable, and hightail it across town to the glass towers.
Really, how bad could it be?
About the Author:“Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army.
Contrary to popular belief, Gordon was never an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was never the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him.
They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. (Gordon is still sore about that.) They have co-authored two New York Times and USA Today bestselling series, the urban fantasy of Kate Daniels and the romantic urban fantasy of The Edge and are working on the next volumes for both.
They live in Texas with their two children and many dogs and cats.
http://www.ilona-andrews.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ilona.andrews
https://twitter.com/ilona_andrews
http://www.ilona-andrews.com/newsletter/
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Something Wicked This Way Comes -Guest blog and Giveaway Midnight Magick by Katerina Martinez
It made sense my first novel be about witches because, well, you write about what you know; and I know witches because I am one. Midnight Magick is my love letter to The Craft which I’m not ashamed to admit was my call to action to become a Wiccan, hence the massive 90’s influence present throughout the book and eventually the series.
Now, I wanted the 90’s vibe because I grew up during those “golden years” as a child but didn’t get to experience them as an adult. Luckily, over the last few months the 90’s seems to have surged back into contemporary fashion so I’m being given the chance I never had as a child (yay!)! I hadn’t considered that this flashback period began around the time I started writing Midnight Magick, but something else I hadn’t considered until I set up this book tour was this: my first book tour for a book about witches is with Bewitching Book Tours, and the only tour dates available happen to have fallen on the eve of Samhain—a sacred Wiccan date.
Do you believe in coincidences? I don’t!
So I guess that was just a protracted way of explaining to you where the spark to write Midnight Magick came from, but I felt the backstory was necessary! Nothing wrong with a little narrative summary, right?
Having finished the first instalment I’m now moving on to writing book two in the series (as well as book one of a different series I wouldn’t like to introduce too early), which will continue on where the first book left off with even more witchcraft, mystery and romantic drama! I’m ecstatic to be walking this path and look forward to giving you all many, many hours of entertainment and a good long glimpse into the inner workings of my mind and heart.
Thanks to my lovely host, thanks to you all for reading, and I hope you’ll enjoy my debut novel!
Happy Halloween!
Kat
xoxo
Midnight MagickBook 1Katerina MartinezGenre: Paranormal Romance/ Paranormal Mystery
ISBN-13: 978-0958303200ISBN-10:0958303207ASIN: B00NS3LXPM
Number of pages: 149Word Count: 51,643
Cover Artist: Katerina Martinez
Book Description:
"Lonely witches get up to no good."
Amber Lee has a decent life: she lives in a great house, she's about to start school again, her best friend Eliza is pregnant, and the pair of them are Wiccans with a healthy bond. But ever since Eliza moved out of Amber's house and in with her boyfriend Evan, Amber's been feeling a growing pang of loneliness in her chest.
When Damien, a stranger to her town, mysteriously comes into her life bringing with him all manner of strangeness, everything changes. Damien shows Amber a side of her she never knew existed, and ignites in her a spark she hadn't felt in a long time, but he's haunted by a dark secret and a purpose which may prove fatal to them both - and by the time she realizes it, there's no turning back.
Midnight Magick will take you deep into a world of witchcraft and mystery, where bonds are tested, hearts broken and lives lost.
Available at Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA
CHAPTER 1
I was sitting cross-legged on the main counter of a bookstore on Rosella Avenue one cool autumn afternoon. As blades of orange light from the setting sun cut through the gaps in buildings across the street I somberly thumbed a silver Triquetra—a three cornered trefoil knot with a circle around it—not much bigger than a quarter.Angular shadows crept across the floor growing larger and more predominant with each passing minute. Copper dust motes hung in the air, twinkling without a care in the world. Even though I’d been fiddling with my mom’s old charm for a good half hour, the metal was still cool on my fingers. After years of having it hanging around my neck I couldn’t believe I’d just broken it. “—don’t you think?” asked Eliza.“Huh?” I pocketed the pendant and came back down from my thoughts.“Are you even listening to me, Amber?”“Totally… what did you say?”Eliza sighed. “That girl? The one who drowned in her pool?”“What about her?”“They closed the case today. They say it isn’t suspicious anymore, writing it off as an accident.”“Accidental? I thought they had a suspect and everything.”“They did, but they didn’t have enough evidence to convict. Don’t you think it’s all a bit weird?”I shrugged and feigned disinterest, but the grim topic gave me jitters. People didn’t normally die suspiciously in my neck of the woods, but this was the second one this year. The first was another girl. She hung herself from a withered birch at the heart of the forest. I saw the pictures. God how I wish I hadn’t.“Can we talk about something else?” I asked, “How’d that fight with Evan go last night?”“The fight?” Eliza planted a copy of Jules Verne’s ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ on my lap. I wasn’t expecting it. “Go put this on the shelf, will you?”“Yes, master,” I said. I hopped off the counter and wiped my hand on my grey dress as I searched for the book’s proper home among the shelves. “So? What happened with Evan?” I asked through the aisles.Eliza grunted. “It’s this thing with Mordecai.” Mordecai was her tabby cat. “He’s been wheezing a lot. I asked Evan to take him to the vet yesterday for a check-up and he didn’t do it, so we had a big stupid fight.”“How does that turn into an argument?” I slotted the book between a pristine copy of Moby Dick—a personal favorite—and A Journey to the Center of the Earth. “Because! It just does,” said Eliza.I walked around the aisle and caught her stacking books from a box marked “OLD” on a high shelf. Her tank top crept up her stomach exposing her flat belly as she stretched. No bump yet. Evan and Eliza always fought over silly things but it’d gotten worse ever since she found out she was pregnant. I could never say that to her face, though; she might charge at me with a step ladder!“You guys will be fine,” I said, “You’re fighting because of the baby. Babies bring stress.”Eliza shot me a scowl. “When did you become Doctor Phil?”I smiled. “I’m just saying, you guys never used to fight about stuff and now you are. What’s changed? You’re pregnant.”Eliza closed the box. A puff of dust exploded forth in defiance. “And he’s still a jackass sometimes,” she said.“Oh come on, a little ice cream and a kiss in just the right spot and the fight will be history.”Eliza moved the box into a small closet nearby and smiled to herself. “Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that. Anyway, let’s get finished up so we can get out of here.”The doorbell tinkled. Evan’s silhouette broke the faint sunlight and crept into the store as quiet as a mouse, eyes to the floor. I smiled as he arrived and gave him a light peck on the cheek.“Hey Evan,” I said, “How’s the cat?”“On meds,” he replied, though he wasn’t looking at me, but rather at the visage of annoyance itself glaring from; behind me. “But he’ll be okay.”Eliza had black, poker-straight hair which fell to about the small of her back. Her pale skin and cobalt eyes gave her an Ice Queen kind of air, but her round face and button nose gave away her heart of gold. Evan, meanwhile, was tall—taller than Eliza—and nicely put together. She’d get on her tiptoes to kiss him. It was cute.“That’s great! Eliza was just telling me. I hope he gets better soon.” I gave the pair a winning smile. “Eliza, I’m gonna go through the new stock and whatnot. I’ll be in the back. Let me know when you’re ready to lock up,” I said.Eliza nodded at me and then glanced at her man. He approached her like someone would advance on a stray cat they wanted to pet; slowly and cautiously. They started to speak as I disappeared into the back room.We didn’t get any new stock today; I simply figured they needed to talk. Besides, I knew she’d appreciate the space. Luckily I wasn’t stuck in a tiny room entirely without purpose. Inside my backpack I had a bunch of brand new textbooks and more stationary than a girl knew what to do with, ready for my first day back at the Raven Hall University.Lost in the plethora of pens and notepads my back to school kit comprised of, I almost didn’t notice the sore thumb on the oaken desk. I had to double-take before the words written on its spine, and the image on the front, struck a chilling chord.The giant squid on the cover of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues stared back at me from atop the table. An old copy, just like the one I’d placed on the shelves moments ago. Why did we own two of them?I plucked the book from the desk and advanced toward the door to the main room. Evan and Eliza were still there. Their muffled voices told me the discussion still hadn’t finished. At least they weren’t shouting. No one wants to be caught in between these two when they shout. It’s like watching cats fight. I’d know.I slid out of the back room and snaked my way silently down the closest aisle. The lovebirds went quiet as I approached my destination. I’d slip the book in next to its sister so they can spend time together before someone buys one and separates them again. When I found the nook where I’d placed the original copy, I froze. The two books flanking Mr. Verne were still there, but the absence of a book between them made them slant into each other like tired lovers.“Dammit,” I said, under my breath. I wish I could’ve dismissed the strange event, pretended like I’d imagined the whole thing, but in truth this kind of thing had happened before.With the delicacy of someone trying not to disturb sleeping children, I slotted Jules Verne into its rightful place and decided that this time I would be cleverer than whatever specter enjoyed playing tricks on me. I snapped a shot of the books with my smartphone and double checked the image to confirm, smiling smugly at the triumph of technology.Making my way back, I wondered if our repository of books was haunted. It’s an old building built on an old street in an old town. And I’m sure a lot of old people live in the apartment block above. I could ask Mrs. Peters on the second floor. She’s probably as old as the building itself, or at least that’s what her musky perfume suggests.A sudden pleasurable moan made me dart back into the aisle just as I was about to waltz into the open. I peered around the corner and was met with a scene like something out of a fantasy. My heart raced. Eliza would’ve easily spotted me if I hadn’t any wits about me.Eliza sat on the counter, her legs wrapped around Evan’s waist. Their lips locked in a passionate kiss. I glanced toward the front door, which they were in full view of, and hoped for their sake no one would come in.Evan picked Eliza up by her thighs and carried her out of sight, to the back of the historical section which accumulated the most dust. The bookstore already smelt of lust, and listening to Eliza’s giggles brought a flush of warmth to my cheeks. I thought about that night a few months ago when the three of us called down the Moon Goddess and experienced each other intimately. It was my first time with two other partners, but I was glad they were my best friends.The door to the office was only a few feet from where I stood, backed up against an aisle. The store had been quieter when they were talking. Now that Eliza’s moans rang off the walls I entered the safety of the back room without being spotted. I emerged a few moments later into the middle of a warm embrace between true soul mates.“Look guys, why don’t you go home?” I asked, “I can lock up.”“Are you sure?” asked Eliza.“Absolutely. Get out of here.”
I’d grown used to hiding my green eyes from them. They had something I’d always wanted to share with someone else; a connection. Happy for them though I was, lonely people will yearn, and lonely Witches will get up to no good; ask my ex-boyfriend.
About the Author:My name is Katerina. I love to read and write, and until now I've been cooped up in a desk job with nothing to do but drift away on a sea of corporate bull until I do what is expected of me (marriage, kids, etc).
Eventually I decided that enough was enough, so I took a chance and wrote a book; my first book. Then I mulled over my options and chose to self-publish with Amazon, panicked over the "Publish" button for a few hours, and waited patiently for my book to show up on the listing.
Now I'm here, part of this big, wide world, trying to meet other people like me - folks starting out in the self-publishing business or just fellow authors/ readers who share my kinds of interests!
For those of you starting out, I can tell you, it's a rollercoaster. None of it is easy. And even if your work doesn't sell, at least you can be proud that you put yourself out there and took that step!
Website http://www.katerinamartinez.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katmartinezauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IAmKatMartinez
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8435383.Katerina_Martinez
Blog: http://martinezkaterina.blogspot.com/
Amazon Author Profile: www.amazon.com/author/katerinamartinez
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 27 Guest blogMythical Bookshttp://www.mythicalbooks.blogspot.ro/
October 27 SpotlightThe Reader's Hollow http://thereadershollow.wordpress.com
October 28 Spotlight and reviewCoffee Addicts' Book Reviews http://www.selenityjadebooks.wordpress.com/
October 28 ReviewFangfreakintasticreviews www.fangfreakintasticreviews.com
October 29 InterviewA Writer's Mindwww.skypuringtonwrites.blogspot.com
October 29 SpotlightThe Creatively Green Write at Home Momwww.creativelygreen.blogspot.com
October 30 Guest blogFang-tastic Bookswww.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
October 30 SpotlightSapphyria's Book Reviews http://saphsbookblog.blogspot.com/
October 31 Reviewfeedmeinbookswww.feedmeinbooks.wordpress.com
October 31 SpotlightBabyCakes Book Bloghttps://www.facebook.com/BabyCakesBookBlog1
November 3 Interview and reviewBook Blisshttp://lbookbliss.com
November 3 ReviewBooks and Asheshttp://www.books-and-ashes.tumblr.com
October 28, 2014
Rachel Caine's Morganville: The Web Series Now Available Watch Episodes 1 and 2
Morganville: The Series Revitalizes Vampire Genre Just in Time for Halloween
Rachel Caine’s Snarky Vampires Perfect for Geek & Sundry’s October Line-up
Geek & Sundry: Rachel Caine is adapting her Morganville Vampires books – fifteen (15) total – for a hilarious fright fest of a web series. Each episode of the first season is expected to be 8-12 minutes long, bringing the entire season to about an hour and is freely adapted by Rachel from the first novel – Glass Houses. The first season will begin airing on Geek & Sundry October 27th with a prime schedule planned out… the hope is that the first season finale lands on Halloween day.
Thanks to a passionate fanbase who fully supported the Kickstarter project (and whose funds were then matched by Felicia Day’s Geek & Sundry), Morganville Vampires: Book Seriesbecame Morganville: The Series and utilized one of the fastest, most innovative platforms for upcoming shows. Through the expansive reach of Youtube, Rachel’s fans can enjoy the show without the long wait that comes through traditional television and also, reach a worldwide audience faster. All around it made the most sense for a book series of this size and caliber.
Even though web series are seen as non-traditional formats, the casting process and scouting for film locations remains normal. Auditions were held in Dallas, LA, Austin, New Orleans and some digital (to give fans of the books a chance at the spotlight too). Rachel wrote all the character monologues for the auditions. The entire show ended up being filmed on location in Dallas, Texas in four separate venues, including a coffee shop, a turn-of-last-century Victorian home, a hospital, and a university. Nearly every episode ends with Rachel’s infamous cliffhanger endings!
Switching from book to film writing was easier than Rachel expected. The very first thing she did, ended up setting the stage for the adaptation process and made it easier for her to focus on the story she wished to tell. Rachel says, “The first thing I tried to do, since I wrote the book in 2006, was to write down everything I remembered from it without re-reading it. That was fascinating, because what I wrote down was really the core story, and that turned out to be what needed to be told in the show. So while I did go back to the book, I did it for the purposes of review, not inspiration.”
Fans might be wondering how a 10-day- shoot in April 2014 could possibly yield a story they recognize, Rachel is confident the series delivers and explains, “For practical purposes, you can only have so many characters in a show with this running time, so some characters from the novel, while really interesting, ended up not being central to the plot (like Miranda). However, I did think it was important to introduce Myrnin, who is a fan favorite character, into the mix early, so he makes a short appearance this season.”
To find out more, check out these sites for the scoop on Rachel Caine, The Morganville Vampires Books and Morganville: The Series.
http://www.morganvilletheseries.com/https://www.youtube.com/user/geekandsundryhttp://www.morganvillevampire.com/http://www.rachelcaine.com/
Watch the trailer below:
Morganville: The Series – The show stars fan favorites Robert Picardo as Oliver (Star Trek: Voyager) and Amber Benson (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) as Amelie, as well as Lindsay Seidel (Claire), Jordan Taylor Farris (Shane), Haileigh Todd (Eve), Ben Easter (Michael), Nikki Donley (Hannah), Afomia Hailemeskel (Monica), Jessi Mechler (Gina), Taylor Murphy (Jennifer), Gregory Connors (Brandon) and Chase Ryan Jeffery (Myrnin). It is directed by Blake Calhoun, known for his award-winning and groundbreaking digital series Pink and Continuum, the show was filmed on location in Texas on a Blackmagic camera.
Rachel Caine – is a fictional character herself … a pen name of writer Roxanne Conrad. Since 2003, Rachel has written in the adult Urban Fantasy genre (the Weather Warden, Outcast Season, Revivalist and Red Letter Days series) as well as in Young Adult fiction (the Morganville Vampires series and award-winning novel Prince of Shadows). She is the author of more than forty novels and many short stories, and is regularly featured in anthology collections, most recently the Charlaine Harris edited Dead But Not Forgotten.
Geek & Sundry: Rachel Caine is adapting her Morganville Vampires books – fifteen (15) total – for a hilarious fright fest of a web series. Each episode of the first season is expected to be 8-12 minutes long, bringing the entire season to about an hour and is freely adapted by Rachel from the first novel – Glass Houses. The first season will begin airing on Geek & Sundry October 27th with a prime schedule planned out… the hope is that the first season finale lands on Halloween day.
Thanks to a passionate fanbase who fully supported the Kickstarter project (and whose funds were then matched by Felicia Day’s Geek & Sundry), Morganville Vampires: Book Seriesbecame Morganville: The Series and utilized one of the fastest, most innovative platforms for upcoming shows. Through the expansive reach of Youtube, Rachel’s fans can enjoy the show without the long wait that comes through traditional television and also, reach a worldwide audience faster. All around it made the most sense for a book series of this size and caliber.
Even though web series are seen as non-traditional formats, the casting process and scouting for film locations remains normal. Auditions were held in Dallas, LA, Austin, New Orleans and some digital (to give fans of the books a chance at the spotlight too). Rachel wrote all the character monologues for the auditions. The entire show ended up being filmed on location in Dallas, Texas in four separate venues, including a coffee shop, a turn-of-last-century Victorian home, a hospital, and a university. Nearly every episode ends with Rachel’s infamous cliffhanger endings!
Switching from book to film writing was easier than Rachel expected. The very first thing she did, ended up setting the stage for the adaptation process and made it easier for her to focus on the story she wished to tell. Rachel says, “The first thing I tried to do, since I wrote the book in 2006, was to write down everything I remembered from it without re-reading it. That was fascinating, because what I wrote down was really the core story, and that turned out to be what needed to be told in the show. So while I did go back to the book, I did it for the purposes of review, not inspiration.”
Fans might be wondering how a 10-day- shoot in April 2014 could possibly yield a story they recognize, Rachel is confident the series delivers and explains, “For practical purposes, you can only have so many characters in a show with this running time, so some characters from the novel, while really interesting, ended up not being central to the plot (like Miranda). However, I did think it was important to introduce Myrnin, who is a fan favorite character, into the mix early, so he makes a short appearance this season.”
To find out more, check out these sites for the scoop on Rachel Caine, The Morganville Vampires Books and Morganville: The Series.
http://www.morganvilletheseries.com/https://www.youtube.com/user/geekandsundryhttp://www.morganvillevampire.com/http://www.rachelcaine.com/
Watch the trailer below:
Morganville: The Series – The show stars fan favorites Robert Picardo as Oliver (Star Trek: Voyager) and Amber Benson (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) as Amelie, as well as Lindsay Seidel (Claire), Jordan Taylor Farris (Shane), Haileigh Todd (Eve), Ben Easter (Michael), Nikki Donley (Hannah), Afomia Hailemeskel (Monica), Jessi Mechler (Gina), Taylor Murphy (Jennifer), Gregory Connors (Brandon) and Chase Ryan Jeffery (Myrnin). It is directed by Blake Calhoun, known for his award-winning and groundbreaking digital series Pink and Continuum, the show was filmed on location in Texas on a Blackmagic camera.
Rachel Caine – is a fictional character herself … a pen name of writer Roxanne Conrad. Since 2003, Rachel has written in the adult Urban Fantasy genre (the Weather Warden, Outcast Season, Revivalist and Red Letter Days series) as well as in Young Adult fiction (the Morganville Vampires series and award-winning novel Prince of Shadows). She is the author of more than forty novels and many short stories, and is regularly featured in anthology collections, most recently the Charlaine Harris edited Dead But Not Forgotten.
All Souls Day Guest Blog and Giveaway Tainted Blood by Karen Greco
All Souls Day
I don’t want to be a downer, but 2014 was marked with a lot of loss. I lost a lot of friends—people I loved—to illness. Cancer, depression, some vague disease. People outside of my immediate network—friends of friends—were experiencing the same thing. Vibrant people taken way before their time to freak accidents or sudden illnesses.
Even my beloved Mercy, my Rottie and the inspiration for the character Dog in Hell’s Bell, developed an untreatable autoimmune disease and had to be put to sleep.
Losing such an extraordinary number of old friends this year was almost prophetic, since I was killing off a character in Tainted Blood. I knew that Nina had to experience a devastating loss so that her character could progress, could grow up, could learn to stand completely on her own.
It was hard to write, and for many many months, I danced around which character to sacrifice, trying to protect Nina from the anguish of losing someone close to her. “Nina already experienced loss when her parents died. Just off a peripheral character,” I’d argue with myself, hoping to keep all of my main characters alive. But I was unable to move forward in the story because I was refusing to let go, refusing to let Nina grow as a person and a character. This event changes her considerably. It will take every ounce of her strength and determination to get through this.
So this Halloween, after I take my kid trick or treating, I’ll sit outside and enjoy a crisp October night and think about the loved ones I have lost this year, and in years prior, and hope that the veil is thin enough so they can pierce though.
We can share one more laugh, raise one more pint, take one more long walk, before saying goodbye.
Tainted BloodHell's Belle SeriesBook 2Karen GrecoGenre: Urban Fantasy
Date of Publication: Oct. 20, 2014
ISBN: ISBN-13:978-1500844448ISBN-10:1500844446ASIN: TBD
Number of pages: 582Word Count: 95,704
Cover Artist: Robin Ludwig Design Inc.
Book Description:
After surviving a vampire assassin (not to mention an awkward affair with a hot FBI agent that ended worse than she could have imagined), witch/vampire hybrid Nina Martinez is reunited with the full Blood Ops team in Providence, Rhode Island. Her Aunt Babe is tutoring her in all things witchcraft, and her vampire partner Frankie is enjoying the benefits of daywalking, courtesy of a demon spell.
When a segment of the Rhode Island vampire population is marked for death by a tainted blood supply, Nina and her team race to find Patient Zero before the local vampire population is wiped out. But when a demon infestation threatens to take control of the city, Nina must join forces with newly elected mayor—and closet demon— Ami Bertrand before the city falls into ruin.
Filled with fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat action, Nina and her group of supernatural misfits battle a surprising new enemy that threatens their very existence.
No wonder she still can’t get a date.
From Amazon.com best-selling author Karen Greco, Tainted Blood is the second book in the critically acclaimed Hell’s Belle urban fantasy series.
Download this Hell's Belle Prequel for Free at Smashwords
River Vamp
A Hell’s Belle Prequel Short StoryKaren Greco
Book Description:
Frankie and Nina head to New York City for an early Blood Ops mission.
Guess what they fish out of the Gowanus Canal?
Free at Smashwords and BN
Excerpt: CHAPTER ONE
"Jesus Christ, Frankie," I muttered as the crowbar hit the worn marble floor with an earsplitting clatter. So much for stealth. We should have just ripped through the doors with explosives.
We were breaking into the Superman Building. At 26 floors, it was the first skyscraper ever built in downtown Providence. It lost its last tenant three years ago, and the gorgeous art deco structure was now a towering reminder of better days, when manufacturing was booming and people had money to burn. Years of attempts to "revitalize" the area had fallen flat. This left plenty of room for the underground supernatural factions to sweep in and take over.
Frankie flashed a fangy grin at me. "What's the fun in surprising them? It's never a good time unless it all goes off the rails."
I shook my head and sighed. Ever since Frankie was charmed by a demon to walk in the sunlight, he thought he was invincible. And, sure, being a vampire helped, but he could be staked just as easy as any other vamp. His arrogance could get us both killed.
We walked swiftly through the lobby of the abandoned high rise, keeping tight to the walls. In our all-black commando outfits, we blended easily into the dark hallway.
I stole a wistful look at the bank of elevators. The electricity was cut to the building. We'd be taking the stairs. "Want to guess what floor they're on?"
"I say top floor," Frankie said with his hand already on the door to the stairwell.
It was going to be a long-ass climb. Up the 26 stories and possibly a few extra flights to get to the tippy top of the building's airship docking station. Seriously. The very top floor of the building was built for docking blimp-like airships, so there was a pretty cool waiting area/corporate suite turned Depression-era speakeasy at the apex. Too bad we were seeing it under these circumstances.
About a week ago, a suspicious news report piqued our interest. A group of crazed individuals were caught rampaging through downtown, tossing cars with superhuman strength, punching through brick walls and causing general weird mayhem. A few witnesses described them with blood around their mouths.
Max, our newest Blood Ops member serving as double agent in the FBI, was on record as calling this a "bath salt related incident." It was simple to blame this behavior on meth-heads on a DIY bender. But we knew better. They were vampires, and they were out of control. Frankie and I were dispatched to take care of them.
We climbed the stairs quickly, Frankie almost a floor ahead of me as we ascended. My calves ached by the 17th floor, and I was dripping with sweat. The vamps would be able to smell me by floor 22 if they were paying attention. Since I am half vampire, I can handle a fair amount of physical exertion. But a swift walk up the stairs of a high-rise carrying an extra 35 pounds of vampire-fighting gear was punishing. Pushing through the cramps in my legs, I silently vowed to increase my workouts. It was hard enough to match Frankie's speed and strength, but now that he thought he was the Man of Steel, it was damn near impossible just to catch up to him.
We hit the top, and I finally had a chance to catch my breath. Frankie smirked at my all-too-human physical stamina.
When my heart stopped racing, I double-fisted a pair of stakes and nodded at Frankie. He kicked the door open and we launched into the penthouse. Moonlight poured through the grime-coated glass ceiling.
We rushed in like hellfire, expecting to find ourselves in the middle of a melee. But the room appeared empty.
"Top floor, Frankie? Really?" I grumbled, re-sheathing my stakes. "How much you want to bet they're on two?"
Frankie raised his arm and shushed me. I shot him a dirty look, but quickly softened it when I heard the hushed groans too.
I motioned to Frankie to move towards the sounds, and we cautiously walked to the back of the room. A shape was huddled in a dark corner with two bodies laid out on the floor in front of it. I pulled a mag light out from one of my cargo pants pockets and trained it on the shadowy forms.
A female vampire inched away from the light. Blood was smeared down her face and neck, and it covered her chest. Two male vampires were on the floor, their fronts washed in red as well. The walls were covered in sticky, black-red blood. The entire room was just dripping. It looked like a blood bank exploded.
The vampires on the floor were truly dead, their pale faces cracked like antique porcelain dolls. Their appendages were just starting to decompose, but their midsections were blown out, like they swallowed a bomb and it exploded. The one still living, for lack of a better word, looked close to meeting true death herself. The emaciated vampire half-sobbed, half-moaned as she rocked back and forth.
Although they matched the descriptions of the vamps-gone-wild group, these couldn't be our marauders. They were simply too sick. They looked like junkies who overdosed. A few times.
"What do we do?" I had never seen anything like this before. I sure as hell hoped Frankie would know how to handle this mess.
Frankie walked a wide semicircle around the vampires, his shoes making sucking noises as he lifted them off the sticky, blood-soaked floor. He was worried, clearly on guard.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Kate," she croaked out.
"Right, Kate," Frankie's voice was soothing. "How long have your friends been like this?"
"Since yesterday." Her hoarse voice was barely above a whisper. "We slept in the stairwell but they came in here last night and just...." She motioned at the carnage around her and let out a muffled sob.
"So you were able to walk back and forth to the stairwell? Can you do it now?" I asked.
She tried pulling herself up, but wasn't strong enough to handle the weight of her tiny body. So she crawled towards us, plowing over the disintegrating corpses.
"Stop, Kate! Stay right there!" Frankie visibly jumped back, his shoes making a sharp thwack as they lifted off the gummy floor. "Nina, you need to call Max and Dr. O. Max needs to get the electricity back on to this building. She's going to need to go out the elevator, and Dr. O needs to bring her down."
"Why are we taking her out of the building?" I asked. Our mission was to kill them. Two were dead, and the last one was nearly there. Mission almost complete.
"Because they are Beta-Vamps." Frankie glanced at the vamp on the floor. "Right?"
She nodded, tears streaming down her face.
"No way," I protested. "Betas don't rampage like that."
"They do if they are sick," Frankie explained calmly, his eyes still on Kate.
Beta-Vamps were like the hippies of the vampire world. They were vampires that were missing the predator genome sequence. They weren't human killers. They survived on who knows what. Maybe animal blood. Maybe blood stolen from hospitals. In some extreme cases, they ate rust for the iron content. Betas were rare, and, because of their peace-loving nature, extremely vulnerable to attack from all sorts of supernatural factions.
"So why don't we just carry her down?" I said with a shrug, stepping towards Kate, breaking my boots' suction to the floor.
Frankie was in front of me before I could take another step. My stomach rolled as Frankie dropped his guard and a wave of his panic washed over me.
A few months ago, Frankie had to bind me to him to save my life. For the most part, we're dealing with it just fine. But if he's in emo overdrive and forgets to close off our connection, I get hit with whatever he's feeling. It also works the same in the other direction.
"Don't go near her. She's been infected."
"Infected? With what? Beta-Vamps aren't vulnerable to infections."
"With..." Frankie stopped. He looked shattered. "My God, I haven't seen this since 1877."
"What is it?" I pushed.
"Opium poisoning."
"Did you just say opium?"
"Blood-born opium poison. If it gets into our bodies, we die." Frankie was visibly nervous, moving in a jittery semicircle around the woman. "We can't go near her."
"Oh. Shit. Does Dr. O know what to do?" I shrunk back. Opium. Who knew? Apparently Frankie. That explained why vampires were always told not to get their fix from heavy drug users.
"I'm not sure. That's why you need to call him. And he'll need Max since we really shouldn't stay here. Now please. She doesn't have much time."
Right. I pulled out my phone. I'd start with Max. He'd need time to power up the building anyway.
He answered on the sixth ring.
He sounded groggy. "What's up?"
"Sorry to wake you but we're at the Superman Building with two seriously dead vamps and one who is really sick. We need to turn on the power to get her out of here with the elevator. Can you get this building back on the grid?"
"Christ, can't one of you just carry her down the stairs?" His voice was muffled, like he was pressing his face into his pillow.
"Frankie and I can't touch her. She has some sort of infection, something that only vampires can contract. And it kills them."
"Really?" He jolted awake. I heard the bed sheets rustle as he got up.
"I don't know, really. I've never heard of this before. But I know Frankie is freaking out, and said we need to get her out of here. And he only freaks out if there's a damn good reason."
"You know I worked for the FBI all day, right?" he groused. I heard a closet door slam.
"Seriously? Are you going to do this right now?"
"You both were going up there to stake them anyway. So they die of something else. It's the same outcome. Why save her?"
"Because, she's not a predator vampire."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Look, I'll explain later, but we are running out of time. I need to get Dr. O here, and you need to get the electricity on at this place."
"Jesus, you people are complicated. I'll be there in 20." He hung up before I could respond.
Like Frankie, Max had made a deal with resident demon and Providence mayor Ami Bertrand. As a result, Bertrand had turned Max into a Berserker, a supernatural warrior that went extinct with the Vikings. Well, extinct up until Bertrand's curse.
Since Max had been turned into a supernatural entity, but one that was supposed to be extinct, he joined our team as a double agent with the FBI. Our team is Blood Ops, an elite government agency that deals with rogue supernatural factions. Technically, we also don't exist. To humans, anyway. Our existence — hell, the very existence of anything supernatural — was on a "need to know" basis, and even the president of the United States didn't need to know. Only a very select few Department of Defense members knew about Blood Ops. That's plausible deniability for you.
But damn, the Berserker in Max sure made him grumpy.
I hit the speed dial button for Dr. O. Dr. Lachlan O'Malley led our unit of Blood Ops. Though he mostly resembled your favorite 60-something college professor, Dr. O was a Druid priest, which made him pretty damn old. And, like the Druid priests before him, he knew absolutely everything.
"Nina, what's wrong?" Dr. O asked in his thick brogue. I could tell I woke him up.
"Sorry Doc, but we have a problem here. We have Beta-Vamps that ingested opium. Two are dead — like for real, seriously dead. One is barely hanging on."
"Opium? Are you sure?" Dr. O sounded a lot more awake suddenly.
"Frankie says he's sure. Said he hasn't seen this since 18-something or other."
"Frankie would know. Do you have her quarantined?"
"Quarantined? Frankie said not to touch her. He didn't say anything about a quarantine." This was weird.
"You are in the same room with her?"
"Where else would we be?" I asked, impatience getting the best of me.
"If any of their blood gets into your blood stream, or Frankie's, that would be very bad."
"Yeah, Frankie already explained that to me. We aren't touching her.
"Nina, I am afraid it's much more serious than that. Opium poisoning tends to make infected vampires projectile vomit out blood before they die. Then their torso explodes."
That sounded bad. And gross.
"When? When would that happen?" I gripped the phone tightly, eyeballing Kate. She whimpered in the corner near the vampire bodies with her back against the wall.
"It could happen at any time. Lock her in wherever you are, and wait until I get there. Do not wait in the room with her, neither you nor Frankie. Do you understand?" Dr. O's tone was stern.
"Yes, I got it. Okay, we are on the top floor. Max is on his way to power up the building to get her out of here. Just get here fast."
"I am on my way."
The phone went dead. I hightailed it over to Frankie, who was staring helplessly at Kate.
"Frankie, we gotta get out of here." I pulled gently on his arm.
"Please don't leave me." Kate's voice was so weak, I could barely hear her whisper.
Frankie didn't move. He just looked sadly at the sick Beta, his eyes filled with tears.
"Come on, Frankie." I nudged him again. "We can't be in here right now. Dr. O's on his way."
He hesitated. "We can't leave her like this."
"We aren't going to do her any good if we get sick, too," I reasoned.
He ignored me. I changed tactics.
"Stop being a stubborn ass," I raised my voice. He still ignored me.
Kate moaned and fell into a fetal position. She began to convulse. Frankie made a move towards her, but I grabbed him. Standing in front of him, I took him by both shoulders and stared into his eyes.
"We need to get out of here before she barfs blood all over us. Don't make me go witchy on you."
It was an idle threat. Only a few weeks before, I first learned that I am half-witch as well. My witch abilities were dormant for years — hidden by my vampire genetics — until an unfortunate encounter with a spelled knife turned on the hocus-pocus. I was working with my witch mentor, who's also my aunt, on controlling my newfound abilities. Much to Auntie Babe's frustration, I was not taking to it like a fish to water. If I tried to unleash my mojo in here, poor Kate could very well blow up, taking Frankie and me along with her.
Kate's moaning was now punctuated by high-pitched cries of pain. Clearly in agony, she writhed on the floor. Her hands formed into claws, and she scratched at the body of the seriously dead vampire closest to her. His skin tore like dried papier-mâché as she drove her nails into his corpse. As she tore at his flesh, blood bubbled out of her mouth.
"She not going to make it!" I shouted at Frankie, pushing on his lanky six-foot frame. "And neither are we if we don't get out of here!"
I shoved Frankie harder towards the door. He finally snapped out of his stupor and we fled to across the room to the stairwell door. I pushed on it, but it didn't budge. Shaking the handle, I pressed all my weight against it. Nothing. I moved aside and Frankie levered a kick at the door. He succeeded in denting the door, jamming it even harder into the frame.
"Crap, Frankie! There's no time!" I yelled over Kate's ear-piercing shrieks.
Frankie looked wildly around. "Can we break the windows?"
Everything was soaked in blood. Blood we couldn't touch. Crap. I had no choice.
"Hold on!" I closed my eyes tightly and I tried to clear my thoughts, but between Kate's shrieks and Frankie's desperation creeping into my head, not to mention my own stress, my mind was too unfocused to do this right. Oh well. Close enough was going to have to do.
I felt the air shift around me, and I latched onto this small breeze, willing it to grow to hurricane strength. My hair loosed from its ponytail and slapped across my face. The swelling wind pushed me forward. Grabbing Frankie's hand for stability, I cried out the few words of Latin I could come up with that approximated "break the damn glass." The five plate glass windows on the south side of the room shook. I repeated the words louder, putting more force behind them. The wind turned hurricane strength, pushing us across the room, dangerously closer to Kate. Finally, the windows shattered one by one, shards of glass falling 26 stories to the sidewalk.
I opened my eyes. Kate was about to explode. Blood frothed around her lips, her shrieks now muffled as the blood worked its way up her throat.
Hands still clutched, Frankie and I nodded at each other, knowing exactly what we had to do. Together, we ran straight for the windows, and leapt feet first into the star-filled sky.
Frankie's hand slipped out of mine as we both twisted our bodies and made a grasp for the ledge. I caught it, just barely, almost wrenching my shoulder out of its socket on the impact. Frankie similarly stopped short next me. We dangled 26 stories over downtown Providence.
About the Author:Karen Greco has spent close to twenty years in New York City, working in publicity and marketing for the entertainment industry. Originally from Rhode Island (she loves hot wieners from New York System, but can't stand coffee milk), she studied playwriting in college (and won an award or two).
After not writing plays for a long time, a life-long obsession with exorcists and Dracula drew her to urban fantasy, where she can decapitate characters with impunity.
Her first novel, Hell's Belle, was released in 2013. Tainted Blood is the second book in the best-selling Hell's Belle urban fantasy series.
http://www.karengrecoauthor.com/
http://karengreco.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/karenThegreco
https://www.facebook.com/hellsbellebykarengreco
https://www.goodreads.com/karengreco
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 27, 2014
Guest Blog and Giveaway with Sheena Hutchinson
A Deleted Scene:
Sunday December 8th from Nate’s Point of View: (The Awakening Chapter 7)
The next day Nathanael finds himself in his freshly handmade bathroom, looking at his own reflection in the mirror. His appearance looks the same, but he can tell the aura about him is different from when he was an Angel of the Lord. He can’t seem to come to grips with just how nervous he’s become, it feels as if his stomach is twisting in knots. Now fully understanding the human expression: butterflies in the stomach, because that is exactly what it feels like, a million wings fluttering around inside of him. It had taken him all day to figure out what to wear, he couldn’t seem to make a decision. It seems like he had been waiting for this moment for what feels like an eternity and he craved for her to like him. Gasped for it like the air he now needed to breathe, yearned for it like the substance his stomach cried for. Deciding not to even think about any possibility that things wouldn’t work out he focuses instead on his outfit. Looking down at the magazine clipping he tore off, he conjured an outfit exactly like it. He didn’t want to look too desperately dressed up, but he didn’t want to look like this wasn’t the most important moment of his eternal life thus far. Slicking his hair back as he stared deep into the mirror he then begins to practice what he would actually say to her. “ Hi,” clearing his throat he tries again, “Hi Sarah! Oh no, no no, I’m not supposed to know her name!” Crap, this is going to be harder than he anticipated. “Hi, I’m Nate…” “Nice to meet you, I’m Nate.”
After practicing human conversation for hours, double and triple checking his appearance in the mirror, he decided he is as ready as he’d ever be. His hands begin shaking as soon as he climbs inside his sleek black car, but he hides that thought somewhere deep down. Instead, he drove focusing on the road. But by the time he finally pulls into a parking spot outside Jack’s Coffee Bean his heartbeat is once again uncontrollable. He pauses waiting for it to pass like a shadow in the night, sitting in the car trying to collect himself. This is it, he thinks before taking one last deep breath and practically hops out of the car. The butterflies inside of him are now exploding like fireworks as he catches sight of her immediately through the window. Sitting in her favorite spot his heart seems to skip a beat, he notices only because it’s not beating incessantly anymore—it’s frozen. Clenching his fists as if to steady himself he gathered his energy and walks determinedly to the front door. As soon as he walks deeper inside, his eyes gravitate to her as if they could sense her in the dark. She sits in her green sofa chair in the corner by the window tapping away at her laptop before her. Trying to act human he fights the urge to go directly up to her, instead he waits in line. Every few seconds he finds himself continuously glancing back at her, maybe to make sure she isn’t some kind of mirage. Typing away with her headphones in, she sits there wearing a light blue sweater that seems to bring out the redness from her hair and the lightness of her eyes. “What can I get you sir?” Nate’s broken out of his trance when the coffee house owner, Jack brings him back to reality. “Coffee.” Nate mutters sarcastically. “Okay, a man of few words, I gotcha!” Jack cheerfully whips around to pour him a cup of coffee. Again his eyes wander over to Sarah, sitting there so enraptured in her computer. One has to admire how passionate she is about anything she does. “Here ya—” Jack places the cup on the counter before following Nate’s eyes. “She’s something isn’t she?” “Huh?” Nate finally snaps back to the blue green eyes he despises, “Yea, she is.” “We’re kind of dating,” With four words, the coffee house barista with the curly blonde hair and coffee stained shirt shatters all the dreams Nate has ever had. “Oh?” Jack now has Nate’s full attention. Wow, how long was he gone? He had seen them at the bar together last night, but he never thought… “Yea, I can’t believe it myself sometimes.” Shaking his head as if remembering a happy memory before continuing, “Anyway, that’ll be $2.50.” Nate hands him the money before turning to face Sarah, what now? It seemed like all he thought about was meeting her and now all he wants to do is run away and never look back. Maybe start a fight, punch something, kill something else. He fights the rage burning inside of him when he finally decides it doesn’t matter, he’s going to follow through with his plan. He has to at least meet her. He didn’t come this far only to run away. He begins to walk through the maze of coffee house patrons with their scattered chairs and backpacks. It all seems to happen in slow motion, the past couple months have all been leading up to this. Reaching the table, he clears his throat. She can’t seem to hear him. How is he supposed to get her attention with those things in her ear? Sometimes he doesn’t understand human technology. Clearing his throat again, he leans over slightly, “Is anyone sitting here?” It takes her a few seconds before she finally looks up at him. Those hazel eyes staring straight into his paralyzes him for a second. Those eyes, he’s missed those eyes. She looks almost surprised, if he didn’t know any better he would say she recognizes him. He tries again, “Is someone sitting here?” this time pointing to the empty chair across from her in case his English isn’t any good. Her mouth gaped open slightly, in a cute continually surprised look. Finally coming to the realization that her headphones were still in, she closes her eyes and peels them out of her ear. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.” Are the first words that come clumsily out of her mouth, the first words she ever spoke to him. Actually spoke to him. “I was just asking if this seat was taken,” unable to control the huge smile that is no doubt all over his face. Glancing around the coffee house before she replies, “Um…No,” it makes him wonder if she was checking in with Jack. Slowly having a seat across from her, placing his coffee on the table between them. Nate realizes he can’t very well just stare at her this whole time. Stealing a peek around he sees a few people on their laptops and a few others reading books. Conjuring a generic book he pretends to pull it out of his pocket and opens to a blank page. He can’t help but notice she puts away her headphones and his heart flies thinking that maybe they can actually have a conversation. Act human, act human, he repeats to himself over and over he’s watched them for months he can emulate them. Gradually beginning this pattern of taking a sip of coffee and turning a page, sip, page turn—trying to act like all his attention isn’t on the fiery siren in front of him. Feeling a small victory when he begins to feel her eyes peering at him from over her laptop. He sat basking in her emotions of curiosity and intrigue, he had been staring at her for months it was only fair he let her have a turn. Wondering if she can feel it, his senses are firing all at once. Their aura’s just mesh, it’s as if they were in their own little aura bubbles until now, now they were one bubble, one aura. It’s as if she calls to him, her mind, her heart, her aura, it draws him in. He wonders if she can feel this, sense what he’s sensing. Her senses should be intensified by the thousandth degree. Can she feel this? Is she intelligent enough to comprehend what is going on with her? What was he worried about? She would need him. Her need for answers would never let her stop until she found her own way to him.Breaking our internal aura-mating as if he could read my mind, I see Jack slide up to her side placing a hot latte on the table between them. Obviously feeling threatened, he leaves a whole line of angry customers to personally hand her the coffee. Nate doesn’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his presence he keeps his eyes on his fake book. “It’s been a while, I figured you’d need a hot one,” “Uh, thanks Jack,” she awkwardly digs through her purse at her feet. “Don’t worry about it, my girls drink for free!” he announces to Nate. He can feel it Jack’s aura is screaming jealousy, he sees me as a threat. As he should, Nate is here to steal his girl and have her never look back. There’s an awkward silence, a testing of masculinity as our auras of emotion battle between us in the silence that ensues until Sarah finally responds.“Thanks again Jack,” returning her attention back to her laptop. Guys’ fighting over her is not what she’s used to. He can feel her awkwardness. It’s heartwarming. Jack pauses for a second sizing Nate up with his eyes before sighing and returning to his awaiting customers. Nate slowly begins to realize it’s now or never, he has to speak to her.“Wow, they sure are friendly over here.” he mutters allowing his sarcasm to shine through, he know she’ll appreciate that. “You have no idea,” responding with what Nate assumes is a joke, he laughs bringing his book down slightly until their eyes meet over her laptop and she immediately drops them back to the screen. Is she flirting with him? “I’m Nate by the way!” His well-rehearsed line comes out perfectly, extending his hand as human tradition dictates. “Sera,” she responds meeting his outstretched hand. Her warm fingers graze his as their palms finally meet. He thinks he might faint. She shivers and Nate thinks he feels a similar feeling. “Sarah, that’s a pretty—”“No, not Sarah, Sera with an E… It’s short for Seraphina,” she corrects him firmly. “Oh,” is all he can say out loud as his mind is on overdrive. He had her name wrong this entire time! Seraphina? She had an Angel name! How did he not know this? Was God toying with him? This has got to be some twisted joke. The picture in the throne room, now this—what does it all mean? He tries to process this while shaking his head, the smile playing on his lips. “What?” Sera asks him curiously her eyes scanning his face for answers. “Oh, nothing,” he has to be more sly, he can’t have her finding out about him… not yet. “It’s just really pretty. Did you know Seraphim are supposedly the closest Angel’s to God?” he asks curiously wondering if she knows the history behind her own name. Silently setting her up for a world in which she is now a part of. “No, I never really looked into it. To be honest I don’t really like my full name, that’s why I go by Sera.” “Well, I think Seraphina is a beautiful name and you should be proud of it.” She blushes at him as she thanks him shyly. Not wanting the conversation to ever end, but not having anything else to talk about he continues, “So… is that your overprotective boyfriend?” his breath catches in his throat preparing for the answer. “Who? Jack? Oh no we are JUST FRIENDS!” she announces to practically the entire coffee shop. “Oh,” Nate mumbles trying to disguise his secret victory, “So what are you typing away at over there.” She proceeds to tell him all about Amanda, as if he doesn’t already know her inside and out. He nods and listens intently, honestly he thinks he could listen to her read off a hit list and he would find it just as interesting. As long as she is talking to him, he could listen forever. Too many months have gone by with this one-sided love affair, he’d appreciate every syllable she spoke to him. Suddenly the conversation shifts, “What about you, what brings you here?” Crap! He didn’t practice a backstory. She leans in slightly hovering over her laptop, what was his cover story again… oh yea the book! “Just catching up on some reading!” He points to the book to reiterate. “Are you from around here? I’ve never seen you before,” she pries deeper. Of course she had never seen him before. His heart sinks at the reminder of that fact. “Just moved here from… up north,” mildly smiling at just how correct that statement is. Not wanting her to ask him any more questions that he didn’t have answers for—he has to change the conversation around. Leaning in closer to meet her in the center of the small circular table. “Enough about me, would you like to go to dinner with me sometime?” That’s it! It’s out there. He had finally said it. He had asked her out. She leans back slightly taken back by his question. She was struggling to find words and his heart sank as he sank lower in his chair. “Uh… okay,” she finally gets out, but he was sure it was only because she was being nice. That was it, she didn’t like him. He might as well go to Hell. All his plans, hopes, everything was falling to pieces. She broke his train of thought when she continued, “I mean Yes, I would like that…” she finishes with that shy flattered grin of hers. It was the smile that did it. The smile that he had only seen a few times, mostly when she spoke to Jack. But here, now, in her favorite chair she was giving that smile to him. Sera is actually flirting with him! Nate returns her smile as he mentally pieces his hopes back together. “Great! What are your plans after work tomorrow?” he asks not wanting to waste another day away from her. Each minute seemed like an eternity, he figures that’s what happens when your life literally revolves around someone for months. “On a Monday night? Uh, nothing,” she was joking he could tell, but he didn’t quite understand it.
Good, call me after work and I’ll pick you up!” he states conjuring a piece of paper with his phone number on it as he stands to his feet. Sliding the piece of paper across the table her fingers graze his as it passes between them. He almost doesn’t want to leave her, but he still had a lot of work to finish. This has to be perfect. You only get a first impression once. “I look forward to it,” he made sure to tell her before he left the coffee house and fell into his car with the biggest smile on his face. This could actually work, he thought happily to himself. Now, all that’s left is to wait for her call, hopefully she does call. He didn’t understand how humans do this, the waiting, the heartbreak and destruction if in fact they never call. He fully understood why God didn’t want this to be a part of Heaven—it’s too distracting. Humans are more driven by emotion and desires, making them more like animals, unpredictable…
Seraphina: InitiationSeraphina SeriesBook TwoSheena HutchinsonGenre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Hutchinson PublishingDate of Publication: 10/20/2014
ISBN: 1502319608ASIN: B00NE4Q7J2
Number of pages: 200Word Count: 60,000
Cover Artist: Andrea Garcia
Book Description:
Seraphina Cross is unexpectedly thrown into this crazy, spiritual world of Angels versus Demons. Never did she expect to meet Nate who was just a figment of her imagination until last week. Now she finds herself moving in with him because of her innate responsibility to protect her loved ones from harm.
Finally beginning to feel at home in her new house and with her new relationship. Nate begins training Sera in all that she can do, surprising even himself at times.Just when she is starting to feel safe and powerful, the Devil finds a new way to attack her at her most vulnerable.
When her dreams are no longer a gift, can Sera control the powers needed to defeat what's coming before Lucifer fulfills his promise to her?
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/GFFT-_DAuZk
Available at Amazon Amazon UK
Excerpt:I’m walking along the long cliff in my new backyard, enjoying the gorgeous scenery. I’m basking in the sun, breathing in the fresh outdoor air, and feeling the wind whip my hair around my face. I look back at my new home behind me and sigh as my mind automatically thinks of Nate. I lie down in the grass, feeling the wind whipping around my hair and the grass grazing my legs ever so slightly. Again I let my mind wander to thoughts of wondering if I ever would have moved out of my parent’s house had it not been for Nate. What would my life have been like? Would I have stayed at the office until retirement in quiet misery? Breaking me out of my moment I think I hear someone shouting my name. I look around, but I’m alone here in my new backyard. Where is that noise coming from? I shrug my shoulders and try to continue my thought processes, but a part of me is still on alert. There it is again, my name, Sera! I finally climb to my feet and look through the glass wall of our house. Nate isn’t there. I must be imagining things.
Maybe my senses are just extra sensitive today. I begin to walk along the cliff and I hear it a little louder now. Sera! I glance out over the cliff and the winding river below that continues far into the distance. SERA! Finally my eyes lock on something in the river below, Nate.
What I’m not expecting is the hand that’s holding his head under water is big, clawed, and belongs to none other than Gabe. Gabe, the hunk from the office that tried to kill me only a few short days ago. His eyes are no longer green, they are all black and staring straight up at me like he’s tempting me to do something about it. He lifts Nate’s head back up as he tries to catch his breath while gulping down chunks of water. Nate’s arms are flailing around trying to grab onto something to defend himself, no to avail. “Sera!” he sputters out before Gabe shoves his head back down into the water. This time I know he’s not going to let him back up for air. He will kill him. There is no time, no thinking, Nate needs me. I extend my arms out like a bird’s wings, somewhere inside me I feel like I can fly. I dive off the cliff to help Nate. I open my eyes to see, it’s working! I have wings, big white glorious wings and… I’m flying! I think excitedly as my eyes lock on Gabe’s dark ones only instead of the fear I expect to see, he laughs at me. A strange, haunting laugh like he wanted this to happen.
I land on the ground hard before my eyes fly open. Nate is on top of me screaming words my mind can’t quite make out yet. I glance around in shock, I’m outside in the grass by the cliff. Stars are sparkling above me and in a stupor of confusion my mind is trying to make out what Nate is yelling.
“Sera! What were you doing? Tell me what was that?” his hands are shaking in anger.
“What?” I don’t seem to understand, “What happened?” I ask shaking my head as I begin to sit up.
“What do you mean? You were about to jump off the cliff!” he yells putting his hands on his head and paces back and forth in front of me.
“But, I was dreaming…” I try putting my thoughts together.
“Sera, I heard you walking past my office so I followed you out here and you were about to jump! I dived at you at the last minute and caught you just in time!” He states angrily waiting for an explanation.
I’m so confused. “I was dreaming you were in the river and I needed to save you, I was flying down to save you…it was a dream, at least I thought it was…” I rub my forehead.
Processing what I had just said with his silent angry face he finally softens and states, “Let’s get you back to bed,” before picking me up and carrying me back inside the house. By the time he’s climbing the stairs, I find myself nodding back off to sleep in his arms. I can feel him tucking me in and his footsteps trace back to the door. Suddenly I’m wide-awake, frightened that I could sleep walk again.
“Wait, Nate!” I softly yell.
“Yes?” he responds over his shoulder pausing in the doorway.
“Please don’t leave. I’m scared to go to sleep.” I admit quietly. He doesn’t have to respond I know he will stay. He probably wanted to anyway knowing his overprotective self. He walks back to the other side of the room, grabs the green chair from the corner, and pulls it up beside my bed. Leaning back he puts his feet up on the edge of the bed, I can’t tell if he’s sleeping or not but I feel better knowing that he’s there.
I roll over facing away from him as I try to close my eyes. Instead of drifting to sleep again, I find my mind wandering to how I could have walked all that way unconscious, what would have happened if I had jumped? How could this happen? Is this another gift? Or is it a curse? Unable to sleep, I roll back to face Nate. The moon is shining in through my window falling on Nate’s face. His eyes are closed and he looks so peaceful, but I know he’s not going to get any sleep tonight. I find myself wondering what I would do without him. Finally, unconsciousness finds me as I’m falling asleep wondering how I won the Angel lottery.
About the Author:Sheena is a born and raised New Yorker, even her writing can't seem to hide her hard sarcasm. She claims destiny has lead her back to her true passion for writing.
She constantly strives to be a positive role model and writes stories that empower and inspire. Sheena always roots for the underdog, believes in love at first sight, and that everyone should have their happily ever after.
While God is currently still writing her love story, she continues to put all her effort into her writing as she is constantly getting new inspiration.
For more info, updates, and fun facts visit her website at www.SheenaHutchinson.com
www.Twitter.com/Sheena_Hutch
www.Facebook.com/TheSeraphinaSeries
www.Goodreads.com/SheenaHutch
www.amazon.com/author/sheenahutchinson
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 13 Guest blogMy Book Fairyhttp://mybookfairy.blogspot.com/
October 14 Guest blogThe Creatively Green Write at Home Momwww.creativelygreen.blogspot.com
October 15 SpotlightLisa’s World of Bookswww.lisasworldofbooks.net
October 16 Spotlight 3 Partners in Shopping Nana, Mommy, &, Sissy, Too! http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com
October 17 Guest blogRoxanne’s Realmwww.roxannerhoads.com
October 21 Character InterviewDarkest Cravingswww.darkestcravings.blogspot.com
October 22 SpotlightBabyCakes Book Bloghttp://cawilcoxson.wordpress.com/
October 23 InterviewEclipse Reviewswww.totaleclipsereviews.blogspot.com
October 24 Character InterviewAuthor Karen Swartwww.authorkarenswart.blogspot.com
October 27 Guest blogFang-tastic Bookswww.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
October 28 Reviewfeedmeinbooksfeedmeinbooks.wordpress.com
October 29 Guest blogEargasms Audiobook Reviews.http://eargasmsaudiobookreviews.com/
October 30 Spotlight and reviewMichelle's Paranormal Vault of Bookshttp://concisebookreviewsbymichelle.blogspot.com/
October 31 InterviewDowie's Place www.dowiesplace.com
November 3 Guest blog and ReviewSister Sinister Speakshttp://sistersinisterspeaks.blogspot.com/
November 4 InterviewDeal Sharing Auntwww.dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com
November 5 ReviewReading Addict http://readingadd.blogspot.ro/
November 6 Spotlight and reviewBooks N Pearls http://booksnpearls.weebly.com/blog
November 7 SpotlightAshley's Paranormal Book BlogHttp://www.ashes86blog.wordpress.com
November 10 InterviewPembroke Sinclair. www.pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com
