Margo Bond Collins's Blog, page 88
October 18, 2014
Sneak Peek Sunday: Bound by Blood (A Night Shift Novella)
Welcome to Sneak Peek Sunday!
For this week’s sneak peek, I’m sharing a glimpse of Bound by Blood, due out in November. So check it out, then HOP to the rest of the participants’ blogs for more great excerpts!
Excerpt
Oatmeal always makes me think apocalypse.
Not the kind of apocalypse I’m actually likely to witness, spread through droplets so small they can’t be seen by the naked eye, by germs so tiny that they might as well be science fiction to most people.
And not the kind we thought we were getting when the vampires showed up a few years ago—though something weird happened in Dallas recently, so the vampires have been hiding out for the last several months. No one knows why, for sure, but I know that the guys in the ER are thankful for the drop in neck traumas and exsanguination victims. And I was glad the hospital had an isolation hall created to watch ex-sang victims overnight, just to be sure they didn’t turn. It made my job as a consultant for the CDC—Center for Disease Control—easier.
No, when I’m confronted with the prospect of oatmeal, I begin to think how useful it would be in a world where scavenging had become the norm—like one of those zombie movies where people slide through grocery stores throwing food items into baskets, racing to gather as much as they can before the shambling horde attacks.
“I’m just saying.” I tucked a few strands of dark hair that had escaped my bun up under my scrub hat. “When the inevitable zombie apocalypse hits? Go for the oatmeal. It’s lightweight and nutritious, can be eaten alone or used to make easy-to-carry cakes, can even be eaten uncooked. It’s pretty much the perfect post-apocalyptic food.”
“That assumes,” Dr. Will Manning said as we scrubbed in at the sinks in the small anteroom that lead into the isolation unit, “that either there is someone out there doing all the hard work of growing and then milling it—or whatever it is people do to oats that turns them into oatmeal—or that there are few enough people around that the stores are still chock-full of oatmeal packets, just ripe for the picking.” He wrapped the paper gown ties around behind him, criss-crossing them around his waist and tying them in the front.
Sometimes the monsters in the dark are real.
As a child, Lili Banta ignored her grandmother’s cryptic warnings to avoid children outside their Filipino community in Houston—even when many of those other children fell ill, and her neighbors whispered that a vampiric aswang walked among them.
Years later, Lili returns to Houston to work for the CDC—but she is plagued by dark, bloody dreams that consume her nights and haunt her days. As a strange sickness sweeps the city, Lili races to find its source, and maybe a cure.
But in order to save the children, she must first acknowledge the sinister truth: A monster stalks the night—closer than she ever expected…
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This novella is also part of the Mysticism & Myths anthology, available December 15, 2014.
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HOP to the rest of the blogs!
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Interview with Chris Datta, author of The Demon Stone
Today I’m excited to bring you a Guest Post and Kind Fire Giveaway from Chris Datta. His first Novel Touched with Fire was a number one best-seller in the Historical Fiction category, and this supernatural thriller lives up to the high expectations readers have for this talented author.
The Demon Stone by Christoper Datta
The Demon Stone is a powerful supernatural thriller that leads you from the killing fields of Africa to the quiet Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. In braided narratives, Datta spins a terrifying story about the spiritual forces—both real and supernatural—that incite the basest, bloodiest and most frightening of human behaviors.
“Reading Chris Datta is like riding a rollercoaster. It’s a fast ride filled with twists and turns. His Demon Stone is scary fun. Stephen King, watch your back!”
-Richard Rashke, author of The Killing of Karen Silkwood
Interview with Chris Datta
Novel Publicity: What drew you to writing about spiritual forces, and could you explain how spiritual forces can be both real and supernatural?
Christopher Datta: I want to write books that matter and do more than tell a story, although I think that telling a good story is critically important. What could be more significant than exploring our spiritual lives and to look for purpose beyond unexamined living and consuming day to day? I want to ask questions and lead the reader on a journey so that by the end of the book he or she hopefully comes to a new understanding about life.
I read a great deal about new advances in theoretical physics. It is a fascinating field that increasingly shows us that the more we know, the more we come to see how little we really grasp about the mysteries of the Universe. There are things about the cosmos and our place in it that we may never fully understand; that are, in fact, beyond our ability as human beings to fully comprehend. In Demon Stone, I symbolically represent those mysteries through the supernatural.
NP: The two geographic locations in the book are very distant from each other. How did Africa & Minnesota become part of the setting for The Demon Stone?
CD: I lived for many years in Minnesota (I went to high school with Jessie Ventura!) and I loved camping in the isolated Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota. The wilderness is both a thrilling and at the same time dangerous and even alien environment, which again serves as a metaphor in the story for life. There is an incident with a black bear in the book that is close to something that really happened to me.
My career as an American diplomat took me to many places in Africa. The original inspiration for the book occurred when I was traveling through rural Uganda. I came across a hut with a hand painted sign advertising the services of a local shaman. Intrigued, I stopped and met the old man, who offered to cast a curse on any enemies I wanted eliminated. That got me thinking about what it would be like to have that kind of power, and what the unintended consequences of using it might be. The record of the human use of unbridled power is not very good. In my travels through many war zones I have seen incredible beauty and sacrifice as well as the most horrible and brutal acts of cruelty.
NP: Did you have to do a lot of research into different cultures and religions to write this book, and can we expect to delve into the differences between cultures throughout the book?
CD: I have lived and worked for many years in several African countries. I also studied the belief in demons in Africa, and Agbadofrom my story is a demon well known in Sierra Leone. My son is an adopted war orphan from Sierra Leone who has been with me since he was 14 years old and he was a big help with some portions of the book. Religion and culture play a big role in the story.
NP: How much of the book was inspired by your work overseas?
CD: I saw the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda, was in Sierra Leone at the end of the brutal civil war in that country, was the acting Ambassador to Liberia when the capitol was attacked by two rebel armies in a war that I helped to end and I was again the acting Ambassador to the Republic of South Sudan when war broke out between that nation and Sudan. Again, I played a major role in helping to end that conflict. I have brought two African war criminals to justice and was active in a program to try to end the reign of terror led by Joseph Koney, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, one of the most brutal and deadly terrorist groups in Africa. General Mosquito in my book is based on a real warlord in Sierra Leone. I actually played a role in bringing him to justice. I have had to deal first hand with the bane of child soldiers and modern slavery in Africa.
NP: The Demon Stone seems to have everything from love & tragedy to religion and supernatural beasts. Can you expand a bit on your writing process, and how you were able to bring the characters together across vast distances and very different settings?
CD: That’s complicated! Many of the characters in the story are based on real people I have known. General Mosquito, for instance. Gem and Hampton, the two dogs in the story, are dogs I have known and loved very much. Basically, I took experiences and people from my life in America and in Africa, put them in an environment of my creation, and let them weave the story together. My books never turn out the way I think they will at the beginning of writing them. The characters at some point take over and they tell the story. Sometimes, in my experience, all a good writer has to do is listen carefully to what the people he creates are telling him. That certainly happened in Demon Stone. But that shouldn’t be surprising. If you are really on a spiritual journey in telling a story, and you do a good job of it, you should expect to wind up in unexpected places.
NP: Who were the easiest and toughest characters to write and why?
CD: The toughest character to write was Morgan. She is one of the main antagonists of the book, but I didn’t want her to be a caricature and there was a real risk of her being a two dimensional archetype instead of a real flesh and blood person. On some level, for an antagonist to work well in a story, the reader needs to identify or on some level sympathize with that person. Morgan does terrible things, but terrible things have happened to her. I hope that comes across in the story.
The easiest character to write was Hampton. He’s a dog, a very loveable, dopey and fearless dog. I enjoyed writing about him.
NP: People often talk about feeling like they’re being followed, especially if they have to walk through a secluded area by themselves. What gave you the idea to play on people’s fear of being stalked for this book?
CD: All the time I spent in the isolated Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. I love it, but there is nothing that will give you the heebie-jeebies faster than being alone in the middle of the deep forest in the middle of the night. I suspect thousands of years of human evolution dealing with the risks of being secluded in the dark in a wilderness just naturally puts the fear in us. We somehow intuitively feel the threat of being hunted.
NP: Demons are part of many religions and cultures myths. Was there a particular reason you decided to write about demons?
CD: We create demons, and we have always created demons. They symbolically represent the forces in life that we fear. A spiritual journey, which I hope readers of Demon Stone find the book to be, needs to confront those demons and the dark side of our natures.
NP: Symbolism plays a large part in The Demon Stone. The Demon within can sometimes be as scary as a supernatural being seems. Do you think that talking about human behavior through the use of symbolism makes talking about tragedies like murder easier or harder?
CD: The most frightening sections of Demon Stone are not encounters with the demon, but the real and terrifying things people do to each other, sections of the book based on real events. The demon Agbado is a symbol of that dark nature that haunts us, that leads some of us to rationalize the most horrible of acts andrepresents the loss of empathy that permits people to commit such unspeakable crimes as genocide, which I have personally witnessed. To me, the most terrifying story in the book is the tale of the child soldier Muctar. This story is based on a real child. The demon within is the real monster of the book. But yes, I felt the use of symbolism made talking about these horrors easier, just as Halloween or The Day of the Dead in Mexico make dealing with monsters and death easier for us to confront.
NP: This is a two part question. The cover of The Demon Stone is very unique and doesn’t focus on any particular character, rather an object. Who did you choose to do the cover art and why? How hard was it to settle on the cover, or was it love at first sight?
CD: The mask on the cover of Demon Stone is from my personal collection. I bought it in Rwanda when I was there helping to reopen our embassy directly following the genocide in that country. It was always in the back of my mind to use it as the cover for this book (and yes, I started this book that long ago). Finding that mask in Rwanda at that particular moment, and the way it looked, just made it seem right to me for this book.
This type of mask is actually from the Congo, and is used in coming of age ceremonies for young men. A good friend of mine, Don Hurlbert, is a photographer for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, and he took the photo. Mallory Rock designed the cover. She is a terrific graphic designer I know and I use her for all the covers on my books.
NP: Civil conflict and slavery were both a focus in your working life. Do you find that your writing reflects this in The Demon Stone?
CD: Absolutely. It is a major part of what this book is about, and not just in The Demon Stone. I also have published Touched with Fire, a novel set in the American Civil War inspired by the true story of a slave woman who escapes by posing as a man. She later joins the Union army disguised as a man so she can fight her way South to free her husband. That story is turning into a trilogy, and book two, Fire and Dust, will be out in November. It also extensively addresses the issue of slavery in America before and during the Civil War, but is told exclusively from the Confederate side of the war. Book three will be set in the Reconstruction period of American history and the characters from the first two books will meet.
NP: Survivors’ guilt can be devastating to many people who work in war torn countries and come back home to a peaceful life. Having worked overseas, and in war torn countries, do you have any advice for others. Would you say writing The Demon Stone has been a cathartic experience for you?
CD: I have been in some very tough situations involving life and death issues for sometimes thousands of people, as well as having been under fire myself. Sometimes I saved people, sometimes I couldn’t.
I have had to deal with instances of PTSD. It was never easy, and there were times I had to step away from Demon Stone because it was getting too deep into places I was not, at the time, ready to go to for the sake of my own well being.
What helps? Giving yourself permission to take the time to heal and being able to confront the demons with good friends are both important. Know and accept that you are not Superman, and don’t expect yourself to be. That’s not healthy. In the end, writing Demon Stone was cathartic, but there were times it was right for me to keep away from it until I was ready.
Giveaway
About the Author
Debut author CHRISTOPHER DATTA is no stranger to civil conflict or the still-extant scourge of slavery. Most recently the acting ambassador to the Republic of South Sudan where he helped end a war in April of 2012, he has spent a distinguished career moving from one strife-torn country to another, including Lebanon, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. A lifelong student of the American Civil War, his research for Touched with Fire is exacting and based in part on a true story.
October 17, 2014
Goodreads Goodies!
Giveaway
First, there’s a Legally Undead giveaway:
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Legally Undead
by Margo Bond Collins
Giveaway ends November 03, 2014.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Legally Undead
A reluctant vampire hunter, stalking New York City as only a scorned bride can.
Elle Dupree has her life all figured out: first a wedding, then her Ph.D., then swank faculty parties where she’ll serve wine and cheese and introduce people to her husband the lawyer.
But those plans disintegrate when she walks in on a vampire draining the blood from her fiancé Greg. Horrified, she screams and runs–not away from the vampire, but toward it, brandishing a wooden letter opener.
As she slams the improvised stake into the vampire’s heart, a team of black-clad men bursts into the apartment. Turning around to face them, Elle discovers that Greg’s body is gone—and her perfect life falls apart.
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To Be Read
Next, you can add two new novellas to your Goodreads TBR shelves–Bound by Blood and Siren’s Kiss:
Sometimes the monsters in the dark are real.
As a child, Lili Banta ignored her grandmother’s cryptic warnings to avoid children outside their Filipino community in Houston—even when many of those other children fell ill, and her neighbors whispered that a vampiric aswang walked among them.
Years later, Lili returns to Houston to work for the CDC—but she is plagued by dark, bloody dreams that consume her nights and haunt her days. As a strange sickness sweeps the city, affecting only children, Lili races to find its source, and maybe a cure.
But in order to save the children, she must first acknowledge the sinister truth: A monster stalks the night—closer than she ever expected….
_____________________________________________
Siren’s Kiss is part of the Falling in Deep Collection. Summer 2015, fifteen talented, award-winning, and best-selling authors will bring you romantic tales of mermaids, sirens, sprites, and other creatures of the deep! For more information about this fabulous collection, check out the Facebook page:
Bound by Blood is part of the Mysticism & Myths Anthology–watch here for more information about it! And check out this gorgeous cover:
October 16, 2014
Spotlight On: Foreign Exchange, by Denise Jaden
Denise Jaden
http://youtu.be/-v1h14XD6G4
Hi,” I say when I find Sawyer at his locker. My face is beaming like someone plugged me into a wall socket.
Not exactly the topic of conversation I’d hoped for. I nod. “I got another email. She got to Milan fine and is settling in.”
“She’s…everything’s okay with the exchange program?” he asks. His words are tentative.
He hands me his phone. It takes me a minute to figure out how to log in through his browser, but I hope I can put his mind at rest. My email is coming up on the screen when the first bell rings. I have English first class and my teacher’s a real stickler about tardiness. I glance down the hall toward my locker.
“I—” I’m not sure what to say. Tristan’s been talking about finding my dad in her emails. It’s our big secret and she’d been adamant about not sharing it with anybody. But I think I can trust Sawyer. And, after all, it is my secret to keep. If I’m making a mistake it’ll only hurt me. “Okay,” I say, finally, passing his phone back to him. Our fingers brush against each other, but we don’t have time to let them linger.
When I dash into class later, Sawyer’s already seated in his usual seat with his head down. He’s flipping through something on his phone, and again I think about signing him into my email earlier. Instead of feeling nervous, after having some time to think about it, trusting him makes me feel closer to him. Like we share our private emails with each other all the time.
He finishes typing something, and then shoves his phone away before Mr. Echols catches sight of it. “Hey,” he says finally, smiling over at me. He still looks really tired.
He blinks a few times, looking down, and I wonder if he isn’t okay. Is something really wrong? “Do you…” he trails off and seems to rethink what he’s saying. “Do you think with the program… do you think everything’s okay about that? I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe…I mean, I think maybe Tristan’s over there trying to model.”
But his pause is barely long enough for me to open my mouth. “I need to get on that class trip, Jamie. I need to stop my sister from doing anything stupid.”
“Wait, what?” I ask him. “You’re going to try to get on the class trip so you can interfere with Tristan’s dream?” Tristan’s told me how jealous he can be. How he’s done this before.
Mr. Echols interrupts us, starting class, but I’m too upset to pay attention to a single word he’s saying.
I’m seriously worried about my sister, Jamie. I have to tell you more about the program. Just hear me out. Please?
“Foreign Exchange is a fresh contemporary YA that will keep readers compulsively turning pages until the very end. Combining international intrigue with a steamy forbidden romance
“Great contemporary/mystery combo!”
“A pitch perfect voice and delicious chemistry between the characters kept me turning those pages!”
Foreign Exchange is heart pounding and suspenseful…the teenage dream of escaping the boredom of suburbia by travelling Europe and spending quality time with a hot guy shifts into a dangerous nightmare.
Author Denise Jaden
Her first non-fiction book for writers, Writing with a Heavy Heart: Using Grief and Loss to Stretch Your Fiction, includes a variety of clear guidance and practical exercises to help writers get to the heart of their stories. Her second non-fiction book, Fast Fiction (New World Library) includes tips on constructing a story plan that works, as well as daily inspiration to keep writers writing, regardless of when the mood strikes.
Praise for Denise Jaden’s Wriing:
“A poignant, important book, Never Enough tackles self-esteem and body image issues while always remaining true to its three-dimensional characters. Denise Jaden has created a cliché-free zone filled with hurt, heart, and personal strength. Jaden’s tender sympathy for her characters and dedication to honest storytelling shine through every page.”
—C.K. Kelly Martin, author of I Know It’s Over
-School Library Journal
Giveaway: $25 Evernight Teen Gift Card
Spotlight On: GAME ON by Collette West
Title: Game On
Author: Collette West
Genre: Romance
Publication: October 17th, 2014
Pitching phenom Bruce “Jilly” Gillette has a hard time talking to women. His hulking presence of tattoos and muscles is what makes him an intimidating closer on the mound, yet off the field, he’s painfully shy, uncomfortable in his own skin.
Desperate to revamp his loner image, the New York Kings hold a dream date contest, granting the lucky winner a night on the town with their surly reliever, doing whatever it takes to force Jilly out of his comfort zone.
Hailey Halpert enters the contest on a whim, looking for answers as to why her high school relationship with Jilly hit the skids. Now she’s a popular romance author writing under a pen name, and her reappearance in Jilly’s life is no accident. It turns out that her novels are all about the sexy players on the Kings, and Jilly has no clue that he’s about to become her new leading man.
Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Smashwords | Kobo
His clumsy attempt to show his feelings started off as something beautiful, something I’ll never forget, and I want him to know that.
“Jilly…” I say tentatively, and his eyes instantly snap to mine. “The way you held me all through the night, felt so…right. The way you touched me, running your hand up and down my arm, and later when you were stroking the inside of my palm with your thumb. God…it felt so good. You didn’t have to say anything. I could feel it.”
“You don’t know how long I’d wanted to do that,” he whispers softly, his face turning red.
I smile, breaking eye contact because I’m completely overwhelmed. He’s saying the words I’ve always wanted him to say. This is the talk we should’ve had a long time ago, and I want him to know everything that’s in my heart.
I meet his eyes again. “What made it even better was that…you didn’t have to touch me in all of those places…any other guy would have to make me want you. Your fingers on my arm were enough. I was in agony being so close to you and not being able to do anything more. I wanted you to take me somewhere, anywhere, to finish what you started—upstairs to one of the bedrooms, outside on the porch, in the back seat of the car—so I could kiss you everywhere I wanted to—but you didn’t.”
He’s staring at me so intently that I’m afraid to go on, but I have to. I’m almost there.
“I know neither of us got much sleep that night because all I could feel was your hand caressing my body from my neck to my fingertips. But the next morning, as soon as it got light, you couldn’t wait to get out of there. You started muttering to yourself about being late for something, propped me up on the side of the couch, and left me there. You didn’t even say goodbye. Do you have any idea what that felt like?”
He meets my eyes for a second before looking away. “If you were tightly wound, you can imagine how I felt. You don’t remember what you were doing right before that, do you? How you were running your leg up and down mine? Your knee at my—” He stops, burying his head in his hands. “I had to get out of there because I—”
I swallow, realizing now why he did what he did.
“But I could’ve…” I stammer. “Helped you…with that.”
He pushes himself away from the table, and I’m afraid he’s going to leave me sitting there all alone again. “I didn’t know what to do. I—”
“Jilly, I was yours for the taking.”
“Are you still?” His gaze burns into me.
I look into his soulful, brown eyes, which are holding nothing back from me. He’s taking a giant leap for me now, even if he couldn’t do it back when we were kids. Things could’ve turned out so differently if he had, but here we are, in New York City, sitting across a table from each other, four years older, four years wiser.
I’d thought he was lost to me forever, never to be a part of my life again. But he’s here, offering me a second chance at what I’ve always wanted—to be with him.
Collette West grew up as somewhat of a jock-nerd hybrid. Entering the world three weeks premature, her dad nearly missed her birth because he had seats behind the dugout for a sold-out, highly-anticipated match-up between two of baseball’s biggest rivals. Not to be outdone, her book-loving mom taught her how to read by the time she was three. A love of the game coupled with an appreciation for the written word were instilled in Collette’s impressionable brain from a young age. No wonder her characters believe in the philosophy: sports + romance = a little slice of heaven.
Splitting her time between the Pocono Mountains and Manhattan, Collette indulges her inner fangirl by going to as many games as she can from hockey to baseball and downloading every sports romance novel in existence onto her iPad. When she’s not clicking away on her laptop, she enjoys walking her dog in Central Park, satisfying her caffeine craving at the Starbucks on Broadway and keeping an eye out for Mr. Right. But above all, she loves dishing with her readers. Email her at collette_west@yahoo.com.
She is the author of NIGHT GAMES, GAME CHANGER and GAME ON.
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That’s What He Said Thursday: From Dieties, by Mary Ting
That’s What HE Said Thursday
Hosted by ChapterBreak.net
Title: From Deities
Author: Mary Ting
Series: Descendant Prophecies #2
Publication: October 13th, 2014
A mysterious stranger enters Skylar’s inner circle, throwing her life out of balance. As secrets are revealed, she learns of the New Olympus; a dwelling for the descendants of the Gods. The Grand family must strive to work together with these descendants to discover the key to their rescue from the clutches of the growing evil vultures of Hades. As the threat increases, Skylar must learn to control her newfound powers before it’s too late.
Purchase:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Kobo | Google Play
From Gods
(Book #1 in the Descendant Prophecies series)
Purchase:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon AU | Amazon CA
B&N | Kobo | Google Play
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Mary Ting resides in Southern California with her husband and two children. She enjoys oil painting and making jewelry. Writing her first novel, Crossroads Saga, happened by chance. It was a way to grieve the death of her beloved grandmother, and inspired by a dream she once had as a young girl. When she started reading new adult novels, she fell in love with the genre. It was the reason she had to write one-Something Great. Why the pen name, M Clarke? She tours with Magic Johnson Foundation to promote literacy and her children’s chapter book-No Bullies Allowed.
Website † Facebook † GoodReads † Twitter † Instagram † Pinterest
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Giveaway
Cover Reveal: Siren’s Kiss (A Falling In Deep Collection Novella)
Today, I’m also revealing the cover to my novella Siren’s Kiss, due out in July 2015.
Siren’s Kiss is a Falling in Deep Collection novella. Summer 2015, fifteen talented, award-winning, and best-selling authors will bring you romantic tales of mermaids, sirens, sprites, and other creatures of the deep. Keep in touch as we reveal each title in our collection by joining us on Facebook!
Keep an eye out here for more information and additional cover reveals from this amazing collection!
October 15, 2014
Cover Reveal: Bound by Blood, by Margo Bond Collins
Hi, everyone! Today I’m officially releasing the cover of my forthcoming novella, Bound by Blood, due out this winter!
S ometimes the monsters in the dark are real.
As a child, Lili Banta ignored her grandmother’s cryptic warnings to avoid children outside their Filipino community in Houston—even when many of those other children fell ill, and her neighbors whispered that a vampiric aswang walked among them.
Years later, Lili returns to Houston to work for the CDC—but she is plagued by dark, bloody dreams that consume her nights and haunt her days. As a strange sickness sweeps the city, leaving dozens of children ill and several dead, Lili races to find its source, and maybe a cure.
But in order to save the children, she must first acknowledge the sinister truth: A monster stalks the night—closer than she ever expected….
_____________________________________________
This novella is also part of the Mysticism & Myths anthology, available December 15, 2014. Check out its cool cover, below:
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For information about new releases, sign up for Margo’s newsletter:
https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/03A21E5E161401F0
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About the Author
Margo Bond Collins is the author of urban fantasy, contemporary romance, and paranormal mysteries. She has published a number of novels, including Sanguinary, Taming the Country Star, Legally Undead, Waking Up Dead, and Fairy, Texas. She lives in Texas with her husband, their daughter, and several spoiled pets. Although writing fiction is her first love, she also teaches college-level English courses online. She enjoys reading romance and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, monsters, cowboys, and villains, and the strong women who love them—and sometimes fight them.
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Connect with Margo
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/margobondcollins
Email: MargoBondCollins@gmail.com
Website: http://www.MargoBondCollins.net
Blog: http://www.MargoBondCollins.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MargoBondCollin @MargoBondCollin
Google+: https://plus.google.com/116484555448104519902
Goodreads Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/vampirarchy
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/MargoBondCollins
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/mbondcollins/
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Spotlight On: Entangled, by Maddie James
The Soul Mates Series
Maddie James weaves a five book series that combines romance, paranormal, and spiritual elements—within historical and contemporary worlds—in a family’s quest not only to break a legendary pirate’s curse, but to bring the entire family together again. Full circle. The characters trip through time from 1718 to the future, and through spiritual worlds, to reconnect with their fated spirit mates.
Entangled
Soul Mates , Book Three
Available NOW!
Can souls touch through time and hold on, when all odds are against them?
Claire Winslow vacations on an East Coast barrier island, content with her life and her potential future—until the illusion of a man walking the misty shore haunts her. Then one kiss—a beautiful, soulful, stolen kiss in the night—and her life changes forever.
Nearly 300 years past, Jack Porter is in hot pursuit of his kidnapped wife. Not an easy feat considering the year is 1718 and the kidnapper is the notorious pirate Blackbeard aka Edward Teach. Determined to rescue his wife and take the pirate’s head in the process, Jack steals aboard the pirate’s ship to save her.
Entranced sends Jack and Claire on a wild search through time, not only for the resolution to a powerful attraction between them, but also for a historical artifact that holds the key to their future happiness—the coveted silver-plated chalice made from Blackbeard’s skull.
FREE now at Amazon
Brazen
Soul Mates , Book Two
October 14, 2014
Waiting On Wednesday: Sidney Halston’s FULL CONTACT
Title: Full Contact
Author: Sidney Halston
Genre: Adult, Contemporary Romance
Series: Worth the Fight #2
Expected Publication: October 28th, 2014 by Loveswept
Sidney Halston returns to steamy Tarpon Springs, Florida, where a hell-raising bad boy prepares to get down and dirty for the woman he loves.
How could she have been so stupid? When Jessica Cross decides to give her violently jealous boyfriend—the otherwise influential and charming Dennis Stavros—a second chance, she very nearly becomes a statistic. After weeks of healing from a broken rib and collapsed lung, and with Dennis behind bars, Jessica finally feels ready to come out of hiding. But will she ever be able to take a chance on love again with someone new?
Mixed martial arts fighter Slade Martin knows he has a bad reputation. Hell, he’s probably earned it. So it won’t be easy to convince beautiful, vulnerable Jessica that she can trust him—that from the moment she walked into his life, she’s been the only one he’s wanted. Powerful and confident, Slade knows he can honor his vow to protect Jessica body and soul. Winning her heart will be another matter . . . but a woman like Jessica is worth the fight.
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About Sidney
USA
Today Bestselling author, Sidney Halston lives her life with one simple rule:
“Just Do It” Nike.
And that’s exactly what she did. After working hard as an attorney, Sidney
picked up a pen for the first time at thirty years old to begin her dream of
writing. Having never written anything other than
very exciting legal briefs, she found an outlet for her imaginative romantic
side and wrote the successful New Adult series, Seeing Red and Seeing Black.
That first pen stroke sealed the deal and she fell in love with writing.
Currently on sale is the bestselling contemporary romance, Against the Cage and
soon to be released Full Contact, the second of the Worth the Fight series.
Sidney lives in South Florida with her husband
and children. She loves her family above all else, and reading follows a close
second. When she’s not writing you can find her reading and reading and
reading… She’s a reader first and
foremost.
When she’s not writing or reading her life is
complete and utter chaos trying to balance family life with work, and writing
(and reading). But she wouldn’t have it any other way., she found an outlet for her imaginative romantic side and wrote Seeing
Red, among four other novels currently in the works, including the sequel to
Seeing Red. That first pen stroke sealed the deal and she fell in love with
writing.
Website | Twitter | Facebook
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