Aimee Easterling's Blog, page 26

Paranormal After Dark

I’m excited to announce that my Complete Bloodling Serial…along with 19 other novels and novel-length serials…is now available as part of the Paranormal After Dark box set! If you’re subscribed to kindle unlimited, you can borrow the box set for free, or you can buy it for three bucks.

I’ve actually let my kindle unlimited subscription lapse so I don’t feel guilty about spending weeks reading all of the amazing contributions this time around. I’ll be sure to post again once I have some favorites to recommend, and I hope you’ll comment too if one particularly hits the spot for you. Enjoy!

Who loves shifters?

I write a lot about my characters and even a little bit about myself…but I think about you guys just as much. It’s so satisfying when I see new reviews or know that someone has bought one of my books. And yet, I sometimes find myself wondering — who are you really?

So, if you’ve got a minute and want to make my day, I hope you’ll fill out this short, fun survey. None of the answers are mandatory, so if you don’t want to reveal whether you prefer dragon shifters over squirrel shifters, you can still play along. And, at the end, you can see what everyone else thinks too.

I’m looking forward to getting to know you all a little better. Thanks for playing! And feel free to answer any question I should have asked but didn’t here in the comments.

Thank you for helping me hit the USA Today bestseller list!

A huge thank you to everyone who gave Happily Ever Alpha a shot! With your help, this 21-novel box set soared up the charts and hit #117 on the USA Today bestseller list for the week of February 4. I was so excited, I could barely sit still!

If you haven’t checked the set out yet, it’s still on sale for another three months. And the title is now enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so you can read for free if you subscribe. I hope you enjoy some of these paranormal romances and urban fantasies — Just a Little Nudge is my current favorite, but I’ve still got several more to read.

Oh, and did I mention how grateful I am to you the reader? Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your support makes those words fly onto the page. You are why I write.

Three shifters walked into a bar

Last week, I showed off the cover of my upcoming novel Half Wolf. Today, I’d like to share an unedited version of the first few paragraphs. Don’t worry, I won’t give so much away that you’ll regret not being able to read the book right now.

***

Three shifters walked into a bar.

It sounds like the beginning of a corny joke, doesn’t it?

But here’s a little more information for you. I was those shifters’ alpha and den mother rolled into one. Two of the barhoppers were jail bait or close to it. And the establishment in question was filled to the brim with horny, lawless, outpack males.

No wonder I wasn’t laughing and was in a big hurry.

I breezed past the bouncer with a show of entirely human teeth, then rolled my eyes at his laxness. The employee wasn’t being remiss by not checking my ID. Not in a werewolf bar. But he still wasn’t really doing his job.

I was twenty-one — barely — which is all humans would have cared about when allowing entrance to a drinking establishment. But the guy at the door in a shifter bar was supposed to turn away anyone without the ability to don fur and howl at the moon. And even though I was technically a shifter, my half-human heritage meant my wolf was too weak to rise up behind my eyes and prove her worth to the bouncer.

Good thing I was accustomed to faking it.

But I wasn’t home free just yet. I’d barely set foot in the sea of writhing bodies when one of those lawless males alluded to earlier grabbed my arm, swinging me around to collide hard with his chest. My chin thudded against bare flesh only slightly less hairy than it would have been in lupine form and my nose took in the over-ripe scent of unwashed man.

Ugh. Not that it would have mattered if he was cute. I was on a mission and Ginger, Cinnamon, and Lia had a half-hour head start. I could only imagine what kind of mischief the trouble twins and their tagalong cousin could get into during thirty long minutes.

“Nice to see another lady in the place,” the male offered with a triumphant leer, clearly pleased with himself for having snagged one of the very few females in evidence.

“Not interested,” I replied sweetly, grinding the heel of one boot into the top of my assailant’s arch. I hadn’t dressed to impress and didn’t particularly expect my hiking shoes to make much of an impression, but I was pleasantly surprised. This particular male must have shown up at the back door in wolf form because his feet were bare, and they were also apparently quite sensitive to being stomped on.

Whatever the reason, the shifter didn’t so much release me as fling me across the room to land at the feet of another group of outpack males. This time I was the one initiating a collision, and the male I struck snarled and kicked me out of his path. Luckily, though, he didn’t look down.

At least my weak wolf has a few things going for her, I thought as I struggled to my feet. There had to be at least a hundred males in the room and most of them were almost certainly outpack wolves with no clan — or woman — of their own. A lone female like me in a bar like this was akin to lighting a match beside a powder keg then standing there tapping my foot while wondering if anything would blow.

Luckily, my half-blood skin didn’t exude the same sort of come-hither charm as a pure-bred pack princess would have. And, in the dimness of the dance floor, my tomboy apparel probably made me look like just another shifter kid out on his own and hunting for a good time.

Or perhaps the males’ lack of attention to my skinny form was the result of vastly more enticing eye candy on hand. Because I caught sight of my three pack mates at last by dint of following everyone’s gazes to a table near the front of the room. There, Ginger was belting out an accompaniment to the piped-in music and providing enticing visual aids to prove that tequila did indeed make her clothes fall off.

“Take it all off!” one of the shifters beside me hollered….

A few last kindle unlimited books to fill your ereader

 

 

Did you enjoy the science fiction and fantasy books with a romantic thread that I recommended in previous posts? If so, you might like these romances, women’s fiction, and historical fiction books just as much. They had just enough meat on their bones that they hit the spot.

Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold by Ellen O’Connell is a romance novel for those of us who like sex scenes to be glossed over but emotions to be ocean-deep. If you enjoy historical romance, it’s definitely worth a read! (And everything by the author is equally delightful.)

The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein is the beginning of an extensive historical fiction series that merges Arthurian legend with African history. The storytelling reminds me favorably of the master Ursula LeGuin, and I found that each installment got better and better. Give it a try — I don’t think you’ll regret it!

The Cryptographer by Alice Wallis-Eton is a Regency romance…with spunk. I’ve always had a soft spot for tales of women making their way in a man’s world, and codebreaking also strikes my fancy, so how could I turn down a novel containing both elements?

Thoroughbreds and Trailer Trash by Bev Pettersen is horse romantic suspense. Honestly, I love pretty much all of her books, so I picked one at random to recommend.

Rescue Me, Maybe by Jackie Bouchard is a dog book that’s funny and sweet and has a heroine with an antisocial personality who I can really get behind.

The Perfect Son by Barbara Claypole White is hard to describe. I guess it’s women’s literary fiction, but it reads like a thought-provoking page-turner and the characters really stuck with me.

And there you have it — all of my favorite kindle unlimited books of 2015 (meaning I read them last year, not that they were necessarily written last year). Which means it’s time to start making a new list for 2016 — what do you recommend I check out next?

36 questions to make you fall in love

My husband came home today talking about a list of 36 questions meant to help a couple fall in love. The idea is simple — you each share personal information that gets more and more private until you form a serious bond. He and I are already nicely bonded, but we tossed around the first question over dinner anyway.

Husband: “If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, living or dead, who would it be?”

Me: “You.” (Yes, I really am that sappy. No, I wasn’t trying to suck up — that was truly the first thing that came into my head.)

Husband: “Someone other than me.”

Me: “Robin Hood…but maybe not. Because, really, that would just feel odd. Hmmm….”

I finally settled on a pre-colonization Native American woman between the ages of 16 and 40 who lived on the exact same plot of land where we were dining. A common Joe, I figured, would actually be much more interesting to talk to than a famous person, and it would be so intriguing to find out how she lived and what she cared about. (Translation services, I assumed, would be provided along with the time travel.)

So now I pass the question along to you. If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? Or, if you’d rather, here are the original 36 questions so you can pick your own. I’ll be curious to hear what you want to share!

Half Wolf cover reveal

I’m still plugging away at the first draft of the first book my new Alpha Underground series. Fen has been a joy to write about…so much of a joy in fact that she seems to add to my word count whenever I attempt to wrap her story up.

“I’ll buy you a pretty, pretty cover if you’ll let me rest my wrists and resolve this novel,” I bartered.

“Maybe,” Fen answered.

So, I bought her a cover. Whether she’ll let me out of her grasp anytime soon is another matter.

More seriously, what do you think of this amazing cover designed by the talented Rebecca Frank? If you’re an author in need of some literary artwork, I highly recommend her — her prices are fair, her work is fast, her covers are fabulous. What more do you need to know?

For readers — stay tuned next week for an unpolished excerpt from Fen’s first draft!

Happily Ever Alpha

Today’s the big day we’ve all been waiting for — Happily Ever Alpha is live! You’ve got just a few days left to catch this massive bundle of 21 full-length paranormal novels for 99 cents, then the price goes up to $2.99.

There’s something for everyone, with sexy shifters, wickedly cool witches, vampires, gargoyles, demons, psychics, and more. My book Jaguar at the Portal is included too, so if you missed that novel, now’s your chance to get it ultra-cheap. Or, if you have Kindle Unlimited and just want to dive into a month of reading, you can borrow the box set and gorge. I hope you enjoy it!

Best Kindle Unlimited speculative romance of 2015

If you missed my previous recommendation post, feel free to take a moment to explore some of those Kindle Unlimited reads that perfectly blend fantasy and romance before reading on. This post hits the more science fictiony end of the speculative spectrum, which I’ll admit is a bit sparser if you like realistic, tough heroines leading the charge. In mainstream fiction, these authors are the successors of women like Elizabeth Moon and C.J. Cherryh and…okay, my mind when blank when I tried to think of anyone else. I hope you’ll take a minute to comment with your own favorites in this category because I’m always looking for more!

 

Steampunk

Wrecked by Meljean Brooks is is a novella that reminds me of The Princess Bride…with zombies and air ships.

The Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster is my favorite kind of paranormal fantasy/romance/steampunk. Both hero and heroine are troubled and fascinating, the worldbuilding is unique, and there’s enough mystery to really keep you turning pages. This is the first book in a series, but each novel follows different main characters and can easily be read as standalones (which is a good thing since only two are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited).

 

Post Apocalyptic

Ice Diaries by Lexi Revellian is the perfect blend of the end of the world and the beginning of a relationship. Imagine that a pandemic knocks out most of the world’s population and a shift in the jet stream drops sixty feet of snow on London. With plenty of supplies free for the taking, the biggest problem is adapting to this strange new world…and deciding what to do with the half-frozen, thug-like, but handsome man who shows up face-down in the snow on your doorstep.

Spark Rising by Kate Corcino is another post-apocalyptic doozy. This time, imagine a future in which the power grid is down…but select humans can create electricity within their own bodies. There’s a damaged but strong heroine, an enticing love story, and some of the best world-building I’ve read in a while. I’m aching for book two.

 

Science Fiction

Shades of Treason is really a space opera, but the author calls it “urban fantasy in space.” There’s mind control and attraction working against each other in agonizingly perfect ways. You won’t want to pass this one up! (Drat, I think this one has popped out of Kindle Unlimited. Maybe it’ll come back?)

Into the Dark by J.A. Sutherland made me break my rule of never reading books by men. I know it sounds sexist to have such a stance in the first place, but the female characters in books by male authors often seem just the slightest bit off and the story lines themselves strike me as cold. Sutherland is the exception that proves the rule. I swallowed this book and its sequel over the course of a couple of days.

Dark Horse by Michelle Diener is a thought-provoking and gripping story about first contact, artificial intelligence, plus a realist and delightful love story.

The Star King by Susan Grant is science-fiction romance, a bit saggy in the middle but the later books are better.

Mercenary Instinct by Ruby Lionsdrake is probably the best known science-fiction romance writer. Although heavier on the sex scenes than I usually prefer, I can’t put her books down.

Next week I’ll move on to the real girl genres — romance and women’s fiction. Stay tuned!

How good are you at reading faces?

As an author, I’m constantly trying to get into other people’s heads to make my characters more interesting. But when it comes to verbally representing nonverbal cues, sometimes I realize my characters have smiled or cocked their head to one side twenty times in the last chapter. So I decided to try out Berkeley’s Body Language Quiz, a fun way to test your face-reading abilities (while also being treated to twenty handy diagrams pinpointing which features showcase each emotion).

In the end, the quiz told me I scored above average, getting 14 out of 20 expressions right. However, I’m ashamed to admit that I misread love. Flirtation, compassion, pain — all were easy for me to guess. But love threw a monkey wrench in my brain receptors — don’t tell my husband!

I’ll be curious to hear how you fare. Reading fiction is supposed to boost your empathy levels, but spending too much time with your nose in a book might make your face-reading abilities suffer. So what do you think? Are readers good at reading faces…or just books?