Shiloh Walker's Blog, page 101

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I have some galleys of STOLEN. I'm using one at my website for a giveaway.

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Shay Morgan has stayed hidden for a long time. Living a reclusive life in Earth’s End, Alaska, she’s as far away as she can get from the trauma of her childhood and the man who hurt her long ago. But terror takes over Shay’s life yet again when an unknown stalker steals away the fragile peace she’s built for herself—targeting not only her but the one man who’s ever managed to get past the walls she’s built around herself.

Elliot Winter has lived through being falsely accused before—it ruined his military career. Now it’s happening all over again. And this time, his accuser is a twisted impostor who’s targeting his ex-girlfriend, Shay. Despite a fierce mutual attraction, Shay and Elliot broke up because Shay couldn’t let her guard down, couldn’t let Elliot in. But now they both need to trust each other to confront a psycho who seems to know all their secrets.

excerpt...

A warm hand settled low on her back. As he bent his head, Shay shivered at the feel of him. Damn it. Coming in here had been a BFM. Big fucking mistake. She should have just waited in the car . . .

“I miss you.”

Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Don’t.”

His lips brushed across the side of her brow. “Don’t what? Tell you that I miss you? Miss us?”

“Us?” She laughed hollowly as she turned to face him. “There is no us, remember? You said that. There’s me…and there’s you…and sometimes we’re together, but there’s no us.”

His gaze held hers. “I never wanted it to be that way. And maybe there was more of an us than I realized. Seeing you…” He paused, took a deep breath. “Seeing you just drives that home.”

Those intense, hypnotic eyes held hers. Her heart kicked up a few beats, stealing her breath away. As he started to dip his head, Shay stood there, frozen. Shit. What now . . .

His mouth, so warm, brushed against hers. She gasped and then almost wished she hadn’t as he used that opportunity to tease the inside of her lips with his tongue, moving deeper and deeper. His hands came around her waist, tugging her closer.

This is a bad idea . . .

The warning was already screaming in her head. She couldn’t give him what he needed. And he couldn’t accept what she had to give. They would just hurt each other again—

Tearing her mouth away, Shay ducked to the side. “We…we can’t do this.” She pressed a hand to her buzzing lips. “I’m just getting to the point where I’m used to going through the days without you calling. I’m just getting to where I can pass a few nights without dreaming about you.” Liar.

Well, she did manage to go a few nights, she told herself. Usually, on those nights, she had nightmares, but so what? She wasn’t dreaming of Elliot, and that was all that counted, right?

“Shay…” He reached up and touched her shoulder.

But she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She wasn’t going through this again. She wasn’t whole inside and she had to accept that and stop pretending otherwise, and it fucking hurt.

Stooping down, she grabbed the basket of books from where he’d placed them on the floor. Without looking back at him, she headed for the front of the store.

She had to get out of here. She could pay for her damn books and meet Lorna at the Italian place. It was two doors down—she could walk two fucking doors.

Maybe not well. She was already weaving a little, lethargy and weakness from the wreck still pervading her body, but she damn well wasn’t going to linger—

She stumbled, her feet all but giving out under her. Crashing into a book dump just next to her, she flung out a hand, but there was nothing to grab. Books from the display went flying and just before she would have crashed to the floor, a pair of strong, steady hands gripped her waist. “I’ve got you,” Elliot murmured.

I’ve got you . . .

The room stopped spinning around her, even though her legs still felt like spaghetti noodles. Her heart slowed back down to its normal speed for a few seconds before embarrassment settled in. Swallowing, she closed her eyes and reached for some level of control.

Stumbling all over the place.

Running away from Elliot.

She needed to get herself together.

Sucking in a desperate draught of air, she blew it back out. Carefully, she eased away from Elliot, checking her legs. Okay, she could walk. This was good.

Grimacing at the book dump she’d knocked over, she opened her mouth to apologize. The display had been holding a lot of books, she thought inanely. Foil lettering on one of them caught her eyes.

Familiar lettering the shade of blood.

Familiar . . .

Her stomach dropped to her knees, and the waning strength in her abused body disappeared. Sinking to the floor, she reached out to touch one of the books.

“Shay, I’ll pick it up,” Elliot said.

His voice seemed to come to her from a tunnel. Her blood roared in her ears and black dots danced in front of her eyes for a long, ugly second. Stop it, Shay—breathe—

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Stolen

Blind Destiny

Pssst…

Click the cover to read an excerpt & get more info.

In the works…

If you click on it, it should open to a larger version.  Hopefully, we’ll have it ready to roll soon.

I’m going to be signing in Lexington, KY, in early November.  If you are in that area, we plan on having the print version of BLADE SONG at the signing, as well as my next RS book, STOLEN.

It will be a trade paperback…unfortunately it’s the only workable thing for small press books.  I selfpublished the ebook version but I know the owner of Hydra Publications and he’s helping me get the print version out.  The list price will be $9.99.  That’s the lowest we can get it, but Amazon, etc will probably knock it a little lower.

What are some of your favorite romantic suspense books?

Asking for a reason, and FYI, they can’t be any of mine.  I’ve read mine.  Mine don’t count.

One of my fave RS books is Holly Lisle’s I SEE YOU…

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Source: goodreads.com via shiloh on Pinterest

 

~*~

Literally had me holding my breath through half of it. That’s my ideal RS.

Got any that had you holding your breath?

Pretty please share…I need them for a blog thing. Again, remember, mine don’t count.

Snippet from THE PROTECTED

Hey folks…

As you’ve noticed, I’ve not been around much. Dealing with some stuff, trying to get edits done. I’m probably not going to be online as much although once I get edits done, I’ll try to get back to blogging more regularly.

For now, here’s a snippet from THE PROTECTED *releasing sometime in 2013, all the info I have for now*

Alone…

Hell, yes. He was alone.

Glaring down at Vaughnne, he opened his mouth to tell her…something. Anything. He needed her out of his way.

Preferably some place far away from him, because if she was far away from him then he wouldn’t be tempted to do just what she seemed to think he should do. Trust her.

She reached up and closed her hand around his wrist. “If you don’t stop running now…you never will,” she said quietly.  “Surely, somewhere in that beautiful, thick-as-stone head of yours, you have to realize that, right? Either you take a stand or spend the rest of your life running. The rest of his life running. And it’s likely to be a short one, because those people will not quit hunting you. And we can’t keep chasing after you to protect that kid when you make it clear you don’t want our help.”

“Why?”

She blinked, her lashes sweeping down to hide her dark eyes. The scattering of freckles across her cheeks caught his gaze and before he could stop himself, he lifted a hand, cupped her chin in his hand. Stroking one thumb across the silk of her skin, he waited.

“Why what?” she asked, tugging away and backing out of his reach.

“Why do you want to help at all?”

For those that enjoyed BLADE SONG, you can read a snippet and the blurb for book two over my J.C. Daniels blog.

Swag giveaway!

*waves* Hey all, Nicole here. I’ve been super super busy and not around too much, as Shiloh can tell you .  Other than RL keeping me busy, I was busy at a couple of conventions.  In early June I went to Lori Foster’s annual reader/author get together and I actually just returned from Authors After Dark.  Each convention was a blast. I got to meet a lot of great readers, authors and bloggers.  I was also fortunate enough to come away with a LOT of swag and what not.  In fact, my roommate might kill me if I keep it all….so my loss is YOUR gain!  It isn’t a lot, but I want to share it with you fabulous readers.  Up for grabs is an Ellora’s Cave bag (it’d be a great gym bag or bag for the pool/beach for flip flops, wet suits etc).  There are a lot of book marks (some signed by the author), an EC 2013 wall calendar (which has some yummy men for each month, definately NSFW he he) and various other items that I just can’t list out.  I’d take a pic but really there’s so much stuff that a pic couldn’t do it justice.

Heads up guys, this is *my* contest, not one from Shiloh, so nothing signed from her.  The swag bag itself can only be shipped US only.  But…if you’re international feel free to enter.  If you win, Shiloh has been kind enough to offer one of her ebooks in lieu of the swag bag. As such, if the winner is international, I will not be drawing a name for a US winner.  I’ll use the bag another time.  The usual contest rules apply. By entering you acknowledge you have read and agree to the terms. I’ll keep the contest open until August 27, 2012 and the winner will be announced later that week.  All you need to do to enter is tell me which convention, if any, you attended or will attend this year or which convention you hope to attend in 2013 or which one is on your reader “bucket list”.    And now I’m going to go take a nap ha ha!

Disconnect

Got some stuff to deal with.

Going to disconnect for a while, so I may not be online much.

The Hunters Ben and Shadoe, Reissue

Now available…hopefully…

I’m expecting it should be at least.  It’s up at Smashwords, ARe and Amazon, it’s just a matter of it clearing through at BN.  It’s now up at Nook, too. ARe and Smashwords, as always, are international.  The title will go out to sites like Sony and Kobo via Smashwords…not sure how long it takes, though.  That’s out of my control.

And no, I’m not going with the silly cover I did.

A skilled warrior and a Hunter with unique abilities, Benjamin Cross has spent years on a personal quest. Decades after a betrayal tore his pack apart, he has finally found the missing child who disappeared all those years ago. But now that he has found her, she’s not exactly what he’d expected.

Unaware of her heritage, hiding from her own painful past, Shadoe doesn’t know what to make of the man who calls himself Benjamin. She doesn’t know what to make of the voices in her head, the images in her mind…the one thing she is sure of…she thinks she’s going crazy.

When danger arrives at her doorstep, she’ll have to turn to him to keep her safe, to teach her how to use the wild power breaking free inside her. And to love her…

Warning: This book contains a wicked couple of shapeshifters, some hot sex, a Master vampire, some naughty ménage action, some bad guys, some fighting, some hot sex, some heartbreak, some fun, some hot sex, and a couple of people who fall in love. Did I mention the sex? Don’t say you weren’t warned…

FYI…if you haven’t read my earlier Hunter books…please note the warning. Please. You can’t say you weren’t told there was some sexin’ going on.  There is sexin’ going on. These are erotic romance and there is some menage action and dirty talk, etc, etc…if that’s not your thing, please don’t read it.

Also, these are some of my earlier books.  The writing is…well…rougher and the stories aren’t as tight as later books.  I smoothed things out as far as technical things (dialog tags, etc), but unless I want to completely rewrite the books, I can’t fix the fact that the books aren’t as well written as they would be if I’d written them last year instead of 8-9 years ago.

The books are what they are and I can’t endlessly go back and improve upon things, because if I’m doing that, then I’m not writing new books.

Okay…excerpt!

Shadoe’s heart skipped as he lowered his head. She saw it coming. She could have moved. Should have moved. Even as fear slammed into her throat, though, and even as it sent her heart to racing, she stood there, unable to move, unable to breathe.

It wasn’t terror that held her still though, as he cupped her face his hands. It wasn’t terror that kept her from turning away as he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers. Lightly at first. So very lightly, his tongue tracing the line of her mouth, teasing the entrance before retreating. A slow, easy kiss…a seduction.

And when he lifted his head, she whimpered.

He looked down at her, hunger glittering in his eyes. Nervous, she watched him, but as he reached up to trace her mouth with his fingertip, she didn’t turn away.

“I think I’d like to do that again,” he murmured.

And she shocked the hell out of herself when she responded with, “I think I’d like to let you.”

The next kiss wasn’t so light. Wasn’t so easy and gently. This time, he pulled her closer and hunger ripped through her as he took her mouth, greedy and demanding.

She groaned as he pushed his tongue—hot, rough and seductive—into her mouth. One hand threaded through her hair. She trembled as he moved his body against her, bringing his heat, so seductively necessary that Shadoe wondered how she had ever lived without it.

He held himself back, touching her with just one hand in her hair, his mouth on hers, his other hand gripping her hip, strong and firm. Shadoe gasped as a shudder racked that big body and she was pulled completely against him, his chest crushing her breasts, a flat, hard belly coming to rest against the softness of hers.

He seemed to fill her, some intangible energy from him sliding inside her and filling all the dark, empty places she had lived with for so long.

Ben’s mouth ate at hers, his tongue rubbing seductively against hers, before he pulled back. Nipping her lower lip, he let his lips cruise down the line of her neck. A big hand, firm and hard, came up to her breast and Shadoe whimpered when he pinched the nipple lightly, teasingly as he lowered his mouth to feast on the other.

Cool air kissed her flesh and she cried out as she felt him tear the shirt away only seconds before the hot, wet silk of his mouth closed over her nipple. Drawing it deep, laving it roughly, he nipped at her again, rolling his eyes upward to stare at her face.

His eyes—so intent, so rapt on her face. Shadoe felt her knees buckle and his big hands caught her, bringing her into the air as he licked and bit and sucked on her. Her head fell back and she arched against the hot length between her thighs, instinctively wrapping her legs around Ben’s waist and arching, rubbing against him.

“Well, now… Not exactly what I was expecting to see when I showed up.”

ARe | Smashwords | Amazon | Nook

No date yet on the final Hunter title, Rafe and Sheila.  I’ll post it when I get it.

Wreck this Life–> Wrecked

So…we’re changing the title on WRECK THIS LIFE to just WRECKED. The publishers think it works better and that’s fine.

This is my first full length contemporary with Berkley.  It’s actually one of my very few contemporaries…no suspense, no paranormal.  Just flat out contemporary.

I have the blurb!

In the nineties, Abigale Applegate and Zach Barnes were the most beloved sitcom child stars in the world. Then they grew up and left Hollywood behind…

Whatever happened to Abigale Applegate?

She’s been wondering the same thing.

With her Hollywood dreams long gone, Abigale now has a nice, neat, uncomplicated life—until the day her perfect fiancé needs to talk. Dumped, a little more than shattered, and totally confused, Abigale turns to Zach, her best friend since forever, to help her pick up the pieces. He does it with a gift—a copy of Wreck This Journal. She can vent her frustrations, and sketch out a new plan. Zach just hopes he’s part of it. Because he’s been in love with Abigale his entire life.

 When the journal falls into Zach’s hands, he discovers Abigale wants a new man. And fast. Nothing more than a hot distraction. Zach has a strategy, too. He’s going to be that man. It’s his last chance. Abigale might be out to shake up her life, but Zach’s out to reinvent it. Now, all he has to do is convince Abigale that life can go as planned.

 

Snippet!

Feeling the weight of her gaze, he lifted his lashes, not looking directly at her.  Not yet.

But Abby wasn’t looking at his face.

She was eying his arms.  Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she tugged on the soft curve and he almost went to his knees at the sight.  A second later, she glanced away, but then she looked back.

The thunder that had been crashing inside his head grew louder and louder.

Have a torrid affair–

Damn it, if she was dead set on that idea, she could have an affair with him, he decided.

Even as the idea slammed into him, he tried to brush it aside.  He’d kept what he felt wrapped up and buried deep for years.  Spilling it now?

Just wondering if you’re ever going to do anything about it.

…it’s complicated…

Hell.  He was lecturing Abby about living life and letting go, and here he was, afraid to grab on.

The woman he wanted like he wanted his next breath was standing right there and he was afraid to even make a fucking move.

She turned away as he stood there, still wrestling with the very thought of it, need burning in him and twisting him into tight, hungry knots.  Damn it.  Damn it.  He needed to do this–

“It will take about an hour or so,” Abby said.

I’m thinking longer–

Amazon | Book Depository | BN | BAMM | Indiebound

Taking a page from Fifty Shades

Hey, all the pubs are doing it. I might as well too, right?

So Hunters Ben and Shadoe is just about ready to roll.  Just polishing up the blurb and I’ll have it uploaded and out to you all in a while.

But you know, this self publishing business is expensive.  I thought I’d cut some corners and save some cash and do my own cover.  I mean, the focus on one item instead of the typical romance cover, the basic treatment seems to be doing wonders for 50, and a bunch of publishers are doing similar themes, right?  Hey, even my nemesis Meljean tried her hand at it, see?

So why not?  I can do this.  So I spent ten minutes all day searching for the right image to convey the tone for HUNTERS BEN AND SHADOE.  Not wolves.  They didn’t work.  Not elegant enough.  But, hey… WITCHES!

Then I (spent ten minutes on picmonkey) slaved over the cover.

I present you with the new and improved theme for the Hunters books.

Whaddya think?  O.O

No?

Damn. Okay.

Here’s the real cover…

I’m hoping to have it all done in the next few days.  Depends on how long it takes to get it up on Amazon/Nook once I get the the blurb all finished.

 

** this is all meant in jest.  FYI, I have an odd sense of humor.  

Image via the morgue files

UTA:  In non-goofy news… YAY!  The ebook price finally dropped to match the paperback price on FRAGILE…

BAMM | B & N | Book Depository | IndieBound | Amazon | Powell’s