Shiloh Walker's Blog, page 103

Wreck This Life…

Eeeeeehh!!!!  It’s up for pre-order!

Contemporary romance… Seventeen years ago, they were the darlings of a popular sitcom, but now they are all grown up.  Zach has loved her all his life, Abby has no idea.  Now he’s a tattoo artist, she runs a catering business.

 

Mentally, he sighed.  Shoving a hand through his hair, he glanced away from her, tried to find something else to look at, focus on, thinking about.

Her hand touched his shoulder.

Zach and looked back her.  His heart seemed to jump up into his throat as she closed the distance between them.

Everything in the world faded away as she pushed up onto her toes.

And then, as she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, Zach realized this was what it was like to have a dream actually come true.  As her mouth parted under his, he was almost certain he was dying.  Maybe he’d already died.  Yeah.  He’d been eating something, choked, died and now he was heaven.

Except wasn’t no way Zach would end up there, he figured.

So maybe Abby really was kissing him. Groaning, he reached for her and hauled her closer, pulling her to stand between his legs.  With one arm wrapped around her waist, he slid his free hand up her back and tangled his hand in the crazy, soft curls of her hair.  Soft as silk, just like he remembered.

And her mouth was sweet, every bit as sweet as he remembered, but fuck, there was no director, no crew, no brilliant stage lights shining down and this kiss wasn’t choreographed or scripted.

Abby wasn’t kissing him because she had to, wasn’t kissing him because it was in some fucking script and she wasn’t going to pull away and make some stupid joke to break the tension.

Abby was kissing him, damn it.

It was real.

Real, and he was going to make the most of it…

Amazon | Book Depository | BN | BAMM | Indiebound

Reading…

this is what I’m reading now…

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Source: barnesandnoble.com via shiloh on Pinterest

 

~*~

This is what I might be reading next.

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Source: barnesandnoble.com via shiloh on Pinterest

 

 

~*~

What about you?

The Friday 56

Today is a Friday 56…

Due out in October…

For a minute, the fear almost kept her trapped.

But then she threw it off. “What are you going to do . . . never drive again?” she muttered.

Like that was an option.

Some days the nightmares were so bad, she had to leave the house just to escape them. She couldn’t run fast enough to get away from herself. She could barely drive fast enough.

Besides, if the nightmares from what had been done to her all of those years ago weren’t enough to paralyze her in terror, then she sure as hell wasn’t going to let a fucking car wreck do it.

Read more…

About the Friday 56

Grab the book nearest you. Right now
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
Post a link along with your post back to this blog.
Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

This is cool…

Go here and leave a comment and you can maybe win a download of BLADE SONG… (contest isn’t being run thru here. I have nothing to do with it)

So… today…

Today I’m putting on my professional hat.  I’m being interviewed by one of the authors I admire the most, by one of the authors I love the most.  And because of this, I should behave with the utmost professionalism.

Ahem…

LOOK!  GO LOOK!  LYNN VIEHL INTERVIEWED ME ON HER BLOG!  SHE DID!

SHE REALLY DID!

See???

SEE??????

SEEEEEE???????

Ahem.

Okay, then.  Now that I shared the news…

How are you all doing today?

Blade Song…Now out…

Thud… new book. Out today. Available pretty much across the globe.

You can buy it here…here… here…here….hereherheerereerhherherhe…

Um.  Excuse me.  My brain melted.

It SHOULD be at

ARe | Smashwords | Amazon | BN | iBookstore | Kobo and other places…

(It’s available at a NUMBER of international platforms, including Kobo.  Please check.  I can’t keep track of all and it also takes a few days for all the data to roll through and get posted)

About the book!

Patricia Briggs thinks you should read it…

“Do yourself a favor and read this book.  This story is original and hard-hitting with terrific world building and some of the best characters I’ve read.  Yum.” Patricia Briggs, author of the #1 NYTimes Mercy Thompson series

Kit Colbana—half breed, assassin, thief, jack of all trades—has a new job: track down the missing ward of one of the local alpha shapeshifters. It should be a piece of cake.

So why is she so nervous? It probably has something to do with the insanity that happens when you deal with shifters—especially  sexy ones who come bearing promises of easy jobs and easier money.

Or maybe it’s all the other missing kids that Kit discovers while working the case, or the way her gut keeps screaming she’s gotten in over her head. Or maybe it’s because if she fails—she’s dead.

If she can stay just one step ahead, she should be okay. Maybe she’ll even live long to collect her fee…

EXCERPT

Through the roar of blood in my ears, I heard Damon swearing. That was kind of funny. There were four of them and he was cussing them out?

But then one of them howled… A death scream. One that made the skin on my nape crawl as I slashed through the air with my blade.

She was made like a rapier, but heavier. I could hack away for hours if I had to, and the fool in front of me was bleeding from more cuts than even I could count; he was either too weak or too underfed to heal them well. He made another lunge at me and I drove the blade through his heart, twisting it and jerking upward. Skin smoked as it met the silver and I watched as the life in his eyes faded.

Jerking my blade free, I turned, braced for another attack.

All I saw was Damon. Walking toward me with blood dripping off him, falling in fat drops from his fingers.

“Show off,” I muttered.

A flash of white appeared in his face. I almost thought he was smiling.

But that faint smile was gone in another second as shadows came rushing at us from all around.

I found myself shoved to the ground.

There was a rumbling sound—something I couldn’t identify.

And another sound—one I could.

The ground was shaking, I thought. As I pushed up onto my elbows, I saw a giant shape rushing into the alley.

Goliath.

Hell was about to break loose.

Then a cat roared and I heard somebody scream. Maybe it already had.

As the fighting raged over my head, I rolled to the side and flexed my wrist. My blade was gone. I managed to get my back to the wall of the busted, broken building behind me, using it for support and shadow as I surveyed the mess in front of me.

Five, six, seven—yeah. Seven scraggly wolves fighting Goliath and Damon. The wolves had shifted. Damon and Goliath hadn’t. Two wolves were trying to take Goliath down and he casually caught one, ripped its head off. My gut went a little queasy at the sight.

The second one didn’t fare much better.

Damon wasn’t quite so casual.

Quick, brutal.

But for every one they took down, several more came crawling out of the shadows.

What the hell—?

Panting for breath, I flexed my wrist and called my blade.

Off to the side, I heard a snarl.

The wolf came for me just as I turned to face it.

I never even got my blade up.

I came to at the bright flare of light.

It wasn’t the light that woke me.

It was the pain.

Ripping through my side and eating its way through my veins. I choked back the scream as TJ leaned over me. “Damn, girl. You did it again, didn’t you?”

I glared at her. Or tried to. The tears in my eyes were pretty much blinding me.

“Get the fuck back.”

Well. One thing was clear. I wasn’t dying, because if I was, no way would I be hearing that voice. Even if I was going straight to hell, I’d be deluding myself with angel song to the very end. So if I was hearing the demonic Damon that must mean the wolf bite on my side wasn’t fatal.

His face appeared in my line of sight and I closed my eyes.

“Stupid little fool!” His voice cut through the pained shrieking in my head. But the hands on my side were gentle. “Shit…shit, shit, this is bad—”

Also… I think I’m over here today, blog-tour wise…

Hi… I’m Eeyore…want to take me home?

From Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews (this is an old snippet, swiped from her blog)

“I have had it with this shit.  Woken up, in the middle of the night, didn’t get any sleep, rode across the fucking city, nu na cherta mne ato nuzhno*.”  He waved his hand in front of his face.  “Damn magic everywhere, making me sneeze.”

The monster next to him opened its mouth.  Roman whacked it with the top of his staff on the nose.  “You – shut up.”

The beast looked like a cat who got popped with a newspaper: half-shock, half-outrage.  Roman looked the two of us over.  “What’s the matter with you two?”

The magic melted, taking the visions with it.   My mind struggled to formulate a coherent thought, any thought.  I opened my mouth.  “Your pants have Eeyore on them.”

“I like Eeyore.  He is sensible.  A sober look on life never hurt anyone.”

I fell in love with Roman with this line.  Yeah, yeah.  The book is about Raphael and Andrea, but Roman is awesome, too.

Want to win Eeyore & Roman? (and Andrea and Raphael)?

I’m giving away an unsigned copy of Gunmetal Magic and Eeyore. The book works fine as a standalone, so if you haven’t read any of the Kate Daniels’ books (and why haven’t you?) this is a good place to get your feet wet.  It’s awesome.  You want to read this.  Want to win?

Just tell me your favorite Winnie the Pooh character…if you can’t think of one, tell me your favorite UF character.  If you can’t think of one…um, your favorite character, period. O.O

I’ll draw one name at random and post the winner here next week.  A quick run-down on my contest rules…you must check back to see if you’ve won.  That’s how the winner is notified, and I don’t redraw names. DO NOT POST TO TWITTERSWEEPS/SWEEPSTAKES SITES…if this happens, I can and likely will end the contest without drawing a winner.  Open internationally. One entry per household. Void where prohibited, blah, blah, blah…read the rest of the rules here.  FYI, entering the contest means if you have read and agreed to the rules.

Guestblogging today…

Over at Lauren Dane‘s… and you can read about the character inspiration behind Damon in Blade Song…and it references things like pinterest.**

Just two more days, guys…

After some of the concern with copyright infringement with images, I want to point people to my post on pinterest…most of my character inspiration pics are actors and the images are thumbnail pics from IMDB and in some cases, images that come from the facebook pages run by actors themselves (I think that falls into the implied consent thing).

Stopping today…

Over at Pure Textuality. You can get a bit more insight into what it was like writing Kit.

We celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary on Friday…

My guy bought me flowers…an unexpected surprise, because we’d decided we’d go out of town for a short trip as our celebration.  We’re heading to Chicago for a couple of days, leaving this afternoon once he’s done with work.  We’ll be there until Wednesday, so I’ll be off and on for a couple of days.

In case I don’t the rest of my blog tour stops posted, for the rest of the tour, I’m at…

7.30 Lauren Dane

8.01 The Book Pushers 

8.02 Paperback Writer

And I also have an interview going up for under the covers book blog on 8/2, I believe…

Snippet Saturday…

It’s say anything day… author’s choice.

FRAGILE!  Coming out in mass market paperback soon!

Uneasy, she grabbed her purse and slid the strap around her neck, adjusting it so that it would lay crossways over her chest and then she dug the pepper spray out.  Holding it in her hand, Devon climbed out of the car and headed for the front door.  Her gaze darted back and forth.  Her heart slammed against her ribs.  Part of her insisted, Relax.  Relax.

The other part was going, Yeah, right.  Relaxing was so not going to happen. Her hands shook as she slid the key home and she breathed out a sigh of relief as she turned the doorknob.  Then a hand landed on her shoulder. Yelping, she whirled around, her hand lifting up the pepper spray, pushing down–

Long fingers caught her wrist, jerking her hand aside at the last second.  Air wheezed out of her lungs as she stared up at Luke’s face. A muscle jerked in his jaw as he studied her face.  Almost imperceptibly, his features softened and he tugged on her wrist, urging her closer.  “I was across the street, talking to Danielle again. I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Cuddling up against him, she sucked in air and waited for her heart to level out before she even tried to speak.  “It’s okay.  I’m just a little jumpy.”  Something bit into her fingers and she looked down, saw that she was holding the little canister of pepper spray so tight, the grooved plastic was cutting into her skin.  With a grimace, she murmured, “Okay.  A lot jumpy.”

Strong, gentle hands stroked up and down her back and he nuzzled her neck.  “It will be okay, Devon,” he whispered.

Turning her face into his, she replied back, “I know.”  Their lips were all but touching and unable to resist, she leaned in, covered his hard, unsmiling mouth with her own.  He opened for her and she pushed up on her toes, winding her arms around his neck.

He felt so damn perfect against her, warm and strong, his hands cradling her so gently, his mouth moving against hers in a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing.  She felt safe with him–but more than that, she felt whole.

Whole–and hungry.  All the pent up adrenaline channeled itself into heat, burning away her fear but leaving her so aching, and so empty, it almost hurt.

Wiggling closer, she rocked against him, shuddering as she felt the heat and strength of him through their clothes.  Devon forgot where they were.  Nothing seemed to exist, but his mouth on hers and his arms holding her close…

read more…

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Mari Carr

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Delilah Devlin

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