Bewitching Book Tours Magazine Issue 26 August 2014
Bewitching Book Tours Magazine is a publication of Bewitching Book Tours and Bewitching Books. Editor: Roxanne Rhoads Design Editor and Layout: Lisa McGeen Contributors include Bewitching Book Tours Authors and Tour Hosts learn more at www.bewitchingbooktours.blogspot.com Ad space rates are: $40 full page ad $20 half page ad $10 quarter page ad You can subscribe to this magazine at http://issuu.com/bewitchingbooktours Š Copyright 2014 Stock images from www.123rf.com
Contents Alexa Grace Interview Fictional Characters, Real People and Alter Egos Love Spirits Feature Green Living Tips Deep Down Things Feature ClaraBelle’s Custom Creations A Faery Godmother’s Duties The Magick of Dark Root Feature Emerald Fire Feature The Lycan Hunter Feature Witches Bane Feature How Real is Too Real? Rogue’s Paradise Feature The Devil’s Jukebox Feature Naughty Nook Switching It Up Why Isn’t There More Steam in My Steamy Sex Scene Pinup Files Photography
4 8 12 14 16 26 28 36 42 46 50 54 58 59 62 63 66 71 72
Can you tell readers a little bit about yourself and what inspired to write in this particular genre?
ries): A missing coed named Abby Reece.
I began my writing journey in March 2011 when the Sr. Director of Training & Development position I'd held for thirteen years was eliminated. A door closed but another one opened. I finally had the time to pursue my childhood dream of writing books. My focus is now on writing riveting romantic suspense novels including my popular Deadly Series (DEADLY OFFERINGS, DEADLY RELATIONS DEADLY RELATIONS, and DEADLY HOLIDAY. I became a USA Today Bestselling Author in 2013. Readers are describing my new Profile Series (PROFILE OF EVIL and PROFILE OF TERROR) as "edge of your seat reading from page one to the end". PROFILE OF FEAR is coming in 2015. My books are in ebook and print formats.
Two clever thrill killers are committing the most brutal, public, and horrifying abductions and murders in the county’s history. The killers, known as the Gamers, have done this before, and are now upping their evil game to a new level. The question is — can they be stopped before they kill again? Things get complicated. When an ex-girlfriend goes missing, Private Investigator Gabe Chase is obsessed with finding her. But once her naked and posed body is discovered, the investigator becomes the investigated. His passion for the victim’s beautiful sister is a complication he doesn't need, as he helps solve the county’s most baffling, terrifying murder cases ever.
I currently live in Florida with my daughter and five Miniature Schnauzers, three of which are rescues. As Add a sociopathic serial killer who calls himself the a writer, I am fueled by Starbucks lattes, chocolate and Master. communicating with my street team and readers. A serial killer so deadly, the FBI’s behavioral analysts want to know when and why he began killing, as well What inspired you to write this book? as the identification and location of additional vicI wanted to tell the story of the terror a community tims. He will speak only to former federal agent, Carly would experience if two teenaged thrill killers and an Stone, a woman he blames for his capture. When the escape serial killer were abducting innocent victims profiler finds herself at the mercy of this ruthless killer, and killing them at will. In addition, there were two his becomes the most terrifying profile of all. tender romance stories that needed to be told. Profile of Terror Please tell us about your latest release. Three chilling villains, two passionate love stories, and In PROFILE OF TERROR (Book #2 of the Profile Se- pulse-racing suspense with startling plot twists keep
readers on the edge of their seats from page one of this heart-pounding and unforgettable romantic suspense.
Shots rang out, shattering the window, as well as the china and wine glasses on the table, shooting splintered glass projectiles throughout the room and cutting Profile of Terror is available in ebook and print versions on: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Gabe's back. Smashwords. (Note: Amazon has an app for iPad usNow terrified, Kaitlyn tightened her arms around ers.) Gabe, clamping down like a vise grip, as her heart Was one of your characters more challenging to hammered against her chest. write than another? "Damn it!" Gabe cursed. "I left my gun in the glove box in my truck." The sexual sadist, serial killer (Jim Ryder) in both PROFILE OF EVIL and PROFILE OF TER"Gun? I've got guns!" Kaitlyn pushed at him. "Get ROR has been the most challenging to write because off me. They're in my bedroom closet." his character required so much research. I was deterLooking down at her, Gabe shook his head. "Why mined that his character, behaviors, and actions be am I not surprised?" credible so I researched by reading books written by profilers, discussed with my subject matter experts, "As much as I'm turned on by your buff, sexy body and did extensive Internet research. This research was also needed so I could write an accurate profile for my pressing against mine, if you could please roll off of me, I'll get my guns." profiler, Carly Stone, character. What is your favorite scene from the book? Could you share a little bit of it, without spoilers of course?
What is the most interesting thing you have physically done for book related research purposes?
One of my favorite scenes in PROFILE OF TERROR involves the characters Kaitlyn and Gabe when someone is shooting at her house. This short excerpt may explain why it is a favorite. Suddenly a small dot of red light appeared on the wall next to them. "What is that?"asked Kaitlyn. Recognizing it as the laser light from a gun, Gabe grabbed Kaitlyn out of her chair and hit the floor, landing on top of her. "Ouch!" She squealed. "Okay, I get it. You're into rough sex. But you're killing my back. Besides that, I'm famished. Can't we have pizza first?" Gabe shifted, balancing his weight on his elbows, placed his hand over her mouth, and whispered, "Kaitlyn, that red light is from a laser mounted onto a gun. Someone is outside." "Oh, c'mon. You can think of a better reason to jump me than that."
I attended and graduated from the local Law Enforcement Academy where I learned everything there is to know about solving crimes. I met at one of the classes a man who heads the major crime department and he became one of my best subject matter experts for each of my books. When did you consider yourself a writer? I started looking at myself as a writer when my first book DEADLY OFFERINGS was released on Christmas Day 2011. The positive reviews motivated me to write the next book and the next. What are your guilty pleasures in life? Unfortunately most of my guilty pleasures in life are fattening, like turtle ice cream sundaes made with hot caramel, hot fudge, and pecans sprinkled on top. I think I gained a couple of pounds just writing that. I'm also crazy about Starbucks' mocha lattes. Few people know that I celebrate the release of each book with Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream. (My secret is now out.)
Other than writing, what are some of your interests, hobbies or passions in life? I love spending time with my family and friends. I believe they are our true gifts in life. I also like exploring small towns, eating at their restaurants, shopping at their stores. Also, I love watching Lifetime movies curled up on my sofa with my warm and cuddly miniature Schnauzers at my side. What was the last amazing book you read? I just finished James Patterson's new book INVISIBLE which has to be his most chilling stand-alone book ever. FBI research analyst, Emmy Dockery finds the link between hundreds of unsolved murder cases — but no one will believe her. Add her ex, field agent Books Bookman and the two races against time to catch the prolific killer. There are lots of suspense and twists and turns. My kind of book. Where is your favorite place to read? Do you have a cozy corner or special reading spot? My favorite time to read is at bedtime. As an author, I work a regular work day from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. so it's the best time to relax with a good book.
up is when Gabe bumps against Kaitlyn's purse and send it flying along with all kinds of self-defense paraphernalia across the floor. The way she describes each self-defense tool is hilarious. Here's a short excerpt. He nodded, and picked up another pink object. “Is this what I think it is?” “Ah, the Blaster stun gun, a girl’s best friend. Actually, it’s one of my favorites. Notice it’s dual-purpose with the built-in rechargeable flashlight,” Kaitlyn began. “The Blaster may look pink and girlish, but that baby delivers a powerful punch of 19,000,000 volts. Just firing it into the air should be enough to stop any attacker with half a brain. It makes a scary electrical popping sound as the blinding electric current pulsates between the test prongs. One touch and the Blaster is guaranteed to bring a wouldbe assailant to his knees. Very cool.” Shaking his head, Gabe said, “I don’t know whether to think you’re a modern-day female avenger or a sales rep for self-defense weapons.”
What can readers expect next from you?
Profile of Terror Profile Series Book Two Alexa Grace
I am in the research phase of my next book PROFILE OF FEAR (Book #3 of the Profile Series). The book involves human trafficking so I am reading a lot of information on how traffickers operate. The information is interesting but terrifying at the same time.
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Where can readers find you on the web? My website is: http://www.alexa-grace.net/ . I invite readers to join my author Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/ AuthorAlexaGrace . Follow me on Twitter at https:// twitter.com/AlexaGrace2 My Amazon Author page, where you can take a look at all of my books, is: http://www.amazon.com/Alexa- ISBN-13: 978-0-9855939-6-4 Grace/e/B006QKYVB2 ASIN: B00KAMWA7Y
Publisher: Golden Publishing, L.L.C. Date of Publication: May 2014 ISBN-10: 0985593962
Would you like to leave readers with a little teaser or excerpt from the book?
Number of pages: 263 Word Count: 80,583
The scene in PROFILE OF TERROR that cracks me
Cover Artist: Christy Carlyle of Gilded Heart Design
Book Description: A missing coed named Abby Reece.
& Development position she'd held for thirteen years was eliminated. A door closed but another one opened. She finally had the time to pursue her childhood dream of writing books. Her focus is now on writing riveting romantic suspense novels. Alexa Grace is consistently listed in top twenty of Amazon's Top 100 Most Popular Authors in the categories Romantic Suspense and Police Procedural. In 2013, she was named one of the top 100 Indie authors by Kindle Review. A chapter is devoted to her in the book Interviews with Indie Authors by C. Ridgway and T. Ridgway.
Two clever thrill killers are committing the most brutal, public, and horrifying abductions and murders in the county’s history. The killers, known as the Gamers, have done this before, and are now upping their evil game to a new level. The question is — can they Her books Deadly Offerings, Deadly Deception, and Deadly be stopped before they kill again? Things get complicated. When an ex-girlfriend goes missing, Private Investigator Gabe Chase is obsessed with finding her. But once her naked and posed body is discovered, the investigator becomes the investigated. His passion for the victim’s beautiful sister is a complication he doesn't need, as he helps solve the county’s most baffling, terrifying murder cases ever.
Relations are listed in e-retailer's Top 100 Bestselling Romantic Suspense and Police Procedural Books. Deadly Offerings has not left the top ten bestselling free mystery romance and police procedural books since 2011. Deadly Holiday, published in November 2012, is her holidaythemed romantic suspense novella, featuring all her Deadly Trilogy characters. Alexa Grace's book Deadly Relations is included in the bestselling book set The Perfect Ten along with Dianna Love, Norah Wilson, Nancy Naigle, Andrienne Giordano, Misty Evans, Sandy Blair, Mary Buckham, Tonya Kappes and Micah Caipa.
Add a sociopathic serial killer who calls himself the Profile of Evil, the first book of the Profile Series was published Master. in May 2013. Profile of Terror was released in May 2014 and Profile of Fear will be released in 2015.
A serial killer so deadly, the FBI’s behavioral analysts want to know when and why he began killing, as well as the identification and location of additional victims. He will speak only to former federal agent, Carly Stone, a woman he blames for his capture. When the profiler finds herself at the mercy of this ruthless killer, his becomes the most terrifying profile of all.
Earning two degrees from Indiana State University, Alexa currently lives in Florida. She's a member of Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Her writing support team includes five Miniature Schnauzers, three of which are rescues. As a writer, she is fueled by Starbucks lattes, chocolate and emails from readers. You can visit her website at - http://www.alexa-grace.net/
Profile of Terror
Subscribe to her newsletter at - http://eepurl.com/sJ-Df
Three chilling villains, two passionate love stories, and pulse-racing suspense with startling plot twists keep readers on the edge of their seats from page one of this heart-pounding and unforgettable romantic suspense.
Friend her on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ AuthorAlexaGrace
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/wZKSJmrHrRM Available at Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon CA Amazon AU BN About the Author: USA Today Bestselling Author, Alexa Grace began her writing journey in March 2011 when the Sr. Director of Training
Tweet her - @AlexaGrace2 YouTube: http:// www.youtube.com/watch? v=wZKSJmrHrRM Goodreads - https:// www.goodreads.com/author/ show/3345983.Alexa_Grace
Fictional Characters, Real People and Alter Egos by Deanna Kahler We’ve all read books where we really related to or connected with a character. The person may have reminded us of ourselves or who we long to be. Even though the character is fictional, he or she may feel real to us. Why is it that something make believe can seem so true to life? The reason, I believe, is that each character is created as a result of the author’s experiences and desires. Some characters are partially based on real people. Others share a few of the author’s personality traits. And then there are the “alter egos,” those characters who represent the author’s hidden desires or innermost fears. For example, the author may have always thought skydiving seemed fascinating but is too terrified to ever try it herself, so she creates a character that is fearless, adventurous and loves to skydive. This gives her to opportunity to live vicariously through the character and also explore a scenario or way of living that is uncomfortable, unfamiliar or risky. Every experience, thought, fear and desire shapes us into who we are. In the same way, each fictional character represents an aspect of ourselves. As a result, these characters have a lot in common with real people. They’re relatable because someone like them exists in real life. It’s very unlikely that anyone could come up with a character that shares nothing in common with any living person. We write about what we know or have come to understand, and that includes all the people we have ever come in contact with — from the grocery store clerk to your best friend to your favorite teacher.
I love the characters in my book, Echoes of Paradise. Celeste shares some personality traits with me. Sue is my polar opposite. Andy represents the demons of my past. Chip is the bubbly, carefree child I wish I could have been. They are a beautiful blend of fictional characters, real people and alter egos.
Echoes of Paradise The Afterlife Series Book 1 Deanna Kahler Genre: Paranormal Romance / Visionary Fiction Publisher: Rose Petal Publications Date of Publication: Originally Released 1/1/2014 Reprint / New Cover 6/21/2014 ISBN: 978-0615863399 ASIN: B00HT2KX2C Number of pages: 228 Word Count: 54,937 Book Description:
Connor’s dead. But she can still feel him. Is it just her imagination or something more? Celeste wants to know. And she’ll stop at nothing to find out. A once-aspiring artist, Celeste is going through the motions of life. She’s stuck – in a job she doesn’t love, with a man who isn’t right for her, in a web of painful memories from the past. Adding to her despair is the sudden and unexpected death of Connor, her true love. As she struggles to make sense of the world around her, strange coincidences and mysterious events lead her to question her sanity. When the happenings persist, she wonders if Connor’s spirit is trying to tell her something. Her jealous husband Dave insists it’s all just her imagination. But when Celeste’s young son has an experience of his own, she is determined to uncover the truth. Join Celeste as she risks her marriage, her career, and her own safety to escape the demons from her past and unravel the mysteries of life and death. With so much uncertainty, there’s only one thing Celeste knows: her world will never be the same. Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/-jGCYT1my9E Available at Amazon and BN About the Author:
Deanna Kahler is an accomplished writer and proud mom. Her work has been published in numerous corporate newsletters and magazines across the country. She began writing as a young child and enjoys the opportunity to reach others and make a difference in their lives.
Echoes of Paradise is her second book. The story is close to her heart because it was inspired by some of her own experiences. Deanna is now working on a follow-up novel, Visions of Mortality, scheduled for release in 2015. The book will feature some of the same characters and also have a paranormal/afterlife theme.
Deanna holds a bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where she graduated with departmental honors. She lives with her husband and daughter in a Metro Detroit suburb and enjoys writing, dancing, walking, and visiting parks in her spare time.
For more information, please visit www.deannakahler.com
Author photo by Steven Jon Horner Photography
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeannaKahler
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/echoesofparadise
GooglePlus: https://plus.google.com/ u/0/117561617207031495605/posts
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/ show/7087819.Deanna_Kahler
Excerpt Flights, hotels, apartments. Clothes, jewelry, shoes. Check, check, check. She’d tried on sweaters, jeans, jackets, surveyed each item to determine the most Italian look and picked only the most flattering combinations. She lined up toiletries, stockings, scarves, lingerie and make-up, but not too much, she’d buy better stuff in Italy. Cat sitters were called to assess availability and suitability. Processed food was sneered at in grocery stores for savoring of fresh Venetian produce. The voluntary time-off she scoffed at months earlier when offered it, turned out to be a perk, not a temporary discharge due to shortage of work. For Barbara, getting to Venice was easy. Finding ghosts in Venice? Harder. Fetching Louisa and releasing Matteo’s grip? Impossible. Louisa would scheme and stick until everyone else became unglued. If ghosts were to be found, Louisa would find them. Barbara hadn’t stopped Louisa from going to Venice so how would she get her home? Investigate the ghosts, disprove their existence? Barbara imagined her own escape into those Venetian palaces, their moldy facades toppling into canals. Those quiet evenings with no traffic, strolling along sea water, visiting quaint bars or vegetable markets that hugged tiny bridges. Foggy thoughts of Venice led Barbara to recall how Louisa had written her about a fall, not into the arms of Matteo, but into a canal. She’d slipped on the algaecoated steps leading into a traghetto that ferries passengers across the Grand Canal and the only gondolas still in regular use by Venetians. This traghetto was her daily ride to work, so exposed algae didn’t concern her. Yet, one day she’d been unable to maintain her balance long enough to avoid the dive. She’d fallen into the drink, straight out of the helpful hand of the gondolier, with her expensive Italian boots, cell phone and all. “Venetians rallied so fast,” she’d written to Barbara. “that my shoulders barely touched the water when they lifted me out of the canal as easily as a floating plastic bag.” Her Venetian rescuers assured Louisa that all self-respecting residents fell into canals at some point in their lives. She’d been baptized, Venetian-style. The young gondolier, feeling somewhat responsible for not holding her securely enough, made up for it by embracing her tightly. With both arms, he enveloped Louisa in his goose down parka and rubbed her wet body vigorously and lovingly. Barbara smiled as she sensed Louisa’s presence deep in her heart, thousands of miles across the pond--as was the Atlantic Ocean referred to by jet-setters like Louisa. Don’t fall in again, dear one, Barbara quietly prayed, until I get there. She tried sending those words to Louisa, knowing not whether they fell onto her sister’s distant ears.
Love Spirits What Happens In Venice Book One Diana Cachey Genre: Romance/paranormal. ISBN: 1481031767 ISBN: 9781481031769 Tagline: Among the romantic canals of Venice—and oh so many Italian distractions—can a stunning American lawyer and her psychic sister help the Ghosts of Venice solve a hushed-up crime? Book Description: Louisa Mangotti is a gorgeous American lawyer and Interpol expert who, after being offered a job working with the international crime unit in Venice, receives a mysterious postcard from the Venetian Ghosts, the ancient protectors of the Republic. But Louisa assumes her bad-boy ex, Matteo, sent it in a quixotic attempt to gain her attention. Louisa may have dismissed the ghosts, but the ghosts aren’t quite done with her. When the bodies of two glassmakers wash up on Murano Island, the cryptic messages persist. Reluctantly, Louisa calls upon Matteo to help decipher the clues. And before she knows it, a flame that was never fully extinguished is rekindled. Sensing that her sister is in over her head, Barbara Mangotti rushes to the rescue, only to be lured away by two handsome Venetian men. With time running out, can the two beauties solve a crime that could threaten the city of Venice itself? About the Author: Diana Cachey is a licensed attorney, published academic, and former adjunct law professor. She also holds a BA in English, and while in law school, she was the first female editor in chief of her university’s law review. The author of the novel Love Spirits, she has trained with several New York Times best-selling writers, including Robert Allen, with more than seventy-two million books sold. For more than a decade, Cachey has been traveling to Venice, the setting of her novel, on extended trips several times a year. The cafés, restaurants, and many other haunts of Venice play a prominent role in her sexy paranormal mysteryromance about a beautiful American lawyer guided by the Ghosts of Venice in the investigation of a hushed-up crime.
A Review of Vegan al Fresco by Carla Kelly Reviewed by Wenona Napolitano First of all I will confess, I am not a vegan, I’m not even a vegetarian. Some people find it hard to believe that I am a green living guru without being a vegetarian. I could argue stats and facts all day long about pros and cons, history and health regarding whether or not being a vegan or vegetarian can contribute to saving the environment but the simple fact is, it all boils down to personal choice and preference. I like meat. But…I also like my veggies and eating vegan dishes doesn’t bother me at all. I always love to have options when it comes to food. Plus I have vegan and vegetarian friends so it’s nice to have some recipes on hand when they come over for a cookout or dinner party. This book provides some great recipes and it covers everythingfrom seasonings to desserts. It has tons of recipes for dips and sauces, salsas and relishes (I love appetizers) there are even recipes for drinks. Some of my favorite recipes are the Smoky and Salty Roasted Nuts…and the Pumpkin Corn Cakes…those are going to be a great autumn dish. The salad recipes make my mouth water and the grilled dishes are creative and inspired. But it’s the desserts that my family really loves. Vegan Ice Creams (several flavors, all delicious but my husband is truly in love with the Coconut), Banana and Carrot Cake, and the cookies…even your little cookie monster will love these. This book has a huge selection of recipes, everything you need if you’ll be hosting a cookout or get together with vegan or vegetarian friends. One complaint about the book- not enough images, I like recipes to come with photos of the food. Not every recipe has a corresponding photo, though there are enough images that the book is not bland. I just like to see the food, it makes me want to make it (and eat it) that much more. But reading the descriptions was good enough to make my mouth water with anticipation. Whether you are a vegan looking for new recipes or a non-vegan like me who just wants to broaden their food horizons and have options when hosting vegan friends, this book is a must have for your kitchen.
Q&A with Tamara Linse How do you pronounce your name? tuh-MARE-uh LIN-zee. Don't worry—hardly anyone gets it right the first time. What does the name of your blog, “writer, cogitator, recovering ranch girl,” mean? The real reason I tagged myself “writer, cogitator, recovering ranch girl” was that I needed a tagline for my blog, something that helped me to stand out. “Writer” was obvious. I love old-timey words, and I had been finishing up a historical novel at the time, and so “cogitator” popped into my mind. I have friends who are “recovering alcoholics” (and “recovering Catholics”) and I thought that that fit me well—the idea that my childhood was something I needed to recover from. As Maile Meloy wrote in her story “Ranch Girl,” you can’t have much worse luck than being born a girl on a ranch. Why is it bad luck to be born a girl on a ranch? Western culture is a very male culture. A lot of women I know, myself included, saw that phenomenon growing up and the only way they could see to have self-worth is to be a man, hence the title of my collection How to Be a Man. A lot of women in the West wear men’s clothing and drink beer and hunt and watch football and generally be as masculine as they can be. They shun everything feminine, and they have no women friends— heaven forbid. They think of themselves as this third thing, this third gender. Not a woman definitely, and they can’t be men, so they think of themselves as genderless almost. It’s very destructive to the psyche. Who did you read as a child? I loved all things British—Pooh and The Wind in the Willows and The Secret Garden. I also loved Joan Aiken and Frank L. Baum. I was glad to go from grade school to middle school because I’d exhausted the library. In middle school, I discovered the Newberry Award books. Later, I read a lot of westerns and loved them, particularly Louis L’Amour. He doesn’t stand the test of time well, though. I went through a scifi/ specfic phase as a teenager and still have a fondness for it. I haven’t read much romance or mystery, and I’m not quite sure why. Literary fiction is and always has been my greatest love. Who are your favorite writers? My favorite writers. Well, it often feels like the writer of the last book I read because I fall in love almost every time. I fall in love with minds. But I’ll take a run at it.
My all-time favorites are Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf. For novels, Douglas Adams, Julian Barnes, Michael Cunningham, E. L. Doctorow, William Faulkner, Charles Frasier, James Galvin, Kent Haruf, John Irving, Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Ann Patchett, Jodi Picoult, Terry Pratchett, Anne Rice, J. K. Rowling, Anita Shreve, and Alexander McCall Smith. For short stories, Sherman Alexie, T. C. Boyle, Raymond Carver, Charles D’Ambrosio, Anthony Doerr, Aryn Kyle, Dennis Lehane, Maile Meloy, Alice Munro, Antonia Nelson, Tim O’Brien, Benjamin Percy, Donald Ray Pollock, Annie Proulx, Karen Russell, Jim Shepard, and Tobias Wolff. For nonfiction, Steve Almond, Judy Blunt, Augusten Burroughs, John D’Agata, James Herriot, and Mary Roach. There are lots of writers that I really want to like and I have their books but I haven’t gotten around to reading them. See what I mean? And this isn’t all of them by a long stretch. What’s the earliest memory you have of writing a story? When did you first call yourself a writer? I’ve always written. The first story I wrote a beginning, middle, and end to was called “The Silver Locket” and was the story of a girl who goes back in time to become her own great grandmother. It was inspired by a friend named Cami who was into a British YA mystery writer named Joan Aiken. Together we read everything of hers. Cami wrote a story that ended with a head rolling in a gutter. Prior to that, I had read all the time, but I hadn’t realized that a person could actually BE a writer. When I actually called myself a writer is a different story. I think I was 30. I wrote all of my life, but no one I knew was a writer, and I thought of writers as someone who published a novel, and so when I began to imagine I might just be published is when I tentatively played around with the idea of calling myself one. Why do you write? That’s a complicated question. Because it’s my passion. Because as a child I felt I had no voice. Because I love to read, and writing is like reading only better. Because I have to to stay sane—just ask my husband. Because I’m fascinated by people, and writing and reading is the closest you can get to another person’s consciousness. But a deeper reason is that writing is all about desire. All people everywhere live in a constant state of desire. It is truly a human condition. Whether it’s something as small as a snack or something materialistic or something as large as a mate for life, people want. People need. One reason that we are such good consumers and why advertising works so well is because we by our very nature have this endless hole within us that needs to be filled. Every religion is built on this. So, this is my deeper answer to why I write: Because I’m human. Because I desire. It’s a way to take the world into myself and to make it part of me. It’s a way to place myself into the world. It’s a way to connect with the world and with other people and to imagine for one small moment that we are not alone and that we have the capacity to be full and content and meaningful. Where do you get your ideas? That’s the wrong question. It should be: How do you recognize an idea when you see one? Ideas are all around you. Everything and anything can spark a story. Say, someone told you to write about walls. Thomas King, who’s Native American, was given 24 hours' notice to write about walls, and he came up with a hum-
dinger. (Sorry—I don’t remember the name of it!) It’s about a man wanting his walls painted white but the history of walls bleeds through, and then finally, when he has them torn out and new walls put in, the stark white walls makes him look brown. Virginia Woolf wrote a story about a blob on her bedroom wall, which turns out to be a snail or a slug, I think, but it’s a great story. I’m sure there are more stories about walls. It’s about what you put into the idea, what lights you up and interests you, and it can be as specific as something that happened to you as a child or as general as wanting to write about the color green. I also find that when my head is in my writing—in other words, I’m not blocked and avoiding—ideas come so fast and thick I can’t keep up. Everything sparks an idea for a story. Then it’s a problem of way too many ideas and feeling guilty about lost opportunity. What is your writing process? What is your least favorite part? Your most favorite part? I avoid. I feel awful. I inevitably read things and feel inspired, but still I avoid. Then I make myself sit at the computer and start. It’s hard, really really hard. But then something magical happens. The real world goes away and the world I’m creating becomes more real than the real world. It’s like the real world is in black and white, and the world I’m creating is in technicolor. Sure, sometimes it still comes slowly and painfully, but sometimes it comes like lightning from my brain. And then I’m in love. When I finish a story, revised and all, I’m in love with it. I can’t see its flaws. I want to take it to dinner and then make out with it in the back seat. Then, like all affairs, after a while I start to see the story’s strengths and weaknesses. Then I either revise some more or I write a new story or both. My least favorite part is the avoiding stage, and my most favorite part is when the writing is going well and the world I’m writing is more real than the real world. Deep Down Things doesn’t easily fit into a category. Why is that? I think it has to do with my interests as a reader and a writer. I don’t read much genre, and I haven’t written it. There’s nothing wrong with genre ~ it’s just a different animal. Genre seeks to affirm preconceived notions. It takes a received form and plays with it, but the arc must remain essentially the same. There’s value and entertainment in that. However, what I love to read and write is the complicated messy parts of life, the genre of literary. I want my fiction to challenge and expand what I know, and I want to challenge my readers to do a little more of the work. Above all else, I want fiction that tries to express the subtleties and nuances of lived experience, yet be in some way satisfying. So that’s why Deep Down Things doesn’t fit into a category. Why four points of view?
Because I’m a masochist? Seriously, the book was initially conceived as having a structure similar to the movie Love Actually. I was exploring the question: how can you have a bunch of different story lines going yet make them come together as a unified whole? I initially conceived more story lines than just the four ~ for example, there was going to be a high school student who tried to seduce Tibs. The thing about point of view, though, is that whenever you give someone the narrative spotlight, they have to have an arc. It has to be their story and they have to change, or refuse to change, in their own arc. And therefore if you have four stories you have four arcs, and then it all has to hold together into an arc of its own. Another initial model for Deep Down Things is Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. That novel is not only my favorite Faulkner but one of my alltime favorite books. Kent Haruf’s Plainsong was a model late in the process, but I actually didn’t read the book till after I had written the first draft of Deep Down Things. Maggie and Jes’s medical journey is harrowing. Does this reflect something in your life? Their story reflects many things in my life. First and most directly, when I was a technical editor for an environmental consulting firm, I worked with a wonderful woman who had two boys. She is my same age and is
one of those ideal mothers. If I were able to choose my mother, she’d be at the top of the list. But then she had her third child and he had severe spina bifida, just like Jes. He died when he was 6 years old, and he would have been 18 this year. I hope this book in some small way honors what they went through. There are a few other things that contribute to the story. My husband and I lost five babies to miscarriage, the first at six months. In past times, we would have been childless, but with the miracle of modern science we were able to have our twin boy and girl. They are our genetic material carried by a saint of a woman who acted as our gestational carrier. She is amazing and I would trust her almost more than I trust myself. A third thing that contributes is that our son was born with a severe cleft lip and palate. He’s perfectly fine, but he’s had to have a number of surgeries throughout his life. I am so thankful to all the medical professionals who have made so many things possible. Deep Down Things is a tragedy. Why don’t you write happy endings? My mom asks me that all the time, as do a couple of my sisters. I fear I was born with a broken funny bone. I find things funny, but they’re usually English geek kinds-of-things—Monty Python, Terry Pratchett. The things that most people find funny, I usually find incredibly sad or incredibly angry. One of the reasons why, I think, is because the basis of a lot of humor is stereotyping, reducing someone to one dimension, and my goal in writing is to find the complexity of life, to express lived reality. That’s why I’m drawn to the genre of literary. (Not at all to insinuate that the other genres are anything less!) I don’t think of my endings as dark—what I often try for is closure without resolution, which is the way life is. There’s always a tension when I write between the messiness and meaninglessness of life and the creation of a satisfying piece of art. Deep Down Things is self-published. Why did you choose that route?
I have to admit that I crave the legitimization that comes from traditional publishing, and that’s why I resisted self-publishing for so long. It took me 11 years and almost 200 queries to get an agent. (Read more about my journey to get an agent here.) I’ve written and rewritten two novels that have gone out to publishers ~ one of which is Deep Down Things. Though I’ve gotten some very nice notes from editors, neither was picked up. Some might call me a slow study ~ I call myself pig-headed, and that’s a good thing. I don’t know if you’ve been reading much about this, but the squeeze that is being put on traditional publishing by disintermediation has brought about the rise of a new type of author: the hybrid author. (The great Chuck Wendig has been talking a lot about this.) There’s no longer just two tracks ~ traditional publishing and self-publishing. The tracks are becoming melded and diversified, and much more of the power is back in the hands of the author. Also much more of the responsibility for getting a book out and connecting with readers. That’s where the hybrid author comes in. She or he is someone who, with the help of her agent, chooses the best route for the work at hand and then has to make it so. This is wonderful and terrifying ~ for everyone involved. Also, traditional publishers now consider the success of a self-published title in their decision to take book on. In other words, they will take on a book that’s doing well under self-publishing (and I suspect that this will become the norm, rather than the exception). I’m also made for it. It’s like all my various backgrounds come together in this one endeavor. Of course the writing part ~ I’ve been writing and improving my craft my whole life. But then also editing ~ I’ve been an editor in all different capacities. I’ve also been an artist and taken art classes for years, not to mention jobs as a document designer. I took classes in electrical engineering and computers for a number of years, and all that experience goes into making a website and working with digital publishing. And I’m in marketing and have done freelance marketing for years, which prepares me to be a promo-sapiens. And I love social media and tend to be a bit of an early adopter. Not to mention I’m a bit obsessive. CJ discovers new facets of her sexuality in Deep Down Things. Are you gay? No, I’m not lesbian. I am a happily married heterosexual. However, like so many things, sexuality rests on a spectrum. People’s real sexuality, not simply what they profess to be. On the spectrum of homosexual to heterosexual, I’d say I’m not out on the end. I’m attracted to minds, and that’s why I fall in love with books and au-
thors, no matter who they are. Haven’t you had that experience? The one where you read a book and you become obsessed with the author and read everything you can about them and fantasize about running into them somewhere and you make this deep connection and are friends for life? Very stalkerish? I write gay characters for the same reason that I write characters of all different stripes. I’m trying to figure out and portray the human condition, and sexuality is all wrapped up in gender, which is something I’m very interested in too. Are you Christian? I am not. I would say I’m spiritual without a particular affiliation. My family didn’t go to church when I was growing up, though I visited with friends, and I’m deeply ambivalent about the institution. As a feminist and humanist, I strongly object to all the horrible things that have
been done in the name of religion, and since I was not raised immersed in its metaphors and traditions I find them hollow and constructed. However, I whole-heartedly believe in the function that religion plays in our society: community, the ten commandments, do unto others, be a good person. You do not have to be part of an organized institution, however, to be a good person and know right from wrong and try your best to make the world a better place. All that said, the stories of the bible are timeless and have had an immense impact on our culture, and I often have an underlying story or metaphor that I’m riffing on when I write something. Having that structure to reference prompts my creativity. And so the story of Jes is the story of Jesus in a ways large and small. Can you spot them? The characters in Deep Down Things are all white. Do you see that as a problem? Yes, I do. I thought a lot about this. Because three of my point of view characters are siblings, they needed to be of the same race, which of course would be my race. I thought about making either Jackdaw or Bo African American or Hispanic, but I couldn’t make Jackdaw because he was the bad guy. How could I make my bad a guy a different race than I? Unless I was specifically exploring the racial aspect of it, that seemed lazy and unethical and so many things. A veritable mine field. I seriously considered making Bo part African American, but then she seemed to play into the stereotype of the good-but-sharp-tongued black person who’s motherly and a nurse. Also, what would be the ramifications of having my lesbian character be black? That’s exoticizing the other. Maybe it was a lack of courage on my part, but with so many things going on already, I didn’t want to throw that into the mix. In general, just know that I think a lot about this, and I’m always trying to have a more diverse cast of characters. What are you reading? Boy, you ask difficult questions. The thing is, I could honestly say that I’m reading hundreds of books at one time. That’s because I tend to “taste” books before I read them from beginning to end. I’ll buy a new book and then read it for a half hour or hour before bed. Then I’ll put the book aside and not pick it up again for years. Lately, I’ve been reading the books of my fellow Wyoming writers who are also great friends. Nina McConigley is out with a fabulous book of short stories called Cowboys and East Indians. Pembroke Sinclair is out with a YA horror novel called The Appeal of Evil. Mary Beth Baptiste is out with a great memoir about coming West called Altitude Adjustment. You should check them out. Do you have an MFA? No—my master’s is in literary studies and my thesis was on 1852–54 pioneer diaries. I’ve taken a lot of workshops, however, in the classroom and online and at writers conferences. I highly recommend them. Be it an MFA or a local writers group, any time you can get others to look at your work and give you solid feed-
back is helpful. Solid feedback does not mean only “oh, you are so wonderful”—but you do need some of this for your ego or you won’t have the strength to go on. Neither does it mean brutal comments like “This isn’t working” with no further explanation or direction. It means detailed criticism of one reader’s reaction to what’s
working and what’s not working—the more detailed and specific and articulate, the better. Still more important, volunteer to read your writer friends’ work. You’ll learn more from commenting on theirs than you will reading comments on your own. I am thinking about getting a low residency MFA, however, as I’m always trying to improve my writing. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Read a lot. Write a lot. Write in the style of what you like to read. The best writing often comes from what obsesses you and makes you uncomfortable. Be brave. Persevere. Make a lot of writer friends. What’s next for you? Oh, so many things! First, I imagine there’ll be a lot of procrastination and a few times in the depths of despair, but then there’ll be those moments of glory when the writing is flowing and characters are running across the page. That’s not what you meant? Seriously, thank you for asking. I’ll be coming out with a historical novel in January 2015, the first book in a trilogy tentatively called the Round Earth Series. Set in 1885 Iowa and Kansas City, Earth’s Imagined Corners is about Sara, whose father tries to force her to marry his younger partner. Instead, she elopes to Kansas City with a kind man who she just met named James. Little does she know, he has a troubled past. Finally, I’m also working on a young adult series called the Wyoming Chronicles, which are reimaginings of classics set in contemporary Wyoming. The first, called Pride, is Austen’s Pride and Prejudice set in present-day Jackson Hole. Deep Down Things Tamara Linse Genre: literary fiction Publisher: Willow Words Date of Publication: July 14, 2014 Number of pages: 330 Word Count: 75,000 words Cover Artist: Tamara Linse Book Description: Deep Down Things, Tamara Linse’s debut novel, is the emotionally riveting story of three siblings torn apart by a charismatic bullrider-turned-writer and the love that triumphs despite tragedy. From the death of her parents at sixteen, Maggie Jordan yearns for lost family, while sister CJ drowns in alcohol and brother Tibs withdraws. When Maggie and an idealistic young writer named Jackdaw fall in love, she is certain that she’s found what she’s looking for. As she helps him write a novel, she gets pregnant, and they marry. But after Maggie gives birth to a darling boy, Jes, she struggles to cope with Jes’s severe birth defect, while Jackdaw struggles to overcome writer’s block brought on by memories of his abusive father.
Ambitious, but never seeming so, Deep Down Things may remind you of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong and Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. Available at Amazon BN Smashwords Kobo other international ebookstores and through Ingram Chapter 1 Maggie Jackdaw isn’t going to make it. I can tell by the way the first jump unseats him. The big white bull lands and then tucks and gathers underneath. Jackdaw curls forward and whips the air with his left hand, but his butt slides off-center. Thirty yards away on the metal bleachers, I involuntarily scoot sideways—as if it would do any good. The bull springs out from under Jackdaw and then arches its back, flipping its hind end. Jackdaw is tossed wide off the bull’s back. In the air he is all red-satin arms and shaggy-chapped legs but then somehow he grabs his black felt hat. He lands squarely on both feet, knees bent to catch his weight. Then he straightens with a grand sweep of his hat. Even from here you can see his smile burst out. There’s something about the way he opens his body to the crowd, like a dog rolling over to show its belly, that makes me feel sorry for him but drawn to him too. With him standing there, holding himself halfway between a relaxed slouch and head-high pride, I can see why my brother Tibs admires him. I haven’t actually met Jackdaw before, but he and Tibs hang out together a lot, and they have some English classes together. I haven’t run across him on campus. The crowd on the bleachers goes wild. It doesn’t matter that Jackdaw didn’t stay on the full eight seconds. They holler and wolf-whistle and shake their programs. Their metallic stomping vibrates my body and brings up dust and the smell of old manure. With Jackdaw off its back, the bull leaps into the air. It gyrates its hips and flips its head, a long ribbon of snot curling off its nostril and arcing over its back. Then it stops and turns and looks at Jackdaw. It hangs its head low. It shifts its weight onto its front hooves, butt in the air, and pauses. The clown with the black face paint and the big white circles around his eyes runs in front of the bull to distract it, but it shakes its head like it’s saying no to dessert. The crowd hushes. Then, I can’t believe it, Jackdaw takes a step toward the bull. The crowd yells, but not like a crowd, like a bunch of kids on a playground. Some holler encouragement. Others laugh. Some try to warn him. Some egg him on. My heart beats wild in my chest like when my sister CJ and I watch those slasher movies and Freddy’s coming after the guy and you know because he’s the best friend that he’s going to get killed and you want to warn him. “Bastard deserved it,” CJ always says, “for being stupid.” It’s like Jackdaw doesn’t know the bull’s right there. He starts walking, not directly to the fence but at a slant toward the loudest of the cheers, which takes him right past the bull. I turn to Tibs. “What’s he doing?” “He knows his stuff,” Tibs says, his voice lower than normal. The look on his face makes me want to give him a hug, but we’re not a hugging family, so I nod, even though Tibs isn’t looking at me.
Tibs is leaning forward, his eyes focused on Jackdaw, his elbows on his knees, and his shoulders hunched. Tibs is tall and thin, and he always looks a little fragile, a couple of sticks propped together. His face is our dad’s, big eyes and not much of a chin, sort of like an alien or an overgrown boy. He has the habit of playing with his fingers, which he’s doing now. It’s like he wants to reach out and grab something but he can’t quite bring himself to. It’s the same when he talks—he’ll cover his mouth with his hand like he’s holding back his words. Tibs is the tallest of us three kids—CJ, he, and I. CJ’s the oldest. I’m the youngest and the shortest. Grandma Rose, Dad’s mom, always said I got left with the leftovers. Growing up, it seemed like CJ and Tibs got things and were told things that I was too young to have or to know. It was good though, too, because when Dad and Mom got killed when I was sixteen, I didn’t know enough to worry much about money or things. They had saved up some so we could get by. But poor CJ. She in particular had to be the parent, but she was used to babysitting us and she was older anyway—twenty-two, I think. Like that time when we were kids when CJ was babysitting and I got so sick. Turned out to be pneumonia. I don’t know where our parents were. Most likely, they were away on business, but it could have been something else. Grandma Rose had cracked her hip—I remember that—so she couldn’t take care of us, but it was only for a couple of days and CJ was thirteen at the time. In general, CJ had started ignoring us, claiming she was a teenager now and didn’t want to play with babies any more, like kids do, which really got Tibs, though he didn’t do much besides sulk about it. But that day she was playing with us like she was a little kid too. We had been playing in an irrigation ditch making a dam. I pretended to be a beaver, and Tibs pretended to be an engineer on the Hoover Dam. I don’t remember CJ pretending to be anything, just helping us arrange sticks and slop mud and then flopping in the water to cool down. I started feeling pretty bad. Over the course of the day, I had a cough that got worse and then I got really hot and then really cold and my body ached. My lungs started wheezing when I breathed. I remember thinking someone had punched a hole in me, like a balloon, and all my air was leaking out. CJ felt my head and then felt it again and then grabbed my arm and dragged me to the house, Tibs trailing behind. All I wanted to do was lie down, but she bundled me in a blanket and put me in a wagon, and between them she and Tibs pulled me down the driveway and out onto the highway. We lived twelve miles from town, in the house where I live now. I don’t know why CJ didn’t just call 911. But here we were, rattling down the middle of the highway. A woman in a truck stopped and gave us a ride to the hospital here in Loveland. Can you imagine it? A skinny muddy thirteen-year-old girl in her brown bikini and her skinny nine-year-old brother, taller than her but no bigger around than a stick and wearing red, white, and blue swim trunks, hauling their six-year-old sister through the sliding doors of the emergency room in a little red wagon. What those nurses must’ve thought. On the bleachers, I glance from Tibs back out to Jackdaw. The bull doesn’t know what’s going on either. It shakes its lowered head and snorts, blowing up dust from the ground. Jackdaw bows his head and slips on his hat. Then the bull decides and launches itself at Jackdaw. Just as the bull charges down on Jackdaw, the whiteeyed clown runs between him and the bull and slaps the bull’s nose. Jackdaw turns toward them just as the bull plants its front feet, turns, and charges after the running clown. Pure foolishness and bravery. My hands are shaking. I want to go down and take Jackdaw’s hand and lead him out of the arena. A thought like a little alarm bell—who’d want to care about somebody who’d walk a nose-length from an angry bull? But something about the awkward hang of his arms and the flip of his chaps and the way his hat sets cockeyed on his head makes me want to be with him. The clown runs toward a padded barrel in the center of the arena, his white-stockinged calves flipping the split legs of his suspendered oversized jeans. He jumps into the barrel feet-first and ducks his head below the rim. The crowd gasps and murmurs as the charging bull hooks the barrel over onto its side and bats it this way and that for twenty yards. The bull stops and turns and faces the crowd, head high, tail cocked and twitching. He
tips his snout up once, twice, and snorts. While the bull chases the clown, Jackdaw walks to the fence and climbs the boards. The clown pops his head out of the sideways barrel where he can see the bull from the rear. He pushes himself out and then scrambles crabwise around behind. He turns to face the bull, his hands braced on the barrel. The bull’s anger still bubbling, it turns back toward the clown and charges. As the bull hooks at the barrel and butts it forward, the clown scoots backwards, keeping the barrel between him and the bull, something I’m sure he’s done many times. He keeps scooting as the bull bats at the barrel. But then something happens—the clown trips and falls over backwards. The barrel rolls half over him as he turns sideways and tries to push himself up. The bull stops for a split second, as if to gloat, and then stomps on the clown’s franticly scrambling body and hooks the horns on its tilted head into the clown’s side, flipping the clown over onto his back. Why do rodeo clowns do it? Put their lives on the line for other people? I don’t understand it. The pickup men on the horses are there, but a second too late. They charge the bull, their horses shouldering into it. They yell and whip with quirts and kick with stirrupped boots. Tail still cocked, the reluctant bull is hazed away and into the gathering pen at the end of the arena. The metal gate clangs shut behind it. Head thrown back and arms splayed, the clown isn’t moving. Men jump off the rails and run toward him, and the huge doors at the end of the arena open and an ambulance comes in. It stops beside the clown. The EMTs jump out, pull out a gurney, and then huddle around the prone body. One goes back to the vehicle and brings some equipment. There’s frantic activity, and with the help of the other men, they place him on the gurney and slide him into the ambulance. It pulls out the doors and disappears, and the siren wails and recedes. Tibs stands up, looks at me, and jerks his head, saying come on, let’s go. I stand and follow him. About the Author: Like the characters in Deep Down Things, the author Tamara Linse and her husband have lost babies. They had five miscarriages before their twins were born through the help of a wonderful woman who acted as a gestational carrier. Tamara is also the author of the short story collection How to Be a Man and earned her master’s in English from the University of Wyoming, where she taught writing. Her work appears in the Georgetown Review, South Dakota Review, and Talking River, among others, and she was a finalist for Arts & Letters and Glimmer Train contests, as well as the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Prize for a book of short stories. She works as an editor for a foundation and a freelancer. Find her online at tamaralinse.com and on her blog Writer, Cogitator, Recovering Ranch Girl at www.tamara-linse.blogspot.com Website http://www.tamaralinse.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/tlinse Twitter https://twitter.com/TamaraLinse Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+TamaraLinse/posts Mailing List: http://www.tamaralinse.com/contact_mail_list.html
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A Faery Godmother’s Duties You’d think being a faery godmother would be an easy task: look after your princess; make sure she gets to the ball on time. Make sure she dances with the right person and certainly doesn’t leave any glass slippers lying around or–god forbid—eat any apples that seem suspicious, no matter who offers it. But that’s just one generation. Imagine if you had to do this over and over again for each generation. Imagine doing it while trying to remember how to work that wand you just spent the last semester building. Will it work the way you want it to, when you want it to? How about undoing the effects of an evil spell your princess falls under? Are pharmacy classes involved? I mean, how can you be absolutely sure True Love’s Kiss is the catchall antidote? Those evil queens can be pretty sneaky. These are just some of the concerns my faery godmother, Ianthe Hypericum has in my new paranormal romance novel CHANGELING’S CROWN. There are more: How about stopping the Wild Hunt and saving humans from nasty goblins, imps, and the dreaded shoemaker’s elves? All this has been on her mind, and even worse, she bounces her True Love spell and ruins a prominent faery tale family. Well, that’s at least what she told me. One wrong flick and—oops! Everything goes to heck in a hand basket. I’ve learned from Ianthe, life can be complicated even for those with faery powers. Would I want to be a faery godmother? Sure there are palaces and a killer wardrobe to consider, but since she sat down beside my desk and started talking, even with the handsome fella whose attention she snags, I dunno. Those princesses seem somewhat bitchy demanding, to hear Ianthe tell it. What about you? Would you want to be a faery godmother? Changeling’s Crown Juli D. Revezzo Genre: upper YA/New Adult paranormal romance Publisher: Raven Queen Publications Date of Publication: June 2014 ISBN: 978-1499390193 ASIN: B00KPJ27UW Number of pages: 190 Word Count: 46,500
Cover Artist: Boulevard Photografica Book Description: When Ianthe began her career as a faery godmother, she stumbled so badly that Snow White will probably never speak to her again. After a long suspension, she’s finally been given a chance to redeem herself…but everything on this latest assignment is going wrong. But why? Worse, she definitely doesn’t need an attractive mortal man distracting her from her duties. Of course, needs and wants are two different things. Briak has had his eye on Ianthe for a very, very long time, but he’s been waiting for just the right moment to make his move. Despite the fact all hell’s about to break loose on his watch, he can’t resist the opportunity to insert himself into her earthly assignment. Can he convince Ianthe of her true calling and thereby win her heart? Or will his subterfuge ultimately cost him her love?
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/50HNfdHQ1l8 Available at Amazon Excerpt:
Sunlight filtered into the office, tinkling musically as it bounced off a globe standing to the far side of the room. A lone dust mote floated through the air to fall onto the crystalline floorboards and as it hit, Ianthe Hypericum cringed when she heard it clack against the floor, like the tinny clap of an iron breakfast bell. Normally the sound didn’t bother her. Normally she found it lovely. Not today. Nervous sweat ran down Ianthe’s back as she awaited her latest assignment. Maybe the Faery Godmother High Council hadn’t changed their decision. Maybe Ms. Siabelle had called her in to revoke her wand for good. Why wouldn’t she? After all, so many of her recent assignments had ended in disaster. The High Council frowned upon her performance even before Snow White’s daughter had run off with that traveling band of thieves. Ianthe still couldn’t quite figure out how it had happened. She’d spent nearly fourteen hundred years on probation for it. How it hadn’t driven her crazy enough to join those in the dark side of the groves, she had no idea. It’d been a close call. Some faery godmother she’d turned out to be! She didn’t want to think what might happen if she blew another assignment. They’d turn her out, maybe send her to the shoemaker’s shop as punishment, and she didn’t want that. Everyone knew the shoemaker’s shop was a dungeon compared to the human world. What a disgrace for her family, if the council banished her there! They were having a hard enough time, socially, dealing with her failure with the Snow White family. Banishment would undo them. She had to succeed at this assignment, she just had to! The door opened and an older woman, wearing a gray Armani suit, stepped through.
Ianthe stood and curtseyed, her lilac taffeta skirt rustling. “Good morning, Ms. Siabelle.” The old woman pushed her glasses up her pert nose with a thick finger. “Ah, Ianthe. I see you’re on time, for once.” She scuttled around the huge oak desk like an overweight crab. Ianthe folded her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers as she waited for her boss to settle down. “I trust all is well.” “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “The Smith-Weiss affair’s all cleaned up.” “They’re happy, then?” Ms. Siabelle asked. Ianthe bit her lip. Hard. No, she wouldn’t say the couple was happy. Not unless the faery godparent council had changed its definition of single parent households. Still, she made her report on her latest assignment. “The couple is—April is…Chuck will be—” She blew out a deep breath. “They’ll get there. Plenty of babies grow up without their fathers. It’s for the best.” “Is it?” “April Smith and Charles Weiss weren’t made for each other, no matter how much we wish it.” She frowned at the old faery godmother. “You knew there were problems going into that assignment.” Ms. Siabelle remained quiet in the face of Ianthe’s accusation. She twitched the platinum chain on her glasses and turned her attention to her computer. “Yes, well, that isn’t the issue today.” Adjusting her glasses to her liking, she turned her head, gaze softening as she peered at Ianthe. Ianthe could feel a million tiny lightning bolts trying to find their way into her heart. She could barely breathe under the elderly overseer’s gaze and she begged the faery gods to be on her side, just this once. Ms. Siabelle cleared her throat. Here it came. Ianthe tried not to cringe. “The Faery Godparent High Council has decided to give you another chance, child.” She blinked. “Say that again?” Unbelievable! “I said we’ve decided in your favor.” Ms. Siabelle turned in her chair, and standing, crossed the room to a tall filing cabinet. Batting away a stray sunbeam, she wrapped old fingers around the silver handle gracing the top drawer, tugged it open, and drew a finger in the air above the files. They flipped by themselves, one after another, as if she pulled them. But she held her finger too high. “If the couple can’t make a go of it even after what you’ve done, it’s not your fault.” “I did try.” “I told the council so. Ah, here we are.” She stepped back as one file slid free. It spun in the air before her a moment, then Ms. Siabelle reached out and took hold of the thin folder. Ianthe wrung her hands as Ms. Siabelle sat back down and began to read. “Hmm... It says here that you’re to be assigned to a young man.” Her brow rose. “And his soon-to-be ex-wife.” Ianthe sat up straighter. A divorce? Oh, no. More battles over the children. She found being saddled with the choice of which parent would be best heartbreaking. “Surely you must be mistaken. Isn’t there some forlorn lover I can look after instead?” This guy was probably as ugly as the frog prince, while the wife, well… she’d met some doozies!
“No, the assignment is quite clear. You’re to assist Randall and Mallory Davies.” Ms. Siabelle shut the gleaming folder and folded her hands atop it. “According to their files, it’s a clear case. Randall’s not sure he wants the divorce and Mallory—well, I don’t see why she couldn’t be persuaded to drop the case. Should be a piece of cake, as they say down there.” She’d said that about Snow White’s daughter, but Ianthe thought better of reminding her. “I’m not sure.” “Are you saying you don’t want the assignment, my dear? I thought you hoped for a chance to get your wand and title back.” Her nose twitched. “And everything else that goes with it. Coaches and ball gowns and such.” All of which had gone out of style with the age of classic faery tales. Right now, Ianthe didn’t feel like contradicting her. “I do, ma’am. It’s just that—” “Good. I’ll see the paperwork’s sent through; meanwhile—” She wiggled her finger over the file and it rose from the desktop, floating like a bird into Ianthe’s less than eager hands. “Why don’t you get started?” She shook her head sadly. “Seems Randall and Mallory are in dire need of a happy ending, as you’ll see.” Ianthe sighed. The pages flipped open before her, and she took in the photographs. Randall, his employees. One stood out: a man with a handsome angular face, tousled brown hair, and deep, coffee-colored eyes. She leaned forward to study the picture, wondering who he was. Too handsome to ignore, she thought. Was he the reason for the couple’s troubles? She could see that being the case. Maybe this assignment wasn’t going to be so bad, after all. She shoved the file into her oversized purse and exited the office to take to the hall, a renewed confidence in her gait. She could do this. Surely, she would finally live down that fiasco of an assignment with Snow White’s daughter. Maybe it would even garner her a promotion. Full Godmotherhood! Dare she dream? She was already daydreaming for she plowed right into an oncoming faery. She blinked at him. Geldon P. Techsmauch. “I’m sorry, Geldon. I didn’t see you,” she said. Son of a goblin, how she hated him! She stepped back, hoping to escape him as soon as possible. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” he snarled. When she stepped around him he planted his right hand against the wall, blocking her escape. “Where do you think you’re rushing off to in such a hurry?” he asked. “You can’t have a princess awaiting you. You’re on probation after all. Or are you late for a class? Beginning wand construction one-oh-one?” How’m I supposed to go anywhere with you in my way, you horsefly’s butt? What was he doing, besides being a nuisance? “I said I’m sorry.” She tried not to snarl back, but it was hard. She tapped a finger to her lips. “Didn’t I hear you just came back from Desire Island? How’d that go?” His mud brown eyes narrowed. “You heard wrong. It was Devil’s Island.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “My mistake.” “Yes, you make many.” He turned on his heel. “So, I see you have more studying to do. Good luck with it, Hypericum. You’ll need it.” Ianthe’s fists clenched and she wanted to stamp her foot against the citrine floor tiles, but the sound would reverberate through them as if she’d shattered a glass wall and tell the whole kingdom how angry she was. The nerve of Techsmauch! He was such an ass! Why did he constantly make her life a living hell? She didn’t want to run the risk of meeting up with him again tonight. So she turned back the way she’d come. She’d take the sub-elevators down to the Earth level if she had to in order to avoid facing him again. A wrinkly, gray skinned goblin met her at the elevator and beckoned her inside. It was stuffed full of trolls. Many smelled as if they needed a nice, long bath. No one would ever catch Techsmauch dead in a subelevator so it seemed the best way to avoid him. She sniffed once or twice and wrinkled her nose at the smell. The doors closed and she slowly released her breath. Afraid to inhale, she wondered how long it would take to reach Earth level. Don’t worry. We’ll arrive before you pass out from the trolls’ stench. She hoped. All she could think about was the shower she’d take once on Earth. She’d have to freshen up if she wanted to get close to her assignment. Troll-stench was known to drive away any and all who came near. That was no way to begin this assignment. She checked her purse, pulling forth the file Ms. Siabelle had given her. She could swear she’d seen that employee before, but where? Briak. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Was it possible she had the name incorrect? Maybe the k constituted a typo. The name niggled in a way she didn’t like, but he looked so kind. Had she ever helped him? Or someone in his family? Maybe I’m mistaken. How many handsome ranch hands were there in Clover Glen, Florida, after all?
About the Author: Juli D. Revezzo is a Florida girl, with a love of fantasy, science fiction, and Arthurian legend, so much so she gained a B.A. in English and American Literature. She loves writing stories with fantastical elements whether it be a full-on fantasy, or a story set in this world-slightly askew. She has been published in short form in Eternal Haunted Summer, Dark Things II: Cat Crimes (a charity anthology for cat related charities), Luna Station Quarterly, Crossing the River, An Anthology in Honor of Sacred Journeys; The Scribing Ibis: An Anthology of Pagan Fiction in Honor of Thoth, and Twisted Dreams Magazine. She’s the author of The Antique Magic series and the Paranormal Romance Harshad Wars series. She is a member of the Independent Author Network and the Magic Appreciation Tour. Website: http://julidrevezzo.com Blog: http://julidrevezzo.com/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/JD-Revezzo/233193150037011 Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/111476709039805267272/posts Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5782712.Juli_D_Revezzo
Excerpt: This excerpt is from Chapter 10 of Twinfinity: Nethermore. In it the main character, the blind and deaf Whitney Leighton, is preparing to make a physical statement to her summer camp peers. They are all gathered at the obstacle course located in Camp Tumbling Waters and the group is divided. Half of the campers blame her for the recent troubles in the camp, and the other half believe that she is the solution to those problems. Whitney knows that she needs to prove a point to all of them in order to unite them. Whitney had been a little surprised by how clearly her course could be directed through her imagination and memory. Every step, and every move had been based on what she remembered from when she was piggy-backed with Kat, but she had been able to lay everything out in her mind with near perfect clarity. She had been sitting on the bench brooding over her conversation with Kat. She was mad all right, but little Mike had changed her mood. She couldn’t see the fear in his face, and she couldn’t hear if he had said anything, but she had seen his shadow approach the wall and she had waited with anticipation for his shadow to ascend into the air. She might not be able to see it with her eyes, but she would have still felt pride for him as he succeeded. She could see that climbing it was important to him, and Kat had insinuated that it was so important that he had spent a year trying to get himself ready for it. His body appeared to be weak and frail and Whitney had searched Kat’s mind for an explanation for that. He had an accident when he was younger--a tragic accident that had broken many bones and left him in a wheel chair for years. He was just getting to the point that he could walk again. And, according to Kat’s memories on the subject, climbing that wall was his motivation—his driving force. It was the thing that he talked about last year that inspired him to work so hard in his recovery. He wanted to do it, but he was afraid. Like she was afraid. He backed off and someone else was approaching the wall in his place. She didn’t want to sense someone else climbing the wall. She wanted to sense him doing it, and she didn’t think it was right for everyone else to just shrug it off. When she first got up from the bench and started walking toward the group her intention was to find a way to convince Mike to make his climb. She was only vaguely aware of the clarity with which she could visualize her course. She could see every clump of dirt, every stone that could make her stumble, and she could even remember seeing a Twix candy bar wrapper as she walked by it. Her mind was more focused on how to convince Mike to make his climb. By the time she got there she had figured it out. She would lead by example. It was after Kam had put the safety harness onto her and attached the safety line onto the clip on the back when she knew she had to take it off. It was doing its job. It was making her feel safe. There was no danger. The spotters were trained to make sure that she wouldn’t be injured if she slipped. It was crazy, but she didn’t want to feel safe. She wanted every handhold and every foothold to be risky and she wanted to feel the danger of it.
Most of all she wanted to rely on others to catch her if she did fall. She had been playing it safe all of her life and for once she wanted to leave safety behind her. She had never let herself rely on anyone but Tommy—who she depended on vigorously for help in almost everything and she was done with that too. She had chosen the members of her net the way she did because she wanted to show everyone that she trusted them even if they didn’t really trust her. She didn’t just want to convince Mike to make the climb. She also wanted to find a way to bring the group back together again. She had divided everyone, and so she’d have to be the one to link them back together again. She was a couple of levels off of the ground when the idea of the teambuilding element began to form in her mind. The concept was simple enough. You had to trust in the members of the team to catch you if you fell backward into them. That teambuilding element was about a three foot drop into the arms of your team. What if someone did it from the top of the climbing wall? It was a scary idea, but if that didn’t make an impact on the crowd than nothing would. Whitney ascended the wall. Despite her nearly perfect memory of every hand and foothold her fear was a very tangible and real thing. Slipping off and falling was still extremely dangerous even with the group below her because she might not be able to control how she landed and a broken leg or arm or even both was a probability. She reached up and grabbed the next handhold, brought her leg up, and hauled herself up another level. She had made it halfway up and she could feel her nervousness increase with her height. She was about fifteen feet off of the ground, and her limbs began to betray her. She was getting tired and her muscles were beginning to tremble despite her desire to remain steady and calm. She was no athlete and it was beginning to show. This was stupid she thought to herself. If she fell from that distance and they didn’t catch her she may or may not break a limb. Just do it now her mind begged. And she knew she could. She could steady herself, lean back, and fall into the arms of her safety net. She could do that safely and no harm would come to her. Her point would even be made pretty clearly. But wasn’t Erik’s speech, as corny and predictable as it was, about just that? Wasn’t it about pushing past your fears even though they sometimes seemed like an impenetrable wall? She could make her leap from that point but if she did wasn’t she still relatively safe? If so then was she really making her point? Wasn’t her point to go beyond safety and to leap when the outcome wasn’t predictable? She reached up for the next grip-hold and brought herself up to it. Her nerves began to betray her even more. She had never been this tired before in her life. She had already exerted herself beyond exhaustion and she knew, from that very moment, that she needed to start training her body for more endurance. She was never again going to let herself tire out this easily. So much for being lazy, because she knew that those days had to be over. She was three quarters of the way up but her muscles were aching and she was losing her breath. On top of that she wasn’t sure if making it to the top was even going to be possible. No matter how bad she wanted to get there. She sucked in a deep breath, gathered her determination, and made two more handholds in quick succession. Her fingers began to throb and go numb. Her leg muscles were screaming at her to stop and her arms felt like rubber bands stretched out to their maximum. The only good thing was that she only had three levels to go.
Twinfinity: Nethermore Volume 1 Chris Podhola Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal,Urban Fantasy
Date of Publication: May 26, 2014 ISBN: 978-1499625035 ASIN: B00KGZ41CM Number of pages: 411 Word Count: 107,000 Cover Artist: Llpix.com
Book Description: Whitney Leighton has a secret. She is both blind and deaf but that’s not what she’s trying to keep hidden. Her secret is that she can both see and hear through her twin brother Tommy. They call it piggybacking because she can shift her consciousness into her brother’s mind. Whitney’s not the only one with a secret; Tommy has one too and it’s Whitney that he’s keeping it from. His secret is that Whitney isn’t who she’s supposed to be. He has dreams of her, but in his dreams she has tattoos, battle-scars on her face, and a formidable look of determination. If Tommy’s dreams come true then Whitney is in serious trouble and so is everyone else. The simple Whitney that is, doesn’t stand a chance against the evil that exists in his sleep, and the world will be thrust into chaos. The teen twins end up at Camp Tumbling Waters and Lake Amicolola where something is waiting for them. Something as dark as Whitney’s vision and as insane as Tommy’s dreams and IT needs Whitney to escape the prison that IT calls … Nethermore. About the Author: The author is a 43 year-old United States Air Force veteran of the first Iraq War. This is his debut novel in the Twinfinity urban fantasy series. He was born and raised in south-eastern Michigan and served his country in California, Germany, and Turkey. http://twinfinitynethermore-novel.com/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php? id=100008110578089 http://www.amazon.com/Chris-Podhola/e/B00LZDKIEO/ https://plus.google.com/108904941895775375335/about http://www.wattpad.com/user/Christopher_Robert
So…Are You a Witch? By April Aasheim “Are you a witch?” I can’t tell you how many times I get asked this question. When asked, I usually respond (good naturedly, of course) with, “I’m a writer and I write about witches. If I wrote about dragons would I be a dragon?” Chuckle. Cough. Chuckle. Then a scratch of the head. Sometimes it’s followed up with, “then how do you know so much about witches?” At this point, I usually just smile mysteriously. No, I’m not a witch, but I am fascinated by them. Have been since I was a little kid. Maybe it was because of my mother. She was a hippie who had things like Tarot Cards and Time Life Books on the Occult scattered across our house. She encouraged us to challenge everything we thought we knew about the world. The unknown was cool and fun and so much more interesting than the mundane world I inhabited as a child. My paranormal drug of choice was witchery. I learned everything I could about witches. We had Encyclopedias back then, the kind you buy one at a time every other month. It took a lifetime to collect them all. I think we started late in the series because we had the W section and the S, but were missing a few of the early alphabet. This was okay by me. I was able to look up Witches and Salem and got a glimpse of the lore and history of these magical women (and men). I was hooked. For my first full length school report (complete with index cards and references) I wrote about the persecution of accused witches during the Spanish Inquisition. For three months I spent every Saturday at the city library researching that period in history. I got the best grade in the class, although my teacher seemed a bit concerned with my preoccupation of the topic. For my next report I wrote about the Salem Witch trials. My teacher just gave up at that point and actually pointed me in the direction of where to learn more about it. It wasn’t just the magical aspect of witches that drew me in. It was what these women (and men) endured because of intolerance. I continued to read every book on witches I could get my hands on. There weren’t as many back then. Looking for a book like that almost had a backroom mentality, even when the
works were undeniably fiction. Still, with the help of librarians and amused family and friends, I found quite a few. I enjoyed the fun ones where witches rode on broomsticks and had talking familiars, as well as the darker ones where magic in the wrong hands, could do some serious damage. I soon became an expert on the subject in my schooldays. At first I was a freak, and then suddenly I was popular. My love of the history, lore, and practice of witches continues into my adulthood. I never miss a chance to talk to someone who is involved in ‘the craft’ or to listen to a lecture on the history of the subject of magic. I collect those nostalgic old postcards with the sexy witches in low cut dresses, as well as the ones with the button-collared, green-faced hags. The next time that someone asks me if I am a witch I should just nod. Maybe I am, a little bit. Maybe we all are. Women are magical creatures with the ability to create life and order in a world of chaos. We have the power to make things beautiful, to heal old wounds, and to transform ourselves from a pajama-wearing crone to a black-stiletto’d babe when we so choose. And if that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is. The Magick of Dark Root Daughters of Dark Root Book Two April Aasheim Genre: Paranormal, Women’s Fiction Publisher: Dark Root Press Date of Publication: June 3, 2014 ISBN: 1499611951 ASIN: B00KRQ2KAK Number of pages: 330 pages Word Count: 88,000 Cover Artist: AnneMarie Buhl and Greg Jensen Book Description: “There are rules that must be followed, Maggie.” “Even in witchcraft?” “Especially in witchcraft. What someone puts into the world comes back to them.” “You mean karma?” “Like karma, yes. But for a witch it comes back threefold. Never forget that.” “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“Who said life was fair?” In the second installment of The Daughters of Dark Root series, Maggie Maddock and her sisters are back, training under their coven-leading mother Miss Sasha Shantay to take over as the new leaders of The Council. But life isn’t as smooth as Maggie had hoped it would be. Harvest Home’s taxes have come due, and her mother’s illness has returned, stronger than ever. Desperate, Maggie and Eve devise a scheme to make money through witchcraft. And that’s when things go terribly wrong. Available at Amazon Excerpt: There are nights when you question just about everything: who you are, where you've come from, what your purpose is, how you got to your current place in life. And then there are nights when you just accept things. Nights when you stand beneath a silver moon, digging a shallow grave for a man you murdered. A man who probably had a wife and children, a mother and a job. A man who probably wouldn't have tried to molest your kid sister, if she hadn't been wearing a perfume enchanted to entice men in the first place. These are the nights you try not to think. Because if you think––about the corpse sitting in the car a dozen feet away, about your inability to determine wrong from right, about the fact that your mother was right about you after all, that you walk the line, just like your father––you just might go mad. And I couldn't go mad. Anyway, it was Thanksgiving, officially, and I wasn't going to let this little incident ruin the holidays. “No!” I said aloud as I plunged my shovel into the earth and tossed out another spade full of dirt. “I’m going to keep it together!” “Maggie, you okay?” Merry stopped digging and faced me, her eyes concerned. In this lighting, as her gold hair framed her sweet face, she looked more angelic than ever. “You can take a break, if you need to. We’ll be okay.” “Me? I’m fine, Merry. Thanks for asking.” I caught my sisters shooting each other knowing looks, looks that said I wasn’t all right, that in fact I had lost my marbles. “I’m fine,” I repeated emphatically, tossing out an extra-large helping of dirt and wondering how much deeper we would need to dig. The spell said to encase the subject in a box, then bury him under the light of a waning moon, but it didn't specify how deep the grave needed to be. An unhelpful omission. Since the “subject” would eventually dig his way out of that grave, clawing his way through the box and layers of muck, I conjectured we shouldn't dig it too deeply. The experience would be traumatic enough for the poor guy as it was. Fortunately for us, however, the timing of his death couldn't have been better, being a waning moon and all. If I’ve learned anything from this ordeal, it’s that if you are going to commit murder, and have any intention of bringing the deceased back to life, always plan it around the correct moon cycle. Lucky break for Maggie! “I think,” I said, continuing to dig. “That this might be a lucrative business. Bringing people back from the dead. If it works out, we might start charging for it. Gotta bring in more money than that stupid magick store does.” “Maggie, stop,” Eve said, wiping her forehead with cashmere gloves she would never wear again.
“I’m just saying…why not? We can call it Bodies R Us. They’re not dead unless we say they’re dead.” I grinned at Ruth Anne, sure she’d appreciate my joke. She shook her head and continued digging. “What?” I asked, throwing my shovel onto the ground. “Are we too good for death jokes now?” Merry pressed her lips together. “Honey, you’ve had a terrible shock and now it’s finally setting in. Go sit on the porch steps and we’ll finish this. We’ll call you when it’s done.” “No!” I screamed, surprising myself with the shrillness of my voice. I tore at the air with both hands, as if being assaulted by an invisible man, tears stinging my eyes. “I won’t sit by while my sisters bury the man I…” I choked, unable to finish the sentence. I lifted my trembling chin. “Neither hell nor jail is good enough for me.” Someone’s arms wrap around me. I recognized the vanilla and lavender scent as Merry’s. I hyperventilated in her arms as she held me, cooing me to quiet. “It’s okay, honey. It will be okay.” How could I explain to her that it wouldn't be okay? Nothing might ever be okay again. Even if we did manage to raise him, I had the deathtouch, just like my father. And there was no coming back from that. “What if we can’t do it, Merry?” I sniffed, wiping my nose on her shoulder as I stared at the Christmas tree in the front yard, the box that would soon be a coffin. “We will,” she said, brushing the hair from my face. “You’ll see.” “I think this is deep enough,” Ruth Anne announced, tossing her shovel onto the ground. “We’d better hurry.” I let out one final sob of self-pity and nodded. Merry grabbed my hand and we converged on the car. “I’m sorry,” I said to the man in the passenger seat. He sat buckled in, staring straight ahead. I removed his seat belt, noticing the stiffness of his body we hefted him from the car. You hear that the dead are cold, but you can never imagine how cold. It’s not a freezer type of cold or a snow type of cold. It’s an empty chill, like floating in deep space. A coldness without hope. “We don’t have much time,” I said as we lowered him into the box. He didn’t quite fit and we pushed on arms and legs, stuffing him inside like an unwilling Jack-in-the box. Merry wiped the salve she had concocted across his face and neck. It smelled horrible, like ashes and mold. Next, she reached into her pocket and produced Mother’s wand. “Once he’s completely buried, we use this,” she said. “Paul says that in the old days, people were often buried alive,” Eve said, fighting back a shiver. “He said gravediggers found coffins with scratch marks on the inside.” “Maybe they weren't buried alive,” I suggested. “Maybe they were guinea pigs in spells like this one.” “Maggie, you’re not funny.” “I know.” At last, it was done. The man who’d been buying us drinks and pawing at my sister only a few hours ago was now four feet underground in my front yard. I wanted to stick a cross in the earth, or a stone, something to mark this place. But I couldn't think like that. I had to believe he was just sleeping and would wake up shortly, and we’d all go back to our normal lives. Merry lifted the wand. The emerald-colored gem shone so dim, it faded into the night. The wand was dying, too. “We could use this on Mama,” Merry said, her voice almost a whisper. There was a cold silence that passed between us. If the wand had one charge left, did we waste it on a stranger? Or did we try and save the woman we loved, who hovered very near death herself in the bedroom upstairs? It could buy her time. Our heads turned in unison towards her window. “No,” I said, resolutely. “There’s still hope for Mother, but there’s no hope for this guy. We have to use
it on him.” Merry nodded and we gathered around the grave. She lifted her wrist, ready to cast the wand, but I stopped her. “Give it to me, Merry. I have to be the one.” “But Maggie,” Merry protested. I knew what she was thinking. She had the gift of healing, while I had the curse of… She handed it over. My hand shook as I took it. Merry might have the right kind of magick, but my powers were greater, and I had Mother’s Circle. My sisters held hands, chanting words from Mother’s scroll, indecipherable gibberish that produced an ethereal sound when spoken together, like angels falling from heaven. I raised the wand, catching site of a raven that roosted between the spokes of the old garden gate, intently watching me. It was now or never. The price of the deathtouch had to be paid. About the Author: April Aasheim considers herself an ‘expert’ in the paranormal. Her mother dabbled in the occult and her father was a martial artist who believed that true power came from an unseen energy that you could tap into. As a child, April claims to have lived in a haunted house and to have been visited by relatives who had passed on. To combat her frightening experiences, April spent her youth studying world religion including Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Later, April branched out in her studies with a focus on psychology, anthropology, sociology, and the paranormal. April is married with children and currently resides in Portland, Oregon where she spends her days writing, watching movies, and attending Zumba classes at her local gym. The Magick of Dark Root is the second in The Daughters of Dark Root series, and her third novel. Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscomuser_aprilaasheim Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AprilAasheimWriter
Excerpt: Sarah stood outside the house and watched while Brock unraveled the magic woven around it. The demon fidgeted and paced, and on more than one occasion, she worried he would run from her. She hoped, once inside, he would be able to find peace. Something in her gut told her his jitters were not all due to the opening of old wounds. She realized she actually made him nervous. When she’d caught him admiring her assets, she’d been anything but angry. His roving eyes had sent moisture between her thighs and a longing that nearly had her shoving him to the floor to sate her desire. Hot, inviting, he made her mouth water. She wondered if he tasted anything like the spicy cinnamon scent she inhaled every time she got near him and decided she needed to find out. Would it be in poor taste to seduce him when he was at his weakest? For some reason, she didn’t care, and that was really out of character for her. “Sarah?” She looked up and met his dark, brown eyes, noting a twinkle of mischief in them. “Find something you like?” he chuckled. Shit. She’d been caught staring at his ass. Well, it wasn’t her fault he filled out a pair of jeans like nobody’s business. Not to mention he was standing two steps up from her which put the muscular perfection right at eye level. She curled her lips upward. “As a matter of fact, yes. Yes, I did.” There, let him chew on that! She hoped he’d take it as a hint of her interest. He tipped back his head in laughter. “Well, I guess I deserve that after I gawked at you.” He pushed the door open, his features immediately schooled. Her heart ached for him and longed to see the sexy smile again. Her new goal was to get him through this and help him move on. She wanted to get to know the real Brock. The one who wasn’t in pain. “I’ll go first just to make sure it’s safe.” He slipped past the threshold and disappeared. Sarah remained on the first step, waiting for him to give her the all clear. Minutes later, he stuck his head out, his face ashen. “You can come in.” She made her way up the remaining steps and through the doorway, not sure what she would find inside and half expecting her senses to be assaulted. She took in a deep breath and found the air to be crisp and clean. She must have had a puzzled look on her face. “The spell kept everything out so there’s no mildew or mold,” he stated matter of fact. She glanced around the spacious kitchen and felt as if she’d stepped back in time. The white porcelain refrigerator and gas range with its side storage compartment were state of the art for the period when the house had been previously occupied. Everything glistened as if freshly cleaned, waiting for the museum patrons to
walk through the time capsule. She noticed Brock no longer stood next to her so she moved across the linoleum floor to the beige carpeted living room. She found him standing in the center, staring down at the floor. “Brock?” She walked up and stood next to him. He didn’t respond and almost seemed to be mesmerized except that his hands balled into fists then released, only to repeat the process. Her heart fractured. Clearly, this was where he had found his mate. She reached out to touch him but hesitated unsure how he would respond. “Brock, maybe this wasn’t a good idea. I think we should leave.” He lifted his head and glanced around the room. “No. I need to face my ghosts. I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be this difficult.” He ran his fingers through his short, blond hair. “Hell, I’m not really sure what I was expecting.” It was heartbreaking to see him so vulnerable. This time, she didn’t stop herself from placing a hand on his arm. “Is this where…?” She couldn’t finish the question without her voice giving away her emotions.
Emerald Fire Demon Heat Book 2 Valerie Twombly Genre: Paranormal Erotica Publisher: Resplendence Date of Publication: 7/2/14 ISBN: 978-1-60735-787-2 ASIN: B00LHCCQRA Number of pages: 103 Word Count: 30K Cover Artist: Les Byerley Book Description: Ever since Brock lost his mate and son in a tragic murder, he’s been unable to move on. When urged to go back home and bury his past, he never expected to meet Sarah. The demon is strong, sexy, and kind-hearted. Everything a man could want in a woman. Sarah has longed to discover the mate who completes her and finds herself wondering about the demon who left the house next door shrouded in magic. After he appears in her camera lens, it’s an instant attraction and doesn’t take long to realize he belongs to her. When Elias steps into the picture, Sarah must fight the urges he stirs inside her. She can’t be-
lieve fate has given her two mates. Now she is faced with a decision. Choose the one who promises nights of passion and undying love, or the other who can only offer her his broken heart. Available at Amazon Resplendence and ARe About the Author: As a child, Valerie would often get into trouble for peeking at her mother’s favorite TV show, Dark Shadows. She can still hear her mother saying “It will give you nightmares.” She was right of course, but that did not stop Valerie from watching. As an adult, her love of the fanged creatures never waned. She would watch any vampire movie she could find. Being a true romantic, Valerie was thrilled when she discovered the genre of paranormal romance. Her first read was one of Lara Adrian’s, Midnight Breed Series and from there she was hooked. Today, Valerie has decided to take her darker, sensual side and put it to paper. When she is not busy creating a world full of steamy, hot men and strong, seductive women, she juggles her time between a full-time job, hubby and her two German shepherd dogs, in Northern IL. Valerie is a member of Romance Writers of America and Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Romance Writers. Web http://www.valerietwombly.com/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/FangedFantasy Twitter https://twitter.com/fangedfantasy
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/vtwombly
What Makes a Good Alpha Male? Kelsey Jordan
Personally, I think that one of the best things about romances are the Alpha males. Can you say yum? However, there are a few things that I think the make a good Alpha. And by good, I mean book boyfriend/husband worthy. So what does it take? I personally like Alphas that are a touch mean, but within reason. My all-time favorite Alpha is Zsadist from the Black Dagger Brotherhood. He’s a walking bad boy. I should know what’s good for me and run the other way, but, like Bella, I just can’t. My second is Lor (Fever series). I may escape his attention because I’m not blonde, but I still make grabby hands at him any chance I get. That being said, these are the only types that make a good Alpha. Having a man who is a walking badass is awesome, but sometimes I find that the overwhelming masculine nature of this type of Alpha washes the heroine into the background. They exude so much power that they manage to snuff the power of the woman right out and that’s unfortunate. It’s also why I often don’t care much for the heroines in romance. I’ll also admit that I like Alphas to have to the capability to strike a balance between being either overly dominant or submissive. I believe that he can be masculine and still allow the female to exist as her own person. There should be room for both of them to shine for their own unique qualities. The thing that truly makes a good Alpha male is that he has the ability to reach through the pages and take a hold of our hearts. He is the one that lives in our minds long after we close the book. He is the one that makes us open the book for another walk through his world. Whoever that male is, he is the one we compare future book boyfriends to; sometimes he is the victor and other times he is not. In the end, good Alphas are just one of the many reasons we keep picking up books and falling in love all over again.
The Lycan Hunter The Gardinian World Series Book 1 Kelsey Jordan Genre: Paranormal Romance Publisher: Booktrope Publishing Date of Publication: June 1, 2014 ISBN: 9781620154311 ASIN: B00KQ5E6I6 Number of pages: 308 Cover Artist: Greg Simanson Book Description: When Alexis James arrives at her first assignment in months, she anticipates the danger and violence rife in her calling as a Lycan Hunter. What she doesn’t expect is a handsome, blue-eyed wolf saving her life and kidnapping her. Surrounded by the enemy, Alexis must not only survive her prisoners but the bonds of a different sort that begin to form against her will. Mikko Kyran was chosen by the gods to lead his pack, and he has made it his mission to end the eight thousand years of war plaguing his people. The Alpha never suspected that the key to the prophecy ending the Forever War would be held by a smart-mouthed, sexy Hunter determined to kill him. Can two people from different worlds set aside everything they know about one another long enough to survive retribution from the Hunters, the pack, and the gods? Or will their differences start a war that neither can win? Written with intensity and depth, The Lycan Hunter is the first in a thrilling new series. Amazon BN iTunes
Excerpt: An ominous feeling settled in her stomach, the sensation surging and plummeting so fast in her gut she had to reach out to grip the desk for stability. The only thing missing was classic horror-themed music as the sinister feeling surged again when Kyran paused as if he was listening for something. Still she couldn’t’t force her feet to move, too drawn in by all the awful possibilities from what the screen showed her. Theo – like all Hunters – had been trained to be aware of their surroundings yet maintain the appearance that he was unconscious. Alexis found herself hoping that Theo would do something to give himself away. All Kyran would need is a subtle uptick of Theo’s calm heart, a hitched breath, or a subtle muscle movement to show him that Theo wasn’t asleep but pretending. Nothing happened, and Kyran stepped forward. Her gut twisted in agony, but her feet still refused to obey her command to find help. Kyran was obviously in doctor mode. He would naturally wonder what happened to his patient, wonder if somehow the sedatives that Theo had been given had been too much. He suffered from a kindness that Hunters were trained out of from childhood. His inclination for decency would cost him, but at least he was cogni-
zant that something was unusual. Maybe that would keep him safe enough that she could warn him or send help. Her gut tightened again, and a quick glimpse showed how close Kyran was to his destruction. She knew she wouldn’t’t find that room in time, so she left the room hoping to find Ronan. Hopefully, it wouldn’t’t be too late. She began beating on the first door she came to. It swung open to reveal Ronan’s sleep tossed hair, unfocused glare, and gloriously naked body. “What the hell, Ky – ” His hands flew to his groin when his gaze fell on her. “Come on. Kyran’s in trouble.” About the Author: Kelsey Jordan is the author of The Lycan Hunter, the first book in her Gardinian World series. Though she has a preference for all things paranormal and romantic, Kelsey admits she just writes what her muse demands of her. It’s less painful that way. When she isn’t enjoying the momentary benefits of playing god to the many characters that live in her head, she can usually be found curled up with a book, killing something in a video game, or spending time with her family. At some point in the day she is probably drinking more than her recommended dose of coffee, but don’t tell her that. She doesn’t care about recommended servings. As a Texas native and self-described Air Force brat, Kelsey now lives in Georgia with her husband and their tutu-wearing minion. Book 2 and 3 of the series will be published by Booktrope Editions late Summer/Fall 2014. To learn more, visit her at: http://kelseyjordangw.com https://twitter.com/KelseyJordan_GW https://www.facebook.com/Kelseyjordangw https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22053393-the-lycan-hunter
Excerpt: Ronin Redstone unwound his arm from Roz and gripped his hands together in his lap to lessen the temptation to touch her again. Where he figured most of the guests were anxious to see the bride, he’d been interested in Roz. Probably too interested since he’d bounced to his feet the moment she entered the room and had even spun the mildest of spells to coerce her to sit near him. He pressed his lips into a flat line as he wrestled with his thoughts. Ever since he’d met the tall, imposing witch at his home in northern England a couple of weeks before, he’d been able to think of little else. She even entered his dreams with her silky black hair, pronounced cheekbones, and hawk-like nose. In those dreams, she was naked, her bronze skin glimmering in moonlight. Her heady scent, pine forests and jasmine, tickled his nostrils and made him wonder what she’d feel like in his arms. Once he kicked the door open to that slippery slope, his cock sprang to life, clearly eager to find out. He tried to clip his libido before things whirled out of control and she noticed his arousal, but his cock wasn’t in the mood for negotiation—or retreat. He wove the tiniest don’t look here spell and draped his lower body with it. In years past, he’d simply have created a love charm, imbued it with compulsion, and bedded the woman. That probably wasn’t a good idea, though. Roz would sense his magic, be outraged he tried to coerce her, and that would be the last he ever saw of the striking witch. Never mind she had good reason to not want much to do with him since he’d been one of the key players two hundred years ago who’d suggested foisting demon stalking onto the witches. He tightened his jaw muscles. Who could have guessed his little machination to get his kin out from under a highly unpleasant task would nearly be the death of the few witches who’d inherited the power through a magical version of gene splicing? Of course, he’d also been the one to send Duncan to fetch one of the witches to quell a demon uprising in the U.K. last month. That was how they’d discovered only three of the special witches remained… No wonder she’s not overly fond of me. Ronin grimaced, not liking the truth in his thoughts. An inner voice huffed, reminding him it wasn’t his fault the witches in question hadn’t produced more offspring, but he shushed it. Surely I can at least charm Roz out of that sour expression on her face. He forced his breathing into a regular pattern and glanced toward Duncan and Colleen at the front of the room. The resident witch had completed her part of the ceremony and Titania was speaking in Gaelic so old he had trouble following it. The Sidhe binding ceremony lasted at least half an hour, so he let his thoughts drift. Anywhere but to his cock, which still throbbed uncomfortably. As de facto leader for the Sidhe, a post he held more because no one else wanted it than because of any special skills on his part, he sensed they stood at the edge of a cataclysmic event. Abbadon and his henchmen, the Irichna demons, had grown appallingly strong. Capturing them one at a time and shepherding them to the Ninth Circle of Hell where they were trapped for all eternity wasn’t a workable solution anymore. There were too many of them, and maybe not enough space in the bottom of Hell. Because he was afraid of a firm answer regarding Hell’s demon storage capacity, he hadn’t asked Titania, though surely she’d know. If they couldn’t dump Irichna behind the Ninth Circle’s gate, he had no idea
what they’d do with them. And if Abbadon consolidated his full power, Earth would be laid waste. Ronin clamped his jaws together. Apocalypse didn’t come close to describing what would happen if Abbadon were freed from protecting his demons and could concentrate on taking over Earth. In addition to not inquiring too closely about the Irichna, I also haven’t asked about Oberon. Ronin grimaced again. If the King of Faerie were truly so tired of immortality he’d let himself fade into the Dreaming, Ronin didn’t want to know about that, either. When did I turn into such a craven I avoid unpleasant answers? Even though he wasn’t expecting one, a response popped up anyway. He’d loved a human woman once, but she’d died bearing their son, who’d perished right along with her. The major vessel serving her heart had ruptured, and no amount of Sidhe magic could heal her or breathe life into their dead child. Ronin withdrew from the other Sidhe after that, mostly because he didn’t want to hear their lectures about the whole debacle being his own fault. After all, they weren’t supposed to mate outside their blood. When he finally picked up the reins of command a couple of centuries later—or maybe it had been three—he held himself aloof and avoided confrontations with anyone, about anything. He ground his jaws harder together. His internal inventory was damned depressing; it forced him to take a harsh look at himself, and he didn’t like what he saw. He glanced at Titania. She clasped Duncan’s and Colleen’s hands between her own, and his eyes widened. Had he truly spent the entire ceremony sunk in memories and self-pity? It would appear so, he thought dryly. In moments, Titania would utter the final words, Duncan would kiss Colleen, and the ritual would be done. He barely had time to wonder why Titania hadn’t kicked up more of a fuss about Duncan marrying a mortal, when the bridal pair kissed. The tiniest sigh escaped Roz, and he looked sidelong at her. Her full lips were parted in half a smile, and she looked captivated by the ancient binding that had unfolded, mostly without him paying one whit of attention to it. She leaned toward him, her earlier ire apparently forgotten. “They make such a lovely couple,” she whispered. Ronin narrowed his eyes and looked hard at Duncan and Colleen, wrapped in one another’s arms and kissing enthusiastically. He didn’t know about the lovely couple part, because he didn’t view the world that way. “They do look happy,” he whispered back because he thought he ought to say something. Bubba, who’d been standing off to one side, made a grab for a bag Ronin hadn’t noticed before. The changeling reached inside and Ronin’s internal alarm went off. The changeling was about to throw something at the couple. Had the creature been co-opted by demons? It wasn’t unheard of since their race contained a smattering of demon blood. Afraid if he hesitated he’d be too late, Ronin pulled strong magic and rose to his feet. Before he could loose it, Roz fastened a hand around his lower arm. “It’s just rice,” she said, her voice still low. “He’s going to throw rice at them. Stand down.” Ronin met her dark, luminous gaze. “What sort of custom is that?” he demanded. Magic thrummed around him, making the air shimmer in iridescent hues. The changeling indeed tossed rice high in the air, showering everyone within a ten-foot radius of him, laughed uproariously, and then did it again. “An old one.” Roz tugged on his arm and he sat reluctantly. “Bubba adores Colleen. He’s laid his life on the line for her a bazillion times. He’d never hurt her.” “Better safe than sorry,” he muttered, feeling like an ass. “How was I to know?” “It’s okay.” She let go of his arm and patted one of his hands. As long as he was in an apologizing mood—they were rare for him—Ronin exhaled sharply and said, “I’m sorry I, um, suggested you sit next to me.” She cocked her head to one side and quirked a brow. “If you’d only suggested, it would have been fine, but you did a tad more than that.” Flutes and guitars began to play Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” Colleen and Duncan turned and floated up the center aisle with Bubba right behind, still throwing rice. Even Ronin had to admit they looked radiant. He’d known Duncan his entire life, and he’d never seen his fellow Sidhe look so carefree and besotted with joy. In one wild, unrestrained moment, before he glossed his emotions over with rationality, he wanted the same for himself. Ronin felt Roz’s gaze still on him and knew he couldn’t ignore her comment. “You’re right,” he said stiffly. “I did do more than that.”
She repositioned herself so he had to look at her. “Why?” Because I’ve wanted to strip you naked and worship your body from the day I met you. He cloaked his mind, hoping he’d been fast enough and she hadn’t read his thoughts. “I’m not quite sure,” he stumbled over the words, because they weren’t the truth. Her dark gaze never left him as she weighed his statement. Finally she nodded, almost to herself. “When you figure it out,” she said and winked broadly, “be sure to let me know.” Heat rose from his neck and swooshed over the top of his head. Damn! He was a Sidhe and a warrior. It was unseemly to blush like a love-struck maid. He opened his mouth to stammer some sort of reply, but she got up, along with the rest of the guests. “Come on,” she said. “I’m starving.” He’d been afraid the second the ceremony was over, she’d race away from him as far and as fast as she could, but she’d just invited him to eat with her, at least he thought she had. He bit back a smile until just the edges of his mouth twitched. Maybe she didn’t abhor him as much as it seemed when she’d shot him that poisonous look once she sensed his magic. I learned something. I have to ask her, not simply push her to do what I want. He hurried after her swishing skirt, not wanting to lose her in the crowd. He could always locate her, but the less magic he used until she got to know him, the better. * Roz caught up to Jenna just inside the dining area and hugged her. “Wasn’t it just perfect?” she gushed, still caught up in the mystical pull of dual wedding ceremonies. Jenna hugged her back and nodded. She disentangled herself and eyed her friend. “What the hell, Roz? It isn’t like you to fall all over yourself.” Roz settled her face into its usual, stern planes. “There. Is that better?” Jenna grinned. “Yup. There’s the grumpy witch I know and love. What happened to you anyway? I looked back and you were trailing after that hunky Sidhe.” “He snared me in a spell.” “Ooooh.” Jenna clapped her hands together. “He must be interested.” She leaned close. “What did he do during the ceremony?” Roz felt her face redden. “Nothing. I got mad at him once I realized he’d bamboozled me. Hush. Here he comes.” “Awesome.” Jenna practically vibrated with enthusiasm. “He can eat with us.” “I already invited him.” A knowing look crossed Jenna’s face and she opened her mouth, but Roz hissed, “Can it, sister,” just before turning to Ronin and asking, “Where would you like to sit?” He half-bowed—a courtly, old world gesture that drove home just how old he was—lifted Jenna’s hand to his lips, and said, “Nice to see you again, Miss Jenna. Anywhere the two of you wish to settle is fine with me.” “Maybe we should get our food first,” Jenna suggested brightly, “since the tables will fill fast.” “Good idea,” Roz snapped, feeling unaccountably jealous. Ronin hadn’t kissed her hand, but he’d been quick enough to snatch Jenna’s. “If you don’t want him…” Jenna spoke in their telepathic speech. “I thought you were interested in Tristan.” Roz led the way to a buffet table and picked up a plate. Jenna smirked. “I am, but he’s not here.” Roz dished up an interesting looking salad, brimming with shrimp and crab, and followed it with a few slices of rare beef and a roll. They found a table beneath a leaded glass window and laid their plates down. “I’ll get us something to drink.” Ronin smiled. “Preferences?” “What are you getting?” Roz asked, avoiding Jenna’s gaze. “Mead,” he answered. “It’s what I prefer.” “I’ll take Irish whiskey,” Jenna trilled and settled into her seat. “Just bring me a glass of one or the other,” Roz muttered. “I’m not picky.” As soon as Ronin was out of earshot, or close enough, she glared at Jenna. “Leave him alone.” “But you’re not even sure you’re interested in him,” Jenna protested.
“And how would you know that?” Roz stuffed a forkful of salad into her mouth, chewed with a vengeance, and swallowed. The other witch dropped her gaze, looking sheepish. “I, um, peeked.” Roz slammed a fist on the table hard enough the dishes rattled. “You looked inside my head without asking?” “’Fraid so. Sorry.” Jenna started eating with a studied nonchalance. Roz exhaled and then did it again. Both of them were lonely; getting angry with her longtime friend wouldn’t serve any purpose other than creating bad water under the bridge they’d have to clear at some point. “Jenna. It’s the wedding ceremonies. All the old magic in them makes us want what Colleen and Duncan have.” “I suppose you’re right.” Jenna’s hazel gaze met hers and she looked repentant, her brows drawn together. “I’m sorry.” “Me too.” Roz smiled crookedly. “Let’s not fight. Not today.” Witch’s Bane The Witch Chronicles Book 2 Ann Gimpel Publisher: Taliesin ISBN: Release Date: 8/7/14 Genre: Dark Paranormal Romance Word Count: 65,000 Two stubborn people—a witch and a mage—come together with a fierceness borne of desperation. Can passion trump their intense need for independence? Will they live long enough to find out? Book Description: Roz, Jenna, and Colleen are the last of the demon-stalking witches. So far, they’ve escaped disaster, but their luck is running low. When demons strike in the midst of Colleen’s wedding, Roz launches desperate measures because she and her sister witches are Earth’s only hedge against being overrun by Hell’s minions. As she shape-shifts to keep one step ahead of the demons, at least it takes her mind off her other problems. Personal ones. She burned through a couple of marriages with a string of loser men before, after, and in between. Though she wants to be happy for Colleen, the jealousy bug bit deep and hasn’t let go. In Roz’s secret heart she’s attracted to Ronin, one of the Daoine Sidhe. He’s so profanely beautiful she can barely breathe around him, but he’s also headstrong and arrogant. Not good partner material, she tells herself, unless she wants to end up dusting her heart off one more time. Ronin set his sights on Roz when she was at his home in the U.K. for a strategy meeting and he can’t get her out of his mind. Unfortunately, she’s so prickly getting close to her requires scheming. He casts an enchantment to lure her at Colleen’s wedding, but she senses the spell and rebuffs him. Roz is used to calling the shots. So is Ronin. Sparks fly. Tempers run hot, right along with an attraction too strong to be denied. Roz and Ronin come together with a fierceness borne of desperation, but demons are determined to rid themselves of the witches for good, no matter what it takes.
How real is too real? By Morgan St. Knight The lift of a wand here, a little ditty there, and poof! The heroine or hero gets what they need at the moment. Adding magic to a storyline can spice up paranormal, urban fantasy and horror stories. But can it get too real? This may bring a few chuckles. Too real? Magic doesn’t exist. How can it get “too real”? My opinion is different on that matter, but I’m not here to debate that. I want to look at what authors put in their books, and whether it sometimes goes too far. I absolutely love it when authors do serious research to make their books as believable as possible. The former journalist in me loves facts. So if someone has written a scene with a criminal investigation, I want to see a real criminal investigation. What sort of techniques do the investigators use? What is the science behind those techniques? Has the author written a believable series of events with a believable outcome, or are there too many questions and improbabilities? When we read a scene involving a specific science, discipline or art, and our own background knowledge tells us the details are spot-on, it makes the experience more enjoyable. When it seems off, we may be motivated enough to look up the details on line. If the writer has gotten it wrong, we lose respect for and enjoyment of the book. What does this have to do with magic? Well, I mentioned science, discipline and art, and in my world magic is all three. But again, I’m not here to debate. So let’s take a neutral example. Say a writer includes a bomb-making scene in a thriller novel. This isn’t just some cursory scene, either. The writer has done her research and goes, step by step, through the process of making a bomb. If the reader followed the same steps, they would have a bomb that would really work. The writers might as well have cut and pasted a chapter from “The Anarchist’s Cookbook”. Would you say such attention to detail was necessary? Or would you deem it unnecessary and even irresponsible for the writer to include such data? Here’s where I switch over to the topic of magic. In most cases, the magical scenes I see in books nowadays are innocuous. It’s unlikely anything bad would happen if someone decided to actually perform them. But I said most, not all, and there’s the problem. I have read some books that put in detailed scenes that might as well have come out of a grimoire. I have studied the occult for several decades, and I know the real stuff when I see it. True, some of these authors omitted (intentionally or through carelessness, I have no idea) certain aspects of the ceremonies. But they left in enough that a casual researcher could either find the missing information, especially in the age of everything-on-the-internet, or else could cobble together a working ritual from the elements that are there. If you want a good example of TMI, read James Blish’s “Black Easter”. I don’t mind mentioning him by name because he’s been dead nearly 40 years, and you can’t defame the dead (in the U.S. courts, anyway. The dead have their own ideas about it). He did his research, I’ll give him that. There’s enough information in that little book to give someone the basics for full-dress demonic evocation. Fortunately the ritual is so onerous and the preparation so lengthy (you have to forge your own set of ritual swords, knives, etc.) that it’s un-
likely anyone would have the time, patience or resources to attempt it. But that’s not the case in other books. I read a series that centered on a witch who faced off against a number of occult enemies. Since the author is fairly well known, I won’t get into too many specifics or name names. A chapter in one of the books showed an evil sorceress performing a demonic invocation, and the details were surprisingly accurate. This was not the drawn-out process cited in Blish’s book. This was a short ritual done in one hour. The elements, from descriptions of magical symbols to the use of various tonal inflections in the actual invocations, was amazingly precise. Good job with the research. Bad job for putting that kind of thing into writing for other people to find it. So I beg those of you who want to write magical scenes, ease up on the research and come up with something that is dramatic but clearly in the realm of fantasy, or at least not practical for the average reader to try. Because if it’s doable, I guarantee someone will try it at some point. Don’t worry that a real witch will come up and say “Bad research on the facts!” A real, responsible witch will look the other way, and may even give you a pat on the back for not spilling our trade secrets.
Curse of Prometheus: A Tale of Medea Morgan St. Knight Genre: Paranormal/urban fantasy AISN: B00HRG6FEA ISBN-13: 978-0991396092 Number of pages: 276 Word count: 107,000 The ancient world's most notorious sorceress has just become the modern world's only hope for survival. Book Description: How do you fight a god of light who has been seduced by darkness? That’s the challenge Medea Keres must meet. Posing as a wealthy young heiress in modern day Atlanta, no one knows she is the original Medea, the sorceress from ancient Greek legends. As priestess of the witch goddess Hecate, Medea is charged with hunting demons that would otherwise overrun the world. Now she must face a far greater adversary. One of the twelve shining Olympian gods has turned rogue, violating the edict against human sacrifice. As the body count quickly rises, Medea knows her enemy is getting stronger.
With the help of the underworld nymph Orphne and the hero-god Heracles, she must find a way to unmask the evil so that the other Olympians will take action. But as she probes deeper into a blood-soaked labyrinth of suspense and intrigue, Medea finds a net of deceit and treachery that will require all of her cunning to escape. Available at Amazon Excerpt He reached out a tentative hand to touch one of the wings. “God,” he whispered. “God, God, God, I’m sorry. What have you done to me?” “Get off it!” I snapped. “Don’t even pretend that this is a surprise. Who or what are you? And don’t bother telling me you’re some kind of angel. No angel has moves like the ones you just made with me!” “I don’t want to interrupt, but we have something else to deal with,” Heracles said, putting a hand on my arm. “I’m sure this can wait. He won’t be going anywhere.” He gently tugged me towards the steps. “Stay with him,” I told Orphne, hoping she knew the harshness in my tone wasn’t directed at her. “Don’t take your eyes off of him.” She half-smiled at that. “That’ll be an easy promise to keep.” Heracles bounded up the basement steps but I took them one at a time, a little reluctantly at that. I’d had enough aggravation for the night. I didn’t need something else on my plate. “You’ll want to put something on, unless the neighbors are very liberal.” He was heading for the front door. “Not by a long shot,” I muttered. I pulled my London Fog out of the closet and belted it around me. We stepped outside into a steady fall of rain. There were still muted flashes and thunder rolls overhead, but nothing like there’d been a short time ago. I threw my hands up. “This is what you wanted to show me? I know they don’t have anything but wonderful weather on Olympus, but surely you haven’t forgotten what rain is.” He walked towards the street. “It’s not quite the way I remember it. Come along. You’ll see what I mean.” I quashed the sound of annoyance rising in my throat and trotted to catch up with him. The rain seemed to be easing. He strode across the street. “Over here. You’ll get the picture.” The invective I’d chosen stopped at the tip of my tongue as I stepped out into the street. And out of the rain. I’d known rain to stop abruptly before, but this was different. Mostly, because I could still hear the rain behind me. I think I knew what I was going to see before I completed my slow turn. Something at the back of my mind said not to look, but I had to. Heracles was standing there with his arms folded. “Any ideas?” Damn him anyway, if he wasn’t smirking when he said it. I didn’t find anything at all funny about the fact that the storm was centered over my house—and only my house. The clouds, with their soft flashes of lightning and gentle peals of low thunder, were directly overhead. The sky over the rest of the street was clear, faint stars sparkling overhead. “Shit,” I said with real passion. “Shit, shit, SHIT!” Stamping my bare foot repeatedly on the asphalt to punctuate the curses hurt like hell, but I didn’t care at that point. “Shall I hazard a guess that this has something to do with what you were up to with our winged friend?” The anger and shock were fading, but they weren’t gone. I began pacing. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened with him. But the storm came up just as we were...” I let the rest hang, but he’d gotten the message. “Remember Pompeii,” he said with a teasing note in his voice.
“Accident! It was just… an… accident!” “An accident that conveniently happened as you were getting…acquainted… with a very unusual young man down on a nearby beach. An unusual young man who, it turned out—” “Was the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman,” I finished weakly as I sat down on the curb. Not a soul was stirring, not even a light as far down the street as I could see. I leaned back a bit and jumped as I got splashed by the rain that was still falling resolutely on my yard. It felt better to lean forward and put my head in my hands anyway. “I don’t need this. I don’t need something else. Tonight of all nights, I don’t need this.” Heracles crossed the street and sat down next to me. “Cheer up. It could be worse. It could have been another Vesuvius. Or maybe some other horrendous disaster. At least we weren’t buried like Pompeii.” “It’s disaster enough, isn’t it?” Still, I shivered a bit at what could have happened. We were nowhere near a volcano, but the New Madrid fault was close enough to Atlanta that it might have decided to give way during my little escapade. Just because the Earth moved for me, didn’t mean it had to move for millions of other people. I decided to count my blessings. “Mixed bloods, Medea. Mixed bloods can call up very unusual phenomena when they mate. Perhaps it’s best we never were more than friends. Even when I was mortal, I was still half-god.” The rain was tapering off behind us. If there was any luck to be had, I hoped it would be enough to ensure that no one had bothered looking out their window to see a storm drenching only my house that night. “I suppose we’d best figure out who and what our friend is, and whether he’s any threat.” Heracles rose, holding out a hand without prompting this time. I took it and let him pull me up. “Just what I needed. Another mystery.” He trudged back through the grass. “Maybe this one will be easier to solve.” He sounded nonchalant enough about it. I tried to let the mood infect me, but it kept its distance. I felt like one of the storm clouds hovering over my house had just floated down and taken up permanent residence over my head. About the Author: Morgan St. Knight live in Atlanta, and is a lifelong student of mythology, the occult, and comparative religion. With more than 25 years of experience as a journalist, Morgan enjoys the occasional foray into fantasyland to escape the grim realities of life. He is currently working on the sequel to "Curse of Prometheus" and is developing a second paranormal series which also takes place in the South. http://www.talesofmedea.com https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tales-of-Medea/697399940306618
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Twitter: @morganstknight
Rogue’s Paradise Covenant of Thorns Series Book Three Jeffe Kennedy Pregnant, possessed, and in love with a man I don’t dare to trust-those are the consequences of the risks I took to save my life. But Faerie, the land of blood and magic, is filled with bitter ironies, and the bargains I made now threaten me and my unborn child. The darkly sensual fae noble Rogue still tempts me to danger and desire. As we await the birth of our child, I’ve been forced to question whether our offspring is part of a bargain Rogue once made to save himself. He can’t tell me the truth due to a spell the vicious Queen Titania has him under. Would he betray our family against his will? Could I ever forgive him if he does? Rogue insists on an eternal commitment from me, even as Titania’s forces close in on us. I don’t know if Rogue and I can withstand her onslaught, or that of the beast within me. But I will not stop looking for answers-even if it brings the walls of Faerie crashing down. About the Author: Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Her works include nonfiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including Redbook. Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera, which released beginning January 2, 2014. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves starting in May 2014 and a fifth, the highly anticipated erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, will release starting in July. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog, on Facebook, and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Foreword Literary. http://www.jeffekennedy.com/ https://www.facebook.com/jeffe.kennedy
http://www.jeffekennedy.com/category/blog/ https://twitter.com/jeffekennedy
The Devil’s Jukebox - An Excerpt: It could have ended differently. But it ends like this. Or, more accurately, this is how the ending begins. It begins in the summer. It begins in Los Angeles. Jonathan feels like something not good is waiting to happen. He doesn’t always feel like this, just on birthdays, holidays, and most of the days between. This is a day that holds something bad. He’s been avoiding talking to Fortuna recently, since he feels like he’s been working on these kinds of jobs long enough to be able to find the right answers on his own. But this isn’t an ordinary case. This time he’s going to need help. He wishes that he could tell Phillip what has really been going on with Pandora, but he can’t. Not yet, perhaps not ever. Phillip has helped a lot, moving in and out of his life like an older brother, no, like a good friend. Ever since Sebastian died. Jonathan looks at his drink. He’s going to need more alcohol too. Phillip wants him to find Pandora, but that’s something he doesn’t think he can do alone. That’s why he’s convinced himself that he should talk to Fortuna. He still isn’t sure who Fortuna is or how she knows what she knows. Kalinda introduced them one night in San Francisco, but he never learned where, exactly, she came from. He is grateful that she doesn’t mind sharing her knowledge with him. He had entertained thoughts that Fortuna might be involved with black magic, but he knows he’s wrong. She is beyond good and evil. Jonathan taps his fingers on the bar. He’s hanging out at Swampland, while the DJ tears up the vinyl, spinning through a mix of early ‘70s punk rock obscurities and British Invasion hits. He turns to look but the DJ booth is shrouded in shadows and dim red light. He thinks about saying thanks for the songs but decides he doesn’t need another excuse to stay. “Right, let’s just get it done.” It took him a while to find Fortuna. She’s someone that even the dead don’t like to talk about, and the dead love to talk. It took a few visits to Hollywood Forever, a boom box, and an old Shriekback cassette. He felt like a gothic Lloyd Dobler, but he finally got his answer. The Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard, Room 29. Now that he knows where she is, the trick is to work up the nerve to go there. Jonathan knows he shouldn’t go. He doesn’t
always listen to the word “shouldn’t.” He shouldn’t be infatuated with a woman named Pandora who is the next best thing to a vampire, and not a good one. He probably shouldn’t be trying to track her down either. He knows Fortuna might be able to tell him where she is; he kind of hopes that she can’t. Clearing away spirits is like tearing down the dusty latticework of old cobwebs accumulating in a musty attic. That he can handle, though it gets a little dirty at times. Vampires, though, they’re solid. Blood-sucking evil solid, and he isn’t looking forwards to dealing with any of them. Not that Pandora is a real vampire, but she’s close enough. He’s been running from her and searching for her at the same time, and it’s getting old. “Damn you, Phillip,” he grumbles as he leaves Swampland, wishing reality was like it used to be. As far as he knows, Phillip’s the same as Pandora but, at least so far, not evil. Phillip did help Jonathan get settled in Los Angeles. Jonathan can clean out a haunted dive bar in about twenty-four hours, he can exorcise a possessed drum kit in the time it takes to listen to the extended mix of “Fascination Street”, he can purify a stage from spectral remains before a band returns for an encore. He just doesn’t know if he can take out Pandora. He walks fast down the sidewalk, passing all of the faceless people, and then— A dark-haired woman moves past him with a sidewalking glare. She struts hard in high black boots. She’s stalking the streets like a storm on the concrete, heels over heartbeat, and Jonathan’s breath catches in a suddenly broken rhythm. She’s a whiplash girl twisting necks, and he feels the stirrings of a fever. He doesn’t even care about the weather; he just knows it’s better when it’s hot. This heat holds, and slides out from between her steps. He watches her tight black dress, the fabric painting eyes and stirring blood. Slick lick lips, thigh-high and higher. She hits him with a flash of red, a slip of a smile, like some reptile out for a spin. Jonathan stops, but it’s not her. He still has time. He needs to figure out how to get away from Pandora—for good. It feels like they’ve been haunting each other for an eternity, though it’s only been a few years. He needs to know where she is and how to stop her. The only person Jonathan knows who might have answers is Fortuna. She always has answers. She always freaks him out as well. Jonathan waits for his hands to stop shaking. He watches the sun set in the reflection of skyscrapers, pulling the half moon to rest behind a closed curtain of brilliant clouds. He connects the stars while walking between parked cars. Some quiet frenzy slips inside him, and he hides it from the outside world. He already knows what song she’s playing as he moves up the stairs. He can feel the rhythm tracing taut lines around his veins with a wire’s kiss. I am the fly. Jonathan walks through the cold night into Fortuna’s motel room. The Devil’s Jukebox Marcel Feldmar Genre: Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Pop Fiction
Publisher: Peabo Productions (Self-Published) Date of Publication: July 8th, 2014 ISBN: 9781495947469 ISBN: 9781310876769 Number of pages: 294 Word Count: 80,000 Cover Artist: Sam Soto Book Description: A group of friends are reunited after twenty years to learn that their destinies are entangled with the immortal Muses and a mysterious lost jukebox. From Vancouver to a New Orleans cemetery, roaming through Los Angeles to Las Vegas; it’s a supernatural road trip laced with rock ‘n’ roll. Available at Amazon iTunes BN Smashwords
About the Author: Marcel Feldmar was born in Vancouver, moved to Boulder, ended up in Denver, went back to Vancouver, moved to Seattle, and ended up in Los Angeles. He is married with three dogs, and enjoys well made cocktails. He is also a coffee addict and an ex-drummer for too many bands to mention. He recently traded in his drumsticks for a couple of pens, and proceeded to complete his first novel. The Paranormal Pop Fiction tale entitled The Devil’s Jukebox. http://www.marcelfeldmar.com http://www.facebook.com/jukeboxdevil https://www.goodreads.com/MFeldmar
Switching It Up Jeffe Kennedy I’ve had a naughty Tumblr for a bit over a year now at http://jeffescloset.tumblr.com/ if you’re curious. Somewhere along the way, my followers cajoled/connived/coerced me into posting BDSM shots all day on Mondays. We call it #MasteringMonday. It’s a fun meme, playing around with the idea of well, getting Monday under control and maybe spanking its ass. As you do. Sunday night I posted to Twitter that I was selecting my final six for the next day. I queue up the pics, so they post throughout the day. This is true of every day. For #MasteringMonday, I save up “good” ones all week and then make my final selections. Predictably, a number of my followers suggested that there could be MORE than six. When I replied that they’d get spoilt, one gal said that I sounded surprisingly toppish. Because, yes, mostly I write male dominant/female submissive stuff. But I don’t much like getting tied into iron-clad roles. I don’t think most people are like that. A lot of the fun is in mixing it up. In my newest book, Going Under, I switched things up in at least three ways, from my previous erotic romances. First? It’s longer. This is a full-length novel – more than twice as long as Ruby, the previous record-holder – which had a ripple effect. Second, because it’s longer, I was able to do both points-of-view (POV) – the hero and the heroine. The story alternates pretty much evenly between them. As a result, I spent a lot more time in the guy’s head than ever before. No wonder I’m sounding toppish! Finally, my hero is a different kind of guy. Pushy, yes. Likes to be in charge, for sure. But also exuberantly sexual. He says there’s not much he’s not into and he backs that up. In fact, he’s just as happy for her to be in charge. They take turns, switching it up, having their way with each other. Which made it a super fun story for me, too.
After all, the mastering goes both ways. J Going Under Falling Under Trilogy Book One Jeffe Kennedy Genre: Erotic Romance Book Description: Knowing all too well the damage online trolls can inflict, game designer Emily Bartwell takes privacy seriously. Living in solitude and working remotely under a male alias gives her a sense of security. The sexy writer renting the house next door ignites desires she’d forgotten she had, and when he invites her to play games of a very different sort, Em is ready and willing. Even if it means breaking all her own rules to abide by his. Undercover tech reporter Fox Mullins is so close to the biggest scoop of his career: finding the elusive programmer Phoenix. An increasingly erotic adventure with his reserved but passionate new neighbor is the ideal way to heat up the chilly Pacific Northwest nights as he tracks the brilliant gamer. At first Fox is happy to help Em explore her newly awakened kinky side, no holds barred, no strings attached. But as they push the limits of intimacy, both physical and emotional, Fox discovers he’s not the only one keeping secrets. And revealing hers may mean betraying the one woman who embodies everything he desires. About the Author: Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Her works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including Redbook. Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera, which released beginning January 2, 2014. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves starting in May 2014 and a fifth, the highly anticipated erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, will release starting in July. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful freerange lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog, on Facebook, and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Foreword Literary. http://www.jeffekennedy.com/ http://www.jeffekennedy.com/category/blog/ https://www.facebook.com/jeffe.kennedy https://twitter.com/jeffekennedy
Why Isn’t There More Steam In My Steamy Sex Scene? Writing the Dreaded Sex Scene By Nicole Delacroix It’s been said that a well-written sex scene can make your story sizzle, multiple scenes can propel you to bestseller status, and a badly written scene, much like a bad experience, just leaves you wishing you hadn’t participated. I was terrified when it came to writing a sex scene; sure I had experience reading great scenes, both tame and explicit. I was certainly aware of what worked and what didn’t, but wasn’t sure that I had the ability to write a really good scene myself. So I did what I do best, research. I started with the nuts and bolts of the topic and picked up a few books on the subject. My choices on this were “Be a Sex-Writing Strumpet” by Stacia Kane and “How to Write Hot Sex: Tips from Multi-Published Erotic Romance Authors” by multiple authors (US links to both appear below). (Please note these were my personal selections, there are a multitude of great books out there on the subject) Once I had a grasp on the general formula I figured it was time to delve into a few examples of good scenes. I decided on three each of a romantic scene and three more explicit scenes. I wanted to make sure what I wanted for my own writing had a nice balance, so I had to see both sides of the genre to make an informed choice. I am, by no means, a prude, but I wanted my scene to be pivotal to advancing my story for my characters and would keep my readers engaged, maybe even give some valued insight into my characters. Here’s a few of the things I picked up in my research that helps readers and writers alike see that sex doesn’t have to be smut no matter how explicit it is, (Thank you “50 Shades of Grey”) and as writers it’s time to bring the sex out of the bedroom. Do I Use The Less Is More Approach? Sometimes innuendo is a writer’s biggest asset, and sometimes the story requires you to tell it like it is. The answer to this is simple, what does your story tell you? If you’re writing an aggressive story with explicit action, then you want the sex scene to follow the same format. There’s nothing worse than being all amped up by the action only to get to the sex and feel like the author missed the mark by being coy. On the other side, if you’re using the power of suggestion to propel your story, you don’t want to write an explicit scene filled with ‘naughty bits’ as that would simply turn your readers off to the story itself. Balance is crucial, and no one knows your story the way you do. Avoiding Cliché
I think we’ve all read enough of the obligatory bodice ripping, heaving bosoms, and throbbing members, and have rolled our collective eyes at the characters ‘raging’ with passion and intensity. What I want to know is do people know how much replacing those ripped bodices actually costs, they aren’t cheap folks? Clichés are a writers’ abysm, and where most stories lose focus and more importantly…readers. These descriptive proses simply don’t add to the story and many readers are tired of the same old same old. Used sparingly, clichés can add to the story, but over use simply leaves the reader wishing they had picked up a different book. So my personal rule is if it seems like you’ve read that before, you have, find another way to say it. Where’s The Emotion? I’ve read funny sex scenes that were perfectly true to life; characters falling off the bed, rolling around on the ground and the dreaded rug burn. Sex scenes become more poignant when you focus on the emotions behind them. There’s always the underlying desire in the sex scene, but this is basic, there are so many more emotions to explore, and sex can run the gambit of them. Ask yourself, what is my character feeling? What are they thinking? How do they feel about what’s happening? These are the ingredients that will bring your scene to life. Don’t be scared to use anger, sorrow, fear, pity, aggression, disgust, intimidation, jealousy or sympathy just to name a few. Emotions fuel our sex drives in real life, so they should in your characters’ lives as well. Metaphor, Metaphor, My Kingdom For A Metaphor… "But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill." Hamlet, i. 1. Okay, so we’re not all Shakespeare, but sex is one of those topics that induces fits of giggles, blushing and embarrassment in most people. It’s why erotica is the silent best-seller, no one admits to reading it, but we all have it. With the advent of the E-reader, we dirty minded folks can enjoy our smut in privacy without anyone the wiser. Using a metaphor can let you say what you want directly without it coming across as clumsy. In addition, a good metaphor can add much needed depth by giving the scene emotional weight and greater meaning. There’s a reason why poetry is so popular, it’s called a metaphor. Don’t Write A Sex Scene Just To Have A Sex Scene With the popularity of “50 Shades of Grey”, it’s hard not to jump on the proverbial bandwagon of writing a sex scene. You have to be strong and remember that everything in your story, much like in life, happens for a reason. Does the scene lead to some insight into your characters? Does the scene advance the plot? Does the scene add something to the story that it was lacking? I had the occasion to receive sage advice from another writer and that is this “Sex in your book, should be like sex in life, it should mean something”. If the scene is there simply to add an air of lustiness to your writing, then you should focus more on your writing and less on the sex. Don’t fall victim to be trendy and include something your story simply doesn’t need. Yes, sex sells, but bad sex puts everyone off, and the point to writing is to gain a loyal readership, so know your audience. In closing, a good sex scene can add that needed spice or impetuousness that your story or character needs or it can be the Albatross that sinks the boat that is your story. Hopefully these tips will help you decide what’s right for your story and helps you keep the clunky clichés where they belong – in bad fan fictions. What are your tips for writing better sex scenes? Share them in the comments! Book Links:
Be Sex Writing Strumpet How Write Hot Sex Multi-Published Erotic and Romance Authors Glimpse of Darkness Volume 1: Chronicles of the Cursed Nicole Delacroix Genre: YA Paranormal/Fantasy ISBN: 1497335930 ISBN: 978-1497335936 ASIN: B00JWUOMIU Number of pages: 367 Word Count: 68183 Cover Artist: Javier Charro Amazon BN Book Description: Charlene (Charlie) Bennett is a simple waitress in the wilds of Hyder, Alaska whose father has just gone missing. Isolated and alone, her fathers' disappearance is nothing new to her, but this time things are a little different. For starters, there is a handsome stranger, Daniel that has come to town and while Charlie has never taken more than a passing interest in strangers, she has an immediate and intense attraction to this one. Secondly, she's soon to find out that this stranger isn't what he appears. He's about to throw Charlie's entire world into a major upheaval. Now Charlie has to decide if she believes this strangers' incredible story and follow Daniel or if she wants to stay in the only home she's ever known for an uncertain future and an absentee father. As she comes to terms with what Daniel shows her, she realizes that he's the only true thing in her life and leaves everything she knows behind to follow the handsome stranger. Excerpt: Daniel finally turned to her and acknowledged that she was there. "You've guessed right. We are just ahead of the cannery and yes we are going to catch a cannery truck. There is a shipment leaving in about 15 minutes that will come this way. When they come this way the pack will delay the driver so we can sneak onto the back of the truck. What I need you to do is wait until I give the signal to go and then run to the back of the truck quickly and quietly without drawing any attention. It's imperative that the driver does not know we're on the truck. He can never see us if he does this whole thing will fall apart. Do you understand?" Charlie nodded, she didn't like the plan, but she would do what Daniel asked of her. "We will stay in the back of the truck until they get to Washington state and then we can make our way from
there. But it's very important that until we make it out of town and on the highway that you don't say or think anything. Focus on your music, keep your eyes closed and try not to listen. If you hear something make sure it doesn't break your concentration Charlie, it's very important. I can't block you and both our lives depend on you keeping quiet. I know you're tired and upset and I haven't been very forthcoming, but we're almost out of here. You've had your life in my hands up to now and the only way I can return the trust is to tell you that my life is in your hands until we make it out of town. All you have to do is focus on the music in your head; can you do that for me?" Charlie felt the gravity of his words and hoped that she could come through for him. She would definitely try her very best to do exactly what he wanted her to do. She had managed to grab her ear buds when they were leaving the cabin, she figured she could dig those out and put them in. They weren't completely noise canceling but when she had them in she found it easier to focus. Besides she could put her MP3 player on and the music could just play helping her focus even more. Daniel started to look a little relieved that she was taking his words to heart and coming up with the best solutions to keep them both safe. He relaxed his grip on her hand a little letting her know that he understood what she was thinking and was on board with her plan. They hadn't been sitting very long when they heard the unmistakable rumble of the oversized cannery truck in the distance. She figured they had about 5 minutes before the truck made it to where they were hiding. Her adrenaline was pumping and her tiredness eased up and she was on pins and needles waiting for the truck to make it around the curve. It seemed like forever before the truck lights showed on the horizon meaning that the truck was about 3 minutes away. Daniel looked focused on what was going on and the pack was on edge as well. It was clear a plan was in play but Charlie was clueless as to what exactly it was. All she knew was her part in it, pay attention get to the back of the truck without being seen. It wasn't long before the noisy truck was making its way around the curve and picking up speed. Charlie started to let her doubts creep in, how were they going to be able to jump on a moving vehicle. When without warning the answer to her unspoken question showed itself. The missing pack members were corralling a wild black bear on the other side of the road. It was clear by their behavior that they were going to push the bear into the road in front of the truck about 30 feet ahead of where Charlie and Daniel were hiding. Charlie started to worry that the bear would make it across the road before the truck could make it, when the rest of the pack moved into action. They ran up to intercept the bear and block it onto the road, there was no escape as the truck barreled down on the bear. Since the curve in the road had hid the bear, the truck slammed into the poor animal. As soon as they heard the tires squeal, Daniel pulled Charlie up and they both ran to the back of the truck. Daniel quickly cut the seal on the truck as the wolves started howling loudly. Sound cover to pull up the door so they could jump in, the pack had thought of everything. Only Charlie worried that the bear may have damaged the truck too much for it to continue its journey, but she
didn't have to wait long as she heard the bear growl and the pack disperse and the unmistakable sound of the cab door closing. Soon enough her fear was squashed as the truck lurched into movement. Charlie dug out her MP3 player and ear buds and started listening to music. She had her classical mix playing David Garrett so she was instantly lost in the music.
About the Author: Nicole Delacroix was born in Frankfurt Germany to a German mother and American Military father. Her parents instilled in her a deep love of the written word and a profound respect for literature in all forms. So it's little wonder that from the moment she could first write she knew that writing would always be a part of who she is. From short stories to dabbling in scriptwriting she passes her time with her day job as an IT professional but feverishly writes well into the night. Her passion for literature encompasses many different genres but her heart beats true with fantasy and science fiction. She's fiercely loyal to friends and family and is eagerly awaiting the day when she can move to London England, her childhood dream. Web: http://nicole-delacroix.com/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/writer.nicoledelacroix Twitter: https://twitter.com/NicoleDelaCroix Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/ show/8177927.Nicole_Delacroix Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NicoleDelacroix/posts Tumblr: http://nicoledelacroix.tumblr.com/