Adrian Phoenix Black Heart Loa Giveaway

Black Heart Loa, #2 in the Hoodoo series by Adrian Phoenix

Here's the back cover copy:

“An eye for an eye is never enough.”

Kallie Rivière, a Cajun hoodoo apprentice with a bent for trouble, learned the meaning of those ominous words when hoodoo bogeyman Doctor Heron targeted her family for revenge. Now, while searching for her still-missing bayou pirate cousin, Kallie finds out the hard way that someone is undoing powerful gris gris, which means that working magic has become as unpredictable as rolling a handful of dice.

The wards woven to protect the Gulf coast are unraveling, leaving New Orleans and the surrounding bayous vulnerable just as the deadliest storm in a century is born.

As the hurricane powers toward the heart of all she loves, Kallie desperately searches for the cause of the disturbing randomness only to learn a deeply unsettling truth: the culprit may be herself.

To protect her family and friends, including the sexy nomad Layne Valin, Kallie steps into the jaws of danger . . . and finds a loup garou designed to steal her heart—literally.

Read the first two chapters: http://adrianphoenix.com/blog/wpcontent/uploads/2010/10/Black-Heart-Loa-Sample1.pdf

Read the first chapter of Black Dust Mambo, book 1 in the series http://www.adrianphoenix.com/files/Black_Dust_Mambochapter1.pdf

To celebrate the release of Black Heart Loa Adrian has generously offered up 3 prizes for giveaways today

(that means 3 winners will be chosen)!

Up for grabs is:

1 signed set of Black Dust Mambo and Black Heart Loa

and

2 winner's will get a signed copy of any of her titles (winner's choice).

Open to international shipping

To enter leave a comment on this post telling us which

Adrian Phoenix

book you would most like to win

Receive an extra entry for being a Fang-tastic GFC Follower

Receive another extra entry for liking Fang-tastic Books on Facebook

Receive +2 entries for liking Adrian Phoenix on Facebook

Receive + 2 entries for Following Adrian on Twitter

Be sure to include your email address in the comment

3 winners will be announced next Wednesday

David Brown Writes Vampires Too- Guest Blog and Fezariu's EpiphanyGiveaway

Though the world of Elenchera is host to humans, elves, dwarves, dragons and anthropomorphic races such as valkayans and tolderes, there is room in the history for vampires too.

My earliest foray into Elenchera’s vampire race came with a short story, The Sparkling Dew on the Lakeside, which told of vampire ships from Deutermia that sailed north to the many lands of East Elenchera to raid towns for victims. One such vampire, Lorenzo, stepped onto foreign soil and was immediately struck by images of a young and beautiful woman – Celestia – weeping by the side of a stunning lake in the midst of an autumnal forest. Rather than joining the vampire raids, Lorenzo was drawn to a distant town where some shocking revelations were waiting.

The Sparkling Dew on the Lakeside remains my favourite of the short stories I have written and I intend to take the story and extend it into a novel. The history of events that will feature have already been written but for now it’s a book that I will sadly have to put on hold.

Fezariu’s Epiphany was the novel that cried out to me the loudest when deciding what to write and I have already chosen my second work – A World Apart.

I suppose my hesitation in writing The Sparkling Dew on the Lakeside comes from the theme of vampires being very popular at the moment. Stephanie Meyer has championed a vampire revival with the Twilight series while the likes of True Blood and the brilliant Let The Right One In have also opened up new possibilities for our bloodthirsty friends. I think the danger at the moment is that many great vampire works may get lost or overlooked given the popular trend for these types of books right now.

In the not too distant future I will be glad to share The Sparkling Dew on the Lakeside and my promise is of a tragic love triangle, sympathetic vampires, a fierce war between good and evil, and a young couple torn apart through ill fortune. Vampires are alive and well in the literary world and I’m very much looking forward to sharing a tale of my own about these remarkable creatures.


Visit David on tour:

Interview at Yahoo's Associated Content

June 27 Interview http://SellingBooks.com/

June 29 Guest Blog Bibrary Bookslut
http://bibrary.blogspot.com


June 29 Guest Blog Fang-tastic Books
www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com

July 6 Guest Post
http://tstillwagon.wordpress.com

Thursday July 7 Interview
http://authorsbyauthors.blogspot.com/

Friday July 8 Guest Blog
http://jacqpaige.blogspot.com/

July 11 Guest Blog
http://www.nickijmarkus.com


July 12 Interview
http://lauriethoughts-reviews.blogspot.com


July 11 and 12 The Plot Character Post
http://theplotline.wordpress.com


July 19th Guest Blog Castles and Guns
www.castlesandguns.com

July 20 Guest Blog
http://authorisabelroman.blogspot.com/


July 21 Guest Blog
www.pocketafterdark.com blog


July 22 Guest Blog The Write at Home Mom
www.thewriteathomemom.blogspot.com



Book Blurb:

"The White Oak, Clarendon’s oldest brothel, lured and destroyed men by the thousands. Fezariu was different. He had never been drawn by the White Oak’s vices but the brothel had still ruined him when he was just a boy.

Salvation came in the form of the Merelax Mercenaries – Elenchera’s most prestigious hired hands. They gave Fezariu the chance to escape from his past. Immersed in the world of dangerous assignments in the colonies Fezariu longed to forget everything about his childhood but only in facing the past would he ever be free of it."

Book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPgcNNLMBvY

Podcasts http://elenchera.podomatic.com/entry/2011-06-11T10_19_08-07_00




Author bio:

"David Brown was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and first conceived the idea of the Elencheran Chronicles at college in 1999. He spent ten years compiling the history of Elenchera, resulting in 47,000+ years of events, 500+ maps, 2000+ pages, several short stories and many much-needed acquaintances with Jack Daniels.

David also has a blog, The World According to Dave (http://www.elenchera.com/blog), which features reviews, stories and dramatic tales of the horrors of owning cats.

David now lives in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, with his wife, Donna, and their six cats.
Fezariu's Epiphany is his first novel."

David's Twitter profile: http://www.twitter.com/elenchera
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4878327.David_M_Brown
Book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPgcNNLMBvY

Would you like to win an e-copy of Fezariu's Epiphany?

Leave a comment on this Post with your email address

One winner will be chosen next Wednesday

Winner Wednesday

The Embraced by Blood Prize Pack winner is angie lilly

The Hunger winner is Jen B.

Guest Blog and Giveaway with P.L. Blair

When the Characters Take Over

Before I get started, I want to thank you, Roxanne, for this week's tour and the opportunity to put a spotlight on Shadow Path and my Portals fantasy/detective series. It's been a great experience.

Next, I want to thank Kat Morales and Tevis Mac Leod, my human and elf characters, respectively, for guiding me through the writing of Shadow Path – and subsequent books – because they have been in control from the beginning.

It started with that vision of Kat, standing on a sidewalk in Corpus Christi, Texas, watching her partner (Tevis) examine the body of an ogre:

Tevis, kneeling beside the body, seemed unfazed. With his short-cropped blond hair, wearing a pale gray summer-casual suit (white shirt, no tie), he could have passed for one of the young attorneys who worked in the law offices that lined the surrounding streets. Except, of course, for the pointed ears that marked him as an Elf – Aalfar, as he called himself and his people – and the white, department-issued rubber gloves similar to those Kat wore.

"Almost done?" he asked in his strange accent that was slightly Scottish and slightly … something else.

"Almost," Kat said. Sense of duty overcame revulsion, and she raised the digicam and took two more shots, slightly different views, of the corpse. The Ogre lay face-down on the street just at the edge of the alley, its head twisted to one side. The one eye she could see was open. She slowly surveyed the kill site: North Carancahua Street, midway between Antelope and Leopard, just a few blocks from the Nueces County Courthouse Complex. The killer had nerve.

From that point, the plot seemed to take off. All I had to do was keep up with Kat and Tevis as they followed an investigation that involved diamonds … and pixies … swords inscribed with murderous runes … black magic – death magic – all of it leading back into Tevis' past, a former lover who now wanted Tevis dead …

Shadow Path seemed to write itself.

I loved watching it come together.

And I've loved this opportunity to share it.

Book Description:

The Ogre is dead, what's left of the murder weapon - a rune-inscribed sword - still in his liquefying remains.

That's just the beginning for Kat Morales, a Human detective with the Corpus Christi, Texas, police department and her Elf partner, Tevis. The two soon find themselves awash in Pixies, Magic of the Blackest kind, and a trail theat leads into Tevis' past, to a former lover, now a necromancer, who wants to extinguish her old flame - permanently.

This first book in P.L. Blair's "Portals" fantasy adventure series begins at a time in Earth's not-too-distant future when magical portals are opened between the world we now know and the "otherside," a parallel world filled with magic and all manner of magical creatures and beings. The "Portals" series will launch you on a wonderous journey of imagining what it would be like if magic and creatures of myth and legend were to suddenly step into our world for real.

Would you like to win a print copy of Shadow Path?

The please leave a comment on this post

Include your email

Winner TBA Next Wednesday

Excerpt of Shadow Path

Today is the finale of the Shadow Path Bewitching Book Tour.

So I figured I'd give you a bit more info about the book- here's an excerpt and the book trailer.

Enjoy.

Chapter One
of P.L. Blair's

"Shadow Path"

Ogres looked – and smelled – bad enough in life. Death magnified those uncharming qualities, especially the smell, something like a cross between rotting fish and open sewer. Kat found herself swallowing again and again against the urge of her stomach to empty itself.

If she'd seen this coming, she would've skipped breakfast.

Tevis, kneeling beside the body, seemed unfazed. With his short-cropped blond hair, wearing a pale gray summer-casual suit (white shirt, no tie), he could have passed for one of the young attorneys who worked in the law offices that lined the surrounding streets. Except, of course, for the pointed ears that marked him as an Elf, and the white, department-issued rubber gloves similar to those Kat wore.

"Almost done?" he asked in his strange accent that was slightly Scottish and slightly … something else.

"Almost," Kat said. Sense of duty overcame revulsion, and she raised the digicam and took two more shots, slightly different views, of the corpse. The Ogre lay face-down on the street just at the edge of the alley, its head twisted to one side. The one eye she could see was open. She slowly surveyed the kill site: North Carancahua Street, midway between Antelope and Leopard, just a few blocks from the Nueces County Courthouse Complex. The killer had nerve.

Tevis looked up at her, his eyes, blue as high-mountain lakes, dazzling in their intensity.

She nodded in response to the question he didn't put into words. The coroner had been here when she and Tevis had arrived. He'd officially pronounced the Ogre dead, said he'd wait for the autopsy before any further rulings, packed up and left. For now, the body was Kat's jurisdiction — and her partner's. "Roll him over. Let's see what the front looks like."

Tevis made the task look effortless — which amazed Kat, considering the Ogre even in its present condition had to weigh 300 pounds or more, and the Elf's 5-foot-8-inch frame (only two inches taller than Kat) couldn't have weighed more than 150 soaking wet. Kat would have helped him, except he had made it clear on previous occasions that he neither wanted nor needed help.
The dead Ogre flopped onto its back, a small pool of dark, nearly black, stuff — what passed for Ogre blood — marking the place where the creature had been.

"Not much blood," Tevis remarked as Kat shot views of the Ogre's front.

"Most of it's in the dumpster," Kat said. "He must've pretty well bled out by the time he was found." She brushed a limp strand of auburn hair off her forehead. Not even 8 o'clock, and the temperature was already pushing 90, and God only knew what the humidity was. It had to be in the eighties at least. Today was going to be a scorcher, even for July in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Tevis sat back from the corpse. It amazed Kat that he could be so unaware of the heat or humidity. True, the jacket he wore was summer-weight, but still. Kat had left her jacket in the car, stripped down to a sleeveless green tee over her tan slacks, and she still felt wilted. The Elf directed his gaze toward the crowds being held in check by the yellow police line, nodded at two figures who stood a little apart from both the crowd and the uniformed officers. "Is that the one who discovered the body? The one the lieutenant is speaking with?"

Kat inclined her head. "His name's Ed Lewiston. He's a dumpster diver."

"Not a street person," Tevis said. "He is dressed too well."

"He calls himself a 'pre-cycler.' Says it's his job to save the good stuff people throw away." Kat took another, more thoughtful look at Lewiston in his gray slacks and pale blue shirt, a middle-aged male trying to look ten years younger. Maybe he'd be a bit more careful of going into other people's trash after today.

The Elf returned his attention to the body, probing with long, slender fingers. After a moment, "I have found, I believe, the cause of death." He parted a few strands of the bristly hair that covered the Ogre's chest, sat back again to give Kat a clearer view.

She snapped off two photos of what she saw before she lowered the digicam and let herself think about it. "A stab wound. But — Ogres can't be stabbed! Their stone hides …"

"You are thinking of trolls," Tevis said. "Ogre skin is true flesh, not stone." He probed the wound while he spoke. "Although," his voice dropped to a murmur, barely audible, "it still requires a formidable weapon to penetrate."

Kat stuffed the digicam into her shirt pocket and went down on one knee on the other side of the body. "What do you See?" She pulled off the gloves she'd been wearing, spent a couple of minutes wriggling her fingers, enjoying the feel of not having anything on her skin before pulling a second pair of rubber lab gloves from a pants pocket. Even dusted inside with baby powder, the gloves too quickly left her hands hot and sticky-wet with sweat in this weather. Finally, she pulled the fresh pair on. Somewhere a siren wailed, and a gull passing overhead called out as if in answer.

"A fragment of the weapon remains in the wound," Tevis said at last, though Kat had a feeling he was thinking out loud, talking to himself rather than her. "The blade was not powerful enough to resist breakage. We will learn more once we get the body to the lab."

"The killer," Kat pressed. "The wound is in front. The Ogre had to have seen his killer."

Tevis inclined his head. "And it was someone known to him. More — It was someone he feared. That much I can See. But I cannot See a face. It is clouded by a Magic more powerful than I can penetrate."

Kat arched an eyebrow. "A Practitioner?"

Another slight nod. "Or else a True Wizard. I feel Magic of the blackest kind. It has left a residue."

"Cold?" Kat asked. Humans lacked the Elven sensitivity to the feel of Magic, but Tevis had explained it to her. Beneficial Magic felt warm. Black Magic felt cold.

"So cold," Tevis affirmed, "that it burns." He turned his attention from the wound to the the denim cutoffs the corpse wore. "Ogres do not usually wear Human garments." He sounded vaguely surprised. Then he shrugged and set to work exploring the pockets of the jeans.

Kat retrieved the digicam and took photos of the objects that emerged. There wasn't much — three brightly colored paper clips, two oversized marbles, an empty plastic bag.

"Ogres are like those little animals that collect odd materials for their nests," Tevis said.

"Packrats," Kat filled in as he visibly struggled for the word.

"Yes. They — Ogres I mean — are big and strong, and they are attracted to shiny objects. But they are not overly bright."

"So," having snapped the last picture, Kat lowered the camera, "was our friend here an innocent victim? Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

Tevis flashed one of his rare smiles in his partner's direction. "Ogres are seldom innocent, even when they appear to be doing nothing. Nor are they chance targets for thieves. They like shiny objects, but cash has no importance to them."

"So," Kat said, "unless our Ogre somehow acquired a pocketful of, say, gold nuggets …"

"Which someone would have to know about, which rules out a chance mugging."

"Sounds like you two are cookin' up theories already." Lieutenant Ed Harley, soft drawl and amiable manner masking a core of purest steel, joined his junior officers. He focused gray eyes on Kat. "What've we got, Morales?"

"Ogre male, age …" She shrugged. Who knew with Ogres? "Stabbed in the chest, just below the rib cage."

"The angle of the wound suggests the killer was Kathryn's height or smaller," Tevis interjected. His hands continued to deftly explore the corpse while he spoke. "No other apparent wounds. But this one would have been sufficient. It penetrated the heart."

"Tevis says part of the weapon is still in the body," Kat resumed. "From the condition of the body, rough guess I'd say he's been dead at least twelve hours. That would put the murder around 7, 8 last night at the latest."

"Early enough that someone might still have been around, maybe have seen somethin'," Harley speculated aloud.

Kat inclined her head. "Maybe Tevis and I should visit a couple of offices later today, see if anybody was working late. As for the body," she shrugged, "we'll know more after an autopsy. Hopefully whatever's left of the weapon will tell us something."

"Kathryn." Tevis's voice interrupted again, his tone telling his partner he'd found something more significant than marbles or paper clips. She turned, looked down at him.

In one hand, he held a pouch — not a bag but a small, burgundy-colored pouch of velour — or maybe suede.

The other hand stretched toward her, palm-up. In the palm, four small stones nestled, glittering like ice and fire in the light that shafted down from the nearly cloudless Corpus Christi sky.

"The Ogre was carrying them on a belt under his cutoffs," the Elf said.

Harley whistled. "Diamonds?"

"We cannot be certain without a proper analysis." Tevis held out stones and pouch together while Kat photographed them. "But I believe so, yes."

"In that case," Kat slipped the digicam into her pocket once more, "I think we can definitely rule out robbery as a motive."

The Beauty of the Novella with Stephanie Draven

The Beauty of the Novella

by Stephanie Draven

Traditionally, novellas have been the red-headed step-child of the fiction world. Too short to justify print or to offer the sustained in-depth immersion of a novel, they’ve been a hard sell. But recently, the market for short fiction has been exploding. Why the sudden demand for short fiction even in genres that require intricate world-building like paranormal romance and urban fantasy?

It seems to me that readers, writers, editors and publishers have finally come to appreciate the beauty of the novella. What exactly does the novella offer?

New Horizons

Deciding to buy and read a novel is a commitment of money and time--both of which are in short supply these days. The novella offers readers the opportunity to sample new authors and genres without having to invest a lot. You can usually read a novella in twenty minutes riding the train home. It can be very refreshing to finish an entire story in one sitting instead of plodding along, night after night. (This probably also accounts for the popularity of HQN’s category novels.)

Experimentation

Authors are creative people. Usually, we have far more ideas than we’ll ever be able to turn into books in one lifetime. Sometimes, especially when it comes to paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and other forms of speculative fiction, we come up with zany theories that we’re not sure can support an entire novel. To that end, the novella can give us a proof of concept. Without committing up to a year of our lives to fleshing out an idea that might be a little too off-kilter for the market, we can still weave a short work around a notion that’s nagging at us. This is especially important when it comes to author brand--novellas will seldom signal a break with our usual work, in a way that a full-length novel will. (See Gwen Hayes’ historical romance short, Second Son of a Duke, as an example. She’s normally a YA writer.)

Freshness

Most authors will tell you that in finishing a novel, somewhere around the 2/3rds mark, they have a crisis of faith. We decide the idea sucks. The whole story is a disaster. This is the book that is going to kill our career. (OK, maybe that’s just me.) However, novellas don’t involve the exhaustion that accompanies a full length novel. The writer is fresh, the ideas are fresh, the writer is still confident. A novella is a sprint rather than a marathon and sometimes the boundless energy and enthusiasm, that spark of genius that is at the core of a writer’s talent, can really shine through.

Collaboration

One advantage of novellas is that their short length allows editors to pull together similarly themed work to create an overall mood and impression in anthologies. Collaborative works can be stronger and more imaginative, so this is especially effective when three or four authors contribute novellas to a continuity, all set in the same world.

Still not convinced? Pick up a copy of my latest steamy paranormal romance novel, Siren Song, and tell me what you think about novellas!

Description of Siren Song:

When the sexy lead singer of an Annapolis indie band is accused of luring midshipmen to their deaths, she learns she’s not the only one with a killer voice…

No one can resist Chloe Karras when she sings—except for the sexy naval officer who is seemingly immune to her sensual allure. Maybe that’s why Captain Alex Shore is just the man she wants to take home after her performance—until he tells her what she thought were imagined powers are real…and dangerous.

Alexandros knows firsthand how seductive sirens are, as well as their potential to destroy. Yet the former sea soldier feels a powerful attraction to the beautiful rock singer that goes beyond her spell. Can he banish Chloe from the town he’s vowed to protect—or will he be drawn into the siren’s bed?

Read an excerpt here or download a free pdf of Chapter 1 here.

Stephanie Draven is currently a denizen of Baltimore, that city of ravens and purple night skies. She lives there with her favorite nocturnal creatures–three scheming cats and a deliciously wicked husband. And when she is not busy with dark domestic rituals, she writes her books.
Stephanie has always been a storyteller. In elementary school, she channeled Scheherazade, weaving a series of stories to charm children into sitting with her each day at the lunch table. When she was a little older, Stephanie scared all the girls at her sleepovers with ghost stories.

She should have known she was born to hold an audience in her thrall, but Stephanie resisted her writerly urges and graduated from college with a B.A. in Government. Then she went to Law School, where she learned how to convincingly tell the tallest tales of all!

A longtime lover of ancient lore, Stephanie enjoys re-imagining myths for the modern age. She doesn’t believe that true love is ever simple or without struggle so her work tends to explore the sacred within the profane, the light under the loss and the virtue hidden in vice. She counts it amongst her greatest pleasures when, from her books, her readers learn something new about the world or about themselves.

Stephanie also writes historical fiction as Stephanie Dray and has a series of forthcoming novels from Berkley Books featuring Cleopatra’s daughter.

Visit Stephanie at www.stephaniedraven.com

Review of Siren Song by Stephanie Draven

Description of Siren Song:

When the sexy lead singer of an Annapolis indie band is accused of luring midshipmen to their deaths, she learns she’s not the only one with a killer voice…

No one can resist Chloe Karras when she sings—except for the sexy naval officer who is seemingly immune to her sensual allure. Maybe that’s why Captain Alex Shore is just the man she wants to take home after her performance—until he tells her what she thought were imagined powers are real…and dangerous.

Alexandros knows firsthand how seductive sirens are, as well as their potential to destroy. Yet the former sea soldier feels a powerful attraction to the beautiful rock singer that goes beyond her spell. Can he banish Chloe from the town he’s vowed to protect—or will he be drawn into the siren’s bed?

Read an excerpt here or download a free pdf of Chapter 1 here.

My Review:

I loved this quick and sexy little read. At novella length I could almost devour it in one sitting.

Being shorter than a novel everything was fast paced from the meeting of the two main characters to them ending up with a connection- could the relationship development have been dragged out farther, maybe but I know I get antsy sometimes with full length novels where the connection takes too long.

Chloe and Alex meet and instantly there's a connection- but he fights it and she wonders why he acts like he hates her from the moment they meet.

Chloe's had a traumatic past and now her sexy and dangerous voice can do damage. But her pure heart wouldn't let her hurt anyone, would it?

Someone is killing men. Alex has to find out if it's Chloe and stop her - but is it Chloe? And can he resist her long enough to find out?

I would have loved to see more character development but I know with it being a novella everything is crammed into such a small package that completely fleshing everything out is impossible.

All in all I loved this book- found sirens and Triton's to be fresh new types of characters that I can enjoy reading about.

I hope to read more from this author.

Embraced by Blood Review and Giveaway

Alfonso Serrano is a hunted man. For months he's managed to elude the Darkbloods, vengeful foes who won't rest until he's dead. But he still craves one dangerous temptation: Lily DeGraff, the sexy Guardian agent he'll risk anything to protect.

Lily is a wanted woman. Her talent for tracking Sweet—a rare blood type that's addictive to vampires—makes her a prime target for enemy capture. Her only hope is the stealthy vampire operative who stole into her bed…then left her in despair. Danger aside, Lily won't let Alfonso near her heart again—until an irresistible hunger threatens to draw them back together… and into an assassin's snare.

My Review:

I haven't read the other book or novella in this series yet- but after reading this one I know I want to read the rest.

I don't feel that I lost a lot of info by not having read the other books because it works as a stand alone though I felt there was more back story that would have helped my understanding if I had read the other book(s)( technically a book and a novella).

Alfonso Serrano is a tortured hero. In the past he was a double agent- working for both the good guys and the DarkBloods. The oath he pledged to the Darkbloods made going against them dangerous- once he betrayed them an assassin was sent after him.

Obviously his involvement with everything left him estranged from his family and the woman he was/is apparently in love with. I wondered if these people knew what he was really doing that he was a good guy undercover with the bad. If they did they didn't seem to care or he never bothered to tell them- there seemed to be more to the story...which hooked me so I kept reading.

Alfonso's been trying to stay out of things...away from the council, away from the DarkBloods, away from Lily even away from his family.

Now Lily's in town and the council wants Alfonso to do some work for them because the DarkBloods are planning something big to round up the Sweetbloods (humans with a much sought after type of blood- interesting twist and concept).

Lily just wants to raise her daughter Zoe (who I immediately wondered if she is Alfonso's), do her job and keep everyone, including her heart safe.

Lily's having issues with her tracking abilities that make tracking and training a newbie hard.

Even harder is having Alfonso back in the picture. The story that unfolds is dramatic- and in addition to the romantic drama there's a lot going on in this book that will keep you enthralled. The world building is good with a great cast of characters fully fleshed out- some of the secondary characters are fascinating and I hope to see more in future books.

This is a great new vampire world I've discovered- well worth the read.

And if you'd like a chance to read it, author Laurie London has offered to give away

one signed copy

along with a set of Sweetblood Trading Cards

to one lucky reader

To enter leave a comment on this post

with your email address

Open to US Shipping Only

Karen E Taylor Guest Blog and Hunger Prize Pack Giveaway

How I created and lived in a vampire world and survived to tell the tales...

Have you noticed that not all vampires are created equal? The rules and worlds surrounding some of your favorite blood-sucking characters are not the same as described in other stories. And that’s one of the fun things about reading and writing about vampires. There are as many varieties as there are authors. More probably, since each character and each universe dreamt up by the writer has one other key ingredient – the knowledge and detail each individual reader brings to the page. Which is why Lestat can be a totally different creature from Blaylock, or from Edward, or Bill, or Dracula, or Deirdre. Some of these characters are so dissimilar, it’s hard to believe that they can all still bear the title of “vampire.” And yet they do. They’re all just one happy family.

Writing, or reading, a vampire novel involves an odd little dance of expectations and surprises. A writer has to decide which rules to break and which ones to ignore. There has always been a long list of what makes a vampire a vampire –a list built and added to over the years from myths and folklore, movies and books. Any vampire afficionado can rattle off this list by heart. And while it’s fairly important to know these rules, it’s not really necessary to use them all – an author can (and probably should) pick and choose. In my own Vampire Legacy world, I chose three key elements I deemed absolutely necessary for my characters to possess. One was that they had eternal life if left alone by outside elements. As long as the “villagers” don’t arrive with their torches and wooden stakes, as long as the vampires take care of their basic needs (food and shelter,) Deirdre and her ilk can live on. Forever. My second criteria for admittance into the vampire world was the existence and use of fangs to obtain sustenance. No knives or razors allowed. It’s fangs or nothing! And the final rule I adhered to was the inability of my vampires to live or walk in full sunlight. Even brief exposure would cause blisters and burns – and longer encounters could cause serious damage and eventually be fatal.

Keeping track of these rules is as important to the continuity of a series as keeping track of hair color, eye color and the basic physical components of each character. And breaking these laws is not something to be undertaken lightly. If you have something laid out as gospel in the first book of the series, then it needs to be gospel in the last book of the series. Exceptions can be made, but must also be explained.

When I started writing the Vampire Legacy series, I began building the world a little bit at a time. In a way, I was taking the same journey as my main character. In the first book of HUNGER, Deirdre Griffin is a rogue vampire. She has no one to teach her how to live, instead she learns everything she “knows” to be true from what few books are available to her and from her own daily/nightly trials and errors. She defines her existence from what she thinks is true or possible and carries on from there, stretching the truths as much as she can, and in some instances defying the rules to assert her own humanity . Unlike many vampires, she refuses to sleep in a coffin, finding that draping the windows with heavy curtains is sufficient to keep her safe. Her dietary tastes and needs are defined by her experiences and by the trust puts in herself and her developing super-human instincts. She is perhaps a little too stubborn for her own good, refusing to explore the mythical abilities she reads can be possessed by one of her kind. Deirdre doesn’t want to believe that shape-shifting is possible, because it’s so far out of her mind-set. She doesn’t want to experiment with strange or disturbing powers. Like most newborn creatures she is simply trying to survive.

And like most newborn authors, I was just trying to get to the end of the page, to the end of the chapter, to the end of the book. Rules helped me get there, helped me build a nice solid world that I and my characters could depend on.

Then with good cause and with deliberate intention, I kicked out a few of the foundation’s blocks. What good is a world that can’t sustain a disaster or two? I will leave the readers to decide whether Deirdre can do the same...

~Karen E. Taylor

Deirdre Griffin didn't choose to be a vampire. But she is. And she's determined to make the most of her fate. For Deirdre that means surrendering to the raging hunger ignited by even the slightest whiff of blood a hunger that pulses through her body like a fever, demanding release. It means making friends in dark places and savouring every hot, salty, bitter, revitalizing drop of life force the night has to offer...

From Book #1 of HUNGER:

After the kiss, I buried my face in his neck. Now, I thought as I heard the blood pulse in his veins, Oh, please, now.

I nipped him at first, savoring the moment, my low moans echoed by his. Then when my teeth grew longer and sharper, I could hold back no longer. I bit him brutally, tapping the artery and was rewarded by the flow of his blood: hot, salty and bitter. He shuddered violently and fought to push me away, but his resistance was futile. Finally his struggles ceased and his body grew limp as I continued to draw on him, gently now, almost tenderly. I drank a long time, slowly, relishing the feel of my own body being replenished, then I withdrew.

Arising from the couch, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. No longer pale and haggard, my skin glowed with life and my eyes shone, victorious and demonic. A few drops of blood were trickling down my chin; I wiped them away with the back of my hand and turned from my reflection in disgust...

From Book #2 of HUNGER:

He was trembling violently under my touch, but that merely encouraged me and I spoke his name again.

"Mitch."

This time I connected. I knew he heard me and understood, his hands tightened on mine and he whispered my name. Then before I could react, he quickly dropped my hands, formed a fist and silently punched me on the jaw, striking me with such force that I fell to the floor.

As I pulled myself up, shaking my head and gingerly feeling my jaw, I saw him running from the room, pursued by a nurse and two orderlies.

I stood, swaying in the air slightly, oblivious to the uproar Mitch's action must have been causing around me. The noise level in the room rose, as if from a long distance. I could hear the laughing and crying and shouting of the rest of the patients in the room. But my eyes were fastened on the door through which he had disappeared.

What the hell did you expect, you fool, I thought, a passionate embrace, a warm welcome-back kiss? His eyes had been the eyes of one who looked on hell, and I had helped to put him there...

Giveaway Time

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Interview with a Vampire Venator Guest Blog with Felicity Heaton

Thank you for having me here today, Roxanne, as part of my Paranormal Pandemonium 2011 Blog Tour.

Some of you will probably know me, but for the rest, I’ll introduce myself. I’m Felicity Heaton and I’m a prolific paranormal romance / science fiction romance author who writes under that name and also as F E Heaton. I write dark romances full of action and passion, and often focused on vampires, werewolves, angels, demons or witches, but I do write about other paranormal species too.

My latest release, Forbidden Blood, is the first novel in a new series for me—the Vampire Venators series. It’s a dark, sensual tale of betrayal, revenge and a love that knows no bounds. I’ve been lucky enough to catch up with the very handsome and very eloquent, and also very dangerous, vampire hero of Forbidden Blood and he answered a few questions for me.

FH: I have Kearn here with me today to talk about his book, Forbidden Blood. Firstly, can you tell us a little about yourself?

KEARN: I am a Venator for the vampire species. I was chosen to succeed my father in his role as Venator for House Savernake. I was not happy with this, and I still resent the Sovereignty for the pain they caused my family and myself by forcing this role upon myself rather than passing it to my older brother, Kyran. A Venator is a hunter. It is my duty to carry out the sentence on vampires known to have broken the law. It is not a duty that I relish. I wish I were free of it, but that can only come through death or retirement, and I am a long way from either. I have a reason to live now. It was given to me by my beloved Amber.

FH: Can you tell us about what happened in your story?

KEARN: Most certainly. I was pursuing a known Source Blood abuser and had been hunting him for several years prior to the night I stumbled upon Amber under attack by a group of vampires. As a Venator, it is my duty to protect humans from my kind. I had not realised that she was a Source Blood, and by chance, the man who had sought to control her turned out to be the one I was looking for. He is elusive as the wind but with Amber’s help I was finally able to track him down and sentence him. It was difficult for me, and I do not think I could have done it without Amber’s assistance.

FH: As you mentioned, you meet Amber in your story, Forbidden Blood. How did you feel about her initially?

KEARN: The benefit of hindsight is a beautiful thing. Now I can see with clarity that I was falling for her from the moment I set eyes on her, before I first tasted her blood. At the time, I believed myself indifferent and purely under the influence of her blood. Source Blood is rare. It is a gene in the blood of a specific line of humans, and it can bestow godlike powers upon vampires. It is also highly addictive. When we first met, I was reluctant to interact with humans. Amber was the first human I had actually worked with. Most of the time they are dead by the time I reach them. She entranced me so quickly that I was under her spell before I could realise what was happening, and that only put her life in more danger. She was an easy target for the man I was hunting and he knew that he could use her to weaken me and drive me to act on impulse rather than rationally.

FH: Your relationship with Amber was complicated because she’s human, and a Source Blood, and it’s illegal for you to taste her. Was it difficult around her after you had taken a sip of her blood?

KEARN: Extremely. It had been a long time since I had tasted Source Blood and the effects of Amber’s on me were stronger than I had anticipated. Her blood is divine, a drug more addictive than anything else on this planet, and once I had tasted it, I wanted more. I could not help myself and it was difficult to control myself around her. That one sip triggered hunger in me stronger than any I had felt before and I craved her. Not just her blood though. I craved the whole of her. I needed her to be mine and I knew it was asking a lot of her after everything I had already put her through, but she is so beautiful, and she did not shy away or think me a monster because of what I was or what I desired from her. She accepted me and she brought me back to life and filled my world with light, chasing back the darkness.

FH: That’s beautiful. For all your growl and menacing edge, you’re a big softie when it comes to Amber. How has life been since the events that happened and brought you together?

KEARN: It has been quiet for the past few months. Amber is settling into her new life and says that she learns something new each night that we wake together and I teach her about the ways of my kind. Society has accepted her in a way I could not have wished or hoped for. Archduke Pendragon saw to that. We still turn heads at the balls and Amber’s name is on everyone’s lips. They are very eager to see how she turns out. I have been working with some of the other vampire Venators and the Sovereignty on matters regarding our species. It keeps me busy but I always find time for Amber. I want her to never feel that she is alone. She comes with me wherever I go when she can, and is becoming a very good ambassador for better treatment of humans who are brought into our world and are in transition.

FH: Your story, Forbidden Blood, is a book in a series. Can you tell us a little about the series and can we expect see more of you in other stories in this series?

KEARN: I believe that we are in the next book. The whole series follows the vampire Venators in their missions for the Sovereignty, a ruling body of demons that govern the nine demon species. They are the remains of their species, and countless centuries old, and extremely powerful. They bless their Venators with the power to sentence those who break the law. For a vampire, the weapon comes in the form of silver markings that cover the length of our strongest arm, in my case my right, but some are left-handed. Vampires have only a few laws that we uphold, and they are all related to Source Blood. I am not sure of the laws of the other species. Vampires do not tend to interact with them if we can avoid it, although I am aware that many of them share a complex society like ours. Lycanthropes and therianthropes in particular. I am told that the therianthropes are generally broken into two groups, the ailuranthropes, or those who shift into a cat form, and the rest. Vampires do not tend to associate with either group, but there are times when we are required to work together.

FH: Describe yourself in one word?

KEARN: Loyal.

FH: Thank you for meeting with me today and chatting. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

KEARN: I wish to thank you for taking this time to interview me, and I also hope that you will be able to interview Amber too as she was very excited to hear that I was coming to see you to answer these questions. I am sure she would find it a pleasant change to her usual daily routine, and would like to meet with you again. I would also like to extend my thanks to the humans reading this, and to offer words of comfort in that the Venators are there to protect them should any of them be Source Bloods. I hope they will read, and enjoy my story, and also the glimpse it gives of my world.

Forbidden Blood is available now in e-book formats direct from my site, on Amazon Kindle and on Smashwords, and will soon be available from Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBookstore, Sony Reader Store and other retailers. It will also shortly be available in paperback from Amazon.

Forbidden Blood

by Felicity Heaton

In a dark world where vampires exist and where Source Blood, a rare human blood type, can bestow godlike powers upon them, the vampire Venators of the Sovereignty fight to protect the humans by banishing those who drink it to the endless dark.

Exiled from his family and with only his duty to sustain him, Kearn has been on the trail of an elusive Source Blood abuser for three years. When he saves a beautiful human female from the vampire’s grasp, it turns out she’s the lead he’s been waiting for. Amber is a Source Blood and the perfect bait, but for who?

As they race to catch the vampire and survive the cruel games he plays, Amber is pulled deeper into Kearn’s world and discovers the painful secrets he hides behind his handsome but emotionless exterior—hurt that she has the power to heal if she is brave enough.

Find out where to buy or read the excerpt: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/ebooks.php?title=Forbidden%20Blood

Biography:

Felicity Heaton is a romance author writing as both Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. She is passionate about penning paranormal tales full of vampires, witches, werewolves, angels and shape-shifters, and has been interested in all things preternatural and fantastical since she was just a child. Her other passion is science-fiction and she likes nothing more than to immerse herself in a whole new universe and the amazing species therein. She used to while away days at school and college dreaming of vampires, werewolves and witches, or being lost in space, and used to while away evenings watching movies about them or reading gothic horror stories, science-fiction and romances.

Having tried her hand at various romance genres, it was only natural for her to turn her focus back to the paranormal, fantasy and science-fiction worlds she enjoys so much. She loves to write seductive, sexy and strong vampires, werewolves, witches, angels and alien species. The worlds she often dreams up for them are vicious, dark and dangerous, reflecting aspects of the heroines and heroes, but her characters also love deeply, laugh, cry and feel every emotion as keenly as anyone does. She makes no excuses for the darkness surrounding them, especially the paranormal creatures, and says that this is their world. She’s just honoured to write down their adventures.

If you want to know more about me, or want to get in touch, you can find me at the following places:

My website: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk

My blog: http://www.indieparanormalromancebooks.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/feheaton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/felicityheaton

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/felicityheaton

Werewolf in a Kilt Guest Blog and Giveaway with Terry Spear

Werewolf in a Kilt

(AKA: Heart of the Highland Wolf)

What makes a Scottish hero so special? He’s protective, a warrior, sexy—I mean, not all guys in kilts look great, but when they do, they look GREAT, and at least as far as I like my men, they have a sense of humor.

So what makes him different if he’s a werewolf? How does the Scottish hero change?

Well, there’s this whole shape-shifting issue going on. A Scottish hero might pull his claymore out to fight his enemy. A werewolf in a kilt might just toss the kilt aside and shift into the wolf so he can fight the enemy clan wolf to wolf.

Although in Heart of the Highland Wolf, there’s quite a bit of swordplay going on, too. It all has to do with male testosterone, and the need to possess and protect. There is also the issue of old time clan grudges, which for werewolves who live long lives, it’s really, really personal.

I think blending the past with the present is a neat way to reconnect with the ways of the Highlanders of old yet still bring them up-to-date in modern society. I enjoyed seeing the Scotsman dressed in kilts while I visited some of the castles in Scotland—those who worked at the castles, and one who was taking pictures of a castle and just a tourist like us. Any of them could have been werewolves in disguise. In truth, they might have been.

Werewolves don’t reveal their true side to just anyone.

The biggest difficulty in making a Scottish werewolf is that wolves were long ago eliminated from Scotland. So whereas in the States where we still have them, or wolf dogs even, they don’t have wolves running wild in Scotland. Which makes it hard on werewolves. They have the same difficulty as werewolves living anywhere. If they get caught, they have to eliminate the future threat to them. But at least if someone saw a wolf running wild, if it was in the States, they could assume it was a real wolf someone had at one time owned. In Scotland? That’s a lot harder to explain.

But since wolves did exist in Scotland in days gone by, and werewolves are legend all over the world, it seemed only right that some Scots have a few secrets of their own.

I found Scotland truly magical when I visited, from the haunted ghostly castles (of which I found none) and the fields of green grass by a river where long-haired cattle grazed, and I heard Celtic music playing on the breeze. I thought how it was like a movie scene with an orchestra playing softly in the background as the viewer observed the scene, not really intruding, but adding to the already special atmosphere. Yet when I approached the fence to take a closer picture of the Highland cows, the music stopped. I was disappointed, but after we finished taking pictures, I excitedly asked my companions what they thought of the music. How neat it was to be serenaded like that.

They heard no music. There had been no music. I didn’t need to find ghosts in a much-sighted ghost-filled castle…just next to a field with a few woolly cows, where there were no homes or people for miles around—to feel the magic of Scotland.

So what do you think? Do you still feel that Highlanders are hero enough just like they are? Or would a Scottish hero be just as hot and sexy if he wore a wolf coat under his kilt?

Terry Spear

http://www.terryspear.com/

http://www.facebook.com/#!/terry.spear

https://twitter.com/#!/TerrySpear

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tspear

HEART OF THE HIGHLAND WOLF BY TERRY SPEAR – IN STORES JUNE 2011

Each holds a secret they can’t possibly overcome alone…

Julia Wildthorn is sneaking into Argent Castle to steal an ancient relic, but reluctant laird Ian MacNeill may be the key to unlocking the one answer she really wants discovered…

From brilliant storyteller Terry Spear, modern day werewolves meet the rugged Highlands of Scotland, where instinct meets tradition, and clan loyalties give a whole new meaning to danger…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry Spear has an MBA from Monmouth College. An eclectic writer with a PW Best Book of 2008 (Heart of the Wolf), she writes paranormal romance as well as historical and true life stories for both teen and adult audiences. Spear lives in Crawford, Texas. For more information, please visit www.terryspear.com.

Giveaway Time!

Sourcebooks has generously offered to giveaway

2 copies of Heart of the Highland Wolf

2 winners, US and Canada only

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