What inspired your story?
SHIFTER’S STORM is the convergence of two inspirations. The
first inspiration came from my readers, several of whom mentioned they liked
deputy sheriff and leopard shifter Chantal Hammond from her previous cameo
appearances and wanted her to get her own story. The second inspiration was seeing
what Hurricane Maria did to Puerto Rico. The news stories about all the work it
took (and is still taking!) to clean up after it were amazing.
Is the setting to your story important?
SHIFTER’S STORM is set partly in a fairy fantasyland. Think
of it as a pocket universe with the often-whimsical rules set by the fairy who
created it. Unfortunately for the hero, Dauro de Mar, he’s been captive in one
for a long time. What’s worse, the fantasyland is dying. The arrival of a lost
sheriff deputy gives him and his fellow captives hope that they might make out
alive. Of course, it’s not as easy as that, and the real world holds perils of
its own. Not to mention the distraction notion that the sexy sheriff’s deputy
might just be his true mate.
When did you first consider yourself a “writer”?
I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read. Similarly, I
can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing stories. However, back in the Jurassic age when I was
young, being an author didn’t pay the rent, so I decided I’d be a doctor. I
liked science and helping people. Unfortunately, I didn’t like chemistry, and
math and I weren’t on speaking terms, so that career was out. I’ve bounced
around through a lot of jobs since then, from security guard to singing
telegrams to business continuity specialist, but throughout all of them, I was
always writing.
What genres do you normally write in?
I currently write space opera and paranormal romances. I’ve
been a science fiction and fantasy fan ever since I burned through my parents’
collection of those one summer when I was young. I fell in love with romances
when I was a little older, so my muse insists on both. My muse also insists on
creating series, even if I fondly imagine I’m writing a standalone short story.
<Cue evil laughing from Carol’s muse.>
Is there a genre you haven’t written in that one day
you’d like to tackle?
I’d like to try romantic suspense because I admire the
excellent stories by many of those authors, including Dana Marton and Rebecca
York. I’d also love to explore steampunk, perhaps set in the American West instead
of London. I have so many files of plot bunnies that I’d probably need to live
to be 200 years old to get them all written. It’s like the old saying, so many
books, so little time!
What was the first book you ever published?
The first book I published was Overload Flux (Central
Galactic Concordance Book 1). It starts my space opera romance series that
currently has 8 books, and is in the middle of a big damn story arc about
evolution and rebellion. The first book in my more recent Ice Age Shifters
paranormal romance series (now with 5 stories) is Shifter Mate Magic. As
it happens, Jackie, the heroine of that book, is the mother of Chantal, the
heroine of SHIFTER’S STORM. Curious coincidence, eh? 😉
What was the craziest thing you’ve ever done when it came
to a storyline in your book?
All my stories start with characters who needs things from
each other. After that, it’s my job to get them into trouble. In Shift of
Destiny (Ice Age Shifters Book 2), where Chantal made her first cameo
appearance, the villain arrives in a magical sanctuary town and thinks he’s hit
the motherload. He plans to kidnap all the psychics under cover of pretending
an alien invasion. His logic is impeccable—who would believe crazy people if
they complained? His problem? He doesn’t believe in magic.
Shifter’s Storm
Ice Age Shifters
Book 5
Carol Van Natta
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Ice Age Shifters
Book 5
Carol Van Natta
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Chavanch Press
Date of Publication: 12 December 2019
ISBN: 978-1946165176
ASIN: B081NPSFT9
Number of pages: 220
Word Count: 49,000
Cover Artist: Amanda Kelsey,
Razzle Dazzle Design
Tagline: In a dying fairy fantasy land, can two shifters tell if the magic between them is real?
Book Description:
In a dying fairy fantasyland, can two shifters tell if the magic between them is real?
While volunteering for hurricane cleanup, sheriff’s deputy and leopard shifter Chantal Hammond stumbles across two escapees from a fairy fantasyland. Unfortunately, when she tries to help, she ends up trapped. She quickly discovers she's lost in a mini-world of trouble, and more captives need rescuing.
Prehistoric sloth shifter Dauro de Mar and his friends have cruelly been imprisoned in their animal forms for years. His plan to lead the escape is mostly wishful thinking until an intoxicating and magical leopard shifter arrives still in her human form. She's their game changer.
It's going to take Chantal's and Dauro's combined skills, magic, and courage to evade evil hunters and greedy fairies, and get everyone out of this mess. Especially since the fairy fantasyland is disintegrating. Can they fight off danger—and their sizzling attraction—long enough to win their freedom? Or will they be destroyed by the mother of all storms when this magical land dies?
Find out today in Shifter's Storm, another sizzling hot Ice Age Shifters® paranormal romance from USA TODAY bestselling author Carol Van Natta.
Shifter's Storm is a complete story with a happily-ever-after and no cliffhanger, and can be enjoyed without having read the rest of the series.
Excerpt:
Dauro ya
Ketumino da’Nok de Mar lumbered up onto the bank of the impossible river and
snorted forcefully to open his nose and ear flaps. The pretend sun was more
than halfway toward the far horizon. He shook up and down to help his fur shed
water.
The world shook.
Even the distant orchard trees to his left swayed.
What?
Dauro’s giant
aquatic sloth form was massive, but not that massive. Certainly not massive
enough to shake an entire magical fairy demesne.
The world shook
again, longer this time. Water sloshed onto the river’s banks, lapping at his
back paws.
When Nessireth,
the ancient fairy who created the demesne to house her collection of aquatic
exotics like him, went on a rampage, the wind blew heat and the central castle
trembled. But she’d died and turned to fairy dust two months ago.
A memory
surfaced of feeling something similar a couple of hundred years ago, soon after
Nessireth moved the demesne from the high, cold place to a warm island
location. The demesne’s anchor had been tugged by a violent real-world storm
she’d called a hurricane. After a second one a few years later, she’d used her
then-abundant magic to add more anchors. That cured it.
Dauro also
remembered a recent comment from Kelvin, the young pygmy hippopotamus shifter
who had been Nessireth’s final acquisition. Humans were now living everywhere,
and they’d been burning forests and fossils. Scientists said it changed the
climate and predicted more hurricanes.
Dauro believed
it. Heat and magic were similar—increased energy in a stable spell guaranteed
unstable results.
More shaking.
The river water surged in a wave, wetting his front paws.
Fairy demesne
magic made the circular river constantly flowing to provide habitat and feeding
grounds for him and the other aquatic shifters and creatures. It hadn’t ever
changed… until today.
That brought
home to him that he and others needed to get serious about escaping. Nessireth
had bragged about spending millennia to construct her demesne, but it was
decaying daily without her active magic to maintain it. The false moon wasn’t
as round as it used to be, and had a noticeable pink tint. Just last week, the
constant breeze had taken to gusting chaotically.
None of the
captives knew what would happen if the demesne collapsed with them still
inside. Dauro was certain it wouldn’t be good.
His giant sloth
liked solitary peace and quiet, but his suppressed human side knew he needed to
check on the rest of his friends. Nessireth’s death had given him more freedom
than the others. And his limited telepathic skills as a sloth meant he had to
visit them himself. Nessireth had forced each of them to remain their animal
form, and the demesne would keep them that way forever… as long as the magic
held.
As the oldest of
Nessireth’s acquisitions, he’d become the sinchi, the temporary champion of the
collection. In his opinion, formidable size, war experience, and a talent for
magic while in animal form didn’t make him a leader, but he was the best they
had.
Before his
energy-saving sloth succumbed to the lure of a nap, he plunged back into the
water. Digging his strong, clawed toes into the silty bank, he let the water
flow over him for a minute while he thought. Downstream was the long way around
the river, but wouldn’t tire him out as fast. So far, the magical
protein-enriched sea grasses he depended on for food still grew overnight, but
for how long?
He shoved off
and let the current help him swim toward his friend Sunscar’s territory. The
closer he got, the more the magic in the water felt as agitated as the river
itself.
And no wonder,
because the lake’s wall was breached. Instead of an orderly river running next
to a placid pool, the whole area was now a flooded swamp. The demesne’s castle
was already repairing the wall, but the water had no natural way to drain back
into the lake.
Even worse, the
damage had activated the water-based defensive spells, which were fighting with
the castle’s defenses. Grab-weed tried to strangle the broken pieces of the
wall, as if they were attackers. Two of the animated castle statues tore at the
weeds so the wall could heal.
About the Author:
Carol Van Natta is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning science fiction and fantasy author. Series include the Central Galactic Concordance space opera series that starts with Overload Flux and Minder Rising, and the Ice Age Shifters paranormal romance series that starts with Shifter Mate Magic and Shift of Destiny. She shares her Fort Collins, CO home with a resident mad scientist and just the right number of equally mad cats.
Sign up for Carol Van Natta’s author newsletter: https://bit.ly/CVN--news
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carol.vannatta/
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