Showing posts with label Kindle Giveaway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kindle Giveaway. Show all posts

Friday, March 9, 2012

Guest Blog and Kindle Giveaway with Stephanie Nelson


Hi! I thought I’d tell you guys a little bit about the world that the Gwen Sparks books are set in.

In the books the humans have accepted that supernaturals exist but they still demand segregation. Because of this, there are secret towns all across the United States that house various species. Some allow humans – mainly the towns that house vampires so they have a feeding source. But then there are towns that are protected by magic that humans cannot cross the borders of.

Gwen and the gang live in the town, Flora. It’s set in the countryside of Missouri and has a population of around 1,000 residents. Flora is strictly supernatural. To the humans it looks like a cornfield. But inside, it houses various businesses and houses. Home to various creatures – witches, vampires, fairies, werewolves, elves.

Gwen owns a magic shop called, Broomsticks. Her favorite place to grab a coffee is called Espresso Self and if you asked her where to buy a gown, she’d tell you to head over to Andy’s shop, Fairy Fabulous. If you’re looking to experience a vampire nightclub then you should head over to Aiden’s club, Vain.

In book 2, Deceived, the setting changes to another town – Moon. Moon is home to the witch’s council (NAWC) and is strictly houses witches. It’s set up like an old English town with river rock buildings, thatched roofs and cobblestone streets. Several restaurants sit within its secret borders and a large castle sits upon a hill overlooking the small town.

I’ve really enjoyed creating the towns in these books and hope to explore more of them in future books!


March 1 Promo and review
Urban Fantasy Investigations


March 2 Promo
Mila Ramos Blog

March 3 Guest blog

March 5 Promo/Excerpt
Roxanne’s Realm

March 6 Interview and feature

March 7 Promo and review
Sapphyria's Book Blog

March 8 Guest Blog

March 9 Guest blog
Fang-tastic Books

March 12 Guest Blog and review
Romancing the Darkside

March 15 Promo
(possible reviews)
GraveTells

March 16 Interview and promo
Reviews
Fiction Fascination

March 16 Guest Blog (reviews later)
Bookin' It Reviews ~

March 19 Review and Promo
Sit Here and Read

March 19 Guest blog and review
Aislynn @ Stitch Read Cook

March 20 Promo and review
Keeping Up With The Rheinlander's

March 21 Guest Blog
salaciousreads.blogspot.com

March 22 Reviews


March 23 Guest blog and review
The Ink Puddle

March 26 Guest blog and review
Cocktails and Books

March 27 Interview and promo
JeanzBookReadNReview

March 27 Spotlight
Read 2 Review

March 28 Interview
Kay Dee Royal's

March 29 Reviews

March 30 Review
My Bookish Fairy Tale

March 31 review
Both books



Deceived

Book 2 Gwen Sparks Series
By Stephanie Nelson

Blurb:

The vampire drug, brew, nearly ruined Gwen Sparks’ life. Just when things started to get back to normal between her and Aiden, she is summoned by the North American Witches Council to their central city of Moon.

A war is imminent between vampires and witches, and Gwen’s experiences with brew are being used to fuel the fire. She is about to discover just how powerful she is with the help of the ruggedly handsome Angel of Death and just how far some people will go to get what they want.

Gwen is going to learn exactly what it means to be Deceived.

Smashwords

Author Bio:


Unlike a lot of authors, Stephanie Nelson didn't dream of becoming an author. It wasn't until she jumped on the bandwagon and read about the sparkly vampire, that she fell in love with the paranormal genre. Books quickly became her addiction and the bookstore her favorite place to visit. Devouring one book after another, a story began to form in her head. Ignoring the characters that seemed to speak to her didn't work.

Eventually she gave in, and began to write. After countless attempts of starting and trashing stories, Stephanie gave up. A year later, she found herself sitting in front of her computer again and made a promise to herself that she would finish a full length book. Seven months later her first book, Craved was published and ended up reaching #1 on Amazon's bestsellers list and #6 on the Barnes & Noble bestsellers list.

While she's not writing about a new adventure, Stephanie enjoys watching movies, spending time with her family and traveling. She resides in the Midwest with her husband and furry children.

www.stephanie-nelson.com

https://twitter.com/#!/StephNel1

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephanie-Nelson/177640978961830

a Rafflecopter giveaway
at 3:45 AM 16 comments
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Guest Blog and Kindle Giveaway with Scott Nicholson

Love Scenes: Kissy Face or Full Monty?
By Scott Nicholson
http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/



One of the challenges of writing is learning how much romantic description to include in your stories.

Early in my career, I tended to keep most of the physical love play offstage, either avoiding it or referring to it without direct mentioning of body parts. My characters tended to be in romantic attraction and might kiss, but only rarely did it get to S-E-X. One of those occasions was my story “Constitution,” where a man has died but wills himself to keep his flesh integrated so his wife won’t be alone. At one point in the story, he must come to grips with his crumbling bits on the marital bed.

While I do have a romantic element in most of my novels, sometimes it’s the typical “family under duress” that’s fairly common in thrillers, especially in supernatural tales where normalcy is challenged. Of course, we expect order to be restored and families to bond and everyone to live happily ever after, so that sort of tension is expected (and the resolution is expected, too, which is why so many modern stories are predictable.)

My first real sex scene, in Forever Never Ends, is handled in a stream-of-consciousness flow of sensations and impressions, switching back and forth between the two lovers. It’s a little poetic and unusual for a thriller, and there’s nary a heaving bosom or swollen manhood in sight.

My novel The Manor (now out in UK as Creative Spirit) has trappings of a Gothic romance, with an early tension developing between the two lead characters, Mason and Anna. While as best I remember they don’t so much as kiss throughout the book, by the end there’s the suggestion that they have a possible future together. My book Troubled features a budding romance between two young teens, so obviously I keep their clothes on.



Solom features an important sex scene early on, but it’s the delayed consummation of a second marriage, and the woman basically channels the man’s dead first wife to evoke a response in him. Technically, it’s a nice piece of sexual description and acrobatics, handled well, I believe, though looking back it is kind of creepy because of the woman’s displacement. A local grandmother wrote me a note praising the sex scene, saying it was “nice and unhurried.”

I got a little more cynical by the time They Hunger (now called The Gorge in the UK) came out, and there are at least three sex scenes, and none of them are the products of healthy relationships. There’s the ongoing aloof affair between two characters, a brutish sex scene between a killer and the woman who’s become enthralled and later disgusted by him, and one totally gratuitous hook-up that takes place with little motivation and an unlikely situation—while under threat of imminent death.

The Skull Ring is your basic romantic suspense, with an ongoing subplot of attraction/paranoia, with the two main characters eventually coming to rely upon one other before the climax. Drummer Boy has a scene where a teen confesses his love to his best friend, who freaks out that his friend is gay and almost kissed him—but the entire theme of that book is “otherness,” and that foiled kiss is just a symbol of being a misfit kid.

Speed Dating with the Dead has one sex scene, but it’s a fairly aggressive, demon-spawned bout that I’ll probably rewrite later. At the time I was thinking I needed to write an “adult” thriller, but the most interesting characters are older teens who have attraction but no hanky panky.

I like to think of my books as written at a PG-13 level, but I’m not sure I’d let my daughter read them all at that age.


Maybe we’ll start with October Girls, my YA paranormal romance by LC Glazebrook, and let her go from there. The teen witch Crystal has a serious thing going with her steady beau, but Bone, who has come back from the grave, is determined to make up for all she missed due to her untimely death at 16. And, when you’re dead, you don’t have to worry about pregnancy, disease, or the fallout from bad decisions. Which is good, because the unborn twin of James Dean has the hots for her.

Sex. Romance, Love. How do you like the steaminess of your sex scenes, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a firm handshake and 10 being raunchiness that would make Tiger Woods blush?

-------------

Scott Nicholson is author of 12 novels, including the thrillers Speed Dating with the Dead, Drummer Boy, Forever Never Ends, The Skull Ring, As I Die Lying, Burial to Follow ,and They Hunger. His revised novels for the U.K. Kindle are Creative Spirit, Troubled, and Solom. He’s also written four comic series, six screenplays, and more than 60 short stories. His story collections include Ashes, The First, Murdermouth: Zombie Bits, and Flowers.

To be eligible for the Kindle DX, simply post a comment below with contact info.

Feel free to debate and discuss the topic, but you will only be entered once per blog. Visit all the blogs on the tour and increase your odds.

I’m also giving away a Kindle 3 through the tour newsletter and a Pandora’s Box of free e-books to a follower of “hauntedcomputer” on Twitter.

Thanks for playing.

Complete details at http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/blogtour.htm
at 6:40 AM 112 comments
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