Guest Blog and Giveaway with Quinn Loftis

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Welcome Guest Author Elizabeth Loraine

So why vampires?

I hear all the time. You write vampire books? It seems like everyone is writing vampire books.
Is this really the time to add to this over crowed genre?

Well, obviously I thought so. With all the modern vampires out there today, I still couldn’t find anything that I wanted to read! It seemed like the books I pulled off the self were all alike and I was so bored that I decided to write something new. I wanted to know more about these long lived beings, their history and experiences back through time.

I wanted young, smart, strong female characters and a whole new take on the vampire legend. So I not only brought them back in time and surrounded them with actual historical events, but I created a whole new vampire world with a new vampire race. In my vampire world the vampires are not the undead, soulless beings that are the norm. But an ancient race; vampires who are mostly born, not made and are fully integrated throughout human society, which is a layer of protection from those who seek to wipe their race from the face of the earth.

In this vampire world I created a special relationship between the royal vampires of Europe in my stories and humans called the Watchers. These are the trusted human protectors of the vampires who watch the humans surrounding their vampire charges for any sign that they have been found out and are in danger. Instead of the usual use of werewolves in this role which has been done.

This gives me a great way for them to interact with each other and creates unique relationships of friendship, trust and love between the Watchers and the vampire families. Of course evil lurks on both sides along with the other peaceful races and characters that I introduce you to. Witches, wizards, elves and fairies are also being protected.

I wanted to have heroines for young girls who love this genre without the whining and erotica that is usually included in these stories. My books are filled with action, adventure, romance and a wondrous backdrop of European Royalty.

Fantasy writing is all about being drawn into a different world for however long you are reading and as a visual person I try to be as detailed as I can so that the reader will be able to see the story as much as read it. I hope that I create characters that will make you cheer when they succeed; cry when they fail and that keep you looking forward to their next adventure.

You can start this adventure with book one of Royal Blood Chronicles, Katrina, the Beginning available now on Amazon.com and with special holiday pricing of .99 on Kindle for a limited time through the holidays and the promotions for book four Cain, the Quest!

I look forward to answering any questions that you may have.

Check out other stops on the Royal Blood Chronicles Blog Tour

Learn more at http://royalbloodchronicles.com

Join Author Alaya Johnson On Her Moonshine Book Tour

Bad Boys and Anti-heroes

I have to apologize for something upfront:

My romantic lead is not a vampire.

He's also not a werewolf. I could tell you what he is, but I think that would ruin some of the fun of my book, Moonshine. But I can tell you who he is, and something interesting I've noticed about modern paranormal romance.

Like plenty of women, I love (reading about) bad boys. I preferred Spike to Angel, Damian to Stefan, and (if you want to go really far back) Mr. Rochester to St. John. Bad boys are a venerable romantic tradition, particularly when they are set up against "good" romantic foils. Vampire fiction is filled with bad boys--after all, most of the time being a vampire puts you on the wrong side of all kinds of taboos.

But perhaps as a reaction against the vampire bad boy trope, or perhaps for some other reason, I've noticed that a lot of popular paranormal romances these days star men who are essentially good. Now, they probably have a dark past and a lot of personal angst, but they're still noble, honorable to a fault and fighting on the side of justice. Edward in Twilight, Bill in the Sookie Stackhouse books and Vayl in the Jaz Parks series (by Jennifer Rardin) are all examples of this more recent trend in noble heroes.

Here's another confession: my romantic lead is not a very good person.

He could be, but he has grown up with a lot of power and privilege, and he's never had much use for empathy. He makes up for it (I hope) with wit, humor and a willingness to admit fault, but he gets his hands pretty dirty in the process. Given how many readers seem to love noble heroes, I started wondering why I like mine to be a little more frayed at the edges.

Ever since I read Wuthering Heights and developed a treacherous love for Heathcliff ("He kills puppies!" my sister always says when I bring this up), I've liked a little anti- with my hero. Probably my favorite series of all time (unfortunately not paranormal, though it is historical fiction) is the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. Lymond is a dark character who does many, many questionable things. Sometimes for a twisted, ultimate good and sometimes just because he can. I spent six books in love with this man, so I suppose it's unavoidable that I would write darker traits into my own romantic leads.

Part of my love for this trope must be because it lends itself to a redemption arc. I would never have enjoyed Spike half as much as I did without the huge progression of his character between seasons two and six. On the other hand, I think getting a soul ruined him, so there's a dangerous line between anti-heroes striving for good and, well, achieving it.

Also, I confess that I find unremitting goodness kind of boring. Even if I can't exactly admire an anti-hero, I tend to be won over by his charisma and charm and willingness to break the rules--even, sometimes, good ones.

In my case, I enjoyed writing my anti-hero even more because my heroine is precisely his opposite: a crusader for progressive causes, she hasn't met a social injustice she won't fight against. She struggles not to see the world in shades of gray, which makes her interactions with my bad boy fraught, to say the least.

So if you're like me and don't always like your heroes filled with goodness and light, check out Moonshine (you can read the first chapter here) and tell me what you think!


Moonshine description:

Imagining vampires at the heart of the social struggles of 1920s, Moonshine blends a tempestuous romance with dramatic historical fiction, populated by a lively mythology inhabiting the gritty New York City streets Zephyr Hollis is an underfed, overzealous social activist who teaches night school to the underprivileged of the Lower East Side. Strapped for cash, Zephyr agrees to help a student, the mysterious Amir, who proposes she use her charity worker cover to bring down a notorious vampire mob boss. What he doesn’t tell her is why. Soon enough she’s tutoring a child criminal with an angelic voice, dodging vampires high on a new blood-based street drug, and trying to determine the real reason behind Amir’s request—not to mention attempting to resist his dark, inhuman charm.

About the Author

ALAYA JOHNSON is a recent Columbia graduate, and denizen of New York City.

http://www.alayadawnjohnson.com/

Moonshine Tour Stops

Monday, May 24 Books And... Chat

Tuesday, May 25 Parajunkee

Wednesday, May 26 Fang-tastic Books

Thursday, May 27 BrownGirl BookSpeak

Friday, May 28 Not Really Southern Vamp Chick

Blog Tour for Eternal Desire

I am putting together a blog tour for my novella Eternal Desire which goes on sale October 7th.

So far I have a pretty good tour scheduled. I still have a few spots open if anyone would like to host me at their blog for an interview or guest post.

So far here's the schedule:

Ocotber 7th Guest Blog and Giveaway at Night Owl Romance Blog

Ocotber 8th Guest Blog at Mary Eason's Blog http://www.maryeason.blogspot.com/

October 12 Review of Eternal Desire will be up at Authors by Authors and an interview with me will be posted on the 14th there as well

October 13 Eternal Desire promo day at VampChix, also offering a giveaway

October 13 Guest blog at Ashley Madden's Bibliophiles ‘R’ Us http://www.nightdweller20.wordpress.com/

October 14 and 15 Book Party, Signed Print Giveaway and Interview at Nights of Passion http://www.nightsofpassion.wordpress.com/

October 16 Guest Blog at http://www.morbid-romantic.net/

October 19 Guest Blog and Giveaway at Sci Fi Guy. I'll be giving away a free pdf download of Eternal Desire along with a Fang-tastic Books desk set-mousepad, notepad and pen

October 21 Guest Blog at http://www.valeriejpatterson.wordpress.com/

October 22 Interview with me at Shapeshifter Seductions

October 23 Interview with me at Vampire Phile

October 26 Week long Eternal Desire/Roxanne Rhoads event at The Write at Home Mom

I also have a few unconfirmed dates and appearances but so far I still have plenty of days open if anyone would like to participate email me at eroticroxanne @ yahoo . com (take out spaces)

I plan to have more giveaways. I am waiting until I finalize my schedule and see how many stops I have so I can figure out what can be given away where.

I would like to push the tour through the end of October and perhaps end with a bag on Halloween.

Of course I might save the final spot and giveaway for Fang-tastic Books which would be fitting.

Welcome Guest Author C.L. Talmadge

Once again I would like to welcome C.L.Talmadge to Fang-tastic Books. This time we are a stop on her virutal book tour to celebrate the release of, Outcast, book 4 in The Green Stone of Healing series.

Power: Men versus Women

By C.L. Talmadge

To understand the dynamic of men’s power versus women’s power, think of the former as action and the latter as attraction. Another way to look at it is doing versus being. The yang and the yin. The light and the dark. The electric and the magnetic. The push and the pull.

The two forms of power complement each other, but this male-dominated world considers only the male/push form as legitimate. Female/pull power is derided as seduction or temptation, when it really is the basis for the experiences and people we all attract into our lives.

In other words, to act, we use the electric energy of the mental-spiritual half of self. To attract, we use the magnetic energy of the emotional-physical parts of our being. One side of self cannot do or be without the other, yet we venerate and elevate the mental-spiritual (the masculine) at the expense of the emotional-physical (the feminine).

We also need to understand what we mean by energy here. The energy we speak of is the energy of consciousness—of thoughts, feelings, beliefs—known as the aura in metaphysical terms. This consciousness-aura energy is called kura in the Green Stone of Healing® speculative epic. Whatever the name, this energy is the essence of who we are. Even our physical bodies are energy in a form that we are capable of perceiving with our physical eyes. Other names for this energy are chi or prana.

So where does romance fit into this gender-power equation? Interestingly, romance is where the two kinds of energies, masculine and feminine, collide and mingle. That’s what makes romance so compelling and essential, especially to women. During a romance, a woman finally elicits emotional attention from a man who otherwise would ignore his feelings about her or anyone else (himself included) to focus his energies on action, like competition, in business, sports, or elsewhere.

Men absolutely hate it that they are not immune to women’s attracting power. This is one of the fascinating dynamics of romance. But they cannot escape this attracting power because they also possess it, although not to the degree that women do, unless the man is gay or bisexual.

Moralizing aside, one of the reasons a non-hetero sexual orientation is so threatening to straight men is the extra degree to which attracting (feminine) energy is present in the aura of non-hetero males. Lesbians and bisexual women also possess a greater extent of push/male energy than straight females. This is not as threatening to straight men because they are familiar with this kind of energy and regard it as best anyway.

To be female in this world has long been associated with powerlessness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Attracting energy is extremely powerful, but can also be misused easily and degenerate into manipulation.

The Green Stone of Healing® saga explores how women’s power is the missing link for true healing at all levels of self and in the world. It also examines how women’s greatest challenge is to accept their own attracting nature as legitimate power and wield it to sustain their personal autonomy, and improve their own lives and the lives of those they love.


C.L. Talmadge is the author of the Green Stone of Healing® speculative epic. The fourth in the series, Outcast, will be published Oct. 1.

Vote for the first book, The Vision, through Sept. 25 and get a free e-book on healing, love, and spirituality. Details at her blog: www.healingstonebooks.com/stonescribe

The series features four generations of strong-willed female characters who inherit a mysterious green gem ultimately revealed to mend broken bones and broken hearts, protect against missiles, and render its wearers undetectable.

For more information about each book, please visit http://www.greenstoneofhealing.com/

C.L. will be giving away an autographed set of the first three books in the series to one randomly drawn commenter from the tour as well as the tour host with the most comments, excluding duplicates or her responses.

So please leave a comment so you have a chance to win a whole set of these books-autographed by the author.