Thursday, February 28, 2013

Cover Reveal: Finding Valor by Charlotte Abel

FINDING VALOR by Charlotte Abel
The Channie Series #3
Finding Valor will be available in Spring of 2013


Channie has been kidnapped by her momma and Josh's memory was wiped clean. In this final book of the series, their journey doesn’t get any easier. They must rely on all they’ve learned and all they’ve overcome just to survive. But as the mage war escalates, the choices become harder. It’s not just their lives and love on the line. The power hungry leader of the Veyjivik clan will do anything, including murder, to accomplish her goal of world domination. Josh must leave behind the boy he was and embrace his heritage to become the man he was meant to be, or all will be lost.


Series Goodreads Link: 




Download Kindle Bestsellers ENCHANTMENT and TAKEN by Charlotte Abel at Amazon
Get the new release, RIVER'S RECRUIT


About this Author:

Charlotte Abel was born and raised in Oklahoma where she met her soulmate, Pete. She chased him to Boulder, Colorado and finally convinced him they were meant to be together forever. They've raised three kids, two ferrets, three dogs and countless hamsters -- and are still happily married.

She's in love with "real" life and paranormal romance. When she's not reading or writing, Charlotte enjoys hiking, bicycling and primitive archery (although she's never shot at anything other than a target!)

The final book of The Channie Series, "Finding Valor," will be available in Spring of 2013.

Look for "River's Remorse," the second book of "The Sanctuary Series" in late 2013.

Author Links:

www.CharlotteAbel.com
www.TheChannieSeries.com
@Charlotte_Abel
facebook.com/CharlotteAbel.Writer


SWOON Thursday (#38): Wounded by Jasinda Wilder

 Hosted by YA Bound

From the book you’re currently reading, or one you just finished, tell us what made you SWOON. What got your heart pounding, your skin tingling, and your stomach fluttering. Shout it out on Twitter with the hashtag #YABound, post it here in the comments, or grab the adorable button above and share it on your blog! We want to know :-)

Here's mine:

Hunter takes my hand in his, rubs a knuckle with his thumb. "Do you know what's happening?"

I shrug. "I think yes. I cannot stay. I am not American, not worker, not translator. So I go."

Hunter frowns, brow wrinkling. "No, Rania. I mean, yes. You can't stay since you're not...well, they want you to go back to...to go back. But there's a way you can stay."

I glance up at him. Hope hits me like pain. I do not want to hope, but it is hard no to. "What way is this? You will not send me away?"

He pulls me down to perch on the edge of the bed, wraps his arm around my waist. "No, Rania. No. You can stay if you marry me. Come back to the States with me."

Shock rocks me. "Marry?" I am not sure I heard him right. I switch to Arabic. "Be your wife?"

He nods. "I...don't have a ring," he says in English. "But...I'll give you one, as soon as I can. It's not just a way for you to stay, though. It's what--I want you to be mine."

I shake my head, disbelieving. "You...you want me, always? I have nothing. No one. If you take me to America and then do not love me, where will I go? Back to whoring?"

Hunter touches my cheek, kisses my chin. "I will always love you. You saved me, Rania."

I shake my head. "No, you have saved me."

"We saved each other, then," he says. I smile my agreement. "So you'll marry me?" he asks.

"Yes," I say, shedding a tear. "Yes. I will."
-Wounded SWOON #YABound

Book Blast: Endless by Tawdra Kandle (Giveaway)

 

EndlessEndless

After the tumult of her high school senior year, all is right in Tasmyn Vaughan’s world. She’s attending college with her boyfriend, and she’s learning to control her powers. Everything is finally perfect, until it isn’t.

When her new part-time job leads to more than she bargained for, Tasmyn is thrown into a deadly fight against forces of evil that she didn’t even know existed. Mastering her extraordinary gifts—along with the strength of an endless love—may be the only weapon that can guarantee her a happily ever after.  

Check out the entire King Series: Book 1: Fearless Book 2: Breathless Book 3: Restless Book 4: Endless

 

 

 

Tawdra KandleAbout Author Tawdra Kandle

Tawdra Kandle is the author of THE KING SERIES, a young adult urban fantasy quartet. Born in South Jersey, Tawdra published her first short story at the age of 13 in Child's Life magazine. During the early years of her marriage and motherhood, she wrote articles and columns on parenting and homeschooling, as well as some homeschooling curriculum. THE KING SERIES is her first published full-length fiction. Tawdra currently lives in central Florida with her husband, and children, both skin and fur types. And yes, she has purple hair.  

Follow Tawdra Kandle: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon






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Tour: The Summoner's Tale by Victoria Danann (Excerpt+Giveaway)

Tour Hosted by FMB Book Tours


The Summoner's Tale 
The Order of the Black Swan #3 
Victoria Danann 

Paranormal Romance
7th House Publishing
Ebook, 300 pages
Release Date: February 14th, 2013

Purchase: Amazon

A secret society, a witch, a psychic, vampires, modern day knights, heroes, elves, fae, assassins from another dimension, and fairytales come together where emotions intersect. Two souls, joined by a mystical bond, separated by distance, must simultaneously struggle through pain and darkness in an ultimate confrontation with character and an ultimate struggle for life proving that true love waits patiently through lifetimes and finds courage to survive. Even in the strangest places. Even when you're least expecting it. Even when you're far, far from home.


EXCERPT:

CHAPTER ONE:

BLACK SWAN FIELD TRAINING MANUAL Section I: Chapter 1, #1
The plural of vampire is vampire.

When the rush of activity subsided, he found himself alone with his own thoughts; a condition that was more than familiar since he had spent hundreds of years that way. Without the distraction of his friends' banter, since his proposed staff had left Edinburgh, he had begun to see his task not just as a job, but as a mission, one immersed in the duality of joy and gravity.
He had never considered himself to be impatient. Quite the contrary, everything he had ever pursued in earnest, from painting to music to writing, had depended upon patience. But, his cognizance of the enormity of the burden he had accepted had grown over the past months and he had turned to brooding about the time that was passing.
Every day that nothing was accomplished was a day when more people had their humanity taken from them, another day when vampire remained imprisoned in bodies infected with the foulest disease imaginable, and, also, another day when people died.
The project was moving painfully slowly. Everyone who had originally been assigned to work with Baka was gone: married, retired, whatever. Everyone except Heaven - who had turned out to be anything but.
The large work space, intended for several people, seemed deserted with him alone most of the time. He worked from early in the morning till late at night, challenging both the hours in the day and the fact that he was one excruciatingly short-handed task force leader.
When Heaven was present, her moods ran the range of a shallow bell curve from disagreeable to surly to sullen. He admitted that he had provoked her on their first meeting, for reasons that were a mystery to him. Something about her instantly put him on edge and made him feel anxious.
Even though that feeling persisted, he had attempted to make amends so that they could work together amicably. To no avail. She was prickly to the core, spurning every effort on his part to develop a rudimentary standard of civility. She behaved as if simple courtesy was more than she could manage which meant that "nice" was a goal way too distant.
He not only had to work with a person who detested his very presence, but, adding insult to injury, it seemed he couldn't shake an inexplicably strong attraction to her. He found himself staring at the curve of her cheek with her head bowed over work. Or the shine of her chestnut hair when she walked through a ray of light. Or the way her lips pursed whenever he gave her something to do. It was damned aggravating.
To make matters worse, he seemed to have lost interest in pursuing other women.
At exactly fifteen after five she double checked her wristwatch, closed an open folder, rose, pushed her arms into her sweater jacket, put her purse on her shoulder and, like every other day, walked out of the office without saying goodnight.
He perpetually struggled to concentrate because the space seemed to vibrate with a low level, but annoying irritation when she was there. It was stand to reason that he would be glad to see her gather her things and go, but, in fact, he hated it even more when she left. He heaved a big sigh. Fuck me.
Baka had been a person with a well-developed sense of morality, and a well-functioning conscience before he became a vampire. During the last hundred years of life as a vampire, having survived long enough to blessedly recover his understanding of right and wrong, he had voluntarily turned himself into The Order and served as "consultant" voluntarily consuming only artificial sustenance.
No. He had never been short on conscience. And that conscience was rubbing a hole in his brain telling him that it would be wrong to simply sit at a desk and plan a strategy on paper while, at the same time, doing nothing. So, keeping his own counsel, for better or worse, he determined that he would continue to work as a bureaucrat during the day, but would spend his nights - at least part of them - looking for others he might help back to the light.
He had worked with Monq at Jefferson Unit labs to develop a delivery solution. Taking a page from the methodology of the late Gautier Nibelung, they had decided that the safest and most effective approach would be dart gun. Each dart was outfitted with a tiny canister that would puncture on impact releasing a formula that was part stun and part cure. The proper dose of stun solution had been determined by tests on Baka himself. So he knew it worked. First hand. Obviously vampire must be incapacitated while the viral antidote works. As medicinal remedies go, it is fast working, but not instant. There is a delay of two to four hours between introduction to the system and complete reversal of the disease, depending upon the age and constitution of the individual.
His plan wasn't perfect. It depended on encountering one vampire at a time and extracting him, while paralyzed, without engaging other vampire. Tricky, but the alternative was waiting for a task force to be vetted, assembled, and trained. And waiting was the one thing he couldn't manage. Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever done, but, hell, he'd had a long life.
           To his advantage, he still had certain attributes that were extra human. Not like comic book heroes. More like human plus. No one knew if these benefits would fade away over time, but, for now, he was a little stronger, a little faster, and could see in the dark a little better than most people. All traits very useful for vampire hunting.
It just so happened that he found his assigned base of operations in prime territory that qualified as a vampire magnet on all counts. In Edinburgh's Old Town there was a large pedestrian population that came out at night and it was built on top of an underground system that was not utilized to any extent that would interfere with the needs of vampire. All this was literally in sight of his office - five minutes' walk away.

In a darkly poetic way, it was fitting that vampire would thrive in Edinburgh's underground city which consisted of a system of tunnels, caverns, and cells cut into the much softer sandstone under the rock that the above-ground Old Town is built upon. It's a place with grisly history where thousands of hapless poor lived in darkness, packed together without sanitation and with the vilest of criminals. Plague victims were not removed and buried or burned, but just sealed in their cells.
Modern day Ghost Tours offer a shallow excursion - shallow because individuals don't want to stay in the underground very long. Words like "creepy" are frequently used even by hard-core insensitives. That leaves miles of maze for a vampire haven.

Baka had been a vampire long enough to know all about how they think. He knew that the days of the Beltane festival would be a gorge fest for vampire. The Royal Mile, just over the heads of vampire living in the Underground, would be crowded with visitors to the city, visitors intent on celebration and revelry, danger being the last thing on their minds. It would be a blessing to vampire in the original sense of the word which was bloodletting; when, as a rite of passage, young pagans would stand in a pit under a grate where a bull was sacrificed and bathe in the blood that fell.
So Baka finished his day, went to dinner alone, and slowly savored every bite of his of actual food. Afterward, driven by a heartfelt desire to do some good in the world, he pulled on a pair of cargo pants and equipped the dozen pockets with two dart guns and as many canisters as he could carry without being slowed down. He descended the stairs to the main foyer wondering if, even partial redemption for a long life of misdeeds, is possible. The fact that he was not accountable for that infamous history should have given him some peace of absolution. But didn't. He said good evening to the doorman and headed out into the night.


About this Author:

Though works of fiction are a departure for me, I have had this series simmering on the back burner of my mind for years, but time is at a premium. In addition to authoring and illustrating Seasons of the Witch and writing course work for Seasons in Avalon, I play Classic Rock music and manage Houston’s premier variety and R&B band.

This series will include some of my education in the paranormal and fictionalized anecdotes from my journals during the years when I was a practicing “metaphysician”, but most of the material is fantasy – of course.



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Book Blast: Summer Break Blues by J.A. Campbell (Giveaway)

Blast Hosted by FMB Books Tours


Summer Break Blues 
Clanless Series
by J.A. Campbell 

YA, Urban Fantasy
Decadent Publishing
Ebook, 54000 words

Purchase: Bono Books | Amazon | B&N

Meg managed to survive her senior year of high school as a vampire, and now she’s looking forward to a relaxing summer with her friends before trying to tackle college. Unfortunately, some unfinished business from the previous year rears its ugly head. Meg is forced to deal with the Sidhe who are distinctly unhappy that she killed one of their kind last winter. Then Ann’s parents vanish while on their annual summer vacation in Maine and it’s up to Meg and the rest of the gang to come to the rescue. Though she is still trying to figure out who and what she has become, Meg feels she and her friends are up to the challenge. That is, until things really start to fall apart.


EXCERPT:

I ran, almost flew over the sand. Alexander’s sheer panic drove me to move faster than I ever had before. I didn’t have much time to take in the scene, but he struggled with someone. Not having a better idea, or time to plan, I tackled them. We all tumbled to the ground, and I managed to keep hold of his attacker long enough to get him away from Alexander. We rolled, and I tried to come up on top, but the stranger was strong and pinned me before we even stopped moving. 
“Aww, and here I’d thought you brought me dinner.” I had a brief impression of black eyes and gleaming fangs before he grabbed my shoulders and lifted me up, then slammed me back into the sand.
Pain lanced through my head. I groaned and tried to fight back, but before I’d even formulated a plan, the assailant’s weight was gone. Alexander cried out again. 
“Damn it, why do I have to keep saving you!” I jumped up and plowed into them again. This time I dug claws into his ribcage and jerked him away. I thought I had a good grip, but he twisted free. The smell of blood was overpowering. Some of it was Alexander’s, but much of it was my opponent’s. He backed up, still smiling at me. He didn’t look at all concerned I’d just buried claws into his ribcage. He wasn’t much taller than me, and his dark hair and almond eyes made me think he was Asian. But the fangs he bared were all Vampire. 
Terror lanced through me, making me weak. I wanted to run. The fear I’d felt when I’d faced the Unseelie last winter was nothing compared to my fear now. Vampires were real monsters, and I was certain I was about to die. 
“Well, you do have a little bite to you.” His smile wasn’t friendly.  He wasn’t much bigger than me, but he was a lot faster, and I lost sight of him until he stood right in front of me.
“But you’re young. And dumb. I told you to be more careful.” 
I tried to block his next move, but he caught my arm and twisted me around, trapping me against his chest. I felt strangely exposed and panic turned my limbs,
and my brain, to jelly. I shrieked and tried to pull away.
The Vampire laughed. 
“Meg!” 
“Run! Get out of here!” I thought that’s what I said, but in my panicked state I could have been shouting the periodic table. I kicked backward, and my heel connected with the Vampire’s shin. His grip never loosened. 
Duck!
I wasn’t sure if I actually heard the words or not, but they punched through my panicked fog, and I did the best I could. The Vampire still had hold of me so I twisted my face against his blood-covered chest. 
Light flared and the Vampire screamed. I pulled away from him, small pinpricks of heat searing along my shoulder and back. He was still yelling as I ran away from him.


About this Author:

Julie writes fantasy novels. When she’s not out riding her horse, she can usually be found sitting in front of her computer with a cat on her lap and her dog at her side. You can find out more about her and her writing at www.writerjacampbell.com













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