Feast Giveaway & Interview

Feast: Harvest of Dreams
By Merrie Destefano
Paperback: 320 pages
Also available on Kindle
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Released: June 28, 2011

Summary: Madeline MacFaddin ("Mad Mac" to fans of her bestselling magical stories) spent blissful childhood summers in Ticonderoga Falls. And this is where she wants to be now that her adult life is falling apart. The dense surrounding forest holds many memories, some joyous, some tantalizingly only half-remembered. And she's always believed there was something living in these wooded hills.

But Maddie doesn't remember the dark parts—and knows nothing of the mountain legend that holds the area's terrified residents captive. She has no recollection of Ash, the strange and magnificent creature who once saved her life as a child, even though it is the destiny of his kind to prey upon humanity. And soon it will be the harvest . . . the time to feast.

Once again Maddie's dreams—and her soul—are in grave danger. But magic runs deep during harvest. Even a spinner of enchanted tales has wondrous powers of her own . . .

I'd love to see inside Merrie Destefano's head. I imagine it would be brimming with fairies, dark creatures, brave loyal dogs, beautiful flowers, luscious forests, and all of the characters from her books. Feast is dark, yet hopeful. It's about loss, but also about love and acceptance. There are moments of intense courage and moments of profound danger. Reader's will love the imagery, the characters and the author's beautiful style of writing.

Merrie and I became acquainted on Twitter before her first book, Afterlife, was published. She's such a kind and generous author who always takes time for her fans and other writers. I love her style of writing in both books, though it's rather different in each one. Merrie made time to answer a few questions for me, and I wanted to share them with you today.

Brenda: Did you create the world for Feast before you started writing the actual story, or did it develop as you went along?

Merrie: In almost all of my books, I figure out certain elements beforehand, but the bulk of the story is born during the writing. I don’t enjoy writing if I have already created a complicated, blow-by-blow outline. For me, the fun is in the journey. That said, I knew Ash’s story very well—both his back story and his world—but most of this was discovered while writing the first version of the book. I wrote 150 pages of this novel, threw it out and then started over. In that process, I learned a lot about who and what the Darklings were.

Brenda: Your writing is so descriptive and full of emotion...did this come naturally or did you develop it as you went along?

Merrie: Thank you! I honestly think that each book has its own unique voice, based on the characters, the story, and the setting. I wanted Feast to have a lyrical, fairy tale feel, so I tried to give a comparable voice to the book. In Afterlife, I was going for more of a gritty, noir, almost detective-thriller style, so the voice in that book was a bit different. During my final edits, I try to pay close attention to areas that might need more description. For instance, I may need to bulk up a scene if it doesn’t seem to fit the tone in the rest of the book.

Brenda: This book is much different than your first one, Afterlife, so I'm wondering which idea came first and how different was writing Feast?

Merrie: Wow, that’s a tough question. Afterlife must have come first, but it was originally a completely different book. The book progression went approximately like this:

1. White Burn (unsold novel, first version of Afterlife, set on Mars)
2. Once to Die (unsold novel, second version of Afterlife, set on earth)
3. Voices (unsold, unfinished, very scary novel)
4. First 10-20 pages of Feast written while writing Voices.
5. In the Beginning (another unsold novel)
6. Afterlife
7. Feast

Now, for the second part of your question: How different was writing Feast? Quite a bit different. Feast is set in the current day, in a setting near where I live, so I had very little research regarding setting and the world-building wasn’t nearly as complicated as it was in Afterlife.

Brenda: Once you rest up from promoting Feast, what's on schedule? Have you already started a new project, or is a sequel in the works for either of your books yet?

Merrie: As far as writing goes, I’m currently working on an e-book novella that would be a prequel to Feast. It’s titled Cursed and I hope to have it out soon. I also recently finished another book, but I’m still working on the edits. Right now I can’t say very much about it, except that I think it’s an incredible book and I can’t wait for it to get published. And I would love to do a sequel to Feast. I have so many story ideas about the characters involved and I just loved the setting.

Brenda, thank you so much for having me on your blog today! I really enjoyed all of your questions.

A FEAST GIVEAWAY!
Merrie is giving away a special package to one of my commenters that includes a signed copy of FEAST, plus some cool swag of bookmarks and buttons. This is a picture of the prize:

To Enter: All you have to do is leave Merrie a comment or question. Be sure to leave your email in the comments (you can put it as such: email at email (DOT) COM if you wish.) I'll use the random number generator to pick a winner on Monday, July 11th. You'll have all weekend to comment.

~Brenda

Guest Blog: The Story of Vampire Blood

Last week I contacted Kathryn Meyer Griffith after seeing her announcement that her book Vampire Blood was being reprinted by Damnation Books. It was originally published in 1991, but Kathryn revised the book and it has a spiffy new cover as well. I was fascinated by her 39 year career as a writer, and she offered to send me this guest blog with her story of Vampire Blood. I thought we'd all find it interesting and inspiring!

The Story of Vampire Blood
By Kathryn Meyer Griffith

In 1990 or so I’d just got done releasing my first three paperback novels with Leisure Books, a romantic historical (The Heart of the Rose 1985) and two romantic horror books (Evil Stalks the Night, 1984 and Blood Forge, 1989), and because I wasn’t making much money on them, was looking, as most so-called restless young authors were doing, to move up in the publishing industry.

So I wrote snail mail letters to three established authors of the day – Dean Koontz, Stephen King and Peter Straub – asking for a little advice and a little help. What do I do next? I want to be one of the big dogs running in the big races. I want to make the big bucks. Be famous like you. (Ha, ha. I was so naïve in those days!)

Well, Stephen King and Peter Straub never answered my letters but one rainy fall night I got a phone call from Gerda Koontz (Dean Koontz’s wife) and she said Dean had gotten my letter and wanted me to have a name of a brand new agent who I should call or write to and say I was recommended by him. If I thought it strange that Dean Koontz himself wasn’t actually talking to me I was told by Gerda that he was a shy man and had had a particularly hard couple of months because of family problems (I think it had something to do with his father in a nursing home or something, but can’t exactly recall now) and he’d asked her to call me. She often did that for him, as well as helping him with the business side of his writing career. He (through her…and I got the impression that he was actually nearby telling her what to say the whole time) said I had to have an agent (I didn’t have one) and then he gave me the name of an ambitious one, Lori Perkins, just starting out and his advice on what I should do to advance as a writer.

I do remember being incredibly touched that he, a famous busy novelist that I admired – I loved his Twilight Eyes – would take the time to talk to me, even through his wife. They were both so sweet and we talked for nearly an hour all about writing, books and everything.

I took their advice and contacted that agent and she agreed immediately to represent me on my fourth book, Vampire Blood, no doubt, because I said Dean Koontz had recommended her to me. Name dropper! But Vampire Blood was the reason I’d contacted those famous authors in the first place. I thought it was the best book I’d done so far and wanted it to go to (what I thought at the time) would be a better publisher than Leisure Books, which contracted and hog-tied their writers with a horrible ‘potboiler’ one-size-fits-all ten year contract with low advances and 4% royalties. Yes, I got a whole whopping 14 cents a book in those days, but, I must confess, they did print thousands of paperbacks each run and had a huge distribution area. I thought I could do a lot better. Anyway, Lori Perkins wanted me to send her the book and she did like it and eventually sold it, and then three others zip-zip-zip right after, to Zebra Books (now known more as Kensington Publishing) at 6% royalties and double the advances I was used to getting. They slapped a sexy blond vampire with a low dress on the cover and a hazy theater behind her. Lovely colors. I thought it was an eye-catching cover. I was so happy. I thought I’d made it! Again, so naïve.

Vampire Blood. A little story about a family of vicious killing vampires who settle in a small Florida town called Summer Haven and end up buying and fixing up an old theater palace to run, and pluck their victims from, and a divorced, down-on-her-luck ex-novelist and her hard luck father, who along with friends, help thwart them. Now to how and why I wrote it.

My husband and I lived in this small Illinois town, Cahokia, at the time and there was the neatest little hole-in-the-wall theater in a nearby shopping center we used to go to all the time…run by a family of a sweet man, Terry, and his wife, Ann, and sometimes their three children, two teenage boys and a girl named Irene. Such a friendly, but odd couple. The run-down theater was their whole world it seemed. The kids helped take in the tickets, pop the popcorn and sell the candy snacks.

Now the minute Terry and Ann found out, in one of our earliest conversations, that I was a published novelist they were my greatest fans. Terry went right out and bought all three of my books and they all read them. Terry always thought they’d make great movies. Next time my husband and I went to the little theater Terry and Ann greeted us like old friends, so delighted to see us, and refused to take a dime from us for anything. We got in free whenever we went from then on. Now in those days my husband, my son, James, and I were pretty broke. I worked as a graphic designer at a big brokerage firm in downtown St. Louis (across the Poplar Bridge from our Illinois town) but my husband was in between jobs. We lived on a shoestring. Hard times. So I always was so tickled that we could get into the local movies for free. We went a lot, too, as we loved movies, especially science fiction and horror films.

One night I was watching Terry and Ann and their joy in running that little theater, with the kids bustling around doing their jobs, and I got the idea for Vampire Blood. Just like that! Use them and the theater as a backdrop for a vampire novel. Hey, wouldn’t it be neat, I off-handedly mentioned to Terry one night, if I wrote a book about a family of vampires that was trying to pass as a real human family, the man and woman wanting so badly to fit in and lead a normal life for a while, renovating and then running a theater together…but the kids are wild and, as kids always do, make trouble for them in the town…killing people? Terry loved the idea and I asked him if it’d be all right to use him and his family as a template for the vampires. He was thrilled to be part of anything to do with my books and said yes. So…I wrote this book about them (sort of), the theater (making it much grander than it was, of course), a small town terrorized by cruel, powerful vampires who can change into wolves at will….and a saddened lonely woman, her brother, and her ex-husband (who she still loves and ultimately ends up with again after he saves her life) who finds herself again, but loses a lot, as well, fighting these vampires. Vampires she doesn’t believe in at first.

I was very happy with the book when it was done and dedicated it to Terry and Ann when it came out in 1991. Terry and Ann were thrilled, too. So Vampire Blood came out and did very well for me, second only to my Zebra 1993 Witches. As the years went by it went out of print and when, twenty years later, Kim Richards at Damnation Books contracted my 13th and 14th novels, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons and The Woman in Crimson, she asked if I’d like to rerelease (with new covers and rewritten, of course) my 7 out-of-print Leisure and Zebra paperbacks – and I said a resounding yes!

So…here it is…Vampire Blood…twenty years later, alive again and better, I believe, than the original because my writing then was done on an electric typewriter, with gobs of White-Out and carbon paper (I couldn’t afford copies), using snail mail; all of which didn’t lend itself to much rewriting. And in those days, editors told an author what to change and then the writer only saw the manuscript once to final proof it. Who knew what those sneaky editors were slipping in inbetween and before the final book was in an author’s greedy little hands. Hey, and I was working full time, raising a son, living a life and caring for my big extended family in one way or another, too. Busy, exciting, loving, happy and sad times.

For this new version, Damnation Book’s cover artist Dawné Dominique made me an astonishingly intriguing cover of a lovely vampire (Irene the youngest vampire who turns out to be the most brutal and ancient in the end)…but, thank goodness, without the low sexy top. And my DB editor, April Duncan, helped me make it a better novel.

A lot has happened to me and my family in these twenty years, as well. Both my parents, and my beloved maternal grandmother, the storyteller of her generation, have since passed away. Many people we used to know have. Old boyfriends, old friends and relatives. I miss them all! I no longer have that agent; she went on to bigger advances and bigger writers. I lost my good job at the brokerage firm, bumped around in lesser jobs for years, always writing in my spare time, and now, at long last, write full time while my husband works way too hard in a machine shop to support us.

Rewriting the book brought back so many good memories…and tears over those no longer here. The theater closed sixteen years ago, the owner believing it’d served its purpose and used up its time. Terry and Ann, heartbroken, were never the same. They had other jobs, none they truly cared about. Ann is still with us, but Terry died a few years ago, I heard from someone. We lost contact once they stopped running the theater and we moved from Cahokia to a nicer town miles away.

But I’ll never forget those early days and the stories that came with them. Days of high hopes and far distance future dreams…some of which have come true and some which haven’t. I’ve never made the big bucks, never gotten truly famous, but now, at long last and to my great delight, all twelve of my older books, from Leisure, Zebra, and The Wild Rose Press are being rewritten and reissued from Damnation Books and Eternal Press between June 2010 and July 2012. Better than ever after I’d rewritten them. I have plans to write more books and short stories, too, when they’re done. Most importantly, I’m living a good life with a husband I adore and brothers and sisters I love. Writing the stories I was born to write and happy I am. I have my memories. All in all, I’m a lucky, lucky woman.

So, all you writers out there…never give up and never stop writing!

Thank you!

ABOUT KATHRYN
Kathryn Meyer Griffith has been writing for nearly forty years and has published 14 novels and 7 short stories since 1984 with Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books and Eternal Press in the horror, romantic paranormal, suspense and murder mystery genres… and all 12 of her old books, see below, (and two new ones) are being brought out again between June 2010 and July 2012 from DAMNATION BOOKS (http://www.damnationbooks.com/ ) and ETERNAL PRESS ( http://www.eternalpress.biz/) again in print – and all in e-books for the first time ever! Learn more about her here:

http://www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith
http://www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith
http://www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyergriffith
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1019954486

Anne Rainey's New Release: So Sensitive

I've gotten to know author Anne Rainey since participating in her email chat list Reading After Dark. She is a kind and generous writer, always willing to share with others. Her family needs her now as she helps her mother through an illness, and many of us want to spread the word about her new release since she'll be hard pressed to do much herself. If you can spread the word, please do. Feel free to use any of the information below or pass along this blog link, whatever is more convenient.

So Sensitive
By Anne Rainey
Release Date: June 28, 2011
From Kensington Aphrodisia
Available in Trade Paperback & Ebook
(Amazon carries both here )
Hard to Get Series — Book 1
Wade Harrison and Gracie Baron’s Story

Gracie Baron isn’t one to jump at shadows. After a car accident lands her in the hospital bruised and aching, she knows it’s time to face the truth. She has an enemy and they aren’t going to stop until she’s six feet under. Gracie is forced to turn to the only man she knows capable of handling such a deadly situation, the totally irresistible Wade Harrison.

You can find all the purchase links here:
http://annerainey.com/upcoming-releases/

READ AN EXCERPT
You can read an excerpt of So Sensitive here:
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/finditem.cfm?itemid=19840

WIN A COPY OF SO SENSITIVE
Queen of the Night Reviews is giving away a copy of Anne's book. Enter here before Wednesday, June 29th.
http://queenofthenightreviews.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-release-and-contest-for-so.html


MORE ABOUT ANNE
Anne Rainey sold her first category length novel to Samhain Publishing in 2007. Since then she's sold several more stories to Samhain and three stories to Red Sage Publishing. In addition, Anne recently sold a novella and several single titles to Kensington Aphrodisia.

Anne grew up in a small town in central Ohio the only girl with three rowdy, older brothers. When she wasn't playing tackle football with them she could be found tucked away in her mother's book room getting lost in mysterious worlds created by authors such as Martha Grimes and Andrew M. Greeley. She's had a variety of odd jobs including Chiropractic Assistant, Frame Stylist, Restaurant Hostess, and Nail Technician. Anne now lives with her fabulous husband, two gorgeous teenage daughters, two ornery dogs and three snooty cats.

Visit Anne's website: http://www.annerainey.com/

~Brenda

Author Interview: Robin DeJarnett

I won a copy of Robin DeJarnett's new release Whirlwind, and read it after receiving it in the mail. It's a contemporary romance with an element of suspense. I found the relationship between Jason and Melissa to be charming and magical. I also loved the interaction between Melissa and Jason's brother as their friendship is tested. The emotional elements in the story are wonderful. After finishing Whirlwind, I emailed Robin a few questions, which she so graciously answered for me to share with you.

ABOUT WHIRLWIND
Love at first sight is a myth to aspiring journalist Melissa Williams, but when she meets Jason McAlister at a friend’s wedding, a Cinderella-like fantasy turns her no-nonsense world upside down. She sees in his penetrating blue eyes not just an evening, but a lifetime together that includes much more than a glass slipper and a kiss.

Realizing she shared a few salacious emails with Jason months ago, a humiliated Melissa loses herself in the crowd, thankful he doesn’t know who she is. But he does know—and with a gentle touch and a steamy kiss, he soon picks up their flirtation right where it left off.

As midnight strikes, Melissa succumbs to Jason’s sexy pull, unaware that a woman’s body has been discovered in the wake of the party. When evidence points to Melissa as the killer’s next target, the lines between fantasy and reality blur. She goes into hiding, charmed by one mysterious man and hunted by another.

Cinderella lost a shoe—Melissa could lose both her handsome prince and her life.

INTERVIEW WITH BRENDA & ROBIN

Brenda: Do you think guys like Jason that are tired of superficial beautiful women and want something more are really out there?

ROBIN: I really do think they're out there. Yes, there's plenty of guys who only are interested in women of a certain body type, but there are many others who will take the time to get to know a woman and want someone who can carry on an intelligent conversation, no matter what she looks like. I think guys who are serious about having a long term relationship are looking for (and more satisfied by) a woman with brains. Intelligence is sexy - in both women and men.

BRENDA: I am always intimidated by the idea of writing a mystery/crime plot because I'm afraid it won't come off realistic. You did a great job with Whirlwind. Did you do research before writing? Also, did you have to make changes to the plot as it moved along, or did it pretty much go as you planned?

ROBIN: Thank you! I love reading mysteries and watching crime dramas on TV, so the skeleton of the crime came pretty easily. I did do some research as I went. When I sketch out a scene, I have an idea of what needs to happen. As it unfolds, if there's something I question, I'll dig into Google or contact an expert I know. I have a wonderful group of friends with experience in all kinds of occupations, and they are happy to tell me if what I'm writing makes sense or not. Once the first draft was done, though, a few things did change during editing. The crime remained pretty much intact. The bulk of the revisions involved fine tuning the villain's character and making him more creepy.

BRENDA: Be honest, did you know someone that was like "Tricia"? I swear there is always one person in each wedding party like her, so I had to laugh at her character.

ROBIN: I'm sure I've encountered several Tricia's, but no one that was of exactly this Tricia's particular...ilk. There was one particularly mean girl back in seventh grade who might qualify - I haven't thought about her in years! Tricia is a combination of a lot of undesirable traits I've seen in people. And I'll admit it's fun to write someone like her. She does have some pretty good lines!
BRENDA: What part of the story was the most difficult to write?

ROBIN: Probably the "morning after" - rather the "midnight after" - scene. Both Melissa and Jason share some intense feelings in that scene, and understanding Jason's reaction took a couple tries. That chapter was rewritten several times before it was right.

BRENDA: Are you working on your next story, or has promotion been keeping you too busy?

ROBIN: Recently, promotion has been claiming a lot of my attention, but I am working on book 2, tentatively titled Quicksand. I have an awesome critique partner who's also working on her own book, and every week we get together on Skype and hold each other accountable for getting our writing done. The "I got my chapter done, did you?" challenge works pretty well - I'm a little competitive. But knowing she's waiting for the next chapter is also great incentive. Being able to bounce ideas off someone who knows my characters as well as I do is a blessing I don't take for granted.

I just completed the editing on a short story, Concessions, that will be part of Omnific Publishing's Summer Lovin' Anthology: Heat Wave, coming July 5th. It's a very special project because all the proceeds from this book and it's sweeter romance twin, the Summer Lovin' Anthology: Summer Breeze will be donated to the cancer-fighting organization Save the Ta-tas. Concessions is my first paranormal romance, so it's a little different. But it involves a very sexy vampire named Devon, and a snarky girl named Lindsey. Vampires in Vegas? Who knew?

MORE ABOUT ROBIN
To learn more about Whirlwind, and Robin's new story in the anthology Heat Wave visit her website at http://robindejarnett.com

This is a fun interview with Jason, the romantic interest and hunk in Whirlwind:
http://ataleofmanyreviews.blogspot.com/2011/06/meet-jason-hunky-hero-in-whirlwind-by.html

~Brenda

Interview With Author Sarah McNeal

I met Sarah McNeal on an online writers and readers email list last month and loved her wit and her dedication to research and plotting. She's given me some excellant tips on reforming my nonplotting ways. Her newest release has one of the best titles I've run across for a story: Harmonica Joe's Reluctant Bride. Isn't that amazing? It made me ask:

Who is Harmonica Joe?
Why is he called that?
Why does he have a reluctant bride?
Did he force her into marriage?

Without reading a blurb or excerpt she had me wanting to buy the book JUST with the title. That's a truly creative author.

I finished Sarah's book last week and loved it. She is a wonderful writer who pays attention to details, yet she conveys emotion that reaches out and grabs the reader. I sent her a few questions, and wanted to share her answers.

INTERVIEW WITH SARAH & BRENDA
Hello Sarah:) I finished your new release and loved it. I have a few questions for you if you don't mind my picking your brain.

Brenda: I loved the time travel aspect to your story, and the fact that you added twists that were unlike other time travel stories I've read. Did you have that plotted out ahead of time, and was it hard to figure out what you wanted to happen?

Sarah: First, let me thank you for that tremendous compliment. I love to write time travel but I like to make the story more about the characters and giving the time travel a real purpose in the story line. I’m happy that you got that.

I’m a plotter and a planner. I write the synopsis to a story first and use it as my outline. Sometimes I get an epiphany along the way and then I go back and tweak up my synopsis. I know exactly where the story is headed when I begin to write it.

Brenda: I know you love research, so how much research did you do to get the details down for your story? I thought you did a wonderful job with the details.

Sarah: Thanks again for that compliment. It means a lot to me to get the details right. Without the details, no one would get that the story takes place in 1910.

I did extensive research for Harmonica Joe’s Reluctant Bride. I love research because it’s just fun and sometimes I get lost in it. I found a great book called Remember When that is a detailed account of American history, culture and growth from 1900-1930 that had pictures on every page. I also used The Timetables of History by Grun and Domestic Technology by Nell Du Vall that tells when a new technology came into being and then when most households had it. Then there are my personal experiences. My grandmother had a coal burning stove in her old Victorian farm house that basically heated the whole house upstairs and down. She cooked on it and I watched how she set it up and what she did to cook on it. She had an outhouse, a huge garden (everyone in my family had a garden) and a big barn with all kinds of farm animals including horses.

Brenda: Your story was a cross between sweet and sensual, at least in my mind. How did you decide how detailed to get with the sex scenes? There's been a lot of talk about how readers really seem to want the detailed erotic scenes, but I thought your story was sexy without going over the top. How did you decide on what to write when it came to the sex scenes?

Sarah: I am not an erotic author. I prefer to write about the sexual tension and the build-up rather than a detailed description of each sexual act, put it under a microscope and show it on You-Tube with a scoreboard. I love it when a kiss becomes exciting and eye contact between the couple send sparks off the page. It’s important to me, whether I read a story or write one, to get the emotional involvement between the hero and heroine into the act of lovemaking.

Brenda: I highly recommend Harmonica Joe's Reluctant Bride to fans of time travel stories, cowboys, historicals and happily ever afters.

Sarah: Thank you, Brenda, for reading my book and I am happy as a clam that you liked it.


Harmonica Joe's Reluctant Bride
from Western Trail Blazer
http://westerntrailblazer.yolasite.com/online-store.ph

Lola Barton discovers a warp in time in an old trunk when she falls into 1910. She finds herself married to Joseph Wilding, a stranger shadowed by secrets. Mistaken for Callie McGraw, a thief and a woman of ill repute, Lola is threatened by a scoundrel. Joe stands between her and certain death.With danger threatening all around and secrets keeping them apart, can Joe and Lola find their destiny

You can visit Sarah at her website, http://sarahmcneal.com/, for more information on her writing, her blog and links to buy her books.

The Summer of Ilona Andrews

The last two weeks has been an amazing Ilona Andrews Read Festival for me. It started with the release of Magic Slays, which came out May 31st and I gobbled it up at the speed of light. It was amazing. I then felt the need to read Magic Bleeds, the book released last year, again because it had a been awhile since I read it, and I wanted to connect some of the plot points in my mind.

Next was Magic Mourns, a short story featuring Andrea and Raphael, that was in Must Love Hellhounds, which I somehow missed along the way. This is an amazing story and gives a cool little tidbit about Kate and Curran, which fans will love. This quote from Andrea was my favorite:

"If I weren't a trained professional, I'd have fainted from the sheer overload of his badassness."

I then ran out and bought Hexed, an anthology that also includes stories by Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James, and Jeanne Steine. Ilona's story features Jim, the alpha of the Clan Cat, and Dali, the mystic vegetarian weretiger. Not only is the lore used in the story fascinating but Dali is an amazing character. Having read all of the Kate books, I've loved Jim for a long time, and wondered what kind of person would capture his attention. Dali is unique and powerful in an unexpected way.

I haven't done any teaser words in a long time but I'm going to do a list that combines one word goodness from all three stories. You'll have to read them to understand why:)

ILONA ANDREWS' TEASER WORDS
Ass fire
Fido
shade
Big gun
ice spider
K-Y
apples
roll over
sleepy
demon
mother
snail
webs
tofu
tall bed
freezer
undead knitting
babycakes
rocks fall
love rodeo
Bob

If you want to learn more about the books, the authors and the goodness you can visit their website here: http://www.ilona-andrews.com/

By the way, the ending in Magic Slays? BEST EVER.

~Brenda

Memorial Day Goodness

If you are hanging around the Blogosphere this weekend because of work, bad weather or just lack of plans. There are some cool things you can take part in today and Monday.

The first stop you have to make is the Tour de Troops from An Indie Book Collective. I'm working my way through it in between writing and blogging since my husband is working.

It's simple: visit the author’s blogs, make a comment, and receive the coupon code for a free copy of their eBook. The tour starts at one blog, then we go from there to the next one by clicking the link provided. You can start with Day 1 and catch up if you wish. The main blog with the information is here: http://indiebookcollective.wordpress.com/

"Every comment gets that person the title being given away at that particular blog PLUS one to a troop. Readers can even designate a particular troop to give it to if they desire. All participating authors have graciously agreed to donate however many eBooks are requested.

We’ve all donated $15 of our own money to help purchase the Kindles! In addition, we want to give as many KINDLES to as many troops as possible. This means that we need your donations! Did you know that eBooks are one of the TOP requests made by our troops? Let’s get them what they so desperately want—together!"

Next, stop by Diane Wylie's place and check out what she is doing:

In honor of Memorial Day, Diane Wylie is donating a portion of A Soldier To Love to an organization that offers support to fallen soldiers.

"For every copy of my Civil War short story, A Soldier to Love, that is sold, I will donate 50 cents of the 99-cent price to RememberingtheBrave.org. It is an organization that honors our fallen heroes and helps their families."

You can read an excerpt and find more information on her website: http://www.dianewylie.com/asoldiertolove.html

THE MUSIC OF AMERICA
You could also stop by The National Jukebox, which is a very cool online resource at http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/.

The Jukebox includes more than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925. Content will be increased regularly, with additional Victor recordings and acoustically recorded titles made by other Sony-owned U.S. labels, including Columbia, OKeh, and others.

Remember that a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time on Monday. Take a moment to remember those who've served our country.

~Brenda