Breaking the Nexus NOVELLA feature & giveaway
Breaking the Nexus
Book 1 of the Mythrian Realm series
Lindsay Avalon
Genre: Dark Fantasy Romance
Publisher: Blue Phoenix Publishing
ISBN: 978-0615753140
ASIN: B00AMPXDLQ
Number of pages: 200 print pages
Word Count: 42,000
Cover Artist: Miranda Stork (front cover)
Book Description:
Throughout history, myths and legends of extraordinary creatures have been told and retold. Fantastic tales of demons and banshees, gryphons and dragons, and of course, magic. Stories that every child grows to learn are nothing more than fantasy…or are they?
Beyond the world you see lies a hidden realm, the Mythrian Realm, inhabited by all of the creatures you’ve been told are mere fiction. Only one thing lies between humans and the truth: the Nexus. A magical barrier erected millennia ago to separate the two realms, it has stood the test of time. Until now.
For Mythrian Sha Phoenix, magic is nothing new. But when she stumbles upon a portal on the verge of collapse, her fate will forever change. Pulled through the portal into the Human Realm, she lands in the middle of Detective Connor Flynn’s brutal murder scene. Soon it is obvious someone is using blood magic to try to bring down the Nexus. Together, Connor and Sha must work to unravel the secrets before the barrier falls and the realms collide.
The Nexus is breaking and all hell is about to unleash…literally.
About the Author:
I am a wife, a programmer, and now an author. I have an adorable mini Schnauzer and more books than I have room for. I love reading romance because no matter what may be happening in my life, I can always count on my books to end happily ever after. The day I met my husband was the day I truly began believing in happily ever after. After hearing me complain a few too many times that I had “nothing” to read despite the hundreds of paperbacks scattered around the house, my husband began suggesting I write my own stories. When I finally took his advice I discovered that although I enjoy my day job as a software engineer, my true calling is to be an author.
My sister drilled into me an appreciation for fantasy and mythology, something I try to bring to my books. My debut novel, Breaking the Nexus started as a book written for NaNoWriMo and has grown to so much more. It was the conduit that introduced me to a fantastic group of independent authors who have changed my life in unimaginable ways.
When I’m not writing, I’ve found a passion for blogging and interviewing fellow authors. I also love reading (of course!), baking, crochet, sewing sock monkeys, playing video games, and all sorts of random crafts. I have an incurable love of rubber duckies and stuffed animals, and I believe nobody should have to grow up if they don’t want.
Website: http://www.lindsayavalon.com
Blog: http://lindsayavalon.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LindsayAvalon
Facebook: http://facebook.com/author.lindsay.avalon
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6568822.Lindsay_Avalon
My Familiar Stranger nominated for Readers Choice 2013.
My Familiar Stranger nominated in two categories:
Best Indie Paranormal Romance
Best Indie Fantasy & Futuristic Romance
If you helped nominate my book, THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.
Annnnnnnd, as perhaps the BEST surprise – my name appears in the category of “Best Friend to Readers”. I’m not exactly sure what it means. I’ll take it, but don’t call me in the middle of the night to bail you out of jail and I don’t help with moves. Anymore.
VOTING BEGINS APRIL 1ST.
LINK WILL BE POSTED.
Laurie Garrison from BITTEN BY PARANORMAL ROMANCE wrote this on Facebook in reply to my question about what it means to be “Best Friend to Readers”.
Sentinels of New Orleans FEATURE Books 1 & 2
Royal Street
Sentinels of New Orleans Book One
Suzanne Johnson
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 978-0765327796
ASIN: B006OM459U
Number of pages: 337
Word Count: approx. 94,000
Cover Artist: Cliff Nielsen
Book Description:
As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco’s job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ’s boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.
Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters. While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering soldiers sent to help the city recover.
To make it worse, Gerald St. Simon has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and the killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter roux.
River Road
Sentinels of New Orleans, Book 2
Suzanne Johnson
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 978-0765327802
ASIN: B00842H5VI
Number of pages: 336
Word Count: approx. 92,000
Cover Artist: Cliff Nielsen
Amazon Barnes & Noble Book Depository Indiebound
Book Description:
Hurricane Katrina is long gone, but the preternatural storm rages on in New Orleans. New species from the Beyond moved into Louisiana after the hurricane destroyed the borders between worlds, and it falls to wizard sentinel Drusilla Jaco and her partner, Alex Warin, to keep the preternaturals peaceful and the humans unaware. But a war is brewing between two clans of Cajun merpeople in Plaquemines Parish, and down in the swamp, DJ learns, there’s more stirring than angry mermen and the threat of a were-gator.
Wizards are dying, and something—or someone—from the Beyond is poisoning the waters of the mighty Mississippi, threatening the humans who live and work along the river. DJ and Alex must figure out what unearthly source is contaminating the water and who—or what—is killing the wizards. Is it a malcontented merman, the naughty nymph, or some other critter altogether? After all, DJ’s undead suitor, the pirate Jean Lafitte, knows his way around a body or two.
It’s anything but smooth sailing on the bayou as the Sentinels of New Orleans series continues.
About the Author:
Suzanne Johnson writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance from Auburn, Alabama, after a career in educational publishing that has spanned five states and six universities. She grew up halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and Elvis’ birthplace and lived in New Orleans for fifteen years, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football and fried gator on a stick.
Website: www.suzanne-johnson.com
Blog: http://suzanne-johnson.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Suzanne_Johnson
FB: http://www.facebook.com/Suzanne.Johnson.author
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5046525.Suzanne_Johnson
Publisher Page: http://us.macmillan.com/author/suzannejohnson
Bring Me More Readers Like This…
Last night My Familiar Stranger clocked the 255th review on Amazon. It wasn’t that long ago that I had just put this (my first) novel up on Amazon and was shocked that I didn’t get this many reviews overnight. Since then I’ve learned that finding readership requires patience, but that the investment in patience is WELL worth the reward.
I think some writers write because they feel driven to do so or, for the few who make a living from it, because it’s a pleasant way to feed oneself. Me? I write because there’s just no thrill like finding out that I gave somebody a thrill. It’s a natural, gratifying, smile-generating, solar-plexus-stroking high. And I’m addicted.
What’s special about the 255th review? EVERYTHING.
Any reader who spends this much time writing a review? I know she got what I hoped every reader would get – a good time.
Oxygen.. I need oxygen., March 23, 2013Left me breathless.
I’ve been rummaging through most of the romance novels Amazon has to offer under $3 or so for a long while (mostly the free ones, yes I’m a cheapo). I’m going to be bold and say this sits quite comfortably in my number 1 chair. Why? Well, I’m gonna tell yah why (without spoilers of course)
1. The characters are incredibly developed and each with realistic personalities. Rarely do I come across a book where I love all of the characters. You have your serious character (Storm), funny character (Ram), the voice of reason character (Kay) and that character you just can’t help but fall in love with (Baka). Together, they’re a riot.
2. Hardly do I find an author who can make me genuinely laugh. I was reading at around 3am and some dangerously loud laughs escaped my room (and a few embarrassing snorts I will admit) and awoke my mother. Let’s just say she doesn’t like this story much…
3. THE STORY LINE IS AMAZING. Don’t let my capitals scare you off. I wasn’t yelling, I was enthusiastically talking loud. I loved it from beginning to end. At the beginning I was a little skeptical but once I got a good bite I got angry at my eyes for not being able to read faster.
4. Warning; if you get that neck/back pain from reading for too long, make sure you’re prepared with necessary equipment to ease the ache. Also, make sure it’s within your reach because you’re not going to want to get up to get them. This warning should be included in the book before the prologue.
5. It makes you argue with yourself. A good book has that ability.
-I want her to choose Storm, he saved her life and was incredibly sweet to her!
-Omg this elf is gearing me away from Storm. His sense of humor.. his accent that I can so oddly picture in my head… She has to choose the elf with the adorable accent.
-Sexy 600 year old vampire? Get the hell out of here elf, she needs some vampire loving!
Now that sounds like a lot but the story folds it all together nicely. She isn’t a slut who wants a chunk from each of them. In fact, I had zero clue who she was gearing towards for most of the book. Then it started to unravel and I started making that girly “eeee!” noise while wiggling around unattractively… it all unraveled quite nicely.
6. The author doesn’t spend pages upon pages dedicated to boring opinions / thoughts the characters have about every miniscule thing like why the damn sky is blue. I have found that many books are prone this this horrendous disease. Quite sad actually…
And lastly…
7. The main character doesn’t make you want to rip out every organ in her body and feed it to vicious animals. She’s very laid back, real, selfless, and yes… I’m going to say it… FUNNY. Funny? A paranormal romance novel with the lead female character wielding a sense of humor that can make you laugh? Not one of those try-hard sense of humors that just make you cringe? I know I’m shocked too.
The Witch Hunter FEATURE & GIVEAWAY
The Witch Hunter
Book One in the Witch Hunter Saga
Nicole R. Taylor
Genre: Urban Fantasy / Paranormal
ISBN: 978-1482061697
Number of pages: 300
Word Count: 72,000
Amazon Smashwords
TOUR WIDE GIVEAWAY 10 ebook copies of The Witch Hunter- winner’s Choice of Smashwords coupons or Amazon
Book Description:
I was born into the world covered in blood, and that’s exactly the way I left it. Ever since, I have been damned to walk the boundary between life and death alone. Unwillingly turned and left to my nightmare, I have seen men commit countless horrors and committed many of my own. My origins shall remain unknown, my true self hidden. I have been called by many names, but in this life I am known as the Witch Hunter. I have been asleep these past 150 years, until I was awoken by a haunting call.
Zachary Degaud was twenty three when he died. The problem was, he didn’t stay that way.
Present day, he’s just another vampire with another unremarkable story. That is, until he manages to provoke a two thousand year old witch named Katrin, who wants to make him pay in the most horrible way imagined. Along with his brother Sam, newly made vampire Liz and their only witch ally, Gabby, his only chance for survival is to summon the ancient and unpredictable vampire known as the Witch Hunter.
Zac is just looking for a way out of his psychopathic witch problems, but instead will find himself falling head first into a blood feud that has stretched thousands of years.
Aya has been asleep for the past 150 years, until she was awoken by a haunting call. The witch she has been hunting for thousands of years, Katrin, has resurfaced and marked a young, annoyingly arrogant vampire by the name of Zachary Degaud. Unless she does something, he will die a slow and painful death. He has given her an opportunity to end the witch, but does she want to help him or leave him to his fate?
Zac will get under her skin like no one else has and she just might find herself making the ultimate sacrifice before he is gone forever. They will both have to choose sides and look deep within themselves before the end. But, what Zac learns about himself, will surprise him most of all.
About the Author
Nicole R. Taylor is an Australian born paranormal, fantasy and contemporary fiction author. She is a graduate of the University of Ballarat Professional Writing and Editing programme and is a former music memorabilia sales person and grocery merchandiser.
She currently lives in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia with a two year old rescue cat named, Burger. She enjoys reading, writing (of course!), traveling and a little too much chocolate. One day she hopes to sky dive, but has to work up the courage first.
The first in her new paranormal fantasy series, The Witch Hunter Saga is currently available in e-edition and print.
Learn more about her writing at: www.nicolertaylorwrites.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicole-R-Taylor/452118154855116
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6907729.Nicole_R_Taylor[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Moonlight… Second Excerpt Posted
CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO GO TO MOONLIGHT’S page and read Excerpt #2. http://victoriadanann.me/book-4/
