Showing posts with label paranormal romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paranormal romance. Show all posts

Monday, March 5, 2012

Welcome Lisa Blackwood to DIO


A great thing about blogging is the ability to learn from others.  My guest today, Lisa Blackwood, a friend and fellow author from Muse It Up Publishing, provides us with something to ponder.   On with the show...
Write What You Know

As a writer, one thing I’ve heard several times is ‘write what you know’. In other words, write about a topic you are familiar with and incorporate that knowledge into your writing in some fashion. The idea is to make the story more believable, and it also has the added bonus of making the writer’s job a touch easier—less research and all that.(If only it was so easy. LOL.)
Which is all well and good, but when I first read that piece of sage knowledge I wondered how that applied to writing science fiction and fantasy, since both are not-of-this-world so to speak. Still, you can take things from the mundane world and add them to your made up world.
A beta reader once mentioned a great number of horse issues in my writing. I didn’t know a thing about horses at the time, and she suggested I go take some riding lessons to better understand them; as an added benefit, I’d stop annoying horse people with my inaccurate descriptions (you know, things like horses that can gallop all day, never spook, don’t have to spend hours grazing every day to live. You know, important stuff like that.) I took her advice, and started volunteering at a nearby horse rescue. After a year and a half, I now know enough to write realistic horses, I hope. I even went so far as to adopt one. I’m not saying authors have to go so far to get into their characters mindset, but even a few minutes of research is valuable.
Back to the topic of writing what you know. Another thing from my real life that was helpful in a fictional world was my knowledge of birds. Go figure.


Betrayal’s Price (Coming soon from MuseItUp Publishing) is epic fantasy with romantic elements and the hero Sorntar, a phoenix, is half avian. I knew from early on I wanted him to be more than just a human man with wings stuck on his back, I wanted him to be more, to be other. So I looked to nature—if he was half bird, then he needed a few bird traits. I’ve kept birds as pets since I was a child, so giving Sorntar a few bird traits wasn’t all the hard, humorous, but not hard.

The second novel I wrote, Stone’s Kiss, is a paranormal romance/urban fantasy, and has a gargoyle hero. Gregory was a little more complex than Sorntar, but twice as much fun to write. Gregory just knew who and what he was from the get go, and had no problems with deviating from my carefully planned plot. ::mumbles under breath about unruly, headstrong characters::  Whereas Sorntar was clearly birdlike and I could draw on the mythological phoenix for some character traits and magical abilities, Gregory, as a gargoyle, didn’t have a corresponding animal or even much mythology to draw on. So I started to look at other animals until I found the correct mix of traits that ‘felt’ like they’d match my vision of how a gargoyle would think and act. In the end, while still having a fundamental human quality, Gregory also had some canine and big cat tendencies mixed in too. 
My question to you—what can you take from your everyday life and put into a fictional world. Go on. Give it a try. You might be surprised what you’ll come up with.
Lisa Blackwood, author of urban fantasy, paranormal romance and epic fantasy.
 

www.lisablackwood.com
http://blackwoodsforest.wordpress.com/
Stone's Kiss http://www.amazon.com/Stones-Kiss-The-Avatars-ebook/dp/B006EAMITG
Betrayal's Price (Feb. 2012 from Museitup Publishing http://museituppublishing.com/ 



Friday, April 9, 2010

Kayden McLeod; The Foxworth Coven Series

Dear Reader,
Some of you already may have met the Cornwalls, the Vancouver Coven of vampires. But they are not the only ones in the area. There are others, like the Surrey Coven; the Foxworths.
The series begins with Book One; Death of Innocence, a first person POV “diary” of the two lead characters, Gregory and Canya Foxworth. The Council, the government ruling over the vampires have taken note of these vampires, and how they've grown in so much power, they can compete with those who rule them. Something the establishment fears, and demands to know more about.
A full report is to be given, of exactly what happened a century ago.
In 1904, the Leader of the Surrey Coven, Canya Foxworth was an almost human girl with vampire-blood in her lineage, bringing her gifts she had to hide, as her parents demanded of her. She hated her life, and would go to drastic measures to leave it behind her.
And it would damn near kill her.
Gregory Foxworth recalls his side of the story, how he found a dying woman who'd been tricked, and cast aside like garbage. Despite common practices when it came to a vampire healing a human, he’d done it without thought.
It begins a journey for them, and the Foxworth ruling family will ever forget it.
Death Of Innocence
Paranormal Romance (MF, Vampires, Ghosts, Deities)
Length: Apx 98K
Tag-Line:
Even unconditional love cannot always banish an eternal nightmare
Summary:

The Foxworth family has blazed a trail through human and vampire history alike, changing the ways of both races in Canada for all time. The Council has demanded a full report for the long and twisted tale of how the Surrey Coven had come to be the most powerful and feared; an assemblage that anyone would question before coming up against.

The Leader of the Surrey Coven, Canya recalls how her family came to be. A story filled with pain and heartache, until she meets Gregory Foxworth; a debonair CEO to the family shipping company. He takes her away from a life that shocks him, hoping to shelter and love her. But little does he know all he has done, was make her a target for a sadistically warped man. One who will have her and his own personal brand of vengeance. Sometimes, a grudge is forever.

Prelude

The sky was overcast, grey and temperamental, much like my mood. The ocean was a bluish-grey, reflecting the clouds above, while the waves lapped at the long expanse of glittering sandy beach.
I loved my house in White Rock, a nice city in British Columbia within the Fraser Valley. It was our main residence, but we owned a lot of property all over the territory that we were charged with to tend.
I sat outside on my patio with expensive white paper and a pen, but I wasn’t sure where to begin. When a story went on for decades, where does one start?
I thought of my family to give me strength.
The Foxworth’s had grown and changed so much in the last century. They too were asked to tell their parts of the tale, but they’d decided that it was when I discovered the new world remaining even now in shadows, that this story should begin.
It was almost a century to the day, when we finally ended what plagued my family for so long. Was a hundred years too long to hold on to hope that your loved ones will eventually survive and thrive, even if some have to die to see it happen?
The Council, our governing body, paid me a personal visit yesterday. Though it had been an official visit, I didn’t have a great track record with those. I was respected, but all in my Coven were also feared for their individual reasons, their individual pasts.
Over the years our Coven had been allied with some of the most powerful entities this world knows. We have the forces of nature on our side, the power of dreams and the most feared monsters that make humans run and hide under their beds to avoid.
The Council only ‘requested’ this document, because it was as unbelievable as it sounds. I believed they wanted to watch us fail to give the facts; to prove what we said was real, beyond doubt.
We have proof of all of our accomplishments, but I still suspect they don’t believe some of what my children and friends claim. Even to us, who are vampires and know of all sorts of real magic, our story is very far-fetched. Our experiences rip apart our own beliefs, not just the human view-point, stitching them back together again, to know the real truth of what lays just out of even our sight.
For a race with our real origins, you would think that they’d believe our tale.
I wouldn’t have ever chosen to put this to paper, but when the Council decrees something, you refuse or disobey at your own risk.
Some think we were lucky for what we are now. Others consider it a curse on top of the Curse that all vampires already share. We’re the damned that had at one point been blessed. We were the ultimate oxymoron, the personification, if you will.
Our kind had seen both sides of the balance, and now we were precariously hanging by our fingertips, trying to protect mankind from ourselves. We moved steadily forward, but Rogues kept trying to throw us back into the dark ages.
We would always stand between the evil in us, and the good in everyone else. Though we cannot protect humankind from their own forms of evil, we could do our part to keep the harmony on our end.
That was the Foxworth Coven’s mission statement. We lived with humans, not just among them. We tried not to abuse our power, and assimilate into humanity the best we could. We raise our children with those beliefs, in hopes that one day we’d have real freedom and understanding. It was only one small step in the face of many.
Possibly this record of our family would convince at least a few vampires, that just because we are at the top of the food chain, manned with more power then any being had a right to, didn’t mean they got to abuse it.
Maybe it will show that no matter how bad life appears at the time, hope is always at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes it will just take a little time to get there.
In the end, I knew just how lucky I was. As a child I’d known real love existed, but my parents had never been examples of that. They almost hated each other, and liked me even less. It was a match for necessity and nothing more.
My cousin had once told me years ago, I’d been born to be a servant. Since the time I had been old enough to clean and mind the cattle, it was my life. Being taught to cook simple meals before I was ten, it was expected to serve them nightly.
Under my mother’s watchful eye, I grew up alone and afraid. My father had been a big, burly man who was far too gruff to ever have children. I believe he had me only because it had been expected of him. After me, they’d never tried for a boy. Something that enraged my Father, something I had to suffer for continuously.
But it isn’t my childhood hell that begun my long journey, nor my terrifying family legacy. For generations my family held within their grasp, magical gifts, but we were required to keep them quiet, for our own survival. The differences between those who are gifted and those who did not understand them, were vast in the early twentieth century, anymore than they had in the nineteenth.
As a teenager I’d been starved for love and affection, something that all of my friends had, received and gave so easily. I had searched far and wide for it, a way to leave my past behind me. To finally get out from under my parent’s thumb; or I would surely go mad.
They didn’t want me to go; they made no move to marry me off. I still believe that if the occurring events hadn’t have taken place, they would’ve found a way to keep me tied to them forever.
At almost twenty years of age, I was practically an old maid when meeting Thomas. For months we had met secretly, and I thought nothing of it, since I didn’t want my parents to know until it was too late to stop me.
I went to Thomas willingly, time after time, needing to feel human and liked. So much abuse from my parents made me desperate to jump into something far too quickly, before my normally intelligent mind had time to warn me of the impending dangers in direct relation to the hard-pressed decisions.
I had mistaken lust for love, and that really had been my downfall, and breakthrough for survival.
If I had not met Thomas, I doubted I would’ve met my true love.
Every cloud has a silver lining, even the darkest and most deadly ones.
***
Deep Water Legends; Paranormal Science Fiction, Moongypsy Press, is an introduction into this series, and Foxworth Coven. You meet Arcadia and Ceanna Foxworth, in the present day as Council Hunters who have grown tired of the leashes put on them by the Council.
Throughout the Foxworth Coven Series, Arcadia and Ceanna grow up from mere children, showing what it took to impose such rigid meddle in the twins, what made them the vampires that make almost every other cower in fear of them.
To Buy Deep Water Legends:
Website
Kayden’s Blog
Kayden’s World Of Paranormal Blog
Thank you Ginger for having me today, it was a blast!
Cheers,
Kayden

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Native Americans and romantic fiction




Native Americans, anyone?




Ginger recently confessed she loved researching Native Americans. So, I thought I'd drop a few incredible resources I used for my latest release (print so far, e-book on April 3rd), FORBIDDEN ETERNITY. I've written a shamanic shape-shifting hero who has more than one chip on his shoulder. You would too if the guys you were trapped with in the Army called you Cochise, but you weren't Apache. No. Cochise (named by his peers with what he considers a name representing a phase of his life in which he made very bad choices) is Lakota.


Let's just say he can DISH IT OUT! And he can take it. ;)


Here's my model for Cochise, Mr. Drop-Dead Gorgeous Jay Tavare...




















Sorry. I, uh, forgot what I was talking about...


(Stop looking at pictures, Skhye!)


Oh, wait. I remember!




So, what's the difference between Apaches and the Lakota? You're thinking they both lived on the Great Plains, rode war ponies, counted coup, and looked down-right gorgeous and tough in loincloths... Okay, you haven't read Thomas E. Mails' DOG SOLDIER SOCIETIES OF THE PLAINS. If you want to get the arrows right by culture or understand a culture's rituals, get this book! Each Plains people's warrior societies are described in great detail. And if you're searching for a way to allow your female characters (captives or not) to wield weapons and participate in battle, this reference book will tell you who can get away with what. DOG SOLDIER SOCIETIES OF THE PLAINS is a college-level text. But it won't put you to sleep. Okay, maybe I should say it didn't lull me to sleep. ;) I've always been enthralled by Native Americans. And I've got over 80 hours of anthropology under my belt. So, the geek in me knows I'm an outlying exception to the rule on the vast continuum of delightful to boring.


Another wonderful resource for all those writing contemporaries with Native-American characters is Hyemeyohsts Storm's SEVEN ARROWS. The easiest way to explain this book is to compare it to a self-help version of something akin to the Bible. First of all, you get the low-down on the four directions, medicine arrows, medicine wheels, etc. Then Storm begins the journey of the self. Each aspect of his belief system is taught by a story he tells. Chapter by chapter, you experience the sharing of his knowledge. And it's quite moving. The Bible put me to sleep. ;)



And yet another thought-provoking read is Frederick Drimmer's CAPTURED BY INDIANS: 15 FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS, 1750-1870. I'm a big cheerleader for underdogs. I confess! This leaves me with strange interests... But CAPTURED BY INDIANS is by no means a handful of weird tales. Rather, it a collection of 15 true stories about white captives. So, you want to know what captives thought of Native Americans? Well, they often preferred living with them. ;) Curious?



Jack Weatherford's NATIVE ROOTS: HOW THE INDIANS ENRICHED AMERICA is an essential eye-opening read for those working on historicals with Native-American characters. It's amazing how much fear and hatred was recorded in history--another expression of the bias one cannot shake in recording history.



Erdoes & Ortiz's AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS has been around for a while. But I always flip through it when wanting to round out a character with a bit of ideology. What can this book do for you? The myths and legends are broken down by culture. Yes. You just skim the table of contents and find the tales you'll need to read. Extra information about the cultures is located at the end of the book. I've used this book so many times that I recommend anyone writing a Native-American character own a copy. Ideology really rounds out a perspective.



So what does Skhye do with this type of reference material? In FORBIDDEN ETERNITY, Cochise is a modern who man raised on a reservation, exposed to many Native-American cultures, and gained an appreciation for different peoples. By the time FORBIDDEN ETERNITY takes place, he is quite worldly. But what makes him real to me are all of the myths and legends I've studied and the touching manner Storm shares his beliefs in SEVEN ARROWS. I've acquired a wealth of knowledge through the years and hope Cochise shares a bit of that information with readers. But his story is a dark paranormal...


FORBIDDEN ETERNITY

Sometimes the forbidden proves the only cure.

In present-day Scotland, a shape-shifting shaman and a Druid embrace the forbidden to safeguard history from renegade gods bent on sabotaging history by kidnapping the Goddess of Time.

A woman Cochise despises is his only hope for a future. He has no choice except to swallow his pride and protect Druidess Mairi from a man who is blackmailing her into breaking time-travel Code by kidnapping her sister. But his presence tempts Mairi into risking her sister’s life in falling in love. A fairy hairball and a pack of Hell Hounds force the duo to hide on an astral plane where there is no resolution beyond facing their FORBIDDEN ETERNITY.



You're invited to read the 1st chapter at...





Read another story for FREE...



VOW OF SUPERSTITION: DRAGON'S BLOOD


When legends speak of passion, Lady Lainy chalks all up to superstition until forced to take Dragon’s Blood at her arranged marriage. Will the beast’s poison herald a life full of love, or will she find myth loaded with lies when facing her father’s VOW OF SUPERSTITION?
http://www.thewildrosepress.com/vow-of-superstition-dragons-blood-p-840.html



CONTEST ALERT!


And to make certain everyone has fun beyond checking out Jay's pictures today, I'm giving away a small medicine pouch to one lucky winner. I believe this one has a dream catcher on it. But something decorative nonetheless. I say "I believe" because the box it's inside is buried in my garage with the rest of my office. And I don't have time to dig out said box at the moment but will this weekend. Just leave me a comment about what draws you to Native-American tales by midnight, CST today. I'll randomly draw a winner and post the name here tomorrow.



I'd also like to note I blog about reference books at http://blog.skhyemoncrief.com/. I've been known to hold contests there. So, you get two perks for the price of one. ;)



You can also find me at:







Thanks for having me over, Ginger. ~Skhye

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Hi there!. I'm Sierra Hart.


You can find my story in The Edge of Morning at Total-e-bound.

I thought I’d been hiding out pretty well having just dumped my last job and latest love, trying to figure out the next step in my life when Desi showed up, banging on my door.
I was stunned that she’d found me, because I didn’t think anyone knew about the cabin in Maine my grandfather had just willed to me. It’s surrounded by five thousand of the most pristine forest you can imagine. A great place to get my head together. Isolation, nature and fresh air.
But you know Desi. She used to be a reports and she can track down anything. So there she is, sitting in my Adirondack chair, drinking my fresh-ground coffee and inhaling my fresh air, and determined to pry all my secrets out of me. But I don’t think even the fabulous Desiree Holt was prepared for what she found out.
It all started when she passed through my living room on the way to my kitchen for more coffee, and saw the ancient book I’d left on my coffee table , The Legend of the Wolf. Damn! If I’d known she was coming—although how could I possibly—I’d have hidden it away. I wasn’t yet prepared to answers questions about the book or Luke, the man who just appeared in my life. Or the wolf itself.
But she’s so darn persistent, I had to tell her about the gorgeous silver wolf who kept appearing right at the edge of my clearing, just as morning came up each day. A beautiful wolf. Magnificent. And shockingly friendly. He even came right up to my desk and let me touch him.
I shivered just thinking about it.
You think that would satisfy this woman? Hell, no. She poked and prodded and finally got it out of me about Luke Spencer, who is the hero of The Edge of Morning. My story and his. I still remember the night I first met him. Luke is well over six feet, lean and broad shouldered. Dark brown hair with traces of silver dusts his shoulders and frames a starkly masculine face—high cheekbones, square jaw and unusual amber eyes. And she nearly squirmed off her chair when I told her about the first night he showed up at the cabin, the erotic sex we enjoyed, she forgot to take notes.
She pounced at once on the fact that he’d left me the book to read, a book about an ancient race of people who are able to shift back and forth between wolf and human form. I could see her practically drooling when I told her about the first time I saw Luke shift, and realized he was the huge silver wolf who’d been so friendly.
But of course being Desiree, she wanted every little detail about the erotic things we did together, and where it was going. I had to tell her Luke had reached into my heart and captured it. Me, who had sworn off men forever. Me, who planned to live as a hermit forever. Me, who’d never realized how pale my sex life had been.’
Then of course I had to tell her about the men threatening me because they wanted my land. And about Luke’s agency, The Sentinels. And about…
Oh, wait. If you want to know the rest, ya gotta read my story.
The Edge of Morning is available at Total-e-bound, http://www.total-e-bound.com/.
And come visit Desiree at http://www.desireeholt.com/

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

More from the Unseelie lot...

Yesterday, Alfhild and Cadfael popped in for a blurb.  Today, it's Du, who's Cadfael's right hand, um, Sidhe.  To find Unseelie to download in pdf, mobipocket or other formats, visit this link.

Du: I'm really not as interesting as all that.  Sure, I'm dashing and handsome and quick with a blade and my wit but I'm not so special.

Who'm I kidding?  I'm a catch.  I've known Cadfael for centuries, growing up together amongst the Unseelie Court, living with the dark ones of the realm.  I was there when Maeve and Mabd first clashed.  I was there with my people when the Seelie Sidhe rode them down, killed them while they slept, ate, worked...  Cadfael kept me sane.  In return, I keep him out of most trouble.  Except this Alfhild situation.  You see, she was foretold. The Snow Queens knew it.  They told us, told the entire Court, and we've been waiting for her.  All except Cadfael.  He couldn't wait.  He had to go get her.  Typical prince, eh?  I did my best to slow him down but there's only so much a Cait Sidhe  can do--I'm strong and quick but I'm small.  Smaller than that lumbering Sidhe, anyway.  Even in my cat-form, I'm a force to be reckoned with.

Alfhild: Ego, much?

Du: Eavesdrop, much?

Alfhild: It's not eavesdropping when you're writing.  It's just being nosey.  Or, in my case, cautious.  

Du:  Too late for caution, isn't it?  Now that you're Alfhild and no longer Lorelei...

Alfhild: Don't remind me.

The first two commenters here will receive a free eARC of  Unseelie and a copy of the reader's guide to go with it!  

Getting What You Want



My creator is feeling a little uninspired today, so I’m going to jump in here for her and talk to you today. Frankly, I think she’s off somewhere swilling coffee and dreaming of her book hitting the best sellers’ list. That woman can sure down the coffee, let me tell you. I guess she needs it so she can keep pace with me. I must admit I don’t make it easy for her. Who am I? Well, I didn’t think I needed an introduction, but I’ll humor you just the same. My name is Dante. Ah, you’ve heard of me before, have you? I see my creator has done a good job of introducing me to you. Well, let’s begin, shall we?

I’ve been walking among your kind for many years, but don’t worry. I’m not going to bore you with the details of my existence. I’m here to talk about you. I only mention my longevity to underscore the wealth of my experience with your kind. I have observed you for a lifetime, taken stock of your mannerisms and characteristics, your dreams and desires, and the one thread that links you from generation to generation is your insatiable need to get what you want. Some of you have altruistic motives, some of you do not, some of you will succeed, others will not, but the drive to achieve is just as strong in one as it is in the other. It’s all rather amusing to watch, if you ask me. The way you push yourselves, motivate yourselves, will yourselves to the attainment of your dreams is all rather admirable. But what happens when you get there? What happens when you get what you want?

I often wonder as I watch you if you ever take that into consideration. So much of your energy is focused upon the journey from idea to achievement, the stops along the way, the roadblocks that you must circumvent before you arrive at your final destination. But do you think beyond that? What happens when you arrive there? Are you happy with the accommodations, or let down because they’re not what you expected?

Sometimes the best part of the journey is the trip itself, the people you meet along the way, the unexpected roadblocks that prolong the process. And before I start to wax poetic like my good friend Peter, I will leave it at that. Enjoy the trip as much as the destination and you are bound to lessen your disappointment. And remember, those roadblocks are checkpoints for you to reassess your goals and to ask yourself if this is really what you want, to test your commitment. They’re not there to stop you from achieving your goals. But then, you knew that, didn’t you?

So what are you waiting for? Go out and get what you want.


Written by Dante (with help from Margay Leah Justice), check out my debut in the book, Nora's Soul on Amazon.com and come back for more at http://margayleahjustice.com. You didn't think one book would be enough for me, did you?

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