January 2019

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Sunday, January 27, 2019

WeWriWa: The Prince Who Would Be King (Revisited) – PRINCE OF SHADOWS


(I got left off the rotation list last week {I'm putting it down to wind chill!}, so I'm rerunning this post to keep up with the series order.)

I don’t like to play favorites, but I have to admit, Cale Terriot, the strutty, tattooed, rock and roll, bad-boy prince with his scars and attitude, is mine. Give me the thug over a pretty face any day. Keep your Jude Laws and Ryan Goslings. I’ll take the intense and brutish Clive Owens, Jeremy Renners, and Jason Stathams! And there’s something about a tough guy being humbled by the powerful love of one woman that’s hard to resist.

As one of twelve brothers vying for their despot father’s place, there’s only one thing more motivating for Cale than leading his clan away from the old brutish ways of his king, and Cale is willing to do whatever it takes to attain his goal. It’s not the crown he’s after—it’s his childhood love whose family had been branded as traitors to their clan, a gentle female held hostage in a deadly play for power. Kendra Terriot’s only means of survival for herself and her family is to play to a careful courtship game. The one she chooses from their clan’s dangerous heirs will inherit the coveted crown, keeping her their prisoner forever . . . unless she can retain her virtue until rescue arrives. Here’s a taste of their first private meeting as adults . . .


“Did you ever think of me?” he asked at last, his tone quiet.

At one time, she’d dreamed of saying so much to him, but Kendra’s answer was clipped and truthful, “Not in ways that would flatter you.” 

He studied her, his emotions masked, then came the surprise of his unfurling smile as he confessed, “Everything I’ve done has been for you, to make you my queen.” 

“I trusted you.” She turned away from the sight of him, her eyes flooding with pain as she demanded, “Were you there when my father died?” 

“I was,” Cale confessed, then when she shuddered and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horror of what he’d become in her eyes, he added in a tight throated whisper, “but I didn’t agree. I would never hurt you, Kendra.” 

“You don’t think my parents dying hurt me?” 

“I was eleven years old. . . what was I supposed to do,” he asked, his words vulnerable and searching, “die with them?” 

She closed her eyes and saw him clearly standing in the carnage of the MacCreedy living room, a soulless reflection of his own father as he watched her being led past him without a flicker of response, and her answer was a wooden, “Yes.”

With Kendra at his side, Cale knows he can become the kind of ruler his clan needs, but first he must learn how to become the kind of mate she desires by proving he’s not the beast his beauty fears . . . especially once her unrequited love (and his fierce rival) returns to free her. The only way to win her respect could mean surrendering his throne. The only way to win her heart could mean letting her go . . . even if she no longer wants to be saved. 


Next week, it’s back to Max Savoie (the returning hero in my WIP) in my first self-pubbed book, REMEMBERED BY MOONLIGHT.

If you have the inclination, jump over to visit me at Paranormal Romantics where I’m talking back to basics in Kicking it Old School.

A 1-degree visit for an oil change certainly got my weekend going! Stay warm, fellow Warriors!
 


Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Visit other participants on the list and read, critique, and comment on their 8sunday posts.

Spread the word, share the love, warriors - Hashtag #8sunday.

Sunday, January 20, 2019

WeWriWa: “Taming of the Shrew” meets “Goodfellas” in BETRAYED BY SHADOWS


Reluctant hero Giles St. Clair doesn’t need a problem like Brigit MacCreedy to babysit. How much trouble can the head-strong beauty get into in two weeks? Kidnapping . . . manipulation . . . seduction. A preternatural clan war!With her family’s lives on the line, Brigit will do whatever it takes. The only thing in her way is a man she can’t bully or beguile. . . a Human, putting himself between her and her powerful enemies in a battle he can’t win. Enjoy this week’s taste of BETRAYED BY SHADOWS . . .

Giles St. Clair liked things arranged in neat, straightforward columns, days of the week, morning/afternoon, day/night, black/white, right/wrong, good/bad, and when something didn’t fit or fell into a gray area, that was when his life got complicated. Better to keep things simple so he wouldn’t have to dwell on them too deeply, something he’d learned from Jimmy Legere. 

Living under the mobster’s roof had taught him a lot about the world, generally, that it was a cruel, merciless place, but there was beauty to be found even in the meanest of circumstances if one looked for it hard enough. Jimmy called beauty the silver lining that quickly tarnished. 

Jimmy had been no philosopher, but he’d managed to see right to the truth of things, the same way he’d read the naive college boy Giles once was. Things were usually exactly what they seemed, and no amount of wanting and dreaming would ever change that. 

Brigit MacCreedy was one of those beautiful things that would appear in his harsh, ugly world to make him want and dream again. Watching her was like watching a sunrise, like seeing those first bright spring flowers pushing through the dead remains of winter. She was like poetry and music that teased the heart and transported the mind, but only for a moment because he knew the second he got closer, the minute he looked deeper, that surface loveliness would begin to dull and darken, and things would get complicated. 

So, he’d watch from a distance and appreciate what he saw without having to put her into one of the two basic categories that arranged the way he viewed everyone he met, a lesson his own father taught him: There were good guys and there were bad guys.

Self-sacrificing promises, deadly secrets, and dangerous pasts collide at a bayou crossroads in this “Taming of the Shrew” meets “Goodfellows” tale of consequences, redemption and finding love in all the wrong places in this e-only Book 7 of my dark shapeshifter “By Moonlight” series. I’m rather heartbroken that I don’t have the book trailer available for viewing since it was the first I’d scripted, but the text survives in the paragraph above. 


I’m using the loooong holiday to stow the last of Christmas away and keep up the momentum on the final “By Moonlight” book after a jump start at last week’s critique group weekend. What are your plans?

Happy Weekend, fellow Warriors!!



Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Visit other participants on the list and read, critique, and comment on their 8sunday posts.

Spread the word, share the love, warriors - Hashtag #8sunday.

Sunday, January 13, 2019

WeWriWa: A Forgotten Past, a Future Lost - SEEKER OF SHADOWS



Shifter club owner Jacques LaRoche is fiercely protective of his freedom. Stripped of his memories of a former life, he longs for the mate he lost but can’t remember . . . until a mysterious stranger from the North quickens those dormant feelings and turns his comfortable world upside down. Scientist Suzanna Duchamps is used to hard decisions and self-sacrifice for the greater good of her kind as she seeks a way mend a genetic flaw to save a future generation. But when face-to-face with one of those tortuous choices she’d had to make, will she pick differently this time? Can a broken past be mended by risking all for the taste of a forbidden future? That’s what our hero is trying to decide in this week’s excerpt . . .

The problem wasn’t moral, it wasn’t guilt. It arose from that gut-deep panic Susanna Duchamps stirred inside him. The intensity of his reactions to her spooked him. Protective, possessive, aroused—a minefield of feelings he’d led Savoie through as his naĂŻve friend had lusted ferociously after Charlotte Caissie. That’s what these sensations reminded him of, that helpless, out-of-control state males of their species struggled through until they claimed their mate. It wasn’t the kind of path a wise fellow started down unless he knew he could successfully reach the end.

There would be no happily-ever-after ending for him and the Chosen doctor. They both knew it.

So, would a wise fellow stay away from the flames or jump in to enjoy the fire until it burned him to ash?

No one had ever accused him of being particularly wise unless the word ass was tacked on to the end of it.


SEEKER OF SHADOWS, the 6th book in my “By Moonlight” series, is filled with confronting regrets and teasing second chances, all at a tremendous cost to two very different but equally driven characters from opposite sides of my ever-expanding paranormal world. Surprises, betrayals, and dangerous road trips to that mysterious and deadly “North” garnered some very nice praise from Publisher’s Weekly including, “Vivid writing, intriguing plot twists and a satisfying ending will keep readers coming back to Gideon’s magical New Orleans” and . . .


Difficult choices, noble intentions at a tremendous cost, chances not taken . . . we’ve all been there, weighing head against heart. If we could go back, would we pick the same priorities knowing what we do now?

And here’s a second chance at a great deal . . .you’ve only got TWO DAYS!






   

Hope the New Year is bringing good changes and smart choices, fellow Warriors!!


Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Visit other participants on the list and read, critique, and comment on their 8sunday posts.

Spread the word, share the love, warriors - Hashtag #8sunday.

Sunday, January 06, 2019

WeWriWa: HUNTER OF SHADOWS – A Dangerous Game


An assassin and a vengeance seeker, each with their own agenda, each pretending to be what they’re not, both unable to resist the other despite the danger of an alliance. I confess, I grumbled about stepping away from the hero and heroine from my first four “By Moonlight” books to embrace new couples in the continuing “Shadows” portion of the series . . . but I must admit, Nica and Silas had me at page one. Both strong, independent characters, motivated by others rather than their own needs. Both in denial of how right they are for each other as their goals put them at cross purposes in my first excerpt of 2019 . . .


“Do you think I trust you any more than I do him?” 

“You’re going to have to pick a side, MacCreedy.” 

“I pick my own side.” 

“Then you’ll lose,” Nica warned as she stepped in front of him, placing her palms on his chest, features grim, her tone flat, “because he’ll kill you . . . he will rip out your heart, and then he’ll eat it.” 

“Then I hope he chokes on it.” 

As he set her aside to continued his walk, she told herself, Let him go and rush headlong to his own doom, because any attempt on Savoie would be a perfect distraction, drawing attention away from her and her job, but as she studied his arrogant, determined posture, something in her snapped, making her call after him, “Silas, don’t be a fool.” 

He stopped and turned to her, his expression fierce, demanding as she caught up to him again, “Why do you care what happens to me?” 

She touched his face, letting her fingertips glide over his cheek and her thumb graze his lips, confessing, “Because I hate waste and your dying for a lost cause would be a terrible one, so don’t be a hero.” 

“I don’t have a choice.” 

They stood for a moment, gazes locked, then she stepped back with a bittersweet smile, letting him go.

It’s no secret, I adore tough, self-sacrificing, smart characters who are stupid in love with one another despite the odds. Silas MacCreedy – driven to protect what’s left of his family while seeking revenge against the cause of their trouble behind the guise of a detective’s shield while undercover as a card dealer in a mobster’s club. Nica Fraser – forced to bend her will to darkness to save her childhood friends, a cool assassin directed by unnatural forces in the North to a target that puts her at cross purposes between head and heart. Take a closer look . . .


And speaking of what the New Year rings in, here’s my first steal of a deal to sink your teeth into . . .


Looking forward to getting together with my critique partners next weekend to kick start 2019. I’ll be charting my SMART goals (Specific/Measurable/Achievable/Relevant/Time-Oriented). How about you?



Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Visit other participants on the list and read, critique, and comment on their 8sunday posts.

Spread the word, share the love, warriors - Hashtag #8sunday.