Author Blog & Giveaway: Mostly Magic by Donna June Cooper

Mostly Magic

The Kindling Series

Book Two

Donna June Cooper

Publisher – Samhain

Publication date – June 3, 2014

Genre – Contemporary Paranormal Romance

Cover – by Kanaxa aka Nathalie Gray 

About the Book:

One terrifying premonition brings them together. Another will threaten their future.

Do dreams come true? Dr. Daniel Woodruff hopes they don't, because his dreams predict a devastating future for him, for those he loves—and for the planet.

His latest premonition, which blows a huge crater in his eroding sanity, holds a singular horror—the loss of a wife and unborn child. Yet another reason he can let no one into his chaotic life, least of all a perky, persistent investigative reporter he finds simultaneously frustrating and fascinating.

Mel Noblett leaves no stone unturned in her one-woman crusade to save the environment. When a whistleblower in Italy proves too frightened to talk, Mel turns to a fall-back lead, an extremely eccentric, beekeeping professor who might just make the trip worthwhile.

Despite their instant attraction, Mel is relieved when Daniel keeps her at arm’s length. After all, she has a secret of her own—one that makes her preternaturally good at her job. And, when Daniel’s terrifying visions prove cannily accurate and begin to revolve around Mel—it is a gift that could put her life in danger.

Warning: Reluctant seer of a bleak future meets petite force of nature who lights up the heart of his darkness. Where there’s smoke, there could be an unpredictable blaze of passion, but the rewards are oh, so sweet…

Samhain  |  Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Kobo  |  iTunes

We are thrilled to bring you a guest post by Donna June. Enjoy~

There are two things that are essential to my writing process, one is music, the other is visuals—photos, maps, blueprints. And of course, for visuals, I use Pinterest.  I am continually pinning things, for already published books, for books under construction, and for books that are just wisps of idea.

For this book, Mostly Magic, there was such a rich cache of visual images to play with. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! 

Settings

First, Florence, or Firenze, Italia. Talk about a rich cache. This is my very favorite city in all the world and all I can give you on my Pinterest board is a taste.  This particular taste is of the terrace at the top of the Hotel Loggiato dei Serviti that plays a key role in the book. I actually had a discussion with an editor who was familiar with Florence and didn't think you could see Il Duomo from that room. This is when the internet is your friend. As you can see, you really can see Il Duomo from that room.

Second, another rich source of visual images—Scarborough Renaissance Festival—which, although brief, plays a bit of a role in the book. I have spent many lovely hours at this particular faire. Great fun plus costumes and finger food! These lovely fairies were captured by Artist at Play wearing outfits just a tad skimpier than Mel's (the heroine's) usual garb when assisting her magician father. If you have never been to a Renaissance faire, give it a try. You might run into a prince!

Characters

And of course, the characters. Some readers prefer to picture the characters for themselves, which is why my Pinterest boards have warning screens so you don't have to see the characters if you don't want to. So, *WARNING*, if you don't want to see the characters as I visualize them in my head, you might want to skip this part.

As you can tell if you explore my Pinterest boards, there is no one individual who absolutely matches my visual of any of my Mostly Magic characters. I have to say though, that when I wrote Daniel Woodruff in the very first book of the series, I saw someone who looked a lot like Orlando Bloom in my head. Tall, lanky, long dark hair, and with what I call that "I-can-see-things-you-can't-see-and -I-don't-want-to" look. Yum.

 

Then there was Mel. I could never find really close to the Mel I had in my head. KaNaXa, the wonderful cover artist for Mostly Magic, gives us just a hint of Keira Knightley with intense blue eyes in her rendition of Mel. Another option is the irrepressible Jennifer Lawrence, whose hair and eyes and personality would come very close to our petite force-of-nature, Mel.

 

Origami, as you can probably tell from the cover, plays a key role in the book. (And yes, I know, it is such a funny and suggestive word!) Mel creates origami figures for her father's magic show and for relaxation. These little green fellows are her favorites for handing out at her father's magic shows, and for distracting adorable eccentric scientists. In addition, there is a You Tube link on my Pinterest board that shows you how to make a jumping frog out of a playing card, just as Mel does in the book.

As you can see, research for writing a romance can be fun and educational. I hope you enjoyed this little foray through the images in my head!

Excerpt

About the Author:
A transplanted mountain girl. As the granddaughter of a coal miner and the great-great-granddaughter of one of the Muscogee people, Donna was raised in the shadows of the Appalachian Mountains - in the beautiful hills of East Tennessee. After getting a couple of college degrees, she was lured away from her mountains by a gorgeous Italian guy, who married her and carried her off to Texas. (Texas, by comparison to her mountains, is very hot and very flat—a fact she points out often to whoever will listen.) Her vocations have included a little bit of everything, including a stint as an IRS tax auditor, a few years managing a bookstore, and a career in the corporate world writing technical courseware and documentation, but her avocation was always writing. She enjoys being walked by her Jack Russell Terrier (if you know Jack's, you understand), belly dancing (excellent exercise and lots of shiny costumes), reading (three books at once, at times), and travel (with family in Italy and England, who wouldn't?) But, like any child of the Appalachians, she doesn’t stay away from her mountains for long, and visits as often as she can.

Author Contacts:
Website |  Facebook |  Twitter | Pinterest

Tour Giveaway:

First Prize: A honeybee charm (or a $10 GC from Amazon) plus a copy of each book 
Two Second Place Prizes: e-copies of Mostly Magic and More than Magic.  
(Visitors can get extra points by tweeting about it, by adding the book on Goodreads, and/or by following me on Twitter and Facebook) 

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Author Interview: Thereafter by Terri Bruce

Thereafter
Afterlife Series
Book 2
Terri Bruce

Genre: Contemporary fantasy/paranormal
Publisher: Mictlan Press
Number of pages: 318
Cover Artist: Artwork by Shelby Robinson;
Cover layout by Jennifer Stolzer

Book Description:
When recently-deceased Irene Dunphy decided to “follow the light,” she thought she’d end up in Heaven or Hell and her journey would be over.
 Boy, was she wrong.
 She soon finds that “the other side” isn’t a final destination but a kind of purgatory where billions of spirits are stuck, with no way to move forward or back. Even worse, deranged phantoms known as “Hungry Ghosts” stalk the dead, intent on destroying them. The only way out is for Irene to forget her life on earth—including the boy who risked everything to help her cross over—which she’s not about to do.
 As Irene desperately searches for an alternative, help unexpectedly comes in the unlikeliest of forms: a twelfth-century Spanish knight and a nineteenth-century American cowboy. Even more surprising, one offers a chance for redemption; the other, love. Unfortunately, she won’t be able to have either if she can’t find a way to escape the hellish limbo where they’re all trapped.

PRFL is pleased to showcase a special blog visit by author Terri Bruce! Enjoy ~

The Five Rivers of the Afterlife

Thank you so much for hosting me on your blog today Danica and helping me celebrate the release of my second novel, Thereafter, the second book of the Afterlife series. 
Today, I wanted to talk a little about one of my favorite subjects: afterlife mythology. The Afterlife series 
is about a woman named Irene who has to learn to navigate the afterlife after she dies. I used afterlife 
mythology and folklore from every culture and religion while writing this series. Each book in the series 
(there will be six total) focuses on one or two big motifs or common afterlife features. Thereafter features the Greek myth of the ferryman who rows the dead across the river to the afterlife. 
In Greek mythology there are five rivers that are part of the afterlife: Acheron, Styx, Lethe, Cocytus, 
Phlegethon. Most people have heard of the river Styx; however, most mistakenly identify it as the river 
that borders the underworld and which the ferryman, Charon, rows the dead across. That is actually the 
river Acheron, known variously as the river of pain and the river of woe. 
In Thereafter, Irene’s despair when she arrives at the river and realizes she can’t get across it is a 
reference/play on the Acheron’s nickname as the river of woe: Eventually, there were no more huddled, petrified people, just a vast, desert-like expanse of sand, and then, at last, she was at the river. Rather than elation, however, she felt…nothing. 
The river filled the horizon in every direction, more like an ocean. The embankment stood a foot or two higher than the water’s surface, and Irene went right up to the edge to get a closer look. The water was almost black and as smooth as glass. Nothing marred its surface—not waves, not boats, not birds. The sound of the water lapping at the land was the only noise. It was the most desolate and empty place Irene had ever seen.
She stared at the water, feeling as flat and empty as its surface. There was no ferryman, no landing, no indication of how to get across. The river stretched endlessly into the distance, far too wide to swim. It was vast and insurmountable.
The stories say that if the dead do not have a coin to pay for their passage across the river then they 
have to wander the banks of the river for 100 years. However, some of the stories aren’t exactly clear 
on which river’s bank the dead must wander. Most stories imply the dead are stuck on the shore of the 
Acheron, though in some stories they end up on the banks of the river Cocytus and some just say “a 
river.” This, of course, begs the question of how the dead who can’t pay to cross the Acheron end up 
stranded on the bank of a completely different river—does Charon let them onto the ferry and then 
take them to the bank of the Cocytus and deposit them there as punishment for not having a coin? That 
seems like a lot of extra work, doesn’t it? Why not just leave them where they are? 
Riffing on this confusion in the legends, I have a scene in Thereafter where Irene encounters three men 
from ancient Greece who end up arguing about what the stories actually say on the matter:
“The stories say—”
“Those without a coin—”
“Must wander the banks of the river Acheron—”
“Cocytus,” the second cut in.
“The legends don’t say that!” the first retorted.
“That’s speculation,” said the third.
“Doomed to wander the banks of a river for one hundred years,” the first said, raising his voice slightly to speak over his fellows.
Okay, well, that explained about the two rivers, Irene thought. The one at the hotel and the one here. 
There really were two rivers and two ferries; people had just gotten the stories confused and, over time, the two rivers had become one. 
The Cocytus is known as the river of wailing. In Dante’s Inferno, the Cocytus is a frozen lake that Satan is immersed in up to his waist. In Thereafter, the Cocytus becomes the river, on the banks of which, the dead without a coin end up gathered, most of them in crying in terror and despair (building on the Cocytus’s identity as the river of wailing). 
The Phlegethon is known as the river of fire and supposedly encircles Tartarus, the place bad souls go to 
be punished. Those familiar with the mythology will recognize Phlegethon and Tartarus in Book #3 of my 
Afterlife series, when it comes out next year. :-)
The Lethe is known as the river of forgetfulness from which the dead can drink and forget their past life; 
this river and its waters make an appearance in Book #5 of the series.
And finally, the Styx is known as the river of hatred. This may surprise those familiar with the legend of 
Achilles and the fact that his mother dipped him in the Styx to make him invulnerable, since the Styx is 
also known for its healing properties. The reason the Styx is known is the river of hatred is because in 
the Inferno, the wrathful and sullen dead were trapped in the Styx, doomed to continuously drown in 
its muddy waters. The Styx makes an appearance in the fourth book of my series, though it more closely 
resembles the original legends, before Dante got hold of it. :-)
And there you have it—a brief introduction to the five major rivers of the Greek afterlife. Knowing the 
rivers and their identity/nicknames is an important first step for any spirit venturing into the underworld 
that also wants to leave again :-)


About the Author:

Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats.

Author Contacts:
Website/Blog | Twitter | AmazonAuthor | Goodreads | Facebook 

Series Spotlight: Dream Series by Jacqueline Paige

In Our Dream
Dream Series
Part 1
Jacqueline Paige

Release date December, 10 2013

She’s a small town cop.  He’s an inmate undercover.  They meet in a dream.

Book Description:
Jennah Best left the adrenaline packed life of being a cop on the edge for a more peaceful place.  She escaped a marriage that almost destroyed her and now lives her life working for a small police station in the town of Ridge.  At her age, she’s accepted that it’s too late and too much work to start all over again, until she meets a man in a dream...
While young, Dominic Palmer has always proven he can get the job done.  Or at least, that was the case before he accepted a job and agreed to go undercover as an inmate. When months go by and there’s no word from his outside contact he wonders if he’s been left on the inside for good.  He’s fighting to stay alive and keep his sanity, but finds himself completely distracted by a mysterious woman he met in a dream...

Amazon | Smashwords

From A Dream
Dream Series
Part 2
Jacqueline Paige

Release date February 7 2014

She wakes up in a dark hole, alone.  He’ll stop at nothing to find her.

Book Description:
Jennah has found happiness. She wasn’t looking for it but isn’t about to give it up now that she has it. Everything she craved for years was now right in front of her--a man that makes her feel cherished, a peaceful life, and a job she enjoys. It all changes when she wakes up in a dark hole, alone, unarmed and unable to connect with the one man she’s grown to need.
Dominic realizes he is one of those men that wants the whole package of marriage and a family, and he’s found the woman to have that with. He’s going stir crazy having to stay hidden until the leader of a criminal organization is caught, but he’s more than willing to stay right here with her.
All of his plans evaporate when a vindictive criminal takes her from him as a hostage. He won’t rest until she’s in his arms again.

Amazon

After the Dream
Dream Series
Part 3
Jacqueline Paige

Release date March 7 2014

Brody believes he’s a normal man.  Tess has felt like a freak most of her life- except when she’s around one man.

Book Description:
Feeling less then worthy as a normal man surrounded by a team with special skills, Brody has to wonder why he’s a part of it.  If it weren’t for one team mate being there, he’d transfer back to normalcy.
Tess has always felt like a freak, even surrounded by others that are different she still feels like an outsider. Only one of her team mates make her feel like an everyday person.

Amazon


About the Author:

Jacqueline Paige lives in Ontario in a small town that’s part of the popular Georgian Triangle area.  No one has ever heard of Stayner, so she usually tells people she lives “near Collingwood” and no, she doesn’t ski at Blue Mountain or at all, in fact she’s not even fond of snow.
She began her writing career in 2006 and since her first published works in 2009 she hasn’t stopped.  Jacqueline describes her writing as “all things paranormal”, which she has proven is her niche with stories of witches, ghosts, physics and shifters now on the shelves.
When Jacqueline isn’t working at her ‘reality job’ or lost in her writing she spends time with her five children, most of whom are finally able to look after her instead of the other way around.  Together they do random road trips, that usually end up with them lost,  shopping trips where they push every button in the toy aisle, hiking when there’s enough time to escape and bizarre things like creating new daring recipes in the kitchen. She’s a grandmother to four (so far) and looks forward to corrupting many more in the years to come.

Author Contacts:

Website | Blog 

Author Interview and Review: Never Deal with Dragons by Lorenda Christensen

Never Deal with Dragons 

Book 1 of Dragon Trilogy 

by Lorenda Christensen

• Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
• Publisher: Carina Press (July 22, 2013)
• 
  

Our Review:

Picking up a book about dragons is not an automatic thing for me, but hey, good writing can lead me anywhere, so my mind was open. Regardless, I never expected to find myself laughing, feeling empathetic, and maybe a touch grossed out, all by the end of the first paragraph.

Myrna Banks is a mediator between the human population and the dragon population – not an easy task, but obviously one she is well equipped to handle – until her lousy ex, Trian, shows up to spoil an already problematic day. And a wonderful romp takes off from there.

Ms. Christensen’s writing is faultless, fun, and fast-paced. She deals with back story and setting with ease, while giving us vividly drawn characters and loads of humor. Even when danger and evil creep in, humor is not far off, and I found myself smiling right up to the last page.

Very well done.
-Cary Morgan Frates

Author Interview:
We are delighted to host an interview with Lorenda, and hope you enjoy this little foray into her life and writing. Lorenda, welcome.

Where are you from and from where/who did your love for writing come from?

I am from a small town in Southeastern Oklahoma just minutes from the Arkansas border. And if you ask any of my English teachers, my love of writing did not present itself until way after graduation! In fact, my mother worked as a journalist for a local paper during my high school years, and I distinctly remember thinking that writing for a living—with constant deadlines on your shoulders—would be the worst job in the world. And while I still haven’t gotten over my hatred of deadlines, the writing has grown on me. J

Can you say that your journey to publication was difficult? If so, what were the hardest moments to get through?

I’ve been to a couple of writer’s conferences, where successful authors stand up and talk about their 10, 15, or 20+ years of writing and the strings of rejections they had to wade through for that first “call”, and it makes me a little ashamed. Because fate was so nice to me. Never Deal with Dragons was my first finished manuscript.

Is that to say that I am a better writer because my “first” book got published? Haha. No. In fact, I think it just says that I am a total sissy. The real truth is that Never Deal with Dragons was my first finished manuscript only because it was the first book that had a plot cohesive enough to stick to the page. The rest of my attempts were so awful they didn’t make it past the first three chapters.

No, the hardest moment so far in my career came with Book #2 in this series. I sat down to write the darn thing and words came out of my fingertips…unfortunately they made no sense when stuck together. I wrote about 200k words, cried a bit, wacked at the mess a bit, cried some more, wondered if NDWD was going to be my one-hit-wonder book and I was a failure. My gloriously, wonderfully, lifesaving editor took the book that sucked and helped me to zero in on the major problems (and yes, there were hundreds of them).

I still had a ton of work to do (And my editor even more—Carina press editors are absolutely the best in the biz), but at least now the beginning and ending of the book sorta make sense after you read the middle.

I’m just about to start on Book #3 and I’m praying it goes a bit smoother.

How do you overcome i-suck-at this, that little voice in your head that tells you your writing isn’t good enough?

See question #2 above to see that Lord, yes, I live in that state of mind. It doesn’t help that there are books out there by the likes of Meredith Duran, Darynda Jones, Kristan Higgens, and Nalini Singh and more. All of these authors can write the crap out of a book.

But the thing that try to remind myself of? They all bring something different to the table. Meredith Duran is queen-of-the-prose, Darynda Jones has the action packed sarcasm market cornered, Kristan Higgens can make me shoot Pepsi through my nose anytime/anywhere with laughter, and Nalini Singh makes me feel like I’m going through menopause a decade too early with all the sexy sexy, hotflash-inducing love scenes.

All I can do is try to find what I can bring to the table. And then hope there are readers out there looking for it.

What is your dream vacation?

While I like talking to people, I’m primarily an introvert. That is to say that I get my energy from alone-time. So I’m pretty easy to please. Take me somewhere (or leave me at home) where I can veg out, enjoy the sun, and nap as much as I want.

I’ve decided I’m half reptile, so I prefer warm places – I love beaches so long as you don’t make me swim – but I’m equally happy wrapped in a fuzzy blanket and watching snow fall out my window.

Describe your writing style in five words.

Just get it on paper.

What movies are you currently excited to see?

Here is where I admit to being an enormous nerd. I love anything and everything sci-fi or fantasy related. (Can I change my vacation question to ComicCon?). I will watch every super-hero film that they put out, and anything written or directed by Joss Whedon. Which lately has been the same thing. J

What are you currently reading?

I just finished a major glom of all Kristan Higgens books, and I’ve been looking around for a good Linnea Sinclair-style Science Fiction Romance. Or a good historical romance. Or, well, anything romance. I take suggestions!

If you weren’t a writer, what other careers would you pursue?

Well, since I just started writing, I’m not exactly rolling in the dough. My day job consists of working in an accounting office, doing half a day of general accounting stuff, and the other half of the day writing little scripts to automate the boring stuff.

If you could create a holiday of your own, what would it be called?

The Day in Which the Pictures in my Head Magically Appear on Paper Without Typing

Or maybe we could just call it “Author Day”

For people who haven’t read your novel, how would you summarize the plot?

Dragon language translator Myrna Banks takes on a job working with her ex-boyfriend in hopes of securing a long-overdue promotion. Dragon-related hijinks ensue. (Did I mention I’m terrible at plot summaries?)

What are two of your pet-peeves?

Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m one of those annoying people who NOTICE bad grammar or misspelled words on public or business signs. They make me itch for a pen. (But I never manage to catch them in my own writing. Go figure.)

My other pet peeve? People who talk around a point but refuse to directly say it. (Yes, I’m pointing at you, politicians.) I want my words to count, and I think it’s a waste of time if we don’t say what we mean the first time.

To you, what makes a good story?

Something that makes me forget where I am, even for a single moment.

What usually turns you off about a story?

I’m a bit sheepish about this, but I’m a reader who skips scene settings. I could care less what color a book’s houses, dresses, hair, etc are. I’m always shocked to see book covers, because I read so much on my kindle nowadays that I have no clue what the characters are supposed to look like. So books that really spend a lot of time on this sort of thing – even if they’re historical – tend to bore me.

If you could collaborate with any author, who would you choose, and why?

Oh – this one is hard. I’d want to pick someone that doesn’t something I’m absolutely horrible with. So maybe someone like Tolkien who can spend chapters on descriptions and make it interesting.

What is on your night stand?

Right now? Lots of cough drops, my iPhone charger, a lamp, and my car keys.

What is your favorite book?

You can’t ask me this! Because it changes depending on the last book I read. Hmm. I’ll go with Meredith Duran’s Bound by Your Touch. Absolutely stunning.

Thank you, Lorenda, and good luck with Never Deal with Dragons!

Amazon | BN | Apple

Author Contacts:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Pinterest

Book Spotlight & Giveaway: The Hambledown Dream by Dean Mayes

The Hambledown Dream
by Dean Mayes

About the Book:

Australian Denny Banister had it all; a successful career, a passion for the guitar, and Sonya - the love of his life. Tragically, Denny is struck down with inoperable cancer. 

Andy DeVries has almost nothing; alienated from his family, moving through a dangerous Chicago underworld dealing in drugs, battling addiction while keeping a wavering hold on the only thing that matters to him: a place at a prestigious conservatory for classical guitar in Chicago. As Andy recovers from a near fatal overdose, he is plagued by dreams - memories of a love he has never felt, and a life he's never lived. Driven by the need for redemption and by the love for a woman he's never met, he begins a quest to find her, knowing her only by the memories of a stranger and the dreams of a place called Hambledown...

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Where you can purchase this book:

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon US

About the Author

Emerging onto the literary stage in 2010 when in his mid 30's, Adelaide based author and Pediatric ICU Nurse Dean Mayes describes himself as somewhat of a late bloomer, having almost given up on the prospect of ever being published. Dean had an idea for a story that he dearly wanted to tell however, and decided instead to blog the story rather than allow it to wither and die in his imagination.

Quite unexpectedly, the blog took off, quickly logging upwards of 3000 unique visits per month as a rapidly growing audience “tuned in” to Dean’s dream like tale of a young man who discovers he has taken on the memories and dreams of a complete stranger in the aftermath of a near fatal drug overdose.

Following a chance meeting with Canadian based publisher Central Avenue in mid 2009, Dean was signed by Creative Director Michelle Halket to an initial two year contract. In 2010, Dean’s humble blog became his debut novel “The Hambledown Dream” – a lyrical and moving romance about a young man’s journey on both sides of mortality. The novel has since gone on to receive global attention and critical acclaim.

Having established himself as an author of great passion and literary style, Dean set about penning a follow up novel that was not merely a repeat performance. After 2 years of meticulous research, Central Avenue Publishing released the powerful Australian family drama “Gifts of the Peramangk” in October 2012.

A third project, an experimental sci-fi novella entitled “The Regenesis Cluster”, was released in 2013. Dean describes this piece as an exploration of death and life, an artistic interpretation of reincarnation using words.

Dean is now working on his third feature length novel, the tentatively titled “The Recipient”.

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