No kidding this time, I have a winner—but you have to wait to see who until the end of this post!

So, I think you know quite a bit about the book by now. You know it’s sexy as HELL. You know the hero is a powerful gargoyle come to life at the touch of my gifted (or cursed, depending on your point of view) heroine.

Maybe you don’t know the kind of research I did for this story. Or that I have a love of mythology and folklore that feeds my imagination. In this case, I decided to visit old friends.

When I was a third grader and very bored with the pace of my schooling, I had a teacher whose bookshelf wasn’t limited to children’s books. Every day when I’d dashed through the reading lesson, she allowed me to take down her copy of Bullfinch’s Mythology, and I’d get lost inside fantastic tales about Pandora and her endless curiosity, proud Achilles and his fatal flaw, but especially, the original bad boy, Hades.

Even then, I’d read the story of his abduction of Persephone and wonder why the girl didn’t grow up and let go of her mother’s apron strings to appreciate her man’s single-minded devotion.

Yeah, I know. Can’t you just see a skinny, straggly-haired little blonde with her nose forever in that book? I hated moving up in grade because I had to leave my own special dog-earred copy of Bullfinch, but by then, I’d discovered the joys of the library and continued to feed my addiction.

So keep in mind when you read Stone’s Embrace that I had fun re-envisioning Hades and his Underworld.This won’t be the last you’ll see of him.

Here’s a little peek at mighty Hades…

Petra followed Octavius’s footsteps, through a long stone tunnel in unrelieved darkness, only the crunch of his feet on the uneven floor to guide her.

A large fire pit dominated the center of the room. Small boulders formed a ring around it with metal fittings in the ceiling above and sunk into rocks ringing the pit. It was a crude smelter of sorts, she guessed, from the number of implements resting in the hot fire.
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