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Archive for 'magic'



Myrenne Mae: Three Coins From a Dead Man’s Pocket (Excerpt)
Thursday, June 29th, 2023

A powerful druis with a thousand-year-old secret. An ancient soul plotting to destroy the barriers between the realms. And a defying love that breaks all the rules.

I can’t help but say–I love that hook. It was probably the easiest part of my book blurb to write, and it encompasses everything this story is, hinting at all the right parts. 

Three Coins From a Dead Man’s Pocket is Book 1 of the Realms of Souls Saga. This fantasy✨ steampunk ⚙️ romance is everything I love in a can’t-put-it-down kind of story:  a damsel to the rescue with a huge 💖(and she can wield a laser whip 😲), a love 📐 in a steampunk world with lots of elemental magic, a little instalove 😍 with an interested suitor who makes her pulse race every time his stormy gray eyes gaze into hers, a glimpse at immortality ☠️ in a complex world 🌍 with an invented religious system, an antagonist who craves power over the realms and doesn’t care how he gets it, and a family uncovered that has their own long-buried secrets…

After that description, how can you not want to read it? 😲

Okay, I hear you asking…but, Myrenne, what is the spice♨️🥵 in this book? Am I going to want to find my SO and, well, you know? 😏

Ahem…how about an excerpt? 

Thorben reached up, brushing a strand of dark hair away from Ava’s face. His fingertips grazed her cheek, cool and rough. Ava’s breath quickened, his caress causing a tidal wave of emotions to rush to the surface. It had been a long time since anyone had touched her in a romantic way. She had had too many responsibilities, too many people depending on her. So, Ava had buried her wants and desires, focusing on who she needed to be; a druis, a niece…a friend. But, being pursued—being desired—for the first time in a long time, made her balk at the position she had allowed herself to be put in.

He leaned forward, his breath cool against her skin, bringing her back to the moment. “Mé talé.” He whispered against her lips. “My treasure.”

Thorben brushed his velvet lips against Ava’s, and she sucked in a quick breath. He paused, waiting. And Ava decided in this moment—this one instance—she was going to claim back something for herself.

Delicately, she pressed her lips against his. He tasted like fresh mint and evening rain. The acceptance of his kiss made him eager, encouraging her to open for him. She allowed him to slide past her lips, exploring her with his cool, firm tongue.

Ava’s fingers tangled themselves in his dark hair and hauled him closer, crushing his mouth to hers. He titled his head, deepening the kiss, his fingers dancing along her ribcage.  His thick tongue swept inside her, along her lips, over her teeth, diving back inside for more. He moaned as her tongue parried his, back and forth, licking at the edges of his lips and planting soft kisses on his mouth.

Thorben’s hands circled her waist, pulling her onto his lap. He was desperately passionate, as if he were hungry for a person’s touch as much as she was. It made her want him more. She broke away from his kiss, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it to the side. His smooth chest gently shimmered in the evening light, and she again wondered at his heritage.

Catching her wrists, he pressed her palms to his bare chest, his thumbs lightly stroking the backside of her hands. His skin was cool to the touch. He breathed hard, his eyes dancing with lightning. A shaky hand brushed against Ava’s cheek.

“Thorben, are you alright?”

 “Don’t stop,” he whispered, his voice dark agony. “Please.” 

*~*~*

This is not, of course, the spiciest🥵 scene in the book–nope, not by a long shot. But, I can’t give all the goods away at first, now can I? 😏

If I’ve got you hooked and you are burning with curiosity to read Three Coins, let me first say…YAY! Secondly, how would you like to be a beta reader🤔? 

I’m doing one last beta reading session beginning July 1, 2023! If you don’t know what beta reading is, it’s a group of people who get to read books📚 before they are officially published. Beta readers are there for the author to offer feedback, ask questions, and tell their opinions on the characters and plot, helping the author make the book the best it can be! 

Want to Beta read and get your eyes 👀on it before anyone else? Sign up HERE.

You can also read the ENTIRE blurb AND be the first to know when my book releases by joining my email list HERE

If you are curious about how I began my writing journey (It’s an interesting story, actually) you can read my first guest blog on Delilah’s page HERE.

The next stop for Realms of Souls info is my Facebook group. I’ll have announcements for release date, merch, contests, freebies, and other thoughts about characters that I have no idea what to do with. And, occasionally, I feel the urge to make a video. You can hear my ramblings first hand if you follow me on TikTok

Thanks to Delilah for having me on her blog and I can’t wait until I can announce a release date this fall! 

~May your soul fly freely.
Myrenne

Sorchia Dubois: Zoraida Grey and The Scales of Justice (Contest)
Wednesday, August 1st, 2018

It’s launch day for Zoraida Grey and the Voodoo Queen—Book 2 in my Gothic/Fantasy trilogy about how a small town fortuneteller wreaks havoc in a haunted Scottish castle—and beyond. Voodoo Queen takes Zoraida into the Yucatan jungle in search of a long-lost relative who is supposed to be the only person the witches of Castle Logan fear.

Since Zoraida is a fortuneteller, she consults her tarot cards from time to time and knows quite a bit about astrology—among many other things. To celebrate the launch of Zoraida Grey and the Voodoo Queen, I’m pulling cards and talking about characters in the series.

Justice

The Justice Card shows a stern individual holding a two-edged sword and a set of scales. The card is associated with the Zodiac sign of Libra. In Zoraida Grey and the Family Stones, the first book in the series, we meet Granny and come to know her as a crazy herbalist—some say witch—who lives in the wilds of Arkansas and dispenses herbal remedies among other things. She’s raised Zoraida since Zoraida’s parents died in a tragic boating accident when Zoraida was three years old. While we know Granny has some ulterior motive for sending Zoraida to Scotland, it isn’t until Zoraida Grey and the Voodoo Queen that we get a glimpse of her real intention: To get revenge—or in Granny’s opinion, Justice—from the Logan witches for an ancient curse. She’s been working on her plan for a long, long time.

It just so happens that I’m a Libra, so I know that we Librans are a mellow bunch. We do, however, have a few ne’er-do-wells in our midst—Ma Barker, Lee Harvey Oswald (maybe just a patsy, which would be a very dark area of the sign), Bonnie Parker, Heinrich Himmler, Vladimir Putin, and Andrei Chikatilo, a prolific Russian serial killer who confessed to 56 murders. We also count Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, Michael Douglas, Julie Andrews, Carrie Fisher, Sigourney Weaver, Mahatma Ghandi, Jimmy Carter, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Oscar Wilde, Tom Petty, and Daniel Boone among our merry band. We seek balance and may do anything it takes to get it—up to and including rubbing out the individual causing the problem.

Birthstones for those born Libra can be peridot, lapis lazuli, opal, or agate. To celebrate the launch of Zoraida Grey and the Voodoo Queen, I’m giving away a hand-crafted birthstone pendant.

Drop by my Witchmageddon Page to enter the giveaway and to find more Pre-, During, and Post- Book Launch Festivities—Including a 99¢ SALE on Zoraida Grey and the Family Stones Book 1 in the series.

Zoraida Grey and the Voodoo Queen

Magic may save Zoraida’s skin, but what about her heart?

Zoraida Grey needs help. With the witchy Logan clan holding her best friend hostage in a haunted Scottish castle, she can’t trust anyone—certainly not beguiling but dangerous Shea Logan. And Al, her overprotective boyfriend, doesn’t believe in magic.

Only one creature strikes fear in the blackened hearts of the Logan witches. Trouble is Jock disappeared five centuries ago leaving a trail of destruction across the Gulf of Mexico. Now he’s stepped into a steaming pile of Voodoo.

Can Zoraida drag wayward Jock back to Scotland? And what’s she supposed to do with two men who promise completely different futures?

A Scottish wizard, stripped naked and painted blue—a Voodoo priestess bent on immortality—a yacht-load of Caribbean pirates. What can possibly go wrong?

Excerpt

“Tell them the story of our escape, Vera. They need to know what happened before they can decide what to do next. Even I don’t know the entire tale.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” says Shea. “Very lucky the curse didn’t affect Zoraida.”

“Yes, it is.” Magic snaps and crackles in Granny’s eyes. She focuses on Shea, a satisfied little smile on her wrinkled lips. “The night I hid the Stone of Adamantine, Ursula and that boy of hers was looking for me high and low. They thought I meant to take over the clan—and I could have, too. But I was weary of the castle and the endless feuding. It never entered their heads I didn’t want nothing to do with that thing. They biled up a spell and sent it after me. I heered ’em.”

Granny shudders despite the bright Arkansas sun beaming through the window. “Exiled from Castle Logan for eternity on pain of death. Death to all my kin. They meant to make me watch all my children die, knowing none would live to get revenge. Then the curse would have meant a slow end for me. We managed to turn it just enough—my sister and me.”

Buy Links
https://books2read.com/ZoraidaGrey2

About Sorchia DuBois

I always intended to be a writer but life, family, and bills got in the way—oh, I took some bad advice, too. I taught English for many years but in 2014, I returned to my original plan and published Just Like Gravity, my first full-length novel. Since then, I’ve been working on a Gothic trilogy which will be finished and published in 2018. Now, I live in deepest, darkest Missouri where I plan to write until they haul me away. I like a wee nip of Scotch and will drop everything to attend any Scottish festival I can get to.

Social Media Links
Website:  www.SorchiaDubois.com
Blog: https://www.sorchiadubois.com/sorchias-universe-the-bloga/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SorchiaDubois
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/SorchiaDubois/
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SorchiaD
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/SorchiaDuBois/e/B00B60NOUQ/
Goodreads  author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6879978.Sorchia_DuBois
Google +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SorchiaDuBois
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/sorchia-dubois
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorchiad/

Lynn Crain: When The Voices Are Talking (Contest)
Sunday, March 15th, 2015

When I moved to Vienna, Austria almost four years ago, the voices became eerily quiet. For those of you who aren’t writers, the voices we hear are frequently those of our characters or in some cases the narrator of our books. I figured it was time for me to have a break as I’d been hearing them for many, many years. Matter of fact, since I was twelve and I can’t tell you the number of times when they would be chattering in my head and I’d be answering them right back. I’d get the strange looks and blush furiously when I was younger. Then as I got older, I would either explain what was happening or I’d just smile and shrug, leaving people to figure it out themselves.

It’s a wonder that I was never told to shut up or talked to by a therapist or psychiatrist for those voices. Yes, those voices have told me they wanted to kill someone. I even had a villain do it once in my head while I was in public and I can only imagine what the expressions were on my face as I talked and wrote that one down in the local library. And it wasn’t until they stopped talking to me that I really understood the term writer’s block. But in my opinion, it wasn’t that I was blocked, it was they had stopped talking.

For the past three years, I would come into my office and sit down like I’d done every day for the past fifteen years. If I was lucky, I would clunk out five hundred to a thousand words and be happy with that even though I normally had written about five thousand words a day before my move. Those words felt forced and many were written without the characters yapping away at me. Yet, I had stories to write and worlds to build. I could not wait until I was in the mood.

Writing is what I do for a living. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. I’d learned more about the publishing business in the last twenty years so there wouldn’t be any surprises. I couldn’t nor wouldn’t give it up because they weren’t talking to me. I couldn’t afford to and this is a fallacy that many writers fall into, but it’s one that we all need to get over.

There are things that can be done where the characters don’t need to talk to you. Things like research, world building and blogs. Planning also falls under these auspices and so, I did those things when there was nothing else. I did things like start a group for sharing the promotions burden that every author has since I really feel each of us needs to care and nurture each other.

I listened to music, created play lists and blogs and series and did more research to the point I was almost getting hopeless. But the fact is writers write. They write when the weather is good, when it’s bad, when they feel good, when they feel bad and real writers come in and do it even when they think they can’t. Yes, it may seem forced and it may seem like you’re just going through the motions but those are the motions of being a writer.

However wrong this may seem, if you are plugging away every day, your confidence will start to build and will continue to do so. Sometimes, all that is needed for you to hear those voices is to regain your confidence. Sometimes it may just be the stress from every day living. Sometimes, it can be the stress from things you can’t control. For me, it was a little bit of everything.

I was living far away from my family. Things could go wrong. They did go wrong. And I had to realize that sometimes I couldn’t shape the world to be exactly how I wanted it to be. Sometimes, I had to accept it as it was. So, until that day, I decided I would do what I always loved to do, whether I had to force it or have an amazing moment where I would write. I needed to go through the motions and know that my time would come again.

Then one day came a drab and I wrote a little more about my characters. Then it was just a little tinkle, then it was flowing. And I knew I had a gusher the night I told my husband to go back to sleep because I was going to the office. The next morning he asked me why and I had to honestly say that they wouldn’t shut up. He gave a chuckle, knowing I was finally back and writing as much as my fingers would type daily. It had been a long time coming.

Now, I’m carrying a notebook in my purse again so I don’t overwhelm my poor little Note3 phone with all the written words for stories. I’m waking up early, falling asleep in my chair and talking with my characters in such a way that I’m sure people are going to ask if need help since I’m talking to myself a lot in public recently. I guess the trouble really comes about when I answer myself. And yes, I do have a story about that one for another time.

Until then, I’d love to hear from you about what you’d say if you saw one of your favorite authors talking to themselves. Would you ask what they were talking about? Or would you sit quietly and observe them to see if you could glean something about a new story? I can’t wait to hear from you! And to show you all some love, I’m doing a give-away today and picking one person randomly to give them a book from my back list or my upcoming April release, Night of the Blue Moon. Hope to talk to you all soon!

lcNightOfTheBlueMoon_LoRes

Night of the Blue Moon
April 1st Pre-order at Amazon, Smashwords and more.
April 15th Release at all eBook vendors.
This is book 4 in the Blue Moon Magic series.

Blue Moon Magic

One father.

Two mothers.

Four siblings.

One incredible story about that special night which changes them all. Forever.

All his life he felt he hadn’t belonged but it wasn’t until Clarity Langford appeared did he know the truth of it. Once that truth was revealed there was no going back for Connor Angus, only forward. He discovers he is the long thought dead son of pack Elite leader, Charles Langford. And with that knowledge comes a family full of sisters, mystery and longing for things he’s not sure he has any right to obtain and one of those things is Cordelia Sinclair.

NOTE: This is a NOVELLA with adult situations and language. It is not intended for those under 18 years of age.

Excerpt:

Who are you?

The voice was loud and clear. There was no mistaking that he had a telepathic link to this woman. More confused than ever, he shook his head. My name is Connor Logan Angus.

But you can’t be one of them.

I am a member of the Beta clan. I am the third son.

That can’t be.

And why not?

Can you link with them like you are with me?

I don’t know. I’ve never tried.

Whether you know it or not, I do.

How?

Only those of the same clan or family members can link. I’m an Elite. So what does that make you?

Connor sank back into the shadows even more. That sick feeling he had been having recently floated to the top again. That’s impossible. There’s no way I can be part of your clan. I don’t understand any of this.

That makes two of us.

lcHeadshot-250x315Bio: Award winning author Lynn Crain has done it all in her life. From nursing to geology, her life experiences have added to her detail rich stories. She loves writing full time as she weaves contemporary, fantasy, futuristic and paranormal tales, tame to erotic, for various publishers. Her home is in the desert southwest though her latest adventure has taken her to Vienna, Austria with her husband of many years as he works his dream job. You can find her on the web at www.lynncrain.blogspot.com. She loves hearing from her readers at lynncrain@cox.net.