Good morning everyone! It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. To those who observe it, Happy Easter! To those who don’t, Happy Beautiful Sunday! Okay, now, on to a topic a little less…. Eastery!

My husband and I live in southern Louisiana, and I do mean southern. As in, Cajun Country. For those who don’t know, Cajun Country is anywhere south of Interstate 10 in southwest Louisiana and while it’s not all moss-covered-tree swamps, the majority of it is water-based. People down here move to their own beat, it’s called Zydeco – which is a blend of blues, R&B and the music indigenous to the Louisiana Creole and Native peoples of Louisiana. Zydeco blends guitar, accordion and washboard (yes, old-fashioned laundry scrub boards) and for those not used to the sound, may be an acquired taste. I love it!

There are always fun things to do around here, when the evil-day-job allows for such things. Our favorite thing has to be going to the Cameron Parish National Wildlife Refuge and driving their Pintail Wildlife Drive. Pintail is a 3 mile gravel drive though a wet-plains type of environment. They have a boardwalk you can enjoy. In the winter months, the area becomes host to millions (literally!) of birds. I now know to where all the birds fly south! It seemed that way this winter at least, because you saw more birds than water! We see all types of wildlife, from the birds, hatchlings, nutria rat, to the big ones – alligators! We think we even saw a bald eagle one day, but couldn’t get a close enough photo to decide either way.

We count gators as we do a slow cruise, and the highest we’ve counted is 105 in just that 3 mile loop. And no, we don’t get out of the vehicle! First, because it’s posted that you can only exit your vehicle at the boardwalk. Two, we aren’t idiots! Gators can move fast when they want to, and I’ve seen videos where they can rip the bumper off a truck, I’m not tempting them with my freakin’ legs! While I admire that gators are basically living dinosaurs, I give them much respect and a wide berth! (That photo? That’s taken from our truck which is about 20 feet or so away from them. Yeah, big boys!)

I have to state, here and now, a few facts about me… I was born and raised in the mid-west so I’m not a Cajun, not anywhere near a native, and my husband was raised in northern Louisiana so he can’t claim to be Cajun either. And I’m no expert on the subject, so come on down sometime and explore for yourselves! We’d love for you to visit!

https://www.bookstrand.com/book/the-dragons-soul-xan

So, have you read any of my Night Fall series? The 11th story in the series is set to release on April 25th! Woot! I promise if you start with that story, you won’t be lost, but wouldn’t you rather immerse yourself in the darkness? All the stories, except for Silent Knight and My Sweet Succubus are novellas. Those two are novelettes—slightly longer than short stories. So, you really do have time to blow through the books before Bad to the Bone arrives…

And it should go without my saying that ALL the stories are sexy as hell. Because I’m a tease, I’m letting you look inside the beginning of Bad to the Bone. Read all of chapter one below. See if you can resist ordering so you can have the rest of the story…  😉

For a chance to win your choice of one of my previously released
Night Fall series stories, answer me this!

Do you love paranormal romance? If so, what flavor of heroes
do you prefer—vampires, werewolves, other shifters, witches, fairies?

(Click on a cover if you’d like to learn more!)

Bad to the Bone

One night of pleasure…

His name is Viper–a dark mysterious enigma who rules the seedy, dangerous vampiric underworld. For one night, he will escape his murky prison and tempt an innocent.

…can last a lifetime…

Beautiful Mariah haunts him. Lures him from his den with a glimpse of his past. One she doesn’t remember. This night, he’ll be her dream lover. He’ll seduce her, make her fall in love with him–then leave her. Again.

One night of pleasure is all they must know.

But Viper leaves her a clue. One he hopes deep down will lead her back to him although he dreads the consequences, because he’s not the same man he was. He’s not a man at all…

Pre-order your copy here!

Excerpt from Bad to the Bone…

One week ago…

Slim hips swished beneath a short, flirty skirt, drawing his gaze like iron filings to a magnet. The splash of large pink flowers on white stood out like a beacon in the darkness. Beneath the hem stretched a pair of nude legs, toned, and nicely curved at the ankles. Perfectly made to lightly clasp a man’s waist as he slid into moist heat…

He suppressed a low, rumbling growl from the beast rising inside. Something he rarely bothered to do in the squalid dens he roamed most nights. The creature lurking deep within was a sexual animal, a lustful, ravenous host who found partners only too willing to let him feast. But this woman was different. Her soul was pure. Her mind unawakened to the darkness.

He followed her as she left her apartment, sticking to the shadows, ducking into stairwells when she looked behind her as though checking whether someone followed. A frown marred her smooth brow, and her lips tightened. The clip of her heels on the pavement quickened.

Shoulder-length, flyaway brown hair bobbed across the tops of slender shoulders. The creamy skin of her exposed arms and legs swung in a rhythm that his heart picked up and matched, beat for stride.

Feeling more than ever like the true predator he was, he tamped down the shame that burned like battery acid in his stomach and continued stalking the woman who walked more briskly now along the darkened sidewalk.

When she turned onto a crowded walkway, her shoulders sank and her footsteps slowed as she relaxed.

Now, as she mingled with others strolling along the promenade, she believed herself safe. Little did she know, but her “spontaneous” decision to leave her apartment had been at his suggestion—a message telegraphed with tantalizing snippets of the smell of fresh salt air, the caress of a soft breeze, and a glimpse of sensual pleasure.

She hadn’t heeded her own natural inhibition. Hadn’t paused to check the clock and note the waning evening hours. Instead, she’d made her decision, wriggled into a sexy little skirt and snug pink tee, slid her feet into strapless sandals and bounded down the stairs, ready to kick off winter’s gloom in an unseasonably warm spring night.

He’d made sure she didn’t glance even once at the calendar resting on the bureau in her foyer. Nothing would trigger a fleeting memory. And while he’d provided himself the opportunity to see her, he’d decided days ago he wouldn’t use his persuasive gifts to bring her straight into his arms.

Tonight, he wanted to savor a natural seduction. Read the rest of this entry »

My daughter is in Italy attending a real estate seminar. She is also a coach, just like I was for several years. She works for the same mentor I loved, and who trained me to be a great saleswoman. Without his backing, I knew I was going to be trampled to death with the highly competitive field of knife-throwers-in-the-back. I felt I was too nice to sell.

I learned so much, and laughed so much, hearing all the mistakes people make in that business. I laugh about all the mistakes I’ve also made in writing. Some of the naïve views I had about writers and the writing process.

So Christen dropped the bomb that my mentor told a story about me in the seminar today. I’m just a bit obsessive about these sorts of things. I’m dying to know what the story is. Was it the bathing suit story? Or the time I sold a condo to a couple who looked like they were both women, and the title company informed them California (at that time) didn’t allow them to take title as husband and wife. And when one of them stood up, grabbed the back of her pants and said, “But I am a man,” we thought we were going to see the full Monty, but she got out her driver’s license, proving she was in fact, a man.

One of my old pals reminded me that I used to sleep under the stage at these big events, before I was one of the ones on stage. That way, I got a front row seat! Or the fact that I taught a whole bunch of agents I was training how to ride the service elevators so we didn’t have to wait to be part of the crowd waiting for one and running out of time to pee.

I also remember my son, who became a Navy SEAL, was 5 and spoke to my mentor at that time. “You know my mom, Sharon Hamilton?” And of course he did. “I think she’s a great Realtor,” Mike answered. My son replied, “Yes she is. She’s the best Realtor in the whole world. Did you know that?” He walked out of the ice cream store without looking back, satisfied he’d laid the proper facts on him.

Our past makes up so much of our stories. All the people we met, the families we raised, the seminars we went to, and churches we attended. Strange family gatherings. It’s all soup and it goes into the writer’s toolkit, right?

Have you bought your copy of Jake yet?

How about my first paranormal SEAL: The Trident Legacy?

See you next time. I’ll bet you have some fun stories as well.

Sharon Hamilton

Hi, all! Thanks go to Delilah for allowing me to take over her blog on this Wednesday.

I’m going to talk about my penchant for using unusual supernatural beings in my exciting new release No Ordinary Fairy.  I will also give you the opportunity to win an ebook of the novella and an Amazon gift card!

Whenever I set out to write a story I first look around to myth and fairy tales to see what people or elements I could utilize that are a little fresher. I have nothing against vampires and werewolves and do include them in my stories, but I feel like they’ve had their place in the sun. So instead, I look for unusual creatures who don’t normally grace the pages of fiction.

For No Ordinary Fairy, which is a novella setting the stage for a shifter war series I turned to Polish myths and the stories of the Vila/Vilas, who are supposedly deadly…but I think they’re misunderstood. Pani, the heroine of NOF, is one such being. She is just trying to live a quiet life when she encounters Rafe, a gorgeous mountain lion shifter who has lost his ability to shift. Vila are not normally written in paranormal romance, which is one of the things that appealed to me about them. There are so many tales about them: that they are the spirits of women who had died. Alternatively, they have control over the winds, and make the earth shake from the force of their magic. When angered, they will entrance and dance men to death.

Whew! Some kind of fairy, huh? I hope that you enjoy Pani and Rafe as much as I enjoyed writing them. They are the first story in a larger series arc that will take the shifters in this world to the point of war. I will be looking for other unusual and interesting paranormals in the years to come. There are so many! If I could write about them all I would, but I’d need unlimited time. It’s times like these I wish I were one of my immortal Elementals.

Here is a taste of No Ordinary Fairy:

She felt a tug again, a presence to the right, deeper into the woods. There was something else too, a spirit she couldn’t identify. Not a shifter. Pani focused. She could feel shifter birds and foxes scattered around the area, but those weren’t what drew her attention. It felt like a shifter, but not a shifter, and its signature danced on the wind like a blast of cold Arctic air.

“Rafe, do you sense that?”

He looked at her with a dash of gold in his green eyes. For a moment, the cat looked at her, pleading, begging her to release it. He lifted his head and sniffed, so like a cat that she felt the presence of the lion surround her. Her Vila flowed out, the crown of gleaming gemstones beginning to take shape on her head. If she could reach the cat, maybe she could free it.

There was a mournful howl, unearthly and shrill, from somewhere in the distance.

“That’s not a coyote. Or a wolf,” Rafe said. “That sounds almost human, but not like any human I’ve met.”

Using her summoned Vila senses, Pani flowed out toward the sound, but could find no trail to lead her to the noise. It, and the strange sense of malevolence, vanished. She tested the air, trying to capture the feeling of the “other” so she could identify it again. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it.

Rafe growled deep in his throat and she turned back to him.

“Do you have any of your abilities?” she asked, looking up at him to see frustration crawl across his face.

His fists clenched and his body was so tight she thought his muscles might explode.

“I still have better reflexes, and acute senses of smell and hearing. I have enhanced tracking, superior to any human. But I can’t shift. My cat paces around inside me, but he can’t get out.”

He ground his teeth and he slammed one fist into another. He looked over at her with those eyes so like the color of her favorite forest trees.

“I thought you would know where he was. You’re a Vila. You like dogs.” He looked at her for a long minute. “You’re supposed to make men want to follow you anywhere, but you don’t seem to be that dangerous.”

Mocking laughter. Touching. Unwanted hands. The savage compliments that tasted like rage. The chase. The lure. Deep. Deeper. Into the forest. Come, little man, come. Teasing. Dancing. Deeper. Deeper. The forest. The forest. The forest. Screams. Pleas.

Nothing.

Pani looked at him, glad he didn’t have psychic ability, glad that his powers were diminished at the moment. If he hadn’t been stunted, she wondered if he’d be able to smell the past on her, the wrongness of what had happened.

Of what she’d had to do.

Contest

Want to win a ebook of No Ordinary Fairy as well as a $10 Amazon gift card? Just leave a comment on my Facebook author page between now and the end of the month, and I will draw one random name as the lucky winner. As always I welcome feedback. If you care to drop me a line either at my website (www.clairedavon.com) or on my Facebook author page.

Thanks again to Delilah for hosting me! I had a blast!

Happy reading!

Claire Davon

I thought I’d mention it. Both Shattered Souls and Lost Souls are only $0.99 right now. If you don’t know a thing about them, I’ll tell you that I think they are the best-written books I’ve produced. The stories are deep, the mysteries and the spookiness will keep you on the edge of your seat. If you love a fiesty heroine, a sexy hero and a different kind of paranormal story, you will love these two books! Get them now while the price is dirt-cheap!

From popular author Delilah Devlin comes the unforgettable heroine, Caitlyn O’Connell—a psychic ex-cop who’s hell-bent on redemption.

Caitlyn O’Connell had it all: a career with the Memphis PD, a passionate marriage, and the satisfaction that her work made a difference in the world. But she also had a secret, a supernatural “gift” that cost her everything. Now she scrapes by as a private investigator, taking cases the cops won’t touch and counting down the minutes until happy hour.

But when Sam Pierce, her former partner and estranged ex-husband, comes to her for help with a bizarre murder case, Cait can’t say no. And not just because Sam is still as irresistibly sexy as he was on the day they met. Something sinister—and demonic—is terrorizing Memphis, leaving a bloody trail of bodies and clues only Cait can read. Together she and Sam will venture into a dark world of magic and unholy terror, hunting a killer who will lead them to the brink of reality as they know it—and back into the thrall of their stormy past. Steamy and suspenseful, Shattered Souls is the pulse-quickening new offering from fan favorite romance author Delilah Devlin.

Get your copy here!

Fan favorite Delilah Devlin delivers her second paranormal romantic thriller featuring unforgettable heroine, Caitlyn O’Connell. This time, the psychic PI joins her police detective ex-husband to find a demon pulling women into the past to commit their murders in a seedy Memphis hotel.

Private Investigator Caitlyn O’Connell is tapped by Memphis PD to discover who has been using a Memphis hotel as his killing ground. Women are going missing, and their bodies are found inside the walls of the hotel. But the bodies themselves? They appear to have been murdered in the distant past. With ghosthunters and cops crawling all over the crime scene, Cait and her detective ex-husband Sam Pierce race to find the demon responsible before he kills again.

Get your copy here!

UPDATE: The winner is…Diana Tidlund!

* * * * *

I grew up in a magical realm where winter never comes, we find dollars on the seashore, stars in the water and mermaids in warm springs. Yes, of course, that place is Florida. The dollars are shells, the stars are fish and the mermaids are in Weeki Wachee. A state park that started out as a privately-owned tourist attraction in the 1940’s, it features natural springs that remain 74 degrees all year long.

Local kids could take swimming lessons there. Every morning for an enchanted two weeks in the summer, I waited beside Highway 19 for the repurposed school bus that transported me an hour away to Weeki Wachee. I wore my bathing suit underneath my shorts and carried my towel and a little cash for a snack.

When we arrived at the Springs, we entered the section roped off for lessons and set our bags and towels down on the white sand. Shivering, we tiptoed into the chilly water an inch at a time. I will never forget the first day when I put my face in the water and blew bubbles, then mastered floating on my back. By the end of the week, I was dog-paddling and within a summer or two, jumping off the high dive.

Along with my swimming ability, I developed a fascination with mermaids. I watched the Weeki Wachee sirens perform their show countless times over the years and never lost my admiration for their athletic skill and graceful movements. As a teen, I wanted desperately to become one of them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.

I practically lived in the water all summer, and I gained a healthy respect for it. Many times, when we played in the Atlantic at New Smyrna or Daytona Beach, powerful waves snatched me and rolled me over and over until they spit me out on the sand, wheezing and sputtering salt water. Every year undertow or rip currents pulled a few people out to sea. Water has power and it can be marvelous or terrifying, or both.

When I decided to write my novel, Water Dreams, I chose mermaids for the primary paranormal feature. I wanted a different take on the myth and so I created the Nerei, a race of shapeshifting mermaids and mermen, whose form on land is indistinguishable from humans. They want one thing above all else: freedom from water. Until they achieve that, they must immerse themselves frequently to restore their bodies.

The heroine of my story is Nik, a young woman from Tarpon Springs, Florida, who is terrified of water. She doesn’t know how or why she fears it so much, but she won’t have anything to do with it, including going near the ocean or pools.

The Nerei contact Nik and tell her they believe she holds the solution to their problem because she shares their DNA and can stay away from water. She doesn’t believe them and refuses to have anything to do with them.

Bas is a young merman tasked with obtaining Nik’s cooperation. He doesn’t like humans much but he is fascinated with Nik. He can’t give up on convincing her to help the Nerei and he wants to keep seeing her. However, his people forbid relationships between their kinds and breaking the law is punishable by death.

Water Dreams is the story of how Nik and Bas bridge the gulf between them. It is also the story of how Nik resolves her water phobia. She experiences dreams about water throughout the book. They start as paralyzing nightmares and progress during the story, becoming less frightening as she grows stronger, giving her hints and clues about how to work out her problems. Eventually, she gains control of the dreams, as she conquers her fear of water and overcomes the dilemmas presented by the Nerei.

Water Dreams

Here is an excerpt from Water Dreams:

She waded in, appreciating the satiny water on her skin, enveloping her naked body from her waist down, a velvety embrace. She looked at the stars glowing above her, and the full moon lighting the sky, making a shining path on the cenote. She listened to the tree branches soughing in the breeze, the Whippoorwills calling. There was a sense of timelessness about the moment that made her feel like a twig in a river. She created a tiny ripple in the stream as it passed along. The cenote and the woods were there long before she arrived, and would endure long after she was gone.

Nik dove into the water, gasping at the cold. She swam several hard strokes until the blood sang in her veins, warming her inside out, then turned over onto her back and floated.

When she heard splashing behind her, Nik gasped, imagining an eerie creature shared the depths of this pond with her. However, Nik saw a familiar shape and realized Bas was swimming with her. He was in his Nerei form. His massive tail slapped the water, arcing radiant drops over Nik’s head and into her face. She spluttered, going under for a minute before surfacing behind him. She didn’t have a tail to splash Bas, but she surprised him, and dashed him with a handful of water to the face. They played for a little while, chasing one another and laughing.

Bas had a huge advantage. Because he swam so much faster, she couldn’t get away from him. Bas caught her, held her close to him, and looked into her eyes. In the moonlight, Nik could see Bas well. He smiled at her. He circled her waist with one arm. He used his other hand to stroke Nik’s hair. Bas’ chest pinned Nik’s naked torso against him and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Both hot and cold swept over her at the same instant, a tsunami of sensations she had never imagined, much less experienced. She feared she might pass out. Bas didn’t say a word, but he lowered his mouth to Nik’s and kissed her, first softly and then hard. Nik kissed him back, her head spinning.

Get your copy here!

Contest

And now for the contest. For a chance to win a $5.00 Amazon gift card, please comment on this blog with something about mermaids. It doesn’t matter what it is, just share. I’ll put the names of everyone who comments in a list and draw one at random. I will announce the winner in a couple of days and will need that person’s email address to send the gift card. It’s just a token to say thank you for reading my blog, but you can get one or two eBooks, if you use it wisely.

About the Author

Katherine started making up stories in grade school and always intended to write novels someday but she put off creating fiction while she raised her family and worked as a clinical social worker at four different Veterans Affairs Medical Centers around the country. Although devastated to learn that her first career choice—mermaid, was not realistic, Katherine found helping veterans and their families fulfilling. She lives with her husband in Homosassa, Florida and Falling Waters, West Virginia. Water Dreams, Katherine’s debut novel, is a paranormal romance set in Tarpon Springs, Florida and is the first book in the Love’s Siren Song series. It is available in print or e-book from Foundations, LLC, Amazon, and other retail sites.

Please visit me at:
Website: https://katherineeddingersmits.weebly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatherineSmits
Twitter: https://twitter.com/katherinesmits