Cover Reveal for Chantal Fernando's New Sizzler

Check out the sexy cover for Chantal Fernando's new romance novel Maybe This Time. Until we can get our hands on this hot book, check out Chantal's other great romances at Amazon.

Follow Chantal on Twitter and Facebook.

Excerpt and Cover Reveal for "Schiessl House" by M. Lauryl Lewis

Blog followers know M. Lauryl Lewis is the badass babe behind the sexy scary Grace series. As she works on book four Fallen from Grace (check out an excerpt here), Lauryl is also writing a novel titled Schiessl House. The creepy tale is still months away from enchanting readers, but we have an excerpt to share. Plus, check out that awesomely eerie cover.
 
 CHAPTER ONE: DEATH COMES 

The truth is, I was born dead. It was a consequence, I was told, of my mother not loving me. It wasn't the doctors or the nurses who brought me back to life. It wasn't my mother wrapping her arms around my lifeless newborn body nor was it her aching heart reaching out in desperate need of knowing me. She never held me. She never named me. As the story goes, she refused to even look at me. It wasn't the miracle of modern technology that brought me back from the land of shadows and silence. It was my father's tears that brought me to life, nearly two hours after my birth.

     I grew up without either of my parents in my life.  Beyond that first day, I didn’t know either of them.  The woman who raised me said that she had been there at my birth and the hours that followed.  She had witnessed me draw my first breaths as my father held my cold blue body to his chest.  My mother had thought I was a child of the Devil, implanted within her womb by aliens from space.  My father felt compelled to care for her even in her insanity, so for my own safety he painfully left me behind to be cared for by others.  I was told that he sobbed in the end when they took me from him.  I had never really thought badly of him for his decision.  After all, my life so far had been one filled with happiness and love.  At least that’s what I told myself and the rest of the world.

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Until we can get our hands on Schiessl House, we'll have to make due with the bloody awesome Grace books. Get all three at Amazon including the newest Dark Grace.

Also follow M. Lauryl Lewis at her website, blog, Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter.

"Ain't No Queen" Now Available

Now available at Amazon, Ain't No Queen is the second book in the Vivi Rios paranormal romance series. The price of the first book, Ain't No Angel, has been reduced to .99. Get your copy today.

Summary
In Ain’t No Angel, Vivi stole Hoyt’s heart and became the alpha of an all male half breed demon pack. That was the easy part.

As the mating frenzy begins, Vivi tries to create alliances with powerful female warriors and secure a safe haven for her pack. She also plans for a life with her cranky statue. When a rogue wizard in the Syndicate chooses Vivi as his mate, Hoyt is tormented by disturbing dreams and becomes convinced he will destroy Vivi.

With time running out, Vivi must battle to save her pack, win back the male she loves, and embrace the power hidden inside her.

Ain't No Alpha will be published in early 2014.

Interview with NA Romance Author Chantal Fernando

Chantal Fernando is the sassy indie author behind the sexy New Adult romance series Resisting Love. The first book Chase had readers hungry for more. Kade, Ryder & James soon followed. Now, she's working on a hot new novel titled Spin My Love. Let's learn more about this cool young author and her tantalizing books...

Q: How long have you been writing and when did you decide to indie publish? What was the biggest hurdle in going it alone?

A: I have been writing my whole life. I always loved English in school and would write short stories. In high school I wrote a lot of poetry, and after school I started to write a few novels but didn’t end up finishing them. Chase is the first one I ever actually finished.

I decided to indie publish about a month before Chase was published. There was a lot of hurdles I faced, and I wouldn’t have made it without help from a lot of amazing people. I knew what I wanted to write, but I had no idea about the ins and outs of the self-publishing world. I asked a lot of questions.

Q: Starting with Chase, you wrote the Resisting Love series. Can you explain the idea behind the books? Where did the inspiration come from?

A: I was inspired by my baby sister, who moved to the city looking for a place to rent on short notice. She came home telling me how she found a place to stay with two hot guys. I took that idea and turned it into my own story.

Q: Do you plan to write more in the series? If so, how many books do you envision in the series?

A: I will be working on a spin-off series, starting with Saxon. I’m not sure how many I will write just yet :P

Q: You’re currently working on Spin My Love. Can you tell us about the book? When do you hope to share it with fans?

A: Spin My Love is a contemporary romance about two childhood friends. The idea came to me in a dream, and I can’t wait to share it with everyone. I’m hoping to release in November this year.

***Add Spin My Love to your "to read" shelf on Goodreads.

Q: What drew you to contemporary romance as a genre? Do you plan to branch out to other genres as your career progresses?

A: I love reading and writing contemporary romance. I have written some paranormal romance in the past, which I may consider finishing and publishing in the future, but right now I am happy writing this genre.

Q: How do you come up with the names for your characters?

A: Names off my baby name list that I never got to use, or just random names that come to me.

Q: Chicken or the egg question. Do you create a character and build around him/her? Or do you imagine a concept and create characters which fit the idea?

A: Good question! I’ve actually done both in different books. But usually I create the character and build around him or her.

Q: Do you use anything to inspire you while you’re writing? Music, visual aids, etc? Also have you found ideas come to you more freely in particular places or at certain times of the day?

A: Music definitely. I wake up in the middle of the night a lot with new ideas. Also while I’m in the shower lol.

Q: When an idea hits you, do you start writing immediately or plot it out first?

A: I jot notes down, even if it’s just on my phone.

Q: When you read less than fawning reviews, how do you know when to use the critique to improve your future writing and when do you chalk up the criticism as different strokes for different folks?

A: I try to take from reviews what I can. I’m always looking to improve, to get better, and to work harder.

Q: I’ve read criticism from particular bloggers (Fangs for the Fantasy being one) about the lack of people of color and different sexual orientations in fiction. Do you take this lack of diversity into consideration when creating plots and characters?

A: My heroine in Chase is half Sri Lankan. I myself am Sri Lankan, so I found it fun to add because I could add small pieces of my culture in.

Q: Do word counts mean anything to you? Do you find your books top out at around the same lengths?

A: I just write until it stops flowing. They usually end up being around the same length.

Q: How big a deal is writer’s block for you and what do you do to shake it off?

A: If I find that ideas aren’t coming to me, I take a break. I concentrate on something else, I try not to get stressed. It’s worked for me so far.

Q: What books did you enjoy most in 2012?

A: I love books by Kristen Ashley. Motorcycle Man was a fave of mine.

Q: What are you plans for 2013 as an indie writer?

A: I’m going to write, write, write. I love it. I want to finish the projects I’m working on and produce work that my readers will love.

I actually just hit publish on James book three in the series. It’s an early surprise as its official release date was on the 31st!

***Add James to your "to-read" shelf at Goodreads.


Find Chantal's books at Amazon.

Follow Chantal on Twitter and Facebook.

Exclusive Excerpt from "God Attacks!" by J.R. Kiefer

God Attacks! is a daring horror tale by J.R. Kiefer. This first novel in a two books series envisions a very ominous version of God. Check out an exclusive excerpt from God Attacks! below then get your copy of the occult thriller at Amazon.

 

Summary

God is not dead; it has merely slept. It stirs from its enforced slumber and its dreams of annihilating that which created it in its own image, that which drove it mad—a blinded mankind.

Two ancient secret societies guard the secret of God. One of these occult orders wishes to enslave and control the abominable thought form that is God. The other wishes to destroy it and to free humanity from the fetters of beliefs capable of creating such monsters of unholy destruction. Their directive: What Man created, Man must destroy.

Caught in the midst of these turbulent cosmic forces is the sleeper incarnation of Kirt Tucker, a neurotic, semi-suicidal used-car salesman, and his companions: Roland, the country club golf pro, and Celia, the talented psychic. Join them on a non-stop, page-turning race to stay alive in the face of a psychotic deity and its God-awful minions.

God Attacks! is the first of two volumes of a tale where the world is turned upside down; where good and evil, and the shades of gray in between, blur in a belief-bending thrill-ride of a read.
 

Exclusive Excerpt from God Attacks!

“Listen, my uncle used to sell cars,” Brian said. “He told me never to sign up for any of the crap you guys try to sell. So, we don’t want it. Let’s just get the rest of this done. I gotta get my kid home.”

Kirt knew where this was going and felt his face heat in a blush of anger. His customer had switched from easy-going to grade-A asshole in seconds. He had to repair his rapport with the customers before it was beyond salvaging.

“At least let me tell you. . .”

A sharp pain along his inner thigh forestalled his words. He felt something pinching him—pinching hard. He pushed his chair away from his desk and looked down to his lap.

What the hell is that?

There was motion in his pocket. In dawning horror and disbelief he saw the fabric of his thin, brown slacks moving. However, it was the intense pain he felt cutting into his inner right leg that set off the shrieking cacophony in his head.

“What’s the matter?”

Kirt barely heard Brian’s words.

The baby in Tina’s arms suddenly emptied his lungs in a piercing wail that bounced around Kirt’s tiny office like an ambulance siren in an echo chamber.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Startled, wide-eyed, and mouth agape, Tina held her infant son in front of her, grasping him under both of his armpits.

The baby screamed and peddled it legs, trying to run from something, but instead only kicked the air helpless and panicked.

Kirt rocketed out of his chair, which careened backwards on its rollers and collided with the credenza behind him in a loud Thwump Bang! The credenza wobbled from the impact and a Buick golf clock, given him by the General Motors rep, fell from its perch atop the credenza to the floor by Kirt’s foot, shattering its plastic frame and faceplate upon the thin carpet.

 “You’re scaring my baby.” Brian shot to his feet with balled fists and such immediacy that Kirt thought he was going to take a poke at him. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

But even this was not enough to distract Kirt from the red hot needling pain hammering at his senses—from down there where the baby’s “toy” was.

“I’ll be back,” Kirt hissed through clenched teeth; he had to get somewhere private and extricate the stuffed animal from his pocket. It was the only thing he could think of that could be causing the stabbing agony so uncomfortably close to his groin.

Oh my God! What’s going on?

He maintained enough reason to realize if he pulled the thing out here, in his office, he’d have difficult questions to answer. He tore out of his office awkwardly contorted, hand clamped over the still moving lump in his pocket. Out of the corner of his vision he glimpsed Brian snatch the baby out of Tina’s hands and caught snippets of angry words and more of the baby’s wailing; but his brain couldn’t translate these sounds into anything coherent. He had to get to the restroom and stop whatever was causing the terrible stinging hurt along his right inner-thigh. It was more than just the pain now; it was also Kirt’s fear of the unknown—what was causing the pain—that drove him to panic.

“Hey, you ok, Kirt?” Isaac asked, turning the corner toward Kirt’s office and unwittingly blocking Kirt’s path to the sanctuary of the restroom. “I heard some yelling.”

“Can’t...talk...now.”

Words were difficult and felt like a wheelbarrow of rocks to be pushed up a mountain. Kirt’s vision narrowed, but his purpose was clear and burning. Oh, did it burn. All he saw was Isaac’s chest. He had to go through him; a detour around him was unthinkable, because he had to know what was happening and right NOW!

“Move!” Kirt put his arms forward, intending them to move Isaac aside, but instead, with his momentum, he ended up body-slamming the salesman. Isaac’s body fell to Kirt’s left and out of his sight. Kirt saw the opening to the bathroom door and he bolted for it; bent at an angle and hobbling, he reached it. With his free hand he pawed at the door handle and pushed it down and thrust the door open and flung his body into the bathroom.

Once inside, Kirt spun around and locked the door. Now, at last, he plunged his hand into his pocket and wrapped it around the pliable stuffed toy, yanked it from his pocket and held it at arm’s length in front of him.

In a surreal moment of disbelief he saw it had again transformed into the hideous prophet doll. He stared aghast at the thing gripped in his fist. It moved; its mouth opened and closed. Kirt smelled a terrible odor and realized it was the thing’s breath, rancid and existing in a measure beyond any sane proportion of what should be able to issue from an orifice as small as that of the plastic prophet’s mouth. He gawked at what he guessed had caused his pain. The prophet’s staff had transformed into a wriggling serpent.

The snake was dark and marked with virulent green patches. It sprang at Kirt’s hand, but was unable to strike him due to his fierce grip about the prophet doll’s lower half. If the prophet let go of its own grip on the serpent’s scaly thickness, the snake would have been able to strike downward and sink its thumbtack-sized fangs into his hand; but some law of reality appeared to still apply. The prophet doll, it seemed, could not move anything but its mouth. Kirt felt the reptile’s lower half trying to slither from his fist. Its touch was wet and revolting; it felt more earthworm than snake, the cold slimy feel of something that fed in the damp, beneath fetid and rotting corpses.

I’ll squeeze the shit out of you, you son-of-a-bitch!

He contracted his grip and squeezed until the muscles in his arm ached and the tendons in his wrist stood out like steel cables beneath the skin. He bared his teeth and a primitive grunt escaped his strained wild-eyed face. When he could take no more of the intense exertion, after he thought there was not another ounce of grip pressure left to him, he raised the doll above his head and hurled it to the floor with such force that it leapt off the hard ceramic tile and almost landed in the commode, before bouncing off the toilet’s rim and coming to rest upon the bathroom’s tiled floor.

Now only a doll lay there on the floor. A doll made of plastic, cloth and white fibrous stuffing. No blood spewed, no bones protruded from torn flesh.

Unsatisfied with the lack of gore he needed to see and still caught in the survival-mode panic of a person who opts to fight rather than to take flight, Kirt raised his right foot and aimed the heel of his polished, brown leather Doc Martin shoe at the prophet doll’s head. When his raised leg had reached its apex, just before he began the downward thrust of his foot to smash the horrid thing, he froze and stared incomprehensibly at the doll. The doll’s mouth had moved as he had wound his leg up to stomp it. He’d heard its voice, soft, yet menacing, a whisper of cockroach legs scuttling behind derelict walls. Icicles formed in Kirt’s shriveling testicles and he could taste his fear. The doll’s speech invoked an elemental dread in him, an unfamiliar primitive and jagged trepidation generated by an atrophied part of his brain that evolution had softened after humans had become ‘civilized’ and no longer had to fear being ripped apart, chewed, and eaten on a daily basis.

Kirt lowered his leg. In opposition to his brain’s command that he should now take flight, that horrible danger was present—that he was food—he knelt next to the thing, ready to spring away the instant the doll moved anything more than its mouth. Its smell swelled around him and infected his palate, which caused him to gag dryly. He swallowed and stopped breathing to avoid its reeking stench. Now that he was closer, he could make out its whispery words:

“Come near to hear and hearken: Let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats.”

Something else there was there, too. Beneath the words that Kirt distinctly heard spoken, another voice spoke in his head at the same time. This voice was not, however, a part of his catalog of internal voices that he’d become familiar with of late. This was utterly different, independent of his routine self-bashing and the reliving of the trauma of his Divorce or his Depression.

This was not him remembering the cold exactness of Beverley’s words, when she’d sat on the edge of the bed, prior to them turning in for the evening, and said in a matter-of-fact tone:

“I’ve got something to tell you: I don’t want to be married anymore.”

As if ending their fifteen years together was on par with the news that she needed to go to the grocery store in the morning to buy milk. No. Nor was this the constant rehashing of her words and rationales behind the Divorce—most he never knew existed, but she drove home with fierce, hurtful intensity—and her need to be free from him; to reject him.

It wasn’t the usual replay of that particularly dastardly internal tape; the really bad one.

“I have thought about coming back to you—but I don’t want to settle.”

Kirt was well familiar with his own internal hell-alogue and the constant berating drone in his head. What he heard now was not the product of his thoughts. That much was crystal clear. In this instance Kirt couldn’t push away, nor diminish this occupation of his mind by simply yell-thinking:

“Get out of my head! Leave me alone! Just chill, Bill.”

 The words he heard the doll utter, the sword of the lord and all that, and the words he heard in his mind but did not own, overlapped and intertwined, but he could understand them nonetheless and the underlying message was:

“Enemy of God! You must pay for your Godmaking sin. Your death and unending torment will please God. You cannot defeat Him!”

“Nooo!” Kirt yelled. “WHAT…ARE…YOU?”

He surged to his feet to distance himself from the prophet’s ghoulish double sermon. Now he did bring his foot down upon the thing. He worked his leg like a piston and stomped the horrid toy, which transformed into a walrus again somewhere between the fourth and fifth blow of his heel, until the jarring action of his stomps made his shin scream in protest and demanded he stop. Panting, he left the doll there and stared with disbelief at its torn, shredded and misshapen form. It was no longer something a child should play with, if ever it had been. Now it was silent and still.

What the hell did I just kill?

Keeping one eye on the thing, Kirt undid his belt and fumbled with the button and zipper of his slacks until he had them undone as well. He lowered his slacks and inspected the area of his thigh that continued to sting, though the pain had abated since he’d fled his office. He gasped when he saw that a large, purplish blotch covered the affected quarter-sized area like a bad grape juice stain. At the center of the discolored skin he poked his index finger gingerly at two tiny puncture marks. The holes oozed a small amount of blood mixed with some clear fluid he could not identify. He winced and pulled his finger back.

Damned thing bit me!

Kirt’s head began to spin. He steadied himself with his left hand on the sink’s white porcelain coolness and with the other turned on the faucet. The hiss and burble of flowing water comforted Kirt in a strange way; the simple, everyday sound brought normalcy to his senses. He ran his fingers under the tap. Cupping his hands, he filled them—almost prayerfully—with cold water and bent forward to splash his face and wash away something he couldn’t define.

Face dripping, he looked up and into the mirror.

Kirt didn’t see the familiar self that greeted him every morning when he shaved. He didn’t see the small scar under his full bottom lip he’d acquired when at ten–years old he’d fallen out of the old oak tree his dad had told him not to climb, and for which he received the strappin’ he’d been told he’d get if he disobeyed.

His bottom lip wasn’t full now either; it was thinner, stronger.

Kirt’s nose now appeared a little wider than it should be, no longer bent at that familiar soft angle in the middle where a Marine had clocked him years ago in the Navy, when Kirt had defended a guy from one of the Marine’s drunken buddies.

His complexion now appeared in the mirror to be tanned, rough, weathered. Kirt burned in the sun, he did not tan. And, his face didn’t have the mileage that was reflecting back…on his face! And the beard—that coarse, bristling, black thickness hadn’t been there this morning when he’d looked in the mirror wishing he was headed anywhere except to work. Kirt’s red tie was also transformed, now a red design of some sort, familiar, yet unremembered, a shape splayed across a. . .

. . .tunic?

. . .covering some type of chain mail that, Kirt noticed with not a little anxiety, appeared to have actually been used at some point for what it had been fashioned for: Armor.

But, it was the eyes that stared back at him that sent his mind reeling. Those eyes were his eyes: Blue-gray, familiar, self-reflecting, they didn’t belong to the face of the man in the mirror. Kirt Tucker’s eyes shouldn’t be in someone else’s face. That was fundamentally wrong.

Yes, there was something definitely wrong with the Universe.

Kirt’s mental circuitry chose that moment to protect him and blew a breaker: His world began to turn into gray speckling. Before he fell and his head hit the rim of the toilet, on his way down into the darkness, Kirt heard a voice. It was at once his voice, but not his voice. The authoritative voice spoke to him in accent-cloaked words that Kirt heard, but did not understand:

“Min' me; min' ye.”
 

    Then the world turned at a right angle and there was a blinding flash of light.

 

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Follow J.R. at his website, Twitter, and Goodreads.

"Dark Grace" by M. Lauryl Lewis is FREE from Aug. 16-18

Dark Grace is FREE at Amazon  from August 16-18! Get your copy before it's too late!
 
Summary
The dead rose overnight, claiming the world as their own. A small group of survivors continue to struggle day to day. Now running from both the dead and the living, they will travel from the shores of Puget Sound to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Death and destruction will constantly be at their heels. Trusts have been broken, and the group separated.

Intended for mature audiences due to graphic gore, explicit sexual situations, and language.

Book Three of THE GRACE SERIES

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Find the Grace books at Amazon.

Follow M. Lauryl Lewis at her website, blog, Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter.

"Fallen From Grace" Excerpt

The badass zombie series by M. Lauryl Lewis is sexy and scary in one sizzling bloody headshot. Dark Grace was released in June and continues the erotic horror series' trend of awesome. While Fallen From Grace won't be published until late autumn/early winter, Lauryl has been kind enough to share an excerpt with her fans.

 

FALLEN FROM GRACE

I was unable to unlock my eyes from those of the creature staring back at me. All I could hear in the background were Susan’s sobs, and Abbey screaming. I was unable to make out her words. Gunfire brought me out of the trance I was in, and within a split second the tall creature before me was slumped to the ground. It wasn’t dead, just maimed. I aimed my pistol at its head and fired. It was, oddly, a clean kill. There was no splatter as a result of its head wound. The large maggot-like creature unattached itself from the Runner and began crawling across the asphalt toward me. It was slow and silent as it made its way forward. Not wanting to waste ammo on it, I kicked at its head until it stopped heaving itself toward me. A thick yellow-brown substance seeped from the wound I had inflicted upon its head. The resulting ammonia-like odor was unbearable. I covered my mouth and nose and began coughing. More gunfire in the background caused me to look around. Abbey was kneeling next to Susan. I hadn’t seen such look of despair on her face since the day her sister, Kelsey, had died. Susan looked pale and I knew she was in shock. Her face was bruising and her arm hung limply at her side.

 

As badly as I wanted to rush to her side, my head was buzzing with more of the dead. “Ring around the Rosie” filled the air around us once again with the occasional giggle. There were at least five of them, running around in the shadows of the building and a few stray vehicles. I joined the men and Bobby in taking a stance and quietly guardian the perimeter. There was an ominous feeling heavy in the air around us. It sat heavily upon my shoulders and seemed to fill my lungs. Aside from the children’s song being chanted sporadically and Abbey crying, even the waves from the ocean seemed quiet.

 

“We need to get Sue back into the safe room!” yelled Boggs. “Now!”

 

“They’re all around us,” I said as loudly as I dared.

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Find the Grace books at Amazon.

Follow M. Lauryl Lewis at her website, blog, Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter.

Book Showcase: Ice Cream & Aesop by Keir McCabe

A stunning new book by indie author Keir McCabe. Ice Cream & Aesop is a frank and beautiful journey into the human condition. Get your copy today. Also, follow Keir at Goodreads.

Summary
Solomon McGrath is 29 years old, homeless, and living on the former grounds of Jacobs Ice Cream; a haven for the Rough Sleepers and Street Drinkers of a small town. Based on real events, Ice Cream & Aesop is Solomon’s story; the story of one man’s descent into the gutter, told through the fables of Aesop.