Wednesday, April 29, 2015

New Release: The Devil's Wingman


Blurb: After the death of her father and her own serious issues, Kara Maven decides to move back to her hometown to complete her senior year at Belman University. She settles into life on campus when her world is shaken by a handsome bad boy with a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dominic Benenati is a half-demon Damamah, or whisperer, whose role on earth is to ensure Hell’s population thrives by pushing humans to act upon their sinful thoughts.

To complicate matters, enter Cayden Adams who is an angel determined to save Kara from Dominic’s influence. But does Kara really want to be saved?


Excerpt:
Acting on a whim, I brought my hands up and pressed my palms against his cheeks. They burned like a fever. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get used to that.

His black eyes latched onto mine. I waited as he struggled with something internally, pain and confliction clearly written across his face. Eventually, his expression shifted, the hard planes of his features softened into a sweet smile. As our faces drew closer, my breathing became ragged ...with anticipation. When he wet his lips, it was nearly my undoing. My chest heaved with expectation, trembling each time his breath crept across my skin. I looked into his eyes; the crimson specks were recessing, like a fading tide within a murky sea of black ink. They were hypnotizing.

“If I am under a trance, don’t ever rouse me,” I murmured.

His eyes glimmered just before he pressed his warm lips to mine. Our mouths moved together in perfect unison, as if they were molded to fit one another. The kiss deepened, and together we were swept away by our unraveling emotions, pawing at one another as though each other’s breath was the only oxygen we had.

When we finally parted for air, we both stood staring at the other, panting. Dominic took my hands, his touch warming me like a soothing balm.

He cast his eyes down to our intertwined fingers, his long lashes fanning out over his high cheekbones, and he said, “My fraying willpower makes it hard to walk away from you.”

"Then don’t,” I whispered.

Buy Links: 
Barnes  & Noble
Amazon
Wild Rose Press Catalog

About the Author: I work full-time as a zoo curator, so when I'm not running a zoo, I'm trying to tame the one I live in! I have two kids, and a husband who sometimes acts their age. I can usually be found jamming to Elvis Presley tunes, or diligently chipping away at my never-ending 'to be read' pile. I tend to gravitate toward anything paranormal. I love creatures who fly and characters who sprout fur or fangs. Sprinkle some romance and magic into the mix, and I'm a happy girl!

Author Links:
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https://twitter.com/AuthorJMDavis

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Character Interview: Deputy Wyoming State Game Warden Bram Killoran from TERMS OF TEMPTATION by Lorrie Farrelly




1. Where are you from? Did you have a happy childhood?
I was born right here in Wyoming, on a pitiful patch of mud my Pa called a farm. When I was about eight, Fred Dunlevy, a hunting outfitter out of Jackson, took me in to help out around his place. Felt sorry for me, I guess. Still, I didn’t care why Fred took me in, long as it got me away from Pa. The old man had a pretty powerful affection for the bottle, but not much for my Ma or me. At least, not so’s I ever noticed. And it got worse after Ma was gone.
Fred was a good man, though, and he treated me right. He taught me to cipher, and he gave me decent food, clothes, and books to read, even helped me figure out the hard words. I recall his favorites were The Deerslayer and Huckleberry Finn. Said those were real crackerjacks, and that Fenimore Cooper fella knew how to spin a fine yarn about those old-time frontiersmen.
Fred told me Mark Twain was a caution, but also a right perspicacious kind of fella who had a way of seein’ the truth about folks, even when they were tryin’ to hide it. I reckon he was right about that, ’cause those were darn good stories. I must’ve read ’em over five or six times, anyway.
When Fred got it in his head that I needed a little extra civilizing, he’d send me over to the schoolhouse in Jackson. Truth to tell, I didn’t mind. I liked school. I liked it a lot. But most times it wouldn’t be too long before Pa got wind of me showing up regular at the schoolhouse, and sooner or later, he’d wander into town to fetch me home, sayin’ he missed me and that he was gonna mend his ways this time for sure.
’Course, soon as we got back to that sorry mud hole of his, he started drinking hard again and hollering that I was a dang shirker who wasn’t worth a fig. Being drunk never seemed to slow him down or make him any less mean. Oh, I got better at gettin’ away from him as I got older, but he still had a sneaky way of springin’ on you when weren’t looking.
Time went on, I realized Pa couldn’t even stand himself. Reckon that might’ve been why he drank so much. But while I was up at Fred’s, he wouldn’t let the old man anywhere near me, told him to get off the property before Fred had him stuffed for mounting.  I could count on Fred, and I figured I was safe with him.  
2. Where do you live now and what do you do for a living? Is there something you'd rather be doing?
I’ve got a place down in Lander, but I ain’t there much. Since being appointed Deputy Game Warden, I stay pretty much on the move throughout the territory. Maybe because I was always trying to keep one step ahead of Pa when I was a kid, I became a restless sort of man, more at home outside than in. I reckon I ain’t cut out to stay tethered in one place, to be a rancher or a farmer or a storekeeper. But, see, being a game warden’s a footloose kinda job. It suits me. Truth is, I ain’t a man any girl should ever set her heart on. I can’t see myself ever gettin’ married. I’d just purely hate bein’ tethered, you see. I reckon if I ever did take a wife, she’d just find me to be one dang disappointment after another.
3. What's going on in your life right now?
Chief Warden’s had me spreadin’ the word about the new Fish and Game laws. Illegal hunting and trapping has just about taken down our whole population of pronghorns, bighorns, and elk, along with nearly every kind of fur-bearing critter and game animal you can think of. Even trout are getting mighty scarce here about. Far as I’m concerned, every dang poacher in Wyoming oughta be locked up and the keys melted down for scrap. I hope those no-account varmints are listenin’, so’s they can consider their sorry selves informed. I’ve got a job to do, seeing wildlife and livestock both thrive in this state, and I aim to do it.
4. Is there someone special in your life?
 Seems I can’t get my mind off one Miss Kinley Cantrell.  Though I swear, that infuriating little bit of a thing is more trouble than a spitting bag of bobcats. One minute she makes me want to tear out my hair, and the next, danged if I don’t want to tear off every last bit of clothing she’s wearing. Thing is, I owe her my honor and my protection, but how am I ever gonna live the settled, confined life she’s bound to expect of me? I reckon I gotta figure it all out pretty soon, since my life – and more importantly, Kinley’s – depend on it.
5. How did you meet? What's his/her family like?
Well, I was down in Crowheart one day, outside the general store. I’d just loaded up ol’ Dan, my pack horse,  with a load of provisions, when I heard this fracas start up over at the Paradise Saloon. Crazy thing was, the person carrying on the loudest was a girl.
She couldn’t have been  more than eighteen or nineteen and was hardly bigger than a minute, but she had this big, drunken galoot three times her size backed up against the hitching rail. She was hollering at him about his pitiful horse, which looked like it hadn’t been fed in a week, and she had a mighty colorful way of hollering, too, if you ask me.
She was sure working up a head of steam. She called that sodden fool a lump-brained, neck-oiled, no-account, disgraceful excuse for a man, and I reckon she was right.
But when that fella finally figured out she was insulting him, he took after her. I started running, got halfway across the street, aiming to set him straight, when another fella strode right up and laid him out flat with one good hard clip to the jaw.
Turned out the fella who stepped in was her brother. Next thing I knew, she was making him unsaddle that poor, mangy nag while she stood there stroking the sorry critter’s neck.  I could only hear a little of what she and her brother were saying:
Lord Almighty, Kinley … every flea-bitten nag and varmint you see … But, Teddy, listen … not an old horse … I’ll pay … well, when he wakes up, that is …   
I’ll tell you, Kinley Cantrell sure enough got my attention that day, and it’s only gotten worse since. Now I can’t get her out of my mind or out from under my skin. She’s reckless and hard-headed, and she gets in more trouble than a pack of wolves in a pen of sheep, but darned if she doesn’t have the biggest heart this side of the Mississippi.
6. What's keeping you two apart?
I swear, a man can only stand so much. Exasperating as she is, Kinley just about makes my heart pound out of my chest. I swear, I get near her and I can hear the blood rush in my veins. I’ve got no idea why she moves me so, why she makes my heart squeeze and every sane thought I’ve got fly right out of my head. She just about turns me inside out.
So unless I figure out how to keep from breaking her heart, the most danger to Kinley isn’t gonna be from those good-for-nothing, snake-in-the-grass poachers that are giving us trouble hereabouts. It’s gonna be from me. 
7. What one thing could you do that would make you feel like the relationship will work out?It doesn’t seem to matter what I do. Kinley listens to reason about as well as a hound dog plays the fiddle. She’d try the everlovin’ patience of a saint, and I sure ain’t no saint! But I reckon I might as well jump into the dang most scalding hot springs I can find. It would save time in the long run.


8. Any last comments?

I guess I just want to say that nobody – not even Kinley – is gonna get in the way of me doing my job. I’ve been doing it on my own for a long time, and I sure enough don’t need her assistance to keep on doing it. So if you’re listening, Miss Cantrell, pay heed. If I have to hogtie you to my pack horse and send you on home and out of danger that way, why, I’ll do it. You hear?
About the author:

A Navy brat and graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, LORRIE FARRELLY is proud to be a Fightin' Banana Slug. Following graduate school at Northwestern University, she began a career in education that included teaching art to 4th graders, drama to 8th graders, and finally, math to high school students.
She's a three-time winner on the television quiz show Jeopardy! She has shepherded wide-eyed foreign exchange students along Hollywood Boulevard, and has happily curried and shoveled as a ranch hand at the California Disneyland's Circle D Ranch. And always, she writes.
Lorrie has won a Presidential Commendation for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics. She's been a Renaissance nominee for Teacher of the Year and a finalist for the Orange Rose Award in romantic fiction. Her novels have been awarded Readers' Favorite 5-Stars. TIMELAPSE and TERMS OF SURRENDER were winners  in the 2014 READERS' FAVORITE INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS, and TIMELAPSE is also a GOLD MEDALIST in the 2014 AUTHOR'S CAVE BOOK AWARDS, and is the TIME-TRAVEL NOVEL WINNER in the 2014 CYGNUS AWARDS. Lorrie and her family live in Southern California.
Book blurb: "I SWEAR, MISS CANTRELL, YOU WOULD TRY THE EVERLOVIN' PATIENCE OF A SAINT!"
Deputy Game Warden Bram Killoran is certainly no saint, and he has wanted headstrong Kinley Cantrell since the day he first saw her outside Crowheart's Paradise Saloon - backing a burly drunk three times her size up against a hitching rail and giving him a truly inspired and colorful upbraiding for mistreating his horse.
Kinley's determination to defend herself and the animals she loves will make her Bram's unlikely ally. They are irresistibly drawn to one another, but when her passion and spirit clash with his tangled conflict of duty and desire, not only their hearts will be in danger, but their very lives as well.
Tender and touching, full of drama and detail, TERMS OF TEMPTATION has been awarded READERS' FAVORITE 5 STARS. It continues the lives and loves of the Cantrell and Devlin families, along with the best-selling TERMS OF SURRENDER and TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT.
Excerpt.
Deputy Wyoming State Game Warden Bram Killoran heard the comments of the crowd as it slowly broke up and people began to wander off in twos and threes, chattering and tut-tutting all the while over Kinley Cantrell’s latest escapade:
That crazy Cantrell girl's at it again....
Well, can't say she don't have some grit....
Good thing her brother Ted was here, 'cause drunk as he is, ol' Purvis mighta got in a lucky swing and fair killed her....
Dunno, reckon that little bit of a thing mighta killed Purvis first, feisty as she is....
Well, I declare, she isn't a bit like that sweet little twin of hers - and doesn't that give a body pause....
My oldest boy, Wesley, escorted her to the Harvest Dance last fall, don't you know, but turned out she spent the whole time bending his poor ear about bighorn sheep - or maybe it was muskrats or weasels or some other such nonsense, but can you even imagine...?
Heard she's got pens full of grizzly cubs and wolves up at that menagerie of hers, boxes full of rattlers, too....
Ya ask me, Cap'n an' Miz Cantrell oughta lock that one up and throw away the goldurn key....
Bram knew there was more than a kernel of truth in those remarks, but he couldn't stop thinking about Kinley, dreaming about her. And he couldn't stop wanting her. *
*copyright by Lorrie Farrelly
 Author links, webpages, fan pages, and book trailers.
 TERMS OF TEMPTATION VIDEO BOOK TRAILER:
eNovel Authors at Work:  http://enovelauthorsatwork.com/153-2/

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Character Interview with Connor, Hero of Echoes of Paradise




Where are you from? Did you have a happy childhood?
I’m originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I moved to Rome to teach after college. I did have a happy childhood. Unfortunately, my life was cut short when I died in a plane crash in my 30s.

Where do you live now and what do you do for a living? Is there something you'd rather be doing?

As I mentioned, I most recently worked as a teacher in Rome. In a way, I’m still a teacher, only now I help people from the spirit world. My goal is to provide peace, hope and comfort to the living. It’s a tough job because most of the time, no one even knows I’m there. I do love what I do, but it’s hard to be separated physically from the woman I love. If I had a choice, I’d choose to be with her.

What's going on in your life right now?

My biggest challenge is trying to reach Celeste, the woman I love. She’s still living in the physical world and is going through a very difficult time. She’s separated from her husband, unhappy with her career and trying to raise her young son practically alone. To top it off, she’s heavily mourning my death. I’ve been trying to reach her and let her know I’m okay, but so far I haven’t gotten through to her.

Is there someone special in your life?

Celeste has always been the one. I regret moving to Rome and not trying harder to make things work with her. 

How did you meet?
We met on a blind dinner date. When our eyes met, I knew there was something special about her.

What obstacles do you see yourself facing in this potential relationship?
Well, I’m dead (in the physical sense anyway) and she’s still alive on earth. That makes things very tricky. Also, she’s still married. I don’t plan on deserting her, though. I hang around her quite often and try to drop little hints and signs of my presence. I hope to convince her that my spirit lives on and that our love didn’t die too.

What one thing could you do that would make you feel like the relationship will work out?

If I could go back in time, maybe I could make different choices. But since that’s not possible, my hope is to continue to support and guide her from the afterlife. I know that someday we will be reunited again in Heaven.

Any last comments?
For those of you out there who have lost loved ones, please know that they do indeed live on. Look for signs of their presence. Many times, they try to reach you, but you don’t realize that it’s them. Keep an open mind and heart, and maybe you will have an experience of your own.


About the Author
Deanna Kahler is an award-winning author, an accomplished writer and a proud mom. Her work has been published in numerous corporate newsletters and magazines across the country. She began writing as a young child and enjoys the opportunity to reach others and make a difference in their lives.

In addition to Sara’s Soul, Deanna is the author of Echoes of Paradise, a paranormal love story about the afterlife. She has also written a children’s book, A Rare Gem, and a memoir about her experiences with miscarriage and adoption titled From Pain to Parenthood.

Deanna holds a bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where she graduated with departmental honors. She lives with her husband and daughter in a Metro Detroit suburb and enjoys writing, dancing, walking, and visiting parks in her spare time.

Photo courtesy of Steven Jon Horner Photography





Blurb 



Connor's dead. But she can still feel him. Is it just her imagination or something more? Celeste wants to know. And she'll stop at nothing to find out.
A once-aspiring artist, Celeste is going through the motions of life. She's stuck -- in a job she doesn't love, with a man who isn't right for her, in a web of painful memories from the past. Adding to her despair is the sudden and unexpected death of Connor, her true love. As she struggles to make sense of the world around her, strange coincidences and mysterious events lead her to question her sanity. When the happenings persist, she wonders if Connor's spirit is trying to tell her something. 
Join Celeste as she risks her marriage, her career, and her own safety to escape the demons from her past and unravel the mysteries of life and death. With so much uncertainty, there's only one thing Celeste knows: her world will never be the same.


Excerpt 


Celeste began sobbing uncontrollably. She struggled to see the road ahead of her through tear-filled eyes. The landscape became a fuzzy blur of moonlight and shadowy trees. The world around her spun into an unrecognizable mix of darkness streaked with occasional rays of dim light. As she drove blindly ahead, she felt as if she were plunging into nothingness. And she didn’t even care.
She would have continued in her oblivious state, but somehow, out of nowhere, she heard a very clear and distinct male voice pop into her head. She thought that surely she must have imagined it, because it sounded like Connor.
Pay attention.
Suddenly a deer darted out in front of her, its startled eyes aglow from the blazing gold headlights. Blood pulsed through her veins as she abruptly swerved her car to the right, narrowly missing the animal. With her heart still pounding, she took a deep breath and tried to regain her composure.
“That was close,” she said aloud to herself. “Stay focused, Celeste. Keep it together.”
Although she was alone in her car, she noticed a distinct presence. It felt like Connor was somehow with her. First the voice, and now this? Surely she must be losing her mind! Even so, she had an irresistible urge to talk to him. Maybe it was silly or useless, but she couldn’t fight this desire brimming inside of her. She didn’t just want communication with her deceased former love; she needed it—even if it was one-sided. She began to have a conversation as if he were right there with her.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay in touch with you and try to be a part of your life in some way. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you or able to help you. I’m sorry for the night I left you. I’m sorry I didn’t let you get closer to me or tell you that I love you. I’m just so sorry.”
Tears streamed down Celeste’s face like the rain on a shiny glass window, and she gasped for air. What she wanted most right now was to know that Connor still existed somehow, somewhere. She wanted proof that his spirit lived on. She wanted to know that he was alive and well in heaven. Although she had been raised Christian, her faith had faded as she’d grown older. Life’s circumstances, unanswered prayers, and the cynical, materialistic world around her had left Celeste with doubts and questions. She now wondered if God and the afterlife even existed at all. She wanted to believe. She just didn’t know how.
Right after she spoke to Connor, a song came on the radio. The words caught her attention, and she stopped crying long enough to listen. It was a tune by Nickelback titled “Someday.”
For a brief moment, Celeste noticed a tingling sensation run down her spine. She felt like Connor was speaking directly to her through this song. It felt as if he were trying to respond to her. Were the words to this song meant for her? Did he somehow hear her cries? Was he trying to tell her he was going to help her in some way?
Author links, webpages, fan pages, and book trailers.
Web site: www.deannakahler.com