Monday, May 20, 2019

SPOTLIGHT w/EXCERPT - HISTORICAL - Listen to the Wind (The Orphanss of Tolosa, #1) by Susanne Dunlap

Listen to the Wind 
The Orphans of Tolosa, #1
by Susanne Dunlap
Publication Date: April 22nd 2019
Bellastoria Press
eBook & Paperback; 388 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction/Medieval

BLURB
Sent away from their families for their own protection when they were very young, Azemar and Azalaïs become separated when they are forced to flee from the band of outlaws who served as their supposed protectors. Armed only with scraps of memories and the wits and intelligence that have helped them survive brutal conditions, they struggle to find each other again and discover the mysterious past that links them across distance and time. Who are they? And do they hold the secret of the legendary Cathar treasure? All they know is that knights and monks spell danger, and they must find a way to survive at all costs if they are to fulfill their destiny—and preserve their vanishing culture.

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EXCERPT
© Susanne Dunlap

At last some sort of order prevailed as everyone found a place to position him or herself to await the attack. Azalaïs clambered back up to the ramparts so she could see. No one said a word. 
As the army approached, Azalaïs could make out the faces of the archers in the foreground, and see the well-armored knights in the rear, waiting to ride in once the walls had been breached. How dare they! she thought. No doubt they knew the baron was not there and chose to attack a castel full of women and servants. 
Anger sharpened her resolve. 
One of the knights rode through the foot soldiers and took up a position at the front. He removed his helmet with a flourish and called out, “Castel de Belascon! I bring you greetings, and beg you would lower your drawbridge that we may refresh ourselves at your hearth.”
The sentry nearest the portcullis looked over at Azalaïs with a question in his eyes. Azalaïs sought Milos among those gathered near the portcullis, and called to him, “Milos, what do we say?” 
Milos instructed the sentry, “Say that the household is still asleep, and we have not accommodation for so many.”
The sentry did as he was told.
Even from that distance, Azalaïs could see the look of mock surprise on the leader’s face. “I beg you spare the castel and its inhabitants and allow us to enter peacefully,” he said.
Azalaïs’s blood rose into her face. “Tell them,” she said to the sentry without asking Milos first, “That your mistress does not give you leave to open the drawbridge.”
No sooner had the sentry uttered the words than an arrow sang through the air, sailing over the sentry’s head and landing in the middle of the yard. Fortunately no one was hurt, but it acted as a clarion call, and a great roar rose up from the massed battalion below. 
Heat coursed through Azalaïs’s veins and into her arms and hands, now gripping the hilt of the broadsword. Her eyes darted over the scene. Everyone looked to Milos for guidance, and he showed himself to be quite adept at marshalling their meager forces. His sharp eyes and ears followed the movements of the foot soldiers and knights outside. 
“I am hit!” screamed a sentry, who stumbled down a ladder into the yard, clutching at the arrow that stuck out of his shoulder. 
Azalaïs threw down her broadsword and rushed to him. Let Milos manage the battle, she thought. I shall tend to the wounded. 
There were three now, and Azalaïs tore linen strips off her tunic to stanch the bleeding. Arrows clattered to the ground around her.
“I beg you, Ma Domna! Retire!” Milos shouted.
Azalaïs was too focused on her task to hear him. 
The strong, well-fortified castel was their best ally against the attackers’ superior forces. Yet arrows continued to rain down injury and death upon the servants, and Azalaïs could not attend to them all.  
“Ma Domna! I cannot hold them back!”
The cry came from a lad of no more than thirteen years who stood alone on a side wall, hurling rocks down on the heads of archers who were trying to scale it. 
Azalaïs climbed back up to the ramparts, ran around the perimeter, and joined him. Soon her hands bled from lifting the rocks and pitching them over the side wall. She could not look as she did it, saying a silent prayer every time that her missiles would only push the soldiers back, not actually harm them. 
Her broadsword lay on the ground at her feet as the pile grew smaller and smaller. At one point she felt the wind of an arrow whistle past her ear. One thumbnail closer and it would have gone through her eye.
When there were only half a dozen boulders left, Azalaïs lifted the broadsword and stood with it as Milos had showed her. A knight’s helm rose above the ramparts, and the poor boy whose hands were rubbed raw from lifting rocks shrank back in alarm, coming perilously close to falling into the yard fifteen feet below.
The sight of the chain-mail-covered knight with his hammered iron helm and nose guard transfixed Azalaïs. She stood immobile with the broadsword thrust out before her and watched him climb slowly over the wall to stand in front of her. To her amazement, rather than rush at her, the knight lifted off his helm.





Author Info
Susanne Dunlap is the author of six works of historical fiction. Two are for adults (Emilie's Voice and Liszt's Kiss, both published by Touchstone books of Simon & Schuster). Four are for young adults (The Musician's Daughter, Anastasia's Secret, In the Shadow of the Lamp, and The Academie, published by Bloomsbury). A graduate of Smith College with a PhD in Music History from Yale University, Susanne grew up in Buffalo, New York and has lived in London, Brooklyn and Northampton, MA. She now lives in Northampton with her long-time partner, Charles, has two grown daughters, three granddaughters, a grandson, a stepson and a stepdaughter, four step-grandsons and one step-granddaughter—that's a total of four children and nine grandchildren! In her spare time she cycles in the beautiful Pioneer Valley. For more information, please visit The Orphans of Tolosa website. You can follow author Susanne Dunlap on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram, Pinterest, and BookBub.


Giveaway

During the Blog Tour, we will be giving away one copy of Listen to the Wind by Susanne Dunlap! To enter, please use the Gleam form below. 
Giveaway Rules – Giveaway ends at 11:59 pm EST on May 28th. You must be 18 or older to enter. – Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY. – Only one entry per household. – All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspicion of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion. – The winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

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Blog Tour Schedule
Monday, May 13 Review at Bibliophile Reviews 
uesday, May 14 Review at Pursuing Stacie 
Wednesday, May 15 Interview at Passages to the Past 
Thursday, May 16 Review at Historical Fiction with Spirit 
Friday, May 17 Review at Bookish Sarah Review at Comet Readings Feature at What Is That Book About 
Monday, May 20 Review & Guest Post at Clarissa Reads it All Excerpt at The Book Junkie Reads Tuesday, May 21 Feature at Myths, Legends, Books & Coffee Pots 
Wednesday, May 22 Feature at Just One More Chapter 
Thursday, May 23 Interview at Donna's Book Blog 
Friday, May 24 Review at Passages to the Past 
Monday, May 27 Review at Macsbooks Feature at The Lit Bitch 
Tuesday, May 28 Review at Coffee and Ink Feature at CelticLady's Reviews Review & Guest Post at Chicks, Rogues and Scandals

 

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SPOTLIGHT w/INTERVIEW - LGBTQ+ HORROR - The Hierophant’s Daughter by M. F. Sullivan

The Hierophant’s Daughter
The Disgraced Martyr Trilogy, #1
by M. F. Sullivan
Date of Publication: May 19th, 2019
Publisher: Painted Blind Publishing
Cover Artist: Nuno Moreira
Genre: LGBTQ Horror/Cyberpunk






Tagline: Dive into the first volume of a bleak cyberpunk tahgmahr you can't afford to miss. What would you sacrifice to survive?



BLURB
By 4042 CE, the Hierophant and his Church have risen to political dominance with his cannibalistic army of genetically modified humans: martyrs. In an era when mankind's intergenerational cold wars against their long-lived predators seem close to running hot, the Holy Family is poised on the verge of complete planetary control. It will take a miracle to save humanity from extinction.

It will also take a miracle to resurrect the wife of 331-year-old General Dominia di Mephitoli, who defects during martyr year 1997 AL in search of Lazarus, the one man rumored to bring life to the dead. With the Hierophant's Project Black Sun looming over her head, she has little choice but to believe this Lazarus is really all her new friends say he is--assuming he exists at all--and that these companions of hers are really able to help her. From the foulmouthed Japanese prostitute with a few secrets of her own to the outright sapient dog who seems to judge every move, they don't inspire a lot of confidence, but the General has to take the help she can get.

After all, Dominia is no ordinary martyr. She is THE HIEROPHANT'S DAUGHTER, and her Father won't let her switch sides without a fight. Not when she still has so much to learn.

The dystopic first entry of an epic cyberpunk trilogy, THE HIEROPHANT’S DAUGHTER is a horror/sci-fi adventure sure to delight and inspire adult readers of all stripes.

Amazon     BN
Excerpt:
The Flight of the Governess


Ah, not Cassandra! Wake not her
Whom God hath maddened, lest the foe
Mock at her dreaming. Leave me clear
From that one edge of woe.
O Troy, my Troy, thou diest here
Most lonely; and most lonely we
The living wander forth from thee,
And the dead leave thee wailing!
—Euripides, The Trojan Women


The Disgraced Governess of the United Front was blind in her right eye. Was that blood in the left, or was it damaged, too? The crash ringing in her ears kept her from thinking straight. Of course her left eye still worked: it worked well enough to prevent her from careening into the trees through which she plunged. Yet, for the tinted flecks of reality sometimes twinkling between crimson streaks, she could only imagine her total blindness with existential horror. Would the protein heal the damage? How severely was her left eye wounded? What about the one she knew to be blind—was it salvageable? Ichigawa could check, if she ever made it to the shore.
She couldn’t afford to think that way. It was a matter of “when,” not of “if.” She would never succumb. Neither could car accident, nor baying hounds, nor the Hierophant himself keep her from her goal. She had fourteen miles to the ship that would whisk her across the Pacific and deliver her to the relative safety of the Risen Sun. Then the Lazarene ceremony would be less than a week away. Cassandra’s diamond beat against her heart to pump it into double time, and with each double beat, she thought of her wife (smiling, laughing, weeping when she thought herself alone) and ran faster. A lucky thing the Governess wasn’t human! Though, had she remained human, she’d have died three centuries ago in some ghetto if she’d lived past twenty without becoming supper. Might have been the easier fate, or so she lamented each time her mind replayed the crash of the passenger-laden tanque at fifth gear against the side of their small car. How much she might have avoided!
Of course—then she never would have known Cassandra. That made all this a reasonable trade. Cold rain softened the black earth to the greedy consistency of clay, but her body served where her eyes failed. The darkness was normally no trouble, but now she squinted while she ran and, under sway of a dangerous adrenaline high, was side-swiped by more than one twisting branch. The old road that was her immediate goal, Highway 128, would lead her to the coast of her favorite Jurisdiction, but she now had to rediscover that golden path after the crash’s diversion. In an effort to evade her pursuers, she had torn into a pear orchard without thought of their canine companions. Not that the soldiers of the Americas kept companions like Europa’s nobles. These dogs were tools. Well-honed, organic death machines with a cultivated taste for living flesh, whether martyr or human. The dogs understood something that most had forgotten: the difference between the two was untenable. Martyrs could tell themselves they were superior for an eternity, but it wouldn’t change the fact that the so-called master race and the humans they consumed were the same species.
That was not why Cassandra had died, but it hadn’t contributed to their marital bliss. And now, knowing what she did of the Hierophant’s intentions—thinking, always, what Cassandra would have said—the Governess pretended she was driven by that ghost, and not by her own hopelessness. Without the self-delusion, she was a victim to a great many ugly thoughts, foremost among them being: Was the fear of life after her wife’s death worth such disgrace? A death sentence? Few appreciated what little difference there was between human and martyr, and fewer cared, because caring was fatal. But she was a part of the Holy Family. Shouldn’t that have been all that mattered? Stunning how, after three centuries, she deserved to be treated no better than a human. Then again, there was nothing quite like resignation from one’s post to fall in her Father’s estimate. Partly, he was upset by her poor timing—she did stand him up at some stupid press event, but only because she hoped it would keep everybody occupied while she got away. In that moment, she couldn’t even remember what it was. Dedicating a bridge? Probably. Her poor head, what did the nature of the event matter when she was close to death?
That lapse in social graces was not the reason for this hunt. He understood that more lay behind her resignation than a keening for country life. Even before he called her while she and the others took the tanque to the coast, he must have known. Just like he must have known the crash was seconds from happening while he chatted away, and that the humans in her company, already nervous to be within a foot of the fleeing Governess, were doomed.
Of the many people remaining on Earth, those lumped into the group of “human” were at constant risk of death, mutilation, or—far worse—unwilling martyrdom. This meant those humans lucky enough to avoid city-living segregation went to great lengths to keep their private properties secure. Not only houses but stables. The Disgraced Governess found this to be true of the stables into which she might have stumbled and electrocuted herself were it not for the bug zaps of rain against the threshold’s surface. Her mind made an instinctive turn toward prayer for the friendliness of the humans in the nearby farmhouse—an operation she was quick to abort. In those seconds (minutes?) since the crash, she’d succeeded in reconstructing the tinted windows of the tanque and a glimpse of silver ram’s horns: the Lamb lurked close enough to hear her like she spoke into his ear. It was too much to ask that he be on her side tonight.
Granted, the dogs of the Lamb were far closer, and far more decisive about where their loyalties stood. One hound sank its teeth into her ankle, and she, crying out, kicked the beast into its closest partner with a crunch. Slower dogs snarled outrage in the distance while the Disgraced Governess ran to the farmhouse caught in her left periphery. The prudent owners, to her frustration, shuttered their windows at night. Nevertheless, she smashed her fist against the one part of the house that protruded: the doorbell required by the Hierophant’s “fair play” dictatum allowing the use of electronic barriers. As the humans inside stumbled out of bed in response to her buzzing, the Disgraced Governess unholstered her antique revolver and unloaded two rounds into the recovered canines before they were upon her. The discharge wasn’t a tip-off she wanted to give to the Lamb and her other pursuers, but it hastened the response of the sleeping farmers as the intercom crackled to life.
“Who is it?” A woman’s voice, quivering with an edge of panic.
“My name is Dominia di Mephitoli: I’m the former Governess of the United Front, and I need to borrow a horse. Please. Don’t let me in. Just drop the threshold on your stables.”
“The Governess? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. The Dominia di Mephitoli, really? The martyr?”
“Yes, yes, please. I need a horse now.” Another dog careened around the corner and leapt over the bodies of his comrades with such grace that she wasted her third round in the corpses. Two more put it down as she shouted into the receiver. “I can’t transfer you any credits because they’ve frozen my Halcyon account, but I’ll leave you twenty pieces of silver if you drop the threshold and loan me a horse. You can reclaim it at the docks off Bay Street, in the township of Sienna. Please! He’ll kill me.”
“And he’ll be sure to kill us for helping you.”
“Tell him I threatened you. Tell him I tricked you! Anything. Just help me get away!”
“He’ll never believe what we say. He’ll kill me, my husband, our children. We can’t.”
“Oh, please. An act of mercy for a dying woman. Please, help me leave. I can give you the name of a man in San Valentino who can shelter you and give you passage abroad.”
“There’s no time to go so far south. Not as long as it takes to get across the city.”
It had been ten seconds since she’d heard the last dog. That worried her. With her revolver at the ready, she scanned the area for something more than the quivering roulette blotches swelling in her right eye. Nothing but the dead animals. “He’ll kill you either way. For talking to me, and not keeping me occupied until his arrival. For knowing that there’s disarray in his perfect land. He’ll find a reason, even if it only makes sense to him.”
The steady beat of rain pattered out a passive answer. On the verge of giving up, Dominia stepped back to ready herself for a fight—and the house’s threshold dropped with an electric pop. The absent mauve shimmer left the façade bare. How rare to see a country place without its barrier! A strange thing. Stranger for the front door to open; she’d only expected them to do away with the threshold on the stables.
But, rather than the housewife she’d anticipated, there stood the Hierophant. Several bleak notions clicked into place.
One immaculate gray brow arched. “Now, Dominia, that’s hardly fair. Knowledge of your disgrace isn’t why I’ll kill them. The whole world will know of it tomorrow morning. You embarrassed me by sending your resignation, rather than making the appearance I asked of you, so it is only fair I embarrass you by rejecting your resignation and firing you publicly. No, my dear. I will kill these fine people to upset you. In fact, Mr. McLintock is already dead in the attic. A mite too brave. Of course”—he winked, and whispered in conspiracy—“don’t tell them that.”
“How did you know I’d come here?”
“Such an odd spurt of rain tonight. Of all your Jurisdictions, this one is usually so dry this time of year! Won’t you come in for tea? Mrs. McLintock brews a fine pot. But put that gun away. You’re humiliating yourself. And me.”
Author Info
M.F. Sullivan is the author of Delilah, My Woman, The Lightning Stenography Device, and a slew of plays in addition to the Trilogy. She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her boyfriend and her cat, where she attends the local Shakespeare Festival and experiments with the occult.

The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with M. F. Sullivan . . .

 How would you describe your style of writing to someone who has never read your work?
Think, “dark”.
No, darker.
A little darker than that.
A little— 
Woah! Not that dark, weirdo.

 Anyway, my work is pretty dark, very divisive, very experimental. In fact, The Hierophant’s Daughter and its two sequels are probably the most mainstream things I’ve written, and they’re still pretty “out there” in terms of literary mainstream. This trilogy is LGBTQ cyberpunk/horror, emphasis horror. By 4042 the Hierophant and his Church of genetically altered, cannibalistic martyrs have risen to global dominance; that same year, his daughter, General Dominia di Mephitoli, flees his country to resurrect her wife. 

 Dominia is a very complicated woman, because she’s not only one of the cannibalistic, genetically altered martyrs presenting a threat to humankind, but she’s arguably one of the worst—or, at least, she was before the inciting events which drive her flight from the United Front and the evil regime of the Hierophant. I wanted to disorient readers and drop them into that world right away. This is a trilogy for adults. I want to lure former readers of dystopian and horror YA into reading more adult-themed fiction with heavier atmospheres, but I don’t want to surprise them—or anybody else, because I have a lot of readers who have been with me for two published books already and these might be expecting, at the very least, a slower, more literary vibe. So, in service of letting people know what they’re getting into, the first chapter is pitch black. The stakes are very high in Dominia’s journey. The reader needs to know that as soon as possible. I even surprised myself with the events of Chapter 1: be prepared.

 What mindset or routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are working on a project or just free writing)?
I start working first thing in the morning. Every day, even on weekends, I get up at 4 in the morning, and on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays I go to the gym. Regardless of what I do, by six or seven in the morning I’m usually sitting down, ready to write. I have to get started as soon as possible because that’s when I’m “purest” and I haven’t been disrupted by the petty annoyances of life. On mornings where I’m annoyed or have gotten into an argument with my significant other, I have a very hard time focusing, even for the more mechanical, less abstractly creative task of editing. On a good day in a good mood I can write anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, though after a while you just sort of get fuzzy. These days I find I cap off at about three or four, just to make sure I have something to get started on the next day. 

 Do you take your character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page? Do you people watch to help with development? Or do you build upon your character during story creation?
I think the best way to reveal anyone’s character is to see how they react to adversity, and that’s true of the people you know in real life as it is of the people you know in your head or on the page. I build basically all my characters—and my world!—while writing the first draft, and then, by the end of the first draft, since I’ve finally figured out who they are and what’s going on, I can go through draft two with an eye toward bringing those qualities into finer relief, weaving in more foreshadowing—or emphasizing unintentional foreshadowing which was already unconsciously there, which is always pretty exciting to discover! For instance, I didn’t know anything about Dominia. I don’t think I even really knew that she had lost her wife and was trying to get her back. I had a vague sense of the Holy Family, the circle of martyrs closest to the Hierophant, and I had their names—but I didn’t really know much about who they were. I don’t think I even understood that Dominia was a General until a few paragraphs into writing the first chapter, and I don’t think I understood her role as Governess until that chapter was almost done. Yet—she feels so real to me, and to many of the readers I’ve already talked to. She introduced herself to me in a way that a lot of young writers probably dream about, but they can learn to do this too if they just dive in that pool and get writing.

 Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character? If so which one(s)?
Dominia is one of the most complicated characters I’ve ever written, but maybe that’s why I relate to her the most, too. I admit, though, for likability, my surprise favorite—and another character I had no clue about before I started writing—was Miki Soto, the sassy, foulmouthed Japanese prostitute who works for the mysterious cabal, the Red Market. Again, a lot of readers—and my editor!—really also seem to love her, and I think that’s just because she’s such a people person. Like, I’d personally be pretty intimidated if I met Dominia in person, so I don’t know if I could say I’d “bonded” with her, but if I met Miki Soto on the street we would 100% be screaming “SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS” in a bar two blocks away about twenty minutes later. I can’t explain it, I love her. 

 I also have to admit I have some affinities for the Hierophant, but he’s not somebody you really want to hang out with! I love all my villains, but I know too much about them to trust the feeling of “bonding” with them.

 Do you have a character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
The character I’m excited for readers to get to know really well is actually sort of a background character in Book I—Lavinia di Firenze, Dominia’s little sister in the Holy Family. We really get to know her in Book III, and I’m very eager to hear readers’ thoughts on her arc. She and all the other characters in this world are all so lively to me, it pleases me to see how much people like them already!
As for characters I can’t wait to write, I’m actually finished with this trilogy—Book II comes out on August 14th of this year, and Book III comes out on January 9th of 2020—so I’m thinking as much as I can about a new world for a new series which I’m very excited about. The villain of any book is always the character I’m most excited to write, and Nicholas Bethlehem, the villain of that world, is very intriguing to me. The Hierophant in The Disgraced Martyr Trilogy really was like that for me, I love him—anytime I needed help with the plot or I needed something to happen, he would show up to fix it. 

 Have you ever felt that there was something inside of you that you couldn't control? If so what? If no what spurs you to reach for the unexperienced?
I made some jokes up there about how dark my writing is. In all seriousness, though, my writing is very challenging. I believe, as Georges Bataille wrote in Literature and Evil, that fiction—especially prose fiction—has a duty to face, explore, and know evil. By knowing the evil in ourselves we gain the chance to face all our personal hypocrisies and grow as people. I believe all fiction is ultimately a form of self-parody and part of the self is the social self, unless a person is completely psychotic and thereby separated from his social mores. Therefore, by exploring the personal evils we eventually work our way up to exploring social evils—by presenting these things to people in a symbolic way, which is internalized differently from, say, a non-fiction essay. 
I
n short, the world of The Disgraced Martyr Trilogy is violent, perverse, and evil, and readers will see that from Chapter 1 of The Hierophant’s Daughter. It’s sort of an interesting glimpse into the mind of the reader and what they’re willing to tolerate in order to understand themselves and obtain a semi-tangible growth of the self. It’s a litmus test. Some people are really turned off by the first chapter, and that’s sort of intentional. It’s the arch over Dante’s vision of il Inferno declaring, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” 

 But, as we all remember, Dante’s three-book journey through the afterlife eventually ends with heavenly reunion. So sometimes, reader, it’s worth pressing through all the evil, the horror, the violence, the disgrace. Be sure to read The Hierophant’s Daughter and get ready for Book II, The General’s Bride, coming August 14th, 2019!
Find more information about her work (and plenty of free essays) at https://www.paintedblindpublishing.com
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Sunday, May 19, 2019

TOUR Audio - PNR SUSPENSE - THE HAUNTING OF HILLWOOD FARM by Kathryn Knight Narrator: Kristin James

Audiobook Blog Tour: The Haunting of Hillwood Farm by Kathryn Knight
THE HAUNTING OF HILLWOOD FARM
by Kathryn Knight
Narrator: Kristin James
Length: 5 hours 18 minutes
Publisher: Kathryn Knight
Released: Apr. 15, 2019
Genre: Paranormal Romance; Suspense

The Book Junkie Reads . . . Review of . . . THE HAUNTING OF HILLWOOD FARM . . .  Can you fall in love with characters just from what they are willing to do for someone else? Callie was selfless, sweet, understanding, and wiling to do what it took to make sure that she did her all to help. Luke was the skeptical grandson of the sweet older lady that needed answers. Grandma, Callie, and Luke find that they each have some part to play in the haunting going on at the Hillwood Farms and sometimes not all stayed in place. 
Kristin James did a good job of allowing you to feel part of the story from beginning to end. 

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Kathryn Knight. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it. 

After tragedy strikes, Callie Sinclair is left with a gift she never wanted - the ability to communicate with ghosts. But when a desperate widow begs for her help, she reluctantly agrees to investigate the strange occurrences at Hillwood Farm. She quickly realizes she’s dealing with a dangerous presence beyond anything she’s ever experienced, and something else becomes equally clear - the only other living person in the house, Mrs. Turner’s handsome grandson, thinks she’s a scam artist. While she’d prefer to just ignore him, her heart beats a little faster every time he’s nearby.
Luke Turner doesn’t believe in spirits. He’s moved back to restore the family farm, but living on the property serves a dual purpose - he can watch out for his grandmother. He’s not happy about the sudden appearance of a self-described psychic, or his inexplicable attraction to her. His initial suspicions crumble as evidence points to an actual haunting, but he’s still determined not to fall for Callie - the past has taught him it’s best to avoid relationships.

As Callie is drawn deeper into the mystery, she becomes the target of a vengeful spirit, and Luke can no longer fight his feelings for her. Unable to resist their desire, passion ignites…even as the paranormal activity escalates to a final deadly confrontation.
 
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Kathryn Knight spends a great deal of time in her fictional world, where mundane chores don’t exist and daily life involves steamy romance, dangerous secrets, and spooky suspense. Kathryn writes contemporary romance spiked with mysterious hauntings as well as YA paranormal romance filled with forbidden love. Her novels are award-winning #1 Amazon and Barnes & Noble Bestsellers and RomCon Reader-Rated picks. When she’s not reading or writing, Kathryn spends her time catching up on those mundane chores, driving kids around, and teaching fitness classes. She lives on beautiful Cape Cod with her husband, their two sons, and a number of rescued pets.
Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook⎮Goodreads⎮Amazon

Narrator Bio
Kristin “KJ” James was born and raised in the Nashville, TN area. Acting has always been a passion of hers. Starting on the stage as early as preschool, KJ pursued her passion into college where she received a BA in Communication with a double emphasis in Theatre and Public Relations from Mississippi State University. After college she found herself more and more drawn to voice overs. Several classes, coaching sessions, seminars, research, and a closet-turned-studio later, and she now records and produces audiobooks on a regular basis. She has also done several radio commercials for clients such as Advance Financial, TriStar Health, and GAC. Her ultimate dream is to work in video games and animation, so hopefully in the not-too-distant future you'll hear her in an RPG or cartoon. When she’s not in her booth, you can find her crocheting, playing video games, or running agility with her dog, Phoenix.
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Friday, May 17, 2019

BOOK BLITZ - Ten Hours by Melissa Toppen

Ten Hours
by Melissa Toppen
Publication date: May 17th 2019
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
TEN HOURS- A STANDALONE CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

 BLURB
Ten hours…

 That’s how much time we spent together.

 How much time I got with the man whose bright eyes and sultry smile almost made me forget that I was sick.

 Six hundred minutes…

 That’s how long it took me to fall in love.

 Thirty-six thousand seconds…

 And then it was over. And all I wanted was more.

 More seconds.
More minutes.
More hours.
More him.

 Ten hours…

 Such a small, insignificant amount of time.

 Yet those ten hours changed everything.
—





Author Info
Melissa Toppen is a Bestselling Author specializing in New Adult and Contemporary Romance. She is a lover of books and enjoys nothing more than losing herself in a good novel. She has a soft spot for Romance and focuses her writing in that direction; writing what she loves to read. 

Melissa resides in Cincinnati Ohio with her husband and two children, where she writes full time.

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BOOK BLITZ w/EXCERPT - Wild Thing by JA Huss

Wild Thing
by JA Huss
Publication date: May 13th 2019
Genres: Contemporary Romance

BLURB
Kidnapping her was the easy part. Now I’ve got to tame her.

 Runaway corporate princess, Lyssa Baylor, was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

 But that’s not what I’ll be sticking in there.

 LYSSA
Freelance princess hunter, Mason Macintyre, thinks he’s so tough with those bulging muscles. He thinks he’s so smart with his plan to tame me with spankings and submission. Well, I’ve got news for him. They don’t call me Wild Thing for nothing. I’ve been playing unruly princess my whole life and I’m not about to stop now.

 MASON
This was supposed to be a simple kidnap job. Catch her and bring her in so she can be married off to the son of a family friend. But once her father realizes the man he hired to reform his unruly brat of a daughter won’t be able to handle her, he blackmails me into completing the job.

 No one blackmails me, I don’t care how rich and powerful you are. Her father might be untouchable, but Lyssa isn’t. I’m gonna touch her all over and punish her so hard, that forced marriage will be her only way out of my little princess reform school.

 ***

 WILD THING is a smokin’-hot, sexy story of a runaway princess and her reluctant Prince Charming. A tantalizing tale of forced marriage, captive submission, and a hero who doesn’t know he’s a hero until he meets the girl he was meant to save.

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—
EXCERPT:
She smiles at herself in the mirror. “Now this is a wedding dress.”
And I agree. So different than the one she used to wipe my come off her face.
“But oh,” she says, turning to look at her ass in the mirror. “Panty lines.”
And then, before I even realize what she’s doing, she reaches inside the side slits along each thigh and pulls her panties down, kicking them off to the side.
“Lyssa!”
“This is why I never wear underwear,” she explains. “I need to see if it looks OK without them. Because with them—”
“You are not walking down the aisle with no panties on.”
“Oh, yes, I am. This is a no-panties dress and you picked it out. So you have to live with it.”
My cock agrees with her. Because I’m fully fucking hard now.
She glances down at it, then lifts her eyes to mine, and says, “I hope you’re not thinking—”
“I’m not,” I say.
“—because if you wanted to do dirty stuff in here, we could get caught—”
“Don’t worry,” I say.
“—and Margaret would be so disappointed in us if she caught the best man fucking his best friend’s fiancée.”
“What?” I say, doing a double-take.
“That’s what I told her. It’s kinda hot, isn’t it?”
“No,” I say. “It’s kinda sad, actually.”
“Well, it was a lie, anyway. So that just makes it hot.“
“Jesus, Lyssa.”
She mouths the words Wild Thing at me, then reaches down to grab my cock.
I push her away, but she backs me into the mirror with a bang.
“Everything OK in there?” Margaret calls from the other side of the door.
“Just fine,” I yell back, glaring at Lyssa.
“Come on,” she whispers. “Wild thing, hold me tight.” And then she giggles.
“That’s not even how the song goes—”
But I stop. Because the next thing I know, she’s on her knees in front of me, the button popped on my jeans, the zipper down, and my cock is in her hands.
“Lyssa,” I groan.
“Tell me no,” she says, then sticks the head of my cock in her mouth, pressing her tongue up against my shaft, before I even have a chance.
“Would you like another dress?” Margaret calls.
Lyssa eases her mouth off my cock with a loud smacking sound and looks up at me. “What do you think, Mason? Do we need to try on another one?”
“No,” I call back to Margaret. “We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
“I could wrap it up for you,” Margaret offers, just as Lyssa puts my cock back in her mouth and takes me deep into her throat.
“Uh… we’re not quite…. oh, God… done yet,” I say.
“OK, I’m right out here if you need anything.”
“Great,” I groan. Because Lyssa is giving me a full-on head-bobbing messy blow-job. And against my better judgment, my fingers are now tangled in her hair, urging her on.
She pulls off me, both her hands on my thighs, pushing me back, and then she stands again.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Making you choose.”
“Choose what?”
She backs up against the mirror and whispers, “You know why you chose the dress with two slits?”
I already know where this is going.
“Because I can do this.” She pulls the center portion of material aside and flashes her bare pussy at me. “And you,” she says, grabbing my shirt and pulling me towards her so my cock bumps into her leg, “can put that inside me and I don’t even have to take my clothes off.”
“I’m not gonna fuck you,” I whisper back.
Why not? she silently mouths and simultaneously pouts.
“Because you’re not mine, Lyssa.”
She sighs. Frowning. Giving up. Because she leans back against the wall and wilts. “I want to be yours.”
“You can’t be,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re engaged. And I’m just… I’m just your fucking babysitter.”
She slides her hand between her legs, then withdraws it and places the tip of her glistening wet finger against my lips.
I close my eyes and open my mouth, my cock totally in charge now. I suck on her finger the way she was just sucking on my cock.
“Please,” she whispers. So low, I almost don’t hear her. “I promise to be good in every other way if you just… make me feel loved right now.”
I pull her finger out of my mouth and say, “Lyssa,” feeling sad for her.
“We can pretend,” she says. “Right?” She places both her hands on my cheeks and leans in. Kisses me.
I kiss her back.
I know I shouldn’t. I feel the guilt of a best man fucking his best friend’s fiancée, and I don’t even care.
If her name is Lyssa Baylor then I want to fuck my best friend’s fiancée.
“Everybody pretends,” she whispers past my lips. “It’s all fake, Mason. So who cares, anyway?”
She pulls her dress aside again, reaching for my cock. And when she tugs on it, I do the unthinkable. I take two steps forward and we’re not even two steps apart. So now my chest is pressing up against her breasts, forcing her against the wall. She lifts up her leg and I brush the middle section of satin dress over the side of her thigh to get it out of the way.
And after that, it takes no effort at all to slip my cock inside her.
The one thing I told myself I wouldn’t do.
I would eat her out, and let her blow me. And kiss her, and suck her nipples, and smack her ass, and all that other stuff. And it would be OK if I just didn’t fuck her.
And now I’m fucking her.
In her wedding dress.






Author Info
JA Huss is the New York Times Bestselling author of 321 and has been on the USA Today Bestseller's list 21 times in the past five years. She writes characters with heart, plots with twists, and perfect endings. 
Her new sexy sci-fi romance and paranormal romance pen name is KC Cross and she writes novels and teleplays collaboratively with actor and screenwriter, Johnathan McClain. 
Her books have sold millions of copies all over the world, the audio version of her semi-autobiographical book, Eighteen, was nominated for a Voice Arts Award and an Audie Award in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Her audiobook, Mr. Perfect, was nominated for a Voice Arts Award in 2017. Her audiobook, Taking Turns, was nominated for an Audie Award in 2018. Five of her book were optioned for a TV series by MGM television in 2018. And her book, Total Exposure, was nominated for a RITA Award in 2019. 
She lives on a ranch in Central Colorado with her family.

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