SPOTLIGHT w/INTERVIEW - PNR - THE GODDESS OF MAGIC (Bewitching the Beast, #3) by Tamara Hughes

The Goddess of Magic

Bewitching the Beast, #3

by Tamara Hughes

Date of Publication: April 28th 2021

Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing

Cover Artist: Fiona Jayde

Genre: Paranormal Romance

ISBN: 978-1-64716-212-2

ASIN: B08ZL6ZGG9

Number of pages: 220

Word Count: 75,000

Tagline: He was supposed to keep her safe, but the beast spares no one.

BLURB

Socialite Holly Ellison’s best friends are immersed in a fight against evil. They don’t want her involved, but she’s determined to keep them safe. Little do they know she’s the key to everyone’s survival.

Dr. Peter Rennick hears his brother’s rumblings about witches, magic, and dragon spirits possessing people’s bodies only to find out what he’s saying is true. Peter witnesses firsthand the destructive powers of the beast and demands a role in the fight.

When Peter is put in charge of Holly’s safety, the intense attraction between them is a distraction they can’t afford. They must focus on destroying the beast, a powerful spirit that has its sights set squarely on Holly.

Each book in this series can be read as a stand-alone.

Amazon US      Amazon UK     Amazon CA      Amazon AU

Excerpt

I, Holly Ellison, am an idiot.

Grinding her teeth, Holly marched down the hospital hallway, away from the emergency room cubicle where her father was being treated for a broken arm. All this time she’d been working her butt off at her father’s art gallery, and for what? She should have seen her father’s betrayal coming. And in a sense she had. She just hadn’t wanted to believe he thought so little of her. Her throat tightened. They weren’t extremely close, but their relationship was good, wasn’t it?

Her footsteps faltered. She wasn’t being the best daughter. Only hours ago her father had fallen down the staircase in his Upper Manhattan duplex apartment. No, other than a broken arm, he was fine. Besides, he had his newest girlfriend at his side. The same girlfriend who would no doubt soon be his traveling companion. Now that he’d had his epiphany that life was too short to continue to run the Ellison Gallery.

Her blood pressure rose again. But instead of passing the reins onto her, his only daughter, the daughter who had been working for him since high school, the daughter who basically ran the gallery when he was gone, he would hire a “professional” to manage the place.

A professional. What was she? A trained monkey?

She pushed open the door to the street and braced herself for the early December nighttime chill.

Sure, she’d never gone to college, but she’d learned on the job. That had to count for something. Her father had given her an office and put her in charge of various aspects of the business. Had that merely been nepotism? His way of showing affection—a pat on the head and, once in a while, telling her she’d done a good job?

A biting wind hit her, but the cold wasn’t an issue. Not tonight. She was too hot under the collar for the icy temperature to affect her. Maybe she should walk all the way to Tess’s apartment. It might cool her off, so she sounded halfway sane when she vented to her best friend. Best friend? The one who kept secrets from her. Ugh. She should go home. A glass of low-cal wine might help just as well.

She rounded the corner of the building and came face-to-face with a . . . masked man? Holy hell! Holly turned tail but got only two steps away when she was grabbed around the waist from behind. Her heart beating so hard it might leap from her chest and pound on the guy for her, she screamed and twisted in his hold as he stuffed a silver compass into his pocket and dragged her toward a parked car.

“No! Let go!” She lost her purse in the midst of stomping on his feet, kicking his legs, elbowing him anywhere and everywhere. The few times she made contact had little effect. “Help,” she yelled as her attacker opened the car door to the back seat and shoved her inside.

Author Info

A small town girl with a big imagination, Tamara Hughes had no idea what to do with her life. After graduating from college, she moved to a big city, started a family and a job, and still struggled to find that creative outlet she craved. An avid reader of romance, she gave writing a try and became hooked on the power of exploring characters, envisioning adventures, and creating worlds. She enjoys stories with interesting twists and heroines who have the grit to surmount any obstacle, all without losing the ability to laugh.

The Book Junkie Reads . . .Reckless Dreams  Interview with  . . . Tamara Hughes ...

How would you describe your style of writing to someone who has never read your work?

My stories typically have a lot of adventure. They’re fast-paced and contain humor and romance.

I also like to plop my characters into unique situations just to see what happens. In this series, I have a family of witches attempting to defeat dragon spirits that have come to our world and are possessing humans and feeding off their psychic energy.

Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?

Writing for me is really difficult. I try to plot my stories and prep as much as I can, but because my stories have lots of twists and turns, I can’t think through everything up front. I find myself starting with an outline and rethinking things every few chapters. I also find getting words on the page to be a painful process. Editing is much easier for me.

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’m most creative in the mornings, with coffee in hand. I also work much better without distractions. During the pandemic, both of my kids moved back home, and they each have a cat. So, with two kids, a husband, and three cats at home, I’ve been writing very slowly. It’s frustrating, but then I think about what life will be like when my kids have moved out again, and I can’t bring myself to tell them to leave me alone. Instead, I try to value this time.

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?

Before I start writing and plotting, I think about what type of people these people are. I fill out character questions to get the ideas flowing, and I try to think about their backstory. From there, I “cast” my characters by looking for pictures online. But the characters don’t really come to life until I start writing. It’s then that they become real people through their actions and dialogue. Sometimes their personalities really surprise me. I do incorporate traits that I’ve seen over the years from observing people, but I find that it takes a handful of chapters for the characters to really become who they are. 

Can you share your next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?

I write both historical romance and paranormal romance. The story I’m writing now is a historical set during the Great Boston Fire of 1872. Mattie Duncan wants to become a firefighter because she is pursuing Jack Taylor, who is also a firefighter. Jack is charged with training her, and he is adamantly opposed to her quest. He doesn’t want her to be put in harm’s way. But they soon find there has been foul play within the department that resulted in Jack’s brother’s death. Together they must discover who the killer is because Jack may be their next target.

I also have two paranormal romances that are complete that I haven’t published yet.

The first is about a race of people called Tellurians, who have special abilities because they absorb the earth’s telluric current. In the first book in the series, Finding Ambrosia, all the Tellurian women are dying of a mysterious illness, and Beck must seek out the last Tellurian with self-healing abilities to save them. Kate has no idea she’s of this Tellurian race, and while she wants to help, the experiments they have planned just might kill her.

The second book that’s waiting for release is The Keeper’s Touch. This series is about nymphs who have a symbiotic relationship with nature. Because of pollution and global warming, nymphs have evolved so they also gain energy from a male counterpart, called a keeper. Every nymph must start an exchange of energy with her keeper by the time she reaches the age of twenty-one, or she’ll die a painful death. In this first book of the series, Sabrina is almost twenty-one and is in a lot of pain. Her keeper has never searched her out, and she has to find him, fast. She follows the weak link they share and discovers him behind an auto repair shop beating someone half to death. He’s the leader of a street gang, not exactly the keeper she’d been hoping for.

Website: https://tamarahughes.com/
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