Showing posts with label paranormal romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paranormal romance. Show all posts

Friday, September 14, 2012

FRIDAY FIRSTS with...Kathryn Knight

The first four sentences of... SILVER LAKE

Three hours. She would see Jason in three hours, if he left for the lake house when he said he would. A potent mix of apprehension and excitement hummed through her veins, causing her to grip the steering wheel with enough force to turn her knuckles white. “You’re ridiculous, Rain DiMarco,” she mumbled to herself as she ordered her nervous hands to relax.

Genre: Paranormal, fantasy romance
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
 
Available now!
Amazon | The Wild Rose Press
 
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FUN FIRST FACTS ABOUT KATHRYN
1. Who was your first grade teacher? Any funny/interesting memories?
I actually don’t even remember her name, because first grade was such a strange year for me. Apparently I did so well in kindergarten (doing what, I wonder? Probably reading – I started early and never stopped!) the school decided I needed some kind of advanced placement. But since they didn’t have that type of class, they settled on having me attend second grade each morning, and then go to first grade after lunch.

Well, I had no idea what was going on in the second grade classroom, so mostly I just fooled around and learned very little. Then when I went to first grade in the afternoon, I would finish my work very quickly. So usually then I would ask to go to the bathroom and just go back to the playground by myself. Thankfully that would never fly these days (I hope, anyway, as a mom!). As you can imagine, my mom petitioned and succeeded in getting me switched to the better school in the neighboring district, and things went much better in second grade.

2. What was the first meal your significant other ever made for you?
On our first date, my husband made me a nice Italian dinner. The thing I remember the most, though, is that three years later, when we were packing up to move to a new house, I held up these dingy candle holders and asked him if I could toss them (we had received about 10 new pairs for our wedding). He said sure, but then added, “Those are the ones I bought for my apartment before our first date, so we could have a candlelit dinner.” Needless to say, I still have the candle holders, in a place of honor on my bedroom dresser!

3. Tell me about the first novel you ever wrote? Whatever happened to it?Well, the first story I wrote was in second grade (at that better school!), and it was about a little girl who finds a wild (but somehow quite tame!) pony and gets to keep it. That was my dream at the time, and that “book” is still tucked in my baby book. Silver Lake actually is my first novel, although it has been through major alterations and improvements since I initially completed the first draft. My second novel, Gull Harbor, recently received a contract from The Wild Rose Press.

More about Kathryn: As a child, Kathryn Knight kept her parents on a constant quest to find enough reading material to last her through each week. An early fondness for books about horses later gave way to a lasting preference for both love stories and ghost stories; as a writer, the paranormal romance genre is a perfect fit. Silver Lake is Kathryn's first novel; her second novel has also received a contract from The Wild Rose Press and will be released in 2013. She lives in New England with her husband, her sons, and a number of rescued animals.

You can learn more about Kathryn on her website, Facebook and Twitter.  



Friday, March 9, 2012


The first five sentences of... PERPETUAL LIGHT

April 11, 1667

The Abyss hovered, waiting to take me.

More time, I need more time. He’s coming.


The raspy sounds of my own breathing filled my ears. With each jagged gasp, pain shot through my body straight to my core.

Genre: Paranormal romance, urban fantasy
Publisher: Crescent Moon Press

Available now!

FUN FIRST FACTS ABOUT JORDAN
1. Who was your first love?
His name was Richard and we were in kindergarten together. He had a little buzz cut. We used to hold hands on the playground. I went to full-day kindergarten and for part of the day we played in this giant playhouse. We were always married.
2. Tell me about the first novel you ever wrote? What ever happened to it?
Perpetual Light is my first novel. I’ve been very blessed with this book. It took few years, but it’s published and I couldn’t be happier.
3. What was your first date with your significant other?
So this is a debatable answer. The first time we went out together was for coffee after work. I asked him for coffee. He did pay, but I asked. Then the following weekend he asked me to dinner and took to a very nice restaurant and then for a drive along the sea wall where we stopped and talked. However, I firmly believe that if I had not asked him for coffee, we’d have never gone on that first dinner date. Thus, the first date was the coffee. He feels otherwise and swears he was going to ask for my number but I asked for coffee before he could get to the number. I’m not buying it!

MORE ABOUT JORDAN

After trying her hand at many, many things- from crafting and art classes to cooking and sewing classes to running her own handbag business, Jordan finally figured out how to channel her creativity. With an active imagination and a little encouragement from her husband she sat down and began to write, each night clicking away at the keys with her black Labrador, Dino curled up under the desk.
A few short years later she’s entered the publishing arena with no plans to ever turn back.
Jordan’s a member of Rhode Island Romance Writers, as well as RWA National, and the New England (NEC), Connecticut, and Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal (FFnP) Chapters.
Her first book, Perpetual Light, is available on Amazon’s Kindle from Crescent Moon Press.
GIVEAWAY!!!

From Jordan: I’d like to offer a $10 gift certificate to Peet’s Coffee and Teas for one random commenter. To increase your chances of winning connect with me via one or more of the social networks listed below.
Follow my blog via the networked blog button on my site. http://www.jordankrose.com/blog/
Everyone who comments is entered into the grand prize drawing for an eReader- Kindle Touch or Nook Simple Touch.

Friday, February 24, 2012

FRIDAY FIRSTS with Sharon Hamilton

The first five sentences of...
HONEYMOON BITE

Anne looked down on the sleeping form of her new husband and, God help her, he looked like the first man she would murder. Nestled into his arms was the naked body of her maid of honor.

This made the second time today the bride had caught them together. First was at the reception. In the bathroom.

Available now!

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FUN FIRST FACTS ABOUT SHARON

1. What’s the first thing you do when you start writing a new story?

Block out the chapters, the scenes that have to be written. Get a general path of the story first, so I can find the Turning Points, the Black Moments and make sure there is a strong character arc for both the hero and the heroine. Often one of the two of them will want dominance. Not always the same each both, either.

2. Tell me about your very first date (ever).

A bunch of Stanford guys wanted to date several of us in high school. They went through the yearbook, and each of them picked one. I got picked by a nerdy boy from Brooklyn. He probably became the head of some huge investment firm, but we were a bit mismatched...LOL. I was scared to death!

3. What was your first date with your significant other?

We went to a jazz concert at Sonoma State University. I had been the night before with another guy, but didn't tell my husband that. I was thrilled he'd asked me. I'd wanted him to ever since I met him at school.

MORE ABOUT SHARON: Sharon Hamilton lives on 60 acres in beautiful Sonoma County with her chickens and other assorted wild life, including her husband of 40 years. When not pouring over a laptop, or reading, she can be found in the garden, dead-heading flowers and planting vegetables. She works out many of her story lines while covered in dirt.

FIND SHARON ONLINE:
http://sharonhamiltonauthor.blogspot.com/
http://www.sharonhamiltonauthor.com/
http://www.sharonhamiltonauthor.com/books.html

Friday, February 10, 2012

FRIDAY FIRSTS with Jami Gray

First five sentences of...SHADOW'S EDGE
With a quick twist of her wrist, Raine slipped the blade between Quinn’s ribs. His heart gave one last desperate beat then fell silent. He slid slowly down her body to his knees, ending up in a strange, lover-like tableau.

Wrenching out her blade with a soft grunt, she held him in a gentle grasp, carefully lowering his lifeless body to the cracked concrete floor of the deserted warehouse. She closed his now dull brown eyes, knowing they would join the handful of others haunting her dreams.

Publisher: Black Opal Books
Available Now!
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FUN FIRST FACTS ABOUT JAMI

1. What was your first date with your significant other?
A little history first. My hubby and I first met when I played violin at his eighth grade graduation ceremony. Who knew that my future knight-in-muddy-armor and ruthless hunter of multi-legged creepy crawlies would be found during a lovely rendition of Pomp and Circumstances? Certainly not my pre-pubescent self.

For the next five years we were best friends who flirted outrageously, but never really followed through. Graduation came and we began our separate tours of the college adventure route only to reconnect years later by chance. This time, the outrageous flirtation definitely went places!

Our first date was dinner and movie. He picked me up at work, but when we were halfway to the restaurant, we had to go back. Unfortunately my nerves had promptly replaced my normal OCD tendencies and I left my house keys at the office. Finally we were off to dinner, traipsed around town for a bit and then wandering into the riveting flick known as Broken Arrow. I don’t really remember much of the movie, but I do remember my first date!

2. What was the first meal your significant other made you?
Of the two of us, he’s the cook. Even our boys will tell you, mom’s great as long as pushing buttons is involved, but anything more complicated and you best take evasive maneuvers.

Keep in mind my knight-in-slightly-muddy-armor is half German and half Hispanic and the one meal he can create without fail is lasagna. It’s a mouth watering testament to cheese, pasta, spices and meat. Not only was the meal great, but so was the laughter when klutz that I am, I decorated my shirt with red sauce. Plus watching him in my rarely used kitchen was a treat. I think I even got him to put on some girly apron over his jeans and t-shirt.

3. What was the first meal you made your significant other?
Again, remember I don’t cook, but sometimes I can even surprise myself. Before he could figure out that cooking was not my forte and head for the hills, I decided to lure him in with handmade eggrolls. I had actually figured out how to make the dish a couple weeks before, so little did he know, it was about the only thing I had been eating for the last week or so. Plus that lasagna was a bit intimidating, so I had to come back with something equally impressive. Every now and then he’ll fondly reminisce about those eggrolls with some comment along the line of “Do you remember when you cooked?”

More about Jami:
Growing up on the Arizona-Mexico border, Jami Gray was adopted at the age of 14 and suddenly became the fifth eldest of 37 children. She graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor’s in Journalism and three minors-History, English, and Theater. Shortly after marrying her techie-geek hubby (who moonlighted as her best friend in high school) she completed a Masters in Organizational Management from University of Phoenix Oregon.

Now, years later, she’s back in the Southwest where she’s outnumbered in her own home by two Star Wars obsessed boys, one Star Wars obsessed husband, and an overly-friendly, 105-pound male lab. Writing is what saves her sanity.


Find Jami on the web:
Website: http://www.jamigray.com/

Blogs: http://www.7evildwarves.wordpress.com/ or http://www.jamigray.wordpress.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jamigray.author

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/JamiGrayAuthor

Friday, January 27, 2012

FRIDAY FIRSTS with author Lynn Crain


First Five Sentences of... A LOVER FOR RACHEL

“Come on, we’re going to be late! You’re the one who wanted to go to this thing. Besides, it’s the dead of night, so who’s going to see us?”

Rachel frowned at her best friend, Samantha Andrews, again. Yes, she was the one who wanted to go to the summer solstice celebration at Stonehenge.



Genre: Paranormal erotic romance
Publisher: Self-published

Available now!

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FUN FIRST FACTS ABOUT LYNN

1. What was the first Rated R movie you ever saw? Wow...are you trying to get me in trouble? LOL! In the little town we lived in they never checked IDs at the door. We got into tons of movies that we’d have been kicked out of today. My first R-rated flick was High Plains Drifter. I thought Clint Eastwood was so hot that I tried to write a book with a similar character. No, I didn’t succeed. LOL!

2. What was the first romance you ever read?
Now, this will be a three part question for me. The first book I read that could be considered a romance had to be Gone With The Wind. At the time, I didn’t consider it to be one but an epic Civil War novel. The first ‘bodice-ripper’ romance I ever read was The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Boy was that one hot...LOL! The first Harlequin Romance I ever read, about the same time as The Flame and the Flower, was called Castles in Spain. It was really sweet but still the HEA pulled me in. I have each and every one of those original books.

3. What’s the first thing you do when you start reading a new book?
Well, with ebooks I can’t do this so much any more...but...what I used to do was this: I’d look at the cover, I’d read the back blurb, I’d read the inside cover and usually a page at the beginning, middle and end. If I liked those, I’d buy the book. Now, I just look at the blurb, look at the cover and if they show a portion for a ‘look inside’ moment, I’ll read it.

Friday, November 11, 2011

FRIDAY FIRSTS with Rachel Firasek


The first five sentences of...THE LAST RISING
Heat licked along the wing of the plane, flickering like tiny fingers waving good-bye. Ironically, the thought of dying didn’t hurt, but rising again increased her heart rate and caused a damp drizzle at her temple.

The torture of passing through the portal and waking with no memory didn’t appeal to Ice any more than learning to live a new life—damn Osiris and his punishments.

Ice didn’t want to think about her ex. The last time she’d truly seen Osiris, he’d been in pieces—literally.


THE LAST RISING, an Entangled Publishing release, is available now at many online bookstores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and All Romance eBooks.

FUN FIRST Q&A ABOUT RACHEL 

1. Tell me about your very first kiss?
I was fourteen and my parents had let my fifteen year old boyfriend come over to watch movies. I'd sat through four hours of action with my knees pressed together trying to curb the urge to "go".  I finally couldn't take it anymore and rushed to our small half-bath. I'd just finished washing my hands and opened the door to my bf looming in the doorway. Thinking back on it now, "How creepy?" but then, I thought it was uber sweet that he couldn't wait. Next thing I know, he's forced his fat, wet tongue down my throat and over the slurpy mess I could hear the toilet bowl finishing its gurgle. Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday.  


2. What’s the first thing you notice on an attractive member of the opposite sex?
I had to pick this one! OMG. In my day job, I work with almost all men. So, the first thing I notice is his crotch. No, I'm not a perv--not mostly. But, normally, I get the guys seeing my chest first, so.... yeah, I do a crotch check to make sure they are paying attention to what I'm saying to them and not what "the girls" are doing while I'm talking.
 
3. If you could live your life over again, what’s the first thing you’d do differently or change?
Uh, yeah, I'd have ditched that first bf with that lame kiss...it would have saved me from a year+ of misery.

About the author: Rachel Firasek grew up in the south and despite the gentle pace, she harassed life at full steam. Her curiosity about mythology, human nature, and the chemical imbalance we call love led her to writing. Her stories began with macabre war poems and shifted to enchanted fairytales, before she settled on a blending of the two. Today you’ll find her tucked on a small parcel of land, surrounded by bleating sheep and barking dogs, with her husband and children. She entertains them all with her wacky sense of humor or animated reenactments of bad 80’s dance moves. She’s intrigued by anything unexplained and seeks the answers to this crazy thing we call life. You can find her where the heart twists the soul and lights the shadows… or at rachelfirasek.com

Friday, October 21, 2011

FRIDAY FIRSTS with Laurie London

First five sentences of...
Enchanted By Blood
from the anthology A Vampire for Christmas


“So who are you planning to kill?”

Trace Westfalen didn’t glance over at the sound of his friend’s voice. Instead, he shoved his phone into an inner pocket of his suit, strode to the wet bar in the corner of the conference room and poured himself a straight shot of Jack. Without waiting for his fangs to retract, he drained it in one swallow.

“I wish,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “That would improve my mood substantially.”
(Becky here: Okay, so that's six sentences, but I liked that sixth one... )

Laurie will give away a signed copy of her book to one lucky commenter this weekend! We will draw a name on Sunday.

FUN FIRST QUESTIONS ABOUT LAURIE


Q: What was the first Rated R movie you saw?
My first R rated movie was Saturday Night Fever. I saw it with a bunch of my horse-riding friends and our instructor. But the one I remember the most was seeing Body Heat with my dad. OMG, I was mortified watching all those sex scenes with him right next to me.
Q: What was the first romance novel you read?
I don’t remember the title or many of the details, only that I loved it! It was a Harlequin (I think) and the cover had a woman wearing a beautiful, flowing purple dress and the man had an unbuttoned, ruffled white shirt. He was a pirate ship captain who was secretly an aristocrat, and she was a woman who’d stowed aboard his ship. My sister (yes, Becky, you!) thinks I got it from my boyfriend’s mom, but I think a shirttail relative who lived with us for a couple of weeks left it at our house a few years earlier. (I was 15 when I was “going with” that boy, but I think I started reading romance before that.) Every month, Becky and I would buy several romances and swap them. I liked the daring ones about pirates and women in danger, while Becky liked family stories.  It’s funny, because our reading tastes are the same as they were back then.
Q: What’s the first thing you do when you start reading a new book?
I’m pretty methodical when I’m considering reading a new book. First, the cover and title need to catch my eye either online or in the bookstore. An uninspiring title is a turn off to me. Next, I read the back cover blurb to see if it sounds interesting. Then I read the first page of the book and then a random page inside to see if I like the writer’s style. And finally, I read the dedication and acknowledgments to see what the author has to say in his/her own voice. In fact, my love for reading this often overlooked part a book prompted me to create a weekly feature on my blog called Thank You Thursday, where authors talk about their book’s dedications and acknowledgments.
LINKS:
You can buy A Vampire For Christmas at Amazon, B&N, most online bookstores and on the shelves of your favorite stores.
About Laurie: A graduate of Western Washington University with a BA in Business Administration and a former tester/programmer for a Fortune 500 company, Laurie London writes from her home near Seattle where she lives with her husband and two children.

When not writing, she can be found running, reading, or riding and showing her horse. Someday she hopes to qualify for the Quarter Horse World Show – that is, if her horse doesn’t get hurt again.