Enjoy a read while I enjoy finishing writing Book Three—Tigris Vetus…
Book Two – Drago Incendium
Meet Mortas, introduced in Book Two Drago Incendium and getting much more play time in Book Three (in the works!) 🖤 The swoon worthy vampire emissary also gets his own story 🖤 and it’s in the works as well…
Who’s your favorite vampire in fiction?
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His pale, chiseled face erupted into a toothy smile. “Ah. You’ve broken free of my compulsion. Interesting. I sensed there was something unique about you.”
“That was you making me want to follow? You compelled me? How?”
“I’m a vampire, little human. That’s how. Do you know of vampires?”
My chest hurt from the sudden pounding, and I gave my surroundings a frantic onceover. Shit. I was standing alone in the woods with a freakin vampire! Really smart move, Selena. Andras was going to kill me if I survived this.
Pressing harder against the tree, I said, “I’m afraid I know nothing of vampires, except that you can be dangerous. Are you dangerous? Should I be concerned?” That last question came out in a squeak with the rest of my air.
What a fun way to decide on a new cover design! Thank you Airanna Lewellyn for sending me your idea and great design and helping me with my first newsletter and survey! We collaborated on Canva to finalize it. Relaunch coming soon. Stay tuned!
Feel free to sign up for my newsletter for more updates. And you can follow me here and on Instagram.
To celebrate adding my books to Google and my relaunch this month for Books One and Two, I’m offering all three books free on Google through August 1 !! Click hereor on image for my Linktree!
This has been a great month for me writing-wise, not only for the Relaunch, but I’ve made huge progress on Book Three, which I am only too happy to share by way of a cover reveal! Scroll down… Yay!
Thank you so much for your support. 💚💙💜💙💚
You can still get my books free on Smashwords Books during its Summer/Winter Sale!
Fantasy Author MJ James will be coming for a visit in September, and I can’t wait to share our conversation and talk about all the ways the writing community is awesome. MJ knows because they work hard shining the light on the unsung indie writers and their books.
You can follow MJ on their YouTube channel, and I will point you to it with this particular episode because MJ invited me to share Book One in the Starlight Chronicles, Ursus Borealis!
Give the channel a like and subscribe. MJ works tirelessly for the community all while working on their own books. The In-Between is a super good read, too!
Andras snared me with his eyes. A low rumble sounded in his chest and moved up his throat. The reactions around us shocked me. The croupier paused the betting. Some of the men moved away. A few cleared their throats, and several women let out soft moans. And all of it increased my internal temperature. Fearing I would dissolve into a puddle if I thought too much about what was happening, I kept my gaze fixed on Andras.
Selena Aires – Ursus Borealis
To celebrate all the excitement and my appreciation of all the fantastic fantasy, paranormal shifter romance, and supernatural fantasy readers out there, my books are free July 3-5! and Ursus Borealis is free all month on Smashwords. Click on image.
Here is a sneak peek at the cover for Book Three, Tigris Vetus, and a series synopsis:
When Selena Aires moves to a small town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, what she expects falls into place; the perfect artist bungalow, fun new friends, and miles of trails right out her back door.
It’s not long after finding her niche at the old pioneer pub The Starlight that she discovers her new town and its citizens harbor mysteries below the surface. For answers, Selena must tap deeper into her abilities as an observer. What she sees not only changes the world as she knows it but requires her to face hard choices… and strange foes.
Fortunately, the petite artist attracts strong allies, including two men, shifters, and alphas of rival packs, who put aside their differences when she calls on them, though they don’t stop competing for her heart.
Others line up to support the once dedicated loner. A vampire emissary brings challenges to Selena’s personal life, though she sees his potential as an ally. She is reunited with her brother at the perfect time, but he has a secret that breaks her heart. Then there’s her magus guide Zigan, a holy man dedicated to her prophetic cause, though even he doesn’t have all the answers.
Just when Zigan and Selena think they figured out which direction she must go to fulfill her destiny, a new twist is revealed, requiring Selena to investigate yet another path.
Answering this call means facing an alien prince who made Earth his territory thousands of years ago. Aviel does not give up when he wants something, and he wants Selena. To rid the planet of this age-old menace, Selena must make the dreaded decision to leave her growing family behind and join Aviel in her biggest role yet as a maiden marked by the moon goddesses of Anurash.
Catching up in my planner/journal today and thought I’d see how everyone is doing halfway through the year. Are you on track with your writing goals? Taking time off? Enjoying some unusually cool weather like I me?
I have to admit, the first half has been a blur, and I don’t see things slowing down, though the pace is so much different now that I’m no longer stuck in the 7:00 – 5:30 4-10 routine (sorry, just can’t relegate my previous work schedule to a mere 9 to 5 😊).
Don’t you love these stickers? I’m a sticker fiend. But I don’t buy them like I used to. Instead, I’m trying to use them up. No more room in the studio for hoarding. Still, I can’t bring myself to stick my sassy collection on anything for fear of leaving them behind. They’re from a favorite Etsy sticker shop, Shine Sticker Studios.
I have managed to complete some significant goals before July, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next six months.
As for the goals met, I have to plug them in here… I’m just so danged excited…
1) A relaunch of Book One in The Starlight Chronicles, Ursus Borealis with a new cover and bonus chapters.
2) A completed 15,000 word short story ready for submission, involving a favorite character from my series, Mortas, a vampire emissary, so old he doesn’t remember how he came into existence. That doesn’t mean he’s a relic, though he must act as one to save a young girl from being sacrificed. If Dragon Soul Press decides not to take it on, I’ve got more planned for my vampire, so stay tuned.
Andras JohnsRelaunchMortas
Free All of July!
Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale!
To widen the reach a bit more, I’ll be offering my books for free on Amazon the first week of July as well.
Well, back to working on my Sunday’s Spotlight with writer J. V. Hilliard! For more great conversations on a writer’s life, check out my Galleries!
It occurred to me that the comments from the amazing contributors at AutoCrit are technically a book review. Huh! Not sure why I didn’t think of it that way until now.
This happy moment starts at 24.43. But all the writers who made the anthology deserve a listen.
AutoCrit is a great editing platform and I wouldn’t have grown as a writer without it and the community.
Priss Starwillow & the Wolf is available at your favorite sellers.
Retire I said. Write full time, I said. Get up when I want. Eat when I want. Listen to books when I want. Go out with friends when I want. Eerrk! Wait, back up. Write full time? That’s work, right?
Did I really think my pod people (aka book characters seeded in my brain by aliens) would let me retire? Get up when I wanted, go out with friends when I wanted. eat when I wanted? Okay, so that stuff is actually happening, but yikes! I am really writing full time!
Like get up, stay in my jammies, bring a cup of coffee to my office, and start writing, until I want to stop kind of full time writing. Oh Yeah!
It was a great month to retire from the old day job because it’s Camp NanoWrimo! I passed my goal yesterday and I’m closing in on a finish to a story I have been dying to write since Book Two in my series, The Starlight Chronicles (slipping in an announcement here – my series relaunch is happening in May!!), because there’s a vampire, one of those secondary pod people you fall in love with from his very first introduction. And he only gets better all the way through to his cliffhanger ending (coming in Book Three!!).
So what better Camp project is there than giving Mortas his own short story. And events unfold that include another great secondary pod person, Ember, the witch. But pod people beget more pod people when writing fiction. And that’s what’s happening in this story. New compelling pod people!
I’m trying to keep it short, which means its 15,000 if I want to submit it to an Indie Press anthology. But it’s pushing the boundaries really tight. So, we’ll see.
Let me know what you think of the story description that follows my beautiful teaser. I would love any help with using it for my submission.
Mortas
Description:
No one remembers how Mortas came into existence, least of all him. Due to his vast age, he can command magic, and his vampire urges. His other inexplicable ability? He can exist in daylight. These skills mean Lord Aramis, the ruler of the North American Vampires, often assigns his favorite emissary to missions involving humans.
But Mortas has not always been at the pinnacle of vampire perfection. He’s done a lot of things in his thousands of years he would rather forget.
When he meets a witch in San Francisco in 1969, he wonders for the first time if it’s possible to live life without being plagued by dreams of regret. But Ember has another calling and leaves their bed one afternoon, never to return.
When you’re immortal, you move on.
An assignment leads Mortas to Selena Aires. He’s captivated by the beautiful, marked maiden with a prophetic destiny. Turns out she needs his help. But Mortas’s help is never free. When she pays the price without question and joins him on a dangerous mission, his fascination turns into purpose. A purpose that sends him into the worst predicament of his life.
~~~
Ember grew up in Fisherman’s Wharf, part of a coven who told fortunes for sailors as cover to more lucrative work, like picking their pockets. When two of her marks got the better of her at fourteen, she got rescued by a bear. To this day, she would do anything for that bear shifter because Andras Johns is one of the best men she knows. When he calls on her to help a vampire in trouble, she doesn’t hesitate to answer.
By D. L. Lewellyn 