Book Giveaway over at Author Island!

Wild Child Publishing is celebrating their May releases over at Author Island with the Cyber Launch Party!!

AND yes!  There's book giveaways to some lucky people who leave a comment!  Hope to see everyone there.

Dragon Wish is over there too.  Wow, it'd be awesome for one of my followers win a copy!

Wish you luck.

Here's the Link:  www.cyberlaunchparty.blogspot.com

Dragon Wish Release!

YES!!!

My Fantasy Romance, DRAGON WISH, is out today! 

Can I say ecstatic? 

Up on cloud nine?

Dancing in the streets...

sheets...

where ever?

Screaming with hysterical joy?

Be sure and check this one out. 

Dragon Wish / Wild Child Publishing

Everyone who's read it has fallen in love with it!!

Blog Hop, Follow Friday...Da Dah Da Dah...Number 9 (yes I miscounted the last time)

Basically you answer the questions, hop around to other people's blog and follow them. Oh, yeah, you answer the question too.  You wouldn't believe some of the really great blogs out there!  I love doing this.

"If you were given the chance to spend one day in a fictional world (from a book), which book would it be from and what would that place be?"


I think I would love to be a part of Julia Quinn's Regency era.  Love her books.  She makes reading about her characters lives so enjoyable.

Q. It's circle time. Time for us to open up and share. Can you tell us FIVE quirky habits or things about you? We all have them...


OMG! 

K, here we go!

1. I drink all the milk out of my cereal before I eat it.
2. I love Techno music.
3. I talk to my plants and trees.
4. I love to sit with my legs crossed Indian fashion (suppose that's what kept me limber)
5. I can tune out any thing when I'm reading or writing. 


Not too weird, but definitely quirky.  Thanks to everyone who stops by to comment and follow!!

Tap...tap...cough...Can you hear me?

Good, good. 

Well, I just wanted to let everyone know that yes, can you believe it, my fantasy novel, Dragon Wish is up for presales at Wild Child Publishing.

It's been a long journey but oh, so worth it.

DRAGON WISH - Pick up your copy here!



A vision, a wish, and a journey plagued by evil.

Cold, desolate cliffs and a white dragon’s blue gaze captures Seren Jordan in a terrifying vision. A universe away, Paladin Fulcan--prince, captain, and sorcery-shadowed seed of dragonkind--struggles to overcome his grief during the long journey to where he must bury his wife and son. Seeing a shooting star, he violates the most sacred law of the dragonseed: he makes a wish.

A dragonseed's wish can open the gates between realities, can alter fate. But has fate itself decreed this wish? For the throne-less dragonseed's destiny is entwined with that of a mortal mate; their son is fated to be the One True Dragon King to rule over all the dragons. But not all dragons are content to accept one rule, and the rebels quietly gather allies to prevent the birth of Seren's baby.


Genre: Romance/Fantasy
Book Length: Plus Novel
Word Count: 101,046
Pages: 327
Price: $6.99

Kathryn Meyer Griffith and Witches

In 1991 I’d already been writing for about twenty years, on and off (though there was a long gap where I didn’t write because of a divorce, the finding of a full time job to support myself and my son, and a remarriage…life) when I contracted my fourth novel, my first of four to Zebra paperbacks, a romantic horror called Vampire Blood, about a family of vampires who ran a movie theater in a small town. I’d already had a fifth novel, The Last Vampire, completed and in with them when they asked me for another novel.


Got anything about witches, they asked. Witches are hot right now. Hmmm.

For many years I’d played around with an idea about a present day white witch who finds a diary of a long dead witch – either good or bad, I hadn’t decided – in her old house’s attic, or basement, or under a floorboard. The story would have been about the good witch reliving the other dead witch’s life through the diary. I’d always called that possible book Rachel’s Diary in my head.

So in 1991 or 1992 I began the witch book and it quickly metamorphosed into a story of a present day good witch, Amanda Givens, who’s yanked into a perilous seventeenth century past by an evil witch, Rachel Coxe, to take her place…and die a horrible death as an accused witch. I had the idea then to actually send Amanda into the past to live (for a while) the other witch’s life. Of course, being a good witch, Amanda, changes the other witch’s unsavory reputation but still ends up in a prison waiting to die for Rachel’s earlier crimes. The story, simply put, would be how Amanda overcomes her trials and tribulations, finds her lost eternal love again in the past, and finds a way to return to the present alive. In the process, learning some important life lessons about accepting what life has dealt her and the value of sisters, friendships and the love of those around her. Or good versus evil and, in the end, good wins and is rewarded. I also threw in a few touches of humor in the form of three precocious witches’ familiars…a mind-reading and speaking cat called Amadeus, a mouse, Tituba, and a tiny bat, Gibbiewackett …all with feisty personalities and quirks of their own.

I was excited about the book as I was writing it and when it was done, pleased with it, but had no idea that over the years it’d become the jewel of my writing career and the book that my fans would love the best of all my books. I loved the cat face cover Zebra did for it (a rare occurrence as I’d learned the hard way that covers weren’t always what I’d envisioned and in the early days I had no choice but to accept whatever the publisher’s gave me…and some weren’t so hot, let me tell you!).

Witches came out in 1993 and did well. I noticed soon after as I went on to publish other books that I got the most response and admiration for it. Readers loved the three sisters, Amadeus and Amanda, Gibbiewackett and Tituba. In those days I was too busy working full time as a graphic artist, living my life and writing new books to notice. It went into a second printing in 2000 and after that, sadly, went out of print. But my fans never forgot it. I’d find comments on it and discussions on the Internet…even customer reviews raving about it years and years later. I tried talking Zebra into reissuing it but after Zebra and I parted ways there was no talking them into it.

Then in 2010 when Damnation Books contracted my 13th and 14th novels, the publisher, Kim Richards, asked about all (there was 7 at the time) my out-of-print Zebra and Leisure backlist novels and if I’d like to have them reissued as new paperbacks and, for the first time ever, in e-books. Sure, that’d be great! I told her. And, as they say, the rest is history. Between June 2010 and July 2012 all 7 of them (and now another 3 of my Wild Rose Press novels and two short stories from 2007) updated, rewritten and with stunning new covers will be out again. All in e-books for the first time.

Of course, that’s meant a heck of a lot of rewriting. A lot of work. Those early novels go back twenty-seven years and were first written in the days of snail mail and on an electric typewriter before the Internet, e-mails and Windows Track Changes (for editing). Oh, boy, did they need revising. As of today I can happily say they’re all rewritten now except the very first one, Evil Stalks the Night, 1984; yet even that one will be completed soon.

I’ve often been asked what I think of e-books and I have to say it feels strange, all these years later, to be so into them. I think it’s fantastic to be able to put thousands of books on one little lightweight hand-held contraption and sell them as inexpensively as we do. I started publishing e-books four years ago and have seen such great changes in even that short a time. I love the editing process now. With Track Changes it’s truly a collaborative effort between the editor and the writer and it’s taught me far more about the craft of writing than the old way of just sending off the manuscript, being asked to change certain things, but then never seeing any of those changes or the basic edits until the book was printed and in my hand. Now, no more pages added by an editor (That actually happened in Evil Stalks the Night. The editor, who I never met, added three pages of his own and I didn’t even know about it until I held the book in my hand. And the three pages didn’t make sense…ech!) that I never know about or see until the book comes out. Yeah.

With a chuckle I recall a writer’s convention I attended in 1990 – yes, that far back – and the main topic back then was…OMG the electronic books are coming! They’re going to make us authors obsolete! Print books are going to die a terrible lonely death…etc., etc. Lack and alas, what are we going to do? Ha, ha. It’s ironic that 21 years later I’m in love with e-books. They’re the future. And I think there’ll always be room for print books as well as electronic ones.

So Witches…Damnation Books rereleased it April 1, 2011. I’m thrilled. The cover is still of Amadeus, the cat, and Dawne Dominique did an amazing job on it. My editor, Alison O'Byrne, helped me make it a better book than eighteen years ago. Of all my novels, I’m most proud of it. It’s held up pretty well. I hope it finds many more readers and fans.

So that’s the story of Witches…the little book that wouldn’t die.

BLURB:

Amanda Givens is careful how she uses her powers. She doesn't want the people of Canaan, Connecticut to know they have a witch among them . . . even a good white witch. For years, she's lived quietly in a remote cabin with Amadeus, her quirky feline familiar. At first with her husband, Jake, the love of her life, until a car accident; but now alone after his death. But when she's wrongly blamed for a rash of ritualistic murders committed by a satanic cult, she knows she can no longer hide. She's the one the cult's after and she is the only one who can stop them and prove her innocence.

As punishment for fighting and destroying the cult, she's drawn back in time by the ghost of the dark witch, Rachel Coxe, who was drowned for practicing black magic in the 17th century.

Now, as Amanda tries to rehabilitate Rachel's reputation in an effort to save lives, as well as her own, and falls in love all over again with Joshua, her reincarnated dead husband from the future, she has to rely on a sister's love and magical knowledge, and a powerful sect of witches named the Guardians to help her get home safely. ***

EXCERPT:

Now, with her heart breaking, her eyes shut, her hands waving languidly over the fire, she chanted the nefarious words that would bring her husband back from the dead.

Mandy...no, Mandy...

Something crashed against the door, as if something or someone were throwing themselves against it. Wood splintered, but the door held. Amadeus, who had powers of his own, was fighting mad now. It was his responsibility to protect her, protect her from herself, if need be. She heard him growling at her through the door.

Open up, Mandy. Open the damn door!

"No. I told you, Amadeus, either help me or go away."

The cat grumbled beyond the door, hissed and spat as loud as any big cat, and the battering resumed.

Amanda's eyes flew open, widened as the apparition began to take form inside the pentagram—the outline of a man, tall, his arms thrown over his face as if in defense.

"Jake?" She moaned, staring at the thing.

It lowered its hands and a ghoulish, misty face peered out at her, a face so full of torment and fear, Amanda fell back in shock.

"Don't do this, Mandy, I beg you! Remember me as I was. I don't belong there anymore." She heard the plaintive whisper, an echo on the still air. Its hands reached out to her. "Let me go. You don't know what you're doing."

She couldn't stop. The enchantment wasn't complete. It would be better when it was. He was between two worlds now and he would be frightened. Half-formed. Between two worlds.

If she wasn't careful, those unearthly denizens—shade demons, she called them—that haunted that dead world could escape into hers. So dangerous. What the hell was she doing opening the forbidden portals like this?

What happened if she was a moment off, a word wrong and the demons came through? If she unleashed them? A disaster.

Amanda steeled herself, wiped the fresh tears from her face with the back of her hand. "Damn it, I want you back, Jake. I'll have you back," she swore.

She took up where she'd left off, knowing if she stopped at this point of the spell, it could ruin everything. Everything.

The door groaned behind her under its assault (damn but that cat was strong), the wind screamed outside the windows. The candles placed around the pentagram fluttered in a strange breeze in the shadowy room.

Amanda's heart froze. She stopped in the middle of the spell, her eyes going wide with fear, her hands half-raised before her, and her head thrown back as the flames from the fire glowed more brightly across her tense face.

What was that word? Suureerustus? Summertus? Or...

She stared at the blurry figure trying to form in the circle. It was yelling at her now...something...something...she couldn't make out the words.

It was no longer alone.

Things writhed around its melting feet, flew about its head. Terrible things. Things from the dead world. Unholy things. Gaping mouths with sharp bloodied teeth, glittering fiendish eyes in deformed, hideous bodies. Some almost human, some insect like. Others indescribable. Some growing before her eyes to be taller than she was.

Monsters. Coming through the barrier, crossing the lines of the pentagram, into her world.

Amanda grabbed the nearest thing with which to fight them off, a broom, and started swinging at them.

She was so busy hitting and spewing out new spells to keep the shade demons from coming through that she never heard the door burst open; never felt the cool storm wind enter the cabin until something determined and furry flew by her face toward the pentagram, hissing all the way.

Then Amadeus was helping her herd the malignant spirits back from where they'd come. All claws, teeth, and unearthly glowing eyes. He snarled the word Sutterus at her in passing and Amanda quickly supplied it in the spell where it belonged.

The demons began to slowly dissolve in shrieks of rage.

Don't send us away! Don't send us back there! Let us out. Out!

Jake's figure returned. A shadow with hanging head. Just one or two sentences and the incantation would be complete. Jake would be there, solid, before her.

Amanda hesitated. The thing in the circle looked so pitiful. So unnatural.

Before she could finish, soft, but strong paws clamped tightly around her neck and wouldn't let go. Something howled like a banshee in her ear, as sharp teeth angrily nipped it. She couldn't breathe.

"Amadeus! Get off!" She screamed, tumbling to the floor with the huge cat on top of her, still holding on like a leech, its yowling and screeching enough to wake the dead—instead, it woke her.

By the time she'd yanked the cat off, throwing him roughly against the opposite wall so that he yelped in pain, and she'd crawled back to the pentagram, Jake was gone. The enchantment broken. ***

Link: www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

Buy Link: http://damnationbooks.com/book.php?isbn=9781615723553

Thank you for having me here on your blog, Judith!

***

Kathryn Meyer Griffith has been writing for nearly forty years and has published 14 novels and 7 short stories since 1984 with Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books and Eternal Press in the horror, romantic paranormal, suspense and murder mystery genres. Learn more about her at www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith or www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyergriffith or www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith or www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyergriffith and http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1019954486 .

Jenn Nixon - Wild & Wicked

How I came to write my novella: Funny story about Wild & Wicked…while querying another book to publishers, I was fortunate enough to get two yeses, TWO days apart! I accepted publication with the first publisher and emailed the second to let them know. They kindly offered me the chance to submit shorts to them for publication and since I had this steamier idea rolling around in my head for about six months, I decided to actually write it. I submitted it a few months later and they said yes again!


The novella process was a totally new experience for me. I loved every minute of it and surprised myself in the end with a novella that I really, really love. So much so that I had to write a sequel to it!

Blurb: Veronica Chance’s sister has gone missing. In order to find Valerie, “Roni” takes a waitressing job at Foxxes Gentlemen’s Club, the last place her sister worked, to search for clues. First day on the job, the club owner makes her give a lap dance to his VIP guest, Mr. Storm. Veronica’s instant attraction to him spells trouble and threatens to blow her cover.

Former detective Mason Storm can’t deny the connection he feels for the wild and mysterious Roni. During the lap dance, he learns about her missing sister, offers his help, only to be rejected. Not ready to give up, he confronts her again, adding in the fact he’s see her sister in the club, but she denies him once more.

When Veronica calls, acting rather strangely, Storm finds her at the club, drugged and giving a lap dance to a kid at an illegal after party. Grateful for the help, Veronica comes clean about who she is, and accepts Storm’s offer to help. Together, they unravel the clues surrounding Valerie’s disappearance, uncover the horrible truth behind the illegal after parties, all the while exploring and succumbing to their lustful desires for each other.

Excerpt:

“I’m sorry, didn’t mean to get busted…you don’t have to do this," Mason said.

“He’s probably going to watch,” Starr replied, eyes roving to the spots Karl had surveillance. Now why would a waitress know where the cameras were? “And it’s my first day.” She stepped close, drawing his attention. Long shapely legs, covered to the knees in leather, straddled his thigh. Her hips and waist were within reach, and her full bust directly eye level.

She swayed back and forth, stunningly hypnotic.

When she moistened her lips and spun around giving him a rear view, the blood rushed from Mason’s brain. Starr bent down and pressed her ass against his thighs, his entire body flashed with heat. She grinded in a circular motion, awakening and enlarging him surprisingly fast. Spinning again, she dropped to his lap, put her hands on his shoulders, and stared down at him.

With her face clear, he tried to remember where he’d seen her.

She gyrated, eyes seductively peering down. He fought the strain in his jeans with each movement, though she made it impossible. She was hotter than hell during a heat wave. Starr lifted one leg, straddled a single thigh and shook her hips again. The woman bit her bottom lip. So naughty. So his type, he loved it.

Then an image of her with red hair flashed in his mind. She’d been in the club, disguised, sitting alone at the bar, drinking here yesterday. He glanced up at her, knew he was right.

Wild & Wicked from Tease Publishing – May 15th 2011

Visit Jenn Nixon online: www.jennnixon.com or:

Blog
Facebook
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Follow Friday # 7 (Wow, lucky # there!)

Well, it's Friday and I'm exhausted. 

Been a really looonnnngggg week!  I'm so thankful it's over with. 

Q. Circle time! Time to share. What character in a book would you most like to be, what character in a book would you most like to date?

Oh, wow!  Hummm, I would love to be...drum roll, please...Christine Derrick in Mary Balogh's Slightly Dangerous.

The character I would to date would be a toss up between Wolfric in Slightly Dangerous or Drizzt do'urden from R.A. Salvaltore Forgotten Realms book series. Gotta love a dark elf, yeah.

Wanted to let everyone know too that in only 5 more days, Dragon Wish will be released from Wild child Publishing.  I am so excited about this book.  It's a fantasy romance and I have been hearing some fab comments about it.

Hope everyone has a very blessed weekend and a wonderful Mother's day!!

New Release: Wraith's Forest

by L.J. Leger


ISBN: 978-0-9834-1-0

Available on Amazon

Blurb:

Fairy tales and haunted woods lead us through L.J. Leger's Beauty and the Beast story of one girl with the weight of a village on her shoulders and the attention of a very unlikely soul.

Jenna is chosen for the coveted task of gathering the magical fruit to preserve the peaceful balance of the secret valley where she and many others live. During the harvest, one fruit is damaged and the task of healing the bruise falls on Jenna’s shoulders. She must enter the Wraith’s Forest, retrieve a magical blade from the specter who lives there so the valley will remain a utopia. But once she makes contact with the Wraith, her fear slowly disappears and her curiosity is aroused with more questions of why the Wraith is in the Forest and the true purpose for the harvest. If you love Beauty and Beast type fairy tales, Wraith’s Forest is the book to read. Perfect for Young Adults!

Excerpt:
Jenna came to a thicket of dense branches. She stumbled along the edge for a while, then pulled her dress hem from the back to the front and tucked it through her belt to make a pair of pants. She dropped to her hands and knees, hoping to find a way to the other side. The branches curved up from the base of the tall bushes. She slid between two of them, ignoring the overpowering scent of earth and decayed leaves. Too soon, the Wraith might stir her own scent with them, burying her forever. Struggling to forget that thought, she squirmed ahead. After several more feet, she broke free.


The fresh, clear air refreshed her. Her chest labored for each breath. Odors of rich earth still filled her nostrils. She scrubbed a grimy hand over her face. Dirt turned to mud where the cold sweat coated her cheeks. She suppressed a hopeless sob. Sitting on the damp ground, she flipped her dress hem up and tried to wipe some of the grim away. Several spots stung from tiny scratches.

"I will not cry. I will be strong," she whispered, hoping the sound of her voice might bring a measure of calmness to her. She glanced around.

The forest had brightened. The moon had risen, casting light through the towering canopy. Off to one side, ahead of her, the trees thinned. She shoved up from the ground and lurched along in that direction until she came to a small clearing.

No more than thirty feet across, the clearing's leaf-layered ground held several fallen limbs and a large, high-back chair. The chair, in itself, should have caused the chill bumps to cover Jenna's skin, but it didn't. Her gaze snagged and remained riveted on a tall, dark figure standing in the center of the open space. With her legs threatening to collapse, Jenna eased down beside the nearest tree without taking her gaze off the creature.

Moon beams lit on the form clothed in tattered black robes. Random sparkles sprang forth as the light touched the material. His face, hidden within the hood, tilted back toward the night sky. A gloved hand lifted and reached, his fingers moving slightly, to the stars above.
Sorrow radiated from the creature, almost tangible in its strength. A sharp pang pierced her chest, and tears threatened once more. Sympathy dissolved her fear in minute degrees. She felt a strange kinship to the Wraith. Today she had departed her home, thrilled for the end of her enforced labor, and now she hid not far away from the forest's spectra. Both of them were alone, denied family and home. Her life stretched before her as a dark empty void, much like his existence. She wanted more than that, wanted to refill the emptiness with love. Instinctively, the desire to comfort him leaped into her mind, demanding she go to him.

She stood and lifted one foot to step into the clearing. In the span of a second, the Wraith stood before her, pressing her against a tree. All thoughts of compassion fled under his assault. Her heart skipped a beat then accelerated. Fear returned in full force, sucking the very air from her lungs.