#SoCS A Joint Adventure

Tags

#authortube, #SoCS, cannabis, humor, joint, poem, poetry, Stream of Consciousness, writer-opoly, writing challenge

Today’s prompt is “joint.” Use it as a noun, an adjective, or a verb–use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

 

(Seriously, y’all, I could not stop laughing as I wrote this, but one of my challenges this month was to write another poem, so here ya go.)

 

A Joint Adventure

 

Grind, scrape, stuff.

Roll, lick, press.

Flick. Flick.

Light it on fire.

Puff. Puff.

 

Smoke swirls in light,

Twisting and turning,

Spinning over itself.

 

Shift, groan, creak.

Stand, wobble, press

Hand to forehead.

Sway in place.

Stomach grumbles.

 

Flour wafts in the air,

Covering and coating,

Caking in grooves.

 

Scoop, whisk, scrape.

Measure, dump, stir.

Preheat to 350.

Grease and pour.

Bake. Cool.

 

Family peers in curiously,

Hovering and tasting,

Hungry little animals.

 

Sweet, cinnamon, butter.

Fluffy, gooey, warm.

Nom. Nom.

Eat it up.

Nap time.

 

 

Prompt source: https://lindaghill.com/2020/04/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-11-2020/

Ashley Nicole Hunter, a Featured Spotlight

Tags

dysfunctional family, fire song, good read, horror, humor, must read, on fire, professional photographer, transgender, travel annoyances

If you haven’t heard of the On Fire anthology, this mini-interview and excerpt series will showcase the amazing authors I get to work with and their writing. Meet Ashely.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to interview Ashely. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate her contribution to the anthology with a nice, long excerpt.

 

From “Fire Song” by Ashley Nicole Hunter:

Walking on firm land again improved my mood, but the tension in my shoulders since leaving the photo shoot refused to ease up. That was nothing new; I couldn’t relax unless I was working, and for a photographer, I had an unfortunate dislike of travel due to all the restrictions. The flight from Indonesia to China hadn’t been terribly long, but the one from China to Los Angeles had been sheer murder. If not for the recording of the song I’d made, I might have gone unhinged with the need to take out my lighter. Now, settled into the airport to wait for the taxi I scheduled, I removed my earbuds and tucked them into my jacket pocket. I still couldn’t indulge the way I would prefer to, but neither could I afford to keep them in and risk missing my taxi. Instead, I pulled a file up on my battered phone, taking solace in the looped video of a crackling fireplace I’d downloaded. The real thing was better, of course, but beat the silence every time.

I hummed the song under my breath as a sixty-something woman sat down on the bench beside me and settled her bags around her feet. A large, red maple leaf was emblazoned across her chest.

“Well, I’m off to Canada,” she said, surprising absolutely no one. “Going to visit the grandkids before my daughter and her good-for-nothing husband finally end this sham of a marriage.” She inclined her head in my direction, making it clear that I was going to serve as her confidant until a taxi or the apocalypse rescued me.

This was another peril of travel. I switched off my phone, turned to face her, and waited. I had not volunteered to enter into this conversation, and I was determined, after seventeen hours in the air, to participate as little as possible in it.

Ignoring my bloodshot eyes, three-day beard growth, and my “Lick it or Kick It” t-shirt, Mrs. Maple happily pressed ahead with forging a connection between us.

“You know, if she had listened to me from the beginning, she could have saved a lot of money…her father’s money, anyways…and just stayed in Utah.” She laughed too loud, like the silence bothered her, too. “But kids never listen, do they? Think they know better.”

Reasonably certain that I was as old as her daughter, maybe a little younger, I was uncertain what she expected me to contribute.

To her credit, she must have realized this, because she nudged me with one plump elbow. “Don’t be shy, young man, speak up. Where are you off to?”

After ten years working freelance, I had prepared a method of self-defense for situations like this. Pulling in a deep breath, I leaned in towards her.

“Well, I am taking the advice of my therapist and going to stay with my brother, who I have not seen since I had a penis surgically attached and changed my name from Tracey to Trevor, to talk about family matters even more uncomfortable than who I like to screw.”

Mrs. Maple opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, then picked up her bags. She moved down to the next bench, nudged an elderly man trying to open his medication bottle, and nodded in my direction before she loudly whispered and made several phallic hand gestures. I thanked the gods that was done with and returned to my phone, not resurfacing again until my taxi deposited me at my brother’s door.

Craig, three years older than me, lived in a monstrously-large imitation of a ranch house that looked like it belonged back home in North Dakota rather than here in California, surrounded by Spanish-tile roofing and terra-cotta pots. I gave a low whistle as I got my first look at the place, wondering how much my sister-in-law’s dad had paid for it. The house was painted a searing shade of blue, and the door—a glossy, black thing with a sunflower wreath hanging from it—was tucked so far back in an alcove that I spent the first few minutes knocking on one of his three garage doors before I found the entrance.

I hadn’t been lying earlier; it had been ten years, plus or minus a few months, since I had been in the same room as my brother. After I’d dropped out of college and moved to New York to begin my career, I’d also started my transition process. Craig had been supportive over emails and phone calls, but we’d both had a pretty strict upbringing, and I used my coming out as an excuse for avoiding not just him, but all of our family. I hadn’t even attended his wedding; I’d just had Amazon ship him a set of mixing bowls and a few hand towels. I treated my brother terribly, and I hoped it gave him a reason to hate me the way that he should have, wouldhave, if he’d known the truth.

To my shame, Craig had assumed the blame was his. He often watched his words when he called or emailed me, and sometimes, when he was drinking, he would ask me to tell him what he’d done wrong so he could apologize for it. I tried to be more of an asshole to him…I missed birthday calls, mailed him gifts I knew he would hate, trash talked the wife I had never even met. Craig was a good person and a better brother than I deserved; he always took the blame and believed he deserved whatever I threw at him. He was so sweet and forgiving that I began to hate him for it, which only deepened my self-loathing.

When he had emailed me the previous month to ask if I would come stay with him after filming an eruption at Mount Merapi, I called my therapist.

“I think you should go.” Her voice crackled over the bad connection. “You’ve been carrying this burden since you were a child, Trevor. And your brother has a right to know.”

Physically closer to my brother than I’d been since I’d left home in the middle of the night, a cold pit settled in my stomach. Call the cab back, I thought, but just as I was shifting my bags to fish my cell out of my pocket, the front door burst open with a shout.

“Hey, buddy. Long time no see.” I barely had time to look up before my overweight brother, with his embarrassing fondness for plaid button-ups and Nickelback t-shirts, came barreling out and into my luggage-filled arms. “Here, let me help you with that.”

 

Ashley Nicole Hunter is the assistant editor for the Vortex literary magazine and the editor for the Arkansas Pagans website. She is currently writing a novel about werewolves on food stamps and a web serial about jogging naked through the woods. Her passions include community service, awkward conversations, and arguing in favor of ellipses and the interrobang.

ON FIRE is available now: Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and the Transmundane Press store.

Misconceptions of Satire

Tags

dystopic fiction, free book, humor, irony, moral outrage, must read, narrative, Parody, satire, YA literature

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard: “That’s not satire. It’s not even funny,” and I want to know where the hell this belief came from. No one mistakes Bradbury as funny, Wells as funny, Swift as funny…okay, maybe Vonnegut is a bit humorous.

I like to think that satire includes humor, but to say that it’s all inclusive is ridiculous. Satire’s intent is to comment on society and exaggerate it to make a point or facilitate an argument. We’re meant to question ourselves, our behaviors, and our world.

Granted, after a discussion with my husband, I concede that all satire does have a sense of dark humor—as in, that tickling moment when you know exactly what the author is referring to—but that’s not to mistake the story or content as funny.

Most satire creates moral outrage through this level of awareness, using various literary elements, such as irony, paradox, colloquialism, anticlimax, obscenity, and violence. But the most essential is creating vividly painful and absurd people and situations to prod readers to see the truth that many habitually ignore.

We often see this used in narrative and parody. Like my favorites: South Park, Archer, The Simpsons, and the majority of adult cartoons, and maybe cartoons all together, but I’ll refrain from declaring that as an absolute truth. And dystopic fiction, like The Hunger Games, Divergent, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Giver, I could go on, and on, and on…

Satire is essentially sarcasm. It’s funny to those who get it, so it cannot make us laugh every time. Cognitive dissonance aside, we don’t often like to watch others tap into our faults.

Well, those are the broad strokes. Good thing I’m a sarcastic asshole because satire is most certainly my thing.

Think you know enough about vampires and pop-culture monsters to laugh at my books? Get the prequel for free on Kobo, Nook, or the Transmundane Press Store (in .mobi, .epub, and .pdf).

It’s up on Amazon, too, but for 99 cents since they don’t like me giving things away for free. But if you want to donate the dollar, I suppose you could do that, too. Or report their greedy need to control the market…you know, either way.

Want to know something more about satire? Want me to examine a specific text or technique, feel free to drop suggestions in the comments below.

Allusions to an Old Soul

Tags

blood phoenix: imprinted, goodreads, humor, new release, novel, queen, rant, Ria, teasers, wars

Hello, lovelies!

It’s a special day. My newest book in the Broken World series is live on Amazon, on Barnes & Noble, on Kobo, and on the Transmundane Press store!

If you don’t know the Blood Phoenix thread featuring vampire-phoenix-rebel-brat, Ria, the first book is on sale for 99 cents until the end of the day. Jump into my world.

I love Ria’s story so much because I have these little life stories hidden within the pages. Part of Ria is me, as I’ve alluded to in relation to Ari, but a good part of her isn’t me.

Let me share one of these connections. I’ve always been told that I have one of those faces…

“I wanted to get something off my chest. And you’ve just got…one of those faces. Like I can trust you to keep a secret. Ya know?”

I nodded. I’d been playing with the thought that my phoenix made me this way. Others confided in me so easily. Emily Baxter, the most popular girl in school, used to talk to me in gym class about her older brother. He came out to her family, and their parents blew up, sending him off to a straight camp. I don’t know why she trusted me to give her advice, especially since I was only sixteen, but Emily often felt better after our talks even when she’d start off so distressed.

That is until he hanged himself in their backyard.

Then we stopped talking.

“I did something bad, red. Really bad. But I didn’t have a choice.”

I’ve had some serious conversations with near strangers. Once, while waiting for my car’s oil change, the owner of the shop asked me a question or two, and before he knew it, he was telling me about his problems—all of which had come to a head around that moment.

After he’d gotten his troubles off his chest, he blushed and dropped his head, telling me he didn’t mean to do that. I just had one of those faces.

Like Ria, I wonder if my past makes me accessible to people. When I was young, I learned to navigate as a sounding board for other’s frustrations and emotions. I’m open to it; I relate to it; and I do my best not to judge. It’s the primary reason I studied communications as an undergrad. I tend to understand what others need from our interaction and why they’re telling me the stories they are.

Sometimes, I think I know people better than a lot of the people in their lives because of this. Many say I have an old soul. Others, like Ria, call it intuition. Whatever it is, I take pride in it.

Do you have one of those faces or an experience similar to this? Let me know in the comments!

And now, enjoy some beautiful teasers from my new book, Blood Phoenix: Imprinted, and remember to check out my book trailer on YouTube.

Fucking finally, it’s here!

Tags

author, cover reveal, Dark Fantasy, free, giveaway, goodreads, humor, novel, truth, vampire

I keep hearing people talking about strong female characters, which I am ALL for. I have plenty of them myself. But lately, the focus has been on their flaws. Well, here’s something I don’t quite understand…why doesn’t EVERY character have flaws? They should. I mean seriously, who wants to read about a perfect person being perfect? Boring.

I’d rather have my powerful girl be a loud mouth, righteous, know-it-all with serious insecurities than have her simply kicking ass all the time. I mean she still kicks ass all the time, but she’s never sure if she’s going to survive. What fun would it be if we KNEW she would survive? Even if we’re pretty sure of it, the battle better fuck her the hell up. And she’d better change from it. Because my god, who wants to see people make the same mistakes for the same reasons and have the same conversations again and again in a story.

I’ve seen it. Two books, same exact conversation repeated ten times. TEN. What the fuck, people. WTF.

All right, reeling in the rant.

Reeling it in.

And breathe.

So, want a fucked up, neurotic, half-cocked heroine to follow as she pinballs around an oppressive paranormal world? Then buy your ass some Blood Phoenix novels, because Ria trudges through a shit storm of death, blood, and trials that causes her to lose her hair. Literally.

Boom, the cover! I hope you like it because I sure the fuck do.

I have a bit of story for you. Let me give you some context. Ria and her battle buddy, Tahe, just completed their first mission scouting out some wolves in a Syracuse BBQ joint. Tahe stole a car for Ria to drive…for her first time, resulting in a nasty crash and a bit of PTSD from Ria’s renegade fight.

Enter Chapter Eleven:

Tahe whimpered beside me as I came awake with the hot fumes of barbequed meat and blood clogging my sense of smell. Her breath fast and shallow, her nails dipped into my forearm. “You awake, red.”

“Yeah.” A mallet pounded on my temples in a steady staccato, and I rubbed them as the cracked windshield came into view.

“Good.” Her breath caught. “Need some help.”

Terror strangled me when I turned to her. A piece of metal pinned her to the seat through her abdomen. I jumped back, hitting the door handle with my shoulder blades.

“Oh shit.”

Harris blinked at me from the passenger seat, dagger handle jutting out of his chest and blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “You bitch.”

“Red.”

I jerked back to reality and the blood spreading through her top. I peered around quick, looking for the phantoms of Harris. Nothing but woods.

“Ain’t nothing to go off the deep end about. At least it ain’t wood.” Tahe took another shaky breath. “How far out the back is it?”

The metal came out clean on the other side. “A few inches.”

“Doable.” Wetness garbled her words.

“Okay. You need to stop talking unless it’s necessary. Let me see if I can pull it out the front.” A single hole of a few inches in diameter punctured the windshield on her side, and the metal looked like one of the posts off the guardrail. The end still had a flat wire where it connected to rail and left Tahe enough room to grab hold of it with one hand. I hoped there were no jagged pieces inside that would tear her further when I pulled it out, but if it did, I’d need something to stop the bleeding.

My door was crushed shut. “I’m going to see if there’s anything in the trunk to tend the wound once you’re free, but I have to break my window. Turn away so I don’t spray you.”

Pulling my sleeve taut against my elbow, I hit the glass three times before it shattered. A small chunk fell inside, but the rest remained intact with spider-line fractures that I pushed out.

The trunk didn’t have a whole lot of useful junk: just fluids, a jack, and a spare tire. Crap. I needed to call for help. My phone proved useless with its smashed screen. Double crap.

My giant savior it was then.

Also check out the Transmundane Press Blog for an excerpt from Chapter Ten.

Like what you read? Enter the giveaway to win the complete Broken World Collection.

 

 

Drop the Deets: My tip for eliminating pesky dialogue tags

Tags

details, dialogue tags, dont just dont, editing, how to, humor, pet peeve, showing not telling, triggered, writers, writing

Hi, I’m Alisha, and I don’t like dialogue tags.

Aware that a great many readers and writers could give two shits about when, where, how often, and which dialogue tags are used, they rile me up.  Plain and simple.

Let me show you why.

First, to clarify, dialogue tags are necessary. They keep us on track when characters have extended conversations. And if said or asked is used to do this, they essentially become invisible. No problem here. Use them to assign a speaker—sparingly.

Now, where I get to be a bit of an editing snob: if your readers can’t tell the difference between most of your characters when they speak, this means other issues need addressed. However, the below suggestions can help with that stage of revision, too.

Next, cut the fluffy, telling dialogue tags. The ones that say how someone speaks rather than earning the true emotion of the speaker.  I’m talking about growled, mumbled, whispered, and hissing, etc. Side note, don’t have characters’ hiss without at least a few s-words. Yes, I’ve seen it, and yes, it’s infuriating. Or, god forbid, the use of adverbs to indicate these things, like he said wistfully or she said teasingly. Don’t. Just don’t.

The trick is to drop details between dialogue to nix these and develop scene, character, and tension.

Develop scene by scattering descriptions when a pause is needed. If you struggle setting scene, as I often have issue with, this is a great place for small details: a loud, neon pink duvet; the rubber frog stuck in an inner-tube on the bookshelf; a sun-bleached couch hidden in the tall grass. Be specific, use details that differentiate the scene or that reflect what the characters are thinking about.

This type of detailing helps slow down a tense scene where a lot of dialogue takes place. If you want the tension to grow, let the reader dwell on what’s said by providing sensory input that heightens the feel of the scene.

Also, to slow down and deepen tensions means providing internalization. We don’t simply talk and listen during a conversation. We digest and respond to the other person. Maybe your characters are on the same page, and their blood is pumping, their excited, and they’re thinking, Yes! Yes, finally someone who isn’t a moron. They get it. Thus, when they respond verbally with, “I absolutely agree,” you won’t need to dump why they agree into their conversation. It’s not needed. The reader feels the same.

But maybe, the characters are not in agreement with each other, and they’re trying to navigate unfriendly territory without slitting each other’s throats. Then amidst the conversation, your POV character might think to himself, This guy. How do they keep making this guy? All slick and shiny with his clichéd euphemisms and shoddy tan. Forget this, I won’t buy from him. All the while, the other guy is selling him a used car—persistent beyond normal pleasantries.

If you’ve met people that you connect with or dislike immediately, you know the emotion that comes with this, but readers should get a taste, too. Hence, internalizing. This doesn’t just mean thoughts. It means physical reactions, too. The heat of anger, the cold of fear, the frenzy of adrenaline, the gooeyness of love. Throw some of that in there, too. Steer clear of the clichés with personification or metaphor.

Finally, show a bit more character, beyond scene and internalization are other senses that we can appeal to, other details that we can drop. Build a character slowly through a conversation. First, notice the elaborate ring on the old man’s middle finger that seems to glow strangely when the sun hits it right. Then when he speaks of a long-gone lover, show how his dark eyes shine, glossy with a deep pain that crinkles when he looks away. Catch a whiff of his cologne, astringent with undertones of grease and cedar. Finally, the notch in his ear, twisting his lobe that you didn’t notice under the shadow of his hat until he leaned forward.

We don’t see everything about a person at once. If we did, life would be boring, and when we do it in writing, our stories grow boring. And don’t merely show us things. Make us feel them, taste them, and smell them.

Don’t be afraid to give your characters’ tics—picking at their nails, rubbing their hands together, tugging at their shirt hem—we all have tells for our emotions. The reader might not know exactly why a character keeps spinning their ring around their finger, but the writer should, and they should show it.

Let me know your tips and tricks for eliminating dialogue tags and world-building. Or disagree with me, I can take it.

After the Happily Ever After Cover Reveal

Tags

#fracturedfairytales, action, After the Happily Ever After, ahea, amazon gift card, anthology, ARC, Beauty and the Beast, Belle, blood phoenix: imprinted, cinderella, conspiracy theories, cover reveal, danger, Dean Samed, dragons, DWARVES, Fairest Landing, fairy folk, fairy tales, fantasy, forget-me-not, giveaway, Grimm, Happily Ever After, heroes, hideous creatures, Hilde, horror, humor, kickstarter, magic, magical castles, malevolent rulers, monsanto, monsters, Mystery, poisioned apple, potions, princess, R. Judas Brown, romance, Saryn Chorney, sinister, snow white, sulfur, The Dragon, The Secret Life of Blanca Snowe, wicked step-sisters

Guys and gals, fairy monsters and princess pigs, it’s finally here. The project I’ve been working on, and I am so excited to share it’s progress with you.

The cover. Oh my shit. I am IN LOVE with this thing. Do you see it? No..maybe not yet. Let me put it here.

Right? (Major props to Dean Samed, our cover artist). And you should see the full wrap…which you can, but you have to wait until publication.

Or you can donate to the Kickstarter and get the background version in our first update. We have so many cool things to offer as rewards (like limited-edition hard-back copies and special stories from authors…and a special ARC copy of Blood Phoenix: Imprinted.

Our main goal is to raise funds to pay our authors more money for their hard work.

All right. Well, there’s more to tell or show or…I’ve got more.

Here’s the official blurb:

The happily ever after is never the end. The curtain doesn’t fall once love is recognized or evil is vanquished.  Credits don’t roll once the giant is slain or the big bad wolf is boiled alive.  Wicked stepsisters, malevolent rulers, and hideous creatures still have lives after their sinister roles play out; heroes, lovers, and dreamers often find their victories lead to more troubles.

Within these pages are more than seventy continuations, retellings, and eldritch stories that explore the dark forests, magical castles, and hideous creatures After the Happily Ever After.

And they’re awesome. I love the collection we have, which is why we have so many. They’re all so different.

And here’s my sneaky peeky excerpt:

“Are you ready?” My mentor adorned her reaper’s hood, disguised as a craggily, old woman.

“Yes, Madame.”

She produced the poisoned apple, laced with a drug that would make me sleep like the dead; only my brain would record everything. One bite, and I will fall to the whim of whoever finds me.

Cupping the gleaming red fruit in both hands, I took a breath to soften my nerves, and Madame Grimm pinned a charm to the bodice of my dress. It was a forget-me-not serum. If they discovered me, I’d inject myself to erase all knowledge of my mission and my agency. It was a fail safe, and I hoped I wouldn’t need it.

I bit the apple, the sweet juices mixing with the bitter taste of the sleeping drug.

My body grew heavy.

I slipped the antidote behind my lower lip so that when Prince Charming kissed me, it would break open and revive me.

Madame Grimm caught me, laying me half on the grass and half on the path to my secret lair, where the D.W.A.R.V.E.S. will find me and contact the kingdom.

I have a lot of ideas mixing in this story, Snow White, Cinderella, 007, Monsanto, conspiracy theories, and my favorite, the Dangerous Wee Assassins of the Royal Villains Eradication Society.

Here’s another few teasers, who we will feature again as we draw closer to publication:

“The Dragon” by R. Judas Brown

Lavender knew no one would come for her. Bad things happened to the daughters of poor, dairy farmers every day. The best she hoped for in life was a good marriage arrangement to a solid provider. Her dad only just found that arrangement with the town miller, a man her dad’s age. His apprentice looked like more fun, but the miller was well off.

Then she had been taken.

Fire from the sky.

A slam from behind, knocking her flat before the ground fell away impossibly fast.

Trees and rivers rushed by as she hung from yellow, bony talons until the darkness crept mercifully into her vision to steal her terror away.

She awoke on a bed of sharp sticks in a cave reeking of sulfur. Confused, she stood slowly, trying to find some semblance of sanity in the dark. A glowing sliver of daylight burned around the covered mouth of the cave.

Her feet froze before she had taken a full step as what she thought was a boulder in the dark shifted.

A long tail whipped as a pointed snout swung to regard her. It filled the cave entrance, a giant, scaly mass—a creature renowned for merciless violence and calculated malevolence. Lavender jerked back, tripping on the hem of her skirt in panic. Hands and arms scraped along jagged edges as she fell into the pile of sticks. When she came face to face with a skull, the truth shuddered through her.

 

“The Secret Life of Blanca Snowe” by Saryn Chorney:

The tragic events of Blanca’s childhood were at least partially to blame for her present condition. Blanca’s mother died in childbirth, and her wealthy father, the lord of Fairest Landing, raised his beloved only-daughter by himself. Although he lavished Blanca with love and affection, he missed having a wife. When Blanca turned thirteen, he remarried. Unfortunately, his new wife, Hilde, was a manipulative and vain woman with a suspicious agenda. Mostly, she busied herself spending her new husband’s fortune on beauty products. Hilde ignored Blanca; she passed the majority of her time in the toilette, mixing ointments and talking to herself in the mirror. Perhaps that wasn’t so odd, though, as Blanca spent the majority of her day talking to the birds, bunnies, squirrels, and stray cats in the courtyard of their estate.

Although the Fairest Landing police officially declared it an accident, Lord Snowe died suddenly from an allergic reaction to one of his wife’s homemade tonics, which he mistook for mouthwash.  Hilde made a big show of appearing devastated, but after a month of official mourning, she debuted a new youthful look and entertained suitors. To her disdain, most of them took a shine to Blanca, who was sixteen by then. In juxtaposition to her innocent beauty, the girl also had an alluring countenance that intrigued men. This infuriated Hilde, who gave a handsome sum to a handsome hitman named Hunter to make Blanca disappear. Mid-kidnap-and-chop-up plan, Hunter found himself pitying his pretty prey. Instead of offing her, he dropped her off at a so-called safe house where seven merry men lived.

 

“Beauty and the Beast: The Beast Within” by Lorraine Nelson:

“And that’s what you miss?” he snapped. “That childish, immature, ranting, raving, beast-like creature?”

Belle bit back a smile. “You need to let me finish. All will be explained.” She hoped. Adam grunted, the sound so much like what her beloved Beast made whenever he was displeased that her heart twisted. For one brief second, he was back with her. Then he glanced at her, questions evident in his beautiful, human eyes. And the moment was gone.

 

Check out more excerpts at our campaign page, with out authors, and coming up for blitz next week!

And join us for our giveaway for a $10 Amazon gift card.

I’m back with Cheap Reads!

Tags

alisha costanzo, beta readers, blood phoenix, blood phoenix: imprinted, book boyfriend, Broken World, Celampresians, cheap reads, did you know, editing, fantasy, folklore, giveaway, humor, insta-love, Loving Red, myth, mythology, novel, paranormal, paranormal romance guild, readers, review, romance, Sale, Shapeshifter, Transmundane Press, urban fantasy, vampires, weres, werewolves, writing, YA novel

Hey, lovely readers!

I’ve been slacking. I know it, but this month has been CRAZY! Personal stuff, business stuff, writing stuff, teaching stuff. You don’t need the details, just know that I’m back, and I have new blog posts about the editing process, about BLOOD PHOENIX: IMPRINTED and beta reader opportunities, new giveaways, a new YA novel, and some new Did You Know posts. I’m also working on another newsletter and short stories.

But for now, my latest novel, LOVING RED, is on half off (on sale for $1.99) until June 6th.

Here’s the latest review:

“When I first started reading this story, I was afraid it was going to be one of those insta-love stories. However, although the book only spans about a week’s time, it doesn’t feel like insta-love.

Severins is a wolf shifter on leave from the army. His impeccable sense of smell picks up Kaia’s scent during a bus ride, and he knows he has to have her but not just for a one-night stand. He goes to her job and pretends to be a client to con her into going on a date with him. He is unaware that Kaia, a human, knows of his world, and that she is in danger.

It isn’t specifically stated, but I feel like Sev immediately thought she was destined to be his. He instantly has a drive to protect her and to claim her as his but, like the romantic he is, he wants her to be the one to decide about their relationship. Swoon.

The two have an immediate attraction, but Kaia is leery because of a past relationship with a shifter. As the danger gets closer and closer to Kaia, the two must go on the run from the Celampresians who follow them.

Sev is 100% book boyfriend material. I loved his character. He is so caring and protects Kaia and Shawna with every part of his being.

I’m not completely sure how I feel about Kaia. I originally thought she would be portrayed as a weak human who needed saving, but the only time she comes across as weak is when she is, for lack of a better word, possessed. Many times she shows mental and emotional strength, but she never becomes an active participant in physical fights.

This was a great read that I would recommend to my closest friends. I really enjoyed the story and most of all Severins!”

Review by Tina, Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team

#MermaidCock, UNDERWATER release day!

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#mermaidcock, anthology, Aquarian, backyard pool, beneath the surface, Broken World, brutal, collection, cruel, Death, depths, drowning, editing, fantasy, fascination, fish, folklore, hedonism, honeymoon, horror, humor, immortal, irrational fear, love, manifestation, mermaids, military, military training, mysteries, myth, ocean, paralyzing, paranormal, pervert, pinocchio, pleasure sphere, radioactive crocodiles, romance, sadistic, seaweed, secret, sharks, Sister Ursula, swallows, terror, Underwater, vampire, vicious, water, whale

Pinocchio really did a number on me when I was young. You know, the part where the whale swallows him, his father, and their cat. I didn’t know it at the time, but my irrational fear of water points back to this scene.

I’m completely terrified of drowning. Never mind that I had a pool in my backyard from a young age and swam for the high school swim team in eight grade.

Swimming alone scared me the most. I thought that if I dipped into the water by myself that a whale would magically materialize in the deep end and swallow me whole. Or that I might drown for the mere reason that no one was present to save me.

Natural bodies of water are worse because of fish and seaweed. Now, maybe the fish thing seems a little odd to you, but I assure you, the thought of fish nibbling the toes off my feet can be completely paralyzing. (And now people pay for fishies to eat the dead skin off of their feet. I can’t fathom it).

The worse instance of my fear’s manifestation was on the nine-plus-hour trip to the UK for my honeymoon. For weeks and possibly months, I annoyed the hell out of my loved ones, colleagues, and students with how afraid I was to crash into the ocean, drown, and have a whale eat my body. Are you noticing that whales seem to frighten me more than sharks.

I mean, am I the only one?

Yet, my husband has reassured me that drowning is not as bad as I’ve grown believing. He should know. He’s drowned twice—once by accident and once on purpose.

You heard me right. I said, “on purpose.”

Military training is sadistic.

Speaking of sadistic…nice segue, right? UNDERWATER excites the shit out of me, and the poor authors within had to deal with my form of editing, which is…you guessed it…brutal, cruel, and vicious. I do it out of love, guys. I promise.

These sixteen stories are full of humor, horror, and hedonism, and they build a revealing illustration of our fascination with what lies beneath the surface.

Beyond the fear, I’ve always loved the mysteries the Aquarian depths hold, especially mermaids, which we have a nice variety of in this anthology. And I need to tell you a secret about them…are you in close? Ready for it?

Eating mermaids will make you immortal.

What?

I know. Mind blown.

And don’t be perverted about this. We have enough of that in the stories. In fact, us editors have an inside joke.

#MermaidCock

Yup. You read that correctly.

We keep seeing it in hidden between the lines—in Sister Ursula’s habit, tattooed on the inside of a vampire’s thigh, among the others in the Pleasure Sphere, swimming along side the radioactive crocodiles—and of course, there is plenty of explicit mermaid cock in these stories, too.

And I challenge you not to let it slip into each of the others as you read through this collection.

Check out UNDERWATER! You won’t be disappointed.

And DISTORTED is on sale for $1.99 this week in celebration!

 

Excerpt from UNDERWATER: “Ferryman” by Val Prozorova

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accident, anthology, clean underwear, Death, excerpt, ferryman, folklore, half fish, humor, kayaking, merman, myth, New Zealand, paranormal, sea, shark, tenacity, Underwater, underwater sex, urban fantasy, val prozorova

I was nineteen the first time I died.

It happened entirely by accident; I had never kayaked in the sea before, too used to the smooth and still waters of the New Zealand lakes, and the waves overbalanced me. Upside down in the water, two thoughts circled first, the rope meant to hold me certainly did its job, as I could not get the knot undone, and second, I hoped I had on clean underwear. The paramedics have worse to deal with, but it would undoubtedly be embarrassing.

If anyone found me, anyway. The rope still caught in what I quickly understood not to be a wet knot had my lungs burning from my held breath. I made several proclamations in my youth that I wanted to become one with nature. Perhaps, I should have made it clear that I did not mean it quite so literally.

A water baby, swimming from a young age, playing with water, and attempting—pitifully—to draw it, people often joked that I was half fish. They couldn’t be more wrong. No gills on me, just flared nostrils and pursed lips and fumbling fingers against a knot that wouldn’t give.

Crazy thoughts flew through my mind:

How far does the water beneath me go?

Should I look?

Can I turn the boat over by sheer tenacity and hope for the best?

Did I miss that matinee performance?

Like graduation, did I forget to sign up for my own ceremony?

A movement pulled my gaze, desperate enough that I would reach out to a shark for help; perhaps, mercifully, one’s life didn’t flash before their eyes, but their desires did. Because the man swimming towards me now certainly personified many of them. Dark skin, dark eyes, and hair that swelled with the waves themselves, so long that it swept almost like a tail behind him. His effortless motion through the water, entirely graceful, opened my mouth to gasp. Oh, the flaw in that plan.

 

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