An Excerpt of MOONLESS

Alexia must choose safety and an arranged marriage, or true love and being hunted by the Soulless every moonless night.

Hi Everyone! I'm excited to be part of Crystal's blog tour for her book Moonless. I've really enjoyed the excerpts that have been popping up during the tour. Today, I get to share with you another great little excerpt so check it out and collect an additional hidden word while you're at it. Oh, and don't forget to enter her giveaway at the bottom!  (:

MOONLESS by Crystal Collier

Alexia’s nightmares become reality: a dead baron, red-eyed wraiths, and forbidden love with a man hunted by these creatures. After an attack close to home, Alexia realizes she cannot keep one foot in her old life and one in this new world. To protect her family she must either be sold into a loveless marriage, or escape with her beloved and risk becoming one of the Soulless.

Unravel the mystery of the Moonless night! Hidden in each of the 8 blog tour excerpts is a single word. Gather all 8 and figure out the sentence to win a free copy of Moonless. Send your mystery sentence to crystal (AT) crystal-collier.com with the subject MYSTERY SENTENCE before December 10, 2013, and you will be entered to win one of 10 copies of MOONLESS—just in time for Christmas. Happy hunting!

Kiren unlatched the balcony door with a thin metal hook and slipped inside. He refastened the catch, gut twisting at the moonless sky beyond the glass. How long would his luck hold?

Alexia lay on her back, one arm lost in her mass of dark hair, the other tucked across her chest. A foot dangled off the edge of the mattress, tempting him to slip it back beneath her blanket.

He grinned, envying her carefree abandon. Her latest read lay on the bed beside an extinguished candle. He lifted it. Fanciful words danced back at him. They too made him smile. She wanted adventure. He could supply that.

His eyes landed on the card he’d given her father and his smirk died. It had been shredded and reconstructed. His chest tightened. “Oh Alexia . . .”

(READ MORE EXCERPTS)

Author Bio: 

Crystal, author of MOONLESS, is a former composer/writer for Black Diamond Productions. She can be found practicing her brother-induced ninja skills while teaching children or madly typing about fantastic and impossible creatures. She has lived from coast to coast and now calls Florida home with her creative husband, three littles, and “friend” (a.k.a. the zombie locked in her closet). Secretly, she dreams of world domination and a bottomless supply of cheese. You can find her on her blog and Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

Links:

Blog | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | Website


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Christine's Odyssey and YA Giveaway!

I'm excited to have a special little lady over today to talk about her story and a fantastic opportunity to win a YA book pack of your choosing. How cool is that!?  Let me move over and let Christine give you the details. 

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Howdy. I’m glad you’ve stopped in. My name is Christine and although I’m only eleven, I’m what some adults might call precocious. A lot has happened in my life, some of it bad, but like my dad used to say, good things can result from the bad stuff that happens to us.

To help me celebrate overcoming my challenges, a great gang of authors have teamed up and will be giving away copies of their books. Sweet, yes?

For a chance to win a pair of the books listed, you can do anything included on the Rafflecopter below or on Facebook. However, for those who’d like to win a $10.00 Amazon Gift Voucher, hop on over to the Jamaican Kid Lit Blog to enter for that.

Anyway, I tend to talk a lot, so before I get carried away, here’s my story:

Raised in a hotbed of arguments and fights, eleven-year-old Christine Simms is the victim of her mother's cruelty. A domestic dispute ends in tragedy, sending the family into a tailspin. 

A shocking discovery sends Christine on a quest to find the stranger who left her behind in Jamaica. Determined to unravel the mystery of her birth, Christine uses every tool at her disposal and treads with courage where no child should.

Thanks so much for dropping in! I hope you win the novels of your choice. I should tell you that you get to choose books based on how the Rafflecopter does the drawing of the winners. So, if your name comes up first, you get to say which pack you want.

Available in ebook format at AmazonUS

J.L. Campbell is a proud Jamaican, who is always on the hunt for story-making material.

She writes romantic suspense, women's fiction and young adult novels. She is also the author of Contraband, Dissolution, Distraction, Don't Get Mad...Get Even, Giving up the Dream, Retribution and Hardware (written under the pen name Jayda McTyson).

Visit her on the web at http://www.joylcampbell.com

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OCULUS by Michael Offutt

I am honored to be part of Michael Offutt's book tour. There's an awesome giveaway and bookmarks to be had so be sure to read on to the end.  Today, Michael is going to talk a bit about Jordan Pendragon, the main character in Oculus, the second book in the series. In the books, Jordan is many things, for one he's a drop dead gorgeous mathematical genius. But he's also a brother, a friend, a lover, a hero, and he also happens to be gay. Why did Michael decided to make his protagonist gay? Well, let me move over and let Michael tell you.

Why did I make Jordan gay?

Why did I make Jordan gay? That’s an easy question that is answerable in multiple parts. First, I’m living vicariously through my character. Jordan (unlike me) has it easy getting a relationship and a good-looking, smart boyfriend with a job. Second, I imagine a world where people can just exist and go about their everyday business without people condemning them for being queer, or bi, or transgendered. And last (and I mean no offense to the gay authors out there who write romance) but I don’t like to write friction fiction as much as I do like to read it. I just wanted to put together a story that had a serious speculative fiction element to it and all the things that I like, i.e. good vs. evil, magic, science, and great sword-fighting sequences. Cute guys as characters were just a bonus.

I also am tired of reading so many novels written in first person. I didn’t mind it for a few years, but it’s just crept into every aspect of fiction writing. So when I set out to pen this series, I really wanted a return to the good ole days of third person omniscient…you know, the kind we see on display in Herbert’s sci-fi epic of Dune.

In the end though, I wanted to make a truly different character in Jordan. One that broke through practically every stereotype, one that made people pause and ask themselves “what’s going on here?”, and to cause them to think about whether they really liked him (or didn’t like him) and why. I know there’s enough complexity to his background that clashes with his sexuality that I’ve been called a “blasphemer.” I really don’t mind since I’m atheist anyway. But it shows me that I’m doing something right. It tells me that I moved someone. Sure it was moving them in the direction that they hated my book, but how many people truly get that kind of reaction with their writing?

I kind of feel flattered by it.

To check out Oculus purchase options or explore my writing, click on the link below:

http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html

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Genre: Sci-fi/ GLBT

Book Description:

Autumn has arrived in New York, and Jordan Pendragon attends his first classes as a freshman at Cornell. Born with a brilliant mathematical mind, he balances life as a research assistant with that of a student athlete.

But Jordan also has a quest. He must find the Black Tower, a monolithic edifice housing a thing that defines the very structure of the universe. Jordan believes it is buried somewhere in Antarctica under miles of prehistoric ice.

October finds Jordan earning a starting position with the Cornell hockey team. But a dark cloud gathers over his rookie season. Unexplained deaths, whispers of a cannibal cult, a prophecy, and a stone known only as the Oculus, cast a shadow over his athletic ambitions. It is the start of a terrifying journey down a path of mystery, murder, and to a confrontation with an Evil more ancient than the stars.

Free short story that's a lead-in to this book series: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/236636

Website: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html

Art relating to books: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/my-artwork.html

Blog: http://slckismet.blogspot.com

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3099632.Michael_Offutt

Twitter: @MichaelOffutt

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Slipstream/164452693676933

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And don't forget, you have the chance to win a great looking bookmark designed by Michael himself that features some of his artwork. All you have to do is leave a comment below and I get to pick a random winner!   

Good quality bookmark with a smooth plastic finish.

And, and, and, sign up for your chance to win a signed copy of Oculus!

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You may also want to check out:

Buy the book that critics say
is “a mind-blowing sci-fi read from
start to end.” $4.99 from Amazon
now. Begin your journey today.

Thank You For The Gift Card

Recently, fellow blogger and writer Sabrina at Sabrina's Writing Reflections hit her 100 follower milestone. To celebrate, she had a giveaway and randomly awarded one lucky person with a $10 Amazon Gift card. Can you guess who that lucky person might have been? *silly girl waves arms in air* It was ME! 

So I want to thank Sabrina again for the gift card and show you guys what I purchased. I decided to treat my kids and ordered the The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler. We received it in the mail a few days ago and every night I read a few pages to them before bed. So far, we really enjoy it. My daughter is hooked and my son....well, he listens for about a page or two and then he gets frigidity, which is understandable because he's only 3 and the book doesn't have any pictures. It's a big girl book. (; 

 Anyway, I thank you Sabrina and so do my kids.  

Now go and check out Sabrina's blog and wish her a Happy Birthday. She's turning 30 over the weekend and has a skydiving story to share with you!  (: