Month: April 2020

#Freebie Alert!
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#Freebie Alert!

If you’re like me right now in this time with the COVID 19 virus, you don’t have any more time available to you than you had before because you’re able to work from home the same hours you did before. Or you’re a medical professional, grocery store employee, or other essential worker who don’t have the choice but to go to work to help the rest of us. However, I know many people who don’t have the ability to work from home or their places of employment have closed and have more free time than they’ve had because of it. Many authors did sales to help those in this situation to have more books to read. Good for them, but I wasn’t ready to throw mine in yet.

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So, I held off, and now I have my freebie ready for those who are still looking for social isolating reads! It’s also a way to celebrate that Fourth Bunker, the next standalone in the series, has finished being written!! This book should be released this summer and more information will be given at a later time. However, I will say that this is Avery’s book and the events take place after Third House. Thus far, betas are loving it!

If you’ve read First Blood and enjoyed it, please reach out to your friends and let them know it’s free! Hopefully it can spread some good vibes during this rough time in our lives. I know I’m handling social isolation much better than so many of my friends and family, but many others are like them and this is a difficult time. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this book and it can bring some fun to your life.

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Like most other college students in the United States, Koda Niklane’s dream is to join the government’s most advanced military unit: the Elite. Since the President’s great reveal of supernaturals living amongst humans, every college student is required to Interview for the Elite. Being human and unable to fight are setbacks for Koda, but she soon learns she isn’t quite as human as she’d thought, or rather, she’s not human at all.

When a purple-eyed blood drinker named Raven Cartana, a Captain in the Elite, announces publicly that she’s one of his kind, Koda refuses to believe him. As her new Elite trainer, Raven’s job is to keep Koda alive and teach her the ropes. Teaching is the easy part as Raven, Koda, and their team work to keep the streets safe from Threats. It soon becomes apparent that keeping Koda alive will be much harder than Raven had anticipated as the attacks on her become more personal.

As Koda works with Raven and the Elite, she can’t help but wonder how much of herself will remain once her maturity has finished. Will she still be Koda, or will she be something different? And is that why someone has their sights set on her?

Click for your Free copy of First Blood

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Werewolves vs Wolf Shifters

Am I the only person who loves the trend where authors create a wolf shifter and have them called a werewolf because real werewolves are a myth but shifters are real? One True Mate (Westin Pack Book 1) by [Trettel, Julie]

I know I can’t be. In my opinion, that opens up so many more options. However, I still do love me some straight up naturally evil werewolves! So today, let’s talk about this.

The werewolf from legend/mythology is that one who changes at the full moon and can’t control that shift, and is pretty much a normal human being the rest of the time. Legend says they can be killed by a silver bullet, and that being bitten by a werewolf is all that it takes to start turning into one every full moon. They’re usually depicted as a wolf who stands more like a human on their hind legs than an actual wolf on all four, though they are versatile when chasing their prey.

Knight (Sons of the Alpha Book 1) by [Carmichael, Addison]

Meanwhile, wolf shifters keep their true wolf form for the most part, and can secondarily in some cases choose to stand straight like a human. I’ve read where some are also prone to being killed by silver, and others were any means that would kill a regular wolf would kill them. However, in these cases they can withstand far more than a regular wolf and heal more quickly in wolf form.

A lot of these similarities and differences can be found in movies as well as books (and obviously this is the case in a book to movie adaption.) It’s always fun to see what the artists in both mediums do to portray these creatures.

When I was working on First Blood, I knew I wanted to incorporate both versions of the Werewolf, what I call the true version and shifter version. While Jackson is only a shifter, and is referred to as such, many wolf shifters use the name werewolf loosely. I guess that makes Jackson a werewolf in some circles. That left me with the real werewolves. Creating rules around their species, specifically the laws they have to abide by, was so fun. And when the werewolves got out…well that was bound to happen, lol.

 

Off the top of my head, some books with one of the other version that I would recommend are:

 

Karen Lynch: Relentless Series

Melissa Haag: Judgement of the Six Series

Melanie Gilbert: Alpha King

Julie Trettel: Westin Pack Series

Heather Hildenbrand: Dirty Blood Series

Quinn Loftis: Grey Wolf Series

Addison Carmichael: Sons of the Alpha Series

Rachel Jonas: The Lost Royals Saga

Alpha King by [Gilbert, Melanie]

Others I have in my TBR Pile:

Bethany Wicker: Unexpected Alpha

Karina Espinosa: Shift

Olivia Wildenstein: A Pack of Blood and Lies

Leia Stone: Matefinder

SHIFT (Mackenzie Grey: Origins Book 1) by [Espinosa, Karina]

I’m probably forgetting several, but off the top of my head, this is what you get! Hopefully you found this fun. More creatures to come!

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Homeward Bound

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Last Wednesday was the start of my social isolation and working from home. It’s been a full week of living by myself with just my dog, and I’ve survived! Yay! Honestly, though, it’s not much of a change from the norm. I work in an office by myself and come home to just my dog. It doesn’t bother me. We’ll see how I feel in a few weeks, but thus far, it’s been pretty good.

I’m much more productive with my day job at home, so no complaints there that I have to work from home. We’ve had a few nice days, so I’ve been able to take the Writing Companion on a few short walks up and down the street. We haven’t really seen anyone, but when we do, we give them space, as they do for us. We’re trying to do our part in stopping spreading this virus.

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This is a hard time for so many, and my thoughts and prayers are with all those suffering. Even for me it’s been stressful. While I don’t mind being alone, I miss going to my sister’s house and hugging my nieces and nephew. And my sister. She’s dropped some supplies from a mutual source at my place, but we stayed apart just in case.

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So, we all need stress relief right now. I suggest taking the time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do or things you haven’t done in forever. My mom and two of my sisters have started to just play the piano again for fun. Me and another sister have been baking far more. It’s nice to get up a little early before work and start making muffins. They’re delicious and a fun way to start the day. One of my muffins didn’t quite turn out, but they still taste amazing! The pumpkin chocolate chip muffins were perfect! (Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins Recipe) I’ve also made some no bake cookies and plan to make more kinds as the working from home/social isolation continues. A few of my FB friends have taken to gardening, some to sorting their homes (I’ve started this too), and others to drawing/painting.

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Feel free to leave a comment about what you’re doing to relieve the stress of these times! I hope that once we’re allowed back to normal life (whatever that normal will look like) that we don’t forget to keep doing those things that bring us happiness.

 

Stay home. Stay safe. Stay healthy.