Look at these brand new covers for the First Blood series! While I loved the old covers so much, the books needed a refresh. I hope you love them as much as I do! There’s a lot going on with the reveal of these covers. Check out below for some awesome info!
To celebrate the new covers, I’m running a sale on the books! The above graphic shows the sale pricing. Sale lasts from March 12 to March 16. Grab them on sale while you can!
Hey everybody! Guess what today is? That’s right, it’s release day for The Diner 2! I can’t believe it’s finally here, and at the same time, it’s felt like it’s forever coming. Probably because my book has been finished for a while. I know that all of us authors are so excited for this and can’t wait for you to read the book!
We’re also throwing a release party tonight and tomorrow in our group: The Diner, on Facebook. The author takeover schedule is posted below. You don’t want to miss it!
Looking for some paranormal reads for Halloween? Look no further. We have witches, black cats, druids, hellhounds, reapers, shifters of all sorts, fae, and a host of many other creatures you don’t want to miss! (including creatures that eat people, seriously you don’t want to miss that.)
All stories are standalones and it is not necessary to read The Diner, the first year. Although, why wouldn’t you??? Who knows how much longer it will be available…
Guess what day it is!!! That’s right. It’s release day for Dark Of The Night!!! If you love enemies to lovers, vampire romances, witches, and lots of angst and snark, then this is going to be your next favorite book. First, here’s the blurb, and then I’ll tell you a little more about this book.
Henley Stark is no angel, but she is a survivor.
Disowned by her witch coven as a teenager, Henley was driven to Amos, a vampire loan shark. There’s little Henley hasn’t done to keep a roof over her head and food in her stomach as Amos trained her for his purposes. It all comes to a head when Amos assigns Henley and Alex, her newly found mate, to a job that can only lead to death.
Going up against the greatest threat the vampires have ever known, it’s clear one or both of them will not survive the encounter. However, as Alex begins to soften toward her, Henley must decide if giving them a chance is worth the effort, especially when she’ll likely be dead soon anyway.
Can Henley find her worth and true love before the mission ultimately claims her life?
For readers who enjoy books by K.F. Breene, Heather Hildebrand, Jaymin Eve, and Karen Lynch.
Now for the fun part. If you don’t know who Melanie Gilbert is, you should. 😉 I may be biased, but she’s an amazing author…and she’s my sister. Melanie started writing a year or two after I published my first book, and I’ve loved watching her books grow and become stronger. Actually, she’s been pushing me for about a year or so to write a book with her, and I finally relented (it wasn’t on this book). I’ve enjoyed writing with her. It actually goes faster than when we write individually.
Our writing style together is quite different than most I’ve heard of. Instead of writing one point of view each, or writing 3k words at a time, we write one paragraph at a time. This works especially well at the beginning of the story. Toward the middle, our sections can grow to several paragraphs, but that’s when we know exactly what’s about to happen and it all needs to be written together. Since we’ve been doing random projects together for about a year, and our writing voices are so similar anyway, it’s hard to tell who wrote what. Even for us this is true sometimes.
At the end of last year, Melanie moved to Madison for her husband’s new job, and she actually lives quite close to me. It’s been great to go over after work and write this together in the same room. It helped planning out certain parts easier. Now, you may notice the “certain parts” for planning. For the most part, we pantsed this book. What does that mean? We had no plan on what was coming next. It was one big surprise! Some parts had to be planned because we needed a blurb and title right away (why we were short on time was a huge fiasco, but we have to say our cover designer is the awesomest!). Melanie is a plotter and I’m a panster. Part of our writing over snippets of stories before this was practice in how we could mix both of our writing styles together, and I have to say, we succeeded with Henley’s book.
Overall, this has been a great experience, and the early reviews couldn’t be more positive. More than one person sat down and read it in one sitting into the wee hours of the morning- like 2-3am. We can’t wait to see what you think! Let us know by leaving a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or Bookbub!
The day has finally come!! It’s cover reveal day for The Diner 2. I’m so excited about this. Not only did we get to create more stories in the world of the original The Diner, but we were able to add in a couple more amazing authors! Who’s ready to celebrate Halloween The Diner style? Releasing October 29th!
“Step into The Diner and enter into a world where nothing is as it seems. Enjoy a hot mug of coffee while you chat with a rakshasa as a black cat passes by. The Diner, a place where food is served with a side of supernatural. A place hidden from human sight, where you’ll discover witches and druids, salamander fae, and even raven shifter witches.Join the supernaturals in The Club, where the drinks are unusual, the hellhounds come hot, and the reapers keep a watchful eye.Step into The Diner if you dare.”
My story this year features a black cat again, but she’s accompanied by a druid healer. Nightshade has got to be one of my most favorite characters because her personality makes me laugh. It’s not the same funny as Lucky was last year, but she can hold her own making me laugh. And Joel, well he’s such a sweetheart. He really does have the biggest heart of all my characters.
The stories this year are no less amazing than last year. We’re joined by Julie Trettel and SF Benson, who are two amazing women that I adore. Our creatures this year have expanded to include hellhounds, reapers, wolf shifter, more witches, salamander fae, rakshasa, mimics, and raven shifter witches. Seriously, you don’t want to miss this year’s Diner anthology!
If you remember last year, we had a huge release party the weekend The Diner went live. Well, we’re doing it again! Check out The Diner group on Facebook to join in the fun!!
Here’s a snippet from the last book in the string of The Diner snippets that I have to spotlight (ironically it’s first in the set). This snippet is from M.S. Murray’s book, A Hold On The Stake. Less than a week left until release!
A sharp pain radiates up my entire left side. I scrunch my face up and pant through the agony until it’s bearable again.
“I think you might have a broken rib.”
“No shit I might have a broken rib. I think you pulverised my entire rib cage when you tackled me like Frank Farmer.”
“Who?” His brow furrows.
“The Bodyguard? Whitney Houston?” He stares at me blankly. “Nevermind. Help me up.” With a loud sigh, he moves towards me. In a blink, I’m upright and slightly hunched as I begin to feel every bruise, cut and possibly broken bone. I’m pretty sure my wrist is fractured on the same side as my ribs.
It’s another book that I haven’t read! I think that’s going to be the trend, but that’s okay! It’s exciting to learn of new books. This one looks like it’ll be an interesting read.
Mitrick Black is no hero. The vampire and gun-for-hire is old enough to know better than to take a bad contract for the wrong side. Except he did. Brutally injured, he has a single chance to survive: become a double agent for the werewolf who spared his life. But reclaiming his position at his evil employer’s side forces Mitrick to do something truly desperate: taking a human blood-servant—one whose fierce spirit makes him want to protect her at any cost.
Laine O’Callaghan is determined to reclaim her family’s heirlooms before the world sends her into an early grave with the rest of the O’Callaghans. But after chasing the thief to New Orleans, the Irishwoman’s entire tour bus is captured by vampires. Monsters are real, and they have her at their mercy. Except something tells her that the vampire who claims her is just as trapped, and she can’t deny the fire that consumes her at his every touch. Mitrick is everything she should hate, yet she finds the man beneath the fangs to be so much more than a bloodthirsty predator.
In the magic tunnels beneath New Orleans, unexpected love is their greatest strength—and their greatest weakness. When Laine’s quest for answers lands them both in the crosshairs, can they survive a curse in the dark?
Today’s snippet comes from K.J. Lavalee’s book Revealing The Truth inside the shared world box set, The Diner. Just a few more weeks until release so pre-order your copy now! You don’t want to miss this box set if you love all things paranormal, fantasy, and romance!
Maverick
I bolt up in bed. Panic fills me. Not from me, but she’s panicked. Something isn’t right. But she’s also resigned.
The emotion subsides and I relax. She probably had a bad dream and is worrying about her life now, and then thinking of her uncle, mother and father.
I get up and start putting my shit back into my duffle when a sharp pain pierces my gut. Not mine, Ella’s.
I must have made a pained noise, because Gellevel is at my side in an instant. “What is it?”
“Ella. She’s hurting.” I groan. “It’s like, torture.” I don’t have anything else to compare it to. I was tortured before. This is like that. Like being stabbed in the gut repeatedly to see what you can withstand.
“Did you see where she was?”
“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “When I… spoke to her… she didn’t want… me to find her.” I take a deep breath. “She wants to keep me safe.”
My brother growls. “You’re the warrior. You don’t need protection.”
The pain stops, I can feel her relief for a brief moment, then white light shoots through me.
Gellevel drops to the floor, and rolls away. Afraid the light is going to hurt him. It very well might have.
Several minutes pass when the light finally fades. I pat my body making sure I’m okay. That’s not my magic, and elves magic is green. Not white. That’s Ella’s.
“I think the block has been removed.”
Gel grunts. “You think? I can’t imagine the destruction she can wreak if that much power came through you. You’re her mate, and you lit up like a fucking bonfire.”
“She is a Bennet witch,” I say, as if it’s obvious.
“So I saw. Guess she’ll be needing to learn how to control that magic.”
Breathing as if I just ran a marathon, I flip him off. “Obviously. She hasn’t had her magic since she was a little girl. She isn’t going to be able to control it without extensive training.”
Even as I say the words, pride fills me. My mate, she’ll be a formidable foe. And she’s mine.
“What do we do now?”
“We continue searching. But this time, we look online. Someone had to have reported that surge of light. We can narrow it down that way,” I tell him. I dig my laptop out of my duffle, and load it up. I will find you, Ella. And I will help protect you, whether you like it or not.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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
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
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!
Today’s snippet comes from First Christmas which is currently FREE until Dec 17th!
Move out of the way, dragon. She is ours, Drake ordered the man at my back.
“No, she is mine. If you try to harm her, I will kill you.”
My ears pricked at the sound of my mate’s deep, husky voice. I fought a shiver from the lethal edge that chilled the threat in his words. It even caused the dragons on my side of the fight to take a step back. Whoever my mate was, he was not a dragon to be taken lightly, and he hadn’t even thrown a punch or shifted yet.
You should move on, dragon. She isn’t yours. We found her first. Now, step aside. I took notice that Drake’s words were less confident.
The dragon on my left took a step closer, heading toward me, but my mate swung his head around to face him, pulling his top lip back in a feral human snarl. “My mate is not yours. Now, leave before I tear you to pieces. This is your final warning.”
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![Alpha King by [Gilbert, Melanie]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/510U7S7fQQL.jpg)
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Heather Karn 