Introducing The Hidden One characters

Introducing The Hidden One characters

Good morning! So today I’m introducing you to Kellan Caine and Aubrey d’Avila, from The Hidden One (available in the box set Rite to Reign), and how I came about creating these two characters.

Kellan has been a part of the Caine world since Book 1, Demon Soul. He finds his cousin, Gabriel, as they both independently investigate a vampire stronghold in the daytime.

I wanted someone who had known Gabriel, and loved him, since Gabriel was born. Kellan was a teenager when Gabriel came into the world, and he took it on himself to protect Gabriel from his older brother, Gregor. (Long story short – Gregor saw his mother attacked and raped by a demon. Gabriel was the product of that union, and his birth killed his mother. Gregor saw only his own weakness in not protecting his mother, and it took him years not to blame his brother for his mother’s death.)

Kellan became a needed part of the Caine clan, someone who loved explosives and firepower and knew how to close portals. He chooses to live in Quartzite, Arizona…not a terribly hospitable place, but useful for being able to detonate explosives without fallout.

We meet Aubrey in Book 2, Demon Hunt (Gregor and Serra’s book), when her old college coven is called upon to help the Caines patrol for demons. A portal has been opened, and five out of the seven women in the group who come to help need to shut it down and remove the demons before the winter solstice.  Out of her coven, Aubrey is one of three witches who survive. Kellan, of course, is drawn to Aubrey from the minute he sees her, but keeps his flirting to a minimum.

Aubrey is also there in Book 3, Demon Rage (Justin and Maggie’s book), but still keeping Kellan at arms’ length. He gets distracted by a police detective…but that does not end well.

We know that Aubrey and Kellan have been working together, closing portals and killing demons across the southern states, when we see them again in Wolf’s Heart; but that’s just about all we know of them.  Wolf’s Heart is Doc Megan’s story.

By the time we see Aubrey and Kellan in The Hidden One, they’ve been apart for almost six months due to various and sundry reasonings.  But The Hidden One takes them far from southern California; and together they meet the new challenges head on.  The Hidden One is Book 1 of The Covenant of Witches series. Look for Book 2, The Dark One, and Book 3, The Radiant One, in Spring/Summer of 2019.

I hope you enjoyed this brief look into their relationship, and a little about them! Grab The Hidden One, a part of the limited-release Rite to Reign box set!

Waiting to Breathe…and a Big Push! #RitetoReign

Waiting to Breathe…and a Big Push! #RitetoReign

Behind?

It can be difficult to keep up. We all know this, and yet we all feel guilty when we fall behind. When others are doing more than we are, which makes us feel we’re not “worthy”.

I’ve been panicked and behind for most of the past three months, and I have come to the realization that panic does not get the work done. Panic does not foster creativity. Panic does absolutely nothing to forward the situation, whatever it may be.

Please understand me, I’m not talking anxiety or panic attacks, those monster things that grab you by the throat and make it difficult to speak or move or breathe. I’m just talking about your garden variety panic.

ANYWHO…Breathe. Let go. If your situation is like mine, it’ll resolve itself in due time. Or maybe you need to shift your priorities. I’m not sure, but I do know that life is too short to always feel behind, and feel bad about it.

THE BIG PUSH!

Today is the day all the authors in the Rite to Reign box set are making a big, concerted push to get pre-orders. There are so many wonderful novels in this set, all in one place – and all for a limited time (three months total, I believe).  So if you were on the fence about getting this box set, look at it this way. It’s less than a dollar, all these books are in one place, and getting them individually will cost you a LOT more, and maybe some of these books won’t be put out again.

So what do you have to lose? NOTHING, of course! Grab that box set. I promise I’ll make you my new best friend if you do!

And don’t forget about the Scavenger Hunt – it’s open until November 3rd, I believe. Go HERE to get the story from me, and make sure to check out the links to the map!

)O(

As always – thanks for listening.

 

Hot Billionaires, plus Venom & Vampires

Hot Billionaires, plus Venom & Vampires

Hello my lovelies!

I’m sharing a fabulous new book by Susie Nelson today, called Pretend to be Mine. Only .99, or FREE on Kindle Unlimited!

Welcome to the world of the Ramsey Billionaire Brothers and their empire of fashion, music and financial companies that rule the New York social and business spheres.

Jordan Ramsey manages a successful fashion label that has come under public scrutiny and in an effort to distract the negative media attention around his company, his PR guru, Barrack Amara, devises a scheme involving the hottest model of the moment, Danica Cliffe.

The glamorous blondie and Jordan engage in a fake public relationship that comes under fire when they are unexpectedly disgraced by a secret recording that is leaked to the press. In an effort to save both their careers and their clandestine love, Jordan and Danica battle with the media, their managers, and family members. But can they succeed?

Special bonus included.

 

Next, I’m thrilled to announce that I’m in a Special Edition Limited box set called Venom and Vampires. It’s up for pre-order, also .99 across all platforms, and will be available on July 25th.

A collection with bite…

Prepare to sink your teeth into 23 Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy stories featuring vampires, shifters, witches, demons, chimeras, and more from today’s NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and internationally best-selling and award-winning authors!

With over one million words of fiction and over 100 hours of prime reading material, this exciting collection will treat you to brand new worlds and inventive re-imaginings of our beloved monsters-in-the-dark. You won’t want to miss out on these stories with bite. We’re certain you’re gonna love it…to death!

PreOrder VENOM AND VAMPIRES today to lock down YOUR copy of this Special Edition Collection!

Venom and Vampires Swag Pack giveaway!
Grand prize winner will receive a Tote bag, a Make up bag, book cards, bookmarks, a sticker, a button, a keychain, a necklace and a magnet!
Mini-swag pack winners will receive book cards, bookmarks, a button, keychain, necklace and magnet!
Enter the giveaway here:   http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/01c1b5292/?

)O(

Happy June!

Teresa Noelle Roberts on Writer Wednesday on a Thursday

Teresa Noelle Roberts on Writer Wednesday on a Thursday

Folks, I double-booked Writer Wednesday this week, so instead of putting both authors on the same day, I’m giving Teresa her own day. Please give Teresa a warm welcome! I first met her when she staggered into the hotel room she was sharing with me and two friends, at two-something in the morning, RWA Conference in Dallas, several years ago. I’ve been privileged to call her friend since then.

Teresa Noelle Roberts, on a beach Somewhere in Maine.

Teresa Noelle Roberts, on a beach Somewhere in Maine.

CA: First off, get comfy and kick those shoes off. Now – what can I get you? Coffee, soda, beer, wine, or a mixed cocktail?

TNR: Wine, please, preferably a rich Cabernet.

CA: Speaking my language, woman, but then I knew that. So, what drew you to writing?

TNR: It was inevitable, perhaps genetic. My mom was an English teacher, the grandmother who helped raise me was an avid reader, and though I didn’t know my father, he was a poet and nonfiction writer. My mother has stories I dictated to her before I even knew the alphabet.

CA: Oh, I totally understand the genetics! So for our reading audience, what genre(s) do you write in, and why?

TNR: I write erotica, fantasy and romance, so it’s not surprising I write a lot of erotic paranormal romance, combining my three loves. I admit I first dabbled in romance because the genre seemed friendlier to new writers than fantasy, but as soon as I got started, I got hooked. I love happy endings, I love writing sexy, and I love incorporating my fascination with myth and legend into some of my stories.

CA: How did you start this particular book, Witches’ Waves – with a title first, a character first, or a situation first?

TNR: I started with the character of Meaghan the blind seer. She’s mentioned briefly in the first book of the series, Lions’ Pride, as “the Agency’s tame seer.” As soon as I wrote that line, I started asking myself “What if she’s not as tame as they think and wants to escape them?” That idea burbled in the back of my brain until, in a later book in the series, Cougar’s Courage, I created an infant likely to grow up with unusual powers. Well, the seer might have a vision about this baby…and the story of Witches’ Waves was born.

CA: What do you do when you’re not writing? Do you have a Day Job?

TNR: I cook a lot, bellydance, do yoga, hike, and work on our “suburban homestead.” As for a day job, I’m a part-time admin for a Realtor®, working from home with flexible hours. So I’m pretty busy.

CA: That sounds fantastic. I’ve seen the things you do with your garden harvest, and totally wish we were neighbors. Okay, now name three things your fans would be surprised to learn about you.

TNR: 1. My favorite day job ever was picking grapes at a small winery in the Finger Lakes of central New York.

2. I can say “I can’t eat pork” in five European languages.

3. I’ve lived in Manhattan and Paris, but these days I can’t imagine living in a big city. (OK, maybe that won’t surprise my readers, considering most of my books aren’t exactly urban.)

CA: The fact that you can say “I can’t eat pork” in five languages makes me giggle! And I’m so jealous that you’ve lived in both Manhattan AND Paris! Which brings me to my next question. Where would you live, if you could live anywhere in the world?

TNR: The coast of Maine…except you can’t really enjoy it during summer because all of us tourists are cluttering up the place. Drat! So much for that fantasy.

CA: LOL! I’d love to spend a summer on the coast of Maine!  Name 3 simple joys in your life.

TNR: 1. Eating a sun-ripened tomato from the garden, or brushing snow off the floating row cover to harvest some cold-sweetened kale.

2. Sitting with an overstuffed cat in my lap reading a good book.

3. Sipping an adult beverage by a fire in the backyard with my husband (a.k.a. the Cat-Herder), while watching the sunset over our domain.

CA: Ah, all of those sound lovely and very similar to my simple joys. If you could have dinner with any person, living or dead or fictional, who would it be and where would you go to eat?

TNR: I feel like I should say someone famous like Jane Austen, but honestly, if dining with the dead is an option, I’d take one more evening with my friend Gregg. As for where we’d eat, I’d ask him, because if you’re back among the living for one dinner, you get to pick the meal.

CA: I love that! *wipes tear* and I totally agree, they get to choose. *sniffs* Okay. If you could give just one piece of advice to a writer just starting out, what would it be?

TNR: Write the book already, or the story, or the poem. It may stink, but remember: you can’t revise a blank page, but you can revise absolute dreck.

CA: Perfect, and I totally agree! Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

TNR: Witches’ Waves ties up a major plot thread in the Duals and Donovans series. I’m not done with this world of witches and shapeshifters yet, but the next book(s) will go in a different direction. Possibly to Europe. I have an idea for a Duals and Donovans book set in Venice. I wonder if I can do a GoFundMe for a research trip…

Thanks so much, Teresa! Folks, below is the blurb and a brief snippet of the book. Sounds absolutely yummy! So excuse me while I go push the “buy” button…

witches waves

Witches’ Waves (Duals and Donovans: The Different, book 4)
Out 11/18/14 from Samhain Publishing.

“The overall message is one of hope and the healing that love can help bring, w/some really hot sex […] for good measure.” four stars—Romantic Times

“This novel definitely hooked me for this series.”—From Me to You Video, Photography and Book Reviews

“Well written and full of emotional depth.”— Manic Readers

The ocean is on their side. But the fight is on land—and it’s about to get dirty.

Duals and Donovans: The Different, Book 4

Long held captive as the Agency’s secret weapon—a blind witch with visions—Meaghan has come to a line she refuses to cross. Rather than betray the infant “child of five bloods” to the Agency’s scientists, she chooses death. Except when she throws herself into the ocean, she doesn’t die. Her repressed water magic comes to life.

When the sodden, delirious witch drifts into Kyle’s arms, his otter dual instincts tell him to get her to the Donovans as fast as possible. Even though one particular surfer-dude Donovan broke his heart.

Declan Donovan continually kicks himself for pushing Kyle away, but his touchy combination of water, earth and lightning magic is too volatile, and Kyle wanted more than Deck was ready to give.

When they come together to help Meaghan control her new magic, it leads the Agency straight to the child of five bloods. They’ll have to dive head-first into total trust—in their magics, in themselves and in each other—to save the child and stop the Agency once and for all.

Warning: Contains an oceanful of sex between an ethereal blind heroine who swears like a pissed-off Marine, an overly serious otter shifter, a would-be beach bum who may be descended from a Norse god, in permutations as fluid as the sea – and themes of abuse and recovery.
Excerpt:
Water splashed around her legs. Meaghan had reached the water’s edge. That had been her plan all along, to run to the water and keep running and let the waves carry her away. Let the Agency think she’d had a seizure and drowned. Hell, let them realize the truth, that she’d died to get away from them and the weight of betrayal on her soul.

But as soon as the water—frigid, yet somehow welcoming, bracing—hit her skin, her plan washed away. She kept running along the water’s edge, letting the wavelets carry away some of her burden of guilt.

The world shifted suddenly to the left, the way it did when she was about to have a seizure, but she didn’t seize or even get dizzy.

Instead, she was thrown headlong into a startlingly beautiful vision. She felt a man’s arms around her, a man’s body taller and younger and stronger than Shaw’s pressed against her, his long hair brushing at her skin erotically. Another man was beside him, touching them both, only that lithe, slender man was sometimes an animal of some kind. He was the size and shape of a human—a well-built human, probably handsome—but Meaghan felt dense, short fur as she stroked him.

He must be a dual. They were some of the Different people that Shaw had used her to destroy, but this dual didn’t seem to hold that against her. No, instead, he held himself against her.

They were in the water, bobbing gently as they made love.

The way the men touched her was like nothing in her limited experience. A little rough at times, a little controlling, but with an underlying affection and gentleness that was new. She couldn’t see them—even in her visions, she could rarely see—yet she somehow knew they were touching each other, enjoying each other, as well.

In her vision—or maybe it was just a vivid daydream, but she didn’t really care—she could orgasm without seizing. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did, just as she knew that soon one of the men would penetrate her while the other fucked him, and she craved that moment so much it hurt.

She sank to her knees at the water’s edge, lost in the vision, lost in pleasure.

Then her vision was bathed in blood and she heard a baby’s piercing, panicked cry.

She’d had this vision before. A child of five bloods, she’d said, and everyone had been excited about that. She’d prayed she’d never learn more about this child, nothing that would help the Agency find her. But prayers weren’t always answered.

She heard the dangerous words again, the ones that would betray the child if she spoke them: Oregon and Donovan.

A wave broke over her, drenching her, knocking her down, jarring her from the vision.

Oregon. Donovan.

It was only a matter of time before she had another vision at the hospital and those words slipped out, dooming that child and all the child’s family—if they hadn’t already. She didn’t always remember clearly after a vision.

The smell of the salt air, the cry of the gulls, the blood pounding in her veins still called her to live, but she owed it to the baby, and the baby’s parents, and the lion man, and the others she’d inadvertently helped Shaw capture. No more. Never again.

Shakily, Meaghan got to her feet.

Then she walked straight into the roar of the surf.

Series blurb:

Welcome to an America where the non-human Different and magically gifted humans live among ordinary people. Witches are both feared and honored, but shape-shifting duals are treated as second-class citizens. The Agency, a government agency that’s supposed to monitor illegal uses of magic and Different abilities, has developed its own dangerous agenda. But when Duals and witches join forces, the Agency and other bad guys aren’t going to know what hit them.

And neither are the witches and Duals. Witch magic grows from the positive energy of love and sex–and the only thing better than one dual for sex magic is two of them!

Buy links: Samhain /Amazon / Amazon UK / B&N Nook / Kobo

Bio:
Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but hot paranormals and BDSM-spiced contemporaries are her favorites. Or they were until she discovered that SF romance offers new possibilities for wild sex, imaginative adventure and love beyond boundaries, so she’s added that sub-genre to her repertoire. Oh, and she’s also half of the writing team known as Sophie Mouette, writing mostly light-hearted spicy romances (with occasional forays into erotica).

Teresa is a crunchy granola girl who enjoys belly dance, yoga, medieval re-creation, playing in the ocean, cooking, and growing more vegetables than she and her husband can possibly eat.  She’d enjoy sleeping, too. She thinks. But it takes so much time!

She shares her home in southern Massachusetts with her husband, a Leo in law enforcement, and two overstuffed cats. She and her husband often plan vacations around food, history, and/or proximity to water.

Find Teresa at www.teresanoelleroberts.com, like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts or follow on Twitter, where she’s @TeresNoeRoberts.

And check out her alter ego Sophie at www.sophiemouette.com.

Writing Process Blog Hop (tagged by Jami Gray)

Writing Process Blog Hop (tagged by Jami Gray)

I’ve been tagged by the fantastic Jami Gray to participate in this blog hop that introduces you to writers you may not know, and gives a little insight into each person’s writing process.

Jami is the author of the Kyn Kronicles, tales of the supernatural hiding in the shadows of the mundane world. I was supposed to tag 3 more people, but I couldn’t find any who hadn’t already participated and/or were already doing too many blogs, so there’s that…but you can check out Jami, and the other two writers that she tagged – Michelle Miles and Julian West.

Here are the four questions I was given.

What am I working on?

Whooo boy, that’s a doozy. I’m currently working on a YA novel set in the world of ballet; a contemporary romance series built around the StarTide Agency, straddling the music world and Hollywood; plus another series that hasn’t yet been accepted. Oh, and I really need to get book 3 done of the paranormal romance Caine Brother’s series. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. And this doesn’t even touch the plays I’m working on!

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

What makes any one book different from another? The author’s voice. I like to think that even across genres, when you pick up one of my novels, you can tell it’s my voice that wrote it.

My first book baby - Demon Soul.

To retrieve his soul, she’ll become fire…

Why do I write what I write?

I write paranormal romance because I can let my imagination take flight (and it can get pretty dark in there, lol). I write YA because I love teens, and I can tap into my own teen years with no problem whatsoever. And I write contemporary romance because I’m a total sucker for happy ever after – and yes, I do believe in it. I’ve been escaping into books since I was a child, and reading Harlequin romances since my early teens. Having a writer as a father and a storyteller for a mom, writing my own books seemed to be the best thing in the world.

How does my writing process work?

I am a pantser (I write by the seat of my pants) with a pretty solid idea of where I’m going in the story. While I don’t plot the whole book before I start, I usually know what I want to happen, plus some of the highlights (and low points), and the ending – though sometimes the ending can be foggy until I get there. First chapters are critical and in my first novel, Demon Soul, I rewrote that first chapter probably ten times after the book was finished (a couple of times, that meant a rewrite of the first three chapters to get details to have the right continuity). So, I have to say my writing process is as messy as my desk. Which is pretty messy.

)O(

Thanks so much for dropping by. Hope you have a terrific week!